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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9362-8.txt b/9362-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bbd2538 --- /dev/null +++ b/9362-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17658 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds of Prey, by M. E. Braddon + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Birds of Prey + +Author: M. E. Braddon + +Posting Date: December 15, 2009 [EBook #9362] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 24, 2003 +[Last updated: August 4, 2013] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS OF PREY *** + + + + +Produced by J. Ingram, G. Smith, T. Riikonen, and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + +BIRDS OF PREY + +BY + +M.E. BRADDON + + + +[Illustration: "Be good enough to take me straight to her," said the +Captain, "I am her father."] + + + + +CONTENTS: + +Book the First. + +FATAL FRIENDSHIP. + + I. THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY + II. PHILIP SHELDON READS THE "LANCET" + III. MR. AND MRS. HALLIDAY + IV. A PERPLEXING ILLNESS + V. THE LETTER FROM THE "ALLIANCE" OFFICE + VI. MR. BURKHAM'S UNCERTAINTIES + +Book the Second. + +THE TWO MACAIRES. + + I. A GOLDEN TEMPLE + II. THE EASY DESCENT + III. "HEART BARE, HEART HUNGRY, VERY POOR" + +Book the Third. + +HEAPING UP RICHES. + + I. A FORTUNATE MARRIAGE + II. CHARLOTTE + III. GEORGE SHELDON'S PROSPECTS + IV. DIANA FINDS A NEW HOME + V. AT THE LAWN + VI. THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN + VII. AUNT SARAH + VIII. CHARLOTTE PROPHESIES RAIN + IX. MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH + +Book the Fourth. + +VALENTINE HAWKEHURST'S RECORD. + + I. THE OLDEST INHABITANT + II. MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE + III. MR. GOODGE'S WISDOM + +Book the Fifth. + +RELICS OF THE DEAD. + + I. BETRAYED BY A BLOTTING-PAD + II. VALENTINE INVOKES THE PHANTOMS OF THE PAST + III. HUNTING THE JUDSONS + IV. GLIMPSES OF A BYGONE LIFE + +Book the Sixth. + +THE HEIRESS OF THE HAYGARTHS. + + I. DISAPPOINTMENT + II. VALENTINE'S RECORD CONTINUED + III. ARCADIA + IV. IN PARADISE + V. TOO FAIR TO LAST + VI. FOUND IN THE BIBLE + +Book the Seventh. + +CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT. + + I. "IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG" + II. MRS. SHELDON ACCEPTS HER DESTINY + III. MR. HAWKEHURST AND MR. GEORGE SHELDON COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING + IV. MR. SHELDON IS PROPITIOUS + V. MR. SHELDON IS BENEVOLENT + VI. RIDING THE HIGH HORSE + VII. MR. SHELDON IS PRUDENT + VIII. CHRISTMAS PEACE + + + +BIRDS OF PREY + + +BOOK THE FIRST. + +FATAL FRIENDSHIP. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY. + + +"What about?" There are some houses whereof the outward aspect is +sealed with the seal of respectability--houses which inspire confidence +in the minds of the most sceptical of butchers and bakers--houses at +whose area-gates the tradesman delivers his goods undoubtingly, and +from whose spotless door-steps the vagabond children of the +neighbourhood recoil as from a shrine too sacred for their gambols. + +Such a house made its presence obvious, some years ago, in one of the +smaller streets of that west-central region which lies between Holborn +and St. Pancras Church. It is perhaps the nature of +ultra-respectability to be disagreeably conspicuous. The unsullied +brightness of No. 14 Fitzgeorge-street was a standing reproach to every +other house in the dingy thorough-fare. That one spot of cleanliness +made the surrounding dirt cruelly palpable. The muslin curtains in the +parlour windows of No. 15 would not have appeared of such a smoky +yellow if the curtains of No. 14 had not been of such a pharisaical +whiteness. Mrs. Magson, at No. 13, was a humble letter of lodgings, +always more or less in arrear with the demands of quarter-day; and it +seemed a hard thing that her door-steps, whereon were expended much +labour and hearthstone--not to mention house-flannel, which was in +itself no unimportant item in the annual expenses--should be always +thrown in the shade by the surpassing purity of the steps before No. 14. + +Not satisfied with being the very pink and pattern of respectability, +the objectionable house even aspired to a kind of prettiness. It was as +bright, and pleasant, and rural of aspect as any house within earshot +of the roar and rattle of Holborn can be. There were flowers in the +windows; gaudy scarlet geraniums, which seemed to enjoy an immunity +from all the ills to which geraniums are subject, so impossible was it +to discover a faded leaf amongst their greenness, or the presence of +blight amidst their wealth of blossom. There were birdcages within the +shadow of the muslin curtains, and the colouring of the newly-pointed +brickwork was agreeably relieved by the vivid green of Venetian blinds. +The freshly-varnished street-door bore a brass-plate, on which to look +was to be dazzled; and the effect produced by this combination of white +door-step, scarlet geranium, green blind, and brass-plate was +obtrusively brilliant. + +Those who had been so privileged as to behold the interior of the house +in Fitzgeorge-street brought away with them a sense of admiration that +was the next thing to envy. The pink and pattern of propriety within, +as it was the pink and pattern of propriety without, it excited in +every breast alike a wondering awe, as of a habitation tenanted by some +mysterious being, infinitely superior to the common order of +householders. + +The inscription on the brass-plate informed the neighbourhood that No. +14 was occupied by Mr. Sheldon, surgeon-dentist; and the dwellers in +Fitzgeorge-street amused themselves in their leisure hours by +speculative discussions upon the character and pursuits, belongings and +surroundings, of this gentleman. + +Of course he was eminently respectable. On that question no +Fitzgeorgian had ever hazarded a doubt. A householder with such a +door-step and such muslin curtains could not be other than the most +correct of mankind; for, if there is any external evidence by which a +dissolute life or an ill-regulated mind will infallibly betray itself, +that evidence is to be found in the yellowness and limpness of muslin +window-curtains. The eyes are the windows of the soul, says the poet; +but if a man's eyes are not open to your inspection, the windows of his +house will help you to discover his character as an individual, and his +solidity as a citizen. At least such was the opinion cherished in +Fitzgeorge-street, Russell-square. + +The person and habits of Mr. Sheldon were in perfect harmony with the +aspect of the house. The unsullied snow of the door-step reproduced +itself in the unsullied snow of his shirt-front; the brilliancy of the +brass-plate was reflected in the glittering brightness of his +gold-studs; the varnish on the door was equalled by the lustrous +surface of his black-satin waistcoat; the careful pointing of the +brickwork was in a manner imitated by the perfect order of his polished +finger-nails and the irreproachable neatness of his hair and whiskers. +No dentist or medical practitioner of any denomination had inhabited +the house in Fitzgeorge-street before the coming of Philip Sheldon. The +house had been unoccupied for upwards of a year, and was in the last +stage of shabbiness and decay, when the bills disappeared all at once +from the windows, and busy painters and bricklayers set their ladders +against the dingy brickwork. Mr. Sheldon took the house on a long +lease, and spent two or three hundred pounds in the embellishment of +it. Upon the completion of all repairs and decorations, two great +waggon-loads of furniture, distinguished by that old fashioned +clumsiness which is eminently suggestive of respectability, arrived +from the Euston-square terminus, while a young man of meditative aspect +might have been seen on his knees, now in one empty chamber, anon in +another, performing some species of indoor surveying, with a three-foot +rule, a loose little oblong memorandum-book, and the merest stump of a +square lead-pencil. This was an emissary from the carpet warehouse; and +before nightfall it was known to more than one inhabitant in +Fitzgeorge-street that the stranger was going to lay down new carpets. +The new-comer was evidently of an active and energetic temperament, for +within three days of his arrival the brass-plate on his street-door +announced his profession, while a neat little glass-case, on a level +with the eye of the passing pedestrian, exhibited specimens of his +skill in mechanical dentistry, and afforded instruction and amusement +to the boys of the neighbourhood, who criticised the glistening white +teeth and impossibly red gums, displayed behind the plate-glass, with a +like vigour and freedom of language. Nor did Mr. Sheldon's announcement +of his profession confine itself to the brass-plate and the glass-case. +A shabby-genteel young man pervaded the neighbourhood for some days +after the surgeon-dentist's advent, knocking a postman's knock, which +only lacked the galvanic sharpness of the professional touch, and +delivering neatly-printed circulars to the effect that Mr. Sheldon, +surgeon-dentist, of 14 Fitzgeorge-street, had invented some novel +method of adjusting false teeth, incomparably superior to any existing +method, and that he had, further, patented an improvement on nature in +the way of coral gums, the name whereof was an unpronounceable compound +of Greek and Latin, calculated to awaken an awful reverence in the +unprofessional and unclassical mind. + +The Fitzgeorgians shook their heads with prophetic solemnity as they +read these circulars. Struggling householders, who find it a hard task +to keep the two ends which never have met and never will meet from +growing farther and farther asunder every year, are apt to derive a +dreary kind of satisfaction from the contemplation of another man's +impending ruin. Fitzgeorge-street and its neighbourhood had existed +without the services of a dentist, but it was very doubtful that a +dentist would be able to exist on the custom to be obtained in +Fitzgeorge-street. Mr. Sheldon may, perhaps, have pitched his tent +under the impression that wherever there was mankind there was likely +to be toothache, and that the healer of an ill so common to frail +humanity could scarcely fail to earn his bread, let him establish his +abode of horror where he might. For some time after his arrival people +watched him and wondered about him, and regarded him a little +suspiciously, in spite of the substantial clumsiness of his furniture +and the unwinking brightness of his windows. His neighbours asked one +another how long all that outward semblance of prosperity would last; +and there was sinister meaning in the question. + +The Fitzgeorgians were not a little surprised, and were perhaps just a +little disappointed, on finding that the newly-established dentist did +manage to hold his ground somehow or other, and that the muslin +curtains were renewed again and again in all their spotless purity; +that the supplies of rotten-stone and oil, hearthstone and +house-flannel, were unfailing as a perennial spring; and that the +unsullied snow of Mr. Sheldon's shirt-fronts retained its primeval +whiteness. Wonderland suspicion gave place to a half-envious respect. +Whether much custom came to the dentist no one could decide. There is +no trade or profession in which the struggling man will not receive +some faint show of encouragement. Pedestrians of agonised aspect, with +handkerchiefs held convulsively before their mouths, were seen to rush +wildly towards the dentist's door, then pause for a moment, stricken by +a sudden terror, and anon feebly pull the handle of an inflexible bell. +Cabs had been heard to approach that fatal door--generally on wet days; +for there seems to be a kind of fitness in the choice of damp and +dismal weather for the extraction of teeth. Elderly ladies and +gentlemen had been known to come many times to the Fitzgeorgian +mansion. There was a legend of an old lady who had been seen to arrive +in a brougham, especially weird and nut-crackery of aspect, and to +depart half an hour afterwards a beautified and renovated creature. One +half of the Fitzgeorgians declared that Mr. Sheldon had established a +very nice little practice, and was saving money; while the other half +were still despondent, and opined that the dentist had private +property, and was eating up his little capital. It transpired in course +of time that Mr. Sheldon had left his native town of Little +Barlingford, in Yorkshire, where his father and grandfather had been +surgeon-dentists before him, to establish himself in London. He had +disposed advantageously of an excellent practice, and had transferred +his household goods--the ponderous chairs and tables, the wood whereof +had deepened and mellowed in tint under the indefatigable hand of his +grandmother--to the metropolis, speculating on the chance that his +talents and appearance, address and industry, could scarcely fail to +achieve a position. It was further known that he had a brother, an +attorney in Gray's Inn, who visited him very frequently; that he had +few other friends or acquaintance; that he was a shining example of +steadiness and sobriety; that he was on the sunnier side of thirty, a +bachelor, and very good-looking; and that his household was comprised +of a grim-visaged active old woman imported from Barlingford, a girl +who ran errands, and a boy who opened the door, attended to the +consulting-room, and did some mysterious work at odd times with a file +and sundry queer lumps of plaster-of-paris, beeswax, and bone, in a +dark little shed abutting on the yard at the back of the house. This +much had the inhabitants of Fitzgeorge-street discovered respecting Mr. +Sheldon when he had been amongst them four years; but they had +discovered no more. He had made no local acquaintances, nor had he +sought to make any. Those of his neighbours who had seen the interior +of his house had entered it as patients. They left it as much pleased +with Mr. Sheldon as one can be with a man at whose hands one has just +undergone martyrdom, and circulated a very flattering report of the +dentist's agreeable manners and delicate white handkerchief, fragrant +with the odour of eau-de-Cologne. For the rest, Philip Sheldon lived +his own life, and dreamed his own dreams. His opposite neighbours, who +watched him on sultry summer evenings as he lounged near an open window +smoking his cigar, had no more knowledge of his thoughts and fancies +than they might have had if he had been a Calmuck Tartar or an +Abyssinian chief. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +PHILIP SHELDON READS THE "LANCET." + + +Fitzgeorge-street was chill and dreary of aspect, under a gray March +sky, when Mr. Sheldon returned to it after a week's absence from +London. He had been to Little Barlingford, and had spent his brief +holiday among old friends and acquaintance. The weather had not been in +favour of that driving hither and thither in dog-carts, or riding +rakish horses long distances to beat up old companions, which is +accounted pleasure on such occasions. The blustrous winds of an +unusually bitter March had buffeted Mr. Sheldon in the streets of his +native town, and had almost blown him off the door-steps of his +kindred. So it is scarcely strange if he returned to town looking none +the better for his excursion. He looked considerably the worse for his +week's absence, the old Yorkshire-woman said, as she waited upon him +while he ate a chop and drank two large cups of very strong tea. + +Mr. Sheldon made short work of his impromptu meal. He seemed anxious to +put an end to his housekeeper's affectionate interest in himself and +his health, and to get her out of the room. She had nursed him nearly +thirty years before, and the recollection that she had been very +familiar with him when he was a handsome black-eyed baby, with a +tendency to become suddenly stiff of body and crimson of visage without +any obvious provocation, inclined her to take occasional liberties now. +She watched him furtively as he sat in a big high-backed arm-chair +staring moodily at the struggling fire, and would fain have questioned +him a little about Barlingford and Barlingford people. + +But Philip Sheldon was not a man with whom even a superannuated nurse +can venture to take many liberties. He was a good master, paid his +servants their wages with unfailing punctuality, and gave very little +trouble. But he was the last person in the world upon whom a garrulous +woman could venture to inflict her rambling discourse; as Nancy +Woolper--by courtesy, Mrs. Woolper--was fain to confess to her +next-door neighbour, Mrs. Magson, when her master was the subject of an +afternoon gossip. The heads of a household may inhabit a neighbourhood +for years without becoming acquainted even with the outward aspect of +their neighbours; but in the lordly servants' halls of the West, or the +modest kitchens of Bloomsbury, there will be interchange of civilities +and friendly "droppings in" to tea or supper, let the master of the +house be never so ungregarious a creature. + +"You can take the tea-things, Nancy," Mr. Sheldon said presently, +arousing himself suddenly from that sombre reverie in which he had been +absorbed for the last ten minutes; "I am going to be very busy +to-night, and I expect Mr. George in the course of the evening. Mind, I +am not at home to anybody but him." + +The old woman arranged the tea-things on her tray, but still kept a +furtive watch on her master, who sat with his head a little bent, and +his bright black eyes fixed on the fire with that intensity of gaze +peculiar to eyes which see something far away from the object they seem +to contemplate. She was in the habit of watching Mr. Sheldon rather +curiously at all times, for she had never quite got over a difficulty +in realising the fact that the black-eyed baby with whom she had been +so intimate _could_ have developed into this self-contained inflexible +young man, whose thoughts were so very far away from her. To-night she +watched him more intently than she was accustomed to do, for to-night +there was some change in his face which she was trying in a dim way to +account for. + +He looked up from the fire suddenly, and found her eyes fixed upon him. +It may be that he had been disturbed by a semi-consciousness of that +curious gaze, for he looked at her angrily,--"What are you staring at, +Nancy?" + +It was not the first time he had encountered her watchful eyes and +asked the same impatient question. But Mrs. Woolper possessed that +north-country quickness of intellect which is generally equal to an +emergency, and was always ready with some question or suggestion which +went to prove that she had just fixed her eyes on her master, inspired +by some anxiety about his interests. + +"I was just a-thinking, sir," she said, meeting his stern glance +unflinchingly with her little sharp gray eyes, "I was just +a-thinking--you said not at home to _any one_, except Mr. George. If it +should be a person in a cab wanting their teeth out sudden--and if +anything could make toothache more general in this neighbourhood it +would be these March winds--if it should be a patient, sir, in a +cab----" + +The dentist interrupted her with a short bitter laugh. + +"Neither March winds nor April showers are likely to bring me patients, +Nancy, on foot or in cabs, and you ought to know it. If it's a patient, +ask him in, by all means, and give him last Saturday week's _Times_ to +read, while I rub the rust off my forceps. There, that will do; take +your tray--or, stop; I've some news to tell you." He rose, and stood +with his back to the fire and his eyes bent upon the hearthrug, while +Mrs. Woolper waited by the table, with the tray packed ready for +removal. Her master kept her waiting so for some minutes, and then +turned his face half away from her, and contemplated himself absently +in the glass while he spoke. + +"You remember Mrs. Halliday?" he asked. + +"I should think I did, sir; Miss Georgina Cradock that was--Miss Georgy +they called her; your first sweetheart. And how she could ever marry +that big awkward Halliday is more than I can make out. Poor fondy! I +suppose she was took with those great round blue eyes and red whiskers +of his." + +"Her mother and father were 'took' by his comfortable farmhouse and +well-stocked farm, Nancy," answered Mr. Sheldon, still contemplating +himself in the glass. "Georgy had very little to do with it. She is one +of those women who let other people think for them. However, Tom is an +excellent fellow, and Georgy was a lucky girl to catch such a husband. +Any little flirtation there may have been between her and me was over +and done with long before she married Tom. It never was more than a +flirtation; and I've flirted with a good many Barlingford girls in my +time, as you know, Nancy." + +It was not often that Mr. Sheldon condescended to be so communicative +to his housekeeper. The old woman nodded and chuckled, delighted by her +master's unwonted friendliness. + +"I drove over to Hyley while I was at home, Nancy," continued the +dentist--he called Barlingford home still, though he had broken most of +the links that had bound him to it--"and dined with the Hallidays. +Georgy is as pretty as ever, and she and Tom get on capitally." + +"Any children, sir?" + +"One girl," answered Mr. Sheldon carelessly. "She's at school in +Scarborough, and I didn't see her; but I hear she's a fine bouncing +lass. I had a very pleasant day with the Hallidays. Tom has sold his +farm; that part of the world doesn't suit him, it seems--too cold and +bleak for him. He's one of those big burly-looking men who seem as if +they could knock you down with a little finger, and who shiver at every +puff of wind. I don't think he'll make old bones, Nancy. But that's +neither here nor there. I daresay he's good for another ten years; or +I'm sure I hope so, on Georgy's account." + +"It was right down soft of him to sell Hyley Farm, though," said Nancy +reflectively; "I've heard tell as it's the best land for forty mile +round Barlingford. But he got a rare good price for it, I'll lay." + +"O, yes; he sold the property uncommonly well, he tells me. You know if +a north-countryman gets the chance of making a profit, he never lets it +slip through his fingers." + +Mrs. Woolper received this compliment to her countrymen with a +gratified grin, and Mr. Sheldon went on talking, still looking at the +reflection of his handsome face in the glass, and pulling his whiskers +meditatively. + +"Now as Tom was made for a farmer and nothing but a farmer, he must +find land somewhere in a climate that does suit him; so his friends +have advised him to try a place in Devonshire or Cornwall, where he may +train his myrtles and roses over his roof, and grow green peas for the +London markets as late as November. There are such places to be had if +he bides his time, and he's coming to town next week to look about him. +So, as Georgy and he would be about as capable of taking care of +themselves in London as a couple of children, I have recommended them +to take up their quarters here. They'll have their lodgings for +nothing, and we shall chum together on the Yorkshire system; for of +course I can't afford to keep a couple of visitors for a month at a +stretch. Do you think you shall be able to manage for us, Nancy?" + +"O, yes, I'll manage well enough. I'm not one of your lazy London +lasses that take half an hour to wipe a teacup. I'll manage easy +enough. Mr. and Mrs. Halliday will be having your room, I'll lay." + +"Yes; give them the best room, by all means. I can sleep anywhere. And +now go downstairs and think it over, Nancy. I must get to my work. I've +some letters that must be written to-night." + +Mrs. Woolper departed with her tray, gratified by her master's unwonted +familiarity, and not ill pleased by the thought of visitors. They would +cause a great deal of trouble, certainly; but the monotony of Nancy's +easy life had grown so oppressive to her as to render the idea of any +variety pleasing. And then there would be the pleasure of making that +iniquitous creature the London lass bestir herself, and there would be +furthermore the advantage of certain little perquisites which a clever +manager always secures to herself in a house where there is much eating +and drinking. Mr. Sheldon himself had lived like a modern anchorite for +the last four years; and Mrs. Woolper, who was pretty well acquainted +with the state of his finances, had pinched and contrived for his +benefit, or rather for the benefit of the black-eyed baby she had +nursed nine-and-twenty years before. For his sake she had been careful +and honest, willing to forego all the small profits to which she held +herself entitled; but if well-to-do people were going to share her +master's expenses, there would be no longer need for such scrupulous +integrity; and if things were rightly managed, Thomas Halliday might be +made to bear the entire cost of the household during his month's visit +on the Yorkshire system. + +While Mrs. Woolper meditated upon her domestic duties, the master of +the domicile abandoned himself to reflections which were apparently of +a very serious character. He brought a leathern desk from a side-table, +unlocked it, and took out a quire of paper; but he made no further +advance towards the writing of those letters on account of which he had +dismissed his housekeeper. He sat, with his elbows on the table, +nibbling the end of a wooden penholder, and staring at the opposite +wall. His face looked pale and haggard in the light of the gas, and the +eyes, fixed in that vacant stare, had a feverish brightness. + +Mr. Sheldon was a handsome man--eminently handsome, according to the +popular notion of masculine beauty; and if the popular ideal has been a +little vulgarised by the waxen gentlemen on whose finely-moulded +foreheads the wig-maker is wont to display the specimens of his art, +that is no discredit to Mr. Sheldon. His features were regular; the +nose a handsome aquiline; the mouth firm and well modelled; the chin +and jaw rather heavier than in the waxen ideal of the hair-dresser; the +forehead very prominent in the region of the perceptives, but obviously +wanting in the higher faculties. The eye of the phrenologist, unaided +by his fingers, must have failed to discover the secrets of Mr. +Sheldon's organisation; for one of the dentist's strong points was his +hair, which was very luxuriant, and which he wore in artfully-arranged +masses that passed for curls, but which owed their undulating grace +rather to a skilful manipulation than to any natural tendency. It has +been said that the rulers of the world are straight-haired men; and Mr. +Sheldon might have been a Napoleon III. so far as regards this special +attribute. His hair was of a dense black, and his whiskers of the same +sombre hue. These carefully-arranged whiskers were another of the +dentist's strong points; and the third strong point was his teeth, the +perfection whereof was a fine advertisement when considered in a +professional light. The teeth were rather too large and square for a +painter's or a poet's notion of beauty, and were apt to suggest an +unpleasant image of some sleek brindled creature crunching human bones +in an Indian jungle. But they were handsome teeth notwithstanding, and +their flashing whiteness made an effective contrast to the clear sallow +tint of the dentist's complexion. + +Mr. Sheldon was a man of industrious habits,--fond indeed of work, and +distinguished by a persistent activity in the carrying out of any +labour he had planned for himself. He was not prone to the indulgence +of idle reveries or agreeable day-dreams. Thought with him was labour; +it was the "thinking out" of future work to be done, and it was an +operation as precise and mathematical as the actual labour that +resulted therefrom. The contents of his brain were as well kept as a +careful trader's ledger. He had his thoughts docketed and indexed, and +rarely wasted the smallest portion of his time in searching for an +idea. Tonight he sat thinking until he was interrupted by a loud double +knock, which was evidently familiar to him, for he muttered "George!" +pushed aside his desk, and took up his stand upon the hearthrug, ready +to receive the expected visitor. + +There was the sound of a man's voice below,--very like Philip Sheldon's +own voice; then a quick firm tread on the stairs; and then the door was +opened, and a man, who himself was very like Philip Sheldon, came into +the room. This was the dentist's brother George, two years his junior. +The likeness between the two men was in no way marvellous, but it was +nevertheless very obvious. You could scarcely have mistaken one man for +the other, but you could hardly have failed to perceive that the two +men were brothers. They resembled each other more closely in form than +in face. They were of the same height--both tall and strongly built. +Both had black eyes with a hard brightness in them, black whiskers, +black hair, sinewy hands with prominent knuckles, square finger-tops, +and bony wrists. Each man seemed the personification of savage health +and vigour, smoothed and shapened in accordance with the prejudices of +civilised life. Looking at these two men for the first time, you might +approve or disapprove their appearance; they might impress you +favourably or unfavourably; but you could scarcely fail to be reminded +vaguely of strong, bright-eyed, savage creatures, beautiful and +graceful after their kind, but dangerous and fatal to man. + +The brothers greeted each other with a friendly nod. They were a great +deal too practical to indulge in any sentimental display of fraternal +affection. They liked each other very well, and were useful to each +other, and took their pleasure together on those rare occasions when +they were weak enough to waste time upon unprofitable pleasure; but +neither of them would have comprehended the possibility of anything +beyond this. + +"Well, old fellow," said George, "I'm glad you're back again. You're +looking rather seedy, though. I suppose you knocked about a good deal +down there?" + +"I had a night or two of it with Halliday and the old set. He's going +it rather fast." + +"Humph!" muttered Mr. Sheldon the younger; "it's a pity he doesn't go +it a little faster, and go off the hooks altogether, so that you might +marry Georgy." + +"How do I know that Georgy would have me, if he did leave her a widow?" +asked Philip dubiously. + +"O, she'd have you fast enough. She used to be very sweet upon you +before she married Tom; and even if she has forgotten all that, she'd +have you if you asked her. She'd be afraid to say no. She was always +more or less afraid of you, you know, Phil." + +"I don't know about that. She was a nice little thing enough; but she +knew how to drop a poor sweetheart and take up with a rich one, in +spite of her simplicity." + +"O, that was the old parties' doing. Georgy would have jumped into a +cauldron of boiling oil if her mother and father had told her she must +do it. Don't you remember when we were children together how afraid she +used to be of spoiling her frocks? I don't believe she married Tom +Halliday of her own free will, any more than she stood in the corner of +her own free will after she'd torn her frock, as I've seen her stand +twenty times. She stood in the corner because they told her she must; +and she married Tom for the same reason, and I don't suppose she's been +particularly happy with him." + +"Well, that's her look-out," answered Philip gloomily; "I know I want a +rich wife badly enough. Things are about as bad with me as they can be." + +"I suppose they _are_ rather piscatorial. The elderly dowagers don't +come up to time, eh? Very few orders for the complete set at +ten-pound-ten?" + +"I took about seventy pounds last year," said the dentist, "and my +expenses are something like five pounds a week. I've been making up the +deficiency out of the money I got for the Barlingford business, +thinking I should be able to stand out and make a connection; but the +connection gets more disconnected every year. I suppose people came to +me at first for the novelty of the thing, for I had a sprinkling of +decent patients for the first twelve months or so. But now I might as +well throw my money into the gutter as spend it on circulars or +advertisements." + +"And a young woman with twenty thousand pounds and something amiss with +her jaw hasn't turned up yet!" + +"No, nor an old woman either. I wouldn't stick at the age, if the money +was all right," answered Mr. Sheldon bitterly. + +The younger brother shrugged his shoulders and plunged his hands into +his trousers-pockets with a gesture of seriocomic despair. He was the +livelier of the two, and affected a slanginess of dress and talk and +manner, a certain "horsey" style, very different from his elder +brother's studied respectability of costume and bearing. His clothes +were of a loose sporting cut, and always odorous with stale tobacco. He +wore a good deal of finery in the shape of studs and pins and dangling +lockets and fusee-boxes; his whiskers were more obtrusive than his +brother's, and he wore a moustache in addition--a thick ragged black +moustache, which would have become a guerilla chieftain rather than a +dweller amidst the quiet courts and squares of Gray's Inn. His position +as a lawyer was not much better than that of Philip as a dentist; but +he had his own plans for making a fortune, and hoped to win for himself +a larger fortune than is often made in the law. He was a hunter of +genealogies, a grubber-up of forgotten facts, a joiner of broken links, +a kind of legal resurrectionist, a digger in the dust and ashes of the +past; and he expected in due time to dig up a treasure rich enough to +reward the labour and patience of half a lifetime. + +"I can afford to wait till I'm forty for my good luck," he said to his +brother sometimes in moments of expansion; "and then I shall have ten +years in which to enjoy myself, and twenty more in which I shall have +life enough left to eat good dinners and drink good wine, and grumble +about the degeneracy of things in general, after the manner of elderly +human nature." + +The men stood one on each side of the hearth; George looking at his +brother, Philip looking down at the fire, with his eyes shaded by their +thick black lashes. The fire had become dull and hollow. George bent +down presently and stirred the coals impatiently. + +"If there's one thing I hate more than, another--and I hate a good many +things--it's a bad fire," he said. "How's Barlingford--lively as ever, +I suppose?" + +"Not much livelier than it was when we left it. Things have gone amiss +with me in London, and I've been more than once sorely tempted to make +an end of my difficulties with a razor or a few drops of prussic acid; +but when I saw the dull gray streets and the square gray houses, and +the empty market-place, and the Baptist chapel, and the Unitarian +chapel, and the big stony church, and heard the dreary bells +ding-donging for evening service, I wondered how I could ever have +existed a week in such a place. I had rather sweep a crossing in London +than occupy the best house in Barlingford, and I told Tom Halliday so." + +"And Tom is coming to London I understand by your letter." + +"Yes, he has sold Hyley, and wants to find a place in the west of +England. The north doesn't suit his chest. He and Georgy are coming up +to town for a few weeks, so I've asked them to stay here. I may as well +make some use of the house, for it's very little good in a professional +sense." + +"Humph!" muttered George; "I don't see your motive." + +"I have no particular motive. Tom's a good fellow, and his company will +be better than an empty house. The visit won't cost me +anything--Halliday is to go shares in the housekeeping." + +"Well, you may find it answer that way," replied Mr. Sheldon the +younger, who considered that every action of a man's life ought to be +made to "answer" in some way. "But I should think you would be rather +bored by the arrangement: Tom's a very good fellow in his way, and a +great friend of mine, but he's rather an empty-headed animal." + +The subject dropped here, and the brothers went on talking of +Barlingford and Barlingford people--the few remaining kindred whose +existence made a kind of link between the two men and their native +town, and the boon companions of their early manhood. The dentist +produced the remnant of a bottle of whisky from the sideboard, and rang +for hot water and sugar, wherewith to brew grog, for his own and his +brother's refreshment; but the conversation flagged nevertheless. +Philip Sheldon was dull and absent, answering his companion at random +every now and then, much to that gentleman's aggravation; and he owned +at last to being thoroughly tired and worn out. + +"The journey from Barlingford in a slow train is no joke, you know, +George, and I couldn't afford the express," he said apologetically, +when his brother upbraided him for his distraction of manner. + +"Then I should think you'd better go to bed," answered Mr. Sheldon the +younger, who had smoked a couple of cigars, and consumed the contents +of the whisky-bottle; "so I'll take myself off. I told you how +uncommonly seedy you were looking when I first came in. When do you +expect Tom and his wife?" + +"At the beginning of next week." + +"So soon! Well, good-night, old fellow; I shall see you before they +come, I daresay. You might as well drop in upon me at my place +to-morrow night. I'm hard at work on a job." + +"Your old kind of work?" + +"O, yes. I don't get much work of any other kind." + +"And I'm afraid you'll never get much good out of that." + +"I don't know. A man who sits down to whist may have a run of ill-luck +before he gets a decent hand; but the good cards are sure to come if he +only sits long enough. Every man has his chance, depend upon it, Phil, +if he knows how to watch for it; but there are so many men who get +tired and go to sleep before their chances come to them. I've wasted a +good deal of time, and a good deal of labour; but the ace of trumps is +in the pack, and it must turn up sooner or later. Ta-ta." + +George Sheldon nodded and departed, whistling gaily as he walked away +from his brother's door. Philip heard him, and turned his chair to the +fire with a movement of impatience. + +"You may be uncommonly clever, my dear George," soliloquised the +dentist, "but you'll never make a fortune by reading wills and hunting +in parish-registers for heirs-at-law. A big lump of money is not very +likely to go a-begging while any one who can fudge up the faintest +pretence of a claim to it is above ground. No, no, my lad, you must +find a better way than that before you'll make your fortune." + +The fire had burnt low again, and Mr. Sheldon sat staring gloomily at +the blackening coals. Things were very bad with him--he had not cared +to confess how bad they were, when he had discussed his affairs with +his brother. Those neighbours and passers-by who admired the trim +brightness of the dentist's abode had no suspicion that the master of +that respectable house was in the hands of the Jews, and that the +hearthstone which whitened his door-step was paid for out of +Israelitish coffers. The dentist's philosophy was all of this world, +and he knew that the soldier of fortune, who would fain be a conqueror +in the great battle, must needs keep his plumage undrabbled and the +golden facings of his uniform untarnished, let his wounds be never so +desperate. + +Having found his attempt to establish a practice in Fitzgeorge-street a +failure, the only course open to Mr. Sheldon, as a man of the world, +was to transfer his failure to somebody else, with more or less profit +to himself. To this end he preserved the spotless purity of his muslin +curtains, though the starch that stiffened them and the +bleaching-powder that whitened them were bought with money for which he +was to pay sixty per cent. To this end he nursed that wan shadow of a +practice, and sustained that appearance of respectability which, in a +world where appearance stands for so much, is in itself a kind of +capital. It certainly was dull dreary work to hold the citadel of No. +14 Fitzgeorge-street, against the besieger Poverty; but the dentist +stood his ground pertinaciously, knowing that if he only waited long +enough, the dupe who was to be his victim would come, and knowing also +that there might arrive a day when it would be very useful for him to +be able to refer to four years' unblemished respectability as a +Bloomsbury householder. He had his lines set in several shady places +for that unhappy fish with a small capital, and he had been tantalised +by more than one nibble; but he made no open show of his desire to sell +his business--since a business that is obviously in the market seems +scarcely worth any man's purchase. + +Things had of late grown worse with him every day; for every interval +of twenty-four hours sinks a man so much the deeper in the mire when +renewed accommodation-bills with his name upon them are ripening in the +iron safes of Judah. Philip Sheldon found himself sinking gradually and +almost imperceptibly into that bottomless pit of difficulty in whose +black depths the demon Insolvency holds his dreary court. While his +little capital lasted he had kept himself clear of debt, but that being +exhausted, and his practice growing worse day by day, he had been fain +to seek assistance from money-lenders; and now even the money-lenders +were tired of him. The chair in which he sat, the poker which he swung +slowly to and fro as he bent over his hearth, were not his own. One of +his Jewish creditors had a bill of sale on his furniture, and he might +come home any day to find the auctioneer's bills plastered against the +wall of his house, and the auctioneer's clerk busy with the catalogue +of his possessions. If the expected victim came now to buy his +practice, the sacrifice would be made too late to serve his interest. +The men who had lent him the money would be the sole gainers by the +bargain. + +Seldom does a man find himself face to face with a blacker prospect +than that which lay before Philip Sheldon; and yet his manner to-night +was not the dull blank apathy of despair. It was the manner of a man +whose brain is occupied by busy thoughts; who has some elaborate scheme +to map out and arrange before he is called upon to carry his plans into +action. + +"It would be a good business for me," he muttered, "if I had pluck +enough to carry it through." + +The fire went out as he sat swinging the poker backwards and forwards. +The clocks of Bloomsbury and St. Pancras struck twelve, and still +Philip Sheldon pondered and plotted by that dreary hearth. The servants +had retired at eleven, after a good deal of blundering with bars and +shutters, and unnecessary banging of doors. That unearthly silence +peculiar to houses after midnight reigned in Mr. Sheldon's domicile, +and he could hear the voices of distant roisterers, and the miauling of +neighbouring cats, with a painful distinctness as he sat brooding in +his silent room. The fact that a mahogany chiffonier in a corner gave +utterance to a faint groan occasionally, as of some feeble creature in +pain, afforded him no annoyance. He was superior to superstitious +fancies, and all the rappings and scratchings of spirit-land would have +failed to disturb his equanimity. He was a strictly practical man--one +of those men who are always ready, with a stump of lead-pencil and the +back of a letter, to reduce everything in creation to figures. + +"I had better read up that business before they come," he said, when he +had to all appearance "thought out" the subject of his reverie. "No +time so good as this for doing it quietly. One never knows who is +spying about in the daytime." He looked at his watch, and then went to +a cupboard, where there were bundles of wood and matches and old +newspapers,--for it was his habit to light his own fire occasionally +when he worked unusually late at night or early in the morning. He +relighted his fire now as cleverly as any housemaid in Bloomsbury, and +stood watching it till it burned briskly. Then he lit a taper, and went +downstairs to the professional torture-chamber. The tall horsehair +chair looked unutterably awful in the dim glimmer of the taper, and a +nervous person could almost have fancied it occupied by the ghost of +some patient who had expired under the agony of the forceps. Mr. +Sheldon lighted the gas in a movable branch which he was in the habit +of turning almost into the mouths of the patients who consulted him at +night. There was a cupboard on each side of the mantelpiece, and it was +in these two cupboards that the dentist kept his professional library. +His books did not form a very valuable collection, but he kept the +cupboards constantly locked nevertheless. + +He took the key from his waistcoat-pocket, opened one of the cupboards, +and selected a book from a row of dingy-looking volumes. He carried the +book to the room above, where he seated himself under the gas, and +opened the volume at a place in which there was a scrap of paper, +evidently left there as a mark. The book was a volume of the _Lancet_, +and in this book he read with close attention until the Bloomsbury +clocks struck three. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. AND MRS. HALLIDAY. + + +Mr. Sheldon's visitors arrived in due course. They were provincial +people of the middle class, accounted monstrously genteel in their own +neighbourhood, but in nowise resembling Londoners of the same rank. + +Mr. Thomas Halliday was a big, loud-spoken, good-tempered Yorkshireman, +who had inherited a comfortable little estate from a plodding, +money-making father, and for whom life had been very easy. He was a +farmer, and nothing but a farmer; a man for whom the supremest pleasure +of existence was a cattle-show or a country horse-fair. The farm upon +which he had been born and brought up was situated about six miles from +Barlingford, and all the delights of his boyhood and youth were +associated with that small market town. He and the two Sheldons had +been schoolfellows, and afterwards boon companions, taking such +pleasure as was obtainable in Barlingford together; flirting with the +same provincial beauties at prim tea-parties in the winter, and getting +up friendly picnics in the summer--picnics at which eating and drinking +were the leading features of the day's entertainment. Mr. Halliday had +always regarded George and Philip Sheldon with that reverential +admiration which a stupid man, who is conscious of his own mental +inferiority, generally feels for a clever friend and companion. But he +was also fully aware of the advantage which a rich man possesses over a +poor one, and would not have exchanged the fertile acres of Hyley for +the intellectual gifts of his schoolfellows. He had found the +substantial value of his comfortably furnished house and well-stocked +farm when he and his friend Philip Sheldon became suitors for the hand +of Georgina Cradock, youngest daughter of a Barlingford attorney, who +lived next door to the Barlingford dentist, Philip Sheldon's father. +Philip and the girl had been playfellows in the long-walled gardens +behind the two houses, and there had been a brotherly and sisterly +intimacy between the juvenile members of the two families. But when +Philip and Georgina met at the Barlingford tea-parties in later years, +the parental powers frowned upon any renewal of that childish +friendship. Miss Cradock had no portion, and the worthy solicitor her +father was a prudent man, who was apt to look for the promise of +domestic happiness in the plate-basket and the linen-press, rather than +for such superficial qualifications as black whiskers and white teeth. +So poor Philip was "thrown over the bridge," as he said himself, and +Georgy Cradock married Mr. Halliday, with all attendant ceremony and +splendour, according to the "lights" of Barlingford gentry. + +But this provincial bride's story was no passionate record of anguish +and tears. The Barlingford Juliet had liked Romeo as much as she was +capable of liking any one; but when Papa Capulet insisted on her union +with Paris, she accepted her destiny with decent resignation, and, in +the absence of any sympathetic father confessor, was fain to seek +consolation from a more mundane individual in the person of the +Barlingford milliner. Nor did Philip Sheldon give evidence of any +extravagant despair. His father was something of a doctor as well as a +dentist; and there were plenty of dark little phials lurking on the +shelves of his surgery in which the young man could have found "mortal +drugs" without the aid of the apothecary, had he been so minded. +Happily no such desperate idea ever occurred to him in connection with +his grief. He held himself sulkily aloof from Mr. and Mrs. Halliday for +some time after their marriage, and allowed people to see that he +considered himself very hardly used; but Prudence, which had always +been Philip Sheldon's counsellor, proved herself also his consoler in +this crisis of his life. A careful consideration of his own interests +led him to perceive that the successful result of his love-suit would +have been about the worst thing that could have happened to him. + +Georgina had no money. All was said in that. As the young dentist's +worldly wisdom ripened with experience, he discovered that the worldly +ease of the best man in Barlingford was something like that of a +canary-bird who inhabits a clean cage and is supplied with abundant +seed and water. The cage is eminently comfortable, and the sleepy, +respectable, elderly bird sighs for no better abiding-place, no wider +prospect than that patch of the universe which he sees between the +bars. But now and then there is hatched a wild young fledgeling, which +beats its wings against the inexorable wires, and would fain soar away +into that wide outer world, to prosper or perish in its freedom. + +Before Georgy had been married a year, her sometime lover had fully +resigned himself to the existing state of things, and was on the best +possible terms with his friend Tom. He could eat his dinner in the +comfortable house at Hyley with an excellent appetite; for there was a +gulf between him and his old love far wider than any that had been dug +by that ceremonial in the parish church of Barlingford. Philip Sheldon +had awakened to the consciousness that life in his native town was +little more than a kind of animal vegetation--the life of some pulpy +invertebrate creature, which sprawls helplessly upon the sands whereon +the wave has deposited it, and may be cloven in half without feeling +itself noticeably worse for the operation. He had awakened to the +knowledge that there was a wider and more agreeable world beyond that +little provincial borough, and that a handsome face and figure and a +vigorous intellect were commodities for which there must be some kind +of market. + +Once convinced of the utter worthlessness of his prospects in +Barlingford, Mr. Sheldon turned his eyes Londonwards; and his father +happening at the same time very conveniently to depart this life, +Philip, the son and heir, disposed of the business to an aspiring young +practitioner, and came to the metropolis, where he made that futile +attempt to establish himself which has been described. + +The dentist had wasted four years in London, and ten years had gone by +since Georgy's wedding; and now for the first time he had an +opportunity of witnessing the domestic happiness or the domestic misery +of the woman who had jilted him, and the man who had been his +successful rival. He set himself to watch them with the cool +deliberation of a social anatomist, and he experienced very little +difficulty in the performance of this moral dissection. They were +established under his roof, his companions at every meal; and they were +a kind of people who discuss their grievances and indulge in their +"little differences" with perfect freedom in the presence of a third, +or a fourth, or even a fifth party. + +Mr. Sheldon was wise enough to preserve a strict neutrality. He would +take up a newspaper at the beginning of a little difference, and lay it +down when the little difference was finished, with the most perfect +assumption of unconsciousness; but it is doubtful whether the +matrimonial disputants were sufficiently appreciative of this good +breeding. They would have liked to have had Mr. Sheldon for a court of +appeal; and a little interference from him would have given zest to +their quarrels. Meanwhile Philip watched them slyly from the covert of +his newspaper, and formed his own conclusions about them. If he was +pleased to see that his false love's path was not entirely +rose-bestrewn, or if he rejoiced at beholding the occasional annoyance +of his rival, he allowed no evidence of his pleasure to appear in his +face or manner. + +Georgina Cradock's rather insipid prettiness had developed into +matronly comeliness. Her fair complexion and pink cheeks had lost none +of their freshness. Her smooth auburn hair was as soft and bright as it +had been when she had braided it preparatory to a Barlingford tea-party +in the days of her spinsterhood. She was a pretty, weak little woman, +whose education had never gone beyond the routine of a provincial +boarding-school, and who believed that she had attained all necessary +wisdom in having mastered Pinnock's abridgments of Goldsmith's +histories and the rudiments of the French language. She was a woman who +thought that the perfection of feminine costume was a moire-antique +dress and a conspicuous gold chain. She was a woman who considered a +well-furnished house and a horse and gig the highest form of earthly +splendour or prosperity. + +This was the shallow commonplace creature whom Philip Sheldon had once +admired and wooed. He looked at her now, and wondered how he could ever +have felt even as much as he had felt on her account. But he had little +leisure to devote to any such abstract and useless consideration. He +had his own affairs to think about, and they were very desperate. + +In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. Halliday occupied themselves in the +pursuit of pleasure or business, as the case might be. They were eager +for amusement: went to exhibitions in the day and to theatres at night, +and came home to cozy little suppers in Fitzgeorge-street, after which +Mr. Halliday was wont to waste the small hours in friendly conversation +with his quondam companion, and in the consumption of much +brandy-and-water. + +Unhappily for Georgy, these halcyon days were broken by intervals of +storm and cloud. The weak little woman was afflicted with that +intermittent fever called jealousy; and the stalwart Thomas was one of +those men who can scarcely give the time of day to a feminine +acquaintance without some ornate and loud-spoken gallantry. Having no +intellectual resources wherewith to beguile the tedium of his idle +prosperous life, he was fain to seek pleasure in the companionship of +other men; and had thus become a haunter of tavern parlours and small +racecourses, being always ready for any amusement his friends proposed +to him. It followed, therefore, that he was very often absent from his +commonplace substantial home, and his pretty weak-minded wife. And poor +Georgy had ample food for her jealous fears and suspicions; for where +might a man not be who was so seldom at home? She had never been +particularly fond of her husband, but that was no reason why she should +not be particularly jealous about him; and her jealousy betrayed itself +in a peevish worrying fashion, which was harder to bear than the +vengeful ferocity of a Clytemnestra. It was in vain that Thomas +Halliday and those jolly good fellows his friends and companions +attested the Arcadian innocence of racecourses, and the perfect purity +of that smoky atmosphere peculiar to tavern parlours. Georgy's +suspicions were too vague for refutation; but they were nevertheless +sufficient ground for all the alternations of temper--from stolid +sulkiness to peevish whining, from murmured lamentations to loud +hysterics--to which the female temperament is liable. + +In the meantime poor honest, loud-spoken Tom did all in his power to +demonstrate his truth and devotion. He bought his wife as many stiff +silk gowns and gaudy Barlingford bonnets as she chose to sigh for. He +made a will, in which she was sole legatee, and insured his life in +different offices to the amount of five thousand pounds. + +"I'm the sort of fellow that's likely to go off the hooks suddenly, you +know, Georgy," he said, "and your poor dad was always anxious I should +make things square for you. I don't suppose you're likely to marry +again, my lass, so I've no need to tie up Lottie's little fortune. I +must trust some one, and I'd better confide in my little wife than in +some canting methodistical fellow of a trustee, who would speculate my +daughter's money upon some Stock-Exchange hazard, and levant to +Australia when it was all swamped. If you can't trust me, Georgy, I'll +let you see that I can trust you", added Tom reproachfully. + +Whereupon poor weak little Mrs. Halliday murmured plaintively that she +did not want fortunes or life insurances, but that she wanted her +husband to stay at home, content with the calm and rather sleepy +delights of his own fireside. Poor Tom was wont to promise amendment, +and would keep his promise faithfully so long as no supreme temptation, +in the shape of a visit from some friend of the jolly-good-fellow +species, arose to vanquish his good resolutions. But a good-tempered, +generous-hearted young man who farms his own land, has three or four +good horses in his stable, a decent cellar of honest port and +sherry--"none of your wishy-washy sour stuff in the way of hock or +claret," cried Tom Halliday--and a very comfortable balance at his +banker's, finds it no easy matter to shake off friends of the +jolly-good-fellow fraternity. + +In London Mr. Halliday found the spirit of jolly-dog-ism rampant. +George Sheldon had always been his favourite of these two brothers; and +it was George who lured him from the safe shelter of Fitzgeorge-street +and took him to mysterious haunts, whence he returned long after +midnight, boisterous of manner and unsteady of gait, and with garments +reeking of stale tobacco-smoke. + +He was always good-tempered, even after these diabolical orgies on some +unknown Brocken, and protested indistinctly that there was no +harm,--"'pon m' wor', ye know, ol' gur'! Geor' an' me--half-doz' +oyst'r--c'gar--botl' p'l ale--str't home," and much more to the same +effect. When did any married man ever take more than half a dozen +oysters--or take any undomestic pleasure for his own satisfaction? It +is always those incorrigible bachelors, Thomas, Richard, or Henry, who +hinder the unwilling Benedick from returning to his sacred Lares and +Penates. + +Poor Georgy was not to be pacified by protestations about oysters and +cigars from the lips of a husband who was thick of utterance, and who +betrayed a general imbecility of mind and unsteadiness of body. This +London excursion, which had begun in sunshine, threatened to end in +storm and darkness. George Sheldon and his set had taken possession of +the young farmer; and Georgy had no better amusement in the long +blustrous March evenings than to sit at her work under the flaming gas +in Mr. Sheldon's drawing-room, while that gentleman--who rarely joined +in the dissipations of his friend and his brother--occupied himself +with mechanical dentistry in the chamber of torture below. + +Fitzgeorge-street in general, always on the watch to discover evidences +of impecuniosity or doubtful morality on the part of any one citizen in +particular, could find no food for scandal in the visit of Mr. and Mrs. +Halliday to their friend and countryman. It had been noised abroad, +through the agency of Mrs. Woolper, that Mr. Sheldon had been a suitor +for the lady's hand, and had been jilted by her. The Fitzgeorgians had +been, therefore, especially on the alert to detect any sign of +backsliding in the dentist. There would have been much pleasant +discussion in kitchens and back-parlours if Mr. Sheldon had been +particularly attentive to his fair guest; but it speedily became known, +always by the agency of Mrs. Woolper and that phenomenon of idleness +and iniquity, the London "girl," that Mr. Sheldon was not by any means +attentive to the pretty young woman from Yorkshire; but that he +suffered her to sit alone hour after hour in her husband's absence, +with no amusement but her needlework wherewith to "pass the time," +while he scraped and filed and polished those fragments of bone which +were to assist in the renovation of decayed beauty. + +The third week of Mr. and Mrs. Halliday's visit was near its close, and +as yet the young farmer had arrived at no decision as to the subject +which had brought him to London. The sale of Hyley Farm was an +accomplished fact, and the purchase-money duly bestowed at Tom's +banker's; but very little had been done towards finding the new +property which was to be a substitute for the estate his father and +grandfather had farmed before him. He had seen auctioneers, and had +brought home plans of estates in Herefordshire and Devonshire, Cornwall +and Somersetshire, all of which seemed to be, in their way, the most +perfect things imaginable--land of such fertility as one would scarcely +expect to find out of Arcadia--live stock which seemed beyond all +price, to be taken at a valuation.--roads and surrounding neighbourhood +unparalleled in beauty and convenience--outbuildings that must have +been the very archetypes of barns and stables--a house which to inhabit +would be to adore. But as yet he had seen none of these peerless +domains. He was waiting for decent weather in which to run down to the +West and "look about him," as he said to himself. In the meantime the +blustrous March weather, which was so unsuited to long railroad +journeys, and all that waiting about at junctions and at little windy +stations on branch lines, incidental to the inspection of estates +scattered over a large area of country, served very well for +"jolly-dog-ism;" and what with a hand at cards in George Sheldon's +chambers, and another hand at cards in somebody else's chambers, and a +run down to an early meeting at Newmarket, and an evening at some rooms +where there was something to be seen which was as near prize-fighting +as the law allowed, and other evenings in unknown regions, Mr. Halliday +found time slipping by him, and his domestic peace vanishing away. + +It was on an evening at the end of this third week that Mr. Sheldon +abandoned his mechanical dentistry for once in a way, and ascended to +the drawing-room where poor Georgy sat busy with that eternal +needlework, but for which melancholy madness would surely overtake many +desolate matrons in houses whose common place comfort and respectable +dulness are more dismal than the picturesque dreariness of a moated +grange amid the Lincolnshire fens. To the masculine mind this +needlework seems nothing more than a purposeless stabbing and sewing of +strips of calico; but to lonely womanhood it is the prison-flower of +the captive, it is the spider of Latude. + +Mr. Sheldon brought his guest an evening newspaper. + +"There's an account of the opening of Parliament," he said, "which you +may perhaps like to see. I wish I had a piano, or some female +acquaintances to drop in upon you. I am afraid you must be dull in +these long evenings when Tom is out of the way." + +"I am indeed dull," Mrs. Halliday answered peevishly; "and if Tom cared +for me, he wouldn't leave me like this evening after evening. But he +doesn't care for me." + +Mr Sheldon laid down the newspaper, and seated himself opposite his +guest. He sat for a few minutes in silence, beating time to some +imaginary air with the tips of his fingers on the old-fashioned +mahogany table. Then he said, with a half-smile upon his face,-- + +"But surely Tom is the best of husbands! He has been a little wild +since his coming to London, I know; but then you see he doesn't often +come to town." + +"He's just as bad in Yorkshire," Georgy answered gloomily; "he's always +going to Barlingford with somebody or other, or to meet some of his old +friends. I'm sure, if I had known what he was, I would never have +married him." + +"Why, I thought he was such a good husband. He was telling me only a +few days ago how he had made a will leaving you every sixpence he +possesses, without reservation, and how he has insured his life for +five thousand pounds." + +"O yes, I know that; but I don't call _that_ being a good husband. I +don't want him to leave me his money. I don't want him to die. I want +him to stay at home." + +"Poor Tom! I'm afraid he's not the sort of man for that kind of thing. +He likes change and amusement. You married a rich man, Mrs. Halliday; +you made your choice, you know, without regard to the feelings of any +one else. You sacrificed truth and honour to your own inclination, or +your own interest, I do not know, and do not ask which. If the bargain +has turned out a bad one, that's your look-out." + +Philip Sheldon sat with his folded arms resting on the little table and +his eyes fixed on Georgy's face. They could be very stern and hard and +cruel, those bright black eyes, and Mrs. Halliday grew first red and +then pale under their searching gaze. She had seen Mr. Sheldon very +often during the years of her married life, but this was the first time +he had ever said anything to her that sounded like a reproach. The +dentist's eyes softened a little as he watched her, not with any +special tenderness, but with an expression of half-disdainful +compassion--such as a strong stern man might feel for a foolish child. +He could see that this woman was afraid of him, and it served his +interests that she should fear him. He had a purpose in everything he +did, and his purpose to-night was to test the strength of his influence +over Georgina Halliday. In the old time before her marriage that +influence had been very strong. It was for him to discover now whether +it still endured. + +"You made your choice, Mrs. Halliday," he went on presently, "and it +was a choice which all prudent people must have approved. What chance +had a man, who was only heir to a practice worth four or five hundred +pounds, against the inheritor of Hyley Farm with its two hundred and +fifty acres, and three thousand pounds' worth of live stock, plant, and +working capital? When do the prudent people ever stop to consider truth +and honour, or old promises, or an affection that dates from childhood? +They calculate everything by pounds, shillings, and pence; and +according to their mode of reckoning you were in the right when you +jilted me to marry Tom Halliday." + +Georgy laid down her work and took out her handkerchief. She was one of +those women who take refuge in tears when they find themselves at a +disadvantage. Tears had always melted honest Tom, was his wrath never +so dire, and tears would no doubt subdue Philip Sheldon. + +But Georgy had to discover that the dentist was made of a stuff very +different from that softer clay which composed the rollicking +good-tempered farmer. Mr. Sheldon watched her tears with the +cold-blooded deliberation of a scientific experimentalist. He was glad +to find that he could make her cry. She was a necessary instrument in +the working out of certain plans that he had made for himself, and he +was anxious to discover whether she was likely to be a plastic +instrument. He knew that her love for him had never been worth much at +its best, and that the poor little flickering flame had been utterly +extinguished by nine years of commonplace domesticity and petty +jealousy. But his purpose was one that would be served as well by her +fear as by her love, and he had set himself to-night to gauge his power +in relation to this poor weak creature. + +"It's very unkind of you to say such dreadful things, Mr. Sheldon," she +whimpered presently; "you know very well that my marriage with Tom was +pa's doing, and not mine. I'm sure if I'd known how he would stay out +night after night, and come home in such dreadful states time after +time, I never would have consented to marry him." + +"Wouldn't you?--O yes, you would. If you were a widow to-morrow, and +free to marry again, you would choose just such another man as Tom--a +man who laughs loud, and pays flourishing compliments, and drives a gig +with a high-stepping horse. That's the sort of man women like, and +that's the sort of man you'd marry." + +"I'm sure I shouldn't marry at all," answered Mrs. Halliday, in a voice +that was broken by little gasping sobs. "I have seen enough of the +misery of married life. But I don't want Tom to die, unkind as he is to +me. People are always saying that he won't make old bones--how horrid +it is to talk of a person's bones!--and I'm sure I sometimes make +myself wretched about him, as he knows, though he doesn't thank me for +it." + +And here Mrs Halliday's sobs got the better of her utterance, and Mr. +Sheldon was fain to say something of a consolatory nature. + +"Come, come," he said, "I won't tease you any more. That's against the +laws of hospitality, isn't it?--only there are some things which you +can't expect a man to forget, you know. However, let bygones be +bygones. As for poor old Tom, I daresay he'll live to be a hale, hearty +old man, in spite of the croakers. People always will croak about +something; and it's a kind of fashion to say that a big, hearty, +six-foot man is a fragile blossom likely to be nipped by any wintry +blast. Come, come, Mrs. Halliday, your husband mustn't discover that +I've been making you cry when he comes home. He may be home early this +evening, perhaps; and if he is, we'll have an oyster supper, and a chat +about old times." + +Mrs. Halliday shook her head dolefully. + +"It's past ten o'clock already," she said, "and I don't suppose Tom +will be home till after twelve. He doesn't like my sitting up for him; +but I wonder _what_ time he would come home if I didn't sit up for him?" + +"Let's hope for the best," exclaimed Mr. Sheldon cheerfully. "I'll go +and see about the oysters." + +"Don't get them for me, or for Tom," protested Mrs. Halliday; "he will +have had his supper when he comes home, you may be sure, and I couldn't +eat a morsel of anything." + +To this resolution Mrs. Halliday adhered; so the dentist was fain to +abandon all jovial ideas in relation to oysters and pale ale. But he +did not go back to his mechanical dentistry. He sat opposite his +visitor, and watched her, silently and thoughtfully, for some time as +she worked. She had brushed away her tears, but she looked very peevish +and miserable, and took out her watch several times in an hour. Mr. +Sheldon made two or three feeble attempts at conversation, but the talk +languished and expired on each occasion, and they sat on in silence. + +Little by little the dentist's attention seemed to wander away from his +guest. He wheeled his chair round, and sat looking at the fire with the +same fixed gloom upon his face which had darkened it on the night of +his return from Yorkshire. Things had been so desperate with him of +late, that he had lost his old orderly habit of thinking out a business +at one sitting, and making an end of all deliberation and hesitation +about it. There were subjects that forced themselves upon his thoughts, +and certain ideas which repeated themselves with a stupid persistence. +He was such an eminently practical man, that this disorder of his brain +troubled him more even than the thoughts that made the disorder. He sat +in the same attitude for a long while, scarcely conscious of Mrs. +Halliday's presence, not at all conscious of the progress of time. +Georgy had been right in her gloomy forebodings of bad behaviour on the +part of Mr. Halliday. It was nearly one o'clock when a loud double +knock announced that gentleman's return. The wind had been howling +drearily, and a sharp, slanting rain had been pattering against the +windows for the last half-hour, while Mrs. Halliday's breast had been +racked by the contending emotions of anxiety and indignation. + +"I suppose he couldn't get a cab," she exclaimed, as the knock startled +her from her listening attitude--for however intently a midnight +watcher may be listening for the returning wanderer's knock, it is not +the less startling when it comes. "And he has walked home through the +wet, and now he'll have a violent cold, I daresay," added Georgy +peevishly. + +"Then it's lucky for him he's in a doctor's house," answered Mr. +Sheldon, with a smile. He was a handsome man, no doubt, according to +the popular idea of masculine perfection, but he had not a pleasant +smile. "I went through the regular routine, you know, and am as well +able to see a patient safely through a cold or fever as I am to make +him a set of teeth." + +Mr. Halliday burst into the room at this moment, singing a fragment of +the "Chough and Crow" chorus, very much out of tune. He was in +boisterously high spirits, and very little the worse for liquor. He had +only walked from Covent Garden, he said, and had taken nothing but a +tankard of stout and a Welsh rarebit. He had been hearing the divinest +singing--boys with the voices of angels--and had been taking his supper +in a place which duchesses themselves did not disdain to peep at from +the sacred recesses of a loge grillee, George Sheldon had told him. But +poor country-bred Georgina Halliday would not believe in the duchesses, +or the angelic singing boys, or the primitive simplicity of Welsh +rarebits. She had a vision of beautiful women, and halls of dazzling +light, where there was the mad music of perpetual Post-horn Galops, +with a riotous accompaniment of huzzas and the popping of champagne +corks--where the sheen of satin and the glitter of gems bewildered the +eye of the beholder. She had seen such a picture once on the stage, and +had vaguely associated it with all Tom's midnight roisterings ever +afterwards. + +The roisterer's garments were very wet, and it was in vain that his +wife and Philip Sheldon entreated him to change them for dry ones, or +to go to bed immediately. He stood before the fire relating his +innocent adventures, and trying to dispel the cloud from Georgy's fair +young brow; and, when he did at last consent to go to his room, the +dentist shook his head ominously. + +"You'll have a severe cold to-morrow, depend upon it, Tom, and you'll +have yourself to thank for it," he said, as he bade the good-tempered +reprobate good night. "Never mind, old fellow," answered Tom; "if I am +ill, you shall nurse me. If one is doomed to die by doctors' stuff, +it's better to have a doctor one does know than a doctor one doesn't +know for one's executioner." + +After which graceful piece of humour Mr. Halliday went blundering up +the staircase, followed by his aggrieved wife. + +Philip Sheldon stood on the landing looking after his visitors for some +minutes. Then he went slowly back to the sitting-room, where he +replenished the fire, and seated himself before it with a newspaper in +his hand. + +"What's the use of going to bed, if I can't sleep?" he muttered, in a +discontented tone. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A PERPLEXING ILLNESS. + + +Mr. Sheldon's prophecy was fully realised. Tom Halliday awoke the next +day with a violent cold in his head. Like most big boisterous men of +herculean build, he was the veriest craven in the hour of physical +ailment; so he succumbed at once to the malady which a man obliged to +face the world and fight for his daily bread must needs have made light +of. + +The dentist rallied his invalid friend. + +"Keep your bed, if you like, Tom," he said, "but there's no necessity +for any such coddling. As your hands are hot, and your tongue rather +queer, I may as well give you a saline draught. You'll be all right by +dinner-time, and I'll get George to look round in the evening for a +hand at cards." + +Tom obeyed his professional friend--took his medicine, read the paper, +and slept away the best part of the dull March day. At half-past five +he got up and dressed for dinner, and the evening passed very +pleasantly--so pleasantly, indeed, that Georgy was half inclined to +wish that her husband might be afflicted with chronic influenza, +whereby he would be compelled to stop at home. She sighed when Philip +Sheldon slapped his friend's broad shoulder, and told him cheerily that +he would be "all right to-morrow." He would be well again, and there +would be more midnight roistering, and she would be again tormented by +that vision of lighted halls and beautiful diabolical creatures +revolving madly to the music of the Post-horn Galop. + +It seemed, however, that poor jealous Mrs. Halliday was to be spared +her nightly agony for some time to come. Tom's cold lasted longer than +he had expected, and the cold was succeeded by a low fever--a bilious +fever, Mr. Sheldon said. There was not the least occasion for alarm, of +course. The invalid and the invalid's wife trusted implicitly in the +friendly doctor who assured them both that Tom's attack was the most +ordinary kind of thing; a little wearing, no doubt, but entirely +without danger. He had to repeat this assurance very often to Georgy, +whose angry feelings had given place to extreme tenderness and +affection now that Tom was an invalid, quite unfitted for the society +of jolly good fellows, and willing to receive basins of beef-tea and +arrow-root meekly from his wife's hands, instead of those edibles of +iniquity, oysters and toasted cheese. + +Mr. Halliday's illness was very tiresome. It was one of those +perplexing complaints which keep the patient himself, and the patient's +friends and attendants, in perpetual uncertainty. A little worse one +day and a shade better the next; now gaining a little strength, now +losing a trifle more than he had gained. The patient declined in so +imperceptible a manner that he had been ill three weeks, and was no +longer able to leave his bed, and had lost alike his appetite and his +spirits, before Georgy awoke to the fact that this illness, hitherto +considered so lightly, must be very serious. + +"I think if--if you have no objection, I should like to see another +doctor, Mr. Sheldon," she said one day, with considerable embarrassment +of manner. She feared to offend her host by any doubt of his skill. +"You see--you--you are so much employed with teeth--and--of course you +know I am quite assured of your talent--but don't you think that a +doctor who had more experience in fever cases might bring Tom round +quicker? He has been ill so long now; and really he doesn't seem to get +any better." + +Philip Sheldon shrugged his shoulders. + +"As you please, my dear Mrs. Halliday," he said carelessly; "I don't +wish to press my services upon you. It is quite a matter of friendship, +you know, and I shall not profit sixpence by my attendance on poor old +Tom. Call in another doctor, by all means, if you think fit to do so; +but, of course, in that event, I must withdraw from the case. The man +you call in may be clever, or he may be stupid and ignorant. It's all a +chance, when one doesn't know one's man; and I really can't advise you +upon that point, for I know nothing of the London profession." + +Georgy looked alarmed. This was a new view of the subject. She had +fancied that all regular practitioners were clever, and had only +doubted Mr. Sheldon because he was not a regular practitioner. But how +if she were to withdraw her husband from the hands of a clever man to +deliver him into the care of an ignorant pretender, simply because she +was over-anxious for his recovery? + +"I always am foolishly anxious about things," she thought. + +And then she looked piteously at Mr. Sheldon, and said, "What do you +think I ought to do? Pray tell me. He has eaten no breakfast again this +morning; and even the cup of tea which I persuaded him to take seemed +to disagree with him. And then there is that dreadful sore throat which +torments him so. What ought I to do, Mr. Sheldon?" + +"Whatever seems best to yourself, Mrs. Halliday," answered the dentist +earnestly. "It is a subject upon, which I cannot pretend to advise you. +It is a matter of feeling rather than of reason, and it is a matter +which you yourself must determine. If I knew any man whom I could +honestly recommend to you, it would be another affair; but I don't. +Tom's illness is the simplest thing in the world, and I feel myself +quite competent to pull him through it, without fuss or bother; but if +you think otherwise, pray put me out of the question. There's one fact, +however, of which I'm bound to remind you. Like many fine big stalwart +fellows of his stamp, your husband is as nervous as a hysterical woman; +and if you call in a strange doctor, who will pull long faces, and put +on the professional solemnity, the chances are that he'll take alarm, +and do himself more mischief in a few hours than your new adviser can +undo in as many weeks." + +There was a little pause after this. Georgy's opinions, and suspicions, +and anxieties were alike vague; and this last suggestion of Mr. +Sheldon's put things in a new and alarming light. She was really +anxious about her husband, but she had been accustomed all her life to +accept the opinion of other people in preference to her own. + +"Do you really think that Tom will soon be well and strong again?" she +asked presently. + +"If I thought otherwise, I should be the first to advise other +measures. However, my dear Mrs. Halliday, call in some one else, for +your own satisfaction." + +"No," said Georgy, sighing plaintively, "it might frighten Tom. You are +quite right, Mr. Sheldon; he is very nervous, and the idea that I was +alarmed might alarm him. I'll trust in you. Pray try to bring him round +again. You will try, won't you?" she asked, in the childish pleading +way which was peculiar to her. + +The dentist was searching for something in the drawer of a table, and +his back was turned on the anxious questioner. + +"You may depend upon it, I'll do my best, Mrs. Halliday," he answered, +still busy at the drawer. Mr. Sheldon the younger had paid many visits +to Fitzgeorge-street during Tom Halliday's illness. George and Tom had +been the Damon and Pythias of Barlingford; and George seemed really +distressed when he found his friend changed for the worse. The changes +in the invalid were so puzzling, the alternations from better to worse +and from worse to better so frequent, that fear could take no hold upon +the minds of the patient's friends. It seemed such a very slight affair +this low fever, though sufficiently inconvenient to the patient +himself, who suffered a good deal from thirst and sickness, and showed +an extreme disinclination for food, all which symptoms Mr. Sheldon said +were the commonest and simplest features of a very mild attack of +bilious fever, which would leave Tom a better man than it had found him. + +There had been several pleasant little card-parties during the earlier +stages of Mr. Halliday's illness; but within the last week the patient +had been too low and weak for cards--too weak to read the newspaper, or +even to bear having it read to him. When George came to look at his old +friend--"to cheer you up a little, old fellow, you know," and so on--he +found Tom, for the time being, past all capability of being cheered, +even by the genial society of his favourite jolly good fellow, or by +tidings of a steeplechase in Yorkshire, in which a neighbour had gone +to grief over a double fence. + +"That chap upstairs seems rather queerish," George had said to his +brother, after finding Tom lower and weaker than usual. "He's in a bad +way, isn't he, Phil?" + +"No; there's nothing serious the matter with him. He's rather low +to-night, that's all." + +"Rather low!" echoed George Sheldon. "He seems to me so very low, that +he can't sink much lower without going to the bottom of his grave. I'd +call some one in, if I were you." + +The dentist shrugged his shoulders, and made a little contemptuous +noise with his lips. + +"If you knew as much of doctors as I do, you wouldn't be in any hurry +to trust a friend to the mercy of one," he said carelessly. "Don't you +alarm yourself about Tom. He's right enough. He's been in a state of +chronic over-eating and over-drinking for the last ten years, and this +bilious fever will be the making of him." + +"Will it?" said George doubtfully; and then there followed a little +pause, during which the brothers happened to look at each other +furtively, and happened to surprise each other in the act. + +"I don't know about over-eating or drinking," said George presently; +"but something has disagreed with Tom Halliday, that's very evident." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE LETTER FROM THE "ALLIANCE" OFFICE. + + +Upon the evening of the day on which Mrs. Halliday and the dentist had +discussed the propriety of calling in a strange doctor, George Sheldon +came again to see his sick friend. He was quicker to perceive the +changes in the invalid than the members of the household, who saw him +daily and hourly, and he perceived a striking change for the worse +to-night. + +He took care, however, to suffer no evidence of alarm or surprise to +appear in the sick chamber. He talked to his friend in the usual cheery +way; sat by the bedside for half an hour; did his best to arouse Tom +from a kind of stupid lethargy, and to encourage Mrs. Halliday, who +shared the task of nursing her husband with brisk Nancy Woolper, an +invaluable creature in a sick-room. But he failed in both attempts; the +dull apathy of the invalid was not to be dispelled by the most genial +companionship, and Georgy's spirits had been sinking lower and lower +all day as her fears increased. + +She would fain have called in a strange doctor--she would fain have +sought for comfort and consolation from some new quarter. But she was +afraid of offending Philip Sheldon; and she was afraid of alarming her +husband. So she waited, and watched, and struggled against that +ever-increasing anxiety. Had not Mr. Sheldon made light of his friend's +malady, and what motive could he have for deceiving her? + +A breakfast-cup full of beef-tea stood on the little table by the +bedside, and had been standing there for hours untouched. + +"I did take such pains to make it strong and clear," said Mrs. Woolper +regretfully, as she came to the little table during a tidying process, +"and poor dear Mr. Halliday hasn't taken so much as a spoonful. It +won't be fit for him to-morrow, so as I haven't eaten a morsel of +dinner, what with the hurry and anxiety and one thing and another, I'll +warm up the beef-tea for my supper. There's not a blessed thing in the +house; for you don't eat nothing, Mrs. Halliday; and as to cooking a +dinner for Mr. Sheldon, you'd a deal better go and throw your victuals +out into the gutter, for then there'd be a chance of stray dogs +profiting by 'em, at any rate." + +"Phil is off his feed, then; eh, Nancy?" said George. + +"I should rather think he is, Mr. George. I roasted a chicken yesterday +for him and Mrs. Halliday, and I don't think they eat an ounce between, +them; and such a lovely tender young thing as it was too--done to a +turn--with bread sauce and a little bit of sea-kale. One invalid makes +another, that's certain. I never saw your brother so upset as he is +now, Mr. George, in all his life. + +"No?" answered George Sheldon thoughtfully; "Phil isn't generally one +of your sensitive sort." + +The invalid was sleeping heavily during this conversation. George stood +by the bed for some minutes looking down at the altered face, and then +turned to leave the room. + +"Good night, Mrs. Halliday," he said; "I hope I shall find poor old Tom +a shade better when I look round to-morrow." + +"I am sure I hope so," Georgy answered mournfully. + +She was sitting by the window looking out at the darkening western sky, +in which the last lurid glimmer of a stormy sunset was fading against a +background of iron gray. + +This quiet figure by the window, the stormy sky, and ragged hurrying +clouds without, the dusky chamber with all its dismally significant +litter of medicine-bottles, made a gloomy picture--a picture which the +man who looked upon it carried in his mind for many years after that +night. + +George Sheldon and Nancy Woolper left the room together, the +Yorkshirewoman carrying a tray of empty phials and glasses, and amongst +them the cup of beef-tea. + +"He seems in a bad way to-night, Nancy," said George, with a backward +jerk of his head towards the sick-chamber. + +"He is in a bad way, Mr. George," answered the woman gravely, "let Mr. +Philip think what he will. I don't want to say a word against your +brother's knowledge, for such a steady studious gentleman as he is had +need be clever; and if I was ill myself, I'd trust my life to him +freely; for I have heard Barlingford folks say that my master's advice +is as good as any regular doctor's, and that there's very little your +regular doctors know that he doesn't know as well or better. But for +all that, Mr. George, I don't think he understands Mr. Halliday's case +quite as clear as he might." + +"Do you think Tom's in any danger?" + +"I won't say that, Mr. George; but I think he gets worse instead of +getting better." + +"Humph!" muttered George; "if Halliday were to go off the hooks, Phil +would have a good chance of getting a rich wife." + +"Don't say that, Mr. George," exclaimed the Yorkshirewoman +reproachfully; "don't even think of such a thing while that poor man +lies at death's door. I'm sure Mr. Sheldon hasn't any thoughts of that +kind. He told me before Mr. and Mrs. Halliday came to town that he and +Miss Georgy had forgotten all about past times." + +"O, if Phil said so, that alters the case. Phil is one of your blunt +outspoken fellows, and always says what he means," said George Sheldon. +And then he went downstairs, leaving Nancy to follow him at her leisure +with the tray of jingling cups and glasses. He went down through the +dusk, smiling to himself, as if he had just given utterance to some +piece of intense humour. He went to look for his brother, whom he found +in the torture-chamber, busied with some mysterious process in +connection with a lump of plaster-of-paris, which seemed to be the +model of ruined battlements in the Gothic style. The dentist looked up +as George entered the room, and did not appear particularly delighted +by the appearance of that gentleman. + +"Well," said Mr. Sheldon the younger, "busy as usual? Patients seem to +be looking up." + +"Patients be----toothless to the end of time!" cried Philip, with a +savage laugh. "No, I'm not working to order; I'm only +experimentalising." + +"You're rather fond of experiments, I think, Phil," said George, +seating himself near the table at which his brother was working under +the glare of the gas. The dentist looked very pale and haggard in the +gas-light, and his eyes had the dull sunken appearance induced by +prolonged sleeplessness. George sat watching his brother thoughtfully +for some time, and then produced his cigar-case. "You don't mind my +smoke here?" he asked, as he lighted a cigar. + +"Not at all. You are very welcome to sit here, if it amuses you to see +me working at the cast of a lower jaw." + +"O, that's a lower jaw, is it? It looks like the fragment of some +castle-keep. No, Phil, I don't care about watching you work. I want to +talk to you seriously." + +"About that fellow upstairs--poor old Tom. He and I were great cronies, +you know, at home. He's in a very bad way." + +"Is he? You seem to be turning physician all at once, George. I +shouldn't have thought your grubbing among county histories, and +tattered old pedigrees, and parish registers had given you so deep an +insight into the science of medicine!" said the dentist in a sneering +tone. + +"I don't know anything of medicine; but I know enough to be sure that +Tom Halliday is about as bad as he can be. What mystifies me is, that +he doesn't seem to have had anything particular the matter with him. +There he lies, getting worse and worse every day, without any specific +ailment. It's a strange illness, Philip." + +"I don't see anything strange in it." + +"Don't you? Don't you think the surrounding circumstances are strange? +Here is this man comes to your house hale and hearty; and all of a +sudden he falls ill, and gets lower and lower every day, without +anybody being able to say why or wherefore." + +"That's not true, George. Everybody in this house knows the cause of +Tom Halliday's illness. He came home in wet clothes, and insisted on +keeping them on. He caught a cold; which resulted in low fever. There +is the whole history and mystery of the affair." + +"That's simple enough, certainly. But if I were you, Phil, I'd call in +another doctor." + +"That is Mrs. Halliday's business," answered the dentist coolly; "if +she doubts my skill, she is free to call in whom she pleases. And now +you may as well drop the subject, George. I've had enough anxiety about +this man's illness, and I don't want to be worried by you." + +After this there was a little conversation upon general matters, but +the talk dragged and languished drearily, and George Sheldon rose to +depart directly he had finished his cigar. + +"Good night, Philip!" he said; "if ever you get a stroke of good luck, +I hope you'll stand something handsome to me." + +This remark had no particular relevance to anything that had been said +that night by the two men; yet Philip Sheldon seemed in nowise +astonished by it. + +"If things ever _do_ take a turn for the better with me, you'll find me +a good friend, George," he said gravely; and then Mr. Sheldon the +younger bade him good night, and went out into Fitzgeorge-street. + +He paused for a moment at the corner of the street to look back at his +brother's house. He could see the lighted windows of the invalid's +chamber, and it was at those he looked. + +"Poor Tom," he said to himself, "poor Tom! We were great cronies in the +old times, and have had many a pleasant evening together!" + +Mr. Sheldon the dentist sat up till the small hours that night, as he +had done for many nights lately. He finished his work in the +torture-chamber, and went up to the common sitting-room, or +drawing-room as it was called by courtesy, a little before midnight. +The servants had gone to bed, for there was no regular nightly watch in +the apartment of the invalid. Mrs. Halliday lay on a sofa in her +husband's room, and Nancy Woolper slept in an adjoining apartment, +always wakeful and ready if help of any kind should be wanted. + +The house was very quiet just now. Philip Sheldon walked up and down +the room, thinking; and the creaking of his boots sounded unpleasantly +loud to his ears. He stopped before the fireplace, after having walked +to and fro some time, and began to examine some letters that lay upon +the mantelpiece. They were addressed to Mr. Halliday, and had been +forwarded from Yorkshire. The dentist took them up, one by one, and +deliberately examined them. They were all business letters, and most of +them bore country post-marks. But there was one which had been, in the +first instance, posted from London and this letter Mr. Sheldon examined +with especial attention. + +It was a big, official-looking document, and embossed upon the adhesive +envelope appeared the crest and motto of the Alliance Insurance Office. + +"I wonder whether that's all square," thought Mr. Sheldon, as he turned +the envelope about in his hands, staring at it absently. "I ought to +make sure of that. The London postmark is nearly three weeks old." He +pondered for some moments, and then went to the cupboard in which he +kept the materials wherewith to replenish or to make a fire. Here he +found a little tin tea-kettle, in which he was in the habit of boiling +water for occasional friendly glasses of grog. He poured some water +from a bottle on the sideboard into this kettle, set fire to a bundle +of wood, and put the kettle on the blazing sticks. After having done +this he searched for a tea-cup, succeeded in finding one, and then +stood watching for the boiling of the water. He had not long to wait; +the water boiled furiously before the wood was burned out, and Mr. +Sheldon filled the tea-cup standing on the table. Then he put the +insurance-letter over the cup, with the seal downwards, and left it so +while he resumed his walk. After walking up and down for about ten +minutes he went back to the table and took up the letter. The adhesive +envelope opened easily, and Mr. Sheldon, by this ingenious stratagem, +made himself master of his friend's business. + +The "Alliance" letter was nothing more than a notice to the effect that +the half-yearly premium for insuring the sum of three thousand pounds +on the life of Thomas Halliday would be due on such a day, after which +there would be twenty-one days' grace, at the end of which time the +policy would become void, unless the premium had been duly paid. + +Mr. Halliday's letters had been suffered to accumulate during the last +fortnight. The letters forwarded from Yorkshire had been detained some +time, as they had been sent first to Hyley Farm, now in the possession +of the new owner, and then to Barlingford, to the house of Georgy's +mother, who had kept them upwards of a week, in daily expectation of +her son-in-law's return. It was only on the receipt of a letter from +Georgy, containing the tidings of her husband's illness, that Mr. +Halliday's letters had been sent to London. Thus it came about that the +twenty-one days of grace were within four-and-twenty hours of expiring +when Philip Sheldon opened his friend's letter. + +"This is serious," muttered the dentist, as he stood deliberating with +the open letter in his hand; "there are three thousand pounds depending +on that man's power to write a check!" + +After a few minutes' reflection, he folded the letter and resealed it +very carefully. + +"It wouldn't do to press the matter upon him to-night," he thought; "I +must wait till to-morrow morning, come what may." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +MR. BURKHAM'S UNCERTAINTIES. + + +The next morning dawned gray and pale and chill, after the manner of +early spring mornings, let them ripen into never such balmy days; and +with the dawn Nancy Woolper came into the invalid's chamber, more wan +and sickly of aspect than the morning itself. + +Mrs. Halliday started from an uneasy slumber. + +"What's the matter, Nancy?" she asked with considerable alarm. She had +known the woman ever since her childhood, and she was startled this +morning by some indefinable change in her manner and appearance. The +hearty old woman, whose face had been like a hard rosy apple shrivelled +and wrinkled by long keeping, had now a white and ghastly look which +struck terror to Georgy's breast. She who was usually so brisk of +manner and sharp of speech, had this morning a strange subdued tone and +an unnatural calmness of demeanour. "What is the matter, Nancy?" Mrs. +Halliday repeated, getting up from her sofa. + +"Don't be frightened, Miss Georgy," answered the old woman, who was apt +to forget that Tom Halliday's wife had ever ceased to be Georgy +Cradock; "don't be frightened, my dear. I haven't been very well all +night,--and--and--I've been worrying myself about Mr. Halliday. If I +were you, I'd call in another doctor. Never mind what Mr. Philip says. +He may be mistaken, you know, clever as he is. There's no telling. Take +my advice, Miss Georgy, and call in another +doctor--directly--directly," repeated the old woman, seizing Mrs. +Halliday's wrist with a passionate energy, as if to give emphasis to +her words. Poor timid Georgy shrank from her with terror. + +"You frighten me, Nancy," she whispered; "do you think that Tom is so +much worse? You have not been with him all night; and he has been +sleeping very quietly. What makes you so anxious this morning?" + +"Never mind that, Miss Georgy. You get another doctor, that's all; get +another doctor at once. Mr. Sheldon is a light sleeper. I'll go to his +room and tell him you've set your heart upon having fresh advice; if +you'll only bear me out afterwards." + +"Yes, yes; go by all means," exclaimed Mrs. Halliday, only too ready to +take alarm under the influence of a stronger mind, and eager to act +when supported by another person. + +Nancy Woolper went to her master's room. He must have been sleeping +very lightly, if he was sleeping at all; for he was broad awake the +next minute after his housekeeper's light knock had sounded on the +door. In less than five minutes he came out of his room half-dressed. +Nancy had told him that Mrs. Halliday had taken fresh alarm about her +husband, and wished for further advice. + +"She sent you to tell me that?" asked Philip. + +"Yes." + +"And when does she want this new doctor called in?" + +"Immediately, if possible." + +It was seven o'clock by this time, and the morning was brightening a +little. + +"Very well," said Mr. Sheldon; "her wishes shall be attended to +directly. Heaven forbid that I should stand between my old friend and +any chance of his speedy recovery! If a stranger can bring him round +quicker than I can, let the stranger come." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sheldon was not slow to obey Mrs. Halliday's behest. He was +departing on his quest breakfastless, when Nancy Woolper met him in the +hall with a cup of tea. He accepted the cup almost mechanically from +her hand, and took it into the parlour, whither Nancy followed him. +Then for the first time he perceived that change in his housekeeper's +face which had so startled Georgina Halliday. The change was somewhat +modified now; but still the Nancy Woolper of to-day was not the Nancy +Woolper of yesterday. + +"You're looking very queer, Nancy," said the dentist, gravely +scrutinising the woman's face with his bright penetrating eyes. "Are +you ill?" + +"Well, Mr. Philip, I have been rather queer all night,--sickish and +faintish-like." + +"Ah, you've been over-fatiguing yourself in the sick-room, I daresay. +Take care you don't knock yourself up." + +"No; it's not that, Mr. Philip. There's not many can stand hard work +better than I can. It's not _that_ as made me ill. I took something +last night that disagreed with me." + +"More fool you," said Mr. Sheldon curtly; "you ought to know better +than to ill-use your digestive powers at your age. What was it? Hard +cold meat and preternaturally green pickles, I suppose; or something of +that kind." + +"No, sir; it was only a drop of beef-tea that I made for poor Mr. +Halliday. And that oughtn't to have disagreed with a baby, you know, +sir." + +"Oughtn't it?" cried the dentist disdainfully. "That's a little bit of +vulgar ignorance, Mrs. Woolper. I suppose it was stuff that had been +taken up to Mr. Halliday." + +"Yes, Mr. Philip; you took it up with your own hands." + +"Ah, to be sure; so I did. Very well, then, Mrs. Woolper, if you knew +as much about atmospheric influences as I do, you'd know that food +which has been standing for hours in the pestilential air of a +fever-patient's room isn't fit for anybody to eat. The stuff made you +sick, I suppose." + +"Yes, sir; sick to my very heart," answered the Yorkshirewoman, with a +strange mournfulness in her voice. + +"Let that be a warning to you, then. Don't take anything more that +comes down from the sick-room." + +"I don't think there'll be any chance of my doing that long, sir." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I don't fancy Mr. Halliday is long for this world." + +"Ah, you women are always ravens." + +"Unless the strange doctor can do something to cure him. O, pray bring +a clever man who will be able to cure that poor helpless creature +upstairs. Think, Mr. Philip, how you and him used to be friends and +playfellows,--brothers almost,--when you was both bits of boys. Think +how bad it might seem to evil-minded folks if he died under your roof." + +The dentist had been standing near the door drinking his tea during +this conversation; and now for the first time he looked at his +housekeeper with an expression of unmitigated astonishment. + +"What, in the name of all that's ridiculous, do you mean, Nancy?" he +asked impatiently. "What has my roof to do with Tom Halliday's +illness--or his death, if it came to that? And what on earth can people +have to say about it if he should die here instead of anywhere else?" + +"Why, you see, sir, you being his friend, and Miss Georgy's sweetheart +that was, and him having no other doctor, folks might take it into +their heads he wasn't attended properly." + +"Because I'm his friend? That's very good logic! I'll tell you what it +is, Mrs. Woolper; if any woman upon earth, except the woman who nursed +me when I was a baby, had presumed to talk to me as you have been +talking to me just this minute, I should open the door yonder and tell +her to walk out of my house. Let that serve as a hint for you, Nancy; +and don't you go out of your way a second time to advise me how I +should treat my friend and my patient." + +He handed her the empty cup, and walked out of the house. There had +been no passion in his tone. His accent had been only that of a man who +has occasion to reprove an old and trusted servant for an unwarrantable +impertinence. Nancy Woolper stood at the street-door watching him as he +walked away, and then went slowly back to her duties in the lower +regions of the house. + +"It can't be true," she muttered to herself; "it can't be true." + + * * * * * + +The dentist returned to Fitzgeorge-street in less than an hour, +bringing with him a surgeon from the neighbourhood, who saw the +patient, discussed the treatment, spoke hopefully to Mrs. Halliday, and +departed, after promising to send a saline draught. Poor Georgy's +spirits, which had revived a little under the influence of the +stranger's hopeful words, sank again when she discovered that the +utmost the new doctor could do was to order a saline draught. Her +husband had taken so many saline draughts, and had been getting daily +worse under their influence. + +She watched the stranger wistfully as he lingered on the threshold to +say a few words to Mr. Sheldon. He was a very young man, with a frank +boyish face and a rosy colour in his cheeks. He looked like some fresh +young neophyte in the awful mysteries of medical science, and by no +means the sort of man to whom one would have imagined Philip Sheldon +appealing for help, when he found his own skill at fault. But then it +must be remembered that Mr. Sheldon had only summoned the stranger in +compliance with what he considered a womanish whim. + +"He looks very young," Georgina said regretfully, after the doctor's +departure. + +"So much the better, my dear Mrs. Halliday," answered the dentist +cheerfully; "medical science is eminently progressive, and the youngest +men are the best-educated men." + +Poor Georgy did not understand this; but it sounded convincing, and she +was in the habit of believing what people told her; so she accepted Mr. +Sheldon's opinion. How could she doubt that he was wiser than herself +in all matters connected with the medical profession? + +"Tom seems a little better this morning," she said presently. + +The invalid was asleep, shrouded by the curtain of the heavy +old-fashioned four-post bedstead. + +"He is better," answered the dentist; "so much better, that I shall +venture to give him a few business letters that have been waiting for +him some time, as soon as he wakes." + +He seated himself by the head of the bed, and waited quietly for the +awakening of the patient. + +"Your breakfast is ready for you downstairs, Mrs. Halliday," he said +presently; "hadn't you better go down and take it, while I keep watch +here? It's nearly ten o'clock." + +"I don't care about any breakfast," Georgina answered piteously. + +"Ah, but you'd better eat something. You'll make yourself an invalid, +if you are not careful; and then you won't be able to attend upon Tom." + +This argument prevailed immediately. Georgy went downstairs to the +drawing-room, and tried bravely to eat and drink, in order that she +might be sustained in her attendance upon her husband. She had +forgotten all the throes and tortures of jealousy which she had endured +on his account. She had forgotten his late hours and unholy +roisterings. She had forgotten everything except that he had been very +tender and kind throughout the prosperous years of their married life, +and that he was lying in the darkened room upstairs sick to death. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sheldon waited with all outward show of patience for the awakening +of the invalid. But he looked at his watch twice during that half-hour +of waiting; and once he rose and moved softly about the room, searching +for writing materials. He found a little portfolio of Georgina's, and a +frivolous-minded inkstand, after the semblance of an apple, with a gilt +stalk and leaflet. The dentist took the trouble to ascertain that there +was a decent supply of ink in the green-glass apple, and that the pens +were in working order. Then he went quietly back to his seat by the +bedside and waited. + +The invalid opened his eyes presently, and recognised his friend with a +feeble smile. + +"Well, Tom, old fellow, how do you feel to-day?--a little better I hear +from Mrs. H.," said the dentist cheerily. + +"Yes, I think I am a shade better. But, you see, the deuce of it is I +never get more than a shade better. It always stops at that. The little +woman can't complain of me now, can she, Sheldon? No more late hours, +or oyster suppers, eh?" + +"No, no, not just yet. You'll have to take care of yourself for a week +or two when you get about again." Mr. Halliday smiled faintly as his +friend said this. + +"I shall be very careful of myself if I ever do get about again, you +may depend upon it, old fellow. But do you know I sometimes fancy I +have spent my last jolly evening, and eaten my last oyster supper, on +this earth? I'm afraid it's time for me to begin to think seriously of +a good many things. The little woman is all right, thank God. I made my +will upwards of a year ago, and insured my life pretty heavily soon +after my marriage. Old Cradock never let me rest till that was done. So +Georgy will be all safe. But when a man has led a careless, godless +kind of a life,--doing very little harm, perhaps, but doing no +particular good,--he ought to set about making up his account somehow +for a better world, when he feels himself slipping out of this. I asked +Georgy for her Bible yesterday, and the poor dear loving little thing +was frightened out of her wits. 'O, don't talk like that, Tom,' she +cried; 'Mr. Sheldon says you are getting better every hour,'--by which +you may guess what a rare thing it is for me to read my Bible. No, +Phil, old fellow, you've done your best for me, I know; but I'm not +made of a very tough material, and all the physic you can pour down +this poor sore throat of mine won't put any strength into me." + +"Nonsense, dear boy; that's just what a man who has not been accustomed +to illness is sure to think directly he is laid up for a day or two." + +"I've been laid up for three weeks," murmured Mr. Halliday rather +fretfully. + +"Well, well, perhaps this Mr. Burkham will bring you round in three +days, and then you'll say that your friend Sheldon was an ignoramus." + +"No, no, I shan't, old fellow; I'm not such a fool as that. I'm not +going to blame you when it's my own constitution that's in fault. As to +that young man you brought here just now, to please Georgy, I don't +suppose he'll be able to do any more for me than you have done." + +"We'll contrive to bring you round between us, never fear, Tom," +answered Philip Sheldon in his most hopeful tone. "Why, you are looking +almost your old self this morning. You are so much improved that I may +venture to talk to you about business. There have been some letters +lying about for the last few days. I didn't like to bore you while you +were so very low. But they look like business letters; and perhaps it +would be as well for you to open them." + +The sick man contemplated the little packet which the dentist had taken +from his breast-pocket; and then shook his head wearily. + +"I'm not up to the mark, Sheldon," he said; "the letters must keep." + +"O, come, come, old fellow! That's giving way, you know. The letters +may be important; and it will do you good if you make an effort to +rouse yourself." + +"I tell you it isn't in me to do it, Philip Sheldon. I'm past making +efforts. Can't you see that, man? Open the letters yourself, if you +like." + +"No, no, Halliday, I won't do that. Here's one with the seal of the +Alliance Insurance Office. I suppose your premium is all right." + +Tom Halliday lifted himself on his elbow for a moment, startled into +new life; but he sank back on the pillows again immediately, with a +feeble groan. + +"I don't know about that," he said anxiously; "you'd better look to +that, Phil, for the little woman's sake. A man is apt to think that his +insurance is settled and done with, when he has been pommelled about by +the doctors and approved by the board. He forgets there's that little +matter of the premium. You'd better open the letter, Phil. I never was +a good hand at remembering dates, and this illness has thrown me +altogether out of gear." + +Mr. Sheldon tore open that official document, which, in his benevolent +regard for his friend's interest, he had manipulated so cleverly on the +previous evening, and read the letter with all show of deliberation. + +"You're right, Tom," he exclaimed presently. "The twenty-one days' +grace expire to-day. You'd better write me a check at once, and I'll +send it on to the office by hand. Where's your check-book?" + +"In the pocket of that coat hanging up there." + +Philip Sheldon found the check-book, and brought it to his friend, with +Georgy's portfolio, and the frivolous little green-glass inkstand in +the shape of an apple. He adjusted the writing materials for the sick +man's use with womanly gentleness. His arm supported the wasted frame, +as Tom Halliday slowly and laboriously filled in the check; and when +the signature was duly appended to that document, he drew a long +breath, which seemed to express infinite relief of mind. + +"You'll be sure it goes on to the Alliance Office, eh, old fellow?" +asked Tom, as he tore out the oblong slip of paper and handed it to his +friend. "It was kind of you to jog my memory about this business. I'm +such a fellow for procrastinating matters. And I'm afraid I've been a +little off my load during the last week." + +"Nonsense, Tom; not you." + +"O yes, I have. I've had all sorts of queer fancies. Did you come into +this room the night before last, when Georgy was asleep?" Mr. Sheldon +reflected for a moment before answering. + +"No," he said, "not the night before last." + +"Ah, I thought as much," murmured the invalid. "I was off my head that +night then, Phil, for I fancied I saw you; and I fancied I heard the +bottles and glasses jingling on the little table behind the curtain." + +"You were dreaming, perhaps." + +"O no, I wasn't dreaming. I was very restless and wakeful that night. +However, that's neither here nor there. I lie in a stupid state +sometimes for hours and hours, and I feel as weak as a rat, bodily and +mentally; so while I have my wits about me, I'd better say what I've +been wanting to say ever so long. You've been a good and kind friend to +me all through this illness, Phil, and I'm not ungrateful for your +kindness. If it does come to the worst with me--as I believe it +will--Georgy shall give you a handsome mourning ring, or fifty pounds +to buy one, if you like it better. And now let me shake hands with you, +Philip Sheldon, and say thank you heartily, old fellow, for once and +for ever." + +The invalid stretched out a poor feeble attenuated hand, and, after a +moment's pause, Philip Sheldon clasped it in his own muscular fingers. +He did hesitate for just one instant before taking that hand. + +He was no student of the gospel; but when he had left the sick-chamber +there arose before him suddenly, as if written in letters of fire on +the wall opposite to him, one sentence which had been familiar to him +in his school-days at Barlingford: + +_And as soon as he was come, he goeth straightway to him, and saith, +Master, master; and kissed him._ + + * * * * * + +The new doctor came twice a day to see his patient. He seemed rather +anxious about the case, and just a little puzzled by the symptoms. +Georgy had sufficient penetration to perceive that this new adviser was +in some manner at fault; and she began to think that Philip Sheldon was +right, and that regular practitioners were very stupid creatures. She +communicated her doubts to Mr. Sheldon, and suggested the expediency of +calling in some grave elderly doctor, to supersede Mr. Burkham. But +against this the dentist protested very strongly. + +"You asked me to call in a stranger, Mrs. Halliday, and I have done +so," he said, with the dignity of an offended man. "You must now abide +by his treatment, and content yourself with his advice, unless he +chooses to summon further assistance." + +Georgy was fain to submit. She gave a little plaintive sigh, and went +back to her husband's room, where she sat and wept silently behind the +bed-curtains. There was a double watch kept in the sick-chamber now; +for Nancy Woolper rarely left it, and rarely closed her eyes. It was +altogether a sad time in the dentist's house; and Tom Halliday +apologised to his friend more than once for the trouble he had brought +upon him. If he had been familiar with the details of modern history, +he would have quoted Charles Stuart, and begged pardon for being so +long a-dying. + +But anon there came a gleam of hope. The patient seemed decidedly +better; and Georgy was prepared to revere Mr. Burkham, the Bloomsbury +surgeon, as the greatest and ablest of men. Those shadows of doubt and +perplexity which had at first obscured Mr. Burkham's brow cleared away, +and he spoke very cheerfully of the invalid. + +Unhappily this state of things did not last long. The young surgeon +came one morning, and was obviously alarmed by the appearance of his +patient. He told Philip Sheldon as much; but that gentleman made very +light of his fears. As the two men discussed the case, it was very +evident that the irregular practitioner was quite a match for the +regular one. Mr. Burkham listened deferentially, but departed only half +convinced. He walked briskly away from the house, but came to a dead +stop directly after turning out of Fitzgeorge-street. + +"What ought I to do?" he asked himself. "What course ought I to take? +If I am right, I should be a villain to let things go on. If I am +wrong, anything like interference would ruin me for life." + +He had finished his morning round, but he did not go straight home. He +lingered at the corners of quiet streets, and walked up and down the +unfrequented side of a gloomy square. Once he turned and retraced his +steps in the direction of Fitzgeorge-street. But after all this +hesitation he walked home, and ate his dinner very thoughtfully, +answering his young wife at random when she talked to him. He was a +struggling man, who had invested his small fortune in the purchase of a +practice which had turned out a very poor one, and he had the battle of +life before him. + +"There's something on your mind to-day, I'm sure, Harry," his wife said +before the meal was ended. + +"Well, yes, dear," he answered; "I've rather a difficult case in +Fitzgeorge-street, and I'm anxious about it." + +The industrious little wife disappeared after dinner, and the young +surgeon walked up and down the room alone, brooding over that difficult +case in Fitzgeorge-street. After spending nearly an hour thus, he +snatched his hat suddenly from the table on which he had set it down, +and hurried from the house. + +"I'll have advice and assistance, come what may," he said to himself, +as he walked rapidly in the direction of Mr. Sheldon's house. "The case +may be straight enough--I certainly can't see that the man has any +motive--but I'll have advice." + +He looked up at the dentist's spotless dwelling as he crossed the +street. The blinds were all down, and the fact that they were so sent a +sudden chill to his heart. But the April sunshine was full upon that +side of the street, and there might lie no significance in those +closely-drawn blinds. The door was opened by a sleepy-looking boy, and +in the passage Mr. Burkham met Philip Sheldon. + +"I have been rather anxious about my patient since this morning, Mr. +Sheldon," said the surgeon; "and I have come to the conclusion that I +ought to confer with a man of higher standing than myself. Do you think +Mrs. Halliday will object to such a course?" + +"I am sure she would not have objected to it," the dentist answered +very gravely, "if you had suggested it sooner. I am sorry to say the +suggestion comes too late. My poor friend breathed his last half an +hour ago." + + + + + +BOOK THE SECOND. + + +THE TWO MACAIRES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A GOLDEN TEMPLE. + + +In the very midst of the Belgian iron country, under the shadow of tall +sheltering ridges of pine-clad mountain-land, nestles the fashionable +little watering-place called Forêtdechêne. Two or three handsome +hotels; a bright white new pile of building, with vast windows of +shining plate-glass, and a stately quadrangular courtyard; a tiny +street, which looks as if a fragment of English Brighton had been +dropped into this Belgian valley; a stunted semi-classic temple, which +is at once a post-office and a shrine whereat invalids perform their +worship of Hygeia by the consumption of unspeakably disagreeable +mineral waters; a few tall white villas scattered here and there +upon the slopes of pine-clad hills; and a very uncomfortable +railway-station--constitute the chief features of Forêtdechêne. But right +and left of that little cluster of shops and hotels there stretch deep +sombre avenues of oak, that look like sheltered ways to Paradise--and +the deep, deep blue of the August sky, and the pure breath of the warm +soft air, and the tender green of the young pine-woods that clothe the +sandy hills, and the delicious tranquillity that pervades the sleepy +little town and bathes the hot landscape in a languorous mist, are +charms that render Forêtdechêne a pleasant oasis amid the lurid woods +and mountains of the iron country. + +Only at stated intervals the quiet of this sleepy hollow is broken by +the rolling of wheels, the jingling of bells, the cracking of whips, +the ejaculations of drivers, and supplications of touters: only when +the railroad carries away departing visitors, or brings fresh ones, is +there anything like riot or confusion in the little town under the +pine-clad hills--and even then the riot and confusion are of a very +mild order, and create but a transient discord amongst the harmonies of +nature. + +And yet, despite the Arcadian tranquillity of the landscape, the drowsy +quiet of the pine-groves, the deep and solemn shade of those dark +avenues, where one might fondly hope to find some Druidess lingering +beneath the shelter of the oaks, there is excitement of no common order +to be found in the miniature watering-place of Forêtdechêne; and the +reflective and observant traveller, on a modern sentimental journey, +has only to enter the stately white building with the glittering +plate-glass windows in order to behold the master-passions or the human +breast unveiled for his pleasure and edification. + +The ignorant traveller, impelled by curiosity, finds no bar to his +entrance. The doors are as wide open as if the mansion were an hotel; +and yet it is not an hotel, though a placard which he passes informs +the traveller that he may have ices and sorbets, if he will; nor is the +bright fresh-looking building a theatre, for another placard informs +the visitor that there are dramatic performances to be witnessed every +evening in a building on one side of the quadrangle, which is a mere +subsidiary attachment to the vast white mansion. The traveller, passing +on his way unhindered, save by a man in livery, who deprives him of his +cane, ascends a splendid staircase and traverses a handsome +antechamber, from which a pair of plate-glass doors open into a +spacious saloon, where, in the warm August sunlight, a circle of men +and women are gathered round a great green table, gambling. + +The ignorant traveller, unaccustomed to the amusements of a Continental +watering-place, may perhaps feel a little sense of surprise--a +something almost akin to shame--as he contemplates that silent crowd, +whose occupation seems so much the more strange to him because of their +silence. There is no lively bustle, none of that animation which +generally attends every kind of amusement, none of the clamour of the +betting-ring or the exchange. The gamblers at Forêtdechêne are terribly +in earnest: and the ignorant visitor unconsciously adapts himself to +the solemn hush of the place, and steps softly as he approaches the +table round which they are clustered--as many sitting as can find room +round the green-cloth-covered board; while behind the sitters there are +people standing two or three rows deep, the hindermost watching the +table over the shoulders of their neighbours. A placard upon the wall +informs visitors that only constant players are permitted to remain +seated at that sacred table. Perhaps a third of the players and a third +of the lookers-on are women. And if there are lips more tightly +contracted than other lips, and eyes with a harder, greedier light in +them than other eyes, those lips and those eyes belong to the women. +The ungloved feminine hands have a claw-like aspect as they scrape the +glittering pieces of silver over the green cloth; the feminine throats +look weird and scraggy as they crane themselves over masculine +shoulders; the feminine eyes have something demoniac in their steely +glare as they keep watch upon the rapid progress of the game. + +Half a dozen moderate fortunes seem to be lost and won while the +traveller looks on from the background, unnoticed and unseen; for if +those plate-glass doors swung suddenly open to admit the seven angels +of the Apocalypse, carrying the seven golden vials filled with the +wrath of God, it is doubtful whether the splendour of their awful +glory, or the trumpet-notes that heralded their coming, would have +power to arouse the players from their profound abstraction. + +Half a dozen comfortable little patrimonies seem to have changed hands +while the traveller has been looking on; and yet he has only watched +the table for about ten minutes; and this splendid _salon_ is but an +outer chamber, where one may stake as shabby a sum as two francs, if +one is shabby enough to wish to do so, and where playing for half an +hour or so on a pleasant summer morning one could scarcely lose more +than fifty or sixty pounds. Another pair of plate-glass doors open into +an inner chamber, where the silence is still more profound, and where +around a larger table sit one row of players; while only here and there +a little group of outsiders stand behind their chairs. There is more +gilding on the walls and ceiling of this chamber; the frescoes are more +delicate; the crystal chandeliers are adorned with rich clusters of +sparkling drops, that twinkle like diamonds in the sun. This is the +temple of gold; and in this splendid chamber one may hazard no smaller +stake than half a napoleon. There are women here; but not so many women +as in the outer saloon; and the women here are younger and prettier and +more carefully dressed than those who stake only silver. + +The prettiest and the youngest woman in this golden chamber on one +particular August afternoon, nine years after the death of Tom +Halliday, was a girl who stood behind the chair of a military-looking +Englishman, an old man whose handsome face was a little disfigured by +those traces which late hours and dissipated habits are supposed to +leave behind them. + +The girl held a card in one hand and a pin in the other, and was +occupied in some mysterious process, by which she kept note of the +Englishman's play. She was very young, with a delicate face, in whose +softer lines there was a refined likeness to the features of the man +whose play she watched. But while his eyes were hard and cold and gray, +hers were of that dense black in which there seems such an unfathomable +and mysterious depth. As she was the handsomest, so she was also the +worst-dressed woman in the room. Her flimsy silk mantle had faded from +black to rusty brown; the straw hat which shaded her face was sunburnt; +the ribbons had lost their brightness; but there was an air of +attempted fashion in the puffings and trimmings of her alpaca skirt; +and there was evidence of a struggle with poverty in the tight-fitting +lavender gloves, whose streaky lines bore witness to the imperfection +of the cleaner's art. Elegant Parisians and the select of Brussels +glanced at the military Englishman and his handsome daughter with some +slight touch of supercilious surprise--one has no right to find +shabbily-dressed young women in the golden temple--and it is scarcely +necessary to state that it was from her own countrywomen the young +person in alpaca received the most chilling glances. But those Parthian +arrows shot from feminine eyes had little power to wound their object +just now. The girl looked up from her perforated card very seldom; and +when she raised her eyes, it was always to look in one +direction--towards the great glass doors opening from the outer saloon. +Loungers came and went; the doors swung open and closed again as +noiselessly as it is possible for well-regulated doors to open and +shut; footsteps sounded on the polished floors; and sometimes when the +young person in alpaca lifted her eyes, a passing shadow of +disappointment darkened her face. A modern Laurence Sterne, on a new +Sentimental Journey, might have derived some interest from the study of +the girl's countenance; but the reflective and observant traveller is +not to be encountered very often in this age of excursionists; and +Maria and her goat may roam the highways and byways for a long time +before she will find any dreamy loiterer with a mind attuned to +sympathy. + +The shabbily-dressed girl was looking for some one. She watched her +father's play carefully--she marked her card with unfailing precision; +but she performed these duties with a mechanical air; and it was only +when she lifted her eyes to the great shining plate-glass doors which +opened into this dangerous Paradise, that any ray of feeling animated +her countenance. She was looking for some one, and the person watched +for was so long coming. Ah, how difficult for the arithmetician to +number the crushing disappointments, the bitter agonies that one woman +can endure in a single half-hour! This girl was so young--so young; and +already she had learnt to suffer. + +The man played with the concentrated attention and the impassible +countenance of an experienced gamester, rarely lifting his eyes from +the green cloth, never looking back at the girl who stood behind him. +He was winning to-day, and he accepted his good fortune as quietly as +he had often accepted evil fortune at the same table. He seemed to be +playing on some system of his own; and neighbouring players looked at +him with envious eyes, as they saw the pile of gold grow larger under +his thin nervous hands. Ignorant gamesters, who stood aloof after +having lost two or three napoleons, contemplated the lucky Englishman +and wondered about him, while some touch of pity leavened the envy +excited by his wonderful fortune. He looked like a decayed gentleman--a +man who had been a military dandy in the days that were gone, and who +had all the old pretensions still, without the power to support them--a +Brummel languishing at Caen; a Nash wasting slowly at Bath. + +At last the girl's face brightened suddenly as she glanced upwards; and +it would have been very easy for the observant traveller--if any such +person had existed--to construe aright that bright change in her +countenance. The some one she had been watching for had arrived. + +The doors swung open to admit a man of about five-and-twenty, whose +darkly-handsome face and careless costume had something of that air +which was once wont to be associated with the person and the poetry of +George Gordon Lord Byron. The new-comer was just one of those men whom +very young women are apt to admire, and whom worldly-minded people are +prone to distrust. There was a perfume of Bohemianism, a flavour of the +Quartier Latin, about the loosely-tied cravat, the wide trousers, and +black-velvet morning coat, with which the young man outraged the +opinions of respectable visitors at Forêtdechêne. There was a +semi-poetic vagabondism in the half-indifferent, half-contemptuous +expression of his face, with its fierce moustache, and strongly-marked +eyebrows overshadowing sleepy gray eyes--eyes that were half hidden, by +their long dark lashes; as still pools of blue water lie sometimes +hidden among the rushes that nourish round them. + +He was handsome, and he knew that he was handsome; but he affected to +despise the beauty of his proud dark face, as he affected to despise +all the brightest and most beautiful things upon earth: and yet there +was a vagabondish kind of foppery in his costume that contrasted +sharply with the gentlemanly dandyism of the shabby gamester sitting at +the table. There was a distance of nearly half a century between the +style of the Regency dandy and the Quartier-Latin lion. + +The girl watched the new-comer with sad earnest eyes as he walked +slowly towards the table, and a faint blush kindled in her cheeks as he +came nearer to the spot where she stood. He went by her presently, +carrying an atmosphere of stale tobacco with him as he went; and he +gave her a friendly nod as he passed, and a "Good morning, Diana;" but +that was all. The faint blush faded and left her very pale: but she +resumed her weary task with the card and the pin; and if she had +endured any disappointment within those few moments, it seemed to be a +kind of disappointment that she was accustomed to suffer. + +The young man walked round the table till he came to the only vacant +chair, in which he seated himself, and after watching the game for a +few minutes, began to play. From the moment in which he dropped into +that vacant seat to the moment in which he rose to leave the table, +three hours afterwards, he never lifted his eyes from the green cloth, +or seemed to be conscious of anything that was going on around or about +him. The girl watched him furtively for some little time after he had +taken his place at the table; but the stony mask of the professed +gambler is a profitless object for a woman's earnest scrutiny. + +She sighed presently, and laid her hand heavily on the chair behind +which she was standing. The action aroused the man who sat in it, and +he turned and looked at her for the first time. + +"You are tired, Diana?" + +"Yes, papa, I am very tired." + +"Give me your card, then, and go away," the gamester answered +peevishly; "girls are always tired." + +She gave him the mysteriously-perforated card, and left her post behind +his chair; and then, after roaming about the great saloon with a weary +listless air, and wandering from one open window to another to look +into the sunny quadrangle, where well-dressed people were sitting at +little tables eating ices or drinking lemonade, she went away +altogether, and roamed into another chamber where some children were +dancing to the sound of a feeble violin. She sat upon a velvet-covered +bench, and watched the children's lesson for some minutes, and then +rose and wandered to another open window that overlooked the same +quadrangle, where the well-dressed people were enjoying themselves in +the hot August sunshine. + +"How extravagantly everybody dresses!" she thought, "and what a shabby +poverty-stricken creature one feels amongst them! And yet if I ask papa +to give me a couple of napoleons out of the money he won to-day, he +will only look at me from head to foot, and tell me I have a gown and a +cloak and a bonnet, and ask me what more I can want, in the name of all +that is unreasonable? And I see girls here whose fathers are so fond of +them and so proud of them--ugly girls, decked out in silks and muslins +and ribbons that have cost a small fortune--clumsy awkward girls, who +look at _me_ as if I were some new kind of wild animal." + +The saloons at Forêtdechêne were rich in monster sheets of +looking-glass; and in wandering discontentedly about the room Diana +Paget saw herself reflected many times in all her shabbiness. It was +only very lately she had discovered that she had some pretension to +good looks; for her father, who could not or would not educate her +decently or clothe her creditably, took a very high tone of morality in +his paternal teaching, and, in the fear that she might one day grow +vain of her beauty, had taken care to impress upon her at an early age +that she was the very incarnation of all that is lean and sallow and +awkward. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE EASY DESCENT + + +Amongst the many imprudences of which Horatio Paget--once a cornet in a +crack cavalry regiment, always a captain in his intercourse with the +world--had been guilty during the course of a long career, there was +none for which he so bitterly reproached himself as for a certain +foolish marriage which he had made late in his life. It was when he had +thrown away the last chance that an indulgent destiny had given him, +that the ruined fop of the Regency, the sometime member of the +Beef-steak Club, the man who in his earliest youth had worn a silver +gridiron at his button-hole, and played piquet in the gilded saloons of +Georgina of Devonshire, found himself laid on a bed of sickness in +dingy London lodgings, and nearer death than he had ever been in the +course of his brief military career; so nearly gliding from life's +swift-flowing river into eternity's trackless ocean, that the warmest +thrill of gratitude which ever stirred the slow pulses of his cold +heart quickened its beating as he clasped the hand that had held him +back from the unknown region whose icy breath had chilled him with an +awful fear. Such men as Horatio Paget are apt to feel a strange terror +when the black night drops suddenly down upon them, and the "Gray +Boatman's" voice sounds hollow and mysterious in the darkness, +announcing that the ocean is near. The hand that held the ruined +spendthrift back when the current swept so swiftly oceanward was a +woman's tender hand; and Heaven only knows what patient watchfulness, +what careful administration of medicines and unwearying preparation of +broths and jellies and sagos and gruels, what untiring and devoted +slavery, had been necessary to save the faded rake who looked out upon +the world once more, a ghastly shadow of his former self, a penniless +helpless burden for any one who might choose to support him. + +"Don't thank _me_," said the doctor, when his feeble patient whimpered +flourishing protestations of his gratitude, unabashed by the +consciousness that such grateful protestations were the sole coin with +which the medical man would be paid for his services; "thank that young +woman, if you want to thank anybody; for if it had not been for her you +wouldn't be here to talk about gratitude. And if ever you get such +another attack of inflammation on the lungs, you had better pray for +such another nurse, though I don't think you're likely to find one." + +And with this exordium, the rough-and-ready surgeon took his departure, +leaving Horatio Paget alone with the woman who had saved his life. + +She was only his landlady's daughter; and his landlady was no +prosperous householder in Mayfair, thriving on the extravagance of +wealthy bachelors, but an honest widow, living in an obscure little +street leading out of the Old Kent-road, and letting a +meagrely-furnished little parlour and a still more meagrely-furnished +little bedroom to any single gentleman whom reverse of fortune might +lead into such a locality. Captain Paget had sunk very low in the world +when he took possession of that wretched parlour and laid himself down +to rest on the widow's flock-bed. + +There is apt to be a dreary interval in the life of such a man--a blank +dismal interregnum, which divides the day in which he spends his last +shilling from the hour in which he begins to prey deliberately upon the +purses of other people. It was in that hopeless interval that Horatio +Paget established himself in the widow's parlour. But though he slept +in the Old Kent-road, he had not yet brought himself to endure +existence on that Surrey side of the water. He emerged from his lodging +every morning to hasten westward, resplendent in clean linen and +exquisitely-fitting gloves, and unquestionable overcoat, and varnished +boots. + +The wardrobe has its Indian summer; and the glory of a first-rate +tailor's coat is like the splendour of a tropical sun--it is glorious +to the last, and sinks in a moment. Captain Paget's wardrobe was in its +Indian summer in these days; and when he felt how fatally near the +Bond-street pavement was to the soles of his feet, he could not refrain +from a fond admiration of the boots that were so beautiful in decay. + +He walked the West-end for many weary hours every day during this +period of his decadence. He tried to live in an honest gentlemanly way, +by borrowing money of his friends, or discounting an accommodation-bill +obtained from some innocent acquaintance who was deluded by his +brilliant appearance and specious tongue into a belief in the transient +nature of his difficulties. He spent his days in hanging about the +halls and waiting-rooms of clubs--of some of which he had once been a +member; he walked weary miles between St James's and Mayfair, +Kensington Gore and Notting Hill, leaving little notes for men who were +not at home, or writing a little note in one room while the man to whom +he was writing hushed his breath in an adjoining chamber. People who +had once been Captain Paget's fast friends seemed to have +simultaneously decided upon spending their existence out of doors, as +it appeared to the impecunious Captain. The servants of his friends +were afflicted with a strange uncertainty as to their masters' +movements. At whatever hall-door Horatio Paget presented himself, it +seemed equally doubtful whether the proprietor of the mansion would be +home to dinner that day, or whether he would be at home any time next +day, or the day after that, or at the end of the week, or indeed +whether he would ever come home again. Sometimes the Captain, calling +in the evening dusk, in the faint hope of gaining admittance to some +friendly dwelling, saw the glimmer of light under a dining-room door, +and heard the clooping of corks and the pleasant jingling of glass and +silver in the innermost recesses of a butler's pantry; but still the +answer was--not at home, and not likely to be home. All the respectable +world was to be out henceforth for Horatio Paget. But now and then at +the clubs he met some young man, who had no wife at home to keep watch +upon his purse and to wail piteously over a five-pound note +ill-bestowed, and who took compassion on the fallen spendthrift, and +believed, or pretended to believe, his story of temporary +embarrassment; and then the Captain dined sumptuously at a little +French restaurant in Castle-street, Leicester-square, and took a +half-bottle of chablis with his oysters, and warmed himself with +chambertin that was brought to him in a dusty cobweb-shrouded bottle +reposing in a wicker-basket. + +But in these latter days such glimpses of sunshine very rarely +illumined the dull stream of the Captain's life. Failure and +disappointment had become the rule of his existence--success the rare +exception. Crossing the river now on his way westward, he was wont to +loiter a little on Waterloo Bridge, and to look dreamily down at the +water, wondering whether the time was near at hand when, under cover of +the evening dusk, he would pay his last halfpenny to the toll-keeper, +and never again know the need of an earthly coin. + +"I saw a fellow in the Morgue one day,--a poor wretch who had drowned +himself a week or two before. Great God, how horrible he looked! If +there was any certainty they would find one immediately, and bury one +decently, there'd be no particular horror in that kind of death. But to +be found _like that_, and to lie in some riverside deadhouse down by +Wapping, with a ghastly placard rotting on the rotting door, and +nothing but ooze and slime and rottenness round about one--waiting to +be identified! And who knows, after all, whether a dead man doesn't +_feel_ that sort of thing?" + +It was after such musings as these had begun to be very common with +Horatio Paget that he caught the chill which resulted in a very +dangerous illness of many weeks. The late autumn was wet and cold and +dreary; but Captain Paget, although remarkably clever after a certain +fashion, had never been a lover of intellectual pursuits, and +imprisonment in Mrs. Kepp's shabby parlour was odious to him. When he +had read every page of the borrowed newspaper, and pished and pshawed +over the leaders, and groaned aloud at the announcement of some wealthy +marriage made by one of his quondam friends, or chuckled at the record +of another quondam friend's insolvency--when he had poked the fire +savagely half a dozen times in an hour, cursing the pinched grate and +the bad coals during every repetition of the operation--when he had +smoked his last cigar, and varnished his favourite boots, and looked +out of the window, and contemplated himself gloomily in the wretched +little glass over the narrow chimney-piece,--Captain Paget's +intellectual resources were exhausted, and an angry impatience took +possession of him. Then, in defiance of the pelting rain or the +lowering sky, he flung his slippers into the farthest corner--and the +farthest corner of Mrs. Kepp's parlour was not very remote from the +Captain's arm-chair--he drew on the stoutest of his varnished +boots--and there were none of them very stout now--buttoned his perfect +overcoat, adjusted his hat before the looking-glass, and sallied forth, +umbrella in hand, to make his way westward. Westward always, through +storm and shower, back to the haunts of his youth, went the wanderer +and outcast, to see the red glow of cheery fires reflected on the +plate-glass windows of his favourite clubs; to see the lamps in +spacious reading-rooms lit early in the autumn dusk, and to watch the +soft light glimmering on the rich bindings of the books, and losing +itself in the sombre depths of crimson draperies. To this poor worldly +creature the agony of banishment from those palaces of Pall Mall or St. +James's-street was as bitter as the pain of a fallen angel. It was the +dullest, deadest time of the year, and there were not many loungers in +those sumptuous reading-rooms, where the shaded lamps shed their +subdued light on the chaste splendour of the sanctuary; so Captain +Paget could haunt the scene of his departed youth without much fear of +recognition: but his wanderings in the West grew more hopeless and +purposeless every day. He began to understand how it was that people +were never at home when he assailed their doors with his fashionable +knock. He could no longer endure the humiliation of such repulses, for +he began to understand that the servants knew his errand as well as +their masters, and had their answers ready, let him present himself +before them when he would: so he besieged the doors of St. James's and +Mayfair, Kensington Gore and Netting Hill, no longer. He knew that the +bubble of his poor foolish life had burst, and that there was nothing +left for him but to die. + +It seemed about this time as if the end of all was very near. Captain +Paget caught a chill one miserable evening on which he returned to his +lodging with his garments dripping, and his beautiful varnished boots +reduced to a kind of pulp; and the chill resulted in a violent +inflammation of the lungs. Then it was that a woman's hand was held out +to save him, and a woman's divine tenderness cared for him in his dire +extremity. + +The ministering angel who comforted this helpless and broken-down +wayfarer was only a low-born ignorant girl called Mary Anne Kepp--a +girl who had waited upon the Captain during his residence in her +mother's house, but of whom he had taken about as much notice as he had +been wont to take of the coloured servants who tended him when he was +with his regiment in India. Horatio Paget had been a night-brawler and +a gamester, a duellist and a reprobate, in the glorious days that were +gone; but he had never been a profligate; and he did not know that the +girl who brought him his breakfast and staggered under the weight of +his coal-scuttle was one of the most beautiful women he had ever looked +upon. + +The Captain was so essentially a creature of the West-end, that Beauty +without her glitter of diamonds and splendour of apparel was scarcely +Beauty for him. He waited for the groom of the chambers to announce her +name, and the low hum of well-bred approval to accompany her entrance, +before he bowed the knee and acknowledged her perfection. The Beauties +whom he remembered had received their patent from the Prince Regent, +and had graduated in the houses of Devonshire and Hertford. How should +the faded bachelor know that this girl, in a shabby cotton gown, with +unkempt hair dragged off her pale face, and with grimy smears from the +handles of saucepans and fire-irons imprinted upon her cheeks--how +should he know that she was beautiful? It was only during the slow +monotonous hours of his convalescence, when he lay upon the poor faded +little sofa in Mrs. Kepp's parlour--the sofa that was scarcely less +faded and feeble than himself--it was then, and then only, that he +discovered the loveliness of the face which had been so often bent over +him during his delirious wanderings. + +"I have mistaken you for all manner of people, my dear," he said to his +landlady's daughter, who sat by the little Pembroke-table working, +while her mother dozed in a corner with a worsted stocking drawn over +her arm and a pair of spectacles resting upon her elderly nose. Mrs. +Kepp and her daughter were wont to spend their evenings in the lodger's +apartment now; for the invalid complained bitterly of "the horrors" +when they left him. + +"I have taken you for all sorts of people, Mary Anne," pursued the +Captain dreamily. "Sometimes I have fancied you were the Countess of +Jersey, and I could see her smile as she looked at me when I was first +presented to her. I was very young in the beautiful Jersey's time; and +then there was the other one--whom I used to drink tea with at +Brighton. Ah me! what a dull world it seems nowadays! The King gone, +and everything changed--everything--everything! I am a very old man, +Mary Anne." + +He was fifty-two years of age; he felt quite an old man. He had spent +all his money, he had outlived the best friends of his youth; for it +had been his fate to adorn a declining era, and he had been a youngster +among elderly patrons and associates. His patrons were dead and gone, +and the men he had patronised shut their doors upon him in the day of +his poverty. As for his relations, he had turned his back upon them +long ago, when first he followed in the shining wake of that gorgeous +vessel, the Royal George. In this hour of his penniless decline there +was none to help him. To have outlived every affection and every +pleasure is the chief bitterness of old age; and this bitterness +Horatio Paget suffered in all its fulness, though his years were but +fifty-two. + +"I am a very old man, Mary Anne," he repeated plaintively. But Mary +Anne Kepp could not think him old. To her eyes he must for ever appear +the incarnation of all that is elegant and distinguished. He was the +first gentleman she had ever seen. Mrs. Kepp had given shelter to other +lodgers who had called themselves gentlemen, and who had been pompous +and grandiose of manner in their intercourse with the widow and her +daughter; but O, what pitiful lacquered counterfeits, what Brummagem +paste they had been, compared to the real gem! Mary Anne Kepp had seen +varnished boots before the humble flooring of her mother's dwelling was +honoured by the tread of Horatio Paget, but what clumsy vulgar boots, +and what awkward plebeian feet had worn them! The lodger's slim white +hands and arched instep, the patrician curve of his aquiline nose, the +perfect grace of his apparel, the high-bred modulation of his courteous +accents,--all these had impressed Mary Anne's tender little heart so +much the more because of his poverty and loneliness. That such a man +should be forgotten and deserted--that such a man should be poor and +lonely, seemed so cruel a chance to the simple maiden: and then when +illness overtook him, and invested him with a supreme claim upon her +tenderness and pity,--then the innocent girl lavished all the treasures +of a compassionate heart upon the ruined gentleman. She had no thought +of fee or reward; she knew that her mother's lodger was miserably poor, +and that his payments had become more and more irregular week by week +and month by month. She had no consciousness of the depth of feeling +that rendered her so gentle a nurse; for her life was a busy one, and +she had neither time nor inclination for any morbid brooding upon her +own feelings. + +She protested warmly against the Captain's lamentation respecting his +age. + +"The idear of any gentleman calling hisself old at fifty!" she +said--and Horatio shuddered at the supererogatory "r" and the +"hisself," though they proceeded from the lips of his +consoler;--"you've got many, many years before you yet, sir, please +God," she added piously; "and there's good friends will come forward +yet to help you, I make no doubt." + +Captain Paget shook his head peevishly. + +"You talk as if you were telling my fortune with a pack of cards," he +said. "No, my girl, I shall have only one friend to rely upon, if ever +I am well enough to go outside this house; and that friend is myself. I +have spent the fortune my father left me; I have spent the price of my +commission; and I have parted with every object of any value that I +ever possessed--in vulgar parlance, I am cleaned out, Mary Anne. But +other men have spent every sixpence belonging to them, and have +contrived to live pleasantly enough for half a century afterwards; and +I daresay I can do as they have done. If the wind is tempered to the +shorn lamb, I suppose the hawks and vultures take care of themselves. I +have tried my luck as a shorn lamb, and the tempest has been very +bitter for me; so I have no alternative but to join the vultures." + +Mary Anne Kepp stared wonderingly at her mother's lodger. She had some +notion that he had been saying something wicked and blasphemous; but +she was too ignorant and too innocent to follow his meaning. + +"O, pray don't talk in that wild way, sir," she entreated. "It makes me +so unhappy to hear you go on like that." + +"And why should anything that I say make you unhappy, Mary Anne?" asked +the lodger earnestly. + +There was something in his tone that set her pale face on fire with +unwonted crimson, and she bent very low over her work to hide those +painful blushes. She did not know that the Captain's tone presaged a +serious address; she did not know that the grand crisis of her life was +close upon her. + +Horatio Paget had determined upon making a sacrifice. The doctor had +told him that he owed his life to this devoted girl; and he would have +been something less than man if he had not been moved with some +grateful emotion. He was grateful; and in the dreary hours of his slow +recovery he had ample leisure for the contemplation of the woman to +whom he owed so much, if his poor worthless life could indeed be much. +He saw that she was devoted to him; that she loved him more truly than +he had ever been conscious of being loved before. He saw too that she +was beautiful. To an ugly woman Captain Paget might have felt extremely +grateful; but he could never have thought of an ugly woman as he +thought of Mary Anne Kepp. The end of his contemplation and his +deliberation came to this: She was beautiful, and she loved him, and +his life was utterly wretched and lonely; so he determined on proving +his gratitude by a sublime sacrifice. Before the girl had lifted her +face from the needlework over which she had bent to hide her blushes, +Horatio Paget had asked her to be his wife. Her emotion almost +overpowered her as she tried to answer him; but she struggled against +it bravely, and came to the sofa on which he lay and dropped upon her +knees by his side. The beggar-maid who was wooed by a king could have +felt no deeper sense of her lover's condescension than that which +filled the heart of this poor simple girl as she knelt by her mother's +gentleman lodger. + +"I--to be your wife!" she exclaimed. "O, surely, sir, you cannot mean +it?" + +"But I do mean it, with all my heart and soul, my dear," answered the +Captain. "I'm not offering you any grand chance, Mary Anne; for I'm +about as low down in the world as a man can be. But I don't mean to be +poor all my life. Come, my dear, don't cry," he exclaimed, just a +little impatiently--for the girl had covered her face with her hands, +and tears were dropping between the poor hard-working fingers--"but +lift up your head and tell me whether you will take a faded old +bachelor for your husband or not." + +Horatio Paget had admired many women in the bright years of his youth, +and had fancied himself desperately in love more than once in his life; +but it is doubtful whether the mighty passion had ever really possessed +the Captain's heart, which was naturally cold and sluggish, rarely +fluttered by any emotion that was not engendered of selfishness. +Horatio had set up an idol and had invented a religion for himself very +early in life; and that idol was fashioned after his own image, and +that religion had its beginning and end in his own pleasure. He might +have been flattered and pleased by Miss Kepp's agitation; but he was +ill and peevish; and having all his life been subject to a profound +antipathy to feminine tearfulness, the girl's display of emotion +annoyed him. + +"Is it to be yes, or no, my dear?" he asked, with, some vexation in his +tone. + +Mary Anne looked up at him with tearful, frightened eyes. + +"O, yes, sir, if I can be of any use to you, and nurse you when you are +ill, and work for you till I work my fingers to the bone." + +She clenched her hands spasmodically as she spoke. In imagination she +was already toiling and striving for the god of her idolatry--the +GENTLEMAN whose varnished boots had been to her as a glimpse of another +and a fairer world than that represented by Tulliver's-terrace, Old +Kent-road. But Captain Paget checked her enthusiasm by a gentle gesture +of his attenuated hands. + +"That will do, my dear," he murmured languidly; "I'm not very strong +yet, and anything in the way of fuss is inexpressibly painful to me. +Ah, my poor child," he exclaimed, pityingly, "if you could have seen a +dinner at the Marquis of Hertford's, you would have understood how much +can be achieved without fuss. But I am talking of things you don't +understand. You will be my wife; and a very good, kind, obedient little +wife, I have no doubt. That is all settled. As for working for me, my +love, it would be about as much as these poor little hands could do to +earn me a cigar a day--and I seldom smoke less than half a dozen +cigars; so, you see, that is all so much affectionate nonsense. And now +you may wake your mother, my dear; for I want to take a little nap, and +I can't close my eyes while that good soul is snoring so intolerably; +but not a word about our little arrangement, Mary Anne, till you and +your mother are alone." + +And hereupon the Captain spread a handkerchief over his face and +subsided into a gentle slumber. The little scene had fatigued him; +though it had been so quietly enacted, that Mrs. Kepp had slept on +undisturbed by the brief fragment of domestic drama performed within a +few yards of her uneasy arm-chair. Her daughter awoke her presently, +and she resumed her needlework, while Mary Anne made some tea for the +beloved sleeper. The cups and saucers made more noise to-night than +they were wont to make in the girl's careful hands. The fluttering of +her heart seemed to communicate itself to the tips of her fingers, and +the jingling of the crockery-ware betrayed the intensity of her +emotion. He was to be her husband! She was to have a gentleman for a +husband; and such a gentleman! Out of such base trifles as a West-end +tailor's coat and a West-end workman's boots may be engendered the +purest blossom of womanly love and devotion. Wisely may the modern +philosopher cry that the history of the world is only a story of old +clothes. Mary Anne had begun by admiring the graces of Stultz and Hoby, +and now she was ready to lay down her life for the man who wore the +perishing garments. + + * * * * * + +Miss Kepp obeyed her lover's behest; and it was only on the following +day, when she and her mother were alone together in the dingy little +kitchen below Captain Paget's apartments, that she informed that worthy +woman of the honour which had been vouchsafed to her. And thereupon +Mary Anne endured the first of the long series of disappointments which +were to arise out of her affection for the penniless Captain. The widow +was a woman of the world, and was obstinately blind to the advantages +of a union with a ruined gentleman of fifty. "How's he to keep you, I +should like to know," Mrs. Kepp exclaimed, as the girl stood blushing +before her after having told her story; "if he can't pay me +regular?--and you know the difficulty I have had to get his money, Mary +Anne. If he can't keep hisself, how's he to keep you?" + +"Don't talk like that, mother," cried the girl, wincing under her +parent's practical arguments; "you go on as if all I cared for was +being fed and clothed. Besides, Captain Paget is not going to be poor +always. He told me so last night, when he----" + +"_He_ told you so!" echoed the honest widow with unmitigated scorn; +"hasn't he told me times and often that I should have my rent regular +after this week, and regular after that week, and have I _ever_ had it +regular? And ain't I keeping him out of charity now?--a poor +widow-woman like me--which I may be wanting charity myself before long: +and if it wasn't for your whimpering and going on he'd have been out of +the house three weeks ago, when the doctor said he was well enough to +be moved; for I ast him." + +"And you'd have turned him out to die in the streets, mother!" cried +Mary; "I didn't think you was so 'artless." + +From this time there was ill-feeling between Mrs. Kepp and her +daughter, who had been hitherto one of the most patient and obedient of +children. The fanatic can never forgive the wretch who disbelieves in +the divinity of his god; and women who love as blindly and foolishly as +Mary Anne Kepp are the most bigoted of worshippers. The girl could not +forgive her mother's disparagement of her idol,--the mother had no +mercy upon her daughter's folly; and after much wearisome contention +and domestic misery--carefully hidden from the penniless sybarite in +the parlour--after many tears and heart-burnings, and wakeful nights +and prayerful watches, Mary Anne Kepp consented to leave the house +quietly one morning with the gentleman lodger while the widow had gone +to market. Miss Kepp left a piteous little note for her mother, rather +ungrammatical, but very womanly and tender, imploring pardon for her +want of duty; and, "O, mother, if you knew how good and nobel he is, +you coudent be angery with me for luving him has I do, and we shall +come back to you after oure marige, wich you will be pade up honourabel +to the last farthin'." + +After writing this epistle in the kitchen, with more deliberation and +more smudging than Captain Paget would have cared to behold in the +bride of his choice, Mary Anne attired herself in her Sabbath-day +raiment, and left Tulliver's-terrace with the Captain in a cab. She +would fain have taken a little lavender paper-covered box that +contained the remainder of her wardrobe, but after surveying it with a +shudder, Captain Paget told her that such a box would condemn them +_anywhere_. + +"You may get on sometimes without luggage, my dear," he said +sententiously; "but with such luggage as _that_, never!" + +The girl obeyed without comprehending. It was not often that she +understood her lover's meaning, nor did he particularly care that she +should understand him. He talked to her rather in the same spirit in +which one talks to a faithful canine companion--as Napoleon III. may +talk to his favourite Nero; "I have great plans yet unfulfilled, my +honest Nero, though you may not be wise enough to guess their nature. +And we must have another Boulevard, old fellow; and we must settle that +little dispute about Venetia; and we must do something for those +unfortunate Poles, eh--good dog?" and so on. + +Captain Paget drove straight to a registrar's office, where the new +Marriage Act enabled him to unite himself to Miss Kepp _sans façon_, in +presence of the cabman and a woman who had been cleaning the door-step. +The Captain went through the brief ceremonial as coolly as if it had +been the settlement of a water-rate, and was angered by the tears that +poor Mary Anne shed under her cheap black veil. He had forgotten the +poetic superstition in favour of a wedding-ring, but he slipped a +little onyx ring off his own finger, and put it on the clumsier finger +of his bride. It was the last of his jewels--the rejected of the +pawnbrokers, who, not being learned in antique intaglios, had condemned +the ring as trumpery. There is always something a little ominous in the +bridegroom's forgetfulness of that simple golden circle which typifies +an eternal union; and a superstitious person might have drawn a +sinister augury from the subject of Captain Paget's intaglio, which was +a head of Nero--an emperor whose wife was by no means the happiest of +women. But as neither Mary Anne nor the registrar, neither the cabman +nor the charwoman who had been cleaning the door-step, had ever heard +of Nero, and as Horatio Paget was much too indifferent to be +superstitious, there was no one to draw evil inferences: and Mary Anne +went away with her gentleman husband, proud and happy, with a happiness +that was only disturbed now and then by the image of an infuriated +mother. + +Captain Paget took his bride to some charming apartments in +Halfmoon-street, Mayfair; and she was surprised to hear him tell the +landlady that he and his wife had just arrived from Devonshire, and +that they meant to stay a week or so in London, _en passant_, before +starting for the Continent. + +"My wife has spent the best part of her life in the country," said the +Captain, "so I suppose I must show her some of the sights of London in +spite of the abominable weather. But the deuce of it is, that my +servant has misunderstood my directions, and gone on to Paris with the +luggage. However, we can set that all straight to-morrow." + +Nothing could be more courteously acquiescent than the manner of the +landlady; for Captain Paget had offered her references, and the people +to whom he referred were among the magnates of the land. The Captain +knew enough of human nature to know that if references are only +sufficiently imposing, they are very unlikely to be verified. The +swindler who refers his dupe to the Duke of Sutherland and Baring +Brothers has a very good chance of getting his respectability accepted +without inquiry, on the mere strength of those sacred names. + + * * * * * + +From this time until the day of her death Mary Anne Paget very seldom +heard her husband make any statement which she did not know to be +false. He had joined the ranks of the vultures. He had lain down upon +his bed of sickness a gentlemanly beggar; he arose from that couch of +pain and weariness a swindler. + +Now began those petty shifts and miserable falsifications whereby the +birds of prey thrive on the flesh and blood of hapless pigeons. Now the +dovecotes were fluttered by a new destroyer--a gentlemanly vulture, +whose suave accents and perfect manners were fatal to the unwary. +Henceforth Horatio Cromie Nugent Paget flourished and fattened upon the +folly of his fellow-men. As promoter of joint-stock companies that +never saw the light; as treasurer of loan-offices where money was never +lent; as a gentleman with capital about to introduce a novel article of +manufacture from the sale of which a profit of five thousand a year +would infallibly be realized, and desirous to meet with another +gentleman of equal capital; as the mysterious X.Y.Z. who will--for so +small a recompense as thirty postage-stamps--impart the secret of an +elegant and pleasing employment, whereby seven-pound-ten a-week may be +made by any individual, male or female;--under every flimsy disguise +with which the swindler hides his execrable form, Captain Paget plied +his cruel trade, and still contrived to find fresh dupes. Of course +there were occasions when the pigeons were slow to flutter into the +fascinating snare, and when the vulture had a bad time of it; and it +was a common thing for the Captain to sink from the splendour of +Mayfair or St. James's-street into some dingy transpontine +hiding-place. But he never went back to Tulliver's-terrace, though Mary +Anne pleaded piteously for the payment of her poor mother's debt. When +her husband was in funds, he patted her head affectionately, and told +her that he would see about it--i.e. the payment of Mrs. Kepp's bill; +while, if she ventured to mention the subject to him when his purse was +scantily furnished, he would ask her fiercely how he was to satisfy her +mother's extortionate claims when he had not so much as a sixpence for +his own use. + +Mrs. Kepp's bill was never paid, and Mary Anne never saw her mother's +face again. Mrs. Paget was one of those meek loving creatures who are +essentially cowardly. She could not bring herself to encounter her +mother without the money owed by the Captain; she could not bring +herself to endure the widow's reproaches, the questioning that would be +so horribly painful to answer, the taunts that would torture her poor +sorrowful heart. + +Alas for her brief dream of love and happiness! Alas for her foolish +worship of the gentleman lodger! She knew now that her mother had been +wiser than herself, and that it would have been better for her if she +had renounced the shadowy glory of an alliance with Horatio Cromie +Nugent Paget, whose string of high-sounding names, written on the cover +of an old wine-book, had not been without its influence on the ignorant +girl. The widow's daughter knew very little happiness during the few +years of her wedded life. To be hurried from place to place; to dine in +Mayfair to-day, and to eat your dinner at a shilling ordinary in +Whitecross-street to-morrow; to wear fine clothes that have not been +paid for, and to take them off your back at a moment's notice when they +are required for the security of the friendly pawnbroker; to know that +your life is a falsehood and a snare, and that to leave a place is to +leave contempt and execration behind you,--these things constitute the +burden of a woman whose husband lives by his wits. And over and above +these miseries, Mrs. Paget had to endure all the variations of temper +to which the schemer is subject. If the pigeons dropped readily into +the snare, and if their plumage proved well worth the picking, the +Captain was very kind to his wife, after his own fashion; that is to +say, he took her out with him, and after lecturing her angrily because +of the shabbiness of her bonnet, bought her a new one, and gave her a +dinner that made her ill, and then sent her home in a cab, while he +finished the evening in more congenial society. But if the times were +bad for the vulture tribe--O, then, what a gloomy companion for the +domestic hearth was the elegant Horatio! After smiling his false smile +all day, while rage and disappointment were gnawing at his heart, it +was a kind of relief to the Captain to be moody and savage by his own +fireside. The human vulture has something of the ferocity of his +feathered prototype. The man who lives upon his fellow-men has need to +harden his heart; for one sentiment of compassion, one touch of human +pity, would shatter his finest scheme in the hour of its fruition. +Horatio Paget and compassion parted fellowship very early in the course +of his unscrupulous career. What if the pigeon has a widowed mother +dependent on his prosperity, or half a dozen children who will be +involved in his ruin? Is the hawk to forego his natural prey for any +such paltry consideration as a vulgar old woman or a brood of squalling +brats? + +Captain Paget was not guilty of any persistent unkindness towards the +woman whose fate he had deigned to link with his own. The consciousness +that he had conferred a supreme honour on Mary Anne Kepp by offering +her his hand, and a share of his difficulties, never deserted him. He +made no attempt to elevate the ignorant girl into companionship with +himself. He shuddered when she misplaced her h's and turned from her +peevishly, with a muttered oath, when she was more than usually +ungrammatical: but though he found it disagreeable to hear her, he +would have found it troublesome to set her right; and trouble was a +thing which Horatio Paget held in gentlemanly aversion. The idea that +the mode of his existence could be repulsive to his wife--that this +low-born and low-bred girl could have scruples that he never felt, and +might suffer agonies of remorse and shame of which his coarser nature +was incapable--never entered the Captain's mind. It would have been too +great an absurdity for the daughter of plebeian Kepps to affect a +tenderness of conscience unknown to the scion of Pagets and Cromies and +Nugents. Mary Anne was afraid of her elegant husband; and she +worshipped and waited upon him in meek silence, keeping the secret of +her own sorrows, and keeping it so well that he never guessed the +manifold sources of that pallor of countenance and hollow brightness of +eye which had of late annoyed him when he looked at his wife. She had +borne him a child--a sweet girl baby, with those great black eyes that +always have rather a weird look in the face of infancy; and she would +fain have clung to the infant as the hope and consolation of her +joyless life. But the vulture is not a domestic bird, and a baby would +have been an impediment in the rapid hegiras which Captain Paget and +his wife were wont to make. The Captain put an advertisement in a daily +paper before the child was a week old; and in less than a fortnight +after Mary Anne had looked at the baby face for the first time, she was +called upon to surrender her treasure to an elderly woman of fat and +greasy aspect, who had agreed to bring the infant up "by hand" in a +miserable little street in a remote and dreary district lying between +Vauxhall and Battersea. + +Mary Anne gave up the child uncomplainingly, as meekly as she would +have surrendered herself if the Captain had brought a masked +executioner to her bedside, and had told her a block was prepared for +her in the adjoining chamber. She had no idea of resistance to the will +of her husband. She endured her existence for nearly five years after +the birth of her child, and during those miserable years the one effort +of her life was to secure the miserable stipend paid for the little +girl's maintenance; but before the child's fifth birthday the mother +faded off the face of the earth. She died in a miserable lodging not +very far from Tulliver's-terrace, expiring in the arms of a landlady +who had comforted her in her hour of need, as she had comforted the +ruined gentleman. Captain Paget was a prisoner in Whitecross-street at +the time of his wife's death, and was much surprised when he missed her +morning visits, and the little luxuries she had been wont to bring him. + +He had missed her for more than a week, and had written to her +twice--rather angrily on the second occasion--when a rough unkempt boy +in corduroy waited upon him in the dreary ward, where he and half a +dozen other depressed and melancholy men sat at little tables writing +letters, or pretending to read newspapers, and looking at one another +furtively every now and then. There is no prisoner so distracted by his +own cares that he will not find time to wonder what his neighbour is +"in for." + +The boy had received instructions to be careful how he imparted his +dismal tidings to the "poor dear gentleman;" but the lad grew nervous +and bewildered at sight of the Captain's fierce hook-nose and +scrutinising gray eyes, and blurted out his news without any dismal +note of warning. + +"The lady died at two o'clock this morning, please, sir; and mother +said I was to come and tell you, please, sir." + +Captain Paget staggered under the blow. + +"Good God!" he cried, as he dropped upon a rickety Windsor chair, that +creaked under his weight; "and I did not even know that she was ill!" + +Still less did he know that all her married life had been one long +heart-sickness--one monotonous agony of remorse and shame. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +"HEART BARE, HEART HUNGRY, VERY POOR." + + +Diana Paget left the Kursaal, and walked slowly along the pretty rustic +street; now dawdling before a little print-shop, whose contents she +knew by heart, now looking back at the great windows of that temple of +pleasure which she had just quitted. + +"What do they care what becomes of me?" she thought, as she looked up +at the blank vacant windows for the last time before she left the main +street of Forêtdechêne, and turned into a straggling side-street, whose +rugged pavement sloped upward towards the pine-clad hills. The house in +which Captain Paget had taken up his abode was a tall white habitation, +situated in the narrowest of the narrow by-ways that intersect the main +street of the pretty Belgian watering-place; a lane in which the +inhabitants of opposite houses may shake hands with one another out of +the window, and where the odour of the cabbages and onions so liberally +employed in the _cuisine_ of the native offends the nose of the +foreigner from sunrise to sunset. + +Diana paused for a moment at the entrance to this lane, but, after a +brief deliberation, walked onwards. + +"What is the use of my going home?" she thought; "_they_ won't be home +for hours to come." + +She walked slowly along the hilly street, and from the street into a +narrow pathway winding upward through the pine-wood. Here she was quite +alone, and the stillness of the place soothed her. She took off her +hat, and slung the faded ribbons across her arm; and the warm breeze +lifted the loose hair from her forehead as she wandered upwards. It was +a very beautiful face from which that loose dark hair was lifted by the +summer wind. Diana Paget inherited something of the soft loveliness of +Mary Anne Kepp, and a little of the patrician beauty of the Pagets. The +eyes were like those which had watched Horatio Paget on his bed of +sickness in Tulliver's-terrace. The resolute curve of the thin flexible +lips, and the fine modelling of the chin, were hereditary attributes of +the Nugent Pagets; and a resemblance to the lower part of Miss Paget's +face might have been traced in many a sombre portrait of dame and +cavalier at Thorpehaven Manor, where a Nugent Paget, who acknowledged +no kindred with the disreputable Captain, was now master. + +The girl's reflections as she slowly climbed the hill were not +pleasant. The thoughts of youth should be very beautiful; but youth +that has been spent in the companionship of reprobates and tricksters +is something worse than age; for experience has taught it to be bitter, +while time has not taught it to be patient. For Diana Paget, childhood +had been joyless, and girlhood lonely. That blank and desolate region, +that dreary flat of fenny waste ground between Vauxhall and Battersea, +on which the child's eyes had first looked, had been typical of her +loveless childhood. With her mother's death faded the one ray of light +that had illumined her desolation. She was shifted from one nurse to +another; and bar nurses were not allowed to love her, for she remained +with them as an encumbrance and a burden. It was so difficult for the +Captain to pay the pitiful sum demanded for his daughter's support--or +rather it was so much easier for him not to pay it. So there always +came a time when Diana was delivered at her father's lodgings like a +parcel, by an indignant nurse, who proclaimed the story of her wrongs +in shrill feminine treble, and who was politely informed by the Captain +that her claim was a common debt, and that she had the remedy in her +own hands, but that the same code of laws which provided her with that +remedy, forbade any obnoxious demonstration of her anger in a +gentleman's apartment. And then Miss Paget, after hearing all the +tumult and discussion, would be left alone with her father, and would +speedily perceive that her presence was disagreeable to him. + +When she outgrew the age of humble foster-mothers and cottages in the +dreariest of the outlying suburbs, the Captain sent his daughter to +school: and on this occasion he determined on patronising a person whom +he had once been too proud to remember among the list of his kindred. +There are poor and straggling branches upon every family tree; and the +Pagets of Thorpehaven had needy cousins who, in the mighty battle of +life, were compelled to fight amongst the rank and file. One of these +poor cousins was a Miss Priscilla Paget, who at an early age had +exhibited that affection for intellectual pursuits and that +carelessness as to the duties of the toilet which are supposed to +distinguish the predestined blue-stocking. Left quite alone in the +world, Priscilla put her educational capital to good use; and after +holding the position of principal governess for nearly twenty years in +a prosperous boarding-school at Brompton, she followed her late +employer to her grave with unaffected sorrow, and within a month of the +funeral invested her savings in the purchase of the business, and +established herself as mistress of the mansion. To this lady Captain +Paget confided his daughter's education; and in Priscilla Paget's house +Diana found a shelter that was almost like a home, until her kinswoman +became weary of promises that were never kept, and pitiful sums paid on +account of a debt that grew bigger every day--very weary likewise of +conciliatory hampers of game and barrels of oysters, and all the flimsy +devices of a debtor who is practised in the varied arts of the +gentlemanly swindler. + +The day came when Miss Paget resolved to be rid of her profitless +charge; and once more Diana found herself delivered like a parcel of +unordered goods at the door of her father's lodging. Those are +precocious children who learn their first lessons in the school of +poverty; and the girl had been vaguely conscious of the degradation +involved in this process at the age of five. How much more keenly did +she feel the shame at the age of fifteen! Priscilla did her best to +lessen the pain of her pupil's departure. + +"It isn't that I've any fault to find with you, Diana, though you must +remember that I have heard some complaints of your temper," she said, +with gentle gravity; "but your father is too trying. If he didn't make +me any promises, I should think better of him. If he told me frankly +that he couldn't pay me, and asked me to keep you out of +charity,"--Diana drew herself up with a little shiver at this +word,--"why, I might turn it over in my mind, and see if it could be +done. But to be deceived time after time, as I've been deceived--you +know the solemn language your father has used, Diana, for you have +heard him--and to rely on a sum of money on a certain date, as I have +relied again and again, after Horatio's assurance that I might depend +upon him--it's too bad, Diana; it's more than any one can endure. If +you were two or three years older, and further advanced in your +education, I might manage to do something for you by making you useful +with the little ones; but I can't afford to keep you and clothe you +during the next three years for nothing, and so I have no alternative +but to send you home." + +The "home" to which Diana Paget was taken upon this occasion was a +lodging over a toyshop in the Westminster-road, where the Captain lived +in considerable comfort on the proceeds of a Friendly and Philanthropic +Loan Society. + +But no very cordial welcome awaited Diana in the gaudily-furnished +drawing-room over the toyshop. She found her father sleeping placidly +in his easy-chair, while a young man, who was a stranger to her, sat at +a table near the window writing letters. It was a dull November day--a +very dreary day on which to find one's self thrown suddenly on a still +drearier world; and in the Westminster-bridge-road the lamps were +already making yellow patches of sickly light amidst the afternoon fog. + +The Captain twitched his silk handkerchief off his face with an +impatient gesture as Diana entered the room. + +"Now, then, what is it?" he asked peevishly, without looking at the +intruder. + +He recognised her in the next moment; but that first impatient +salutation was about as warm a welcome as any which Miss Paget received +from her father. In sad and bitter truth, he did not care for her. His +marriage with Mary Anne Kepp had been the one grateful impulse of his +life; and even the sentiment which had prompted that marriage had been +by no means free from the taint of selfishness. But he had been quite +unprepared to find that this grand sacrifice of his life should involve +another sacrifice in the maintenance of a daughter he did not want; and +he was very much inclined to quarrel with the destiny that had given +him this burden. + +"If you had been a boy, I might have made you useful to me sooner or +later," the Captain said to his daughter when he found himself alone +with her late on the night of her return; "but what on earth am I to do +with a daughter, in the unsettled life I lead? However, since that old +harridan has sent you back, you must manage in the best way you can," +concluded Captain Paget with a discontented sigh. + +From this time Diana Paget had inhabited the nest of the vultures, and +every day had brought its new lesson of trickery and falsehood. There +are men--and bad men too--who would have tried to keep the secret of +their shifts and meannesses hidden from an only child; but Horatio +Paget believed himself the victim of man's ingratitude, and his +misdoings the necessity of an evil destiny. It is not easy for the +unsophisticated intellect to gauge those moral depths to which the man +who lives by his wits must sink before his career is finished, or to +understand how, with every step in the swindler's downward road, the +conscience grows tougher, the perception of shame blunter, the savage +selfishness of the animal nature stronger. Diana Paget had discovered +some of her father's weaknesses during her miserable childhood; and in +the days of her unpaid-for schooling she had known that his most solemn +promises were no more to be relied on than the capricious breath of a +summer breeze. So the revelations which awaited her under the paternal +roof were not utterly strange or entirely unexpected. Day by day she +grew more accustomed to that atmosphere of fraud and falsehood. The +sense of shame never left her; for there is a pride that thrives amidst +poverty and degradation, and of such pride Diana Paget possessed no +small share. She writhed under the consciousness that she was the +daughter of a man who had forfeited all right to the esteem of his +fellow-men. She valued the good opinion of others, and would fain have +been beloved and admired, trusted and respected; for she was ambitious: +and the though that she might one day do something which should lift +her above the vulgar level was the day-dream that had consoled her in +many an hour of humiliation and discomfort. Diana Paget felt the +Captain's shame as keenly as her mother had felt it; but the remorse +which had agonised gentle Mary Anne, the tender compassion for others +which had wrung that fond and faithful heart, had no place in the +breast of the Captain's daughter. + +Diana felt so much compassion for herself, that she had none left to +bestow upon other people. Her father's victims might be miserable, but +was not she infinitely more wretched? The landlady who found her +apartments suddenly tenantless and her rent unpaid might complain of +the hardness of her fortune; but was it not harder for Diana, with the +sensitive feelings and keen pride of the Pagets, to endure all the +degradation involved in the stealthy carrying away of luggage and a +secret departure under cover of night? + +At first Miss Paget had been inclined to feel aggrieved by the presence +of the young man whom she had seen writing letters in the gloomy dusk +of the November afternoon; but in due time she came to accept him as a +companion, and to feel that her joyless life would have been drearier +without him. He was the secretary of the Friendly and Philanthropic +Loan Society, and of any other society organised by the Captain. He was +Captain Paget's amanuensis and representative--Captain Paget's tool, +but not Captain Paget's dupe; for Valentine Hawkehurst was not of that +stuff of which dupes are made. + +The man who lives by his wits has need of a faithful friend and +follower. The chief of the vultures must not be approached too easily. +There must be a preparatory ordeal, an outer chamber to be passed, +before the victim is introduced to the sanctuary which is irradiated by +the silver veil of the prophet. Captain Paget found an able coadjutor +in Valentine Hawkehurst, who answered one of those tempting +advertisements in which A. B.C. or X. Y. Z. was wont to offer a salary +of three hundred a year to any gentlemanly person capable of performing +the duties of secretary to a newly-established company. It was only +after responding to this promising offer that the applicant was +informed that he must possess one indispensable qualification in the +shape of a capital of five hundred pounds. Mr Hawkehurst laughed aloud +when the Captain imparted this condition with that suave and yet +dignified manner which was peculiar to him. + +"I ought to have known it was a dodge of that kind," said the young man +coolly. "Those very good things--duties light and easy, hours from +twelve till four, speedy advancement certain for a conscientious and +gentlemanly person, and so on--are always of the genus _do_. Your +advertisement is very cleverly worded, my dear sir; only it's like the +rest of them, rather _too_ clever. It is so difficult for a clever man +not to be too clever. The prevailing weakness of the human intellect +seems to me to be exaggeration. However, as I haven't a five-pound note +in the world, or the chance of getting one, I'll wish you good morning, +Captain Paget." + +There are people whose blood would have been turned to ice by the stony +glare of indignation with which Horatio Paget regarded the man who had +dared to question his probity. But Mr. Hawkehurst had done with strong +impressions long before he met the Captain; and he listened to that +gentleman's freezing reproof with an admiring smile. Out of this very +unpromising beginning there arose a kind of friendship between the two +men. Horatio Paget had for some time been in need of a clever tool; and +in the young man whose cool insolence rose superior to his own dignity +he perceived the very individual whom he had long been seeking. The +young man who was unabashed by the indignation of a scion of Nugents +and Cromies and Pagets must be utterly impervious to the sense of awe; +and it was just such an impervious young man that the Captain wanted as +his coadjutor. Thus arose the alliance, which grew stronger every day, +until Valentine took up his abode under the roof of his employer and +patron, and made himself more thoroughly at home there than the +unwelcome daughter of the house. + +The history of Valentine Hawkehurst's past existence was tolerably well +known to the Captain; but the only history of the young man's early +life ever heard by Diana was rather vague and fragmentary. She +discovered, little by little, that he was the son of a spendthrift +_littérateur_, who had passed the greater part of his career within the +rules of the King's Bench; that he had run away from home at the age of +fifteen, and had tried his fortune in all those professions which +require no educational ordeal, and which seem to offer themselves +invitingly to the scapegrace and adventurer. At fifteen Valentine +Hawkehurst had been errand-boy in a newspaper office; at seventeen a +penny-a-liner, whose flimsy was pretty sure of admission in the lower +class of Sunday papers. In the course of a very brief career he had +been a provincial actor, a _manège_ rider in a circus, a +billiard-marker, and a betting agent. It was after having exhausted +these liberal professions that he encountered Captain Paget. + +Such was the man whom Horatio Paget admitted to companionship with his +only daughter. It can scarcely be pleaded in excuse for the Captain +that he might have admitted a worse man than Valentine Hawkehurst to +his family circle, for the Captain had never taken the trouble to sound +the depths of his coadjutor's nature. There is nothing so short-sighted +as selfishness; and beyond the narrow circle immediately surrounding +himself, there was no man more blind than Horatio Paget. + + * * * * * + +It was dusk when Diana grew tired of the lonely pathways among the +hills, where the harmonies of a band stationed in the valley were +wafted in gusts of music by the fitful summer breeze. The loneliness of +the place soothed the girl's feverish spirits; and, seated in a little +classic temple upon the summit of a hill, she looked pensively downward +through the purple mists at the newly-lighted lamps twinkling faintly +in the valley. + +"One does not feel the sting of one's shabbiness here," thought Miss +Paget: "the trees are all dressed alike. Nature makes no distinction. +It is only Fortune who treats her children unfairly." + +The Captain's daughter walked slowly back to the little town in the +deepening dusk. The lodging occupied by Horatio Paget and his household +consisted of four roomy chambers on the second story of a big rambling +house. The rooms were meanly furnished, and decorated with the tawdry +ornamentation dear to the continental mind; but there were long wide +windows and an iron balcony, on which Diana Paget was often pleased to +sit. + +She found the sitting-room dark and empty. No dinner had been prepared; +for on lucky days the Captain and his _protégé_ were wont to dine at +the _table d'hôte_ of one of the hotels, or to feast sumptuously _à la +carte_, while on unlucky days they did not dine at all. Diana found a +roll and some cream cheese in a roomy old cupboard that was flavoured +with mice; and after making a very indifferent meal in the dusky +chamber, she went out upon the balcony, and sat there looking down upon +the lighted town. + +She had been sitting there for nearly an hour in the same attitude, +when the door of the sitting-room was opened, and a footstep sounded +behind her. She knew the step; and although she did not lift her head, +her eyes took a new brightness in the summer dusk, and the listless +grace of her attitude changed to a statuesque rigidity, though there +was no change in the attitude itself. + +She did not stir till a hand was laid softly on her shoulder, and a +voice said,--"Diana!" + +The speaker was Valentine Hawkehurst, the young man whose entrance to +the golden temple had been so closely watched by Captain Paget's +daughter. + +She rose as he spoke, and turned to him. "You have been losing, I +suppose, Mr. Hawkehurst," she said, "or you would not have come home?" + +"I am compelled to admit that you are right in your premise, Miss +Paget, and your deduction is scarcely worth discussion. I _have_ been +losing--confoundedly; and as they don't give credit at the board of +green cloth yonder, there was no excuse for my staying. Your father has +not been holding his own within the last hour or two; but when I left +the rooms he was going to the Hotel d'Orange with some French fellows +for a quiet game of _écarté_. Our friend the Captain is a great card, +Miss Paget, and has a delightful talent for picking up distinguished +acquaintance." + +There are few daughters who would have cared to hear a father spoken of +in this free-and-easy manner; but Diana Paget was quite unmoved. She +had resumed her old attitude, and sat looking towards the lighted +windows of the Kursaal, while Mr. Hawkehurst lounged against the angle +of the window with his hands in his pockets and a cigar in his mouth. + +For three years Valentine Hawkehurst had lived in constant +companionship with the Captain's daughter; and in that time his manner +to her had undergone considerable variation. Of late it had been +something in the manner of an elder brother, whose fraternal breast is +impervious to the influence of a sister's loveliness or a sister's +fascination. If Diana Paget had been a snub-nosed young person with red +hair and white eyelashes, Mr. Hawkehurst could scarcely have treated +her with a more friendly indifference, a more brotherly familiarity. + +Unhappily this line of conduct, which is perhaps the wisest and most +honourable plan that a man can pursue when he finds himself thrown into +a dangerously familiar association with a beautiful and unprotected +woman, is the very line of proceeding which a beautiful woman can never +bring herself to forgive. A chivalrous stiffness, a melancholy dignity, +a frozen frigidity, which suggest the fiery bubbling of the lava flood +beneath the icy surface,--these are delightful to the female mind. But +friendly indifference and fraternal cordiality constitute the worst +insult that can be offered to her beauty, the most bitter outrage upon +the majesty of her sex. + +"I suppose it will be midnight before papa comes home, Mr. Hawkehurst," +Diana said abruptly, when her companion had finished his cigar, and had +thrown the end of it over the balcony. + +"Past midnight more likely, Miss Paget. May I ask how I have become Mr. +Hawkehurst all of a sudden, when for the last three years I have been +usually known as Valentine--or Val?" + +The girl turned her head with a gesture in which the carelessness of +his own manner was imitated. She stole a rapid look at him as she +answered, "What does it matter whether I call you by one name or +another?" + +"What does anything matter? I believe Mr. Toots was an unconscious +philosopher. There is nothing in the world of any consequence, except +money. Go and look at those poor devils yonder, and you will see what +that is worth," he cried, pointing to the lighted Kursaal; "there you +behold the one great truth of the universe in action. There is nothing +but money, and men are the slaves of money, and life is only another +name for the pursuit of money. Go and look at beauty yonder fading in +the light and heat; at youth that changes to age before your eyes; at +friendship which turns to hate when the chances of the game are with my +friend and against me. The Kursaal is the world in little, Diana; and +this great globe of ours is nothing but a gigantic gaming-table--a +mighty temple for the worship of the golden calf." + +"Why do you imitate those people yonder, if you despise them so +heartily?" + +"Because I am like them and of them. I tell you that money is the +beginning and end of all things. Why am I here, and why is my life made +up of baseness and lies? Because my father was an improvident +scoundrel, and did not leave me five hundred a year. I wonder what I +should have been like, by the bye, if I had been blest with five +hundred a year?" + +"Honest and happy," answered the girl earnestly. She forgot her +simulated indifference, and looked at him with sad earnest eyes. He met +the glance, and the expression of his own face changed from its cynical +smile to a thoughtful sadness. + +"Honest perhaps; and yet I almost doubt if anything under five thousand +a year would have kept me honest. Decidedly not happy; the men who can +be happy on five hundred a year are made of a duller stuff than the +clay which serves for a Hawkehurst." + +"You talk about not being happy with five hundred a year!" Diana +exclaimed impatiently. "Surely any decent existence would be happiness +to you compared to the miserable life you lead,--the shameful, degraded +life which shuts you out of the society of respectable people and +reduces you to the level of a thief. If you had any pride, Valentine, +you would feel it as bitterly as I do." + +"But I haven't any pride. As for my life,--well, I suppose it is +shameful and degraded, and I know that it's often miserable; but it +suits me better than jog-trot respectability, I can dine one day on +truffled turkey and champagne, another day upon bread and cheese and +small beer; but I couldn't eat beef and mutton always. That's what +kills people of my temperament. There are born scamps in the world, +Diana, and I am one of them. My name is Robert Macaire, and I was +created for the life I lead. Keep clear of me if you have any hankering +after better things; but don't try to change my nature, for it is +wasted labour." + +"Valentine, it is so cruel of you to talk like that." + +"Cruel to whom?" + +"To--those--who care for you." + +It was quite dark now; but even in the darkness Diana Paget's head +drooped a little as she said this. Mr. Hawkehurst laughed aloud. + +"Those who care for me!" he cried; "no such people ever lived. My +father was a drunken scoundrel, who suffered his children to grow up +about him as he would have suffered a litter of puppies to sprawl upon +his hearth, only because there was less trouble in letting them lie +there than in kicking them out. My mother was a good woman in the +beginning, I know; but she must have been something more than a mortal +woman if she had not lost some of her goodness in twelve years of such +a life as she led with my father. I believe she was fond of me, poor +soul; but she died six months before I ran away from a lodging in the +Rules, which it is the bitterest irony to speak of as my home. Since +then I have been Robert Macaire, and have about as many friends as such +a man usually has." + +"You can scarcely wonder if you have few friends," said Miss Paget, +"since there is no one in the world whom you love." + +She watched him through the darkness after saying this, watched him +closely, though it was too dark for her to see the expression of his +face, and any emotion to which her words might have given rise could be +betrayed only by some gesture or change of attitude. She watched him in +vain, for he did not stir. But after a pause of some minutes he said +slowly,-- + +"Such a man as I cannot afford to love any one. What have I to offer to +the woman I might pretend to love? Truth, or honour, or honesty, or +constancy? Those are commodities I have never dealt in. If I know what +they are, and that I have never possessed them, it is about as much as +I do know of them. If I have any redeeming grace, Diana Paget, it lies +in the fact that I know what a worthless wretch I am. Your father +thinks he is a great man, a noble suffering creature, and that the +world has ill-used him. I know that I am a scoundrel, and that let my +fellow-men treat me as badly as they please, they can never give me +worse usage than I deserve. And am I a man to talk about love, or to +ask a woman to share my life? Good God, what a noble partner I should +offer her! what a happy existence I could assure her!" + +"But if the woman loved you, she would only love you better for being +unfortunate." + +"Yes, if she was very young and foolish and romantic. But don't you +think I should be a villain if I traded on her girlish folly? She would +love me for a year or two perhaps, and bear all the changes of my +temper; but the day would come when she would awake from her delusion, +and know that she had been cheated. She would see other women--less +gifted than herself, probably--and would see the market they had made +of their charms; would see them rich and honoured and happy, and would +stand aside in the muddy streets to be splashed by the dirt from their +carriage-wheels. And then she would consider the price for which she +had bartered her youth and her beauty, and would hate the man who had +cheated her. No, Diana, I am not such a villain as the world may think +me. I am down in the dirt myself, and I'm used to it. I won't drag a +woman into the gutter just because I may happen to love her." + +There was a long silence after this--a silence during which Diana Paget +sat looking down at the twinkling lights of the Kursaal. Valentine +lighted a second cigar and smoked it out, still in silence. The clocks +struck eleven as he threw the end of his cigar away; a tiny, luminous +speck, which shot through the misty atmosphere below the balcony like a +falling star. + +"I may as well go and see how your father is getting on yonder," he +said, as the spark of light vanished in the darkness below. "Good +night, Diana. Don't sit too long in the cold night air; and don't sit +up for your father--there's no knowing when he may be home." + +The girl did not answer him. She listened to the shutting of the door +as it closed behind him, and then folded her arms upon the iron rail of +the balcony, laid her head upon them, and wept silently. Her life was +very dreary, and it seemed to her as if the last hope which had +sustained her against an unnatural despair had been taken away from her +to-night. + +Twelve o'clock sounded with a feeble little _carillon_ from one of the +steeples, and still she sat with her head resting upon her folded arms. +Her eyes were quite dry by this time, for with her tears were very +rare, and the passion which occasioned them must needs be intense. The +night air grew chill and damp; but although she shivered now and then +beneath that creeping, penetrating cold which is peculiar to night air, +she did not stir from her place in the balcony till she was startled by +the opening of the door in the room behind her. + +All was dark within, but Diana Paget was very familiar with the +footstep that sounded on the carpetless floor. It was Valentine +Hawkehurst, and not her father, whose step her quick ear distinguished. + +"Diana," he called; and then he muttered in a tone of surprise, "all +dark still. Ah! she has gone to bed, I suppose. That's a pity!" The +figure in the balcony caught his eye at this moment. + +"What in goodness' name has kept you out there all this time?" he +asked; "do you want to catch your death of cold?" + +He was standing by the mantelpiece lighting a candle as he asked this +unceremonious question. The light of the candle shone full upon his +face when Diana came into the room, and she could see that he was paler +than usual. + +"Is there anything the matter?" she asked anxiously. + +"Yes; there is a great deal the matter. You will have to leave +Forêtdechêne by the earliest train to-morrow morning, on the first +stage of your journey to England. Look here, my girl! I can give you +just about the money that will carry you safely to London; and when you +are once there, Providence must do the rest." + +"Valentine, what do you mean?" + +"I mean, that you cannot get away from this place--you cannot dissever +yourself from the people you have been living with, too soon. Come, +come, don't shiver, child. Take a few drops of this cognac, and let me +see the colour come back to your face before I say any more." + +He poured the dregs of a bottle of brandy into a glass, and made her +drink the spirit. He was obliged to force the rim of the glass between +her set teeth before he could succeed in this. + +"Come, Diana," he said, after she had drunk, "you have been a pupil in +the school of adversity so long, that you ought to be able to take +misfortunes pretty quietly. There's a balance struck, somehow or other, +depend upon it, my girl; and the prosperous people who pay their debts +have to suffer, as well as the Macaire family. I'm a scamp and a +scoundrel, but I'm your true friend nevertheless, Diana; and you must +promise to take my advice. Tell me that you will trust me." + +"I have no one else to trust." + +"No one else in this place. But in England you have your old +friend,--the woman with whom you were at school. Do you think she would +refuse to give you a temporary home if you sued to her _in formâ +pauperis?_" + +"No, I don't think she would refuse. She was very good to me. But why +am I to go back to London?" + +"Because to stay here would be ruin and disgrace to you; because the +tie that links you to Horatio Paget must be cut at any hazard." + +"But why?" + +"For the best or worst of reasons. Your father has been trying a trick +to-night which has been hitherto so infallible, that I suppose he had +grown careless as to his execution of it. Or perhaps he took a false +measure of the man he was playing with. In any case, he has been found +out, and has been arrested by the police." + +"Arrested, for cheating at cards!" exclaimed the girl, with a look of +unspeakable disgust and horror. Valentine's arm was ready to support +her, if she had shown any symptom of fainting; but she did not. She +stood erect before him, very pale but firm as a rock. + +"And you want me to go away?" she said. + +"Yes, I want you to disappear from this place before you become +notorious as your father's daughter. That would be about the worst +reputation which you could carry through life. Believe me that I wish +you well, Diana, and be ruled by me." + +"I will," she answered, with a kind of despairing resignation. "It +seems very dreary to go back to England to face the world all alone. +But I will do as you tell me." + +She did not express any sympathy for her father, then languishing under +arrest, whereby she proved herself very wicked and unwomanly, no doubt. +But neither womanly virtues nor Christian graces are wont to flourish +in the school in which Diana Paget had been reared. She obeyed +Valentine Hawkehurst to the letter, without any sentimental +lamentations whatever. Her scanty possessions were collected, and +neatly packed, in little more than an hour. At three o'clock she lay +down in her tawdry little bed-chamber to take what rest she might in +the space of two hours. At six she stood by Valentine Hawkehurst on the +platform of the railway station, with her face hidden by a brown gauze +veil, waiting till the train was made ready to start. + +It was after she was seated in the carriage that she spoke for the +first time of her father. + +"Is it likely to go very hard with him?" she asked. + +"I hope not. We must try to pull him through it as well as we can. The +charge may break down at the first examination. Good bye." + +"Good bye, Valentine." + +They had just time to shake hands before the train moved off. Another +moment and Miss Paget and her fellow-passengers were speeding towards +Liége. + +Mr. Hawkehurst drew his hat over his eyes as he walked away from the +station. + +"The world will seem very dull and empty to me without her," he said to +himself. "I have done an unselfish thing for once in my life. I wonder +whether the recording angel will carry that up to my credit, and +whether the other fellow will blot out any of the old score in +consideration of this one little bit of self-sacrifice." + + + + + +BOOK THE THIRD. + + +HEAPING UP RICHES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A FORTUNATE MARRIAGE. + + +Eleven years had passed lightly enough over the glossy raven locks of +Mr. Philip Sheldon. There are some men with whom Time deals gently, and +he was one of them. The hard black eyes had lost none of their fierce +brightness; the white teeth flashed with all their old brilliancy; the +complexion, which had always been dusky of hue, was perhaps a shade or +two darker; and the fierce black eyes seemed all the blacker by reason +of the purple tinge beneath them. But the Philip Sheldon of to-day was, +taken altogether, a handsomer man than the Philip Sheldon of eleven +years ago. + +Within those eleven years the Bloomsbury dentist had acquired a higher +style of dress and bearing, and a certain improvement of tone and +manner. He was still an eminently respectable man, and a man whose +chief claim to the esteem of his fellows lay in the fact of his +unimpeachable respectability; but his respectability of to-day, as +compared with that of eleven years before, was as the respectability of +Tyburnia when contrasted with that of St. Pancras. He was not an +aristocratic-looking man, or an elegant man; but you felt, as you +contemplated him, that the bulwarks of the citadel of English +respectability are defended by such as he. + +Mr. Sheldon no longer experimentalised with lumps of beeswax and +plaster-of-paris. All the appalling paraphernalia of his cruel art had +long since been handed over to an aspiring young dentist, together with +the respectable house in Fitzgeorge-street, the furniture, and--the +connexion. And thus had ended Philip Sheldon's career as a +surgeon-dentist. Within a year of Tom Halliday's death his disconsolate +widow had given her hand to her first sweetheart, not forgetful of her +dead husband or ungrateful for much kindness and affection experienced +at his hands, but yielding rather to Philip's suit because she was +unable to advance any fair show of reason whereby she might reject him. + +"I told you, she'd be afraid to refuse you," said George Sheldon, when +the dentist came home from Barlingford, where Tom Halliday's widow was +living with her mother. + +Philip had answered his brother's questions rather ambiguously at +first, but in the end had been fain to confess that he had asked Mrs. +Halliday to marry him, and that his suit had prospered. + +"That way of putting it is not very complimentary to me," he said, +drawing himself up rather stiffly. "Georgy and I were attached to each +other long ago, and it is scarcely strange if----" + +"If you should make a match of it, Tom being gone. Poor old Tom! He and +I were such cronies. I've always had an idea that neither you nor the +other fellow quite understood that low fever of his. You did your best, +no doubt; but I think you ought to have pulled him through somehow. +However, that's not a pleasant subject to talk of just now; so I'll +drop it, and wish you joy, Phil. It'll be rather a good match for you, +I fancy," added George, contemplating his brother with a nervous +twitching of his lips, which suggested that his mouth watered as he +thought of Philip's good fortune. + +"It's a very nice thing you drop into, old fellow, isn't it?" he asked +presently, seeing that his brother was rather disinclined to discuss +the subject. + +"You know the state of my affairs well enough to be sure that I +couldn't afford to marry a poor woman," answered Philip. + +"And that it has been for a long time a vital necessity with you to +marry a rich one," interjected his brother. + +"Georgy will have a few hundreds, and----" + +"A few thousands, you mean, Phil," cried Sheldon the younger with +agreeable briskness; "shall I tot it up for you?" + +He was always eager to "tot" things up, and would scarcely have shrunk +from setting down the stars of heaven in trim double columns of +figures, had it seemed to his profit to do so. + +"Let us put it in figures, Phil," he said, getting his finger-tips in +order for the fray. "There's the money for Hyley Farm--twelve thousand +three hundred and fifty, I had it from poor Tom's own lips. Then +there's that little property on Sheepfield Common--say seven-fifty, +eh?--well, say seven hundred, if you like to leave a margin; and then +there are the insurances--three thou' in the Alliance, fifteen hundred +in the Phoenix, five hundred in the Suffolk Friendly; the total of +which, my dear boy, is eighteen thousand five hundred pounds; and a +very nice thing for you to drop into, just as affairs were looking +about as black as they could look." + +"Yes," answered Mr. Sheldon the elder, who appeared by no means to +relish this "totting-up" of his future wife's fortune; "I have no +doubt I ought to consider myself a very lucky man." + +"So Barlingford folks will say when they hear of the business. And now +I hope you're not going to forget your promise to me." + +"What promise?" + +"That if you ever did get a stroke of luck, I should have a share of +it--eh, Phil?" + +Mr. Sheldon caressed his chin, and looked thoughtfully at the fire. + +"If my wife lets me have the handling of any of her money, you may +depend upon it I'll do what I can for you," he said, after a pause. + +"Don't say that, Phil," remonstrated George. "When a man says he'll do +what he can for you, it's a sure sign he means to do nothing. +Friendship and brotherly feeling are at an end when it comes to a +question of 'ifs' and 'cans.' _If_ your wife lets you have the handling +of any of her money!" cried the lawyer, with unspeakable derision; +"that's too good a joke for you to indulge in with me. Do you think I +believe you will let that poor little woman keep custody of her money a +day after she is your wife, or that you will let her friends tie it up +for her before she marries you? No, Phil, you didn't lay your plans for +that." + +"What do you mean by my laying plans?" asked the dentist. + +"That's a point we won't discuss, Philip," answered the lawyer coolly. +"You and I understand each other very well without entering into +unpleasant details. You promised me a year ago--before Tom Halliday's +death--that if you ever came into a good thing, I should share in it. +You have come into an uncommonly good thing, and I shall expect you to +keep your promise." + +"Who says I am going to break it?" demanded Philip Sheldon with an +injured air. "You shouldn't be in such a hurry to cry out, George. You +take the tone of a social Dick Turpin, and might as well hold a pistol +to my head while you're about it. Don't alarm yourself. I have told you +I will do what I can for you. I cannot, and I shall not, say more." + +The two men looked at each other. They were in the habit of taking the +measure of all creation in their own eminently practical way, and each +took the other's measure now. After having done which, they parted with +all cordial expressions of good-will and brotherly feeling. George went +back to his dusty chambers in Gray's Inn, and Philip prepared for his +return to Barlingford and his marriage with Georgina Halliday. + +For ten years Georgy had been Philip Sheldon's wife, and she had found +no reason to complain of her second choice. The current of her life had +flowed smoothly enough since her first lover had become her husband. +She still wore moire-antique dresses and gold chains; and if the +dresses were of more simple fashion, and the chains were less +obtrusively displayed, she had to thank Mr. Sheldon for the refinement +in her taste. Her views of life in general had expanded under Mr. +Sheldon's influence. She no longer thought a high-wheeled dog-cart and +a skittish mare the acme of earthly splendour; for she had a carriage +and pair at her service, and a smart little page-boy to leap off the +box in attendance on her when she paid visits or went shopping. Instead +of the big comfortable old-fashioned farmhouse at Hyley, with its +mysterious passages and impenetrable obscurities in the way of +cupboards, she occupied an intensely new detached villa in Bayswater, +in which the eye that might chance to grow weary of sunshine and +glitter would have sought in vain for a dark corner wherein to repose +itself. + +Mr. Sheldon's fortunes had prospered since his marriage with his +friend's widow. For a man of his practical mind and energetic +temperament, eighteen thousand pounds was a strong starting-point. His +first step was to clear off all old engagements with Jews and Gentiles, +and to turn his back on the respectable house in Fitzgeorge-street. The +earlier months of his married life he devoted to a pleasant tour on the +Continent; not wasting time in picturesque by-ways, or dawdling among +inaccessible mountains, or mooning about drowsy old cathedrals, where +there were pictures with curtains hanging before them, and prowling +vergers who expected money for drawing aside the curtains; but rattling +at the highest continental speed from one big commercial city to +another, and rubbing off the rust of Bloomsbury in the exchanges and on +the quays of the busiest places in Europe. The time which Mr. Sheldon +forbore to squander in shadowy gothic aisles and under the shelter of +Alpine heights, he accounted well bestowed in crowded cafés, and at the +public tables of noted hotels, where commercial men were wont to +congregate; and as Georgy had no aspirings for the sublimity of Vandyke +and Raphael, or the gigantic splendours of Alpine scenery, she was very +well pleased to see continental life with the eyes of Philip Sheldon. +How could a half-educated little woman, whose worldly experience was +bounded by the suburbs of Barlingford, be otherwise than delighted by +the glare and glitter of foreign cities? Georgy was childishly +enraptured with everything she saw, from the sham diamonds and rubies +of the Palais Royal, to the fantastical bonbons of Berlin. + +Her husband was very kind to her--after his own particular fashion, +which was very different from blustering Tom Halliday's weak +indulgence. He allotted and regulated her life to suit his own +convenience, it is true; but he bought her handsome dresses, and took +her with him in hired carriages when he drove about the strange cities. +He was apt to leave Georgy and the hired carriage at the corner of some +street, or before the door of some cafe, for an hour at a time, in the +course of his peregrinations; but she speedily became accustomed to +this, and provided herself with the Tauchnitz edition of a novel, +wherewith to beguile the tedium of these intervals in the day's +amusement. If Tom Halliday had left her for an hour at a street-corner, +or before the door of a café, she would have tortured herself and him +by all manner of jealous suspicions and vague imaginings. But there was +a stern gravity in Mr. Sheldon's character which precluded the +possibility of any such shadowy fancies. Every action of his life +seemed to involve such serious motives, the whole tenor of his +existence was so orderly and business-like, that his wife was fain to +submit to him, as she would have submitted to some ponderous infallible +machine, some monster of modern ingenuity and steam power, which cut +asunder so many bars of iron, or punched holes in so many paving-stones +in a given number of seconds, and was likely to go on dividing iron or +piercing paving-stones for ever and ever. + +She obeyed him, and was content to fashion her life according to his +will, chiefly because she had a vague consciousness that to argue with +him, or to seek to influence him, would be to attempt the impossible. +Perhaps there was something more than this in her mind--some +half-consciousness that there was a shapeless and invertebrate skeleton +lurking in the shadowy background of her new life, a dusky and +impalpable creature which it would not be well for her to examine or +understand. She was a cowardly little woman, and finding herself +tolerably happy in the present, she did not care to pierce the veil of +the future, or to cast anxious glances backward to the past. She +thought it just possible that there might be people in the world base +enough to hint that Philip Sheldon had married her for love of her +eighteen thousand pounds, rather than from pure devotion to herself. +She knew that certain prudent friends and kindred in Barlingford had +elevated their hands and eyebrows in speechless horror when they +discovered that she had married her second husband without a +settlement; while one grim and elderly uncle had asked her whether she +did not expect her father to turn in his grave by reason of her folly. + +Georgy had shrugged her shoulders peevishly when her Barlingford +friends remonstrated with her, and had declared that people were very +cruel to her, and that it was a hard thing she could not choose for +herself for once in her life. As to the settlements that people talked +of, she protested indignantly that she was not so mean as to fancy her +future husband a thief, and that to tie up her money in all sorts of +ways would be to imply as much. And then, as it was only a year since +poor dear Tom's death, she had been anxious to marry without fuss or +parade. In fact, there were a hundred reasons against legal +interference, and legal tying-up of the money, with all that dreadful +jargon about "whereas," and "hereinafter," and "provided always," and +"nothing herein contained," which seems to hedge round a sum of money +so closely, that it is doubtful whether the actual owner will ever be +free to spend a sixpence of it after the execution of that formidable +document intended to protect it from possible marauders. + +George Sheldon had said something very near the truth when he had told +Philip that Mrs. Halliday would be afraid to refuse him. The +fair-haired, fair-faced little woman did in some manner fear the first +lover of her girlhood. She had become his wife, and so far all things +had gone well with her; but if misery and despair had been the +necessary consequences of her union with him, she must have married him +all the same, so dominant was the influence by which he ruled her. Of +course Georgy was not herself aware of her own dependence. She accepted +all things as they were presented to her by a stronger mind than her +own. She wore her handsome silk dresses, and was especially particular +as to the adjustment of her bonnet-strings, knowing that the smallest +impropriety of attire was obnoxious to the well-ordered mind of her +second husband. She obeyed him very much as a child obeys a strict but +not unkind schoolmaster. When he took her to a theatre or a racecourse, +she sat by his side meekly, and felt like a child who has been good and +is reaping the reward of goodness. And this state of things was in +nowise disagreeable to her. She was perhaps quite as happy as it was in +her nature to be; for she had no exalted capacity for happiness or +misery. She felt that it was pleasant to have a handsome man, whose +costume was always irreproachable, for her husband. Her only notion of +a bad husband was a man who stayed out late, and came home under the +influence of strong liquors consumed in unknown localities and amongst +unknown people. So, as Mr. Sheldon rarely went out after dinner, and +was on all occasions the most temperate of men, she naturally +considered her second husband the very model of conjugal perfection. +Thus it was that domestic life had passed smoothly enough for Mr. +Sheldon and his wife during the ten years which had elapsed since their +marriage. + +As to the eighteen thousand pounds which she had brought Philip +Sheldon, Georgy asked no questions. She knew that she enjoyed luxuries +and splendours which had never been hers in Tom Halliday's lifetime, +and she was content to accept the goods which her second husband +provided. Mr. Sheldon had become a stockbroker, and occupied an office +in some dusky court within a few hundred yards of the Stock Exchange. +He had, according to his own account, trebled Georgy's thousands since +they had been in his hands. How the unsuccessful surgeon-dentist had +blossomed all at once into a fortunate speculator was a problem too +profound for Georgy's consideration. She knew that her husband had +allied himself to a certain established firm of stockbrokers, and that +the alliance had cost him some thousands of Tom Halliday's money. She +had heard of preliminary steps to be taken to secure his admission as a +member of some mysterious confraternity vaguely spoken of as "the +House;" and she knew that Tom Halliday's thousands had been the seed +from which had sprung other thousands, and that her husband had been +altogether triumphant and successful. + +It may be that it is easier to rig the market than to induce a given +number of people to resort to a certain dull street in Bloomsbury for +the purpose of having teeth extracted by an unknown practitioner. It is +possible that the stockbroker is like the poet, a creature who is born, +and not made; a gifted and inspired being, not to be perfected by any +specific education; a child of spontaneous instincts and untutored +faculties. Certain it is that the divine afflatus from the nostrils of +the god Plutus seemed to have descended upon Philip Sheldon; for he had +entered the Stock Exchange an inexperienced stranger, and he held his +place there amongst men whose boyhood had been spent in the offices of +Capel-court, and whose youthful strength had been nourished in the +chop-houses of Pinch-lane and Thread-needle-street. + +Mrs. Sheldon was satisfied with the general knowledge that Mr. Sheldon +had been fortunate, and had never sought any more precise knowledge of +her husband's affairs. Nor did she seek such knowledge even now, when +her daughter was approaching womanhood, and might ere long need some +dower out of her mother's fortune. Poor Tom, trusting implicitly in the +wife he loved, and making his will only as a precautionary measure, at +a time when he seemed good for fifty years of life and strength, had +not troubled himself about remote contingencies, and had in no wise +foreseen the probability of a second husband for Georgy and a +stepfather for his child. + +Two children had been born to Mr. Sheldon since his marriage, and both +had died in infancy. The loss of these children had fallen very heavily +on the strong hard man, though he had never shed a tear or uttered a +lamentation, or wasted an hour of his business-like existence by reason +of his sorrow. Georgy had just sufficient penetration to perceive that +her husband was bitterly disappointed when no more baby-strangers came +to replace those poor frail little lives which had withered away and +vanished in spite of his anxiety to hold them. + +"It seems as if there was a blight upon _my_ children," he once said +bitterly; and this was the only occasion on which his wife heard him +complain of his evil fortune. + +But one day, when he had been particularly lucky in some speculation, +when he had succeeded in achieving what his brother George spoke of as +the "biggest line he had ever done," Philip Sheldon came home to the +Bayswater villa in a particularly bad humour, and for the first time +since her marriage Georgy heard him quote a line of Scripture. + +"Heaping up riches," he muttered, as he paced up and down the room; +"heaping up riches, and ye cannot tell who shall gather them." + +His wife knew then that he was thinking of his children. During the +brief lives of those two fragile boy-babies the stockbroker had been +wont to talk much of future successes in the way of money-making to be +achieved by him for the enrichment and exaltation of these children. +They were gone now, and no more came to replace them. And though Philip +Sheldon still devoted himself to the sublime art of money-making, and +still took delight in successful time-bargains and all the scientific +combinations of the money-market, the salt of life had lost something +of its savour, and the chink of gold had lost somewhat of its music. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CHARLOTTE. + + +The little villa at Bayswater was looking its brightest on a +resplendent midsummer afternoon, one year after Diana Paget's hurried +hegira from Forêtdechêne. If the poor dentist's house in dingy +Bloomsbury had been fresh and brilliant of aspect, how much more +brilliant was the western home of the rich stockbroker, whose gate was +within five minutes' walk of that aristocratic Eden, Kensington +Gardens! Mr. Sheldon's small domain was called The Lawn, and consisted +of something over half an acre of flower-garden and shrubbery, a +two-stall stable and coach-house, a conservatory and fernery, and a +moderate-sized house in the gothic or mediæval style, with mullioned +windows in the dining-room and oriels in the best bedroom, and with a +great deal of unnecessary stone-work and wooden excrescence in every +direction. + +The interior of Mr. Sheldon's dwelling bore no trace of that solid +old-fashioned clumsiness which had distinguished his house in +Fitzgeorge-street. Having surrendered his ancestral chairs and tables +in liquidation of his liabilities, Philip Sheldon was free to go with +the times, and had furnished his gothic villa in the most approved +modern style, but without any attempt at artistic grace or adornment. +All was bright, and handsome, and neat, and trim; but the brightness +and the neatness savoured just a little of furnished apartments at the +seaside, and the eye sought in vain for the graceful disorder of an +elegant home. The dining-room was gorgeous with all the splendour of +new mahogany and crimson morocco; the drawing-room was glorified by big +looking-glasses, and the virginal freshness of gilt frames on which the +feet of agile house-fly or clumsy blue-bottle had never rested. The +crimsons, and blues, and greens, and drabs of the Brussels carpets +retained the vivid brightness of the loom. The drops of the chandeliers +twinkled like little stars in the sunshine; the brass birdcages were +undimmed by any shadow of dulness. To Georgy's mind the gothic villa +was the very perfection of a dwelling-place. The Barlingford +housekeepers were wont to render their homes intolerable by extreme +neatness. Georgy still believed in the infallibility of her native +town, and the primness of Barlingford reigned supreme in the gothic +villa. There were no books scattered on the polished walnut-wood tables +in the drawing-room, no cabinets crammed with scraps of old china, no +pictures, no queer old Indian feather-screens, no marvels of Chinese +carving in discoloured ivory; none of those traces which the footsteps +of the "collector" leave behind him. Mr. Sheldon had no leisure for +collecting; and Georgy preferred the gaudy pink-and-blue vases of a +Regent-street china-shop to all the dingy _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of a +Wedgwood, or the quaint shepherds and shepherdesses of Chelsea. As for +books, were there not four or five resplendent volumes primly disposed +on one of the tables; an illustrated edition of Cowper's lively and +thrilling poems; a volume of Rambles in Scotland, with copper-plate +engravings of "Melrose by night," and Glasgow Cathedral, and Ben Nevis, +and other scenic and architectural glories of North Britain; a couple +of volumes of _Punch_, and an illustrated "Vicar of Wakefield;" and +what more could elevated taste demand in the way of literature? Nobody +ever read the books; but Mrs. Sheldon's visitors were sometimes glad to +take refuge in the Scottish scenery and the pictorial Vicar during that +interval of dulness and indigestion which succeeds a middle-class +dinner. Georgy read a great many books; but they were all novels, +procured from the Bayswater branch of a fashionable circulating +library, and were condemned unread by Mr. Sheldon, who considered all +works of fiction perfectly equal in demerit, and stigmatised them, in a +general way, as "senseless trash." He had tried to read novels in the +dreary days of his Bloomsbury probation; but he had found that the +heroes of them were impracticable beings, who were always talking of +honour and chivalry, and always sacrificing their own interests in an +utterly preposterous manner; and he had thrown aside story after story +in disgust. + +"Give me a book that is something like life, and I'll read it," he +exclaimed impatiently; "but I can't swallow the high-flown prosings of +impossibly virtuous inanities." + +One day, indeed, he had been struck by the power of a book, a book +written by a certain Frenchman called Balzac. He had been riveted by +the hideous cynicism, the supreme power of penetration into the vilest +corners of wicked hearts; and he flung the book from him at last with +an expression of unmitigated admiration. + +"That man knows his fellows," he cried, "and is not hypocrite enough to +conceal his knowledge, or to trick out his puppets in the tinsel and +rags of false sentiment in order that critics and public may cry, 'See, +what noble instincts, what generous impulses, what unbounded sympathy +for his fellow-creatures this man has!' This Frenchman is an artist, +and is not afraid to face the difficulties of his art. What a scoundrel +this Philippe Bridau is! And after wallowing in the gutter, he lives to +bespatter his virtuous brother with the mire from his carriage wheels. +That is _real_ life. Your English novelist would have made his villain +hang himself with the string of his waistcoat in a condemned cell, +while his amiable hero was declared heir to a dukedom and forty +thousand a year. But this fellow Balzac knows better than that." + +The days had passed when Mr. Sheldon had leisure to read Balzac. He +read nothing but the newspapers now, and in the newspapers he read very +little more than the money articles and such political news as seemed +likely to affect the money-market. There is no such soul-absorbing +pursuit as the race which men run whose goal is the glittering Temple +of Plutus. The golden apples which tempted Atalanta to slacken her pace +are always rolling _before_ the modern runner, and the greed of gain +lends the wings of Hermes to his feet. Mr. Sheldon had sighed for +pleasures sometimes in the days of his Bloomsbury martyrdom. He had sat +by his open window on sultry summer evenings, smoking his solitary +cigar, and thinking moodily of all the pleasant resting-places from +which other men were looking out at that golden western sky, deepening +into crimson and melting into purples which even the London smoke could +not obscure. He had sat alone, thinking of jovial parties lounging in +the bow-windows of Greenwich taverns, with cool green hock-glasses and +pale amber wine, and a litter of fruit and flowers on the table before +them, while the broad river flowed past them with all the glory of the +sunset on the rippling water, and one black brig standing sharply out +against the yellow sky. He had thought of Richmond, and the dashing +young men who drive there every summer in drags, with steel chain and +bar clanking and glittering in front of the team, and two solemn grooms +with folded arms seated stiff and statue-like behind. He had thought of +Epsom, and the great Derby mob; and all of those golden goblets of +pleasure which prosperous manhood drains to the very dregs. He had +fancied the enjoyments which would be his if ever he were rich enough +to pay for them. And now he was able to afford all such pleasures he +cared nothing for them; for the ecstasy of making money seemed better +than any masculine dissipation or delight. He did sometimes dine at +Greenwich. He knew the _menus_ of the different taverns by heart, and +had discovered that they were all alike vanity and indigestion; but he +never seated himself at one of those glistening little tables, or +deliberated with an obsequious waiter over the mysteries of the wine +_carte_, without a settled purpose to be served by the eating of the +dinner, and a definite good to be achieved by the wine he ordered. He +gave many such entertainments at home and abroad; but they were all +given to men who were likely to be useful to him--to rich men, or the +toadies and hangers-on of rich men, the grand viziers of the sultans of +the money-market. Such a thing as pleasure or hospitality pure and +simple had no place in the plan of Mr. Sheldon's life. The race in +which he was running was not to be won by a loiterer. The golden apples +were always rolling on before the runner; and woe be to him who turned +away from the course to dally with the flowers or loiter by the cool +streams that beautified the wayside. + +Thus it was that Mr. Sheldon's existence grew day by day more +completely absorbed by business pursuits and business interests. Poor +Georgy complained peevishly of her husband's neglect; but she did not +dare to pour her lamentations into the ear of the offender. It was a +kind of relief to grumble about his busy life to servants and humble +female friends and confidantes; but what could she say to Philip +Sheldon himself? What ground had she for complaint? He very seldom +stayed out late; he never came home tipsy. He was quite as cool and +clear-headed and business-like, and as well able to "tot up" any given +figures upon the back of an envelope after one of those diplomatic +little Greenwich dinners as he was the first thing after breakfast. It +had been an easy thing to tyrannise over poor Tom Halliday; but this +man was a grave inscrutable creature, a domestic enigma which Georgy +was always giving up in despair. But so completely did Mr. Sheldon rule +his wife, that when he informed her inferentially that she was a very +happy woman, she accepted his view of the subject, and was content to +believe herself blest. + +In spite of those occasional grumblings to servants and female friends, +Mrs. Sheldon did think herself happy. Those occasional complaints were +the minor notes in the harmony of her life, and only served to make the +harmony complete. She read her novels, and fed a colony of little +feeble twittering birds that occupied a big wire cage in the +breakfast-parlour. She executed a good deal of fancy-work with beads +and Berlin-wool; she dusted and arranged the splendours of the +drawing-room with her own hands; and she took occasional walks in +Kensington Gardens. + +This was the ordinary course of her existence, now and then interrupted +by such thrilling events as a dinner given to some important +acquaintance of Mr. Sheldon's, or a visit to the school at which +Charlotte Halliday was completing her education. + +That young lady had been removed from the Scarborough boarding-school +to a highly respectable establishment at Brompton, within a few months +of her mother's marriage with Mr. Sheldon. She had been a rosy-cheeked +young damsel in pinafores at the time of that event, too young to +express any strong feeling upon the subject of her mother's second +choice; but not too young to feel the loss of her father very deeply. +Tom Halliday had been fondly attached to that bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked +damsel of nine years' growth, and the girl had fully reciprocated his +affection. How often they had talked together of the future, which was +to be so delightful for them both; the new farm, which was to be such a +paradise in comparison to Hyley; the pony that Charlotte was to ride +when she should be old enough to wear a habit like a lady, and to go +about with her father to market-towns and corn-exchanges! The little +girl had remembered all this, and had most bitterly lamented the loss +of that dear and loving father. + +She remembered it all to this day; she regretted her loss to this day, +though she was nearly of age, and on the point of leaving school for +ever, after having prolonged her school-days considerably beyond the +usual period, at the express wish of her stepfather. To say that she +disliked Mr. Sheldon is only to admit that she was subject to the +natural prejudices of humanity. He had usurped the place of a beloved +father, and he was in every way the opposite of that father. He had +come between Charlotte Halliday and her mother, and had so absorbed the +weak little woman into himself, as to leave Charlotte quite alone in +the world. And yet he did his duty as few stepfathers do it. Charlotte +admitted that he was very kind to her, that he was an excellent +husband, and altogether the most conscientious and respectable of +mankind; but she admitted with equal candour that she had never been +able to like him. "I daresay it is very wicked of me not to be fond of +him, when he is so good and generous to me," she said to her chosen +friend and companion; "but I never can feel quite at home with him. I +try to think of him as a father sometimes, but I never can get over the +'step.' Do you know I have dreamed of him sometimes? and though he is +so kind to me in reality, I always fancy him cruel to me in my dreams. +I suppose it is on account of his black eyes and black whiskers," added +Miss Halliday, in a meditative tone. "It is certainly a misfortune for +a person to have blacker eyes and whiskers than the rest of the world; +for there seems something stern and hard, and almost murderous, in such +excessive blackness." + +Charlotte Halliday was a very different creature from the mother whom +Mr. Sheldon had absorbed into himself. Georgy was one of the women who +have "no characters at all," but Georgy's daughter was open to the +charge of eccentricity rather than of inanity. She was a creature of +fancies and impulses. She had written wild verses in the secrecy of her +own chamber at midnight, and had torn her poetic effusions into a +thousand fragments the morning after their composition. She played and +sang very sweetly, and danced admirably, and did everything in a wild +way of her own, which was infinitely more charming than the commonplace +perfection of other women. She was not a beauty according to those +established rules which everybody believes in until they meet a woman +who sins against them all and yet is beautiful. Miss Halliday had thick +black eyebrows, and large gray eyes which people were apt to mistake +for black. She had a composite nose, and one of the sweetest mouths +that ever smiled upon enraptured mankind. Nature had given her just a +little more chin than a Greek sculptor would have allowed her; but, by +way of make-weight, the same careless Nature had bestowed upon her a +throat which Phidias himself might have sought in vain to improve upon. +And Nature had planted this young lady's head upon her shoulders with a +grace so rare that it must needs be a happy accident in the workmanship +of that immortal artist. Indeed it seemed as if Charlotte Halliday owed +her charms to a series of happy accidents. The black eyebrows which +made her face so piquant might have been destruction to another woman. +The round column-like throat needed a fine frank face to surmount it, +and the fine frank face was rendered gracious and womanly by the wealth +of waving dark hair which framed it. The girl was one of those bright +happy creatures whom men worship and women love, and whom envy can +scarcely dislike. She was so infinitely superior to both father and +mother, that a believer in hereditary attributes was fain to invent +some mythical great-grandmother from whom the girl's graces might have +been derived. But she had something of her father's easy good-nature +and imprudent generosity; and was altogether one of those impulsive +creatures whose lives are perpetual difficulties and dilemmas. More +lectures had been delivered for her edification than for any other +young lady in the Brompton boarding-school, and yet she had been the +favourite and delight of everybody in the establishment, from the +mistress of the mansion down to the iniquitous boy who cleaned the +boots, and who was hounded and hunted, and abused and execrated, from +dewy morn to dusky eve. + +"I allus puts plenty of elbow-grease on your boots, Miss 'Allundale, +though cook does heave saucepan-lids at my 'ed and call me a lazy +wiper," this incorrigible imp protested to Charlotte one morning, when +she had surprised him in tears and had consoled his woes by a donation +of pence. + +"All things love thee, so do I," says the lover to his mistress; and it +is almost impossible not to adore a young lady who is universally +beloved, for the simple reason that this general affection is very +rarely accorded to any but a loving nature. There is an instinct in +these things. From all the ruck of Cheapside a vagrant dog will select +the man who has most toleration for the canine species, and is most +likely to give him shelter. A little child coming suddenly into a +circle of strangers knows in which lap it may find a haven, on which +bosom it may discover safety and comfort. If mistress and +schoolfellows, servants and shoeblack, dogs and cats, were fond of +Charlotte Halliday, their affection had been engendered by her own +sweet smiles and loving words, and helping hands always ready to give +substantial succour or to aid by active service. + +She had been at the Brompton gynæceum nearly eleven years--only +leaving it for her holidays--and now her education was finished, and +Mr. Sheldon could find no excuse for leaving her at school any longer, +so her departure had been finally agreed upon. + +To most damsels of twenty-one this would have been a subject for +rejoicing; but it was not so with Charlotte. She did not like her +stepfather; and her mother, though very affectionate and gentle, was a +person whose society was apt to become wearisome any time after the +first half-hour of social intercourse. At Hyde Lodge Charlotte had a +great deal more of Lingard and condensed and expurgated Gibbon than was +quite agreeable; she had to get up at a preternatural hour in the +morning and to devote herself to "studies of velocity," whose monotony +became wearing as the drip, drip, drip of water on the skull of the +tortured criminal. She was very tired of all the Hyde-Lodge lessons and +accomplishments, the irregular French verbs--the "braires" and +"traires" which were so difficult to remember, and which nobody ever +could want to use in polite conversation; the ruined castles and +dilapidated windmills, the perpetual stumpy pieces of fallen timber and +jagged posts, executed with a BBB pencil; the chalky expanse of sky, +with that inevitable flight of crows scudding across it:--why must +there be always crows scudding across a drawing-master's sky, and why +so many jagged posts in a drawing-master's ideal of rural beauty? +Charlotte was inexpressibly weary of all the stereotyped studies; but +she liked Hyde Lodge better than the gothic villa. She liked the +friendly schoolfellows with their loud talk and boisterous manners, the +girls who called her "Halliday," and who were always borrowing her +reels of crochet-cotton and her pencils, her collars and +pocket-handkerchiefs. She liked the free-and-easy schoolgirl talk +better than her mother's tame discourse; she preferred the homely +litter of the spacious schoolroom to the prim splendours of Georgy's +state chambers; and the cool lawn and shrubberies of Hyde Lodge were a +hundred-fold more pleasant to her than the stiff little parterre at +Bayswater, wherein scarlet geraniums and calceolarias flourished with +an excruciating luxuriance of growth and an aggravating brilliancy of +colour. She liked any place better than the hearth by which Philip +Sheldon brooded with a dark thoughtful face, and a mind absorbed by the +mysteries and complications of the Stock Exchange. + +On this bright June afternoon other girls were chattering gaily about +the fun of the breaking-up ball and the coming delights of the +holidays, but Charlotte sighed when they reminded her that the end of +her last half was close at hand. + +She sat under a group of trees on the lawn, with a crochet antimacassar +lying in her lap, and with her friend and favourite, Diana Paget, +sitting by her side. + +Hyde Lodge was that very establishment over which Priscilla Paget had +reigned supreme for the last seventeen years of her life, and among all +the pupils in a school of some forty or fifty girls, Diana was the one +whom Charlotte Halliday had chosen for her dearest companion and +confidante, clinging to her with a constancy not to be shaken by +ill-fortune or absence. The girl knew very well that Diana Paget was a +poor relation and dependant; that her bills had never been paid; that +all those incalculable and mysterious "extras," which are the martyrdom +of parents and the delight of schoolmistresses, were a dead letter so +far as Diana was concerned. She knew that "poor Di" had been taken home +suddenly one day, not in compliance with any behest of her father's, +but for the simple reason that her kinswoman's patience had been worn +out by the Captain's dishonesty. It is doubtful whether Priscilla Paget +had ever communicated these facts in any set phrase, but in a +boarding-school such things make themselves known, and the girls had +discussed the delinquencies of that dreadful creature, Captain Paget, +very freely in the security of their dormitories. + +Charlotte knew that her dearest friend was not a person whom it was +advantageous to know. She had seen Diana depart ignominiously, and +return mysteriously after an absence of some years, very shabby, very +poor, very sombre and melancholy, and with no inclination to talk of +those years of absence. Miss Halliday had known all this, and had asked +no questions. She took the returned wanderer to her heart, and +cherished her with an affection which was far beyond the average +measure of sisterly love. + +"I thought I should never see you again, dear," she cried when she and +Diana had retired to a corner of the schoolroom to talk confidentially +on the morning of Miss Paget's return; "and I missed you so cruelly. +Other girls are very nice and very kind to me. There is a new girl, +Miss Spencer--that girl with flaxen hair, standing by the big +Canterbury--whom I get on with delightfully; but there is no one in the +world like you, Di. And where have you been all this time? With your +papa, I suppose." + +"Yes," answered Miss Paget gloomily; "I have been with my father. Don't +ask me anything about the last three years, Lotta. I have been utterly +wretched and miserable, and I can't bear to talk about my misery." + +"And you shan't talk of it, darling," cried Charlotte, pursing up her +mouth for a kiss in a manner which might have been distraction to a +masculine mind of average susceptibility. "You shan't talk of anything +or think of anything the least, least, least bit unpleasant; and you +shall have my gold pencil-case," added Miss Halliday, wrenching that +trinket suddenly from the ribbon by which it hung at her side. Perhaps +there was just the least touch of Georgy's childishness in this +impulsive habit of giving away all her small possessions, for which +Lotta was distinguished. "Yes, you must, dear," she went on. "Mamma +gave it me last half; but I don't want it; I don't like it; in point of +fact, I have had it so long that I positively loathe it. And I know +it's a poor trumpery thing, though mamma gave two guineas for it; but +you know she is always imposed upon in shops. Do, do, do take it, +darling, just to oblige me. And now, tell me, dear,--you're going to +stop here for ever and ever, now you've come back" asked Charlotte, +after having thrust the gold pencil-case into Diana's unwilling hand. + +"I don't know about for ever and ever, dear," Miss Paget replied +presently; "but I daresay I shall stay here till I'm tired of the place +and everybody about it. You won't be here very long, you know, Lotta; +for you'll be twenty next birthday, and I suppose you'll be leaving +school before you're twenty-one. Most of the girls leave at eighteen or +nineteen at latest; and you've been here so long, and are so much +farther advanced than others are. I am not going to be a pupil +again--that's out of the question; for I'm just twenty-two, as you +know. But Priscilla has been good enough to let me stay as a kind of +second teacher for the little ones. It will be dull work going through +the stupid abridgments of history and geography, and the scrappy bits +of botany and conchology, with those incorrigible little ones; but of +course I am very grateful to my cousin for giving me a home under any +conditions, after papa's dishonourable conduct. If it were not for her, +Lotta, I should have no home. What a happy girl you are, to have a +respectable man for your father!" + +Charlotte's brow darkened a little as her friend said this. + +"He is not my own father, you know," she said gravely, "and I should be +a great deal happier if mamma and I were alone in the world. We could +live in some dear little cottage on wide open downs near the sea, and I +could have a linsey habit, and a pony, and ride about all day, and read +and play to mamma at night. Of course Mr. Sheldon is very respectable, +and I daresay it's very wicked of me; but O, Diana, I think I should +like him better if he were not _quite_ so respectable. I saw your papa +once when he came to call, and I thought him nicer than my stepfather. +But then I'm such a frivolous creature, Di, and am always thinking what +I ought not to think." + + * * * * * + +Nearly a year had passed since Diana's return, and the girl's life had +been very monotonous during that time. She had stuck bravely to the +abridgments and the juvenile scraps of --ologies, and had been +altogether a model of propriety, sewing on such a number of strings and +buttons during the period as can only be compassed by the maternal +mind. Her existence had been by no means as joyless or desolate as such +an existence is generally represented by the writer of fiction. There +was plenty of life and bustle in the big prosperous boarding-school, if +there was not much variety. There were small scandals and small +intrigues; departures and arrivals; wonderful hampers of cake and wine +to be divided among the elect of a fashionable dormitory--for there is +as wide a difference between the tone and status of the bedrooms in a +ladies'-school as between the squares of Berkeley and Bedford. There +were breaking-up parties, and the free-and-easy idleness of the +holidays, when a few dark-complexioned girls from the colonies, a +yellow-haired damsel from the remote north of Scotland, and Miss Diana +Paget, were wont to cluster round the fire in the smaller of the +schoolrooms to tell ghost-stories or talk scandal in the gloaming. + +It was a life which, taken with all its small hardships and petty +annoyances, should have been as the life of Paradise compared to that +which Diana had led with her father and Mr. Hawkehurst. Whether the +girl fully appreciated the change from the Bohemianism of her late +existence to the respectability of Hyde Lodge was a question which no +one had asked of her. She had fits of despondency now and then, even in +the midst of her duties, and was apt to fall into a sombre reverie over +one of the abridgments, whereby she was neglectful of her pupils' +aspirates, and allowed Henry the Second to be made the poorer by the +loss of an H, or Heliogabalus to be described by a name which that +individual himself would have failed to recognise. + +There were times when, in the midst of that shrill Babel, the +schoolroom, Diana Paget heard the summer winds sighing in the +pine-woods above Forêtdechêne, and fancied herself standing once more +in that classic temple on whose plastered wall Valentine had once cut +her initials with his penknife in a fantastical monogram, surmounted by +a death's-head and encircled by a serpent. She thought of that familiar +companion very often, in spite of her juvenile pupils and the sewing-on +of tapes and buttons. He had seemed to her a perpetual enigma and +mystery when she was with him; and now that she was far away from him, +he was more than ever an inscrutable creature. Was he altogether vile, +she wondered, or was there some redeeming virtue in his nature? He had +taken trouble to secure her escape from shame and disgrace, and in +doing this he surely had performed a good action; but was it not just +possible that he had taken this opportunity of getting rid of her +because her presence was alike wearisome and inconvenient? She thought +very bitterly of her fellow Bohemian when this view of his conduct +presented itself to her; how heartlessly he had shuffled her off,--how +cruelly he had sent her out into the hard pitiless world, to find a +shelter as best she might! + +"What would have become of me if Priscilla had refused to take me in?" +she asked herself. "I wonder whether Mr. Hawkehurst ever considered +that." + + * * * * * + +More than one letter had come to Diana from her old companion since her +flight from the little Belgian watering-place. The first letter told +her that her father had "tided over _that_ business, and was in better +feather than before the burst-up at the Hôtel d'Orange." The letter was +dated from Paris, but gave no information as to the present +arrangements or future plans of the writer and his companion. Another +letter, dated from the same place, but not from the same address, came +to her six months afterwards, and anon another; and it was such a +wonderful thing for Captain Paget to inhabit the same city for twelve +months together, that Diana began to cherish faint hopes of some +amendment in the scheme of her father's life and of Valentine's, since +any improvement in her father's position would involve an improvement +in that of his _protégé_. + +Miss Paget's regard for her father was by no means an absorbing +affection. The Captain had never cared to conceal his indifference for +his only child, or pretended to think her anything but a nuisance and +an encumbrance--a superfluous piece of luggage more difficult to +dispose of than any other luggage, and altogether a stumbling-block in +the stony path of a man who has to live by his wits. So perhaps it is +scarcely strange that Diana did not think of her absent father with any +passionate tenderness or sad yearning love. She thought of him very +often; but her thoughts of him were painful and bitter. She thought +still more often of his companion; and her thoughts of him were even +more bitter. + +The experiences of Diana Paget are not the experiences which make a +pure or perfect woman. There are trials which chasten the heart and +elevate the mind; but it is doubtful whether it can be for the welfare +of any helpless, childish creature to be familiar with falsehood and +chicanery, with debt and dishonour, from the earliest awakening of the +intellect; to feel, from the age of six or seven, all the shame of a +creature who is always eating food that will not be paid for, and lying +on a bed out of which she may be turned at any moment with shrill +reproaches and upbraidings; to hear her father abused and vilified by +vulgar gossips over a tea-table, and to be reminded every day and every +hour that she is an unprofitable encumbrance, a consumer of the bread +of other people's children, an intruder in the household of poverty, a +child whose heritage is shame and dishonour. These things had hardened +the heart of Captain Paget's daughter. There had been no counteracting +influence--no fond, foolish loving creature near at hand to save the +girl from that perdition into which the child or woman who has never +known what it is to be loved is apt to fall. For thirteen years of +Diana's life all love and tenderness, endearing words, caressing +touches, fond admiring looks, had been utterly unknown to her. To sit +in a room with a father who was busy writing letters, and who was wont +to knit his brows peevishly if she stirred, or to mutter an oath if she +spoke; to be sent to a pawnbroker's in the gloaming with her father's +watch, and to be scolded and sworn at on her return if the money-lender +had advanced a less sum than was expected on that security--do not +compose the most delightful or improving experiences of a home life. +But Diana could remember little of a more pleasant character respecting +her existence during those brief periods when she was flung back upon +her father's hands, and while that gentleman was casting about for some +new victim on whom to plant her. + +At Hyde Lodge, for the first time, the girl knew what it was to be +loved. Bright, impulsive Charlotte Halliday took a fancy to her, as the +schoolgirl phrase goes, and clung to her with a fond confiding +affection. It may be that the softening influence came too late, or +that there was some touch of natural hardness and bitterness in Diana's +mind; for it is certain that Charlotte's affection did not soften the +girl's heart or lessen her bitter consciousness of the wide difference +between her own fortunes and those of the happier daughters whose +fathers paid their debts. The very contrast between Charlotte's +position and her own may have counteracted the good influence. It was +very easy for Charlotte to be generous and amiable. _She_ had never +been hounded from pillar to post by shrewish matrons who had no words +too bitter for their unprofitable charge. _She_ had never known what it +was to rise up in the morning uncertain where she should lie down at +night, or whether there would be any shelter at all for her hapless +head; for who could tell that her father would be found at the lodging +where he had last been heard of, and how should she obtain even +workhouse hospitality, whose original parish was unknown to herself or +her protector? To Charlotte these shameful experiences would have been +as incomprehensible as the most abstruse theories of a metaphysician. +Was it any wonder, then, if Charlotte was bright and womanly, and fond +and tender--Charlotte, who had never been humiliated by the shabbiness +of her clothes, and to whom the daily promenade had never been a shame +and a degradation by reason of obvious decay in the heels of her boots? + +"If your father would dress you decently, and supply you with proper +boots, I could almost bring myself to keep you for nothing," Priscilla +had said to her reprobate kinsman's daughter; "but the more one does +for that man the less he will do himself; so the long and the short of +it is, that you will have to go back to him, for I cannot consent to +have such an expensive establishment as mine degraded by the shabbiness +of a relation." + +Diana had been obliged to listen to such speeches as this very often +during her first residence at Hyde Lodge, and then, perhaps, within a +few minutes after Priscilla's lecture was concluded, Charlotte Halliday +would bound into the room, looking as fresh and bright as the morning, +and dressed in silk that rustled with newness and richness. Keenly as +Diana felt the difference between her friend's fortune and her own, she +did nevertheless in some manner return Charlotte's affection. Her +character was not to be altered all at once by this new atmosphere of +love and tenderness; but she loved her generous friend and companion +after her own fitful fashion, and defended her with passionate +indignation if any other girl dared to hint the faintest disparagement +of her graces or her virtues. She envied and loved her at the same +time. She would accept Charlotte's affection one day with unconcealed +pleasure, and revolt against it on the next day as a species of +patronage which stung her proud heart to the quick. + +"Keep your pity for people who ask you for it," she had exclaimed once +to poor bewildered Charlotte; "I am tired of being consoled and petted. +Go and talk to your prosperous friends, Miss Halliday; I am sick to +death of hearing about your new frocks, and your holidays, and the +presents your mamma is always bringing you." + +And then when Charlotte looked at her friend with a sad perplexed face, +Diana relented, and declared that she was a wicked discontented +creature, unworthy of either pity or affection. + +"I have had so much misery in my life, that I am very often inclined to +quarrel with happy people without rhyme or reason, or only because they +are happy," she said in explanation of her impatient temper. + +"But who knows what happiness may be waiting for you in the future, +Di?" exclaimed Miss Halliday. "You will marry some rich man by-and-by, +and forget that you ever knew what poverty was." + +"I wonder where the rich man is to come from who will marry Captain +Paget's daughter?" Diana asked contemptuously. "Never mind where he +comes from; he will come, depend upon it. The handsome young prince +with the palace by the Lake of Como will come to fall in love with my +beautiful Diana, and then she will go and live at Como; and desert her +faithful Charlotte, and live happy ever afterwards." + +"Don't talk nonsense, Lotta," cried Miss Paget. "You know what kind of +fate lies before me as well as I do. I looked at myself this morning, +as I was plaiting my hair before the glass--you know how seldom one +gets a turn at the glass in the blue room--and I saw a dark, ugly, +evil-minded-looking creature, whose face frightened me. I have been +getting wicked and ugly ever since I was a child. An aquiline nose and +black eyes will not make a woman a beauty; she wants happiness, and +hope, and love, and all manner of things that I have never known, +before she can be pretty." + +"I have seen a beautiful woman sweeping a crossing," said Charlotte +doubtfully. + +"Yes, but what sort of beauty was it?--a beauty that made you shudder. +Don't talk about these things, Charlotte; you only encourage me to be +bitter and discontented. I daresay I ought to be very happy, when I +remember that I have dinner every day, and shoes and stockings, and a +bed to lie down upon at night; and I am happier, now that I work for my +living, than I was in the old time, when my cousin was always grumbling +about her unpaid bills. But my life is very dreary and empty; and when +I look forward to the future, it seems like looking out upon some level +plain that leads nowhere, but across which I must tramp on for ever and +ever, until I drop down and die." + +It was something in this fashion that Miss Paget talked, as she sat in +the garden with Charlotte Halliday at the close of the half-year. She +was going to lose her faithful friend--the girl who, so much richer, +and happier, and more amiable than herself, had yet clung to her so +fondly; she was going to lose this tender companion, and she was more +sorry for the loss than she cared to express. + +"You must come and see us very often," Charlotte said for the hundredth +time; "mamma will be so glad to have you, for my sake; and my +stepfather never interferes with our arrangements. O, Di, how I wish +you would come and live with us altogether! Would you come, if I could +manage to arrange it?" + +"How could I come? What Quixotic nonsense you talk, Lotta!" + +"Not at all, dear; you could come as a sort of companion for me, or a +sort of companion for mamma. What does it matter how you come, if I can +only have you? My life will be so dreary in that dreadful new-looking +house, unless I have a companion I love. Will you come, Di?--only tell +me you will come! I am sure Mr. Sheldon would not refuse, if I asked +him to let you live with us. Will you come, dear?--yes or no. You would +be glad to come, if you loved me." + +"And I do love you, Lotta, with all my heart," answered Miss Paget, +with unusual fervour; "but then the whole of my heart is not much. As +to coming to live with you, of course it would be a hundred thousand +times pleasanter than the life I lead here; but it is not to be +supposed that Mr. Sheldon will consent to have a stranger in his house +just because his impulsive stepdaughter chooses to take a fancy to a +schoolfellow who isn't worthy of half her affection." + +"Let me be the judge of that. As to my stepfather, I am almost sure of +his consent. You don't know how indulgent he is to me; which shows what +a wicked creature I must be not to like him. You shall come to us, +Diana, and be my sister; and we will play and sing our pet duets +together, and be as happy as two birds in a cage, or a good deal +happier--for I never could quite understand the ecstatic delight of +perpetual hempseed and an occasional peck at a dirty lump of sugar." + +After this there came all the bustle of packing and preparation for +departure, and a kind of saturnalia prevailed at Hyde Lodge--a +saturnalia which terminated with the breaking-up ball: and who among +the crowd of fair young dancers so bright as Charlotte Halliday, +dressed in the schoolgirl's festal robes of cloud-like muslin, and with +her white throat set off by a black ribbon and a gold locket? + +Diana sat in a corner of the schoolroom towards the close of the +evening, very weary of her share in the festival, and watched her +friend, half in sadness, half in envy. + +"Perhaps if I were like her, _he_ would love me," she thought. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +GEORGE SHELDON'S PROSPECTS. + + +For George Sheldon the passing years had brought very little +improvement of fortune. He occupied his old dingy chambers in Gray's +Inn, which had grown more dingy under the hand of Time; and he was wont +to sit in his second-floor window on sultry summer Sundays, smoking his +solitary cigar, and listening to the cawing of the rooks in the gardens +beneath him, mingled with the voices of rebellious children, and shrill +mothers threatening to "do for them," or to "flay them alive," in +Somebody's Rents below. The lawyer used to be quite meditative on those +Sunday afternoons, and would wonder what sort of a fellow Lord Bacon +was, and how he contrived to get into a mess about taking bribes, when +so many other fellows had done it quietly enough before the Lord of +Verulam's day, and even yet more quietly since--agreeably instigated +thereto by the casuistry of Escobar. + +Mr. Sheldon's prospects were by no means promising. From afar off he +beheld his brother's star shining steadily in the commercial firmament; +but, except for an occasional dinner, he was very little the better for +the stockbroker's existence. He had reminded his brother very often, +and very persistently, of that vague promise which the dentist had made +in the hour of his adversity--the promise to help his brother if ever +he did "drop into a good thing." But as it is difficult to prevent a +man who is disposed to shuffle from shuffling out of the closest +agreement that was ever made between Jones of the one part, and Smith +of the other part, duly signed, and witnessed, and stamped with the +sixpenny seal of infallibility, so is it still more difficult to obtain +the performance of loosely-worded promises, uttered in the confidential +intercourse of kinsmen. + +In the first year of his married life Philip Sheldon gave his brother a +hundred pounds for the carrying out of some grand scheme which the +lawyer was then engaged in, and which, if successful, would secure for +him a much larger fortune than Georgy's thousands. Unhappily the grand +scheme was a failure; and the hundred pounds being gone, George applied +again to his brother, reminding him once more of that promise made in +Bloomsbury. But on this occasion Mr. Sheldon plainly told his kinsman +that he could do no more for him. + +"You must fight your own battle, George," he said, "as I have fought +mine." + +"Thank you, Philip," said the younger brother; "I would rather fight it +any other way." + +And then the two men looked at each other, as they were in the habit of +doing sometimes, with a singularly intent gaze. + +"You're very close-fisted with Tom Halliday's money," George said +presently. "If I'd asked poor old Tom himself, I'm sure he wouldn't +have refused to lend me two or three hundred." + +"Then it's a pity you didn't ask him," Mr. Sheldon answered, with +supreme coolness. + +"I should have done so fast enough, if I had thought he was going to +die so suddenly. It was a bad day for me, and for him too, when he came +to Fitzgeorge-street." + +"What do you mean by that?" asked Mr. Sheldon sharply. + +"You can pretty well guess my meaning, I should think," George answered +in a sulky tone. + +"No, I can't; and what's more, I don't mean to try. I'll tell you what +it is, Master George; you've been treating me to a good many hints and +innuendoes lately; and you must know very little of me if you don't +know that I'm the last kind of man to stand that sort of thing from +you, or from any one else. You have tried to take the tone of a man who +has some kind of hold upon another. You had better understand at once +that such a tone won't answer with me. If you had any hold upon me, or +any power over me, you'd be quick enough to use it; and you ought to be +aware that I know that, and can see to the bottom of such a shallow +little game as yours." + +Mr. Sheldon the younger looked at his brother with an expression of +surprise that was not entirely unmingled with admiration. + +"Well, you _are_ a cool hand, Phil!" he said. + +Here the conversation ended. The two brothers were very good friends +after this, and George presented himself at the gothic villa whenever +he received an invitation to dine there. The dinners were good, and the +men who ate them were men of solidity and standing in the commercial +world; and George was very glad to eat good dinners, and to meet +eligible men; but he never again asked his brother for the loan of odd +hundreds. + +He grubbed on, as best he might, in the dingy Gray's-Inn chambers. He +had a little business--business which lay chiefly amongst men who +wanted to borrow money, or whose halting footsteps required guidance +through the quagmire of the Bankruptcy Court. He just contrived to keep +his head above water, and his name in the Law-list, by means of such +business; but the great scheme of his life remained as yet unripened, +an undeveloped shadow to which he had in vain attempted to give a +substance. + +The leading idea of George Sheldon's life was the idea that there were +great fortunes in the world waiting for claimants; and that a share of +some such fortune was to be obtained by any man who had the talent to +dig it out of the obscurity in which it was hidden. He was a student of +old county histories, and a searcher of old newspapers; and his studies +in that line had made him familiar with many strange stories--stories +of field-labourers called away from the plough to be told they were the +rightful owners of forty thousand a year; stories of old white-haired +men starving to death in miserable garrets about Bethnal-green or +Spitalfields, who could have claimed lands and riches immeasurable, had +they known how to claim them; stories of half-crazy old women, who had +wandered about the world with reticules of discoloured papers +clamorously asserting their rights and wrongs unheeded and unbelieved, +until they encountered sharp-witted lawyers who took up their claims, +and carried them triumphantly into the ownership of illimitable wealth. + +George Sheldon had read of these things until it had seemed to him that +there must be some such chance for any man who would have patience to +watch and wait for it. He had taken up several cases, and had fitted +link after link together with extreme labour, and had hunted in parish +registers until the cold mouldy atmosphere of vestries was as familiar +to him as the air of Gray's Inn. But the cases had all broken down at +more or less advanced stages; and after infinite patience and trouble, +a good deal of money spent upon travelling and small fees to all manner +of small people, and an incalculable number of hours wasted in +listening to the rambling discourse of parish-clerks and oldest +inhabitants, Mr. Sheldon had been compelled to abandon his hopes time +after time, until a man with less firmly rooted ideas would have given +up the hunting of registers and grubbing up of genealogies as a +delusion and a snare. + +George Sheldon's ideas were very firmly rooted, and he stuck to them +with that dogged persistency which so often achieves great ends, that +it seems a kind of genius. He saw his brother's success, and +contemplated the grandeurs of the gothic villa in a cynical rather than +an envious spirit. How long would it all last? How long would the +stockbroker float triumphantly onward upon that wonderful tide which is +constituted by the rise and fall of the money-market? + +"That sort of thing is all very well while a man keeps his head cool +and clear," thought George; "but somehow or other men always seem to +lose their heads on the Stock Exchange before they have done with it, +and I daresay my wise brother will drop into a nice mess sooner or +later. Setting aside all other considerations, I think I would rather +have my chances than his; for I speculate very little more than my time +and trouble, and I stand in to win a bigger sum than he will ever get +in his line, let stocks rise and fall as they may." + +During that summer in which Miss Halliday bade farewell to Hyde Lodge +and her school-days, George Sheldon was occupied with the early steps +in a search which he hoped would end in the discovery of a prize rich +enough to reward him for all his wasted time and labour. + +Very early in the previous year there had appeared the following brief +notice in the _Observer_:-- + +"The Rev. John Haygarth, late vicar of Tilford Haven, Kent, died +lately, without a will, or relation to claim his property, 100,000 +pounds. The Crown therefore claimed it. And last court-day the +Prerogative Court of Canterbury decreed letters of Administration to +Mr. Paul, the nominee of the Crown." + +Some months after this an advertisement had been inserted in the +_Times_ newspaper to the following effect:-- + +"NEXT OF KIN.--If the relatives or next of kin of the Rev. John +Haygarth, late vicar of Tilford Haven, in the county of Kent, clerk, +deceased, who has left property of the value of one hundred thousand +pounds, will apply, either personally or by letter, to Stephen Paul, +Esq., solicitor for the affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury, at the +Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, London, they may hear of something to +their advantage. The late Rev. John Haygarth is supposed to have been +the son of Matthew Haygarth, late of the parish of St. Judith, +Ullerton, and Rebecca his wife, formerly Rebecca Caulfield, spinster, +late of the same parish; both long since deceased." + +Upon the strength of this advertisement George Sheldon began his +search. His theory was that there always existed an heir-at-law +somewhere, if people would only have the patience to hunt him or her +out; and he attributed his past failures rather to a want of endurance +on his own part than to the breaking down of his pet theory. + +On this occasion he began his work with more than usual determination. + +"This is the biggest chance I've ever had," he said to himself, "and I +should be something worse than a fool if I let it slip through my +fingers." + +The work was very dry and dreary, involving interminable hunting of +registers, and questioning of oldest inhabitants. And the oldest +inhabitants were so stupid, and the records of the registers so +bewildering. One after another Mr. Sheldon set himself to examine the +lines of the intestate's kindred and ancestors; his father's only +sister, his grandfather's brothers and sisters, and even to the +brothers and sisters of his great-grandfather. At that point the +Haygarth family melted away into the impenetrable darkness of the past. +They were no high and haughty race of soldiers and scholars, churchmen +and lawyers, or the tracing of them would have been a much easier +matter. Burke would have told of them. There would have been old +country houses filled with portraits, and garrulous old housekeepers +learned in the traditions of the past. There would have been mouldering +tombs and tarnished brasses in quiet country churches, with descriptive +epitaphs, and many escutcheons. There would have been crumbling +parchments recording the prowess of Sir Reginald, knight, or the +learning of Sir Rupert, counsellor and judge. The Haygarths were a race +of provincial tradesmen, and had left no better record of their +jog-trot journey through this world than the registry of births, +marriages, and deaths in obscure churches, or an occasional entry in +the fly-leaf of a family Bible. + +At present Mr. Sheldon was only at the beginning of his work. The +father and grandfather and uncle and great-uncles, the +great-grandfather and great-great-uncles, with all their progenies, lay +before him in a maze of entanglement which it would be his business to +unravel. And as he was obliged to keep his limited legal connection +together while he devoted himself to this task, the work promised to +extend over months, or indeed years; and in the meanwhile there was +always the fear that some one else, as quick-witted and indefatigable +as himself, would take up the same tangled skein and succeed in the +unravelment of it. Looking this fact full in the face, Mr. Sheldon +decided that he must have an able and reliable coadjutor; but to find +such a coadjutor, to find a man who would help him, on the chance of +success, and not claim too large a share of the prize if success came, +was more than the speculative attorney could hope. In the meantime his +work progressed very slowly; and he was tormented by perpetual terror +of that other sharp practitioner who might be following up the same +clue, and whose agents might watch him in and out of parish churches, +and listen at street-corners when he was hunting an oldest inhabitant. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +DIANA FINDS A NEW HOME. + + +The holidays at Hyde Lodge brought at least repose for Diana Paget. The +little ones had gone home, with the exception of two or three young +colonists, and even they had perpetual liberty from lessons; so Diana +had nothing to do but sit in the shady garden, reading or thinking, in +the drowsy summer afternoons. Priscilla Paget had departed with the +chief of the teachers for a seaside holiday; other governesses had gone +to their homes; and but for the presence of an elderly Frenchwoman, who +slept through one half of the day, and wrote letters to her kindred +during the other half, Diana would have been the only responsible +person in the deserted habitation. + +She did not complain of her loneliness, or envy the delights of those +who had departed. She was very glad to be quite alone, free to think +her own thoughts, free to brood over those unforgotten years in which +she had wandered over the face of the earth with her father and +Valentine Hawkehurst. The few elder girls remaining at the Lodge +thought Miss Paget unsociable because she preferred a lonely corner in +the gardens and some battered old book of namby-pamby stories to the +delights of their society, and criticised her very severely as they +walked listlessly to and fro upon the lawn with big garden-hats, and +arms entwined about each other's waists. + +Alas for Diana, the battered book was only an excuse for solitude, and +for a morbid indulgence in her own sad thoughts! She had lived the life +of unblemished respectability for a year, and looking back now at the +Bohemian wanderings, she regretted those days of humiliation and +misery, and sighed for the rare delights of that disreputable past! +Yes, she had revolted against the degraded existence; and now she was +sorry for having lost its uncertain pleasures, its fitful glimpses of +sunshine. Was that true which Valentine had said, that no man can eat +beef and mutton every day of his life; that it is better to be +unutterly miserable one day and uproariously happy the next, than to +tread one level path of dull content? Miss Paget began to think that +there had been some reason in her old comrade's philosophy; for she +found the level path very dreary. She let her thoughts wander whither +they would in this quiet holiday idleness, and they went back to the +years which she had spent with her father. She thought of winter +evenings in London when Valentine had taken her the round of the +theatres, and they had sat together in stifling upper boxes,--she +pleased, he critical, and with so much to say to each other in the +pauses of the performance. How kind he had been to her; how good, how +brotherly! And then the pleasant walk home, through crowded noisy +thoroughfares, and anon by long lines of quiet streets, in which they +used to look up at the lighted windows of houses where parties were +being given, and sometimes stop to listen to the music and watch the +figures of the dancers flitting across the blinds. She thought of the +journeys she had travelled with her father and Valentine by land and +sea; the lonely moonlight watches on the decks of steamers; the long +chill nights in railway-carriages under the feeble glimmer of an +oil-lamp, and how she and Valentine had beguiled the tedious hours with +wild purposeless talk while Captain Paget slept. She remembered the +strange cities which she and her father's _protégé_ had looked at side +by side; he with a calm listlessness of manner, which might either be +real or assumed, but which never varied; she with an inward tremor of +excitement and surprise. They had been very happy together, this lonely +unprotected girl and the reckless adventurer. If his manner to her had +been fitful, it had been sometimes dangerously, fatally kind. She +looked back now, and remembered the days which she had spent with him, +and knew that all the pleasures possible in a prosperous and successful +life could never bring for her such delight as she had known in the +midst of her wanderings; though shame and danger lurked at every +corner, and poverty, disguised in that tawdry masquerade habit in which +the swindler dresses it, accompanied her wherever she went. + +She had been happy with him because she had loved him. That close +companionship, sisterly and brotherly though it had seemed, had been +fatal for the lonely and friendless daughter of Horatio Paget. In her +desolation she had clung to the one creature who was kind to her, who +did not advertise his disdain for herself and her sex, or openly avow +that she was a nuisance and an encumbrance. Every slight put upon her +by her father had strengthened the chain that bound her to Valentine +Hawkehurst; and as the friendship between them grew closer day by day, +until all her thoughts and fancies took their colour from his, it +seemed a matter of course that he should love her, and she never +doubted his feelings or questioned her own. There had been much in his +conduct to justify her belief that she was beloved; so this +inexperienced, untutored girl may surely be forgiven if she rested her +faith in that fancied affection, and looked forward to some shadowy +future in which she and Valentine would be man and wife, all in all to +each other, free from the trammels of Captain Paget's elaborate +schemes, and living honestly, somehow or other, by means of literature, +or music, or pen-and-ink caricatures, or some of those liberal arts +which have always been dear to the children of Bohemia. They would have +lodgings in some street near the Thames, and go to a theatre or a +concert every evening, and spend long summer days in suburban parks or +on suburban commons, he lying on the grass smoking, she talking to him +or reading to him, as his fancy might dictate. Before her twentieth +birthday, the proudest woman is apt to regard the man she loves as a +grand and superior creature; and there had been a certain amount of +reverential awe mingled with Diana's regard for Mr. Hawkehurst, +scapegrace and adventurer though he was. + +Little by little that bright girlish dream had faded away. Fancy's +enchanted palace had been shattered into a heap of shapeless ruin by +those accidental scraps of hard worldly wisdom with which Valentine had +pelted the fairy fabric. He a man to love, or to marry for love! Why, +he talked like some hardened world-weary sinner who had done with every +human emotion. The girl shuddered as she heard him. She had loved him, +and believed in his love. She had fancied a tender meaning in the voice +which softened when it spoke to her, a pensive earnestness in the dark +eyes which looked at her; but just when the voice had seemed softest +and sweetest, the pensive eyes most eloquently earnest, the +adventurer's manner had changed all at once, and for ever. He had grown +hard, and cold, and indifferent. He had scarcely tried to conceal the +fact that the girl's companionship bored and wearied him. He had yawned +in her face, and had abandoned himself to moody abstraction when +accident obliged him to be alone with her. Miss Paget's pride had been +equal to the occasion. Mary Anne Kepp would have dissolved into tears +at the first unkind word from the lips of her beloved; but Mary Anne +Kepp's daughter, with the blood of the Cromie Pagets in her veins, was +quite a different person. She returned Mr. Hawkehurst's indifference +with corresponding disregard. If his manner was cold as a bleak autumn, +hers was icy as a severe winter; only now and then, when she was very +tired of her joyless existence, her untutored womanhood asserted +itself, and she betrayed the real state of her feelings--betrayed +herself as she had done on her last night at Forêtdechêne, when she and +Valentine had looked down at the lighted windows shining dimly through +the purple of the summer night. She looked back at the past now in the +quiet of the school-garden, and tried to remember how miserable she had +been, what agonies of despair she had suffered, how brief had been her +delights, how bitter her disappointments. She tried to remember what +tortures she had suffered from that wasted passion, that useless +devotion. She tried to rejoice in the consciousness of the peace and +respectability of her present life; but she could not. That passionate +yearning for the past possessed her so strongly. She could remember +nothing except that she had been with him. She had seen his face, she +had heard his voice; and now how long and weary the time might be +before she could again see that one beloved face or hear the dear +familiar voice! The brightest hope she had in these midsummer holidays +was the hope of a letter from him; and even that might be the prelude +of disappointment. She wrestled with herself, and tried to exorcise +those ghosts of memory which haunted her by day and wove themselves +into her dreams by night; but they were not to be laid at rest. She +hated her folly; but her folly was stronger than herself. + +For three weeks Diana Paget had no companions but her sorrowful +memories--her haunting shadows; but at the end of that time the +stagnant mill-pond of her life was suddenly ruffled--the dull course of +existence was disturbed by the arrival of two letters. She found them +lying by her plate upon the breakfast-table one bright July morning; +and while she was yet far away from the table she could see that one of +the envelopes bore a foreign stamp, and was directed by the hand of +Valentine Hawkehurst. She seated herself at the table in a delicious +flutter of emotion, and tore open that foreign envelope, while the +French governess poured out the tea, and while the little group of +schoolgirls nudged one another and watched her eager face with insolent +curiosity. + +The first letter contained only a few lines. + +"MY DEAR DIANA," wrote the young man, "your father has decided on +returning to London, where I believe he really intends to make a +respectable start, if he can only get the opening and the help he +wants. I know you will be glad to hear this. I don't exactly say where +we shall take up our quarters; but the Captain will of course come to +see you; and if I can chasten my outward semblance sufficiently to +venture within the sacred precincts of a lady's school, I shall come +with him. Direct to the old address, if you write before the end of the +month, and believe me, as always, your friend." "VALENTINE." + +The second letter was in Charlotte Halliday's big bold hand, and was +frank, impetuous, and loving as the girl herself. + +"MY OWN DEAREST DI,--It is all arranged," wrote Miss Halliday, dashing +at once into the heart of the subject. "I talked mamma over the very +first day after my return, and then there was nothing more to be done +than to talk over Mr. Sheldon. Of course there was just a little +difficulty in that, for he is so awfully practical; and he wanted to +know why I wanted a companion, and what _use_ you would be in the +house; as if the very last thing one required in a companion was +companionship. I'm almost afraid to tell you the iniquitous fables I +invented about your extreme usefulness; your genius for millinery, and +the mints of money you would save by making up mamma's flimsy little +caps; your taste for dress-making, &c. &c. &c. You _are_ the cleverest +creature in the world, you know, Di; for you must remember how you +altered that green silk dress for me when Miss Person had made me a +square-shouldered fright. So, after a great deal of humming, and haing, +and argufication--_is_ there such a word as 'argufication,' I +wonder?--my stepfather said that if my heart was set upon having you, +and if I thought you would be useful, you might come to us; but that he +could not afford to give you any salary, and that if you wanted a new +dress now and then, I must buy it for you out of my own allowance; and +I will, darling, if you will only come and be my friend and sister. My +life is dreadfully dull without you. I walk up and down the stiff +little gravel paths, and stare at the geraniums and calceolarias. +Mariana might have been dreary in her moated grange; but I daresay the +Lincolnshire flowers grew wild and free, and she was spared the +abomination of gaudy little patches of red and yellow, and waving +ribbons of blue and white, which constitute the glory of modern +gardening. Do come to me, dear. I have no one to talk to, and nothing +to do. Mamma is a dear good affectionate soul; but she and I don't +understand each other. I don't care for her twittering little birds, +and she doesn't care for my whims and fancies. I have read novels until +I am tired. I am not allowed to go out by myself, and mamma can +scarcely walk to Kensington-gardens without sinking under the exertion. +We drive out sometimes; but I am sick to death of crawling slowly up +and down by the Serpentine staring at people's bonnets. I might enjoy +it, perhaps, if I had you with me to make fun out of some of the +bonnets. The house is very comfortable; but it always seems to me +unpleasantly like some philanthropic institution in miniature. I long +to scratch the walls, or break the windows; and I begin to understand +the feelings of those unhappy paupers who tear up their clothes: they +get utterly tired of their stagnation, you see, and must do something +wicked and rebellious rather than do nothing at all. You will take pity +upon my forlorn state, won't you, Di? I shall come to Hyde Lodge +to-morrow afternoon with mamma, to hear your ulti--what's its +name?--and in the meanwhile, and for ever afterwards, believe me to be +your devoted and unchanging LOTTA." + +Diana Paget's eyes grew dim as she read this letter. + +"I love her very dearly," she thought, "but not one hundred-fold as +much as I ought to love her." + +And then she went back to Mr. Hawkehurst's epistle, and read and +re-read its half-dozen lines, wondering when he would come to London, +and whether she would see him when he came. To see him again! The +thought of that possibility seemed like a spot of vivid light, which +dazzled her eyes and made them blind to anything around or beyond it. +As for this offer of a strange home in the household of Mr. Sheldon, it +seemed to her a matter of so very little importance where she went or +what became of her, that she was quite willing to let other people +decide her existence. Anything would be better than the monotony of +Hyde Lodge. If Valentine Hawkehurst came to see her at Mr. Sheldon's +house, he would be permitted to see her alone, most likely, and it +would be something like the old times; whereas at the Lodge Priscilla +Paget or one of the governesses would undoubtedly be present at any +interview between Diana and her old friend, and the real Valentine +would be hidden under the semblance of a respectable young man, with +very little to say for himself. Perhaps this one thought exercised +considerable influence over Miss Paget's decision. She wanted so much +to see Valentine alone, to know whether he had changed, to see his face +at the first moment of meeting, and to discover, if possible, the +solution of that enigma which was the grand mystery of her life--that +one perpetual question which was always repeating itself in her +brain--whether he was altogether cold and indifferent, or if there was +not some hidden warmth, some secret tenderness beneath that repelling +outward seeming. + +In the afternoon Miss Halliday called with Mrs. Sheldon, and there was +a long discussion about Diana Paget's future life. Georgy abandoned +herself as unhesitatingly to the influence of her daughter as she did +to that of her husband, and had been brought to think that it would be +the most delightful thing in the world to have Miss Paget for a useful +companion. + +"And will you really make my caps, dear?" she said, when she had grown +at her ease with Diana. "Miss Terly in the Bayswater-road charges me so +much for the simplest little lace head-dress; and though Mr. Sheldon is +very good about those sort of things, I know he sometimes thinks my +bills rather high." + +Diana was very indifferent about her future, and the heart must have +been very hard which could have resisted Charlotte's tender pleading; +so it was ultimately decided that Miss Paget should write to her +kinswoman to describe the offer that had been made to her of a new +home, and to inquire if her services could be conveniently dispensed +with at Hyde Lodge. After which decision Charlotte embraced her friend +with enthusiasm, and departed, bearing off Mrs. Sheldon to the carriage +which awaited them at the gates of Priscilla Paget's umbrageous domain. + +Diana sighed as she went back to the empty schoolroom. Even Charlotte's +affection could not altogether take the sting out of dependence. To go +into a strange house amongst strange people, and to hold a place in it +only on the condition of being perpetually useful and unfailingly +good-tempered and agreeable, is scarcely the pleasantest prospect which +this world can offer to a proud and beautiful woman. Diana remembered +her bright vision of Bohemianism in a lodging near the Strand. It would +be very delightful to ride on sufferance in Mrs. Sheldon's carriage, no +doubt; but O, how much pleasanter it would have been to sit by +Valentine Hawkehurst in a hansom cab spinning along the road to +Greenwich or Richmond! + +She had promised to despatch her letter to Priscilla by that +afternoon's post, and she kept her promise. The reply came by return of +post, and was very kind. Priscilla advised her by all means to accept +Miss Halliday's offer, which would give her a much better position than +that which she occupied at Hyde Lodge. She would have time to improve +herself, no doubt, Priscilla said, and might be able to hope for +something still better in the course of two or three years; "for you +must look the world straight in the face, Diana," wrote the +schoolmistress, "as I did before I was your age; and make up your mind +to rely upon your own exertions, since you know what your father is, +and how little you have to hope for from him. As you are to have no +salary with the Sheldons, and will no doubt be expected to make a good +appearance, I shall do what I can to help you with your wardrobe." + +This letter decided the fate of Captain Paget's daughter. A week after +Miss Halliday's visit to Hyde Lodge a hack cab carried Diana and all +her earthly possessions to the Lawn, where Charlotte received her with +open arms, and where she was inducted into a neatly furnished +bedchamber adjoining that of her friend. Mr. Sheldon scrutinised her +keenly from under the shadow of his thick black brows when he came home +to dinner. He treated her with a stiff kind of politeness during the +orderly progress of the meal; and once, when he looked at her, he was +surprised to find that she was contemplating him with an expression of +mingled wonder and reverence. + +He was the first eminently respectable man whom Miss Paget had ever +encountered in familiar intercourse, and she was regarding him +attentively, as an individual with scientific tastes might regard some +natural curiosity. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +AT THE LAWN. + + +Life at the Lawn went by very smoothly for Mr. Sheldon's family. Georgy +was very happy in the society of a companion who seemed really to have +a natural taste for the manufacture of pretty little head-dresses from +the merest fragments of material in the way of lace and ribbon. Diana +had all that versatile cleverness and capacity for expedients which is +likely to be acquired in a wandering and troubled life. She had learned +more in her three years of discomfort with her father than in all the +undeviating course of the Hyde-Lodge studies; she had improved her +French at one _table d'hôte_, her German at another; she had caught +some new trick of style in every concert-room, some fresh combination +of costume on every racecourse; and, being really grateful for +Charlotte's disinterested affection, she brought all her +accomplishments to bear to please her friend and her friend's household. + +In this she succeeded admirably. Mrs. Sheldon found her daughter's +society much more delightful now that the whole pressure of Charlotte's +intellect and vitality no longer fell entirely upon herself. She liked +to sit lazily in her arm-chair while the two girls chattered at their +work, and she could venture an occasional remark, and fancy that she +had a full share in the conversation. When the summer weather rendered +walking a martyrdom and driving an affliction, she could recline on her +favourite sofa reading a novel, soothed by the feeble twittering of her +birds; while Charlotte and Diana went out together, protected by the +smart boy in buttons, who was not altogether without human failings, +and was apt to linger behind his fair charges, reading the boards +before the doors of newsvendors' shops, or looking at the cartoons in +_Punch_ exhibited in the stationers' windows. + +Mr. Sheldon made a point of pleasing his stepdaughter whenever it was +possible for him to do so without palpable inconvenience to himself; +and as she was to be gratified by so small a pecuniary sacrifice as the +trifling increase of tradesmen's bills caused by Miss Paget's residence +in the gothic villa, he was the last man in the world to refuse her +that indulgence. His own pursuits were of so absorbing a nature as to +leave little leisure for concern about other people's business. He +asked no questions about his stepdaughter's companion; but he was not +the less surprised to see this beautiful high-bred woman content to sit +at his board as an unsalaried dependent. + +"Your friend Miss Paget looks like a countess," he said one day to +Charlotte. "I thought girls generally pitched upon some plain homely +young woman for their pet companion, but you seem to have chosen the +handsomest girl in the school." + +"Yes, she is very handsome, is she not? I wish some of your rich City +men would marry her, papa." + +Miss Halliday consented to call her mother's husband "papa," though the +caressing name seemed in a manner to stick in her throat. She had loved +that blustrous good-tempered Tom Halliday so very dearly, and it was +only to please poor Georgy that she brought herself to address any +other man by the name that had been his. + +"My City men have something better to do than to marry a young woman +without a sixpence," answered Mr. Sheldon. "Why don't you try to catch +one of them for yourself?" + +"I don't like City men," said Charlotte quickly; and then she blushed, +and added apologetically, "at least not the generality of City men, +papa." + +Diana had waited until her destiny was settled before answering +Valentine Hawkehurst's letter; but she wrote to him directly she was +established at the Lawn, and told him the change in her plans. + +"I think papa had better let me come to see him at his lodgings," she +said, "wherever they may be; for I should scarcely care about Mr. +Sheldon seeing him. No one here knows anything definite about my +history; and as it is just possible Mr. Sheldon may have encountered my +father somehow or other, it would be as well for him to keep clear of +this house. I could not venture to say this to papa myself, but perhaps +you could suggest it without offending him. You see I have grown very +worldly-wise, and am learning to protect my own interests in the spirit +which you have so instilled into me. I don't know whether that sort of +spirit is likely to secure one's happiness, but I have no doubt it is +the wisest and best for this world." + +Miss Paget could not refrain from an occasional sneer when she wrote to +her old companion. He never returned her sneers, or noticed them. His +letters were always frank, friendly, and brotherly in tone. + +"Neither my good opinion nor my bad opinion is of any consequence to +him," Diana thought bitterly. It was late in August when Captain Paget +and his _protégé_ came to town. Valentine suggested the wisdom of +leaving Diana in her new home uncompromised by any past associations. +But this was a suggestion which Horatio Paget could not accept. His +brightest successes in the way of scheming had been matured out of +chance acquaintanceships with eligible men. A man who could afford such +a luxury as a companion for his daughter must needs be eligible, and +the Captain was not inclined to sacrifice his acquaintance from any +extreme delicacy. + +"My daughter seems to have made new friends for herself, and I should +like to see what kind of people they are," he said conclusively. "We'll +look them up this evening, Val." + +Mr. George Sheldon dined at the Lawn on the day on which Horatio Paget +determined on "looking up" his daughter's new friends, and he and the +two girls were strolling in the garden when the Captain and Mr. +Hawkehurst were announced. They had been told that Miss Paget was in +the garden. + +"Be good enough to take me straight to her," said the Captain to the +boy in buttons; "I am her father." + +Horatio Paget was too old a tactician not to know that by an +unceremonious plunge into the family circle he was more likely to +secure an easy footing in the household than by any direct approach of +the master. He had seen the little group in the garden, and had +mistaken George for the head of the house. + +Diana turned from pale to red, and from red to pale again, as she +recognised the two men. There had been no announcement of their coming. +She did not even know that they were in England. + +"Papa!" she cried, and then held out her hand and greeted him; coldly +enough, as it seemed to Charlotte, who fancied that any kind of _real_ +father must be very dear. + +But Captain Paget was not to be satisfied by that cold greeting. It +suited his purpose to be especially paternal on this occasion. He drew +his daughter to his breast, and embraced her affectionately, very much +to that young lady's surprise. + +Then, having abandoned himself entirely for the moment to this tender +impulse of paternity, he suddenly put his daughter aside, as if he had +all at once remembered his duty to society, drew himself up stiffly, +and saluted Miss Halliday and George Sheldon with uncovered head. + +"Mr. Sheldon, I believe?" he murmured. + +"George Sheldon," answered that gentleman; "my brother Philip is in the +drawing-room yonder, looking at us." + +Philip Sheldon came out into the garden as George said this, It was one +of those sultry evenings on which the most delightful of gothic villas +is apt to be too stifling for endurance; and in most of the prim +suburban gardens there were people lounging listlessly among the +flower-beds. Mr. Sheldon came to look at this patrician stranger who +had just embraced his daughter's companion; whereupon Captain Paget +introduced himself and his friend Mr. Hawkehurst. After the +introduction Mr. Sheldon and the Captain fell into an easy +conversation, while the two girls walked slowly along the gravel +pathway with Valentine by their side, and while George loitered +drearily along, chewing the stalk of a geranium, and pondering the +obscure reminiscences of the last oldest inhabitant whose shadowy +memories he had evoked in his search after new links in the chain of +the Haygarths. + +The two girls walked in the familiar schoolgirl fashion of Hyde Lodge, +Charlotte's arm encircling the waist of her friend. They were both +dressed in white muslin, and looked very shadowy and sylph-like in the +summer dusk. Mr. Hawkehurst found himself in a new atmosphere in this +suburban garden, with these two white-robed damsels by his side; for it +seemed to him that Diana with Charlotte's arm round her waist, and a +certain shy gentleness of manner which was new to him, was quite a +different person from that Miss Paget whose wan face had looked at him +so anxiously in the saloons of the Belgian Kursaal. + +At first there was considerable restraint in the tone of the +conversation, and some little of that unnecessary discussion as to +whether this evening was warmer than the preceding evening, or whether +it was not, indeed, the warmest evening of all that summer. And then, +when the ice was broken, Mr. Hawkehurst began to talk at his ease about +Paris, which city Miss Halliday had never seen; about the last book, +the last play, the last folly, the last fashionable bonnet; for it was +one of the special attributes of this young Robert Macaire to be able +to talk about anything, and to adapt himself to any society. Charlotte +opened her eyes to their widest extent as she listened to this animated +stranger. She had been so wearied by the dry as dust arguments of City +men who had discussed the schemes of great contractors, "which will +never be carried out, sir, while money is at its present rate, mark my +words,"--or the chances of a company "which is eaten up by +debenture-bonds and preference-shares, sir, and will never pay its +original proprietors one sixpence of interest on their capital," with a +great deal more of the same character; and it was quite new to her to +hear about novels, theatres, and bonnets from masculine lips, and to +find that there were men living who could interest themselves in such +frivolities. Charlotte was delighted with Diana's friend. It was she +who encouraged Valentine every now and then by some exclamation of +surprise or expression of interest, while Miss Paget herself was +thoughtful and silent. + +It was not thus that she had hoped to meet Valentine Hawkehurst. She +stole a look at him now and then as he walked by her side. Yes, it was +the old face--the face which would have been so handsome if there had +been warmth and life in it, instead of that cold listlessness which +repelled all sympathy, and seemed to constitute a kind of mask behind +which the real man hid himself. + +Diana looked at him, and remembered her parting from him in the chill +gray morning on the platform at Forêtdechêne. He had let her go out +alone into the dreary world to encounter what fate she might, without +any more appearance of anxiety than he might have exhibited had she +been starting for a summer-day's holiday; and now, after a year of +separation, he met her with the same air of unconcern, and could +discourse conventional small talk to another woman while she walked by +his side. + +While Mr. Hawkehurst was talking to Mr. Sheldon's stepdaughter, Captain +Paget had contrived to make himself very agreeable to that gentleman +himself. Lord Lytton has said that "there is something strange and +almost mesmerical in the _rapport_ between two evil natures. Bring two +honest men together, and it is ten to one if they recognise each other +as honest; differences in temper, manner, even politics, may make each +misjudge the other. But bring together two men unprincipled and +perverted--men who, if born in a cellar, would have been food for the +hulks or gallows--and they understand each other by instant sympathy." +However this might be with these two men, they had speedily become upon +very easy terms with each other. Mr. Sheldon's plans for the making of +money were very complicated in their nature, and he had frequent need +of clever instruments to assist in the carrying out of his +arrangements. Horatio Paget was the exact type of man most likely to be +useful to such a speculator as Philip Sheldon. He was the very ideal of +the "Promoter," the well-dressed, well-mannered gentleman, beneath +whose magic wand new companies arise as if by magic; the man who, +without a sixpence in his own pocket, can set a small Pactolus flowing +from the pockets of other people; the man who, content himself to live +in a humble second floor at Chelsea, can point to gigantic hotels which +are as the palaces of a new Brobdignag, and say, "Lo, these arose at my +bidding!" Mr. Sheldon was always on the alert to discover anything or +anybody likely to serve his own interest, either in the present or the +future; and he came to the conclusion that Miss Paget's father was a +person upon whom an occasional dinner might not be altogether thrown +away. + +"Take a chop with us to-morrow at six," he said, on parting from the +Captain, "and then you can hear the two girls play and sing. They play +remarkably well, I believe, from what other people tell me; but I am +not a musical man myself." + +Horatio Paget accepted the invitation as cordially as it was given. It +is astonishing how genial and friendly these men of the world can be at +the slightest imaginable notice. One can fancy the striped tigers of +Bengal shaking paws in the jungle, the vultures hob-nobbing in a +mountain cleft over the torn carcass of a stag, the kites putting their +beaks together after dining on a nest of innocent doves. + +"Then we shall expect to see you at sharp six," said Mr. Sheldon, "and +your friend Mr. Hawkehurst with you, of course." + +After this the two gentlemen departed. Valentine shook hands with +Diana, and took a more ceremonious leave of Charlotte. George Sheldon +threw away his chewed geranium-stalk in order to bid good evening to +the visitors; and the little party walked to the garden-gate together. + +"That Sheldon seems a very clever fellow," said Captain Paget, as he +and Valentine walked towards the Park, which they had to cross on their +way to Chelsea, where the Captain had secured a convenient lodging. "I +wonder whether he is any relation to the Sheldon who is in with a low +set of money-lenders?" + +"What, the Sheldon of Gray's Inn?" exclaimed Mr. Hawkehurst. "We can +easily find that out." + + * * * * * + +Horatio Paget and Valentine Hawkehurst were frequent visitors at the +Lawn after that first evening. Mr. Sheldon found the Captain useful to +him in the carrying out of certain business arrangements on more than +one occasion, and the relations between the respectable stockbroker and +the disreputable adventurer assumed a very friendly character. Diana +wondered to see so spotless a citizen as Philip Sheldon hand-and-glove +with her father. Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte were delighted with the +Captain and his _protégé_; these two penniless Bohemians were so much +more agreeable to the feminine mind than the City men who were wont to +sit in the dining-room slowly imbibing Mr. Sheldon's old port in the +long summer evenings, while their wives endured the abomination of +desolation with Georgy and Charlotte in the drawing-room. Captain Paget +paid Mrs. Sheldon flowery compliments, and told her delightful stories +of the aristocracy and all that shining West-end world with which he +had once been familiar. Poor simple Georgy regarded him with that +reverential awe which a middle-class country-bred woman is prone to +feel for a man who bears upon him that ineffaceable stamp of high birth +and good breeding, not to be destroyed by half a century of +degradation. Nor could Charlotte withhold her admiration from the man +whose tone was so infinitely superior to that of all the other men she +had encountered. In his darkest hour Captain Paget had found his best +friends, or his easiest dupes, among women. It had gone hard with him +when his dear friend had withheld the temporary accommodation of a +five-pound note; but it had been much harder when his friend's wife had +refused the loan of "a little silver." + +Valentine Hawkehurst came very often to the Lawn, sometimes with his +friend and patron, sometimes alone. He brought the young ladies small +offerings in the way of a popular French novel adapted for feminine +perusal, or an occasional box for some theatre which had fallen upon +evil days, and was liberal in the circulation of "paper." He met the +two girls sometimes in their morning walks in Kensington-gardens, and +walked with them in the leafy avenues, and only left them at the gate +by which they departed. So much of his life was a listless waiting for +the arising of new chances, that he had ample time to waste in feminine +society, and he seemed very well inclined to loiter away the leisure +hours of existence in the companionship of Diana and her friend. + +And was Miss Paget glad of his coming, and pleased to be in his +company? Alas, no! The time had been, and only within a few months, +when she had sickened for the sight of his familiar face, and fancied +that the most exquisite happiness life could afford her would be to see +him once more, anywhere, under any circumstances. She saw him now +almost daily, and she was miserable. She saw him; but another woman had +come between her and the man she loved: and now, if his voice took a +softer tone, or if his eyes assumed a tender earnestness of expression, +it might be Charlotte's influence which wrought the transformation. Who +could say that it was not on Charlotte's account he came so often, and +lingered so long? Diana looked at him sometimes with haggard angry +eyes, which saw that it was Miss Halliday who absorbed his attention. +It was Charlotte--Charlotte, who was so bright and happy a creature +that the coldest heart must needs have been moved and melted by her +fascination. What was the cold patrician beauty of Miss Paget's face +when compared with the changeful charm of this radiant girl, with the +flashing gray eyes and piquant features, and all those artless caprices +of manner which made her arch loveliness irresistible? Diana's heart +grew sick and cold as she watched these two day by day, and saw the +innocent school-girl's ascendancy over the adventurer. The attributes +which made Charlotte charming were just those very attributes which +Valentine Hawkehurst had been least accustomed to discover in the +womankind he had hitherto encountered. He had seen beautiful women, +elegant and fascinating women, without number; but this frank girlish +nature, this happy childlike disposition, was entirely new to him. How +should he have met bright childlike creatures in the pathways which he +had trodden? For the first time in his life a fresh young heart +revealed its treasures of purity and tenderness before his world-weary +eyes, and his own heart was melted by the new influence. He had admired +Diana; he had been touched by her girlish fancy for him, and had loved +her as well as he had believed himself capable of loving any woman. But +when Prudence and Honour counselled him to stifle and crush his growing +affection for the beautiful companion of his wanderings, the struggle +had involved no agony of regret or despair. He had told himself that no +good could ever come of his love for Captain Paget's daughter, and he +had put aside that love before it had taken any vital root in his +heart. He had been very strong and resolute in this matter--resisting +looks of sad surprise which would have melted a softer nature. And he +had been proud of his own firmness. "Better for her, and better for +me," he had said to himself: "let her outlive her foolish schoolgirl +fancies, and wait patiently till her beauty wins her a rich husband. As +for me, I must marry some prosperous tradesman's widow, if I ever marry +at all." + +The influence of the world in which his life had been spent had +degraded Valentine Hawkehurst, and had done much to harden him; and yet +he was not altogether hard. He discovered his own weakness very soon +after the beginning of his acquaintance with Mr. Sheldon's +stepdaughter. He knew very well that if he had been no fitting lover +for Diana Paget, he was still less a fitting lover for Charlotte +Halliday. He knew that although it might suit Mr. Sheldon's purpose to +make use of the Captain and himself as handy instruments for the +accomplishment of somewhat dirty work, he would be the very last man to +accept one of those useful instruments as a husband for his +stepdaughter. He knew all this; and knew that, apart from all worldly +considerations, there was an impassable gulf between himself and +Charlotte. What could there be in common between the unprincipled +companion of Horatio Paget and this innocent girl, whose darkest sin +had been a neglected lesson or an ill-written exercise? If he could +have given her a home and a position, an untarnished name and +respectable associations, he would even yet have been unworthy of her +affection, unable to assure her happiness. + +"I am a scoundrel and an adventurer," he said to himself, in his most +contemptuous spirit. "If some benevolent fairy were to give me the +brightest home that was ever created for man, and Charlotte for my +wife, I daresay I should grow tired of my happiness in a week or two, +and go out some night to look for a place where I could play billiards +and drink beer. Is there any woman upon this earth who could render my +existence supportable _without_ billiards and beer?" + +Knowing himself much better than the Grecian philosopher seemed to +think it possible for human nature to know itself, Mr. Hawkehurst +decided that it was his bounden duty, both for his own sake and that of +the young lady in question, to keep clear of the house in which Miss +Halliday lived, and the avenue in which she was wont to walk. He told +himself this a dozen times a day, and yet he made his appearance at the +Lawn whenever he had the poorest shadow of an excuse for going there; +and it seemed as if the whole business of his life lay at the two ends +of Charlotte's favourite avenue, so often did he find himself called +upon to perambulate that especial thoroughfare. He knew that he was +weak and foolish and dishonourable; he knew that he was sowing the +dragon's teeth from which were to spring up armed demons that would +rend and tear him. But Charlotte's eyes were unspeakably bright and +bewitching, and Charlotte's voice was very sweet and tender. A +thrilling consciousness that he was not altogether an indifferent +person in Charlotte's consideration had possessed him of late when he +found himself in that young lady's society, and a happiness which had +hitherto been strange to him gave a new zest to his purposeless life. + +He still affected the old indifference of manner, the idle listless +tone of a being who has finished with all the joys and sorrows, +affections and aspirations, of the world in which he lives. But the +pretence had of late become a very shallow one. In Charlotte's presence +he was eager and interested in spite of himself--childishly eager about +the veriest trifles which interested her. Love had taken up the glass +of Time; and the days and hours were reckoned by a new standard; +everything in the world had suffered some wondrous change, which +Valentine Hawkehurst tried in vain to understand. The very earth upon +which he walked had undergone some mystic process of transformation; +the very streets of London were new to him. He had known +Kensington-gardens from his boyhood; but not those enchanted avenues of +beech and elm in which he walked with Charlotte. In the plainest and +most commonplace phraseology, Mr. Hawkehurst had fallen in love. This +penniless adventurer, who at eight-and-twenty years of age was steeped +to the lips in the worst experiences of a very indifferent world, found +himself all at once hanging upon the words and living upon the looks of +an ignorant schoolgirl. + +The discovery that he was capable of this tender weakness had an almost +overwhelming effect upon Mr. Hawkehurst. He was ashamed of this touch +of humanity, this foolish affection which had awakened all that was +purest and best in a nature that had been so long abandoned to +degrading influences. For some time he fought resolutely against that +which he considered his folly; but the training which had made him the +master of many a perplexing position had not given him the mastery over +his own inclinations; and when he found that Charlotte's society had +become the grand necessity of his life, he abandoned himself to his +fate without further resistance. He let himself drift with the tide +that was so much stronger than himself; and if there were breakers +ahead, or fatal rocks lurking invisible beneath the blue waters, he +must take his chance. His frail bark must go to pieces when her time +came. In the meanwhile it was so delicious to float upon the summer +sea, that a man could afford to forget future possibilities in the way +of rocks and quicksands. + +Miss Paget had known very few pleasures in the course of her +uncared-for youth; but she hitherto had experienced no such anguish as +that which she had now to endure in her daily intercourse with +Valentine and Charlotte. She underwent her martyrdom bravely, and no +prying eye discovered the sufferings which her proud nature supported +in silence. "Who takes any heed of my feelings, or cares whether I am +glad or sorry?" she thought; "_he_ does not." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN. + + +The sand which ran so swiftly in the glass which that bright young +urchin Love had wrested from the hand of grim old Time ran with an +almost equal swiftness in the hour-glasses of lodging-house keepers and +tradespeople, and the necessities of every day demanded perpetual +exertion on the part of Mr. Hawkehurst, let Charlotte's eyes be never +so bright, and Charlotte's society never so dear. For Captain Paget and +his _protégé_ there was no such thing as rest; and the ingenious +Captain took care that the greater part of the labour should be +performed by Valentine, while the lion's share of the spoil was pounced +upon by the ready paw of the noble Horatio. Just now he found his pupil +unusually plastic, unusually careless of his own interests, and ready +to serve his master with agreeable blindness. Since that awkward little +affair at Forêtdechêne, that tiresome entanglement about a King of +Spades which had put in an appearance at a moment when no such monarch +was to be expected, Captain Paget had obtained the means of existence +in a manner which was almost respectable, if not altogether honest; for +it is not to be supposed that honesty and respectability are by any +means synonymous terms. It was only by the exercise of superhuman +address that the Captain had extricated himself from that perplexing +predicament at the Belgian watering-place; and it may be that the +unpleasant experiences of that particular evening were not without a +salutary effect upon the adventurer's future plans. + +"It was touch-and-go work, Val," he said to his companion; "and if I +hadn't carried matters with a high hand, and sprung my position as an +officer in the English service upon those French ruffians, I don't know +where it would have ended." + +"It might have come to a metallic ornamentation of the ankle, and some +amiable 444, who has murdered his grandmother with a red-hot poker and +extenuating circumstances, for your companion," murmured Valentine. "I +wouldn't try it on with that supererogatory king again on this side of +the Channel, if I were you." + +The Captain bestowed a freezing look on his flippant _protégé_ and then +commenced a very grave discussion of future ways and means, which ended +in an immediate departure for Paris, where the two men entered upon an +unpretentious career in the commercial line as agents and travellers +for the patentees of an improved kind of gutta percha, which material +was supposed to be applicable to every imaginable purpose, from the +sole of an infant's boot to the roof of a cathedral. There are times +when genius must stoop to pick up its daily pittance; and for twelve +months the elegant Horatio Paget was content to devote his best +energies to the perpetual praise of the Incorrodible and Indestructible +and Incombustible India-rubber, in consideration of a very modest +percentage on his commercial transactions in that material. To exert +the persuasive eloquence of a Burke or a Thurlow in order to induce a +man to roof his new warehouses with a fabric which you are aware will +be torn into ribbons by the first run of stormy weather, for the sake +of obtaining two-and-a-half per cent on his investment, may not be in +accordance with the honourable notions of a Bayard, and yet in a +commercial sense may be strictly correct. It was only when Captain +Paget had made a comfortable little purse out of his percentage upon +the Incorrodible and Incombustible that he discovered the extreme +degradation of his position as agent and traveller. He determined on +returning to the land of his birth. Joint-stock companies were +beginning to multiply in the commercial world at this period; and +wherever there are many schemes for the investment of public capital +there is room for such a man as Horatio Paget--a man who, with the aid +of a hired brougham, can inspire confidence in the breast of the least +daring speculator. + +The Captain came, accompanied as usual by that plastic tool and +subaltern, Valentine Hawkehurst, who, being afflicted with a chronic +weariness of everything in life, was always eager to abandon any +present pursuit in favour of the vaguest contingency, and to shake off +the dust of any given locality from his vagabond feet. Captain Paget +and his _protégé_ came to London, where a fortunate combination of +circumstances threw them in the way of Mr. Sheldon. + +The alliance which arose between that gentleman and the Captain opened +a fair prospect for the latter. Mr. Sheldon was interested in the +formation of a certain joint-stock company, but had his own reasons for +not wishing to be identified with it. A stalking-horse is by no means a +difficult kind of animal to procure in the cattle-fairs of London; but +a stalking-horse whose paces are sufficiently showy and imposing--a +high-stepper, of thoroughbred appearance, and a mouth sensitively alive +to the lightest touch of the curb, easy to ride or drive, warranted +neither a kicker nor a bolter--is a quadruped of rare excellence, not +to be met with every day. Just such a stalking-horse was Captain Paget; +and Mr. Sheldon lost no time in putting him into action. It is scarcely +necessary to say that the stockbroker trusted his new acquaintance only +so far as it was absolutely necessary to trust him; or that the Captain +and the stockbroker thoroughly understood each other without affecting +to do so. For Horatio Paget the sun of prosperity arose in unaccustomed +splendour. He was able to pay for his lodgings, and was an eminently +respectable person in the eyes of his landlord. He enjoyed the daily +use of a neatly-appointed brougham, in which only the most practised +eye could discover the taint of the livery stable. He dined sumptuously +at fashionable restaurants, and wore the freshest of lavender gloves, +the most delicate of waxen heath-blossoms or creamy-tinted exotics in +the button-hole of his faultless coat. + +While the chief flourished, the subaltern was comparatively idle. The +patrician appearance and manners of the Captain were a perennial source +of profit to that gentleman; but Valentine Hawkehurst had not a +patrician appearance; and the work which Mr. Sheldon found for him was +of a more uncertain and less profitable character than that which fell +to the share of the elegant Horatio. But Valentine was content. He +shared the Captain's lodging, though he did not partake of the +Captain's dinners or ride in the smart little brougham. He had a roof +to shelter him, and was rarely unprovided with the price of some kind +of dinner; and as this was the highest order of prosperity he had ever +known, he was content. He was more than content; for the first time in +his existence he knew what it was to be happy. A purer joy than life +had ever held for him until now made him careless whether his dinner +cost eighteenpence or eighteen shillings; whether he rode in the most +perfect of broughams or walked in the mud. He took no heed for the +future; he forgot the past, and abandoned himself heart and soul to the +new delights of the present. + +Never had Philip Sheldon found so willing a tool, so cheap a drudge. +Valentine was ready to do anything or everything for Charlotte's +stepfather, since his relations with that gentleman enabled him to +spend so much of his life with Charlotte. + +But even in this sublimated state of mind Mr. Hawkehurst was not exempt +from the great necessity of Mr. Skimpole and humanity at large. He +wanted pounds. His garments were shabby, and he desired new and elegant +raiment in which to appear to advantage before the eyes of the woman he +loved. It had been his privilege on several occasions to escort Mrs. +Sheldon and the two younger ladies to a theatre; and even this +privilege had cost him money. He wanted pounds to expend upon those new +books and music which served so often as the excuse for a visit to the +Lawn. He wanted pounds for very trivial purposes; but he wanted them +desperately. A lover without pounds is the most helpless and +contemptible of mankind; he is a knight-errant without his armour, a +troubadour without his lute. + +In his dilemma Mr. Hawkehurst resorted to that simple method which +civilisation has devised for the relief of pecuniary difficulties of a +temporary nature. He had met George Sheldon several times at the Lawn, +and had become tolerably intimate with that gentleman, whom he now knew +to be "the Sheldon of Gray's Inn," and the ally and agent of certain +bill-discounters. To George he went one morning; and after requesting +that Captain Paget should know nothing of his application, explained +his requirements. It was a very small sum which he asked for, modestly +conscious that the security he had to offer was of the weakest. He only +wanted thirty pounds, and was willing to give a bill at two months for +five-and-thirty. + +There was a good deal of hesitation on the part of the lawyer; but +Valentine had expected to meet with some difficulty, and was not +altogether unprepared for a point-blank refusal. He was agreeably +surprised when George Sheldon told him he would manage that "little +matter; only the bill must be for forty." But in proof of the liberal +spirit in which Mr. Hawkehurst was to be treated, the friendly lawyer +informed him that the two months should be extended to three. + +Valentine did not stop to consider that by this friendly process he was +to pay at the rate of something over a hundred and thirty per cent per +annum for the use of the money he wanted. He knew that this was his +only chance of getting money; so he shut his eyes to the expensive +nature of the transaction, and thanked Mr. Sheldon for the +accommodation granted to him. + +"And now we've settled that little business, I should like to have a +few minutes' private chat with you," said George, "on the understanding +that what passes between you and me is strictly confidential." + +"Of course!" + +"You seem to have been leading rather an idle life for the last few +months; and it strikes me, Mr. Hawkehurst, you're too clever a fellow +to care about that sort of thing." + +"Well, I have been in some measure wasting my sweetness on the desert +air," Valentine answered carelessly. "The governor seems to have +slipped into a good berth by your brother's agency; but I am not +Horatio Nugent Cromie Paget, and the brougham and lavender kids of the +Promoter are not for me." + +"There is money to be picked up by better dodges than promoting," +replied the attorney ambiguously; "but I suppose you wouldn't care for +anything that didn't bring immediate cash? You wouldn't care to +speculate the chances, however well the business might promise?" + +"_C'est selon!_ That's as may be," answered Valentine coolly. "You see +those affairs that promise so much are apt to fail when it comes to a +question of performance. I'm not a capitalist; I can't afford to become +a speculator. I've been living from hand to mouth lately by means of +occasional contributions to a sporting weekly, and a little bit of +business which your brother threw in my way. I've been able to be +tolerably useful to him, and he promises to get me something in the way +of a clerkship, foreign correspondence, and that kind of thing." + +"Humph!" muttered George Sheldon; "that means eighty pounds a year and +fourteen hours' work a day, letters that must be answered by this mail, +and so on. I don't think that kind of drudgery would ever suit you, +Hawkehurst. You've not served the right apprenticeship for that sort of +thing; you ought to try for some higher game. What should you say to an +affair that might put two or three thousand pounds in your pocket if it +was successful?" + +"I should feel very much inclined to fancy it a bubble--one of those +dazzling rainbow-tinted globes which look so bright dancing about in +the sunshine, and explode into nothing directly they encounter any +tangible substance. However, my dear Sheldon, if you really have any +employment to offer to a versatile young man who is not overburdened +with vulgar prejudices, you'd better put the business in plain words." + +"I will," answered George; "but it's not an affair that can be +discussed in five minutes. It's rather a serious matter, and involves a +good deal of consideration. I know that you're a man of the world, and +a very clever fellow into the bargain; but there's something more than +that wanted for this business, and that is patience. The hare is a very +fine animal in her way, you know; but a man must have a little of the +tortoise in him if he wants to achieve anything out of the common run +in the way of good luck. I have been working, and waiting, and +speculating the chances for the last fifteen years, and I think I've +got a good chance at last. But there's a good deal of work to be done +before the business is finished; and I find that I must have some one +to help me." + +"What sort of business is it?" + +"The search for the heir-at-law of a man who has died intestate within +the last ten years." + +The two men looked at each other at this juncture; and Valentine +Hawkehurst smiled significantly. + +"Within the last ten years?" he said. "That's rather a wide margin." + +"Do you think you would be a good hand at hunting up the missing links +in the chain of a family history?" asked Mr. Sheldon. "It's rather +tiresome work, you know, and requires no common amount of patience and +perseverance." + +"I can persevere," said Valentine decisively, "if you can show me that +it will be worth my while to do so. You want an heir-at-law, and I'm to +look for him. What am I to get while I'm looking for him? and what is +to be my reward if I find him?" + +"I'll give you a pound a week and your travelling expenses while you're +employed in the search; and I'll give you three thousand pounds on the +day the heir gets his rights." + +"Humph!" muttered Mr. Hawkehurst, rather doubtfully; "three thousand +pounds is a very respectable haul. But then, you see, I may fail to +discover the heir; and even if I do find him the chances are ten to one +that the business would be thrown into Chancery at the last moment; in +which case I might wait till doomsday for the reward of my labours." + +George Sheldon shrugged his shoulders impatiently. He had expected this +penniless adventurer to catch eagerly at the chance he offered. "Three +thousand pounds are not to be picked up in the streets," he said. "If +you don't care to work with me, I can find plenty of clever fellows in +London who'll jump at the business." + +"And you want me to begin work--?" + +"Immediately." + +"And how am I to pay forty pounds in three months out of a pound a +week?" + +"Never mind the bill," said Mr. Sheldon, with lofty generosity. "If you +work heart and soul for me, I'll square that little matter for you; +I'll get it renewed for another three months." + +"In that case I'm your man. I don't mind a little hard work just now, +and I can live upon a pound a week where another man would starve. So +now for my instructions." + +There was a brief pause, during which the lawyer refreshed himself by +walking up and down his office two or three times with his hands in his +pockets. After which relief he seated himself before his desk, took out +a sheet of foolscap, and selected a pen from the inkstand. + +"It's just as well to put things in a thoroughly business-like manner," +he said presently. "I suppose you'd have no objection to signing a +memorandum of agreement--nothing that would be of any use in a court of +law, you know, but a simple understanding between man and man, for our +own satisfaction, as a safeguard against all possibility of +misunderstanding in the future. I've every reason to consider you the +most honourable of men, you know; but honourable men turn round upon +each other sometimes. You might ask me for something more than three +thou' if you succeeded in your search." + +"Precisely; or I might make terms with the heir-at-law, and throw you +over. Perhaps that was your idea?" + +"Not exactly. The first half of the chain is in my hands, and the +second half will be worth nothing without it. But to prevent all +unpleasantness we may as well put our intentions upon record." + +"I've not the least objection," replied Valentine with supreme +indifference. "Draw up whatever memorandum you please, and I'll sign +it. If you don't mind smoke, I should like to console myself with a +cigar while you draw the bond." + +The question was a polite formula, the atmosphere of George Sheldon's +office being redolent of stale tobacco. + +"Smoke away," said the lawyer; "and if you can drink brandy-and-soda at +this time of day, you'll find the _de quoi_ in that cupboard. Make +yourself at home." + +Mr. Hawkehurst declined the brandy-and-soda, and regaled himself only +with a cigar, which he took from his own case. He sat in one of the +second-floor windows smoking, and looking dreamily into the gardens, +while George Sheldon drew up the agreement. He was thinking that any +hazard which took him away from London and Charlotte Halliday might be +a fortunate one. + +The lawyer finished his document, which he read aloud for the benefit +of the gentleman who was to sign it. The agreement was in the following +terms:-- + +"Memorandum of agreement between George Sheldon on the one part, and +Valentine Hawkehurst on the other part, whereby it is this day mutually +agreed by and between the parties hereto as follows: + +"1. That, in consideration of a weekly salary of one pound while in +pursuit of certain inquiries, and of the sum of three thousand pounds +to be paid upon the arising of a certain event, namely, the +establishment of an heir-at-law to the estates of the late John +Haygarth, the said Valentine Hawkehurst shall act as agent for the said +George Sheldon, and shall not at any time during the continuance of +this agreement do any act to prejudice the inquiry or the steps now +being taken by the said George Sheldon to discover and establish an +heir-at-law to the estates of the late John Haygarth. + +"2. That at no time hereafter shall the said Valentine Hawkehurst be +entitled to a larger recompense than is herein-before provided; nor +shall he be liable to the said George Sheldon for the return of any +moneys which the said George Sheldon may advance on account of the said +inquiries in the event of the same not resulting in the establishment +of an heir to the estates of the late John Haygarth. + +"3. That the said Valentine Hawkehurst shall not alter his character of +agent to the said George Sheldon during the prosecution of the said +inquiry; that he shall deliver over to the said George Sheldon all +documents and other forms of evidence that may arise from his, the said +Valentine Hawkehurst's, inquires; and that he shall week by week, and +every week, and as often as may be necessary, report to the said George +Sheldon the result of such inquiries, and that he shall not on any +pretence whatever be at liberty to withhold such fruits of his +researches, nor discover the same to any one else than the said George +Sheldon, under a penalty of ten thousand pounds, to be recovered as +liquidated damages previously agreed between the parties as the measure +of damages payable to the said George Sheldon upon the breach of this +agreement by the said Valentine Hawkehurst. + +"In witness whereof the parties hereto have this 20th day of September +1862 set their hands and affixed their seals." + +"That sounds stiff enough to hold water in a court of law," said Valentine, +when George Sheldon had recited the contents of the document. + +"I don't suppose it would be much good in Chancery-lane," returned the +lawyer carelessly; "though I daresay it sounds rather formidable to +you. When one gets the trick of the legal jargon, it's not easy to draw +the simplest form of agreement without a few superfluous words. I may +as well call in my clerk to witness our signatures, I suppose." + +"Call in any one you like." + +The clerk was summoned from a sunless and airless den at the back of +his principal's office. The two men appended their signatures to the +document; the clerk added his in witness of the genuine nature of those +signatures. It was an affair of two minutes. The clerk was dismissed. +Mr. Sheldon blotted and folded the memorandum, and laid it aside in one +of the drawers of his desk. + +"Come," he said cheerily, "that's a business-like beginning at any +rate. And now you'd better have some brandy-and-soda, for what I've got +to say will take some time in the saying of it." + +On this occasion Mr. Hawkehurst accepted the lawyer's hospitality, and +there was some little delay before the conversation proceeded. + +It was a very long conversation. Mr. Sheldon produced a bundle of +papers, and exhibited some of them to his agent, beginning with that +advertisement in the _Times_ which had first attracted his notice, but +taking very good care _not_ to show his coadjutor the obituary in the +_Observer_, wherein the amount of the intestate's fortune was stated. +The ready wits which had been sharpened at so many different +grindstones proved keen enough for the occasion. Valentine Hawkehurst +had had little to do with genealogies or baptismal registers during his +past career; but his experiences were of such a manifold nature that he +was not easily to be baffled or mystified by any new experience. He +showed himself almost as quick at tracing up the intricacies of a +family tree as Mr. Sheldon, the astute attorney and practised +genealogist. + +"I have traced these Haygarths back to the intestate's +great-grandfather, who was a carpenter and a Puritan in the reign of +Charles the First. He seems to have made money--how I have not been +able to discover with any certainty; but it is more than probable he +served in the civil wars, and came in for some of the plunder those +crop-eared, psalm-singing, +pierce-the-brain-of-the-tyrant-with-the-nail-of-Jael scoundrels were +always in the way of, at the sack of Royalist mansions. The man made +money; and his son, the grandfather of the intestate, was a wealthy +citizen in the reigns of Anne and the first George. He was a grocer, +and lived in the market-place of Ullerton in Leicestershire; an +out-of-the-way sleepy place it is now, but was prosperous enough in +those days, I daresay. This man (the grandfather) began the world well +off, and amassed a large fortune before he had done with it. The lucky +beggar lived in the days when free trade and competition were unknown, +when tea was something like sixty shillings a pound, and when a +psalm-singing sleek-haired fellow, with a reputation for wealth and +honesty, might cheat his customers to his heart's content. He had one +son, Matthew, who seems, from what I can gather, to have been a wild +sort of fellow in the early part of his career, and not to have been at +any time on the best possible terms with the sanctimonious dad. This +Matthew married at fifty-three years of age, and died a year after his +marriage, leaving one son, who afterwards became the reverend +intestate; with whom, according to the evidence at present before me, +ends the direct line of the Haygarths." The lawyer paused, turned over +two or three papers, and then resumed his explanation. "The +sanctimonious grocer, Jonathan Haygarth, had one other child besides +the son--a daughter called Ruth, who married a certain Peter Judson, +and became the mother of a string of sons and daughters; and it is +amongst the descendants of these Judsons that we may have to look for +our heir at law, unless we find him nearer home. Now my idea is that we +_shall_ find him nearer home." + +"What reason have you for forming that idea?" asked Valentine. + +"I will tell you. This Matthew Haygarth is known to have been a wild +fellow. I obtained a good deal of fragmentary information about him +from an old man in some almshouses at Ullerton, whose grandfather was a +schoolfellow of Matthew's. He was a scapegrace, and was always spending +money in London while the respectable psalm-singer was hoarding it in +Ullerton. There used to be desperate quarrels between the two men, and +towards the end of Jonathan Haygarth's life the old man made half a +dozen different wills in favour of half a dozen different people, and +cutting off scapegrace Matthew with a shilling. Fortunately for +scapegrace Matthew, the old man had a habit of quarrelling with his +dearest friends--a fashion not quite exploded in this enlightened +nineteenth century--and the wills were burnt one after another, until +the worthy Jonathan became as helpless and foolish as his great +contemporary and namesake, the Dean of St. Patrick's; and after having +died 'first at top,' did his son the favour to die altogether, +_intestate_, whereby the roisterer and spendthrift of Soho and +Covent-garden came into a very handsome fortune. The old man died in +1766, aged eighty; a very fine specimen of your good old English +tradesman of the Puritanical school. The roisterer, Matthew, was by +this time forty-six years of age, and, I suppose, had grown tired of +roistering. In any case he appears to have settled down very quietly in +the old family house in the Ullerton market-place, where he married a +respectable damsel of the Puritan school, some seven years after, and +in which house, or in the neighbourhood whereof, he departed this life, +with awful suddenness, one year after his marriage, leaving his son and +heir, the reverend intestate. And now, my dear Hawkehurst, you're a +sharp fellow, and I daresay a good hand at guessing social conundrums; +so perhaps you begin to see my idea." + +"I can't say I do." + +"My notion is, that Matthew Haygarth may possibly have married before +he was fifty-three years of age. Men of his stamp don't often live to +that ripe age without being caught in matrimonial toils somehow or +other. It was in the days of Fleet marriages--in the days when young +men about town were even more reckless and more likely to become the +prey of feminine deception than they are now. The fact that Matthew +Haygarth revealed no such marriage is no conclusive evidence against my +hypothesis. He died very suddenly--intestate, as it seems the habit of +these Haygarths to die; and he had never made any adjustment of his +affairs. According to the oldest inhabitant in Ullerton almshouses, +this Matthew was a very handsome fellow, generous-hearted, +open-handed--a devil-may-care kind of a chap, the type of the +rollicking heroes in old comedies; the very man to fall over head and +ears in love before he was twenty, and to go through fire and water for +the sake of the woman he loved: in short, the very last man upon earth +to live a bachelor until his fifty-fourth year." + +"He may--" + +"He may have been a profligate, you were going to say, and have had +baser ties than those of Church and State. So he may; but if he was a +scoundrel, tradition flatters him. Of course all the information one +can gather about a man who died in 1774 must needs be of a very +uncertain and fragmentary character. But if I can trust the rather hazy +recollections of my oldest inhabitant about what his father told him +_his_ father had said of wild Mat Haygarth, the young man's wildness +was very free from vice. There is no legend of innocence betrayed or +infamy fostered by Matthew Haygarth. He appears to have enjoyed what +the young men of that day called life--attended cock-fights, beat the +watch, gambled a little, and was intimately acquainted with the +interior of the Fleet and Marshalsea prisons. For nearly twenty years +he seems to have lived in London; and during all those years he was +lost sight of by the Ullerton people. My oldest inhabitant's +grandfather was clerk to a merchant in the city of London, and had +therefore some opportunity of knowing his old schoolfellow's +proceedings in the metropolis. But the two townsmen don't seem to have +seen much of each other in the big city. Their meetings were rare, and, +so far as I can make out, for the most part accidental. But, as I said +before, my oldest inhabitant is somewhat hazy, and excruciatingly +prolix; his chaff is in the proportion of some fifty to one of his +wheat. I've given a good deal of time to this case already, you see, +Mr. Hawkehurst; and you'll find _your_ work very smooth sailing +compared to what I've gone through." + +"I daresay that sort of investigation is rather tiresome in the earlier +stages." + +"You'd say so, with a vengeance, if you had to do it," answered George +Sheldon almost savagely. "You start with the obituary of some old bloke +who was so disgustingly old when he consented to die that there is no +one living who can tell you when he was born, or who were his father +and mother; for, of course, the old idiot takes care not to leave a +blessed document of any kind which can aid a fellow in his researches. +And when you've had the trouble of hunting up half a dozen men of the +same name, and have addled your wretched brains in the attempt to patch +the half dozen men--turning up at different periods and in different +places--into one man, they all tumble to pieces like a child's puzzle, +and you find yourself as far as ever from the man you want. However, +_you_ won't have to do any of that work," added Mr. Sheldon, who was +almost in a passion when he remembered the trouble he had gone through. +"The ground has been all laid out for you, by Jove, as smooth as a +bowling-green; and if you look sharp, you'll pick up your three thou' +before you know where you are." + +"I hope I shall," answered Valentine coolly. He was not the sort of +person to go into raptures about three thousand pounds, though such a +sum must needs have seemed to him the wealth of a small Rothschild. "I +know I want money badly enough, and am ready and willing to work for it +conscientiously, if I get the chance. But to return to this Matthew +Haygarth. Your idea is that there may have been a marriage previous to +the one at Ullerton?" + +"Precisely. Of course there may have been no such previous marriage; +but you see it's on the cards; and since it is on the cards, my notion +is that we had better hunt up the history of Matthew Haygarth's life in +London, and try to find our heir-at-law there before we go in for the +Judsons. If you knew how the Judsons have married and multiplied, and +lost themselves among herds of other people, you wouldn't care about +tracing the ramifications of _their_ family tree," said Mr. Sheldon, +with a weary sigh. + +"So be it," exclaimed Mr. Hawkehurst carelessly; "we'll leave the +Judsons alone, and go in for Matthew Haygarth." + +He spoke with the air of an archaeological Hercules, to whom +difficulties were nothing. It seemed as if he would have been quite +ready to "go in" for some sidereal branch of the Plantagenets, or the +female descendants of the Hardicanute family, if George Sheldon had +suggested that the intestate's next of kin was to be found _there_. + +"Mat Haygarth, by all means," he said. He was on jolly-good-fellow-ish +terms with the dead-and-gone grocer's son already, and had the tone of +a man who had been his friend and boon companion. "Mat Haygarth is our +man. But how are we to ferret out his doings in London? A man who was +born in 1720 is rather a remote kind of animal." + +"The secret of success in these matters is time," answered the lawyer +sententiously: "a man must have no end of time, and he must keep his +brain clear of all other business. Those two conditions are impossible +for me, and that's why I want a coadjutor: now you're a clever young +fellow, with no profession, with no particular social ties, as I can +make out, and your time is all your own; ergo, you're the very man for +this business. The thing is to be done: accept that for a certainty. +It's only a question of time. Indeed, when you look at life +philosophically, what is there on earth that is _not_ a question of +time? Give the crossing-sweeper between this and Chancery-lane time +enough, and he might develop into a Rothschild. He might want nine +hundred years or so to do it in; but there's no doubt he could do it, +if you gave him time." + +Mr. Sheldon was becoming expansive under the influence of the +brandy-and-soda; for even that mild beverage is not without its effect +on the intellectual man. + +"As to this Haygarth case," he resumed, after the consumption of a +little more soda and a little more brandy, "it's a sure success, if we +work it properly; and you know three thou' is not to be despised," +added George persuasively, "even if a fellow has to wait some time for +it." + +"Certainly not. And the bulk of the Haygarthian fortune--I suppose +that's something rather stiff?" returned Valentine, in the same +persuasive tone. + +"Well, you may suppose it's a decent figure," answered Mr. Sheldon, +with an air of deprecation, "or how could I afford to give you three +thou' out of the share I'm likely to get?" + +"No, to be sure. I think I shall take to the work well enough when once +I get my hand in; but I shall be very glad of any hint you can give me +at starting." + +"Well, my advice is this: begin at the beginning; go down to Ullerton; +see my oldest inhabitant. I pumped him as dry as I could, but I +couldn't give myself enough time for thoroughly exhaustive pumping; one +has to waste a small eternity before one gets anything valuable out of +those hazy old fellows. Follow up this Matthew from his birth; see the +place where he was born; ferret out every detail of his life, so far as +it is to be ferreted; trace his way step by step to London, and when +you get him there, stick to him like a leech. Don't let him slip +through your fingers for a day; hunt him from lodging to lodging, from +tavern to tavern, into jail and out of jail--tantivy, yoicks, +hark-forward! I know it's deuced hard work; but a man must work +uncommonly hard in these days before he picks up three thou'. In a few +words, the game is all before you; so go in and win," concluded George +Sheldon, as he poured the last amber drops from the slim smoke-coloured +bottle, and swallowed his glass of brandy undiluted by soda. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +AUNT SARAH. + + +After that interview in Gray's Inn, there were more interviews of a +like character. Valentine received further instructions from George +Sheldon, and got himself posted up in the Haygarthian history, so far +as the lawyer's information furnished the materials for such posting. +But the sum total of Mr. Sheldon's information seemed very little to +his coadjutor when the young man looked the Haygarthian business full +in the face and considered what he had to do. He felt very much like a +young prince in the fairy tale who has been bidden to go forth upon an +adventurous journey in a trackless forest, where if he escape all +manner of lurking dangers, and remember innumerable injunctions, such +as not to utter a single syllable during the whole course of his +travels, or look over his left shoulder, or pat any strange dog, or +gather forest fruit or flower, or look at his own reflection in mirror +or water-pool, shining brazen shield or jewelled helm, he will +ultimately find himself before the gates of an enchanted castle, to +which he may or may not obtain admittance. + +Valentine fancied himself in the position of this favourite young +prince. The trackless forest was the genealogy of the Haygarths; and in +the enchanted castle he was to find the crown of success in the shape +of three thousand pounds. Could he marry Charlotte on the strength of +those three thousand pounds, if he were so fortunate as to unravel the +tangled skein of the Haygarth history? Ah, no; that black-whiskered +stockbroking stepfather would ask for something more than three +thousand pounds from the man to whom he gave his wife's daughter. + +"He will try to marry her to some rich City swell, I dare say," thought +Valentine. "I should be no nearer her with three thousand pounds for my +fortune than I am without a sixpence. The best thing I can do for her +happiness and my own is to turn my back upon her, and devote myself to +hunting the Haygarths. It's rather hard too, just as I have begun to +fancy that she likes me a little." + +In the course of those interviews in Gray's Inn which occurred before +Valentine took any active steps in his new pursuit, certain conditions +were agreed upon between him and Mr. Sheldon. The first and most +serious of these conditions was, that Captain Paget should be in nowise +enlightened as to his _protégé's_ plans. This was a strong point with +George Sheldon. "I have no doubt Paget's a very good fellow," he said. +(It was his habit to call everybody a good fellow. He would have called +Nana Sahib a good fellow, and would have made some good-natured excuse +for any peccadilloes on the part of that potentate). "Paget's an +uncommonly agreeable man, you know; but he is not the man I should care +to trust with this kind of secret." Mr. Sheldon said this with a tone +that implied his willingness to trust Captain Paget with every other +kind of secret, from the contents of his japanned office-boxes to the +innermost mysteries of his soul. + +"You see Paget is thick with my brother Phil," he resumed; "and +whenever I find a man thick with my relations, I make it a point to +keep clear of that man myself. Relations never have worked well in +harness, and never will work well in harness. It seems to be against +nature. Now Phil has a dim kind of idea of the game I want to play, in +a general way, but nothing more than a dim idea. He fancies I'm a fool, +and that I'm wasting my time and trouble. I mean him to stick to that +notion. For, you see, in a thing of this kind there's always a chance +of other people cutting in and spoiling a man's game. Of course, that +advertisement I read to you was seen by other men besides me, and may +have been taken up. My hope is that whoever has taken it up has gone in +for the female branch, and got himself snowed up under a heap of +documentary evidence about the Judsons. That's another reason why we +should put our trust in Matthew Haygarth. The Judson line is the +obvious line to follow, and there are very few who would think of +hunting up evidence for a hypothetical first marriage until they had +exhausted the Judsons. Now, I rely upon you to throw dust in Paget's +eyes, so that there may be no possibility of my brother getting wind of +our little scheme through him." + +"I'll take care of that," answered Valentine; "he doesn't want me just +now. He's in very high feather, riding about in broughams and dining at +West-end taverns. He won't be sorry to get rid of me for a short time." + +"But what'll be your excuse for leaving town? He'll be sure to want a +reason, you know." + +"I'll invent an aunt at Ullerton, and tell him I'm going down to stop +with her." + +"You'd better not say Ullerton; Paget might take it into his head to +follow you down there in order to see what sort of person your aunt +was, and whether she had any money. Paget's an excellent fellow, but +there's never any knowing what that sort of man will do. You'd better +throw him off the scent altogether. Plant your aunt in Surrey--say +Dorking." + +"But if he should want to write to me?" + +"Tell him to address to the post-office, Dorking, as your aunt is +inquisitive, and might tamper with your correspondence. I daresay his +letters will keep." + +"He could follow me to Dorking as easily as to Ullerton." + +"Of course he could," answered George Sheldon; "but then, you see, at +Dorking the most he could find out would be that he'd been made a fool +of; whereas if he followed you to Ullerton, he might ferret out the +nature of your business there." + +Mr. Hawkehurst perceived the wisdom of this conclusion, and agreed to +make Dorking the place of his relative's abode. + +"It's very near London," he suggested thoughtfully; "the Captain might +easily run down." + +"And for that very reason he's all the less likely to do it," answered +the lawyer; "a man who thinks of going to a place within an hour's ride +of town knows he can go any day, and is likely to think of going to the +end of the chapter without carrying out his intention. A man who +resolves to go to Manchester or Liverpool has to make his arrangements +accordingly, and is likely to put his idea into practice. The people +who live on Tower-hill very seldom see the inside of the Tower. It's +the good folks who come up for a week's holiday from Yorkshire and +Cornwall who know all about the Crown jewels and John of Gaunt's +armour. Take my advice, and stick to Dorking." + +Acting upon this advice, Valentine Hawkehurst lay in wait for the +Promoter that very evening. He went home early, and was seated by a +cheery little bit of fire, such as an Englishman likes to see at the +close of a dull autumn day, when that accomplished personage returned +to his lodgings. + +"Deuced tiresome work," said the Captain, as he smoothed the nap of his +hat with that caressing tenderness of manipulation peculiar to the man +who is not very clear as to the means whereby his next hat is to be +obtained,--"deuced slow, brain-belabouring work! How many people do you +think I've called upon to-day, eh, Val? Seven-and-thirty! What do you +say to that? Seven-and-thirty interviews, and some of them very tough +ones. I think that's enough to take the steam out of a man." + +"Do the moneyed swells bite?" asked Mr. Hawkehurst, with friendly +interest. + +"Rather slowly, my dear Val, rather slowly. The mercantile fisheries +have been pretty well whipped of late years, and the fish are +artful--they are uncommonly artful, Val. Indeed, I'm not quite clear at +this present moment as to the kind of fly they'll rise to most readily. +I'm half inclined to be doubtful whether your gaudy pheasant-feather, +your brougham and lavender-kid business is the right thing for your +angler. It has been overdone, Val, considerably overdone; and I +shouldn't wonder if a sober little brown fly--a shabby old chap in a +rusty greatcoat, with a cotton umbrella under his arm--wouldn't do the +trick better. That sort of thing would look rich, you see, Val--rich +and eccentric; and I think on occasions--with a _very_ downy bird--I'd +even go so far as a halfp'orth of snuff in a screw of paper. I really +think a pinch of snuff out of a bit of paper, taken at the right +moment, might turn the tide of a transaction." + +Impressed by the brilliancy of this idea, Captain Paget abandoned +himself for the moment to profound meditation, seated in his favourite +chair, and with his legs extended before the cheerful blaze. He always +had a favourite chair in every caravanserai wherein he rested in his +manifold wanderings, and he had an unerring instinct which guided him +in the selection of the most comfortable chair, and that one corner, to +be found in every room, which is a sanctuary secure from the incursions +of Boreas. + +The day just ended had evidently not been a lucky one, and the +Captain's gaze was darkly meditative as he looked into the ruddy little +fire. + +"I think I'll take a glass of cold water with a dash of brandy in it, +Val," he said presently; and he said it with the air of a man who +rarely tasted such a beverage; whereas it was as habitual with him to +sit sipping brandy-and-water for an hour or so before he went to bed as +it was for him to light his chamber candle. "That fellow Sheldon knows +how to take care of himself," he remarked thoughtfully, when Valentine +had procured the brandy-and-water. "Try some of that cognac, Val; it's +not bad. To tell you the truth, I'm beginning to get sick of this +promoting business. It pays very little better than the India-rubber +agency, and it's harder work. I shall look about me for something +fresh, if Sheldon doesn't treat me handsomely. And what have you been +doing for the last day or two?" asked the Captain, with a searching +glance at his _protégé's_ face. "You're always hanging about Sheldon's +place; but you don't seem to do much business with him. You and his +brother George seem uncommonly thick." + +"Yes, George suits me better than the stockbroker. I never could get on +very well with your ultra-respectable men. I'm as ready to 'undertake a +dirty job' as any man; but I don't like a fellow to offer me dirty work +and pretend it's clean." + +"Ah, he's been getting you to do a little of the bear business, I +suppose," said the Captain. "I don't see that your conscience need +trouble you about that. Amongst a commercial people money must change +hands. I can't see that it much matters how the change takes place." + +"No, to be sure; that's a comfortable way of putting it, at any rate. +However, I'm tired of going about in the ursine guise, and I'm going to +cut it. I've an old aunt settled at Dorking who has got a little bit of +money to leave, and I think I'll go and look her up." + +"An aunt at Dorking! I never heard of her before." + +"O yes you have," answered Mr. Hawkehurst, with supreme nonchalance; +"you've heard of her often enough, only you've a happy knack of not +listening to other people's affairs. But you must have been wrapped up +in yourself with a vengeance if you don't remember to have heard me +speak of my aunt--Sarah." + +"Well, well, it may be so," murmured the Captain, almost +apologetically. "Your aunt Sarah? Ah, to be sure; I have some +recollection: is she your father's sister?" + +"No; she's the sister of my maternal grandmother--a great-aunt, you +know. She has a comfortable little place down at Dorking, and I can get +free quarters there whenever I like; so as you don't particularly want +me just now, I think I'll run down to her for a week or two." + +The Captain had no objection to offer to this very natural desire on +the part of his adopted son; nor did he concern himself as to the young +man's motive for leaving London. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHARLOTTE PROPHESIES RAIN. + + +Mr. Hawkehurst had no excuse for going to the Lawn before his +departure; but the stately avenues between Bayswater and Kensington are +free to any man; and, having nothing better to do, Valentine put a +shabby little volume of Balzac in his pocket, and spent his last +morning in town under the shadow of the mighty elms, reading one of the +great Honoré's gloomiest romances, while the autumn leaves drifted +round him, dancing fairy measures on the grass, and scraping and +scuffling on the gravel, and while children with hoops and children +with balls scampered and screamed in the avenue by which he sat. He was +not particularly absorbed by his book. He had taken it haphazard from +the tattered collection of cheap editions which he carried about with +him in his wanderings, ignominiously stuffed into the bottom of a +portmanteau, amongst boots and clothes-brushes and disabled razors. + +"I'm sick of them all," he thought; "the De Beauseants, and Rastignacs, +the German Jews, and the patrician beauties, and the Israelitish Circes +of the Rue Taitbout, and the sickly self-sacrificing provincial angels, +and the ghastly _vieilles filles_. Had that man ever seen such a woman +as Charlotte, I wonder--a bright creature, all smiles and sunshine, and +sweet impulsive tenderness; an angel who can be angelic without being +_poitrinaire_, and whose amiability never degenerates into scrofula? +There is an odour of the dissecting-room pervading all my friend +Balzac's novels, and I don't think he was capable of painting a fresh, +healthy nature. What a mass of disease he would have made Lucy Ashton, +and with what dismal relish he would have dilated upon the physical +sufferings of Amy Robsart in the confinement of Cumnor Hall! No, my +friend Honoré, you are the greatest and grandest of painters of the +terrible school; but the time comes when a man sighs for something +brighter and better than your highest type of womanhood." + +Mr. Hawkehurst put his book in his pocket, and abandoned himself to +meditation, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his face +buried in his hands, unconscious of the trundling hoops and screaming +children. + +"She is better and fairer than the fairest heroine of a novel," he +thought. "She is like Heloise. Yes, the quaint old French fits her to a +nicety: + + 'Elle ne fu oscure ne brune, + Ains fu clere comme la lune, + Envers qui les autres estoiles + Ressemblent petites chandoiles.' + +Mrs. Browning must have known such a woman: + + 'Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; + You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face;' + +and yet + + 'She was not as pretty as women I know.' + +Was she not?" mused the lover. "Is she not? Yes," he cried suddenly, as +he saw a scarlet petticoat gleaming in the distance, and a bright young +face under a little black turban hat--prettiest and most bewitching of +all feminine headgear, let fashion change as it may. "Yes," he cried, +"she is the loveliest creature in the world, and I love her to +distraction." He rose, and went to meet the loveliest creature in the +world, whose earthly name was Charlotte Halliday. She was walking with +Diana Paget, who, to more sober judges, might have seemed the handsomer +woman of the two. Alas for Diana! the day had been when Valentine +Hawkehurst considered her very handsome, and had need to fight a hard +battle with himself in order not to fall in love with her. He had been +conqueror in that struggle of prudence and honour against nascent love, +only to be vanquished utterly by Charlotte's brighter charms and +Charlotte's sunnier nature. + +The two girls shook hands with Mr. Hawkehurst. An indifferent observer +might have perceived that the colour faded from the face of one, while +a blush mounted to the cheeks of the other. But Valentine did not see +the sudden pallor of Diana's face--he had eyes only for Charlotte's +blushes. Nor did Charlotte herself perceive the sudden change in her +dearest friend's countenance. And that perhaps is the bitterest sting +of all. It is not enough that some must weep while others play; the +mourners must weep unnoticed, unconsoled; happiness is so apt to be +selfish. + +Of course the conversation was the general sort of thing under the +given circumstances--just a little more inane and disjointed than the +ordinary small talk of people who meet each other in their walks abroad. + +"How do you do, Mr. Hawkehurst?--Very well, thank you.--Mamma is very +well; at least no, not quite well; she has one of her headaches this +morning. She is rather subject to headache, you know; and the canaries +sing so loud. Don't the canaries sing abominably loud, Diana?--loudly +they would have made me say at Hyde Lodge; but it is only awfully +clever people who know when to use adverbs." + +And Miss Halliday having said all this in a hurried and indeed almost +breathless manner, stopped suddenly, blushing more deeply than at +first, and painfully aware of her blushes. She looked imploringly at +Diana; but Diana would not come to the rescue; and this morning Mr. +Hawkehurst seemed as a man struck with sudden dumbness. + +There followed presently a little discussion of the weather. Miss +Halliday was possessed by the conviction that there would be +rain--possibly not immediate rain, but before the afternoon inevitable +rain. Valentine thought not; was, indeed, positively certain there +would be no rain; had a vague idea that the wind was in the north; and +quoted a dreary Joe-Millerism to prove the impossibility of rain while +the wind came from that quarter. Miss Halliday and Mr. Hawkehurst held +very firmly to their several opinions, and the argument was almost a +quarrel--one of those little playful quarrels which form some of the +most delicious phases of a flirtation. "I would not mind wagering a +fortune--if I had one--on the certainty of rain," cried Charlotte with +kindling eyes. + +"And I would not shrink from staking my existence on the conviction +that there will be no rain," exclaimed Valentine, looking with +undisguised tenderness at the glowing animated face. + +Diana Paget took no part in that foolish talk about the possibilities +of the weather. She walked silently by the side of her friend +Charlotte, as far away from her old comrade, it seemed to her, as if +the Atlantic's wild waste of waters had stretched between them. The +barrier that divided them was only Charlotte; but then Miss Paget knew +too well that Charlotte in this case meant all the world. + +The ice had been broken by that discussion as to rain or no rain, and +Miss Halliday and Mr. Hawkehurst talked pleasantly for some time, while +Diana still walked silently by her friend's side, only speaking when +compelled to do so. The strangeness of her manner would have been +observed by any one not utterly absorbed by that sublime egotism called +love; but Valentine and Charlotte were so absorbed, and had no idea +that Miss Paget was anything but the most delightful and amusing of +companions. + +They had taken more than one turn in the broad avenue, when Charlotte +asked Mr. Hawkehurst some question about a piece which was speedily to +be played at one of the theatres. + +"I do so much want to see this new French actress," she said. "Do you +think there is any possibility of obtaining orders, Mr. Hawkehurst? You +know what a dislike Mr. Sheldon has to paying for admission to a +theatre, and my pocket-money was exhausted three weeks ago, or I +wouldn't think of giving you any trouble about it." + +Philosophers have observed that in the life of the plainest woman there +is one inspired moment in which she becomes beautiful. Perhaps it is +when she is asking a favour of some masculine victim--for women have a +knack of looking their prettiest on such occasions. Charlotte +Halliday's pleading glance and insinuating tone were irresistible. +Valentine would have given a lien on every shilling of his three +thousand pounds rather than disappoint her, if gold could purchase the +thing she craved. It happened fortunately that his occasional +connection with the newspapers made it tolerably easy for him to obtain +free admissions to theatres. + +"Do not speak of the trouble; there will be no trouble. The orders +shall be sent you, Miss Halliday." + +"O, thanks--a thousand thanks! Would it be possible to get a box, and +for us all to go together?" asked the fair encroacher; "mamma is so +fond of the theatre. She used to go often with poor papa, at York and +in London. And you are such an excellent critic, Mr. Hawkehurst, and it +would be so nice to have you with us,--wouldn't it, Di? You know what a +good critic Mr. Hawkehurst is?" + +"Yes," answered Diana; "we used to go to theatres together very often." + +This was a cry of anguish wrung from a bleeding heart; but to the two +absorbed egotists it seemed the simplest of casual observations. + +"Do you think you could manage to get a box, Mr. Hawkehurst?" asked the +irresistible enslaver, putting her head on one side, in a manner which, +for the protection of weak mankind, should be made penal. + +"I will try my uttermost," answered Valentine. + +"O, then I'm sure you will succeed. And we shall be amused by your +deliciously bitter criticisms between the acts. One would think you had +studied under Douglas Jerrold." + +"You do me too much honour. But before the new piece is produced I +shall have left London, and shall not have the pleasure of accompanying +you to the theatre." + +"You are going to leave London?" + +"Yes, to-morrow." + +"So soon!" cried Charlotte, with undisguised regret; "and for a long +time, I suppose?" she added, very mournfully. + +Miss Paget gave a little start, and a feverish flush lit up her face +for one brief moment. + +"I am glad he is going," she thought; "I am very glad he is going." + +"Yes," said Valentine, in reply to Charlotte's inquiry, "I am likely to +be away for a considerable time; indeed my plans are at present so +vague, that I cannot tell when I may come back to town." + +He could not resist the temptation to speak of his absence as if it +were likely to be the affair of a lifetime. He could not refrain from +the delight of sounding the pure depths of that innocent young heart. +But when the tender gray eyes looked at him, so sweet in their sudden +sadness, his heart melted, and he could trifle with her unconscious +love no longer. + +"I am going away on a matter of business," he said, "which may or may +not occupy some time; but I don't suppose I shall be many weeks away +from London." + +Charlotte gave a little sigh of relief. + +"And are you going very far?" she asked. + +"Some distance; yes--a--hundred and fifty miles or so," Valentine +answered very lamely. It had been an easy thing to invent an ancient +aunt Sarah for the mystification of the astute Horatio; but Valentine +Hawkehurst could not bring himself to tell Charlotte Halliday a +deliberate falsehood. The girl looked at him wonderingly, as he gave +that hesitating answer to her question. She was at a loss to understand +why he did not tell her the place to which he was going, and the nature +of the business that took him away. + +She was very sorry that he was going to disappear out of her life for a +time so uncertain, that while on the one hand it might be only a few +weeks, it might on the other hand be for ever. The life of a young +English damsel, in a prim villa at Bayswater, with a very commonplace +mother and a practical stockbroking stepfather, is rather a narrow kind +of existence; and to such a damsel the stranger whose hand lifts the +curtain that shrouds new and brighter worlds is apt to become a very +important personage, especially when the stranger happens to be young +and handsome, and invested with that dash of Bohemianism which to +artless and sentimental girlhood has such a flavour of romance. + +Charlotte was very silent as she retraced her steps along the broad +gravel walk. As they drew near the Bayswater-gate she looked at her +watch. It was nearly one o'clock, and she had promised Mrs. Sheldon to +be home at one for luncheon, and afterwards shopping. + +"I'm afraid we must hurry home, Di," she said. + +"I am quite ready to go," answered Miss Paget promptly. "Good-bye, +Valentine." + +"Good-bye, Diana; good-bye, Miss Halliday." + +Mr. Hawkehurst shook hands with both young ladies; but shaking hands +with Charlotte was a very slow process compared to the same performance +with Diana. + +"Good-bye," he repeated, in a lingering tone; and then, after standing +for some moments silent and irresolute, with his hat in his hand, he +put it on suddenly and hurried away. + +The two girls had walked a few steps towards the gate when Charlotte +stopped before a stony-looking alcove, which happened at this +nursery-dinner-hour to be empty. + +"I'm so tired, Di," she said, and went into the alcove, where she sat +down to rest. She had a little veil attached to her turban hat--a +little veil which she now drew over her face. The tears gathered slowly +in her eyes and fell through that flimsy morsel of lace with which she +would fain have hidden her childish sorrow. The tears gathered and fell +on her lap as she sat in silence, pretending not to cry. This much rain +at least was there to justify her prediction, uttered in such foolish +gaiety of heart half an hour before. + +Miss Halliday's eyes were undimmed by tears when she went back to the +gothic villa; but she had a feeling that some great sorrow had come +upon her--a vague idea that the last lingering warmth and brightness of +summer had faded all in a moment, and that chill gray winter had closed +in upon Bayswater without any autumnal interval. What was it that she +had lost? Only the occasional society of a young man with a handsome +pale face, a little haggard and wan from the effect of dissipated +habits and a previous acquaintance with care and difficulty--only the +society of a penniless Bohemian who had a certain disreputable +cleverness and a dash of gloomy sentimentality, which the schoolgirl +mistook for genius. But then he was the first man whose eyes had ever +softened with a mysterious tenderness as they looked at her--the first +whose voice had grown faintly tremulous when it syllabled her name. + +There was some allusion to Mr. Hawkehurst's departure in the course of +dinner, and Philip Sheldon expressed some surprise. + +"Going to leave town?" he said. + +"Yes, papa," Charlotte answered; "he is going a long way into the +country,--a hundred and fifty miles, he said." + +"Did he tell you where he was going?" + +"No; he seemed unwilling to mention the place. He only said something +about a hundred and fifty miles." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH. + + +Mr. Sheldon had occasion to see Captain Paget early the following day, +and questioned him closely about his _protégé's_ movements. He had +found Valentine a very useful tool in sundry intricate transactions of +the commercial kind, and he expected his tools to be ready for his +service. He was therefore considerably annoyed by Valentine's abrupt +departure. + +"I think young Hawkehurst might have told me he was going out of town," +he said. "What the deuce has taken him off in such a hurry?" + +"He is going to see some mysterious old aunt at Dorking, from whom he +seems to expect money," the Captain answered carelessly. "I daresay I +can do what you want, Sheldon." + +"Very likely. But how comes that young fellow to have an aunt at +Dorking? I fancy I've heard him say he was without a relative or a +friend in the world--always excepting yourself." + +"The aunt may be another exception; some poor old soul that he's half +ashamed to own, I daresay--the inmate of an almshouse, perhaps. Val's +expectations may be limited to a few pounds hoarded in a china teapot." + +"I should have thought Hawkehurst the last man in the world to care +about looking after that sort of thing. I could have given him plenty +to do if he had stopped in town. He and my brother George are +uncommonly intimate, by the bye," added Mr. Sheldon meditatively. It +was his habit to be rather distrustful of his brother and of all his +brother's acquaintance. "I suppose you can give me Hawkehurst's +address, in case I should want to write to him?" he said. + +"He told me to send my letters to the post-office, Dorking," answered +the Captain, "which really looks as if the aunt's residence were +something in the way of an almshouse." + +No more was said about Valentine's departure. Captain Paget concluded +his business with his patron and departed, leaving the stockbroker +leaning forward upon his desk in a thoughtful attitude and scribbling +purposeless figures upon his blotting-paper. + +"There's something queer in this young man running away from town; +there's some mystification somewhere," he thought. "He has not gone to +Dorking, or he would scarcely have told Lotta that he was going a +hundred and fifty miles from town. He would be likely to be taken off +his guard by her questions, and would tell the truth. I wonder whether +Paget is in the secret. His manner seemed open enough; but that sort of +man can pretend anything. I've noticed that he and George have been +very confidential lately. I wonder whether there's any underhand game +on the cards between those two." + +The game of which Mr. Sheldon thought as he leant over his +blotting-paper was a very different kind of game from that which really +occupied the attention of George and his friend. + +"I'll go to his lodgings at once," he said to himself by-and-by, rising +and putting on his hat quickly in his eagerness to act upon his +resolution. "I'll see if he really has left town." + +The stockbroker hailed the first empty hansom to be seen in the crowded +thoroughfare from which his shady court diverged. In less than an hour +he alighted before the door of the house in which Captain Paget lodged. + +"Is Mr. Hawkehurst in?" he asked of the girl who admitted him. + +"No, sir; he's just left to go into the country. He hasn't been gone +ten minutes. You might a'most have met him." + +"Do you know where he has gone?" + +"I heard say it was Dorking, sir." + +"Humph! I should like to have seen him before he went. Did he take much +luggage?" + +"One portmanter, sir." + +"I suppose you didn't notice where he told the man to drive?" + +"Yes, sir; it was Euston-square." + +"Ah! Euston-square. I'll go there, then, on the chance of catching +him," said Mr. Sheldon. + +He bestowed a donation upon the domestic, reentered his hansom, and +told the man to drive to Euston-square "like a shot." + +"So! His destination is Dorking, and he goes from Euston-square!" +muttered Mr. Sheldon, in sombre meditation, as the hansom rattled and +rushed, and jingled and jolted, over the stones. "There's something +under the cards here." + +Arrived at the great terminus, the stockbroker made his way to the down +platform. There was a lull in the day's traffic, and only a few +listless wretches lounging disconsolately here and there, with eyes +ever and anon lifted to the clock. Amongst these there was no Valentine +Hawkehurst. + +Mr. Sheldon peered into all the waiting-rooms, and surveyed the +refreshment-counter; but there was still no sign of the man he sought. +He went back to the ticket-office; but here again all was desolate, the +shutters of the pigeon-holes hermetically closed, and no vestige of +Valentine Hawkehurst. + +The stockbroker was disappointed, but not defeated. He returned to the +platform, looked about him for a few moments, and then addressed +himself to a porter of intelligent aspect. + +"What trains have left here within the last half-hour?" he asked. + +"Only one, sir; the 2.15 down, for Manchester." + +"You didn't happen to notice a dark-eyed, dark-haired young man among +the passengers--second class?" asked Mr. Sheldon. + +"No, sir. There are always a good many passengers by that train; I +haven't time to notice their faces." + +The stockbroker asked no further questions. He was a man who did not +care to be obliged to others for information which he could obtain for +himself. He walked straight to a place where the time-tables were +pasted on the wall, and ran his finger along the figures till he came +to those he wanted. + +The 2.15 train was a fast train, which stopped at only four +places--Rugby, Ullerton, Murford, and Manchester. + +"I daresay he has gone to Manchester," thought Mr. Sheldon--"on some +racing business most likely, which he wants to keep dark from his +patron the Captain. What a fool I am to trouble myself about him, as if +he couldn't stir without meaning mischief to me! But I don't understand +the friendship between him and George. My brother George is not likely +to take up any man without some motive." + +After these reflections Mr. Sheldon left the station and went back to +his office in another hansom, still extremely thoughtful and somewhat +disquieted. + +"What does it matter to me where they go or what they do?" he asked +himself, impatient of some lurking weakness of his own; "what does it +matter to me whether those two are friendly or unfriendly? They can do +me no harm." + +There happened to be a kind of lull in the stormy regions of the Stock +Exchange at the time of Valentine Hawkehurst's departure. Stagnation +had descended upon that commercial ocean, which is such a dismal waste +of waters for the professional speculator in its hour of calm. All the +Bulls in the zoological creation would have failed to elevate the +drooping stocks and shares and first-preference bonds and debentures, +which hung their feeble heads and declined day by day, the weaker of +them threatening to fade away and diminish to a vanishing-point, as it +seemed to some dejected holders who read the Stock-Exchange lists and +the money article in the Times with a persistent hopefulness which +struggled against the encroachments of despair. The Bears had been +busy, but were now idle--having burnt their fingers, commercial +gentlemen remarked. So Bulls and Bears alike hung listlessly about a +melancholy market, and conversed together dolefully in corners; and the +burden of all their lamentations was to the effect that there never had +been such times, and things never had been so bad, and it was a +question whether they would ever right themselves. Philip Sheldon +shared in the general depression. His face was gloomy, and his manner +for the time being lost something of its brisk, business-like +cheerfulness. The men who envied his better fortunes watched him +furtively when he showed himself amongst them, and wondered whether +Sheldon, of Jull, Girdlestone, and Sheldon, had been hit by these bad +times. + +It was not entirely the pressure of that commercial stagnation which +weighed on the spirits of Philip Sheldon. The stockbroker was tormented +by private doubts and uncertainties which had nothing to do with the +money-market. + +On the day after Valentine's journey to Ullerton, Mr. Sheldon the elder +presented himself at his brother's office in Gray's Inn. It was his +habit to throw waifs and strays of business in the attorney's way, and +to make use of him occasionally, though he had steadily refused to lend +or give him money; and it was his habit, as it were, to keep an eye +upon his younger brother--rather a jealous eye, which took note of all +George's doings, and kept suspicious watch upon all George's +associates. Going unannounced into his brother's office on this +particular morning, Philip Sheldon found him bending over an outspread +document--a great sheet of cartridge-paper covered with a net-work of +lines, dotted about with circles, and with little patches of writing in +red and black ink in the neatest possible penmanship. Mr. Sheldon the +elder, whose bright black eyes were as the eyes of the hawk, took note +of this paper, and had caught more than one stray word that stood out +in larger and bolder characters than its neighbours, before his brother +could fold it; for it is not an easy thing for a man to fold an +elephantine sheet of cartridge when he is nervously anxious to fold it +quickly, and is conscious that the eyes of an observant brother are +upon him. + +Before George had mastered the folding of the elephantine sheet, Philip +had seen and taken note of two words. One of these was the word +INTESTATE, and the other the name HAYGARTH. + +"You seem in a great hurry to get that document out of the way," said +Philip, as he seated himself in the client's chair. + +"Well, to tell the truth, you rather startled me," answered George. "I +didn't know who it might be, you know; and I was expecting a fellow +who--" And then Mr. Sheldon the younger broke off abruptly, and asked, +with rather a suspicious air, "Why didn't that boy announce you?" + +"Because I wouldn't let him. Why should he announce me? One would think +you were carrying on some political conspiracy, George, and had a +modern Thistlewood gang hidden in that cupboard yonder. How thick you +and Hawkehurst are, by the bye!" + +In spite of the convenient "by the bye," this last remark of the +stockbroker's sounded rather irrelevant. + +"I don't know about being 'thick.' Hawkehurst seems a very decent young +fellow, and he and I get on pretty well together. But I'm not as +'thick' with him as I was with Tom Halliday." + +It was to be observed that Mr. Sheldon the younger was very apt to +refer to that friendship with the dead Yorkshireman in the course of +conversation with Philip. + +"Hawkehurst has just left town," said Philip indifferently. + +"Yes, I know he has." + +"When did you hear it?" + +"I saw him last night," answered George, taken off his guard by the +carelessness of his brother's manner. + +"Did you?" cried Mr. Sheldon. "You make a mistake there. He left town +at two o'clock yesterday." + +"How do you happen to know that?" asked George sharply. + +"Because I happened to be at the station and saw him take his ticket. +There's something underhand in that journey of his by the way; for +Paget told me he was going to Dorking. I suppose he and Paget have some +game of their own on the cards. I was rather annoyed by the young man's +departure, as I had some work for him. However, I can find plenty of +fellows to do it as well as Hawkehurst could have done." + +George was looking into an open drawer in his desk while his brother +said this. He had a habit of opening drawers and peering into them +absently during the progress of an interview, as if looking for some +particular paper, that was never to be found. + +After this the conversation became less personal. The brothers talked a +little of the events of the day, the money-article in that morning's +Times, the probability or improbability of a change in the rate of +discount. But this conversation soon flagged, and Mr. Sheldon rose to +depart. + +"I suppose that sheet of cartridge-paper which you had so much trouble +to fold is one of your genealogical tables," he said as he was going. +"You needn't try to keep things dark from me, George. I'm not likely to +steal a march upon you; my own business gives me more work than I can +do. But if you have really got a good thing at last, I shouldn't mind +going into it with you, and finding the money for the enterprise." + +George Sheldon looked at his elder brother with a malicious flitter in +his eyes. + +"On condition that you got the lion's share of the profits," he said. +"O yes; I know how generous you are, Phil. I have asked you for money +before today, and you have refused it." + +Mr. Sheldon's face darkened just a little at this point. "Your manner +of asking it was offensive," he said. + +"Well, I'm sorry for that," answered George politely. "However, you +refused me money when I did want it; so you needn't offer it me now I +don't want it. There are some people who think I have sacrificed my +life to a senseless theory; and perhaps you are one of them. But there +is one thing you may be certain of, Philip Sheldon: if ever I _do_ get +a good chance, I shall know how to keep it to myself." + +There are men skilled in the concealment of their feelings on all +ordinary occasions, who will yet betray themselves in a crisis of +importance. George Sheldon would fain have kept his project hidden from +his elder brother; but in this one unguarded moment he forgot himself, +and allowed the sense of triumph to irradiate his face. + +The stockbroker was a reader of men rather than books; and it is a +notable thing what superiority in all worldly wisdom is possessed by +men who eschew books. He was able to translate the meaning of George's +smile--a smile of mingled triumph and malice. + +"The fellow _has_ got a good thing," he thought to himself, "and +Hawkehurst is in it. It must be a deuced good thing too, or he wouldn't +refuse my offer of money." Mr. Sheldon was the last man in the world to +reveal any mortification which he might experience from his brother's +conduct. + +"Well, you're quite right to stick to your chance, George," he said, +with agreeable frankness. "You've waited long enough for it. As for me, +I've got my fingers in a good many pies just at present; so perhaps I +had better keep them out of yours, whatever plums there may be to be +picked out of it by an enterprising Jack Horner. Pick out your plums +for yourself, old fellow, and I'll be one of the first to call you a +good boy for your pains." + +With this Mr. Sheldon slapped his brother's shoulder and departed. + +"I think I've had the best of Master Phil for once," muttered George; +and then he thrust his sinewy hands into the depths of his +trousers-pocket, and indulged in a silent laugh, which displayed his +strong square white teeth to perfection. "I flatter myself I took a +rise out of Phil to-day," he muttered. + +The sense of a malicious triumph over a social enemy is a very +delightful kind of thing,--so delightful that a man is apt to ignore +the possible cost of the enjoyment. It is like the pleasure of kicking +a man who is down--very delicious in its way; only one never knows how +soon the man may be up again. + +George Sheldon, who was tolerably skilled in the science of human +nature, should have known that "taking a rise" out of his brother was +likely to be a rather costly operation. Philip was not the safest man +to deal with at any time; but he was most dangerous when he was "jolly." + + + + + +BOOK THE FOURTH. + + +VALENTINE HAWKEHURST'S RECORD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE OLDEST INHABITANT. + + +Black Swan Inn, Ullerton, October 2nd. + +As the work I am now employed in is quite new to me, and I am to keep +Sheldon posted up in this business day by day, I have decided on +jotting down the results of my inquiries in a kind of diary. Instead of +writing my principal a formal letter, I shall send a copy of the +entries in the diary, revised and amended. This will insure exactitude; +and there is just the possibility that the record may be useful to me +hereafter. To remember all I hear and pick up about these departed +Haygarths without the aid of pen and ink would be out of the question; +so I mean to go in for unlimited pen and ink like a hero, not to say a +martyr. + +And I am to do all this for twenty shillings a week, and the remote +possibility of three thousand pounds! O genius, genius! in all the +markets of this round world is there no better price for you than that? + +How sweetly my Charlotte looked at me yesterday, when I told her I was +going away! If I could have dared to kneel at her feet under those +whispering elms,--unconscious of the children, unconscious of the +nursemaids,--if I could have dared to cry aloud to her, "I am a +penniless reprobate, but I love you; I am a disreputable pauper, but I +adore you! Have pity upon my love and forget my worthlessness!" If I +could have dared to carry her away from her prim suburban home and that +terrible black-whiskered stockbroking stepfather! But how is a man to +carry off the woman he adores when he has not the _de quoi_ for the +first stage of the journey? + +With three thousand pounds in my pocket, I think I could dare anything. +Three thousand pounds! One year of splendour and happiness, and +then--the rest is chaos! + +I have seen the oldest inhabitant. _Ay de mi_! Sheldon did not +exaggerate the prosiness of that intolerable man. I thought of the +luckless wedding guest in Coleridge's grim ballad as I sat listening to +this modern-ancient mariner. I had to remind myself of all the bright +things to be bought for three thousand pounds, every now and then, in +order to endure with fortitude, if not serenity. And now the day's work +is done, I begin to think it might as well have been left undone. How +am I to disintegrate the mass of prosiness which I have heard this day? +For three mortal hours did I listen to my ancient mariner; and how much +am I the wiser for my patience? Clever as you may fancy yourself, my +friend Hawkehurst, you don't seem to be the man for this business. You +have not the legal mind. Your genius is not the genius of +Scotland-yard, and I begin to fear that in your new line you may prove +yourself a failure. + +However, where all is dark to me the astute Sheldon may see daylight, +so I'll observe the letter of my bond, and check off the residuum of +the ancient mariner's prosiness. + +By dint of much pumping I obtained from my ancient, first, his father's +recollections of Matthew Haygarth a few years before his death, and +secondly, his grandfather's recollections of Matthew in his wild youth. +It seems that in those last years of his life Matthew was a most sober +and estimable citizen; attended the chapel of a nonconforming sect; +read the works of Baxter, and followed in the footsteps of his departed +father; was a kind husband to a woman who appears to me to have been +rather a pragmatical and icy personage, but who was esteemed a model of +womanly virtue, and who had money. Strange that these respectable and +wealthy citizens should be so eager to increase their store by alliance +with respectable and wealthy citizenesses. + +In his later years Matthew Haygarth seems to have imitated his father +in many respects. Like his father, he executed more than one will; and, +like his father, he died intestate. The lawyer who drew up his will on +more than one occasion was a man called Brice--like his client, +eminently respectable. + +After his marriage, our esteemed Matthew retired to a modest mansion in +the heart of the country, and some ten or fifteen miles from Ullerton. +The mansion in question is at a place called Dewsdale, and was the +property of the wife, and accrued to him through her. + +This house and estate of some thirty acres was afterwards sold by the +rev. intestate, John Haygarth, shortly after his coming of age, and +within a year of his mother's death. + +This much and no more could I extort from the oldest inhabitant +relative to the latter days of our Matthew. + +Respecting his wild youth I obtained the following crumbs of +enlightenment. In the year 1741-2, being then one-and-twenty years of +age, he left Ullerton. It is my ancient mariner's belief that he ran +away from home, after some desperate quarrel with his father; and it is +also the belief of my ancient that he stayed away, without +intermission, for twenty years,--though on what precise fact that +belief is founded is much more than I can extract from the venerable +proser. + +My ancient suggests--always in the haziest and most impracticable +manner--the possibility that Matthew in his wild days lodged somewhere +Clerkenwell way. He has a dim idea that he has heard his grandfather +speak of St. John's-gate, Clerkenwell, in connection with Matthew +Haygarth; but, as my ancient's grandfather seems to have been almost +imbecile at the time he made such remarks, _this_ is not much. + +He has another idea--also very vague and impracticable--of having heard +his grandfather say something about an adventure of Matthew Haygarth's, +which was rather a heroic affair in its way--an adventure in which, in +some inexplicable manner, the wild Matthew is mixed up with a +dancing-girl, or player-girl, of Bartholomew Fair, and a nobleman. + +This is the sum-total of the information to be extracted in three +mortal hours from my ancient. Altogether the day has been very +unsatisfactory; and I begin to think I'm not up to the sort of work +required of me. + +_Oct. 3rd._ Another long interview with my ancient. I dropped +in directly after my breakfast, and about an hour after his +dinner. I sat up late last night, occupied till nearly ten in copying +my diary for Sheldon--which was just in time for the London post--and +lingering over my cigar till past midnight, thinking of Charlotte. So I +was late this morning. + +My ancient received me graciously. I took him half a pound of mild +bird's-eye tobacco, on diplomatic grounds. He is evidently the sort of +person who would receive Mephistopheles graciously, if the fiend +presented him with tobacco. + +I returned to the charge--diplomatically, of course; talked about +Ullerton and Ullerton people in general, insinuating occasional +questions about the Haygarths. I was rewarded by obtaining some little +information about Mrs. Matthew. That lady appears to have been a +devoted disciple of John Wesley, and was fonder of travelling to divers +towns and villages to hear the discourses of that preacher than her +husband approved. It seems they were wont to disagree upon this subject. + +For some years before her marriage Mrs. Matthew was a member of a +Wesleyan confraternity, in those days newly established at Ullerton. +They held meetings and heard sermons in the warehouse of a wealthy +draper; and shortly before Mrs. Matthew's demise they built a chapel, +still extant, in a dingy little thoroughfare known as Waterhouse-lane. + +On these points my ancient mariner is tolerably clear. They belong to +the period remembered by his father. + +And now I believe him to be pumped dry. I gave him my benediction, and +left him smoking some of my tobacco, content with himself and with the +world--always excepting the authorities, or board, of the almshouses, +against whom he appears to nourish a grievance. + +After leaving him, I walked about Ullerton for an hour or so before +returning to my humble hostelry. The streets of Ullerton are sealed +with the seal of desolation--the abomination of desolation reigns in +the market-place, where the grass flourishes greenly in the interstices +of the pavement. The place has known prosperity, and is prosperous no +longer; but although its chief trade has left it, there are still some +three or four factories in full swing. I heard clanging bells, and met +bare-headed women and uncouth-looking men hurrying to and fro. I went +to look at the Wesleyan chapel in Waterhouse-lane. It is a queer little +building, and bears some resemblance to a toy Noah's Ark in red brick. +Tall warehouses have arisen about it and hemmed it in, and the slim +chimney-shaft of a waterworks throws a black shadow aslant its +unpretending facade. I inquired the name of the present minister. He is +called Jonah Goodge, began life as a carpenter, and is accounted the +pink and pattern of piety. _Oct. 4th_. A letter from Sheldon awaited me +in the coffee-room letter-rack when I went downstairs to breakfast. + +"MY DEAR HAWKEHURST,--Don't be disheartened if the work seems slow at +first. You'll soon get used to it. + +"I should recommend you to adopt the following tactics: + +"1st. Go to the house at Dewsdale, inhabited by M.H. and his wife. You +may have some difficulty in obtaining admission--and full liberty to +explore and examine--from the present servant or owner; but you are not +the man I take you for if you cannot overcome such a difficulty. I +enclose a few of my cards, which you can use at your discretion. They +show professional status. It would be as well to call yourself my +articled clerk, and to state that you are prosecuting an inquiry on the +behalf of a client of mine, who wishes to prove a certain event in the +past connected remotely with the H. family. If asked whether your +business relates to the property left by the rev. intestate, you must +reply decisively in the negative. But I must remind you that extreme +caution is required in every move you make. Wherever you can do your +work _without_ any reference to the name of Haygarth, avoid such +reference. Always remember that there may be other people on the same +scent. + +"2nd. Examine the house in detail; look for old pictures, old +furniture, old needlework--if you are lucky enough to find the Haygarth +furniture was sold with the property, which I should think probable. +The rev. intestate must have been at the University when he made the +sale; and a young Cantab would in all likelihood pass over his +ancestral chairs and tables to the purchaser of his ancestral mansion, +as so much useless lumber. It is proverbial that walls have ears. I +hope the Dewsdale walls may have tongues, and favour you with a little +information. + +"3rd. When you have done all that is to be done at Dewsdale, your next +work must be to hunt up any scion of the lawyer Brice, if such scion be +in existence at Ullerton. Or if not to be found in Ullerton, ascertain +where the descendant, or decendants, of Brice is, or are, to be found. +Brice, the lawyer, must have known the contents of those wills executed +and afterwards destroyed by Haygarth, and may have kept rough draughts, +copies, or memoranda of the same. This is most important.--Yours truly, +G.S." + +This Sheldon is a wonderful man, and a cautious!--no Signature to his +letter. + +I started for Dewsdale immediately after my breakfast. I have made +arrangements for boarding in this house, which is a second-rate +commercial inn. They have agreed to give me board and lodging for +twenty shillings a week--the full amount of my stipend: so all that I +gain by my researches in the affairs of the departed Matthew is food +and shelter. However, as this food and shelter is perhaps more honestly +obtained than those little dinners which I have so often eaten with the +great Horatio, I will try to fancy a sweetness in the tough steaks and +greasy legs of mutton. O sheep of Midlandshire! why cultivate such +ponderous calves, and why so incline to sinews? O cooks of +Midlandshire! why so superficial in the treatment of your roasts, so +impetuous and inconsiderate when you boil? + +A railroad now penetrates the rural district in which the village of +Dewsdale is situated. There is a little station, something like a +wooden Dutch oven, within a mile of the village; and here I alighted. +The morning savoured of summer rather than autumn. The air was soft and +balmy, the sunshine steeped the landscape in warm light, and the red +and golden tints of the fading foliage took new splendour from that +yellow sunshine. A man whose life is spent in cities must be dull of +soul indeed if he does not feel a little touched by the beauty of +rustic scenery, when he finds himself suddenly in the heart of the +country. I had seen nothing so fair as those English fields and copses +since I left the pine-clad hills of Forêtdechêne. An idiotic boy +directed me across some fields to Dewsdale. He sent me a mile out of +the way; but I forgave and blest him, for I think the walk did me good. +I felt as if all manner of vicious vapours were being blown out of my +head as the soft wind lifted my hair. + +And so to Dewsdale. Strolling leisurely through those quiet meadows, I +fell to thinking of many things that seldom came into my mind in +London. I thought of my dead mother--a poor gentle creature--too frail +to carry heroically the burden laid upon her, and so a little soured by +chronic debt and difficulty. I have reason to remember her tenderly; we +shared so much misery together. I believe my father married her in the +Rules of the Bench; and if I am not sure upon this point, I know for a +certainty that I was born within those mystic boundaries. + +And then my mind wandered to those nomadic adventures in which poor +Diana Paget and I were so much together. I think we were a little fond +of each other in those days; but in that matter I was at least prudent; +and now the transient fancy has faded, on Di's part as well as on mine. + +If I could be as prudent where Charlotte H. is concerned! + +But prudence and Charlotte's eyes cannot hold their own in the same +brain. Of two things, one, as our neighbours say: a man must cease to +be prudent, or he must forget those bewitching gray eyes. + +I know she was sorry when she heard of my intended departure. + +This is her birthday. She is twenty-one years of age to-day. I remember +the two girls talking of it, and Miss Halliday declaring herself "quite +old." My dear one, I drink your health in this poor tavern liquor, with +every tender wish and holy thought befitting your innocent girlhood! + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE. + + +I found the house at Dewsdale without difficulty. It is a stiff, +square, red-brick dwelling-place, with long narrow windows, a high +narrow door, and carved canopy; a house which savours of the _Tatler_ +and _Spectator_; a house in which the short-faced gentleman might have +spent his summer holidays after Sir Roger's death. It stands behind a +high iron gate, surmounted by a handsome coat of arms; and before it +there lies a pleasant patch of greensward, with a pond and a colony of +cackling geese, which craned their necks and screamed at me as I passed +them. + +The place is the simplest and smallest of rural villages. There is a +public-house--the Seven Stars; a sprinkling of humble cottages; a +general shop, which is at once a shoemaker's, a grocer's, a linen +draper's, a stationer's, and a post office. These habitations, a gray +old church with a square tower, half hidden by the sombre foliage of +yews and cedars, and the house once inhabited by the Haygarths, +comprise the whole of the village. The Haygarthian household is now the +rectory. I ascertained this fact from the landlord of the Seven Stars, +at which house of entertainment I took a bottle of soda-water, in order +to _sonder le terrain_ before commencing business. + +The present rector is an elderly widower with seven children; an easy +good-natured soul, who is more prone to bestow his money in charity +than to punctuality in the payment of his debts. + +Having discovered thus much, I rang the bell at the iron gate and +boarded the Haygarthian mansion. The rector was at home, and received +me in a very untidy apartment, _par excellence_ a study. A boy in a +holland blouse was smearing his face with his inky fingers, and +wrestling with a problem in Euclid, while his father stood on a +step-ladder exploring a high shelf of dusty books. + +The rector, whose name is Wendover, descended from the step-ladder and +shook the dust from his garments. He is a little withered old man, with +a manner so lively as to be on the verge of flightiness. I observed +that he wiped his dusty palms on the skirts of his coat, and argued +therefrom that he would be an easy person to deal with. I soon found +that my deduction was correct. + +I presented Sheldon's card and stated my business, of course acting on +that worthy's advice. Could Mr. Wendover give me any information +relating to the Haygarth family? + +Fortune favoured me throughout this Dewsdale expedition. The rector is +a simple garrulous old soul, to whom to talk is bliss. He has occupied +the house five-and-thirty years. He rents it of the lord of the manor, +who bought it from John Haygarth. Not a stick of furniture has been +removed since our friend Matthew's time; and the rev. intestate may +have wrestled with the mysteries of Euclid on the same old-fashioned +mahogany table at which I saw the boy in brown holland. + +Mr. Wendover left his books and manuscripts scattered on the floor of +the study, and conducted me to a cool shady drawing-room, very shabbily +furnished with the spindle-legged chairs and tables of the last +century. Here he begged me to be seated, and here we were ever and anon +interrupted by intruding juveniles, the banging of doors, and the +shrill clamour of young voices in the hall and garden. + +I brought all the diplomacy of which I am master to bear in my long +interview with the rector; and the following is a transcript of our +conversation, after a good deal of polite skirmishing:-- + +_Myself_. You see, my dear sir, the business I am concerned in is +remotely connected with these Haygarths. Any information you will +kindly afford me, however apparently trivial, may be of service in the +affair I am prosecuting. + +_The Rector._ To be sure, to be sure! But, you see, though I've heard a +good deal of the Haygarths, it is all gossip--the merest gossip. People +are so fond of gossip, you know--especially country people: I have no +doubt you have remarked that. Yes, I have heard a great deal about +Matthew Haygarth. My late clerk and sexton,--a very remarkable man, +ninety-one when he died, and able to perform his duties very creditably +within a year of his death--very creditably; but the hard winter of '56 +took him off, poor fellow, and now I have a young man. Old Andrew +Hone--that was my late clerk's name--was employed in this house when a +lad, and was very fond of talking about Matthew Haygarth and his wife. +She was a rich woman, you know, a very rich woman--the daughter of a +brewer at Ullerton; and this house belonged to her--inherited from her +father. + +_Myself_. And did you gather from your clerk that Matthew Haygarth and +his wife lived happily together? + +_The Rector_. Well, yes, yes: I never heard anything to the contrary. +They were not a young couple, you know. Rebecca Caulfield was forty +years of age, and Matthew Haygarth was fifty-three when he married; so, +you see, one could hardly call it a love-match. [_Abrupt inroad of +bouncing damsel, exclaiming "Pa!"_] Don't you see I'm engaged, Sophia +Louisa? Why are you not at your practice? [_Sudden retreat of bouncing +damsel, followed by the scrambling performance of scale of C major in +adjoining chamber, which performance abruptly ceases after five +minutes_.] You see Mrs. Haygarth was _not_ young, as I was about to +observe when my daughter interrupted us; and she was perhaps a little +more steadfast in her adherence to the newly arisen sect of Wesleyans +than was pleasing to her husband, although he consented to become a +member of that sect. But as their married life lasted only a year, they +had little time for domestic unhappiness, even supposing them not to be +adapted to each other. + +_Myself_. Mrs Matthew Haygarth did not marry again? + +_The Rector_. No; she devoted herself to the education of her son, and +lived and died in this house. The room which is now my study she +furnished with a small reading-desk and a couple of benches, now in my +nursery, and made it into a kind of chapel, in which the keeper of the +general shop--who was, I believe, considered a shining light amongst +the Wesleyan community--was in the habit of holding forth every Sunday +morning to such few members of that sect as were within reach of +Dewsdale. She died when her son was nineteen years of age, and was +buried in the family vault in the churchyard yonder. Her son's +adherence to the Church of England was a very great trouble to her. +[_Inroad of boy in holland, very dejected and inky of aspect, also +exclaiming "Pa!"_] No, John; not till that problem is worked out. Take +that cricket-bat back to the lobby, sir, and return to your studies. +[_Sulky withdrawal of boy._] You see what it is to have a large family, +Mr.--Sheldon. I beg pardon, Mr.------ + +_Myself_. Hawkehurst, clerk to Mr. Sheldon. + +_The Rector_. To be sure. I have some thoughts of the Law for one of my +elder sons; the Church is terribly overcrowded. However, as I was on +the point of saying when my boy John disturbed us, though I have heard +a great deal of gossip about the Haygarths, I fear I can give you very +little substantial information. Their connection with Dewsdale lasted +little more than twenty years. Matthew Haygarth was married in Dewsdale +church, his son John was christened in Dewsdale church, and he himself +is buried in the churchyard. That is about as much positive information +as I can give you; and you will perhaps remark that the parish register +would afford you as much. + +After questioning the good-natured old rector rather closely, and +obtaining little more than the above information, I asked permission +to see the house. + +"Old furniture and old pictures are apt to be suggestive," I said; "and +perhaps while we are going over the house you may happen to recall some +further particulars relating to the Haygarth family." + +Mr. Wendover assented. He was evidently anxious to oblige me, and +accepted my explanation of my business in perfect good faith. He +conducted me from room to room, waiting patiently while I scrutinised +the panelled walls and stared at the attenuated old furniture. I was +determined to observe George Sheldon's advice to the very letter, +though I had little hope of making any grand melodramatic discovery in +the way of documents hidden in old cabinets, or mouldering behind +sliding panels. + +I asked the rector if he had ever found papers of any kind in forgotten +nooks and corners of the house or the furniture. His reply was a +decided negative. He had explored and investigated every inch of the +old dwelling-place, and had found nothing. + +So much for Sheldon's idea. + +Mr. Wendover led me from basement to garret, encountering bouncing +daughters and boys in brown holland wherever we went; and from basement +to garret I found that all was barren. In the whole of the house there +was but one object which arrested my attention, and the interest which +that one object aroused in my mind had no relation to the Haygarthian +fortune. + +Over a high carved chimney-piece in one of the bedchambers there hung a +little row of miniatures--old-fashioned oval miniatures, pale and +faded--pictures of men and women with the powdered hair of the Georgian +period, and the flowing full-bottomed wigs familiar to St. James's and +Tunbridge-wells in the days of inoffensive Anne. There were in all +seven miniatures, six of which specimens of antique portraiture were +prim and starched and artificial of aspect. But the seventh was +different in form and style: it was the picture of a girlish face +looking out of a frame of loose unpowdered locks; a bright innocent +face, with gray eyes and marked black eyebrows, pouting lips a little +parted, and white teeth gleaming between lips of rosy red; such a face +as one might fancy the inspiration of an old poet. I took the miniature +gently from the little brass hook on which it hung, and stood for some +time looking at the bright frank face. + +It was the picture of Charlotte Halliday. Yes; I suppose there is a +fatality in these things. It was one of those marvellous accidental +resemblances which every man has met with in the course of his life. +Here was this dead-and-gone beauty of the days of George the Second +smiling upon me with the eyes and lips of Philip Sheldon's stepdaughter! + +Or was it only a delusion of my own? Was my mind so steeped in the +thought of that girl--was my heart so impressed by her beauty, that I +could not look upon a fair woman's face without conjuring up her +likeness in the pictured countenance? However this may be, I looked +long and tenderly at the face which seemed to me to resemble the woman +I love. + +Of course I questioned the rector as to the original of this particular +miniature. He could tell me nothing about it, except that he thought it +was not one of the Caulfields or Haygarths. The man in the +full-bottomed Queen-Anne wig was Jeremiah Caulfield, brewer, father of +the pious Rebecca; the woman with the high powdered head was the pious +Rebecca herself; the man in the George-the-Second wig was Matthew +Haygarth. The other three were kindred of Rebecca's. But the +wild-haired damsel was some unknown creature, for whose presence Mr. +Wendover was unable to account. + +I examined the frame of the miniature, and found that it opened at the +back. Behind the ivory on which the portrait was painted there was a +lock of dark hair incased in crystal; and on the inside of the case, +which was of some worthless metal gilded, there was scratched the name +"Molly." + +How this Molly with the loose dark locks came to be admitted among the +prim, and pious Caulfields is certainly more than I can understand. + +My exploration of the house having resulted only in this little +romantic accident of the likeness to Charlotte, I prepared to take my +departure, no wiser than when I had first crossed the threshold. The +rector very politely proposed to show me the church; and as I +considered that it would be well to take a copy of the Haygarthian +entries in the register, I availed myself of his offer. He despatched a +maid-servant to summon his clerk, in order that that functionary might +assist in the investigation of the registers. The girl departed on this +errand, while her master conducted me across his garden, in which there +is now a gate opening into the churchyard. + +It is the most picturesque of burial-grounds, darkened by the shadow of +those solemn yews and spreading cedars. We walked very slowly between +the crumbling old tombstones, which have almost all grown one-sided +with time. Mr. Wendover led me through a little labyrinth of lowly +graves to a high and ponderous iron railing surrounding a square space, +in the midst of which there is a stately stone monument. In the railing +there is a gate, from which a flight of stone step leads down to the +door of a vault. It is altogether rather a pretentious affair, wherein +one sees the evidence of substantial wealth unelevated by artistic +grace or poetic grandeur. + +This is the family vault of the Caulfields and Haygarths. + +"I've brought you to look at this tomb," said the rector, resting his +hand upon the rusted railing, "because there is rather a romantic story +connected with it--a story that concerns Matthew Haygarth, by the bye. +I did not think of it just now, when we were talking of him; but it +flashed on my memory as we came through the garden. It is rather a +mysterious affair; and though it is not very likely to have any bearing +upon the object of your inquiry, I may as well tell you about it,--as a +leaf out of family history, you know, Mr. Hawkehurst, and as a new +proof of the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction." + +I assured the rector that I should be glad to hear anything he could +tell me. + +"I must premise that I only tell the story as I got it from my old +clerk, and that it may therefore seem rather indistinct; but there is +an entry in the register yonder to show that it is not without +foundation. However, I will waste no more words in preamble, but give +you the story, which is simply this:"-- + +The rector seated himself on a dilapidated old tombstone, while I +leaned against the rails of the Haygarth vault, looking down upon him. + +"Within a month or two of Matthew Haygarth's death a kind of melancholy +came over him," said the rector. "Whether he was unhappy with his wife, +or whether he felt his health declining, is more than I can say. You +must remember that my informant was but a lad at the time of which I +speak, and that when he talked to me about the subject sixty years +afterwards he was a very old man, and his impressions were therefore +more or less vague. But upon certain facts he was sufficiently +positive; and amongst the circumstances he remembered most vividly are +those of the story I am going to tell you. + +"It seems that within a very few weeks of Matthew's death, his wife, +Rebecca Haygarth, started on an expedition to the north, in the company +of an uncle, to hear John Wesley preach on some very special occasion, +and to assist at a love-feast. She was gone more than a fortnight; and +during her absence Matthew Haygarth mounted his horse early one morning +and rode away from Dewsdale. + +"His household consisted of three maids, a man, and the lad Andrew +Hone, afterwards my sexton. Before departing on his journey Mr. +Haygarth had said that he would not return till late the next evening, +and had requested that only the man (whose name I forget) should sit up +for him." He was punctiliously obeyed. The household, always of early +habits, retired at nine, the accustomed hour; and the man-servant +waited to receive his master, while the lad Andrew, who slept in the +stables, sat up to keep his fellow-servant company. + +"At ten o'clock Mr. Haygarth came home, gave his horse into the charge +of the lad, took his candle from the man-servant, and walked straight +upstairs, as if going to bed. The man-servant locked the doors, took +his master the key, and then went to his own quarters. The boy remained +up to feed and groom the horse, which had the appearance of having +performed a hard day's work. + +"He had nearly concluded this business when he was startled by the +slamming of the back door opening into the courtyard, in which were the +stables and outhouses. Apprehending thieves, the boy opened the door of +the stable and looked out, doubtless with considerable caution. + +"It was broad moonlight, and he saw at a glance that the person who had +opened the door was one who had a right to open it. Matthew Haygarth +was crossing the courtyard as the lad peeped out. He wore a long black +cloak, and his head drooped upon his breast as if he had been in +dejection. The lad--being, I suppose, inquisitive, after the manner of +country lads--made no more ado, but left his unfinished work and crept +stealthily after his master, who came straight to this +churchyard,--indeed to this very spot on which we are now standing. + +"On this spot the boy Andrew Hone became the secret witness of a +strange scene. He saw an open grave close against the rails yonder, and +he saw a little coffin lowered silently into that grave by the sexton +of that time and a strange man, who afterwards went away in a mourning +coach, which was in waiting at the gate, and in which doubtless the +stranger and the little coffin had come. + +"Before the man departed he assisted to fill up the grave; and when it +was filled Matthew Haygarth gave money to both the men--gold it seemed +to the lad Andrew, and several pieces to each person. The two men then +departed, but Mr. Haygarth still lingered. + +"As soon as he fancied himself alone, he knelt down beside the little +grave, covered his face with his hands, and either wept or prayed, +Andrew Hone could not tell which. If he wept, he wept silently. + +"From that night, my sexton said, Matthew Haygarth faded visibly. +Mistress Rebecca came home from her love-feast, and nursed and tended +her husband with considerable kindness, though, so far as I can make +out, she was at the best a stern woman. He died three weeks after the +event which I have described, and was buried in that vault close to the +little grave." I thanked Mr. Wendover for his succinct narrative, and +apologised for the trouble I had occasioned him. + +"Do not speak of the trouble," he answered kindly; "I am used to +telling that story. I have heard it a great many times from poor old +Andrew, and I have told it a great many times." + +"The story has rather a legendary tone," I said; "I should have +scarcely thought such a thing possible." + +The rector shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating gesture. + +"In our own day," he replied, "such an occurrence would be almost +impossible; but you must remember that we are talking of the last +century--a century in which, I regret to say, the clergy of the Church +of England were sadly lax in the performance of their duties. The +followers of Wesley and Whitefield could scarcely have multiplied as +they did if the flocks had not been cruelly neglected by their proper +shepherds. It was a period in which benefices were bestowed constantly +on men obviously unfitted for the holy office--men who were gamblers +and drunkards, patrons of cock-pits, and in many cases open and +shameless reprobates. In such an age almost anything was possible; and +this midnight and unhallowed interment may very well have taken place +either with the consent or without the knowledge of the incumbent, who, +I am told, bore no high character for piety or morality." + +"And you say there is an entry in the register?" + +"Yes, a careless scrawl, dated Sept. 19th, 1774, recording the burial +of one Matthew Haygarth, aged four years, removed from the +burial-ground attached to the parish church of Spotswold." + +"Then it was a reinterment?" + +"Evidently." + +"And is Spotswold in this county?" + +"Yes; it is a very small village, about fifty miles from here." + +"And Matthew Haygarth died very soon after this event?" + +"He did. He died very suddenly--with an awful suddenness--and died +intestate. His widow was left the possessor of great wealth, which +increased in the hands of her son John Haygarth, a very prudent and +worthy gentleman, and a credit to the Church of which he was a member. +He only died very lately, I believe, and must therefore have attained a +great age." + +It is quite evident that Mr. Wendover had not seen the advertisement in +the Times, and was ignorant of the fact that the accumulated wealth of +Haygarths and Caulfields is now waiting a claimant. + +I asked permission to see the register containing the entry of the +mysterious interment; and after the administration of a shilling to the +clerk--a shilling at Dewsdale being equal to half a crown in +London--the vestry cupboard was opened by that functionary, and the +book I required was produced from a goodly pile of such mouldy brown +leather-bound volumes. + +The following is a copy of the entry:-- + +"On Thursday last past, being ye 19 Sep'tr, A.D. 1774, was interr'd ye +bodie off onne Matthewe Haygarthe, ag'd foure yeres, remoov'd fromm ye +Churcheyarde off St. Marie, under ye hil, Spotswolde, in this Co. Pade +forr so doeing, sevven shill." + +After having inspected the register, I asked many further questions, +but without eliciting much further information. So I expressed my +thanks for the courtesy that had been shown me, and took my departure, +not wishing to press the matter so closely as to render myself a +nuisance to the worthy Wendover, and bearing in mind that it would be +open to me to return at any future time. + +And now I ask myself--and I ask the astute Sheldon--what is the meaning +of this mysterious burial, and is it likely to have any bearing on the +object of our search? These are questions for the consideration of the +astute S. + +I spent my evening in jotting down the events of the day, in the above +free-and-easy fashion for my own guidance, and in a more precise and +business-like style for my employer. I posted my letter before ten +o'clock, the hour at which the London mail is made up, and then smoked +my cigar in the empty streets, overshadowed by gaunt square stacks of +building and tall black chimneys; and so back to my inn, where I took a +glass of ale and another cigar, and then to bed, as the worthy Pepys +might have concluded. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. GOODGE'S WISDOM. + + +_Oct. 5th_. My dreams last night were haunted by the image of gray-eyed +Molly, with her wild loose hair. She must needs have been a sweet +creature; and how she came amongst those prim fishy-eyed men and women +with absurd head-gear is much more than I can understand. That she +should mix herself up with Diana Paget, and play _rouge-et-noir_ at +Forêtdechêne in a tucked-up chintz gown and a quilted satin petticoat, +in my dreams last night--that I should meet her afterwards in the +little stucco temple on the Belgian hills, and stab her to the heart, +whereon she changed into Charlotte Halliday--is only in the nature of +dreams, and therefore no subject for wonder. + +On referring to Sheldon's letter I found that the next people to be +looked up were descendants of Brice the lawyer; so I devoted my +breakfast-hour to the cultivation of an intimacy with the oldest of the +waiters--a very antique specimen of his brotherhood, with a white +stubble upon his chin and a tendency to confusion of mind in the matter +of forks and spoons. + +"Do you know, or have you ever known, an attorney of the name of Brice +in this town?" I asked him. + +He rubbed the white stubble contemplatively with his hand, and then +gave his poor old head a dejected shake. I felt at once that I should +get very little good out of _him_. + +"No," he murmured despondently, "not that I can call to mind." + +I should like to know what he _could_ call to mind, piteous old +meanderer! + +"And yet you belong to Ullerton, I suppose?" + +"Yes; and have belonged to it these seventy-five years, man and boy;" +whereby, no doubt, the dreary confusion of the unhappy being's mind. +Figurez donc, mon cher. Qui-que-ce-soit, fifty-five years or so of +commercial breakfasts and dinners in such a place as Ullerton! +Five-and-fifty years of steaks and chops; five-and-fifty years of ham +and eggs, indifferently buttered toasts, and perennial sixes of +brandy-and-water! After rambling to and fro with spoons and forks, and +while in progress of clearing my table, and dropping the different +items of my breakfast equipage, the poor soddened faded face of this +dreary wanderer became suddenly illumined with a faint glimmer that was +almost the light of reason. + +"There were a Brice in Ullerton when I were a lad; I've heard father +tell on him," he murmured slowly. + +"An attorney?" + +"Yes. He were a rare wild one, he were! It was when the Prince of Wales +were Regent for his poor old mad father, as the saying is, and folks +was wilder like in general in those times, and wore spencers--lawyer +Brice wore a plum-coloured one." + +Imagine then again, mon cher, an attorney in a plum-coloured spencer! +Who, in these enlightened days, would trust his business to such a +practitioner? I perked up considerably, believing that my aged imbecile +was going to be of real service to me. + +"Yes, he were a rare wild one, he were," said my ancient friend with +excitement. "I can remember him as well as if it was yesterday, at +Tiverford races--there was races at Tiverford in those days, and +gentlemen jocks. Lawyer Brice rode his roan mare--Queen Charlotte they +called her. But after that he went wrong, folks said--speckilated with +some money, you see, that he didn't ought to have touched--and went to +America, and died." + +"Died in America, did he? Why the deuce couldn't he die in Ullerton? +I should fancy it was a pleasanter place to die in than it is to +live in. And how about his sons?" + +"Lawyer Brice's sons?" + +"Yes, of course." + +My imbecile's lips expanded into a broad grin. + +"Lawyer Brice never had no sons," he exclaimed, with a tone which +seemed to express a contemptuous pity for my ignorance; "he never +married." + +"Well, well; his brothers. He had brothers, I suppose?" + +"Not as _I_ ever heard tell on," answered my imbecile, relapsing into +hopeless inanity. + +It was clear that no further help was to be obtained from him. I went +to the landlord--a brisk business-like individual of Transatlantic +goaheadism. From him I learned that there were no Brices in Ullerton, +and never had been within the thirty years of his experience in that +town. He gave me an Ullerton directory in confirmation of that fact--a +neat little shilling volume, which I begged leave to keep for a quarter +of an hour before returning it. + +Brice was evidently a failure. I turned to the letter G, and looked up +the name of Goodge. Goodge, Jonah, minister of Beulah Chapel, resided +at No. 7, Waterhouse-lane--the lane in which I had seen the chapel. + +I determined upon waiting on the worthy Goodge. He may be able to +enlighten me as to the name of the pastor who preached to the Wesleyan +flock in the time of Rebecca Caulfield; and from the descendants of +such pastor I may glean some straws and shreds of information. The +pious Rebecca would have been likely to confide much to her spiritual +director. The early Wesleyans had all the exaltation of the Quietists, +and something of the lunatic fervour of the Convulsionists, who kicked +and screamed themselves into epilepsy under the influence of the +Unigenitus Bull. The pious Rebecca was no doubt an enthusiast. + + * * * * * + +I found No. 7, Waterhouse-lane. It is a neat little six-roomed house, +with preternaturally green palings enclosing about sixty square feet of +bright yellow gravel, adorned by a row of whitewashed shells. Some +scarlet geraniums bloomed in pots of still more vivid scarlet; and the +sight of those bright red blossoms recalled Philip Sheldon's garden at +Bayswater, and that sweet girl by whose side I have walked its trim +pathways. + +But business is business; and if I am ever to sue for my Charlotte's +hand, I must present myself before her as the winner of the three +thousand. Remembering this, I lifted Mr. Goodge's knocker, and +presently found myself in conversation with that gentleman. + +Whether unordained piety has a natural tendency to become greasy of +aspect, and whether, among the many miracles vouchsafed to the amiable +and really great Wesley, he received for his disciples of all time to +come the gift of a miraculous straightness and lankiness of hair, I +know not; but I do know that every Methodist parson I have had the +honour to know has been of one pattern, and that Mr. Goodge is no +exception to the rule. + +I am bound to record that I found him a very civil person, quite +willing to afford me any help in his power, and far more practical and +business-like than the rector of Dewsdale. + +It seems that the gift of tongues descended on the Goodges during the +lifetime of John Wesley himself, and during the earlier part of that +teacher's career. It was a Goodge who preached in the draper's +warehouse, and it was the edifying discourse of a Goodge which +developed the piety of Miss Rebecca Caulfield, afterwards Mrs. Haygarth. + +"That Goodge was my great-uncle," said the courteous Jonah, "and there +was no one in Ullerton better acquainted with Rebecca Caulfield. I've +heard my grandmother talk of her many a time. She used to send him +poultry and garden-stuff from her house at Dewsdale, and at his +instigation she contributed handsomely to the erection of the chapel in +which it is my privilege to preach." + +I felt that I had struck upon a vein of gold. Here was a sharp-witted, +middle-aged man--not an ancient mariner, or a meandering imbecile--who +could remember the talk of a grandmother who had known Matthew +Haygarth's wife. And this visit to Mr. Goodge was my own idea, not +prompted by the far-seeing Sheldon. I felt myself advancing in the +insidious arts of a private inquirer. + +"I am employed in the prosecution of a business which has a _remote_ +relation to the Haygarth family history," I said; "and if you can +afford me any information on that subject I should be extremely +obliged." + +I emphasised the adjective "remote," and felt myself, in my humble way, +a Talleyrand. + +"What kind of information, do you require?" asked Mr. Goodge +thoughtfully. + +"Any information respecting Matthew Haygarth or his wife." + +Mr. Goodge became profoundly meditative after this. + +"I am not given to act unadvisedly," he began--and I felt that I was in +for a little professional discourse: "the creatures of impulse are the +children of Satan, the babes of Lucifer, the infants of Beelzebub. I +take counsel in the silence of the night, and wait the whispers of +wisdom in the waking hours of darkness. You must allow me time to +ponder this business in my heart and to be still." + +I told Mr. Goodge that I would willingly await his own time for +affording me any information in his power to give. + +"That is pleasant," said the pastor blandly: "the worldly are apt to +rush blindly through life, as the roaring lion rushes through the +forest. I am not one of those rushing worldlings. I presume, by the +way, that such information as I may afford is likely to become a source +of pecuniary profit to your employer?" + +I began to see that my friend Goodge and the rector of Dewsdale were +very different kind of people, and that I must play my cards +accordingly. + +"That will depend upon the nature of your information," I replied +diplomatically; "it may be worth something to us, or it may be +worthless." + +"And in case it should be worth something?" + +"In that case my employer would be glad to remunerate the person from +whom he obtained it." + +Mr. Goodge again became meditative. + +"It was the habit of the sainted Wesley to take counsel from the +Scriptures," he said presently: "if you will call again tomorrow, young +man, I shall have taken counsel, and may be able to entreat with you." + +I did not much relish being addressed as "young man," even by such a +shining light as the Rev. Jonah Goodge. But as I wanted the Rev. +Jonah's aid, I submitted with a tolerable grace to his patriarchal +familiarity, and bade him good morning, after promising to call again +on the following day. I returned to my inn and wrote to Sheldon in time +for the afternoon mail, recounting my interview with Mr. Goodge, and +asking how far I should be authorised to remunerate that gentleman, or +to pledge myself to remunerate him for such information as he might +have to dispose of. + + +_Oct. 6th_. A letter from Sheldon. + +"DEAR HAWKEHURST,--There may be something very important behind that +mysterious burial at Dewsdale. Go without delay to Spotswold; examine +registers, tombstones, &c; hunt up oldest inhabitant or inhabitants, +from whom you may be able to discover whether any Haygarth or Haygarths +ever lived there, and all that is known respecting such Haygarth or +Haygarths. You have got a clue to _something_. Follow it up till it +breaks off short, as such clues often do, or till you find it is only +leading you on a wild-goose chase. The Dewsdale business is worth +investigation. + +"Mem. How about descendants of lawyer Brice?--Yours truly, G.S. + +"G.'s Inn, Oct. 5th." + + +Before starting for Spotswold it was necessary for me to see Mr. +Goodge. I found that gentleman in a pious and yet business-like frame +of mind. He had taken counsel from the Scriptures, like the founder of +his sect; but I fancy with rather less spiritual aspirations. + +"The text upon which the lot fell was the 12th verse of the 9th chapter +in the Book of Proverbs, 'If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for +thyself,'" he said solemnly; "whereby I perceive that I shall not be +justified in parting with that which you seek without fitting +recompense. I ask you, therefore, young man, what are you prepared to +give?" + +The Rev. Jonah's tone could scarcely have been more lofty, or his +manner more patronising, if he had been Saul and I the humble David; +but a man who is trying to earn three thousand pounds must put up with +a great deal. Finding that the minister was prepared to play the +huckster, I employed no further ceremony. + +"The price must of course depend on the quality of the article you have +to sell," I said; "I must know that before I can propose terms." + +"Suppose my information took the form of letters?" + +"Letters from whom--to whom?" + +"From Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth to my great-uncle, Samson Goodge." + +"How many of such letters have you to sell?" + +I put it very plainly; but the Rev. Jonah's susceptibilities were not +of the keenest order. He did not wince. + +"Say forty odd letters." + +I pricked up my ears; and it needed all my diplomacy to enable me to +conceal my sense of triumph. Forty odd letters! There must be an +enormous amount of information in forty odd letters; unless the woman +wrote the direst twaddle ever penned by a feminine correspondent. + +"Over what period do the dates of these letters extend?" I asked. + +"Over about seven years; from 1769 to 1776." + +Four years prior to the marriage with our friend Matthew; three years +after the marriage. + +"Are they tolerably long letters, or mere scrawls?" + +"They were written in a period when nobody wrote short letters," +answered Mr. Goodge sententiously,--"the period of Bath post and dear +postage. The greater number of the epistles cover three sides of a +sheet of letter-paper; and Mrs. Rebecca's caligraphy was small and +neat." + +"Good!" I exclaimed. "I suppose it is no use my asking you to let me +see one of these letters before striking a bargain--eh, Mr. Goodge?" +"Well, I think not," answered the oily old hypocrite. "I have taken +counsel, and I will abide by the light that has been shown me. 'If thou +be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself;' such are the words of +inspiration. No, I think not." + +"And what do you ask for the forty odd letters?" + +"Twenty pounds." + +"A stiff sum, Mr. Goodge, for forty sheets of old letter-paper." + +"But if they were not likely to be valuable, you would scarcely happen +to want them," answered the minister. "I have taken counsel, young man." + +"And those are your lowest terms?" + +"I cannot accept sixpence less. It is not in me to go from my word. As +Jacob served Laban seven years, and again another seven years, having +promised, so do I abide by my bond. Having said twenty pounds, young +man, Heaven forbid that I should take so much as twenty pence less than +those twenty pounds!" + +The solemn unction with which he pronounced this twaddle is beyond +description. The pretence of conscientious feeling which he contrived +to infuse into his sordid bargain-driving might have done honour to +Molière's Tartuffe. Seeing that he was determined to stick to his +terms, I departed. I telegraphed to Sheldon for instructions as to +whether I was to give Goodge the money he asked, and then went back to +my inn, where I devoted myself for the next ten minutes to the study of +a railway time-table, with a view to finding the best route to +Spotswold. + +After a close perusal of bewildering strings of proper names and +dazzling columns of figures, I found a place called Black Harbour, "for +Wisborough, Spotswold, and Chilton." A train left Ullerton for Black +Harbour at six o'clock in the afternoon, and was due at the latter +place at 8.40. + +This gave me an interval of some hours, in which I could do nothing, +unless I received a telegram from Sheldon. The chance of a reply from +him kept me a prisoner in the coffee-room of the Swan Inn, where I read +almost every line in the local and London newspapers pending the +arrival of the despatch, which came at last. + +"Tell Goodge he shall have the sum asked, and get the letters at once. +Money by to-night's post." + +This was Sheldon's message; sharp and short, and within the eighteen +penny limit. Acting upon this telegram, I returned to the abode of Mr. +Goodge, told him his terms were to be complied with, showed him the +telegram, at his request, and asked for the letters. + +I ought to have known my reverend friend better than to imagine he +would part with those ancient documents except for money upon the +counter. + +He smiled a smile which might have illuminated the visage of +Machiavelli. + +"The letters have kept a long time, young man," he said, after having +studied the telegram as closely as if it had been written in Punic; +"and to you, they are in nowise the worse for keeping: so they will +keep yet longer. 'If thou be wise, then shalt be wise for thyself.' You +can come for the letters tomorrow, and bring the money with you. Say at +11 A.M." + +I put on my hat and bade my friend good day. I have often been tempted +to throw things at people, and have withheld my hand; but I never felt +Satan so strong upon me as at that moment, and I very much fear that if +I had had anything in the way of a kitchen-poker or a carving-knife +about me, I should have flung that missile at the patriarchal head of +my saintly Jonah. As it was, I bade him good day and returned to the +Swan, where I took a hurried repast and started for the station, +carrying a light carpet-bag with me, as I was not likely to return till +the following night, at the earliest. + +I arrived at the station ten minutes before the starting of the train, +and had to endure ten minutes of that weariness called waiting. I +exhausted the interest of all the advertisements on the station walls; +found out how I could have my furniture removed with the utmost +convenience--supposing myself to possess furniture; discovered where I +ought to buy a dinner-service, and the most agreeable kind of blind to +screen my windows in sunny weather. I was still lingering over the +description of this new invention in blinds, when a great bell set up a +sudden clanging, and the down train from London came thundering into +the station. + +This was also the train for Black Harbour. There were a good many +passengers going northwards, a good many alighting at Ullerton; and in +the hurry and confusion I had some difficulty in finding a place in a +second-class carriage, the passengers therein blocking up the windows +with that unamiable exclusiveness peculiar to railway travellers. I +found a place at last, however; but in hurrying from carriage to +carriage I was startled by an occurrence which I have since pondered +very seriously. + +I ran bolt against my respected friend and patron Horatio Paget. + +We had only time to recognise each other with exclamations of mutual +surprise when the clanging bell rang again, and I was obliged to +scuffle into my seat. A moment's delay would have caused me to be left +behind. And to have remained behind would have been very awkward for +me; as the Captain would undoubtedly have questioned me as to my +business in Ullerton. Was I not supposed to be at Dorking, enjoying the +hospitality of an aged aunt? + +It would have been unlucky to lose that train. + +But what "makes" the gallant Captain in Ullerton? That is a question +which I deliberated as the train carried me towards Black Harbour. + +Sheldon warned me of the necessity for secrecy, and I have been as +secret as the grave. It is therefore next to an impossibility that +Horatio Paget can have any idea of the business I am engaged in. He is +the very man of all others to try and supersede me if he had an inkling +of my plans; but I am convinced he can have no such inkling. + +And yet the advertisement of the Haygarth property in the _Times_ was +as open to the notice of all the world as it was open to the notice of +George Sheldon. What if my patron should have been struck by the same +advertisement, and should have come to Ullerton on the same business? + +It is possible, but it is not likely. When I left town the Captain was +engaged in Philip Sheldon's affairs. He has no doubt come to Ullerton +on Philip Sheldon's business. The town, which seems an abomination of +desolation to a man who is accustomed to London and Paris, is +nevertheless a commercial centre; and the stockbroker's schemes may +involve the simple Ullertonians, as well as the more experienced +children of the metropolis. + +Having thought the business out thus, I gave myself no further trouble +about the unexpected appearance of my friend and benefactor. + +At Black Harbour I found a coach, which carried me to Spotswold, +whither I travelled in a cramped and painful position as regards my +legs, and with a pervading sensation which was like a determination of +luggage to the brain, so close to my oppressed head was the +heavily-laden roof of the vehicle. It was pitch dark when I and two +fellow-passengers of agricultural aspect were turned out of the coach +at Spotswold, which in the gloom of night appeared to consist of half a +dozen houses shut in from the road by ghastly white palings, a grim +looming church, and a low-roofed inn with a feeble light glimmering +athwart a red stuff curtain. + +At this inn I was fain to take up my abode for the night, and was +conducted to a little whitewashed bedchamber, draperied with scanty +dimity and smelling of apples--the humblest, commonest cottage chamber, +but clean and decent, and with a certain countrified aspect which was +pleasing to me. I fancied myself the host of such an inn, with +Charlotte for my wife; and it seemed to me that it would be nice to +live in that remote and unknown village, "the world forgetting, by the +world forgot." I beguiled myself by such foolish fancies--I, who have +been reared amidst the clamour and riot of the Strand! + +Should I be happy with that dear girl if she were mine? Alas! I doubt +it. A man who has led a disreputable life up to the age of +seven-and-twenty is very likely to have lost all capacity for such pure +and perfect happiness as that which good men find in the tranquil haven +of a home. + +Should I not hear the rattle of the billiard-balls, or the voice of the +_croupier_ calling the main, as I sat by my quiet fireside? Should I +not yearn for the glitter and confusion of West-end dancing-rooms, or +the mad excitement of the ring, while my innocent young wife was +sitting by my side and asking me to look at the blue eyes of my +first-born? + +No; Charlotte is not for me. There must be always the two classes--the +sheep and the goats; and my lot has been cast among the goats. + +And yet there are some people who laugh to scorn the doctrines of +Calvin, and say there is no such thing as predestination. + +Is there not predestination? Was not I predestined to be born in a gaol +and reared in a gutter, educated among swindlers and scoundrels, fed +upon stolen victuals, and clad in garments never to be paid for? Did no +Eumenides preside over the birth of Richard Savage, so set apart for +misery that the laws of nature were reversed, and even his mother hated +him? Did no dismal fatality follow the footsteps of Chatterton? Has no +mysterious ban been laid upon the men who have been called Dukes of +Buckingham? + +What foolish lamentations am I scribbling in this diary, which is +intended to be only the baldest record of events! It is so natural to +mankind to complain, that, having no ear in which to utter his +discontent, a man is fain to resort to pen and ink. + +I devoted my evening to conversation with the landlord and his wife, +but found that the name of Haygarth was as strange to them as if it had +been taken from an inscription in the tomb of the Pharaohs. I inquired +about the few inhabitants of the village, and ascertained that the +oldest man in the place is the sexton, native-born, and supposed by +mine host never to have travelled twenty miles from his birthplace. His +name is Peter Drabbles. What extraordinary names that class of people +contrive to have! My first business to-morrow morning will be to find +my friend Drabbles--another ancient mariner, no doubt--and to examine +the parish registers. + +_Oct. 7th_. A misty morning, and a perpetual drizzle--to say nothing of +a damp, penetrating cold, which creeps through the thickest overcoat, +and chills one to the bone. I do not think Spotswold can have much +brightness or prettiness even on the fairest summer morning that ever +beautified the earth. I know that, seen as I see it to-day, the place +is the very archetype of all that is darksome, dull, desolate, dismal, +and dreary. (How odd, by the way, that all that family of epithets +should have the same initial!) A wide stretch of moorland lies around +and about the little village, which crouches in a hollow, like some +poor dejected animal that seeks to shelter itself from the bitter +blast. On the edge of the moorland, and above the straggling cottages +and the little inn, rises the massive square tower of an old church, so +far out of proportion to the pitiful cluster of houses, that I imagine +it must be the remnant of some monastic settlement. + +Towards this church I made my way, under the dispiriting drip, drip of +the rain, and accompanied by a feeble old man, who is sexton, clerk, +gravedigger, and anything or everything of an official nature. + +We went into the church after my ancient mariner No. 2 had fumbled a +good deal with a bunch of ghostly-looking keys. The door opened with a +dismal scroop, and shut with an appalling bang. Grim and dark as the +church is without, it is grimmer and darker within, and damp and +vault-like, _à faire frémir_. There are all the mysterious cupboards +and corners peculiar to such edifices; an organ-loft, from which weird +noises issue at every opening or closing of a door; a vaulted roof, +which echoes one's footsteps with a moan, as of some outraged spirit +hovering in empty space, and ejaculating piteously, "Another impious +intruder after the sacramental plate! another plebeian sole trampling +on the brasses of the De Montacutes, lords of the manor!" + +The vestry is, if anything, more ghostly than the general run of +vestries; but the business mind is compelled to waive all +considerations of a supernatural character. For the moment there +flashed across my brain the shadows of all the Christmas stories I had +ever read or heard concerning vestries; the phantom bridal, in which +the bride's beautiful white hand changed to the bony fingers of a +skeleton as she signed the register; the unearthly christening, in +which all at once, after the ceremony having been conducted with the +utmost respectability, to the edification of the unauthorised intruder +hiding behind a pillar, the godfathers and godmothers, nurse and baby, +priest and clerk, became in a moment dilapidated corpses; whereon the +appalled intruder fell prone at the foot of his pillar, there to be +discovered the next morning by his friends, and the public generally, +with his hair blanched to an awful whiteness, or his noble intellect +degraded to idiocy. For a moment, the memory of about a hundred +Christmas stories was too much for me--so weird of aspect and earthy of +atmosphere was the vestry at Spotswold. And then "being gone" the +shadows of the Christmas stories, I was a man and a lawyer's clerk +again, and set myself assiduously to search the registers and +interrogate my ancient. + +I found that individual a creature of mental fogginess compared with +whom my oldest inhabitant of Ullerton would have been a Pitt, Earl of +Chatham. But I questioned and cross-questioned him until I had in a +manner turned his poor old wits the seamy side without, and had +discovered, first, that he had never known any one called Haygarth in +the whole course of those seventy-five years' vegetation which +politeness compelled me to speak of as his "life;" secondly, that he +had never known any one who knew a Haygarth; thirdly, that he was +intimately acquainted with every creature in the village, and that he +knew that no one of the inhabitants could give me the smallest shred of +such information as I required. + +Having extorted so much as this from my ancient with unutterable +expenditure of time and trouble, I next set to work upon the registers. + +If the ink manufactured in the present century is of no more durable +nature than that abominable fluid employed in the penmanship of a +hundred years ago, I profoundly pity the generations that are to come +after us. The registers of Spotswold might puzzle a Bunsen. However, +bearing in mind the incontrovertible fact that three thousand pounds is +a very agreeable sum of money, I stuck to my work for upwards of two +hours, and obtained as a result the following entries:-- + +"1. Matthew Haygarthe, aged foure yeares, berrid in this churcheyarde, +over against ye tombe off Mrs. Marttha Stileman, about 10 fete fromm ye +olde yue tre. Febevarie 6th, 1753." + +"2. Mary Haygarthe, aged twentie sevene yeers, berrid under ye yue +tree, Nov. 21, 1754." + +After copying these two entries, I went out into the churchyard to look +for Mary Haygarth's grave. + +Under a fine old yew--which had been old a hundred years ago, it +seems--I found huddled amongst other headstones one so incrusted with +moss, that it was only after scraping the parasite verdure from the +stone with my penknife that I was able to discover the letters that had +been cut upon it. I found at last a brief inscription: + +"Here lieth ye body of MARY HAYGARTH, aged 27. Born 1727. Died 1754. +This stone has been set up by one who sorroweth without hope of +consolation." A strange epitaph: no scrap of Latin, no text from +Scripture, no conventional testimony to the virtues and accomplishments +of the departed, no word to tell whether the dead woman had been maid, +wife, or widow. It was the most provoking inscription for a lawyer or a +genealogist, but such as might have pleased a poet. + +I fancy this Mary Haygarth must have been some quiet creature, with +very few friends to sorrow for her loss; perhaps only that one person +who sorrowed without hope of consolation. + +Such a tombstone might have been set above the grave of that simple +maid who dwelt "beside the banks of Dove." + +This is the uttermost that my patience or ingenuity can do for me at +Spotswold. I have exhausted every possibility of obtaining further +information. So, having written and posted my report to Sheldon, I have +no more to do but to return to Ullerton. I take back with me nothing +but the copy of the two entries in the register of burials. Who this +Matthew Haygarth or this Mary Haygarth was, and how related to _the_ +Matthew, is an enigma not to be solved at Spotswold. + +Here the story of the Haygarths ends with the grave under the yew-tree. + + + + + +BOOK THE FIFTH. + + +RELICS OF THE DEAD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +BETRAYED BY A BLOTTING-PAD. + + +At an early hour upon the day on which Valentine Hawkehurst telegraphed +to his employer, Philip Sheldon presented himself again at the dingy +door of the office in Gray's Inn. + +The dingy door was opened by the still more dingy boy; and Mr. Sheldon +the elder--who lived in a state of chronic hurry, and had a hansom cab +in attendance upon him at almost every step of his progress through +life--was aggravated by the discovery that his brother was out. + +"Out!" he repeated, with supreme disgust; "he always _is_ out, I think. +Where is he to be found?" + +The boy replied that his master would be back in half an hour, if Mr. +Sheldon would like to wait. + +"Like to wait!" cried the stockbroker; "when will lawyers' clerks have +sense enough to know that nobody on this earth ever _liked_ to wait? +Where's your master gone?" + +"I think he's just slipped round into Holborn, sir," the boy replied, +with some slight hesitation. He was very well aware that George had +secrets from his brother, and that it was not judicious to be too free +in his communications to the elder gentleman. But the black eyes and +white teeth of the stockbroker seemed very awful to him; and if Philip +chose to question him, he must needs answer the truth, not having been +provided by his master with any convenient falsehood in case of inquiry. + +"What part of Holborn?" asked Philip sharply. + +"I did hear tell as it was the telegraph office." + +"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon; and then he dashed downstairs, leaving +the lad on the threshold of the door staring after him with eyes of +wonder. + +The telegraph office meant business; and any business of his brother's +was a matter of interest to Mr. Sheldon at this particular period. He +had meditated the meaning of George's triumphant smile in the secluded +calm of his own office; and the longer he had meditated, the more +deeply rooted had become his conviction that his brother was engaged in +some very deep and very profitable scheme, the nature of which it was +his bounden duty to discover. + +Impressed by this idea, Mr. Sheldon returned to the hansom-cab, which +was waiting for him at the end of Warwick-court, and made his way to +the telegraph office. The ostensible motive of his call in Gray's Inn +was sufficient excuse for this following up of his brother's footsteps. +It was one of those waifs and strays of rather disreputable business +which the elder man sometimes threw in the way of the younger. + +As the wheel of the hansom ground against the kerbstone in front of the +telegraph office, the figure of George Sheldon vanished in a little +court to the left of that establishment. Instead of pursuing this +receding figure, Philip Sheldon walked straight into the office. + +It was empty. There was no one in any of the shaded compartments, so +painfully suggestive of pecuniary distress and the stealthy +hypothecation of portable property. A sound of rattling and bumping in +an inner office betrayed the neighbourhood of a clerk; but in the +office Mr. Sheldon was alone. + +Upon the blotting-pad on the counter of the central partition the +stockbroker perceived one great blot of ink, still moist. Ha laid the +tip of his square forefinger upon it, to assure himself of that fact, +and then set himself deliberately to scrutinise the blotting-paper. He +was a man who seldom hesitated. His greatest _coups_ on the +money-market had been in a great measure the result of this faculty of +prompt decision. To-day he possessed himself of the blotting-pad, and +examined the half-formed syllables stamped upon it with as much +coolness and self-possession as if he had been seated in his own office +reading his own newspaper. A man given to hesitation would have looked +to the right and the left and watched for his opportunity--and lost it. +Philip Sheldon knew better than to waste his chances by needless +precaution; and he made himself master of all the intelligence the +blotting-pad could afford him before the clerk emerged from the inner +den where the rattling and stamping was going forward. + +"I thought as much," muttered the stockbroker, as he recognised traces +of his brother's sprawling penmanship upon the pad. The message had +been written with a heavy hand and a spongy quill pen, and had left a +tolerably clear impression of its contents on the blotting-paper. + +Here and there the words stood out bold and clear; here and there, +again, there was only one decipherable letter amongst a few broken +hieroglyphics. Mr. Sheldon was accustomed to the examination of very +illegible documents, and he was able to master the substance of that +random impression. If he could not decipher the whole, he made out +sufficient for his purpose. Money was to be offered to a man called +Goodge for certain letters. He knew his brother's affairs well enough +to know that these letters for which money was to be offered must needs +be letters of importance in some search for an heir-at-law. So far all +was clear and simple; but beyond this point he found himself at fault. +Where was this Goodge to be found? and who was the person that was to +offer him money for the letters? The names and address, which had been +written first, had left no impression on the blotting-pad, or an +impression so faint as to be useless for any practical purpose. + +Mr. Sheldon put down the pad and lingered by the door of the office +deliberating, when the rattling and hammering came to an abrupt +termination, and the clerk emerged from the interior den. + +"O," he exclaimed, "it's all right. Your message shall go directly." + +The stockbroker, whose face was half averted from the clerk, and who +stood between that functionary and the light from the open doorway, at +once comprehended the error that had arisen. The clerk had mistaken him +for his brother. + +"I'm not quite clear as to whether I gave the right address," he said +promptly, with his face still averted, and his attention apparently +occupied by a paper in his hand. "Just see how I wrote it, there's a +good fellow." + +The clerk withdrew for a few minutes, and returned with the message in +his hand. + +"From George Sheldon to Valentine Hawkehurst, Black Swan Inn, +Ullerton," he read aloud from the document. + +"All right, and thanks," cried the stockbroker. + +He gave one momentary glance at the clerk, and had just time to see +that individual's look of bewilderment as some difference in his voice +and person from the voice and person of the black-whiskered man who had +just left the office dawned upon his troubled senses. After that one +glance Mr. Sheldon darted across the pavement, sprang into his cab, and +called to the driver, "Literary Institution, Burton-street, as fast as +you can go." + +"I'll try my luck in the second column of the _Times_," he said to +himself. "If George's scheme is what I take it to be, I shall get some +clue to it there." He took a little oblong memorandum-book from his +pocket, and looked at his memoranda of the past week. Among those +careless jottings he found one memorandum scrawled in pencil, amongst +notes and addresses in ink, "_Haygarth--intestate. G.S. to see after._" + +"That's it," he exclaimed; "Haygarth--intestate; Valentine Hawkehurst +_not_ at Dorking, but working for my brother; Goodge--letters to be +paid for. It's all like the bits of mosaic that those antiquarian +fellows are always finding in the ruins of Somebody's Baths; a few +handfuls of coloured chips that look like rubbish, and can yet be +patched into a perfect geometric design. I'll hunt up a file of the +_Times_ at the Burton Institution, and find out this Haygarth, if he is +to be found there." + +The Burton Institution was a somewhat dingy temple devoted to the +interests of science and literature, and next door to some baths that +were very popular among the denizens of Bloomsbury. People in quest of +the baths were apt to ascend the classic flight of steps leading to the +Institution, when they should have descended to a lowlier threshold +lurking modestly by the side of that edifice. The Baths and the +Institution had both been familiar to Mr. Sheldon in that period of +probation which he had spent in Fitzgeorge-street. He was sufficiently +acquainted with the librarian of the Institution to go in and out +uninterrogated, and to make any use he pleased of the reading-room. He +went in to-day, asked to see the latest bound volumes of the _Times_ +and the latest files of unbound papers, and began his investigation, +working backwards. Rapidly and dexterously as he turned the big leaves +of the journals, the investigation occupied nearly three-quarters of an +hour; but at the expiration of that time he had alighted on the +advertisement published in the March of the preceding year. + +He gave a very low whistle--a kind of phantom whistle--as he read this +advertisement. "John Haygarth!--a hundred thousand pounds!" + +The fortune for which a claimant was lacking amounted to a hundred +thousand pounds! Mr. Sheldon knew commercial despots who counted their +wealth by millions, and whose fiat could sway the exchanges of Europe; +but a hundred thousand pounds seemed to him a very nice thing +nevertheless, and he was ready to dispute the prize the anticipation +whereof had rendered his brother so triumphant. + +"He has rejected me as a coadjutor," he thought, as he went back to his +cab after having copied the advertisement; "he shall have me as an +antagonist." + +"Omega-street, Chelsea, next call," he cried to the driver; and was +soon beyond the confines of Bloomsbury, and rattling away towards the +border-land of Belgravia. He had completed his search of the newspapers +at ten minutes past twelve, and at twenty minutes to one he presented +himself at the lodging-house in Omega-street, where he found Captain +Paget, in whose "promoting" business there happened to be a lull just +now. With this gentleman he had a long interview; and the result of +that interview was the departure of the Captain by the two o'clock +express for Ullerton. Thus had it happened that Valentine Hawkehurst +and his patron encountered each other on the platform of Ullerton +station. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +VALENTINE INVOKES THE PHANTOMS OF THE PAST. + + +_Oct. 7th, Midnight_. I was so fortunate as to get away from Spotswold +this morning very soon after the completion of my researches in the +vestry, and at five o'clock in the afternoon I found myself once more +in the streets of Ullerton. Coming home in the train I meditated +seriously upon the unexpected appearance of Horatio Paget at the +head-quarters of this Haygarthian investigation; and the more I +considered that fact, the more I felt inclined to doubt my patron's +motives, and to fear his interference. Can his presence in Ullerton +have any relation to the business that has brought me here? That is the +question which I asked myself a hundred times during my journey from +Spotswold; that is the question which I ask myself still. + +I have no doubt I give myself unnecessary trouble; but I know that old +man's Machiavellian cleverness only too well; and I am inclined to look +with suspicion upon every action of his. My first business on returning +to this house was to ascertain whether any one bearing his name, or +answering to my description of him, had arrived during my absence. I +was relieved by finding that no stranger whatever had put up at the inn +since the previous forenoon. Who may have used the coffee-room is +another question, not so easily set at rest. In the evening a great +many people come in and go out; and my friend and patron may have taken +his favourite brandy-and-soda, skimmed his newspaper, and picked up +whatever information was to be obtained as to _my_ movements without +attracting any particular attention. + +In the words of the immortal lessee of the Globe Theatre, "Why I should +fear I know not ... and yet I feel I fear!" + +I found a registered letter from George Sheldon, enclosing twenty +pounds in notes, and furnished therewith I went straight to my friend +Jonah, whom I found engaged in the agreeable occupation of taking tea. +I showed him the money; but my estimate of the reverend gentleman's +honour being of a very limited nature, I took care not to give it to +him till he had produced the letters. On finding that I was really +prepared to give him his price, he went to an old-fashioned bureau, and +opened one of those secret recesses which cannot for three minutes +remain a secret to any investigator possessed of a tolerably accurate +eye or a three-foot rule. From this hiding-place--which he evidently +considered a triumph of mechanical art, worthy the cabinet of a +D'Argenson or a Fouché--he produced a packet of faded yellow letters, +about which there lurked a faint odour of dried rose-leaves and +lavender, which seemed the very perfume of the past. + +When my reverend friend had laid the packet on the table within reach +of my hand, and not till then, I gave him the bank-notes. His fat old +fingers closed upon them greedily, and his fishy old eyes were +illumined by a faint glimmer which I believe nothing but bank-notes +could have kindled in them. + +After having assured himself that they were genuine acknowledgments of +indebtedness on the part of the old lady in Thread-needle-street, and +not the base simulacra of Birmingham at five-and-twenty shillings a +dozen--thirteen as twelve--Mr. Goodge obligingly consented to sign a +simple form of receipt which I had drawn up for the satisfaction of my +principal. + +"I think you said there were forty-odd letters," I remarked, before I +proceeded to count the documents in the presence of Mr. Goodge. + +That gentleman looked at me with an air of astonishment, which, had I +not known him to be the most consummate of hypocrites, would have +seemed to be simplicity itself. + +"I said from thirty to forty," he exclaimed; "I never said there were +forty-odd letters." + +I looked at him and he looked at me. His face told me plainly enough +that he was trying to deceive me, and my face told him plainly enough +that he had no chance of succeeding in that attempt. Whether he was +keeping back some of the letters with a view to extorting more money +from me hereafter, or whether he was keeping them with the idea of +making a better bargain with somebody else, I could not tell; but of +the main fact I was certain--he had cheated me. + +I untied the red tape which held the letters together. Yes, there was a +piece of circumstantial evidence which might have helped to convict my +friend had he been on his trial in a criminal court. The red tape bore +the mark of the place in which it had been tied for half a century; and +a little way within this mark the trace of a very recent tying. Some of +the letters had been extracted, and the tape had been tied anew. + +I had no doubt that this had been done while my negotiation with Mr. +Goodge had been pending. What was I to do? Refuse the letters, and +demand to have my principal's money returned to me? I knew my friend +well enough to know that such a proceeding would be about as useless as +it would be to request the ocean to restore a cup of water that had +been poured into it. The letters he had given me might or might not +afford some slight link in the chain I was trying to put together; and +the letters withheld from me might be more or less valuable than those +given to me. In any case the transaction was altogether a speculative +one; and George Sheldon's money was hazarded as completely as if it had +been put upon an outsider for the Derby. + +Before bidding him a polite farewell, I was determined to make Mr. +Goodge thoroughly aware that he had not taken me in. + +"You said there were more than forty letters," I told him; "I remember +the phrase 'forty-odd,' which is a colloquialism one would scarcely +look for in Tillotson or in John Wesley, who cherished a prejudice in +favour of scholarship which does not distinguish all his followers. You +said there were forty-odd letters, and you have removed some of them +from the packet. I am quite aware that I have no legal remedy against +you, as our contract was a verbal one, made without witnesses; so I +must be content with what I get; but I do not wish you to flatter +yourself with the notion that you have hoodwinked a lawyer's clerk. You +are not clever enough to do that, Mr. Goodge, though you are knave +enough to cheat every attorney in the Law List." + +"Young man, are you aware----?" + +"As I have suffered by the absence of any witness to our negotiation, I +may as well profit by the absence of any witness to our interview. You +are a cheat and a trickster, Mr. Goodge, and I have the honour to wish +you good afternoon!" + +"Go forth, young man!" cried the infuriated Jonah whose fat round face +became beet-root colour with rage, and who involuntarily extended his +hand to the poker--for the purpose of defence and not defiance, I believe. +"Go forth, young man! I say unto you, as Abimelech said unto Jedediah, +go forth." + +I am not quite clear as to the two scriptural proper names with which +the Rev. Jonah embellished his discourse on this occasion; but I know +that sort of man always has a leaning to the Abimelech and Jedediahs of +biblical history; solely, I believe, because the names have a sonorous +roll with them that is pleasant in the mouth of the charlatan. + +As I was in the act of going forth--quite at my leisure, for I had no +fear of the clerical poker--my eye happened to alight on a small +side-table, covered with a chessboard-patterned cloth in gaudy colours, +and adorned with some of those sombre volumes which seem like an +outward evidence of the sober piety of their possessor. Among the +sombre volumes lay something which savoured of another hemisphere than +that to which those brown leather-bound books belonged. It was a +glove--a gentleman's glove, of pale lavender kid--small in size for a +masculine glove, and bearing upon it the evidence of the cleaner's art. +Such might be the glove of an exiled Brummel, but could never have +encased the squat paw of a Jonah Goodge. It was as if the _point +d'Alençon_ ruffle of Chesterfield had been dropped in the study of John +Wesley. + +In a moment there flashed into my mind an idea which has haunted me +ever since. That glove had belonged to my respected patron, Horatio +Paget, and it was for his benefit the letters had been abstracted from +the packet. He had been with Jonah Goodge in the course of that day, +and had bought him over to cheat me. + +And then I was obliged to go back to the old question, Was it possible +that the Captain could have any inkling of my business? Who could have +told him? + +Who could have betrayed a secret which was known only to George Sheldon +and myself? + +After all, are there not other people than Horatio Paget who wear +cleaned lavender gloves? But it always has been a habit with the +Captain to leave one loose glove behind him; and I daresay it was the +recollection of this which suggested the idea of his interference in +the Goodge business. + +I devoted my evening to the perusal of Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters. +The pale ink, the quaint cramped hand, the old-fashioned abbreviations, +and very doubtful orthography rendered the task laborious; but I stuck +to my work bravely, and the old clock in the market-place struck two as +I began the last letter. As I get deeper into this business I find my +interest in it growing day by day--an interest _sui generis_, apart +from all prospect of gain--apart even from the consideration that by +means of this investigation I am obtaining a living which is earned +_almost_ honestly; for if I tell an occasional falsehood or act an +occasional hypocrisy, I am no worse than a secretary of legation of an +Old Bailey barrister. + +The pleasure which I now take in the progress of this research is a +pleasure that is new to me: it is the stimulus which makes a breakneck +gallop across dreary fields gridironed with dykes and stone walls so +delicious to the sportsman; it is the stimulus which makes the task of +the mathematician sweet to him when he devotes laborious days to the +solution of an abstruse problem; it is the stimulus that sustains the +Indian trapper against all the miseries of cold and hunger, foul +weather, and aching limbs; it is the fever of the chase--that +inextinguishable fire which, once lighted in the human breast, is not +to be quenched until the hunt is ended. + +I should like to earn three thousand pounds; but if I were to be none +the richer for my trouble, I think, now that I am so deeply involved in +this business, I should still go on. I want to fathom the mystery of +that midnight interment at Dewsdale; I want to know the story of that +Mary Haygarth who lies under the old yew-tree at Spotswold, and for +whose loss some one sorrowed without hope of consolation. + +Was that a widower's commonplace, I wonder, and did the unknown mourner +console himself ultimately with a new wife? Who knows? as my Italian +friends say when they discuss the future of France. Shall I ever +penetrate that mystery of the past? My task seems to me almost as +hopeless as if George Sheldon had set me to hunt up the descendants of +King Solomon's ninety-ninth wife. A hundred years ago seems as far +away, for all practical purposes, as if it were on the other side of +the flood. + +The letters are worth very little. They are prim and measured epistles, +and they relate much more to spiritual matters than to temporal +business. Mrs. Rebecca seems to have been so much concerned for the +health of her soul that she had very little leisure to think of +anything so insignificant as the bodies of other people. The letters +are filled with discourses upon her own state of mind; and the tone of +them reveals not a little of that pride whose character it is to +simulate humility. Mrs. Rebecca is always casting ashes on her head; +but she takes care to let her friend and pastor know what a saintly +head it is notwithstanding. + +I have laid aside three of the most secular letters, which I selected +after wading through unnumbered pages of bewailings in the strain of a +Wesleyan Madame Guyon. These throw some little light upon the character +of Matthew Haygarth, but do not afford much information of a tangible +kind. I have transcribed the letters verbatim, adhering even to certain +eccentricities of orthography which were by no means unusual in an age +when the Pretender to the crown of Great Britain wrote of his father as +_Gems_. + +The first letter bears the date of August 30th, 1773, one week after +the marriage of the lady to our friend Matthew. + +"REVERED FRIEND AND PASTOR,--On Monday sennite we arriv'd in London, +wich seems to me a mighty bigg citty, but of no more meritt or piety +than Babylon of old. My husband, who knows ye towne better than he +knows those things with wich it would more become him to be familiar, +was pleas'd to laugh mightily at that pious aversion wherewith I +regarded some of ye most notable sights in this place. We went t'other +night to a great garden called by some Spring Garden, by others +Vauxhall,--as having been at one time ye residence or estate of that +Arch Fiend and Papistical traitor Vaux, or Faux; but although I felt +obligated to my husband for ye desire to entertain me with a fine +sight, I could not but look with shame upon serious Christians +disporting themselves like children amongst coloured lamps, and +listening as if enraptured to profane music, when, at so much less cost +of money or of health, they might have been assembled together to +improve and edify one another. + +"My obliging Mathew would have taken me to other places of the like +character; but inspir'd, as I hope and believe, by ye direction of ye +spirit, I took upon myself to tell him what vain trifling is all such +kind of pleasure. He argu'd with me stoutly, saying that ye King and +Queen, who are both shining examples of goodness and piety, do attend +Vauxhall and Ranelagh, and are to be seen there frequent, to the +delight of their subjects. On which I told him that, much as I esteemed +my sovereign and his respectable consort, I would compleat my existence +without having seen them rather than I would seek to encounter them in +a place of vain and frivolous diversion. He listen'd to my discoorse in +a kind and sober temper, but he was not convinc'd; for by and by he +falls of a sudden to sighing and groaning, and cries out, 'O, I went to +Vauxhall once when ye garden was not many years made, and O, how bright +ye lamps shone, like ye stars of heaven fallen among bushes! and O, how +sweet ye music sounded, like ye hymns of angels in ye dewy evening! but +that was nigh upon twenty years gone by, and all ye world is changed +since then.' + +"You will conceive, Reverend Sir, that I was scandalised by such a +foolish rapsodie, and in plain words admonish'd my husband of his +folly. Whereupon he speedily became sober, and asked my pardon; but for +all that night continued of a gloomy countenance, ever and anon falling +to sighing and groning as before. Indeed, honour'd Sir, I have good +need of a patient sperrit in my dealings with him; for altho' at times +I think he is in a fair way to become a Christian, there are other +times when I doubt Satan has still a hold upon him, and that all my +prayers and admonitions have been in vaine. + +"You, who know the wildness and wickedness of his past life--so far as +that life was ever known to any but himself, who was ever of a secret +and silent disposition concerning his own doings in this city, tho' +free-spoken and frank in all common matters--you, honour'd sir, know +with how serious an intention I have taken upon myself the burden of +matrimony, hoping thereby to secure the compleat conversion of this +waywarde soul. You are aware how it was ye earnest desire of my late +respected father that Mathew Haygarth and I shou'd be man and wife, his +father and my father haveing bin friends and companions in ye days of +her most gracious majesty Queen Anne. You know how, after being lost to +all decent company for many years, Mathew came back after his father's +death, and lived a sober and serious life, attending amongst our +community, and being seen to shed tears on more than one occasion while +listening to the discourse of our revered and inspired founder. And +you, my dear and honour'd pastor, will feel for me when I tell you how +I am tormented by ye fear of backsliding in this soul which I have +promised to restore to ye fold. It was but yesterday, when walking with +him near St. John's Gate at Clerkenwell, he came to a standstill all of +a sudden, and he cried in that impetuous manner which is even yet +natural to him, 'Look ye now, Becky, wouldst like to see the house in +which the happiest years of my life was spent?' And I making no answer, +as thinking it was but some sudden freak, he points out a black +dirty-looking dwelling-place, with overhanging windows and a wide +gabled roof. 'Yonder it stands, Becky,' he cries; 'number seven +John-street, Clerkenwell; a queer dingy box of four walls, my wench--a +tumble-down kennel, with a staircase that 'twould break your neck to +mount, being strange to it--and half a day's journey from the court-end +of town. But that house was once paradise to me; and to look at it even +now, though 'tis over eighteen years since I saw the inside of it, will +bring the tears into these poor old eyes of mine'. And then he walk'd +on so fast that I could scarce keep pace with him, till we came to +Smithfield; and then he began to tell me about Bartholomew-fair and the +brave sights he had seen; and must needs show me where had stood the +booth of one Fielding--since infamously notorious as the writer of some +trashy novels, the dulness whereof is only surpassed by their +profligacy: and then he talks of Fawkes the conjurer, who made a great +fortune, and of some humble person called 'Tiddy Doll,' a dealer in +gingerbread and such foolish wares. But he could tell me nothing of +those early preachings of our revered founder in Moorfields, which +would have been more pleasant to me than all this vain babble about +drolls and jesters, gingerbread bakers and showmen. + +"When we had walked the round of the place, and it was time to take +coach for our lodging at Chelsea--he having brought me thus far to see +St. Paul's and the prison of Newgate, the Mint and Tower--the gloomy +fit came on him again, and all that evening he was dull and sorrowful, +though I read aloud to him from the printed sermons of a rising member +of our community. So you will see, honour'd sir, how difficult it is +for these children of Satan to withdraw themselves from that master +they have once served; since at the sober age of fifty-three yeares my +husband's weak heart yet yearns after profligate faires and foolish +gardens lighted by color'd lampes. + +"And now no more, reverend friend, my paper being gone and it being +full time to reflect that y'r patience must be gone also. Service to +Mrs. Goodge. I have no more room but to assure you that y'r gayeties of +this foolish and erring citty have no power to withdraw y'r heart of +her whose chief privilege it is to subscribe herself, + +"Your humble follower and servant." + +"Rebecca Haygarth." + + +To my mind there seems just a shadowy hint of some bygone romance in +this letter. Why did the dingy house in John-street bring the tears +into Matthew's eyes? and why did the memory of Vauxhall and Bartholomew +fair seem so sweet to him? And then that sighing and groaning and +dolefulness of visage whenever the thought of the past came back to him? + +What did it all mean, I wonder? Was it only his vanished youth, which +poor, sobered, converted, Wesleyanised Matthew regretted? or were there +pensive memories of something even sweeter than youth associated with +the coloured lamps of Vauxhall and the dinginess of Clerkenwell? Who +shall sound the heart of a man who lived a hundred years ago? and where +is the fathom-line which shall plumb its mysteries? I should need a +stack of old letters before I could arrive at the secret of that man's +life. + +The two other letters, which I have selected after some deliberation, +relate to the last few weeks of Matthew's existence; and in these again +I fancy I see the trace of some domestic mystery, some sorrowful secret +which this sober citizen kept hidden from his wife, but which he was on +several occasions half inclined to reveal to her. + +Perhaps if the lady's piety--which seems to have been thoroughly +sincere and praiseworthy, by the bye--had been a little less cold and +pragmatical in its mode of expression, poor Matthew might have taken +heart of grace and made a clean breast of it. + +That there was a secret in the man's life I feel convinced; but that +conviction goes very little way towards proving any one point of the +smallest value to George Sheldon. + +I transcribe an extract from each of the two important letters; the +first written a month before Matthew's death, the second a fortnight +after that event. + +"And indeed, honour'd sir, I have of late suffered much uneasinesse of +speritt concerning my husband. Those fits of ye mopes of w'h I informed +you some time back have again come upon him. For awhile I did hope that +these melancholic affections were ye fruit put forth by a regenerate +soul; but within this month last past it has been my sorrow to discover +that these gloomy disorders arise rather from ye promptings of the Evil +One. It has pleased Mr. Haygarthe of late to declare that his life is +nigh at an end; and indeed he affects a conviction that his days are +number'd. This profane and impertinent notion I take to be a direct +inspiration of Satan, of a like character to ye sudden and +unaccountable fitts of laughter which have seized upon many pious +Christians in the midst of earnest congregations; whereby much shame +and discomfiture has been brought upon our sect. Nor is there any +justification for this presumptuous certainty entertained by my +husband, inasmuch as his health is much as it has ordinarily been for +ye last ten years. He does acknowledge this with his own lips, and +immediately after cries out that his race is run, and ye hand of death +is upon him; which I cannot but take as ye voice of ye enemy speaking +through that weak mouth of ye flesh. + +"On Sunday night last past, ye gloomy fitt being come upon him after +prayers, Mr. Haygarthe began all on a sudden, as it is his habit to do: + +"'There is something I would fain tell ye, wench,' he cries out, +'something about those roistering days in London, which it might be +well for thee to know.' + +"But I answered him directly, that I had no desire to hear of profane +roisterings, and that it would be better for him to keep his peace, and +listen reverently to the expounding of the Scriptures, which Humphrey +Bagot, our worthy pastor and friend, had promised to explain and +exemplify after supper. We was seated at ye time in ye blue parlour, +the table being spread for supper, and were awaiting our friend from +the village, a man of humble station, being but a poor chapman and +huckster, but of exalted mind and a most holy temper, and sells me the +same growth of Bohea as that drunk by our gracious queen at Windsor. + +"After I had thus reproved him--in no unkind speritt--Mr. Haygarthe +fell to sighing; and then cries out all at once: + +"'When I am on my death-bed, wife, I will tell thee something: be sure +thou askest me for it; or if death come upon me unawares, thou wouldst +do well to search in the old tulip-leaf bureau for a letter, since I +may tell thee that in a letter which I would not tell with these lips.' + +"Before there was time to answer him in comes Mr. Bagot, and we to +supper; after which he did read the sixth chapter of Hebrews and +expound it at much length for our edifying; at the end whereof Satan +had obtained fast hold of Mr. Haygarthe, who was fallen asleep and +snoring heavily." + +Here is plain allusion to some secret, which that pragmatical idiot, +Mrs. Rebecca, studiously endeavoured not to hear. The next extract is +from a letter written when the lips that had been fain to speak were +stilled for ever. Ah, Mistress Rebecca, you were but mortal woman, +although you were also a shining light amongst the followers of John +Wesley; and I wonder what you would have given for poor Matthew's +secret _then_. + +"Some days being gone after this melancholic event, I bethought me of +that which my husband had said to me before I left Dewsdale for that +excursion to the love-feasts at Kemberton and Kesfield, Broppindean and +Dawnfold, from which I returned but two short weeks before my poor +Matthew's demise. I called to remembrance that discourse about +approaching death which in my poor human judgment I did esteem a +pestilent error of mind, but which I do now recognise as a spiritual +premonition; and I set myself earnestly to look for that letter which +Matthew told me he would leave in the tulip-leaf bureau. But though I +did search with great care and pains, my trouble was wasted, inasmuch +as there was no letter. Nor did I leave off to search until ev'ry nook +and crevvis had been examin'd. But in one of ye secret drawers, hidden +in an old dog's-eared book of prayers, I did find a lock of fair hair, +as if cut from the head of a child, entwin'd curiously with a long +plait of dark hair, which, by reason of ye length thereof, must needs +have been the hair of a woman, and with these the miniature of a girl's +face in a gold frame. I will not stain this paper, which is near come +to an end, by the relation of such suspicions as arose in my mind on +finding these curious treasures; nor will I be of so unchristian a +temper as to speak ill of the dead. My husband was in his latter days +exemplarily sober, and a humble acting Xtian. Ye secrets of his earlier +life will not now be showne to me on this side heaven. I have set aside +ye book, ye picture, and ye plaited hair in my desk for conveniency, +where I will show them to you when I am next rejoic'd by y'r improving +conversation. Until then, in grief or in happiness, in health and +sickness, I trust I shall ever continue, with y'r same sincerity, + +"Your humble and obliged Servant and disciple + +"REBECCA HAYGARTHE." + +Thus end my excerpts from the correspondence of Mrs. Haygarthe. They +are very interesting to me, as containing the vague shadow of a +vanished existence; but whether they will ever be worth setting forth +in an affidavit is extremely uncertain. Doubtless that miniature of an +unknown girl which caused so much consternation in the mind of sober +Mrs. Rebecca was no other than the "Molly" whose gray eyes reminded me +of Charlotte Halliday. + +As I copied Mrs. Rebecca's quaint epistles, in the midnight stillness, +the things of which I was writing arose before me like a picture. I +could see the blue parlour that Sunday evening; the sober couple seated +primly opposite to each other; the china monsters on the high +chimneypiece; the blue-and-white Dutch tiles, with queer squat figures +of Flemish citizens on foot and on horseback; the candles burning dimly +on the spindle-legged table--two poor pale flames reflected ghastly in +the dark polished panels of the wainscot; the big open Bible on an +adjacent table; the old silver tankard, and buckhorn-handled knives and +forks set out for supper; the solemn eight-day clock, ticking drearily +in the corner; and amid all that sombre old-fashioned comfort, +gray-haired Matthew sighing and lamenting for his vanished youth. + +I have grown strangely romantic since I have fallen in love with +Charlotte Halliday. The time was when I should have felt nothing but a +flippant ignorant contempt for poor Haygarth's feeble sighings and +lamentings; but now I think of him with a sorrowful tenderness, and am +more interested in his poor commonplace life, that picture, and those +two locks of hair, than in the most powerful romance that ever emanated +from mortal genius. It has been truly said, that truth is stranger than +fiction: may it not as justly be said, that truth has a power to touch +the human heart which is lacking in the most sublime flights of a +Shakespeare, or the grandest imaginings of an Aeschylus? One is sorry +for the fate of Agamemnon; but one is infinitely more sorrowful for the +cruel death of that English Richard in the dungeon at Pomfret, who was +a very insignificant person as compared to the king of men and of ships. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +HUNTING THE JUDSONS. + + +_Oct. 10th_. Yesterday and the day before were blank days. On Saturday +I read Mrs. Rebecca's letters a second time after a late breakfast, and +spent a lazy morning in the endeavour to pick up any stray crumbs of +information which I might have overlooked the previous night. There was +nothing to be found, however; and, estimable as I have always +considered the founder of the Wesleyan fraternity, I felt just a little +weary of his virtues and his discourses, his journeyings from place to +place, his love-feasts and his prayer-meetings, before I had finished +with Mrs. Haygarth's correspondence. In the afternoon I strolled about +the town; made inquiries at several inns, with a view to discover +whether Captain Paget was peradventure an inmate thereof; looked in at +the railway-station, and watched the departure of a train; dawdled away +half an hour at the best tobacconist's shop in the town on the chance +of encountering my accomplished patron, who indulges in two of the +choicest obtainable cigars per diem, and might possibly repair thither +to make a purchase, if he were in the place. Whether he is still in +Ullerton or not I cannot tell; but he did not come to the +tobacconist's; and I was fain to go back to my inn, having wasted a +day. Yet I do not think that George Sheldon will have cause to complain +of me, since I have worked very closely for my twenty shillings per +week, and have devoted myself to the business in hand with an amount of +enthusiasm which I did not think it possible for me to +experience--except for---- + +I went to church on Sunday morning, and was more devoutly inclined than +it has been my habit to feel; for although a man who lives by his wits +must not necessarily be a heathen or an atheist, it is very difficult +for him to be anything like a Christian. Even my devotion yesterday was +not worth much, for my thoughts went vagabondising off to Charlotte +Halliday in the midst of a very sensible practical sermon. + +In the afternoon I read the papers, and dozed by the fire in the +coffee-room--two-thirds coke by the way, and alternating from the +fierceness of a furnace to the dreary blackness of an exhausted +coal-mine--still thinking of Charlotte. + +Late in the evening I walked the streets of the town, and thought what +a lonely wretch I was. The desert of Sahara is somewhat dismal, I +daresay; but in its dismality there is at least a flavour of romance, a +smack of adventure. O, the hopeless dulness, the unutterable blankness +of a provincial town late on a Sunday night, as it presents itself to +the contemplation of a friendless young man without a sixpence in his +pocket, or one bright hope to tempt him to forgetfulness of the past in +pleasant dreaming of the future! + +Complaining again! O pen, which art the voice of my discontent, your +spluttering is like this outburst of unmanly fretfulness and futile +rage! O paper, whose flat surface typifies the dull level of my life, +your greasy unwillingness to receive the ink is emblematic of the +soul's revolt against destiny! + +This afternoon brought me a letter from Sheldon, and opened a new +channel for my explorations in that underground territory, the past. +That man has a marvellous aptitude for his work; and has, what is more +than aptitude, the experience of ten years of failure. Such a man must +succeed sooner or later. I wonder whether his success will come while I +am allied to him. I have been used to consider myself an unlucky +wretch, a creature of ill-fortune to others as well as to myself. It is +a foolish superstition, perhaps, to fancy one's self set apart for an +evil destiny; but the Eumenides have been rather hard upon me. Those +"amiable" deities, whom they of Colonae tried so patiently to +conciliate with transparent flatteries, have marked me for their prey +from the cradle--I don't suppose that cradle was paid for, by the bye. +I wonder whether there is an avenging deity whose special province it +is to pursue the insolvent--a Nemesis of the Bankruptcy Court. + +My Sheldon's epistle bears the evidence of a very subtle brain, as I +think. It is longer than his previous letters. I transcribe it here, as +I wish this record to be a complete brief of my proceedings in this +Haygarth business. + + +"Gray's Inn, Sunday night. + +"DEAR HAWKEHURST,--The copies of the letters came duly to hand, and I +think you have made your selections with much discretion, always +supposing you have overlooked nothing in the remaining mass of writing. +I will thank you to send me the rest of the letters, by the way. You +can take notes of anything likely to be useful to yourself, and it will +be as well for me to possess the originals. + +"I find one very strong point in the first letter of your selection, +viz. the allusion to a house in John-street. It is clear that Matthew +lived in that house, and in that neighbourhood there may even yet +remain some traces of his existence. I shall begin a close +investigation to-morrow within a certain radius of that spot; and if I +have the good luck to fall upon any clear-headed centenarians, I may +pick up something. + +"There are some alms-houses hard by Whitecross-street prison, where the +inmates live to ages that savour of the Pentateuch. Perhaps there I may +light upon some impoverished citizen fallen from a good estate who can +remember some contemporary of Matthew's. London was smaller in those +days than it is now, and men lived out their lives in one spot, and had +leisure to be concerned about the affairs of their neighbours. As I +have now something of a clue to Matthew's roistering days, I shall set +to work to follow it up closely; and your provincial researches and my +metropolitan investigations proceeding simultaneously, we may hope to +advance matters considerably ere long. For your own part, I should +advise you forthwith to hunt up the Judson branch. You will remember +that Matthew's only sister was a Mrs. Judson of Ullerton. I want to +find an heir-at-law in a direct line from Matthew; and you know my +theory on that point. But if we fail in that direction, we must of +course fall back upon the Judsons, who are a disgustingly complicated +set of people, and will take half a lifetime to disentangle, to say +nothing of other men who may be working the same business, and who are +pretty sure to have pinned their faith on the female branch of the +Haygarthian tree. + +"I want you to ferret out some of the Judson descendants with a view to +picking up further documentary evidence in the shape of old letters, +inscriptions in old books, and so on. That Matthew had a secret is +certain; and that he was very much inclined to reveal that secret in +his later days is also certain. Who shall say that he did not tell it +to his only sister, though he was afraid to tell it to his wife? + +"You have acted with so much discretion up to this point, that I do not +care to trouble you with any further hints or suggestions. When money +is wanted, it shall be forthcoming; but I must beg you to manage things +economically, as I have to borrow at a considerable sacrifice; and +should this affair prove a failure, my ruin is inevitable. + +"Yours, &c. G.S." + + +My friend Sheldon is a man who can never have been more than "yours +et-cetera" to any human creature. I suppose what he calls ruin would be +a quiet passage through the Bankruptcy Court, and a new set of +chambers. I should not suppose that sort of ruin would be very terrible +for a man whose sole possessions are a few weak-backed horsehair +chairs, a couple of battered old desks, half a dozen empty japanned +boxes, a file of _Bell's Life_, and a Turkey carpet in which the +progress of corruption is evident to the casual observer. + +The hunting-up of the Judsons is a very easy matter as compared to the +task of groping in the dimness of the past in search of some faint +traces of the footsteps of departed Haygarths. Whereas the Haygarth +family seem to be an extinct race, the Judsonian branch have bred and +mustered in the land; and my chief difficulty in starting has been an +_embarras de richesse_, in the shape of half a page of Judsons in the +Ullerton directory. + +Whether to seek out Theodore Judson, the attorney, in Nile street East, +or the Rev. James Judson, curate of St. Gamaliel; whether to appeal in +the first instance to Judson & Co., haberdashers and silk mercers, of +the Ferrygate, or to Judson of Judson and Grinder, wadding +manufacturers in Lady-lane--was the grand question. On inquiring of the +landlord as to the antecedents of these Judsons, I found that they were +all supposed to spring from one common stock, and to have the blood of +old Jonathan Haygarth in their veins. The Judsons had been an obscure +family--people of "no account," my landlord told me, until Joseph +Judson, chapman and cloth merchant in a very small way, was so +fortunate as to win the heart of Ruth Haygarth, only daughter of the +wealthy Nonconformist grocer in the market-place. This marriage had +been the starting-point of Joseph Judson's prosperity. Old Haygarth had +helped his industrious and respectable son-in-law along the stony road +that leads to fortune, and had no doubt given him many a lift over the +stones which bestrew that toilsome highway. My landlord's information +was as vague as the information of people in general; but it was easily +to be made out, from his scanty shreds and scraps of information, that +the well-placed Judsons of the present day had almost all profited to +some extent by the hard-earned wealth of Jonathan Haygarth. "They've +nearly all of them got the name of Haygarth mixed up with their other +names somehow," said my landlord. "Judson of Judson and Grinder is +Thomas Haygarth Judson. He's a member of our tradesman's club, and +worth a hundred thousand pounds, if he's worth a sixpence." + +I have observed, by the way, that a wealthy tradesman in a country town +is never accredited with less than a hundred thousand; there seems a +natural hankering in the human mind for round numbers. + +"There's J.H. Judson of St. Gamaliel," continued my landlord--"he's +James Haygarth Judson; and young Judson the attorney's son puts +'Haygarth Judson' on his card, and gets people to call him Haygarth +Judson when they will--which in a general way they won't, on account of +his giving himself airs, which you may see him any summer evening +walking down Ferrygate as if the place belonged to him, and he didn't +set much value on it. They _do_ say his father's heir-at-law to a +million of money left by the last of the Haygarths, and that he and the +son are trying to work up a claim to the property against the Crown. +But I have heard young Judson deny it in our room when he was spoken to +about it, and I don't suppose there's much ground for people's talk." + +I was sorry to discover there was any ground for such talk; Mr. Judson +the lawyer would be no insignificant opponent. I felt that I must give +a very wide berth to Mr. Theodore Judson the attorney, and his stuck-up +son, unless circumstances should so shape themselves as to oblige us to +work with him. In the meanwhile any move I made amongst the other +Judsons would be likely, I thought, to come to the knowledge of these +particular members of the family. + +"Are the Judson family very friendly with one another?" I artfully +inquired. + +"Well, you see, some of 'em are, and some of 'em ain't. They're most of +'em third and fourth cousins, you see, and that ain't a very near +relationship in a town where there's a good deal of competition, and +interests often clash. Young Theodore--Haygarth Judson as he calls +himself--is very thick with Judson of St. Gamaliel's, they were at +college together, you see: and fine airs they give themselves on the +strength of a couple of years or so at Cambridge. Those two get on very +well together. But Judson of the Lady-lane Mills don't speak to either +of 'em when he meets 'em in the street, and has been known to cut 'em +dead in my room. William Judson of Ferrygate is a dissenter, and keeps +himself to himself very close. The other Judsons are too fast a lot for +him: though what's the harm of a man taking a glass or two of +brandy-and-water of an evening with his friends is more than _I_ can +find out," added mine host, musingly. + +It was to William Judson the dissenter, who kept himself to himself, +that I determined to present myself in the first instance. As a +dissenter, he would be likely to have more respect for the memory of +the Nonconformist and Wesleyan Haygarths, and to have preserved any +traditions relating to them with more fidelity than the Anglican and +frivolous members of the Judson family. As an individual who kept +himself to himself, he would be unlikely to communicate my business to +his kindred. + +I lost no time in presenting myself at the house of business in +Ferrygate, and after giving the servant George Sheldon's card, and +announcing myself as concerned in a matter of business relating to the +Haygarth family, I was at once ushered into a prim counting-house, +where a dapper little old gentleman in spotless broadcloth, and a +cambric cravat and shirt frill which were soft and snowy as the plumage +of the swan, received me with old-fashioned courtesy. I was delighted +to find him seventy-five years of age at the most moderate computation, +and I should have been all the better pleased if he had been older. I +very quickly discovered that in Mr. Judson the linen draper I had to +deal with a very different person from the Rev. Jonah Goodge. He +questioned me closely as to my motive in seeking information on the +subject of the departed Haygarth, and I had some compunction in +diplomatising with him as I had diplomatised with Mr. Goodge. To +hoodwink the wary Jonah was a triumph--to deceive the confiding linen +draper was a shame. However, as I have before set down, I suppose at +the falsest I am not much farther from the truth than a barrister or a +diplomatist. Mr. Judson accepted my account of myself in all +simplicity, and seemed quite pleased to have an opportunity of talking +about the deceased Haygarths. + +"You are not concerned in the endeavour to assert Theodore Judson's +claim to the late John Haygarth's property, eh?" the old man asked me +presently, as if struck by a sudden misgiving. + +I assured him that Mr. Theodore Judson's interests and mine were in no +respect identical. + +"I am glad of that," answered the draper; "not that I owe Theodore +Judson a grudge, you must understand, though his principles and mine +differ very widely. I have been told that he and his son hope to +establish a claim to that Haygarth property; but they will never +succeed, sir--they will never succeed. There was a young man who went +to India in '41; a scamp and a vagabond, sir, who was always trying to +borrow money in sums ranging from a hundred pounds, to set him up in +business and render him a credit to his family, to a shilling for the +payment of a night's lodging or the purchase of a dinner. But that +young man was the great-grandson of Ruth Haygarth--the eldest surviving +grandson of Ruth Haygarth's eldest son; and if that man is alive, he is +rightful heir to John Haygarth's money. Whether he is alive or dead at +this present moment is more than I can tell, since he has never been +heard of in Ullerton since he left the town; but until Theodore Judson +can obtain legal proof of that man's death he has no more chance of +getting one sixpence of the Haygarth estate than I have of inheriting +the crown of Great Britain." + +The old man had worked himself into a little passion before he finished +this speech, and I could see that the Theodore Judsons were as +unpopular in the draper's counting-house as they were at the Swan Inn. + +"What was this man's Christian name?" I asked. + +"Peter. He was called Peter Judson; and was the great-grandson of my +grandfather, Joseph Judson, who inhabited this very house, sir, more +than a hundred years ago. Let me see: Peter Judson must have been about +five-and-twenty years of age when he left Ullerton; so he is a +middle-aged man by this time if he hasn't killed himself, or if the +climate hasn't killed him long ago. He went as supercargo to a merchant +vessel: he was a clever fellow, and could work hard when it suited him, +in spite of his dissipated life. Theodore Judson is a very good lawyer; +but though he may bring all his ingenuity to bear, he will never +advance a step nearer to the possession of John Haygarth's money till +he obtains evidence of Peter Judson's death; and he's afraid to +advertise for that evidence for fear he might arouse the attention of +other claimants." + +Much as I was annoyed to find that there were claimants lying in wait +for the rev. intestate's wealth, I was glad to perceive that Theodore +Judson's unpopularity was calculated to render his kindred agreeably +disposed to any stranger likely to push that gentleman out of the list +of competitors for these great stakes, and I took my cue from this in +my interview with the simple old draper. + +"I regret that I am not at liberty to state the nature of my business," +I said, in a tone that was at once insinuating and confidential; "but I +think I may venture to go so far as to say, without breach of trust to +my employer, that whoever may ultimately succeed to the Rev. John +Haygarth's money, neither Mr. Judson the lawyer nor his son will ever +put a finger on a penny of it." + +"I am not sorry to hear it," answered Mr. Judson, enraptured; "not that +I owe the young man a grudge, you must understand, but because he is +particularly undeserving of good fortune. A young man who passes his +own kindred in the streets of his native town without the common +courtesy due to age or respectability; a young man who sneers at the +fortune acquired in an honest and reputable trade; a young man who +calls his cousins counter-jumpers, and his aunts and uncles +'swaddlers'--a vulgar term of contempt applied to the earlier members +of the Wesleyan confraternity--such a young man is not the individual +to impart moral lustre to material wealth; and I am free to confess +that I had rather any one else than Theodore Judson should inherit this +vast fortune. Why, are you aware, my dear sir, that he has been seen to +drive tandem through this very street, as it is; and I should like to +know how many horses he would harness to that gig of his, or how openly +he would insult his relatives, if he had a hundred thousand pounds to +deal with?" + +"A hundred thousand pounds!" exclaimed I; "am I to understand that the +fortune left by the Reverend John Haygarth amounts to that sum?" + +"To every penny of it, sir; and a nice use Theodore Judson and that +precious son of his would make of it if it fell into their hands." + +For a second time Mr. Judson the draper had worked himself into a +little passion, and the conversation had to be discontinued for some +minutes while he cooled down to his ordinary temperament. + +"O ho!" said I within myself, while awaiting the completion of this +cooling-down process; "so _this_ is the stake for which my friend +Sheldon is playing!" + +"I'll tell you what I will do for you, Mr.--Mr. Hawke-shell,"--Mr. +Judson said at last, making a compound of my own and my employer's +names; "I will give you a line of introduction to my sister. If any one +can help you in hunting up intelligence relating to the past she can. +She is two years my junior--seventy-one years of age, but as bright and +active as a girl. She has lived all her life in Ullerton, and is a +woman who hoards every scrap of paper that comes in her way. If old +letters or old newspapers can assist you, she can show you plenty +amongst her stores." + +Upon this the old man wrote a note, which he dried with sand out of a +perforated bottle, as Richard Steele may have dried one of those airy +tender essays which he threw off in tavern parlours for the payment of +a jovial dinner. + +Provided with this antique epistle, written on Bath post and sealed +with a great square seal from a bunch of cornelian monstrosities which +the draper carried at his watch-chain, I departed to find Miss +Hephzibah Judson, of Lochiel Villa, Lancaster-road. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +GLIMPSES OF A BYGONE LIFE. + + +_October 10th_. I found the villa inhabited by Miss Hephzibah Judson +very easily, and found it one of those stiff square dwelling-houses +with brass curtain-rods, prim flower-beds, and vivid green palings, +only to be discovered in full perfection in the choicer suburb of a +country town. + +I had heard enough during my brief residence in Ullerton to understand +that to live in the Lancaster-road was to possess a diploma of +respectability not easily vitiated by individual conduct. No +disreputable persons had ever yet set up their unholy Lares and Penates +in one of those new slack-baked villas; and that person must have been +very bold who, conscious of moral unfitness or pecuniary shortcoming, +should have ventured to pitch his tent in that sacred locality. + +Miss Hephzibah Judson was one of the individuals whose shining sanctity +of life and comfortable income lent a reflected brightness to the +irreproachable suburb. I was admitted to her abode by an elderly woman +of starched demeanour but agreeable visage, who ushered me into a +spotless parlour, whereof the atmosphere was of that vault-like +coldness peculiar to a room which is only inhabited on state occasions. +Here the starched domestic left me while she carried my letter of +introduction to her mistress. In her absence I had leisure to form some +idea of Miss Judson's character on the mute evidence of Miss Judson's +surroundings. From the fact that there were books of a sentimental and +poetical tenor amongst the religious works ranged at mathematically +correct distances upon the dark green table-cover--from the presence of +three twittering canaries in a large brass cage--from the evidence of a +stuffed Blenheim spaniel, with intensely brown eyes, reclining on a +crimson velvet cushion under a glass shade--I opined that Miss Judson's +piety was pleasantly leavened by sentiment, and that her Wesleyanism +was agreeably tempered by that womanly tenderness which, failing more +legitimate outlets, will waste itself upon twittering canaries and +plethoric spaniels. + +I was not mistaken. Miss Judson appeared presently, followed by the +servant bearing a tray of cake and wine. This was the first occasion on +which I had been offered refreshment by any person to whom I had +presented myself. I argued, therefore, that Miss Judson was the weakest +person with whom I had yet had to deal; and I flattered myself with the +hope that from Miss Judson's amiable weakness, sentimentality, and +womanly tenderness, I should obtain better aid than from more +business-like and practical people. + +I fancied that with this lady it would be necessary to adopt a certain +air of candour. I therefore did not conceal from her the fact that my +business had something to do with that Haygarthian fortune awaiting a +claimant. + +"The person for whom you are concerned is not Mr. Theodore Judson?" she +asked, with some asperity. + +I assured her that I had never seen Theodore Judson, and that I was in +no manner interested in his success. + +"In that case I shall be happy to assist you as far as lies in my +power; but I can do nothing to advance the interests of Theodore Judson +junior. I venture to hope that I am a Christian; and if Theodore Judson +junior were to come here to me and ask my forgiveness, I should accord +that forgiveness as a Christian; but I cannot and will not lend myself +to the furtherance of Theodore Judson's avaricious designs. I cannot +lend myself to the suppression of truth or the assertion of falsehood. +Theodore Judson senior is not the rightful heir to the late John +Haygarth's fortune, though I am bound to acknowledge that his claim +would be prior to my brother's. There is a man who stands before the +Theodore Judsons, and the Theodore Judsons know it. But were they the +rightful claimants, I should still consider them most unfitted to enjoy +superior fortune. If that dog could speak, he would be able to testify +to ill-usage received from Theodore Judson junior at his own +garden-gate, which would bespeak the character of the man to every +thoughtful mind. A young man who could indulge his spiteful feelings +against an elderly kinswoman at the expense of an unoffending animal is +not the man to make worthy use of fortune." + +I expressed my acquiescence with this view of the subject; and I was +glad to perceive that with Miss Judson, as with her brother, the +obnoxious Theodores would stand me in good stead. The lady was only two +years younger than her brother, and even more inclined to be +communicative. I made the most of my opportunity, and sat in the +vault-like parlour listening respectfully to her discourse, and from +time to time hazarding a leading question, as long as it pleased her to +converse; although it seemed to me as if a perennial spring of cold +water were trickling slowly down my back and pervading my system during +the entire period. As the reward of my fortitude I obtained Miss +Judson's promise to send me any letters or papers she might find +amongst her store of old documents relating to the personal history of +Matthew Haygarth. + +"I know I have a whole packet of letters in Matthew's own hand amongst +my grandmother's papers," said Miss Judson. "I was a great favourite +with my grandmother, and used to spend a good deal of my time with her +before she died--which she did while I was in pinafores; but young +people wore pinafores much longer in my time than they do now; and I +was getting on for fourteen years of age when my grandmother departed +this life. I've often heard her talk of her brother Matthew, who had +been dead some years when I was born. She was very fond of him, and he +of her, I've heard her say; and she used often to tell me how handsome +he was in his youth; and how well he used to look in a chocolate and +gold-laced riding coat, just after the victory of Culloden, when he +came to Ullerton in secret, to pay her a visit--not being on friendly +terms with his father." + +I asked Miss Judson if she had ever read Matthew Haygarth's letters. + +"No," she said; "I look at them sometimes when I'm tidying the drawer +in which I keep them, and I have sometimes stopped to read a word here +and there, but no more. I keep them out of respect to the dead; but I +think it would make me unhappy to read them. The thoughts and the +feelings in old letters seem so fresh that they bring our poor +mortality too closely home to us when we remember how little except +those faded letters remains of those who wrote them. It is well for us +to remember that we are only travellers and wayfarers on this earth; +but sometimes it seems just a little hard to think how few traces of +our footsteps we leave behind us when the journey is finished." + +The canaries seemed to answer Miss Judson with a feeble twitter of +assent: and I took my leave, with a feeling of compassion in my heart. +I, the scamp--I, Robert Macaire the younger--had pity upon the caged +canaries, and the lonely old woman whose narrow life was drawing to its +close, and who began to feel how very poor a thing it had been after +all. + +_Oct. 11th_. I have paid the penalty of my temerity in enduring the +vault-like chilliness of Miss Hephzibah Judson's parlour, and am +suffering to-day from a sharp attack of influenza; that complaint which +of all others tends to render a man a burden to himself, and a nuisance +to his fellow-creatures. Under these circumstances I have ordered a +fire in my own room--a personal indulgence scarcely warranted by +Sheldon's stipend--and I sit by my own fire pondering over the story of +Matthew Haygarth's life. + +On the table by my side are scattered more than a hundred letters, all +in Matthew's bold hand; but even yet, after a most careful study of +those letters, the story of the man's existence is far from clear to +me. The letters are full of hints and indications, but they tell so +little plainly. They deal in enigmas, and disguise names under the mask +of initials. + +There is much in these letters which relates to the secret history of +Matthew's life. They were written to the only creature amongst his +kindred in whom he fully confided. This fact transpires more than once, +as will be seen anon by the extracts I shall proceed to make; if my +influenza--which causes me to shed involuntary tears that give me the +appearance of a drivelling idiot, and which jerks me nearly out of my +chair every now and then with a convulsive sneeze--will permit me to do +anything rational or useful. + +I have sorted and classified the letters, first upon one plan, then +upon another, until I have classified and sorted them into chaos. +Having done this, my only chance is to abandon all idea of +classification, and go quietly through them in consecutive order +according to their dates, jotting down whatever strikes me as +significant. George Sheldon's acumen must do the rest. + +Thus I begin my notes, with an extract from the fourth letter in the +series. Mem. I preserve Matthew's own orthography, which is the most +eccentric it was ever my lot to contemplate. + +"_December_ 14, '42. Indeed, my dear Ruth, I am ventursom wear you are +concurn'd, and w'd tell you that I w'd taik panes to kepe fromm +another. I saw ye same girl w'h it was my good fortun to saive from ye +molestashun of raketters and mohoks at Smithfelde in September last +past. She is ye derest prittiest creture you ever saw, and as elegant +and genteel in her speche and maner as a Corte lady, or as ye best +bredd person in Ullerton. I mett her in ye nayborood of ye Marchalsee +prison wear her father is at this pressent time a prisener, and had som +pleassant talke with her. She rememberr'd me at once, and seme'd mitily +gladd to see me. Mem. Her pritty blu eys wear fill'd with teares wen +she thank'd me for having studd up to be her champyun at ye Fare. So +you see, Mrs. Ruth, ye brotherr is more thort off in London than with +them which hav ye rite to regard him bestt. If you had scen ye pore +simpel childeish creetur and heeard her tell her arteless tale, I think +y'r kinde hart w'd have bin sore to considder so much unmiritted +misfortun: ye father is in pore helth, a captiv, ye mother has binn +dedd thre yeres, and ye pore orfann girl, Mollie, has to mentane ye +burden of ye sick father, and a yung helples sister. Think of this, +kinde Mrs. Ruth, in y'r welthy home. Mem. Pore Mrs. Mollie is prittier +than ye fineist ladies that wear to be sene at ye opening of ye grand +new roome at Ranellar this spring last past, wear I sor ye too Miss +Gunings and Lady Harvey, wich is alsoe accounted a grate buty." + +I think this extract goes very far to prove that my friend Matthew was +considerably smitten by the pretty young woman whose champion he had +been in some row at Bartholomew Fair. This fits into one of the scraps +of information afforded by my ancient inhabitant in Ullerton +Almshouses, who remembers having heard his grandfather talk of Mat +Haygarth's part in some fight or disturbance at the great Smithfield +festival. + +My next extract treats again of Mollie, after an interval of four +months. It seems as if Matthew had confided in his sister so far as to +betray his tenderness for the poor player-girl of the London booths; +but I can find no such letter amongst those in my hands. Such an +epistle may have been considered by Mrs. Ruth too dangerous to be kept +where the parental eye might in some evil hour discover it. Matthew's +sister was unmarried at this date, and lived within the range of that +stern paternal eye. Matthew's letter appears to me to have been written +in reply to some solemn warning from Ruth. + +"_April_ 12, 1743. Sure, my dear sister cannot think me so baise a +retch as to injoore a pore simpel girl hoo confides in me as ye best +and trooest of mortals, wich for her dere saik I will strive to be. If +so be my sister cou'd think so ill of me it wou'd amost temt me to +think amiss of her, wich cou'd imagen so vile a thort. You tel me that +Mrs. Rebecka Caulfeld is mor than ever estemed by my father; but, Ruth, +I am bounde to say, my father's esteme is nott to be ye rule of my +ackshuns thro' life, for it semes to me their is no worser tyrrannie +than ye wich fathers do striv to impose on there children, and I do +acount that a kind of barbarity wich wou'd compel ye hart of youth to +sute ye proodense of age. I do not dout but Mrs. Rebecka is a mitey +proper and well-natur'd person, tho' taken upp with this new sekt of +methodys, or, as sum do call them in derission, swaddlers and jumpers, +set afoot by ye madbrain'd young man, Wesley, and one that is still +madder, Witfelde. Thear ar I dare sware many men in Ullerton wich wou'd +be gladd to obtane Mrs. Rebecka's hand and fortun; but if ye fortun +wear ten times more, I wou'd not preetend to oferr my harte to herr w'h +can never be its misteress. Now, my deare sister, having gone as farr +towards satisfieing all y'r queerys as my paper wou'd welle permitt, I +will say no more but to begg you to send me all ye knews, and to +believe that none can be more affectionately y'r humble servant than +your brother. + +"MATHEW HAYGARTH." + +In this extract we have strong ground for supposing that our Matthew +truly loved the player-girl, and meant honestly by his sweetheart. +There is a noble indignation in his repudiation of his sister's doubts, +and a manly determination not to marry Mrs. Rebecca's comfortable +fortune. I begin to think that Sheldon's theory of an early and secret +marriage will turn up a trump card; but Heaven only knows how slow or +how difficult may be the labour of proving such a marriage. And then, +even if we can find documentary evidence of such an event, we shall +have but advanced one step in our obscure path, and should have yet to +discover the issue of that union, and to trace the footsteps of +Matthew's unknown descendants during the period of a century. + +I wonder how Sisyphus felt when the stone kept rolling back upon him. +Did he ever look up to the top of the mountain and calculate the +distance he must needs traverse before his task should be done? + +The next letter in which I find a passage worth transcribing is of much +later date, and abounds in initials. The postmark is illegible; but I +can just make out the letters PO and L, the two first close together, +the third after an interval; and there is internal evidence to show +that the letter was written from some dull country place. Might not +that place have been Spotswold? the PO and the L of the postmark would +fit very well into the name of that village. Again I leave this +question to the astute Sheldon. The date is March, 1749. + +"M. is but porely. Sumtimes I am pain'd to believe this quiett life is +not well suted to herr disposishun, having bin acustumed to so much +livlinesse and nois. I hav reproched her with this, but she tolde me, +with teres in her eys, to be neare mee and M. and C. was to be happie, +and ye it is il helth onlie wich is ye cawse of ye sadnesse. I pray +heaven M.'s helth may be on ye mending hand soone. Little M. grows more +butiful everry day; and indede, my dear sisterr, if you cou'd stele +another visitt this waye, and oblidge yr affectionat brother, you wou'd +considerr him ye moste butifull creetur ever scene. So much enteligence +with sich ingaging temper endeares him to all hartes. Mrs. J. says she +adors him, and is amost afraide to be thort a Paygann for bestoeing so +much affection on a erthly creetur, and this to oure good parson who +cou'd find no reproche for her plesant folly. + +"We hav had heavy ranes all ye week last past. Sech wether can but +serve to hinderr M.'s recovery. The fysichion at G., wear I tooke her, +saies she shou'd hav much fresh aire everry day--if not afoot, to be +carrid in a chaire or cotche; but in this wether, and in a plaice wear +neeither chaire nor cotche can be had, she must needs stop in doors. I +hav begg'd her to lett me carry her to G., but she will not, and says +in ye summerr she will be as strong as everr. I pray God she may be so. +Butt theire are times whenn my harte is sore and heavy; and the rane +beeting agenst the winder semes lik dropps of cold worter falling uponn +my pore aking harte. If you cou'd stele a visitt you wou'd see wether +she semes worse than whenn you sor her last ortumm; she is trieing ye +tansy tea; and beggs her service to you, and greatfull thanks for y'r +rememberence of her. I dare to say you here splended acounts of my +doins in London--at cok fites and theaters, dansing at Vorxhall, and +beeting ye wotch in Covin Garden. Does my F. stil use to speke harsh +agenst me, or has he ni forgott their is sech a creetur living? If he +has so, I hope you wil kepe him in sech forgetfullnesse,--and obliage, + +"Yr loving brother and obediant servent." + +"MATHEW HAYGARTH." + + +To me this letter is almost conclusive evidence of a marriage. Who can +this little M. be, of whom he writes so tenderly, except a child? Who +can this woman be, whose ill health causes him such anxiety, unless a +wife? Of no one _but_ a wife could he write so freely to his sister. +The place to which he asks her to "steal a visit" must needs be a home +to which a man could invite his sister. I fancy it is thus made very +clear that at this period Matthew Haygarth was secretly married and +living at Spotswold, where his wife and son were afterwards buried, and +whence the body of the son was ultimately removed to Dewsdale to be +laid in that grave which the father felt would soon be his own +resting-place. That allusion to the Ullerton talk of London roisterings +indicates that Matthew's father believed him to be squandering the +paternal substance in the metropolis at the very time when the young +man was leading a simple domestic life within fifty miles of the +paternal abode. No man could do such a thing in these days of rapid +locomotion, when every creature is more or less peripatetic; but in +that benighted century the distance from Ullerton to Spotswold +constituted a day's journey. That Matthew was living in one place while +he was supposed to be in another is made sufficiently clear by several +passages in his letters, all more or less in the strain of the +following:-- + +"I was yesterday--markett-day--at G., wear I ran suddennly agenst Peter +Browne's eldest ladd. The boy openn'd his eyes wide, stearing like an +owle; butt I gaive him bakk his looke with interrest, and tolde him if +he was curiouse to know my name, I was Simon Lubchick, farmer, at his +servise. The pore simpel ladd arsk'd my pardonn humbly for having +mistook me for a gentelman of Ullerton--a frend of his father; on wich +I gaive him a shillin, and we parted, vastly plesed with eche other; +and this is nott the fust time the site of Ullerton fokes has putt me +into a swett." + +Amongst later letters are very sad ones. The little M. is dead. The +father's poor aching heart proclaims its anguish in very simple words: + +"_Nov_. 1751. I thank my dear sister kindly for her friendlinesse and +compashin; butt, ah, he is gone, and their semes to be no plesure or +comforte on this erth without him! onlie a littel childe of 6 yeres, +and yett so dere a creetur to this harte that the worlde is emty and +lonely without him. M. droopes sadly, and is more ailing everry day. +Indede, my dere Ruth, I see nothing butt sorrow before me, and I wou'd +be right gladd to lay down at peece in my littel M.'s grave." + +I can find no actual announcements of death, only sad allusions here +and there. I fancy the majority of Matthew's letters must have been +lost, for the dates of those confided to my hands are very far apart, +and there is evidence in all of them of other correspondence. After the +letter alluding to little M.'s death, there is a hiatus of eight years. +Then comes a letter with the post-mark London very clear, from which I +transcribe an extract. "_October 4th_, 1759. The toun is very sadd; +everry body, high and low, rich and pore, in morning for Gennerel Wolf: +wot a nobel deth to die, and how much happier than to live, when one +considers the cairs and miseries of this life; and sech has bin the +oppinion of wiser fokes than y'r humble servent. Being in companie on +Thersday sennite with that distingwish'd riter, Dr. Johnson,--whose +admir'd story of _Raselass_ I sent you new from ye press, but who I am +bound to confesse is less admirable as a fine gentlemann than as an +orther, his linning siled and his kravatt twisted ary, and his manners +wot in a more obskure personn wou'd be thort ungenteel,--he made a +remark wich impress'd me much. Some one present, being almost all +gentelmenn of parts and learning, except y'r pore untuter'd brother, +observed that it was a saying with the ainchents that ye happiest of +men was him wich was never born; ye next happy him wich died the +soonest. On wich Dr. Johnson cried out verry loud and angry, 'That was +a Paggann sentyment, sir, and I am asham'd that a Xtian gentelmann +shou'd repete it as a subject for admerashun. Betwene these heathen men +and ye followers of Christ their is all ye differenc betwene a slave +and a servent of a kind Master. Eche bears the same burden; butt ye +servent knows he will recieve just wages for his work, wile ye slave +hopes for nothing, and so conkludes that to escape work is to be +happy!' I could but aknowlege the wisdomm and pyety of this speche; +yett whenn I see ye peopel going bye in their black rayment, I envy the +young Gennerel his gloreous deth, and I wish I was laying amongst the +plane on the hites of Quebeck. I went to look at ye old house in J. +St., but I wou'd not go in to see Mr. F. or ye old roomes; for I think +I shou'd see the aparishions of those that once liv'd in them. C. +thrivs at Higate, wear the aire is fresh and pewer. I go to see her +offen. She is nerely as high as you. Give my servis to Mrs. Rebecka, +sinse you say it will plese my father to do so, and he is now dispos'd +to think more kindly of me. Butt if he thinks I shal everr arske her to +be my wife he is mityly mistaken. You know wear my harte lies--in ye +grave with all that made life dere. Thank my father for the Bill, and +tell him I pass my time in good companie, and neether drink nor play; +and will come to Ullerton to pay him my respeckts when he pleses to bid +me. Butt I hav no desire to leeve London, as I am gladd to be neare C." + +Who was C., whom Matthew visited at Highgate, and who was nearly as +tall as Ruth Judson? Was she not most likely the same C. mentioned in +conjunction with the little M. in the earlier letters? and if so, can +there be any doubt that she was the daughter of Matthew Haygarth? Of +whom but of a daughter would he write as in this letter? She was at +Highgate, at school most likely, and he goes to see her. She is nearly +as tall as Mrs. Judson. This height must have been a new thing, or he +would scarcely impart it as a piece of news to his sister. And then he +has no desire to leave London, as he is glad to be near C. + +My life upon it, C. is a daughter. + +Acting upon this conviction, I have transcribed all passages relating +to C., at whatever distance of time they occur. + + * * * * * + +Thus, in 1763, I find--"C. has grone very hansome, and Mrs. N. tells me +is much admir'd by a brother of her frend Tabitha. She never stirs +abrorde but with Tabitha, and if a dutchess, cou'd be scarce wated on +more cairfully. Mrs. N. loves her verry tenderly, and considers her the +sweetest and most wel bredd of young women. I hav given her the new +edishun of Sir Charls Grandisson, wich they read alowde in ye evenings, +turn and turn about, to Mrs. N. at her spinning. C. has given me a wool +comforter of her owne worke, and sum stockings wich are two thick to +ware, but I hav not told her so." + +Again, in 1764: "Tabitha Meynell's brother goes more than ever to +Higate. He is a clark in his father's wearhouse; very sober and +estimabel, and if it be for ye hapiness of C. to mary him, I wou'd be +ye laste of men to sett my orthoritty agenst her enclinashun. She is +yett but ayteen yeres of age, wich is young to make a change; so I tell +Mrs. N. we will waite. Meanwhile ye young peapel see eche other offen." + +Again, in 1765: "Young Meynell is still constant, expressing much love +and admirashun for C. in his discorse with Mrs. N., butt sattisfide to +wait my plesure before spekeing oppenly to C. He semes a most exempelry +young man; his father a cittizen of some repewt in Aldersgait-street, +ware I have din'd since last riting to you, and at hoose tabel I was +paid much considerashun. He, Tomas Meynell ye father, will give his son +five hundred pound, and I prommis a thousand pound with C. and to +furnish a house at Chelsee, a verry plesent and countriefide vilage; so +I make no doubt there will soon be a wedding. + +"I am sorrie to here my father is aleing; give him my love and servise, +and will come to Ullerton immediate on receiving his commands. I am +plesed to think Mrs. Rebecka Caulfeld is so dutifull and kind to him, +and has comfortedd him with prairs and discorses. I thank her for this +more than for any frendshipp for my undeserving self. Pray tell her +that I am much at her servise. + +"Our new king is lov'd and admir'd by all. His ministers not so; and +wise peopel do entertain themselfs with what I think foollish jokes +a-bout a _Skotch boote_. Perhapps I am not cleverr enuff to see the +funn in this joke." + +In this letter I detect a certain softening of feeling towards Mrs. +Rebecca Caulfield. In the next year--'66--according to my notes, +Matthew's father died, and I have no letters bearing the date of that +year, which our Matthew no doubt spent at home. Nor have I any letters +from this time until the year of Matthew's marriage with Rebecca +Caulfield. In the one year of his union with Mrs. Rebecca, and the last +year of his life, there are many letters, a few from London and the +rest from the manor-house at Dewsdale. But in these epistles, +affectionate and confidential as they are, there is little positive +information. + +These are the letters of the regenerate and Wesleyanised Matthew; and, +like the more elaborate epistles of his wife Rebecca, deal chiefly with +matters spiritual. In these letters I can perceive the workings of a +weak mind, which in its decline has become a prey to religious terrors; +and though I fully recognise the reforming influence which John Wesley +exercised upon the people of England, I fancy poor Matthew would have +been better in the hands of a woman whose piety was of a less severe +type than that of Wesleyan Rebecca. There is an all-pervading tone of +fear in these letters--a depression which is almost despair. In the +same breath he laments and regrets the lost happiness of his youth, and +regrets and laments his own iniquity in having been so ignorantly and +unthinkingly happy. + +Thus in one letter he says,-- + +"When I think of that inconsideratt foolish time with M., and how to be +nere her semed the highest blisse erth cou'd bistowe or Heven prommis, +I trimbel to think of my pore unawaken'd sole, and of her dome on wich +the tru light never shown. If I cou'd believe she was happy my owne +sorow wou'd be lesse; but I canot, sence all ye worthyest memberrs of +our seck agree that to die thinking onely of erthly frends, and +clingeng with a passhunate regrett to them we luv on erth is to be +lesse than a tru Xtian, and for sech their is but one dome." + +And again, in a still later epistle, he writes,-- + +"On Toosday sennite an awakning discorse fromm a verry young man, until +lately a carppenter, but now imploid piusly in going from toun to toun +and vilage to vilage, preching. He says, that a life of cairlesse +happyness, finding plesure in ye things of this worlde, is--not being +repentied of--irretrevable damnation. This is a maloncally thort! I +fell to mewsing on M., with hoom I injoy'd such compleat happyness, tel +Deth came like a spekter to bannish all comforte. And now I knowe that +our lives wear vainity. I ashure you, dear sister, I am prodidjusly +sadd when I reffleckt upon this truth--ashuredly it is a harde saying." + +Anon comes that strange foreknowledge of death--that instinctive sense +of the shadowy hand so soon to lay him at rest; and with that mystic +prescience comes a yearning for the little child M. to be laid where +his father may lay down beside him. There are many passages in the +latter letters which afford a clue to that mysterious midnight burial +at Dewsdale. + +"Last nite I drem't of the cherchyarde at S. I satte under the olde +yewe tree, as it semed in my dreme, and hurd a childes voice crying in +a very piteous mannerr. The thort of this dreme has oppress'd my +speritts all day, and Rebecka has enquier'd more than wunce wot ales +me. If little M. but lay nere at hande, in ye graive to wich I fele I +must soone be carrid, I beleive I shou'd be happyer. Reproove me for +this folley if you plese. I am getting olde, and Sattan temts me with +seche fooleish thorts. Wot dose it matter to my sole wear my vile bodie +is laid? and yet I have a fonde fooleish desier to be berrid with +littel M." + +And in these latest letters there is ample evidence of that yearning on +Matthew's part to reveal a secret which Rebecca's own correspondence +betrays. + +"We tawked of manny things, and she was more than ordinnary kind and +gentel. I had a mind to tell her about M, and aske her frendship for C; +but she seemed not to cair to here my sekrets, and I think wou'd be +offended if she new the trooth. So I cou'd not finde courrage to tell +her. Before I die I shal speek planely for the saik of C. and M. and ye +little one. I shal cum to U. erly nex weak to make my Wille, and this +time shal chainge my umour no more. I have burnt ye laste, not likeing +it." + +This passage occurs in the last letter, amongst the packet confided to +me. The letter is dated September 5, 1774. On the fourteenth of the +following month Matthew died, and in all probability the will here +alluded to was never executed. Certain it is that Matthew, whose end +was awfully sudden at the last, died intestate, whereby his son John +inherited the bulk, and ultimately the whole, of his fortune. There are +many allusions to this infant son in the last few letters; but I do not +think the little creature obtained any great hold on the father's +heart. No doubt he was bound and swaddled out of even such small +semblance to humanity as one may reasonably expect in a child of six or +seven weeks old, and by no means an agreeable being. And poor +weak-minded Matthew's heart was with that player-girl wife whom he +never acknowledged, and the little M. And thus ends the story of +Matthew Haygarth, so far as I have been able to trace it in the +unfathomable gloom of the past. + +It seems to me that what I have next to do will be to hunt up +information respecting that young man Meynell, whose father lived in +Aldersgate Street, and was a respectable and solid citizen, of that +ilk; able to give a substantial dinner to the father of his son's +sweetheart, and altogether a person considerable enough, I should +imagine, to have left footprints of some kind or other on the sands of +Time. The inscrutable Sheldon will be able to decide in what manner the +hunt of the Meynells must begin. I doubt if there is anything more to +be done in Ullerton. + +I have sent Sheldon a fair copy of my extracts from Matthew's +correspondence, and have returned the letters to Miss Judson, carefully +packed in accordance with her request. I now await my Sheldon's next +communication and the abatement of my influenza before making my next +move in the great game of chess called Life. + +What is the meaning of Horatio Paget's lengthened abode in this town? +He is still here. He went past this house to-day while I was standing +at my window in that abject state of mind known only to influenza and +despair. I think I was suffering from a touch of both diseases, by the +bye. What is that man doing here? The idea of his presence fills me +with all manner of vague apprehensions. I cannot rid myself of the +absurd notion that the lavender glove I saw lying in Goodge's parlour +had been left there by the Captain. I know the idea _is_ an absurd one, +and I tell myself again and again that Paget _cannot_ have any inkling +of my business here, and therefore _cannot_ attempt to forestall me or +steal my hard-won information. But often as I reiterate this--in that +silent argument which a man is always elaborating in his own mind--I am +still tormented by a nervous apprehension of treachery from that man. I +suppose the boundary line between influenza and idiocy is a very narrow +one. And then Horatio Paget is such a thorough-paced scoundrel. He is +_lié_ with Philip Sheldon too--another thorough-paced scoundrel in a +quiet gentlemanly way, unless my instinct deceives me. + +_October 12th_. There is treachery somewhere. Again the Haygarthian +epistles have been tampered with. Early this morning comes an indignant +note from Miss Judson, reminding me that I promised the packet of +letters should be restored to her yesterday at noon, and informing me +that they were not returned until last night at eleven o'clock, when +they were left at her back garden-gate by a dirty boy who rang the bell +as loudly as if he had been giving the alarm of fire, and who thrust +the packet rudely into the hand of the servant and vanished +immediately. So much for the messenger. The packet itself, Miss Judson +informed me, was of a dirty and disgraceful appearance, unworthy the +hands of a gentlewoman, and one of the letters was missing. + +Heedless of my influenza, I rushed at once to the lower regions of the +inn, saw the waiter into whose hands I had confided my packet at +half-past ten o'clock yesterday morning, and asked what messenger had +been charged with it. The waiter could not tell me. He did not +remember. I told him plainly that I considered this want of memory very +extraordinary. The waiter laughed me to scorn, with that quiet +insolence which a well-fed waiter feels for a customer who pays twenty +shillings a week for his board and lodging. The packet had been given +to a very respectable messenger, the waiter made no doubt. As to +whether it was the ostler, or one of the boys, or the Boots, or a young +woman in the kitchen who went on errands sometimes, the waiter wouldn't +take upon himself to swear, being a man who would perish rather than +inadvertently perjure himself. As to my packet having been tampered +with, that was ridiculous. What on earth was there in a lump of +letter-paper for any one to steal? Was there money in the parcel? I was +fain to confess there was no money; on which the waiter laughed aloud. + +Failing the waiter, I applied myself severally to the ostler, the boys, +the Boots, and the young woman in the kitchen; and then transpired the +curious fact that no one had carried my packet. The ostler was sure he +had not; the Boots could take his Bible oath to the same effect; the +young woman in the kitchen could not call to mind anything respecting a +packet, though she was able to give me a painfully circumstantial +account of the events of the morning--where she went and what she did, +down to the purchase of three-pennyworth of pearl-ash and a pound of +Glenfield starch for the head chambermaid, on which she dwelt with a +persistent fondness. + +I now felt assured that there had been treachery here, as in the Goodge +business; and I asked myself to whom could I impute that treachery? + +My instinctive suspicion was of Horatio Paget. And yet, was it not more +probable that Theodore Judson, senr. and Theodore Judson, junr. were +involved in this business, and were watching and counterchecking my +actions with a view to frustrating the plans of my principal? This was +one question which I asked myself as I deliberated upon this mysterious +business. Had the Theodore Judsons some knowledge of a secret marriage +on the part of Matthew Haygarth? and did they suspect the existence of +an heir in the descendant of the issue of that marriage? These were +further questions which I asked myself, and which I found it much more +easy to ask than to answer. After having considered these questions, I +went to the Lancaster-road, saw Miss Judson--assured her, on my word as +a gentleman, that the packet had been delivered by my hands into those +of the waiter at eleven o'clock on the previous day, and asked to see +the envelope. There it was--my large blue wire-wove office envelope, +addressed in my own writing. But in these days of adhesive envelopes +there is nothing easier than to tamper with the fastening of a letter. +I registered a mental vow never again to trust any important document +to the protection of a morsel of gummed paper. I counted the letters, +convinced myself that there was a deficiency, and then set to work to +discover which of the letters had been abstracted. Here I failed +utterly. For my own convenience in copying my extracts, I had numbered +the letters from which I intended to transcribe passages before +beginning my work. My pencilled figures in consecutive order were +visible in the corner of the superscription of every document I had +used. Those numbered covers I now found intact, and I could thus assure +myself that the missing document was one from which I had taken no +extract. + +This inspired me with a new alarm. Could it be possible that I had +overlooked some scrap of information more important than all that I had +transcribed? + +I racked my brains in the endeavour to recall the contents of that one +missing letter; but although I sat in that social tomb, Miss Judson's +best parlour, until I felt my blood becoming of an arctic quality, I +could remember nothing that seemed worth remembering in the letters I +had laid aside as valueless. + +I asked Miss Judson if she had any suspicion of the person who had +tampered with the packet. She looked at me with an icy smile, and +answered in ironical accents, which were even more chilling than the +atmosphere of her parlour,-- + +"Do not ask if I know who has tampered with those letters, Mr. +Hawkehurst. Your affectation of surprise has been remarkably well put +on; but I am not to be deceived a second time. When you came to me in +the first instance, I had my suspicions; but you came furnished with a +note from my brother, and as a Christian I repressed those suspicions. +I know now that I have been the dupe of an impostor, and that in +entrusting those letters to you I entrusted them to an emissary and +tool of THEODORE JUDSON." + +I protested that I had never to my knowledge set eyes upon either of +the Theodore Judsons; but the prejudiced kinswoman of those gentlemen +shook her head with a smile whose icy blandness was eminently +exasperating. + +"I am not to be deceived a second time," she said. "Who else but +Theodore Judson should have employed you? Who else but Theodore Judson +is interested in the Haygarth fortune? O, it was like him to employ a +stranger where he knew his own efforts would be unavailing; it was like +him to hoodwink me by the agency of a hireling tool." + +I had been addressed as a "young man" by the reverend Jonah, and now I +was spoken of as a "hireling tool" by Miss Judson. I scarcely knew +which was most disagreeable, and I began to think that board and +lodging in the present, and a visionary three thousand pounds in the +future, would scarcely compensate me for such an amount of ignominy. + +I went back to my inn utterly crestfallen--a creature so abject that +even the degrading influence of influenza could scarcely sink me any +lower in the social scale. I wrote a brief and succinct account of my +proceedings, and despatched the same to George Sheldon, and then I sat +down in my sickness and despair, as deeply humiliated as Ajax when he +found that he had been pitching into sheep instead of Greeks, as +miserable as Job amongst his dust and ashes, but I am happy to say +untormented by the chorus of one or the friends of the other. In that +respect at least I had some advantage over both. + +_October 13th_. This morning's post brought me a brief scrawl from +Sheldon. + +"Come back to town directly. I have found the registry of Matthew +Haygarth's marriage." + +And so I turn my back on Ullerton; with what rejoicing of spirit it is +not in language to express. + + + + + +BOOK THE SIXTH. + + +THE HEIRESS OF THE HAYGARTHS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +DISAPPOINTMENT. + + +Of all places upon this earth, perhaps, there is none more obnoxious to +the civilized mind than London in October; and yet to Valentine +Hawkehurst, newly arrived from Ullerton per North-Western Railway, that +city seemed as an enchanted and paradisiacal region. Were not the +western suburbs of that murky metropolis inhabited by Charlotte +Halliday, and might he not hope to see her? + +He did hope for that enjoyment. He had felt something more than hope +while speeding Londonwards by that delightful combination of a liberal +railway management, a fast and yet cheap train. He had beguiled himself +with a delicious certainty. Early the next morning--or at any rate as +early as civilization permitted--he would hie him to Bayswater, and +present himself at the neat iron gate of Philip Sheldon's gothic villa. +_She_ would be there, in the garden most likely, his divine Charlotte, +so bright and radiant a creature that the dull October morning would be +made glorious by her presence--she would be there, and she would +welcome him with that smile which made her the most enchanting of women. + +Such thoughts as these had engaged him during his homeward journey; and +compared with the delight of such visions, the perusal of daily papers +and the consumption of sandwiches, whereby other passengers beguiled +their transit, seemed a poor amusement. But, arrived in the dingy +streets, and walking towards Chelsea under a drizzling rain, the bright +picture began to grow dim. Was it not more than likely that Charlotte +would be absent from London at this dismal season? Was it not very +probable that Philip Sheldon would give him the cold shoulder? With +these gloomy contingencies before him, Mr. Hawkehurst tried to shut +Miss Halliday's image altogether out of his mind, and to contemplate +the more practical aspect of his affairs. + +"I wonder whether that scoundrel Paget has come back to London?" he +thought. "What am I to say to him if he has? If I own to having seen +him in Ullerton, I shall lay myself open to being questioned by him as +to my own business in that locality. Perhaps my wisest plan would be to +say nothing, and hear his own account of himself. I fully believe he +saw me on the platform that night when we passed each other without +speaking." + +Horatio Paget was at home when his _protegé_ arrived. He was seated by +his fireside in all the domestic respectability of a dressing-gown and +slippers, with an evening paper on his knee, a slim smoke-coloured +bottle at his elbow, and the mildest of cigars between his lips, when +the traveller, weary and weather-stained, entered the lodging-house +drawing-room. + +Captain Paget received his friend very graciously, only murmuring some +faint deprecation of the young man's reeking overcoat, with just such a +look of gentlemanly alarm as the lamented Brummel may have felt when +ushered into the presence of a "damp stranger." + +"And so you've come back at last," said the Captain, "from Dorking?" He +made a little pause here, and looked at his friend with a malicious +sparkle in his eye. "And how was the old aunt? Likely to cut up for any +considerable amount, eh? It could only be with a view to that +cutting-up process that you could consent to isolate yourself in such a +place as Dorking. How did you find things?" + +"O, I don't know, I'm sure," Mr. Hawkehurst answered rather impatiently, +for his worst suspicions were confirmed by his patron's manner; "I only +know I found it tiresome work enough." + +"Ah, to be sure! elderly people always are tiresome, especially when +they are unacquainted with the world. There is a perennial youth about +men and women of the world. The sentimental twaddle people talk of the +freshness and purity of a mind unsullied by communion with the world is +the shallowest nonsense. Your Madame du Deffand at eighty and your +Horace Walpole at sixty are as lively as a girl and boy. Your +octogenarian Voltaire is the most agreeable creature in existence. But +take Cymon and Daphne from their flocks and herds and pastoral valleys +in their old age, and see what senile bores and quavering imbeciles you +would find them. Yes, I have no doubt you found your Dorking aunt a +nuisance. Take off your wet overcoat and put it out of the room, and +then ring for more hot water. You'll find that cognac very fine. Won't +you have a cigar?" + +The Captain extended his russia-leather case with the blandest smile. +It was a very handsome case. Captain Paget was a man who could descend +into some unknown depths of the social ocean in the last stage of +shabbiness, and who, while his acquaintance were congratulating +themselves upon the fact of his permanent disappearance, would start up +suddenly in an unexpected place, provided with every necessity and +luxury of civilized life, from a wardrobe by Poole to the last +fashionable absurdity in the shape of a cigar-case. + +Never had Valentine Hawkehurst found his patron more agreeably disposed +than he seemed to be this evening, and never had he felt more inclined +to suspect him. + +"And what have you been doing while I have been away?" the young man +asked presently. "Any more promoting work?" + +"Well, yes, a little bit of provincial business; a life-and-fire on a +novel principle; a really good thing, if we can only find men with +perception enough to see its merits, and pluck enough to hazard their +capital. But promoting in the provinces is very dull work. I've been to +two or three towns in the Midland districts--Beauport, Mudborough, and +Ullerton--and have found the same stagnation everywhere." + +Nothing could be more perfect than the semblance of unconscious +innocence with which the Captain gave this account of himself: whether +he was playing a part, or whether he was telling the entire truth, was +a question which even a cleverer man than Valentine Hawkehurst might +have found himself unable to answer. + +The two men sat till late, smoking and talking; but to-night Valentine +found the conversation of his "guide, philosopher, and friend" +strangely distasteful to him. That cynical manner of looking at life, +which not long ago had seemed to him the only manner compatible with +wisdom and experience, now grated harshly upon those finer senses which +had been awakened in the quiet contemplative existence he had of late +been leading. He had been wont to enjoy Captain Paget's savage +bitterness against a world which had not provided him with a house in +Carlton-gardens, and a seat in the Cabinet; but to-night he was +revolted by the noble Horatio's tone and manner. Those malicious sneers +against respectable people and respectable prejudices, with which the +Captain interlarded all his talk, seemed to have a ghastly grimness in +their mirth. It was like the talk of some devil who had once been an +angel, and had lost all hope of ever being restored to his angelic +status. + +"To believe in nothing, to respect nothing, to hope for nothing, to +fear nothing, to consider life as so many years in which to scheme and +lie for the sake of good dinners and well-made coats--surely there can +be no state of misery more complete, no degradation more consummate," +thought the young man, as he sat by the fireside smoking and listening +dreamily to his companion. "Better to be Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth, +narrow-minded and egotistical, but always looking beyond her narrow +life to some dimly-comprehended future." + +He was glad to escape at last from the Captain's society, and to retire +to his own small chamber, where he slept soundly enough after the day's +fatigues, and dreamed of the Haygarths and Charlotte Halliday. + +He was up early the next morning; but, on descending to the +sitting-room, he found his patron toasting his _Times_ before a +cheerful fire; while his gold hunting-watch stood open on the +breakfast-table, and a couple of new-laid eggs made a pleasant wabbling +noise in a small saucepan upon the hob. + +"You don't care for eggs, I know, Val," said the Captain, as he took +the saucepan from the hob. + +He had heard the young man object to an egg of French extraction too +long severed from its native land; but he knew very well that for rural +delicacies from a reliable dairyman, at twopence apiece, Mr. Hawkehurst +had no particular antipathy. Even in so small a matter as a new-laid +egg the Captain knew how to protect his own interest. + +"There's some of that Italian sausage you're so fond of, dear boy," he +said politely, pointing to a heel of some grayish horny-looking +compound. "Thanks; I'll pour out the coffee; there's a knack in these +things; half the clearness of coffee depends on the way in which it's +poured out, you see." + +And with this assurance Captain Paget filled his own large +breakfast-cup with a careful hand and a tender solemnity of +countenance. If he was a trifle less considerate in the pouring out of +the second cup, and if some "grounds" mingled with the second portion, +Valentine Hawkehurst was unconscious of the fact. + +"Do try that Italian sausage," said the Captain, as he discussed his +second egg, after peeling the most attractive crusts from the French +rolls, and pushing the crumb to his _protégé_. + +"No, thank you; it looks rather like what your shop-people call an old +housekeeper; besides, there's a little too much garlic in those +compositions for my taste." + +"Your taste has grown fastidious," said the Captain; "one would think +you were going to call upon some ladies this morning." + +"There are not many ladies on my visiting-list. O, by the way, how's +Diana? Have you seen her lately?" + +"No," answered the Captain, promptly. "I only returned from my +provincial tour a day or two ago, and have had no time to waste dancing +attendance upon her. She's well enough, I've no doubt; and she's +uncommonly well off in Sheldon's house, and ought to think herself so." + +Having skimmed his newspaper, Captain Paget rose and invested himself +in his overcoat. He put on his hat before the glass over the +mantelpiece, adjusting the brim above his brows with the thoughtful +care that distinguished his performance of all those small duties which +he owed to himself. + +"And what may _you_ be going to do with yourself to-day, Val?" he asked +of the young man, who sat nursing his own knee and staring absently at +the fire. + +"Well, I don't quite know," Mr. Hawkehurst answered, hypocritically; "I +think I may go as far as Gray's Inn, and look in upon George Sheldon." + +"You'll dine out of doors, I suppose?" + +This was a polite way of telling Mr. Hawkehurst that there would be no +dinner for him at home. + +"I suppose I shall. You know I'm not punctilious on the subject of +dinner. Anything you please--from a banquet at the London Tavern to a +ham-sandwich and a glass of ale at fourpence." + +"Ah, to be sure; youth is reckless of its gastric juices. I shall find +you at home when I come in to-night, I daresay. I think I may dine in +the city. _Au plaisir_." + +"I don't know about the pleasure," muttered Mr. Hawkehurst. "You're a +very delightful person, my friend Horatio; but there comes a crisis in +a man's existence when he begins to feel that he has had enough of you. +Poor Diana! what a father!" + +He did not waste much time on further consideration of his patron, but +set off at once on his way to Gray's Inn. It was too early to call at +the Lawn, or he would fain have gone there before seeking George +Sheldon's dingy offices. Nor could he very well present himself at the +gothic villa without some excuse for so doing. He went to Gray's Inn +therefore; but on his way thither called at a tavern near the Strand, +which was the head-quarters of a literary association known as the +Ragamuffins. Here he was fortunate enough to meet with an acquaintance +in the person of a Ragamuffin in the dramatic-author line, who was +reading the morning's criticisms on a rival's piece produced the night +before, with a keen enjoyment of every condemnatory sentence. From this +gentleman Mr. Hawkehurst obtained a box-ticket for a West-end theatre; +and, armed with this mystic document, he felt himself able to present a +bold countenance at Mr. Sheldon's door. + +"Will she be glad to see me again?" he asked himself. "Pshaw! I daresay +she has forgotten me by this time. A fortnight is an age with some +women; and I should fancy Charlotte Halliday just one of those bright +impressionable beings who forget easily. I wonder whether she is +_really_ like that 'Molly' whose miniature was found by Mrs. Haygarth +in the tulip-leaf escritoire; or was the resemblance between those two +faces only a silly fancy of mine?" + +Mr. Hawkehurst walked the whole distance from Chelsea to Gray's Inn; +and it was midday when he presented himself before George Sheldon, whom +he found seated at his desk with the elephantine pedigree of the +Haygarths open before him, and profoundly absorbed in the contents of a +note-book. He looked up from this note-book as Valentine entered, but +did not leave off chewing the end of his pencil as he mumbled a welcome +to the returning wanderer. It has been seen that neither of the Sheldon +brothers were demonstrative men. + +After that unceremonious greeting, the lawyer continued his perusal of +the note-book for some minutes, while Valentine seated himself in a +clumsy leather-covered arm-chair by the fireplace. + +"Well, young gentleman," Mr. Sheldon exclaimed, as he closed his book +with a triumphant snap, "I think _you're_ in for a good thing; and you +may thank your lucky stars for having thrown you into my path." + +"My stars are not remarkable for their luckiness in a general way," +answered Mr. Hawkehurst, coolly, for the man had not yet been born from +whom he would accept patronage. "I suppose if I'm in for a good thing, +you're in for a better thing, my dear George; so you needn't come the +benefactor quite so strong for my edification. How did you ferret out +the certificate of gray-eyed Molly's espousals?" + +George Sheldon contemplated his coadjutor with an admiring stare. "It +has been my privilege to enjoy the society of cool hands, Mr. +Hawkehurst; and certainly you are about the coolest of the lot--bar +one, as they say in the ring. But that is _ni ci ni là_. I have found +the certificate of Matthew Haygarth's marriage, and to my mind the +Haygarth succession is as good as ours." + +"Ah, those birds in the bush have such splendid plumage! but I'd rather +have the modest sparrow in my hand. However, I'm very glad our affairs +are marching. How did you discover the marriage-lines?" + +"Not without hard labour, I can tell you. Of course my idea of a secret +marriage was at the best only a plausible hypothesis; and I hardly +dared to hug myself with the hope that it might turn up trumps. My idea +was based upon two or three facts, namely, the character of the young +man, his long residence in London away from the ken of respectable +relatives and friends, and the extraordinary state of the marriage laws +at the period in which our man lived." + +"Ah, to be sure! That was a strong point." + +"I should rather think it was. I took the trouble to look up the +history of Mayfair marriages and Fleet marriages before you started for +Ullerton, and I examined all the evidence I could get on that subject. +I made myself familiar with the Rev. Alexander Keith of Mayfair, who +helped to bring clandestine marriages into vogue amongst the swells, +and with Dr. Gaynham--agreeably nicknamed Bishop of Hell--and more of +the same calibre; and the result of my investigations convinced me that +in those days a hare-brained young reprobate must have found it rather +more difficult to avoid matrimony than to achieve it. He might be +married when he was tipsy; he might be married when he was comatose +from the effects of a stand-up fight with Mohawks; his name might be +assumed by some sportive Benedick of his acquaintance given to +practical joking, and he might find himself saddled with a wife he +never saw; or if, on the other hand, of an artful and deceptive turn, +he might procure a certificate of a marriage that had never taken +place,--for there were very few friendly offices which the Fleet +parsons refused to perform for their clients--for a consideration." + +"But how about the legality of the Fleet marriage?" + +"There's the rub. Before the New Marriage Act passed in 1753 a Fleet +marriage was indissoluble. It was an illegal act, and the parties were +punishable; but the Gordian knot was quite as secure as if it had been +tied in the most orthodox manner. The great difficulty to my mind was +the _onus probandi_. The marriage might have taken place; the marriage +be to all intents and purposes a good marriage; but how produce +undeniable proof of such a ceremony, when all ceremonies of the kind +were performed with a manifest recklessness and disregard of law? Even +if I found an apparently good certificate, how was I to prove that it +was not one of those lying certificates of marriages that had never +taken place? Again, what kind of registers could posterity expect from +these parson-adventurers, very few of whom could spell, and most of +whom lived in a chronic state of drunkenness? They married people +sometimes by their Christian names alone--very often under assumed +names. What consideration had they for heirs-at-law in the future, when +under the soothing influence of a gin-bottle in the present? I thought +of all these circumstances, and I was half inclined to despair of +realising my idea of an early marriage. I took it for granted that such +a secret business would be more likely to have taken place in the +precincts of the Fleet than anywhere else; and having no particular +clue, I set to work, in the first place, to examine all available +documents relating to such marriages." + +"It must have been slow work." + +"It _was_ slow work," answered Mr. Sheldon with a suppressed groan, +that was evoked by the memory of a bygone martyrdom. "I needn't enter +into all the details of the business,--the people I had to apply to for +permission to see this set of papers, and the signing and +counter-signing I had to go through before I could see that set of +papers, and the extent of circumlocution and idiocy I had to encounter +in a general way before I could complete my investigation. The result +was nil; and after working like a galley-slave I found myself no better +off than before I began my search. Your extracts from Matthew's letters +put me on a new track. I concluded therefrom that there had been a +marriage, and that the said marriage had been a deliberate act on the +part of the young man. I therefore set to work to do what I ought to +have done at starting--I hunted in all the parish registers to be found +within a certain radius of such and such localities. I began with +Clerkenwell, in which neighbourhood our friend spent such happy years, +according to that pragmatical epistle of Mrs. Rebecca's; but after +hunting in all the mouldy old churches within a mile of St. +John's-gate, I was no nearer arriving at any record of Matthew +Haygarth's existence. So I turned my back upon Clerkenwell, and went +southward to the neighbourhood of the Marshalsea, where Mistress +Molly's father was at one time immured, and whence I thought it very +probable Mistress Molly had started on her career as a matron. This +time my guess was a lucky one. After hunting the registers of St. +Olave's, St. Saviour's, and St. George's, and after the expenditure of +more shillings in donations to sextons than I care to remember, I at +last lighted on a document which I consider worth three thousand pounds +to you--and--a very decent sum of money to me." + +"I wonder what colour our hair will be when we touch that money?" said +Valentine meditatively. "These sort of cases generally find their way +into Chancery-lane, don't they?--that lane which, for some unhappy +travellers, has no turning except the one dismal _via_ which leads to +dusty death. You seem in very good spirits; and I suppose I ought to be +elated too. Three thousand pounds would give me a start in life, and +enable me to set up in the new character of a respectable rate-paying +citizen. But I've a kind of presentiment that this hand of mine will +never touch the prize of the victor; or, in plainer English, that no +good will ever arise to me or mine out of the reverend intestate's +hundred thousand pounds." + +"Why, what a dismal-minded croaker you are this morning!" exclaimed +George Sheldon with unmitigated disgust; "a regular raven, by Jove! You +come to a fellow's office just as matters are beginning to look like +success--after ten years' plodding and ten years' disappointment--and +you treat him to maudlin howls about the Court of Chancery. This is a +new line you've struck out, Hawkehurst, and I can tell you it isn't a +pleasant one." + +"Well, no, I suppose I oughtn't to say that sort of thing," answered +Valentine in an apologetic tone; "but there are some days in a man's +life when there seems to be a black cloud between him and everything he +looks at. I feel like that today. There's a tightening sensation about +something under my waistcoat--my heart, perhaps--a sense of depression +that may be either physical or mental, that I can't get rid of. If a +man had walked by my side from Chelsea to Holborn whispering +forebodings of evil into my ear at every step, I couldn't have felt +more downhearted than I do." + +"What did you eat for breakfast?" asked Mr. Sheldon impatiently. "A +tough beefsteak fried by a lodging-house cook, I daresay--they _will_ +fry their steaks. Don't inflict the consequences of your indigestible +diet upon me. To tell me that there's a black cloud between you and +everything you look at, is only a sentimental way of telling me that +you're bilious. Pray be practical, and let us look at things from a +business point of view. Here is Appendix A.--a copy of the registry of +the marriage of Matthew Haygarth, bachelor, of Clerkenwell, in the +county of Middlesex, to Mary Murchison, spinster, of Southwark, in the +county of Surrey. And here is Appendix B.--a copy of the registry of +the marriage between William Meynell, bachelor, of Smithfield, in the +county of Middlesex, to Caroline Mary Haygarth, spinster, of Highgate, +in the same county." + +"You have found the entry of a second Haygarthian marriage?" + +"I have. The C. of Matthew's letters is the Caroline Mary here +indicated, the daughter and heiress of Matthew Haygarth--doubtless +christened Caroline after her gracious majesty the consort of George +II., and Mary after the Molly whose picture was found in the tulip-leaf +bureau. The Meynell certificate was easy enough to find, since the +letters told me that Miss C.'s suitor had a father who lived in +Aldersgate-street, and a father who approved his son's choice. The +Aldersgate citizen had a house of his own, and a more secure social +status altogether than that poor, weak, surreptitious Matthew. It was +therefore only natural that the marriage should be celebrated in the +Meynell mansion. Having considered this, I had only to ransack the +registers of a certain number of churches round and about +Aldersgate-street in order to find what I wanted; and after about a day +and a half of hard labour, I did find the invaluable document which +places me one generation nearer the present, and on the high-road to +the discovery of my heir-at-law. I searched the same registry for +children of the aforesaid William and Caroline Mary Meynell, but could +find no record of such children nor any further entry of the name of +Meynell. But we must search other registries within access of +Aldersgate-street before we give up the idea of finding such entries in +that neighbourhood." + +"And what is to be the next move?" + +"The hunting-up of all descendants of this William and Caroline Mary +Meynell, wheresoever such descendants are to be found. We are now +altogether off the Haygarth and Judson scent, and have to beat a new +covert." + +"Good!" exclaimed Valentine more cheerfully. "How is the new covert to +be beaten?" + +"We must start from Aldersgate-street. Meynell of Aldersgate-street +must have been a responsible man, and it will be hard if there is no +record of him extant in all the old topographical histories of wards, +without and within, which cumber the shelves of your dry-as-dust +libraries. We must hunt up all available books; and when we've got all +the information that books can give us, we can go in upon hearsay +evidence, which is always the most valuable in these cases." + +"That means another encounter with ancient mariners--I beg your +pardon--oldest inhabitants," said Valentine with a despondent yawn. +"Well, I suppose that sort of individual is a little less obtuse when +he lives within the roar of the great city's thunder than when he +vegetates in the dismal outskirts of a manufacturing town. Where am I +to find my octogenarian prosers? and when am I to begin my operations +upon them?" + +"The sooner you begin the better," replied Mr. Sheldon. "I've taken all +preliminary steps for you already, and you'll find the business +tolerably smooth sailing. I've made a list of certain people who +may be worth seeing." + +Mr. Sheldon selected a paper from the numerous documents upon the table. + +"Here they are," he said: "John Grewter, wholesale stationer, +Aldersgate-street; Anthony Sparsfield, carver and gilder, in Barbican. +These are, so far as I can ascertain, the two oldest men now trading in +Aldersgate-street; and from these men you ought to be able to find out +something about old Meynell. I don't anticipate any difficulty about +the Meynells, except the possibility that we may find more of them than +we want, and have some trouble in shaking them into their places." + +"I'll tackle my friend the stationer to-morrow morning," said Valentine. + +"You'd better drop in upon him in the afternoon, when the day's +business may be pretty well over," returned the prudent Sheldon. "And +now all you've got to do, Hawkehurst, is to work with a will, and work +on patiently. If you do as well in London as you did at Ullerton, +neither you nor I will have any cause to complain. Of course I needn't +impress upon you the importance of secrecy." + +"No," replied Valentine; "I'm quite alive to that." + +He then proceeded to inform George Sheldon of that encounter with +Captain Paget on the platform at Ullerton, and of the suspicion that +had been awakened in his mind by the sight of the glove in Goodge's +parlour. + +The lawyer shook his head. + +"That idea about the glove was rather far-fetched," he said, +thoughtfully; "but I don't like the look of that meeting at the +station. My brother Philip is capable of anything in the way of +manoeuvring; and I'm not ashamed to confess that I'm no match for him. +He was in here one day when I had the Haygarth pedigree spread out on +the table, and I know he smelt a rat. We must beware of him, +Hawkehurst, and we must work against time if we don't want him to +anticipate us." + +"I shan't let the grass grow under my feet," replied Valentine. "I was +really interested in that Haygarthian history: there was a dash of +romance about it, you see. I don't feel the same gusto in the Meynell +chase, but I daresay I shall begin to get up an interest in it as my +investigation proceeds. Shall I call the day after to-morrow and tell +you my adventures?" + +"I think you'd better stick to the old plan, and let me have the result +of your work in the form of a diary," answered Sheldon. And with this +the two men parted. + +It was now half-past two o'clock; it would be half-past three before +Valentine could present himself at the Lawn--a very seasonable hour at +which to call upon Mrs. Sheldon with his offering of a box for the new +play. + +An omnibus conveyed him to Bayswater at a snail's pace, and with more +stoppages than ever mortal omnibus was subjected to before, as it +seemed to that one eager passenger. At last the fading foliage of the +Park appeared between the hats and bonnets of Valentine's opposite +neighbours. Even those orange tawny trees reminded him of Charlotte. +Beneath such umbrage had he parted from her. And now he was going to +see the bright young face once more. He had been away from town about a +fortnight; but taken in relation with Miss Halliday, that fortnight +seemed half a century. + +Chrysanthemums and china-asters beautified Mr. Sheldon's neat little +garden, and the plate-glass windows of his house shone with all their +wonted radiance. It was like the houses one sees framed and glazed in +an auctioneer's office--the greenest imaginable grass, the bluest +windows, the reddest bricks, the whitest stone. "It is a house that +would set my teeth on edge, but for the one sweet creature who lives in +it," Valentine thought to himself, as he waited at the florid iron +gate, which was painted a vivid ultramarine and picked out with gold. + +He tried in vain to catch a glimpse of some feminine figure in the +small suburban garden. No flutter of scarlet petticoat or flash of +scarlet plume revealed the presence of the divinity. + +The prim maid-servant informed him that Mrs. Sheldon was at home, and +asked if he would please to walk into the drawing-room. + +Would he please? Would he not have been pleased to walk into a raging +furnace if there had been a chance of meeting Charlotte Halliday amid +the flames? He followed the maid-servant into Mrs. Sheldon's +irreproachable apartment, where the show books upon the show table were +ranged at the usual mathematically correct distances from one another, +and where the speckless looking-glasses and all-pervading French polish +imparted a chilly aspect to the chamber. A newly-lighted fire was +smouldering in the shining steel grate, and a solitary female figure +was seated by the broad Tudor window bending over some needlework. + +It was the figure of Diana Paget, and she was quite alone in the room. +Valentine's heart sank a little as he saw the solitary figure, and +perceived that it was not the woman he loved. + +Diana looked up from her work and recognised the visitor. Her face +flushed, but the flush faded very quickly, and Valentine was not +conscious of that flattering indication. + +"How do you do, Diana?" he said. "Here I am again, you see, like the +proverbial bad shilling. I have brought Mrs. Sheldon an order for the +Princess's." + +"You are very kind; but I don't think she'll care to go. She was +complaining of a headache this afternoon." + +"O, she'll forget all about her headache if she wants to go to the +play. She's the sort of little woman who is always ready for a theatre +or a concert. Besides, Miss Halliday may like to go, and will easily +persuade her mamma. Whom could she not persuade?" added Mr. Hawkehurst +within himself. + +"Miss Halliday is out of town," Diana replied coldly. + +The young man felt as if his heart were suddenly transformed into so +much lead, so heavy did it seem to grow. What a foolish thing it seemed +that he should be the victim of this fair enslaver!--he who until +lately had fancied himself incapable of any earnest feeling or deep +emotion. + +"Out of town!" he repeated with unconcealed disappointment. + +"Yes; she has gone on a visit to some relations in Yorkshire. She +actually has relations; doesn't that sound strange to you and me?" + +Valentine did not notice this rather cynical remark. + +"She'll be away ever so long, I suppose?" he said. + +"I have no idea how long she may stay there. The people idolise her, I +understand. You know it is her privilege to be idolised; and of course +they will persuade her to stay as long as they can. You seem +disappointed at not seeing her." + +"I am very much disappointed," Valentine answered frankly; "she is a +sweet girl." + +There was a silence after this. Miss Paget resumed her work with rapid +fingers. She was picking up shining little beads one by one on the +point of her needle, and transferring them to the canvas stretched upon +an embroidery frame before her. It was a kind of work exacting extreme +care and precision, and the girl's hand never faltered, though a +tempest of passionate feeling agitated her as she worked. + +"I am very sorry not to see her," Valentine said presently, "for the +sight of her is very dear to me. Why should I try to hide my feelings +from you, Diana? We have endured so much misery together that there +must be some bond of union between us. To me you have always seemed +like a sister, and I have no wish to keep any secret from you, though +you receive me so coldly that one would think I had offended you." + +"You have not offended me. I thank you for being so frank with me. You +would have gained little by an opposite course. I have long known your +affection for Charlotte." + +"You guessed my secret?" + +"I saw what any one could have seen who had taken the trouble to watch +you for ten minutes during your visits to this house." + +"Was my unhappy state so very conspicuous?" exclaimed Valentine, +laughing. "Was I so obviously spoony? _I_ who have so ridiculed +anything in the way of sentiment. You make me blush for my folly, +Diana. What is that you are dotting with all those beads?--something +very elaborate." + +"It is a prie-dieu chair I am working for Mrs. Sheldon. Of course I am +bound to do something for my living." + +"And so you wear out your eyesight in the working of chairs. Poor girl! +it seems hard that your beauty and accomplishments should not find a +better market than that. I daresay you will marry some millionaire +friend of Mr. Sheldon's one of these days, and I shall hear of your +house in Park-lane and three-hundred guinea barouche." + +"You are very kind to promise me a millionaire. The circumstances of my +existence hitherto have been so peculiarly fortunate that I am +justified in expecting such a suitor. My millionaire shall ask you to +dinner at my house in Park-lane; and you shall play _écarté_ with him, +if you like--papa's kind of _écarté_." + +"Don't talk of those things, Di," said Mr. Hawkehurst, with something +that was almost a shudder; "let us forget that we ever led that kind of +life." + +"Yes," replied Diana, "let us forget it--if we can." + +The bitterness of her tone struck him painfully. He sat for some +minutes watching her silently, and pitying her fate. What a sad fate it +seemed, and how hopeless! For him there was always some chance of +redemption. He could go out into the world, and cut his way through the +forest of difficulty with the axe of the conqueror. But what could a +woman do who found herself in the midst of that dismal forest? She +could only sit at the door of her lonesome hut, looking out with weary +eyes for the prince who was to come and rescue her. And Valentine +remembered how many women there are to whom the prince never comes, and +who must needs die and be buried beneath that gloomy umbrage. + +"O! let us have women doctors, women lawyers, women parsons, women +stone-breakers--anything rather than these dependent creatures who sit +in other people's houses working prie-dieu chairs and pining for +freedom," he thought to himself, as he watched the pale stern face in +the chill afternoon light. + +"Do leave off working for a few minutes, and talk to me, Di," he said +rather impatiently. "You don't know how painful it is to a man to see a +woman absorbed in some piece of needlework at the very moment when he +wants all her sympathy. I am afraid you are not quite happy. Do confide +in me, dear, as frankly as I confide in you. Are these people kind to +you? Charlotte is, of course. But the elder birds, Mr. and Mrs. +Sheldon, are they kind?" + +"They are very kind. Mr. Sheldon is not a demonstrative man, as you +know; but I am not accustomed to have people in a rapturous state of +mind about me and my affairs. He is kinder to me than my father ever +was; and I don't see how I can expect more than that. Mrs. Sheldon +is extremely kind in her way--which is rather a feeble way, as you +know." + +"And Charlotte--?" + +"You answered for Charlotte yourself just now. Yes, she is very, very, +very good to me; much better than I deserve. I was almost going to +quote the collect, and say 'desire or deserve.'" + +"Why should you not desire or deserve her goodness?" asked Valentine. + +"Because I am not a loveable kind of person. I am not sympathetic. I +know that Charlotte is very fascinating, very charming; but sometimes +her very fascination repels me. I think the atmosphere of that horrible +swampy district between Lambeth and Battersea, where my childhood was +spent, must have soured my disposition." + +"No, Diana; you have only learnt a bitter way of talking. I know your +heart is noble and true. I have seen your suppressed indignation many a +time when your father's meannesses have revolted you. Our lives have +been very hard, dear; but let us hope for brighter days. I think they +must come to us." + +"They will never come to me," said Diana. + +"You say that with an air of conviction. But why should they not come +to you--brighter and better days?" + +"I cannot tell you that. I can only tell you that they will not come. +And do you hope that any good will ever come of your love for Charlotte +Halliday--you, who know Mr. Sheldon?" + +"I am ready to hope anything." + +"You think that Mr. Sheldon would let his stepdaughter marry a +penniless man?" + +"I may not always be penniless. Besides, Mr. Sheldon has no actual +authority over Charlotte." + +"But he has moral influence over her. She is very easily influenced." + +"I am ready to hope even in spite of Mr. Sheldon's opposing influence. +You must not try to crush this one little floweret that has grown up in +a barren waste, Diana. It is my prison-flower." + +Mrs. Sheldon came into the room as he said this. She was very cordial, +very eloquent upon the subject of her headache, and very much inclined +to go to the theatre, notwithstanding that ailment, when she heard that +Mr. Hawkehurst had been kind enough to bring her a box. + +"Diana and I could go," she said, "if we can manage to be in time after +our six o'clock dinner. Mr. Sheldon does not care about theatres. All +the pieces tire him. He declares they are all stupid. But then, you +see, if one's mind is continually wandering, the cleverest piece must +seem stupid," Mrs. Sheldon added thoughtfully; "and my husband is so +very absent-minded." + +After some further discussion about the theatres, Valentine bade the +ladies good afternoon. + +"Won't you stop to see Mr. Sheldon?" asked Georgina; "he's in the +library with Captain Paget. You did not know that your papa was here, +did you, Diana, my dear? He came in with Mr. Sheldon an hour ago." + +"I won't disturb Mr. Sheldon," said Valentine. "I will call again in a +few days." + +He took leave of the two ladies, and went out into the hall. As he +emerged from the drawing-room, the door of the library was opened, and +he heard Philip Sheldon's voice within, saying,-- + +"--your accuracy with regard to the name of Meynell." + +It was the close of a sentence; but the name struck immediately upon +Valentine's ear. Meynell!--the name which had for him so peculiar an +interest. + +"Is it only a coincidence," he thought to himself, "or is Horatio Paget +on our track?" + +And then he argued with himself that his ears might have deceived him, +and that the name he had heard might not have been Meynell, but only a +name of somewhat similar sound. + +It was Captain Paget who had opened the door. He came into the hall and +recognised his _protégé_. They left the house together, and the Captain +was especially gracious. + +"We will dine together somewhere at the West-end, Val," he said; but, +to his surprise, Mr. Hawkehurst declined the proffered entertainment. + +"I'm tired out with a hard day's work," he said, "and should be very +bad company; so, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to Omega-street and +get a chop." + +The Captain stared at him in amazement. He could not comprehend the man +who could refuse to dine luxuriously at the expense of his fellow-man. + +Valentine had of late acquired new prejudices. He no longer cared to +enjoy the hospitality of Horatio Paget. In Omega-street the household +expenses were shared by the two men. It was a kind of club upon a small +scale; and there was no degradation in breaking bread with the elegant +Horatio. + +To Omega-street Valentine returned this afternoon, there to eat a +frugal meal and spend a meditative evening, uncheered by one glimmer of +that radiance which more fortunate men know as the light of home. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +VALENTINE'S RECORD CONTINUED. + + +_October 15th_. I left Omega-street for the City before noon, after a +hasty breakfast with my friend Horatio, who was somewhat under the +dominion of his black dog this morning, and far from pleasant company. +I was not to present myself to the worthy John Grewter, wholesale +stationer, before the afternoon; but I had no particular reason for +staying at home, and I had a fancy for strolling about the old City +quarter in which Matthew Haygarth's youth had been spent. I went to +look at John-street, Clerkenwell, and dawdled about the immediate +neighbourhood of Smithfield, thinking of the old fair-time, and of all +the rioters and merry-makers, who now were so much or so little dust +and ashes in City churchyards, until the great bell of St. Paul's +boomed three, and I felt that it might be a leisure time with Mr. +Grewter. + +I found the stationer's shop as darksome and dreary as City shops +usually are, but redolent of that subtle odour of wealth which has a +mystical charm for the nostrils of the penniless one. Stacks of +ledgers, mountains of account-books, filled the dimly-lighted +warehouse. Some clerks were at work behind a glass partition, and +already the gas flared high in the green-shaded lamps above the desk at +which they worked. I wondered whether it was a pleasant way of life +theirs, and whether one would come to feel an interest in the barter of +day-books and ledgers if they were one's daily bread. Alas for me! the +only ledger I have ever known is the sainted patron of the northern +racecourse. One young man came forward and asked my business, with a +look that plainly told me that unless I wanted two or three gross of +account-books I had no right to be there. I told him that I wished to +see Mr. Grewter, and asked if that gentleman was to be seen. + +The clerk said he did not know; but his tone implied that, in his +opinion, I could _not_ see Mr. Grewter. + +"Perhaps you could go and ask," I suggested. + +"Well, yes. Is it old or young Mr. Grewter you want to see?" + +"Old Mr. Grewter," I replied. + +"Very well, I'll go and see. You'd better send in your card, though." + +I produced one of George Sheldon's cards, which the clerk looked at. He +gave a little start as if an adder had stung him. + +"You're not Mr. Sheldon?" he said. + +"No; Mr. Sheldon is my employer." + +"What do you go about giving people Sheldon's card for?" asked the +clerk, with quite an aggrieved air. "I know Sheldon of Gray's Inn." + +"Then I'm sure you've found him a very accommodating gentleman," I +replied, politely. + +"Deuce take his accommodation! He nearly accommodated me into the +Bankruptcy Court. And so you're Sheldon's clerk, and you want the +governor. But you don't mean to say that Grewter and Grewter are--" + +This was said in an awe-stricken undertone. I hastened to reassure the +stationer's clerk. + +"I don't think Mr. Sheldon ever saw Mr. Grewter in his life," I said. + +After this the clerk condescended to retire into the unknown antres +behind the shop, to deliver my message. I began to think that George +Sheldon's card was not the best possible letter of introduction. + +The clerk returned presently, followed by a tall, white-bearded man, +with a bent figure, and a pair of penetrating gray eyes--a very +promising specimen of the octogenarian. + +He asked me my business in a sharp suspicious way, that obliged me to +state the nature of my errand without circumlocution. As I got farther +away from the Rev. John Haygarth, intestate, I was less fettered by the +necessity of secrecy. I informed my octogenarian that I was prosecuting +a legal investigation connected with a late inhabitant of that street, +and that I had taken the liberty to apply to him, in the hope that he +might be able to afford me some information. + +He looked at me all the time I spoke as if he thought I was going to +entreat pecuniary relief--and I daresay I have something the air of a +begging-letter writer. But when he found that I only wanted +information, his hard gray eyes softened ever so little, and he asked +me to walk into his parlour. + +His parlour was scarcely less gruesome than his shop. The furniture +looked as if its manufacture had been coeval with the time of the +Meynells, and the ghastly glare of the gas seemed a kind of +anachronism. After a few preliminary observations, which were not +encouraged by Mr. Grewter's manner, I inquired whether he had ever +heard the name of Meynell. + +"Yes," he said; "there was a Meynell in this street when I was a young +man--Christian Meynell, a carpet-maker by trade. The business is still +carried on--and a very old business it is, for it was an old business +in Meynell's time; but Meynell died before I married, and his name is +pretty well forgotten in Aldersgate-street by this time." + +"Had he no sons?" I asked. + +"Well, yes; he had one son, Samuel, a kind of companion of mine. But he +didn't take to the business, and when his father died he let things go +anyhow, as you may say. He was rather wild, and died two or three years +after his father." + +"Did he die unmarried?" + +"Yes. There was some talk of his marrying a Miss Dobberly, whose father +was a cabinet-maker in Jewin-street; but Samuel was too wild for the +Dobberlys, who were steady-going people, and he went abroad, where he +was taken with some kind of fever and died." + +"Was this son the only child?" + +"No; there were two daughters. The younger of them married; the elder +went to live with her--and died unmarried, I've heard say." + +"Do you know whom the younger sister married?" I asked. + +"No. She didn't marry in London. She went into the country to visit +some friends, and she married and settled down in those parts--wherever +it might be--and I never heard of her coming back to London again. The +carpet business was sold directly after Samuel Meynell's death. The new +people kept up the name for a good twenty years--'Taylor, late Meynell, +established 1693,' that's what was painted on the board above the +window--but they've dropped the name of Meynell now. People forget old +names, you see, and it's no use keeping to them after they're +forgotten." + +Yes, the old names are forgotten, the old people fade off the face of +the earth. The romance of Matthew Haygarth seemed to come to a lame and +impotent conclusion in this dull record of dealers in carpeting. + +"You can't remember what part of England it was that Christian +Meynell's daughter went to when she married?" + +"No. It wasn't a matter I took much interest in. I don't think I ever +spoke to the young woman above three times in my life, though she lived +in the same street, and though her brother and I often met each other +at the Cat and Salutation, where there used to be a great deal of talk +about the war and Napoleon Bonaparte in those days." + +"Have you any idea of the time at which she was married?" I inquired. + +"Not as to the exact year. I know it was after I was married; for I +remember my wife and I sitting at our window upstairs one summer Sunday +evening, and seeing Samuel Meynell's sister go by to church. I can +remember it as well as if it was yesterday. She was dressed in a white +gown and a green silk spencer. Yes--and I didn't marry my first wife +till 1814. But as to telling you exactly when Miss Meynell left +Aldersgate-street, I can't." + +These reminiscences of the past seemed to exercise rather a mollifying +influence upon the old man's mind, commonplace as they were. He ceased +to look at me with sharp, suspicious glances, and he seemed anxious to +afford me all the help he could. "Was Christian Meynell's father called +William?" I asked, after having paused to make some notes in my +pocket-book. + +"That I can't tell you; though, if Christian Meynell was living to-day, +he wouldn't be ten years older than me. His father died when I was +quite a boy; but there must be old books at the warehouse with his name +in them, if they haven't been destroyed." + +I determined to make inquiries at the carpet warehouse; but I had +little hope of finding the books of nearly a century gone by. I tried +another question. + +"Do you know whether Christian Meynell was an only son, or the only son +who attained manhood?" I asked. + +My elderly friend shook his head. + +"Christian Meynell never had any brothers that I heard of," he said; +"but the parish register will tell you all about that, supposing that +his father before him lived all his life in Aldersgate-street, as I've +every reason to believe he did." + +After this I asked a few questions about the neighbouring churches, +thanked Mr. Grewter for his civility, and departed. + +I went back to Omega-street, dined upon nothing particular, and devoted +the rest of my evening to the scrawling of this journal, and a tender +reverie, in which Charlotte Halliday was the central figure. + +How bitter poverty and dependence have made Diana Paget! She used to be +a nice girl too. + +_Oct. 16th_. To-day's work has been confined to the investigation of +parish registers--a most wearisome business at the best. My labours +were happily not without result. In the fine old church of St. Giles, +Cripplegate, I found registries of the baptism of Oliver Meynell, son +of William and Caroline Mary Meynell, 1768; and of the burial of the +same Oliver in the following year. I found the record of the baptism of +a daughter to the same William and Caroline Mary Meynell, and further +on the burial of the said daughter, at five years of age. I also found +the records of the baptism of Christian Meynell, son of the same +William and Caroline Mary Meynell, in the year 1772, and of William +Meynell's decease in the year 1793. Later appeared the entry of the +burial of Sarah, widow of Christian Meynell. Later still, the baptism +of Samuel Meynell; then the baptism of Susan Meynell; and finally, that +of Charlotte Meynell. + +These were all the entries respecting the Meynell family to be found in +the registry. There was no record of the burial of Caroline Mary, wife +of William Meynell, nor of Christian Meynell, nor of Samuel Meynell, +his son; and I knew that all these entries would be necessary to my +astute Sheldon before his case would be complete. After my search of +the registries, I went out into the churchyard to grope for the family +vault of the Meynells, and found a grim square monument, enclosed by a +railing that was almost eaten away by rust, and inscribed with the +names and virtues of that departed house. The burial ground is +interesting by reason of more distinguished company than the Meynells. +John Milton, John Fox, author of the Martyrology, and John Speed, the +chronologer, rest in this City churchyard. + +In the hope of getting some clue to the missing data, I ventured to +make a second call upon Mr. Grewter, whom I found rather inclined to be +snappish, as considering the Meynell business unlikely to result in any +profit to himself, and objecting on principle to take any trouble not +likely to result in profit. I believe this is the mercantile manner of +looking at things in a general way. + +I asked him if he could tell me where Samuel Meynell was buried. + +"I suppose he was buried in foreign parts," replied the old gentleman, +with considerable grumpiness, "since he died in foreign parts." + +"O, he died abroad, did he? Can you tell me where?" + +"No, sir, I can't," replied Mr. Grewter, with increasing grumpiness; "I +didn't trouble myself about other people's affairs then, and I don't +trouble myself about them now, and I don't particularly care to be +troubled about them by strangers." + +I made the meekest possible apology for my intrusion, but the outraged +Grewter was not appeased. + +"Your best apology will be not doing it again," he replied. "Those that +know my habits know that I take half an hour's nap after dinner. My +constitution requires it, or I shouldn't take it. If I didn't happen to +have a strange warehouseman on my premises, you wouldn't have been +allowed to disturb me two afternoons running." + +Finding Mr. Grewter unappeasable, I left him, and went to seek a more +placable spirit in the shape of Anthony Sparsfield, carver and gilder, +of Barbican. + +I found the establishment of Sparsfield and Son, carvers and gilders. +It was a low dark shop, in the window of which were exhibited two or +three handsomely carved frames, very much the worse for flies, and one +oil-painting, of a mysterious and Rembrandtish character. The +old-established air that pervaded almost all the shops in this +neighbourhood was peculiarly apparent in the Sparsfield establishment. + +In the shop I found a mild-faced man of about forty engaged in +conversation with a customer. I waited patiently while the customer +finished a minute description of the kind of frame he wanted made for a +set of proof engravings after Landseer; and when the customer had +departed, I asked the mild-faced man if I could see Mr. Sparsfield. + +"I am Mr. Sparsfield," he replied politely. + +"Not Mr. Anthony Sparsfield?" + +"Yes, my name is Anthony." + +"I was given to understand that Mr. Anthony Sparsfield was a much older +person." + +"O, I suppose you mean my father," replied the mild-faced man. "My +father is advanced in years, and does very little in the business +nowadays; not but what his head is as clear as ever it was, and there +are some of our old customers like to see him when they give an order." + +This sounded hopeful. I told Mr. Sparsfield the younger that I was not +a customer, and then proceeded to state the nature of my business. I +found him as courteous as Mr. Grewter had been disobliging. + +"Me and father are old-fashioned people," he said; "and we're not above +living over our place of business, which most of the Barbican +tradespeople are nowadays. The old gentleman is taking tea in the +parlour upstairs at this present moment, and if you don't mind stepping +up to him, I'm sure he'll be proud to give you any information he can. +He likes talking of old times." + +This was the sort of oldest inhabitant I wanted to meet with--a very +different kind of individual from Mr. Grewter, who doled out every +answer to my questions as grudgingly as if it had been a five-pound +note. + +I was conducted to a snug little sitting-room on the first-floor, where +there was a cheerful fire and a comfortable odour of tea and toast. I +was invited to take a cup of tea; and as I perceived that my acceptance +of the invitation would be accounted a kind of favour, I said yes. The +tea was very weak, and very warm, and very sweet; but Mr. Sparsfield +and his son sipped it with as great an air of enjoyment as if it had +been the most inspiring of beverages. + +Mr. Sparsfield the elder was more or less rheumatic and asthmatic, but +a cheerful old man withal, and quite ready to prate of old times, when +Barbican and Aldersgate-street were pleasanter places than they are +to-day, or had seemed so to this elderly citizen. + +"Meynell!" he exclaimed; "I knew Sam Meynell as well as I knew my own +brother, and I knew old Christian Meynell almost as well as I knew my +own father. There was more sociability in those days, you see, sir. The +world seems to have grown too full to leave any room for friendship. +It's all push and struggle, and struggle and push, as you may say; and +a man will make you a frame for five-and-twenty shillings that will +look more imposing like than what I could turn out for five pound. Only +the gold-leaf will all drop off after a twelvemonth's wear; and that's +the way of the world nowadays. There's a deal of gilding, and things +are made to look uncommon bright; but the gold all drops off 'em before +long." + +After allowing the old man to moralise to his heart's content, I +brought him back politely to the subject in which I was interested. + +"Samuel Meynell was as good a fellow as ever breathed," he said; "but +he was too fond of the tavern. There were some very nice taverns round +about Aldersgate-street in those days; and you see, sir, the times were +stirring times, and folks liked to get together and talk over the day's +news, with a pipe of tobacco and a glass of their favourite liquor, all +in a sociable way. Poor Sam Meynell took a little too much of his +favourite liquor; and when the young woman that he had been keeping +company with--Miss Dobberly of Jewin-street--jilted him and married a +wholesale butcher in Newgate Market, who was old enough to be her +father, Sam took to drinking, and neglected his business. One day he +came to me and said, 'I've sold the business, Tony,'--for it was Sam +and Tony with us, you see, sir,--'and I'm off to France.' This was soon +after the battle of Waterloo; and many folks had a fancy for going over +to France now that they'd seen the back of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was +generally alluded to in those days by the name of monster or tiger, and +was understood to make his chief diet off frogs. Well, sir, we were all +of us very much surprised at Sam's going to foreign parts; but as he'd +always been wild, it was only looked upon as a part of his wildness, +and we weren't so much surprised to hear a year or two afterwards that +he'd drunk himself to death upon cheap brandy--odyvee as _they_ call +it, poor ignorant creatures--at Calais." + +"He died at Calais?" + +"Yes," replied the old man; "I forget who brought the news home, but I +remember hearing it. Poor Sam Meynell died and was buried amongst the +Mossoos." + +"You are sure he was buried at Calais?" + +"Yes, as sure as I can be of anything. Travelling was no easy matter in +those days, and in foreign parts there was nothing but diligences, +which I've heard say were the laziest-going vehicles ever invented. +There was no one to bring poor Sam's remains back to England, for his +mother was dead, and his two sisters were settled somewhere down in +Yorkshire." + +In Yorkshire! I am afraid I looked rather sheepish when Mr. Sparsfield +senior mentioned this particular county, for my thoughts took wing and +were with Charlotte Halliday before the word had well escaped his lips. + +"Miss Meynell settled in Yorkshire, did she?" I asked. + +"Yes, she married some one in the farming way down there. Her mother +was a Yorkshirewoman, and she and her sister went visiting among her +mother's relations, and never came back to London. One of them married, +the other died a spinster." + +"Do you remember the name of the man she married?" + +"No," replied Mr. Sparsfield, "I can't say that I do." + +"Do you remember the name of the place she went to--the town or +village, or whatever it was?" + +"I might remember it if I heard it," he responded thoughtfully; "and I +ought to remember it, for I've heard Sam Meynell talk of his sister +Charlotte's home many a time. She was christened Charlotte, you see, +after the Queen. I've a sort of notion that the name of the village was +something ending in Cross, as it might be Charing Cross, or Waltham +Cross." + +This was vague, but it was a great deal more than I had been able to +extort from Mr. Grewter. I took a second cup of the sweet warm liquid +which my new friends called tea, in order to have an excuse for +loitering, while I tried to obtain more light from the reminiscences of +the old frame-maker. + +No more light came, however. So I was fain to take my leave, reserving +to myself the privilege of calling again on a future occasion. + +_Oct. 18th_. I sent Sheldon a statement of my Aldersgate-street +researches the day before yesterday morning. He went carefully through +the information I had collected, and approved my labours. + +"You've done uncommonly well, considering the short time you've been at +the work," he said; "and you've reason to congratulate yourself upon +having your ground all laid out for you, as my ground has never been +laid out for me. The Meynell branch seems to be narrowing itself into +the person of Christian Meynell's daughter and her descendants, and our +most important business now will be to find out when, where, and whom +she married, and what issue arose from such marriage. This I think you +ought to be able to do." + +I shook my head rather despondingly. + +"I don't see any hope of finding out the name of the young woman's +husband," I said, "unless I can come across another oldest inhabitant, +gifted with a better memory for names and places than my obliging +Sparsfield or my surly Grewter." + +"There are the almshouses," said Sheldon; "you haven't tried them yet." + +"No; I suppose I must go in for the almshouses," I replied, with the +sublime resignation of the pauper, whose poverty must consent to +anything; "though I confess that the prosiness of the almshouse +intellect is almost more than I can endure." + +"And how do you know that you mayn't get the name of the place out of +your friend the carver and gilder?" said George Sheldon; "he has given +you some kind of clue in telling you that the name ends in Cross. He +said he should know the name if he heard it; why not try him with it?" + +"But in order to do that, I must know the name myself," replied I, "and +in that case I shouldn't want the aid of my Sparsfield." + +"You are not great in expedients," said Sheldon, tilting back his +chair, and taking a shabby folio from a shelf of other shabby folios. +"This is a British gazetteer," he said, turning to the index of the +work before him. "We'll test the ancient Sparsfield's memory with every +Cross in the three Ridings, and if the faintest echo of the name we +want still lingers in his feeble old brain, we'll awaken it." My patron +ran his finger-nail along one of the columns of the index. + +"Just take your pencil and write down the names as I call them," he +said. "Here we are--Aylsey Cross; and here we are again--Bowford Cross, +Callindale Cross, Huxter's Cross, Jarnam Cross, Kingborough Cross." +Then, after a careful examination of the column, he exclaimed, "Those +are all the Crosses in the county of York, and it will go hard with us +if you or I can't find the descendants of Christian Meynell's daughter +at one of them. The daughter herself may be alive, for anything we +know." + +"And how about the Samuel Meynell who died at Calais? You'll have to +find some record of his death, won't you? I suppose in these cases one +must prove everything." + +"Yes, I must prove the demise of Samuel," replied the sanguine +genealogist; "that part of the business I'll see to myself, while you +hunt out the female branch of the Meynells. I want an outing after a +long spell of hard work; so I'll run across to Calais and search for +the register of Samuel's interment. I suppose somebody took the trouble +to bury him, though he was a stranger in the land." + +"And if I extort the name we want from poor old Sparsfield's +recollection?" + +"In that case you can start at once for the place, and begin your +search on the spot. It can't be above fifty years since this woman +married, and there must be some inhabitant of the place old enough to +remember her. O, by the bye, I suppose you'll be wanting more cash for +expenses," added Mr. Sheldon, with a sigh. He took a five-pound note +from his pocket-book, and gave it to me with a piteous air of +self-sacrifice. I know that he is poor, and that whatever money he does +contrive to earn is extorted from the necessities of his needier +brethren. Some of this money he speculates upon the chances of the +Haygarthian succession, as he has speculated his money on worse chances +in the past. "Three thousand pounds!" he said to me, as he handed me +the poor little five-pound note; "think what a prize you are working +for, and work your hardest. The nearer we get to the end, the slower +our progress seems to me; and yet it has been very rapid progress, +considering all things." + +So sentimental have I become, that I thought less of that possible +three thousand pounds than of the fact that I was likely to go to +Yorkshire, the county of Charlotte's birth, the county where she was +now staying. I reminded myself that it was the largest shire in +England, and that of all possible coincidences of time and place, there +could be none more unlikely than the coincidence that would bring about +a meeting between Charlotte Halliday and me. + +"I know that for all practical purposes I shall be no nearer to her in +Yorkshire than in London," I said to myself; "but I shall have the +pleasure of fancying myself nearer to her." + +Before leaving George Sheldon, I told him of the fragmentary sentences +I had heard uttered by Captain Paget and Philip Sheldon at the Lawn; +but he pooh-poohed my suspicions. + +"I'll tell you what it is, Valentine Hawkehurst," he said, fixing those +hard black eyes of his upon me as if he would fain have pierced the +bony covering of my skull to discover the innermost workings of my +brain; "neither Captain Paget nor my brother Phil can know anything of +this business, unless you have turned traitor and sold them my secrets. +And mark me, if you have, you've sold yourself and them into the +bargain: my hand holds the documentary evidence, without which all your +knowledge is worthless." + +"I am not a traitor," I told him quietly, for I despise him far too +heartily to put myself into a passion about anything he might please to +say of me; "and I have never uttered a word about this business either +to Captain Paget or to your brother. If you begin to distrust me, it is +high time you should look out for a new coadjutor." + +I had my Sheldon, morally speaking, at my feet in a moment. + +"Don't be melodramatic, Hawkehurst," he said; "people sell each other +every day of the week, and no one blames the seller, provided he makes +a good bargain. But this is a case in which the bargain would be a very +bad one." + +After this I took my leave of Mr. Sheldon. He was to start for Calais +by that night's mail, and return to town directly his investigation was +completed. If he found me absent on his return, he would conclude that +I had obtained the information I required and started for Yorkshire. In +this event he would patiently await the receipt of tidings from that +county. + +I went straight from Gray's Inn to Jewin-street. I had spent the +greater part of the day in Sheldon's office, and when I presented +myself before my complacent Sparsfield junior, Sparsfield senior's tea +and toast were already in process of preparation; and I was again +invited to step upstairs to the family sitting-room, and again treated +with that Arcadian simplicity of confidence and friendliness which it +has been my fate to encounter quite as often in the heart of this +sophisticated city as in the most pastoral of villages. With people who +were so frank and cordial I could but be equally frank. + +"I am afraid I am making myself a nuisance to you, Mr. Sparsfield," I +said; "but I know you'll forgive me when I tell you that the affair I'm +engaged in is a matter of vital importance to me, and that your help +may do a great deal towards bringing matters to a crisis." + +Mr. Sparsfield senior declared himself always ready to assist his +fellow-creatures, and was good enough further to declare that he had +taken a liking to me. So weak had I of late become upon all matters of +sentiment, I thanked Mr. Sparsfield for his good opinion, and then went +on to tell him that I was about to test his memory. + +"And it ain't a bad un," he cried, cheerily, clapping his hand upon his +knee by way of emphasis. "It ain't a bad memory, is it, Tony?" + +"Few better, father," answered the dutiful Anthony junior. "Your +memory's better than mine, a long way." + +"Ah," said the old man, with a chuckle, "folks lived different in my +day. There weren't no gas, and there weren't no railroads, and London +tradespeople was content to live in the same house from year's end to +year's end. But now your tradesman must go on his foreign tours, like a +prince of the royal family, and he must go here and go there; and when +he's been everywhere, he caps it all by going through the Gazette. +Folks stayed at home in my day; but they made their fortunes, and they +kept their health, and their eyesight, and their memory, and their +hearing, and many of 'em have lived to see the next generation make +fools of themselves." + +"Why, father," cried Anthony junior, aghast at this flood of eloquence, +"what an oration!" + +"And it ain't often I make an oration, is it, Tony?" said the old man, +laughing. "I only mean to say that if my memory's pretty bright, it may +be partly because I haven't frittered it away upon nonsense, as some +folks have. I've stayed at home and minded my own business, and left +other people to mind theirs. And now, sir, if you want the help of my +memory, I'm ready to give it." + +"You told me the other day that you could not recall the name of the +place where Christian Meynell's daughter married, but you said you +should remember it if you heard it, and you also said that the name +ended in Cross." + +"I'll stick to that," replied my ancient friend. "I'll stick to that." +"Very well then. It is a settled thing that the place was in Yorkshire?" + +"Yes, I'm sure of that too." + +"And that the name ended in Cross?" + +"It did, as sure as my name is Sparsfield." + +"Then in that case, as there are only six towns or villages in the +county of York the names of which end in Cross, it stands to reason +that the place we want must be one of those six." + +Having thus premised, I took my list from my pocket and read aloud the +names of the six places, very slowly, for Mr. Sparsfield's edification. + +"Aylsey Cross--Bowford Cross--Callindale Cross--Huxter's Cross--Jarnam +Cross--Kingborough Cross." + +"That's him!" cried my old friend suddenly. + +"Which?" I asked eagerly. + +"Huxter's Cross; I remember thinking at the time that it must be a +place where they sold things, because of the name Huxter, you see, +pronounced just the same as if it was spelt with a cks instead of an x. +And I heard afterwards that there'd once been a market held at the +place, but it had been done away with before our time. Huxter's Cross; +yes, that's the name of the place where Christian Meynell's daughter +married and settled. I've heard it many a time from poor Sam, and it +comes back to me as plain as if I'd never forgotten it." + +There was an air of conviction about the old man which satisfied me +that he was not deceived. I thanked him heartily for his aid as I took +my leave. + +"You may have helped to put a good lump of money in my pocket, Mr. +Sparsfield," I said; "and if you have, I'll get my picture taken, if +it's only for the pleasure of bringing it here to be framed." + +With this valedictory address I left my simple citizens of Barbican. My +heart was very light as I wended my way across those metropolitan wilds +that lay between Barbican and Omega-street. I am ashamed of myself when +I remember the foolish cause of this elation of mind. I was going to +Yorkshire, the county of which my Charlotte was now an inhabitant. My +Charlotte! It is a pleasure even to write that delicious possessive +pronoun--the pleasure of poor Alnascher, the crockery-seller, dreaming +his day-dream in the eastern market-place. + +Can any one know better than I that I shall be no nearer Charlotte +Halliday in Yorkshire than I am in London? No one. And yet I am glad my +Sheldon's business takes me to the woods and wolds of that wide +northern shire. + +Huxter's Cross--some Heaven-forgotten spot, no doubt. I bought a +railway time-table on my way home to-night, and have carefully studied +the bearings of the place amongst whose mouldy records I am to discover +the history of Christian Meynell's daughter and heiress. + +I find that Huxter's Cross lies off the railroad, and is to be +approached by an obscure little station--as I divine from the +ignominious type in which its name appears--about sixty miles northward +of Hull. The station is called Hidling; and at Hidling there seems to +be a coach which plies between the station and Huxter's Cross. + +Figure to yourself again, my dear, the heir-at-law to a hundred +thousand pounds vegetating in the unknown regions of Huxter's Cross cum +Hidling, unconscious of his heritage! + +Shall I find him at the plough-tail, I wonder, this mute inglorious +heir-at-law? or shall I find an heiress with brawny arms meekly +churning butter? or shall I discover the last of the Meynells taking +his rest in some lonely churchyard, not to be awakened by earthly voice +proclaiming the tidings of earthly good fortune? + +I am going to Yorkshire--that is enough for me. I languish for the +starting of the train which shall convey me thither. I begin to +understand the nostalgia of the mountain herdsman: I pine for that +northern air, those fresh pure breezes blowing over moor and +wold--though I am not quite clear, by the bye, as to the exact nature +of a wold. I pant, I yearn for Yorkshire. I, the cockney, the child of +Temple Bar, whose cradle-song was boomed by the bells of St. Dunstan's +and St. Clement's Danes. + +Is not Yorkshire my Charlotte's birthplace? I want to see the land +whose daughters are so lovely. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ARCADIA. + + +_November 1st_. This is Huxter's Cross, and I live here. I have lived +here a week. I should like to live here for ever. O, let me be rational +for a few hours, while I write the record of this last blissful week; +let me be reasonable, and business-like, and Sheldon-like for this one +wet afternoon, and then I may be happy and foolish again. Be still, +beating heart! as the heroines of Minerva-press romances were +accustomed to say to themselves on the smallest provocation. Be still, +foolish, fluttering, schoolboy heart, which has taken a new lease of +youth and folly from a fair landlord called Charlotte Halliday. + +Drip, drip, drip, O rain! "The day is dark and cold and dreary, and the +vine still clings to the mouldering wall; and with every gust the dead +leaves fall:" but thy sweet sad verse wakes no responsive echo in my +heart, O tender Transatlantic Poet, for my heart is light and +glad--recklessly glad--heedless of to-morrow--forgetful of +yesterday--full to the very brim with the dear delight of to-day. + +And now to business. I descend from the supernal realms of fancy to the +dry record of commonplace fact. This day week I arrived at Hidling, +after a tedious journey, which, with stoppages at Derby and Normanton, +and small delays at obscurer stations, had occupied the greater part of +the day. It was dusk when I took my place in the hybrid vehicle, half +coach, half omnibus, which was to convey me from Hidling to Huxter's +Cross. A transient glimpse at Hidling showed me one long straggling +street and a square church-tower. Our road branched off from the +straggling street, and in the autumn dusk I could just discover the dim +outlines of distant hills encircling a broad waste of moor. + +I have been so steeped in London that this wild barren scene had a +charm for me which it could scarcely possess for others. Even the gloom +of that dark waste of common land was pleasant to me. I shared the +public vehicle with one old woman, who snored peacefully in the +remotest corner, while I looked out at the little open window and +watched the darkening landscape. + +Our drive occupied some hours. We passed two or three little clusters +of cottages and homesteads, where the geese screamed and the cocks +crowed at our approach, and where a few twinkling tapers in upper +windows proclaimed the hour of bed-time. At one of these clusters of +habitation, a little island of humanity in the waste of wold and moor, +we changed horses, with more yo-oh-ing and come-up-ing than would have +attended the operation in a civilised country. At this village I heard +the native tongue for the first time in all its purity; and for any +meaning which it conveyed to my ear I might as well have been listening +to the _patois_ of agricultural Carthage. + +After changing horses, we went up hill, with perpetual groanings, and +grumblings, and grindings, and whip-smacking and come-up-ing, for an +indefinite period; and then we came to a cluster of cottages, suspended +high up in the sharp autumn atmosphere as it seemed to me; and the +driver of the vehicle came to my little peephole of a window, and told +me with some slight modification of the Carthaginian _patois_ that I +was "theer." + +I alighted, and found myself at the door of a village inn, with the red +light from within shining out upon me where I stood, and a battered old +sign groaning and creaking above my head. For me, who in all my life +had been accustomed to find my warmest welcome at an inn, this was to +be at home. I paid my fare, took up my carpet-bag, and entered the +hostelry. + +I found a rosy-faced landlady, clean and trim, though a trifle floury +as to the arms and apron. She had emerged from a kitchen, an +old-fashioned chamber with a floor of red brick; a chamber which was +all in a rosy glow with the firelight, and looked like a Dutch picture, +as I peeped at it through the open doorway. There were the most +picturesque of cakes and loaves heaped on a wooden bench by the hearth, +and the whole aspect of the place was delicious in its homely comfort. + +"O," I said to myself, "how much better the northern winds blowing over +these untrodden hills, and the odour of home-made loaves, than the +booming bells of St. Dunstan's, and the greasy steam of tavern chops +and steaks!" + +My heart warmed to this Yorkshire and these Yorkshire people. Was it +for Charlotte's sake, I wonder, that I was so ready to open my heart to +everybody and everything in this unknown land? + +A very brief parley set me quite at ease with my landlady. Even, the +Carthaginian _patois_ became intelligible to me after a little +experience. I found that I could have a cosy, cleanly chamber, and be +fed and cared for upon terms that seemed absurdly small, even to a +person of my limited means. My cordial hostess brought me a meal which +was positively luxurious; broiled ham and poached eggs, such as one +scarcely hopes to see out of a picture of still life; crisp brown cakes +fresh from that wonderful oven whose door I had seen yawning open in +the Flemish interior below; strong tea and cream--the cream that one +reads of in pastoral stories. + +I enjoyed my banquet, and then opened my window and looked out at the +still landscape, dimly visible in the faint starlight. + +I was at the top of a hill--the topmost of an ascending range of +hills--and to some minds that alone is rapture. To inhale the fresh +night air was to drink deeply of an ethereal beverage. I had never +experienced so delicious a sensation since I had stood on the grassy +battlements of the Chateau d'Arques, with the orchards and gardens of +sunny Normandy spread like a carpet below my feet. + +But this hill was loftier than that on which the feudal castle rears +its crumbling towers, and the landscape below me was wilder than +verdant Normandy. + +No words can tell how I rejoiced in this untrodden region--this +severance from the Strand and Temple Bar. I felt as if my old life was +falling away from me--like the scales of the lepers who were cleansed +by the Divine Healer. I felt myself worthier to love, or even to be +loved by, the bright true-hearted girl whose image fills my heart. Ah, +if Heaven gave me that dear angel, I think my old life, my old +recklessness, my old want of principle, would drop away from me +altogether, and the leper would stand forth cleansed and whole. Could I +not be happy with her here, among these forgotten hills, these widely +scattered homesteads? Could I not be happy dissevered eternally from +billiard-room and kursaal, race-ground and dancing-rooms? Yes, +completely and unreservedly happy--happy as a village curate with +seventy pounds a year and a cast-off coat, supplied by the charity of a +land too poor to pay its pastors the wage of a decent butler--happy as +a struggling farmer, though the clay soil of my scanty acres were never +so sour and stubborn, my landlord never so hard about his rent--happy +as a pedlar, with my pack of cheap tawdry wares slung behind me, and my +Charlotte tramping gaily by my side. + +I breakfasted next morning in a snug little parlour behind the bar, +where I overheard two carters conversing in the Carthaginian _patois_, +to which I became hourly more accustomed. My brisk cheery landlady came +in and out while I took my meal; and whenever I could detain her long +enough, I tried to engage her in conversation. + +I asked her if she had ever heard the name of Meynell; and after +profound consideration she replied in the negative. + +"I don't mind hearing aught of folks called Meynell," she said with +more or less of the _patois_, which I was beginning to understand; "but +I haven't got mooch memory for nee-ams. I might have heard o' such +folks, and not minded t' nee-am." + +This was rather dispiriting; but I knew that if any record of Christian +Meynell's daughter existed at Huxter's Cross, it was in my power to +discover it. + +I asked if there was any official in the way of a registrar to be found +in the village; and found that there was no one more important than an +old man who kept the keys of the church. The registers were kept in the +vestry, my landlady believed, and the old man was called Jonas Gorles, +and lived half a mile off, at the homestead of his son-in-law. But my +landlady said she would send for him immediately, and pledged herself +to produce him in the course of an hour. I told her that I would find +my way to the churchyard in the mean time, whither Mr. Gorles could +follow me as soon as convenient. + +The autumnal morning was fresh and bright as spring, and Huxter's Cross +seemed the most delightful place on earth to me, though it is only a +cluster of cottages, relieved by one farmhouse of moderate pretensions, +my hostelry of the Magpie, a general shop, which is also the +post-office, and a fine old Norman church, which lies away from the +village, and bears upon it the traces of better days. Near the church +there is an old granite cross, around which the wild flowers and +grasses grow rank and high. It marks the spot where there was once a +flourishing market-place; but all mortal habitations have vanished, and +the Huxter's Cross of the past has now no other memorial than this +crumbling stone. + +The churchyard was unutterably still and solitary. A robin was perched +on the topmost bar of the old wooden gate, singing his joyous carol. As +I approached, he hopped from the gate to the low moss-grown wall, and +went on singing as I passed him. I was in the humour to apostrophise +skylark or donkey, or to be sentimental about anything in creation, +just then; so I told my robin what a pretty creature he was, and that I +would sooner perish than hurt him by so much as the tip of a feather. + +Being bound to remember my Sheldon even when most sentimental, I +endeavoured to combine the meditative mood of a Hervey with the +business-like sharpness of a lawyer's clerk; and while musing on the +common lot of man in general, I did not omit to search the mouldering +tombstones for some record of the Meynells in particular. + +I found none; and yet, if the daughter of Christian Meynell had been +buried in that churchyard, the name of her father would surely have +been inscribed upon her tombstone. I had read all the epitaphs when the +wooden gate creaked on its hinges, and admitted a wizen little old +man--one of those ancient meanderers who seem to have been created on +purpose to fill the post of sexton. + +With this elderly individual I entered the church of Huxter's Cross, +which had the same mouldy atmosphere as the church at Spotswold. The +vestry was an icy little chamber, which had once been a family vault; +but it was not much colder than Miss Judson's best parlour; and I +endured the cold bravely while I searched the registries of the last +sixty years. + +I searched in vain. After groping amongst the names of all the +nonentities who had been married at Huxter's Cross since the beginning +of the century, I found myself no nearer the secret of Charlotte +Meynell's marriage. And then I reflected upon all the uncertainties +surrounding that marriage. Miss Meynell had gone to Yorkshire, to visit +her mother's relations, and had married in Yorkshire; and the place +which Anthony Sparsfield remembered having heard of in connection with +that marriage was Huxter's Cross. But it did not by any means follow +that the marriage had taken place at that obscure village. Miss Meynell +might have been married at Hull, or York, or Leeds, or at any of the +principal places of the county. With that citizen class of people +marriage was a grand event, a solemn festivity; and Miss Meynell and +her friends would have been likely to prefer that so festive an +occasion should be celebrated anywhere rather than at that forgotten +old church among the hills. "I shall have to search every register in +Yorkshire till I light upon the record I want," I thought to myself, +"unless Sheldon will consent to advertise for the Meynell marriage +certificate. There could scarcely be danger in such an advertisement, +as the connection between the name of Meynell and the Haygarth estate +is only known to ourselves." + +Acting upon this idea, I wrote to George Sheldon by that afternoon's +post, urging him to advertise for descendants of Miss Charlotte Meynell. + +Charlotte! dear name, which is a kind of music for me. It was almost a +pleasure to write that letter, because of the repetition of that +delightful noun. + +The next day I devoted to a drive round the neighbourhood, in a smart +little dog-cart, hired on very moderate terms from mine host. I had +acquainted myself with the geography of the surrounding country; and I +contrived to visit every village church within a certain radius of +Huxter's Cross. But my inspection of mildewed old books, and my heroic +endurance of cold and damp in mouldy old churches, resulted in nothing +but disappointment. + +I returned to my "Magpie" after dark a little disheartened and +thoroughly tired, but still very well pleased with my rustic quarters +and my adopted county. My landlord's horse had shown himself a very +model of equine perfection. + +Candles were lighted and curtains drawn in my cosy little chamber, and +the table creaked beneath one of those luxurious Yorkshire teas which +might wean an alderman from the coarser delights of turtle or +conger-eel soup and venison. + +At noon the following day a very primitive kind of postman brought me a +letter from Sheldon. That astute individual told me that he declined to +advertise, or to give any kind of publicity to his requirements. + +"If I were not afraid of publicity, I should not be obliged to pay you +a pound a week," he remarked, with pleasing candour, "since +advertisements would get me more information in a week than you may +scrape together in a twelvemonth. But I happen to know the danger of +publicity, and that many a good thing has been snatched out of a man's +hands just as he was working it into shape. I don't say that this could +be done in my case; and you know very well that it could not be done, +as I hold papers which are essential to the very first move in the +business." + +I perfectly understand the meaning of these remarks, and I am inclined +to doubt the existence of those important papers. Suspicion is a +fundamental principle in the Sheldon mind. My friend George trusts me +because he is obliged to trust me--and only so far as he is +obliged--and is tormented, more or less, by the idea that I may at any +moment attempt to steal a march upon him. + +But to return to his letter: + +"I should recommend you to examine the registries of every town or +village within, say, thirty miles of Huxter's Cross. If you find +nothing in such registries, we must fall back upon the larger towns, +beginning with Hull, as being nearest to our starting-point. The work +will, I fear, be slow, and very expensive for me. I need scarcely again +urge upon you the necessity of confining your outlay to the minimum, as +you know that my affairs are desperate. It couldn't well be lower water +than it is with me, in a pecuniary sense; and I expect every day to +find myself aground. + +"And now for my news. I have discovered the burial-place of Samuel +Meynell, after no end of trouble, the details of which I needn't bore +you with, since you are now pretty well up in that sort of work. I am +thankful to say I have secured the evidence that settles for Samuel, +and ascertained by tradition that he died unmarried. The _onus +probandi_ would fall upon any one purporting to be descended from the +said Samuel, and we know how uncommonly difficult said person would +find it to prove anything. + +"So, having disposed of Samuel, I came back to London by the next mail; +Calais, in the month of November, not being one of those wildly-gay +watering-places which tempt the idler. I arrived just in time to catch +this afternoon's post; and now I look impatiently to your Miss +Charlotte Meynell, of Huxter's Cross.--Yours, &c. G.S." + +I obeyed my employer to the letter; hired my landlord's dog-cart for +another day's exploration; and went further afield in search of Miss +Charlotte's marriage-lines. I came home late at night--this time +thoroughly worn out--studied a railway guide with a view to my +departure, and decided on starting for Hull by a train that would leave +Hidling station at four o'clock on the following afternoon. + +I went to bed tired in body and depressed in spirit. Why was I so sorry +to leave Huxter's Cross? What subtle instinct of the brain or heart +made me aware that the desert region amongst the hills held earth's +highest felicity for me? + +The next morning was bright and clear. I heard the guns of sportsmen +popping merrily in the still air as I breakfasted before an open +window, while a noble sea-coal fire blazed on the hearth opposite me. +There is no stint of fuel at the Magpie. Everything in Yorkshire seems +to be done with a lavish hand. I have heard Yorkshiremen called mean. +As if meanness could exist in the hearts of my Charlotte's countrymen! +My own experience of the county is brief; but I can only say that my +friends of the Magpie are liberality itself, and that a Yorkshire tea +is the very acme of unsophisticated bliss in the way of eating and +drinking. I have dined at Philippe's; I know every dish in the _menu_ +of the Maison Dorée; but if I am to make my life a burden beneath the +dark sway of the demon dyspepsia, let my destruction arrive in the +shape of the ham and eggs, the crisp golden-brown cakes, and undefiled +honey, of this northern Arcadia. + +I told my friendly hostess that I was going to leave her, and she was +sorry. She was sorry for me, the wanderer. I can picture to myself the +countenance of a London landlady if informed thus suddenly of her +lodger's departure, and her suppressed mutterings about the +ill-convenience of such a proceeding. + +After breakfast I went out to take my own pleasure. I had done my duty +in the matter of mouldy churches and mildewed registries; and I +considered myself entitled to a holiday during the few hours that must +elapse before the starting of the hybrid vehicle for Hidling. + +I sauntered past the little cluster of cottages, admiring their +primitive aspect, the stone-crop on the red-tiled roofs, that had sunk +under the weight of years. All was unspeakably fresh and bright; the +tiny panes of the casement twinkled in the autumn sunlight, birds sang, +and hardy red geraniums bloomed in the cottage windows. What pleasure +or distraction had the good housewives of Huxter's Cross to lure them +from the domestic delights of scrubbing and polishing? I saw young +faces peeping at me from between snow-white muslin curtains, and felt +that I was a personage for once in my life; and it was pleasant to feel +one's self of some importance even in the eyes of Huxter's Cross. + +Beyond the cottages and the post-office there were three roads +stretching far away over hill and moorland. With two of those roads I +had made myself thoroughly familiar; but the third remained to be +explored. + +"So now for 'fresh fields and pastures new,'" I said to myself as I +quickened my pace, and walked briskly along my unknown road. + +Ah, surely there is some meaning in the fluctuations of the mental +barometer. What but an instinctive consciousness of approaching +happiness could have made me so light-hearted that morning? I sang as I +hastened along that undiscovered road. Fragments of old Italian +serenades and barcarolles came back to me as if I had heard them +yesterday for the first time. The perfume of the few lingering +wild-flowers, the odour of burning weeds in the distance, the fresh +autumn breeze, the clear cold blue sky,--all were intensely delicious +to me; and I felt as if this one lonely walk were a kind of renovating +process, from which my soul would emerge cleansed of all its stains. + +"I have to thank George Sheldon for a great deal," I said to myself, +"since through him I have been obliged to educate myself in the school +of man's best teacher, Solitude. I do not think I can ever be a +thorough Bohemian again. These lonely wanderings have led me to +discover a vein of seriousness in my nature which I was ignorant of +until now. How thoroughly some men are the creatures of their +surroundings! With Paget I have been a Paget. But a few hours +_tête-à-tête_ with Nature renders one averse from the society of +Pagets, be they never so brilliant." + +From moralising thus, I fell into a delicious day-dream. All my dreams +of late had moved to the same music. How happy I could be if Fate gave +me Charlotte and three hundred a year! In sober moods I asked for this +much of worldly wealth, just to furnish a nest for my bird. In my +wilder moments I asked Fate for nothing but Charlotte. + +"Give me the bird without the nest," I cried to Fortune; "and we will +take wing to some trackless forest where there are shelter and berries +for nestless birds. We will imitate that delightful bride and +bridegroom of Parisian Bohemia, who married and settled in an attic, +and when their stock of fuel was gone fell foul of the staircase that +led to their bower, and so supplied themselves merrily enough till the +staircase was all consumed, and the poor little bride, peeping out of +her door one morning, found herself upon the verge of an abyss. + +"And then came the furious landlord, demanding restitution. But close +behind the landlord came the good fairy of all love-stories, with +Pactolus in her pocket. Ah, yes, there is always a providence for true +lovers." + +I had passed away by this time from the barren moor to the regions of +cultivation. The trimly-cut hedges on each side of the way showed me +that my road now lay between farm lands. I was outside the boundary of +some upland farm. I saw sheep cropping trefoil in a field on the other +side of the brown hedgerow, and at a distance I saw the red-tiled roof +of a farm-house. + +I looked at my watch, and found that I had still half an hour to spare; +so I went on towards the farm-house, bent upon seeing what sort of +habitation it was. In a solitary landscape like this, every +dwelling-place has a kind of attraction for the wayfarer. + +I went on till I came to a white gate, against which a girlish figure +was leaning. + +It was a graceful figure, dressed in that semi-picturesque costume +which has been adopted by women of late years. The vivid blue of a +boddice was tempered by the sober gray of a skirt, and a bright-hued +ribbon gleamed among rich tresses of brown hair. + +The damsel's face was turned away from me, but there was something in +the carriage of the head, something in the modelling of the firm full +throat, which reminded me of-- + +But then, when a man is over head and ears in love, everything in +creation reminds him more or less of his idol. Your pious Catholic +gives all his goods for the adornment of a church; your true lover +devotes his every thought to the dressing up of one dear image. + +The damsel turned as my steps drew near, loud on the crisp gravel. She +turned, and showed me the face of Charlotte Halliday. + +I must entreat posterity to forgive me, if I leave a blank at this +stage of my story. "There are chords in the human heart which had +better not be wibrated," said Sim Tappertit. There are emotions which +can only be described by the pen of a poet. I am not a poet; and if my +diary is so happy as to be of some use to posterity as a picture of the +manners of a repentant Bohemian, posterity must not quarrel with my +shortcomings in the way of sentimental description. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +IN PARADISE. + + +We stood at the white gate talking to each other, my Charlotte and I. +The old red-tiled roof which I had seen in the distance sheltered the +girl I love. The solitary farm-house which it had been my whim to +examine was the house in which my dear love made her home. It was here, +to this untrodden hillside, that my darling had come from the prim +modern villa at Bayswater. Ah, what happiness to find her here, far +away from all those stockbroking surroundings--here, where our hearts +expanded beneath the divine influence of Nature! + +I fear that I was coxcomb enough to fancy myself beloved that day we +parted in Kensington-gardens. A look, a tone--too subtle for +definition--thrilled me with a sudden hope so bright, that I would not +trust myself to believe it could be realised. + +"She is a coquette," I said to myself. "Coquetry is one of the graces +which Nature bestows upon these bewitching creatures. That little +conscious look, which stirred this weak heart so tumultuously, is no +doubt common to her when she knows herself beloved and admired, and has +no meaning that can flatter my foolish hopes." This is how I had +reasoned with myself again and again during the dreary interval in +which Miss Halliday and I had been separated. But, O, what a hardy +perennial blossom hope must be! The tender buds were not to be crushed +by the pelting hailstones of hard common sense. They had survived all +my philosophical reflections, and burst into sudden flower to-day at +sight of Charlotte's face. She loved me, and she was delighted to see +me. That was what her radiant face told me; and could I do less than +believe the sweet confession? For the first few moments we could +scarcely speak to each other, and then we began to converse in the +usual commonplace strain. + +She told me of her astonishment on seeing me in that remote spot. I +could hardly confess to having business at Huxter's Cross, so I was +fain to tell my dear love a falsehood, and declare that I was taking a +holiday "up at the hills." + +"And how did you come to choose Huxter's Cross for your holiday?" she +asked _naïvely_. + +I told her that I had heard the place spoken of by a person in the +city--my simple-minded Sparsfield to wit. + +"And you could not have come to a better place," she cried, "though +people do call it the very dullest spot in the world. This was my dear +aunt Mary's house--papa's sister, you know. Grandpapa Halliday had two +farms. This was one, and Hyley the other. Hyley was much larger and +better than this, you know, and was left to poor papa, who sold it just +before he died." + +Her face clouded as she spoke of her father's death. "I can't speak +about that without pain even now," she said softly, "though I was only +nine years old when it happened. But one can suffer a great deal at +nine years old." + +And then, after a little pause, she went on to speak of her Yorkshire +home. + +"My aunt and uncle Mercer are so kind to me; and yet they are neither +of them really related to me. My aunt Mary died very young, when her +first baby was born, and the poor little baby died too: and uncle +Mercer inherited the property from his wife, you see. He married again +after two years, and his second wife is the dearest, kindest creature +in the world. I always call her aunt, for I don't remember poor papa's +sister at all; and no aunt that ever lived could be kinder to me than +aunt Dorothy. I am always so happy here," she said; "and it seems such +a treat to get away from the Lawn--of course I am sorry to leave mamma, +you know," she added, parenthetically--"and the stiff breakfasts, and +Mr. Sheldon's newspapers that crackle, crackle, crackle so shockingly +all breakfast-time; and the stiff dinners, with a prim parlor-maid +staring at one all the time, and bringing one vegetables that one +doesn't want if one only ventures to breathe a little louder than +usual. Here it is Liberty Hall. Uncle Joe--he is aunt Dorothy's +husband--is the kindest creature in the world, just the very reverse of +Mr. Sheldon in everything. I don't mean that my stepfather is unkind, +you know. O, no, he has always been very good to me--much kinder than I +have deserved that he should be. But uncle Joe's ways are _so_ +different. I am sure you will like him; and I am sure he will like you, +for he likes everybody, dear thing. And you must come and see us very +often, please, for Newhall farm is open house, you know, and the +stranger within the gates is always welcome." + +Now my duty to my Sheldon demanded that I should scamper back to +Huxter's Cross as fast as my legs would carry me, in order to be in +time for the hybrid vehicle that was to convey me to Hidling station; +and here was this dear girl inviting me to linger, and promising me a +welcome to the house which was made a paradise by her presence. + +I looked at my watch. It would have been impossible for me to reach +Huxter's Cross in time for the vehicle. Conscience whispered that I +could hire my landlord's dog-cart, and a boy to drive me to Hidling; +but the whispers of conscience are very faint; and love cried aloud, +"Stay with Charlotte: supreme happiness is offered to you for the first +time in your life. Fool that would reject so rare a gift!" + +It was to this latter counsellor I gave my ear. My Sheldon's interests +went overboard; and I stayed by the white gate, talking to Charlotte, +till it was quite too late to heed the reproachful grumblings of +conscience about that dog-cart. + +My Charlotte--yes, I boldly call her mine now--my dear is great in +agriculture. She enlightened my cockney mind on the subject of upland +farms, telling me how uncle and aunt Mercer's land is poor and sandy, +requiring very little in the way of draining, but producing by no means +luxuriant crops. It is a very picturesque place, and has a certain +gentlemanlike air with it pleasing to my snobbish taste. The house lies +in a tract of open grass-land, dotted here and there by trees, and +altogether of a park-like appearance. True that the mild and useful +sheep rather than the stately stag browses on that greensward, and few +carriages roll along the winding gravel road that leads to the house. + +I felt a rapturous thirst for agricultural knowledge as I listened to +my Charlotte. Was there a vacancy for hind or herdsman on Newhall farm, +I wondered. What is the office so humble I would not fill for her dear +sake? O, how I sighed for the days of Jacob, that first distinguished +usurer, so that I might serve seven years and again seven years for my +darling! + +I stayed by the white gate, abandoning all thought of my employer's +behests, unconscious of time--unconscious of everything except that I +was with Charlotte Halliday, and would not have resigned my position to +be made Lord Chancellor of England. + +Anon came uncle Joe, with a pleasant rubicund visage beaming under a +felt hat, to tell Lotta that dinner was ready. To him I was immediately +presented. + +"Mr. Mercer, my dear uncle Joseph--Mr. Hawkehurst, a friend of my +stepfather's," said Charlotte. + +Two or three minutes afterwards we were all three walking across the +park-like sward to the hospitable farm-house; for the idea of my +departing before dinner seemed utterly preposterous to this friendly +farmer. + +Considered apart from the glamour that for my eyes must needs shine +over any dwelling inhabited by Charlotte Halliday, I will venture to +say that Newhall farm-house is the dearest old place in the world. Such +delightful old rooms, with the deepest window-seats, the highest +mantelpieces, the widest fireplaces possible in domestic architecture; +such mysterious closets and uncanny passages; such pitfalls in the way +of unexpected flights of stairs; such antiquated glazed +corner-cupboards for the display of old china!--everything redolent of +the past. + +In one corner a spinning-wheel, so old that its spindle might be the +identical weapon that pierced Princess Sleeping Beauty's soft white +hand; in another corner an arm-chair that must have been old-fashioned +in the days of Queen Anne; and O, what ancient flowered chintzes, what +capacious sofas, what darling mahogany secretaries and bureaus, with +gleaming brazen adornments in the way of handles!--and about everything +the odour of rose-leaves and lavender. + +I have grown familiar with every corner of the dear old place within +the last few days, but on this first day I had only a general +impression of its antiquated aspect and homely comfort. I stayed to +dine at the same unpretending board at which my Charlotte had sat years +ago, elevated on a high chair, and as yet new to the use of knives and +forks. Uncle Joe and aunt Dorothy told me this in their pleasant +friendly way; while the young lady sat by, blushing and dimpling like a +summer sea beneath the rosy flush of sunrise. No words can relate how +delightful it was to me to hear them talk of my dear love's childhood; +they dwelt so tenderly upon her sweetness, they dilated with such +enthusiasm upon her "pretty ways." Her "pretty ways!" ah, how fatal a +thing it is for mankind when Nature endows woman with those pretty +ways! From the thrall of Grecian noses and Castilian eyes there may be +hope of deliverance, but from the spell of that indescribable witchery +there is none. + +I whistled my Sheldon down the wind without remorse, and allowed myself +to be as happy as if I had been the squire of valley and hillside, with +ten thousand a year to offer my Charlotte with the heart that loves her +so fondly. I have no idea what we had for dinner. I know only that the +fare was plenteous, and the hospitality of my new friends unbounded. We +were very much at ease with one another, and our laughter rang up to +the stalwart beams that sustained the old ceiling. If I had possessed +the smallest fragment of my heart, I should have delivered it over +without hesitation to my aunt Dorothy--pardon!--my Charlotte's aunt +Dorothy, who is the cheeriest, brightest, kindest matron I ever met, +with a sweet unworldly spirit that beams out of her candid blue eyes. + +Charlotte seems to have been tenderly attached to her father, the poor +fellow who died in Philip Sheldon's house--uncomfortable for Sheldon, I +should think. The Mercers talk a good deal of Thomas Halliday, for whom +they appear to have entertained a very warm affection. They also spoke +with considerable kindness of the two Sheldons, whom they knew as young +men in the town of Barlingford; but I should not imagine either uncle +Joseph or aunt Dorothy very well able to fathom the still waters of the +Sheldon intellect. + +After dinner uncle Joe took us round the farm. The last stack of corn +had been thatched, and there was a peaceful lull in the agricultural +world. We went into a quadrangle lined with poultry sheds, where I saw +more of the feathered race than I had ever in my life beheld +congregated together; thence to the inspection of pigs--and it was +agreeable to inspect even those vulgar querulous grunters, with +Charlotte by my side. Her brightness shed a light on all those common +objects; and O, how I longed to be a farmer, like uncle Mercer, and +devote my life to Charlotte and agriculture! + +When uncle Joe had done the honours of his farm-yards and +threshing-machinery, he left us to attend to his afternoon duties; and +we wandered together over the breezy upland at our own sweet wills, or +at _her_ sweet will rather, since what could I do but follow where she +pleased to lead? + +We talked of many things: of the father whom she had loved so dearly, +whose memory was still so mournfully dear to her; of her old home at +Hyley; of her visits to these dear Mercers; of her schooldays, and her +new unloved home in the smart Bayswater villa. She confided in me as +she had never done before; and when we turned in the chill autumn +gloaming, I had told her of my love, and had won from her the sweet +confession of its return. + +I have never known happiness so perfect as that which I felt as we +walked home together--home--yes; that old farm-house must be my home as +well as hers henceforward; for any habitation which she loved must be a +kind of home for me. Sober reflection tells me how reckless and +imprudent my whole conduct has been in this business; but when did ever +love and prudence go hand-in-hand? We were children, Charlotte and I, +on that blessed afternoon; and we told each other our love as children +might have told it, without thought of the future. We have both grown +wiser since that time, and are quite agreed as to our imprudence and +foolishness; but, though we endeavour to contemplate the future in the +most serious manner, we are too happy in the present to be able to +analyse the difficulties and dangers that lie in our pathway. + +Surely there must be a providence for imprudent lovers. + +The November dews fell thick, and the November air was chill, as we +walked back to the homestead. I was sorry that there should be that +creeping dampness in the atmosphere that night. It seemed out of +harmony with the new warmth in my heart. I pressed my darling's little +hand closer to my breast, and had no more consciousness of any +impediments to my future bliss than of the ground on which I +walked--and that seemed air. + +We found our chairs waiting for us at aunt Dorothy's tea-table; and I +enjoyed that aldermanic banquet, a Yorkshire tea, under circumstances +that elevated it to an Olympian repast. + +I thought of the Comic Latin Grammar: + + "Musa, musae, the gods were at tea; + Musae musam, eating raspberry jam." + +I was Jove, and my love was Juno. I looked at her athwart the misty +clouds that issued from the hissing urn, and saw her beautified by a +heightened bloom, and with a sweet, shy conscious look in her eyes +which made her indeed divine. + +After tea we played whist; and I am bound to confess that my divinity +played execrably, persistently disdaining to return her partner's lead, +and putting mean little trumps upon her adversary's tricks, with a +fatuous economy of resources which is always ruin. + +I stayed till ten o'clock, reckless of the unknown country which +separated me from the Magpie, and then walked home alone, under the +faint starlight, though my friendly host would fain have lent me a +dog-cart. The good people here lend one another dog-carts as freely as +a cockney offers his umbrella. I went back to Huxter's Cross alone, and +the long solitary walk was very pleasant to me. + +Looking up at the stars as I tramped homeward, I could but remember an +old epigram:-- + + Were you the earth, dear love, and I the skies, + My love should shine on you like to the sun, + And look upon you with ten thousand eyes, + Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world were done. + +I had ample leisure for reflection during that long night-walk, and +found myself becoming a perfect Young--Hervey--Sturm--what you will, in +the way of meditation. I could not choose but wonder at myself when I +looked back to this time last year, and remembered my idle evenings in +third-rate _cafés_, on the _rive gauche_, playing dominoes, talking the +foul slang of Parisian bohemia, and poisoning my system with +adulterated absinthe. And now I feast upon sweet cakes and honey, and +think it paradisiac enjoyment to play whist--for love--in a farm-house +parlour. I am younger by ten years than I was twelve months ago. + +Ah, let me thank God, who has sent me my redemption. + +I lifted my hat, and pronounced the thanksgiving softly under that +tranquil sky. I was almost ashamed to hear the sound of my own voice. I +was like some shy child who for the first time speaks his father's name. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +TOO FAIR TO LAST. + + +In my confidences with my dear girl I had told her neither the nature +of my mission in Yorkshire, nor the fact that I was bound to leave +Huxter's Cross immediately upon an exploring expedition to nowhere in +particular, in search of the archives of the Meynells. How could I +bring myself to tell her that I must leave her?--how much less could I +bring myself to do it? + +Rendered desperately unmindful of the universe by reason of my +all-absorbing happiness, I determined on giving myself a holiday +boldly, in defiance of Sheldon and the Sheldonian interests. + +"Am I a bounden slave?" I asked myself, "that I should go here or there +at any man's bidding, for the pitiful stipend of twenty shillings a +week?" + +It is to be observed that the rate of hire makes all the difference in +these cases; and while it is ignominious for a lawyer's clerk to hasten +to and fro in the earning of his weekly wage, it is in no way +dishonourable for the minister of state to obey the call of his chief, +and hurry hither and thither in abnegation of all his own +predilections, and to the aggravation of his chronic gout. + +I wrote to my Sheldon, and told him that I had met with friends in the +neighbourhood of Huxter's Cross, and that I intended to give myself a +brief holiday; after which I would resume my labours, and do my +uttermost to make up for wasted time. I had still the remnant of my +borrowed thirty pounds, and amongst these northern hills I felt myself +a millionaire. + +Three thousand pounds at five per cent--one hundred and fifty pounds a +year. I felt that with such an income assured to us, and the fruits of +my industry, Charlotte and I might be secure from all the storms of +life. Ah, what happiness it would be to work for her! And I am not too +old to begin life afresh; not too old for the bar; not too old to make +some mark as a writer on the press; not too old to become a respectable +member of society. + +After having despatched my letter to Sheldon, I made off for Newhall +farm with all speed. I had received a sort of general invitation from +the kindest of uncles and aunts, but I contrived with becoming modesty +to arrive after Mr. Mercer's dinner-hour. I found Charlotte alone in +the dear old-fashioned parlour, aunt Dorothy being engaged in some +domestic operations in the kitchen, and uncle Joseph making his usual +after-dinner rounds amongst the pig-styes and the threshing-machines. I +discovered afterwards that it was Miss Halliday's wont to accompany her +kind kinsman in this afternoon investigation; but to-day she had +complained of a headache and preferred to stay at home. Yet there were +few symptoms of the headache when I found her standing in the +bow-window, watching the path by which I came, and the face of Aurora +herself could scarcely be brighter or fresher than my darling's +innocent blushes when I greeted her with the privileged kiss of +betrothal. + +We sat in the bow-window talking till the twilight shadows crept over +the greensward, and the sheep were led away to their fold, with +cheerful jingling of bells and barking of watchful dog. My dearest girl +told me that our secret had already been discovered by the penetrating +eyes of aunt Dorothy and uncle Joseph. They had teased her +unmercifully, it seemed, all that day, but were graciously pleased to +smile upon my suit, like a pair of imprudent Arcadians as they are. + +"They like you very much indeed," my Lotta said joyously; "but I +believe they think I have known you much longer than I really have, and +that you are very intimate with my stepfather. It seems almost like +deceiving them to allow them to think so, but I really haven't the +courage to tell the truth. How foolish and bold they would think me if +they knew how very short a time I have known you!" + +"Twenty times longer than Juliet had known Romeo when they met in the +Friar's cell to be married," I urged. + +"Yes, but that was in a play," replied Charlotte, "where everything is +obliged to be hurried; and at Hyde Lodge we all of us thought that +Juliet was a very forward young person." + +"The poets all believe in love at first sight, and I'll wager our dear +uncle Joe fell over head and ears in love with aunt Dorothy after +having danced with her two or three times at an assize ball," said I. +After this we became intensely serious, and I told my darling girl that +I hoped very soon to be in possession of a small fixed income, and to +have begun a professional career. I told her how dear an incentive to +work she had given me, and how little fear I had for the future. + +I reminded her that Mr. Sheldon had no legal power to control her +actions, and that, as her father's will had left her entirely to her +mother's guardianship, she had only her mother's pleasure to consult. + +"I believe poor mamma would let me marry a crossing-sweeper, if I cried +and declared it would make me miserable not to marry him," said +Charlotte; "but then, you see, mamma's wishes mean Mr. Sheldon's +wishes; she is sure to think whatever he tells her to think; and if he +is strongly against our marriage--" + +"As I am sure he will be," I interjected. + +"He will work upon poor mamma in that calm, persistent, logical way of +his till he makes her as much against it as himself." + +"But even your mamma has no legal power to control your actions, my +love. Were you not of age on your last birthday?" + +My darling replied in the affirmative. + +"Then of course you are free to marry whom you please; and as I am +thankful to say you don't possess a single sixpence in your own right, +there need be no fuss about settlements or pin-money. We can marry any +fine morning that my dear girl pleases to name, and defy all the stern +stepfathers in creation." + +"How I wish I had a fortune, for your sake!" she said with a sigh. + +"Be glad for my sake that you have none," I answered. "You cannot +imagine the miserable complications and perplexities which arise in +this world from the possession of money. No slave so tightly bound as +the man who has what people call 'a stake in the country' and a balance +at his banker's. The true monarch of all he surveys is the penniless +reprobate who walks down Fleet-street with his whole estate covered by +the seedy hat upon his head." + +Having thus moralized, I proceeded to ask Miss Halliday if she was +prepared to accept a humbler station than that enjoyed by her at the +Lawn. + +"No useful landau, to be an open carriage at noon and a family coach at +night," I said; "no nimble page to skip hither and thither at his fair +lady's commands, if not belated on the way by the excitement of tossing +halfpence with youthful adventurers of the byways and alleys; no trim +parlour-maids, with irreproachable caps, dressed for the day at 11 +o'clock A.M.--but instead of these, a humble six-roomed bandbox of a +house, and one poor hardworking slavey, with perennial smudges from +saucepan-lids upon her honest pug-nose. Consider the prospect +seriously, Charlotte, and ask yourself whether you can endure such a +descent in the social scale." + +My Charlotte laughed, as if the prospect had been the most delightful +picture ever presented to mortal vision. + +"Do you think I care for the landau or the page?" she cried. "If it +were not for mamma's sake, I should detest that prim villa and all its +arrangements. You see me so happy here, where there is no pretence of +grandeur--" + +"But I am bound to warn you that I shall not be able to provide +Yorkshire teas at the commencement of our domestic career," I remarked, +by way of parenthesis. + +"Aunt Dorothy will send us hampers of poultry and cakes, sir, and for +the rest of our time we can live upon bread and water." + +On this I promised my betrothed a house in Cavendish or Portman-square, +and a better-built landau than Mr. Sheldon's, in the remote future. +With those dear eyes for my pole-stars, I felt myself strong enough to +clamber up the slippery ascent to the woolsack. The best and purest +ambition must surely be that which is only a synonym for love. + +After we had sat talking in the gloaming to our hearts' content, aunt +Dorothy appeared, followed by a sturdy handmaid with lighted candles, +and a still sturdier handmaid with a ponderous tea-tray. The two made +haste to spread a snow-white cloth, and to set forth the species of +banquet which it is the fashion nowadays to call high tea. Anon came +uncle Joseph, bringing with him some slight perfume from the piggeries, +and he and aunt Dorothy were pleased to be pleasantly facetious and +congratulatory in their conversation during the social meal which +followed their advent. + +After tea we played whist again, aunt Dorothy and I obtaining a +succession of easy victories over Charlotte and uncle Joe. I felt +myself hourly more and more completely at home in that simple domestic +circle, and enjoyed the proud position of an accepted lover. My +Arcadian friends troubled themselves in nowise as to the approval or +disapproval of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon, or with regard either to my +prospects or my antecedents. They saw me devoted to my dear girl, they +saw my dearest pleased by my devotion, and they loved her so well that +they were ready to open their hearts without reserve to the man who +adored her and was loved by her, let him be rich or poor, noble or +base-born. As they would have given her the wax-doll of her desire ten +or twelve years ago without question as to price or fitness of things, +so they now gave her their kindly smiles and approval for the lover of +her choice. "I know Phil Sheldon is a man who looks to the main +chance," said uncle Joe, in the course of a discussion about his +niece's future which dyed her cheeks with blushes in the present; "and +I'll lay you'll find him rather a difficult customer to deal with, +especially as poor Tom's will left all the money in Georgy's hands, +which of course is tantamount to saying that Sheldon has got the +disposal of it." + +I assured uncle Joe that money was the very last thing which I desired. + +"Then in that case I don't see why he shouldn't let you have +Charlotte," replied Mr. Mercer; "and if she's cheated out of her poor +dad's money, she shan't be cheated out of what her old aunt and uncle +may have to leave her by-and-by." + +Here were these worthy people promising me an heiress with no more +compunction than if they had been offering me a cup of tea. + +I walked homeward once more beneath the quiet stars. O, how happy I +was! Can happiness so perfect, joy so sinless, endure? I, the +friendless wanderer and penniless Bohemian, asked myself this question; +and again I paused upon the lonely moorland road to lift my hat as I +thanked God for having given me such bright hopes. + +But George Sheldon's three thousand pounds must be mine before I can +secure the humblest shelter for my sweet one; and although it would be +bliss to me to tramp through the world barefoot with Charlotte by my +side, the barefooted state of things is scarcely the sort of prospect a +man would care to offer to the woman he loves. So once more to the +chase. One more day in this delicious island of the lotus-eaters, +Newhall farm; and then away!--hark forward!--tantivy!--and hey for the +marriage-lines of Charlotte Meynell, great-granddaughter of Matthew +Haygarth, and, if still in the flesh, rightful heiress to the one +hundred thousand pounds at present likely to be absorbed by the +ravening jaws of the Crown! One more day, one more delightful idle day, +in the land where it is always afternoon, and then away to Hidling in +the hybrid vehicle, and thence to Hull, from Hull to York, from York to +Leeds, then Bradford, Huddersfield--_toute la boutique!_ + +The rain beats against the diamond panes of my casement as I write. The +day has been hopelessly wet, so I have stayed in my snug little chamber +and occupied myself in writing this record. Foul wind or weather would +have little power to keep me from my darling; but even if it had been a +fine day, I could not with any grace have presented myself at Newhall +farm for a third afternoon. To-morrow my immediate departure will +afford me an excuse for presenting myself once more before my kind +uncle and aunt. It will be my farewell visit. I wonder whether +Charlotte will miss me this afternoon. I wonder whether she will be +sorry when I tell her that I am going to leave this part of the +country. Ah, shall we ever meet again under such happy auspices? Shall +I ever again find such kind friends or such a hospitable dwelling as +those I shall leave amidst these northern hills? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +FOUND IN THE BIBLE. + + +_November_ 3 _d_. The most wonderful event has befallen--surely the most +wonderful that ever came to pass outside the realms of fiction. Let me +set down the circumstances of yesterday coolly and quietly if I can. I +invoke the placid spirit of my Sheldon. I invoke all the divinities of +Gray's Inn and "The Fields." Let me be legal and specific, +perspicacious and logical--if this beating heart, this fevered brain, +will allow me a few hours' respite. + +The autumn sunshine blessed the land again yesterday. Moorland and +meadow, fallow and clover-field, were all the brighter for the steady +downfall of the previous day. I walked to Newhall directly after +breakfast, and found my dearest standing at the white five-barred gate, +dressed in her pretty blue jacket, and with ribbons in her bonny brown +hair. + +She was pleased to see me, though at first just a little inclined to +play the _boudeuse_ on account of my absence on the previous day. Of +course I assured her that it had been anguish for me to remain away +from her, and quoted that divine sonnet of our William's to the like +effect: + + "How like a winter hath my absence been!" + +and again: + + "O, never say that I was false of heart, + Though absence seemed my flame to qualify." + +Equally of course my pet pretended not to believe me. After this little +misunderstanding we forgave each other, and adored each other again +with just a little more than usual devotion; and then we went for a +long ramble among the fields, and looked at the dear placid sheep, who +stared at us wonderingly in return, as if exclaiming to themselves, +"And these are a specimen couple of the creatures called lovers!" + +We met uncle Joe in the course of our wanderings, and returned with him +in time for the vulgar superstition of dinner, which we might have +forgotten had we been left by ourselves. After dinner uncle Joe made +off to his piggeries; while aunt Dorothy fell asleep in a capacious old +arm-chair by the fire, after making an apologetic remark to the effect +that she was tired, and had been a good deal "tewed" that morning in +the dairy. "Tewed," I understand, is Yorkshire for "worried." + +Aunt Dorothy having departed into the shadowy realm of dreams, +Charlotte and I were left to our own devices. + +There was a backgammon board on a side-table, surmounted by an old +Indian bowl of dried rose-leaves; and, _pour nous distraire_, I +proposed that I should teach my dearest that diverting game. She +assented, and we set to work in a very business-like manner, Miss +Halliday all attention, I serious as a professional schoolmaster. + +Unfortunately for my pupil's progress, the game of backgammon proved +less entertaining than our own conversation, so, after a very feeble +attempt on the one side to learn and on the other to teach, we closed +the board and began to talk;--first of the past, then of the future, +the happy future, which we were to share. + +There is no need that I should set down this lovers' talk. Is it not +written on my heart? The future seemed so fair and unclouded to me, as +my love and I sat talking together yesterday afternoon. Now all is +changed. The strangest, the most surprising complications have arisen; +and I doubt, I fear. + +After we had talked for a long time, Miss Halliday suddenly proposed +that I should read to her. + +"Diana once told me that you read very beautifully," said this +flatterer; "and I should so like to hear you read--poetry of course. +You will find plenty of poems in that old bookcase--Cowper, and +Bloomfield, and Pope. Now I am sure that Pope is just the kind of poet +whose verses you would read magnificently. Shall we explore the +bookcase together?" + +Now if there is any manner of beguiling an idle afternoon, which seems +to me most delightful, it is by the exploration of old bookcases; and +when that delight can be shared by the woman one fondly loves, the +pleasure thereof must be of course multiplied to an indefinite amount. + +So Charlotte and I set to work immediately to ransack the lower shelves +of the old-fashioned mahogany bookcase, which contained the entire +library of the Mercer household. + +I am bound to admit that we did not light upon many volumes of +thrilling interest. The verses of Cowper, like those of Southey, have +always appeared to me to have only one fault--there are too many of +them. One shrinks appalled from that thick closely-printed volume of +morality cut into lengths of ten feet; and beyond the few well-worn +quotations in daily use, I am fain to confess that I am almost a +stranger to the bard of Olney. + +Half a dozen odd volumes of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, three or four +of the _Annual Register_, a neatly-bound edition of _Clarissa Harlowe_ +and _Sir Charles Grandison_ in twelve volumes, Law's _Holy Call to a +Serious Life_, _Paradise Lost_, _Joseph Andrews_, _Hervey's +Meditations_, and _Gulliver's Travels_, formed the varied contents of +the principal shelves. Above, there were shabbily-bound volumes and +unbound pamphlets. Below, there were folios, the tops whereof were +thickly covered with the dust of ages, having escaped the care of the +handmaidens even in that neatly-appointed household. + +I knelt down to examine these. + +"You'll be covered with dust if you touch them," cried Charlotte. "I +was once curious enough to examine them, but the result was very +disappointing." + +"And yet they look so delightfully mysterious," I said. "This one, for +instance?" + +"That is an old history of London, with curious plates and maps; rather +interesting if one has nothing more amusing to read. But the perennial +supply of novels from Mudie's spoils one for that kind of book." + +"If ever I come to Newhall again, I shall dip into the old history. One +is never tired of dead and gone London. But after Mr. Knight's +delightful book any old history must seem very poor. What is my burly +friend here?" + +"O, a dreadful veterinary-surgeon's encyclopaedia--_The Farmer's +Friend_ I think it is called; all about the ailments of animals." + +"And the next?" + +"The next is an odd volume of the _Penny Magazine_. Dear aunt Dorothy +is rich in odd volumes." + +"And the next,--my bulky friend number two,--with a cracked leather +back and a general tendency to decay?" + +"O, that is the Meynell Bible." + +The MEYNELL BIBLE! A hot perspiration broke out upon my face as I knelt +at Charlotte Halliday's feet, with my hand resting lightly on the top +of the book. + +"The Meynell Bible!" I repeated; and my voice was faintly tremulous, in +spite of the effort I made to control myself. "What do you mean by the +Meynell Bible?" + +"I mean the old family Bible that belonged to my grand-mamma. It was +her father's Bible, you know; and of course he was my +great-grandfather--Christian Meynell. Why, how you stare at me, +Valentine! Is there anything so wonderful in my having had a +great-grandfather?" + +"No, darling; but the fact is that I--" + +In another moment I should have told her the entire truth; but I +remembered just in time that I had pledged myself to profound secrecy +with regard to the nature and progress of my investigation, and I had +yet to learn whether that pledge did or did not involve the observance +of secrecy even with those most interested in my researches. Pending +further communication with Sheldon, I was certainly bound to be silent. + +"I have a kind of interest in the name of Meynell," I said, "for I was +once engaged in a business matter with people of that name." + +And having thus hoodwinked my beloved with a bouncer, I proceeded to +extract the Bible from its shelf. The book was so tightly wedged into +its place, that to remove it was like drawing a tooth. It was a +noble-looking old volume, blue with the mould of ages, and redolent of +a chill dampness like the atmosphere of a tomb. + +"I should so like to examine the old book when the candles come in," I +said. + +Fortunately for the maintenance of my secret, the darkness was closing +in upon us when I discovered the volume, and the room was only fitfully +illuminated by the flame that brightened and faded every minute. + +I carried the book to a side-table, and Charlotte and I resumed our +talk until the candles came, and close behind them uncle Joe. I fear I +must have seemed a very inattentive lover during that brief interval, +for I could not concentrate my thoughts upon the subject of our +discourse. My mind would wander to the strange discovery that I had +just made, and I could not refrain from asking myself whether by any +extraordinary chance my own dear love should be the rightful claimant +to John Haygarth's hoarded wealth. + +I hoped that it might not be so. I hoped that my darling might be +penniless rather than the heir to wealth, which, in all likelihood, +would create an obstacle strong enough to sever us eternally. I longed +to question her about her family, but could not as yet trust myself to +broach the subject. And while I doubted and hesitated, honest +blustering uncle Joe burst into the room, and aunt Dorothy awoke, and +was unutterably surprised to find she had slept so long. + +After this came tea; and as I sat opposite my dearest girl I could not +choose but remember that gray-eyed Molly, whose miniature had been +found in the tulip-wood bureau, and in whose bright face I had seen the +likeness of Philip Sheldon's beautiful stepdaughter. And Mr. Sheldon's +lovely stepdaughter was the lineal descendant of this very Molly. +Strange mystery of transmitted resemblances! Here was the sweet face +that had bewitched honest, simple-minded Matthew Haygarth reproduced +after the lapse of a century. + +My Charlotte was descended from a poor little player girl who had +smiled on the roisterous populace of Bartholomew Fair. Some few drops +of Bohemian blood mingled with the pure life-stream in her veins. It +pleased me to think of this; but I derived no pleasure from the idea +that Charlotte might possibly be the claimant of a great fortune. + +"She may have cousins who would stand before her," I said to myself; +and there was some comfort in the thought. + +After tea I asked permission to inspect the old family Bible, much to +the astonishment of uncle Joe, who had no sympathy with antiquarian +tastes, and marvelled that I should take any interest in so mouldy a +volume. I told him, with perfect truth, that such things had always +more or less interest for me; and then I withdrew to my little table, +where I was provided with a special pair of candles. + +"You'll find the births and deaths of all poor Molly's ancestors on the +first leaf," said uncle Joe. "Old Christian Meynell was a rare one for +jotting down such things; but the ink has gone so pale that it's about +as much as you'll do to make sense of it, I'll lay." + +Charlotte looked over my shoulder as I examined the fly-leaf of the +family Bible. Even with this incentive to distraction I contrived to be +tolerably business-like; and this is the record which I found on the +faded page: + +"Samuel Matthew Meynell, son of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. March +9, 1796, baptised at St. Giles's, Cripplegate, in this city. + +"Susan Meynell, daughter of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. June 29, +1798, also baptised in the same church. + +"Charlotte Meynell, second daughter of the above Christian and Sarah, +b. October 3, 1800, baptised at the above-mentioned church of St. +Giles, London." + +Below these entries, in blacker ink and in a different hand-writing--a +bold, business-like, masculine caligraphy--came the following: + +"Charlotte Meynell married to James Halliday, in the parish church of +Barngrave, Yorks. April 15, 1819. + +"Thomas Halliday, son of the above James and Charlotte Halliday, b. +Jan. 3d, 1821, baptised in the parish church of Barngrave, Feb. 20 in +the same year. + +"Mary Halliday, daughter of the above-named James and Charlotte +Halliday, b. May 27th, 1823, baptised at Barngrave, July 1st in the +same year." + +Below this there was an entry in a woman's penmanship: + +"Susan, the beloved sister of C. H., died in London, July 11, 1835. + +"Judge not, that ye be not judged. + +"I came to call sinners, and not the righteous, to repentance." + +This record seemed to hint vaguely at some sad story: "Susan, the +beloved sister;" no precise data of the death--no surname! And then +those two deprecating sentences, which seemed to plead for the dead. + +I had been led to understand that Christian Meynell's daughters had +both died in Yorkshire--one married, the other unmarried. + +The last record in the book was the decease of James Halliday, my dear +girl's grandfather. + +After pondering long over the strangely-worded entry of Susan Meynell's +death, I reflected that, with the aid of those mysterious powers Hook +and Crook, I must contrive to possess myself of an exact copy of this +leaf from a family history, if not of the original document. Again my +duty to my Sheldon impelled me to be false to all my new-born +instincts, and boldly give utterance to another bouncer. + +"I am very much interested in a county history now preparing for the +press," I said to my honoured uncle, who was engaged in a hand at +cribbage with his wife; "and I really think this old leaf from a family +Bible would make a very interesting page in that work." + +I blushed for myself as I felt how shamefully I was imposing upon my +newly-found kinsman's credulity. With scarcely any one but uncle Joe +could I have dared to employ so shallow an artifice. + +"Would it really, now?" said that confiding innocent. "Well, I suppose +old papers, and letters, and such like, are uncommonly interesting to +some folks. I can't say I care much about 'em myself." + +"Would you have any objection to my taking a copy of these entries?" I +asked. + +"My word, no, lad; not I. Take half a dozen copies, and welcome, if +they can be of any use to you or other people. That's not much to ask +for." + +I thanked my simple host, and determined to write to a stationer at +Hull for some tracing-paper by the first post next morning. There was +some happiness, at least, in having found this unlooked-for end to my +researches. I had a good excuse for remaining longer near Charlotte +Halliday. + +"It's only for my poor Mary's sake I set any value on that old volume," +the farmer said, presently, in a meditative tone. "You see the names +there are the names of her relations, not mine; and this place and all +in it was hers. Dorothy and I are only interlopers, as you may say, at +the best, though I brought my fortune to the old farm, and Dorothy +brought her fortune, and between us we've made Newhall a much better +place than it was in old James Halliday's time. But there's something +sad in the thought that none of those that were born on the land have +left chick or child to inherit it." Uncle Joseph fell for a while into +a pensive reverie, and I thought of that other inheritance, well-nigh +fifty times the value of Newhall farm, which is now waiting for a +claimant. And again I asked myself, Could it be possible that this +sweet girl, whose changeful face had saddened with those old memories, +whose innocent heart knew not one sordid desire--could it be indeed she +whose fair hand was to wrest the Haygarthian gold from the grip of +Crown lawyers? + +The sight of that old Bible seemed to have revived Mr. Mercer's memory +of his first wife with unwonted freshness. + +"She was a sweet young creature," he said; "the living picture of our +Lottie, and sometimes I fancy it must have been that which made me take +to Lottie when she was a little one. I used to see my first wife's eyes +looking up at me out of Lottie's eyes. I told Tom it was a comfort to +me to have the little lass with me, and that's how they let her come +over so often from Hyley. Poor old Tom used to bring her over in his +Whitechapel cart, and leave her behind him for a week or so at a +stretch. And then, when my Dorothy, yonder, took pity upon a poor +lonely widower, she made as much of the little girl as if she'd been +her own, and more, perhaps; for, not having any children of her own, +she thought them such out-of-the-way creatures, that you couldn't +coddle them and pet them too much. There's a little baby lies buried in +Barngrave churchyard with Tom Halliday's sister that would have been a +noble young man, sitting where you're sitting, Mr. Hawkehurst, and +looking at me as bright as you're looking, perhaps, if the Lord's will +hadn't been otherwise. We've all our troubles, you see, and that was +mine; and if it hadn't been for Dorothy, life would not have been worth +much for me after that time--but my Dorothy is all manner of blessings +rolled up in one." + +The farmer looked fondly at his second wife as he said this, and she +blushed and smiled upon him with responsive tenderness. I fancy a +woman's blushes and smiles wear longer in these calm solitudes than +amid the tumult and clamour of a great city. + +Finding my host inclined to dwell upon the past, I ventured to hazard +an indirect endeavour to obtain some information respecting that entry +in the Bible which had excited my curiosity. + +"Miss Susan Meynell died unmarried, I believe?" I said. "I see her +death recorded here, but she is described by her Christian name only." + +"Ah, very like," replied Mr. Mercer, with an air of indifference, which +I perceived to be assumed. "Yes, my poor Molly's aunt Susan died +unmarried." + +"And in London? I had been given to understand that she died in +Yorkshire." + +I blushed for my own impertinence as I pressed this inquiry. What right +had I to be given to understand anything about these honest Meynells? I +saw poor uncle Joe's disconcerted face, and I felt that the hunter of +an heir-at-law is apt to become a very obnoxious creature. + +"Susan Meynell died in London--the poor lass died in London," replied +Joseph Mercer, gravely; "and now we'll drop that subject, if you +please, my lad. It isn't a pleasant one." + +After this I could no longer doubt that there was some painful story +involved in those two deprecating sentences of the gospel. + +It was some time before uncle Joe was quite his own jovial and rather +noisy self again, and on this evening we had no whist. I bade my +friends good night a little earlier than usual, and departed, after +having obtained permission to take a tracing of the fly-leaf as soon as +possible. + +On this night the starlit sky and lonesome moor seemed to have lost +their soothing power. There was a new fever in my mind. The simple plan +of the future which I had mapped out for myself was suddenly shattered. +The Charlotte of to-night--heiress-at-law to an enormous fortune--ward +in Chancery--claimant against the Crown--was a very different person +from the simple maid "whom there were none"--or only a doating +simpleton in the person of the present writer--"to praise, and very few +to love." + +The night before last I had hoped so much; to-night hope had forsaken +me. It seemed as if a Titan's hand had dug a great pit between me and +the woman I loved--a pit as deep as the grave. + +Philip Sheldon might have consented to give me his stepdaughter +unpossessed of a sixpence; but would he give me his stepdaughter with a +hundred thousand pounds for her fortune? Alas! no; I know the +Sheldonian intellect too well to be fooled by any hope so wild and +baseless. The one bright dream of my misused life faded from me in the +hour in which I discovered my dearest girl's claim to the Haygarthian +inheritance. But I am not going to throw up the sponge before the fight +is over. Time enough to die when I am lying face downward in the +ensanguined mire, and feel the hosts of the foemen trampling above my +shattered carcass. I will live in the light of my Charlotte's smiles +while I can, and for the rest--"_Il ne faut pas dire, fontaine, je ne +boirai pas de ton eau_." There is no cup so bitter that a man dare say, +I will not drain it to the very dregs. "What must be, shall be--that's +a certain text;" and in the mean time _carpe diem_. I am all a Bohemian +again. + +_Nov. 5th_. After a day's delay I have obtained my tracing-paper, and +made two tracings of the entries in the Meynell Bible. How intercourse +with the Sheldonian race inclines one to the duplication of documents! +I consider the copying-press of modern civilization the supreme +incarnation of man's distrust of his fellow-men. + +I spent this afternoon and evening with my dear love--my last evening +in Yorkshire. To-morrow I shall see my Sheldon, and inform him of the +very strange termination which has come to my researches. Will he +communicate at once with his brother? Will he release me from my oath +of secrecy? There is nothing of the masonic secretiveness in my +organisation, and I am very weary of the seal that has been set upon my +unwary lips. Will Charlotte be told that she is the reverend +intestate's next of kin? These are questions which I ask myself as I +sit in the stillness of my room at the Magpie, scribbling this wretched +diary of mine, while the church clock booms three solemn strokes in the +distance. + +O, why did not the reverend intestate marry his housekeeper, and make a +will, like other honest citizens, and leave my Charlotte to walk the +obscure byways of honest poverty with me? I do believe that I could +have been honest; I do believe that I could have been brave and true +and steadfast for her dear sake. But it is the office of man to +propose, while the Unseen disposes. Perhaps such a youth as mine admits +of no redemption. I have written circulars for Horatio Paget. I have +been the willing remorseless tool of a man who never eats his dinner +without inflicting a wrong upon his fellow-creatures. Can a few moments +of maudlin sentimentality, a vague yearning for something brighter and +better, a brief impulse towards honesty, inspired by a woman's innocent +eyes--can so little virtue in the present atone for so much guilt in +the past? Alas! I fear not. + +I had one last brief _tête-à-tête_ with my dear girl while I took the +tracing from the old Bible. She sat watching me, and distracting me +more or less while I worked; and despite the shadow of doubt that has +fallen upon me, I could not be otherwise than happy in her sweet +company. + +When I came to the record of Susan Meynell's death, my Charlotte's +manner changed all at once from her accustomed joyousness to a pensive +gravity. + +"I was very sorry you spoke of Susan Meynell to uncle Joseph," she +said, thoughtfully. + +"But why sorry, my dear?" + +I had some vague notion as to the cause of this sorrow; but the +instincts of the chase impelled me to press the subject. Was I not +bound to know every secret in the lives of Matthew Haygarth's +descendants? + +"There is a very sad story connected with my aunt Susan--she was my +great-aunt, you know," said Charlotte, with a grave earnest face. "She +went away from home, and there was great sorrow. I cannot talk of the +story, even to you, Valentine, for there seems something sacred in +these painful family secrets. My poor aunt Susan left all her friends, +and died many years afterwards in London." + +"She was known to have died unmarried?" I asked. This would be an +important question from George Sheldon's point of sight. + +"Yes," Charlotte replied, blushing crimson. + +That blush told me a great deal. + +"There was some one concerned in this poor lady's sorrow," I said; +"some one to blame for all her unhappiness." + +"There was." + +"One whom she loved and trusted, perhaps?" + +"Whom she loved and trusted only too well. O, Valentine, must not that +be terrible? To confide with all your heart in the person you love, and +to find him base and cruel! If my poor aunt had not believed Montagu +Kingdon to be true and honourable, she would have trusted her friends a +little, instead of trusting so entirely in him. O, Valentine, what am I +telling you? I cannot bear to cast a shadow on the dead." + +"My dear love, do you think I cannot pity this injured lady? Do you +think I am likely to play the Pharisee, and be eager to bespatter the +grave of this poor sufferer? I can almost guess the story which you +shrink from telling me--it is one of those sad histories so often +acted, so often told. Your aunt loved a person called Montagu +Kingdon--her superior in station, perhaps?" + +I looked at Charlotte as I said this, and her face told me that I had +guessed rightly. + +"This Montagu Kingdon admired and loved her," I said. "He seemed eager +to make her his wife, but no doubt imposed secrecy as to his +intentions. She accepted his word as that of a true-hearted lover and a +gentleman, and in the end had bitter reason to repent her confidence. +That is an outline of the story, is it not, Charlotte?" + +"I am sure that it was so. I am sure that when she left Newhall she +went away to be married," cried Charlotte, eagerly; "I have seen a +letter that proves it--to me, at least. And yet I have heard even mamma +speak harshly of her--so long dead and gone off the face of this +earth--as if she had deliberately chosen the sad fate which came to +her." + +"Is it not possible that Mr. Kingdon did marry Miss Meynell, after all?" + +"No," replied Charlotte, very sadly; "there is no hope of that. I have +seen a letter written by my poor aunt years afterwards--a letter that +tells much of the cruel truth; and I have heard that Mr. Kingdon came +back to Yorkshire and married a rich lady during my aunt's lifetime." + +"I should like to see that letter," I said, involuntarily. + +"Why, Valentine?" asked my darling, looking at me with sorrowful, +wondering eyes, "To me it seems so painful to talk of these things: it +is like reopening an old wound." + +"But if the interests of other people require--" I began, in a very +blundering manner. + +"Whose interest can be served by my showing you my poor aunt's letter? +It would seem like an act of dishonour to the dead." + +What could I say after this--bound hand and foot as I am by my promise +to Sheldon? + +After a long talk with my sweet one, I borrowed uncle Joe's dog-cart, +and spun across to Barngrave, where I found the little church, beneath +whose gray old roof Charlotte Meynell plighted her troth to James +Halliday. I took a copy of all entries in the register concerning Mrs. +Meynell Halliday and her children, and then went back to Newhall to +restore the dog-cart, and to take my last Yorkshire tea at the +hospitable old farm-house. + +To-morrow I am off to Barlingford, fifteen miles from this village, to +take more copies from registries concerning my sweet young heiress--the +registries of her father's marriage, and her own birth. After that I +think my case will be tolerably complete, and I can present myself to +Sheldon in the guise of a conqueror. + +Is it not a great conquest to have made? Is it not almost an act of +chivalry for these prosaic days to go forth into the world as a private +inquirer, and win a hundred thousand pounds for the lady of one's love? +And yet I wish any one rather than my Charlotte were the lineal +descendant of Matthew Haygarth. + +_Nov. 10th_. Here I am in London once more, with my Sheldon in +ecstatics, and our affairs progressing marvellously well, as he informs +me; but with that ponderous slowness peculiar to all mortal affairs in +which the authorities of the realm are in any way concerned. + +My work is finished. Hawkehurst the genealogist and antiquarian sinks +into Hawkehurst the private individual. I have no more to do but to +mind my own business and await the fruition of time in the shape of my +reward. + +Can I accept three thousand pounds for giving my dearest her +birthright? Can I take payment for a service done to her? Surely not: +and, on the other hand, can I continue to woo my sweet one, conscious +that she is the rightful claimant to a great estate? Can I take +advantage of her ignorance, and may it not be said that I traded on my +secret knowledge? + +Before leaving Yorkshire, I stole one more day from the Sheldon +business, in order to loiter just a few hours longer in that northern +Arcadia called Newhall farm. What assurance have I that I shall ever +re-enter that pleasant dwelling? What hold have I, a wanderer and +vagabond, on the future which respectable people map out for themselves +with such mathematical precision? And even the respectable people are +sometimes out in their reckoning. To snatch the joys of to-day must +always be the policy of the adventurer. So I took one more happy +afternoon at Newhall. Nor was the afternoon entirely wasted; for, in +the course of my farewell visit, I heard more of poor Susan Meynell's +history from honest uncle Joseph. He told me the story during an +after-dinner walk, in which he took me the round of his pig-styes and +cattle-sheds for the last time, as if he would fain have had them leave +their impress on my heart. + +"You may see plenty of cattle in Yorkshire," he remarked, complacently, +"but you won't see many beasts to beat that." + +He pointed to a brown and mountainous mass of inert matter, which he +gave me to understand was something in the way of cattle. + +"Would you like to see him standing?" he asked, giving the mass a prod +with the handle of his walking-stick, which to my cockney mind seemed +rather cruel, but which, taken from an agricultural point of view, was +no doubt the correct thing. "He _can_ stand. Coom up, Brownie!" + +I humbly entreated that the ill-used mass might be allowed to sprawl in +undisturbed misery. + +"Thorley!" exclaimed Mr. Mercer, laying his finger significantly +against the side of his unpretending nose. + +I had not the faintest comprehension of my revered uncle-in-law's +meaning; but I said, "O, indeed!" with the accents of admiration. + +"Thorley's Condiment," said my uncle. "You'll see some fine animate at +the Cattle-show; but if you see a two-year-old ox to beat him, my name +is not Joe Mercer." + +After this I had to pay my respects to numerous specimens of the bovine +race, all more or less prostrate under the burden of superabundant +flesh, all seeming to cry aloud for the treatment of some Banting of +the agricultural world. + +After we had "done" the cattle-sheds, with heroic resignation on my +part, and with enthusiasm on the part of Mr. Mercer, we went a long way +to see some rarities in the way of mutton, which commodity was to be +found cropping the short grass on a distant upland. + +With very little appreciation of the zoological varieties, and with the +consciousness that my dear one was sitting in the farm-house parlour, +wondering at my prolonged absence, this excursion could not be +otherwise than a bore to me. But it was a small thing to sacrifice my +own pleasure for once in a way, when by so doing I might gratify the +kindest of men and of uncles; so I plodded briskly across the fields +with the friendly farmer. + +I had my reward; for, in the course of this walk, Mr. Mercer gave me +the history of poor Susan Meynell. + +"I didn't care to talk about the story the other night before the young +lass," he said, gravely; "for her heart's so full of pity and +tenderness, pretty dear, that any tale such as that is like to upset +her. But the story's known to almost all the folks in these parts; so +there's no particular reason against my telling it to you. I've heard +my poor mother talk of Susan Meynell many a time. She was a regular +beauty, it seems; prettier than her sister Charlotte, and she was a +pretty woman, as you may guess by looking at _our_ Charlotte, who is +thought the image of her grandmother. But Susan was one of those +beauties that you don't see very often--more like a picture than flesh +and blood. The gentry used to turn round to look at her at Barngrave +church, I've heard my mother say. She was a rare one for dress, too; +for she had a few hundreds left her by her father and mother, who had +both of them been very well-to-do people. The mother was daughter to +William Rand, of Barngrave, a man who farmed above a thousand acres of +his own land; and the father kept a carpet warehouse in +Aldersgate-street." + +This information I received with respectful deference, and a +hypocritical assumption of ignorance respecting Miss Meynell's +antecedents. + +Mr. Mercer paused to take breath, and then continued the story after +his own rambling fashion. + +"Well, my lad, what with her fine dress, and what with her pretty +looks, Susan Meynell seems to have thought a little too much of +herself; so that when Montagu Kingdon, of Kingdon-place, younger +brother to Lord Durnsville, fell in love with her, and courted her--not +exactly openly, but with the knowledge of her sister, Mrs. +Halliday--she thought it no more than natural that he should intend to +make her his wife. Mr. Kingdon was ten years older than Susan, and had +served in Spain, and had not borne too good a character abroad. He had +been in a hard-drinking cavalry regiment, and had spent all his money, +and sold out directly the war was over. There was very little of all +this known down hereabouts, where Mr. Kingdon stood very high, on +account of his being Lord Durnsville's brother. But it was known that +he was poor, and that the Durnsville estates were heavily encumbered +into the bargain." + +"Then this gentleman would have been no grand match for Miss Meynell, +if--" + +"If he had married her? No, my lad; and it might have been the +knowledge of his poverty that made Susan and her sister think less of +the difference between his station and the girl's. The two women +favoured him, anyhow; and they kept the secret from James Halliday, who +was a regular upstraight-and-downright kind of fellow, as proud as any +lord in his own way. The secret was kept safe enough for some time, and +Mr. Kingdon was always dropping in at Newhall when Jim was out of the +way; but folks in these parts are very inquisitive, and, lonesome as +our place is, there are plenty of people go by between Monday and +Saturday; so by-and-by it got to be noticed that there was very often a +gentleman's horse standing at Newhall gate, with the bridle tied to one +of the gate-posts; and those that knew anything, knew that the horse +belonged to Montagu Kingdon. A friend of Jim Halliday's told him as +much one day, and warned him that Mr. Kingdon was a scamp, and was said +to have a Spanish wife somewhere beyond seas. This was quite enough for +James Halliday, who flew into a roaring rage at the notion of any man, +most of all Lord Durnsville's brother, going to his house and courting +his sister-in-law in secret. It was at Barngrave he was told this, one +market-day, as he was lounging with his friends in the old yard of the +Black Bull inn, where the corn exchange used to be held in those days. +He called for his horse the next minute, and left the town at a gallop. +When he came to Newhall, he found Montagu Kingdon's chestnut mare tied +to the gate-post, and he found Mr. Kingdon himself, dawdling about the +garden with Miss Meynell." + +"And then I suppose there was a scene?" I suggested, with unfeigned +interest in this domestic story. + +"Well, I believe there was, my lad. I've heard all about it from my +poor Molly, who had the story from her mother. James Halliday didn't +mince matters; he gave Mr. Kingdon a bit of his mind, in his own rough +outspoken way, and told him it would be the worse for him if he ever +crossed the threshold of Newhall gate again. 'If you meant well by that +foolish girl, you wouldn't come sneaking here behind my back,' he said; +'but you don't mean well by her, and you've a Spanish wife hidden away +somewhere in the Peninsula.' Mr. Kingdon gave the lie to this; but he +said he shouldn't stoop to justify himself to an unmannerly yeoman. 'If +you were a gentleman,' he said, 'you should pay dearly for your +insolence.' 'I'm ready to pay any price you like,' answered James +Halliday, as bold as brass; 'but as you weren't over fond of fighting +abroad, where there was plenty to be got for it, I don't suppose you +want to fight at home, where there's nothing to be got for it.'" + +"And did Susan Meynell hear this?" I asked. I could fancy this +ill-fated girl standing by and looking on aghast while hard things were +said to the man she loved, while the silver veil of sweet romance was +plucked so roughly from the countenance of her idol by an angry +rustic's rude hand. + +"Well, I don't quite know whether she heard all," answered Mr. Mercer, +thoughtfully. "Of course, James Halliday told his wife all about the +row afterwards. He was very kind to his sister-in-law, in spite of her +having deceived him; and he talked to her very seriously, telling her +all he had heard in Barngrave against Montagu Kingdon. She listened to +him quietly enough, but it was quite clear that she didn't believe a +word he said. 'I know you have heard all that, James,' she said; 'but +the people who said it knew they were not telling the truth. Lord +Durnsville and his brother are not popular in the country, and there +are no falsehoods too cruel for the malice of his enemies.' She +answered him with some such fine speech as that, and when the next +morning came she was gone." + +"She eloped with Mr. Kingdon?" + +"Yes. She left a letter for her sister, full of romantic stuff about +loving him all the better because people spoke ill of him; regular +woman's talk, you know, bless their poor silly hearts!" murmured Mr. +Mercer, with tender compassion. "She was going to London to be married +to Mr. Kingdon, she wrote. They were to be married at the old church in +the city where she had been christened, and she was going to stay with +an old friend--a young woman who had once been her brother's +sweetheart, and who was married to a butcher in Newgate-market--till +the bans were given out, or the license bought. The butcher's wife had +a country-house out at Edmonton, and it was there Susan was going to +stay." + +"All that seemed straightforward enough," said I. + +"Yes," replied uncle Joe; "but if Mr. Kingdon had meant fairly by Susan +Meynell, it would have been as easy for him to marry her at Barngrave +as in London. He was as poor as a church mouse, but he was his own +master, and there was no one to prevent him doing just what he pleased. +This is about what James Halliday thought, I suppose; for he tore off +to London, as fast as post-horses could carry him, in pursuit of his +wife's sister and Mr. Kingdon. But though he made inquiries all along +the road he could not hear that they had passed before him, and for the +best of all reasons. He went to the butcher's house at Edmonton; but +there he found no trace of Susan Meynell, except a letter posted in +Yorkshire, on the day of the row between James and Mr. Kingdon, telling +her intention of visiting her old friend within the next few days, and +hinting at an approaching marriage. There was the letter announcing the +visit, but the visitor had not come." + +"But the existence of that letter bears witness that Miss Meynell +believed in the honesty of her lover's intentions." + +"To be sure it does, poor lass," answered Mr. Mercer pensively. "She +believed in the word of a scoundrel, and she was made to pay dearly for +her simplicity. James Halliday did all he could to find her. He +searched London through, as far as any man can search such a place as +London; but it was no use, and for a very good reason, as I said +before. The end of it was, he was obliged to go back to Newhall no +wiser than when he started." + +"And was nothing further ever discovered?" I asked eagerly, for I felt +that this was just one of those family complications from which all +manner of legal difficulties might arise. + +"Don't be in a hurry, my lad," answered uncle Joe; "wickedness is sure +to come to light sooner or later. Three years after this poor young +woman ran away there was a drunken groom dismissed from Lord +Durnsville's stable; and what must he needs do but come straight off to +James Halliday, to vent his spite against his master, and perhaps to +curry favour at Newhall. 'You shouldn't have gone to London to look for +the young lady, Muster Halliday,' he said; 'you should have gone the +other way. I know a man as drove Mr. Kingdon and your wife's sister +across country to Hull with two of my lord's own horses, stopping to +bait on the way. They went aboard ship at Hull, Mr. Kingdon and the +young lady--a ship that was bound for foreign parts.' This is what the +groom said; but it was little good knowing it now. There'd been +advertisements in the papers beseeching her to come back; and +everything had been done that could be done, and all to no end. A few +years after this back comes Mr. Kingdon as large as life, married to +some dark-faced, frizzy-haired lady, whose father owned half the +Indies, according to people's talk: but he fought very shy of James +Halliday; but when they did meet one day at the covert side, Jim rode +up to the honourable gentleman and asked him what he had done with +Susan Meynell. Those that saw the meeting say that Montagu Kingdon +turned as white as a ghost when he saw Jim Halliday riding up to him on +his big, raw-boned horse; but nothing came of the quarrel. Mr. Kingdon +did not live many years to enjoy the money his frizzy-haired +West-Indian lady brought him. He died before his brother, Lord +Durnsville, and left neither chick nor child to inherit his money, nor +yet the Durnsville title, which was extinct on the death of the +viscount." + +"And what of the poor girl?" + +"Ay, poor lass, what of her? It was fourteen years after she left her +home before her sister got so much as a line to say she was in the land +of the living. When a letter did come at last, it was a very melancholy +one. The poor creature wrote to her sister to say she was in London, +alone and penniless, and, as she thought, dying." + +"And the sister went to her?" + +I remembered that deprecating sentence in the family Bible, written in +a woman's hand. + +"That she did, good honest soul, as fast as she could travel, carrying +a full purse along with her. She found poor Susan at an inn near +Aldersgate-street--the old quarter, you see, that she'd known in her +young days. Mrs. Halliday meant to have brought the poor soul back to +Yorkshire, and had settled it all with Jim; but it was too late for +anything of that kind. She found Susan dying, wandering in her mind off +and on, but just able to recognise her sister, and to ask forgiveness +for having trusted to Montagu Kingdon, instead of taking counsel from +those that wished her well." + +"Was that all?" I asked presently. + +Mr. Mercer made long pauses in the course of his narrative, during +which we walked briskly on; he pondering on those past events, I +languishing for further information. + +"Well, lad, that was about all. Where Susan had been in all those +years, or what she had been doing, was more than Mrs. Halliday could +find out. Of late she had been living somewhere abroad. The clothes she +had last worn were of foreign make, very poor and threadbare; and there +was one little box in her room at the inn that had been made at Rouen, +for the name of a Rouen trunkmaker was on the inside of the lid. There +were no letters or papers of any kind in the box; so you see there was +no way of finding out what the poor creature's life had been. All her +sister could do was to stay with her and comfort her to the last, and +to see that she was quietly laid to rest in a decent grave. She was +buried in a quiet little city churchyard, somewhere where there are +green trees among the smoke of the chimney-pots. Montagu Kingdon had +been dead some years when that happened." + +"Is that last letter still in existence?" I asked. + +"Yes; my first wife kept it with the rest of her family letters and +papers. Dorothy takes care of them now. We country folks set store by +those sort of things, you know." + +I would fain have asked Mr. Mercer to let me see this last letter +written by Susan Meynell; but what excuse could I devise for so doing? +I was completely fettered by my promise to George Sheldon, and could +offer no reasonable pretence for my curiosity. + +There was one point which I was bound to push home in the interests of +my Sheldon, or, shall I not rather say, of my Charlotte? That +all-important point was the question of marriage or no marriage. "You +feel quite clear as to the fact that Montagu Kingdon never did marry +this young woman?" I said. + +"Well, yes," replied uncle Joe; "that was proved beyond doubt, I'm +sorry to say. Mr. Kingdon never could have dared to come back here with +his West-Indian wife in poor Susan Meynell's lifetime if he had really +married her." + +"And how about the lady he was said to have married in Spain?" + +"I can't say anything about that. It may have been only a scandal, or, +if there was a marriage, it may have been illegal. The Kingdons were +Protestants, and the Spaniards are all papists, I suppose. A marriage +between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic wouldn't be binding." + +"Not upon such a man as this Kingdon." + +It seems more than probable that the opinion arrived at by this poor +soul's friends must be correct, and that Montagu Kingdon was a +scoundrel. But how about Susan Meynell's after-life?--the fourteen +years in which she was lost sight of? May she not have married some one +else than Mr. Kingdon? and may she not have left heirs who will arise +in the future to dispute my darling's claim? + +Is it a good thing to have a great inheritance? The day has been when +such a question as that could not by any possibility have shaped itself +in my mind. Ah! what is this subtle power called love, which worketh +such wondrous changes in the human heart? Surely the miracle of the +cleansed leper is in some manner typical of this transformation. The +emanation of divine purity encircled the leper with its supernal +warmth, and the scales fell away beneath that mysterious influence. And +so from the pure heart of a woman issues a celestial fire which burns +the plague-spot out of the sinner's breast. Ah, how I languish to be at +my darling's feet, thanking her for the cure she has wrought! + +I have given my Sheldon the story of Susan Meynell's life, as I had it +from uncle Joseph. He agrees with me as to the importance of Susan's +last letter, but even that astute creature does not see a way to +getting the document in his hands without letting Mr. Mercer more or +less into our secret. + +"I might tell this man Mercer some story about a little bit of money +coming to his niece, and get at Susan Meynell's letter that way," he +said; "but whatever I told him would be sure to get round to Philip +somehow or other, and I don't want to put him on the scent." + +My Sheldon's legal mind more than ever inclines to caution, now that he +knows the heiress of the Haygarths is so nearly allied to his brother +Philip. + +"I'll tell you what it is, Hawkehurst," he said to me, after we had +discussed the business in all its bearings, "there are not many people +I'm afraid of, but I don't mind owning to you that I am afraid of my +brother Phil. He has always walked over my head; partly because he can +wear his shirt-front all through business hours without creasing it, +which I can't, and partly because he's--well--more unscrupulous than I +am." + +He paused meditatively, and I too was meditative; for I could not +choose but wonder what it was to be more unscrupulous than George +Sheldon. + +"If he were to get an inkling of this affair," my patron resumed +presently, "he'd take it out of our hands before you could say Jack +Robinson--supposing anybody ever wanted to say Jack Robinson, which +they don't--and he'd drive a bargain with us, instead of our driving a +bargain with him." + +My friend of Gray's Inn has a pleasant way of implying that our +interests are coequal in this affair. I caught him watching me +curiously once or twice during our last interview, when Charlotte's +name was mentioned. Does he suspect the truth, I wonder? + +_Nov. 12th_. I had another interview with my patron yesterday, and +rather a curious interview, though not altogether unsatisfactory. +George Sheldon has been making good use of his time since my return +from Yorkshire. + +"I don't think we need have any fear of opposition from children or +grandchildren of Susan Meynell," he said; "I have found the registry of +her interment in the churchyard of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. She is +described in that registry by her maiden name, and there is a plain +headstone in a corner of the ground, inscribed with the name of Susan +Meynell, who died July 14th, 1835, much lamented; and then the text +about 'the one sinner that repenteth,' and so on," said Mr. Sheldon, as +if he did not care to dwell on so hackneyed a truism. + +"But," I began, "she might have been married, in spite of--" + +"Yes, she might," replied my Sheldon, captiously; "but then, you see, +the probability is that she wasn't. If she had been married, she would +have told her sister as much in that last letter, or she would have +said as much when they met." + +"But she was delirious." + +"Not all the time. She was sensible enough to talk about her sorrow for +the past, and so on; and she must have been sensible enough to have +spoken of her children, if she had ever had any. Besides, if she had +been married, she would scarcely have been wandering about the world in +that miserable manner, unless her husband was an uncommonly bad lot. +No, Hawkehurst, depend upon it, we've nothing to fear in that quarter. +The person we have to fear is that precious brother of mine." + +"You talked the other day about driving a bargain with him," I said; "I +didn't quite understand your meaning. The fortune can only be claimed +by Char--Miss Halliday, and your brother has no legal authority to +dispose of her money." + +"Of course not," answered my employer, with contemptuous impatience of +my dulness; "but my brother Phil is not the man to wait for legal +power. His ideas will be Miss Halliday's ideas in this business. When +my case is ripe for action, I shall make my bargain--half the fortune +to be mine from the day of its recovery. A deed containing these +conditions must be executed by Charlotte Halliday before I hand over a +single document relating to the case. Now, as matters stand at +present," he went on, looking very fixedly at me, "her execution of +that deed would rest with Philip." + +"And when shall you make your overtures to Mr. Sheldon?" I asked, at a +loss to understand that intent look. + +"Not until the last links of the chain are put together. Not before I'm +ready to make my first move on the Chancellor's chessboard. Perhaps not +at all." + +"How do you mean?" + +"If I can tide over for a little time, I may throw Philip overboard +altogether, and get some one else to manage Miss Halliday for me." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I'll tell you, Hawkehurst," answered my patron, resting his elbows on +the table by which we were sitting, and looking me through with those +penetrating black eyes of his. "My brother Phil played me a shabby +trick a few years ago, which I have not forgotten or forgiven. So I +shouldn't mind paying him out in some of his own coin. Beyond which, I +tell you again, I don't like the idea of his having a finger in this +business. Where that kind of man's finger can go, his whole hand will +follow; and if once that hand fastens on John Haygarth's money, it'll +be bad times for you and me. Miss Halliday counts for exactly nothing +in my way of reckoning. If her stepfather told her to sign away half a +million, she'd scribble her name at the bottom of the paper, and press +her pretty little thumb upon the wafer, without asking a single +question as to the significance of the document. And, of course, she'd +be still less inclined to make objections if it was her husband who +asked her to execute the deed. Aha! my young friend, how is it you grow +first red and then white when I mention Miss Halliday's husband?" + +I have no doubt that I did indeed blanch when that portentous word was +uttered in conjunction with my darling's name. Mr. Sheldon leant a +little further across the table, and his hard black eyes penetrated a +little deeper into the recesses of my foolish heart. + +"Valentine Hawkehurst," he said, "shall we throw my brother Phil +overboard altogether? Shall you and I go shares in this fortune?" + +"Upon my word and honour I don't understand you," I said, in all +sincerity. + +"You mean that you won't understand me," answered George Sheldon, +impatiently; "but I'll make myself pretty clear presently; and as your +own interest is at stake, you'll be very unlike the rest of your +species if you don't find it easy enough to understand me. When first I +let you in for the chance of a prize out of this business, neither you +nor I had the slightest idea that circumstances would throw the +rightful claimant to the Haygarth estate so completely into our way. I +had failed so many times with other cases before I took up this case, +that it's a wonder I had the courage to work on. But, somehow or other, +I had a notion that this particular business would turn up trumps. The +way seemed a little clearer than it usually is; but not clear enough to +tempt Tom, Dick, and Harry. And then, again, I had learnt a good many +secrets from the experience of my failures. I was well up to my work. I +might have carried it on, and I ought to have carried it on, without +help; but I was getting worn out and lazy, so I let you into my secret, +having taken it into my head that I could venture to trust you." + +"You didn't trust me further than you could help, my friend," I replied +with my usual candour. "You never told me the amount left by the +reverend intestate; but I heard that down at Ullerton. A half share in +a hundred thousand pounds is worth trying for, Mr. Sheldon." + +"They call it a hundred thousand down there, do they?" asked the +lawyer, with charming innocence. "Those country people always deal in +high figures. However, I don't mind owning that the sum is a handsome +one, and if you and I play our cards wisely, we may push Philip out of +the game altogether, and share the plunder between us." + +Again I was obliged to confess myself unable to grasp my employer's +meaning. + +"Marry Charlotte Halliday out of hand," he said, bringing his eyes and +his elbows still nearer to me, until his bushy black whiskers almost +touched my face. "Marry her before Philip gets an inkling of this +affair, and then, instead of being made a tool of by him, she'll be +safe in your hands, and the money will be in your hands into the +bargain. Why, how you stare, man! Do you think I haven't seen how the +land lies between you two? Haven't I dined at Bayswater when you've +been there? and could any man with his wits about him see you two +sentimental young simpletons together _without_ seeing how things were +going on? You are in love with Charlotte, and Charlotte is in love with +you. What more natural than that you two should make a match of it? +Charlotte is her own mistress, and hasn't sixpence in the world that +any one but you and I know of; for, of course, my brother Phil will +continue to stick to every penny of poor old Tom's money. All you have +to do is to follow up the young lady; it's the course that would +suggest itself to any man in the same case, even if Miss Halliday were +the ugliest old harridan in Christendom, instead of being a very jolly +kind of girl, as girls go." + +My employer said this with the tone of a man who had never considered +the genus girl a very interesting part of creation. I suppose I looked +at him rather indignantly; for he laughed as he resumed,-- + +"I'll say she's an angel, if you like," he said; "and if you think her +one, so much the better. You may consider it a very lucky thing that +you came in my way, and a still more lucky thing that Miss Halliday has +been silly enough to fall in love with you. I've heard of men being +born with silver spoons in their mouths; but I should think you must +have come into the world with a whole service of plate. However, that +is neither here nor there. Your policy will be to follow up your +advantages; and if you can persuade the young lady to change her name +for Hawkehurst on the quiet some fine morning, without stopping to ask +permission of her stepfather, or any one else, so much the better for +you, and so much the more agreeable to me. I'd rather do business with +you than with my brother Phil; and I shan't be sorry to cry quits with +that gentleman for the shabby trick he played me a few years ago." + +My Sheldon's brow darkened as he said this, and the moody fit returned. +That old grudge which my patron entertains against his brother must +have relation to some very disagreeable business, if I may judge by +George Sheldon's manner. + +Here was a position for me, Valentine Hawkehurst, soldier of fortune, +cosmopolitan adventurer, and child of the nomadic tribes who call +Bohemia their mother country! Already blest with the sanction of my +dear love's simple Yorkshire kindred, I was now assured of George +Sheldon's favour; nay, urged onward in my paradisiac path by that +unsentimental Mentor. The situation was almost too much for my +bewildered brain. Charlotte an heiress, and George Sheldon eager to +bring about my participation in the Haygarthian thousands! + +And now I sit in my little room in Omega-street, pondering upon the +past, and trying to face the perplexities of the future. + +Is this to be? Am I, so hopeless an outsider in the race of life, to +come in with a rush and win the prize which Fortune's first favourite +might envy? Can I hope or believe it? Can the Fates have been playing a +pleasant practical joke with me all this time, like those fairies who +decree that the young prince shall pass his childhood and youth in the +guise of a wild boar, only to be transformed into an Adonis at last by +the hand of the woman who is disinterested enough to love him despite +his formidable tusks and ungainly figure? + +No! a thousand times no! The woman I love, and the fortune I have so +often desired, are not for me. Every man has his own especial Fates; +and the three sisters who take care of me are grim, hard-visaged, +harder-hearted spinsters, not to be mollified by propitiation, or by +the smooth tongue of the flatterer. The cup is very sweet, and it seems +almost within my grasp; but between that chalice of delight and the +lips that thirst for it, ah, what a gulf! + +_Nov. 13th_. The above was written late at night, and under the +influence of my black dog. What an ill-conditioned cur he is, and how +he mouths and mangles the roses that bestrew his pathway, always bent +upon finding the worm at the core! + +I kicked the brute out of doors this morning, on finding a letter from +my dear one lying in my plate. "Avaunt, aroint thee, foul fiend!" I +cried. "Thou art the veritable poodle in whose skin Mephistopheles +hides when bent on direst mischief. I will set the sign of the cross +upon my threshold, and thou shalt enter no more." + +This is what I said to myself as I tore open Charlotte's envelope, with +its pretty little motto stamped on cream-coloured sealing-wax, "_Pensez +à moi._" Ah, love; "while memory holds a seat in this distracted +globe." I saw the eyes of my friend Horatio fixed upon me as I opened +my letter, and knew that my innermost sentiments were under inspection. +Prudence demands all possible caution where the noble Captain is +concerned. I cannot bring myself to put implicit faith in his account +of his business at Ullerton. He may have been there, as he says, on +some promoting spec; but our meeting in that town was, to say the +least, a strange coincidence, and I am not a believer in +coincidences--off the stage, where a gentleman invariably makes his +appearance directly his friends begin to talk about him. + +I cannot forget my conviction that Jonah Goodge was bought over by a +rival investigator, and that Rebecca Haygarth's letters were tampered +with; nor can I refrain from connecting that shapely but well-worn +lavender glove with the person of my dandy friend, Horatio Paget. The +disappearance of a letter from the packet intrusted to me by Miss +Judson is another mysterious circumstance; nor can I do away with the +impression that I heard the name Meynell distinctly pronounced by +Philip Sheldon the last time I was at the villa. + +George Sheldon tells me the secret cannot by any possibility have been +betrayed, unless by me; and I have been prudence itself. + +Supposing my suspicions of Mr. Goodge to be correct, the letters +extracted from Mrs. Rebecca's correspondence might tell much, and might +even put Horatio on the track of the Meynells. But how should he get +his first inkling of the business? + +Certainly not from me or from George Sheldon. But might not his +attention have been attracted by that advertisement for heirs-at-law to +the Haygarthian estate which appeared in the _Times_? + +These are questions with which the legal intellect of my Sheldon may +best grapple. For myself, I can only drift with the resistless stream +called life. + +I was so unfortunate as to make my appearance in our common +sitting-room five minutes after my patron. There had been time enough +for him to examine the superscription and postmark of my letter. He was +whistling when I went into the room. People who have been looking at +things that don't belong to them always whistle. + +I did not care to read Charlotte's first letter with those hawk's eyes +fixed upon me. So I just glanced at the dear handwriting, as if running +over an ordinary letter with the eye of indifference, and then put the +document into my pocket with the best assumption of carelessness I was +capable of. How I longed for the end of that tedious meal, over which +Captain Paget lingered in his usual epicurean fashion! + +My friend Horatio has shown himself not a little curious about my late +absence from the joint domicile. I again resorted to the Dorking +fiction,--my aged aunt breaking fast, and requiring much propitiation +from a dutiful nephew with an eye to her testamentary arrangements. I +had been compelled to endow my shadowy relative with a comfortable +little bit of money, in order to account for my devotion; since the +powerful mind of my Horatio would have refused to grasp the idea of +disinterested affection for an ancient kinswoman. + +There was an ominous twinkle in the Captain's sharp gray eyes when I +gave this account of my absence, and I sorely doubt his acceptance of +this second volume of the Dorking romance. Ah, what a life it is we +lead in the tents of Ishmael, the cast-away! through what tortuous +pathways wander the nomad tribes who call Hagar, the abandoned, their +mother! what lies, what evasions, what prevarications! Horatio Paget +and I watch each other like two cunning fencers, with a stereotyped +smile upon our lips and an eager restlessness in our eyes, and who +shall say that one or other of our rapiers is not poisoned, as in the +famous duel before Claudius, usurper of Denmark? My dear one's letter +is all sweetness and love. She is coming home; and much as she prefers +Yorkshire to Bayswater, she is pleased to return for my sake--for my +sake. She leaves the pure atmosphere of that simple country home to +become the central point in a network of intrigue; and I am bound to +keep the secret so closely interwoven with her fate. I love her more +truly, more purely than I thought myself capable of loving; yet I can +only approach her as the tool of George Sheldon, a rapacious +conspirator, bent on securing the hoarded thousands of old John +Haygarth. + +Of all men upon this earth I should be the last to underrate the +advantages of wealth,--I who have been reared in the gutter, which is +Poverty's cradle. Yet I would fain Charlotte's fortune had come to her +in any other fashion than as the result of my work in the character of +a salaried private inquirer. + + + + + +BOOK THE SEVENTH. + + +CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +"IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG." + + +Miss Halliday returned to the gothic villa at Bayswater with a bloom on +her cheeks, and a brightness in her eyes, which surpassed her wonted +bloom and brightness, fair and bright as her beauty had been from the +hour in which she was created to charm mankind. She had been a creature +to adore even in the first dawn of infancy, and in her christening-hood +and toga of white satin had been a being to dream of. But now she +seemed invested all at once with a new loveliness--more spiritual, more +pensive, than the old. + +Might not Valentine have cried, with the rapturous pride of a lover: +"Look at the woman here with the new soul!" and anon: "This new soul is +mine!" + +It was love that had imparted a new charm to Miss Halliday's beauty. +Diana wondered at the subtle change as her friend sat in her favourite +window on the morning after her return, looking dreamily out into the +blossomless garden, where evergreens of the darkest and spikiest +character stood up stern and straight against the cold gray sky. Diana +had welcomed her friend in her usual reserved manner, much to +Charlotte's discomfiture. The girl so yearned for a confidante. She had +no idea of hiding her happiness from this chosen friend, and waited +eagerly for the moment in which she could put her arms round Diana's +neck and tell her what it was that had made Newhall so sweet to her +during this particular visit. + +She sat in the window this morning thinking of Valentine, and +languishing to speak of him, but at a loss how to begin. There are some +people about whose necks the arms of affection can scarce entwine +themselves. Diana Paget sat at her eternal embroidery-frame, picking up +beads on her needle with the precision of some self-feeding machine. +The little glass beads made a hard clicking sound as they dropped from +her needle,--a very frosty, unpromising sound, as it seemed to +Charlotte's hyper-sensitive ear. + +There had been an unwonted reserve between the girls since Charlotte's +return,--a reserve which arose, on Miss Halliday's part, from the +contest between girlish shyness and the eager desire for a confidante; +and on the part of Miss Paget, from that gloomy discontent which had of +late possessed her. + +She watched Charlotte furtively as she picked up her beads--watched her +wonderingly, unable to comprehend the happiness that gave such +spiritual brightness to her eyes. It was no longer the childlike gaiety +of heart which had made Miss Halliday's girlhood so pleasant. It was +the thoughtful, serene delight of womanhood. + +"She can care very little for Valentine," Diana thought, "or she could +scarcely seem so happy after such a long separation. I doubt if these +bewitching women who enchant all the world know what it is to feel +deeply. Happiness is a habit with this girl. Valentine's attentions +were very pleasant to her. The pretty little romance was very agreeable +while it lasted; but at the first interruption of the story she shuts +the book, and thinks of it no more. O, if my Creator had made _me_ like +that! If I could forget the days we spent together, and the dream I +dreamt!" + +That never-to-be-forgotten vision came back to Diana Paget as she sat +at her work; and for a few minutes the clicking sound of the beads +ceased, while she waited with clasped hands until the shadows should +have passed before her eyes. The old dream came back to her like a +picture, bright with colour and light. But the airy habitation which +she had built for herself of old was no "palace lifting to Italian +heavens its marble roof." It was only a commonplace lodging in a street +running out of the Strand, with just a peep of the river from a trim +little balcony. An airy second-floor sitting-room, with engraved +portraits of the great writers on the newly-papered walls: on one side +an office-desk, on the other a work-table. The unpretending shelter of +a newspaper hack, who lives _à jour la journée_, and whose wife must +achieve wonders in the way of domestic economy in order to eke out his +modest earnings. + +This was Diana Paget's vision of Paradise, and it seemed only the +brighter now that she felt it was never to be anything more than a +supernal picture painted on her brain. + +After sitting silent for some little time, eager to talk, but waiting +to be interrogated, Charlotte was fain to break silence. + +"You don't ask me whether I enjoyed myself in Yorkshire, Di," she said, +looking shyly down at the little bunch of charms and lockets which +employed her restless fingers. + +"Didn't I, really?" replied Diana, languidly; "I thought that was one +of the stereotyped inquiries one always made." + +"I hope you wouldn't make stereotyped inquiries of _me_, Diana." + +"No, I ought not to do so. But I think there are times when one is +artificial even with one's best friends. And you are my best friend, +Charlotte. I may as well say my only friend," the girl added, with a +laugh. + +"Diana," cried Charlotte, reproachfully, "why do you speak so bitterly? +You know how dearly I love you. I do, indeed, dear. There is scarcely +anything in this world I would not do for you. But I am not your only +friend. There is Mr. Hawkehurst, whom you have known so long." + +Miss Halliday's face was in a flame; and although she bent very low to +examine the golden absurdities hanging on her watch-chain, she could +not conceal her blushes from the eyes that were so sharpened by +jealousy. + +"Mr. Hawkehurst!" cried Diana, with unspeakable contempt. "If I were +drowning, do you think _he_ would stretch out his hand to save me while +you were within his sight? When he comes to this house--he who has seen +so much poverty, and misery, and shame, and--happiness with me and +mine--do you think he so much as remembers my existence? Do you think +he ever stops to consider whether I am that Diana Paget who was once +his friend and confidante and fellow-wayfarer and companion? or only a +lay figure dressed up to fill a vacant chair in your drawing-room?" + +"Diana!" + +"It is all very well to look at me reproachfully, Charlotte. You must +know that I am speaking the truth. You talk of friendship. What is that +word worth if it does not mean care and thought for another? Do you +imagine that Valentine Hawkehurst ever thinks of me, or considers me?" + +Charlotte was fain to keep silence. She remembered how very rarely, in +those long afternoons at Newhall farm, the name of Diana Paget had been +mentioned. She remembered how, when she and Valentine were mapping out +the future so pleasantly, she had stopped in the midst of an eloquent +bit of word-painting, descriptive of the little suburban cottage they +were to live in, to dispose of Diana's fate in a sentence,-- + +"And dear Di can stop at the villa to take care of mamma," she had +said; whereupon Mr. Hawkehurst had assented, with a careless nod, and +the description of the ideal cottage had been continued. + +Charlotte remembered this now with extreme contrition. She had been so +supremely happy, and so selfish in her happiness. + +"O, Di," she cried, "how selfish happy people are!" And then she +stopped in confusion, perceiving that the remark had little relevance +to Diana's last observation. + +"Valentine shall be your friend, dear," she said, after a pause. + +"O, you are beginning to answer for him already!" exclaimed Miss Paget, +with increasing bitterness. + +"Diana, why are you so unkind to me?" Charlotte cried, passionately. +"Don't you see that I am longing to confide in you? What is it that +makes you so bitter? You must know how truly I love you. And if Mr. +Hawkehurst is not what he once was to you, you must remember how cold +and distant you always are in your manner to him. I am sure, to hear +you speak to him, and to see you look at him sometimes, one would think +he was positively hateful to you. And I want you to like him a little +for my sake." + +Miss Halliday left her seat by the window as she said this, and went +towards the table by which her friend was sitting. She crept close to +Diana, and with a half-frightened, half-caressing movement, seated +herself on the low ottoman at her feet, and, seated thus, possessed +herself of Miss Paget's cold hand. + +"I want you to like Mr. Hawkehurst a little, Di," she repeated, "for my +sake." + +"Very well, I will try to like him a little--for your sake," answered +Miss Paget, in a very unsympathetic tone. + +"O, Di! tell me how it was he offended you." + +"Who told you that he offended me?" + +"Your own manner, dear. You could never have been so cold and distant +with him--having known him so long, and endured so many troubles in his +company--if you had not been deeply offended by him." + +"That is your idea, Charlotte; but, you see, I am very unlike you. I am +fitful and capricious. I used to like Mr. Hawkehurst, and now I dislike +him. As to offence, his whole life has offended me, just as my father's +life has offended me, from first to last. I am not good and amiable and +loving, like you; but I hate deceptions and lies; above all, the lies +that some men traffic in day after day." + +"Was Valentine's--was your father's life a very bad one?" Charlotte +asked, trembling palpably, and looking up at Miss Paget's face with +anxious eyes. + +"Yes, it was a mean false life,--a life of trick and artifice. I do not +know the details of the schemes by which my father and Valentine earned +their daily bread--and my daily bread; but I know they inflicted loss +upon other people. Whether the wrong done was always done deliberately +and consciously upon Valentine's part, I cannot say. He may have been +only a tool of my father's. I hope he was, for the most part an +unconscious tool." + +She said all this in a dreamy way, as if uttering her own thoughts, +rather than seeking to enlighten Charlotte. + +"I am sure he was an unconscious tool," cried that young lady, with an +air of conviction; "it is not in his nature to do anything false or +dishonourable." + +"Indeed! you know him very well, it seems," said Diana. + +Ah, what a tempest was raging in that proud passionate heart! what a +strife between the powers of good and evil! Pitying love for Charlotte; +tender compassion for her rival's childlike helplessness; and +unutterable sense of her own loss. + +She had loved him so dearly, and he was taken from her. There had been +a time when he almost loved her--almost! Yes, it was the remembrance of +that which made the trial so bitter. The cup had approached her lips, +only to be dashed away for ever. + +"What did I ask in life except his love?" she said to herself. "Of all +the pleasures and triumphs which girls of my age enjoy, is there one +that I ever envied? No, I only sighed for his love. To live in a +lodging-house parlour with him, to sit by and watch him at his work, to +drudge for him, to bear with him--this was my brightest dream of +earthly bliss; and she has broken it!" + +It was thus Diana argued with herself, as she sat looking down at the +bright creature who had done her this worst, last wrong which one woman +can do to another. This passionate heart, which ached with such cruel +pain, was prone to evil, and to-day the scorpion Jealousy was digging +his sharp tooth into its very core. It was not possible for Diana Paget +to feel kindly disposed towards the girl whose unconscious hand had +shattered the airy castle of her dreams. Was it not a hard thing that +the bright creature, whom every one was ready to adore, must needs +steal away this one heart? + +"It has always been like this," thought Diana. "The story of David and +Nathan is a parable that is perpetually being illustrated. David is so +rich--he is lord of incalculable flocks and herds; but he will not be +content till he has stolen the one little ewe lamb, the poor man's pet +and darling." + +"Diana," said Miss Halliday very softly, "you are so difficult to talk +to this morning, and I have so much to say to you." + +"About your visit, or about Mr. Hawkehurst?" + +"About--Yorkshire," answered Charlotte, with the air of a shy child who +has made her appearance at dessert, and is asked whether she will have +a pear or a peach. + +"About Yorkshire!" repeated Miss Paget, with a little sigh of relief. +"I shall be very glad to hear about your Yorkshire friends. Was the +visit a pleasant one?" + +"Very, very pleasant!" answered Charlotte, dwelling tenderly on the +words. + +"How sentimental you have grown, Lotta! I think you must have found a +forgotten shelf of Minerva Press novels in some cupboard at your +aunt's. You have lost all your vivacity." + +"Have I?" murmured Charlotte; "and yet I am happier than I was when I +went away. Whom do you think I met at Newhall, Di?" + +"I have not the slightest idea. My notions of Yorkshire are very vague. +I fancy the people amiable savages; just a little in advance of the +ancient Britons whom Julius Caesar came over to conquer. Whom did you +meet there? Some country squire, I suppose, who fell in love with your +bright eyes, and wished you to waste the rest of your existence in +those northern wilds." + +Miss Paget was not a woman to bare her wounds for the scrutiny of the +friendliest eyes. Let the tooth of the serpent bite never so keenly, +she could meet her sorrows with a bold front. Was she not accustomed to +suffer--she, the scapegoat of defrauded nurses and indignant +landladies, the dependent and drudge of her kinswoman's gynæceum, the +despised of her father? The flavour of these waters was very familiar +to her lips. The draught was only a little more acrid, a little deeper, +and habit had enabled her to drain the cup without complaining, if not +in a spirit of resignation. To-day she had been betrayed into a brief +outbreak of passion; but the storm had passed, and a more observant +person than Charlotte might have been deceived by her manner. + +"Now you are my own Di again," cried Miss Halliday; somewhat cynical at +the best of times, but always candid and true. + +Miss Paget winced ever so little as her friend said this. + +"No, dear," continued Charlotte, with the faintest spice of coquetry; +"it was not a Yorkshire squire. It was a person you know very well; a +person we have been talking of this morning. O, Di, you must surely +have understood me when I said I wanted you to like him for my sake!" + +"Valentine Hawkehurst!" exclaimed Diana. + +"Who else, you dear obtuse Di!" + +"He was in Yorkshire?" + +"Yes, dear. It was the most wonderful thing that ever happened. He +marched up to Newhall gate one morning in the course of his rambles, +without having the least idea that I was to be found in the +neighbourhood. Wasn't it wonderful?" + +"What could have taken him to Yorkshire?" + +"He came on business." + +"But what business?" + +"How do I know? Some business of papa's, or of George Sheldon's, +perhaps. And yet that can't be. He is writing a book, I think, about +geology or archaeology--yes, that's it, archaeology." + +"Valentine Hawkehurst writing a book on archaeology!" cried Miss Paget. +"You must be dreaming, Charlotte." + +"Why so? He does write, does he not?" + +"He has been reporter for a newspaper. But he is the last person to +write about archaeology. I think there must be some mistake." + +"Well, dear, it may be so. I didn't pay much attention to what he said +about business. It seemed so strange for him to be there, just as much +at home as if he had been one of the family. O, Di, you can't imagine +how kind aunt Dorothy and uncle Joe were to him! They like him so +much--and they know we are engaged." + +Miss Halliday said these last words almost in a whisper. + +"What!" exclaimed Diana, "do you mean to say that you have promised to +marry this man, of whom you know nothing but what is unfavourable?" + +"What do I know in his disfavour? Ah, Diana, how unkind you are! and +what a dislike you must have for poor Valentine! Of course, I know he +is not what people call a good match. A good match means that one is to +have a pair of horses, whose health is so uncertain that I am sure +their lives must be a burden to them, if we may judge by our horses; +and a great many servants, who are always conducting themselves in the +most awful manner, if poor mamma's experience is any criterion; and a +big expensive house, which nobody can be prevailed on to dust. No, Di! +that is just the kind of life I hate. What I should like is a dear +little cottage at Highgate or Wimbledon, and a tiny, tiny garden, in +which Valentine and I could walk every morning before he began his +day's work, and where we could drink tea together on summer evenings--a +garden just large enough to grow a few rose-bushes. O. Di! do you think +I want to marry a rich man?" + +"No, Charlotte; but I should think you would like to marry a good man." + +"Valentine is good. No one but a good man could have been so happy as +he seemed at Newhall farm. That simple country life could not have been +happiness for a bad man." + +"And was Valentine Hawkehurst really happy at Newhall?" + +"Really--really--really! Don't try to shake my faith in him, Diana; it +is not to be shaken. He has told me a little about the past, though I +can see that it pains him very much to speak of it. He has told me of +his friendless youth, spent amongst unprincipled people, and what a +mere waif and stray he was until he met me. And I am to be his +pole-star, dear, to guide him in the right path. Do you know, Di, I +cannot picture to myself anything sweeter than that--to be a good +influence for the person one loves. Valentine says his whole nature has +undergone a change since he has known me. What am I that I should work +so good a change in my dear one? It is very foolish, is it not, Di?" + +"Yes, Charlotte," replied the voice of reason from the lips of Miss +Paget; "it is all foolishness from beginning to end, and I can foresee +nothing but trouble as the result of such folly. What will your mamma +say to such an engagement? or what will Mr. Sheldon say?" + +"Yes, that is the question," returned Charlotte, very seriously. "Dear +mamma is one of the kindest creatures in the world, and I'm sure she +would consent to anything rather than see me unhappy. And then, you +know, she likes Valentine very much, because he has given her orders +for the theatres, and all that kind of thing. But, whatever mamma +thinks, she will be governed by what Mr. Sheldon thinks; and of course +he will be against our marriage." + +"Our marriage!" It was a settled matter, then--a thing that was to be +sooner or later; and there remained only the question as to how and +when it was to be. Diana sat like a statue, enduring her pain. So may +have suffered the Christian martyrs in their death-agony; so suffers a +woman when the one dear hope of her life is reft from her, and she dare +not cry aloud. + +"Mr. Sheldon is the last man in the world to permit such a marriage," +she said presently. + +"Perhaps," replied Charlotte; "but I am not going to sacrifice +Valentine for Mr. Sheldon's pleasure. Mr. Sheldon has full power over +mamma and her fortune, but he has no real authority where I am +concerned. I am as free as air, Diana, and I have not a penny in the +world. Is not that delightful?" + +The girl asked this question in all good faith, looking up at her +friend with a radiant countenance. What irony there was in the question +for Diana Paget, whose whole existence had been poisoned by the lack of +that sterling coin of the realm which seemed such sordid dross in the +eyes of Charlotte! + +"What do you mean, Charlotte?" + +"I mean, that even his worst enemies cannot accuse Valentine of any +mercenary feeling. He does not ask me to marry him for the sake of my +fortune." + +"Does he know your real position?" + +"Most fully. And now, Diana, tell me that you will try to like him, for +my sake, and that you will be kind, and will speak a good word for me +to mamma by-and-by, when I have told her all." + +"When do you mean to tell her?" + +"Directly--or almost directly. I scarcely know how to set about it. I +am sure it has been hard enough to tell you." + +"My poor Charlotte! What an ungrateful wretch I must be!" + +"My dear Diana, you have no reason to be grateful. I love you very +dearly, and I could not live in this house without you. It is I who +have reason to be grateful, when I remember how you bear with mamma's +fidgety ways, and with Mr. Sheldon's gloomy temper, and all for love of +me." + +"Yes, Lotta, for love of you," Miss Paget answered, with a sigh; "and I +will do more than that for love of you." + +She had her arm round her happy rival's beautiful head, and she was +looking down at the sweet upturned face with supreme tenderness. She +felt no anger against this fair enslaver, who had robbed her of her +little lamb. She only felt some touch of anger against the Providence +which had decreed that the lamb should be so taken. + +No suspicion of her friend's secret entered Charlotte Halliday's mind. +In all their intercourse Diana had spoken very little of Valentine; and +in the little she had said there had been always the same half-bitter, +half-disdainful tone. Charlotte, in her simple candour, accepted this +tone as the evidence of Miss Paget's aversion to her father's _protégé_. + +"Poor Di does not like to see her father give so much of his friendship +to a stranger while she is neglected," thought Miss Halliday; and +having once jumped at this conclusion, she made no further effort to +penetrate the mysteries of Diana's mind. + +She was less than ever inclined to speculation about Diana's feelings +now that she was in love, and blest with the sweet consciousness that +her love was returned. Tender and affectionate as she was, she could +not quite escape that taint of egotism which is the ruling vice of +fortunate lovers. Her mind was not wide enough to hold much more than +one image, which demanded so large a space. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MRS. SHELDON ACCEPTS HER DESTINY. + + +Miss Halliday had an interview with her mother that evening in Mrs. +Sheldon's dressing-room, while that lady was preparing for rest, with +considerable elaboration of detail in the way of hair-brushing, and +putting away of neck-ribbons and collars and trinkets in smart little +boxes and handy little drawers, all more or less odorous from the +presence of dainty satin-covered sachets. The sachets, and the drawers, +and boxes, and trinkets were Mrs. Sheldon's best anchorage in this +world. Such things as these were the things that made life worth +endurance for this poor weak little woman; and they were more real to +her than her daughter, because more easy to realise. The beautiful +light-hearted girl was a being whose existence had been always +something of a problem for Georgina Sheldon. She loved her after her +own feeble fashion, and would have jealously asserted her superiority +over every other daughter in the universe; but the power to understand +her or to sympathise with her had not been given to that narrow mind. +The only way in which Mrs. Sheldon's affection showed itself was +unquestioning indulgence and the bestowal of frivolous gifts, chosen +with no special regard to Charlotte's requirements, but rather because +they happened to catch Mrs. Sheldon's eye as they glittered or sparkled +in the windows of Bayswater repositories. + +Mr. Sheldon happened to be dining out on this particular evening. He +was a guest at a great City feast, to which some of the richest men +upon 'Change had been bidden; so Miss Halliday had an excellent +opportunity for making her confession. + +Poor Georgy was not a little startled by the avowal. + +"My darling Lotta!" she screamed, "do you think your papa would ever +consent to such a thing?" + +"I think my dear father would have consented to anything likely to +secure my happiness, mamma," the girl answered sadly. + +She was thinking how different this crisis in her life would have +seemed if the father she had loved so dearly had been spared to counsel +her. + +"I was not thinking of my poor dear first husband," said Georgy. This +numbering of her husbands was always unpleasant to Charlotte. It seemed +such a very business-like mode of description to be applied to the +father she so deeply regretted. + +"I was thinking of your step-papa," continued Mrs. Sheldon. "He would +never consent to your marrying Mr. Hawkehurst, who really seems to have +nothing to recommend him except his good looks and an obliging +disposition with regard to orders for the theatres." + +"I am not bound to consult my stepfather's wishes. I only want to +please you, mamma." + +"But, my dear, I cannot possibly consent to anything that Mr. Sheldon +disapproves." + +"O, mamma, dear kind mamma, do have an opinion of your own for once in +a way! I daresay Mr. Sheldon is the best possible judge of everything +connected with the Stock Exchange and the money-market; but don't let +him choose a husband for me. Let me have your approval, mamma, and I +care for no one else. I don't want to marry against your will. But I am +sure you like Mr. Hawkehurst." + +Mrs. Sheldon shook her head despondingly. + +"It's all very well to like an agreeable young man as an occasional +visitor," she said, "especially when most of one's visitors are +middle-aged City people. But it is a very different thing when one's +only daughter talks of marrying him. I can't imagine what can have put +such an idea as marriage into your head. It is only a few months since +you came home from school; and I fancied that you would have stopped +with me for years before you thought of settling." + +Miss Halliday made a wry face. + +"Dear mamma," she said, "I don't want to 'settle.' That is what one's +housemaid says, isn't it, when she talks of leaving service and +marrying some young man from the baker's or the grocer's? Valentine and +I are not in a hurry to be married. I am sure, for my own part, I don't +care how long our engagement lasts. I only wish to be quite candid and +truthful with you, mamma; and I thought it a kind of duty to tell you +that he loves me, and that--I love him--very dearly." + +These last words were spoken with extreme shyness. + +Mrs. Sheldon laid down her hair-brushes while she contemplated her +daughter's blushing face. Those blushes had become quite a chronic +affection with Miss Halliday of late. + +"But, good gracious me, Charlotte," she exclaimed, growing peevish in +her sense of helplessness, "who is to tell Mr. Sheldon?" + +"There is no necessity for Mr. Sheldon to be enlightened yet awhile, +mamma. It is to you I owe duty and obedience--not to him. Pray keep my +secret, kindest and most indulgent of mothers, and--and ask Valentine +to come and see you now and then." + +"Ask him to come and see me, Charlotte! You must know very well that I +never invite any one to dinner except at Mr. Sheldon's wish. I am sure +I quite tremble at the idea of a dinner. There is such trouble about +the waiting, and such dreadful uncertainty about the cooking. And if +one has it all done by Birch's people, one's cook gives warning next +morning," added poor Georgy, with a dismal recollection of recent +perplexities. "I am sure I often wish myself young again, in the dairy +at Hyley farm, making matrimony cakes for a tea-party, with a ring and +a fourpenny-piece hidden in the middle. I'm sure the Hyley tea-parties +were pleasanter than Mr. Sheldon's dinners, with those solemn City +people, who can't exist without clear turtle and red mullet." + +"Ah, mother dear, our lives were altogether happier in those days. I +delight in the Yorkshire tea-parties, and the matrimony cakes, and all +the talk and laughter about the fourpenny-piece and the ring. I +remember getting the fourpenny-piece at Newhall last year. And that +means that one is to die an old maid, you know. And now I am engaged. +As to the dinners, mamma, Mr. Sheldon may keep them all for himself and +his City friends. Valentine is the last person in the world to care for +clear turtle. If you will let him drop in sometimes of an +afternoon--say once a week or so--when you, and I, and Diana are +sitting at our work in the drawing-room, and if you will let him hand +us our cups at our five-o'clock tea, he will be the happiest of men. He +adores tea. You'll let him come, won't you, dear? O, mamma, I feel just +like a servant who asks to be allowed to see her 'young man.' Will you +let my 'young man' come to tea once in a way?" + +"Well, Charlotte, I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Sheldon, with +increasing helplessness. "It's really a very dreadful position for me +to be placed in." + +"Quite appalling, is it not, mamma? But then I suppose it is a position +that people afflicted with daughters must come to sooner or later." + +"If it were the mere civility of asking him to tea," pursued poor +Georgy, heedless of this flippant interruption, "I'm sure I should be +the last to make any objection. Indeed, I am under a kind of obligation +to Mr. Hawkehurst, for his polite attention has enabled us to go to the +theatres very often when your papa would not have thought of buying +tickets. But then, you see, Lotta, the question in point is not his +coming to our five-o'clock tea--which seems really a perfect mockery to +any one brought up in Yorkshire--but whether you are to be engaged to +him." + +"Dear mamma, _that_ is not a question at all, for I am already engaged +to him." + +"But, Charlotte--" + +"I do not think I could bring myself to disobey you, dear mother," +continued the girl tenderly; "and if you tell me, of your own free +will, and acting on your conviction, that I am not to marry him, I must +bow my head to your decision, however hard it may seem. But one thing +is quite certain, mamma: I have given my promise to Valentine; and if I +do not marry him, I shall never marry at all; and then the dreadful +augury of the fourpenny-piece will be verified." + +Miss Halliday pronounced this determination with a decision of manner +that quite overawed her mother. It had been the habit of Georgy's mind +to make a feeble protest against all the mutations of life, but in the +end to submit very quietly to the inevitable; and since Valentine +Hawkehurst's acceptance as Charlotte's future husband seemed +inevitable, she was fain to submit in this instance also. + +Valentine was allowed to call at the Lawn, and was received with a +feeble, half-plaintive graciousness by the lady of the house. He was +invited to stop for the five-o'clock tea, and availed himself +rapturously of this delightful privilege. His instinct told him what +gentle hand had made the meal so dainty and home-like, and for whose +pleasure the phantasmal pieces of bread-and-butter usually supplied by +the trim parlour-maid had given place to a salver loaded with innocent +delicacies in the way of pound-cake and apricot jam. + +Mr. Hawkehurst did his uttermost to deserve so much indulgence. He +scoured London in search of free admissions for the theatres, hunting +"Ragamuffins" and members of the Cibber Club, and other privileged +creatures, at all their places of resort. He watched for the advent of +novels adapted to Georgy's capacity--lively records of croquet and +dressing and love-making, from smart young Amazons in the literary +ranks, or deeply interesting romances of the sensation school, with at +least nine deaths in the three volumes, and a comic housemaid, or a +contumacious "Buttons," to relieve the gloom by their playful +waggeries. He read Tennyson or Owen Meredith, or carefully selected +"bits" from the works of a younger and wilder bard, while the ladies +worked industriously at their prie-dieu chairs, or Berlin brioches, or +Shetland couvrepieds, as the case might be. The patroness of a fancy +fair would scarcely have smiled approvingly on the novel effects in +_crochet à tricoter_ produced by Miss Halliday during these pleasant +lectures. + +"The rows will come wrong," she said piteously, "and Tennyson's poetry +is so very absorbing!" + +Mr. Hawkehurst showed himself to be possessed of honourable, not to say +delicate, feelings in his new position. The gothic villa was his +paradise, and the gates had been freely opened to admit him whensoever +he chose to come. Georgy was just the sort of person from whom people +take ells after having asked for inches; and once having admitted Mr. +Hawkehurst as a privileged guest, she would have found it very +difficult to place any restriction upon the number of his visits. +Happily for this much-perplexed matron, Charlotte and her lover were +strictly honourable. Mr. Hawkehurst never made his appearance at the +villa more than once in the same week, though the "once a week or so" +asked for by Charlotte might have been stretched to a wider +significance. + +When Valentine obtained orders for the theatre, he sent them by post, +scrupulously refraining from making them the excuse for a visit. + +"That was all very well when I was a freebooter," he said to himself, +"only admitted on sufferance, and liable to have the door shut in my +face any morning. But I am trusted now, and I must prove myself worthy +of my future mother-in-law's confidence. Once a week! One seventh day +of unspeakable happiness--bliss without alloy! The six other days are +very long and dreary. But then they are only the lustreless setting in +which that jewel the seventh shines so gloriously. Now, if I were +Waller, what verses I would sing about my love! Alas, I am only a +commonplace young man, and can find no new words in which to tell the +old sweet story!" + +If the orders for stalls and private boxes were not allowed to serve as +an excuse for visits, they at least necessitated the writing of +letters; and no human being, except a lover, would have been able to +understand why such long letters must needs be written about such a +very small business. The letters secured replies; and when the order +sent was for a box, Mr. Hawkehurst was generally invited to occupy a +seat in it. Ah, what did it matter on those happy nights how hackneyed +the plot of the play, how bald the dialogue, how indifferent the +acting! It was all alike delightful to those two spectators; for a +light that shone neither on earth nor sky brightened everything they +looked on when they sat side by side. + +And during all these pleasant afternoons at the villa, or evenings at +the theatre, Diana Paget had to sit by and witness the happiness which +she had dreamed might some day be hers. It was a part of her duty to be +present on these occasions, and she performed that duty punctiliously. +She might have made excuses for absenting herself, but she was too +proud to make any such excuses. + +"Am I such a coward as to tell a lie in order to avoid a little pain +more or less? If I say I have a headache, and stay in my own room while +he is here, will the afternoon seem any more pleasant or any shorter to +me? The utmost difference would be the difference between a dull pain +and a sharp pain; and I think the sharper agony is easier to bear." +Having argued with herself thus, Miss Paget endured her weekly +martyrdom with Spartan fortitude. + +"What have I lost?" she said to herself, as she stole a furtive glance +now and then at the familiar face of her old companion. "What is this +treasure, the loss of which makes me seem to myself such an abject +wretch? Only the love of a man who at his best is not worthy of this +girl's pure affection, and at his worst must have been unworthy even of +mine. But then at his worst he is dearer to me than the best man who +ever lived upon this earth." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. HAWKEHURST AND MR. GEORGE SHELDON COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING. + + +There was no such thing as idleness for Valentine Hawkehurst during +these happy days of his courtship. The world was his oyster, and that +oyster was yet unopened. For some years he had been hacking and hewing +the shell thereof with the sword of the freebooter, to very little +advantageous effect. He now set himself seriously to work with the +pickaxe of the steady-going labourer. He was a secessionist from the +great army of adventurers. He wanted to enrol himself in the ranks of +the respectable, the plodders, the ratepayers, the simple citizens who +love their wives and children, and go to their parish church on +Sundays. He had an incentive to steady industry, which had hitherto +been wanting in his life. He was beloved, and any shame that came to +him would be a still more bitter humiliation for the woman who loved +him. + +He felt that the very first step in the difficult path of +respectability would be a step that must separate him from Captain +Paget; but just now separation from that gentleman seemed scarcely +advisable. If there was any mischief in that Ullerton expedition, any +collusion between the Captain and the Reverend Goodge, it would +assuredly be well for Valentine to continue a mode of life which +enabled him to be tolerably well informed as to the movements of the +slippery Horatio. In all the outside positions of life expedience must +ever be the governing principle, and expedience forbade any immediate +break with Captain Paget. + +"Whatever you do, keep your eye upon the Captain," said George Sheldon, +in one of many interviews, all bearing upon the Haygarth succession. +"If there is any underhand work going on between him and Philip, you +must be uncommonly slow of perception if you can't ferret it out. I'm +very sorry you met Charlotte Halliday in the north, for of course Phil +must have heard of your appearance in Yorkshire, and that will set him +wondering at any rate, especially as he will no doubt have heard the +Dorking story from Paget. He pretended he saw you leave town the day +you went to Ullerton, but I am half inclined to believe that was only a +trap." + +"I don't think Mr. Sheldon has heard of my appearance in Yorkshire yet." + +"Indeed! Miss Charlotte doesn't care to make a confidant of her +stepfather, I suppose. Keep her in that mind, Hawkehurst. If you play +your cards well, you ought to be able to get her to marry you on the +quiet." + +"I don't think that would be possible. In fact, I am sure +Charlotte would not marry without her mother's consent," answered +Valentine, thoughtfully. + +"And of course that means my brother Philip's consent," exclaimed +George Sheldon, with contemptuous impatience. "What a slow, bungling +fellow you are, Hawkehurst! Here is an immense fortune waiting for you, +and a pretty girl in love with you, and you dawdle and deliberate as if +you were going to the dentist's to have a tooth drawn. You've fallen +into a position that any man in London might envy, and you don't seem +to have the smallest capability of appreciating your good luck." + +"Well, perhaps I am rather slow to realise the idea of my good +fortune," answered Valentine, still very thoughtfully. "You see, in the +first place, I can't get over a shadowy kind of feeling with regard to +that Haygarthian fortune. It is too far away from my grasp, too large, +too much of the stuff that dreams and novels are made of. And, in the +second place, I love Miss Halliday so fondly and so truly that I don't +like the notion of making my marriage with her any part of the bargain +between you and me." + +Mr. Sheldon contemplated his confederate with unmitigated disdain. +"Don't try that sort of thing with me, Hawkehurst," he said; "that +sentimental dodge may answer very well with some men, but I'm about the +last to be taken in by it. You are playing fast-and-loose with me, and +you want to throw me over--as my brother Phil would throw me over, if +he got the chance." + +"I am not playing fast-and-loose with you," replied Valentine, too +disdainful of Mr. Sheldon for indignation. "I have worked for you +faithfully, and kept your secret honourably, when I had every +temptation to reveal it. You drove your bargain with me, and I have +performed my share of the bargain to the letter. But if you think I am +going to drive a bargain with you about my marriage with Miss Halliday, +you are very much mistaken. That lady will marry me when she pleases, +but she shall not be entrapped into a clandestine marriage for your +convenience." + +"O, that's your ultimatum, is it, Mr. Joseph Surface?" said the +lawyer, biting his nails fiercely, and looking askant at his +ally, with angry eyes. "I wonder you don't wind up by saying that the +man who could trade upon a virtuous woman's affection for the +advancement of his fortune, deserves to--get it hot, as our modern +slang has it. Then I am to understand that you decline to precipitate +matters?" + +"I most certainly do." + +"And the Haygarth business is to remain in abeyance while Miss Halliday +goes through the tedious formula of a sentimental courtship?" + +"I suppose so." + +"Humph! that's pleasant for me." + +"Why should you make the advancement of Miss Halliday's claims +contingent on her marriage? Why not assert her rights at once?" + +"Because I will not trust my brother Philip. The day that you show me +the certificate of your marriage with Charlotte Halliday is the day on +which I shall make my first move in this business. I told you the other +day that I would rather make a bargain with you than with my brother." + +"And what kind of bargain do you expect to make with me when Miss +Halliday is my wife?" + +"I'll tell you, Valentine Hawkehurst," replied the lawyer, squaring his +elbows upon his desk in his favourite attitude, and looking across the +table at his coadjutor; "I like to be open and above-board when I can, +and I'll be plain with you in this matter. I want a clear half of John +Haygarth's fortune, and I think that I've a very fair claim to that +amount. The money can only be obtained by means of the documents in my +possession, and but for me that money might have remained till doomsday +unclaimed and unthought of by the descendant of Matthew Haygarth. Look +at it which way you will, I think you'll allow that my demand is a just +one." + +"I don't say that it is unjust, though it certainly seems a little +extortionate," replied Valentine. "However, if Charlotte were my wife, +and were willing to cede half the fortune, I'm not the man to dispute +the amount of your reward. When the time comes for bargain-driving, +you'll not find me a difficult person to deal with. + +"And when may I expect your marriage with Miss Halliday?" asked George +Sheldon, rapping his hard finger-nails upon the table with suppressed +impatience. "Since you elect to conduct matters in the grand style, and +must wait for mamma's consent and papa's consent, and goodness knows +what else in the way of absurdity, I suppose the delay will be for an +indefinite space of time." + +"I don't know about that. I'm not likely to put off the hour in which +I shall call that dear girl my own. I asked her to be my wife before I +knew that she had the blood of Matthew Haygarth in her veins, and the +knowledge of her claim to this fortune does not make her one whit the +dearer to me, penniless adventurer as I am. If poetry were at all in +your line, Mr. Sheldon, you might know that a man's love for a good +woman is generally better than himself. He may be a knave and a +scoundrel, and yet his love for that one perfect creature may be almost +as pure and perfect as herself. That's a psychological mystery out of +the way of Gray's Inn, isn't it?" + +"If you'll oblige me by talking common sense for about five minutes, +you may devote your powerful intellect to the consideration of +psychological mysteries for a month at a stretch," exclaimed the +aggravated lawyer. + +"O, don't you see how I struggle to be hard-headed and practical!" +cried Valentine; "but a man who is over head and ears in love finds it +rather hard to bring all his ideas to the one infallible grindstone. +You ask me when I am to marry Charlotte Halliday. To-morrow, if our +Fates smile upon us. Mrs. Sheldon knows of our engagement, and consents +to it, but in some manner under protest. I am not to take my dear girl +away from her mother for some time to come. The engagement is to be a +long one. In the mean time I am working hard to gain some kind of +position in literature, for I want to be sure of an income before I +marry, without reference to John Haygarth; and I am a privileged guest +at the villa." + +"But my brother Phil has been told nothing?" + +"As yet nothing. My visits are paid while he is in the City; and as I +often went to the villa before my engagement, he is not likely to +suspect anything when he happens to hear my name mentioned as a +visitor." + +"And do you really think he is in the dark--my brother Philip, who can +turn a man's brains inside out in half an hour's conversation? Mark my +words, Valentine Hawkehurst, that man is only playing with you as a cat +plays with a mouse. He used to see you and Charlotte together before +you went to Yorkshire, and he must have seen the state of the case +quite as plainly as I saw it. He has heard of your visits to the villa +since your return, and has kept a close account of them, and made his +own deductions, depend upon it. And some day, while you and pretty Miss +Charlotte are enjoying your fool's paradise, he will pounce upon you +just as puss pounces on poor mousy." + +This was rather alarming, and Valentine felt that it was very likely to +be correct. + +"Mr. Sheldon may play the part of puss as he pleases," he replied after +a brief pause for deliberation; "this is a case in which he dare not +show his claws. He has no authority to control Miss Halliday's actions." + +"Perhaps not, but he would find means for preventing her marriage if it +was to his interest to do so. He is not _your_ brother, you see, Mr. +Hawkehurst; but he is mine, and I know a good deal about him. His +interest may not be concerned in hindering his stepdaughter's marriage +with a penniless scapegrace. He may possibly prefer such a bridegroom +as less likely to make himself obnoxious by putting awkward questions +about poor Tom Halliday's money, every sixpence of which he means to +keep, of course. If his cards are packed for that kind of marriage, +he'll welcome you to his arms as a son-in-law, and give you his +benediction as well as his stepdaughter. So I think if you can contrive +to inform him of your engagement, without letting him know of your +visit to Yorkshire, it might be a stroke of diplomacy. He might be glad +to get rid of the girl, and might hasten on the marriage of his own +volition." + +"He might be glad to get rid of the girl." In the ears of Valentine +Hawkehurst this sounded rank blasphemy. Could there be any one upon +this earth, even a Sheldon, incapable of appreciating the privilege of +that divine creature's presence? + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +MR. SHELDON IS PROPITIOUS + + +It was not very long before Valentine Hawkehurst had reason to respect +the wisdom of his legal patron. Within a few days of his interview with +George Sheldon he paid his weekly visit to the villa. Things were going +very well with him, and life altogether seemed brighter than he had +ever hoped to find it. He had set himself steadily to work to win some +kind of position in literature. He devoted his days to diligent study +in the reading-room of the British Museum, his nights to writing for +the magazines. His acquaintance with press-men had stood him in good +stead; and already he had secured the prompt acceptance of his work in +more than one direction. The young _littérateur_ of the present day has +not such a very hard fight for a livelihood, if his pen has only a +certain lightness and dash, a rattling vivacity and airy grace. It is +only the marvellous boys who come to London with epic poems, +Anglo-Saxon tragedies, or metaphysical treatises in their portmanteaus, +who must needs perish in their prime, or stoop to the drudgery of +office or counting-house. + +Valentine Hawkehurst had no vague yearnings after the fame of a Milton, +no inner consciousness that he had been born to stamp out the +footprints of Shakespeare on the sands of time, no unhealthy hungering +after the gloomy grandeur of Byron. He had been brought up amongst +people who treated literature as a trade as well as an art;--and what +art is not more or less a trade? He knew the state of the market, and +what kind of goods were likely to go off briskly, and it was for the +market he worked. When gray shirtings were in active demand, he set his +loom for gray shirtings; and when the buyers clamoured for fancy goods, +he made haste to produce that class of fabrics. In this he proved +himself a very low-minded and ignominious creature, no doubt; but was +not one Oliver Goldsmith glad to take any order which good Mr. Newberry +might give him, only writing the "Traveller" and the story of Parson +Primrose _pour se distraire_? + +Love lent wings to the young essayist's pen. It is to be feared that in +roving among those shelves in Great Russell-street he showed himself +something of a freebooter, taking his "bien" wherever it was to be +found; but did not Molière frankly acknowledge the same practice? Mr. +Hawkehurst wrote about anything and everything. His brain must needs be +a gigantic storehouse of information, thought the respectful reader. He +skipped from Pericles to Cromwell, from Cleopatra to Mary Stuart, from +Sappho to Madame de Sablé; and he wrote of these departed spirits with +such a charming impertinence, with such a delicious affectation of +intimacy, that one would have thought he had sat by Cleopatra as she +melted her pearls, and stood amongst the audience of Pericles when he +pronounced his funeral oration. "With the De Sablé and the Chevreuse, +Ninon and Marion, Maintenon and La Vallière, Anne of Austria and the +great Mademoiselle of France, he seemed to have lived in daily +companionship, so amply did he expatiate upon the smallest details of +their existences, so tenderly did he dwell on their vanished beauties, +their unforgotten graces." + +The work was light and pleasant; and the monthly cheques from the +proprietors of a couple of rival periodicals promised to amount to the +income which the adventurer had sighed for as he trod the Yorkshire +moorland. He had asked Destiny to give him Charlotte Halliday and three +hundred a year, and lo! while yet the wish was new, both these +blessings seemed within his grasp. It could scarcely be a matter for +repining it the Fates should choose to throw in an odd fifty thousand +pounds or so. + +But was not all this something too much of happiness for a man whose +feet had trodden in evil ways? Were not the Fates mocking this +travel-stained wayfarer with bright glimpses of a paradise whose gates +he was never to pass? + +This was the question which Valentine Hawkehurst was fain to ask +himself sometimes; this doubt was the shadow which sometimes made a +sudden darkness that obscured the sunshine. + +Happily for Charlotte's true lover, the shadow did not often come +between him and the light of those dear eyes which were his pole-stars. + +The December days were shortening as the year drew to its close, and +afternoon tea seemed more than ever delightful to Charlotte and her +betrothed, now that it could be enjoyed in the mysterious half light; a +glimmer of chill gray day looking coldly in at the unshrouded window +like some ghostly watcher envying these mortals their happiness, and +the red glow of the low fire reflected upon every curve and facet of +the shining steel grate. + +To sit by the fire at five o'clock in the afternoon, watching the +changeful light upon Charlotte's face, the rosy glow that seemed to +linger caressingly on broad low brow and sweet ripe lips, the deep +shadows that darkened eyes and hair, was bliss unspeakable for Mr. +Hawkehurst. The lovers talked the prettiest nonsense to each other, +while Mrs. Sheldon dozed placidly behind the friendly shelter of a +banner-screen hooked on to the chimney-piece, or conversed with Diana +in a monotonous undertone, solemnly debating the relative wisdom of +dyeing or turning in relation to a faded silk dress. + +Upon one special evening Valentine lingered just a little longer than +usual. Christmas was near at hand, and the young man had brought his +liege lady tribute in the shape of a bundle of Christmas literature. +Tennyson had been laid aside in favour of the genial Christmas fare, +which had the one fault, that it came a fortnight before the jovial +season, and in a manner fore-stalled the delights of that time-honoured +period, making the season itself seem flat and dull, and turkey and +plum-pudding the stalest commodities in the world when they did come. +How, indeed, can a man do full justice to his aunt Tabitha's +plum-pudding, or his uncle Joe's renowned rum-punch, if he has quaffed +the steaming-bowl with the "Seven Poor Travellers," or eaten his +Christmas dinner at the "Kiddleawink" a fortnight beforehand? Are not +the chief pleasures of life joys as perishable as the bloom on a peach +or the freshness of a rose? + +Valentine had read the ghastliest of ghost-stories, and the most +humorous of word-pictures, for the benefit of the audience in Mrs. +Sheldon's drawing-room; and now, after tea, they sat by the fire +talking of the ghost-story, and discussing that unanswerable question +about the possibility of such spiritual appearances, which seems to +have been debated ever since the world began. + +"Dr. Johnson believed in ghosts," said Valentine. + +"O, please spare us Dr. Johnson," cried Charlotte, with seriocomic +intensity. "What is it that obliges magazine-writers to be perpetually +talking about Dr. Johnson? If they must dig up persons from the past, +why can't they dig up newer persons than that poor ill-used doctor?" + +The door opened with a hoarse groan, and Mr. Sheldon came into the room +while Miss Halliday was making her playful protest. She stopped, +somewhat confused by that sudden entrance. + +There is a statue of the Commandant in every house, at whose coming +hearts grow cold and lips are suddenly silent. It was the first time +that the master of the villa had interrupted one of these friendly +afternoon teas, and Mrs. Sheldon and her daughter felt that a domestic +crisis was at hand. + +"How's this?" cried the stockbroker's strong hard voice; "you seem all +in the dark." + +He took a wax-match from a little gilt stand on the mantelpiece and +lighted two flaring lamps. He was the sort of man who is always eager +to light the gas when people are sitting in the gloaming, meditative +and poetical. He let the broad glare of common sense in upon their +foolish musings, and scared away Robin Goodfellow and the fairies by +means of the Western Gaslight Company's illuminating medium. + +The light of those two flaring jets of gas revealed Charlotte Halliday +looking shyly at the roses on the carpet, and trifling nervously with +one of the show-books on the table. The same light revealed Valentine +Hawkehurst standing by the young lady's chair, and looking at Mr. +Sheldon with a boldness of countenance that was almost defiance. Poor +Georgy's face peered out from behind her favourite banner-screen, +looking from one to the other in evident alarm. Diana sat in her +accustomed corner, watchful, expectant, awaiting the domestic storm. + +To the surprise of every one except Mr. Sheldon, there was no storm, +not even the lightest breeze that ever blew in domestic hemispheres. +The stockbroker saluted his stepdaughter with a friendly nod, and +greeted her lover with a significant grin. + +"How d'ye do, Hawkehurst?" he said, in his pleasantest manner. "It's an +age since I've seen you. You're going in for literature, I hear; and a +very good thing too, if you can make it pay. I understand there are +some fellows who really do make that sort of thing pay. Seen my brother +George lately? Yes, I suppose you and George are quite a Damon and +What's-his-name. You're going to dine here to-night, of course? I +suppose we may go in to dinner at once, eh, Georgy?--it's half-past +six." + +Mr. Hawkehurst made some faint pretence of having a particular +engagement elsewhere; for, supposing Sheldon to be unconscious, he +scorned to profit by that gentleman's ignorance. And then, having +faltered his refusal, he looked at Charlotte, and Charlotte's eyes +cried "Stay," as plainly as such lovely eyes can speak. So the end of +it was, that he stayed and partook of the Sheldonian crimped skate, and +the Sheldonian roast-beef and tapioca-pudding, and tasted some especial +Moselle, which, out of the kindliness of his nature, Mr. Sheldon opened +for his stepdaughter's betrothed. + +After dinner there were oranges and crisp uncompromising biscuits, that +made an explosive noise like the breaking of windows whenever any one +ventured to tamper with them; item, a decanter of sherry in a silver +stand; item, a decanter of port, which Mr. Sheldon declared to be +something almost too good to be drunk, and to the merits of which +Valentine was supremely indifferent. The young man would fain have +followed his delight when she accompanied her mamma and Diana to the +drawing-room; but Mr. Sheldon detained him. + +"I want a few words with you, Hawkehurst," he said; and Charlotte's +cheeks flamed red as peonies at sound of this alarming sentence. "You +shall go after the ladies presently, and they shall torture that poor +little piano to their hearts' delight for your edification. I won't +detain you many minutes. You had really better try that port." + +Valentine closed the door upon the departing ladies, and went back to +his seat very submissively. If there were any battle to be fought out +between him and Philip Sheldon, the sooner the trumpet sounded to arms +the better. + +"His remarkable civility almost inclines me to think that he does +really want to get rid of that dear girl," Valentine said to himself, +as he filled his glass and gravely awaited Mr. Sheldon's pleasure. + +"Now then, my dear Hawkehurst," began that gentleman, squaring himself +in his comfortable arm-chair, and extending his legs before the cheery +fire, "let us have a little friendly chat. I am not given to beating +about the bush, you know, and whatever I have to say I shall say in +very plain words. In the first place, I hope you have not so poor an +opinion of my perceptive faculties as to suppose that I don't see what +is going on between you and Miss Lotta yonder." + +"My dear Mr. Sheldon, I--" + +"Hear what I have to say first, and make your protestations afterwards. +You needn't be alarmed; you won't find me quite as bad as the +stepmother one reads about in the story-books, who puts her +stepdaughter into a pie, and all that kind of thing. I suppose +stepfathers have been a very estimable class, by the way, as it is the +stepmother who always drops in for it in the story-books. You'll find +me very easy to deal with, Mr. Hawkehurst, always provided that you +deal in a fair and honourable manner." + +"I have no wish to be underhand in my dealings," Valentine said boldly. +And indeed this was the truth. His inclination prompted him to candour, +even with Mr. Sheldon; but that fatal necessity which is the governing +principle of the adventurer's life obliged him to employ the arts of +finesse. + +"Good," cried Mr. Sheldon, in the cheery, pleasant tone of an +easy-going man of the world, who is not too worldly to perform a +generous action once in a way. "All I ask is frankness. You and +Charlotte have fallen in love with one another--why, I can't imagine, +except on the hypothesis that a decent-looking young woman and a +decent-looking young man can't meet half a dozen times without +beginning to think of Gretna-green, or St. George's, Hanover-square. Of +course a marriage with you, looked at from a common-sense point of +view, would be about the worst thing that could happen to my wife's +daughter. She's a very fine girl" (a man of the Sheldonian type would +call Aphrodité herself a fine girl), "and might marry some awfully rich +City swell with vineries and pineries and succession-houses at +Tulse-hill or Highgate, if I chose to put her in the way of that sort +of thing. But then, you see, the worst of it is, a man seldom comes to +vineries and pineries at Tulse-hill till he is on the shady side of +forty; and as I am not in favour of mercenary marriages, I don't care +to force any of my City connection upon poor Lotta. In the +neighbourhood of the Stock Exchange there is no sharper man of business +than your humble servant; but I don't care to bring business habits to +Bayswater. Long before Lotta left school, I had made up my mind never +to come between her and her own inclination in the matrimonial line; +therefore, if she truly and honestly loves you, and if you truly and +honestly love her, I am not the man to forbid the bans." + +"My dear Mr. Sheldon, how shall I ever thank you for this!" cried +Valentine, surprised into a belief in the purity of the stockbroker's +intentions. + +"Don't be in a hurry," replied that gentleman coolly; "you haven't +heard me out yet. Though I may consent to take the very opposite line +of conduct which I might be expected to take as a man of the world, I +am not going to allow you and Charlotte to make fools of yourselves. +There must be no love-in-a-cottage business, no marrying on nothing a +year, with the expectation that papa and mamma will make up the +difference between that and a comfortable income. In plain English, if +I consent to receive you as Charlotte's future husband, you and she +must consent to wait until you can, to my entire satisfaction, prove +yourself in a position to keep a wife." Valentine sighed doubtfully. + +"I don't think either Miss Halliday or I are in an unreasonable hurry +to begin life together," he said thoughtfully; "but there must be some +fixed limit to our probation. I am afraid the waiting will be a very +long business, if I am to obtain a position that will satisfy you +before I ask my dear girl to share my fate." + +"Are your prospects so very black?" + +"No; to my mind they seem wonderfully bright. But the earnings of a +magazine-writer will scarcely come up to your idea of an independence. +Just now I am getting about ten pounds a month. With industry, I may +stretch that ten to twenty; and with luck I might make the twenty into +thirty--forty--fifty. A man has only to achieve something like a +reputation in order to make a handsome living by his pen." + +"I am very glad to hear that," said Mr. Sheldon; "and when you can +fairly demonstrate to me that you are earning thirty pounds a month, +you shall have my consent to your marriage with Charlotte, and I will +do what I can to give you a fair start in life. I suppose you know that +she hasn't a sixpence in the world, that she can call her own?" + +This was a trying question for Valentine Hawkehurst, and Mr. Sheldon +looked at him with a sharp scrutinising glance as he awaited a reply. +The young man flushed crimson, and grew pale again before he spoke. + +"Yes," he said, "I have long been aware that Miss Halliday has no legal +claim on her father's fortune." + +"There you have hit the mark," cried Mr. Sheldon. "She has no claim to +a sixpence in law; but to an honourable man that is not the question. +Poor Halliday's money amounted in all to something like eighteen +thousand pounds. That sum passed into my possession when I married my +poor friend's widow, who had too much respect for me to hamper my +position as a man of business by any legal restraints that would have +hindered my making the wisest use of her money. I have used that money, +and I need scarcely tell you that I have employed it with considerable +advantage to myself and Georgy. I therefore can afford to be generous, +and I mean to be so; but the manner in which I do things must be of my +own choosing. My own children are dead, and there is no one belonging +to me that stands in Miss Halliday's way. When I die she will inherit +a handsome fortune. And if she marries with my approval, I shall +present her with a very comfortable dowry. I think you will allow that +this is fair enough." + +"Nothing could be fairer or more generous," replied Valentine with +enthusiasm. + +Mr. Sheldon's agreeable candour had entirely subjugated him. Despite of +all that George had said to his brother's prejudice, he was ready to +believe implicitly in Philip's fair dealing. + +"And in return for this I ask something on your part," said Mr. +Sheldon. "I want you to give me your promise that you will take no +serious step without my knowledge. You won't steal a march upon me. You +won't walk off with Charlotte some fine morning and marry her at a +registry-office, or anything of that kind, eh?" + +"I will not," answered Valentine resolutely, with a very unpleasant +recollection of his dealings with George Sheldon. + +"Give me your hand upon that," cried the stockbroker. + +Upon this the two men shook hands, and Valentine's fingers were almost +crushed in the cold hard grip of Mr. Sheldon's muscular hand. And now +there came upon Valentine's ear the sound of one of Mendelssohn's +_Lieder ohne Worte_, tenderly played by the gentle hands he knew so +well. And the lover began to feel that he could no longer sit sipping +the stockbroker's port with a hypocritical pretence of appreciation, +and roasting himself before the blazing fire, the heat whereof was +multiplied to an insufferable degree by grate and fender of reflecting +steel. + +Mr. Sheldon was not slow to perceive his guest's impatience, and having +made exactly the impression he wanted to make, was quite willing that +the interview should come to an end. + +"You had better be off to the drawing-room," he said, good naturedly; +"I see you are in that stage of the fever in which masculine society is +only a bore. You can go and hear Charlotte play, while I read the +evening papers and write a few letters. You can let her know that you +and I understand each other. Of course we shall see you very often. +You'll eat your Christmas turkey with us, and so on; and I shall trust +to your honour for the safe keeping of that promise you made me just +now," said Mr. Sheldon. + +"And I shall keep an uncommonly close watch upon you and the young +lady, my friend," added that gentleman, communing with his own thoughts +as he crossed the smart little hall, where two Birmingham iron knights +in chain armour bestrode their gallant chargers, on two small tables of +sham malachite. + +Mr. Sheldon's library was not a very inspiring apartment. His ideas of +a _sanctum sanctorum_ did not soar above the commonplace. A decent +square room, furnished with plenty of pigeon-holes, a neat brass scale +for the weighing of letters, a copying-press, a waste-paper basket, a +stout brass-mounted office inkstand capable of holding a quart or so of +ink, and a Post-office Directory, were all he asked for his hours of +leisure and meditation. In a handsome glazed bookcase, opposite his +writing-table, appeared a richly-bound edition of the _Waverley_ +_Novels_, Knight's _Shakespeare_, Hume and Smollett, Fielding, +Goldsmith, and Gibbon; but, except when Georgy dusted the sacred +volumes with her own fair hands, the glass doors of the bookcase were +never opened. + +Mr. Sheldon turned on the gas, seated himself at his comfortable +writing-table, and took up his pen. A quire of office note-paper, with +his City address upon it, lay ready beneath his hand; but he did not +begin to write immediately. He sat for some time with his elbows on the +table, and his chin in his hands, meditating with dark fixed brows. + +"Can I trust her?" he asked himself. "Is it safe to have her near +me--after--after what she said to me in Fitzgeorge-street? Yes, I think +I can trust her, up to a certain point; but beyond that I must be on my +guard. She might be more dangerous than a stranger. One thing is quite +clear--she must be provided for somehow or other. The question is, +whether she is to be provided for in this house or out of it; and +whether I can make her serve me as I want to be served?" + +This was the gist of Mr. Sheldon's meditations; but they lasted for +some time. The question which he had to settle was an important one, +and he was too wise a man not to contemplate a subject from every +possible point of sight before arriving at his decision. He took a +letter-clip from one side of his table, and turned over several open +letters in search of some particular document. + +He came at last to the letter he wanted. It was written on very common +note-paper, with brown-looking ink, and the penmanship was evidently +that of an uneducated person; but Mr. Sheldon studied its contents with +the air of a man who is dealing with no unimportant missive. + +This was the letter which so deeply interested the stockbroker:-- + + +"HONORED SIR--This coms hopping that You and Your Honored ladie are +well has it leevs me tho nott so strong has i coud wish wich his nott +too bee expect at my time off life my pore neffew was tooke with the +tyfus last tewsday weak was giv over on thirsday and we hav berried him +at kensil grean Honored Mr. Sheldon I hav now no home my pore neece +must go hout into survis. Luckly there har no Childring and the pore +gurl can gett hur living as housmade wich she were in survis hat hi +gate befor she marrid my pore Joseff Honored sir i ham trewly sorry too +trubbel you butt i think for hold times you will forgiv the libertey +off this letter i would nott hintrewd on you iff i had enny frend to +help me in my old aig, + +"Your obeddient survent." + +"17 Litle Tottles-yarde lambeft." + +AN WOOLPER + + +"No friend to help her in her old age," muttered Mr. Sheldon; "that +means that she intends to throw herself upon me for the rest of her +life, and to put me to the expense of burying her when she is so +obliging as to die. Very pleasant, upon my word! A man has a servant in +the days of his poverty, pays her every fraction he owes her in the +shape of wages, and wishes her good speed when she goes to settle down +among her relations; and one fine morning, when he has got into a +decent position, she writes to inform him that her nephew is dead, and +that she expects him to provide for her forthwith. That is the gist of +Mrs. Woolper's letter; and if it were not for one or two +considerations, I should be very much inclined to take a business-like +view of the case, and refer the lady to her parish. What are poor-rates +intended for, I should like to know, if a man who pays +four-and-twopence in the pound is to be pestered in this sort of way?" + +And then Mr. Sheldon, having given vent to his vexation by such +reflections as these, set himself to examine the matter in another +light. + +"I must manage to keep sweet with Nancy Woolper somehow or other, +that's very clear; for a chattering old woman is about as dangerous an +enemy as a man can have. I might provide for her decently enough out of +doors for something like a pound a week; and that would be a cheap +enough way of paying off all old scores. But I'm not quite clear that +it would be a safe way. A life of idleness might develop Mrs. Woolper's +latent propensity for gossip--and gossip is what I want to avoid. No, +that plan won't do." + +For some moments Mr. Sheldon meditated silently, with his brows fixed +even more sternly than before. Then he struck his hand suddenly on the +morocco-covered table, and uttered his thoughts aloud. + +"I'll risk it," he said; "she shall come into the house and serve my +interests by keeping a sharp watch upon Charlotte Halliday. There shall +be no secret marriage between those two. No, my friend Valentine, you +may be a very clever fellow, but you are not quite clever enough to +steal a march upon me." + +Having arrived at this conclusion, Mr. Sheldon wrote a few lines to +Nancy Woolper, telling her to call upon him at the Lawn. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +MR. SHELDON IS BENEVOLENT. + + +Nancy Woolper had lost little of her activity during the ten years that +had gone by since she received her wages from Mr. Sheldon, on his +breaking up his establishment in Fitzgeorge-street. Her master had +given her the opportunity of remaining in his service, had she so +pleased; but Mrs. Woolper was a person of independent, not to say +haughty, spirit, and she had preferred to join her small fortunes with +those of a nephew who was about to begin business as a chandler and +general dealer in a very small way, rather than to submit herself to +the sway of that lady whom she insisted on calling Miss Georgy. + +"It's so long since I've been used to a missus," she said, when +announcing her decision to Mr. Sheldon, "I doubt if I could do with +Miss Georgy's finnickin ways. I should feel tewed like, if she came +into the kitchen, worritin' and asking questions. I've been used to my +own ways, and I don't suppose I could do with hers." + +So Nancy departed, to enter on a career of unpaid drudgery in the +household of her kinsman, and to lose the last shilling of her small +savings in the futile endeavour to sustain the fortunes of the general +dealer. His death, following very speedily upon his insolvency, left +the poor soul quite adrift; and in this extremity she had been fain to +make her appeal to Mr. Sheldon. His reply came in due course, but not +without upwards of a week's delay; during which time Nancy Woolper's +spirits sank very low, while a dreary vision of a living grave--called +a workhouse--loomed more and more darkly upon her poor old eyes. She +had well-nigh given up all hope of succour from her old master when the +letter came, and she was the more inclined to be grateful for very +small help after this interval of suspense. It was not without strong +emotion that Mrs. Woolper obeyed her old master's summons. She had +nursed the hard, cold man of the world whom she was going to see once +more, after ten years of severance; and though it was more difficult +for her to imagine that Philip Sheldon, the stockbroker, was the same +Philip she had carried in her stout arms, and hushed upon her breast +forty years ago, than it would have been to fancy the dead who had +lived in those days restored to life and walking by her side, still, +she could not forget that such things had been, and could not refrain +from looking at her master with more loving eyes because of that memory. + +A strange dark cloud had arisen between her and her master's image +during the latter part of her service in Fitzgeorge-street; but, little +by little, the cloud had melted away, leaving the familiar image clear +and unshadowed as of old. She had suffered her mind to be filled by a +suspicion so monstrous, that for a time it held her as by some fatal +spell; but with reflection came the assurance that this thing could not +be. Day by day she saw the man whom she had suspected going about the +common business of life, coldly serene of aspect, untroubled of manner, +confronting fortune with his head erect, living quietly in the house +where he had been wont to live, haunted by no dismal shadows, subject +to no dark hours of remorse, no sudden access of despair, always +equable, business-like, and untroubled; and she told herself that such +a man could not be guilty of the unutterable horror she had imagined. + +For a year things had gone on thus, and then came the marriage with +Mrs. Halliday. Mr. Sheldon went down to Barlingford for the performance +of that interesting ceremony; and Nancy Woolper bade farewell to the +house in Fitzgeorge-street, and handed the key to the agent, who was to +deliver it in due course to Mr. Sheldon's successor. + +To-day, after a lapse of more than ten years, Mrs. Woolper sat in the +stockbroker's study, facing the scrutinising gaze of those bright black +eyes, which had been familiar to her of old, and which had lost none of +their cold glitter in the wear and tear of life. + +"Then you think you can be of some use in the house, as a kind of +overlooker of the other servants, eh, Nancy--to prevent waste, and +gadding out of doors, and so on?" said Mr. Sheldon, interrogatively. + +"Ay, sure, that I can, Mr. Philip," answered the old woman promptly; +"and if I don't save you more money than I cost you, the sooner you +turn me out o' doors the better. I know what London servants are, and I +know their ways; and if Miss Georgy doesn't take to the housekeeping, I +know as how things must be hugger-mugger-like below stairs, however +smart and tidy things may be above." + +"Mrs. Sheldon knows about as much of housekeeping as a baby," replied +Philip, with supreme contempt. "She'll not interfere with you; and if +you serve me faithfully--" + +"That I allers did, Mr. Philip." + +"Yes, yes; I daresay you did. But I want faithful service in the future +as well as in the past. Of course you know that I have a stepdaughter?" + +"Tom Halliday's little girl, as went to school at Scarborough." + +"The same. But poor Tom's little girl is now a fine young woman, and a +source of considerable anxiety to me. I am bound to say she is an +excellent girl--amiable, obedient, and all that kind of thing; but she +is a girl, and I freely confess that I am not learned in the ways of +girls; and I'm very much inclined to be afraid of them." + +"As how, sir?" + +"Well, you see, Nancy, they come home from school with their silly +heads full of romantic stuff, fit for nothing but to read novels and +strum upon the piano; and before you know where you are, they fall over +head and ears in love with the first decent-looking young man who pays +them a compliment. At least, that's my experience." + +"Meaning Miss Halliday, sir?" asked Nancy, simply. "Has she fallen in +love with some young chap?" + +"She has, and with a young chap who is not yet in a position to support +a wife. Now, if this girl were my own child, I should decidedly set my +face against this marriage; but as she is only my stepdaughter, I wash +my hands of all responsibility in the matter. 'Marry the man you have +chosen, my dear,' say I; 'all I ask is, that you don't marry him until +he can give you a comfortable home.' 'Very well, papa,' says my young +lady in her most dutiful manner, and 'Very well, sir,' says my young +gentleman; and they both declare themselves agreeable to any amount of +delay, provided the marriage comes off some time between this and +doomsday." + +"Well, sir?" asked Nancy, rather at a loss to understand why Philip +Sheldon, the closest and most reserved of men, should happen to be so +confidential to-day. + +"Well, Nancy, what I want to prevent is any underhand work. I know what +very limited notions of honour young men are apt to entertain nowadays, +and how intensely foolish a boarding-school miss can be on occasion. I +don't want these young people to run off to Gretna-green some fine +morning, or to steal a march upon me by getting married on the sly at +some out-of-the-way church, after having invested their united fortunes +in the purchase of a special license. In plain words, I distrust Miss +Halliday's lover, and I distrust Miss Halliday's common sense; and I +want to have a sensible, sharp-eyed person in the house always on the +look-out for any kind of danger, and able to protect my stepdaughter's +interests as well as my own." + +"But the young lady's mamma, sir--she would look after her daughter, I +suppose?" + +"Her mamma is foolishly indulgent, and about as capable of taking care +of her daughter as of sitting in Parliament. You remember pretty Georgy +Cradock, and you must know what she was--and what she is. Mrs. Sheldon +is the same woman as Georgy Cradock--a little older, and a little more +plump and rosy; but just as pretty, and just as useless." + +The interview was prolonged for some little time after this, and it +ended in a thorough understanding between Mr. Sheldon and his old +servant. Nancy Woolper was to re-enter that gentleman's service, and +over and above all ordinary duties, she was to undertake the duty of +keeping a close watch upon all the movements of Charlotte Halliday. In +plain words, she was to be a spy, a private detective, so far as this +young lady was concerned; but Mr. Sheldon was too wise to put his +requirements into plain words, knowing that even in the hour of her +extremity Nancy Woolper would have refused to fill such an office had +she clearly understood the measure of its infamy. + +Upon the day that followed his interview with Mrs. Woolper, the +stockbroker came home from the City an hour or two earlier than his +custom, and startled Miss Halliday by appearing in the garden where she +was walking alone, looking her brightest and prettiest in her dark +winter hat and jacket, and pacing briskly to and fro among the bare +frost-bound patches of earth that had once been flower-beds. + +"I wan't a few minutes' quiet talk with you, Lotta," said Mr. Sheldon. +"You'd better come into my study, where we're pretty sure not to be +interrupted." + +The girl blushed crimson as she acceded to this request, being assured +that Mr. Sheldon was going to discuss her matrimonial engagement. +Valentine had told her of that very satisfactory interview in the +dining-room, and from that time she had been trying to find an +opportunity for the acknowledgment of her stepfather's generosity. As +yet the occasion had not arisen. She did not know how to frame her +thanksgiving, and she shrank shyly from telling Mr. Sheldon how +grateful she was to him for the liberality of mind which had +distinguished his conduct in this affair. + +"I really ought to thank him," she said to herself more than once. "I +was quite prepared for his doing his uttermost to prevent my marriage +with Valentine; and instead of that, he volunteers his consent, and +even promises to give us a fortune. 'I am bound to thank him for such +generous kindness." + +Perhaps there is no task more difficult than to offer grateful tribute +to a person whom one has been apt to think of with a feeling very near +akin to dislike. Ever since her mother's second marriage Charlotte had +striven against an instinctive distaste for Mr. Sheldon's society, and +an innate distrust of Mr. Sheldon's affectionate regard for herself; +but now that he had proved his sincerity in this most important crisis +of her life, she awoke all at once to the sense of the wrong she had +done. + +"I am always reading the Sermon on the Mount, and yet in my thoughts +about Mr. Sheldon I have never been able to remember those words, +'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' His kindness touches me to the very +heart, and I feel it all the more keenly because of my injustice." + +She followed her stepfather into the prim little study. There was no +fire, and the room was colder than a vault on this bleak December day. +Charlotte shivered, and drew her jacket more tightly across her chest +as she perched herself on one of Mr. Sheldon's shining red morocco +chairs. "The room strikes cold," she said; "very, very cold." + +After this there was a brief pause, during which Mr. Sheldon took some +papers from the pocket of his overcoat, and arranged them on his desk +with an absent manner, as if he were rather deliberating upon what he +was going to say than thinking of what he was doing. While he loitered +thus Charlotte found courage to speak. + +"I wish to thank you, Mr. Sheldon--papa," she said, pronouncing the +"papa" with some slight appearance of effort, in spite of her desire to +be grateful: "I--I have been wishing to thank you for the last day or +two; only it seems so difficult sometimes to express one's self about +these things." + +"I do not deserve or wish for your thanks, my dear. I have only done my +duty." + +"But, indeed, you do deserve my thanks, and you have them in all +sincerity, papa. You have been very, very good to me--about--about +Valentine. I thought you would be sure to oppose our marriage on the +ground of imprudence, you know, and----" + +"I do oppose your marriage in the present on the ground of imprudence, +and I am only consentient to it in the future on the condition that Mr. +Hawkehurst shall have secured a comfortable income by his literary +labours. He seems to be clever, and he promises fairly----" + +"O yes indeed, dear papa," cried the girl, pleased by this meed of +praise for her lover; "he is more than clever. I am sure you would say +so if you had time to read his article on Madame de Sévigné in the +_Cheapside_." + +"I daresay it's very good, my dear; but I don't care for Madame de +Sévigné----" + +"Or his sketch of Bossuet's career in the _Charing Cross_." + +"My dear child, I do not even know who Bossuet was. All I require from +Mr. Hawkehurst is, that he shall earn a good income before he takes you +away from this house. You have been accustomed to a certain style of +living, and I cannot allow you to encounter a life of poverty." + +"But, dear papa, I am not in the least afraid of poverty." + +"I daresay not, my dear. You have never been poor," replied Mr. +Sheldon, coolly. "I don't suppose I am as much afraid of a rattlesnake +as the poor wretches who are accustomed to see one swinging by his tail +from the branch of a tree any day in the course of their travels. I +have only a vague idea that a cobra de capello is an unpleasant +customer; but depend upon it, those foreign fellows feel their blood +stagnate and turn to ice at sight of the cold slimy-looking monster. +Poverty and I travelled the same road once, and I know what the +gentleman is. I don't want to meet him again." Mr. Sheldon lapsed into +silence after this. His last words had been spoken to himself rather +than to Charlotte, and the thoughts that accompanied them seemed far +from pleasant to him. + +Charlotte sat opposite her stepfather, patiently awaiting his pleasure. +She looked at the gaudily-bound books behind the glass doors, and +wondered whether any one had ever opened any of the volumes. + +"I should like to read dear Sir Walter's stories once more," she +thought; "there never, never was so sweet a romance as the 'Bride of +Lammermoor,' and I cannot imagine that one could ever grow weary of +reading it. But to ask Mr. Sheldon for the key of that bookcase would +be quite impossible. I think his books must be copies of special +editions, not meant to be read. I wonder whether they are real books, +or only upholsterer's dummies?" + +And then her fancies went vagabondising off to that little archetype of +a cottage on the heights of Wimbledon-common, in which she and +Valentine were to live when they were married. She was always +furnishing and refurnishing this cottage, building it up and pulling it +down, as the caprice of the moment dictated. Now it had bow-windows and +white stuccoed walls--now it was Elizabethan--now the simplest, +quaintest, rose-embowered cottager's dwelling, with diamond-paned +casements, and deep thatch on the old gray roof. This afternoon she +amused herself by collecting a small library for Valentine, while +waiting Mr. Sheldon's next observation. He was to have all her +favourite books, of course; and they were to be bound in the prettiest, +most girlish bindings. She could see the dainty volumes, primly ranged +on the little carved oak bookcase, which Valentine was to "pick up" in +Wardour-street. She fancied herself walking down that mart of +bric-a-brac arm-in-arm with her lover, intent on "picking up." Ah, what +happiness! what dear delight in the thought! And O, of all the bright +dreams we dream, how few are realised upon this earth! Do they find +their fulfilment in heaven, those visions of perfect bliss? + +Mr. Sheldon looked up from his desk at last. Miss Halliday remarked to +herself that his face was pale and haggard in the chill wintry +sunlight; but she knew how hard and self-denying a life he led in his +stern devotion to business, and she was in no manner surprised to see +him looking ill. + +"I want to say a few words to you on a matter of business, Lotta," he +began, "and I must ask you to give me all your attention." + +"I will do so with pleasure, papa, but I am awfully stupid about +business." + +"I shall do my best to make matters simple. I suppose you know what +money your father left, including the sums his life had been insured +for?" + +"Yes, I have heard mamma say it was eighteen thousand pounds. I do so +hate the idea of those insurances. It seems like the price of a man's +life, doesn't it? I daresay that is a very unbusiness-like way of +considering the question, but I cannot bear to think that we got money +by dear papa's death." + +These remarks were too trivial for Mr. Sheldon's notice. He went on +with what he had to say in the cold hard voice that was familiar to his +clerks and to the buyers and sellers of shares and stock who had +dealings with him. + +"Your father left eighteen thousand pounds; that amount was left to +your mother without reservation. When she married me, without any +settlement, that money became mine, in point of law--mine to squander +or make away with as I pleased. You know that I have made good use of +that money, and that your mother has had no reason to repent her +confidence in my honour and honesty. The time has now come in which +that honour will be put to a sharper test. You have no legal claim on +so much as a shilling of your father's fortune." + +"I know that, Mr. Sheldon," cried Charlotte, eagerly, "and Valentine +knows also; and, believe me, I do not expect----" + +"I have to settle matters with my own conscience as well as with your +expectations, my dear Lotta," Mr. Sheldon said, solemnly. "Your father +left you unprovided for; but as a man of honour I feel myself bound to +take care that you shall not suffer by his want of caution. I have +therefore prepared a deed of gift, by which I transfer to you five +thousand pounds, now invested in Unitas Bank shares." + +"You are going to give me five thousand pounds!" cried Charlotte, +astounded. + +"Without reservation." + +"You mean to say that you will give me this fortune when I marry, +papa?" said Charlotte, interrogatively. + +"I shall give it to you immediately," replied Mr. Sheldon. "I wish you +to be thoroughly independent of me and my pleasure. You will then +understand, that if I insist upon the prudence of delay, I do so in +your interest and not in my own. I wish you to feel that if I am a +hindrance to your immediate marriage, it is not because I wish to delay +the disbursement of your dowry." + +"O, Mr. Sheldon, O, papa, you are more than generous--you are noble! It +is not that I care for the money. O, believe me, there is no one in the +world who could care less for that than I do. But your thoughtful +kindness, your generosity, touches me to the very heart. O, please let +me kiss you, just as if you were my own dear father come back to life +to protect and guide me. I have thought you cold and worldly. I have +done you so much wrong." + +She ran to him, and wound her arms about his neck before he could put +her off, and lifted up her pretty rosy mouth to his dry hot lips. Her +heart was overflowing with generous emotion, her face beamed with a +happy smile. She was so pleased to find her mother's husband better +than she had thought him. But, to her supreme astonishment, he thrust +her from him roughly, almost violently, and looking up at his face she +saw it darkened by a blacker shadow than she had ever seen upon it +before. Anger, terror, pain, remorse, she knew not what, but an +expression so horrible that she shrunk from him with a sense of alarm, +and went back to her chair, bewildered and trembling. + +"You frightened me, Mr. Sheldon," she said faintly. + +"Not more than you frightened me," answered the stockbroker, walking to +the window and taking his stand there, with his face hidden from +Charlotte. "I did not know there was so much feeling in me. For God's +sake, let us have no sentiment!" + +"Were you angry with me just now?" asked the girl, falteringly, utterly +at a loss to comprehend the change in her stepfather's manner. + +"No, I was not angry. I am not accustomed to these strong emotions," +replied Mr. Sheldon, huskily; "I cannot stand them. Pray let us avoid +all sentimental discussion. I am anxious to do my duty in a +straightforward, business-like way. I don't want gratitude--or fuss. +The five thousand pounds are yours, and I am pleased to find you +consider the amount sufficient. And now I have only one small favour to +ask of you in return." + +"I should be very ungrateful if I refused to do anything you may ask," +said Charlotte, who could not help feeling a little chilled and +disappointed by Mr. Sheldon's stony rejection of her gratitude. + +"The matter is very simple. You are young, and have, in the usual +course of things, a long life before you. But--you know there is always +a 'but' in these cases--a railway accident--a little carelessness in +passing your drawing-room fire some evening when you are dressed in +flimsy gauze or muslin--a fever--a cold--any one of the many dangers +that lie in wait for all of us, and our best calculations are +falsified. If you were to marry and die childless, that money would go +to your husband, and neither your mother nor I would ever touch a +sixpence of it. Now as the money, practically, belongs to your mother, +I consider that this contingency should be provided against--in her +interests as well as in mine. In plain words, I want you to make a will +leaving that money to me." + +"I am quite ready to do so," replied Charlotte. + +"Very good, my dear. I felt assured that you would take a sensible view +of the matter. If you marry your dear Mr. Hawkehurst, have a family +by-and-by, we will throw the old will into the fire and make a new one; +but in the mean time it's just as well to be on the safe side. You +shall go into the City with me to-morrow morning, and shall execute the +will at my office. It will be the simplest document possible--as simple +as the will made by old Serjeant Crane, in which he disposed of half a +million of money in half a dozen lines--at the rate of five thousand +pounds per word. After we've settled that little matter, we can arrange +the transfer of the shares. The whole affair won't occupy an hour." + +"I will do whatever you wish," said Charlotte, meekly. She was not at all +elated by the idea of coming suddenly into possession of five thousand +pounds; but she was very much impressed by the new view of Mr. +Sheldon's character afforded her by his conduct of to-day. And then her +thoughts, constant to one point as the needle to the pole, reverted to +her lover, and she began to think of the effect her fortune might have +upon his prospects. He might go to the bar, he might work and study in +pleasant Temple chambers, with wide area windows overlooking the river, +and read law-books in the evening at the Wimbledon cottage for a few +delightful years, at the end of which he would of course become Lord +Chancellor. That he should devote such intellect and consecrate such +genius as his to the service of his country's law-courts, and _not_ +ultimately seat himself on the Woolsack, was a contingency not to be +imagined by Miss Halliday. Ah, what would not five thousand pounds buy +for him! The cottage expanded into a mansion, the little case of books +developed into a library second only to that of the Duc d'Aumale, a +noble steed waited at the glass door of the vestibule to convey Mr. +Hawkehurst to the Temple, before the minute-hand of Mr. Sheldon's stern +skeleton clock had passed from one figure to another: so great an adept +was this young lady in the art of castle-building. + +"Am I to tell mamma about this conversation?" asked Charlotte, +presently. + +"Well, no, I think not," replied Mr. Sheldon, thoughtfully. "These +family arrangements cannot be kept too quiet. Your mamma is a talking +person, you know, Charlotte; and as we don't want every one in this +part of Bayswater to know the precise amount of your fortune, we may as +well let matters rest as they are. Of course you would not wish Mr. +Hawkehurst to be enlightened?" + +"Why not, papa?" + +"For several reasons. First and foremost, it must be pleasant to you to +be sure that he is thoroughly disinterested. I have told him that you +will get something as a gift from me; but he may have implied that the +something would be little more than a couple of hundreds to furnish a +house. Secondly, it must be remembered, that he has been brought up in +a bad school, and the best way to make him self-reliant and industrious +is to let him think he has nothing but his own industry to depend upon. +I have set him a task. When he has accomplished that, he shall have you +and your five thousand pounds to boot. Till then I should strongly +advise you to keep this business a secret. + +"Yes," answered Charlotte, meditatively; "I think you are right. It +would have been very nice to tell him of your kindness; but I want to +be quite sure that he loves me for myself alone--from first to +last--without one thought of money." + +"That is wise," said Mr. Sheldon, decisively; and thus ended the +interview. + +Charlotte accompanied her stepfather to the city early next morning, +and filled in the blanks in a lithographed form, prepared for the +convenience of such testators as, being about to dispose of their +property, do not care to employ the services of a legal adviser. + +The will seemed to Charlotte the simplest possible affair. She +bequeathed all her property, real and personal, to Philip Sheldon, +without reserve. But as her entire fortune consisted of the five +thousand pounds just given her by that gentleman, and as her personal +property was comprised in a few pretty dresses and trinkets, and desks +and workboxes, she could not very well object to such an arrangement. + +"Of course, mamma would have all my books and caskets, and boxes and +things," she said thoughtfully; "and I should like Diana Paget to have +some of my jewellery, please, Mr. Sheldon. Mamma has plenty, you know." + +"There is no occasion to talk of that, Charlotte," replied the +stockbroker. "This will is only a matter of form." + +Mr. Sheldon omitted to inform his stepdaughter that the instrument just +executed would, upon her wedding-day, become so much waste paper, an +omission that was not in harmony with the practical and careful habits +of that gentleman. + +"Yes, I know that it is only a form," replied Charlotte; "but, after +making a will, one feels as if one was going to die. At least I do. It +seems a kind of preparation for death. I don't wonder people rather +dislike doing it. + +"It is only foolish people who dislike doing it," said Mr. Sheldon, who +was in his most practical mood to-day. "And now we will go and arrange +a more agreeable business--the transfer of the shares." + +After this, there was a little commercial juggling, in the form of +signing and countersigning, which, was quite beyond Charlotte's +comprehension: which operation being completed, she was told that she +was owner of five thousand pounds in Unitas Bank shares, and that the +dividends accruing from time to time on those shares would be hers to +dispose of as she pleased. + +"The income arising from your capital will be more than you can spend +so long as you remain under my roof," said Mr. Sheldon. "I should +therefore strongly recommend you to invest your dividends as they +arise, and thus increase your capital." + +"You are so kind and thoughtful," murmured Charlotte; "I shall always +be pleased to take your advice." She was strongly impressed by the +kindness of the man her thoughts had wronged. + +"How difficult it is to understand these reserved, matter-of-fact +people!" she said to herself. Because my stepfather does not talk +sentiment, I have fancied him hard and worldly; and yet he has proved +himself as capable of doing a noble action as if he were the most +poetical of mankind. + +Mrs. Sheldon had been told that Charlotte was going into the City to +choose a new watch, wherewith to replace the ill-used little Geneva toy +that had been her delight as a schoolgirl; and as Charlotte brought +home a neat little English-made chronometer from a renowned emporium on +Ludgate-hill, the simple matron accepted this explanation in all good +faith. + +"I'm sure, Lotta, you must confess your stepfather is kindness itself +in most matters," said Georgy, after an admiring examination of the new +watch. "When I think how kindly he has taken this business about Mr. +Hawkehurst, and how disinterested he has proved himself in his ideas +about your marriage, I really am inclined to think him the best of men." + +Georgy said this with an air of triumph. She could not forget that +there were people in Barlingford who had said hard things about Philip +Sheldon, and had prophesied unutterable miseries for herself and her +daughter as the bitter consequence of the imprudence she had been +guilty of in her second marriage. + +"He has indeed been very good, mamma," Charlotte replied gravely, "and, +believe me, I am truly grateful. He does not like fuss or sentiment; +but I hope he knows that I appreciate his kindness." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +RIDING THE HIGH HORSE. + + +Never, in his brightest dreams, had Valentine Hawkehurst imagined the +stream of life so fair and sunny a river as it seemed to him now. +Fortune had treated him so scurvily for seven-and-twenty years of his +life, only to relent of a sudden and fling all her choicest gifts into +his lap. + +"I must be the prince in the fairy tale who begins life as a revolting +animal of the rhinoceros family, and ends by marrying the prettiest +princess in Elfindom," he said to himself gaily, is he paced the broad +walks of Kensington-gardens, where the bare trees swung their big black +branches in the wintry blast, and the rooks cawed their loudest at +close of the brief day. + +What, indeed, could this young adventurer demand from benignant Fortune +above and beyond the blessings she had given him?? The favoured suitor +of the fairest and brightest woman he had ever looked upon, received by +her kindred, admitted to her presence, and only bidden to serve a due +apprenticeship before he claimed her as his own for ever. What more +could he wish? what further boon could he implore from the Fates? + +Yes, there was one thing more--one thing for which Mr. Hawkehurst +pined, while most thankful for his many blessings. He wanted a decent +excuse for separating himself most completely from Horatio Paget. He +wanted to shake himself free from all the associations of his previous +existence. He wanted to pass through the waters of Jordan, and to +emerge purified, regenerate, leaving his garments on the furthermost +side of the river; and, with all other things appertaining to the past, +he would fain have rid himself of Captain Paget. + +"'Be sure your sin will find you out,'" mused the young man; "and +having found you, be sure that it will stick to you like a leech, if +your sin takes the shape of an unprincipled acquaintance, as it does in +my case. I may try my hardest to cut the past, but will Horatio Paget +let me alone in the future? I doubt it. The bent of that man's genius +shows itself in his faculty for living upon other people. He knows that +I am beginning to earn money regularly, and has begun to borrow of me +already. When I can earn more, he will want to borrow more; and +although it is very sweet to work for Charlotte Halliday, it would not +be by any means agreeable to slave for my friend Paget. Shall I offer +him a pound a week, and ask him to retire into the depths of Wales or +Cornwall, amend his ways, and live the life of a repentant hermit? I +think I could bring myself to sacrifice the weekly sovereign, if there +were any hope that Horatio Paget could cease to be--Horatio Paget, on +this side the grave. No, I have the misfortune to be intimately +acquainted with the gentleman. When he is in the swim, as he calls it, +and is earning money on his own account, he will give himself cosy +little dinners and four-and-sixpenny primrose gloves; and when he is +down on his luck, he will come whining to me." + +This was by no means a pleasant idea to Mr. Hawkehurst. In the old days +he had been distinguished by all the Bohemian's recklessness, and even +more than the Bohemian's generosity in his dealings with friend or +companion. But now all was changed. He was no longer reckless. A +certain result was demanded from him as the price of Charlotte +Halliday's hand, and he set himself to accomplish his allotted task +with all due forethought and earnestness of purpose. He had need even +to exercise restraint over himself, lest, in his eagerness, he should +do too much, and so lay himself prostrate from the ill effects of +overwork; so anxious was he to push on upon the road whose goal was so +fair a temple, so light seemed that labour of love which was performed +for the sake of Charlotte. + +He communed with himself very often on the subject of that troublesome +question about Captain Paget. How was he to sever his frail skiff from +that rakish privateer? What excuse could he find for renouncing his +share in the Omega-street lodgings, and setting up a new home elsewhere? + +"Policy might prompt me to keep my worthy friend under my eye," he said +to himself, "in order that I may be sure there is no underhand work +going on between him and Philip Sheldon. But I can scarcely believe +that Philip Sheldon has any inkling about the Haygarthian fortune. If +he had, he would surely not receive me as Charlotte's suitor. What +possible motive could he have for doing so?" + +This was a question which Mr. Hawkehurst had frequently put to himself; +for his confidence in Mr. Sheldon was not of that kind which asks no +questions. Even while most anxious to believe in that gentleman's +honesty of purpose, he was troubled by occasional twinges of unbelief. + +During the period which had elapsed since his return from Yorkshire, he +had been able to discover nothing of any sinister import from the +proceedings of Captain Paget. That gentleman appeared to be still +engaged upon the promoting business, although by no means so profitably +as heretofore. He went into the City every day, and came home in the +evening toilworn and out of spirits. He talked freely of his +occupation--how he had done much or done nothing, during the day; and +Valentine was at a loss to perceive any further ground for the +suspicion that had arisen in his mind after the meeting at the Ullerton +station, and the shuffling of the sanctimonious Goodge with regard to +Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters. + +Mr. Hawkehurst therefore determined upon boldly cutting the knot that +tied him to the familiar companion of his wanderings. + +"I am tired of watching and suspecting," he said to himself. "If my +dear love has a right to this fortune, it will surely come to her; or +if it should never come, we can live very happily without it. Indeed, +for my own part, I am inclined to believe that I should be prouder and +happier as the husband of a dowerless wife, than as prince-consort to +the heiress of the Haygarths. We have built up such a dear, cheery, +unpretentious home for ourselves in our talk of the future, that I +doubt if we should care to change it for the stateliest mansion in +Kensington Palace-gardens or Belgrave-square. My darling could not be +my housekeeper, and make lemon cheese-cakes in her own pretty little +kitchen, if we lived in Belgrave-square; and how could she stand at one +of those great Birmingham ironwork gates in the Palace-gardens to watch +me ride away to my work?" + +To a man as deeply in love as Mr. Hawkehurst, the sordid dross which +other people prize so highly is apt to become daily more indifferent; a +kind of colour-blindness comes over the vision of the true lover, and +the glittering yellow ore seems only so much vulgar earth, too mean a +thing to be regarded by any but the mean of soul. Thus it was that Mr. +Hawkehurst relaxed his suspicion of Captain Paget, and neglected his +patron and ally of Gray's Inn, much to the annoyance of that gentleman, +who tormented the young man with little notes demanding interviews. + +These interviews had of late been far from agreeable to either of the +allies. George Sheldon urged the necessity of an immediate marriage; +Valentine declined to act in an underhand manner, after the +stockbroker's unexpected generosity. + +"Generosity!" echoed George Sheldon, when Valentine had given him this +point-blank refusal at the close of a stormy argument. "Generosity! My +brother Phil's generosity! Egad, that is about the best thing I've +heard for the last ten years. If I pleased, Mr. Valentine Hawkehurst, I +could tell you something about my brother which would enable you to +estimate his generosity at its true value. But I don't please; and if +you choose to run counter to me and my interests, you must pay the +price of your folly. You may think yourself uncommonly lucky if the +price isn't a stiff one." + +"I am prepared to abide by my decision," answered Valentine. "Miss +Halliday without a shilling is so dear to me, that I don't care to +commit a dishonourable action in order to secure my share of the +fortune she may claim. I turned over a new leaf on the day when I first +knew myself possessed of her affection. I don't want to go back to the +old leaves." + +George Sheldon gave himself an impatient shrug. "I have heard of a +great many fools," he said, "but I never heard of a fool who would play +fast-and-loose with a hundred thousand pounds, and until to-day I +couldn't have believed there was such an animal." + +Mr. Hawkehurst did not deign to notice this remark. + +"Do be reasonable, Sheldon," he said. "You ask me to do what my sense +of right will not permit me to do, and you ask me that which I fully +believe to be impossible. I cannot for a moment imagine that any +persuasion of mine would induce Charlotte to consent to a secret +marriage, after your brother's fair and liberal conduct." + +"Of course not," cried George, with savage impatience; "that's my +brother Phil all over. He is so honourable, so plain and +straightforward in all his dealings, that he would get the best of +Lucifer himself in a bargain. I tell you, Hawkehurst, you don't know +how deep he is--as deep as the bottomless pit, by Jove! His very +generosity makes me all the more afraid of him. I don't understand his +game. If he consented to your marriage in order to get rid of +Charlotte, he would let you marry her off-hand; but instead of doing +that, he makes conditions which must delay your marriage for years. +There is the point that bothers me." + +"You had better pursue your own course, without reference to me or my +marriage with Miss Halliday," said Valentine. + +"That is exactly what I must do. I can't leave the Haygarth estate to +the mercy of Tom, Dick, and Harry, while you try to earn thirty pounds +a month by scribbling for the magazines. I must make my bargain with +Philip instead of with you, and I can tell you that you'll be the loser +by the transaction." + +"I don't quite see that." + +"Perhaps not. You see, you don't quite understand my brother Phil. If +this money gets into his hands, be sure some of it will stick to them." + +"Why should the money get into his hand?" + +"Because, so long as Charlotte Halliday is under his roof, she is, to a +certain extent, under his authority. And then, I tell you again, there +is no calculating the depth of that man. He has thrown dust in your +eyes already. He will make that poor girl believe him the most +disinterested of mankind." + +"You can warn her." + +"Yes; as I have warned you. To what purpose? You are inclined to +believe in Phil rather than to believe in me, and you will be so +inclined to the end of the chapter. You remember that man Palmer, at +Rugely, who used to go to church, and take the sacrament?" + +"Yes; of course I remember that case. What of him?" + +"Why, people believed in him, you know, and thought him a jolly good +fellow, up to the time when they discovered that he had poisoned a few +of his friends in a quiet gentlemanly way." + +Mr. Hawkehurst smiled at the irrelevance of this remark. He could not +perceive the connection of ideas between Palmer the Rugely poisoner, +and Philip Sheldon the stockbroker. + +"That was an extreme case," he said. + +"Yes; of course that was an extreme case," answered George, carelessly. +"Only it goes far to prove that a man may be gifted with a remarkable +genius for throwing dust in the eyes of his fellow-creatures." + +There was no further disputation between the lawyer and Valentine. +George Sheldon began to understand that a secret marriage was not to be +accomplished in the present position of affairs. + +"I am half inclined to suspect that Phil knows something about that +money," he said presently, "and is playing some artful game of his own." + +"In that case your better policy would be to take the initiative," +answered Valentine. + +"I have no other course." + +"And will Charlotte know--will she know that I have been concerned in +this business?" asked Valentine, growing very pale all of sudden. He +was thinking how mean he must appear in Miss Halliday's eyes, if she +came to understand that he had known her to be John Haygarth's heiress +at the time he won from her the sweet confession of her love. "Will she +ever believe how pure and true my love has been, if she comes to know +this?" he asked himself despairingly, while George Sheldon deliberated +in silence for a few moments. + +"She need know nothing until the business comes to a head," replied +George at last. "You see, there may be no resistance on the part of the +Crown lawyers; and, in that case, Miss Halliday will get her rights +after a moderate amount of delay. But if they choose to dispute her +claim, it will be quite another thing--Halliday _versus_ the Queen, and +so on--with no end of swell Q.C.'s against us. In the latter case +you'll have to put all your adventures at Ullerton and Huxter's Cross +into an affidavit, and Miss H. must know everything." + +"Yes; and then she will think--ah, no; I do not believe she can +misunderstand me, come what may." + +"All doubt and difficulty might be avoided if you would manage a +marriage on the quiet off-hand," said George. + +"I tell you again that I cannot do that; and that, even if it +were possible, I would not attempt it." + +"So be it. You elect to ride the high horse; take care that magnificent +animal doesn't give you an ugly tumble." + +"I can take my chance." + +"And I must take my chance against that brother of mine. The winning +cards are all in my own hand this time, and it will be uncommonly hard +if he gets the best of me." + +On this the two gentlemen parted. Valentine went to look at a +bachelor's lodging in the neighbourhood of the Edgeware-road, which he +had seen advertised in that morning's Times; and George Sheldon started +for Bayswater, where he was always sure of a dinner and a liberal +allowance of good wine from the hospitality of his prosperous kinsman. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MR. SHELDON IS PRUDENT. + + +Valentine found the apartments near the Edgeware-road in every manner +eligible. The situation was midway between his reading-room in Great +Russell-street and the abode of his delight--a half-way house on the +road between business and pleasure. The terms were very moderate, the +rooms airy and pleasant; so he engaged them forthwith, his tenancy to +commence at the end of the following week; and having settled this +matter, he went back to Omega-street, bent on dissolving partnership +with the Captain in a civil but decided manner. + +A surprise, and a very agreeable one, awaited him at Chelsea. He found +the sitting-room strewn with Captain Paget's personal property, and the +Captain on his knees before a portmanteau, packing. + +"You're just in time to give me a hand, Val," he said in his most +agreeable manner. "I begin to find out my age when I put my poor old +bones into abnormal attitudes. I daresay packing a trunk or two will be +only child's-play to you." + +"I'll pack half a dozen trunks if you like," replied Valentine. "But +what is the meaning of this sudden move? I did not know you were going +to leave town." + +"Neither did I when you and I breakfasted together. I got an unexpected +offer of a very decent position abroad this morning; a kind of agency, +that will be much better than the hand-to-mouth business I've been +doing lately." + +"What kind of agency, and where?" + +"Well, so far as I can make out at present, it is something in the +steam navigation way. My head-quarters will be at Rouen." + +"Rouen! Well, it's a pleasant lively old city enough, and as mediæval +as one of Sir Walter's novels, provided they haven't Haussmanised it +by this time. I am very glad to hear you have secured a comfortable berth." + +"And I am not sorry to leave England, Yal," answered the Captain, in +rather a mournful tone. + +"Why not?" + +"Because I think it's time you and I parted company. Our association +begins to be rather disadvantageous to you, Val. We've had our ups and +downs together, and we've got on very pleasantly, take it for all in +all. But now that you're settling down as a literary man, engaged to +that young woman, hand-in-glove with Philip Sheldon, and so on, I think +it's time for me to take myself off. I'm not wanted; and sooner or +later I should begin to feel myself in the way." + +The Captain grew quite pathetic as he said this; and little pangs of +remorse shot through Valentine's heart as he remembered how eager he +had been to rid himself of this Old Man of the Mountain. And here was +the poor old creature offering to take himself out of the way of his +own accord. + +Influenced by this touch of remorse, Mr. Hawkehurst held out his hand, +and grasped that of his comrade and patron. + +"I hope you may do well, in some--comfortable kind of business," he +said heartily. That adjective "comfortable" was a hasty substitute for +the adjective "honest," which had been almost on his lips as he uttered +his friendly wish. He was too well disposed to all the world not to +feel profound pity for this white-headed old man, who for so many years +had eaten the bread of rogues and scoundrels. + +"Come," he cried cheerily, "I'll take all the packing off your hands, +Captain; and we'll eat our last dinner and drink our last bottle of +sparkling together at my expense, at any place you please to name." + +"Say Blanchard's," replied Horatio Paget. "I like a corner-window, +looking out upon the glare and bustle of Regent-street. It reminds one +just a little of the Maison Dorée and the boulevard. We'll drink +Charlotte Halliday's health, Val, in bumpers. She's a charming young +person, and I only wish she were an heiress, for your sake." + +The eyes of the two men met as the Captain said this; and there was a +twinkle in the cold gray orbs of that gentleman which had a very +unpleasant effect upon Valentine. + +"What treachery is he engaged in now?" he asked himself. "I know that +look in my Horatio's eyes; and I know it always means mischief." + +George Sheldon made his appearance at the Lawn five minutes after his +brother came home from the City. He entered the domestic circle in his +usual free-and-easy manner, knowing himself to be endured, rather than +liked, by the two ladies, and to be only tolerated as a necessary evil +by the master of the house. + +"I've dropped in to eat a chop with you, Phil," he said, "in order to +get an hour's comfortable talk after dinner. There's no saying half a +dozen consecutive words to you in the City, where your clerks seem to +spend their lives in bouncing in upon you when you don't want them." + +There was very little talk during dinner. Charlotte and her stepfather +were thoughtful. Diana was chiefly employed in listening to the _sotto +voce_ inanities of Mrs. Sheldon, for whom the girl showed herself +admirably patient. Her forbearance and gentleness towards Georgy +constituted a kind of penitential sacrifice, by which she hoped to +atone for the dark thoughts and bitter feelings that possessed her mind +during those miserable hours in which she was obliged to witness the +happiness of Charlotte and her lover. + +George Sheldon devoted himself chiefly to his dinner and a certain dry +sherry, which he particularly affected. He was a man who would have +dined and enjoyed himself at the table of Judas Iscariot, knowing the +banquet to be provided out of the thirty pieces of silver. + +"That's as good a pheasant as I ever ate, Phil," he said, after winding +up with the second leg of the bird in question. "No, Georgy; no +macaroni, thanks. I don't care about kickshaws after a good dinner. Has +Hawkehurst dined with you lately, by the way, Phil?" + +Charlotte blushed red as the holly-berries that decorated the +chandelier. It was Christmas-eve, and her own fair hands had helped to +bedeck the rooms with festal garlands of evergreen and holly. + +"He dines with us to-morrow," replied the stockbroker. "You'll come, I +suppose, as usual, George?" + +"Well, I shall be very glad, if I'm not in the way." + +Mrs. Sheldon murmured some conventional protestation of the unfailing +delight afforded to her by George's society. + +"Of course we're always glad to see you," said Philip in his most +genial manner; "and now, if you've anything to say to me about +business, the sooner you begin the better.--You and the girls needn't +stay for dessert, Georgy. Almonds and raisins can't be much of a +novelty to you; and as none of you take any wine, there's not much to +stop for. George and I will come in to tea." + +The ladies departed, by no means sorry to return to their Berlin-wool +and piano. Diana took up her work with that saintly patience with which +she performed all the duties of her position; and Charlotte seated +herself before the piano, and began to play little bits of waltzes, and +odds and ends of polkas, in a dreamy mood, and with a slurring over of +dominant bass notes, which would have been torture to a musician's ear. + +She was wondering whether Valentine would call that evening, +Christmas-eve--a sort of occasion for congratulation of some kind from +her lover, she fancied. It was the first Christmas-eve on which she had +been "engaged." She looked back to the same period last year, and +remembered herself sitting in that very room strumming on that very +piano, and unconscious that there was such a creature as Valentine +Hawkehurst upon this earth. And, strange to say, even in that benighted +state, she had been tolerably happy. + +"Now, George," said Mr. Sheldon, when the brothers had filled their +glasses and planted their chairs on the opposite sides of the +hearth-rug, "what's the nature of this business that you want to talk +about?" + +"Well, it is a business of considerable importance, in which you are +only indirectly concerned. The actual principal in the affair is your +stepdaughter, Miss Halliday." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes. You know how you have always ridiculed my fancy for hunting up +heirs-at-law and all that kind of thing, and you know how I have held +on, hoping against hope, starting on a new scent when the old scent +failed, and so on." + +"And you have got a chance at last, eh?" + +"I believe that I have, and a tolerably good one; and I think you will +own that it is rather extraordinary that my first lucky hit should +bring luck your way." + +"That is to say, to my stepdaughter?" remarked Mr. Sheldon, without any +appearance of astonishment. + +"Precisely," said George, somewhat disconcerted by his brother's +coolness. "I have lately discovered that Miss Halliday is entitled to a +certain sum of money, and I pledge myself to put her in possession of +that money--on one condition." + +"And that is--" + +"That she executes a deed promising to give me half of the amount she +may recover by my agency." + +"Suppose she can recover it without your agency?" + +"That I defy her to do. She does not even know that she has any claim +to the amount in question." + +"Don't be too sure of that. Or even supposing she knows nothing, do you +think her friends are as ignorant as she is? Do you think me such a +very bad man of business as to remain all this time unaware of the fact +that my stepdaughter, Charlotte Halliday, is next of kin to the Rev. +John Haygarth, who died intestate, at Tilford Haven, in Kent, about a +year ago?" + +This was a cannon-shot that almost knocked George Sheldon off his +chair; but after that first movement of surprise, he gave a sigh, or +almost a groan, expressive of resignation. + +"Egad, Phil Sheldon," he said, "I ought not to be astonished at this. +Knowing you as well as I do, I must have been a confounded fool not to +expect some kind of underhand work from you." + +"What do you mean by underhand work?" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon. "The same +newspapers that were open to you were open to me, and I had better +opportunities for tracking my stepdaughter's direct descent from John +Haygarth's father." + +"How did you discover Miss Halliday's descent from Matthew Haygarth?" +asked George, very meekly. He was quite crestfallen. He began to feel +that his brother would have the upper hand of him in this business as +in all other business of this world. + +"That is my secret," replied Mr. Sheldon, with agreeable tranquillity +of manner. "You have kept your secrets, and I shall keep mine. Your +policy has been the policy of distrust. Mine shall be the same. When +you were starting this affair, I offered to go into it with you--to +advance whatever money you needed, in a friendly manner. You declined +my offer, and chose to go in for the business on your own hook. You +have made a very good thing for yourself, no doubt; but you are not +quite clever enough to keep me altogether in the dark in a matter which +concerns a member of my own family." + +"Yes," said George, with a sigh, "that's where you hold the winning +cards. Miss Halliday is your ace of trumps." + +"Depend upon it, I shall know how to hold my strength in reserve, and +when to play my leading trump." + +"And how to collar my king," muttered George between his set teeth. + +"Come," exclaimed Philip presently, "we may as well discuss this matter +in a friendly spirit. What do you mean to propose?" + +"I have only one proposition to make," answered the lawyer, with +decision. "I hold every link of the chain of evidence, without which +Miss Halliday might as well be a native of the Fiji islands for any +claim she can assert to John Haygarth's estate. I am prepared to carry +this matter through; but I will only do it on the condition that I +receive half the fortune recovered from the Crown by Miss Halliday." + +"A very moderate demand, upon my word!" + +"I daresay I shall be able to make my bargain with Miss Halliday." +"Very likely," replied Mr. Sheldon; "and I shall be able to get that +bargain set aside as illegal." + +"I doubt that. I have a deed of agreement drawn up here which would +hold water in any court of equity." + +And hereupon Mr. Sheldon the younger produced and read aloud one of +those dry as dust documents by which the legal business of life is +carried on. It was a deed to be executed by Charlotte Halliday, +spinster, of Bayswater, on the one part, and George Sheldon, solicitor, +of Gray's Inn, on the other part; and it gave to the said George +Sheldon, as securely as any deed can give anything, one half of any +property, not now in her possession or control, which the said +Charlotte Halliday might obtain by the agency of the above-mentioned +George Sheldon. + +"And pray, who is to find the costs for this business?" asked the +stockbroker. "I don't feel by any means disposed to stake my money on +such a hazardous game. Who knows what other descendants of Matthew +Haygarth may be playing at hide-and-seek in the remotest corners of the +earth, ready to spring out upon us when we've wasted a small fortune +upon law-proceedings." + +"I shan't ask you to risk your money," replied George, with sullen +dignity. "I have friends who will back me when they see that agreement +executed." + +"Very well, then, all you have to do is to alter your half share to +one-fifth, and I will undertake that Miss Halliday shall sign the +agreement before the week is out." + +"One-fifth?" + +"Yes, my dear George. Twenty thousand pounds will pay you very +handsomely for your trouble. I cannot consent to Miss Halliday ceding +more than a fifth." + +"A fig for your consent! The girl is of age, and can act upon her own +hook. I shall go to Miss Halliday herself," exclaimed the indignant +lawyer. + +"O no, you won't. You must know the danger of running counter to me in +this business. That agreement is all very well; but there is no kind of +document more easy to upset if one only goes about it in the right way. +Play your own game, and I will upset that agreement, as surely as I +turn this wine-glass bowl downwards." + +Mr. Sheldon's action and Mr. Sheldon's look expressed a determination +which George knew how to estimate by the light of past experience. + +"It is a hard thing to find you against me, after the manner in which I +have toiled and slaved for your stepdaughter's interests." + +"I am bound to hold my stepdaughter's interests paramount over every +consideration." + +"Yes, paramount over brotherly feeling and all that sort of thing. +I say that it is more than hard that you should be against me, +considering the special circumstances and the manner in which +I have kept my own counsel----" + +"You will take a fifth share, or nothing, George," said Mr. Sheldon, +with a threatening contraction of his black brows. "If I have any +difficulty in arranging matters with you, I will go into +this affair myself, and carry it through without your help." + +"That I defy you to do." + +"You had better not defy me." + +"Pray how much do you expect to get out of Miss Halliday's fortune?" +demanded the aggravated George. + +"That is my business," answered Philip. "And now we had better go into +the drawing-room for our tea. O, by the bye, George," he added, +carelessly, "as Miss Halliday is quite a child in all business matters, +she had better be treated like a child. I shall tell her that she has a +claim to a certain sum of money; but I shall not tell her what sum. Her +disappointment will be less in the event of a failure, if her +expectations are not large." + +"You are always so considerate, my dear Phil," said George, with a +malignant grin. "May I ask how it is you have taken it into your head +to play the benevolent father in the matter of Valentine Hawkehurst and +Miss Halliday?" + +"What can it signify to me whom my stepdaughter marries?" asked Philip, +coolly. "Of course I wish her well; but I will not have the +responsibility of controlling her choice. If this young man suits her, +let her marry him." + +"Especially when he happens to suit _you_ so remarkably well. I think I +can understand your tactics, Phil." + +"You must understand or misunderstand me, just as you please. And now +come to tea." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHRISTMAS PEACE. + + +Valentine Hawkehurst did not make his appearance at the Lawn on +Christmas-eve. He devoted that evening to the service of his old ally. +He performed all friendly offices for the departing Captain, dined with +him very pleasantly in Regent-street, and accompanied him to the +London-bridge terminus, where he beheld the voyager comfortably seated +in a second-class carriage of the night-train for Newhaven. + +Mr. Hawkehurst had seen the Captain take a through ticket for Rouen, +and he saw the train leave the terminus. This he held to be ocular +demonstration of the fact that Captain Paget was really going to the +Gallic Manchester. + +"That sort of customer is so uncommonly slippery," the young man said +to himself as he left the station; "nothing but the evidence of my own +eyes would have convinced me of my friend's departure. How pure and +fresh the London atmosphere seems now that the perfume of Horatio Paget +is out of it! I wonder what he is going to do at Rouen? Very little +good, I daresay. But why should I wonder about him, or trouble myself +about him? He is gone, and I have set myself free from the trammels of +the past." + + * * * * * + +The next day was Christmas-day. Mr. Hawkehurst recited scraps of +Milton's glorious hymn as he made his morning toilet. He was very +happy. It was the first Christmas morning on which he had ever awakened +with this sense of supreme happiness, or with the consciousness that +the day was brighter, or grander, or more holy than other days. It +seemed to him to-day, more than ever, that he was indeed a regenerate +creature, purified by the influence of a good woman's love. + +He looked back at his past existence, and the vision of many +Christmas-days arose before him: a Christmas in Paris, amidst +unutterable rain and mud; a Christmas-night spent in roaming the +Boulevards, and in the consumption of cognac and tobacco at a +third-rate café; a Christmas in Germany; more than one Christmas in the +Queen's Bench; one especially dreary Christmas in a long bare ward at +Whitecross-street,--how many varied scenes and changing faces arose +before his mental vision associated with that festive time! And yet +among them all there was not one on which there shone the faintest +glimmer of that holy light which makes the common holiday a sacred +season. + +It was a pleasant thing to breakfast without the society of the +brilliant Horatio, whose brilliancy was apt to appear somewhat ghastly +at that early period of the morning. It was pleasant to loiter over the +meal, now meditating on the happy future, now dipping into a tattered +copy of Southey's "Doctor;" with the consciousness that the winds and +waves had by this time wafted Captain Paget to a foreign land. + +Valentine was to spend the whole of Christmas-day with Charlotte and +her kindred. He was to accompany them to a fashionable church in the +morning, to walk with them after church, to dine and tell ghost-stories +in the evening. It was to be his first day as a recognised member of +that pleasant family at Bayswater; and in the fulness of his heart he +felt affectionately disposed to all his adopted relations; even to Mr. +Sheldon, whose very noble conduct had impressed him strongly, in spite +of the bitter sneers and covert slanders of George. Charlotte had told +her lover that her stepfather was a very generous and disinterested +person, and that there was a secret which she would have been glad to +tell him, had she not been pledged to hold it inviolate, that would +have gone far to place Mr. Sheldon in a very exalted light before the +eyes of his future son-in-law. + +And then Miss Halliday had nodded and smiled, and had informed her +lover, with a joyous little laugh, that he should have a horse to ride, +and an edition of Grote's "Greece" bound in dark-brown calf with +bevelled edges, when they were married; this work being one which the +young author had of late languished to possess. + +"Dear foolish Lotta, I fear there will be a new history of Greece, +based on new theories, before that time comes," said the lover. + +"O no, indeed; that time will come very soon. See how industriously you +work, and how well you succeed. The magazine people will soon give you +thirty pounds a month. Or who knows that you may not write some book +that will make you suddenly famous, like Byron, or the good-natured fat +little printer who wrote those long, long, long novels that no one +reads nowadays?" + +Influenced by Charlotte's hints about her stepfather, Mr. Hawkehurst's +friendly feeling for that gentleman grew stronger, and the sneers and +innuendoes of the lawyer ceased to have the smallest power over him. + +"The man is such a thorough-going schemer himself, that he cannot bring +himself to believe in another man's honesty," thought Mr. Hawkehurst, +while meditating upon his experience of the two brothers. "So far as I +have had any dealings with Philip Sheldon, I have found him +straightforward enough. I can imagine no hidden motive for his conduct +in relation to Charlotte. The test of his honesty will be the manner in +which he is acted upon by Charlotte's position as claimant of a great +fortune. Will he throw me overboard, I wonder? or will my dear one +believe me an adventurer and fortune-hunter? Ah, no, no, no; I do not +think in all the complications of life there could come about a state +of events which would cause my Charlotte to doubt me. There is no +clairvoyance so unerring as true love." + +Mr. Hawkehurst had need of such philosophy as this to sustain him in +the present crisis of his life. He was blest with a pure delight which +excelled his wildest dreams of happiness; but he was not blest with any +sense of security as to the endurance of that exalted state of bliss. + +Mr. Sheldon would learn Charlotte's position, would doubtless extort +from his brother the history of those researches in which Valentine had +been engaged; and then, what then? Alas! hereupon arose incalculable +dangers and perplexities. + +Might not the stockbroker, as a man of the world, take a sordid view of +the whole transaction, and consider Valentine in the light of a +shameless adventurer, who had traded on his secret knowledge in the +hope of securing a rich wife? Might he not reveal all to Charlotte, and +attempt to place her lover before her in this most odious aspect? She +would not believe him base; her faith would be unshaken, her love +unchanged; but it was odious, it was horrible, to think that her ears +should be sullied, her tender heart fluttered, by the mere suggestion +of such baseness. + +It was during the Christmas-morning sermon that Mr. Hawkehurst +permitted his mind to be disturbed by these reflections. He was sitting +next his betrothed, and had the pleasure of contemplating her fair +girlish face, with the rosy lips half parted in reverent attention as +she looked upward to her pastor. After church there was the walk home +to the Lawn: and during this rapturous promenade Valentine put away +from him all shadow of doubt and fear, in order to bask in the full +sunshine of his Charlotte's presence. Her pretty gloved hand rested +confidingly on his arm, and the supreme privilege of carrying a dainty +blue-silk umbrella and an ivory-bound church-service was awarded him. +With what pride he accepted the duty of convoying his promised wife +over the muddy crossings! Those brief journeys seemed to him in a +manner typical of their future lives. She was to travel dry-shod over +the miry ways of this world, supported by his strong arm. How fondly he +surveyed her toilet! and what a sudden interest he felt in the +fashions, that had until lately seemed so vulgar and frivolous! + +"I will never denounce the absurdity of those little bonnets again, +Lotta," he cried; "that conglomeration of black velvet and +maiden's-hair fern is divine. Do you know that in some places they call +that fern Maria's hair, and hold it sacred to the mother of Him who was +born to-day? so you see there is an artistic fitness in your +head-dress. Yes, your bonnet is delicious, darling; and though the +diminutive size of that velvet jacket would lead me to suppose you had +borrowed it from some juvenile sister, it seems the very garment of all +garments best calculated to render you just one hair's-breadth nearer +perfection than you were made by Nature." + +"Valentine, don't be ridiculous!" giggled the young lady. + +"How can I help being ridiculous? Your presence acts upon my nerves +like laughing-gas. Ah, you do not know what cares and perplexities I +have to make me serious. Charlotte," exclaimed the young man, with +sudden energy, "do you think you could ever come to distrust me?" + +"Valentine! Do I think I shall ever be Queen of England? One thing is +quite as likely as the other." + +"My dear angel, if you will only believe in me always, there is no +power upon earth that can make us unhappy. Suppose you found yourself +suddenly possessed of a great fortune, Charlotte; what would you do +with it?" + +"I would buy you a library as good as that in the British Museum; and +then you would not want to spend the whole of your existence in Great +Russell-street." + +"But if you had a great fortune, Lotta, don't you think you would be +very much disposed to leave me to plod on at my desk in Great +Russell-street? Possessed of wealth, you would begin to languish for +position; and you would allow Mr. Sheldon to bring you some suitor who +could give you a name and a rank in society worthy of an angelic +creature with a hundred thousand pounds or so." + +"I should do nothing of the kind. I do not care for money. Indeed, I +should be almost sorry to be very rich." + +"Why, dearest?" + +"Because, if I were very rich, we could not live in the cottage at +Wimbledon, and I could not make lemon cheese-cakes for your dinner." + +"My own true-hearted darling!" cried Valentine; "the taint of +worldliness can never touch your pure spirit." + +They were at the gates of Mr. Sheldon's domain by this time. Diana and +Georgy had walked behind the lovers, and had talked a little about the +sermon, and a good deal about the bonnets; poor Diana doing her very +uttermost to feign an interest in the finery that had attracted Mrs. +Sheldon's wandering gaze. + +"Well, I should have thought you couldn't fail to see it," said the +elder lady, as they approached the gate; "a leghorn, very small, with +holly-berries and black ribbon--quite French, you know, and _so_ +stylish. I was thinking, if I had my Tuscan cleaned and altered, it +might----" And here the conversation became general, as the family +party entered the drawing-room, where Mr. Sheldon was reading his paper +by a roaring fire. + +"Talking about the bonnets, as per usual," said the stockbroker. "What +an enormous amount of spiritual benefit you women must derive from +church-going!--Consols have fallen another eighth since Tuesday +afternoon, George," added Mr. Sheldon, addressing himself to his +brother, who was standing on the hearth-rug, with his elbow on the +chimney-piece. + +"Consols are your 'bonnets,' papa," cried Charlotte, gaily; "I don't +think there is a day upon which you do not talk about their having gone +up, or gone down, or gone somewhere." + +After luncheon the lovers went for a walk in Kensington-gardens, with +Diana Paget to play propriety. "You will come with us, won't you, dear +Di?" pleaded Charlotte. "You have been looking pale and ill lately, and +I am sure a walk will do you good." + +Valentine seconded his liege lady's request; and the three spent a +couple of hours pacing briskly to and fro in the lonelier parts of the +gardens, leaving the broad walks for the cockneys, who mustered strong +upon this seasonable Christmas afternoon. + +For two out of those three that wintry walk was rapture only too +fleeting. For the third it was passive endurance. The agonies that had +but lately rent Diana's breast when she had seen those two together no +longer tortured her. The scorpion sting was beginning to lose its +venomous power. She suffered still, but her suffering was softened by +resignation. There is a limit to the capacity for pain in every mind. +Diana had borne her share of grief; she had, in Homeric phrase, +satiated herself with anguish and tears; and to those sharp throes and +bitter torments there had succeeded a passive sense of sorrow that was +almost peace. + +"I have lost him," she said to herself. "Life can never bring me much +joy; but I should be worse than weak if I spent my existence in the +indulgence of my sorrow. I should be one of the vilest wretches upon +this earth if I could not teach myself to witness the happiness of my +friend without repining." + +Miss Paget had not arrived at this frame of mind without severe +struggles. Many times, in the long wakeful nights, in the slow, joyless +days, she had said to herself, "Peace, peace, when there was no peace." +But at last the real peace, the true balm of Gilead, was given in +answer to her prayers, and the weary soul tasted the sweetness of +repose. She had wrestled with, and had vanquished, the demon. + +To-day, as she walked beside the lovers, and listened to their happy +frivolous talk, she felt like a mother who had seen the man she loved +won from her by her own daughter, and who had resigned herself to the +ruin of all her hopes for love of her child. + +There was more genial laughter and pleasant converse at Mr. Sheldon's +dinner-table that evening than was usual at that hospitable board; but +the stockbroker himself contributed little to the merriment of the +party. He was quiet, and even thoughtful, and let the talk and laughter +go by him without any attempt to take part in it. After dinner he went +to his own room; while Valentine and the ladies sat round the fire in +the orthodox Christmas manner, and after a good deal of discursive +conversation, subsided into the telling of ghost-stories. + +George Sheldon sat apart from the circle, turning over the books upon +the table, or peering into a stereoscope with an evident sense of +weariness. This kind of domestic evening was a manner of life which Mr. +Sheldon of Gray's Inn denounced as "slow;" and he submitted himself to +the endurance of it this evening only because he did not know where +else to bestow his presence. + +"I don't think papa cares much about ghost-stories, does he, uncle +George?" Charlotte asked, by way of saying something to the gentleman, +who seemed so very dreary as he sat yawning over the books and +stereoscopes. + +"I don't suppose he does, my dear." + +"And do you think he believes in ghosts?" the young lady demanded, +laughingly. + +"No, I am sure he doesn't," replied George, very seriously. + +"Why, how seriously you say that!" cried Charlotte, a little startled +by George Sheldon's manner, in which there had been an earnestness not +quite warranted by the occasion. + +"I was thinking of your father--not my brother Phil. He died in +Philip's house, you know; and if Phil believed in ghosts, he would +scarcely have liked living in that house afterwards, you see, and so +on. But he went on living there for a twelvemonth longer. It seemed +just as good as any other house to him, I suppose." + +Hereupon Georgy dissolved into tears, and told the company how she had +fled, heartbroken, from the house in which her first husband had died, +immediately after the funeral. + +"And I'm sure the gentlemanly manner in which your step-papa behaved +during all that dreadful time, Charlotte, is beyond all praise," +continued the lady, turning to her daughter; "so thoughtful, so kind, +so patient. What I should have done if poor Tom's illness had happened +in a strange house, I don't know. And I have no doubt that the new +doctor, Mr. Burkham, did his duty, though his manner was not as decided +as I should have wished." + +"Mr. Burkham!" cried Valentine. "What Burkham is that? We've a member +of the Ragamuffins called Burkham, a surgeon, who does a little in the +literary line." + +"The Mr. Burkham who attended my poor dear husband was a very young +man," answered Georgy; "a fair man, with a fresh colour and a +hesitating manner. I should have been so much better satisfied if he +had been older." + +"That is the man," said Valentine. "The Burkham I know is +fresh-coloured and fair, and cannot be much over thirty." + +"Are you and he particularly intimate?" asked George Sheldon, +carelessly. + +"O dear no, not at all. We speak to each other when we happen to +meet--that's all. He seems a nice fellow enough; and he evidently +hasn't much practice, or he couldn't afford to be a Ragamuffin, and to +write farces. He looks to me exactly the kind of modest deserving man +who ought to succeed, and who so seldom does." + +This was all that was said about Mr. Burkham; but there was no more +talk of ghost-stories, and a temporary depression fell upon the little +assembly. The memory of her father had always a saddening influence on +Charlotte; and it needed many tender _sotto-voce_ speeches from +Valentine to bring back the smiles to her fair young face. + +The big electro-plated tea-tray and massive silver teapot made their +appearance presently, and immediately after came Mr. Sheldon. + +"I want to have a little talk with you after tea, Hawkehurst," he said, +as he took his own cup from Georgy's hand, and proceeded to imbibe the +beverage standing. "If you will come out into the garden and have a +cigar, I can say all I have to say in a very few minutes; and then we +can come in here for a rubber. Georgy is a very decent player; and my +brother George plays as good a hand at whist as any man at the +Conservative or the Reform." + +Valentine's heart sank within him. What could Mr. Sheldon want with a +few minutes' talk, if not to revoke his gracious permission of some +days before--the permission that had been accorded in ignorance of +Charlotte's pecuniary advantages? The young man looked very pale as he +went to smoke his cigar in Mr. Sheldon's garden. Charlotte followed him +with anxious eyes, and wondered at the sudden gravity of his manner. +George Sheldon also was puzzled by his brother's desire for a +tête-à-tête. + +"What new move is Phil going to make?" he asked himself. The two men +lit their cigars, and got them well under weigh before Mr. Sheldon +began to talk. + +"When I gave my consent to receive you as Miss Halliday's suitor, my +dear Hawkehurst," he said, at last, "I told you that I was acting as +very few men of the world would act, and I only told you the truth. +Since giving you that consent I have made a very startling discovery, +and one that places me in quite a new position in regard to this +matter." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes, Mr. Hawkehurst, I have become aware of the fact that Miss +Halliday, the girl whom I thought entirely dependent upon my +generosity, is heir-at-law to a large fortune. You will, of course, +perceive how entirely this alters the position of affairs." + +"I do perceive," Valentine answered earnestly; "but I trust you will +believe that I had not the faintest idea of Miss Halliday's position +when I asked her to be my wife. As to my love for her, I can scarcely +tell you when that began; but I think it must have dated from the first +hour in which I saw her, for I can remember no period at which I did +_not_ love her." + +"If I did not believe you superior to any mercenary motives, you would +not have been under my roof to-day, Mr. Hawkehurst," said the +stockbroker, with extreme gravity. "The discovery of my stepdaughter's +position gives me no pleasure. Her claim to this wealth only increases +my responsibility with regard to her, and responsibility is what I +would willingly avoid. After all due deliberation, therefore, I have +decided that this discovery need make no alteration in your position as +Charlotte's future husband. If you were worthy of her when she was +without a fortune, you are not less worthy now." + +"Mr. Sheldon," cried Valentine, with considerable emotion, "I did not +expect so much generosity at your hands!" + +"No," replied the stockbroker, "the popular idea of a business man is +not particularly agreeable. I do not, however, pretend to anything like +generosity; I wish to take a common-sense view of the affair, but not +an illiberal one." + +"You have shown so much generosity of feeling, that I can no longer +sail under false colours," said Valentine, after a brief pause. "Until +a day or two ago I was bound to secrecy by a promise made to your +brother. But his communication of Miss Halliday's rights to you sets me +at liberty, and I must tell you that which may possibly cause you to +withdraw your confidence." + +Hereupon Mr. Hawkehurst revealed his share in the researches that had +resulted in the discovery of Miss Halliday's claim to a large fortune. +He entered into no details. He told Mr. Sheldon only that he had been +the chief instrument in the bringing about of this important discovery. + +"I can only repeat what I said just now," he added, in conclusion. "I +have loved Charlotte Halliday from the beginning of our acquaintance, +and I declared myself some days before I discovered her position. I +trust this confession will in nowise alter your estimate of me." + +"It would be a poor return for your candour if I were to doubt your +voluntary statement, Hawkehurst," answered the stockbroker. "No; I +shall not withdraw my confidence. And if your researches should +ultimately lead to the advancement of my stepdaughter, there will be +only poetical justice in your profiting more or less by that +advancement. In the mean time we cannot take matters too quietly. I am +not a sanguine person, and I know how many hearts have been broken by +the High Court of Chancery. This grand discovery of yours may result in +nothing but disappointment and waste of money, or it may end as +pleasantly as my brother and you seem to expect. All I ask is, that +poor Charlotte's innocent heart may not be tortured by a small lifetime +of suspense. Let her be told nothing that can create hope in the +present or disappointment in the future. She appears to be perfectly +happy in her present position, and it would be worse than folly to +disturb her by vague expectations that may never be realised. She will +have to make affidavits, and so on, by-and-by, I daresay; and when that +time comes she must be told there is some kind of suit pending in which +she is concerned. But she need not be told how nearly that suit +concerns her, or the extent of her alleged claim. You see, my dear sir, +I have seen so much of this sort of thing, and the misery involved in +it, that I may be forgiven if I am cautious." + +This was putting the whole affair in a new light. Until this moment +Valentine had fancied that, the chain of evidence once established, +Charlotte's claim had only to be asserted in order to place her in +immediate possession of the Haygarth estate. But Mr. Sheldon's cool and +matter-of-fact discussion of the subject implied all manner of doubt +and difficulty, and the Haygarthian thousands seemed carried away to +the most remote and shadowy regions of Chanceryland, as by the waves of +some legal ocean. + +"And you really think it would be better not to tell Charlotte?" + +"I am sure of it. If you wish to preserve her from all manner of worry +and annoyance, you will take care to keep her in the dark until the +affair is settled--supposing it ever should be settled. I have known +such an affair to outlast the person interested." + +"You take a very despondent view of the matter." + +"I take a practical view of it. My brother George is a monomaniac on +the next-of-kin subject." + +"I cannot quite reconcile myself to the idea of concealing the truth +from Charlotte." + +"That is because you do not know the world as well as I do," answered +Mr. Sheldon, coolly. + +"I cannot imagine that the idea of this claim would have any disturbing +influence upon her," Valentine argued, thoughtfully. "She is the last +person in the world to care about money." + +"Perhaps so. But there is a kind of intoxication in the idea of a large +fortune--an intoxication that no woman of Charlotte's age could stand +against. Tell her that she has a claim to considerable wealth, and from +that moment she will count upon the possession of that wealth, and +shape all her plans for the future upon that basis. 'When I get my +fortune, I will do this, that, and the other.' _That_ is what she will +be continually saying to herself; and by-and-by, when the affair +results in failure, as it very likely will, there will remain a sense +of disappointment which will last for a lifetime, and go far to +embitter all the ordinary pleasures of her existence." + +"I am inclined to think you are right," said Valentine, after some +little deliberation. "My darling girl is perfectly happy as it is. It +may be wisest to tell her nothing." + +"I am quite sure of that," replied Mr. Sheldon. "Of course her being +enlightened or not can be in no way material to me. It is a subject +upon which I can afford to be entirely disinterested." + +"I will take your advice, Mr. Sheldon." + +"So be it. In that case matters will remain _in statu quo_. You will be +received in this house as my stepdaughter's future husband, and it is +an understood thing that your marriage is not to take place without due +consultation with me. I am to have a voice in the business." + +"Most decidedly. It is only right that you should be deferred to." + +This brought the interview to a close very pleasantly. The gentlemen +went back to the house, and Valentine found himself presently seated at +a whist-table with the brothers Sheldon, and Georgy, who played very +well, in a feeble kind of way, holding religiously by all the precepts +of Hoyle, and in evident fear of her husband and brother-in-law. +Charlotte and Diana played duets while the whist progressed, with +orthodox silence and solemnity on the part of the four players. +Valentine's eyes wandered very often to the piano, and he was in nowise +sorry when the termination of a conquering rubber set him at liberty. +He contrived to secure a brief _tête-à-tête_ with Charlotte while he +helped her in the arrangement of the books on the music-stand, and then +the shrill chime of the clock on the mantelpiece, and an audible yawn +from Philip Sheldon, told him that he must go. + +"Providence has been very good to us," he said, in an undertone, as he +bade Miss Halliday good night. "Your stepfather's conduct is all that +is kind and thoughtful, and there is not a cloud upon our future. Good +night, and God bless you, my dearest! I think I shall always consider +this my first Christmas-day. I never knew till to-day how sweet and +holy this anniversary can be." + +He walked to Cumberland-gate in company with George Sheldon, who +preserved a sulky gravity, which was by no means agreeable. + +"You have chosen your own course," he said at parting, "and I only hope +the result may prove your wisdom. But, as I think I may have remarked +before, you don't know my brother Phil as well as I do." + +"Your brother has behaved with such extreme candour and good feeling +towards me, that I would really rather not hear any of your unpleasant +innuendoes against him. I hate that 'I could an if I would' style of +talk, and while I occupy my present position in your brother's house +I cannot consent to hear anything to his discredit." + +"That's a very tall animal you've taken to riding lately, my friend +Hawkehurst," said George, "and when a man rides the high horse with me +I always let him have the benefit of his _monture_. You have served +yourself without consideration for me, and I shall not trouble myself +in the future with any regard for you or your interests. But if harm +ever comes to you or yours, through my brother Philip, remember that I +warned you. Good night." + + * * * * * + +In Charlotte's room the cheery little fire burned late upon that frosty +night, while the girl sat in her dressing-gown dreamily brushing her +soft brown hair, and meditating upon the superhuman merits and graces +in her lover. + +It was more than an hour after the family had retired, when there came +a cautious tapping at Charlotte's door. "It is only I, dear," said a +low voice; and before Charlotte could answer, the door was opened, and +Diana came in, and went straight to the hearth, by which her friend was +sitting. + +"I am so wakeful to-night, Lotta," she said; "and the light under your +door tempted me to come in for a few minutes' chat." + +"My dearest Di, you know how glad I always am to see you." + +"Yes, dear, I know that you are only too good to me--and I have been so +wayward, so ungracious. O, Charlotte, I know my coldness has wounded +you during the last few months." + +"I have been just a little hurt now and then, dear, when you have +seemed not to care for me, or to sympathise with me in all my joys and +sorrows; but then it has been selfish of me to expect so much sympathy, +and I know that, if your manner is cold, your heart is noble." + +"No, Lotta, it is not noble. It is a wicked heart." + +"Diana!" + +"Yes," said Miss Paget, kneeling by her friend's chair, and speaking +with suppressed energy; "it has been a wicked heart--wicked because +your happiness has been torture to it." + +"Diana!" + +"O, my dearest one, do not look at me with those innocent, wondering +eyes. You will hate me, perhaps, when you know all. O, no, no, no, you +will not hate--you will pity and forgive me. I loved him, dear; he was +my companion, my only friend; and there was a time--long ago--before he +had ever seen your face, when I fancied that he cared for me, and would +get to love me--as I loved him--unasked, uncared for. O, Charlotte, you +can never know what I have suffered. It is not in your nature to +comprehend what such a woman as I can suffer. I loved him so dearly, I +clung so wickedly, so madly to my old hopes, my old dreams, long after +they had become the falsest hopes, the wildest dreams that ever had +power over a distracted mind. But, my darling, it is past, and I come +to you on this Christmas night to tell you that I have conquered my +stubborn heart, and that from this time forward there shall be no cloud +between you and me." + +"Diana, my dear friend, my poor girl!" cried Charlotte, quite overcome, +"you loved him, you--as well as I--and I have robbed you of his heart!" + +"No, Charlotte, it was never mine." + +"You loved him--all the time you spoke so harshly of him!" + +"When I seemed most harsh, I loved him most. But do not look at me with +such distress in your sweet face, my dear. I tell you that the worst +pain is past and gone. The rest is very easy to bear, and to outlive. +These things do not last for ever, Charlotte, whatever the poets and +novelists may tell us. If I had not lived through the worst, I should +not be here to-night, with your arm round my neck and his name upon my +lips. I have never wished you joy until to-night, Charlotte, and now +for the first time I can wish you all good things, in honesty and +truth. I have conquered myself. I do not say that to me Valentine +Hawkehurst can ever be quite what other men are. I think that to the +end of my life there will be a look in his face, a tone of his voice, +that will touch me more deeply than any other look or tone upon earth; +but my love for you has overcome my love for him, and there is no +hidden thought in my mind to-night, as I sit here at your feet, and +pray for God's blessing on your choice." + +"My darling Diana, I know not how to thank you, how to express my faith +and my love." + +"I doubt if I am worthy of your love, dear; but, with God's help, I +will be worthy of your trust; and if ever there should come a day in +which my love can succour or my devotion serve you, there shall be no +lack of either. Listen, dear; there are the waits playing the sweet +Christmas hymn. Do you remember what Shakespeare says about the 'bird +of dawning' singing all night long, and how no evil spirit roams abroad +at this dear season,-- + + 'So hallowed and so gracious is the time?' + +"I have conquered my evil spirit, Lotta, and there shall be peace and +true love between us for evermore, shall there not, dearest friend?" + +And thus ends the story of Diana Paget's girlish love--the love that +had grown up in secret, to be put away from her heart in silence, and +buried with the dead dreams and fancies that had fostered it. For her +to-night the romance of life closed for ever. For Charlotte the sweet +story was newly begun, and the opening chapters were very pleasant--the +mystic volume seemed all delight. Blessed with her lover's devotion, +her mother's approval, and even Mr. Sheldon's benign approbation, what +more could she ask from Providence--what lurking dangers could she +fear--what storm-cloud could she perceive upon the sunlit heavens? + +There was a cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, but the harbinger of +tempest and terror. It yet remains to be shown what form that cloud +assumed, and from what quarter the tempest came. The history of +Charlotte Halliday has grown upon the writer; and the completion of +that history, with the fate of John Haygarth's fortune, will be found +under the title of, CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE. + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds of Prey, by M. E. Braddon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS OF PREY *** + +***** This file should be named 9362-8.txt or 9362-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/6/9362/ + +Produced by J. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/9362-8.zip b/9362-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f410b12 --- /dev/null +++ b/9362-8.zip diff --git a/9362.txt b/9362.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4a4936 --- /dev/null +++ b/9362.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17657 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds of Prey, by M. E. Braddon + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Birds of Prey + +Author: M. E. Braddon + +Posting Date: December 15, 2009 [EBook #9362] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 24, 2003 +[Last updated: August 4, 2013] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS OF PREY *** + + + + +Produced by J. Ingram, G. Smith, T. Riikonen, and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + +BIRDS OF PREY + +BY + +M.E. BRADDON + + + +[Illustration: "Be good enough to take me straight to her," said the +Captain, "I am her father."] + + + + +CONTENTS: + +Book the First. + +FATAL FRIENDSHIP. + + I. THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY + II. PHILIP SHELDON READS THE "LANCET" + III. MR. AND MRS. HALLIDAY + IV. A PERPLEXING ILLNESS + V. THE LETTER FROM THE "ALLIANCE" OFFICE + VI. MR. BURKHAM'S UNCERTAINTIES + +Book the Second. + +THE TWO MACAIRES. + + I. A GOLDEN TEMPLE + II. THE EASY DESCENT + III. "HEART BARE, HEART HUNGRY, VERY POOR" + +Book the Third. + +HEAPING UP RICHES. + + I. A FORTUNATE MARRIAGE + II. CHARLOTTE + III. GEORGE SHELDON'S PROSPECTS + IV. DIANA FINDS A NEW HOME + V. AT THE LAWN + VI. THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN + VII. AUNT SARAH + VIII. CHARLOTTE PROPHESIES RAIN + IX. MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH + +Book the Fourth. + +VALENTINE HAWKEHURST'S RECORD. + + I. THE OLDEST INHABITANT + II. MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE + III. MR. GOODGE'S WISDOM + +Book the Fifth. + +RELICS OF THE DEAD. + + I. BETRAYED BY A BLOTTING-PAD + II. VALENTINE INVOKES THE PHANTOMS OF THE PAST + III. HUNTING THE JUDSONS + IV. GLIMPSES OF A BYGONE LIFE + +Book the Sixth. + +THE HEIRESS OF THE HAYGARTHS. + + I. DISAPPOINTMENT + II. VALENTINE'S RECORD CONTINUED + III. ARCADIA + IV. IN PARADISE + V. TOO FAIR TO LAST + VI. FOUND IN THE BIBLE + +Book the Seventh. + +CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT. + + I. "IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG" + II. MRS. SHELDON ACCEPTS HER DESTINY + III. MR. HAWKEHURST AND MR. GEORGE SHELDON COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING + IV. MR. SHELDON IS PROPITIOUS + V. MR. SHELDON IS BENEVOLENT + VI. RIDING THE HIGH HORSE + VII. MR. SHELDON IS PRUDENT + VIII. CHRISTMAS PEACE + + + +BIRDS OF PREY + + +BOOK THE FIRST. + +FATAL FRIENDSHIP. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY. + + +"What about?" There are some houses whereof the outward aspect is +sealed with the seal of respectability--houses which inspire confidence +in the minds of the most sceptical of butchers and bakers--houses at +whose area-gates the tradesman delivers his goods undoubtingly, and +from whose spotless door-steps the vagabond children of the +neighbourhood recoil as from a shrine too sacred for their gambols. + +Such a house made its presence obvious, some years ago, in one of the +smaller streets of that west-central region which lies between Holborn +and St. Pancras Church. It is perhaps the nature of +ultra-respectability to be disagreeably conspicuous. The unsullied +brightness of No. 14 Fitzgeorge-street was a standing reproach to every +other house in the dingy thorough-fare. That one spot of cleanliness +made the surrounding dirt cruelly palpable. The muslin curtains in the +parlour windows of No. 15 would not have appeared of such a smoky +yellow if the curtains of No. 14 had not been of such a pharisaical +whiteness. Mrs. Magson, at No. 13, was a humble letter of lodgings, +always more or less in arrear with the demands of quarter-day; and it +seemed a hard thing that her door-steps, whereon were expended much +labour and hearthstone--not to mention house-flannel, which was in +itself no unimportant item in the annual expenses--should be always +thrown in the shade by the surpassing purity of the steps before No. 14. + +Not satisfied with being the very pink and pattern of respectability, +the objectionable house even aspired to a kind of prettiness. It was as +bright, and pleasant, and rural of aspect as any house within earshot +of the roar and rattle of Holborn can be. There were flowers in the +windows; gaudy scarlet geraniums, which seemed to enjoy an immunity +from all the ills to which geraniums are subject, so impossible was it +to discover a faded leaf amongst their greenness, or the presence of +blight amidst their wealth of blossom. There were birdcages within the +shadow of the muslin curtains, and the colouring of the newly-pointed +brickwork was agreeably relieved by the vivid green of Venetian blinds. +The freshly-varnished street-door bore a brass-plate, on which to look +was to be dazzled; and the effect produced by this combination of white +door-step, scarlet geranium, green blind, and brass-plate was +obtrusively brilliant. + +Those who had been so privileged as to behold the interior of the house +in Fitzgeorge-street brought away with them a sense of admiration that +was the next thing to envy. The pink and pattern of propriety within, +as it was the pink and pattern of propriety without, it excited in +every breast alike a wondering awe, as of a habitation tenanted by some +mysterious being, infinitely superior to the common order of +householders. + +The inscription on the brass-plate informed the neighbourhood that No. +14 was occupied by Mr. Sheldon, surgeon-dentist; and the dwellers in +Fitzgeorge-street amused themselves in their leisure hours by +speculative discussions upon the character and pursuits, belongings and +surroundings, of this gentleman. + +Of course he was eminently respectable. On that question no +Fitzgeorgian had ever hazarded a doubt. A householder with such a +door-step and such muslin curtains could not be other than the most +correct of mankind; for, if there is any external evidence by which a +dissolute life or an ill-regulated mind will infallibly betray itself, +that evidence is to be found in the yellowness and limpness of muslin +window-curtains. The eyes are the windows of the soul, says the poet; +but if a man's eyes are not open to your inspection, the windows of his +house will help you to discover his character as an individual, and his +solidity as a citizen. At least such was the opinion cherished in +Fitzgeorge-street, Russell-square. + +The person and habits of Mr. Sheldon were in perfect harmony with the +aspect of the house. The unsullied snow of the door-step reproduced +itself in the unsullied snow of his shirt-front; the brilliancy of the +brass-plate was reflected in the glittering brightness of his +gold-studs; the varnish on the door was equalled by the lustrous +surface of his black-satin waistcoat; the careful pointing of the +brickwork was in a manner imitated by the perfect order of his polished +finger-nails and the irreproachable neatness of his hair and whiskers. +No dentist or medical practitioner of any denomination had inhabited +the house in Fitzgeorge-street before the coming of Philip Sheldon. The +house had been unoccupied for upwards of a year, and was in the last +stage of shabbiness and decay, when the bills disappeared all at once +from the windows, and busy painters and bricklayers set their ladders +against the dingy brickwork. Mr. Sheldon took the house on a long +lease, and spent two or three hundred pounds in the embellishment of +it. Upon the completion of all repairs and decorations, two great +waggon-loads of furniture, distinguished by that old fashioned +clumsiness which is eminently suggestive of respectability, arrived +from the Euston-square terminus, while a young man of meditative aspect +might have been seen on his knees, now in one empty chamber, anon in +another, performing some species of indoor surveying, with a three-foot +rule, a loose little oblong memorandum-book, and the merest stump of a +square lead-pencil. This was an emissary from the carpet warehouse; and +before nightfall it was known to more than one inhabitant in +Fitzgeorge-street that the stranger was going to lay down new carpets. +The new-comer was evidently of an active and energetic temperament, for +within three days of his arrival the brass-plate on his street-door +announced his profession, while a neat little glass-case, on a level +with the eye of the passing pedestrian, exhibited specimens of his +skill in mechanical dentistry, and afforded instruction and amusement +to the boys of the neighbourhood, who criticised the glistening white +teeth and impossibly red gums, displayed behind the plate-glass, with a +like vigour and freedom of language. Nor did Mr. Sheldon's announcement +of his profession confine itself to the brass-plate and the glass-case. +A shabby-genteel young man pervaded the neighbourhood for some days +after the surgeon-dentist's advent, knocking a postman's knock, which +only lacked the galvanic sharpness of the professional touch, and +delivering neatly-printed circulars to the effect that Mr. Sheldon, +surgeon-dentist, of 14 Fitzgeorge-street, had invented some novel +method of adjusting false teeth, incomparably superior to any existing +method, and that he had, further, patented an improvement on nature in +the way of coral gums, the name whereof was an unpronounceable compound +of Greek and Latin, calculated to awaken an awful reverence in the +unprofessional and unclassical mind. + +The Fitzgeorgians shook their heads with prophetic solemnity as they +read these circulars. Struggling householders, who find it a hard task +to keep the two ends which never have met and never will meet from +growing farther and farther asunder every year, are apt to derive a +dreary kind of satisfaction from the contemplation of another man's +impending ruin. Fitzgeorge-street and its neighbourhood had existed +without the services of a dentist, but it was very doubtful that a +dentist would be able to exist on the custom to be obtained in +Fitzgeorge-street. Mr. Sheldon may, perhaps, have pitched his tent +under the impression that wherever there was mankind there was likely +to be toothache, and that the healer of an ill so common to frail +humanity could scarcely fail to earn his bread, let him establish his +abode of horror where he might. For some time after his arrival people +watched him and wondered about him, and regarded him a little +suspiciously, in spite of the substantial clumsiness of his furniture +and the unwinking brightness of his windows. His neighbours asked one +another how long all that outward semblance of prosperity would last; +and there was sinister meaning in the question. + +The Fitzgeorgians were not a little surprised, and were perhaps just a +little disappointed, on finding that the newly-established dentist did +manage to hold his ground somehow or other, and that the muslin +curtains were renewed again and again in all their spotless purity; +that the supplies of rotten-stone and oil, hearthstone and +house-flannel, were unfailing as a perennial spring; and that the +unsullied snow of Mr. Sheldon's shirt-fronts retained its primeval +whiteness. Wonderland suspicion gave place to a half-envious respect. +Whether much custom came to the dentist no one could decide. There is +no trade or profession in which the struggling man will not receive +some faint show of encouragement. Pedestrians of agonised aspect, with +handkerchiefs held convulsively before their mouths, were seen to rush +wildly towards the dentist's door, then pause for a moment, stricken by +a sudden terror, and anon feebly pull the handle of an inflexible bell. +Cabs had been heard to approach that fatal door--generally on wet days; +for there seems to be a kind of fitness in the choice of damp and +dismal weather for the extraction of teeth. Elderly ladies and +gentlemen had been known to come many times to the Fitzgeorgian +mansion. There was a legend of an old lady who had been seen to arrive +in a brougham, especially weird and nut-crackery of aspect, and to +depart half an hour afterwards a beautified and renovated creature. One +half of the Fitzgeorgians declared that Mr. Sheldon had established a +very nice little practice, and was saving money; while the other half +were still despondent, and opined that the dentist had private +property, and was eating up his little capital. It transpired in course +of time that Mr. Sheldon had left his native town of Little +Barlingford, in Yorkshire, where his father and grandfather had been +surgeon-dentists before him, to establish himself in London. He had +disposed advantageously of an excellent practice, and had transferred +his household goods--the ponderous chairs and tables, the wood whereof +had deepened and mellowed in tint under the indefatigable hand of his +grandmother--to the metropolis, speculating on the chance that his +talents and appearance, address and industry, could scarcely fail to +achieve a position. It was further known that he had a brother, an +attorney in Gray's Inn, who visited him very frequently; that he had +few other friends or acquaintance; that he was a shining example of +steadiness and sobriety; that he was on the sunnier side of thirty, a +bachelor, and very good-looking; and that his household was comprised +of a grim-visaged active old woman imported from Barlingford, a girl +who ran errands, and a boy who opened the door, attended to the +consulting-room, and did some mysterious work at odd times with a file +and sundry queer lumps of plaster-of-paris, beeswax, and bone, in a +dark little shed abutting on the yard at the back of the house. This +much had the inhabitants of Fitzgeorge-street discovered respecting Mr. +Sheldon when he had been amongst them four years; but they had +discovered no more. He had made no local acquaintances, nor had he +sought to make any. Those of his neighbours who had seen the interior +of his house had entered it as patients. They left it as much pleased +with Mr. Sheldon as one can be with a man at whose hands one has just +undergone martyrdom, and circulated a very flattering report of the +dentist's agreeable manners and delicate white handkerchief, fragrant +with the odour of eau-de-Cologne. For the rest, Philip Sheldon lived +his own life, and dreamed his own dreams. His opposite neighbours, who +watched him on sultry summer evenings as he lounged near an open window +smoking his cigar, had no more knowledge of his thoughts and fancies +than they might have had if he had been a Calmuck Tartar or an +Abyssinian chief. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +PHILIP SHELDON READS THE "LANCET." + + +Fitzgeorge-street was chill and dreary of aspect, under a gray March +sky, when Mr. Sheldon returned to it after a week's absence from +London. He had been to Little Barlingford, and had spent his brief +holiday among old friends and acquaintance. The weather had not been in +favour of that driving hither and thither in dog-carts, or riding +rakish horses long distances to beat up old companions, which is +accounted pleasure on such occasions. The blustrous winds of an +unusually bitter March had buffeted Mr. Sheldon in the streets of his +native town, and had almost blown him off the door-steps of his +kindred. So it is scarcely strange if he returned to town looking none +the better for his excursion. He looked considerably the worse for his +week's absence, the old Yorkshire-woman said, as she waited upon him +while he ate a chop and drank two large cups of very strong tea. + +Mr. Sheldon made short work of his impromptu meal. He seemed anxious to +put an end to his housekeeper's affectionate interest in himself and +his health, and to get her out of the room. She had nursed him nearly +thirty years before, and the recollection that she had been very +familiar with him when he was a handsome black-eyed baby, with a +tendency to become suddenly stiff of body and crimson of visage without +any obvious provocation, inclined her to take occasional liberties now. +She watched him furtively as he sat in a big high-backed arm-chair +staring moodily at the struggling fire, and would fain have questioned +him a little about Barlingford and Barlingford people. + +But Philip Sheldon was not a man with whom even a superannuated nurse +can venture to take many liberties. He was a good master, paid his +servants their wages with unfailing punctuality, and gave very little +trouble. But he was the last person in the world upon whom a garrulous +woman could venture to inflict her rambling discourse; as Nancy +Woolper--by courtesy, Mrs. Woolper--was fain to confess to her +next-door neighbour, Mrs. Magson, when her master was the subject of an +afternoon gossip. The heads of a household may inhabit a neighbourhood +for years without becoming acquainted even with the outward aspect of +their neighbours; but in the lordly servants' halls of the West, or the +modest kitchens of Bloomsbury, there will be interchange of civilities +and friendly "droppings in" to tea or supper, let the master of the +house be never so ungregarious a creature. + +"You can take the tea-things, Nancy," Mr. Sheldon said presently, +arousing himself suddenly from that sombre reverie in which he had been +absorbed for the last ten minutes; "I am going to be very busy +to-night, and I expect Mr. George in the course of the evening. Mind, I +am not at home to anybody but him." + +The old woman arranged the tea-things on her tray, but still kept a +furtive watch on her master, who sat with his head a little bent, and +his bright black eyes fixed on the fire with that intensity of gaze +peculiar to eyes which see something far away from the object they seem +to contemplate. She was in the habit of watching Mr. Sheldon rather +curiously at all times, for she had never quite got over a difficulty +in realising the fact that the black-eyed baby with whom she had been +so intimate _could_ have developed into this self-contained inflexible +young man, whose thoughts were so very far away from her. To-night she +watched him more intently than she was accustomed to do, for to-night +there was some change in his face which she was trying in a dim way to +account for. + +He looked up from the fire suddenly, and found her eyes fixed upon him. +It may be that he had been disturbed by a semi-consciousness of that +curious gaze, for he looked at her angrily,--"What are you staring at, +Nancy?" + +It was not the first time he had encountered her watchful eyes and +asked the same impatient question. But Mrs. Woolper possessed that +north-country quickness of intellect which is generally equal to an +emergency, and was always ready with some question or suggestion which +went to prove that she had just fixed her eyes on her master, inspired +by some anxiety about his interests. + +"I was just a-thinking, sir," she said, meeting his stern glance +unflinchingly with her little sharp gray eyes, "I was just +a-thinking--you said not at home to _any one_, except Mr. George. If it +should be a person in a cab wanting their teeth out sudden--and if +anything could make toothache more general in this neighbourhood it +would be these March winds--if it should be a patient, sir, in a +cab----" + +The dentist interrupted her with a short bitter laugh. + +"Neither March winds nor April showers are likely to bring me patients, +Nancy, on foot or in cabs, and you ought to know it. If it's a patient, +ask him in, by all means, and give him last Saturday week's _Times_ to +read, while I rub the rust off my forceps. There, that will do; take +your tray--or, stop; I've some news to tell you." He rose, and stood +with his back to the fire and his eyes bent upon the hearthrug, while +Mrs. Woolper waited by the table, with the tray packed ready for +removal. Her master kept her waiting so for some minutes, and then +turned his face half away from her, and contemplated himself absently +in the glass while he spoke. + +"You remember Mrs. Halliday?" he asked. + +"I should think I did, sir; Miss Georgina Cradock that was--Miss Georgy +they called her; your first sweetheart. And how she could ever marry +that big awkward Halliday is more than I can make out. Poor fondy! I +suppose she was took with those great round blue eyes and red whiskers +of his." + +"Her mother and father were 'took' by his comfortable farmhouse and +well-stocked farm, Nancy," answered Mr. Sheldon, still contemplating +himself in the glass. "Georgy had very little to do with it. She is one +of those women who let other people think for them. However, Tom is an +excellent fellow, and Georgy was a lucky girl to catch such a husband. +Any little flirtation there may have been between her and me was over +and done with long before she married Tom. It never was more than a +flirtation; and I've flirted with a good many Barlingford girls in my +time, as you know, Nancy." + +It was not often that Mr. Sheldon condescended to be so communicative +to his housekeeper. The old woman nodded and chuckled, delighted by her +master's unwonted friendliness. + +"I drove over to Hyley while I was at home, Nancy," continued the +dentist--he called Barlingford home still, though he had broken most of +the links that had bound him to it--"and dined with the Hallidays. +Georgy is as pretty as ever, and she and Tom get on capitally." + +"Any children, sir?" + +"One girl," answered Mr. Sheldon carelessly. "She's at school in +Scarborough, and I didn't see her; but I hear she's a fine bouncing +lass. I had a very pleasant day with the Hallidays. Tom has sold his +farm; that part of the world doesn't suit him, it seems--too cold and +bleak for him. He's one of those big burly-looking men who seem as if +they could knock you down with a little finger, and who shiver at every +puff of wind. I don't think he'll make old bones, Nancy. But that's +neither here nor there. I daresay he's good for another ten years; or +I'm sure I hope so, on Georgy's account." + +"It was right down soft of him to sell Hyley Farm, though," said Nancy +reflectively; "I've heard tell as it's the best land for forty mile +round Barlingford. But he got a rare good price for it, I'll lay." + +"O, yes; he sold the property uncommonly well, he tells me. You know if +a north-countryman gets the chance of making a profit, he never lets it +slip through his fingers." + +Mrs. Woolper received this compliment to her countrymen with a +gratified grin, and Mr. Sheldon went on talking, still looking at the +reflection of his handsome face in the glass, and pulling his whiskers +meditatively. + +"Now as Tom was made for a farmer and nothing but a farmer, he must +find land somewhere in a climate that does suit him; so his friends +have advised him to try a place in Devonshire or Cornwall, where he may +train his myrtles and roses over his roof, and grow green peas for the +London markets as late as November. There are such places to be had if +he bides his time, and he's coming to town next week to look about him. +So, as Georgy and he would be about as capable of taking care of +themselves in London as a couple of children, I have recommended them +to take up their quarters here. They'll have their lodgings for +nothing, and we shall chum together on the Yorkshire system; for of +course I can't afford to keep a couple of visitors for a month at a +stretch. Do you think you shall be able to manage for us, Nancy?" + +"O, yes, I'll manage well enough. I'm not one of your lazy London +lasses that take half an hour to wipe a teacup. I'll manage easy +enough. Mr. and Mrs. Halliday will be having your room, I'll lay." + +"Yes; give them the best room, by all means. I can sleep anywhere. And +now go downstairs and think it over, Nancy. I must get to my work. I've +some letters that must be written to-night." + +Mrs. Woolper departed with her tray, gratified by her master's unwonted +familiarity, and not ill pleased by the thought of visitors. They would +cause a great deal of trouble, certainly; but the monotony of Nancy's +easy life had grown so oppressive to her as to render the idea of any +variety pleasing. And then there would be the pleasure of making that +iniquitous creature the London lass bestir herself, and there would be +furthermore the advantage of certain little perquisites which a clever +manager always secures to herself in a house where there is much eating +and drinking. Mr. Sheldon himself had lived like a modern anchorite for +the last four years; and Mrs. Woolper, who was pretty well acquainted +with the state of his finances, had pinched and contrived for his +benefit, or rather for the benefit of the black-eyed baby she had +nursed nine-and-twenty years before. For his sake she had been careful +and honest, willing to forego all the small profits to which she held +herself entitled; but if well-to-do people were going to share her +master's expenses, there would be no longer need for such scrupulous +integrity; and if things were rightly managed, Thomas Halliday might be +made to bear the entire cost of the household during his month's visit +on the Yorkshire system. + +While Mrs. Woolper meditated upon her domestic duties, the master of +the domicile abandoned himself to reflections which were apparently of +a very serious character. He brought a leathern desk from a side-table, +unlocked it, and took out a quire of paper; but he made no further +advance towards the writing of those letters on account of which he had +dismissed his housekeeper. He sat, with his elbows on the table, +nibbling the end of a wooden penholder, and staring at the opposite +wall. His face looked pale and haggard in the light of the gas, and the +eyes, fixed in that vacant stare, had a feverish brightness. + +Mr. Sheldon was a handsome man--eminently handsome, according to the +popular notion of masculine beauty; and if the popular ideal has been a +little vulgarised by the waxen gentlemen on whose finely-moulded +foreheads the wig-maker is wont to display the specimens of his art, +that is no discredit to Mr. Sheldon. His features were regular; the +nose a handsome aquiline; the mouth firm and well modelled; the chin +and jaw rather heavier than in the waxen ideal of the hair-dresser; the +forehead very prominent in the region of the perceptives, but obviously +wanting in the higher faculties. The eye of the phrenologist, unaided +by his fingers, must have failed to discover the secrets of Mr. +Sheldon's organisation; for one of the dentist's strong points was his +hair, which was very luxuriant, and which he wore in artfully-arranged +masses that passed for curls, but which owed their undulating grace +rather to a skilful manipulation than to any natural tendency. It has +been said that the rulers of the world are straight-haired men; and Mr. +Sheldon might have been a Napoleon III. so far as regards this special +attribute. His hair was of a dense black, and his whiskers of the same +sombre hue. These carefully-arranged whiskers were another of the +dentist's strong points; and the third strong point was his teeth, the +perfection whereof was a fine advertisement when considered in a +professional light. The teeth were rather too large and square for a +painter's or a poet's notion of beauty, and were apt to suggest an +unpleasant image of some sleek brindled creature crunching human bones +in an Indian jungle. But they were handsome teeth notwithstanding, and +their flashing whiteness made an effective contrast to the clear sallow +tint of the dentist's complexion. + +Mr. Sheldon was a man of industrious habits,--fond indeed of work, and +distinguished by a persistent activity in the carrying out of any +labour he had planned for himself. He was not prone to the indulgence +of idle reveries or agreeable day-dreams. Thought with him was labour; +it was the "thinking out" of future work to be done, and it was an +operation as precise and mathematical as the actual labour that +resulted therefrom. The contents of his brain were as well kept as a +careful trader's ledger. He had his thoughts docketed and indexed, and +rarely wasted the smallest portion of his time in searching for an +idea. Tonight he sat thinking until he was interrupted by a loud double +knock, which was evidently familiar to him, for he muttered "George!" +pushed aside his desk, and took up his stand upon the hearthrug, ready +to receive the expected visitor. + +There was the sound of a man's voice below,--very like Philip Sheldon's +own voice; then a quick firm tread on the stairs; and then the door was +opened, and a man, who himself was very like Philip Sheldon, came into +the room. This was the dentist's brother George, two years his junior. +The likeness between the two men was in no way marvellous, but it was +nevertheless very obvious. You could scarcely have mistaken one man for +the other, but you could hardly have failed to perceive that the two +men were brothers. They resembled each other more closely in form than +in face. They were of the same height--both tall and strongly built. +Both had black eyes with a hard brightness in them, black whiskers, +black hair, sinewy hands with prominent knuckles, square finger-tops, +and bony wrists. Each man seemed the personification of savage health +and vigour, smoothed and shapened in accordance with the prejudices of +civilised life. Looking at these two men for the first time, you might +approve or disapprove their appearance; they might impress you +favourably or unfavourably; but you could scarcely fail to be reminded +vaguely of strong, bright-eyed, savage creatures, beautiful and +graceful after their kind, but dangerous and fatal to man. + +The brothers greeted each other with a friendly nod. They were a great +deal too practical to indulge in any sentimental display of fraternal +affection. They liked each other very well, and were useful to each +other, and took their pleasure together on those rare occasions when +they were weak enough to waste time upon unprofitable pleasure; but +neither of them would have comprehended the possibility of anything +beyond this. + +"Well, old fellow," said George, "I'm glad you're back again. You're +looking rather seedy, though. I suppose you knocked about a good deal +down there?" + +"I had a night or two of it with Halliday and the old set. He's going +it rather fast." + +"Humph!" muttered Mr. Sheldon the younger; "it's a pity he doesn't go +it a little faster, and go off the hooks altogether, so that you might +marry Georgy." + +"How do I know that Georgy would have me, if he did leave her a widow?" +asked Philip dubiously. + +"O, she'd have you fast enough. She used to be very sweet upon you +before she married Tom; and even if she has forgotten all that, she'd +have you if you asked her. She'd be afraid to say no. She was always +more or less afraid of you, you know, Phil." + +"I don't know about that. She was a nice little thing enough; but she +knew how to drop a poor sweetheart and take up with a rich one, in +spite of her simplicity." + +"O, that was the old parties' doing. Georgy would have jumped into a +cauldron of boiling oil if her mother and father had told her she must +do it. Don't you remember when we were children together how afraid she +used to be of spoiling her frocks? I don't believe she married Tom +Halliday of her own free will, any more than she stood in the corner of +her own free will after she'd torn her frock, as I've seen her stand +twenty times. She stood in the corner because they told her she must; +and she married Tom for the same reason, and I don't suppose she's been +particularly happy with him." + +"Well, that's her look-out," answered Philip gloomily; "I know I want a +rich wife badly enough. Things are about as bad with me as they can be." + +"I suppose they _are_ rather piscatorial. The elderly dowagers don't +come up to time, eh? Very few orders for the complete set at +ten-pound-ten?" + +"I took about seventy pounds last year," said the dentist, "and my +expenses are something like five pounds a week. I've been making up the +deficiency out of the money I got for the Barlingford business, +thinking I should be able to stand out and make a connection; but the +connection gets more disconnected every year. I suppose people came to +me at first for the novelty of the thing, for I had a sprinkling of +decent patients for the first twelve months or so. But now I might as +well throw my money into the gutter as spend it on circulars or +advertisements." + +"And a young woman with twenty thousand pounds and something amiss with +her jaw hasn't turned up yet!" + +"No, nor an old woman either. I wouldn't stick at the age, if the money +was all right," answered Mr. Sheldon bitterly. + +The younger brother shrugged his shoulders and plunged his hands into +his trousers-pockets with a gesture of seriocomic despair. He was the +livelier of the two, and affected a slanginess of dress and talk and +manner, a certain "horsey" style, very different from his elder +brother's studied respectability of costume and bearing. His clothes +were of a loose sporting cut, and always odorous with stale tobacco. He +wore a good deal of finery in the shape of studs and pins and dangling +lockets and fusee-boxes; his whiskers were more obtrusive than his +brother's, and he wore a moustache in addition--a thick ragged black +moustache, which would have become a guerilla chieftain rather than a +dweller amidst the quiet courts and squares of Gray's Inn. His position +as a lawyer was not much better than that of Philip as a dentist; but +he had his own plans for making a fortune, and hoped to win for himself +a larger fortune than is often made in the law. He was a hunter of +genealogies, a grubber-up of forgotten facts, a joiner of broken links, +a kind of legal resurrectionist, a digger in the dust and ashes of the +past; and he expected in due time to dig up a treasure rich enough to +reward the labour and patience of half a lifetime. + +"I can afford to wait till I'm forty for my good luck," he said to his +brother sometimes in moments of expansion; "and then I shall have ten +years in which to enjoy myself, and twenty more in which I shall have +life enough left to eat good dinners and drink good wine, and grumble +about the degeneracy of things in general, after the manner of elderly +human nature." + +The men stood one on each side of the hearth; George looking at his +brother, Philip looking down at the fire, with his eyes shaded by their +thick black lashes. The fire had become dull and hollow. George bent +down presently and stirred the coals impatiently. + +"If there's one thing I hate more than, another--and I hate a good many +things--it's a bad fire," he said. "How's Barlingford--lively as ever, +I suppose?" + +"Not much livelier than it was when we left it. Things have gone amiss +with me in London, and I've been more than once sorely tempted to make +an end of my difficulties with a razor or a few drops of prussic acid; +but when I saw the dull gray streets and the square gray houses, and +the empty market-place, and the Baptist chapel, and the Unitarian +chapel, and the big stony church, and heard the dreary bells +ding-donging for evening service, I wondered how I could ever have +existed a week in such a place. I had rather sweep a crossing in London +than occupy the best house in Barlingford, and I told Tom Halliday so." + +"And Tom is coming to London I understand by your letter." + +"Yes, he has sold Hyley, and wants to find a place in the west of +England. The north doesn't suit his chest. He and Georgy are coming up +to town for a few weeks, so I've asked them to stay here. I may as well +make some use of the house, for it's very little good in a professional +sense." + +"Humph!" muttered George; "I don't see your motive." + +"I have no particular motive. Tom's a good fellow, and his company will +be better than an empty house. The visit won't cost me +anything--Halliday is to go shares in the housekeeping." + +"Well, you may find it answer that way," replied Mr. Sheldon the +younger, who considered that every action of a man's life ought to be +made to "answer" in some way. "But I should think you would be rather +bored by the arrangement: Tom's a very good fellow in his way, and a +great friend of mine, but he's rather an empty-headed animal." + +The subject dropped here, and the brothers went on talking of +Barlingford and Barlingford people--the few remaining kindred whose +existence made a kind of link between the two men and their native +town, and the boon companions of their early manhood. The dentist +produced the remnant of a bottle of whisky from the sideboard, and rang +for hot water and sugar, wherewith to brew grog, for his own and his +brother's refreshment; but the conversation flagged nevertheless. +Philip Sheldon was dull and absent, answering his companion at random +every now and then, much to that gentleman's aggravation; and he owned +at last to being thoroughly tired and worn out. + +"The journey from Barlingford in a slow train is no joke, you know, +George, and I couldn't afford the express," he said apologetically, +when his brother upbraided him for his distraction of manner. + +"Then I should think you'd better go to bed," answered Mr. Sheldon the +younger, who had smoked a couple of cigars, and consumed the contents +of the whisky-bottle; "so I'll take myself off. I told you how +uncommonly seedy you were looking when I first came in. When do you +expect Tom and his wife?" + +"At the beginning of next week." + +"So soon! Well, good-night, old fellow; I shall see you before they +come, I daresay. You might as well drop in upon me at my place +to-morrow night. I'm hard at work on a job." + +"Your old kind of work?" + +"O, yes. I don't get much work of any other kind." + +"And I'm afraid you'll never get much good out of that." + +"I don't know. A man who sits down to whist may have a run of ill-luck +before he gets a decent hand; but the good cards are sure to come if he +only sits long enough. Every man has his chance, depend upon it, Phil, +if he knows how to watch for it; but there are so many men who get +tired and go to sleep before their chances come to them. I've wasted a +good deal of time, and a good deal of labour; but the ace of trumps is +in the pack, and it must turn up sooner or later. Ta-ta." + +George Sheldon nodded and departed, whistling gaily as he walked away +from his brother's door. Philip heard him, and turned his chair to the +fire with a movement of impatience. + +"You may be uncommonly clever, my dear George," soliloquised the +dentist, "but you'll never make a fortune by reading wills and hunting +in parish-registers for heirs-at-law. A big lump of money is not very +likely to go a-begging while any one who can fudge up the faintest +pretence of a claim to it is above ground. No, no, my lad, you must +find a better way than that before you'll make your fortune." + +The fire had burnt low again, and Mr. Sheldon sat staring gloomily at +the blackening coals. Things were very bad with him--he had not cared +to confess how bad they were, when he had discussed his affairs with +his brother. Those neighbours and passers-by who admired the trim +brightness of the dentist's abode had no suspicion that the master of +that respectable house was in the hands of the Jews, and that the +hearthstone which whitened his door-step was paid for out of +Israelitish coffers. The dentist's philosophy was all of this world, +and he knew that the soldier of fortune, who would fain be a conqueror +in the great battle, must needs keep his plumage undrabbled and the +golden facings of his uniform untarnished, let his wounds be never so +desperate. + +Having found his attempt to establish a practice in Fitzgeorge-street a +failure, the only course open to Mr. Sheldon, as a man of the world, +was to transfer his failure to somebody else, with more or less profit +to himself. To this end he preserved the spotless purity of his muslin +curtains, though the starch that stiffened them and the +bleaching-powder that whitened them were bought with money for which he +was to pay sixty per cent. To this end he nursed that wan shadow of a +practice, and sustained that appearance of respectability which, in a +world where appearance stands for so much, is in itself a kind of +capital. It certainly was dull dreary work to hold the citadel of No. +14 Fitzgeorge-street, against the besieger Poverty; but the dentist +stood his ground pertinaciously, knowing that if he only waited long +enough, the dupe who was to be his victim would come, and knowing also +that there might arrive a day when it would be very useful for him to +be able to refer to four years' unblemished respectability as a +Bloomsbury householder. He had his lines set in several shady places +for that unhappy fish with a small capital, and he had been tantalised +by more than one nibble; but he made no open show of his desire to sell +his business--since a business that is obviously in the market seems +scarcely worth any man's purchase. + +Things had of late grown worse with him every day; for every interval +of twenty-four hours sinks a man so much the deeper in the mire when +renewed accommodation-bills with his name upon them are ripening in the +iron safes of Judah. Philip Sheldon found himself sinking gradually and +almost imperceptibly into that bottomless pit of difficulty in whose +black depths the demon Insolvency holds his dreary court. While his +little capital lasted he had kept himself clear of debt, but that being +exhausted, and his practice growing worse day by day, he had been fain +to seek assistance from money-lenders; and now even the money-lenders +were tired of him. The chair in which he sat, the poker which he swung +slowly to and fro as he bent over his hearth, were not his own. One of +his Jewish creditors had a bill of sale on his furniture, and he might +come home any day to find the auctioneer's bills plastered against the +wall of his house, and the auctioneer's clerk busy with the catalogue +of his possessions. If the expected victim came now to buy his +practice, the sacrifice would be made too late to serve his interest. +The men who had lent him the money would be the sole gainers by the +bargain. + +Seldom does a man find himself face to face with a blacker prospect +than that which lay before Philip Sheldon; and yet his manner to-night +was not the dull blank apathy of despair. It was the manner of a man +whose brain is occupied by busy thoughts; who has some elaborate scheme +to map out and arrange before he is called upon to carry his plans into +action. + +"It would be a good business for me," he muttered, "if I had pluck +enough to carry it through." + +The fire went out as he sat swinging the poker backwards and forwards. +The clocks of Bloomsbury and St. Pancras struck twelve, and still +Philip Sheldon pondered and plotted by that dreary hearth. The servants +had retired at eleven, after a good deal of blundering with bars and +shutters, and unnecessary banging of doors. That unearthly silence +peculiar to houses after midnight reigned in Mr. Sheldon's domicile, +and he could hear the voices of distant roisterers, and the miauling of +neighbouring cats, with a painful distinctness as he sat brooding in +his silent room. The fact that a mahogany chiffonier in a corner gave +utterance to a faint groan occasionally, as of some feeble creature in +pain, afforded him no annoyance. He was superior to superstitious +fancies, and all the rappings and scratchings of spirit-land would have +failed to disturb his equanimity. He was a strictly practical man--one +of those men who are always ready, with a stump of lead-pencil and the +back of a letter, to reduce everything in creation to figures. + +"I had better read up that business before they come," he said, when he +had to all appearance "thought out" the subject of his reverie. "No +time so good as this for doing it quietly. One never knows who is +spying about in the daytime." He looked at his watch, and then went to +a cupboard, where there were bundles of wood and matches and old +newspapers,--for it was his habit to light his own fire occasionally +when he worked unusually late at night or early in the morning. He +relighted his fire now as cleverly as any housemaid in Bloomsbury, and +stood watching it till it burned briskly. Then he lit a taper, and went +downstairs to the professional torture-chamber. The tall horsehair +chair looked unutterably awful in the dim glimmer of the taper, and a +nervous person could almost have fancied it occupied by the ghost of +some patient who had expired under the agony of the forceps. Mr. +Sheldon lighted the gas in a movable branch which he was in the habit +of turning almost into the mouths of the patients who consulted him at +night. There was a cupboard on each side of the mantelpiece, and it was +in these two cupboards that the dentist kept his professional library. +His books did not form a very valuable collection, but he kept the +cupboards constantly locked nevertheless. + +He took the key from his waistcoat-pocket, opened one of the cupboards, +and selected a book from a row of dingy-looking volumes. He carried the +book to the room above, where he seated himself under the gas, and +opened the volume at a place in which there was a scrap of paper, +evidently left there as a mark. The book was a volume of the _Lancet_, +and in this book he read with close attention until the Bloomsbury +clocks struck three. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. AND MRS. HALLIDAY. + + +Mr. Sheldon's visitors arrived in due course. They were provincial +people of the middle class, accounted monstrously genteel in their own +neighbourhood, but in nowise resembling Londoners of the same rank. + +Mr. Thomas Halliday was a big, loud-spoken, good-tempered Yorkshireman, +who had inherited a comfortable little estate from a plodding, +money-making father, and for whom life had been very easy. He was a +farmer, and nothing but a farmer; a man for whom the supremest pleasure +of existence was a cattle-show or a country horse-fair. The farm upon +which he had been born and brought up was situated about six miles from +Barlingford, and all the delights of his boyhood and youth were +associated with that small market town. He and the two Sheldons had +been schoolfellows, and afterwards boon companions, taking such +pleasure as was obtainable in Barlingford together; flirting with the +same provincial beauties at prim tea-parties in the winter, and getting +up friendly picnics in the summer--picnics at which eating and drinking +were the leading features of the day's entertainment. Mr. Halliday had +always regarded George and Philip Sheldon with that reverential +admiration which a stupid man, who is conscious of his own mental +inferiority, generally feels for a clever friend and companion. But he +was also fully aware of the advantage which a rich man possesses over a +poor one, and would not have exchanged the fertile acres of Hyley for +the intellectual gifts of his schoolfellows. He had found the +substantial value of his comfortably furnished house and well-stocked +farm when he and his friend Philip Sheldon became suitors for the hand +of Georgina Cradock, youngest daughter of a Barlingford attorney, who +lived next door to the Barlingford dentist, Philip Sheldon's father. +Philip and the girl had been playfellows in the long-walled gardens +behind the two houses, and there had been a brotherly and sisterly +intimacy between the juvenile members of the two families. But when +Philip and Georgina met at the Barlingford tea-parties in later years, +the parental powers frowned upon any renewal of that childish +friendship. Miss Cradock had no portion, and the worthy solicitor her +father was a prudent man, who was apt to look for the promise of +domestic happiness in the plate-basket and the linen-press, rather than +for such superficial qualifications as black whiskers and white teeth. +So poor Philip was "thrown over the bridge," as he said himself, and +Georgy Cradock married Mr. Halliday, with all attendant ceremony and +splendour, according to the "lights" of Barlingford gentry. + +But this provincial bride's story was no passionate record of anguish +and tears. The Barlingford Juliet had liked Romeo as much as she was +capable of liking any one; but when Papa Capulet insisted on her union +with Paris, she accepted her destiny with decent resignation, and, in +the absence of any sympathetic father confessor, was fain to seek +consolation from a more mundane individual in the person of the +Barlingford milliner. Nor did Philip Sheldon give evidence of any +extravagant despair. His father was something of a doctor as well as a +dentist; and there were plenty of dark little phials lurking on the +shelves of his surgery in which the young man could have found "mortal +drugs" without the aid of the apothecary, had he been so minded. +Happily no such desperate idea ever occurred to him in connection with +his grief. He held himself sulkily aloof from Mr. and Mrs. Halliday for +some time after their marriage, and allowed people to see that he +considered himself very hardly used; but Prudence, which had always +been Philip Sheldon's counsellor, proved herself also his consoler in +this crisis of his life. A careful consideration of his own interests +led him to perceive that the successful result of his love-suit would +have been about the worst thing that could have happened to him. + +Georgina had no money. All was said in that. As the young dentist's +worldly wisdom ripened with experience, he discovered that the worldly +ease of the best man in Barlingford was something like that of a +canary-bird who inhabits a clean cage and is supplied with abundant +seed and water. The cage is eminently comfortable, and the sleepy, +respectable, elderly bird sighs for no better abiding-place, no wider +prospect than that patch of the universe which he sees between the +bars. But now and then there is hatched a wild young fledgeling, which +beats its wings against the inexorable wires, and would fain soar away +into that wide outer world, to prosper or perish in its freedom. + +Before Georgy had been married a year, her sometime lover had fully +resigned himself to the existing state of things, and was on the best +possible terms with his friend Tom. He could eat his dinner in the +comfortable house at Hyley with an excellent appetite; for there was a +gulf between him and his old love far wider than any that had been dug +by that ceremonial in the parish church of Barlingford. Philip Sheldon +had awakened to the consciousness that life in his native town was +little more than a kind of animal vegetation--the life of some pulpy +invertebrate creature, which sprawls helplessly upon the sands whereon +the wave has deposited it, and may be cloven in half without feeling +itself noticeably worse for the operation. He had awakened to the +knowledge that there was a wider and more agreeable world beyond that +little provincial borough, and that a handsome face and figure and a +vigorous intellect were commodities for which there must be some kind +of market. + +Once convinced of the utter worthlessness of his prospects in +Barlingford, Mr. Sheldon turned his eyes Londonwards; and his father +happening at the same time very conveniently to depart this life, +Philip, the son and heir, disposed of the business to an aspiring young +practitioner, and came to the metropolis, where he made that futile +attempt to establish himself which has been described. + +The dentist had wasted four years in London, and ten years had gone by +since Georgy's wedding; and now for the first time he had an +opportunity of witnessing the domestic happiness or the domestic misery +of the woman who had jilted him, and the man who had been his +successful rival. He set himself to watch them with the cool +deliberation of a social anatomist, and he experienced very little +difficulty in the performance of this moral dissection. They were +established under his roof, his companions at every meal; and they were +a kind of people who discuss their grievances and indulge in their +"little differences" with perfect freedom in the presence of a third, +or a fourth, or even a fifth party. + +Mr. Sheldon was wise enough to preserve a strict neutrality. He would +take up a newspaper at the beginning of a little difference, and lay it +down when the little difference was finished, with the most perfect +assumption of unconsciousness; but it is doubtful whether the +matrimonial disputants were sufficiently appreciative of this good +breeding. They would have liked to have had Mr. Sheldon for a court of +appeal; and a little interference from him would have given zest to +their quarrels. Meanwhile Philip watched them slyly from the covert of +his newspaper, and formed his own conclusions about them. If he was +pleased to see that his false love's path was not entirely +rose-bestrewn, or if he rejoiced at beholding the occasional annoyance +of his rival, he allowed no evidence of his pleasure to appear in his +face or manner. + +Georgina Cradock's rather insipid prettiness had developed into +matronly comeliness. Her fair complexion and pink cheeks had lost none +of their freshness. Her smooth auburn hair was as soft and bright as it +had been when she had braided it preparatory to a Barlingford tea-party +in the days of her spinsterhood. She was a pretty, weak little woman, +whose education had never gone beyond the routine of a provincial +boarding-school, and who believed that she had attained all necessary +wisdom in having mastered Pinnock's abridgments of Goldsmith's +histories and the rudiments of the French language. She was a woman who +thought that the perfection of feminine costume was a moire-antique +dress and a conspicuous gold chain. She was a woman who considered a +well-furnished house and a horse and gig the highest form of earthly +splendour or prosperity. + +This was the shallow commonplace creature whom Philip Sheldon had once +admired and wooed. He looked at her now, and wondered how he could ever +have felt even as much as he had felt on her account. But he had little +leisure to devote to any such abstract and useless consideration. He +had his own affairs to think about, and they were very desperate. + +In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. Halliday occupied themselves in the +pursuit of pleasure or business, as the case might be. They were eager +for amusement: went to exhibitions in the day and to theatres at night, +and came home to cozy little suppers in Fitzgeorge-street, after which +Mr. Halliday was wont to waste the small hours in friendly conversation +with his quondam companion, and in the consumption of much +brandy-and-water. + +Unhappily for Georgy, these halcyon days were broken by intervals of +storm and cloud. The weak little woman was afflicted with that +intermittent fever called jealousy; and the stalwart Thomas was one of +those men who can scarcely give the time of day to a feminine +acquaintance without some ornate and loud-spoken gallantry. Having no +intellectual resources wherewith to beguile the tedium of his idle +prosperous life, he was fain to seek pleasure in the companionship of +other men; and had thus become a haunter of tavern parlours and small +racecourses, being always ready for any amusement his friends proposed +to him. It followed, therefore, that he was very often absent from his +commonplace substantial home, and his pretty weak-minded wife. And poor +Georgy had ample food for her jealous fears and suspicions; for where +might a man not be who was so seldom at home? She had never been +particularly fond of her husband, but that was no reason why she should +not be particularly jealous about him; and her jealousy betrayed itself +in a peevish worrying fashion, which was harder to bear than the +vengeful ferocity of a Clytemnestra. It was in vain that Thomas +Halliday and those jolly good fellows his friends and companions +attested the Arcadian innocence of racecourses, and the perfect purity +of that smoky atmosphere peculiar to tavern parlours. Georgy's +suspicions were too vague for refutation; but they were nevertheless +sufficient ground for all the alternations of temper--from stolid +sulkiness to peevish whining, from murmured lamentations to loud +hysterics--to which the female temperament is liable. + +In the meantime poor honest, loud-spoken Tom did all in his power to +demonstrate his truth and devotion. He bought his wife as many stiff +silk gowns and gaudy Barlingford bonnets as she chose to sigh for. He +made a will, in which she was sole legatee, and insured his life in +different offices to the amount of five thousand pounds. + +"I'm the sort of fellow that's likely to go off the hooks suddenly, you +know, Georgy," he said, "and your poor dad was always anxious I should +make things square for you. I don't suppose you're likely to marry +again, my lass, so I've no need to tie up Lottie's little fortune. I +must trust some one, and I'd better confide in my little wife than in +some canting methodistical fellow of a trustee, who would speculate my +daughter's money upon some Stock-Exchange hazard, and levant to +Australia when it was all swamped. If you can't trust me, Georgy, I'll +let you see that I can trust you", added Tom reproachfully. + +Whereupon poor weak little Mrs. Halliday murmured plaintively that she +did not want fortunes or life insurances, but that she wanted her +husband to stay at home, content with the calm and rather sleepy +delights of his own fireside. Poor Tom was wont to promise amendment, +and would keep his promise faithfully so long as no supreme temptation, +in the shape of a visit from some friend of the jolly-good-fellow +species, arose to vanquish his good resolutions. But a good-tempered, +generous-hearted young man who farms his own land, has three or four +good horses in his stable, a decent cellar of honest port and +sherry--"none of your wishy-washy sour stuff in the way of hock or +claret," cried Tom Halliday--and a very comfortable balance at his +banker's, finds it no easy matter to shake off friends of the +jolly-good-fellow fraternity. + +In London Mr. Halliday found the spirit of jolly-dog-ism rampant. +George Sheldon had always been his favourite of these two brothers; and +it was George who lured him from the safe shelter of Fitzgeorge-street +and took him to mysterious haunts, whence he returned long after +midnight, boisterous of manner and unsteady of gait, and with garments +reeking of stale tobacco-smoke. + +He was always good-tempered, even after these diabolical orgies on some +unknown Brocken, and protested indistinctly that there was no +harm,--"'pon m' wor', ye know, ol' gur'! Geor' an' me--half-doz' +oyst'r--c'gar--botl' p'l ale--str't home," and much more to the same +effect. When did any married man ever take more than half a dozen +oysters--or take any undomestic pleasure for his own satisfaction? It +is always those incorrigible bachelors, Thomas, Richard, or Henry, who +hinder the unwilling Benedick from returning to his sacred Lares and +Penates. + +Poor Georgy was not to be pacified by protestations about oysters and +cigars from the lips of a husband who was thick of utterance, and who +betrayed a general imbecility of mind and unsteadiness of body. This +London excursion, which had begun in sunshine, threatened to end in +storm and darkness. George Sheldon and his set had taken possession of +the young farmer; and Georgy had no better amusement in the long +blustrous March evenings than to sit at her work under the flaming gas +in Mr. Sheldon's drawing-room, while that gentleman--who rarely joined +in the dissipations of his friend and his brother--occupied himself +with mechanical dentistry in the chamber of torture below. + +Fitzgeorge-street in general, always on the watch to discover evidences +of impecuniosity or doubtful morality on the part of any one citizen in +particular, could find no food for scandal in the visit of Mr. and Mrs. +Halliday to their friend and countryman. It had been noised abroad, +through the agency of Mrs. Woolper, that Mr. Sheldon had been a suitor +for the lady's hand, and had been jilted by her. The Fitzgeorgians had +been, therefore, especially on the alert to detect any sign of +backsliding in the dentist. There would have been much pleasant +discussion in kitchens and back-parlours if Mr. Sheldon had been +particularly attentive to his fair guest; but it speedily became known, +always by the agency of Mrs. Woolper and that phenomenon of idleness +and iniquity, the London "girl," that Mr. Sheldon was not by any means +attentive to the pretty young woman from Yorkshire; but that he +suffered her to sit alone hour after hour in her husband's absence, +with no amusement but her needlework wherewith to "pass the time," +while he scraped and filed and polished those fragments of bone which +were to assist in the renovation of decayed beauty. + +The third week of Mr. and Mrs. Halliday's visit was near its close, and +as yet the young farmer had arrived at no decision as to the subject +which had brought him to London. The sale of Hyley Farm was an +accomplished fact, and the purchase-money duly bestowed at Tom's +banker's; but very little had been done towards finding the new +property which was to be a substitute for the estate his father and +grandfather had farmed before him. He had seen auctioneers, and had +brought home plans of estates in Herefordshire and Devonshire, Cornwall +and Somersetshire, all of which seemed to be, in their way, the most +perfect things imaginable--land of such fertility as one would scarcely +expect to find out of Arcadia--live stock which seemed beyond all +price, to be taken at a valuation.--roads and surrounding neighbourhood +unparalleled in beauty and convenience--outbuildings that must have +been the very archetypes of barns and stables--a house which to inhabit +would be to adore. But as yet he had seen none of these peerless +domains. He was waiting for decent weather in which to run down to the +West and "look about him," as he said to himself. In the meantime the +blustrous March weather, which was so unsuited to long railroad +journeys, and all that waiting about at junctions and at little windy +stations on branch lines, incidental to the inspection of estates +scattered over a large area of country, served very well for +"jolly-dog-ism;" and what with a hand at cards in George Sheldon's +chambers, and another hand at cards in somebody else's chambers, and a +run down to an early meeting at Newmarket, and an evening at some rooms +where there was something to be seen which was as near prize-fighting +as the law allowed, and other evenings in unknown regions, Mr. Halliday +found time slipping by him, and his domestic peace vanishing away. + +It was on an evening at the end of this third week that Mr. Sheldon +abandoned his mechanical dentistry for once in a way, and ascended to +the drawing-room where poor Georgy sat busy with that eternal +needlework, but for which melancholy madness would surely overtake many +desolate matrons in houses whose common place comfort and respectable +dulness are more dismal than the picturesque dreariness of a moated +grange amid the Lincolnshire fens. To the masculine mind this +needlework seems nothing more than a purposeless stabbing and sewing of +strips of calico; but to lonely womanhood it is the prison-flower of +the captive, it is the spider of Latude. + +Mr. Sheldon brought his guest an evening newspaper. + +"There's an account of the opening of Parliament," he said, "which you +may perhaps like to see. I wish I had a piano, or some female +acquaintances to drop in upon you. I am afraid you must be dull in +these long evenings when Tom is out of the way." + +"I am indeed dull," Mrs. Halliday answered peevishly; "and if Tom cared +for me, he wouldn't leave me like this evening after evening. But he +doesn't care for me." + +Mr Sheldon laid down the newspaper, and seated himself opposite his +guest. He sat for a few minutes in silence, beating time to some +imaginary air with the tips of his fingers on the old-fashioned +mahogany table. Then he said, with a half-smile upon his face,-- + +"But surely Tom is the best of husbands! He has been a little wild +since his coming to London, I know; but then you see he doesn't often +come to town." + +"He's just as bad in Yorkshire," Georgy answered gloomily; "he's always +going to Barlingford with somebody or other, or to meet some of his old +friends. I'm sure, if I had known what he was, I would never have +married him." + +"Why, I thought he was such a good husband. He was telling me only a +few days ago how he had made a will leaving you every sixpence he +possesses, without reservation, and how he has insured his life for +five thousand pounds." + +"O yes, I know that; but I don't call _that_ being a good husband. I +don't want him to leave me his money. I don't want him to die. I want +him to stay at home." + +"Poor Tom! I'm afraid he's not the sort of man for that kind of thing. +He likes change and amusement. You married a rich man, Mrs. Halliday; +you made your choice, you know, without regard to the feelings of any +one else. You sacrificed truth and honour to your own inclination, or +your own interest, I do not know, and do not ask which. If the bargain +has turned out a bad one, that's your look-out." + +Philip Sheldon sat with his folded arms resting on the little table and +his eyes fixed on Georgy's face. They could be very stern and hard and +cruel, those bright black eyes, and Mrs. Halliday grew first red and +then pale under their searching gaze. She had seen Mr. Sheldon very +often during the years of her married life, but this was the first time +he had ever said anything to her that sounded like a reproach. The +dentist's eyes softened a little as he watched her, not with any +special tenderness, but with an expression of half-disdainful +compassion--such as a strong stern man might feel for a foolish child. +He could see that this woman was afraid of him, and it served his +interests that she should fear him. He had a purpose in everything he +did, and his purpose to-night was to test the strength of his influence +over Georgina Halliday. In the old time before her marriage that +influence had been very strong. It was for him to discover now whether +it still endured. + +"You made your choice, Mrs. Halliday," he went on presently, "and it +was a choice which all prudent people must have approved. What chance +had a man, who was only heir to a practice worth four or five hundred +pounds, against the inheritor of Hyley Farm with its two hundred and +fifty acres, and three thousand pounds' worth of live stock, plant, and +working capital? When do the prudent people ever stop to consider truth +and honour, or old promises, or an affection that dates from childhood? +They calculate everything by pounds, shillings, and pence; and +according to their mode of reckoning you were in the right when you +jilted me to marry Tom Halliday." + +Georgy laid down her work and took out her handkerchief. She was one of +those women who take refuge in tears when they find themselves at a +disadvantage. Tears had always melted honest Tom, was his wrath never +so dire, and tears would no doubt subdue Philip Sheldon. + +But Georgy had to discover that the dentist was made of a stuff very +different from that softer clay which composed the rollicking +good-tempered farmer. Mr. Sheldon watched her tears with the +cold-blooded deliberation of a scientific experimentalist. He was glad +to find that he could make her cry. She was a necessary instrument in +the working out of certain plans that he had made for himself, and he +was anxious to discover whether she was likely to be a plastic +instrument. He knew that her love for him had never been worth much at +its best, and that the poor little flickering flame had been utterly +extinguished by nine years of commonplace domesticity and petty +jealousy. But his purpose was one that would be served as well by her +fear as by her love, and he had set himself to-night to gauge his power +in relation to this poor weak creature. + +"It's very unkind of you to say such dreadful things, Mr. Sheldon," she +whimpered presently; "you know very well that my marriage with Tom was +pa's doing, and not mine. I'm sure if I'd known how he would stay out +night after night, and come home in such dreadful states time after +time, I never would have consented to marry him." + +"Wouldn't you?--O yes, you would. If you were a widow to-morrow, and +free to marry again, you would choose just such another man as Tom--a +man who laughs loud, and pays flourishing compliments, and drives a gig +with a high-stepping horse. That's the sort of man women like, and +that's the sort of man you'd marry." + +"I'm sure I shouldn't marry at all," answered Mrs. Halliday, in a voice +that was broken by little gasping sobs. "I have seen enough of the +misery of married life. But I don't want Tom to die, unkind as he is to +me. People are always saying that he won't make old bones--how horrid +it is to talk of a person's bones!--and I'm sure I sometimes make +myself wretched about him, as he knows, though he doesn't thank me for +it." + +And here Mrs Halliday's sobs got the better of her utterance, and Mr. +Sheldon was fain to say something of a consolatory nature. + +"Come, come," he said, "I won't tease you any more. That's against the +laws of hospitality, isn't it?--only there are some things which you +can't expect a man to forget, you know. However, let bygones be +bygones. As for poor old Tom, I daresay he'll live to be a hale, hearty +old man, in spite of the croakers. People always will croak about +something; and it's a kind of fashion to say that a big, hearty, +six-foot man is a fragile blossom likely to be nipped by any wintry +blast. Come, come, Mrs. Halliday, your husband mustn't discover that +I've been making you cry when he comes home. He may be home early this +evening, perhaps; and if he is, we'll have an oyster supper, and a chat +about old times." + +Mrs. Halliday shook her head dolefully. + +"It's past ten o'clock already," she said, "and I don't suppose Tom +will be home till after twelve. He doesn't like my sitting up for him; +but I wonder _what_ time he would come home if I didn't sit up for him?" + +"Let's hope for the best," exclaimed Mr. Sheldon cheerfully. "I'll go +and see about the oysters." + +"Don't get them for me, or for Tom," protested Mrs. Halliday; "he will +have had his supper when he comes home, you may be sure, and I couldn't +eat a morsel of anything." + +To this resolution Mrs. Halliday adhered; so the dentist was fain to +abandon all jovial ideas in relation to oysters and pale ale. But he +did not go back to his mechanical dentistry. He sat opposite his +visitor, and watched her, silently and thoughtfully, for some time as +she worked. She had brushed away her tears, but she looked very peevish +and miserable, and took out her watch several times in an hour. Mr. +Sheldon made two or three feeble attempts at conversation, but the talk +languished and expired on each occasion, and they sat on in silence. + +Little by little the dentist's attention seemed to wander away from his +guest. He wheeled his chair round, and sat looking at the fire with the +same fixed gloom upon his face which had darkened it on the night of +his return from Yorkshire. Things had been so desperate with him of +late, that he had lost his old orderly habit of thinking out a business +at one sitting, and making an end of all deliberation and hesitation +about it. There were subjects that forced themselves upon his thoughts, +and certain ideas which repeated themselves with a stupid persistence. +He was such an eminently practical man, that this disorder of his brain +troubled him more even than the thoughts that made the disorder. He sat +in the same attitude for a long while, scarcely conscious of Mrs. +Halliday's presence, not at all conscious of the progress of time. +Georgy had been right in her gloomy forebodings of bad behaviour on the +part of Mr. Halliday. It was nearly one o'clock when a loud double +knock announced that gentleman's return. The wind had been howling +drearily, and a sharp, slanting rain had been pattering against the +windows for the last half-hour, while Mrs. Halliday's breast had been +racked by the contending emotions of anxiety and indignation. + +"I suppose he couldn't get a cab," she exclaimed, as the knock startled +her from her listening attitude--for however intently a midnight +watcher may be listening for the returning wanderer's knock, it is not +the less startling when it comes. "And he has walked home through the +wet, and now he'll have a violent cold, I daresay," added Georgy +peevishly. + +"Then it's lucky for him he's in a doctor's house," answered Mr. +Sheldon, with a smile. He was a handsome man, no doubt, according to +the popular idea of masculine perfection, but he had not a pleasant +smile. "I went through the regular routine, you know, and am as well +able to see a patient safely through a cold or fever as I am to make +him a set of teeth." + +Mr. Halliday burst into the room at this moment, singing a fragment of +the "Chough and Crow" chorus, very much out of tune. He was in +boisterously high spirits, and very little the worse for liquor. He had +only walked from Covent Garden, he said, and had taken nothing but a +tankard of stout and a Welsh rarebit. He had been hearing the divinest +singing--boys with the voices of angels--and had been taking his supper +in a place which duchesses themselves did not disdain to peep at from +the sacred recesses of a loge grillee, George Sheldon had told him. But +poor country-bred Georgina Halliday would not believe in the duchesses, +or the angelic singing boys, or the primitive simplicity of Welsh +rarebits. She had a vision of beautiful women, and halls of dazzling +light, where there was the mad music of perpetual Post-horn Galops, +with a riotous accompaniment of huzzas and the popping of champagne +corks--where the sheen of satin and the glitter of gems bewildered the +eye of the beholder. She had seen such a picture once on the stage, and +had vaguely associated it with all Tom's midnight roisterings ever +afterwards. + +The roisterer's garments were very wet, and it was in vain that his +wife and Philip Sheldon entreated him to change them for dry ones, or +to go to bed immediately. He stood before the fire relating his +innocent adventures, and trying to dispel the cloud from Georgy's fair +young brow; and, when he did at last consent to go to his room, the +dentist shook his head ominously. + +"You'll have a severe cold to-morrow, depend upon it, Tom, and you'll +have yourself to thank for it," he said, as he bade the good-tempered +reprobate good night. "Never mind, old fellow," answered Tom; "if I am +ill, you shall nurse me. If one is doomed to die by doctors' stuff, +it's better to have a doctor one does know than a doctor one doesn't +know for one's executioner." + +After which graceful piece of humour Mr. Halliday went blundering up +the staircase, followed by his aggrieved wife. + +Philip Sheldon stood on the landing looking after his visitors for some +minutes. Then he went slowly back to the sitting-room, where he +replenished the fire, and seated himself before it with a newspaper in +his hand. + +"What's the use of going to bed, if I can't sleep?" he muttered, in a +discontented tone. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A PERPLEXING ILLNESS. + + +Mr. Sheldon's prophecy was fully realised. Tom Halliday awoke the next +day with a violent cold in his head. Like most big boisterous men of +herculean build, he was the veriest craven in the hour of physical +ailment; so he succumbed at once to the malady which a man obliged to +face the world and fight for his daily bread must needs have made light +of. + +The dentist rallied his invalid friend. + +"Keep your bed, if you like, Tom," he said, "but there's no necessity +for any such coddling. As your hands are hot, and your tongue rather +queer, I may as well give you a saline draught. You'll be all right by +dinner-time, and I'll get George to look round in the evening for a +hand at cards." + +Tom obeyed his professional friend--took his medicine, read the paper, +and slept away the best part of the dull March day. At half-past five +he got up and dressed for dinner, and the evening passed very +pleasantly--so pleasantly, indeed, that Georgy was half inclined to +wish that her husband might be afflicted with chronic influenza, +whereby he would be compelled to stop at home. She sighed when Philip +Sheldon slapped his friend's broad shoulder, and told him cheerily that +he would be "all right to-morrow." He would be well again, and there +would be more midnight roistering, and she would be again tormented by +that vision of lighted halls and beautiful diabolical creatures +revolving madly to the music of the Post-horn Galop. + +It seemed, however, that poor jealous Mrs. Halliday was to be spared +her nightly agony for some time to come. Tom's cold lasted longer than +he had expected, and the cold was succeeded by a low fever--a bilious +fever, Mr. Sheldon said. There was not the least occasion for alarm, of +course. The invalid and the invalid's wife trusted implicitly in the +friendly doctor who assured them both that Tom's attack was the most +ordinary kind of thing; a little wearing, no doubt, but entirely +without danger. He had to repeat this assurance very often to Georgy, +whose angry feelings had given place to extreme tenderness and +affection now that Tom was an invalid, quite unfitted for the society +of jolly good fellows, and willing to receive basins of beef-tea and +arrow-root meekly from his wife's hands, instead of those edibles of +iniquity, oysters and toasted cheese. + +Mr. Halliday's illness was very tiresome. It was one of those +perplexing complaints which keep the patient himself, and the patient's +friends and attendants, in perpetual uncertainty. A little worse one +day and a shade better the next; now gaining a little strength, now +losing a trifle more than he had gained. The patient declined in so +imperceptible a manner that he had been ill three weeks, and was no +longer able to leave his bed, and had lost alike his appetite and his +spirits, before Georgy awoke to the fact that this illness, hitherto +considered so lightly, must be very serious. + +"I think if--if you have no objection, I should like to see another +doctor, Mr. Sheldon," she said one day, with considerable embarrassment +of manner. She feared to offend her host by any doubt of his skill. +"You see--you--you are so much employed with teeth--and--of course you +know I am quite assured of your talent--but don't you think that a +doctor who had more experience in fever cases might bring Tom round +quicker? He has been ill so long now; and really he doesn't seem to get +any better." + +Philip Sheldon shrugged his shoulders. + +"As you please, my dear Mrs. Halliday," he said carelessly; "I don't +wish to press my services upon you. It is quite a matter of friendship, +you know, and I shall not profit sixpence by my attendance on poor old +Tom. Call in another doctor, by all means, if you think fit to do so; +but, of course, in that event, I must withdraw from the case. The man +you call in may be clever, or he may be stupid and ignorant. It's all a +chance, when one doesn't know one's man; and I really can't advise you +upon that point, for I know nothing of the London profession." + +Georgy looked alarmed. This was a new view of the subject. She had +fancied that all regular practitioners were clever, and had only +doubted Mr. Sheldon because he was not a regular practitioner. But how +if she were to withdraw her husband from the hands of a clever man to +deliver him into the care of an ignorant pretender, simply because she +was over-anxious for his recovery? + +"I always am foolishly anxious about things," she thought. + +And then she looked piteously at Mr. Sheldon, and said, "What do you +think I ought to do? Pray tell me. He has eaten no breakfast again this +morning; and even the cup of tea which I persuaded him to take seemed +to disagree with him. And then there is that dreadful sore throat which +torments him so. What ought I to do, Mr. Sheldon?" + +"Whatever seems best to yourself, Mrs. Halliday," answered the dentist +earnestly. "It is a subject upon, which I cannot pretend to advise you. +It is a matter of feeling rather than of reason, and it is a matter +which you yourself must determine. If I knew any man whom I could +honestly recommend to you, it would be another affair; but I don't. +Tom's illness is the simplest thing in the world, and I feel myself +quite competent to pull him through it, without fuss or bother; but if +you think otherwise, pray put me out of the question. There's one fact, +however, of which I'm bound to remind you. Like many fine big stalwart +fellows of his stamp, your husband is as nervous as a hysterical woman; +and if you call in a strange doctor, who will pull long faces, and put +on the professional solemnity, the chances are that he'll take alarm, +and do himself more mischief in a few hours than your new adviser can +undo in as many weeks." + +There was a little pause after this. Georgy's opinions, and suspicions, +and anxieties were alike vague; and this last suggestion of Mr. +Sheldon's put things in a new and alarming light. She was really +anxious about her husband, but she had been accustomed all her life to +accept the opinion of other people in preference to her own. + +"Do you really think that Tom will soon be well and strong again?" she +asked presently. + +"If I thought otherwise, I should be the first to advise other +measures. However, my dear Mrs. Halliday, call in some one else, for +your own satisfaction." + +"No," said Georgy, sighing plaintively, "it might frighten Tom. You are +quite right, Mr. Sheldon; he is very nervous, and the idea that I was +alarmed might alarm him. I'll trust in you. Pray try to bring him round +again. You will try, won't you?" she asked, in the childish pleading +way which was peculiar to her. + +The dentist was searching for something in the drawer of a table, and +his back was turned on the anxious questioner. + +"You may depend upon it, I'll do my best, Mrs. Halliday," he answered, +still busy at the drawer. Mr. Sheldon the younger had paid many visits +to Fitzgeorge-street during Tom Halliday's illness. George and Tom had +been the Damon and Pythias of Barlingford; and George seemed really +distressed when he found his friend changed for the worse. The changes +in the invalid were so puzzling, the alternations from better to worse +and from worse to better so frequent, that fear could take no hold upon +the minds of the patient's friends. It seemed such a very slight affair +this low fever, though sufficiently inconvenient to the patient +himself, who suffered a good deal from thirst and sickness, and showed +an extreme disinclination for food, all which symptoms Mr. Sheldon said +were the commonest and simplest features of a very mild attack of +bilious fever, which would leave Tom a better man than it had found him. + +There had been several pleasant little card-parties during the earlier +stages of Mr. Halliday's illness; but within the last week the patient +had been too low and weak for cards--too weak to read the newspaper, or +even to bear having it read to him. When George came to look at his old +friend--"to cheer you up a little, old fellow, you know," and so on--he +found Tom, for the time being, past all capability of being cheered, +even by the genial society of his favourite jolly good fellow, or by +tidings of a steeplechase in Yorkshire, in which a neighbour had gone +to grief over a double fence. + +"That chap upstairs seems rather queerish," George had said to his +brother, after finding Tom lower and weaker than usual. "He's in a bad +way, isn't he, Phil?" + +"No; there's nothing serious the matter with him. He's rather low +to-night, that's all." + +"Rather low!" echoed George Sheldon. "He seems to me so very low, that +he can't sink much lower without going to the bottom of his grave. I'd +call some one in, if I were you." + +The dentist shrugged his shoulders, and made a little contemptuous +noise with his lips. + +"If you knew as much of doctors as I do, you wouldn't be in any hurry +to trust a friend to the mercy of one," he said carelessly. "Don't you +alarm yourself about Tom. He's right enough. He's been in a state of +chronic over-eating and over-drinking for the last ten years, and this +bilious fever will be the making of him." + +"Will it?" said George doubtfully; and then there followed a little +pause, during which the brothers happened to look at each other +furtively, and happened to surprise each other in the act. + +"I don't know about over-eating or drinking," said George presently; +"but something has disagreed with Tom Halliday, that's very evident." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE LETTER FROM THE "ALLIANCE" OFFICE. + + +Upon the evening of the day on which Mrs. Halliday and the dentist had +discussed the propriety of calling in a strange doctor, George Sheldon +came again to see his sick friend. He was quicker to perceive the +changes in the invalid than the members of the household, who saw him +daily and hourly, and he perceived a striking change for the worse +to-night. + +He took care, however, to suffer no evidence of alarm or surprise to +appear in the sick chamber. He talked to his friend in the usual cheery +way; sat by the bedside for half an hour; did his best to arouse Tom +from a kind of stupid lethargy, and to encourage Mrs. Halliday, who +shared the task of nursing her husband with brisk Nancy Woolper, an +invaluable creature in a sick-room. But he failed in both attempts; the +dull apathy of the invalid was not to be dispelled by the most genial +companionship, and Georgy's spirits had been sinking lower and lower +all day as her fears increased. + +She would fain have called in a strange doctor--she would fain have +sought for comfort and consolation from some new quarter. But she was +afraid of offending Philip Sheldon; and she was afraid of alarming her +husband. So she waited, and watched, and struggled against that +ever-increasing anxiety. Had not Mr. Sheldon made light of his friend's +malady, and what motive could he have for deceiving her? + +A breakfast-cup full of beef-tea stood on the little table by the +bedside, and had been standing there for hours untouched. + +"I did take such pains to make it strong and clear," said Mrs. Woolper +regretfully, as she came to the little table during a tidying process, +"and poor dear Mr. Halliday hasn't taken so much as a spoonful. It +won't be fit for him to-morrow, so as I haven't eaten a morsel of +dinner, what with the hurry and anxiety and one thing and another, I'll +warm up the beef-tea for my supper. There's not a blessed thing in the +house; for you don't eat nothing, Mrs. Halliday; and as to cooking a +dinner for Mr. Sheldon, you'd a deal better go and throw your victuals +out into the gutter, for then there'd be a chance of stray dogs +profiting by 'em, at any rate." + +"Phil is off his feed, then; eh, Nancy?" said George. + +"I should rather think he is, Mr. George. I roasted a chicken yesterday +for him and Mrs. Halliday, and I don't think they eat an ounce between, +them; and such a lovely tender young thing as it was too--done to a +turn--with bread sauce and a little bit of sea-kale. One invalid makes +another, that's certain. I never saw your brother so upset as he is +now, Mr. George, in all his life. + +"No?" answered George Sheldon thoughtfully; "Phil isn't generally one +of your sensitive sort." + +The invalid was sleeping heavily during this conversation. George stood +by the bed for some minutes looking down at the altered face, and then +turned to leave the room. + +"Good night, Mrs. Halliday," he said; "I hope I shall find poor old Tom +a shade better when I look round to-morrow." + +"I am sure I hope so," Georgy answered mournfully. + +She was sitting by the window looking out at the darkening western sky, +in which the last lurid glimmer of a stormy sunset was fading against a +background of iron gray. + +This quiet figure by the window, the stormy sky, and ragged hurrying +clouds without, the dusky chamber with all its dismally significant +litter of medicine-bottles, made a gloomy picture--a picture which the +man who looked upon it carried in his mind for many years after that +night. + +George Sheldon and Nancy Woolper left the room together, the +Yorkshirewoman carrying a tray of empty phials and glasses, and amongst +them the cup of beef-tea. + +"He seems in a bad way to-night, Nancy," said George, with a backward +jerk of his head towards the sick-chamber. + +"He is in a bad way, Mr. George," answered the woman gravely, "let Mr. +Philip think what he will. I don't want to say a word against your +brother's knowledge, for such a steady studious gentleman as he is had +need be clever; and if I was ill myself, I'd trust my life to him +freely; for I have heard Barlingford folks say that my master's advice +is as good as any regular doctor's, and that there's very little your +regular doctors know that he doesn't know as well or better. But for +all that, Mr. George, I don't think he understands Mr. Halliday's case +quite as clear as he might." + +"Do you think Tom's in any danger?" + +"I won't say that, Mr. George; but I think he gets worse instead of +getting better." + +"Humph!" muttered George; "if Halliday were to go off the hooks, Phil +would have a good chance of getting a rich wife." + +"Don't say that, Mr. George," exclaimed the Yorkshirewoman +reproachfully; "don't even think of such a thing while that poor man +lies at death's door. I'm sure Mr. Sheldon hasn't any thoughts of that +kind. He told me before Mr. and Mrs. Halliday came to town that he and +Miss Georgy had forgotten all about past times." + +"O, if Phil said so, that alters the case. Phil is one of your blunt +outspoken fellows, and always says what he means," said George Sheldon. +And then he went downstairs, leaving Nancy to follow him at her leisure +with the tray of jingling cups and glasses. He went down through the +dusk, smiling to himself, as if he had just given utterance to some +piece of intense humour. He went to look for his brother, whom he found +in the torture-chamber, busied with some mysterious process in +connection with a lump of plaster-of-paris, which seemed to be the +model of ruined battlements in the Gothic style. The dentist looked up +as George entered the room, and did not appear particularly delighted +by the appearance of that gentleman. + +"Well," said Mr. Sheldon the younger, "busy as usual? Patients seem to +be looking up." + +"Patients be----toothless to the end of time!" cried Philip, with a +savage laugh. "No, I'm not working to order; I'm only +experimentalising." + +"You're rather fond of experiments, I think, Phil," said George, +seating himself near the table at which his brother was working under +the glare of the gas. The dentist looked very pale and haggard in the +gas-light, and his eyes had the dull sunken appearance induced by +prolonged sleeplessness. George sat watching his brother thoughtfully +for some time, and then produced his cigar-case. "You don't mind my +smoke here?" he asked, as he lighted a cigar. + +"Not at all. You are very welcome to sit here, if it amuses you to see +me working at the cast of a lower jaw." + +"O, that's a lower jaw, is it? It looks like the fragment of some +castle-keep. No, Phil, I don't care about watching you work. I want to +talk to you seriously." + +"About that fellow upstairs--poor old Tom. He and I were great cronies, +you know, at home. He's in a very bad way." + +"Is he? You seem to be turning physician all at once, George. I +shouldn't have thought your grubbing among county histories, and +tattered old pedigrees, and parish registers had given you so deep an +insight into the science of medicine!" said the dentist in a sneering +tone. + +"I don't know anything of medicine; but I know enough to be sure that +Tom Halliday is about as bad as he can be. What mystifies me is, that +he doesn't seem to have had anything particular the matter with him. +There he lies, getting worse and worse every day, without any specific +ailment. It's a strange illness, Philip." + +"I don't see anything strange in it." + +"Don't you? Don't you think the surrounding circumstances are strange? +Here is this man comes to your house hale and hearty; and all of a +sudden he falls ill, and gets lower and lower every day, without +anybody being able to say why or wherefore." + +"That's not true, George. Everybody in this house knows the cause of +Tom Halliday's illness. He came home in wet clothes, and insisted on +keeping them on. He caught a cold; which resulted in low fever. There +is the whole history and mystery of the affair." + +"That's simple enough, certainly. But if I were you, Phil, I'd call in +another doctor." + +"That is Mrs. Halliday's business," answered the dentist coolly; "if +she doubts my skill, she is free to call in whom she pleases. And now +you may as well drop the subject, George. I've had enough anxiety about +this man's illness, and I don't want to be worried by you." + +After this there was a little conversation upon general matters, but +the talk dragged and languished drearily, and George Sheldon rose to +depart directly he had finished his cigar. + +"Good night, Philip!" he said; "if ever you get a stroke of good luck, +I hope you'll stand something handsome to me." + +This remark had no particular relevance to anything that had been said +that night by the two men; yet Philip Sheldon seemed in nowise +astonished by it. + +"If things ever _do_ take a turn for the better with me, you'll find me +a good friend, George," he said gravely; and then Mr. Sheldon the +younger bade him good night, and went out into Fitzgeorge-street. + +He paused for a moment at the corner of the street to look back at his +brother's house. He could see the lighted windows of the invalid's +chamber, and it was at those he looked. + +"Poor Tom," he said to himself, "poor Tom! We were great cronies in the +old times, and have had many a pleasant evening together!" + +Mr. Sheldon the dentist sat up till the small hours that night, as he +had done for many nights lately. He finished his work in the +torture-chamber, and went up to the common sitting-room, or +drawing-room as it was called by courtesy, a little before midnight. +The servants had gone to bed, for there was no regular nightly watch in +the apartment of the invalid. Mrs. Halliday lay on a sofa in her +husband's room, and Nancy Woolper slept in an adjoining apartment, +always wakeful and ready if help of any kind should be wanted. + +The house was very quiet just now. Philip Sheldon walked up and down +the room, thinking; and the creaking of his boots sounded unpleasantly +loud to his ears. He stopped before the fireplace, after having walked +to and fro some time, and began to examine some letters that lay upon +the mantelpiece. They were addressed to Mr. Halliday, and had been +forwarded from Yorkshire. The dentist took them up, one by one, and +deliberately examined them. They were all business letters, and most of +them bore country post-marks. But there was one which had been, in the +first instance, posted from London and this letter Mr. Sheldon examined +with especial attention. + +It was a big, official-looking document, and embossed upon the adhesive +envelope appeared the crest and motto of the Alliance Insurance Office. + +"I wonder whether that's all square," thought Mr. Sheldon, as he turned +the envelope about in his hands, staring at it absently. "I ought to +make sure of that. The London postmark is nearly three weeks old." He +pondered for some moments, and then went to the cupboard in which he +kept the materials wherewith to replenish or to make a fire. Here he +found a little tin tea-kettle, in which he was in the habit of boiling +water for occasional friendly glasses of grog. He poured some water +from a bottle on the sideboard into this kettle, set fire to a bundle +of wood, and put the kettle on the blazing sticks. After having done +this he searched for a tea-cup, succeeded in finding one, and then +stood watching for the boiling of the water. He had not long to wait; +the water boiled furiously before the wood was burned out, and Mr. +Sheldon filled the tea-cup standing on the table. Then he put the +insurance-letter over the cup, with the seal downwards, and left it so +while he resumed his walk. After walking up and down for about ten +minutes he went back to the table and took up the letter. The adhesive +envelope opened easily, and Mr. Sheldon, by this ingenious stratagem, +made himself master of his friend's business. + +The "Alliance" letter was nothing more than a notice to the effect that +the half-yearly premium for insuring the sum of three thousand pounds +on the life of Thomas Halliday would be due on such a day, after which +there would be twenty-one days' grace, at the end of which time the +policy would become void, unless the premium had been duly paid. + +Mr. Halliday's letters had been suffered to accumulate during the last +fortnight. The letters forwarded from Yorkshire had been detained some +time, as they had been sent first to Hyley Farm, now in the possession +of the new owner, and then to Barlingford, to the house of Georgy's +mother, who had kept them upwards of a week, in daily expectation of +her son-in-law's return. It was only on the receipt of a letter from +Georgy, containing the tidings of her husband's illness, that Mr. +Halliday's letters had been sent to London. Thus it came about that the +twenty-one days of grace were within four-and-twenty hours of expiring +when Philip Sheldon opened his friend's letter. + +"This is serious," muttered the dentist, as he stood deliberating with +the open letter in his hand; "there are three thousand pounds depending +on that man's power to write a check!" + +After a few minutes' reflection, he folded the letter and resealed it +very carefully. + +"It wouldn't do to press the matter upon him to-night," he thought; "I +must wait till to-morrow morning, come what may." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +MR. BURKHAM'S UNCERTAINTIES. + + +The next morning dawned gray and pale and chill, after the manner of +early spring mornings, let them ripen into never such balmy days; and +with the dawn Nancy Woolper came into the invalid's chamber, more wan +and sickly of aspect than the morning itself. + +Mrs. Halliday started from an uneasy slumber. + +"What's the matter, Nancy?" she asked with considerable alarm. She had +known the woman ever since her childhood, and she was startled this +morning by some indefinable change in her manner and appearance. The +hearty old woman, whose face had been like a hard rosy apple shrivelled +and wrinkled by long keeping, had now a white and ghastly look which +struck terror to Georgy's breast. She who was usually so brisk of +manner and sharp of speech, had this morning a strange subdued tone and +an unnatural calmness of demeanour. "What is the matter, Nancy?" Mrs. +Halliday repeated, getting up from her sofa. + +"Don't be frightened, Miss Georgy," answered the old woman, who was apt +to forget that Tom Halliday's wife had ever ceased to be Georgy +Cradock; "don't be frightened, my dear. I haven't been very well all +night,--and--and--I've been worrying myself about Mr. Halliday. If I +were you, I'd call in another doctor. Never mind what Mr. Philip says. +He may be mistaken, you know, clever as he is. There's no telling. Take +my advice, Miss Georgy, and call in another +doctor--directly--directly," repeated the old woman, seizing Mrs. +Halliday's wrist with a passionate energy, as if to give emphasis to +her words. Poor timid Georgy shrank from her with terror. + +"You frighten me, Nancy," she whispered; "do you think that Tom is so +much worse? You have not been with him all night; and he has been +sleeping very quietly. What makes you so anxious this morning?" + +"Never mind that, Miss Georgy. You get another doctor, that's all; get +another doctor at once. Mr. Sheldon is a light sleeper. I'll go to his +room and tell him you've set your heart upon having fresh advice; if +you'll only bear me out afterwards." + +"Yes, yes; go by all means," exclaimed Mrs. Halliday, only too ready to +take alarm under the influence of a stronger mind, and eager to act +when supported by another person. + +Nancy Woolper went to her master's room. He must have been sleeping +very lightly, if he was sleeping at all; for he was broad awake the +next minute after his housekeeper's light knock had sounded on the +door. In less than five minutes he came out of his room half-dressed. +Nancy had told him that Mrs. Halliday had taken fresh alarm about her +husband, and wished for further advice. + +"She sent you to tell me that?" asked Philip. + +"Yes." + +"And when does she want this new doctor called in?" + +"Immediately, if possible." + +It was seven o'clock by this time, and the morning was brightening a +little. + +"Very well," said Mr. Sheldon; "her wishes shall be attended to +directly. Heaven forbid that I should stand between my old friend and +any chance of his speedy recovery! If a stranger can bring him round +quicker than I can, let the stranger come." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sheldon was not slow to obey Mrs. Halliday's behest. He was +departing on his quest breakfastless, when Nancy Woolper met him in the +hall with a cup of tea. He accepted the cup almost mechanically from +her hand, and took it into the parlour, whither Nancy followed him. +Then for the first time he perceived that change in his housekeeper's +face which had so startled Georgina Halliday. The change was somewhat +modified now; but still the Nancy Woolper of to-day was not the Nancy +Woolper of yesterday. + +"You're looking very queer, Nancy," said the dentist, gravely +scrutinising the woman's face with his bright penetrating eyes. "Are +you ill?" + +"Well, Mr. Philip, I have been rather queer all night,--sickish and +faintish-like." + +"Ah, you've been over-fatiguing yourself in the sick-room, I daresay. +Take care you don't knock yourself up." + +"No; it's not that, Mr. Philip. There's not many can stand hard work +better than I can. It's not _that_ as made me ill. I took something +last night that disagreed with me." + +"More fool you," said Mr. Sheldon curtly; "you ought to know better +than to ill-use your digestive powers at your age. What was it? Hard +cold meat and preternaturally green pickles, I suppose; or something of +that kind." + +"No, sir; it was only a drop of beef-tea that I made for poor Mr. +Halliday. And that oughtn't to have disagreed with a baby, you know, +sir." + +"Oughtn't it?" cried the dentist disdainfully. "That's a little bit of +vulgar ignorance, Mrs. Woolper. I suppose it was stuff that had been +taken up to Mr. Halliday." + +"Yes, Mr. Philip; you took it up with your own hands." + +"Ah, to be sure; so I did. Very well, then, Mrs. Woolper, if you knew +as much about atmospheric influences as I do, you'd know that food +which has been standing for hours in the pestilential air of a +fever-patient's room isn't fit for anybody to eat. The stuff made you +sick, I suppose." + +"Yes, sir; sick to my very heart," answered the Yorkshirewoman, with a +strange mournfulness in her voice. + +"Let that be a warning to you, then. Don't take anything more that +comes down from the sick-room." + +"I don't think there'll be any chance of my doing that long, sir." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I don't fancy Mr. Halliday is long for this world." + +"Ah, you women are always ravens." + +"Unless the strange doctor can do something to cure him. O, pray bring +a clever man who will be able to cure that poor helpless creature +upstairs. Think, Mr. Philip, how you and him used to be friends and +playfellows,--brothers almost,--when you was both bits of boys. Think +how bad it might seem to evil-minded folks if he died under your roof." + +The dentist had been standing near the door drinking his tea during +this conversation; and now for the first time he looked at his +housekeeper with an expression of unmitigated astonishment. + +"What, in the name of all that's ridiculous, do you mean, Nancy?" he +asked impatiently. "What has my roof to do with Tom Halliday's +illness--or his death, if it came to that? And what on earth can people +have to say about it if he should die here instead of anywhere else?" + +"Why, you see, sir, you being his friend, and Miss Georgy's sweetheart +that was, and him having no other doctor, folks might take it into +their heads he wasn't attended properly." + +"Because I'm his friend? That's very good logic! I'll tell you what it +is, Mrs. Woolper; if any woman upon earth, except the woman who nursed +me when I was a baby, had presumed to talk to me as you have been +talking to me just this minute, I should open the door yonder and tell +her to walk out of my house. Let that serve as a hint for you, Nancy; +and don't you go out of your way a second time to advise me how I +should treat my friend and my patient." + +He handed her the empty cup, and walked out of the house. There had +been no passion in his tone. His accent had been only that of a man who +has occasion to reprove an old and trusted servant for an unwarrantable +impertinence. Nancy Woolper stood at the street-door watching him as he +walked away, and then went slowly back to her duties in the lower +regions of the house. + +"It can't be true," she muttered to herself; "it can't be true." + + * * * * * + +The dentist returned to Fitzgeorge-street in less than an hour, +bringing with him a surgeon from the neighbourhood, who saw the +patient, discussed the treatment, spoke hopefully to Mrs. Halliday, and +departed, after promising to send a saline draught. Poor Georgy's +spirits, which had revived a little under the influence of the +stranger's hopeful words, sank again when she discovered that the +utmost the new doctor could do was to order a saline draught. Her +husband had taken so many saline draughts, and had been getting daily +worse under their influence. + +She watched the stranger wistfully as he lingered on the threshold to +say a few words to Mr. Sheldon. He was a very young man, with a frank +boyish face and a rosy colour in his cheeks. He looked like some fresh +young neophyte in the awful mysteries of medical science, and by no +means the sort of man to whom one would have imagined Philip Sheldon +appealing for help, when he found his own skill at fault. But then it +must be remembered that Mr. Sheldon had only summoned the stranger in +compliance with what he considered a womanish whim. + +"He looks very young," Georgina said regretfully, after the doctor's +departure. + +"So much the better, my dear Mrs. Halliday," answered the dentist +cheerfully; "medical science is eminently progressive, and the youngest +men are the best-educated men." + +Poor Georgy did not understand this; but it sounded convincing, and she +was in the habit of believing what people told her; so she accepted Mr. +Sheldon's opinion. How could she doubt that he was wiser than herself +in all matters connected with the medical profession? + +"Tom seems a little better this morning," she said presently. + +The invalid was asleep, shrouded by the curtain of the heavy +old-fashioned four-post bedstead. + +"He is better," answered the dentist; "so much better, that I shall +venture to give him a few business letters that have been waiting for +him some time, as soon as he wakes." + +He seated himself by the head of the bed, and waited quietly for the +awakening of the patient. + +"Your breakfast is ready for you downstairs, Mrs. Halliday," he said +presently; "hadn't you better go down and take it, while I keep watch +here? It's nearly ten o'clock." + +"I don't care about any breakfast," Georgina answered piteously. + +"Ah, but you'd better eat something. You'll make yourself an invalid, +if you are not careful; and then you won't be able to attend upon Tom." + +This argument prevailed immediately. Georgy went downstairs to the +drawing-room, and tried bravely to eat and drink, in order that she +might be sustained in her attendance upon her husband. She had +forgotten all the throes and tortures of jealousy which she had endured +on his account. She had forgotten his late hours and unholy +roisterings. She had forgotten everything except that he had been very +tender and kind throughout the prosperous years of their married life, +and that he was lying in the darkened room upstairs sick to death. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sheldon waited with all outward show of patience for the awakening +of the invalid. But he looked at his watch twice during that half-hour +of waiting; and once he rose and moved softly about the room, searching +for writing materials. He found a little portfolio of Georgina's, and a +frivolous-minded inkstand, after the semblance of an apple, with a gilt +stalk and leaflet. The dentist took the trouble to ascertain that there +was a decent supply of ink in the green-glass apple, and that the pens +were in working order. Then he went quietly back to his seat by the +bedside and waited. + +The invalid opened his eyes presently, and recognised his friend with a +feeble smile. + +"Well, Tom, old fellow, how do you feel to-day?--a little better I hear +from Mrs. H.," said the dentist cheerily. + +"Yes, I think I am a shade better. But, you see, the deuce of it is I +never get more than a shade better. It always stops at that. The little +woman can't complain of me now, can she, Sheldon? No more late hours, +or oyster suppers, eh?" + +"No, no, not just yet. You'll have to take care of yourself for a week +or two when you get about again." Mr. Halliday smiled faintly as his +friend said this. + +"I shall be very careful of myself if I ever do get about again, you +may depend upon it, old fellow. But do you know I sometimes fancy I +have spent my last jolly evening, and eaten my last oyster supper, on +this earth? I'm afraid it's time for me to begin to think seriously of +a good many things. The little woman is all right, thank God. I made my +will upwards of a year ago, and insured my life pretty heavily soon +after my marriage. Old Cradock never let me rest till that was done. So +Georgy will be all safe. But when a man has led a careless, godless +kind of a life,--doing very little harm, perhaps, but doing no +particular good,--he ought to set about making up his account somehow +for a better world, when he feels himself slipping out of this. I asked +Georgy for her Bible yesterday, and the poor dear loving little thing +was frightened out of her wits. 'O, don't talk like that, Tom,' she +cried; 'Mr. Sheldon says you are getting better every hour,'--by which +you may guess what a rare thing it is for me to read my Bible. No, +Phil, old fellow, you've done your best for me, I know; but I'm not +made of a very tough material, and all the physic you can pour down +this poor sore throat of mine won't put any strength into me." + +"Nonsense, dear boy; that's just what a man who has not been accustomed +to illness is sure to think directly he is laid up for a day or two." + +"I've been laid up for three weeks," murmured Mr. Halliday rather +fretfully. + +"Well, well, perhaps this Mr. Burkham will bring you round in three +days, and then you'll say that your friend Sheldon was an ignoramus." + +"No, no, I shan't, old fellow; I'm not such a fool as that. I'm not +going to blame you when it's my own constitution that's in fault. As to +that young man you brought here just now, to please Georgy, I don't +suppose he'll be able to do any more for me than you have done." + +"We'll contrive to bring you round between us, never fear, Tom," +answered Philip Sheldon in his most hopeful tone. "Why, you are looking +almost your old self this morning. You are so much improved that I may +venture to talk to you about business. There have been some letters +lying about for the last few days. I didn't like to bore you while you +were so very low. But they look like business letters; and perhaps it +would be as well for you to open them." + +The sick man contemplated the little packet which the dentist had taken +from his breast-pocket; and then shook his head wearily. + +"I'm not up to the mark, Sheldon," he said; "the letters must keep." + +"O, come, come, old fellow! That's giving way, you know. The letters +may be important; and it will do you good if you make an effort to +rouse yourself." + +"I tell you it isn't in me to do it, Philip Sheldon. I'm past making +efforts. Can't you see that, man? Open the letters yourself, if you +like." + +"No, no, Halliday, I won't do that. Here's one with the seal of the +Alliance Insurance Office. I suppose your premium is all right." + +Tom Halliday lifted himself on his elbow for a moment, startled into +new life; but he sank back on the pillows again immediately, with a +feeble groan. + +"I don't know about that," he said anxiously; "you'd better look to +that, Phil, for the little woman's sake. A man is apt to think that his +insurance is settled and done with, when he has been pommelled about by +the doctors and approved by the board. He forgets there's that little +matter of the premium. You'd better open the letter, Phil. I never was +a good hand at remembering dates, and this illness has thrown me +altogether out of gear." + +Mr. Sheldon tore open that official document, which, in his benevolent +regard for his friend's interest, he had manipulated so cleverly on the +previous evening, and read the letter with all show of deliberation. + +"You're right, Tom," he exclaimed presently. "The twenty-one days' +grace expire to-day. You'd better write me a check at once, and I'll +send it on to the office by hand. Where's your check-book?" + +"In the pocket of that coat hanging up there." + +Philip Sheldon found the check-book, and brought it to his friend, with +Georgy's portfolio, and the frivolous little green-glass inkstand in +the shape of an apple. He adjusted the writing materials for the sick +man's use with womanly gentleness. His arm supported the wasted frame, +as Tom Halliday slowly and laboriously filled in the check; and when +the signature was duly appended to that document, he drew a long +breath, which seemed to express infinite relief of mind. + +"You'll be sure it goes on to the Alliance Office, eh, old fellow?" +asked Tom, as he tore out the oblong slip of paper and handed it to his +friend. "It was kind of you to jog my memory about this business. I'm +such a fellow for procrastinating matters. And I'm afraid I've been a +little off my load during the last week." + +"Nonsense, Tom; not you." + +"O yes, I have. I've had all sorts of queer fancies. Did you come into +this room the night before last, when Georgy was asleep?" Mr. Sheldon +reflected for a moment before answering. + +"No," he said, "not the night before last." + +"Ah, I thought as much," murmured the invalid. "I was off my head that +night then, Phil, for I fancied I saw you; and I fancied I heard the +bottles and glasses jingling on the little table behind the curtain." + +"You were dreaming, perhaps." + +"O no, I wasn't dreaming. I was very restless and wakeful that night. +However, that's neither here nor there. I lie in a stupid state +sometimes for hours and hours, and I feel as weak as a rat, bodily and +mentally; so while I have my wits about me, I'd better say what I've +been wanting to say ever so long. You've been a good and kind friend to +me all through this illness, Phil, and I'm not ungrateful for your +kindness. If it does come to the worst with me--as I believe it +will--Georgy shall give you a handsome mourning ring, or fifty pounds +to buy one, if you like it better. And now let me shake hands with you, +Philip Sheldon, and say thank you heartily, old fellow, for once and +for ever." + +The invalid stretched out a poor feeble attenuated hand, and, after a +moment's pause, Philip Sheldon clasped it in his own muscular fingers. +He did hesitate for just one instant before taking that hand. + +He was no student of the gospel; but when he had left the sick-chamber +there arose before him suddenly, as if written in letters of fire on +the wall opposite to him, one sentence which had been familiar to him +in his school-days at Barlingford: + +_And as soon as he was come, he goeth straightway to him, and saith, +Master, master; and kissed him._ + + * * * * * + +The new doctor came twice a day to see his patient. He seemed rather +anxious about the case, and just a little puzzled by the symptoms. +Georgy had sufficient penetration to perceive that this new adviser was +in some manner at fault; and she began to think that Philip Sheldon was +right, and that regular practitioners were very stupid creatures. She +communicated her doubts to Mr. Sheldon, and suggested the expediency of +calling in some grave elderly doctor, to supersede Mr. Burkham. But +against this the dentist protested very strongly. + +"You asked me to call in a stranger, Mrs. Halliday, and I have done +so," he said, with the dignity of an offended man. "You must now abide +by his treatment, and content yourself with his advice, unless he +chooses to summon further assistance." + +Georgy was fain to submit. She gave a little plaintive sigh, and went +back to her husband's room, where she sat and wept silently behind the +bed-curtains. There was a double watch kept in the sick-chamber now; +for Nancy Woolper rarely left it, and rarely closed her eyes. It was +altogether a sad time in the dentist's house; and Tom Halliday +apologised to his friend more than once for the trouble he had brought +upon him. If he had been familiar with the details of modern history, +he would have quoted Charles Stuart, and begged pardon for being so +long a-dying. + +But anon there came a gleam of hope. The patient seemed decidedly +better; and Georgy was prepared to revere Mr. Burkham, the Bloomsbury +surgeon, as the greatest and ablest of men. Those shadows of doubt and +perplexity which had at first obscured Mr. Burkham's brow cleared away, +and he spoke very cheerfully of the invalid. + +Unhappily this state of things did not last long. The young surgeon +came one morning, and was obviously alarmed by the appearance of his +patient. He told Philip Sheldon as much; but that gentleman made very +light of his fears. As the two men discussed the case, it was very +evident that the irregular practitioner was quite a match for the +regular one. Mr. Burkham listened deferentially, but departed only half +convinced. He walked briskly away from the house, but came to a dead +stop directly after turning out of Fitzgeorge-street. + +"What ought I to do?" he asked himself. "What course ought I to take? +If I am right, I should be a villain to let things go on. If I am +wrong, anything like interference would ruin me for life." + +He had finished his morning round, but he did not go straight home. He +lingered at the corners of quiet streets, and walked up and down the +unfrequented side of a gloomy square. Once he turned and retraced his +steps in the direction of Fitzgeorge-street. But after all this +hesitation he walked home, and ate his dinner very thoughtfully, +answering his young wife at random when she talked to him. He was a +struggling man, who had invested his small fortune in the purchase of a +practice which had turned out a very poor one, and he had the battle of +life before him. + +"There's something on your mind to-day, I'm sure, Harry," his wife said +before the meal was ended. + +"Well, yes, dear," he answered; "I've rather a difficult case in +Fitzgeorge-street, and I'm anxious about it." + +The industrious little wife disappeared after dinner, and the young +surgeon walked up and down the room alone, brooding over that difficult +case in Fitzgeorge-street. After spending nearly an hour thus, he +snatched his hat suddenly from the table on which he had set it down, +and hurried from the house. + +"I'll have advice and assistance, come what may," he said to himself, +as he walked rapidly in the direction of Mr. Sheldon's house. "The case +may be straight enough--I certainly can't see that the man has any +motive--but I'll have advice." + +He looked up at the dentist's spotless dwelling as he crossed the +street. The blinds were all down, and the fact that they were so sent a +sudden chill to his heart. But the April sunshine was full upon that +side of the street, and there might lie no significance in those +closely-drawn blinds. The door was opened by a sleepy-looking boy, and +in the passage Mr. Burkham met Philip Sheldon. + +"I have been rather anxious about my patient since this morning, Mr. +Sheldon," said the surgeon; "and I have come to the conclusion that I +ought to confer with a man of higher standing than myself. Do you think +Mrs. Halliday will object to such a course?" + +"I am sure she would not have objected to it," the dentist answered +very gravely, "if you had suggested it sooner. I am sorry to say the +suggestion comes too late. My poor friend breathed his last half an +hour ago." + + + + + +BOOK THE SECOND. + + +THE TWO MACAIRES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A GOLDEN TEMPLE. + + +In the very midst of the Belgian iron country, under the shadow of tall +sheltering ridges of pine-clad mountain-land, nestles the fashionable +little watering-place called Foretdechene. Two or three handsome +hotels; a bright white new pile of building, with vast windows of +shining plate-glass, and a stately quadrangular courtyard; a tiny +street, which looks as if a fragment of English Brighton had been +dropped into this Belgian valley; a stunted semi-classic temple, which +is at once a post-office and a shrine whereat invalids perform their +worship of Hygeia by the consumption of unspeakably disagreeable +mineral waters; a few tall white villas scattered here and there +upon the slopes of pine-clad hills; and a very uncomfortable +railway-station--constitute the chief features of Foretdechene. But right +and left of that little cluster of shops and hotels there stretch deep +sombre avenues of oak, that look like sheltered ways to Paradise--and +the deep, deep blue of the August sky, and the pure breath of the warm +soft air, and the tender green of the young pine-woods that clothe the +sandy hills, and the delicious tranquillity that pervades the sleepy +little town and bathes the hot landscape in a languorous mist, are +charms that render Foretdechene a pleasant oasis amid the lurid woods +and mountains of the iron country. + +Only at stated intervals the quiet of this sleepy hollow is broken by +the rolling of wheels, the jingling of bells, the cracking of whips, +the ejaculations of drivers, and supplications of touters: only when +the railroad carries away departing visitors, or brings fresh ones, is +there anything like riot or confusion in the little town under the +pine-clad hills--and even then the riot and confusion are of a very +mild order, and create but a transient discord amongst the harmonies of +nature. + +And yet, despite the Arcadian tranquillity of the landscape, the drowsy +quiet of the pine-groves, the deep and solemn shade of those dark +avenues, where one might fondly hope to find some Druidess lingering +beneath the shelter of the oaks, there is excitement of no common order +to be found in the miniature watering-place of Foretdechene; and the +reflective and observant traveller, on a modern sentimental journey, +has only to enter the stately white building with the glittering +plate-glass windows in order to behold the master-passions or the human +breast unveiled for his pleasure and edification. + +The ignorant traveller, impelled by curiosity, finds no bar to his +entrance. The doors are as wide open as if the mansion were an hotel; +and yet it is not an hotel, though a placard which he passes informs +the traveller that he may have ices and sorbets, if he will; nor is the +bright fresh-looking building a theatre, for another placard informs +the visitor that there are dramatic performances to be witnessed every +evening in a building on one side of the quadrangle, which is a mere +subsidiary attachment to the vast white mansion. The traveller, passing +on his way unhindered, save by a man in livery, who deprives him of his +cane, ascends a splendid staircase and traverses a handsome +antechamber, from which a pair of plate-glass doors open into a +spacious saloon, where, in the warm August sunlight, a circle of men +and women are gathered round a great green table, gambling. + +The ignorant traveller, unaccustomed to the amusements of a Continental +watering-place, may perhaps feel a little sense of surprise--a +something almost akin to shame--as he contemplates that silent crowd, +whose occupation seems so much the more strange to him because of their +silence. There is no lively bustle, none of that animation which +generally attends every kind of amusement, none of the clamour of the +betting-ring or the exchange. The gamblers at Foretdechene are terribly +in earnest: and the ignorant visitor unconsciously adapts himself to +the solemn hush of the place, and steps softly as he approaches the +table round which they are clustered--as many sitting as can find room +round the green-cloth-covered board; while behind the sitters there are +people standing two or three rows deep, the hindermost watching the +table over the shoulders of their neighbours. A placard upon the wall +informs visitors that only constant players are permitted to remain +seated at that sacred table. Perhaps a third of the players and a third +of the lookers-on are women. And if there are lips more tightly +contracted than other lips, and eyes with a harder, greedier light in +them than other eyes, those lips and those eyes belong to the women. +The ungloved feminine hands have a claw-like aspect as they scrape the +glittering pieces of silver over the green cloth; the feminine throats +look weird and scraggy as they crane themselves over masculine +shoulders; the feminine eyes have something demoniac in their steely +glare as they keep watch upon the rapid progress of the game. + +Half a dozen moderate fortunes seem to be lost and won while the +traveller looks on from the background, unnoticed and unseen; for if +those plate-glass doors swung suddenly open to admit the seven angels +of the Apocalypse, carrying the seven golden vials filled with the +wrath of God, it is doubtful whether the splendour of their awful +glory, or the trumpet-notes that heralded their coming, would have +power to arouse the players from their profound abstraction. + +Half a dozen comfortable little patrimonies seem to have changed hands +while the traveller has been looking on; and yet he has only watched +the table for about ten minutes; and this splendid _salon_ is but an +outer chamber, where one may stake as shabby a sum as two francs, if +one is shabby enough to wish to do so, and where playing for half an +hour or so on a pleasant summer morning one could scarcely lose more +than fifty or sixty pounds. Another pair of plate-glass doors open into +an inner chamber, where the silence is still more profound, and where +around a larger table sit one row of players; while only here and there +a little group of outsiders stand behind their chairs. There is more +gilding on the walls and ceiling of this chamber; the frescoes are more +delicate; the crystal chandeliers are adorned with rich clusters of +sparkling drops, that twinkle like diamonds in the sun. This is the +temple of gold; and in this splendid chamber one may hazard no smaller +stake than half a napoleon. There are women here; but not so many women +as in the outer saloon; and the women here are younger and prettier and +more carefully dressed than those who stake only silver. + +The prettiest and the youngest woman in this golden chamber on one +particular August afternoon, nine years after the death of Tom +Halliday, was a girl who stood behind the chair of a military-looking +Englishman, an old man whose handsome face was a little disfigured by +those traces which late hours and dissipated habits are supposed to +leave behind them. + +The girl held a card in one hand and a pin in the other, and was +occupied in some mysterious process, by which she kept note of the +Englishman's play. She was very young, with a delicate face, in whose +softer lines there was a refined likeness to the features of the man +whose play she watched. But while his eyes were hard and cold and gray, +hers were of that dense black in which there seems such an unfathomable +and mysterious depth. As she was the handsomest, so she was also the +worst-dressed woman in the room. Her flimsy silk mantle had faded from +black to rusty brown; the straw hat which shaded her face was sunburnt; +the ribbons had lost their brightness; but there was an air of +attempted fashion in the puffings and trimmings of her alpaca skirt; +and there was evidence of a struggle with poverty in the tight-fitting +lavender gloves, whose streaky lines bore witness to the imperfection +of the cleaner's art. Elegant Parisians and the select of Brussels +glanced at the military Englishman and his handsome daughter with some +slight touch of supercilious surprise--one has no right to find +shabbily-dressed young women in the golden temple--and it is scarcely +necessary to state that it was from her own countrywomen the young +person in alpaca received the most chilling glances. But those Parthian +arrows shot from feminine eyes had little power to wound their object +just now. The girl looked up from her perforated card very seldom; and +when she raised her eyes, it was always to look in one +direction--towards the great glass doors opening from the outer saloon. +Loungers came and went; the doors swung open and closed again as +noiselessly as it is possible for well-regulated doors to open and +shut; footsteps sounded on the polished floors; and sometimes when the +young person in alpaca lifted her eyes, a passing shadow of +disappointment darkened her face. A modern Laurence Sterne, on a new +Sentimental Journey, might have derived some interest from the study of +the girl's countenance; but the reflective and observant traveller is +not to be encountered very often in this age of excursionists; and +Maria and her goat may roam the highways and byways for a long time +before she will find any dreamy loiterer with a mind attuned to +sympathy. + +The shabbily-dressed girl was looking for some one. She watched her +father's play carefully--she marked her card with unfailing precision; +but she performed these duties with a mechanical air; and it was only +when she lifted her eyes to the great shining plate-glass doors which +opened into this dangerous Paradise, that any ray of feeling animated +her countenance. She was looking for some one, and the person watched +for was so long coming. Ah, how difficult for the arithmetician to +number the crushing disappointments, the bitter agonies that one woman +can endure in a single half-hour! This girl was so young--so young; and +already she had learnt to suffer. + +The man played with the concentrated attention and the impassible +countenance of an experienced gamester, rarely lifting his eyes from +the green cloth, never looking back at the girl who stood behind him. +He was winning to-day, and he accepted his good fortune as quietly as +he had often accepted evil fortune at the same table. He seemed to be +playing on some system of his own; and neighbouring players looked at +him with envious eyes, as they saw the pile of gold grow larger under +his thin nervous hands. Ignorant gamesters, who stood aloof after +having lost two or three napoleons, contemplated the lucky Englishman +and wondered about him, while some touch of pity leavened the envy +excited by his wonderful fortune. He looked like a decayed gentleman--a +man who had been a military dandy in the days that were gone, and who +had all the old pretensions still, without the power to support them--a +Brummel languishing at Caen; a Nash wasting slowly at Bath. + +At last the girl's face brightened suddenly as she glanced upwards; and +it would have been very easy for the observant traveller--if any such +person had existed--to construe aright that bright change in her +countenance. The some one she had been watching for had arrived. + +The doors swung open to admit a man of about five-and-twenty, whose +darkly-handsome face and careless costume had something of that air +which was once wont to be associated with the person and the poetry of +George Gordon Lord Byron. The new-comer was just one of those men whom +very young women are apt to admire, and whom worldly-minded people are +prone to distrust. There was a perfume of Bohemianism, a flavour of the +Quartier Latin, about the loosely-tied cravat, the wide trousers, and +black-velvet morning coat, with which the young man outraged the +opinions of respectable visitors at Foretdechene. There was a +semi-poetic vagabondism in the half-indifferent, half-contemptuous +expression of his face, with its fierce moustache, and strongly-marked +eyebrows overshadowing sleepy gray eyes--eyes that were half hidden, by +their long dark lashes; as still pools of blue water lie sometimes +hidden among the rushes that nourish round them. + +He was handsome, and he knew that he was handsome; but he affected to +despise the beauty of his proud dark face, as he affected to despise +all the brightest and most beautiful things upon earth: and yet there +was a vagabondish kind of foppery in his costume that contrasted +sharply with the gentlemanly dandyism of the shabby gamester sitting at +the table. There was a distance of nearly half a century between the +style of the Regency dandy and the Quartier-Latin lion. + +The girl watched the new-comer with sad earnest eyes as he walked +slowly towards the table, and a faint blush kindled in her cheeks as he +came nearer to the spot where she stood. He went by her presently, +carrying an atmosphere of stale tobacco with him as he went; and he +gave her a friendly nod as he passed, and a "Good morning, Diana;" but +that was all. The faint blush faded and left her very pale: but she +resumed her weary task with the card and the pin; and if she had +endured any disappointment within those few moments, it seemed to be a +kind of disappointment that she was accustomed to suffer. + +The young man walked round the table till he came to the only vacant +chair, in which he seated himself, and after watching the game for a +few minutes, began to play. From the moment in which he dropped into +that vacant seat to the moment in which he rose to leave the table, +three hours afterwards, he never lifted his eyes from the green cloth, +or seemed to be conscious of anything that was going on around or about +him. The girl watched him furtively for some little time after he had +taken his place at the table; but the stony mask of the professed +gambler is a profitless object for a woman's earnest scrutiny. + +She sighed presently, and laid her hand heavily on the chair behind +which she was standing. The action aroused the man who sat in it, and +he turned and looked at her for the first time. + +"You are tired, Diana?" + +"Yes, papa, I am very tired." + +"Give me your card, then, and go away," the gamester answered +peevishly; "girls are always tired." + +She gave him the mysteriously-perforated card, and left her post behind +his chair; and then, after roaming about the great saloon with a weary +listless air, and wandering from one open window to another to look +into the sunny quadrangle, where well-dressed people were sitting at +little tables eating ices or drinking lemonade, she went away +altogether, and roamed into another chamber where some children were +dancing to the sound of a feeble violin. She sat upon a velvet-covered +bench, and watched the children's lesson for some minutes, and then +rose and wandered to another open window that overlooked the same +quadrangle, where the well-dressed people were enjoying themselves in +the hot August sunshine. + +"How extravagantly everybody dresses!" she thought, "and what a shabby +poverty-stricken creature one feels amongst them! And yet if I ask papa +to give me a couple of napoleons out of the money he won to-day, he +will only look at me from head to foot, and tell me I have a gown and a +cloak and a bonnet, and ask me what more I can want, in the name of all +that is unreasonable? And I see girls here whose fathers are so fond of +them and so proud of them--ugly girls, decked out in silks and muslins +and ribbons that have cost a small fortune--clumsy awkward girls, who +look at _me_ as if I were some new kind of wild animal." + +The saloons at Foretdechene were rich in monster sheets of +looking-glass; and in wandering discontentedly about the room Diana +Paget saw herself reflected many times in all her shabbiness. It was +only very lately she had discovered that she had some pretension to +good looks; for her father, who could not or would not educate her +decently or clothe her creditably, took a very high tone of morality in +his paternal teaching, and, in the fear that she might one day grow +vain of her beauty, had taken care to impress upon her at an early age +that she was the very incarnation of all that is lean and sallow and +awkward. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE EASY DESCENT + + +Amongst the many imprudences of which Horatio Paget--once a cornet in a +crack cavalry regiment, always a captain in his intercourse with the +world--had been guilty during the course of a long career, there was +none for which he so bitterly reproached himself as for a certain +foolish marriage which he had made late in his life. It was when he had +thrown away the last chance that an indulgent destiny had given him, +that the ruined fop of the Regency, the sometime member of the +Beef-steak Club, the man who in his earliest youth had worn a silver +gridiron at his button-hole, and played piquet in the gilded saloons of +Georgina of Devonshire, found himself laid on a bed of sickness in +dingy London lodgings, and nearer death than he had ever been in the +course of his brief military career; so nearly gliding from life's +swift-flowing river into eternity's trackless ocean, that the warmest +thrill of gratitude which ever stirred the slow pulses of his cold +heart quickened its beating as he clasped the hand that had held him +back from the unknown region whose icy breath had chilled him with an +awful fear. Such men as Horatio Paget are apt to feel a strange terror +when the black night drops suddenly down upon them, and the "Gray +Boatman's" voice sounds hollow and mysterious in the darkness, +announcing that the ocean is near. The hand that held the ruined +spendthrift back when the current swept so swiftly oceanward was a +woman's tender hand; and Heaven only knows what patient watchfulness, +what careful administration of medicines and unwearying preparation of +broths and jellies and sagos and gruels, what untiring and devoted +slavery, had been necessary to save the faded rake who looked out upon +the world once more, a ghastly shadow of his former self, a penniless +helpless burden for any one who might choose to support him. + +"Don't thank _me_," said the doctor, when his feeble patient whimpered +flourishing protestations of his gratitude, unabashed by the +consciousness that such grateful protestations were the sole coin with +which the medical man would be paid for his services; "thank that young +woman, if you want to thank anybody; for if it had not been for her you +wouldn't be here to talk about gratitude. And if ever you get such +another attack of inflammation on the lungs, you had better pray for +such another nurse, though I don't think you're likely to find one." + +And with this exordium, the rough-and-ready surgeon took his departure, +leaving Horatio Paget alone with the woman who had saved his life. + +She was only his landlady's daughter; and his landlady was no +prosperous householder in Mayfair, thriving on the extravagance of +wealthy bachelors, but an honest widow, living in an obscure little +street leading out of the Old Kent-road, and letting a +meagrely-furnished little parlour and a still more meagrely-furnished +little bedroom to any single gentleman whom reverse of fortune might +lead into such a locality. Captain Paget had sunk very low in the world +when he took possession of that wretched parlour and laid himself down +to rest on the widow's flock-bed. + +There is apt to be a dreary interval in the life of such a man--a blank +dismal interregnum, which divides the day in which he spends his last +shilling from the hour in which he begins to prey deliberately upon the +purses of other people. It was in that hopeless interval that Horatio +Paget established himself in the widow's parlour. But though he slept +in the Old Kent-road, he had not yet brought himself to endure +existence on that Surrey side of the water. He emerged from his lodging +every morning to hasten westward, resplendent in clean linen and +exquisitely-fitting gloves, and unquestionable overcoat, and varnished +boots. + +The wardrobe has its Indian summer; and the glory of a first-rate +tailor's coat is like the splendour of a tropical sun--it is glorious +to the last, and sinks in a moment. Captain Paget's wardrobe was in its +Indian summer in these days; and when he felt how fatally near the +Bond-street pavement was to the soles of his feet, he could not refrain +from a fond admiration of the boots that were so beautiful in decay. + +He walked the West-end for many weary hours every day during this +period of his decadence. He tried to live in an honest gentlemanly way, +by borrowing money of his friends, or discounting an accommodation-bill +obtained from some innocent acquaintance who was deluded by his +brilliant appearance and specious tongue into a belief in the transient +nature of his difficulties. He spent his days in hanging about the +halls and waiting-rooms of clubs--of some of which he had once been a +member; he walked weary miles between St James's and Mayfair, +Kensington Gore and Notting Hill, leaving little notes for men who were +not at home, or writing a little note in one room while the man to whom +he was writing hushed his breath in an adjoining chamber. People who +had once been Captain Paget's fast friends seemed to have +simultaneously decided upon spending their existence out of doors, as +it appeared to the impecunious Captain. The servants of his friends +were afflicted with a strange uncertainty as to their masters' +movements. At whatever hall-door Horatio Paget presented himself, it +seemed equally doubtful whether the proprietor of the mansion would be +home to dinner that day, or whether he would be at home any time next +day, or the day after that, or at the end of the week, or indeed +whether he would ever come home again. Sometimes the Captain, calling +in the evening dusk, in the faint hope of gaining admittance to some +friendly dwelling, saw the glimmer of light under a dining-room door, +and heard the clooping of corks and the pleasant jingling of glass and +silver in the innermost recesses of a butler's pantry; but still the +answer was--not at home, and not likely to be home. All the respectable +world was to be out henceforth for Horatio Paget. But now and then at +the clubs he met some young man, who had no wife at home to keep watch +upon his purse and to wail piteously over a five-pound note +ill-bestowed, and who took compassion on the fallen spendthrift, and +believed, or pretended to believe, his story of temporary +embarrassment; and then the Captain dined sumptuously at a little +French restaurant in Castle-street, Leicester-square, and took a +half-bottle of chablis with his oysters, and warmed himself with +chambertin that was brought to him in a dusty cobweb-shrouded bottle +reposing in a wicker-basket. + +But in these latter days such glimpses of sunshine very rarely +illumined the dull stream of the Captain's life. Failure and +disappointment had become the rule of his existence--success the rare +exception. Crossing the river now on his way westward, he was wont to +loiter a little on Waterloo Bridge, and to look dreamily down at the +water, wondering whether the time was near at hand when, under cover of +the evening dusk, he would pay his last halfpenny to the toll-keeper, +and never again know the need of an earthly coin. + +"I saw a fellow in the Morgue one day,--a poor wretch who had drowned +himself a week or two before. Great God, how horrible he looked! If +there was any certainty they would find one immediately, and bury one +decently, there'd be no particular horror in that kind of death. But to +be found _like that_, and to lie in some riverside deadhouse down by +Wapping, with a ghastly placard rotting on the rotting door, and +nothing but ooze and slime and rottenness round about one--waiting to +be identified! And who knows, after all, whether a dead man doesn't +_feel_ that sort of thing?" + +It was after such musings as these had begun to be very common with +Horatio Paget that he caught the chill which resulted in a very +dangerous illness of many weeks. The late autumn was wet and cold and +dreary; but Captain Paget, although remarkably clever after a certain +fashion, had never been a lover of intellectual pursuits, and +imprisonment in Mrs. Kepp's shabby parlour was odious to him. When he +had read every page of the borrowed newspaper, and pished and pshawed +over the leaders, and groaned aloud at the announcement of some wealthy +marriage made by one of his quondam friends, or chuckled at the record +of another quondam friend's insolvency--when he had poked the fire +savagely half a dozen times in an hour, cursing the pinched grate and +the bad coals during every repetition of the operation--when he had +smoked his last cigar, and varnished his favourite boots, and looked +out of the window, and contemplated himself gloomily in the wretched +little glass over the narrow chimney-piece,--Captain Paget's +intellectual resources were exhausted, and an angry impatience took +possession of him. Then, in defiance of the pelting rain or the +lowering sky, he flung his slippers into the farthest corner--and the +farthest corner of Mrs. Kepp's parlour was not very remote from the +Captain's arm-chair--he drew on the stoutest of his varnished +boots--and there were none of them very stout now--buttoned his perfect +overcoat, adjusted his hat before the looking-glass, and sallied forth, +umbrella in hand, to make his way westward. Westward always, through +storm and shower, back to the haunts of his youth, went the wanderer +and outcast, to see the red glow of cheery fires reflected on the +plate-glass windows of his favourite clubs; to see the lamps in +spacious reading-rooms lit early in the autumn dusk, and to watch the +soft light glimmering on the rich bindings of the books, and losing +itself in the sombre depths of crimson draperies. To this poor worldly +creature the agony of banishment from those palaces of Pall Mall or St. +James's-street was as bitter as the pain of a fallen angel. It was the +dullest, deadest time of the year, and there were not many loungers in +those sumptuous reading-rooms, where the shaded lamps shed their +subdued light on the chaste splendour of the sanctuary; so Captain +Paget could haunt the scene of his departed youth without much fear of +recognition: but his wanderings in the West grew more hopeless and +purposeless every day. He began to understand how it was that people +were never at home when he assailed their doors with his fashionable +knock. He could no longer endure the humiliation of such repulses, for +he began to understand that the servants knew his errand as well as +their masters, and had their answers ready, let him present himself +before them when he would: so he besieged the doors of St. James's and +Mayfair, Kensington Gore and Netting Hill, no longer. He knew that the +bubble of his poor foolish life had burst, and that there was nothing +left for him but to die. + +It seemed about this time as if the end of all was very near. Captain +Paget caught a chill one miserable evening on which he returned to his +lodging with his garments dripping, and his beautiful varnished boots +reduced to a kind of pulp; and the chill resulted in a violent +inflammation of the lungs. Then it was that a woman's hand was held out +to save him, and a woman's divine tenderness cared for him in his dire +extremity. + +The ministering angel who comforted this helpless and broken-down +wayfarer was only a low-born ignorant girl called Mary Anne Kepp--a +girl who had waited upon the Captain during his residence in her +mother's house, but of whom he had taken about as much notice as he had +been wont to take of the coloured servants who tended him when he was +with his regiment in India. Horatio Paget had been a night-brawler and +a gamester, a duellist and a reprobate, in the glorious days that were +gone; but he had never been a profligate; and he did not know that the +girl who brought him his breakfast and staggered under the weight of +his coal-scuttle was one of the most beautiful women he had ever looked +upon. + +The Captain was so essentially a creature of the West-end, that Beauty +without her glitter of diamonds and splendour of apparel was scarcely +Beauty for him. He waited for the groom of the chambers to announce her +name, and the low hum of well-bred approval to accompany her entrance, +before he bowed the knee and acknowledged her perfection. The Beauties +whom he remembered had received their patent from the Prince Regent, +and had graduated in the houses of Devonshire and Hertford. How should +the faded bachelor know that this girl, in a shabby cotton gown, with +unkempt hair dragged off her pale face, and with grimy smears from the +handles of saucepans and fire-irons imprinted upon her cheeks--how +should he know that she was beautiful? It was only during the slow +monotonous hours of his convalescence, when he lay upon the poor faded +little sofa in Mrs. Kepp's parlour--the sofa that was scarcely less +faded and feeble than himself--it was then, and then only, that he +discovered the loveliness of the face which had been so often bent over +him during his delirious wanderings. + +"I have mistaken you for all manner of people, my dear," he said to his +landlady's daughter, who sat by the little Pembroke-table working, +while her mother dozed in a corner with a worsted stocking drawn over +her arm and a pair of spectacles resting upon her elderly nose. Mrs. +Kepp and her daughter were wont to spend their evenings in the lodger's +apartment now; for the invalid complained bitterly of "the horrors" +when they left him. + +"I have taken you for all sorts of people, Mary Anne," pursued the +Captain dreamily. "Sometimes I have fancied you were the Countess of +Jersey, and I could see her smile as she looked at me when I was first +presented to her. I was very young in the beautiful Jersey's time; and +then there was the other one--whom I used to drink tea with at +Brighton. Ah me! what a dull world it seems nowadays! The King gone, +and everything changed--everything--everything! I am a very old man, +Mary Anne." + +He was fifty-two years of age; he felt quite an old man. He had spent +all his money, he had outlived the best friends of his youth; for it +had been his fate to adorn a declining era, and he had been a youngster +among elderly patrons and associates. His patrons were dead and gone, +and the men he had patronised shut their doors upon him in the day of +his poverty. As for his relations, he had turned his back upon them +long ago, when first he followed in the shining wake of that gorgeous +vessel, the Royal George. In this hour of his penniless decline there +was none to help him. To have outlived every affection and every +pleasure is the chief bitterness of old age; and this bitterness +Horatio Paget suffered in all its fulness, though his years were but +fifty-two. + +"I am a very old man, Mary Anne," he repeated plaintively. But Mary +Anne Kepp could not think him old. To her eyes he must for ever appear +the incarnation of all that is elegant and distinguished. He was the +first gentleman she had ever seen. Mrs. Kepp had given shelter to other +lodgers who had called themselves gentlemen, and who had been pompous +and grandiose of manner in their intercourse with the widow and her +daughter; but O, what pitiful lacquered counterfeits, what Brummagem +paste they had been, compared to the real gem! Mary Anne Kepp had seen +varnished boots before the humble flooring of her mother's dwelling was +honoured by the tread of Horatio Paget, but what clumsy vulgar boots, +and what awkward plebeian feet had worn them! The lodger's slim white +hands and arched instep, the patrician curve of his aquiline nose, the +perfect grace of his apparel, the high-bred modulation of his courteous +accents,--all these had impressed Mary Anne's tender little heart so +much the more because of his poverty and loneliness. That such a man +should be forgotten and deserted--that such a man should be poor and +lonely, seemed so cruel a chance to the simple maiden: and then when +illness overtook him, and invested him with a supreme claim upon her +tenderness and pity,--then the innocent girl lavished all the treasures +of a compassionate heart upon the ruined gentleman. She had no thought +of fee or reward; she knew that her mother's lodger was miserably poor, +and that his payments had become more and more irregular week by week +and month by month. She had no consciousness of the depth of feeling +that rendered her so gentle a nurse; for her life was a busy one, and +she had neither time nor inclination for any morbid brooding upon her +own feelings. + +She protested warmly against the Captain's lamentation respecting his +age. + +"The idear of any gentleman calling hisself old at fifty!" she +said--and Horatio shuddered at the supererogatory "r" and the +"hisself," though they proceeded from the lips of his +consoler;--"you've got many, many years before you yet, sir, please +God," she added piously; "and there's good friends will come forward +yet to help you, I make no doubt." + +Captain Paget shook his head peevishly. + +"You talk as if you were telling my fortune with a pack of cards," he +said. "No, my girl, I shall have only one friend to rely upon, if ever +I am well enough to go outside this house; and that friend is myself. I +have spent the fortune my father left me; I have spent the price of my +commission; and I have parted with every object of any value that I +ever possessed--in vulgar parlance, I am cleaned out, Mary Anne. But +other men have spent every sixpence belonging to them, and have +contrived to live pleasantly enough for half a century afterwards; and +I daresay I can do as they have done. If the wind is tempered to the +shorn lamb, I suppose the hawks and vultures take care of themselves. I +have tried my luck as a shorn lamb, and the tempest has been very +bitter for me; so I have no alternative but to join the vultures." + +Mary Anne Kepp stared wonderingly at her mother's lodger. She had some +notion that he had been saying something wicked and blasphemous; but +she was too ignorant and too innocent to follow his meaning. + +"O, pray don't talk in that wild way, sir," she entreated. "It makes me +so unhappy to hear you go on like that." + +"And why should anything that I say make you unhappy, Mary Anne?" asked +the lodger earnestly. + +There was something in his tone that set her pale face on fire with +unwonted crimson, and she bent very low over her work to hide those +painful blushes. She did not know that the Captain's tone presaged a +serious address; she did not know that the grand crisis of her life was +close upon her. + +Horatio Paget had determined upon making a sacrifice. The doctor had +told him that he owed his life to this devoted girl; and he would have +been something less than man if he had not been moved with some +grateful emotion. He was grateful; and in the dreary hours of his slow +recovery he had ample leisure for the contemplation of the woman to +whom he owed so much, if his poor worthless life could indeed be much. +He saw that she was devoted to him; that she loved him more truly than +he had ever been conscious of being loved before. He saw too that she +was beautiful. To an ugly woman Captain Paget might have felt extremely +grateful; but he could never have thought of an ugly woman as he +thought of Mary Anne Kepp. The end of his contemplation and his +deliberation came to this: She was beautiful, and she loved him, and +his life was utterly wretched and lonely; so he determined on proving +his gratitude by a sublime sacrifice. Before the girl had lifted her +face from the needlework over which she had bent to hide her blushes, +Horatio Paget had asked her to be his wife. Her emotion almost +overpowered her as she tried to answer him; but she struggled against +it bravely, and came to the sofa on which he lay and dropped upon her +knees by his side. The beggar-maid who was wooed by a king could have +felt no deeper sense of her lover's condescension than that which +filled the heart of this poor simple girl as she knelt by her mother's +gentleman lodger. + +"I--to be your wife!" she exclaimed. "O, surely, sir, you cannot mean +it?" + +"But I do mean it, with all my heart and soul, my dear," answered the +Captain. "I'm not offering you any grand chance, Mary Anne; for I'm +about as low down in the world as a man can be. But I don't mean to be +poor all my life. Come, my dear, don't cry," he exclaimed, just a +little impatiently--for the girl had covered her face with her hands, +and tears were dropping between the poor hard-working fingers--"but +lift up your head and tell me whether you will take a faded old +bachelor for your husband or not." + +Horatio Paget had admired many women in the bright years of his youth, +and had fancied himself desperately in love more than once in his life; +but it is doubtful whether the mighty passion had ever really possessed +the Captain's heart, which was naturally cold and sluggish, rarely +fluttered by any emotion that was not engendered of selfishness. +Horatio had set up an idol and had invented a religion for himself very +early in life; and that idol was fashioned after his own image, and +that religion had its beginning and end in his own pleasure. He might +have been flattered and pleased by Miss Kepp's agitation; but he was +ill and peevish; and having all his life been subject to a profound +antipathy to feminine tearfulness, the girl's display of emotion +annoyed him. + +"Is it to be yes, or no, my dear?" he asked, with, some vexation in his +tone. + +Mary Anne looked up at him with tearful, frightened eyes. + +"O, yes, sir, if I can be of any use to you, and nurse you when you are +ill, and work for you till I work my fingers to the bone." + +She clenched her hands spasmodically as she spoke. In imagination she +was already toiling and striving for the god of her idolatry--the +GENTLEMAN whose varnished boots had been to her as a glimpse of another +and a fairer world than that represented by Tulliver's-terrace, Old +Kent-road. But Captain Paget checked her enthusiasm by a gentle gesture +of his attenuated hands. + +"That will do, my dear," he murmured languidly; "I'm not very strong +yet, and anything in the way of fuss is inexpressibly painful to me. +Ah, my poor child," he exclaimed, pityingly, "if you could have seen a +dinner at the Marquis of Hertford's, you would have understood how much +can be achieved without fuss. But I am talking of things you don't +understand. You will be my wife; and a very good, kind, obedient little +wife, I have no doubt. That is all settled. As for working for me, my +love, it would be about as much as these poor little hands could do to +earn me a cigar a day--and I seldom smoke less than half a dozen +cigars; so, you see, that is all so much affectionate nonsense. And now +you may wake your mother, my dear; for I want to take a little nap, and +I can't close my eyes while that good soul is snoring so intolerably; +but not a word about our little arrangement, Mary Anne, till you and +your mother are alone." + +And hereupon the Captain spread a handkerchief over his face and +subsided into a gentle slumber. The little scene had fatigued him; +though it had been so quietly enacted, that Mrs. Kepp had slept on +undisturbed by the brief fragment of domestic drama performed within a +few yards of her uneasy arm-chair. Her daughter awoke her presently, +and she resumed her needlework, while Mary Anne made some tea for the +beloved sleeper. The cups and saucers made more noise to-night than +they were wont to make in the girl's careful hands. The fluttering of +her heart seemed to communicate itself to the tips of her fingers, and +the jingling of the crockery-ware betrayed the intensity of her +emotion. He was to be her husband! She was to have a gentleman for a +husband; and such a gentleman! Out of such base trifles as a West-end +tailor's coat and a West-end workman's boots may be engendered the +purest blossom of womanly love and devotion. Wisely may the modern +philosopher cry that the history of the world is only a story of old +clothes. Mary Anne had begun by admiring the graces of Stultz and Hoby, +and now she was ready to lay down her life for the man who wore the +perishing garments. + + * * * * * + +Miss Kepp obeyed her lover's behest; and it was only on the following +day, when she and her mother were alone together in the dingy little +kitchen below Captain Paget's apartments, that she informed that worthy +woman of the honour which had been vouchsafed to her. And thereupon +Mary Anne endured the first of the long series of disappointments which +were to arise out of her affection for the penniless Captain. The widow +was a woman of the world, and was obstinately blind to the advantages +of a union with a ruined gentleman of fifty. "How's he to keep you, I +should like to know," Mrs. Kepp exclaimed, as the girl stood blushing +before her after having told her story; "if he can't pay me +regular?--and you know the difficulty I have had to get his money, Mary +Anne. If he can't keep hisself, how's he to keep you?" + +"Don't talk like that, mother," cried the girl, wincing under her +parent's practical arguments; "you go on as if all I cared for was +being fed and clothed. Besides, Captain Paget is not going to be poor +always. He told me so last night, when he----" + +"_He_ told you so!" echoed the honest widow with unmitigated scorn; +"hasn't he told me times and often that I should have my rent regular +after this week, and regular after that week, and have I _ever_ had it +regular? And ain't I keeping him out of charity now?--a poor +widow-woman like me--which I may be wanting charity myself before long: +and if it wasn't for your whimpering and going on he'd have been out of +the house three weeks ago, when the doctor said he was well enough to +be moved; for I ast him." + +"And you'd have turned him out to die in the streets, mother!" cried +Mary; "I didn't think you was so 'artless." + +From this time there was ill-feeling between Mrs. Kepp and her +daughter, who had been hitherto one of the most patient and obedient of +children. The fanatic can never forgive the wretch who disbelieves in +the divinity of his god; and women who love as blindly and foolishly as +Mary Anne Kepp are the most bigoted of worshippers. The girl could not +forgive her mother's disparagement of her idol,--the mother had no +mercy upon her daughter's folly; and after much wearisome contention +and domestic misery--carefully hidden from the penniless sybarite in +the parlour--after many tears and heart-burnings, and wakeful nights +and prayerful watches, Mary Anne Kepp consented to leave the house +quietly one morning with the gentleman lodger while the widow had gone +to market. Miss Kepp left a piteous little note for her mother, rather +ungrammatical, but very womanly and tender, imploring pardon for her +want of duty; and, "O, mother, if you knew how good and nobel he is, +you coudent be angery with me for luving him has I do, and we shall +come back to you after oure marige, wich you will be pade up honourabel +to the last farthin'." + +After writing this epistle in the kitchen, with more deliberation and +more smudging than Captain Paget would have cared to behold in the +bride of his choice, Mary Anne attired herself in her Sabbath-day +raiment, and left Tulliver's-terrace with the Captain in a cab. She +would fain have taken a little lavender paper-covered box that +contained the remainder of her wardrobe, but after surveying it with a +shudder, Captain Paget told her that such a box would condemn them +_anywhere_. + +"You may get on sometimes without luggage, my dear," he said +sententiously; "but with such luggage as _that_, never!" + +The girl obeyed without comprehending. It was not often that she +understood her lover's meaning, nor did he particularly care that she +should understand him. He talked to her rather in the same spirit in +which one talks to a faithful canine companion--as Napoleon III. may +talk to his favourite Nero; "I have great plans yet unfulfilled, my +honest Nero, though you may not be wise enough to guess their nature. +And we must have another Boulevard, old fellow; and we must settle that +little dispute about Venetia; and we must do something for those +unfortunate Poles, eh--good dog?" and so on. + +Captain Paget drove straight to a registrar's office, where the new +Marriage Act enabled him to unite himself to Miss Kepp _sans facon_, in +presence of the cabman and a woman who had been cleaning the door-step. +The Captain went through the brief ceremonial as coolly as if it had +been the settlement of a water-rate, and was angered by the tears that +poor Mary Anne shed under her cheap black veil. He had forgotten the +poetic superstition in favour of a wedding-ring, but he slipped a +little onyx ring off his own finger, and put it on the clumsier finger +of his bride. It was the last of his jewels--the rejected of the +pawnbrokers, who, not being learned in antique intaglios, had condemned +the ring as trumpery. There is always something a little ominous in the +bridegroom's forgetfulness of that simple golden circle which typifies +an eternal union; and a superstitious person might have drawn a +sinister augury from the subject of Captain Paget's intaglio, which was +a head of Nero--an emperor whose wife was by no means the happiest of +women. But as neither Mary Anne nor the registrar, neither the cabman +nor the charwoman who had been cleaning the door-step, had ever heard +of Nero, and as Horatio Paget was much too indifferent to be +superstitious, there was no one to draw evil inferences: and Mary Anne +went away with her gentleman husband, proud and happy, with a happiness +that was only disturbed now and then by the image of an infuriated +mother. + +Captain Paget took his bride to some charming apartments in +Halfmoon-street, Mayfair; and she was surprised to hear him tell the +landlady that he and his wife had just arrived from Devonshire, and +that they meant to stay a week or so in London, _en passant_, before +starting for the Continent. + +"My wife has spent the best part of her life in the country," said the +Captain, "so I suppose I must show her some of the sights of London in +spite of the abominable weather. But the deuce of it is, that my +servant has misunderstood my directions, and gone on to Paris with the +luggage. However, we can set that all straight to-morrow." + +Nothing could be more courteously acquiescent than the manner of the +landlady; for Captain Paget had offered her references, and the people +to whom he referred were among the magnates of the land. The Captain +knew enough of human nature to know that if references are only +sufficiently imposing, they are very unlikely to be verified. The +swindler who refers his dupe to the Duke of Sutherland and Baring +Brothers has a very good chance of getting his respectability accepted +without inquiry, on the mere strength of those sacred names. + + * * * * * + +From this time until the day of her death Mary Anne Paget very seldom +heard her husband make any statement which she did not know to be +false. He had joined the ranks of the vultures. He had lain down upon +his bed of sickness a gentlemanly beggar; he arose from that couch of +pain and weariness a swindler. + +Now began those petty shifts and miserable falsifications whereby the +birds of prey thrive on the flesh and blood of hapless pigeons. Now the +dovecotes were fluttered by a new destroyer--a gentlemanly vulture, +whose suave accents and perfect manners were fatal to the unwary. +Henceforth Horatio Cromie Nugent Paget flourished and fattened upon the +folly of his fellow-men. As promoter of joint-stock companies that +never saw the light; as treasurer of loan-offices where money was never +lent; as a gentleman with capital about to introduce a novel article of +manufacture from the sale of which a profit of five thousand a year +would infallibly be realized, and desirous to meet with another +gentleman of equal capital; as the mysterious X.Y.Z. who will--for so +small a recompense as thirty postage-stamps--impart the secret of an +elegant and pleasing employment, whereby seven-pound-ten a-week may be +made by any individual, male or female;--under every flimsy disguise +with which the swindler hides his execrable form, Captain Paget plied +his cruel trade, and still contrived to find fresh dupes. Of course +there were occasions when the pigeons were slow to flutter into the +fascinating snare, and when the vulture had a bad time of it; and it +was a common thing for the Captain to sink from the splendour of +Mayfair or St. James's-street into some dingy transpontine +hiding-place. But he never went back to Tulliver's-terrace, though Mary +Anne pleaded piteously for the payment of her poor mother's debt. When +her husband was in funds, he patted her head affectionately, and told +her that he would see about it--i.e. the payment of Mrs. Kepp's bill; +while, if she ventured to mention the subject to him when his purse was +scantily furnished, he would ask her fiercely how he was to satisfy her +mother's extortionate claims when he had not so much as a sixpence for +his own use. + +Mrs. Kepp's bill was never paid, and Mary Anne never saw her mother's +face again. Mrs. Paget was one of those meek loving creatures who are +essentially cowardly. She could not bring herself to encounter her +mother without the money owed by the Captain; she could not bring +herself to endure the widow's reproaches, the questioning that would be +so horribly painful to answer, the taunts that would torture her poor +sorrowful heart. + +Alas for her brief dream of love and happiness! Alas for her foolish +worship of the gentleman lodger! She knew now that her mother had been +wiser than herself, and that it would have been better for her if she +had renounced the shadowy glory of an alliance with Horatio Cromie +Nugent Paget, whose string of high-sounding names, written on the cover +of an old wine-book, had not been without its influence on the ignorant +girl. The widow's daughter knew very little happiness during the few +years of her wedded life. To be hurried from place to place; to dine in +Mayfair to-day, and to eat your dinner at a shilling ordinary in +Whitecross-street to-morrow; to wear fine clothes that have not been +paid for, and to take them off your back at a moment's notice when they +are required for the security of the friendly pawnbroker; to know that +your life is a falsehood and a snare, and that to leave a place is to +leave contempt and execration behind you,--these things constitute the +burden of a woman whose husband lives by his wits. And over and above +these miseries, Mrs. Paget had to endure all the variations of temper +to which the schemer is subject. If the pigeons dropped readily into +the snare, and if their plumage proved well worth the picking, the +Captain was very kind to his wife, after his own fashion; that is to +say, he took her out with him, and after lecturing her angrily because +of the shabbiness of her bonnet, bought her a new one, and gave her a +dinner that made her ill, and then sent her home in a cab, while he +finished the evening in more congenial society. But if the times were +bad for the vulture tribe--O, then, what a gloomy companion for the +domestic hearth was the elegant Horatio! After smiling his false smile +all day, while rage and disappointment were gnawing at his heart, it +was a kind of relief to the Captain to be moody and savage by his own +fireside. The human vulture has something of the ferocity of his +feathered prototype. The man who lives upon his fellow-men has need to +harden his heart; for one sentiment of compassion, one touch of human +pity, would shatter his finest scheme in the hour of its fruition. +Horatio Paget and compassion parted fellowship very early in the course +of his unscrupulous career. What if the pigeon has a widowed mother +dependent on his prosperity, or half a dozen children who will be +involved in his ruin? Is the hawk to forego his natural prey for any +such paltry consideration as a vulgar old woman or a brood of squalling +brats? + +Captain Paget was not guilty of any persistent unkindness towards the +woman whose fate he had deigned to link with his own. The consciousness +that he had conferred a supreme honour on Mary Anne Kepp by offering +her his hand, and a share of his difficulties, never deserted him. He +made no attempt to elevate the ignorant girl into companionship with +himself. He shuddered when she misplaced her h's and turned from her +peevishly, with a muttered oath, when she was more than usually +ungrammatical: but though he found it disagreeable to hear her, he +would have found it troublesome to set her right; and trouble was a +thing which Horatio Paget held in gentlemanly aversion. The idea that +the mode of his existence could be repulsive to his wife--that this +low-born and low-bred girl could have scruples that he never felt, and +might suffer agonies of remorse and shame of which his coarser nature +was incapable--never entered the Captain's mind. It would have been too +great an absurdity for the daughter of plebeian Kepps to affect a +tenderness of conscience unknown to the scion of Pagets and Cromies and +Nugents. Mary Anne was afraid of her elegant husband; and she +worshipped and waited upon him in meek silence, keeping the secret of +her own sorrows, and keeping it so well that he never guessed the +manifold sources of that pallor of countenance and hollow brightness of +eye which had of late annoyed him when he looked at his wife. She had +borne him a child--a sweet girl baby, with those great black eyes that +always have rather a weird look in the face of infancy; and she would +fain have clung to the infant as the hope and consolation of her +joyless life. But the vulture is not a domestic bird, and a baby would +have been an impediment in the rapid hegiras which Captain Paget and +his wife were wont to make. The Captain put an advertisement in a daily +paper before the child was a week old; and in less than a fortnight +after Mary Anne had looked at the baby face for the first time, she was +called upon to surrender her treasure to an elderly woman of fat and +greasy aspect, who had agreed to bring the infant up "by hand" in a +miserable little street in a remote and dreary district lying between +Vauxhall and Battersea. + +Mary Anne gave up the child uncomplainingly, as meekly as she would +have surrendered herself if the Captain had brought a masked +executioner to her bedside, and had told her a block was prepared for +her in the adjoining chamber. She had no idea of resistance to the will +of her husband. She endured her existence for nearly five years after +the birth of her child, and during those miserable years the one effort +of her life was to secure the miserable stipend paid for the little +girl's maintenance; but before the child's fifth birthday the mother +faded off the face of the earth. She died in a miserable lodging not +very far from Tulliver's-terrace, expiring in the arms of a landlady +who had comforted her in her hour of need, as she had comforted the +ruined gentleman. Captain Paget was a prisoner in Whitecross-street at +the time of his wife's death, and was much surprised when he missed her +morning visits, and the little luxuries she had been wont to bring him. + +He had missed her for more than a week, and had written to her +twice--rather angrily on the second occasion--when a rough unkempt boy +in corduroy waited upon him in the dreary ward, where he and half a +dozen other depressed and melancholy men sat at little tables writing +letters, or pretending to read newspapers, and looking at one another +furtively every now and then. There is no prisoner so distracted by his +own cares that he will not find time to wonder what his neighbour is +"in for." + +The boy had received instructions to be careful how he imparted his +dismal tidings to the "poor dear gentleman;" but the lad grew nervous +and bewildered at sight of the Captain's fierce hook-nose and +scrutinising gray eyes, and blurted out his news without any dismal +note of warning. + +"The lady died at two o'clock this morning, please, sir; and mother +said I was to come and tell you, please, sir." + +Captain Paget staggered under the blow. + +"Good God!" he cried, as he dropped upon a rickety Windsor chair, that +creaked under his weight; "and I did not even know that she was ill!" + +Still less did he know that all her married life had been one long +heart-sickness--one monotonous agony of remorse and shame. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +"HEART BARE, HEART HUNGRY, VERY POOR." + + +Diana Paget left the Kursaal, and walked slowly along the pretty rustic +street; now dawdling before a little print-shop, whose contents she +knew by heart, now looking back at the great windows of that temple of +pleasure which she had just quitted. + +"What do they care what becomes of me?" she thought, as she looked up +at the blank vacant windows for the last time before she left the main +street of Foretdechene, and turned into a straggling side-street, whose +rugged pavement sloped upward towards the pine-clad hills. The house in +which Captain Paget had taken up his abode was a tall white habitation, +situated in the narrowest of the narrow by-ways that intersect the main +street of the pretty Belgian watering-place; a lane in which the +inhabitants of opposite houses may shake hands with one another out of +the window, and where the odour of the cabbages and onions so liberally +employed in the _cuisine_ of the native offends the nose of the +foreigner from sunrise to sunset. + +Diana paused for a moment at the entrance to this lane, but, after a +brief deliberation, walked onwards. + +"What is the use of my going home?" she thought; "_they_ won't be home +for hours to come." + +She walked slowly along the hilly street, and from the street into a +narrow pathway winding upward through the pine-wood. Here she was quite +alone, and the stillness of the place soothed her. She took off her +hat, and slung the faded ribbons across her arm; and the warm breeze +lifted the loose hair from her forehead as she wandered upwards. It was +a very beautiful face from which that loose dark hair was lifted by the +summer wind. Diana Paget inherited something of the soft loveliness of +Mary Anne Kepp, and a little of the patrician beauty of the Pagets. The +eyes were like those which had watched Horatio Paget on his bed of +sickness in Tulliver's-terrace. The resolute curve of the thin flexible +lips, and the fine modelling of the chin, were hereditary attributes of +the Nugent Pagets; and a resemblance to the lower part of Miss Paget's +face might have been traced in many a sombre portrait of dame and +cavalier at Thorpehaven Manor, where a Nugent Paget, who acknowledged +no kindred with the disreputable Captain, was now master. + +The girl's reflections as she slowly climbed the hill were not +pleasant. The thoughts of youth should be very beautiful; but youth +that has been spent in the companionship of reprobates and tricksters +is something worse than age; for experience has taught it to be bitter, +while time has not taught it to be patient. For Diana Paget, childhood +had been joyless, and girlhood lonely. That blank and desolate region, +that dreary flat of fenny waste ground between Vauxhall and Battersea, +on which the child's eyes had first looked, had been typical of her +loveless childhood. With her mother's death faded the one ray of light +that had illumined her desolation. She was shifted from one nurse to +another; and bar nurses were not allowed to love her, for she remained +with them as an encumbrance and a burden. It was so difficult for the +Captain to pay the pitiful sum demanded for his daughter's support--or +rather it was so much easier for him not to pay it. So there always +came a time when Diana was delivered at her father's lodgings like a +parcel, by an indignant nurse, who proclaimed the story of her wrongs +in shrill feminine treble, and who was politely informed by the Captain +that her claim was a common debt, and that she had the remedy in her +own hands, but that the same code of laws which provided her with that +remedy, forbade any obnoxious demonstration of her anger in a +gentleman's apartment. And then Miss Paget, after hearing all the +tumult and discussion, would be left alone with her father, and would +speedily perceive that her presence was disagreeable to him. + +When she outgrew the age of humble foster-mothers and cottages in the +dreariest of the outlying suburbs, the Captain sent his daughter to +school: and on this occasion he determined on patronising a person whom +he had once been too proud to remember among the list of his kindred. +There are poor and straggling branches upon every family tree; and the +Pagets of Thorpehaven had needy cousins who, in the mighty battle of +life, were compelled to fight amongst the rank and file. One of these +poor cousins was a Miss Priscilla Paget, who at an early age had +exhibited that affection for intellectual pursuits and that +carelessness as to the duties of the toilet which are supposed to +distinguish the predestined blue-stocking. Left quite alone in the +world, Priscilla put her educational capital to good use; and after +holding the position of principal governess for nearly twenty years in +a prosperous boarding-school at Brompton, she followed her late +employer to her grave with unaffected sorrow, and within a month of the +funeral invested her savings in the purchase of the business, and +established herself as mistress of the mansion. To this lady Captain +Paget confided his daughter's education; and in Priscilla Paget's house +Diana found a shelter that was almost like a home, until her kinswoman +became weary of promises that were never kept, and pitiful sums paid on +account of a debt that grew bigger every day--very weary likewise of +conciliatory hampers of game and barrels of oysters, and all the flimsy +devices of a debtor who is practised in the varied arts of the +gentlemanly swindler. + +The day came when Miss Paget resolved to be rid of her profitless +charge; and once more Diana found herself delivered like a parcel of +unordered goods at the door of her father's lodging. Those are +precocious children who learn their first lessons in the school of +poverty; and the girl had been vaguely conscious of the degradation +involved in this process at the age of five. How much more keenly did +she feel the shame at the age of fifteen! Priscilla did her best to +lessen the pain of her pupil's departure. + +"It isn't that I've any fault to find with you, Diana, though you must +remember that I have heard some complaints of your temper," she said, +with gentle gravity; "but your father is too trying. If he didn't make +me any promises, I should think better of him. If he told me frankly +that he couldn't pay me, and asked me to keep you out of +charity,"--Diana drew herself up with a little shiver at this +word,--"why, I might turn it over in my mind, and see if it could be +done. But to be deceived time after time, as I've been deceived--you +know the solemn language your father has used, Diana, for you have +heard him--and to rely on a sum of money on a certain date, as I have +relied again and again, after Horatio's assurance that I might depend +upon him--it's too bad, Diana; it's more than any one can endure. If +you were two or three years older, and further advanced in your +education, I might manage to do something for you by making you useful +with the little ones; but I can't afford to keep you and clothe you +during the next three years for nothing, and so I have no alternative +but to send you home." + +The "home" to which Diana Paget was taken upon this occasion was a +lodging over a toyshop in the Westminster-road, where the Captain lived +in considerable comfort on the proceeds of a Friendly and Philanthropic +Loan Society. + +But no very cordial welcome awaited Diana in the gaudily-furnished +drawing-room over the toyshop. She found her father sleeping placidly +in his easy-chair, while a young man, who was a stranger to her, sat at +a table near the window writing letters. It was a dull November day--a +very dreary day on which to find one's self thrown suddenly on a still +drearier world; and in the Westminster-bridge-road the lamps were +already making yellow patches of sickly light amidst the afternoon fog. + +The Captain twitched his silk handkerchief off his face with an +impatient gesture as Diana entered the room. + +"Now, then, what is it?" he asked peevishly, without looking at the +intruder. + +He recognised her in the next moment; but that first impatient +salutation was about as warm a welcome as any which Miss Paget received +from her father. In sad and bitter truth, he did not care for her. His +marriage with Mary Anne Kepp had been the one grateful impulse of his +life; and even the sentiment which had prompted that marriage had been +by no means free from the taint of selfishness. But he had been quite +unprepared to find that this grand sacrifice of his life should involve +another sacrifice in the maintenance of a daughter he did not want; and +he was very much inclined to quarrel with the destiny that had given +him this burden. + +"If you had been a boy, I might have made you useful to me sooner or +later," the Captain said to his daughter when he found himself alone +with her late on the night of her return; "but what on earth am I to do +with a daughter, in the unsettled life I lead? However, since that old +harridan has sent you back, you must manage in the best way you can," +concluded Captain Paget with a discontented sigh. + +From this time Diana Paget had inhabited the nest of the vultures, and +every day had brought its new lesson of trickery and falsehood. There +are men--and bad men too--who would have tried to keep the secret of +their shifts and meannesses hidden from an only child; but Horatio +Paget believed himself the victim of man's ingratitude, and his +misdoings the necessity of an evil destiny. It is not easy for the +unsophisticated intellect to gauge those moral depths to which the man +who lives by his wits must sink before his career is finished, or to +understand how, with every step in the swindler's downward road, the +conscience grows tougher, the perception of shame blunter, the savage +selfishness of the animal nature stronger. Diana Paget had discovered +some of her father's weaknesses during her miserable childhood; and in +the days of her unpaid-for schooling she had known that his most solemn +promises were no more to be relied on than the capricious breath of a +summer breeze. So the revelations which awaited her under the paternal +roof were not utterly strange or entirely unexpected. Day by day she +grew more accustomed to that atmosphere of fraud and falsehood. The +sense of shame never left her; for there is a pride that thrives amidst +poverty and degradation, and of such pride Diana Paget possessed no +small share. She writhed under the consciousness that she was the +daughter of a man who had forfeited all right to the esteem of his +fellow-men. She valued the good opinion of others, and would fain have +been beloved and admired, trusted and respected; for she was ambitious: +and the though that she might one day do something which should lift +her above the vulgar level was the day-dream that had consoled her in +many an hour of humiliation and discomfort. Diana Paget felt the +Captain's shame as keenly as her mother had felt it; but the remorse +which had agonised gentle Mary Anne, the tender compassion for others +which had wrung that fond and faithful heart, had no place in the +breast of the Captain's daughter. + +Diana felt so much compassion for herself, that she had none left to +bestow upon other people. Her father's victims might be miserable, but +was not she infinitely more wretched? The landlady who found her +apartments suddenly tenantless and her rent unpaid might complain of +the hardness of her fortune; but was it not harder for Diana, with the +sensitive feelings and keen pride of the Pagets, to endure all the +degradation involved in the stealthy carrying away of luggage and a +secret departure under cover of night? + +At first Miss Paget had been inclined to feel aggrieved by the presence +of the young man whom she had seen writing letters in the gloomy dusk +of the November afternoon; but in due time she came to accept him as a +companion, and to feel that her joyless life would have been drearier +without him. He was the secretary of the Friendly and Philanthropic +Loan Society, and of any other society organised by the Captain. He was +Captain Paget's amanuensis and representative--Captain Paget's tool, +but not Captain Paget's dupe; for Valentine Hawkehurst was not of that +stuff of which dupes are made. + +The man who lives by his wits has need of a faithful friend and +follower. The chief of the vultures must not be approached too easily. +There must be a preparatory ordeal, an outer chamber to be passed, +before the victim is introduced to the sanctuary which is irradiated by +the silver veil of the prophet. Captain Paget found an able coadjutor +in Valentine Hawkehurst, who answered one of those tempting +advertisements in which A. B.C. or X. Y. Z. was wont to offer a salary +of three hundred a year to any gentlemanly person capable of performing +the duties of secretary to a newly-established company. It was only +after responding to this promising offer that the applicant was +informed that he must possess one indispensable qualification in the +shape of a capital of five hundred pounds. Mr Hawkehurst laughed aloud +when the Captain imparted this condition with that suave and yet +dignified manner which was peculiar to him. + +"I ought to have known it was a dodge of that kind," said the young man +coolly. "Those very good things--duties light and easy, hours from +twelve till four, speedy advancement certain for a conscientious and +gentlemanly person, and so on--are always of the genus _do_. Your +advertisement is very cleverly worded, my dear sir; only it's like the +rest of them, rather _too_ clever. It is so difficult for a clever man +not to be too clever. The prevailing weakness of the human intellect +seems to me to be exaggeration. However, as I haven't a five-pound note +in the world, or the chance of getting one, I'll wish you good morning, +Captain Paget." + +There are people whose blood would have been turned to ice by the stony +glare of indignation with which Horatio Paget regarded the man who had +dared to question his probity. But Mr. Hawkehurst had done with strong +impressions long before he met the Captain; and he listened to that +gentleman's freezing reproof with an admiring smile. Out of this very +unpromising beginning there arose a kind of friendship between the two +men. Horatio Paget had for some time been in need of a clever tool; and +in the young man whose cool insolence rose superior to his own dignity +he perceived the very individual whom he had long been seeking. The +young man who was unabashed by the indignation of a scion of Nugents +and Cromies and Pagets must be utterly impervious to the sense of awe; +and it was just such an impervious young man that the Captain wanted as +his coadjutor. Thus arose the alliance, which grew stronger every day, +until Valentine took up his abode under the roof of his employer and +patron, and made himself more thoroughly at home there than the +unwelcome daughter of the house. + +The history of Valentine Hawkehurst's past existence was tolerably well +known to the Captain; but the only history of the young man's early +life ever heard by Diana was rather vague and fragmentary. She +discovered, little by little, that he was the son of a spendthrift +_litterateur_, who had passed the greater part of his career within the +rules of the King's Bench; that he had run away from home at the age of +fifteen, and had tried his fortune in all those professions which +require no educational ordeal, and which seem to offer themselves +invitingly to the scapegrace and adventurer. At fifteen Valentine +Hawkehurst had been errand-boy in a newspaper office; at seventeen a +penny-a-liner, whose flimsy was pretty sure of admission in the lower +class of Sunday papers. In the course of a very brief career he had +been a provincial actor, a _manege_ rider in a circus, a +billiard-marker, and a betting agent. It was after having exhausted +these liberal professions that he encountered Captain Paget. + +Such was the man whom Horatio Paget admitted to companionship with his +only daughter. It can scarcely be pleaded in excuse for the Captain +that he might have admitted a worse man than Valentine Hawkehurst to +his family circle, for the Captain had never taken the trouble to sound +the depths of his coadjutor's nature. There is nothing so short-sighted +as selfishness; and beyond the narrow circle immediately surrounding +himself, there was no man more blind than Horatio Paget. + + * * * * * + +It was dusk when Diana grew tired of the lonely pathways among the +hills, where the harmonies of a band stationed in the valley were +wafted in gusts of music by the fitful summer breeze. The loneliness of +the place soothed the girl's feverish spirits; and, seated in a little +classic temple upon the summit of a hill, she looked pensively downward +through the purple mists at the newly-lighted lamps twinkling faintly +in the valley. + +"One does not feel the sting of one's shabbiness here," thought Miss +Paget: "the trees are all dressed alike. Nature makes no distinction. +It is only Fortune who treats her children unfairly." + +The Captain's daughter walked slowly back to the little town in the +deepening dusk. The lodging occupied by Horatio Paget and his household +consisted of four roomy chambers on the second story of a big rambling +house. The rooms were meanly furnished, and decorated with the tawdry +ornamentation dear to the continental mind; but there were long wide +windows and an iron balcony, on which Diana Paget was often pleased to +sit. + +She found the sitting-room dark and empty. No dinner had been prepared; +for on lucky days the Captain and his _protege_ were wont to dine at +the _table d'hote_ of one of the hotels, or to feast sumptuously _a la +carte_, while on unlucky days they did not dine at all. Diana found a +roll and some cream cheese in a roomy old cupboard that was flavoured +with mice; and after making a very indifferent meal in the dusky +chamber, she went out upon the balcony, and sat there looking down upon +the lighted town. + +She had been sitting there for nearly an hour in the same attitude, +when the door of the sitting-room was opened, and a footstep sounded +behind her. She knew the step; and although she did not lift her head, +her eyes took a new brightness in the summer dusk, and the listless +grace of her attitude changed to a statuesque rigidity, though there +was no change in the attitude itself. + +She did not stir till a hand was laid softly on her shoulder, and a +voice said,--"Diana!" + +The speaker was Valentine Hawkehurst, the young man whose entrance to +the golden temple had been so closely watched by Captain Paget's +daughter. + +She rose as he spoke, and turned to him. "You have been losing, I +suppose, Mr. Hawkehurst," she said, "or you would not have come home?" + +"I am compelled to admit that you are right in your premise, Miss +Paget, and your deduction is scarcely worth discussion. I _have_ been +losing--confoundedly; and as they don't give credit at the board of +green cloth yonder, there was no excuse for my staying. Your father has +not been holding his own within the last hour or two; but when I left +the rooms he was going to the Hotel d'Orange with some French fellows +for a quiet game of _ecarte_. Our friend the Captain is a great card, +Miss Paget, and has a delightful talent for picking up distinguished +acquaintance." + +There are few daughters who would have cared to hear a father spoken of +in this free-and-easy manner; but Diana Paget was quite unmoved. She +had resumed her old attitude, and sat looking towards the lighted +windows of the Kursaal, while Mr. Hawkehurst lounged against the angle +of the window with his hands in his pockets and a cigar in his mouth. + +For three years Valentine Hawkehurst had lived in constant +companionship with the Captain's daughter; and in that time his manner +to her had undergone considerable variation. Of late it had been +something in the manner of an elder brother, whose fraternal breast is +impervious to the influence of a sister's loveliness or a sister's +fascination. If Diana Paget had been a snub-nosed young person with red +hair and white eyelashes, Mr. Hawkehurst could scarcely have treated +her with a more friendly indifference, a more brotherly familiarity. + +Unhappily this line of conduct, which is perhaps the wisest and most +honourable plan that a man can pursue when he finds himself thrown into +a dangerously familiar association with a beautiful and unprotected +woman, is the very line of proceeding which a beautiful woman can never +bring herself to forgive. A chivalrous stiffness, a melancholy dignity, +a frozen frigidity, which suggest the fiery bubbling of the lava flood +beneath the icy surface,--these are delightful to the female mind. But +friendly indifference and fraternal cordiality constitute the worst +insult that can be offered to her beauty, the most bitter outrage upon +the majesty of her sex. + +"I suppose it will be midnight before papa comes home, Mr. Hawkehurst," +Diana said abruptly, when her companion had finished his cigar, and had +thrown the end of it over the balcony. + +"Past midnight more likely, Miss Paget. May I ask how I have become Mr. +Hawkehurst all of a sudden, when for the last three years I have been +usually known as Valentine--or Val?" + +The girl turned her head with a gesture in which the carelessness of +his own manner was imitated. She stole a rapid look at him as she +answered, "What does it matter whether I call you by one name or +another?" + +"What does anything matter? I believe Mr. Toots was an unconscious +philosopher. There is nothing in the world of any consequence, except +money. Go and look at those poor devils yonder, and you will see what +that is worth," he cried, pointing to the lighted Kursaal; "there you +behold the one great truth of the universe in action. There is nothing +but money, and men are the slaves of money, and life is only another +name for the pursuit of money. Go and look at beauty yonder fading in +the light and heat; at youth that changes to age before your eyes; at +friendship which turns to hate when the chances of the game are with my +friend and against me. The Kursaal is the world in little, Diana; and +this great globe of ours is nothing but a gigantic gaming-table--a +mighty temple for the worship of the golden calf." + +"Why do you imitate those people yonder, if you despise them so +heartily?" + +"Because I am like them and of them. I tell you that money is the +beginning and end of all things. Why am I here, and why is my life made +up of baseness and lies? Because my father was an improvident +scoundrel, and did not leave me five hundred a year. I wonder what I +should have been like, by the bye, if I had been blest with five +hundred a year?" + +"Honest and happy," answered the girl earnestly. She forgot her +simulated indifference, and looked at him with sad earnest eyes. He met +the glance, and the expression of his own face changed from its cynical +smile to a thoughtful sadness. + +"Honest perhaps; and yet I almost doubt if anything under five thousand +a year would have kept me honest. Decidedly not happy; the men who can +be happy on five hundred a year are made of a duller stuff than the +clay which serves for a Hawkehurst." + +"You talk about not being happy with five hundred a year!" Diana +exclaimed impatiently. "Surely any decent existence would be happiness +to you compared to the miserable life you lead,--the shameful, degraded +life which shuts you out of the society of respectable people and +reduces you to the level of a thief. If you had any pride, Valentine, +you would feel it as bitterly as I do." + +"But I haven't any pride. As for my life,--well, I suppose it is +shameful and degraded, and I know that it's often miserable; but it +suits me better than jog-trot respectability, I can dine one day on +truffled turkey and champagne, another day upon bread and cheese and +small beer; but I couldn't eat beef and mutton always. That's what +kills people of my temperament. There are born scamps in the world, +Diana, and I am one of them. My name is Robert Macaire, and I was +created for the life I lead. Keep clear of me if you have any hankering +after better things; but don't try to change my nature, for it is +wasted labour." + +"Valentine, it is so cruel of you to talk like that." + +"Cruel to whom?" + +"To--those--who care for you." + +It was quite dark now; but even in the darkness Diana Paget's head +drooped a little as she said this. Mr. Hawkehurst laughed aloud. + +"Those who care for me!" he cried; "no such people ever lived. My +father was a drunken scoundrel, who suffered his children to grow up +about him as he would have suffered a litter of puppies to sprawl upon +his hearth, only because there was less trouble in letting them lie +there than in kicking them out. My mother was a good woman in the +beginning, I know; but she must have been something more than a mortal +woman if she had not lost some of her goodness in twelve years of such +a life as she led with my father. I believe she was fond of me, poor +soul; but she died six months before I ran away from a lodging in the +Rules, which it is the bitterest irony to speak of as my home. Since +then I have been Robert Macaire, and have about as many friends as such +a man usually has." + +"You can scarcely wonder if you have few friends," said Miss Paget, +"since there is no one in the world whom you love." + +She watched him through the darkness after saying this, watched him +closely, though it was too dark for her to see the expression of his +face, and any emotion to which her words might have given rise could be +betrayed only by some gesture or change of attitude. She watched him in +vain, for he did not stir. But after a pause of some minutes he said +slowly,-- + +"Such a man as I cannot afford to love any one. What have I to offer to +the woman I might pretend to love? Truth, or honour, or honesty, or +constancy? Those are commodities I have never dealt in. If I know what +they are, and that I have never possessed them, it is about as much as +I do know of them. If I have any redeeming grace, Diana Paget, it lies +in the fact that I know what a worthless wretch I am. Your father +thinks he is a great man, a noble suffering creature, and that the +world has ill-used him. I know that I am a scoundrel, and that let my +fellow-men treat me as badly as they please, they can never give me +worse usage than I deserve. And am I a man to talk about love, or to +ask a woman to share my life? Good God, what a noble partner I should +offer her! what a happy existence I could assure her!" + +"But if the woman loved you, she would only love you better for being +unfortunate." + +"Yes, if she was very young and foolish and romantic. But don't you +think I should be a villain if I traded on her girlish folly? She would +love me for a year or two perhaps, and bear all the changes of my +temper; but the day would come when she would awake from her delusion, +and know that she had been cheated. She would see other women--less +gifted than herself, probably--and would see the market they had made +of their charms; would see them rich and honoured and happy, and would +stand aside in the muddy streets to be splashed by the dirt from their +carriage-wheels. And then she would consider the price for which she +had bartered her youth and her beauty, and would hate the man who had +cheated her. No, Diana, I am not such a villain as the world may think +me. I am down in the dirt myself, and I'm used to it. I won't drag a +woman into the gutter just because I may happen to love her." + +There was a long silence after this--a silence during which Diana Paget +sat looking down at the twinkling lights of the Kursaal. Valentine +lighted a second cigar and smoked it out, still in silence. The clocks +struck eleven as he threw the end of his cigar away; a tiny, luminous +speck, which shot through the misty atmosphere below the balcony like a +falling star. + +"I may as well go and see how your father is getting on yonder," he +said, as the spark of light vanished in the darkness below. "Good +night, Diana. Don't sit too long in the cold night air; and don't sit +up for your father--there's no knowing when he may be home." + +The girl did not answer him. She listened to the shutting of the door +as it closed behind him, and then folded her arms upon the iron rail of +the balcony, laid her head upon them, and wept silently. Her life was +very dreary, and it seemed to her as if the last hope which had +sustained her against an unnatural despair had been taken away from her +to-night. + +Twelve o'clock sounded with a feeble little _carillon_ from one of the +steeples, and still she sat with her head resting upon her folded arms. +Her eyes were quite dry by this time, for with her tears were very +rare, and the passion which occasioned them must needs be intense. The +night air grew chill and damp; but although she shivered now and then +beneath that creeping, penetrating cold which is peculiar to night air, +she did not stir from her place in the balcony till she was startled by +the opening of the door in the room behind her. + +All was dark within, but Diana Paget was very familiar with the +footstep that sounded on the carpetless floor. It was Valentine +Hawkehurst, and not her father, whose step her quick ear distinguished. + +"Diana," he called; and then he muttered in a tone of surprise, "all +dark still. Ah! she has gone to bed, I suppose. That's a pity!" The +figure in the balcony caught his eye at this moment. + +"What in goodness' name has kept you out there all this time?" he +asked; "do you want to catch your death of cold?" + +He was standing by the mantelpiece lighting a candle as he asked this +unceremonious question. The light of the candle shone full upon his +face when Diana came into the room, and she could see that he was paler +than usual. + +"Is there anything the matter?" she asked anxiously. + +"Yes; there is a great deal the matter. You will have to leave +Foretdechene by the earliest train to-morrow morning, on the first +stage of your journey to England. Look here, my girl! I can give you +just about the money that will carry you safely to London; and when you +are once there, Providence must do the rest." + +"Valentine, what do you mean?" + +"I mean, that you cannot get away from this place--you cannot dissever +yourself from the people you have been living with, too soon. Come, +come, don't shiver, child. Take a few drops of this cognac, and let me +see the colour come back to your face before I say any more." + +He poured the dregs of a bottle of brandy into a glass, and made her +drink the spirit. He was obliged to force the rim of the glass between +her set teeth before he could succeed in this. + +"Come, Diana," he said, after she had drunk, "you have been a pupil in +the school of adversity so long, that you ought to be able to take +misfortunes pretty quietly. There's a balance struck, somehow or other, +depend upon it, my girl; and the prosperous people who pay their debts +have to suffer, as well as the Macaire family. I'm a scamp and a +scoundrel, but I'm your true friend nevertheless, Diana; and you must +promise to take my advice. Tell me that you will trust me." + +"I have no one else to trust." + +"No one else in this place. But in England you have your old +friend,--the woman with whom you were at school. Do you think she would +refuse to give you a temporary home if you sued to her _in forma +pauperis?_" + +"No, I don't think she would refuse. She was very good to me. But why +am I to go back to London?" + +"Because to stay here would be ruin and disgrace to you; because the +tie that links you to Horatio Paget must be cut at any hazard." + +"But why?" + +"For the best or worst of reasons. Your father has been trying a trick +to-night which has been hitherto so infallible, that I suppose he had +grown careless as to his execution of it. Or perhaps he took a false +measure of the man he was playing with. In any case, he has been found +out, and has been arrested by the police." + +"Arrested, for cheating at cards!" exclaimed the girl, with a look of +unspeakable disgust and horror. Valentine's arm was ready to support +her, if she had shown any symptom of fainting; but she did not. She +stood erect before him, very pale but firm as a rock. + +"And you want me to go away?" she said. + +"Yes, I want you to disappear from this place before you become +notorious as your father's daughter. That would be about the worst +reputation which you could carry through life. Believe me that I wish +you well, Diana, and be ruled by me." + +"I will," she answered, with a kind of despairing resignation. "It +seems very dreary to go back to England to face the world all alone. +But I will do as you tell me." + +She did not express any sympathy for her father, then languishing under +arrest, whereby she proved herself very wicked and unwomanly, no doubt. +But neither womanly virtues nor Christian graces are wont to flourish +in the school in which Diana Paget had been reared. She obeyed +Valentine Hawkehurst to the letter, without any sentimental +lamentations whatever. Her scanty possessions were collected, and +neatly packed, in little more than an hour. At three o'clock she lay +down in her tawdry little bed-chamber to take what rest she might in +the space of two hours. At six she stood by Valentine Hawkehurst on the +platform of the railway station, with her face hidden by a brown gauze +veil, waiting till the train was made ready to start. + +It was after she was seated in the carriage that she spoke for the +first time of her father. + +"Is it likely to go very hard with him?" she asked. + +"I hope not. We must try to pull him through it as well as we can. The +charge may break down at the first examination. Good bye." + +"Good bye, Valentine." + +They had just time to shake hands before the train moved off. Another +moment and Miss Paget and her fellow-passengers were speeding towards +Liege. + +Mr. Hawkehurst drew his hat over his eyes as he walked away from the +station. + +"The world will seem very dull and empty to me without her," he said to +himself. "I have done an unselfish thing for once in my life. I wonder +whether the recording angel will carry that up to my credit, and +whether the other fellow will blot out any of the old score in +consideration of this one little bit of self-sacrifice." + + + + + +BOOK THE THIRD. + + +HEAPING UP RICHES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A FORTUNATE MARRIAGE. + + +Eleven years had passed lightly enough over the glossy raven locks of +Mr. Philip Sheldon. There are some men with whom Time deals gently, and +he was one of them. The hard black eyes had lost none of their fierce +brightness; the white teeth flashed with all their old brilliancy; the +complexion, which had always been dusky of hue, was perhaps a shade or +two darker; and the fierce black eyes seemed all the blacker by reason +of the purple tinge beneath them. But the Philip Sheldon of to-day was, +taken altogether, a handsomer man than the Philip Sheldon of eleven +years ago. + +Within those eleven years the Bloomsbury dentist had acquired a higher +style of dress and bearing, and a certain improvement of tone and +manner. He was still an eminently respectable man, and a man whose +chief claim to the esteem of his fellows lay in the fact of his +unimpeachable respectability; but his respectability of to-day, as +compared with that of eleven years before, was as the respectability of +Tyburnia when contrasted with that of St. Pancras. He was not an +aristocratic-looking man, or an elegant man; but you felt, as you +contemplated him, that the bulwarks of the citadel of English +respectability are defended by such as he. + +Mr. Sheldon no longer experimentalised with lumps of beeswax and +plaster-of-paris. All the appalling paraphernalia of his cruel art had +long since been handed over to an aspiring young dentist, together with +the respectable house in Fitzgeorge-street, the furniture, and--the +connexion. And thus had ended Philip Sheldon's career as a +surgeon-dentist. Within a year of Tom Halliday's death his disconsolate +widow had given her hand to her first sweetheart, not forgetful of her +dead husband or ungrateful for much kindness and affection experienced +at his hands, but yielding rather to Philip's suit because she was +unable to advance any fair show of reason whereby she might reject him. + +"I told you, she'd be afraid to refuse you," said George Sheldon, when +the dentist came home from Barlingford, where Tom Halliday's widow was +living with her mother. + +Philip had answered his brother's questions rather ambiguously at +first, but in the end had been fain to confess that he had asked Mrs. +Halliday to marry him, and that his suit had prospered. + +"That way of putting it is not very complimentary to me," he said, +drawing himself up rather stiffly. "Georgy and I were attached to each +other long ago, and it is scarcely strange if----" + +"If you should make a match of it, Tom being gone. Poor old Tom! He and +I were such cronies. I've always had an idea that neither you nor the +other fellow quite understood that low fever of his. You did your best, +no doubt; but I think you ought to have pulled him through somehow. +However, that's not a pleasant subject to talk of just now; so I'll +drop it, and wish you joy, Phil. It'll be rather a good match for you, +I fancy," added George, contemplating his brother with a nervous +twitching of his lips, which suggested that his mouth watered as he +thought of Philip's good fortune. + +"It's a very nice thing you drop into, old fellow, isn't it?" he asked +presently, seeing that his brother was rather disinclined to discuss +the subject. + +"You know the state of my affairs well enough to be sure that I +couldn't afford to marry a poor woman," answered Philip. + +"And that it has been for a long time a vital necessity with you to +marry a rich one," interjected his brother. + +"Georgy will have a few hundreds, and----" + +"A few thousands, you mean, Phil," cried Sheldon the younger with +agreeable briskness; "shall I tot it up for you?" + +He was always eager to "tot" things up, and would scarcely have shrunk +from setting down the stars of heaven in trim double columns of +figures, had it seemed to his profit to do so. + +"Let us put it in figures, Phil," he said, getting his finger-tips in +order for the fray. "There's the money for Hyley Farm--twelve thousand +three hundred and fifty, I had it from poor Tom's own lips. Then +there's that little property on Sheepfield Common--say seven-fifty, +eh?--well, say seven hundred, if you like to leave a margin; and then +there are the insurances--three thou' in the Alliance, fifteen hundred +in the Phoenix, five hundred in the Suffolk Friendly; the total of +which, my dear boy, is eighteen thousand five hundred pounds; and a +very nice thing for you to drop into, just as affairs were looking +about as black as they could look." + +"Yes," answered Mr. Sheldon the elder, who appeared by no means to +relish this "totting-up" of his future wife's fortune; "I have no +doubt I ought to consider myself a very lucky man." + +"So Barlingford folks will say when they hear of the business. And now +I hope you're not going to forget your promise to me." + +"What promise?" + +"That if you ever did get a stroke of luck, I should have a share of +it--eh, Phil?" + +Mr. Sheldon caressed his chin, and looked thoughtfully at the fire. + +"If my wife lets me have the handling of any of her money, you may +depend upon it I'll do what I can for you," he said, after a pause. + +"Don't say that, Phil," remonstrated George. "When a man says he'll do +what he can for you, it's a sure sign he means to do nothing. +Friendship and brotherly feeling are at an end when it comes to a +question of 'ifs' and 'cans.' _If_ your wife lets you have the handling +of any of her money!" cried the lawyer, with unspeakable derision; +"that's too good a joke for you to indulge in with me. Do you think I +believe you will let that poor little woman keep custody of her money a +day after she is your wife, or that you will let her friends tie it up +for her before she marries you? No, Phil, you didn't lay your plans for +that." + +"What do you mean by my laying plans?" asked the dentist. + +"That's a point we won't discuss, Philip," answered the lawyer coolly. +"You and I understand each other very well without entering into +unpleasant details. You promised me a year ago--before Tom Halliday's +death--that if you ever came into a good thing, I should share in it. +You have come into an uncommonly good thing, and I shall expect you to +keep your promise." + +"Who says I am going to break it?" demanded Philip Sheldon with an +injured air. "You shouldn't be in such a hurry to cry out, George. You +take the tone of a social Dick Turpin, and might as well hold a pistol +to my head while you're about it. Don't alarm yourself. I have told you +I will do what I can for you. I cannot, and I shall not, say more." + +The two men looked at each other. They were in the habit of taking the +measure of all creation in their own eminently practical way, and each +took the other's measure now. After having done which, they parted with +all cordial expressions of good-will and brotherly feeling. George went +back to his dusty chambers in Gray's Inn, and Philip prepared for his +return to Barlingford and his marriage with Georgina Halliday. + +For ten years Georgy had been Philip Sheldon's wife, and she had found +no reason to complain of her second choice. The current of her life had +flowed smoothly enough since her first lover had become her husband. +She still wore moire-antique dresses and gold chains; and if the +dresses were of more simple fashion, and the chains were less +obtrusively displayed, she had to thank Mr. Sheldon for the refinement +in her taste. Her views of life in general had expanded under Mr. +Sheldon's influence. She no longer thought a high-wheeled dog-cart and +a skittish mare the acme of earthly splendour; for she had a carriage +and pair at her service, and a smart little page-boy to leap off the +box in attendance on her when she paid visits or went shopping. Instead +of the big comfortable old-fashioned farmhouse at Hyley, with its +mysterious passages and impenetrable obscurities in the way of +cupboards, she occupied an intensely new detached villa in Bayswater, +in which the eye that might chance to grow weary of sunshine and +glitter would have sought in vain for a dark corner wherein to repose +itself. + +Mr. Sheldon's fortunes had prospered since his marriage with his +friend's widow. For a man of his practical mind and energetic +temperament, eighteen thousand pounds was a strong starting-point. His +first step was to clear off all old engagements with Jews and Gentiles, +and to turn his back on the respectable house in Fitzgeorge-street. The +earlier months of his married life he devoted to a pleasant tour on the +Continent; not wasting time in picturesque by-ways, or dawdling among +inaccessible mountains, or mooning about drowsy old cathedrals, where +there were pictures with curtains hanging before them, and prowling +vergers who expected money for drawing aside the curtains; but rattling +at the highest continental speed from one big commercial city to +another, and rubbing off the rust of Bloomsbury in the exchanges and on +the quays of the busiest places in Europe. The time which Mr. Sheldon +forbore to squander in shadowy gothic aisles and under the shelter of +Alpine heights, he accounted well bestowed in crowded cafes, and at the +public tables of noted hotels, where commercial men were wont to +congregate; and as Georgy had no aspirings for the sublimity of Vandyke +and Raphael, or the gigantic splendours of Alpine scenery, she was very +well pleased to see continental life with the eyes of Philip Sheldon. +How could a half-educated little woman, whose worldly experience was +bounded by the suburbs of Barlingford, be otherwise than delighted by +the glare and glitter of foreign cities? Georgy was childishly +enraptured with everything she saw, from the sham diamonds and rubies +of the Palais Royal, to the fantastical bonbons of Berlin. + +Her husband was very kind to her--after his own particular fashion, +which was very different from blustering Tom Halliday's weak +indulgence. He allotted and regulated her life to suit his own +convenience, it is true; but he bought her handsome dresses, and took +her with him in hired carriages when he drove about the strange cities. +He was apt to leave Georgy and the hired carriage at the corner of some +street, or before the door of some cafe, for an hour at a time, in the +course of his peregrinations; but she speedily became accustomed to +this, and provided herself with the Tauchnitz edition of a novel, +wherewith to beguile the tedium of these intervals in the day's +amusement. If Tom Halliday had left her for an hour at a street-corner, +or before the door of a cafe, she would have tortured herself and him +by all manner of jealous suspicions and vague imaginings. But there was +a stern gravity in Mr. Sheldon's character which precluded the +possibility of any such shadowy fancies. Every action of his life +seemed to involve such serious motives, the whole tenor of his +existence was so orderly and business-like, that his wife was fain to +submit to him, as she would have submitted to some ponderous infallible +machine, some monster of modern ingenuity and steam power, which cut +asunder so many bars of iron, or punched holes in so many paving-stones +in a given number of seconds, and was likely to go on dividing iron or +piercing paving-stones for ever and ever. + +She obeyed him, and was content to fashion her life according to his +will, chiefly because she had a vague consciousness that to argue with +him, or to seek to influence him, would be to attempt the impossible. +Perhaps there was something more than this in her mind--some +half-consciousness that there was a shapeless and invertebrate skeleton +lurking in the shadowy background of her new life, a dusky and +impalpable creature which it would not be well for her to examine or +understand. She was a cowardly little woman, and finding herself +tolerably happy in the present, she did not care to pierce the veil of +the future, or to cast anxious glances backward to the past. She +thought it just possible that there might be people in the world base +enough to hint that Philip Sheldon had married her for love of her +eighteen thousand pounds, rather than from pure devotion to herself. +She knew that certain prudent friends and kindred in Barlingford had +elevated their hands and eyebrows in speechless horror when they +discovered that she had married her second husband without a +settlement; while one grim and elderly uncle had asked her whether she +did not expect her father to turn in his grave by reason of her folly. + +Georgy had shrugged her shoulders peevishly when her Barlingford +friends remonstrated with her, and had declared that people were very +cruel to her, and that it was a hard thing she could not choose for +herself for once in her life. As to the settlements that people talked +of, she protested indignantly that she was not so mean as to fancy her +future husband a thief, and that to tie up her money in all sorts of +ways would be to imply as much. And then, as it was only a year since +poor dear Tom's death, she had been anxious to marry without fuss or +parade. In fact, there were a hundred reasons against legal +interference, and legal tying-up of the money, with all that dreadful +jargon about "whereas," and "hereinafter," and "provided always," and +"nothing herein contained," which seems to hedge round a sum of money +so closely, that it is doubtful whether the actual owner will ever be +free to spend a sixpence of it after the execution of that formidable +document intended to protect it from possible marauders. + +George Sheldon had said something very near the truth when he had told +Philip that Mrs. Halliday would be afraid to refuse him. The +fair-haired, fair-faced little woman did in some manner fear the first +lover of her girlhood. She had become his wife, and so far all things +had gone well with her; but if misery and despair had been the +necessary consequences of her union with him, she must have married him +all the same, so dominant was the influence by which he ruled her. Of +course Georgy was not herself aware of her own dependence. She accepted +all things as they were presented to her by a stronger mind than her +own. She wore her handsome silk dresses, and was especially particular +as to the adjustment of her bonnet-strings, knowing that the smallest +impropriety of attire was obnoxious to the well-ordered mind of her +second husband. She obeyed him very much as a child obeys a strict but +not unkind schoolmaster. When he took her to a theatre or a racecourse, +she sat by his side meekly, and felt like a child who has been good and +is reaping the reward of goodness. And this state of things was in +nowise disagreeable to her. She was perhaps quite as happy as it was in +her nature to be; for she had no exalted capacity for happiness or +misery. She felt that it was pleasant to have a handsome man, whose +costume was always irreproachable, for her husband. Her only notion of +a bad husband was a man who stayed out late, and came home under the +influence of strong liquors consumed in unknown localities and amongst +unknown people. So, as Mr. Sheldon rarely went out after dinner, and +was on all occasions the most temperate of men, she naturally +considered her second husband the very model of conjugal perfection. +Thus it was that domestic life had passed smoothly enough for Mr. +Sheldon and his wife during the ten years which had elapsed since their +marriage. + +As to the eighteen thousand pounds which she had brought Philip +Sheldon, Georgy asked no questions. She knew that she enjoyed luxuries +and splendours which had never been hers in Tom Halliday's lifetime, +and she was content to accept the goods which her second husband +provided. Mr. Sheldon had become a stockbroker, and occupied an office +in some dusky court within a few hundred yards of the Stock Exchange. +He had, according to his own account, trebled Georgy's thousands since +they had been in his hands. How the unsuccessful surgeon-dentist had +blossomed all at once into a fortunate speculator was a problem too +profound for Georgy's consideration. She knew that her husband had +allied himself to a certain established firm of stockbrokers, and that +the alliance had cost him some thousands of Tom Halliday's money. She +had heard of preliminary steps to be taken to secure his admission as a +member of some mysterious confraternity vaguely spoken of as "the +House;" and she knew that Tom Halliday's thousands had been the seed +from which had sprung other thousands, and that her husband had been +altogether triumphant and successful. + +It may be that it is easier to rig the market than to induce a given +number of people to resort to a certain dull street in Bloomsbury for +the purpose of having teeth extracted by an unknown practitioner. It is +possible that the stockbroker is like the poet, a creature who is born, +and not made; a gifted and inspired being, not to be perfected by any +specific education; a child of spontaneous instincts and untutored +faculties. Certain it is that the divine afflatus from the nostrils of +the god Plutus seemed to have descended upon Philip Sheldon; for he had +entered the Stock Exchange an inexperienced stranger, and he held his +place there amongst men whose boyhood had been spent in the offices of +Capel-court, and whose youthful strength had been nourished in the +chop-houses of Pinch-lane and Thread-needle-street. + +Mrs. Sheldon was satisfied with the general knowledge that Mr. Sheldon +had been fortunate, and had never sought any more precise knowledge of +her husband's affairs. Nor did she seek such knowledge even now, when +her daughter was approaching womanhood, and might ere long need some +dower out of her mother's fortune. Poor Tom, trusting implicitly in the +wife he loved, and making his will only as a precautionary measure, at +a time when he seemed good for fifty years of life and strength, had +not troubled himself about remote contingencies, and had in no wise +foreseen the probability of a second husband for Georgy and a +stepfather for his child. + +Two children had been born to Mr. Sheldon since his marriage, and both +had died in infancy. The loss of these children had fallen very heavily +on the strong hard man, though he had never shed a tear or uttered a +lamentation, or wasted an hour of his business-like existence by reason +of his sorrow. Georgy had just sufficient penetration to perceive that +her husband was bitterly disappointed when no more baby-strangers came +to replace those poor frail little lives which had withered away and +vanished in spite of his anxiety to hold them. + +"It seems as if there was a blight upon _my_ children," he once said +bitterly; and this was the only occasion on which his wife heard him +complain of his evil fortune. + +But one day, when he had been particularly lucky in some speculation, +when he had succeeded in achieving what his brother George spoke of as +the "biggest line he had ever done," Philip Sheldon came home to the +Bayswater villa in a particularly bad humour, and for the first time +since her marriage Georgy heard him quote a line of Scripture. + +"Heaping up riches," he muttered, as he paced up and down the room; +"heaping up riches, and ye cannot tell who shall gather them." + +His wife knew then that he was thinking of his children. During the +brief lives of those two fragile boy-babies the stockbroker had been +wont to talk much of future successes in the way of money-making to be +achieved by him for the enrichment and exaltation of these children. +They were gone now, and no more came to replace them. And though Philip +Sheldon still devoted himself to the sublime art of money-making, and +still took delight in successful time-bargains and all the scientific +combinations of the money-market, the salt of life had lost something +of its savour, and the chink of gold had lost somewhat of its music. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CHARLOTTE. + + +The little villa at Bayswater was looking its brightest on a +resplendent midsummer afternoon, one year after Diana Paget's hurried +hegira from Foretdechene. If the poor dentist's house in dingy +Bloomsbury had been fresh and brilliant of aspect, how much more +brilliant was the western home of the rich stockbroker, whose gate was +within five minutes' walk of that aristocratic Eden, Kensington +Gardens! Mr. Sheldon's small domain was called The Lawn, and consisted +of something over half an acre of flower-garden and shrubbery, a +two-stall stable and coach-house, a conservatory and fernery, and a +moderate-sized house in the gothic or mediaeval style, with mullioned +windows in the dining-room and oriels in the best bedroom, and with a +great deal of unnecessary stone-work and wooden excrescence in every +direction. + +The interior of Mr. Sheldon's dwelling bore no trace of that solid +old-fashioned clumsiness which had distinguished his house in +Fitzgeorge-street. Having surrendered his ancestral chairs and tables +in liquidation of his liabilities, Philip Sheldon was free to go with +the times, and had furnished his gothic villa in the most approved +modern style, but without any attempt at artistic grace or adornment. +All was bright, and handsome, and neat, and trim; but the brightness +and the neatness savoured just a little of furnished apartments at the +seaside, and the eye sought in vain for the graceful disorder of an +elegant home. The dining-room was gorgeous with all the splendour of +new mahogany and crimson morocco; the drawing-room was glorified by big +looking-glasses, and the virginal freshness of gilt frames on which the +feet of agile house-fly or clumsy blue-bottle had never rested. The +crimsons, and blues, and greens, and drabs of the Brussels carpets +retained the vivid brightness of the loom. The drops of the chandeliers +twinkled like little stars in the sunshine; the brass birdcages were +undimmed by any shadow of dulness. To Georgy's mind the gothic villa +was the very perfection of a dwelling-place. The Barlingford +housekeepers were wont to render their homes intolerable by extreme +neatness. Georgy still believed in the infallibility of her native +town, and the primness of Barlingford reigned supreme in the gothic +villa. There were no books scattered on the polished walnut-wood tables +in the drawing-room, no cabinets crammed with scraps of old china, no +pictures, no queer old Indian feather-screens, no marvels of Chinese +carving in discoloured ivory; none of those traces which the footsteps +of the "collector" leave behind him. Mr. Sheldon had no leisure for +collecting; and Georgy preferred the gaudy pink-and-blue vases of a +Regent-street china-shop to all the dingy _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of a +Wedgwood, or the quaint shepherds and shepherdesses of Chelsea. As for +books, were there not four or five resplendent volumes primly disposed +on one of the tables; an illustrated edition of Cowper's lively and +thrilling poems; a volume of Rambles in Scotland, with copper-plate +engravings of "Melrose by night," and Glasgow Cathedral, and Ben Nevis, +and other scenic and architectural glories of North Britain; a couple +of volumes of _Punch_, and an illustrated "Vicar of Wakefield;" and +what more could elevated taste demand in the way of literature? Nobody +ever read the books; but Mrs. Sheldon's visitors were sometimes glad to +take refuge in the Scottish scenery and the pictorial Vicar during that +interval of dulness and indigestion which succeeds a middle-class +dinner. Georgy read a great many books; but they were all novels, +procured from the Bayswater branch of a fashionable circulating +library, and were condemned unread by Mr. Sheldon, who considered all +works of fiction perfectly equal in demerit, and stigmatised them, in a +general way, as "senseless trash." He had tried to read novels in the +dreary days of his Bloomsbury probation; but he had found that the +heroes of them were impracticable beings, who were always talking of +honour and chivalry, and always sacrificing their own interests in an +utterly preposterous manner; and he had thrown aside story after story +in disgust. + +"Give me a book that is something like life, and I'll read it," he +exclaimed impatiently; "but I can't swallow the high-flown prosings of +impossibly virtuous inanities." + +One day, indeed, he had been struck by the power of a book, a book +written by a certain Frenchman called Balzac. He had been riveted by +the hideous cynicism, the supreme power of penetration into the vilest +corners of wicked hearts; and he flung the book from him at last with +an expression of unmitigated admiration. + +"That man knows his fellows," he cried, "and is not hypocrite enough to +conceal his knowledge, or to trick out his puppets in the tinsel and +rags of false sentiment in order that critics and public may cry, 'See, +what noble instincts, what generous impulses, what unbounded sympathy +for his fellow-creatures this man has!' This Frenchman is an artist, +and is not afraid to face the difficulties of his art. What a scoundrel +this Philippe Bridau is! And after wallowing in the gutter, he lives to +bespatter his virtuous brother with the mire from his carriage wheels. +That is _real_ life. Your English novelist would have made his villain +hang himself with the string of his waistcoat in a condemned cell, +while his amiable hero was declared heir to a dukedom and forty +thousand a year. But this fellow Balzac knows better than that." + +The days had passed when Mr. Sheldon had leisure to read Balzac. He +read nothing but the newspapers now, and in the newspapers he read very +little more than the money articles and such political news as seemed +likely to affect the money-market. There is no such soul-absorbing +pursuit as the race which men run whose goal is the glittering Temple +of Plutus. The golden apples which tempted Atalanta to slacken her pace +are always rolling _before_ the modern runner, and the greed of gain +lends the wings of Hermes to his feet. Mr. Sheldon had sighed for +pleasures sometimes in the days of his Bloomsbury martyrdom. He had sat +by his open window on sultry summer evenings, smoking his solitary +cigar, and thinking moodily of all the pleasant resting-places from +which other men were looking out at that golden western sky, deepening +into crimson and melting into purples which even the London smoke could +not obscure. He had sat alone, thinking of jovial parties lounging in +the bow-windows of Greenwich taverns, with cool green hock-glasses and +pale amber wine, and a litter of fruit and flowers on the table before +them, while the broad river flowed past them with all the glory of the +sunset on the rippling water, and one black brig standing sharply out +against the yellow sky. He had thought of Richmond, and the dashing +young men who drive there every summer in drags, with steel chain and +bar clanking and glittering in front of the team, and two solemn grooms +with folded arms seated stiff and statue-like behind. He had thought of +Epsom, and the great Derby mob; and all of those golden goblets of +pleasure which prosperous manhood drains to the very dregs. He had +fancied the enjoyments which would be his if ever he were rich enough +to pay for them. And now he was able to afford all such pleasures he +cared nothing for them; for the ecstasy of making money seemed better +than any masculine dissipation or delight. He did sometimes dine at +Greenwich. He knew the _menus_ of the different taverns by heart, and +had discovered that they were all alike vanity and indigestion; but he +never seated himself at one of those glistening little tables, or +deliberated with an obsequious waiter over the mysteries of the wine +_carte_, without a settled purpose to be served by the eating of the +dinner, and a definite good to be achieved by the wine he ordered. He +gave many such entertainments at home and abroad; but they were all +given to men who were likely to be useful to him--to rich men, or the +toadies and hangers-on of rich men, the grand viziers of the sultans of +the money-market. Such a thing as pleasure or hospitality pure and +simple had no place in the plan of Mr. Sheldon's life. The race in +which he was running was not to be won by a loiterer. The golden apples +were always rolling on before the runner; and woe be to him who turned +away from the course to dally with the flowers or loiter by the cool +streams that beautified the wayside. + +Thus it was that Mr. Sheldon's existence grew day by day more +completely absorbed by business pursuits and business interests. Poor +Georgy complained peevishly of her husband's neglect; but she did not +dare to pour her lamentations into the ear of the offender. It was a +kind of relief to grumble about his busy life to servants and humble +female friends and confidantes; but what could she say to Philip +Sheldon himself? What ground had she for complaint? He very seldom +stayed out late; he never came home tipsy. He was quite as cool and +clear-headed and business-like, and as well able to "tot up" any given +figures upon the back of an envelope after one of those diplomatic +little Greenwich dinners as he was the first thing after breakfast. It +had been an easy thing to tyrannise over poor Tom Halliday; but this +man was a grave inscrutable creature, a domestic enigma which Georgy +was always giving up in despair. But so completely did Mr. Sheldon rule +his wife, that when he informed her inferentially that she was a very +happy woman, she accepted his view of the subject, and was content to +believe herself blest. + +In spite of those occasional grumblings to servants and female friends, +Mrs. Sheldon did think herself happy. Those occasional complaints were +the minor notes in the harmony of her life, and only served to make the +harmony complete. She read her novels, and fed a colony of little +feeble twittering birds that occupied a big wire cage in the +breakfast-parlour. She executed a good deal of fancy-work with beads +and Berlin-wool; she dusted and arranged the splendours of the +drawing-room with her own hands; and she took occasional walks in +Kensington Gardens. + +This was the ordinary course of her existence, now and then interrupted +by such thrilling events as a dinner given to some important +acquaintance of Mr. Sheldon's, or a visit to the school at which +Charlotte Halliday was completing her education. + +That young lady had been removed from the Scarborough boarding-school +to a highly respectable establishment at Brompton, within a few months +of her mother's marriage with Mr. Sheldon. She had been a rosy-cheeked +young damsel in pinafores at the time of that event, too young to +express any strong feeling upon the subject of her mother's second +choice; but not too young to feel the loss of her father very deeply. +Tom Halliday had been fondly attached to that bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked +damsel of nine years' growth, and the girl had fully reciprocated his +affection. How often they had talked together of the future, which was +to be so delightful for them both; the new farm, which was to be such a +paradise in comparison to Hyley; the pony that Charlotte was to ride +when she should be old enough to wear a habit like a lady, and to go +about with her father to market-towns and corn-exchanges! The little +girl had remembered all this, and had most bitterly lamented the loss +of that dear and loving father. + +She remembered it all to this day; she regretted her loss to this day, +though she was nearly of age, and on the point of leaving school for +ever, after having prolonged her school-days considerably beyond the +usual period, at the express wish of her stepfather. To say that she +disliked Mr. Sheldon is only to admit that she was subject to the +natural prejudices of humanity. He had usurped the place of a beloved +father, and he was in every way the opposite of that father. He had +come between Charlotte Halliday and her mother, and had so absorbed the +weak little woman into himself, as to leave Charlotte quite alone in +the world. And yet he did his duty as few stepfathers do it. Charlotte +admitted that he was very kind to her, that he was an excellent +husband, and altogether the most conscientious and respectable of +mankind; but she admitted with equal candour that she had never been +able to like him. "I daresay it is very wicked of me not to be fond of +him, when he is so good and generous to me," she said to her chosen +friend and companion; "but I never can feel quite at home with him. I +try to think of him as a father sometimes, but I never can get over the +'step.' Do you know I have dreamed of him sometimes? and though he is +so kind to me in reality, I always fancy him cruel to me in my dreams. +I suppose it is on account of his black eyes and black whiskers," added +Miss Halliday, in a meditative tone. "It is certainly a misfortune for +a person to have blacker eyes and whiskers than the rest of the world; +for there seems something stern and hard, and almost murderous, in such +excessive blackness." + +Charlotte Halliday was a very different creature from the mother whom +Mr. Sheldon had absorbed into himself. Georgy was one of the women who +have "no characters at all," but Georgy's daughter was open to the +charge of eccentricity rather than of inanity. She was a creature of +fancies and impulses. She had written wild verses in the secrecy of her +own chamber at midnight, and had torn her poetic effusions into a +thousand fragments the morning after their composition. She played and +sang very sweetly, and danced admirably, and did everything in a wild +way of her own, which was infinitely more charming than the commonplace +perfection of other women. She was not a beauty according to those +established rules which everybody believes in until they meet a woman +who sins against them all and yet is beautiful. Miss Halliday had thick +black eyebrows, and large gray eyes which people were apt to mistake +for black. She had a composite nose, and one of the sweetest mouths +that ever smiled upon enraptured mankind. Nature had given her just a +little more chin than a Greek sculptor would have allowed her; but, by +way of make-weight, the same careless Nature had bestowed upon her a +throat which Phidias himself might have sought in vain to improve upon. +And Nature had planted this young lady's head upon her shoulders with a +grace so rare that it must needs be a happy accident in the workmanship +of that immortal artist. Indeed it seemed as if Charlotte Halliday owed +her charms to a series of happy accidents. The black eyebrows which +made her face so piquant might have been destruction to another woman. +The round column-like throat needed a fine frank face to surmount it, +and the fine frank face was rendered gracious and womanly by the wealth +of waving dark hair which framed it. The girl was one of those bright +happy creatures whom men worship and women love, and whom envy can +scarcely dislike. She was so infinitely superior to both father and +mother, that a believer in hereditary attributes was fain to invent +some mythical great-grandmother from whom the girl's graces might have +been derived. But she had something of her father's easy good-nature +and imprudent generosity; and was altogether one of those impulsive +creatures whose lives are perpetual difficulties and dilemmas. More +lectures had been delivered for her edification than for any other +young lady in the Brompton boarding-school, and yet she had been the +favourite and delight of everybody in the establishment, from the +mistress of the mansion down to the iniquitous boy who cleaned the +boots, and who was hounded and hunted, and abused and execrated, from +dewy morn to dusky eve. + +"I allus puts plenty of elbow-grease on your boots, Miss 'Allundale, +though cook does heave saucepan-lids at my 'ed and call me a lazy +wiper," this incorrigible imp protested to Charlotte one morning, when +she had surprised him in tears and had consoled his woes by a donation +of pence. + +"All things love thee, so do I," says the lover to his mistress; and it +is almost impossible not to adore a young lady who is universally +beloved, for the simple reason that this general affection is very +rarely accorded to any but a loving nature. There is an instinct in +these things. From all the ruck of Cheapside a vagrant dog will select +the man who has most toleration for the canine species, and is most +likely to give him shelter. A little child coming suddenly into a +circle of strangers knows in which lap it may find a haven, on which +bosom it may discover safety and comfort. If mistress and +schoolfellows, servants and shoeblack, dogs and cats, were fond of +Charlotte Halliday, their affection had been engendered by her own +sweet smiles and loving words, and helping hands always ready to give +substantial succour or to aid by active service. + +She had been at the Brompton gynaeceum nearly eleven years--only +leaving it for her holidays--and now her education was finished, and +Mr. Sheldon could find no excuse for leaving her at school any longer, +so her departure had been finally agreed upon. + +To most damsels of twenty-one this would have been a subject for +rejoicing; but it was not so with Charlotte. She did not like her +stepfather; and her mother, though very affectionate and gentle, was a +person whose society was apt to become wearisome any time after the +first half-hour of social intercourse. At Hyde Lodge Charlotte had a +great deal more of Lingard and condensed and expurgated Gibbon than was +quite agreeable; she had to get up at a preternatural hour in the +morning and to devote herself to "studies of velocity," whose monotony +became wearing as the drip, drip, drip of water on the skull of the +tortured criminal. She was very tired of all the Hyde-Lodge lessons and +accomplishments, the irregular French verbs--the "braires" and +"traires" which were so difficult to remember, and which nobody ever +could want to use in polite conversation; the ruined castles and +dilapidated windmills, the perpetual stumpy pieces of fallen timber and +jagged posts, executed with a BBB pencil; the chalky expanse of sky, +with that inevitable flight of crows scudding across it:--why must +there be always crows scudding across a drawing-master's sky, and why +so many jagged posts in a drawing-master's ideal of rural beauty? +Charlotte was inexpressibly weary of all the stereotyped studies; but +she liked Hyde Lodge better than the gothic villa. She liked the +friendly schoolfellows with their loud talk and boisterous manners, the +girls who called her "Halliday," and who were always borrowing her +reels of crochet-cotton and her pencils, her collars and +pocket-handkerchiefs. She liked the free-and-easy schoolgirl talk +better than her mother's tame discourse; she preferred the homely +litter of the spacious schoolroom to the prim splendours of Georgy's +state chambers; and the cool lawn and shrubberies of Hyde Lodge were a +hundred-fold more pleasant to her than the stiff little parterre at +Bayswater, wherein scarlet geraniums and calceolarias flourished with +an excruciating luxuriance of growth and an aggravating brilliancy of +colour. She liked any place better than the hearth by which Philip +Sheldon brooded with a dark thoughtful face, and a mind absorbed by the +mysteries and complications of the Stock Exchange. + +On this bright June afternoon other girls were chattering gaily about +the fun of the breaking-up ball and the coming delights of the +holidays, but Charlotte sighed when they reminded her that the end of +her last half was close at hand. + +She sat under a group of trees on the lawn, with a crochet antimacassar +lying in her lap, and with her friend and favourite, Diana Paget, +sitting by her side. + +Hyde Lodge was that very establishment over which Priscilla Paget had +reigned supreme for the last seventeen years of her life, and among all +the pupils in a school of some forty or fifty girls, Diana was the one +whom Charlotte Halliday had chosen for her dearest companion and +confidante, clinging to her with a constancy not to be shaken by +ill-fortune or absence. The girl knew very well that Diana Paget was a +poor relation and dependant; that her bills had never been paid; that +all those incalculable and mysterious "extras," which are the martyrdom +of parents and the delight of schoolmistresses, were a dead letter so +far as Diana was concerned. She knew that "poor Di" had been taken home +suddenly one day, not in compliance with any behest of her father's, +but for the simple reason that her kinswoman's patience had been worn +out by the Captain's dishonesty. It is doubtful whether Priscilla Paget +had ever communicated these facts in any set phrase, but in a +boarding-school such things make themselves known, and the girls had +discussed the delinquencies of that dreadful creature, Captain Paget, +very freely in the security of their dormitories. + +Charlotte knew that her dearest friend was not a person whom it was +advantageous to know. She had seen Diana depart ignominiously, and +return mysteriously after an absence of some years, very shabby, very +poor, very sombre and melancholy, and with no inclination to talk of +those years of absence. Miss Halliday had known all this, and had asked +no questions. She took the returned wanderer to her heart, and +cherished her with an affection which was far beyond the average +measure of sisterly love. + +"I thought I should never see you again, dear," she cried when she and +Diana had retired to a corner of the schoolroom to talk confidentially +on the morning of Miss Paget's return; "and I missed you so cruelly. +Other girls are very nice and very kind to me. There is a new girl, +Miss Spencer--that girl with flaxen hair, standing by the big +Canterbury--whom I get on with delightfully; but there is no one in the +world like you, Di. And where have you been all this time? With your +papa, I suppose." + +"Yes," answered Miss Paget gloomily; "I have been with my father. Don't +ask me anything about the last three years, Lotta. I have been utterly +wretched and miserable, and I can't bear to talk about my misery." + +"And you shan't talk of it, darling," cried Charlotte, pursing up her +mouth for a kiss in a manner which might have been distraction to a +masculine mind of average susceptibility. "You shan't talk of anything +or think of anything the least, least, least bit unpleasant; and you +shall have my gold pencil-case," added Miss Halliday, wrenching that +trinket suddenly from the ribbon by which it hung at her side. Perhaps +there was just the least touch of Georgy's childishness in this +impulsive habit of giving away all her small possessions, for which +Lotta was distinguished. "Yes, you must, dear," she went on. "Mamma +gave it me last half; but I don't want it; I don't like it; in point of +fact, I have had it so long that I positively loathe it. And I know +it's a poor trumpery thing, though mamma gave two guineas for it; but +you know she is always imposed upon in shops. Do, do, do take it, +darling, just to oblige me. And now, tell me, dear,--you're going to +stop here for ever and ever, now you've come back" asked Charlotte, +after having thrust the gold pencil-case into Diana's unwilling hand. + +"I don't know about for ever and ever, dear," Miss Paget replied +presently; "but I daresay I shall stay here till I'm tired of the place +and everybody about it. You won't be here very long, you know, Lotta; +for you'll be twenty next birthday, and I suppose you'll be leaving +school before you're twenty-one. Most of the girls leave at eighteen or +nineteen at latest; and you've been here so long, and are so much +farther advanced than others are. I am not going to be a pupil +again--that's out of the question; for I'm just twenty-two, as you +know. But Priscilla has been good enough to let me stay as a kind of +second teacher for the little ones. It will be dull work going through +the stupid abridgments of history and geography, and the scrappy bits +of botany and conchology, with those incorrigible little ones; but of +course I am very grateful to my cousin for giving me a home under any +conditions, after papa's dishonourable conduct. If it were not for her, +Lotta, I should have no home. What a happy girl you are, to have a +respectable man for your father!" + +Charlotte's brow darkened a little as her friend said this. + +"He is not my own father, you know," she said gravely, "and I should be +a great deal happier if mamma and I were alone in the world. We could +live in some dear little cottage on wide open downs near the sea, and I +could have a linsey habit, and a pony, and ride about all day, and read +and play to mamma at night. Of course Mr. Sheldon is very respectable, +and I daresay it's very wicked of me; but O, Diana, I think I should +like him better if he were not _quite_ so respectable. I saw your papa +once when he came to call, and I thought him nicer than my stepfather. +But then I'm such a frivolous creature, Di, and am always thinking what +I ought not to think." + + * * * * * + +Nearly a year had passed since Diana's return, and the girl's life had +been very monotonous during that time. She had stuck bravely to the +abridgments and the juvenile scraps of --ologies, and had been +altogether a model of propriety, sewing on such a number of strings and +buttons during the period as can only be compassed by the maternal +mind. Her existence had been by no means as joyless or desolate as such +an existence is generally represented by the writer of fiction. There +was plenty of life and bustle in the big prosperous boarding-school, if +there was not much variety. There were small scandals and small +intrigues; departures and arrivals; wonderful hampers of cake and wine +to be divided among the elect of a fashionable dormitory--for there is +as wide a difference between the tone and status of the bedrooms in a +ladies'-school as between the squares of Berkeley and Bedford. There +were breaking-up parties, and the free-and-easy idleness of the +holidays, when a few dark-complexioned girls from the colonies, a +yellow-haired damsel from the remote north of Scotland, and Miss Diana +Paget, were wont to cluster round the fire in the smaller of the +schoolrooms to tell ghost-stories or talk scandal in the gloaming. + +It was a life which, taken with all its small hardships and petty +annoyances, should have been as the life of Paradise compared to that +which Diana had led with her father and Mr. Hawkehurst. Whether the +girl fully appreciated the change from the Bohemianism of her late +existence to the respectability of Hyde Lodge was a question which no +one had asked of her. She had fits of despondency now and then, even in +the midst of her duties, and was apt to fall into a sombre reverie over +one of the abridgments, whereby she was neglectful of her pupils' +aspirates, and allowed Henry the Second to be made the poorer by the +loss of an H, or Heliogabalus to be described by a name which that +individual himself would have failed to recognise. + +There were times when, in the midst of that shrill Babel, the +schoolroom, Diana Paget heard the summer winds sighing in the +pine-woods above Foretdechene, and fancied herself standing once more +in that classic temple on whose plastered wall Valentine had once cut +her initials with his penknife in a fantastical monogram, surmounted by +a death's-head and encircled by a serpent. She thought of that familiar +companion very often, in spite of her juvenile pupils and the sewing-on +of tapes and buttons. He had seemed to her a perpetual enigma and +mystery when she was with him; and now that she was far away from him, +he was more than ever an inscrutable creature. Was he altogether vile, +she wondered, or was there some redeeming virtue in his nature? He had +taken trouble to secure her escape from shame and disgrace, and in +doing this he surely had performed a good action; but was it not just +possible that he had taken this opportunity of getting rid of her +because her presence was alike wearisome and inconvenient? She thought +very bitterly of her fellow Bohemian when this view of his conduct +presented itself to her; how heartlessly he had shuffled her off,--how +cruelly he had sent her out into the hard pitiless world, to find a +shelter as best she might! + +"What would have become of me if Priscilla had refused to take me in?" +she asked herself. "I wonder whether Mr. Hawkehurst ever considered +that." + + * * * * * + +More than one letter had come to Diana from her old companion since her +flight from the little Belgian watering-place. The first letter told +her that her father had "tided over _that_ business, and was in better +feather than before the burst-up at the Hotel d'Orange." The letter was +dated from Paris, but gave no information as to the present +arrangements or future plans of the writer and his companion. Another +letter, dated from the same place, but not from the same address, came +to her six months afterwards, and anon another; and it was such a +wonderful thing for Captain Paget to inhabit the same city for twelve +months together, that Diana began to cherish faint hopes of some +amendment in the scheme of her father's life and of Valentine's, since +any improvement in her father's position would involve an improvement +in that of his _protege_. + +Miss Paget's regard for her father was by no means an absorbing +affection. The Captain had never cared to conceal his indifference for +his only child, or pretended to think her anything but a nuisance and +an encumbrance--a superfluous piece of luggage more difficult to +dispose of than any other luggage, and altogether a stumbling-block in +the stony path of a man who has to live by his wits. So perhaps it is +scarcely strange that Diana did not think of her absent father with any +passionate tenderness or sad yearning love. She thought of him very +often; but her thoughts of him were painful and bitter. She thought +still more often of his companion; and her thoughts of him were even +more bitter. + +The experiences of Diana Paget are not the experiences which make a +pure or perfect woman. There are trials which chasten the heart and +elevate the mind; but it is doubtful whether it can be for the welfare +of any helpless, childish creature to be familiar with falsehood and +chicanery, with debt and dishonour, from the earliest awakening of the +intellect; to feel, from the age of six or seven, all the shame of a +creature who is always eating food that will not be paid for, and lying +on a bed out of which she may be turned at any moment with shrill +reproaches and upbraidings; to hear her father abused and vilified by +vulgar gossips over a tea-table, and to be reminded every day and every +hour that she is an unprofitable encumbrance, a consumer of the bread +of other people's children, an intruder in the household of poverty, a +child whose heritage is shame and dishonour. These things had hardened +the heart of Captain Paget's daughter. There had been no counteracting +influence--no fond, foolish loving creature near at hand to save the +girl from that perdition into which the child or woman who has never +known what it is to be loved is apt to fall. For thirteen years of +Diana's life all love and tenderness, endearing words, caressing +touches, fond admiring looks, had been utterly unknown to her. To sit +in a room with a father who was busy writing letters, and who was wont +to knit his brows peevishly if she stirred, or to mutter an oath if she +spoke; to be sent to a pawnbroker's in the gloaming with her father's +watch, and to be scolded and sworn at on her return if the money-lender +had advanced a less sum than was expected on that security--do not +compose the most delightful or improving experiences of a home life. +But Diana could remember little of a more pleasant character respecting +her existence during those brief periods when she was flung back upon +her father's hands, and while that gentleman was casting about for some +new victim on whom to plant her. + +At Hyde Lodge, for the first time, the girl knew what it was to be +loved. Bright, impulsive Charlotte Halliday took a fancy to her, as the +schoolgirl phrase goes, and clung to her with a fond confiding +affection. It may be that the softening influence came too late, or +that there was some touch of natural hardness and bitterness in Diana's +mind; for it is certain that Charlotte's affection did not soften the +girl's heart or lessen her bitter consciousness of the wide difference +between her own fortunes and those of the happier daughters whose +fathers paid their debts. The very contrast between Charlotte's +position and her own may have counteracted the good influence. It was +very easy for Charlotte to be generous and amiable. _She_ had never +been hounded from pillar to post by shrewish matrons who had no words +too bitter for their unprofitable charge. _She_ had never known what it +was to rise up in the morning uncertain where she should lie down at +night, or whether there would be any shelter at all for her hapless +head; for who could tell that her father would be found at the lodging +where he had last been heard of, and how should she obtain even +workhouse hospitality, whose original parish was unknown to herself or +her protector? To Charlotte these shameful experiences would have been +as incomprehensible as the most abstruse theories of a metaphysician. +Was it any wonder, then, if Charlotte was bright and womanly, and fond +and tender--Charlotte, who had never been humiliated by the shabbiness +of her clothes, and to whom the daily promenade had never been a shame +and a degradation by reason of obvious decay in the heels of her boots? + +"If your father would dress you decently, and supply you with proper +boots, I could almost bring myself to keep you for nothing," Priscilla +had said to her reprobate kinsman's daughter; "but the more one does +for that man the less he will do himself; so the long and the short of +it is, that you will have to go back to him, for I cannot consent to +have such an expensive establishment as mine degraded by the shabbiness +of a relation." + +Diana had been obliged to listen to such speeches as this very often +during her first residence at Hyde Lodge, and then, perhaps, within a +few minutes after Priscilla's lecture was concluded, Charlotte Halliday +would bound into the room, looking as fresh and bright as the morning, +and dressed in silk that rustled with newness and richness. Keenly as +Diana felt the difference between her friend's fortune and her own, she +did nevertheless in some manner return Charlotte's affection. Her +character was not to be altered all at once by this new atmosphere of +love and tenderness; but she loved her generous friend and companion +after her own fitful fashion, and defended her with passionate +indignation if any other girl dared to hint the faintest disparagement +of her graces or her virtues. She envied and loved her at the same +time. She would accept Charlotte's affection one day with unconcealed +pleasure, and revolt against it on the next day as a species of +patronage which stung her proud heart to the quick. + +"Keep your pity for people who ask you for it," she had exclaimed once +to poor bewildered Charlotte; "I am tired of being consoled and petted. +Go and talk to your prosperous friends, Miss Halliday; I am sick to +death of hearing about your new frocks, and your holidays, and the +presents your mamma is always bringing you." + +And then when Charlotte looked at her friend with a sad perplexed face, +Diana relented, and declared that she was a wicked discontented +creature, unworthy of either pity or affection. + +"I have had so much misery in my life, that I am very often inclined to +quarrel with happy people without rhyme or reason, or only because they +are happy," she said in explanation of her impatient temper. + +"But who knows what happiness may be waiting for you in the future, +Di?" exclaimed Miss Halliday. "You will marry some rich man by-and-by, +and forget that you ever knew what poverty was." + +"I wonder where the rich man is to come from who will marry Captain +Paget's daughter?" Diana asked contemptuously. "Never mind where he +comes from; he will come, depend upon it. The handsome young prince +with the palace by the Lake of Como will come to fall in love with my +beautiful Diana, and then she will go and live at Como; and desert her +faithful Charlotte, and live happy ever afterwards." + +"Don't talk nonsense, Lotta," cried Miss Paget. "You know what kind of +fate lies before me as well as I do. I looked at myself this morning, +as I was plaiting my hair before the glass--you know how seldom one +gets a turn at the glass in the blue room--and I saw a dark, ugly, +evil-minded-looking creature, whose face frightened me. I have been +getting wicked and ugly ever since I was a child. An aquiline nose and +black eyes will not make a woman a beauty; she wants happiness, and +hope, and love, and all manner of things that I have never known, +before she can be pretty." +"I have seen a beautiful woman sweeping a crossing," said Charlotte +doubtfully. + +"Yes, but what sort of beauty was it?--a beauty that made you shudder. +Don't talk about these things, Charlotte; you only encourage me to be +bitter and discontented. I daresay I ought to be very happy, when I +remember that I have dinner every day, and shoes and stockings, and a +bed to lie down upon at night; and I am happier, now that I work for my +living, than I was in the old time, when my cousin was always grumbling +about her unpaid bills. But my life is very dreary and empty; and when +I look forward to the future, it seems like looking out upon some level +plain that leads nowhere, but across which I must tramp on for ever and +ever, until I drop down and die." + +It was something in this fashion that Miss Paget talked, as she sat in +the garden with Charlotte Halliday at the close of the half-year. She +was going to lose her faithful friend--the girl who, so much richer, +and happier, and more amiable than herself, had yet clung to her so +fondly; she was going to lose this tender companion, and she was more +sorry for the loss than she cared to express. + +"You must come and see us very often," Charlotte said for the hundredth +time; "mamma will be so glad to have you, for my sake; and my +stepfather never interferes with our arrangements. O, Di, how I wish +you would come and live with us altogether! Would you come, if I could +manage to arrange it?" + +"How could I come? What Quixotic nonsense you talk, Lotta!" + +"Not at all, dear; you could come as a sort of companion for me, or a +sort of companion for mamma. What does it matter how you come, if I can +only have you? My life will be so dreary in that dreadful new-looking +house, unless I have a companion I love. Will you come, Di?--only tell +me you will come! I am sure Mr. Sheldon would not refuse, if I asked +him to let you live with us. Will you come, dear?--yes or no. You would +be glad to come, if you loved me." + +"And I do love you, Lotta, with all my heart," answered Miss Paget, +with unusual fervour; "but then the whole of my heart is not much. As +to coming to live with you, of course it would be a hundred thousand +times pleasanter than the life I lead here; but it is not to be +supposed that Mr. Sheldon will consent to have a stranger in his house +just because his impulsive stepdaughter chooses to take a fancy to a +schoolfellow who isn't worthy of half her affection." + +"Let me be the judge of that. As to my stepfather, I am almost sure of +his consent. You don't know how indulgent he is to me; which shows what +a wicked creature I must be not to like him. You shall come to us, +Diana, and be my sister; and we will play and sing our pet duets +together, and be as happy as two birds in a cage, or a good deal +happier--for I never could quite understand the ecstatic delight of +perpetual hempseed and an occasional peck at a dirty lump of sugar." + +After this there came all the bustle of packing and preparation for +departure, and a kind of saturnalia prevailed at Hyde Lodge--a +saturnalia which terminated with the breaking-up ball: and who among +the crowd of fair young dancers so bright as Charlotte Halliday, +dressed in the schoolgirl's festal robes of cloud-like muslin, and with +her white throat set off by a black ribbon and a gold locket? + +Diana sat in a corner of the schoolroom towards the close of the +evening, very weary of her share in the festival, and watched her +friend, half in sadness, half in envy. + +"Perhaps if I were like her, _he_ would love me," she thought. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +GEORGE SHELDON'S PROSPECTS. + + +For George Sheldon the passing years had brought very little +improvement of fortune. He occupied his old dingy chambers in Gray's +Inn, which had grown more dingy under the hand of Time; and he was wont +to sit in his second-floor window on sultry summer Sundays, smoking his +solitary cigar, and listening to the cawing of the rooks in the gardens +beneath him, mingled with the voices of rebellious children, and shrill +mothers threatening to "do for them," or to "flay them alive," in +Somebody's Rents below. The lawyer used to be quite meditative on those +Sunday afternoons, and would wonder what sort of a fellow Lord Bacon +was, and how he contrived to get into a mess about taking bribes, when +so many other fellows had done it quietly enough before the Lord of +Verulam's day, and even yet more quietly since--agreeably instigated +thereto by the casuistry of Escobar. + +Mr. Sheldon's prospects were by no means promising. From afar off he +beheld his brother's star shining steadily in the commercial firmament; +but, except for an occasional dinner, he was very little the better for +the stockbroker's existence. He had reminded his brother very often, +and very persistently, of that vague promise which the dentist had made +in the hour of his adversity--the promise to help his brother if ever +he did "drop into a good thing." But as it is difficult to prevent a +man who is disposed to shuffle from shuffling out of the closest +agreement that was ever made between Jones of the one part, and Smith +of the other part, duly signed, and witnessed, and stamped with the +sixpenny seal of infallibility, so is it still more difficult to obtain +the performance of loosely-worded promises, uttered in the confidential +intercourse of kinsmen. + +In the first year of his married life Philip Sheldon gave his brother a +hundred pounds for the carrying out of some grand scheme which the +lawyer was then engaged in, and which, if successful, would secure for +him a much larger fortune than Georgy's thousands. Unhappily the grand +scheme was a failure; and the hundred pounds being gone, George applied +again to his brother, reminding him once more of that promise made in +Bloomsbury. But on this occasion Mr. Sheldon plainly told his kinsman +that he could do no more for him. + +"You must fight your own battle, George," he said, "as I have fought +mine." + +"Thank you, Philip," said the younger brother; "I would rather fight it +any other way." + +And then the two men looked at each other, as they were in the habit of +doing sometimes, with a singularly intent gaze. + +"You're very close-fisted with Tom Halliday's money," George said +presently. "If I'd asked poor old Tom himself, I'm sure he wouldn't +have refused to lend me two or three hundred." + +"Then it's a pity you didn't ask him," Mr. Sheldon answered, with +supreme coolness. + +"I should have done so fast enough, if I had thought he was going to +die so suddenly. It was a bad day for me, and for him too, when he came +to Fitzgeorge-street." + +"What do you mean by that?" asked Mr. Sheldon sharply. + +"You can pretty well guess my meaning, I should think," George answered +in a sulky tone. + +"No, I can't; and what's more, I don't mean to try. I'll tell you what +it is, Master George; you've been treating me to a good many hints and +innuendoes lately; and you must know very little of me if you don't +know that I'm the last kind of man to stand that sort of thing from +you, or from any one else. You have tried to take the tone of a man who +has some kind of hold upon another. You had better understand at once +that such a tone won't answer with me. If you had any hold upon me, or +any power over me, you'd be quick enough to use it; and you ought to be +aware that I know that, and can see to the bottom of such a shallow +little game as yours." + +Mr. Sheldon the younger looked at his brother with an expression of +surprise that was not entirely unmingled with admiration. + +"Well, you _are_ a cool hand, Phil!" he said. + +Here the conversation ended. The two brothers were very good friends +after this, and George presented himself at the gothic villa whenever +he received an invitation to dine there. The dinners were good, and the +men who ate them were men of solidity and standing in the commercial +world; and George was very glad to eat good dinners, and to meet +eligible men; but he never again asked his brother for the loan of odd +hundreds. + +He grubbed on, as best he might, in the dingy Gray's-Inn chambers. He +had a little business--business which lay chiefly amongst men who +wanted to borrow money, or whose halting footsteps required guidance +through the quagmire of the Bankruptcy Court. He just contrived to keep +his head above water, and his name in the Law-list, by means of such +business; but the great scheme of his life remained as yet unripened, +an undeveloped shadow to which he had in vain attempted to give a +substance. + +The leading idea of George Sheldon's life was the idea that there were +great fortunes in the world waiting for claimants; and that a share of +some such fortune was to be obtained by any man who had the talent to +dig it out of the obscurity in which it was hidden. He was a student of +old county histories, and a searcher of old newspapers; and his studies +in that line had made him familiar with many strange stories--stories +of field-labourers called away from the plough to be told they were the +rightful owners of forty thousand a year; stories of old white-haired +men starving to death in miserable garrets about Bethnal-green or +Spitalfields, who could have claimed lands and riches immeasurable, had +they known how to claim them; stories of half-crazy old women, who had +wandered about the world with reticules of discoloured papers +clamorously asserting their rights and wrongs unheeded and unbelieved, +until they encountered sharp-witted lawyers who took up their claims, +and carried them triumphantly into the ownership of illimitable wealth. + +George Sheldon had read of these things until it had seemed to him that +there must be some such chance for any man who would have patience to +watch and wait for it. He had taken up several cases, and had fitted +link after link together with extreme labour, and had hunted in parish +registers until the cold mouldy atmosphere of vestries was as familiar +to him as the air of Gray's Inn. But the cases had all broken down at +more or less advanced stages; and after infinite patience and trouble, +a good deal of money spent upon travelling and small fees to all manner +of small people, and an incalculable number of hours wasted in +listening to the rambling discourse of parish-clerks and oldest +inhabitants, Mr. Sheldon had been compelled to abandon his hopes time +after time, until a man with less firmly rooted ideas would have given +up the hunting of registers and grubbing up of genealogies as a +delusion and a snare. + +George Sheldon's ideas were very firmly rooted, and he stuck to them +with that dogged persistency which so often achieves great ends, that +it seems a kind of genius. He saw his brother's success, and +contemplated the grandeurs of the gothic villa in a cynical rather than +an envious spirit. How long would it all last? How long would the +stockbroker float triumphantly onward upon that wonderful tide which is +constituted by the rise and fall of the money-market? + +"That sort of thing is all very well while a man keeps his head cool +and clear," thought George; "but somehow or other men always seem to +lose their heads on the Stock Exchange before they have done with it, +and I daresay my wise brother will drop into a nice mess sooner or +later. Setting aside all other considerations, I think I would rather +have my chances than his; for I speculate very little more than my time +and trouble, and I stand in to win a bigger sum than he will ever get +in his line, let stocks rise and fall as they may." + +During that summer in which Miss Halliday bade farewell to Hyde Lodge +and her school-days, George Sheldon was occupied with the early steps +in a search which he hoped would end in the discovery of a prize rich +enough to reward him for all his wasted time and labour. + +Very early in the previous year there had appeared the following brief +notice in the _Observer_:-- + +"The Rev. John Haygarth, late vicar of Tilford Haven, Kent, died +lately, without a will, or relation to claim his property, 100,000 +pounds. The Crown therefore claimed it. And last court-day the +Prerogative Court of Canterbury decreed letters of Administration to +Mr. Paul, the nominee of the Crown." + +Some months after this an advertisement had been inserted in the +_Times_ newspaper to the following effect:-- + +"NEXT OF KIN.--If the relatives or next of kin of the Rev. John +Haygarth, late vicar of Tilford Haven, in the county of Kent, clerk, +deceased, who has left property of the value of one hundred thousand +pounds, will apply, either personally or by letter, to Stephen Paul, +Esq., solicitor for the affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury, at the +Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, London, they may hear of something to +their advantage. The late Rev. John Haygarth is supposed to have been +the son of Matthew Haygarth, late of the parish of St. Judith, +Ullerton, and Rebecca his wife, formerly Rebecca Caulfield, spinster, +late of the same parish; both long since deceased." + +Upon the strength of this advertisement George Sheldon began his +search. His theory was that there always existed an heir-at-law +somewhere, if people would only have the patience to hunt him or her +out; and he attributed his past failures rather to a want of endurance +on his own part than to the breaking down of his pet theory. + +On this occasion he began his work with more than usual determination. + +"This is the biggest chance I've ever had," he said to himself, "and I +should be something worse than a fool if I let it slip through my +fingers." + +The work was very dry and dreary, involving interminable hunting of +registers, and questioning of oldest inhabitants. And the oldest +inhabitants were so stupid, and the records of the registers so +bewildering. One after another Mr. Sheldon set himself to examine the +lines of the intestate's kindred and ancestors; his father's only +sister, his grandfather's brothers and sisters, and even to the +brothers and sisters of his great-grandfather. At that point the +Haygarth family melted away into the impenetrable darkness of the past. +They were no high and haughty race of soldiers and scholars, churchmen +and lawyers, or the tracing of them would have been a much easier +matter. Burke would have told of them. There would have been old +country houses filled with portraits, and garrulous old housekeepers +learned in the traditions of the past. There would have been mouldering +tombs and tarnished brasses in quiet country churches, with descriptive +epitaphs, and many escutcheons. There would have been crumbling +parchments recording the prowess of Sir Reginald, knight, or the +learning of Sir Rupert, counsellor and judge. The Haygarths were a race +of provincial tradesmen, and had left no better record of their +jog-trot journey through this world than the registry of births, +marriages, and deaths in obscure churches, or an occasional entry in +the fly-leaf of a family Bible. + +At present Mr. Sheldon was only at the beginning of his work. The +father and grandfather and uncle and great-uncles, the +great-grandfather and great-great-uncles, with all their progenies, lay +before him in a maze of entanglement which it would be his business to +unravel. And as he was obliged to keep his limited legal connection +together while he devoted himself to this task, the work promised to +extend over months, or indeed years; and in the meanwhile there was +always the fear that some one else, as quick-witted and indefatigable +as himself, would take up the same tangled skein and succeed in the +unravelment of it. Looking this fact full in the face, Mr. Sheldon +decided that he must have an able and reliable coadjutor; but to find +such a coadjutor, to find a man who would help him, on the chance of +success, and not claim too large a share of the prize if success came, +was more than the speculative attorney could hope. In the meantime his +work progressed very slowly; and he was tormented by perpetual terror +of that other sharp practitioner who might be following up the same +clue, and whose agents might watch him in and out of parish churches, +and listen at street-corners when he was hunting an oldest inhabitant. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +DIANA FINDS A NEW HOME. + + +The holidays at Hyde Lodge brought at least repose for Diana Paget. The +little ones had gone home, with the exception of two or three young +colonists, and even they had perpetual liberty from lessons; so Diana +had nothing to do but sit in the shady garden, reading or thinking, in +the drowsy summer afternoons. Priscilla Paget had departed with the +chief of the teachers for a seaside holiday; other governesses had gone +to their homes; and but for the presence of an elderly Frenchwoman, who +slept through one half of the day, and wrote letters to her kindred +during the other half, Diana would have been the only responsible +person in the deserted habitation. + +She did not complain of her loneliness, or envy the delights of those +who had departed. She was very glad to be quite alone, free to think +her own thoughts, free to brood over those unforgotten years in which +she had wandered over the face of the earth with her father and +Valentine Hawkehurst. The few elder girls remaining at the Lodge +thought Miss Paget unsociable because she preferred a lonely corner in +the gardens and some battered old book of namby-pamby stories to the +delights of their society, and criticised her very severely as they +walked listlessly to and fro upon the lawn with big garden-hats, and +arms entwined about each other's waists. + +Alas for Diana, the battered book was only an excuse for solitude, and +for a morbid indulgence in her own sad thoughts! She had lived the life +of unblemished respectability for a year, and looking back now at the +Bohemian wanderings, she regretted those days of humiliation and +misery, and sighed for the rare delights of that disreputable past! +Yes, she had revolted against the degraded existence; and now she was +sorry for having lost its uncertain pleasures, its fitful glimpses of +sunshine. Was that true which Valentine had said, that no man can eat +beef and mutton every day of his life; that it is better to be +unutterly miserable one day and uproariously happy the next, than to +tread one level path of dull content? Miss Paget began to think that +there had been some reason in her old comrade's philosophy; for she +found the level path very dreary. She let her thoughts wander whither +they would in this quiet holiday idleness, and they went back to the +years which she had spent with her father. She thought of winter +evenings in London when Valentine had taken her the round of the +theatres, and they had sat together in stifling upper boxes,--she +pleased, he critical, and with so much to say to each other in the +pauses of the performance. How kind he had been to her; how good, how +brotherly! And then the pleasant walk home, through crowded noisy +thoroughfares, and anon by long lines of quiet streets, in which they +used to look up at the lighted windows of houses where parties were +being given, and sometimes stop to listen to the music and watch the +figures of the dancers flitting across the blinds. She thought of the +journeys she had travelled with her father and Valentine by land and +sea; the lonely moonlight watches on the decks of steamers; the long +chill nights in railway-carriages under the feeble glimmer of an +oil-lamp, and how she and Valentine had beguiled the tedious hours with +wild purposeless talk while Captain Paget slept. She remembered the +strange cities which she and her father's _protege_ had looked at side +by side; he with a calm listlessness of manner, which might either be +real or assumed, but which never varied; she with an inward tremor of +excitement and surprise. They had been very happy together, this lonely +unprotected girl and the reckless adventurer. If his manner to her had +been fitful, it had been sometimes dangerously, fatally kind. She +looked back now, and remembered the days which she had spent with him, +and knew that all the pleasures possible in a prosperous and successful +life could never bring for her such delight as she had known in the +midst of her wanderings; though shame and danger lurked at every +corner, and poverty, disguised in that tawdry masquerade habit in which +the swindler dresses it, accompanied her wherever she went. + +She had been happy with him because she had loved him. That close +companionship, sisterly and brotherly though it had seemed, had been +fatal for the lonely and friendless daughter of Horatio Paget. In her +desolation she had clung to the one creature who was kind to her, who +did not advertise his disdain for herself and her sex, or openly avow +that she was a nuisance and an encumbrance. Every slight put upon her +by her father had strengthened the chain that bound her to Valentine +Hawkehurst; and as the friendship between them grew closer day by day, +until all her thoughts and fancies took their colour from his, it +seemed a matter of course that he should love her, and she never +doubted his feelings or questioned her own. There had been much in his +conduct to justify her belief that she was beloved; so this +inexperienced, untutored girl may surely be forgiven if she rested her +faith in that fancied affection, and looked forward to some shadowy +future in which she and Valentine would be man and wife, all in all to +each other, free from the trammels of Captain Paget's elaborate +schemes, and living honestly, somehow or other, by means of literature, +or music, or pen-and-ink caricatures, or some of those liberal arts +which have always been dear to the children of Bohemia. They would have +lodgings in some street near the Thames, and go to a theatre or a +concert every evening, and spend long summer days in suburban parks or +on suburban commons, he lying on the grass smoking, she talking to him +or reading to him, as his fancy might dictate. Before her twentieth +birthday, the proudest woman is apt to regard the man she loves as a +grand and superior creature; and there had been a certain amount of +reverential awe mingled with Diana's regard for Mr. Hawkehurst, +scapegrace and adventurer though he was. + +Little by little that bright girlish dream had faded away. Fancy's +enchanted palace had been shattered into a heap of shapeless ruin by +those accidental scraps of hard worldly wisdom with which Valentine had +pelted the fairy fabric. He a man to love, or to marry for love! Why, +he talked like some hardened world-weary sinner who had done with every +human emotion. The girl shuddered as she heard him. She had loved him, +and believed in his love. She had fancied a tender meaning in the voice +which softened when it spoke to her, a pensive earnestness in the dark +eyes which looked at her; but just when the voice had seemed softest +and sweetest, the pensive eyes most eloquently earnest, the +adventurer's manner had changed all at once, and for ever. He had grown +hard, and cold, and indifferent. He had scarcely tried to conceal the +fact that the girl's companionship bored and wearied him. He had yawned +in her face, and had abandoned himself to moody abstraction when +accident obliged him to be alone with her. Miss Paget's pride had been +equal to the occasion. Mary Anne Kepp would have dissolved into tears +at the first unkind word from the lips of her beloved; but Mary Anne +Kepp's daughter, with the blood of the Cromie Pagets in her veins, was +quite a different person. She returned Mr. Hawkehurst's indifference +with corresponding disregard. If his manner was cold as a bleak autumn, +hers was icy as a severe winter; only now and then, when she was very +tired of her joyless existence, her untutored womanhood asserted +itself, and she betrayed the real state of her feelings--betrayed +herself as she had done on her last night at Foretdechene, when she and +Valentine had looked down at the lighted windows shining dimly through +the purple of the summer night. She looked back at the past now in the +quiet of the school-garden, and tried to remember how miserable she had +been, what agonies of despair she had suffered, how brief had been her +delights, how bitter her disappointments. She tried to remember what +tortures she had suffered from that wasted passion, that useless +devotion. She tried to rejoice in the consciousness of the peace and +respectability of her present life; but she could not. That passionate +yearning for the past possessed her so strongly. She could remember +nothing except that she had been with him. She had seen his face, she +had heard his voice; and now how long and weary the time might be +before she could again see that one beloved face or hear the dear +familiar voice! The brightest hope she had in these midsummer holidays +was the hope of a letter from him; and even that might be the prelude +of disappointment. She wrestled with herself, and tried to exorcise +those ghosts of memory which haunted her by day and wove themselves +into her dreams by night; but they were not to be laid at rest. She +hated her folly; but her folly was stronger than herself. + +For three weeks Diana Paget had no companions but her sorrowful +memories--her haunting shadows; but at the end of that time the +stagnant mill-pond of her life was suddenly ruffled--the dull course of +existence was disturbed by the arrival of two letters. She found them +lying by her plate upon the breakfast-table one bright July morning; +and while she was yet far away from the table she could see that one of +the envelopes bore a foreign stamp, and was directed by the hand of +Valentine Hawkehurst. She seated herself at the table in a delicious +flutter of emotion, and tore open that foreign envelope, while the +French governess poured out the tea, and while the little group of +schoolgirls nudged one another and watched her eager face with insolent +curiosity. + +The first letter contained only a few lines. + +"MY DEAR DIANA," wrote the young man, "your father has decided on +returning to London, where I believe he really intends to make a +respectable start, if he can only get the opening and the help he +wants. I know you will be glad to hear this. I don't exactly say where +we shall take up our quarters; but the Captain will of course come to +see you; and if I can chasten my outward semblance sufficiently to +venture within the sacred precincts of a lady's school, I shall come +with him. Direct to the old address, if you write before the end of the +month, and believe me, as always, your friend." "VALENTINE." + +The second letter was in Charlotte Halliday's big bold hand, and was +frank, impetuous, and loving as the girl herself. + +"MY OWN DEAREST DI,--It is all arranged," wrote Miss Halliday, dashing +at once into the heart of the subject. "I talked mamma over the very +first day after my return, and then there was nothing more to be done +than to talk over Mr. Sheldon. Of course there was just a little +difficulty in that, for he is so awfully practical; and he wanted to +know why I wanted a companion, and what _use_ you would be in the +house; as if the very last thing one required in a companion was +companionship. I'm almost afraid to tell you the iniquitous fables I +invented about your extreme usefulness; your genius for millinery, and +the mints of money you would save by making up mamma's flimsy little +caps; your taste for dress-making, &c. &c. &c. You _are_ the cleverest +creature in the world, you know, Di; for you must remember how you +altered that green silk dress for me when Miss Person had made me a +square-shouldered fright. So, after a great deal of humming, and haing, +and argufication--_is_ there such a word as 'argufication,' I +wonder?--my stepfather said that if my heart was set upon having you, +and if I thought you would be useful, you might come to us; but that he +could not afford to give you any salary, and that if you wanted a new +dress now and then, I must buy it for you out of my own allowance; and +I will, darling, if you will only come and be my friend and sister. My +life is dreadfully dull without you. I walk up and down the stiff +little gravel paths, and stare at the geraniums and calceolarias. +Mariana might have been dreary in her moated grange; but I daresay the +Lincolnshire flowers grew wild and free, and she was spared the +abomination of gaudy little patches of red and yellow, and waving +ribbons of blue and white, which constitute the glory of modern +gardening. Do come to me, dear. I have no one to talk to, and nothing +to do. Mamma is a dear good affectionate soul; but she and I don't +understand each other. I don't care for her twittering little birds, +and she doesn't care for my whims and fancies. I have read novels until +I am tired. I am not allowed to go out by myself, and mamma can +scarcely walk to Kensington-gardens without sinking under the exertion. +We drive out sometimes; but I am sick to death of crawling slowly up +and down by the Serpentine staring at people's bonnets. I might enjoy +it, perhaps, if I had you with me to make fun out of some of the +bonnets. The house is very comfortable; but it always seems to me +unpleasantly like some philanthropic institution in miniature. I long +to scratch the walls, or break the windows; and I begin to understand +the feelings of those unhappy paupers who tear up their clothes: they +get utterly tired of their stagnation, you see, and must do something +wicked and rebellious rather than do nothing at all. You will take pity +upon my forlorn state, won't you, Di? I shall come to Hyde Lodge +to-morrow afternoon with mamma, to hear your ulti--what's its +name?--and in the meanwhile, and for ever afterwards, believe me to be +your devoted and unchanging LOTTA." + +Diana Paget's eyes grew dim as she read this letter. + +"I love her very dearly," she thought, "but not one hundred-fold as +much as I ought to love her." + +And then she went back to Mr. Hawkehurst's epistle, and read and +re-read its half-dozen lines, wondering when he would come to London, +and whether she would see him when he came. To see him again! The +thought of that possibility seemed like a spot of vivid light, which +dazzled her eyes and made them blind to anything around or beyond it. +As for this offer of a strange home in the household of Mr. Sheldon, it +seemed to her a matter of so very little importance where she went or +what became of her, that she was quite willing to let other people +decide her existence. Anything would be better than the monotony of +Hyde Lodge. If Valentine Hawkehurst came to see her at Mr. Sheldon's +house, he would be permitted to see her alone, most likely, and it +would be something like the old times; whereas at the Lodge Priscilla +Paget or one of the governesses would undoubtedly be present at any +interview between Diana and her old friend, and the real Valentine +would be hidden under the semblance of a respectable young man, with +very little to say for himself. Perhaps this one thought exercised +considerable influence over Miss Paget's decision. She wanted so much +to see Valentine alone, to know whether he had changed, to see his face +at the first moment of meeting, and to discover, if possible, the +solution of that enigma which was the grand mystery of her life--that +one perpetual question which was always repeating itself in her +brain--whether he was altogether cold and indifferent, or if there was +not some hidden warmth, some secret tenderness beneath that repelling +outward seeming. + +In the afternoon Miss Halliday called with Mrs. Sheldon, and there was +a long discussion about Diana Paget's future life. Georgy abandoned +herself as unhesitatingly to the influence of her daughter as she did +to that of her husband, and had been brought to think that it would be +the most delightful thing in the world to have Miss Paget for a useful +companion. + +"And will you really make my caps, dear?" she said, when she had grown +at her ease with Diana. "Miss Terly in the Bayswater-road charges me so +much for the simplest little lace head-dress; and though Mr. Sheldon is +very good about those sort of things, I know he sometimes thinks my +bills rather high." + +Diana was very indifferent about her future, and the heart must have +been very hard which could have resisted Charlotte's tender pleading; +so it was ultimately decided that Miss Paget should write to her +kinswoman to describe the offer that had been made to her of a new +home, and to inquire if her services could be conveniently dispensed +with at Hyde Lodge. After which decision Charlotte embraced her friend +with enthusiasm, and departed, bearing off Mrs. Sheldon to the carriage +which awaited them at the gates of Priscilla Paget's umbrageous domain. + +Diana sighed as she went back to the empty schoolroom. Even Charlotte's +affection could not altogether take the sting out of dependence. To go +into a strange house amongst strange people, and to hold a place in it +only on the condition of being perpetually useful and unfailingly +good-tempered and agreeable, is scarcely the pleasantest prospect which +this world can offer to a proud and beautiful woman. Diana remembered +her bright vision of Bohemianism in a lodging near the Strand. It would +be very delightful to ride on sufferance in Mrs. Sheldon's carriage, no +doubt; but O, how much pleasanter it would have been to sit by +Valentine Hawkehurst in a hansom cab spinning along the road to +Greenwich or Richmond! + +She had promised to despatch her letter to Priscilla by that +afternoon's post, and she kept her promise. The reply came by return of +post, and was very kind. Priscilla advised her by all means to accept +Miss Halliday's offer, which would give her a much better position than +that which she occupied at Hyde Lodge. She would have time to improve +herself, no doubt, Priscilla said, and might be able to hope for +something still better in the course of two or three years; "for you +must look the world straight in the face, Diana," wrote the +schoolmistress, "as I did before I was your age; and make up your mind +to rely upon your own exertions, since you know what your father is, +and how little you have to hope for from him. As you are to have no +salary with the Sheldons, and will no doubt be expected to make a good +appearance, I shall do what I can to help you with your wardrobe." + +This letter decided the fate of Captain Paget's daughter. A week after +Miss Halliday's visit to Hyde Lodge a hack cab carried Diana and all +her earthly possessions to the Lawn, where Charlotte received her with +open arms, and where she was inducted into a neatly furnished +bedchamber adjoining that of her friend. Mr. Sheldon scrutinised her +keenly from under the shadow of his thick black brows when he came home +to dinner. He treated her with a stiff kind of politeness during the +orderly progress of the meal; and once, when he looked at her, he was +surprised to find that she was contemplating him with an expression of +mingled wonder and reverence. + +He was the first eminently respectable man whom Miss Paget had ever +encountered in familiar intercourse, and she was regarding him +attentively, as an individual with scientific tastes might regard some +natural curiosity. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +AT THE LAWN. + + +Life at the Lawn went by very smoothly for Mr. Sheldon's family. Georgy +was very happy in the society of a companion who seemed really to have +a natural taste for the manufacture of pretty little head-dresses from +the merest fragments of material in the way of lace and ribbon. Diana +had all that versatile cleverness and capacity for expedients which is +likely to be acquired in a wandering and troubled life. She had learned +more in her three years of discomfort with her father than in all the +undeviating course of the Hyde-Lodge studies; she had improved her +French at one _table d'hote_, her German at another; she had caught +some new trick of style in every concert-room, some fresh combination +of costume on every racecourse; and, being really grateful for +Charlotte's disinterested affection, she brought all her +accomplishments to bear to please her friend and her friend's household. + +In this she succeeded admirably. Mrs. Sheldon found her daughter's +society much more delightful now that the whole pressure of Charlotte's +intellect and vitality no longer fell entirely upon herself. She liked +to sit lazily in her arm-chair while the two girls chattered at their +work, and she could venture an occasional remark, and fancy that she +had a full share in the conversation. When the summer weather rendered +walking a martyrdom and driving an affliction, she could recline on her +favourite sofa reading a novel, soothed by the feeble twittering of her +birds; while Charlotte and Diana went out together, protected by the +smart boy in buttons, who was not altogether without human failings, +and was apt to linger behind his fair charges, reading the boards +before the doors of newsvendors' shops, or looking at the cartoons in +_Punch_ exhibited in the stationers' windows. + +Mr. Sheldon made a point of pleasing his stepdaughter whenever it was +possible for him to do so without palpable inconvenience to himself; +and as she was to be gratified by so small a pecuniary sacrifice as the +trifling increase of tradesmen's bills caused by Miss Paget's residence +in the gothic villa, he was the last man in the world to refuse her +that indulgence. His own pursuits were of so absorbing a nature as to +leave little leisure for concern about other people's business. He +asked no questions about his stepdaughter's companion; but he was not +the less surprised to see this beautiful high-bred woman content to sit +at his board as an unsalaried dependent. + +"Your friend Miss Paget looks like a countess," he said one day to +Charlotte. "I thought girls generally pitched upon some plain homely +young woman for their pet companion, but you seem to have chosen the +handsomest girl in the school." + +"Yes, she is very handsome, is she not? I wish some of your rich City +men would marry her, papa." + +Miss Halliday consented to call her mother's husband "papa," though the +caressing name seemed in a manner to stick in her throat. She had loved +that blustrous good-tempered Tom Halliday so very dearly, and it was +only to please poor Georgy that she brought herself to address any +other man by the name that had been his. + +"My City men have something better to do than to marry a young woman +without a sixpence," answered Mr. Sheldon. "Why don't you try to catch +one of them for yourself?" + +"I don't like City men," said Charlotte quickly; and then she blushed, +and added apologetically, "at least not the generality of City men, +papa." + +Diana had waited until her destiny was settled before answering +Valentine Hawkehurst's letter; but she wrote to him directly she was +established at the Lawn, and told him the change in her plans. + +"I think papa had better let me come to see him at his lodgings," she +said, "wherever they may be; for I should scarcely care about Mr. +Sheldon seeing him. No one here knows anything definite about my +history; and as it is just possible Mr. Sheldon may have encountered my +father somehow or other, it would be as well for him to keep clear of +this house. I could not venture to say this to papa myself, but perhaps +you could suggest it without offending him. You see I have grown very +worldly-wise, and am learning to protect my own interests in the spirit +which you have so instilled into me. I don't know whether that sort of +spirit is likely to secure one's happiness, but I have no doubt it is +the wisest and best for this world." + +Miss Paget could not refrain from an occasional sneer when she wrote to +her old companion. He never returned her sneers, or noticed them. His +letters were always frank, friendly, and brotherly in tone. + +"Neither my good opinion nor my bad opinion is of any consequence to +him," Diana thought bitterly. It was late in August when Captain Paget +and his _protege_ came to town. Valentine suggested the wisdom of +leaving Diana in her new home uncompromised by any past associations. +But this was a suggestion which Horatio Paget could not accept. His +brightest successes in the way of scheming had been matured out of +chance acquaintanceships with eligible men. A man who could afford such +a luxury as a companion for his daughter must needs be eligible, and +the Captain was not inclined to sacrifice his acquaintance from any +extreme delicacy. + +"My daughter seems to have made new friends for herself, and I should +like to see what kind of people they are," he said conclusively. "We'll +look them up this evening, Val." + +Mr. George Sheldon dined at the Lawn on the day on which Horatio Paget +determined on "looking up" his daughter's new friends, and he and the +two girls were strolling in the garden when the Captain and Mr. +Hawkehurst were announced. They had been told that Miss Paget was in +the garden. + +"Be good enough to take me straight to her," said the Captain to the +boy in buttons; "I am her father." + +Horatio Paget was too old a tactician not to know that by an +unceremonious plunge into the family circle he was more likely to +secure an easy footing in the household than by any direct approach of +the master. He had seen the little group in the garden, and had +mistaken George for the head of the house. + +Diana turned from pale to red, and from red to pale again, as she +recognised the two men. There had been no announcement of their coming. +She did not even know that they were in England. + +"Papa!" she cried, and then held out her hand and greeted him; coldly +enough, as it seemed to Charlotte, who fancied that any kind of _real_ +father must be very dear. + +But Captain Paget was not to be satisfied by that cold greeting. It +suited his purpose to be especially paternal on this occasion. He drew +his daughter to his breast, and embraced her affectionately, very much +to that young lady's surprise. + +Then, having abandoned himself entirely for the moment to this tender +impulse of paternity, he suddenly put his daughter aside, as if he had +all at once remembered his duty to society, drew himself up stiffly, +and saluted Miss Halliday and George Sheldon with uncovered head. + +"Mr. Sheldon, I believe?" he murmured. + +"George Sheldon," answered that gentleman; "my brother Philip is in the +drawing-room yonder, looking at us." + +Philip Sheldon came out into the garden as George said this, It was one +of those sultry evenings on which the most delightful of gothic villas +is apt to be too stifling for endurance; and in most of the prim +suburban gardens there were people lounging listlessly among the +flower-beds. Mr. Sheldon came to look at this patrician stranger who +had just embraced his daughter's companion; whereupon Captain Paget +introduced himself and his friend Mr. Hawkehurst. After the +introduction Mr. Sheldon and the Captain fell into an easy +conversation, while the two girls walked slowly along the gravel +pathway with Valentine by their side, and while George loitered +drearily along, chewing the stalk of a geranium, and pondering the +obscure reminiscences of the last oldest inhabitant whose shadowy +memories he had evoked in his search after new links in the chain of +the Haygarths. + +The two girls walked in the familiar schoolgirl fashion of Hyde Lodge, +Charlotte's arm encircling the waist of her friend. They were both +dressed in white muslin, and looked very shadowy and sylph-like in the +summer dusk. Mr. Hawkehurst found himself in a new atmosphere in this +suburban garden, with these two white-robed damsels by his side; for it +seemed to him that Diana with Charlotte's arm round her waist, and a +certain shy gentleness of manner which was new to him, was quite a +different person from that Miss Paget whose wan face had looked at him +so anxiously in the saloons of the Belgian Kursaal. + +At first there was considerable restraint in the tone of the +conversation, and some little of that unnecessary discussion as to +whether this evening was warmer than the preceding evening, or whether +it was not, indeed, the warmest evening of all that summer. And then, +when the ice was broken, Mr. Hawkehurst began to talk at his ease about +Paris, which city Miss Halliday had never seen; about the last book, +the last play, the last folly, the last fashionable bonnet; for it was +one of the special attributes of this young Robert Macaire to be able +to talk about anything, and to adapt himself to any society. Charlotte +opened her eyes to their widest extent as she listened to this animated +stranger. She had been so wearied by the dry as dust arguments of City +men who had discussed the schemes of great contractors, "which will +never be carried out, sir, while money is at its present rate, mark my +words,"--or the chances of a company "which is eaten up by +debenture-bonds and preference-shares, sir, and will never pay its +original proprietors one sixpence of interest on their capital," with a +great deal more of the same character; and it was quite new to her to +hear about novels, theatres, and bonnets from masculine lips, and to +find that there were men living who could interest themselves in such +frivolities. Charlotte was delighted with Diana's friend. It was she +who encouraged Valentine every now and then by some exclamation of +surprise or expression of interest, while Miss Paget herself was +thoughtful and silent. + +It was not thus that she had hoped to meet Valentine Hawkehurst. She +stole a look at him now and then as he walked by her side. Yes, it was +the old face--the face which would have been so handsome if there had +been warmth and life in it, instead of that cold listlessness which +repelled all sympathy, and seemed to constitute a kind of mask behind +which the real man hid himself. + +Diana looked at him, and remembered her parting from him in the chill +gray morning on the platform at Foretdechene. He had let her go out +alone into the dreary world to encounter what fate she might, without +any more appearance of anxiety than he might have exhibited had she +been starting for a summer-day's holiday; and now, after a year of +separation, he met her with the same air of unconcern, and could +discourse conventional small talk to another woman while she walked by +his side. + +While Mr. Hawkehurst was talking to Mr. Sheldon's stepdaughter, Captain +Paget had contrived to make himself very agreeable to that gentleman +himself. Lord Lytton has said that "there is something strange and +almost mesmerical in the _rapport_ between two evil natures. Bring two +honest men together, and it is ten to one if they recognise each other +as honest; differences in temper, manner, even politics, may make each +misjudge the other. But bring together two men unprincipled and +perverted--men who, if born in a cellar, would have been food for the +hulks or gallows--and they understand each other by instant sympathy." +However this might be with these two men, they had speedily become upon +very easy terms with each other. Mr. Sheldon's plans for the making of +money were very complicated in their nature, and he had frequent need +of clever instruments to assist in the carrying out of his +arrangements. Horatio Paget was the exact type of man most likely to be +useful to such a speculator as Philip Sheldon. He was the very ideal of +the "Promoter," the well-dressed, well-mannered gentleman, beneath +whose magic wand new companies arise as if by magic; the man who, +without a sixpence in his own pocket, can set a small Pactolus flowing +from the pockets of other people; the man who, content himself to live +in a humble second floor at Chelsea, can point to gigantic hotels which +are as the palaces of a new Brobdignag, and say, "Lo, these arose at my +bidding!" Mr. Sheldon was always on the alert to discover anything or +anybody likely to serve his own interest, either in the present or the +future; and he came to the conclusion that Miss Paget's father was a +person upon whom an occasional dinner might not be altogether thrown +away. + +"Take a chop with us to-morrow at six," he said, on parting from the +Captain, "and then you can hear the two girls play and sing. They play +remarkably well, I believe, from what other people tell me; but I am +not a musical man myself." + +Horatio Paget accepted the invitation as cordially as it was given. It +is astonishing how genial and friendly these men of the world can be at +the slightest imaginable notice. One can fancy the striped tigers of +Bengal shaking paws in the jungle, the vultures hob-nobbing in a +mountain cleft over the torn carcass of a stag, the kites putting their +beaks together after dining on a nest of innocent doves. + +"Then we shall expect to see you at sharp six," said Mr. Sheldon, "and +your friend Mr. Hawkehurst with you, of course." + +After this the two gentlemen departed. Valentine shook hands with +Diana, and took a more ceremonious leave of Charlotte. George Sheldon +threw away his chewed geranium-stalk in order to bid good evening to +the visitors; and the little party walked to the garden-gate together. + +"That Sheldon seems a very clever fellow," said Captain Paget, as he +and Valentine walked towards the Park, which they had to cross on their +way to Chelsea, where the Captain had secured a convenient lodging. "I +wonder whether he is any relation to the Sheldon who is in with a low +set of money-lenders?" + +"What, the Sheldon of Gray's Inn?" exclaimed Mr. Hawkehurst. "We can +easily find that out." + + * * * * * + +Horatio Paget and Valentine Hawkehurst were frequent visitors at the +Lawn after that first evening. Mr. Sheldon found the Captain useful to +him in the carrying out of certain business arrangements on more than +one occasion, and the relations between the respectable stockbroker and +the disreputable adventurer assumed a very friendly character. Diana +wondered to see so spotless a citizen as Philip Sheldon hand-and-glove +with her father. Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte were delighted with the +Captain and his _protege_; these two penniless Bohemians were so much +more agreeable to the feminine mind than the City men who were wont to +sit in the dining-room slowly imbibing Mr. Sheldon's old port in the +long summer evenings, while their wives endured the abomination of +desolation with Georgy and Charlotte in the drawing-room. Captain Paget +paid Mrs. Sheldon flowery compliments, and told her delightful stories +of the aristocracy and all that shining West-end world with which he +had once been familiar. Poor simple Georgy regarded him with that +reverential awe which a middle-class country-bred woman is prone to +feel for a man who bears upon him that ineffaceable stamp of high birth +and good breeding, not to be destroyed by half a century of +degradation. Nor could Charlotte withhold her admiration from the man +whose tone was so infinitely superior to that of all the other men she +had encountered. In his darkest hour Captain Paget had found his best +friends, or his easiest dupes, among women. It had gone hard with him +when his dear friend had withheld the temporary accommodation of a +five-pound note; but it had been much harder when his friend's wife had +refused the loan of "a little silver." + +Valentine Hawkehurst came very often to the Lawn, sometimes with his +friend and patron, sometimes alone. He brought the young ladies small +offerings in the way of a popular French novel adapted for feminine +perusal, or an occasional box for some theatre which had fallen upon +evil days, and was liberal in the circulation of "paper." He met the +two girls sometimes in their morning walks in Kensington-gardens, and +walked with them in the leafy avenues, and only left them at the gate +by which they departed. So much of his life was a listless waiting for +the arising of new chances, that he had ample time to waste in feminine +society, and he seemed very well inclined to loiter away the leisure +hours of existence in the companionship of Diana and her friend. + +And was Miss Paget glad of his coming, and pleased to be in his +company? Alas, no! The time had been, and only within a few months, +when she had sickened for the sight of his familiar face, and fancied +that the most exquisite happiness life could afford her would be to see +him once more, anywhere, under any circumstances. She saw him now +almost daily, and she was miserable. She saw him; but another woman had +come between her and the man she loved: and now, if his voice took a +softer tone, or if his eyes assumed a tender earnestness of expression, +it might be Charlotte's influence which wrought the transformation. Who +could say that it was not on Charlotte's account he came so often, and +lingered so long? Diana looked at him sometimes with haggard angry +eyes, which saw that it was Miss Halliday who absorbed his attention. +It was Charlotte--Charlotte, who was so bright and happy a creature +that the coldest heart must needs have been moved and melted by her +fascination. What was the cold patrician beauty of Miss Paget's face +when compared with the changeful charm of this radiant girl, with the +flashing gray eyes and piquant features, and all those artless caprices +of manner which made her arch loveliness irresistible? Diana's heart +grew sick and cold as she watched these two day by day, and saw the +innocent school-girl's ascendancy over the adventurer. The attributes +which made Charlotte charming were just those very attributes which +Valentine Hawkehurst had been least accustomed to discover in the +womankind he had hitherto encountered. He had seen beautiful women, +elegant and fascinating women, without number; but this frank girlish +nature, this happy childlike disposition, was entirely new to him. How +should he have met bright childlike creatures in the pathways which he +had trodden? For the first time in his life a fresh young heart +revealed its treasures of purity and tenderness before his world-weary +eyes, and his own heart was melted by the new influence. He had admired +Diana; he had been touched by her girlish fancy for him, and had loved +her as well as he had believed himself capable of loving any woman. But +when Prudence and Honour counselled him to stifle and crush his growing +affection for the beautiful companion of his wanderings, the struggle +had involved no agony of regret or despair. He had told himself that no +good could ever come of his love for Captain Paget's daughter, and he +had put aside that love before it had taken any vital root in his +heart. He had been very strong and resolute in this matter--resisting +looks of sad surprise which would have melted a softer nature. And he +had been proud of his own firmness. "Better for her, and better for +me," he had said to himself: "let her outlive her foolish schoolgirl +fancies, and wait patiently till her beauty wins her a rich husband. As +for me, I must marry some prosperous tradesman's widow, if I ever marry +at all." + +The influence of the world in which his life had been spent had +degraded Valentine Hawkehurst, and had done much to harden him; and yet +he was not altogether hard. He discovered his own weakness very soon +after the beginning of his acquaintance with Mr. Sheldon's +stepdaughter. He knew very well that if he had been no fitting lover +for Diana Paget, he was still less a fitting lover for Charlotte +Halliday. He knew that although it might suit Mr. Sheldon's purpose to +make use of the Captain and himself as handy instruments for the +accomplishment of somewhat dirty work, he would be the very last man to +accept one of those useful instruments as a husband for his +stepdaughter. He knew all this; and knew that, apart from all worldly +considerations, there was an impassable gulf between himself and +Charlotte. What could there be in common between the unprincipled +companion of Horatio Paget and this innocent girl, whose darkest sin +had been a neglected lesson or an ill-written exercise? If he could +have given her a home and a position, an untarnished name and +respectable associations, he would even yet have been unworthy of her +affection, unable to assure her happiness. + +"I am a scoundrel and an adventurer," he said to himself, in his most +contemptuous spirit. "If some benevolent fairy were to give me the +brightest home that was ever created for man, and Charlotte for my +wife, I daresay I should grow tired of my happiness in a week or two, +and go out some night to look for a place where I could play billiards +and drink beer. Is there any woman upon this earth who could render my +existence supportable _without_ billiards and beer?" + +Knowing himself much better than the Grecian philosopher seemed to +think it possible for human nature to know itself, Mr. Hawkehurst +decided that it was his bounden duty, both for his own sake and that of +the young lady in question, to keep clear of the house in which Miss +Halliday lived, and the avenue in which she was wont to walk. He told +himself this a dozen times a day, and yet he made his appearance at the +Lawn whenever he had the poorest shadow of an excuse for going there; +and it seemed as if the whole business of his life lay at the two ends +of Charlotte's favourite avenue, so often did he find himself called +upon to perambulate that especial thoroughfare. He knew that he was +weak and foolish and dishonourable; he knew that he was sowing the +dragon's teeth from which were to spring up armed demons that would +rend and tear him. But Charlotte's eyes were unspeakably bright and +bewitching, and Charlotte's voice was very sweet and tender. A +thrilling consciousness that he was not altogether an indifferent +person in Charlotte's consideration had possessed him of late when he +found himself in that young lady's society, and a happiness which had +hitherto been strange to him gave a new zest to his purposeless life. + +He still affected the old indifference of manner, the idle listless +tone of a being who has finished with all the joys and sorrows, +affections and aspirations, of the world in which he lives. But the +pretence had of late become a very shallow one. In Charlotte's presence +he was eager and interested in spite of himself--childishly eager about +the veriest trifles which interested her. Love had taken up the glass +of Time; and the days and hours were reckoned by a new standard; +everything in the world had suffered some wondrous change, which +Valentine Hawkehurst tried in vain to understand. The very earth upon +which he walked had undergone some mystic process of transformation; +the very streets of London were new to him. He had known +Kensington-gardens from his boyhood; but not those enchanted avenues of +beech and elm in which he walked with Charlotte. In the plainest and +most commonplace phraseology, Mr. Hawkehurst had fallen in love. This +penniless adventurer, who at eight-and-twenty years of age was steeped +to the lips in the worst experiences of a very indifferent world, found +himself all at once hanging upon the words and living upon the looks of +an ignorant schoolgirl. + +The discovery that he was capable of this tender weakness had an almost +overwhelming effect upon Mr. Hawkehurst. He was ashamed of this touch +of humanity, this foolish affection which had awakened all that was +purest and best in a nature that had been so long abandoned to +degrading influences. For some time he fought resolutely against that +which he considered his folly; but the training which had made him the +master of many a perplexing position had not given him the mastery over +his own inclinations; and when he found that Charlotte's society had +become the grand necessity of his life, he abandoned himself to his +fate without further resistance. He let himself drift with the tide +that was so much stronger than himself; and if there were breakers +ahead, or fatal rocks lurking invisible beneath the blue waters, he +must take his chance. His frail bark must go to pieces when her time +came. In the meanwhile it was so delicious to float upon the summer +sea, that a man could afford to forget future possibilities in the way +of rocks and quicksands. + +Miss Paget had known very few pleasures in the course of her +uncared-for youth; but she hitherto had experienced no such anguish as +that which she had now to endure in her daily intercourse with +Valentine and Charlotte. She underwent her martyrdom bravely, and no +prying eye discovered the sufferings which her proud nature supported +in silence. "Who takes any heed of my feelings, or cares whether I am +glad or sorry?" she thought; "_he_ does not." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN. + + +The sand which ran so swiftly in the glass which that bright young +urchin Love had wrested from the hand of grim old Time ran with an +almost equal swiftness in the hour-glasses of lodging-house keepers and +tradespeople, and the necessities of every day demanded perpetual +exertion on the part of Mr. Hawkehurst, let Charlotte's eyes be never +so bright, and Charlotte's society never so dear. For Captain Paget and +his _protege_ there was no such thing as rest; and the ingenious +Captain took care that the greater part of the labour should be +performed by Valentine, while the lion's share of the spoil was pounced +upon by the ready paw of the noble Horatio. Just now he found his pupil +unusually plastic, unusually careless of his own interests, and ready +to serve his master with agreeable blindness. Since that awkward little +affair at Foretdechene, that tiresome entanglement about a King of +Spades which had put in an appearance at a moment when no such monarch +was to be expected, Captain Paget had obtained the means of existence +in a manner which was almost respectable, if not altogether honest; for +it is not to be supposed that honesty and respectability are by any +means synonymous terms. It was only by the exercise of superhuman +address that the Captain had extricated himself from that perplexing +predicament at the Belgian watering-place; and it may be that the +unpleasant experiences of that particular evening were not without a +salutary effect upon the adventurer's future plans. + +"It was touch-and-go work, Val," he said to his companion; "and if I +hadn't carried matters with a high hand, and sprung my position as an +officer in the English service upon those French ruffians, I don't know +where it would have ended." + +"It might have come to a metallic ornamentation of the ankle, and some +amiable 444, who has murdered his grandmother with a red-hot poker and +extenuating circumstances, for your companion," murmured Valentine. "I +wouldn't try it on with that supererogatory king again on this side of +the Channel, if I were you." + +The Captain bestowed a freezing look on his flippant _protege_ and then +commenced a very grave discussion of future ways and means, which ended +in an immediate departure for Paris, where the two men entered upon an +unpretentious career in the commercial line as agents and travellers +for the patentees of an improved kind of gutta percha, which material +was supposed to be applicable to every imaginable purpose, from the +sole of an infant's boot to the roof of a cathedral. There are times +when genius must stoop to pick up its daily pittance; and for twelve +months the elegant Horatio Paget was content to devote his best +energies to the perpetual praise of the Incorrodible and Indestructible +and Incombustible India-rubber, in consideration of a very modest +percentage on his commercial transactions in that material. To exert +the persuasive eloquence of a Burke or a Thurlow in order to induce a +man to roof his new warehouses with a fabric which you are aware will +be torn into ribbons by the first run of stormy weather, for the sake +of obtaining two-and-a-half per cent on his investment, may not be in +accordance with the honourable notions of a Bayard, and yet in a +commercial sense may be strictly correct. It was only when Captain +Paget had made a comfortable little purse out of his percentage upon +the Incorrodible and Incombustible that he discovered the extreme +degradation of his position as agent and traveller. He determined on +returning to the land of his birth. Joint-stock companies were +beginning to multiply in the commercial world at this period; and +wherever there are many schemes for the investment of public capital +there is room for such a man as Horatio Paget--a man who, with the aid +of a hired brougham, can inspire confidence in the breast of the least +daring speculator. + +The Captain came, accompanied as usual by that plastic tool and +subaltern, Valentine Hawkehurst, who, being afflicted with a chronic +weariness of everything in life, was always eager to abandon any +present pursuit in favour of the vaguest contingency, and to shake off +the dust of any given locality from his vagabond feet. Captain Paget +and his _protege_ came to London, where a fortunate combination of +circumstances threw them in the way of Mr. Sheldon. + +The alliance which arose between that gentleman and the Captain opened +a fair prospect for the latter. Mr. Sheldon was interested in the +formation of a certain joint-stock company, but had his own reasons for +not wishing to be identified with it. A stalking-horse is by no means a +difficult kind of animal to procure in the cattle-fairs of London; but +a stalking-horse whose paces are sufficiently showy and imposing--a +high-stepper, of thoroughbred appearance, and a mouth sensitively alive +to the lightest touch of the curb, easy to ride or drive, warranted +neither a kicker nor a bolter--is a quadruped of rare excellence, not +to be met with every day. Just such a stalking-horse was Captain Paget; +and Mr. Sheldon lost no time in putting him into action. It is scarcely +necessary to say that the stockbroker trusted his new acquaintance only +so far as it was absolutely necessary to trust him; or that the Captain +and the stockbroker thoroughly understood each other without affecting +to do so. For Horatio Paget the sun of prosperity arose in unaccustomed +splendour. He was able to pay for his lodgings, and was an eminently +respectable person in the eyes of his landlord. He enjoyed the daily +use of a neatly-appointed brougham, in which only the most practised +eye could discover the taint of the livery stable. He dined sumptuously +at fashionable restaurants, and wore the freshest of lavender gloves, +the most delicate of waxen heath-blossoms or creamy-tinted exotics in +the button-hole of his faultless coat. + +While the chief flourished, the subaltern was comparatively idle. The +patrician appearance and manners of the Captain were a perennial source +of profit to that gentleman; but Valentine Hawkehurst had not a +patrician appearance; and the work which Mr. Sheldon found for him was +of a more uncertain and less profitable character than that which fell +to the share of the elegant Horatio. But Valentine was content. He +shared the Captain's lodging, though he did not partake of the +Captain's dinners or ride in the smart little brougham. He had a roof +to shelter him, and was rarely unprovided with the price of some kind +of dinner; and as this was the highest order of prosperity he had ever +known, he was content. He was more than content; for the first time in +his existence he knew what it was to be happy. A purer joy than life +had ever held for him until now made him careless whether his dinner +cost eighteenpence or eighteen shillings; whether he rode in the most +perfect of broughams or walked in the mud. He took no heed for the +future; he forgot the past, and abandoned himself heart and soul to the +new delights of the present. + +Never had Philip Sheldon found so willing a tool, so cheap a drudge. +Valentine was ready to do anything or everything for Charlotte's +stepfather, since his relations with that gentleman enabled him to +spend so much of his life with Charlotte. + +But even in this sublimated state of mind Mr. Hawkehurst was not exempt +from the great necessity of Mr. Skimpole and humanity at large. He +wanted pounds. His garments were shabby, and he desired new and elegant +raiment in which to appear to advantage before the eyes of the woman he +loved. It had been his privilege on several occasions to escort Mrs. +Sheldon and the two younger ladies to a theatre; and even this +privilege had cost him money. He wanted pounds to expend upon those new +books and music which served so often as the excuse for a visit to the +Lawn. He wanted pounds for very trivial purposes; but he wanted them +desperately. A lover without pounds is the most helpless and +contemptible of mankind; he is a knight-errant without his armour, a +troubadour without his lute. + +In his dilemma Mr. Hawkehurst resorted to that simple method which +civilisation has devised for the relief of pecuniary difficulties of a +temporary nature. He had met George Sheldon several times at the Lawn, +and had become tolerably intimate with that gentleman, whom he now knew +to be "the Sheldon of Gray's Inn," and the ally and agent of certain +bill-discounters. To George he went one morning; and after requesting +that Captain Paget should know nothing of his application, explained +his requirements. It was a very small sum which he asked for, modestly +conscious that the security he had to offer was of the weakest. He only +wanted thirty pounds, and was willing to give a bill at two months for +five-and-thirty. + +There was a good deal of hesitation on the part of the lawyer; but +Valentine had expected to meet with some difficulty, and was not +altogether unprepared for a point-blank refusal. He was agreeably +surprised when George Sheldon told him he would manage that "little +matter; only the bill must be for forty." But in proof of the liberal +spirit in which Mr. Hawkehurst was to be treated, the friendly lawyer +informed him that the two months should be extended to three. + +Valentine did not stop to consider that by this friendly process he was +to pay at the rate of something over a hundred and thirty per cent per +annum for the use of the money he wanted. He knew that this was his +only chance of getting money; so he shut his eyes to the expensive +nature of the transaction, and thanked Mr. Sheldon for the +accommodation granted to him. + +"And now we've settled that little business, I should like to have a +few minutes' private chat with you," said George, "on the understanding +that what passes between you and me is strictly confidential." + +"Of course!" + +"You seem to have been leading rather an idle life for the last few +months; and it strikes me, Mr. Hawkehurst, you're too clever a fellow +to care about that sort of thing." + +"Well, I have been in some measure wasting my sweetness on the desert +air," Valentine answered carelessly. "The governor seems to have +slipped into a good berth by your brother's agency; but I am not +Horatio Nugent Cromie Paget, and the brougham and lavender kids of the +Promoter are not for me." + +"There is money to be picked up by better dodges than promoting," +replied the attorney ambiguously; "but I suppose you wouldn't care for +anything that didn't bring immediate cash? You wouldn't care to +speculate the chances, however well the business might promise?" + +"_C'est selon!_ That's as may be," answered Valentine coolly. "You see +those affairs that promise so much are apt to fail when it comes to a +question of performance. I'm not a capitalist; I can't afford to become +a speculator. I've been living from hand to mouth lately by means of +occasional contributions to a sporting weekly, and a little bit of +business which your brother threw in my way. I've been able to be +tolerably useful to him, and he promises to get me something in the way +of a clerkship, foreign correspondence, and that kind of thing." + +"Humph!" muttered George Sheldon; "that means eighty pounds a year and +fourteen hours' work a day, letters that must be answered by this mail, +and so on. I don't think that kind of drudgery would ever suit you, +Hawkehurst. You've not served the right apprenticeship for that sort of +thing; you ought to try for some higher game. What should you say to an +affair that might put two or three thousand pounds in your pocket if it +was successful?" + +"I should feel very much inclined to fancy it a bubble--one of those +dazzling rainbow-tinted globes which look so bright dancing about in +the sunshine, and explode into nothing directly they encounter any +tangible substance. However, my dear Sheldon, if you really have any +employment to offer to a versatile young man who is not overburdened +with vulgar prejudices, you'd better put the business in plain words." + +"I will," answered George; "but it's not an affair that can be +discussed in five minutes. It's rather a serious matter, and involves a +good deal of consideration. I know that you're a man of the world, and +a very clever fellow into the bargain; but there's something more than +that wanted for this business, and that is patience. The hare is a very +fine animal in her way, you know; but a man must have a little of the +tortoise in him if he wants to achieve anything out of the common run +in the way of good luck. I have been working, and waiting, and +speculating the chances for the last fifteen years, and I think I've +got a good chance at last. But there's a good deal of work to be done +before the business is finished; and I find that I must have some one +to help me." + +"What sort of business is it?" + +"The search for the heir-at-law of a man who has died intestate within +the last ten years." + +The two men looked at each other at this juncture; and Valentine +Hawkehurst smiled significantly. + +"Within the last ten years?" he said. "That's rather a wide margin." + +"Do you think you would be a good hand at hunting up the missing links +in the chain of a family history?" asked Mr. Sheldon. "It's rather +tiresome work, you know, and requires no common amount of patience and +perseverance." + +"I can persevere," said Valentine decisively, "if you can show me that +it will be worth my while to do so. You want an heir-at-law, and I'm to +look for him. What am I to get while I'm looking for him? and what is +to be my reward if I find him?" + +"I'll give you a pound a week and your travelling expenses while you're +employed in the search; and I'll give you three thousand pounds on the +day the heir gets his rights." + +"Humph!" muttered Mr. Hawkehurst, rather doubtfully; "three thousand +pounds is a very respectable haul. But then, you see, I may fail to +discover the heir; and even if I do find him the chances are ten to one +that the business would be thrown into Chancery at the last moment; in +which case I might wait till doomsday for the reward of my labours." + +George Sheldon shrugged his shoulders impatiently. He had expected this +penniless adventurer to catch eagerly at the chance he offered. "Three +thousand pounds are not to be picked up in the streets," he said. "If +you don't care to work with me, I can find plenty of clever fellows in +London who'll jump at the business." + +"And you want me to begin work--?" + +"Immediately." + +"And how am I to pay forty pounds in three months out of a pound a +week?" + +"Never mind the bill," said Mr. Sheldon, with lofty generosity. "If you +work heart and soul for me, I'll square that little matter for you; +I'll get it renewed for another three months." + +"In that case I'm your man. I don't mind a little hard work just now, +and I can live upon a pound a week where another man would starve. So +now for my instructions." + +There was a brief pause, during which the lawyer refreshed himself by +walking up and down his office two or three times with his hands in his +pockets. After which relief he seated himself before his desk, took out +a sheet of foolscap, and selected a pen from the inkstand. + +"It's just as well to put things in a thoroughly business-like manner," +he said presently. "I suppose you'd have no objection to signing a +memorandum of agreement--nothing that would be of any use in a court of +law, you know, but a simple understanding between man and man, for our +own satisfaction, as a safeguard against all possibility of +misunderstanding in the future. I've every reason to consider you the +most honourable of men, you know; but honourable men turn round upon +each other sometimes. You might ask me for something more than three +thou' if you succeeded in your search." + +"Precisely; or I might make terms with the heir-at-law, and throw you +over. Perhaps that was your idea?" + +"Not exactly. The first half of the chain is in my hands, and the +second half will be worth nothing without it. But to prevent all +unpleasantness we may as well put our intentions upon record." + +"I've not the least objection," replied Valentine with supreme +indifference. "Draw up whatever memorandum you please, and I'll sign +it. If you don't mind smoke, I should like to console myself with a +cigar while you draw the bond." + +The question was a polite formula, the atmosphere of George Sheldon's +office being redolent of stale tobacco. + +"Smoke away," said the lawyer; "and if you can drink brandy-and-soda at +this time of day, you'll find the _de quoi_ in that cupboard. Make +yourself at home." + +Mr. Hawkehurst declined the brandy-and-soda, and regaled himself only +with a cigar, which he took from his own case. He sat in one of the +second-floor windows smoking, and looking dreamily into the gardens, +while George Sheldon drew up the agreement. He was thinking that any +hazard which took him away from London and Charlotte Halliday might be +a fortunate one. + +The lawyer finished his document, which he read aloud for the benefit +of the gentleman who was to sign it. The agreement was in the following +terms:-- + +"Memorandum of agreement between George Sheldon on the one part, and +Valentine Hawkehurst on the other part, whereby it is this day mutually +agreed by and between the parties hereto as follows: + +"1. That, in consideration of a weekly salary of one pound while in +pursuit of certain inquiries, and of the sum of three thousand pounds +to be paid upon the arising of a certain event, namely, the +establishment of an heir-at-law to the estates of the late John +Haygarth, the said Valentine Hawkehurst shall act as agent for the said +George Sheldon, and shall not at any time during the continuance of +this agreement do any act to prejudice the inquiry or the steps now +being taken by the said George Sheldon to discover and establish an +heir-at-law to the estates of the late John Haygarth. + +"2. That at no time hereafter shall the said Valentine Hawkehurst be +entitled to a larger recompense than is herein-before provided; nor +shall he be liable to the said George Sheldon for the return of any +moneys which the said George Sheldon may advance on account of the said +inquiries in the event of the same not resulting in the establishment +of an heir to the estates of the late John Haygarth. + +"3. That the said Valentine Hawkehurst shall not alter his character of +agent to the said George Sheldon during the prosecution of the said +inquiry; that he shall deliver over to the said George Sheldon all +documents and other forms of evidence that may arise from his, the said +Valentine Hawkehurst's, inquires; and that he shall week by week, and +every week, and as often as may be necessary, report to the said George +Sheldon the result of such inquiries, and that he shall not on any +pretence whatever be at liberty to withhold such fruits of his +researches, nor discover the same to any one else than the said George +Sheldon, under a penalty of ten thousand pounds, to be recovered as +liquidated damages previously agreed between the parties as the measure +of damages payable to the said George Sheldon upon the breach of this +agreement by the said Valentine Hawkehurst. + +"In witness whereof the parties hereto have this 20th day of September +1862 set their hands and affixed their seals." + +"That sounds stiff enough to hold water in a court of law," said Valentine, +when George Sheldon had recited the contents of the document. + +"I don't suppose it would be much good in Chancery-lane," returned the +lawyer carelessly; "though I daresay it sounds rather formidable to +you. When one gets the trick of the legal jargon, it's not easy to draw +the simplest form of agreement without a few superfluous words. I may +as well call in my clerk to witness our signatures, I suppose." + +"Call in any one you like." + +The clerk was summoned from a sunless and airless den at the back of +his principal's office. The two men appended their signatures to the +document; the clerk added his in witness of the genuine nature of those +signatures. It was an affair of two minutes. The clerk was dismissed. +Mr. Sheldon blotted and folded the memorandum, and laid it aside in one +of the drawers of his desk. + +"Come," he said cheerily, "that's a business-like beginning at any +rate. And now you'd better have some brandy-and-soda, for what I've got +to say will take some time in the saying of it." + +On this occasion Mr. Hawkehurst accepted the lawyer's hospitality, and +there was some little delay before the conversation proceeded. + +It was a very long conversation. Mr. Sheldon produced a bundle of +papers, and exhibited some of them to his agent, beginning with that +advertisement in the _Times_ which had first attracted his notice, but +taking very good care _not_ to show his coadjutor the obituary in the +_Observer_, wherein the amount of the intestate's fortune was stated. +The ready wits which had been sharpened at so many different +grindstones proved keen enough for the occasion. Valentine Hawkehurst +had had little to do with genealogies or baptismal registers during his +past career; but his experiences were of such a manifold nature that he +was not easily to be baffled or mystified by any new experience. He +showed himself almost as quick at tracing up the intricacies of a +family tree as Mr. Sheldon, the astute attorney and practised +genealogist. + +"I have traced these Haygarths back to the intestate's +great-grandfather, who was a carpenter and a Puritan in the reign of +Charles the First. He seems to have made money--how I have not been +able to discover with any certainty; but it is more than probable he +served in the civil wars, and came in for some of the plunder those +crop-eared, psalm-singing, +pierce-the-brain-of-the-tyrant-with-the-nail-of-Jael scoundrels were +always in the way of, at the sack of Royalist mansions. The man made +money; and his son, the grandfather of the intestate, was a wealthy +citizen in the reigns of Anne and the first George. He was a grocer, +and lived in the market-place of Ullerton in Leicestershire; an +out-of-the-way sleepy place it is now, but was prosperous enough in +those days, I daresay. This man (the grandfather) began the world well +off, and amassed a large fortune before he had done with it. The lucky +beggar lived in the days when free trade and competition were unknown, +when tea was something like sixty shillings a pound, and when a +psalm-singing sleek-haired fellow, with a reputation for wealth and +honesty, might cheat his customers to his heart's content. He had one +son, Matthew, who seems, from what I can gather, to have been a wild +sort of fellow in the early part of his career, and not to have been at +any time on the best possible terms with the sanctimonious dad. This +Matthew married at fifty-three years of age, and died a year after his +marriage, leaving one son, who afterwards became the reverend +intestate; with whom, according to the evidence at present before me, +ends the direct line of the Haygarths." The lawyer paused, turned over +two or three papers, and then resumed his explanation. "The +sanctimonious grocer, Jonathan Haygarth, had one other child besides +the son--a daughter called Ruth, who married a certain Peter Judson, +and became the mother of a string of sons and daughters; and it is +amongst the descendants of these Judsons that we may have to look for +our heir at law, unless we find him nearer home. Now my idea is that we +_shall_ find him nearer home." + +"What reason have you for forming that idea?" asked Valentine. + +"I will tell you. This Matthew Haygarth is known to have been a wild +fellow. I obtained a good deal of fragmentary information about him +from an old man in some almshouses at Ullerton, whose grandfather was a +schoolfellow of Matthew's. He was a scapegrace, and was always spending +money in London while the respectable psalm-singer was hoarding it in +Ullerton. There used to be desperate quarrels between the two men, and +towards the end of Jonathan Haygarth's life the old man made half a +dozen different wills in favour of half a dozen different people, and +cutting off scapegrace Matthew with a shilling. Fortunately for +scapegrace Matthew, the old man had a habit of quarrelling with his +dearest friends--a fashion not quite exploded in this enlightened +nineteenth century--and the wills were burnt one after another, until +the worthy Jonathan became as helpless and foolish as his great +contemporary and namesake, the Dean of St. Patrick's; and after having +died 'first at top,' did his son the favour to die altogether, +_intestate_, whereby the roisterer and spendthrift of Soho and +Covent-garden came into a very handsome fortune. The old man died in +1766, aged eighty; a very fine specimen of your good old English +tradesman of the Puritanical school. The roisterer, Matthew, was by +this time forty-six years of age, and, I suppose, had grown tired of +roistering. In any case he appears to have settled down very quietly in +the old family house in the Ullerton market-place, where he married a +respectable damsel of the Puritan school, some seven years after, and +in which house, or in the neighbourhood whereof, he departed this life, +with awful suddenness, one year after his marriage, leaving his son and +heir, the reverend intestate. And now, my dear Hawkehurst, you're a +sharp fellow, and I daresay a good hand at guessing social conundrums; +so perhaps you begin to see my idea." + +"I can't say I do." + +"My notion is, that Matthew Haygarth may possibly have married before +he was fifty-three years of age. Men of his stamp don't often live to +that ripe age without being caught in matrimonial toils somehow or +other. It was in the days of Fleet marriages--in the days when young +men about town were even more reckless and more likely to become the +prey of feminine deception than they are now. The fact that Matthew +Haygarth revealed no such marriage is no conclusive evidence against my +hypothesis. He died very suddenly--intestate, as it seems the habit of +these Haygarths to die; and he had never made any adjustment of his +affairs. According to the oldest inhabitant in Ullerton almshouses, +this Matthew was a very handsome fellow, generous-hearted, +open-handed--a devil-may-care kind of a chap, the type of the +rollicking heroes in old comedies; the very man to fall over head and +ears in love before he was twenty, and to go through fire and water for +the sake of the woman he loved: in short, the very last man upon earth +to live a bachelor until his fifty-fourth year." + +"He may--" + +"He may have been a profligate, you were going to say, and have had +baser ties than those of Church and State. So he may; but if he was a +scoundrel, tradition flatters him. Of course all the information one +can gather about a man who died in 1774 must needs be of a very +uncertain and fragmentary character. But if I can trust the rather hazy +recollections of my oldest inhabitant about what his father told him +_his_ father had said of wild Mat Haygarth, the young man's wildness +was very free from vice. There is no legend of innocence betrayed or +infamy fostered by Matthew Haygarth. He appears to have enjoyed what +the young men of that day called life--attended cock-fights, beat the +watch, gambled a little, and was intimately acquainted with the +interior of the Fleet and Marshalsea prisons. For nearly twenty years +he seems to have lived in London; and during all those years he was +lost sight of by the Ullerton people. My oldest inhabitant's +grandfather was clerk to a merchant in the city of London, and had +therefore some opportunity of knowing his old schoolfellow's +proceedings in the metropolis. But the two townsmen don't seem to have +seen much of each other in the big city. Their meetings were rare, and, +so far as I can make out, for the most part accidental. But, as I said +before, my oldest inhabitant is somewhat hazy, and excruciatingly +prolix; his chaff is in the proportion of some fifty to one of his +wheat. I've given a good deal of time to this case already, you see, +Mr. Hawkehurst; and you'll find _your_ work very smooth sailing +compared to what I've gone through." + +"I daresay that sort of investigation is rather tiresome in the earlier +stages." + +"You'd say so, with a vengeance, if you had to do it," answered George +Sheldon almost savagely. "You start with the obituary of some old bloke +who was so disgustingly old when he consented to die that there is no +one living who can tell you when he was born, or who were his father +and mother; for, of course, the old idiot takes care not to leave a +blessed document of any kind which can aid a fellow in his researches. +And when you've had the trouble of hunting up half a dozen men of the +same name, and have addled your wretched brains in the attempt to patch +the half dozen men--turning up at different periods and in different +places--into one man, they all tumble to pieces like a child's puzzle, +and you find yourself as far as ever from the man you want. However, +_you_ won't have to do any of that work," added Mr. Sheldon, who was +almost in a passion when he remembered the trouble he had gone through. +"The ground has been all laid out for you, by Jove, as smooth as a +bowling-green; and if you look sharp, you'll pick up your three thou' +before you know where you are." + +"I hope I shall," answered Valentine coolly. He was not the sort of +person to go into raptures about three thousand pounds, though such a +sum must needs have seemed to him the wealth of a small Rothschild. "I +know I want money badly enough, and am ready and willing to work for it +conscientiously, if I get the chance. But to return to this Matthew +Haygarth. Your idea is that there may have been a marriage previous to +the one at Ullerton?" + +"Precisely. Of course there may have been no such previous marriage; +but you see it's on the cards; and since it is on the cards, my notion +is that we had better hunt up the history of Matthew Haygarth's life in +London, and try to find our heir-at-law there before we go in for the +Judsons. If you knew how the Judsons have married and multiplied, and +lost themselves among herds of other people, you wouldn't care about +tracing the ramifications of _their_ family tree," said Mr. Sheldon, +with a weary sigh. + +"So be it," exclaimed Mr. Hawkehurst carelessly; "we'll leave the +Judsons alone, and go in for Matthew Haygarth." + +He spoke with the air of an archaeological Hercules, to whom +difficulties were nothing. It seemed as if he would have been quite +ready to "go in" for some sidereal branch of the Plantagenets, or the +female descendants of the Hardicanute family, if George Sheldon had +suggested that the intestate's next of kin was to be found _there_. + +"Mat Haygarth, by all means," he said. He was on jolly-good-fellow-ish +terms with the dead-and-gone grocer's son already, and had the tone of +a man who had been his friend and boon companion. "Mat Haygarth is our +man. But how are we to ferret out his doings in London? A man who was +born in 1720 is rather a remote kind of animal." + +"The secret of success in these matters is time," answered the lawyer +sententiously: "a man must have no end of time, and he must keep his +brain clear of all other business. Those two conditions are impossible +for me, and that's why I want a coadjutor: now you're a clever young +fellow, with no profession, with no particular social ties, as I can +make out, and your time is all your own; ergo, you're the very man for +this business. The thing is to be done: accept that for a certainty. +It's only a question of time. Indeed, when you look at life +philosophically, what is there on earth that is _not_ a question of +time? Give the crossing-sweeper between this and Chancery-lane time +enough, and he might develop into a Rothschild. He might want nine +hundred years or so to do it in; but there's no doubt he could do it, +if you gave him time." + +Mr. Sheldon was becoming expansive under the influence of the +brandy-and-soda; for even that mild beverage is not without its effect +on the intellectual man. + +"As to this Haygarth case," he resumed, after the consumption of a +little more soda and a little more brandy, "it's a sure success, if we +work it properly; and you know three thou' is not to be despised," +added George persuasively, "even if a fellow has to wait some time for +it." + +"Certainly not. And the bulk of the Haygarthian fortune--I suppose +that's something rather stiff?" returned Valentine, in the same +persuasive tone. + +"Well, you may suppose it's a decent figure," answered Mr. Sheldon, +with an air of deprecation, "or how could I afford to give you three +thou' out of the share I'm likely to get?" + +"No, to be sure. I think I shall take to the work well enough when once +I get my hand in; but I shall be very glad of any hint you can give me +at starting." + +"Well, my advice is this: begin at the beginning; go down to Ullerton; +see my oldest inhabitant. I pumped him as dry as I could, but I +couldn't give myself enough time for thoroughly exhaustive pumping; one +has to waste a small eternity before one gets anything valuable out of +those hazy old fellows. Follow up this Matthew from his birth; see the +place where he was born; ferret out every detail of his life, so far as +it is to be ferreted; trace his way step by step to London, and when +you get him there, stick to him like a leech. Don't let him slip +through your fingers for a day; hunt him from lodging to lodging, from +tavern to tavern, into jail and out of jail--tantivy, yoicks, +hark-forward! I know it's deuced hard work; but a man must work +uncommonly hard in these days before he picks up three thou'. In a few +words, the game is all before you; so go in and win," concluded George +Sheldon, as he poured the last amber drops from the slim smoke-coloured +bottle, and swallowed his glass of brandy undiluted by soda. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +AUNT SARAH. + + +After that interview in Gray's Inn, there were more interviews of a +like character. Valentine received further instructions from George +Sheldon, and got himself posted up in the Haygarthian history, so far +as the lawyer's information furnished the materials for such posting. +But the sum total of Mr. Sheldon's information seemed very little to +his coadjutor when the young man looked the Haygarthian business full +in the face and considered what he had to do. He felt very much like a +young prince in the fairy tale who has been bidden to go forth upon an +adventurous journey in a trackless forest, where if he escape all +manner of lurking dangers, and remember innumerable injunctions, such +as not to utter a single syllable during the whole course of his +travels, or look over his left shoulder, or pat any strange dog, or +gather forest fruit or flower, or look at his own reflection in mirror +or water-pool, shining brazen shield or jewelled helm, he will +ultimately find himself before the gates of an enchanted castle, to +which he may or may not obtain admittance. + +Valentine fancied himself in the position of this favourite young +prince. The trackless forest was the genealogy of the Haygarths; and in +the enchanted castle he was to find the crown of success in the shape +of three thousand pounds. Could he marry Charlotte on the strength of +those three thousand pounds, if he were so fortunate as to unravel the +tangled skein of the Haygarth history? Ah, no; that black-whiskered +stockbroking stepfather would ask for something more than three +thousand pounds from the man to whom he gave his wife's daughter. + +"He will try to marry her to some rich City swell, I dare say," thought +Valentine. "I should be no nearer her with three thousand pounds for my +fortune than I am without a sixpence. The best thing I can do for her +happiness and my own is to turn my back upon her, and devote myself to +hunting the Haygarths. It's rather hard too, just as I have begun to +fancy that she likes me a little." + +In the course of those interviews in Gray's Inn which occurred before +Valentine took any active steps in his new pursuit, certain conditions +were agreed upon between him and Mr. Sheldon. The first and most +serious of these conditions was, that Captain Paget should be in nowise +enlightened as to his _protege's_ plans. This was a strong point with +George Sheldon. "I have no doubt Paget's a very good fellow," he said. +(It was his habit to call everybody a good fellow. He would have called +Nana Sahib a good fellow, and would have made some good-natured excuse +for any peccadilloes on the part of that potentate). "Paget's an +uncommonly agreeable man, you know; but he is not the man I should care +to trust with this kind of secret." Mr. Sheldon said this with a tone +that implied his willingness to trust Captain Paget with every other +kind of secret, from the contents of his japanned office-boxes to the +innermost mysteries of his soul. + +"You see Paget is thick with my brother Phil," he resumed; "and +whenever I find a man thick with my relations, I make it a point to +keep clear of that man myself. Relations never have worked well in +harness, and never will work well in harness. It seems to be against +nature. Now Phil has a dim kind of idea of the game I want to play, in +a general way, but nothing more than a dim idea. He fancies I'm a fool, +and that I'm wasting my time and trouble. I mean him to stick to that +notion. For, you see, in a thing of this kind there's always a chance +of other people cutting in and spoiling a man's game. Of course, that +advertisement I read to you was seen by other men besides me, and may +have been taken up. My hope is that whoever has taken it up has gone in +for the female branch, and got himself snowed up under a heap of +documentary evidence about the Judsons. That's another reason why we +should put our trust in Matthew Haygarth. The Judson line is the +obvious line to follow, and there are very few who would think of +hunting up evidence for a hypothetical first marriage until they had +exhausted the Judsons. Now, I rely upon you to throw dust in Paget's +eyes, so that there may be no possibility of my brother getting wind of +our little scheme through him." + +"I'll take care of that," answered Valentine; "he doesn't want me just +now. He's in very high feather, riding about in broughams and dining at +West-end taverns. He won't be sorry to get rid of me for a short time." + +"But what'll be your excuse for leaving town? He'll be sure to want a +reason, you know." + +"I'll invent an aunt at Ullerton, and tell him I'm going down to stop +with her." + +"You'd better not say Ullerton; Paget might take it into his head to +follow you down there in order to see what sort of person your aunt +was, and whether she had any money. Paget's an excellent fellow, but +there's never any knowing what that sort of man will do. You'd better +throw him off the scent altogether. Plant your aunt in Surrey--say +Dorking." + +"But if he should want to write to me?" + +"Tell him to address to the post-office, Dorking, as your aunt is +inquisitive, and might tamper with your correspondence. I daresay his +letters will keep." + +"He could follow me to Dorking as easily as to Ullerton." + +"Of course he could," answered George Sheldon; "but then, you see, at +Dorking the most he could find out would be that he'd been made a fool +of; whereas if he followed you to Ullerton, he might ferret out the +nature of your business there." + +Mr. Hawkehurst perceived the wisdom of this conclusion, and agreed to +make Dorking the place of his relative's abode. + +"It's very near London," he suggested thoughtfully; "the Captain might +easily run down." + +"And for that very reason he's all the less likely to do it," answered +the lawyer; "a man who thinks of going to a place within an hour's ride +of town knows he can go any day, and is likely to think of going to the +end of the chapter without carrying out his intention. A man who +resolves to go to Manchester or Liverpool has to make his arrangements +accordingly, and is likely to put his idea into practice. The people +who live on Tower-hill very seldom see the inside of the Tower. It's +the good folks who come up for a week's holiday from Yorkshire and +Cornwall who know all about the Crown jewels and John of Gaunt's +armour. Take my advice, and stick to Dorking." + +Acting upon this advice, Valentine Hawkehurst lay in wait for the +Promoter that very evening. He went home early, and was seated by a +cheery little bit of fire, such as an Englishman likes to see at the +close of a dull autumn day, when that accomplished personage returned +to his lodgings. + +"Deuced tiresome work," said the Captain, as he smoothed the nap of his +hat with that caressing tenderness of manipulation peculiar to the man +who is not very clear as to the means whereby his next hat is to be +obtained,--"deuced slow, brain-belabouring work! How many people do you +think I've called upon to-day, eh, Val? Seven-and-thirty! What do you +say to that? Seven-and-thirty interviews, and some of them very tough +ones. I think that's enough to take the steam out of a man." + +"Do the moneyed swells bite?" asked Mr. Hawkehurst, with friendly +interest. + +"Rather slowly, my dear Val, rather slowly. The mercantile fisheries +have been pretty well whipped of late years, and the fish are +artful--they are uncommonly artful, Val. Indeed, I'm not quite clear at +this present moment as to the kind of fly they'll rise to most readily. +I'm half inclined to be doubtful whether your gaudy pheasant-feather, +your brougham and lavender-kid business is the right thing for your +angler. It has been overdone, Val, considerably overdone; and I +shouldn't wonder if a sober little brown fly--a shabby old chap in a +rusty greatcoat, with a cotton umbrella under his arm--wouldn't do the +trick better. That sort of thing would look rich, you see, Val--rich +and eccentric; and I think on occasions--with a _very_ downy bird--I'd +even go so far as a halfp'orth of snuff in a screw of paper. I really +think a pinch of snuff out of a bit of paper, taken at the right +moment, might turn the tide of a transaction." + +Impressed by the brilliancy of this idea, Captain Paget abandoned +himself for the moment to profound meditation, seated in his favourite +chair, and with his legs extended before the cheerful blaze. He always +had a favourite chair in every caravanserai wherein he rested in his +manifold wanderings, and he had an unerring instinct which guided him +in the selection of the most comfortable chair, and that one corner, to +be found in every room, which is a sanctuary secure from the incursions +of Boreas. + +The day just ended had evidently not been a lucky one, and the +Captain's gaze was darkly meditative as he looked into the ruddy little +fire. + +"I think I'll take a glass of cold water with a dash of brandy in it, +Val," he said presently; and he said it with the air of a man who +rarely tasted such a beverage; whereas it was as habitual with him to +sit sipping brandy-and-water for an hour or so before he went to bed as +it was for him to light his chamber candle. "That fellow Sheldon knows +how to take care of himself," he remarked thoughtfully, when Valentine +had procured the brandy-and-water. "Try some of that cognac, Val; it's +not bad. To tell you the truth, I'm beginning to get sick of this +promoting business. It pays very little better than the India-rubber +agency, and it's harder work. I shall look about me for something +fresh, if Sheldon doesn't treat me handsomely. And what have you been +doing for the last day or two?" asked the Captain, with a searching +glance at his _protege's_ face. "You're always hanging about Sheldon's +place; but you don't seem to do much business with him. You and his +brother George seem uncommonly thick." + +"Yes, George suits me better than the stockbroker. I never could get on +very well with your ultra-respectable men. I'm as ready to 'undertake a +dirty job' as any man; but I don't like a fellow to offer me dirty work +and pretend it's clean." + +"Ah, he's been getting you to do a little of the bear business, I +suppose," said the Captain. "I don't see that your conscience need +trouble you about that. Amongst a commercial people money must change +hands. I can't see that it much matters how the change takes place." + +"No, to be sure; that's a comfortable way of putting it, at any rate. +However, I'm tired of going about in the ursine guise, and I'm going to +cut it. I've an old aunt settled at Dorking who has got a little bit of +money to leave, and I think I'll go and look her up." + +"An aunt at Dorking! I never heard of her before." + +"O yes you have," answered Mr. Hawkehurst, with supreme nonchalance; +"you've heard of her often enough, only you've a happy knack of not +listening to other people's affairs. But you must have been wrapped up +in yourself with a vengeance if you don't remember to have heard me +speak of my aunt--Sarah." + +"Well, well, it may be so," murmured the Captain, almost +apologetically. "Your aunt Sarah? Ah, to be sure; I have some +recollection: is she your father's sister?" + +"No; she's the sister of my maternal grandmother--a great-aunt, you +know. She has a comfortable little place down at Dorking, and I can get +free quarters there whenever I like; so as you don't particularly want +me just now, I think I'll run down to her for a week or two." + +The Captain had no objection to offer to this very natural desire on +the part of his adopted son; nor did he concern himself as to the young +man's motive for leaving London. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHARLOTTE PROPHESIES RAIN. + + +Mr. Hawkehurst had no excuse for going to the Lawn before his +departure; but the stately avenues between Bayswater and Kensington are +free to any man; and, having nothing better to do, Valentine put a +shabby little volume of Balzac in his pocket, and spent his last +morning in town under the shadow of the mighty elms, reading one of the +great Honore's gloomiest romances, while the autumn leaves drifted +round him, dancing fairy measures on the grass, and scraping and +scuffling on the gravel, and while children with hoops and children +with balls scampered and screamed in the avenue by which he sat. He was +not particularly absorbed by his book. He had taken it haphazard from +the tattered collection of cheap editions which he carried about with +him in his wanderings, ignominiously stuffed into the bottom of a +portmanteau, amongst boots and clothes-brushes and disabled razors. + +"I'm sick of them all," he thought; "the De Beauseants, and Rastignacs, +the German Jews, and the patrician beauties, and the Israelitish Circes +of the Rue Taitbout, and the sickly self-sacrificing provincial angels, +and the ghastly _vieilles filles_. Had that man ever seen such a woman +as Charlotte, I wonder--a bright creature, all smiles and sunshine, and +sweet impulsive tenderness; an angel who can be angelic without being +_poitrinaire_, and whose amiability never degenerates into scrofula? +There is an odour of the dissecting-room pervading all my friend +Balzac's novels, and I don't think he was capable of painting a fresh, +healthy nature. What a mass of disease he would have made Lucy Ashton, +and with what dismal relish he would have dilated upon the physical +sufferings of Amy Robsart in the confinement of Cumnor Hall! No, my +friend Honore, you are the greatest and grandest of painters of the +terrible school; but the time comes when a man sighs for something +brighter and better than your highest type of womanhood." + +Mr. Hawkehurst put his book in his pocket, and abandoned himself to +meditation, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his face +buried in his hands, unconscious of the trundling hoops and screaming +children. + +"She is better and fairer than the fairest heroine of a novel," he +thought. "She is like Heloise. Yes, the quaint old French fits her to a +nicety: + + 'Elle ne fu oscure ne brune, + Ains fu clere comme la lune, + Envers qui les autres estoiles + Ressemblent petites chandoiles.' + +Mrs. Browning must have known such a woman: + + 'Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; + You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face;' + +and yet + + 'She was not as pretty as women I know.' + +Was she not?" mused the lover. "Is she not? Yes," he cried suddenly, as +he saw a scarlet petticoat gleaming in the distance, and a bright young +face under a little black turban hat--prettiest and most bewitching of +all feminine headgear, let fashion change as it may. "Yes," he cried, +"she is the loveliest creature in the world, and I love her to +distraction." He rose, and went to meet the loveliest creature in the +world, whose earthly name was Charlotte Halliday. She was walking with +Diana Paget, who, to more sober judges, might have seemed the handsomer +woman of the two. Alas for Diana! the day had been when Valentine +Hawkehurst considered her very handsome, and had need to fight a hard +battle with himself in order not to fall in love with her. He had been +conqueror in that struggle of prudence and honour against nascent love, +only to be vanquished utterly by Charlotte's brighter charms and +Charlotte's sunnier nature. + +The two girls shook hands with Mr. Hawkehurst. An indifferent observer +might have perceived that the colour faded from the face of one, while +a blush mounted to the cheeks of the other. But Valentine did not see +the sudden pallor of Diana's face--he had eyes only for Charlotte's +blushes. Nor did Charlotte herself perceive the sudden change in her +dearest friend's countenance. And that perhaps is the bitterest sting +of all. It is not enough that some must weep while others play; the +mourners must weep unnoticed, unconsoled; happiness is so apt to be +selfish. + +Of course the conversation was the general sort of thing under the +given circumstances--just a little more inane and disjointed than the +ordinary small talk of people who meet each other in their walks abroad. + +"How do you do, Mr. Hawkehurst?--Very well, thank you.--Mamma is very +well; at least no, not quite well; she has one of her headaches this +morning. She is rather subject to headache, you know; and the canaries +sing so loud. Don't the canaries sing abominably loud, Diana?--loudly +they would have made me say at Hyde Lodge; but it is only awfully +clever people who know when to use adverbs." + +And Miss Halliday having said all this in a hurried and indeed almost +breathless manner, stopped suddenly, blushing more deeply than at +first, and painfully aware of her blushes. She looked imploringly at +Diana; but Diana would not come to the rescue; and this morning Mr. +Hawkehurst seemed as a man struck with sudden dumbness. + +There followed presently a little discussion of the weather. Miss +Halliday was possessed by the conviction that there would be +rain--possibly not immediate rain, but before the afternoon inevitable +rain. Valentine thought not; was, indeed, positively certain there +would be no rain; had a vague idea that the wind was in the north; and +quoted a dreary Joe-Millerism to prove the impossibility of rain while +the wind came from that quarter. Miss Halliday and Mr. Hawkehurst held +very firmly to their several opinions, and the argument was almost a +quarrel--one of those little playful quarrels which form some of the +most delicious phases of a flirtation. "I would not mind wagering a +fortune--if I had one--on the certainty of rain," cried Charlotte with +kindling eyes. + +"And I would not shrink from staking my existence on the conviction +that there will be no rain," exclaimed Valentine, looking with +undisguised tenderness at the glowing animated face. + +Diana Paget took no part in that foolish talk about the possibilities +of the weather. She walked silently by the side of her friend +Charlotte, as far away from her old comrade, it seemed to her, as if +the Atlantic's wild waste of waters had stretched between them. The +barrier that divided them was only Charlotte; but then Miss Paget knew +too well that Charlotte in this case meant all the world. + +The ice had been broken by that discussion as to rain or no rain, and +Miss Halliday and Mr. Hawkehurst talked pleasantly for some time, while +Diana still walked silently by her friend's side, only speaking when +compelled to do so. The strangeness of her manner would have been +observed by any one not utterly absorbed by that sublime egotism called +love; but Valentine and Charlotte were so absorbed, and had no idea +that Miss Paget was anything but the most delightful and amusing of +companions. + +They had taken more than one turn in the broad avenue, when Charlotte +asked Mr. Hawkehurst some question about a piece which was speedily to +be played at one of the theatres. + +"I do so much want to see this new French actress," she said. "Do you +think there is any possibility of obtaining orders, Mr. Hawkehurst? You +know what a dislike Mr. Sheldon has to paying for admission to a +theatre, and my pocket-money was exhausted three weeks ago, or I +wouldn't think of giving you any trouble about it." + +Philosophers have observed that in the life of the plainest woman there +is one inspired moment in which she becomes beautiful. Perhaps it is +when she is asking a favour of some masculine victim--for women have a +knack of looking their prettiest on such occasions. Charlotte +Halliday's pleading glance and insinuating tone were irresistible. +Valentine would have given a lien on every shilling of his three +thousand pounds rather than disappoint her, if gold could purchase the +thing she craved. It happened fortunately that his occasional +connection with the newspapers made it tolerably easy for him to obtain +free admissions to theatres. + +"Do not speak of the trouble; there will be no trouble. The orders +shall be sent you, Miss Halliday." + +"O, thanks--a thousand thanks! Would it be possible to get a box, and +for us all to go together?" asked the fair encroacher; "mamma is so +fond of the theatre. She used to go often with poor papa, at York and +in London. And you are such an excellent critic, Mr. Hawkehurst, and it +would be so nice to have you with us,--wouldn't it, Di? You know what a +good critic Mr. Hawkehurst is?" + +"Yes," answered Diana; "we used to go to theatres together very often." + +This was a cry of anguish wrung from a bleeding heart; but to the two +absorbed egotists it seemed the simplest of casual observations. + +"Do you think you could manage to get a box, Mr. Hawkehurst?" asked the +irresistible enslaver, putting her head on one side, in a manner which, +for the protection of weak mankind, should be made penal. + +"I will try my uttermost," answered Valentine. + +"O, then I'm sure you will succeed. And we shall be amused by your +deliciously bitter criticisms between the acts. One would think you had +studied under Douglas Jerrold." + +"You do me too much honour. But before the new piece is produced I +shall have left London, and shall not have the pleasure of accompanying +you to the theatre." + +"You are going to leave London?" + +"Yes, to-morrow." + +"So soon!" cried Charlotte, with undisguised regret; "and for a long +time, I suppose?" she added, very mournfully. + +Miss Paget gave a little start, and a feverish flush lit up her face +for one brief moment. + +"I am glad he is going," she thought; "I am very glad he is going." + +"Yes," said Valentine, in reply to Charlotte's inquiry, "I am likely to +be away for a considerable time; indeed my plans are at present so +vague, that I cannot tell when I may come back to town." + +He could not resist the temptation to speak of his absence as if it +were likely to be the affair of a lifetime. He could not refrain from +the delight of sounding the pure depths of that innocent young heart. +But when the tender gray eyes looked at him, so sweet in their sudden +sadness, his heart melted, and he could trifle with her unconscious +love no longer. + +"I am going away on a matter of business," he said, "which may or may +not occupy some time; but I don't suppose I shall be many weeks away +from London." + +Charlotte gave a little sigh of relief. + +"And are you going very far?" she asked. + +"Some distance; yes--a--hundred and fifty miles or so," Valentine +answered very lamely. It had been an easy thing to invent an ancient +aunt Sarah for the mystification of the astute Horatio; but Valentine +Hawkehurst could not bring himself to tell Charlotte Halliday a +deliberate falsehood. The girl looked at him wonderingly, as he gave +that hesitating answer to her question. She was at a loss to understand +why he did not tell her the place to which he was going, and the nature +of the business that took him away. + +She was very sorry that he was going to disappear out of her life for a +time so uncertain, that while on the one hand it might be only a few +weeks, it might on the other hand be for ever. The life of a young +English damsel, in a prim villa at Bayswater, with a very commonplace +mother and a practical stockbroking stepfather, is rather a narrow kind +of existence; and to such a damsel the stranger whose hand lifts the +curtain that shrouds new and brighter worlds is apt to become a very +important personage, especially when the stranger happens to be young +and handsome, and invested with that dash of Bohemianism which to +artless and sentimental girlhood has such a flavour of romance. + +Charlotte was very silent as she retraced her steps along the broad +gravel walk. As they drew near the Bayswater-gate she looked at her +watch. It was nearly one o'clock, and she had promised Mrs. Sheldon to +be home at one for luncheon, and afterwards shopping. + +"I'm afraid we must hurry home, Di," she said. + +"I am quite ready to go," answered Miss Paget promptly. "Good-bye, +Valentine." + +"Good-bye, Diana; good-bye, Miss Halliday." + +Mr. Hawkehurst shook hands with both young ladies; but shaking hands +with Charlotte was a very slow process compared to the same performance +with Diana. + +"Good-bye," he repeated, in a lingering tone; and then, after standing +for some moments silent and irresolute, with his hat in his hand, he +put it on suddenly and hurried away. + +The two girls had walked a few steps towards the gate when Charlotte +stopped before a stony-looking alcove, which happened at this +nursery-dinner-hour to be empty. + +"I'm so tired, Di," she said, and went into the alcove, where she sat +down to rest. She had a little veil attached to her turban hat--a +little veil which she now drew over her face. The tears gathered slowly +in her eyes and fell through that flimsy morsel of lace with which she +would fain have hidden her childish sorrow. The tears gathered and fell +on her lap as she sat in silence, pretending not to cry. This much rain +at least was there to justify her prediction, uttered in such foolish +gaiety of heart half an hour before. + +Miss Halliday's eyes were undimmed by tears when she went back to the +gothic villa; but she had a feeling that some great sorrow had come +upon her--a vague idea that the last lingering warmth and brightness of +summer had faded all in a moment, and that chill gray winter had closed +in upon Bayswater without any autumnal interval. What was it that she +had lost? Only the occasional society of a young man with a handsome +pale face, a little haggard and wan from the effect of dissipated +habits and a previous acquaintance with care and difficulty--only the +society of a penniless Bohemian who had a certain disreputable +cleverness and a dash of gloomy sentimentality, which the schoolgirl +mistook for genius. But then he was the first man whose eyes had ever +softened with a mysterious tenderness as they looked at her--the first +whose voice had grown faintly tremulous when it syllabled her name. + +There was some allusion to Mr. Hawkehurst's departure in the course of +dinner, and Philip Sheldon expressed some surprise. + +"Going to leave town?" he said. + +"Yes, papa," Charlotte answered; "he is going a long way into the +country,--a hundred and fifty miles, he said." + +"Did he tell you where he was going?" + +"No; he seemed unwilling to mention the place. He only said something +about a hundred and fifty miles." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH. + + +Mr. Sheldon had occasion to see Captain Paget early the following day, +and questioned him closely about his _protege's_ movements. He had +found Valentine a very useful tool in sundry intricate transactions of +the commercial kind, and he expected his tools to be ready for his +service. He was therefore considerably annoyed by Valentine's abrupt +departure. + +"I think young Hawkehurst might have told me he was going out of town," +he said. "What the deuce has taken him off in such a hurry?" + +"He is going to see some mysterious old aunt at Dorking, from whom he +seems to expect money," the Captain answered carelessly. "I daresay I +can do what you want, Sheldon." + +"Very likely. But how comes that young fellow to have an aunt at +Dorking? I fancy I've heard him say he was without a relative or a +friend in the world--always excepting yourself." + +"The aunt may be another exception; some poor old soul that he's half +ashamed to own, I daresay--the inmate of an almshouse, perhaps. Val's +expectations may be limited to a few pounds hoarded in a china teapot." + +"I should have thought Hawkehurst the last man in the world to care +about looking after that sort of thing. I could have given him plenty +to do if he had stopped in town. He and my brother George are +uncommonly intimate, by the bye," added Mr. Sheldon meditatively. It +was his habit to be rather distrustful of his brother and of all his +brother's acquaintance. "I suppose you can give me Hawkehurst's +address, in case I should want to write to him?" he said. + +"He told me to send my letters to the post-office, Dorking," answered +the Captain, "which really looks as if the aunt's residence were +something in the way of an almshouse." + +No more was said about Valentine's departure. Captain Paget concluded +his business with his patron and departed, leaving the stockbroker +leaning forward upon his desk in a thoughtful attitude and scribbling +purposeless figures upon his blotting-paper. + +"There's something queer in this young man running away from town; +there's some mystification somewhere," he thought. "He has not gone to +Dorking, or he would scarcely have told Lotta that he was going a +hundred and fifty miles from town. He would be likely to be taken off +his guard by her questions, and would tell the truth. I wonder whether +Paget is in the secret. His manner seemed open enough; but that sort of +man can pretend anything. I've noticed that he and George have been +very confidential lately. I wonder whether there's any underhand game +on the cards between those two." + +The game of which Mr. Sheldon thought as he leant over his +blotting-paper was a very different kind of game from that which really +occupied the attention of George and his friend. + +"I'll go to his lodgings at once," he said to himself by-and-by, rising +and putting on his hat quickly in his eagerness to act upon his +resolution. "I'll see if he really has left town." + +The stockbroker hailed the first empty hansom to be seen in the crowded +thoroughfare from which his shady court diverged. In less than an hour +he alighted before the door of the house in which Captain Paget lodged. + +"Is Mr. Hawkehurst in?" he asked of the girl who admitted him. + +"No, sir; he's just left to go into the country. He hasn't been gone +ten minutes. You might a'most have met him." + +"Do you know where he has gone?" + +"I heard say it was Dorking, sir." + +"Humph! I should like to have seen him before he went. Did he take much +luggage?" + +"One portmanter, sir." + +"I suppose you didn't notice where he told the man to drive?" + +"Yes, sir; it was Euston-square." + +"Ah! Euston-square. I'll go there, then, on the chance of catching +him," said Mr. Sheldon. + +He bestowed a donation upon the domestic, reentered his hansom, and +told the man to drive to Euston-square "like a shot." + +"So! His destination is Dorking, and he goes from Euston-square!" +muttered Mr. Sheldon, in sombre meditation, as the hansom rattled and +rushed, and jingled and jolted, over the stones. "There's something +under the cards here." + +Arrived at the great terminus, the stockbroker made his way to the down +platform. There was a lull in the day's traffic, and only a few +listless wretches lounging disconsolately here and there, with eyes +ever and anon lifted to the clock. Amongst these there was no Valentine +Hawkehurst. + +Mr. Sheldon peered into all the waiting-rooms, and surveyed the +refreshment-counter; but there was still no sign of the man he sought. +He went back to the ticket-office; but here again all was desolate, the +shutters of the pigeon-holes hermetically closed, and no vestige of +Valentine Hawkehurst. + +The stockbroker was disappointed, but not defeated. He returned to the +platform, looked about him for a few moments, and then addressed +himself to a porter of intelligent aspect. + +"What trains have left here within the last half-hour?" he asked. + +"Only one, sir; the 2.15 down, for Manchester." + +"You didn't happen to notice a dark-eyed, dark-haired young man among +the passengers--second class?" asked Mr. Sheldon. + +"No, sir. There are always a good many passengers by that train; I +haven't time to notice their faces." + +The stockbroker asked no further questions. He was a man who did not +care to be obliged to others for information which he could obtain for +himself. He walked straight to a place where the time-tables were +pasted on the wall, and ran his finger along the figures till he came +to those he wanted. + +The 2.15 train was a fast train, which stopped at only four +places--Rugby, Ullerton, Murford, and Manchester. + +"I daresay he has gone to Manchester," thought Mr. Sheldon--"on some +racing business most likely, which he wants to keep dark from his +patron the Captain. What a fool I am to trouble myself about him, as if +he couldn't stir without meaning mischief to me! But I don't understand +the friendship between him and George. My brother George is not likely +to take up any man without some motive." + +After these reflections Mr. Sheldon left the station and went back to +his office in another hansom, still extremely thoughtful and somewhat +disquieted. + +"What does it matter to me where they go or what they do?" he asked +himself, impatient of some lurking weakness of his own; "what does it +matter to me whether those two are friendly or unfriendly? They can do +me no harm." + +There happened to be a kind of lull in the stormy regions of the Stock +Exchange at the time of Valentine Hawkehurst's departure. Stagnation +had descended upon that commercial ocean, which is such a dismal waste +of waters for the professional speculator in its hour of calm. All the +Bulls in the zoological creation would have failed to elevate the +drooping stocks and shares and first-preference bonds and debentures, +which hung their feeble heads and declined day by day, the weaker of +them threatening to fade away and diminish to a vanishing-point, as it +seemed to some dejected holders who read the Stock-Exchange lists and +the money article in the Times with a persistent hopefulness which +struggled against the encroachments of despair. The Bears had been +busy, but were now idle--having burnt their fingers, commercial +gentlemen remarked. So Bulls and Bears alike hung listlessly about a +melancholy market, and conversed together dolefully in corners; and the +burden of all their lamentations was to the effect that there never had +been such times, and things never had been so bad, and it was a +question whether they would ever right themselves. Philip Sheldon +shared in the general depression. His face was gloomy, and his manner +for the time being lost something of its brisk, business-like +cheerfulness. The men who envied his better fortunes watched him +furtively when he showed himself amongst them, and wondered whether +Sheldon, of Jull, Girdlestone, and Sheldon, had been hit by these bad +times. + +It was not entirely the pressure of that commercial stagnation which +weighed on the spirits of Philip Sheldon. The stockbroker was tormented +by private doubts and uncertainties which had nothing to do with the +money-market. + +On the day after Valentine's journey to Ullerton, Mr. Sheldon the elder +presented himself at his brother's office in Gray's Inn. It was his +habit to throw waifs and strays of business in the attorney's way, and +to make use of him occasionally, though he had steadily refused to lend +or give him money; and it was his habit, as it were, to keep an eye +upon his younger brother--rather a jealous eye, which took note of all +George's doings, and kept suspicious watch upon all George's +associates. Going unannounced into his brother's office on this +particular morning, Philip Sheldon found him bending over an outspread +document--a great sheet of cartridge-paper covered with a net-work of +lines, dotted about with circles, and with little patches of writing in +red and black ink in the neatest possible penmanship. Mr. Sheldon the +elder, whose bright black eyes were as the eyes of the hawk, took note +of this paper, and had caught more than one stray word that stood out +in larger and bolder characters than its neighbours, before his brother +could fold it; for it is not an easy thing for a man to fold an +elephantine sheet of cartridge when he is nervously anxious to fold it +quickly, and is conscious that the eyes of an observant brother are +upon him. + +Before George had mastered the folding of the elephantine sheet, Philip +had seen and taken note of two words. One of these was the word +INTESTATE, and the other the name HAYGARTH. + +"You seem in a great hurry to get that document out of the way," said +Philip, as he seated himself in the client's chair. + +"Well, to tell the truth, you rather startled me," answered George. "I +didn't know who it might be, you know; and I was expecting a fellow +who--" And then Mr. Sheldon the younger broke off abruptly, and asked, +with rather a suspicious air, "Why didn't that boy announce you?" + +"Because I wouldn't let him. Why should he announce me? One would think +you were carrying on some political conspiracy, George, and had a +modern Thistlewood gang hidden in that cupboard yonder. How thick you +and Hawkehurst are, by the bye!" + +In spite of the convenient "by the bye," this last remark of the +stockbroker's sounded rather irrelevant. + +"I don't know about being 'thick.' Hawkehurst seems a very decent young +fellow, and he and I get on pretty well together. But I'm not as +'thick' with him as I was with Tom Halliday." + +It was to be observed that Mr. Sheldon the younger was very apt to +refer to that friendship with the dead Yorkshireman in the course of +conversation with Philip. + +"Hawkehurst has just left town," said Philip indifferently. + +"Yes, I know he has." + +"When did you hear it?" + +"I saw him last night," answered George, taken off his guard by the +carelessness of his brother's manner. + +"Did you?" cried Mr. Sheldon. "You make a mistake there. He left town +at two o'clock yesterday." + +"How do you happen to know that?" asked George sharply. + +"Because I happened to be at the station and saw him take his ticket. +There's something underhand in that journey of his by the way; for +Paget told me he was going to Dorking. I suppose he and Paget have some +game of their own on the cards. I was rather annoyed by the young man's +departure, as I had some work for him. However, I can find plenty of +fellows to do it as well as Hawkehurst could have done." + +George was looking into an open drawer in his desk while his brother +said this. He had a habit of opening drawers and peering into them +absently during the progress of an interview, as if looking for some +particular paper, that was never to be found. + +After this the conversation became less personal. The brothers talked a +little of the events of the day, the money-article in that morning's +Times, the probability or improbability of a change in the rate of +discount. But this conversation soon flagged, and Mr. Sheldon rose to +depart. + +"I suppose that sheet of cartridge-paper which you had so much trouble +to fold is one of your genealogical tables," he said as he was going. +"You needn't try to keep things dark from me, George. I'm not likely to +steal a march upon you; my own business gives me more work than I can +do. But if you have really got a good thing at last, I shouldn't mind +going into it with you, and finding the money for the enterprise." + +George Sheldon looked at his elder brother with a malicious flitter in +his eyes. + +"On condition that you got the lion's share of the profits," he said. +"O yes; I know how generous you are, Phil. I have asked you for money +before today, and you have refused it." + +Mr. Sheldon's face darkened just a little at this point. "Your manner +of asking it was offensive," he said. + +"Well, I'm sorry for that," answered George politely. "However, you +refused me money when I did want it; so you needn't offer it me now I +don't want it. There are some people who think I have sacrificed my +life to a senseless theory; and perhaps you are one of them. But there +is one thing you may be certain of, Philip Sheldon: if ever I _do_ get +a good chance, I shall know how to keep it to myself." + +There are men skilled in the concealment of their feelings on all +ordinary occasions, who will yet betray themselves in a crisis of +importance. George Sheldon would fain have kept his project hidden from +his elder brother; but in this one unguarded moment he forgot himself, +and allowed the sense of triumph to irradiate his face. + +The stockbroker was a reader of men rather than books; and it is a +notable thing what superiority in all worldly wisdom is possessed by +men who eschew books. He was able to translate the meaning of George's +smile--a smile of mingled triumph and malice. + +"The fellow _has_ got a good thing," he thought to himself, "and +Hawkehurst is in it. It must be a deuced good thing too, or he wouldn't +refuse my offer of money." Mr. Sheldon was the last man in the world to +reveal any mortification which he might experience from his brother's +conduct. + +"Well, you're quite right to stick to your chance, George," he said, +with agreeable frankness. "You've waited long enough for it. As for me, +I've got my fingers in a good many pies just at present; so perhaps I +had better keep them out of yours, whatever plums there may be to be +picked out of it by an enterprising Jack Horner. Pick out your plums +for yourself, old fellow, and I'll be one of the first to call you a +good boy for your pains." + +With this Mr. Sheldon slapped his brother's shoulder and departed. + +"I think I've had the best of Master Phil for once," muttered George; +and then he thrust his sinewy hands into the depths of his +trousers-pocket, and indulged in a silent laugh, which displayed his +strong square white teeth to perfection. "I flatter myself I took a +rise out of Phil to-day," he muttered. + +The sense of a malicious triumph over a social enemy is a very +delightful kind of thing,--so delightful that a man is apt to ignore +the possible cost of the enjoyment. It is like the pleasure of kicking +a man who is down--very delicious in its way; only one never knows how +soon the man may be up again. + +George Sheldon, who was tolerably skilled in the science of human +nature, should have known that "taking a rise" out of his brother was +likely to be a rather costly operation. Philip was not the safest man +to deal with at any time; but he was most dangerous when he was "jolly." + + + + + +BOOK THE FOURTH. + + +VALENTINE HAWKEHURST'S RECORD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE OLDEST INHABITANT. + + +Black Swan Inn, Ullerton, October 2nd. + +As the work I am now employed in is quite new to me, and I am to keep +Sheldon posted up in this business day by day, I have decided on +jotting down the results of my inquiries in a kind of diary. Instead of +writing my principal a formal letter, I shall send a copy of the +entries in the diary, revised and amended. This will insure exactitude; +and there is just the possibility that the record may be useful to me +hereafter. To remember all I hear and pick up about these departed +Haygarths without the aid of pen and ink would be out of the question; +so I mean to go in for unlimited pen and ink like a hero, not to say a +martyr. + +And I am to do all this for twenty shillings a week, and the remote +possibility of three thousand pounds! O genius, genius! in all the +markets of this round world is there no better price for you than that? + +How sweetly my Charlotte looked at me yesterday, when I told her I was +going away! If I could have dared to kneel at her feet under those +whispering elms,--unconscious of the children, unconscious of the +nursemaids,--if I could have dared to cry aloud to her, "I am a +penniless reprobate, but I love you; I am a disreputable pauper, but I +adore you! Have pity upon my love and forget my worthlessness!" If I +could have dared to carry her away from her prim suburban home and that +terrible black-whiskered stockbroking stepfather! But how is a man to +carry off the woman he adores when he has not the _de quoi_ for the +first stage of the journey? + +With three thousand pounds in my pocket, I think I could dare anything. +Three thousand pounds! One year of splendour and happiness, and +then--the rest is chaos! + +I have seen the oldest inhabitant. _Ay de mi_! Sheldon did not +exaggerate the prosiness of that intolerable man. I thought of the +luckless wedding guest in Coleridge's grim ballad as I sat listening to +this modern-ancient mariner. I had to remind myself of all the bright +things to be bought for three thousand pounds, every now and then, in +order to endure with fortitude, if not serenity. And now the day's work +is done, I begin to think it might as well have been left undone. How +am I to disintegrate the mass of prosiness which I have heard this day? +For three mortal hours did I listen to my ancient mariner; and how much +am I the wiser for my patience? Clever as you may fancy yourself, my +friend Hawkehurst, you don't seem to be the man for this business. You +have not the legal mind. Your genius is not the genius of +Scotland-yard, and I begin to fear that in your new line you may prove +yourself a failure. + +However, where all is dark to me the astute Sheldon may see daylight, +so I'll observe the letter of my bond, and check off the residuum of +the ancient mariner's prosiness. + +By dint of much pumping I obtained from my ancient, first, his father's +recollections of Matthew Haygarth a few years before his death, and +secondly, his grandfather's recollections of Matthew in his wild youth. +It seems that in those last years of his life Matthew was a most sober +and estimable citizen; attended the chapel of a nonconforming sect; +read the works of Baxter, and followed in the footsteps of his departed +father; was a kind husband to a woman who appears to me to have been +rather a pragmatical and icy personage, but who was esteemed a model of +womanly virtue, and who had money. Strange that these respectable and +wealthy citizens should be so eager to increase their store by alliance +with respectable and wealthy citizenesses. + +In his later years Matthew Haygarth seems to have imitated his father +in many respects. Like his father, he executed more than one will; and, +like his father, he died intestate. The lawyer who drew up his will on +more than one occasion was a man called Brice--like his client, +eminently respectable. + +After his marriage, our esteemed Matthew retired to a modest mansion in +the heart of the country, and some ten or fifteen miles from Ullerton. +The mansion in question is at a place called Dewsdale, and was the +property of the wife, and accrued to him through her. + +This house and estate of some thirty acres was afterwards sold by the +rev. intestate, John Haygarth, shortly after his coming of age, and +within a year of his mother's death. + +This much and no more could I extort from the oldest inhabitant +relative to the latter days of our Matthew. + +Respecting his wild youth I obtained the following crumbs of +enlightenment. In the year 1741-2, being then one-and-twenty years of +age, he left Ullerton. It is my ancient mariner's belief that he ran +away from home, after some desperate quarrel with his father; and it is +also the belief of my ancient that he stayed away, without +intermission, for twenty years,--though on what precise fact that +belief is founded is much more than I can extract from the venerable +proser. + +My ancient suggests--always in the haziest and most impracticable +manner--the possibility that Matthew in his wild days lodged somewhere +Clerkenwell way. He has a dim idea that he has heard his grandfather +speak of St. John's-gate, Clerkenwell, in connection with Matthew +Haygarth; but, as my ancient's grandfather seems to have been almost +imbecile at the time he made such remarks, _this_ is not much. + +He has another idea--also very vague and impracticable--of having heard +his grandfather say something about an adventure of Matthew Haygarth's, +which was rather a heroic affair in its way--an adventure in which, in +some inexplicable manner, the wild Matthew is mixed up with a +dancing-girl, or player-girl, of Bartholomew Fair, and a nobleman. + +This is the sum-total of the information to be extracted in three +mortal hours from my ancient. Altogether the day has been very +unsatisfactory; and I begin to think I'm not up to the sort of work +required of me. + +_Oct. 3rd._ Another long interview with my ancient. I dropped +in directly after my breakfast, and about an hour after his +dinner. I sat up late last night, occupied till nearly ten in copying +my diary for Sheldon--which was just in time for the London post--and +lingering over my cigar till past midnight, thinking of Charlotte. So I +was late this morning. + +My ancient received me graciously. I took him half a pound of mild +bird's-eye tobacco, on diplomatic grounds. He is evidently the sort of +person who would receive Mephistopheles graciously, if the fiend +presented him with tobacco. + +I returned to the charge--diplomatically, of course; talked about +Ullerton and Ullerton people in general, insinuating occasional +questions about the Haygarths. I was rewarded by obtaining some little +information about Mrs. Matthew. That lady appears to have been a +devoted disciple of John Wesley, and was fonder of travelling to divers +towns and villages to hear the discourses of that preacher than her +husband approved. It seems they were wont to disagree upon this subject. + +For some years before her marriage Mrs. Matthew was a member of a +Wesleyan confraternity, in those days newly established at Ullerton. +They held meetings and heard sermons in the warehouse of a wealthy +draper; and shortly before Mrs. Matthew's demise they built a chapel, +still extant, in a dingy little thoroughfare known as Waterhouse-lane. + +On these points my ancient mariner is tolerably clear. They belong to +the period remembered by his father. + +And now I believe him to be pumped dry. I gave him my benediction, and +left him smoking some of my tobacco, content with himself and with the +world--always excepting the authorities, or board, of the almshouses, +against whom he appears to nourish a grievance. + +After leaving him, I walked about Ullerton for an hour or so before +returning to my humble hostelry. The streets of Ullerton are sealed +with the seal of desolation--the abomination of desolation reigns in +the market-place, where the grass flourishes greenly in the interstices +of the pavement. The place has known prosperity, and is prosperous no +longer; but although its chief trade has left it, there are still some +three or four factories in full swing. I heard clanging bells, and met +bare-headed women and uncouth-looking men hurrying to and fro. I went +to look at the Wesleyan chapel in Waterhouse-lane. It is a queer little +building, and bears some resemblance to a toy Noah's Ark in red brick. +Tall warehouses have arisen about it and hemmed it in, and the slim +chimney-shaft of a waterworks throws a black shadow aslant its +unpretending facade. I inquired the name of the present minister. He is +called Jonah Goodge, began life as a carpenter, and is accounted the +pink and pattern of piety. _Oct. 4th_. A letter from Sheldon awaited me +in the coffee-room letter-rack when I went downstairs to breakfast. + +"MY DEAR HAWKEHURST,--Don't be disheartened if the work seems slow at +first. You'll soon get used to it. + +"I should recommend you to adopt the following tactics: + +"1st. Go to the house at Dewsdale, inhabited by M.H. and his wife. You +may have some difficulty in obtaining admission--and full liberty to +explore and examine--from the present servant or owner; but you are not +the man I take you for if you cannot overcome such a difficulty. I +enclose a few of my cards, which you can use at your discretion. They +show professional status. It would be as well to call yourself my +articled clerk, and to state that you are prosecuting an inquiry on the +behalf of a client of mine, who wishes to prove a certain event in the +past connected remotely with the H. family. If asked whether your +business relates to the property left by the rev. intestate, you must +reply decisively in the negative. But I must remind you that extreme +caution is required in every move you make. Wherever you can do your +work _without_ any reference to the name of Haygarth, avoid such +reference. Always remember that there may be other people on the same +scent. + +"2nd. Examine the house in detail; look for old pictures, old +furniture, old needlework--if you are lucky enough to find the Haygarth +furniture was sold with the property, which I should think probable. +The rev. intestate must have been at the University when he made the +sale; and a young Cantab would in all likelihood pass over his +ancestral chairs and tables to the purchaser of his ancestral mansion, +as so much useless lumber. It is proverbial that walls have ears. I +hope the Dewsdale walls may have tongues, and favour you with a little +information. + +"3rd. When you have done all that is to be done at Dewsdale, your next +work must be to hunt up any scion of the lawyer Brice, if such scion be +in existence at Ullerton. Or if not to be found in Ullerton, ascertain +where the descendant, or decendants, of Brice is, or are, to be found. +Brice, the lawyer, must have known the contents of those wills executed +and afterwards destroyed by Haygarth, and may have kept rough draughts, +copies, or memoranda of the same. This is most important.--Yours truly, +G.S." + +This Sheldon is a wonderful man, and a cautious!--no Signature to his +letter. + +I started for Dewsdale immediately after my breakfast. I have made +arrangements for boarding in this house, which is a second-rate +commercial inn. They have agreed to give me board and lodging for +twenty shillings a week--the full amount of my stipend: so all that I +gain by my researches in the affairs of the departed Matthew is food +and shelter. However, as this food and shelter is perhaps more honestly +obtained than those little dinners which I have so often eaten with the +great Horatio, I will try to fancy a sweetness in the tough steaks and +greasy legs of mutton. O sheep of Midlandshire! why cultivate such +ponderous calves, and why so incline to sinews? O cooks of +Midlandshire! why so superficial in the treatment of your roasts, so +impetuous and inconsiderate when you boil? + +A railroad now penetrates the rural district in which the village of +Dewsdale is situated. There is a little station, something like a +wooden Dutch oven, within a mile of the village; and here I alighted. +The morning savoured of summer rather than autumn. The air was soft and +balmy, the sunshine steeped the landscape in warm light, and the red +and golden tints of the fading foliage took new splendour from that +yellow sunshine. A man whose life is spent in cities must be dull of +soul indeed if he does not feel a little touched by the beauty of +rustic scenery, when he finds himself suddenly in the heart of the +country. I had seen nothing so fair as those English fields and copses +since I left the pine-clad hills of Foretdechene. An idiotic boy +directed me across some fields to Dewsdale. He sent me a mile out of +the way; but I forgave and blest him, for I think the walk did me good. +I felt as if all manner of vicious vapours were being blown out of my +head as the soft wind lifted my hair. + +And so to Dewsdale. Strolling leisurely through those quiet meadows, I +fell to thinking of many things that seldom came into my mind in +London. I thought of my dead mother--a poor gentle creature--too frail +to carry heroically the burden laid upon her, and so a little soured by +chronic debt and difficulty. I have reason to remember her tenderly; we +shared so much misery together. I believe my father married her in the +Rules of the Bench; and if I am not sure upon this point, I know for a +certainty that I was born within those mystic boundaries. + +And then my mind wandered to those nomadic adventures in which poor +Diana Paget and I were so much together. I think we were a little fond +of each other in those days; but in that matter I was at least prudent; +and now the transient fancy has faded, on Di's part as well as on mine. + +If I could be as prudent where Charlotte H. is concerned! + +But prudence and Charlotte's eyes cannot hold their own in the same +brain. Of two things, one, as our neighbours say: a man must cease to +be prudent, or he must forget those bewitching gray eyes. + +I know she was sorry when she heard of my intended departure. + +This is her birthday. She is twenty-one years of age to-day. I remember +the two girls talking of it, and Miss Halliday declaring herself "quite +old." My dear one, I drink your health in this poor tavern liquor, with +every tender wish and holy thought befitting your innocent girlhood! + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE. + + +I found the house at Dewsdale without difficulty. It is a stiff, +square, red-brick dwelling-place, with long narrow windows, a high +narrow door, and carved canopy; a house which savours of the _Tatler_ +and _Spectator_; a house in which the short-faced gentleman might have +spent his summer holidays after Sir Roger's death. It stands behind a +high iron gate, surmounted by a handsome coat of arms; and before it +there lies a pleasant patch of greensward, with a pond and a colony of +cackling geese, which craned their necks and screamed at me as I passed +them. + +The place is the simplest and smallest of rural villages. There is a +public-house--the Seven Stars; a sprinkling of humble cottages; a +general shop, which is at once a shoemaker's, a grocer's, a linen +draper's, a stationer's, and a post office. These habitations, a gray +old church with a square tower, half hidden by the sombre foliage of +yews and cedars, and the house once inhabited by the Haygarths, +comprise the whole of the village. The Haygarthian household is now the +rectory. I ascertained this fact from the landlord of the Seven Stars, +at which house of entertainment I took a bottle of soda-water, in order +to _sonder le terrain_ before commencing business. + +The present rector is an elderly widower with seven children; an easy +good-natured soul, who is more prone to bestow his money in charity +than to punctuality in the payment of his debts. + +Having discovered thus much, I rang the bell at the iron gate and +boarded the Haygarthian mansion. The rector was at home, and received +me in a very untidy apartment, _par excellence_ a study. A boy in a +holland blouse was smearing his face with his inky fingers, and +wrestling with a problem in Euclid, while his father stood on a +step-ladder exploring a high shelf of dusty books. + +The rector, whose name is Wendover, descended from the step-ladder and +shook the dust from his garments. He is a little withered old man, with +a manner so lively as to be on the verge of flightiness. I observed +that he wiped his dusty palms on the skirts of his coat, and argued +therefrom that he would be an easy person to deal with. I soon found +that my deduction was correct. + +I presented Sheldon's card and stated my business, of course acting on +that worthy's advice. Could Mr. Wendover give me any information +relating to the Haygarth family? + +Fortune favoured me throughout this Dewsdale expedition. The rector is +a simple garrulous old soul, to whom to talk is bliss. He has occupied +the house five-and-thirty years. He rents it of the lord of the manor, +who bought it from John Haygarth. Not a stick of furniture has been +removed since our friend Matthew's time; and the rev. intestate may +have wrestled with the mysteries of Euclid on the same old-fashioned +mahogany table at which I saw the boy in brown holland. + +Mr. Wendover left his books and manuscripts scattered on the floor of +the study, and conducted me to a cool shady drawing-room, very shabbily +furnished with the spindle-legged chairs and tables of the last +century. Here he begged me to be seated, and here we were ever and anon +interrupted by intruding juveniles, the banging of doors, and the +shrill clamour of young voices in the hall and garden. + +I brought all the diplomacy of which I am master to bear in my long +interview with the rector; and the following is a transcript of our +conversation, after a good deal of polite skirmishing:-- + +_Myself_. You see, my dear sir, the business I am concerned in is +remotely connected with these Haygarths. Any information you will +kindly afford me, however apparently trivial, may be of service in the +affair I am prosecuting. + +_The Rector._ To be sure, to be sure! But, you see, though I've heard a +good deal of the Haygarths, it is all gossip--the merest gossip. People +are so fond of gossip, you know--especially country people: I have no +doubt you have remarked that. Yes, I have heard a great deal about +Matthew Haygarth. My late clerk and sexton,--a very remarkable man, +ninety-one when he died, and able to perform his duties very creditably +within a year of his death--very creditably; but the hard winter of '56 +took him off, poor fellow, and now I have a young man. Old Andrew +Hone--that was my late clerk's name--was employed in this house when a +lad, and was very fond of talking about Matthew Haygarth and his wife. +She was a rich woman, you know, a very rich woman--the daughter of a +brewer at Ullerton; and this house belonged to her--inherited from her +father. + +_Myself_. And did you gather from your clerk that Matthew Haygarth and +his wife lived happily together? + +_The Rector_. Well, yes, yes: I never heard anything to the contrary. +They were not a young couple, you know. Rebecca Caulfield was forty +years of age, and Matthew Haygarth was fifty-three when he married; so, +you see, one could hardly call it a love-match. [_Abrupt inroad of +bouncing damsel, exclaiming "Pa!"_] Don't you see I'm engaged, Sophia +Louisa? Why are you not at your practice? [_Sudden retreat of bouncing +damsel, followed by the scrambling performance of scale of C major in +adjoining chamber, which performance abruptly ceases after five +minutes_.] You see Mrs. Haygarth was _not_ young, as I was about to +observe when my daughter interrupted us; and she was perhaps a little +more steadfast in her adherence to the newly arisen sect of Wesleyans +than was pleasing to her husband, although he consented to become a +member of that sect. But as their married life lasted only a year, they +had little time for domestic unhappiness, even supposing them not to be +adapted to each other. + +_Myself_. Mrs Matthew Haygarth did not marry again? + +_The Rector_. No; she devoted herself to the education of her son, and +lived and died in this house. The room which is now my study she +furnished with a small reading-desk and a couple of benches, now in my +nursery, and made it into a kind of chapel, in which the keeper of the +general shop--who was, I believe, considered a shining light amongst +the Wesleyan community--was in the habit of holding forth every Sunday +morning to such few members of that sect as were within reach of +Dewsdale. She died when her son was nineteen years of age, and was +buried in the family vault in the churchyard yonder. Her son's +adherence to the Church of England was a very great trouble to her. +[_Inroad of boy in holland, very dejected and inky of aspect, also +exclaiming "Pa!"_] No, John; not till that problem is worked out. Take +that cricket-bat back to the lobby, sir, and return to your studies. +[_Sulky withdrawal of boy._] You see what it is to have a large family, +Mr.--Sheldon. I beg pardon, Mr.------ + +_Myself_. Hawkehurst, clerk to Mr. Sheldon. + +_The Rector_. To be sure. I have some thoughts of the Law for one of my +elder sons; the Church is terribly overcrowded. However, as I was on +the point of saying when my boy John disturbed us, though I have heard +a great deal of gossip about the Haygarths, I fear I can give you very +little substantial information. Their connection with Dewsdale lasted +little more than twenty years. Matthew Haygarth was married in Dewsdale +church, his son John was christened in Dewsdale church, and he himself +is buried in the churchyard. That is about as much positive information +as I can give you; and you will perhaps remark that the parish register +would afford you as much. + +After questioning the good-natured old rector rather closely, and +obtaining little more than the above information, I asked permission +to see the house. + +"Old furniture and old pictures are apt to be suggestive," I said; "and +perhaps while we are going over the house you may happen to recall some +further particulars relating to the Haygarth family." + +Mr. Wendover assented. He was evidently anxious to oblige me, and +accepted my explanation of my business in perfect good faith. He +conducted me from room to room, waiting patiently while I scrutinised +the panelled walls and stared at the attenuated old furniture. I was +determined to observe George Sheldon's advice to the very letter, +though I had little hope of making any grand melodramatic discovery in +the way of documents hidden in old cabinets, or mouldering behind +sliding panels. + +I asked the rector if he had ever found papers of any kind in forgotten +nooks and corners of the house or the furniture. His reply was a +decided negative. He had explored and investigated every inch of the +old dwelling-place, and had found nothing. + +So much for Sheldon's idea. + +Mr. Wendover led me from basement to garret, encountering bouncing +daughters and boys in brown holland wherever we went; and from basement +to garret I found that all was barren. In the whole of the house there +was but one object which arrested my attention, and the interest which +that one object aroused in my mind had no relation to the Haygarthian +fortune. + +Over a high carved chimney-piece in one of the bedchambers there hung a +little row of miniatures--old-fashioned oval miniatures, pale and +faded--pictures of men and women with the powdered hair of the Georgian +period, and the flowing full-bottomed wigs familiar to St. James's and +Tunbridge-wells in the days of inoffensive Anne. There were in all +seven miniatures, six of which specimens of antique portraiture were +prim and starched and artificial of aspect. But the seventh was +different in form and style: it was the picture of a girlish face +looking out of a frame of loose unpowdered locks; a bright innocent +face, with gray eyes and marked black eyebrows, pouting lips a little +parted, and white teeth gleaming between lips of rosy red; such a face +as one might fancy the inspiration of an old poet. I took the miniature +gently from the little brass hook on which it hung, and stood for some +time looking at the bright frank face. + +It was the picture of Charlotte Halliday. Yes; I suppose there is a +fatality in these things. It was one of those marvellous accidental +resemblances which every man has met with in the course of his life. +Here was this dead-and-gone beauty of the days of George the Second +smiling upon me with the eyes and lips of Philip Sheldon's stepdaughter! + +Or was it only a delusion of my own? Was my mind so steeped in the +thought of that girl--was my heart so impressed by her beauty, that I +could not look upon a fair woman's face without conjuring up her +likeness in the pictured countenance? However this may be, I looked +long and tenderly at the face which seemed to me to resemble the woman +I love. + +Of course I questioned the rector as to the original of this particular +miniature. He could tell me nothing about it, except that he thought it +was not one of the Caulfields or Haygarths. The man in the +full-bottomed Queen-Anne wig was Jeremiah Caulfield, brewer, father of +the pious Rebecca; the woman with the high powdered head was the pious +Rebecca herself; the man in the George-the-Second wig was Matthew +Haygarth. The other three were kindred of Rebecca's. But the +wild-haired damsel was some unknown creature, for whose presence Mr. +Wendover was unable to account. + +I examined the frame of the miniature, and found that it opened at the +back. Behind the ivory on which the portrait was painted there was a +lock of dark hair incased in crystal; and on the inside of the case, +which was of some worthless metal gilded, there was scratched the name +"Molly." + +How this Molly with the loose dark locks came to be admitted among the +prim, and pious Caulfields is certainly more than I can understand. + +My exploration of the house having resulted only in this little +romantic accident of the likeness to Charlotte, I prepared to take my +departure, no wiser than when I had first crossed the threshold. The +rector very politely proposed to show me the church; and as I +considered that it would be well to take a copy of the Haygarthian +entries in the register, I availed myself of his offer. He despatched a +maid-servant to summon his clerk, in order that that functionary might +assist in the investigation of the registers. The girl departed on this +errand, while her master conducted me across his garden, in which there +is now a gate opening into the churchyard. + +It is the most picturesque of burial-grounds, darkened by the shadow of +those solemn yews and spreading cedars. We walked very slowly between +the crumbling old tombstones, which have almost all grown one-sided +with time. Mr. Wendover led me through a little labyrinth of lowly +graves to a high and ponderous iron railing surrounding a square space, +in the midst of which there is a stately stone monument. In the railing +there is a gate, from which a flight of stone step leads down to the +door of a vault. It is altogether rather a pretentious affair, wherein +one sees the evidence of substantial wealth unelevated by artistic +grace or poetic grandeur. + +This is the family vault of the Caulfields and Haygarths. + +"I've brought you to look at this tomb," said the rector, resting his +hand upon the rusted railing, "because there is rather a romantic story +connected with it--a story that concerns Matthew Haygarth, by the bye. +I did not think of it just now, when we were talking of him; but it +flashed on my memory as we came through the garden. It is rather a +mysterious affair; and though it is not very likely to have any bearing +upon the object of your inquiry, I may as well tell you about it,--as a +leaf out of family history, you know, Mr. Hawkehurst, and as a new +proof of the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction." + +I assured the rector that I should be glad to hear anything he could +tell me. + +"I must premise that I only tell the story as I got it from my old +clerk, and that it may therefore seem rather indistinct; but there is +an entry in the register yonder to show that it is not without +foundation. However, I will waste no more words in preamble, but give +you the story, which is simply this:"-- + +The rector seated himself on a dilapidated old tombstone, while I +leaned against the rails of the Haygarth vault, looking down upon him. + +"Within a month or two of Matthew Haygarth's death a kind of melancholy +came over him," said the rector. "Whether he was unhappy with his wife, +or whether he felt his health declining, is more than I can say. You +must remember that my informant was but a lad at the time of which I +speak, and that when he talked to me about the subject sixty years +afterwards he was a very old man, and his impressions were therefore +more or less vague. But upon certain facts he was sufficiently +positive; and amongst the circumstances he remembered most vividly are +those of the story I am going to tell you. + +"It seems that within a very few weeks of Matthew's death, his wife, +Rebecca Haygarth, started on an expedition to the north, in the company +of an uncle, to hear John Wesley preach on some very special occasion, +and to assist at a love-feast. She was gone more than a fortnight; and +during her absence Matthew Haygarth mounted his horse early one morning +and rode away from Dewsdale. + +"His household consisted of three maids, a man, and the lad Andrew +Hone, afterwards my sexton. Before departing on his journey Mr. +Haygarth had said that he would not return till late the next evening, +and had requested that only the man (whose name I forget) should sit up +for him." He was punctiliously obeyed. The household, always of early +habits, retired at nine, the accustomed hour; and the man-servant +waited to receive his master, while the lad Andrew, who slept in the +stables, sat up to keep his fellow-servant company. + +"At ten o'clock Mr. Haygarth came home, gave his horse into the charge +of the lad, took his candle from the man-servant, and walked straight +upstairs, as if going to bed. The man-servant locked the doors, took +his master the key, and then went to his own quarters. The boy remained +up to feed and groom the horse, which had the appearance of having +performed a hard day's work. + +"He had nearly concluded this business when he was startled by the +slamming of the back door opening into the courtyard, in which were the +stables and outhouses. Apprehending thieves, the boy opened the door of +the stable and looked out, doubtless with considerable caution. + +"It was broad moonlight, and he saw at a glance that the person who had +opened the door was one who had a right to open it. Matthew Haygarth +was crossing the courtyard as the lad peeped out. He wore a long black +cloak, and his head drooped upon his breast as if he had been in +dejection. The lad--being, I suppose, inquisitive, after the manner of +country lads--made no more ado, but left his unfinished work and crept +stealthily after his master, who came straight to this +churchyard,--indeed to this very spot on which we are now standing. + +"On this spot the boy Andrew Hone became the secret witness of a +strange scene. He saw an open grave close against the rails yonder, and +he saw a little coffin lowered silently into that grave by the sexton +of that time and a strange man, who afterwards went away in a mourning +coach, which was in waiting at the gate, and in which doubtless the +stranger and the little coffin had come. + +"Before the man departed he assisted to fill up the grave; and when it +was filled Matthew Haygarth gave money to both the men--gold it seemed +to the lad Andrew, and several pieces to each person. The two men then +departed, but Mr. Haygarth still lingered. + +"As soon as he fancied himself alone, he knelt down beside the little +grave, covered his face with his hands, and either wept or prayed, +Andrew Hone could not tell which. If he wept, he wept silently. + +"From that night, my sexton said, Matthew Haygarth faded visibly. +Mistress Rebecca came home from her love-feast, and nursed and tended +her husband with considerable kindness, though, so far as I can make +out, she was at the best a stern woman. He died three weeks after the +event which I have described, and was buried in that vault close to the +little grave." I thanked Mr. Wendover for his succinct narrative, and +apologised for the trouble I had occasioned him. + +"Do not speak of the trouble," he answered kindly; "I am used to +telling that story. I have heard it a great many times from poor old +Andrew, and I have told it a great many times." + +"The story has rather a legendary tone," I said; "I should have +scarcely thought such a thing possible." + +The rector shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating gesture. + +"In our own day," he replied, "such an occurrence would be almost +impossible; but you must remember that we are talking of the last +century--a century in which, I regret to say, the clergy of the Church +of England were sadly lax in the performance of their duties. The +followers of Wesley and Whitefield could scarcely have multiplied as +they did if the flocks had not been cruelly neglected by their proper +shepherds. It was a period in which benefices were bestowed constantly +on men obviously unfitted for the holy office--men who were gamblers +and drunkards, patrons of cock-pits, and in many cases open and +shameless reprobates. In such an age almost anything was possible; and +this midnight and unhallowed interment may very well have taken place +either with the consent or without the knowledge of the incumbent, who, +I am told, bore no high character for piety or morality." + +"And you say there is an entry in the register?" + +"Yes, a careless scrawl, dated Sept. 19th, 1774, recording the burial +of one Matthew Haygarth, aged four years, removed from the +burial-ground attached to the parish church of Spotswold." + +"Then it was a reinterment?" + +"Evidently." + +"And is Spotswold in this county?" + +"Yes; it is a very small village, about fifty miles from here." + +"And Matthew Haygarth died very soon after this event?" + +"He did. He died very suddenly--with an awful suddenness--and died +intestate. His widow was left the possessor of great wealth, which +increased in the hands of her son John Haygarth, a very prudent and +worthy gentleman, and a credit to the Church of which he was a member. +He only died very lately, I believe, and must therefore have attained a +great age." + +It is quite evident that Mr. Wendover had not seen the advertisement in +the Times, and was ignorant of the fact that the accumulated wealth of +Haygarths and Caulfields is now waiting a claimant. + +I asked permission to see the register containing the entry of the +mysterious interment; and after the administration of a shilling to the +clerk--a shilling at Dewsdale being equal to half a crown in +London--the vestry cupboard was opened by that functionary, and the +book I required was produced from a goodly pile of such mouldy brown +leather-bound volumes. + +The following is a copy of the entry:-- + +"On Thursday last past, being ye 19 Sep'tr, A.D. 1774, was interr'd ye +bodie off onne Matthewe Haygarthe, ag'd foure yeres, remoov'd fromm ye +Churcheyarde off St. Marie, under ye hil, Spotswolde, in this Co. Pade +forr so doeing, sevven shill." + +After having inspected the register, I asked many further questions, +but without eliciting much further information. So I expressed my +thanks for the courtesy that had been shown me, and took my departure, +not wishing to press the matter so closely as to render myself a +nuisance to the worthy Wendover, and bearing in mind that it would be +open to me to return at any future time. + +And now I ask myself--and I ask the astute Sheldon--what is the meaning +of this mysterious burial, and is it likely to have any bearing on the +object of our search? These are questions for the consideration of the +astute S. + +I spent my evening in jotting down the events of the day, in the above +free-and-easy fashion for my own guidance, and in a more precise and +business-like style for my employer. I posted my letter before ten +o'clock, the hour at which the London mail is made up, and then smoked +my cigar in the empty streets, overshadowed by gaunt square stacks of +building and tall black chimneys; and so back to my inn, where I took a +glass of ale and another cigar, and then to bed, as the worthy Pepys +might have concluded. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. GOODGE'S WISDOM. + + +_Oct. 5th_. My dreams last night were haunted by the image of gray-eyed +Molly, with her wild loose hair. She must needs have been a sweet +creature; and how she came amongst those prim fishy-eyed men and women +with absurd head-gear is much more than I can understand. That she +should mix herself up with Diana Paget, and play _rouge-et-noir_ at +Foretdechene in a tucked-up chintz gown and a quilted satin petticoat, +in my dreams last night--that I should meet her afterwards in the +little stucco temple on the Belgian hills, and stab her to the heart, +whereon she changed into Charlotte Halliday--is only in the nature of +dreams, and therefore no subject for wonder. + +On referring to Sheldon's letter I found that the next people to be +looked up were descendants of Brice the lawyer; so I devoted my +breakfast-hour to the cultivation of an intimacy with the oldest of the +waiters--a very antique specimen of his brotherhood, with a white +stubble upon his chin and a tendency to confusion of mind in the matter +of forks and spoons. + +"Do you know, or have you ever known, an attorney of the name of Brice +in this town?" I asked him. + +He rubbed the white stubble contemplatively with his hand, and then +gave his poor old head a dejected shake. I felt at once that I should +get very little good out of _him_. + +"No," he murmured despondently, "not that I can call to mind." + +I should like to know what he _could_ call to mind, piteous old +meanderer! + +"And yet you belong to Ullerton, I suppose?" + +"Yes; and have belonged to it these seventy-five years, man and boy;" +whereby, no doubt, the dreary confusion of the unhappy being's mind. +Figurez donc, mon cher. Qui-que-ce-soit, fifty-five years or so of +commercial breakfasts and dinners in such a place as Ullerton! +Five-and-fifty years of steaks and chops; five-and-fifty years of ham +and eggs, indifferently buttered toasts, and perennial sixes of +brandy-and-water! After rambling to and fro with spoons and forks, and +while in progress of clearing my table, and dropping the different +items of my breakfast equipage, the poor soddened faded face of this +dreary wanderer became suddenly illumined with a faint glimmer that was +almost the light of reason. + +"There were a Brice in Ullerton when I were a lad; I've heard father +tell on him," he murmured slowly. + +"An attorney?" + +"Yes. He were a rare wild one, he were! It was when the Prince of Wales +were Regent for his poor old mad father, as the saying is, and folks +was wilder like in general in those times, and wore spencers--lawyer +Brice wore a plum-coloured one." + +Imagine then again, mon cher, an attorney in a plum-coloured spencer! +Who, in these enlightened days, would trust his business to such a +practitioner? I perked up considerably, believing that my aged imbecile +was going to be of real service to me. + +"Yes, he were a rare wild one, he were," said my ancient friend with +excitement. "I can remember him as well as if it was yesterday, at +Tiverford races--there was races at Tiverford in those days, and +gentlemen jocks. Lawyer Brice rode his roan mare--Queen Charlotte they +called her. But after that he went wrong, folks said--speckilated with +some money, you see, that he didn't ought to have touched--and went to +America, and died." + +"Died in America, did he? Why the deuce couldn't he die in Ullerton? +I should fancy it was a pleasanter place to die in than it is to +live in. And how about his sons?" + +"Lawyer Brice's sons?" + +"Yes, of course." + +My imbecile's lips expanded into a broad grin. + +"Lawyer Brice never had no sons," he exclaimed, with a tone which +seemed to express a contemptuous pity for my ignorance; "he never +married." + +"Well, well; his brothers. He had brothers, I suppose?" + +"Not as _I_ ever heard tell on," answered my imbecile, relapsing into +hopeless inanity. + +It was clear that no further help was to be obtained from him. I went +to the landlord--a brisk business-like individual of Transatlantic +goaheadism. From him I learned that there were no Brices in Ullerton, +and never had been within the thirty years of his experience in that +town. He gave me an Ullerton directory in confirmation of that fact--a +neat little shilling volume, which I begged leave to keep for a quarter +of an hour before returning it. + +Brice was evidently a failure. I turned to the letter G, and looked up +the name of Goodge. Goodge, Jonah, minister of Beulah Chapel, resided +at No. 7, Waterhouse-lane--the lane in which I had seen the chapel. + +I determined upon waiting on the worthy Goodge. He may be able to +enlighten me as to the name of the pastor who preached to the Wesleyan +flock in the time of Rebecca Caulfield; and from the descendants of +such pastor I may glean some straws and shreds of information. The +pious Rebecca would have been likely to confide much to her spiritual +director. The early Wesleyans had all the exaltation of the Quietists, +and something of the lunatic fervour of the Convulsionists, who kicked +and screamed themselves into epilepsy under the influence of the +Unigenitus Bull. The pious Rebecca was no doubt an enthusiast. + + * * * * * + +I found No. 7, Waterhouse-lane. It is a neat little six-roomed house, +with preternaturally green palings enclosing about sixty square feet of +bright yellow gravel, adorned by a row of whitewashed shells. Some +scarlet geraniums bloomed in pots of still more vivid scarlet; and the +sight of those bright red blossoms recalled Philip Sheldon's garden at +Bayswater, and that sweet girl by whose side I have walked its trim +pathways. + +But business is business; and if I am ever to sue for my Charlotte's +hand, I must present myself before her as the winner of the three +thousand. Remembering this, I lifted Mr. Goodge's knocker, and +presently found myself in conversation with that gentleman. + +Whether unordained piety has a natural tendency to become greasy of +aspect, and whether, among the many miracles vouchsafed to the amiable +and really great Wesley, he received for his disciples of all time to +come the gift of a miraculous straightness and lankiness of hair, I +know not; but I do know that every Methodist parson I have had the +honour to know has been of one pattern, and that Mr. Goodge is no +exception to the rule. + +I am bound to record that I found him a very civil person, quite +willing to afford me any help in his power, and far more practical and +business-like than the rector of Dewsdale. + +It seems that the gift of tongues descended on the Goodges during the +lifetime of John Wesley himself, and during the earlier part of that +teacher's career. It was a Goodge who preached in the draper's +warehouse, and it was the edifying discourse of a Goodge which +developed the piety of Miss Rebecca Caulfield, afterwards Mrs. Haygarth. + +"That Goodge was my great-uncle," said the courteous Jonah, "and there +was no one in Ullerton better acquainted with Rebecca Caulfield. I've +heard my grandmother talk of her many a time. She used to send him +poultry and garden-stuff from her house at Dewsdale, and at his +instigation she contributed handsomely to the erection of the chapel in +which it is my privilege to preach." + +I felt that I had struck upon a vein of gold. Here was a sharp-witted, +middle-aged man--not an ancient mariner, or a meandering imbecile--who +could remember the talk of a grandmother who had known Matthew +Haygarth's wife. And this visit to Mr. Goodge was my own idea, not +prompted by the far-seeing Sheldon. I felt myself advancing in the +insidious arts of a private inquirer. + +"I am employed in the prosecution of a business which has a _remote_ +relation to the Haygarth family history," I said; "and if you can +afford me any information on that subject I should be extremely +obliged." + +I emphasised the adjective "remote," and felt myself, in my humble way, +a Talleyrand. + +"What kind of information, do you require?" asked Mr. Goodge +thoughtfully. + +"Any information respecting Matthew Haygarth or his wife." + +Mr. Goodge became profoundly meditative after this. + +"I am not given to act unadvisedly," he began--and I felt that I was in +for a little professional discourse: "the creatures of impulse are the +children of Satan, the babes of Lucifer, the infants of Beelzebub. I +take counsel in the silence of the night, and wait the whispers of +wisdom in the waking hours of darkness. You must allow me time to +ponder this business in my heart and to be still." + +I told Mr. Goodge that I would willingly await his own time for +affording me any information in his power to give. + +"That is pleasant," said the pastor blandly: "the worldly are apt to +rush blindly through life, as the roaring lion rushes through the +forest. I am not one of those rushing worldlings. I presume, by the +way, that such information as I may afford is likely to become a source +of pecuniary profit to your employer?" + +I began to see that my friend Goodge and the rector of Dewsdale were +very different kind of people, and that I must play my cards +accordingly. + +"That will depend upon the nature of your information," I replied +diplomatically; "it may be worth something to us, or it may be +worthless." + +"And in case it should be worth something?" + +"In that case my employer would be glad to remunerate the person from +whom he obtained it." + +Mr. Goodge again became meditative. + +"It was the habit of the sainted Wesley to take counsel from the +Scriptures," he said presently: "if you will call again tomorrow, young +man, I shall have taken counsel, and may be able to entreat with you." + +I did not much relish being addressed as "young man," even by such a +shining light as the Rev. Jonah Goodge. But as I wanted the Rev. +Jonah's aid, I submitted with a tolerable grace to his patriarchal +familiarity, and bade him good morning, after promising to call again +on the following day. I returned to my inn and wrote to Sheldon in time +for the afternoon mail, recounting my interview with Mr. Goodge, and +asking how far I should be authorised to remunerate that gentleman, or +to pledge myself to remunerate him for such information as he might +have to dispose of. + + +_Oct. 6th_. A letter from Sheldon. + +"DEAR HAWKEHURST,--There may be something very important behind that +mysterious burial at Dewsdale. Go without delay to Spotswold; examine +registers, tombstones, &c; hunt up oldest inhabitant or inhabitants, +from whom you may be able to discover whether any Haygarth or Haygarths +ever lived there, and all that is known respecting such Haygarth or +Haygarths. You have got a clue to _something_. Follow it up till it +breaks off short, as such clues often do, or till you find it is only +leading you on a wild-goose chase. The Dewsdale business is worth +investigation. + +"Mem. How about descendants of lawyer Brice?--Yours truly, G.S. + +"G.'s Inn, Oct. 5th." + + +Before starting for Spotswold it was necessary for me to see Mr. +Goodge. I found that gentleman in a pious and yet business-like frame +of mind. He had taken counsel from the Scriptures, like the founder of +his sect; but I fancy with rather less spiritual aspirations. + +"The text upon which the lot fell was the 12th verse of the 9th chapter +in the Book of Proverbs, 'If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for +thyself,'" he said solemnly; "whereby I perceive that I shall not be +justified in parting with that which you seek without fitting +recompense. I ask you, therefore, young man, what are you prepared to +give?" + +The Rev. Jonah's tone could scarcely have been more lofty, or his +manner more patronising, if he had been Saul and I the humble David; +but a man who is trying to earn three thousand pounds must put up with +a great deal. Finding that the minister was prepared to play the +huckster, I employed no further ceremony. + +"The price must of course depend on the quality of the article you have +to sell," I said; "I must know that before I can propose terms." + +"Suppose my information took the form of letters?" + +"Letters from whom--to whom?" + +"From Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth to my great-uncle, Samson Goodge." + +"How many of such letters have you to sell?" + +I put it very plainly; but the Rev. Jonah's susceptibilities were not +of the keenest order. He did not wince. + +"Say forty odd letters." + +I pricked up my ears; and it needed all my diplomacy to enable me to +conceal my sense of triumph. Forty odd letters! There must be an +enormous amount of information in forty odd letters; unless the woman +wrote the direst twaddle ever penned by a feminine correspondent. + +"Over what period do the dates of these letters extend?" I asked. + +"Over about seven years; from 1769 to 1776." + +Four years prior to the marriage with our friend Matthew; three years +after the marriage. + +"Are they tolerably long letters, or mere scrawls?" + +"They were written in a period when nobody wrote short letters," +answered Mr. Goodge sententiously,--"the period of Bath post and dear +postage. The greater number of the epistles cover three sides of a +sheet of letter-paper; and Mrs. Rebecca's caligraphy was small and +neat." + +"Good!" I exclaimed. "I suppose it is no use my asking you to let me +see one of these letters before striking a bargain--eh, Mr. Goodge?" +"Well, I think not," answered the oily old hypocrite. "I have taken +counsel, and I will abide by the light that has been shown me. 'If thou +be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself;' such are the words of +inspiration. No, I think not." + +"And what do you ask for the forty odd letters?" + +"Twenty pounds." + +"A stiff sum, Mr. Goodge, for forty sheets of old letter-paper." + +"But if they were not likely to be valuable, you would scarcely happen +to want them," answered the minister. "I have taken counsel, young man." + +"And those are your lowest terms?" + +"I cannot accept sixpence less. It is not in me to go from my word. As +Jacob served Laban seven years, and again another seven years, having +promised, so do I abide by my bond. Having said twenty pounds, young +man, Heaven forbid that I should take so much as twenty pence less than +those twenty pounds!" + +The solemn unction with which he pronounced this twaddle is beyond +description. The pretence of conscientious feeling which he contrived +to infuse into his sordid bargain-driving might have done honour to +Moliere's Tartuffe. Seeing that he was determined to stick to his +terms, I departed. I telegraphed to Sheldon for instructions as to +whether I was to give Goodge the money he asked, and then went back to +my inn, where I devoted myself for the next ten minutes to the study of +a railway time-table, with a view to finding the best route to +Spotswold. + +After a close perusal of bewildering strings of proper names and +dazzling columns of figures, I found a place called Black Harbour, "for +Wisborough, Spotswold, and Chilton." A train left Ullerton for Black +Harbour at six o'clock in the afternoon, and was due at the latter +place at 8.40. + +This gave me an interval of some hours, in which I could do nothing, +unless I received a telegram from Sheldon. The chance of a reply from +him kept me a prisoner in the coffee-room of the Swan Inn, where I read +almost every line in the local and London newspapers pending the +arrival of the despatch, which came at last. + +"Tell Goodge he shall have the sum asked, and get the letters at once. +Money by to-night's post." + +This was Sheldon's message; sharp and short, and within the eighteen +penny limit. Acting upon this telegram, I returned to the abode of Mr. +Goodge, told him his terms were to be complied with, showed him the +telegram, at his request, and asked for the letters. + +I ought to have known my reverend friend better than to imagine he +would part with those ancient documents except for money upon the +counter. + +He smiled a smile which might have illuminated the visage of +Machiavelli. + +"The letters have kept a long time, young man," he said, after having +studied the telegram as closely as if it had been written in Punic; +"and to you, they are in nowise the worse for keeping: so they will +keep yet longer. 'If thou be wise, then shalt be wise for thyself.' You +can come for the letters tomorrow, and bring the money with you. Say at +11 A.M." + +I put on my hat and bade my friend good day. I have often been tempted +to throw things at people, and have withheld my hand; but I never felt +Satan so strong upon me as at that moment, and I very much fear that if +I had had anything in the way of a kitchen-poker or a carving-knife +about me, I should have flung that missile at the patriarchal head of +my saintly Jonah. As it was, I bade him good day and returned to the +Swan, where I took a hurried repast and started for the station, +carrying a light carpet-bag with me, as I was not likely to return till +the following night, at the earliest. + +I arrived at the station ten minutes before the starting of the train, +and had to endure ten minutes of that weariness called waiting. I +exhausted the interest of all the advertisements on the station walls; +found out how I could have my furniture removed with the utmost +convenience--supposing myself to possess furniture; discovered where I +ought to buy a dinner-service, and the most agreeable kind of blind to +screen my windows in sunny weather. I was still lingering over the +description of this new invention in blinds, when a great bell set up a +sudden clanging, and the down train from London came thundering into +the station. + +This was also the train for Black Harbour. There were a good many +passengers going northwards, a good many alighting at Ullerton; and in +the hurry and confusion I had some difficulty in finding a place in a +second-class carriage, the passengers therein blocking up the windows +with that unamiable exclusiveness peculiar to railway travellers. I +found a place at last, however; but in hurrying from carriage to +carriage I was startled by an occurrence which I have since pondered +very seriously. + +I ran bolt against my respected friend and patron Horatio Paget. + +We had only time to recognise each other with exclamations of mutual +surprise when the clanging bell rang again, and I was obliged to +scuffle into my seat. A moment's delay would have caused me to be left +behind. And to have remained behind would have been very awkward for +me; as the Captain would undoubtedly have questioned me as to my +business in Ullerton. Was I not supposed to be at Dorking, enjoying the +hospitality of an aged aunt? + +It would have been unlucky to lose that train. + +But what "makes" the gallant Captain in Ullerton? That is a question +which I deliberated as the train carried me towards Black Harbour. + +Sheldon warned me of the necessity for secrecy, and I have been as +secret as the grave. It is therefore next to an impossibility that +Horatio Paget can have any idea of the business I am engaged in. He is +the very man of all others to try and supersede me if he had an inkling +of my plans; but I am convinced he can have no such inkling. + +And yet the advertisement of the Haygarth property in the _Times_ was +as open to the notice of all the world as it was open to the notice of +George Sheldon. What if my patron should have been struck by the same +advertisement, and should have come to Ullerton on the same business? + +It is possible, but it is not likely. When I left town the Captain was +engaged in Philip Sheldon's affairs. He has no doubt come to Ullerton +on Philip Sheldon's business. The town, which seems an abomination of +desolation to a man who is accustomed to London and Paris, is +nevertheless a commercial centre; and the stockbroker's schemes may +involve the simple Ullertonians, as well as the more experienced +children of the metropolis. + +Having thought the business out thus, I gave myself no further trouble +about the unexpected appearance of my friend and benefactor. + +At Black Harbour I found a coach, which carried me to Spotswold, +whither I travelled in a cramped and painful position as regards my +legs, and with a pervading sensation which was like a determination of +luggage to the brain, so close to my oppressed head was the +heavily-laden roof of the vehicle. It was pitch dark when I and two +fellow-passengers of agricultural aspect were turned out of the coach +at Spotswold, which in the gloom of night appeared to consist of half a +dozen houses shut in from the road by ghastly white palings, a grim +looming church, and a low-roofed inn with a feeble light glimmering +athwart a red stuff curtain. + +At this inn I was fain to take up my abode for the night, and was +conducted to a little whitewashed bedchamber, draperied with scanty +dimity and smelling of apples--the humblest, commonest cottage chamber, +but clean and decent, and with a certain countrified aspect which was +pleasing to me. I fancied myself the host of such an inn, with +Charlotte for my wife; and it seemed to me that it would be nice to +live in that remote and unknown village, "the world forgetting, by the +world forgot." I beguiled myself by such foolish fancies--I, who have +been reared amidst the clamour and riot of the Strand! + +Should I be happy with that dear girl if she were mine? Alas! I doubt +it. A man who has led a disreputable life up to the age of +seven-and-twenty is very likely to have lost all capacity for such pure +and perfect happiness as that which good men find in the tranquil haven +of a home. + +Should I not hear the rattle of the billiard-balls, or the voice of the +_croupier_ calling the main, as I sat by my quiet fireside? Should I +not yearn for the glitter and confusion of West-end dancing-rooms, or +the mad excitement of the ring, while my innocent young wife was +sitting by my side and asking me to look at the blue eyes of my +first-born? + +No; Charlotte is not for me. There must be always the two classes--the +sheep and the goats; and my lot has been cast among the goats. + +And yet there are some people who laugh to scorn the doctrines of +Calvin, and say there is no such thing as predestination. + +Is there not predestination? Was not I predestined to be born in a gaol +and reared in a gutter, educated among swindlers and scoundrels, fed +upon stolen victuals, and clad in garments never to be paid for? Did no +Eumenides preside over the birth of Richard Savage, so set apart for +misery that the laws of nature were reversed, and even his mother hated +him? Did no dismal fatality follow the footsteps of Chatterton? Has no +mysterious ban been laid upon the men who have been called Dukes of +Buckingham? + +What foolish lamentations am I scribbling in this diary, which is +intended to be only the baldest record of events! It is so natural to +mankind to complain, that, having no ear in which to utter his +discontent, a man is fain to resort to pen and ink. + +I devoted my evening to conversation with the landlord and his wife, +but found that the name of Haygarth was as strange to them as if it had +been taken from an inscription in the tomb of the Pharaohs. I inquired +about the few inhabitants of the village, and ascertained that the +oldest man in the place is the sexton, native-born, and supposed by +mine host never to have travelled twenty miles from his birthplace. His +name is Peter Drabbles. What extraordinary names that class of people +contrive to have! My first business to-morrow morning will be to find +my friend Drabbles--another ancient mariner, no doubt--and to examine +the parish registers. + +_Oct. 7th_. A misty morning, and a perpetual drizzle--to say nothing of +a damp, penetrating cold, which creeps through the thickest overcoat, +and chills one to the bone. I do not think Spotswold can have much +brightness or prettiness even on the fairest summer morning that ever +beautified the earth. I know that, seen as I see it to-day, the place +is the very archetype of all that is darksome, dull, desolate, dismal, +and dreary. (How odd, by the way, that all that family of epithets +should have the same initial!) A wide stretch of moorland lies around +and about the little village, which crouches in a hollow, like some +poor dejected animal that seeks to shelter itself from the bitter +blast. On the edge of the moorland, and above the straggling cottages +and the little inn, rises the massive square tower of an old church, so +far out of proportion to the pitiful cluster of houses, that I imagine +it must be the remnant of some monastic settlement. + +Towards this church I made my way, under the dispiriting drip, drip of +the rain, and accompanied by a feeble old man, who is sexton, clerk, +gravedigger, and anything or everything of an official nature. + +We went into the church after my ancient mariner No. 2 had fumbled a +good deal with a bunch of ghostly-looking keys. The door opened with a +dismal scroop, and shut with an appalling bang. Grim and dark as the +church is without, it is grimmer and darker within, and damp and +vault-like, _a faire fremir_. There are all the mysterious cupboards +and corners peculiar to such edifices; an organ-loft, from which weird +noises issue at every opening or closing of a door; a vaulted roof, +which echoes one's footsteps with a moan, as of some outraged spirit +hovering in empty space, and ejaculating piteously, "Another impious +intruder after the sacramental plate! another plebeian sole trampling +on the brasses of the De Montacutes, lords of the manor!" + +The vestry is, if anything, more ghostly than the general run of +vestries; but the business mind is compelled to waive all +considerations of a supernatural character. For the moment there +flashed across my brain the shadows of all the Christmas stories I had +ever read or heard concerning vestries; the phantom bridal, in which +the bride's beautiful white hand changed to the bony fingers of a +skeleton as she signed the register; the unearthly christening, in +which all at once, after the ceremony having been conducted with the +utmost respectability, to the edification of the unauthorised intruder +hiding behind a pillar, the godfathers and godmothers, nurse and baby, +priest and clerk, became in a moment dilapidated corpses; whereon the +appalled intruder fell prone at the foot of his pillar, there to be +discovered the next morning by his friends, and the public generally, +with his hair blanched to an awful whiteness, or his noble intellect +degraded to idiocy. For a moment, the memory of about a hundred +Christmas stories was too much for me--so weird of aspect and earthy of +atmosphere was the vestry at Spotswold. And then "being gone" the +shadows of the Christmas stories, I was a man and a lawyer's clerk +again, and set myself assiduously to search the registers and +interrogate my ancient. + +I found that individual a creature of mental fogginess compared with +whom my oldest inhabitant of Ullerton would have been a Pitt, Earl of +Chatham. But I questioned and cross-questioned him until I had in a +manner turned his poor old wits the seamy side without, and had +discovered, first, that he had never known any one called Haygarth in +the whole course of those seventy-five years' vegetation which +politeness compelled me to speak of as his "life;" secondly, that he +had never known any one who knew a Haygarth; thirdly, that he was +intimately acquainted with every creature in the village, and that he +knew that no one of the inhabitants could give me the smallest shred of +such information as I required. + +Having extorted so much as this from my ancient with unutterable +expenditure of time and trouble, I next set to work upon the registers. + +If the ink manufactured in the present century is of no more durable +nature than that abominable fluid employed in the penmanship of a +hundred years ago, I profoundly pity the generations that are to come +after us. The registers of Spotswold might puzzle a Bunsen. However, +bearing in mind the incontrovertible fact that three thousand pounds is +a very agreeable sum of money, I stuck to my work for upwards of two +hours, and obtained as a result the following entries:-- + +"1. Matthew Haygarthe, aged foure yeares, berrid in this churcheyarde, +over against ye tombe off Mrs. Marttha Stileman, about 10 fete fromm ye +olde yue tre. Febevarie 6th, 1753." + +"2. Mary Haygarthe, aged twentie sevene yeers, berrid under ye yue +tree, Nov. 21, 1754." + +After copying these two entries, I went out into the churchyard to look +for Mary Haygarth's grave. + +Under a fine old yew--which had been old a hundred years ago, it +seems--I found huddled amongst other headstones one so incrusted with +moss, that it was only after scraping the parasite verdure from the +stone with my penknife that I was able to discover the letters that had +been cut upon it. I found at last a brief inscription: + +"Here lieth ye body of MARY HAYGARTH, aged 27. Born 1727. Died 1754. +This stone has been set up by one who sorroweth without hope of +consolation." A strange epitaph: no scrap of Latin, no text from +Scripture, no conventional testimony to the virtues and accomplishments +of the departed, no word to tell whether the dead woman had been maid, +wife, or widow. It was the most provoking inscription for a lawyer or a +genealogist, but such as might have pleased a poet. + +I fancy this Mary Haygarth must have been some quiet creature, with +very few friends to sorrow for her loss; perhaps only that one person +who sorrowed without hope of consolation. + +Such a tombstone might have been set above the grave of that simple +maid who dwelt "beside the banks of Dove." + +This is the uttermost that my patience or ingenuity can do for me at +Spotswold. I have exhausted every possibility of obtaining further +information. So, having written and posted my report to Sheldon, I have +no more to do but to return to Ullerton. I take back with me nothing +but the copy of the two entries in the register of burials. Who this +Matthew Haygarth or this Mary Haygarth was, and how related to _the_ +Matthew, is an enigma not to be solved at Spotswold. + +Here the story of the Haygarths ends with the grave under the yew-tree. + + + + + +BOOK THE FIFTH. + + +RELICS OF THE DEAD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +BETRAYED BY A BLOTTING-PAD. + + +At an early hour upon the day on which Valentine Hawkehurst telegraphed +to his employer, Philip Sheldon presented himself again at the dingy +door of the office in Gray's Inn. + +The dingy door was opened by the still more dingy boy; and Mr. Sheldon +the elder--who lived in a state of chronic hurry, and had a hansom cab +in attendance upon him at almost every step of his progress through +life--was aggravated by the discovery that his brother was out. + +"Out!" he repeated, with supreme disgust; "he always _is_ out, I think. +Where is he to be found?" + +The boy replied that his master would be back in half an hour, if Mr. +Sheldon would like to wait. + +"Like to wait!" cried the stockbroker; "when will lawyers' clerks have +sense enough to know that nobody on this earth ever _liked_ to wait? +Where's your master gone?" + +"I think he's just slipped round into Holborn, sir," the boy replied, +with some slight hesitation. He was very well aware that George had +secrets from his brother, and that it was not judicious to be too free +in his communications to the elder gentleman. But the black eyes and +white teeth of the stockbroker seemed very awful to him; and if Philip +chose to question him, he must needs answer the truth, not having been +provided by his master with any convenient falsehood in case of inquiry. + +"What part of Holborn?" asked Philip sharply. + +"I did hear tell as it was the telegraph office." + +"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon; and then he dashed downstairs, leaving +the lad on the threshold of the door staring after him with eyes of +wonder. + +The telegraph office meant business; and any business of his brother's +was a matter of interest to Mr. Sheldon at this particular period. He +had meditated the meaning of George's triumphant smile in the secluded +calm of his own office; and the longer he had meditated, the more +deeply rooted had become his conviction that his brother was engaged in +some very deep and very profitable scheme, the nature of which it was +his bounden duty to discover. + +Impressed by this idea, Mr. Sheldon returned to the hansom-cab, which +was waiting for him at the end of Warwick-court, and made his way to +the telegraph office. The ostensible motive of his call in Gray's Inn +was sufficient excuse for this following up of his brother's footsteps. +It was one of those waifs and strays of rather disreputable business +which the elder man sometimes threw in the way of the younger. + +As the wheel of the hansom ground against the kerbstone in front of the +telegraph office, the figure of George Sheldon vanished in a little +court to the left of that establishment. Instead of pursuing this +receding figure, Philip Sheldon walked straight into the office. + +It was empty. There was no one in any of the shaded compartments, so +painfully suggestive of pecuniary distress and the stealthy +hypothecation of portable property. A sound of rattling and bumping in +an inner office betrayed the neighbourhood of a clerk; but in the +office Mr. Sheldon was alone. + +Upon the blotting-pad on the counter of the central partition the +stockbroker perceived one great blot of ink, still moist. Ha laid the +tip of his square forefinger upon it, to assure himself of that fact, +and then set himself deliberately to scrutinise the blotting-paper. He +was a man who seldom hesitated. His greatest _coups_ on the +money-market had been in a great measure the result of this faculty of +prompt decision. To-day he possessed himself of the blotting-pad, and +examined the half-formed syllables stamped upon it with as much +coolness and self-possession as if he had been seated in his own office +reading his own newspaper. A man given to hesitation would have looked +to the right and the left and watched for his opportunity--and lost it. +Philip Sheldon knew better than to waste his chances by needless +precaution; and he made himself master of all the intelligence the +blotting-pad could afford him before the clerk emerged from the inner +den where the rattling and stamping was going forward. + +"I thought as much," muttered the stockbroker, as he recognised traces +of his brother's sprawling penmanship upon the pad. The message had +been written with a heavy hand and a spongy quill pen, and had left a +tolerably clear impression of its contents on the blotting-paper. + +Here and there the words stood out bold and clear; here and there, +again, there was only one decipherable letter amongst a few broken +hieroglyphics. Mr. Sheldon was accustomed to the examination of very +illegible documents, and he was able to master the substance of that +random impression. If he could not decipher the whole, he made out +sufficient for his purpose. Money was to be offered to a man called +Goodge for certain letters. He knew his brother's affairs well enough +to know that these letters for which money was to be offered must needs +be letters of importance in some search for an heir-at-law. So far all +was clear and simple; but beyond this point he found himself at fault. +Where was this Goodge to be found? and who was the person that was to +offer him money for the letters? The names and address, which had been +written first, had left no impression on the blotting-pad, or an +impression so faint as to be useless for any practical purpose. + +Mr. Sheldon put down the pad and lingered by the door of the office +deliberating, when the rattling and hammering came to an abrupt +termination, and the clerk emerged from the interior den. + +"O," he exclaimed, "it's all right. Your message shall go directly." + +The stockbroker, whose face was half averted from the clerk, and who +stood between that functionary and the light from the open doorway, at +once comprehended the error that had arisen. The clerk had mistaken him +for his brother. + +"I'm not quite clear as to whether I gave the right address," he said +promptly, with his face still averted, and his attention apparently +occupied by a paper in his hand. "Just see how I wrote it, there's a +good fellow." + +The clerk withdrew for a few minutes, and returned with the message in +his hand. + +"From George Sheldon to Valentine Hawkehurst, Black Swan Inn, +Ullerton," he read aloud from the document. + +"All right, and thanks," cried the stockbroker. + +He gave one momentary glance at the clerk, and had just time to see +that individual's look of bewilderment as some difference in his voice +and person from the voice and person of the black-whiskered man who had +just left the office dawned upon his troubled senses. After that one +glance Mr. Sheldon darted across the pavement, sprang into his cab, and +called to the driver, "Literary Institution, Burton-street, as fast as +you can go." + +"I'll try my luck in the second column of the _Times_," he said to +himself. "If George's scheme is what I take it to be, I shall get some +clue to it there." He took a little oblong memorandum-book from his +pocket, and looked at his memoranda of the past week. Among those +careless jottings he found one memorandum scrawled in pencil, amongst +notes and addresses in ink, "_Haygarth--intestate. G.S. to see after._" + +"That's it," he exclaimed; "Haygarth--intestate; Valentine Hawkehurst +_not_ at Dorking, but working for my brother; Goodge--letters to be +paid for. It's all like the bits of mosaic that those antiquarian +fellows are always finding in the ruins of Somebody's Baths; a few +handfuls of coloured chips that look like rubbish, and can yet be +patched into a perfect geometric design. I'll hunt up a file of the +_Times_ at the Burton Institution, and find out this Haygarth, if he is +to be found there." + +The Burton Institution was a somewhat dingy temple devoted to the +interests of science and literature, and next door to some baths that +were very popular among the denizens of Bloomsbury. People in quest of +the baths were apt to ascend the classic flight of steps leading to the +Institution, when they should have descended to a lowlier threshold +lurking modestly by the side of that edifice. The Baths and the +Institution had both been familiar to Mr. Sheldon in that period of +probation which he had spent in Fitzgeorge-street. He was sufficiently +acquainted with the librarian of the Institution to go in and out +uninterrogated, and to make any use he pleased of the reading-room. He +went in to-day, asked to see the latest bound volumes of the _Times_ +and the latest files of unbound papers, and began his investigation, +working backwards. Rapidly and dexterously as he turned the big leaves +of the journals, the investigation occupied nearly three-quarters of an +hour; but at the expiration of that time he had alighted on the +advertisement published in the March of the preceding year. + +He gave a very low whistle--a kind of phantom whistle--as he read this +advertisement. "John Haygarth!--a hundred thousand pounds!" + +The fortune for which a claimant was lacking amounted to a hundred +thousand pounds! Mr. Sheldon knew commercial despots who counted their +wealth by millions, and whose fiat could sway the exchanges of Europe; +but a hundred thousand pounds seemed to him a very nice thing +nevertheless, and he was ready to dispute the prize the anticipation +whereof had rendered his brother so triumphant. + +"He has rejected me as a coadjutor," he thought, as he went back to his +cab after having copied the advertisement; "he shall have me as an +antagonist." + +"Omega-street, Chelsea, next call," he cried to the driver; and was +soon beyond the confines of Bloomsbury, and rattling away towards the +border-land of Belgravia. He had completed his search of the newspapers +at ten minutes past twelve, and at twenty minutes to one he presented +himself at the lodging-house in Omega-street, where he found Captain +Paget, in whose "promoting" business there happened to be a lull just +now. With this gentleman he had a long interview; and the result of +that interview was the departure of the Captain by the two o'clock +express for Ullerton. Thus had it happened that Valentine Hawkehurst +and his patron encountered each other on the platform of Ullerton +station. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +VALENTINE INVOKES THE PHANTOMS OF THE PAST. + + +_Oct. 7th, Midnight_. I was so fortunate as to get away from Spotswold +this morning very soon after the completion of my researches in the +vestry, and at five o'clock in the afternoon I found myself once more +in the streets of Ullerton. Coming home in the train I meditated +seriously upon the unexpected appearance of Horatio Paget at the +head-quarters of this Haygarthian investigation; and the more I +considered that fact, the more I felt inclined to doubt my patron's +motives, and to fear his interference. Can his presence in Ullerton +have any relation to the business that has brought me here? That is the +question which I asked myself a hundred times during my journey from +Spotswold; that is the question which I ask myself still. + +I have no doubt I give myself unnecessary trouble; but I know that old +man's Machiavellian cleverness only too well; and I am inclined to look +with suspicion upon every action of his. My first business on returning +to this house was to ascertain whether any one bearing his name, or +answering to my description of him, had arrived during my absence. I +was relieved by finding that no stranger whatever had put up at the inn +since the previous forenoon. Who may have used the coffee-room is +another question, not so easily set at rest. In the evening a great +many people come in and go out; and my friend and patron may have taken +his favourite brandy-and-soda, skimmed his newspaper, and picked up +whatever information was to be obtained as to _my_ movements without +attracting any particular attention. + +In the words of the immortal lessee of the Globe Theatre, "Why I should +fear I know not ... and yet I feel I fear!" + +I found a registered letter from George Sheldon, enclosing twenty +pounds in notes, and furnished therewith I went straight to my friend +Jonah, whom I found engaged in the agreeable occupation of taking tea. +I showed him the money; but my estimate of the reverend gentleman's +honour being of a very limited nature, I took care not to give it to +him till he had produced the letters. On finding that I was really +prepared to give him his price, he went to an old-fashioned bureau, and +opened one of those secret recesses which cannot for three minutes +remain a secret to any investigator possessed of a tolerably accurate +eye or a three-foot rule. From this hiding-place--which he evidently +considered a triumph of mechanical art, worthy the cabinet of a +D'Argenson or a Fouche--he produced a packet of faded yellow letters, +about which there lurked a faint odour of dried rose-leaves and +lavender, which seemed the very perfume of the past. + +When my reverend friend had laid the packet on the table within reach +of my hand, and not till then, I gave him the bank-notes. His fat old +fingers closed upon them greedily, and his fishy old eyes were +illumined by a faint glimmer which I believe nothing but bank-notes +could have kindled in them. + +After having assured himself that they were genuine acknowledgments of +indebtedness on the part of the old lady in Thread-needle-street, and +not the base simulacra of Birmingham at five-and-twenty shillings a +dozen--thirteen as twelve--Mr. Goodge obligingly consented to sign a +simple form of receipt which I had drawn up for the satisfaction of my +principal. + +"I think you said there were forty-odd letters," I remarked, before I +proceeded to count the documents in the presence of Mr. Goodge. + +That gentleman looked at me with an air of astonishment, which, had I +not known him to be the most consummate of hypocrites, would have +seemed to be simplicity itself. + +"I said from thirty to forty," he exclaimed; "I never said there were +forty-odd letters." + +I looked at him and he looked at me. His face told me plainly enough +that he was trying to deceive me, and my face told him plainly enough +that he had no chance of succeeding in that attempt. Whether he was +keeping back some of the letters with a view to extorting more money +from me hereafter, or whether he was keeping them with the idea of +making a better bargain with somebody else, I could not tell; but of +the main fact I was certain--he had cheated me. + +I untied the red tape which held the letters together. Yes, there was a +piece of circumstantial evidence which might have helped to convict my +friend had he been on his trial in a criminal court. The red tape bore +the mark of the place in which it had been tied for half a century; and +a little way within this mark the trace of a very recent tying. Some of +the letters had been extracted, and the tape had been tied anew. + +I had no doubt that this had been done while my negotiation with Mr. +Goodge had been pending. What was I to do? Refuse the letters, and +demand to have my principal's money returned to me? I knew my friend +well enough to know that such a proceeding would be about as useless as +it would be to request the ocean to restore a cup of water that had +been poured into it. The letters he had given me might or might not +afford some slight link in the chain I was trying to put together; and +the letters withheld from me might be more or less valuable than those +given to me. In any case the transaction was altogether a speculative +one; and George Sheldon's money was hazarded as completely as if it had +been put upon an outsider for the Derby. + +Before bidding him a polite farewell, I was determined to make Mr. +Goodge thoroughly aware that he had not taken me in. + +"You said there were more than forty letters," I told him; "I remember +the phrase 'forty-odd,' which is a colloquialism one would scarcely +look for in Tillotson or in John Wesley, who cherished a prejudice in +favour of scholarship which does not distinguish all his followers. You +said there were forty-odd letters, and you have removed some of them +from the packet. I am quite aware that I have no legal remedy against +you, as our contract was a verbal one, made without witnesses; so I +must be content with what I get; but I do not wish you to flatter +yourself with the notion that you have hoodwinked a lawyer's clerk. You +are not clever enough to do that, Mr. Goodge, though you are knave +enough to cheat every attorney in the Law List." + +"Young man, are you aware----?" + +"As I have suffered by the absence of any witness to our negotiation, I +may as well profit by the absence of any witness to our interview. You +are a cheat and a trickster, Mr. Goodge, and I have the honour to wish +you good afternoon!" + +"Go forth, young man!" cried the infuriated Jonah whose fat round face +became beet-root colour with rage, and who involuntarily extended his +hand to the poker--for the purpose of defence and not defiance, I believe. +"Go forth, young man! I say unto you, as Abimelech said unto Jedediah, +go forth." + +I am not quite clear as to the two scriptural proper names with which +the Rev. Jonah embellished his discourse on this occasion; but I know +that sort of man always has a leaning to the Abimelech and Jedediahs of +biblical history; solely, I believe, because the names have a sonorous +roll with them that is pleasant in the mouth of the charlatan. + +As I was in the act of going forth--quite at my leisure, for I had no +fear of the clerical poker--my eye happened to alight on a small +side-table, covered with a chessboard-patterned cloth in gaudy colours, +and adorned with some of those sombre volumes which seem like an +outward evidence of the sober piety of their possessor. Among the +sombre volumes lay something which savoured of another hemisphere than +that to which those brown leather-bound books belonged. It was a +glove--a gentleman's glove, of pale lavender kid--small in size for a +masculine glove, and bearing upon it the evidence of the cleaner's art. +Such might be the glove of an exiled Brummel, but could never have +encased the squat paw of a Jonah Goodge. It was as if the _point +d'Alencon_ ruffle of Chesterfield had been dropped in the study of John +Wesley. + +In a moment there flashed into my mind an idea which has haunted me +ever since. That glove had belonged to my respected patron, Horatio +Paget, and it was for his benefit the letters had been abstracted from +the packet. He had been with Jonah Goodge in the course of that day, +and had bought him over to cheat me. + +And then I was obliged to go back to the old question, Was it possible +that the Captain could have any inkling of my business? Who could have +told him? + +Who could have betrayed a secret which was known only to George Sheldon +and myself? + +After all, are there not other people than Horatio Paget who wear +cleaned lavender gloves? But it always has been a habit with the +Captain to leave one loose glove behind him; and I daresay it was the +recollection of this which suggested the idea of his interference in +the Goodge business. + +I devoted my evening to the perusal of Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters. +The pale ink, the quaint cramped hand, the old-fashioned abbreviations, +and very doubtful orthography rendered the task laborious; but I stuck +to my work bravely, and the old clock in the market-place struck two as +I began the last letter. As I get deeper into this business I find my +interest in it growing day by day--an interest _sui generis_, apart +from all prospect of gain--apart even from the consideration that by +means of this investigation I am obtaining a living which is earned +_almost_ honestly; for if I tell an occasional falsehood or act an +occasional hypocrisy, I am no worse than a secretary of legation of an +Old Bailey barrister. + +The pleasure which I now take in the progress of this research is a +pleasure that is new to me: it is the stimulus which makes a breakneck +gallop across dreary fields gridironed with dykes and stone walls so +delicious to the sportsman; it is the stimulus which makes the task of +the mathematician sweet to him when he devotes laborious days to the +solution of an abstruse problem; it is the stimulus that sustains the +Indian trapper against all the miseries of cold and hunger, foul +weather, and aching limbs; it is the fever of the chase--that +inextinguishable fire which, once lighted in the human breast, is not +to be quenched until the hunt is ended. + +I should like to earn three thousand pounds; but if I were to be none +the richer for my trouble, I think, now that I am so deeply involved in +this business, I should still go on. I want to fathom the mystery of +that midnight interment at Dewsdale; I want to know the story of that +Mary Haygarth who lies under the old yew-tree at Spotswold, and for +whose loss some one sorrowed without hope of consolation. + +Was that a widower's commonplace, I wonder, and did the unknown mourner +console himself ultimately with a new wife? Who knows? as my Italian +friends say when they discuss the future of France. Shall I ever +penetrate that mystery of the past? My task seems to me almost as +hopeless as if George Sheldon had set me to hunt up the descendants of +King Solomon's ninety-ninth wife. A hundred years ago seems as far +away, for all practical purposes, as if it were on the other side of +the flood. + +The letters are worth very little. They are prim and measured epistles, +and they relate much more to spiritual matters than to temporal +business. Mrs. Rebecca seems to have been so much concerned for the +health of her soul that she had very little leisure to think of +anything so insignificant as the bodies of other people. The letters +are filled with discourses upon her own state of mind; and the tone of +them reveals not a little of that pride whose character it is to +simulate humility. Mrs. Rebecca is always casting ashes on her head; +but she takes care to let her friend and pastor know what a saintly +head it is notwithstanding. + +I have laid aside three of the most secular letters, which I selected +after wading through unnumbered pages of bewailings in the strain of a +Wesleyan Madame Guyon. These throw some little light upon the character +of Matthew Haygarth, but do not afford much information of a tangible +kind. I have transcribed the letters verbatim, adhering even to certain +eccentricities of orthography which were by no means unusual in an age +when the Pretender to the crown of Great Britain wrote of his father as +_Gems_. + +The first letter bears the date of August 30th, 1773, one week after +the marriage of the lady to our friend Matthew. + +"REVERED FRIEND AND PASTOR,--On Monday sennite we arriv'd in London, +wich seems to me a mighty bigg citty, but of no more meritt or piety +than Babylon of old. My husband, who knows ye towne better than he +knows those things with wich it would more become him to be familiar, +was pleas'd to laugh mightily at that pious aversion wherewith I +regarded some of ye most notable sights in this place. We went t'other +night to a great garden called by some Spring Garden, by others +Vauxhall,--as having been at one time ye residence or estate of that +Arch Fiend and Papistical traitor Vaux, or Faux; but although I felt +obligated to my husband for ye desire to entertain me with a fine +sight, I could not but look with shame upon serious Christians +disporting themselves like children amongst coloured lamps, and +listening as if enraptured to profane music, when, at so much less cost +of money or of health, they might have been assembled together to +improve and edify one another. + +"My obliging Mathew would have taken me to other places of the like +character; but inspir'd, as I hope and believe, by ye direction of ye +spirit, I took upon myself to tell him what vain trifling is all such +kind of pleasure. He argu'd with me stoutly, saying that ye King and +Queen, who are both shining examples of goodness and piety, do attend +Vauxhall and Ranelagh, and are to be seen there frequent, to the +delight of their subjects. On which I told him that, much as I esteemed +my sovereign and his respectable consort, I would compleat my existence +without having seen them rather than I would seek to encounter them in +a place of vain and frivolous diversion. He listen'd to my discoorse in +a kind and sober temper, but he was not convinc'd; for by and by he +falls of a sudden to sighing and groaning, and cries out, 'O, I went to +Vauxhall once when ye garden was not many years made, and O, how bright +ye lamps shone, like ye stars of heaven fallen among bushes! and O, how +sweet ye music sounded, like ye hymns of angels in ye dewy evening! but +that was nigh upon twenty years gone by, and all ye world is changed +since then.' + +"You will conceive, Reverend Sir, that I was scandalised by such a +foolish rapsodie, and in plain words admonish'd my husband of his +folly. Whereupon he speedily became sober, and asked my pardon; but for +all that night continued of a gloomy countenance, ever and anon falling +to sighing and groning as before. Indeed, honour'd Sir, I have good +need of a patient sperrit in my dealings with him; for altho' at times +I think he is in a fair way to become a Christian, there are other +times when I doubt Satan has still a hold upon him, and that all my +prayers and admonitions have been in vaine. + +"You, who know the wildness and wickedness of his past life--so far as +that life was ever known to any but himself, who was ever of a secret +and silent disposition concerning his own doings in this city, tho' +free-spoken and frank in all common matters--you, honour'd sir, know +with how serious an intention I have taken upon myself the burden of +matrimony, hoping thereby to secure the compleat conversion of this +waywarde soul. You are aware how it was ye earnest desire of my late +respected father that Mathew Haygarth and I shou'd be man and wife, his +father and my father haveing bin friends and companions in ye days of +her most gracious majesty Queen Anne. You know how, after being lost to +all decent company for many years, Mathew came back after his father's +death, and lived a sober and serious life, attending amongst our +community, and being seen to shed tears on more than one occasion while +listening to the discourse of our revered and inspired founder. And +you, my dear and honour'd pastor, will feel for me when I tell you how +I am tormented by ye fear of backsliding in this soul which I have +promised to restore to ye fold. It was but yesterday, when walking with +him near St. John's Gate at Clerkenwell, he came to a standstill all of +a sudden, and he cried in that impetuous manner which is even yet +natural to him, 'Look ye now, Becky, wouldst like to see the house in +which the happiest years of my life was spent?' And I making no answer, +as thinking it was but some sudden freak, he points out a black +dirty-looking dwelling-place, with overhanging windows and a wide +gabled roof. 'Yonder it stands, Becky,' he cries; 'number seven +John-street, Clerkenwell; a queer dingy box of four walls, my wench--a +tumble-down kennel, with a staircase that 'twould break your neck to +mount, being strange to it--and half a day's journey from the court-end +of town. But that house was once paradise to me; and to look at it even +now, though 'tis over eighteen years since I saw the inside of it, will +bring the tears into these poor old eyes of mine'. And then he walk'd +on so fast that I could scarce keep pace with him, till we came to +Smithfield; and then he began to tell me about Bartholomew-fair and the +brave sights he had seen; and must needs show me where had stood the +booth of one Fielding--since infamously notorious as the writer of some +trashy novels, the dulness whereof is only surpassed by their +profligacy: and then he talks of Fawkes the conjurer, who made a great +fortune, and of some humble person called 'Tiddy Doll,' a dealer in +gingerbread and such foolish wares. But he could tell me nothing of +those early preachings of our revered founder in Moorfields, which +would have been more pleasant to me than all this vain babble about +drolls and jesters, gingerbread bakers and showmen. + +"When we had walked the round of the place, and it was time to take +coach for our lodging at Chelsea--he having brought me thus far to see +St. Paul's and the prison of Newgate, the Mint and Tower--the gloomy +fit came on him again, and all that evening he was dull and sorrowful, +though I read aloud to him from the printed sermons of a rising member +of our community. So you will see, honour'd sir, how difficult it is +for these children of Satan to withdraw themselves from that master +they have once served; since at the sober age of fifty-three yeares my +husband's weak heart yet yearns after profligate faires and foolish +gardens lighted by color'd lampes. + +"And now no more, reverend friend, my paper being gone and it being +full time to reflect that y'r patience must be gone also. Service to +Mrs. Goodge. I have no more room but to assure you that y'r gayeties of +this foolish and erring citty have no power to withdraw y'r heart of +her whose chief privilege it is to subscribe herself, + +"Your humble follower and servant." + +"Rebecca Haygarth." + + +To my mind there seems just a shadowy hint of some bygone romance in +this letter. Why did the dingy house in John-street bring the tears +into Matthew's eyes? and why did the memory of Vauxhall and Bartholomew +fair seem so sweet to him? And then that sighing and groaning and +dolefulness of visage whenever the thought of the past came back to him? + +What did it all mean, I wonder? Was it only his vanished youth, which +poor, sobered, converted, Wesleyanised Matthew regretted? or were there +pensive memories of something even sweeter than youth associated with +the coloured lamps of Vauxhall and the dinginess of Clerkenwell? Who +shall sound the heart of a man who lived a hundred years ago? and where +is the fathom-line which shall plumb its mysteries? I should need a +stack of old letters before I could arrive at the secret of that man's +life. + +The two other letters, which I have selected after some deliberation, +relate to the last few weeks of Matthew's existence; and in these again +I fancy I see the trace of some domestic mystery, some sorrowful secret +which this sober citizen kept hidden from his wife, but which he was on +several occasions half inclined to reveal to her. + +Perhaps if the lady's piety--which seems to have been thoroughly +sincere and praiseworthy, by the bye--had been a little less cold and +pragmatical in its mode of expression, poor Matthew might have taken +heart of grace and made a clean breast of it. + +That there was a secret in the man's life I feel convinced; but that +conviction goes very little way towards proving any one point of the +smallest value to George Sheldon. + +I transcribe an extract from each of the two important letters; the +first written a month before Matthew's death, the second a fortnight +after that event. + +"And indeed, honour'd sir, I have of late suffered much uneasinesse of +speritt concerning my husband. Those fits of ye mopes of w'h I informed +you some time back have again come upon him. For awhile I did hope that +these melancholic affections were ye fruit put forth by a regenerate +soul; but within this month last past it has been my sorrow to discover +that these gloomy disorders arise rather from ye promptings of the Evil +One. It has pleased Mr. Haygarthe of late to declare that his life is +nigh at an end; and indeed he affects a conviction that his days are +number'd. This profane and impertinent notion I take to be a direct +inspiration of Satan, of a like character to ye sudden and +unaccountable fitts of laughter which have seized upon many pious +Christians in the midst of earnest congregations; whereby much shame +and discomfiture has been brought upon our sect. Nor is there any +justification for this presumptuous certainty entertained by my +husband, inasmuch as his health is much as it has ordinarily been for +ye last ten years. He does acknowledge this with his own lips, and +immediately after cries out that his race is run, and ye hand of death +is upon him; which I cannot but take as ye voice of ye enemy speaking +through that weak mouth of ye flesh. + +"On Sunday night last past, ye gloomy fitt being come upon him after +prayers, Mr. Haygarthe began all on a sudden, as it is his habit to do: + +"'There is something I would fain tell ye, wench,' he cries out, +'something about those roistering days in London, which it might be +well for thee to know.' + +"But I answered him directly, that I had no desire to hear of profane +roisterings, and that it would be better for him to keep his peace, and +listen reverently to the expounding of the Scriptures, which Humphrey +Bagot, our worthy pastor and friend, had promised to explain and +exemplify after supper. We was seated at ye time in ye blue parlour, +the table being spread for supper, and were awaiting our friend from +the village, a man of humble station, being but a poor chapman and +huckster, but of exalted mind and a most holy temper, and sells me the +same growth of Bohea as that drunk by our gracious queen at Windsor. + +"After I had thus reproved him--in no unkind speritt--Mr. Haygarthe +fell to sighing; and then cries out all at once: + +"'When I am on my death-bed, wife, I will tell thee something: be sure +thou askest me for it; or if death come upon me unawares, thou wouldst +do well to search in the old tulip-leaf bureau for a letter, since I +may tell thee that in a letter which I would not tell with these lips.' + +"Before there was time to answer him in comes Mr. Bagot, and we to +supper; after which he did read the sixth chapter of Hebrews and +expound it at much length for our edifying; at the end whereof Satan +had obtained fast hold of Mr. Haygarthe, who was fallen asleep and +snoring heavily." + +Here is plain allusion to some secret, which that pragmatical idiot, +Mrs. Rebecca, studiously endeavoured not to hear. The next extract is +from a letter written when the lips that had been fain to speak were +stilled for ever. Ah, Mistress Rebecca, you were but mortal woman, +although you were also a shining light amongst the followers of John +Wesley; and I wonder what you would have given for poor Matthew's +secret _then_. + +"Some days being gone after this melancholic event, I bethought me of +that which my husband had said to me before I left Dewsdale for that +excursion to the love-feasts at Kemberton and Kesfield, Broppindean and +Dawnfold, from which I returned but two short weeks before my poor +Matthew's demise. I called to remembrance that discourse about +approaching death which in my poor human judgment I did esteem a +pestilent error of mind, but which I do now recognise as a spiritual +premonition; and I set myself earnestly to look for that letter which +Matthew told me he would leave in the tulip-leaf bureau. But though I +did search with great care and pains, my trouble was wasted, inasmuch +as there was no letter. Nor did I leave off to search until ev'ry nook +and crevvis had been examin'd. But in one of ye secret drawers, hidden +in an old dog's-eared book of prayers, I did find a lock of fair hair, +as if cut from the head of a child, entwin'd curiously with a long +plait of dark hair, which, by reason of ye length thereof, must needs +have been the hair of a woman, and with these the miniature of a girl's +face in a gold frame. I will not stain this paper, which is near come +to an end, by the relation of such suspicions as arose in my mind on +finding these curious treasures; nor will I be of so unchristian a +temper as to speak ill of the dead. My husband was in his latter days +exemplarily sober, and a humble acting Xtian. Ye secrets of his earlier +life will not now be showne to me on this side heaven. I have set aside +ye book, ye picture, and ye plaited hair in my desk for conveniency, +where I will show them to you when I am next rejoic'd by y'r improving +conversation. Until then, in grief or in happiness, in health and +sickness, I trust I shall ever continue, with y'r same sincerity, + +"Your humble and obliged Servant and disciple + +"REBECCA HAYGARTHE." + +Thus end my excerpts from the correspondence of Mrs. Haygarthe. They +are very interesting to me, as containing the vague shadow of a +vanished existence; but whether they will ever be worth setting forth +in an affidavit is extremely uncertain. Doubtless that miniature of an +unknown girl which caused so much consternation in the mind of sober +Mrs. Rebecca was no other than the "Molly" whose gray eyes reminded me +of Charlotte Halliday. + +As I copied Mrs. Rebecca's quaint epistles, in the midnight stillness, +the things of which I was writing arose before me like a picture. I +could see the blue parlour that Sunday evening; the sober couple seated +primly opposite to each other; the china monsters on the high +chimneypiece; the blue-and-white Dutch tiles, with queer squat figures +of Flemish citizens on foot and on horseback; the candles burning dimly +on the spindle-legged table--two poor pale flames reflected ghastly in +the dark polished panels of the wainscot; the big open Bible on an +adjacent table; the old silver tankard, and buckhorn-handled knives and +forks set out for supper; the solemn eight-day clock, ticking drearily +in the corner; and amid all that sombre old-fashioned comfort, +gray-haired Matthew sighing and lamenting for his vanished youth. + +I have grown strangely romantic since I have fallen in love with +Charlotte Halliday. The time was when I should have felt nothing but a +flippant ignorant contempt for poor Haygarth's feeble sighings and +lamentings; but now I think of him with a sorrowful tenderness, and am +more interested in his poor commonplace life, that picture, and those +two locks of hair, than in the most powerful romance that ever emanated +from mortal genius. It has been truly said, that truth is stranger than +fiction: may it not as justly be said, that truth has a power to touch +the human heart which is lacking in the most sublime flights of a +Shakespeare, or the grandest imaginings of an Aeschylus? One is sorry +for the fate of Agamemnon; but one is infinitely more sorrowful for the +cruel death of that English Richard in the dungeon at Pomfret, who was +a very insignificant person as compared to the king of men and of ships. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +HUNTING THE JUDSONS. + + +_Oct. 10th_. Yesterday and the day before were blank days. On Saturday +I read Mrs. Rebecca's letters a second time after a late breakfast, and +spent a lazy morning in the endeavour to pick up any stray crumbs of +information which I might have overlooked the previous night. There was +nothing to be found, however; and, estimable as I have always +considered the founder of the Wesleyan fraternity, I felt just a little +weary of his virtues and his discourses, his journeyings from place to +place, his love-feasts and his prayer-meetings, before I had finished +with Mrs. Haygarth's correspondence. In the afternoon I strolled about +the town; made inquiries at several inns, with a view to discover +whether Captain Paget was peradventure an inmate thereof; looked in at +the railway-station, and watched the departure of a train; dawdled away +half an hour at the best tobacconist's shop in the town on the chance +of encountering my accomplished patron, who indulges in two of the +choicest obtainable cigars per diem, and might possibly repair thither +to make a purchase, if he were in the place. Whether he is still in +Ullerton or not I cannot tell; but he did not come to the +tobacconist's; and I was fain to go back to my inn, having wasted a +day. Yet I do not think that George Sheldon will have cause to complain +of me, since I have worked very closely for my twenty shillings per +week, and have devoted myself to the business in hand with an amount of +enthusiasm which I did not think it possible for me to +experience--except for---- + +I went to church on Sunday morning, and was more devoutly inclined than +it has been my habit to feel; for although a man who lives by his wits +must not necessarily be a heathen or an atheist, it is very difficult +for him to be anything like a Christian. Even my devotion yesterday was +not worth much, for my thoughts went vagabondising off to Charlotte +Halliday in the midst of a very sensible practical sermon. + +In the afternoon I read the papers, and dozed by the fire in the +coffee-room--two-thirds coke by the way, and alternating from the +fierceness of a furnace to the dreary blackness of an exhausted +coal-mine--still thinking of Charlotte. + +Late in the evening I walked the streets of the town, and thought what +a lonely wretch I was. The desert of Sahara is somewhat dismal, I +daresay; but in its dismality there is at least a flavour of romance, a +smack of adventure. O, the hopeless dulness, the unutterable blankness +of a provincial town late on a Sunday night, as it presents itself to +the contemplation of a friendless young man without a sixpence in his +pocket, or one bright hope to tempt him to forgetfulness of the past in +pleasant dreaming of the future! + +Complaining again! O pen, which art the voice of my discontent, your +spluttering is like this outburst of unmanly fretfulness and futile +rage! O paper, whose flat surface typifies the dull level of my life, +your greasy unwillingness to receive the ink is emblematic of the +soul's revolt against destiny! + +This afternoon brought me a letter from Sheldon, and opened a new +channel for my explorations in that underground territory, the past. +That man has a marvellous aptitude for his work; and has, what is more +than aptitude, the experience of ten years of failure. Such a man must +succeed sooner or later. I wonder whether his success will come while I +am allied to him. I have been used to consider myself an unlucky +wretch, a creature of ill-fortune to others as well as to myself. It is +a foolish superstition, perhaps, to fancy one's self set apart for an +evil destiny; but the Eumenides have been rather hard upon me. Those +"amiable" deities, whom they of Colonae tried so patiently to +conciliate with transparent flatteries, have marked me for their prey +from the cradle--I don't suppose that cradle was paid for, by the bye. +I wonder whether there is an avenging deity whose special province it +is to pursue the insolvent--a Nemesis of the Bankruptcy Court. + +My Sheldon's epistle bears the evidence of a very subtle brain, as I +think. It is longer than his previous letters. I transcribe it here, as +I wish this record to be a complete brief of my proceedings in this +Haygarth business. + + +"Gray's Inn, Sunday night. + +"DEAR HAWKEHURST,--The copies of the letters came duly to hand, and I +think you have made your selections with much discretion, always +supposing you have overlooked nothing in the remaining mass of writing. +I will thank you to send me the rest of the letters, by the way. You +can take notes of anything likely to be useful to yourself, and it will +be as well for me to possess the originals. + +"I find one very strong point in the first letter of your selection, +viz. the allusion to a house in John-street. It is clear that Matthew +lived in that house, and in that neighbourhood there may even yet +remain some traces of his existence. I shall begin a close +investigation to-morrow within a certain radius of that spot; and if I +have the good luck to fall upon any clear-headed centenarians, I may +pick up something. + +"There are some alms-houses hard by Whitecross-street prison, where the +inmates live to ages that savour of the Pentateuch. Perhaps there I may +light upon some impoverished citizen fallen from a good estate who can +remember some contemporary of Matthew's. London was smaller in those +days than it is now, and men lived out their lives in one spot, and had +leisure to be concerned about the affairs of their neighbours. As I +have now something of a clue to Matthew's roistering days, I shall set +to work to follow it up closely; and your provincial researches and my +metropolitan investigations proceeding simultaneously, we may hope to +advance matters considerably ere long. For your own part, I should +advise you forthwith to hunt up the Judson branch. You will remember +that Matthew's only sister was a Mrs. Judson of Ullerton. I want to +find an heir-at-law in a direct line from Matthew; and you know my +theory on that point. But if we fail in that direction, we must of +course fall back upon the Judsons, who are a disgustingly complicated +set of people, and will take half a lifetime to disentangle, to say +nothing of other men who may be working the same business, and who are +pretty sure to have pinned their faith on the female branch of the +Haygarthian tree. + +"I want you to ferret out some of the Judson descendants with a view to +picking up further documentary evidence in the shape of old letters, +inscriptions in old books, and so on. That Matthew had a secret is +certain; and that he was very much inclined to reveal that secret in +his later days is also certain. Who shall say that he did not tell it +to his only sister, though he was afraid to tell it to his wife? + +"You have acted with so much discretion up to this point, that I do not +care to trouble you with any further hints or suggestions. When money +is wanted, it shall be forthcoming; but I must beg you to manage things +economically, as I have to borrow at a considerable sacrifice; and +should this affair prove a failure, my ruin is inevitable. + +"Yours, &c. G.S." + + +My friend Sheldon is a man who can never have been more than "yours +et-cetera" to any human creature. I suppose what he calls ruin would be +a quiet passage through the Bankruptcy Court, and a new set of +chambers. I should not suppose that sort of ruin would be very terrible +for a man whose sole possessions are a few weak-backed horsehair +chairs, a couple of battered old desks, half a dozen empty japanned +boxes, a file of _Bell's Life_, and a Turkey carpet in which the +progress of corruption is evident to the casual observer. + +The hunting-up of the Judsons is a very easy matter as compared to the +task of groping in the dimness of the past in search of some faint +traces of the footsteps of departed Haygarths. Whereas the Haygarth +family seem to be an extinct race, the Judsonian branch have bred and +mustered in the land; and my chief difficulty in starting has been an +_embarras de richesse_, in the shape of half a page of Judsons in the +Ullerton directory. + +Whether to seek out Theodore Judson, the attorney, in Nile street East, +or the Rev. James Judson, curate of St. Gamaliel; whether to appeal in +the first instance to Judson & Co., haberdashers and silk mercers, of +the Ferrygate, or to Judson of Judson and Grinder, wadding +manufacturers in Lady-lane--was the grand question. On inquiring of the +landlord as to the antecedents of these Judsons, I found that they were +all supposed to spring from one common stock, and to have the blood of +old Jonathan Haygarth in their veins. The Judsons had been an obscure +family--people of "no account," my landlord told me, until Joseph +Judson, chapman and cloth merchant in a very small way, was so +fortunate as to win the heart of Ruth Haygarth, only daughter of the +wealthy Nonconformist grocer in the market-place. This marriage had +been the starting-point of Joseph Judson's prosperity. Old Haygarth had +helped his industrious and respectable son-in-law along the stony road +that leads to fortune, and had no doubt given him many a lift over the +stones which bestrew that toilsome highway. My landlord's information +was as vague as the information of people in general; but it was easily +to be made out, from his scanty shreds and scraps of information, that +the well-placed Judsons of the present day had almost all profited to +some extent by the hard-earned wealth of Jonathan Haygarth. "They've +nearly all of them got the name of Haygarth mixed up with their other +names somehow," said my landlord. "Judson of Judson and Grinder is +Thomas Haygarth Judson. He's a member of our tradesman's club, and +worth a hundred thousand pounds, if he's worth a sixpence." + +I have observed, by the way, that a wealthy tradesman in a country town +is never accredited with less than a hundred thousand; there seems a +natural hankering in the human mind for round numbers. + +"There's J.H. Judson of St. Gamaliel," continued my landlord--"he's +James Haygarth Judson; and young Judson the attorney's son puts +'Haygarth Judson' on his card, and gets people to call him Haygarth +Judson when they will--which in a general way they won't, on account of +his giving himself airs, which you may see him any summer evening +walking down Ferrygate as if the place belonged to him, and he didn't +set much value on it. They _do_ say his father's heir-at-law to a +million of money left by the last of the Haygarths, and that he and the +son are trying to work up a claim to the property against the Crown. +But I have heard young Judson deny it in our room when he was spoken to +about it, and I don't suppose there's much ground for people's talk." + +I was sorry to discover there was any ground for such talk; Mr. Judson +the lawyer would be no insignificant opponent. I felt that I must give +a very wide berth to Mr. Theodore Judson the attorney, and his stuck-up +son, unless circumstances should so shape themselves as to oblige us to +work with him. In the meanwhile any move I made amongst the other +Judsons would be likely, I thought, to come to the knowledge of these +particular members of the family. + +"Are the Judson family very friendly with one another?" I artfully +inquired. + +"Well, you see, some of 'em are, and some of 'em ain't. They're most of +'em third and fourth cousins, you see, and that ain't a very near +relationship in a town where there's a good deal of competition, and +interests often clash. Young Theodore--Haygarth Judson as he calls +himself--is very thick with Judson of St. Gamaliel's, they were at +college together, you see: and fine airs they give themselves on the +strength of a couple of years or so at Cambridge. Those two get on very +well together. But Judson of the Lady-lane Mills don't speak to either +of 'em when he meets 'em in the street, and has been known to cut 'em +dead in my room. William Judson of Ferrygate is a dissenter, and keeps +himself to himself very close. The other Judsons are too fast a lot for +him: though what's the harm of a man taking a glass or two of +brandy-and-water of an evening with his friends is more than _I_ can +find out," added mine host, musingly. + +It was to William Judson the dissenter, who kept himself to himself, +that I determined to present myself in the first instance. As a +dissenter, he would be likely to have more respect for the memory of +the Nonconformist and Wesleyan Haygarths, and to have preserved any +traditions relating to them with more fidelity than the Anglican and +frivolous members of the Judson family. As an individual who kept +himself to himself, he would be unlikely to communicate my business to +his kindred. + +I lost no time in presenting myself at the house of business in +Ferrygate, and after giving the servant George Sheldon's card, and +announcing myself as concerned in a matter of business relating to the +Haygarth family, I was at once ushered into a prim counting-house, +where a dapper little old gentleman in spotless broadcloth, and a +cambric cravat and shirt frill which were soft and snowy as the plumage +of the swan, received me with old-fashioned courtesy. I was delighted +to find him seventy-five years of age at the most moderate computation, +and I should have been all the better pleased if he had been older. I +very quickly discovered that in Mr. Judson the linen draper I had to +deal with a very different person from the Rev. Jonah Goodge. He +questioned me closely as to my motive in seeking information on the +subject of the departed Haygarth, and I had some compunction in +diplomatising with him as I had diplomatised with Mr. Goodge. To +hoodwink the wary Jonah was a triumph--to deceive the confiding linen +draper was a shame. However, as I have before set down, I suppose at +the falsest I am not much farther from the truth than a barrister or a +diplomatist. Mr. Judson accepted my account of myself in all +simplicity, and seemed quite pleased to have an opportunity of talking +about the deceased Haygarths. + +"You are not concerned in the endeavour to assert Theodore Judson's +claim to the late John Haygarth's property, eh?" the old man asked me +presently, as if struck by a sudden misgiving. + +I assured him that Mr. Theodore Judson's interests and mine were in no +respect identical. + +"I am glad of that," answered the draper; "not that I owe Theodore +Judson a grudge, you must understand, though his principles and mine +differ very widely. I have been told that he and his son hope to +establish a claim to that Haygarth property; but they will never +succeed, sir--they will never succeed. There was a young man who went +to India in '41; a scamp and a vagabond, sir, who was always trying to +borrow money in sums ranging from a hundred pounds, to set him up in +business and render him a credit to his family, to a shilling for the +payment of a night's lodging or the purchase of a dinner. But that +young man was the great-grandson of Ruth Haygarth--the eldest surviving +grandson of Ruth Haygarth's eldest son; and if that man is alive, he is +rightful heir to John Haygarth's money. Whether he is alive or dead at +this present moment is more than I can tell, since he has never been +heard of in Ullerton since he left the town; but until Theodore Judson +can obtain legal proof of that man's death he has no more chance of +getting one sixpence of the Haygarth estate than I have of inheriting +the crown of Great Britain." + +The old man had worked himself into a little passion before he finished +this speech, and I could see that the Theodore Judsons were as +unpopular in the draper's counting-house as they were at the Swan Inn. + +"What was this man's Christian name?" I asked. + +"Peter. He was called Peter Judson; and was the great-grandson of my +grandfather, Joseph Judson, who inhabited this very house, sir, more +than a hundred years ago. Let me see: Peter Judson must have been about +five-and-twenty years of age when he left Ullerton; so he is a +middle-aged man by this time if he hasn't killed himself, or if the +climate hasn't killed him long ago. He went as supercargo to a merchant +vessel: he was a clever fellow, and could work hard when it suited him, +in spite of his dissipated life. Theodore Judson is a very good lawyer; +but though he may bring all his ingenuity to bear, he will never +advance a step nearer to the possession of John Haygarth's money till +he obtains evidence of Peter Judson's death; and he's afraid to +advertise for that evidence for fear he might arouse the attention of +other claimants." + +Much as I was annoyed to find that there were claimants lying in wait +for the rev. intestate's wealth, I was glad to perceive that Theodore +Judson's unpopularity was calculated to render his kindred agreeably +disposed to any stranger likely to push that gentleman out of the list +of competitors for these great stakes, and I took my cue from this in +my interview with the simple old draper. + +"I regret that I am not at liberty to state the nature of my business," +I said, in a tone that was at once insinuating and confidential; "but I +think I may venture to go so far as to say, without breach of trust to +my employer, that whoever may ultimately succeed to the Rev. John +Haygarth's money, neither Mr. Judson the lawyer nor his son will ever +put a finger on a penny of it." + +"I am not sorry to hear it," answered Mr. Judson, enraptured; "not that +I owe the young man a grudge, you must understand, but because he is +particularly undeserving of good fortune. A young man who passes his +own kindred in the streets of his native town without the common +courtesy due to age or respectability; a young man who sneers at the +fortune acquired in an honest and reputable trade; a young man who +calls his cousins counter-jumpers, and his aunts and uncles +'swaddlers'--a vulgar term of contempt applied to the earlier members +of the Wesleyan confraternity--such a young man is not the individual +to impart moral lustre to material wealth; and I am free to confess +that I had rather any one else than Theodore Judson should inherit this +vast fortune. Why, are you aware, my dear sir, that he has been seen to +drive tandem through this very street, as it is; and I should like to +know how many horses he would harness to that gig of his, or how openly +he would insult his relatives, if he had a hundred thousand pounds to +deal with?" + +"A hundred thousand pounds!" exclaimed I; "am I to understand that the +fortune left by the Reverend John Haygarth amounts to that sum?" + +"To every penny of it, sir; and a nice use Theodore Judson and that +precious son of his would make of it if it fell into their hands." + +For a second time Mr. Judson the draper had worked himself into a +little passion, and the conversation had to be discontinued for some +minutes while he cooled down to his ordinary temperament. + +"O ho!" said I within myself, while awaiting the completion of this +cooling-down process; "so _this_ is the stake for which my friend +Sheldon is playing!" + +"I'll tell you what I will do for you, Mr.--Mr. Hawke-shell,"--Mr. +Judson said at last, making a compound of my own and my employer's +names; "I will give you a line of introduction to my sister. If any one +can help you in hunting up intelligence relating to the past she can. +She is two years my junior--seventy-one years of age, but as bright and +active as a girl. She has lived all her life in Ullerton, and is a +woman who hoards every scrap of paper that comes in her way. If old +letters or old newspapers can assist you, she can show you plenty +amongst her stores." + +Upon this the old man wrote a note, which he dried with sand out of a +perforated bottle, as Richard Steele may have dried one of those airy +tender essays which he threw off in tavern parlours for the payment of +a jovial dinner. + +Provided with this antique epistle, written on Bath post and sealed +with a great square seal from a bunch of cornelian monstrosities which +the draper carried at his watch-chain, I departed to find Miss +Hephzibah Judson, of Lochiel Villa, Lancaster-road. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +GLIMPSES OF A BYGONE LIFE. + + +_October 10th_. I found the villa inhabited by Miss Hephzibah Judson +very easily, and found it one of those stiff square dwelling-houses +with brass curtain-rods, prim flower-beds, and vivid green palings, +only to be discovered in full perfection in the choicer suburb of a +country town. + +I had heard enough during my brief residence in Ullerton to understand +that to live in the Lancaster-road was to possess a diploma of +respectability not easily vitiated by individual conduct. No +disreputable persons had ever yet set up their unholy Lares and Penates +in one of those new slack-baked villas; and that person must have been +very bold who, conscious of moral unfitness or pecuniary shortcoming, +should have ventured to pitch his tent in that sacred locality. + +Miss Hephzibah Judson was one of the individuals whose shining sanctity +of life and comfortable income lent a reflected brightness to the +irreproachable suburb. I was admitted to her abode by an elderly woman +of starched demeanour but agreeable visage, who ushered me into a +spotless parlour, whereof the atmosphere was of that vault-like +coldness peculiar to a room which is only inhabited on state occasions. +Here the starched domestic left me while she carried my letter of +introduction to her mistress. In her absence I had leisure to form some +idea of Miss Judson's character on the mute evidence of Miss Judson's +surroundings. From the fact that there were books of a sentimental and +poetical tenor amongst the religious works ranged at mathematically +correct distances upon the dark green table-cover--from the presence of +three twittering canaries in a large brass cage--from the evidence of a +stuffed Blenheim spaniel, with intensely brown eyes, reclining on a +crimson velvet cushion under a glass shade--I opined that Miss Judson's +piety was pleasantly leavened by sentiment, and that her Wesleyanism +was agreeably tempered by that womanly tenderness which, failing more +legitimate outlets, will waste itself upon twittering canaries and +plethoric spaniels. + +I was not mistaken. Miss Judson appeared presently, followed by the +servant bearing a tray of cake and wine. This was the first occasion on +which I had been offered refreshment by any person to whom I had +presented myself. I argued, therefore, that Miss Judson was the weakest +person with whom I had yet had to deal; and I flattered myself with the +hope that from Miss Judson's amiable weakness, sentimentality, and +womanly tenderness, I should obtain better aid than from more +business-like and practical people. + +I fancied that with this lady it would be necessary to adopt a certain +air of candour. I therefore did not conceal from her the fact that my +business had something to do with that Haygarthian fortune awaiting a +claimant. + +"The person for whom you are concerned is not Mr. Theodore Judson?" she +asked, with some asperity. + +I assured her that I had never seen Theodore Judson, and that I was in +no manner interested in his success. + +"In that case I shall be happy to assist you as far as lies in my +power; but I can do nothing to advance the interests of Theodore Judson +junior. I venture to hope that I am a Christian; and if Theodore Judson +junior were to come here to me and ask my forgiveness, I should accord +that forgiveness as a Christian; but I cannot and will not lend myself +to the furtherance of Theodore Judson's avaricious designs. I cannot +lend myself to the suppression of truth or the assertion of falsehood. +Theodore Judson senior is not the rightful heir to the late John +Haygarth's fortune, though I am bound to acknowledge that his claim +would be prior to my brother's. There is a man who stands before the +Theodore Judsons, and the Theodore Judsons know it. But were they the +rightful claimants, I should still consider them most unfitted to enjoy +superior fortune. If that dog could speak, he would be able to testify +to ill-usage received from Theodore Judson junior at his own +garden-gate, which would bespeak the character of the man to every +thoughtful mind. A young man who could indulge his spiteful feelings +against an elderly kinswoman at the expense of an unoffending animal is +not the man to make worthy use of fortune." + +I expressed my acquiescence with this view of the subject; and I was +glad to perceive that with Miss Judson, as with her brother, the +obnoxious Theodores would stand me in good stead. The lady was only two +years younger than her brother, and even more inclined to be +communicative. I made the most of my opportunity, and sat in the +vault-like parlour listening respectfully to her discourse, and from +time to time hazarding a leading question, as long as it pleased her to +converse; although it seemed to me as if a perennial spring of cold +water were trickling slowly down my back and pervading my system during +the entire period. As the reward of my fortitude I obtained Miss +Judson's promise to send me any letters or papers she might find +amongst her store of old documents relating to the personal history of +Matthew Haygarth. + +"I know I have a whole packet of letters in Matthew's own hand amongst +my grandmother's papers," said Miss Judson. "I was a great favourite +with my grandmother, and used to spend a good deal of my time with her +before she died--which she did while I was in pinafores; but young +people wore pinafores much longer in my time than they do now; and I +was getting on for fourteen years of age when my grandmother departed +this life. I've often heard her talk of her brother Matthew, who had +been dead some years when I was born. She was very fond of him, and he +of her, I've heard her say; and she used often to tell me how handsome +he was in his youth; and how well he used to look in a chocolate and +gold-laced riding coat, just after the victory of Culloden, when he +came to Ullerton in secret, to pay her a visit--not being on friendly +terms with his father." + +I asked Miss Judson if she had ever read Matthew Haygarth's letters. + +"No," she said; "I look at them sometimes when I'm tidying the drawer +in which I keep them, and I have sometimes stopped to read a word here +and there, but no more. I keep them out of respect to the dead; but I +think it would make me unhappy to read them. The thoughts and the +feelings in old letters seem so fresh that they bring our poor +mortality too closely home to us when we remember how little except +those faded letters remains of those who wrote them. It is well for us +to remember that we are only travellers and wayfarers on this earth; +but sometimes it seems just a little hard to think how few traces of +our footsteps we leave behind us when the journey is finished." + +The canaries seemed to answer Miss Judson with a feeble twitter of +assent: and I took my leave, with a feeling of compassion in my heart. +I, the scamp--I, Robert Macaire the younger--had pity upon the caged +canaries, and the lonely old woman whose narrow life was drawing to its +close, and who began to feel how very poor a thing it had been after +all. + +_Oct. 11th_. I have paid the penalty of my temerity in enduring the +vault-like chilliness of Miss Hephzibah Judson's parlour, and am +suffering to-day from a sharp attack of influenza; that complaint which +of all others tends to render a man a burden to himself, and a nuisance +to his fellow-creatures. Under these circumstances I have ordered a +fire in my own room--a personal indulgence scarcely warranted by +Sheldon's stipend--and I sit by my own fire pondering over the story of +Matthew Haygarth's life. + +On the table by my side are scattered more than a hundred letters, all +in Matthew's bold hand; but even yet, after a most careful study of +those letters, the story of the man's existence is far from clear to +me. The letters are full of hints and indications, but they tell so +little plainly. They deal in enigmas, and disguise names under the mask +of initials. + +There is much in these letters which relates to the secret history of +Matthew's life. They were written to the only creature amongst his +kindred in whom he fully confided. This fact transpires more than once, +as will be seen anon by the extracts I shall proceed to make; if my +influenza--which causes me to shed involuntary tears that give me the +appearance of a drivelling idiot, and which jerks me nearly out of my +chair every now and then with a convulsive sneeze--will permit me to do +anything rational or useful. + +I have sorted and classified the letters, first upon one plan, then +upon another, until I have classified and sorted them into chaos. +Having done this, my only chance is to abandon all idea of +classification, and go quietly through them in consecutive order +according to their dates, jotting down whatever strikes me as +significant. George Sheldon's acumen must do the rest. + +Thus I begin my notes, with an extract from the fourth letter in the +series. Mem. I preserve Matthew's own orthography, which is the most +eccentric it was ever my lot to contemplate. + +"_December_ 14, '42. Indeed, my dear Ruth, I am ventursom wear you are +concurn'd, and w'd tell you that I w'd taik panes to kepe fromm +another. I saw ye same girl w'h it was my good fortun to saive from ye +molestashun of raketters and mohoks at Smithfelde in September last +past. She is ye derest prittiest creture you ever saw, and as elegant +and genteel in her speche and maner as a Corte lady, or as ye best +bredd person in Ullerton. I mett her in ye nayborood of ye Marchalsee +prison wear her father is at this pressent time a prisener, and had som +pleassant talke with her. She rememberr'd me at once, and seme'd mitily +gladd to see me. Mem. Her pritty blu eys wear fill'd with teares wen +she thank'd me for having studd up to be her champyun at ye Fare. So +you see, Mrs. Ruth, ye brotherr is more thort off in London than with +them which hav ye rite to regard him bestt. If you had scen ye pore +simpel childeish creetur and heeard her tell her arteless tale, I think +y'r kinde hart w'd have bin sore to considder so much unmiritted +misfortun: ye father is in pore helth, a captiv, ye mother has binn +dedd thre yeres, and ye pore orfann girl, Mollie, has to mentane ye +burden of ye sick father, and a yung helples sister. Think of this, +kinde Mrs. Ruth, in y'r welthy home. Mem. Pore Mrs. Mollie is prittier +than ye fineist ladies that wear to be sene at ye opening of ye grand +new roome at Ranellar this spring last past, wear I sor ye too Miss +Gunings and Lady Harvey, wich is alsoe accounted a grate buty." + +I think this extract goes very far to prove that my friend Matthew was +considerably smitten by the pretty young woman whose champion he had +been in some row at Bartholomew Fair. This fits into one of the scraps +of information afforded by my ancient inhabitant in Ullerton +Almshouses, who remembers having heard his grandfather talk of Mat +Haygarth's part in some fight or disturbance at the great Smithfield +festival. + +My next extract treats again of Mollie, after an interval of four +months. It seems as if Matthew had confided in his sister so far as to +betray his tenderness for the poor player-girl of the London booths; +but I can find no such letter amongst those in my hands. Such an +epistle may have been considered by Mrs. Ruth too dangerous to be kept +where the parental eye might in some evil hour discover it. Matthew's +sister was unmarried at this date, and lived within the range of that +stern paternal eye. Matthew's letter appears to me to have been written +in reply to some solemn warning from Ruth. + +"_April_ 12, 1743. Sure, my dear sister cannot think me so baise a +retch as to injoore a pore simpel girl hoo confides in me as ye best +and trooest of mortals, wich for her dere saik I will strive to be. If +so be my sister cou'd think so ill of me it wou'd amost temt me to +think amiss of her, wich cou'd imagen so vile a thort. You tel me that +Mrs. Rebecka Caulfeld is mor than ever estemed by my father; but, Ruth, +I am bounde to say, my father's esteme is nott to be ye rule of my +ackshuns thro' life, for it semes to me their is no worser tyrrannie +than ye wich fathers do striv to impose on there children, and I do +acount that a kind of barbarity wich wou'd compel ye hart of youth to +sute ye proodense of age. I do not dout but Mrs. Rebecka is a mitey +proper and well-natur'd person, tho' taken upp with this new sekt of +methodys, or, as sum do call them in derission, swaddlers and jumpers, +set afoot by ye madbrain'd young man, Wesley, and one that is still +madder, Witfelde. Thear ar I dare sware many men in Ullerton wich wou'd +be gladd to obtane Mrs. Rebecka's hand and fortun; but if ye fortun +wear ten times more, I wou'd not preetend to oferr my harte to herr w'h +can never be its misteress. Now, my deare sister, having gone as farr +towards satisfieing all y'r queerys as my paper wou'd welle permitt, I +will say no more but to begg you to send me all ye knews, and to +believe that none can be more affectionately y'r humble servant than +your brother." + +"MATHEW HAYGARTH." + +In this extract we have strong ground for supposing that our Matthew +truly loved the player-girl, and meant honestly by his sweetheart. +There is a noble indignation in his repudiation of his sister's doubts, +and a manly determination not to marry Mrs. Rebecca's comfortable +fortune. I begin to think that Sheldon's theory of an early and secret +marriage will turn up a trump card; but Heaven only knows how slow or +how difficult may be the labour of proving such a marriage. And then, +even if we can find documentary evidence of such an event, we shall +have but advanced one step in our obscure path, and should have yet to +discover the issue of that union, and to trace the footsteps of +Matthew's unknown descendants during the period of a century. + +I wonder how Sisyphus felt when the stone kept rolling back upon him. +Did he ever look up to the top of the mountain and calculate the +distance he must needs traverse before his task should be done? + +The next letter in which I find a passage worth transcribing is of much +later date, and abounds in initials. The postmark is illegible; but I +can just make out the letters PO and L, the two first close together, +the third after an interval; and there is internal evidence to show +that the letter was written from some dull country place. Might not +that place have been Spotswold? the PO and the L of the postmark would +fit very well into the name of that village. Again I leave this +question to the astute Sheldon. The date is March, 1749. + +"M. is but porely. Sumtimes I am pain'd to believe this quiett life is +not well suted to herr disposishun, having bin acustumed to so much +livlinesse and nois. I hav reproched her with this, but she tolde me, +with teres in her eys, to be neare mee and M. and C. was to be happie, +and ye it is il helth onlie wich is ye cawse of ye sadnesse. I pray +heaven M.'s helth may be on ye mending hand soone. Little M. grows more +butiful everry day; and indede, my dear sisterr, if you cou'd stele +another visitt this waye, and oblidge yr affectionat brother, you wou'd +considerr him ye moste butifull creetur ever scene. So much enteligence +with sich ingaging temper endeares him to all hartes. Mrs. J. says she +adors him, and is amost afraide to be thort a Paygann for bestoeing so +much affection on a erthly creetur, and this to oure good parson who +cou'd find no reproche for her plesant folly. + +"We hav had heavy ranes all ye week last past. Sech wether can but +serve to hinderr M.'s recovery. The fysichion at G., wear I tooke her, +saies she shou'd hav much fresh aire everry day--if not afoot, to be +carrid in a chaire or cotche; but in this wether, and in a plaice wear +neeither chaire nor cotche can be had, she must needs stop in doors. I +hav begg'd her to lett me carry her to G., but she will not, and says +in ye summerr she will be as strong as everr. I pray God she may be so. +Butt theire are times whenn my harte is sore and heavy; and the rane +beeting agenst the winder semes lik dropps of cold worter falling uponn +my pore aking harte. If you cou'd stele a visitt you wou'd see wether +she semes worse than whenn you sor her last ortumm; she is trieing ye +tansy tea; and beggs her service to you, and greatfull thanks for y'r +rememberence of her. I dare to say you here splended acounts of my +doins in London--at cok fites and theaters, dansing at Vorxhall, and +beeting ye wotch in Covin Garden. Does my F. stil use to speke harsh +agenst me, or has he ni forgott their is sech a creetur living? If he +has so, I hope you wil kepe him in sech forgetfullnesse,--and obliage, + +"Yr loving brother and obediant servent." + +"MATHEW HAYGARTH." + + +To me this letter is almost conclusive evidence of a marriage. Who can +this little M. be, of whom he writes so tenderly, except a child? Who +can this woman be, whose ill health causes him such anxiety, unless a +wife? Of no one _but_ a wife could he write so freely to his sister. +The place to which he asks her to "steal a visit" must needs be a home +to which a man could invite his sister. I fancy it is thus made very +clear that at this period Matthew Haygarth was secretly married and +living at Spotswold, where his wife and son were afterwards buried, and +whence the body of the son was ultimately removed to Dewsdale to be +laid in that grave which the father felt would soon be his own +resting-place. That allusion to the Ullerton talk of London roisterings +indicates that Matthew's father believed him to be squandering the +paternal substance in the metropolis at the very time when the young +man was leading a simple domestic life within fifty miles of the +paternal abode. No man could do such a thing in these days of rapid +locomotion, when every creature is more or less peripatetic; but in +that benighted century the distance from Ullerton to Spotswold +constituted a day's journey. That Matthew was living in one place while +he was supposed to be in another is made sufficiently clear by several +passages in his letters, all more or less in the strain of the +following:-- + +"I was yesterday--markett-day--at G., wear I ran suddennly agenst Peter +Browne's eldest ladd. The boy openn'd his eyes wide, stearing like an +owle; butt I gaive him bakk his looke with interrest, and tolde him if +he was curiouse to know my name, I was Simon Lubchick, farmer, at his +servise. The pore simpel ladd arsk'd my pardonn humbly for having +mistook me for a gentelman of Ullerton--a frend of his father; on wich +I gaive him a shillin, and we parted, vastly plesed with eche other; +and this is nott the fust time the site of Ullerton fokes has putt me +into a swett." + +Amongst later letters are very sad ones. The little M. is dead. The +father's poor aching heart proclaims its anguish in very simple words: + +"_Nov_. 1751. I thank my dear sister kindly for her friendlinesse and +compashin; butt, ah, he is gone, and their semes to be no plesure or +comforte on this erth without him! onlie a littel childe of 6 yeres, +and yett so dere a creetur to this harte that the worlde is emty and +lonely without him. M. droopes sadly, and is more ailing everry day. +Indede, my dere Ruth, I see nothing butt sorrow before me, and I wou'd +be right gladd to lay down at peece in my littel M.'s grave." + +I can find no actual announcements of death, only sad allusions here +and there. I fancy the majority of Matthew's letters must have been +lost, for the dates of those confided to my hands are very far apart, +and there is evidence in all of them of other correspondence. After the +letter alluding to little M.'s death, there is a hiatus of eight years. +Then comes a letter with the post-mark London very clear, from which I +transcribe an extract. "_October 4th_, 1759. The toun is very sadd; +everry body, high and low, rich and pore, in morning for Gennerel Wolf: +wot a nobel deth to die, and how much happier than to live, when one +considers the cairs and miseries of this life; and sech has bin the +oppinion of wiser fokes than y'r humble servent. Being in companie on +Thersday sennite with that distingwish'd riter, Dr. Johnson,--whose +admir'd story of _Raselass_ I sent you new from ye press, but who I am +bound to confesse is less admirable as a fine gentlemann than as an +orther, his linning siled and his kravatt twisted ary, and his manners +wot in a more obskure personn wou'd be thort ungenteel,--he made a +remark wich impress'd me much. Some one present, being almost all +gentelmenn of parts and learning, except y'r pore untuter'd brother, +observed that it was a saying with the ainchents that ye happiest of +men was him wich was never born; ye next happy him wich died the +soonest. On wich Dr. Johnson cried out verry loud and angry, 'That was +a Paggann sentyment, sir, and I am asham'd that a Xtian gentelmann +shou'd repete it as a subject for admerashun. Betwene these heathen men +and ye followers of Christ their is all ye differenc betwene a slave +and a servent of a kind Master. Eche bears the same burden; butt ye +servent knows he will recieve just wages for his work, wile ye slave +hopes for nothing, and so conkludes that to escape work is to be +happy!' I could but aknowlege the wisdomm and pyety of this speche; +yett whenn I see ye peopel going bye in their black rayment, I envy the +young Gennerel his gloreous deth, and I wish I was laying amongst the +plane on the hites of Quebeck. I went to look at ye old house in J. +St., but I wou'd not go in to see Mr. F. or ye old roomes; for I think +I shou'd see the aparishions of those that once liv'd in them. C. +thrivs at Higate, wear the aire is fresh and pewer. I go to see her +offen. She is nerely as high as you. Give my servis to Mrs. Rebecka, +sinse you say it will plese my father to do so, and he is now dispos'd +to think more kindly of me. Butt if he thinks I shal everr arske her to +be my wife he is mityly mistaken. You know wear my harte lies--in ye +grave with all that made life dere. Thank my father for the Bill, and +tell him I pass my time in good companie, and neether drink nor play; +and will come to Ullerton to pay him my respeckts when he pleses to bid +me. Butt I hav no desire to leeve London, as I am gladd to be neare C." + +Who was C., whom Matthew visited at Highgate, and who was nearly as +tall as Ruth Judson? Was she not most likely the same C. mentioned in +conjunction with the little M. in the earlier letters? and if so, can +there be any doubt that she was the daughter of Matthew Haygarth? Of +whom but of a daughter would he write as in this letter? She was at +Highgate, at school most likely, and he goes to see her. She is nearly +as tall as Mrs. Judson. This height must have been a new thing, or he +would scarcely impart it as a piece of news to his sister. And then he +has no desire to leave London, as he is glad to be near C. + +My life upon it, C. is a daughter. + +Acting upon this conviction, I have transcribed all passages relating +to C., at whatever distance of time they occur. + + * * * * * + +Thus, in 1763, I find--"C. has grone very hansome, and Mrs. N. tells me +is much admir'd by a brother of her frend Tabitha. She never stirs +abrorde but with Tabitha, and if a dutchess, cou'd be scarce wated on +more cairfully. Mrs. N. loves her verry tenderly, and considers her the +sweetest and most wel bredd of young women. I hav given her the new +edishun of Sir Charls Grandisson, wich they read alowde in ye evenings, +turn and turn about, to Mrs. N. at her spinning. C. has given me a wool +comforter of her owne worke, and sum stockings wich are two thick to +ware, but I hav not told her so." + +Again, in 1764: "Tabitha Meynell's brother goes more than ever to +Higate. He is a clark in his father's wearhouse; very sober and +estimabel, and if it be for ye hapiness of C. to mary him, I wou'd be +ye laste of men to sett my orthoritty agenst her enclinashun. She is +yett but ayteen yeres of age, wich is young to make a change; so I tell +Mrs. N. we will waite. Meanwhile ye young peapel see eche other offen." + +Again, in 1765: "Young Meynell is still constant, expressing much love +and admirashun for C. in his discorse with Mrs. N., butt sattisfide to +wait my plesure before spekeing oppenly to C. He semes a most exempelry +young man; his father a cittizen of some repewt in Aldersgait-street, +ware I have din'd since last riting to you, and at hoose tabel I was +paid much considerashun. He, Tomas Meynell ye father, will give his son +five hundred pound, and I prommis a thousand pound with C. and to +furnish a house at Chelsee, a verry plesent and countriefide vilage; so +I make no doubt there will soon be a wedding. + +"I am sorrie to here my father is aleing; give him my love and servise, +and will come to Ullerton immediate on receiving his commands. I am +plesed to think Mrs. Rebecka Caulfeld is so dutifull and kind to him, +and has comfortedd him with prairs and discorses. I thank her for this +more than for any frendshipp for my undeserving self. Pray tell her +that I am much at her servise. + +"Our new king is lov'd and admir'd by all. His ministers not so; and +wise peopel do entertain themselfs with what I think foollish jokes +a-bout a _Skotch boote_. Perhapps I am not cleverr enuff to see the +funn in this joke." + +In this letter I detect a certain softening of feeling towards Mrs. +Rebecca Caulfield. In the next year--'66--according to my notes, +Matthew's father died, and I have no letters bearing the date of that +year, which our Matthew no doubt spent at home. Nor have I any letters +from this time until the year of Matthew's marriage with Rebecca +Caulfield. In the one year of his union with Mrs. Rebecca, and the last +year of his life, there are many letters, a few from London and the +rest from the manor-house at Dewsdale. But in these epistles, +affectionate and confidential as they are, there is little positive +information. + +These are the letters of the regenerate and Wesleyanised Matthew; and, +like the more elaborate epistles of his wife Rebecca, deal chiefly with +matters spiritual. In these letters I can perceive the workings of a +weak mind, which in its decline has become a prey to religious terrors; +and though I fully recognise the reforming influence which John Wesley +exercised upon the people of England, I fancy poor Matthew would have +been better in the hands of a woman whose piety was of a less severe +type than that of Wesleyan Rebecca. There is an all-pervading tone of +fear in these letters--a depression which is almost despair. In the +same breath he laments and regrets the lost happiness of his youth, and +regrets and laments his own iniquity in having been so ignorantly and +unthinkingly happy. + +Thus in one letter he says,-- + +"When I think of that inconsideratt foolish time with M., and how to be +nere her semed the highest blisse erth cou'd bistowe or Heven prommis, +I trimbel to think of my pore unawaken'd sole, and of her dome on wich +the tru light never shown. If I cou'd believe she was happy my owne +sorow wou'd be lesse; but I canot, sence all ye worthyest memberrs of +our seck agree that to die thinking onely of erthly frends, and +clingeng with a passhunate regrett to them we luv on erth is to be +lesse than a tru Xtian, and for sech their is but one dome." + +And again, in a still later epistle, he writes,-- + +"On Toosday sennite an awakning discorse fromm a verry young man, until +lately a carppenter, but now imploid piusly in going from toun to toun +and vilage to vilage, preching. He says, that a life of cairlesse +happyness, finding plesure in ye things of this worlde, is--not being +repentied of--irretrevable damnation. This is a maloncally thort! I +fell to mewsing on M., with hoom I injoy'd such compleat happyness, tel +Deth came like a spekter to bannish all comforte. And now I knowe that +our lives wear vainity. I ashure you, dear sister, I am prodidjusly +sadd when I reffleckt upon this truth--ashuredly it is a harde saying." + +Anon comes that strange foreknowledge of death--that instinctive sense +of the shadowy hand so soon to lay him at rest; and with that mystic +prescience comes a yearning for the little child M. to be laid where +his father may lay down beside him. There are many passages in the +latter letters which afford a clue to that mysterious midnight burial +at Dewsdale. + +"Last nite I drem't of the cherchyarde at S. I satte under the olde +yewe tree, as it semed in my dreme, and hurd a childes voice crying in +a very piteous mannerr. The thort of this dreme has oppress'd my +speritts all day, and Rebecka has enquier'd more than wunce wot ales +me. If little M. but lay nere at hande, in ye graive to wich I fele I +must soone be carrid, I beleive I shou'd be happyer. Reproove me for +this folley if you plese. I am getting olde, and Sattan temts me with +seche fooleish thorts. Wot dose it matter to my sole wear my vile bodie +is laid? and yet I have a fonde fooleish desier to be berrid with +littel M." + +And in these latest letters there is ample evidence of that yearning on +Matthew's part to reveal a secret which Rebecca's own correspondence +betrays. + +"We tawked of manny things, and she was more than ordinnary kind and +gentel. I had a mind to tell her about M, and aske her frendship for C; +but she seemed not to cair to here my sekrets, and I think wou'd be +offended if she new the trooth. So I cou'd not finde courrage to tell +her. Before I die I shal speek planely for the saik of C. and M. and ye +little one. I shal cum to U. erly nex weak to make my Wille, and this +time shal chainge my umour no more. I have burnt ye laste, not likeing +it." + +This passage occurs in the last letter, amongst the packet confided to +me. The letter is dated September 5, 1774. On the fourteenth of the +following month Matthew died, and in all probability the will here +alluded to was never executed. Certain it is that Matthew, whose end +was awfully sudden at the last, died intestate, whereby his son John +inherited the bulk, and ultimately the whole, of his fortune. There are +many allusions to this infant son in the last few letters; but I do not +think the little creature obtained any great hold on the father's +heart. No doubt he was bound and swaddled out of even such small +semblance to humanity as one may reasonably expect in a child of six or +seven weeks old, and by no means an agreeable being. And poor +weak-minded Matthew's heart was with that player-girl wife whom he +never acknowledged, and the little M. And thus ends the story of +Matthew Haygarth, so far as I have been able to trace it in the +unfathomable gloom of the past. + +It seems to me that what I have next to do will be to hunt up +information respecting that young man Meynell, whose father lived in +Aldersgate Street, and was a respectable and solid citizen, of that +ilk; able to give a substantial dinner to the father of his son's +sweetheart, and altogether a person considerable enough, I should +imagine, to have left footprints of some kind or other on the sands of +Time. The inscrutable Sheldon will be able to decide in what manner the +hunt of the Meynells must begin. I doubt if there is anything more to +be done in Ullerton. + +I have sent Sheldon a fair copy of my extracts from Matthew's +correspondence, and have returned the letters to Miss Judson, carefully +packed in accordance with her request. I now await my Sheldon's next +communication and the abatement of my influenza before making my next +move in the great game of chess called Life. + +What is the meaning of Horatio Paget's lengthened abode in this town? +He is still here. He went past this house to-day while I was standing +at my window in that abject state of mind known only to influenza and +despair. I think I was suffering from a touch of both diseases, by the +bye. What is that man doing here? The idea of his presence fills me +with all manner of vague apprehensions. I cannot rid myself of the +absurd notion that the lavender glove I saw lying in Goodge's parlour +had been left there by the Captain. I know the idea _is_ an absurd one, +and I tell myself again and again that Paget _cannot_ have any inkling +of my business here, and therefore _cannot_ attempt to forestall me or +steal my hard-won information. But often as I reiterate this--in that +silent argument which a man is always elaborating in his own mind--I am +still tormented by a nervous apprehension of treachery from that man. I +suppose the boundary line between influenza and idiocy is a very narrow +one. And then Horatio Paget is such a thorough-paced scoundrel. He is +_lie_ with Philip Sheldon too--another thorough-paced scoundrel in a +quiet gentlemanly way, unless my instinct deceives me. + +_October 12th_. There is treachery somewhere. Again the Haygarthian +epistles have been tampered with. Early this morning comes an indignant +note from Miss Judson, reminding me that I promised the packet of +letters should be restored to her yesterday at noon, and informing me +that they were not returned until last night at eleven o'clock, when +they were left at her back garden-gate by a dirty boy who rang the bell +as loudly as if he had been giving the alarm of fire, and who thrust +the packet rudely into the hand of the servant and vanished +immediately. So much for the messenger. The packet itself, Miss Judson +informed me, was of a dirty and disgraceful appearance, unworthy the +hands of a gentlewoman, and one of the letters was missing. + +Heedless of my influenza, I rushed at once to the lower regions of the +inn, saw the waiter into whose hands I had confided my packet at +half-past ten o'clock yesterday morning, and asked what messenger had +been charged with it. The waiter could not tell me. He did not +remember. I told him plainly that I considered this want of memory very +extraordinary. The waiter laughed me to scorn, with that quiet +insolence which a well-fed waiter feels for a customer who pays twenty +shillings a week for his board and lodging. The packet had been given +to a very respectable messenger, the waiter made no doubt. As to +whether it was the ostler, or one of the boys, or the Boots, or a young +woman in the kitchen who went on errands sometimes, the waiter wouldn't +take upon himself to swear, being a man who would perish rather than +inadvertently perjure himself. As to my packet having been tampered +with, that was ridiculous. What on earth was there in a lump of +letter-paper for any one to steal? Was there money in the parcel? I was +fain to confess there was no money; on which the waiter laughed aloud. + +Failing the waiter, I applied myself severally to the ostler, the boys, +the Boots, and the young woman in the kitchen; and then transpired the +curious fact that no one had carried my packet. The ostler was sure he +had not; the Boots could take his Bible oath to the same effect; the +young woman in the kitchen could not call to mind anything respecting a +packet, though she was able to give me a painfully circumstantial +account of the events of the morning--where she went and what she did, +down to the purchase of three-pennyworth of pearl-ash and a pound of +Glenfield starch for the head chambermaid, on which she dwelt with a +persistent fondness. + +I now felt assured that there had been treachery here, as in the Goodge +business; and I asked myself to whom could I impute that treachery? + +My instinctive suspicion was of Horatio Paget. And yet, was it not more +probable that Theodore Judson, senr. and Theodore Judson, junr. were +involved in this business, and were watching and counterchecking my +actions with a view to frustrating the plans of my principal? This was +one question which I asked myself as I deliberated upon this mysterious +business. Had the Theodore Judsons some knowledge of a secret marriage +on the part of Matthew Haygarth? and did they suspect the existence of +an heir in the descendant of the issue of that marriage? These were +further questions which I asked myself, and which I found it much more +easy to ask than to answer. After having considered these questions, I +went to the Lancaster-road, saw Miss Judson--assured her, on my word as +a gentleman, that the packet had been delivered by my hands into those +of the waiter at eleven o'clock on the previous day, and asked to see +the envelope. There it was--my large blue wire-wove office envelope, +addressed in my own writing. But in these days of adhesive envelopes +there is nothing easier than to tamper with the fastening of a letter. +I registered a mental vow never again to trust any important document +to the protection of a morsel of gummed paper. I counted the letters, +convinced myself that there was a deficiency, and then set to work to +discover which of the letters had been abstracted. Here I failed +utterly. For my own convenience in copying my extracts, I had numbered +the letters from which I intended to transcribe passages before +beginning my work. My pencilled figures in consecutive order were +visible in the corner of the superscription of every document I had +used. Those numbered covers I now found intact, and I could thus assure +myself that the missing document was one from which I had taken no +extract. + +This inspired me with a new alarm. Could it be possible that I had +overlooked some scrap of information more important than all that I had +transcribed? + +I racked my brains in the endeavour to recall the contents of that one +missing letter; but although I sat in that social tomb, Miss Judson's +best parlour, until I felt my blood becoming of an arctic quality, I +could remember nothing that seemed worth remembering in the letters I +had laid aside as valueless. + +I asked Miss Judson if she had any suspicion of the person who had +tampered with the packet. She looked at me with an icy smile, and +answered in ironical accents, which were even more chilling than the +atmosphere of her parlour,-- + +"Do not ask if I know who has tampered with those letters, Mr. +Hawkehurst. Your affectation of surprise has been remarkably well put +on; but I am not to be deceived a second time. When you came to me in +the first instance, I had my suspicions; but you came furnished with a +note from my brother, and as a Christian I repressed those suspicions. +I know now that I have been the dupe of an impostor, and that in +entrusting those letters to you I entrusted them to an emissary and +tool of THEODORE JUDSON." + +I protested that I had never to my knowledge set eyes upon either of +the Theodore Judsons; but the prejudiced kinswoman of those gentlemen +shook her head with a smile whose icy blandness was eminently +exasperating. + +"I am not to be deceived a second time," she said. "Who else but +Theodore Judson should have employed you? Who else but Theodore Judson +is interested in the Haygarth fortune? O, it was like him to employ a +stranger where he knew his own efforts would be unavailing; it was like +him to hoodwink me by the agency of a hireling tool." + +I had been addressed as a "young man" by the reverend Jonah, and now I +was spoken of as a "hireling tool" by Miss Judson. I scarcely knew +which was most disagreeable, and I began to think that board and +lodging in the present, and a visionary three thousand pounds in the +future, would scarcely compensate me for such an amount of ignominy. + +I went back to my inn utterly crestfallen--a creature so abject that +even the degrading influence of influenza could scarcely sink me any +lower in the social scale. I wrote a brief and succinct account of my +proceedings, and despatched the same to George Sheldon, and then I sat +down in my sickness and despair, as deeply humiliated as Ajax when he +found that he had been pitching into sheep instead of Greeks, as +miserable as Job amongst his dust and ashes, but I am happy to say +untormented by the chorus of one or the friends of the other. In that +respect at least I had some advantage over both. + +_October 13th_. This morning's post brought me a brief scrawl from +Sheldon. + +"Come back to town directly. I have found the registry of Matthew +Haygarth's marriage." + +And so I turn my back on Ullerton; with what rejoicing of spirit it is +not in language to express. + + + + + +BOOK THE SIXTH. + + +THE HEIRESS OF THE HAYGARTHS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +DISAPPOINTMENT. + + +Of all places upon this earth, perhaps, there is none more obnoxious to +the civilized mind than London in October; and yet to Valentine +Hawkehurst, newly arrived from Ullerton per North-Western Railway, that +city seemed as an enchanted and paradisiacal region. Were not the +western suburbs of that murky metropolis inhabited by Charlotte +Halliday, and might he not hope to see her? + +He did hope for that enjoyment. He had felt something more than hope +while speeding Londonwards by that delightful combination of a liberal +railway management, a fast and yet cheap train. He had beguiled himself +with a delicious certainty. Early the next morning--or at any rate as +early as civilization permitted--he would hie him to Bayswater, and +present himself at the neat iron gate of Philip Sheldon's gothic villa. +_She_ would be there, in the garden most likely, his divine Charlotte, +so bright and radiant a creature that the dull October morning would be +made glorious by her presence--she would be there, and she would +welcome him with that smile which made her the most enchanting of women. + +Such thoughts as these had engaged him during his homeward journey; and +compared with the delight of such visions, the perusal of daily papers +and the consumption of sandwiches, whereby other passengers beguiled +their transit, seemed a poor amusement. But, arrived in the dingy +streets, and walking towards Chelsea under a drizzling rain, the bright +picture began to grow dim. Was it not more than likely that Charlotte +would be absent from London at this dismal season? Was it not very +probable that Philip Sheldon would give him the cold shoulder? With +these gloomy contingencies before him, Mr. Hawkehurst tried to shut +Miss Halliday's image altogether out of his mind, and to contemplate +the more practical aspect of his affairs. + +"I wonder whether that scoundrel Paget has come back to London?" he +thought. "What am I to say to him if he has? If I own to having seen +him in Ullerton, I shall lay myself open to being questioned by him as +to my own business in that locality. Perhaps my wisest plan would be to +say nothing, and hear his own account of himself. I fully believe he +saw me on the platform that night when we passed each other without +speaking." + +Horatio Paget was at home when his _protege_ arrived. He was seated by +his fireside in all the domestic respectability of a dressing-gown and +slippers, with an evening paper on his knee, a slim smoke-coloured +bottle at his elbow, and the mildest of cigars between his lips, when +the traveller, weary and weather-stained, entered the lodging-house +drawing-room. + +Captain Paget received his friend very graciously, only murmuring some +faint deprecation of the young man's reeking overcoat, with just such a +look of gentlemanly alarm as the lamented Brummel may have felt when +ushered into the presence of a "damp stranger." + +"And so you've come back at last," said the Captain, "from Dorking?" He +made a little pause here, and looked at his friend with a malicious +sparkle in his eye. "And how was the old aunt? Likely to cut up for any +considerable amount, eh? It could only be with a view to that +cutting-up process that you could consent to isolate yourself in such a +place as Dorking. How did you find things?" + +"O, I don't know, I'm sure," Mr. Hawkehurst answered rather impatiently, +for his worst suspicions were confirmed by his patron's manner; "I only +know I found it tiresome work enough." + +"Ah, to be sure! elderly people always are tiresome, especially when +they are unacquainted with the world. There is a perennial youth about +men and women of the world. The sentimental twaddle people talk of the +freshness and purity of a mind unsullied by communion with the world is +the shallowest nonsense. Your Madame du Deffand at eighty and your +Horace Walpole at sixty are as lively as a girl and boy. Your +octogenarian Voltaire is the most agreeable creature in existence. But +take Cymon and Daphne from their flocks and herds and pastoral valleys +in their old age, and see what senile bores and quavering imbeciles you +would find them. Yes, I have no doubt you found your Dorking aunt a +nuisance. Take off your wet overcoat and put it out of the room, and +then ring for more hot water. You'll find that cognac very fine. Won't +you have a cigar?" + +The Captain extended his russia-leather case with the blandest smile. +It was a very handsome case. Captain Paget was a man who could descend +into some unknown depths of the social ocean in the last stage of +shabbiness, and who, while his acquaintance were congratulating +themselves upon the fact of his permanent disappearance, would start up +suddenly in an unexpected place, provided with every necessity and +luxury of civilized life, from a wardrobe by Poole to the last +fashionable absurdity in the shape of a cigar-case. + +Never had Valentine Hawkehurst found his patron more agreeably disposed +than he seemed to be this evening, and never had he felt more inclined +to suspect him. + +"And what have you been doing while I have been away?" the young man +asked presently. "Any more promoting work?" + +"Well, yes, a little bit of provincial business; a life-and-fire on a +novel principle; a really good thing, if we can only find men with +perception enough to see its merits, and pluck enough to hazard their +capital. But promoting in the provinces is very dull work. I've been to +two or three towns in the Midland districts--Beauport, Mudborough, and +Ullerton--and have found the same stagnation everywhere." + +Nothing could be more perfect than the semblance of unconscious +innocence with which the Captain gave this account of himself: whether +he was playing a part, or whether he was telling the entire truth, was +a question which even a cleverer man than Valentine Hawkehurst might +have found himself unable to answer. + +The two men sat till late, smoking and talking; but to-night Valentine +found the conversation of his "guide, philosopher, and friend" +strangely distasteful to him. That cynical manner of looking at life, +which not long ago had seemed to him the only manner compatible with +wisdom and experience, now grated harshly upon those finer senses which +had been awakened in the quiet contemplative existence he had of late +been leading. He had been wont to enjoy Captain Paget's savage +bitterness against a world which had not provided him with a house in +Carlton-gardens, and a seat in the Cabinet; but to-night he was +revolted by the noble Horatio's tone and manner. Those malicious sneers +against respectable people and respectable prejudices, with which the +Captain interlarded all his talk, seemed to have a ghastly grimness in +their mirth. It was like the talk of some devil who had once been an +angel, and had lost all hope of ever being restored to his angelic +status. + +"To believe in nothing, to respect nothing, to hope for nothing, to +fear nothing, to consider life as so many years in which to scheme and +lie for the sake of good dinners and well-made coats--surely there can +be no state of misery more complete, no degradation more consummate," +thought the young man, as he sat by the fireside smoking and listening +dreamily to his companion. "Better to be Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth, +narrow-minded and egotistical, but always looking beyond her narrow +life to some dimly-comprehended future." + +He was glad to escape at last from the Captain's society, and to retire +to his own small chamber, where he slept soundly enough after the day's +fatigues, and dreamed of the Haygarths and Charlotte Halliday. + +He was up early the next morning; but, on descending to the +sitting-room, he found his patron toasting his _Times_ before a +cheerful fire; while his gold hunting-watch stood open on the +breakfast-table, and a couple of new-laid eggs made a pleasant wabbling +noise in a small saucepan upon the hob. + +"You don't care for eggs, I know, Val," said the Captain, as he took +the saucepan from the hob. + +He had heard the young man object to an egg of French extraction too +long severed from its native land; but he knew very well that for rural +delicacies from a reliable dairyman, at twopence apiece, Mr. Hawkehurst +had no particular antipathy. Even in so small a matter as a new-laid +egg the Captain knew how to protect his own interest. + +"There's some of that Italian sausage you're so fond of, dear boy," he +said politely, pointing to a heel of some grayish horny-looking +compound. "Thanks; I'll pour out the coffee; there's a knack in these +things; half the clearness of coffee depends on the way in which it's +poured out, you see." + +And with this assurance Captain Paget filled his own large +breakfast-cup with a careful hand and a tender solemnity of +countenance. If he was a trifle less considerate in the pouring out of +the second cup, and if some "grounds" mingled with the second portion, +Valentine Hawkehurst was unconscious of the fact. + +"Do try that Italian sausage," said the Captain, as he discussed his +second egg, after peeling the most attractive crusts from the French +rolls, and pushing the crumb to his _protege_. + +"No, thank you; it looks rather like what your shop-people call an old +housekeeper; besides, there's a little too much garlic in those +compositions for my taste." + +"Your taste has grown fastidious," said the Captain; "one would think +you were going to call upon some ladies this morning." + +"There are not many ladies on my visiting-list. O, by the way, how's +Diana? Have you seen her lately?" + +"No," answered the Captain, promptly. "I only returned from my +provincial tour a day or two ago, and have had no time to waste dancing +attendance upon her. She's well enough, I've no doubt; and she's +uncommonly well off in Sheldon's house, and ought to think herself so." + +Having skimmed his newspaper, Captain Paget rose and invested himself +in his overcoat. He put on his hat before the glass over the +mantelpiece, adjusting the brim above his brows with the thoughtful +care that distinguished his performance of all those small duties which +he owed to himself. + +"And what may _you_ be going to do with yourself to-day, Val?" he asked +of the young man, who sat nursing his own knee and staring absently at +the fire. + +"Well, I don't quite know," Mr. Hawkehurst answered, hypocritically; "I +think I may go as far as Gray's Inn, and look in upon George Sheldon." + +"You'll dine out of doors, I suppose?" + +This was a polite way of telling Mr. Hawkehurst that there would be no +dinner for him at home. + +"I suppose I shall. You know I'm not punctilious on the subject of +dinner. Anything you please--from a banquet at the London Tavern to a +ham-sandwich and a glass of ale at fourpence." + +"Ah, to be sure; youth is reckless of its gastric juices. I shall find +you at home when I come in to-night, I daresay. I think I may dine in +the city. _Au plaisir_." + +"I don't know about the pleasure," muttered Mr. Hawkehurst. "You're a +very delightful person, my friend Horatio; but there comes a crisis in +a man's existence when he begins to feel that he has had enough of you. +Poor Diana! what a father!" + +He did not waste much time on further consideration of his patron, but +set off at once on his way to Gray's Inn. It was too early to call at +the Lawn, or he would fain have gone there before seeking George +Sheldon's dingy offices. Nor could he very well present himself at the +gothic villa without some excuse for so doing. He went to Gray's Inn +therefore; but on his way thither called at a tavern near the Strand, +which was the head-quarters of a literary association known as the +Ragamuffins. Here he was fortunate enough to meet with an acquaintance +in the person of a Ragamuffin in the dramatic-author line, who was +reading the morning's criticisms on a rival's piece produced the night +before, with a keen enjoyment of every condemnatory sentence. From this +gentleman Mr. Hawkehurst obtained a box-ticket for a West-end theatre; +and, armed with this mystic document, he felt himself able to present a +bold countenance at Mr. Sheldon's door. + +"Will she be glad to see me again?" he asked himself. "Pshaw! I daresay +she has forgotten me by this time. A fortnight is an age with some +women; and I should fancy Charlotte Halliday just one of those bright +impressionable beings who forget easily. I wonder whether she is +_really_ like that 'Molly' whose miniature was found by Mrs. Haygarth +in the tulip-leaf escritoire; or was the resemblance between those two +faces only a silly fancy of mine?" + +Mr. Hawkehurst walked the whole distance from Chelsea to Gray's Inn; +and it was midday when he presented himself before George Sheldon, whom +he found seated at his desk with the elephantine pedigree of the +Haygarths open before him, and profoundly absorbed in the contents of a +note-book. He looked up from this note-book as Valentine entered, but +did not leave off chewing the end of his pencil as he mumbled a welcome +to the returning wanderer. It has been seen that neither of the Sheldon +brothers were demonstrative men. + +After that unceremonious greeting, the lawyer continued his perusal of +the note-book for some minutes, while Valentine seated himself in a +clumsy leather-covered arm-chair by the fireplace. + +"Well, young gentleman," Mr. Sheldon exclaimed, as he closed his book +with a triumphant snap, "I think _you're_ in for a good thing; and you +may thank your lucky stars for having thrown you into my path." + +"My stars are not remarkable for their luckiness in a general way," +answered Mr. Hawkehurst, coolly, for the man had not yet been born from +whom he would accept patronage. "I suppose if I'm in for a good thing, +you're in for a better thing, my dear George; so you needn't come the +benefactor quite so strong for my edification. How did you ferret out +the certificate of gray-eyed Molly's espousals?" + +George Sheldon contemplated his coadjutor with an admiring stare. "It +has been my privilege to enjoy the society of cool hands, Mr. +Hawkehurst; and certainly you are about the coolest of the lot--bar +one, as they say in the ring. But that is _ni ci ni la_. I have found +the certificate of Matthew Haygarth's marriage, and to my mind the +Haygarth succession is as good as ours." + +"Ah, those birds in the bush have such splendid plumage! but I'd rather +have the modest sparrow in my hand. However, I'm very glad our affairs +are marching. How did you discover the marriage-lines?" + +"Not without hard labour, I can tell you. Of course my idea of a secret +marriage was at the best only a plausible hypothesis; and I hardly +dared to hug myself with the hope that it might turn up trumps. My idea +was based upon two or three facts, namely, the character of the young +man, his long residence in London away from the ken of respectable +relatives and friends, and the extraordinary state of the marriage laws +at the period in which our man lived." + +"Ah, to be sure! That was a strong point." + +"I should rather think it was. I took the trouble to look up the +history of Mayfair marriages and Fleet marriages before you started for +Ullerton, and I examined all the evidence I could get on that subject. +I made myself familiar with the Rev. Alexander Keith of Mayfair, who +helped to bring clandestine marriages into vogue amongst the swells, +and with Dr. Gaynham--agreeably nicknamed Bishop of Hell--and more of +the same calibre; and the result of my investigations convinced me that +in those days a hare-brained young reprobate must have found it rather +more difficult to avoid matrimony than to achieve it. He might be +married when he was tipsy; he might be married when he was comatose +from the effects of a stand-up fight with Mohawks; his name might be +assumed by some sportive Benedick of his acquaintance given to +practical joking, and he might find himself saddled with a wife he +never saw; or if, on the other hand, of an artful and deceptive turn, +he might procure a certificate of a marriage that had never taken +place,--for there were very few friendly offices which the Fleet +parsons refused to perform for their clients--for a consideration." + +"But how about the legality of the Fleet marriage?" + +"There's the rub. Before the New Marriage Act passed in 1753 a Fleet +marriage was indissoluble. It was an illegal act, and the parties were +punishable; but the Gordian knot was quite as secure as if it had been +tied in the most orthodox manner. The great difficulty to my mind was +the _onus probandi_. The marriage might have taken place; the marriage +be to all intents and purposes a good marriage; but how produce +undeniable proof of such a ceremony, when all ceremonies of the kind +were performed with a manifest recklessness and disregard of law? Even +if I found an apparently good certificate, how was I to prove that it +was not one of those lying certificates of marriages that had never +taken place? Again, what kind of registers could posterity expect from +these parson-adventurers, very few of whom could spell, and most of +whom lived in a chronic state of drunkenness? They married people +sometimes by their Christian names alone--very often under assumed +names. What consideration had they for heirs-at-law in the future, when +under the soothing influence of a gin-bottle in the present? I thought +of all these circumstances, and I was half inclined to despair of +realising my idea of an early marriage. I took it for granted that such +a secret business would be more likely to have taken place in the +precincts of the Fleet than anywhere else; and having no particular +clue, I set to work, in the first place, to examine all available +documents relating to such marriages." + +"It must have been slow work." + +"It _was_ slow work," answered Mr. Sheldon with a suppressed groan, +that was evoked by the memory of a bygone martyrdom. "I needn't enter +into all the details of the business,--the people I had to apply to for +permission to see this set of papers, and the signing and +counter-signing I had to go through before I could see that set of +papers, and the extent of circumlocution and idiocy I had to encounter +in a general way before I could complete my investigation. The result +was nil; and after working like a galley-slave I found myself no better +off than before I began my search. Your extracts from Matthew's letters +put me on a new track. I concluded therefrom that there had been a +marriage, and that the said marriage had been a deliberate act on the +part of the young man. I therefore set to work to do what I ought to +have done at starting--I hunted in all the parish registers to be found +within a certain radius of such and such localities. I began with +Clerkenwell, in which neighbourhood our friend spent such happy years, +according to that pragmatical epistle of Mrs. Rebecca's; but after +hunting in all the mouldy old churches within a mile of St. +John's-gate, I was no nearer arriving at any record of Matthew +Haygarth's existence. So I turned my back upon Clerkenwell, and went +southward to the neighbourhood of the Marshalsea, where Mistress +Molly's father was at one time immured, and whence I thought it very +probable Mistress Molly had started on her career as a matron. This +time my guess was a lucky one. After hunting the registers of St. +Olave's, St. Saviour's, and St. George's, and after the expenditure of +more shillings in donations to sextons than I care to remember, I at +last lighted on a document which I consider worth three thousand pounds +to you--and--a very decent sum of money to me." + +"I wonder what colour our hair will be when we touch that money?" said +Valentine meditatively. "These sort of cases generally find their way +into Chancery-lane, don't they?--that lane which, for some unhappy +travellers, has no turning except the one dismal _via_ which leads to +dusty death. You seem in very good spirits; and I suppose I ought to be +elated too. Three thousand pounds would give me a start in life, and +enable me to set up in the new character of a respectable rate-paying +citizen. But I've a kind of presentiment that this hand of mine will +never touch the prize of the victor; or, in plainer English, that no +good will ever arise to me or mine out of the reverend intestate's +hundred thousand pounds." + +"Why, what a dismal-minded croaker you are this morning!" exclaimed +George Sheldon with unmitigated disgust; "a regular raven, by Jove! You +come to a fellow's office just as matters are beginning to look like +success--after ten years' plodding and ten years' disappointment--and +you treat him to maudlin howls about the Court of Chancery. This is a +new line you've struck out, Hawkehurst, and I can tell you it isn't a +pleasant one." + +"Well, no, I suppose I oughtn't to say that sort of thing," answered +Valentine in an apologetic tone; "but there are some days in a man's +life when there seems to be a black cloud between him and everything he +looks at. I feel like that today. There's a tightening sensation about +something under my waistcoat--my heart, perhaps--a sense of depression +that may be either physical or mental, that I can't get rid of. If a +man had walked by my side from Chelsea to Holborn whispering +forebodings of evil into my ear at every step, I couldn't have felt +more downhearted than I do." + +"What did you eat for breakfast?" asked Mr. Sheldon impatiently. "A +tough beefsteak fried by a lodging-house cook, I daresay--they _will_ +fry their steaks. Don't inflict the consequences of your indigestible +diet upon me. To tell me that there's a black cloud between you and +everything you look at, is only a sentimental way of telling me that +you're bilious. Pray be practical, and let us look at things from a +business point of view. Here is Appendix A.--a copy of the registry of +the marriage of Matthew Haygarth, bachelor, of Clerkenwell, in the +county of Middlesex, to Mary Murchison, spinster, of Southwark, in the +county of Surrey. And here is Appendix B.--a copy of the registry of +the marriage between William Meynell, bachelor, of Smithfield, in the +county of Middlesex, to Caroline Mary Haygarth, spinster, of Highgate, +in the same county." + +"You have found the entry of a second Haygarthian marriage?" + +"I have. The C. of Matthew's letters is the Caroline Mary here +indicated, the daughter and heiress of Matthew Haygarth--doubtless +christened Caroline after her gracious majesty the consort of George +II., and Mary after the Molly whose picture was found in the tulip-leaf +bureau. The Meynell certificate was easy enough to find, since the +letters told me that Miss C.'s suitor had a father who lived in +Aldersgate-street, and a father who approved his son's choice. The +Aldersgate citizen had a house of his own, and a more secure social +status altogether than that poor, weak, surreptitious Matthew. It was +therefore only natural that the marriage should be celebrated in the +Meynell mansion. Having considered this, I had only to ransack the +registers of a certain number of churches round and about +Aldersgate-street in order to find what I wanted; and after about a day +and a half of hard labour, I did find the invaluable document which +places me one generation nearer the present, and on the high-road to +the discovery of my heir-at-law. I searched the same registry for +children of the aforesaid William and Caroline Mary Meynell, but could +find no record of such children nor any further entry of the name of +Meynell. But we must search other registries within access of +Aldersgate-street before we give up the idea of finding such entries in +that neighbourhood." + +"And what is to be the next move?" + +"The hunting-up of all descendants of this William and Caroline Mary +Meynell, wheresoever such descendants are to be found. We are now +altogether off the Haygarth and Judson scent, and have to beat a new +covert." + +"Good!" exclaimed Valentine more cheerfully. "How is the new covert to +be beaten?" + +"We must start from Aldersgate-street. Meynell of Aldersgate-street +must have been a responsible man, and it will be hard if there is no +record of him extant in all the old topographical histories of wards, +without and within, which cumber the shelves of your dry-as-dust +libraries. We must hunt up all available books; and when we've got all +the information that books can give us, we can go in upon hearsay +evidence, which is always the most valuable in these cases." + +"That means another encounter with ancient mariners--I beg your +pardon--oldest inhabitants," said Valentine with a despondent yawn. +"Well, I suppose that sort of individual is a little less obtuse when +he lives within the roar of the great city's thunder than when he +vegetates in the dismal outskirts of a manufacturing town. Where am I +to find my octogenarian prosers? and when am I to begin my operations +upon them?" + +"The sooner you begin the better," replied Mr. Sheldon. "I've taken all +preliminary steps for you already, and you'll find the business +tolerably smooth sailing. I've made a list of certain people who +may be worth seeing." + +Mr. Sheldon selected a paper from the numerous documents upon the table. + +"Here they are," he said: "John Grewter, wholesale stationer, +Aldersgate-street; Anthony Sparsfield, carver and gilder, in Barbican. +These are, so far as I can ascertain, the two oldest men now trading in +Aldersgate-street; and from these men you ought to be able to find out +something about old Meynell. I don't anticipate any difficulty about +the Meynells, except the possibility that we may find more of them than +we want, and have some trouble in shaking them into their places." + +"I'll tackle my friend the stationer to-morrow morning," said Valentine. + +"You'd better drop in upon him in the afternoon, when the day's +business may be pretty well over," returned the prudent Sheldon. "And +now all you've got to do, Hawkehurst, is to work with a will, and work +on patiently. If you do as well in London as you did at Ullerton, +neither you nor I will have any cause to complain. Of course I needn't +impress upon you the importance of secrecy." + +"No," replied Valentine; "I'm quite alive to that." + +He then proceeded to inform George Sheldon of that encounter with +Captain Paget on the platform at Ullerton, and of the suspicion that +had been awakened in his mind by the sight of the glove in Goodge's +parlour. + +The lawyer shook his head. + +"That idea about the glove was rather far-fetched," he said, +thoughtfully; "but I don't like the look of that meeting at the +station. My brother Philip is capable of anything in the way of +manoeuvring; and I'm not ashamed to confess that I'm no match for him. +He was in here one day when I had the Haygarth pedigree spread out on +the table, and I know he smelt a rat. We must beware of him, +Hawkehurst, and we must work against time if we don't want him to +anticipate us." + +"I shan't let the grass grow under my feet," replied Valentine. "I was +really interested in that Haygarthian history: there was a dash of +romance about it, you see. I don't feel the same gusto in the Meynell +chase, but I daresay I shall begin to get up an interest in it as my +investigation proceeds. Shall I call the day after to-morrow and tell +you my adventures?" + +"I think you'd better stick to the old plan, and let me have the result +of your work in the form of a diary," answered Sheldon. And with this +the two men parted. + +It was now half-past two o'clock; it would be half-past three before +Valentine could present himself at the Lawn--a very seasonable hour at +which to call upon Mrs. Sheldon with his offering of a box for the new +play. + +An omnibus conveyed him to Bayswater at a snail's pace, and with more +stoppages than ever mortal omnibus was subjected to before, as it +seemed to that one eager passenger. At last the fading foliage of the +Park appeared between the hats and bonnets of Valentine's opposite +neighbours. Even those orange tawny trees reminded him of Charlotte. +Beneath such umbrage had he parted from her. And now he was going to +see the bright young face once more. He had been away from town about a +fortnight; but taken in relation with Miss Halliday, that fortnight +seemed half a century. + +Chrysanthemums and china-asters beautified Mr. Sheldon's neat little +garden, and the plate-glass windows of his house shone with all their +wonted radiance. It was like the houses one sees framed and glazed in +an auctioneer's office--the greenest imaginable grass, the bluest +windows, the reddest bricks, the whitest stone. "It is a house that +would set my teeth on edge, but for the one sweet creature who lives in +it," Valentine thought to himself, as he waited at the florid iron +gate, which was painted a vivid ultramarine and picked out with gold. + +He tried in vain to catch a glimpse of some feminine figure in the +small suburban garden. No flutter of scarlet petticoat or flash of +scarlet plume revealed the presence of the divinity. + +The prim maid-servant informed him that Mrs. Sheldon was at home, and +asked if he would please to walk into the drawing-room. + +Would he please? Would he not have been pleased to walk into a raging +furnace if there had been a chance of meeting Charlotte Halliday amid +the flames? He followed the maid-servant into Mrs. Sheldon's +irreproachable apartment, where the show books upon the show table were +ranged at the usual mathematically correct distances from one another, +and where the speckless looking-glasses and all-pervading French polish +imparted a chilly aspect to the chamber. A newly-lighted fire was +smouldering in the shining steel grate, and a solitary female figure +was seated by the broad Tudor window bending over some needlework. + +It was the figure of Diana Paget, and she was quite alone in the room. +Valentine's heart sank a little as he saw the solitary figure, and +perceived that it was not the woman he loved. + +Diana looked up from her work and recognised the visitor. Her face +flushed, but the flush faded very quickly, and Valentine was not +conscious of that flattering indication. + +"How do you do, Diana?" he said. "Here I am again, you see, like the +proverbial bad shilling. I have brought Mrs. Sheldon an order for the +Princess's." + +"You are very kind; but I don't think she'll care to go. She was +complaining of a headache this afternoon." + +"O, she'll forget all about her headache if she wants to go to the +play. She's the sort of little woman who is always ready for a theatre +or a concert. Besides, Miss Halliday may like to go, and will easily +persuade her mamma. Whom could she not persuade?" added Mr. Hawkehurst +within himself. + +"Miss Halliday is out of town," Diana replied coldly. + +The young man felt as if his heart were suddenly transformed into so +much lead, so heavy did it seem to grow. What a foolish thing it seemed +that he should be the victim of this fair enslaver!--he who until +lately had fancied himself incapable of any earnest feeling or deep +emotion. + +"Out of town!" he repeated with unconcealed disappointment. + +"Yes; she has gone on a visit to some relations in Yorkshire. She +actually has relations; doesn't that sound strange to you and me?" + +Valentine did not notice this rather cynical remark. + +"She'll be away ever so long, I suppose?" he said. + +"I have no idea how long she may stay there. The people idolise her, I +understand. You know it is her privilege to be idolised; and of course +they will persuade her to stay as long as they can. You seem +disappointed at not seeing her." + +"I am very much disappointed," Valentine answered frankly; "she is a +sweet girl." + +There was a silence after this. Miss Paget resumed her work with rapid +fingers. She was picking up shining little beads one by one on the +point of her needle, and transferring them to the canvas stretched upon +an embroidery frame before her. It was a kind of work exacting extreme +care and precision, and the girl's hand never faltered, though a +tempest of passionate feeling agitated her as she worked. + +"I am very sorry not to see her," Valentine said presently, "for the +sight of her is very dear to me. Why should I try to hide my feelings +from you, Diana? We have endured so much misery together that there +must be some bond of union between us. To me you have always seemed +like a sister, and I have no wish to keep any secret from you, though +you receive me so coldly that one would think I had offended you." + +"You have not offended me. I thank you for being so frank with me. You +would have gained little by an opposite course. I have long known your +affection for Charlotte." + +"You guessed my secret?" + +"I saw what any one could have seen who had taken the trouble to watch +you for ten minutes during your visits to this house." + +"Was my unhappy state so very conspicuous?" exclaimed Valentine, +laughing. "Was I so obviously spoony? _I_ who have so ridiculed +anything in the way of sentiment. You make me blush for my folly, +Diana. What is that you are dotting with all those beads?--something +very elaborate." + +"It is a prie-dieu chair I am working for Mrs. Sheldon. Of course I am +bound to do something for my living." + +"And so you wear out your eyesight in the working of chairs. Poor girl! +it seems hard that your beauty and accomplishments should not find a +better market than that. I daresay you will marry some millionaire +friend of Mr. Sheldon's one of these days, and I shall hear of your +house in Park-lane and three-hundred guinea barouche." + +"You are very kind to promise me a millionaire. The circumstances of my +existence hitherto have been so peculiarly fortunate that I am +justified in expecting such a suitor. My millionaire shall ask you to +dinner at my house in Park-lane; and you shall play _ecarte_ with him, +if you like--papa's kind of _ecarte_." + +"Don't talk of those things, Di," said Mr. Hawkehurst, with something +that was almost a shudder; "let us forget that we ever led that kind of +life." + +"Yes," replied Diana, "let us forget it--if we can." + +The bitterness of her tone struck him painfully. He sat for some +minutes watching her silently, and pitying her fate. What a sad fate it +seemed, and how hopeless! For him there was always some chance of +redemption. He could go out into the world, and cut his way through the +forest of difficulty with the axe of the conqueror. But what could a +woman do who found herself in the midst of that dismal forest? She +could only sit at the door of her lonesome hut, looking out with weary +eyes for the prince who was to come and rescue her. And Valentine +remembered how many women there are to whom the prince never comes, and +who must needs die and be buried beneath that gloomy umbrage. + +"O! let us have women doctors, women lawyers, women parsons, women +stone-breakers--anything rather than these dependent creatures who sit +in other people's houses working prie-dieu chairs and pining for +freedom," he thought to himself, as he watched the pale stern face in +the chill afternoon light. + +"Do leave off working for a few minutes, and talk to me, Di," he said +rather impatiently. "You don't know how painful it is to a man to see a +woman absorbed in some piece of needlework at the very moment when he +wants all her sympathy. I am afraid you are not quite happy. Do confide +in me, dear, as frankly as I confide in you. Are these people kind to +you? Charlotte is, of course. But the elder birds, Mr. and Mrs. +Sheldon, are they kind?" + +"They are very kind. Mr. Sheldon is not a demonstrative man, as you +know; but I am not accustomed to have people in a rapturous state of +mind about me and my affairs. He is kinder to me than my father ever +was; and I don't see how I can expect more than that. Mrs. Sheldon +is extremely kind in her way--which is rather a feeble way, as you +know." + +"And Charlotte--?" + +"You answered for Charlotte yourself just now. Yes, she is very, very, +very good to me; much better than I deserve. I was almost going to +quote the collect, and say 'desire or deserve.'" + +"Why should you not desire or deserve her goodness?" asked Valentine. + +"Because I am not a loveable kind of person. I am not sympathetic. I +know that Charlotte is very fascinating, very charming; but sometimes +her very fascination repels me. I think the atmosphere of that horrible +swampy district between Lambeth and Battersea, where my childhood was +spent, must have soured my disposition." + +"No, Diana; you have only learnt a bitter way of talking. I know your +heart is noble and true. I have seen your suppressed indignation many a +time when your father's meannesses have revolted you. Our lives have +been very hard, dear; but let us hope for brighter days. I think they +must come to us." + +"They will never come to me," said Diana. + +"You say that with an air of conviction. But why should they not come +to you--brighter and better days?" + +"I cannot tell you that. I can only tell you that they will not come. +And do you hope that any good will ever come of your love for Charlotte +Halliday--you, who know Mr. Sheldon?" + +"I am ready to hope anything." + +"You think that Mr. Sheldon would let his stepdaughter marry a +penniless man?" + +"I may not always be penniless. Besides, Mr. Sheldon has no actual +authority over Charlotte." + +"But he has moral influence over her. She is very easily influenced." + +"I am ready to hope even in spite of Mr. Sheldon's opposing influence. +You must not try to crush this one little floweret that has grown up in +a barren waste, Diana. It is my prison-flower." + +Mrs. Sheldon came into the room as he said this. She was very cordial, +very eloquent upon the subject of her headache, and very much inclined +to go to the theatre, notwithstanding that ailment, when she heard that +Mr. Hawkehurst had been kind enough to bring her a box. + +"Diana and I could go," she said, "if we can manage to be in time after +our six o'clock dinner. Mr. Sheldon does not care about theatres. All +the pieces tire him. He declares they are all stupid. But then, you +see, if one's mind is continually wandering, the cleverest piece must +seem stupid," Mrs. Sheldon added thoughtfully; "and my husband is so +very absent-minded." + +After some further discussion about the theatres, Valentine bade the +ladies good afternoon. + +"Won't you stop to see Mr. Sheldon?" asked Georgina; "he's in the +library with Captain Paget. You did not know that your papa was here, +did you, Diana, my dear? He came in with Mr. Sheldon an hour ago." + +"I won't disturb Mr. Sheldon," said Valentine. "I will call again in a +few days." + +He took leave of the two ladies, and went out into the hall. As he +emerged from the drawing-room, the door of the library was opened, and +he heard Philip Sheldon's voice within, saying,-- + +"--your accuracy with regard to the name of Meynell." + +It was the close of a sentence; but the name struck immediately upon +Valentine's ear. Meynell!--the name which had for him so peculiar an +interest. + +"Is it only a coincidence," he thought to himself, "or is Horatio Paget +on our track?" + +And then he argued with himself that his ears might have deceived him, +and that the name he had heard might not have been Meynell, but only a +name of somewhat similar sound. + +It was Captain Paget who had opened the door. He came into the hall and +recognised his _protege_. They left the house together, and the Captain +was especially gracious. + +"We will dine together somewhere at the West-end, Val," he said; but, +to his surprise, Mr. Hawkehurst declined the proffered entertainment. + +"I'm tired out with a hard day's work," he said, "and should be very +bad company; so, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to Omega-street and +get a chop." + +The Captain stared at him in amazement. He could not comprehend the man +who could refuse to dine luxuriously at the expense of his fellow-man. + +Valentine had of late acquired new prejudices. He no longer cared to +enjoy the hospitality of Horatio Paget. In Omega-street the household +expenses were shared by the two men. It was a kind of club upon a small +scale; and there was no degradation in breaking bread with the elegant +Horatio. + +To Omega-street Valentine returned this afternoon, there to eat a +frugal meal and spend a meditative evening, uncheered by one glimmer of +that radiance which more fortunate men know as the light of home. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +VALENTINE'S RECORD CONTINUED. + + +_October 15th_. I left Omega-street for the City before noon, after a +hasty breakfast with my friend Horatio, who was somewhat under the +dominion of his black dog this morning, and far from pleasant company. +I was not to present myself to the worthy John Grewter, wholesale +stationer, before the afternoon; but I had no particular reason for +staying at home, and I had a fancy for strolling about the old City +quarter in which Matthew Haygarth's youth had been spent. I went to +look at John-street, Clerkenwell, and dawdled about the immediate +neighbourhood of Smithfield, thinking of the old fair-time, and of all +the rioters and merry-makers, who now were so much or so little dust +and ashes in City churchyards, until the great bell of St. Paul's +boomed three, and I felt that it might be a leisure time with Mr. +Grewter. + +I found the stationer's shop as darksome and dreary as City shops +usually are, but redolent of that subtle odour of wealth which has a +mystical charm for the nostrils of the penniless one. Stacks of +ledgers, mountains of account-books, filled the dimly-lighted +warehouse. Some clerks were at work behind a glass partition, and +already the gas flared high in the green-shaded lamps above the desk at +which they worked. I wondered whether it was a pleasant way of life +theirs, and whether one would come to feel an interest in the barter of +day-books and ledgers if they were one's daily bread. Alas for me! the +only ledger I have ever known is the sainted patron of the northern +racecourse. One young man came forward and asked my business, with a +look that plainly told me that unless I wanted two or three gross of +account-books I had no right to be there. I told him that I wished to +see Mr. Grewter, and asked if that gentleman was to be seen. + +The clerk said he did not know; but his tone implied that, in his +opinion, I could _not_ see Mr. Grewter. + +"Perhaps you could go and ask," I suggested. + +"Well, yes. Is it old or young Mr. Grewter you want to see?" + +"Old Mr. Grewter," I replied. + +"Very well, I'll go and see. You'd better send in your card, though." + +I produced one of George Sheldon's cards, which the clerk looked at. He +gave a little start as if an adder had stung him. + +"You're not Mr. Sheldon?" he said. + +"No; Mr. Sheldon is my employer." + +"What do you go about giving people Sheldon's card for?" asked the +clerk, with quite an aggrieved air. "I know Sheldon of Gray's Inn." + +"Then I'm sure you've found him a very accommodating gentleman," I +replied, politely. + +"Deuce take his accommodation! He nearly accommodated me into the +Bankruptcy Court. And so you're Sheldon's clerk, and you want the +governor. But you don't mean to say that Grewter and Grewter are--" + +This was said in an awe-stricken undertone. I hastened to reassure the +stationer's clerk. + +"I don't think Mr. Sheldon ever saw Mr. Grewter in his life," I said. + +After this the clerk condescended to retire into the unknown antres +behind the shop, to deliver my message. I began to think that George +Sheldon's card was not the best possible letter of introduction. + +The clerk returned presently, followed by a tall, white-bearded man, +with a bent figure, and a pair of penetrating gray eyes--a very +promising specimen of the octogenarian. + +He asked me my business in a sharp suspicious way, that obliged me to +state the nature of my errand without circumlocution. As I got farther +away from the Rev. John Haygarth, intestate, I was less fettered by the +necessity of secrecy. I informed my octogenarian that I was prosecuting +a legal investigation connected with a late inhabitant of that street, +and that I had taken the liberty to apply to him, in the hope that he +might be able to afford me some information. + +He looked at me all the time I spoke as if he thought I was going to +entreat pecuniary relief--and I daresay I have something the air of a +begging-letter writer. But when he found that I only wanted +information, his hard gray eyes softened ever so little, and he asked +me to walk into his parlour. + +His parlour was scarcely less gruesome than his shop. The furniture +looked as if its manufacture had been coeval with the time of the +Meynells, and the ghastly glare of the gas seemed a kind of +anachronism. After a few preliminary observations, which were not +encouraged by Mr. Grewter's manner, I inquired whether he had ever +heard the name of Meynell. + +"Yes," he said; "there was a Meynell in this street when I was a young +man--Christian Meynell, a carpet-maker by trade. The business is still +carried on--and a very old business it is, for it was an old business +in Meynell's time; but Meynell died before I married, and his name is +pretty well forgotten in Aldersgate-street by this time." + +"Had he no sons?" I asked. + +"Well, yes; he had one son, Samuel, a kind of companion of mine. But he +didn't take to the business, and when his father died he let things go +anyhow, as you may say. He was rather wild, and died two or three years +after his father." + +"Did he die unmarried?" + +"Yes. There was some talk of his marrying a Miss Dobberly, whose father +was a cabinet-maker in Jewin-street; but Samuel was too wild for the +Dobberlys, who were steady-going people, and he went abroad, where he +was taken with some kind of fever and died." + +"Was this son the only child?" + +"No; there were two daughters. The younger of them married; the elder +went to live with her--and died unmarried, I've heard say." + +"Do you know whom the younger sister married?" I asked. + +"No. She didn't marry in London. She went into the country to visit +some friends, and she married and settled down in those parts--wherever +it might be--and I never heard of her coming back to London again. The +carpet business was sold directly after Samuel Meynell's death. The new +people kept up the name for a good twenty years--'Taylor, late Meynell, +established 1693,' that's what was painted on the board above the +window--but they've dropped the name of Meynell now. People forget old +names, you see, and it's no use keeping to them after they're +forgotten." + +Yes, the old names are forgotten, the old people fade off the face of +the earth. The romance of Matthew Haygarth seemed to come to a lame and +impotent conclusion in this dull record of dealers in carpeting. + +"You can't remember what part of England it was that Christian +Meynell's daughter went to when she married?" + +"No. It wasn't a matter I took much interest in. I don't think I ever +spoke to the young woman above three times in my life, though she lived +in the same street, and though her brother and I often met each other +at the Cat and Salutation, where there used to be a great deal of talk +about the war and Napoleon Bonaparte in those days." + +"Have you any idea of the time at which she was married?" I inquired. + +"Not as to the exact year. I know it was after I was married; for I +remember my wife and I sitting at our window upstairs one summer Sunday +evening, and seeing Samuel Meynell's sister go by to church. I can +remember it as well as if it was yesterday. She was dressed in a white +gown and a green silk spencer. Yes--and I didn't marry my first wife +till 1814. But as to telling you exactly when Miss Meynell left +Aldersgate-street, I can't." + +These reminiscences of the past seemed to exercise rather a mollifying +influence upon the old man's mind, commonplace as they were. He ceased +to look at me with sharp, suspicious glances, and he seemed anxious to +afford me all the help he could. "Was Christian Meynell's father called +William?" I asked, after having paused to make some notes in my +pocket-book. + +"That I can't tell you; though, if Christian Meynell was living to-day, +he wouldn't be ten years older than me. His father died when I was +quite a boy; but there must be old books at the warehouse with his name +in them, if they haven't been destroyed." + +I determined to make inquiries at the carpet warehouse; but I had +little hope of finding the books of nearly a century gone by. I tried +another question. + +"Do you know whether Christian Meynell was an only son, or the only son +who attained manhood?" I asked. + +My elderly friend shook his head. + +"Christian Meynell never had any brothers that I heard of," he said; +"but the parish register will tell you all about that, supposing that +his father before him lived all his life in Aldersgate-street, as I've +every reason to believe he did." + +After this I asked a few questions about the neighbouring churches, +thanked Mr. Grewter for his civility, and departed. + +I went back to Omega-street, dined upon nothing particular, and devoted +the rest of my evening to the scrawling of this journal, and a tender +reverie, in which Charlotte Halliday was the central figure. + +How bitter poverty and dependence have made Diana Paget! She used to be +a nice girl too. + +_Oct. 16th_. To-day's work has been confined to the investigation of +parish registers--a most wearisome business at the best. My labours +were happily not without result. In the fine old church of St. Giles, +Cripplegate, I found registries of the baptism of Oliver Meynell, son +of William and Caroline Mary Meynell, 1768; and of the burial of the +same Oliver in the following year. I found the record of the baptism of +a daughter to the same William and Caroline Mary Meynell, and further +on the burial of the said daughter, at five years of age. I also found +the records of the baptism of Christian Meynell, son of the same +William and Caroline Mary Meynell, in the year 1772, and of William +Meynell's decease in the year 1793. Later appeared the entry of the +burial of Sarah, widow of Christian Meynell. Later still, the baptism +of Samuel Meynell; then the baptism of Susan Meynell; and finally, that +of Charlotte Meynell. + +These were all the entries respecting the Meynell family to be found in +the registry. There was no record of the burial of Caroline Mary, wife +of William Meynell, nor of Christian Meynell, nor of Samuel Meynell, +his son; and I knew that all these entries would be necessary to my +astute Sheldon before his case would be complete. After my search of +the registries, I went out into the churchyard to grope for the family +vault of the Meynells, and found a grim square monument, enclosed by a +railing that was almost eaten away by rust, and inscribed with the +names and virtues of that departed house. The burial ground is +interesting by reason of more distinguished company than the Meynells. +John Milton, John Fox, author of the Martyrology, and John Speed, the +chronologer, rest in this City churchyard. + +In the hope of getting some clue to the missing data, I ventured to +make a second call upon Mr. Grewter, whom I found rather inclined to be +snappish, as considering the Meynell business unlikely to result in any +profit to himself, and objecting on principle to take any trouble not +likely to result in profit. I believe this is the mercantile manner of +looking at things in a general way. + +I asked him if he could tell me where Samuel Meynell was buried. + +"I suppose he was buried in foreign parts," replied the old gentleman, +with considerable grumpiness, "since he died in foreign parts." + +"O, he died abroad, did he? Can you tell me where?" + +"No, sir, I can't," replied Mr. Grewter, with increasing grumpiness; "I +didn't trouble myself about other people's affairs then, and I don't +trouble myself about them now, and I don't particularly care to be +troubled about them by strangers." + +I made the meekest possible apology for my intrusion, but the outraged +Grewter was not appeased. + +"Your best apology will be not doing it again," he replied. "Those that +know my habits know that I take half an hour's nap after dinner. My +constitution requires it, or I shouldn't take it. If I didn't happen to +have a strange warehouseman on my premises, you wouldn't have been +allowed to disturb me two afternoons running." + +Finding Mr. Grewter unappeasable, I left him, and went to seek a more +placable spirit in the shape of Anthony Sparsfield, carver and gilder, +of Barbican. + +I found the establishment of Sparsfield and Son, carvers and gilders. +It was a low dark shop, in the window of which were exhibited two or +three handsomely carved frames, very much the worse for flies, and one +oil-painting, of a mysterious and Rembrandtish character. The +old-established air that pervaded almost all the shops in this +neighbourhood was peculiarly apparent in the Sparsfield establishment. + +In the shop I found a mild-faced man of about forty engaged in +conversation with a customer. I waited patiently while the customer +finished a minute description of the kind of frame he wanted made for a +set of proof engravings after Landseer; and when the customer had +departed, I asked the mild-faced man if I could see Mr. Sparsfield. + +"I am Mr. Sparsfield," he replied politely. + +"Not Mr. Anthony Sparsfield?" + +"Yes, my name is Anthony." + +"I was given to understand that Mr. Anthony Sparsfield was a much older +person." + +"O, I suppose you mean my father," replied the mild-faced man. "My +father is advanced in years, and does very little in the business +nowadays; not but what his head is as clear as ever it was, and there +are some of our old customers like to see him when they give an order." + +This sounded hopeful. I told Mr. Sparsfield the younger that I was not +a customer, and then proceeded to state the nature of my business. I +found him as courteous as Mr. Grewter had been disobliging. + +"Me and father are old-fashioned people," he said; "and we're not above +living over our place of business, which most of the Barbican +tradespeople are nowadays. The old gentleman is taking tea in the +parlour upstairs at this present moment, and if you don't mind stepping +up to him, I'm sure he'll be proud to give you any information he can. +He likes talking of old times." + +This was the sort of oldest inhabitant I wanted to meet with--a very +different kind of individual from Mr. Grewter, who doled out every +answer to my questions as grudgingly as if it had been a five-pound +note. + +I was conducted to a snug little sitting-room on the first-floor, where +there was a cheerful fire and a comfortable odour of tea and toast. I +was invited to take a cup of tea; and as I perceived that my acceptance +of the invitation would be accounted a kind of favour, I said yes. The +tea was very weak, and very warm, and very sweet; but Mr. Sparsfield +and his son sipped it with as great an air of enjoyment as if it had +been the most inspiring of beverages. + +Mr. Sparsfield the elder was more or less rheumatic and asthmatic, but +a cheerful old man withal, and quite ready to prate of old times, when +Barbican and Aldersgate-street were pleasanter places than they are +to-day, or had seemed so to this elderly citizen. + +"Meynell!" he exclaimed; "I knew Sam Meynell as well as I knew my own +brother, and I knew old Christian Meynell almost as well as I knew my +own father. There was more sociability in those days, you see, sir. The +world seems to have grown too full to leave any room for friendship. +It's all push and struggle, and struggle and push, as you may say; and +a man will make you a frame for five-and-twenty shillings that will +look more imposing like than what I could turn out for five pound. Only +the gold-leaf will all drop off after a twelvemonth's wear; and that's +the way of the world nowadays. There's a deal of gilding, and things +are made to look uncommon bright; but the gold all drops off 'em before +long." + +After allowing the old man to moralise to his heart's content, I +brought him back politely to the subject in which I was interested. + +"Samuel Meynell was as good a fellow as ever breathed," he said; "but +he was too fond of the tavern. There were some very nice taverns round +about Aldersgate-street in those days; and you see, sir, the times were +stirring times, and folks liked to get together and talk over the day's +news, with a pipe of tobacco and a glass of their favourite liquor, all +in a sociable way. Poor Sam Meynell took a little too much of his +favourite liquor; and when the young woman that he had been keeping +company with--Miss Dobberly of Jewin-street--jilted him and married a +wholesale butcher in Newgate Market, who was old enough to be her +father, Sam took to drinking, and neglected his business. One day he +came to me and said, 'I've sold the business, Tony,'--for it was Sam +and Tony with us, you see, sir,--'and I'm off to France.' This was soon +after the battle of Waterloo; and many folks had a fancy for going over +to France now that they'd seen the back of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was +generally alluded to in those days by the name of monster or tiger, and +was understood to make his chief diet off frogs. Well, sir, we were all +of us very much surprised at Sam's going to foreign parts; but as he'd +always been wild, it was only looked upon as a part of his wildness, +and we weren't so much surprised to hear a year or two afterwards that +he'd drunk himself to death upon cheap brandy--odyvee as _they_ call +it, poor ignorant creatures--at Calais." + +"He died at Calais?" + +"Yes," replied the old man; "I forget who brought the news home, but I +remember hearing it. Poor Sam Meynell died and was buried amongst the +Mossoos." + +"You are sure he was buried at Calais?" + +"Yes, as sure as I can be of anything. Travelling was no easy matter in +those days, and in foreign parts there was nothing but diligences, +which I've heard say were the laziest-going vehicles ever invented. +There was no one to bring poor Sam's remains back to England, for his +mother was dead, and his two sisters were settled somewhere down in +Yorkshire." + +In Yorkshire! I am afraid I looked rather sheepish when Mr. Sparsfield +senior mentioned this particular county, for my thoughts took wing and +were with Charlotte Halliday before the word had well escaped his lips. + +"Miss Meynell settled in Yorkshire, did she?" I asked. + +"Yes, she married some one in the farming way down there. Her mother +was a Yorkshirewoman, and she and her sister went visiting among her +mother's relations, and never came back to London. One of them married, +the other died a spinster." + +"Do you remember the name of the man she married?" + +"No," replied Mr. Sparsfield, "I can't say that I do." + +"Do you remember the name of the place she went to--the town or +village, or whatever it was?" + +"I might remember it if I heard it," he responded thoughtfully; "and I +ought to remember it, for I've heard Sam Meynell talk of his sister +Charlotte's home many a time. She was christened Charlotte, you see, +after the Queen. I've a sort of notion that the name of the village was +something ending in Cross, as it might be Charing Cross, or Waltham +Cross." + +This was vague, but it was a great deal more than I had been able to +extort from Mr. Grewter. I took a second cup of the sweet warm liquid +which my new friends called tea, in order to have an excuse for +loitering, while I tried to obtain more light from the reminiscences of +the old frame-maker. + +No more light came, however. So I was fain to take my leave, reserving +to myself the privilege of calling again on a future occasion. + +_Oct. 18th_. I sent Sheldon a statement of my Aldersgate-street +researches the day before yesterday morning. He went carefully through +the information I had collected, and approved my labours. + +"You've done uncommonly well, considering the short time you've been at +the work," he said; "and you've reason to congratulate yourself upon +having your ground all laid out for you, as my ground has never been +laid out for me. The Meynell branch seems to be narrowing itself into +the person of Christian Meynell's daughter and her descendants, and our +most important business now will be to find out when, where, and whom +she married, and what issue arose from such marriage. This I think you +ought to be able to do." + +I shook my head rather despondingly. + +"I don't see any hope of finding out the name of the young woman's +husband," I said, "unless I can come across another oldest inhabitant, +gifted with a better memory for names and places than my obliging +Sparsfield or my surly Grewter." + +"There are the almshouses," said Sheldon; "you haven't tried them yet." + +"No; I suppose I must go in for the almshouses," I replied, with the +sublime resignation of the pauper, whose poverty must consent to +anything; "though I confess that the prosiness of the almshouse +intellect is almost more than I can endure." + +"And how do you know that you mayn't get the name of the place out of +your friend the carver and gilder?" said George Sheldon; "he has given +you some kind of clue in telling you that the name ends in Cross. He +said he should know the name if he heard it; why not try him with it?" + +"But in order to do that, I must know the name myself," replied I, "and +in that case I shouldn't want the aid of my Sparsfield." + +"You are not great in expedients," said Sheldon, tilting back his +chair, and taking a shabby folio from a shelf of other shabby folios. +"This is a British gazetteer," he said, turning to the index of the +work before him. "We'll test the ancient Sparsfield's memory with every +Cross in the three Ridings, and if the faintest echo of the name we +want still lingers in his feeble old brain, we'll awaken it." My patron +ran his finger-nail along one of the columns of the index. + +"Just take your pencil and write down the names as I call them," he +said. "Here we are--Aylsey Cross; and here we are again--Bowford Cross, +Callindale Cross, Huxter's Cross, Jarnam Cross, Kingborough Cross." +Then, after a careful examination of the column, he exclaimed, "Those +are all the Crosses in the county of York, and it will go hard with us +if you or I can't find the descendants of Christian Meynell's daughter +at one of them. The daughter herself may be alive, for anything we +know." + +"And how about the Samuel Meynell who died at Calais? You'll have to +find some record of his death, won't you? I suppose in these cases one +must prove everything." + +"Yes, I must prove the demise of Samuel," replied the sanguine +genealogist; "that part of the business I'll see to myself, while you +hunt out the female branch of the Meynells. I want an outing after a +long spell of hard work; so I'll run across to Calais and search for +the register of Samuel's interment. I suppose somebody took the trouble +to bury him, though he was a stranger in the land." + +"And if I extort the name we want from poor old Sparsfield's +recollection?" + +"In that case you can start at once for the place, and begin your +search on the spot. It can't be above fifty years since this woman +married, and there must be some inhabitant of the place old enough to +remember her. O, by the bye, I suppose you'll be wanting more cash for +expenses," added Mr. Sheldon, with a sigh. He took a five-pound note +from his pocket-book, and gave it to me with a piteous air of +self-sacrifice. I know that he is poor, and that whatever money he does +contrive to earn is extorted from the necessities of his needier +brethren. Some of this money he speculates upon the chances of the +Haygarthian succession, as he has speculated his money on worse chances +in the past. "Three thousand pounds!" he said to me, as he handed me +the poor little five-pound note; "think what a prize you are working +for, and work your hardest. The nearer we get to the end, the slower +our progress seems to me; and yet it has been very rapid progress, +considering all things." + +So sentimental have I become, that I thought less of that possible +three thousand pounds than of the fact that I was likely to go to +Yorkshire, the county of Charlotte's birth, the county where she was +now staying. I reminded myself that it was the largest shire in +England, and that of all possible coincidences of time and place, there +could be none more unlikely than the coincidence that would bring about +a meeting between Charlotte Halliday and me. + +"I know that for all practical purposes I shall be no nearer to her in +Yorkshire than in London," I said to myself; "but I shall have the +pleasure of fancying myself nearer to her." + +Before leaving George Sheldon, I told him of the fragmentary sentences +I had heard uttered by Captain Paget and Philip Sheldon at the Lawn; +but he pooh-poohed my suspicions. + +"I'll tell you what it is, Valentine Hawkehurst," he said, fixing those +hard black eyes of his upon me as if he would fain have pierced the +bony covering of my skull to discover the innermost workings of my +brain; "neither Captain Paget nor my brother Phil can know anything of +this business, unless you have turned traitor and sold them my secrets. +And mark me, if you have, you've sold yourself and them into the +bargain: my hand holds the documentary evidence, without which all your +knowledge is worthless." + +"I am not a traitor," I told him quietly, for I despise him far too +heartily to put myself into a passion about anything he might please to +say of me; "and I have never uttered a word about this business either +to Captain Paget or to your brother. If you begin to distrust me, it is +high time you should look out for a new coadjutor." + +I had my Sheldon, morally speaking, at my feet in a moment. + +"Don't be melodramatic, Hawkehurst," he said; "people sell each other +every day of the week, and no one blames the seller, provided he makes +a good bargain. But this is a case in which the bargain would be a very +bad one." + +After this I took my leave of Mr. Sheldon. He was to start for Calais +by that night's mail, and return to town directly his investigation was +completed. If he found me absent on his return, he would conclude that +I had obtained the information I required and started for Yorkshire. In +this event he would patiently await the receipt of tidings from that +county. + +I went straight from Gray's Inn to Jewin-street. I had spent the +greater part of the day in Sheldon's office, and when I presented +myself before my complacent Sparsfield junior, Sparsfield senior's tea +and toast were already in process of preparation; and I was again +invited to step upstairs to the family sitting-room, and again treated +with that Arcadian simplicity of confidence and friendliness which it +has been my fate to encounter quite as often in the heart of this +sophisticated city as in the most pastoral of villages. With people who +were so frank and cordial I could but be equally frank. + +"I am afraid I am making myself a nuisance to you, Mr. Sparsfield," I +said; "but I know you'll forgive me when I tell you that the affair I'm +engaged in is a matter of vital importance to me, and that your help +may do a great deal towards bringing matters to a crisis." + +Mr. Sparsfield senior declared himself always ready to assist his +fellow-creatures, and was good enough further to declare that he had +taken a liking to me. So weak had I of late become upon all matters of +sentiment, I thanked Mr. Sparsfield for his good opinion, and then went +on to tell him that I was about to test his memory. + +"And it ain't a bad un," he cried, cheerily, clapping his hand upon his +knee by way of emphasis. "It ain't a bad memory, is it, Tony?" + +"Few better, father," answered the dutiful Anthony junior. "Your +memory's better than mine, a long way." + +"Ah," said the old man, with a chuckle, "folks lived different in my +day. There weren't no gas, and there weren't no railroads, and London +tradespeople was content to live in the same house from year's end to +year's end. But now your tradesman must go on his foreign tours, like a +prince of the royal family, and he must go here and go there; and when +he's been everywhere, he caps it all by going through the Gazette. +Folks stayed at home in my day; but they made their fortunes, and they +kept their health, and their eyesight, and their memory, and their +hearing, and many of 'em have lived to see the next generation make +fools of themselves." + +"Why, father," cried Anthony junior, aghast at this flood of eloquence, +"what an oration!" + +"And it ain't often I make an oration, is it, Tony?" said the old man, +laughing. "I only mean to say that if my memory's pretty bright, it may +be partly because I haven't frittered it away upon nonsense, as some +folks have. I've stayed at home and minded my own business, and left +other people to mind theirs. And now, sir, if you want the help of my +memory, I'm ready to give it." + +"You told me the other day that you could not recall the name of the +place where Christian Meynell's daughter married, but you said you +should remember it if you heard it, and you also said that the name +ended in Cross." + +"I'll stick to that," replied my ancient friend. "I'll stick to that." +"Very well then. It is a settled thing that the place was in Yorkshire?" + +"Yes, I'm sure of that too." + +"And that the name ended in Cross?" + +"It did, as sure as my name is Sparsfield." + +"Then in that case, as there are only six towns or villages in the +county of York the names of which end in Cross, it stands to reason +that the place we want must be one of those six." + +Having thus premised, I took my list from my pocket and read aloud the +names of the six places, very slowly, for Mr. Sparsfield's edification. + +"Aylsey Cross--Bowford Cross--Callindale Cross--Huxter's Cross--Jarnam +Cross--Kingborough Cross." + +"That's him!" cried my old friend suddenly. + +"Which?" I asked eagerly. + +"Huxter's Cross; I remember thinking at the time that it must be a +place where they sold things, because of the name Huxter, you see, +pronounced just the same as if it was spelt with a cks instead of an x. +And I heard afterwards that there'd once been a market held at the +place, but it had been done away with before our time. Huxter's Cross; +yes, that's the name of the place where Christian Meynell's daughter +married and settled. I've heard it many a time from poor Sam, and it +comes back to me as plain as if I'd never forgotten it." + +There was an air of conviction about the old man which satisfied me +that he was not deceived. I thanked him heartily for his aid as I took +my leave. + +"You may have helped to put a good lump of money in my pocket, Mr. +Sparsfield," I said; "and if you have, I'll get my picture taken, if +it's only for the pleasure of bringing it here to be framed." + +With this valedictory address I left my simple citizens of Barbican. My +heart was very light as I wended my way across those metropolitan wilds +that lay between Barbican and Omega-street. I am ashamed of myself when +I remember the foolish cause of this elation of mind. I was going to +Yorkshire, the county of which my Charlotte was now an inhabitant. My +Charlotte! It is a pleasure even to write that delicious possessive +pronoun--the pleasure of poor Alnascher, the crockery-seller, dreaming +his day-dream in the eastern market-place. + +Can any one know better than I that I shall be no nearer Charlotte +Halliday in Yorkshire than I am in London? No one. And yet I am glad my +Sheldon's business takes me to the woods and wolds of that wide +northern shire. + +Huxter's Cross--some Heaven-forgotten spot, no doubt. I bought a +railway time-table on my way home to-night, and have carefully studied +the bearings of the place amongst whose mouldy records I am to discover +the history of Christian Meynell's daughter and heiress. + +I find that Huxter's Cross lies off the railroad, and is to be +approached by an obscure little station--as I divine from the +ignominious type in which its name appears--about sixty miles northward +of Hull. The station is called Hidling; and at Hidling there seems to +be a coach which plies between the station and Huxter's Cross. + +Figure to yourself again, my dear, the heir-at-law to a hundred +thousand pounds vegetating in the unknown regions of Huxter's Cross cum +Hidling, unconscious of his heritage! + +Shall I find him at the plough-tail, I wonder, this mute inglorious +heir-at-law? or shall I find an heiress with brawny arms meekly +churning butter? or shall I discover the last of the Meynells taking +his rest in some lonely churchyard, not to be awakened by earthly voice +proclaiming the tidings of earthly good fortune? + +I am going to Yorkshire--that is enough for me. I languish for the +starting of the train which shall convey me thither. I begin to +understand the nostalgia of the mountain herdsman: I pine for that +northern air, those fresh pure breezes blowing over moor and +wold--though I am not quite clear, by the bye, as to the exact nature +of a wold. I pant, I yearn for Yorkshire. I, the cockney, the child of +Temple Bar, whose cradle-song was boomed by the bells of St. Dunstan's +and St. Clement's Danes. + +Is not Yorkshire my Charlotte's birthplace? I want to see the land +whose daughters are so lovely. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ARCADIA. + + +_November 1st_. This is Huxter's Cross, and I live here. I have lived +here a week. I should like to live here for ever. O, let me be rational +for a few hours, while I write the record of this last blissful week; +let me be reasonable, and business-like, and Sheldon-like for this one +wet afternoon, and then I may be happy and foolish again. Be still, +beating heart! as the heroines of Minerva-press romances were +accustomed to say to themselves on the smallest provocation. Be still, +foolish, fluttering, schoolboy heart, which has taken a new lease of +youth and folly from a fair landlord called Charlotte Halliday. + +Drip, drip, drip, O rain! "The day is dark and cold and dreary, and the +vine still clings to the mouldering wall; and with every gust the dead +leaves fall:" but thy sweet sad verse wakes no responsive echo in my +heart, O tender Transatlantic Poet, for my heart is light and +glad--recklessly glad--heedless of to-morrow--forgetful of +yesterday--full to the very brim with the dear delight of to-day. + +And now to business. I descend from the supernal realms of fancy to the +dry record of commonplace fact. This day week I arrived at Hidling, +after a tedious journey, which, with stoppages at Derby and Normanton, +and small delays at obscurer stations, had occupied the greater part of +the day. It was dusk when I took my place in the hybrid vehicle, half +coach, half omnibus, which was to convey me from Hidling to Huxter's +Cross. A transient glimpse at Hidling showed me one long straggling +street and a square church-tower. Our road branched off from the +straggling street, and in the autumn dusk I could just discover the dim +outlines of distant hills encircling a broad waste of moor. + +I have been so steeped in London that this wild barren scene had a +charm for me which it could scarcely possess for others. Even the gloom +of that dark waste of common land was pleasant to me. I shared the +public vehicle with one old woman, who snored peacefully in the +remotest corner, while I looked out at the little open window and +watched the darkening landscape. + +Our drive occupied some hours. We passed two or three little clusters +of cottages and homesteads, where the geese screamed and the cocks +crowed at our approach, and where a few twinkling tapers in upper +windows proclaimed the hour of bed-time. At one of these clusters of +habitation, a little island of humanity in the waste of wold and moor, +we changed horses, with more yo-oh-ing and come-up-ing than would have +attended the operation in a civilised country. At this village I heard +the native tongue for the first time in all its purity; and for any +meaning which it conveyed to my ear I might as well have been listening +to the _patois_ of agricultural Carthage. + +After changing horses, we went up hill, with perpetual groanings, and +grumblings, and grindings, and whip-smacking and come-up-ing, for an +indefinite period; and then we came to a cluster of cottages, suspended +high up in the sharp autumn atmosphere as it seemed to me; and the +driver of the vehicle came to my little peephole of a window, and told +me with some slight modification of the Carthaginian _patois_ that I +was "theer." + +I alighted, and found myself at the door of a village inn, with the red +light from within shining out upon me where I stood, and a battered old +sign groaning and creaking above my head. For me, who in all my life +had been accustomed to find my warmest welcome at an inn, this was to +be at home. I paid my fare, took up my carpet-bag, and entered the +hostelry. + +I found a rosy-faced landlady, clean and trim, though a trifle floury +as to the arms and apron. She had emerged from a kitchen, an +old-fashioned chamber with a floor of red brick; a chamber which was +all in a rosy glow with the firelight, and looked like a Dutch picture, +as I peeped at it through the open doorway. There were the most +picturesque of cakes and loaves heaped on a wooden bench by the hearth, +and the whole aspect of the place was delicious in its homely comfort. + +"O," I said to myself, "how much better the northern winds blowing over +these untrodden hills, and the odour of home-made loaves, than the +booming bells of St. Dunstan's, and the greasy steam of tavern chops +and steaks!" + +My heart warmed to this Yorkshire and these Yorkshire people. Was it +for Charlotte's sake, I wonder, that I was so ready to open my heart to +everybody and everything in this unknown land? + +A very brief parley set me quite at ease with my landlady. Even, the +Carthaginian _patois_ became intelligible to me after a little +experience. I found that I could have a cosy, cleanly chamber, and be +fed and cared for upon terms that seemed absurdly small, even to a +person of my limited means. My cordial hostess brought me a meal which +was positively luxurious; broiled ham and poached eggs, such as one +scarcely hopes to see out of a picture of still life; crisp brown cakes +fresh from that wonderful oven whose door I had seen yawning open in +the Flemish interior below; strong tea and cream--the cream that one +reads of in pastoral stories. + +I enjoyed my banquet, and then opened my window and looked out at the +still landscape, dimly visible in the faint starlight. + +I was at the top of a hill--the topmost of an ascending range of +hills--and to some minds that alone is rapture. To inhale the fresh +night air was to drink deeply of an ethereal beverage. I had never +experienced so delicious a sensation since I had stood on the grassy +battlements of the Chateau d'Arques, with the orchards and gardens of +sunny Normandy spread like a carpet below my feet. + +But this hill was loftier than that on which the feudal castle rears +its crumbling towers, and the landscape below me was wilder than +verdant Normandy. + +No words can tell how I rejoiced in this untrodden region--this +severance from the Strand and Temple Bar. I felt as if my old life was +falling away from me--like the scales of the lepers who were cleansed +by the Divine Healer. I felt myself worthier to love, or even to be +loved by, the bright true-hearted girl whose image fills my heart. Ah, +if Heaven gave me that dear angel, I think my old life, my old +recklessness, my old want of principle, would drop away from me +altogether, and the leper would stand forth cleansed and whole. Could I +not be happy with her here, among these forgotten hills, these widely +scattered homesteads? Could I not be happy dissevered eternally from +billiard-room and kursaal, race-ground and dancing-rooms? Yes, +completely and unreservedly happy--happy as a village curate with +seventy pounds a year and a cast-off coat, supplied by the charity of a +land too poor to pay its pastors the wage of a decent butler--happy as +a struggling farmer, though the clay soil of my scanty acres were never +so sour and stubborn, my landlord never so hard about his rent--happy +as a pedlar, with my pack of cheap tawdry wares slung behind me, and my +Charlotte tramping gaily by my side. + +I breakfasted next morning in a snug little parlour behind the bar, +where I overheard two carters conversing in the Carthaginian _patois_, +to which I became hourly more accustomed. My brisk cheery landlady came +in and out while I took my meal; and whenever I could detain her long +enough, I tried to engage her in conversation. + +I asked her if she had ever heard the name of Meynell; and after +profound consideration she replied in the negative. + +"I don't mind hearing aught of folks called Meynell," she said with +more or less of the _patois_, which I was beginning to understand; "but +I haven't got mooch memory for nee-ams. I might have heard o' such +folks, and not minded t' nee-am." + +This was rather dispiriting; but I knew that if any record of Christian +Meynell's daughter existed at Huxter's Cross, it was in my power to +discover it. + +I asked if there was any official in the way of a registrar to be found +in the village; and found that there was no one more important than an +old man who kept the keys of the church. The registers were kept in the +vestry, my landlady believed, and the old man was called Jonas Gorles, +and lived half a mile off, at the homestead of his son-in-law. But my +landlady said she would send for him immediately, and pledged herself +to produce him in the course of an hour. I told her that I would find +my way to the churchyard in the mean time, whither Mr. Gorles could +follow me as soon as convenient. + +The autumnal morning was fresh and bright as spring, and Huxter's Cross +seemed the most delightful place on earth to me, though it is only a +cluster of cottages, relieved by one farmhouse of moderate pretensions, +my hostelry of the Magpie, a general shop, which is also the +post-office, and a fine old Norman church, which lies away from the +village, and bears upon it the traces of better days. Near the church +there is an old granite cross, around which the wild flowers and +grasses grow rank and high. It marks the spot where there was once a +flourishing market-place; but all mortal habitations have vanished, and +the Huxter's Cross of the past has now no other memorial than this +crumbling stone. + +The churchyard was unutterably still and solitary. A robin was perched +on the topmost bar of the old wooden gate, singing his joyous carol. As +I approached, he hopped from the gate to the low moss-grown wall, and +went on singing as I passed him. I was in the humour to apostrophise +skylark or donkey, or to be sentimental about anything in creation, +just then; so I told my robin what a pretty creature he was, and that I +would sooner perish than hurt him by so much as the tip of a feather. + +Being bound to remember my Sheldon even when most sentimental, I +endeavoured to combine the meditative mood of a Hervey with the +business-like sharpness of a lawyer's clerk; and while musing on the +common lot of man in general, I did not omit to search the mouldering +tombstones for some record of the Meynells in particular. + +I found none; and yet, if the daughter of Christian Meynell had been +buried in that churchyard, the name of her father would surely have +been inscribed upon her tombstone. I had read all the epitaphs when the +wooden gate creaked on its hinges, and admitted a wizen little old +man--one of those ancient meanderers who seem to have been created on +purpose to fill the post of sexton. + +With this elderly individual I entered the church of Huxter's Cross, +which had the same mouldy atmosphere as the church at Spotswold. The +vestry was an icy little chamber, which had once been a family vault; +but it was not much colder than Miss Judson's best parlour; and I +endured the cold bravely while I searched the registries of the last +sixty years. + +I searched in vain. After groping amongst the names of all the +nonentities who had been married at Huxter's Cross since the beginning +of the century, I found myself no nearer the secret of Charlotte +Meynell's marriage. And then I reflected upon all the uncertainties +surrounding that marriage. Miss Meynell had gone to Yorkshire, to visit +her mother's relations, and had married in Yorkshire; and the place +which Anthony Sparsfield remembered having heard of in connection with +that marriage was Huxter's Cross. But it did not by any means follow +that the marriage had taken place at that obscure village. Miss Meynell +might have been married at Hull, or York, or Leeds, or at any of the +principal places of the county. With that citizen class of people +marriage was a grand event, a solemn festivity; and Miss Meynell and +her friends would have been likely to prefer that so festive an +occasion should be celebrated anywhere rather than at that forgotten +old church among the hills. "I shall have to search every register in +Yorkshire till I light upon the record I want," I thought to myself, +"unless Sheldon will consent to advertise for the Meynell marriage +certificate. There could scarcely be danger in such an advertisement, +as the connection between the name of Meynell and the Haygarth estate +is only known to ourselves." + +Acting upon this idea, I wrote to George Sheldon by that afternoon's +post, urging him to advertise for descendants of Miss Charlotte Meynell. + +Charlotte! dear name, which is a kind of music for me. It was almost a +pleasure to write that letter, because of the repetition of that +delightful noun. + +The next day I devoted to a drive round the neighbourhood, in a smart +little dog-cart, hired on very moderate terms from mine host. I had +acquainted myself with the geography of the surrounding country; and I +contrived to visit every village church within a certain radius of +Huxter's Cross. But my inspection of mildewed old books, and my heroic +endurance of cold and damp in mouldy old churches, resulted in nothing +but disappointment. + +I returned to my "Magpie" after dark a little disheartened and +thoroughly tired, but still very well pleased with my rustic quarters +and my adopted county. My landlord's horse had shown himself a very +model of equine perfection. + +Candles were lighted and curtains drawn in my cosy little chamber, and +the table creaked beneath one of those luxurious Yorkshire teas which +might wean an alderman from the coarser delights of turtle or +conger-eel soup and venison. + +At noon the following day a very primitive kind of postman brought me a +letter from Sheldon. That astute individual told me that he declined to +advertise, or to give any kind of publicity to his requirements. + +"If I were not afraid of publicity, I should not be obliged to pay you +a pound a week," he remarked, with pleasing candour, "since +advertisements would get me more information in a week than you may +scrape together in a twelvemonth. But I happen to know the danger of +publicity, and that many a good thing has been snatched out of a man's +hands just as he was working it into shape. I don't say that this could +be done in my case; and you know very well that it could not be done, +as I hold papers which are essential to the very first move in the +business." + +I perfectly understand the meaning of these remarks, and I am inclined +to doubt the existence of those important papers. Suspicion is a +fundamental principle in the Sheldon mind. My friend George trusts me +because he is obliged to trust me--and only so far as he is +obliged--and is tormented, more or less, by the idea that I may at any +moment attempt to steal a march upon him. + +But to return to his letter: + +"I should recommend you to examine the registries of every town or +village within, say, thirty miles of Huxter's Cross. If you find +nothing in such registries, we must fall back upon the larger towns, +beginning with Hull, as being nearest to our starting-point. The work +will, I fear, be slow, and very expensive for me. I need scarcely again +urge upon you the necessity of confining your outlay to the minimum, as +you know that my affairs are desperate. It couldn't well be lower water +than it is with me, in a pecuniary sense; and I expect every day to +find myself aground. + +"And now for my news. I have discovered the burial-place of Samuel +Meynell, after no end of trouble, the details of which I needn't bore +you with, since you are now pretty well up in that sort of work. I am +thankful to say I have secured the evidence that settles for Samuel, +and ascertained by tradition that he died unmarried. The _onus +probandi_ would fall upon any one purporting to be descended from the +said Samuel, and we know how uncommonly difficult said person would +find it to prove anything. + +"So, having disposed of Samuel, I came back to London by the next mail; +Calais, in the month of November, not being one of those wildly-gay +watering-places which tempt the idler. I arrived just in time to catch +this afternoon's post; and now I look impatiently to your Miss +Charlotte Meynell, of Huxter's Cross.--Yours, &c. G.S." + +I obeyed my employer to the letter; hired my landlord's dog-cart for +another day's exploration; and went further afield in search of Miss +Charlotte's marriage-lines. I came home late at night--this time +thoroughly worn out--studied a railway guide with a view to my +departure, and decided on starting for Hull by a train that would leave +Hidling station at four o'clock on the following afternoon. + +I went to bed tired in body and depressed in spirit. Why was I so sorry +to leave Huxter's Cross? What subtle instinct of the brain or heart +made me aware that the desert region amongst the hills held earth's +highest felicity for me? + +The next morning was bright and clear. I heard the guns of sportsmen +popping merrily in the still air as I breakfasted before an open +window, while a noble sea-coal fire blazed on the hearth opposite me. +There is no stint of fuel at the Magpie. Everything in Yorkshire seems +to be done with a lavish hand. I have heard Yorkshiremen called mean. +As if meanness could exist in the hearts of my Charlotte's countrymen! +My own experience of the county is brief; but I can only say that my +friends of the Magpie are liberality itself, and that a Yorkshire tea +is the very acme of unsophisticated bliss in the way of eating and +drinking. I have dined at Philippe's; I know every dish in the _menu_ +of the Maison Doree; but if I am to make my life a burden beneath the +dark sway of the demon dyspepsia, let my destruction arrive in the +shape of the ham and eggs, the crisp golden-brown cakes, and undefiled +honey, of this northern Arcadia. + +I told my friendly hostess that I was going to leave her, and she was +sorry. She was sorry for me, the wanderer. I can picture to myself the +countenance of a London landlady if informed thus suddenly of her +lodger's departure, and her suppressed mutterings about the +ill-convenience of such a proceeding. + +After breakfast I went out to take my own pleasure. I had done my duty +in the matter of mouldy churches and mildewed registries; and I +considered myself entitled to a holiday during the few hours that must +elapse before the starting of the hybrid vehicle for Hidling. + +I sauntered past the little cluster of cottages, admiring their +primitive aspect, the stone-crop on the red-tiled roofs, that had sunk +under the weight of years. All was unspeakably fresh and bright; the +tiny panes of the casement twinkled in the autumn sunlight, birds sang, +and hardy red geraniums bloomed in the cottage windows. What pleasure +or distraction had the good housewives of Huxter's Cross to lure them +from the domestic delights of scrubbing and polishing? I saw young +faces peeping at me from between snow-white muslin curtains, and felt +that I was a personage for once in my life; and it was pleasant to feel +one's self of some importance even in the eyes of Huxter's Cross. + +Beyond the cottages and the post-office there were three roads +stretching far away over hill and moorland. With two of those roads I +had made myself thoroughly familiar; but the third remained to be +explored. + +"So now for 'fresh fields and pastures new,'" I said to myself as I +quickened my pace, and walked briskly along my unknown road. + +Ah, surely there is some meaning in the fluctuations of the mental +barometer. What but an instinctive consciousness of approaching +happiness could have made me so light-hearted that morning? I sang as I +hastened along that undiscovered road. Fragments of old Italian +serenades and barcarolles came back to me as if I had heard them +yesterday for the first time. The perfume of the few lingering +wild-flowers, the odour of burning weeds in the distance, the fresh +autumn breeze, the clear cold blue sky,--all were intensely delicious +to me; and I felt as if this one lonely walk were a kind of renovating +process, from which my soul would emerge cleansed of all its stains. + +"I have to thank George Sheldon for a great deal," I said to myself, +"since through him I have been obliged to educate myself in the school +of man's best teacher, Solitude. I do not think I can ever be a +thorough Bohemian again. These lonely wanderings have led me to +discover a vein of seriousness in my nature which I was ignorant of +until now. How thoroughly some men are the creatures of their +surroundings! With Paget I have been a Paget. But a few hours +_tete-a-tete_ with Nature renders one averse from the society of +Pagets, be they never so brilliant." + +From moralising thus, I fell into a delicious day-dream. All my dreams +of late had moved to the same music. How happy I could be if Fate gave +me Charlotte and three hundred a year! In sober moods I asked for this +much of worldly wealth, just to furnish a nest for my bird. In my +wilder moments I asked Fate for nothing but Charlotte. + +"Give me the bird without the nest," I cried to Fortune; "and we will +take wing to some trackless forest where there are shelter and berries +for nestless birds. We will imitate that delightful bride and +bridegroom of Parisian Bohemia, who married and settled in an attic, +and when their stock of fuel was gone fell foul of the staircase that +led to their bower, and so supplied themselves merrily enough till the +staircase was all consumed, and the poor little bride, peeping out of +her door one morning, found herself upon the verge of an abyss. + +"And then came the furious landlord, demanding restitution. But close +behind the landlord came the good fairy of all love-stories, with +Pactolus in her pocket. Ah, yes, there is always a providence for true +lovers." + +I had passed away by this time from the barren moor to the regions of +cultivation. The trimly-cut hedges on each side of the way showed me +that my road now lay between farm lands. I was outside the boundary of +some upland farm. I saw sheep cropping trefoil in a field on the other +side of the brown hedgerow, and at a distance I saw the red-tiled roof +of a farm-house. + +I looked at my watch, and found that I had still half an hour to spare; +so I went on towards the farm-house, bent upon seeing what sort of +habitation it was. In a solitary landscape like this, every +dwelling-place has a kind of attraction for the wayfarer. + +I went on till I came to a white gate, against which a girlish figure +was leaning. + +It was a graceful figure, dressed in that semi-picturesque costume +which has been adopted by women of late years. The vivid blue of a +boddice was tempered by the sober gray of a skirt, and a bright-hued +ribbon gleamed among rich tresses of brown hair. + +The damsel's face was turned away from me, but there was something in +the carriage of the head, something in the modelling of the firm full +throat, which reminded me of-- + +But then, when a man is over head and ears in love, everything in +creation reminds him more or less of his idol. Your pious Catholic +gives all his goods for the adornment of a church; your true lover +devotes his every thought to the dressing up of one dear image. + +The damsel turned as my steps drew near, loud on the crisp gravel. She +turned, and showed me the face of Charlotte Halliday. + +I must entreat posterity to forgive me, if I leave a blank at this +stage of my story. "There are chords in the human heart which had +better not be wibrated," said Sim Tappertit. There are emotions which +can only be described by the pen of a poet. I am not a poet; and if my +diary is so happy as to be of some use to posterity as a picture of the +manners of a repentant Bohemian, posterity must not quarrel with my +shortcomings in the way of sentimental description. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +IN PARADISE. + + +We stood at the white gate talking to each other, my Charlotte and I. +The old red-tiled roof which I had seen in the distance sheltered the +girl I love. The solitary farm-house which it had been my whim to +examine was the house in which my dear love made her home. It was here, +to this untrodden hillside, that my darling had come from the prim +modern villa at Bayswater. Ah, what happiness to find her here, far +away from all those stockbroking surroundings--here, where our hearts +expanded beneath the divine influence of Nature! + +I fear that I was coxcomb enough to fancy myself beloved that day we +parted in Kensington-gardens. A look, a tone--too subtle for +definition--thrilled me with a sudden hope so bright, that I would not +trust myself to believe it could be realised. + +"She is a coquette," I said to myself. "Coquetry is one of the graces +which Nature bestows upon these bewitching creatures. That little +conscious look, which stirred this weak heart so tumultuously, is no +doubt common to her when she knows herself beloved and admired, and has +no meaning that can flatter my foolish hopes." This is how I had +reasoned with myself again and again during the dreary interval in +which Miss Halliday and I had been separated. But, O, what a hardy +perennial blossom hope must be! The tender buds were not to be crushed +by the pelting hailstones of hard common sense. They had survived all +my philosophical reflections, and burst into sudden flower to-day at +sight of Charlotte's face. She loved me, and she was delighted to see +me. That was what her radiant face told me; and could I do less than +believe the sweet confession? For the first few moments we could +scarcely speak to each other, and then we began to converse in the +usual commonplace strain. + +She told me of her astonishment on seeing me in that remote spot. I +could hardly confess to having business at Huxter's Cross, so I was +fain to tell my dear love a falsehood, and declare that I was taking a +holiday "up at the hills." + +"And how did you come to choose Huxter's Cross for your holiday?" she +asked _naively_. + +I told her that I had heard the place spoken of by a person in the +city--my simple-minded Sparsfield to wit. + +"And you could not have come to a better place," she cried, "though +people do call it the very dullest spot in the world. This was my dear +aunt Mary's house--papa's sister, you know. Grandpapa Halliday had two +farms. This was one, and Hyley the other. Hyley was much larger and +better than this, you know, and was left to poor papa, who sold it just +before he died." + +Her face clouded as she spoke of her father's death. "I can't speak +about that without pain even now," she said softly, "though I was only +nine years old when it happened. But one can suffer a great deal at +nine years old." + +And then, after a little pause, she went on to speak of her Yorkshire +home. + +"My aunt and uncle Mercer are so kind to me; and yet they are neither +of them really related to me. My aunt Mary died very young, when her +first baby was born, and the poor little baby died too: and uncle +Mercer inherited the property from his wife, you see. He married again +after two years, and his second wife is the dearest, kindest creature +in the world. I always call her aunt, for I don't remember poor papa's +sister at all; and no aunt that ever lived could be kinder to me than +aunt Dorothy. I am always so happy here," she said; "and it seems such +a treat to get away from the Lawn--of course I am sorry to leave mamma, +you know," she added, parenthetically--"and the stiff breakfasts, and +Mr. Sheldon's newspapers that crackle, crackle, crackle so shockingly +all breakfast-time; and the stiff dinners, with a prim parlor-maid +staring at one all the time, and bringing one vegetables that one +doesn't want if one only ventures to breathe a little louder than +usual. Here it is Liberty Hall. Uncle Joe--he is aunt Dorothy's +husband--is the kindest creature in the world, just the very reverse of +Mr. Sheldon in everything. I don't mean that my stepfather is unkind, +you know. O, no, he has always been very good to me--much kinder than I +have deserved that he should be. But uncle Joe's ways are _so_ +different. I am sure you will like him; and I am sure he will like you, +for he likes everybody, dear thing. And you must come and see us very +often, please, for Newhall farm is open house, you know, and the +stranger within the gates is always welcome." + +Now my duty to my Sheldon demanded that I should scamper back to +Huxter's Cross as fast as my legs would carry me, in order to be in +time for the hybrid vehicle that was to convey me to Hidling station; +and here was this dear girl inviting me to linger, and promising me a +welcome to the house which was made a paradise by her presence. + +I looked at my watch. It would have been impossible for me to reach +Huxter's Cross in time for the vehicle. Conscience whispered that I +could hire my landlord's dog-cart, and a boy to drive me to Hidling; +but the whispers of conscience are very faint; and love cried aloud, +"Stay with Charlotte: supreme happiness is offered to you for the first +time in your life. Fool that would reject so rare a gift!" + +It was to this latter counsellor I gave my ear. My Sheldon's interests +went overboard; and I stayed by the white gate, talking to Charlotte, +till it was quite too late to heed the reproachful grumblings of +conscience about that dog-cart. + +My Charlotte--yes, I boldly call her mine now--my dear is great in +agriculture. She enlightened my cockney mind on the subject of upland +farms, telling me how uncle and aunt Mercer's land is poor and sandy, +requiring very little in the way of draining, but producing by no means +luxuriant crops. It is a very picturesque place, and has a certain +gentlemanlike air with it pleasing to my snobbish taste. The house lies +in a tract of open grass-land, dotted here and there by trees, and +altogether of a park-like appearance. True that the mild and useful +sheep rather than the stately stag browses on that greensward, and few +carriages roll along the winding gravel road that leads to the house. + +I felt a rapturous thirst for agricultural knowledge as I listened to +my Charlotte. Was there a vacancy for hind or herdsman on Newhall farm, +I wondered. What is the office so humble I would not fill for her dear +sake? O, how I sighed for the days of Jacob, that first distinguished +usurer, so that I might serve seven years and again seven years for my +darling! + +I stayed by the white gate, abandoning all thought of my employer's +behests, unconscious of time--unconscious of everything except that I +was with Charlotte Halliday, and would not have resigned my position to +be made Lord Chancellor of England. + +Anon came uncle Joe, with a pleasant rubicund visage beaming under a +felt hat, to tell Lotta that dinner was ready. To him I was immediately +presented. + +"Mr. Mercer, my dear uncle Joseph--Mr. Hawkehurst, a friend of my +stepfather's," said Charlotte. + +Two or three minutes afterwards we were all three walking across the +park-like sward to the hospitable farm-house; for the idea of my +departing before dinner seemed utterly preposterous to this friendly +farmer. + +Considered apart from the glamour that for my eyes must needs shine +over any dwelling inhabited by Charlotte Halliday, I will venture to +say that Newhall farm-house is the dearest old place in the world. Such +delightful old rooms, with the deepest window-seats, the highest +mantelpieces, the widest fireplaces possible in domestic architecture; +such mysterious closets and uncanny passages; such pitfalls in the way +of unexpected flights of stairs; such antiquated glazed +corner-cupboards for the display of old china!--everything redolent of +the past. + +In one corner a spinning-wheel, so old that its spindle might be the +identical weapon that pierced Princess Sleeping Beauty's soft white +hand; in another corner an arm-chair that must have been old-fashioned +in the days of Queen Anne; and O, what ancient flowered chintzes, what +capacious sofas, what darling mahogany secretaries and bureaus, with +gleaming brazen adornments in the way of handles!--and about everything +the odour of rose-leaves and lavender. + +I have grown familiar with every corner of the dear old place within +the last few days, but on this first day I had only a general +impression of its antiquated aspect and homely comfort. I stayed to +dine at the same unpretending board at which my Charlotte had sat years +ago, elevated on a high chair, and as yet new to the use of knives and +forks. Uncle Joe and aunt Dorothy told me this in their pleasant +friendly way; while the young lady sat by, blushing and dimpling like a +summer sea beneath the rosy flush of sunrise. No words can relate how +delightful it was to me to hear them talk of my dear love's childhood; +they dwelt so tenderly upon her sweetness, they dilated with such +enthusiasm upon her "pretty ways." Her "pretty ways!" ah, how fatal a +thing it is for mankind when Nature endows woman with those pretty +ways! From the thrall of Grecian noses and Castilian eyes there may be +hope of deliverance, but from the spell of that indescribable witchery +there is none. + +I whistled my Sheldon down the wind without remorse, and allowed myself +to be as happy as if I had been the squire of valley and hillside, with +ten thousand a year to offer my Charlotte with the heart that loves her +so fondly. I have no idea what we had for dinner. I know only that the +fare was plenteous, and the hospitality of my new friends unbounded. We +were very much at ease with one another, and our laughter rang up to +the stalwart beams that sustained the old ceiling. If I had possessed +the smallest fragment of my heart, I should have delivered it over +without hesitation to my aunt Dorothy--pardon!--my Charlotte's aunt +Dorothy, who is the cheeriest, brightest, kindest matron I ever met, +with a sweet unworldly spirit that beams out of her candid blue eyes. + +Charlotte seems to have been tenderly attached to her father, the poor +fellow who died in Philip Sheldon's house--uncomfortable for Sheldon, I +should think. The Mercers talk a good deal of Thomas Halliday, for whom +they appear to have entertained a very warm affection. They also spoke +with considerable kindness of the two Sheldons, whom they knew as young +men in the town of Barlingford; but I should not imagine either uncle +Joseph or aunt Dorothy very well able to fathom the still waters of the +Sheldon intellect. + +After dinner uncle Joe took us round the farm. The last stack of corn +had been thatched, and there was a peaceful lull in the agricultural +world. We went into a quadrangle lined with poultry sheds, where I saw +more of the feathered race than I had ever in my life beheld +congregated together; thence to the inspection of pigs--and it was +agreeable to inspect even those vulgar querulous grunters, with +Charlotte by my side. Her brightness shed a light on all those common +objects; and O, how I longed to be a farmer, like uncle Mercer, and +devote my life to Charlotte and agriculture! + +When uncle Joe had done the honours of his farm-yards and +threshing-machinery, he left us to attend to his afternoon duties; and +we wandered together over the breezy upland at our own sweet wills, or +at _her_ sweet will rather, since what could I do but follow where she +pleased to lead? + +We talked of many things: of the father whom she had loved so dearly, +whose memory was still so mournfully dear to her; of her old home at +Hyley; of her visits to these dear Mercers; of her schooldays, and her +new unloved home in the smart Bayswater villa. She confided in me as +she had never done before; and when we turned in the chill autumn +gloaming, I had told her of my love, and had won from her the sweet +confession of its return. + +I have never known happiness so perfect as that which I felt as we +walked home together--home--yes; that old farm-house must be my home as +well as hers henceforward; for any habitation which she loved must be a +kind of home for me. Sober reflection tells me how reckless and +imprudent my whole conduct has been in this business; but when did ever +love and prudence go hand-in-hand? We were children, Charlotte and I, +on that blessed afternoon; and we told each other our love as children +might have told it, without thought of the future. We have both grown +wiser since that time, and are quite agreed as to our imprudence and +foolishness; but, though we endeavour to contemplate the future in the +most serious manner, we are too happy in the present to be able to +analyse the difficulties and dangers that lie in our pathway. + +Surely there must be a providence for imprudent lovers. + +The November dews fell thick, and the November air was chill, as we +walked back to the homestead. I was sorry that there should be that +creeping dampness in the atmosphere that night. It seemed out of +harmony with the new warmth in my heart. I pressed my darling's little +hand closer to my breast, and had no more consciousness of any +impediments to my future bliss than of the ground on which I +walked--and that seemed air. + +We found our chairs waiting for us at aunt Dorothy's tea-table; and I +enjoyed that aldermanic banquet, a Yorkshire tea, under circumstances +that elevated it to an Olympian repast. + +I thought of the Comic Latin Grammar: + + "Musa, musae, the gods were at tea; + Musae musam, eating raspberry jam." + +I was Jove, and my love was Juno. I looked at her athwart the misty +clouds that issued from the hissing urn, and saw her beautified by a +heightened bloom, and with a sweet, shy conscious look in her eyes +which made her indeed divine. + +After tea we played whist; and I am bound to confess that my divinity +played execrably, persistently disdaining to return her partner's lead, +and putting mean little trumps upon her adversary's tricks, with a +fatuous economy of resources which is always ruin. + +I stayed till ten o'clock, reckless of the unknown country which +separated me from the Magpie, and then walked home alone, under the +faint starlight, though my friendly host would fain have lent me a +dog-cart. The good people here lend one another dog-carts as freely as +a cockney offers his umbrella. I went back to Huxter's Cross alone, and +the long solitary walk was very pleasant to me. + +Looking up at the stars as I tramped homeward, I could but remember an +old epigram:-- + + Were you the earth, dear love, and I the skies, + My love should shine on you like to the sun, + And look upon you with ten thousand eyes, + Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world were done. + +I had ample leisure for reflection during that long night-walk, and +found myself becoming a perfect Young--Hervey--Sturm--what you will, in +the way of meditation. I could not choose but wonder at myself when I +looked back to this time last year, and remembered my idle evenings in +third-rate _cafes_, on the _rive gauche_, playing dominoes, talking the +foul slang of Parisian bohemia, and poisoning my system with +adulterated absinthe. And now I feast upon sweet cakes and honey, and +think it paradisiac enjoyment to play whist--for love--in a farm-house +parlour. I am younger by ten years than I was twelve months ago. + +Ah, let me thank God, who has sent me my redemption. + +I lifted my hat, and pronounced the thanksgiving softly under that +tranquil sky. I was almost ashamed to hear the sound of my own voice. I +was like some shy child who for the first time speaks his father's name. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +TOO FAIR TO LAST. + + +In my confidences with my dear girl I had told her neither the nature +of my mission in Yorkshire, nor the fact that I was bound to leave +Huxter's Cross immediately upon an exploring expedition to nowhere in +particular, in search of the archives of the Meynells. How could I +bring myself to tell her that I must leave her?--how much less could I +bring myself to do it? + +Rendered desperately unmindful of the universe by reason of my +all-absorbing happiness, I determined on giving myself a holiday +boldly, in defiance of Sheldon and the Sheldonian interests. + +"Am I a bounden slave?" I asked myself, "that I should go here or there +at any man's bidding, for the pitiful stipend of twenty shillings a +week?" + +It is to be observed that the rate of hire makes all the difference in +these cases; and while it is ignominious for a lawyer's clerk to hasten +to and fro in the earning of his weekly wage, it is in no way +dishonourable for the minister of state to obey the call of his chief, +and hurry hither and thither in abnegation of all his own +predilections, and to the aggravation of his chronic gout. + +I wrote to my Sheldon, and told him that I had met with friends in the +neighbourhood of Huxter's Cross, and that I intended to give myself a +brief holiday; after which I would resume my labours, and do my +uttermost to make up for wasted time. I had still the remnant of my +borrowed thirty pounds, and amongst these northern hills I felt myself +a millionaire. + +Three thousand pounds at five per cent--one hundred and fifty pounds a +year. I felt that with such an income assured to us, and the fruits of +my industry, Charlotte and I might be secure from all the storms of +life. Ah, what happiness it would be to work for her! And I am not too +old to begin life afresh; not too old for the bar; not too old to make +some mark as a writer on the press; not too old to become a respectable +member of society. + +After having despatched my letter to Sheldon, I made off for Newhall +farm with all speed. I had received a sort of general invitation from +the kindest of uncles and aunts, but I contrived with becoming modesty +to arrive after Mr. Mercer's dinner-hour. I found Charlotte alone in +the dear old-fashioned parlour, aunt Dorothy being engaged in some +domestic operations in the kitchen, and uncle Joseph making his usual +after-dinner rounds amongst the pig-styes and the threshing-machines. I +discovered afterwards that it was Miss Halliday's wont to accompany her +kind kinsman in this afternoon investigation; but to-day she had +complained of a headache and preferred to stay at home. Yet there were +few symptoms of the headache when I found her standing in the +bow-window, watching the path by which I came, and the face of Aurora +herself could scarcely be brighter or fresher than my darling's +innocent blushes when I greeted her with the privileged kiss of +betrothal. + +We sat in the bow-window talking till the twilight shadows crept over +the greensward, and the sheep were led away to their fold, with +cheerful jingling of bells and barking of watchful dog. My dearest girl +told me that our secret had already been discovered by the penetrating +eyes of aunt Dorothy and uncle Joseph. They had teased her +unmercifully, it seemed, all that day, but were graciously pleased to +smile upon my suit, like a pair of imprudent Arcadians as they are. + +"They like you very much indeed," my Lotta said joyously; "but I +believe they think I have known you much longer than I really have, and +that you are very intimate with my stepfather. It seems almost like +deceiving them to allow them to think so, but I really haven't the +courage to tell the truth. How foolish and bold they would think me if +they knew how very short a time I have known you!" + +"Twenty times longer than Juliet had known Romeo when they met in the +Friar's cell to be married," I urged. + +"Yes, but that was in a play," replied Charlotte, "where everything is +obliged to be hurried; and at Hyde Lodge we all of us thought that +Juliet was a very forward young person." + +"The poets all believe in love at first sight, and I'll wager our dear +uncle Joe fell over head and ears in love with aunt Dorothy after +having danced with her two or three times at an assize ball," said I. +After this we became intensely serious, and I told my darling girl that +I hoped very soon to be in possession of a small fixed income, and to +have begun a professional career. I told her how dear an incentive to +work she had given me, and how little fear I had for the future. + +I reminded her that Mr. Sheldon had no legal power to control her +actions, and that, as her father's will had left her entirely to her +mother's guardianship, she had only her mother's pleasure to consult. + +"I believe poor mamma would let me marry a crossing-sweeper, if I cried +and declared it would make me miserable not to marry him," said +Charlotte; "but then, you see, mamma's wishes mean Mr. Sheldon's +wishes; she is sure to think whatever he tells her to think; and if he +is strongly against our marriage--" + +"As I am sure he will be," I interjected. + +"He will work upon poor mamma in that calm, persistent, logical way of +his till he makes her as much against it as himself." + +"But even your mamma has no legal power to control your actions, my +love. Were you not of age on your last birthday?" + +My darling replied in the affirmative. + +"Then of course you are free to marry whom you please; and as I am +thankful to say you don't possess a single sixpence in your own right, +there need be no fuss about settlements or pin-money. We can marry any +fine morning that my dear girl pleases to name, and defy all the stern +stepfathers in creation." + +"How I wish I had a fortune, for your sake!" she said with a sigh. + +"Be glad for my sake that you have none," I answered. "You cannot +imagine the miserable complications and perplexities which arise in +this world from the possession of money. No slave so tightly bound as +the man who has what people call 'a stake in the country' and a balance +at his banker's. The true monarch of all he surveys is the penniless +reprobate who walks down Fleet-street with his whole estate covered by +the seedy hat upon his head." + +Having thus moralized, I proceeded to ask Miss Halliday if she was +prepared to accept a humbler station than that enjoyed by her at the +Lawn. + +"No useful landau, to be an open carriage at noon and a family coach at +night," I said; "no nimble page to skip hither and thither at his fair +lady's commands, if not belated on the way by the excitement of tossing +halfpence with youthful adventurers of the byways and alleys; no trim +parlour-maids, with irreproachable caps, dressed for the day at 11 +o'clock A.M.--but instead of these, a humble six-roomed bandbox of a +house, and one poor hardworking slavey, with perennial smudges from +saucepan-lids upon her honest pug-nose. Consider the prospect +seriously, Charlotte, and ask yourself whether you can endure such a +descent in the social scale." + +My Charlotte laughed, as if the prospect had been the most delightful +picture ever presented to mortal vision. + +"Do you think I care for the landau or the page?" she cried. "If it +were not for mamma's sake, I should detest that prim villa and all its +arrangements. You see me so happy here, where there is no pretence of +grandeur--" + +"But I am bound to warn you that I shall not be able to provide +Yorkshire teas at the commencement of our domestic career," I remarked, +by way of parenthesis. + +"Aunt Dorothy will send us hampers of poultry and cakes, sir, and for +the rest of our time we can live upon bread and water." + +On this I promised my betrothed a house in Cavendish or Portman-square, +and a better-built landau than Mr. Sheldon's, in the remote future. +With those dear eyes for my pole-stars, I felt myself strong enough to +clamber up the slippery ascent to the woolsack. The best and purest +ambition must surely be that which is only a synonym for love. + +After we had sat talking in the gloaming to our hearts' content, aunt +Dorothy appeared, followed by a sturdy handmaid with lighted candles, +and a still sturdier handmaid with a ponderous tea-tray. The two made +haste to spread a snow-white cloth, and to set forth the species of +banquet which it is the fashion nowadays to call high tea. Anon came +uncle Joseph, bringing with him some slight perfume from the piggeries, +and he and aunt Dorothy were pleased to be pleasantly facetious and +congratulatory in their conversation during the social meal which +followed their advent. + +After tea we played whist again, aunt Dorothy and I obtaining a +succession of easy victories over Charlotte and uncle Joe. I felt +myself hourly more and more completely at home in that simple domestic +circle, and enjoyed the proud position of an accepted lover. My +Arcadian friends troubled themselves in nowise as to the approval or +disapproval of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon, or with regard either to my +prospects or my antecedents. They saw me devoted to my dear girl, they +saw my dearest pleased by my devotion, and they loved her so well that +they were ready to open their hearts without reserve to the man who +adored her and was loved by her, let him be rich or poor, noble or +base-born. As they would have given her the wax-doll of her desire ten +or twelve years ago without question as to price or fitness of things, +so they now gave her their kindly smiles and approval for the lover of +her choice. "I know Phil Sheldon is a man who looks to the main +chance," said uncle Joe, in the course of a discussion about his +niece's future which dyed her cheeks with blushes in the present; "and +I'll lay you'll find him rather a difficult customer to deal with, +especially as poor Tom's will left all the money in Georgy's hands, +which of course is tantamount to saying that Sheldon has got the +disposal of it." + +I assured uncle Joe that money was the very last thing which I desired. + +"Then in that case I don't see why he shouldn't let you have +Charlotte," replied Mr. Mercer; "and if she's cheated out of her poor +dad's money, she shan't be cheated out of what her old aunt and uncle +may have to leave her by-and-by." + +Here were these worthy people promising me an heiress with no more +compunction than if they had been offering me a cup of tea. + +I walked homeward once more beneath the quiet stars. O, how happy I +was! Can happiness so perfect, joy so sinless, endure? I, the +friendless wanderer and penniless Bohemian, asked myself this question; +and again I paused upon the lonely moorland road to lift my hat as I +thanked God for having given me such bright hopes. + +But George Sheldon's three thousand pounds must be mine before I can +secure the humblest shelter for my sweet one; and although it would be +bliss to me to tramp through the world barefoot with Charlotte by my +side, the barefooted state of things is scarcely the sort of prospect a +man would care to offer to the woman he loves. So once more to the +chase. One more day in this delicious island of the lotus-eaters, +Newhall farm; and then away!--hark forward!--tantivy!--and hey for the +marriage-lines of Charlotte Meynell, great-granddaughter of Matthew +Haygarth, and, if still in the flesh, rightful heiress to the one +hundred thousand pounds at present likely to be absorbed by the +ravening jaws of the Crown! One more day, one more delightful idle day, +in the land where it is always afternoon, and then away to Hidling in +the hybrid vehicle, and thence to Hull, from Hull to York, from York to +Leeds, then Bradford, Huddersfield--_toute la boutique!_ + +The rain beats against the diamond panes of my casement as I write. The +day has been hopelessly wet, so I have stayed in my snug little chamber +and occupied myself in writing this record. Foul wind or weather would +have little power to keep me from my darling; but even if it had been a +fine day, I could not with any grace have presented myself at Newhall +farm for a third afternoon. To-morrow my immediate departure will +afford me an excuse for presenting myself once more before my kind +uncle and aunt. It will be my farewell visit. I wonder whether +Charlotte will miss me this afternoon. I wonder whether she will be +sorry when I tell her that I am going to leave this part of the +country. Ah, shall we ever meet again under such happy auspices? Shall +I ever again find such kind friends or such a hospitable dwelling as +those I shall leave amidst these northern hills? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +FOUND IN THE BIBLE. + + +_November_ 3 _d_. The most wonderful event has befallen--surely the most +wonderful that ever came to pass outside the realms of fiction. Let me +set down the circumstances of yesterday coolly and quietly if I can. I +invoke the placid spirit of my Sheldon. I invoke all the divinities of +Gray's Inn and "The Fields." Let me be legal and specific, +perspicacious and logical--if this beating heart, this fevered brain, +will allow me a few hours' respite. + +The autumn sunshine blessed the land again yesterday. Moorland and +meadow, fallow and clover-field, were all the brighter for the steady +downfall of the previous day. I walked to Newhall directly after +breakfast, and found my dearest standing at the white five-barred gate, +dressed in her pretty blue jacket, and with ribbons in her bonny brown +hair. + +She was pleased to see me, though at first just a little inclined to +play the _boudeuse_ on account of my absence on the previous day. Of +course I assured her that it had been anguish for me to remain away +from her, and quoted that divine sonnet of our William's to the like +effect: + + "How like a winter hath my absence been!" + +and again: + + "O, never say that I was false of heart, + Though absence seemed my flame to qualify." + +Equally of course my pet pretended not to believe me. After this little +misunderstanding we forgave each other, and adored each other again +with just a little more than usual devotion; and then we went for a +long ramble among the fields, and looked at the dear placid sheep, who +stared at us wonderingly in return, as if exclaiming to themselves, +"And these are a specimen couple of the creatures called lovers!" + +We met uncle Joe in the course of our wanderings, and returned with him +in time for the vulgar superstition of dinner, which we might have +forgotten had we been left by ourselves. After dinner uncle Joe made +off to his piggeries; while aunt Dorothy fell asleep in a capacious old +arm-chair by the fire, after making an apologetic remark to the effect +that she was tired, and had been a good deal "tewed" that morning in +the dairy. "Tewed," I understand, is Yorkshire for "worried." + +Aunt Dorothy having departed into the shadowy realm of dreams, +Charlotte and I were left to our own devices. + +There was a backgammon board on a side-table, surmounted by an old +Indian bowl of dried rose-leaves; and, _pour nous distraire_, I +proposed that I should teach my dearest that diverting game. She +assented, and we set to work in a very business-like manner, Miss +Halliday all attention, I serious as a professional schoolmaster. + +Unfortunately for my pupil's progress, the game of backgammon proved +less entertaining than our own conversation, so, after a very feeble +attempt on the one side to learn and on the other to teach, we closed +the board and began to talk;--first of the past, then of the future, +the happy future, which we were to share. + +There is no need that I should set down this lovers' talk. Is it not +written on my heart? The future seemed so fair and unclouded to me, as +my love and I sat talking together yesterday afternoon. Now all is +changed. The strangest, the most surprising complications have arisen; +and I doubt, I fear. + +After we had talked for a long time, Miss Halliday suddenly proposed +that I should read to her. + +"Diana once told me that you read very beautifully," said this +flatterer; "and I should so like to hear you read--poetry of course. +You will find plenty of poems in that old bookcase--Cowper, and +Bloomfield, and Pope. Now I am sure that Pope is just the kind of poet +whose verses you would read magnificently. Shall we explore the +bookcase together?" + +Now if there is any manner of beguiling an idle afternoon, which seems +to me most delightful, it is by the exploration of old bookcases; and +when that delight can be shared by the woman one fondly loves, the +pleasure thereof must be of course multiplied to an indefinite amount. + +So Charlotte and I set to work immediately to ransack the lower shelves +of the old-fashioned mahogany bookcase, which contained the entire +library of the Mercer household. + +I am bound to admit that we did not light upon many volumes of +thrilling interest. The verses of Cowper, like those of Southey, have +always appeared to me to have only one fault--there are too many of +them. One shrinks appalled from that thick closely-printed volume of +morality cut into lengths of ten feet; and beyond the few well-worn +quotations in daily use, I am fain to confess that I am almost a +stranger to the bard of Olney. + +Half a dozen odd volumes of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, three or four +of the _Annual Register_, a neatly-bound edition of _Clarissa Harlowe_ +and _Sir Charles Grandison_ in twelve volumes, Law's _Holy Call to a +Serious Life_, _Paradise Lost_, _Joseph Andrews_, _Hervey's +Meditations_, and _Gulliver's Travels_, formed the varied contents of +the principal shelves. Above, there were shabbily-bound volumes and +unbound pamphlets. Below, there were folios, the tops whereof were +thickly covered with the dust of ages, having escaped the care of the +handmaidens even in that neatly-appointed household. + +I knelt down to examine these. + +"You'll be covered with dust if you touch them," cried Charlotte. "I +was once curious enough to examine them, but the result was very +disappointing." + +"And yet they look so delightfully mysterious," I said. "This one, for +instance?" + +"That is an old history of London, with curious plates and maps; rather +interesting if one has nothing more amusing to read. But the perennial +supply of novels from Mudie's spoils one for that kind of book." + +"If ever I come to Newhall again, I shall dip into the old history. One +is never tired of dead and gone London. But after Mr. Knight's +delightful book any old history must seem very poor. What is my burly +friend here?" + +"O, a dreadful veterinary-surgeon's encyclopaedia--_The Farmer's +Friend_ I think it is called; all about the ailments of animals." + +"And the next?" + +"The next is an odd volume of the _Penny Magazine_. Dear aunt Dorothy +is rich in odd volumes." + +"And the next,--my bulky friend number two,--with a cracked leather +back and a general tendency to decay?" + +"O, that is the Meynell Bible." + +The MEYNELL BIBLE! A hot perspiration broke out upon my face as I knelt +at Charlotte Halliday's feet, with my hand resting lightly on the top +of the book. + +"The Meynell Bible!" I repeated; and my voice was faintly tremulous, in +spite of the effort I made to control myself. "What do you mean by the +Meynell Bible?" + +"I mean the old family Bible that belonged to my grand-mamma. It was +her father's Bible, you know; and of course he was my +great-grandfather--Christian Meynell. Why, how you stare at me, +Valentine! Is there anything so wonderful in my having had a +great-grandfather?" + +"No, darling; but the fact is that I--" + +In another moment I should have told her the entire truth; but I +remembered just in time that I had pledged myself to profound secrecy +with regard to the nature and progress of my investigation, and I had +yet to learn whether that pledge did or did not involve the observance +of secrecy even with those most interested in my researches. Pending +further communication with Sheldon, I was certainly bound to be silent. + +"I have a kind of interest in the name of Meynell," I said, "for I was +once engaged in a business matter with people of that name." + +And having thus hoodwinked my beloved with a bouncer, I proceeded to +extract the Bible from its shelf. The book was so tightly wedged into +its place, that to remove it was like drawing a tooth. It was a +noble-looking old volume, blue with the mould of ages, and redolent of +a chill dampness like the atmosphere of a tomb. + +"I should so like to examine the old book when the candles come in," I +said. + +Fortunately for the maintenance of my secret, the darkness was closing +in upon us when I discovered the volume, and the room was only fitfully +illuminated by the flame that brightened and faded every minute. + +I carried the book to a side-table, and Charlotte and I resumed our +talk until the candles came, and close behind them uncle Joe. I fear I +must have seemed a very inattentive lover during that brief interval, +for I could not concentrate my thoughts upon the subject of our +discourse. My mind would wander to the strange discovery that I had +just made, and I could not refrain from asking myself whether by any +extraordinary chance my own dear love should be the rightful claimant +to John Haygarth's hoarded wealth. + +I hoped that it might not be so. I hoped that my darling might be +penniless rather than the heir to wealth, which, in all likelihood, +would create an obstacle strong enough to sever us eternally. I longed +to question her about her family, but could not as yet trust myself to +broach the subject. And while I doubted and hesitated, honest +blustering uncle Joe burst into the room, and aunt Dorothy awoke, and +was unutterably surprised to find she had slept so long. + +After this came tea; and as I sat opposite my dearest girl I could not +choose but remember that gray-eyed Molly, whose miniature had been +found in the tulip-wood bureau, and in whose bright face I had seen the +likeness of Philip Sheldon's beautiful stepdaughter. And Mr. Sheldon's +lovely stepdaughter was the lineal descendant of this very Molly. +Strange mystery of transmitted resemblances! Here was the sweet face +that had bewitched honest, simple-minded Matthew Haygarth reproduced +after the lapse of a century. + +My Charlotte was descended from a poor little player girl who had +smiled on the roisterous populace of Bartholomew Fair. Some few drops +of Bohemian blood mingled with the pure life-stream in her veins. It +pleased me to think of this; but I derived no pleasure from the idea +that Charlotte might possibly be the claimant of a great fortune. + +"She may have cousins who would stand before her," I said to myself; +and there was some comfort in the thought. + +After tea I asked permission to inspect the old family Bible, much to +the astonishment of uncle Joe, who had no sympathy with antiquarian +tastes, and marvelled that I should take any interest in so mouldy a +volume. I told him, with perfect truth, that such things had always +more or less interest for me; and then I withdrew to my little table, +where I was provided with a special pair of candles. + +"You'll find the births and deaths of all poor Molly's ancestors on the +first leaf," said uncle Joe. "Old Christian Meynell was a rare one for +jotting down such things; but the ink has gone so pale that it's about +as much as you'll do to make sense of it, I'll lay." + +Charlotte looked over my shoulder as I examined the fly-leaf of the +family Bible. Even with this incentive to distraction I contrived to be +tolerably business-like; and this is the record which I found on the +faded page: + +"Samuel Matthew Meynell, son of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. March +9, 1796, baptised at St. Giles's, Cripplegate, in this city. + +"Susan Meynell, daughter of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. June 29, +1798, also baptised in the same church. + +"Charlotte Meynell, second daughter of the above Christian and Sarah, +b. October 3, 1800, baptised at the above-mentioned church of St. +Giles, London." + +Below these entries, in blacker ink and in a different hand-writing--a +bold, business-like, masculine caligraphy--came the following: + +"Charlotte Meynell married to James Halliday, in the parish church of +Barngrave, Yorks. April 15, 1819. + +"Thomas Halliday, son of the above James and Charlotte Halliday, b. +Jan. 3d, 1821, baptised in the parish church of Barngrave, Feb. 20 in +the same year. + +"Mary Halliday, daughter of the above-named James and Charlotte +Halliday, b. May 27th, 1823, baptised at Barngrave, July 1st in the +same year." + +Below this there was an entry in a woman's penmanship: + +"Susan, the beloved sister of C. H., died in London, July 11, 1835. + +"Judge not, that ye be not judged. + +"I came to call sinners, and not the righteous, to repentance." + +This record seemed to hint vaguely at some sad story: "Susan, the +beloved sister;" no precise data of the death--no surname! And then +those two deprecating sentences, which seemed to plead for the dead. + +I had been led to understand that Christian Meynell's daughters had +both died in Yorkshire--one married, the other unmarried. + +The last record in the book was the decease of James Halliday, my dear +girl's grandfather. + +After pondering long over the strangely-worded entry of Susan Meynell's +death, I reflected that, with the aid of those mysterious powers Hook +and Crook, I must contrive to possess myself of an exact copy of this +leaf from a family history, if not of the original document. Again my +duty to my Sheldon impelled me to be false to all my new-born +instincts, and boldly give utterance to another bouncer. + +"I am very much interested in a county history now preparing for the +press," I said to my honoured uncle, who was engaged in a hand at +cribbage with his wife; "and I really think this old leaf from a family +Bible would make a very interesting page in that work." + +I blushed for myself as I felt how shamefully I was imposing upon my +newly-found kinsman's credulity. With scarcely any one but uncle Joe +could I have dared to employ so shallow an artifice. + +"Would it really, now?" said that confiding innocent. "Well, I suppose +old papers, and letters, and such like, are uncommonly interesting to +some folks. I can't say I care much about 'em myself." + +"Would you have any objection to my taking a copy of these entries?" I +asked. + +"My word, no, lad; not I. Take half a dozen copies, and welcome, if +they can be of any use to you or other people. That's not much to ask +for." + +I thanked my simple host, and determined to write to a stationer at +Hull for some tracing-paper by the first post next morning. There was +some happiness, at least, in having found this unlooked-for end to my +researches. I had a good excuse for remaining longer near Charlotte +Halliday. + +"It's only for my poor Mary's sake I set any value on that old volume," +the farmer said, presently, in a meditative tone. "You see the names +there are the names of her relations, not mine; and this place and all +in it was hers. Dorothy and I are only interlopers, as you may say, at +the best, though I brought my fortune to the old farm, and Dorothy +brought her fortune, and between us we've made Newhall a much better +place than it was in old James Halliday's time. But there's something +sad in the thought that none of those that were born on the land have +left chick or child to inherit it." Uncle Joseph fell for a while into +a pensive reverie, and I thought of that other inheritance, well-nigh +fifty times the value of Newhall farm, which is now waiting for a +claimant. And again I asked myself, Could it be possible that this +sweet girl, whose changeful face had saddened with those old memories, +whose innocent heart knew not one sordid desire--could it be indeed she +whose fair hand was to wrest the Haygarthian gold from the grip of +Crown lawyers? + +The sight of that old Bible seemed to have revived Mr. Mercer's memory +of his first wife with unwonted freshness. + +"She was a sweet young creature," he said; "the living picture of our +Lottie, and sometimes I fancy it must have been that which made me take +to Lottie when she was a little one. I used to see my first wife's eyes +looking up at me out of Lottie's eyes. I told Tom it was a comfort to +me to have the little lass with me, and that's how they let her come +over so often from Hyley. Poor old Tom used to bring her over in his +Whitechapel cart, and leave her behind him for a week or so at a +stretch. And then, when my Dorothy, yonder, took pity upon a poor +lonely widower, she made as much of the little girl as if she'd been +her own, and more, perhaps; for, not having any children of her own, +she thought them such out-of-the-way creatures, that you couldn't +coddle them and pet them too much. There's a little baby lies buried in +Barngrave churchyard with Tom Halliday's sister that would have been a +noble young man, sitting where you're sitting, Mr. Hawkehurst, and +looking at me as bright as you're looking, perhaps, if the Lord's will +hadn't been otherwise. We've all our troubles, you see, and that was +mine; and if it hadn't been for Dorothy, life would not have been worth +much for me after that time--but my Dorothy is all manner of blessings +rolled up in one." + +The farmer looked fondly at his second wife as he said this, and she +blushed and smiled upon him with responsive tenderness. I fancy a +woman's blushes and smiles wear longer in these calm solitudes than +amid the tumult and clamour of a great city. + +Finding my host inclined to dwell upon the past, I ventured to hazard +an indirect endeavour to obtain some information respecting that entry +in the Bible which had excited my curiosity. + +"Miss Susan Meynell died unmarried, I believe?" I said. "I see her +death recorded here, but she is described by her Christian name only." + +"Ah, very like," replied Mr. Mercer, with an air of indifference, which +I perceived to be assumed. "Yes, my poor Molly's aunt Susan died +unmarried." + +"And in London? I had been given to understand that she died in +Yorkshire." + +I blushed for my own impertinence as I pressed this inquiry. What right +had I to be given to understand anything about these honest Meynells? I +saw poor uncle Joe's disconcerted face, and I felt that the hunter of +an heir-at-law is apt to become a very obnoxious creature. + +"Susan Meynell died in London--the poor lass died in London," replied +Joseph Mercer, gravely; "and now we'll drop that subject, if you +please, my lad. It isn't a pleasant one." + +After this I could no longer doubt that there was some painful story +involved in those two deprecating sentences of the gospel. + +It was some time before uncle Joe was quite his own jovial and rather +noisy self again, and on this evening we had no whist. I bade my +friends good night a little earlier than usual, and departed, after +having obtained permission to take a tracing of the fly-leaf as soon as +possible. + +On this night the starlit sky and lonesome moor seemed to have lost +their soothing power. There was a new fever in my mind. The simple plan +of the future which I had mapped out for myself was suddenly shattered. +The Charlotte of to-night--heiress-at-law to an enormous fortune--ward +in Chancery--claimant against the Crown--was a very different person +from the simple maid "whom there were none"--or only a doating +simpleton in the person of the present writer--"to praise, and very few +to love." + +The night before last I had hoped so much; to-night hope had forsaken +me. It seemed as if a Titan's hand had dug a great pit between me and +the woman I loved--a pit as deep as the grave. + +Philip Sheldon might have consented to give me his stepdaughter +unpossessed of a sixpence; but would he give me his stepdaughter with a +hundred thousand pounds for her fortune? Alas! no; I know the +Sheldonian intellect too well to be fooled by any hope so wild and +baseless. The one bright dream of my misused life faded from me in the +hour in which I discovered my dearest girl's claim to the Haygarthian +inheritance. But I am not going to throw up the sponge before the fight +is over. Time enough to die when I am lying face downward in the +ensanguined mire, and feel the hosts of the foemen trampling above my +shattered carcass. I will live in the light of my Charlotte's smiles +while I can, and for the rest--"_Il ne faut pas dire, fontaine, je ne +boirai pas de ton eau_." There is no cup so bitter that a man dare say, +I will not drain it to the very dregs. "What must be, shall be--that's +a certain text;" and in the mean time _carpe diem_. I am all a Bohemian +again. + +_Nov. 5th_. After a day's delay I have obtained my tracing-paper, and +made two tracings of the entries in the Meynell Bible. How intercourse +with the Sheldonian race inclines one to the duplication of documents! +I consider the copying-press of modern civilization the supreme +incarnation of man's distrust of his fellow-men. + +I spent this afternoon and evening with my dear love--my last evening +in Yorkshire. To-morrow I shall see my Sheldon, and inform him of the +very strange termination which has come to my researches. Will he +communicate at once with his brother? Will he release me from my oath +of secrecy? There is nothing of the masonic secretiveness in my +organisation, and I am very weary of the seal that has been set upon my +unwary lips. Will Charlotte be told that she is the reverend +intestate's next of kin? These are questions which I ask myself as I +sit in the stillness of my room at the Magpie, scribbling this wretched +diary of mine, while the church clock booms three solemn strokes in the +distance. + +O, why did not the reverend intestate marry his housekeeper, and make a +will, like other honest citizens, and leave my Charlotte to walk the +obscure byways of honest poverty with me? I do believe that I could +have been honest; I do believe that I could have been brave and true +and steadfast for her dear sake. But it is the office of man to +propose, while the Unseen disposes. Perhaps such a youth as mine admits +of no redemption. I have written circulars for Horatio Paget. I have +been the willing remorseless tool of a man who never eats his dinner +without inflicting a wrong upon his fellow-creatures. Can a few moments +of maudlin sentimentality, a vague yearning for something brighter and +better, a brief impulse towards honesty, inspired by a woman's innocent +eyes--can so little virtue in the present atone for so much guilt in +the past? Alas! I fear not. + +I had one last brief _tete-a-tete_ with my dear girl while I took the +tracing from the old Bible. She sat watching me, and distracting me +more or less while I worked; and despite the shadow of doubt that has +fallen upon me, I could not be otherwise than happy in her sweet +company. + +When I came to the record of Susan Meynell's death, my Charlotte's +manner changed all at once from her accustomed joyousness to a pensive +gravity. + +"I was very sorry you spoke of Susan Meynell to uncle Joseph," she +said, thoughtfully. + +"But why sorry, my dear?" + +I had some vague notion as to the cause of this sorrow; but the +instincts of the chase impelled me to press the subject. Was I not +bound to know every secret in the lives of Matthew Haygarth's +descendants? + +"There is a very sad story connected with my aunt Susan--she was my +great-aunt, you know," said Charlotte, with a grave earnest face. "She +went away from home, and there was great sorrow. I cannot talk of the +story, even to you, Valentine, for there seems something sacred in +these painful family secrets. My poor aunt Susan left all her friends, +and died many years afterwards in London." + +"She was known to have died unmarried?" I asked. This would be an +important question from George Sheldon's point of sight. + +"Yes," Charlotte replied, blushing crimson. + +That blush told me a great deal. + +"There was some one concerned in this poor lady's sorrow," I said; +"some one to blame for all her unhappiness." + +"There was." + +"One whom she loved and trusted, perhaps?" + +"Whom she loved and trusted only too well. O, Valentine, must not that +be terrible? To confide with all your heart in the person you love, and +to find him base and cruel! If my poor aunt had not believed Montagu +Kingdon to be true and honourable, she would have trusted her friends a +little, instead of trusting so entirely in him. O, Valentine, what am I +telling you? I cannot bear to cast a shadow on the dead." + +"My dear love, do you think I cannot pity this injured lady? Do you +think I am likely to play the Pharisee, and be eager to bespatter the +grave of this poor sufferer? I can almost guess the story which you +shrink from telling me--it is one of those sad histories so often +acted, so often told. Your aunt loved a person called Montagu +Kingdon--her superior in station, perhaps?" + +I looked at Charlotte as I said this, and her face told me that I had +guessed rightly. + +"This Montagu Kingdon admired and loved her," I said. "He seemed eager +to make her his wife, but no doubt imposed secrecy as to his +intentions. She accepted his word as that of a true-hearted lover and a +gentleman, and in the end had bitter reason to repent her confidence. +That is an outline of the story, is it not, Charlotte?" + +"I am sure that it was so. I am sure that when she left Newhall she +went away to be married," cried Charlotte, eagerly; "I have seen a +letter that proves it--to me, at least. And yet I have heard even mamma +speak harshly of her--so long dead and gone off the face of this +earth--as if she had deliberately chosen the sad fate which came to +her." + +"Is it not possible that Mr. Kingdon did marry Miss Meynell, after all?" + +"No," replied Charlotte, very sadly; "there is no hope of that. I have +seen a letter written by my poor aunt years afterwards--a letter that +tells much of the cruel truth; and I have heard that Mr. Kingdon came +back to Yorkshire and married a rich lady during my aunt's lifetime." + +"I should like to see that letter," I said, involuntarily. + +"Why, Valentine?" asked my darling, looking at me with sorrowful, +wondering eyes, "To me it seems so painful to talk of these things: it +is like reopening an old wound." + +"But if the interests of other people require--" I began, in a very +blundering manner. + +"Whose interest can be served by my showing you my poor aunt's letter? +It would seem like an act of dishonour to the dead." + +What could I say after this--bound hand and foot as I am by my promise +to Sheldon? + +After a long talk with my sweet one, I borrowed uncle Joe's dog-cart, +and spun across to Barngrave, where I found the little church, beneath +whose gray old roof Charlotte Meynell plighted her troth to James +Halliday. I took a copy of all entries in the register concerning Mrs. +Meynell Halliday and her children, and then went back to Newhall to +restore the dog-cart, and to take my last Yorkshire tea at the +hospitable old farm-house. + +To-morrow I am off to Barlingford, fifteen miles from this village, to +take more copies from registries concerning my sweet young heiress--the +registries of her father's marriage, and her own birth. After that I +think my case will be tolerably complete, and I can present myself to +Sheldon in the guise of a conqueror. + +Is it not a great conquest to have made? Is it not almost an act of +chivalry for these prosaic days to go forth into the world as a private +inquirer, and win a hundred thousand pounds for the lady of one's love? +And yet I wish any one rather than my Charlotte were the lineal +descendant of Matthew Haygarth. + +_Nov. 10th_. Here I am in London once more, with my Sheldon in +ecstatics, and our affairs progressing marvellously well, as he informs +me; but with that ponderous slowness peculiar to all mortal affairs in +which the authorities of the realm are in any way concerned. + +My work is finished. Hawkehurst the genealogist and antiquarian sinks +into Hawkehurst the private individual. I have no more to do but to +mind my own business and await the fruition of time in the shape of my +reward. + +Can I accept three thousand pounds for giving my dearest her +birthright? Can I take payment for a service done to her? Surely not: +and, on the other hand, can I continue to woo my sweet one, conscious +that she is the rightful claimant to a great estate? Can I take +advantage of her ignorance, and may it not be said that I traded on my +secret knowledge? + +Before leaving Yorkshire, I stole one more day from the Sheldon +business, in order to loiter just a few hours longer in that northern +Arcadia called Newhall farm. What assurance have I that I shall ever +re-enter that pleasant dwelling? What hold have I, a wanderer and +vagabond, on the future which respectable people map out for themselves +with such mathematical precision? And even the respectable people are +sometimes out in their reckoning. To snatch the joys of to-day must +always be the policy of the adventurer. So I took one more happy +afternoon at Newhall. Nor was the afternoon entirely wasted; for, in +the course of my farewell visit, I heard more of poor Susan Meynell's +history from honest uncle Joseph. He told me the story during an +after-dinner walk, in which he took me the round of his pig-styes and +cattle-sheds for the last time, as if he would fain have had them leave +their impress on my heart. + +"You may see plenty of cattle in Yorkshire," he remarked, complacently, +"but you won't see many beasts to beat that." + +He pointed to a brown and mountainous mass of inert matter, which he +gave me to understand was something in the way of cattle. + +"Would you like to see him standing?" he asked, giving the mass a prod +with the handle of his walking-stick, which to my cockney mind seemed +rather cruel, but which, taken from an agricultural point of view, was +no doubt the correct thing. "He _can_ stand. Coom up, Brownie!" + +I humbly entreated that the ill-used mass might be allowed to sprawl in +undisturbed misery. + +"Thorley!" exclaimed Mr. Mercer, laying his finger significantly +against the side of his unpretending nose. + +I had not the faintest comprehension of my revered uncle-in-law's +meaning; but I said, "O, indeed!" with the accents of admiration. + +"Thorley's Condiment," said my uncle. "You'll see some fine animate at +the Cattle-show; but if you see a two-year-old ox to beat him, my name +is not Joe Mercer." + +After this I had to pay my respects to numerous specimens of the bovine +race, all more or less prostrate under the burden of superabundant +flesh, all seeming to cry aloud for the treatment of some Banting of +the agricultural world. + +After we had "done" the cattle-sheds, with heroic resignation on my +part, and with enthusiasm on the part of Mr. Mercer, we went a long way +to see some rarities in the way of mutton, which commodity was to be +found cropping the short grass on a distant upland. + +With very little appreciation of the zoological varieties, and with the +consciousness that my dear one was sitting in the farm-house parlour, +wondering at my prolonged absence, this excursion could not be +otherwise than a bore to me. But it was a small thing to sacrifice my +own pleasure for once in a way, when by so doing I might gratify the +kindest of men and of uncles; so I plodded briskly across the fields +with the friendly farmer. + +I had my reward; for, in the course of this walk, Mr. Mercer gave me +the history of poor Susan Meynell. + +"I didn't care to talk about the story the other night before the young +lass," he said, gravely; "for her heart's so full of pity and +tenderness, pretty dear, that any tale such as that is like to upset +her. But the story's known to almost all the folks in these parts; so +there's no particular reason against my telling it to you. I've heard +my poor mother talk of Susan Meynell many a time. She was a regular +beauty, it seems; prettier than her sister Charlotte, and she was a +pretty woman, as you may guess by looking at _our_ Charlotte, who is +thought the image of her grandmother. But Susan was one of those +beauties that you don't see very often--more like a picture than flesh +and blood. The gentry used to turn round to look at her at Barngrave +church, I've heard my mother say. She was a rare one for dress, too; +for she had a few hundreds left her by her father and mother, who had +both of them been very well-to-do people. The mother was daughter to +William Rand, of Barngrave, a man who farmed above a thousand acres of +his own land; and the father kept a carpet warehouse in +Aldersgate-street." + +This information I received with respectful deference, and a +hypocritical assumption of ignorance respecting Miss Meynell's +antecedents. + +Mr. Mercer paused to take breath, and then continued the story after +his own rambling fashion. + +"Well, my lad, what with her fine dress, and what with her pretty +looks, Susan Meynell seems to have thought a little too much of +herself; so that when Montagu Kingdon, of Kingdon-place, younger +brother to Lord Durnsville, fell in love with her, and courted her--not +exactly openly, but with the knowledge of her sister, Mrs. +Halliday--she thought it no more than natural that he should intend to +make her his wife. Mr. Kingdon was ten years older than Susan, and had +served in Spain, and had not borne too good a character abroad. He had +been in a hard-drinking cavalry regiment, and had spent all his money, +and sold out directly the war was over. There was very little of all +this known down hereabouts, where Mr. Kingdon stood very high, on +account of his being Lord Durnsville's brother. But it was known that +he was poor, and that the Durnsville estates were heavily encumbered +into the bargain." + +"Then this gentleman would have been no grand match for Miss Meynell, +if--" + +"If he had married her? No, my lad; and it might have been the +knowledge of his poverty that made Susan and her sister think less of +the difference between his station and the girl's. The two women +favoured him, anyhow; and they kept the secret from James Halliday, who +was a regular upstraight-and-downright kind of fellow, as proud as any +lord in his own way. The secret was kept safe enough for some time, and +Mr. Kingdon was always dropping in at Newhall when Jim was out of the +way; but folks in these parts are very inquisitive, and, lonesome as +our place is, there are plenty of people go by between Monday and +Saturday; so by-and-by it got to be noticed that there was very often a +gentleman's horse standing at Newhall gate, with the bridle tied to one +of the gate-posts; and those that knew anything, knew that the horse +belonged to Montagu Kingdon. A friend of Jim Halliday's told him as +much one day, and warned him that Mr. Kingdon was a scamp, and was said +to have a Spanish wife somewhere beyond seas. This was quite enough for +James Halliday, who flew into a roaring rage at the notion of any man, +most of all Lord Durnsville's brother, going to his house and courting +his sister-in-law in secret. It was at Barngrave he was told this, one +market-day, as he was lounging with his friends in the old yard of the +Black Bull inn, where the corn exchange used to be held in those days. +He called for his horse the next minute, and left the town at a gallop. +When he came to Newhall, he found Montagu Kingdon's chestnut mare tied +to the gate-post, and he found Mr. Kingdon himself, dawdling about the +garden with Miss Meynell." + +"And then I suppose there was a scene?" I suggested, with unfeigned +interest in this domestic story. + +"Well, I believe there was, my lad. I've heard all about it from my +poor Molly, who had the story from her mother. James Halliday didn't +mince matters; he gave Mr. Kingdon a bit of his mind, in his own rough +outspoken way, and told him it would be the worse for him if he ever +crossed the threshold of Newhall gate again. 'If you meant well by that +foolish girl, you wouldn't come sneaking here behind my back,' he said; +'but you don't mean well by her, and you've a Spanish wife hidden away +somewhere in the Peninsula.' Mr. Kingdon gave the lie to this; but he +said he shouldn't stoop to justify himself to an unmannerly yeoman. 'If +you were a gentleman,' he said, 'you should pay dearly for your +insolence.' 'I'm ready to pay any price you like,' answered James +Halliday, as bold as brass; 'but as you weren't over fond of fighting +abroad, where there was plenty to be got for it, I don't suppose you +want to fight at home, where there's nothing to be got for it.'" + +"And did Susan Meynell hear this?" I asked. I could fancy this +ill-fated girl standing by and looking on aghast while hard things were +said to the man she loved, while the silver veil of sweet romance was +plucked so roughly from the countenance of her idol by an angry +rustic's rude hand. + +"Well, I don't quite know whether she heard all," answered Mr. Mercer, +thoughtfully. "Of course, James Halliday told his wife all about the +row afterwards. He was very kind to his sister-in-law, in spite of her +having deceived him; and he talked to her very seriously, telling her +all he had heard in Barngrave against Montagu Kingdon. She listened to +him quietly enough, but it was quite clear that she didn't believe a +word he said. 'I know you have heard all that, James,' she said; 'but +the people who said it knew they were not telling the truth. Lord +Durnsville and his brother are not popular in the country, and there +are no falsehoods too cruel for the malice of his enemies.' She +answered him with some such fine speech as that, and when the next +morning came she was gone." + +"She eloped with Mr. Kingdon?" + +"Yes. She left a letter for her sister, full of romantic stuff about +loving him all the better because people spoke ill of him; regular +woman's talk, you know, bless their poor silly hearts!" murmured Mr. +Mercer, with tender compassion. "She was going to London to be married +to Mr. Kingdon, she wrote. They were to be married at the old church in +the city where she had been christened, and she was going to stay with +an old friend--a young woman who had once been her brother's +sweetheart, and who was married to a butcher in Newgate-market--till +the bans were given out, or the license bought. The butcher's wife had +a country-house out at Edmonton, and it was there Susan was going to +stay." + +"All that seemed straightforward enough," said I. + +"Yes," replied uncle Joe; "but if Mr. Kingdon had meant fairly by Susan +Meynell, it would have been as easy for him to marry her at Barngrave +as in London. He was as poor as a church mouse, but he was his own +master, and there was no one to prevent him doing just what he pleased. +This is about what James Halliday thought, I suppose; for he tore off +to London, as fast as post-horses could carry him, in pursuit of his +wife's sister and Mr. Kingdon. But though he made inquiries all along +the road he could not hear that they had passed before him, and for the +best of all reasons. He went to the butcher's house at Edmonton; but +there he found no trace of Susan Meynell, except a letter posted in +Yorkshire, on the day of the row between James and Mr. Kingdon, telling +her intention of visiting her old friend within the next few days, and +hinting at an approaching marriage. There was the letter announcing the +visit, but the visitor had not come." + +"But the existence of that letter bears witness that Miss Meynell +believed in the honesty of her lover's intentions." + +"To be sure it does, poor lass," answered Mr. Mercer pensively. "She +believed in the word of a scoundrel, and she was made to pay dearly for +her simplicity. James Halliday did all he could to find her. He +searched London through, as far as any man can search such a place as +London; but it was no use, and for a very good reason, as I said +before. The end of it was, he was obliged to go back to Newhall no +wiser than when he started." + +"And was nothing further ever discovered?" I asked eagerly, for I felt +that this was just one of those family complications from which all +manner of legal difficulties might arise. + +"Don't be in a hurry, my lad," answered uncle Joe; "wickedness is sure +to come to light sooner or later. Three years after this poor young +woman ran away there was a drunken groom dismissed from Lord +Durnsville's stable; and what must he needs do but come straight off to +James Halliday, to vent his spite against his master, and perhaps to +curry favour at Newhall. 'You shouldn't have gone to London to look for +the young lady, Muster Halliday,' he said; 'you should have gone the +other way. I know a man as drove Mr. Kingdon and your wife's sister +across country to Hull with two of my lord's own horses, stopping to +bait on the way. They went aboard ship at Hull, Mr. Kingdon and the +young lady--a ship that was bound for foreign parts.' This is what the +groom said; but it was little good knowing it now. There'd been +advertisements in the papers beseeching her to come back; and +everything had been done that could be done, and all to no end. A few +years after this back comes Mr. Kingdon as large as life, married to +some dark-faced, frizzy-haired lady, whose father owned half the +Indies, according to people's talk: but he fought very shy of James +Halliday; but when they did meet one day at the covert side, Jim rode +up to the honourable gentleman and asked him what he had done with +Susan Meynell. Those that saw the meeting say that Montagu Kingdon +turned as white as a ghost when he saw Jim Halliday riding up to him on +his big, raw-boned horse; but nothing came of the quarrel. Mr. Kingdon +did not live many years to enjoy the money his frizzy-haired +West-Indian lady brought him. He died before his brother, Lord +Durnsville, and left neither chick nor child to inherit his money, nor +yet the Durnsville title, which was extinct on the death of the +viscount." + +"And what of the poor girl?" + +"Ay, poor lass, what of her? It was fourteen years after she left her +home before her sister got so much as a line to say she was in the land +of the living. When a letter did come at last, it was a very melancholy +one. The poor creature wrote to her sister to say she was in London, +alone and penniless, and, as she thought, dying." + +"And the sister went to her?" + +I remembered that deprecating sentence in the family Bible, written in +a woman's hand. + +"That she did, good honest soul, as fast as she could travel, carrying +a full purse along with her. She found poor Susan at an inn near +Aldersgate-street--the old quarter, you see, that she'd known in her +young days. Mrs. Halliday meant to have brought the poor soul back to +Yorkshire, and had settled it all with Jim; but it was too late for +anything of that kind. She found Susan dying, wandering in her mind off +and on, but just able to recognise her sister, and to ask forgiveness +for having trusted to Montagu Kingdon, instead of taking counsel from +those that wished her well." + +"Was that all?" I asked presently. + +Mr. Mercer made long pauses in the course of his narrative, during +which we walked briskly on; he pondering on those past events, I +languishing for further information. + +"Well, lad, that was about all. Where Susan had been in all those +years, or what she had been doing, was more than Mrs. Halliday could +find out. Of late she had been living somewhere abroad. The clothes she +had last worn were of foreign make, very poor and threadbare; and there +was one little box in her room at the inn that had been made at Rouen, +for the name of a Rouen trunkmaker was on the inside of the lid. There +were no letters or papers of any kind in the box; so you see there was +no way of finding out what the poor creature's life had been. All her +sister could do was to stay with her and comfort her to the last, and +to see that she was quietly laid to rest in a decent grave. She was +buried in a quiet little city churchyard, somewhere where there are +green trees among the smoke of the chimney-pots. Montagu Kingdon had +been dead some years when that happened." + +"Is that last letter still in existence?" I asked. + +"Yes; my first wife kept it with the rest of her family letters and +papers. Dorothy takes care of them now. We country folks set store by +those sort of things, you know." + +I would fain have asked Mr. Mercer to let me see this last letter +written by Susan Meynell; but what excuse could I devise for so doing? +I was completely fettered by my promise to George Sheldon, and could +offer no reasonable pretence for my curiosity. + +There was one point which I was bound to push home in the interests of +my Sheldon, or, shall I not rather say, of my Charlotte? That +all-important point was the question of marriage or no marriage. "You +feel quite clear as to the fact that Montagu Kingdon never did marry +this young woman?" I said. + +"Well, yes," replied uncle Joe; "that was proved beyond doubt, I'm +sorry to say. Mr. Kingdon never could have dared to come back here with +his West-Indian wife in poor Susan Meynell's lifetime if he had really +married her." + +"And how about the lady he was said to have married in Spain?" + +"I can't say anything about that. It may have been only a scandal, or, +if there was a marriage, it may have been illegal. The Kingdons were +Protestants, and the Spaniards are all papists, I suppose. A marriage +between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic wouldn't be binding." + +"Not upon such a man as this Kingdon." + +It seems more than probable that the opinion arrived at by this poor +soul's friends must be correct, and that Montagu Kingdon was a +scoundrel. But how about Susan Meynell's after-life?--the fourteen +years in which she was lost sight of? May she not have married some one +else than Mr. Kingdon? and may she not have left heirs who will arise +in the future to dispute my darling's claim? + +Is it a good thing to have a great inheritance? The day has been when +such a question as that could not by any possibility have shaped itself +in my mind. Ah! what is this subtle power called love, which worketh +such wondrous changes in the human heart? Surely the miracle of the +cleansed leper is in some manner typical of this transformation. The +emanation of divine purity encircled the leper with its supernal +warmth, and the scales fell away beneath that mysterious influence. And +so from the pure heart of a woman issues a celestial fire which burns +the plague-spot out of the sinner's breast. Ah, how I languish to be at +my darling's feet, thanking her for the cure she has wrought! + +I have given my Sheldon the story of Susan Meynell's life, as I had it +from uncle Joseph. He agrees with me as to the importance of Susan's +last letter, but even that astute creature does not see a way to +getting the document in his hands without letting Mr. Mercer more or +less into our secret. + +"I might tell this man Mercer some story about a little bit of money +coming to his niece, and get at Susan Meynell's letter that way," he +said; "but whatever I told him would be sure to get round to Philip +somehow or other, and I don't want to put him on the scent." + +My Sheldon's legal mind more than ever inclines to caution, now that he +knows the heiress of the Haygarths is so nearly allied to his brother +Philip. + +"I'll tell you what it is, Hawkehurst," he said to me, after we had +discussed the business in all its bearings, "there are not many people +I'm afraid of, but I don't mind owning to you that I am afraid of my +brother Phil. He has always walked over my head; partly because he can +wear his shirt-front all through business hours without creasing it, +which I can't, and partly because he's--well--more unscrupulous than I +am." + +He paused meditatively, and I too was meditative; for I could not +choose but wonder what it was to be more unscrupulous than George +Sheldon. + +"If he were to get an inkling of this affair," my patron resumed +presently, "he'd take it out of our hands before you could say Jack +Robinson--supposing anybody ever wanted to say Jack Robinson, which +they don't--and he'd drive a bargain with us, instead of our driving a +bargain with him." + +My friend of Gray's Inn has a pleasant way of implying that our +interests are coequal in this affair. I caught him watching me +curiously once or twice during our last interview, when Charlotte's +name was mentioned. Does he suspect the truth, I wonder? + +_Nov. 12th_. I had another interview with my patron yesterday, and +rather a curious interview, though not altogether unsatisfactory. +George Sheldon has been making good use of his time since my return +from Yorkshire. + +"I don't think we need have any fear of opposition from children or +grandchildren of Susan Meynell," he said; "I have found the registry of +her interment in the churchyard of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. She is +described in that registry by her maiden name, and there is a plain +headstone in a corner of the ground, inscribed with the name of Susan +Meynell, who died July 14th, 1835, much lamented; and then the text +about 'the one sinner that repenteth,' and so on," said Mr. Sheldon, as +if he did not care to dwell on so hackneyed a truism. + +"But," I began, "she might have been married, in spite of--" + +"Yes, she might," replied my Sheldon, captiously; "but then, you see, +the probability is that she wasn't. If she had been married, she would +have told her sister as much in that last letter, or she would have +said as much when they met." + +"But she was delirious." + +"Not all the time. She was sensible enough to talk about her sorrow for +the past, and so on; and she must have been sensible enough to have +spoken of her children, if she had ever had any. Besides, if she had +been married, she would scarcely have been wandering about the world in +that miserable manner, unless her husband was an uncommonly bad lot. +No, Hawkehurst, depend upon it, we've nothing to fear in that quarter. +The person we have to fear is that precious brother of mine." + +"You talked the other day about driving a bargain with him," I said; "I +didn't quite understand your meaning. The fortune can only be claimed +by Char--Miss Halliday, and your brother has no legal authority to +dispose of her money." + +"Of course not," answered my employer, with contemptuous impatience of +my dulness; "but my brother Phil is not the man to wait for legal +power. His ideas will be Miss Halliday's ideas in this business. When +my case is ripe for action, I shall make my bargain--half the fortune +to be mine from the day of its recovery. A deed containing these +conditions must be executed by Charlotte Halliday before I hand over a +single document relating to the case. Now, as matters stand at +present," he went on, looking very fixedly at me, "her execution of +that deed would rest with Philip." + +"And when shall you make your overtures to Mr. Sheldon?" I asked, at a +loss to understand that intent look. + +"Not until the last links of the chain are put together. Not before I'm +ready to make my first move on the Chancellor's chessboard. Perhaps not +at all." + +"How do you mean?" + +"If I can tide over for a little time, I may throw Philip overboard +altogether, and get some one else to manage Miss Halliday for me." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I'll tell you, Hawkehurst," answered my patron, resting his elbows on +the table by which we were sitting, and looking me through with those +penetrating black eyes of his. "My brother Phil played me a shabby +trick a few years ago, which I have not forgotten or forgiven. So I +shouldn't mind paying him out in some of his own coin. Beyond which, I +tell you again, I don't like the idea of his having a finger in this +business. Where that kind of man's finger can go, his whole hand will +follow; and if once that hand fastens on John Haygarth's money, it'll +be bad times for you and me. Miss Halliday counts for exactly nothing +in my way of reckoning. If her stepfather told her to sign away half a +million, she'd scribble her name at the bottom of the paper, and press +her pretty little thumb upon the wafer, without asking a single +question as to the significance of the document. And, of course, she'd +be still less inclined to make objections if it was her husband who +asked her to execute the deed. Aha! my young friend, how is it you grow +first red and then white when I mention Miss Halliday's husband?" + +I have no doubt that I did indeed blanch when that portentous word was +uttered in conjunction with my darling's name. Mr. Sheldon leant a +little further across the table, and his hard black eyes penetrated a +little deeper into the recesses of my foolish heart. + +"Valentine Hawkehurst," he said, "shall we throw my brother Phil +overboard altogether? Shall you and I go shares in this fortune?" + +"Upon my word and honour I don't understand you," I said, in all +sincerity. + +"You mean that you won't understand me," answered George Sheldon, +impatiently; "but I'll make myself pretty clear presently; and as your +own interest is at stake, you'll be very unlike the rest of your +species if you don't find it easy enough to understand me. When first I +let you in for the chance of a prize out of this business, neither you +nor I had the slightest idea that circumstances would throw the +rightful claimant to the Haygarth estate so completely into our way. I +had failed so many times with other cases before I took up this case, +that it's a wonder I had the courage to work on. But, somehow or other, +I had a notion that this particular business would turn up trumps. The +way seemed a little clearer than it usually is; but not clear enough to +tempt Tom, Dick, and Harry. And then, again, I had learnt a good many +secrets from the experience of my failures. I was well up to my work. I +might have carried it on, and I ought to have carried it on, without +help; but I was getting worn out and lazy, so I let you into my secret, +having taken it into my head that I could venture to trust you." + +"You didn't trust me further than you could help, my friend," I replied +with my usual candour. "You never told me the amount left by the +reverend intestate; but I heard that down at Ullerton. A half share in +a hundred thousand pounds is worth trying for, Mr. Sheldon." + +"They call it a hundred thousand down there, do they?" asked the +lawyer, with charming innocence. "Those country people always deal in +high figures. However, I don't mind owning that the sum is a handsome +one, and if you and I play our cards wisely, we may push Philip out of +the game altogether, and share the plunder between us." + +Again I was obliged to confess myself unable to grasp my employer's +meaning. + +"Marry Charlotte Halliday out of hand," he said, bringing his eyes and +his elbows still nearer to me, until his bushy black whiskers almost +touched my face. "Marry her before Philip gets an inkling of this +affair, and then, instead of being made a tool of by him, she'll be +safe in your hands, and the money will be in your hands into the +bargain. Why, how you stare, man! Do you think I haven't seen how the +land lies between you two? Haven't I dined at Bayswater when you've +been there? and could any man with his wits about him see you two +sentimental young simpletons together _without_ seeing how things were +going on? You are in love with Charlotte, and Charlotte is in love with +you. What more natural than that you two should make a match of it? +Charlotte is her own mistress, and hasn't sixpence in the world that +any one but you and I know of; for, of course, my brother Phil will +continue to stick to every penny of poor old Tom's money. All you have +to do is to follow up the young lady; it's the course that would +suggest itself to any man in the same case, even if Miss Halliday were +the ugliest old harridan in Christendom, instead of being a very jolly +kind of girl, as girls go." + +My employer said this with the tone of a man who had never considered +the genus girl a very interesting part of creation. I suppose I looked +at him rather indignantly; for he laughed as he resumed,-- + +"I'll say she's an angel, if you like," he said; "and if you think her +one, so much the better. You may consider it a very lucky thing that +you came in my way, and a still more lucky thing that Miss Halliday has +been silly enough to fall in love with you. I've heard of men being +born with silver spoons in their mouths; but I should think you must +have come into the world with a whole service of plate. However, that +is neither here nor there. Your policy will be to follow up your +advantages; and if you can persuade the young lady to change her name +for Hawkehurst on the quiet some fine morning, without stopping to ask +permission of her stepfather, or any one else, so much the better for +you, and so much the more agreeable to me. I'd rather do business with +you than with my brother Phil; and I shan't be sorry to cry quits with +that gentleman for the shabby trick he played me a few years ago." + +My Sheldon's brow darkened as he said this, and the moody fit returned. +That old grudge which my patron entertains against his brother must +have relation to some very disagreeable business, if I may judge by +George Sheldon's manner. + +Here was a position for me, Valentine Hawkehurst, soldier of fortune, +cosmopolitan adventurer, and child of the nomadic tribes who call +Bohemia their mother country! Already blest with the sanction of my +dear love's simple Yorkshire kindred, I was now assured of George +Sheldon's favour; nay, urged onward in my paradisiac path by that +unsentimental Mentor. The situation was almost too much for my +bewildered brain. Charlotte an heiress, and George Sheldon eager to +bring about my participation in the Haygarthian thousands! + +And now I sit in my little room in Omega-street, pondering upon the +past, and trying to face the perplexities of the future. + +Is this to be? Am I, so hopeless an outsider in the race of life, to +come in with a rush and win the prize which Fortune's first favourite +might envy? Can I hope or believe it? Can the Fates have been playing a +pleasant practical joke with me all this time, like those fairies who +decree that the young prince shall pass his childhood and youth in the +guise of a wild boar, only to be transformed into an Adonis at last by +the hand of the woman who is disinterested enough to love him despite +his formidable tusks and ungainly figure? + +No! a thousand times no! The woman I love, and the fortune I have so +often desired, are not for me. Every man has his own especial Fates; +and the three sisters who take care of me are grim, hard-visaged, +harder-hearted spinsters, not to be mollified by propitiation, or by +the smooth tongue of the flatterer. The cup is very sweet, and it seems +almost within my grasp; but between that chalice of delight and the +lips that thirst for it, ah, what a gulf! + +_Nov. 13th_. The above was written late at night, and under the +influence of my black dog. What an ill-conditioned cur he is, and how +he mouths and mangles the roses that bestrew his pathway, always bent +upon finding the worm at the core! + +I kicked the brute out of doors this morning, on finding a letter from +my dear one lying in my plate. "Avaunt, aroint thee, foul fiend!" I +cried. "Thou art the veritable poodle in whose skin Mephistopheles +hides when bent on direst mischief. I will set the sign of the cross +upon my threshold, and thou shalt enter no more." + +This is what I said to myself as I tore open Charlotte's envelope, with +its pretty little motto stamped on cream-coloured sealing-wax, "_Pensez +a moi._" Ah, love; "while memory holds a seat in this distracted +globe." I saw the eyes of my friend Horatio fixed upon me as I opened +my letter, and knew that my innermost sentiments were under inspection. +Prudence demands all possible caution where the noble Captain is +concerned. I cannot bring myself to put implicit faith in his account +of his business at Ullerton. He may have been there, as he says, on +some promoting spec; but our meeting in that town was, to say the +least, a strange coincidence, and I am not a believer in +coincidences--off the stage, where a gentleman invariably makes his +appearance directly his friends begin to talk about him. + +I cannot forget my conviction that Jonah Goodge was bought over by a +rival investigator, and that Rebecca Haygarth's letters were tampered +with; nor can I refrain from connecting that shapely but well-worn +lavender glove with the person of my dandy friend, Horatio Paget. The +disappearance of a letter from the packet intrusted to me by Miss +Judson is another mysterious circumstance; nor can I do away with the +impression that I heard the name Meynell distinctly pronounced by +Philip Sheldon the last time I was at the villa. + +George Sheldon tells me the secret cannot by any possibility have been +betrayed, unless by me; and I have been prudence itself. + +Supposing my suspicions of Mr. Goodge to be correct, the letters +extracted from Mrs. Rebecca's correspondence might tell much, and might +even put Horatio on the track of the Meynells. But how should he get +his first inkling of the business? + +Certainly not from me or from George Sheldon. But might not his +attention have been attracted by that advertisement for heirs-at-law to +the Haygarthian estate which appeared in the _Times_? + +These are questions with which the legal intellect of my Sheldon may +best grapple. For myself, I can only drift with the resistless stream +called life. + +I was so unfortunate as to make my appearance in our common +sitting-room five minutes after my patron. There had been time enough +for him to examine the superscription and postmark of my letter. He was +whistling when I went into the room. People who have been looking at +things that don't belong to them always whistle. + +I did not care to read Charlotte's first letter with those hawk's eyes +fixed upon me. So I just glanced at the dear handwriting, as if running +over an ordinary letter with the eye of indifference, and then put the +document into my pocket with the best assumption of carelessness I was +capable of. How I longed for the end of that tedious meal, over which +Captain Paget lingered in his usual epicurean fashion! + +My friend Horatio has shown himself not a little curious about my late +absence from the joint domicile. I again resorted to the Dorking +fiction,--my aged aunt breaking fast, and requiring much propitiation +from a dutiful nephew with an eye to her testamentary arrangements. I +had been compelled to endow my shadowy relative with a comfortable +little bit of money, in order to account for my devotion; since the +powerful mind of my Horatio would have refused to grasp the idea of +disinterested affection for an ancient kinswoman. + +There was an ominous twinkle in the Captain's sharp gray eyes when I +gave this account of my absence, and I sorely doubt his acceptance of +this second volume of the Dorking romance. Ah, what a life it is we +lead in the tents of Ishmael, the cast-away! through what tortuous +pathways wander the nomad tribes who call Hagar, the abandoned, their +mother! what lies, what evasions, what prevarications! Horatio Paget +and I watch each other like two cunning fencers, with a stereotyped +smile upon our lips and an eager restlessness in our eyes, and who +shall say that one or other of our rapiers is not poisoned, as in the +famous duel before Claudius, usurper of Denmark? My dear one's letter +is all sweetness and love. She is coming home; and much as she prefers +Yorkshire to Bayswater, she is pleased to return for my sake--for my +sake. She leaves the pure atmosphere of that simple country home to +become the central point in a network of intrigue; and I am bound to +keep the secret so closely interwoven with her fate. I love her more +truly, more purely than I thought myself capable of loving; yet I can +only approach her as the tool of George Sheldon, a rapacious +conspirator, bent on securing the hoarded thousands of old John +Haygarth. + +Of all men upon this earth I should be the last to underrate the +advantages of wealth,--I who have been reared in the gutter, which is +Poverty's cradle. Yet I would fain Charlotte's fortune had come to her +in any other fashion than as the result of my work in the character of +a salaried private inquirer. + + + + + +BOOK THE SEVENTH. + + +CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +"IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG." + + +Miss Halliday returned to the gothic villa at Bayswater with a bloom on +her cheeks, and a brightness in her eyes, which surpassed her wonted +bloom and brightness, fair and bright as her beauty had been from the +hour in which she was created to charm mankind. She had been a creature +to adore even in the first dawn of infancy, and in her christening-hood +and toga of white satin had been a being to dream of. But now she +seemed invested all at once with a new loveliness--more spiritual, more +pensive, than the old. + +Might not Valentine have cried, with the rapturous pride of a lover: +"Look at the woman here with the new soul!" and anon: "This new soul is +mine!" + +It was love that had imparted a new charm to Miss Halliday's beauty. +Diana wondered at the subtle change as her friend sat in her favourite +window on the morning after her return, looking dreamily out into the +blossomless garden, where evergreens of the darkest and spikiest +character stood up stern and straight against the cold gray sky. Diana +had welcomed her friend in her usual reserved manner, much to +Charlotte's discomfiture. The girl so yearned for a confidante. She had +no idea of hiding her happiness from this chosen friend, and waited +eagerly for the moment in which she could put her arms round Diana's +neck and tell her what it was that had made Newhall so sweet to her +during this particular visit. + +She sat in the window this morning thinking of Valentine, and +languishing to speak of him, but at a loss how to begin. There are some +people about whose necks the arms of affection can scarce entwine +themselves. Diana Paget sat at her eternal embroidery-frame, picking up +beads on her needle with the precision of some self-feeding machine. +The little glass beads made a hard clicking sound as they dropped from +her needle,--a very frosty, unpromising sound, as it seemed to +Charlotte's hyper-sensitive ear. + +There had been an unwonted reserve between the girls since Charlotte's +return,--a reserve which arose, on Miss Halliday's part, from the +contest between girlish shyness and the eager desire for a confidante; +and on the part of Miss Paget, from that gloomy discontent which had of +late possessed her. + +She watched Charlotte furtively as she picked up her beads--watched her +wonderingly, unable to comprehend the happiness that gave such +spiritual brightness to her eyes. It was no longer the childlike gaiety +of heart which had made Miss Halliday's girlhood so pleasant. It was +the thoughtful, serene delight of womanhood. + +"She can care very little for Valentine," Diana thought, "or she could +scarcely seem so happy after such a long separation. I doubt if these +bewitching women who enchant all the world know what it is to feel +deeply. Happiness is a habit with this girl. Valentine's attentions +were very pleasant to her. The pretty little romance was very agreeable +while it lasted; but at the first interruption of the story she shuts +the book, and thinks of it no more. O, if my Creator had made _me_ like +that! If I could forget the days we spent together, and the dream I +dreamt!" + +That never-to-be-forgotten vision came back to Diana Paget as she sat +at her work; and for a few minutes the clicking sound of the beads +ceased, while she waited with clasped hands until the shadows should +have passed before her eyes. The old dream came back to her like a +picture, bright with colour and light. But the airy habitation which +she had built for herself of old was no "palace lifting to Italian +heavens its marble roof." It was only a commonplace lodging in a street +running out of the Strand, with just a peep of the river from a trim +little balcony. An airy second-floor sitting-room, with engraved +portraits of the great writers on the newly-papered walls: on one side +an office-desk, on the other a work-table. The unpretending shelter of +a newspaper hack, who lives _a jour la journee_, and whose wife must +achieve wonders in the way of domestic economy in order to eke out his +modest earnings. + +This was Diana Paget's vision of Paradise, and it seemed only the +brighter now that she felt it was never to be anything more than a +supernal picture painted on her brain. + +After sitting silent for some little time, eager to talk, but waiting +to be interrogated, Charlotte was fain to break silence. + +"You don't ask me whether I enjoyed myself in Yorkshire, Di," she said, +looking shyly down at the little bunch of charms and lockets which +employed her restless fingers. + +"Didn't I, really?" replied Diana, languidly; "I thought that was one +of the stereotyped inquiries one always made." + +"I hope you wouldn't make stereotyped inquiries of _me_, Diana." + +"No, I ought not to do so. But I think there are times when one is +artificial even with one's best friends. And you are my best friend, +Charlotte. I may as well say my only friend," the girl added, with a +laugh. + +"Diana," cried Charlotte, reproachfully, "why do you speak so bitterly? +You know how dearly I love you. I do, indeed, dear. There is scarcely +anything in this world I would not do for you. But I am not your only +friend. There is Mr. Hawkehurst, whom you have known so long." + +Miss Halliday's face was in a flame; and although she bent very low to +examine the golden absurdities hanging on her watch-chain, she could +not conceal her blushes from the eyes that were so sharpened by +jealousy. + +"Mr. Hawkehurst!" cried Diana, with unspeakable contempt. "If I were +drowning, do you think _he_ would stretch out his hand to save me while +you were within his sight? When he comes to this house--he who has seen +so much poverty, and misery, and shame, and--happiness with me and +mine--do you think he so much as remembers my existence? Do you think +he ever stops to consider whether I am that Diana Paget who was once +his friend and confidante and fellow-wayfarer and companion? or only a +lay figure dressed up to fill a vacant chair in your drawing-room?" + +"Diana!" + +"It is all very well to look at me reproachfully, Charlotte. You must +know that I am speaking the truth. You talk of friendship. What is that +word worth if it does not mean care and thought for another? Do you +imagine that Valentine Hawkehurst ever thinks of me, or considers me?" + +Charlotte was fain to keep silence. She remembered how very rarely, in +those long afternoons at Newhall farm, the name of Diana Paget had been +mentioned. She remembered how, when she and Valentine were mapping out +the future so pleasantly, she had stopped in the midst of an eloquent +bit of word-painting, descriptive of the little suburban cottage they +were to live in, to dispose of Diana's fate in a sentence,-- + +"And dear Di can stop at the villa to take care of mamma," she had +said; whereupon Mr. Hawkehurst had assented, with a careless nod, and +the description of the ideal cottage had been continued. + +Charlotte remembered this now with extreme contrition. She had been so +supremely happy, and so selfish in her happiness. + +"O, Di," she cried, "how selfish happy people are!" And then she +stopped in confusion, perceiving that the remark had little relevance +to Diana's last observation. + +"Valentine shall be your friend, dear," she said, after a pause. + +"O, you are beginning to answer for him already!" exclaimed Miss Paget, +with increasing bitterness. + +"Diana, why are you so unkind to me?" Charlotte cried, passionately. +"Don't you see that I am longing to confide in you? What is it that +makes you so bitter? You must know how truly I love you. And if Mr. +Hawkehurst is not what he once was to you, you must remember how cold +and distant you always are in your manner to him. I am sure, to hear +you speak to him, and to see you look at him sometimes, one would think +he was positively hateful to you. And I want you to like him a little +for my sake." + +Miss Halliday left her seat by the window as she said this, and went +towards the table by which her friend was sitting. She crept close to +Diana, and with a half-frightened, half-caressing movement, seated +herself on the low ottoman at her feet, and, seated thus, possessed +herself of Miss Paget's cold hand. + +"I want you to like Mr. Hawkehurst a little, Di," she repeated, "for my +sake." + +"Very well, I will try to like him a little--for your sake," answered +Miss Paget, in a very unsympathetic tone. + +"O, Di! tell me how it was he offended you." + +"Who told you that he offended me?" + +"Your own manner, dear. You could never have been so cold and distant +with him--having known him so long, and endured so many troubles in his +company--if you had not been deeply offended by him." + +"That is your idea, Charlotte; but, you see, I am very unlike you. I am +fitful and capricious. I used to like Mr. Hawkehurst, and now I dislike +him. As to offence, his whole life has offended me, just as my father's +life has offended me, from first to last. I am not good and amiable and +loving, like you; but I hate deceptions and lies; above all, the lies +that some men traffic in day after day." + +"Was Valentine's--was your father's life a very bad one?" Charlotte +asked, trembling palpably, and looking up at Miss Paget's face with +anxious eyes. + +"Yes, it was a mean false life,--a life of trick and artifice. I do not +know the details of the schemes by which my father and Valentine earned +their daily bread--and my daily bread; but I know they inflicted loss +upon other people. Whether the wrong done was always done deliberately +and consciously upon Valentine's part, I cannot say. He may have been +only a tool of my father's. I hope he was, for the most part an +unconscious tool." + +She said all this in a dreamy way, as if uttering her own thoughts, +rather than seeking to enlighten Charlotte. + +"I am sure he was an unconscious tool," cried that young lady, with an +air of conviction; "it is not in his nature to do anything false or +dishonourable." + +"Indeed! you know him very well, it seems," said Diana. + +Ah, what a tempest was raging in that proud passionate heart! what a +strife between the powers of good and evil! Pitying love for Charlotte; +tender compassion for her rival's childlike helplessness; and +unutterable sense of her own loss. + +She had loved him so dearly, and he was taken from her. There had been +a time when he almost loved her--almost! Yes, it was the remembrance of +that which made the trial so bitter. The cup had approached her lips, +only to be dashed away for ever. + +"What did I ask in life except his love?" she said to herself. "Of all +the pleasures and triumphs which girls of my age enjoy, is there one +that I ever envied? No, I only sighed for his love. To live in a +lodging-house parlour with him, to sit by and watch him at his work, to +drudge for him, to bear with him--this was my brightest dream of +earthly bliss; and she has broken it!" + +It was thus Diana argued with herself, as she sat looking down at the +bright creature who had done her this worst, last wrong which one woman +can do to another. This passionate heart, which ached with such cruel +pain, was prone to evil, and to-day the scorpion Jealousy was digging +his sharp tooth into its very core. It was not possible for Diana Paget +to feel kindly disposed towards the girl whose unconscious hand had +shattered the airy castle of her dreams. Was it not a hard thing that +the bright creature, whom every one was ready to adore, must needs +steal away this one heart? + +"It has always been like this," thought Diana. "The story of David and +Nathan is a parable that is perpetually being illustrated. David is so +rich--he is lord of incalculable flocks and herds; but he will not be +content till he has stolen the one little ewe lamb, the poor man's pet +and darling." + +"Diana," said Miss Halliday very softly, "you are so difficult to talk +to this morning, and I have so much to say to you." + +"About your visit, or about Mr. Hawkehurst?" + +"About--Yorkshire," answered Charlotte, with the air of a shy child who +has made her appearance at dessert, and is asked whether she will have +a pear or a peach. + +"About Yorkshire!" repeated Miss Paget, with a little sigh of relief. +"I shall be very glad to hear about your Yorkshire friends. Was the +visit a pleasant one?" + +"Very, very pleasant!" answered Charlotte, dwelling tenderly on the +words. + +"How sentimental you have grown, Lotta! I think you must have found a +forgotten shelf of Minerva Press novels in some cupboard at your +aunt's. You have lost all your vivacity." + +"Have I?" murmured Charlotte; "and yet I am happier than I was when I +went away. Whom do you think I met at Newhall, Di?" + +"I have not the slightest idea. My notions of Yorkshire are very vague. +I fancy the people amiable savages; just a little in advance of the +ancient Britons whom Julius Caesar came over to conquer. Whom did you +meet there? Some country squire, I suppose, who fell in love with your +bright eyes, and wished you to waste the rest of your existence in +those northern wilds." + +Miss Paget was not a woman to bare her wounds for the scrutiny of the +friendliest eyes. Let the tooth of the serpent bite never so keenly, +she could meet her sorrows with a bold front. Was she not accustomed to +suffer--she, the scapegoat of defrauded nurses and indignant +landladies, the dependent and drudge of her kinswoman's gynaeceum, the +despised of her father? The flavour of these waters was very familiar +to her lips. The draught was only a little more acrid, a little deeper, +and habit had enabled her to drain the cup without complaining, if not +in a spirit of resignation. To-day she had been betrayed into a brief +outbreak of passion; but the storm had passed, and a more observant +person than Charlotte might have been deceived by her manner. + +"Now you are my own Di again," cried Miss Halliday; somewhat cynical at +the best of times, but always candid and true. + +Miss Paget winced ever so little as her friend said this. + +"No, dear," continued Charlotte, with the faintest spice of coquetry; +"it was not a Yorkshire squire. It was a person you know very well; a +person we have been talking of this morning. O, Di, you must surely +have understood me when I said I wanted you to like him for my sake!" + +"Valentine Hawkehurst!" exclaimed Diana. + +"Who else, you dear obtuse Di!" + +"He was in Yorkshire?" + +"Yes, dear. It was the most wonderful thing that ever happened. He +marched up to Newhall gate one morning in the course of his rambles, +without having the least idea that I was to be found in the +neighbourhood. Wasn't it wonderful?" + +"What could have taken him to Yorkshire?" + +"He came on business." + +"But what business?" + +"How do I know? Some business of papa's, or of George Sheldon's, +perhaps. And yet that can't be. He is writing a book, I think, about +geology or archaeology--yes, that's it, archaeology." + +"Valentine Hawkehurst writing a book on archaeology!" cried Miss Paget. +"You must be dreaming, Charlotte." + +"Why so? He does write, does he not?" + +"He has been reporter for a newspaper. But he is the last person to +write about archaeology. I think there must be some mistake." + +"Well, dear, it may be so. I didn't pay much attention to what he said +about business. It seemed so strange for him to be there, just as much +at home as if he had been one of the family. O, Di, you can't imagine +how kind aunt Dorothy and uncle Joe were to him! They like him so +much--and they know we are engaged." + +Miss Halliday said these last words almost in a whisper. + +"What!" exclaimed Diana, "do you mean to say that you have promised to +marry this man, of whom you know nothing but what is unfavourable?" + +"What do I know in his disfavour? Ah, Diana, how unkind you are! and +what a dislike you must have for poor Valentine! Of course, I know he +is not what people call a good match. A good match means that one is to +have a pair of horses, whose health is so uncertain that I am sure +their lives must be a burden to them, if we may judge by our horses; +and a great many servants, who are always conducting themselves in the +most awful manner, if poor mamma's experience is any criterion; and a +big expensive house, which nobody can be prevailed on to dust. No, Di! +that is just the kind of life I hate. What I should like is a dear +little cottage at Highgate or Wimbledon, and a tiny, tiny garden, in +which Valentine and I could walk every morning before he began his +day's work, and where we could drink tea together on summer evenings--a +garden just large enough to grow a few rose-bushes. O. Di! do you think +I want to marry a rich man?" + +"No, Charlotte; but I should think you would like to marry a good man." + +"Valentine is good. No one but a good man could have been so happy as +he seemed at Newhall farm. That simple country life could not have been +happiness for a bad man." + +"And was Valentine Hawkehurst really happy at Newhall?" + +"Really--really--really! Don't try to shake my faith in him, Diana; it +is not to be shaken. He has told me a little about the past, though I +can see that it pains him very much to speak of it. He has told me of +his friendless youth, spent amongst unprincipled people, and what a +mere waif and stray he was until he met me. And I am to be his +pole-star, dear, to guide him in the right path. Do you know, Di, I +cannot picture to myself anything sweeter than that--to be a good +influence for the person one loves. Valentine says his whole nature has +undergone a change since he has known me. What am I that I should work +so good a change in my dear one? It is very foolish, is it not, Di?" + +"Yes, Charlotte," replied the voice of reason from the lips of Miss +Paget; "it is all foolishness from beginning to end, and I can foresee +nothing but trouble as the result of such folly. What will your mamma +say to such an engagement? or what will Mr. Sheldon say?" + +"Yes, that is the question," returned Charlotte, very seriously. "Dear +mamma is one of the kindest creatures in the world, and I'm sure she +would consent to anything rather than see me unhappy. And then, you +know, she likes Valentine very much, because he has given her orders +for the theatres, and all that kind of thing. But, whatever mamma +thinks, she will be governed by what Mr. Sheldon thinks; and of course +he will be against our marriage." + +"Our marriage!" It was a settled matter, then--a thing that was to be +sooner or later; and there remained only the question as to how and +when it was to be. Diana sat like a statue, enduring her pain. So may +have suffered the Christian martyrs in their death-agony; so suffers a +woman when the one dear hope of her life is reft from her, and she dare +not cry aloud. + +"Mr. Sheldon is the last man in the world to permit such a marriage," +she said presently. + +"Perhaps," replied Charlotte; "but I am not going to sacrifice +Valentine for Mr. Sheldon's pleasure. Mr. Sheldon has full power over +mamma and her fortune, but he has no real authority where I am +concerned. I am as free as air, Diana, and I have not a penny in the +world. Is not that delightful?" + +The girl asked this question in all good faith, looking up at her +friend with a radiant countenance. What irony there was in the question +for Diana Paget, whose whole existence had been poisoned by the lack of +that sterling coin of the realm which seemed such sordid dross in the +eyes of Charlotte! + +"What do you mean, Charlotte?" + +"I mean, that even his worst enemies cannot accuse Valentine of any +mercenary feeling. He does not ask me to marry him for the sake of my +fortune." + +"Does he know your real position?" + +"Most fully. And now, Diana, tell me that you will try to like him, for +my sake, and that you will be kind, and will speak a good word for me +to mamma by-and-by, when I have told her all." + +"When do you mean to tell her?" + +"Directly--or almost directly. I scarcely know how to set about it. I +am sure it has been hard enough to tell you." + +"My poor Charlotte! What an ungrateful wretch I must be!" + +"My dear Diana, you have no reason to be grateful. I love you very +dearly, and I could not live in this house without you. It is I who +have reason to be grateful, when I remember how you bear with mamma's +fidgety ways, and with Mr. Sheldon's gloomy temper, and all for love of +me." + +"Yes, Lotta, for love of you," Miss Paget answered, with a sigh; "and I +will do more than that for love of you." + +She had her arm round her happy rival's beautiful head, and she was +looking down at the sweet upturned face with supreme tenderness. She +felt no anger against this fair enslaver, who had robbed her of her +little lamb. She only felt some touch of anger against the Providence +which had decreed that the lamb should be so taken. + +No suspicion of her friend's secret entered Charlotte Halliday's mind. +In all their intercourse Diana had spoken very little of Valentine; and +in the little she had said there had been always the same half-bitter, +half-disdainful tone. Charlotte, in her simple candour, accepted this +tone as the evidence of Miss Paget's aversion to her father's _protege_. + +"Poor Di does not like to see her father give so much of his friendship +to a stranger while she is neglected," thought Miss Halliday; and +having once jumped at this conclusion, she made no further effort to +penetrate the mysteries of Diana's mind. + +She was less than ever inclined to speculation about Diana's feelings +now that she was in love, and blest with the sweet consciousness that +her love was returned. Tender and affectionate as she was, she could +not quite escape that taint of egotism which is the ruling vice of +fortunate lovers. Her mind was not wide enough to hold much more than +one image, which demanded so large a space. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MRS. SHELDON ACCEPTS HER DESTINY. + + +Miss Halliday had an interview with her mother that evening in Mrs. +Sheldon's dressing-room, while that lady was preparing for rest, with +considerable elaboration of detail in the way of hair-brushing, and +putting away of neck-ribbons and collars and trinkets in smart little +boxes and handy little drawers, all more or less odorous from the +presence of dainty satin-covered sachets. The sachets, and the drawers, +and boxes, and trinkets were Mrs. Sheldon's best anchorage in this +world. Such things as these were the things that made life worth +endurance for this poor weak little woman; and they were more real to +her than her daughter, because more easy to realise. The beautiful +light-hearted girl was a being whose existence had been always +something of a problem for Georgina Sheldon. She loved her after her +own feeble fashion, and would have jealously asserted her superiority +over every other daughter in the universe; but the power to understand +her or to sympathise with her had not been given to that narrow mind. +The only way in which Mrs. Sheldon's affection showed itself was +unquestioning indulgence and the bestowal of frivolous gifts, chosen +with no special regard to Charlotte's requirements, but rather because +they happened to catch Mrs. Sheldon's eye as they glittered or sparkled +in the windows of Bayswater repositories. + +Mr. Sheldon happened to be dining out on this particular evening. He +was a guest at a great City feast, to which some of the richest men +upon 'Change had been bidden; so Miss Halliday had an excellent +opportunity for making her confession. + +Poor Georgy was not a little startled by the avowal. + +"My darling Lotta!" she screamed, "do you think your papa would ever +consent to such a thing?" + +"I think my dear father would have consented to anything likely to +secure my happiness, mamma," the girl answered sadly. + +She was thinking how different this crisis in her life would have +seemed if the father she had loved so dearly had been spared to counsel +her. + +"I was thinking of your step-papa," continued Mrs. Sheldon. "He would +never consent to your marrying Mr. Hawkehurst, who really seems to have +nothing to recommend him except his good looks and an obliging +disposition with regard to orders for the theatres." + +"He would never consent to your marrying Mr. Hawkehurst, who really +seems to have nothing to recommend him except his good looks and an +obliging disposition with regard to orders for the theatres." + +"I am not bound to consult my stepfather's wishes. I only want to +please you, mamma." + +"But, my dear, I cannot possibly consent to anything that Mr. Sheldon +disapproves." + +"O, mamma, dear kind mamma, do have an opinion of your own for once in +a way! I daresay Mr. Sheldon is the best possible judge of everything +connected with the Stock Exchange and the money-market; but don't let +him choose a husband for me. Let me have your approval, mamma, and I +care for no one else. I don't want to marry against your will. But I am +sure you like Mr. Hawkehurst." + +Mrs. Sheldon shook her head despondingly. + +"It's all very well to like an agreeable young man as an occasional +visitor," she said, "especially when most of one's visitors are +middle-aged City people. But it is a very different thing when one's +only daughter talks of marrying him. I can't imagine what can have put +such an idea as marriage into your head. It is only a few months since +you came home from school; and I fancied that you would have stopped +with me for years before you thought of settling." + +Miss Halliday made a wry face. + +"Dear mamma," she said, "I don't want to 'settle.' That is what one's +housemaid says, isn't it, when she talks of leaving service and +marrying some young man from the baker's or the grocer's? Valentine and +I are not in a hurry to be married. I am sure, for my own part, I don't +care how long our engagement lasts. I only wish to be quite candid and +truthful with you, mamma; and I thought it a kind of duty to tell you +that he loves me, and that--I love him--very dearly." + +These last words were spoken with extreme shyness. + +Mrs. Sheldon laid down her hair-brushes while she contemplated her +daughter's blushing face. Those blushes had become quite a chronic +affection with Miss Halliday of late. + +"But, good gracious me, Charlotte," she exclaimed, growing peevish in +her sense of helplessness, "who is to tell Mr. Sheldon?" + +"There is no necessity for Mr. Sheldon to be enlightened yet awhile, +mamma. It is to you I owe duty and obedience--not to him. Pray keep my +secret, kindest and most indulgent of mothers, and--and ask Valentine +to come and see you now and then." + +"Ask him to come and see me, Charlotte! You must know very well that I +never invite any one to dinner except at Mr. Sheldon's wish. I am sure +I quite tremble at the idea of a dinner. There is such trouble about +the waiting, and such dreadful uncertainty about the cooking. And if +one has it all done by Birch's people, one's cook gives warning next +morning," added poor Georgy, with a dismal recollection of recent +perplexities. "I am sure I often wish myself young again, in the dairy +at Hyley farm, making matrimony cakes for a tea-party, with a ring and +a fourpenny-piece hidden in the middle. I'm sure the Hyley tea-parties +were pleasanter than Mr. Sheldon's dinners, with those solemn City +people, who can't exist without clear turtle and red mullet." + +"Ah, mother dear, our lives were altogether happier in those days. I +delight in the Yorkshire tea-parties, and the matrimony cakes, and all +the talk and laughter about the fourpenny-piece and the ring. I +remember getting the fourpenny-piece at Newhall last year. And that +means that one is to die an old maid, you know. And now I am engaged. +As to the dinners, mamma, Mr. Sheldon may keep them all for himself and +his City friends. Valentine is the last person in the world to care for +clear turtle. If you will let him drop in sometimes of an +afternoon--say once a week or so--when you, and I, and Diana are +sitting at our work in the drawing-room, and if you will let him hand +us our cups at our five-o'clock tea, he will be the happiest of men. He +adores tea. You'll let him come, won't you, dear? O, mamma, I feel just +like a servant who asks to be allowed to see her 'young man.' Will you +let my 'young man' come to tea once in a way?" + +"Well, Charlotte, I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Sheldon, with +increasing helplessness. "It's really a very dreadful position for me +to be placed in." + +"Quite appalling, is it not, mamma? But then I suppose it is a position +that people afflicted with daughters must come to sooner or later." + +"If it were the mere civility of asking him to tea," pursued poor +Georgy, heedless of this flippant interruption, "I'm sure I should be +the last to make any objection. Indeed, I am under a kind of obligation +to Mr. Hawkehurst, for his polite attention has enabled us to go to the +theatres very often when your papa would not have thought of buying +tickets. But then, you see, Lotta, the question in point is not his +coming to our five-o'clock tea--which seems really a perfect mockery to +any one brought up in Yorkshire--but whether you are to be engaged to +him." + +"Dear mamma, _that_ is not a question at all, for I am already engaged +to him." + +"But, Charlotte--" + +"I do not think I could bring myself to disobey you, dear mother," +continued the girl tenderly; "and if you tell me, of your own free +will, and acting on your conviction, that I am not to marry him, I must +bow my head to your decision, however hard it may seem. But one thing +is quite certain, mamma: I have given my promise to Valentine; and if I +do not marry him, I shall never marry at all; and then the dreadful +augury of the fourpenny-piece will be verified." + +Miss Halliday pronounced this determination with a decision of manner +that quite overawed her mother. It had been the habit of Georgy's mind +to make a feeble protest against all the mutations of life, but in the +end to submit very quietly to the inevitable; and since Valentine +Hawkehurst's acceptance as Charlotte's future husband seemed +inevitable, she was fain to submit in this instance also. + +Valentine was allowed to call at the Lawn, and was received with a +feeble, half-plaintive graciousness by the lady of the house. He was +invited to stop for the five-o'clock tea, and availed himself +rapturously of this delightful privilege. His instinct told him what +gentle hand had made the meal so dainty and home-like, and for whose +pleasure the phantasmal pieces of bread-and-butter usually supplied by +the trim parlour-maid had given place to a salver loaded with innocent +delicacies in the way of pound-cake and apricot jam. + +Mr. Hawkehurst did his uttermost to deserve so much indulgence. He +scoured London in search of free admissions for the theatres, hunting +"Ragamuffins" and members of the Cibber Club, and other privileged +creatures, at all their places of resort. He watched for the advent of +novels adapted to Georgy's capacity--lively records of croquet and +dressing and love-making, from smart young Amazons in the literary +ranks, or deeply interesting romances of the sensation school, with at +least nine deaths in the three volumes, and a comic housemaid, or a +contumacious "Buttons," to relieve the gloom by their playful +waggeries. He read Tennyson or Owen Meredith, or carefully selected +"bits" from the works of a younger and wilder bard, while the ladies +worked industriously at their prie-dieu chairs, or Berlin brioches, or +Shetland couvrepieds, as the case might be. The patroness of a fancy +fair would scarcely have smiled approvingly on the novel effects in +_crochet a tricoter_ produced by Miss Halliday during these pleasant +lectures. + +"The rows will come wrong," she said piteously, "and Tennyson's poetry +is so very absorbing!" + +Mr. Hawkehurst showed himself to be possessed of honourable, not to say +delicate, feelings in his new position. The gothic villa was his +paradise, and the gates had been freely opened to admit him whensoever +he chose to come. Georgy was just the sort of person from whom people +take ells after having asked for inches; and once having admitted Mr. +Hawkehurst as a privileged guest, she would have found it very +difficult to place any restriction upon the number of his visits. +Happily for this much-perplexed matron, Charlotte and her lover were +strictly honourable. Mr. Hawkehurst never made his appearance at the +villa more than once in the same week, though the "once a week or so" +asked for by Charlotte might have been stretched to a wider +significance. + +When Valentine obtained orders for the theatre, he sent them by post, +scrupulously refraining from making them the excuse for a visit. + +"That was all very well when I was a freebooter," he said to himself, +"only admitted on sufferance, and liable to have the door shut in my +face any morning. But I am trusted now, and I must prove myself worthy +of my future mother-in-law's confidence. Once a week! One seventh day +of unspeakable happiness--bliss without alloy! The six other days are +very long and dreary. But then they are only the lustreless setting in +which that jewel the seventh shines so gloriously. Now, if I were +Waller, what verses I would sing about my love! Alas, I am only a +commonplace young man, and can find no new words in which to tell the +old sweet story!" + +If the orders for stalls and private boxes were not allowed to serve as +an excuse for visits, they at least necessitated the writing of +letters; and no human being, except a lover, would have been able to +understand why such long letters must needs be written about such a +very small business. The letters secured replies; and when the order +sent was for a box, Mr. Hawkehurst was generally invited to occupy a +seat in it. Ah, what did it matter on those happy nights how hackneyed +the plot of the play, how bald the dialogue, how indifferent the +acting! It was all alike delightful to those two spectators; for a +light that shone neither on earth nor sky brightened everything they +looked on when they sat side by side. + +And during all these pleasant afternoons at the villa, or evenings at +the theatre, Diana Paget had to sit by and witness the happiness which +she had dreamed might some day be hers. It was a part of her duty to be +present on these occasions, and she performed that duty punctiliously. +She might have made excuses for absenting herself, but she was too +proud to make any such excuses. + +"Am I such a coward as to tell a lie in order to avoid a little pain +more or less? If I say I have a headache, and stay in my own room while +he is here, will the afternoon seem any more pleasant or any shorter to +me? The utmost difference would be the difference between a dull pain +and a sharp pain; and I think the sharper agony is easier to bear." +Having argued with herself thus, Miss Paget endured her weekly +martyrdom with Spartan fortitude. + +"What have I lost?" she said to herself, as she stole a furtive glance +now and then at the familiar face of her old companion. "What is this +treasure, the loss of which makes me seem to myself such an abject +wretch? Only the love of a man who at his best is not worthy of this +girl's pure affection, and at his worst must have been unworthy even of +mine. But then at his worst he is dearer to me than the best man who +ever lived upon this earth." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. HAWKEHURST AND MR. GEORGE SHELDON COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING. + + +There was no such thing as idleness for Valentine Hawkehurst during +these happy days of his courtship. The world was his oyster, and that +oyster was yet unopened. For some years he had been hacking and hewing +the shell thereof with the sword of the freebooter, to very little +advantageous effect. He now set himself seriously to work with the +pickaxe of the steady-going labourer. He was a secessionist from the +great army of adventurers. He wanted to enrol himself in the ranks of +the respectable, the plodders, the ratepayers, the simple citizens who +love their wives and children, and go to their parish church on +Sundays. He had an incentive to steady industry, which had hitherto +been wanting in his life. He was beloved, and any shame that came to +him would be a still more bitter humiliation for the woman who loved +him. + +He felt that the very first step in the difficult path of +respectability would be a step that must separate him from Captain +Paget; but just now separation from that gentleman seemed scarcely +advisable. If there was any mischief in that Ullerton expedition, any +collusion between the Captain and the Reverend Goodge, it would +assuredly be well for Valentine to continue a mode of life which +enabled him to be tolerably well informed as to the movements of the +slippery Horatio. In all the outside positions of life expedience must +ever be the governing principle, and expedience forbade any immediate +break with Captain Paget. + +"Whatever you do, keep your eye upon the Captain," said George Sheldon, +in one of many interviews, all bearing upon the Haygarth succession. +"If there is any underhand work going on between him and Philip, you +must be uncommonly slow of perception if you can't ferret it out. I'm +very sorry you met Charlotte Halliday in the north, for of course Phil +must have heard of your appearance in Yorkshire, and that will set him +wondering at any rate, especially as he will no doubt have heard the +Dorking story from Paget. He pretended he saw you leave town the day +you went to Ullerton, but I am half inclined to believe that was only a +trap." + +"I don't think Mr. Sheldon has heard of my appearance in Yorkshire yet." + +"Indeed! Miss Charlotte doesn't care to make a confidant of her +stepfather, I suppose. Keep her in that mind, Hawkehurst. If you play +your cards well, you ought to be able to get her to marry you on the +quiet." + +"I don't think that would be possible. In fact, I am sure +Charlotte would not marry without her mother's consent," answered +Valentine, thoughtfully. + +"And of course that means my brother Philip's consent," exclaimed +George Sheldon, with contemptuous impatience. "What a slow, bungling +fellow you are, Hawkehurst! Here is an immense fortune waiting for you, +and a pretty girl in love with you, and you dawdle and deliberate as if +you were going to the dentist's to have a tooth drawn. You've fallen +into a position that any man in London might envy, and you don't seem +to have the smallest capability of appreciating your good luck." + +"Well, perhaps I am rather slow to realise the idea of my good +fortune," answered Valentine, still very thoughtfully. "You see, in the +first place, I can't get over a shadowy kind of feeling with regard to +that Haygarthian fortune. It is too far away from my grasp, too large, +too much of the stuff that dreams and novels are made of. And, in the +second place, I love Miss Halliday so fondly and so truly that I don't +like the notion of making my marriage with her any part of the bargain +between you and me." + +Mr. Sheldon contemplated his confederate with unmitigated disdain. +"Don't try that sort of thing with me, Hawkehurst," he said; "that +sentimental dodge may answer very well with some men, but I'm about the +last to be taken in by it. You are playing fast-and-loose with me, and +you want to throw me over--as my brother Phil would throw me over, if +he got the chance." + +"I am not playing fast-and-loose with you," replied Valentine, too +disdainful of Mr. Sheldon for indignation. "I have worked for you +faithfully, and kept your secret honourably, when I had every +temptation to reveal it. You drove your bargain with me, and I have +performed my share of the bargain to the letter. But if you think I am +going to drive a bargain with you about my marriage with Miss Halliday, +you are very much mistaken. That lady will marry me when she pleases, +but she shall not be entrapped into a clandestine marriage for your +convenience." + +"O, that's your ultimatum, is it, Mr. Joseph Surface?" said the +lawyer, biting his nails fiercely, and looking askant at his +ally, with angry eyes. "I wonder you don't wind up by saying that the +man who could trade upon a virtuous woman's affection for the +advancement of his fortune, deserves to--get it hot, as our modern +slang has it. Then I am to understand that you decline to precipitate +matters?" + +"I most certainly do." + +"And the Haygarth business is to remain in abeyance while Miss Halliday +goes through the tedious formula of a sentimental courtship?" + +"I suppose so." + +"Humph! that's pleasant for me." + +"Why should you make the advancement of Miss Halliday's claims +contingent on her marriage? Why not assert her rights at once?" + +"Because I will not trust my brother Philip. The day that you show me +the certificate of your marriage with Charlotte Halliday is the day on +which I shall make my first move in this business. I told you the other +day that I would rather make a bargain with you than with my brother." + +"And what kind of bargain do you expect to make with me when Miss +Halliday is my wife?" + +"I'll tell you, Valentine Hawkehurst," replied the lawyer, squaring his +elbows upon his desk in his favourite attitude, and looking across the +table at his coadjutor; "I like to be open and above-board when I can, +and I'll be plain with you in this matter. I want a clear half of John +Haygarth's fortune, and I think that I've a very fair claim to that +amount. The money can only be obtained by means of the documents in my +possession, and but for me that money might have remained till doomsday +unclaimed and unthought of by the descendant of Matthew Haygarth. Look +at it which way you will, I think you'll allow that my demand is a just +one." + +"I don't say that it is unjust, though it certainly seems a little +extortionate," replied Valentine. "However, if Charlotte were my wife, +and were willing to cede half the fortune, I'm not the man to dispute +the amount of your reward. When the time comes for bargain-driving, +you'll not find me a difficult person to deal with. + +"And when may I expect your marriage with Miss Halliday?" asked George +Sheldon, rapping his hard finger-nails upon the table with suppressed +impatience. "Since you elect to conduct matters in the grand style, and +must wait for mamma's consent and papa's consent, and goodness knows +what else in the way of absurdity, I suppose the delay will be for an +indefinite space of time." + +"I don't know about that. I'm not likely to put off the hour in which +I shall call that dear girl my own. I asked her to be my wife before I +knew that she had the blood of Matthew Haygarth in her veins, and the +knowledge of her claim to this fortune does not make her one whit the +dearer to me, penniless adventurer as I am. If poetry were at all in +your line, Mr. Sheldon, you might know that a man's love for a good +woman is generally better than himself. He may be a knave and a +scoundrel, and yet his love for that one perfect creature may be almost +as pure and perfect as herself. That's a psychological mystery out of +the way of Gray's Inn, isn't it?" + +"If you'll oblige me by talking common sense for about five minutes, +you may devote your powerful intellect to the consideration of +psychological mysteries for a month at a stretch," exclaimed the +aggravated lawyer. + +"O, don't you see how I struggle to be hard-headed and practical!" +cried Valentine; "but a man who is over head and ears in love finds it +rather hard to bring all his ideas to the one infallible grindstone. +You ask me when I am to marry Charlotte Halliday. To-morrow, if our +Fates smile upon us. Mrs. Sheldon knows of our engagement, and consents +to it, but in some manner under protest. I am not to take my dear girl +away from her mother for some time to come. The engagement is to be a +long one. In the mean time I am working hard to gain some kind of +position in literature, for I want to be sure of an income before I +marry, without reference to John Haygarth; and I am a privileged guest +at the villa." + +"But my brother Phil has been told nothing?" + +"As yet nothing. My visits are paid while he is in the City; and as I +often went to the villa before my engagement, he is not likely to +suspect anything when he happens to hear my name mentioned as a +visitor." + +"And do you really think he is in the dark--my brother Philip, who can +turn a man's brains inside out in half an hour's conversation? Mark my +words, Valentine Hawkehurst, that man is only playing with you as a cat +plays with a mouse. He used to see you and Charlotte together before +you went to Yorkshire, and he must have seen the state of the case +quite as plainly as I saw it. He has heard of your visits to the villa +since your return, and has kept a close account of them, and made his +own deductions, depend upon it. And some day, while you and pretty Miss +Charlotte are enjoying your fool's paradise, he will pounce upon you +just as puss pounces on poor mousy." + +This was rather alarming, and Valentine felt that it was very likely to +be correct. + +"Mr. Sheldon may play the part of puss as he pleases," he replied after +a brief pause for deliberation; "this is a case in which he dare not +show his claws. He has no authority to control Miss Halliday's actions." + +"Perhaps not, but he would find means for preventing her marriage if it +was to his interest to do so. He is not _your_ brother, you see, Mr. +Hawkehurst; but he is mine, and I know a good deal about him. His +interest may not be concerned in hindering his stepdaughter's marriage +with a penniless scapegrace. He may possibly prefer such a bridegroom +as less likely to make himself obnoxious by putting awkward questions +about poor Tom Halliday's money, every sixpence of which he means to +keep, of course. If his cards are packed for that kind of marriage, +he'll welcome you to his arms as a son-in-law, and give you his +benediction as well as his stepdaughter. So I think if you can contrive +to inform him of your engagement, without letting him know of your +visit to Yorkshire, it might be a stroke of diplomacy. He might be glad +to get rid of the girl, and might hasten on the marriage of his own +volition." + +"He might be glad to get rid of the girl." In the ears of Valentine +Hawkehurst this sounded rank blasphemy. Could there be any one upon +this earth, even a Sheldon, incapable of appreciating the privilege of +that divine creature's presence? + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +MR. SHELDON IS PROPITIOUS + + +It was not very long before Valentine Hawkehurst had reason to respect +the wisdom of his legal patron. Within a few days of his interview with +George Sheldon he paid his weekly visit to the villa. Things were going +very well with him, and life altogether seemed brighter than he had +ever hoped to find it. He had set himself steadily to work to win some +kind of position in literature. He devoted his days to diligent study +in the reading-room of the British Museum, his nights to writing for +the magazines. His acquaintance with press-men had stood him in good +stead; and already he had secured the prompt acceptance of his work in +more than one direction. The young _litterateur_ of the present day has +not such a very hard fight for a livelihood, if his pen has only a +certain lightness and dash, a rattling vivacity and airy grace. It is +only the marvellous boys who come to London with epic poems, +Anglo-Saxon tragedies, or metaphysical treatises in their portmanteaus, +who must needs perish in their prime, or stoop to the drudgery of +office or counting-house. + +Valentine Hawkehurst had no vague yearnings after the fame of a Milton, +no inner consciousness that he had been born to stamp out the +footprints of Shakespeare on the sands of time, no unhealthy hungering +after the gloomy grandeur of Byron. He had been brought up amongst +people who treated literature as a trade as well as an art;--and what +art is not more or less a trade? He knew the state of the market, and +what kind of goods were likely to go off briskly, and it was for the +market he worked. When gray shirtings were in active demand, he set his +loom for gray shirtings; and when the buyers clamoured for fancy goods, +he made haste to produce that class of fabrics. In this he proved +himself a very low-minded and ignominious creature, no doubt; but was +not one Oliver Goldsmith glad to take any order which good Mr. Newberry +might give him, only writing the "Traveller" and the story of Parson +Primrose _pour se distraire_? + +Love lent wings to the young essayist's pen. It is to be feared that in +roving among those shelves in Great Russell-street he showed himself +something of a freebooter, taking his "bien" wherever it was to be +found; but did not Moliere frankly acknowledge the same practice? Mr. +Hawkehurst wrote about anything and everything. His brain must needs be +a gigantic storehouse of information, thought the respectful reader. He +skipped from Pericles to Cromwell, from Cleopatra to Mary Stuart, from +Sappho to Madame de Sable; and he wrote of these departed spirits with +such a charming impertinence, with such a delicious affectation of +intimacy, that one would have thought he had sat by Cleopatra as she +melted her pearls, and stood amongst the audience of Pericles when he +pronounced his funeral oration. "With the De Sable and the Chevreuse, +Ninon and Marion, Maintenon and La Valliere, Anne of Austria and the +great Mademoiselle of France, he seemed to have lived in daily +companionship, so amply did he expatiate upon the smallest details of +their existences, so tenderly did he dwell on their vanished beauties, +their unforgotten graces." + +The work was light and pleasant; and the monthly cheques from the +proprietors of a couple of rival periodicals promised to amount to the +income which the adventurer had sighed for as he trod the Yorkshire +moorland. He had asked Destiny to give him Charlotte Halliday and three +hundred a year, and lo! while yet the wish was new, both these +blessings seemed within his grasp. It could scarcely be a matter for +repining it the Fates should choose to throw in an odd fifty thousand +pounds or so. + +But was not all this something too much of happiness for a man whose +feet had trodden in evil ways? Were not the Fates mocking this +travel-stained wayfarer with bright glimpses of a paradise whose gates +he was never to pass? + +This was the question which Valentine Hawkehurst was fain to ask +himself sometimes; this doubt was the shadow which sometimes made a +sudden darkness that obscured the sunshine. + +Happily for Charlotte's true lover, the shadow did not often come +between him and the light of those dear eyes which were his pole-stars. + +The December days were shortening as the year drew to its close, and +afternoon tea seemed more than ever delightful to Charlotte and her +betrothed, now that it could be enjoyed in the mysterious half light; a +glimmer of chill gray day looking coldly in at the unshrouded window +like some ghostly watcher envying these mortals their happiness, and +the red glow of the low fire reflected upon every curve and facet of +the shining steel grate. + +To sit by the fire at five o'clock in the afternoon, watching the +changeful light upon Charlotte's face, the rosy glow that seemed to +linger caressingly on broad low brow and sweet ripe lips, the deep +shadows that darkened eyes and hair, was bliss unspeakable for Mr. +Hawkehurst. The lovers talked the prettiest nonsense to each other, +while Mrs. Sheldon dozed placidly behind the friendly shelter of a +banner-screen hooked on to the chimney-piece, or conversed with Diana +in a monotonous undertone, solemnly debating the relative wisdom of +dyeing or turning in relation to a faded silk dress. + +Upon one special evening Valentine lingered just a little longer than +usual. Christmas was near at hand, and the young man had brought his +liege lady tribute in the shape of a bundle of Christmas literature. +Tennyson had been laid aside in favour of the genial Christmas fare, +which had the one fault, that it came a fortnight before the jovial +season, and in a manner fore-stalled the delights of that time-honoured +period, making the season itself seem flat and dull, and turkey and +plum-pudding the stalest commodities in the world when they did come. +How, indeed, can a man do full justice to his aunt Tabitha's +plum-pudding, or his uncle Joe's renowned rum-punch, if he has quaffed +the steaming-bowl with the "Seven Poor Travellers," or eaten his +Christmas dinner at the "Kiddleawink" a fortnight beforehand? Are not +the chief pleasures of life joys as perishable as the bloom on a peach +or the freshness of a rose? + +Valentine had read the ghastliest of ghost-stories, and the most +humorous of word-pictures, for the benefit of the audience in Mrs. +Sheldon's drawing-room; and now, after tea, they sat by the fire +talking of the ghost-story, and discussing that unanswerable question +about the possibility of such spiritual appearances, which seems to +have been debated ever since the world began. + +"Dr. Johnson believed in ghosts," said Valentine. + +"O, please spare us Dr. Johnson," cried Charlotte, with seriocomic +intensity. "What is it that obliges magazine-writers to be perpetually +talking about Dr. Johnson? If they must dig up persons from the past, +why can't they dig up newer persons than that poor ill-used doctor?" + +The door opened with a hoarse groan, and Mr. Sheldon came into the room +while Miss Halliday was making her playful protest. She stopped, +somewhat confused by that sudden entrance. + +There is a statue of the Commandant in every house, at whose coming +hearts grow cold and lips are suddenly silent. It was the first time +that the master of the villa had interrupted one of these friendly +afternoon teas, and Mrs. Sheldon and her daughter felt that a domestic +crisis was at hand. + +"How's this?" cried the stockbroker's strong hard voice; "you seem all +in the dark." + +He took a wax-match from a little gilt stand on the mantelpiece and +lighted two flaring lamps. He was the sort of man who is always eager +to light the gas when people are sitting in the gloaming, meditative +and poetical. He let the broad glare of common sense in upon their +foolish musings, and scared away Robin Goodfellow and the fairies by +means of the Western Gaslight Company's illuminating medium. + +The light of those two flaring jets of gas revealed Charlotte Halliday +looking shyly at the roses on the carpet, and trifling nervously with +one of the show-books on the table. The same light revealed Valentine +Hawkehurst standing by the young lady's chair, and looking at Mr. +Sheldon with a boldness of countenance that was almost defiance. Poor +Georgy's face peered out from behind her favourite banner-screen, +looking from one to the other in evident alarm. Diana sat in her +accustomed corner, watchful, expectant, awaiting the domestic storm. + +To the surprise of every one except Mr. Sheldon, there was no storm, +not even the lightest breeze that ever blew in domestic hemispheres. +The stockbroker saluted his stepdaughter with a friendly nod, and +greeted her lover with a significant grin. + +"How d'ye do, Hawkehurst?" he said, in his pleasantest manner. "It's an +age since I've seen you. You're going in for literature, I hear; and a +very good thing too, if you can make it pay. I understand there are +some fellows who really do make that sort of thing pay. Seen my brother +George lately? Yes, I suppose you and George are quite a Damon and +What's-his-name. You're going to dine here to-night, of course? I +suppose we may go in to dinner at once, eh, Georgy?--it's half-past +six." + +Mr. Hawkehurst made some faint pretence of having a particular +engagement elsewhere; for, supposing Sheldon to be unconscious, he +scorned to profit by that gentleman's ignorance. And then, having +faltered his refusal, he looked at Charlotte, and Charlotte's eyes +cried "Stay," as plainly as such lovely eyes can speak. So the end of +it was, that he stayed and partook of the Sheldonian crimped skate, and +the Sheldonian roast-beef and tapioca-pudding, and tasted some especial +Moselle, which, out of the kindliness of his nature, Mr. Sheldon opened +for his stepdaughter's betrothed. + +After dinner there were oranges and crisp uncompromising biscuits, that +made an explosive noise like the breaking of windows whenever any one +ventured to tamper with them; item, a decanter of sherry in a silver +stand; item, a decanter of port, which Mr. Sheldon declared to be +something almost too good to be drunk, and to the merits of which +Valentine was supremely indifferent. The young man would fain have +followed his delight when she accompanied her mamma and Diana to the +drawing-room; but Mr. Sheldon detained him. + +"I want a few words with you, Hawkehurst," he said; and Charlotte's +cheeks flamed red as peonies at sound of this alarming sentence. "You +shall go after the ladies presently, and they shall torture that poor +little piano to their hearts' delight for your edification. I won't +detain you many minutes. You had really better try that port." + +Valentine closed the door upon the departing ladies, and went back to +his seat very submissively. If there were any battle to be fought out +between him and Philip Sheldon, the sooner the trumpet sounded to arms +the better. + +"His remarkable civility almost inclines me to think that he does +really want to get rid of that dear girl," Valentine said to himself, +as he filled his glass and gravely awaited Mr. Sheldon's pleasure. + +"Now then, my dear Hawkehurst," began that gentleman, squaring himself +in his comfortable arm-chair, and extending his legs before the cheery +fire, "let us have a little friendly chat. I am not given to beating +about the bush, you know, and whatever I have to say I shall say in +very plain words. In the first place, I hope you have not so poor an +opinion of my perceptive faculties as to suppose that I don't see what +is going on between you and Miss Lotta yonder." + +"My dear Mr. Sheldon, I--" + +"Hear what I have to say first, and make your protestations afterwards. +You needn't be alarmed; you won't find me quite as bad as the +stepmother one reads about in the story-books, who puts her +stepdaughter into a pie, and all that kind of thing. I suppose +stepfathers have been a very estimable class, by the way, as it is the +stepmother who always drops in for it in the story-books. You'll find +me very easy to deal with, Mr. Hawkehurst, always provided that you +deal in a fair and honourable manner." + +"I have no wish to be underhand in my dealings," Valentine said boldly. +And indeed this was the truth. His inclination prompted him to candour, +even with Mr. Sheldon; but that fatal necessity which is the governing +principle of the adventurer's life obliged him to employ the arts of +finesse. + +"Good," cried Mr. Sheldon, in the cheery, pleasant tone of an +easy-going man of the world, who is not too worldly to perform a +generous action once in a way. "All I ask is frankness. You and +Charlotte have fallen in love with one another--why, I can't imagine, +except on the hypothesis that a decent-looking young woman and a +decent-looking young man can't meet half a dozen times without +beginning to think of Gretna-green, or St. George's, Hanover-square. Of +course a marriage with you, looked at from a common-sense point of +view, would be about the worst thing that could happen to my wife's +daughter. She's a very fine girl" (a man of the Sheldonian type would +call Aphrodite herself a fine girl), "and might marry some awfully rich +City swell with vineries and pineries and succession-houses at +Tulse-hill or Highgate, if I chose to put her in the way of that sort +of thing. But then, you see, the worst of it is, a man seldom comes to +vineries and pineries at Tulse-hill till he is on the shady side of +forty; and as I am not in favour of mercenary marriages, I don't care +to force any of my City connection upon poor Lotta. In the +neighbourhood of the Stock Exchange there is no sharper man of business +than your humble servant; but I don't care to bring business habits to +Bayswater. Long before Lotta left school, I had made up my mind never +to come between her and her own inclination in the matrimonial line; +therefore, if she truly and honestly loves you, and if you truly and +honestly love her, I am not the man to forbid the bans." + +"My dear Mr. Sheldon, how shall I ever thank you for this!" cried +Valentine, surprised into a belief in the purity of the stockbroker's +intentions. + +"Don't be in a hurry," replied that gentleman coolly; "you haven't +heard me out yet. Though I may consent to take the very opposite line +of conduct which I might be expected to take as a man of the world, I +am not going to allow you and Charlotte to make fools of yourselves. +There must be no love-in-a-cottage business, no marrying on nothing a +year, with the expectation that papa and mamma will make up the +difference between that and a comfortable income. In plain English, if +I consent to receive you as Charlotte's future husband, you and she +must consent to wait until you can, to my entire satisfaction, prove +yourself in a position to keep a wife." Valentine sighed doubtfully. + +"I don't think either Miss Halliday or I are in an unreasonable hurry +to begin life together," he said thoughtfully; "but there must be some +fixed limit to our probation. I am afraid the waiting will be a very +long business, if I am to obtain a position that will satisfy you +before I ask my dear girl to share my fate." + +"Are your prospects so very black?" + +"No; to my mind they seem wonderfully bright. But the earnings of a +magazine-writer will scarcely come up to your idea of an independence. +Just now I am getting about ten pounds a month. With industry, I may +stretch that ten to twenty; and with luck I might make the twenty into +thirty--forty--fifty. A man has only to achieve something like a +reputation in order to make a handsome living by his pen." + +"I am very glad to hear that," said Mr. Sheldon; "and when you can +fairly demonstrate to me that you are earning thirty pounds a month, +you shall have my consent to your marriage with Charlotte, and I will +do what I can to give you a fair start in life. I suppose you know that +she hasn't a sixpence in the world, that she can call her own?" + +This was a trying question for Valentine Hawkehurst, and Mr. Sheldon +looked at him with a sharp scrutinising glance as he awaited a reply. +The young man flushed crimson, and grew pale again before he spoke. + +"Yes," he said, "I have long been aware that Miss Halliday has no legal +claim on her father's fortune." + +"There you have hit the mark," cried Mr. Sheldon. "She has no claim to +a sixpence in law; but to an honourable man that is not the question. +Poor Halliday's money amounted in all to something like eighteen +thousand pounds. That sum passed into my possession when I married my +poor friend's widow, who had too much respect for me to hamper my +position as a man of business by any legal restraints that would have +hindered my making the wisest use of her money. I have used that money, +and I need scarcely tell you that I have employed it with considerable +advantage to myself and Georgy. I therefore can afford to be generous, +and I mean to be so; but the manner in which I do things must be of my +own choosing. My own children are dead, and there is no one belonging +to me that stands in Miss Halliday's way. When I die she will inherit +a handsome fortune. And if she marries with my approval, I shall +present her with a very comfortable dowry. I think you will allow that +this is fair enough." + +"Nothing could be fairer or more generous," replied Valentine with +enthusiasm. + +Mr. Sheldon's agreeable candour had entirely subjugated him. Despite of +all that George had said to his brother's prejudice, he was ready to +believe implicitly in Philip's fair dealing. + +"And in return for this I ask something on your part," said Mr. +Sheldon. "I want you to give me your promise that you will take no +serious step without my knowledge. You won't steal a march upon me. You +won't walk off with Charlotte some fine morning and marry her at a +registry-office, or anything of that kind, eh?" + +"I will not," answered Valentine resolutely, with a very unpleasant +recollection of his dealings with George Sheldon. + +"Give me your hand upon that," cried the stockbroker. + +Upon this the two men shook hands, and Valentine's fingers were almost +crushed in the cold hard grip of Mr. Sheldon's muscular hand. And now +there came upon Valentine's ear the sound of one of Mendelssohn's +_Lieder ohne Worte_, tenderly played by the gentle hands he knew so +well. And the lover began to feel that he could no longer sit sipping +the stockbroker's port with a hypocritical pretence of appreciation, +and roasting himself before the blazing fire, the heat whereof was +multiplied to an insufferable degree by grate and fender of reflecting +steel. + +Mr. Sheldon was not slow to perceive his guest's impatience, and having +made exactly the impression he wanted to make, was quite willing that +the interview should come to an end. + +"You had better be off to the drawing-room," he said, good naturedly; +"I see you are in that stage of the fever in which masculine society is +only a bore. You can go and hear Charlotte play, while I read the +evening papers and write a few letters. You can let her know that you +and I understand each other. Of course we shall see you very often. +You'll eat your Christmas turkey with us, and so on; and I shall trust +to your honour for the safe keeping of that promise you made me just +now," said Mr. Sheldon. + +"And I shall keep an uncommonly close watch upon you and the young +lady, my friend," added that gentleman, communing with his own thoughts +as he crossed the smart little hall, where two Birmingham iron knights +in chain armour bestrode their gallant chargers, on two small tables of +sham malachite. + +Mr. Sheldon's library was not a very inspiring apartment. His ideas of +a _sanctum sanctorum_ did not soar above the commonplace. A decent +square room, furnished with plenty of pigeon-holes, a neat brass scale +for the weighing of letters, a copying-press, a waste-paper basket, a +stout brass-mounted office inkstand capable of holding a quart or so of +ink, and a Post-office Directory, were all he asked for his hours of +leisure and meditation. In a handsome glazed bookcase, opposite his +writing-table, appeared a richly-bound edition of the _Waverley_ +_Novels_, Knight's _Shakespeare_, Hume and Smollett, Fielding, +Goldsmith, and Gibbon; but, except when Georgy dusted the sacred +volumes with her own fair hands, the glass doors of the bookcase were +never opened. + +Mr. Sheldon turned on the gas, seated himself at his comfortable +writing-table, and took up his pen. A quire of office note-paper, with +his City address upon it, lay ready beneath his hand; but he did not +begin to write immediately. He sat for some time with his elbows on the +table, and his chin in his hands, meditating with dark fixed brows. + +"Can I trust her?" he asked himself. "Is it safe to have her near +me--after--after what she said to me in Fitzgeorge-street? Yes, I think +I can trust her, up to a certain point; but beyond that I must be on my +guard. She might be more dangerous than a stranger. One thing is quite +clear--she must be provided for somehow or other. The question is, +whether she is to be provided for in this house or out of it; and +whether I can make her serve me as I want to be served?" + +This was the gist of Mr. Sheldon's meditations; but they lasted for +some time. The question which he had to settle was an important one, +and he was too wise a man not to contemplate a subject from every +possible point of sight before arriving at his decision. He took a +letter-clip from one side of his table, and turned over several open +letters in search of some particular document. + +He came at last to the letter he wanted. It was written on very common +note-paper, with brown-looking ink, and the penmanship was evidently +that of an uneducated person; but Mr. Sheldon studied its contents with +the air of a man who is dealing with no unimportant missive. + +This was the letter which so deeply interested the stockbroker:-- + + +"HONORED SIR--This coms hopping that You and Your Honored ladie are +well has it leevs me tho nott so strong has i coud wish wich his nott +too bee expect at my time off life my pore neffew was tooke with the +tyfus last tewsday weak was giv over on thirsday and we hav berried him +at kensil grean Honored Mr. Sheldon I hav now no home my pore neece +must go hout into survis. Luckly there har no Childring and the pore +gurl can gett hur living as housmade wich she were in survis hat hi +gate befor she marrid my pore Joseff Honored sir i ham trewly sorry too +trubbel you butt i think for hold times you will forgiv the libertey +off this letter i would nott hintrewd on you iff i had enny frend to +help me in my old aig, + +"Your obeddient survent." + +"17 Litle Tottles-yarde lambeft." + +AN WOOLPER + + +"No friend to help her in her old age," muttered Mr. Sheldon; "that +means that she intends to throw herself upon me for the rest of her +life, and to put me to the expense of burying her when she is so +obliging as to die. Very pleasant, upon my word! A man has a servant in +the days of his poverty, pays her every fraction he owes her in the +shape of wages, and wishes her good speed when she goes to settle down +among her relations; and one fine morning, when he has got into a +decent position, she writes to inform him that her nephew is dead, and +that she expects him to provide for her forthwith. That is the gist of +Mrs. Woolper's letter; and if it were not for one or two +considerations, I should be very much inclined to take a business-like +view of the case, and refer the lady to her parish. What are poor-rates +intended for, I should like to know, if a man who pays +four-and-twopence in the pound is to be pestered in this sort of way?" + +And then Mr. Sheldon, having given vent to his vexation by such +reflections as these, set himself to examine the matter in another +light. + +"I must manage to keep sweet with Nancy Woolper somehow or other, +that's very clear; for a chattering old woman is about as dangerous an +enemy as a man can have. I might provide for her decently enough out of +doors for something like a pound a week; and that would be a cheap +enough way of paying off all old scores. But I'm not quite clear that +it would be a safe way. A life of idleness might develop Mrs. Woolper's +latent propensity for gossip--and gossip is what I want to avoid. No, +that plan won't do." + +For some moments Mr. Sheldon meditated silently, with his brows fixed +even more sternly than before. Then he struck his hand suddenly on the +morocco-covered table, and uttered his thoughts aloud. + +"I'll risk it," he said; "she shall come into the house and serve my +interests by keeping a sharp watch upon Charlotte Halliday. There shall +be no secret marriage between those two. No, my friend Valentine, you +may be a very clever fellow, but you are not quite clever enough to +steal a march upon me." + +Having arrived at this conclusion, Mr. Sheldon wrote a few lines to +Nancy Woolper, telling her to call upon him at the Lawn. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +MR. SHELDON IS BENEVOLENT. + + +Nancy Woolper had lost little of her activity during the ten years that +had gone by since she received her wages from Mr. Sheldon, on his +breaking up his establishment in Fitzgeorge-street. Her master had +given her the opportunity of remaining in his service, had she so +pleased; but Mrs. Woolper was a person of independent, not to say +haughty, spirit, and she had preferred to join her small fortunes with +those of a nephew who was about to begin business as a chandler and +general dealer in a very small way, rather than to submit herself to +the sway of that lady whom she insisted on calling Miss Georgy. + +"It's so long since I've been used to a missus," she said, when +announcing her decision to Mr. Sheldon, "I doubt if I could do with +Miss Georgy's finnickin ways. I should feel tewed like, if she came +into the kitchen, worritin' and asking questions. I've been used to my +own ways, and I don't suppose I could do with hers." + +So Nancy departed, to enter on a career of unpaid drudgery in the +household of her kinsman, and to lose the last shilling of her small +savings in the futile endeavour to sustain the fortunes of the general +dealer. His death, following very speedily upon his insolvency, left +the poor soul quite adrift; and in this extremity she had been fain to +make her appeal to Mr. Sheldon. His reply came in due course, but not +without upwards of a week's delay; during which time Nancy Woolper's +spirits sank very low, while a dreary vision of a living grave--called +a workhouse--loomed more and more darkly upon her poor old eyes. She +had well-nigh given up all hope of succour from her old master when the +letter came, and she was the more inclined to be grateful for very +small help after this interval of suspense. It was not without strong +emotion that Mrs. Woolper obeyed her old master's summons. She had +nursed the hard, cold man of the world whom she was going to see once +more, after ten years of severance; and though it was more difficult +for her to imagine that Philip Sheldon, the stockbroker, was the same +Philip she had carried in her stout arms, and hushed upon her breast +forty years ago, than it would have been to fancy the dead who had +lived in those days restored to life and walking by her side, still, +she could not forget that such things had been, and could not refrain +from looking at her master with more loving eyes because of that memory. + +A strange dark cloud had arisen between her and her master's image +during the latter part of her service in Fitzgeorge-street; but, little +by little, the cloud had melted away, leaving the familiar image clear +and unshadowed as of old. She had suffered her mind to be filled by a +suspicion so monstrous, that for a time it held her as by some fatal +spell; but with reflection came the assurance that this thing could not +be. Day by day she saw the man whom she had suspected going about the +common business of life, coldly serene of aspect, untroubled of manner, +confronting fortune with his head erect, living quietly in the house +where he had been wont to live, haunted by no dismal shadows, subject +to no dark hours of remorse, no sudden access of despair, always +equable, business-like, and untroubled; and she told herself that such +a man could not be guilty of the unutterable horror she had imagined. + +For a year things had gone on thus, and then came the marriage with +Mrs. Halliday. Mr. Sheldon went down to Barlingford for the performance +of that interesting ceremony; and Nancy Woolper bade farewell to the +house in Fitzgeorge-street, and handed the key to the agent, who was to +deliver it in due course to Mr. Sheldon's successor. + +To-day, after a lapse of more than ten years, Mrs. Woolper sat in the +stockbroker's study, facing the scrutinising gaze of those bright black +eyes, which had been familiar to her of old, and which had lost none of +their cold glitter in the wear and tear of life. + +"Then you think you can be of some use in the house, as a kind of +overlooker of the other servants, eh, Nancy--to prevent waste, and +gadding out of doors, and so on?" said Mr. Sheldon, interrogatively. + +"Ay, sure, that I can, Mr. Philip," answered the old woman promptly; +"and if I don't save you more money than I cost you, the sooner you +turn me out o' doors the better. I know what London servants are, and I +know their ways; and if Miss Georgy doesn't take to the housekeeping, I +know as how things must be hugger-mugger-like below stairs, however +smart and tidy things may be above." + +"Mrs. Sheldon knows about as much of housekeeping as a baby," replied +Philip, with supreme contempt. "She'll not interfere with you; and if +you serve me faithfully--" + +"That I allers did, Mr. Philip." + +"Yes, yes; I daresay you did. But I want faithful service in the future +as well as in the past. Of course you know that I have a stepdaughter?" + +"Tom Halliday's little girl, as went to school at Scarborough." + +"The same. But poor Tom's little girl is now a fine young woman, and a +source of considerable anxiety to me. I am bound to say she is an +excellent girl--amiable, obedient, and all that kind of thing; but she +is a girl, and I freely confess that I am not learned in the ways of +girls; and I'm very much inclined to be afraid of them." + +"As how, sir?" + +"Well, you see, Nancy, they come home from school with their silly +heads full of romantic stuff, fit for nothing but to read novels and +strum upon the piano; and before you know where you are, they fall over +head and ears in love with the first decent-looking young man who pays +them a compliment. At least, that's my experience." + +"Meaning Miss Halliday, sir?" asked Nancy, simply. "Has she fallen in +love with some young chap?" + +"She has, and with a young chap who is not yet in a position to support +a wife. Now, if this girl were my own child, I should decidedly set my +face against this marriage; but as she is only my stepdaughter, I wash +my hands of all responsibility in the matter. 'Marry the man you have +chosen, my dear,' say I; 'all I ask is, that you don't marry him until +he can give you a comfortable home.' 'Very well, papa,' says my young +lady in her most dutiful manner, and 'Very well, sir,' says my young +gentleman; and they both declare themselves agreeable to any amount of +delay, provided the marriage comes off some time between this and +doomsday." + +"Well, sir?" asked Nancy, rather at a loss to understand why Philip +Sheldon, the closest and most reserved of men, should happen to be so +confidential to-day. + +"Well, Nancy, what I want to prevent is any underhand work. I know what +very limited notions of honour young men are apt to entertain nowadays, +and how intensely foolish a boarding-school miss can be on occasion. I +don't want these young people to run off to Gretna-green some fine +morning, or to steal a march upon me by getting married on the sly at +some out-of-the-way church, after having invested their united fortunes +in the purchase of a special license. In plain words, I distrust Miss +Halliday's lover, and I distrust Miss Halliday's common sense; and I +want to have a sensible, sharp-eyed person in the house always on the +look-out for any kind of danger, and able to protect my stepdaughter's +interests as well as my own." + +"But the young lady's mamma, sir--she would look after her daughter, I +suppose?" + +"Her mamma is foolishly indulgent, and about as capable of taking care +of her daughter as of sitting in Parliament. You remember pretty Georgy +Cradock, and you must know what she was--and what she is. Mrs. Sheldon +is the same woman as Georgy Cradock--a little older, and a little more +plump and rosy; but just as pretty, and just as useless." + +The interview was prolonged for some little time after this, and it +ended in a thorough understanding between Mr. Sheldon and his old +servant. Nancy Woolper was to re-enter that gentleman's service, and +over and above all ordinary duties, she was to undertake the duty of +keeping a close watch upon all the movements of Charlotte Halliday. In +plain words, she was to be a spy, a private detective, so far as this +young lady was concerned; but Mr. Sheldon was too wise to put his +requirements into plain words, knowing that even in the hour of her +extremity Nancy Woolper would have refused to fill such an office had +she clearly understood the measure of its infamy. + +Upon the day that followed his interview with Mrs. Woolper, the +stockbroker came home from the City an hour or two earlier than his +custom, and startled Miss Halliday by appearing in the garden where she +was walking alone, looking her brightest and prettiest in her dark +winter hat and jacket, and pacing briskly to and fro among the bare +frost-bound patches of earth that had once been flower-beds. + +"I wan't a few minutes' quiet talk with you, Lotta," said Mr. Sheldon. +"You'd better come into my study, where we're pretty sure not to be +interrupted." + +The girl blushed crimson as she acceded to this request, being assured +that Mr. Sheldon was going to discuss her matrimonial engagement. +Valentine had told her of that very satisfactory interview in the +dining-room, and from that time she had been trying to find an +opportunity for the acknowledgment of her stepfather's generosity. As +yet the occasion had not arisen. She did not know how to frame her +thanksgiving, and she shrank shyly from telling Mr. Sheldon how +grateful she was to him for the liberality of mind which had +distinguished his conduct in this affair. + +"I really ought to thank him," she said to herself more than once. "I +was quite prepared for his doing his uttermost to prevent my marriage +with Valentine; and instead of that, he volunteers his consent, and +even promises to give us a fortune. 'I am bound to thank him for such +generous kindness." + +Perhaps there is no task more difficult than to offer grateful tribute +to a person whom one has been apt to think of with a feeling very near +akin to dislike. Ever since her mother's second marriage Charlotte had +striven against an instinctive distaste for Mr. Sheldon's society, and +an innate distrust of Mr. Sheldon's affectionate regard for herself; +but now that he had proved his sincerity in this most important crisis +of her life, she awoke all at once to the sense of the wrong she had +done. + +"I am always reading the Sermon on the Mount, and yet in my thoughts +about Mr. Sheldon I have never been able to remember those words, +'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' His kindness touches me to the very +heart, and I feel it all the more keenly because of my injustice." + +She followed her stepfather into the prim little study. There was no +fire, and the room was colder than a vault on this bleak December day. +Charlotte shivered, and drew her jacket more tightly across her chest +as she perched herself on one of Mr. Sheldon's shining red morocco +chairs. "The room strikes cold," she said; "very, very cold." + +After this there was a brief pause, during which Mr. Sheldon took some +papers from the pocket of his overcoat, and arranged them on his desk +with an absent manner, as if he were rather deliberating upon what he +was going to say than thinking of what he was doing. While he loitered +thus Charlotte found courage to speak. + +"I wish to thank you, Mr. Sheldon--papa," she said, pronouncing the +"papa" with some slight appearance of effort, in spite of her desire to +be grateful: "I--I have been wishing to thank you for the last day or +two; only it seems so difficult sometimes to express one's self about +these things." + +"I do not deserve or wish for your thanks, my dear. I have only done my +duty." + +"But, indeed, you do deserve my thanks, and you have them in all +sincerity, papa. You have been very, very good to me--about--about +Valentine. I thought you would be sure to oppose our marriage on the +ground of imprudence, you know, and----" + +"I do oppose your marriage in the present on the ground of imprudence, +and I am only consentient to it in the future on the condition that Mr. +Hawkehurst shall have secured a comfortable income by his literary +labours. He seems to be clever, and he promises fairly----" + +"O yes indeed, dear papa," cried the girl, pleased by this meed of +praise for her lover; "he is more than clever. I am sure you would say +so if you had time to read his article on Madame de Sevigne in the +_Cheapside_." + +"I daresay it's very good, my dear; but I don't care for Madame de +Sevigne----" + +"Or his sketch of Bossuet's career in the _Charing Cross_." + +"My dear child, I do not even know who Bossuet was. All I require from +Mr. Hawkehurst is, that he shall earn a good income before he takes you +away from this house. You have been accustomed to a certain style of +living, and I cannot allow you to encounter a life of poverty." + +"But, dear papa, I am not in the least afraid of poverty." + +"I daresay not, my dear. You have never been poor," replied Mr. +Sheldon, coolly. "I don't suppose I am as much afraid of a rattlesnake +as the poor wretches who are accustomed to see one swinging by his tail +from the branch of a tree any day in the course of their travels. I +have only a vague idea that a cobra de capello is an unpleasant +customer; but depend upon it, those foreign fellows feel their blood +stagnate and turn to ice at sight of the cold slimy-looking monster. +Poverty and I travelled the same road once, and I know what the +gentleman is. I don't want to meet him again." Mr. Sheldon lapsed into +silence after this. His last words had been spoken to himself rather +than to Charlotte, and the thoughts that accompanied them seemed far +from pleasant to him. + +Charlotte sat opposite her stepfather, patiently awaiting his pleasure. +She looked at the gaudily-bound books behind the glass doors, and +wondered whether any one had ever opened any of the volumes. + +"I should like to read dear Sir Walter's stories once more," she +thought; "there never, never was so sweet a romance as the 'Bride of +Lammermoor,' and I cannot imagine that one could ever grow weary of +reading it. But to ask Mr. Sheldon for the key of that bookcase would +be quite impossible. I think his books must be copies of special +editions, not meant to be read. I wonder whether they are real books, +or only upholsterer's dummies?" + +And then her fancies went vagabondising off to that little archetype of +a cottage on the heights of Wimbledon-common, in which she and +Valentine were to live when they were married. She was always +furnishing and refurnishing this cottage, building it up and pulling it +down, as the caprice of the moment dictated. Now it had bow-windows and +white stuccoed walls--now it was Elizabethan--now the simplest, +quaintest, rose-embowered cottager's dwelling, with diamond-paned +casements, and deep thatch on the old gray roof. This afternoon she +amused herself by collecting a small library for Valentine, while +waiting Mr. Sheldon's next observation. He was to have all her +favourite books, of course; and they were to be bound in the prettiest, +most girlish bindings. She could see the dainty volumes, primly ranged +on the little carved oak bookcase, which Valentine was to "pick up" in +Wardour-street. She fancied herself walking down that mart of +bric-a-brac arm-in-arm with her lover, intent on "picking up." Ah, what +happiness! what dear delight in the thought! And O, of all the bright +dreams we dream, how few are realised upon this earth! Do they find +their fulfilment in heaven, those visions of perfect bliss? + +Mr. Sheldon looked up from his desk at last. Miss Halliday remarked to +herself that his face was pale and haggard in the chill wintry +sunlight; but she knew how hard and self-denying a life he led in his +stern devotion to business, and she was in no manner surprised to see +him looking ill. + +"I want to say a few words to you on a matter of business, Lotta," he +began, "and I must ask you to give me all your attention." + +"I will do so with pleasure, papa, but I am awfully stupid about +business." + +"I shall do my best to make matters simple. I suppose you know what +money your father left, including the sums his life had been insured +for?" + +"Yes, I have heard mamma say it was eighteen thousand pounds. I do so +hate the idea of those insurances. It seems like the price of a man's +life, doesn't it? I daresay that is a very unbusiness-like way of +considering the question, but I cannot bear to think that we got money +by dear papa's death." + +These remarks were too trivial for Mr. Sheldon's notice. He went on +with what he had to say in the cold hard voice that was familiar to his +clerks and to the buyers and sellers of shares and stock who had +dealings with him. + +"Your father left eighteen thousand pounds; that amount was left to +your mother without reservation. When she married me, without any +settlement, that money became mine, in point of law--mine to squander +or make away with as I pleased. You know that I have made good use of +that money, and that your mother has had no reason to repent her +confidence in my honour and honesty. The time has now come in which +that honour will be put to a sharper test. You have no legal claim on +so much as a shilling of your father's fortune." + +"I know that, Mr. Sheldon," cried Charlotte, eagerly, "and Valentine +knows also; and, believe me, I do not expect----" + +"I have to settle matters with my own conscience as well as with your +expectations, my dear Lotta," Mr. Sheldon said, solemnly. "Your father +left you unprovided for; but as a man of honour I feel myself bound to +take care that you shall not suffer by his want of caution. I have +therefore prepared a deed of gift, by which I transfer to you five +thousand pounds, now invested in Unitas Bank shares." + +"You are going to give me five thousand pounds!" cried Charlotte, +astounded. + +"Without reservation." + +"You mean to say that you will give me this fortune when I marry, +papa?" said Charlotte, interrogatively. + +"I shall give it to you immediately," replied Mr. Sheldon. "I wish you +to be thoroughly independent of me and my pleasure. You will then +understand, that if I insist upon the prudence of delay, I do so in +your interest and not in my own. I wish you to feel that if I am a +hindrance to your immediate marriage, it is not because I wish to delay +the disbursement of your dowry." + +"O, Mr. Sheldon, O, papa, you are more than generous--you are noble! It +is not that I care for the money. O, believe me, there is no one in the +world who could care less for that than I do. But your thoughtful +kindness, your generosity, touches me to the very heart. O, please let +me kiss you, just as if you were my own dear father come back to life +to protect and guide me. I have thought you cold and worldly. I have +done you so much wrong." + +She ran to him, and wound her arms about his neck before he could put +her off, and lifted up her pretty rosy mouth to his dry hot lips. Her +heart was overflowing with generous emotion, her face beamed with a +happy smile. She was so pleased to find her mother's husband better +than she had thought him. But, to her supreme astonishment, he thrust +her from him roughly, almost violently, and looking up at his face she +saw it darkened by a blacker shadow than she had ever seen upon it +before. Anger, terror, pain, remorse, she knew not what, but an +expression so horrible that she shrunk from him with a sense of alarm, +and went back to her chair, bewildered and trembling. + +"You frightened me, Mr. Sheldon," she said faintly. + +"Not more than you frightened me," answered the stockbroker, walking to +the window and taking his stand there, with his face hidden from +Charlotte. "I did not know there was so much feeling in me. For God's +sake, let us have no sentiment!" + +"Were you angry with me just now?" asked the girl, falteringly, utterly +at a loss to comprehend the change in her stepfather's manner. + +"No, I was not angry. I am not accustomed to these strong emotions," +replied Mr. Sheldon, huskily; "I cannot stand them. Pray let us avoid +all sentimental discussion. I am anxious to do my duty in a +straightforward, business-like way. I don't want gratitude--or fuss. +The five thousand pounds are yours, and I am pleased to find you +consider the amount sufficient. And now I have only one small favour to +ask of you in return." + +"I should be very ungrateful if I refused to do anything you may ask," +said Charlotte, who could not help feeling a little chilled and +disappointed by Mr. Sheldon's stony rejection of her gratitude. + +"The matter is very simple. You are young, and have, in the usual +course of things, a long life before you. But--you know there is always +a 'but' in these cases--a railway accident--a little carelessness in +passing your drawing-room fire some evening when you are dressed in +flimsy gauze or muslin--a fever--a cold--any one of the many dangers +that lie in wait for all of us, and our best calculations are +falsified. If you were to marry and die childless, that money would go +to your husband, and neither your mother nor I would ever touch a +sixpence of it. Now as the money, practically, belongs to your mother, +I consider that this contingency should be provided against--in her +interests as well as in mine. In plain words, I want you to make a will +leaving that money to me." + +"I am quite ready to do so," replied Charlotte. + +"Very good, my dear. I felt assured that you would take a sensible view +of the matter. If you marry your dear Mr. Hawkehurst, have a family +by-and-by, we will throw the old will into the fire and make a new one; +but in the mean time it's just as well to be on the safe side. You +shall go into the City with me to-morrow morning, and shall execute the +will at my office. It will be the simplest document possible--as simple +as the will made by old Serjeant Crane, in which he disposed of half a +million of money in half a dozen lines--at the rate of five thousand +pounds per word. After we've settled that little matter, we can arrange +the transfer of the shares. The whole affair won't occupy an hour." + +"I will do whatever you wish," said Charlotte, meekly. She was not at all +elated by the idea of coming suddenly into possession of five thousand +pounds; but she was very much impressed by the new view of Mr. +Sheldon's character afforded her by his conduct of to-day. And then her +thoughts, constant to one point as the needle to the pole, reverted to +her lover, and she began to think of the effect her fortune might have +upon his prospects. He might go to the bar, he might work and study in +pleasant Temple chambers, with wide area windows overlooking the river, +and read law-books in the evening at the Wimbledon cottage for a few +delightful years, at the end of which he would of course become Lord +Chancellor. That he should devote such intellect and consecrate such +genius as his to the service of his country's law-courts, and _not_ +ultimately seat himself on the Woolsack, was a contingency not to be +imagined by Miss Halliday. Ah, what would not five thousand pounds buy +for him! The cottage expanded into a mansion, the little case of books +developed into a library second only to that of the Duc d'Aumale, a +noble steed waited at the glass door of the vestibule to convey Mr. +Hawkehurst to the Temple, before the minute-hand of Mr. Sheldon's stern +skeleton clock had passed from one figure to another: so great an adept +was this young lady in the art of castle-building. + +"Am I to tell mamma about this conversation?" asked Charlotte, +presently. + +"Well, no, I think not," replied Mr. Sheldon, thoughtfully. "These +family arrangements cannot be kept too quiet. Your mamma is a talking +person, you know, Charlotte; and as we don't want every one in this +part of Bayswater to know the precise amount of your fortune, we may as +well let matters rest as they are. Of course you would not wish Mr. +Hawkehurst to be enlightened?" + +"Why not, papa?" + +"For several reasons. First and foremost, it must be pleasant to you to +be sure that he is thoroughly disinterested. I have told him that you +will get something as a gift from me; but he may have implied that the +something would be little more than a couple of hundreds to furnish a +house. Secondly, it must be remembered, that he has been brought up in +a bad school, and the best way to make him self-reliant and industrious +is to let him think he has nothing but his own industry to depend upon. +I have set him a task. When he has accomplished that, he shall have you +and your five thousand pounds to boot. Till then I should strongly +advise you to keep this business a secret. + +"Yes," answered Charlotte, meditatively; "I think you are right. It +would have been very nice to tell him of your kindness; but I want to +be quite sure that he loves me for myself alone--from first to +last--without one thought of money." + +"That is wise," said Mr. Sheldon, decisively; and thus ended the +interview. + +Charlotte accompanied her stepfather to the city early next morning, +and filled in the blanks in a lithographed form, prepared for the +convenience of such testators as, being about to dispose of their +property, do not care to employ the services of a legal adviser. + +The will seemed to Charlotte the simplest possible affair. She +bequeathed all her property, real and personal, to Philip Sheldon, +without reserve. But as her entire fortune consisted of the five +thousand pounds just given her by that gentleman, and as her personal +property was comprised in a few pretty dresses and trinkets, and desks +and workboxes, she could not very well object to such an arrangement. + +"Of course, mamma would have all my books and caskets, and boxes and +things," she said thoughtfully; "and I should like Diana Paget to have +some of my jewellery, please, Mr. Sheldon. Mamma has plenty, you know." + +"There is no occasion to talk of that, Charlotte," replied the +stockbroker. "This will is only a matter of form." + +Mr. Sheldon omitted to inform his stepdaughter that the instrument just +executed would, upon her wedding-day, become so much waste paper, an +omission that was not in harmony with the practical and careful habits +of that gentleman. + +"Yes, I know that it is only a form," replied Charlotte; "but, after +making a will, one feels as if one was going to die. At least I do. It +seems a kind of preparation for death. I don't wonder people rather +dislike doing it. + +"It is only foolish people who dislike doing it," said Mr. Sheldon, who +was in his most practical mood to-day. "And now we will go and arrange +a more agreeable business--the transfer of the shares." + +After this, there was a little commercial juggling, in the form of +signing and countersigning, which, was quite beyond Charlotte's +comprehension: which operation being completed, she was told that she +was owner of five thousand pounds in Unitas Bank shares, and that the +dividends accruing from time to time on those shares would be hers to +dispose of as she pleased. + +"The income arising from your capital will be more than you can spend +so long as you remain under my roof," said Mr. Sheldon. "I should +therefore strongly recommend you to invest your dividends as they +arise, and thus increase your capital." + +"You are so kind and thoughtful," murmured Charlotte; "I shall always +be pleased to take your advice." She was strongly impressed by the +kindness of the man her thoughts had wronged. + +"How difficult it is to understand these reserved, matter-of-fact +people!" she said to herself. Because my stepfather does not talk +sentiment, I have fancied him hard and worldly; and yet he has proved +himself as capable of doing a noble action as if he were the most +poetical of mankind. + +Mrs. Sheldon had been told that Charlotte was going into the City to +choose a new watch, wherewith to replace the ill-used little Geneva toy +that had been her delight as a schoolgirl; and as Charlotte brought +home a neat little English-made chronometer from a renowned emporium on +Ludgate-hill, the simple matron accepted this explanation in all good +faith. + +"I'm sure, Lotta, you must confess your stepfather is kindness itself +in most matters," said Georgy, after an admiring examination of the new +watch. "When I think how kindly he has taken this business about Mr. +Hawkehurst, and how disinterested he has proved himself in his ideas +about your marriage, I really am inclined to think him the best of men." + +Georgy said this with an air of triumph. She could not forget that +there were people in Barlingford who had said hard things about Philip +Sheldon, and had prophesied unutterable miseries for herself and her +daughter as the bitter consequence of the imprudence she had been +guilty of in her second marriage. + +"He has indeed been very good, mamma," Charlotte replied gravely, "and, +believe me, I am truly grateful. He does not like fuss or sentiment; +but I hope he knows that I appreciate his kindness." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +RIDING THE HIGH HORSE. + + +Never, in his brightest dreams, had Valentine Hawkehurst imagined the +stream of life so fair and sunny a river as it seemed to him now. +Fortune had treated him so scurvily for seven-and-twenty years of his +life, only to relent of a sudden and fling all her choicest gifts into +his lap. + +"I must be the prince in the fairy tale who begins life as a revolting +animal of the rhinoceros family, and ends by marrying the prettiest +princess in Elfindom," he said to himself gaily, is he paced the broad +walks of Kensington-gardens, where the bare trees swung their big black +branches in the wintry blast, and the rooks cawed their loudest at +close of the brief day. + +What, indeed, could this young adventurer demand from benignant Fortune +above and beyond the blessings she had given him?? The favoured suitor +of the fairest and brightest woman he had ever looked upon, received by +her kindred, admitted to her presence, and only bidden to serve a due +apprenticeship before he claimed her as his own for ever. What more +could he wish? what further boon could he implore from the Fates? + +Yes, there was one thing more--one thing for which Mr. Hawkehurst +pined, while most thankful for his many blessings. He wanted a decent +excuse for separating himself most completely from Horatio Paget. He +wanted to shake himself free from all the associations of his previous +existence. He wanted to pass through the waters of Jordan, and to +emerge purified, regenerate, leaving his garments on the furthermost +side of the river; and, with all other things appertaining to the past, +he would fain have rid himself of Captain Paget. + +"'Be sure your sin will find you out,'" mused the young man; "and +having found you, be sure that it will stick to you like a leech, if +your sin takes the shape of an unprincipled acquaintance, as it does in +my case. I may try my hardest to cut the past, but will Horatio Paget +let me alone in the future? I doubt it. The bent of that man's genius +shows itself in his faculty for living upon other people. He knows that +I am beginning to earn money regularly, and has begun to borrow of me +already. When I can earn more, he will want to borrow more; and +although it is very sweet to work for Charlotte Halliday, it would not +be by any means agreeable to slave for my friend Paget. Shall I offer +him a pound a week, and ask him to retire into the depths of Wales or +Cornwall, amend his ways, and live the life of a repentant hermit? I +think I could bring myself to sacrifice the weekly sovereign, if there +were any hope that Horatio Paget could cease to be--Horatio Paget, on +this side the grave. No, I have the misfortune to be intimately +acquainted with the gentleman. When he is in the swim, as he calls it, +and is earning money on his own account, he will give himself cosy +little dinners and four-and-sixpenny primrose gloves; and when he is +down on his luck, he will come whining to me." + +This was by no means a pleasant idea to Mr. Hawkehurst. In the old days +he had been distinguished by all the Bohemian's recklessness, and even +more than the Bohemian's generosity in his dealings with friend or +companion. But now all was changed. He was no longer reckless. A +certain result was demanded from him as the price of Charlotte +Halliday's hand, and he set himself to accomplish his allotted task +with all due forethought and earnestness of purpose. He had need even +to exercise restraint over himself, lest, in his eagerness, he should +do too much, and so lay himself prostrate from the ill effects of +overwork; so anxious was he to push on upon the road whose goal was so +fair a temple, so light seemed that labour of love which was performed +for the sake of Charlotte. + +He communed with himself very often on the subject of that troublesome +question about Captain Paget. How was he to sever his frail skiff from +that rakish privateer? What excuse could he find for renouncing his +share in the Omega-street lodgings, and setting up a new home elsewhere? + +"Policy might prompt me to keep my worthy friend under my eye," he said +to himself, "in order that I may be sure there is no underhand work +going on between him and Philip Sheldon. But I can scarcely believe +that Philip Sheldon has any inkling about the Haygarthian fortune. If +he had, he would surely not receive me as Charlotte's suitor. What +possible motive could he have for doing so?" + +This was a question which Mr. Hawkehurst had frequently put to himself; +for his confidence in Mr. Sheldon was not of that kind which asks no +questions. Even while most anxious to believe in that gentleman's +honesty of purpose, he was troubled by occasional twinges of unbelief. + +During the period which had elapsed since his return from Yorkshire, he +had been able to discover nothing of any sinister import from the +proceedings of Captain Paget. That gentleman appeared to be still +engaged upon the promoting business, although by no means so profitably +as heretofore. He went into the City every day, and came home in the +evening toilworn and out of spirits. He talked freely of his +occupation--how he had done much or done nothing, during the day; and +Valentine was at a loss to perceive any further ground for the +suspicion that had arisen in his mind after the meeting at the Ullerton +station, and the shuffling of the sanctimonious Goodge with regard to +Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters. + +Mr. Hawkehurst therefore determined upon boldly cutting the knot that +tied him to the familiar companion of his wanderings. + +"I am tired of watching and suspecting," he said to himself. "If my +dear love has a right to this fortune, it will surely come to her; or +if it should never come, we can live very happily without it. Indeed, +for my own part, I am inclined to believe that I should be prouder and +happier as the husband of a dowerless wife, than as prince-consort to +the heiress of the Haygarths. We have built up such a dear, cheery, +unpretentious home for ourselves in our talk of the future, that I +doubt if we should care to change it for the stateliest mansion in +Kensington Palace-gardens or Belgrave-square. My darling could not be +my housekeeper, and make lemon cheese-cakes in her own pretty little +kitchen, if we lived in Belgrave-square; and how could she stand at one +of those great Birmingham ironwork gates in the Palace-gardens to watch +me ride away to my work?" + +To a man as deeply in love as Mr. Hawkehurst, the sordid dross which +other people prize so highly is apt to become daily more indifferent; a +kind of colour-blindness comes over the vision of the true lover, and +the glittering yellow ore seems only so much vulgar earth, too mean a +thing to be regarded by any but the mean of soul. Thus it was that Mr. +Hawkehurst relaxed his suspicion of Captain Paget, and neglected his +patron and ally of Gray's Inn, much to the annoyance of that gentleman, +who tormented the young man with little notes demanding interviews. + +These interviews had of late been far from agreeable to either of the +allies. George Sheldon urged the necessity of an immediate marriage; +Valentine declined to act in an underhand manner, after the +stockbroker's unexpected generosity. + +"Generosity!" echoed George Sheldon, when Valentine had given him this +point-blank refusal at the close of a stormy argument. "Generosity! My +brother Phil's generosity! Egad, that is about the best thing I've +heard for the last ten years. If I pleased, Mr. Valentine Hawkehurst, I +could tell you something about my brother which would enable you to +estimate his generosity at its true value. But I don't please; and if +you choose to run counter to me and my interests, you must pay the +price of your folly. You may think yourself uncommonly lucky if the +price isn't a stiff one." + +"I am prepared to abide by my decision," answered Valentine. "Miss +Halliday without a shilling is so dear to me, that I don't care to +commit a dishonourable action in order to secure my share of the +fortune she may claim. I turned over a new leaf on the day when I first +knew myself possessed of her affection. I don't want to go back to the +old leaves." + +George Sheldon gave himself an impatient shrug. "I have heard of a +great many fools," he said, "but I never heard of a fool who would play +fast-and-loose with a hundred thousand pounds, and until to-day I +couldn't have believed there was such an animal." + +Mr. Hawkehurst did not deign to notice this remark. + +"Do be reasonable, Sheldon," he said. "You ask me to do what my sense +of right will not permit me to do, and you ask me that which I fully +believe to be impossible. I cannot for a moment imagine that any +persuasion of mine would induce Charlotte to consent to a secret +marriage, after your brother's fair and liberal conduct." + +"Of course not," cried George, with savage impatience; "that's my +brother Phil all over. He is so honourable, so plain and +straightforward in all his dealings, that he would get the best of +Lucifer himself in a bargain. I tell you, Hawkehurst, you don't know +how deep he is--as deep as the bottomless pit, by Jove! His very +generosity makes me all the more afraid of him. I don't understand his +game. If he consented to your marriage in order to get rid of +Charlotte, he would let you marry her off-hand; but instead of doing +that, he makes conditions which must delay your marriage for years. +There is the point that bothers me." + +"You had better pursue your own course, without reference to me or my +marriage with Miss Halliday," said Valentine. + +"That is exactly what I must do. I can't leave the Haygarth estate to +the mercy of Tom, Dick, and Harry, while you try to earn thirty pounds +a month by scribbling for the magazines. I must make my bargain with +Philip instead of with you, and I can tell you that you'll be the loser +by the transaction." + +"I don't quite see that." + +"Perhaps not. You see, you don't quite understand my brother Phil. If +this money gets into his hands, be sure some of it will stick to them." + +"Why should the money get into his hand?" + +"Because, so long as Charlotte Halliday is under his roof, she is, to a +certain extent, under his authority. And then, I tell you again, there +is no calculating the depth of that man. He has thrown dust in your +eyes already. He will make that poor girl believe him the most +disinterested of mankind." + +"You can warn her." + +"Yes; as I have warned you. To what purpose? You are inclined to +believe in Phil rather than to believe in me, and you will be so +inclined to the end of the chapter. You remember that man Palmer, at +Rugely, who used to go to church, and take the sacrament?" + +"Yes; of course I remember that case. What of him?" + +"Why, people believed in him, you know, and thought him a jolly good +fellow, up to the time when they discovered that he had poisoned a few +of his friends in a quiet gentlemanly way." + +Mr. Hawkehurst smiled at the irrelevance of this remark. He could not +perceive the connection of ideas between Palmer the Rugely poisoner, +and Philip Sheldon the stockbroker. + +"That was an extreme case," he said. + +"Yes; of course that was an extreme case," answered George, carelessly. +"Only it goes far to prove that a man may be gifted with a remarkable +genius for throwing dust in the eyes of his fellow-creatures." + +There was no further disputation between the lawyer and Valentine. +George Sheldon began to understand that a secret marriage was not to be +accomplished in the present position of affairs. + +"I am half inclined to suspect that Phil knows something about that +money," he said presently, "and is playing some artful game of his own." + +"In that case your better policy would be to take the initiative," +answered Valentine. + +"I have no other course." + +"And will Charlotte know--will she know that I have been concerned in +this business?" asked Valentine, growing very pale all of sudden. He +was thinking how mean he must appear in Miss Halliday's eyes, if she +came to understand that he had known her to be John Haygarth's heiress +at the time he won from her the sweet confession of her love. "Will she +ever believe how pure and true my love has been, if she comes to know +this?" he asked himself despairingly, while George Sheldon deliberated +in silence for a few moments. + +"She need know nothing until the business comes to a head," replied +George at last. "You see, there may be no resistance on the part of the +Crown lawyers; and, in that case, Miss Halliday will get her rights +after a moderate amount of delay. But if they choose to dispute her +claim, it will be quite another thing--Halliday _versus_ the Queen, and +so on--with no end of swell Q.C.'s against us. In the latter case +you'll have to put all your adventures at Ullerton and Huxter's Cross +into an affidavit, and Miss H. must know everything." + +"Yes; and then she will think--ah, no; I do not believe she can +misunderstand me, come what may." + +"All doubt and difficulty might be avoided if you would manage a +marriage on the quiet off-hand," said George. + +"I tell you again that I cannot do that; and that, even if it +were possible, I would not attempt it." + +"So be it. You elect to ride the high horse; take care that magnificent +animal doesn't give you an ugly tumble." + +"I can take my chance." + +"And I must take my chance against that brother of mine. The winning +cards are all in my own hand this time, and it will be uncommonly hard +if he gets the best of me." + +On this the two gentlemen parted. Valentine went to look at a +bachelor's lodging in the neighbourhood of the Edgeware-road, which he +had seen advertised in that morning's Times; and George Sheldon started +for Bayswater, where he was always sure of a dinner and a liberal +allowance of good wine from the hospitality of his prosperous kinsman. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MR. SHELDON IS PRUDENT. + + +Valentine found the apartments near the Edgeware-road in every manner +eligible. The situation was midway between his reading-room in Great +Russell-street and the abode of his delight--a half-way house on the +road between business and pleasure. The terms were very moderate, the +rooms airy and pleasant; so he engaged them forthwith, his tenancy to +commence at the end of the following week; and having settled this +matter, he went back to Omega-street, bent on dissolving partnership +with the Captain in a civil but decided manner. + +A surprise, and a very agreeable one, awaited him at Chelsea. He found +the sitting-room strewn with Captain Paget's personal property, and the +Captain on his knees before a portmanteau, packing. + +"You're just in time to give me a hand, Val," he said in his most +agreeable manner. "I begin to find out my age when I put my poor old +bones into abnormal attitudes. I daresay packing a trunk or two will be +only child's-play to you." + +"I'll pack half a dozen trunks if you like," replied Valentine. "But +what is the meaning of this sudden move? I did not know you were going +to leave town." + +"Neither did I when you and I breakfasted together. I got an unexpected +offer of a very decent position abroad this morning; a kind of agency, +that will be much better than the hand-to-mouth business I've been +doing lately." + +"What kind of agency, and where?" + +"Well, so far as I can make out at present, it is something in the +steam navigation way. My head-quarters will be at Rouen." + +"Rouen! Well, it's a pleasant lively old city enough, and as +mediaeval as one of Sir Walter's novels, provided they haven't +Haussmanised it by this time. I am very glad to hear you have +secured a comfortable berth." + +"And I am not sorry to leave England, Yal," answered the Captain, in +rather a mournful tone. + +"Why not?" + +"Because I think it's time you and I parted company. Our association +begins to be rather disadvantageous to you, Val. We've had our ups and +downs together, and we've got on very pleasantly, take it for all in +all. But now that you're settling down as a literary man, engaged to +that young woman, hand-in-glove with Philip Sheldon, and so on, I think +it's time for me to take myself off. I'm not wanted; and sooner or +later I should begin to feel myself in the way." + +The Captain grew quite pathetic as he said this; and little pangs of +remorse shot through Valentine's heart as he remembered how eager he +had been to rid himself of this Old Man of the Mountain. And here was +the poor old creature offering to take himself out of the way of his +own accord. + +Influenced by this touch of remorse, Mr. Hawkehurst held out his hand, +and grasped that of his comrade and patron. + +"I hope you may do well, in some--comfortable kind of business," he +said heartily. That adjective "comfortable" was a hasty substitute for +the adjective "honest," which had been almost on his lips as he uttered +his friendly wish. He was too well disposed to all the world not to +feel profound pity for this white-headed old man, who for so many years +had eaten the bread of rogues and scoundrels. + +"Come," he cried cheerily, "I'll take all the packing off your hands, +Captain; and we'll eat our last dinner and drink our last bottle of +sparkling together at my expense, at any place you please to name." + +"Say Blanchard's," replied Horatio Paget. "I like a corner-window, +looking out upon the glare and bustle of Regent-street. It reminds one +just a little of the Maison Doree and the boulevard. We'll drink +Charlotte Halliday's health, Val, in bumpers. She's a charming young +person, and I only wish she were an heiress, for your sake." + +The eyes of the two men met as the Captain said this; and there was a +twinkle in the cold gray orbs of that gentleman which had a very +unpleasant effect upon Valentine. + +"What treachery is he engaged in now?" he asked himself. "I know that +look in my Horatio's eyes; and I know it always means mischief." + +George Sheldon made his appearance at the Lawn five minutes after his +brother came home from the City. He entered the domestic circle in his +usual free-and-easy manner, knowing himself to be endured, rather than +liked, by the two ladies, and to be only tolerated as a necessary evil +by the master of the house. + +"I've dropped in to eat a chop with you, Phil," he said, "in order to +get an hour's comfortable talk after dinner. There's no saying half a +dozen consecutive words to you in the City, where your clerks seem to +spend their lives in bouncing in upon you when you don't want them." + +There was very little talk during dinner. Charlotte and her stepfather +were thoughtful. Diana was chiefly employed in listening to the _sotto +voce_ inanities of Mrs. Sheldon, for whom the girl showed herself +admirably patient. Her forbearance and gentleness towards Georgy +constituted a kind of penitential sacrifice, by which she hoped to +atone for the dark thoughts and bitter feelings that possessed her mind +during those miserable hours in which she was obliged to witness the +happiness of Charlotte and her lover. + +George Sheldon devoted himself chiefly to his dinner and a certain dry +sherry, which he particularly affected. He was a man who would have +dined and enjoyed himself at the table of Judas Iscariot, knowing the +banquet to be provided out of the thirty pieces of silver. + +"That's as good a pheasant as I ever ate, Phil," he said, after winding +up with the second leg of the bird in question. "No, Georgy; no +macaroni, thanks. I don't care about kickshaws after a good dinner. Has +Hawkehurst dined with you lately, by the way, Phil?" + +Charlotte blushed red as the holly-berries that decorated the +chandelier. It was Christmas-eve, and her own fair hands had helped to +bedeck the rooms with festal garlands of evergreen and holly. + +"He dines with us to-morrow," replied the stockbroker. "You'll come, I +suppose, as usual, George?" + +"Well, I shall be very glad, if I'm not in the way." + +Mrs. Sheldon murmured some conventional protestation of the unfailing +delight afforded to her by George's society. + +"Of course we're always glad to see you," said Philip in his most +genial manner; "and now, if you've anything to say to me about +business, the sooner you begin the better.--You and the girls needn't +stay for dessert, Georgy. Almonds and raisins can't be much of a +novelty to you; and as none of you take any wine, there's not much to +stop for. George and I will come in to tea." + +The ladies departed, by no means sorry to return to their Berlin-wool +and piano. Diana took up her work with that saintly patience with which +she performed all the duties of her position; and Charlotte seated +herself before the piano, and began to play little bits of waltzes, and +odds and ends of polkas, in a dreamy mood, and with a slurring over of +dominant bass notes, which would have been torture to a musician's ear. + +She was wondering whether Valentine would call that evening, +Christmas-eve--a sort of occasion for congratulation of some kind from +her lover, she fancied. It was the first Christmas-eve on which she had +been "engaged." She looked back to the same period last year, and +remembered herself sitting in that very room strumming on that very +piano, and unconscious that there was such a creature as Valentine +Hawkehurst upon this earth. And, strange to say, even in that benighted +state, she had been tolerably happy. + +"Now, George," said Mr. Sheldon, when the brothers had filled their +glasses and planted their chairs on the opposite sides of the +hearth-rug, "what's the nature of this business that you want to talk +about?" + +"Well, it is a business of considerable importance, in which you are +only indirectly concerned. The actual principal in the affair is your +stepdaughter, Miss Halliday." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes. You know how you have always ridiculed my fancy for hunting up +heirs-at-law and all that kind of thing, and you know how I have held +on, hoping against hope, starting on a new scent when the old scent +failed, and so on." + +"And you have got a chance at last, eh?" + +"I believe that I have, and a tolerably good one; and I think you will +own that it is rather extraordinary that my first lucky hit should +bring luck your way." + +"That is to say, to my stepdaughter?" remarked Mr. Sheldon, without any +appearance of astonishment. + +"Precisely," said George, somewhat disconcerted by his brother's +coolness. "I have lately discovered that Miss Halliday is entitled to a +certain sum of money, and I pledge myself to put her in possession of +that money--on one condition." + +"And that is--" + +"That she executes a deed promising to give me half of the amount she +may recover by my agency." + +"Suppose she can recover it without your agency?" + +"That I defy her to do. She does not even know that she has any claim +to the amount in question." + +"Don't be too sure of that. Or even supposing she knows nothing, do you +think her friends are as ignorant as she is? Do you think me such a +very bad man of business as to remain all this time unaware of the fact +that my stepdaughter, Charlotte Halliday, is next of kin to the Rev. +John Haygarth, who died intestate, at Tilford Haven, in Kent, about a +year ago?" + +This was a cannon-shot that almost knocked George Sheldon off his +chair; but after that first movement of surprise, he gave a sigh, or +almost a groan, expressive of resignation. + +"Egad, Phil Sheldon," he said, "I ought not to be astonished at this. +Knowing you as well as I do, I must have been a confounded fool not to +expect some kind of underhand work from you." + +"What do you mean by underhand work?" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon. "The same +newspapers that were open to you were open to me, and I had better +opportunities for tracking my stepdaughter's direct descent from John +Haygarth's father." + +"How did you discover Miss Halliday's descent from Matthew Haygarth?" +asked George, very meekly. He was quite crestfallen. He began to feel +that his brother would have the upper hand of him in this business as +in all other business of this world. + +"That is my secret," replied Mr. Sheldon, with agreeable tranquillity +of manner. "You have kept your secrets, and I shall keep mine. Your +policy has been the policy of distrust. Mine shall be the same. When +you were starting this affair, I offered to go into it with you--to +advance whatever money you needed, in a friendly manner. You declined +my offer, and chose to go in for the business on your own hook. You +have made a very good thing for yourself, no doubt; but you are not +quite clever enough to keep me altogether in the dark in a matter which +concerns a member of my own family." + +"Yes," said George, with a sigh, "that's where you hold the winning +cards. Miss Halliday is your ace of trumps." + +"Depend upon it, I shall know how to hold my strength in reserve, and +when to play my leading trump." + +"And how to collar my king," muttered George between his set teeth. + +"Come," exclaimed Philip presently, "we may as well discuss this matter +in a friendly spirit. What do you mean to propose?" + +"I have only one proposition to make," answered the lawyer, with +decision. "I hold every link of the chain of evidence, without which +Miss Halliday might as well be a native of the Fiji islands for any +claim she can assert to John Haygarth's estate. I am prepared to carry +this matter through; but I will only do it on the condition that I +receive half the fortune recovered from the Crown by Miss Halliday." + +"A very moderate demand, upon my word!" + +"I daresay I shall be able to make my bargain with Miss Halliday." +"Very likely," replied Mr. Sheldon; "and I shall be able to get that +bargain set aside as illegal." + +"I doubt that. I have a deed of agreement drawn up here which would +hold water in any court of equity." + +And hereupon Mr. Sheldon the younger produced and read aloud one of +those dry as dust documents by which the legal business of life is +carried on. It was a deed to be executed by Charlotte Halliday, +spinster, of Bayswater, on the one part, and George Sheldon, solicitor, +of Gray's Inn, on the other part; and it gave to the said George +Sheldon, as securely as any deed can give anything, one half of any +property, not now in her possession or control, which the said +Charlotte Halliday might obtain by the agency of the above-mentioned +George Sheldon. + +"And pray, who is to find the costs for this business?" asked the +stockbroker. "I don't feel by any means disposed to stake my money on +such a hazardous game. Who knows what other descendants of Matthew +Haygarth may be playing at hide-and-seek in the remotest corners of the +earth, ready to spring out upon us when we've wasted a small fortune +upon law-proceedings." + +"I shan't ask you to risk your money," replied George, with sullen +dignity. "I have friends who will back me when they see that agreement +executed." + +"Very well, then, all you have to do is to alter your half share to +one-fifth, and I will undertake that Miss Halliday shall sign the +agreement before the week is out." + +"One-fifth?" + +"Yes, my dear George. Twenty thousand pounds will pay you very +handsomely for your trouble. I cannot consent to Miss Halliday ceding +more than a fifth." + +"A fig for your consent! The girl is of age, and can act upon her own +hook. I shall go to Miss Halliday herself," exclaimed the indignant +lawyer. + +"O no, you won't. You must know the danger of running counter to me in +this business. That agreement is all very well; but there is no kind of +document more easy to upset if one only goes about it in the right way. +Play your own game, and I will upset that agreement, as surely as I +turn this wine-glass bowl downwards." + +Mr. Sheldon's action and Mr. Sheldon's look expressed a determination +which George knew how to estimate by the light of past experience. + +"It is a hard thing to find you against me, after the manner in which I +have toiled and slaved for your stepdaughter's interests." + +"I am bound to hold my stepdaughter's interests paramount over every +consideration." + +"Yes, paramount over brotherly feeling and all that sort of thing. +I say that it is more than hard that you should be against me, +considering the special circumstances and the manner in which +I have kept my own counsel----" + +"You will take a fifth share, or nothing, George," said Mr. Sheldon, +with a threatening contraction of his black brows. "If I have any +difficulty in arranging matters with you, I will go into +this affair myself, and carry it through without your help." + +"That I defy you to do." + +"You had better not defy me." + +"Pray how much do you expect to get out of Miss Halliday's fortune?" +demanded the aggravated George. + +"That is my business," answered Philip. "And now we had better go into +the drawing-room for our tea. O, by the bye, George," he added, +carelessly, "as Miss Halliday is quite a child in all business matters, +she had better be treated like a child. I shall tell her that she has a +claim to a certain sum of money; but I shall not tell her what sum. Her +disappointment will be less in the event of a failure, if her +expectations are not large." + +"You are always so considerate, my dear Phil," said George, with a +malignant grin. "May I ask how it is you have taken it into your head +to play the benevolent father in the matter of Valentine Hawkehurst and +Miss Halliday?" + +"What can it signify to me whom my stepdaughter marries?" asked Philip, +coolly. "Of course I wish her well; but I will not have the +responsibility of controlling her choice. If this young man suits her, +let her marry him." + +"Especially when he happens to suit _you_ so remarkably well. I think I +can understand your tactics, Phil." + +"You must understand or misunderstand me, just as you please. And now +come to tea." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHRISTMAS PEACE. + + +Valentine Hawkehurst did not make his appearance at the Lawn on +Christmas-eve. He devoted that evening to the service of his old ally. +He performed all friendly offices for the departing Captain, dined with +him very pleasantly in Regent-street, and accompanied him to the +London-bridge terminus, where he beheld the voyager comfortably seated +in a second-class carriage of the night-train for Newhaven. + +Mr. Hawkehurst had seen the Captain take a through ticket for Rouen, +and he saw the train leave the terminus. This he held to be ocular +demonstration of the fact that Captain Paget was really going to the +Gallic Manchester. + +"That sort of customer is so uncommonly slippery," the young man said +to himself as he left the station; "nothing but the evidence of my own +eyes would have convinced me of my friend's departure. How pure and +fresh the London atmosphere seems now that the perfume of Horatio Paget +is out of it! I wonder what he is going to do at Rouen? Very little +good, I daresay. But why should I wonder about him, or trouble myself +about him? He is gone, and I have set myself free from the trammels of +the past." + + * * * * * + +The next day was Christmas-day. Mr. Hawkehurst recited scraps of +Milton's glorious hymn as he made his morning toilet. He was very +happy. It was the first Christmas morning on which he had ever awakened +with this sense of supreme happiness, or with the consciousness that +the day was brighter, or grander, or more holy than other days. It +seemed to him to-day, more than ever, that he was indeed a regenerate +creature, purified by the influence of a good woman's love. + +He looked back at his past existence, and the vision of many +Christmas-days arose before him: a Christmas in Paris, amidst +unutterable rain and mud; a Christmas-night spent in roaming the +Boulevards, and in the consumption of cognac and tobacco at a +third-rate cafe; a Christmas in Germany; more than one Christmas in the +Queen's Bench; one especially dreary Christmas in a long bare ward at +Whitecross-street,--how many varied scenes and changing faces arose +before his mental vision associated with that festive time! And yet +among them all there was not one on which there shone the faintest +glimmer of that holy light which makes the common holiday a sacred +season. + +It was a pleasant thing to breakfast without the society of the +brilliant Horatio, whose brilliancy was apt to appear somewhat ghastly +at that early period of the morning. It was pleasant to loiter over the +meal, now meditating on the happy future, now dipping into a tattered +copy of Southey's "Doctor;" with the consciousness that the winds and +waves had by this time wafted Captain Paget to a foreign land. + +Valentine was to spend the whole of Christmas-day with Charlotte and +her kindred. He was to accompany them to a fashionable church in the +morning, to walk with them after church, to dine and tell ghost-stories +in the evening. It was to be his first day as a recognised member of +that pleasant family at Bayswater; and in the fulness of his heart he +felt affectionately disposed to all his adopted relations; even to Mr. +Sheldon, whose very noble conduct had impressed him strongly, in spite +of the bitter sneers and covert slanders of George. Charlotte had told +her lover that her stepfather was a very generous and disinterested +person, and that there was a secret which she would have been glad to +tell him, had she not been pledged to hold it inviolate, that would +have gone far to place Mr. Sheldon in a very exalted light before the +eyes of his future son-in-law. + +And then Miss Halliday had nodded and smiled, and had informed her +lover, with a joyous little laugh, that he should have a horse to ride, +and an edition of Grote's "Greece" bound in dark-brown calf with +bevelled edges, when they were married; this work being one which the +young author had of late languished to possess. + +"Dear foolish Lotta, I fear there will be a new history of Greece, +based on new theories, before that time comes," said the lover. + +"O no, indeed; that time will come very soon. See how industriously you +work, and how well you succeed. The magazine people will soon give you +thirty pounds a month. Or who knows that you may not write some book +that will make you suddenly famous, like Byron, or the good-natured fat +little printer who wrote those long, long, long novels that no one +reads nowadays?" + +Influenced by Charlotte's hints about her stepfather, Mr. Hawkehurst's +friendly feeling for that gentleman grew stronger, and the sneers and +innuendoes of the lawyer ceased to have the smallest power over him. + +"The man is such a thorough-going schemer himself, that he cannot bring +himself to believe in another man's honesty," thought Mr. Hawkehurst, +while meditating upon his experience of the two brothers. "So far as I +have had any dealings with Philip Sheldon, I have found him +straightforward enough. I can imagine no hidden motive for his conduct +in relation to Charlotte. The test of his honesty will be the manner in +which he is acted upon by Charlotte's position as claimant of a great +fortune. Will he throw me overboard, I wonder? or will my dear one +believe me an adventurer and fortune-hunter? Ah, no, no, no; I do not +think in all the complications of life there could come about a state +of events which would cause my Charlotte to doubt me. There is no +clairvoyance so unerring as true love." + +Mr. Hawkehurst had need of such philosophy as this to sustain him in +the present crisis of his life. He was blest with a pure delight which +excelled his wildest dreams of happiness; but he was not blest with any +sense of security as to the endurance of that exalted state of bliss. + +Mr. Sheldon would learn Charlotte's position, would doubtless extort +from his brother the history of those researches in which Valentine had +been engaged; and then, what then? Alas! hereupon arose incalculable +dangers and perplexities. + +Might not the stockbroker, as a man of the world, take a sordid view of +the whole transaction, and consider Valentine in the light of a +shameless adventurer, who had traded on his secret knowledge in the +hope of securing a rich wife? Might he not reveal all to Charlotte, and +attempt to place her lover before her in this most odious aspect? She +would not believe him base; her faith would be unshaken, her love +unchanged; but it was odious, it was horrible, to think that her ears +should be sullied, her tender heart fluttered, by the mere suggestion +of such baseness. + +It was during the Christmas-morning sermon that Mr. Hawkehurst +permitted his mind to be disturbed by these reflections. He was sitting +next his betrothed, and had the pleasure of contemplating her fair +girlish face, with the rosy lips half parted in reverent attention as +she looked upward to her pastor. After church there was the walk home +to the Lawn: and during this rapturous promenade Valentine put away +from him all shadow of doubt and fear, in order to bask in the full +sunshine of his Charlotte's presence. Her pretty gloved hand rested +confidingly on his arm, and the supreme privilege of carrying a dainty +blue-silk umbrella and an ivory-bound church-service was awarded him. +With what pride he accepted the duty of convoying his promised wife +over the muddy crossings! Those brief journeys seemed to him in a +manner typical of their future lives. She was to travel dry-shod over +the miry ways of this world, supported by his strong arm. How fondly he +surveyed her toilet! and what a sudden interest he felt in the +fashions, that had until lately seemed so vulgar and frivolous! + +"I will never denounce the absurdity of those little bonnets again, +Lotta," he cried; "that conglomeration of black velvet and +maiden's-hair fern is divine. Do you know that in some places they call +that fern Maria's hair, and hold it sacred to the mother of Him who was +born to-day? so you see there is an artistic fitness in your +head-dress. Yes, your bonnet is delicious, darling; and though the +diminutive size of that velvet jacket would lead me to suppose you had +borrowed it from some juvenile sister, it seems the very garment of all +garments best calculated to render you just one hair's-breadth nearer +perfection than you were made by Nature." + +"Valentine, don't be ridiculous!" giggled the young lady. + +"How can I help being ridiculous? Your presence acts upon my nerves +like laughing-gas. Ah, you do not know what cares and perplexities I +have to make me serious. Charlotte," exclaimed the young man, with +sudden energy, "do you think you could ever come to distrust me?" + +"Valentine! Do I think I shall ever be Queen of England? One thing is +quite as likely as the other." + +"My dear angel, if you will only believe in me always, there is no +power upon earth that can make us unhappy. Suppose you found yourself +suddenly possessed of a great fortune, Charlotte; what would you do +with it?" + +"I would buy you a library as good as that in the British Museum; and +then you would not want to spend the whole of your existence in Great +Russell-street." + +"But if you had a great fortune, Lotta, don't you think you would be +very much disposed to leave me to plod on at my desk in Great +Russell-street? Possessed of wealth, you would begin to languish for +position; and you would allow Mr. Sheldon to bring you some suitor who +could give you a name and a rank in society worthy of an angelic +creature with a hundred thousand pounds or so." + +"I should do nothing of the kind. I do not care for money. Indeed, I +should be almost sorry to be very rich." + +"Why, dearest?" + +"Because, if I were very rich, we could not live in the cottage at +Wimbledon, and I could not make lemon cheese-cakes for your dinner." + +"My own true-hearted darling!" cried Valentine; "the taint of +worldliness can never touch your pure spirit." + +They were at the gates of Mr. Sheldon's domain by this time. Diana and +Georgy had walked behind the lovers, and had talked a little about the +sermon, and a good deal about the bonnets; poor Diana doing her very +uttermost to feign an interest in the finery that had attracted Mrs. +Sheldon's wandering gaze. + +"Well, I should have thought you couldn't fail to see it," said the +elder lady, as they approached the gate; "a leghorn, very small, with +holly-berries and black ribbon--quite French, you know, and _so_ +stylish. I was thinking, if I had my Tuscan cleaned and altered, it +might----" And here the conversation became general, as the family +party entered the drawing-room, where Mr. Sheldon was reading his paper +by a roaring fire. + +"Talking about the bonnets, as per usual," said the stockbroker. "What +an enormous amount of spiritual benefit you women must derive from +church-going!--Consols have fallen another eighth since Tuesday +afternoon, George," added Mr. Sheldon, addressing himself to his +brother, who was standing on the hearth-rug, with his elbow on the +chimney-piece. + +"Consols are your 'bonnets,' papa," cried Charlotte, gaily; "I don't +think there is a day upon which you do not talk about their having gone +up, or gone down, or gone somewhere." + +After luncheon the lovers went for a walk in Kensington-gardens, with +Diana Paget to play propriety. "You will come with us, won't you, dear +Di?" pleaded Charlotte. "You have been looking pale and ill lately, and +I am sure a walk will do you good." + +Valentine seconded his liege lady's request; and the three spent a +couple of hours pacing briskly to and fro in the lonelier parts of the +gardens, leaving the broad walks for the cockneys, who mustered strong +upon this seasonable Christmas afternoon. + +For two out of those three that wintry walk was rapture only too +fleeting. For the third it was passive endurance. The agonies that had +but lately rent Diana's breast when she had seen those two together no +longer tortured her. The scorpion sting was beginning to lose its +venomous power. She suffered still, but her suffering was softened by +resignation. There is a limit to the capacity for pain in every mind. +Diana had borne her share of grief; she had, in Homeric phrase, +satiated herself with anguish and tears; and to those sharp throes and +bitter torments there had succeeded a passive sense of sorrow that was +almost peace. + +"I have lost him," she said to herself. "Life can never bring me much +joy; but I should be worse than weak if I spent my existence in the +indulgence of my sorrow. I should be one of the vilest wretches upon +this earth if I could not teach myself to witness the happiness of my +friend without repining." + +Miss Paget had not arrived at this frame of mind without severe +struggles. Many times, in the long wakeful nights, in the slow, joyless +days, she had said to herself, "Peace, peace, when there was no peace." +But at last the real peace, the true balm of Gilead, was given in +answer to her prayers, and the weary soul tasted the sweetness of +repose. She had wrestled with, and had vanquished, the demon. + +To-day, as she walked beside the lovers, and listened to their happy +frivolous talk, she felt like a mother who had seen the man she loved +won from her by her own daughter, and who had resigned herself to the +ruin of all her hopes for love of her child. + +There was more genial laughter and pleasant converse at Mr. Sheldon's +dinner-table that evening than was usual at that hospitable board; but +the stockbroker himself contributed little to the merriment of the +party. He was quiet, and even thoughtful, and let the talk and laughter +go by him without any attempt to take part in it. After dinner he went +to his own room; while Valentine and the ladies sat round the fire in +the orthodox Christmas manner, and after a good deal of discursive +conversation, subsided into the telling of ghost-stories. + +George Sheldon sat apart from the circle, turning over the books upon +the table, or peering into a stereoscope with an evident sense of +weariness. This kind of domestic evening was a manner of life which Mr. +Sheldon of Gray's Inn denounced as "slow;" and he submitted himself to +the endurance of it this evening only because he did not know where +else to bestow his presence. + +"I don't think papa cares much about ghost-stories, does he, uncle +George?" Charlotte asked, by way of saying something to the gentleman, +who seemed so very dreary as he sat yawning over the books and +stereoscopes. + +"I don't suppose he does, my dear." + +"And do you think he believes in ghosts?" the young lady demanded, +laughingly. + +"No, I am sure he doesn't," replied George, very seriously. + +"Why, how seriously you say that!" cried Charlotte, a little startled +by George Sheldon's manner, in which there had been an earnestness not +quite warranted by the occasion. + +"I was thinking of your father--not my brother Phil. He died in +Philip's house, you know; and if Phil believed in ghosts, he would +scarcely have liked living in that house afterwards, you see, and so +on. But he went on living there for a twelvemonth longer. It seemed +just as good as any other house to him, I suppose." + +Hereupon Georgy dissolved into tears, and told the company how she had +fled, heartbroken, from the house in which her first husband had died, +immediately after the funeral. + +"And I'm sure the gentlemanly manner in which your step-papa behaved +during all that dreadful time, Charlotte, is beyond all praise," +continued the lady, turning to her daughter; "so thoughtful, so kind, +so patient. What I should have done if poor Tom's illness had happened +in a strange house, I don't know. And I have no doubt that the new +doctor, Mr. Burkham, did his duty, though his manner was not as decided +as I should have wished." + +"Mr. Burkham!" cried Valentine. "What Burkham is that? We've a member +of the Ragamuffins called Burkham, a surgeon, who does a little in the +literary line." + +"The Mr. Burkham who attended my poor dear husband was a very young +man," answered Georgy; "a fair man, with a fresh colour and a +hesitating manner. I should have been so much better satisfied if he +had been older." + +"That is the man," said Valentine. "The Burkham I know is +fresh-coloured and fair, and cannot be much over thirty." + +"Are you and he particularly intimate?" asked George Sheldon, +carelessly. + +"O dear no, not at all. We speak to each other when we happen to +meet--that's all. He seems a nice fellow enough; and he evidently +hasn't much practice, or he couldn't afford to be a Ragamuffin, and to +write farces. He looks to me exactly the kind of modest deserving man +who ought to succeed, and who so seldom does." + +This was all that was said about Mr. Burkham; but there was no more +talk of ghost-stories, and a temporary depression fell upon the little +assembly. The memory of her father had always a saddening influence on +Charlotte; and it needed many tender _sotto-voce_ speeches from +Valentine to bring back the smiles to her fair young face. + +The big electro-plated tea-tray and massive silver teapot made their +appearance presently, and immediately after came Mr. Sheldon. + +"I want to have a little talk with you after tea, Hawkehurst," he said, +as he took his own cup from Georgy's hand, and proceeded to imbibe the +beverage standing. "If you will come out into the garden and have a +cigar, I can say all I have to say in a very few minutes; and then we +can come in here for a rubber. Georgy is a very decent player; and my +brother George plays as good a hand at whist as any man at the +Conservative or the Reform." + +Valentine's heart sank within him. What could Mr. Sheldon want with a +few minutes' talk, if not to revoke his gracious permission of some +days before--the permission that had been accorded in ignorance of +Charlotte's pecuniary advantages? The young man looked very pale as he +went to smoke his cigar in Mr. Sheldon's garden. Charlotte followed him +with anxious eyes, and wondered at the sudden gravity of his manner. +George Sheldon also was puzzled by his brother's desire for a +tete-a-tete. + +"What new move is Phil going to make?" he asked himself. The two men +lit their cigars, and got them well under weigh before Mr. Sheldon +began to talk. + +"When I gave my consent to receive you as Miss Halliday's suitor, my +dear Hawkehurst," he said, at last, "I told you that I was acting as +very few men of the world would act, and I only told you the truth. +Since giving you that consent I have made a very startling discovery, +and one that places me in quite a new position in regard to this +matter." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes, Mr. Hawkehurst, I have become aware of the fact that Miss +Halliday, the girl whom I thought entirely dependent upon my +generosity, is heir-at-law to a large fortune. You will, of course, +perceive how entirely this alters the position of affairs." + +"I do perceive," Valentine answered earnestly; "but I trust you will +believe that I had not the faintest idea of Miss Halliday's position +when I asked her to be my wife. As to my love for her, I can scarcely +tell you when that began; but I think it must have dated from the first +hour in which I saw her, for I can remember no period at which I did +_not_ love her." + +"If I did not believe you superior to any mercenary motives, you would +not have been under my roof to-day, Mr. Hawkehurst," said the +stockbroker, with extreme gravity. "The discovery of my stepdaughter's +position gives me no pleasure. Her claim to this wealth only increases +my responsibility with regard to her, and responsibility is what I +would willingly avoid. After all due deliberation, therefore, I have +decided that this discovery need make no alteration in your position as +Charlotte's future husband. If you were worthy of her when she was +without a fortune, you are not less worthy now." + +"Mr. Sheldon," cried Valentine, with considerable emotion, "I did not +expect so much generosity at your hands!" + +"No," replied the stockbroker, "the popular idea of a business man is +not particularly agreeable. I do not, however, pretend to anything like +generosity; I wish to take a common-sense view of the affair, but not +an illiberal one." + +"You have shown so much generosity of feeling, that I can no longer +sail under false colours," said Valentine, after a brief pause. "Until +a day or two ago I was bound to secrecy by a promise made to your +brother. But his communication of Miss Halliday's rights to you sets me +at liberty, and I must tell you that which may possibly cause you to +withdraw your confidence." + +Hereupon Mr. Hawkehurst revealed his share in the researches that had +resulted in the discovery of Miss Halliday's claim to a large fortune. +He entered into no details. He told Mr. Sheldon only that he had been +the chief instrument in the bringing about of this important discovery. + +"I can only repeat what I said just now," he added, in conclusion. "I +have loved Charlotte Halliday from the beginning of our acquaintance, +and I declared myself some days before I discovered her position. I +trust this confession will in nowise alter your estimate of me." + +"It would be a poor return for your candour if I were to doubt your +voluntary statement, Hawkehurst," answered the stockbroker. "No; I +shall not withdraw my confidence. And if your researches should +ultimately lead to the advancement of my stepdaughter, there will be +only poetical justice in your profiting more or less by that +advancement. In the mean time we cannot take matters too quietly. I am +not a sanguine person, and I know how many hearts have been broken by +the High Court of Chancery. This grand discovery of yours may result in +nothing but disappointment and waste of money, or it may end as +pleasantly as my brother and you seem to expect. All I ask is, that +poor Charlotte's innocent heart may not be tortured by a small lifetime +of suspense. Let her be told nothing that can create hope in the +present or disappointment in the future. She appears to be perfectly +happy in her present position, and it would be worse than folly to +disturb her by vague expectations that may never be realised. She will +have to make affidavits, and so on, by-and-by, I daresay; and when that +time comes she must be told there is some kind of suit pending in which +she is concerned. But she need not be told how nearly that suit +concerns her, or the extent of her alleged claim. You see, my dear sir, +I have seen so much of this sort of thing, and the misery involved in +it, that I may be forgiven if I am cautious." + +This was putting the whole affair in a new light. Until this moment +Valentine had fancied that, the chain of evidence once established, +Charlotte's claim had only to be asserted in order to place her in +immediate possession of the Haygarth estate. But Mr. Sheldon's cool and +matter-of-fact discussion of the subject implied all manner of doubt +and difficulty, and the Haygarthian thousands seemed carried away to +the most remote and shadowy regions of Chanceryland, as by the waves of +some legal ocean. + +"And you really think it would be better not to tell Charlotte?" + +"I am sure of it. If you wish to preserve her from all manner of worry +and annoyance, you will take care to keep her in the dark until the +affair is settled--supposing it ever should be settled. I have known +such an affair to outlast the person interested." + +"You take a very despondent view of the matter." + +"I take a practical view of it. My brother George is a monomaniac on +the next-of-kin subject." + +"I cannot quite reconcile myself to the idea of concealing the truth +from Charlotte." + +"That is because you do not know the world as well as I do," answered +Mr. Sheldon, coolly. + +"I cannot imagine that the idea of this claim would have any disturbing +influence upon her," Valentine argued, thoughtfully. "She is the last +person in the world to care about money." + +"Perhaps so. But there is a kind of intoxication in the idea of a large +fortune--an intoxication that no woman of Charlotte's age could stand +against. Tell her that she has a claim to considerable wealth, and from +that moment she will count upon the possession of that wealth, and +shape all her plans for the future upon that basis. 'When I get my +fortune, I will do this, that, and the other.' _That_ is what she will +be continually saying to herself; and by-and-by, when the affair +results in failure, as it very likely will, there will remain a sense +of disappointment which will last for a lifetime, and go far to +embitter all the ordinary pleasures of her existence." + +"I am inclined to think you are right," said Valentine, after some +little deliberation. "My darling girl is perfectly happy as it is. It +may be wisest to tell her nothing." + +"I am quite sure of that," replied Mr. Sheldon. "Of course her being +enlightened or not can be in no way material to me. It is a subject +upon which I can afford to be entirely disinterested." + +"I will take your advice, Mr. Sheldon." + +"So be it. In that case matters will remain _in statu quo_. You will be +received in this house as my stepdaughter's future husband, and it is +an understood thing that your marriage is not to take place without due +consultation with me. I am to have a voice in the business." + +"Most decidedly. It is only right that you should be deferred to." + +This brought the interview to a close very pleasantly. The gentlemen +went back to the house, and Valentine found himself presently seated at +a whist-table with the brothers Sheldon, and Georgy, who played very +well, in a feeble kind of way, holding religiously by all the precepts +of Hoyle, and in evident fear of her husband and brother-in-law. +Charlotte and Diana played duets while the whist progressed, with +orthodox silence and solemnity on the part of the four players. +Valentine's eyes wandered very often to the piano, and he was in nowise +sorry when the termination of a conquering rubber set him at liberty. +He contrived to secure a brief _tete-a-tete_ with Charlotte while he +helped her in the arrangement of the books on the music-stand, and then +the shrill chime of the clock on the mantelpiece, and an audible yawn +from Philip Sheldon, told him that he must go. + +"Providence has been very good to us," he said, in an undertone, as he +bade Miss Halliday good night. "Your stepfather's conduct is all that +is kind and thoughtful, and there is not a cloud upon our future. Good +night, and God bless you, my dearest! I think I shall always consider +this my first Christmas-day. I never knew till to-day how sweet and +holy this anniversary can be." + +He walked to Cumberland-gate in company with George Sheldon, who +preserved a sulky gravity, which was by no means agreeable. + +"You have chosen your own course," he said at parting, "and I only hope +the result may prove your wisdom. But, as I think I may have remarked +before, you don't know my brother Phil as well as I do." + +"Your brother has behaved with such extreme candour and good feeling +towards me, that I would really rather not hear any of your unpleasant +innuendoes against him. I hate that 'I could an if I would' style of +talk, and while I occupy my present position in your brother's house +I cannot consent to hear anything to his discredit." + +"That's a very tall animal you've taken to riding lately, my friend +Hawkehurst," said George, "and when a man rides the high horse with me +I always let him have the benefit of his _monture_. You have served +yourself without consideration for me, and I shall not trouble myself +in the future with any regard for you or your interests. But if harm +ever comes to you or yours, through my brother Philip, remember that I +warned you. Good night." + + * * * * * + +In Charlotte's room the cheery little fire burned late upon that frosty +night, while the girl sat in her dressing-gown dreamily brushing her +soft brown hair, and meditating upon the superhuman merits and graces +in her lover. + +It was more than an hour after the family had retired, when there came +a cautious tapping at Charlotte's door. "It is only I, dear," said a +low voice; and before Charlotte could answer, the door was opened, and +Diana came in, and went straight to the hearth, by which her friend was +sitting. + +"I am so wakeful to-night, Lotta," she said; "and the light under your +door tempted me to come in for a few minutes' chat." + +"My dearest Di, you know how glad I always am to see you." + +"Yes, dear, I know that you are only too good to me--and I have been so +wayward, so ungracious. O, Charlotte, I know my coldness has wounded +you during the last few months." + +"I have been just a little hurt now and then, dear, when you have +seemed not to care for me, or to sympathise with me in all my joys and +sorrows; but then it has been selfish of me to expect so much sympathy, +and I know that, if your manner is cold, your heart is noble." + +"No, Lotta, it is not noble. It is a wicked heart." + +"Diana!" + +"Yes," said Miss Paget, kneeling by her friend's chair, and speaking +with suppressed energy; "it has been a wicked heart--wicked because +your happiness has been torture to it." + +"Diana!" + +"O, my dearest one, do not look at me with those innocent, wondering +eyes. You will hate me, perhaps, when you know all. O, no, no, no, you +will not hate--you will pity and forgive me. I loved him, dear; he was +my companion, my only friend; and there was a time--long ago--before he +had ever seen your face, when I fancied that he cared for me, and would +get to love me--as I loved him--unasked, uncared for. O, Charlotte, you +can never know what I have suffered. It is not in your nature to +comprehend what such a woman as I can suffer. I loved him so dearly, I +clung so wickedly, so madly to my old hopes, my old dreams, long after +they had become the falsest hopes, the wildest dreams that ever had +power over a distracted mind. But, my darling, it is past, and I come +to you on this Christmas night to tell you that I have conquered my +stubborn heart, and that from this time forward there shall be no cloud +between you and me." + +"Diana, my dear friend, my poor girl!" cried Charlotte, quite overcome, +"you loved him, you--as well as I--and I have robbed you of his heart!" + +"No, Charlotte, it was never mine." + +"You loved him--all the time you spoke so harshly of him!" + +"When I seemed most harsh, I loved him most. But do not look at me with +such distress in your sweet face, my dear. I tell you that the worst +pain is past and gone. The rest is very easy to bear, and to outlive. +These things do not last for ever, Charlotte, whatever the poets and +novelists may tell us. If I had not lived through the worst, I should +not be here to-night, with your arm round my neck and his name upon my +lips. I have never wished you joy until to-night, Charlotte, and now +for the first time I can wish you all good things, in honesty and +truth. I have conquered myself. I do not say that to me Valentine +Hawkehurst can ever be quite what other men are. I think that to the +end of my life there will be a look in his face, a tone of his voice, +that will touch me more deeply than any other look or tone upon earth; +but my love for you has overcome my love for him, and there is no +hidden thought in my mind to-night, as I sit here at your feet, and +pray for God's blessing on your choice." + +"My darling Diana, I know not how to thank you, how to express my faith +and my love." + +"I doubt if I am worthy of your love, dear; but, with God's help, I +will be worthy of your trust; and if ever there should come a day in +which my love can succour or my devotion serve you, there shall be no +lack of either. Listen, dear; there are the waits playing the sweet +Christmas hymn. Do you remember what Shakespeare says about the 'bird +of dawning' singing all night long, and how no evil spirit roams abroad +at this dear season,-- + + 'So hallowed and so gracious is the time?' + +"I have conquered my evil spirit, Lotta, and there shall be peace and +true love between us for evermore, shall there not, dearest friend?" + +And thus ends the story of Diana Paget's girlish love--the love that +had grown up in secret, to be put away from her heart in silence, and +buried with the dead dreams and fancies that had fostered it. For her +to-night the romance of life closed for ever. For Charlotte the sweet +story was newly begun, and the opening chapters were very pleasant--the +mystic volume seemed all delight. Blessed with her lover's devotion, +her mother's approval, and even Mr. Sheldon's benign approbation, what +more could she ask from Providence--what lurking dangers could she +fear--what storm-cloud could she perceive upon the sunlit heavens? + +There was a cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, but the harbinger of +tempest and terror. It yet remains to be shown what form that cloud +assumed, and from what quarter the tempest came. The history of +Charlotte Halliday has grown upon the writer; and the completion of +that history, with the fate of John Haygarth's fortune, will be found +under the title of, CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE. + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds of Prey, by M. E. Braddon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS OF PREY *** + +***** This file should be named 9362.txt or 9362.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/6/9362/ + +Produced by J. Ingram, G. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..13284ee --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #9362 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9362) diff --git a/old/7prey10.txt b/old/7prey10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5cee480 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7prey10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17598 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds of Prey, by M.E. Braddon +#3 in our series by M.E. Braddon + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Birds of Prey + +Author: M.E. Braddon + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9362] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 24, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS OF PREY *** + + + + +Produced by J. Ingram, G. Smith, T. Riikonen, +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +BIRDS OF PREY + +BY + +M.E. BRADDON + + + +[Illustration: "Be good enough to take me straight to her," +said the Captain, "I am her father."] + + + + +CONTENTS: + +Book the First. + +FATAL FRIENDSHIP. + +I. THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY +II. PHILIP SHELDON READS THE "LANCET" +III. MR. AND MRS. HALLIDAY +IV. A PERPLEXING ILLNESS +V. THE LETTER FROM THE "ALLIANCE" OFFICE +VI. MR. BURKHAM'S UNCERTAINTIES + +Book the Second. + +THE TWO MACAIRES. + + I. A GOLDEN TEMPLE + II. THE EASY DESCENT + III. "HEART BARE, HEART HUNGRY, VERY POOR" + +Book the Third. + +HEAPING UP RICHES. + + I. A FORTUNATE MARRIAGE + II. CHARLOTTE + III. GEORGE SHELDON'S PROSPECTS + IV. DIANA FINDS A NEW HOME + V. AT THE LAWN + VI. THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN + VII. AUNT SARAH +VIII. CHARLOTTE PROPHESIES RAIN + IX. MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH + +Book the Fourth. + +VALENTINE HAWKEHURST'S RECORD. + + I. THE OLDEST INHABITANT + II. MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE + III. MR. GOODGE'S WISDOM + +Book the Fifth. + +RELICS OF THE DEAD. + + I. BETRAYED BY A BLOTTING-PAD + II. VALENTINE INVOKES THE PHANTOMS OF THE PAST + III. HUNTING THE JUDSONS + IV. GLIMPSES OF A BYGONE LIFE + +Book the Sixth. + +THE HEIRESS OF THE HAYGARTHS. + + I. DISAPPOINTMENT + II. VALENTINE'S RECORD CONTINUED + III. ARCADIA + IV. IN PARADISE + V. TOO FAIR TO LAST + VI. FOUND IN THE BIBLE + +Book the Seventh. + +CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT. + + I. "IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG" + II. MRS. SHELDON ACCEPTS HER DESTINY + III. MR. HAWKEHURST AND MR. GEORGE SHELDON COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING + IV. MR. SHELDON IS PROPITIOUS + V. MR. SHELDON IS BENEVOLENT + VI. RIDING THE HIGH HORSE + VII. MR. SHELDON IS PRUDENT +VIII. CHRISTMAS PEACE + + + +BIRDS OF PREY + + +BOOK THE FIRST. + +FATAL FRIENDSHIP. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY. + + +"What about?" There are some houses whereof the outward aspect is +sealed with the seal of respectability--houses which inspire confidence +in the minds of the most sceptical of butchers and bakers--houses at +whose area-gates the tradesman delivers his goods undoubtingly, and +from whose spotless door-steps the vagabond children of the +neighbourhood recoil as from a shrine too sacred for their gambols. + +Such a house made its presence obvious, some years ago, in one of +the smaller streets of that west-central region which lies between +Holborn and St. Pancras Church. It is perhaps the nature of +ultra-respectability to be disagreeably conspicuous. The unsullied +brightness of No. 14 Fitzgeorge-street was a standing reproach to every +other house in the dingy thorough-fare. That one spot of cleanliness +made the surrounding dirt cruelly palpable. The muslin curtains in the +parlour windows of No. 15 would not have appeared of such a smoky yellow +if the curtains of No. 14 had not been of such a pharisaical whiteness. +Mrs. Magson, at No. 13, was a humble letter of lodgings, always more or +less in arrear with the demands of quarter-day; and it seemed a hard +thing that her door-steps, whereon were expended much labour and +hearthstone--not to mention house-flannel, which was in itself no +unimportant item in the annual expenses--should be always thrown in the +shade by the surpassing purity of the steps before No. 14. + +Not satisfied with being the very pink and pattern of respectability, +the objectionable house even aspired to a kind of prettiness. It was as +bright, and pleasant, and rural of aspect as any house within earshot +of the roar and rattle of Holborn can be. There were flowers in the +windows; gaudy scarlet geraniums, which seemed to enjoy an immunity +from all the ills to which geraniums are subject, so impossible was it +to discover a faded leaf amongst their greenness, or the presence of +blight amidst their wealth of blossom. There were birdcages within the +shadow of the muslin curtains, and the colouring of the newly-pointed +brickwork was agreeably relieved by the vivid green of Venetian blinds. +The freshly-varnished street-door bore a brass-plate, on which to look +was to be dazzled; and the effect produced by this combination of white +door-step, scarlet geranium, green blind, and brass-plate was +obtrusively brilliant. + +Those who had been so privileged as to behold the interior of the house +in Fitzgeorge-street brought away with them a sense of admiration that +was the next thing to envy. The pink and pattern of propriety within, +as it was the pink and pattern of propriety without, it excited in +every breast alike a wondering awe, as of a habitation tenanted by some +mysterious being, infinitely superior to the common order of +householders. + +The inscription on the brass-plate informed the neighbourhood that No. +14 was occupied by Mr. Sheldon, surgeon-dentist; and the dwellers in +Fitzgeorge-street amused themselves in their leisure hours by +speculative discussions upon the character and pursuits, belongings and +surroundings, of this gentleman. + +Of course he was eminently respectable. On that question no +Fitzgeorgian had ever hazarded a doubt. A householder with such a +door-step and such muslin curtains could not be other than the most +correct of mankind; for, if there is any external evidence by which a +dissolute life or an ill-regulated mind will infallibly betray itself, +that evidence is to be found in the yellowness and limpness of muslin +window-curtains. The eyes are the windows of the soul, says the poet; +but if a man's eyes are not open to your inspection, the windows of his +house will help you to discover his character as an individual, and his +solidity as a citizen. At least such was the opinion cherished in +Fitzgeorge-street, Russell-square. + +The person and habits of Mr. Sheldon were in perfect harmony with the +aspect of the house. The unsullied snow of the door-step reproduced +itself in the unsullied snow of his shirt-front; the brilliancy of the +brass-plate was reflected in the glittering brightness of his gold-studs; +the varnish on the door was equalled by the lustrous surface of his +black-satin waistcoat; the careful pointing of the brickwork was in a +manner imitated by the perfect order of his polished finger-nails and +the irreproachable neatness of his hair and whiskers. No dentist or +medical practitioner of any denomination had inhabited the house in +Fitzgeorge-street before the coming of Philip Sheldon. The house had +been unoccupied for upwards of a year, and was in the last stage of +shabbiness and decay, when the bills disappeared all at once from the +windows, and busy painters and bricklayers set their ladders against +the dingy brickwork. Mr. Sheldon took the house on a long lease, and +spent two or three hundred pounds in the embellishment of it. Upon the +completion of all repairs and decorations, two great waggon-loads of +furniture, distinguished by that old fashioned clumsiness which is +eminently suggestive of respectability, arrived from the Euston-square +terminus, while a young man of meditative aspect might have been seen +on his knees, now in one empty chamber, anon in another, performing +some species of indoor surveying, with a three-foot rule, a loose little +oblong memorandum-book, and the merest stump of a square lead-pencil. +This was an emissary from the carpet warehouse; and before nightfall it +was known to more than on inhabitant in Fitzgeorge-street that the +stranger was going to lay down new carpets. The new-comer was evidently +of an active and energetic temperament, for within three days of his +arrival the brass-plate on his street-door announced his profession, +while a neat little glass-case, on a level with the eye of the passing +pedestrian, exhibited specimens of his skill in mechanical dentistry, +and afforded instruction and amusement to the boys of the neighbourhood, +who criticised the glistening white teeth and impossibly red gums, +displayed behind the plate-glass, with a like vigour and freedom of +language. Nor did Mr. Sheldon's announcement of his profession confine +itself to the brass-plate and the glass-case. A shabby-genteel young +man pervaded the neighbourhood for some days after the surgeon-dentist's +advent, knocking a postman's knock, which only lacked the galvanic +sharpness of the professional touch, and delivering neatly-printed +circulars to the effect that Mr. Sheldon, surgeon-dentist, of 14 +Fitzgeorge-street, had invented some novel method of adjusting false +teeth, incomparably superior to any existing method, and that he had, +further, patented an improvement on nature in the way of coral gums, +the name whereof was an unpronounceable compound of Greek and Latin, +calculated to awaken an awful reverence in the unprofessional and +unclassical mind. + +The Fitzgeorgians shook their heads with prophetic solemnity as they +read these circulars. Struggling householders, who find it a hard task +to keep the two ends which never have met and never will meet from +growing farther and farther asunder every year, are apt to derive a +dreary kind of satisfaction from the contemplation of another man's +impending ruin. Fitzgeorge-street and its neighbourhood had existed +without the services of a dentist, but it was very doubtful that a +dentist would be able to exist on the custom to be obtained in +Fitzgeorge-street. Mr. Sheldon may, perhaps, have pitched his tent +under the impression that wherever there was mankind there was likely +to be toothache, and that the healer of an ill so common to frail +humanity could scarcely fail to earn his bread, let him establish his +abode of horror where he might. For some time after his arrival people +watched him and wondered about him, and regarded him a little +suspiciously, in spite of the substantial clumsiness of his furniture +and the unwinking brightness of his windows. His neighbours asked one +another how long all that outward semblance of prosperity would last; +and there was sinister meaning in the question. + +The Fitzgeorgians were not a little surprised, and were perhaps just a +little disappointed, on finding that the newly-established dentist did +manage to hold his ground somehow or other, and that the muslin +curtains were renewed again and again in all their spotless purity; +that the supplies of rotten-stone and oil, hearthstone and house-flannel, +were unfailing as a perennial spring; and that the unsullied snow of Mr. +Sheldon's shirt-fronts retained its primeval whiteness. Wonderland +suspicion gave place to a half-envious respect. Whether much custom +came to the dentist no one could decide. There is no trade or +profession in which the struggling man will not receive some faint show +of encouragement. Pedestrians of agonised aspect, with handkerchiefs +held convulsively before their mouths, were seen to rush wildly towards +the dentist's door, then pause for a moment, stricken by a sudden +terror, and anon feebly pull the handle of an inflexible bell. Cabs had +been heard to approach that fatal door--generally on wet days; for +there seems to be a kind of fitness in the choice of damp and dismal +weather for the extraction of teeth. Elderly ladies and gentlemen had +been known to come many times to the Fitzgeorgian mansion. There was a +legend of an old lady who had been seen to arrive in a brougham, +especially weird and nut-crackery of aspect, and to depart half an hour +afterwards a beautified and renovated creature. One half of the +Fitzgeorgians declared that Mr. Sheldon had established a very nice +little practice, and was saving money; while the other half were still +despondent, and opined that the dentist had private property, and was +eating up his little capital. It transpired in course of time that Mr. +Sheldon had left his native town of Little Barlingford, in Yorkshire, +where his father and grandfather had been surgeon-dentists before him, +to establish himself in London. He had disposed advantageously of an +excellent practice, and had transferred his household goods--the +ponderous chairs and tables, the wood whereof had deepened and mellowed +in tint under the indefatigable hand of his grandmother--to the +metropolis, speculating on the chance that his talents and appearance, +address and industry, could scarcely fail to achieve a position. It +was further known that he had a brother, an attorney in Gray's Inn, +who visited him very frequently; that he had few other friends or +acquaintance; that he was a shining example of steadiness and sobriety; +that he was on the sunnier side of thirty, a bachelor, and very +good-looking; and that his household was comprised of a grim-visaged +active old woman imported from Barlingford, a girl who ran errands, and +a boy who opened the door, attended to the consulting-room, and did some +mysterious work at odd times with a file and sundry queer lumps of +plaster-of-paris, beeswax, and bone, in a dark little shed abutting on +the yard at the back of the house. This much had the inhabitants of +Fitzgeorge-street discovered respecting Mr. Sheldon when he had been +amongst them four years; but they had discovered no more. He had made +no local acquaintances, nor had he sought to make any. Those of his +neighbours who had seen the interior of his house had entered it as +patients. They left it as much pleased with Mr. Sheldon as one can be +with a man at whose hands one has just undergone martyrdom, and +circulated a very flattering report of the dentist's agreeable +manners and delicate white handkerchief, fragrant with the odour of +eau-de-Cologne. For the rest, Philip Sheldon lived his own life, and +dreamed his own dreams. His opposite neighbours, who watched him on +sultry summer evenings as he lounged near an open window smoking his +cigar, had no more knowledge of his thoughts and fancies than they +might have had if he had been a Calmuck Tartar or an Abyssinian chief. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +PHILIP SHELDON READS THE "LANCET." + + +Fitzgeorge-street was chill and dreary of aspect, under a gray March +sky, when Mr. Sheldon returned to it after a week's absence from +London. He had been to Little Barlingford, and had spent his brief +holiday among old friends and acquaintance. The weather had not been in +favour of that driving hither and thither in dog-carts, or riding +rakish horses long distances to beat up old companions, which is +accounted pleasure on such occasions. The blustrous winds of an +unusually bitter March had buffeted Mr. Sheldon in the streets of his +native town, and had almost blown him off the door-steps of his +kindred. So it is scarcely strange if he returned to town looking none +the better for his excursion. He looked considerably the worse for his +week's absence, the old Yorkshire-woman said, as she waited upon him +while he ate a chop and drank two large cups of very strong tea. + +Mr. Sheldon made short work of his impromptu meal. He seemed anxious to +put an end to his housekeeper's affectionate interest in himself and +his health, and to get her out of the room. She had nursed him nearly +thirty years before, and the recollection that she had been very +familiar with him when he was a handsome black-eyed baby, with a +tendency to become suddenly stiff of body and crimson of visage without +any obvious provocation, inclined her to take occasional liberties now. +She watched him furtively as he sat in a big high-backed arm-chair +staring moodily at the struggling fire, and would fain have questioned +him a little about Barlingford and Barlingford people. + +But Philip Sheldon was not a man with whom even a superannuated nurse +can venture to take many liberties. He was a good master, paid his +servants their wages with unfailing punctuality, and gave very little +trouble. But he was the last person in the world upon whom a garrulous +woman could venture to inflict her rambling discourse; as Nancy +Woolper--by courtesy, Mrs. Woolper--was fain to confess to her +next-door neighbour, Mrs. Magson, when her master was the subject of an +afternoon gossip. The heads of a household may inhabit a neighbourhood +for years without becoming acquainted even with the outward aspect of +their neighbours; but in the lordly servants' halls of the West, or the +modest kitchens of Bloomsbury, there will be interchange of civilities +and friendly "droppings in" to tea or supper, let the master of the +house be never so ungregarious a creature. + +"You can take the tea-things, Nancy," Mr. Sheldon said presently, +arousing himself suddenly from that sombre reverie in which he had been +absorbed for the last ten minutes; "I am going to be very busy to-night, +and I expect Mr. George in the course of the evening. Mind, I am not at +home to anybody but him." + +The old woman arranged the tea-things on her tray, but still kept a +furtive watch on her master, who sat with his head a little bent, and +his bright black eyes fixed on the fire with that intensity of gaze +peculiar to eyes which see something far away from the object they seem +to contemplate. She was in the habit of watching Mr. Sheldon rather +curiously at all times, for she had never quite got over a difficulty +in realising the fact that the black-eyed baby with whom she had been +so intimate _could_ have developed into this self-contained inflexible +young man, whose thoughts were so very far away from her. To-night she +watched him more intently than she was accustomed to do, for to-night +there was some change in his face which she was trying in a dim way to +account for. + +He looked up from the fire suddenly, and found her eyes fixed upon him. +It may be that he had been disturbed by a semi-consciousness of that +curious gaze, for he looked at her angrily,--"What are you staring at, +Nancy?" + +It was not the first time he had encountered her watchful eyes and +asked the same impatient question. But Mrs. Woolper possessed that +north-country quickness of intellect which is generally equal to an +emergency, and was always ready with some question or suggestion which +went to prove that she had just fixed her eyes on her master, inspired +by some anxiety about his interests. + +"I was just a-thinking, sir," she said, meeting his stern glance +unflinchingly with her little sharp gray eyes, "I was just a-thinking-- +you said not at home to _any one_, except Mr. George. If it should be a +person in a cab wanting their teeth out sudden--and if anything could +make toothache more general in this neighbourhood it would be these +March winds--if it should be a patient, sir, in a cab----" + +The dentist interrupted her with a short bitter laugh. + +"Neither March winds nor April showers are likely to bring me patients, +Nancy, on foot or in cabs, and you ought to know it. If it's a patient, +ask him in, by all means, and give him last Saturday week's _Times_ to +read, while I rub the rust off my forceps. There, that will do; take +your tray--or, stop; I've some news to tell you." He rose, and stood +with his back to the fire and his eyes bent upon the hearthrug, while +Mrs. Woolper waited by the table, with the tray packed ready for +removal. Her master kept her waiting so for some minutes, and then +turned his face half away from her, and contemplated himself absently +in the glass while he spoke. + +"You remember Mrs. Halliday?" he asked. + +"I should think I did, sir; Miss Georgina Cradock that was--Miss Georgy +they called her; your first sweetheart. And how she could ever marry +that big awkward Halliday is more than I can make out. Poor fondy! I +suppose she was took with those great round blue eyes and red whiskers +of his." + +"Her mother and father were 'took' by his comfortable farmhouse and +well-stocked farm, Nancy," answered Mr. Sheldon, still contemplating +himself in the glass. "Georgy had very little to do with it. She is one +of those women who let other people think for them. However, Tom is an +excellent fellow, and Georgy was a lucky girl to catch such a husband +Any little flirtation there may have been between her and me was over +and done with long before she married Tom. It never was more than a +flirtation; and I've flirted with a good many Barlingford girls in my +time, as you know, Nancy." + +It was not often that Mr. Sheldon condescended to be so communicative to +his housekeeper. The old woman nodded and chuckled, delighted by her +master's unwonted friendliness. + +"I drove over to Hyley while I was at home, Nancy," continued the +dentist--he called Barlingford home still, though he had broken most of +the links that had bound him to it--"and dined with the Hallidays. +Georgy is as pretty as ever, and she and Tom get on capitally." + +"Any children, sir?" + +"One girl," answered Mr. Sheldon carelessly. "She's at school in +Scarborough, and I didn't see her; but I hear she's a fine bouncing +lass. I had a very pleasant day with the Hallidays. Tom has sold his +farm; that part of the world doesn't suit him, it seems--too cold and +bleak for him. He's one of those big burly-looking men who seem as if +they could knock you down with a little finger, and who shiver at every +puff of wind. I don't think he'll make old bones, Nancy. But that's +neither here nor there. I daresay he's good for another ten years; or +I'm sure I hope so, on Georgy's account." + +"It was right down soft of him to sell Hyley Farm, though," said Nancy +reflectively; "I've heard tell as it's the best land for forty mile +round Barlingford. But he got a rare good price for it, I'll lay." + +"O, yes; he sold the property uncommonly well, he tells me. You know if +a north-countryman gets the chance of making a profit, he never lets +it slip through his fingers." + +Mrs. Woolper received this compliment to her countrymen with a +gratified grin, and Mr. Sheldon went on talking, still looking at the +reflection of his handsome face in the glass, and pulling his whiskers +meditatively. + +"Now as Tom was made for a farmer and nothing but a farmer, he must +find land somewhere in a climate that does suit him; so his friends +have advised him to try a place in Devonshire or Cornwall, where he may +train his myrtles and roses over his roof, and grow green peas for the +London markets as late as November. There are such places to be had if +he bides his time, and he's coming to town next week to look about him. +So, as Georgy and he would be about as capable of taking care of +themselves in London as a couple of children, I have recommended them +to take up their quarters here. They'll have their lodgings for +nothing, and we shall chum together on the Yorkshire system; for of +course I can't afford to keep a couple of visitors for a month at a +stretch. Do you think you shall be able to manage for us, Nancy?" + +"O, yes, I'll manage well enough. I'm not one of your lazy London +lasses that take half an hour to wipe a teacup. I'll manage easy +enough. Mr. and Mrs. Halliday will be having your room, I'll lay." + +"Yes; give them the best room, by all means. I can sleep anywhere. And +now go downstairs and think it over, Nancy. I must get to my work. I've +some letters that must be written to-night." + +Mrs. Woolper departed with her tray, gratified by her master's unwonted +familiarity, and not ill pleased by the thought of visitors. They would +cause a great deal of trouble, certainly; but the monotony of Nancy's +easy life had grown so oppressive to her as to render the idea of any +variety pleasing. And then there would be the pleasure of making that +iniquitous creature the London lass bestir herself, and there would be +furthermore the advantage of certain little perquisites which a clever +manager always secures to herself in a house where there is much eating +and drinking. Mr. Sheldon himself had lived like a modern anchorite for +the last four years; and Mrs. Woolper, who was pretty well acquainted +with the state of his finances, had pinched and contrived for his +benefit, or rather for the benefit of the black-eyed baby she had +nursed nine-and-twenty years before. For his sake she had been careful +and honest, willing to forego all the small profits to which she held +herself entitled; but if well-to-do people were going to share her +master's expenses, there would be no longer need for such scrupulous +integrity; and if things were rightly managed, Thomas Halliday might be +made to bear the entire cost of the household during his month's visit +on the Yorkshire system. + +While Mrs. Woolper meditated upon her domestic duties, the master of +the domicile abandoned himself to reflections which were apparently of +a very serious character. He brought a leathern desk from a side-table, +unlocked it, and took out a quire of paper; but he made no further +advance towards the writing of those letters on account of which he had +dismissed his housekeeper. He sat, with his elbows on the table, +nibbling the end of a wooden penholder, and staring at the opposite +wall. His face looked pale and haggard in the light of the gas, and the +eyes, fixed in that vacant stare, had a feverish brightness. + +Mr. Sheldon was a handsome man--eminently handsome, according to the +popular notion of masculine beauty; and if the popular ideal has been a +little vulgarised by the waxen gentlemen on whose finely-moulded +foreheads the wig-maker is wont to display the specimens of his art, +that is no discredit to Mr. Sheldon. His features were regular; the +nose a handsome aquiline; the mouth firm and well modelled; the chin +and jaw rather heavier than in the waxen ideal of the hair-dresser; the +forehead very prominent in the region of the perceptives, but obviously +wanting in the higher faculties. The eye of the phrenologist, unaided +by his fingers, must have failed to discover the secrets of Mr. +Sheldon's organisation; for one of the dentist's strong points was his +hair, which was very luxuriant, and which he wore in artfully-arranged +masses that passed for curls, but which owed their undulating grace +rather to a skilful manipulation than to any natural tendency. It has +been said that the rulers of the world are straight-haired men; and Mr. +Sheldon might have been a Napoleon III. so far as regards this special +attribute. His hair was of a dense black, and his whiskers of the same +sombre hue. These carefully-arranged whiskers were another of the +dentist's strong points; and the third strong point was his teeth, the +perfection whereof was a fine advertisement when considered in a +professional light. The teeth were rather too large and square for a +painter's or a poet's notion of beauty, and were apt to suggest an +unpleasant image of some sleek brindled creature crunching human bones +in an Indian jungle. But they were handsome teeth notwithstanding, and +their flashing whiteness made an effective contrast to the clear sallow +tint of the dentist's complexion. + +Mr. Sheldon was a man of industrious habits,--fond indeed of work, and +distinguished by a persistent activity in the carrying out of any +labour he had planned for himself. He was not prone to the indulgence +of idle reveries or agreeable day-dreams. Thought with him was labour; +it was the "thinking out" of future work to be done, and it was an +operation as precise and mathematical as the actual labour that +resulted therefrom. The contents of his brain were as well kept as a +careful trader's ledger. He had his thoughts docketed and indexed, and +rarely wasted the smallest portion of his time in searching for an +idea. Tonight he sat thinking until he was interrupted by a loud double +knock, which was evidently familiar to him, for he muttered "George!" +pushed aside his desk, and took up his stand upon the hearthrug, ready +to receive the expected visitor. + +There was the sound of a man's voice below,--very like Philip Sheldon's +own voice; then a quick firm tread on the stairs; and then the door was +opened, and a man, who himself was very like Philip Sheldon, came into +the room. This was the dentist's brother George, two years his junior. +The likeness between the two men was in no way marvellous, but it was +nevertheless very obvious. You could scarcely have mistaken one man for +the other, but you could hardly have failed to perceive that the two +men were brothers. They resembled each other more closely in form than +in face. They were of the same height--both tall and strongly built. +Both had black eyes with a hard brightness in them, black whiskers, +black hair, sinewy hands with prominent knuckles, square finger-tops, +and bony wrists. Each man seemed the personification of savage health +and vigour, smoothed and shapened in accordance with the prejudices of +civilised life. Looking at these two men for the first time, you might +approve or disapprove their appearance; they might impress you +favourably or unfavourably; but you could scarcely fail to be reminded +vaguely of strong, bright-eyed, savage creatures, beautiful and +graceful after their kind, but dangerous and fatal to man. + +The brothers greeted each other with a friendly nod. They were a great +deal too practical to indulge in any sentimental display of fraternal +affection. They liked each other very well, and were useful to each +other, and took their pleasure together on those rare occasions when +they were weak enough to waste time upon unprofitable pleasure; but +neither of them would have comprehended the possibility of anything +beyond this. + +"Well, old fellow," said George, "I'm glad you're back again. You're +looking rather seedy, though. I suppose you knocked about a good deal +down there?" + +"I had a night or two of it with Halliday and the old set. He's going +it rather fast." + +"Humph!" muttered Mr. Sheldon the younger; "it's a pity he doesn't go +it a little faster, and go off the hooks altogether, so that you might +marry Georgy." + +"How do I know that Georgy would have me, if he did leave her a widow?" +asked Philip dubiously. + +"O, she'd have you fast enough. She used to be very sweet upon you +before she married Tom; and even if she has forgotten all that, she'd +have you if you asked her. She'd be afraid to say no. She was always +more or less afraid of you, you know, Phil." + +"I don't know about that. She was a nice little thing enough; but she +knew how to drop a poor sweetheart and take up with a rich one, in +spite of her simplicity." + +"O, that was the old parties' doing. Georgy would have jumped into a +cauldron of boiling oil if her mother and father had told her she must +do it. Don't you remember when we were children together how afraid she +used to be of spoiling her frocks? I don't believe she married Tom +Halliday of her own free will, any more than she stood in the corner of +her own free will after she'd torn her frock, as I've seen her stand +twenty times. She stood in the corner because they told her she must; +and she married Tom for the same reason, and I don't suppose she's been +particularly happy with him." + +"Well, that's her look-out," answered Philip gloomily; "I know I want a +rich wife badly enough. Things are about as bad with me as they can +be." + +"I suppose they _are_ rather piscatorial. The elderly dowagers don't +come up to time, eh? Very few orders for the complete set at +ten-pound-ten?" + +"I took about seventy pounds last year," said the dentist, "and my +expenses are something like five pounds a week. I've been making up the +deficiency out of the money I got for the Barlingford business, +thinking I should be able to stand out and make a connection; but the +connection gets more disconnected every year. I suppose people came to +me at first for the novelty of the thing, for I had a sprinkling of +decent patients for the first twelve months or so. But now I might as +well throw my money into the gutter as spend it on circulars or +advertisements." + +"And a young woman with twenty thousand pounds and something amiss with +her jaw hasn't turned up yet!" + +"No, nor an old woman either. I wouldn't stick at the age, if the money +was all right," answered Mr. Sheldon bitterly. + +The younger brother shrugged his shoulders and plunged his hands into +his trousers-pockets with a gesture of seriocomic despair. He was the +livelier of the two, and affected a slanginess of dress and talk and +manner, a certain "horsey" style, very different from his elder +brother's studied respectability of costume and bearing. His clothes +were of a loose sporting cut, and always odorous with stale tobacco. He +wore a good deal of finery in the shape of studs and pins and dangling +lockets and fusee-boxes; his whiskers were more obtrusive than his +brother's, and he wore a moustache in addition--a thick ragged black +moustache, which would have become a guerilla chieftain rather than a +dweller amidst the quiet courts and squares of Gray's Inn. His position +as a lawyer was not much better than that of Philip as a dentist; but +he had his own plans for making a fortune, and hoped to win for himself +a larger fortune than is, often made in the law. He was a hunter of +genealogies, a grubber-up of forgotten facts, a joiner of broken links, +a kind of legal resurrectionist, a digger in the dust and ashes of the +past; and he expected in due time to dig up a treasure rich enough to +reward the labour and patience of half a lifetime. + +"I can afford to wait till I'm forty for my good luck," he said to his +brother sometimes in moments of expansion; "and then I shall have ten +years in which to enjoy myself, and twenty more in which I shall have +life enough left to eat good dinners and drink good wine, and grumble +about the degeneracy of things in general, after the manner of elderly +human nature." + +The men stood one on each side of the hearth; George looking at his +brother, Philip looking down at the fire, with his eyes shaded by their +thick black lashes. The fire had become dull and hollow. George bent +down presently and stirred the coals impatiently. + +"If there's one thing I hate more than, another--and I hate a good many +things--it's a bad fire," he said. "How's Barlingford--lively as ever, +I suppose?" + +"Not much livelier than it was when we left it. Things have gone amiss +with me in London, and I've been more than once sorely tempted to make +an end of my difficulties with a razor or a few drops of prussic acid; +but when I saw the dull gray streets and the square gray houses, and +the empty market-place, and the Baptist chapel, and the Unitarian +chapel, and the big stony church, and heard the dreary bells +ding-donging for evening service, I wondered how I could ever have +existed a week in such a place. I had rather sweep a crossing in +London than occupy the best house in Barlingford, and I told Tom +Halliday so." + +"And Tom is coming to London I understand by your letter." + +"Yes, he has sold Hyley, and wants to find a place in the west of +England. The north doesn't suit his chest. He and Georgy are coming up +to town for a few weeks, so I've asked them to stay here. I may as well +make some use of the house, for it's very little good in a professional +sense." + +"Humph!" muttered George; "I don't see your motive." + +"I have no particular motive. Tom's a good fellow, and his company will +be better than an empty house. The visit won't cost me anything-- +Halliday is to go shares in the housekeeping." + +"Well, you may find it answer that way," replied Mr. Sheldon the +younger, who considered that every action of a man's life ought to be +made to "answer" in some way. "But I should think you would be rather +bored by the arrangement: Tom's a very good fellow in his way, and a +great friend of mine, but he's rather an empty-headed animal." + +The subject dropped here, and the brothers went on talking of +Barlingford and Barlingford people--the few remaining kindred whose +existence made a kind of link between the two men and their native +town, and the boon companions of their early manhood. The dentist +produced the remnant of a bottle of whisky from the sideboard, and rang +for hot water and sugar, Wherewith to brew grog, for his own and his +brother's refreshment; but the conversation flagged nevertheless. +Philip Sheldon was dull and absent, answering his companion at random +every now and then, much to that gentleman's aggravation; and he owned +at last to being thoroughly tired and worn out. + +"The journey from Barlingford in a slow train is no joke, you know, +George, and I couldn't afford the express," he said apologetically, +when his brother upbraided him for his distraction of manner. + +"Then I should think you'd better go to bed," answered Mr. Sheldon the +younger, who had smoked a couple of cigars, and consumed the contents +of the whisky-bottle; "so I'll take myself off. I told you how +uncommonly seedy you were looking when I first came in. When do you +expect Tom and his wife?" + +"At the beginning of next week." + +"So soon! Well, good-night, old fellow; I shall see you before they +come, I daresay. You might as well drop in upon me at my place +to-morrow night. I'm hard at work on a job." + +"Your old kind of work?" + +"O, yes. I don't get much work of any other kind." + +"And I'm afraid you'll never get much good out of that." + +"I don't know. A man who sits down to whist may have a run of ill-luck +before he gets a decent hand; but the good cards are sure to come if he +only sits long enough. Every man has his chance, depend upon it, Phil, +if he knows how to watch for it; but there are so many men who get +tired and go to sleep before their chances come to them. I've wasted a +good deal of time, and a good deal of labour; but the ace of trumps is +in the pack, and it must turn up sooner or later. Ta-ta." + +George Sheldon nodded and departed, whistling gaily as he walked away +from his brother's door. Philip heard him, and turned his chair to the +fire with a movement of impatience. + +"You may be uncommonly clever, my dear George," soliloquised the +dentist, "but you'll never make a fortune by reading wills and hunting +in parish-registers for heirs-at-law. A big lump of money is not very +likely to go a-begging while any one who can fudge up the faintest +pretence of a claim to it is above ground. No, no, my lad, you must +find a better way than that before you'll make your fortune." + +The fire had burnt low again, and Mr. Sheldon sat staring gloomily at +the blackening coals. Things were very bad with him--he had not cared +to confess how bad they were, when he had discussed his affairs with +his brother. Those neighbours and passers-by who admired the trim +brightness of the dentist's abode had no suspicion that the master of +that respectable house was in the hands of the Jews, and that the +hearthstone which whitened his door-step was paid for out of +Israelitish coffers. The dentist's philosophy was all of this world, +and he knew that the soldier of fortune, who would fain be a conqueror +in the great battle, must needs keep his plumage undrabbled and the +golden facings of his uniform untarnished, let his wounds be never so +desperate. + +Having found his attempt to establish a practice in Fitzgeorge-street +a failure, the only course open to Mr. Sheldon, as a man of the world, +was to transfer his failure to somebody else, with more or less profit +to himself. To this end he preserved the spotless purity of his muslin +curtains, though the starch that stiffened them and the bleaching-powder +that whitened them were bought with money for which he was to pay sixty +per cent. To this end he nursed that wan shadow of a practice, and +sustained that appearance of respectability which, in a world where +appearance stands for so much, is in itself a kind of capital. It +certainly was dull dreary work to hold the citadel of No. 14 +Fitzgeorge-street, against the besieger Poverty; but the dentist +stood his ground pertinaciously, knowing that if he only waited long +enough, the dupe who was to be his victim would come, and knowing also +that there might arrive a day when it would be very useful for him to +be able to refer to four years' unblemished respectability as a +Bloomsbury householder. He had his lines set in several shady places +for that unhappy fish with a small capital, and he had been tantalised +by more than one nibble; but he made no open show of his desire to sell +his business--since a business that is obviously in the market seems +scarcely worth any man's purchase. + +Things had of late grown worse with him every day; for every interval +of twenty-four hours sinks a man so much the deeper in the mire when +renewed accommodation-bills with his name upon them are ripening in the +iron safes of Judah. Philip Sheldon found himself sinking gradually and +almost imperceptibly into that bottomless pit of difficulty in whose +black depths the demon Insolvency holds his dreary court. While his +little capital lasted he had kept himself clear of debt, but that being +exhausted, and his practice growing worse day by day, he had been fain +to seek assistance from money-lenders; and now even the money-lenders +were tired of him. The chair in which he sat, the poker which he swung +slowly to and fro as he bent over his hearth, were not his own. One of +his Jewish creditors had a bill of sale on his furniture, and he might +come home any day to find the auctioneer's bills plastered against the +wall of his house, and the auctioneer's clerk busy with the catalogue +of his possessions. If the expected victim came now to buy his +practice, the sacrifice would be made too late to serve his interest. +The men who had lent him the money would be the sole gainers by the +bargain. + +Seldom does a man find himself face to face with a blacker prospect +than that which lay before Philip Sheldon; and yet his manner to-night +was not the dull blank apathy of despair. It was the manner of a man +whose brain is occupied by busy thoughts; who has some elaborate scheme +to map out and arrange before he is called upon to carry his plans into +action. + +"It would be a good business for me," he muttered, "if I had pluck +enough to carry it through." + +The fire went out as he sat swinging the poker backwards and forwards. +The clocks of Bloomsbury and St. Pancras struck twelve, and still +Philip Sheldon pondered and plotted by that dreary hearth. The servants +had retired at eleven, after a good deal of blundering with bars and +shutters, and unnecessary banging of doors. That unearthly silence +peculiar to houses after midnight reigned in Mr. Sheldon's domicile, +and he could hear the voices of distant roisterers, and the miauling of +neighbouring cats, with a painful distinctness as he sat brooding in +his silent room. The fact that a mahogany chiffonier in a corner gave +utterance to a faint groan occasionally, as of some feeble creature in +pain, afforded him no annoyance. He was superior to superstitious +fancies, and all the rappings and scratchings of spirit-land would have +failed to disturb his equanimity. He was a strictly practical man--one +of those men who are always ready, with a stump of lead-pencil and the +back of a letter, to reduce everything in creation to figures. + +"I had better read up that business before they come," he said, when he +had to all appearance "thought out" the subject of his reverie. "No +time so good as this for doing it quietly. One never knows who is +spying about in the daytime." He looked at his watch, and then went to +a cupboard, where there were bundles of wood and matches and old +newspapers,--for it was his habit to light his own fire occasionally +when he worked unusually late at night or early in the morning. He +relighted his fire now as cleverly as any housemaid in Bloomsbury, and +stood watching it till it burned briskly. Then he lit a taper, and went +downstairs to the professional torture-chamber. The tall horsehair +chair looked unutterably awful in the dim glimmer of the taper, and a +nervous person could almost have fancied it occupied by the ghost of +some patient who had expired under the agony of the forceps. Mr. +Sheldon lighted the gas in a movable branch which he was in the habit +of turning almost into the mouths of the patients who consulted him at +night. There was a cupboard on each side of the mantelpiece, and it was +in these two cupboards that the dentist kept his professional library. +His books did not form a very valuable collection, but he kept the +cupboards constantly locked nevertheless. + +He took the key from his waistcoat-pocket, opened one of the cupboards, +and selected a book from a row of dingy-looking volumes. He carried the +book to the room above, where he seated himself under the gas, and +opened the volume at a place in which there was a scrap of paper, +evidently left there as a mark. The book was a volume of the _Lancet_, +and in this book lie read with close attention until the Bloomsbury +clocks struck three. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. AND MRS. HALLIDAY. + + +Mr. Sheldon's visitors arrived in due course. They were provincial +people of the middle class, accounted monstrously genteel in their own +neighbourhood, but in nowise resembling Londoners of the same rank. + +Mr. Thomas Halliday was a big, loud-spoken, good-tempered Yorkshireman, +who had inherited a comfortable little estate from a plodding, +money-making father, and for whom life had been very easy. He was a +farmer, and nothing but a farmer; a man for whom the supremest pleasure +of existence was a cattle-show or a country horse-fair. The farm upon +which he had been born and brought up was situated about six miles from +Barlingford, and all the delights of his boyhood and youth were +associated with that small market town. He and the two Sheldons had +been schoolfellows, and afterwards boon companions, taking such +pleasure as was obtainable in Barlingford together; flirting with the +same provincial beauties at prim tea-parties in the winter, and getting +up friendly picnics in the summer--picnics at which eating and drinking +were the leading features of the day's entertainment. Mr. Halliday had +always regarded George and Philip Sheldon with that reverential +admiration which a stupid man, who is conscious of his own mental +inferiority, generally feels for a clever friend and companion. But he +was also fully aware of the advantage which a rich man possesses over a +poor one, and would not have exchanged the fertile acres of Hyley for +the intellectual gifts of his schoolfellows. He had found the +substantial value of his comfortably furnished house and well-stocked +farm when he and his friend Philip Sheldon became suitors for the hand +of Georgina Cradock, youngest daughter of a Barlingford attorney, who +lived next door to the Barlingford dentist, Philip Sheldon's father. +Philip and the girl had been playfellows in the long-walled gardens +behind the two houses, and there had been a brotherly and sisterly +intimacy between the juvenile members of the two families. But when +Philip and Georgina met at the Barlingford tea-parties in later years, +the parental powers frowned upon any renewal of that childish +friendship. Miss Cradock had no portion, and the worthy solicitor her +father was a prudent man, who was apt to look for the promise of +domestic happiness in the plate-basket and the linen-press, rather than +for such superficial qualifications as black whiskers and white teeth. +So poor Philip was "thrown over the bridge," as he said himself, and +Georgy Cradock married Mr. Halliday, with all attendant ceremony and +splendour, according to the "lights" of Barlingford gentry. + +But this provincial bride's story was no passionate record of anguish +and tears. The Barlingford Juliet had liked Romeo as much as she was +capable of liking any one; but when Papa Capulet insisted on her union +with Paris, she accepted her destiny with decent resignation, and, in +the absence of any sympathetic father confessor, was fain to seek +consolation from a more mundane individual in the person of the +Barlingford milliner. Nor did Philip Sheldon give evidence of any +extravagant despair. His father was something of a doctor as well as a +dentist; and there were plenty of dark little phials lurking on the +shelves of his surgery in which the young man could have found "mortal +drugs" without the aid of the apothecary, had he been so minded. +Happily no such desperate idea ever occurred to him in connection with +his grief. He held himself sulkily aloof from Mr. and Mrs. Halliday for +some time after their marriage, and allowed people to see that he +considered himself very hardly used; but Prudence, which had always +been Philip Sheldon's counsellor, proved herself also his consoler in +this crisis of his life. A careful consideration of his own interests +led him to perceive that the successful result of his love-suit would +have been about the worst thing that could have happened to him. + +Georgina had no money. All was said in that. As the young dentist's +worldly wisdom ripened with experience, he discovered that the worldly +ease of the best man in Barlingford was something like that of a +canary-bird who inhabits a clean cage and is supplied with abundant +seed and water. The cage is eminently comfortable, and the sleepy, +respectable, elderly bird sighs for no better abiding-place, no wider +prospect than that patch of the universe which he sees between the +bars. But now and then there is hatched a wild young fledgeling, which +beats its wings against the inexorable wires, and would fain soar away +into that wide outer world, to prosper or perish in its freedom. + +Before Georgy had been married a year, her sometime lover had fully +resigned himself to the existing state of things, and was on the best +possible terms with his friend Tom. He could eat his dinner in the +comfortable house at Hyley with an excellent appetite; for there was a +gulf between him and his old love far wider than any that had been dug +by that ceremonial in the parish church of Barlingford. Philip Sheldon +had awakened to the consciousness that life in his native town was +little more than a kind of animal vegetation--the life of some pulpy +invertebrate creature, which sprawls helplessly upon the sands whereon +the wave has deposited it, and may be cloven in half without feeling +itself noticeably worse for the operation. He had awakened to the +knowledge that there was a wider and more agreeable world beyond that +little provincial borough, and that a handsome face and figure and a +vigorous intellect were commodities for which there must be some kind +of market. + +Once convinced of the utter worthlessness of his prospects in +Barlingford, Mr. Sheldon turned his eyes Londonwards; and his father +happening at the same time very conveniently to depart this life, +Philip, the son and heir, disposed of the business to an aspiring young +practitioner, and came to the metropolis, where he made that futile +attempt to establish himself which has been described. + +The dentist had wasted four years in London, and ten years had gone by +since Georgy's wedding; and now for the first time he had an +opportunity of witnessing the domestic happiness or the domestic misery +of the woman who had jilted him, and the man who had been his +successful rival. He set himself to watch them with the cool +deliberation of a social anatomist, and he experienced very little +difficulty in the performance of this moral dissection. They were +established under his roof, his companions at every meal; and they were +a kind of people who discuss their grievances and indulge in their +"little differences" with perfect freedom in the presence of a third, +or a fourth, or even a fifth party. + +Mr. Sheldon was wise enough to preserve a strict neutrality. He would +take up a newspaper at the beginning of a little difference, and lay it +down when the little difference was finished, with the most perfect +assumption of unconsciousness; but it is doubtful whether the +matrimonial disputants were sufficiently appreciative of this good +breeding. They would have liked to have had Mr. Sheldon for a court of +appeal; and a little interference from him would have given zest to +their quarrels. Meanwhile Philip watched them slyly from the covert of +his newspaper, and formed his own conclusions about them. If he was +pleased to see that his false love's path was not entirely rose-bestrewn, +or if he rejoiced at beholding the occasional annoyance of his rival, he +allowed no evidence of his pleasure to appear in his face or manner. + +Georgina Cradock's rather insipid prettiness had developed into +matronly comeliness. Her fair complexion and pink cheeks had lost none +of their freshness. Her smooth auburn hair was as soft and bright as it +had been when she had braided it preparatory to a Barlingford tea-party +in the days of her spinsterhood. She was a pretty, weak little woman, +whose education had never gone beyond the routine of a provincial +boarding-school, and who believed that she had attained all necessary +wisdom in having mastered Pinnock's abridgments of Goldsmith's +histories and the rudiments of the French language. She was a woman who +thought that the perfection of feminine costume was a moire-antique +dress and a conspicuous gold chain. She was a woman who considered a +well-furnished house and a horse and gig the highest form of earthly +splendour or prosperity. + +This was the shallow commonplace creature whom Philip Sheldon had once +admired and wooed. He looked at her now, and wondered how he could ever +have felt even as much as he had felt on her account. But he had little +leisure to devote to any such abstract and useless consideration. He +had his own affairs to think about, and they were very desperate. + +In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. Halliday occupied themselves in the +pursuit of pleasure or business, as the case might be. They were eager +for amusement: went to exhibitions in the day and to theatres at night, +and came home to cozy little suppers in Fitzgeorge-street, after which +Mr. Halliday was wont to waste the small hours in friendly conversation +with his quondam companion, and in the consumption of much +brandy-and-water. + +Unhappily for Georgy, these halcyon days were broken by intervals of +storm and cloud. The weak little woman was afflicted with that +intermittent fever called jealousy; and the stalwart Thomas was one of +those men who can scarcely give the time of day to a feminine +acquaintance without some ornate and loud-spoken gallantry. Having no +intellectual resources wherewith to beguile the tedium of his idle +prosperous life, he was fain to seek pleasure in the companionship of +other men; and had thus become a haunter of tavern parlours and small +racecourses, being always ready for any amusement his friends proposed +to him. It followed, therefore, that he was very often absent from his +commonplace substantial home, and his pretty weak-minded wife. And poor +Georgy had ample food for her jealous fears and suspicions; for where +might a man not be who was so seldom at home? She had never been +particularly fond of her husband, but that was no reason why she should +not be particularly jealous about him; and her jealousy betrayed itself +in a peevish worrying fashion, which was harder to bear than the +vengeful ferocity of a Clytemnestra. It was in vain that Thomas +Halliday and those jolly good fellows his friends and companions +attested the Arcadian innocence of racecourses, and the perfect purity +of that smoky atmosphere peculiar to tavern parlours. Georgy's +suspicions were too vague for refutation; but they were nevertheless +sufficient ground for all the alternations of temper--from stolid +sulkiness to peevish whining, from murmured lamentations to loud +hysterics--to which the female temperament is liable. + +In the meantime poor honest, loud-spoken Tom did all in his power to +demonstrate his truth and devotion. He bought his wife as many stiff +silk gowns and gaudy Barlingford bonnets as she chose to sigh for. He +made a will, in which she was sole legatee, and insured his life in +different offices to the amount of five thousand pounds. + +"I'm the sort of fellow that's likely to go off the hooks suddenly, you +know, Georgy," he said, "and your poor dad was always anxious I should +make things square for you. I don't suppose you're likely to marry +again, my lass, so I've no need to tie up Lottie's little fortune. I +must trust some one, and I'd better confide in my little wife than in +some canting methodistical fellow of a trustee, who would speculate my +daughter's money upon some Stock-Exchange hazard, and levant to +Australia when it was all swamped. If you can't trust me, Georgy, I'll +let you see that I can trust you", added Tom reproachfully. + +Whereupon poor weak little Mrs. Halliday murmured plaintively that she +did not want fortunes or life insurances, but that she wanted her +husband to stay at home, content with the calm and rather sleepy +delights of his own fireside. Poor Tom was wont to promise amendment, +and would keep his promise faithfully so long as no supreme temptation, +in the shape of a visit from some friend of the jolly-good-fellow +species, arose to vanquish his good resolutions. But a good-tempered, +generous-hearted young man who farms his own land, has three or four +good horses in his stable, a decent cellar of honest port and sherry-- +"none of your wishy-washy sour stuff in the way of hock or claret," +cried Tom Halliday--and a very comfortable balance at his banker's, +finds it no easy matter to shake off friends of the jolly-good-fellow +fraternity. + +In London Mr. Halliday found the spirit of jolly-dog-ism rampant. +George Sheldon had always been his favourite of these two brothers; and +it was George who lured him from the safe shelter of Fitzgeorge-street +and took him to mysterious haunts, whence he returned long after +midnight, boisterous of manner and unsteady of gait, and with garments +reeking of stale tobacco-smoke. + +He was always good-tempered, even after these diabolical orgies on some +unknown Brocken, and protested indistinctly that there was no harm,-- +"'pon m' wor', ye know, ol' gur'! Geor' an' me--half-doz' oyst'r-- +c'gar--botl' p'l ale--str't home," and much more to the same effect. +When did any married man ever take more than half a dozen oysters--or +take any undomestic pleasure for his own satisfaction? It is always +those incorrigible bachelors, Thomas, Richard, or Henry, who hinder the +unwilling Benedick from returning to his sacred Lares and Penates. + +Poor Georgy was not to be pacified by protestations about oysters and +cigars from the lips of a husband who was thick of utterance, and who +betrayed a general imbecility of mind and unsteadiness of body. This +London excursion, which had begun in sunshine, threatened to end in +storm and darkness. Georgy Sheldon and his set had taken possession of +the young farmer; and Georgy had no better amusement in the long +blustrous March evenings than to sit at her work under the flaming gas +in Mr. Sheldon's drawing-room, while that gentleman--who rarely joined +in the dissipations of his friend and his brother--occupied himself +with mechanical dentistry in the chamber of torture below. + +Fitzgeorge-street in general, always on the watch to discover evidences +of impecuniosity or doubtful morality on the part of any one citizen in +particular, could find no food for scandal in the visit of Mr. and Mrs. +Halliday to their friend and countryman. It had been noised abroad, +through the agency of Mrs. Woolper, that Mr. Sheldon had been a suitor +for the lady' hand, and had been jilted by her. The Fitzgeorgians had +been, therefore, especially on the alert to detect any sign of +backsliding in the dentist. There would have been much pleasant +discussion in kitchens and back-parlours if Mr. Sheldon had been +particularly attentive to his fair guest; but it speedily became known, +always by the agency of Mrs. Woolper and that phenomenon of idleness +and iniquity, the London "girl," that Mr. Sheldon was not by any means +attentive to the pretty young woman from Yorkshire; but that he +suffered her to sit alone hour after hour in her husband's absence, +with no amusement but her needlework wherewith to "pass the time," +while he scraped and filed and polished those fragments of bone which +were to assist in the renovation of decayed beauty. + +The third week of Mr. and Mrs. Halliday's visit was near its close, and +as yet the young farmer had arrived at no decision as to the subject +which had brought him to London. The sale of Hyley Farm was an +accomplished fact, and the purchase-money duly bestowed at Tom's +banker's; but very little had been done towards finding the new +property which was to be a substitute for the estate his father and +grandfather had farmed before him. He had seen auctioneers, and had +brought home plans of estates in Herefordshire and Devonshire, Cornwall +and Somersetshire, all of which seemed to be, in their way, the most +perfect things imaginable--land of such fertility as one would scarcely +expect to find out of Arcadia--live stock which seemed beyond all +price, to be taken at a valuation.--roads and surrounding +neighbourhood unparalleled in beauty and convenience--outbuildings +that must have been the very archetypes of barns and stables--a house +which to inhabit would be to adore. But as yet he had seen none of +these peerless domains. He was waiting for decent weather in which to +run down to the West and "look about him," as he said to himself. In +the meantime the blustrous March weather, which was so unsuited to long +railroad journeys, and all that waiting about at junctions and at +little windy stations on branch lines, incidental to the inspection of +estates scattered over a large area of country, served very well for +"jolly-dog-ism;" and what with a hand at cards in George Sheldon's +chambers, and another hand at cards in somebody else's chambers, and a +run down to an early meeting at Newmarket, and an evening at some +rooms where there was something to be seen which was as near +prize-fighting as the law allowed, and other evenings in unknown +regions, Mr. Halliday found time slipping by him, and his domestic +peace vanishing away. + +It was on an evening at the end of this third week that Mr. Sheldon +abandoned his mechanical dentistry for once in a way, and ascended to +the drawing-room where poor Georgy sat busy with that eternal +needlework, but for which melancholy madness would surely overtake many +desolate matrons in houses whose common place comfort and respectable +dulness are more dismal than the picturesque dreariness of a moated +grange amid the Lincolnshire fens. To the masculine mind this +needlework seems nothing more than a purposeless stabbing and sewing of +strips of calico; but to lonely womanhood it is the prison-flower of +the captive, it is the spider of Latude. + +Mr. Sheldon brought his guest an evening newspaper. + +"There's an account of the opening of Parliament," he said, "which you +may perhaps like to see. I wish I had a piano, or some female +acquaintances to drop in upon you. I am afraid you must be dull in +these long evenings when Tom is out of the way." + +"I am indeed dull," Mrs. Halliday answered peevishly; "and if Tom cared +for me, he wouldn't leave me like this evening after evening. But he +doesn't care for me." + +Mr Sheldon laid down the newspaper, and seated himself opposite his +guest. He sat for a few minutes in silence, beating time to some +imaginary air with the tips of his fingers on the old-fashioned +mahogany table. Then he said, with a half-smile upon his face,-- + +"But surely Tom is the best of husbands! He has been a little wild +since his coming to London, I know; but then you see he doesn't often +come to town." + +"He's just as bad in Yorkshire," Georgy answered gloomily; "he's always +going to Barlingford with somebody or other, or to meet some of his old +friends. I'm sure, if I had known what he was, I would never have +married him." + +"Why, I thought he was such a good husband. He was telling me only a +few days ago how he had made a will leaving you every sixpence he +possesses, without reservation, and how he has insured his life for +five thousand pounds." + +"O yes, I know that; but I don't call _that_ being a good husband. I +don't want him to leave me his money. I don't want him to die. I want +him to stay at home." + +"Poor Tom! I'm afraid he's not the sort of man for that kind of thing. +He likes change and amusement. You married a rich man, Mrs. Halliday; +you made your choice, you know, without regard to the feelings of any +one else. You sacrificed truth and honour to your own inclination, or +your own interest, I do not know, and do not ask which. If the bargain +has turned out a bad one, that's your look-out." + +Philip Sheldon sat with his folded arms resting on the little table and +his eyes fixed on Georgy's face. They could be very stern and hard and +cruel, those bright black eyes, and Mrs. Halliday grew first red and +then pale under their searching gaze. She had seen Mr. Sheldon very +often during the years of her married life, but this was the first time +he had ever said anything to her that sounded like a reproach. The +dentist's eyes softened a little as he watched her, not with any +special tenderness, but with an expression of half-disdainful +compassion--such as a strong stern man might feel for a foolish child. +He could see that this woman was afraid of him, and it served his +interests that she should fear him. He had a purpose in everything he +did, and his purpose to-night was to test the strength of his influence +over Georgina Halliday. In the old time before her marriage that +influence had been very strong. It was for him, to discover now whether +it still endured. + +"You made your choice, Mrs. Halliday," he went on presently, "and it +was a choice which all prudent people must have approved. What chance +had a man, who was only heir to a practice worth four or five hundred +pounds, against the inheritor of Hyley Farm with its two hundred and +fifty acres, and three thousand pounds' worth of live stock, plant, and +working capital? When do the prudent people ever stop to consider truth +and honour, or old promises, or an affection that dates from childhood? +They calculate everything by pounds, shillings, and pence; and +according to their mode of reckoning you were in the right when you +jilted me to marry Tom Halliday." + +Georgy laid down her work and took out her handkerchief. She was one of +those women who take refuge in tears when they find themselves at a +disadvantage. Tears had always melted honest Tom, was his wrath never +so dire, and tears would no doubt subdue Philip Sheldon. + +But Georgy had to discover that the dentist was made of a stuff very +different from that softer clay which composed the rollicking +good-tempered farmer. Mr. Sheldon watched her tears with the +cold-blooded deliberation of a scientific experimentalist. He was glad +to find that he could make her cry. She was a necessary instrument in +the working out of certain plans that he had made for himself, and he +was anxious to discover whether she was likely to be a plastic +instrument. He knew that her love for him had never been worth much at +its best, and that the poor little flickering flame had been utterly +extinguished by nine years of commonplace domesticity and petty +jealousy. But his purpose was one that would be served as well by her +fear as by her love, and he had set himself to-night to gauge his +power in relation to this poor weak creature. + +"It's very unkind of you to say such dreadful things, Mr. Sheldon," she +whimpered presently; "you know very well that my marriage with Tom was +pa's doing, and not mine. I'm sure if I'd known how he would stay out +night after night, and come home in such dreadful states time after +time, I never would have consented to marry him." + +"Wouldn't you?--O yes, you would. If you were a widow to-morrow, and +free to marry again, you would choose just such another man as Tom--a +man who laughs loud, and pays flourishing compliments, and drives a gig +with a high-stepping horse. That's the sort of man women like, and +that's the sort of man you'd marry." + +"I'm sure I shouldn't marry at all," answered Mrs. Halliday, in a +voice that was broken by little gasping sobs. "I have seen enough of +the misery of married life. But I don't want Tom to die, unkind as he +is to me. People are always saying that he won't make old bones--how +horrid it is to talk of a person's bones!--and I'm sure I sometimes +make myself wretched about him, as he knows, though he doesn't thank me +for it." + +And here Mrs Halliday's sobs got the better of her utterance, and Mr. +Sheldon was fain to say something of a consolatory nature. + +"Come, come," he said, "I won't tease you any more. That's against the +laws of hospitality, isn't it?--only there are some things which you +can't expect a man to forget, you know. However, let bygones be +bygones. As for poor old Tom, I daresay he'll live to be a hale, hearty +old man, in spite of the croakers. People always will croak about +something; and it's a kind of fashion to say that a big, hearty, +six-foot man is a fragile blossom likely to be nipped by any wintry +blast. Come, come, Mrs. Halliday, your husband mustn't discover that +I've been making you cry when he comes home. He may be home early this +evening, perhaps; and if he is, we'll have an oyster supper, and a +chat about old times." + +Mrs. Halliday shook her head dolefully. + +"It's past ten o'clock already," she said, "and I don't suppose Tom +will be home till after twelve. He doesn't like my sitting up for him; +but I wonder _what_ time he would come home if I didn't sit up for +him?" + +"Let's hope for the best," exclaimed Mr. Sheldon cheerfully. "I'll go +and see about the oysters." + +"Don't get them for me, or for Tom," protested Mrs. Halliday; "he will +have had his supper when he comes home, you may be sure, and I couldn't +eat a morsel of anything." + +To this resolution Mrs. Halliday adhered; so the dentist was fain to +abandon all jovial ideas in relation to oysters and pale ale. But he +did not go back to his mechanical dentistry. He sat opposite his +visitor, and watched her, silently and thoughtfully, for some time as +she worked. She had brushed away her tears, but she looked very peevish +and miserable, and took out her watch several times in an hour. Mr. +Sheldon made two or three feeble attempts at conversation, but the talk +languished and expired on each occasion, and they sat on in silence. + +Little by little the dentist's attention seemed to wander away from his +guest. He wheeled his chair round, and sat looking at the fire with the +same fixed gloom upon his face which had darkened it on the night of +his return from Yorkshire. Things had been so desperate with him of +late, that he had lost his old orderly habit of thinking out a business +at one sitting, and making an end of all deliberation and hesitation +about it. There were subjects that forced themselves upon his thoughts, +and certain ideas which repeated themselves with a stupid persistence. +He was such an eminently practical man, that this disorder of his brain +troubled him more even than the thoughts that made the disorder. He sat +in the same attitude for a long while, scarcely conscious of Mrs. +Halliday's presence, not at all conscious of the progress of time. +Georgy had been right in her gloomy forebodings of bad behaviour on the +part of Mr. Halliday. It was nearly one o'clock when a loud double +knock announced that gentleman's return. The wind had been howling +drearily, and a sharp, slanting rain had been pattering against the +windows for the last half-hour, while Mrs. Halliday's breast had been +racked by the contending emotions of anxiety and indignation. + +"I suppose he couldn't get a cab," she exclaimed, as the knock startled +her from her listening attitude--for however intently a midnight +watcher may be listening for the returning wanderer's knock, it is not +the less startling when it comes?--"and he has walked home through the +wet, and now he'll have a violent cold, I daresay," added Georgy +peevishly. + +"Then it's lucky for him he's in a doctor's house," answered Mr. +Sheldon, with a smile. He was a handsome man, no doubt, according to +the popular idea of masculine perfection, but he had not a pleasant +smile. "I went through the regular routine, you know, and am as well +able to see a patient safely through a cold or fever as I am to make +him a set of teeth." + +Mr. Halliday burst into the room at this moment, singing a fragment of +the "Chough and Crow" chorus, very much out of tune. He was in +boisterously high spirits, and very little the worse for liquor. He had +only walked from Covent Garden, he said, and had taken nothing but a +tankard of stout and a Welsh rarebit. He had been hearing the divinest +singing--boys with the voices of angels--and had been taking his supper +in a place which duchesses themselves did not disdain to peep at from +the sacred recesses of a loge grillee, George Sheldon had told him. But +poor country-bred Georgina Halliday would not believe in the duchesses, +or the angelic singing boys, or the primitive simplicity of Welsh +rarebits. She had a vision of beautiful women, and halls of dazzling +light, where there was the mad music of perpetual Post-horn Galops, +with a riotous accompaniment of huzzas and the popping of champagne +corks--where the sheen of satin and the glitter of gems bewildered the +eye of the beholder. She had seen such a picture once on the stage, and +had vaguely associated it with all Tom's midnight roisterings ever +afterwards. + +The roisterer's garments were very wet, and it was in vain that his +wife and Philip Sheldon entreated him to change them for dry ones, or +to go to bed immediately. He stood before the fire relating his +innocent adventures, and trying to dispel the cloud from Georgy's fair +young brow; and, when he did at last consent to go to his room, the +dentist shook his head ominously. + +"You'll have a severe cold to-morrow, depend upon it, Tom, and you'll +have yourself to thank for it," he said, as he bade the good-tempered +reprobate good night. "Never mind, old fellow," answered Tom; "if I am +ill, you shall nurse me. If one is doomed to die by doctors' stuff, +it's better to have a doctor one does know than a doctor one doesn't +know for one's executioner." + +After which graceful piece of humour Mr. Halliday went blundering up +the staircase, followed by his aggrieved wife. + +Philip Sheldon stood on the landing looking after his visitors for some +minutes. Then he went slowly back to the sitting-room, where he +replenished the fire, and seated himself before it with a newspaper in +his hand. + +"What's the use of going to bed, if I can't sleep?" he muttered, in a +discontented tone. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A PERPLEXING ILLNESS. + + +Mr. Sheldon's prophecy was fully realised. Tom Halliday awoke the next +day with a violent cold in his head. Like most big boisterous men of +herculean build, he was the veriest craven in the hour of physical +ailment; so he succumbed at once to the malady which a man obliged to +face the world and fight for his daily bread must needs have made light +of. + +The dentist rallied his invalid friend. + +"Keep your bed, if you like, Tom," he said, "but there's no necessity +for any such coddling. As your hands are hot, and your tongue rather +queer, I may as well give you a saline draught. You'll be all right by +dinner-time, and I'll get George to look round in the evening for a +hand at cards." + +Tom obeyed his professional friend--took his medicine, read the paper, +and slept away the best part of the dull March day. At half-past five +he got up and dressed for dinner, and the evening passed very +pleasantly--so pleasantly, indeed, that Georgy was half inclined to +wish that her husband might be afflicted with chronic influenza, +whereby he would be compelled to stop at home. She sighed when Philip +Sheldon slapped his friend's broad shoulder, and told him cheerily that +he would be "all right to-morrow." He would be well again, and there +would be more midnight roistering, and she would be again tormented by +that vision of lighted halls and beautiful diabolical creatures +revolving madly to the music of the Post-horn Galop. + +It seemed, however, that poor jealous Mrs. Halliday was to be spared +her nightly agony for some time to come. Tom's cold lasted longer than +he had expected, and the cold was succeeded by a low fever--a bilious +fever, Mr. Sheldon said. There was not the least occasion for alarm, of +course. The invalid and the invalid's wife trusted implicitly in the +friendly doctor who assured them both that Tom's attack was the most +ordinary kind of thing; a little wearing, no doubt, but entirely +without danger. He had to repeat this assurance very often to Georgy, +whose angry feelings had given place to extreme tenderness and +affection now that Tom was an invalid, quite unfitted for the society +of jolly good fellows, and willing to receive basins of beef-tea and +arrow-root meekly from his wife's hands, instead of those edibles of +iniquity, oysters and toasted cheese. + +Mr. Halliday's illness was very tiresome. It was one of those +perplexing complaints which keep the patient himself, and the patient's +friends and attendants, in perpetual uncertainty. A little worse one +day and a shade better the next; now gaining a little strength, now +losing a trifle more than he had gained. The patient declined in so +imperceptible a manner that he had been ill three weeks, and was no +longer able to leave his bed, and had lost alike his appetite and his +spirits, before Georgy awoke to the fact that this illness, hitherto +considered so lightly, must be very serious. + +"I think if--if you have no objection, I should like to see another +doctor, Mr. Sheldon," she said one day, with considerable embarrassment +of manner. She feared to offend her host by any doubt of his skill. +"You see--you--you are so much employed with teeth--and--of course you +know I am quite assured of your talent--but don't you think that a +doctor who had more experience in fever cases might bring Tom round +quicker? He has been ill so long now; and really he doesn't seem to get +any better." + +Philip Sheldon shrugged his shoulders. + +"As you please, my dear Mrs. Halliday," he said carelessly; "I don't +wish to press my services upon you. It is quite a matter of friendship, +you know, and I shall not profit sixpence by my attendance on poor old +Tom. Call in another doctor, by all means, if you think fit to do so; +but, of course, in that event, I must withdraw from the case. The man +you call in may be clever, or he may be stupid and ignorant. It's all a +chance, when one doesn't know one's man; and I really can't advise you +upon that point, for I know nothing of the London profession." + +Georgy looked alarmed. This was a new view of the subject. She had +fancied that all regular practitioners were clever, and had only +doubted Mr. Sheldon because he was not a regular practitioner. But how +if she were to withdraw her husband from the hands of a clever man to +deliver him into the care of an ignorant pretender, simply because she +was over-anxious for his recovery? + +"I always am foolishly anxious about things," she thought. + +And then she looked piteously at Mr. Sheldon, and said, "What do you +think I ought to do? Pray tell me. He has eaten no breakfast again this +morning; and even the cup of tea which I persuaded him to take seemed +to disagree with him. And then there is that dreadful sore throat which +torments him so. What ought I to do, Mr. Sheldon?" + +"Whatever seems best to yourself, Mrs. Halliday," answered the dentist +earnestly. "It is a subject upon, which I cannot pretend to advise you. +It is a matter of feeling rather than of reason, and it is a matter +which you yourself must determine. If I knew any man whom I could +honestly recommend to you, it would be another affair; but I don't. +Tom's illness is the simplest thing in the world, and I feel myself +quite competent to pull him through it, without fuss or bother; but if +you think otherwise, pray put me out of the question. There's one fact, +however, of which I'm bound to remind you. Like many fine big stalwart +fellows of his stamp, your husband is as nervous as a hysterical woman; +and if you call in a strange doctor, who will pull long faces, and put +on the professional solemnity, the chances are that he'll take alarm, +and do himself more mischief in a few hours than your new adviser can +undo in as many weeks." + +There was a little pause after this. Georgy's opinions, and suspicions, +and anxieties were alike vague; and this last suggestion of Mr. +Sheldon's put things in a new and alarming light. She was really +anxious about her husband, but she had been accustomed all her life to +accept the opinion of other people in preference to her own. + +"Do you really think that Tom will soon be well and strong again?" she +asked presently. + +"If I thought otherwise, I should be the first to advise other +measures. However, my dear Mrs. Halliday, call in some one else, for +your own satisfaction." + +"No," said Georgy, sighing plaintively, "it might frighten Tom. You are +quite right, Mr. Sheldon; he is very nervous, and the idea that I was +alarmed might alarm him. I'll trust in you. Pray try to bring him round +again. You will try, won't you?" she asked, in the childish pleading +way which was peculiar to her. + +The dentist was searching for something in the drawer of a table, and +his back was turned on the anxious questioner. + +"You may depend upon it, I'll do my best, Mrs. Halliday," he answered, +still busy at the drawer. Mr. Sheldon the younger had paid many visits +to Fitzgeorge-street during Tom Halliday's illness. George and Tom had +been the Damon and Pythias of Barlingford; and George seemed really +distressed when he found his friend changed for the worse. The changes +in the invalid were so puzzling, the alternations from better to worse +and from worse to better so frequent, that fear could take no hold upon +the minds of the patient's friends. It seemed such a very slight affair +this low fever, though sufficiently inconvenient to the patient +himself, who suffered a good deal from thirst and sickness, and showed +an extreme disinclination for food, all which symptoms Mr. Sheldon said +were the commonest and simplest features of a very mild attack of +bilious fever, which would leave Tom a better man than it had found +him. + +There had been several pleasant little card-parties during the earlier +stages of Mr. Halliday's illness; but within the last week the patient +had been too low and weak for cards--too weak to read the newspaper, or +even to bear having it read to him. When George came to look at his old +friend--"to cheer you up a little, old fellow, you know," and so on--he +found Tom, for the time being, past all capability of being cheered, +even by the genial society of his favourite jolly good fellow, or by +tidings of a steeplechase in Yorkshire, in which a neighbour had gone +to grief over a double fence. + +"That chap upstairs seems rather queerish," George had said to his +brother, after finding Tom lower and weaker than usual. "He's in a bad +way, isn't he, Phil?" + +"No; there's nothing serious the matter with him. He's rather low +to-night, that's all." + +"Rather low!" echoed George Sheldon. "He seems to me so very low, that +he can't sink much lower without going to the bottom of his grave. I'd +call some one in, if I were you." + +The dentist shrugged his shoulders, and made a little contemptuous +noise with his lips. + +"If you knew as much of doctors as I do, you wouldn't be in any hurry +to trust a friend to the mercy of one," he said carelessly. "Don't you +alarm yourself about Tom. He's right enough. He's been in a state of +chronic over-eating and over-drinking for the last ten years, and this +bilious fever will be the making of him." + +"Will it?" said George doubtfully; and then there followed a little +pause, during which the brothers happened to look at each other +furtively, and happened to surprise each other in the act. + +"I don't know about over-eating or drinking," said George presently; +"but something has disagreed with Tom Halliday, that's very evident." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE LETTER FROM THE "ALLIANCE" OFFICE. + + +Upon the evening of the day on which Mrs. Halliday and the dentist had +discussed the propriety of calling in a strange doctor, George Sheldon +came again to see his sick friend. He was quicker to perceive the +changes in the invalid than the members of the household, who saw him +daily and hourly, and he perceived a striking change for the worse +to-night. + +He took care, however, to suffer no evidence of alarm or surprise to +appear in the sick chamber. He talked to his friend in the usual cheery +way; sat by the bedside for half an hour; did his best to arouse Tom +from a kind of stupid lethargy, and to encourage Mrs. Halliday, who +shared the task of nursing her husband with brisk Nancy Woolper, an +invaluable creature in a sick-room. But he failed in both attempts; the +dull apathy of the invalid was not to be dispelled by the most genial +companionship, and Georgy's spirits had been sinking lower and lower +all day as her fears increased. + +She would fain have called in a strange doctor--she would fain have +sought for comfort and consolation from some new quarter. But she was +afraid of offending Philip Sheldon; and she was afraid of alarming her +husband. So she waited, and watched, and struggled against that +ever-increasing anxiety. Had not Mr. Sheldon made light of his +friend's malady, and what motive could he have for deceiving her? + +A breakfast-cup full of beef-tea stood on the little table by the +bedside, and had been standing there for hours untouched. + +"I did take such pains to make it strong and clear," said Mrs. Woolper +regretfully, as she came to the little table during a tidying process, +"and poor dear Mr. Halliday hasn't taken so much as a spoonful. It +won't be fit for him to-morrow, so as I haven't eaten a morsel of +dinner, what with the hurry and anxiety and one thing and another, I'll +warm up the beef-tea for my supper. There's not a blessed thing in the +house; for you don't eat nothing, Mrs. Halliday; and as to cooking a +dinner for Mr. Sheldon, you'd a deal better go and throw your victuals +out into the gutter, for then there'd be a chance of stray dogs +profiting by 'em, at any rate." + +"Phil is off his feed, then; eh, Nancy?" said George. + +"I should rather think he is, Mr. George. I roasted a chicken yesterday +for him and Mrs. Halliday, and I don't think they eat an ounce between, +them; and such a lovely tender young thing as it was too--done to a +turn--with bread sauce and a little bit of sea-kale. One invalid makes +another, that's certain. I never saw your brother so upset as he is +now, Mr, George, in all his life. + +"No?" answered George Sheldon thoughtfully; "Phil isn't generally one +of your sensitive sort." + +The invalid was sleeping heavily during this conversation. George stood +by the bed for some minutes looking down at the altered face, and then +turned to leave the room. + +"Good night, Mrs. Halliday," he said; "I hope I shall find poor old Tom +a shade better when I look round to-morrow." + +"I am sure I hope so," Georgy answered mournfully. + +She was sitting by the window looking out at the darkening western sky, +in which the last lurid glimmer of a stormy sunset was fading against a +background of iron gray. + +This quiet figure by the window, the stormy sky, and ragged hurrying +clouds without, the dusky chamber with all its dismally significant +litter of medicine-bottles, made a gloomy picture--a picture which the +man who looked upon it carried in his mind for many years after that +night. + +George Sheldon and Nancy Woolper left the room together, the +Yorkshirewoman carrying a tray of empty phials and glasses, and amongst +them the cup of beef-tea. + +"He seems in a bad way to-night, Nancy," said George, with a backward +jerk of his head towards the sick-chamber. + +"He is in a bad way, Mr. George," answered the woman gravely, "let Mr. +Philip think what he will. I don't want to say a word against your +brother's knowledge, for such a steady studious gentleman as he is had +need be clever; and if I was ill myself, I'd trust my life to him +freely; for I have heard Barlingford folks say that my master's advice +is as good as any regular doctor's, and that there's very little your +regular doctors know that he doesn't know as well or better. But for +all that, Mr. George, I don't think he understands Mr. Halliday's case +quite as clear as he might." + +"Do you think Tom's in any danger?" + +"I won't say that, Mr. George; but I think he gets worse instead of +getting better." + +"Humph!" muttered George; "if Halliday were to go off the hooks, Phil +would have a good chance of getting a rich wife." + +"Don't say that, Mr. George," exclaimed the Yorkshirewoman +reproachfully; "don't even think of such a thing while that poor man +lies at death's door. I'm sure Mr. Sheldon hasn't any thoughts of that +kind. He told me before Mr. and Mrs. Halliday came to town that he and +Miss Georgy had forgotten all about past times." + +"O, if Phil said so, that alters the case. Phil is one of your blunt +outspoken fellows, and always says what he means," said George Sheldon. +And then he went downstairs, leaving Nancy to follow him at her leisure +with the tray of jingling cups and glasses. He went down through the +dusk, smiling to himself, as if he had just given utterance to some +piece of intense humour. He went to look for his brother, whom he found +in the torture-chamber, busied with some mysterious process in +connection with a lump of plaster-of-pans, which seemed to be the model +of ruined battlements in the Gothic style. The dentist looked up as +George entered the room, and did not appear particularly delighted by +the appearance of that gentleman. + +"Well," said Mr. Sheldon the younger, "busy as usual? Patients seem to +be looking up." + +"Patients be----toothless to the end of time!" cried Philip, with a +savage laugh. "No, I'm not working to order; I'm only experimentalising." + +"You're rather fond of experiments, I think, Phil," said George, +seating himself near the table at which his brother was working under +the glare of the gas. The dentist looked very pale and haggard in the +gas-light, and his eyes had the dull sunken appearance induced by +prolonged sleeplessness. George sat watching his brother thoughtfully +for some time, and then produced his cigar-case. "You don't mind my +smoke here?" he asked, as he lighted a cigar. + +"Not at all. You are very welcome to sit here, if it amuses you to see +me working at the cast of a lower jaw." + +"O, that's a lower jaw, is it? It looks like the fragment of some +castle-keep. No, Phil, I don't care about watching you work. I want to +talk to you seriously." + +"About that fellow upstairs--poor old Tom. He and I were great +cronies, you know, at home. He's in a very bad way, + +"Is he? You seem to be turning physician all at once, George. I +shouldn't have thought your grubbing among county histories, and +tattered old pedigrees, and parish registers had given you so deep an +insight into the science of medicine!" said the dentist in a sneering +tone. + +"I don't know anything of medicine; but I know enough to be sure that +Tom Halliday is about as bad as he can be. What mystifies me is, that +he doesn't seem to have had anything particular the matter with him. +There he lies, getting worse and worse every day, without any specific +ailment. It's a strange illness, Philip." + +"I don't see anything strange in it." + +"Don't you? Don't you think the surrounding circumstances are strange? +Here is this man comes to your house hale and hearty; and all of a +sudden he falls ill, and gets lower and lower every day, without +anybody being able to say why or wherefore." + +"That's not true, George. Everybody in this house knows the cause of +Tom Halliday's illness. He came home in wet clothes, and insisted on +keeping them on. He caught a cold; which resulted in low fever. There +is the whole history and mystery of the affair." + +"That's simple enough, certainly. But if I were you, Phil I'd call in +another doctor." + +"That is Mrs. Halliday's business," answered the dentist coolly; "if +she doubts my skill, she is free to call in whom she pleases. And now +you may as well drop the subject, George. I've had enough anxiety about +this man's illness, and I don't want to be worried by you." + +After this there was a little conversation upon general matters, but +the talk dragged and languished drearily, and George Sheldon rose to +depart directly he had finished his cigar. + +"Good night, Philip!" he said; "if ever you get a stroke of good luck, +I hope you'll stand something handsome to me." + +This remark had no particular relevance to anything that had been said +that night by the two men; yet Philip Sheldon seemed in nowise +astonished by it. + +"If things ever _do_ take a turn for the better with me, you'll find me +a good friend, George," he said gravely; and then Mr. Sheldon the +younger bade him good night, and went out into Fitzgeorge-street. + +He paused for a moment at the corner of the street to look back at his +brother's house. He could see the lighted windows of the invalid's +chamber, and it was at those he looked. + +"Poor Tom," he said to himself, "poor Tom! We were great cronies in the +old times, and have had many a pleasant evening together!" + +Mr. Sheldon the dentist sat up till the small hours that night, as +he had done for many nights lately. He finished his work in the +torture-chamber, and went up to the common sitting-room, or +drawing-room as it was called by courtesy, a little before midnight. +The servants had gone to bed, for there was no regular nightly watch +in the apartment of the invalid. Mrs. Halliday lay on a sofa in her +husband's room, and Nancy Woolper slept in an adjoining apartment, +always wakeful and ready if help of any kind should be wanted. + +The house was very quiet just now. Philip Sheldon walked up and down +the room, thinking; and the creaking of his boots sounded unpleasantly +loud to his ears. He stopped before the fireplace, after having walked +to and fro some time, and began to examine some letters that lay upon +the mantelpiece. They were addressed to Mr. Halliday, and had been +forwarded from Yorkshire. The dentist took them up, one by one, and +deliberately examined them. They were all business letters, and most of +them bore country post-marks. But there was one which had been, in the +first instance, posted from London and this letter Mr. Sheldon examined +with especial attention. + +It was a big, official-looking document, and embossed upon the adhesive +envelope appeared the crest and motto of the Alliance Insurance Office. + +"I wonder whether that's all square," thought Mr. Sheldon, as he turned +the envelope about in his hands, staring at it absently. "I ought to +make sure of that. The London postmark is nearly three weeks old." He +pondered for some moments, and then went to the cupboard in which he +kept the materials wherewith to replenish or to make a fire. Here he +found a little tin tea-kettle, in which he was in the habit of boiling +water for occasional friendly glasses of grog. He poured some water +from a bottle on the sideboard into this kettle, set fire to a bundle +of wood, and put the kettle on the blazing sticks. After having done +this he searched for a tea-cup, succeeded in finding one, and then +stood watching for the boiling of the water. He had not long to wait; +the water boiled furiously before the wood was burned out, and Mr. +Sheldon filled the tea-cup standing on the table. Then he put the +insurance-letter over the cup, with the seal downwards, and left it so +while he resumed his walk. After walking up and down for about ten +minutes he went back to the table and took up the letter. The adhesive +envelope opened easily, and Mr. Sheldon, by this ingenious stratagem, +made himself master of his friend's business. + +The "Alliance" letter was nothing more than a notice to the effect that +the half-yearly premium for insuring the sum of three thousand pounds +on the life of Thomas Halliday would be due on such a day, after which +there would be twenty-one days' grace, at the end of which time the +policy would become void, unless the premium had been duly paid. + +Mr. Halliday's letters had been suffered to accumulate during the last +fortnight. The letters forwarded from Yorkshire had been detained some +time, as they had been sent first to Hyley Farm, now in the possession +of the new owner, and then to Barlingford, to the house of Georgy's +mother, who had kept them upwards of a week, in daily expectation of +her son-in-law's return. It was only on the receipt of a letter from +Georgy, containing the tidings of her husband's illness, that Mr. +Halliday's letters had been sent to London. Thus it came about that the +twenty-one days of grace were within four-and-twenty hours of expiring +when Philip Sheldon opened his friend's letter. + +"This is serious," muttered the dentist, as he stood deliberating with +the open letter in his hand; "there are three thousand pounds depending +on that man's power to write a check!" + +After a few minutes' reflection, he folded the letter and resealed it +very carefully. + +"It wouldn't do to press the matter upon him to-night," he thought; "I +must wait till to-morrow morning, come what may." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +MR. BURKHAM'S UNCERTAINTIES. + + +The next morning dawned gray and pale and chill, after the manner of +early spring mornings, let them ripen into never such balmy days; and +with the dawn Nancy Woolper came into the invalid's chamber, more wan +and sickly of aspect than the morning itself. + +Mrs. Halliday started from an uneasy slumber. + +"What's the matter, Nancy?" she asked with considerable alarm. She had +known the woman ever since her childhood, and she was startled this +morning by some indefinable change in her manner and appearance. The +hearty old woman, whose face had been like a hard rosy apple shrivelled +and wrinkled by long keeping, had now a white and ghastly look which +struck terror to Georgy's breast. She who was usually so brisk of +manner and sharp of speech, had this morning a strange subdued tone and +an unnatural calmness of demeanour. "What is the matter, Nancy?" Mrs. +Halliday repeated, getting up from her sofa. + +"Don't be frightened, Miss Georgy," answered the old woman, who was apt +to forget that Tom Halliday's wife had ever ceased to be Georgy +Cradock; "don't be frightened, my dear. I haven't been very well all +night,--and--and--I've been, worrying myself about Mr. Halliday. If I +were you, I'd call in another doctor. Never mind what Mr. Philip says. +He may be mistaken, you know, clever as he is. There's no telling. Take +my advice, Miss Georgy, and call in another doctor--directly-- +directly," repeated the old woman, seizing Mrs. Halliday's wrist with a +passionate energy, as if to give emphasis to her words. Poor timid +Georgy shrank from her with terror. + +"You frighten me, Nancy," she whispered; "do you think that Tom is so +much worse? You have not been with him all night; and he has been +sleeping very quietly. What makes you so anxious this morning?" + +"Never mind that, Miss Georgy. You get another doctor, that's all; get +another doctor at once. Mr. Sheldon is a light sleeper. I'll go to his +room and tell him you've set your heart upon having fresh advice; if +you'll only bear me out afterwards." + +"Yes, yes; go by all means," exclaimed Mrs. Halliday, only too ready to +take alarm under the influence of a stronger mind, and eager to act +when supported by another person. + +Nancy Woolper went to her master's room. He must have been sleeping +very lightly, if he was sleeping at all; for he was broad awake the +next minute after his housekeeper's light knock had sounded on the +door. In less than five minutes he came out of his room half-dressed. +Nancy had told him that Mrs. Halliday had taken fresh alarm about her +husband, and wished for further advice. + +"She sent you to tell me that?" asked Philip. + +"Yes." + +"And when does she want this new doctor called in?" + +"Immediately, if possible." + +It was seven o'clock by this time, and the morning was brightening a +little. + +"Very well," said Mr. Sheldon; "her wishes shall be attended to +directly. Heaven forbid that I should stand between my old friend and +any chance of his speedy recovery! If a stranger can bring him round +quicker than I can, let the stranger come." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sheldon was not slow to obey Mrs. Halliday's behest. He was +departing on his quest breakfastless, when Nancy Woolper met him in the +hall with a cup of tea. He accepted the cup almost mechanically from +her hand, and took it into the parlour, whither Nancy followed him. +Then for the first time he perceived that change in his housekeeper's +face which had so startled Georgina Halliday. The change was somewhat +modified now; but still the Nancy Woolper of to-day was not the Nancy +Woolper of yesterday. + +"You're looking very queer, Nancy," said the dentist, gravely +scrutinising the woman's face with his bright penetrating eyes. "Are +you ill" + +"Well, Mr. Philip, I have been rather queer all night,--sickish and +faintish-like." + +"Ah, you've been over-fatiguing yourself in the sick-room, I daresay. +Take care you don't knock yourself up." "No; it's not that, Mr. Philip. +There's not many can stand hard work better than I can. It's not _that_ +as made me ill. I took something last night that disagreed with me." + +"More fool you," said Mr. Sheldon curtly; "you ought to know better +than to ill-use your digestive powers at your age. What was it? Hard +cold meat and preternaturally green pickles, I suppose; or something of +that kind." + +"No, sir; it was only a drop of beef-tea that I made for poor Mr. +Halliday. And that oughtn't to have disagreed with a baby, you know, +sir." + +"Oughtn't it?" cried the dentist disdainfully. "That's a little bit of +vulgar ignorance, Mrs. Woolper. I suppose it was stuff that had been +taken up to Mr. Halliday." + +"Yes, Mr. Philip; you took it up with your own hands." + +"Ah, to be sure; so I did. Very well, then, Mrs. Woolper, if you knew +as much about atmospheric influences as I do, you'd know that food +which has been standing for hours in the pestilential air of a +fever-patient's room isn't fit for anybody to eat. The stuff made you +sick, I suppose." + +"Yes, sir; sick to my very heart," answered the Yorkshirewoman, with a +strange mournfulness in her voice. + +"Let that be a warning to you, then. Don't take anything more that +comes down from the sick-room." + +"I don't think there'll be any chance of my doing that long, sir." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I don't fancy Mr. Halliday is long for this world." + +"Ah, you women are always ravens." + +"Unless the strange doctor can do something to cure him. O, pray bring +a clever man who will be able to cure that poor helpless creature +upstairs. Think, Mr. Philip, how you and him used to be friends and +playfellows,--brothers almost,--when you was both bits of boys. Think +how bad it might seem to evil-minded folks if he died under your roof." + +The dentist had been standing near the door drinking his tea during +this conversation; and now for the first time he looked at his +housekeeper with an expression of unmitigated astonishment. + +"What, in the name of all that's ridiculous, do you mean, Nancy?" he +asked impatiently. "What has my roof to do with Tom Halliday's illness +--or his death, if it came to that? And what on earth can people have to +say about it if he should die here instead of anywhere else?" + +"Why, you see, sir, you being his friend, and Miss Georgy's sweetheart +that was, and him having no other doctor, folks might take it into +their heads he wasn't attended properly." + +"Because I'm his friend? That's very good logic! I'll tell you what it +is, Mrs. Woolper; if any woman upon earth, except the woman who nursed +me when I was a baby, had presumed to talk to me as you have been +talking to me just this minute, I should open the door yonder and tell +her to walk out of my house. Let that serve as a hint for you, Nancy; +and don't you go out of your way a second time to advise me how I +should treat my friend and my patient." + +He handed her the empty cup, and walked out of the house. There had +been no passion in his tone. His accent had been only that of a man who +has occasion to reprove an old and trusted servant for an unwarrantable +impertinence. Nancy Woolper stood at the street-door watching him as he +walked away, and then went slowly back to her duties in the lower +regions of the house. + +"It can't be true," she muttered to herself; "it can't be true." + + * * * * * + +The dentist returned to Fitzgeorge-street in less than an hour, +bringing with him a surgeon from the neighbourhood, who saw the +patient, discussed the treatment, spoke hopefully to Mrs. Halliday, and +departed, after promising to send a saline draught. Poor Georgy's +spirits, which had revived a little under the influence of the +stranger's hopeful words, sank again when she discovered that the +utmost the new doctor could do was to order a saline draught. Her +husband had taken so many saline draughts, and had been getting daily +worse under their influence. + +She watched the stranger wistfully as he lingered on the threshold to +say a few words to Mr. Sheldon. He was a very young man, with a frank +boyish face and a rosy colour in his cheeks. He looked like some fresh +young neophyte in the awful mysteries of medical science, and by no +means the sort of man to whom one would have imagined Philip Sheldon +appealing for help, when he found his own skill at fault. But then it +must be remembered that Mr. Sheldon had only summoned the stranger in +compliance with what he considered a womanish whim. + +"He looks very young," Georgina said regretfully, after the doctor's +departure. + +"So much the better, my dear Mrs. Halliday," answered the dentist +cheerfully; "medical science is eminently progressive, and the youngest +men are the best-educated men." + +Poor Georgy did not understand this; but it sounded convincing, and she +was in the habit of believing what people told her; so she accepted Mr. +Sheldon's opinion. How could she doubt that he was wiser than herself +in all matters connected with the medical profession? + +"Tom seems a little better this morning," she said presently. + +The invalid was asleep, shrouded by the curtain of the heavy +old-fashioned four-post bedstead. + +"He is better," answered the dentist; "so much better, that I shall +venture to give him a few business letters that have been waiting for +him some time, as soon as he wakes." + +He seated himself by the head of the bed, and waited quietly for the +awakening of the patient. + +"Your breakfast is ready for you downstairs, Mrs. Halliday," he said +presently; "hadn't you better go down and take it, while I keep watch +here? It's nearly ten o'clock." + +"I don't care about any breakfast," Georgina answered piteously. + +"Ah, but you'd better eat something. You'll make yourself an invalid, +if you are not careful; and then you won't be able to attend upon Tom." + +This argument prevailed immediately. Georgy went downstairs to the +drawing-room, and tried bravely to eat and drink, in order that she +might be sustained in her attendance upon her husband. She had +forgotten all the throes and tortures of jealousy which she had endured +on his account. She had forgotten his late hours and unholy +roisterings. She had forgotten everything except that he had been very +tender and kind throughout the prosperous years of their married life, +and that he was lying in the darkened room upstairs sick to death. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sheldon waited with all outward show of patience for the awakening +of the invalid. But he looked at his watch twice during that half-hour +of waiting; and once he rose and moved softly about the room, searching +for writing materials. He found a little portfolio of Georgina's, and a +frivolous-minded inkstand, after the semblance of an apple, with a gilt +stalk and leaflet. The dentist took the trouble to ascertain that there +was a decent supply of ink in the green-glass apple, and that the pens +were in working order. Then he went quietly back to his seat by the +bedside and waited. + +The invalid opened his eyes presently, and recognised his friend with a +feeble smile. + +"Well, Tom, old fellow, how do you feel to-day--a little better I hear +from Mrs. H.," said the dentist cheerily. + +"Yes, I think I am a shade better. But, you see, the deuce of it is I +never get more than a shade better. It always stops at that. The little +woman can't complain of me now, can she, Sheldon? No more late hours, +or oyster suppers, eh?" + +"No, no, not just yet. You'll have to take care of yourself for a week +or two when you get about again." Mr. Halliday smiled faintly as his +friend said this. + +"I shall be very careful of myself if I ever do get about again, you +may depend upon it, old fellow. But do you know I sometimes fancy I +have spent my last jolly evening, and eaten my last oyster supper, on +this earth? I'm afraid it's time for me to begin to think seriously of +a good many things. The little woman is all right, thank God. I made my +will upwards of a year ago, and insured my life pretty heavily soon +after my marriage. Old Cradock never let me rest till that was done. So +Georgy will be all safe. But when a man has led a careless, godless +kind of a life,--doing very little harm, perhaps, but doing no +particular good,--he ought to set about making up his account somehow +for a better world, when he feels himself slipping out of this. I asked +Georgy for her Bible yesterday, and the poor dear loving little thing +was frightened out of her wits. 'O, don't talk like that, Tom,' she +cried; 'Mr. Sheldon says you are getting better every hour,'--by which +you may guess what a rare thing it is for me to read my Bible. No, +Phil, old fellow, you've done your best for me, I know; but I'm not +made of a very tough material, and all the physic you can pour down +this poor sore throat of mine won't put any strength into me." + +"Nonsense, dear boy; that's just what a man who has not been accustomed +to illness is sure to think directly he is laid up for a day or two." + +"I've been laid up for three weeks," murmured Mr. Halliday rather +fretfully. + +"Well, well, perhaps this Mr. Burkham will bring you round in three +days, and then you'll say that your friend Sheldon was an ignoramus." + +"No, no, I shan't, old fellow; I'm not such a fool as that. I'm not +going to blame you when it's my own constitution that's in fault. As to +that young man you brought here just now, to please Georgy, I don't +suppose he'll be able to do any more for me than you have done." + +"We'll contrive to bring you round between us, never fear, Tom," +answered Philip Sheldon in his most hopeful tone. "Why, you are looking +almost your old self this morning. You are so much improved that I may +venture to talk to you about business. There have been some letters +lying about for the last few days. I didn't like to bore you while you +were so very low. But they look like business letters; and perhaps it +would be as well for you to open them." + +The sick man contemplated the little packet which the dentist had taken +from his breast-pocket; and then shook his head wearily. + +"I'm not up to the mark, Sheldon," he said; "the letters must keep." +"O, come, come, old fellow! That's giving way, you know. The letters +may be important; and it will do you good if you make an effort to +rouse yourself." + +"I tell you it isn't in me to do it, Philip Sheldon. I'm past making +efforts. Can't you see that, man? Open the letters yourself, if you +like." + +"No, no, Halliday, I won't do that. Here's one with the seal of the +Alliance Insurance Office. I suppose your premium is all right." + +Tom Halliday lifted himself on his elbow for a moment, startled into +new life; but he sank back on the pillows again immediately, with a +feeble groan. + +"I don't know about that," he said anxiously; "you'd better look to +that, Phil, for the little woman's sake. A man is apt to think that his +insurance is settled and done with, when he has been pommelled about by +the doctors and approved by the board. He forgets there's that little +matter of the premium. You'd better open the letter, Phil. I never was +a good hand at remembering dates, and this illness has thrown me +altogether out of gear." + +Mr. Sheldon tore open that official document, which, in his benevolent +regard for his friend's interest, he had manipulated so cleverly on the +previous evening, and read the letter with all show of deliberation. + +"You're right, Tom," he exclaimed presently. "The twenty-one days' +grace expire to-day. You'd better write me a check at once, and I'll +send it on to the office by hand. Where's your check-book?" + +"In the pocket of that coat hanging up there." + +Philip Sheldon found the check-book, and brought it to his friend, with +Georgy's portfolio, and the frivolous little green-glass inkstand in +the shape of an apple. He adjusted the writing materials for the sick +man's use with womanly gentleness. His arm supported the wasted frame, +as Tom Halliday slowly and laboriously filled in the check; and when +the signature was duly appended to that document, he drew a long +breath, which seemed to express infinite relief of mind. + +"You'll be sure it goes on to the Alliance Office, eh, old fellow?" +asked Tom, as he tore out the oblong slip of paper and handed it to his +friend. "It was kind of you to jog my memory about this business. I'm +such a fellow for procrastinating matters. And I'm afraid I've been a +little off my load during the last week." + +"Nonsense, Tom; not you." + +"O yes, I have. I've had all sorts of queer fancies. Did you come into +this room the night before last, when Georgy was asleep?" Mr. Sheldon +reflected for a moment before answering. + +"No," he said, "not the night before last." + +"Ah, I thought as much," murmured the invalid. "I was off my head that +night then, Phil, for I fancied I saw you; and I fancied I heard the +bottles and glasses jingling on the little table behind the curtain." + +"You were dreaming, perhaps." + +"O no, I wasn't dreaming. I was very restless and wakeful that night. +However, that's neither here nor there. I lie in a stupid state +sometimes for hours and hours, and I feel as weak as a rat, bodily and +mentally; so while I have my wits about me, I'd better say what I've +been wanting to say ever so long. You've been a good and kind friend to +me all through this illness, Phil, and I'm not ungrateful for your +kindness. If it does come to the worst with me--as I believe it will-- +Georgy shall give you a handsome mourning ring, or fifty pounds to buy +one, if you like it better. And now let me shake hands with you, Philip +Sheldon, and say thank you heartily, old fellow, for once and for +ever." + +The invalid stretched out a poor feeble attenuated hand, and, after a +moment's pause, Philip Sheldon clasped it in his own muscular fingers. +He did hesitate for just one instant before taking that hand. + +He was no student of the gospel; but when he had left the sick-chamber +there arose before him suddenly, as if written in letters of fire on +the wall opposite to him, one sentence which had been familiar to him +in his school-days at Barlingford: + +_And as soon as he was come, he goeth straightway to him, and saith, +Master, master; and kissed him._ + + * * * * * + +The new doctor came twice a day to see his patient. He seemed rather +anxious about the case, and just a little puzzled by the symptoms. +Georgy had sufficient penetration to perceive that this new adviser was +in some manner at fault; and she began to think that Philip Sheldon was +right, and that regular practitioners were very stupid creatures. She +communicated her doubts to Mr. Sheldon, and suggested the expediency of +calling in some grave elderly doctor, to supersede Mr. Burkham. But +against this the dentist protested very strongly. + +"You asked me to call in a stranger, Mrs. Halliday, and I have done +so," he said, with the dignity of an offended man. "You must now abide +by his treatment, and content yourself with his advice, unless he +chooses to summon further assistance." + +Georgy was fain to submit. She gave a little plaintive sigh, and went +back to her husband's room, where she sat and wept silently behind the +bed-curtains. There was a double watch kept in the sick-chamber now; +for Nancy Woolper rarely left it, and rarely closed her eyes. It was +altogether a sad time in the dentist's house; and Tom Halliday +apologised to his friend more than once for the trouble he had brought +upon him. If he had been familiar with the details of modern history, +he would have quoted Charles Stuart, and begged pardon for being so +long a-dying. + +But anon there came a gleam of hope. The patient seemed decidedly +better; and Georgy was prepared to revere Mr. Burkham, the Bloomsbury +surgeon, as the greatest and ablest of men. Those shadows of doubt and +perplexity which had at first obscured Mr. Burkham's brow cleared away, +and he spoke very cheerfully of the invalid. + +Unhappily this state of things did not last long. The young surgeon +came one morning, and was obviously alarmed by the appearance of his +patient. He told Philip Sheldon as much; but that gentleman made very +light of his fears. As the two men discussed the case, it was very +evident that the irregular practitioner was quite a match for the +regular one. Mr. Burkham listened deferentially, but departed only half +convinced. He walked briskly away from the house, but came to a dead +stop directly after turning out of Fitzgeorge-street. + +"What ought I to do?" he asked himself. "What course ought I to take? +If I am right, I should be a villain to let things go on. If I am +wrong, anything like interference would ruin me for life." + +He had finished his morning round, but he did not go straight home. He +lingered at the corners of quiet streets, and walked up and down the +unfrequented side of a gloomy square. Once he turned and retraced his +steps in the direction of Fitzgeorge-street. But after all this +hesitation he walked home, and ate his dinner very thoughtfully, +answering his young wife at random when she talked to him. He was a +struggling man, who had invested his small fortune in the purchase of a +practice which had turned out a very poor one, and he had the battle of +life before him. + +"There's something on your mind to-day, I'm sure, Harry," his wife said +before the meal was ended. + +"Well, yes, dear," he answered; "I've rather a difficult case in +Fitzgeorge-street, and I'm anxious about it." + +The industrious little wife disappeared after dinner, and the young +surgeon walked up and down the room alone, brooding over that difficult +case in Fitzgeorge-street. After spending nearly an hour thus, he +snatched his hat suddenly from the table on which he had set it down, +and hurried from the house. + +"I'll have advice and assistance, come what may," he said to himself, +as he walked rapidly in the direction of Mr. Sheldon's house. "The case +may be straight enough--I certainly can't see that the man has any +motive--but I'll have advice." + +He looked up at the dentist's spotless dwelling as he crossed the +street. The blinds were all down, and the fact that they were so sent a +sudden chill to his heart. But the April sunshine was full upon that +side of the street, and there might lie no significance in those +closely-drawn blinds. The door was opened by a sleepy-looking boy, and +in the passage Mr. Burkham met Philip Sheldon. + +"I have been rather anxious about my patient since this morning, Mr. +Sheldon," said the surgeon; "and I have come to the conclusion that I +ought to confer with a man of higher standing than myself. Do you think +Mrs. Halliday will object to such a course?" + +"I am sure she would not have objected to it," the dentist answered +very gravely, "if you had suggested it sooner. I am sorry to say the +suggestion comes too late. My poor friend breathed his last half an +hour ago." + + + + + +BOOK THE SECOND. + + +THE TWO MACAIRES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A GOLDEN TEMPLE. + + +In the very midst of the Belgian iron country, under the shadow of +tall sheltering ridges of pine-clad mountain-land, nestles the +fashionable little watering-place called Foretdechene. Two or three +handsome hotels; a bright white new pile of building, with vast windows +of shining plate-glass, and a stately quadrangular courtyard; a tiny +street, which looks as if a fragment of English Brighton had been +dropped into this Belgian valley; a stunted semi-classic temple, which +is at once a post-office and a shrine whereat invalids perform their +worship of Hygeia by the consumption of unspeakably disagreeable +mineral waters; a few tall white villas scattered here and there +upon the slopes of pine-clad hills; and a very uncomfortable +railway-station--constitute the chief features Foretdechene. But right +and left of that little cluster of shops and hotels there stretch deep +sombre avenues of oak, that look like sheltered ways to Paradise--and +the deep, deep blue of the August sky, and the pure breath of the warm +soft air, and the tender green of the young pine-woods that clothe the +sandy hills, and the delicious tranquillity that pervades the sleepy +little town and bathes the hot landscape in a languorous mist, are +charms that render Foretdechene a pleasant oasis amid the lurid woods +and mountains of the iron country. + +Only at stated intervals the quiet of this sleepy hollow is broken by +the rolling of wheels, the jingling of bells, the cracking of whips, +the ejaculations of drivers, and supplications of touters: only when +the railroad carries away departing visitors, or brings fresh ones, is +there anything like riot or confusion in the little town under the +pine-clad hills--and even then the riot and confusion are of a very +mild order, and create but a transient discord amongst the harmonies of +nature. + +And yet, despite the Arcadian tranquillity of the landscape, the drowsy +quiet of the pine-groves, the deep and solemn shade of those dark +avenues, where one might fondly hope to find some Druidess lingering +beneath the shelter of the oaks, there is excitement of no common order +to be found in the miniature watering-place of Foretdechene; and the +reflective and observant traveller, on a modern sentimental journey, +has only to enter the stately white building with the glittering +plate-glass windows in order to behold the master-passions or the human +breast unveiled for his pleasure and edification. + +The ignorant traveller, impelled by curiosity, finds no bar to his +entrance. The doors are as wide open as if the mansion were an hotel; +and yet it is not an hotel, though a placard which he passes informs +the traveller that he may have ices and sorbets, if he will; nor is the +bright fresh-looking building a theatre, for another placard informs +the visitor that there are dramatic performances to be witnessed every +evening in a building on one side of the quadrangle, which is a mere +subsidiary attachment to the vast white mansion. The traveller, passing +on his way unhindered, save by a man in livery, who deprives him of his +cane, ascends a splendid staircase and traverses a handsome +antechamber, from which a pair of plate-glass doors open into a +spacious saloon, where, in the warm August sunlight, a circle of men +and women are gathered round a great green table, gambling. + +The ignorant traveller, unaccustomed to the amusements of a Continental +watering-place, may perhaps feel a little sense of surprise--a +something almost akin to shame--as he contemplates that silent crowd, +whose occupation seems so much the more strange to him because of their +silence. There is no lively bustle, none of that animation which +generally attends every kind of amusement, none of the clamour of the +betting-ring or the exchange. The gamblers at Foretdechene are terribly +in earnest: and the ignorant visitor unconsciously adapts himself to +the solemn hush of the place, and steps softly as he approaches the +table round which they are clustered--as many sitting as can find room +round the green-cloth-covered board; while behind the sitters there are +people standing two or three rows deep, the hindermost watching the +table over the shoulders of their neighbours. A placard upon the wall +informs visitors that only constant players are permitted to remain +seated at that sacred table. Perhaps a third of the players and a third +of the lookers-on are women. And if there are lips more tightly +contracted than other lips, and eyes with a harder, greedier light in +them than other eyes, those lips and those eyes belong to the women. +The ungloved feminine hands have a claw-like aspect as they scrape the +glittering pieces of silver over the green cloth; the feminine throats +look weird and scraggy as they crane themselves over masculine +shoulders; the feminine eyes have something demoniac in their steely +glare as they keep watch upon the rapid progress of the game. + +Half a dozen moderate fortunes seem to be lost and won while the +traveller looks on from the background, unnoticed and unseen; for if +those plate-glass doors swung suddenly open to admit the seven angels +of the Apocalypse, carrying the seven golden vials filled with the +wrath of God, it is doubtful whether the splendour of their awful +glory, or the trumpet-notes that heralded their coming, would have +power to arouse the players from their profound abstraction. + +Half a dozen comfortable little patrimonies seem to have changed hands +while the traveller has been looking on; and yet he has only watched +the table for about ten minutes; and this splendid _salon_ is but an +outer chamber, where one may stake as shabby a sum as two francs, if +one is shabby enough to wish to do so, and where playing for half an +hour or so on a pleasant summer morning one could scarcely lose more +than fifty or sixty pounds. Another pair of plate-glass doors open into +an inner chamber, where the silence is still more profound, and where +around a larger table sit one row of players; while only here and there +a little group of outsiders stand behind their chairs. There is more +gilding on the walls and ceiling of this chamber; the frescoes are more +delicate; the crystal chandeliers are adorned with rich clusters of +sparkling drops, that twinkle like diamonds in the sun. This is the +temple of gold; and in this splendid chamber one may hazard no smaller +stake than half a napoleon. There are women here; but not so many women +as in the outer saloon; and the women here are younger and prettier and +more carefully dressed than those who stake only silver. + +The prettiest and the youngest woman in this golden chamber on one +particular August afternoon, nine years after the death of Tom +Halliday, was a girl who stood behind the chair of a military-looking +Englishman, an old man whose handsome face was a little disfigured by +those traces which late hours and dissipated habits are supposed to +leave behind them. + +The girl held a card in one hand and a pin in the other, and was +occupied in some mysterious process, by which she kept note of the +Englishman's play. She was very young, with a delicate face, in whose +softer lines there was a refined likeness to the features of the man +whose play she watched. But while his eyes were hard and cold and gray, +hers were of that dense black in which there seems such an unfathomable +and mysterious depth. As she was the handsomest, so she was also the +worst-dressed woman in the room. Her flimsy silk mantle had faded from +black to rusty brown; the straw hat which shaded her face was sunburnt; +the ribbons had lost their brightness; but there was an air of +attempted fashion in the puffings and trimmings of her alpaca skirt; +and there was evidence of a struggle with poverty in the tight-fitting +lavender gloves, whose streaky lines bore witness to the imperfection +of the cleaner's art. Elegant Parisians and the select of Brussels +glanced at the military Englishman and his handsome daughter with some +slight touch of supercilious surprise--one has no right to find +shabbily-dressed young women in the golden temple--and it is scarcely +necessary to state that it was from her own countrywomen the young +person in alpaca received the most chilling glances. But those Parthian +arrows shot from feminine eyes had little power to wound their object +just now. The girl looked up from her perforated card very seldom; and +when she raised her eyes, it was always to look in one direction-- +towards the great glass doors opening from the outer saloon. Loungers +came and went; the doors swung open and closed again as noiselessly as +it is possible for well-regulated doors to open and shut; footsteps +sounded on the polished floors; and sometimes when the young person in +alpaca lifted her eyes, a passing shadow of disappointment darkened her +face. A modern Laurence Sterne, on a new Sentimental Journey, might +have derived some interest from the study of the girl's countenance; +but the reflective and observant traveller is not to be encountered +very often in this age of excursionists; and Maria and her goat may +roam the highways and byways for a long time before she will find any +dreamy loiterer with a mind attuned to sympathy. + +The shabbily-dressed girl was looking for some one. She watched her +father's play carefully--she marked her card with unfailing precision; +but she performed these duties with a mechanical air; and it was only +when she lifted her eyes to the great shining plate-glass doors which +opened into this dangerous Paradise, that any ray of feeling animated +her countenance. She was looking for some one, and the person watched +for was so long coming. Ah, how difficult for the arithmetician to +number the crushing disappointments, the bitter agonies that one woman +can endure in a single half-hour! This girl was so young--so young; and +already she had learnt to suffer. + +The man played with the concentrated attention and the impassible +countenance of an experienced gamester, rarely lifting his eyes from +the green cloth, never looking back at the girl who stood behind him. +He was winning to-day, and he accepted his good fortune as quietly as +he had often accepted evil fortune at the same table. He seemed to be +playing on some system of his own; and neighbouring players looked at +him with envious eyes, as they saw the pile of gold grow larger under +his thin nervous hands. Ignorant gamesters, who stood aloof after +having lost two or three napoleons, contemplated the lucky Englishman +and wondered about him, while some touch of pity leavened the envy +excited by his wonderful fortune. He looked like a decayed gentleman--a +man who had been a military dandy in the days that were gone, and who +had all the old pretensions still, without the power to support them--a +Brummel languishing at Caen; a Nash wasting slowly at Bath. + +At last the girl's face brightened suddenly as she glanced upwards; and +it would have been very easy for the observant traveller--if any such +person had existed--to construe aright that bright change in her +countenance. The some one she had been watching for had arrived. + +The doors swung open to admit a man of about five-and-twenty, whose +darkly-handsome face and careless costume had something of that air +which was once wont to be associated with the person and the poetry of +George Gordon Lord Byron. The new-comer was just one of those men whom +very young women are apt to admire, and whom worldly-minded people are +prone to distrust. There was a perfume of Bohemianism, a flavour of the +Quartier Latin, about the loosely-tied cravat, the wide trousers, and +black-velvet morning coat, with which the young man outraged the +opinions of respectable visitors at Foretdechene. There was a +semi-poetic vagabondism in the half-indifferent, half-contemptuous +expression of his face, with its fierce moustache, and strongly-marked +eyebrows overshadowing sleepy gray eyes--eyes that were half hidden, by +their long dark lashes; as still pools of blue water lie sometimes +hidden among the rushes that nourish round them. + +He was handsome, and he knew that he was handsome; but he affected to +despise the beauty of his proud dark face, as he affected to despise +all the brightest and most beautiful things upon earth: and yet there +was a vagabondish kind of foppery in his costume that contrasted +sharply with the gentlemanly dandyism of the shabby gamester sitting at +the table. There was a distance of nearly half a century between the +style of the Regency dandy and the Quartier-Latin lion. + +The girl watched the new-comer with sad earnest eyes as he walked +slowly towards the table, and a faint blush kindled in her cheeks as he +came nearer to the spot where she stood. He went by her presently, +carrying an atmosphere of stale tobacco with him as he went; and he +gave her a friendly nod as he passed, and a "Good morning, Diana;" but +that was all. The faint blush faded and left her very pale: but she +resumed her weary task with the card and the pin; and if she had +endured any disappointment within those few moments, it seemed to be a +kind of disappointment that she was accustomed to suffer. + +The young man walked round the table till he came to the only vacant +chair, in which he seated himself, and after watching the game for a +few minutes, began to play. From the moment in which he dropped into +that vacant seat to the moment in which he rose to leave the table, +three hours afterwards, he never lifted his eyes from the green cloth, +or seemed to be conscious of anything that was going on around or about +him. The girl watched him furtively for some little time after he had +taken his place at the table; but the stony mask of the professed +gambler is a profitless object for a woman's earnest scrutiny. + +She sighed presently, and laid her hand heavily on the chair behind +which she was standing. The action aroused the man who sat in it, and +he turned and looked at her for the first time. + +"You are tired, Diana?" + +"Yes, papa, I am very tired." + +"Give me your card, then, and go away," the gamester answered +peevishly; "girls are always tired." + +She gave him the mysteriously-perforated card, and left her post behind +his chair; and then, after roaming about the great saloon with a weary +listless air, and wandering from one open window to another to look +into the sunny quadrangle, where well-dressed people were sitting at +little tables eating ices or drinking lemonade, she went away +altogether, and roamed into another chamber where some children were +dancing to the sound of a feeble violin. She sat upon a velvet-covered +bench, and watched the children's lesson for some minutes, and then +rose and wandered to another open window that overlooked the same +quadrangle, where the well-dressed people were enjoying themselves in +the hot August sunshine. + +"How extravagantly everybody dresses!" she thought, "and what a shabby +poverty-stricken creature one feels amongst them! And yet if I ask papa +to give me a couple of napoleons out of the money he won to-day, he +will only look at me from head to foot, and tell me I have a gown and a +cloak and a bonnet, and ask me what more I can want, in the name of all +that is unreasonable? And I see girls here whose fathers are so fond of +them and so proud of them--ugly girls, decked out in silks and muslins +and ribbons that have cost a small fortune--clumsy awkward girls, who +look at _me_ as if I were some new kind of wild animal." + +The saloons at Foretdechene were rich in monster sheets of looking-glass; +and in wandering discontentedly about the room Diana Paget saw herself +reflected many times in all her shabbiness. It was only very lately she +had discovered that she had some pretension to good looks; for her +father, who could not or would not educate her decently or clothe her +creditably, took a very high tone of morality in his paternal teaching, +and, in the fear that she might one day grow vain of her beauty, had +taken care to impress upon her at an early age that she was the very +incarnation of all that is lean and sallow and awkward. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE EASY DESCENT + + +Amongst the many imprudences of which Horatio Paget--once a cornet in +a crack cavalry regiment, always a captain in his intercourse with the +world--had been guilty during the course of a long career, there was +none for which he so bitterly reproached himself as for a certain +foolish marriage which he had made late in his life. It was when he +had thrown away the last chance that an indulgent destiny had given +him, that the ruined fop of the Regency, the sometime member of the +Beef-steak Club, the man who in his earliest youth had worn a silver +gridiron at his button-hole, and played piquet in the gilded saloons of +Georgina of Devonshire, found himself laid on a bed of sickness in +dingy London lodgings, and nearer death than he bad ever been in the +course of his brief military career; so nearly gliding from life's +swift-flowing river into eternity's trackless ocean, that the warmest +thrill of gratitude which ever stirred the slow pulses of his cold +heart quickened its beating as he clasped the hand that had held him +back from the unknown region whose icy breath had chilled him with an +awful fear. Such men as Horatio Paget are apt to feel a strange terror +when the black night drops suddenly down upon them, and the "Gray +Boatman's" voice sounds hollow and mysterious in the darkness, +announcing that the ocean is near. The hand that held the ruined +spendthrift back when the current swept so swiftly oceanward was a +woman's tender hand; and Heaven only knows what patient watchfulness, +what careful administration of medicines and unwearying preparation of +broths and jellies and sagos and gruels, what untiring and devoted +slavery, had been necessary to save the faded rake who looked out upon +the world once more, a ghastly shadow of his former self, a penniless +helpless burden for any one who might choose to support him. + +"Don't thank _me_," said the doctor, when his feeble patient whimpered +flourishing protestations of his gratitude, unabashed by the +consciousness that such grateful protestations were the sole coin with +which the medical man would be paid for his services; "thank that young +woman, if you want to thank anybody; for if it had not been for her you +wouldn't be here to talk about gratitude. And if ever you get such +another attack of inflammation on the lungs, you had better pray for +such another nurse, though I don't think you're likely to find one." + +And with this exordium, the rough-and-ready surgeon took his departure, +leaving Horatio Paget alone with the woman who had saved his life. + +She was only his landlady's daughter; and his landlady was no +prosperous householder in Mayfair, thriving on the extravagance of +wealthy bachelors, but an honest widow, living in an obscure +little street leading out of the Old Kent-road, and letting a +meagrely-furnished little parlour and a still more meagrely-furnished +little bedroom to any single gentleman whom reverse of fortune might +lead into such a locality. Captain Paget had sunk very low in the +world when he took possession of that wretched parlour and laid +himself down to rest on the widow's flock-bed. + +There is apt to be a dreary interval in the life of such a man--a +blank dismal interregnum, which divides the day in which he spends his +last shilling from the hour in which he begins to prey deliberately +upon the purses of other people. It was in that hopeless interval that +Horatio Paget established himself in the widow's parlour. But though he +slept in the Old Kent-road, he had not yet brought himself to endure +existence on that Surrey side of the water. He emerged from his lodging +every morning to hasten westward, resplendent in clean linen and +exquisitely-fitting gloves, and unquestionable overcoat, and varnished +boots. + +The wardrobe has its Indian summer; and the glory of a first-rate +tailor's coat is like the splendour of a tropical sun--it is glorious +to the last, and sinks in a moment. Captain Paget's wardrobe was in its +Indian summer in these days; and when he felt how fatally near the +Bond-street pavement was to the soles of his feet, he could not refrain +from a fond admiration of the boots that were so beautiful in decay. + +He walked the West-end for many weary hours every day during this +period of his decadence. He tried to live in an honest gentlemanly way, +by borrowing money of his friends, or discounting an accommodation-bill +obtained from some innocent acquaintance who was deluded by his +brilliant appearance and specious tongue into a belief in the transient +nature of his difficulties. He spent his days in hanging about the +halls and waiting-rooms of clubs--of some of which he had once been a +member; he walked weary miles between St James's and Mayfair, +Kensington Gore and Notting Hill, leaving little notes for men who were +not at home, or writing a little note in one room while the man to whom +he was writing hushed his breath in an adjoining chamber. People who +had once been Captain Paget's fast friends seemed to have +simultaneously decided upon spending their existence out of doors, as +it appeared to the impecunious Captain. The servants of his friends +were afflicted with a strange uncertainty as to their masters' +movements. At whatever hall-door Horatio Paget presented himself, it +seemed equally doubtful whether the proprietor of the mansion would be +home to dinner that day, or whether he would be at home any time next +day, or the day after that, or at the end of the week, or indeed +whether he would ever come home again. Sometimes the Captain, calling +in the evening dusk, in the faint hope of gaining admittance to some +friendly dwelling, saw the glimmer of light under a dining-room door, +and heard the clooping of corks and the pleasant jingling of glass and +silver in the innermost recesses of a butler's pantry; but still the +answer was--not at home, and not likely to be home. All the respectable +world was to be out henceforth for Horatio Paget. But now and then at +the clubs he met some young man, who had no wife at home to keep watch +upon his purse and to wail piteously over a five-pound note +ill-bestowed, and who took compassion on the fallen spendthrift, and +believed, or pretended to believe, his story of temporary embarrassment; +and then the Captain dined sumptuously at a little French restaurant +in Castle-street, Leicester-square, and took a half-bottle of chablis +with his oysters, and warmed himself with chambertin that was brought +to him in a dusty cobweb-shrouded bottle reposing in a wicker-basket. + +But in these latter days such glimpses of sunshine very rarely +illumined the dull stream of the Captain's life. Failure and +disappointment had become the rule of his existence--success the rare +exception. Crossing the river now on his way westward, he was wont to +loiter a little on Waterloo Bridge, and to look dreamily down at the +water, wondering whether the time was near at hand when, under cover of +the evening dusk, he would pay his last halfpenny to the toll-keeper, +and never again know the need of an earthly coin. + +"I saw a fellow in the Morgue one day,--a poor wretch who had drowned +himself a week or two before. Great God, how horrible he looked! If +there was any certainty they would find one immediately, and bury one +decently, there'd be no particular horror in that kind of death. But to +be found _like that_, and to lie in some riverside deadhouse down by +Wapping, with a ghastly placard rotting on the rotting door, and +nothing but ooze and slime and rottenness round about one--waiting to +be identified! And who knows, after all, whether a dead man doesn't +_feel_ that sort of thing?" + +It was after such musings as these had begun to be very common with +Horatio Paget that he caught the chill which resulted in a very +dangerous illness of many weeks. The late autumn was wet and cold and +dreary; but Captain Paget, although remarkably clever after a certain +fashion, had never been a lover of intellectual pursuits, and +imprisonment in Mrs. Kepp's shabby parlour was odious to him. When he +had read every page of the borrowed newspaper, and pished and pshawed +over the leaders, and groaned aloud at the announcement of some wealthy +marriage made by one of his quondam friends, or chuckled at the record +of another quondam friend's insolvency--when he had poked the fire +savagely half a dozen times in an hour, cursing the pinched grate and +the bad coals during every repetition of the operation--when he had +smoked his last cigar, and varnished his favourite boots, and looked +out of the window, and contemplated himself gloomily in the wretched +little glass over the narrow chimney-piece,--Captain Paget's +intellectual resources were exhausted, and an angry impatience took +possession of him. Then, in defiance of the pelting rain or the +lowering sky, he flung his slippers into the farthest corner--and the +farthest corner of Mrs. Kepp's parlour was not very remote from the +Captain's arm-chair--he drew on the stoutest of his varnished boots-- +and there were none of them very stout now--buttoned his perfect +overcoat, adjusted his hat before the looking-glass, and sallied forth, +umbrella in hand, to make his way westward. Westward always, through +storm and shower, back to the haunts of his youth, went the wanderer +and outcast, to see the red glow of cheery fires reflected on the +plate-glass windows of his favourite clubs; to see the lamps in +spacious reading-rooms lit early in the autumn dusk, and to watch the +soft light glimmering on the rich bindings of the books, and losing +itself in the sombre depths of crimson draperies. To this poor worldly +creature the agony of banishment from those palaces of Pall Mall or St. +James's-street was as bitter as the pain of a fallen angel. It was the +dullest, deadest time of the year, and there were not many loungers in +those sumptuous reading-rooms, where the shaded lamps shed their +subdued light on the chaste splendour of the sanctuary; so Captain +Paget could haunt the scene of his departed youth without much fear of +recognition: but his wanderings in the West grew more hopeless and +purposeless every day. He began to understand how it was that people +were never at home when he assailed their doors with his fashionable +knock. He could no longer endure the humiliation of such repulses, for +he began to understand that the servants knew his errand as well as +their masters, and had their answers ready, let him present himself +before them when he would: so he besieged the doors of St. James's and +Mayfair, Kensington Gore and Netting Hill, no longer. He knew that the +bubble of his poor foolish life had burst, and that there was nothing +left for him but to die. + +It seemed about this time as if the end of all was very near. Captain +Paget caught a chill one miserable evening on which he returned to his +lodging with his garments dripping, and his beautiful varnished boots +reduced to a kind of pulp; and the chill resulted in a violent +inflammation of the lungs. Then it was that a woman's hand was held out +to save him, and a woman's divine tenderness cared for him in his dire +extremity. + +The ministering angel who comforted this helpless and broken-down +wayfarer was only a low-born ignorant girl called Mary Anne Kepp--a +girl who had waited upon the Captain during his residence in her +mother's house, but of whom he had taken about as much notice as he had +been wont to take of the coloured servants who tended him when he was +with his regiment in India. Horatio Paget had been a night-brawler and +a gamester, a duellist and a reprobate, in the glorious days that were +gone; but he had never been a profligate; and he did not know that the +girl who brought him his breakfast and staggered under the weight of +his coal-scuttle was one of the most beautiful women he had ever looked +upon. + +The Captain was so essentially a creature of the West-end, that Beauty +without her glitter of diamonds and splendour of apparel was scarcely +Beauty for him. He waited for the groom of the chambers to announce her +name, and the low hum of well-bred approval to accompany her entrance, +before he bowed the knee and acknowledged her perfection. The Beauties +whom he remembered had received their patent from the Prince Regent, +and had graduated in the houses of Devonshire and Hertford. How should +the faded bachelor know that this girl, in a shabby cotton gown, with +unkempt hair dragged off her pale face, and with grimy smears from the +handles of saucepans and fire-irons imprinted upon her cheeks--how +should he know that she was beautiful? It was only during the slow +monotonous hours of his convalescence, when he lay upon the poor faded +little sofa in Mrs. Kepp's parlour--the sofa that was scarcely less +faded and feeble than himself--it was then, and then only, that he +discovered the loveliness of the face which had been so often bent over +him during his delirious wanderings. + +"I have mistaken you for all manner of people, my dear," he said to his +landlady's daughter, who sat by the little Pembroke-table working, +while her mother dozed in a corner with a worsted stocking drawn over +her arm and a pair of spectacles resting upon her elderly nose. Mrs. +Kepp and her daughter were wont to spend their evenings in the lodger's +apartment now; for the invalid complained bitterly of "the horrors" +when they left him. + +"I have taken you for all sorts of people, Mary Anne," pursued the +Captain dreamily. "Sometimes I have fancied you were the Countess of +Jersey, and I could see her smile as she looked at me when I was first +presented to her. I was very young in the beautiful Jersey's time; and +then there was the other one--whom I used to drink tea with at +Brighton. Ah me! what a dull world it seems nowadays! The King gone, +and everything changed--everything--everything! I am a very old man, +Mary Anne." + +He was fifty-two years of age; he felt quite an old man. He had spent +all his money, he had outlived the best friends of his youth; for it +had been his fate to adorn a declining era, and he had been a youngster +among elderly patrons and associates. His patrons were dead and gone, +and the men he had patronised shut their doors upon him in the day of +his poverty. As for his relations, he had turned his back upon them +long ago, when first he followed in the shining wake of that gorgeous +vessel, the Royal George. In this hour of his penniless decline there +was none to help him. To have outlived every affection and every +pleasure is the chief bitterness of old age; and this bitterness +Horatio Paget suffered in all its fulness, though his years were but +fifty-two. + +"I am a very old man, Mary Anne," he repeated plaintively. But Mary +Anne Kepp could not think him old. To her eyes he must for ever appear +the incarnation of all that is elegant and distinguished. He was the +first gentleman she had ever seen. Mrs. Kepp had given shelter to other +lodgers who had called themselves gentlemen, and who had been pompous +and grandiose of manner in their intercourse with the widow and her +daughter; but O, what pitiful lacquered counterfeits, what Brummagem +paste they had been, compared to the real gem! Mary Anne Kepp had seen +varnished boots before the humble flooring of her mother's dwelling was +honoured by the tread of Horatio Paget, but what clumsy vulgar boots, +and what awkward plebeian feet had worn them! The lodger's slim white +hands and arched instep, the patrician curve of his aquiline nose, the +perfect grace of his apparel, the high-bred modulation of his courteous +accents,--all these had impressed Mary Anne's tender little heart so +much the more because of his poverty and loneliness. That such a man +should be forgotten and deserted--that such a man should be poor and +lonely, seemed so cruel a chance to the simple maiden: and then when +illness overtook him, and invested him with a supreme claim upon her +tenderness and pity,--then the innocent girl lavished all the treasures +of a compassionate heart upon the ruined gentleman. She had no thought +of fee or reward; she knew that her mother's lodger was miserably poor, +and that his payments had become more and more irregular week by week +and month by month. She had no consciousness of the depth of feeling +that rendered her so gentle a nurse; for her life was a busy one, and +she had neither time nor inclination for any morbid brooding upon her +own feelings. + +She protested warmly against the Captain's lamentation respecting his +age. + +"The idear of any gentleman calling hisself old at fifty!" she said-- +and Horatio shuddered at the supererogatory "r" and the "hisself," +though they proceeded from the lips of his consoler;--"you've got +many, many years before you yet, sir, please God," she added piously; +"and there's good friends will come forward yet to help you, I make no +doubt." + +Captain Paget shook his head peevishly. + +"You talk as if you were telling my fortune with a pack of cards," he +said. "No, my girl, I shall have only one friend to rely upon, if ever +I am well enough to go outside this house; and that friend is myself. I +have spent the fortune my father left me; I have spent the price of my +commission; and I have parted with every object of any value that I +ever possessed--in vulgar parlance, I am cleaned out, Mary Anne. But +other men have spent every sixpence belonging to them, and have +contrived to live pleasantly enough for half a century afterwards; and +I daresay I can do as they have done. If the wind is tempered to the +shorn lamb, I suppose the hawks and vultures take care of themselves. I +have tried my luck as a shorn lamb, and the tempest has been very +bitter for me; so I have no alternative but to join the vultures." + +Mary Anne Kepp stared wonderingly at her mother's lodger. She had some +notion that he had been saying something wicked and blasphemous; but +she was too ignorant and too innocent to follow his meaning. + +"O, pray don't talk in that wild way, sir," she entreated. "It makes me +so unhappy to hear you go on like that." + +"And why should anything that I say make you unhappy, Mary Anne?" asked +the lodger earnestly. + +There was something in his tone that set her pale face on fire with +unwonted crimson, and she bent very low over her work to hide those +painful blushes. She did not know that the Captain's tone presaged a +serious address; she did not know that the grand crisis of her life was +close upon her. + +Horatio Paget had determined upon making a sacrifice. The doctor had +told him that he owed his life to this devoted girl; and he would have +been something less than man if he had not been moved with some +grateful emotion. He was grateful; and in the dreary hours of his slow +recovery he had ample leisure for the contemplation of the woman to +whom he owed so much, if his poor worthless life could indeed be much. +He saw that she was devoted to him; that she loved him more truly than +he had ever been conscious of being loved before. He saw too that she +was beautiful. To an ugly woman Captain Paget might have felt extremely +grateful; but he could never have thought of an ugly woman as he +thought of Mary Anne Kepp. The end of his contemplation and his +deliberation came to this: She was beautiful, and she loved him, and +his life was utterly wretched and lonely; so he determined on proving +his gratitude by a sublime sacrifice. Before the girl had lifted her +face from the needlework over which she had bent to hide her blushes, +Horatio Paget had asked her to be his wife. Her emotion almost +overpowered her as she tried to answer him; but she struggled against +it bravely, and came to the sofa on which he lay and dropped upon her +knees by his side. The beggar-maid who was wooed by a king could have +felt no deeper sense of her lover's condescension than that which +filled the heart of this poor simple girl as she knelt by her mother's +gentleman lodger. + +"I--to be your wife!" she exclaimed. "O, surely, sir, you cannot mean +it?" + +"But I do mean it, with all my heart and soul, my dear," answered the +Captain. "I'm not offering you any grand chance, Mary Anne; for I'm +about as low down in the world as a man can be. But I don't mean to be +poor all my life. Come, my dear, don't cry," he exclaimed, just a +little impatiently--for the girl had covered her face with her hands, +and tears were dropping between the poor hard-working fingers--"but +lift up your head and tell me whether you will take a faded old +bachelor for your husband or not." + +Horatio Paget had admired many women in the bright years of his youth, +and had fancied himself desperately in love more than once in his life; +but it is doubtful whether the mighty passion had ever really possessed +the Captain's heart, which was naturally cold and sluggish, rarely +fluttered by any emotion that was not engendered of selfishness. +Horatio had set up an idol and had invented a religion for himself very +early in life; and that idol was fashioned after his own image, and +that religion had its beginning and end in his own pleasure. He might +have been flattered and pleased by Miss Kepp's agitation; but he was +ill and peevish; and having all his life been subject to a profound +antipathy to feminine tearfulness, the girl's display of emotion +annoyed him. + +"Is it to be yes, or no, my dear?" he asked, with, some vexation in his +tone. + +Mary Anne looked up at him with tearful, frightened eyes. + +"O, yes, sir, if I can be of any use to you, and nurse you when you are +ill, and work for you till I work my fingers to the bone." + +She clenched her hands spasmodically as she spoke. In imagination she +was already toiling and striving for the god of her idolatry--the +GENTLEMAN whose varnished boots had been to her as a glimpse of another +and a fairer world than that represented by Tulliver's-terrace, Old +Kent-road. But Captain Paget checked her enthusiasm by a gentle gesture +of his attenuated hands. + +"That will do, my dear," he murmured languidly; "I'm not very strong +yet, and anything in the way of fuss is inexpressibly painful to me. +Ah, my poor child," he exclaimed, pityingly, "if you could have seen a +dinner at the Marquis of Hertford's, you would have understood how much +can be achieved without fuss. But I am talking of things you don't +understand. You will be my wife; and a very good, kind, obedient little +wife, I have no doubt. That is all settled. As for working for me, my +love, it would be about as much as these poor little hands could do to +earn me a cigar a day--and I seldom smoke less than half a dozen +cigars; so, you see, that is all so much affectionate nonsense. And now +you may wake your mother, my dear; for I want to take a little nap, and +I can't close my eyes while that good soul is snoring so intolerably; +but not a word about our little arrangement, Mary Anne, till you and +your mother are alone." + +And hereupon the Captain spread a handkerchief over his face and +subsided into a gentle slumber. The little scene had fatigued him; +though it had been so quietly enacted, that Mrs. Kepp had slept on +undisturbed by the brief fragment of domestic drama performed within a +few yards of her uneasy arm-chair. Her daughter awoke her presently, +and she resumed her needlework, while Mary Anne made some tea for the +beloved sleeper. The cups and saucers made more noise to-night than +they were wont to make in the girl's careful hands. The fluttering of +her heart seemed to communicate itself to the tips of her fingers, and +the jingling of the crockery-ware betrayed the intensity of her +emotion. He was to be her husband! She was to have a gentleman for a +husband; and such a gentleman! Out of such base trifles as a West-end +tailor's coat and a West-end workman's boots may be engendered the +purest blossom of womanly love and devotion. Wisely may the modern +philosopher cry that the history of the world is only a story of old +clothes. Mary Anne had begun by admiring the graces of Stultz and Hoby, +and now she was ready to lay down her life for the man who wore the +perishing garments. + + * * * * * + +Miss Kepp obeyed her lover's behest; and it was only on the following +day, when she and her mother were alone together in the dingy little +kitchen below Captain Paget's apartments, that she informed that worthy +woman of the honour which had been vouchsafed to her. And thereupon +Mary Anne endured the first of the long series of disappointments which +were to arise out of her affection for the penniless Captain. The widow +was a woman of the world, and was obstinately blind to the advantages +of a union with a ruined gentleman of fifty. "How's he to keep you, I +should like to know," Mrs. Kepp exclaimed, as the girl stood blushing +before her after having told her story; "if he can't pay me regular?-- +and you know the difficulty I have had to get his money, Mary Anne. If +he can't keep hisself, how's he to keep you?" + +"Don't talk like that, mother," cried the girl, wincing under her +parent's practical arguments; "you go on as if all I cared for was +being fed and clothed. Besides, Captain Paget is not going to be poor +always. He told me so last night, when he----" + +"_He_ told you so!" echoed the honest widow with unmitigated scorn; +"hasn't he told me times and often that I should have my rent regular +after this week, and regular after that week, and have I _ever_ had it +regular? And ain't I keeping him out of charity now?--a poor +widow-woman like me--which I may be wanting charity myself before long: +and if it wasn't for your whimpering and going on he'd have been out of +the house three weeks ago, when the doctor said he was well enough to +be moved; for I ast him." + +"And you'd have turned him out to die in the streets, mother!" cried +Mary; "I didn't think you was so 'artless." + +From this time there was ill-feeling between Mrs. Kepp and her +daughter, who had been hitherto one of the most patient and obedient of +children. The fanatic can never forgive the wretch who disbelieves in +the divinity of his god; and women who love as blindly and foolishly as +Mary Anne Kepp are the most bigoted of worshippers. The girl could not +forgive her mother's disparagement of her idol,--the mother had no +mercy upon her daughter's folly; and after much wearisome contention +and domestic misery--carefully hidden from the penniless sybarite in +the parlour--after many tears and heart-burnings, and wakeful nights +and prayerful watches, Mary Anne Kepp consented to leave the house +quietly one morning with the gentleman lodger while the widow had gone +to market. Miss Kepp left a piteous little note for her mother, rather +ungrammatical, but very womanly and tender, imploring pardon for her +want of duty; and, "O, mother, if you knew how good and nobel he is, +you coudent be angery with me for luving him has I do, and we shall +come back to you after oure marige, wich you will be pade up honourabel +to the last farthin'." + +After writing this epistle in the kitchen, with more deliberation and +more smudging than Captain Paget would have cared to behold in the +bride of his choice, Mary Anne attired herself in her Sabbath-day +raiment, and left Tulliver's-terrace with the Captain in a cab. She +would fain have taken a little lavender paper-covered box that +contained the remainder of her wardrobe, but after surveying it with a +shudder, Captain Paget told her that such a box would condemn them +_anywhere_. + +"You may get on sometimes without luggage, my dear," he said +sententiously; "but with such luggage as _that_, never!" + +The girl obeyed without comprehending. It was not often that she +understood her lover's meaning, nor did he particularly care that she +should understand him. He talked to her rather in the same spirit in +which one talks to a faithful canine companion--as Napoleon III. may +talk to his favourite Nero; "I have great plans yet unfulfilled, my +honest Nero, though you may not be wise enough to guess their nature. +And we must have another Boulevard, old fellow; and we must settle that +little dispute about Venetia; and we must do something for those +unfortunate Poles, eh--good dog?" and so on. + +Captain Paget drove straight to a registrar's office, where the new +Marriage Act enabled him to unite himself to Miss Kepp _sans facon_, in +presence of the cabman and a woman who had been cleaning the door-step. +The Captain went through the brief ceremonial as coolly as if it had +been the settlement of a water-rate, and was angered by the tears that +poor Mary Anne shed under her cheap black veil. He had forgotten the +poetic superstition in favour of a wedding-ring, but he slipped a +little onyx ring off his own finger, and put it on the clumsier finger +of his bride. It was the last of his jewels--the rejected of the +pawnbrokers, who, not being learned in antique intaglios, had condemned +the ring as trumpery. There is always something a little ominous in the +bridegroom's forgetfulness of that simple golden circle which typifies +an eternal union; and a superstitious person might have drawn a +sinister augury from the subject of Captain Paget's intaglio, which was +a head of Nero--an emperor whose wife was by no means the happiest of +women. But as neither Mary Anne nor the registrar, neither the cabman +nor the charwoman who had been cleaning the door-step, had ever heard +of Nero, and as Horatio Paget was much too indifferent to be +superstitious, there was no one to draw evil inferences: and Mary Anne +went away with her gentleman husband, proud and happy, with a happiness +that was only disturbed now and then by the image of an infuriated +mother. + +Captain Paget took his bride to some charming apartments in +Halfmoon-street, Mayfair; and she was surprised to hear him tell the +landlady that he and his wife had just arrived from Devonshire, and +that they meant to stay a week or so in London, _en passant_, before +starting for the Continent. + +"My wife has spent the best part of her life in the country," said the +Captain, "so I suppose I must show her some of the sights of London in +spite of the abominable weather. But the deuce of it is, that my +servant has misunderstood my directions, and gone on to Paris with the +luggage. However, we can set that all straight to-morrow." + +Nothing could be more courteously acquiescent than the manner of the +landlady; for Captain Paget had offered her references, and the people +to whom he referred were among the magnates of the land. The Captain +knew enough of human nature to know that if references are only +sufficiently imposing, they are very unlikely to be verified. The +swindler who refers his dupe to the Duke of Sutherland and Baring +Brothers has a very good chance of getting his respectability accepted +without inquiry, on the mere strength of those sacred names. + + * * * * * + +From this time until the day of her death Mary Anne Paget very seldom +heard her husband make any statement which she did not know to be +false. He had joined the ranks of the vultures. He had lain down upon +his bed of sickness a gentlemanly beggar; he arose from that couch of +pain and weariness a swindler. + +Now began those petty shifts and miserable falsifications whereby the +birds of prey thrive on the flesh and blood of hapless pigeons. Now the +dovecotes were fluttered by a new destroyer--a gentlemanly vulture, +whose suave accents and perfect manners were fatal to the unwary. +Henceforth Horatio Cromie Nugent Paget flourished and fattened upon the +folly of his fellow-men. As promoter of joint-stock companies that +never saw the light; as treasurer of loan-offices where money was never +lent; as a gentleman with capital about to introduce a novel article of +manufacture from the sale of which a profit of five thousand a year +would infallibly be realized, and desirous to meet with another +gentleman of equal capital; as the mysterious X.Y.Z. who will--for so +small a recompense as thirty postage-stamps--impart the secret of an +elegant and pleasing employment, whereby seven-pound-ten a-week may be +made by any individual, male or female;--under every flimsy disguise +with which the swindler hides his execrable form, Captain Paget plied +his cruel trade, and still contrived to find fresh dupes. Of course +there were occasions when the pigeons were slow to flutter into the +fascinating snare, and when the vulture had a bad time of it; and it +was a common thing for the Captain to sink from the splendour of +Mayfair or St. James's-street into some dingy transpontine +hiding-place. But he never went back to Tulliver's-terrace, though +Mary Anne pleaded piteously for the payment of her poor mother's debt. +When her husband was in funds, he patted her head affectionately, and +told her that he would see about it--i.e. the payment of Mrs. Kepp's +bill; while, if she ventured to mention the subject to him when his +purse was scantily furnished, he would ask her fiercely how he was to +satisfy her mother's extortionate claims when he had not so much as a +sixpence for his own use. + +Mrs. Kepp's bill was never paid, and Mary Anne never saw her mother's +face again. Mrs. Paget was one of those meek loving creatures who are +essentially cowardly. She could not bring herself to encounter her +mother without the money owed by the Captain; she could not bring +herself to endure the widow's reproaches, the questioning that would be +so horribly painful to answer, the taunts that would torture her poor +sorrowful heart. + +Alas for her brief dream of love and happiness! Alas for her foolish +worship of the gentleman lodger! She knew now that her mother had been +wiser than herself, and that it would have been better for her if she +had renounced the shadowy glory of an alliance with Horatio Cromie +Nugent Paget, whose string of high-sounding names, written on the cover +of an old wine-book, had not been without its influence on the ignorant +girl. The widow's daughter knew very little happiness during the few +years of her wedded life. To be hurried from place to place; to dine in +Mayfair to-day, and to eat your dinner at a shilling ordinary in +Whitecross-street to-morrow; to wear fine clothes that have not been +paid for, and to take them off your back at a moment's notice when they +are required for the security of the friendly pawnbroker; to know that +your life is a falsehood and a snare, and that to leave a place is to +leave contempt and execration behind you,--these things constitute the +burden of a woman whose husband lives by his wits. And over and above +these miseries, Mrs. Paget had to endure all the variations of temper +to which the schemer is subject. If the pigeons dropped readily into +the snare, and if their plumage proved well worth the picking, the +Captain was very kind to his wife, after his own fashion; that is to +say, he took her out with him, and after lecturing her angrily because +of the shabbiness of her bonnet, bought her a new one, and gave her a +dinner that made her ill, and then sent her home in a cab, while he +finished the evening in more congenial society. But if the times were +bad for the vulture tribe--O, then, what a gloomy companion for the +domestic hearth was the elegant Horatio! After smiling his false smile +all day, while rage and disappointment were gnawing at his heart, it +was a kind of relief to the Captain to be moody and savage by his own +fireside. The human vulture has something of the ferocity of his +feathered prototype. The man who lives upon his fellow-men has need to +harden his heart; for one sentiment of compassion, one touch of human +pity, would shatter his finest scheme in the hour of its fruition. +Horatio Paget and compassion parted fellowship very early in the course +of his unscrupulous career. What if the pigeon has a widowed mother +dependent on his prosperity, or half a dozen children who will be +involved in his ruin? Is the hawk to forego his natural prey for any +such paltry consideration as a vulgar old woman or a brood of squalling +brats? + +Captain Paget was not guilty of any persistent unkindness towards the +woman whose fate he had deigned to link with his own. The consciousness +that he had conferred a supreme honour oh Mary Anne Kepp by offering +her his hand, and a share of his difficulties, never deserted him. He +made no attempt to elevate the ignorant girl into companionship with +himself. He shuddered when she misplaced her h's and turned from her +peevishly, with a muttered oath, when she was more than usually +ungrammatical: but though he found it disagreeable to hear her, he +would have found it troublesome to set her right; and trouble was a +thing which Horatio Paget held in gentlemanly aversion. The idea that +the mode of his existence could be repulsive to his wife--that this +low-born and low-bred girl could have scruples that he never felt, and +might suffer agonies of remorse and shame of which his coarser nature +was incapable--never entered the Captain's mind. It would have been too +great an absurdity for the daughter of plebeian Kepps to affect a +tenderness of conscience unknown to the scion of Pagets and Cromies and +Nugents. Mary Anne was afraid of her elegant husband; and she +worshipped and waited upon him in meek silence, keeping the secret of +her own sorrows, and keeping it so well that he never guessed the +manifold sources of that pallor of countenance and hollow brightness of +eye which had of late annoyed him when he looked at his wife. She had +borne him a child--a sweet girl baby, with those great black eyes that +always have rather a weird look in the face of infancy; and she would +fain have clung to the infant as the hope and consolation of her +joyless life. But the vulture is not a domestic bird, and a baby would +have been an impediment in the rapid hegiras which Captain Paget and +his wife were wont to make. The Captain put an advertisement in a daily +paper before the child was a week old; and in less than a fortnight +after Mary Anne had looked at the baby face for the first time, she was +called upon to surrender her treasure to an elderly woman of fat and +greasy aspect, who had agreed to bring the infant up "by hand" in a +miserable little street in a remote and dreary district lying between +Vauxhall and Battersea. + +Mary Anne gave up the child uncomplainingly, as meekly as she would +have surrendered herself if the Captain had brought a masked +executioner to her bedside, and had told her a block was prepared for +her in the adjoining chamber. She had no idea of resistance to the will +of her husband. She endured her existence for nearly five years after +the birth of her child, and during those miserable years the one effort +of her life was to secure the miserable stipend paid for the little +girl's maintenance; but before the child's fifth birthday the mother +faded off the face of the earth. She died in a miserable lodging not +very far from Tulliver's-terrace, expiring in the arms of a landlady +who had comforted her in her hour of need, as she had comforted the +ruined gentleman. Captain Paget was a prisoner in Whitecross-street at +the time of his wife's death, and was much surprised when he missed her +morning visits, and the little luxuries she had been wont to bring him. + +He had missed her for more than a week, and had written to her twice-- +rather angrily on the second occasion--when a rough unkempt boy in +corduroy waited upon him in the dreary ward, where he and half a dozen +other depressed and melancholy men sat at little tables writing +letters, or pretending to read newspapers, and looking at one another +furtively every now and then. There is no prisoner so distracted by his +own cares that he will not find time to wonder what his neighbour is +"in for." + +The boy had received instructions to be careful how he imparted his +dismal tidings to the "poor dear gentleman;" but the lad grew nervous +and bewildered at sight of the Captain's fierce hook-nose and +scrutinising gray eyes, and blurted out his news without any dismal +note of warning. + +"The lady died at two o'clock this morning, please, sir; and mother +said I was to come and tell you, please, sir." + +Captain Paget staggered under the blow. + +"Good God!" he cried, as he dropped upon a rickety Windsor chair, that +creaked under his weight; "and I did not even know that she was ill!" + +Still less did he know that all her married life had been one long +heart-sickness--one monotonous agony of remorse and shame. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +"HEART BARE, HEART HUNGRY, VERY POOR." + + +Diana Paget left the Kursaal, and walked slowly along the pretty +rustic street; now dawdling before a little print-shop, whose contents +she knew by heart, now looking back at the great windows of that temple +of pleasure which she had just quitted. + +"What do they care what becomes of me?" she thought, as she looked up +at the blank vacant windows for the last time before she left the main +street of Foretdechene, and turned into a straggling side-street, whose +rugged pavement sloped upward towards the pine-clad hills. The house in +which Captain Paget had taken up his abode was a tall white habitation, +situated in the narrowest of the narrow by-ways that intersect the main +street of the pretty Belgian watering-place; a lane in which the +inhabitants of opposite houses may shake hands with one another out of +the window, and where the odour of the cabbages and onions so liberally +employed in the _cuisine_ of the native offends the nose of the +foreigner from sunrise to sunset. + +Diana paused for a moment at the entrance to this lane, but, after a +brief deliberation, walked onwards. + +"What is the use of my going home?" she thought; "_they_ won't be home +for hours to come." + +She walked slowly along the hilly street, and from the street into a +narrow pathway winding upward through the pine-wood. Here she was quite +alone, and the stillness of the place soothed her. She took off her +hat, and slung the faded ribbons across her arm; and the warm breeze +lifted the loose hair from her forehead as she wandered upwards. It was +a very beautiful face from which that loose dark hair was lifted by the +summer wind. Diana Paget inherited something of the soft loveliness of +Mary Anne Kepp, and a little of the patrician beauty of the Pagets. The +eyes were like those which had watched Horatio Paget on his bed of +sickness in Tulliver's-terrace. The resolute curve of the thin flexible +lips, and the fine modelling of the chin, were hereditary attributes of +the Nugent Pagets; and a resemblance to the lower part of Miss Paget's +face might have been traced in many a sombre portrait of dame and +cavalier at Thorpehaven Manor, where a Nugent Paget, who acknowledged +no kindred with the disreputable Captain, was now master. + +The girl's reflections as she slowly climbed the hill were not +pleasant. The thoughts of youth should be very beautiful; but youth +that has been spent in the companionship of reprobates and tricksters +is something worse than age; for experience has taught it to be bitter, +while time has not taught it to be patient. For Diana Paget, childhood +had been joyless, and girlhood lonely. That blank and desolate region, +that dreary flat of fenny waste ground between Vauxhall and Battersea, +on which the child's eyes had first looked, had been typical of her +loveless childhood. With her mother's death faded the one ray of light +that had illumined her desolation. She was shifted from one nurse to +another; and bar nurses were not allowed to love her, for she remained +with them as an encumbrance and a burden. It was so difficult for the +Captain to pay the pitiful sum demanded for his daughter's support--or +rather it was so much easier for him not to pay it. So there always +came a time when Diana was delivered at her father's lodgings like a +parcel, by an indignant nurse, who proclaimed the story of her wrongs +in shrill feminine treble, and who was politely informed by the Captain +that her claim was a common debt, and that she had the remedy in her +own hands, but that the same code of laws which provided her with that +remedy, forbade any obnoxious demonstration of her anger in a +gentleman's apartment. And then Miss Paget, after hearing all the +tumult and discussion, would be left alone with her father, and would +speedily perceive that her presence was disagreeable to him. + +When she outgrew the age of humble foster-mothers and cottages in the +dreariest of the outlying suburbs, the Captain sent his daughter to +school: and on this occasion he determined on patronising a person whom +he had once been too proud to remember among the list of his kindred. +There are poor and straggling branches upon every family tree; and the +Pagets of Thorpehaven had needy cousins who, in the mighty battle of +life, were compelled to fight amongst the rank and file. One of these +poor cousins was a Miss Priscilla Paget, who at an early age had +exhibited that affection for intellectual pursuits and that +carelessness as to the duties of the toilet which are supposed to +distinguish the predestined blue-stocking. Left quite alone in the +world, Priscilla put her educational capital to good use; and after +holding the position of principal governess for nearly twenty years in +a prosperous boarding-school at Brompton, she followed her late +employer to her grave with unaffected sorrow, and within a month of the +funeral invested her savings in the purchase of the business, and +established herself as mistress of the mansion. To this lady Captain +Paget confided his daughter's education; and in Priscilla Paget's house +Diana found a shelter that was almost like a home, until her kinswoman +became weary of promises that were never kept, and pitiful sums paid on +account of a debt that grew bigger every day--very weary likewise of +conciliatory hampers of game and barrels of oysters, and all the flimsy +devices of a debtor who is practised in the varied arts of the +gentlemanly swindler. + +The day came when Miss Paget resolved to be rid of her profitless +charge; and once more Diana found herself delivered like a parcel of +unordered goods at the door of her father's lodging. Those are +precocious children who learn their first lessons in the school of +poverty; and the girl had been vaguely conscious of the degradation +involved in this process at the age of five. How much more keenly did +she feel the shame at the age of fifteen! Priscilla did her best to +lessen the pain of her pupil's departure. + +"It isn't that I've any fault to find with you, Diana, though you must +remember that I have heard some complaints of your temper," she said, +with gentle gravity; "but your father is too trying. If he didn't make +me any promises, I should think better of him. If he told me frankly +that he couldn't pay me, and asked me to keep you out of charity,"-- +Diana drew herself up with a little shiver at this word,--"why, I might +turn it over in my mind, and see if it could be done. But to be +deceived time after time, as I've been deceived--you know the solemn +language your father has used, Diana, for you have heard him--and to +rely on a sum of money on a certain date, as I have relied again and +again, after Horatio's assurance that I might depend upon him--it's too +bad, Diana; it's more than any one can endure. If you were two or three +years older, and further advanced in your education, I might manage to +do something for you by making you useful with the little ones; but I +can't afford to keep you and clothe you during the next three years for +nothing, and so I have no alternative but to send you home." + +The "home" to which Diana Paget was taken upon this occasion was a +lodging over a toyshop in the Westminster-road, where the Captain lived +in considerable comfort on the proceeds of a Friendly and Philanthropic +Loan Society. + +But no very cordial welcome awaited Diana in the gaudily-furnished +drawing-room over the toyshop. She found her father sleeping placidly +in his easy-chair, while a young man, who was a stranger to her, sat at +a table near the window writing letters. It was a dull November day--a +very dreary day on which to find one's self thrown suddenly on a still +drearier world; and in the Westminster-bridge-road the lamps were +already making yellow patches of sickly light amidst the afternoon fog. + +The Captain twitched his silk handkerchief off his face with an +impatient gesture as Diana entered the room. + +"Now, then, what is it?" he asked peevishly, without looking at the +intruder. + +He recognised her in the next moment; but that first impatient +salutation was about as warm a welcome as any which Miss Paget received +from her father. In sad and bitter truth, he did not care for her. His +marriage with Mary Anne Kepp had been the one grateful impulse of his +life; and even the sentiment which had prompted that marriage had been +by no means free from the taint of selfishness. But he had been quite +unprepared to find that this grand sacrifice of his life should involve +another sacrifice in the maintenance of a daughter he did not want; and +he was very much inclined to quarrel with the destiny that had given +him this burden. + +"If you had been a boy, I might have made you useful to me sooner or +later," the Captain said to his daughter when he found himself alone +with her late on the night of her return; "but what on earth am I to do +with a daughter, in the unsettled life I lead? However, since that old +harridan has sent you back, you must manage in the best way you can," +concluded Captain Paget with a discontented sigh. + +From this time Diana Paget had inhabited the nest of the vultures, and +every day had brought its new lesson of trickery and falsehood. There +are men--and bad men too--who would have tried to keep the secret of +their shifts and meannesses hidden from an only child; but Horatio +Paget believed himself the victim of man's ingratitude, and his +misdoings the necessity of an evil destiny. It is not easy for the +unsophisticated intellect to gauge those moral depths to which the man +who lives by his wits must sink before his career is finished, or to +understand how, with every step in the swindler's downward road, +the conscience grows tougher, the perception of shame blunter, the +savage selfishness of the animal nature stronger. Diana Paget had +discovered some of her father's weaknesses during her miserable childhood; +and in the days of her unpaid-for schooling she had known that his most +solemn promises were no more to be relied on than the capricious breath +of a summer breeze. So the revelations which awaited her under the +paternal roof were not utterly strange or entirely unexpected. +Day by day she grew more accustomed to that atmosphere of fraud and +falsehood. The sense of shame never left her; for there is a pride +that thrives amidst poverty and degradation, and of such pride Diana +Paget possessed no small share. She writhed under the consciousness +that she was the daughter of a man who had forfeited all right to the +esteem of his fellowmen. She valued the good opinion of others, and +would fain have been beloved and admired, trusted and respected; for +she was ambitious: and the though that she might one day do something +which should lift her above the vulgar level was the day-dream that +had consoled her in many an hour of humiliation and discomfort. +Diana Paget felt the Captain's shame as keenly as her mother had felt it; +but the remorse which had agonised gentle Mary Anne, the tender +compassion for others which had wrung that fond and faithful heart, +had no place in the breast of the Captain's daughter. + +Diana felt so much compassion for herself, that she had none left to +bestow upon other people. Her father's victims might be miserable, but +was not she infinitely more wretched? The landlady who found her +apartments suddenly tenantless and her rent unpaid might complain of +the hardness of her fortune; but was it not harder for Diana, with the +sensitive feelings and keen pride of the Pagets, to endure all the +degradation involved in the stealthy carrying away of luggage and a +secret departure under cover of night? + +At first Miss Paget had been inclined to feel aggrieved by the presence +of the young man whom she had seen writing letters in the gloomy dusk +of the November afternoon; but in due time she came to accept him as a +companion, and to feel that her joyless life would have been drearier +without him. He was the secretary of the Friendly and Philanthropic +Loan Society, and of any other society organised by the Captain. He was +Captain Paget's amanuensis and representative--Captain Paget's tool, +but not Captain Paget's dupe; for Valentine Hawkehurst was not of that +stuff of which dupes are made. + +The man who lives by his wits has need of a faithful friend and +follower. The chief of the vultures must not be approached too easily. +There must be a preparatory ordeal, an outer chamber to be passed, +before the victim is introduced to the sanctuary which is irradiated by +the silver veil of the prophet. Captain Paget found an able coadjutor +in Valentine Hawkehurst, who answered one of those tempting +advertisements in which A. B.C. or X. Y. Z. was wont to offer a salary +of three hundred a year to any gentlemanly person capable of performing +the duties of secretary to a newly-established company. It was only +after responding to this promising offer that the applicant was +informed that he must possess one indispensable qualification in the +shape of a capital of five hundred pounds. Mr Hawkehurst laughed aloud +when the Captain imparted this condition with that suave and yet +dignified manner which was peculiar to him. + +"I ought to have known it was a dodge of that kind," said the young man +coolly. "Those very good things--duties light and easy, hours from +twelve till four, speedy advancement certain for a conscientious and +gentlemanly person, and so on--are always of the genus _do_. Your +advertisement is very cleverly worded, my dear sir; only it's like the +rest of them, rather _too_ clever. It is so difficult for a clever man +not to be too clever. The prevailing weakness of the human intellect +seems to me to be exaggeration. However, as I haven't a five-pound note +in the world, or the chance of getting one, I'll wish you good morning, +Captain Paget." + +There are people whose blood would have been turned to ice by the stony +glare of indignation with which Horatio Paget regarded the man who had +dared to question his probity. But Mr. Hawkehurst had done with strong +impressions long before he met the Captain; and he listened to that +gentleman's freezing reproof with an admiring smile. Out of this very +unpromising beginning there arose a kind of friendship between the two +men. Horatio Paget had for some time been in need of a clever tool; and +in the young man whose cool insolence rose superior to his own dignity +he perceived the very individual whom he had long been seeking. The +young man who was unabashed by the indignation of a scion of Nugents +and Cromies and Pagets must be utterly impervious to the sense of awe; +and it was just such an impervious young man that the Captain wanted as +his coadjutor. Thus arose the alliance, which grew stronger every day, +until Valentine took up his abode under the roof of his employer and +patron, and made himself more thoroughly at home there than the +unwelcome daughter of the house. + +The history of Valentine Hawkehurst's past existence was tolerably well +known to the Captain; but the only history of the young man's early +life ever heard by Diana was rather vague and fragmentary. She +discovered, little by little, that he was the son of a spendthrift +_litterateur_, who had passed the greater part of his career within the +rules of the King's Bench; that he had run away from home at the age of +fifteen, and had tried his fortune in all those professions which +require no educational ordeal, and which seem to offer themselves +invitingly to the scapegrace and adventurer. At fifteen Valentine +Hawkehurst had been errand-boy in a newspaper office; at seventeen a +penny-a-liner, whose flimsy was pretty sure of admission in the +lower class of Sunday papers. In the course of a very brief career +he had been a provincial actor, a _manege_ rider in a circus, a +billiard-marker, and a betting agent. It was after having exhausted +these liberal professions that he encountered Captain Paget. + +Such was the man whom Horatio Paget admitted to companionship with his +only daughter. It can scarcely be pleaded in excuse for the Captain +that he might have admitted a worse man than Valentine Hawkehurst to +his family circle, for the Captain had never taken the trouble to sound +the depths of his coadjutor's nature. There is nothing so short-sighted +as selfishness; and beyond the narrow circle immediately surrounding +himself, there was no man more blind than Horatio Paget. + + * * * * * + +It was dusk when Diana grew tired of the lonely pathways among the +hills, where the harmonies of a band stationed in the valley were +wafted in gusts of music by the fitful summer breeze. The loneliness of +the place soothed the girl's feverish spirits; and, seated in a little +classic temple upon the summit of a hill, she looked pensively downward +through the purple mists at the newly-lighted lamps twinkling faintly +in the valley. + +"One does not feel the sting of one's shabbiness here," thought Miss +Paget: "the trees are all dressed alike. Nature makes no distinction. +It is only Fortune who treats her children unfairly." + +The Captain's daughter walked slowly back to the little town in the +deepening dusk. The lodging occupied by Horatio Paget and his household +consisted of four roomy chambers on the second story of a big rambling +house. The rooms were meanly furnished, and decorated with the tawdry +ornamentation dear to the continental mind; but there were long wide +windows and an iron balcony, on which Diana Paget was often pleased to +sit. + +She found the sitting-room dark and empty. No dinner had been prepared; +for on lucky days the Captain and his _protege_ were wont to dine at +the _table d'hote_ of one of the hotels, or to feast sumptuously _a la +carte_, while on unlucky days they did not dine at all. Diana found a +roll and some cream cheese in a roomy old cupboard that was flavoured +with mice; and after making a very indifferent meal in the dusky +chamber, she went out upon the balcony, and sat there looking down upon +the lighted town. + +She had been sitting there for nearly an hour in the same attitude, +when the door of the sitting-room was opened, and a footstep sounded +behind her. She knew the step; and although she did not lift her head, +her eyes took a new brightness in the summer dusk, and the listless +grace of her attitude changed to a statuesque rigidity, though there +was no change in the attitude itself. + +She did not stir till a hand was laid softly on her shoulder, and a +voice said,--"Diana!" + +The speaker was Valentine Hawkehurst, the young man whose entrance to +the golden temple had been so closely watched by Captain Paget's +daughter. + +She rose as he spoke, and turned to him. "You have been losing, I +suppose, Mr. Hawkehurst," she said, "or you would not have come home?" + +"I am compelled to admit that you are right in your premise, Miss +Paget, and your deduction is scarcely worth discussion. I _have_ been +losing--confoundedly; and as they don't give credit at the board of +green cloth yonder, there was no excuse for my staying. Your father has +not been holding his own within the last hour or two; but when I left +the rooms he was going to the Hotel d'Orange with some French fellows +for a quiet game of _ecarte_. Our friend the Captain is a great card, +Miss Paget, and has a delightful talent for picking up distinguished +acquaintance." + +There are few daughters who would have cared to hear a father spoken of +in this free-and-easy manner; but Diana Paget was quite unmoved. She +had resumed her old attitude, and sat looking towards the lighted +windows of the Kursaal, while Mr. Hawkehurst lounged against the angle +of the window with his hands in his pockets and a cigar in his mouth. + +For three years Valentine Hawkehurst had lived in constant +companionship with the Captain's daughter; and in that time his manner +to her had undergone considerable variation. Of late it had been +something in the manner of an elder brother, whose fraternal breast is +impervious to the influence of a sister's loveliness or a sister's +fascination. If Diana Paget had been a snub-nosed young person with red +hair and white eyelashes, Mr. Hawkehurst could scarcely have treated +her with a more friendly indifference, a more brotherly familiarity. + +Unhappily this line of conduct, which is perhaps the wisest and most +honourable plan that a man can pursue when he finds himself thrown into +a dangerously familiar association with a beautiful and unprotected +woman, is the very line of proceeding which a beautiful woman can never +bring herself to forgive. A chivalrous stiffness, a melancholy dignity, +a frozen frigidity, which suggest the fiery bubbling of the lava flood +beneath the icy surface,--these are delightful to the female mind. But +friendly indifference and fraternal cordiality constitute the worst +insult that can be offered to her beauty, the most bitter outrage upon +the majesty of her sex. + +"I suppose it will be midnight before papa comes home, Mr. Hawkehurst," +Diana said abruptly, when her companion had finished his cigar, and had +thrown the end of it over the balcony. + +"Past midnight more likely, Miss Paget. May I ask how I have become Mr. +Hawkehurst all of a sudden, when for the last three years I have been +usually known as Valentine--or Val?" + +The girl turned her head with a gesture in which the carelessness of +his own manner was imitated. She stole a rapid look at him as she +answered, "What does it matter whether I call you by one name or +another?" + +"What does anything matter? I believe Mr. Toots was an unconscious +philosopher. There is nothing in the world of any consequence, except +money. Go and look at those poor devils yonder, and you will see what +that is worth," he cried, pointing to the lighted Kursaal; "there you +behold the one great truth of the universe in action. There is nothing +but money, and men are the slaves of money, and life is only another +name for the pursuit of money. Go and look at beauty yonder fading in +the light and heat; at youth that changes to age before your eyes; at +friendship which turns to hate when the chances of the game are with my +friend and against me. The Kursaal is the world in little, Diana; and +this great globe of ours is nothing but a gigantic gaming-table--a +mighty temple for the worship of the golden calf." + +"Why do you imitate those people yonder, if you despise them so +heartily?" + +"Because I am like them and of them. I tell you that money is the +beginning and end of all things. Why am I here, and why is my life made +up of baseness and lies? Because my father was an improvident +scoundrel, and did not leave me five hundred a year. I wonder what I +should have been like, by the bye, if I had been blest with five +hundred a year?" + +"Honest and happy," answered the girl earnestly. She forgot her +simulated indifference, and looked at him with sad earnest eyes. He met +the glance, and the expression of his own face changed from its cynical +smile to a thoughtful sadness. + +"Honest perhaps; and yet I almost doubt if anything under five thousand +a year would have kept me honest. Decidedly not happy; the men who can +be happy on five hundred a year are made of a duller stuff than the +clay which serves for a Hawkehurst." + +"You talk about not being happy with five hundred a year!" Diana +exclaimed impatiently. "Surely any decent existence would be happiness +to you compared to the miserable life you lead,--the shameful, degraded +life which shuts you out of the society of respectable people and +reduces you to the level of a thief. If you had any pride, Valentine, +you would feel it as bitterly as I do." + +"But I haven't any pride. As for my life,--well, I suppose it is +shameful and degraded, and I know that it's often miserable; but it +suits me better than jog-trot respectability, I can dine one day on +truffled turkey and champagne, another day upon bread and cheese and +small beer; but I couldn't eat beef and mutton always. That's what +kills people of my temperament. There are born scamps in the world, +Diana, and I am one of them. My name is Robert Macaire, and I was +created for the life I lead. Keep clear of me if you have any hankering +after better things; but don't try to change my nature, for it is +wasted labour." + +"Valentine, it is so cruel of you to talk like that." + +"Cruel to whom?" + +"To--those--who care for you." + +It was quite dark now; but even in the darkness Diana Paget's head +drooped a little as she said this. Mr. Hawkehurst laughed aloud. + +"Those who care for me!" he cried; "no such people ever lived. My +father was a drunken scoundrel, who suffered his children to grow up +about him as he would have suffered a litter of puppies to sprawl upon +his hearth, only because there was less trouble in letting them lie +there than in kicking them out. My mother was a good woman in the +beginning, I know; but she must have been something more than a mortal +woman if she had not lost some of her goodness in twelve years of such +a life as she led with my father. I believe she was fond of me, poor +soul; but she died six months before I ran away from a lodging in the +Rules, which it is the bitterest irony to speak of as my home. Since +then I have been Robert Macaire, and have about as many friends as such +a man usually has." + +"You can scarcely wonder if you have few friends," said Miss Paget, +"since there is no one in the world whom you love." + +She watched him through the darkness after saying this, watched him +closely, though it was too dark for her to see the expression of his +face, and any emotion to which her words might have given rise could be +betrayed only by some gesture or change of attitude. She watched him in +vain, for he did not stir. But after a pause of some minutes he said +slowly,-- + +"Such a man as I cannot afford to love any one. What have I to offer to +the woman I might pretend to love? Truth, or honour, or honesty, or +constancy? Those are commodities I have never dealt in. If I know what +they are, and that I have never possessed them, it is about as much as +I do know of them. If I have any redeeming grace, Diana Paget, it lies +in the fact that I know what a worthless wretch I am. Your father +thinks he is a great man, a noble suffering creature, and that the +world has ill-used him. I know that I am a scoundrel, and that let my +fellow-men treat me as badly as they please, they can never give me +worse usage than I deserve. And am I a man to talk about love, or to +ask a woman to share my life? Good God, what a noble partner I should +offer her! what a happy existence I could assure her!" + +"But if the woman loved you, she would only love you better for being +unfortunate." + +"Yes, if she was very young and foolish and romantic. But don't you +think I should be a villain if I traded on her girlish folly? She would +love me for a year or two perhaps, and bear all the changes of my +temper; but the day would come when she would awake from her delusion, +and know that she had been cheated. She would see other women--less +gifted than herself, probably--and would see the market they had made +of their charms; would see them rich and honoured and happy, and would +stand aside in the muddy streets to be splashed by the dirt from their +carriage-wheels. And then she would consider the price for which she +had bartered her youth and her beauty, and would hate the man who had +cheated her. No, Diana, I am not such a villain as the world may think +me. I am down in the dirt myself, and I'm used to it. I won't drag a +woman into the gutter just because I may happen to love her." + +There was a long silence after this--a silence during which Diana Paget +sat looking down at the twinkling lights of the Kursaal. Valentine +lighted a second cigar and smoked it out, still in silence. The clocks +struck eleven as he threw the end of his cigar away; a tiny, luminous +speck, which shot through the misty atmosphere below the balcony like a +falling star. + +"I may as well go and see how your father is getting on yonder," he +said, as the spark of light vanished in the darkness below. "Good +night, Diana. Don't sit too long in the cold night air; and don't sit +up for your father--there's no knowing when he may be home." + +The girl did not answer him. She listened to the shutting of the door +as it closed behind him, and then folded her arms upon the iron rail of +the balcony, laid her head upon them, and wept silently. Her life was +very dreary, and it seemed to her as if the last hope which had +sustained her against an unnatural despair had been taken away from her +to-night. + +Twelve o'clock sounded with a feeble little _carillon_ from one of the +steeples, and still she sat with her head resting upon her folded arms. +Her eyes were quite dry by this time, for with her tears were very +rare, and the passion which occasioned them must needs be intense. The +night air grew chill and damp; but although she shivered now and then +beneath that creeping, penetrating cold which is peculiar to night air, +she did not stir from her place in the balcony till she was startled by +the opening of the door in the room behind her. + +All was dark within, but Diana Paget was very familiar with the +footstep that sounded on the carpetless floor. It was Valentine +Hawkehurst, and not her father, whose step her quick ear distinguished. + +"Diana," he called; and then he muttered in a tone of surprise, "all +dark still. Ah! she has gone to bed, I suppose. That's a pity!" The +figure in the balcony caught his eye at this moment. + +"What in goodness' name has kept you out there all this time?" he +asked; "do you want to catch your death of cold?" + +He was standing by the mantelpiece lighting a candle as he asked this +unceremonious question. The light of the candle shone full upon his +face when Diana came into the room, and she could see that he was paler +than usual. + +"Is there anything the matter?" she asked anxiously. + +"Yes; there is a great deal the matter. You will have to leave +Foretdechene by the earliest train to-morrow morning, on the first +stage of your journey to England. Look here, my girl! I can give you +just about the money that will carry you safely to London; and when you +are once there, Providence must do the rest." + +"Valentine, what do you mean?" + +"I mean, that you cannot get away from this place--you cannot dissever +yourself from the people you have been living with, too soon. Come, +come, don't shiver, child. Take a few drops of this cognac, and let me +see the colour come back to your face before I say any more." + +He poured the dregs of a bottle of brandy into a glass, and made her +drink the spirit. He was obliged to force the rim of the glass between +her set teeth before he could succeed in this. + +"Come, Diana," he said, after she had drunk, "you have been a pupil in +the school of adversity so long, that you ought to be able to take +misfortunes pretty quietly. There's a balance struck, somehow or other, +depend upon it, my girl; and the prosperous people who pay their debts +have to suffer, as well as the Macaire family. I'm a scamp and a +scoundrel, but I'm your true friend nevertheless, Diana; and you must +promise to take my advice. Tell me that you will trust me." + +"I have no one else to trust." + +"No one else in this place. But in England you have your old friend,-- +the woman with whom you were at school. Do you think she would refuse +to give you a temporary home if you sued to her _in forma pauperis?_" + +"No, I don't think she would refuse. She was very good to me. But why +am I to go back to London?" + +"Because to stay here would be ruin and disgrace to you; because the +tie that links you to Horatio Paget must be cut at any hazard." "But +why?" + +"For the best or worst of reasons. Your father has been trying a trick +to-night which has been hitherto so infallible, that I suppose he had +grown careless as to his execution of it. Or perhaps he took a false +measure of the man he was playing with. In any case, he has been found +out, and has been arrested by the police." + +"Arrested, for cheating at cards!" exclaimed the girl, with a look of +unspeakable disgust and horror. Valentine's arm was ready to support +her, if she had shown any symptom of fainting; but she did not. She +stood erect before him, very pale but firm as a rock. + +"And you want me to go away?" she said. + +"Yes, I want you to disappear from this place before you become +notorious as your father's daughter. That would be about the worst +reputation which you could carry through life. Believe me that I wish +you well, Diana, and be ruled by me." + +"I will," she answered, with a kind of despairing resignation. "It +seems very dreary to go back to England to face the world all alone. +But I will do as you tell me." + +She did not express any sympathy for her father, then languishing under +arrest, whereby she proved herself very wicked and unwomanly, no doubt. +But neither womanly virtues nor Christian graces are wont to flourish +in the school in which Diana Paget had been reared. She obeyed +Valentine Hawkehurst to the letter, without any sentimental +lamentations whatever. Her scanty possessions were collected, and +neatly packed, in little more than an hour. At three o'clock she lay +down in her tawdry little bed-chamber to take what rest she might in +the space of two hours. At six she stood by Valentine Hawkehurst on the +platform of the railway station, with her face hidden by a brown gauze +veil, waiting till the train was wade ready to start. + +It was after she was seated in the carriage that she spoke for the +first time of her father. + +"Is it likely to go very hard with him?" she asked. + +"I hope not. We must try to pull him through it as well as we can. The +charge may break down at the first examination. Good bye." + +"Good bye, Valentine." + +They had just time to shake hands before the train moved off. Another +moment and Miss Paget and her fellow-passengers were speeding towards +Liege. + +Mr. Hawkehurst drew his hat over his eyes as he walked away from the +station. + +"The world will seem very dull and empty to me without her," he said to +himself. "I have done an unselfish thing for once in my life. I wonder +whether the recording angel will carry that up to my credit, and +whether the other fellow will blot out any of the old score in +consideration of this one little bit of self-sacrifice." + + + + + +BOOK THE THIRD. + + +HEAPING UP RICHES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A FORTUNATE MARRIAGE. + + +Eleven years had passed lightly enough over the glossy raven locks of +Mr. Philip Sheldon. There are some men with whom Time deals gently, and +he was one of them. The hard black eyes had lost none of their fierce +brightness; the white teeth flashed with all their old brilliancy; the +complexion, which had always been dusky of hue, was perhaps a shade or +two darker; and the fierce black eyes seemed all the blacker by reason +of the purple tinge beneath them. But the Philip Sheldon of to-day was, +taken altogether, a handsomer man than the Philip Sheldon of eleven +years ago. + +Within those eleven years the Bloomsbury dentist had acquired a higher +style of dress and bearing, and a certain improvement of tone and +manner. He was still an eminently respectable man, and a man whose +chief claim to the esteem of his fellows lay in the fact of his +unimpeachable respectability; but his respectability of to-day, as +compared with that of eleven years before, was as the respectability of +Tyburnia when contrasted with that of St. Pancras. He was not an +aristocratic-looking man, or an elegant man; but you felt, as you +contemplated him, that the bulwarks of the citadel of English +respectability are defended by such as he. + +Mr. Sheldon no longer experimentalised with lumps of beeswax and +plaster-of-paris. All the appalling paraphernalia of his cruel art had +long since been handed over to an aspiring young dentist, together +with the respectable house in Fitzgeorge-street, the furniture, +and--the connexion. And thus had ended Philip Sheldon's career as a +surgeon-dentist. Within a year of Tom Halliday's death his disconsolate +widow had given her hand to her first sweetheart, not forgetful of her +dead husband or ungrateful for much kindness and affection experienced +at his hands, but yielding rather to Philip's suit because she was +unable to advance any fair show of reason whereby she might reject him. + +"I told you, she'd be afraid to refuse you," said George Sheldon, when +the dentist came home from Barlingford, where Tom Halliday's widow was +living with her mother. + +Philip had answered his brother's questions rather ambiguously at +first, but in the end had been fain to confess that he had asked Mrs. +Halliday to marry him, and that his suit had prospered. + +"That way of putting it is not very complimentary to me," he said, +drawing himself up rather stiffly. "Georgy and I were attached to each +other long ago, and it is scarcely strange if----" + +"If you should make a match of it, Tom being gone. Poor old Tom! He and +I were such cronies. I've always had an idea that neither you nor the +other fellow quite understood that low fever of his. You did your best, +no doubt; but I think you ought to have pulled him through somehow. +However, that's not a pleasant subject to talk of just now; so I'll +drop it, and wish you joy, Phil. It'll be rather a good match for you, +I fancy," added George, contemplating his brother with a nervous +twitching of his lips, which suggested that his mouth watered as he +thought of Philip's good fortune. + +"It's a very nice thing you drop into, old fellow, isn't it?" he asked +presently, seeing that his brother was rather disinclined to discuss +the subject. + +"You know the state of my affairs well enough to be sure that I +couldn't afford to marry a poor woman," answered Philip. + +"And that it has been for a long time a vital necessity with you to +marry a rich one," interjected his brother. + +"Georgy will have a few hundreds, and----" + +"A few thousands, you mean, Phil," cried Sheldon the younger with +agreeable briskness; "shall I tot it up for you?" + +He was always eager to "tot" things up, and would scarcely have shrunk +from setting down the stars of heaven in trim double columns of +figures, had it seemed to his profit to do so. + +"Let us put it in figures, Phil," he said, getting his finger-tips in +order for the fray. "There's the money for Hyley Farm--twelve thousand +three hundred and fifty, I had it from poor Tom's own lips. Then +there's that little property on Sheepfield Common--say seven-fifty, +eh?--well, say seven hundred, if you like to leave a margin; and then +there are the insurances--three thou' in the Alliance, fifteen hundred +in the Phoenix, five hundred in the Suffolk Friendly; the total of +which, my dear boy, is eighteen thousand five hundred pounds; and a +very nice thing for you to drop into, just as affairs were looking +about as black as they could look." "Yes," answered Mr. Sheldon the +elder, who appeared by on means to relish this "totting-up" of his +future wife's fortune; "I have no doubt I ought to consider myself a +very lucky man." + +"So Barlingford folks will say when they hear of the business. And now +I hope you're not going to forget your promise to me." + +"What promise?" + +"That if you ever did get a stroke of luck, I should have a share of +it--eh, Phil?" + +Mr. Sheldon caressed his chin, and looked thoughtfully at the fire. + +"If my wife lets me have the handling of any of her money, you may +depend upon it I'll do what I can for you," he said, after a pause. + +"Don't say that, Phil," remonstrated George. "When a man says he'll do +what he can for you, it's a sure sign he means to do nothing. +Friendship and brotherly feeling are at an end when it comes to a +question of 'ifs' and 'cans.' If your wife lets you have the handling +of any of her money!" cried the lawyer, with unspeakable derision; +"that's too good a joke for you to indulge in with me. Do you think I +believe you will let that poor little woman keep custody of her money a +day after she is your wife, or that you will let her friends tie it up +for her before she marries you?" + +No, Phil, you didn't lay your plans for that." + +"What do you mean by my laying plans?" asked the dentist. + +"That's a point we won't discuss, Philip," answered the lawyer coolly. +"You and I understand each other very well without entering into +unpleasant details. You promised me a year ago--before Tom Halliday's +death--that if you ever came into a good thing, I should share in it. +You have come into an uncommonly good thing, and I shall expect you to +keep your promise." + +"Who says I am going to break it?" demanded Philip Sheldon with an +injured air. "You shouldn't be in such a hurry to cry out, George. You +take the tone of a social Dick Turpin, and might as well hold a pistol +to my head while you're about it. Don't alarm yourself. I have told you +I will do what I can for you. I cannot, and I shall not, say more." + +The two men looked at each other. They were in the habit of taking the +measure of all creation in their own eminently practical way, and each +took the other's measure now. After having done which, they parted with +all cordial expressions of good-will and brotherly feeling. George went +back to his dusty chambers in Gray's Inn, and Philip prepared for his +return to Barlingford and his marriage with Georgina Halliday. + +For ten years Georgy had been Philip Sheldon's wife, and she had found +no reason to complain of her second choice. The current of her life had +flowed smoothly enough since her first lover had become her husband. +She still wore moire-antique dresses and gold chains; and if the +dresses were of more simple fashion, and the chains were less +obtrusively displayed, she had to thank Mr. Sheldon for the refinement +in her taste. Her views of life in general had expanded under Mr. +Sheldon's influence. She no longer thought a high-wheeled dog-cart and +a skittish mare the acme of earthly splendour; for she had a carriage +and pair at her service, and a smart little page-boy to leap off the +box in attendance on her when she paid visits or went shopping. Instead +of the big comfortable old-fashioned farmhouse at Hyley, with its +mysterious passages and impenetrable obscurities in the way of +cupboards, she occupied an intensely new detached villa in Bayswater, +in which the eye that might chance to grow weary of sunshine and +glitter would have sought in vain for a dark corner wherein to repose +itself. + +Mr. Sheldon's fortunes had prospered since his marriage with his +friend's widow. For a man of his practical mind and energetic +temperament, eighteen thousand pounds was a strong starting-point. His +first step was to clear off all old engagements with Jews and Gentiles, +and to turn his back on the respectable house in Fitzgeorge-street. The +earlier months of his married life he devoted to a pleasant tour on the +Continent; not wasting time in picturesque by-ways, or dawdling among +inaccessible mountains, or mooning about drowsy old cathedrals, where +there were pictures with curtains hanging before them, and prowling +vergers who expected money for drawing aside the curtains; but rattling +at the highest continental speed from one big commercial city to +another, and rubbing off the rust of Bloomsbury in the exchanges and on +the quays of the busiest places in Europe. The time which Mr. Sheldon +forbore to squander in shadowy gothic aisles and under the shelter of +Alpine heights, he accounted well bestowed in crowded cafes, and at the +public tables of noted hotels, where commercial men were wont to +congregate; and as Georgy had no aspirings for the sublimity of Vandyke +and Raphael, or the gigantic splendours of Alpine scenery, she was very +well pleased to see continental life with the eyes of Philip Sheldon. +How could a half-educated little woman, whose worldly experience was +bounded by the suburbs of Barlingford, be otherwise than delighted by +the glare and glitter of foreign cities? Georgy was childishly +enraptured with everything she saw, from the sham diamonds and rubies +of the Palais Royal, to the fantastical bonbons of Berlin. + +Her husband was very kind to her--after his own particular fashion, +which was very different from blustering Tom Halliday's weak +indulgence. He allotted and regulated her life to suit his own +convenience, it is true; but he bought her handsome dresses, and took +her with him in hired carriages when he drove about the strange cities. +He was apt to leave Georgy and the hired carriage at the corner of some +street, or before the door of some cafe, for an hour at a time, in the +course of his peregrinations; but she speedily became accustomed to +this, and provided herself with the Tauchnitz edition of a novel, +wherewith to beguile the tedium of these intervals in the day's +amusement. If Tom Halliday had left her for an hour at a street-corner, +or before the door of a cafe, she would have tortured herself and him +by all manner of jealous suspicions and vague imaginings. But there was +a stern gravity in Mr. Sheldon's character which precluded the +possibility of any such shadowy fancies. Every action of his life +seemed to involve such serious motives, the whole tenor of his +existence was so orderly and business-like, that his wife was fain to +submit to him, as she would have submitted to some ponderous infallible +machine, some monster of modern ingenuity and steam power, which cut +asunder so many bars of iron, or punched holes in so many paving-stones +in a given number of seconds, and was likely to go on dividing iron or +piercing paving-stones for ever and ever. + +She obeyed him, and was content to fashion her life according to his +will, chiefly because she had a vague consciousness that to argue with +him, or to seek to influence him, would be to attempt the impossible. +Perhaps there was something more than this in her mind--some +half-consciousness that there was a shapeless and invertebrate +skeleton lurking in the shadowy background of her new life, a dusky +and impalpable creature which it would not be well for her to examine +or understand. She was a cowardly little woman, and finding herself +tolerably happy in the present, she did not care to pierce the veil of +the future, or to cast anxious glances backward to the past. She +thought it just possible that there might be people in the world base +enough to hint that Philip Sheldon had married her for love of her +eighteen thousand pounds, rather than from pure devotion to herself. +She knew that certain prudent friends and kindred in Barlingford had +elevated their hands and eyebrows in speechless horror when they +discovered that she had married her second husband without a +settlement; while one grim and elderly uncle had asked her whether she +did not expect her father to turn in his grave by reason of her folly. + +Georgy had shrugged her shoulders peevishly when her Barlingford +friends remonstrated with her, and had declared that people were very +cruel to her, and that it was a hard thing she could not choose for +herself for once in her life. As to the settlements that people talked +of, she protested indignantly that she was not so mean as to fancy her +future husband a thief, and that to tie up her money in all sorts of +ways would be to imply as much. And then, as it was only a year since +poor dear Tom's death, she had been anxious to marry without fuss or +parade. In fact, there were a hundred reasons against legal +interference, and legal tying-up of the money, with all that dreadful +jargon about "whereas," and "hereinafter," and "provided always," and +"nothing herein contained," which seems to hedge round a sum of money +so closely, that it is doubtful whether the actual owner will ever be +free to spend a sixpence of it after the execution of that formidable +document intended to protect it from possible marauders. + +George Sheldon had said something very near the truth when he had told +Philip that Mrs. Halliday would be afraid to refuse him. The +fair-haired, fair-faced little woman did in some manner fear the first +lover of her girlhood. She had become his wife, and so far all things +had gone well with her; but if misery and despair had been the necessary +consequences of her union with him, she must have married him all the +same, so dominant was the influence by which he ruled her. Of course +Georgy was not herself aware of her own dependence. She accepted all +things as they were presented to her by a stronger mind than her own. +She wore her handsome silk dresses, and was especially particular as to +the adjustment of her bonnet-strings, knowing that the smallest +impropriety of attire was obnoxious to the well-ordered mind of her +second husband. She obeyed him very much as a child obeys a strict but +not unkind schoolmaster. When he took her to a theatre or a racecourse, +she sat by his side meekly, and felt like a child who has been good and +is reaping the reward of goodness. And this state of things was in +nowise disagreeable to her. She was perhaps quite as happy as it was in +her nature to be; for she had no exalted capacity for happiness or +misery. She felt that it was pleasant to have a handsome man, whose +costume was always irreproachable, for her husband. Her only notion of +a bad husband was a man who stayed out late, and came home under the +influence of strong liquors consumed in unknown localities and amongst +unknown people. So, as Mr. Sheldon rarely went out after dinner, and +was on all occasions the most temperate of men, she naturally +considered her second husband the very model of conjugal perfection. +Thus it was that domestic life had passed smoothly enough for Mr. +Sheldon and his wife during the ten years which had elapsed since their +marriage. + +As to the eighteen thousand pounds which she had brought Philip +Sheldon, Georgy asked no questions. She knew that she enjoyed luxuries +and splendours which had never been hers in Tom Halliday's lifetime, +and she was content to accept the goods which her second husband +provided. Mr. Sheldon had become a stockbroker, and occupied an office +in some dusky court within a few hundred yards of the Stock Exchange. +He had, according to his own account, trebled Georgy's thousands since +they had been in his hands. How the unsuccessful surgeon-dentist had +blossomed all at once into a fortunate speculator was a problem too +profound for Georgy's consideration. She knew that her husband had +allied himself to a certain established firm of stockbrokers, and that +the alliance had cost him some thousands of Tom Halliday's money. She +had heard of preliminary steps to be taken to secure his admission as a +member of some mysterious confraternity vaguely spoken of as "the +House;" and she knew that Tom Halliday's thousands had been the seed +from which had sprung other thousands, and that her husband had been +altogether triumphant and successful. + +It may be that it is easier to rig the market than to induce a given +number of people to resort to a certain dull street in Bloomsbury for +the purpose of having teeth extracted by an unknown practitioner. It is +possible that the stockbroker is like the poet, a creature who is born, +and not made; a gifted and inspired being, not to be perfected by any +specific education; a child of spontaneous instincts and untutored +faculties. Certain it is that the divine afflatus from the nostrils of +the god Plutus seemed to have descended upon Philip Sheldon; for he had +entered the Stock Exchange an inexperienced stranger, and he held his +place there amongst men whose boyhood had been spent in the offices of +Capel-court, and whose youthful strength had been nourished in the +chop-houses of Pinch-lane and Thread-needle-street. + +Mrs. Sheldon was satisfied with the general knowledge that Mr. Sheldon +had been fortunate, and had never sought any more precise knowledge of +her husband's affairs. Nor did she seek such knowledge even now, when +her daughter was approaching womanhood, and might ere long need some +dower out of her mother's fortune. Poor Tom, trusting implicitly in the +wife he loved, and making his will only as a precautionary measure, at +a time when he seemed good for fifty years of life and strength, had +not troubled himself about remote contingencies, and had in no wise +foreseen the probability of a second husband for Georgy and-a +stepfather for his child. + +Two children had been born to Mr. Sheldon since his marriage, and both +had died in infancy. The loss of these children had fallen very heavily +on the strong hard man, though he had never shed a tear or uttered a +lamentation, or wasted an hour of his business-like existence by reason +of his sorrow. Georgy had just sufficient penetration to perceive that +her husband was bitterly disappointed when no more baby-strangers came +to replace those poor frail little lives which had withered away and +vanished in spite of his anxiety to hold them. + +"It seems as if there was a blight upon _my_ children," he once said +bitterly; and this was the only occasion on which his wife heard him +complain of his evil fortune. + +But one day, when he had been particularly lucky in some speculation, +when he had succeeded in achieving what his brother George spoke of as +the "biggest line he had ever done," Philip Sheldon came home to the +Bayswater villa in a particularly bad humour, and for the first time +since her marriage Georgy heard him quote a line of Scripture. + +"Heaping up riches," he muttered, as he paced up and down the room; +"heaping up riches, and ye cannot tell who shall gather them." + +His wife knew then that he was thinking of his children During the +brief lives of those two fragile boy-babies the stockbroker had been +wont to talk much of future successes in the way of money-making to be +achieved by him for the enrichment and exaltation of these children. +They were gone now, and no more came to replace them. And though Philip +Sheldon still devoted himself to the sublime art of money-making, and +still took delight in successful time-bargains and all the scientific +combinations of the money-market, the salt of life had lost something +of its savour, and the chink of gold had lost somewhat of its music. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CHARLOTTE. + + +The little villa at Bayswater was looking its brightest on a +resplendent midsummer afternoon, one year after Diana Paget's hurried +hegira from Foretdechene. If the poor dentist's house in dingy +Bloomsbury had been fresh and brilliant of aspect, how much more +brilliant was the western home of the rich stockbroker, whose gate was +within five minutes' walk of that aristocratic Eden, Kensington +Gardens! Mr. Sheldon's small domain was called The Lawn, and consisted +of something over half an acre of flower-garden and shrubbery, a +two-stall stable and coach-house, a conservatory and fernery, and a +moderate-sized house in the gothic or mediaeval style, with mullioned +windows in the dining-room and oriels in the best bedroom, and with a +great deal of unnecessary stone-work and wooden excrescence in every +direction. + +The interior of Mr. Sheldon's dwelling bore no trace of that solid +old-fashioned clumsiness which had distinguished his house in +Fitzgeorge-street. Having surrendered his ancestral chairs and tables +in liquidation of his liabilities, Philip Sheldon was free to go with +the times, and had furnished his gothic villa in the most approved +modern style, but without any attempt at artistic grace or adornment. +All was bright, and handsome, and neat, and trim; but the brightness and +the neatness savoured just a little of furnished apartments at the +seaside, and the eye sought in vain for the graceful disorder of an +elegant home. The dining-room was gorgeous with all the splendour of new +mahogany and crimson morocco; the drawing-room was glorified by big +looking-glasses, and the virginal freshness of gilt frames on which the +feet of agile house-fly or clumsy blue-bottle had never rested. The +crimsons, and blues, and greens, and drabs of the Brussels carpets +retained the vivid brightness of the loom. The drops of the chandeliers +twinkled like little stars in the sunshine; the brass birdcages were +undimmed by any shadow of dulness. To Georgy's mind the gothic villa +was the very perfection of a dwelling-place. The Barlingford +housekeepers were wont to render their homes intolerable by extreme +neatness. Georgy still believed in the infallibility of her native +town, and the primness of Barlingford reigned supreme in the gothic +villa. There were no books scattered on the polished walnut-wood tables +in the drawing-room, no cabinets crammed with scraps of old china, no +pictures, no queer old Indian feather-screens, no marvels of Chinese +carving in discoloured ivory; none of those traces which the footsteps +of the "collector" leave behind him. Mr. Sheldon had no leisure for +collecting; and Georgy preferred the gaudy pink-and-blue vases of a +Regent-street china-shop to all the dingy _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of a +Wedgwood, or the quaint shepherds and shepherdesses of Chelsea. As for +books, were there not four or five resplendent volumes primly disposed +on one of the tables; an illustrated edition of Cowper's lively and +thrilling poems; a volume of Rambles in Scotland, with copper-plate +engravings of "Melrose by night," and Glasgow Cathedral, and Ben Nevis, +and other scenic and architectural glories of North Britain; a couple +of volumes of _Punch_, and an illustrated "Vicar of Wakefield;" and +what more could elevated taste demand in the way of literature? Nobody +ever read the books; but Mrs. Sheldon's visitors were sometimes glad to +take refuge in the Scottish scenery and the pictorial Vicar during that +interval of dulness and indigestion which succeeds a middle-class +dinner. Georgy read a great many books; but they were all novels, +procured from the Bayswater branch of a fashionable circulating +library, and were condemned unread by Mr. Sheldon, who considered all +works of fiction perfectly equal in demerit, and stigmatised them, in a +general way, as "senseless trash." He had tried to read novels in the +dreary days of his Bloomsbury probation; but he had found that the +heroes of them were impracticable beings, who were always talking of +honour and chivalry, and always sacrificing their own interests in an +utterly preposterous manner; and he had thrown aside story after story +in disgust. + +"Give me a book that is something like life, and I'll read it," he +exclaimed impatiently; "but I can't swallow the high-flown prosings of +impossibly virtuous inanities." + +One day, indeed, he had been struck by the power of a book, a book +written by a certain Frenchman called Balzac. He had been riveted by +the hideous cynicism, the supreme power of penetration into the vilest +corners of wicked hearts; and he flung the book from him at last with +an expression of unmitigated admiration. + +"That man knows his fellows," he cried, "and is not hypocrite enough +to conceal his knowledge, or to trick out his puppets in the tinsel and +rags of false sentiment in order that critics and public may cry, 'See, +what noble instincts, what generous impulses, what unbounded sympathy +for his fellow-creatures this man has!' This Frenchman is an artist, +and is not afraid to face the difficulties of his art. What a scoundrel +this Philippe Bridau is! And after wallowing in the gutter, he lives to +bespatter his virtuous brother with the mire from his carriage wheels. +That is _real_ life. Tour English novelist would have made his villain +hang himself with the string of his waistcoat in a condemned cell, +while his amiable hero was declared heir to a dukedom and forty +thousand a year. But this fellow Balzac knows better than that." + +The days had passed when Mr. Sheldon had leisure to read Balzac. He +read nothing but the newspapers now, and in the newspapers he read very +little more than the money articles and such political news as seemed +likely to affect the money-market. There is no such soul-absorbing +pursuit as the race which men run whose goal is the glittering Temple +of Plutus. The golden apples which tempted Atalanta to slacken her pace +are always rolling _before_ the modern runner, and the greed of gain +lends the wings of Hermes to his feet. Mr. Sheldon had sighed for +pleasures sometimes in the days of his Bloomsbury martyrdom. He had sat +by his open window on sultry summer evenings, smoking his solitary +cigar, and thinking moodily of all the pleasant resting-places from +which other men were looking out at that golden western sky, deepening +into crimson and melting into purples which even the London smoke could +not obscure. He had sat alone, thinking of jovial parties lounging in +the bow-windows of Greenwich taverns, with cool green hock-glasses and +pale amber wine, and a litter of fruit and flowers on the table before +them, while the broad river flowed past them with all the glory of the +sunset on the rippling water, and one black brig standing sharply out +against the yellow sky. He had thought of Richmond, and the dashing +young men who drive there every summer in drags, with steel chain and +bar clanking and glittering in front of the team, and two solemn grooms +with folded arms seated stiff and statue-like behind. He had thought of +Epsom, and the great Derby mob; and all of those golden goblets of +pleasure which prosperous manhood drains to the very dregs. He had +fancied the enjoyments which would be his if ever he were rich enough +to pay for them. And now he was able to afford all such pleasures he +cared nothing for them; for the ecstasy of making money seemed better +than any masculine dissipation or delight. He did sometimes dine at +Greenwich. He knew the _menus_ of the different taverns by heart, and +had discovered that they were all alike vanity and indigestion; but he +never seated himself at one of those glistening little tables, or +deliberated with an obsequious waiter over the mysteries of the wine +_carte_, without a settled purpose to be served by the eating of the +dinner, and a definite good to be achieved by the wine he ordered. He +gave many such entertainments at home and abroad; but they were all +given to men who were likely to be useful to him--to rich men, or the +toadies and hangers-on of rich men, the grand viziers of the sultans of +the money-market. Such a thing as pleasure or hospitality pure and +simple had no place in the plan of Mr. Sheldon's life. The race in +which he was running was not to be won by a loiterer. The golden apples +were always rolling on before the runner; and woe be to him who turned +away from the course to dally with the flowers or loiter by the cool +streams that beautified the wayside. + +Thus it was that Mr. Sheldon's existence grew day by day more +completely absorbed by business pursuits and business interests. Poor +Georgy complained peevishly of her husband's neglect; but she did not +dare to pour her lamentations into the ear of the offender. It was a +kind of relief to grumble about his busy life to servants and humble +female friends and confidantes; but what could she say to Philip +Sheldon himself? What ground had she for complaint? He very seldom +stayed out late; he never came home tipsy. He was quite as cool and +clear-headed and business-like, and as well able to "tot up" any given +figures upon the back of an envelope after one of those diplomatic +little Greenwich dinners as he was the first thing after breakfast. It +had been an easy thing to tyrannise over poor Tom Halliday; but this +man was a grave inscrutable creature, a domestic enigma which Georgy +was always giving up in despair. But so completely did Mr. Sheldon rule +his wife, that when he informed her inferentially that she was a very +happy woman, she accepted his view of the subject, and was content to +believe herself blest. + +In spite of those occasional grumblings to servants and female friends, +Mrs. Sheldon did think herself happy. Those occasional complaints were +the minor notes in the harmony of her life, and only served to make the +harmony complete. She read her novels, and fed a colony of little +feeble twittering birds that occupied a big wire cage in the +breakfast-parlour. She executed a good deal of fancy-work with beads +and Berlin-wool; she dusted and arranged the splendours of the +drawing-room with her own hands; and she took occasional walks in +Kensington Gardens. + +This was the ordinary course of her existence, now and then interrupted +by such thrilling events as a dinner given to some important +acquaintance of Mr. Sheldon's, or a visit to the school at which +Charlotte Halliday was completing her education. + +That young lady had been removed from the Scarborough boarding-school +to a highly respectable establishment at Brompton, within a few months +of her mother's marriage with Mr. Sheldon. She had been a rosy-cheeked +young damsel in pinafores at the time of that event, too young to +express any strong feeling upon the subject of her mother's second +choice; but not too young to feel the loss of her father very deeply. +Tom Halliday had been fondly attached to that bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked +damsel of nine years' growth, and the girl had fully reciprocated his +affection. How often they had talked together of the future, which was +to be so delightful for them both; the new farm, which was to be such a +paradise in comparison to Hyley; the pony that Charlotte was to ride +when she should be old enough to wear a habit like a lady, and to go +about with her father to market-towns and corn-exchanges! The little +girl had remembered all this, and had most bitterly lamented the loss +of that dear and loving father. + +She remembered it all to this day; she regretted her loss to this day, +though she was nearly of age, and on the point of leaving school for +ever, after having prolonged her school-days considerably beyond the +usual period, at the express wish of her stepfather. To say that she +disliked Mr. Sheldon is only to admit that she was subject to the +natural prejudices of humanity. He had usurped the place of a beloved +father, and he was in every way the opposite of that father. He had +come between Charlotte Halliday and her mother, and had so absorbed the +weak little woman into himself, as to leave Charlotte quite alone in +the world. And yet he did his duty as few stepfathers do it. Charlotte +admitted that he was very kind to her, that he was an excellent +husband, and altogether the most conscientious and respectable of +mankind; but she admitted with equal candour that she had never been +able to like him. "I daresay it is very wicked of me not to be fond of +him, when he is so good and generous to me," she said to her chosen +friend and companion; "but I never can feel quite at home with him. I +try to think of him as a father sometimes, but I never can get over the +'step.' Do you know I have dreamed of him sometimes? and though he is +so kind to me in reality, I always fancy him cruel to me in my dreams. +I suppose it is on account of his black eyes and black whiskers," added +Miss Halliday, in a meditative tone. "It is certainly a misfortune for +a person to have blacker eyes and whiskers than the rest of the world; +for there seems something stern and hard, and almost murderous, in such +excessive blackness." + +Charlotte Halliday was a very different creature from the mother whom +Mr. Sheldon had absorbed into himself. Georgy was one of the women who +have "no characters at all," but Georgy's daughter was open to the +charge of eccentricity rather than of inanity. She was a creature of +fancies and impulses She had written wild verses in the secrecy of her +own chamber at midnight, and had torn her poetic effusions into a +thousand fragments the morning after their composition. She played and +sang very sweetly, and danced admirably, and did everything in a wild +way of her own, which was infinitely more charming than the commonplace +perfection of other women. She was not a beauty according to those +established rules which everybody believes in until they meet a woman +who sins against them all and yet is beautiful. Miss Halliday had thick +black eyebrows, and large gray eyes which people were apt to mistake +for black. She had a composite nose, and one of the sweetest mouths +that ever smiled upon enraptured mankind. Nature had given her just a +little more chin than a Greek sculptor would have allowed her; but, by +way of make-weight, the same careless Nature had bestowed upon her a +throat which Phidias himself might have sought in vain to improve upon. +And Nature had planted this young lady's head upon her shoulders with a +grace so rare that it must needs be a happy accident in the workmanship +of that immortal artist. Indeed it seemed as if Charlotte Halliday owed +her charms to a series of happy accidents. The black eyebrows which +made her face so piquant might have been destruction to another woman. +The round column-like throat needed a fine frank face to surmount it, +and the fine frank face was rendered gracious and womanly by the wealth +of waving dark hair which framed it. The girl was one of those bright +happy creatures whom men worship and women love, and whom envy can +scarcely dislike. She was so infinitely superior to both father and +mother, that a believer in hereditary attributes was fain to invent +some mythical great-grandmother from whom the girl's graces might have +been derived. But she had something of her father's easy good-nature +and imprudent generosity; and was altogether one of those impulsive +creatures whose lives are perpetual difficulties and dilemmas. More +lectures had been delivered for her edification than for any other +young lady in the Brompton boarding-school, and yet she had been the +favourite and delight of everybody in the establishment, from the +mistress of the mansion down to the iniquitous boy who cleaned the +boots, and who was hounded and hunted, and abused and execrated, from +dewy morn to dusky eve. + +"I allus puts plenty of elbow-grease on your boots, Miss 'Allundale, +though cook does heave saucepan-lids at my 'ed and call me a lazy +wiper," this incorrigible imp protested to Charlotte one morning, when +she had surprised him in tears and had consoled his woes by a donation +of pence. + +"All things love thee, so do I," says the lover to his mistress; and it +is almost impossible not to adore a young lady who is universally +beloved, for the simple reason that this general affection is very +rarely accorded to any but a loving nature. There is an instinct in +these things. From all the ruck of Cheapside a vagrant dog will select +the man who has most toleration for the canine species, and is most +likely to give him shelter. A little child coming suddenly into a +circle of strangers knows in which lap it may find a haven, on which +bosom it may discover safety and comfort. If mistress and +schoolfellows, servants and shoeblack, dogs and cats, were fond of +Charlotte Halliday, their affection had been engendered by her own +sweet smiles and loving words, and helping hands always ready to give +substantial succour or to aid by active service. + +She had been at the Brompton gynaeceum nearly eleven years--only leaving +it for her holidays--and now her education was finished, and Mr. +Sheldon could find no excuse for leaving her at school any longer, so +her departure had been finally agreed upon. + +To most damsels of twenty-one this would have been a subject for +rejoicing; but it was not so with Charlotte. She did not like her +stepfather; and her mother, though very affectionate and gentle, was a +person whose society was apt to become wearisome any time after the +first half-hour of social intercourse. At Hyde Lodge Charlotte had a +great deal more of Lingard and condensed and expurgated Gibbon than was +quite agreeable; she had to get up at a preternatural hour in the +morning and to devote herself to "studies of velocity," whose monotony +became wearing as the drip, drip, drip of water on the skull of the +tortured criminal. She was very tired of all the Hyde-Lodge lessons and +accomplishments, the irregular French verbs--the "braires" and +"traires" which were so difficult to remember, and which nobody ever +could want to use in polite conversation; the ruined castles and +dilapidated windmills, the perpetual stumpy pieces of fallen timber and +jagged posts, executed with a BBB pencil; the chalky expanse of sky, +with that inevitable flight of crows scudding across it:--why must +there be always crows scudding across a drawing-master's sky, and why +so many jagged posts in a drawing-master's ideal of rural beauty? +Charlotte was inexpressibly weary of all the stereotyped studies; but +she liked Hyde Lodge better than the gothic villa. She liked the +friendly schoolfellows with their loud talk and boisterous manners, +the girls who called her "Halliday," and who were always borrowing +her reels of crochet-cotton and her pencils, her collars and +pocket-handkerchiefs. She liked the free-and-easy schoolgirl talk +better than her mother's tame discourse; she preferred the homely +litter of the spacious schoolroom to the prim splendours of Georgy's +state chambers; and the cool lawn and shrubberies of Hyde Lodge were a +hundred-fold more pleasant to her than the stiff little parterre at +Bayswater, wherein scarlet geraniums and calceolarias flourished with +an excruciating luxuriance of growth and an aggravating brilliancy of +colour. She liked any place better than the hearth by which Philip +Sheldon brooded with a dark thoughtful face, and a mind absorbed by the +mysteries and complications of the Stock Exchange. + +On this bright June afternoon other girls were chattering gaily about +the fun of the breaking-up ball and the coming delights of the +holidays, but Charlotte sighed when they reminded her that the end of +her last half was close at hand. + +She sat under a group of trees on the lawn, with a crochet antimacassar +lying in her lap, and with her friend and favourite, Diana Paget, +sitting by her side. + +Hyde Lodge was that very establishment over which Priscilla Paget had +reigned supreme for the last seventeen years of her life, and among all +the pupils in a school of some forty or fifty girls, Diana was the one +whom Charlotte Halliday had chosen for her dearest companion and +confidante, clinging to her with a constancy not to be shaken by +ill-fortune or absence. The girl knew very well that Diana Paget was a +poor relation and dependant; that her bills had never been paid; that +all those incalculable and mysterious "extras," which are the martyrdom +of parents and the delight of schoolmistresses, were a dead letter so +far as Diana was concerned. She knew that "poor Di" had been taken home +suddenly one day, not in compliance with any behest of her father's, +but for the simple reason that her kinswoman's patience had been worn +out by the Captain's dishonesty. It is doubtful whether Priscilla Paget +had ever communicated these facts in any set phrase, but in a +boarding-school such things make themselves known, and the girls had +discussed the delinquencies of that dreadful creature, Captain Paget, +very freely in the security of their dormitories. + +Charlotte knew that her dearest friend was not a person whom it was +advantageous to know. She had seen Diana depart ignominiously, and +return mysteriously after an absence of some years, very shabby, very +poor, very sombre and melancholy, and with no inclination to talk of +those years of absence. Miss Halliday had known all this, and had asked +no questions. She took the returned wanderer to her heart, and +cherished her with an affection which was far beyond the average +measure of sisterly love. + +"I thought I should never see you again, dear," she cried when she and +Diana had retired to a corner of the schoolroom to talk confidentially +on the morning of Miss Paget's return; "and I missed you so cruelly. +Other girls are very nice and very kind to me. There is a new girl, +Miss Spencer--that girl with flaxen hair, standing by the big +Canterbury--whom I get on with delightfully; but there is no one in the +world like you, Di. And where have you been all this time? With your +papa, I suppose." + +"Yes," answered Miss Paget gloomily; "I have been with my father. Don't +ask me anything about the last three years, Lotta. I have been utterly +wretched and miserable, and I can't bear to talk about my misery." + +"And you shan't talk of it, darling," cried Charlotte, pursing up her +mouth for a kiss in a manner which might have been distraction to a +masculine mind of average susceptibility. "You shan't talk of anything +or think of anything the least, least, least bit unpleasant; and you +shall have my gold pencil-case," added Miss Halliday, wrenching that +trinket suddenly from the ribbon by which it hung at her side. Perhaps +there was just the least touch of Georgy's childishness in this +impulsive habit of giving away all her small possessions, for which +Lotta was distinguished. "Yes, you must, dear," she went on. "Mamma +gave it me last half; but I don't want it; I don't like it; in point of +fact, I have had it so long that I positively loathe it. And I know +it's a poor trumpery thing, though mamma gave two guineas for it; but +you know she is always imposed upon in shops. Do, do, do take it, +darling, just to oblige me. And now, tell me, dear,--you're going to +stop here for ever and ever, now you've come back" asked Charlotte, +after having thrust the gold pencil-case into Diana's unwilling hand. + +"I don't know about for ever and ever, dear," Miss Paget replied +presently; "but I daresay I shall stay here till I'm tired of the place +and everybody about it. You won't be here very long, you know, Lotta; +for you'll be twenty next birthday, and I suppose you'll be leaving +school before you're twenty-one. Most of the girls leave at eighteen or +nineteen at latest; and you've been here so long, and are so much +farther advanced than others are. I am not going to be a pupil again-- +that's out of the question; for I'm just twenty-two, as you know. But +Priscilla has been good enough to let me stay as a kind of second +teacher for the little ones. It will be dull work going through the +stupid abridgments of history and geography, and the scrappy bits of +botany and conchology, with those incorrigible little ones; but of +course I am very grateful to my cousin for giving me a home under any +conditions, after papa's dishonourable conduct. If it were not for her, +Lotta, I should have no home. What a happy girl you are, to have a +respectable man for your father!" + +Charlotte's brow darkened a little as her friend said this. + +"He is not my own father, you know," she said gravely, "and I should be +a great deal happier if mamma and I were alone in the world. We could +live in some dear little cottage on wide open downs near the sea, and I +could have a linsey habit, and a pony, and ride about all day, and read +and play to mamma at night. Of course Mr. Sheldon is very respectable, +and I daresay it's very wicked of me; but O, Diana, I think I should +like him better if he were not _quite_ so respectable. I saw your papa +once when he came to call, and I thought him nicer than my stepfather. +But then I'm such a frivolous creature, Di, and am always thinking what +I ought not to think." + + * * * * * + +Nearly a year had passed since Diana's return, and the girl's life had +been very monotonous during that time. She had stuck bravely to the +abridgments and the juvenile scraps of --ologies, and had been +altogether a model of propriety, sewing on such a number of strings and +buttons during the period as can only be compassed by the maternal +mind. Her existence had been by no means as joyless or desolate as such +an existence is generally represented by the writer of fiction. There +was plenty of life and bustle in the big prosperous boarding-school, if +there was not much variety. There were small scandals and small +intrigues; departures and arrivals; wonderful hampers of cake and wine +to be divided among the elect of a fashionable dormitory--for there is +as wide a difference between the tone and status of the bedrooms in a +ladies'-school as between the squares of Berkeley and Bedford. There +were breaking-up parties, and the free-and-easy idleness of the +holidays, when a few dark-complexioned girls from the colonies, a +yellow-haired damsel from the remote north of Scotland, and Miss Diana +Paget, were wont to cluster round the fire in the smaller of the +schoolrooms to tell ghost-stories or talk scandal in the gloaming. + +It was a life which, taken with all its small hardships and petty +annoyances, should have been as the life of Paradise compared to that +which Diana had led with her father and Mr. Hawkehurst. Whether the +girl fully appreciated the change from the Bohemianism of her late +existence to the respectability of Hyde Lodge was a question which no +one had asked of her. She had fits of despondency now and then, even in +the midst of her duties, and was apt to fall into a sombre reverie over +one of the abridgments, whereby she was neglectful of her pupils' +aspirates, and allowed Henry the Second to be made the poorer by the +loss of an H, or Heliogabalus to be described by a name which that +individual himself would have failed to recognise. + +There were times when, in the midst of that shrill Babel, the +schoolroom, Diana Paget heard the summer winds sighing in the +pine-woods above Foretdechene, and fancied herself standing once more +in that classic temple on whose plastered wall Valentine had once cut +her initials with his penknife in a fantastical monogram, surmounted by +a death's-head and encircled by a serpent. She thought of that familiar +companion very often, in spite of her juvenile pupils and the sewing-on +of tapes and buttons. He had seemed to her a perpetual enigma and +mystery when she was with him; and now that she was far away from him, +he was more than ever an inscrutable creature. Was he altogether vile, +she wondered, or was there some redeeming virtue in his nature? He had +taken trouble to secure her escape from shame and disgrace, and in +doing this he surely had performed a good action; but was it not just +possible that he had taken this opportunity of getting rid of her +because her presence was alike wearisome and inconvenient? She thought +very bitterly of her fellow Bohemian when this view of his conduct +presented itself to her; how heartlessly he had shuffled her off,--how +cruelly he had sent her out into the hard pitiless world, to find a +shelter as best she might! + +"What would have become of me if Priscilla had refused to take me in?" +she asked herself. "I wonder whether Mr. Hawkehurst ever considered +that." + + * * * * * + +More than one letter had come to Diana from her old companion since her +flight from the little Belgian watering-place. The first letter told +her that her father had "tided over _that_ business, and was in better +feather than before the burst-up at the Hotel d'Orange." The letter was +dated from Paris, but gave no information as to the present +arrangements or future plans of the writer and his companion. Another +letter, dated from the same place, but not from the same address, came +to her six months afterwards, and anon another; and it was such a +wonderful thing for Captain Paget to inhabit the same city for twelve +months together, that Diana began to cherish faint hopes of some +amendment in the scheme of her father's life and of Valentine's, since +any improvement in her father's position would involve an improvement +in that of his _protege_. + +Miss Paget's regard for her father was by no means an absorbing +affection. The Captain had never cared to conceal his indifference for +his only child, or pretended to think her anything but a nuisance and +an encumbrance--a superfluous piece of luggage more difficult to +dispose of than any other luggage, and altogether a stumbling-block in +the stony path of a man who has to live by his wits. So perhaps it is +scarcely strange that Diana did not think of her absent father with any +passionate tenderness or sad yearning love. She thought of him very +often; but her thoughts of him were painful and bitter. She thought +still more often of his companion; and her thoughts of him were even +more bitter. + +The experiences of Diana Paget are not the experiences which mate a +pure or perfect woman. There are trials which chasten the heart and +elevate the mind; but it is doubtful whether it can be for the welfare +of any helpless, childish creature to be familiar with falsehood and +chicanery, with debt and dishonour, from the earliest awakening of the +intellect; to feel, from the age of six or seven, all the shame of a +creature who is always eating food that will not be paid for, and lying +on a bed out of which she may be turned at any moment with shrill +reproaches and upbraidings; to hear her father abused and vilified by +vulgar gossips over a tea-table, and to be reminded every day and every +hour that she is an unprofitable encumbrance, a consumer of the bread +of other people's children, an intruder in the household of poverty, a +child whose heritage is shame and dishonour. These things had hardened +the heart of Captain Paget's daughter. There had been no counteracting +influence--no fond, foolish loving creature near at hand to save the +girl from that perdition into which the child or woman who has never +known what it is to be loved is apt to fall. For thirteen years of +Diana's life all love and tenderness, endearing words, caressing +touches, fond admiring looks, had been utterly unknown to her. To sit +in a room with a father who was busy writing letters, and who was wont +to knit his brows peevishly if she stirred, or to mutter an oath if she +spoke; to be sent to a pawnbroker's in the gloaming with her father's +watch, and to be scolded and sworn at on her return if the money-lender +had advanced a less sum than was expected on that security--do not +compose the most delightful or improving experiences of a home life. +But Diana could remember little of a more pleasant character respecting +her existence during those brief periods when she was flung back upon +her father's hands, and while that gentleman was casting about for some +new victim on whom to plant her. + +At Hyde Lodge, for the first time, the girl knew what it was to be +loved. Bright, impulsive Charlotte Halliday took a fancy to her, as the +schoolgirl phrase goes, and clung to her with a fond confiding +affection. It may be that the softening influence came too late, or +that there was some touch of natural hardness and bitterness in Diana's +mind; for it is certain that Charlotte's affection did not soften the +girl's heart or lessen her bitter consciousness of the wide difference +between her own fortunes and those of the happier daughters whose +fathers paid their debts. The very contrast between Charlotte's +position and her own may have counteracted the good influence. It was +very easy for Charlotte to be generous and amiable. _She_ had never +been hounded from pillar to post by shrewish matrons who had no words +too bitter for their unprofitable charge. _She_ had never known what it +was to rise up in the morning uncertain where she should lie down at +night, or whether there would be any shelter at all for her hapless +head; for who could tell that her father would be found at the lodging +where he had last been heard of, and how should she obtain even +workhouse hospitality, whose original parish was unknown to herself or +her protector? To Charlotte these shameful experiences would have been +as incomprehensible as the most abstruse theories of a metaphysician. +Was it any wonder, then, if Charlotte was bright and womanly, and fond +and tender--Charlotte, who had never been humiliated by the shabbiness +of her clothes, and to whom the daily promenade had never been a shame +and a degradation by reason of obvious decay in the heels of her boots? + +"If your father would dress you decently, and supply you with proper +boots, I could almost bring myself to keep you for nothing," Priscilla +had said to her reprobate kinsman's daughter; "but the more one does +for that man the less he will do himself; so the long and the short of +it is, that you will have to go back to him, for I cannot consent to +have such an expensive establishment as mine degraded by the shabbiness +of a relation." + +Diana had been obliged to listen to such speeches as this very often +during her first residence at Hyde Lodge, and then, perhaps, within a +few minutes after Priscilla's lecture was concluded, Charlotte Halliday +would bound into the room, looking as fresh and bright as the morning, +and dressed in silk that rustled with newness and richness. Keenly as +Diana felt the difference between her friend's fortune and her own, she +did nevertheless in some manner return Charlotte's affection. Her +character was not to be altered all at once by this new atmosphere of +love and tenderness; but she loved her generous friend and companion +after her own fitful fashion, and defended her with passionate +indignation if any other girl dared to hint the faintest disparagement +of her graces or her virtues. She envied and loved her at the same +time. She would accept Charlotte's affection one day with unconcealed +pleasure, and revolt against it on the next day as a species of +patronage which stung her proud heart to the Quick. + +"Keep your pity for people who ask you for it," she had exclaimed once +to poor bewildered Charlotte; "I am tired of being consoled and petted. +Go and talk to your prosperous friends, Miss Halliday; I am sick to +death of hearing about your new frocks, and your holidays, and the +presents your mamma is always bringing you." + +And then when Charlotte looked at her friend with a sad perplexed face, +Diana relented, and declared that she was a wicked discontented +creature, unworthy of either pity or affection. + +"I have had so much misery in my life, that I am very often inclined to +quarrel with happy people without rhyme or reason, or only because they +are happy," she said in explanation of her impatient temper. + +"But who knows what happiness may be waiting for you in the future, Di?" +exclaimed Miss Halliday. "You will marry some rich man by-and-by, and +forget that you ever knew what poverty was." + +"I wonder where the rich man is to come from who will marry Captain +Paget's daughter?" Diana asked contemptuously. "Never mind where he +comes from; he will come, depend upon it. The handsome young prince +with the palace by the Lake of Como will come to fall in love with my +beautiful Diana, and then she will go and live at Como; and desert her +faithful Charlotte, and live happy ever afterwards." + +"Don't talk nonsense, Lotta," cried Miss Paget. "You know what kind of +fate lies before me as well as I do. I looked at myself this morning, +as I was plaiting my hair before the glass--you know how seldom one +gets a turn at the glass in the blue room--and I saw a dark, ugly, +evil-minded-looking creature, whose face frightened me. I have been +getting wicked and ugly ever since I was a child. An aquiline nose and +black eyes will not make a woman a beauty; she wants happiness, and +hope, and love, and all manner of things that I have never known, +before she can be pretty." "I have seen a beautiful woman sweeping a +crossing," said Charlotte doubtfully. + +"Yes, but what sort of beauty was it?--a beauty that made you shudder. +Don't talk about these things, Charlotte; you only encourage me to be +bitter and discontented. I daresay I ought to be very happy, when I +remember that I have dinner every day, and shoes and stockings, and a +bed to lie down upon at night; and I am happier, now that I work for my +living, than I was in the old time, when my cousin was always grumbling +about her unpaid bills. But my life is very dreary and empty; and when +I look forward to the future, it seems like looking out upon some level +plain that leads nowhere, but across which I must tramp on for ever and +ever, until I drop down and die." + +It was something in this fashion that Miss Paget talked, as she sat in +the garden with Charlotte Halliday at the close of the half-year. She +was going to lose her faithful friend--the girl who, so much richer, +and happier, and more amiable than herself, had yet clung to her so +fondly; she was going to lose this tender companion, and she was more +sorry for the loss than she cared to express. + +"You must come and see us very often," Charlotte said for the hundredth +time; "mamma will be so glad to have you, for my sake; and my +stepfather never interferes with our arrangements. O, Di, how I wish +you would come and live with us altogether! Would you come, if I could +manage to arrange it?" + +"How could I come? What Quixotic nonsense you talk, Lotta!" + +"Not at all, dear; you could come as a sort of companion for me, or a +sort of companion for mamma. What does it matter how you come, if I can +only have you? My life will be so dreary in that dreadful new-looking +house, unless I have a companion I love. Will you come, Di?--only tell +me you will come! I am sure Mr. Sheldon would not refuse, if I asked +him to let you live with us. Will you come, dear?--yes or no. You would +be glad to come, if you loved me." + +"And I do love you, Lotta, with all my heart," answered Miss Paget, +with unusual fervour; "but then the whole of my heart is not much. As +to coming to live with you, of course it would be a hundred thousand +times pleasanter than the life I lead here; but it is not to be +supposed that Mr. Sheldon will consent to have a stranger in his house +just because his impulsive stepdaughter chooses to take a fancy to a +schoolfellow who isn't worthy of half her affection." + +"Let me be the judge of that. As to my stepfather, I am almost sure of +his consent. You don't know how indulgent he is to me; which shows what +a wicked creature I must be not to like him. You shall come to us, +Diana, and be my sister; and we will play and sing our pet duets +together, and be as happy as two birds in a cage, or a good deal +happier--for I never could quite understand the ecstatic delight of +perpetual hempseed and an occasional peck at a dirty lump of sugar." + +After this there came all the bustle of packing and preparation for +departure, and a kind of saturnalia prevailed at Hyde Lodge--a +saturnalia which terminated with the breaking-up ball: and who among +the crowd of fair young dancers so bright as Charlotte Halliday, +dressed in the schoolgirl's festal robes of cloud-like muslin, and with +her white throat set off by a black ribbon and a gold locket? + +Diana sat in a corner of the schoolroom towards the close of the +evening, very weary of her share in the festival, and watched her +friend, half in sadness, half in envy. + +"Perhaps if I were like her, _he_ would love me," she thought. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +GEORGE SHELDON'S PROSPECTS. + + +For George Sheldon the passing years had brought very little +improvement of fortune. He occupied his old dingy chambers in Gray's +Inn, which had grown more dingy under the hand of Time; and he was wont +to sit in his second-floor window on sultry summer Sundays, smoking his +solitary cigar, and listening to the cawing of the rooks in the gardens +beneath him, mingled with the voices of rebellious children, and shrill +mothers threatening to "do for them," or to "flay them alive," in +Somebody's Rents below. The lawyer used to be quite meditative on those +Sunday afternoons, and would wonder what sort of a fellow Lord Bacon +was, and how he contrived to get into a mess about taking bribes, when +so many other fellows had done it quietly enough before the Lord of +Verulam's day, and even yet more quietly since--agreeably instigated +thereto by the casuistry of Escobar. + +Mr. Sheldon's prospects were by no means promising. From afar off he +beheld his brother's star shining steadily in the commercial firmament; +but, except for an occasional dinner, he was very little the better for +the stockbroker's existence. He had reminded his brother very often, +and very persistently, of that vague promise which the dentist had made +in the hour of his adversity--the promise to help his brother if ever +he did "drop into a good thing." But as it is difficult to prevent a +man who is disposed to shuffle from shuffling out of the closest +agreement that was ever made between Jones of the one part, and Smith +of the other part, duly signed, and witnessed, and stamped with the +sixpenny seal of infallibility, so is it still more difficult to obtain +the performance of loosely-worded promises, uttered in the confidential +intercourse of kinsmen. + +In the first year of his married life Philip Sheldon gave his brother a +hundred pounds for the carrying out of some grand scheme which the +lawyer was then engaged in, and which, if successful, would secure for +him a much larger fortune than Georgy's thousands. Unhappily the grand +scheme was a failure; and the hundred pounds being gone, George applied +again to his brother, reminding him once more of that promise made in +Bloomsbury. But on this occasion Mr. Sheldon plainly told his kinsman +that he could do no more for him. + +"You must fight your own battle, George," he said, "as I have fought +mine." + +"Thank you, Philip," said the younger brother; "I would rather fight it +any other way." + +And then the two men looked at each other, as they were in the habit of +doing sometimes, with a singularly intent gaze. + +"You're very close-fisted with Tom Halliday's money," George said +presently. "If I'd asked poor old Tom himself, I'm sure he wouldn't +have refused to lend me two or three hundred." + +"Then it's a pity you didn't ask him," Mr. Sheldon answered, with +supreme coolness. + +"I should have done so fast enough, if I had thought he was going to +die so suddenly. It was a bad day for me, and for him too, when he came +to Fitzgeorge-street." + +"What do you mean by that?" asked Mr. Sheldon sharply. + +"You can pretty well guess my meaning, I should think," George answered +in a sulky tone. + +"No, I can't; and what's more, I don't mean to try. I'll tell you what +it is, Master George; you've been treating me to a good many hints and +innuendoes lately; and you must know very little of me if you don't know +that I'm the last kind of man to stand that sort of thing from you, or +from any one else. You have tried to take the tone of a man who has +some kind of hold upon another. You had better understand at once that +such a tone won't answer with me. If you had any hold upon me, or any +power over me, you'd be quick enough to use it; and you ought to be +aware that I know that, and can see to the bottom of such a shallow +little game as yours." + +Mr. Sheldon the younger looked at his brother with an expression of +surprise that was not entirely unmingled with admiration. + +"Well, you _are_ a cool hand, Phil!" he said. + +Here the conversation ended. The two brothers were very good friends +after this, and George presented himself at the gothic villa whenever +he received an invitation to dine there. The dinners were good, and the +men who ate them were men of solidity and standing in the commercial +world; and George was very glad to eat good dinners, and to meet eligible +men; but he never again asked his brother for the loan of odd hundreds. + +He grubbed on, as best he might, in the dingy Gray's-Inn chambers. Be +had a little business--business which lay chiefly amongst men who +wanted to borrow money, or whose halting footsteps required guidance +through the quagmire of the Bankruptcy Court. He just contrived to keep +his head above water, and his name in the Law-list, by means of such +business; but the great scheme of his life remained as yet unripened, +an undeveloped shadow to which he had in vain attempted to give a +substance. + +The leading idea of George Sheldon's life was the idea that there were +great fortunes in the world waiting for claimants; and that a share of +some such fortune was to be obtained by any man who had the talent to +dig it out of the obscurity in which it was hidden. He was a student of +old county histories, and a searcher of old newspapers; and his studies +in that line had made him familiar with many strange stories--stories +of field-labourers called away from the plough to be told they were the +rightful owners of forty thousand a year; stories of old white-haired +men starving to death in miserable garrets about Bethnal-green or +Spitalfields, who could have claimed lands and riches immeasurable, had +they known how to claim them; stories of half-crazy old women, who had +wandered about the world with reticules of discoloured papers +clamorously asserting their rights and wrongs unheeded and unbelieved, +until they encountered sharp-witted lawyers who took up their claims, +and carried them triumphantly into the ownership of illimitable wealth. + +George Sheldon had read of these things until it had seemed to him that +there must be some such chance for any man who would have patience to +watch and wait for it. He had taken up several cases, and had fitted +link after link together with extreme labour, and had hunted in parish +registers until the cold mouldy atmosphere of vestries was as familiar +to him as the air of Gray's Inn. But the cases had all broken down at +more or less advanced stages; and after infinite patience and trouble, +a good deal of money spent upon travelling and small fees to all manner +of small people, and an incalculable number of hours wasted in +listening to the rambling discourse of parish-clerks and oldest +inhabitants, Mr. Sheldon had been compelled to abandon his hopes time +after time, until a man with less firmly rooted ideas would have given +up the hunting of registers and grubbing up of genealogies as a +delusion and a snare. + +George Sheldon's ideas were very firmly rooted, and he stuck to them +with that dogged persistency which so often achieves great ends, that +it seems a kind of genius. He saw his brother's success, and +contemplated the grandeurs of the gothic villa in a cynical rather than +an envious spirit. How long would it all last? How long would the +stockbroker float triumphantly onward upon that wonderful tide which is +constituted by the rise and fall of the money-market? + +"That sort of thing is all very well while a man keeps his head cool +and clear," thought George; "but somehow or other men always seem to +lose their heads on the Stock Exchange before they have done with it, +and I daresay my wise brother will drop into a nice mess sooner or +later. Setting aside all other considerations, I think I would rather +have my chances than his; for I speculate very little more than my time +and trouble, and I stand in to win a bigger sum than he will ever get +in his line, let stocks rise and fall as they may." + +During that summer in which Miss Halliday bade farewell to Hyde Lodge +and her school-days, George Sheldon was occupied with the early steps +in a search which he hoped would end in the discovery of a prize rich +enough to reward him for all his wasted time and labour. + +Very early in the previous year there had appeared the following brief +notice in the _Observer_:-- + +"The Rev. John Haygarth, late vicar of Tilford Haven, Kent, died lately, +without a will, or relation to claim his property, 100.000 pounds. The +Crown therefore claimed it. And last court-day the Prerogative Court of +Canterbury decreed letters of Administration to Mr. Paul, the nominee +of the Crown." + +Some months after this an advertisement had been inserted in the +_Times_ newspaper to the following effect:-- + +"NEXT OF KIN.--If the relatives or next of kin of the Rev. John +Haygarth, late vicar of Tilford Haven, in the county of Kent, clerk, +deceased, who has left property of the value of one hundred thousand +pounds, will apply, either personally or by letter, to Stephen Paul, +Esq., solicitor for the affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury, at the +Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, London, they may hear of something to +their advantage. The late Rev. John Haygarth is supposed to have been +the son of Matthew Haygarth, late of the parish of St. Judith, +Ullerton, and Rebecca his wife, formerly Rebecca Caulfield, spinster, +late of the same parish; both long since deceased." + +Upon the strength of this advertisement George Sheldon began his +search. His theory was that there always existed an heir-at-law +somewhere, if people would only have the patience to hunt him or her +out; and he attributed his past failures rather to a want of endurance +on his own part than to the breaking down of his pet theory. + +On this occasion he began his work with more than usual determination. + +"This is the biggest chance I've ever had," he said to himself, "and I +should be something worse than a fool if I let it slip through my +fingers." + +The work was very dry and dreary, involving interminable hunting of +registers, and questioning of oldest inhabitants. And the oldest +inhabitants were so stupid, and the records of the registers so +bewildering. One after another Mr. Sheldon set himself to examine the +lines of the intestate's kindred and ancestors; his father's only +sister, his grandfather's brothers and sisters, and even to the +brothers and sisters of his great-grandfather. At that point the +Haygarth family melted away into the impenetrable darkness of the past. +They were no high and haughty race of soldiers and scholars, churchmen +and lawyers, or the tracing of them would have been a much easier +matter. Burke would have told of them. There would have been old +country houses filled with portraits, and garrulous old housekeepers +learned in the traditions of the past. There would have been mouldering +tombs and tarnished brasses in quiet country churches, with descriptive +epitaphs, and many escutcheons. There would have been crumbling +parchments recording the prowess of Sir Reginald, knight, or the +learning of Sir Rupert, counsellor and judge. The Haygarths were a race +of provincial tradesmen, and had left no better record of their +jog-trot journey through this world than the registry of births, +marriages, and deaths in obscure churches, or an occasional entry in +the fly-leaf of a family Bible. + +At present Mr. Sheldon was only at the beginning of his work. +The father and grandfather and uncle and great-uncles, the +great-grandfather and great-great-uncles, with all their progenies, +lay before him in a maze of entanglement which it would be his business +to unravel. And as he was obliged to keep his limited legal connection +together while he devoted himself to this task, the work promised to +extend over months, or indeed years; and in the meanwhile there was +always the fear that some one else, as quick-witted and indefatigable +as himself, would take up the same tangled skein and succeed in the +unravelment of it. Looking this fact full in the face, Mr. Sheldon +decided that he must have an able and reliable coadjutor; but to find +such a coadjutor, to find a man who would help him, on the chance of +success, and not claim too large a share of the prize if success came, +was more than the speculative attorney could hope. In the meantime his +work progressed very slowly; and he was tormented by perpetual terror +of that other sharp practitioner who might be following up the same +clue, and whose agents might watch him in and out of parish churches, +and listen at street-corners when he was hunting an oldest inhabitant. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +DIANA FINDS A NEW HOME. + + +The holidays at Hyde Lodge brought at least repose for Diana Paget. The +little ones had gone home, with the exception of two or three young +colonists, and even they had perpetual liberty from lessons; so Diana +had nothing to do but sit in the shady garden, reading or thinking, in +the drowsy summer afternoons. Priscilla Paget had departed with the +chief of the teachers for a seaside holiday; other governesses had gone +to their homes; and but for the presence of an elderly Frenchwoman, who +slept through one half of the day, and wrote letters to her kindred +during the other half, Diana would have been the only responsible +person in the deserted habitation. + +She did not complain of her loneliness, or envy the delights of those +who had departed. She was very glad to be quite alone, free to think +her own thoughts, free to brood over those unforgotten years in which +she had wandered over the face of the earth with her father and +Valentine Hawkehurst. The few elder girls remaining at the Lodge +thought Miss Paget unsociable because she preferred a lonely corner in +the gardens and some battered old book of namby-pamby stories to the +delights of their society, and criticised her very severely as they +walked listlessly to and fro upon the lawn with big garden-hats, and +arms entwined about each other's waists. + +Alas for Diana, the battered book was only an excuse for solitude, and +for a morbid indulgence in her own sad thoughts! She had lived the life +of unblemished respectability for a year, and looking back now at the +Bohemian wanderings, she regretted those days of humiliation and +misery, and sighed for the rare delights of that disreputable past! +Yes, she had revolted against the degraded existence; and now she was +sorry for having lost its uncertain pleasures, its fitful glimpses of +sunshine. Was that true which Valentine had said, that no man can eat +beef and mutton every day of his life; that it is better to be +unutterly miserable one day and uproariously happy the next, than to +tread one level path of dull content? Miss Paget began to think that +there had been some reason in her old comrade's philosophy; for she +found the level path very dreary. She let her thoughts wander whither +they would in this quiet holiday idleness, and they went back to the +years which she had spent with her father. She thought of winter +evenings in London when Valentine had taken her the round of the +theatres, and they had sat together in stifling upper boxes,--she +pleased, he critical, and with so much to say to each other in the +pauses of the performance. How kind he had been to her; how good, how +brotherly! And then the pleasant walk home, through crowded noisy +thoroughfares, and anon by long lines of quiet streets, in which they +used to look up at the lighted windows of houses where parties were +being given, and sometimes stop to listen to the music and watch the +figures of the dancers flitting across the blinds. She thought of the +journeys she had travelled with her father and Valentine by land and +sea; the lonely moonlight watches on the decks of steamers; the long +chill nights in railway-carriages under the feeble glimmer of an +oil-lamp, and how she and Valentine had beguiled the tedious hours with +wild purposeless talk while Captain Paget slept. She remembered the +strange cities which she and her father's _protege_ had looked at side +by side; he with a calm listlessness of manner, which might either be +real or assumed, but which never varied; she with an inward tremor of +excitement and surprise. They had been very happy together, this lonely +unprotected girl and the reckless adventurer. If his manner to her had +been fitful, it had been sometimes dangerously, fatally kind. She +looked back now, and remembered the days which she had spent with him, +and knew that all the pleasures possible in a prosperous and successful +life could never bring for her such delight as she had known in the +midst of her wanderings; though shame and danger lurked at every +corner, and poverty, disguised in that tawdry masquerade habit in which +the swindler dresses it, accompanied her wherever she went. + +She had been happy with him because she had loved him. That close +companionship, sisterly and brotherly though it had seemed, had been +fatal for the lonely and friendless daughter of Horatio Paget. In her +desolation she had clung to the one creature who was kind to her, who +did not advertise his disdain for herself and her sex, or openly avow +that she was a nuisance and an encumbrance. Every slight put upon her +by her father had strengthened the chain that bound her to Valentine +Hawkehurst; and as the friendship between them grew closer day by day, +until all her thoughts and fancies took their colour from his, it +seemed a matter of course that he should love her, and she never +doubted his feelings or questioned her own. There had been much in his +conduct to justify her belief that she was beloved; so this +inexperienced, untutored girl may surely be forgiven if she rested her +faith in that fancied affection, and looked forward to some shadowy +future in which she and Valentine would be man and wife, all in all to +each other, free from the trammels of Captain Paget's elaborate +schemes, and living honestly, somehow or other, by means of literature, +or music, or pen-and-ink caricatures, or some of those liberal arts +which have always been dear to the children of Bohemia. They would have +lodgings in some street near the Thames, and go to a theatre or a +concert every evening, and spend long summer days in suburban parks or +on suburban commons, he lying on the grass smoking, she talking to him +or reading to him, as his fancy might dictate. Before her twentieth +birthday, the proudest woman is apt to regard the man she loves as a +grand and superior creature; and there had been a certain amount of +reverential awe mingled with Diana's regard for Mr. Hawkehurst, +scapegrace and adventurer though he was. + +Little by little that bright girlish dream had faded away. Fancy's +enchanted palace had been shattered into a heap of shapeless ruin by +those accidental scraps of hard worldly wisdom with which Valentine had +pelted the fairy fabric. He a man to love, or to marry for love! Why, +he talked like some hardened world-weary sinner who had done with every +human emotion. The girl shuddered as she heard him. She had loved him, +and believed in his love. She had fancied a tender meaning in the voice +which softened when it spoke to her, a pensive earnestness in the dark +eyes which looked at her; but just when the voice had seemed softest +and sweetest, the pensive eyes most eloquently earnest, the +adventurer's manner had changed all at once, and for ever. He had grown +hard, and cold, and indifferent. He had scarcely tried to conceal the +fact that the girl's companionship bored and wearied him. He had yawned +in her face, and had abandoned himself to moody abstraction when +accident obliged him to be alone with her. Miss Paget's pride had been +equal to the occasion. Mary Anne Kepp would have dissolved into tears +at the first unkind word from the lips of her beloved; but Mary Anne +Kepp's daughter, with the blood of the Cromie Pagets in her veins, was +quite a different person. She returned Mr. Hawkehurst's indifference +with corresponding disregard. If his manner was cold as a bleak autumn, +hers was icy as a severe winter; only now and then, when she was very +tired of her joyless existence, her untutored womanhood asserted +itself, and she betrayed the real state of her feelings--betrayed +herself as she had done on her last night at Foretdechene, when she and +Valentine had looked down at the lighted windows shining dimly through +the purple of the summer night. She looked back at the past now in the +quiet of the school-garden, and tried to remember how miserable +she had been, what agonies of despair she had suffered, how brief had +been her delights, how bitter her disappointments. She tried to +remember what tortures she had suffered from that wasted passion, that +useless devotion. She tried to rejoice in the consciousness of the +peace and respectability of her present life; but she could not. That +passionate yearning for the past possessed her so strongly. She could +remember nothing except that she had been with him. She had seen his +face, she had heard his voice; and now how long and weary the time +might be before she could again see that one beloved face or hear the +dear familiar voice! The brightest hope she had in these midsummer +holidays was the hope of a letter from him; and even that might be the +prelude of disappointment. She wrestled with herself, and tried to +exorcise those ghosts of memory which haunted her by day and wove +themselves into her dreams by night; but they were not to be laid at +rest. She hated her folly; but her folly was stronger than herself. + +For three weeks Diana Paget had no companions but her sorrowful +memories--her haunting shadows; but at the end of that time the +stagnant mill-pond of her life was suddenly ruffled--the dull course +of existence was disturbed by the arrival of two letters. She found +them lying by her plate upon the breakfast-table one bright July +morning; and while she was yet far away from the table she could see +that one of the envelopes bore a foreign stamp, and was directed by the +hand of Valentine Hawkehurst. She seated herself at the table in a +delicious flutter of emotion, and tore open that foreign envelope, +while the French governess poured out the tea, and while the little +group of schoolgirls nudged one another and watched her eager face with +insolent curiosity. + +The first letter contained only a few lines. + +"MY DEAR DIANA," wrote the young man, "your father has decided on +returning to London, where I believe he really intends to make a +respectable start, if he can only get the opening and the help he +wants. I know you will be glad to hear this. I don't exactly say where +we shall take up our quarters; but the Captain will of course come to +see you; and if I can chasten my outward semblance sufficiently to +venture within the sacred precincts of a lady's school, I shall come +with him. Direct to the old address, if you write before the end of +the month, and believe me, as always, your friend." "VALENTINE." + +The second letter was in Charlotte Halliday's big bold hand, and was +frank, impetuous, and loving as the girl herself. + +"MY OWN DEAREST DI,--It is all arranged," wrote Miss Halliday, dashing +at once into the heart of the subject. "I talked mamma over the very +first day after my return, and then there was nothing more to be done +than to talk over Mr. Sheldon. Of course there was just a little +difficulty in that, for he is so awfully practical; and he wanted to +know why I wanted a companion, and what _use_ you would be in the +house; as if the very last thing one required in a companion was +companionship. I'm almost afraid to tell you the iniquitous fables I +invented about your extreme usefulness; your genius for millinery, and +the mints of money you would save by making up mamma's flimsy little +caps; your taste for dress-making, &c. &c. &c. You _are_ the cleverest +creature in the world, you know, Di; for you must remember how you +altered, that green silk dress for me when Miss Person had made me a +square-shouldered fright. So, after a great deal of humming, and +haing, and argufication--_is_ there such a word as 'argufication,' I +wonder?--my stepfather said that if my heart was set upon having you, +and if I thought you would be useful, you might come to us; but that he +could not afford to give you any salary, and that if you wanted a new +dress now and then, I must buy it for you out of my own allowance; and +I will, darling, if you will only come and be my friend and sister. My +life is dreadfully dull without you. I walk up and down the stiff +little gravel paths, and stare at the geraniums and calceolarias. +Mariana might have been dreary in her moated grange; but I daresay the +Lincolnshire flowers grew wild and free, and she was spared the +abomination of gaudy little patches of red and yellow, and waving +ribbons of blue and white, which constitute the glory of modern +gardening. Do come to me, dear. I have no one to talk to, and nothing +to do. Mamma is a dear good affectionate soul; but she and I don't +understand each other. I don't care for her twittering little birds, +and she doesn't care for my whims and fancies. I have read novels until +I am tired. I am not allowed to go out by myself, and mamma can +scarcely walk to Kensington-gardens without sinking under the exertion. +We drive out sometimes; but I am sick to death of crawling slowly up +and down by the Serpentine staring at people's bonnets. I might enjoy +it, perhaps, if I had you with me to make fun out of some of the +bonnets. The house is very comfortable; but it always seems to me +unpleasantly like some philanthropic institution in miniature. I long +to scratch the walls, or break the windows; and I begin to understand +the feelings of those unhappy paupers who tear up their clothes: they +get utterly tired of their stagnation, you see, and must do something +wicked and rebellious rather than do nothing at all. You will take pity +upon my forlorn state, won't you, Di? I shall come to Hyde Lodge +to-morrow afternoon with mamma, to hear your ulti--what's its name?-- +and in the meanwhile, and for ever afterwards, believe me to be your +devoted and unchanging LOTTA." + +Diana Paget's eyes grew dim as she read this letter. + +"I love her very dearly," she thought, "but not one hundred-fold as +much as I ought to love her." + +And then she went back to Mr. Hawkehurst's epistle, and read and +re-read its half-dozen lines, wondering when he would come to London, +and whether she would see him when he came. To see him again! The +thought of that possibility seemed like a spot of vivid light, which +dazzled her eyes and made them blind to anything around or beyond it. As +for this offer of a strange home in the household of Mr. Sheldon, it +seemed to her a matter of so very little importance where she went or +what became of her, that she was quite willing to let other people +decide her existence. Anything would be better than the monotony of +Hyde Lodge. If Valentine Hawkehurst came to see her at Mr. Sheldon's +house, he would be permitted to see her alone, most likely, and it would +be something like the old times; whereas at the Lodge Priscilla Paget or +one of the governesses would undoubtedly be present at any interview +between Diana and her old friend, and the real Valentine would be +hidden under the semblance of a respectable young man, with very little +to say for himself. Perhaps this one thought exercised considerable +influence over Miss Paget's decision. She wanted so much to see +Valentine alone, to know whether he had changed, to see his face at the +first moment of meeting, and to discover, if possible, the solution of +that enigma which was the grand mystery of her life--that one perpetual +question which was always repeating itself in her brain--whether he was +altogether cold and indifferent, or if there was not some hidden +warmth, some secret tenderness beneath that repelling outward seeming. + +In the afternoon Miss Halliday called with Mrs. Sheldon, and there was +a long discussion about Diana Paget's future life. Georgy abandoned +herself as unhesitatingly to the influence of her daughter as she did +to that of her husband, and had been brought to think that it would be +the most delightful thing in the world to have Miss Paget for a useful +companion. + +"And will you really make my caps, dear?" she said, when she had grown +at her ease with Diana. "Miss Terly in the Bayswater-road charges me so +much for the simplest little lace head-dress; and though Mr. Sheldon is +very good about those sort of things, I know he sometimes thinks my +bills rather high." + +Diana was very indifferent about her future, and the heart must have +been very hard which could have resisted Charlotte's tender pleading; +so it was ultimately decided that Miss Paget should write to her +kinswoman to describe the offer that had been made to her of a new +home, and to inquire if her services could be conveniently dispensed +with at Hyde Lodge. After which decision Charlotte embraced her friend +with enthusiasm, and departed, bearing off Mrs. Sheldon to the carriage +which awaited them at the gates of Priscilla Paget's umbrageous domain. + +Diana sighed as she went back to the empty schoolroom. Even Charlotte's +affection could not altogether take the sting out of dependence. To go +into a strange house amongst strange people, and to hold a place in it +only on the condition of being perpetually useful and unfailingly +good-tempered and agreeable, is scarcely the pleasantest prospect which +this world can offer to a proud and beautiful woman. Diana remembered +her bright vision of Bohemianism in a lodging near the Strand. It would +be very delightful to ride on sufferance in Mrs. Sheldon's carriage, no +doubt; but O, how much pleasanter it would have been to sit by +Valentine Hawkehurst in a hansom cab spinning along the road to +Greenwich or Richmond! + +She had promised to despatch her letter to Priscilla by that +afternoon's post, and she kept her promise. The reply came by return of +post, and was very kind. Priscilla advised her by all means to accept +Miss Halliday's offer, which would give her a much better position than +that which she occupied at Hyde Lodge. She would have time to improve +herself, no doubt, Priscilla said, and might be able to hope for +something still better in the course of two or three years; "for you +must look the world straight in the face, Diana," wrote the +schoolmistress, "as I did before I was your age; and make up your mind +to rely upon your own exertions, since you know what your father is, +and how little you have to hope for from him. As you are to have no +salary with the Sheldons, and will no doubt be expected to make a good +appearance, I shall do what I can to help you with your wardrobe." + +This letter decided the fate of Captain Paget's daughter. A week after +Miss Halliday's visit to Hyde Lodge a hack cab carried Diana and all +her earthly possessions to the Lawn, where Charlotte received her with +open arms, and where she was inducted into a neatly furnished +bedchamber adjoining that of her friend. Mr. Sheldon scrutinised her +keenly from under the shadow of his thick black brows when he came home +to dinner. He treated her with a stiff kind of politeness during the +orderly progress of the meal; and once, when he looked at her, he was +surprised to find that she was contemplating him with an expression of +mingled wonder and reverence. + +He was the first eminently respectable man whom Miss Paget had ever +encountered in familiar intercourse, and she was regarding him +attentively, as an individual with scientific tastes might regard some +natural curiosity. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +AT THE LAWN. + + +Life at the Lawn went by very smoothly for Mr. Sheldon's family. Georgy +was very happy in the society of a companion who seemed really to have +a natural taste for the manufacture of pretty little head-dresses from +the merest fragments of material in the way of lace and ribbon. Diana +had all that versatile cleverness and capacity for expedients which is +likely to be acquired in a wandering and troubled life. She had learned +more in her three years of discomfort with her father than in all the +undeviating course of the Hyde-Lodge studies; she had improved her +French at one _table d'hote_, her German at another; she had caught +some new trick of style in every concert-room, some fresh combination +of costume on every racecourse; and, being really grateful for +Charlotte's disinterested affection, she brought all her +accomplishments to bear to please her friend and her friend's +household. + +In this she succeeded admirably. Mrs. Sheldon found her daughter's +society much more delightful now that the whole pressure of Charlotte's +intellect and vitality no longer fell entirely upon herself. She liked +to sit lazily in her arm-chair while the two girls chattered at their +work, and she could venture an occasional remark, and fancy that she +had a full share in the conversation. When the summer weather rendered +walking a martyrdom and driving an affliction, she could recline on her +favourite sofa reading a novel, soothed by the feeble twittering of her +birds; while Charlotte and Diana went out together, protected by the +smart boy in buttons, who was not altogether without human failings, +and was apt to linger behind his fair charges, reading the boards +before the doors of newsvendors' shops, or looking at the cartoons in +_Punch_ exhibited in the stationers' windows. + +Mr. Sheldon made a point of pleasing his stepdaughter whenever it was +possible for him to do so without palpable inconvenience to himself; +and as she was to be gratified by so small a pecuniary sacrifice as the +trifling increase of tradesmen's bills caused by Miss Paget's residence +in the gothic villa, he was the last man in the world to refuse her +that indulgence. His own pursuits were of so absorbing a nature as to +leave little leisure for concern about other people's business. He +asked no questions about his stepdaughter's companion; but he was not +the less surprised to see this beautiful high-bred woman content to sit +at his board as an unsalaried dependent. + +"Your friend Miss Paget looks like a countess," he said one day to +Charlotte. "I thought girls generally pitched upon some plain homely +young woman for their pet companion, but you seem to have chosen the +handsomest girl in the school." + +"Yes, she is very handsome, is she not? I wish some of your rich City +men would marry her, papa." + +Miss Halliday consented to call her mother's husband "papa," though the +caressing name seemed in a manner to stick in her throat. She had loved +that blustrous good-tempered Tom Halliday so very dearly, and it was +only to please poor Georgy that she brought herself to address any other +man by the name that had been his. + +"My City men have something better to do than to marry a young woman +without a sixpence," answered Mr. Sheldon. "Why don't you try to catch +one of them for yourself?" + +"I don't like City men," said Charlotte quickly; and then she blushed, +and added apologetically, "at least not the generality of City men, +papa." + +Diana had waited until her destiny was settled before answering +Valentine Hawkehurst's letter; but she wrote to him directly she was +established at the Lawn, and told him the change in her plans. + +"I think papa had better let me come to see him at his lodgings," she +said, "wherever they may be; for I should scarcely care about Mr. +Sheldon seeing him. No one here knows anything definite about my +history; and as it is just possible Mr. Sheldon may have encountered my +father somehow or other, it would be as well for him to keep clear of +this house. I could not venture to say this to papa myself, but perhaps +you could suggest it without offending him. You see I have grown very +worldly-wise, and am learning to protect my own interests in the spirit +which you have so instilled into me. I don't know whether that sort of +spirit is likely to secure one's happiness, but I have no doubt it is +the wisest and best for this world." + +Miss Paget could not refrain from an occasional sneer when she wrote to +her old companion. He never returned her sneers, or noticed them. His +letters were always frank, friendly, and brotherly in tone. + +"Neither my good opinion nor my bad opinion is of any consequence to +him," Diana thought bitterly. It was late in August when Captain Paget +and his _protege_ came to town. Valentine suggested the wisdom of +leaving Diana in her new home uncompromised by any past associations. +But this was a suggestion which Horatio Paget could not accept. His +brightest successes in the way of scheming had been matured out of +chance acquaintanceships with eligible men. A man who could afford such +a luxury as a companion for his daughter must needs be eligible, and +the Captain was not inclined to sacrifice his acquaintance from any +extreme delicacy. + +"My daughter seems to have made new friends for herself, and I should +like to see what kind of people they are," he said conclusively. "We'll +look them up this evening, Val." + +Mr. George Sheldon dined at the Lawn on the day on which Horatio Paget +determined on "looking up" his daughter's new friends, and he and the +two girls were strolling in the garden when the Captain and Mr. +Hawkehurst were announced. They had been told that Miss Paget was in +the garden. + +"Be good enough to take me straight to her," said the Captain to the +boy in buttons; "I am her father." + +Horatio Paget was too old a tactician not to know that by an +unceremonious plunge into the family circle he was more likely to +secure an easy footing in the household than by any direct approach of +the master. He had seen the little group in the garden, and had +mistaken George for the head of the house. + +Diana turned from pale to red, and from red to pale again, as she +recognised the two men. There had been no announcement of their coming. +She did not even know that they were in England. + +"Papa!" she cried, and then held out her hand and greeted him; coldly +enough, as it seemed to Charlotte, who fancied that any kind of _real_ +father must be very dear. + +But Captain Paget was not to be satisfied by that cold greeting. It +suited his purpose to be especially paternal on this occasion. He drew +his daughter to his breast, and embraced her affectionately, very much +to that young lady's surprise. + +Then, having abandoned himself entirely for the moment to this tender +impulse of paternity, he suddenly put his daughter aside, as if he had +all at once remembered his duty to society, drew himself up stiffly, +and saluted Miss Halliday and George Sheldon with uncovered head. + +"Mr. Sheldon, I believe?" he murmured. + +"George Sheldon," answered that gentleman; "my brother Philip is in the +drawing-room yonder, looking at us." + +Philip Sheldon came out into the garden as George said this, It was one +of those sultry evenings on which the most delightful of gothic villas +is apt to be too stifling for endurance; and in most of the prim +suburban gardens there were people lounging listlessly among the +flower-beds. Mr. Sheldon came to look at this patrician stranger who +had just embraced his daughter's companion; whereupon Captain Paget +introduced himself and his friend Mr. Hawkehurst. After the +introduction Mr. Sheldon and the Captain fell into an easy +conversation, while the two girls walked slowly along the gravel +pathway with Valentine by their side, and while George loitered +drearily along, chewing the stalk of a geranium, and pondering the +obscure reminiscences of the last oldest inhabitant whose shadowy +memories he had evoked in his search after new links in the chain of +the Haygarths. + +The two girls walked in the familiar schoolgirl fashion of Hyde Lodge, +Charlotte's arm encircling the waist of her friend. They were both +dressed in white muslin, and looked very shadowy and sylph-like in the +summer dusk. Mr. Hawkehurst found himself in a new atmosphere in this +suburban garden, with these two white-robed damsels by his side; for it +seemed to him that Diana with Charlotte's arm round her waist, and a +certain shy gentleness of manner which was new to him, was quite a +different person from that Miss Paget whose wan face had looked at him +so anxiously in the saloons of the Belgian. Kursaal. + +At first there was considerable restraint in the tone of the +conversation, and some little of that unnecessary discussion as to +whether this evening was warmer than the preceding evening, or whether +it was not, indeed, the warmest evening of all that summer. And then, +when the ice was broken, Mr. Hawkehurst began to talk at his ease about +Paris, which city Miss Halliday had never seen; about the last book, +the last play, the last folly, the last fashionable bonnet; for it was +one of the special attributes of this young Robert Macaire to be able +to talk about anything, and to adapt himself to any society. Charlotte +opened her eyes to their widest extent as she listened to this animated +stranger. She had been so wearied by the dry as dust arguments of City +men who had discussed the schemes of great contractors, "which will +never be carried out, sir, while money is at its present rate, mark my +words,"--or the chances of a company "which is eaten up by +debenture-bonds and preference-shares, sir, and will never pay its +original proprietors one sixpence of interest on their capital," with a +great deal more of the same character; and it was quite new to her to +hear about novels, theatres, and bonnets from masculine lips, and to +find that there were men living who could interest themselves in such +frivolities. Charlotte was delighted with Diana's friend. It was she +who encouraged Valentine every now and then by some exclamation of +surprise or expression of interest, while Miss Paget herself was +thoughtful and silent. + +It was not thus that she had hoped to meet Valentine Hawkehurst. She +stole a look at him now and then as he walked by her side. Yes, it was +the old face--the face which would have been so handsome if there had +been warmth and life in it, instead of that cold listlessness which +repelled all sympathy, and seemed to constitute a kind of mask behind +which the real man hid himself. + +Diana looked at him, and remembered her parting from him in the chill +gray morning on the platform at Foretdechene. He had let her go out +alone into the dreary world to encounter what fate she might, without +any more appearance of anxiety than he might have exhibited had she +been starting for a summer-day's holiday; and now, after a year of +separation, he met her with the same air of unconcern, and could +discourse conventional small talk to another woman while she walked by +his side. + +While Mr. Hawkehurst was talking to Mr. Sheldon's stepdaughter, Captain +Paget had contrived to make himself very agreeable to that gentleman +himself. Lord Lytton has said that "there is something strange and +almost mesmerical in the _rapport_ between two evil natures. Bring two +honest men together, and it is ten to one if they recognise each other +as honest; differences in temper, manner, even politics, may make each +misjudge the other. But bring together two men unprincipled and +perverted--men who, if born in a cellar, would have been food for the +hulks or gallows--and they understand each other by instant sympathy." +However this might be with these two men, they had speedily become upon +very easy terms with each other. Mr. Sheldon's plans for the making of +money were very complicated in their nature, and he had frequent need +of clever instruments to assist in the carrying out of his +arrangements. Horatio Paget was the exact type of man most likely to be +useful to such a speculator as Philip Sheldon. He was the very ideal of +the "Promoter," the well-dressed, well-mannered gentleman, beneath +whose magic wand new companies arise as if by magic; the man who, +without a sixpence in his own pocket, can set a small Pactolus flowing +from the pockets of other people; the man who, content himself to live +in a humble second floor at Chelsea, can point to gigantic hotels which +are as the palaces of a new Brobdignag, and say, "Lo, these arose at my +bidding!" Mr. Sheldon was always on the alert to discover anything or +anybody likely to serve his own interest, either in the present or the +future; and he came to the conclusion that Miss Paget's father was a +person upon whom an occasional dinner might not be altogether thrown +away. + +"Take a chop with us to-morrow at six," he said, on parting from the +Captain, "and then you can hear the two girls play and sing. They play +remarkably well, I believe, from what other people tell me; but I am +not a musical man myself." + +Horatio Paget accepted the invitation as cordially as it was given. It +is astonishing how genial and friendly these men of the world can be at +the slightest imaginable notice. One can fancy the striped tigers of +Bengal shaking paws in the jungle, the vultures hob-nobbing in a +mountain cleft over the torn carcass of a stag, the kites putting their +beaks together after dining on a nest of innocent doves. + +"Then we shall expect to see you at sharp six," said Mr. Sheldon, "and +your friend Mr. Hawkehurst with you, of course." + +After this the two gentlemen departed. Valentine shook hands with +Diana, and took a more ceremonious leave of Charlotte. George Sheldon +threw away his chewed geranium-stalk in order to bid good evening to +the visitors; and the little party walked to the garden-gate together. + +"That Sheldon seems a very clever fellow," said Captain Paget, as he +and Valentine walked towards the Park, which they had to cross on their +way to Chelsea, where the Captain had secured a convenient lodging. "I +wonder whether he is any relation to the Sheldon who is in with a low +set of money-lenders?" + +"What, the Sheldon of Gray's Inn?" exclaimed Mr. Hawkehurst. "We can +easily find that out." + + * * * * * + +Horatio Paget and Valentine Hawkehurst were frequent visitors at the +Lawn after that first evening. Mr. Sheldon found the Captain useful to +him in the carrying out of certain business arrangements on more than +one occasion, and the relations between the respectable stockbroker and +the disreputable adventurer assumed a very friendly character. Diana +wondered to see so spotless a citizen as Philip Sheldon hand-and-glove +with her father. Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte were delighted with the +Captain and his _protege_; these two penniless Bohemians were so much +more agreeable to the feminine mind than the City men who were wont to +sit in the dining-room slowly imbibing Mr. Sheldon's old port in the +long summer evenings, while their wives endured the abomination of +desolation with Georgy and Charlotte in the drawing-room. Captain Paget +paid Mrs. Sheldon flowery compliments, and told her delightful stories +of the aristocracy and all that shining West-end world with which he +had once been familiar. Poor simple Georgy regarded him with that +reverential awe which a middle-class country-bred woman is prone to +feel for a man who bears upon him that ineffaceable stamp of high birth +and good breeding, not to be destroyed by half a century of +degradation. Nor could Charlotte withhold her admiration from the man +whose tone was so infinitely superior to that of all the other men she +had encountered. In his darkest hour Captain Paget had found his best +friends, or his easiest dupes, among women. It had gone hard with him +when his dear friend had withheld the temporary accommodation of a +five-pound note; but it had been much harder when his friend's wife had +refused the loan of "a little silver." + +Valentine Hawkehurst came very often to the Lawn, sometimes with his +friend and patron, sometimes alone. He brought the young ladies small +offerings in the way of a popular French novel adapted for feminine +perusal, or an occasional box for some theatre which had fallen upon +evil days, and was liberal in the circulation of "paper." He met the +two girls sometimes in their morning walks in Kensington-gardens, and +walked with them in the leafy avenues, and only left them at the gate +by which they departed. So much of his life was a listless waiting for +the arising of new chances, that he had ample time to waste in feminine +society, and he seemed very well inclined to loiter away the leisure +hours of existence in the companionship of Diana and her friend. + +And was Miss Paget glad of his coming, and pleased to be in his +company? Alas, no! The time had been, and only within a few months, +when she had sickened for the sight of his familiar face, and fancied +that the most exquisite happiness life could afford her would be to see +him once more, anywhere, under any circumstances. She saw him now +almost daily, and she was miserable. She saw him; but another woman had +come between her and the man she loved: and now, if his voice took a +softer tone, or if his eyes assumed a tender earnestness of expression, +it might be Charlotte's influence which wrought the transformation. Who +could say that it was not on Charlotte's account he came so often, and +lingered so long? Diana looked at him sometimes with haggard angry +eyes, which saw that it was Miss Halliday who absorbed his attention. +It was Charlotte--Charlotte, who was so bright and happy a creature +that the coldest heart must needs have been moved and melted by her +fascination. What was the cold patrician beauty of Miss Paget's face +when compared with the changeful charm of this radiant girl, with the +flashing gray eyes and piquant features, and all those artless caprices +of manner which made her arch loveliness irresistible? Diana's heart +grew sick and cold as she watched these two day by day, and saw the +innocent school-girl's ascendancy over the adventurer. The attributes +which made Charlotte charming were just those very attributes which +Valentine Hawkehurst had been least accustomed to discover in the +womankind he had hitherto encountered. He had seen beautiful women, +elegant and fascinating women, without number; but this frank girlish +nature, this happy childlike disposition, was entirely new to him. How +should he have met bright childlike creatures in the pathways which he +had trodden? For the first time in his life a fresh young heart +revealed its treasures of purity and tenderness before his world-weary +eyes, and his own heart was melted by the new influence. He had admired +Diana; he had been touched by her girlish fancy for him, and had loved +her as well as he had believed himself capable of loving any woman. But +when Prudence and Honour counselled him to stifle and crush his growing +affection for the beautiful companion of his wanderings, the struggle +had involved no agony of regret or despair. He had told himself that no +good could ever come of his love for Captain Paget's daughter, and he +had put aside that love before it had taken any vital root in his heart. +He had been very strong and resolute in this matter--resisting looks of +sad surprise which would have melted a softer nature. And he had been +proud of his own firmness. "Better for her, and better for me," he had +said to himself: "let her outlive her foolish schoolgirl fancies, and +wait patiently till her beauty wins her a rich husband. As for me, I +must marry some prosperous tradesman's widow, if I ever marry at all." + +The influence of the world in which his life had been spent had +degraded Valentine Hawkehurst, and had done much to harden him; and yet +he was not altogether hard. He discovered his own weakness very soon +after the beginning of his acquaintance with Mr. Sheldon's +stepdaughter. He knew very well that if he had been no fitting lover +for Diana Paget, he was still less a fitting lover for Charlotte +Halliday. He knew that although it might suit Mr. Sheldon's purpose to +make use of the Captain and himself as handy instruments for the +accomplishment of somewhat dirty work, he would be the very last man to +accept one of those useful instruments as a husband for his +stepdaughter. He knew all this; and knew that, apart from all worldly +considerations, there was an impassable gulf between himself and +Charlotte. What could there be in common between the unprincipled +companion of Horatio Paget and this innocent girl, whose darkest sin +had been a neglected lesson or an ill-written exercise? If he could +have given her a home and a position, an untarnished name and +respectable associations, he would even yet have been unworthy of her +affection, unable to assure her happiness. + +"I am a scoundrel and an adventurer," he said to himself, in his most +contemptuous spirit. "If some benevolent fairy were to give me the +brightest home that was ever created for man, and Charlotte for my +wife, I daresay I should grow tired of my happiness in a week or two, +and go out some night to look for a place where I could play billiards +and drink beer. Is there any woman upon this earth who could render my +existence supportable _without_ billiards and beer?" + +Knowing himself much better than the Grecian philosopher seemed to +think it possible for human nature to know itself, Mr. Hawkehurst +decided that it was his bounden duty, both for his own sake and that of +the young lady in question, to keep clear of the house in which Miss +Halliday lived, and the avenue in which she was wont to walk. He told +himself this a dozen times a day, and yet he made his appearance at the +Lawn whenever he had the poorest shadow of an excuse for going there; +and it seemed as if the whole business of his life lay at the two ends +of Charlotte's favourite avenue, so often did he find himself called +upon to perambulate that especial thoroughfare. He knew that he was +weak and foolish and dishonourable; he knew that he was sowing the +dragon's teeth from which were to spring up armed demons that would +rend and tear him. But Charlotte's eyes were unspeakably bright and +bewitching, and Charlotte's voice was very sweet and tender. A +thrilling consciousness that he was not altogether an indifferent +person in Charlotte's consideration had possessed him of late when he +found himself in that young lady's society, and a happiness which had +hitherto been strange to him gave a new zest to his purposeless life. + +He still affected the old indifference of manner, the idle listless +tone of a being who has finished with all the joys and sorrows, +affections and aspirations, of the world in which he lives. But the +pretence had of late become a very shallow one. In Charlotte's presence +he was eager and interested in spite of himself--childishly eager about +the veriest trifles which interested her. Love had taken up the glass +of Time; and the days and hours were reckoned by a new standard; +everything in the world had suffered some wondrous change, which +Valentine Hawkehurst tried in vain to understand. The very earth upon +which he walked had undergone some mystic process of transformation; +the very streets of London were new to him. He had known +Kensington-gardens from his boyhood; but not those enchanted avenues +of beech and elm in which he walked with Charlotte. In the plainest +and most commonplace phraseology, Mr. Hawkehurst had fallen in love. +This penniless adventurer, who at eight-and-twenty years of age was +steeped to the lips in the worst experiences of a very indifferent +world, found himself all at once hanging upon the words and living +upon the looks of an ignorant schoolgirl. + +The discovery that he was capable of this tender weakness had an almost +overwhelming effect upon Mr. Hawkehurst. He was ashamed of this touch +of humanity, this foolish affection which had awakened all that was +purest and best in a nature that had been so long abandoned to +degrading influences. For some time he fought resolutely against that +which he considered his folly; but the training which had made him the +master of many a perplexing position had not given him the mastery over +his own inclinations; and when he found that Charlotte's society had +become the grand necessity of his life, he abandoned himself to his +fate without further resistance. He let himself drift with the tide +that was so much stronger than himself; and if there were breakers +ahead, or fatal rocks lurking invisible beneath the blue waters, he +must take his chance. His frail bark must go to pieces when her time +came. In the meanwhile it was so delicious to float upon the summer +sea, that a man could afford to forget future possibilities in the way +of rocks and quicksands. + +Miss Paget had known very few pleasures in the course of her +uncared-for youth; but she hitherto had experienced no such anguish as +that which she had now to endure in her daily intercourse with Valentine +and Charlotte. She underwent her martyrdom bravely, and no prying eye +discovered the sufferings which her proud nature supported in silence. +"Who takes any heed of my feelings, or cares whether I am glad or +sorry?" she thought; "_he_ does not." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN. + + +The sand which ran so swiftly in the glass which that bright young +urchin Love had wrested from the hand of grim old Time ran with an +almost equal swiftness in the hour-glasses of lodging-house keepers and +tradespeople, and the necessities of every day demanded perpetual +exertion on the part of Mr. Hawkehurst, let Charlotte's eyes be never +so bright, and Charlotte's society never so dear. For Captain Paget and +his _protege_ there was no such thing as rest; and the ingenious +Captain took care that the greater part of the labour should be +performed by Valentine, while the lion's share of the spoil was pounced +upon by the ready paw of the noble Horatio. Just now he found his pupil +unusually plastic, unusually careless of his own interests, and ready +to serve his master with agreeable blindness. Since that awkward little +affair at Foretdechene, that tiresome entanglement about a King of +Spades which had put in an appearance at a moment when no such monarch +was to be expected, Captain Paget had obtained the means of existence +in a manner which was almost respectable, if not altogether honest; for +it is not to be supposed that honesty and respectability are by any +means synonymous terms. It was only by the exercise of superhuman +address that the Captain had extricated himself from that perplexing +predicament at the Belgian watering-place; and it may be that the +unpleasant experiences of that particular evening were not without a +salutary effect upon the adventurer's future plans. + +"It was touch-and-go work, Val," he said to his companion; "and if I +hadn't carried matters with a high hand, and sprung my position as an +officer in the English service upon those French ruffians, I don't know +where it would have ended." + +"It might have come to a metallic ornamentation of the ankle, and some +amiable 444, who has murdered his grandmother with a red-hot poker and +extenuating circumstances, for your companion," murmured Valentine. "I +wouldn't try it on with that supererogatory king again on this side of +the Channel, if I were you." + +The Captain bestowed a freezing look on his flippant _protege_ and then +commenced a very grave discussion of future ways and means, which ended +in an immediate departure for Paris, where the two men entered upon an +unpretentious career in the commercial line as agents and travellers +for the patentees of an improved kind of gutta percha, which material +was supposed to be applicable to every imaginable purpose, from the +sole of an infant's boot to the roof of a cathedral. There are times +when genius must stoop to pick up its daily pittance; and for twelve +months the elegant Horatio Paget was content to devote his best +energies to the perpetual praise of the Incorrodible and Indestructible +and Incombustible India-rubber, in consideration of a very modest +percentage on his commercial transactions in that material. To exert +the persuasive eloquence of a Burke or a Thurlow in order to induce a +man to roof his new warehouses with a fabric which you are aware will +be torn into ribbons by the first run of stormy weather, for the sake +of obtaining two-and-a-half per cent on his investment, may not be in +accordance with the honourable notions of a Bayard, and yet in a +commercial sense may be strictly correct. It was only when Captain +Paget had made a comfortable little purse out of his percentage upon +the Incorrodible and Incombustible that he discovered the extreme +degradation of his position as agent and traveller. He determined on +returning to the land of his birth. Joint-stock companies were +beginning to multiply in the commercial world at this period; and +wherever there are many schemes for the investment of public capital +there is room for such a man as Horatio Paget--a man who, with the aid +of a hired brougham, can inspire confidence in the breast of the least +daring speculator. + +The Captain came, accompanied as usual by that plastic tool and +subaltern, Valentine Hawkehurst, who, being afflicted with a chronic +weariness of everything in life, was always eager to abandon any +present pursuit in favour of the vaguest contingency, and to shake off +the dust of any given locality from his vagabond feet. Captain Paget +and his _protege_ came to London, where a fortunate combination of +circumstances threw them in the way of Mr. Sheldon. + +The alliance which arose between that gentleman and the Captain opened +a fair prospect for the latter. Mr. Sheldon was interested in the +formation of a certain joint-stock company, but had his own reasons for +not wishing to be identified with it. A stalking-horse is by no means a +difficult kind of animal to procure in the cattle-fairs of London; but +a stalking-horse whose paces are sufficiently showy and imposing--a +high-stepper, of thoroughbred appearance, and a mouth sensitively alive +to the lightest touch of the curb, easy to ride or drive, warranted +neither a kicker nor a bolter--is a quadruped of rare excellence, not +to be met with every day. Just such a stalking-horse was Captain Paget; +and Mr. Sheldon lost no time in putting him into action. It is scarcely +necessary to say that the stockbroker trusted his new acquaintance only +so far as it was absolutely necessary to trust him; or that the Captain +and the stockbroker thoroughly understood each other without affecting +to do so. For Horatio Paget the sun of prosperity arose in unaccustomed +splendour. He was able to pay for his lodgings, and was an eminently +respectable person in the eyes of his landlord. He enjoyed the daily +use of a neatly-appointed brougham, in which only the most practised +eye could discover the taint of the livery stable. He dined sumptuously +at fashionable restaurants, and wore the freshest of lavender gloves, +the most delicate of waxen heath-blossoms or creamy-tinted exotics in +the button-hole of his faultless coat. + +While the chief flourished, the subaltern was comparatively idle. The +patrician appearance and manners of the Captain were a perennial source +of profit to that gentleman; but Valentine Hawkehurst had not a +patrician appearance; and the work which Mr. Sheldon found for him was +of a more uncertain and less profitable character than that which fell +to the share of the elegant Horatio. But Valentine was content. He +shared the Captain's lodging, though he did not partake of the +Captain's dinners or ride in the smart little brougham. He had a roof +to shelter him, and was rarely unprovided with the price of some kind +of dinner; and as this was the highest order of prosperity he had ever +known, he was content. He was more than content; for the first time in +his existence he knew what it was to be happy. A purer joy than life +had ever held for him until now made him careless whether his dinner +cost eighteenpence or eighteen shillings; whether he rode in the most +perfect of broughams or walked in the mud. He took no heed for the +future; he forgot the past, and abandoned himself heart and soul to the +new delights of the present. + +Never had Philip Sheldon found so willing a tool, so cheap a drudge. +Valentine was ready to do anything or everything for Charlotte's +stepfather, since his relations with that gentleman enabled him to +spend so much of his life with Charlotte. + +But even in this sublimated state of mind Mr. Hawkehurst was not exempt +from the great necessity of Mr. Skimpole and humanity at large. He +wanted pounds. His garments were shabby, and he desired new and elegant +raiment in which to appear to advantage before the eyes of the woman he +loved. It had been his privilege on several occasions to escort Mrs. +Sheldon and the two younger ladies to a theatre; and even this +privilege had cost him money. He wanted pounds to expend upon those new +books and music which served so often as the excuse for a visit to the +Lawn. He wanted pounds for very trivial purposes; but he wanted them +desperately. A lover without pounds is the most helpless and +contemptible of mankind; he is a knight-errant without his armour, +a troubadour without his lute. + +In his dilemma Mr. Hawkehurst resorted to that simple method which +civilisation has devised for the relief of pecuniary difficulties of a +temporary nature. He had met George Sheldon several times at the Lawn, +and had become tolerably intimate with that gentleman, whom he now knew +to be "the Sheldon of Gray's Inn," and the ally and agent of certain +bill-discounters. To George he went one morning; and after requesting +that Captain Paget should know nothing of his application, explained +his requirements. It was a very small sum which he asked for, modestly +conscious that the security he had to offer was of the weakest. He only +wanted thirty pounds, and was willing to give a bill at two months for +five-and-thirty. + +There was a good deal of hesitation on the part of the lawyer; but +Valentine had expected to meet with some difficulty, and was not +altogether unprepared for a point-blank refusal. He was agreeably +surprised when George Sheldon told him he would manage that "little +matter; only the bill must be for forty." But in proof of the liberal +spirit in which Mr. Hawkehurst was to be treated, the friendly lawyer +informed him that the two months should be extended to three. + +Valentine did not stop to consider that by this friendly process he was +to pay at the rate of something over a hundred and thirty per cent per +annum for the use of the money he wanted. He knew that this was his +only chance of getting money; so he shut his eyes to the expensive +nature of the transaction, and thanked Mr. Sheldon for the +accommodation granted to him. + +"And now we've settled that little business, I should like to have a +few minutes' private chat with you," said George, "on the understanding +that what passes between you and me is strictly confidential." + +"Of course!" + +"You seem to have been leading rather an idle life for the last few +months; and it strikes me, Mr. Hawkehurst, you're too clever a fellow +to care about that sort of thing." + +"Well, I have been in some measure wasting my sweetness on the desert +air," Valentine answered carelessly. "The governor seems to have +slipped into a good berth by your brother's agency; but I am not +Horatio Nugent Cromie Paget, and the brougham and lavender kids of the +Promoter are not for me." + +"There is money to be picked up by better dodges than promoting," +replied the attorney ambiguously; "but I suppose you wouldn't care for +anything that didn't bring immediate cash? You wouldn't care to +speculate the chances, however well the business might promise?" + +"_C'est selon!_ That's as may be," answered Valentine coolly. "You see +those affairs that promise so much are apt to fail when it comes to a +question of performance. I'm not a capitalist; I can't afford to become +a speculator. I've been living from hand to mouth lately by means of +occasional contributions to a sporting weekly, and a little bit of +business which your brother threw in my way. I've been able to be +tolerably useful to him, and he promises to get me something in the way +of a clerkship, foreign correspondence, and that kind of thing." + +"Humph!" muttered George Sheldon; "that means eighty pounds a year and +fourteen hours' work a day, letters that must be answered by this mail, +and so on. I don't think that kind of drudgery would ever suit you, +Hawkehurst. You've not served the right apprenticeship for that sort of +thing; you ought to try for some higher game. What should you say to an +affair that might put two or three thousand pounds in your pocket if it +was successful?" + +"I should fed very much inclined to fancy it a bubble--one of those +dazzling rainbow-tinted globes which look so bright dancing about in +the sunshine, and explode into nothing directly they encounter any +tangible substance. However, my dear Sheldon, if you really have any +employment to offer to a versatile young man who is not overburdened +with vulgar prejudices, you'd better put the business in plain words." + +"I will," answered George; "but it's not an affair that can be +discussed in five minutes. It's rather a serious matter, and involves a +good deal of consideration. I know that you're a man of the world, and +a very clever fellow into the bargain; but there's something more than +that wanted for this business, and that is patience. The hare is a very +fine animal in her way, you know; but a man must have a little of the +tortoise in him if he wants to achieve anything out of the common run +in the way of good luck. I have been working, and waiting, and +speculating the chances for the last fifteen years, and I think I've +got a good chance at last. But there's a good deal of work to be done +before the business is finished; and I find that I must have some one +to help me." + +"What sort of business is it?" + +"The search for the heir-at-law of a man who has died intestate within +the last ten years." + +The two men looked at each other at this juncture; and Valentine +Hawkehurst smiled significantly. + +"Within the last ten years?" he said. "That's rather a wide margin." + +"Do you think you would be a good hand at hunting up the missing links +in the chain of a family history?" asked Mr. Sheldon. "It's rather +tiresome work, you know, and requires no common amount of patience and +perseverance." + +"I can persevere," said Valentine decisively, "if you can show me that +it will be worth my while to do so. You want an heir-at-law, and I'm to +look for him. What am I to get while I'm looking for him? and what is +to be my reward if I find him?" + +"I'll give you a pound a week and your travelling expenses while you're +employed in the search; and I'll give you three thousand pounds on the +day the heir gets his rights." + +"Humph!" muttered Mr. Hawkehurst, rather doubtfully; "three thousand +pounds is a very respectable haul. But then, you see, I may fail to +discover the heir; and even if I do find him the chances are ten to one +that the business would be thrown into Chancery at the last moment; in +which case I might wait till doomsday for the reward of my labours." + +George Sheldon shrugged his shoulders impatiently. He had expected this +penniless adventurer to catch eagerly at the chance he offered. "Three +thousand pounds are not to be picked up in the streets," he said. "If +you don't care to work with me, I can find plenty of clever fellows in +London who'll jump at the business." + +"And you want me to begin work--?" + +"Immediately." + +"And how am I to pay forty pounds in three months out of a pound a +week?" + +"Never mind the bill," said Mr. Sheldon, with lofty generosity. "If you +work heart and soul for me, I'll square that little matter for you; +I'll get it renewed for another three months." + +"In that case I'm your man. I don't mind a little hard work just now, +and I can live upon a pound a week where another man would starve. So +now for my instructions." + +There was a brief pause, during which the lawyer refreshed himself by +walking up and down his office two or three times with his hands in his +pockets. After which relief he seated himself before his desk, took out +a sheet of foolscap, and selected a pen from the inkstand. + +"It's just as well to put things in a thoroughly business-like manner," +he said presently. "I suppose you'd have no objection to signing a +memorandum of agreement--nothing that would be of any use in a court of +law, you know, but a simple understanding between man and man, for our +own satisfaction, as a safeguard against all possibility of +misunderstanding in the future. I've every reason to consider you the +most honourable of men, you know; but honourable men turn round upon +each other sometimes. You might ask me for something more than three +thou' if you succeeded in your search." + +"Precisely; or I might make terms with the heir-at-law, and throw you +over. Perhaps that was your idea?" + +"Not exactly. The first half of the chain is in my hands, and the +second half will be worth nothing without it. But to prevent all +unpleasantness we may as well put our intentions upon record." + +"I've not the least objection," replied Valentine with supreme +indifference. "Draw up whatever memorandum you please, and I'll sign +it. If you don't mind smoke, I should like to console myself with a +cigar while you draw the bond." + +The question was a polite formula, the atmosphere of George Sheldon's +office being redolent of stale tobacco. + +"Smoke away," said the lawyer; "and if you can drink brandy-and-soda at +this time of day, you'll find the _de quoi_ in that cupboard. Make +yourself at home." + +Mr. Hawkehurst declined the brandy-and-soda, and regaled himself only +with a cigar, which he took from his own case. He sat in one of the +second-floor windows smoking, and looking dreamily into the gardens, +while George Sheldon drew up the agreement. He was thinking that any +hazard which took him away from London and Charlotte Halliday might be +a fortunate one. + +The lawyer finished his document, which he read aloud for the benefit +of the gentleman who was to sign it. The agreement was in the following +terms:-- + +"Memorandum of agreement between George Sheldon on the one part, and +Valentine Hawkehurst on the other part, whereby it is this day mutually +agreed by and between the parties hereto as follows: + +"1. That, in consideration of a weekly salary of one pound while in +pursuit of certain inquiries, and of the sum of three thousand pounds +to be paid upon the arising of a certain event, namely, the +establishment of an heir-at-law to the estates of the late John +Haygarth, the said Valentine Hawkehurst shall act as agent for the said +George Sheldon, and shall not at any time during the continuance of +this agreement do any act to prejudice the inquiry or the steps now +being taken by the said George Sheldon to discover and establish an +heir-at-law to the estates of the late John Haygarth. + +"2. That at no time hereafter shall the said Valentine Hawkehurst be +entitled to a larger recompense than is herein-before provided; nor +shall he be liable to the said George Sheldon for the return of any +moneys which the said George Sheldon may advance on account of the +said inquiries in the event of the same not resulting in the +establishment of an heir to the estates of the late John Haygarth. + +"3. That the said Valentine Hawkehurst shall not alter his character of +agent to the said George Sheldon during the prosecution of the said +inquiry; that he shall deliver over to the said George Sheldon all +documents and other forms of evidence that may arise from his, the said +Valentine Hawkehurst's, inquires; and that he shall week by week, +and every week, and as often as may be necessary, report to the said +George Sheldon the result of such inquiries, and that he shall not +on any pretence whatever be at liberty to withhold such fruits of his +researches, nor discover the same to any one else than the said George +Sheldon, under a penalty of ten thousand pounds, to be recovered as +liquidated damages previously agreed between the parties as the measure +of damages payable to the said George Sheldon upon the breach of +this agreement by the said Valentine Hawkehurst. + +"In witness whereof the parties hereto have this 20th day of September +1862 set their hands and affixed their seals." "That sounds stiff +enough to hold water in a court of law," said Valentine, when George +Sheldon had recited the contents of the document. + +"I don't suppose it would be much good in Chancery-lane," returned the +lawyer carelessly; "though I daresay it sounds rather formidable to +you. When one gets the trick of the legal jargon, it's not easy to draw +the simplest form of agreement without a few superfluous words. I may +as well call in my clerk to witness our signatures, I suppose." + +"Call in any one you like." + +The clerk was summoned from a sunless and airless den at the back of +his principal's office. The two men appended their signatures to the +document; the clerk added his in witness of the genuine nature of those +signatures. It was an affair of two minutes. The clerk was dismissed. +Mr. Sheldon blotted and folded the memorandum, and laid it aside in one +of the drawers of his desk. + +"Come," he said cheerily, "that's a business-like beginning at any +rate. And now you'd better have some brandy-and-soda, for what I've got +to say will take some time in the saying of it." + +On this occasion Mr. Hawkehurst accepted the lawyer's hospitality, and +there was some little delay before the conversation proceeded. + +It was a very long conversation. Mr. Sheldon produced a bundle of +papers, and exhibited some of them to his agent, beginning with that +advertisement in the _Times_ which had first attracted his notice, but +taking very good care _not_ to show his coadjutor the obituary in the +_Observer_, wherein the amount of the intestate's fortune was stated. +The ready wits which had been sharpened at so many different +grindstones proved keen enough for the occasion. Valentine Hawkehurst +had had little to do with genealogies or baptismal registers during his +past career; but his experiences were of such a manifold nature that he +was not easily to be baffled or mystified by any new experience. He +showed himself almost as quick at tracing up the intricacies of a +family tree as Mr. Sheldon, the astute attorney and practised +genealogist. + +"I have traced these Haygarths back to the intestate's great-grandfather, +who was a carpenter and a Puritan in the reign of Charles the First. He +seems to have made money--how I have not been able to discover with any +certainty; but it is more than probable he served in the civil wars, and +came in for some of the plunder those crop-eared, psalm-singing, +pierce-the-brain-of-the-tyrant-with-the-nail-of-Jael scoundrels were +always in the way of, at the sack of Royalist mansions. The man made +money; and his son, the grandfather of the intestate, was a wealthy +citizen in the reigns of Anne and the first George. He was a grocer, +and lived in the market-place of Ullerton in Leicestershire; an +out-of-the-way sleepy place it is now, but was prosperous enough in +those days, I daresay. This man (the grandfather) began the world well +off, and amassed a large fortune before he had done with it. The lucky +beggar lived in the days when free trade and competition were unknown, +when tea was something like sixty shillings a pound, and when a +psalm-singing sleek-haired fellow, with a reputation for wealth and +honesty, might cheat his customers to his heart's content. He had one +son, Matthew, who seems, from what I can gather, to have been a wild sort +of fellow in the early part of his career, and not to have been at any +time on the best possible terms with the sanctimonious dad. This +Matthew married at fifty-three years of age, and died a year after his +marriage, leaving one son, who afterwards became the reverend +intestate; with whom, according to the evidence at present before me, +ends the direct line of the Haygarths." The lawyer paused, turned over +two or three papers, and then resumed his explanation. "The +sanctimonious grocer, Jonathan Haygarth, had one other child besides +the son--a daughter called Ruth, who married a certain Peter Judson, +and became the mother of a string of sons and daughters; and it is +amongst the descendants of these Judsons that we may have to look for +our heir at law, unless we find him nearer home. Now my idea is that we +_shall_ find him nearer home." + +"What reason have you for forming that idea?" asked Valentine. + +"I will tell you. This Matthew Haygarth is known to have been a wild +fellow. I obtained a good deal of fragmentary information about him +from an old man in some almshouses at Ullerton, whose grandfather was a +schoolfellow of Matthew's. He was a scapegrace, and was always spending +money in London while the respectable psalm-singer was hoarding it in +Ullerton. There used to be desperate quarrels between the two men, and +towards the end of Jonathan Haygarth's life the old man made half a +dozen different wills in favour of half a dozen different people, and +cutting off scapegrace Matthew with a shilling. Fortunately for +scapegrace Matthew, the old man had a habit of quarrelling with his +dearest friends--a fashion not quite exploded in this enlightened +nineteenth century--and the wills were burnt one after another, until +the worthy Jonathan became as helpless and foolish as his great +contemporary and namesake, the Dean of St. Patrick's; and after having +died 'first at top,' did his son the favour to die altogether, +_intestate_, whereby the roisterer and spendthrift of Soho and +Covent-garden came into a very handsome fortune. The old man died in +1766, aged eighty; a very fine specimen of your good old English +tradesman of the Puritanical school. The roisterer, Matthew, was by +this time forty-six years of age, and, I suppose, had grown tired of +roistering. In any case he appears to have settled down very quietly in +the old family house in the Ullerton market-place, where he married a +respectable damsel of the Puritan school, some seven years after, and +in which house, or in the neighbourhood whereof, he departed this life, +with awful suddenness, one year after his marriage, leaving his son and +heir, the reverend intestate. And now, my dear Hawkehurst, you're a +sharp fellow, and I daresay a good hand at guessing social conundrums; +so perhaps you begin to see my idea." + +"I can't say I do." + +"My notion is, that Matthew Haygarth may possibly have married before +he was fifty-three years of age. Men of his stamp don't often live to +that ripe age without being caught in matrimonial toils somehow or +other. It was in the days of Fleet marriages--in the days when young +men about town were even more reckless and more likely to become the +prey of feminine deception than they are now. The fact that Matthew +Haygarth revealed no such marriage is no conclusive evidence against my +hypothesis. He died very suddenly--intestate, as it seems the habit of +these Haygarths to die; and he had never made any adjustment of his +affairs. According to the oldest inhabitant in Ullerton almshouses, +this Matthew was a very handsome fellow, generous-hearted, open-handed +--a devil-may-care kind of a chap, the type of the rollicking heroes in +old comedies; the very man to fall over head and ears in love before he +was twenty, and to go through fire and water for the sake of the woman +he loved: in short, the very last man upon earth to live a bachelor +until his fifty-fourth year." + +"He may--" + +"He may have been a profligate, you were going to say, and have had +baser ties than those of Church and State. So he may; but if he was a +scoundrel, tradition flatters him. Of course all the information one +can gather about a man who died in 1774 must needs be of a very +uncertain and fragmentary character. But if I can trust the rather hazy +recollections of my oldest inhabitant about what his father told him +_his_ father had said of wild Mat Haygarth, the young man's wildness +was very free from vice. There is no legend of innocence betrayed or +infamy fostered by Matthew Haygarth. He appears to have enjoyed what +the young men of that day called life--attended cock-fights, beat the +watch, gambled a little, and was intimately acquainted with the +interior of the Fleet and Marshalsea prisons. For nearly twenty years +he seems to have lived in London; and during all those years he was +lost sight of by the Ullerton people. My oldest inhabitant's +grandfather was clerk to a merchant in the city of London, and had +therefore some opportunity of knowing his old schoolfellow's +proceedings in the metropolis. But the two townsmen don't seem to have +seen much of each other in the big city. Their meetings were rare, and, +so far as I can make out, for the most part accidental. But, as I said +before, my oldest inhabitant is somewhat hazy, and excruciatingly +prolix; his chaff is in the proportion of some fifty to one of his +wheat. I've given a good deal of time to this case already, you see, +Mr. Hawkehurst; and you'll find _your_ work very smooth sailing +compared to what I've gone through." + +"I daresay that sort of investigation is rather tiresome in the earlier +stages." + +"You'd say so, with a vengeance, if you had to do it," answered George +Sheldon almost savagely. "You start with the obituary of some old bloke +who was so disgustingly old when he consented to die that there is no +one living who can tell you when he was born, or who were his father +and mother; for, of course, the old idiot takes care not to leave a +blessed document of any kind which can aid a fellow in his researches. +And when you've had the trouble of hunting up half a dozen men of the +same name, and have addled your wretched brains in the attempt to patch +the half dozen men--turning up at different periods and in different +places--into one man, they all tumble to pieces like a child's puzzle, +and you find yourself as far as ever from the man you want. However, +_you_ won't have to do any of that work," added Mr. Sheldon, who was +almost in a passion when he remembered the trouble he had gone through. +"The ground has been all laid out for you, by Jove, as smooth as a +bowling-green; and if you look sharp, you'll pick up your, three thou' +before you know where you are." + +"I hope I shall," answered Valentine coolly. He was not the sort of +person to go into raptures about three thousand pounds, though such a +sum must needs have seemed to him the wealth of a small Rothschild. "I +know I want money badly enough, and am ready and willing to work for it +conscientiously, if I get the chance. But to return to this Matthew +Haygarth. Your idea is that there may have been a marriage previous to +the one at Ullerton?" + +"Precisely. Of course there may have been no such previous marriage; +but you see it's on the cards; and since it is on the cards, my notion +is that we had better hunt up the history of Matthew Haygarth's life in +London, and try to find our heir-at-law there before we go in for the +Judsons. If you knew how the Judsons have married and multiplied, and +lost themselves among herds of other people, you wouldn't care about +tracing the ramifications of _their_ family tree," said Mr. Sheldon, +with a weary sigh. "So be it," exclaimed Mr. Hawkehurst carelessly; +"we'll leave the Judsons alone, and go in for Matthew Haygarth." + +He spoke with the air of an archaeological Hercules, to whom +difficulties were nothing. It seemed as if he would have been quite +ready to "go in" for some sidereal branch of the Plantagenets, or the +female descendants of the Hardicanute family, if George Sheldon had +suggested that the intestate's next of kin was to be found _there_. + +"Mat Haygarth, by all means," he said. He was on jolly-good-fellow-ish +terms with the dead-and-gone grocer's son already, and had the tone of +a man who had been his friend and boon companion. "Mat Haygarth is our +man. But how are we to ferret out his doings in London? A man who was +born in 1720 is rather a remote kind of animal." + +"The secret of success in these matters is time," answered the lawyer +sententiously: "a man must have no end of time, and he must keep his +brain clear of all other business. Those two conditions are impossible +for me, and that's why I want a coadjutor: now you're a clever young +fellow, with no profession, with no particular social ties, as I can +make out, and your time is all your own; ergo, you're the very man for +this business. The thing is to be done: accept that for a certainty. +It's only a question of time. Indeed, when you look at life +philosophically, what is there on earth that is _not_ a question of +time? Give the crossing-sweeper between this and Chancery-lane time +enough, and he might develop into a Rothschild. He might want nine +hundred years or so to do it in; but there's no doubt he could do it, +if you gave him time." + +Mr. Sheldon was becoming expansive under the influence of the +brandy-and-soda; for even that mild beverage is not without its effect +on the intellectual man. + +"As to this Haygarth case," he resumed, after the consumption of a +little more soda and a little more brandy, "it's a sure success, if we +work it properly; and you know three thou' is not to be despised," +added George persuasively, "even if a fellow has to wait some time for +it." + +"Certainly not. And the bulk of the Haygarthian fortune--I suppose +that's something rather stiff?" returned Valentine, in the same +persuasive tone. + +"Well, you may suppose it's a decent figure," answered Mr. Sheldon, +with an air of deprecation, "or how could I afford to give you three +thou' out of the share I'm likely to get?" + +"No, to be sure. I think I shall take to the work well enough when once +I get my hand in; but I shall be very glad of any hint you can give me +at starting." + +"Well, my advice is this: begin at the beginning; go down to Ullerton; +see my oldest inhabitant. I pumped him as dry as I could, but I +couldn't give myself enough time for thoroughly exhaustive pumping; one +has to waste a small eternity before one gets anything valuable out of +those hazy old fellows. Follow up this Matthew from his birth; see the +place where he was born; ferret out every detail of his life, so far +as it is to be ferreted; trace his way step by step to London, and +when you get him there, stick to him like a leech. Don't let him slip +through your fingers for a day; hunt him from lodging to lodging, +from tavern to tavern, into jail and out of jail--tantivy, yoicks, +hark-forward! I know it's deuced hard work; but a man must work +uncommonly hard in these days before he picks up three thou'. In a +few words, the game is all before you; so go in and win," concluded +George Sheldon, as he poured the last amber drops from the slim +smoke-coloured bottle, and swallowed his glass of brandy undiluted +by soda. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +AUNT SARAH. + + +After that interview in Gray's Inn, there were more interviews of a +like character. Valentine received further instructions from George +Sheldon, and got himself posted up in the Haygarthian history, so far +as the lawyer's information furnished the materials for such posting. +But the sum total of Mr. Sheldon's information seemed very little to +his coadjutor when the young man looked the Haygarthian business full +in the face and considered what he had to do. He felt very much like a +young prince in the fairy tale who has been bidden to go forth upon an +adventurous journey in a trackless forest, where if he escape all +manner of lurking dangers, and remember innumerable injunctions, such +as not to utter a single syllable during the whole course of his +travels, or look over his left shoulder, or pat any strange dog, or +gather forest fruit or flower, or look at his own reflection in mirror +or water-pool, shining brazen shield or jewelled helm, he will +ultimately find himself before the gates of an enchanted castle, to +which he may or may not obtain admittance. + +Valentine fancied himself in the position of this favourite young +prince. The trackless forest was the genealogy of the Haygarths; and in +the enchanted castle he was to find the crown of success in the shape +of three thousand pounds. Could he marry Charlotte on the strength of +those three thousand pounds, if he were so fortunate as to unravel the +tangled skein of the Haygarth history? Ah, no; that black-whiskered +stockbroking stepfather would ask for something more than three +thousand pounds from the man to whom he gave his wife's daughter. + +"He will try to marry her to some rich City swell, I dare say," +thought Valentine. "I should be no nearer her with three thousand +pounds for my fortune than I am without a sixpence. The best thing I +can do for her happiness and my own is to turn my back upon her, and +devote myself to hunting the Haygarths. It's rather hard too, just as I +have begun to fancy that she likes me a little." + +In the course of those interviews in Gray's Inn which occurred before +Valentine took any active steps in his new pursuit, certain conditions +were agreed upon between him and Mr. Sheldon. The first and most +serious of these conditions was, that Captain Paget should be in nowise +enlightened as to his _protege's_ plans. This was a strong point with +George Sheldon. "I have no doubt Paget's a very good fellow," he said. +(It was his habit to call everybody a good fellow. He would have called +Nana Sahib a good fellow, and would have made some good-natured excuse +for any peccadilloes on the part of that potentate). "Paget's an +uncommonly agreeable man, you know; but he is not the man I should care +to trust with this kind of secret." Mr. Sheldon said this with a tone +that implied his willingness to trust Captain Paget with every other +kind of secret, from the contents of his japanned office-boxes to the +innermost mysteries of his soul. + +"You see Paget is thick with my brother Phil," he resumed; "and +whenever I find a man thick with my relations, I make it a point to +keep clear of that man myself. Relations never have worked well in +harness, and never will work well in harness. It seems to be against +nature. Now Phil has a dim kind of idea of the game I want to play, in +a general way, but nothing more than a dim idea. He fancies I'm a fool, +and that I'm wasting my time and trouble. I mean him to stick to that +notion. For, you see, in a thing of this kind there's always a chance +of other people cutting in and spoiling a man's game. Of course, that +advertisement I read to you was seen by other men besides me, and may +have been taken up. My hope is that whoever has taken it up has gone in +for the female branch, and got himself snowed up under a heap of +documentary evidence about the Judsons. That's another reason why we +should put our trust in Matthew Haygarth. The Judson line is the +obvious line to follow, and there are very few who would think of +hunting up evidence for a hypothetical first marriage until they had +exhausted the Judsons. Now, I rely upon you to throw dust in Paget's +eyes, so that there may be no possibility of my brother getting wind of +our little scheme through him." + +"I'll take care of that," answered Valentine; "he doesn't want me just +now. He's in very high feather, riding about in broughams and dining at +West-end taverns. He won't be sorry to get rid of me for a short time." +"But what'll be your excuse for leaving town? He'll be sure to want a +reason, you know." + +"I'll invent an aunt at Ullerton, and tell him I'm going down to stop +with her." + +"You'd better not say Ullerton; Paget might take it into his head to +follow you down there in order to see what sort of person your aunt +was, and whether she had any money. Paget's an excellent fellow, but +there's never any knowing what that sort of man will do. You'd better +throw him off the scent altogether. Plant your aunt in Surrey--say +Dorking." + +"But if he should want to write to me?" + +"Tell him to address to the post-office, Dorking, as your aunt is +inquisitive, and might tamper with your correspondence. I daresay his +letters will keep." + +"He could follow me to Dorking as easily as to Ullerton." + +"Of course he could," answered George Sheldon; "but then, you see, at +Dorking the most he could find out would be that he'd been made a fool +of; whereas if he followed you to Ullerton, he might ferret out the +nature of your business there." + +Mr. Hawkehurst perceived the wisdom of this conclusion, and agreed to +make Dorking the place of his relative's abode. + +"It's very near London," he suggested thoughtfully; "the Captain might +easily run down." + +"And for that very reason he's all the less likely to do it," answered +the lawyer; "a man who thinks of going to a place within an hour's ride +of town knows he can go any day, and is likely to think of going to the +end of the chapter without carrying out his intention. A man who +resolves to go to Manchester or Liverpool has to make his arrangements +accordingly, and is likely to put his idea into practice. The people +who live on Tower-hill very seldom see the inside of the Tower. It's +the good folks who come up for a week's holiday from Yorkshire and +Cornwall who know all about the Crown jewels and John of Gaunt's +armour. Take my advice, and stick to Dorking." + +Acting upon this advice, Valentine Hawkehurst lay in wait for the +Promoter that very evening. He went home early, and was seated by a +cheery little bit of fire, such as an Englishman likes to see at the +close of a dull autumn day, when that accomplished personage returned +to his lodgings. + +"Deuced tiresome work," said the Captain, as he smoothed the nap of his +hat with that caressing tenderness of manipulation peculiar to the man +who is not very clear as to the means whereby his next hat is to be +obtained,--"deuced slow, brain-belabouring work! How many people +do you think I've called upon to-day, eh, Val? Seven-and-thirty! What +do you say to that? Seven-and-thirty interviews, and some of them very +tough ones. I think that's enough to take the steam out of a man." + +"Do the moneyed swells bite?" asked Mr. Hawkehurst, with friendly +interest. + +"Rather slowly, my dear Val, rather slowly. The mercantile fisheries +have been pretty well whipped of late years, and the fish are artful-- +they are uncommonly artful, Val. Indeed, I'm not quite clear at this +present moment as to the kind of fly they'll rise to most readily. I'm +half inclined to be doubtful whether your gaudy pheasant-feather, your +brougham and lavender-kid business is the right thing for your angler. +It has been overdone, Val, considerably overdone; and I shouldn't +wonder if a sober little brown fly--a shabby old chap in a rusty +greatcoat, with a cotton umbrella under his arm--wouldn't do the trick +better. That sort of thing would look rich, you see, Val--rich and +eccentric; and I think on occasions--with a _very_ downy bird--I'd +even go so far as a halfp'orth of snuff in a screw of paper. I really +think a pinch of snuff out of a bit of paper, taken at the right +moment, might turn the tide of a transaction." + +Impressed by the brilliancy of this idea, Captain Paget abandoned +himself for the moment to profound meditation, seated in his favourite +chair, and with his legs extended before the cheerful blaze. He always +had a favourite chair in every caravanserai wherein he rested in his +manifold wanderings, and he had an unerring instinct which guided him +in the selection of the most comfortable chair, and that one corner, to +be found in every room, which is a sanctuary secure from the incursions +of Boreas. + +The day just ended had evidently not been a lucky one, and the +Captain's gaze was darkly meditative as he looked into the ruddy little +fire. + +"I think I'll take a glass of cold water with a dash of brandy in it, +Val," he said presently; and he said it with the air of a man who +rarely tasted such a beverage; whereas it was as habitual with him to +sit sipping brandy-and-water for an hour or so before he went to bed as +it was for him to light his chamber candle. "That fellow Sheldon knows +how to take care of himself," he remarked thoughtfully, when Valentine +had procured the brandy-and-water. "Try some of that cognac, Val; it's +not bad. To tell you the truth, I'm beginning to get sick of this +promoting business. It pays very little better than the India-rubber +agency, and it's harder work. I shall look about me for something +fresh, if Sheldon doesn't treat me handsomely. And what have you been +doing for the last day or two?" asked the Captain, with a searching +glance at his _protege's_ face. "You're always hanging about Sheldon's +place; but you don't seem to do much business with him. You and his +brother George seem uncommonly thick." + +"Yes, George suits me better than the stockbroker. I never could get on +very well with your ultra-respectable men. I'm as ready to 'undertake a +dirty job' as any man; but I don't like a fellow to offer me dirty work +and pretend it's clean." + +"Ah, he's been getting you to do a little of the bear business, I +suppose," said the Captain. "I don't see that your conscience need +trouble you about that. Amongst a commercial people money must change +hands. I can't see that it much matters how the change takes place." + +"No, to be sure; that's a comfortable way of putting it, at any rate. +However, I'm tired of going about in the ursine guise, and I'm going to +cut it. I've an old aunt settled at Dorking who has got a little bit of +money to leave, and I think I'll go and look her up." + +"An aunt at Dorking! I never heard of her before." + +"O yes you have," answered Mr. Hawkehurst, with supreme nonchalance; +"you've heard of her often enough, only you've a happy knack of not +listening to other people's affairs. But you must have been wrapped up +in yourself with a vengeance if you don't remember to have heard me +speak of my aunt--Sarah." + +"Well, well, it may be so," murmured the Captain, almost +apologetically. "Your aunt Sarah? Ah, to be sure; I have some +recollection: is she your father's sister?" + +"No; she's the sister of my maternal grandmother--a great-aunt, you +know. She has a comfortable little place down at Dorking, and I can get +free quarters there whenever I like; so as you don't particularly want +me just now, I think I'll run down to her for a week or two." + +The Captain had no objection to offer to this very natural desire on +the part of his adopted son; nor did he concern himself as to the young +man's motive for leaving London. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHARLOTTE PROPHESIES RAIN. + + +Mr. Hawkehurst had no excuse for going to the Lawn before his +departure; but the stately avenues between Bayswater and Kensington are +free to any man; and, having nothing better to do, Valentine put a +shabby little volume of Balzac in his pocket, and spent his last +morning in town under the shadow of the mighty elms, reading one of the +great Honore's gloomiest romances, while the autumn leaves drifted +round him, dancing fairy measures on the grass, and scraping and +scuffling on the gravel, and while children with hoops and children +with balls scampered and screamed in the avenue by which he sat. He was +not particularly absorbed by his book. He had taken it haphazard from +the tattered collection of cheap editions which he carried about with +him in his wanderings, ignominiously stuffed into the bottom of a +portmanteau, amongst boots and clothes-brushes and disabled razors. + +"I'm sick of them all," he thought; "the De Beauseants, and Rastignacs, +the German Jews, and the patrician beauties, and the Israelitish Circes +of the Rue Taitbout, and the sickly self-sacrificing provincial angels, +and the ghastly _vieilles filles_. Had that man ever seen such a woman +as Charlotte, I wonder--a bright creature, all smiles and sunshine, +and sweet impulsive tenderness; an angel who can be angelic without +being _poitri-naire_, and whose amiability never degenerates into +scrofula? There is an odour of the dissecting-room pervading all my +friend Balzac's novels, and I don't think he was capable of painting +a fresh, healthy nature. What a mass of disease he would have made Lucy +Ashton, and with what dismal relish he would have dilated upon the +physical sufferings of Amy Robsart in the confinement of Cumnor Hall! +No, my friend Honore, you are the greatest and grandest of painters of +the terrible school; but the time comes when a man sighs for something +brighter and better than your highest type of womanhood." + +Mr. Hawkehurst put his book in his pocket, and abandoned himself to +meditation, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his face +buried in his hands, unconscious of the trundling hoops and screaming +children. + +"She is better and fairer than the fairest heroine of a novel," he +thought. "She is like Heloise. Yes, the quaint old French fits her to a +nicety: + + 'Elle ne fu oscure ne brune, + Ains fu clere comme la lune, + Envers qui les autres estoiles + Ressemblent petites chandoiles.' + +Mrs. Browning must have known such a woman: + + 'Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; + You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face;' + +and yet + + 'She was not as pretty as women I know.' + +Was she not?" mused the lover. "Is she not? Yes," he cried suddenly, +as he saw a scarlet petticoat gleaming in the distance, and a bright +young face under a little black turban hat--prettiest and most +bewitching of all feminine headgear, let fashion change as it may. +"Yes," he cried, "she is the loveliest creature in the world, and I +love her to distraction." He rose, and went to meet the loveliest +creature in the world, whose earthly name was Charlotte Halliday. She +was walking with Diana Paget, who, to more sober judges, might have +seemed the handsomer woman of the two. Alas for Diana! the day had been +when Valentine Hawkehurst considered her very handsome, and had need to +fight a hard battle with himself in order not to fall in love with her. +He had been conqueror in that struggle of prudence and honour against +nascent love, only to be vanquished utterly by Charlotte's brighter +charms and Charlotte's sunnier nature. + +The two girls shook hands with Mr. Hawkehurst. An indifferent observer +might have perceived that the colour faded from the face of one, while +a blush mounted to the cheeks of the other. But Valentine did not see +the sudden pallor of Diana's face--he had eyes only for Charlotte's +blushes. Nor did Charlotte herself perceive the sudden change in her +dearest friend's countenance. And that perhaps is the bitterest sting +of all. It is not enough that some must weep while others play; the +mourners must weep unnoticed, unconsoled; happiness is so apt to be +selfish. + +Of course the conversation was the general sort of thing under the +given circumstances--just a little more inane and disjointed than the +ordinary small talk of people who meet each other in their walks +abroad. + +"How do you do, Mr. Hawkehurst?--Very well, thank you.--Mamma is very +well; at least no, not quite well; she has one of her headaches this +morning. She is rather subject to headache, you know; and the canaries +sing so loud. Don't the canaries sing abominably loud, Diana?--loudly +they would have made me say at Hyde Lodge; but it is only awfully +clever people who know when to use adverbs." + +And Miss Halliday having said all this in a hurried and indeed almost +breathless manner, stopped suddenly, blushing more deeply than at +first, and painfully aware of her blushes. She looked imploringly at +Diana; but Diana would not come to the rescue; and this morning Mr. +Hawkehurst seemed as a man struck with sudden dumbness. + +There followed presently a little discussion of the weather. Miss +Halliday was possessed by the conviction that there would be rain-- +possibly not immediate rain, but before the afternoon inevitable rain. +Valentine thought not; was, indeed, positively certain there would be +no rain; had a vague idea that the wind was in the north; and quoted a +dreary Joe-Millerism to prove the impossibility of rain while the wind +came from that quarter. Miss Halliday and Mr. Hawkehurst held very +firmly to their several opinions, and the argument was almost a +quarrel--one of those little playful quarrels which form some of the +most delicious phases of a flirtation. "I would not mind wagering a +fortune--if I had one--on the certainty of rain," cried Charlotte with +kindling eyes. + +"And I would not shrink from staking my existence on the conviction +that there will be no rain," exclaimed Valentine, looking with +undisguised tenderness at the glowing animated face. + +Diana Paget took no part in that foolish talk about the possibilities +of the weather. She walked silently by the side of her friend +Charlotte, as far away from her old comrade, it seemed to her, as if +the Atlantic's wild waste of waters had stretched between them. The +barrier that divided them was only Charlotte; but then Miss Paget knew +too well that Charlotte in this case meant all the world. + +The ice had been broken by that discussion as to rain or no rain, and +Miss Halliday and Mr. Hawkehurst talked pleasantly for some time, while +Diana still walked silently by her friend's side, only speaking when +compelled to do so. The strangeness of her manner would have been +observed by any one not utterly absorbed by that sublime egotism called +love; but Valentine and Charlotte were so absorbed, and had no idea +that Miss Paget was anything but the most delightful and amusing of +companions. + +They had taken more than one turn in the broad avenue, when Charlotte +asked Mr. Hawkehurst some question about a piece which was speedily to +be played at one of the theatres. + +"I do so much want to see this new French actress," she said. "Do you +think there is any possibility of obtaining orders, Mr. Hawkehurst? You +know what a dislike Mr. Sheldon has to paying for admission to a +theatre, and my pocket-money was exhausted three weeks ago, or I +wouldn't think of giving you any trouble about it." + +Philosophers have observed that in the life of the plainest woman there +is one inspired moment in which she becomes beautiful. Perhaps it is +when she is asking a favour of some masculine victim--for women have a +knack of looking their prettiest on such occasions. Charlotte +Halliday's pleading glance and insinuating tone were irresistible. +Valentine would have given a lien on every shilling of his three +thousand pounds rather than disappoint her, if gold could purchase the +thing she craved. It happened fortunately that his occasional +connection with the newspapers made it tolerably easy for him to obtain +free admissions to theatres. + +"Do not speak of the trouble; there will be no trouble. The orders +shall be sent you, Miss Halliday." + +"O, thanks--a thousand thanks! Would it be possible to get a box, and +for us all to go together?" asked the fair encroacher; "mamma is so +fond of the theatre. She used to go often with poor papa, at York and +in London. And you are such an excellent critic, Mr. Hawkehurst, and it +would be so nice to have you with us,--wouldn't it, Di? You know what a +good critic Mr. Hawkehurst is?" + +"Yes," answered Diana; "we used to go to theatres together very often." + +This was a cry of anguish wrung from a bleeding heart; but to the two +absorbed egotists it seemed the simplest of casual observations. + +"Do you think you could manage to get a box, Mr. Hawkehurst?" asked the +irresistible enslaver, putting her head on one side, in a manner which, +for the protection of weak mankind, should be made penal. + +"I will try my uttermost," answered Valentine. + +"O, then I'm sure you will succeed. And we shall be amused by your +deliciously bitter criticisms between the acts. One would think you had +studied under Douglas Jerrold." + +"You do me too much honour. But before the new piece is produced I +shall have left London, and shall not have the pleasure of accompanying +you to the theatre." + +"You are going to leave London?" + +"Yes, to-morrow." + +"So soon!" cried Charlotte, with undisguised regret; "and for a long +time, I suppose?" she added, very mournfully. + +Miss Paget gave a little start, and a feverish flush lit up her face +for one brief moment. + +"I am glad he is going," she thought; "I am very glad he is going." + +"Yes," said Valentine, in reply to Charlotte's inquiry, "I am likely to +be away for a considerable time; indeed my plans are at present so +vague, that I cannot tell when I may come back to town." + +He could not resist the temptation to speak of his absence as if it +were likely to be the affair of a lifetime. He could not refrain from +the delight of sounding the pure depths of that innocent young heart. +But when the tender gray eyes looked at him, so sweet in their sudden +sadness, his heart melted, and he could trifle with her unconscious +love no longer. + +"I am going away on a matter of business," he said, "which may or may +not occupy some time; but I don't suppose I shall be many weeks away +from London." + +Charlotte gave a little sigh of relief. + +"And are you going very far?" she asked. + +"Some distance; yes--a--hundred and fifty miles or so," Valentine +answered very lamely. It had been an easy thing to invent an ancient +aunt Sarah for the mystification of the astute Horatio; but Valentine +Hawkehurst could not bring himself to tell Charlotte Halliday a +deliberate falsehood. The girl looked at him wonderingly, as he gave +that hesitating answer to her question. She was at a loss to understand +why he did not tell her the place to which he was going, and the nature +of the business that took him away. + +She was very sorry that he was going to disappear out of her life for a +time so uncertain, that while on the one hand it might be only a few +weeks, it might on the other hand be for ever. The life of a young +English damsel, in a prim villa at Bayswater, with a very commonplace +mother and a practical stockbroking stepfather, is rather a narrow kind +of existence; and to such a damsel the stranger whose hand lifts the +curtain that shrouds new and brighter worlds is apt to become a very +important personage, especially when the stranger happens to be young +and handsome, and invested with that dash of Bohemianism which to +artless and sentimental girlhood has such a flavour of romance. + +Charlotte was very silent as she retraced her steps along the broad +gravel walk. As they drew near the Bayswater-gate she looked at her +watch. It was nearly one o'clock, and she had promised Mrs. Sheldon to +be home at one for luncheon, and afterwards shopping. + +"I'm afraid we must hurry home, Di," she said. + +"I am quite ready to go," answered Miss Paget promptly. "Good-bye, +Valentine." + +"Good-bye, Diana; good-bye, Miss Halliday." + +Mr. Hawkehurst shook hands with both young ladies; but shaking hands +with Charlotte was a very slow process compared to the same performance +with Diana. + +"Good-bye," he repeated, in a lingering tone; and then, after standing +for some moments silent and irresolute, with his hat in his hand, he +put it on suddenly and hurried away. + +The two girls had walked a few steps towards the gate when Charlotte +stopped before a stony-looking alcove, which happened at this +nursery-dinner-hour to be empty. + +"I'm so tired, Di," she said, and went into the alcove, where she sat +down to rest. She had a little veil attached to her turban hat--a +little veil which she now drew over her face. The tears gathered slowly +in her eyes and fell through that flimsy morsel of lace with which she +would fain have hidden her childish sorrow. The tears gathered and fell +on her lap as she sat in silence, pretending not to cry. This much rain +at least was there to justify her prediction, uttered in such foolish +gaiety of heart half an hour before. + +Miss Halliday's eyes were undimmed by tears? when she went back to the +gothic villa; but she had a feeling that some great sorrow had come +upon her--a vague idea that the last lingering warmth and brightness of +summer had faded all in a moment, and that chill gray winter had closed +in upon Bayswater without any autumnal interval. What was it that she +had lost? Only the occasional society of a young man with a handsome +pale face, a little haggard and wan from the effect of dissipated +habits and a previous acquaintance with care and difficulty--only the +society of a penniless Bohemian who had a certain disreputable +cleverness and a dash of gloomy sentimentality, which the schoolgirl +mistook for genius. But then he was the first man whose eyes had ever +softened with a mysterious tenderness as they looked at her--the first +whose voice had grown faintly tremulous when it syllabled her name. + +There was some allusion to Mr. Hawkehurst's departure in the course of +dinner, and Philip Sheldon expressed some surprise. + +"Going to leave town?" he said. + +"Yes, papa," Charlotte answered; "he is going a long way into the +country,--a hundred and fifty miles, he said." + +"Did he tell you where he was going?" + +"No; he seemed unwilling to mention the place. He only said something +about a hundred and fifty miles." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH. + + +Mr. Sheldon had occasion to see Captain Paget early the following day, +and questioned him closely about his _protege's_ movements. He had +found Valentine a very useful tool in sundry intricate transactions of +the commercial kind, and he expected his tools to be ready for his +service. He was therefore considerably annoyed by Valentine's abrupt +departure. + +"I think young Hawkehurst might have told me he was going out of town," +he said. "What the deuce has taken him off in such a hurry?" + +"He is going to see some mysterious old aunt at Dorking, from whom he +seems to expect money," the Captain answered carelessly. "I daresay I +can do what you want, Sheldon." + +"Very likely. But how comes that young fellow to have an aunt at +Dorking? I fancy I've heard him say he was without a relative or a +friend in the world--always excepting yourself." + +"The aunt may he another exception; some poor old soul that he's half +ashamed to own, I daresay--the inmate of an almshouse, perhaps. Val's +expectations may be limited to a few pounds hoarded in a china teapot." + +"I should have thought Hawkehurst the last man in the world to care +about looking after that sort of thing. I could have given him plenty +to do if he had stopped in town. He and my brother George are +uncommonly intimate, by the bye," added Mr. Sheldon meditatively. It +was his habit to be rather distrustful of his brother and of all his +brother's acquaintance. "I suppose you can give me Hawkehurst's +address, in case I should want to write to him?" he said. + +"He told me to send my letters to the post-office, Dorking," answered +the Captain, "which really looks as if the aunt's residence were +something in the way of an almshouse." + +No more was said about Valentine's departure. Captain Paget concluded +his business with his patron and departed, leaving the stockbroker +leaning forward upon his desk in a thoughtful attitude and scribbling +purposeless figures upon his blotting-paper. + +"There's something queer in this young man running away from town; +there's some mystification somewhere," he thought. "He has not gone to +Dorking, or he would scarcely have told Lotta that he was going a +hundred and fifty miles from town. He would be likely to be taken off +his guard by her questions, and would tell the truth. I wonder whether +Paget is in the secret. His manner seemed open enough; but that sort of +man can pretend anything. I've noticed that he and George have been +very confidential lately. I wonder whether there's any underhand game +on the cards between those two." + +The game of which Mr. Sheldon thought as he leant over his +blotting-paper was a very different kind of game from that which +really occupied the attention of George and his friend. + +"I'll go to his lodgings at once," he said to himself by-and-by, rising +and putting on his hat quickly in his eagerness to act upon his +resolution. "I'll see if he really has left town." + +The stockbroker hailed the first empty hansom to be seen in the crowded +thoroughfare from which his shady court diverged. In less than an hour +he alighted before the door of the house in which Captain Paget lodged. + +"Is Mr. Hawkehurst in?" he asked of the girl who admitted him. + +"No, sir; he's just left to go into the country. He hasn't been gone +ten minutes. You might a'most have met him." + +"Do you know where he has gone?" + +"I heard say it was Dorking, sir." + +"Humph! I should like to have seen him before he went. Did he take much +luggage?" + +"One portmanter, sir." + +"I suppose you didn't notice where he told the man to drive?" + +"Yes, sir; it was Euston-square." + +"Ah! Euston-square. I'll go there, then, on the chance of catching +him," said Mr. Sheldon. + +He bestowed a donation upon the domestic, reentered his hansom, and +told the man to drive to Euston-square "like a shot." + +"So! His destination is Dorking, and he goes from Euston-square!" +muttered Mr. Sheldon, in sombre meditation, as the hansom rattled and +rushed, and jingled and jolted, over the stones. "There's something +under the cards here." + +Arrived at the great terminus, the stockbroker made his way to the down +platform. There was a lull in the day's traffic, and only a few +listless wretches lounging disconsolately here and there, with eyes +ever and anon lifted to the clock. Amongst these there was no Valentine +Hawkehurst. + +Mr. Sheldon peered into all the waiting-rooms, and surveyed the +refreshment-counter; but there was still no sign of the man he sought. +He went back to the ticket-office; but here again all was desolate, the +shutters of the pigeon-holes hermetically closed, and no vestige of +Valentine Hawkehurst. + +The stockbroker was disappointed, but not defeated. He returned to the +platform, looked about him for a few moments, and then addressed +himself to a porter of intelligent aspect. + +"What trains have left here within the last half-hour?" he asked. + +"Only one, sir; the 2.15 down, for Manchester." + +"You didn't happen to notice a dark-eyed, dark-haired young man among +the passengers--second class?" asked Mr. Sheldon. + +"No, sir. There are always a good many passengers by that train; I +haven't time to notice their faces." + +The stockbroker asked no further questions. He was a man who did not +care to be obliged to others for information which he could obtain for +himself. He walked straight to a place where the time-tables were +pasted on the wall, and ran his finger along the figures till he came +to those he wanted. + +The 2.15 train was a fast train, which stopped at only four places-- +Rugby, Ullerton, Murford, and Manchester. + +"I daresay he has gone to Manchester," thought Mr. Sheldon--"on some +racing business most likely, which he wants to keep dark from his +patron the Captain. What a fool I am to trouble myself about him, as if +he couldn't stir without meaning mischief to me! But I don't understand +the friendship between him and George. My brother George is not likely +to take up any man without some motive." + +After these reflections Mr. Sheldon left the station and went back to +his office in another hansom, still extremely thoughtful and somewhat +disquieted. + +"What does it matter to me where they go or what they do?" he asked +himself, impatient of some lurking weakness of his own; "what does it +matter to me whether those two are friendly or unfriendly? They can do +me no harm." + +There happened to be a kind of lull in the stormy regions of the Stock +Exchange at the time of Valentine Hawkehurst's departure. Stagnation +had descended upon that commercial ocean, which is such a dismal waste +of waters for the professional speculator in its hour of calm. All the +Bulls in the zoological creation would have failed to elevate the +drooping stocks and shares and first-preference bonds and debentures, +which hung their feeble heads and declined day by day, the weaker of +them threatening to fade away and diminish to a vanishing-point, as it +seemed to some dejected holders who read the Stock-Exchange lists and +the money article in the Times with a persistent hopefulness which +struggled against the encroachments of despair. The Bears had been +busy, but were now idle--having burnt their fingers, commercial +gentlemen remarked. So Bulls and Bears alike hung listlessly about a +melancholy market, and conversed together dolefully in corners; and the +burden of all their lamentations was to the effect that there never had +been such times, and things never had been so bad, and it was a +question whether they would ever right themselves. Philip Sheldon +shared in the general depression. His face was gloomy, and his manner +for the time being lost something of its brisk, business-like +cheerfulness. The men who envied his better fortunes watched him +furtively when he showed himself amongst them, and wondered whether +Sheldon, of Jull, Girdlestone, and Sheldon, had been hit by these bad +times. + +It was not entirely the pressure of that commercial stagnation which +weighed on the spirits of Philip Sheldon. The stockbroker was tormented +by private doubts and uncertainties which had nothing to do with the +money-market. + +On the day after Valentine's journey to Ullerton, Mr. Sheldon the elder +presented himself at his brother's office in Gray's Inn. It was his +habit to throw waifs and strays of business in the attorney's way, and +to make use of him occasionally, though he had steadily refused to lend +or give him money; and it was big habit, as it were, to keep an eye +upon his younger brother--rather a jealous eye, which took note of all +George's doings, and kept suspicious watch upon all George's +associates. Going unannounced into his brother's office on this +particular morning, Philip Sheldon found him bending over an outspread +document--a great sheet of cartridge-paper covered with a net-work of +lines, dotted about with circles, and with little patches of writing in +red and black ink in the neatest possible penmanship. Mr. Sheldon the +elder, whose bright black eyes were as the eyes of the hawk, took note of +this paper, and had caught more than one stray word that stood out in +larger and bolder characters than its neighbours, before his brother could +fold it; for it is not an easy thing for a man to fold an elephantine +sheet of cartridge when he is nervously anxious to fold it quickly, and +is conscious that the eyes of an observant brother are upon him. + +Before George had mastered the folding of the elephantine sheet, Philip +had seen and taken note of two words. One of these was the word +INTESTATE, and the other the name HAYGARTH. + +"You seem in a great hurry to get that document out of the way," said +Philip, as he seated himself in the client's chair. + +"Well, to tell the truth, you rather startled me," answered George. "I +didn't know who it might be, you know; and I was expecting a fellow +who--" And then Mr. Sheldon the younger broke off abruptly, and asked, +with rather a suspicious air, "Why didn't that boy announce you?" + +"Because I wouldn't let him. Why should he announce me? One would think +you were carrying on some political conspiracy, George, and had a +modern Thistlewood gang hidden in that cupboard yonder. How thick you +and Hawkehurst are, by the bye!" + +In spite of the convenient "by the bye," this last remark of the +stockbroker's sounded rather irrelevant. + +"I don't know about being 'thick.' Hawkehurst seems a very decent young +fellow, and he and I get on pretty well together. But I'm not as +'thick' with him as I was with Tom Halliday." + +It was to be observed that Mr. Sheldon the younger was very apt to +refer to that friendship with the dead Yorkshireman in the course of +conversation with Philip. + +"Hawkehurst has just left town," said Philip indifferently. + +"Yes, I know he has." + +"When did you hear it?" + +"I saw him last night," answered George, taken off his guard by the +carelessness of his brother's manner. + +"Did you?" cried Mr. Sheldon. "You make a mistake there. He left town +at two o'clock yesterday." + +"How do you happen to know that?" asked George sharply. + +"Because I happened to be at the station and saw him take his ticket. +There's something underhand in that journey of his by the way; for +Paget told me he was going to Dorking. I suppose he and Paget have some +game of their own on the cards. I was rather annoyed by the young man's +departure, as I had some work for him. However, I can find plenty of +fellows to do it as well as Hawkehurst could have done." + +George was looking into an open drawer in his desk while his brother +said this. He had a habit of opening drawers and peering into them +absently during the progress of an interview, as if looking for some +particular paper, that was never to be found. + +After this the conversation became less personal. The brothers talked a +little of the events of the day, the money-article in that morning's +Times, the probability or improbability of a change in the rate of +discount. But this conversation soon flagged, and Mr. Sheldon rose to +depart. + +"I suppose that sheet of cartridge-paper which you had so much trouble +to fold is one of your genealogical tables," he said as he was going. +"You needn't try to keep things dark from me, George. I'm not likely to +steal a march upon you; my own business gives me more work than I can +do. But if you have really got a good thing at last, I shouldn't mind +going into it with you, and finding the money for the enterprise." + +George Sheldon looked at his elder brother with a malicious flitter in +his eyes. + +"On condition that you got the lion's share of the profits," he said. +"O yes; I know how generous you are, Phil. I have asked you for money +before today, and you have refused it." + +Mr. Sheldon's face darkened just a little at this point. "Your manner +of asking it was offensive," he said. + +"Well, I'm sorry for that," answered George politely. "However, you +refused me money when I did want it; so you needn't offer it me now I +don't want it. There are some people who think I have sacrificed my +life to a senseless theory; and perhaps you are one of them. But there +is one thing you may be certain of, Philip Sheldon: if ever I _do_ get +a good chance, I shall know how to keep it to myself." + +There are men skilled in the concealment of their feelings on all +ordinary occasions, who will yet betray themselves in a crisis of +importance. George Sheldon would fain have kept his project hidden from +his elder brother; but in this one unguarded moment he forgot himself, +and allowed the sense of triumph to irradiate his face. + +The stockbroker was a reader of men rather than books; and it is a +notable thing what superiority in all worldly wisdom is possessed by +men who eschew books. He was able to translate the meaning of George's +smile--a smile of mingled triumph and malice. + +"The fellow _has_ got a good thing," he thought to himself, "and +Hawkehurst is in it. It must be a deuced good thing too, or he wouldn't +refuse my offer of money." Mr. Sheldon was the last man in the world to +reveal any mortification which he might experience from his brother's +conduct. + +"Well, you're quite right to stick to your chance, George," he said, +with agreeable frankness. "You've waited long enough for it. As for me, +I've got my fingers in a good many pies just at present; so perhaps I +had better keep them out of yours, whatever plums there may be to be +picked out of it by an enterprising Jack Horner. Pick out your plums +for yourself, old fellow, and I'll be one of the first to call you a +good boy for your pains." + +With this Mr. Sheldon slapped his brother's shoulder and departed. + +"I think I've had the best of Master Phil for once," muttered George; +and then he thrust his sinewy hands into the depths of his +trousers-pocket, and indulged in a silent laugh, which displayed his +strong square white teeth to perfection. "I flatter myself I took a +rise out of Phil to-day," he muttered. + +The sense of a malicious triumph over a social enemy is a very +delightful kind of thing,--so delightful that a man is apt to ignore +the possible cost of the enjoyment. It is like the pleasure of kicking +a man who is down--very delicious in its way; only one never knows how +soon the man may be up again. + +George Sheldon, who was tolerably skilled in the science of human +nature, should have known that "taking a rise" out of his brother was +likely to be a rather costly operation. Philip was not the safest man +to deal with at any time; but he was most dangerous when he was +"jolly." + + + + + +BOOK THE FOURTH. + + +VALENTINE HAWKEHURST'S RECORD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE OLDEST INHABITANT. + + +Black Swan Inn, Ullerton, October 2nd. + +As the work I am now employed in is quite new to me, and I am to keep +Sheldon posted up in this business day by day, I have decided on +jotting down the results of my inquiries in a kind of diary. Instead of +writing my principal a formal letter, I shall send a copy of the +entries in the diary, revised and amended. This will insure exactitude; +and there is just the possibility that the record may be useful to me +hereafter. To remember all I hear and pick up about these departed +Haygarths without the aid of pen and ink would be out of the question; +so I mean to go in for unlimited pen and ink like a hero, not to say a +martyr. + +And I am to do all this for twenty shillings a week, and the remote +possibility of three thousand pounds! O genius, genius! in all the +markets of this round world is there no better price for you than that? + +How sweetly my Charlotte looked at me yesterday, when I told her I was +going away! If I could have dared to kneel at her feet under those +whispering elms,--unconscious of the children, unconscious of the +nursemaids,--if I could have dared to cry aloud to her, "I am a +penniless reprobate, but I love you; I am a disreputable pauper, but I +adore you! Have pity upon my love and forget my worthlessness!" If I +could have dared to carry her away from her prim suburban home and that +terrible black-whiskered stockbroking stepfather! But how is a man to +carry off the woman he adores when he has not the _de quoi_ for the +first stage of the journey? + +With three thousand pounds in my pocket, I think I could dare anything. +Three thousand pounds! One year of splendour and happiness, and then-- +the rest is chaos! + +I have seen the oldest inhabitant. _Ay de mi_! Sheldon did not +exaggerate the prosiness of that intolerable man. I thought of the +luckless wedding guest in Coleridge's grim ballad as I sat listening to +this modern-ancient mariner. I had to remind myself of all the bright +things to be bought for three thousand pounds, every now and then, in +order to endure with fortitude, if not serenity. And now the day's work +is done, I begin to think it might as well have been left undone. How +am I to disintegrate the mass of prosiness which I have heard this day? +For three mortal hours did I listen to my ancient mariner; and how much +am I the wiser for my patience? Clever as you may fancy yourself, my +friend Hawkehurst, you don't seem to be the man for this business. +You have not the legal mind. Your genius is not the genius of +Scotland-yard, and I begin to fear that in your new line you may prove +yourself a failure. + +However, where all is dark to me the astute Sheldon may see daylight, +so I'll observe the letter of my bond, and check off the residuum of +the ancient mariner's prosiness. + +By dint of much pumping I obtained from my ancient, first, his father's +recollections of Matthew Haygarth a few years before his death, and +secondly, his grandfather's recollections of Matthew in his wild youth. +It seems that in those last years of his life Matthew was a most sober +and estimable citizen; attended the chapel of a nonconforming sect; +read the works of Baxter, and followed in the footsteps of his departed +father; was a kind husband to a woman who appears to me to have been +rather a pragmatical and icy personage, but who was esteemed a model of +womanly virtue, and who had money. Strange that these respectable and +wealthy citizens should be so eager to increase their store by alliance +with respectable and wealthy citizenesses. + +In his later years Matthew Haygarth seems to have imitated his father +in many respects. Like his father, he executed more than one will; and, +like his father, he died intestate. The lawyer who drew up his will on +more than one occasion was a man called Brice--like his client, +eminently respectable. + +After his marriage, our esteemed Matthew retired to a modest mansion in +the heart of the country, and some ten or fifteen miles from Ullerton. +The mansion in question is at a place called Dewsdale, and was the +property of the wife, and accrued to him through her. + +This house and estate of some thirty acres was afterwards sold by the +rev. intestate, John Haygarth, shortly after his coming of age, and +within a year of his mother's death. + +This much and no more could I extort from the oldest inhabitant +relative to the latter days of our Matthew. + +Respecting his wild youth I obtained the following crumbs of +enlightenment. In the year 1741-2, being then one-and-twenty years of +age, he left Ullerton. It is my ancient mariner's belief that he ran +away from home, after some desperate quarrel with his father; and it is +also the belief of my ancient that he stayed away, without +intermission, for twenty years,--though on what precise fact that +belief is founded is much more than I can extract from the venerable +proser. + +My ancient suggests--always in the haziest and most impracticable +manner--the possibility that Matthew in his wild days lodged somewhere +Clerkenwell way. He has a dim idea that he has heard his grandfather +speak of St. John's-gate, Clerkenwell, in connection with Matthew +Haygarth; but, as my ancient's grandfather seems to have been almost +imbecile at the time he made such remarks, _this_ is not much. + +He has another idea--also very vague and impracticable--of having heard +his grandfather say something about an adventure of Matthew Haygarth's, +which was rather a heroic affair in its way--an adventure in which, in +some inexplicable manner, the wild Matthew is mixed up with a +dancing-girl, or player-girl, of Bartholomew Fair, and a nobleman. + +This is the sum-total of the information to be extracted in three +mortal hours from my ancient. Altogether the day has been very +unsatisfactory; and I begin to think I'm not up to the sort of work +required of me. _Oct. 3rd._ Another long interview with my ancient. I +dropped in directly after my breakfast, and about an hour after his +dinner. I sat up late last night, occupied till nearly ten in copying +my diary for Sheldon--which was just in time for the London post--and +lingering over my cigar till past midnight, thinking of Charlotte. So I +was late this morning. + +My ancient received me graciously. I took him half a pound of mild +bird's-eye tobacco, on diplomatic grounds. He is evidently the sort of +person who would receive Mephistopheles graciously, if the fiend +presented him with tobacco. + +I returned to the charge--diplomatically, of course; talked about +Ullerton and Ullerton people in general, insinuating occasional +questions about the Haygarths. I was rewarded by obtaining some little +information about Mrs. Matthew. That lady appears to have been a +devoted disciple of John Wesley, and was fonder of travelling to divers +towns and villages to hear the discourses of that preacher than her +husband approved. It seems they were wont to disagree upon this +subject. + +For some years before her marriage Mrs. Matthew was a member of a +Wesleyan confraternity, in those days newly established at Ullerton. +They held meetings and heard sermons in the warehouse of a wealthy +draper; and shortly before Mrs. Matthew's demise they built a chapel, +still extant, in a dingy little thoroughfare known as Waterhouse-lane. + +On these points my ancient mariner is tolerably clear. They belong to +the period remembered by his father. + +And now I believe him to be pumped dry. I gave him my benediction, and +left him smoking some of my tobacco, content with himself and with the +world--always excepting the authorities, or board, of the almshouses, +against whom he appears to nourish a grievance. + +After leaving him, I walked about Ullerton for an hour or so before +returning to my humble hostelry. The streets of Ullerton are sealed +with the seal of desolation--the abomination of desolation reigns in +the market-place, where the grass flourishes greenly in the interstices +of the pavement. The place has known prosperity, and is prosperous no +longer; but although its chief trade has left it, there are still some +three or four factories in full swing. I heard clanging bells, and +met bare-headed women and uncouth-looking men hurrying to and fro. +I went to look at the Wesleyan chapel in Waterhouse-lane. It is a +queer little building, and bears some resemblance to a toy Noah's Ark +in red brick. Tall warehouses have arisen about it and hemmed it in, +and the slim chimney-shaft of a waterworks throws a black shadow aslant +its unpretending facade. I inquired the name of the present minister. +He is called Jonah Goodge, began life as a carpenter, and is accounted +the pink and pattern of piety. _Oct. 4th_. A letter from Sheldon awaited +me in the coffee-room letter-rack when I went downstairs to breakfast. + +"MY DEAR HAWKEHURST,--Don't be disheartened if the work seems slow at +first. You'll soon get used to it. + +"I should recommend you to adopt the following tactics: + +"1st. Go to the house at Dewsdale, inhabited by M.H. and his wife. You +may have some difficulty in obtaining admission--and full liberty to +explore and examine--from the present servant or owner; but you are not +the man I take you for if you cannot overcome such a difficulty. I +enclose a few of my cards, which you can use at your discretion. They +show professional status. It would be as well to call yourself my +articled clerk, and to state that you are prosecuting an inquiry on the +behalf of a client of mine, who wishes to prove a certain event in the +past connected remotely with the H. family. If asked whether your +business relates to the property left by the rev. intestate, you must +reply decisively in the negative. But I must remind you that extreme +caution is required in every move you make. Wherever you can do your +work _without_ any reference to the name of Haygarth, avoid such +reference. Always remember that there may be other people on the same +scent. + +"2nd. Examine the house in detail; look for old pictures, old +furniture, old needlework--if you are lucky enough to find the Haygarth +furniture was sold with the property, which I should think probable. +The rev. intestate must have been at the University when he made the +sale; and a young Cantab would in all likelihood pass over his +ancestral chairs and tables to the purchaser of his ancestral mansion, +as so much useless lumber. It is proverbial that walls have ears. I +hope the Dewsdale walls may have tongues, and favour you with a little +information. + +"3rd. When you have done all that is to be done at Dewsdale, your next +work must be to hunt up any scion of the lawyer Brice, if such scion be +in existence at Ullerton. Or if not to be found in Ullerton, ascertain +where the descendant, or decendants, of Brice is, or are, to be found. +Brice, the lawyer, must have known the contents of those wills executed +and afterwards destroyed by Haygarth, and may have kept rough draughts, +copies, or memoranda of the same. This is most important.--Yours truly, +G.S." + +This Sheldon is a wonderful man, and a cautious!--no Signature to his +letter. + +I started for Dewidale immediately after my breakfast. I have made +arrangements for boarding in this house, which is a second-rate +commercial inn. They have agreed to give me board and lodging for +twenty shillings a week--the full amount of my stipend: so all that I +gain by my researches in the affairs of the departed Matthew is food +and shelter. However, as this food and shelter is perhaps more honestly +obtained than those little dinners which I have so often eaten with the +great Horatio, I will try to fancy a sweetness in the tough steaks and +greasy legs of mutton. O sheep of Midlandshire! why cultivate such +ponderous calves, and why so incline to sinews? O cooks of +Midlandshire! why so superficial in the treatment of your roasts, so +impetuous and inconsiderate when you boil? + +A railroad now penetrates the rural district in which the village of +Dewsdale is situated. There is a little station, something like a +wooden Dutch oven, within a mile of the village; and here I alighted. +The morning savoured of summer rather than autumn. The air was soft and +balmy, the sunshine steeped the landscape in warm light, and the red +and golden tints of the fading foliage took new splendour from that +yellow sunshine. A man whose life is spent in cities must be dull of +soul indeed if he does not feel a little touched by the beauty of +rustic scenery, when he finds himself suddenly in the heart of the +country. I had seen nothing so fair as those English fields and copses +since I left the pine-clad hills of Foretdechene. An idiotic boy +directed me across some fields to Dewsdale. He sent me a mile out of +the way; but I forgave and blest him, for I think the walk did me good. +I felt as if all manner of vicious vapours were being blown out of my +head as the soft wind lifted my hair. + +And so to Dewsdale. Strolling leisurely through those quiet meadows, I +fell to thinking of many things that seldom came into my mind in +London. I thought of my dead mother--a poor gentle creature--too frail +to carry heroically the burden laid upon her, and so a little soured by +chronic debt and difficulty. I have reason to remember her tenderly; we +shared so much misery together. I believe my father married her in the +Rules of the Bench; and if I am not sure upon this point, I know for a +certainty that I was born within those mystic boundaries. + +And then my mind wandered to those nomadic adventures in which poor +Diana Paget and I were so much together. I think we were a little fond +of each other in those days; but in that matter I was at least prudent; +and now the transient fancy has faded, on Di's part as well as on mine. + +If I could be as prudent where Charlotte H. is concerned! + +But prudence and Charlotte's eyes cannot hold their own in the same +brain. Of two things, one, as our neighbours say: a man must cease to +be prudent, or he must forget those bewitching gray eyes. + +I know she was sorry when she heard of my intended departure. + +This is her birthday. She is twenty-one years of age to-day. I remember +the two girls talking of it, and Miss Halliday declaring herself "quite +old." My dear one, I drink your health in this poor tavern liquor, with +every tender wish and holy thought befitting your innocent girlhood! + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE. + + +I found the house at Dewsdale without difficulty. It is a stiff, +square, red-brick dwelling-place, with long narrow windows, a high +narrow door, and carved canopy; a house which savours of the _Tatler_ +and _Spectator_; a house in which the short-faced gentleman might have +spent his summer holidays after Sir Roger's death. It stands behind a +high iron gate, surmounted by a handsome coat of arms; and before it +there lies a pleasant patch of greensward, with a pond and a colony of +cackling geese, which craned their necks and screamed at me as I passed +them. + +The place is the simplest and smallest of rural villages. There is a +public-house--the Seven Stars; a sprinkling of humble cottages; a +general shop, which is at once a shoemaker's, a grocer's, a +linen draper's, a stationer's, and a post office. These habitations, a +gray old church with a square tower, half hidden by the sombre foliage +of yews and cedars, and the house once inhabited by the Haygarths, +comprise the whole of the village. The Haygarthian household is now the +rectory. I ascertained this fact from the landlord of the Seven Stars, +at which house of entertainment I took a bottle of soda-water, in order +to _sonder le terrain_ before commencing business. + +The present rector is an elderly widower with seven children; an easy +good-natured soul, who is more prone to bestow his money in charity +than to punctuality in the payment of his debts. + +Having discovered thus much, I rang the bell at the iron gate and +boarded the Haygarthian mansion. The rector was at home, and received +me in a very untidy apartment, _par excellence_ a study. A boy in a +holland blouse was smearing his face with his inky fingers, and +wrestling with a problem in Euclid, while his father stood on a +step-ladder exploring a high shelf of dusty books. + +The rector, whose name is Wendover, descended from the step-ladder and +shook the dust from his garments. He is a little withered old man, with +a manner so lively as to be on the verge of flightiness. I observed +that he wiped his dusty palms on the skirts of his coat, and argued +therefrom that he would be an easy person to deal with. I soon found +that my deduction was correct. + +I presented Sheldon's card and stated my business, of course acting on +that worthy's advice. Could Mr. Wendover give me any information +relating to the Haygarth family? + +Fortune favoured me throughout this Dewsdale expedition. The rector is +a simple garrulous old soul, to whom to talk is bliss. He has occupied +the house five-and-thirty years. He rents it of the lord of the manor, +who bought it from John Haygarth. Not a stick of furniture has been +removed since our friend Matthew's time; and the rev. intestate may +have wrestled with the mysteries of Euclid on the same old-fashioned +mahogany table at which I saw the boy in brown holland. + +Mr. Wendover left his books and manuscripts scattered on the floor of +the study, and conducted me to a cool shady drawing-room, very +shabbily furnished with the spindle-legged chairs and tables of the +last century. Here he begged me to be seated, and here we were ever and +anon interrupted by intruding juveniles, the banging of doors, and the +shrill clamour of young voices in the hall and garden. + +I brought all the diplomacy of which I am master to bear in my long +interview with the rector; and the following is a transcript of our +conversation, after a good deal of polite skirmishing:-- + +_Myself_. You see, my dear sir, the business I am concerned in is +remotely connected with these Haygarths. Any information you will +kindly afford me, however apparently trivial, may be of service in the +affair I am prosecuting. + +_The Rector._ To be sure, to be sure! But, you see, though I've heard a +good deal of the Haygarths, it is all gossip--the merest gossip. People +are so fond of gossip, you know--especially country people: I have no +doubt you have remarked that. Yes, I have heard a great deal about +Matthew Haygarth. My late clerk and sexton,--a very remarkable man, +ninety-one when he died, and able to perform his duties very creditably +within a year of his death--very creditably; but the hard winter of '56 +took him off, poor fellow, and now I have a young man. Old Andrew Hone +--that was my late clerk's name--was employed in this house when a lad, +and was very fond of talking about Matthew Haygarth and his wife. She +was a rich woman, you know, a very rich woman--the daughter of a brewer +at Ullerton; and this house belonged to her--inherited from her +father. + +_Myself_. And did you gather from your clerk that Matthew Haygarth and +his wife lived happily together? + +_The Rector_. Well, yes, yes: I never +heard anything to the contrary. They were not a young couple, you know. +Rebecca Caulfield was forty years of age, and Matthew Haygarth was +fifty-three when he married; so, you see, one could hardly call it a +love-match. [_Abrupt inroad of bouncing damsel, exclaiming "Pa!"_] +Don't you see I'm engaged, Sophia Louisa? Why are you not at your +practice? [_Sudden retreat of bouncing damsel, followed by the +scrambling performance of scale of C major in adjoining chamber, which +performance abruptly ceases after five minutes_.] You see Mrs. +Haygarth was _not_ young, as I was about to observe when my daughter +interrupted us; and she was perhaps a little more steadfast in her +adherence to the newly arisen sect of Wesleyans than was pleasing to +her husband, although he consented to become a member of that sect. But +as their married life lasted only a year, they had little time for +domestic unhappiness, even supposing them not to be adapted to each +other. + +_Myself_. Mrs Matthew Haygarth did not marry again? + +_The Rector_. No; she devoted herself to the education of her son, and +lived and died in this house. The room which is now my study she +furnished with a small reading-desk and a couple of benches, now in my +nursery, and made it into a kind of chapel, in which the keeper of the +general shop--who was, I believe, considered a shining light amongst +the Wesleyan community--was in the habit of holding forth every Sunday +morning to such few members of that sect as were within reach of +Dewsdale. She died when her son was nineteen years of age, and was +buried in the family vault in the churchyard yonder. Her son's +adherence to the Church of England was a very great trouble to her. +[_Inroad of boy in holland, very dejected and inky of aspect, also +exclaiming "Pa!"_] No, John; not till that problem is worked out. Take +that cricket-bat back to the lobby, sir, and return to your studies. +[_Sulky withdrawal of boy._] You see what it is to have a large family, +Mr.--Sheldon. I beg pardon, Mr.------ + +_Myself_. Hawkehurst, clerk to Mr. Sheldon. + +_The Rector_. To be sure. I have some thoughts of the Law for one of my +elder sons; the Church is terribly overcrowded. However, as I was on +the point of saying when my boy John disturbed us, though I have heard +a great deal of gossip about the Haygarths, I fear I can give you very +little substantial information. Their connection with Dewsdale lasted +little more than twenty years. Matthew Haygarth was married in Dewsdale +church, his son John was christened in Dewsdale church, and he himself +is buried in the churchyard. That is about as much positive information +as I can give you; and you will perhaps remark that the parish register +would afford you as much. After questioning the good-natured old rector +rather closely, and obtaining little more than the above information, I +asked permission to see the house. + +"Old furniture and old pictures are apt to be suggestive," I said; "and +perhaps while we are going over the house you may happen to recall some +further particulars relating to the Haygarth family." + +Mr. Wendover assented. He was evidently anxious to oblige me, and +accepted my explanation of my business in perfect good faith. He +conducted me from room to room, waiting patiently while I scrutinised +the panelled walls and stared at the attenuated old furniture. I was +determined to observe George Sheldon's advice to the very letter, +though I had little hope of making any grand melodramatic discovery in +the way of documents hidden in old cabinets, or mouldering behind +sliding panels. + +I asked the rector if he had ever found papers of any kind in forgotten +nooks and corners of the house or the furniture. His reply was a +decided negative. He had explored and investigated every inch of the +old dwelling-place, and had found nothing. + +So much for Sheldon's idea. + +Mr. Wendover led me from basement to garret, encountering bouncing +daughters and boys in brown holland wherever we went; and from basement +to garret I found that all was barren. In the whole of the house there +was but one object which arrested my attention, and the interest which +that one object aroused in my mind had no relation to the Haygarthian +fortune. + +Over a high carved chimney-piece in one of the bedchambers there hung a +little row of miniatures--old-fashioned oval miniatures, pale and +faded--pictures of men and women with the powdered hair of the Georgian +period, and the flowing full-bottomed wigs familiar to St. James's and +Tunbridge-wells in the days of inoffensive Anne. There were in all +seven miniatures, six of which specimens of antique portraiture were +prim and starched and artificial of aspect. But the seventh was +different in form and style: it was the picture of a girlish face +looking out of a frame of loose unpowdered locks; a bright innocent +face, with gray eyes and marked black eyebrows, pouting lips a little +parted, and white teeth gleaming between lips of rosy red; such a face +as one might fancy the inspiration of an old poet. I took the miniature +gently from the little brass hook on which it hung, and stood for some +time looking at the bright frank face. + +It was the picture of Charlotte Halliday. Yes; I suppose there is a +fatality in these things. It was one of those marvellous accidental +resemblances which every man has met with in the course of his life. +Here was this dead-and-gone beauty of the days of George the Second +smiling upon me with the eyes and lips of Philip Sheldon's +stepdaughter! + +Or was it only a delusion of my own? Was my mind so steeped in the +thought of that girl--was my heart so impressed by her beauty, that I +could not look upon a fair woman's face without conjuring up her +likeness in the pictured countenance? However this may be, I looked +long and tenderly at the face which seemed to me to resemble the woman +I love. + +Of course I questioned the rector as to the original of this particular +miniature. He could tell me nothing about it, except that he thought it +was not one of the Caulfields or Haygarths. The man in the +full-bottomed Queen-Anne wig was Jeremiah Caulfield, brewer, father +of the pious Rebecca; the woman with the high powdered head was the +pious Rebecca herself; the man in the George-the-Second wig was +Matthew Haygarth. The other three were kindred of Rebecca's. But the +wild-haired damsel was some unknown creature, for whose presence Mr. +Wendover was unable to account. + +I examined the frame of the miniature, and found that it opened at the +back. Behind the ivory on which the portrait was painted there was a +lock of dark hair incased in crystal; and on the inside of the case, +which was of some worthless metal gilded, there was scratched the name +"Molly." + +How this Molly with the loose dark locks came to be admitted among the +prim, and pious Caulfields is certainly more than I can understand. + +My exploration of the house having resulted only in this little +romantic accident of the likeness to Charlotte, I prepared to take my +departure, no wiser than when I had first crossed the threshold. The +rector very politely proposed to show me the church; and as I +considered that it would be well to take a copy of the Haygarthian +entries in the register, I availed myself of his offer. He despatched a +maid-servant to summon his clerk, in order that that functionary might +assist in the investigation of the registers. The girl departed on this +errand, while her master conducted me across his garden, in which there +is now a gate opening into the churchyard. + +It is the most picturesque of burial-grounds, darkened by the shadow of +those solemn yews and spreading cedars. We walked very slowly between +the crumbling old tombstones, which have almost all grown one-sided +with time. Mr. Wendover led me through a little labyrinth of lowly +graves to a high and ponderous iron railing surrounding a square space, +in the midst of which there is a stately stone monument. In the railing +there is a gate, from which a flight of stone step leads down to the +door of a vault. It is altogether rather a pretentious affair, wherein +one sees the evidence of substantial wealth unelevated by artistic +grace or poetic grandeur. + +This is the family vault of the Caulfields and Haygarths. + +"I've brought you to look at this tomb," said the rector, resting his +hand upon the rusted railing, "because there is rather a romantic story +connected with it--a story that concerns Matthew Haygarth, by the bye. +I did not think of it just now, when we were talking of him; but it +flashed on my memory as we came through the garden. It is rather a +mysterious affair; and though it is not very likely to have any bearing +upon the object of your inquiry, I may as well tell you about it,--as a +leaf out of family history, you know, Mr. Hawkehurst, and as a new +proof of the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction." + +I assured the rector that I should be glad to hear anything he could +tell me. + +"I must premise that I only tell the story as I got it from my old +clerk, and that it may therefore seem rather indistinct; but there is +an entry in the register yonder to show that it is not without +foundation. However, I will waste no more words in preamble, but give +you the story, which is simply this:"-- + +The rector seated himself on a dilapidated old tombstone, while I +leaned against the rails of the Haygarth vault, looking down upon him. + +"Within a month or two of Matthew Haygarth's death a kind of melancholy +came over him," said the rector. "Whether he was unhappy with his wife, +or whether he felt his health declining, is more than I can say. You +must remember that my informant was but a lad at the time of which I +speak, and that when he talked to me about the subject sixty years +afterwards he was a very old man, and his impressions were therefore +more or less vague. But upon certain facts he was sufficiently +positive; and amongst the circumstances he remembered most vividly are +those of the story I am going to tell you. + +"It seems that within a very few weeks of Matthew's death, his wife, +Rebecca Haygarth, started on an expedition to the north, in the company +of an uncle, to hear John Wesley preach on some very special occasion, +and to assist at a love-feast. She was gone more than a fortnight; and +during her absence Matthew Haygarth mounted his horse early one morning +and rode away from Dewsdale. + +"His household consisted of three maids, a man, and the lad Andrew +Hone, afterwards my sexton. Before departing on his journey Mr. +Haygarth had said that he would not return till late the next evening, +and had requested that only the man (whose name I forget) should sit up +for him." He was punctiliously obeyed. The household, always of early +habits, retired at nine, the accustomed hour; and the man-servant +waited to receive his master, while the lad Andrew, who slept in the +stables, sat up to keep his fellow-servant company. + +"At ten o'clock Mr. Haygarth came home, gave his horse into the charge +of the lad, took his candle from the man-servant, and walked straight +upstairs, as if going to bed. The man-servant locked the doors, took +his master the key, and then went to his own quarters. The boy remained +up to feed and groom the horse, which had the appearance of having +performed a hard day's work. + +"He had nearly concluded this business when he was startled by the +slamming of the back door opening into the courtyard, in which were the +stables and outhouses. Apprehending thieves, the boy opened the door of +the stable and looked out, doubtless with considerable caution. + +"It was broad moonlight, and he saw at a glance that the person who had +opened the door was one who had a right to open it. Matthew Haygarth +was crossing the courtyard as the lad peeped out. He wore a long black +cloak, and his head drooped upon his breast as if he had been in +dejection. The lad--being, I suppose, inquisitive, after the manner of +country lads--made no more ado, but left his unfinished work and crept +stealthily after his master, who came straight to this churchyard,-- +indeed to this very spot on which we are now standing. + +"On this spot the boy Andrew Hone became the secret witness of a +strange scene. He saw an open grave close against the rails yonder, and +he saw a little coffin lowered silently into that grave by the sexton +of that time and a strange man, who afterwards went away in a mourning +coach, which was in waiting at the gate, and in which doubtless the +stranger and the little coffin had come. + +"Before the man departed he assisted to fill up the grave; and when it +was filled Matthew Haygarth gave money to both the men--gold it seemed +to the lad Andrew, and several pieces to each person. The two men then +departed, but Mr. Haygarth still lingered. + +"As soon as he fancied himself alone, he knelt down beside the little +grave, covered his face with his hands, and either wept or prayed, +Andrew Hone could not tell which. If he wept, he wept silently. + +"From that night, my sexton said, Matthew Haygarth faded visibly. +Mistress Rebecca came home from her love-feast, and nursed and tended +her husband with considerable kindness, though, so far as I can make +out, she was at the best a stern woman. He died three weeks after the +event which I have described, and was buried in that vault close to the +little grave." I thanked Mr. Wendover for his succinct narrative, and +apologised for the trouble I had occasioned him. + +"Do not speak of the trouble," he answered kindly; "I am used to +telling that story. I have heard it a great many times from poor old +Andrew, and I have told it a great many times." + +"The story has rather a legendary tone," I said; "I should have +scarcely thought such a thing possible." + +The rector shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating gesture. + +"In our own day," he replied, "such an occurrence would be almost +impossible; but you must remember that we are talking of the last +century--a century in which, I regret to say, the clergy of the Church +of England were sadly lax in the performance of their duties. The +followers of Wesley and Whitefield could scarcely have multiplied as +they did if the flocks had not been cruelly neglected by their proper +shepherds. It was a period in which benefices were bestowed constantly +on men obviously unfitted for the holy office--men who were gamblers +and drunkards, patrons of cock-pits, and in many cases open and +shameless reprobates. In such an age almost anything was possible; and +this midnight and unhallowed interment may very well have taken place +either with the consent or without the knowledge of the incumbent, who, +I am told, bore no high character for piety or morality." + +"And you say there is an entry in the register?" + +"Yes, a careless scrawl, dated Sept. 19th, 1774, recording the burial +of one Matthew Haygarth, aged four years, removed from the +burial-ground attached to the parish church of Spotswold." + +"Then it was a reinterment?" + +"Evidently." + +"And is Spotswold in this county?" + +"Yes; it is a very small village, about fifty miles from here." + +"And Matthew Haygarth died very soon after this event?" + +"He did. He died very suddenly--with an awful suddenness--and died +intestate. His widow was left the possessor of great wealth, which +increased in the hands of her son John Haygarth, a very prudent and +worthy gentleman, and a credit to the Church of which he was a member. +He only died very lately, I believe, and must therefore have attained a +great age." + +It is quite evident that Mr. Wendover had not seen the advertisement in +the Times, and was ignorant of the fact that the accumulated wealth of +Haygarths and Caulfields is now waiting a claimant. + +I asked permission to see the register containing the entry of the +mysterious interment; and after the administration of a shilling to the +clerk--a shilling at Dewsdale being equal to half a crown in London-- +the vestry cupboard was opened by that functionary, and the book I +required was produced from a goodly pile of such mouldy brown +leather-bound volumes. + +The following is a copy of the entry:-- + +"On Thursday last past, being ye 19 Sep'tr, A.D. 1774, was interr'd ye +bodie off onne Matthewe Haygarthe, ag'd foure yeres, remoov'd fromm ye +Churcheyarde off St. Marie, under ye hil, Spotswolde, in this Co. Pade +forr so doeing, sevven shill." + +After having inspected the register, I asked many further questions, +but without eliciting much further information. So I expressed my +thanks for the courtesy that had been shown me, and took my departure, +not wishing to press the matter so closely as to render myself a +nuisance to the worthy Wendover, and bearing in mind that it would be +open to me to return at any future time. + +And now I ask myself--and I ask the astute Sheldon--what is the meaning +of this mysterious burial, and is it likely to have any bearing on the +object of our search? These are questions for the consideration of the +astute S. + +I spent my evening in jotting down the events of the day, in the above +free-and-easy fashion for my own guidance, and in a more precise and +business-like style for my employer. I posted my letter before ten +o'clock, the hour at which the London mail is made up, and then smoked +my cigar in the empty streets, overshadowed by gaunt square stacks of +building and tall black chimneys; and so back to my inn, where I took a +glass of ale and another cigar, and then to bed, as the worthy Pepys +might have concluded. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. GOODGE'S WISDOM. + + +_Oct. 5th_. My dreams last night were haunted by the image of gray-eyed +Molly, with her wild loose hair. She must needs have been a sweet +creature; and how she came amongst those prim fishy-eyed men and women +with absurd head-gear is much more than I can understand. That she +should mix herself up with Diana Paget, and play _rouge-et-noir_ at +Foretdechene in a tucked-up chintz gown and a quilted satin petticoat, +in my dreams last night--that I should meet her afterwards in the +little stucco temple on the Belgian hills, and stab her to the heart, +whereon she changed into Charlotte Halliday--is only in the nature of +dreams, and therefore no subject for wonder. + +On referring to Sheldon's letter I found that the next people to be +looked up were descendants of Brice the lawyer; so I devoted my +breakfast-hour to the cultivation of an intimacy with the oldest of the +waiters--a very antique specimen of his brotherhood, with a white +stubble upon his chin and a tendency to confusion of mind in the matter +of forks and spoons. + +"Do you know, or have you ever known, an attorney of the name of Brice +in this town?" I asked him. + +He rubbed the white stubble contemplatively with his hand, and then +gave his poor old head a dejected shake. I felt at once that I should +get very little good out of _him_. + +"No," he murmured despondently, "not that I can call to mind." + +I should like to know what he _could_ call to mind, piteous old +meanderer! + +"And yet you belong to Ullerton, I suppose?" + +"Yes; and have belonged to it these seventy-five years, man and boy;" +whereby, no doubt, the dreary confusion of the unhappy being's mind. +Figurez donc, mon cher. Qui-que-ce-soit, fifty-five years or so of +commercial breakfasts and dinners in such a place as Ullerton! +Five-and-fifty years of steaks and chops; five-and-fifty years of ham +and eggs, indifferently buttered toasts, and perennial sixes of +brandy-and-water! After rambling to and fro with spoons and forks, and +while in progress of clearing my table, and dropping the different +items of my breakfast equipage, the poor soddened faded face of this +dreary wanderer became suddenly illumined with a faint glimmer that was +almost the light of reason. + +"There were a Brice in Ullerton when I were a lad; I've heard father +tell on him," he murmured slowly. + +"An attorney?" + +"Yes. He were a rare wild one, he were! It was when the Prince of Wales +were Regent for his poor old mad father, as the saying is, and folks +was wilder like in general in those times, and wore spencers--lawyer +Brice wore a plum-coloured one." + +Imagine then again, mon cher, an attorney in a plum-coloured spencer! +Who, in these enlightened days, would trust his business to such a +practitioner? I perked up considerably, believing that my aged imbecile +was going to be of real service to me. + +"Yes, he were a rare wild one, he were," said my ancient friend with +excitement. "I can remember him as well as if it was yesterday, at +Tiverford races--there was races at Tiverford in those days, and +gentlemen jocks. Lawyer Brice rode his roan mare--Queen Charlotte they +called her. But after that he went wrong, folks said--speckilated with +some money, you see, that he didn't ought to have touched--and went to +America, and died." "Died in America, did he? Why the deuce couldn't he +die in Ullerton? I should fancy it was a pleasanter place to die in +than it is to live in. And how about his sons?" + +"Lawyer Brice's sons?" + +"Yes, of course." + +My imbecile's lips expanded into a broad grin. + +"Lawyer Brice never had no sons," he exclaimed, with a tone which +seemed to express a contemptuous pity for my ignorance; "he never +married." + +"Well, well; his brothers. He had brothers, I suppose?" + +"Not as _I_ ever heard tell on," answered my imbecile, relapsing into +hopeless inanity. + +It was clear that no further help was to be obtained from him. I went +to the landlord--a brisk business-like individual of Transatlantic +goaheadism. From him I learned that there were no Brices in Ullerton, +and never had been within the thirty years of his experience in that +town. He gave me an Ullerton directory in confirmation of that fact--a +neat little shilling volume, which I begged leave to keep for a quarter +of an hour before returning it. + +Brice was evidently a failure. I turned to the letter G, and looked up +the name of Goodge. Goodge, Jonah, minister of Beulah Chapel, resided +at No. 7, Waterhouse-lane--the lane in which I had seen the chapel. + +I determined upon waiting on the worthy Goodge. He may be able to +enlighten me as to the name of the pastor who preached to the Wesleyan +flock in the time of Rebecca Caulfield; and from the descendants of +such pastor I may glean some straws and shreds of information. The +pious Rebecca would have been likely to confide much to her spiritual +director. The early Wesleyans had all the exaltation of the Quietists, +and something of the lunatic fervour of the Convulsionists, who kicked +and screamed themselves into epilepsy under the influence of the +Unigenitus Bull. The pious Rebecca was no doubt an enthusiast. + + * * * * * + +I found No. 7, Waterhouse-lane. It is a neat little six-roomed house, +with preternaturally green palings enclosing about sixty square feet of +bright yellow gravel, adorned by a row of whitewashed shells. Some +scarlet geraniums bloomed in pots of still more vivid scarlet; and the +sight of those bright red blossoms recalled Philip Sheldon's garden at +Bayswater, and that sweet girl by whose side I have walked its trim +pathways. + +But business is business; and if I am ever to sue for my Charlotte's +hand, I must present myself before her as the winner of the three +thousand. Remembering this, I lifted Mr. Goodge's knocker, and +presently found myself in conversation with that gentleman. + +Whether unordained piety has a natural tendency to become greasy of +aspect, and whether, among the many miracles vouchsafed to the amiable +and really great Wesley, he received for his disciples of all time to +come the gift of a miraculous straightness and lankiness of hair, I +know not; but I do know that every Methodist parson I have had the +honour to know has been of one pattern, and that Mr. Goodge is no +exception to the rule. + +I am bound to record that I found him a very civil person, quite +willing to afford me any help in his power, and far more practical and +business-like than the rector of Dewsdale. + +It seems that the gift of tongues descended on the Goodges during the +lifetime of John Wesley himself, and during the earlier part of that +teacher's career. It was a Goodge who preached in the draper's +warehouse, and it was the edifying discourse of a Goodge which +developed the piety of Miss Rebecca Caulfield, afterwards Mrs. +Haygarth. + +"That Goodge was my great-uncle," said the courteous Jonah, "and there +was no one in Ullerton better acquainted with Rebecca Caulfield. I've +heard my grandmother talk of her many a time. She used to send him +poultry and garden-stuff from her house at Dewsdale, and at his +instigation she contributed handsomely to the erection of the chapel in +which it is my privilege to preach." + +I felt that I had struck upon a vein of gold. Here was a sharp-witted, +middle-aged man--not an ancient mariner, or a meandering imbecile--who +could remember the talk of a grandmother who had known Matthew +Haygarth's wife. And this visit to Mr. Goodge was my own idea, not +prompted by the far-seeing Sheldon. I felt myself advancing in the +insidious arts of a private inquirer. + +"I am employed in the prosecution of a business which has a _remote_ +relation to the Haygarth family history," I said; "and if you can +afford me any information on that subject I should be extremely +obliged." + +I emphasised the adjective "remote," and felt myself, in my humble way, +a Talleyrand. + +"What kind of information, do you require?" asked Mr. Goodge +thoughtfully. + +"Any information respecting Matthew Haygarth or his wife." + +Mr. Goodge became profoundly meditative after this. + +"I am not given to act unadvisedly," he began--and I felt that I was in +for a little professional discourse: "the creatures of impulse are the +children of Satan, the babes of Lucifer, the infants of Beelzebub. I +take counsel in the silence of the night, and wait the whispers of +wisdom in the waking hours of darkness. You must allow me time to +ponder this business in my heart and to be still." + +I told Mr. Goodge that I would willingly await his own time for +affording me any information in his power to give. + +"That is pleasant," said the pastor blandly: "the worldly are apt to +rush blindly through life, as the roaring lion rushes through the +forest. I am not one of those rushing worldlings. I presume, by the +way, that such information as I may afford is likely to become a source +of pecuniary profit to your employer?" + +I began to see that my friend Goodge and the rector of Dewsdale were +very different kind of people, and that I must play my cards +accordingly. + +"That will depend upon the nature of your information," I replied +diplomatically; "it may be worth something to us, or it may be +worthless." + +"And in case it should be worth something?" + +"In that case my employer would be glad to remunerate the person from +whom he obtained it." + +Mr. Goodge again became meditative. + +"It was the habit of the sainted Wesley to take counsel from the +Scriptures," he said presently: "if you will call again tomorrow, young +man, I shall have taken counsel, and may be able to entreat with you." + +I did not much relish being addressed as "young man," even by such a +shining light as the Rev. Jonah Goodge. But as I wanted the Rev. +Jonah's aid, I submitted with a tolerable grace to his patriarchal +familiarity, and bade him good morning, after promising to call again +on the following day. I returned to my inn and wrote to Sheldon in time +for the afternoon mail, recounting my interview with Mr. Goodge, and +asking how far I should be authorised to remunerate that gentleman, or +to pledge myself to remunerate him for such information as he might +have to dispose of. + + +_Oct. 6th_. A letter from Sheldon. + +"DEAR HAWKEHURST,--There may be something very important behind that +mysterious burial at Dewsdale. Go without delay to Spotswold; examine +registers, tombstones, &c; hunt up oldest inhabitant or inhabitants, +from whom you may be able to discover whether any Haygarth or Haygarths +over lived there, and all that is known respecting such Haygarth or +Haygarths. You have got a cine to _something_. Follow it up till it +breaks off short, as such clues often do, or till you find it is only +leading you on a wild-goose chase. The Dewsdale business is worth +investigation. + +"Mem. How about descendants of lawyer Brice?--Yours truly, G.S. + +"G.'s Inn, Oct. 5th." + + +Before starting for Spotswold it was necessary +for me to see Mr. Goodge. I found that gentleman in a pious and yet +business-like frame of mind. He had taken counsel from the Scriptures, +like the founder of his sect; but I fancy with rather less spiritual +aspirations. + +"The text upon which the lot fell was the 12th verse of the 9th chapter +in the Book of Proverbs, 'If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for +thyself,'" he said solemnly; "whereby I perceive that I shall not be +justified in parting with that which you seek without fitting +recompense. I ask you, therefore, young man, what are you prepared to +give?" + +The Rev. Jonah's tone could scarcely have been more lofty, or his +manner more patronising, if he had been Saul and I the humble David; +but a man who is trying to earn three thousand pounds must put up with +a great deal. Finding that the minister was prepared to play the +huckster, I employed no further ceremony. + +"The price must of course depend on the quality of the article you have +to sell," I said; "I must know that before I can propose terms." + +"Suppose my information took the form of letters?" + +"Letters from whom--to whom?" + +"From Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth to my great-uncle, Samson Goodge." + +"How many of such letters have you to sell?" + +I put it very plainly; but the Rev. Jonah's susceptibilities were not +of the keenest order. He did not wince. + +"Say forty odd letters." + +I pricked up my ears; and it needed all my diplomacy to enable me to +conceal my sense of triumph. Forty odd letters! There must be an +enormous amount of information in forty odd letters; unless the woman +wrote the direst twaddle ever penned by a feminine correspondent. + +"Over what period do the dates of these letters extend?" I asked. + +"Over about seven years; from 1769 to 1776." + +Four years prior to the marriage with our friend Matthew; three years +after the marriage. + +"Are they tolerably long letters, or mere scrawls?" + +"They were written in a period when nobody wrote short letters," +answered Mr. Goodge sententiously,--"the period of Bath post and dear +postage. The greater number of the epistles cover three sides of a +sheet of letter-paper; and Mrs. Rebecca's caligraphy was small and +neat." + +"Good!" I exclaimed. "I suppose it is no use my asking you to let me +see one of these letters before striking a bargain--eh, Mr. Goodge?" +"Well, I think not," answered the oily old hypocrite. "I have taken +counsel, and I will abide by the light that has been shown me. 'If thou +be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself;' such are the words of +inspiration. No, I think not." + +"And what do you ask for the forty odd letters?" + +"Twenty pounds." + +"A stiff sum, Mr. Goodge, for forty sheets of old letter-paper." + +"But if they were not likely to be valuable, you would scarcely happen +to want them," answered the minister. "I have taken counsel, young +man." + +"And those are your lowest terms?" + +"I cannot accept sixpence less. It is not in me to go from my word. As +Jacob served Laban seven years, and again another seven years, having +promised, so do I abide by my bond. Having said twenty pounds, young +man, Heaven forbid that I should take so much as twenty pence less than +those twenty pounds!" + +The solemn unction with which he pronounced this twaddle is beyond +description. The pretence of conscientious feeling which he contrived +to infuse into his sordid bargain-driving might have done honour to +Moliere's Tartuffe. Seeing that he was determined to stick to his +terms, I departed. I telegraphed to Sheldon for instructions as to +whether I was to give Goodge the money he asked, and then went back to +my inn, where I devoted myself for the next ten minutes to the study of +a railway time-table, with a view to finding the best route to +Spotswold. + +After a close perusal of bewildering strings of proper names and +dazzling columns of figures, I found a place called Black Harbour, "for +Wisborough, Spotswold, and Chilton." A train left Ullerton for Black +Harbour at six o'clock in the afternoon, and was due at the latter +place at 8.40. + +This gave me an interval of some hours, in which I could do nothing, +unless I received a telegram from Sheldon. The chance of a reply from +him kept me a prisoner in the coffee-room of the Swan Inn, where I read +almost every line in the local and London newspapers pending the +arrival of the despatch, which came at last. + +"Tell Goodge he shall have the sum asked, and get the letters at once. +Money by to-night's post." + +This was Sheldon's message; sharp and short, and within the eighteen +penny limit. Acting upon this telegram, I returned to the abode of Mr. +Goodge, told him his terms were to be complied with, showed him the +telegram, at his request, and asked for the letters. + +I ought to have known my reverend friend better than to imagine he +would part with those ancient documents except for money upon the +counter. + +He smiled a smile which might have illuminated the visage of +Machiavelli. + +"The letters have kept a long time, young man," he said, after having +studied the telegram as closely as if it had been written in Punic; +"and lo you, they are in nowise the worse for keeping: so they will +keep yet longer. 'If thou be wise, then shalt be wise for thyself.' You +can come for the letters tomorrow, and bring the money with you. Say at +11 A.M." + +I put on my hat and bade my friend good day. I have often been tempted +to throw things at people, and have withheld my hand; but I never felt +Satan so strong upon me as at that moment, and I very much fear that if +I had had anything in the way of a kitchen-poker or a carving-knife +about me, I should have flung that missile at the patriarchal head of +my saintly Jonah. As it was, I bade him good day and returned to the +Swan, where I took a hurried repast and started for the station, +carrying a light carpet-bag with me, as I was not likely to return till +the following night, at the earliest. + +I arrived at the station ten minutes before the starting of the train, +and had to endure ten minutes of that weariness called waiting. I +exhausted the interest of all the advertisements on the station walls; +found out how I could have my furniture removed with the utmost +convenience--supposing myself to possess furniture; discovered where I +ought to buy a dinner-service, and the most agreeable kind of blind to +screen my windows in sunny weather. I was still lingering over the +description of this new invention in blinds, when a great bell set up a +sudden clanging, and the down train from London came thundering into +the station. + +This was also the train for Black Harbour. There were a good many +passengers going northwards, a good many alighting at Ullerton; and in +the hurry and confusion I had some difficulty in finding a place in a +second-class carriage, the passengers therein blocking up the windows +with that unamiable exclusiveness peculiar to railway travellers. I +found a place at last, however; but in hurrying from carriage to +carriage I was startled by an occurrence which I have since pondered +very seriously. + +I ran bolt against my respected friend and patron Horatio Paget. + +We had only time to recognise each other with exclamations of mutual +surprise when the clanging bell rang again, and I was obliged to +scuffle into my seat. A moment's delay would have caused me to be left +behind. And to have remained behind would have been very awkward for +me; as the Captain would undoubtedly have questioned me as to my +business in Ullerton. Was I not supposed to be at Dorking, enjoying the +hospitality of an aged aunt? + +It would have been unlucky to lose that train. + +But what "makes" the gallant Captain in Ullerton? That is a question +which I deliberated as the train carried me towards Black Harbour. + +Sheldon warned me of the necessity for secrecy, and I have been as +secret as the grave. It is therefore next to an impossibility that +Horatio Paget can have any idea of the business I am engaged in. He is +the very man of all others to try and supersede me if he had an inkling +of my plans; but I am convinced he can have no such inkling. + +And yet the advertisement of the Haygarth property in the _Times_ was +as open to the notice of all the world as it was open to the notice of +George Sheldon. What if my patron should have been struck by the same +advertisement, and should have come to Ullerton on the same business? + +It is possible, but it is not likely. When I left town the Captain was +engaged in Philip Sheldon's affairs. He has no doubt come to Ullerton +on Philip Sheldon's business. The town, which seems an abomination of +desolation to a man who is accustomed to London and Paris, is +nevertheless a commercial centre; and the stockbroker's schemes may +involve the simple Ullertonians, as well as the more experienced +children of the metropolis. + +Having thought the business out thus, I gave myself no further trouble +about the unexpected appearance of my friend and benefactor. + +At Black Harbour I found a coach, which carried me to Spotswold, +whither I travelled in a cramped and painful position as regards my +legs, and with a pervading sensation which was like a determination of +luggage to the brain, so close to my oppressed head was the +heavily-laden roof of the vehicle. It was pitch dark when I and two +fellow-passengers of agricultural aspect were turned out of the coach +at Spotswold, which in the gloom of night appeared to consist of half +a dozen houses shut in from the road by ghastly white palings, a grim +looming church, and a low-roofed inn with a feeble light glimmering +athwart a red stuff curtain. + +At this inn I was fain to take up my abode for the night, and was +conducted to a little whitewashed bedchamber, draperied with scanty +dimity and smelling of apples--the humblest, commonest cottage chamber, +but clean and decent, and with a certain countrified aspect which was +pleasing to me. I fancied myself the host of such an inn, with +Charlotte for my wife; and it seemed to me that it would be nice to +live in that remote and unknown village, "the world forgetting, by the +world forgot." I beguiled myself by such foolish fancies--I, who have +been reared amidst the clamour and riot of the Strand! + +Should I be happy with that dear girl if she were mine? Alas! I doubt +it. A man who has led a disreputable life up to the age of +seven-and-twenty is very likely to have lost all capacity for such +pure and perfect happiness as that which good men find in the tranquil +haven of a home. + +Should I not hear the rattle of the billiard-balls, or the voice of the +_croupier_ calling the main, as I sat by my quiet fireside? Should I +not yearn for the glitter and confusion of West-end dancing-rooms, or +the mad excitement of the ring, while my innocent young wife was +sitting by my side and asking me to look at the blue eyes of my +first-born? + +No; Charlotte is not for me. There must be always the two classes--the +sheep and the goats; and my lot has been cast among the goats. + +And yet there are some people who laugh to scorn the doctrines of +Calvin, and say there is no such thing as predestination. + +Is there not predestination? Was not I predestined to be born in a gaol +and reared in a gutter, educated among swindlers and scoundrels, fed +upon stolen victuals, and clad in garments never to be paid for? Did no +Eumenides preside over the birth of Richard Savage, so set apart for +misery that the laws of nature were reversed, and even his mother hated +him? Did no dismal fatality follow the footsteps of Chatterton? Has no +mysterious ban been laid upon the men who have been called Dukes of +Buckingham? + +What foolish lamentations am I scribbling in this diary, which is +intended to be only the baldest record of events! It is so natural to +mankind to complain, that, having no ear in which to utter his +discontent, a man is fain to resort to pen and ink. + +I devoted my evening to conversation with the landlord and his wife, +but found that the name of Haygarth was as strange to them as if it had +been taken from an inscription in the tomb of the Pharaohs. I inquired +about the few inhabitants of the village, and ascertained that the +oldest man in the place is the sexton, native-born, and supposed by +mine host never to have travelled twenty miles from his birthplace. His +name is Peter Drabbles. What extraordinary names that class of people +contrive to have! My first business to-morrow morning will be to find +my friend Drabbles--another ancient mariner, no doubt--and to examine +the parish registers. + +_Oct. 7th_. A misty morning, and a perpetual drizzle--to say nothing of +a damp, penetrating cold, which creeps through the thickest overcoat, +and chills one to the bone. I do not think Spotswold can have much +brightness or prettiness even on the fairest summer morning that ever +beautified the earth. I know that, seen as I see it to-day, the place +is the very archetype of all that is darksome, dull, desolate, dismal, +and dreary. (How odd, by the way, that all that family of epithets +should have the same initial!) A wide stretch of moorland lies around +and about the little village, which crouches in a hollow, like some +poor dejected animal that seeks to shelter itself from the bitter +blast. On the edge of the moorland, and above the straggling cottages +and the little inn, rises the massive square tower of an old church, so +far out of proportion to the pitiful cluster of houses, that I imagine +it must be the remnant of some monastic settlement. + +Towards this church I made my way, under the dispiriting drip, drip of +the rain, and accompanied by a feeble old man, who is sexton, clerk, +gravedigger, and anything or everything of an official nature. + +We went into the church after my ancient mariner No. 2 had fumbled a +good deal with a bunch of ghostly-looking keys. The door opened with a +dismal scroop, and shut with an appalling bang. Grim and dark as the +church is without, it is grimmer and darker within, and damp and +vault-like, _a faire fremir_. There are all the mysterious cupboards +and corners peculiar to such edifices; an organ-loft, from which weird +noises issue at every opening or closing of a door; a vaulted roof, +which echoes one's footsteps with a moan, as of some outraged spirit +hovering in empty space, and ejaculating piteously, "Another impious +intruder after the sacramental plate! another plebeian sole trampling +on the brasses of the De Montacutes, lords of the manor!" + +The vestry is, if anything, more ghostly than the general run of +vestries; but the business mind is compelled to waive all +considerations of a supernatural character. For the moment there +flashed across my brain the shadows of all the Christmas stories I had +ever read or heard concerning vestries; the phantom bridal, in which +the bride's beautiful white hand changed to the bony fingers of a +skeleton as she signed the register; the unearthly christening, in +which all at once, after the ceremony having been conducted with the +utmost respectability, to the edification of the unauthorised intruder +hiding behind a pillar, the godfathers and godmothers, nurse and baby, +priest and clerk, became in a moment dilapidated corpses; whereon the +appalled intruder fell prone at the foot of his pillar, there to be +discovered the next morning by his friends, and the public generally, +with his hair blanched to an awful whiteness, or his noble intellect +degraded to idiocy. For a moment, the memory of about a hundred +Christmas stories was too much for me--so weird of aspect and earthy of +atmosphere was the vestry at Spotswold. And then "being gone" the +shadows of the Christmas stories, I was a man and a lawyer's clerk +again, and set myself assiduously to search the registers and +interrogate my ancient. + +I found that individual a creature of mental fogginess compared with +whom my oldest inhabitant of Ullerton would have been a Pitt, Earl of +Chatham. But I questioned and cross-questioned him until I had in a +manner turned his poor old wits the seamy side without, and had +discovered, first, that he had never known any one called Haygarth in +the whole course of those seventy-five years' vegetation which +politeness compelled me to speak of as his "life;" secondly, that he +had never known any one who knew a Haygarth; thirdly, that he was +intimately acquainted with every creature in the village, and that he +knew that no one of the inhabitants could give me the smallest shred of +such information as I required. + +Having extorted so much as this from my ancient with unutterable +expenditure of time and trouble, I next set to work upon the registers. + +If the ink manufactured in the present century is of no more durable +nature than that abominable fluid employed in the penmanship of a +hundred years ago, I profoundly pity the generations that are to come +after us. The registers of Spotswold might puzzle a Bunsen. However, +bearing in mind the incontrovertible fact that three thousand pounds is +a very agreeable sum of money, I stuck to my work for upwards of two +hours, and obtained as a result the following entries:-- + +"1. Matthew Haygarthe, aged foure yeares, berrid in this churcheyarde, +over against ye tombe off Mrs. Marttha Stileman, about 10 fete fromm ye +olde yue tre. Febevarie 6th, 1753." + +"2. Mary Haygarthe, aged twentie sevene yeers, berrid under ye yue +tree, Nov. 21, 1754." + +After copying these two entries, I went out into the churchyard to look +for Mary Haygarth's grave. + +Under a fine old yew--which had been old a hundred years ago, it seems-- +I found huddled amongst other headstones one so incrusted with moss, +that it was only after scraping the parasite verdure from the stone +with my penknife that I was able to discover the letters that had been +cut upon it. I found at last a brief inscription: + +"Here lieth ye body of MARY HAYGARTH, aged 27. Born 1727. Died 1754. +This stone has been set up by one who sorroweth without hope of +consolation." A strange epitaph: no scrap of Latin, no text from +Scripture, no conventional testimony to the virtues and accomplishments +of the departed, no word to tell whether the dead woman had been maid, +wife, or widow. It was the most provoking inscription for a lawyer or a +genealogist, but such as might have pleased a poet. + +I fancy this Mary Haygarth must have been some quiet creature, with +very few friends to sorrow for her loss; perhaps only that one person +who sorrowed without hope of consolation. + +Such a tombstone might have been set above the grave of that simple +maid who dwelt "beside the banks of Dove." + +This is the uttermost that my patience or ingenuity can do for me at +Spotswold. I have exhausted every possibility of obtaining further +information. So, having written and posted my report to Sheldon, I have +no more to do but to return to Ullerton. I take back with me nothing +but the copy of the two entries in the register of burials. Who this +Matthew Haygarth or this Mary Haygarth was, and how related to the +Matthew, is an enigma not to be solved at Spotswold. + +Here the story of the Haygarths ends with the grave under the yew-tree. + + + + + +BOOK THE FIFTH. + + +RELICS OF THE DEAD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +BETRAYED BY A BLOTTING-PAD. + + +At an early hour upon the day on which Valentine Hawkehurst telegraphed +to his employer, Philip Sheldon presented himself again at the dingy +door of the office in Gray's Inn. + +The dingy door was opened by the still more dingy boy; and Mr. Sheldon +the elder--who lived in a state of chronic hurry, and had a hansom cab +in attendance upon him at almost every step of his progress through +life--was aggravated by the discovery that his brother was out. + +"Out!" he repeated, with supreme disgust; "he always _is_ out, I think. +Where is he to be found?" + +The boy replied that his master would be back in half an hour, if Mr. +Sheldon would like to wait. + +"Like to wait!" cried the stockbroker; "when will lawyers' clerks have +sense enough to know that nobody on this earth ever _liked_ to wait? +Where's your master gone?" + +"I think he's just slipped round into Holborn, sir," the boy replied, +with some slight hesitation. He was very well aware that George had +secrets from his brother, and that it was not judicious to be too free +in his communications to the elder gentleman. But the black eyes and +white teeth of the stockbroker seemed very awful to him; and if Philip +chose to question him, he must needs answer the truth, not having been +provided by his master with any convenient falsehood in case of +inquiry. + +"What part of Holborn?" asked Philip sharply. + +"I did hear tell as it was the telegraph office." + +"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon; and then he dashed downstairs, leaving +the lad on the threshold of the door staring after him with eyes of +wonder. + +The telegraph office meant business; and any business of his brother's +was a matter of interest to Mr. Sheldon at this particular period. He +had meditated the meaning of George's triumphant smile in the secluded +calm of his own office; and the longer he had meditated, the more +deeply rooted had become his conviction that his brother was engaged in +some very deep and very profitable scheme, the nature of which it was +his bounden duty to discover. + +Impressed by this idea, Mr. Sheldon returned to the hansom-cab, which +was waiting for him at the end of Warwick-court, and made his way to +the telegraph office. The ostensible motive of his call in Gray's Inn +was sufficient excuse for this following up of his brother's footsteps. +It was one of those waifs and strays of rather disreputable business +which the elder man sometimes threw in the way of the younger. + +As the wheel of the hansom ground against the kerbstone in front of the +telegraph office, the figure of George Sheldon vanished in a little +court to the left of that establishment. Instead of pursuing this +receding figure, Philip Sheldon walked straight into the office. + +It was empty. There was no one in any of the shaded compartments, so +painfully suggestive of pecuniary distress and the stealthy +hypothecation of portable property. A sound of rattling and bumping in +an inner office betrayed the neighbourhood of a clerk; but in the +office Mr. Sheldon was alone. + +Upon the blotting-pad on the counter of the central partition the +stockbroker perceived one great blot of ink, still moist. Ha laid the +tip of his square forefinger upon it, to assure himself of that fact, +and then set himself deliberately to scrutinise the blotting-paper. He +was a man who seldom hesitated. His greatest _coups_ on the +money-market had been in a great measure the result of this faculty of +prompt decision. To-day he possessed himself of the blotting-pad, and +examined the half-formed syllables stamped upon it with as much coolness +and self-possession as if he had been seated in his own office reading +his own newspaper. A man given to hesitation would have looked to the +right and the left and watched for his opportunity--and lost it. Philip +Sheldon knew better than to waste his chances by needless precaution; +and he made himself master of all the intelligence the blotting-pad +could afford him before the clerk emerged from the inner den where the +rattling and stamping was going forward. + +"I thought as much," muttered the stockbroker, as he recognised traces +of his brother's sprawling penmanship upon the pad. The message had +been written with a heavy hand and a spongy quill pen, and had left a +tolerably clear impression of its contents on the blotting-paper. + +Here and there the words stood out bold and clear; here and there, +again, there was only one decipherable letter amongst a few broken +hieroglyphics. Mr. Sheldon was accustomed to the examination of very +illegible documents, and he was able to master the substance of that +random impression. If he could not decipher the whole, he made out +sufficient for his purpose. Money was to be offered to a man called +Goodge for certain letters. He knew his brother's affairs well enough +to know that these letters for which money was to be offered must needs +be letters of importance in some search for an heir-at-law. So far all +was clear and simple; but beyond this point he found himself at fault. +Where was this Goodge to be found? and who was the person that was to +offer him money for the letters? The names and address, which had been +written first, had left no impression on the blotting-pad, or an +impression so faint as to be useless for any practical purpose. + +Mr. Sheldon put down the pad and lingered by the door of the office +deliberating, when the rattling and hammering came to an abrupt +termination, and the clerk emerged from the interior den. + +"O," he exclaimed, "it's all right. Your message shall go directly." + +The stockbroker, whose face was half averted from the clerk, and who +stood between that functionary and the light from the open doorway, at +once comprehended the error that had arisen. The clerk had mistaken him +for his brother. + +"I'm not quite clear as to whether I gave the right address," he said +promptly, with his face still averted, and his attention apparently +occupied by a paper in his hand. "Just see how I wrote it, there's a +good fellow." + +The clerk withdrew for a few minutes, and returned with the message in +his hand. + +"From George Sheldon to Valentine Hawkehurst, Black Swan Inn, +Ullerton," he read aloud from the document. + +"All right, and thanks," cried the stockbroker. + +He gave one momentary glance at the clerk, and had just time to see +that individual's look of bewilderment as some difference in his voice +and person from the voice and person of the black-whiskered man who had +just left the office dawned upon his troubled senses. After that one +glance Mr. Sheldon darted across the pavement, sprang into his cab, and +called to the driver, "Literary Institution, Burton-street, as fast as +you can go." + +"I'll try my luck in the second column of the _Times_," he said to +himself. "If George's scheme is what I take it to be, I shall get some +clue to it there." He took a little oblong memorandum-book from his +pocket, and looked at his memoranda of the past week. Among those +careless jottings he found one memorandum scrawled in pencil, amongst +notes and addresses in ink, "_Haygarth--intestate. G.S. to see +after._" + +"That's it," he exclaimed; "Haygarth--intestate; Valentine Hawkehurst +_not_ at Dorking, but working for my brother; Goodge--letters to be +paid for. It's all like the bits of mosaic that those antiquarian +fellows are always finding in the ruins of Somebody's Baths; a few +handfuls of coloured chips that look like rubbish, and can yet be +patched into a perfect geometric design. I'll hunt up a file of the +_Times_ at the Burton Institution, and find out this Haygarth, if he +is to be found there." + +The Burton Institution was a somewhat dingy temple devoted to the +interests of science and literature, and next door to some baths that +were very popular among the denizens of Bloomsbury. People in quest of +the baths were apt to ascend the classic flight of steps leading to the +Institution, when they should have descended to a lowlier threshold +lurking modestly by the side of that edifice. The Baths and the +Institution had both been familiar to Mr. Sheldon in that period of +probation which he had spent in Fitzgeorge-street. He was sufficiently +acquainted with the librarian of the Institution to go in and out +uninterrogated, and to make any use he pleased of the reading-room. He +went in to-day, asked to see the latest bound volumes of the _Times_ +and the latest files of unbound papers, and began his investigation, +working backwards. Rapidly and dexterously as he turned the big leaves +of the journals, the investigation occupied nearly three-quarters of an +hour; but at the expiration of that time he had alighted on the +advertisement published in the March of the preceding year. + +He gave a very low whistle--a kind of phantom whistle--as he read this +advertisement. "John Haygarth!--a hundred thousand pounds!" + +The fortune for which a claimant was lacking amounted to a hundred +thousand pounds! Mr. Sheldon knew commercial despots who counted their +wealth by millions, and whose fiat could sway the exchanges of Europe; +but a hundred thousand pounds seemed to him a very nice thing +nevertheless, and he was ready to dispute the prize the anticipation +whereof had rendered his brother so triumphant. + +"He has rejected me as a coadjutor," he thought, as he went back to his +cab after having copied the advertisement; "he shall have me as an +antagonist." + +"Omega-street, Chelsea, next call," he cried to the driver; and was +soon beyond the confines of Bloomsbury, and rattling away towards the +border-land of Belgravia. He had completed his search of the newspapers +at ten minutes past twelve, and at twenty minutes to one he presented +himself at the lodging-house in Omega-street, where he found Captain +Paget, in whose "promoting" business there happened to be a lull just +now. With this gentleman he had a long interview; and the result of +that interview was the departure of the Captain by the two o'clock +express for Ullerton. Thus had it happened that Valentine Hawkehurst +and his patron encountered each other on the platform of Ullerton +station. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +VALENTINE INVOKES THE PHANTOMS OF THE PAST. + + +_Oct. 7th, Midnight_. I was so fortunate as to get away from Spotswold +this morning very soon after the completion of my researches in the +vestry, and at five o'clock in the afternoon I found myself once more +in the streets of Ullerton. Coming home in the train I meditated +seriously upon the unexpected appearance of Horatio Paget at the +head-quarters of this Haygarthian investigation; and the more I +considered that fact, the more I felt inclined to doubt my patron's +motives, and to fear his interference. Can his presence in Ullerton +have any relation to the business that has brought me here? That is the +question which I asked myself a hundred times during my journey from +Spotswold; that is the question which I ask myself still. + +I have no doubt I give myself unnecessary trouble; but I know that old +man's Machiavellian cleverness only too well; and I am inclined to look +with suspicion upon every action of his. My first business on returning +to this house was to ascertain whether any one bearing his name, or +answering to my description of him, had arrived during my absence. I +was relieved by finding that no stranger whatever had put up at the inn +since the previous forenoon. Who may have used the coffee-room is +another question, not so easily set at rest. In the evening a great +many people come in and go out; and my friend and patron may have taken +his favourite brandy-and-soda, skimmed his newspaper, and picked up +whatever information was to be obtained as to _my_ movements without +attracting any particular attention. + +In the words of the immortal lessee of the Globe Theatre, "Why I should +fear I know not ... and yet I feel I fear!" + +I found a registered letter from George Sheldon, enclosing twenty +pounds in notes, and furnished therewith I went straight to my friend +Jonah, whom I found engaged in the agreeable occupation of taking tea. +I showed him the money; but my estimate of the reverend gentleman's +honour being of a very limited nature, I took care not to give it to +him till he had produced the letters. On finding that I was really +prepared to give him his price, he went to an old-fashioned bureau, and +opened one of those secret recesses which cannot for three minutes +remain a secret to any investigator possessed of a tolerably accurate +eye or a three-foot rule. From this hiding-place--which he evidently +considered a triumph of mechanical art, worthy the cabinet of a +D'Argenson or a Fouche--he produced a packet of faded yellow letters, +about which there lurked a faint odour of dried rose-leaves and +lavender, which seemed the very perfume of the past. + +When my reverend friend had laid the packet on the table within reach +of my hand, and not till then, I gave him the bank-notes. His fat old +fingers closed upon them greedily, and his fishy old eyes were +illumined by a faint glimmer which I believe nothing but bank-notes +could have kindled in them. + +After having assured himself that they were genuine acknowledgments of +indebtedness on the part of the old lady in Thread-needle-street, and +not the base simulacra of Birmingham at five-and-twenty shillings a +dozen--thirteen as twelve--Mr. Goodge obligingly consented to sign a +simple form of receipt which I had drawn up for the satisfaction of my +principal. + +"I think you said there were forty-odd letters," I remarked, before I +proceeded to count the documents in the presence of Mr. Goodge. + +That gentleman looked at me with an air of astonishment, which, had I +not known him to be the most consummate of hypocrites, would have +seemed to be simplicity itself. + +"I said from thirty to forty," he exclaimed; "I never said there were +forty-odd letters." + +I looked at him and he looked at me. His face told me plainly enough +that he was trying to deceive me, and my face told him plainly enough +that he had no chance of succeeding in that attempt. Whether he was +keeping back some of the letters with a view to extorting more money +from me hereafter, or whether he was keeping them with the idea of +making a better bargain with somebody else, I could not tell; but of +the main fact I was certain--he had cheated me. + +I untied the red tape which held the letters together. Yes, there was a +piece of circumstantial evidence which might have helped to convict my +friend had he been on his trial in a criminal court. The red tape bore +the mark of the place in which it had been tied for half a century; and +a little way within this mark the trace of a very recent tying. Some of +the letters had been extracted, and the tape had been tied anew. + +I had no doubt that this had been done while my negotiation with Mr. +Goodge had been pending. What was I to do? Refuse the letters, and +demand to have my principal's money returned to me? I knew my friend +well enough to know that such a proceeding would be about as useless as +it would be to request the ocean to restore a cup of water that had +been poured into it. The letters he had given me might or might not +afford some slight link in the chain I was trying to put together; and +the letters withheld from me might be more or less valuable than those +given to me. In any case the transaction was altogether a speculative +one; and George Sheldon's money was hazarded as completely as if it had +been put upon an outsider for the Derby. + +Before bidding him a polite farewell, I was determined to make Mr. +Goodge thoroughly aware that he had not taken me in. + +"You said there were more than forty letters," I told him; "I remember +the phrase 'forty-odd,' which is a colloquialism one would scarcely +look for in Tillotson or in John Wesley, who cherished a prejudice in +favour of scholarship which does not distinguish all his followers. You +said there were forty-odd letters, and you have removed some of them +from the packet. I am quite aware that I have no legal remedy against +you, as our contract was a verbal one, made without witnesses; so I +must be content with what I get; but I do not wish you to flatter +yourself with the notion that you have hoodwinked a lawyer's clerk. You +are not clever enough to do that, Mr. Goodge, though you are knave +enough to cheat every attorney in the Law List." + +"Young man, are you aware----?" + +"As I have suffered by the absence of any witness to our negotiation, I +may as well profit by the absence of any witness to our interview. You +are a cheat and a trickster, Mr. Goodge, and I have the honour to wish +you good afternoon!" "Go forth, young man!" cried the infuriated Jonah +whose fat round face became beet-root colour with rage, and who +involuntarily extended his hand to the poker--for the purpose of +defence and not defiance, I believe. "Go forth, young man! I say unto +you, as Abimelech said unto Jedediah, go forth." + +I am not quite clear as to the two scriptural proper names with which +the Rev. Jonah embellished his discourse on this occasion; but I know +that sort of man always has a leaning to the Abimelech and Jedediahs of +biblical history; solely, I believe, because the names have a sonorous +roll with them that is pleasant in the mouth of the charlatan. + +As I was in the act of going forth--quite at my leisure, for I had no +fear of the clerical poker--my eye happened to alight on a small +side-table, covered with a chessboard-patterned cloth in gaudy colours, +and adorned with some of those sombre volumes which seem like an outward +evidence of the sober piety of their possessor. Among the sombre +volumes lay something which savoured of another hemisphere than that to +which those brown leather-bound books belonged. It was a glove--a +gentleman's glove, of pale lavender kid--small in size for a masculine +glove, and bearing upon it the evidence of the cleaner's art. Such +might be the glove of an exiled Brummel, but could never have encased +the squat paw of a Jonah Goodge. It was as if the _point d'Alencon_ +ruffle of Chesterfield had been dropped in the study of John Wesley. + +In a moment there flashed into my mind an idea which has haunted me +ever since. That glove had belonged to my respected patron, Horatio +Paget, and it was for his benefit the letters had been abstracted from +the packet. He had been with Jonah Goodge in the course of that day, +and had bought him over to cheat me. + +And then I was obliged to go back to the old question, Was it possible +that the Captain could have any inkling of my business? Who could have +told him? + +Who could have betrayed a secret which was known only to George Sheldon +and myself? + +After all, are there not other people than Horatio Paget who wear +cleaned lavender gloves? But it always has been a habit with the +Captain to leave one loose glove behind him; and I daresay it was the +recollection of this which suggested the idea of his interference in +the Goodge business. + +I devoted my evening to the perusal of Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters. +The pale ink, the quaint cramped hand, the old-fashioned abbreviations, +and very doubtful orthography rendered the task laborious; but I stuck +to my work bravely, and the old clock in the market-place struck two as +I began the last letter. As I get deeper into this business I find my +interest in it growing day by day--an interest _sui generis_, apart +from all prospect of gain--apart even from the consideration that by +means of this investigation I am obtaining a living which is earned +_almost_ honestly; for if I tell an occasional falsehood or act an +occasional hypocrisy, I am no worse than a secretary of legation of an +Old Bailey barrister. + +The pleasure which I now take in the progress of this research is a +pleasure that is new to me: it is the stimulus which makes a breakneck +gallop across dreary fields gridironed with dykes and stone walls so +delicious to the sportsman; it is the stimulus which makes the task of +the mathematician sweet to him when he devotes laborious days to the +solution of an abstruse problem; it is the stimulus that sustains the +Indian trapper against all the miseries of cold and hunger, foul +weather, and aching limbs; it is the fever of the chase--that +inextinguishable fire which, once lighted in the human breast, is not +to be quenched until the hunt is ended. + +I should like to earn three thousand pounds; but if I were to be none +the richer for my trouble, I think, now that I am so deeply involved in +this business, I should still go on. I want to fathom the mystery of +that midnight interment at Dewsdale; I want to know the story of that +Mary Haygarth who lies under the old yew-tree at Spotswold, and for +whose loss some one sorrowed without hope of consolation. + +Was that a widower's commonplace, I wonder, and did the unknown mourner +console himself ultimately with a new wife? Who knows? as my Italian +friends say when they discuss the future of France. Shall I ever +penetrate that mystery of the past? My task seems to me almost as +hopeless as if George Sheldon had set me to hunt up the descendants of +King Solomon's ninety-ninth wife. A hundred years ago seems as far +away, for all practical purposes, as if it were on the other side of +the flood. + +The letters are worth very little. They are prim and measured epistles, +and they relate much more to spiritual matters than to temporal +business. Mrs. Rebecca seems to have been so much concerned for the +health of her soul that she had very little leisure to think of +anything so insignificant as the bodies of other people. The letters +are filled with discourses upon her own state of mind; and the tone of +them reveals not a little of that pride whose character it is to +simulate humility. Mrs. Rebecca is always casting ashes on her head; +but she takes care to let her friend and pastor know what a saintly +head it is notwithstanding. + +I have laid aside three of the most secular letters, which I selected +after wading through unnumbered pages of bewailings in the strain of a +Wesleyan Madame Guyon. These throw some little light upon the character +of Matthew Haygarth, but do not afford much information of a tangible +kind. I have transcribed the letters verbatim, adhering even to certain +eccentricities of orthography which were by no means unusual in an age +when the Pretender to the crown of Great Britain wrote of his father as +_Gems_. + +The first letter bears the date of August 30th, 1773, one week after +the marriage of the lady to our friend Matthew. + +"REVERED FRIEND AND PASTOR,--On Monday sennite we arriv'd in London, +wich seems to me a mighty bigg citty, but of no more meritt or piety +than Babylon of old. My husband, who knows ye towne better than he +knows those things with wich it would more become him to be familiar, +was pleas'd to laugh mightily at that pious aversion wherewith I +regarded some of ye most notable sights in this place. We went t'other +night to a great garden called by some Spring Garden, by others +Vauxhall,--as having been at one time ye residence or estate of that +Arch Fiend and Papistical traitor Vaux, or Faux; but although I felt +obligated to my husband for ye desire to entertain me with a fine +sight, I could not but look with shame upon serious Christians +disporting themselves like children amongst coloured lamps, and +listening as if enraptured to profane music, when, at so much less cost +of money or of health, they might have been assembled together to +improve and edify one another. + +"My obliging Mathew would have taken me to other places of the like +character; but inspir'd, as I hope and believe, by ye direction of ye +spirit, I took upon myself to tell him what vain trifling is all such +kind of pleasure. He argu'd with me stoutly, saying that ye King and +Queen, who are both shining examples of goodness and piety, do attend +Vauxhall and Ranelagh, and are to be seen there frequent, to the +delight of their subjects. On which I told him that, much as I esteemed +my sovereign and his respectable consort, I would compleat my existence +without having seen them rather than I would seek to encounter them in +a place of vain and frivolous diversion. He listen'd to my discoorse in +a kind and sober temper, but he was not convinc'd; for by and by he +falls of a sudden to sighing and groaning, and cries out, 'O, I went to +Vauxhall once when ye garden was not many years made, and O, how bright +ye lamps shone, like ye stars of heaven fallen among bushes! and O, how +sweet ye music sounded, like ye hymns of angels in ye dewy evening! but +that was nigh upon twenty years gone by, and all ye world is changed +since then.' + +"You will conceive, Reverend Sir, that I was scandalised by such a +foolish rapsodie, and in plain words admonish'd my husband of his +folly. Whereupon he speedily became sober, and asked my pardon; but for +all that night continued of a gloomy countenance, ever and anon falling +to sighing and groning as before. Indeed, honour'd Sir, I have good +need of a patient sperrit in my dealings with him; for altho' at times +I think he is in a fair way to become a Christian, there are other +times when I doubt Satan has still a hold upon him, and that all my +prayers and admonitions have been in vaine. + +"You, who know the wildness and wickedness of his past life--so far as +that life was ever known to any but himself, who was ever of a secret +and silent disposition concerning his own doings in this city, tho' +free-spoken and frank in all common matters--you, honour'd sir, know +with how serious an intention I have taken upon myself the burden of +matrimony, hoping thereby to secure the compleat conversion of this +waywarde soul. You are aware how it was ye earnest desire of my late +respected father that Mathew Haygarth and I shou'd be man and wife, his +father and my father haveing bin friends and companions in ye days of +her most gracious majesty Queen Anne. You know how, after being lost to +all decent compary for many years, Mathew came back after his father's +death, and lived a sober and serious life, attending amongst our +community, and being seen to shed tears on more than one occasion while +listening to the discourse of our revered and inspired founder. And +you, my dear and honour'd pastor, will feel for me when I tell you how +I am tormented by ye fear of backsliding in this soul which I have +promised to restore to ye fold. It was but yesterday, when walking with +him near St. John's Gate at Clerkenwell, he came to a standstill all of +a sudden, and he cried in that impetuous manner which is even yet +natural to him, 'Look ye now, Becky, wouldst like to see the house in +which the happiest years of my life was spent?' And I making no answer, +as thinking it was but some sudden freak, he points out a black +dirty-looking dwelling-place, with overhanging windows and a wide +gabled roof. 'Yonder it stands, Becky,' he cries; 'number seven +John-street, Clerkenwell; a queer dingy box of four walls, my wench--a +tumble-down kennel, with a staircase that 'twould break your neck to +mount, being strange to it--and half a day's journey from the court-end +of town. But that house was once paradise to me; and to look at it even +now, though 'tis over eighteen years since I saw the inside of it, will +bring the tears into these poor old eyes of mine'. And then he walk'd on +so fast that I could scarce keep pace with him, till we came to +Smithfield; and then he began to tell me about Bartholomew-fair and the +brave sights he had seen; and must needs show me where had stood the +booth of one Fielding--since infamously notorious as the writer of some +trashy novels, the dulness whereof is only surpassed by their profligacy: +and then he talks of Fawkes the conjurer, who made a great fortune, and +of some humble person called 'Tiddy Doll,' a dealer in gingerbread and +such foolish wares. But he could tell me nothing of those early +preachings of our revered founder in Moorfields, which would have been +more pleasant to me than all this vain babble about drolls and jesters, +gingerbread bakers and showmen. + +"When we had walked the round of the place, and it was time to take +coach for our lodging at Chelsea--he having brought me thus far to see +St. Paul's and the prison of Newgate, the Mint and Tower--the gloomy +fit came on him again, and all that evening he was dull and sorrowful, +though I read aloud to him from the printed sermons of a rising member +of our community. So you will see, honour'd sir, how difficult it is +for these children of Satan to withdraw themselves from that master +they have once served; since at the sober age of fifty-three yeares my +husband's weak heart yet yearns after profligate faires and foolish +gardens lighted by color'd lampes. + +"And now no more, reverend friend, my paper being gone and it being +full time to reflect that y'r patience must be gone also. Service to +Mrs. Goodge. I have no more room but to assure you that y'r gayeties of +this foolish and erring citty have no power to withdraw y'r heart of +her whose chief privilege it is to subscribe herself, + +"Your humble follower and servant." + +"Rebecca Haygarth." + + +To my mind there seems just a shadowy hint of some bygone romance in +this letter. Why did the dingy house in John-street bring the tears +into Matthew's eyes? and why did the memory of Vauxhall and Bartholomew +fair seem so sweet to him? And then that sighing and groaning and +dolefulness of visage whenever the thought of the past came back to +him? + +What did it all mean, I wonder? Was it only his vanished youth, which +poor, sobered, converted, Wesleyanised Matthew regretted? or were there +pensive memories of something even sweeter than youth associated with +the coloured lamps of Vauxhall and the dinginess of Clerkenwell? Who +shall sound the heart of a man who lived a hundred years ago? and where +is the fathom-line which shall plumb its mysteries? I should need a +stack of old letters before I could arrive at the secret of that man's +life. + +The two other letters, which I have selected after some deliberation, +relate to the last few weeks of Matthew's existence; and in these again +I fancy I see the trace of some domestic mystery, some sorrowful secret +which this sober citizen kept hidden from his wife, but which he was on +several occasions half inclined to reveal to her. + +Perhaps if the lady's piety--which seems to have been thoroughly +sincere and praiseworthy, by the bye--had been a little less cold and +pragmatical in its mode of expression, poor Matthew might have taken +heart of grace and made a clean breast of it. + +That there was a secret in the man's life I feel convinced; but that +conviction goes very little way towards proving any one point of the +smallest value to George Sheldon. + +I transcribe an extract from each of the two important letters; the +first written a month before Matthew's death, the second a fortnight +after that event. + +"And indeed, honour'd sir, I have of late suffered much uneasinesse of +speritt concerning my husband. Those fits of ye mopes of w'h I informed +you some time back have again come upon him. For awhile I did hope that +these melancholic affections were ye fruit put forth by a regenerate +soul; but within this month last past it has been my sorrow to discover +that these gloomy disorders arise rather from ye promptings of the Evil +One. It has pleased Mr. Haygarthe of late to declare that his life is +nigh at an end; and indeed he affects a conviction that his days are +number'd. This profane and impertinent notion I take to be a direct +inspiration of Satan, of a like character to ye sudden and +unaccountable fitts of laughter which have seized upon many pious +Christians in the midst of earnest congregations; whereby much shame +and discomfiture has been brought upon our sect. Nor is there any +justification for this presumptuous certainty entertained by my +husband, inasmuch as his health is much as it has ordinarily been for +ye last ten years. He does acknowledge this with his own lips, and +immediately after cries out that his race is run, and ye hand of death +is upon him; which I cannot but take as ye voice of ye enemy speaking +through that weak mouth of ye flesh. + +"On Sunday night last past, ye gloomy fitt being come upon him after +prayers, Mr. Haygarthe began all on a sudden, as it is his habit to do: + +"'There is something I would fain tell ye, wench,' he cries out, +'something about those roistering days in London, which it might be +well for thee to know.' + +"But I answered him directly, that I had no desire to hear of profane +roisterings, and that it would be better for him to keep his peace, and +listen reverently to the expounding of the Scriptures, which Humphrey +Bagot, our worthy pastor and friend, had promised to explain and +exemplify after supper. We was seated at ye time in ye blue parlour, +the table being spread for supper, and were awaiting our friend from +the village, a man of humble station, being but a poor chapman and +huckster, but of exalted mind and a most holy temper, and sells me the +same growth of Bohea as that drunk by our gracious queen at Windsor. +After I had thus reproved him--in no unkind speritt--" Mr. Haygarthe +fell to sighing; and then cries out all at once: + +"'When I am on my death-bed, wife, I will tell thee something: be sure +thou askest me for it; or if death come upon me unawares, thou wouldst +do well to search in the old tulip-leaf bureau for a letter, since I +may tell thee that in a letter which I would not tell with these lips.' + +"Before there was time to answer him in comes Mr. Bagot, and we to +supper; after which he did read the sixth chapter of Hebrews and +expound it at much length for our edifying; at the end whereof Satan +had obtained fast hold of Mr. Haygarthe, who was fallen asleep and +snoring heavily." + +Here is plain allusion to some secret, which that pragmatical idiot, +Mrs. Rebecca, studiously endeavoured not to hear. The next extract is +from a letter written when the lips that had been fain to speak were +stilled for ever. Ah, Mistress Rebecca, you were but mortal woman, +although you were also a shining light amongst the followers of John +Wesley; and I wonder what you would have given for poor Matthew's +secret _then_. + +"Some days being gone after this melancholic event, I bethought me of +that which my husband had said to me before I left Dewsdale for that +excursion to the love-feasts at Kemberton and Kesfield, Broppindean and +Dawnfold, from which I returned but two short weeks before my poor +Matthew's demise. I called to remembrance that discourse about +approaching death which in my poor human judgment I did esteem a +pestilent error of mind, but which I do now recognise as a spiritual +premonition; and I set myself earnestly to look for that letter which +Matthew told me he would leave in the tulip-leaf bureau. But though I +did search with great care and pains, my trouble was wasted, inasmuch +as there was no letter. Nor did I leave off to search until ev'ry nook +and crevvis had been examin'd. But in one of ye secret drawers, hidden +in an old dog's-eared book of prayers, I did find a lock of fair hair, +as if cut from the head of a child, entwin'd curiously with a long +plait of dark hair, which, by reason of ye length thereof, must needs +have been the hair of a woman, and with these the miniature of a girl's +face in a gold frame. I will not stain this paper, which is near come +to an end, by the relation of such suspicions as arose in my mind on +finding these curious treasures; nor will I be of so unchristian a +temper as to speak ill of the dead. My husband was in his latter days +exemplarily sober, and a humble acting Xtian. Ye secrets of his earlier +life will not now be showne to me on this side heaven. I have set aside +ye book, ye picture, and ye plaited hair in my desk for conveniency, +where I will show them to you when I am next rejoic'd by y'r improving +conversation. Until then, in grief or in happiness, in health and +sickness, I trust I shall ever continue, with y'r same sincerity, + +"Your humble and obliged Servant and disciple + +"REBECCA HAYGARTHE." + +Thus end my excerpts from the correspondence of Mrs. Haygarthe. They +are very interesting to me, as containing the vague shadow of a +vanished existence; but whether they will ever be worth setting forth +in an affidavit is extremely uncertain. Doubtless that miniature of an +unknown girl which caused so much consternation in the mind of sober +Mrs. Rebecca was no other than the "Molly" whose gray eyes reminded me +of Charlotte Halliday. + +As I copied Mrs. Rebecca's quaint epistles, in the midnight stillness, +the things of which I was writing arose before me like a picture. I +could see the blue parlour that Sunday evening; the sober couple seated +primly opposite to each other; the china monsters on the high +chimneypiece; the blue-and-white Dutch tiles, with queer squat figures +of Flemish citizens on foot and on horseback; the candles burning dimly +on the spindle-legged table--two poor pale flames reflected ghastly in +the dark polished panels of the wainscot; the big open Bible on an +adjacent table; the old silver tankard, and buckhorn-handled knives and +forks set out for supper; the solemn eight-day clock, ticking drearily +in the corner; and amid all that sombre old-fashioned comfort, +gray-haired Matthew sighing and lamenting for his vanished youth. + +I have grown strangely romantic since I have fallen in love with +Charlotte Halliday. The time was when I should have felt nothing but a +flippant ignorant contempt for poor Haygarth's feeble sighings and +lamentings; but now I think of him with a sorrowful tenderness, and am +more interested in his poor commonplace life, that picture, and those +two locks of hair, than in the most powerful romance that ever emanated +from mortal genius. It has been truly said, that truth is stranger than +fiction: may it not as justly be said, that truth has a power to touch +the human heart which is lacking in the most sublime flights of a +Shakespeare, or the grandest imaginings of an Aeschylus? One is sorry +for the fate of Agamemnon; but one is infinitely more sorrowful for the +cruel death of that English Richard in the dungeon at Pomfret, who was +a very insignificant person as compared to the king of men and of +ships. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +HUNTING THE JUDSONS. + + +_Oct. 10th_. Yesterday and the day before were blank days. On Saturday +I read Mrs. Rebecca's letters a second time after a late breakfast, and +spent a lazy morning in the endeavour to pick up any stray crumbs of +information which I might have overlooked the previous night. There was +nothing to be found, however; and, estimable as I have always +considered the founder of the Wesleyan fraternity, I felt just a little +weary of his virtues and his discourses, his journeyings from place to +place, his love-feasts and his prayer-meetings, before I had finished +with Mrs. Haygarth's correspondence. In the afternoon I strolled about +the town; made inquiries at several inns, with a view to discover +whether Captain Paget was peradventure an inmate thereof; looked in at +the railway-station, and watched the departure of a train; dawdled away +half an hour at the best tobacconist's shop in the town on the chance +of encountering my accomplished patron, who indulges in two of the +choicest obtainable cigars per diem, and might possibly repair thither +to make a purchase, if he were in the place. Whether he is still in +Ullerton or not I cannot tell; but he did not come to the +tobacconist's; and I was fain to go back to my inn, having wasted a +day. Yet I do not think that George Sheldon will have cause to complain +of me, since I have worked very closely for my twenty shillings per +week, and have devoted myself to the business in hand with an amount of +enthusiasm which I did not think it possible for me to experience +--except for-- + +I went to church on Sunday morning, and was more devoutly inclined than +it has been my habit to feel; for although a man who lives by his wits +must not necessarily be a heathen or an atheist, it is very difficult +for him to be anything like a Christian. Even my devotion yesterday was +not worth much, for my thoughts went vagabondising off to Charlotte +Halliday in the midst of a very sensible practical sermon. + +In the afternoon I read the papers, and dozed by the fire in the +coffee-room--two-thirds coke by the way, and alternating from the +fierceness of a furnace to the dreary blackness of an exhausted +coal-mine--still thinking of Charlotte. + +Late in the evening I walked the streets of the town, and thought what +a lonely wretch I was. The desert of Sahara is somewhat dismal, I +daresay; but in its dismality there is at least a flavour of romance, a +smack of adventure. O, the hopeless dulness, the unutterable blankness +of a provincial town late on a Sunday night, as it presents itself to +the contemplation of a friendless young man without a sixpence in his +pocket, or one bright hope to tempt him to forgetfulness of the past in +pleasant dreaming of the future! + +Complaining again! O pen, which art the voice of my discontent, your +spluttering is like this outburst of unmanly fretfulness and futile +rage! O paper, whose flat surface typifies the dull level of my life, +your greasy unwillingness to receive the ink is emblematic of the +soul's revolt against destiny! + +This afternoon brought me a letter from Sheldon, and opened a new +channel for my explorations in that underground territory, the past. +That man has a marvellous aptitude for his work; and has, what is more +than aptitude, the experience of ten years of failure. Such a man must +succeed sooner or later. I wonder whether his success will come while I +am allied to him. I have been used to consider myself an unlucky +wretch, a creature of ill-fortune to others as well as to myself. It is +a foolish superstition, perhaps, to fancy one's self set apart for an +evil destiny; but the Eumenides have been rather hard upon me. Those +"amiable" deities, whom they of Colonae tried so patiently to conciliate +with transparent flatteries, have marked me for their prey from the +cradle--I don't suppose that cradle was paid for, by the bye. I wonder +whether there is an avenging deity whose special province it is to +pursue the insolvent--a Nemesis of the Bankruptcy Court. + +My Sheldon's epistle bears the evidence of a very subtle brain, as I +think. It is longer than his previous letters. I transcribe it here, as +I wish this record to be a complete brief of my proceedings in this +Haygarth business. + + +"Gray's Inn, Sunday night. + +"DEAR HAWKEHURST,--The copies of the letters came duly to hand, and I +think you have made your selections with much discretion, always +supposing you have overlooked nothing in the remaining mass of writing. +I will thank you to send me the rest of the letters, by the way. You +can take notes of anything likely to be useful to yourself, and it will +be as well for me to possess the originals. + +"I find one very strong point in the first letter of your selection, +viz. the allusion to a house in John-street. It is clear that Matthew +lived in that house, and in that neighbourhood there may even yet +remain some traces of his existence. I shall begin a close +investigation to-morrow within a certain radius of that spot; and if I +have the good luck to fall upon any clear-headed centenarians, I may +pick up something. + +"There are some alms-houses hard by Whitecross-street prison, where the +inmates live to ages that savour of the Pentateuch. Perhaps there I may +light upon some impoverished citizen fallen from a good estate who can +remember some contemporary of Matthew's. London was smaller in those +days than it is now, and men lived out their lives in one spot, and had +leisure to be concerned about the affairs of their neighbours. As I +have now something of a clue to Matthew's roistering days, I shall set +to work to follow it up closely; and your provincial researches and my +metropolitan investigations proceeding simultaneously, we may hope to +advance matters considerably ere long. For your own part, I should +advise you forthwith to hunt up the Judson branch. You will remember +that Matthew's only sister was a Mrs. Judson of Ullerton. I want to +find an heir-at-law in a direct line from Matthew; and you know my +theory on that point. But if we fail in that direction, we must of +course fall back upon the Judsons, who are a disgustingly complicated +set of people, and will take half a lifetime to disentangle, to say +nothing of other men who may be working the same business, and who are +pretty sure to have pinned their faith on the female branch of the +Haygarthian tree. + +"I want you to ferret out some of the Judson descendants with a view to +picking up further documentary evidence in the shape of old letters, +inscriptions in old books, and so on. That Matthew had a secret is +certain; and that he was very much inclined to reveal that secret in +his later days is also certain. Who shall say that he did not tell it +to his only sister, though he was afraid to tell it to his wife? + +"You have acted with so much discretion up to this point, that I do not +care to trouble you with any further hints or suggestions. When money +is wanted, it shall be forthcoming; but I must beg you to manage things +economically, as I have to borrow at a considerable sacrifice; and +should this affair prove a failure, my ruin is inevitable. + +"Yours, &c. G.S." + + +My friend Sheldon is a man who can never have been more than "yours +et-cetera" to any human creature. I suppose what he calls ruin would be +a quiet passage through the Bankruptcy Court, and a new set of chambers. +I should not suppose that sort of ruin would be very terrible for a man +whose sole possessions are a few weak-backed horsehair chairs, a couple +of battered old desks, half a dozen empty japanned boxes, a file of +_Bell's Life_, and a Turkey carpet in which the progress of corruption +is evident to the casual observer. + +The hunting-up of the Judsons is a very easy matter as compared to the +task of groping in the dimness of the past in search of some faint +traces of the footsteps of departed Haygarths. Whereas the Haygarth +family seem to be an extinct race, the Judsonian branch have bred and +mustered in the land; and my chief difficulty in starting has been an +_embarras de richesse_, in the shape of half a page of Judsons in the +Ullerton directory. + +Whether to seek out Theodore Judson, the attorney, in Nile street East, +or the Rev. James Judson, curate of St. Gamaliel; whether to appeal in +the first instance to Judson & Co., haberdashers and silk mercers, of +the Ferrygate, or to Judson of Judson and Grinder, wadding +manufacturers in Lady-lane--was the grand question. On inquiring of the +landlord as to the antecedents of these Judsons, I found that they were +all supposed to spring from one common stock, and to have the blood of +old Jonathan Haygarth in their veins. The Judsons had been an obscure +family--people of "no account," my landlord told me, until Joseph +Judson, chapman and cloth merchant in a very small way, was so +fortunate as to win the heart of Ruth Haygarth, only daughter of the +wealthy Nonconformist grocer in the market-place. This marriage had +been the starting-point of Joseph Judson's prosperity. Old Haygarth had +helped his industrious and respectable son-in-law along the stony road +that leads to fortune, and had no doubt given him many a lift over the +stones which bestrew that toilsome highway. My landlord's information +was as vague as the information of people in general; but it was easily +to be made out, from his scanty shreds and scraps of information, that +the well-placed Judsons of the present day had almost all profited to +some extent by the hard-earned wealth of Jonathan Haygarth. "They've +nearly all of them got the name of Haygarth mixed up with their other +names somehow," said my landlord. "Judson of Judson and Grinder is +Thomas Haygarth Judson. He's a member of our tradesman's club, and +worth a hundred thousand pounds, if he's worth a sixpence." + +I have observed, by the way, that a wealthy tradesman in a country town +is never accredited with less than a hundred thousand; there seems a +natural hankering in the human mind for round numbers. + +"There's J.H. Judson of St. Gamaliel," continued my landlord--"he's +James Haygarth Judson; and young Judson the attorney's son puts +'Haygarth Judson' on his card, and gets people to call him Haygarth +Judson when they will--which in a general way they won't, on account of +his giving himself airs, which you may see him any summer evening +walking down Ferrygate as if the place belonged to him, and he didn't +set much value on it. They _do_ say his father's heir-at-law to a +million of money left by the last of the Haygarths, and that he and the +son are trying to work up a claim to the property against the Crown. +But I have heard young Judson deny it in our room when he was spoken to +about it, and I don't suppose there's much ground for people's talk." + +I was sorry to discover there was any ground for such talk; Mr. Judson +the lawyer would be no insignificant opponent. I felt that I must give +a very wide berth to Mr. Theodore Judson the attorney, and his stuck-up +son, unless circumstances should so shape themselves as to oblige us to +work with him. In the meanwhile any move I made amongst the other +Judsons would be likely, I thought, to come to the knowledge of these +particular members of the family. + +"Are the Judson family very friendly with one another?" I artfully +inquired. + +"Well, you see, some of 'em are, and some of 'em ain't. They're most of +'em third and fourth cousins, you see, and that ain't a very near +relationship in a town where there's a good deal of competition, and +interests often clash. Young Theodore--Haygarth Judson as he calls +himself--is very thick with Judson of St. Gamaliel's, they were at +college together, you see: and fine airs they give themselves on the +strength of a couple of years or so at Cambridge. Those two get on very +well together. But Judson of the Lady-lane Mills don't speak to either +of 'em when he meets 'em in the street, and has been known to cut 'em +dead in my room. William Judson of Ferrygate is a dissenter, and keeps +himself to himself very close. The other Judsons are too fast a lot for +him: though what's the harm of a man taking a glass or two of +brandy-and-water of an evening with his friends is more than _I_ can +find out," added mine host, musingly. + +It was to William Judson the dissenter, who kept himself to himself, +that I determined to present myself in the first instance. As a +dissenter, he would be likely to have more respect for the memory of +the Nonconformist and Wesleyan Haygarths, and to have preserved any +traditions relating to them with more fidelity than the Anglican and +frivolous members of the Judson family. As an individual who kept +himself to himself, he would be unlikely to communicate my business to +his kindred. + +I lost no time in presenting myself at the house of business in +Ferrygate, and after giving the servant George Sheldon's card, and +announcing myself as concerned in a matter of business relating to the +Haygarth family, I was at once ushered into a prim counting-house, +where a dapper little old gentleman in spotless broadcloth, and a +cambric cravat and shirt frill which were soft and snowy as the plumage +of the swan, received me with old-fashioned courtesy. I was delighted +to find him seventy-five years of age at the most moderate computation, +and I should have been all the better pleased if he had been older. I +very quickly discovered that in Mr. Judson the linen draper I had to +deal with a very different person from the Rev. Jonah Goodge. He +questioned me closely as to my motive in seeking information on the +subject of the departed Haygarth, and I had some compunction in +diplomatising with him as I had diplomatised with Mr. Goodge. To +hoodwink the wary Jonah was a triumph--to deceive the confiding +linen draper was a shame. However, as I have before set down, I suppose +at the falsest I am not much farther from the truth than a barrister or +a diplomatist. Mr. Judson accepted my account of myself in all +simplicity, and seemed quite pleased to have an opportunity of talking +about the deceased Haygarths. + +"You are not concerned in the endeavour to assert Theodore Judson's +claim to the late John Haygarth's property, eh?" the old man asked me +presently, as if struck by a sudden misgiving. + +I assured him that Mr. Theodore Judson's interests and mine were in no +respect identical. + +"I am glad of that," answered the draper; "not that I owe Theodore +Judson a grudge, you must understand, though his principles and mine +differ very widely. I have been told that he and his son hope to +establish a claim to that Haygarth property; but they will never +succeed, sir--they will never succeed. There was a young man who went +to India in '41; a scamp and a vagabond, sir, who was always trying to +borrow money in sums ranging from a hundred pounds, to set him up in +business and render him a credit to his family, to a shilling for the +payment of a night's lodging or the purchase of a dinner. But that +young man was the great-grandson of Ruth Haygarth--the eldest surviving +grandson of Ruth Haygarth's eldest son; and if that man is alive, he is +rightful heir to John Haygarth's money. Whether he is alive or dead at +this present moment is more than I can tell, since he has never been +heard of in Ullerton since he left the town; but until Theodore Judson +can obtain legal proof of that man's death he has no more chance of +getting one sixpence of the Haygarth estate than I have of inheriting +the crown of Great Britain." + +The old man had worked himself into a little passion before he finished +this speech, and I could see that the Theodore Judsons were as +unpopular in the draper's counting-house as they were at the Swan Inn. + +"What was this man's Christian name?" I asked. + +"Peter. He was called Peter Judson; and was the great-grandson of my +grandfather, Joseph Judson, who inhabited this very house, sir, more +than a hundred years ago. Let me see: Peter Judson must have been about +five-and-twenty years of age when he left Ullerton; so he is a +middle-aged man by this time if he hasn't killed himself, or if the +climate hasn't killed him long ago. He went as supercargo to a merchant +vessel: he was a clever fellow, and could work hard when it suited him, +in spite of his dissipated life. Theodore Judson is a very good lawyer; +but though he may bring all his ingenuity to bear, he will never +advance a step nearer to the possession of John Haygarth's money till +he obtains evidence of Peter Judson's death; and he's afraid to +advertise for that evidence for fear he might arouse the attention of +other claimants." + +Much as I was annoyed to find that there were claimants lying in wait +for the rev. intestate's wealth, I was glad to perceive that Theodore +Judson's unpopularity was calculated to render his kindred agreeably +disposed to any stranger likely to push that gentleman out of the list +of competitors for these great stakes, and I took my cue from this in +my interview with the simple old draper. + +"I regret that I am not at liberty to state the nature of my business," +I said, in a tone that was at once insinuating and confidential; "but I +think I may venture to go so far as to say, without breach of trust to +my employer, that whoever may ultimately succeed to the Rev. John +Haygarth's money, neither Mr. Judson the lawyer nor his son will ever +put a finger on a penny of it." + +"I am not sorry to hear it," answered Mr. Judson, enraptured; "not that +I owe the young man a grudge, you must understand, but because he is +particularly undeserving of good fortune. A young man who passes his +own kindred in the streets of his native town without the common +courtesy due to age or respectability; a young man who sneers at the +fortune acquired in an honest and reputable trade; a young man who +calls his cousins counter-jumpers, and his aunts and uncles +'swaddlers'--a vulgar term of contempt applied to the earlier members +of the Wesleyan confraternity--such a young man is not the individual +to impart moral lustre to material wealth; and I am free to confess +that I had rather any one else than Theodore Judson should inherit this +vast fortune. Why, are you aware, my dear sir, that he has been seen to +drive tandem through this very street, as it is; and I should like to +know how many horses he would harness to that gig of his, or how openly +he would insult his relatives, if he had a hundred thousand pounds to +deal with?" + +"A hundred thousand pounds!" exclaimed I; "am I to understand that the +fortune left by the Reverend John Haygarth amounts to that sum?" + +"To every penny of it, sir; and a nice use Theodore Judson and that +precious son of his would make of it if it fell into their hands." + +For a second time Mr. Judson the draper had worked himself into a +little passion, and the conversation had to be discontinued for some +minutes while he cooled down to his ordinary temperament. + +"O ho!" said I within myself, while awaiting the completion of this +cooling-down process; "so _this_ is the stake for which my friend +Sheldon is playing!" + +"I'll tell you what I will do for you, Mr.--Mr. Hawke-shell,"--Mr. +Judson said at last, making a compound of my own and my employer's +names; "I will give you a line of introduction to my sister. If any one +can help you in hunting up intelligence relating to the past she can. +She is two years my junior--seventy-one years of age, but as bright and +active as a girl. She has lived all her life in Ullerton, and is a +woman who hoards every scrap of paper that comes in her way. If old +letters or old newspapers can assist you, she can show you plenty +amongst her stores." + +Upon this the old man wrote a note, which he dried with sand out of a +perforated bottle, as Richard Steele may have dried one of those airy +tender essays which he threw off in tavern parlours for the payment of +a jovial dinner. + +Provided with this antique epistle, written on Bath post and sealed +with a great square seal from a bunch of cornelian monstrosities which +the draper carried at his watch-chain, I departed to find Miss +Hephzibah Judson, of Lochiel Villa, Lancaster-road. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +GLIMPSES OF A BYGONE LIFE. + + +_October 10th_. I found the villa inhabited by Miss Hephzibah Judson +very easily, and found it one of those stiff square dwelling-houses +with brass curtain-rods, prim flower-beds, and vivid green palings, +only to be discovered in full perfection in the choicer suburb of a +country town. + +I had heard enough during my brief residence in Ullerton to understand +that to live in the Lancaster-road was to possess a diploma of +respectability not easily vitiated by individual conduct. No +disreputable persons had ever yet set up their unholy Lares and Penates +in one of those new slack-baked villas; and that person must have been +very bold who, conscious of moral unfitness or pecuniary shortcoming, +should have ventured to pitch his tent in that sacred locality. + +Miss Hephzibah Judson was one of the individuals whose shining sanctity +of life and comfortable income lent a reflected brightness to the +irreproachable suburb. I was admitted to her abode by an elderly woman +of starched demeanour but agreeable visage, who ushered me into a +spotless parlour, whereof the atmosphere was of that vault-like +coldness peculiar to a room which is only inhabited on state occasions. +Here the starched domestic left me while she carried my letter of +introduction to her mistress. In her absence I had leisure to form some +idea of Miss Judson's character on the mute evidence of Miss Judson's +surroundings. From the fact that there were books of a sentimental and +poetical tenor amongst the religious works ranged at mathematically +correct distances upon the dark green table-cover--from the presence +of three twittering canaries in a large brass cage--from the evidence of +a stuffed Blenheim spaniel, with intensely brown eyes, reclining on a +crimson velvet cushion under a glass shade--I opined that Miss Judson's +piety was pleasantly leavened by sentiment, and that her Wesleyanism +was agreeably tempered by that womanly tenderness which, failing more +legitimate outlets, will waste itself upon twittering canaries and +plethoric spaniels. + +I was not mistaken. Miss Judson appeared presently, followed by the +servant bearing a tray of cake and wine. This was the first occasion on +which I had been offered refreshment by any person to whom I had +presented myself. I argued, therefore, that Miss Judson was the weakest +person with whom I had yet had to deal; and I flattered myself with the +hope that from Miss Judson's amiable weakness, sentimentality, and +womanly tenderness, I should obtain better aid than from more +business-like and practical people. + +I fancied that with this lady it would be necessary to adopt a certain +air of candour. I therefore did not conceal from her the fact that my +business had something to do with that Haygarthian fortune awaiting a +claimant. + +"The person for whom you are concerned is not Mr. Theodore Judson?" she +asked, with some asperity. + +I assured her that I had never seen Theodore Judson, and that I was in +no manner interested in his success. + +"In that case I shall be happy to assist you as far as lies in my +power; but I can do nothing to advance the interests of Theodore Judson +junior. I venture to hope that I am a Christian; and if Theodore Judson +junior were to come here to me and ask my forgiveness, I should accord +that forgiveness as a Christian; but I cannot and will not lend myself +to the furtherance of Theodore Judson's avaricious designs. I cannot +lend myself to the suppression of truth or the assertion of falsehood. +Theodore Judson senior is not the rightful heir to the late John +Haygarth's fortune, though I am bound to acknowledge that his claim +would be prior to my brother's. There is a man who stands before the +Theodore Judsons, and the Theodore Judsons know it. But were they the +rightful claimants, I should still consider them most unfitted to enjoy +superior fortune. If that dog could speak, he would be able to testify +to ill-usage received from Theodore Judson junior at his own +garden-gate, which would bespeak the character of the man to every +thoughtful mind. A young man who could indulge his spiteful feelings +against an elderly kinswoman at the expense of an unoffending animal +is not the man to make worthy use of fortune." + +I expressed my acquiescence with this view of the subject; and I was +glad to perceive that with Miss Judson, as with her brother, the +obnoxious Theodores would stand me in good stead. The lady was only two +years younger than her brother, and even more inclined to be +communicative. I made the most of my opportunity, and sat in the +vault-like parlour listening respectfully to her discourse, and from +time to time hazarding a leading question, as long as it pleased her +to converse; although it seemed to me as if a perennial spring of cold +water were trickling slowly down my back and pervading my system during +the entire period. As the reward of my fortitude I obtained Miss +Judson's promise to send me any letters or papers she might find +amongst her store of old documents relating to the personal history of +Matthew Haygarth. + +"I know I have a whole packet of letters in Matthew's own hand amongst +my grandmother's papers," said Miss Judson. "I was a great favourite +with my grandmother, and used to spend a good deal of my time with her +before she died--which she did while I was in pinafores; but young +people wore pinafores much longer in my time than they do now; and I +was getting on for fourteen years of age when my grandmother departed +this life. I've often heard her talk of her brother Matthew, who had +been dead some years when I was born. She was very fond of him, and he +of her, I've heard her say; and she used often to tell me how handsome +he was in his youth; and how well he used to look in a chocolate and +gold-laced riding coat, just after the victory of Culloden, when he +came to Ullerton in secret, to pay her a visit--not being on friendly +terms with his father." + +I asked Miss Judson if she had ever read Matthew Haygarth's letters. + +"No," she said; "I look at them sometimes when I'm tidying the drawer +in which I keep them, and I have sometimes stopped to read a word here +and there, but no more. I keep them out of respect to the dead; but I +think it would make me unhappy to read them. The thoughts and the +feelings in old letters seem so fresh that they bring our poor +mortality too closely home to us when we remember how little except +those faded letters remains of those who wrote them. It is well for us +to remember that we are only travellers and wayfarers on this earth; +but sometimes it seems just a little hard to think how few traces of +our footsteps we leave behind us when the journey is finished." + +The canaries seemed to answer Miss Judson with a feeble twitter of +assent: and I took my leave, with a feeling of compassion in my heart. +I, the scamp--I, Robert Macaire the younger--had pity upon the caged +canaries, and the lonely old woman whose narrow life was drawing to its +close, and who began to feel how very poor a thing it had been after +all. + +_Oct. 11th_. I have paid the penalty of my temerity in enduring the +vault-like chilliness of Miss Hephzibah Judson's parlour, and am +suffering to-day from a sharp attack of influenza; that complaint which +of all others tends to render a man a burden to himself, and a nuisance +to his fellow-creatures. Under these circumstances I have ordered a +fire in my own room--a personal indulgence scarcely warranted by +Sheldon's stipend--and I sit by my own fire pondering over the story of +Matthew Haygarth's life. + +On the table by my side are scattered more than a hundred letters, all +in Matthew's bold hand; but even yet, after a most careful study of +those letters, the story of the man's existence is far from clear to +me. The letters are full of hints and indications, but they tell so +little plainly. They deal in enigmas, and disguise names under the mask +of initials. + +There is much in these letters which relates to the secret history of +Matthew's life. They were written to the only creature amongst his +kindred in whom he fully confided. This fact transpires more than once, +as will be seen anon by the extracts I shall proceed to make; if my +influenza--which causes me to shed involuntary tears that give me the +appearance of a drivelling idiot, and which jerks me nearly out of my +chair every now and then with a convulsive sneeze--will permit me to do +anything rational or useful. + +I have sorted and classified the letters, first upon one plan, then +upon another, until I have classified and sorted them into chaos. +Having done this, my only chance is to abandon all idea of +classification, and go quietly through them in consecutive order +according to their dates, jotting down whatever strikes me as +significant. George Sheldon's acumen must do the rest. + +Thus I begin my notes, with an extract from the fourth letter in the +series. Mem. I preserve Matthew's own orthography, which is the most +eccentric it was ever my lot to contemplate. + +"_December_ 14, '42. Indeed, my dear Ruth, I am ventursom wear you are +concurn'd, and w'd tell you that I w'd taik panes to kepe fromm +another. I saw ye same girl w'h it was my good fortun to saive from ye +molestashun of raketters and mohoks at Smithfelde in September last +past. She is ye derest prittiest creture you ever saw, and as elegant +and genteel in her speche and maner as a Corte lady, or as ye best +bredd person in Ullerton. I mett her in ye nayborood of ye Marchalsee +prison wear her father is at this pressent time a prisener, and had +som pleassant talke with her. She rememberr'd me at once, and seme'd +mitily gladd to see me. Mem. Her pritty blu eys wear fill'd with teares +wen she thank'd me for having studd up to be her champyun at ye Fare. +So you see, Mrs. Ruth, ye brotherr is more thort off in London than +with them which hav ye rite to regard him bestt. If you had scen ye +pore simpel childeish creetur and heeard her tell her arteless tale, I +think y'r kinde hart w'd have bin sore to considder so much unmiritted +misfortun: ye father is in pore helth, a captiv, ye mother has binn +dedd thre yeres, and ye pore orfann girl, Mollie, has to mentane ye +burden of ye sick father, and a yung helples sister. Think of this, +kinde Mrs. Ruth, in y'r welthy home. Mem. Pore Mrs. Mollie is prittier +than ye fineist ladies that wear to be sene at ye opening of ye grand +new roome at Ranellar this spring last past, wear I sor ye too Miss +Gunings and Lady Harvey, wich is alsoe accounted a grate buty." + +I think this extract goes very far to prove that my friend Matthew was +considerably smitten by the pretty young woman whose champion he had +been in some row at Bartholomew Fair. This fits into one of the scraps +of information afforded by my ancient inhabitant in Ullerton +Almshouses, who remembers having heard his grandfather talk of Mat +Haygarth's part in some fight or disturbance at the great Smithfield +festival. + +My next extract treats again of Mollie, after an interval of four +months. It seems as if Matthew had confided in his sister so far as to +betray his tenderness for the poor player-girl of the London booths; +but I can find no such letter amongst those in my hands. Such an +epistle may have been considered by Mrs. Ruth too dangerous to be kept +where the parental eye might in some evil hour discover it. Matthew's +sister was unmarried at this date, and lived within the range of that +stern paternal eye. Matthew's letter appears to me to have been written +in reply to some solemn warning from Ruth. + +"_April_ 12, 1743. Sure, my dear sister cannot think me so baise a +retch as to injoore a pore simpel girl hoo confides in me as ye best +and trooest of mortals, wich for her dere saik I will strive to be. If +so be my sister cou'd think so ill of me it wou'd amost temt me to +think amiss of her, wich cou'd imagen so vile a thort. You tel me that +Mrs. Rebecka Caulfeld is mor than ever estemed by my father; but, Ruth, +I am bounde to say, my father's esteme is nott to be ye rule of my +ackshuns thro' life, for it semes to me their is no worser tyrrannie +than ye wich fathers do striv to impose on there children, and I do +acount that a kind of barbarity wich wou'd compel ye hart of youth to +sute ye proodense of age. I do not dout but Mrs. Rebecka is a mitey +proper and well-natur'd person, tho' taken upp with this new sekt of +methodys, or, as sum do call them in derission, swaddlers and jumpers, +set afoot by ye madbrain'd young man, Wesley, and one that is still +madder, Witfelde. Thear ar I dare sware many men in Ullerton wich wou'd +be gladd to obtane Mrs. Rebecka's hand and fortun; but if ye fortun +wear ten times more, I wou'd not preetend to oferr my harte to herr +w'h can never be its misteress. Now, my deare sister, having gone +as farr towards satisfieing all y'r queerys as my paper wou'd welle +permitt, I will say no more but to begg you to send me all ye knews, +and to believe that none can be more affectionately y'r humble servant +than your brother." "MATHEW HAYGARTH." + +In this extract we have strong ground for supposing that our Matthew +truly loved the player-girl, and meant honestly by his sweetheart. +There is a noble indignation in his repudiation of his sister's doubts, +and a manly determination not to marry Mrs. Rebecca's comfortable +fortune. I begin to think that Sheldon's theory of an early and secret +marriage will turn up a trump card; but Heaven only knows how slow or +how difficult may be the labour of proving such a marriage. And then, +even if we can find documentary evidence of such an event, we shall +have but advanced one step in our obscure path, and should have yet to +discover the issue of that union, and to trace the footsteps of +Matthew's unknown descendants during the period of a century. + +I wonder how Sisyphus felt when the stone kept rolling back upon him. +Did he ever look up to the top of the mountain and calculate the +distance he must needs traverse before his task should be done? + +The next letter in which I find a passage worth transcribing is of much +later date, and abounds in initials. The postmark is illegible; but I +can just make out the letters PO and L, the two first close together, +the third after an interval; and there is internal evidence to show +that the letter was written from some dull country place. Might not +that place have been Spotswold? the PO and the L of the postmark would +fit very well into the name of that village. Again I leave this +question to the astute Sheldon. The date is March, 1749. + +"M. is but porely. Sumtimes I am pain'd to believe this quiett life is +not well suted to herr disposishun, having bin acustumed to so much +livlinesse and nois. I hav reproched her with this, but she tolde me, +with teres in her eys, to be neare mee and M. and C. was to be happie, +and ye it is il helth onlie wich is ye cawse of ye sadnesse. I pray +heaven M.'s helth may be on ye mending hand soone. Little M. grows more +butiful everry day; and indede, my dear sisterr, if you cou'd stele +another visitt this waye, and oblidge yr affectionat brother, you wou'd +considerr him ye moste butifull creetur ever scene. So much enteligence +with sich ingaging temper endeares him to all hartes. Mrs. J. says she +adors him, and is amost afraide to be thort a Paygann for bestoeing so +much affection on a erthly creetur, and this to oure good parson who +cou'd find no reproche for her plesant folly. + +"We hav had heavy ranes all ye week last past. Sech wether can but +serve to hinderr M.'s recovery. The fysichion at G., wear I tooke her, +saies she shou'd hav much fresh aire everry day--if not afoot, to be +carrid in a chaire or cotche; but in this wether, and in a plaice wear +neeither chaire nor cotche can be had, she must needs stop in doors. I +hav begg'd her to lett me carry her to G., but she will not, and says +in ye summerr she will be as strong as everr. I pray God she may be so. +Butt theire are times whenn my harte is sore and heavy; and the rane +beeting agenst the winder semes lik dropps of cold worter falling uponn +my pore aking harte. If you cou'd stele a visitt you wou'd see wether +she semes worse than whenn you sor her last ortumm; she is trieing ye +tansy tea; and beggs her service to you, and greatfull thanks for y'r +rememberence of her. I dare to say you here splended acounts of my +doins in London--at cok fites and theaters, dansing at Vorxhall, and +beeting ye wotch in Covin Garden. Does my F. stil use to speke harsh +agenst me, or has he ni forgott their is sech a creetur living? If he +has so, I hope you wil kepe him in sech forgetfullnesse,--and obliage, + +"Yr loving brother and obediant servent." + +"MATHEW HAYGARTH." + + +To me this letter is almost conclusive evidence of a marriage. Who can +this little M. be, of whom he writes so tenderly, except a child? Who +can this woman be, whose ill health causes him such anxiety, unless a +wife? Of no one _but_ a wife could he write so freely to his sister. +The place to which he asks her to "steal a visit" must needs be a home +to which a man could invite his sister. I fancy it is thus made very +clear that at this period Matthew Haygarth was secretly married and +living at Spotswold, where his wife and son were afterwards buried, and +whence the body of the son was ultimately removed to Dewsdale to be +laid in that grave which the father felt would soon be his own +resting-place. That allusion to the Ullerton talk of London roisterings +indicates that Matthew's father believed him to be squandering the +paternal substance in the metropolis at the very time when the young +man was leading a simple domestic life within fifty miles of the +paternal abode. No man could do such a thing in these days of rapid +locomotion, when every creature is more or less peripatetic; but in +that benighted century the distance from Ullerton to Spotswold +constituted a day's journey. That Matthew was living in one place while +he was supposed to be in another is made sufficiently clear by several +passages in his letters, all more or less in the strain of the +following:-- + +"I was yesterday--markett-day--at G., wear I ran suddennly agenst Peter +Browne's eldest ladd. The boy openn'd his eyes wide, stearing like an +owle; butt I gaive him bakk his looke with interrest, and tolde him if +he was curiouse to know my name, I was Simon Lubchick, farmer, at his +servise. The pore simpel ladd arsk'd my pardonn humbly for having +mistook me for a gentelman of Ullerton--a frend of his father; on wich +I gaive him a shillin, and we parted, vastly plesed with eche other; +and this is nott the fust time the site of Ullerton fokes has putt me +into a swett." + +Amongst later letters are very sad ones. The little M. is dead. The +father's poor aching heart proclaims its anguish in very simple words: + +"_Nov_. 1751. I thank my dear sister kindly for her friendlinesse and +compashin; butt, ah, he is gone, and their semes to be no plesure or +comforte on this erth without him! onlie a littel childe of 6 yeres, +and yett so dere a creetur to this harte that the worlde is emty and +lonely without him. M. droopes sadly, and is more ailing everry day. +Indede, my dere Ruth, I see nothing butt sorrow before me, and I wou'd +be right gladd to lay down at peece in my littel M.'s grave." + +I can find no actual announcements of death, only sad allusions here +and there. I fancy the majority of Matthew's letters must have been +lost, for the dates of those confided to my hands are very far apart, +and there is evidence in all of them of other correspondence. After the +letter alluding to little M.'s death, there is a hiatus of eight years. +Then comes a letter with the post-mark London very clear, from which I +transcribe an extract. "_October 4th_, 1759. The toun is very sadd; +everry body, high and low, rich and pore, in morning for Gennerel Wolf: +wot a nobel deth to die, and how much happier than to live, when one +considers the cairs and miseries of this life; and sech has bin the +oppinion of wiser fokes than y'r humble servent. Being in companie on +Thersday sennite with that distingwish'd riter, Dr. Johnson,--whose +admir'd story of _Raselass_ I sent you new from ye press, but who I am +bound to confesse is less admirable as a fine gentlemann than as an +orther, his linning siled and his kravatt twisted ary, and his manners +wot in a more obskure personn wou'd be thort ungenteel,--he made a +remark wich impress'd me much. Some one present, being almost all +gentelmenn of parts and learning, except y'r pore untuter'd brother, +observed that it was a saying with the ainchents that ye happiest of +men was him wich was never born; ye next happy him wich died the +soonest. On wich Dr. Johnson cried out verry loud and angry, 'That was +a Paggann sentyment, sir, and I am asham'd that a Xtian gentelmann +shou'd repete it as a subject for admerashun. Betwene these heathen men +and ye followers of Christ their is all ye differenc betwene a slave +and a servent of a kind Master. Eche bears the same burden; butt ye +servent knows he will recieve just wages for his work, wile ye slave +hopes for nothing, and so conkludes that to escape work is to be +happy!' I could but aknowlege the wisdomm and pyety of this speche; +yett whenn I see ye peopel going bye in their black rayment, I envy the +young Gennerel his gloreous deth, and I wish I was laying amongst the +plane on the hites of Quebeck. I went to look at ye old house in J. +St., but I wou'd not go in to see Mr. F. or ye old roomes; for I think +I shou'd see the aparishions of those that once liv'd in them. C. +thrivs at Higate, wear the aire is fresh and pewer. I go to see her +offen. She is nerely as high as you. Give my servis to Mrs. Rebecka, +sinse you say it will plese my father to do so, and he is now dispos'd +to think more kindly of me. Butt if he thinks I shal everr arske her to +be my wife he is mityly mistaken. You know wear my harte lies--in ye +grave with all that made life dere. Thank my father for the Bill, and +tell him I pass my time in good companie, and neether drink nor play; +and will come to Ullerton to pay him my respeckts when he pleses to bid +me. Butt I hav no desire to leeve London, as I am gladd to be neare C." + +Who was C., whom Matthew visited at Highgate, and who was nearly as +tall as Ruth Judson? Was she not most likely the same C. mentioned in +conjunction with the little M. in the earlier letters? and if so, can +there be any doubt that she was the daughter of Matthew Haygarth? Of +whom but of a daughter would he write as in this letter? She was at +Highgate, at school most likely, and he goes to see her. She is nearly +as tall as Mrs. Judson. This height must have been a new thing, or he +would scarcely impart it as a piece of news to his sister. And then he +has no desire to leave London, as he is glad to be near C. + +My life upon it, C. is a daughter. + +Acting upon this conviction, I have transcribed all passages relating +to C., at whatever distance of time they occur. + + * * * * * + +Thus, in 1763, I find--"C. has grone very hansome, and Mrs. N. tells me +is much admir'd by a brother of her frend Tabitha. She never stirs +abrorde but with Tabitha, and if a dutchess, cou'd be scarce wated on +more cairfully. Mrs. N. loves her verry tenderly, and considers her the +sweetest and most wel bredd of young women. I hav given her the new +edishun of Sir Charls Grandisson, wich they read alowde in ye evenings, +turn and turn about, to Mrs. N. at her spinning. C. has given me a wool +comforter of her owne worke, and sum stockings wich are two thick to +ware, but I hav not told her so." + +Again, in 1764: "Tabitha Meynell's brother goes more than ever to +Higate. He is a clark in his father's wearhouse; very sober and +estimabel, and if it be for ye hapiness of C. to mary him, I wou'd be +ye laste of men to sett my orthoritty agenst her enclinashun. She is +yett but ayteen yeres of age, wich is young to make a change; so I tell +Mrs. N. we will waite. Meanwhile ye young peapel see eche other offen." + +Again, in 1765: "Young Meynell is still constant, expressing much love +and admirashun for C. in his discorse with Mrs. N., butt sattisfide to +wait my plesure before spekeing oppenly to C. He semes a most exempelry +young man; his father a cittizen of some repewt in Aldersgait-street, +ware I have din'd since last riting to you, and at hoose tabel I was +paid much considerashun. He, Tomas Meynell ye father, will give his son +five hundred pound, and I prommis a thousand pound with C. and to +furnish a house at Chelsee, a verry plesent and countriefide vilage; so +I make no doubt there will soon be a wedding. + +"I am sorrie to here my father is aleing; give him my love and servise, +and will come to Ullerton immediate on receiving his commands. I am +plesed to think Mrs. Rebecka Caulfeld is so dutifull and kind to him, +and has comfortedd him with prairs and discorses. I thank her for this +more than for any frendshipp for my undeserving self. Pray tell her +that I am much at her servise. + +"Our new king is lov'd and admir'd by all. His ministers not so; and +wise peopel do entertain themselfs with what I think foollish jokes +a-bout a _Skotch boote_. Perhapps I am not cleverr enuff to see the funn +in this joke." + +In this letter I detect a certain softening of feeling towards Mrs. +Rebecca Caulfield. In the next year--'66--according to my notes, +Matthew's father died, and I have no letters bearing the date of that +year, which our Matthew no doubt spent at home. Nor have I any letters +from this time until the year of Matthew's marriage with Rebecca +Caulfield. In the one year of his union with Mrs. Rebecca, and the last +year of his life, there are many letters, a few from London and the +rest from the manor-house at Dewsdale. But in these epistles, +affectionate and confidential as they are, there is little positive +information. + +These are the letters of the regenerate and Wesleyanised Matthew; and, +like the more elaborate epistles of his wife Rebecca, deal chiefly with +matters spiritual. In these letters I can perceive the workings of a +weak mind, which in its decline has become a prey to religious terrors; +and though I fully recognise the reforming influence which John Wesley +exercised upon the people of England, I fancy poor Matthew would have +been better in the hands of a woman whose piety was of a less severe +type than that of Wesleyan Rebecca. There is an all-pervading tone of +fear in these letters--a depression which is almost despair. In the +same breath he laments and regrets the lost happiness of his youth, and +regrets and laments his own iniquity in having been so ignorantly and +unthinkingly happy. + +Thus in one letter he says,-- + +"When I think of that inconsideratt foolish time with M., and how to be +nere her semed the highest blisse erth cou'd bistowe or Heven prommis, +I trimbel to think of my pore unawaken'd sole, and of her dome on wich +the tru light never shown. If I cou'd believe she was happy my owne +sorow wou'd be lesse; but I canot, sence all ye worthyest memberrs of +our seck agree that to die thinking onely of erthly frends, and +clingeng with a passhunate regrett to them we luv on erth is to be +lesse than a tru Xtian, and for sech their is but one dome." + +And again, in a still later epistle, he writes,-- + +"On Toosday sennite an awakning discorse fromm a verry young man, until +lately a carppenter, but now imploid piusly in going from toun to toun +and vilage to vilage, preching. He says, that a life of cairlesse +happyness, finding plesure in ye things of this worlde, is--not being +repentied of--irretrevable damnation. This is a maloncally thort! I +fell to mewsing on M., with hoom I injoy'd such compleat happyness, tel +Deth came like a spekter to bannish all comforte. And now I knowe that +our lives wear vainity. I ashure you, dear sister, I am prodidjusly +sadd when I reffleckt upon this truth--ashuredly it is a harde saying." + +Anon comes that strange foreknowledge of death--that instinctive sense +of the shadowy hand so soon to lay him at rest; and with that mystic +prescience comes a yearning for the little child M. to be laid where +his father may lay down beside him. There are many passages in the +latter letters which afford a clue to that mysterious midnight burial +at Dewsdale. + +"Last nite I drem't of the cherchyarde at S. I satte under the olde +yewe tree, as it semed in my dreme, and hurd a childes voice crying in +a very piteous mannerr. The thort of this dreme has oppress'd my +speritts all day, and Rebecka has enquier'd more than wunce wot ales +me. If little M. but lay nere at hande, in ye graive to wich I fele I +must soone be carrid, I beleive I shou'd be happyer. Reproove me for +this folley if you plese. I am getting olde, and Sattan temts me with +seche fooleish thorts. Wot dose it matter to my sole wear my vile bodie +is laid? and yet I have a fonde fooleish desier to be berrid with +littel M." + +And in these latest letters there is ample evidence of that yearning on +Matthew's part to reveal a secret which Rebecca's own correspondence +betrays. + +"We tawked of manny things, and she was more than ordinnary kind and +gentel. I had a mind to tell her about M, and aske her frendship for +C; but she seemed not to cair to here my sekrets, and I think wou'd be +offended if she new the trooth. So I cou'd not finde courrage to tell +her. Before I die I shal speek planely for the saik of C. and M. and ye +little one. I shal cum to U. erly nex weak to make my Wille, and this +time shal chainge my umour no more. I have burnt ye laste, not likeing +it." + +This passage occurs in the last letter, amongst the packet confided to +me. The letter is dated September 5, 1774. On the fourteenth of the +following month Matthew died, and in all probability the will here +alluded to was never executed. Certain it is that Matthew, whose end +was awfully sudden at the last, died intestate, whereby his son John +inherited the bulk, and ultimately the whole, of his fortune. There are +many allusions to this infant son in the last few letters; but I do not +think the little creature obtained any great hold on the father's +heart. No doubt he was bound and swaddled out of even such small +semblance to humanity as one may reasonably expect in a child of six or +seven weeks old, and by no means an agreeable being. And poor +weak-minded Matthew's heart was with that player-girl wife whom he +never acknowledged, and the little M. And thus ends the story of +Matthew Haygarth, so far as I have been able to trace it in the +unfathomable gloom of the past. + +It seems to me that what I have next to do will be to hunt up +information respecting that young man Meynell, whose father lived in +Aldersgate Street, and was a respectable and solid citizen, of that +ilk; able to give a substantial dinner to the father of his son's +sweetheart, and altogether a person considerable enough, I should +imagine, to have left footprints of some kind or other on the sands of +Time. The inscrutable Sheldon will be able to decide in what manner the +hunt of the Meynells must begin. I doubt if there is anything more to +be done in Ullerton. + +I have sent Sheldon a fair copy of my extracts from Matthew's +correspondence, and have returned the letters to Miss Judson, carefully +packed in accordance with her request. I now await my Sheldon's next +communication and the abatement of my influenza before making my next +move in the great game of chess called Life. + +What is the meaning of Horatio Paget's lengthened abode in this town? +He is still here. He went past this house to-day while I was standing +at my window in that abject state of mind known only to influenza and +despair. I think I was suffering from a touch of both diseases, by the +bye. What is that man doing here? The idea of his presence fills me +with all manner of vague apprehensions. I cannot rid myself of the +absurd notion that the lavender glove I saw lying in Goodge's parlour +had been left there by the Captain. I know the idea _is_ an absurd one, +and I tell myself again and again that Paget _cannot_ have any inkling +of my business here, and therefore _cannot_ attempt to forestall me or +steal my hard-won information. But often as I reiterate this--in that +silent argument which a man is always elaborating in his own mind--I am +still tormented by a nervous apprehension of treachery from that man. I +suppose the boundary line between influenza and idiocy is a very narrow +one. And then Horatio Paget is such a thorough-paced scoundrel. He is +_lie_ with Philip Sheldon too--another thorough-paced scoundrel in a +quiet gentlemanly way, unless my instinct deceives me. + +_October 12th_. There is treachery somewhere. Again the Haygarthian +epistles have been tampered with. Early this morning comes an indignant +note from Miss Judson, reminding me that I promised the packet of +letters should be restored to her yesterday at noon, and informing me +that they were not returned until last night at eleven o'clock, when +they were left at her back garden-gate by a dirty boy who rang the bell +as loudly as if he had been giving the alarm of fire, and who thrust +the packet rudely into the hand of the servant and vanished +immediately. So much for the messenger. The packet itself, Miss Judson +informed me, was of a dirty and disgraceful appearance, unworthy the +hands of a gentlewoman, and one of the letters was missing. + +Heedless of my influenza, I rushed at once to the lower regions of the +inn, saw the waiter into whose hands I had confided my packet at +half-past ten o'clock yesterday morning, and asked what messenger had +been charged with it. The waiter could not tell me. He did not remember. +I told him plainly that I considered this want of memory very +extraordinary. The waiter laughed me to scorn, with that quiet +insolence which a well-fed waiter feels for a customer who pays twenty +shillings a week for his board and lodging. The packet had been given +to a very respectable messenger, the waiter made no doubt. As to +whether it was the ostler, or one of the boys, or the Boots, or a young +woman in the kitchen who went on errands sometimes, the waiter wouldn't +take upon himself to swear, being a man who would perish rather than +inadvertently perjure himself. As to my packet having been tampered +with, that was ridiculous. What on earth was there in a lump of +letter-paper for any one to steal? Was there money in the parcel? I was +fain to confess there was no money; on which the waiter laughed aloud. + +Failing the waiter, I applied myself severally to the ostler, the boys, +the Boots, and the young woman in the kitchen; and then transpired the +curious fact that no one had carried my packet. The ostler was sure he +had not; the Boots could take his Bible oath to the same effect; the +young woman in the kitchen could not call to mind anything respecting a +packet, though she was able to give me a painfully circumstantial +account of the events of the morning--where she went and what she did, +down to the purchase of three-pennyworth of pearl-ash and a pound of +Glenfield starch for the head chambermaid, on which she dwelt with a +persistent fondness. + +I now felt assured that there had been treachery here, as in the Goodge +business; and I asked myself to whom could I impute that treachery? + +My instinctive suspicion was of Horatio Paget. And yet, was it not more +probable that Theodore Judson, senr. and Theodore Judson, junr. were +involved in this business, and were watching and counterchecking my +actions with a view to frustrating the plans of my principal? This was +one question which I asked myself as I deliberated upon this mysterious +business. Had the Theodore Judsons some knowledge of a secret marriage +on the part of Matthew Haygarth? and did they suspect the existence of +an heir in the descendant of the issue of that marriage? These were +further questions which I asked myself, and which I found it much more +easy to ask than to answer. After having considered these questions, I +went to the Lancaster-road, saw Miss Judson--assured her, on my word as +a gentleman, that the packet had been delivered by my hands into those +of the waiter at eleven o'clock on the previous day, and asked to see +the envelope. There it was--my large blue wire-wove office envelope, +addressed in my own writing. But in these days of adhesive envelopes +there is nothing easier than to tamper with the fastening of a letter. +I registered a mental vow never again to trust any important document +to the protection of a morsel of gummed paper. I counted the letters, +convinced myself that there was a deficiency, and then set to work to +discover which of the letters had been abstracted. Here I failed +utterly. For my own convenience in copying my extracts, I had numbered +the letters from which I intended to transcribe passages before +beginning my work. My pencilled figures in consecutive order were +visible in the corner of the superscription of every document I had +used. Those numbered covers I now found intact, and I could thus assure +myself that the missing document was one from which I had taken no +extract. + +This inspired me with a new alarm. Could it be possible that I had +overlooked some scrap of information more important than all that I had +transcribed? + +I racked my brains in the endeavour to recall the contents of that one +missing letter; but although I sat in that social tomb, Miss Judson's +best parlour, until I felt my blood becoming of an arctic quality, I +could remember nothing that seemed worth remembering in the letters I +had laid aside as valueless. + +I asked Miss Judson if she had any suspicion of the person who had +tampered with the packet. She looked at me with an icy smile, and +answered in ironical accents, which were even more chilling than the +atmosphere of her parlour,-- + +"Do not ask if I know who has tampered with those letters, Mr. +Hawkehurst. Your affectation of surprise has been remarkably well put +on; but I am not to be deceived a second time. When you came to me in +the first instance, I had my suspicions; but you came furnished with a +note from my brother, and as a Christian I repressed those suspicions. +I know now that I have been the dupe of an impostor, and that in +entrusting those letters to you I entrusted them to an emissary and +tool of THEODORE JUDSON." + +I protested that I had never to my knowledge set eyes upon either of +the Theodore Judsons; but the prejudiced kinswoman of those gentlemen +shook her head with a smile whose icy blandness was eminently +exasperating. + +"I am not to be deceived a second time," she said. "Who else but +Theodore Judson should have employed you? Who else but Theodore Judson +is interested in the Haygarth fortune? O, it was like him to employ a +stranger where he knew his own efforts would be unavailing; it was like +him to hoodwink me by the agency of a hireling tool." + +I had been addressed as a "young man" by the reverend Jonah, and now I +was spoken of as a "hireling tool" by Miss Judson. I scarcely knew +which was most disagreeable, and I began to think that board and +lodging in the present, and a visionary three thousand pounds in the +future, would scarcely compensate me for such an amount of ignominy. + +I went back to my inn utterly crestfallen--a creature so abject that +even the degrading influence of influenza could scarcely sink me any +lower in the social scale. I wrote a brief and succinct account of my +proceedings, and despatched the same to George Sheldon, and then I sat +down in my sickness and despair, as deeply humiliated as Ajax when he +found that he had been pitching into sheep instead of Greeks, as +miserable as Job amongst his dust and ashes, but I am happy to say +untormented by the chorus of one or the friends of the other. In that +respect at least I had some advantage over both. + +_October 13th_. This morning's post brought me a brief scrawl from +Sheldon. + +"Come back to town directly. I have found the registry of Matthew +Haygarth's marriage." + +And so I turn my back on Ullerton; with what rejoicing of spirit it is +not in language to express. + + + + + +BOOK THE SIXTH. + + +THE HEIRESS OF THE HAYGARTHS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +DISAPPOINTMENT. + + +Of all places upon this earth, perhaps, there is none more obnoxious +to the civilized mind than London in October; and yet to Valentine +Hawkehurst, newly arrived from Ullerton per North-Western Railway, that +city seemed as an enchanted and paradisiacal region. Were not the +western suburbs of that murky metropolis inhabited by Charlotte +Halliday, and might he not hope to see her? + +He did hope for that enjoyment. He had felt something more than hope +while speeding Londonwards by that delightful combination of a liberal +railway management, a fast and yet cheap train. He had beguiled himself +with a delicious certainty. Early the next morning--or at any rate as +early as civilization permitted--he would hie him to Bayswater, and +present himself at the neat iron gate of Philip Sheldon's gothic villa. +_She_ would be there, in the garden most likely, his divine Charlotte, +so bright and radiant a creature that the dull October morning would be +made glorious by her presence--she would be there, and she would +welcome him with that smile which made her the most enchanting of +women. + +Such thoughts as these had engaged him during his homeward journey; and +compared with the delight of such visions, the perusal of daily papers +and the consumption of sandwiches, whereby other passengers beguiled +their transit, seemed a poor amusement. But, arrived in the dingy +streets, and walking towards Chelsea under a drizzling rain, the bright +picture began to grow dim. Was it not more than likely that Charlotte +would be absent from London at this dismal season? Was it not very +probable that Philip Sheldon would give him the cold shoulder? With +these gloomy contingencies before him, Mr. Hawkehurst tried to shut +Miss Halliday's image altogether out of his mind, and to contemplate +the more practical aspect of his affairs. + +"I wonder whether that scoundrel Paget has come back to London?" he +thought. "What am I to say to him if he has? If I own to having seen +him in Ullerton, I shall lay myself open to being questioned by him as +to my own business in that locality. Perhaps my wisest plan would be to +say nothing, and hear his own account of himself. I fully believe he +saw me on the platform that night when we passed each other without +speaking." + +Horatio Paget was at home when his _protege_ arrived. He was seated by +his fireside in all the domestic respectability of a dressing-gown and +slippers, with an evening paper on his knee, a slim smoke-coloured +bottle at his elbow, and the mildest of cigars between his lips, when +the traveller, weary and weather-stained, entered the lodging-house +drawing-room. + +Captain Paget received his friend very graciously, only murmuring some +faint deprecation of the young man's reeking overcoat, with just such a +look of gentlemanly alarm as the lamented Brummel may have felt when +ushered into the presence of a "damp stranger." + +"And so you've come back at last," said the Captain, "from Dorking?" He +made a little pause here, and looked at his friend with a malicious +sparkle in his eye. "And how was the old aunt? Likely to cut up for any +considerable amount, eh? It could only be with a view to that +cutting-up process that you could consent to isolate yourself in such +a place as Dorking. How did you find things?" "O, I don't know, I'm +sure," Mr. Hawkehurst answered rather impatiently, for his worst +suspicions were confirmed by his patron's manner; "I only know I found +it tiresome work enough." + +"Ah, to be sure! elderly people always are tiresome, especially when +they are unacquainted with the world. There is a perennial youth about +men and women of the world. The sentimental twaddle people talk of the +freshness and purity of a mind unsullied by communion with the world is +the shallowest nonsense. Your Madame du Deffand at eighty and your +Horace Walpole at sixty are as lively as a girl and boy. Your +octogenarian Voltaire is the most agreeable creature in existence. But +take Cymon and Daphne from their flocks and herds and pastoral valleys +in their old age, and see what senile bores and quavering imbeciles you +would find them. Yes, I have no doubt you found your Dorking aunt a +nuisance. Take off your wet overcoat and put it out of the room, and +then ring for more hot water. You'll find that cognac very fine. Won't +you have a cigar?" + +The Captain extended his russia-leather case with the blandest smile. +It was a very handsome case. Captain Paget was a man who could descend +into some unknown depths of the social ocean in the last stage of +shabbiness, and who, while his acquaintance were congratulating +themselves upon the fact of his permanent disappearance, would start up +suddenly in an unexpected place, provided with every necessity and +luxury of civilized life, from a wardrobe by Poole to the last +fashionable absurdity in the shape of a cigar-case. + +Never had Valentine Hawkehurst found his patron more agreeably disposed +than he seemed to be this evening, and never had he felt more inclined +to suspect him. + +"And what have you been doing while I have been away?" the young man +asked presently. "Any more promoting work?" + +"Well, yes, a little bit of provincial business; a life-and-fire on a +novel principle; a really good thing, if we can only find men with +perception enough to see its merits, and pluck enough to hazard their +capital. But promoting in the provinces is very dull work. I've been to +two or three towns in the Midland districts--Beauport, Mudborough, and +Ullerton--and have found the same stagnation everywhere." + +Nothing could be more perfect than the semblance of unconscious +innocence with which the Captain gave this account of himself: whether +he was playing a part, or whether he was telling the entire truth, was +a question which even a cleverer man than Valentine Hawkehurst might +have found himself unable to answer. + +The two men sat till late, smoking and talking; but to-night Valentine +found the conversation of his "guide, philosopher, and friend" +strangely distasteful to him. That cynical manner of looking at life, +which not long ago had seemed to him the only manner compatible with +wisdom and experience, now grated harshly upon those finer senses which +had been awakened in the quiet contemplative existence he had of late +been leading. He had been wont to enjoy Captain Paget's savage +bitterness against a world which had not provided him with a house in +Carlton-gardens, and a seat in the Cabinet; but to-night he was +revolted by the noble Horatio's tone and manner. Those malicious sneers +against respectable people and respectable prejudices, with which the +Captain interlarded all his talk, seemed to have a ghastly grimness in +their mirth. It was like the talk of some devil who had once been an +angel, and had lost all hope of ever being restored to his angelic +status. + +"To believe in nothing, to respect nothing, to hope for nothing, to +fear nothing, to consider life as so many years in which to scheme and +lie for the sake of good dinners and well-made coats--surely there can +be no state of misery more complete, no degradation more consummate," +thought the young man, as he sat by the fireside smoking and listening +dreamily to his companion. "Better to be Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth, +narrow-minded and egotistical, but always looking beyond her narrow +life to some dimly-comprehended future." + +He was glad to escape at last from the Captain's society, and to retire +to his own small chamber, where he slept soundly enough after the day's +fatigues, and dreamed of the Haygarths and Charlotte Halliday. + +He was up early the next morning; but, on descending to the +sitting-room, he found his patron toasting his _Times_ before a cheerful +fire; while his gold hunting-watch stood open on the breakfast-table, and +a couple of new-laid eggs made a pleasant wabbling noise in a small +saucepan upon the hob. + +"You don't care for eggs, I know, Val," said the Captain, as he took +the saucepan from the hob. + +He had heard the young man object to an egg of French extraction too +long severed from its native land; but he knew very well that for rural +delicacies from a reliable dairyman, at twopence apiece, Mr. Hawkehurst +had no particular antipathy. Even in so small a matter as a new-laid +egg the Captain knew how to protect his own interest. + +"There's some of that Italian sausage you're so fond of, dear boy," he +said politely, pointing to a heel of some grayish horny-looking +compound. "Thanks; I'll pour out the coffee; there's a knack in these +things; half the clearness of coffee depends on the way in which it's +poured out, you see." + +And with this assurance Captain Paget filled his own large breakfast-cup +with a careful hand and a tender solemnity of countenance. If he was a +trifle less considerate in the pouring out of the second cup, and if +some "grounds" mingled with the second portion, Valentine Hawkehurst +was unconscious of the fact. + +"Do try that Italian sausage," said the Captain, as he discussed his +second egg, after peeling the most attractive crusts from the French +rolls, and pushing the crumb to his _protege_. + +"No, thank you; it looks rather like what your shop-people call an old +housekeeper; besides, there's a little too much garlic in those +compositions for my taste." + +"Your taste has grown fastidious," said the Captain; "one would think +you were going to call upon some ladies this morning." + +"There are not many ladies on my visiting-list. O, by the way, how's +Diana? Have you seen her lately?" + +"No," answered the Captain, promptly. "I only returned from my +provincial tour a day or two ago, and have had no time to waste dancing +attendance upon her. She's well enough, I've no doubt; and she's +uncommonly well off in Sheldon's house, and ought to think herself so." + +Having skimmed his newspaper, Captain Paget rose and invested himself +in his overcoat. He put on his hat before the glass over the +mantelpiece, adjusting the brim above his brows with the thoughtful +care that distinguished his performance of all those small duties which +he owed to himself. + +"And what may _you_ be going to do with yourself to-day, Val?" he asked +of the young man, who sat nursing his own knee and staring absently at +the fire. + +"Well, I don't quite know," Mr. Hawkehurst answered, hypocritically; "I +think I may go as far as Gray's Inn, and look in upon George Sheldon." + +"You'll dine out of doors, I suppose?" + +This was a polite way of telling Mr. Hawkehurst that there would be no +dinner for him at home. + +"I suppose I shall. You know I'm not punctilious on the subject of +dinner. Anything you please--from a banquet at the London Tavern to a +ham-sandwich and a glass of ale at fourpence." + +"Ah, to be sure; youth is reckless of its gastric juices. I shall find +you at home when I come in to-night, I daresay. I think I may dine in +the city. _Au plaisir_." + +"I don't know about the pleasure," muttered Mr. Hawkehurst. "You're a +very delightful person, my friend Horatio; but there comes a crisis in +a man's existence when he begins to feel that he has had enough of you. +Poor Diana! what a father!" + +He did not waste much time on further consideration of his patron, but +set off at once on his way to Gray's Inn. It was too early to call at +the Lawn, or he would fain have gone there before seeking George +Sheldon's dingy offices. Nor could he very well present himself at the +gothic villa without some excuse for so doing. He went to Gray's Inn +therefore; but on his way thither called at a tavern near the Strand, +which was the head-quarters of a literary association known as the +Ragamuffins. Here he was fortunate enough to meet with an acquaintance +in the person of a Ragamuffin in the dramatic-author line, who was +reading the morning's criticisms on a rival's piece produced the night +before, with a keen enjoyment of every condemnatory sentence. From this +gentleman Mr. Hawkehurst obtained a box-ticket for a West-end theatre; +and, armed with this mystic document, he felt himself able to present a +bold countenance at Mr. Sheldon's door. + +"Will she be glad to see me again?" he asked himself. "Pshaw! I daresay +she has forgotten me by this time. A fortnight is an age with some +women; and I should fancy Charlotte Halliday just one of those bright +impressionable beings who forget easily. I wonder whether she is +_really_ like that 'Molly' whose miniature was found by Mrs. Haygarth +in the tulip-leaf escritoire; or was the resemblance between those two +faces only a silly fancy of mine?" + +Mr. Hawkehurst walked the whole distance from Chelsea to Gray's Inn; +and it was midday when he presented himself before George Sheldon, whom +he found seated at his desk with the elephantine pedigree of the +Haygarths open before him, and profoundly absorbed in the contents of a +note-book. He looked up from this note-book as Valentine entered, but +did not leave off chewing the end of his pencil as he mumbled a welcome +to the returning wanderer. It has been seen that neither of the Sheldon +brothers were demonstrative men. + +After that unceremonious greeting, the lawyer continued his perusal of +the note-book for some minutes, while Valentine seated himself in a +clumsy leather-covered arm-chair by the fireplace. + +"Well, young gentleman," Mr. Sheldon exclaimed, as he closed his book +with a triumphant snap, "I think _you're_ in for a good thing; and you +may thank your lucky stars for having thrown you into my path." + +"My stars are not remarkable for their luckiness in a general way," +answered Mr. Hawkehurst, coolly, for the man had not yet been born from +whom he would accept patronage. "I suppose if I'm in for a good thing, +you're in for a better thing, my dear George; so you needn't come the +benefactor quite so strong for my edification. How did you ferret out +the certificate of gray-eyed Molly's espousals?" + +George Sheldon contemplated his coadjutor with an admiring stare. "It +has been my privilege to enjoy the society of cool hands, Mr. +Hawkehurst; and certainly you are about the coolest of the lot--bar +one, as they say in the ring. But that is _ni ci ni la_. I have found +the certificate of Matthew Haygarth's marriage, and to my mind the +Haygarth succession is as good as ours." + +"Ah, those birds in the bush have such splendid plumage! but I'd rather +have the modest sparrow in my hand. However, I'm very glad our affairs +are marching. How did you discover the marriage-lines?" + +"Not without hard labour, I can tell you. Of course my idea of a secret +marriage was at the best only a plausible hypothesis; and I hardly +dared to hug myself with the hope that it might turn up trumps. My idea +was based upon two or three facts, namely, the character of the young +man, his long residence in London away from the ken of respectable +relatives and friends, and the extraordinary state of the marriage laws +at the period in which our man lived." + +"Ah, to be sure! That was a strong point." + +"I should rather think it was. I took the trouble to look up the +history of Mayfair marriages and Fleet marriages before you started for +Ullerton, and I examined all the evidence I could get on that subject. +I made myself familiar with the Rev. Alexander Keith of Mayfair, who +helped to bring clandestine marriages into vogue amongst the swells, +and with Dr. Gaynham--agreeably nicknamed Bishop of Hell--and more of +the same calibre; and the result of my investigations convinced me that +in those days a hare-brained young reprobate must have found it rather +more difficult to avoid matrimony than to achieve it. He might be +married when he was tipsy; he might be married when he was comatose +from the effects of a stand-up fight with Mohawks; his name might be +assumed by some sportive Benedick of his acquaintance given to +practical joking, and he might find himself saddled with a wife he +never saw; or if, on the other hand, of an artful and deceptive turn, +he might procure a certificate of a marriage that had never taken +place,--for there were very few friendly offices which the Fleet +parsons refused to perform for their clients--for a consideration." + +"But how about the legality of the Fleet marriage?" + +"There's the rub. Before the New Marriage Act passed in 1753 a Fleet +marriage was indissoluble. It was an illegal act, and the parties were +punishable; but the Gordian knot was quite as secure as if it had been +tied in the most orthodox manner. The great difficulty to my mind was +the _onus probandi_. The marriage might have taken place; the marriage +be to all intents and purposes a good marriage; but how produce +undeniable proof of such a ceremony, when all ceremonies of the kind +were performed with a manifest recklessness and disregard of law? Even +if I found an apparently good certificate, how was I to prove that it +was not one of those lying certificates of marriages that had never +taken place? Again, what kind of registers could posterity expect from +these parson-adventurers, very few of whom could spell, and most of +whom lived in a chronic state of drunkenness? They married people +sometimes by their Christian names alone--very often under assumed +names. What consideration had they for heirs-at-law in the future, when +under the soothing influence of a gin-bottle in the present? I thought +of all these circumstances, and I was half inclined to despair of +realising my idea of an early marriage. I took it for granted that such +a secret business would be more likely to have taken place in the +precincts of the Fleet than anywhere else; and having no particular +clue, I set to work, in the first place, to examine all available +documents relating to such marriages." + +"It must have been slow work." + +"It _was_ slow work," answered Mr. Sheldon with a suppressed groan, +that was evoked by the memory of a bygone martyrdom. "I needn't enter +into all the details of the business,--the people I had to apply to for +permission to see this set of papers, and the signing and +counter-signing I had to go through before I could see that set of +papers, and the extent of circumlocution and idiocy I had to encounter +in a general way before I could complete my investigation. The result +was nil; and after working like a galley-slave I found myself no better +off than before I began my search. Your extracts from Matthew's letters +put me on a new track. I concluded therefrom that there had been a +marriage, and that the said marriage had been a deliberate act on the +part of the young man. I therefore set to work to do what I ought to +have done at starting--I hunted in all the parish registers to be found +within a certain radius of such and such localities. I began with +Clerkenwell, in which neighbourhood our friend spent such happy years, +according to that pragmatical epistle of Mrs. Rebecca's; but after +hunting in all the mouldy old churches within a mile of St. John's-gate, +I was no nearer arriving at any record of Matthew Haygarth's existence. +So I turned my back upon Clerkenwell, and went southward to the +neighbourhood of the Marshalsea, where Mistress Molly's father was at +one time immured, and whence I thought it very probable Mistress Molly +had started on her career as a matron. This time my guess was a lucky +one. After hunting the registers of St. Olave's, St. Saviour's, and St. +George's, and after the expenditure of more shillings in donations to +sextons than I care to remember, I at last lighted on a document which +I consider worth three thousand pounds to you--and--a very decent sum +of money to me." + +"I wonder what colour our hair will be when we touch that money?" said +Valentine meditatively. "These sort of cases generally find their way +into Chancery-lane, don't they?--that lane which, for some unhappy +travellers, has no turning except the one dismal _via_ which leads to +dusty death. You seem in very good spirits; and I suppose I ought to be +elated too. Three thousand pounds would give me a start in life, and +enable me to set up in the new character of a respectable rate-paying +citizen. But I've a kind of presentiment that this hand of mine will +never touch the prize of the victor; or, in plainer English, that no +good will ever arise to me or mine out of the reverend intestate's +hundred thousand pounds." + +"Why, what a dismal-minded croaker you are this morning!" exclaimed +George Sheldon with unmitigated disgust; "a regular raven, by Jove! You +come to a fellow's office just as matters are beginning to look like +success--after ten years' plodding and ten years' disappointment--and +you treat him to maudlin howls about the Court of Chancery. This is a +new line you've struck out, Hawkehurst, and I can tell you it isn't a +pleasant one." + +"Well, no, I suppose I oughtn't to say that sort of thing," answered +Valentine in an apologetic tone; "but there are some days in a man's +life when there seems to be a black cloud between him and everything he +looks at. I feel like that today. There's a tightening sensation about +something under my waistcoat--my heart, perhaps--a sense of depression +that may be either physical or mental, that I can't get rid of. If a +man had walked by my side from Chelsea to Holborn whispering +forebodings of evil into my ear at every step, I couldn't have felt +more downhearted than I do." + +"What did you eat for breakfast?" asked Mr. Sheldon impatiently. "A +tough beefsteak fried by a lodging-house cook, I daresay--they _will_ +fry their steaks. Don't inflict the consequences of your indigestible +diet upon me. To tell me that there's a black cloud between you and +everything you look at, is only a sentimental way of telling me that +you're bilious. Pray be practical, and let us look at things from a +business point of view. Here is Appendix A.--a copy of the registry of +the marriage of Matthew Haygarth, bachelor, of Clerkenwell, in the +county of Middlesex, to Mary Murchison, spinster, of Southwark, in the +county of Surrey. And here is Appendix B.--a copy of the registry of +the marriage between William Meynell, bachelor, of Smithfield, in the +county of Middlesex, to Caroline Mary Haygarth, spinster, of Highgate, +in the same county." + +"You have found the entry of a second Haygarthian marriage?" + +"I have. The C. of Matthew's letters is the Caroline Mary here +indicated, the daughter and heiress of Matthew Haygarth--doubtless +christened Caroline after her gracious majesty the consort of George +II., and Mary after the Molly whose picture was found in the tulip-leaf +bureau. The Meynell certificate was easy enough to find, since the +letters told me that Miss C.'s suitor had a father who lived in +Aldersgate-street, and a father who approved his son's choice. The +Aldersgate citizen had a house of his own, and a more secure social +status altogether than that poor, weak, surreptitious Matthew. It was +therefore only natural that the marriage should be celebrated in the +Meynell mansion. Having considered this, I had only to ransack the +registers of a certain number of churches round and about +Aldersgate-street in order to find what I wanted; and after about a day +and a half of hard labour, I did find the invaluable document which +places me one generation nearer the present, and on the high-road to +the discovery of my heir-at-law. I searched the same registry for +children of the aforesaid William and Caroline Mary Meynell, but could +find no record of such children nor any further entry of the name of +Meynell. But we must search other registries within access of +Aldersgate-street before we give up the idea of finding such entries +in that neighbourhood." + +"And what is to be the next move?" + +"The hunting-up of all descendants of this William and Caroline Mary +Meynell, wheresoever such descendants are to be found. We are now +altogether off the Haygarth and Judson scent, and have to beat a new +covert." + +"Good!" exclaimed Valentine more cheerfully. "How is the new covert to +be beaten?" + +"We must start from Aldersgate-street. Meynell of Aldersgate-street +must have been a responsible man, and it will be hard if there is no +record of him extant in all the old topographical histories of wards, +without and within, which cumber the shelves of your dry-as-dust +libraries. We must hunt up all available books; and when we've got all +the information that books can give us, we can go in upon hearsay +evidence, which is always the most valuable in these cases." + +"That means another encounter with ancient mariners--I beg your pardon-- +oldest inhabitants," said Valentine with a despondent yawn. "Well, I +suppose that sort of individual is a little less obtuse when he lives +within the roar of the great city's thunder than when he vegetates in +the dismal outskirts of a manufacturing town. Where am I to find my +octogenarian prosers? and when am I to begin my operations upon them?" +"The sooner you begin the better," replied Mr. Sheldon. "I've taken all +preliminary steps for you already, and you'll find the business +tolerably smooth sailing. I've made a list of certain people who may be +worth seeing." + +Mr. Sheldon selected a paper from the numerous documents upon the +table. + +"Here they are," he said: "John Grewter, wholesale stationer, +Aldersgate-street; Anthony Sparsfield, carver and gilder, in Barbican. +These are, so far as I can ascertain, the two oldest men now trading in +Aldersgate-street; and from these men you ought to be able to find out +something about old Meynell. I don't anticipate any difficulty about +the Meynells, except the possibility that we may find more of them than +we want, and have some trouble in shaking them into their places." + +"I'll tackle my friend the stationer to-morrow morning," said +Valentine. + +"You'd better drop in upon him in the afternoon, when the day's +business may be pretty well over," returned the prudent Sheldon. "And +now all you've got to do, Hawkehurst, is to work with a will, and work +on patiently. If you do as well in London as you did at Ullerton, +neither you nor I will have any cause to complain. Of course I needn't +impress upon you the importance of secrecy." + +"No," replied Valentine; "I'm quite alive to that." + +He then proceeded to inform George Sheldon of that encounter with +Captain Paget on the platform at Ullerton, and of the suspicion that +had been awakened in his mind by the sight of the glove in Goodge's +parlour. + +The lawyer shook his head. + +"That idea about the glove was rather far-fetched," he said, +thoughtfully; "but I don't like the look of that meeting at the +station. My brother Philip is capable of anything in the way of +manoeuvring; and I'm not ashamed to confess that I'm no match for him. +He was in here one day when I had the Haygarth pedigree spread out on +the table, and I know he smelt a rat. We must beware of him, +Hawkehurst, and we must work against time if we don't want him to +anticipate us." + +"I shan't let the grass grow under my feet," replied Valentine. "I was +really interested in that Haygarthian history: there was a dash of +romance about it, you see. I don't feel the same gusto in the Meynell +chase, but I daresay I shall begin to get up an interest in it as my +investigation proceeds. Shall I call the day after to-morrow and tell +you my adventures?" + +"I think you'd better stick to the old plan, and let me have the result +of your work in the form of a diary," answered Sheldon. And with this +the two men parted. + +It was now half-past two o'clock; it would be half-past three before +Valentine could present himself at the Lawn--a very seasonable hour at +which to call upon Mrs. Sheldon with his offering of a box for the new +play. + +An omnibus conveyed him to Bayswater at a snail's pace, and with more +stoppages than ever mortal omnibus was subjected to before, as it +seemed to that one eager passenger. At last the fading foliage of the +Park appeared between the hats and bonnets of Valentine's opposite +neighbours. Even those orange tawny trees reminded him of Charlotte. +Beneath such umbrage had he parted from her. And now he was going to +see the bright young face once more. He had been away from town about a +fortnight; but taken in relation with Miss Halliday, that fortnight +seemed half a century. + +Chrysanthemums and china-asters beautified Mr. Sheldon's neat little +garden, and the plate-glass windows of his house shone with all their +wonted radiance. It was like the houses one sees framed and glazed in +an auctioneer's office--the greenest imaginable grass, the bluest +windows, the reddest bricks, the whitest stone. "It is a house that +would set my teeth on edge, but for the one sweet creature who lives in +it," Valentine thought to himself, as he waited at the florid iron +gate, which was painted a vivid ultramarine and picked out with gold. + +He tried in vain to catch a glimpse of some feminine figure in the +small suburban garden. No flutter of scarlet petticoat or flash of +scarlet plume revealed the presence of the divinity. + +The prim maid-servant informed him that Mrs. Sheldon was at home, and +asked if he would please to walk into the drawing-room. + +Would he please? Would he not have been pleased to walk into a raging +furnace if there had been a chance of meeting Charlotte Halliday amid +the flames? He followed the maid-servant into Mrs. Sheldon's +irreproachable apartment, where the show books upon the show table were +ranged at the usual mathematically correct distances from one another, +and where the speckless looking-glasses and all-pervading French polish +imparted a chilly aspect to the chamber. A newly-lighted fire was +smouldering in the shining steel grate, and a solitary female figure +was seated by the broad Tudor window bending over some needlework. + +It was the figure of Diana Paget, and she was quite alone in the room. +Valentine's heart sank a little as he saw the solitary figure, and +perceived that it was not the woman he loved. + +Diana looked up from her work and recognised the visitor. Her face +flushed, but the flush faded very quickly, and Valentine was not +conscious of that flattering indication. + +"How do you do, Diana?" he said. "Here I am again, you see, like the +proverbial bad shilling. I have brought Mrs. Sheldon an order for the +Princess's." "You are very kind; but I don't think she'll care to go. +She was complaining of a headache this afternoon." + +"O, she'll forget all about her headache if she wants to go to the +play. She's the sort of little woman who is always ready for a theatre +or a concert. Besides, Miss Halliday may like to go, and will easily +persuade her mamma. Whom could she not persuade?" added Mr. Hawkehurst +within himself. + +"Miss Halliday is out of town," Diana replied coldly. + +The young man felt as if his heart were suddenly transformed into so +much lead, so heavy did it seem to grow. What a foolish thing it seemed +that he should be the victim of this fair enslaver!--he who until +lately had fancied himself incapable of any earnest feeling or deep +emotion. + +"Out of town!" he repeated with unconcealed disappointment. + +"Yes; she has gone on a visit to some relations in Yorkshire. She +actually has relations; doesn't that sound strange to you and me?" + +Valentine did not notice this rather cynical remark. + +"She'll be away ever so long, I suppose?" he said. + +"I have no idea how long she may stay there. The people idolise her, I +understand. You know it is her privilege to be idolised; and of course +they will persuade her to stay as long as they can. You seem +disappointed at not seeing her." + +"I am very much disappointed," Valentine answered frankly; "she is a +sweet girl." + +There was a silence after this. Miss Paget resumed her work with rapid +fingers. She was picking up shining little beads one by one on the +point of her needle, and transferring them to the canvas stretched upon +an embroidery frame before her. It was a kind of work exacting extreme +care and precision, and the girl's hand never faltered, though a +tempest of passionate feeling agitated her as she worked. + +"I am very sorry not to see her," Valentine said presently, "for the +sight of her is very dear to me. Why should I try to hide my feelings +from you, Diana? We have endured so much misery together that there +must be some bond of union between us. To me you have always seemed +like a sister, and I have no wish to keep any secret from you, though +you receive me so coldly that one would think I had offended you." + +"You have not offended me. I thank you for being so frank with me. You +would have gained little by an opposite course. I have long known your +affection for Charlotte." + +"You guessed my secret?" + +"I saw what any one could have seen who had taken the trouble to watch +you for ten minutes during your visits to this house." + +"Was my unhappy state so very conspicuous?" exclaimed Valentine, +laughing. "Was I so obviously spoony? _I_ who have so ridiculed +anything in the way of sentiment. You make me blush for my folly, +Diana. What is that you are dotting with all those beads?--something +very elaborate." + +"It is a prie-dieu chair I am working for Mrs. Sheldon. Of course I am +bound to do something for my living." + +"And so you wear out your eyesight in the working of chairs. Poor girl! +it seems hard that your beauty and accomplishments should not find a +better market than that. I daresay you will marry some millionaire +friend of Mr. Sheldon's one of these days, and I shall hear of your +house in Park-lane and three-hundred guinea barouche." + +"You are very kind to promise me* a millionaire. The circumstances of my +existence hitherto have been so peculiarly fortunate that I am +justified in expecting such a suitor. [*My millionaire printer's typo] +shall ask you to dinner at my house in Park-lane; and you shall play +_ecarte_ with him, if you like--papa's kind of _ecarte_." + +"Don't talk of those things, Di," said Mr. Hawkehurst, with something +that was almost a shudder; "let us forget that we ever led that kind of +life." + +"Yes," replied Diana, "let us forget it--if we can." + +The bitterness of her tone struck him painfully. He sat for some +minutes watching her silently, and pitying her fate. What a sad fate it +seemed, and how hopeless! For him there was always some chance of +redemption. He could go out into the world, and cut his way through the +forest of difficulty with the axe of the conqueror. But what could a +woman do who found herself in the midst of that dismal forest? She +could only sit at the door of her lonesome hut, looking out with weary +eyes for the prince who was to come and rescue her. And Valentine +remembered how many women there are to whom the prince never comes, and +who must needs die and be buried beneath that gloomy umbrage. + +"O! let us have women doctors, women lawyers, women parsons, women +stone-breakers--anything rather than these dependent creatures who sit +in other people's houses working prie-dieu chairs and pining for +freedom," he thought to himself, as he watched the pale stern face in +the chill afternoon light. + +"Do leave off working for a few minutes, and talk to me, Di," he said +rather impatiently. "You don't know how painful it is to a man to see a +woman absorbed in some piece of needlework at the very moment when he +wants all her sympathy. I am afraid you are not quite happy. Do confide +in me, dear, as frankly as I confide in you. Are these people kind to +you? Charlotte is, of course. But the elder birds, Mr. and Mrs. +Sheldon, are they kind?" "They are very kind. Mr. Sheldon is not a +demonstrative man, as you know; but I am not accustomed to have people +in a rapturous state of mind about me and my affairs. He is kinder to +me than my father ever was; and I don't see how I can expect more than +that. Mrs. Sheldon is extremely kind in her way--which is rather a +feeble way, as you know." + +"And Charlotte--?" + +"You answered for Charlotte yourself just now. Yes, she is very, very, +very good to me; much better than I deserve. I was almost going to +quote the collect, and say 'desire or deserve.'" + +"Why should you not desire or deserve her goodness?" asked Valentine. + +"Because I am not a loveable kind of person. I am not sympathetic. I +know that Charlotte is very fascinating, very charming; but sometimes +her very fascination repels me. I think the atmosphere of that horrible +swampy district between Lambeth and Battersea, where my childhood was +spent, must have soured my disposition." + +"No, Diana; you have only learnt a bitter way of talking. I know your +heart is noble and true. I have seen your suppressed indignation many a +time when your father's meannesses have revolted you. Our lives have +been very hard, dear; but let us hope for brighter days. I think they +must come to us." + +"They will never come to me," said Diana. + +"You say that with an air of conviction. But why should they not come +to you--brighter and better days?" + +"I cannot tell you that. I can only tell you that they will not come. +And do you hope that any good will ever come of your love for Charlotte +Halliday--you, who know Mr. Sheldon?" + +"I am ready to hope anything." + +"You think that Mr. Sheldon would let his stepdaughter marry a +penniless man?" + +"I may not always be penniless. Besides, Mr. Sheldon has no actual +authority over Charlotte." + +"But he has moral influence over her. She is very easily influenced." + +"I am ready to hope even in spite of Mr. Sheldon's opposing influence. +You must not try to crush this one little floweret that has grown up in +a barren waste, Diana. It is my prison-flower." + +Mrs. Sheldon came into the room as he said this. She was very cordial, +very eloquent upon the subject of her headache, and very much inclined +to go to the theatre, notwithstanding that ailment, when she heard that +Mr. Hawkehurst had been kind enough to bring her a box. + +"Diana and I could go," she said, "if we can manage to be in time after +our six o'clock dinner. Mr. Sheldon does not care about theatres. All +the pieces tire him. He declares they are all stupid. But then, you +see, if one's mind is continually wandering, the cleverest piece must +seem stupid," Mrs. Sheldon added thoughtfully; "and my husband is so +very absent-minded." + +After some further discussion about the theatres, Valentine bade the +ladies good afternoon. + +"Won't you stop to see Mr. Sheldon?" asked Georgina; "he's in the +library with Captain Paget. You did not know that your papa was here, +did you, Diana, my dear? He came in with Mr. Sheldon an hour ago." + +"I won't disturb Mr. Sheldon," said Valentine. "I will call again in a +few days." + +He took leave of the two ladies, and went out into the hall. As he +emerged from the drawing-room, the door of the library was opened, and +he heard Philip Sheldon's voice within, saying,-- + +"--your accuracy with regard to the name of Meynell." + +It was the close of a sentence; but the name struck immediately upon +Valentine's ear. Meynell!--the name which had for him so peculiar an +interest. + +"Is it only a coincidence," he thought to himself, "or is Horatio Paget +on our track?" + +And then he argued with himself that his ears might have deceived him, +and that the name he had heard might not have been Meynell, but only a +name of somewhat similar sound. + +It was Captain Paget who had opened the door. He came into the hall and +recognised his _protege_. They left the house together, and the Captain +was especially gracious. + +"We will dine together somewhere at the West-end, Val," he said; but, +to his surprise, Mr. Hawkehurst declined the proffered entertainment. + +"I'm tired out with a hard day's work," he said, "and should be very +bad company; so, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to Omega-street and +get a chop." + +The Captain stared at him in amazement. He could not comprehend the man +who could refuse to dine luxuriously at the expense of his fellow-man. + +Valentine had of late acquired new prejudices. He no longer cared to +enjoy the hospitality of Horatio Paget. In Omega-street the household +expenses were shared by the two men. It was a kind of club upon a small +scale; and there was no degradation in breaking bread with the elegant +Horatio. + +To Omega-street Valentine returned this afternoon, there to eat a +frugal meal and spend a meditative evening, uncheered by one glimmer of +that radiance which more fortunate men know as the light of home. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +VALENTINE'S RECORD CONTINUED. + + +_October 15th_. I left Omega-street for the City before noon, after a +hasty breakfast with my friend Horatio, who was somewhat under the +dominion of his black dog this morning, and far from pleasant company. +I was not to present myself to the worthy John Grewter, wholesale +stationer, before the afternoon; but I had no particular reason for +staying at home, and I had a fancy for strolling about the old City +quarter in which Matthew Haygarth's youth had been spent. I went to +look at John-street, Clerkenwell, and dawdled about the immediate +neighbourhood of Smithfield, thinking of the old fair-time, and of all +the rioters and merry-makers, who now were so much or so little dust +and ashes in City churchyards, until the great bell of St. Paul's +boomed three, and I felt that it might be a leisure time with Mr. +Grewter. + +I found the stationer's shop as darksome and dreary as City shops +usually are, but redolent of that subtle odour of wealth which has a +mystical charm for the nostrils of the penniless one. Stacks of +ledgers, mountains of account-books, filled the dimly-lighted +warehouse. Some clerks were at work behind a glass partition, and +already the gas flared high in the green-shaded lamps above the desk at +which they worked. I wondered whether it was a pleasant way of life +theirs, and whether one would come to feel an interest in the barter of +day-books and ledgers if they were one's daily bread. Alas for me! the +only ledger I have ever known is the sainted patron of the northern +racecourse. One young man came forward and asked my business, with a +look that plainly told me that unless I wanted two or three gross of +account-books I had no right to be there. I told him that I wished to +see Mr. Grewter, and asked if that gentleman was to be seen. + +The clerk said he did not know; but his tone implied that, in his +opinion, I could _not_ see Mr. Grewter. + +"Perhaps you could go and ask," I suggested. + +"Well, yes. Is it old or young Mr. Grewter you want to see?" + +"Old Mr. Grewter," I replied. + +"Very well, I'll go and see. You'd better send in your card, though." + +I produced one of George Sheldon's cards, which the clerk looked at. He +gave a little start as if an adder had stung him. + +"You're not Mr. Sheldon?" he said. + +"No; Mr. Sheldon is my employer." + +"What do you go about giving people Sheldon's card for?" asked the +clerk, with quite an aggrieved air. "I know Sheldon of Gray's Inn." + +"Then I'm sure you've found him a very accommodating gentleman," I +replied, politely. + +"Deuce take his accommodation! He nearly accommodated me into the +Bankruptcy Court. And so you're Sheldon's clerk, and you want the +governor. But you don't mean to say that Grewter and Grewter are--" + +This was said in an awe-stricken undertone. I hastened to reassure the +stationer's clerk. + +"I don't think Mr. Sheldon ever saw Mr. Grewter in his life," I said. + +After this the clerk condescended to retire into the unknown antres +behind the shop, to deliver my message. I began to think that George +Sheldon's card was not the best possible letter of introduction. + +The clerk returned presently, followed by a tall, white-bearded man, +with a bent figure, and a pair of penetrating gray eyes--a very +promising specimen of the octogenarian. + +He asked me my business in a sharp suspicious way, that obliged me to +state the nature of my errand without circumlocution. As I got farther +away from the Rev. John Haygarth, intestate, I was less fettered by the +necessity of secrecy. I informed my octogenarian that I was prosecuting +a legal investigation connected with a late inhabitant of that street, +and that I had taken the liberty to apply to him, in the hope that he +might be able to afford me some information. + +He looked at me all the time I spoke as if he thought I was going to +entreat pecuniary relief--and I daresay I have something the air of a +begging-letter writer. But when he found that I only wanted +information, his hard gray eyes softened ever so little, and he asked +me to walk into his parlour. + +His parlour was scarcely less gruesome than his shop. The furniture +looked as if its manufacture had been coeval with the time of the +Meynells, and the ghastly glare of the gas seemed a kind of +anachronism. After a few preliminary observations, which were not +encouraged by Mr. Grewter's manner, I inquired whether he had ever +heard the name of Meynell. + +"Yes," he said; "there was a Meynell in this street when I was a young +man--Christian Meynell, a carpet-maker by trade. The business is still +carried on--and a very old business it is, for it was an old business +in Meynell's time; but Meynell died before I married, and his name is +pretty well forgotten in Aldersgate-street by this time." + +"Had he no sons?" I asked. + +"Well, yes; he had one son, Samuel, a kind of companion of mine. But he +didn't take to the business, and when his father died he let things go +anyhow, as you may say. He was rather wild, and died two or three years +after his father." "Did he die unmarried?" + +"Yes. There was some talk of his marrying a Miss Dobberly, whose father +was a cabinet-maker in Jewin-street; but Samuel was too wild for the +Dobberlys, who were steady-going people, and he went abroad, where he +was taken with some kind of fever and died." + +"Was this son the only child?" + +"No; there were two daughters. The younger of them married; the elder +went to live with her--and died unmarried, I've heard say." + +"Do you know whom the younger sister married?" I asked. + +"No. She didn't marry in London. She went into the country to visit +some friends, and she married and settled down in those parts--wherever +it might be--and I never heard of her coming back to London again. The +carpet business was sold directly after Samuel Meynell's death. The new +people kept up the name for a good twenty years--'Taylor, late Meynell, +established 1693,' that's what was painted on the board above the +window--but they've dropped the name of Meynell now. People forget old +names, you see, and it's no use keeping to them after they're +forgotten." + +Yes, the old names are forgotten, the old people fade off the face of +the earth. The romance of Matthew Haygarth seemed to come to a lame and +impotent conclusion in this dull record of dealers in carpeting. + +"You can't remember what part of England it was that Christian +Meynell's daughter went to when she married?" + +"No. It wasn't a matter I took much interest in. I don't think I ever +spoke to the young woman above three times in my life, though she lived +in the same street, and though her brother and I often met each other +at the Cat and Salutation, where there used to be a great deal of talk +about the war and Napoleon Bonaparte in those days." + +"Have you any idea of the time at which she was married?" I inquired. + +"Not as to the exact year. I know it was after I was married; for I +remember my wife and I sitting at our window upstairs one summer Sunday +evening, and seeing Samuel Meynell's sister go by to church. I can +remember it as well as if it was yesterday. She was dressed in a white +gown and a green silk spencer. Yes--and I didn't marry my first wife +till 1814. But as to telling you exactly when Miss Meynell left +Aldersgate-street, I can't." + +These reminiscences of the past seemed to exercise rather a mollifying +influence upon the old man's mind, commonplace as they were. He ceased +to look at me with sharp, suspicious glances, and he seemed anxious to +afford me all the help he could. "Was Christian Meynell's father called +William?" I asked, after having paused to make some notes in my +pocket-book. + +"That I can't tell you; though, if Christian Meynell was living to-day, +he wouldn't be ten years older than me. His father died when I was +quite a boy; but there must be old books at the warehouse with his name +in them, if they haven't been destroyed." + +I determined to make inquiries at the carpet warehouse; but I had +little hope of finding the books of nearly a century gone by. I tried +another question. + +"Do you know whether Christian Meynell was an only son, or the only son +who attained manhood?" I asked. + +My elderly friend shook his head. + +"Christian Meynell never had any brothers that I heard of," he said; +"but the parish register will tell you all about that, supposing that +his father before him lived all his life in Aldersgate-street, as I've +every reason to believe he did." + +After this I asked a few questions about the neighbouring churches, +thanked Mr. Grewter for his civility, and departed. + +I went back to Omega-street, dined upon nothing particular, and devoted +the rest of my evening to the scrawling of this journal, and a tender +reverie, in which Charlotte Halliday was the central figure. + +How bitter poverty and dependence have made Diana Paget! She used to be +a nice girl too. + +_Oct. 16th_. To-day's work has been confined to the investigation of +parish registers--a most wearisome business at the best. My labours +were happily not without result. In the fine old church of St. Giles, +Cripplegate, I found registries of the baptism of Oliver Meynell, son +of William and Caroline Mary Meynell, 1768; and of the burial of the +same Oliver in the following year. I found the record of the baptism of +a daughter to the same William and Caroline Mary Meynell, and further +on the burial of the said daughter, at five years of age. I also found +the records of the baptism of Christian Meynell, son of the same +William and Caroline Mary Meynell, in the year 1772, and of William +Meynell's decease in the year 1793. Later appeared the entry of the +burial of Sarah, widow of Christian Meynell. Later still, the baptism +of Samuel Meynell; then the baptism of Susan Meynell; and finally, that +of Charlotte Meynell. + +These were all the entries respecting the Meynell family to be found in +the registry. There was no record of the burial of Caroline Mary, wife +of William Meynell, nor of Christian Meynell, nor of Samuel Meynell, +his son; and I knew that all these entries would be necessary to my +astute Sheldon before his case would be complete. After my search of +the registries, I went out into the churchyard to grope for the family +vault of the Meynells, and found a grim square monument, enclosed by a +railing that was almost eaten away by rust, and inscribed with the +names and virtues of that departed house. The burial ground is +interesting by reason of more distinguished company than the Meynells. +John Milton, John Fox, author of the Martyrology, and John Speed, the +chronologer, rest in this City churchyard. + +In the hope of getting some clue to the missing data, I ventured to +make a second call upon Mr. Grewter, whom I found rather inclined to be +snappish, as considering the Meynell business unlikely to result in any +profit to himself, and objecting on principle to take any trouble not +likely to result in profit. I believe this is the mercantile manner of +looking at things in a general way. + +I asked him if he could tell me where Samuel Meynell was buried. + +"I suppose he was buried in foreign parts," replied the old gentleman, +with considerable grumpiness, "since he died in foreign parts." + +"O, he died abroad, did he? Can you tell me where?" + +"No, sir, I can't," replied Mr. Grewter, with increasing grumpiness; "I +didn't trouble myself about other people's affairs then, and I don't +trouble myself about them now, and I don't particularly care to be +troubled about them by strangers." + +I made the meekest possible apology for my intrusion, but the outraged +Grewter was not appeased. + +"Your best apology will be not doing it again," he replied. "Those that +know my habits know that I take half an hour's nap after dinner. My +constitution requires it, or I shouldn't take it. If I didn't happen to +have a strange warehouseman on my premises, you wouldn't have been +allowed to disturb me two afternoons running." + +Finding Mr. Grewter unappeasable, I left him, and went to seek a more +placable spirit in the shape of Anthony Sparsfield, carver and gilder, +of Barbican. + +I found the establishment of Sparsfield and Son, carvers and gilders. +It was a low dark shop, in the window of which were exhibited two or +three handsomely carved frames, very much the worse for flies, and one +oil-painting, of a mysterious and Rembrandtish character. The +old-established air that pervaded almost all the shops in this +neighbourhood was peculiarly apparent in the Sparsfield establishment. + +In the shop I found a mild-faced man of about forty engaged in +conversation with a customer. I waited patiently while the customer +finished a minute description of the kind of frame he wanted made for a +set of proof engravings after Landseer; and when the customer had +departed, I asked the mild-faced man if I could see Mr. Sparsfield. + +"I am Mr. Sparsfield," he replied politely. + +"Not Mr. Anthony Sparsfield?" + +"Yes, my name is Anthony." + +"I was given to understand that Mr. Anthony Sparsfield was a much older +person." + +"O, I suppose you mean my father," replied the mild-faced man. "My +father is advanced in years, and does very little in the business +nowadays; not but what his head is as clear as ever it was, and there +are some of our old customers like to see him when they give an order." + +This sounded hopeful. I told Mr. Sparsfield the younger that I was not +a customer, and then proceeded to state the nature of my business. I +found him as courteous as Mr. Grewter had been disobliging. + +"Me and father are old-fashioned people," he said; "and we're not above +living over our place of business, which most of the Barbican +tradespeople are nowadays. The old gentleman is taking tea in the +parlour upstairs at this present moment, and if you don't mind stepping +up to him, I'm sure he'll be proud to give you any information he can. +He likes talking of old times." + +This was the sort of oldest inhabitant I wanted to meet with--a very +different kind of individual from Mr. Grewter, who doled out every +answer to my questions as grudgingly as if it had been a five-pound +note. + +I was conducted to a snug little sitting-room on the first-floor, where +there was a cheerful fire and a comfortable odour of tea and toast. I +was invited to take a cup of tea; and as I perceived that my acceptance +of the invitation would be accounted a kind of favour, I said yes. The +tea was very weak, and very warm, and very sweet; but Mr. Sparsfield +and his son sipped it with as great an air of enjoyment as if it had +been the most inspiring of beverages. + +Mr. Sparsfield the elder was more or less rheumatic and asthmatic, but +a cheerful old man withal, and quite ready to prate of old times, when +Barbican and Aldersgate-street were pleasanter places than they are +to-day, or had seemed so to this elderly citizen. + +"Meynell!" he exclaimed; "I knew Sam Meynell as well as I knew my own +brother, and I knew old Christian Meynell almost as well as I knew my +own father. There was more sociability in those days, you see, sir. The +world seems to have grown too full to leave any room for friendship. +It's all push and struggle, and struggle and push, as you may say; and +a man will make you a frame for five-and-twenty shillings that will +look more imposing like than what I could turn out for five pound, Only +the gold-leaf will all drop off after a twelvemonth's wear; and that's +the way of the world nowadays. There's a deal of gilding, and things +are made to look uncommon bright; but the gold all drops off 'em before +long." + +After allowing the old man to moralise to his heart's content, I +brought him back politely to the subject in which I was interested. + +"Samuel Meynell was as good a fellow as ever breathed," he said; "but +he was too fond of the tavern. There were some very nice taverns round +about Aldersgate-street in those days; and you see, sir, the times were +stirring times, and folks liked to get together and talk over the day's +news, with a pipe of tobacco and a glass of their favourite liquor, all +in a sociable way. Poor Sam Meynell took a little too much of his +favourite liquor; and when the young woman that he had been keeping +company with--Miss Dobberly of Jewin-street--jilted him and married a +wholesale butcher in Newgate Market, who was old enough to be her +father, Sam took to drinking, and neglected his business. One day he +came to me and said, 'I've sold the business, Tony,'--for it was Sam +and Tony with us, you see, sir,--'and I'm off to France.' This was soon +after the battle of Waterloo; and many folks had a fancy for going over +to France now that they'd seen the back of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was +generally alluded to in those days by the name of monster or tiger, and +was understood to make his chief diet off frogs. Well, sir, we were all +of us very much surprised at Sam's going to foreign parts; but as he'd +always been wild, it was only looked upon as a part of his wildness, +and we weren't so much surprised to hear a year or two afterwards that +he'd drunk himself to death upon cheap brandy--odyvee as _they_ call +it, poor ignorant creatures--at Calais." + +"He died at Calais?" + +"Yes," replied the old man; "I forget who brought the news home, but I +remember hearing it. Poor Sam Meynell died and was buried amongst the +Mossoos." + +"You are sure he was buried at Calais?" + +"Yes, as sure as I can be of anything. Travelling was no easy matter in +those days, and in foreign parts there was nothing but diligences, +which I've heard say were the laziest-going vehicles ever invented. +There was no one to bring poor Sam's remains back to England, for his +mother was dead, and his two sisters were settled somewhere down in +Yorkshire." + +In Yorkshire! I am afraid I looked rather sheepish when Mr. Sparsfield +senior mentioned this particular county, for my thoughts took wing and +were with Charlotte Halliday before the word had well escaped his lips. + +"Miss Meynell settled in Yorkshire, did she?" I asked. + +"Yes, she married some one in the farming way down there. Her mother +was a Yorkshirewoman, and she and her sister went visiting among her +mother's relations, and never came back to London. One of them married, +the other died a spinster." + +"Do you remember the name of the man she married?" + +"No," replied Mr. Sparsfield, "I can't say that I do." + +"Do you remember the name of the place she went to--the town or +village, or whatever it was?" + +"I might remember it if I heard it," he responded thoughtfully; "and I +ought to remember it, for I've heard Sam Meynell talk of his sister +Charlotte's home many a time. She was christened Charlotte, you see, +after the Queen. I've a sort of notion that the name of the village was +something ending in Cross, as it might be Charing Cross, or Waltham +Cross." + +This was vague, but it was a great deal more than I had been able to +extort from Mr. Grewter. I took a second cup of the sweet warm liquid +which my new friends called tea, in order to have an excuse for +loitering, while I tried to obtain more light from the reminiscences of +the old frame-maker. + +No more light came, however. So I was fain to take my leave, reserving +to myself the privilege of calling again on a future occasion. + +_Oct. 18th_. I sent Sheldon a statement of my Aldersgate-street +researches the day before yesterday morning. He went carefully through +the information I had collected, and approved my labours. + +"You've done uncommonly well, considering the short time you've been at +the work," he said; "and you've reason to congratulate yourself upon +having your ground all laid out for you, as my ground has never been +laid out for me. The Meynell branch seems to be narrowing itself into +the person of Christian Meynell's daughter and her descendants, and our +most important business now will be to find out when, where, and whom +she married, and what issue arose from such marriage. This I think you +ought to be able to do." + +I shook my head rather despondingly. + +"I don't see any hope of finding out the name of the young woman's +husband," I said, "unless I can come across another oldest inhabitant, +gifted with a better memory for names and places than my obliging +Sparsfield or my surly Grewter." + +"There are the almshouses," said Sheldon; "you haven't tried them yet." + +"No; I suppose I must go in for the almshouses," I replied, with the +sublime resignation of the pauper, whose poverty must consent to +anything; "though I confess that the prosiness of the almshouse +intellect is almost more than I can endure." + +"And how do you know that you mayn't get the name of the place out of +your friend the carver and gilder?" said George Sheldon; "he has given +you some kind of clue in telling you that the name ends in Cross. He +said he should know the name if he heard it; why not try him with it?" + +"But in order to do that, I must know the name myself," replied I, "and +in that ease I shouldn't want the aid of my Sparsfield." + +"You are not great in expedients," said Sheldon, tilting back his +chair, and taking a shabby folio from a shelf of other shabby folios. +"This is a British gazetteer," he said, turning to the index of the +work before him. "We'll test the ancient Sparsfield's memory with every +Cross in the three Ridings, and if the faintest echo of the name we +want still lingers in his feeble old brain, we'll awaken it." My patron +ran his finger-nail along one of the columns of the index. + +"Just take your pencil and write down the names as I call them," he +said. "Here we are--Aylsey Cross; and here we are again--Bowford Cross, +Callindale Cross, Huxter's Cross, Jarnam Cross, Kingborough Cross." +Then, after a careful examination of the column, he exclaimed, "Those +are all the Crosses in the county of York, and it will go hard with us +if you or I can't find the descendants of Christian Meynell's daughter +at one of them. The daughter herself may be alive, for anything we +know." + +"And how about the Samuel Meynell who died at Calais? You'll have to +find some record of his death, won't you? I suppose in these cases one +must prove everything." + +"Yes, I must prove the demise of Samuel," replied the sanguine +genealogist; "that part of the business I'll see to myself, while you +hunt out the female branch of the Meynells. I want an outing after a +long spell of hard work; so I'll run across to Calais and search for +the register of Samuel's interment. I suppose somebody took the trouble +to bury him, though he was a stranger in the land." + +"And if I extort the name we want from poor old Sparsfield's +recollection?" + +"In that case you can start at once for the place, and begin your +search on the spot. It can't be above fifty years since this woman +married, and there must be some inhabitant of the place old enough to +remember her. O, by the bye, I suppose you'll be wanting more cash for +expenses," added Mr. Sheldon, with a sigh. He took a five-pound note +from his pocket-book, and gave it to me with a piteous air of +self-sacrifice. I know that he is poor, and that whatever money he does +contrive to earn is extorted from the necessities of his needier +brethren. Some of this money he speculates upon the chances of the +Haygarthian succession, as he his speculated his money on worse chances +in the past. "Three thousand pounds!" he said to me, as he handed me +the poor little five-pound note; "think what a prize you are working +for, and work your hardest. The nearer we get to the end, the slower +our progress seems to me; and yet it has been very rapid progress, +considering all things." + +So sentimental have I become, that I thought less of that possible +three thousand pounds than of the fact that I was likely to go to +Yorkshire, the county of Charlotte's birth, the county where she was +now staying. I reminded myself that it was the largest shire in +England, and that of all possible coincidences of time and place, there +could be none more unlikely than the coincidence that would bring about +a meeting between Charlotte Halliday and me. + +"I know that for all practical purposes I shall be no nearer to her in +Yorkshire than in London," I said to myself; "but I shall have the +pleasure of fancying myself nearer to her." + +Before leaving George Sheldon, I told him of the fragmentary sentences +I had heard uttered by Captain Paget and Philip Sheldon at the Lawn; +but he pooh-poohed my suspicions. + +"I'll tell you what it is, Valentine Hawkehurst," he said, fixing those +hard black eyes of his upon me as if he would fain have pierced the +bony covering of my skull to discover the innermost workings of my +brain; "neither Captain Paget nor my brother Phil can know anything of +this business, unless you have turned traitor and sold them my secrets. +And mark me, if you have, you've sold yourself and them into the +bargain: my hand holds the documentary evidence, without which all your +knowledge is worthless." + +"I am not a traitor," I told him quietly, for I despise him far too +heartily to put myself into a passion about anything he might please to +say of me; "and I have never uttered a word about this business either +to Captain Paget or to your brother. If you begin to distrust me, it is +high time you should look out for a new coadjutor." + +I had my Sheldon, morally speaking, at my feet in a moment. + +"Don't be melodramatic, Hawkehurst," he said; "people sell each other +every day of the week, and no one blames the seller, provided he makes +a good bargain. But this is a case in which the bargain would be a very +bad one." + +After this I took my leave of Mr. Sheldon. He was to start for Calais +by that night's mail, and return to town directly his investigation was +completed. If he found me absent on his return, he would conclude that +I had obtained the information I required and started for Yorkshire. In +this event he would patiently await the receipt of tidings from that +county. + +I went straight from Gray's Inn to Jewin-street. I had spent the +greater part of the day in Sheldon's office, and when I presented +myself before my complacent Sparsfield junior, Sparsfield senior's tea +and toast were already in process of preparation; and I was again +invited to step upstairs to the family sitting-room, and again treated +with that Arcadian simplicity of confidence and friendliness which it +has been my fate to encounter quite as often in the heart of this +sophisticated city as in the most pastoral of villages. With people who +were so frank and cordial I could but be equally frank. + +"I am afraid I am making myself a nuisance to you, Mr. Sparsfield," I +said; "but I know you'll forgive me when I tell you that the affair I'm +engaged in is a matter of vital importance to me, and that your help +may do a great deal towards bringing matters to a crisis." + +Mr. Sparsfield senior declared himself always ready to assist his +fellow-creatures, and was good enough further to declare that he had +taken a liking to me. So weak had I of late become upon all matters of +sentiment, I thanked Mr. Sparsfield for his good opinion, and then went +on to tell him that I was about to test his memory. + +"And it ain't a bad un," he cried, cheerily, clapping his hand upon his +knee by way of emphasis. "It ain't a bad memory, is it, Tony?" + +"Few better, father," answered the dutiful Anthony junior. "Your +memory's better than mine, a long way." + +"Ah," said the old man, with a chuckle, "folks lived different in my +day. There weren't no gas, and there weren't no railroads, and London +tradespeople was content to live in the same house from year's end to +year's end. But now your tradesman must go on his foreign tours, like a +prince of the royal family, and he must go here and go there; and when +he's been everywhere, he caps it all by going through the Gazette. +Folks stayed at home in my day; but they made their fortunes, and they +kept their health, and their eyesight, and their memory, and their +hearing, and many of 'em have lived to see the next generation make +fools of themselves." + +"Why, father," cried Anthony junior, aghast at this flood of eloquence, +"what an oration!" + +"And it ain't often I make an oration, is it, Tony?" said the old man, +laughing. "I only mean to say that if my memory's pretty bright, it may +be partly because I haven't frittered it away upon nonsense, as some +folks have. I've stayed at home and minded my own business, and left +other people to mind theirs. And now, sir, if you want the help of my +memory, I'm ready to give it." + +"You told me the other day that you could not recall the name of the +place where Christian Meynell's daughter married, but you said you +should remember it if you heard it, and you also said that the name +ended in Cross." + +"I'll stick to that," replied my ancient friend. "I'll stick to that." +"Very well then. It is a settled thing that the place was in +Yorkshire?" + +"Yes, I'm sure of that too." + +"And that the name ended in Cross?" + +"It did, as sure as my name is Sparsfield." + +"Then in that case, as there are only six towns or villages in the +county of York the names of which end in Cross, it stands to reason +that the place we want must be one of those six." + +Having thus premised, I took my list from my pocket and read aloud the +names of the six places, very slowly, for Mr. Sparsfield's edification. + +"Aylsey Cross--Bowford Cross--Callindale Cross--Huxter's Cross--Jarnam +Cross--Kingborough Cross." + +"That's him!" cried my old friend suddenly. + +"Which?" I asked eagerly. + +"Huxter's Cross; I remember thinking at the time that it must be a +place where they sold things, because of the name Huxter, you see, +pronounced just the same as if it was spelt with a cks instead of an x. +And I heard afterwards that there'd once been a market held at the +place, but it had been done away with before our time. Huxter's Cross; +yes, that's the name of the place where Christian Meynell's daughter +married and settled. I've heard it many a time from poor Sam, and it +comes back to me as plain as if I'd never forgotten it." + +There was an air of conviction about the old man which satisfied me +that he was not deceived. I thanked him heartily for his aid as I took +my leave. + +"You may have helped to put a good lump of money in my pocket, Mr. +Sparsfield," I said; "and if you have, I'll get my picture taken, if +it's only for the pleasure of bringing it here to be framed." + +With this valedictory address I left my simple citizens of Barbican. My +heart was very light as I wended my way across those metropolitan wilds +that lay between Barbican and Omega-street. I am ashamed of myself when +I remember the foolish cause of this elation of mind. I was going to +Yorkshire, the county of which my Charlotte was now an inhabitant. My +Charlotte! It is a pleasure even to write that delicious possessive +pronoun--the pleasure of poor Alnascher, the crockery-seller, dreaming +his day-dream in the eastern market-place. + +Can any one know better than I that I shall be no nearer Charlotte +Halliday in Yorkshire than I am in London? No one. And yet I am glad my +Sheldon's business takes me to the woods and wolds of that wide +northern shire. + +Huxter's Cross--some Heaven-forgotten spot, no doubt. I bought a +railway time-table on my way home to-night, and have carefully studied +the bearings of the place amongst whose mouldy records I am to discover +the history of Christian Meynell's daughter and heiress. + +I find that Huxter's Cross lies off the railroad, and is to be +approached by an obscure little station--as I divine from the +ignominious type in which its name appears--about sixty miles northward +of Hull. The station is called Hidling; and at Hidling there seems to +be a coach which plies between the station and Huxter's Cross. + +Figure to yourself again, my dear, the heir-at-law to a hundred +thousand pounds vegetating in the unknown regions of Huxter's Cross cum +Hidling, unconscious of his heritage! + +Shall I find him at the plough-tail, I wonder, this mute inglorious +heir-at-law? or shall I find an heiress with brawny arms meekly +churning butter? or shall I discover the last of the Meynells taking +his rest in some lonely churchyard, not to be awakened by earthly voice +proclaiming the tidings of earthly good fortune? + +I am going to Yorkshire--that is enough for me. I languish for the +starting of the train which shall convey me thither. I begin to +understand the nostalgia of the mountain herdsman: I pine for that +northern air, those fresh pure breezes blowing over moor and wold-- +though I am not quite clear, by the bye, as to the exact nature of a +wold. I pant, I yearn for Yorkshire. I, the cockney, the child of +Temple Bar, whose cradle-song was boomed by the bells of St. Dunstan's +and St. Clement's Danes. + +Is not Yorkshire my Charlotte's birthplace? I want to see the land +whose daughters are so lovely. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ARCADIA. + + +_November 1st_. This is Huxter's Cross, and I live here. I have lived +here a week. I should like to live here for ever. O, let me be rational +for a few hours, while I write the record of this last blissful week; +let me be reasonable, and business-like, and Sheldon-like for this one +wet afternoon, and then I may be happy and foolish again. Be still, +beating heart! as the heroines of Minerva-press romances were +accustomed to say to themselves on the smallest provocation. Be still, +foolish, fluttering, schoolboy heart, which has taken a new lease of +youth and folly from a fair landlord called Charlotte Halliday. + +Drip, drip, drip, O rain! "The day is dark and cold and dreary, and the +vine still clings to the mouldering wall; and with every gust the dead +leaves fall:" but thy sweet sad verse wakes no responsive echo in my +heart, O tender Transatlantic Poet, for my heart is light and glad-- +recklessly glad--heedless of to-morrow--forgetful of yesterday--full to +the very brim with the dear delight of to-day. + +And now to business. I descend from the supernal realms of fancy to the +dry record of commonplace fact. This day week I arrived at Hidling, +after a tedious journey, which, with stoppages at Derby and Normanton, +and small delays at obscurer stations, had occupied the greater part of +the day. It was dusk when I took my place in the hybrid vehicle, half +coach, half omnibus, which was to convey me from Hidling to Huxter's +Cross. A transient glimpse at Hidling showed me one long straggling +street and a square church-tower. Our road branched off from the +straggling street, and in the autumn dusk I could just discover the dim +outlines of distant hills encircling a broad waste of moor. + +I have been so steeped in London that this wild barren scene had a +charm for me which it could scarcely possess for others. Even the gloom +of that dark waste of common land was pleasant to me. I shared the +public vehicle with one old woman, who snored peacefully in the +remotest corner, while I looked out at the little open window and +watched the darkening landscape. + +Our drive occupied some hours. We passed two or three little clusters +of cottages and homesteads, where the geese screamed and the cocks +crowed at our approach, and where a few twinkling tapers in upper +windows proclaimed the hour of bed-time. At one of these clusters of +habitation, a little island of humanity in the waste of wold and moor, +we changed horses, with more yo-oh-ing and come-up-ing than would have +attended the operation in a civilised country. At this village I heard +the native tongue for the first time in all its purity; and for any +meaning which it conveyed to my ear I might as well have been listening +to the _patois_ of agricultural Carthage. + +After changing horses, we went up hill, with perpetual groanings, and +grumblings, and grindings, and whip-smacking and come-up-ing, for an +indefinite period; and then we came to a cluster of cottages, suspended +high up in the sharp autumn atmosphere as it seemed to me; and the +driver of the vehicle came to my little peephole of a window, and told +me with some slight modification of the Carthaginian _patois_ that I +was "theer." + +I alighted, and found myself at the door of a village inn, with the red +light from within shining out upon me where I stood, and a battered old +sign groaning and creaking above my head. For me, who in all my life +had been accustomed to find my warmest welcome at an inn, this was to +be at home. I paid my fare, took up my carpet-bag, and entered the +hostelry. + +I found a rosy-faced landlady, clean and trim, though a trifle floury +as to the arms and apron. She had emerged from a kitchen, an +old-fashioned chamber with a floor of red brick; a chamber which was +all in a rosy glow with the firelight, and looked like a Dutch picture, +as I peeped at it through the open doorway. There were the most +picturesque of cakes and loaves heaped on a wooden bench by the hearth, +and the whole aspect of the place was delicious in its homely comfort. + +"O," I said to myself, "how much better the northern winds blowing over +these untrodden hills, and the odour of home-made loaves, than the +booming bells of St. Dunstan's, and the greasy steam of tavern chops +and steaks!" + +My heart warmed to this Yorkshire and these Yorkshire people. Was it +for Charlotte's sake, I wonder, that I was so ready to open my heart to +everybody and everything in this unknown land? + +A very brief parley set me quite at ease with my landlady. Even, the +Carthaginian _patois_ became intelligible to me after a little +experience. I found that I could have a cosy, cleanly chamber, and be +fed and cared for upon terms that seemed absurdly small, even to a +person of my limited means. My cordial hostess brought me a meal which +was positively luxurious; broiled ham and poached eggs, such as one +scarcely hopes to see out of a picture of still life; crisp brown cakes +fresh from that wonderful oven whose door I had seen yawning open in +the Flemish interior below; strong tea and cream--the cream that one +reads of in pastoral stories. + +I enjoyed my banquet, and then opened my window and looked out at the +still landscape, dimly visible in the faint starlight. + +I was at the top of a hill--the topmost of an ascending range of hills-- +and to some minds that alone is rapture. To inhale the fresh night air +was to drink deeply of an ethereal beverage. I had never experienced so +delicious a sensation since I had stood on the grassy battlements of +the Chateau d'Arques, with the orchards and gardens of sunny Normandy +spread like a carpet below my feet. + +But this hill was loftier than that on which the feudal castle rears +its crumbling towers, and the landscape below me was wilder than +verdant Normandy. + +No words can tell how I rejoiced in this untrodden region--this +severance from the Strand and Temple Bar. I felt as if my old life was +falling away from me--like the scales of the lepers who were cleansed +by the Divine Healer. I felt myself worthier to love, or even to be +loved by, the bright true-hearted girl whose image fills my heart. Ah, +if Heaven gave me that dear angel, I think my old life, my old +recklessness, my old want of principle, would drop away from me +altogether, and the leper would stand forth cleansed and whole. Could I +not be happy with her here, among these forgotten hills, these widely +scattered homesteads? Could I not be happy dissevered eternally from +billiard-room and kursaal, race-ground and dancing-rooms? Yes, +completely and unreservedly happy--happy as a village curate with +seventy pounds a year and a cast-off coat, supplied by the charity of a +land too poor to pay its pastors the wage of a decent butler--happy as +a struggling farmer, though the clay soil of my scanty acres were never +so sour and stubborn, my landlord never so hard about his rent--happy +as a pedlar, with my pack of cheap tawdry wares slung behind me, and my +Charlotte tramping gaily by my side. + +I breakfasted next morning in a snug little parlour behind the bar, +where I overheard two carters conversing in the Carthaginian _patois_, +to which I became hourly more accustomed. My brisk cheery landlady came +in and out while I took my meal; and whenever I could detain her long +enough, I tried to engage her in conversation. + +I asked her if she had ever heard the name of Meynell; and after +profound consideration she replied in the negative. + +"I don't mind hearing aught of folks called Meynell," she said with +more or less of the _patois_, which I was beginning to understand; "but +I haven't got mooch memory for nee-ams. I might have heard o' such +folks, and not minded t' nee-am." + +This was rather dispiriting; but I knew that if any record of Christian +Meynell's daughter existed at Huxter's Cross, it was in my power to +discover it. + +I asked if there was any official in the way of a registrar to be found +in the village; and found that there was no one more important than an +old man who kept the keys of the church. The registers were kept in the +vestry, my landlady believed, and the old man was called Jonas Gorles, +and lived half a mile off, at the homestead of his son-in-law. But my +landlady said she would send for him immediately, and pledged herself +to produce him in the course of an hour. I told her that I would find +my way to the churchyard in the mean time, whither Mr. Gorles could +follow me as soon as convenient. + +The autumnal morning was fresh and bright as spring, and Huxter's Cross +seemed the most delightful place on earth to me, though it is only a +cluster of cottages, relieved by one farmhouse of moderate pretensions, +my hostelry of the Magpie, a general shop, which is also the +post-office, and a fine old Norman church, which lies away from the +village, and bears upon it the traces of better days. Near the church +there is an old granite cross, around which the wild flowers and +grasses grow rank and high. It marks the spot where there was once a +flourishing market-place; but all mortal habitations have vanished, +and the Huxter's Cross of the past has now no other memorial than this +crumbling stone. + +The churchyard was unutterably still and solitary. A robin was perched +on the topmost bar of the old wooden gate, singing his joyous carol. As +I approached, he hopped from the gate to the low moss-grown wall, and +went on singing as I passed him. I was in the humour to apostrophise +skylark or donkey, or to be sentimental about anything in creation, +just then; so I told my robin what a pretty creature he was, and that I +would sooner perish than hurt him by so much as the tip of a feather. + +Being bound to remember my Sheldon even when most sentimental, I +endeavoured to combine the meditative mood of a Hervey with the +business-like sharpness of a lawyer's clerk; and while musing on the +common lot of man in general, I did not omit to search the mouldering +tombstones for some record of the Meynells in particular. + +I found none; and yet, if the daughter of Christian Meynell had been +buried in that churchyard, the name of her father would surely have +been inscribed upon her tombstone. I had read all the epitaphs when the +wooden gate creaked on its hinges, and admitted a wizen little old man +--one of those ancient meanderers who seem to have been created on +purpose to fill the post of sexton. + +With this elderly individual I entered the church of Huxter's Cross, +which had the same mouldy atmosphere as the church at Spotswold. The +vestry was an icy little chamber, which had once been a family vault; +but it was not much colder than Miss Judson's best parlour; and I +endured the cold bravely while I searched the registries of the last +sixty years. + +I searched in vain. After groping amongst the names of all the +nonentities who had been married at Huxter's Cross since the beginning +of the century, I found myself no nearer the secret of Charlotte +Meynell's marriage. And then I reflected upon all the uncertainties +surrounding that marriage. Miss Meynell had gone to Yorkshire, to visit +her mother's relations, and had married in Yorkshire; and the place +which Anthony Sparsfield remembered having heard of in connection with +that marriage was Huxter's Cross. But it did not by any means follow +that the marriage had taken place at that obscure village. Miss Meynell +might have been married at Hull, or York, or Leeds, or at any of the +principal places of the county. With that citizen class of people +marriage was a grand event, a solemn festivity; and Miss Meynell and +her friends would have been likely to prefer that so festive an +occasion should be celebrated anywhere rather than at that forgotten +old church among the hills. "I shall have to search every register in +Yorkshire till I light upon the record I want," I thought to myself, +"unless Sheldon will consent to advertise for the Meynell marriage +certificate. There could scarcely be danger in such an advertisement, +as the connection between the name of Meynell and the Haygarth estate +is only known to ourselves." + +Acting upon this idea, I wrote to George Sheldon by that afternoon's +post, urging him to advertise for descendants of Miss Charlotte +Meynell. + +Charlotte! dear name, which is a kind of music for me. It was almost a +pleasure to write that letter, because of the repetition of that +delightful noun. + +The next day I devoted to a drive round the neighbourhood, in a smart +little dog-cart, hired on very moderate terms from mine host. I had +acquainted myself with the geography of the surrounding country; and I +contrived to visit every village church within a certain radius of +Huxter's Cross. But my inspection of mildewed old books, and my heroic +endurance of cold and damp in mouldy old churches, resulted in nothing +but disappointment. + +I returned to my "Magpie" after dark a little disheartened and +thoroughly tired, but still very well pleased with my rustic quarters +and my adopted county. My landlord's horse had shown himself a very +model of equine perfection. + +Candles were lighted and curtains drawn in my cosy little chamber, and +the table creaked beneath one of those luxurious Yorkshire teas which +might wean an alderman from the coarser delights of turtle or +conger-eel soup and venison. + +At noon the following day a very primitive kind of postman brought me a +letter from Sheldon. That astute individual told me that he declined to +advertise, or to give any kind of publicity to his requirements. + +"If I were not afraid of publicity, I should not be obliged to pay you +a pound a week," he remarked, with pleasing candour, "since +advertisements would get me more information in a week than you may +scrape together in a twelvemonth. But I happen to know the danger of +publicity, and that many a good thing has been snatched out of a man's +hands just as he was working it into shape. I don't say that this could +be done in my case; and you know very well that it could not be done, +as I hold papers which are essential to the very first move in the +business." + +I perfectly understand the meaning of these remarks, and I am inclined +to doubt the existence of those important papers. Suspicion is a +fundamental principle in the Sheldon mind. My friend George trusts me +because he is obliged to trust me--and only so far as he is obliged-- +and is tormented, more or less, by the idea that I may at any moment +attempt to steal a march upon him. + +But to return to his letter: + +"I should recommend you to examine the registries of every town or +village within, say, thirty miles of Huxter's Cross. If you find +nothing in such registries, we must fall back upon the larger towns, +beginning with Hull, as being nearest to our starting-point. The work +will, I fear, be slow, and very expensive for me. I need scarcely again +urge upon you the necessity of confining your outlay to the minimum, as +you know that my affairs are desperate. It couldn't well be lower water +than it is with me, in a pecuniary sense; and I expect every day to +find myself aground. + +"And now for my news. I have discovered the burial-place of Samuel +Meynell, after no end of trouble, the details of which I needn't bore +you with, since you are now pretty well up in that sort of work. I am +thankful to say I have secured the evidence that settles for Samuel, +and ascertained by tradition that he died unmarried. The _onus +probandi_ would fall upon any one purporting to be descended from the +said Samuel, and we know how uncommonly difficult said person would +find it to prove anything. + +"So, having disposed of Samuel, I came back to London by the next mail; +Calais, in the month of November, not being one of those wildly-gay +watering-places which tempt the idler. I arrived just in time to catch +this afternoon's post; and now I look impatiently to your Miss +Charlotte Meynell, of Huxter's Cross.--Yours, &c. G.S." + +I obeyed my employer to the letter; hired my landlord's dog-cart for +another day's exploration; and went further afield in search of Miss +Charlotte's marriage-lines. I came home late at night--this time +thoroughly worn out--studied a railway guide with a view to my +departure, and decided on starting for Hull by a train that would leave +Hidling station at four o'clock on the following afternoon. + +I went to bed tired in body and depressed in spirit. Why was I so sorry +to leave Huxter's Cross? What subtle instinct of the brain or heart +made me aware that the desert region amongst the hills held earth's +highest felicity for me? + +The next morning was bright and clear. I heard the guns of sportsmen +popping merrily in the still air as I breakfasted before an open +window, while a noble sea-coal fire blazed on the hearth opposite me. +There is no stint of fuel at the Magpie. Everything in Yorkshire seems +to be done with a lavish hand. I have heard Yorkshiremen called mean. +As if meanness could exist in the hearts of my Charlotte's countrymen! +My own experience of the county is brief; but I can only say that my +friends of the Magpie are liberality itself, and that a Yorkshire tea +is the very acme of unsophisticated bliss in the way of eating and +drinking. I have dined at Philippe's; I know every dish in the _menu_ +of the Maison Doree; but if I am to make my life a burden beneath the +dark sway of the demon dyspepsia, let my destruction arrive in the +shape of the ham and eggs, the crisp golden-brown cakes, and undefiled +honey, of this northern Arcadia. + +I told my friendly hostess that I was going to leave her, and she was +sorry. She was sorry for me, the wanderer. I can picture to myself the +countenance of a London landlady if informed thus suddenly of her +lodger's departure, and her suppressed mutterings about the +ill-convenience of such a proceeding. + +After breakfast I went out to take my own pleasure. I had done my duty +in the matter of mouldy churches and mildewed registries; and I +considered myself entitled to a holiday during the few hours that must +elapse before the starting of the hybrid vehicle for Hidling. + +I sauntered past the little cluster of cottages, admiring their +primitive aspect, the stone-crop on the red-tiled roofs, that had sunk +under the weight of years. All was unspeakably fresh and bright; the +tiny panes of the casement twinkled in the autumn sunlight, birds sang, +and hardy red geraniums bloomed in the cottage windows. What pleasure +or distraction had the good housewives of Huxter's Cross to lure them +from the domestic delights of scrubbing and polishing? I saw young +faces peeping at me from between snow-white muslin curtains, and felt +that I was a personage for once in my life; and it was pleasant to feel +one's self of some importance even in the eyes of Huxter's Cross. + +Beyond the cottages and the post-office there were three roads +stretching far away over hill and moorland. With two of those roads I +had made myself thoroughly familiar; but the third remained to be +explored. + +"So now for 'fresh fields and pastures new,'" I said to myself as I +quickened my pace, and walked briskly along my unknown road. + +Ah, surely there is some meaning in the fluctuations of the mental +barometer. What but an instinctive consciousness of approaching +happiness could have made me so light-hearted that morning? I sang as I +hastened along that undiscovered road. Fragments of old Italian +serenades and barcarolles came back to me as if I had heard them +yesterday for the first time. The perfume of the few lingering +wild-flowers, the odour of burning weeds in the distance, the fresh +autumn breeze, the clear cold blue sky,--all were intensely delicious +to me; and I felt as if this one lonely walk were a kind of renovating +process, from which my soul would emerge cleansed of all its stains. + +"I have to thank George Sheldon for a great deal," I said to myself, +"since through him I have been obliged to educate myself in the school +of man's best teacher, Solitude. I do not think I can ever be a +thorough Bohemian again. These lonely wanderings have led me to +discover a vein of seriousness in my nature which I was ignorant of +until now. How thoroughly some men are the creatures of their +surroundings! With Paget I have been a Paget. But a few hours +_tete-a-tete_ with Nature renders one averse from the society of Pagets, +be they never so brilliant." + +From moralising thus, I fell into a delicious day-dream. All my dreams +of late had moved to the same music. How happy I could be if Fate gave +me Charlotte and three hundred a year! In sober moods I asked for this +much of worldly wealth, just to furnish a nest for my bird. In my +wilder moments I asked Fate for nothing but Charlotte. + +"Give me the bird without the nest," I cried to Fortune; "and we will +take wing to some trackless forest where there are shelter and berries +for nestless birds. We will imitate that delightful bride and +bridegroom of Parisian Bohemia, who married and settled in an attic, +and when their stock of fuel was gone fell foul of the staircase that +led to their bower, and so supplied themselves merrily enough till the +staircase was all consumed, and the poor little bride, peeping out of +her door one morning, found herself upon the verge of an abyss. + +"And then came the furious landlord, demanding restitution. But close +behind the landlord came the good fairy of all love-stories, with +Pactolus in her pocket. Ah, yes, there is always a providence for true +lovers." + +I had passed away by this time from the barren moor to the regions of +cultivation. The trimly-cut hedges on each side of the way showed me +that my road now lay between farm lands. I was outside the boundary of +some upland farm. I saw sheep cropping trefoil in a field on the other +side of the brown hedgerow, and at a distance I saw the red-tiled roof +of a farm-house. + +I looked at my watch, and found that I had still half an hour to spare; +so I went on towards the farm-house, bent upon seeing what sort of +habitation it was. In a solitary landscape like this, every +dwelling-place has a kind of attraction for the wayfarer. + +I went on till I came to a white gate, against which a girlish figure +was leaning. + +It was a graceful figure, dressed in that semi-picturesque costume +which has been adopted by women of late years. The vivid blue of a +boddice was tempered by the sober gray of a skirt, and a bright-hued +ribbon gleamed among rich tresses of brown hair. + +The damsel's face was turned away from me, but there was something in +the carriage of the head, something in the modelling of the firm full +throat, which reminded me of-- + +But then, when a man is over head and ears in love, everything in +creation reminds him more or less of his idol. Your pious Catholic +gives all his goods for the adornment of a church; your true lover +devotes his every thought to the dressing up of one dear image. + +The damsel turned as my steps drew near, loud on the crisp gravel. She +turned, and showed me the face of Charlotte Halliday. + +I must entreat posterity to forgive me, if I leave a blank at this +stage of my story. "There are chords in the human heart which had +better not be wibrated," said Sim Tappertit. There are emotions which +can only be described by the pen of a poet. I am not a poet; and if my +diary is so happy as to be of some use to posterity as a picture of the +manners of a repentant Bohemian, posterity must not quarrel with my +shortcomings in the way of sentimental description. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +IN PARADISE. + + +We stood at the white gate talking to each other, my Charlotte and I. +The old red-tiled roof which I had seen in the distance sheltered the +girl I love. The solitary farm-house which it had been my whim to +examine was the house in which my dear love made her home. It was here, +to this untrodden hillside, that my darling had come from the prim +modern villa at Bayswater. Ah, what happiness to find her here, far +away from all those stockbroking surroundings--here, where our hearts +expanded beneath the divine influence of Nature! + +I fear that I was coxcomb enough to fancy myself beloved that day we +parted in Kensington-gardens. A look, a tone--too subtle for +definition--thrilled me with a sudden hope so bright, that I would not +trust myself to believe it could be realised. + +"She is a coquette," I said to myself. "Coquetry is one of the graces +which Nature bestows upon these bewitching creatures. That little +conscious look, which stirred this weak heart so tumultuously, is no +doubt common to her when she knows herself beloved and admired, and has +no meaning that can flatter my foolish hopes." This is how I had +reasoned with myself again and again during the dreary interval in +which Miss Halliday and I had been separated. But, O, what a hardy +perennial blossom hope must be! The tender buds were not to be crushed +by the pelting hailstones of hard common sense. They had survived all +my philosophical reflections, and burst into sudden flower to-day at +sight of Charlotte's face. She loved me, and she was delighted to see +me. That was what her radiant face told me; and could I do less than +believe the sweet confession? For the first few moments we could +scarcely speak to each other, and then we began to converse in the +usual commonplace strain. + +She told me of her astonishment on seeing me in that remote spot. I +could hardly confess to having business at Huxter's Cross, so I was +fain to tell my dear love a falsehood, and declare that I was taking a +holiday "up at the hills." + +"And how did you come to choose Huxter's Cross for your holiday?" she +asked _naively_. + +I told her that I had heard the place spoken of by a person in the +city--my simple-minded Sparsfield to wit. + +"And you could not have come to a better place," she cried, "though +people do call it the very dullest spot in the world. This was my dear +aunt Mary's house--papa's sister, you know. Grandpapa Halliday had two +farms. This was one, and Hyley the other. Hyley was much larger and +better than this, you know, and was left to poor papa, who sold it just +before he died." + +Her face clouded as she spoke of her father's death. "I can't speak +about that without pain even now," she said softly, "though I was only +nine years old when it happened. But one can suffer a great deal at +nine years old." + +And then, after a little pause, she went on to speak of her Yorkshire +home. + +"My aunt and uncle Mercer are so kind to me; and yet they are neither +of them really related to me. My aunt Mary died very young, when her +first baby was born, and the poor little baby died too: and uncle +Mercer inherited the property from his wife, you see. He married again +after two years, and his second wife is the dearest, kindest creature +in the world. I always call her aunt, for I don't remember poor papa's +sister at all; and no aunt that ever lived could be kinder to me than +aunt Dorothy. I am always so happy here," she said; "and it seems such +a treat to get away from the Lawn--of course I am sorry to leave mamma, +you know," she added, parenthetically--"and the stiff breakfasts, and +Mr. Sheldon's newspapers that crackle, crackle, crackle so shockingly +all breakfast-time; and the stiff dinners, with a prim parlor-maid +staring at one all the time, and bringing one vegetables that one +doesn't want if one only ventures to breathe a little louder than +usual. Here it is Liberty Hall. Uncle Joe--he is aunt Dorothy's +husband--is the kindest creature in the world, just the very reverse of +Mr. Sheldon in everything. I don't mean that my stepfather is unkind, +you know. O, no, he has always been very good to me--much kinder than I +have deserved that he should be. But uncle Joe's ways are _so_ +different. I am sure you will like him; and I am sure he will like you, +for he likes everybody, dear thing. And you must come and see us very +often, please, for Newhall farm is open house, you know, and the +stranger within the gates is always welcome." + +Now my duty to my Sheldon demanded that I should scamper back to +Huxter's Cross as fast as my legs would carry me, in order to be in +time for the hybrid vehicle that was to convey me to Hidling station; +and here was this dear girl inviting me to linger, and promising me a +welcome to the house which was made a paradise by her presence. + +I looked at my watch. It would have been impossible for me to reach +Huxter's Cross in time for the vehicle. Conscience whispered that I +could hire my landlord's dog-cart, and a boy to drive me to Hidling; +but the whispers of conscience are very faint; and love cried aloud, +"Stay with Charlotte: supreme happiness is offered to you for the first +time in your life. Fool that would reject so rare a gift!" + +It was to this latter counsellor I gave my ear. My Sheldon's interests +went overboard; and I stayed by the white gate, talking to Charlotte, +till it was quite too late to heed the reproachful grumblings of +conscience about that dog-cart. + +My Charlotte--yes, I boldly call her mine now--my dear is great in +agriculture. She enlightened my cockney mind on the subject of upland +farms, telling me how uncle and aunt Mercer's land is poor and sandy, +requiring very little in the way of draining, but producing by no means +luxuriant crops. It is a very picturesque place, and has a certain +gentlemanlike air with it pleasing to my snobbish taste. The house lies +in a tract of open grass-land, dotted here and there by trees, and +altogether of a park-like appearance. True that the mild and useful +sheep rather than the stately stag browses on that greensward, and few +carriages roll along the winding gravel road that leads to the house. + +I felt a rapturous thirst for agricultural knowledge as I listened to +my Charlotte. Was there a vacancy for hind or herdsman on Newhall farm, +I wondered. What is the office so humble I would not fill for her dear +sake? O, how I sighed for the days of Jacob, that first distinguished +usurer, so that I might serve seven years and again seven years for my +darling! + +I stayed by the white gate, abandoning all thought of my employer's +behests, unconscious of time--unconscious of everything except that I +was with Charlotte Halliday, and would not have resigned my position to +be made Lord Chancellor of England. + +Anon came uncle Joe, with a pleasant rubicund visage beaming under a +felt hat, to tell Lotta that dinner was ready. To him I was immediately +presented. + +"Mr. Mercer, my dear uncle Joseph--Mr. Hawkehurst, a friend of my +stepfather's," said Charlotte. + +Two or three minutes afterwards we were all three walking across the +park-like sward to the hospitable farm-house; for the idea of my +departing before dinner seemed utterly preposterous to this friendly +farmer. + +Considered apart from the glamour that for my eyes must needs shine +over any dwelling inhabited by Charlotte Halliday, I will venture to +say that Newhall farm-house is the dearest old place in the world. Such +delightful old rooms, with the deepest window-seats, the highest +mantelpieces, the widest fireplaces possible in domestic architecture; +such mysterious closets and uncanny passages; such pitfalls in the way +of unexpected flights of stairs; such antiquated glazed +corner-cupboards for the display of old china!--everything redolent +of the past. + +In one corner a spinning-wheel, so old that its spindle might be the +identical weapon that pierced Princess Sleeping Beauty's soft white +hand; in another corner an arm-chair that must have been old-fashioned +in the days of Queen Anne; and O, what ancient flowered chintzes, what +capacious sofas, what darling mahogany secretaries and bureaus, with +gleaming brazen adornments in the way of handles!--and about everything +the odour of rose-leaves and lavender. + +I have grown familiar with every corner of the dear old place within +the last few days, but on this first day I had only a general +impression of its antiquated aspect and homely comfort. I stayed to +dine at the same unpretending board at which my Charlotte had sat years +ago, elevated on a high chair, and as yet new to the use of knives and +forks. Uncle Joe and aunt Dorothy told me this in their pleasant +friendly way; while the young lady sat by, blushing and dimpling like a +summer sea beneath the rosy flush of sunrise. No words can relate how +delightful it was to me to hear them talk of my dear love's childhood; +they dwelt so tenderly upon her sweetness, they dilated with such +enthusiasm upon her "pretty ways." Her "pretty ways!" ah, how fatal a +thing it is for mankind when Nature endows woman with those pretty +ways! From the thrall of Grecian noses and Castilian eyes there may be +hope of deliverance, but from the spell of that indescribable witchery +there is none. + +I whistled my Sheldon down the wind without remorse, and +allowed myself to be as happy as if I had been the squire of valley and +hillside, with ten thousand a year to offer my Charlotte with the heart +that loves her so fondly. I have no idea what we had for dinner. I know +only that the fare was plenteous, and the hospitality of my new friends +unbounded. We were very much at ease with one another, and our laughter +rang up to the stalwart beams that sustained the old ceiling. If I had +possessed the smallest fragment of my heart, I should have delivered it +over without hesitation to my aunt Dorothy--pardon!--my Charlotte's +aunt Dorothy, who is the cheeriest, brightest, kindest matron I ever +met, with a sweet unworldly spirit that beams out of her candid blue +eyes. + +Charlotte seems to have been tenderly attached to her father the poor +fellow who died in Philip Sheldon's house--uncomfortable for Sheldon, I +should think. The Mercers talk a good deal of Thomas Halliday, for whom +they appear to have entertained a very warm affection. They also spoke +with considerable kindness of the two Sheldons, whom they knew as young +men in the town of Barlingford; but I should not imagine either uncle +Joseph or aunt Dorothy very well able to fathom the still waters of the +Sheldon intellect. + +After dinner uncle Joe took us round the farm. The last stack of corn +had been thatched, and there was a peaceful lull in the agricultural +world. We went into a quadrangle lined with poultry sheds, where I saw +more of the feathered race than I had ever in my life beheld +congregated together; thence to the inspection of pigs--and it was +agreeable to inspect even those vulgar querulous grunters, with +Charlotte by my side. Her brightness shed a light on all those common +objects; and O, how I longed to be a farmer, like uncle Mercer, and +devote my life to Charlotte and agriculture! + +When uncle Joe had done the honours of his farm-yards and +threshing-machinery, he left us to attend to his afternoon duties; and +we wandered together over the breezy upland at our own sweet wills, or +at _her_ sweet will rather, since what could I do but follow where she +pleased to lead? + +We talked of many things: of the father whom she had loved so dearly, +whose memory was still so mournfully dear to her; of her old home at +Hyley; of her visits to these dear Mercers; of her schooldays, and her +new unloved home in the smart Bayswater villa. She confided in me as +she had never done before; and when we turned in the chill autumn +gloaming, I had told her of my love, and had won from her the sweet +confession of its return. + +I have never known happiness so perfect as that which I felt as we +walked home together--home--yes; that old farm-house must be my home as +well as hers henceforward; for any habitation which she loved must be a +kind of home for me. Sober reflection tells me how reckless and +imprudent my whole conduct has been in this business; but when did ever +love and prudence go hand-in-hand? We were children, Charlotte and I, +on that blessed afternoon; and we told each other our love as children +might have told it, without thought of the future. We have both grown +wiser since that time, and are quite agreed as to our imprudence and +foolishness; but, though we endeavour to contemplate the future in the +most serious manner, we are too happy in the present to be able to +analyse the difficulties and dangers that lie in our pathway. + +Surely there must be a providence for imprudent lovers. + +The November dews fell thick, and the November air was chill, as we +walked back to the homestead. I was sorry that there should be that +creeping dampness in the atmosphere that night. It seemed out of +harmony with the new warmth in my heart. I pressed my darling's little +hand closer to my breast, and had no more consciousness of any +impediments to my future bliss than of the ground on which I walked-- +and that seemed air. + +We found our chairs waiting for us at aunt Dorothy's tea-table; and I +enjoyed that aldermanic banquet, a Yorkshire tea, under circumstances +that elevated it to an Olympian repast. + +I thought of the Comic Latin Grammar: + + "Musa, musae, the gods were at tea; + Musae musam, eating raspberry jam." + +I was Jove, and my love was Juno. I looked at her athwart the misty +clouds that issued from the hissing urn, and saw her beautified by a +heightened bloom, and with a sweet, shy conscious look in her eyes +which made her indeed divine. + +After tea we played whist; and I am bound to confess that my divinity +played execrably, persistently disdaining to return her partner's lead, +and putting mean little trumps upon her adversary's tricks, with a +fatuous economy of resources which is always ruin. + +I stayed till ten o'clock, reckless of the unknown country which +separated me from the Magpie, and then walked home alone, under the +faint starlight, though my friendly host would fain have lent me a +dog-cart. The good people here lend one another dog-carts as freely as +a cockney offers his umbrella. I went back to Huxter's Cross alone, and +the long solitary walk was very pleasant to me. + +Looking up at the stars as I tramped homeward, I could but remember an +old epigram:-- + + Were you the earth, dear love, and I the skies, + My love should shine on you like to the sun, + And look upon you with ten thousand eyes, + Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world were done. + +I had ample leisure for reflection during that long night-walk, and +found myself becoming a perfect Young--Hervey--Sturm--what you will, in +the way of meditation. I could not choose but wonder at myself when I +looked back to this time last year, and remembered my idle evenings in +third-rate _cafes_, on the _rive gauche_, playing dominoes, talking the +foul slang of Parisian bohemia, and poisoning my system with +adulterated absinthe. And now I feast upon sweet cakes and honey, and +think it paradisiac enjoyment to play whist--for love--in a farm-house +parlour. I am younger by ten years than I was twelve months ago. + +Ah, let me thank God, who has sent me my redemption. + +I lifted my hat, and pronounced the thanksgiving softly under that +tranquil sky. I was almost ashamed to hear the sound of my own voice. I +was like some shy child who for the first time speaks his father's +name. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +TOO FAIR TO LAST. + + +In my confidences with my dear girl I had told her neither the nature +of my mission in Yorkshire, nor the fact that I was bound to leave +Huxter's Cross immediately upon an exploring expedition to nowhere in +particular, in search of the archives of the Meynells. How could I +bring myself to tell her that I must leave her?--how much less could I +bring myself to do it? + +Rendered desperately unmindful of the universe by reason of my +all-absorbing happiness, I determined on giving myself a holiday +boldly, in defiance of Sheldon and the Sheldonian interests. + +"Am I a bounden slave?" I asked myself, "that I should go here or there +at any man's bidding, for the pitiful stipend of twenty shillings a +week?" + +It is to be observed that the rate of hire makes all the difference in +these cases; and while it is ignominious for a lawyer's clerk to hasten +to and fro in the earning of his weekly wage, it is in no way +dishonourable for the minister of state to obey the call of his chief, +and hurry hither and thither in abnegation of all his own +predilections, and to the aggravation of his chronic gout. + +I wrote to my Sheldon, and told him that I had met with friends in the +neighbourhood of Huxter's Cross, and that I intended to give myself a +brief holiday; after which I would resume my labours, and do my +uttermost to make up for wasted time. I had still the remnant of my +borrowed thirty pounds, and amongst these northern hills I felt myself +a millionaire. + +Three thousand pounds at five per cent--one hundred and fifty pounds a +year. I felt that with such an income assured to us, and the fruits of +my industry, Charlotte and I might be secure from all the storms of +life. Ah, what happiness it would be to work for her! And I am not too +old to begin life afresh; not too old for the bar; not too old to make +some mark as a writer on the press; not too old to become a respectable +member of society. + +After having despatched my letter to Sheldon, I made off for Newhall +farm with all speed. I had received a sort of general invitation from +the kindest of uncles and aunts, but I contrived with becoming modesty +to arrive after Mr. Mercer's dinner-hour. I found Charlotte alone in +the dear old-fashioned parlour, aunt Dorothy being engaged in some +domestic operations in the kitchen, and uncle Joseph making his usual +after-dinner rounds amongst the pig-styes and the threshing-machines. I +discovered afterwards that it was Miss Halliday's wont to accompany her +kind kinsman in this afternoon investigation; but to-day she had +complained of a headache and preferred to stay at home. Yet there were +few symptoms of the headache when I found her standing in the +bow-window, watching the path by which I came, and the face of Aurora +herself could scarcely be brighter or fresher than my darling's +innocent blushes when I greeted her with the privileged kiss of +betrothal. + +We sat in the bow-window talking till the twilight shadows crept over +the greensward, and the sheep were led away to their fold, with +cheerful jingling of bells and barking of watchful dog. My dearest girl +told me that our secret had already been discovered by the penetrating +eyes of aunt Dorothy and uncle Joseph. They had teased her +unmercifully, it seemed, all that day, but were graciously pleased to +smile upon my suit, like a pair of imprudent Arcadians as they are. + +"They like you very much indeed," my Lotta said joyously; "but I +believe they think I have known you much longer than I really have, and +that you are very intimate with my stepfather. It seems almost like +deceiving them to allow them to think so, but I really haven't the +courage to tell the truth. How foolish and bold they would think me if +they knew how very short a time I have known you!" + +"Twenty times longer than Juliet had known Romeo when they met in the +Friar's cell to be married," I urged. + +"Yes, but that was in a play," replied Charlotte, "where everything is +obliged to be hurried; and at Hyde Lodge we all of us thought that +Juliet was a very forward young person." + +"The poets all believe in love at first sight, and I'll wager our dear +uncle Joe fell over head and ears in love with aunt Dorothy after +having danced with her two or three times at an assize ball," said I. +After this we became intensely serious, and I told my darling girl that +I hoped very soon to be in possession of a small fixed income, and to +have begun a professional career. I told her how dear an incentive to +work she had given me, and how little fear I had for the future. + +I reminded her that Mr. Sheldon had no legal power to control her +actions, and that, as her father's will had left her entirely to her +mother's guardianship, she had only her mother's pleasure to consult. + +"I believe poor mamma would let me marry a crossing-sweeper, if I cried +and declared it would make me miserable not to marry him," said +Charlotte; "but then, you see, mamma's wishes mean Mr. Sheldon's +wishes; she is sure to think whatever he tells her to think; and if he +is strongly against our marriage--" + +"As I am sure he will be," I interjected. + +"He will work upon poor mamma in that calm, persistent, logical way of +his till he makes her as much against it as himself." + +"But even your mamma has no legal power to control your actions, my +love. Were you not of age on your last birthday?" + +My darling replied in the affirmative. + +"Then of course you are free to marry whom you please; and as I am +thankful to say you don't possess a single sixpence in your own right, +there need be no fuss about settlements or pin-money. We can marry any +fine morning that my dear girl pleases to name, and defy all the stern +stepfathers in creation." + +"How I wish I had a fortune, for your sake!" she said with a sigh. + +"Be glad for my sake that you have none," I answered. "You cannot +imagine the miserable complications and perplexities which arise in +this world from the possession of money. No slave so tightly bound as +the man who has what people call 'a stake in the country' and a balance +at his banker's. The true monarch of all he surveys is the penniless +reprobate who walks down Fleet-street with his whole estate covered by +the seedy hat upon his head." + +Having thus moralized, I proceeded to ask Miss Halliday if she was +prepared to accept a humbler station than that enjoyed by her at the +Lawn. + +"No useful landau, to be an open carriage at noon and a family coach at +night," I said; "no nimble page to skip hither and thither at his fair +lady's commands, if not belated on the way by the excitement of tossing +halfpence with youthful adventurers of the byways and alleys; no trim +parlour-maids, with irreproachable caps, dressed for the day at 11 +o'clock A.M.--but instead of these, a humble six-roomed bandbox of a +house, and one poor hardworking slavey, with perennial smudges from +saucepan-lids upon her honest pug-nose. Consider the prospect +seriously, Charlotte, and ask yourself whether you can endure such a +descent in the social scale." + +My Charlotte laughed, as if the prospect had been the most delightful +picture ever presented to mortal vision. + +"Do you think I care for the landau or the page?" she cried. "If it +were not for mamma's sake, I should detest that prim villa and all its +arrangements. You see me so happy here, where there is no pretence of +grandeur--" + +"But I am bound to warn you that I shall not be able to provide +Yorkshire teas at the commencement of our domestic career," I remarked, +by way of parenthesis. + +"Aunt Dorothy will send us hampers of poultry and cakes, sir, and for +the rest of our time we can live upon bread and water." + +On this I promised my betrothed a house in Cavendish or Portman-square, +and a better-built landau than Mr. Sheldon's, in the remote future. +With those dear eyes for my pole-stars, I felt myself strong enough to +clamber up the slippery ascent to the woolsack. The best and purest +ambition must surely be that which is only a synonym for love. + +After we had sat talking in the gloaming to our hearts' content, aunt +Dorothy appeared, followed by a sturdy handmaid with lighted candles, +and a still sturdier handmaid with a ponderous tea-tray. The two made +haste to spread a snow-white cloth, and to set forth the species of +banquet which it is the fashion nowadays to call high tea. Anon came +uncle Joseph, bringing with him some slight perfume from the piggeries, +and he and aunt Dorothy were pleased to be pleasantly facetious and +congratulatory in their conversation during the social meal which +followed their advent. + +After tea we played whist again, aunt Dorothy and I obtaining a +succession of easy victories over Charlotte and uncle Joe. I felt +myself hourly more and more completely at home in that simple domestic +circle, and enjoyed the proud position of an accepted lover. My +Arcadian friends troubled themselves in nowise as to the approval or +disapproval of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon, or with regard either to my +prospects or my antecedents. They saw me devoted to my dear girl, they +saw my dearest pleased by my devotion, and they loved her so well that +they were ready to open their hearts without reserve to the man who +adored her and was loved by her, let him be rich or poor, noble or +base-born. As they would have given her the wax-doll of her desire ten +or twelve years ago without question as to price or fitness of things, +so they now gave her their kindly smiles and approval for the lover of +her choice. "I know Phil Sheldon is a man who looks to the main +chance," said uncle Joe, in the course of a discussion about his +niece's future which dyed her cheeks with blushes in the present; "and +I'll lay you'll find him rather a difficult customer to deal with, +especially as poor Tom's will left all the money in Georgy's hands, +which of course is tantamount to saying that Sheldon has got the +disposal of it." + +I assured uncle Joe that money was the very last thing which I desired. + +"Then in that case I don't see why he shouldn't let you have +Charlotte," replied Mr. Mercer; "and if she's cheated out of her poor +dad's money, she shan't be cheated out of what her old aunt and uncle +may have to leave her by-and-by." + +Here were these worthy people promising me an heiress with no more +compunction than if they had been offering me a cup of tea. + +I walked homeward once more beneath the quiet stars. O, how happy I +was! Can happiness so perfect, joy so sinless, endure? I, the +friendless wanderer and penniless Bohemian, asked myself this question; +and again I paused upon the lonely moorland road to lift my hat as I +thanked God for having given me such bright hopes. + +But George Sheldon's three thousand pounds must be mine before I can +secure the humblest shelter for my sweet one; and although it would be +bliss to me to tramp through the world barefoot with Charlotte by my +side, the barefooted state of things is scarcely the sort of prospect a +man would care to offer to the woman he loves. So once more to the +chase. One more day in this delicious island of the lotus-eaters, +Newhall farm; and then away!--hark forward!--tantivy!--and hey for the +marriage-lines of Charlotte Meynell, great-granddaughter of Matthew +Haygarth, and, if still in the flesh, rightful heiress to the one +hundred thousand pounds at present likely to be absorbed by the +ravening jaws of the Crown! One more day, one more delightful idle day, +in the land where it is always afternoon, and then away to Hidling in +the hybrid vehicle, and thence to Hull, from Hull to York, from York to +Leeds, then Bradford, Huddersfield--_toute la boutique!_ + +The rain beats against the diamond panes of my casement as I write. The +day has been hopelessly wet, so I have stayed in my snug little chamber +and occupied myself in writing this record. Foul wind or weather would +have little power to keep me from my darling; but even if it had been a +fine day, I could not with any grace have presented myself at Newhall +farm for a third afternoon. To-morrow my immediate departure will +afford me an excuse for presenting myself once more before my kind +uncle and aunt. It will be my farewell visit. I wonder whether +Charlotte will miss me this afternoon. I wonder whether she will be +sorry when I tell her that I am going to leave this part of the +country. Ah, shall we ever meet again under such happy auspices? Shall +I ever again find such kind friends or such a hospitable dwelling as +those I shall leave amidst these northern hills? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +FOUND IN THE BIBLE. + + +_November_ 3d_. The most wonderful event has befallen--surely the +most wonderful that ever came to pass outside the realms of fiction. +Let me set down the circumstances of yesterday coolly and quietly if I +can. I invoke the placid spirit of my Sheldon. I invoke all the +divinities of Gray's Inn and "The Fields." Let me be legal and +specific, perspicacious and logical--if this beating heart, this +fevered brain, will allow me a few hours' respite. + +The autumn sunshine blessed the land again yesterday. Moorland and +meadow, fallow and clover-field, were all the brighter for the steady +downfall of the previous day. I walked to Newhall directly after +breakfast, and found my dearest standing at the white five-barred gate, +dressed in her pretty blue jacket, and with ribbons in her bonny brown +hair. + +She was pleased to see me, though at first just a little inclined to +play the _boudeuse_ on account of my absence on the previous day. Of +course I assured her that it had been anguish for me to remain away +from her, and quoted that divine sonnet of our William's to the like +effect: + + "How like a winter hath my absence been!" + +and again: + + "O, never say that I was false of heart, + Though absence seemed my flame to qualify." + +Equally of course my pet pretended not to believe me. After this little +misunderstanding we forgave each other, and adored each other again +with just a little more than usual devotion; and then we went for a +long ramble among the fields, and looked at the dear placid sheep, who +stared at us wonderingly in return, as if exclaiming to themselves, +"And these are a specimen couple of the creatures called lovers!" + +We met uncle Joe in the course of our wanderings, and returned with him +in time for the vulgar superstition of dinner, which we might have +forgotten had we been left by ourselves. After dinner uncle Joe made +off to his piggeries; while aunt Dorothy fell asleep in a capacious old +arm-chair by the fire, after making an apologetic remark to the effect +that she was tired, and had been a good deal "tewed" that morning in +the dairy. "Tewed," I understand, is Yorkshire for "worried." + +Aunt Dorothy having departed into the shadowy realm of dreams, +Charlotte and I were left to our own devices. + +There was a backgammon board on a side-table, surmounted by an old +Indian bowl of dried rose-leaves; and, _pour nous distraire_, I +proposed that I should teach my dearest that diverting game. She +assented, and we set to work in a very business-like manner, Miss +Halliday all attention, I serious as a professional schoolmaster. + +Unfortunately for my pupil's progress, the game of backgammon proved +less entertaining than our own conversation, so, after a very feeble +attempt on the one side to learn and on the other to teach, we closed +the board and began to talk;--first of the past, then of the future, +the happy future, which we were to share. + +There is no need that I should set down this lovers' talk. Is it not +written on my heart? The future seemed so fair and unclouded to me, as +my love and I sat talking together yesterday afternoon. Now all is +changed. The strangest, the most surprising complications have arisen; +and I doubt, I fear. + +After we had talked for a long time, Miss Halliday suddenly proposed +that I should read to her. + +"Diana once told me that you read very beautifully," said this +flatterer; "and I should so like to hear you read--poetry of course. +You will find plenty of poems in that old bookcase--Cowper, and +Bloomfield, and Pope. Now I am sure that Pope is just the kind of poet +whose verses you would read magnificently. Shall we explore the +bookcase together?" + +Now if there is any manner of beguiling an idle afternoon, which seems +to me most delightful, it is by the exploration of old bookcases; and +when that delight can be shared by the woman one fondly loves, the +pleasure thereof must be of course multiplied to an indefinite amount. + +So Charlotte and I set to work immediately to ransack the lower shelves +of the old-fashioned mahogany bookcase, which contained the entire +library of the Mercer household. + +I am bound to admit that we did not light upon many volumes of +thrilling interest. The verses of Cowper, like those of Southey, have +always appeared to me to have only one fault--there are too many of +them. One shrinks appalled from that thick closely-printed volume of +morality cut into lengths of ten feet; and beyond the few well-worn +quotations in daily use, I am fain to confess that I am almost a +stranger to the bard of Olney. + +Half a dozen odd volumes of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, three or four +of the _Annual Register_, a neatly-bound edition of _Clarissa Harlowe_ +and _Sir Charles Grandison_ in twelve volumes, Law's _Holy Call to a +Serious Life_, _Paradise Lost_, _Joseph Andrews_, _Hervey's +Meditations_, and _Gulliver's Travels_, formed the varied contents of +the principal shelves. Above, there were shabbily-bound volumes and +unbound pamphlets. Below, there were folios, the tops whereof were +thickly covered with the dust of ages, having escaped the care of the +handmaidens even in that neatly-appointed household. + +I knelt down to examine these. + +"You'll be covered with dust if you touch them," cried Charlotte. "I +was once curious enough to examine them, but the result was very +disappointing." + +"And yet they look so delightfully mysterious," I said. "This one, for +instance?" + +"That is an old history of London, with curious plates and maps; rather +interesting if one has nothing more amusing to read. But the perennial +supply of novels from Mudie's spoils one for that kind of book." + +"If ever I come to Newhall again, I shall dip into the old history. One +is never tired of dead and gone London. But after Mr. Knight's +delightful book any old history must seem very poor. What is my burly +friend here?" + +"O, a dreadful veterinary-surgeon's encyclopaedia--_The Farmer's Friend_ +I think it is called; all about the ailments of animals." + +"And the next?" + +"The next is an odd volume of the _Penny Magazine_. Dear aunt Dorothy +is rich in odd volumes." + +"And the next,--my bulky friend number two,--with a cracked leather +back and a general tendency to decay?" + +"O, that is the Meynell Bible." + +The MEYNELL BIBLE! A hot perspiration broke out upon my face as I knelt +at Charlotte Halliday's feet, with my hand resting lightly on the top +of the book. + +"The Meynell Bible!" I repeated; and my voice was faintly tremulous, in +spite of the effort I made to control myself. "What do you mean by the +Meynell Bible?" + +"I mean the old family Bible that belonged to my grand-mamma. It was +her father's Bible, you know; and of course he was my great-grandfather +--Christian Meynell. Why, how you stare at me, Valentine! Is +there anything so wonderful in my having had a great-grandfather?" + +"No, darling; but the fact is that I--" + +In another moment I should have told her the entire truth; but I +remembered just in time that I had pledged myself to profound secrecy +with regard to the nature and progress of my investigation, and I had +yet to learn whether that pledge did or did not involve the observance +of secrecy even with those most interested in my researches. Pending +further communication with Sheldon, I was certainly bound to be silent. + +"I have a kind of interest in the name of Meynell," I said, "for I was +once engaged in a business matter with people of that name." + +And having thus hoodwinked my beloved with a bouncer, I proceeded to +extract the Bible from its shelf. The book was so tightly wedged into +its place, that to remove it was like drawing a tooth. It was a +noble-looking old volume, blue with the mould of ages, and redolent of +a chill dampness like the atmosphere of a tomb. + +"I should so like to examine the old book when the candles come in," I +said. + +Fortunately for the maintenance of my secret, the darkness was closing +in upon us when I discovered the volume, and the room was only fitfully +illuminated by the flame that brightened and faded every minute. + +I carried the book to a side-table, and Charlotte and I resumed our +talk until the candles came, and close behind them uncle Joe. I fear I +must have seemed a very inattentive lover during that brief interval, +for I could not concentrate my thoughts upon the subject of our +discourse. My mind would wander to the strange discovery that I had +just made, and I could not refrain from asking myself whether by any +extraordinary chance my own dear love should be the rightful claimant +to John Haygarth's hoarded wealth. + +I hoped that it might not be so. I hoped that my darling might be +penniless rather than the heir to wealth, which, in all likelihood, +would create an obstacle strong enough to sever us eternally. I longed +to question her about her family, but could not as yet trust myself to +broach the subject. And while I doubted and hesitated, honest +blustering uncle Joe burst into the room, and aunt Dorothy awoke, and +was unutterably surprised to find she had slept so long. + +After this came tea; and as I sat opposite my dearest girl I could not +choose but remember that gray-eyed Molly, whose miniature had been +found in the tulip-wood bureau, and in whose bright face I had seen the +likeness of Philip Sheldon's beautiful stepdaughter. And Mr. Sheldon's +lovely stepdaughter was the lineal descendant of this very Molly. +Strange mystery of transmitted resemblances! Here was the sweet face +that had bewitched honest, simple-minded Matthew Haygarth reproduced +after the lapse of a century. + +My Charlotte was descended from a poor little player girl who had +smiled on the roisterous populace of Bartholomew Fair. Some few drops +of Bohemian blood mingled with the pure life-stream in her veins. It +pleased me to think of this; but I derived no pleasure from the idea +that Charlotte might possibly be the claimant of a great fortune. + +"She may have cousins who would stand before her," I said to myself; +and there was some comfort in the thought. + +After tea I asked permission to inspect the old family Bible, much to +the astonishment of uncle Joe, who had no sympathy with antiquarian +tastes, and marvelled that I should take any interest in so mouldy a +volume. I told him, with perfect truth, that such things had always +more or less interest for me; and then I withdrew to my little table, +where I was provided with a special pair of candles. + +"You'll find the births and deaths of all poor Molly's ancestors on the +first leaf," said uncle Joe. "Old Christian Meynell was a rare one for +jotting down such things; but the ink has gone so pale that it's about +as much as you'll do to make sense of it, I'll lay." + +Charlotte looked over my shoulder as I examined the fly-leaf of the +family Bible. Even with this incentive to distraction I contrived to be +tolerably business-like; and this is the record which I found on the +faded page: + +"Samuel Matthew Meynell, son of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. March +9, 1796, baptised at St. Giles's, Cripplegate, in this city. + +"Susan Meynell, daughter of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. June 29, +1798, also baptised in the same church. + +"Charlotte Meynell, second daughter of the above Christian and Sarah, +b. October 3, 1800, baptised at the above-mentioned church of St. +Giles, London." + +Below these entries, in blacker ink and in a different hand-writing--a +bold, business-like, masculine caligraphy--came the following: + +"Charlotte Meynell married to James Halliday, in the parish church of +Barngrave, Yorks. April 15, 1819. + +"Thomas Halliday, son of the above James and Charlotte Halliday, b. +Jan. 3d, 1821, baptised in the parish church of Barngrave, Feb. 20 in +the same year. + +"Mary Halliday, daughter of the above-named James and Charlotte +Halliday, b. May 27th, 1823, baptised at Barngrave, July 1st in the +same year." + +Below this there was an entry in a woman's penmanship: + +"Susan, the beloved sister of C. H., died in London, July 11, 1835. + +"Judge not, that ye be not judged. + +"I came to call sinners, and not the righteous, to repentance." + +This record seemed to hint vaguely at some sad story: "Susan, the +beloved sister;" no precise data of the death--no surname! And then +those two deprecating sentences, which seemed to plead for the dead. + +I had been led to understand that Christian Meynell's daughters had +both died in Yorkshire--one married, the other unmarried. + +The last record in the book was the decease of James Halliday, my dear +girl's grandfather. + +After pondering long over the strangely-worded entry of Susan Meynell's +death, I reflected that, with the aid of those mysterious powers Hook +and Crook, I must contrive to possess myself of an exact copy of this +leaf from a family history, if not of the original document. Again my +duty to my Sheldon impelled me to be false to all my new-born +instincts, and boldly give utterance to another bouncer. + +"I am very much interested in a county history now preparing for the +press," I said to my honoured uncle, who was engaged in a hand at +cribbage with his wife; "and I really think this old leaf from a family +Bible would make a very interesting page in that work." + +I blushed for myself as I felt how shamefully I was imposing upon my +newly-found kinsman's credulity. With scarcely any one but uncle Joe +could I have dared to employ so shallow an artifice. + +"Would it really, now?" said that confiding innocent. + +"Well, I suppose old papers, and letters, and such like, are uncommonly +interesting to some folks. I can't say I care much about 'em myself." + +"Would you have any objection to my taking a copy of these entries?" I +asked. + +"My word, no, lad; not I. Take half a dozen copies, and welcome, if +they can be of any use to you or other people. That's not much to ask +for." + +I thanked my simple host, and determined to write to a stationer at +Hull for some tracing-paper by the first post next morning. There was +some happiness, at least, in having found this unlooked-for end to my +researches. I had a good excuse for remaining longer near Charlotte +Halliday. + +"It's only for my poor Mary's sake I set any value on that old volume," +the farmer said, presently, in a meditative tone. "You see the names +there are the names of her relations, not mine; and this place and all +in it was hers. Dorothy and I are only interlopers, as you may say, at +the best, though I brought my fortune to the old farm, and Dorothy +brought her fortune, and between us we've made Newhall a much better +place than it was in old James Halliday's time. But there's something +sad in the thought that none of those that were born on the land have +left chick or child to inherit it." Uncle Joseph fell for a while into +a pensive reverie, and I thought of that other inheritance, well-nigh +fifty times the value of Newhall farm, which is now waiting for a +claimant. And again I asked myself, Could it be possible that this +sweet girl, whose changeful face had saddened with those old memories, +whose innocent heart knew not one sordid desire--could it be indeed she +whose fair hand was to wrest the Haygarthian gold from the grip of +Crown lawyers? + +The sight of that old Bible seemed to have revived Mr, Mercer's memory +of his first wife with unwonted freshness. + +"She was a sweet young creature," he said; "the living picture of our +Lottie, and sometimes I fancy it must have been that which made me take +to Lottie when she was a little one. I used to see my first wife's eyes +looking up at me out of Lottie's eyes. I told Tom it was a comfort to +me to have the little lass with me, and that's how they let her come +over so often from Hyley. Poor old Tom used to bring her over in his +Whitechapel cart, and leave her behind him for a week or so at a +stretch. And then, when my Dorothy, yonder, took pity upon a poor +lonely widower, she made as much of the little girl as if she'd been +her own, and more, perhaps; for, not having any children of her own, +she thought them such out-of-the-way creatures, that you couldn't +coddle them and pet them too much. There's a little baby lies buried in +Barngrave churchyard with Tom Halliday's sister that would have been a +noble young man, sitting where you're sitting, Mr. Hawkehurst, and +looking at me as bright as you're looking, perhaps, if the Lord's will +hadn't been otherwise. We've all our troubles, you see, and that was +mine; and if it hadn't been for Dorothy, life would not have been worth +much for me after that time--but my Dorothy is all manner of blessings +rolled up in one." + +The farmer looked fondly at his second wife as he said this, and she +blushed and smiled upon him with responsive tenderness. I fancy a +woman's blushes and smiles wear longer in these calm solitudes than +amid the tumult and clamour of a great city. + +Finding my host inclined to dwell upon the past, I ventured to hazard +an indirect endeavour to obtain some information respecting that entry +in the Bible which had excited my curiosity. + +"Miss Susan Meynell died unmarried, I believe?" I said. "I see her +death recorded here, but she is described by her Christian name only." + +"Ah, very like," replied Mr. Mercer, with an air of indifference, which +I perceived to be assumed. "Yes, my poor Molly's aunt Susan died +unmarried." + +"And in London? I had been given to understand that she died in +Yorkshire." + +I blushed for my own impertinence as I pressed this inquiry. What right +had I to be given to understand anything about these honest Meynells? I +saw poor uncle Joe's disconcerted face, and I felt that the hunter of +an heir-at-law is apt to become a very obnoxious creature. + +"Susan Meynell died in London--the poor lass died in London," replied +Joseph Mercer, gravely; "and now we'll drop that subject, if you +please, my lad. It isn't a pleasant one." + +After this I could no longer doubt that there was some painful story +involved in those two deprecating sentences of the gospel. + +It was some time before uncle Joe was quite his own jovial and rather +noisy self again, and on this evening we had no whist. I bade my +friends good night a little earlier than usual, and departed, after +having obtained permission to take a tracing of the fly-leaf as soon as +possible. + +On this night the starlit sky and lonesome moor seemed to have lost +their soothing power. There was a new fever in my mind. The simple plan +of the future which I had mapped out for myself was suddenly shattered. +The Charlotte of to-night--heiress-at-law to an enormous fortune--ward +in Chancery--claimant against the Crown--was a very different person +from the simple maid "whom there were none"--or only a doating +simpleton in the person of the present writer--"to praise, and very few +to love." + +The night before last I had hoped so much; to-night hope had forsaken +me. It seemed as if a Titan's hand had dug a great pit between me and +the woman I loved--a pit as deep as the grave. + +Philip Sheldon might have consented to give me his stepdaughter +unpossessed of a sixpence; but would he give me his stepdaughter with a +hundred thousand pounds for her fortune? Alas! no; I know the +Sheldonian intellect too well to be fooled by any hope so wild and +baseless. The one bright dream of my misused life faded from me in the +hour in which I discovered my dearest girl's claim to the Haygarthian +inheritance. But I am not going to throw up the sponge before the fight +is over. Time enough to die when I am lying face downward in the +ensanguined mire, and feel the hosts of the foemen trampling above my +shattered carcass. I will live in the light of my Charlotte's smiles +while I can, and for the rest--"_Il ne faut pas dire, fontaine, je ne +boirai pas de ton eau_." There is no cup so bitter that a man dare say, +I will not drain it to the very dregs. "What must be, shall be--that's +a certain text;" and in the mean time _carpe diem_. I am all a Bohemian +again. + +_Nov. 5th_. After a day's delay I have obtained my tracing-paper, and +made two tracings of the entries in the Meynell Bible, How intercourse +with the Sheldonian race inclines one to the duplication of documents! +I consider the copying-press of modern civilization the supreme +incarnation of man's distrust of his fellow-men. + +I spent this afternoon and evening with my dear love--my last evening +in Yorkshire. To-morrow I shall see my Sheldon, and inform him of the +very strange termination which has come to my researches. Will he +communicate at once with his brother? Will he release me from my oath +of secrecy? There is nothing of the masonic secretiveness in my +organisation, and I am very weary of the seal that has been set upon my +unwary lips. Will Charlotte be told that she is the reverend +intestate's next of kin? These are questions which I ask myself as I +sit in the stillness of my room at the Magpie, scribbling this wretched +diary of mine, while the church clock booms three solemn strokes in the +distance. + +O, why did not the reverend intestate marry his housekeeper, and make a +will, like other honest citizens, and leave my Charlotte to walk the +obscure byways of honest poverty with me? I do believe that I could +have been honest; I do believe that I could have been brave and true +and steadfast for her dear sake. But it is the office of man to +propose, while the Unseen disposes. Perhaps such a youth as mine admits +of no redemption. I have written circulars for Horatio Paget. I have +been the willing remorseless tool of a man who never eats his dinner +without inflicting a wrong upon his fellow-creatures. Can a few moments +of maudlin sentimentality, a vague yearning for something brighter and +better, a brief impulse towards honesty, inspired by a woman's innocent +eyes--can so little virtue in the present atone for so much guilt in +the past? Alas! I fear not. + +I had one last brief _tete-a-tete_ with my dear girl while I took the +tracing from the old Bible. She sat watching me, and distracting me +more or less while I worked; and despite the shadow of doubt that has +fallen upon me, I could not be otherwise than happy in her sweet +company. + +When I came to the record of Susan Meynell's death, my Charlotte's +manner changed all at once from her accustomed joyousness to a pensive +gravity. + +"I was very sorry you spoke of Susan Meynell to uncle Joseph," she +said, thoughtfully. + +"But why sorry, my dear?" + +I had some vague notion as to the cause of this sorrow; but the +instincts of the chase impelled me to press the subject. Was I not +bound to know every secret in the lives of Matthew Haygarth's +descendants? + +"There is a very sad story connected with my aunt Susan--she was my +great-aunt, you know," said Charlotte, with a grave earnest face. "She +went away from home, and there was great sorrow. I cannot talk of the +story, even to you, Valentine, for there seems something sacred in +these painful family secrets. My poor aunt Susan left all her friends, +and died many years afterwards in London." + +"She was known to have died unmarried?" I asked. This would be an +important question from George Sheldon's point of sight. + +"Yes," Charlotte replied, blushing crimson. + +That blush told me a great deal. + +"There was some one concerned in this poor lady's sorrow," I said; +"some one to blame for all her unhappiness." + +"There was." + +"One whom she loved and trusted, perhaps?" + +"Whom she loved and trusted only too well. O, Valentine, must not that +be terrible? To confide with all your heart in the person you love, and +to find him base and cruel! If my poor aunt had not believed Montagu +Kingdon to be true and honourable, she would have trusted her friends a +little, instead of trusting so entirely in him. O, Valentine, what am I +telling you? I cannot bear to cast a shadow on the dead." + +"My dear love, do you think I cannot pity this injured lady? Do you +think I am likely to play the Pharisee, and be eager to bespatter the +grave of this poor sufferer? I can almost guess the story which you +shrink from telling me--it is one of those sad histories so often +acted, so often told. Your aunt loved a person called Montagu Kingdon-- +her superior in station, perhaps?" + +I looked at Charlotte as I said this, and her face told me that I had +guessed rightly. + +"This Montagu Kingdon admired and loved her," I said. "He seemed eager +to make her his wife, but no doubt imposed secrecy as to his +intentions. She accepted his word as that of a true-hearted lover and a +gentleman, and in the end had bitter reason to repent her confidence. +That is an outline of the story, is it not, Charlotte?" + +"I am sure that it was so. I am sure that when she left Newhall she +went away to be married," cried Charlotte, eagerly; "I have seen a +letter that proves it--to me, at least. And yet I have heard even mamma +speak harshly of her--so long dead and gone off the face of this earth-- +as if she had deliberately chosen the sad fate which came to her." + +"Is it not possible that Mr. Kingdon did marry Miss Meynell, after +all?" + +"No," replied Charlotte, very sadly; "there is no hope of that. I have +seen a letter written by my poor aunt years afterwards--a letter that +tells much of the cruel truth; and I have heard that Mr. Kingdon came +back to Yorkshire and married a rich lady during my aunt's lifetime." + +"I should like to see that letter," I said, involuntarily. + +"Why, Valentine?" asked my darling, looking at me with sorrowful, +wondering eyes, "To me it seems so painful to talk of these things: it +is like reopening an old wound." + +"But if the interests of other people require--" I began, in a very +blundering manner. + +"Whose interest can be served by my showing you my poor aunt's letter? +It would seem like an act of dishonour to the dead." + +What could I say after this--bound hand and foot as I am by my promise +to Sheldon? + +After a long talk with my sweet one, I borrowed uncle Joe's dog-cart, +and spun across to Barngrave, where I found the little church, beneath +whose gray old roof Charlotte Meynell plighted her troth to James +Halliday. I took a copy of all entries in the register concerning Mrs. +Meynell Halliday and her children, and then went back to Newhall to +restore the dog-cart, and to take my last Yorkshire tea at the +hospitable old farm-house. + +To-morrow I am off to Barlingford, fifteen miles from this village, to +take more copies from registries concerning my sweet young heiress--the +registries of her father's marriage, and her own birth. After that I +think my case will be tolerably complete, and I can present myself to +Sheldon in the guise of a conqueror. + +Is it not a great conquest to have made? Is it not almost an act of +chivalry for these prosaic days to go forth into the world as a private +inquirer, and win a hundred thousand pounds for the lady of one's love? +And yet I wish any one rather than my Charlotte were the lineal +descendant of Matthew Haygarth. + +_Nov. 10th_. Here I am in London once more, with my Sheldon in +ecstatics, and our affairs progressing marvellously well, as he informs +me; but with that ponderous slowness peculiar to all mortal affairs in +which the authorities of the realm are in any way concerned. + +My work is finished. Hawkehurst the genealogist and antiquarian sinks +into Hawkehurst the private individual. I have no more to do but to +mind my own business and await the fruition of time in the shape of my +reward. + +Can I accept three thousand pounds for giving my dearest her +birthright? Can I take payment for a service done to her? Surely not: +and, on the other hand, can I continue to woo my sweet one, conscious +that she is the rightful claimant to a great estate? Can I take +advantage of her ignorance, and may it not be said that I traded on my +secret knowledge? + +Before leaving Yorkshire, I stole one more day from the Sheldon +business, in order to loiter just a few hours longer in that northern +Arcadia called Newhall farm. What assurance have I that I shall ever +re-enter that pleasant dwelling? What hold have I, a wanderer and +vagabond, on the future which respectable people map out for themselves +with such mathematical precision? And even the respectable people are +sometimes out in their reckoning. To snatch the joys of to-day must +always be the policy of the adventurer. So I took one more happy +afternoon at Newhall. Nor was the afternoon entirely wasted; for, in +the course of my farewell visit, I heard more of poor Susan Meynell's +history from honest uncle Joseph. He told me the story during an +after-dinner walk, in which he took me the round of his pig-styes and +cattle-sheds for the last time, as if he would fain have had them leave +their impress on my heart. + +"You may see plenty of cattle in Yorkshire," he remarked, complacently, +"but you won't see many beasts to beat that." + +He pointed to a brown and mountainous mass of inert matter, which he +gave me to understand was something in the way of cattle. + +"Would you like to see him standing?" he asked, giving the mass a prod +with the handle of his walking-stick, which to my cockney mind seemed +rather cruel, but which, taken from an agricultural point of view, was +no doubt the correct thing. "He _can_ stand. Coom up, Brownie!" + +I humbly entreated that the ill-used mass might be allowed to sprawl in +undisturbed misery. + +"Thorley!" exclaimed Mr. Mercer, laying his finger significantly +against the side of his unpretending nose. + +I had not the faintest comprehension of my revered uncle-in-law's +meaning; but I said, "O, indeed!" with the accents of admiration. + +"Thorley's Condiment," said my uncle. "You'll see some fine animate at +the Cattle-show; but if you see a two-year-old ox to beat him, my name +is not Joe Mercer." + +After this I had to pay my respects to numerous specimens of the bovine +race, all more or less prostrate under the burden of superabundant +flesh, all seeming to cry aloud for the treatment of some Banting of +the agricultural world. + +After we had "done" the cattle-sheds, with heroic resignation on my +part, and with enthusiasm on the part of Mr. Mercer, we went a long way +to see some rarities in the way of mutton, which commodity was to be +found cropping the short grass on a distant upland. + +With very little appreciation of the zoological varieties, and with the +consciousness that my dear one was sitting in the farm-house parlour, +wondering at my prolonged absence, this excursion could not be +otherwise than a bore to me. But it was a small thing to sacrifice my +own pleasure for once in a way, when by so doing I might gratify the +kindest of men and of uncles; so I plodded briskly across the fields +with the friendly farmer. + +I had my reward; for, in the course of this walk, Mr. Mercer gave me +the history of poor Susan Meynell. + +"I didn't care to talk about the story the other night before the young +lass," he said, gravely; "for her heart's so full of pity and +tenderness, pretty dear, that any tale such as that is like to upset +her. But the story's known to almost all the folks in these parts; so +there's no particular reason against my telling it to you. I've heard +my poor mother talk of Susan Meynell many a time. She was a regular +beauty, it seems; prettier than her sister Charlotte, and she was a +pretty woman, as you may guess by looking at _our_ Charlotte, who is +thought the image of her grandmother. But Susan was one of those +beauties that you don't see very often--more like a picture than flesh +and blood. The gentry used to turn round to look at her at Barngrave +church, I've heard my mother say. She was a rare one for dress, too; +for she had a few hundreds left her by her father and mother, who had +both of them been very well-to-do people. The mother was daughter to +William Rand, of Barngrave, a man who farmed above a thousand acres of +his own land; and the father kept a carpet warehouse in +Aldersgate-street." + +This information I received with respectful deference, and a +hypocritical assumption of ignorance respecting Miss Meynell's +antecedents. + +Mr. Mercer paused to take breath, and then continued the story after +his own rambling fashion. + +"Well, my lad, what with her fine dress, and what with her pretty +looks, Susan Meynell seems to have thought a little too much of +herself; so that when Montagu Kingdon, of Kingdon-place, younger +brother to Lord Durnsville, fell in love with her, and courted her--not +exactly openly, but with the knowledge of her sister, Mrs. Halliday-- +she thought it no more than natural that he should intend to make her +his wife. Mr. Kingdon was ten years older than Susan, and had served in +Spain, and had not borne too good a character abroad. He had been in a +hard-drinking cavalry regiment, and had spent all his money, and sold +out directly the war was over. There was very little of all this known +down hereabouts, where Mr. Kingdon stood very high, on account of his +being Lord Durnsville's brother. But it was known that he was poor, and +that the Durnsville estates were heavily encumbered into the bargain." + +"Then this gentleman would have been no grand match for Miss Meynell, +if--" "If he had married her? No, my lad; and it might have been the +knowledge of his poverty that made Susan and her sister think less of +the difference between his station and the girl's. The two women +favoured him, anyhow; and they kept the secret from James Halliday, who +was a regular upstraight-and-downright kind of fellow, as proud as any +lord in his own way. The secret was kept safe enough for some time, and +Mr. Kingdon was always dropping in at Newhall when Jim was out of the +way; but folks in these parts are very inquisitive, and, lonesome as +our place is, there are plenty of people go by between Monday and +Saturday; so by-and-by it got to be noticed that there was very often a +gentleman's horse standing at Newhall gate, with the bridle tied to one +of the gate-posts; and those that knew anything, knew that the horse +belonged to Montagu Kingdon. A friend of Jim Halliday's told him as +much one day, and warned him that Mr. Kingdon was a scamp, and was said +to have a Spanish wife somewhere beyond seas. This was quite enough for +James Halliday, who flew into a roaring rage at the notion of any man, +most of all Lord Durnsville's brother, going to his house and courting +his sister-in-law in secret. It was at Barngrave he was told this, one +market-day, as he was lounging with his friends in the old yard of the +Black Bull inn, where the corn exchange used to be held in those days. +He called for his horse the next minute, and left the town at a gallop. +When he came to Newhall, he found Montagu Kingdon's chestnut mare tied +to the gate-post, and he found Mr. Kingdon himself, dawdling about the +garden with Miss Meynell." + +"And then I suppose there was a scene?" I suggested, with unfeigned +interest in this domestic story. + +"Well, I believe there was, my lad. I've heard all about it from my +poor Molly, who had the story from her mother. James Halliday didn't +mince matters; he gave Mr. Kingdon a bit of his mind, in his own rough +outspoken way, and told him it would be the worse for him if he ever +crossed the threshold of Newhall gate again. 'If you meant well by that +foolish girl, you wouldn't come sneaking here behind my back,' he said; +'but you don't mean well by her, and you've a Spanish wife hidden away +somewhere in the Peninsula.' Mr. Kingdon gave the lie to this; but he +said he shouldn't stoop to justify himself to an unmannerly yeoman. 'If +you were a gentleman,' he said, 'you should pay dearly for your +insolence.' 'I'm ready to pay any price you like,' answered James +Halliday, as bold as brass; 'but as you weren't over fond of fighting +abroad, where there was plenty to be got for it, I don't suppose you +want to fight at home, where there's nothing to be got for it.'" + +"And did Susan Meynell hear this?" I asked. I could fancy this +ill-fated girl standing by and looking on aghast while hard things +were said to the man she loved, while the silver veil of sweet romance +was plucked so roughly from the countenance of her idol by an angry +rustic's rude hand. + +"Well, I don't quite know whether she heard all," answered Mr. Mercer, +thoughtfully. "Of course, James Halliday told his wife all about the +row afterwards. He was very kind to his sister-in-law, in spite of her +having deceived him; and he talked to her very seriously, telling her +all he had heard in Barngrave against Montagu Kingdon. She listened to +him quietly enough, but it was quite clear that she didn't believe a +word he said. 'I know you have heard all that, James,' she said; 'but +the people who said it knew they were not telling the truth. Lord +Durnsville and his brother are not popular in the country, and there +are no falsehoods too cruel for the malice of his enemies.' She +answered him with some such fine speech as that, and when the next +morning came she was gone." + +"She eloped with Mr. Kingdon?" + +"Yes. She left a letter for her sister, full of romantic stuff about +loving him all the better because people spoke ill of him; regular +woman's talk, you know, bless their poor silly hearts!" murmured Mr. +Mercer, with tender compassion. "She was going to London to be married +to Mr. Kingdon, she wrote. They were to be married at the old church in +the city where she had been christened, and she was going to stay with +an old friend--a young woman who had once been her brother's +sweetheart, and who was married to a butcher in Newgate-market--till +the bans were given out, or the license bought. The butcher's wife had +a country-house out at Edmonton, and it was there Susan was going to +stay." + +"All that seemed straightforward enough," said I. + +"Yes," replied uncle Joe; "but if Mr. Kingdon had meant fairly by Susan +Meynell, it would have been as easy for him to marry her at Barngrave +as in London. He was as poor as a church mouse, but he was his own +master, and there was no one to prevent him doing just what he pleased. +This is about what James Halliday thought, I suppose; for he tore off +to London, as fast as post-horses could carry him, in pursuit of his +wife's sister and Mr. Kingdon. But though he made inquiries all along +the road he could not hear that they had passed before him, and for the +best of all reasons. He went to the butcher's house at Edmonton; but +there he found no trace of Susan Meynell, except a letter posted in +Yorkshire, on the day of the row between James and Mr. Kingdon, telling +her intention of visiting her old friend within the next few days, and +hinting at an approaching marriage. There was the letter announcing the +visit, but the visitor had not come." "But the existence of that letter +bears witness that Miss Meynell believed in the honesty of her lover's +intentions." + +"To be sure it does, poor lass," answered Mr. Mercer pensively. "She +believed in the word of a scoundrel, and she was made to pay dearly for +her simplicity. James Halliday did all he could to find her. He +searched London through, as far as any man can search such a place as +London; but it was no use, and for a very good reason, as I said +before. The end of it was, he was obliged to go back to Newhall no +wiser than when he started." + +"And was nothing further ever discovered?" I asked eagerly, for I felt +that this was just one of those family complications from which all +manner of legal difficulties might arise. + +"Don't be in a hurry, my lad," answered uncle Joe; "wickedness is sure +to come to light sooner or later. Three years after this poor young +woman ran away there was a drunken groom dismissed from Lord +Durnsville's stable; and what must he needs do but come straight off to +James Halliday, to vent his spite against his master, and perhaps to +curry favour at Newhall. 'You shouldn't have gone to London to look for +the young lady, Muster Halliday,' he said; 'you should have gone the +other way. I know a man as drove Mr. Kingdon and your wife's sister +across country to Hull with two of my lord's own horses, stopping to +bait on the way. They went aboard ship at Hull, Mr. Kingdon and the +young lady--a ship that was bound for foreign parts.' This is what the +groom said; but it was little good knowing it now. There'd been +advertisements in the papers beseeching her to come back; and +everything had been done that could be done, and all to no end. A few +years after this back comes Mr. Kingdon as large as life, married to +some dark-faced, frizzy-haired lady, whose father owned half the +Indies, according to people's talk: but he fought very shy of James +Halliday; but when they did meet one day at the covert side, Jim rode +up to the honourable gentleman and asked him what he had done with +Susan Meynell. Those that saw the meeting say that Montagu Kingdon +turned as white as a ghost when he saw Jim Halliday riding up to him +on his big, raw-boned horse; but nothing came of the quarrel. Mr. +Kingdon did not live many years to enjoy the money his frizzy-haired +West-Indian lady brought him. He died before his brother, Lord +Durnsville, and left neither chick nor child to inherit his money, nor +yet the Durnsville title, which was extinct on the death of the +viscount." + +"And what of the poor girl?" + +"Ay, poor lass, what of her? It was fourteen years after she left her +home before her sister got so much as a line to say she was in the land +of the living. When a letter did come at last, it was a very melancholy +one. The poor creature wrote to her sister to say she was in London, +alone and penniless, and, as she thought, dying." + +"And the sister went to her?" + +I remembered that deprecating sentence in the family Bible, written in +a woman's hand. + +"That she did, good honest soul, as fast as she could travel, carrying +a full purse along with her. She found poor Susan at an inn near +Aldersgate-street--the old quarter, you see, that she'd known in her +young days. Mrs. Halliday meant to have brought the poor soul back to +Yorkshire, and had settled it all with Jim; but it was too late for +anything of that kind. She found Susan dying, wandering in her mind off +and on, but just able to recognise her sister, and to ask forgiveness +for having trusted to Montagu Kingdon, instead of taking counsel from +those that wished her well." + +"Was that all?" I asked presently. + +Mr. Mercer made long pauses in the course of his narrative, during +which we walked briskly on; he pondering on those past events, I +languishing for further information. + +"Well, lad, that was about all. Where Susan had been in all those +years, or what she had been doing, was more than Mrs. Halliday could +find out. Of late she had been living somewhere abroad. The clothes she +had last worn were of foreign make, very poor and threadbare; and there +was one little box in her room at the inn that had been made at Rouen, +for the name of a Rouen trunkmaker was on the inside of the lid. There +were no letters or papers of any kind in the box; so you see there was +no way of finding out what the poor creature's life had been. All her +sister could do was to stay with her and comfort her to the last, and +to see that she was quietly laid to rest in a decent grave. She was +buried in a quiet little city churchyard, somewhere where there are +green trees among the smoke of the chimney-pots. Montagu Kingdon had +been dead some years when that happened." + +"Is that last letter still in existence?" I asked. + +"Yes; my first wife kept it with the rest of her family letters and +papers. Dorothy takes care of them now. We country folks set store by +those sort of things, you know." + +I would fain have asked Mr. Mercer to let me see this last letter +written by Susan Meynell; but what excuse could I devise for so doing? +I was completely fettered by my promise to George Sheldon, and could +offer no reasonable pretence for my curiosity. + +There was one point which I was bound to push home in the interests of +my Sheldon, or, shall I not rather say, of my Charlotte? That +all-important point was the question of marriage or no marriage. "You +feel quite clear as to the fact that Montagu Kingdon never did marry +this young woman?" I said. + +"Well, yes," replied uncle Joe; "that was proved beyond doubt, I'm +sorry to say. Mr. Kingdon never could have dared to come back here with +his West-Indian wife in poor Susan Meynell's lifetime if he had really +married her." + +"And how about the lady he was said to have married in Spain?" + +"I can't say anything about that. It may have been only a scandal, or, +if there was a marriage, it may have been illegal. The Kingdons were +Protestants, and the Spaniards are all papists, I suppose. A marriage +between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic wouldn't be binding." + +"Not upon such a man as this Kingdon." + +It seems more than probable that the opinion arrived at by this poor +soul's friends must be correct, and that Montagu Kingdon was a +scoundrel. But how about Susan Meynell's after-life?--the fourteen +years in which she was lost sight of? May she not have married some one +else than Mr. Kingdon? and may she not have left heirs who will arise +in the future to dispute my darling's claim? + +Is it a good thing to have a great inheritance? The day has been when +such a question as that could not by any possibility have shaped itself +in my mind. Ah! what is this subtle power called love, which worketh +such wondrous changes in the human heart? Surely the miracle of the +cleansed leper is in some manner typical of this transformation. The +emanation of divine purity encircled the leper with its supernal +warmth, and the scales fell away beneath that mysterious influence. And +so from the pure heart of a woman issues a celestial fire which burns +the plague-spot out of the sinner's breast. Ah, how I languish to be at +my darling's feet, thanking her for the cure she has wrought! + +I have given my Sheldon the story of Susan Meynell's life, as I had it +from uncle Joseph. He agrees with me as to the importance of Susan's +last letter, but even that astute creature does not see a way to +getting the document in his hands without letting Mr. Mercer more or +less into our secret. + +"I might tell this man Mercer some story about a little bit of money +coming to his niece, and get at Susan Meynell's letter that way," he +said; "but whatever I told him would be sure to get round to Philip +somehow or other, and I don't want to put him on the scent." + +My Sheldon's legal mind more than ever inclines to caution, now that he +knows the heiress of the Haygarths is so nearly allied to his brother +Philip. + +"I'll tell you what it is, Hawkehurst," he said to me, after we had +discussed the business in all its bearings, "there are not many people +I'm afraid of, but I don't mind owning to you that I am afraid of my +brother Phil. He has always walked over my head; partly because he can +wear his shirt-front all through business hours without creasing it, +which I can't, and partly because he's--well--more unscrupulous than I +am." + +He paused meditatively, and I too was meditative; for I could not +choose but wonder what it was to be more unscrupulous than George +Sheldon. + +"If he were to get an inkling of this affair," my patron resumed +presently, "he'd take it out of our hands before you could say Jack +Robinson--supposing anybody ever wanted to say Jack Robinson, which +they don't--and he'd drive a bargain with us, instead of our driving a +bargain with him." + +My friend of Gray's Inn has a pleasant way of implying that our +interests are coequal in this affair. I caught him watching me +curiously once or twice during our last interview, when Charlotte's +name was mentioned. Does he suspect the truth, I wonder? + +_Nov. 12th_. I had another interview with my patron yesterday, and +rather a curious interview, though not altogether unsatisfactory. +George Sheldon has been making good use of his time since my return +from Yorkshire. + +"I don't think we need have any fear of opposition from children or +grandchildren of Susan Meynell," he said; "I have found the registry of +her interment in the churchyard of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. She is +described in that registry by her maiden name, and there is a plain +headstone in a corner of the ground, inscribed with the name of Susan +Meynell, who died July 14th, 1835, much lamented; and then the text +about 'the one sinner that repenteth,' and so on," said Mr. Sheldon, as +if he did not care to dwell on so hackneyed a truism. + +"But," I began, "she might have been married, in spite of--" + +"Yes, she might," replied my Sheldon, captiously; "but then, you see, +the probability is that she wasn't. If she had been married, she would +have told her sister as much in that last letter, or she would have +said as much when they met." + +"But she was delirious." + +"Not all the time. She was sensible enough to talk about her sorrow for +the past, and so on; and she must have been sensible enough to have +spoken of her children, if she had ever had any. Besides, if she had +been married, she would scarcely have been wandering about the world in +that miserable manner, unless her husband was an uncommonly bad lot. +No, Hawkehurst, depend upon it, we've nothing to fear in that quarter. +The person we have to fear is that precious brother of mine." + +"You talked the other day about driving a bargain with him," I said; "I +didn't quite understand your meaning. The fortune can only be claimed +by Char--Miss Halliday, and your brother has no legal authority to +dispose of her money." + +"Of course not," answered my employer, with contemptuous impatience of +my dulness; "but my brother Phil is not the man to wait for legal +power. His ideas will be Miss Halliday's ideas in this business. When +my case is ripe for action, I shall make my bargain--half the fortune +to be mine from the day of its recovery. A deed containing these +conditions must be executed by Charlotte Halliday before I hand over a +single document relating to the case. Now, as matters stand at +present," he went on, looking very fixedly at me, "her execution of +that deed would rest with Philip." + +"And when shall you make your overtures to Mr. Sheldon?" I asked, at a +loss to understand that intent look. + +"Not until the last links of the chain are put together. Not before I'm +ready to make my first move on the Chancellor's chessboard. Perhaps not +at all." + +"How do you mean?" + +"If I can tide over for a little time, I may throw Philip overboard +altogether, and get some one else to manage Miss Halliday for me." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I'll tell you, Hawkehurst," answered my patron, resting his elbows on +the table by which we were sitting, and looking me through with those +penetrating black eyes of his. "My brother Phil played me a shabby +trick a few years ago, which I have not forgotten or forgiven. So I +shouldn't mind paying him out in some of his own coin. Beyond which, I +tell you again, I don't like the idea of his having a finger in this +business. Where that kind of man's finger can go, his whole hand will +follow; and if once that hand fastens on John Haygarth's money, it'll +be bad times for you and me. Miss Halliday counts for exactly nothing +in my way of reckoning. If her stepfather told her to sign away half a +million, she'd scribble her name at the bottom of the paper, and press +her pretty little thumb upon the wafer, without asking a single +question as to the significance of the document. And, of course, she'd +be still less inclined to make objections if it was her husband who +asked her to execute the deed. Aha! my young friend, how is it you grow +first red and then white when I mention Miss Halliday's husband?" + +I have no doubt that I did indeed blanch when that portentous word was +uttered in conjunction with my darling's name. Mr. Sheldon leant a +little further across the table, and his hard black eyes penetrated a +little deeper into the recesses of my foolish heart. + +"Valentine Hawkehurst," he said, "shall we throw my brother Phil +overboard altogether? Shall you and I go shares in this fortune?" + +"Upon my word and honour I don't understand you," I said, in all +sincerity. + +"You mean that you won't understand me," answered George Sheldon, +impatiently; "but I'll make myself pretty clear presently; and as your +own interest is at stake, you'll be very unlike the rest of your +species if you don't find it easy enough to understand me. When first I +let you in for the chance of a prize out of this business, neither you +nor I had the slightest idea that circumstances would throw the +rightful claimant to the Haygarth estate so completely into our way. I +had failed so many times with other cases before I took up this case, +that it's a wonder I had the courage to work on. But, somehow or other, +I had a notion that this particular business would turn up trumps. The +way seemed a little clearer than it usually is; but not clear enough to +tempt Tom, Dick, and Harry. And then, again, I had learnt a good many +secrets from the experience of my failures. I was well up to my work. I +might have carried it on, and I ought to have carried it on, without +help; but I was getting worn out and lazy, so I let you into my secret, +having taken it into my head that I could venture to trust you." + +"You didn't trust me further than you could help, my friend," I replied +with my usual candour. "You never told me the amount left by the +reverend intestate; but I heard that down at Ullerton. A half share in +a hundred thousand pounds is worth trying for, Mr. Sheldon." + +"They call it a hundred thousand down there, do they?" asked the +lawyer, with charming innocence. "Those country people always deal in +high figures. However, I don't mind owning that the sum is a handsome +one, and if you and I play our cards wisely, we may push Philip out of +the game altogether, and share the plunder between us." + +Again I was obliged to confess myself unable to grasp my employer's +meaning. + +"Marry Charlotte Halliday out of hand," he said, bringing his eyes and +his elbows still nearer to me, until his bushy black whiskers almost +touched my face. "Marry her before Philip gets an inkling of this +affair, and then, instead of being made a tool of by him, she'll be +safe in your hands, and the money will be in your hands into the +bargain. Why, how you stare, man! Do you think I haven't seen how the +land lies between you two? Haven't I dined at Bayswater when you've +been there? and could any man with his wits about him see you two +sentimental young simpletons together _without_ seeing how things were +going on? You are in love with Charlotte, and Charlotte is in love with +you. What more natural than that you two should make a match of it? +Charlotte is her own mistress, and hasn't sixpence in the world that +any one but you and I know of; for, of course, my brother Phil will +continue to stick to every penny of poor old Tom's money. All you have +to do is to follow up the young lady; it's the course that would +suggest itself to any man in the same case, even if Miss Halliday were +the ugliest old harridan in Christendom, instead of being a very jolly +kind of girl, as girls go." + +My employer said this with the tone of a man who had never considered +the genus girl a very interesting part of creation. I suppose I looked +at him rather indignantly; for he laughed as he resumed,-- + +"I'll say she's an angel, if you like," he said; "and if you think her +one, so much the better. You may consider it a very lucky thing that +you came in my way, and a still more lucky thing that Miss Halliday has +been silly enough to fall in love with you. I've heard of men being +born with silver spoons in their mouths; but I should think you must +have come into the world with a whole service of plate. However, that +is neither here nor there. Your policy will be to follow up your +advantages; and if you can persuade the young lady to change her name +for Hawkehurst on the quiet some fine morning, without stopping to ask +permission of her stepfather, or any one else, so much the better for +you, and so much the more agreeable to me. I'd rather do business with +you than with my brother Phil; and I shan't be sorry to cry quits with +that gentleman for the shabby trick he played me a few years ago." + +My Sheldon's brow darkened as he said this, and the moody fit returned. +That old grudge which my patron entertains against his brother must +have relation to some very disagreeable business, if I may judge by +George Sheldon's manner. + +Here was a position for me, Valentine Hawkehurst, soldier of fortune, +cosmopolitan adventurer, and child of the nomadic tribes who call +Bohemia their mother country! Already blest with the sanction of my +dear love's simple Yorkshire kindred, I was now assured of George +Sheldon's favour; nay, urged onward in my paradisiac path by that +unsentimental Mentor. The situation was almost too much for my +bewildered brain. Charlotte an heiress, and George Sheldon eager to +bring about my participation in the Haygarthian thousands! + +And now I sit in my little room 1a Omega-street, pondering upon the +past, and trying to face the perplexities of the future. + +Is this to be? Am I, so hopeless an outsider in the race of life, to +come in with a rush and win the prize which Fortune's first favourite +might envy? Can I hope or believe it? Can the Fates have been playing a +pleasant practical joke with me all this time, like those fairies who +decree that the young prince shall pass his childhood and youth in the +guise of a wild boar, only to be transformed into an Adonis at last by +the hand of the woman who is disinterested enough to love him despite +his formidable tusks and ungainly figure? + +No! a thousand times no! The woman I love, and the fortune I have so +often desired, are not for me. Every man has his own especial Fates; +and the three sisters who take care of me are grim, hard-visaged, +harder-hearted spinsters, not to be mollified by propitiation, or by +the smooth tongue of the flatterer. The cup is very sweet, and it seems +almost within my grasp; but between that chalice of delight and the +lips that thirst for it, ah, what a gulf! + +_Nov. 13th_. The above was written late at night, and under the +influence of my black dog. What an ill-conditioned cur he is, and how +he mouths and mangles the roses that bestrew his pathway, always bent +upon finding the worm at the core! + +I kicked the brute out of doors this morning, on finding a letter from +my dear one lying in my plate. "Avaunt, aroint thee, foul fiend!" I +cried. "Thou art the veritable poodle in whose skin Mephistopheles +hides when bent on direst mischief. I will set the sign of the cross +upon my threshold, and thou shalt enter no more." + +This is what I said to myself as I tore open Charlotte's envelope, with +its pretty little motto stamped on cream-coloured sealing-wax, "_Pensez +a moi._" Ah, love; "while memory holds a seat in this distracted +globe." I saw the eyes of my friend Horatio fixed upon me as I opened +my letter, and knew that my innermost sentiments were under inspection. +Prudence demands all possible caution where the noble Captain is +concerned. I cannot bring myself to put implicit faith in his account +of his business at Ullerton. He may have been there, as he says, on +some promoting spec; but our meeting in that town was, to say the +least, a strange coincidence, and I am not a believer in coincidences-- +off the stage, where a gentleman invariably makes his appearance +directly his friends begin to talk about him. + +I cannot forget my conviction that Jonah Goodge was bought over by a +rival investigator, and that Rebecca Haygarth's letters were tampered +with; nor can I refrain from connecting that shapely but well-worn +lavender glove with the person of my dandy friend, Horatio Paget. The +disappearance of a letter from the packet intrusted to me by Miss +Judson is another mysterious circumstance; nor can I do away with the +impression that I heard the name Meynell distinctly pronounced by +Philip Sheldon the last time I was at the villa. + +George Sheldon tells me the secret cannot by any possibility have been +betrayed, unless by me; and I have been prudence itself. + +Supposing my suspicions of Mr. Goodge to be correct, the letters +extracted from Mrs. Rebecca's correspondence might tell much, and might +even put Horatio on the track of the Meynells. But how should he get +his first inkling of the business? + +Certainly not from me or from George Sheldon. But might not his +attention have been attracted by that advertisement for heirs-at-law to +the Haygarthian estate which appeared in the _Times_? + +These are questions with which the legal intellect of my Sheldon may +best grapple. For myself, I can only drift with the resistless stream +called life. + +I was so unfortunate as to make my appearance in our common +sitting-room five minutes after my patron. There had been time enough +for him to examine the superscription and postmark of my letter. He +was whistling when I went into the room. People who have been looking +at things that don't belong to them always whistle. + +I did not care to read Charlotte's first letter with those hawk's eyes +fixed upon me. So I just glanced at the dear handwriting, as if running +over an ordinary letter with the eye of indifference, and then put the +document into my pocket with the best assumption of carelessness I was +capable of. How I longed for the end of that tedious meal, over which +Captain Paget lingered in his usual epicurean fashion! + +My friend Horatio has shown himself not a little curious about my late +absence from the joint domicile. I again resorted to the Dorking +fiction,--my aged aunt breaking fast, and requiring much propitiation +from a dutiful nephew with an eye to her testamentary arrangements. I +had been compelled to endow my shadowy relative with a comfortable +little bit of money, in order to account for my devotion; since the +powerful mind of my Horatio would have refused to grasp the idea of +disinterested affection for an ancient kinswoman. + +There was an ominous twinkle in the Captain's sharp gray eyes when I +gave this account of my absence, and I sorely doubt his acceptance of +this second volume of the Dorking romance. Ah, what a life it is we +lead in the tents of Ishmael, the cast-away! through what tortuous +pathways wander the nomad tribes who call Hagar, the abandoned, their +mother! what lies, what evasions, what prevarications! Horatio Paget +and I watch each other like two cunning fencers, with a stereotyped +smile upon our lips and an eager restlessness in our eyes, and who +shall say that one or other of our rapiers is not poisoned, as in the +famous duel before Claudius, usurper of Denmark? My dear one's letter +is all sweetness and love. She is coming home; and much as she prefers +Yorkshire to Bayswater, she is pleased to return for my sake--for my +sake. She leaves the pure atmosphere of that simple country home to +become the central point in a network of intrigue; and I am bound to +keep the secret so closely interwoven with her fate. I love her more +truly, more purely than I thought myself capable of loving; yet I can +only approach her as the tool of George Sheldon, a rapacious +conspirator, bent on securing the hoarded thousands of old John +Haygarth. + +Of all men upon this earth I should be the last to underrate the +advantages of wealth,--I who have been reared in the gutter, which is +Poverty's cradle. Yet I would fain Charlotte's fortune had come to her +in any other fashion than as the result of my work in the character of +a salaried private inquirer. + + + + + +BOOK THE SEVENTH. + + +CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +"IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG." + + +Miss Halliday returned to the gothic villa at Bayswater with a bloom on +her cheeks, and a brightness in her eyes, which surpassed her wonted +bloom and brightness, fair and bright as her beauty had been from the +hour in which she was created to charm mankind. She had been a creature +to adore even in the first dawn of infancy, and in her christening-hood +and toga of white satin had been a being to dream of. But now she +seemed invested all at once with a new loveliness--more spiritual, more +pensive, than the old. + +Might not Valentine have cried, with the rapturous pride of a lover: +"Look at the woman here with the new soul!" and anon: "This new soul is +mine!" + +It was love that had imparted a new charm to Miss Halliday's beauty. +Diana wondered at the subtle change as her friend sat in her favourite +window on the morning after her return, looking dreamily out into the +blossomless garden, where evergreens of the darkest and spikiest +character stood up stern and straight against the cold gray sky. Diana +had welcomed her friend in her usual reserved manner, much to +Charlotte's discomfiture. The girl so yearned for a confidante. She had +no idea of hiding her happiness from this chosen friend, and waited +eagerly for the moment in which she could put her arms round Diana's +neck and tell her what it was that had made Newhall so sweet to her +during this particular visit. + +She sat in the window this morning thinking of Valentine, and +languishing to speak of him, but at a loss how to begin. There are some +people about whose necks the arms of affection can scarce entwine +themselves. Diana Paget sat at her eternal embroidery-frame, picking up +beads on her needle with the precision of some self-feeding machine. +The little glass beads made a hard clicking sound as they dropped from +her needle,--a very frosty, unpromising sound, as it seemed to +Charlotte's hyper-sensitive ear. + +There had been an unwonted reserve between the girls since Charlotte's +return,--a reserve which arose, on Miss Halliday's part, from the +contest between girlish shyness and the eager desire for a confidante; +and on the part of Miss Paget, from that gloomy discontent which had of +late possessed her. + +She watched Charlotte furtively as she picked up her beads--watched her +wonderingly, unable to comprehend the happiness that gave such +spiritual brightness to her eyes. It was no longer the childlike gaiety +of heart which had made Miss Halliday's girlhood so pleasant. It was +the thoughtful, serene delight of womanhood. + +"She can care very little for Valentine," Diana thought, "or she could +scarcely seem so happy after such a long separation. I doubt if these +bewitching women who enchant all the world know what it is to feel +deeply. Happiness is a habit with this girl. Valentine's attentions +were very pleasant to her. The pretty little romance was very agreeable +while it lasted; but at the first interruption of the story she shuts +the book, and thinks of it no more. O, if my Creator had made _me_ like +that! If I could forget the days we spent together, and the dream I +dreamt!" + +That never-to-be-forgotten vision came back to Diana Paget as she sat +at her work; and for a few minutes the clicking sound of the beads +ceased, while she waited with clasped hands until the shadows should +have passed before her eyes. The old dream came back to her like a +picture, bright with colour and light. But the airy habitation which +she had built for herself of old was no "palace lifting to Italian +heavens its marble roof." It was only a commonplace lodging in a street +running out of the Strand, with just a peep of the river from a trim +little balcony. An airy second-floor sitting-room, with engraved +portraits of the great writers on the newly-papered walls: on one side +an office-desk, on the other a work-table. The unpretending shelter of +a newspaper hack, who lives _a jour la journee_, and whose wife must +achieve wonders in the way of domestic economy in order to eke out his +modest earnings. + +This was Diana Paget's vision of Paradise, and it seemed only the +brighter now that she felt it was never to be anything more than a +supernal picture painted on her brain. + +After sitting silent for some little time, eager to talk, but waiting +to be interrogated, Charlotte was fain to break silence. + +"You don't ask me whether I enjoyed myself in Yorkshire, Di," she said, +looking shyly down at the little bunch of charms and lockets which +employed her restless fingers. + +"Didn't I, really?" replied Diana, languidly; "I thought that was one +of the stereotyped inquiries one always made." + +"I hope you wouldn't make stereotyped inquiries of _me_, Diana." + +"No, I ought not to do so. But I think there are times when one is +artificial even with one's best friends. And you are my best friend, +Charlotte. I may as well say my only friend," the girl added, with a +laugh. + +"Diana," cried Charlotte, reproachfully, "why do you speak so bitterly? +You know how dearly I love you. I do, indeed, dear. There is scarcely +anything in this world I would not do for you. But I am not your only +friend. There is Mr. Hawkehurst, whom you have known so long." + +Miss Halliday's face was in a flame; and although she bent very low to +examine the golden absurdities hanging on her watch-chain, she could +not conceal her blushes from the eyes that were so sharpened by +jealousy. + +"Mr. Hawkehurst!" cried Diana, with unspeakable contempt. "If I were +drowning, do you think _he_ would stretch out his hand to save me while +you were within his sight? When he comes to this house--he who has seen +so much poverty, and misery, and shame, and--happiness with me and +mine--do you think he so much as remembers my existence? Do you think +he ever stops to consider whether I am that Diana Paget who was once +his friend and confidante and fellow-wayfarer and companion? or only a +lay figure dressed up to fill a vacant chair in your drawing-room?" + +"Diana!" + +"It is all very well to look at me reproachfully, Charlotte. You must +know that I am speaking the truth. You talk of friendship. What is that +word worth if it does not mean care and thought for another? Do you +imagine that Valentine Hawkehurst ever thinks of me, or considers me?" + +Charlotte was fain to keep silence. She remembered how very rarely, in +those long afternoons at Newhall farm, the name of Diana Paget had been +mentioned. She remembered how, when she and Valentine were mapping out +the future so pleasantly, she had stopped in the midst of an eloquent +bit of word-painting, descriptive of the little suburban cottage they +were to live in, to dispose of Diana's fate in a sentence,-- + +"And dear Di can stop at the villa to take care of mamma," she had +said; whereupon Mr. Hawkehurst had assented, with a careless nod, and +the description of the ideal cottage had been continued. + +Charlotte remembered this now with extreme contrition. She had been so +supremely happy, and so selfish in her happiness. + +"O, Di," she cried, "how selfish happy people are!" And then she +stopped in confusion, perceiving that the remark had little relevance +to Diana's last observation. + +"Valentine shall be your friend, dear," she said, after a pause. + +"O, you are beginning to answer for him already!" exclaimed Miss Paget, +with increasing bitterness. + +"Diana, why are you so unkind to me?" Charlotte cried, passionately. +"Don't you see that I am longing to confide in you? What is it that +makes you so bitter? You must know how truly I love you. And if Mr. +Hawkehurst is not what he once was to you, you must remember how cold +and distant you always are in your manner to him. I am sure, to hear +you speak to him, and to see you look at him sometimes, one would think +he was positively hateful to you. And I want you to like him a little +for my sake." + +Miss Halliday left her seat by the window as she said this, and went +towards the table by which her friend was sitting. She crept close to +Diana, and with a half-frightened, half-caressing movement, seated +herself on the low ottoman at her feet, and, seated thus, possessed +herself of Miss Paget's cold hand. + +"I want you to like Mr. Hawkehurst a little, Di," she repeated, "for my +sake." + +"Very well, I will try to like him a little--for your sake," answered +Miss Paget, in a very unsympathetic tone. + +"O, Di! tell me how it was he offended you." + +"Who told you that he offended me?" + +"Your own manner, dear. You could never have been so cold and distant +with him--having known him go long, and endured so many troubles in his +company--if you had not been deeply offended by him." + +"That is your idea, Charlotte; but, you see, I am very unlike you. I am +fitful and capricious. I used to like Mr. Hawkehurst, and now I dislike +him. As to offence, his whole life has offended me, just as my father's +life has offended me, from first to last. I am not good and amiable and +loving, like you; but I hate deceptions and lies; above all, the lies +that some men traffic in day after day." + +"Was Valentine's--was your father's life a very bad one?" Charlotte +asked, trembling palpably, and looking up at Miss Paget's face with +anxious eyes. + +"Yes, it was a mean false life,--a life of trick and artifice. I do not +know the details of the schemes by which my father and Valentine earned +their daily bread--and my daily bread; but I know they inflicted loss +upon other people. Whether the wrong done was always done deliberately +and consciously upon Valentine's part, I cannot say. He may have been +only a tool of my father's. I hope he was, for the most part an +unconscious tool." + +She said all this in a dreamy way, as if uttering her own thoughts, +rather than seeking to enlighten Charlotte. + +"I am sure he was an unconscious tool," cried that young lady, with an +air of conviction; "it is not in his nature to do anything false or +dishonourable." + +"Indeed! you know him very well, it seems," said Diana. + +Ah, what a tempest was raging in that proud passionate heart! what a +strife between the powers of good and evil! Pitying love for Charlotte; +tender compassion for her rival's childlike helplessness; and +unutterable sense of her own loss. + +She had loved him so dearly, and he was taken from her. There had been +a time when he almost loved her--almost! Yes, it was the remembrance of +that which made the trial so bitter. The cup had approached her lips, +only to be dashed away for ever. + +"What did I ask in life except his love?" she said to herself. "Of all +the pleasures and triumphs which girls of my age enjoy, is there one +that I ever envied? No, I only sighed for his love. To live in a +lodging-house parlour with him, to sit by and watch him at his work, to +drudge for him, to bear with him--this was my brightest dream of +earthly bliss; and she has broken it!" + +It was thus Diana argued with herself, as she sat looking down at the +bright creature who had done her this worst, last wrong which one woman +can do to another. This passionate heart, which ached with such cruel +pain, was prone to evil, and to-day the scorpion Jealousy was digging +his sharp tooth into its very core. It was not possible for Diana Paget +to feel kindly disposed towards the girl whose unconscious hand had +shattered the airy castle of her dreams. Was it not a hard thing that +the bright creature, whom every one was ready to adore, must needs +steal away this one heart? + +"It has always been like this," thought Diana. "The story of David and +Nathan is a parable that is perpetually being illustrated. David is so +rich--he is lord of incalculable flocks and herds; but he will not be +content till he has stolen the one little ewe lamb, the poor man's pet +and darling." + +"Diana," said Miss Halliday very softly, "you are so difficult to talk +to this morning, and I have so much to say to you." + +"About your visit, or about Mr. Hawkehurst?" + +"About--Yorkshire," answered Charlotte, with the air of a shy child who +has made her appearance at dessert, and is asked whether she will have +a pear or a peach. + +"About Yorkshire!" repeated Miss Paget, with a little sigh of relief. +"I shall be very glad to hear about your Yorkshire friends. Was the +visit a pleasant one?" + +"Very, very pleasant!" answered Charlotte, dwelling tenderly on the +words. + +"How sentimental you have grown, Lotta! I think you must have found a +forgotten shelf of Minerva Press novels in some cupboard at your +aunt's. You have lost all your vivacity." + +"Have I?" murmured Charlotte; "and yet I am happier than I was when I +went away. Whom do you think I met at Newhall, Di?" + +"I have not the slightest idea. My notions of Yorkshire are very vague. +I fancy the people amiable savages; just a little in advance of the +ancient Britons whom Julius Caesar came over to conquer. Whom did you +meet there? Some country squire, I suppose, who fell in love with your +bright eyes, and wished you to waste the rest of your existence in +those northern wilds." + +Miss Paget was not a woman to bare her wounds for the scrutiny of the +friendliest eyes. Let the tooth of the serpent bite never so keenly, +she could meet her sorrows with a bold front. Was she not accustomed to +suffer--she, the scapegoat of defrauded nurses and indignant +landladies, the dependent and drudge of her kinswoman's gynaeceum, the +despised of her father? The flavour of these waters was very familiar +to her lips. The draught was only a little more acrid, a little deeper, +and habit had enabled her to drain the cup without complaining, if not +in a spirit of resignation. To-day she had been betrayed into a brief +outbreak of passion; but the storm had passed, and a more observant +person than Charlotte might have been deceived by her manner. + +"Now you are my own Di again," cried Miss Halliday; somewhat cynical +at the best of times, but always candid and true. + +Miss Paget winced ever so little as her friend said this. + +"No, dear," continued Charlotte, with the faintest spice of coquetry; +"it was not a Yorkshire squire. It was a person you know very well; a +person we have been talking of this morning. O, Di, you must surely +have understood me when I said I wanted you to like him for my sake!" + +"Valentine Hawkehurst!" exclaimed Diana. + +"Who else, you dear obtuse Di!" + +"He was in Yorkshire?" + +"Yes, dear. It was the most wonderful thing that ever happened. He +marched up to Newhall gate one morning in the course of his rambles, +without having the least idea that I was to be found in the +neighbourhood. Wasn't it wonderful?" + +"What could have taken him to Yorkshire?" + +"He came on business." + +"But what business?" + +"How do I know? Some business of papa's, or of George Sheldon's, +perhaps. And yet that can't be. He is writing a book, I think, about +geology or archaeology--yes, that's it, archaeology." + +"Valentine Hawkehurst writing a book on archaeology!" cried Miss Paget. +"You must be dreaming, Charlotte." + +"Why so? He does write, does he not?" + +"He has been reporter for a newspaper. But he is the last person to +write about archaeology. I think there must be some mistake." + +"Well, dear, it may be so. I didn't pay much attention to what he said +about business. It seemed so strange for him to be there, just as much +at home as if he had been one of the family. O, Di, you can't imagine +how kind aunt Dorothy and uncle Joe were to him! They like him so much +--and they know we are engaged." + +Miss Halliday said these last words almost in a whisper. + +"What!" exclaimed Diana, "do you mean to say that you have promised to +marry this man, of whom you know nothing but what is unfavourable?" + +"What do I know in his disfavour? Ah, Diana, how unkind you are! and +what a dislike you must have for poor Valentine! Of course, I know he +is not what people call a good match. A good match means that one is to +have a pair of horses, whose health is so uncertain that I am sure +their lives must be a burden to them, if we may judge by our horses; +and a great many servants, who are always conducting themselves in the +most awful manner, if poor mamma's experience is any criterion; and a +big expensive house, which nobody can be prevailed on to dust. No, Di! +that is just the kind of life I hate. What I should like is a dear +little cottage at Highgate or Wimbledon, and a tiny, tiny garden, in +which Valentine and I could walk every morning before he began his +day's work, and where we could drink tea together on summer evenings--a +garden just large enough to grow a few rose-bushes. O. Di! do you think +I want to marry a rich man?" + +"No, Charlotte; but I should think you would like to marry a good man." + +"Valentine is good. No one but a good man could have been so happy as +he seemed at Newhall farm. That simple country life could not have been +happiness for a bad man." + +"And was Valentine Hawkehurst really happy at Newhall?" + +"Really--really--really! Don't try to shake my faith in him, Diana; it +is not to be shaken. He has told me a little about the past, though I +can see that it pains him very much to speak of it. He has told me of +his friendless youth, spent amongst unprincipled people, and what a +mere waif and stray he was until he met me. And I am to be his +pole-star, dear, to guide him in the right path. Do you know, Di, I +cannot picture to myself anything sweeter than that--to be a good +influence for the person one loves. Valentine says his whole nature has +undergone a change since he has known me. What am I that I should work +so good a change in my dear one? It is very foolish, is it not, Di?" + +"Yes, Charlotte," replied the voice of reason from the lips of Miss +Paget; "it is all foolishness from beginning to end, and I can foresee +nothing but trouble as the result of such folly. What will your mamma +say to such an engagement? or what will Mr. Sheldon say?" + +"Yes, that is the question," returned Charlotte, very seriously. "Dear +mamma is one of the kindest creatures in the world, and I'm sure she +would consent to anything rather than see me unhappy. And then, you +know, she likes Valentine very much, because he has given her orders +for the theatres, and all that kind of thing. But, whatever mamma +thinks, she will be governed by what Mr. Sheldon thinks; and of course +he will be against our marriage." + +"Our marriage!" It was a settled matter, then--a thing that was to be +sooner or later; and there remained only the question as to how and +when it was to be. Diana sat like a statue, enduring her pain. So may +have suffered the Christian martyrs in their death-agony; so suffers a +woman when the one dear hope of her life is reft from her, and she dare +not cry aloud. + +"Mr. Sheldon is the last man in the world to permit such a marriage," +she said presently. + +"Perhaps," replied Charlotte; "but I am not going to sacrifice +Valentine for Mr. Sheldon's pleasure. Mr. Sheldon has full power over +mamma and her fortune, but he has no real authority where I am +concerned. I am as free as air, Diana, and I have not a penny in the +world. Is not that delightful?" + +The girl asked this question in all good faith, looking up at her +friend with a radiant countenance. What irony there was in the question +for Diana Paget, whose whole existence had been poisoned by the lack of +that sterling coin of the realm which seemed such sordid dross in the +eyes of Charlotte! + +"What do you mean, Charlotte?" + +"I mean, that even his worst enemies cannot accuse Valentine of any +mercenary feeling. He does not ask me to marry him for the sake of my +fortune." + +"Does he know your real position?" + +"Most fully. And now, Diana, tell me that you will try to like him, for +my sake, and that you will be kind, and will speak a good word for me +to mamma by-and-by, when I have told her all." + +"When do you mean to tell her?" + +"Directly--or almost directly. I scarcely know how to set about it. I +am sure it has been hard enough to tell you." + +"My poor Charlotte! What an ungrateful wretch I must be!" + +"My dear Diana, you have no reason to be grateful. I love you very +dearly, and I could not live in this house without you. It is I who +have reason to be grateful, when I remember how you bear with mamma's +fidgety ways, and with Mr. Sheldon's gloomy temper, and all for love of +me." + +"Yes, Lotta, for love of you," Miss Paget answered, with a sigh; "and I +will do more than that for love of you." + +She had her arm round her happy rival's beautiful head, and she was +looking down at the sweet upturned face with supreme tenderness. She +felt no anger against this fair enslaver, who had robbed her of her +little lamb. She only felt some touch of anger against the Providence +which had decreed that the lamb should be so taken. + +No suspicion of her friend's secret entered Charlotte Halliday's mind. +In all their intercourse Diana had spoken very little of Valentine; and +in the little she had said there had been always the same half-bitter, +half-disdainful tone. Charlotte, in her simple candour, accepted this +tone as the evidence of Miss Paget's aversion to her father's +_protege_. + +"Poor Di does not like to see her father give so much of his friendship +to a stranger while she is neglected," thought Miss Halliday; and +having once jumped at this conclusion, she made no further effort to +penetrate the mysteries of Diana's mind. + +She was less than ever inclined to speculation about Diana's feelings +now that she was in love, and blest with the sweet consciousness that +her love was returned. Tender and affectionate as she was, she could +not quite escape that taint of egotism which is the ruling vice of +fortunate lovers. Her mind was not wide enough to hold much more than +one image, which demanded so large a space. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MRS. SHELDON ACCEPTS HER DESTINY. + + +Miss Halliday had an interview with her mother that evening in Mrs. +Sheldon's dressing-room, while that lady was preparing for rest, with +considerable elaboration of detail in the way of hair-brushing, and +putting away of neck-ribbons and collars and trinkets in smart little +boxes and handy little drawers, all more or less odorous from the +presence of dainty satin-covered sachets. The sachets, and the drawers, +and boxes, and trinkets were Mrs. Sheldon's best anchorage in this +world. Such things as these were the things that made life worth +endurance for this poor weak little woman; and they were more real to +her than her daughter, because more easy to realise. The beautiful +light-hearted girl was a being whose existence had been always +something of a problem for Georgina Sheldon. She loved her after her +own feeble fashion, and would have jealously asserted her superiority +over every other daughter in the universe; but the power to understand +her or to sympathise with her had not been given to that narrow mind. +The only way in which Mrs. Sheldon's affection showed itself was +unquestioning indulgence and the bestowal of frivolous gifts, chosen +with no special regard to Charlotte's requirements, but rather because +they happened to catch Mrs. Sheldon's eye as they glittered or sparkled +in the windows of Bayswater repositories. + +Mr. Sheldon happened to be dining out on this particular evening. He +was a guest at a great City feast, to which some of the richest men +upon 'Change had been bidden; so Miss Halliday had an excellent +opportunity for making her confession. + +Poor Georgy was not a little startled by the avowal. + +"My darling Lotta!" she screamed, "do you think your papa would ever +consent to such a thing?" + +"I think my dear father would have consented to anything likely to +secure my happiness, mamma," the girl answered sadly. + +She was thinking how different this crisis in her life would have +seemed if the father she had loved so dearly had been spared to counsel +her. + +"I was not thinking of my poor dear first husband," said Georgy. This +numbering of her husbands was always unpleasant to Charlotte. It seemed +such a very business-like mode of description to be applied to the +father she so deeply regretted. I was thinking of your step-papa," +continued Mrs. Sheldon. + +"He would never consent to your marrying Mr. Hawkehurst, who really +seems to have nothing to recommend him except his good looks and an +obliging disposition with regard to orders for the theatres." + +"I am not bound to consult my stepfather's wishes. I only want to +please you, mamma." + +"But, my dear, I cannot possibly consent to anything that Mr. Sheldon +disapproves." + +"O, mamma, dear kind mamma, do have an opinion of your own for once in +a way! I daresay Mr. Sheldon is the best possible judge of everything +connected with the Stock Exchange and the money-market; but don't let +him choose a husband for me. Let me have your approval, mamma, and I +care for no one else. I don't want to marry against your will. But I am +sure you like Mr. Hawkehurst." + +Mrs. Sheldon shook her head despondingly. + +"It's all very well to like an agreeable young man as an occasional +visitor," she said, "especially when most of one's visitors are +middle-aged City people. But it is a very different thing when one's +only daughter talks of marrying him. I can't imagine what can have put +such an idea as marriage into your head. It is only a few months since +you came home from school; and I fancied that you would have stopped +with me for years before you thought of settling." + +Miss Halliday made a wry face. + +"Dear mamma," she said, "I don't want to 'settle.' That is what one's +housemaid says, isn't it, when she talks of leaving service and +marrying some young man from the baker's or the grocer's? Valentine and +I are not in a hurry to be married. I am sure, for my own part, I don't +care how long our engagement lasts. I only wish to be quite candid and +truthful with you, mamma; and I thought it a kind of duty to tell you +that he loves me, and that--I love him--very dearly." + +These last words were spoken with extreme shyness. + +Mrs. Sheldon laid down her hair-brushes while she contemplated her +daughter's blushing face. Those blushes had become quite a chronic +affection with Miss Halliday of late. + +"But, good gracious me, Charlotte," she exclaimed, growing peevish in +her sense of helplessness, "who is to tell Mr. Sheldon?" + +"There is no necessity for Mr. Sheldon to be enlightened yet awhile, +mamma. It is to you I owe duty and obedience--not to him. Pray keep my +secret, kindest and most indulgent of mothers, and--and ask Valentine +to come and see you now and then." + +"Ask him to come and see me, Charlotte! You must know very well that I +never invite any one to dinner except at Mr. Sheldon's wish. I am sure +I quite tremble at the idea of a dinner. There is such trouble about +the waiting, and such dreadful uncertainty about the cooking. And if +one has it all done by Birch's people, one's cook gives warning next +morning," added poor Georgy, with a dismal recollection of recent +perplexities. "I am sure I often wish myself young again, in the dairy +at Hyley farm, making matrimony cakes for a tea-party, with a ring and +a fourpenny-piece hidden in the middle. I'm sure the Hyley tea-parties +were pleasanter than Mr. Sheldon's dinners, with those solemn City +people, who can't exist without clear turtle and red mullet." + +"Ah, mother dear, our lives were altogether happier in those days. I +delight in the Yorkshire tea-parties, and the matrimony cakes, and all +the talk and laughter about the fourpenny-piece and the ring. I +remember getting the fourpenny-piece at Newhall last year. And that +means that one is to die an old maid, you know. And now I am engaged. +As to the dinners, mamma, Mr. Sheldon may keep them all for himself and +his City friends. Valentine is the last person in the world to care for +clear turtle. If you will let him drop in sometimes of an afternoon-- +say once a week or so--when you, and I, and Diana are sitting at our +work in the drawing-room, and if you will let him hand us our cups at +our five-o'clock tea, he will be the happiest of men. He adores tea. +You'll let him come, won't you, dear? O, mamma, I feel just like a +servant who asks to be allowed to see her 'young man.' Will you let my +'young man' come to tea once in a way?" + +"Well, Charlotte, I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Sheldon, with +increasing helplessness. "It's really a very dreadful position for me +to be placed in." + +"Quite appalling, is it not, mamma? But then I suppose it is a position +that people afflicted with daughters must come to sooner or later." + +"If it were the mere civility of asking him to tea," pursued poor +Georgy, heedless of this flippant interruption, "I'm sure I should be +the last to make any objection. Indeed, I am under a kind of obligation +to Mr. Hawkehurst, for his polite attention has enabled us to go to the +theatres very often when your papa would not have thought of buying +tickets. But then, you see, Lotta, the question in point is not his +coming to our five-o'clock tea--which seems really a perfect mockery to +any one brought up in Yorkshire--but whether you are to be engaged to +him." + +"Dear mamma, _that_ is not a question at all, for I am already engaged +to him." + +"But, Charlotte--" + +"I do not think I could bring myself to disobey you, dear mother," +continued the girl tenderly; "and if you tell me, of your own free +will, and acting on your conviction, that I am not to marry him, I must +bow my head to your decision, however hard it may seem. But one thing +is quite certain, mamma: I have given my promise to Valentine; and if I +do not marry him, I shall never marry at all; and then the dreadful +augury of the fourpenny-piece will be verified." + +Miss Halliday pronounced this determination with a decision of manner +that quite overawed her mother. It had been the habit of Georgy's mind +to make a feeble protest against all the mutations of life, but in the +end to submit very quietly to the inevitable; and since Valentine +Hawkehurst's acceptance as Charlotte's future husband seemed +inevitable, she was fain to submit in this instance also. + +Valentine was allowed to call at the Lawn, and was received with a +feeble, half-plaintive graciousness by the lady of the house. He was +invited to stop for the five-o'clock tea, and availed himself +rapturously of this delightful privilege. His instinct told him what +gentle hand had made the meal so dainty and home-like, and for whose +pleasure the phantasmal pieces of bread-and-butter usually supplied by +the trim parlour-maid had given place to a salver loaded with innocent +delicacies in the way of pound-cake and apricot jam. + +Mr. Hawkehurst did his uttermost to deserve so much indulgence. He +scoured London in search of free admissions for the theatres, hunting +"Ragamuffins" and members of the Cibber Club, and other privileged +creatures, at all their places of resort. He watched for the advent of +novels adapted to Georgy's capacity--lively records of croquet and +dressing and love-making, from smart young Amazons in the literary +ranks, or deeply interesting romances of the sensation school, with at +least nine deaths in the three volumes, and a comic housemaid, or a +contumacious "Buttons," to relieve the gloom by their playful +waggeries. He read Tennyson or Owen Meredith, or carefully selected +"bits" from the works of a younger and wilder bard, while the ladies +worked industriously at their prie-dieu chairs, or Berlin brioches, or +Shetland couvrepieds, as the case might be. The patroness of a fancy +fair would scarcely have smiled approvingly on the novel effects in +_crochet a tricoter_ produced by Miss Halliday during these pleasant +lectures. + +"The rows will come wrong," she said piteously, "and Tennyson's poetry +is so very absorbing!" + +Mr. Hawkehurst showed himself to be possessed of honourable, not to say +delicate, feelings in his new position. The gothic villa was his +paradise, and the gates had been freely opened to admit him whensoever +he chose to come. Georgy was just the sort of person from whom people +take ells after having asked for inches; and once having admitted Mr. +Hawkehurst as a privileged guest, she would have found it very +difficult to place any restriction upon the number of his visits. +Happily for this much-perplexed matron, Charlotte and her lover were +strictly honourable. Mr. Hawkehurst never made his appearance at the +villa more than once in the same week, though the "once a week or so" +asked for by Charlotte might have been stretched to a wider +significance. + +When Valentine obtained orders for the theatre, he sent them by post, +scrupulously refraining from making them the excuse for a visit. + +"That was all very well when I was a freebooter," he said to himself, +"only admitted on sufferance, and liable to have the door shut in my +face any morning. But I am trusted now, and I must prove myself worthy +of my future mother-in-law's confidence. Once a week! One seventh day +of unspeakable happiness--bliss without alloy! The six other days are +very long and dreary. But then they are only the lustreless setting in +which that jewel the seventh shines so gloriously. Now, if I were +Waller, what verses I would sing about my love! Alas, I am only a +commonplace young man, and can find no new words in which to tell the +old sweet story!" + +If the orders for stalls and private boxes were not allowed to serve as +an excuse for visits, they at least necessitated the writing of +letters; and no human being, except a lover, would have been able to +understand why such long letters must needs be written about such a +very small business. The letters secured replies; and when the order +sent was for a box, Mr. Hawkehurst was generally invited to occupy a +seat in it. Ah, what did it matter on those happy nights how hackneyed +the plot of the play, how bald the dialogue, how indifferent the +acting! It was all alike delightful to those two spectators: for a +light that shone neither on earth nor sky brightened everything they +looked on when they sat side by side. + +And during all these pleasant afternoons at the villa, or evenings at +the theatre, Diana Paget had to sit by and witness the happiness which +she had dreamed might some day be hers. It was a part of her duty to be +present on these occasions, and she performed that duty punctiliously. +She might have made excuses for absenting herself, but she was too +proud to make any such excuses. + +"Am I such a coward as to tell a lie in order to avoid a little pain +more or less? If I say I have a headache, and stay in my own room while +he is here, will the afternoon seem any more pleasant or any shorter to +me? The utmost difference would be the difference between a dull pain +and a sharp pain; and I think the sharper agony is easier to bear." +Having argued with herself thus, Miss Paget endured her weekly +martyrdom with Spartan fortitude. + +"What have I lost?" she said to herself, as she stole a furtive glance +now and then at the familiar face of her old companion. "What is this +treasure, the loss of which makes me seem to myself such an abject +wretch? Only the love of a man who at his best is not worthy of this +girl's pure affection, and at his worst must have been unworthy even of +mine. But then at his worst he is dearer to me than the best man who +ever lived upon this earth." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. HAWKEHURST AND MR. GEORGE SHELDON COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING. + + +There was no such thing as idleness for Valentine Hawkehurst during +these happy days of his courtship. The world was his oyster, and that +oyster was yet unopened. For some years he had been hacking and hewing +the shell thereof with the sword of the freebooter, to very little +advantageous effect. He now set himself seriously to work with the +pickaxe of the steady-going labourer. He was a secessionist from the +great army of adventurers. He wanted to enrol himself in the ranks of +the respectable, the plodders, the ratepayers, the simple citizens who +love their wives and children, and go to their parish church on +Sundays. He had an incentive to steady industry, which had hitherto +been wanting in his life. He was beloved, and any shame that came to +him would be a still more bitter humiliation for the woman who loved +him. + +He felt that the very first step in the difficult path of +respectability would be a step that must separate him from Captain +Paget; but just now separation from that gentleman seemed scarcely +advisable. If there was any mischief in that Ullerton expedition, any +collusion between the Captain and the Reverend Goodge, it would +assuredly be well for Valentine to continue a mode of life which +enabled him to be tolerably well informed as to the movements of the +slippery Horatio. In all the outside positions of life expedience must +ever be the governing principle, and expedience forbade any immediate +break with Captain Paget. + +"Whatever you do, keep your eye upon the Captain," said George Sheldon, +in one of many interviews, all bearing upon the Haygarth succession. +"If there is any underhand work going on between him and Philip, you +must be uncommonly slow of perception if you can't ferret it out. I'm +very sorry you met Charlotte Halliday in the north, for of course Phil +must have heard of your appearance in Yorkshire, and that will set him +wondering at any rate, especially as lie will no doubt have heard the +Dorking story from Paget. He pretended he saw you leave town the day +you went to Ullerton, but I am half inclined to believe that was only a +trap." + +"I don't think Mr. Sheldon has heard of my appearance in Yorkshire +yet." + +"Indeed! Miss Charlotte doesn't care to make a confidant of her +stepfather, I suppose. Keep her in that mind, Hawkehurst. If you play +your cards well, you ought to be able to get her to marry you on the +quiet." "I don't think that would be possible. In fact, I am sure +Charlotte would not marry without her mother's consent," answered +Valentine, thoughtfully. + +"And of course that means my brother Philip's consent," exclaimed +George Sheldon, with contemptuous impatience. "What a slow, bungling +fellow you are, Hawkehurst! Here is an immense fortune waiting for you, +and a pretty girl in love with you, and you dawdle and deliberate as if +you were going to the dentist's to have a tooth drawn. You've fallen +into a position that any man in London might envy, and you don't seem +to have the smallest capability of appreciating your good luck." + +"Well, perhaps I am rather slow to realise the idea of my good +fortune," answered Valentine, still very thoughtfully. "You see, in the +first place, I can't get over a shadowy kind of feeling with regard to +that Haygarthian fortune. It is too far away from my grasp, too large, +too much of the stuff that dreams and novels are made of. And, in the +second place, I love Miss Halliday so fondly and so truly that I don't +like the notion of making my marriage with her any part of the bargain +between you and me." + +Mr. Sheldon contemplated his confederate with unmitigated disdain. +"Don't try that sort of thing with me, Hawkehurst," he said; "that +sentimental dodge may answer very well with some men, but I'm about the +last to be taken in by it. You are playing fast-and-loose with me, and +you want to throw me over--as my brother Phil would throw me over, if +he got the chance." + +"I am not playing fast-and-loose with you," replied Valentine, too +disdainful of Mr. Sheldon for indignation. "I have worked for you +faithfully, and kept your secret honourably, when I had every +temptation to reveal it. You drove your bargain with me, and I have +performed my share of the bargain to the letter. But if you think I am +going to drive a bargain with you about my marriage with Miss Halliday, +you are very much mistaken. That lady will marry me when she pleases, +but she shall not be entrapped into a clandestine marriage for your +convenience." "O, that's your ultimatum, is it, Mr. Joseph Surface?" +said the lawyer, biting his nails fiercely, and looking askant at his +ally, with angry eyes. "I wonder you don't wind up by saying that the +man who could trade upon a virtuous woman's affection for the +advancement of his fortune, deserves to--get it hot, as our modern +slang has it. Then I am to understand that you decline to precipitate +matters?" + +"I most certainly do." + +"And the Haygarth business is to remain in abeyance while Miss Halliday +goes through the tedious formula of a sentimental courtship?" + +"I suppose so." + +"Humph! that's pleasant for me." + +"Why should you make the advancement of Miss Halliday's claims +contingent on her marriage? Why not assert her rights at once?" + +"Because I will not trust my brother Philip. The day that you show me +the certificate of your marriage with Charlotte Halliday is the day on +which I shall make my first move in this business. I told you the other +day that I would rather make a bargain with you than with my brother." + +"And what kind of bargain do you expect to make with me when Miss +Halliday is my wife?" + +"I'll tell you, Valentine Hawkehurst," replied the lawyer, squaring his +elbows upon his desk in his favourite attitude, and looking across the +table at his coadjutor; "I like to be open and above-board when I can, +and I'll be plain with you in this matter. I want a clear half of John +Haygarth's fortune, and I think that I've a very fair claim to that +amount. The money can only be obtained by means of the documents in my +possession, and but for me that money might have remained till doomsday +unclaimed and unthought of by the descendant of Matthew Haygarth. Look +at it which way you will, I think you'll allow that my demand is a just +one." + +"I don't say that it is unjust, though it certainly seems a little +extortionate," replied Valentine. "However, if Charlotte were my wife, +and were willing to cede half the fortune, I'm not the man to dispute +the amount of your reward. When the time comes for bargain-driving, +you'll not find me a difficult person to deal with. + +"And when may I expect your marriage with Miss Halliday?" asked George +Sheldon, rapping his hard finger-nails upon the table with suppressed +impatience. "Since you elect to conduct matters in the grand style, and +must wait for mamma's consent and papa's consent, and goodness knows +what else in the way of absurdity, I suppose the delay will be for an +indefinite space of time." "I don't know about that. I'm not likely to +put off the hour in which I shall call that dear girl my own. I asked +her to be my wife before I knew that she had the blood of Matthew +Haygarth in her veins, and the knowledge of her claim to this fortune +does not make her one whit the dearer to me, penniless adventurer as I +am. If poetry were at all in your line, Mr. Sheldon, you might know +that a man's love for a good woman is generally better than himself. He +may be a knave and a scoundrel, and yet his love for that one perfect +creature may be almost as pure and perfect as herself. That's a +psychological mystery out of the way of Gray's Inn, isn't it?" + +"If you'll oblige me by talking common sense for about five minutes, +you may devote your powerful intellect to the consideration of +psychological mysteries for a month at a stretch," exclaimed the +aggravated lawyer. + +"O, don't you see how I struggle to be hard-headed and practical!" +cried Valentine; "but a man who is over head and ears in love finds it +rather hard to bring all his ideas to the one infallible grindstone. +You ask me when I am to marry Charlotte Halliday. To-morrow, if our +Fates smile upon us. Mrs. Sheldon knows of our engagement, and consents +to it, but in some manner under protest. I am not to take my dear girl +away from her mother for some time to come. The engagement is to be a +long one. In the mean time I am working hard to gain some kind of +position in literature, for I want to be sure of an income before I +marry, without reference to John Haygarth; and I am a privileged guest +at the villa." + +"But my brother Phil has been told nothing?" + +"As yet nothing. My visits are paid while he is in the City; and as I +often went to the villa before my engagement, he is not likely to +suspect anything when he happens to hear my name mentioned as a +visitor." + +"And do you really think he is in the dark--my brother Philip, who can +turn a man's brains inside out in half an hour's conversation? Mark my +words, Valentine Hawkehurst, that man is only playing with you as a cat +plays with a mouse. He used to see you and Charlotte together before +you went to Yorkshire, and he must have seen the state of the case +quite as plainly as I saw it. He has heard of your visits to the villa +since your return, and has kept a close account of them, and made his +own deductions, depend upon it. And some day, while you and pretty Miss +Charlotte are enjoying your fool's paradise, he will pounce upon you +just as puss pounces on poor mousy." + +This was rather alarming, and Valentine felt that it was very likely to +be correct. + +"Mr. Sheldon may play the part of puss as he pleases," he replied after +a brief pause for deliberation; "this is a case in which he dare not +show his claws. He has no authority to control Miss Halliday's +actions." + +"Perhaps not, but he would find means for preventing her marriage if it +was to his interest to do so. He is not _your_ brother, you see, Mr. +Hawkehurst; but he is mine, and I know a good deal about him. His +interest may not be concerned in hindering his stepdaughter's marriage +with a penniless scapegrace. He may possibly prefer such a bridegroom +as less likely to make himself obnoxious by putting awkward questions +about poor Tom Halliday's money, every sixpence of which he means to +keep, of course. If his cards are packed for that kind of marriage, +he'll welcome you to his arms as a son-in-law, and give you his +benediction as well as his stepdaughter. So I think if you can contrive +to inform him of your engagement, without letting him know of your +visit to Yorkshire, it might be a stroke of diplomacy. He might be glad +to get rid of the girl, and might hasten on the marriage of his own +volition." + +"He might be glad to get rid of the girl." In the ears of Valentine +Hawkehurst this sounded rank blasphemy. Could there be any one upon +this earth, even a Sheldon, incapable of appreciating the privilege of +that divine creature's presence? + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +MR. SHELDON IS PROPITIOUS + + +It was not very long before Valentine Hawkehurst had reason to respect +the wisdom of his legal patron. Within a few days of his interview with +George Sheldon he paid his weekly visit to the villa. Things were going +very well with him, and life altogether seemed brighter than he had +ever hoped to find it. He had set himself steadily to work to win some +kind of position in literature. He devoted his days to diligent study +in the reading-room of the British Museum, his nights to writing for +the magazines. His acquaintance with press-men had stood him in good +stead; and already he had secured the prompt acceptance of his work in +more than one direction. The young _litterateur_ of the present day has +not such a very hard fight for a livelihood, if his pen has only a +certain lightness and dash, a rattling vivacity and airy grace. It is +only the marvellous boys who come to London with epic poems, Anglo-Saxon +tragedies, or metaphysical treatises in their portmanteaus, who must +needs perish in their prime, or stoop to the drudgery of office or +counting-house. + +Valentine Hawkehurst had no vague yearnings after the fame of a Milton, +no inner consciousness that he had been born to stamp out the +footprints of Shakespeare on the sands of time, no unhealthy hungering +after the gloomy grandeur of Byron. He had been brought up amongst +people who treated literature as a trade as well as an art;--and what +art is not more or less a trade? He knew the state of the market, and +what kind of goods were likely to go off briskly, and it was for the +market he worked. When gray shirtings were in active demand, he set his +loom for gray shirtings; and when the buyers clamoured for fancy goods, +he made haste to produce that class of fabrics. In this he proved +himself a very low-minded and ignominious creature, no doubt; but was +not one Oliver Goldsmith glad to take any order which good Mr. Newberry +might give him, only writing the "Traveller" and the story of Parson +Primrose _pour se distraire_? + +Love lent wings to the young essayist's pen. It is to be feared that in +roving among those shelves in Great Russell-street he showed himself +something of a freebooter, taking his "bien" wherever it was to be +found; but did not Moliere frankly acknowledge the same practice? Mr. +Hawkehurst wrote about anything and everything. His brain must needs be +a gigantic storehouse of information, thought the respectful reader. He +skipped from Pericles to Cromwell, from Cleopatra to Mary Stuart, from +Sappho to Madame de Sable; and he wrote of these departed spirits with +such a charming impertinence, with such a delicious affectation of +intimacy, that one would have thought he had sat by Cleopatra as she +melted her pearls, and stood amongst the audience of Pericles when he +pronounced his funeral oration. "With the De Sable and the Chevreuse, +Ninon and Marion, Maintenon and La Valliere, Anne of Austria and the +great Mademoiselle of France, he seemed to have lived in daily +companionship, so amply did he expatiate upon the smallest details of +their existences, so tenderly did he dwell on their vanished beauties, +their unforgotten graces." + +The work was light and pleasant; and the monthly cheques from the +proprietors of a couple of rival periodicals promised, to amount to the +income which the adventurer had sighed for as he trod the Yorkshire +moorland. He had asked Destiny to give him Charlotte Halliday and three +hundred a year, and lo! while yet the wish was new, both these +blessings seemed within his grasp. It could scarcely be a matter for +repining it the Fates should choose to throw in an odd fifty thousand +pounds or so. + +But was not all this something too much of happiness for a man whose +feet had trodden in evil ways? Were not the Fates mocking this +travel-stained wayfarer with bright glimpses of a paradise whose gates +he was never to pass? + +This was the question which Valentine Hawkehurst was fain to ask +himself sometimes; this doubt was the shadow which sometimes made a +sudden darkness that obscured the sunshine. + +Happily for Charlotte's true lover, the shadow did not often come +between him and the light of those dear eyes which were his pole-stars. + +The December days were shortening as the year drew to its close, and +afternoon tea seemed more than ever delightful to Charlotte and her +betrothed, now that it could be enjoyed in the mysterious half light; a +glimmer of chill gray day looking coldly in at the unshrouded window +like some ghostly watcher envying these mortals their happiness, and +the red glow of the low fire reflected upon every curve and facet of +the shining steel grate. + +To sit by the fire at five o'clock in the afternoon, watching the +changeful light upon Charlotte's face, the rosy glow that seemed to +linger caressingly on broad low brow and sweet ripe lips, the deep +shadows that darkened eyes and hair, was bliss unspeakable for Mr. +Hawkehurst. The lovers talked the prettiest nonsense to each other, +while Mrs. Sheldon dozed placidly behind the friendly shelter of a +banner-screen hooked on to the chimney-piece, or conversed with Diana +in a monotonous undertone, solemnly debating the relative wisdom of +dyeing or turning in relation to a faded silk dress. + +Upon one special evening Valentine lingered just a little longer than +usual. Christmas was near at hand, and the young man had brought his +liege lady tribute in the shape of a bundle of Christmas literature. +Tennyson had been laid aside in favour of the genial Christmas fare, +which had the one fault, that it came a fortnight before the jovial +season, and in a manner fore-stalled the delights of that time-honoured +period, making the season itself seem flat and dull, and turkey and +plum-pudding the stalest commodities in the world when they did come. +How, indeed, can a man do full justice to his aunt Tabitha's +plum-pudding, or his uncle Joe's renowned rum-punch, if he has quaffed +the steaming-bowl with the "Seven Poor Travellers," or eaten his +Christmas dinner at the "Kiddleawink" a fortnight beforehand? Are not +the chief pleasures of life joys as perishable as the bloom on a peach +or the freshness of a rose? + +Valentine had read the ghastliest of ghost-stories, and the most +humorous of word-pictures, for the benefit of the audience in Mrs. +Sheldon's drawing-room; and now, after tea, they sat by the fire +talking of the ghost-story, and discussing that unanswerable question +about the possibility of such spiritual appearances, which seems to +have been debated ever since the world began. + +"Dr. Johnson believed in ghosts," said Valentine. + +"O, please spare us Dr. Johnson," cried Charlotte, with seriocomic +intensity. "What is it that obliges magazine-writers to be perpetually +talking about Dr. Johnson? If they must dig up persons from the past, +why can't they dig up newer persons than that poor ill-used doctor?" + +The door opened with a hoarse groan, and Mr. Sheldon came into the room +while Miss Halliday was making her playful protest. She stopped, +somewhat confused by that sudden entrance. + +There is a statue of the Commandant in every house, at whose coming +hearts grow cold and lips are suddenly silent. It was the first time +that the master of the villa had interrupted one of these friendly +afternoon teas, and Mrs. Sheldon and her daughter felt that a domestic +crisis was at hand. + +"How's this?" cried the stockbroker's strong hard voice; "you seem all +in the dark." + +He took a wax-match from a little gilt stand on the mantelpiece and +lighted two flaring lamps. He was the sort of man who is always eager +to light the gas when people are sitting in the gloaming, meditative +and poetical. He let the broad glare of common sense in upon their +foolish musings, and scared away Robin Goodfellow and the fairies by +means of the Western Gaslight Company's illuminating medium. + +The light of those two flaring jets of gas revealed Charlotte Halliday +looking shyly at the roses on the carpet, and trifling nervously with +one of the show-books on the table. The same light revealed Valentine +Hawkehurst standing by the young lady's chair, and looking at Mr. +Sheldon with a boldness of countenance that was almost defiance. Poor +Georgy's face peered out from behind her favourite banner-screen, +looking from one to the other in evident alarm. Diana sat in her +accustomed corner, watchful, expectant, awaiting the domestic storm. + +To the surprise of every one except Mr. Sheldon, there was no storm, +not even the lightest breeze that ever blew in domestic hemispheres. +The stockbroker saluted his stepdaughter with a friendly nod, and +greeted her lover with a significant grin. + +"How d'ye do, Hawkehurst?" he said, in his pleasantest manner. "It's an +age since I've seen you. You're going in for literature, I hear; and a +very good thing too, if you can make it pay. I understand there are +some fellows who really do make that sort of thing pay. Seen my brother +George lately? Yes, I suppose you and George are quite a Damon and +What's-his-name. You're going to dine here to-night, of course? I +suppose we may go in to dinner at once, eh, Georgy?--it's half-past +six." + +Mr. Hawkehurst made some faint pretence of having a particular +engagement elsewhere; for, supposing Sheldon to be unconscious, he +scorned to profit by that gentleman's ignorance. And then, having +faltered his refusal, he looked at Charlotte, and Charlotte's eyes +cried "Stay," as plainly as such lovely eyes can speak. So the end of +it was, that he stayed and partook of the Sheldonian crimped skate, and +the Sheldonian roast-beef and tapioca-pudding, and tasted some especial +Moselle, which, out of the kindliness of his nature, Mr. Sheldon opened +for his stepdaughter's betrothed. + +After dinner there were oranges and crisp uncompromising biscuits, that +made an explosive noise like the breaking of windows whenever any one +ventured to tamper with them; item, a decanter of sherry in a silver +stand; item, a decanter of port, which Mr. Sheldon declared to be +something almost too good to be drunk, and to the merits of which +Valentine was supremely indifferent. The young man would fain have +followed his delight when she accompanied her mamma and Diana to the +drawing-room; but Mr. Sheldon detained him. + +"I want a few words with you, Hawkehurst," he said; and Charlotte's +cheeks flamed red as peonies at sound of this alarming sentence. "You +shall go after the ladies presently, and they shall torture that poor +little piano to their hearts' delight for your edification. I won't +detain you many minutes. You had really better try that port." + +Valentine closed the door upon the departing ladies, and went back to +his seat very submissively. If there were any battle to be fought out +between him and Philip Sheldon, the sooner the trumpet sounded to arms +the better. + +"His remarkable civility almost inclines me to think that he does +really want to get rid of that dear girl," Valentine said to himself, +as he filled his glass and gravely awaited Mr. Sheldon's pleasure. + +"Now then, my dear Hawkehurst," began that gentleman, squaring himself +in his comfortable arm-chair, and extending his legs before the cheery +fire, "let us have a little friendly chat. I am not given to beating +about the bush, you know, and whatever I have to say I shall say in +very plain words. In the first place, I hope you have not so poor an +opinion of my perceptive faculties as to suppose that I don't see what +is going on between you and Miss Lotta yonder." + +"My dear Mr. Sheldon, I--" + +"Hear what I have to say first, and make your protestations afterwards. +You needn't be alarmed; you won't find me quite as bad as the +stepmother one reads about in the story-books, who puts her +stepdaughter into a pie, and all that kind of thing. I suppose +stepfathers have been a very estimable class, by the way, as it is the +stepmother who always drops in for it in the story-books. You'll find +mo very easy to deal with, Mr. Hawkehurst, always provided that you +deal in a fair and honourable manner." + +"I have no wish to be underhand in my dealings," Valentine said boldly. +And indeed this was the truth. His inclination prompted him to candour, +even with Mr. Sheldon; but that fatal necessity which is the governing +principle of the adventurer's life obliged him to employ the arts of +finesse. + +"Good," cried Mr. Sheldon, in the cheery, pleasant tone of an +easy-going man of the world, who is not too worldly to perform a +generous action once in a way. "All I ask is frankness. You and +Charlotte have fallen in love with one another--why, I can't imagine, +except on the hypothesis that a decent-looking young woman and a +decent-looking young man can't meet half a dozen times without beginning +to think of Gretna-green, or St. George's, Hanover-square. Of course a +marriage with you, looked at from a common-sense point of view, would be +about the worst thing that could happen to my wife's daughter. She's a +very fine girl" (a man of the Sheldonian type would call Aphrodite +herself a fine girl), "and might marry some awfully rich City swell with +vineries and pineries and succession-houses at Tulse-hill or Highgate, if +I chose to put her in the way of that sort of thing. But then, you see, +the worst of it is, a man seldom comes to vineries and pineries at +Tulse-hill till he is on the shady side of forty; and as I am not in +favour of mercenary marriages, I don't care to force any of my City +connection upon poor Lotta. In the neighbourhood of the Stock Exchange +there is no sharper man of business than your humble servant; but I +don't care to bring business habits to Bayswater. Long before Lotta +left school, I had made up my mind never to come between her and her +own inclination in the matrimonial line; therefore, if she truly and +honestly loves you, and if you truly and honestly love her, I am not +the man to forbid the bans." + +"My dear Mr. Sheldon, how shall I ever thank you for this!" cried +Valentine, surprised into a belief in the purity of the stockbroker's +intentions. + +"Don't be in a hurry," replied that gentleman coolly; "you haven't +heard me out yet. Though I may consent to take the very opposite line +of conduct which I might be expected to take as a man of the world, I +am not going to allow you and Charlotte to make fools of yourselves. +There must be no love-in-a-cottage business, no marrying on nothing a +year, with the expectation that papa and mamma will make up the +difference between that and a comfortable income. In plain English, if +I consent to receive you as Charlotte's future husband, you and she +must consent to wait until you can, to my entire satisfaction, prove +yourself in a position to keep a wife." Valentine sighed doubtfully. + +"I don't think either Miss Halliday or I are in an unreasonable hurry +to begin life together," he said thoughtfully; "but there must be some +fixed limit to our probation. I am afraid the waiting will be a very +long business, if I am to obtain a position that will satisfy you +before I ask my dear girl to share my fate." + +"Are your prospects so very black?" + +"No; to my mind they seem wonderfully bright. But the earnings of a +magazine-writer will scarcely come up to your idea of an independence. +Just now I am getting about ten pounds a month. With industry, I may +stretch that ten to twenty; and with luck I might make the twenty into +thirty--forty--fifty. A man has only to achieve something like a +reputation in order to make a handsome living by his pen." + +"I am very glad to hear that," said Mr. Sheldon; "and when you can +fairly demonstrate to me that you are earning thirty pounds a month, +you shall have my consent to your marriage with Charlotte, and I will +do what I can to give you a fair start in life. I suppose you know that +she hasn't a sixpence in the world, that she can call her own?" + +This was a trying question for Valentine Hawkehurst, and Mr. Sheldon +looked at him with a sharp scrutinising glance as he awaited a reply. +The young man flushed crimson, and grew pale again before he spoke. + +"Yes," he said, "I have long been aware that Miss Halliday has no legal +claim on her father's fortune." + +"There you have hit the mark," cried Mr. Sheldon. "She has no claim to +a sixpence in law; but to an honourable man that is not the question. +Poor Halliday's money amounted in all to something like eighteen +thousand pounds. That sum passed into my possession when I married my +poor friend's widow, who had too much respect for me to hamper my +position as a man of business by any legal restraints that would have +hindered my making the wisest use of her money. I have used that money, +and I need scarcely tell you that I have employed it with considerable +advantage to myself and Georgy. I therefore can afford to be generous, +and I mean to be so; but the manner in which I do things must be of my +own choosing. My own children are dead, and there is no one belonging +to one that stands in Miss Halliday's way. When I die she will inherit +a handsome fortune. And if she marries with my approval, I shall +present her with a very comfortable dowry. I think you will allow that +this is fair enough." + +"Nothing could be fairer or more generous," replied Valentine with +enthusiasm. + +Mr. Sheldon's agreeable candour had entirely subjugated him. Despite of +all that George had said to his brother's prejudice, he was ready to +believe implicitly in Philip's fair dealing. + +"And in return for this I ask something on your part," said Mr. +Sheldon. "I want you to give me your promise that you will take no +serious step without my knowledge. You won't steal a march upon me. You +won't walk off with Charlotte some fine morning and marry her at a +registry-office, or anything of that kind, eh?" + +"I will not," answered Valentine resolutely, with a very unpleasant +recollection of his dealings with George Sheldon. + +"Give me your hand upon that," cried the stockbroker. + +Upon this the two men shook hands, and Valentine's fingers were almost +crushed in the cold hard grip of Mr. Sheldon's muscular hand. And now +there came upon Valentine's ear the sound of one of Mendelssohn's +_Lieder ohne Worte_, tenderly played by the gentle hands he knew so +well. And the lover began to feel that he could no longer sit sipping +the stockbroker's port with a hypocritical pretence of appreciation, +and roasting himself before the blazing fire, the heat whereof was +multiplied to an insufferable degree by grate and fender of reflecting +steel. + +Mr. Sheldon was not slow to perceive his guest's impatience, and having +made exactly the impression he wanted to make, was quite willing that +the interview should come to an end. + +"You had better be off to the drawing-room," he said, good naturedly; +"I see you are in that stage of the fever in which masculine society is +only a bore. You can go and hear Charlotte play, while I read the +evening papers and write a few letters. You can let her know that you +and I understand each other. Of course we shall see you very often. +You'll eat your Christmas turkey with us, and so on; and I shall trust +to your honour for the safe keeping of that promise you made me just +now," said Mr. Sheldon. + +"And I shall keep an uncommonly close watch upon you and the young +lady, my friend," added that gentleman, communing with his own thoughts +as he crossed the smart little hall, where two Birmingham iron knights +in chain armour bestrode their gallant chargers, on two small tables of +sham malachite. + +Mr. Sheldon's library was not a very inspiring apartment. His ideas of +a _sanctum sanctorum_ did not soar above the commonplace. A decent +square room, furnished with plenty of pigeon-holes, a neat brass scale +for the weighing of letters, a copying-press, a waste-paper basket, a +stout brass-mounted office inkstand capable of holding a quart or so of +ink, and a Post-office Directory, were all he asked for his hours of +leisure and meditation. In a handsome glazed bookcase, opposite his +writing-table, appeared a richly-bound edition of the _Waverley_ +_Novels_, Knight's _Shakespeare_, Hume and Smollett, Fielding, +Goldsmith, and Gibbon; but, except when Georgy dusted the sacred +volumes with her own fair hands, the glass doors of the bookcase were +never opened. + +Mr. Sheldon turned on the gas, seated himself at his comfortable +writing-table, and took up his pen. A quire of office note-paper, with +his City address upon it, lay ready beneath his hand; but he did not +begin to write immediately. He sat for some time with his elbows on the +table, and his chin in his hands, meditating with dark fixed brows. + +"Can I trust her?" he asked himself. "Is it safe to have her near me-- +after---after what she said to me in Fitzgeorge-street? Yes, I think I +can trust her, up to a certain point; but beyond that I must be on my +guard. She might be more dangerous than a stranger. One thing is quite +clear--she must be provided for somehow or other. The question is, +whether she is to be provided for in this house or out of it; and +whether I can make her serve me as I want to be served?" + +This was the gist of Mr. Sheldon's meditations; but they lasted for +some time. The question which he had to settle was an important one, +and he was too wise a man not to contemplate a subject from every +possible point of sight before arriving at his decision. He took a +letter-clip from one side of his table, and turned over several open +letters in search of some particular document. + +He came at last to the letter he wanted. It was written on very common +note-paper, with brown-looking ink, and the penmanship was evidently +that of an uneducated person; but Mr. Sheldon studied its contents with +the air of a man who is dealing with no unimportant missive. + +This was the letter which so deeply interested the stockbroker:-- + + +"HONORED SIR--This coms hopping that You and Your Honored ladie are +well has it leevs me tho nott so strong has i coud wish wich his nott +too bee expect at my time off life my pore neffew was tooke with the +tyfus last tewsday weak was giv over on thirsday and we hav berried him +at kensil grean Honored Mr. Sheldon I hav now no home my pore neece +must go hout into survis. Luckly there har no Childring and the pore +gurl can gett hur living as housmade wich she were in survis hat hi +gate befor she marrid my pore Joseff Honored sir i ham trewly sorry too +trubbel you butt i think for hold times you will forgiv the libertey +off this letter i would nott hintrewd on you iff i had enny frend to +help me in my old aig, + +"Your obeddient survent." + +"17 Litle Tottles-yarde lambeft." + +AN WOOLPER + + +"No friend to help her in her old age," muttered Mr. Sheldon; "that +means that she intends to throw herself upon me for the rest of her +life, and to put me to the expense of burying her when she is so +obliging as to die. Very pleasant, upon my word! A man has a servant +in the days of his poverty, pays her every fraction he owes her in the +shape of wages, and wishes her good speed when she goes to settle +down among her relations; and one fine morning, when he has got into a +decent position, she writes to inform him that her nephew is dead, and +that she expects him to provide for her forthwith. That is the gist of +Mrs. Woolper's letter; and if it were not for one or two considerations, +I should be very much inclined to take a business-like view of the +case, and refer the lady to her parish. What are poor-rates intended +for, I should like to know, if a man who pays four-and-twopence in the +pound is to be pestered in this sort of way?" + +And then Mr. Sheldon, having given vent to his vexation by such +reflections as these, set himself to examine the matter in another +light. + +"I must manage to keep sweet with Nancy Woolper somehow or other, +that's very clear; for a chattering old woman is about as dangerous an +enemy as a man can have. I might provide for her decently enough out of +doors for something like a pound a week; and that would be a cheap +enough way of paying off all old scores. But I'm not quite clear that +it would be a safe way. A life of idleness might develop Mrs. Woolper's +latent propensity for gossip--and gossip is what I want to avoid. No, +that plan won't do." + +For some moments Mr. Sheldon meditated silently, with his brows fixed +even more sternly than before. Then he struck his hand suddenly on the +morocco-covered table, and uttered his thoughts aloud. + +"I'll risk it," he said; "she shall come into the house and serve my +interests by keeping a sharp watch upon Charlotte Halliday. There shall +be no secret marriage between those two. No, my friend Valentine, you +may be a very clever fellow, but you are not quite clever enough to +steal a march upon me." + +Having arrived at this conclusion, Mr. Sheldon wrote a few lines to +Nancy Woolper, telling her to call upon him at the Lawn. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +MR. SHELDON IS BENEVOLENT. + + +Nancy Woolper had lost little of her activity during the ten years that +had gone by since she received her wages from Mr. Sheldon, on his +breaking up his establishment in Fitzgeorge-street. Her master had +given her the opportunity of remaining in his service, had she so +pleased; but Mrs. Woolper was a person of independent, not to say +haughty, spirit, and she had preferred to join her small fortunes with +those of a nephew who was about to begin business as a chandler and +general dealer in a very small way, rather than to submit herself to +the sway of that lady whom she insisted on calling Miss Georgy. + +"It's so long since I've been used to a missus," she said, when +announcing her decision to Mr. Sheldon, "I doubt if I could do with +Miss Georgy's finnickin ways. I should feel tewed like, if she came +into the kitchen, worritin' and asking questions. I've been used to my +own ways, and I don't suppose I could do with hers." + +So Nancy departed, to enter on a career of unpaid drudgery in the +household of her kinsman, and to lose the last shilling of her small +savings in the futile endeavour to sustain the fortunes of the general +dealer. His death, following very speedily upon his insolvency, left +the poor soul quite adrift; and in this extremity she had been fain to +make her appeal to Mr. Sheldon. His reply came in due course, but not +without upwards of a week's delay; during which time Nancy Woolper's +spirits sank very low, while a dreary vision of a living grave--called +a workhouse--loomed more and more darkly upon her poor old eyes. She +had well-nigh given up all hope of succour from her old master when the +letter came, and she was the more inclined to be grateful for very +small help after this interval of suspense. It was not without strong +emotion that Mrs. Woolper obeyed her old master's summons. She had +nursed the hard, cold man of the world whom she was going to see once +more, after ten years of severance; and though it was more difficult +for her to imagine that Philip Sheldon, the stockbroker, was the same +Philip she had carried in her stout arms, and hushed upon her breast +forty years ago, than it would have been to fancy the dead who had +lived in those days restored to life and walking by her side, still, +she could not forget that such things had been, and could not refrain +from looking at her master with more loving eyes because of that +memory. + +A strange dark cloud had arisen between her and her master's image +during the latter part of her service in Fitzgeorge-street; but, little +by little, the cloud had melted away, leaving the familiar image clear +and unshadowed as of old. She had suffered her mind to be filled by a +suspicion so monstrous, that for a time it held her as by some fatal +spell; but with reflection came the assurance that this thing could not +be. Day by day she saw the man whom she had suspected going about the +common business of life, coldly serene of aspect, untroubled of manner, +confronting fortune with his head erect, living quietly in the house +where he had been wont to live, haunted by no dismal shadows, subject +to no dark hours of remorse, no sudden access of despair, always +equable, business-like, and untroubled; and she told herself that such +a man could not be guilty of the unutterable horror she had imagined. + +For a year things had gone on thus, and then came the marriage with +Mrs. Halliday. Mr. Sheldon went down to Barlingford for the performance +of that interesting ceremony; and Nancy Woolper bade farewell to the +house in Fitzgeorge-street, and handed the key to the agent, who was to +deliver it in due course to Mr. Sheldon's successor. + +To-day, after a lapse of more than ten years, Mrs. Woolper sat in the +stockbroker's study, facing the scrutinising gaze of those bright black +eyes, which had been familiar to her of old, and which had lost none of +their cold glitter in the wear and tear of life. + +"Then you think you can be of some use in the house, as a kind of +overlooker of the other servants, eh, Nancy--to prevent waste, and +gadding out of doors, and so on?" said Mr. Sheldon, interrogatively. + +"Ay, sure, that I can, Mr. Philip," answered the old woman promptly; +"and if I don't save you more money than I cost you, the sooner you +turn me out o' doors the better. I know what London servants are, and I +know their ways; and if Miss Georgy doesn't take to the housekeeping, I +know as how things must be hugger-mugger-like below stairs, however +smart and tidy things may be above." + +"Mrs. Sheldon knows about as much of housekeeping as a baby," replied +Philip, with supreme contempt. "She'll not interfere with you; and if +you serve me faithfully--" + +"That I allers did, Mr. Philip." + +"Yes, yes; I daresay you did. But I want faithful service in the future +as well as in the past. Of course you know that I have a stepdaughter?" + +"Tom Halliday's little girl, as went to school at Scarborough." + +"The same. But poor Tom's little girl is now a fine young woman, and a +source of considerable anxiety to me. I am bound to say she is an +excellent girl--amiable, obedient, and all that kind of thing; but she +is a girl, and I freely confess that I am not learned in the ways of +girls; and I'm very much inclined to be afraid of them." + +"As how, sir?" + +"Well, you see, Nancy, they come home from school with their silly +heads full of romantic stuff, fit for nothing but to read novels and +strum upon the piano; and before you know where you are, they fall over +head and ears in love with the first decent-looking young man who pays +them a compliment. At least, that's my experience." + +"Meaning Miss Halliday, sir?" asked Nancy, simply. "Has she fallen in +love with some young chap?" + +"She has, and with a young chap who is not yet in a position to support +a wife. Now, if this girl were my own child, I should decidedly set my +face against this marriage; but as she is only my stepdaughter, I wash +my hands of all responsibility in the matter. 'Marry the man you have +chosen, my dear,' say I; 'all I ask is, that you don't marry him until +he can give you a comfortable home.' 'Very well, papa,' says my young +lady in her most dutiful manner, and 'Very well, sir,' says my young +gentleman; and they both declare themselves agreeable to any amount of +delay, provided the marriage comes off some time between this and +doomsday." + +"Well, sir?" asked Nancy, rather at a loss to understand why Philip +Sheldon, the closest and most reserved of men, should happen to be so +confidential to-day. + +"Well, Nancy, what I want to prevent is any underhand work. I know what +very limited notions of honour young men are apt to entertain nowadays, +and how intensely foolish a boarding-school miss can be on occasion. I +don't want these young people to run off to Gretna-green some fine +morning, or to steal a march upon me by getting married on the sly at +some out-of-the-way church, after having invested their united fortunes +in the purchase of a special license. In plain words, I distrust Miss +Halliday's lover, and I distrust Miss Halliday's common sense; and I +want to have a sensible, sharp-eyed person in the house always on the +look-out for any kind of danger, and able to protect my stepdaughter's +interests as well as my own." + +"But the young lady's mamma, sir--she would look after her daughter, I +suppose?" + +"Her mamma is foolishly indulgent, and about as capable of taking care +of her daughter as of sitting in Parliament. You remember pretty Georgy +Cradock, and you must know what she was--and what she is. Mrs. Sheldon +is the same woman as Georgy Cradock--a little older, and a little more +plump and rosy; but just as pretty, and just as useless." + +The interview was prolonged for some little time after this, and it +ended in a thorough understanding between Mr. Sheldon and his old +servant. Nancy Woolper was to re-enter that gentleman's service, and +over and above all ordinary duties, she was to undertake the duty of +keeping a close watch upon all the movements of Charlotte Halliday. In +plain words, she was to be a spy, a private detective, so far as this +young lady was concerned; but Mr. Sheldon was too wise to put his +requirements into plain words, knowing that even in the hour of her +extremity Nancy Woolper would have refused to fill such an office had +she clearly understood the measure of its infamy. + +Upon the day that followed his interview with Mrs. Woolper, the +stockbroker came home from the City an hour or two earlier than his +custom, and startled Miss Halliday by appearing in the garden where she +was walking alone, looking her brightest and prettiest in her dark +winter hat and jacket, and pacing briskly to and fro among the bare +frost-bound patches of earth that had once been flower-beds. + +"I wan't a few minutes' quiet talk with you, Lotta," said Mr. Sheldon. +"You'd better come into my study, where we're pretty sure not to be +interrupted." + +The girl blushed crimson as she acceded to this request, being assured +that Mr. Sheldon was going to discuss her matrimonial engagement. +Valentine had told her of that very satisfactory interview in the +dining-room, and from that time she had been trying to find an +opportunity for the acknowledgment of her stepfather's generosity. As +yet the occasion had not arisen. She did not know how to frame her +thanksgiving, and she shrank shyly from telling Mr. Sheldon how +grateful she was to him for the liberality of mind which had +distinguished his conduct in this affair. + +"I really ought to thank him," she said to herself more than once. "I +was quite prepared for his doing his uttermost to prevent my marriage +with Valentine; and instead of that, he volunteers his consent, and +even promises to give us a fortune. 'I am bound to thank him for such +generous kindness." + +Perhaps there is no task more difficult than to offer grateful tribute +to a person whom one has been apt to think of with a feeling very near +akin to dislike. Ever since her mother's second marriage Charlotte had +striven against an instinctive distaste for Mr. Sheldon's society, and +an innate distrust of Mr. Sheldon's affectionate regard for herself; +but now that he had proved his sincerity in this most important crisis +of her life, she awoke all at once to the sense of the wrong she had +done. + +"I am always reading the Sermon on the Mount, and yet in my thoughts +about Mr. Sheldon I have never been able to remember those words, +'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' His kindness touches me to the very +heart, and I feel it all the more keenly because of my injustice." + +She followed her stepfather into the prim little study. There was no +fire, and the room was colder than a vault on this bleak December day. +Charlotte shivered, and drew her jacket more tightly across her chest +as she perched herself on one of Mr. Sheldon's shining red morocco +chairs. "The room strikes cold," she said; "very, very cold." + +After this there was a brief pause, during which Mr. Sheldon took some +papers from the pocket of his overcoat, and arranged them on his desk +with an absent manner, as if he were rather deliberating upon what he +was going to say than thinking of what he was doing. While he loitered +thus Charlotte found courage to speak. + +"I wish to thank you, Mr. Sheldon--papa," she said, pronouncing the +"papa" with some slight appearance of effort, in spite of her desire to +be grateful: "I--I have been wishing to thank you for the last day or +two; only it seems so difficult sometimes to express one's self about +these things." + +"I do not deserve or wish for your thanks, my dear. I have only done my +duty." + +"But, indeed, you do deserve my thanks, and you have them in all +sincerity, papa. You have been very, very good to me--about--about +Valentine. I thought you would be sure to oppose our marriage on the +ground of imprudence, you know, and----" + +"I do oppose your marriage in the present on the ground of imprudence, +and I am only consentient to it in the future on the condition that Mr. +Hawkehurst shall have secured a comfortable income by his literary +labours. He seems to be clever, and he promises fairly----" + +"O yes indeed, dear papa," cried the girl, pleased by this meed of +praise for her lover; "he is more than clever. I am sure you would say +so if you had time to read his article on Madame de Sevigne in the +_Cheapside_." + +"I daresay it's very good, my dear; but I don't care for Madame de +Sevigne----" + +"Or his sketch of Bossuet's career in the _Charing Cross_." + +"My dear child, I do not even know who Bossuet was. All I require from +Mr. Hawkehurst is, that he shall earn a good income before he takes you +away from this house. You have been accustomed to a certain style of +living, and I cannot allow you to encounter a life of poverty." + +"But, dear papa, I am not in the least afraid of poverty." + +"I daresay not, my dear. You have never been poor," replied Mr. +Sheldon, coolly. "I don't suppose I am as much afraid of a rattlesnake +as the poor wretches who are accustomed to see one swinging by his tail +from the branch of a tree any day in the course of their travels. I +have only a vague idea that a cobra de capello is an unpleasant +customer; but depend upon it, those foreign fellows feel their blood +stagnate and turn to ice at sight of the cold slimy-looking monster. +Poverty and I travelled the same road once, and I know what the +gentleman is. I don't want to meet him again." Mr. Sheldon lapsed into +silence after this. His last words had been spoken to himself rather +than to Charlotte, and the thoughts that accompanied them seemed far +from pleasant to him. + +Charlotte sat opposite her stepfather, patiently awaiting his pleasure. +She looked at the gaudily-bound books behind the glass doors, and +wondered whether any one had ever opened any of the volumes. + +"I should like to read dear Sir Walter's stories once more," she +thought; "there never, never was so sweet a romance as the 'Bride of +Lammermoor,' and I cannot imagine that one could ever grow weary of +reading it. But to ask Mr. Sheldon for the key of that bookcase would +be quite impossible. I think his books must be copies of special +editions, not meant to be read. I wonder whether they are real books, +or only upholsterer's dummies?" + +And then her fancies went vagabondising off to that little archetype of +a cottage on the heights of Wimbledon-common, in which she and +Valentine were to live when they were married. She was always +furnishing and refurnishing this cottage, building it up and pulling it +down, as the caprice of the moment dictated. Now it had bow-windows and +white stuccoed walls--now it was Elizabethan--now the simplest, +quaintest, rose-embowered cottager's dwelling, with diamond-paned +casements, and deep thatch on the old gray roof. This afternoon she +amused herself by collecting a small library for Valentine, while +waiting Mr. Sheldon's next observation. He was to have all her +favourite books, of course; and they were to be bound in the prettiest, +most girlish bindings. She could see the dainty volumes, primly ranged +on the little carved oak bookcase, which Valentine was to "pick up" in +Wardour-street. She fancied herself walking down that mart of +bric-a-brac arm-in-arm with her lover, intent on "picking up." Ah, +what happiness! what dear delight in the thought! And O, of all the +bright dreams we dream, how few are realised upon this earth! Do they +find their fulfilment in heaven, those visions of perfect bliss? + +Mr. Sheldon looked up from his desk at last. Miss Halliday remarked to +herself that his face was pale and haggard in the chill wintry +sunlight; but she knew how hard and self-denying a life he led in his +stern devotion to business, and she was in no manner surprised to see +him looking ill. + +"I want to say a few words to you on a matter of business, Lotta," he +began, "and I must ask you to give me all your attention." + +"I will do so with pleasure, papa, but I am awfully stupid about +business." + +"I shall do my best to make matters simple. I suppose you know what +money your father left, including the sums his life had been insured +for?" + +"Yes, I have heard mamma say it was eighteen thousand pounds. I do so +hate the idea of those insurances. It seems like the price of a man's +life, doesn't it? I daresay that is a very unbusiness-like way of +considering the question, but I cannot bear to think that we got money +by dear papa's death." + +These remarks were too trivial for Mr. Sheldon's notice. He went on +with what he had to say in the cold hard voice that was familiar to his +clerks and to the buyers and sellers of shares and stock who had +dealings with him. + +"Your father left eighteen thousand pounds; that amount was left to +your mother without reservation. When she married me, without any +settlement, that money became mine, in point of law--mine to squander +or make away with as I pleased. You know that I have made good use of +that money, and that your mother has had no reason to repent her +confidence in my honour and honesty. The time has now come in which +that honour will be put to a sharper test. You have no legal claim on +so much as a shilling of your father's fortune." + +"I know that, Mr. Sheldon," cried Charlotte, eagerly, "and Valentine +knows also; and, believe me, I do not expect----" + +"I have to settle matters with my own conscience as well as with your +expectations, my dear Lotta," Mr. Sheldon said, solemnly. "Your father +left you unprovided for; but as a man of honour I feel myself bound to +take care that you shall not suffer by his want of caution. I have +therefore prepared a deed of gift, by which I transfer to you five +thousand pounds, now invested in Unitas Bank shares." + +"You are going to give me five thousand pounds!" cried Charlotte, +astounded. + +"Without reservation." + +"You mean to say that you will give me this fortune when I marry, +papa?" said Charlotte, interrogatively. + +"I shall give it to you immediately," replied Mr. Sheldon. "I wish you +to be thoroughly independent of me and my pleasure. You will then +understand, that if I insist upon the prudence of delay, I do so in +your interest and not in my own. I wish you to feel that if I am a +hindrance to your immediate marriage, it is not because I wish to delay +the disbursement of your dowry." + +"O, Mr. Sheldon, O, papa, you are more than generous--you are noble! It +is not that I care for the money. O, believe me, there is no one in the +world who could care less for that than I do. But your thoughtful +kindness, your generosity, touches me to the very heart. O, please let +me kiss you, just as if you were my own dear father come back to life +to protect and guide me. I have thought you cold and worldly. I have +done you so much wrong." + +She ran to him, and wound her arms about his neck before he could put +her off, and lifted up her pretty rosy mouth to his dry hot lips. Her +heart was overflowing with generous emotion, her face beamed with a +happy smile. She was so pleased to find her mother's husband better +than she had thought him. But, to her supreme astonishment, he thrust +her from him roughly, almost violently, and looking up at his face she +saw it darkened by a blacker shadow than she had ever seen upon it +before. Anger, terror, pain, remorse, she knew not what, but an +expression so horrible that she shrunk from him with a sense of alarm, +and went back to her chair, bewildered and trembling. + +"You frightened me, Mr. Sheldon," she said faintly. + +"Not more than you frightened me," answered the stockbroker, walking to +the window and taking his stand there, with his face hidden from +Charlotte. "I did not know there was so much feeling in me. For God's +sake, let us have no sentiment!" + +"Were you angry with me just now?" asked the girl, falteringly, utterly +at a loss to comprehend the change in her stepfather's manner. + +"No, I was not angry. I am not accustomed to these strong emotions," +replied Mr. Sheldon, huskily; "I cannot stand them. Pray let us avoid +all sentimental discussion. I am anxious to do my duty in a +straightforward, business-like way. I don't want gratitude--or fuss. +The five thousand pounds are yours, and I am pleased to find you +consider the amount sufficient. And now I have only one small favour to +ask of you in return." + +"I should be very ungrateful if I refused to do anything you may ask," +said Charlotte, who could not help feeling a little chilled and +disappointed by Mr. Sheldon's stony rejection of her gratitude. + +"The matter is very simple. You are young, and have, in the usual +course of things, a long life before you. But--you know there is always +a 'but' in these cases--a railway accident--a little carelessness in +passing your drawing-room fire some evening when you are dressed in +flimsy gauze or muslin--a fever--a cold--any one of the many dangers +that lie in wait for all of us, and our best calculations are +falsified. If you were to marry and die childless, that money would go +to your husband, and neither your mother nor I would ever touch a +sixpence of it, Now as the money, practically, belongs to your mother, +I consider that this contingency should be provided against--in her +interests as well as in mine. In plain words, I want you to make a will +leaving that money to me." + +"I am quite ready to do so," replied Charlotte. + +"Very good, my dear. I felt assured that you would take a sensible view +of the matter. If you marry your dear Mr. Hawkehurst, have a family +by-and-by, we will throw the old will into the fire and make a new one; +but in the mean time it's just as well to be on the safe side. You +shall go into the City with me to-morrow morning, and shall execute the +will at my office. It will be the simplest document possible--as simple +as the will made by old Serjeant Crane, in which he disposed of half a +million of money in half a dozen lines--at the rate of five thousand +pounds per word. After we've settled that little matter, we can arrange +the transfer of the shares. The whole affair won't occupy an hour." "I +will do whatever you wish," said Charlotte, meekly. She was not at all +elated by the idea of coming suddenly into possession of five thousand +pounds; but she was very much impressed by the new view of Mr. +Sheldon's character afforded her by his conduct of to-day. And then her +thoughts, constant to one point as the needle to the pole, reverted to +her lover, and she began to think of the effect her fortune might have +upon his prospects. He might go to the bar, he might work and study in +pleasant Temple chambers, with wide area windows overlooking the river, +and read law-books in the evening at the Wimbledon cottage for a few +delightful years, at the end of which he would of course become Lord +Chancellor. That he should devote such intellect and consecrate such +genius as his to the service of his country's law-courts, and _not_ +ultimately seat himself on the Woolsack, was a contingency not to be +imagined by Miss Halliday. Ah, what would not five thousand pounds buy +for him! The cottage expanded into a mansion, the little case of books +developed into a library second only to that of the Duc d'Aumale, a +noble steed waited at the glass door of the vestibule to convey Mr. +Hawkehurst to the Temple, before the minute-hand of Mr. Sheldon's stern +skeleton clock had passed from one figure to another: so great an adept +was this young lady in the art of castle-building. + +"Am I to tell mamma about this conversation?" asked Charlotte, +presently. + +"Well, no, I think not," replied Mr. Sheldon, thoughtfully. "These +family arrangements cannot be kept too quiet. Your mamma is a talking +person, you know, Charlotte; and as we don't want every one in this +part of Bayswater to know the precise amount of your fortune, we may as +well let matters rest as they are. Of course you would not wish Mr. +Hawkehurst to be enlightened?" + +"Why not, papa?" + +"For several reasons. First and foremost, it must be pleasant to you to +be sure that he is thoroughly disinterested I have told him that you +will get something as a gift from me; but he may have implied that the +something would be little more than a couple of hundreds to furnish a +house. Secondly, it must be remembered, that he has been brought up in +a bad school, and the best way to make him self-reliant and industrious +is to let him think he has nothing but his own industry to depend upon. +I have set him a task. When he has accomplished that, he shall have you +and your five thousand pounds to boot. Till then I should strongly +advise you to keep this business a secret. + +"Yes," answered Charlotte, meditatively; "I think you are right. It +would have been very nice to tell him of your kindness; but I want to +be quite sure that he loves me for myself alone--from first to last-- +without one thought of money." + +"That is wise," said Mr. Sheldon, decisively; and thus ended the +interview. + +Charlotte accompanied her stepfather to the city early next morning, +and filled in the blanks in a lithographed form, prepared for the +convenience of such testators as, being about to dispose of their +property, do not care to employ the services of a legal adviser. + +The will seemed to Charlotte the simplest possible affair. She +bequeathed all her property, real and personal, to Philip Sheldon, +without reserve. But as her entire fortune consisted of the five +thousand pounds just given her by that gentleman, and as her personal +property was comprised in a few pretty dresses and trinkets, and desks +and workboxes, she could not very well object to such an arrangement. + +"Of course, mamma would have all my books and caskets, and boxes and +things," she said thoughtfully; "and I should like Diana Paget to have +some of my jewellery, please, Mr. Sheldon. Mamma has plenty, you know." + +"There is no occasion, to talk of that, Charlotte," replied the +stockbroker. "This will is only a matter of form." + +Mr. Sheldon omitted to inform his stepdaughter that the instrument just +executed would, upon her wedding-day, become so much waste paper, an +omission that was not in harmony with the practical and careful habits +of that gentleman. + +"Yes, I know that it is only a form," replied Charlotte; "but, after +making a will, one feels as if one was going to die. At least I do. It +seems a kind of preparation for death. I don't wonder people rather +dislike doing it. + +"It is only foolish people who dislike doing it," said Mr. Sheldon, who +was in his most practical mood to-day. "And now we will go and arrange +a more agreeable business--the transfer of the shares." + +After this, there was a little commercial juggling, in the form of +signing and countersigning, which, was quite beyond Charlotte's +comprehension: which operation being completed, she was told that she +was owner of five thousand pounds in Unitas Bank shares, and that the +dividends accruing from time to time on those shares would be hers to +dispose of as she pleased. + +"The income arising from your capital will be more than you can spend +so long as you remain under my roof," said Mr. Sheldon. "I should +therefore strongly recommend you to invest your dividends as they +arise, and thus increase your capital." + +"You are so kind and thoughtful," murmured Charlotte; "I shall always +be pleased to take your advice." She was strongly impressed by the +kindness of the man her thoughts had wronged. + +"How difficult it is to understand these reserved, matter-of-fact +people!" she said to herself. Because my stepfather does not talk +sentiment, I have fancied him hard and worldly; and yet he has proved +himself as capable of doing a noble action as if he were the most +poetical of mankind. + +Mrs. Sheldon had been told that Charlotte was going into the City to +choose a new watch, wherewith to replace the ill-used little Geneva toy +that had been her delight as a schoolgirl; and as Charlotte brought +home a neat little English-made chronometer from a renowned emporium on +Ludgate-hill, the simple matron accepted this explanation in all good +faith. + +"I'm sure, Lotta, you must confess your stepfather is kindness itself +in most matters," said Georgy, after an admiring examination of the new +watch. "When I think how kindly he has taken this business about Mr. +Hawkehurst, and how disinterested he has proved himself in his ideas +about your marriage, I really am inclined to think him the best of +men." + +Georgy said this with an air of triumph. She could not forget that +there were people in Barlingford who had said hard things about Philip +Sheldon, and had prophesied unutterable miseries for herself and her +daughter as the bitter consequence of the imprudence she had been +guilty of in her second marriage. + +"He has indeed been very good, mamma," Charlotte replied gravely, "and, +believe me, I am truly grateful. He does not like fuss or sentiment; +but I hope he knows that I appreciate his kindness." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +RIDING THE HIGH HORSE. + + +Never, in his brightest dreams, had Valentine Hawkehurst imagined the +stream of life so fair and sunny a river as it seemed to him now. +Fortune had treated him so scurvily for seven-and-twenty years of his +life, only to relent of a sudden and fling all her choicest gifts into +his lap. + +"I must be the prince in the fairy tale who begins life as a revolting +animal of the rhinoceros family, and ends by marrying the prettiest +princess in Elfindom," he said to himself gaily, is he paced the broad +walks of Kensington-gardens, where the bare trees swung their big black +branches in the wintry blast, and the rooks cawed their loudest at +close of the brief day. + +What, indeed, could this young adventurer demand from benignant Fortune +above and beyond the blessings she had given, him? The favoured suitor +of the fairest and brightest woman he had ever looked upon, received by +her kindred, admitted to her presence, and only bidden to serve a due +apprenticeship before he claimed her as his own for ever. What more +could he wish? what further boon could he implore from the Fates? + +Yes, there was one thing more--one thing for which Mr. Hawkehurst +pined, while most thankful for his many blessings. He wanted a decent +excuse for separating himself most completely from Horatio Paget. He +wanted to shake himself free from all the associations of his previous +existence. He wanted to pass through the waters of Jordan, and to +emerge purified, regenerate, leaving his garments on the furthermost +side of the river; and, with all other things appertaining to the past, +he would fain have rid himself of Captain Paget. + +"'Be sure your sin will find you out,'" mused the young man; "and +having found you, be sure that it will stick to you like a leech, if +your sin takes the shape of an unprincipled acquaintance, as it does in +my case. I may try my hardest to cut the past, but will Horatio Paget +let me alone in the future? I doubt it. The bent of that man's genius +shows itself in his faculty for living upon other people. He knows that +I am beginning to earn money regularly, and has begun to borrow of me +already. When I can earn more, he will want to borrow more; and +although it is very sweet to work for Charlotte Halliday, it would not +be by any means agreeable to slave for my friend Paget. Shall I offer +him a pound a week, and ask him to retire into the depths of Wales or +Cornwall, amend his ways, and live the life of a repentant hermit? I +think I could bring myself to sacrifice the weekly sovereign, if there +were any hope that Horatio Paget could cease to be--Horatio Paget, on +this side the grave. No, I have the misfortune to be intimately +acquainted with the gentleman. When he is in the swim, as he calls it, +and is earning money on his own account, he will give himself cosy +little dinners and four-and-sixpenny primrose gloves; and when he is +down on his luck, he will come whining to me." + +This was by no means a pleasant idea to Mr. Hawkehurst. In the old days +he had been distinguished by all the Bohemian's recklessness, and even +more than the Bohemian's generosity in his dealings with friend or +companion. But now all was changed. He was no longer reckless. A +certain result was demanded from him as the price of Charlotte +Halliday's hand, and he set himself to accomplish his allotted task +with all due forethought and earnestness of purpose. He had need even +to exercise restraint over himself, lest, in his eagerness, he should +do too much, and so lay himself prostrate from the ill effects of +overwork; so anxious was he to push on upon the road whose goal was so +fair a temple, so light seemed that labour of love which was performed +for the sake of Charlotte. + +He communed with himself very often on the subject of that troublesome +question about Captain Paget. How was he to sever his frail skiff from +that rakish privateer? What excuse could he find for renouncing his +share in the Omega-street lodgings, and setting up a new home +elsewhere? + +"Policy might prompt me to keep my worthy friend under my eye," he said +to himself, "in order that I may be sure there is no underhand work +going on between him and Philip Sheldon. But I can scarcely believe +that Philip Sheldon has any inkling about the Haygarthian fortune. If +he had, he would surely not receive me as Charlotte's suitor. What +possible motive could he have for doing so?" + +This was a question which Mr. Hawkehurst had frequently put to himself; +for his confidence in Mr. Sheldon was not of that kind which asks no +questions. Even while most anxious to believe in that gentleman's +honesty of purpose, he was troubled by occasional twinges of unbelief. + +During the period which had elapsed since his return from Yorkshire, he +had been able to discover nothing of any sinister import from the +proceedings of Captain Paget. That gentleman appeared to be still +engaged upon the promoting business, although by no means so profitably +as heretofore. He went into the City every day, and came home in the +evening toilworn and out of spirits. He talked freely of his +occupation--how he had done much or done nothing, during the day; and +Valentine was at a loss to perceive any further ground for the +suspicion that had arisen in his mind after the meeting at the Ullerton +station, and the shuffling of the sanctimonious Goodge with regard to +Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters. + +Mr. Hawkehurst therefore determined upon boldly cutting the knot that +tied him to the familiar companion of his wanderings. + +"I am tired of watching and suspecting," he said to himself. "If my +dear love has a right to this fortune, it will surely come to her; or +if it should never come, we can live very happily without it. Indeed, +for my own part, I am inclined to believe that I should be prouder and +happier as the husband of a dowerless wife, than as prince-consort to +the heiress of the Haygarths. We have built up such a dear, cheery, +unpretentious home for ourselves in our talk of the future, that I +doubt if we should care to change it for the stateliest mansion in +Kensington Palace-gardens or Belgrave-square. My darling could not be +my housekeeper, and make lemon cheese-cakes in her own pretty little +kitchen, if we lived in Belgrave-square; and how could she stand at one +of those great Birmingham ironwork gates in the Palace-gardens to watch +me ride away to my work?" + +To a man as deeply in love as Mr. Hawkehurst, the sordid dross which +other people prize so highly is apt to become daily more indifferent; a +kind of colour-blindness comes over the vision of the true lover, and +the glittering yellow ore seems only so much vulgar earth, too mean a +thing to be regarded by any but the mean of soul. Thus it was that Mr. +Hawkehurst relaxed his suspicion of Captain Paget, and neglected his +patron and ally of Gray's Inn, much to the annoyance of that gentleman, +who tormented the young man with little notes demanding interviews. + +These interviews had of late been far from agreeable to either of the +allies. George Sheldon urged the necessity of an immediate marriage; +Valentine declined to act in an underhand manner, after the +stockbroker's unexpected generosity. + +"Generosity!" echoed George Sheldon, when Valentine had given him this +point-blank refusal at the close of a stormy argument. "Generosity! My +brother Phil's generosity! Egad, that is about the best thing I've +heard for the last ten years. If I pleased, Mr. Valentine Hawkehurst, I +could tell you something about my brother which would enable you to +estimate his generosity at its true value. But I don't please; and if +you choose to run counter to me and my interests, you must pay the +price of your folly. You may think yourself uncommonly lucky if the +price isn't a stiff one." + +"I am prepared to abide by my decision," answered Valentine. "Miss +Halliday without a shilling is so dear to me, that I don't care to +commit a dishonourable action in order to secure my share of the +fortune she may claim. I turned over a new leaf on the day when I first +knew myself possessed of her affection. I don't want to go back to the +old leaves." + +George Sheldon gave himself an impatient shrug. "I have heard of a +great many fools," he said, "but I never heard of a fool who would play +fast-and-loose with a hundred thousand pounds, and until to-day I +couldn't have believed there was such an animal." + +Mr. Hawkehurst did not deign to notice this remark. + +"Do be reasonable, Sheldon," he said. "You ask me to do what my sense +of right will not permit me to do, and you ask me that which I fully +believe to be impossible. I cannot for a moment imagine that any +persuasion of mine would induce Charlotte to consent to a secret +marriage, after your brother's fair and liberal conduct." + +"Of course not," cried George, with savage impatience; "that's my +brother Phil all over. He is so honourable, so plain and +straightforward in all his dealings, that he would get the best of +Lucifer himself in a bargain. I tell you, Hawkehurst, you don't know +how deep he is--as deep as the bottomless pit, by Jove! His very +generosity makes me all the more afraid of him. I don't understand his +game. If he consented to your marriage in order to get rid of +Charlotte, he would let you marry her off-hand; but instead of doing +that, he makes conditions which must delay your marriage for years. +There is the point that bothers me." + +"You had better pursue your own course, without reference to me or my +marriage with Miss Halliday," said Valentine. + +"That is exactly what I must do. I can't leave the Haygarth estate to +the mercy of Tom, Dick, and Harry, while you try to earn thirty pounds +a month by scribbling for the magazines. I must make my bargain with +Philip instead of with you, and I can tell you that you'll be the loser +by the transaction." + +"I don't quite see that." + +"Perhaps not. You see, you don't quite understand my brother Phil. If +this money gets into his hands, be sure some of it will stick to them." + +"Why should the money get into his hand?" + +"Because, so long as Charlotte Halliday is under his roof, she is, to a +certain extent, under his authority. And then, I tell you again, there +is no calculating the depth of that man. He has thrown dust in your +eyes already. He will make that poor girl believe him the most +disinterested of mankind." + +"You can warn her." + +"Yes; as I have warned you. To what purpose? You are inclined to +believe in Phil rather than to believe in me, and you will be so +inclined to the end of the chapter. You remember that man Palmer, at +Rugely, who used to go to church, and take the sacrament?" + +"Yes; of course I remember that case. What of him?" + +"Why, people believed in him, you know, and thought him a jolly good +fellow, up to the time when they discovered that he had poisoned a few +of his friends in a quiet gentlemanly way." + +Mr. Hawkehurst smiled at the irrelevance of this remark. He could not +perceive the connection of ideas between Palmer the Rugely poisoner, +and Philip Sheldon the stockbroker. + +"That was an extreme case," he said. + +"Yes; of course that was an extreme case," answered George, carelessly. +"Only it goes far to prove that a man may be gifted with a remarkable +genius for throwing dust in the eyes of his fellow-creatures." + +There was no further disputation between the lawyer and Valentine. +George Sheldon began to understand that a secret marriage was not to be +accomplished in the present position of affairs. + +"I am half inclined to suspect that Phil knows something about that +money," he said presently, "and is playing some artful game of his +own." + +"In that case your better policy would be to take the initiative," +answered Valentine. + +"I have no other course." + +"And will Charlotte know--will she know that I have been concerned in +this business?" asked Valentine, growing very pale all of sudden. He +was thinking how mean he must appear in Miss Halliday's eyes, if she +came to understand that he had known her to be John Haygarth's heiress +at the time he won from her the sweet confession of her love. "Will she +ever believe how pure and true my love has been, if she comes to know +this?" he asked himself despairingly, while George Sheldon deliberated +in silence for a few moments. + +"She need know nothing until the business comes to a head," replied +George at last. "You see, there may be no resistance on the part of the +Crown lawyers; and, in that case, Miss Halliday will get her rights +after a moderate amount of delay. But if they choose to dispute her +claim, it will be quite another thing--Halliday _versus_ the Queen, and +so on--with no end of swell Q.O.'s against us. In the latter case +you'll have to put all your adventures at Ullerton and Huxter's Cross +into an affidavit, and Miss H. must know everything." + +"Yes; and then she will think--ah, no; I do not believe she can +misunderstand me, come what may." + +"All doubt and difficulty might be avoided if you would manage a +marriage on the quiet off-hand," said George. "I tell you again that I +cannot do that; and that, even if it were possible, I would not attempt +it." + +"So be it. You elect to ride the high horse; take care that magnificent +animal doesn't give you an ugly tumble." + +"I can take my chance." + +"And I must take my chance against that brother of mine. The winning +cards are all in my own hand this time, and it will be uncommonly hard +if he gets the best of me." + +On this the two gentlemen parted. Valentine went to look at a +bachelor's lodging in the neighbourhood of the Edgeware-road, which he +had seen advertised in that morning's Times; and George Sheldon started +for Bayswater, where he was always sure of a dinner and a liberal +allowance of good wine from the hospitality of his prosperous kinsman. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MR. SHELDON IS PRUDENT. + + +Valentine found the apartments near the Edgeware-road in every manner +eligible. The situation was midway between his reading-room in Great +Russell-street and the abode of his delight--a half-way house on the +road between business and pleasure. The terms were very moderate, the +rooms airy and pleasant; so he engaged them forthwith, his tenancy to +commence at the end of the following week; and having settled this +matter, he went back to Omega-street, bent on dissolving partnership +with the Captain in a civil but decided manner. + +A surprise, and a very agreeable one, awaited him at Chelsea. He found +the sitting-room strewn with Captain Paget's personal property, and the +Captain on his knees before a portmanteau, packing. + +"You're just in time to give me a hand, Val," he said in his most +agreeable manner. "I begin to find out my age when I put my poor old +bones into abnormal attitudes. I daresay packing a trunk or two will be +only child's-play to you." + +"I'll pack half a dozen trunks if you like," replied Valentine. "But +what is the meaning of this sudden move? I did not know you were going +to leave town." + +"Neither did I when you and I breakfasted together. I got an unexpected +offer of a very decent position abroad this morning; a kind of agency, +that will be much better than the hand-to-mouth business I've been +doing lately." + +"What kind of agency, and where?" + +"Well, so far as I can make out at present, it is something in the +steam navigation way. My head-quarters will be at Rouen." "Rouen! Well, +it's a pleasant lively old city enough, and as mediaeval as one of Sir +Walter's novels, provided they haven't Haussmanised it by this time. I +am very glad to hear you have secured a comfortable berth." + +"And I am not sorry to leave England, Yal," answered the Captain, in +rather a mournful tone. + +"Why not?" + +"Because I think it's time you and I parted company. Our association +begins to be rather disadvantageous to you, Val. We've had our ups and +downs together, and we've got on very pleasantly, take it for all in +all. But now that you're settling down as a literary man, engaged to +that young woman, hand-in-glove with Philip Sheldon, and so on, I think +it's time for me to take myself off. I'm not wanted; and sooner or +later I should begin to feel myself in the way." + +The Captain grew quite pathetic as he said this; and little pangs of +remorse shot through Valentine's heart as he remembered how eager he +had been to rid himself of this Old Man of the Mountain. And here was +the poor old creature offering to take himself out of the way of his +own accord. + +Influenced by this touch of remorse, Mr. Hawkehurst held out his hand, +and grasped that of his comrade and patron. + +"I hope you may do well, in some--comfortable kind of business," he +said heartily. That adjective "comfortable" was a hasty substitute for +the adjective "honest," which had been almost on his lips as he uttered +his friendly wish. He was too well disposed to all the world not to +feel profound pity for this white-headed old man, who for so many years +had eaten the bread of rogues and scoundrels. + +"Come," he cried cheerily, "I'll take all the packing off your hands, +Captain; and we'll eat our last dinner and drink our last bottle of +sparkling together at my expense, at any place you please to name." + +"Say Blanchard's," replied Horatio Paget. "I like a corner-window, +looking out upon the glare and bustle of Regent-street. It reminds one +just a little of the Maison Doree and the boulevard. We'll drink +Charlotte Halliday's health, Val, in bumpers. She's a charming young +person, and I only wish she were an heiress, for your sake." + +The eyes of the two men met as the Captain said this; and there was a +twinkle in the cold gray orbs of that gentleman which had a very +unpleasant effect upon Valentine. + +"What treachery is he engaged in now?" he asked himself. "I know that +look in my Horatio's eyes; and I know it always means mischief." + +George Sheldon made his appearance at the Lawn five minutes after his +brother came home from the City. He entered the domestic circle in his +usual free-and-easy manner, knowing himself to be endured, rather than +liked, by the two ladies, and to be only tolerated as a necessary evil +by the master of the house. + +"I've dropped in to eat a chop with you, Phil," he said, "in order to +get an hour's comfortable talk after dinner. There's no saying half a +dozen consecutive words to you in the City, where your clerks seem to +spend their lives in bouncing in upon you when you don't want them." + +There was very little talk during dinner. Charlotte and her stepfather +were thoughtful. Diana was chiefly employed in listening to the _sotto +voce_ inanities of Mrs. Sheldon, for whom the girl showed herself +admirably patient. Her forbearance and gentleness towards Georgy +constituted a kind of penitential sacrifice, by which she hoped to +atone for the dark thoughts and bitter feelings that possessed her mind +during those miserable hours in which she was obliged to witness the +happiness of Charlotte and her lover. + +George Sheldon devoted himself chiefly to his dinner and a certain dry +sherry, which he particularly affected. He was a man who would have +dined and enjoyed himself at the table of Judas Iscariot, knowing the +banquet to be provided out of the thirty pieces of silver. + +"That's as good a pheasant as I ever ate, Phil," he said, after winding +up with the second leg of the bird in question. "No, Georgy; no +macaroni, thanks. I don't care about kickshaws after a good dinner. Has +Hawkehurst dined with you lately, by the way, Phil?" + +Charlotte blushed red as the holly-berries that decorated the +chandelier. It was Christmas-eve, and her own fair hands had helped to +bedeck the rooms with festal garlands of evergreen and holly. + +"He dines with us to-morrow," replied the stockbroker. "You'll come, I +suppose, as usual, George?" + +"Well, I shall be very glad, if I'm not in the way." + +Mrs. Sheldon murmured some conventional protestation of the unfailing +delight afforded to her by George's society. + +"Of course we're always glad to see you," said Philip in his most +genial manner; "and now, if you've anything to say to me about +business, the sooner you begin the better.--You and the girls needn't +stay for dessert, Georgy. Almonds and raisins can't be much of a +novelty to you; and as none of you take any wine, there's not much to +stop for. George and I will come in to tea." + +The ladies departed, by no means sorry to return to their Berlin-wool +and piano. Diana took up her work with that saintly patience with which +she performed all the duties of her position; and Charlotte seated +herself before the piano, and began to play little bits of waltzes, and +odds and ends of polkas, in a dreamy mood, and with a slurring over of +dominant bass notes, which would have been torture to a musician's ear. + +She was wondering whether Valentine would call that evening, +Christmas-eve--a sort of occasion for congratulation of some kind from +her lover, she fancied. It was the first Christmas-eve on which she had +been "engaged." She looked back to the same period last year, and +remembered herself sitting in that very room strumming on that very +piano, and unconscious that there was such a creature as Valentine +Hawkehurst upon this earth. And, strange to say, even in that benighted +state, she had been tolerably happy. + +"Now, George," said Mr. Sheldon, when the brothers had filled their +glasses and planted their chairs on the opposite sides of the +hearth-rug, "what's the nature of this business that you want to talk +about?" + +"Well, it is a business of considerable importance, in which you are +only indirectly concerned. The actual principal in the affair is your +stepdaughter, Miss Halliday." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes. You know how you have always ridiculed my fancy for hunting up +heirs-at-law and all that kind of thing, and you know how I have held +on, hoping against hope, starting on a new scent when the old scent +failed, and so on." + +"And you have got a chance at last, eh?" + +"I believe that I have, and a tolerably good one; and I think you will +own that it is rather extraordinary that my first lucky hit should +bring luck your way." + +"That is to say, to my stepdaughter?" remarked Mr. Sheldon, without any +appearance of astonishment. + +"Precisely," said George, somewhat disconcerted by his brother's +coolness. "I have lately discovered that Miss Halliday is entitled to a +certain sum of money, and I pledge myself to put her in possession of +that money--on one condition." + +"And that is--" + +"That she executes a deed promising to give me half of the amount she +may recover by my agency." + +"Suppose she can recover it without your agency?" + +"That I defy her to do. She does not even know that she has any claim +to the amount in question." + +"Don't be too sure of that. Or even supposing she knows nothing, do you +think her friends are as ignorant as she is? Do you think me such a +very bad man of business as to remain all this time unaware of the fact +that my stepdaughter, Charlotte Halliday, is next of kin to the Rev. +John Haygarth, who died intestate, at Tilford Haven, in Kent, about a +year ago?" + +This was a cannon-shot that almost knocked George Sheldon off his +chair; but after that first movement of surprise, he gave a sigh, or +almost a groan, expressive of resignation. + +"Egad, Phil Sheldon," he said, "I ought not to be astonished at this. +Knowing you as well as I do, I must have been a confounded fool not to +expect some kind of underhand work from you." + +"What do you mean by underhand work?" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon. "The same +newspapers that were open to you were open to me, and I had better +opportunities for tracking my stepdaughter's direct descent from John +Haygarth's father." + +"How did you discover Miss Halliday's descent from Matthew Haygarth?" +asked George, very meekly. He was quite crestfallen. He began to feel +that his brother would have the upper hand of him in this business as +in all other business of this world. + +"That is my secret," replied Mr. Sheldon, with agreeable tranquillity +of manner. "You have kept your secrets, and I shall keep mine. Your +policy has been the policy of distrust. Mine shall be the same. When +you were starting this affair, I offered to go into it with you--to +advance whatever money you needed, in a friendly manner. You declined +my offer, and chose to go in for the business on your own hook. You +have made a very good thing for yourself, no doubt; but you are not +quite clever enough to keep me altogether in the dark in a matter which +concerns a member of my own family." + +"Yes," said George, with a sigh, "that's where you hold the winning +cards. Miss Halliday is your ace of trumps." + +"Depend upon it, I shall know how to hold my strength in reserve, and +when to play my leading trump." + +"And how to collar my king," muttered George between his set teeth. + +"Come," exclaimed Philip presently, "we may as well discuss this matter +in a friendly spirit. What do you mean to propose?" + +"I have only one proposition to make," answered the lawyer, with +decision. "I hold every link of the chain of evidence, without which +Miss Halliday might as well be a native of the Fiji islands for any +claim she can assert to John Haygarth's estate. I am prepared to carry +this matter through; but I will only do it on the condition that I +receive half the fortune recovered from the Crown by Miss Halliday." + +"A very moderate demand, upon my word!" + +"I daresay I shall be able to make my bargain with Miss Halliday." +"Very likely," replied Mr. Sheldon; "and I shall be able to get that +bargain set aside as illegal." + +"I doubt that. I have a deed of agreement drawn up here which would +hold water in any court of equity." + +And hereupon Mr. Sheldon the younger produced and read aloud one of +those dry as dust documents by which the legal business of life is +carried on. It was a deed to be executed by Charlotte Halliday, +spinster, of Bayswater, on the one part, and George Sheldon, solicitor, +of Gray's Inn, on the other part; and it gave to the said George +Sheldon, as securely as any deed can give anything, one half of any +property, not now in her possession or control, which the said +Charlotte Halliday might obtain by the agency of the above-mentioned +George Sheldon. + +"And pray, who is to find the costs for this business?" asked the +stockbroker. "I don't feel by any means disposed to stake my money on +such a hazardous game. Who knows what other descendants of Matthew +Haygarth may be playing at hide-and-seek in the remotest corners of the +earth, ready to spring out upon us when we've wasted a small fortune +upon law-proceedings." + +"I shan't ask you to risk your money," replied George, with sullen +dignity. "I have friends who will back me when they see that agreement +executed." + +"Very well, then, all you have to do is to alter your half share to +one-fifth, and I will undertake that Miss Halliday shall sign the +agreement before the week is out." + +"One-fifth?" + +"Yes, my dear George. Twenty thousand pounds will pay you very +handsomely for your trouble. I cannot consent to Miss Halliday ceding +more than a fifth." + +"A fig for your consent! The girl is of age, and can act upon her own +hook. I shall go to Miss Halliday herself," exclaimed the indignant +lawyer. + +"O no, you won't. You must know the danger of running counter to me in +this business. That agreement is all very well; but there is no kind of +document more easy to upset if one only goes about it in the right way. +Play your own game, and I will upset that agreement, as surely as I +turn this wine-glass bowl downwards." + +Mr. Sheldon's action and Mr. Sheldon's look expressed a determination +which George knew how to estimate by the light of past experience. + +"It is a hard thing to find you against me, after the manner in which I +have toiled and slaved for your stepdaughter's interests." + +"I am bound to hold my stepdaughter's interests paramount over every +consideration." "Yes, paramount over brotherly feeling and all that +sort of thing. I say that it is more than hard that you should be +against me, considering the special circumstances and the manner in +which I have kept my own counsel----" + +"You will take a fifth share, or nothing, George," said Mr. Sheldon, +with a threatening contraction of his black brows. + +"If I have any difficulty in arranging matters with you, I will go into +this affair myself, and carry it through without your help." + +"That I defy you to do." + +"You had better not defy me." + +"Pray how much do you expect to get out of Miss Halliday's fortune?" +demanded the aggravated George. + +"That is my business," answered Philip. "And now we had better go into +the drawing-room for our tea. O, by the bye, George," he added, +carelessly, "as Miss Halliday is quite a child in all business matters, +she had better be treated like a child. I shall tell her that she has a +claim to a certain sum of money; but I shall not tell her what sum. Her +disappointment will be less in the event of a failure, if her +expectations are not large." + +"You are always so considerate, my dear Phil," said George, with a +malignant grin. "May I ask how it is you have taken it into your head +to play the benevolent father in the matter of Valentine Hawkehurst and +Miss Halliday ?" + +"What can it signify to me whom my stepdaughter marries?" asked Philip, +coolly. "Of course I wish her well; but I will not have the +responsibility of controlling her choice. If this young man suits her, +let her marry him." + +"Especially when he happens to suit _you_ so remarkably well. I think I +can understand your tactics, Phil." + +"You must understand or misunderstand me, just as you please. And now +come to tea." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHRISTMAS PEACE. + + +Valentine Hawkehurst did not make his appearance at the Lawn on +Christmas-eve. He devoted that evening to the service of his old ally. +He performed all friendly offices for the departing Captain, dined with +him very pleasantly in Regent-street, and accompanied him to the +London-bridge terminus, where he beheld the voyager comfortably seated +in a second-class carriage of the night-train for Newhaven. + +Mr. Hawkehurst had seen the Captain take a through ticket for Rouen, +and he saw the train leave the terminus. This he held to be ocular +demonstration of the fact that Captain Paget was really going to the +Gallic Manchester. + +"That sort of customer is so uncommonly slippery," the young man said +to himself as he left the station; "nothing but the evidence of my own +eyes would have convinced me of my friend's departure. How pure and +fresh the London atmosphere seems now that the perfume of Horatio Paget +is out of it! I wonder what he is going to do at Rouen? Very little +good, I daresay. But why should I wonder about him, or trouble myself +about him? He is gone, and I have set myself free from the trammels of +the past." + + * * * * * + +The next day was Christmas-day. Mr. Hawkehurst recited scraps of +Milton's glorious hymn as he made his morning toilet. He was very +happy. It was the first Christmas morning on which he had ever awakened +with this sense of supreme happiness, or with the consciousness that +the day was brighter, or grander, or more holy than other days. It +seemed to him to-day, more than ever, that he was indeed a regenerate +creature, purified by the influence of a good woman's love. + +He looked back at his past existence, and the vision of many +Christmas-days arose before him: a Christmas in Paris, amidst +unutterable rain and mud; a Christmas-night spent in roaming the +Boulevards, and in the consumption of cognac and tobacco at a +third-rate cafe; a Christmas in Germany; more than one Christmas in +the Queen's Bench; one especially dreary Christmas in a long bare ward +at Whitecross-street,--how many varied scenes and changing faces arose +before his mental vision associated with that festive time! And yet +among them all there was not one on which there shone the faintest +glimmer of that holy light which makes the common holiday a sacred +season. + +It was a pleasant thing to breakfast without the society of the +brilliant Horatio, whose brilliancy was apt to appear somewhat ghastly +at that early period of the morning. It was pleasant to loiter over the +meal, now meditating on the happy future, now dipping into a tattered +copy of Southey's "Doctor;" with the consciousness that the winds and +waves had by this time wafted Captain Paget to a foreign land. + +Valentine was to spend the whole of Christmas-day with Charlotte and +her kindred. He was to accompany them to a fashionable church in the +morning, to walk with them after church, to dine and tell ghost-stories +in the evening. It was to be his first day as a recognised member of +that pleasant family at Bayswater; and in the fulness of his heart he +felt affectionately disposed to all his adopted relations; even to Mr. +Sheldon, whose very noble conduct had impressed him strongly, in spite +of the bitter sneers and covert slanders of George. Charlotte had told +her lover that her stepfather was a very generous and disinterested +person, and that there was a secret which she would have been glad to +tell him, had she not been pledged to hold it inviolate, that would +have gone far to place Mr. Sheldon in a very exalted light before the +eyes of his future son-in-law. + +And then Miss Halliday had nodded and smiled, and had informed her +lover, with a joyous little laugh, that he should have a horse to ride, +and an edition of Grote's "Greece" bound in dark-brown calf with +bevelled edges, when they were married; this work being one which the +young author had of late languished to possess. + +"Dear foolish Lotta, I fear there will be a new history of Greece, +based on new theories, before that time comes," said the lover. + +"O no, indeed; that time will come very soon. See how industriously you +work, and how well you succeed. The magazine people will soon give you +thirty pounds a month. Or who knows that you may not write some book +that will make you suddenly famous, like Byron, or the good-natured fat +little printer who wrote those long, long, long novels that no one +reads nowadays?" + +Influenced by Charlotte's hints about her stepfather, Mr. Hawkehurst's +friendly feeling for that gentleman grew stronger, and the sneers and +innuendoes of the lawyer ceased to have the smallest power over him. + +"The man is such a thorough-going schemer himself, that he cannot bring +himself to believe in another man's honesty," thought Mr. Hawkehurst, +while meditating upon his experience of the two brothers. "So far as I +have had any dealings with Philip Sheldon, I have found him +straightforward enough. I can imagine no hidden motive for his conduct +in relation to Charlotte. The test of his honesty will be the manner in +which he is acted upon by Charlotte's position as claimant of a great +fortune. Will he throw me overboard, I wonder? or will my dear one +believe me an adventurer and fortune-hunter? Ah, no, no, no; I do not +think in all the complications of life there could come about a state +of events which would cause my Charlotte to doubt me. There is no +clairvoyance so unerring as true love." + +Mr. Hawkehurst had need of such philosophy as this to sustain him in +the present crisis of his life. He was blest with a pure delight which +excelled his wildest dreams of happiness; but he was not blest with any +sense of security as to the endurance of that exalted state of bliss. + +Mr. Sheldon would learn Charlotte's position, would doubtless extort +from his brother the history of those researches in which Valentine had +been engaged; and then, what then? Alas! hereupon arose incalculable +dangers and perplexities. + +Might not the stockbroker, as a man of the world, take a sordid view of +the whole transaction, and consider Valentine in the light of a +shameless adventurer, who had traded on his secret knowledge in the +hope of securing a rich wife? Might he not reveal all to Charlotte, and +attempt to place her lover before her in this most odious aspect? She +would not believe him base; her faith would be unshaken, her love +unchanged; but it was odious, it was horrible, to think that her ears +should be sullied, her tender heart fluttered, by the mere suggestion +of such baseness. + +It was during the Christmas-morning sermon that Mr. Hawkehurst +permitted his mind to be disturbed by these reflections. He was sitting +next his betrothed, and had the pleasure of contemplating her fair +girlish face, with the rosy lips half parted in reverent attention as +she looked upward to her pastor. After church there was the walk home +to the Lawn: and during this rapturous promenade Valentine put away +from him all shadow of doubt and fear, in order to bask in the full +sunshine of his Charlotte's presence. Her pretty gloved hand rested +confidingly on his arm, and the supreme privilege of carrying a dainty +blue-silk umbrella and an ivory-bound church-service was awarded him. +With what pride he accepted the duty of convoying his promised wife +over the muddy crossings! Those brief journeys seemed to him in a +manner typical of their future lives. She was to travel dry-shod over +the miry ways of this world, supported by his strong arm. How fondly he +surveyed her toilet! and what a sudden interest he felt in the +fashions, that had until lately seemed so vulgar and frivolous! + +"I will never denounce the absurdity of those little bonnets again, +Lotta," he cried; "that conglomeration of black velvet and +maiden's-hair fern is divine. Do you know that in some places they call +that fern Maria's hair, and hold it sacred to the mother of Him who was +born to-day? so you see there is an artistic fitness in your head-dress. +Yes, your bonnet is delicious, darling; and though the diminutive size +of that velvet jacket would lead me to suppose you had borrowed it from +some juvenile sister, it seems the very garment of all garments best +calculated to render you just one hair's-breadth nearer perfection than +you were made by Nature." + +"Valentine, don't be ridiculous!" giggled the young lady. + +"How can I help being ridiculous? Your presence acts upon my nerves +like laughing-gas. Ah, you do not know what cares and perplexities I +have to make me serious. Charlotte," exclaimed the young man, with +sudden energy, "do you think you could ever come to distrust me?" + +"Valentine! Do I think I shall ever be Queen of England? One thing is +quite as likely as the other." + +"My dear angel, if you will only believe in me always, there is no +power upon earth that can make us unhappy. Suppose you found yourself +suddenly possessed of a great fortune, Charlotte; what would you do +with it?" + +"I would buy you a library as good as that in the British Museum; and +then you would not want to spend the whole of your existence in Great +Russell-street." + +"But if you had a great fortune, Lotta, don't you think you would be +very much disposed to leave me to plod on at my desk in Great +Russell-street? Possessed of wealth, you would begin to languish for +position; and you would allow Mr. Sheldon to bring you some suitor who +could give you a name and a rank in society worthy of an angelic +creature with a hundred thousand pounds or so." + +"I should do nothing of the kind. I do not care for money. Indeed, I +should be almost sorry to be very rich." + +"Why, dearest?" + +"Because, if I were very rich, we could not live in the cottage at +Wimbledon, and I could not make lemon cheese-cakes for your dinner." + +"My own true-hearted darling!" cried Valentine; "the taint of +worldliness can never touch your pure spirit." + +They were at the gates of Mr. Sheldon's domain by this time. Diana and +Georgy had walked behind the lovers, and had talked a little about the +sermon, and a good deal about the bonnets; poor Diana doing her very +uttermost to feign an interest in the finery that had attracted Mrs. +Sheldon's wandering gaze. + +"Well, I should have thought you couldn't fail to see it," said the +elder lady, as they approached the gate; "a leghorn, very small, with +holly-berries and black ribbon--quite French, you know, and _so_ +stylish. I was thinking, if I had my Tuscan cleaned and altered, it +might----" And here the conversation became general, as the family +party entered the drawing-room, where Mr. Sheldon was reading his paper +by a roaring fire. + +"Talking about the bonnets, as per usual," said the stockbroker. "What +an enormous amount of spiritual benefit you women must derive from +church-going!--Consols have fallen another eighth since Tuesday +afternoon, George," added Mr. Sheldon, addressing himself to his +brother, who was standing on the hearth-rug, with his elbow on the +chimney-piece. + +"Consols are your 'bonnets,' papa," cried Charlotte, gaily; "I don't +think there is a day upon which you do not talk about their having gone +up, or gone down, or gone somewhere." + +After luncheon the lovers went for a walk in Kensington-gardens, with +Diana Paget to play propriety. "You will come with us, won't you, dear +Di?" pleaded Charlotte. "You have been looking pale and ill lately, +and I am sure a walk will do you good." + +Valentine seconded his liege lady's request; and the three spent a +couple of hours pacing briskly to and fro in the lonelier parts of the +gardens, leaving the broad walks for the cockneys, who mustered strong +upon this seasonable Christmas afternoon. + +For two out of those three that wintry walk was rapture only too +fleeting. For the third it was passive endurance. The agonies that had +but lately rent Diana's breast when she had seen those two together no +longer tortured her. The scorpion sting was beginning to lose its +venomous power. She suffered still, but her suffering was softened by +resignation. There is a limit to the capacity for pain in every mind. +Diana had borne her share of grief; she had, in Homeric phrase, +satiated herself with anguish and tears; and to those sharp throes and +bitter torments there had succeeded a passive sense of sorrow that was +almost peace. + +"I have lost him," she said to herself. "Life can never bring me much +joy; but I should be worse than weak if I spent my existence in the +indulgence of my sorrow. I should be one of the vilest wretches upon +this earth if I could not teach myself to witness the happiness of my +friend without repining." + +Miss Paget had not arrived at this frame of mind without severe +struggles. Many times, in the long wakeful nights, in the slow, joyless +days, she had said to herself, "Peace, peace, when there was no peace." +But at last the real peace, the true balm of Gilead, was given in +answer to her prayers, and the weary soul tasted the sweetness of +repose. She had wrestled with, and had vanquished, the demon. + +To-day, as she walked beside the lovers, and listened to their happy +frivolous talk, she felt like a mother who had seen the man she loved +won from her by her own daughter, and who had resigned herself to the +ruin of all her hopes for love of her child. + +There was more genial laughter and pleasant converse at Mr. Sheldon's +dinner-table that evening than was usual at that hospitable board; +but the stockbroker himself contributed little to the merriment of the +party. He was quiet, and even thoughtful, and let the talk and laughter +go by him without any attempt to take part in it. After dinner he went +to his own room; while Valentine and the ladies sat round the fire in +the orthodox Christmas manner, and after a good deal of discursive +conversation, subsided into the telling of ghost-stories. + +George Sheldon sat apart from the circle, turning over the books upon +the table, or peering into a stereoscope with an evident sense of +weariness. This kind of domestic evening was a manner of life which Mr. +Sheldon of Gray's Inn denounced as "slow;" and he submitted himself to +the endurance of it this evening only because he did not know where +else to bestow his presence. + +"I don't think papa cares much about ghost-stories, does he, uncle +George?" Charlotte asked, by way of saying something to the gentleman, +who seemed so very dreary as he sat yawning over the books and +stereoscopes. + +"I don't suppose he does, my dear." + +"And do you think he believes in ghosts?" the young lady demanded, +laughingly. + +"No, I am sure he doesn't," replied George, very seriously. + +"Why, how seriously you say that!" cried Charlotte, a little startled +by George Sheldon's manner, in which there had been an earnestness not +quite warranted by the occasion. + +"I was thinking of your father--not my brother Phil. He died in +Philip's house, you know; and if Phil believed in ghosts, he would +scarcely have liked living in that house afterwards, you see, and so +on. But he went on living there for a twelvemonth longer. It seemed +just as good as any other house to him, I suppose." + +Hereupon Georgy dissolved into tears, and told the company how she had +fled, heartbroken, from the house in which her first husband had died, +immediately after the funeral. + +"And I'm sure the gentlemanly manner in which your step-papa behaved +during all that dreadful time, Charlotte, is beyond all praise," +continued the lady, turning to her daughter; "so thoughtful, so kind, +so patient. What I should have done if poor Tom's illness had happened +in a strange house, I don't know. And I have no doubt that the new +doctor, Mr. Burkham, did his duty, though his manner was not as decided +as I should have wished." + +"Mr. Burkham!" cried Valentine. "What Burkham is that? We've a member +of the Ragamuffins called Burkham, a surgeon, who does a little in the +literary line." + +"The Mr. Burkham who attended my poor dear husband was a very young +man," answered Georgy; "a fair man, with a fresh colour and a +hesitating manner. I should have been so much better satisfied if he +had been older." + +"That is the man," said Valentine. "The Burkham I know is +fresh-coloured and fair, and cannot be much over thirty." + +"Are you and he particularly intimate?" asked George Sheldon, +carelessly. + +"O dear no, not at all. We speak to each other when we happen to meet-- +that's all. He seems a nice fellow enough; and he evidently hasn't much +practice, or he couldn't afford to be a Ragamuffin, and to write +farces. He looks to me exactly the kind of modest deserving man who +ought to succeed, and who so seldom does." + +This was all that was said about Mr. Burkham; but there was no more +talk of ghost-stories, and a temporary depression fell upon the little +assembly. The memory of her father had always a saddening influence on +Charlotte; and it needed many tender _sotto-voce_ speeches from +Valentine to bring back the smiles to her fair young face. + +The big electro-plated tea-tray and massive silver teapot made their +appearance presently, and immediately after came Mr. Sheldon. + +"I want to have a little talk with you after tea, Hawkehurst," he said, +as he took his own cup from Georgy's hand, and proceeded to imbibe the +beverage standing. "If you will come out into the garden and have a +cigar, I can say all I have to say in a very few minutes; and then we +can come in here for a rubber. Georgy is a very decent player; and my +brother George plays as good a hand at whist as any man at the +Conservative or the Reform." + +Valentine's heart sank within him. What could Mr. Sheldon want with a +few minutes' talk, if not to revoke his gracious permission of some +days before--the permission that had been accorded in ignorance of +Charlotte's pecuniary advantages? The young man looked very pale as he +went to smoke his cigar in Mr. Sheldon's garden. Charlotte followed him +with anxious eyes, and wondered at the sudden gravity of his manner. +George Sheldon also was puzzled by his brother's desire for a +tete-a-tete. + +"What new move is Phil going to make?" he asked himself. The two men +lit their cigars, and got them well under weigh before Mr. Sheldon +began to talk. + +"When I gave my consent to receive you as Miss Halliday's suitor, my +dear Hawkehurst," he said, at last, "I told you that I was acting as +very few men of the world would act, and I only told you the truth. +Since giving you that consent I have made a very startling discovery, +and one that places me in quite a new position in regard to this +matter." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes, Mr. Hawkehurst, I have become aware of the fact that Miss +Halliday, the girl whom I thought entirely dependent upon my +generosity, is heir-at-law to a large fortune. You will, of course, +perceive how entirely this alters the position of affairs." + +"I do perceive," Valentine answered earnestly; "but I trust you will +believe that I had not the faintest idea of Miss Halliday's position +when I asked her to be my wife. As to my love for her, I can scarcely +tell you when that began; but I think it must have dated from the first +hour in which I saw her, for I can remember no period at which I did +_not_ love her." + +"If I did not believe you superior to any mercenary motives, you would +not have been under my roof to-day, Mr. Hawkehurst," said the +stockbroker, with extreme gravity. "The discovery of my stepdaughter's +position gives me no pleasure. Her claim to this wealth only increases +my responsibility with regard to her, and responsibility is what I +would willingly avoid. After all due deliberation, therefore, I have +decided that this discovery need make no alteration in your position as +Charlotte's future husband. If you were worthy of her when she was +without a fortune, you are not less worthy now." + +"Mr. Sheldon," cried Valentine, with considerable emotion, "I did not +expect so much generosity at your hands!" + +"No," replied the stockbroker, "the popular idea of a business man is +not particularly agreeable. I do not, however, pretend to anything like +generosity; I wish to take a common-sense view of the affair, but not +an illiberal one." + +"You have shown so much generosity of feeling, that I can no longer +sail under false colours," said Valentine, after a brief pause. "Until +a day or two ago I was bound to secrecy by a promise made to your +brother. But his communication of Miss Halliday's rights to you sets me +at liberty, and I must tell you that which may possibly cause you to +withdraw your confidence." + +Hereupon Mr. Hawkehurst revealed his share in the researches that had +resulted in the discovery of Miss Halliday's claim to a large fortune. +He entered into no details. He told Mr. Sheldon only that he had been +the chief instrument in the bringing about of this important discovery. + +"I can only repeat what I said just now," he added, in conclusion. "I +have loved Charlotte Halliday from the beginning of our acquaintance, +and I declared myself some days before I discovered her position. I +trust this confession will in nowise alter your estimate of me." + +"It would be a poor return for your candour if I were to doubt your +voluntary statement, Hawkehurst," answered the stockbroker. "No; I +shall not withdraw my confidence. And if your researches should +ultimately lead to the advancement of my stepdaughter, there will be +only poetical justice in your profiting more or less by that +advancement. In the mean tune we cannot take matters too quietly. I am +not a sanguine person, and I know how many hearts have been broken by +the High Court of Chancery. This grand discovery of yours may result in +nothing but disappointment and waste of money, or it may end as +pleasantly as my brother and you seem to expect. All I ask is, that +poor Charlotte's innocent heart may not be tortured by a small lifetime +of suspense. Let her be told nothing that can create hope in the +present or disappointment in the future. She appears to be perfectly +happy in her present position, and it would be worse than folly to +disturb her by vague expectations that may never be realised. She will +have to make affidavits, and so on, by-and-by, I daresay; and when that +time comes she must be told there is some kind of suit pending in which +she is concerned. But she need not be told how nearly that suit +concerns her, or the extent of her alleged claim. You see, my dear sir, +I have seen so much of this sort of thing, and the misery involved in +it, that I may be forgiven if I am cautious." + +This was putting the whole affair in a new light. Until this moment +Valentine had fancied that, the chain of evidence once established, +Charlotte's claim had only to be asserted in order to place her in +immediate possession of the Haygarth estate. But Mr. Sheldon's cool and +matter-of-fact discussion of the subject implied all manner of doubt +and difficulty, and the Haygarthian thousands seemed carried away to +the most remote and shadowy regions of Chanceryland, as by the waves of +some legal ocean. + +"And you really think it would be better not to tell Charlotte?" + +"I am sure of it. If you wish to preserve her from all manner of worry +and annoyance, you will take care to keep her in the dark until the +affair is settled--supposing it ever should be settled. I have known +such an affair to outlast the person interested." + +"You take a very despondent view of the matter." + +"I take a practical view of it. My brother George is a monomaniac on +the next-of-kin subject." + +"I cannot quite reconcile myself to the idea of concealing the truth +from Charlotte." + +"That is because you do not know the world as well as I do," answered +Mr. Sheldon, coolly. + +"I cannot imagine that the idea of this claim would have any disturbing +influence upon her," Valentine argued, thoughtfully. "She is the last +person in the world to care about money." + +"Perhaps so. But there is a kind of intoxication in the idea of a large +fortune--an intoxication that no woman of Charlotte's age could stand +against. Tell her that she has a claim to considerable wealth, and from +that moment she will count upon the possession of that wealth, and +shape all her plans for the future upon that basis. 'When I get my +fortune, I will do this, that, and the other.' _That_ is what she will +be continually saying to herself; and by-and-by, when the affair +results in failure, as it very likely will, there will remain a sense +of disappointment which will last for a lifetime, and go far to +embitter all the ordinary pleasures of her existence." + +"I am inclined to think you are right," said Valentine, after some +little deliberation. "My darling girl is perfectly happy as it is. It +may be wisest to tell her nothing." + +"I am quite sure of that," replied Mr. Sheldon. "Of course her being +enlightened or not can be in no way material to me. It is a subject +upon which I can afford to be entirely disinterested." + +"I will take your advice, Mr. Sheldon." + +"So be it. In that case matters will remain _in statu quo_. You will be +received in this house as my stepdaughter's future husband, and it is +an understood thing that your marriage is not to take place without due +consultation, with me. I am to have a voice in the business." + +"Most decidedly. It is only right that you should be deferred to." + +This brought the interview to a close very pleasantly. The gentlemen +went back to the house, and Valentine found himself presently seated at +a whist-table with the brothers Sheldon, and Georgy, who played very +well, in a feeble kind of way, holding religiously by all the precepts +of Hoyle, and in evident fear of her husband and brother-in-law. +Charlotte and Diana played duets while the whist progressed, with +orthodox silence and solemnity on the part of the four players. +Valentine's eyes wandered very often to the piano, and he was in nowise +sorry when the termination of a conquering rubber set him at liberty. +He contrived to secure a brief _tete-a-tete_ with Charlotte while he +helped her in the arrangement of the books on the music-stand, and then +the shrill chime of the clock on the mantelpiece, and an audible yawn +from Philip Sheldon, told him that he must go. + +"Providence has been very good to us," he said, in an undertone, as he +bade Miss Halliday good night. "Your stepfather's conduct is all that +is kind and thoughtful, and there is not a cloud upon our future. Good +night, and God bless you, my dearest! I think I shall always consider +this my first Christmas-day. I never knew till to-day how sweet and +holy this anniversary can be." + +He walked to Cumberland-gate in company with George Sheldon, who +preserved a sulky gravity, which was by no means agreeable. + +"You have chosen your own course," he said at parting, "and I only hope +the result may prove your wisdom. But, as I think I may have remarked +before, you don't know my brother Phil as well as I do." "Your brother +has behaved with such extreme candour and good feeling towards me, that +I would really rather not hear any of your unpleasant innuendoes +against him. I hate that 'I could an if I would' style of talk, and +while I occupy my present position in your brother's house I cannot +consent to hear anything to his discredit." + +"That's a very tall animal you've taken to riding lately, my friend +Hawkehurst," said George, "and when a man rides the high horse with me +I always let him have the benefit of his _monture_. You have served +yourself without consideration for me, and I shall not trouble myself +in the future with any regard for you or your interests. But if harm +ever comes to you or yours, through my brother Philip, remember that I +warned you. Good night." + + * * * * * + +In Charlotte's room the cheery little fire burned late upon that frosty +night, while the girl sat in her dressing-gown dreamily brushing her +soft brown hair, and meditating upon the superhuman merits and graces +in her lover. + +It was more than an hour after the family had retired, when there came +a cautious tapping at Charlotte's door. "It is only I, dear," said a +low voice; and before Charlotte could answer, the door was opened, and +Diana came in, and went straight to the hearth, by which her friend was +sitting. + +"I am so wakeful to-night, Lotta," she said; "and the light under your +door tempted me to come in for a few minutes' chat." + +"My dearest Di, you know how glad I always am to see you." + +"Yes, dear, I know that you are only too good to me--and I have been so +wayward, so ungracious. O, Charlotte, I know my coldness has wounded +you during the last few months." + +"I have been just a little hurt now and then, dear, when you have +seemed not to care for me, or to sympathise with me in all my joys and +sorrows; but then it has been selfish of me to expect so much sympathy, +and I know that, if your manner is cold, your heart is noble." + +"No, Lotta, it is not noble. It is a wicked heart." + +"Diana!" + +"Yes," said Miss Paget, kneeling by her friend's chair, and speaking +with suppressed energy; "it has been a wicked heart--wicked because +your happiness has been torture to it." + +"Diana!" + +"O, my dearest one, do not look at me with those innocent, wondering +eyes. You will hate me, perhaps, when you know all. O, no, no, no, you +will not hate--you will pity and forgive me. I loved him, dear; he was +my companion, my only friend; and there was a time--long ago--before he +had ever seen your face, when I fancied that he cared for me, and would +get to love me--as I loved him--unasked, uncared for. O, Charlotte, you +can never know what I have suffered. It is not in your nature to +comprehend what such a woman as I can suffer. I loved him so dearly, I +clung so wickedly, so madly to my old hopes, my old dreams, long after +they had become the falsest hopes, the wildest dreams that ever had +power over a distracted mind. But, my darling, it is past, and I come +to you on this Christmas night to tell you that I have conquered my +stubborn heart, and that from this time forward there shall be no cloud +between you and me." + +"Diana, my dear friend, my poor girl!" cried Charlotte, quite overcome, +"you loved him, you--as well as I--and I have robbed you of his heart!" + +"No, Charlotte, it was never mine." + +"You loved him--all the time you spoke so harshly of him!" + +"When I seemed most harsh, I loved him most. But do not look at me with +such distress in your sweet face, my dear. I tell you that the worst +pain is past and gone. The rest is very easy to bear, and to outlive. +These things do not last for ever, Charlotte, whatever the poets and +novelists may tell us. If I had not lived through the worst, I should +not be here to-night, with your arm round my neck and his name upon my +lips. I have never wished you joy until to-night, Charlotte, and now +for the first time I can wish you all good things, in honesty and +truth. I have conquered myself. I do not say that to me Valentine +Hawkehurst can ever be quite what other men are. I think that to the +end of my life there will be a look in his face, a tone of his voice, +that will touch me more deeply than any other look or tone upon earth; +but my love for you has overcome my love for him, and there is no +hidden thought in my mind to-night, as I sit here at your feet, and +pray for God's blessing on your choice." + +"My darling Diana, I know not how to thank you, how to express my faith +and my love." + +"I doubt if I am worthy of your love, dear; but, with God's help, I +will be worthy of your trust; and if ever there should come a day in +which my love can succour or my devotion serve you, there shall be no +lack of either. Listen, dear; there are the waits playing the sweet +Christmas hymn. Do you remember what Shakespeare says about the 'bird +of dawning' singing all night long, and how no evil spirit roams abroad +at this dear season,-- + + 'So hallowed and so gracious is the time?' + +"I have conquered my evil spirit, Lotta, and there shall be peace and +true love between us for evermore, shall there not, dearest friend?" + +And thus ends the story of Diana Paget's girlish love--the love that +had grown up in secret, to be put away from her heart in silence, and +buried with the dead dreams and fancies that had fostered it. For her +to-night the romance of life closed for ever. For Charlotte the sweet +story was newly begun, and the opening chapters were very pleasant--the +mystic volume seemed all delight. Blessed with her lover's devotion, +her mother's approval, and even Mr. Sheldon's benign approbation, what +more could she ask from Providence--what lurking dangers could she +fear--what storm-cloud could she perceive upon the sunlit heavens? + +There was a cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, but the harbinger of +tempest and terror. It yet remains to be shown what form that cloud +assumed, and from what quarter the tempest came. The history of +Charlotte Halliday has grown upon the writer; and the completion of +that history, with the fate of John Haygarth's fortune, will be found +under the title of, CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE. + + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds of Prey, by M.E. Braddon + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS OF PREY *** + +This file should be named 7prey10.txt or 7prey10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7prey11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7prey10a.txt + +Produced by J. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Birds of Prey + +Author: M.E. Braddon + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9362] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 24, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS OF PREY *** + + + + +Produced by J. Ingram, G. Smith, T. Riikonen, +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +BIRDS OF PREY + +BY + +M.E. BRADDON + + + +[Illustration: "Be good enough to take me straight to her," +said the Captain, "I am her father."] + + + + +CONTENTS: + +Book the First. + +FATAL FRIENDSHIP. + +I. THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY +II. PHILIP SHELDON READS THE "LANCET" +III. MR. AND MRS. HALLIDAY +IV. A PERPLEXING ILLNESS +V. THE LETTER FROM THE "ALLIANCE" OFFICE +VI. MR. BURKHAM'S UNCERTAINTIES + +Book the Second. + +THE TWO MACAIRES. + + I. A GOLDEN TEMPLE + II. THE EASY DESCENT + III. "HEART BARE, HEART HUNGRY, VERY POOR" + +Book the Third. + +HEAPING UP RICHES. + + I. A FORTUNATE MARRIAGE + II. CHARLOTTE + III. GEORGE SHELDON'S PROSPECTS + IV. DIANA FINDS A NEW HOME + V. AT THE LAWN + VI. THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN + VII. AUNT SARAH +VIII. CHARLOTTE PROPHESIES RAIN + IX. MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH + +Book the Fourth. + +VALENTINE HAWKEHURST'S RECORD. + + I. THE OLDEST INHABITANT + II. MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE + III. MR. GOODGE'S WISDOM + +Book the Fifth. + +RELICS OF THE DEAD. + + I. BETRAYED BY A BLOTTING-PAD + II. VALENTINE INVOKES THE PHANTOMS OF THE PAST + III. HUNTING THE JUDSONS + IV. GLIMPSES OF A BYGONE LIFE + +Book the Sixth. + +THE HEIRESS OF THE HAYGARTHS. + + I. DISAPPOINTMENT + II. VALENTINE'S RECORD CONTINUED + III. ARCADIA + IV. IN PARADISE + V. TOO FAIR TO LAST + VI. FOUND IN THE BIBLE + +Book the Seventh. + +CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT. + + I. "IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG" + II. MRS. SHELDON ACCEPTS HER DESTINY + III. MR. HAWKEHURST AND MR. GEORGE SHELDON COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING + IV. MR. SHELDON IS PROPITIOUS + V. MR. SHELDON IS BENEVOLENT + VI. RIDING THE HIGH HORSE + VII. MR. SHELDON IS PRUDENT +VIII. CHRISTMAS PEACE + + + +BIRDS OF PREY + + +BOOK THE FIRST. + +FATAL FRIENDSHIP. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY. + + +"What about?" There are some houses whereof the outward aspect is +sealed with the seal of respectability--houses which inspire confidence +in the minds of the most sceptical of butchers and bakers--houses at +whose area-gates the tradesman delivers his goods undoubtingly, and +from whose spotless door-steps the vagabond children of the +neighbourhood recoil as from a shrine too sacred for their gambols. + +Such a house made its presence obvious, some years ago, in one of +the smaller streets of that west-central region which lies between +Holborn and St. Pancras Church. It is perhaps the nature of +ultra-respectability to be disagreeably conspicuous. The unsullied +brightness of No. 14 Fitzgeorge-street was a standing reproach to every +other house in the dingy thorough-fare. That one spot of cleanliness +made the surrounding dirt cruelly palpable. The muslin curtains in the +parlour windows of No. 15 would not have appeared of such a smoky yellow +if the curtains of No. 14 had not been of such a pharisaical whiteness. +Mrs. Magson, at No. 13, was a humble letter of lodgings, always more or +less in arrear with the demands of quarter-day; and it seemed a hard +thing that her door-steps, whereon were expended much labour and +hearthstone--not to mention house-flannel, which was in itself no +unimportant item in the annual expenses--should be always thrown in the +shade by the surpassing purity of the steps before No. 14. + +Not satisfied with being the very pink and pattern of respectability, +the objectionable house even aspired to a kind of prettiness. It was as +bright, and pleasant, and rural of aspect as any house within earshot +of the roar and rattle of Holborn can be. There were flowers in the +windows; gaudy scarlet geraniums, which seemed to enjoy an immunity +from all the ills to which geraniums are subject, so impossible was it +to discover a faded leaf amongst their greenness, or the presence of +blight amidst their wealth of blossom. There were birdcages within the +shadow of the muslin curtains, and the colouring of the newly-pointed +brickwork was agreeably relieved by the vivid green of Venetian blinds. +The freshly-varnished street-door bore a brass-plate, on which to look +was to be dazzled; and the effect produced by this combination of white +door-step, scarlet geranium, green blind, and brass-plate was +obtrusively brilliant. + +Those who had been so privileged as to behold the interior of the house +in Fitzgeorge-street brought away with them a sense of admiration that +was the next thing to envy. The pink and pattern of propriety within, +as it was the pink and pattern of propriety without, it excited in +every breast alike a wondering awe, as of a habitation tenanted by some +mysterious being, infinitely superior to the common order of +householders. + +The inscription on the brass-plate informed the neighbourhood that No. +14 was occupied by Mr. Sheldon, surgeon-dentist; and the dwellers in +Fitzgeorge-street amused themselves in their leisure hours by +speculative discussions upon the character and pursuits, belongings and +surroundings, of this gentleman. + +Of course he was eminently respectable. On that question no +Fitzgeorgian had ever hazarded a doubt. A householder with such a +door-step and such muslin curtains could not be other than the most +correct of mankind; for, if there is any external evidence by which a +dissolute life or an ill-regulated mind will infallibly betray itself, +that evidence is to be found in the yellowness and limpness of muslin +window-curtains. The eyes are the windows of the soul, says the poet; +but if a man's eyes are not open to your inspection, the windows of his +house will help you to discover his character as an individual, and his +solidity as a citizen. At least such was the opinion cherished in +Fitzgeorge-street, Russell-square. + +The person and habits of Mr. Sheldon were in perfect harmony with the +aspect of the house. The unsullied snow of the door-step reproduced +itself in the unsullied snow of his shirt-front; the brilliancy of the +brass-plate was reflected in the glittering brightness of his gold-studs; +the varnish on the door was equalled by the lustrous surface of his +black-satin waistcoat; the careful pointing of the brickwork was in a +manner imitated by the perfect order of his polished finger-nails and +the irreproachable neatness of his hair and whiskers. No dentist or +medical practitioner of any denomination had inhabited the house in +Fitzgeorge-street before the coming of Philip Sheldon. The house had +been unoccupied for upwards of a year, and was in the last stage of +shabbiness and decay, when the bills disappeared all at once from the +windows, and busy painters and bricklayers set their ladders against +the dingy brickwork. Mr. Sheldon took the house on a long lease, and +spent two or three hundred pounds in the embellishment of it. Upon the +completion of all repairs and decorations, two great waggon-loads of +furniture, distinguished by that old fashioned clumsiness which is +eminently suggestive of respectability, arrived from the Euston-square +terminus, while a young man of meditative aspect might have been seen +on his knees, now in one empty chamber, anon in another, performing +some species of indoor surveying, with a three-foot rule, a loose little +oblong memorandum-book, and the merest stump of a square lead-pencil. +This was an emissary from the carpet warehouse; and before nightfall it +was known to more than on inhabitant in Fitzgeorge-street that the +stranger was going to lay down new carpets. The new-comer was evidently +of an active and energetic temperament, for within three days of his +arrival the brass-plate on his street-door announced his profession, +while a neat little glass-case, on a level with the eye of the passing +pedestrian, exhibited specimens of his skill in mechanical dentistry, +and afforded instruction and amusement to the boys of the neighbourhood, +who criticised the glistening white teeth and impossibly red gums, +displayed behind the plate-glass, with a like vigour and freedom of +language. Nor did Mr. Sheldon's announcement of his profession confine +itself to the brass-plate and the glass-case. A shabby-genteel young +man pervaded the neighbourhood for some days after the surgeon-dentist's +advent, knocking a postman's knock, which only lacked the galvanic +sharpness of the professional touch, and delivering neatly-printed +circulars to the effect that Mr. Sheldon, surgeon-dentist, of 14 +Fitzgeorge-street, had invented some novel method of adjusting false +teeth, incomparably superior to any existing method, and that he had, +further, patented an improvement on nature in the way of coral gums, +the name whereof was an unpronounceable compound of Greek and Latin, +calculated to awaken an awful reverence in the unprofessional and +unclassical mind. + +The Fitzgeorgians shook their heads with prophetic solemnity as they +read these circulars. Struggling householders, who find it a hard task +to keep the two ends which never have met and never will meet from +growing farther and farther asunder every year, are apt to derive a +dreary kind of satisfaction from the contemplation of another man's +impending ruin. Fitzgeorge-street and its neighbourhood had existed +without the services of a dentist, but it was very doubtful that a +dentist would be able to exist on the custom to be obtained in +Fitzgeorge-street. Mr. Sheldon may, perhaps, have pitched his tent +under the impression that wherever there was mankind there was likely +to be toothache, and that the healer of an ill so common to frail +humanity could scarcely fail to earn his bread, let him establish his +abode of horror where he might. For some time after his arrival people +watched him and wondered about him, and regarded him a little +suspiciously, in spite of the substantial clumsiness of his furniture +and the unwinking brightness of his windows. His neighbours asked one +another how long all that outward semblance of prosperity would last; +and there was sinister meaning in the question. + +The Fitzgeorgians were not a little surprised, and were perhaps just a +little disappointed, on finding that the newly-established dentist did +manage to hold his ground somehow or other, and that the muslin +curtains were renewed again and again in all their spotless purity; +that the supplies of rotten-stone and oil, hearthstone and house-flannel, +were unfailing as a perennial spring; and that the unsullied snow of Mr. +Sheldon's shirt-fronts retained its primeval whiteness. Wonderland +suspicion gave place to a half-envious respect. Whether much custom +came to the dentist no one could decide. There is no trade or +profession in which the struggling man will not receive some faint show +of encouragement. Pedestrians of agonised aspect, with handkerchiefs +held convulsively before their mouths, were seen to rush wildly towards +the dentist's door, then pause for a moment, stricken by a sudden +terror, and anon feebly pull the handle of an inflexible bell. Cabs had +been heard to approach that fatal door--generally on wet days; for +there seems to be a kind of fitness in the choice of damp and dismal +weather for the extraction of teeth. Elderly ladies and gentlemen had +been known to come many times to the Fitzgeorgian mansion. There was a +legend of an old lady who had been seen to arrive in a brougham, +especially weird and nut-crackery of aspect, and to depart half an hour +afterwards a beautified and renovated creature. One half of the +Fitzgeorgians declared that Mr. Sheldon had established a very nice +little practice, and was saving money; while the other half were still +despondent, and opined that the dentist had private property, and was +eating up his little capital. It transpired in course of time that Mr. +Sheldon had left his native town of Little Barlingford, in Yorkshire, +where his father and grandfather had been surgeon-dentists before him, +to establish himself in London. He had disposed advantageously of an +excellent practice, and had transferred his household goods--the +ponderous chairs and tables, the wood whereof had deepened and mellowed +in tint under the indefatigable hand of his grandmother--to the +metropolis, speculating on the chance that his talents and appearance, +address and industry, could scarcely fail to achieve a position. It +was further known that he had a brother, an attorney in Gray's Inn, +who visited him very frequently; that he had few other friends or +acquaintance; that he was a shining example of steadiness and sobriety; +that he was on the sunnier side of thirty, a bachelor, and very +good-looking; and that his household was comprised of a grim-visaged +active old woman imported from Barlingford, a girl who ran errands, and +a boy who opened the door, attended to the consulting-room, and did some +mysterious work at odd times with a file and sundry queer lumps of +plaster-of-paris, beeswax, and bone, in a dark little shed abutting on +the yard at the back of the house. This much had the inhabitants of +Fitzgeorge-street discovered respecting Mr. Sheldon when he had been +amongst them four years; but they had discovered no more. He had made +no local acquaintances, nor had he sought to make any. Those of his +neighbours who had seen the interior of his house had entered it as +patients. They left it as much pleased with Mr. Sheldon as one can be +with a man at whose hands one has just undergone martyrdom, and +circulated a very flattering report of the dentist's agreeable +manners and delicate white handkerchief, fragrant with the odour of +eau-de-Cologne. For the rest, Philip Sheldon lived his own life, and +dreamed his own dreams. His opposite neighbours, who watched him on +sultry summer evenings as he lounged near an open window smoking his +cigar, had no more knowledge of his thoughts and fancies than they +might have had if he had been a Calmuck Tartar or an Abyssinian chief. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +PHILIP SHELDON READS THE "LANCET." + + +Fitzgeorge-street was chill and dreary of aspect, under a gray March +sky, when Mr. Sheldon returned to it after a week's absence from +London. He had been to Little Barlingford, and had spent his brief +holiday among old friends and acquaintance. The weather had not been in +favour of that driving hither and thither in dog-carts, or riding +rakish horses long distances to beat up old companions, which is +accounted pleasure on such occasions. The blustrous winds of an +unusually bitter March had buffeted Mr. Sheldon in the streets of his +native town, and had almost blown him off the door-steps of his +kindred. So it is scarcely strange if he returned to town looking none +the better for his excursion. He looked considerably the worse for his +week's absence, the old Yorkshire-woman said, as she waited upon him +while he ate a chop and drank two large cups of very strong tea. + +Mr. Sheldon made short work of his impromptu meal. He seemed anxious to +put an end to his housekeeper's affectionate interest in himself and +his health, and to get her out of the room. She had nursed him nearly +thirty years before, and the recollection that she had been very +familiar with him when he was a handsome black-eyed baby, with a +tendency to become suddenly stiff of body and crimson of visage without +any obvious provocation, inclined her to take occasional liberties now. +She watched him furtively as he sat in a big high-backed arm-chair +staring moodily at the struggling fire, and would fain have questioned +him a little about Barlingford and Barlingford people. + +But Philip Sheldon was not a man with whom even a superannuated nurse +can venture to take many liberties. He was a good master, paid his +servants their wages with unfailing punctuality, and gave very little +trouble. But he was the last person in the world upon whom a garrulous +woman could venture to inflict her rambling discourse; as Nancy +Woolper--by courtesy, Mrs. Woolper--was fain to confess to her +next-door neighbour, Mrs. Magson, when her master was the subject of an +afternoon gossip. The heads of a household may inhabit a neighbourhood +for years without becoming acquainted even with the outward aspect of +their neighbours; but in the lordly servants' halls of the West, or the +modest kitchens of Bloomsbury, there will be interchange of civilities +and friendly "droppings in" to tea or supper, let the master of the +house be never so ungregarious a creature. + +"You can take the tea-things, Nancy," Mr. Sheldon said presently, +arousing himself suddenly from that sombre reverie in which he had been +absorbed for the last ten minutes; "I am going to be very busy to-night, +and I expect Mr. George in the course of the evening. Mind, I am not at +home to anybody but him." + +The old woman arranged the tea-things on her tray, but still kept a +furtive watch on her master, who sat with his head a little bent, and +his bright black eyes fixed on the fire with that intensity of gaze +peculiar to eyes which see something far away from the object they seem +to contemplate. She was in the habit of watching Mr. Sheldon rather +curiously at all times, for she had never quite got over a difficulty +in realising the fact that the black-eyed baby with whom she had been +so intimate _could_ have developed into this self-contained inflexible +young man, whose thoughts were so very far away from her. To-night she +watched him more intently than she was accustomed to do, for to-night +there was some change in his face which she was trying in a dim way to +account for. + +He looked up from the fire suddenly, and found her eyes fixed upon him. +It may be that he had been disturbed by a semi-consciousness of that +curious gaze, for he looked at her angrily,--"What are you staring at, +Nancy?" + +It was not the first time he had encountered her watchful eyes and +asked the same impatient question. But Mrs. Woolper possessed that +north-country quickness of intellect which is generally equal to an +emergency, and was always ready with some question or suggestion which +went to prove that she had just fixed her eyes on her master, inspired +by some anxiety about his interests. + +"I was just a-thinking, sir," she said, meeting his stern glance +unflinchingly with her little sharp gray eyes, "I was just a-thinking-- +you said not at home to _any one_, except Mr. George. If it should be a +person in a cab wanting their teeth out sudden--and if anything could +make toothache more general in this neighbourhood it would be these +March winds--if it should be a patient, sir, in a cab----" + +The dentist interrupted her with a short bitter laugh. + +"Neither March winds nor April showers are likely to bring me patients, +Nancy, on foot or in cabs, and you ought to know it. If it's a patient, +ask him in, by all means, and give him last Saturday week's _Times_ to +read, while I rub the rust off my forceps. There, that will do; take +your tray--or, stop; I've some news to tell you." He rose, and stood +with his back to the fire and his eyes bent upon the hearthrug, while +Mrs. Woolper waited by the table, with the tray packed ready for +removal. Her master kept her waiting so for some minutes, and then +turned his face half away from her, and contemplated himself absently +in the glass while he spoke. + +"You remember Mrs. Halliday?" he asked. + +"I should think I did, sir; Miss Georgina Cradock that was--Miss Georgy +they called her; your first sweetheart. And how she could ever marry +that big awkward Halliday is more than I can make out. Poor fondy! I +suppose she was took with those great round blue eyes and red whiskers +of his." + +"Her mother and father were 'took' by his comfortable farmhouse and +well-stocked farm, Nancy," answered Mr. Sheldon, still contemplating +himself in the glass. "Georgy had very little to do with it. She is one +of those women who let other people think for them. However, Tom is an +excellent fellow, and Georgy was a lucky girl to catch such a husband +Any little flirtation there may have been between her and me was over +and done with long before she married Tom. It never was more than a +flirtation; and I've flirted with a good many Barlingford girls in my +time, as you know, Nancy." + +It was not often that Mr. Sheldon condescended to be so communicative to +his housekeeper. The old woman nodded and chuckled, delighted by her +master's unwonted friendliness. + +"I drove over to Hyley while I was at home, Nancy," continued the +dentist--he called Barlingford home still, though he had broken most of +the links that had bound him to it--"and dined with the Hallidays. +Georgy is as pretty as ever, and she and Tom get on capitally." + +"Any children, sir?" + +"One girl," answered Mr. Sheldon carelessly. "She's at school in +Scarborough, and I didn't see her; but I hear she's a fine bouncing +lass. I had a very pleasant day with the Hallidays. Tom has sold his +farm; that part of the world doesn't suit him, it seems--too cold and +bleak for him. He's one of those big burly-looking men who seem as if +they could knock you down with a little finger, and who shiver at every +puff of wind. I don't think he'll make old bones, Nancy. But that's +neither here nor there. I daresay he's good for another ten years; or +I'm sure I hope so, on Georgy's account." + +"It was right down soft of him to sell Hyley Farm, though," said Nancy +reflectively; "I've heard tell as it's the best land for forty mile +round Barlingford. But he got a rare good price for it, I'll lay." + +"O, yes; he sold the property uncommonly well, he tells me. You know if +a north-countryman gets the chance of making a profit, he never lets +it slip through his fingers." + +Mrs. Woolper received this compliment to her countrymen with a +gratified grin, and Mr. Sheldon went on talking, still looking at the +reflection of his handsome face in the glass, and pulling his whiskers +meditatively. + +"Now as Tom was made for a farmer and nothing but a farmer, he must +find land somewhere in a climate that does suit him; so his friends +have advised him to try a place in Devonshire or Cornwall, where he may +train his myrtles and roses over his roof, and grow green peas for the +London markets as late as November. There are such places to be had if +he bides his time, and he's coming to town next week to look about him. +So, as Georgy and he would be about as capable of taking care of +themselves in London as a couple of children, I have recommended them +to take up their quarters here. They'll have their lodgings for +nothing, and we shall chum together on the Yorkshire system; for of +course I can't afford to keep a couple of visitors for a month at a +stretch. Do you think you shall be able to manage for us, Nancy?" + +"O, yes, I'll manage well enough. I'm not one of your lazy London +lasses that take half an hour to wipe a teacup. I'll manage easy +enough. Mr. and Mrs. Halliday will be having your room, I'll lay." + +"Yes; give them the best room, by all means. I can sleep anywhere. And +now go downstairs and think it over, Nancy. I must get to my work. I've +some letters that must be written to-night." + +Mrs. Woolper departed with her tray, gratified by her master's unwonted +familiarity, and not ill pleased by the thought of visitors. They would +cause a great deal of trouble, certainly; but the monotony of Nancy's +easy life had grown so oppressive to her as to render the idea of any +variety pleasing. And then there would be the pleasure of making that +iniquitous creature the London lass bestir herself, and there would be +furthermore the advantage of certain little perquisites which a clever +manager always secures to herself in a house where there is much eating +and drinking. Mr. Sheldon himself had lived like a modern anchorite for +the last four years; and Mrs. Woolper, who was pretty well acquainted +with the state of his finances, had pinched and contrived for his +benefit, or rather for the benefit of the black-eyed baby she had +nursed nine-and-twenty years before. For his sake she had been careful +and honest, willing to forego all the small profits to which she held +herself entitled; but if well-to-do people were going to share her +master's expenses, there would be no longer need for such scrupulous +integrity; and if things were rightly managed, Thomas Halliday might be +made to bear the entire cost of the household during his month's visit +on the Yorkshire system. + +While Mrs. Woolper meditated upon her domestic duties, the master of +the domicile abandoned himself to reflections which were apparently of +a very serious character. He brought a leathern desk from a side-table, +unlocked it, and took out a quire of paper; but he made no further +advance towards the writing of those letters on account of which he had +dismissed his housekeeper. He sat, with his elbows on the table, +nibbling the end of a wooden penholder, and staring at the opposite +wall. His face looked pale and haggard in the light of the gas, and the +eyes, fixed in that vacant stare, had a feverish brightness. + +Mr. Sheldon was a handsome man--eminently handsome, according to the +popular notion of masculine beauty; and if the popular ideal has been a +little vulgarised by the waxen gentlemen on whose finely-moulded +foreheads the wig-maker is wont to display the specimens of his art, +that is no discredit to Mr. Sheldon. His features were regular; the +nose a handsome aquiline; the mouth firm and well modelled; the chin +and jaw rather heavier than in the waxen ideal of the hair-dresser; the +forehead very prominent in the region of the perceptives, but obviously +wanting in the higher faculties. The eye of the phrenologist, unaided +by his fingers, must have failed to discover the secrets of Mr. +Sheldon's organisation; for one of the dentist's strong points was his +hair, which was very luxuriant, and which he wore in artfully-arranged +masses that passed for curls, but which owed their undulating grace +rather to a skilful manipulation than to any natural tendency. It has +been said that the rulers of the world are straight-haired men; and Mr. +Sheldon might have been a Napoleon III. so far as regards this special +attribute. His hair was of a dense black, and his whiskers of the same +sombre hue. These carefully-arranged whiskers were another of the +dentist's strong points; and the third strong point was his teeth, the +perfection whereof was a fine advertisement when considered in a +professional light. The teeth were rather too large and square for a +painter's or a poet's notion of beauty, and were apt to suggest an +unpleasant image of some sleek brindled creature crunching human bones +in an Indian jungle. But they were handsome teeth notwithstanding, and +their flashing whiteness made an effective contrast to the clear sallow +tint of the dentist's complexion. + +Mr. Sheldon was a man of industrious habits,--fond indeed of work, and +distinguished by a persistent activity in the carrying out of any +labour he had planned for himself. He was not prone to the indulgence +of idle reveries or agreeable day-dreams. Thought with him was labour; +it was the "thinking out" of future work to be done, and it was an +operation as precise and mathematical as the actual labour that +resulted therefrom. The contents of his brain were as well kept as a +careful trader's ledger. He had his thoughts docketed and indexed, and +rarely wasted the smallest portion of his time in searching for an +idea. Tonight he sat thinking until he was interrupted by a loud double +knock, which was evidently familiar to him, for he muttered "George!" +pushed aside his desk, and took up his stand upon the hearthrug, ready +to receive the expected visitor. + +There was the sound of a man's voice below,--very like Philip Sheldon's +own voice; then a quick firm tread on the stairs; and then the door was +opened, and a man, who himself was very like Philip Sheldon, came into +the room. This was the dentist's brother George, two years his junior. +The likeness between the two men was in no way marvellous, but it was +nevertheless very obvious. You could scarcely have mistaken one man for +the other, but you could hardly have failed to perceive that the two +men were brothers. They resembled each other more closely in form than +in face. They were of the same height--both tall and strongly built. +Both had black eyes with a hard brightness in them, black whiskers, +black hair, sinewy hands with prominent knuckles, square finger-tops, +and bony wrists. Each man seemed the personification of savage health +and vigour, smoothed and shapened in accordance with the prejudices of +civilised life. Looking at these two men for the first time, you might +approve or disapprove their appearance; they might impress you +favourably or unfavourably; but you could scarcely fail to be reminded +vaguely of strong, bright-eyed, savage creatures, beautiful and +graceful after their kind, but dangerous and fatal to man. + +The brothers greeted each other with a friendly nod. They were a great +deal too practical to indulge in any sentimental display of fraternal +affection. They liked each other very well, and were useful to each +other, and took their pleasure together on those rare occasions when +they were weak enough to waste time upon unprofitable pleasure; but +neither of them would have comprehended the possibility of anything +beyond this. + +"Well, old fellow," said George, "I'm glad you're back again. You're +looking rather seedy, though. I suppose you knocked about a good deal +down there?" + +"I had a night or two of it with Halliday and the old set. He's going +it rather fast." + +"Humph!" muttered Mr. Sheldon the younger; "it's a pity he doesn't go +it a little faster, and go off the hooks altogether, so that you might +marry Georgy." + +"How do I know that Georgy would have me, if he did leave her a widow?" +asked Philip dubiously. + +"O, she'd have you fast enough. She used to be very sweet upon you +before she married Tom; and even if she has forgotten all that, she'd +have you if you asked her. She'd be afraid to say no. She was always +more or less afraid of you, you know, Phil." + +"I don't know about that. She was a nice little thing enough; but she +knew how to drop a poor sweetheart and take up with a rich one, in +spite of her simplicity." + +"O, that was the old parties' doing. Georgy would have jumped into a +cauldron of boiling oil if her mother and father had told her she must +do it. Don't you remember when we were children together how afraid she +used to be of spoiling her frocks? I don't believe she married Tom +Halliday of her own free will, any more than she stood in the corner of +her own free will after she'd torn her frock, as I've seen her stand +twenty times. She stood in the corner because they told her she must; +and she married Tom for the same reason, and I don't suppose she's been +particularly happy with him." + +"Well, that's her look-out," answered Philip gloomily; "I know I want a +rich wife badly enough. Things are about as bad with me as they can +be." + +"I suppose they _are_ rather piscatorial. The elderly dowagers don't +come up to time, eh? Very few orders for the complete set at +ten-pound-ten?" + +"I took about seventy pounds last year," said the dentist, "and my +expenses are something like five pounds a week. I've been making up the +deficiency out of the money I got for the Barlingford business, +thinking I should be able to stand out and make a connection; but the +connection gets more disconnected every year. I suppose people came to +me at first for the novelty of the thing, for I had a sprinkling of +decent patients for the first twelve months or so. But now I might as +well throw my money into the gutter as spend it on circulars or +advertisements." + +"And a young woman with twenty thousand pounds and something amiss with +her jaw hasn't turned up yet!" + +"No, nor an old woman either. I wouldn't stick at the age, if the money +was all right," answered Mr. Sheldon bitterly. + +The younger brother shrugged his shoulders and plunged his hands into +his trousers-pockets with a gesture of seriocomic despair. He was the +livelier of the two, and affected a slanginess of dress and talk and +manner, a certain "horsey" style, very different from his elder +brother's studied respectability of costume and bearing. His clothes +were of a loose sporting cut, and always odorous with stale tobacco. He +wore a good deal of finery in the shape of studs and pins and dangling +lockets and fusee-boxes; his whiskers were more obtrusive than his +brother's, and he wore a moustache in addition--a thick ragged black +moustache, which would have become a guerilla chieftain rather than a +dweller amidst the quiet courts and squares of Gray's Inn. His position +as a lawyer was not much better than that of Philip as a dentist; but +he had his own plans for making a fortune, and hoped to win for himself +a larger fortune than is, often made in the law. He was a hunter of +genealogies, a grubber-up of forgotten facts, a joiner of broken links, +a kind of legal resurrectionist, a digger in the dust and ashes of the +past; and he expected in due time to dig up a treasure rich enough to +reward the labour and patience of half a lifetime. + +"I can afford to wait till I'm forty for my good luck," he said to his +brother sometimes in moments of expansion; "and then I shall have ten +years in which to enjoy myself, and twenty more in which I shall have +life enough left to eat good dinners and drink good wine, and grumble +about the degeneracy of things in general, after the manner of elderly +human nature." + +The men stood one on each side of the hearth; George looking at his +brother, Philip looking down at the fire, with his eyes shaded by their +thick black lashes. The fire had become dull and hollow. George bent +down presently and stirred the coals impatiently. + +"If there's one thing I hate more than, another--and I hate a good many +things--it's a bad fire," he said. "How's Barlingford--lively as ever, +I suppose?" + +"Not much livelier than it was when we left it. Things have gone amiss +with me in London, and I've been more than once sorely tempted to make +an end of my difficulties with a razor or a few drops of prussic acid; +but when I saw the dull gray streets and the square gray houses, and +the empty market-place, and the Baptist chapel, and the Unitarian +chapel, and the big stony church, and heard the dreary bells +ding-donging for evening service, I wondered how I could ever have +existed a week in such a place. I had rather sweep a crossing in +London than occupy the best house in Barlingford, and I told Tom +Halliday so." + +"And Tom is coming to London I understand by your letter." + +"Yes, he has sold Hyley, and wants to find a place in the west of +England. The north doesn't suit his chest. He and Georgy are coming up +to town for a few weeks, so I've asked them to stay here. I may as well +make some use of the house, for it's very little good in a professional +sense." + +"Humph!" muttered George; "I don't see your motive." + +"I have no particular motive. Tom's a good fellow, and his company will +be better than an empty house. The visit won't cost me anything-- +Halliday is to go shares in the housekeeping." + +"Well, you may find it answer that way," replied Mr. Sheldon the +younger, who considered that every action of a man's life ought to be +made to "answer" in some way. "But I should think you would be rather +bored by the arrangement: Tom's a very good fellow in his way, and a +great friend of mine, but he's rather an empty-headed animal." + +The subject dropped here, and the brothers went on talking of +Barlingford and Barlingford people--the few remaining kindred whose +existence made a kind of link between the two men and their native +town, and the boon companions of their early manhood. The dentist +produced the remnant of a bottle of whisky from the sideboard, and rang +for hot water and sugar, Wherewith to brew grog, for his own and his +brother's refreshment; but the conversation flagged nevertheless. +Philip Sheldon was dull and absent, answering his companion at random +every now and then, much to that gentleman's aggravation; and he owned +at last to being thoroughly tired and worn out. + +"The journey from Barlingford in a slow train is no joke, you know, +George, and I couldn't afford the express," he said apologetically, +when his brother upbraided him for his distraction of manner. + +"Then I should think you'd better go to bed," answered Mr. Sheldon the +younger, who had smoked a couple of cigars, and consumed the contents +of the whisky-bottle; "so I'll take myself off. I told you how +uncommonly seedy you were looking when I first came in. When do you +expect Tom and his wife?" + +"At the beginning of next week." + +"So soon! Well, good-night, old fellow; I shall see you before they +come, I daresay. You might as well drop in upon me at my place +to-morrow night. I'm hard at work on a job." + +"Your old kind of work?" + +"O, yes. I don't get much work of any other kind." + +"And I'm afraid you'll never get much good out of that." + +"I don't know. A man who sits down to whist may have a run of ill-luck +before he gets a decent hand; but the good cards are sure to come if he +only sits long enough. Every man has his chance, depend upon it, Phil, +if he knows how to watch for it; but there are so many men who get +tired and go to sleep before their chances come to them. I've wasted a +good deal of time, and a good deal of labour; but the ace of trumps is +in the pack, and it must turn up sooner or later. Ta-ta." + +George Sheldon nodded and departed, whistling gaily as he walked away +from his brother's door. Philip heard him, and turned his chair to the +fire with a movement of impatience. + +"You may be uncommonly clever, my dear George," soliloquised the +dentist, "but you'll never make a fortune by reading wills and hunting +in parish-registers for heirs-at-law. A big lump of money is not very +likely to go a-begging while any one who can fudge up the faintest +pretence of a claim to it is above ground. No, no, my lad, you must +find a better way than that before you'll make your fortune." + +The fire had burnt low again, and Mr. Sheldon sat staring gloomily at +the blackening coals. Things were very bad with him--he had not cared +to confess how bad they were, when he had discussed his affairs with +his brother. Those neighbours and passers-by who admired the trim +brightness of the dentist's abode had no suspicion that the master of +that respectable house was in the hands of the Jews, and that the +hearthstone which whitened his door-step was paid for out of +Israelitish coffers. The dentist's philosophy was all of this world, +and he knew that the soldier of fortune, who would fain be a conqueror +in the great battle, must needs keep his plumage undrabbled and the +golden facings of his uniform untarnished, let his wounds be never so +desperate. + +Having found his attempt to establish a practice in Fitzgeorge-street +a failure, the only course open to Mr. Sheldon, as a man of the world, +was to transfer his failure to somebody else, with more or less profit +to himself. To this end he preserved the spotless purity of his muslin +curtains, though the starch that stiffened them and the bleaching-powder +that whitened them were bought with money for which he was to pay sixty +per cent. To this end he nursed that wan shadow of a practice, and +sustained that appearance of respectability which, in a world where +appearance stands for so much, is in itself a kind of capital. It +certainly was dull dreary work to hold the citadel of No. 14 +Fitzgeorge-street, against the besieger Poverty; but the dentist +stood his ground pertinaciously, knowing that if he only waited long +enough, the dupe who was to be his victim would come, and knowing also +that there might arrive a day when it would be very useful for him to +be able to refer to four years' unblemished respectability as a +Bloomsbury householder. He had his lines set in several shady places +for that unhappy fish with a small capital, and he had been tantalised +by more than one nibble; but he made no open show of his desire to sell +his business--since a business that is obviously in the market seems +scarcely worth any man's purchase. + +Things had of late grown worse with him every day; for every interval +of twenty-four hours sinks a man so much the deeper in the mire when +renewed accommodation-bills with his name upon them are ripening in the +iron safes of Judah. Philip Sheldon found himself sinking gradually and +almost imperceptibly into that bottomless pit of difficulty in whose +black depths the demon Insolvency holds his dreary court. While his +little capital lasted he had kept himself clear of debt, but that being +exhausted, and his practice growing worse day by day, he had been fain +to seek assistance from money-lenders; and now even the money-lenders +were tired of him. The chair in which he sat, the poker which he swung +slowly to and fro as he bent over his hearth, were not his own. One of +his Jewish creditors had a bill of sale on his furniture, and he might +come home any day to find the auctioneer's bills plastered against the +wall of his house, and the auctioneer's clerk busy with the catalogue +of his possessions. If the expected victim came now to buy his +practice, the sacrifice would be made too late to serve his interest. +The men who had lent him the money would be the sole gainers by the +bargain. + +Seldom does a man find himself face to face with a blacker prospect +than that which lay before Philip Sheldon; and yet his manner to-night +was not the dull blank apathy of despair. It was the manner of a man +whose brain is occupied by busy thoughts; who has some elaborate scheme +to map out and arrange before he is called upon to carry his plans into +action. + +"It would be a good business for me," he muttered, "if I had pluck +enough to carry it through." + +The fire went out as he sat swinging the poker backwards and forwards. +The clocks of Bloomsbury and St. Pancras struck twelve, and still +Philip Sheldon pondered and plotted by that dreary hearth. The servants +had retired at eleven, after a good deal of blundering with bars and +shutters, and unnecessary banging of doors. That unearthly silence +peculiar to houses after midnight reigned in Mr. Sheldon's domicile, +and he could hear the voices of distant roisterers, and the miauling of +neighbouring cats, with a painful distinctness as he sat brooding in +his silent room. The fact that a mahogany chiffonier in a corner gave +utterance to a faint groan occasionally, as of some feeble creature in +pain, afforded him no annoyance. He was superior to superstitious +fancies, and all the rappings and scratchings of spirit-land would have +failed to disturb his equanimity. He was a strictly practical man--one +of those men who are always ready, with a stump of lead-pencil and the +back of a letter, to reduce everything in creation to figures. + +"I had better read up that business before they come," he said, when he +had to all appearance "thought out" the subject of his reverie. "No +time so good as this for doing it quietly. One never knows who is +spying about in the daytime." He looked at his watch, and then went to +a cupboard, where there were bundles of wood and matches and old +newspapers,--for it was his habit to light his own fire occasionally +when he worked unusually late at night or early in the morning. He +relighted his fire now as cleverly as any housemaid in Bloomsbury, and +stood watching it till it burned briskly. Then he lit a taper, and went +downstairs to the professional torture-chamber. The tall horsehair +chair looked unutterably awful in the dim glimmer of the taper, and a +nervous person could almost have fancied it occupied by the ghost of +some patient who had expired under the agony of the forceps. Mr. +Sheldon lighted the gas in a movable branch which he was in the habit +of turning almost into the mouths of the patients who consulted him at +night. There was a cupboard on each side of the mantelpiece, and it was +in these two cupboards that the dentist kept his professional library. +His books did not form a very valuable collection, but he kept the +cupboards constantly locked nevertheless. + +He took the key from his waistcoat-pocket, opened one of the cupboards, +and selected a book from a row of dingy-looking volumes. He carried the +book to the room above, where he seated himself under the gas, and +opened the volume at a place in which there was a scrap of paper, +evidently left there as a mark. The book was a volume of the _Lancet_, +and in this book lie read with close attention until the Bloomsbury +clocks struck three. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. AND MRS. HALLIDAY. + + +Mr. Sheldon's visitors arrived in due course. They were provincial +people of the middle class, accounted monstrously genteel in their own +neighbourhood, but in nowise resembling Londoners of the same rank. + +Mr. Thomas Halliday was a big, loud-spoken, good-tempered Yorkshireman, +who had inherited a comfortable little estate from a plodding, +money-making father, and for whom life had been very easy. He was a +farmer, and nothing but a farmer; a man for whom the supremest pleasure +of existence was a cattle-show or a country horse-fair. The farm upon +which he had been born and brought up was situated about six miles from +Barlingford, and all the delights of his boyhood and youth were +associated with that small market town. He and the two Sheldons had +been schoolfellows, and afterwards boon companions, taking such +pleasure as was obtainable in Barlingford together; flirting with the +same provincial beauties at prim tea-parties in the winter, and getting +up friendly picnics in the summer--picnics at which eating and drinking +were the leading features of the day's entertainment. Mr. Halliday had +always regarded George and Philip Sheldon with that reverential +admiration which a stupid man, who is conscious of his own mental +inferiority, generally feels for a clever friend and companion. But he +was also fully aware of the advantage which a rich man possesses over a +poor one, and would not have exchanged the fertile acres of Hyley for +the intellectual gifts of his schoolfellows. He had found the +substantial value of his comfortably furnished house and well-stocked +farm when he and his friend Philip Sheldon became suitors for the hand +of Georgina Cradock, youngest daughter of a Barlingford attorney, who +lived next door to the Barlingford dentist, Philip Sheldon's father. +Philip and the girl had been playfellows in the long-walled gardens +behind the two houses, and there had been a brotherly and sisterly +intimacy between the juvenile members of the two families. But when +Philip and Georgina met at the Barlingford tea-parties in later years, +the parental powers frowned upon any renewal of that childish +friendship. Miss Cradock had no portion, and the worthy solicitor her +father was a prudent man, who was apt to look for the promise of +domestic happiness in the plate-basket and the linen-press, rather than +for such superficial qualifications as black whiskers and white teeth. +So poor Philip was "thrown over the bridge," as he said himself, and +Georgy Cradock married Mr. Halliday, with all attendant ceremony and +splendour, according to the "lights" of Barlingford gentry. + +But this provincial bride's story was no passionate record of anguish +and tears. The Barlingford Juliet had liked Romeo as much as she was +capable of liking any one; but when Papa Capulet insisted on her union +with Paris, she accepted her destiny with decent resignation, and, in +the absence of any sympathetic father confessor, was fain to seek +consolation from a more mundane individual in the person of the +Barlingford milliner. Nor did Philip Sheldon give evidence of any +extravagant despair. His father was something of a doctor as well as a +dentist; and there were plenty of dark little phials lurking on the +shelves of his surgery in which the young man could have found "mortal +drugs" without the aid of the apothecary, had he been so minded. +Happily no such desperate idea ever occurred to him in connection with +his grief. He held himself sulkily aloof from Mr. and Mrs. Halliday for +some time after their marriage, and allowed people to see that he +considered himself very hardly used; but Prudence, which had always +been Philip Sheldon's counsellor, proved herself also his consoler in +this crisis of his life. A careful consideration of his own interests +led him to perceive that the successful result of his love-suit would +have been about the worst thing that could have happened to him. + +Georgina had no money. All was said in that. As the young dentist's +worldly wisdom ripened with experience, he discovered that the worldly +ease of the best man in Barlingford was something like that of a +canary-bird who inhabits a clean cage and is supplied with abundant +seed and water. The cage is eminently comfortable, and the sleepy, +respectable, elderly bird sighs for no better abiding-place, no wider +prospect than that patch of the universe which he sees between the +bars. But now and then there is hatched a wild young fledgeling, which +beats its wings against the inexorable wires, and would fain soar away +into that wide outer world, to prosper or perish in its freedom. + +Before Georgy had been married a year, her sometime lover had fully +resigned himself to the existing state of things, and was on the best +possible terms with his friend Tom. He could eat his dinner in the +comfortable house at Hyley with an excellent appetite; for there was a +gulf between him and his old love far wider than any that had been dug +by that ceremonial in the parish church of Barlingford. Philip Sheldon +had awakened to the consciousness that life in his native town was +little more than a kind of animal vegetation--the life of some pulpy +invertebrate creature, which sprawls helplessly upon the sands whereon +the wave has deposited it, and may be cloven in half without feeling +itself noticeably worse for the operation. He had awakened to the +knowledge that there was a wider and more agreeable world beyond that +little provincial borough, and that a handsome face and figure and a +vigorous intellect were commodities for which there must be some kind +of market. + +Once convinced of the utter worthlessness of his prospects in +Barlingford, Mr. Sheldon turned his eyes Londonwards; and his father +happening at the same time very conveniently to depart this life, +Philip, the son and heir, disposed of the business to an aspiring young +practitioner, and came to the metropolis, where he made that futile +attempt to establish himself which has been described. + +The dentist had wasted four years in London, and ten years had gone by +since Georgy's wedding; and now for the first time he had an +opportunity of witnessing the domestic happiness or the domestic misery +of the woman who had jilted him, and the man who had been his +successful rival. He set himself to watch them with the cool +deliberation of a social anatomist, and he experienced very little +difficulty in the performance of this moral dissection. They were +established under his roof, his companions at every meal; and they were +a kind of people who discuss their grievances and indulge in their +"little differences" with perfect freedom in the presence of a third, +or a fourth, or even a fifth party. + +Mr. Sheldon was wise enough to preserve a strict neutrality. He would +take up a newspaper at the beginning of a little difference, and lay it +down when the little difference was finished, with the most perfect +assumption of unconsciousness; but it is doubtful whether the +matrimonial disputants were sufficiently appreciative of this good +breeding. They would have liked to have had Mr. Sheldon for a court of +appeal; and a little interference from him would have given zest to +their quarrels. Meanwhile Philip watched them slyly from the covert of +his newspaper, and formed his own conclusions about them. If he was +pleased to see that his false love's path was not entirely rose-bestrewn, +or if he rejoiced at beholding the occasional annoyance of his rival, he +allowed no evidence of his pleasure to appear in his face or manner. + +Georgina Cradock's rather insipid prettiness had developed into +matronly comeliness. Her fair complexion and pink cheeks had lost none +of their freshness. Her smooth auburn hair was as soft and bright as it +had been when she had braided it preparatory to a Barlingford tea-party +in the days of her spinsterhood. She was a pretty, weak little woman, +whose education had never gone beyond the routine of a provincial +boarding-school, and who believed that she had attained all necessary +wisdom in having mastered Pinnock's abridgments of Goldsmith's +histories and the rudiments of the French language. She was a woman who +thought that the perfection of feminine costume was a moire-antique +dress and a conspicuous gold chain. She was a woman who considered a +well-furnished house and a horse and gig the highest form of earthly +splendour or prosperity. + +This was the shallow commonplace creature whom Philip Sheldon had once +admired and wooed. He looked at her now, and wondered how he could ever +have felt even as much as he had felt on her account. But he had little +leisure to devote to any such abstract and useless consideration. He +had his own affairs to think about, and they were very desperate. + +In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. Halliday occupied themselves in the +pursuit of pleasure or business, as the case might be. They were eager +for amusement: went to exhibitions in the day and to theatres at night, +and came home to cozy little suppers in Fitzgeorge-street, after which +Mr. Halliday was wont to waste the small hours in friendly conversation +with his quondam companion, and in the consumption of much +brandy-and-water. + +Unhappily for Georgy, these halcyon days were broken by intervals of +storm and cloud. The weak little woman was afflicted with that +intermittent fever called jealousy; and the stalwart Thomas was one of +those men who can scarcely give the time of day to a feminine +acquaintance without some ornate and loud-spoken gallantry. Having no +intellectual resources wherewith to beguile the tedium of his idle +prosperous life, he was fain to seek pleasure in the companionship of +other men; and had thus become a haunter of tavern parlours and small +racecourses, being always ready for any amusement his friends proposed +to him. It followed, therefore, that he was very often absent from his +commonplace substantial home, and his pretty weak-minded wife. And poor +Georgy had ample food for her jealous fears and suspicions; for where +might a man not be who was so seldom at home? She had never been +particularly fond of her husband, but that was no reason why she should +not be particularly jealous about him; and her jealousy betrayed itself +in a peevish worrying fashion, which was harder to bear than the +vengeful ferocity of a Clytemnestra. It was in vain that Thomas +Halliday and those jolly good fellows his friends and companions +attested the Arcadian innocence of racecourses, and the perfect purity +of that smoky atmosphere peculiar to tavern parlours. Georgy's +suspicions were too vague for refutation; but they were nevertheless +sufficient ground for all the alternations of temper--from stolid +sulkiness to peevish whining, from murmured lamentations to loud +hysterics--to which the female temperament is liable. + +In the meantime poor honest, loud-spoken Tom did all in his power to +demonstrate his truth and devotion. He bought his wife as many stiff +silk gowns and gaudy Barlingford bonnets as she chose to sigh for. He +made a will, in which she was sole legatee, and insured his life in +different offices to the amount of five thousand pounds. + +"I'm the sort of fellow that's likely to go off the hooks suddenly, you +know, Georgy," he said, "and your poor dad was always anxious I should +make things square for you. I don't suppose you're likely to marry +again, my lass, so I've no need to tie up Lottie's little fortune. I +must trust some one, and I'd better confide in my little wife than in +some canting methodistical fellow of a trustee, who would speculate my +daughter's money upon some Stock-Exchange hazard, and levant to +Australia when it was all swamped. If you can't trust me, Georgy, I'll +let you see that I can trust you", added Tom reproachfully. + +Whereupon poor weak little Mrs. Halliday murmured plaintively that she +did not want fortunes or life insurances, but that she wanted her +husband to stay at home, content with the calm and rather sleepy +delights of his own fireside. Poor Tom was wont to promise amendment, +and would keep his promise faithfully so long as no supreme temptation, +in the shape of a visit from some friend of the jolly-good-fellow +species, arose to vanquish his good resolutions. But a good-tempered, +generous-hearted young man who farms his own land, has three or four +good horses in his stable, a decent cellar of honest port and sherry-- +"none of your wishy-washy sour stuff in the way of hock or claret," +cried Tom Halliday--and a very comfortable balance at his banker's, +finds it no easy matter to shake off friends of the jolly-good-fellow +fraternity. + +In London Mr. Halliday found the spirit of jolly-dog-ism rampant. +George Sheldon had always been his favourite of these two brothers; and +it was George who lured him from the safe shelter of Fitzgeorge-street +and took him to mysterious haunts, whence he returned long after +midnight, boisterous of manner and unsteady of gait, and with garments +reeking of stale tobacco-smoke. + +He was always good-tempered, even after these diabolical orgies on some +unknown Brocken, and protested indistinctly that there was no harm,-- +"'pon m' wor', ye know, ol' gur'! Geor' an' me--half-doz' oyst'r-- +c'gar--botl' p'l ale--str't home," and much more to the same effect. +When did any married man ever take more than half a dozen oysters--or +take any undomestic pleasure for his own satisfaction? It is always +those incorrigible bachelors, Thomas, Richard, or Henry, who hinder the +unwilling Benedick from returning to his sacred Lares and Penates. + +Poor Georgy was not to be pacified by protestations about oysters and +cigars from the lips of a husband who was thick of utterance, and who +betrayed a general imbecility of mind and unsteadiness of body. This +London excursion, which had begun in sunshine, threatened to end in +storm and darkness. Georgy Sheldon and his set had taken possession of +the young farmer; and Georgy had no better amusement in the long +blustrous March evenings than to sit at her work under the flaming gas +in Mr. Sheldon's drawing-room, while that gentleman--who rarely joined +in the dissipations of his friend and his brother--occupied himself +with mechanical dentistry in the chamber of torture below. + +Fitzgeorge-street in general, always on the watch to discover evidences +of impecuniosity or doubtful morality on the part of any one citizen in +particular, could find no food for scandal in the visit of Mr. and Mrs. +Halliday to their friend and countryman. It had been noised abroad, +through the agency of Mrs. Woolper, that Mr. Sheldon had been a suitor +for the lady' hand, and had been jilted by her. The Fitzgeorgians had +been, therefore, especially on the alert to detect any sign of +backsliding in the dentist. There would have been much pleasant +discussion in kitchens and back-parlours if Mr. Sheldon had been +particularly attentive to his fair guest; but it speedily became known, +always by the agency of Mrs. Woolper and that phenomenon of idleness +and iniquity, the London "girl," that Mr. Sheldon was not by any means +attentive to the pretty young woman from Yorkshire; but that he +suffered her to sit alone hour after hour in her husband's absence, +with no amusement but her needlework wherewith to "pass the time," +while he scraped and filed and polished those fragments of bone which +were to assist in the renovation of decayed beauty. + +The third week of Mr. and Mrs. Halliday's visit was near its close, and +as yet the young farmer had arrived at no decision as to the subject +which had brought him to London. The sale of Hyley Farm was an +accomplished fact, and the purchase-money duly bestowed at Tom's +banker's; but very little had been done towards finding the new +property which was to be a substitute for the estate his father and +grandfather had farmed before him. He had seen auctioneers, and had +brought home plans of estates in Herefordshire and Devonshire, Cornwall +and Somersetshire, all of which seemed to be, in their way, the most +perfect things imaginable--land of such fertility as one would scarcely +expect to find out of Arcadia--live stock which seemed beyond all +price, to be taken at a valuation.--roads and surrounding +neighbourhood unparalleled in beauty and convenience--outbuildings +that must have been the very archetypes of barns and stables--a house +which to inhabit would be to adore. But as yet he had seen none of +these peerless domains. He was waiting for decent weather in which to +run down to the West and "look about him," as he said to himself. In +the meantime the blustrous March weather, which was so unsuited to long +railroad journeys, and all that waiting about at junctions and at +little windy stations on branch lines, incidental to the inspection of +estates scattered over a large area of country, served very well for +"jolly-dog-ism;" and what with a hand at cards in George Sheldon's +chambers, and another hand at cards in somebody else's chambers, and a +run down to an early meeting at Newmarket, and an evening at some +rooms where there was something to be seen which was as near +prize-fighting as the law allowed, and other evenings in unknown +regions, Mr. Halliday found time slipping by him, and his domestic +peace vanishing away. + +It was on an evening at the end of this third week that Mr. Sheldon +abandoned his mechanical dentistry for once in a way, and ascended to +the drawing-room where poor Georgy sat busy with that eternal +needlework, but for which melancholy madness would surely overtake many +desolate matrons in houses whose common place comfort and respectable +dulness are more dismal than the picturesque dreariness of a moated +grange amid the Lincolnshire fens. To the masculine mind this +needlework seems nothing more than a purposeless stabbing and sewing of +strips of calico; but to lonely womanhood it is the prison-flower of +the captive, it is the spider of Latude. + +Mr. Sheldon brought his guest an evening newspaper. + +"There's an account of the opening of Parliament," he said, "which you +may perhaps like to see. I wish I had a piano, or some female +acquaintances to drop in upon you. I am afraid you must be dull in +these long evenings when Tom is out of the way." + +"I am indeed dull," Mrs. Halliday answered peevishly; "and if Tom cared +for me, he wouldn't leave me like this evening after evening. But he +doesn't care for me." + +Mr Sheldon laid down the newspaper, and seated himself opposite his +guest. He sat for a few minutes in silence, beating time to some +imaginary air with the tips of his fingers on the old-fashioned +mahogany table. Then he said, with a half-smile upon his face,-- + +"But surely Tom is the best of husbands! He has been a little wild +since his coming to London, I know; but then you see he doesn't often +come to town." + +"He's just as bad in Yorkshire," Georgy answered gloomily; "he's always +going to Barlingford with somebody or other, or to meet some of his old +friends. I'm sure, if I had known what he was, I would never have +married him." + +"Why, I thought he was such a good husband. He was telling me only a +few days ago how he had made a will leaving you every sixpence he +possesses, without reservation, and how he has insured his life for +five thousand pounds." + +"O yes, I know that; but I don't call _that_ being a good husband. I +don't want him to leave me his money. I don't want him to die. I want +him to stay at home." + +"Poor Tom! I'm afraid he's not the sort of man for that kind of thing. +He likes change and amusement. You married a rich man, Mrs. Halliday; +you made your choice, you know, without regard to the feelings of any +one else. You sacrificed truth and honour to your own inclination, or +your own interest, I do not know, and do not ask which. If the bargain +has turned out a bad one, that's your look-out." + +Philip Sheldon sat with his folded arms resting on the little table and +his eyes fixed on Georgy's face. They could be very stern and hard and +cruel, those bright black eyes, and Mrs. Halliday grew first red and +then pale under their searching gaze. She had seen Mr. Sheldon very +often during the years of her married life, but this was the first time +he had ever said anything to her that sounded like a reproach. The +dentist's eyes softened a little as he watched her, not with any +special tenderness, but with an expression of half-disdainful +compassion--such as a strong stern man might feel for a foolish child. +He could see that this woman was afraid of him, and it served his +interests that she should fear him. He had a purpose in everything he +did, and his purpose to-night was to test the strength of his influence +over Georgina Halliday. In the old time before her marriage that +influence had been very strong. It was for him, to discover now whether +it still endured. + +"You made your choice, Mrs. Halliday," he went on presently, "and it +was a choice which all prudent people must have approved. What chance +had a man, who was only heir to a practice worth four or five hundred +pounds, against the inheritor of Hyley Farm with its two hundred and +fifty acres, and three thousand pounds' worth of live stock, plant, and +working capital? When do the prudent people ever stop to consider truth +and honour, or old promises, or an affection that dates from childhood? +They calculate everything by pounds, shillings, and pence; and +according to their mode of reckoning you were in the right when you +jilted me to marry Tom Halliday." + +Georgy laid down her work and took out her handkerchief. She was one of +those women who take refuge in tears when they find themselves at a +disadvantage. Tears had always melted honest Tom, was his wrath never +so dire, and tears would no doubt subdue Philip Sheldon. + +But Georgy had to discover that the dentist was made of a stuff very +different from that softer clay which composed the rollicking +good-tempered farmer. Mr. Sheldon watched her tears with the +cold-blooded deliberation of a scientific experimentalist. He was glad +to find that he could make her cry. She was a necessary instrument in +the working out of certain plans that he had made for himself, and he +was anxious to discover whether she was likely to be a plastic +instrument. He knew that her love for him had never been worth much at +its best, and that the poor little flickering flame had been utterly +extinguished by nine years of commonplace domesticity and petty +jealousy. But his purpose was one that would be served as well by her +fear as by her love, and he had set himself to-night to gauge his +power in relation to this poor weak creature. + +"It's very unkind of you to say such dreadful things, Mr. Sheldon," she +whimpered presently; "you know very well that my marriage with Tom was +pa's doing, and not mine. I'm sure if I'd known how he would stay out +night after night, and come home in such dreadful states time after +time, I never would have consented to marry him." + +"Wouldn't you?--O yes, you would. If you were a widow to-morrow, and +free to marry again, you would choose just such another man as Tom--a +man who laughs loud, and pays flourishing compliments, and drives a gig +with a high-stepping horse. That's the sort of man women like, and +that's the sort of man you'd marry." + +"I'm sure I shouldn't marry at all," answered Mrs. Halliday, in a +voice that was broken by little gasping sobs. "I have seen enough of +the misery of married life. But I don't want Tom to die, unkind as he +is to me. People are always saying that he won't make old bones--how +horrid it is to talk of a person's bones!--and I'm sure I sometimes +make myself wretched about him, as he knows, though he doesn't thank me +for it." + +And here Mrs Halliday's sobs got the better of her utterance, and Mr. +Sheldon was fain to say something of a consolatory nature. + +"Come, come," he said, "I won't tease you any more. That's against the +laws of hospitality, isn't it?--only there are some things which you +can't expect a man to forget, you know. However, let bygones be +bygones. As for poor old Tom, I daresay he'll live to be a hale, hearty +old man, in spite of the croakers. People always will croak about +something; and it's a kind of fashion to say that a big, hearty, +six-foot man is a fragile blossom likely to be nipped by any wintry +blast. Come, come, Mrs. Halliday, your husband mustn't discover that +I've been making you cry when he comes home. He may be home early this +evening, perhaps; and if he is, we'll have an oyster supper, and a +chat about old times." + +Mrs. Halliday shook her head dolefully. + +"It's past ten o'clock already," she said, "and I don't suppose Tom +will be home till after twelve. He doesn't like my sitting up for him; +but I wonder _what_ time he would come home if I didn't sit up for +him?" + +"Let's hope for the best," exclaimed Mr. Sheldon cheerfully. "I'll go +and see about the oysters." + +"Don't get them for me, or for Tom," protested Mrs. Halliday; "he will +have had his supper when he comes home, you may be sure, and I couldn't +eat a morsel of anything." + +To this resolution Mrs. Halliday adhered; so the dentist was fain to +abandon all jovial ideas in relation to oysters and pale ale. But he +did not go back to his mechanical dentistry. He sat opposite his +visitor, and watched her, silently and thoughtfully, for some time as +she worked. She had brushed away her tears, but she looked very peevish +and miserable, and took out her watch several times in an hour. Mr. +Sheldon made two or three feeble attempts at conversation, but the talk +languished and expired on each occasion, and they sat on in silence. + +Little by little the dentist's attention seemed to wander away from his +guest. He wheeled his chair round, and sat looking at the fire with the +same fixed gloom upon his face which had darkened it on the night of +his return from Yorkshire. Things had been so desperate with him of +late, that he had lost his old orderly habit of thinking out a business +at one sitting, and making an end of all deliberation and hesitation +about it. There were subjects that forced themselves upon his thoughts, +and certain ideas which repeated themselves with a stupid persistence. +He was such an eminently practical man, that this disorder of his brain +troubled him more even than the thoughts that made the disorder. He sat +in the same attitude for a long while, scarcely conscious of Mrs. +Halliday's presence, not at all conscious of the progress of time. +Georgy had been right in her gloomy forebodings of bad behaviour on the +part of Mr. Halliday. It was nearly one o'clock when a loud double +knock announced that gentleman's return. The wind had been howling +drearily, and a sharp, slanting rain had been pattering against the +windows for the last half-hour, while Mrs. Halliday's breast had been +racked by the contending emotions of anxiety and indignation. + +"I suppose he couldn't get a cab," she exclaimed, as the knock startled +her from her listening attitude--for however intently a midnight +watcher may be listening for the returning wanderer's knock, it is not +the less startling when it comes?--"and he has walked home through the +wet, and now he'll have a violent cold, I daresay," added Georgy +peevishly. + +"Then it's lucky for him he's in a doctor's house," answered Mr. +Sheldon, with a smile. He was a handsome man, no doubt, according to +the popular idea of masculine perfection, but he had not a pleasant +smile. "I went through the regular routine, you know, and am as well +able to see a patient safely through a cold or fever as I am to make +him a set of teeth." + +Mr. Halliday burst into the room at this moment, singing a fragment of +the "Chough and Crow" chorus, very much out of tune. He was in +boisterously high spirits, and very little the worse for liquor. He had +only walked from Covent Garden, he said, and had taken nothing but a +tankard of stout and a Welsh rarebit. He had been hearing the divinest +singing--boys with the voices of angels--and had been taking his supper +in a place which duchesses themselves did not disdain to peep at from +the sacred recesses of a loge grillee, George Sheldon had told him. But +poor country-bred Georgina Halliday would not believe in the duchesses, +or the angelic singing boys, or the primitive simplicity of Welsh +rarebits. She had a vision of beautiful women, and halls of dazzling +light, where there was the mad music of perpetual Post-horn Galops, +with a riotous accompaniment of huzzas and the popping of champagne +corks--where the sheen of satin and the glitter of gems bewildered the +eye of the beholder. She had seen such a picture once on the stage, and +had vaguely associated it with all Tom's midnight roisterings ever +afterwards. + +The roisterer's garments were very wet, and it was in vain that his +wife and Philip Sheldon entreated him to change them for dry ones, or +to go to bed immediately. He stood before the fire relating his +innocent adventures, and trying to dispel the cloud from Georgy's fair +young brow; and, when he did at last consent to go to his room, the +dentist shook his head ominously. + +"You'll have a severe cold to-morrow, depend upon it, Tom, and you'll +have yourself to thank for it," he said, as he bade the good-tempered +reprobate good night. "Never mind, old fellow," answered Tom; "if I am +ill, you shall nurse me. If one is doomed to die by doctors' stuff, +it's better to have a doctor one does know than a doctor one doesn't +know for one's executioner." + +After which graceful piece of humour Mr. Halliday went blundering up +the staircase, followed by his aggrieved wife. + +Philip Sheldon stood on the landing looking after his visitors for some +minutes. Then he went slowly back to the sitting-room, where he +replenished the fire, and seated himself before it with a newspaper in +his hand. + +"What's the use of going to bed, if I can't sleep?" he muttered, in a +discontented tone. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A PERPLEXING ILLNESS. + + +Mr. Sheldon's prophecy was fully realised. Tom Halliday awoke the next +day with a violent cold in his head. Like most big boisterous men of +herculean build, he was the veriest craven in the hour of physical +ailment; so he succumbed at once to the malady which a man obliged to +face the world and fight for his daily bread must needs have made light +of. + +The dentist rallied his invalid friend. + +"Keep your bed, if you like, Tom," he said, "but there's no necessity +for any such coddling. As your hands are hot, and your tongue rather +queer, I may as well give you a saline draught. You'll be all right by +dinner-time, and I'll get George to look round in the evening for a +hand at cards." + +Tom obeyed his professional friend--took his medicine, read the paper, +and slept away the best part of the dull March day. At half-past five +he got up and dressed for dinner, and the evening passed very +pleasantly--so pleasantly, indeed, that Georgy was half inclined to +wish that her husband might be afflicted with chronic influenza, +whereby he would be compelled to stop at home. She sighed when Philip +Sheldon slapped his friend's broad shoulder, and told him cheerily that +he would be "all right to-morrow." He would be well again, and there +would be more midnight roistering, and she would be again tormented by +that vision of lighted halls and beautiful diabolical creatures +revolving madly to the music of the Post-horn Galop. + +It seemed, however, that poor jealous Mrs. Halliday was to be spared +her nightly agony for some time to come. Tom's cold lasted longer than +he had expected, and the cold was succeeded by a low fever--a bilious +fever, Mr. Sheldon said. There was not the least occasion for alarm, of +course. The invalid and the invalid's wife trusted implicitly in the +friendly doctor who assured them both that Tom's attack was the most +ordinary kind of thing; a little wearing, no doubt, but entirely +without danger. He had to repeat this assurance very often to Georgy, +whose angry feelings had given place to extreme tenderness and +affection now that Tom was an invalid, quite unfitted for the society +of jolly good fellows, and willing to receive basins of beef-tea and +arrow-root meekly from his wife's hands, instead of those edibles of +iniquity, oysters and toasted cheese. + +Mr. Halliday's illness was very tiresome. It was one of those +perplexing complaints which keep the patient himself, and the patient's +friends and attendants, in perpetual uncertainty. A little worse one +day and a shade better the next; now gaining a little strength, now +losing a trifle more than he had gained. The patient declined in so +imperceptible a manner that he had been ill three weeks, and was no +longer able to leave his bed, and had lost alike his appetite and his +spirits, before Georgy awoke to the fact that this illness, hitherto +considered so lightly, must be very serious. + +"I think if--if you have no objection, I should like to see another +doctor, Mr. Sheldon," she said one day, with considerable embarrassment +of manner. She feared to offend her host by any doubt of his skill. +"You see--you--you are so much employed with teeth--and--of course you +know I am quite assured of your talent--but don't you think that a +doctor who had more experience in fever cases might bring Tom round +quicker? He has been ill so long now; and really he doesn't seem to get +any better." + +Philip Sheldon shrugged his shoulders. + +"As you please, my dear Mrs. Halliday," he said carelessly; "I don't +wish to press my services upon you. It is quite a matter of friendship, +you know, and I shall not profit sixpence by my attendance on poor old +Tom. Call in another doctor, by all means, if you think fit to do so; +but, of course, in that event, I must withdraw from the case. The man +you call in may be clever, or he may be stupid and ignorant. It's all a +chance, when one doesn't know one's man; and I really can't advise you +upon that point, for I know nothing of the London profession." + +Georgy looked alarmed. This was a new view of the subject. She had +fancied that all regular practitioners were clever, and had only +doubted Mr. Sheldon because he was not a regular practitioner. But how +if she were to withdraw her husband from the hands of a clever man to +deliver him into the care of an ignorant pretender, simply because she +was over-anxious for his recovery? + +"I always am foolishly anxious about things," she thought. + +And then she looked piteously at Mr. Sheldon, and said, "What do you +think I ought to do? Pray tell me. He has eaten no breakfast again this +morning; and even the cup of tea which I persuaded him to take seemed +to disagree with him. And then there is that dreadful sore throat which +torments him so. What ought I to do, Mr. Sheldon?" + +"Whatever seems best to yourself, Mrs. Halliday," answered the dentist +earnestly. "It is a subject upon, which I cannot pretend to advise you. +It is a matter of feeling rather than of reason, and it is a matter +which you yourself must determine. If I knew any man whom I could +honestly recommend to you, it would be another affair; but I don't. +Tom's illness is the simplest thing in the world, and I feel myself +quite competent to pull him through it, without fuss or bother; but if +you think otherwise, pray put me out of the question. There's one fact, +however, of which I'm bound to remind you. Like many fine big stalwart +fellows of his stamp, your husband is as nervous as a hysterical woman; +and if you call in a strange doctor, who will pull long faces, and put +on the professional solemnity, the chances are that he'll take alarm, +and do himself more mischief in a few hours than your new adviser can +undo in as many weeks." + +There was a little pause after this. Georgy's opinions, and suspicions, +and anxieties were alike vague; and this last suggestion of Mr. +Sheldon's put things in a new and alarming light. She was really +anxious about her husband, but she had been accustomed all her life to +accept the opinion of other people in preference to her own. + +"Do you really think that Tom will soon be well and strong again?" she +asked presently. + +"If I thought otherwise, I should be the first to advise other +measures. However, my dear Mrs. Halliday, call in some one else, for +your own satisfaction." + +"No," said Georgy, sighing plaintively, "it might frighten Tom. You are +quite right, Mr. Sheldon; he is very nervous, and the idea that I was +alarmed might alarm him. I'll trust in you. Pray try to bring him round +again. You will try, won't you?" she asked, in the childish pleading +way which was peculiar to her. + +The dentist was searching for something in the drawer of a table, and +his back was turned on the anxious questioner. + +"You may depend upon it, I'll do my best, Mrs. Halliday," he answered, +still busy at the drawer. Mr. Sheldon the younger had paid many visits +to Fitzgeorge-street during Tom Halliday's illness. George and Tom had +been the Damon and Pythias of Barlingford; and George seemed really +distressed when he found his friend changed for the worse. The changes +in the invalid were so puzzling, the alternations from better to worse +and from worse to better so frequent, that fear could take no hold upon +the minds of the patient's friends. It seemed such a very slight affair +this low fever, though sufficiently inconvenient to the patient +himself, who suffered a good deal from thirst and sickness, and showed +an extreme disinclination for food, all which symptoms Mr. Sheldon said +were the commonest and simplest features of a very mild attack of +bilious fever, which would leave Tom a better man than it had found +him. + +There had been several pleasant little card-parties during the earlier +stages of Mr. Halliday's illness; but within the last week the patient +had been too low and weak for cards--too weak to read the newspaper, or +even to bear having it read to him. When George came to look at his old +friend--"to cheer you up a little, old fellow, you know," and so on--he +found Tom, for the time being, past all capability of being cheered, +even by the genial society of his favourite jolly good fellow, or by +tidings of a steeplechase in Yorkshire, in which a neighbour had gone +to grief over a double fence. + +"That chap upstairs seems rather queerish," George had said to his +brother, after finding Tom lower and weaker than usual. "He's in a bad +way, isn't he, Phil?" + +"No; there's nothing serious the matter with him. He's rather low +to-night, that's all." + +"Rather low!" echoed George Sheldon. "He seems to me so very low, that +he can't sink much lower without going to the bottom of his grave. I'd +call some one in, if I were you." + +The dentist shrugged his shoulders, and made a little contemptuous +noise with his lips. + +"If you knew as much of doctors as I do, you wouldn't be in any hurry +to trust a friend to the mercy of one," he said carelessly. "Don't you +alarm yourself about Tom. He's right enough. He's been in a state of +chronic over-eating and over-drinking for the last ten years, and this +bilious fever will be the making of him." + +"Will it?" said George doubtfully; and then there followed a little +pause, during which the brothers happened to look at each other +furtively, and happened to surprise each other in the act. + +"I don't know about over-eating or drinking," said George presently; +"but something has disagreed with Tom Halliday, that's very evident." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE LETTER FROM THE "ALLIANCE" OFFICE. + + +Upon the evening of the day on which Mrs. Halliday and the dentist had +discussed the propriety of calling in a strange doctor, George Sheldon +came again to see his sick friend. He was quicker to perceive the +changes in the invalid than the members of the household, who saw him +daily and hourly, and he perceived a striking change for the worse +to-night. + +He took care, however, to suffer no evidence of alarm or surprise to +appear in the sick chamber. He talked to his friend in the usual cheery +way; sat by the bedside for half an hour; did his best to arouse Tom +from a kind of stupid lethargy, and to encourage Mrs. Halliday, who +shared the task of nursing her husband with brisk Nancy Woolper, an +invaluable creature in a sick-room. But he failed in both attempts; the +dull apathy of the invalid was not to be dispelled by the most genial +companionship, and Georgy's spirits had been sinking lower and lower +all day as her fears increased. + +She would fain have called in a strange doctor--she would fain have +sought for comfort and consolation from some new quarter. But she was +afraid of offending Philip Sheldon; and she was afraid of alarming her +husband. So she waited, and watched, and struggled against that +ever-increasing anxiety. Had not Mr. Sheldon made light of his +friend's malady, and what motive could he have for deceiving her? + +A breakfast-cup full of beef-tea stood on the little table by the +bedside, and had been standing there for hours untouched. + +"I did take such pains to make it strong and clear," said Mrs. Woolper +regretfully, as she came to the little table during a tidying process, +"and poor dear Mr. Halliday hasn't taken so much as a spoonful. It +won't be fit for him to-morrow, so as I haven't eaten a morsel of +dinner, what with the hurry and anxiety and one thing and another, I'll +warm up the beef-tea for my supper. There's not a blessed thing in the +house; for you don't eat nothing, Mrs. Halliday; and as to cooking a +dinner for Mr. Sheldon, you'd a deal better go and throw your victuals +out into the gutter, for then there'd be a chance of stray dogs +profiting by 'em, at any rate." + +"Phil is off his feed, then; eh, Nancy?" said George. + +"I should rather think he is, Mr. George. I roasted a chicken yesterday +for him and Mrs. Halliday, and I don't think they eat an ounce between, +them; and such a lovely tender young thing as it was too--done to a +turn--with bread sauce and a little bit of sea-kale. One invalid makes +another, that's certain. I never saw your brother so upset as he is +now, Mr, George, in all his life. + +"No?" answered George Sheldon thoughtfully; "Phil isn't generally one +of your sensitive sort." + +The invalid was sleeping heavily during this conversation. George stood +by the bed for some minutes looking down at the altered face, and then +turned to leave the room. + +"Good night, Mrs. Halliday," he said; "I hope I shall find poor old Tom +a shade better when I look round to-morrow." + +"I am sure I hope so," Georgy answered mournfully. + +She was sitting by the window looking out at the darkening western sky, +in which the last lurid glimmer of a stormy sunset was fading against a +background of iron gray. + +This quiet figure by the window, the stormy sky, and ragged hurrying +clouds without, the dusky chamber with all its dismally significant +litter of medicine-bottles, made a gloomy picture--a picture which the +man who looked upon it carried in his mind for many years after that +night. + +George Sheldon and Nancy Woolper left the room together, the +Yorkshirewoman carrying a tray of empty phials and glasses, and amongst +them the cup of beef-tea. + +"He seems in a bad way to-night, Nancy," said George, with a backward +jerk of his head towards the sick-chamber. + +"He is in a bad way, Mr. George," answered the woman gravely, "let Mr. +Philip think what he will. I don't want to say a word against your +brother's knowledge, for such a steady studious gentleman as he is had +need be clever; and if I was ill myself, I'd trust my life to him +freely; for I have heard Barlingford folks say that my master's advice +is as good as any regular doctor's, and that there's very little your +regular doctors know that he doesn't know as well or better. But for +all that, Mr. George, I don't think he understands Mr. Halliday's case +quite as clear as he might." + +"Do you think Tom's in any danger?" + +"I won't say that, Mr. George; but I think he gets worse instead of +getting better." + +"Humph!" muttered George; "if Halliday were to go off the hooks, Phil +would have a good chance of getting a rich wife." + +"Don't say that, Mr. George," exclaimed the Yorkshirewoman +reproachfully; "don't even think of such a thing while that poor man +lies at death's door. I'm sure Mr. Sheldon hasn't any thoughts of that +kind. He told me before Mr. and Mrs. Halliday came to town that he and +Miss Georgy had forgotten all about past times." + +"O, if Phil said so, that alters the case. Phil is one of your blunt +outspoken fellows, and always says what he means," said George Sheldon. +And then he went downstairs, leaving Nancy to follow him at her leisure +with the tray of jingling cups and glasses. He went down through the +dusk, smiling to himself, as if he had just given utterance to some +piece of intense humour. He went to look for his brother, whom he found +in the torture-chamber, busied with some mysterious process in +connection with a lump of plaster-of-pans, which seemed to be the model +of ruined battlements in the Gothic style. The dentist looked up as +George entered the room, and did not appear particularly delighted by +the appearance of that gentleman. + +"Well," said Mr. Sheldon the younger, "busy as usual? Patients seem to +be looking up." + +"Patients be----toothless to the end of time!" cried Philip, with a +savage laugh. "No, I'm not working to order; I'm only experimentalising." + +"You're rather fond of experiments, I think, Phil," said George, +seating himself near the table at which his brother was working under +the glare of the gas. The dentist looked very pale and haggard in the +gas-light, and his eyes had the dull sunken appearance induced by +prolonged sleeplessness. George sat watching his brother thoughtfully +for some time, and then produced his cigar-case. "You don't mind my +smoke here?" he asked, as he lighted a cigar. + +"Not at all. You are very welcome to sit here, if it amuses you to see +me working at the cast of a lower jaw." + +"O, that's a lower jaw, is it? It looks like the fragment of some +castle-keep. No, Phil, I don't care about watching you work. I want to +talk to you seriously." + +"About that fellow upstairs--poor old Tom. He and I were great +cronies, you know, at home. He's in a very bad way, + +"Is he? You seem to be turning physician all at once, George. I +shouldn't have thought your grubbing among county histories, and +tattered old pedigrees, and parish registers had given you so deep an +insight into the science of medicine!" said the dentist in a sneering +tone. + +"I don't know anything of medicine; but I know enough to be sure that +Tom Halliday is about as bad as he can be. What mystifies me is, that +he doesn't seem to have had anything particular the matter with him. +There he lies, getting worse and worse every day, without any specific +ailment. It's a strange illness, Philip." + +"I don't see anything strange in it." + +"Don't you? Don't you think the surrounding circumstances are strange? +Here is this man comes to your house hale and hearty; and all of a +sudden he falls ill, and gets lower and lower every day, without +anybody being able to say why or wherefore." + +"That's not true, George. Everybody in this house knows the cause of +Tom Halliday's illness. He came home in wet clothes, and insisted on +keeping them on. He caught a cold; which resulted in low fever. There +is the whole history and mystery of the affair." + +"That's simple enough, certainly. But if I were you, Phil I'd call in +another doctor." + +"That is Mrs. Halliday's business," answered the dentist coolly; "if +she doubts my skill, she is free to call in whom she pleases. And now +you may as well drop the subject, George. I've had enough anxiety about +this man's illness, and I don't want to be worried by you." + +After this there was a little conversation upon general matters, but +the talk dragged and languished drearily, and George Sheldon rose to +depart directly he had finished his cigar. + +"Good night, Philip!" he said; "if ever you get a stroke of good luck, +I hope you'll stand something handsome to me." + +This remark had no particular relevance to anything that had been said +that night by the two men; yet Philip Sheldon seemed in nowise +astonished by it. + +"If things ever _do_ take a turn for the better with me, you'll find me +a good friend, George," he said gravely; and then Mr. Sheldon the +younger bade him good night, and went out into Fitzgeorge-street. + +He paused for a moment at the corner of the street to look back at his +brother's house. He could see the lighted windows of the invalid's +chamber, and it was at those he looked. + +"Poor Tom," he said to himself, "poor Tom! We were great cronies in the +old times, and have had many a pleasant evening together!" + +Mr. Sheldon the dentist sat up till the small hours that night, as +he had done for many nights lately. He finished his work in the +torture-chamber, and went up to the common sitting-room, or +drawing-room as it was called by courtesy, a little before midnight. +The servants had gone to bed, for there was no regular nightly watch +in the apartment of the invalid. Mrs. Halliday lay on a sofa in her +husband's room, and Nancy Woolper slept in an adjoining apartment, +always wakeful and ready if help of any kind should be wanted. + +The house was very quiet just now. Philip Sheldon walked up and down +the room, thinking; and the creaking of his boots sounded unpleasantly +loud to his ears. He stopped before the fireplace, after having walked +to and fro some time, and began to examine some letters that lay upon +the mantelpiece. They were addressed to Mr. Halliday, and had been +forwarded from Yorkshire. The dentist took them up, one by one, and +deliberately examined them. They were all business letters, and most of +them bore country post-marks. But there was one which had been, in the +first instance, posted from London and this letter Mr. Sheldon examined +with especial attention. + +It was a big, official-looking document, and embossed upon the adhesive +envelope appeared the crest and motto of the Alliance Insurance Office. + +"I wonder whether that's all square," thought Mr. Sheldon, as he turned +the envelope about in his hands, staring at it absently. "I ought to +make sure of that. The London postmark is nearly three weeks old." He +pondered for some moments, and then went to the cupboard in which he +kept the materials wherewith to replenish or to make a fire. Here he +found a little tin tea-kettle, in which he was in the habit of boiling +water for occasional friendly glasses of grog. He poured some water +from a bottle on the sideboard into this kettle, set fire to a bundle +of wood, and put the kettle on the blazing sticks. After having done +this he searched for a tea-cup, succeeded in finding one, and then +stood watching for the boiling of the water. He had not long to wait; +the water boiled furiously before the wood was burned out, and Mr. +Sheldon filled the tea-cup standing on the table. Then he put the +insurance-letter over the cup, with the seal downwards, and left it so +while he resumed his walk. After walking up and down for about ten +minutes he went back to the table and took up the letter. The adhesive +envelope opened easily, and Mr. Sheldon, by this ingenious stratagem, +made himself master of his friend's business. + +The "Alliance" letter was nothing more than a notice to the effect that +the half-yearly premium for insuring the sum of three thousand pounds +on the life of Thomas Halliday would be due on such a day, after which +there would be twenty-one days' grace, at the end of which time the +policy would become void, unless the premium had been duly paid. + +Mr. Halliday's letters had been suffered to accumulate during the last +fortnight. The letters forwarded from Yorkshire had been detained some +time, as they had been sent first to Hyley Farm, now in the possession +of the new owner, and then to Barlingford, to the house of Georgy's +mother, who had kept them upwards of a week, in daily expectation of +her son-in-law's return. It was only on the receipt of a letter from +Georgy, containing the tidings of her husband's illness, that Mr. +Halliday's letters had been sent to London. Thus it came about that the +twenty-one days of grace were within four-and-twenty hours of expiring +when Philip Sheldon opened his friend's letter. + +"This is serious," muttered the dentist, as he stood deliberating with +the open letter in his hand; "there are three thousand pounds depending +on that man's power to write a check!" + +After a few minutes' reflection, he folded the letter and resealed it +very carefully. + +"It wouldn't do to press the matter upon him to-night," he thought; "I +must wait till to-morrow morning, come what may." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +MR. BURKHAM'S UNCERTAINTIES. + + +The next morning dawned gray and pale and chill, after the manner of +early spring mornings, let them ripen into never such balmy days; and +with the dawn Nancy Woolper came into the invalid's chamber, more wan +and sickly of aspect than the morning itself. + +Mrs. Halliday started from an uneasy slumber. + +"What's the matter, Nancy?" she asked with considerable alarm. She had +known the woman ever since her childhood, and she was startled this +morning by some indefinable change in her manner and appearance. The +hearty old woman, whose face had been like a hard rosy apple shrivelled +and wrinkled by long keeping, had now a white and ghastly look which +struck terror to Georgy's breast. She who was usually so brisk of +manner and sharp of speech, had this morning a strange subdued tone and +an unnatural calmness of demeanour. "What is the matter, Nancy?" Mrs. +Halliday repeated, getting up from her sofa. + +"Don't be frightened, Miss Georgy," answered the old woman, who was apt +to forget that Tom Halliday's wife had ever ceased to be Georgy +Cradock; "don't be frightened, my dear. I haven't been very well all +night,--and--and--I've been, worrying myself about Mr. Halliday. If I +were you, I'd call in another doctor. Never mind what Mr. Philip says. +He may be mistaken, you know, clever as he is. There's no telling. Take +my advice, Miss Georgy, and call in another doctor--directly-- +directly," repeated the old woman, seizing Mrs. Halliday's wrist with a +passionate energy, as if to give emphasis to her words. Poor timid +Georgy shrank from her with terror. + +"You frighten me, Nancy," she whispered; "do you think that Tom is so +much worse? You have not been with him all night; and he has been +sleeping very quietly. What makes you so anxious this morning?" + +"Never mind that, Miss Georgy. You get another doctor, that's all; get +another doctor at once. Mr. Sheldon is a light sleeper. I'll go to his +room and tell him you've set your heart upon having fresh advice; if +you'll only bear me out afterwards." + +"Yes, yes; go by all means," exclaimed Mrs. Halliday, only too ready to +take alarm under the influence of a stronger mind, and eager to act +when supported by another person. + +Nancy Woolper went to her master's room. He must have been sleeping +very lightly, if he was sleeping at all; for he was broad awake the +next minute after his housekeeper's light knock had sounded on the +door. In less than five minutes he came out of his room half-dressed. +Nancy had told him that Mrs. Halliday had taken fresh alarm about her +husband, and wished for further advice. + +"She sent you to tell me that?" asked Philip. + +"Yes." + +"And when does she want this new doctor called in?" + +"Immediately, if possible." + +It was seven o'clock by this time, and the morning was brightening a +little. + +"Very well," said Mr. Sheldon; "her wishes shall be attended to +directly. Heaven forbid that I should stand between my old friend and +any chance of his speedy recovery! If a stranger can bring him round +quicker than I can, let the stranger come." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sheldon was not slow to obey Mrs. Halliday's behest. He was +departing on his quest breakfastless, when Nancy Woolper met him in the +hall with a cup of tea. He accepted the cup almost mechanically from +her hand, and took it into the parlour, whither Nancy followed him. +Then for the first time he perceived that change in his housekeeper's +face which had so startled Georgina Halliday. The change was somewhat +modified now; but still the Nancy Woolper of to-day was not the Nancy +Woolper of yesterday. + +"You're looking very queer, Nancy," said the dentist, gravely +scrutinising the woman's face with his bright penetrating eyes. "Are +you ill" + +"Well, Mr. Philip, I have been rather queer all night,--sickish and +faintish-like." + +"Ah, you've been over-fatiguing yourself in the sick-room, I daresay. +Take care you don't knock yourself up." "No; it's not that, Mr. Philip. +There's not many can stand hard work better than I can. It's not _that_ +as made me ill. I took something last night that disagreed with me." + +"More fool you," said Mr. Sheldon curtly; "you ought to know better +than to ill-use your digestive powers at your age. What was it? Hard +cold meat and preternaturally green pickles, I suppose; or something of +that kind." + +"No, sir; it was only a drop of beef-tea that I made for poor Mr. +Halliday. And that oughtn't to have disagreed with a baby, you know, +sir." + +"Oughtn't it?" cried the dentist disdainfully. "That's a little bit of +vulgar ignorance, Mrs. Woolper. I suppose it was stuff that had been +taken up to Mr. Halliday." + +"Yes, Mr. Philip; you took it up with your own hands." + +"Ah, to be sure; so I did. Very well, then, Mrs. Woolper, if you knew +as much about atmospheric influences as I do, you'd know that food +which has been standing for hours in the pestilential air of a +fever-patient's room isn't fit for anybody to eat. The stuff made you +sick, I suppose." + +"Yes, sir; sick to my very heart," answered the Yorkshirewoman, with a +strange mournfulness in her voice. + +"Let that be a warning to you, then. Don't take anything more that +comes down from the sick-room." + +"I don't think there'll be any chance of my doing that long, sir." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I don't fancy Mr. Halliday is long for this world." + +"Ah, you women are always ravens." + +"Unless the strange doctor can do something to cure him. O, pray bring +a clever man who will be able to cure that poor helpless creature +upstairs. Think, Mr. Philip, how you and him used to be friends and +playfellows,--brothers almost,--when you was both bits of boys. Think +how bad it might seem to evil-minded folks if he died under your roof." + +The dentist had been standing near the door drinking his tea during +this conversation; and now for the first time he looked at his +housekeeper with an expression of unmitigated astonishment. + +"What, in the name of all that's ridiculous, do you mean, Nancy?" he +asked impatiently. "What has my roof to do with Tom Halliday's illness +--or his death, if it came to that? And what on earth can people have to +say about it if he should die here instead of anywhere else?" + +"Why, you see, sir, you being his friend, and Miss Georgy's sweetheart +that was, and him having no other doctor, folks might take it into +their heads he wasn't attended properly." + +"Because I'm his friend? That's very good logic! I'll tell you what it +is, Mrs. Woolper; if any woman upon earth, except the woman who nursed +me when I was a baby, had presumed to talk to me as you have been +talking to me just this minute, I should open the door yonder and tell +her to walk out of my house. Let that serve as a hint for you, Nancy; +and don't you go out of your way a second time to advise me how I +should treat my friend and my patient." + +He handed her the empty cup, and walked out of the house. There had +been no passion in his tone. His accent had been only that of a man who +has occasion to reprove an old and trusted servant for an unwarrantable +impertinence. Nancy Woolper stood at the street-door watching him as he +walked away, and then went slowly back to her duties in the lower +regions of the house. + +"It can't be true," she muttered to herself; "it can't be true." + + * * * * * + +The dentist returned to Fitzgeorge-street in less than an hour, +bringing with him a surgeon from the neighbourhood, who saw the +patient, discussed the treatment, spoke hopefully to Mrs. Halliday, and +departed, after promising to send a saline draught. Poor Georgy's +spirits, which had revived a little under the influence of the +stranger's hopeful words, sank again when she discovered that the +utmost the new doctor could do was to order a saline draught. Her +husband had taken so many saline draughts, and had been getting daily +worse under their influence. + +She watched the stranger wistfully as he lingered on the threshold to +say a few words to Mr. Sheldon. He was a very young man, with a frank +boyish face and a rosy colour in his cheeks. He looked like some fresh +young neophyte in the awful mysteries of medical science, and by no +means the sort of man to whom one would have imagined Philip Sheldon +appealing for help, when he found his own skill at fault. But then it +must be remembered that Mr. Sheldon had only summoned the stranger in +compliance with what he considered a womanish whim. + +"He looks very young," Georgina said regretfully, after the doctor's +departure. + +"So much the better, my dear Mrs. Halliday," answered the dentist +cheerfully; "medical science is eminently progressive, and the youngest +men are the best-educated men." + +Poor Georgy did not understand this; but it sounded convincing, and she +was in the habit of believing what people told her; so she accepted Mr. +Sheldon's opinion. How could she doubt that he was wiser than herself +in all matters connected with the medical profession? + +"Tom seems a little better this morning," she said presently. + +The invalid was asleep, shrouded by the curtain of the heavy +old-fashioned four-post bedstead. + +"He is better," answered the dentist; "so much better, that I shall +venture to give him a few business letters that have been waiting for +him some time, as soon as he wakes." + +He seated himself by the head of the bed, and waited quietly for the +awakening of the patient. + +"Your breakfast is ready for you downstairs, Mrs. Halliday," he said +presently; "hadn't you better go down and take it, while I keep watch +here? It's nearly ten o'clock." + +"I don't care about any breakfast," Georgina answered piteously. + +"Ah, but you'd better eat something. You'll make yourself an invalid, +if you are not careful; and then you won't be able to attend upon Tom." + +This argument prevailed immediately. Georgy went downstairs to the +drawing-room, and tried bravely to eat and drink, in order that she +might be sustained in her attendance upon her husband. She had +forgotten all the throes and tortures of jealousy which she had endured +on his account. She had forgotten his late hours and unholy +roisterings. She had forgotten everything except that he had been very +tender and kind throughout the prosperous years of their married life, +and that he was lying in the darkened room upstairs sick to death. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sheldon waited with all outward show of patience for the awakening +of the invalid. But he looked at his watch twice during that half-hour +of waiting; and once he rose and moved softly about the room, searching +for writing materials. He found a little portfolio of Georgina's, and a +frivolous-minded inkstand, after the semblance of an apple, with a gilt +stalk and leaflet. The dentist took the trouble to ascertain that there +was a decent supply of ink in the green-glass apple, and that the pens +were in working order. Then he went quietly back to his seat by the +bedside and waited. + +The invalid opened his eyes presently, and recognised his friend with a +feeble smile. + +"Well, Tom, old fellow, how do you feel to-day--a little better I hear +from Mrs. H.," said the dentist cheerily. + +"Yes, I think I am a shade better. But, you see, the deuce of it is I +never get more than a shade better. It always stops at that. The little +woman can't complain of me now, can she, Sheldon? No more late hours, +or oyster suppers, eh?" + +"No, no, not just yet. You'll have to take care of yourself for a week +or two when you get about again." Mr. Halliday smiled faintly as his +friend said this. + +"I shall be very careful of myself if I ever do get about again, you +may depend upon it, old fellow. But do you know I sometimes fancy I +have spent my last jolly evening, and eaten my last oyster supper, on +this earth? I'm afraid it's time for me to begin to think seriously of +a good many things. The little woman is all right, thank God. I made my +will upwards of a year ago, and insured my life pretty heavily soon +after my marriage. Old Cradock never let me rest till that was done. So +Georgy will be all safe. But when a man has led a careless, godless +kind of a life,--doing very little harm, perhaps, but doing no +particular good,--he ought to set about making up his account somehow +for a better world, when he feels himself slipping out of this. I asked +Georgy for her Bible yesterday, and the poor dear loving little thing +was frightened out of her wits. 'O, don't talk like that, Tom,' she +cried; 'Mr. Sheldon says you are getting better every hour,'--by which +you may guess what a rare thing it is for me to read my Bible. No, +Phil, old fellow, you've done your best for me, I know; but I'm not +made of a very tough material, and all the physic you can pour down +this poor sore throat of mine won't put any strength into me." + +"Nonsense, dear boy; that's just what a man who has not been accustomed +to illness is sure to think directly he is laid up for a day or two." + +"I've been laid up for three weeks," murmured Mr. Halliday rather +fretfully. + +"Well, well, perhaps this Mr. Burkham will bring you round in three +days, and then you'll say that your friend Sheldon was an ignoramus." + +"No, no, I shan't, old fellow; I'm not such a fool as that. I'm not +going to blame you when it's my own constitution that's in fault. As to +that young man you brought here just now, to please Georgy, I don't +suppose he'll be able to do any more for me than you have done." + +"We'll contrive to bring you round between us, never fear, Tom," +answered Philip Sheldon in his most hopeful tone. "Why, you are looking +almost your old self this morning. You are so much improved that I may +venture to talk to you about business. There have been some letters +lying about for the last few days. I didn't like to bore you while you +were so very low. But they look like business letters; and perhaps it +would be as well for you to open them." + +The sick man contemplated the little packet which the dentist had taken +from his breast-pocket; and then shook his head wearily. + +"I'm not up to the mark, Sheldon," he said; "the letters must keep." +"O, come, come, old fellow! That's giving way, you know. The letters +may be important; and it will do you good if you make an effort to +rouse yourself." + +"I tell you it isn't in me to do it, Philip Sheldon. I'm past making +efforts. Can't you see that, man? Open the letters yourself, if you +like." + +"No, no, Halliday, I won't do that. Here's one with the seal of the +Alliance Insurance Office. I suppose your premium is all right." + +Tom Halliday lifted himself on his elbow for a moment, startled into +new life; but he sank back on the pillows again immediately, with a +feeble groan. + +"I don't know about that," he said anxiously; "you'd better look to +that, Phil, for the little woman's sake. A man is apt to think that his +insurance is settled and done with, when he has been pommelled about by +the doctors and approved by the board. He forgets there's that little +matter of the premium. You'd better open the letter, Phil. I never was +a good hand at remembering dates, and this illness has thrown me +altogether out of gear." + +Mr. Sheldon tore open that official document, which, in his benevolent +regard for his friend's interest, he had manipulated so cleverly on the +previous evening, and read the letter with all show of deliberation. + +"You're right, Tom," he exclaimed presently. "The twenty-one days' +grace expire to-day. You'd better write me a check at once, and I'll +send it on to the office by hand. Where's your check-book?" + +"In the pocket of that coat hanging up there." + +Philip Sheldon found the check-book, and brought it to his friend, with +Georgy's portfolio, and the frivolous little green-glass inkstand in +the shape of an apple. He adjusted the writing materials for the sick +man's use with womanly gentleness. His arm supported the wasted frame, +as Tom Halliday slowly and laboriously filled in the check; and when +the signature was duly appended to that document, he drew a long +breath, which seemed to express infinite relief of mind. + +"You'll be sure it goes on to the Alliance Office, eh, old fellow?" +asked Tom, as he tore out the oblong slip of paper and handed it to his +friend. "It was kind of you to jog my memory about this business. I'm +such a fellow for procrastinating matters. And I'm afraid I've been a +little off my load during the last week." + +"Nonsense, Tom; not you." + +"O yes, I have. I've had all sorts of queer fancies. Did you come into +this room the night before last, when Georgy was asleep?" Mr. Sheldon +reflected for a moment before answering. + +"No," he said, "not the night before last." + +"Ah, I thought as much," murmured the invalid. "I was off my head that +night then, Phil, for I fancied I saw you; and I fancied I heard the +bottles and glasses jingling on the little table behind the curtain." + +"You were dreaming, perhaps." + +"O no, I wasn't dreaming. I was very restless and wakeful that night. +However, that's neither here nor there. I lie in a stupid state +sometimes for hours and hours, and I feel as weak as a rat, bodily and +mentally; so while I have my wits about me, I'd better say what I've +been wanting to say ever so long. You've been a good and kind friend to +me all through this illness, Phil, and I'm not ungrateful for your +kindness. If it does come to the worst with me--as I believe it will-- +Georgy shall give you a handsome mourning ring, or fifty pounds to buy +one, if you like it better. And now let me shake hands with you, Philip +Sheldon, and say thank you heartily, old fellow, for once and for +ever." + +The invalid stretched out a poor feeble attenuated hand, and, after a +moment's pause, Philip Sheldon clasped it in his own muscular fingers. +He did hesitate for just one instant before taking that hand. + +He was no student of the gospel; but when he had left the sick-chamber +there arose before him suddenly, as if written in letters of fire on +the wall opposite to him, one sentence which had been familiar to him +in his school-days at Barlingford: + +_And as soon as he was come, he goeth straightway to him, and saith, +Master, master; and kissed him._ + + * * * * * + +The new doctor came twice a day to see his patient. He seemed rather +anxious about the case, and just a little puzzled by the symptoms. +Georgy had sufficient penetration to perceive that this new adviser was +in some manner at fault; and she began to think that Philip Sheldon was +right, and that regular practitioners were very stupid creatures. She +communicated her doubts to Mr. Sheldon, and suggested the expediency of +calling in some grave elderly doctor, to supersede Mr. Burkham. But +against this the dentist protested very strongly. + +"You asked me to call in a stranger, Mrs. Halliday, and I have done +so," he said, with the dignity of an offended man. "You must now abide +by his treatment, and content yourself with his advice, unless he +chooses to summon further assistance." + +Georgy was fain to submit. She gave a little plaintive sigh, and went +back to her husband's room, where she sat and wept silently behind the +bed-curtains. There was a double watch kept in the sick-chamber now; +for Nancy Woolper rarely left it, and rarely closed her eyes. It was +altogether a sad time in the dentist's house; and Tom Halliday +apologised to his friend more than once for the trouble he had brought +upon him. If he had been familiar with the details of modern history, +he would have quoted Charles Stuart, and begged pardon for being so +long a-dying. + +But anon there came a gleam of hope. The patient seemed decidedly +better; and Georgy was prepared to revere Mr. Burkham, the Bloomsbury +surgeon, as the greatest and ablest of men. Those shadows of doubt and +perplexity which had at first obscured Mr. Burkham's brow cleared away, +and he spoke very cheerfully of the invalid. + +Unhappily this state of things did not last long. The young surgeon +came one morning, and was obviously alarmed by the appearance of his +patient. He told Philip Sheldon as much; but that gentleman made very +light of his fears. As the two men discussed the case, it was very +evident that the irregular practitioner was quite a match for the +regular one. Mr. Burkham listened deferentially, but departed only half +convinced. He walked briskly away from the house, but came to a dead +stop directly after turning out of Fitzgeorge-street. + +"What ought I to do?" he asked himself. "What course ought I to take? +If I am right, I should be a villain to let things go on. If I am +wrong, anything like interference would ruin me for life." + +He had finished his morning round, but he did not go straight home. He +lingered at the corners of quiet streets, and walked up and down the +unfrequented side of a gloomy square. Once he turned and retraced his +steps in the direction of Fitzgeorge-street. But after all this +hesitation he walked home, and ate his dinner very thoughtfully, +answering his young wife at random when she talked to him. He was a +struggling man, who had invested his small fortune in the purchase of a +practice which had turned out a very poor one, and he had the battle of +life before him. + +"There's something on your mind to-day, I'm sure, Harry," his wife said +before the meal was ended. + +"Well, yes, dear," he answered; "I've rather a difficult case in +Fitzgeorge-street, and I'm anxious about it." + +The industrious little wife disappeared after dinner, and the young +surgeon walked up and down the room alone, brooding over that difficult +case in Fitzgeorge-street. After spending nearly an hour thus, he +snatched his hat suddenly from the table on which he had set it down, +and hurried from the house. + +"I'll have advice and assistance, come what may," he said to himself, +as he walked rapidly in the direction of Mr. Sheldon's house. "The case +may be straight enough--I certainly can't see that the man has any +motive--but I'll have advice." + +He looked up at the dentist's spotless dwelling as he crossed the +street. The blinds were all down, and the fact that they were so sent a +sudden chill to his heart. But the April sunshine was full upon that +side of the street, and there might lie no significance in those +closely-drawn blinds. The door was opened by a sleepy-looking boy, and +in the passage Mr. Burkham met Philip Sheldon. + +"I have been rather anxious about my patient since this morning, Mr. +Sheldon," said the surgeon; "and I have come to the conclusion that I +ought to confer with a man of higher standing than myself. Do you think +Mrs. Halliday will object to such a course?" + +"I am sure she would not have objected to it," the dentist answered +very gravely, "if you had suggested it sooner. I am sorry to say the +suggestion comes too late. My poor friend breathed his last half an +hour ago." + + + + + +BOOK THE SECOND. + + +THE TWO MACAIRES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A GOLDEN TEMPLE. + + +In the very midst of the Belgian iron country, under the shadow of +tall sheltering ridges of pine-clad mountain-land, nestles the +fashionable little watering-place called Forêtdechêne. Two or three +handsome hotels; a bright white new pile of building, with vast windows +of shining plate-glass, and a stately quadrangular courtyard; a tiny +street, which looks as if a fragment of English Brighton had been +dropped into this Belgian valley; a stunted semi-classic temple, which +is at once a post-office and a shrine whereat invalids perform their +worship of Hygeia by the consumption of unspeakably disagreeable +mineral waters; a few tall white villas scattered here and there +upon the slopes of pine-clad hills; and a very uncomfortable +railway-station--constitute the chief features Forêtdechêne. But right +and left of that little cluster of shops and hotels there stretch deep +sombre avenues of oak, that look like sheltered ways to Paradise--and +the deep, deep blue of the August sky, and the pure breath of the warm +soft air, and the tender green of the young pine-woods that clothe the +sandy hills, and the delicious tranquillity that pervades the sleepy +little town and bathes the hot landscape in a languorous mist, are +charms that render Forêtdechêne a pleasant oasis amid the lurid woods +and mountains of the iron country. + +Only at stated intervals the quiet of this sleepy hollow is broken by +the rolling of wheels, the jingling of bells, the cracking of whips, +the ejaculations of drivers, and supplications of touters: only when +the railroad carries away departing visitors, or brings fresh ones, is +there anything like riot or confusion in the little town under the +pine-clad hills--and even then the riot and confusion are of a very +mild order, and create but a transient discord amongst the harmonies of +nature. + +And yet, despite the Arcadian tranquillity of the landscape, the drowsy +quiet of the pine-groves, the deep and solemn shade of those dark +avenues, where one might fondly hope to find some Druidess lingering +beneath the shelter of the oaks, there is excitement of no common order +to be found in the miniature watering-place of Forêtdechêne; and the +reflective and observant traveller, on a modern sentimental journey, +has only to enter the stately white building with the glittering +plate-glass windows in order to behold the master-passions or the human +breast unveiled for his pleasure and edification. + +The ignorant traveller, impelled by curiosity, finds no bar to his +entrance. The doors are as wide open as if the mansion were an hotel; +and yet it is not an hotel, though a placard which he passes informs +the traveller that he may have ices and sorbets, if he will; nor is the +bright fresh-looking building a theatre, for another placard informs +the visitor that there are dramatic performances to be witnessed every +evening in a building on one side of the quadrangle, which is a mere +subsidiary attachment to the vast white mansion. The traveller, passing +on his way unhindered, save by a man in livery, who deprives him of his +cane, ascends a splendid staircase and traverses a handsome +antechamber, from which a pair of plate-glass doors open into a +spacious saloon, where, in the warm August sunlight, a circle of men +and women are gathered round a great green table, gambling. + +The ignorant traveller, unaccustomed to the amusements of a Continental +watering-place, may perhaps feel a little sense of surprise--a +something almost akin to shame--as he contemplates that silent crowd, +whose occupation seems so much the more strange to him because of their +silence. There is no lively bustle, none of that animation which +generally attends every kind of amusement, none of the clamour of the +betting-ring or the exchange. The gamblers at Forêtdechêne are terribly +in earnest: and the ignorant visitor unconsciously adapts himself to +the solemn hush of the place, and steps softly as he approaches the +table round which they are clustered--as many sitting as can find room +round the green-cloth-covered board; while behind the sitters there are +people standing two or three rows deep, the hindermost watching the +table over the shoulders of their neighbours. A placard upon the wall +informs visitors that only constant players are permitted to remain +seated at that sacred table. Perhaps a third of the players and a third +of the lookers-on are women. And if there are lips more tightly +contracted than other lips, and eyes with a harder, greedier light in +them than other eyes, those lips and those eyes belong to the women. +The ungloved feminine hands have a claw-like aspect as they scrape the +glittering pieces of silver over the green cloth; the feminine throats +look weird and scraggy as they crane themselves over masculine +shoulders; the feminine eyes have something demoniac in their steely +glare as they keep watch upon the rapid progress of the game. + +Half a dozen moderate fortunes seem to be lost and won while the +traveller looks on from the background, unnoticed and unseen; for if +those plate-glass doors swung suddenly open to admit the seven angels +of the Apocalypse, carrying the seven golden vials filled with the +wrath of God, it is doubtful whether the splendour of their awful +glory, or the trumpet-notes that heralded their coming, would have +power to arouse the players from their profound abstraction. + +Half a dozen comfortable little patrimonies seem to have changed hands +while the traveller has been looking on; and yet he has only watched +the table for about ten minutes; and this splendid _salon_ is but an +outer chamber, where one may stake as shabby a sum as two francs, if +one is shabby enough to wish to do so, and where playing for half an +hour or so on a pleasant summer morning one could scarcely lose more +than fifty or sixty pounds. Another pair of plate-glass doors open into +an inner chamber, where the silence is still more profound, and where +around a larger table sit one row of players; while only here and there +a little group of outsiders stand behind their chairs. There is more +gilding on the walls and ceiling of this chamber; the frescoes are more +delicate; the crystal chandeliers are adorned with rich clusters of +sparkling drops, that twinkle like diamonds in the sun. This is the +temple of gold; and in this splendid chamber one may hazard no smaller +stake than half a napoleon. There are women here; but not so many women +as in the outer saloon; and the women here are younger and prettier and +more carefully dressed than those who stake only silver. + +The prettiest and the youngest woman in this golden chamber on one +particular August afternoon, nine years after the death of Tom +Halliday, was a girl who stood behind the chair of a military-looking +Englishman, an old man whose handsome face was a little disfigured by +those traces which late hours and dissipated habits are supposed to +leave behind them. + +The girl held a card in one hand and a pin in the other, and was +occupied in some mysterious process, by which she kept note of the +Englishman's play. She was very young, with a delicate face, in whose +softer lines there was a refined likeness to the features of the man +whose play she watched. But while his eyes were hard and cold and gray, +hers were of that dense black in which there seems such an unfathomable +and mysterious depth. As she was the handsomest, so she was also the +worst-dressed woman in the room. Her flimsy silk mantle had faded from +black to rusty brown; the straw hat which shaded her face was sunburnt; +the ribbons had lost their brightness; but there was an air of +attempted fashion in the puffings and trimmings of her alpaca skirt; +and there was evidence of a struggle with poverty in the tight-fitting +lavender gloves, whose streaky lines bore witness to the imperfection +of the cleaner's art. Elegant Parisians and the select of Brussels +glanced at the military Englishman and his handsome daughter with some +slight touch of supercilious surprise--one has no right to find +shabbily-dressed young women in the golden temple--and it is scarcely +necessary to state that it was from her own countrywomen the young +person in alpaca received the most chilling glances. But those Parthian +arrows shot from feminine eyes had little power to wound their object +just now. The girl looked up from her perforated card very seldom; and +when she raised her eyes, it was always to look in one direction-- +towards the great glass doors opening from the outer saloon. Loungers +came and went; the doors swung open and closed again as noiselessly as +it is possible for well-regulated doors to open and shut; footsteps +sounded on the polished floors; and sometimes when the young person in +alpaca lifted her eyes, a passing shadow of disappointment darkened her +face. A modern Laurence Sterne, on a new Sentimental Journey, might +have derived some interest from the study of the girl's countenance; +but the reflective and observant traveller is not to be encountered +very often in this age of excursionists; and Maria and her goat may +roam the highways and byways for a long time before she will find any +dreamy loiterer with a mind attuned to sympathy. + +The shabbily-dressed girl was looking for some one. She watched her +father's play carefully--she marked her card with unfailing precision; +but she performed these duties with a mechanical air; and it was only +when she lifted her eyes to the great shining plate-glass doors which +opened into this dangerous Paradise, that any ray of feeling animated +her countenance. She was looking for some one, and the person watched +for was so long coming. Ah, how difficult for the arithmetician to +number the crushing disappointments, the bitter agonies that one woman +can endure in a single half-hour! This girl was so young--so young; and +already she had learnt to suffer. + +The man played with the concentrated attention and the impassible +countenance of an experienced gamester, rarely lifting his eyes from +the green cloth, never looking back at the girl who stood behind him. +He was winning to-day, and he accepted his good fortune as quietly as +he had often accepted evil fortune at the same table. He seemed to be +playing on some system of his own; and neighbouring players looked at +him with envious eyes, as they saw the pile of gold grow larger under +his thin nervous hands. Ignorant gamesters, who stood aloof after +having lost two or three napoleons, contemplated the lucky Englishman +and wondered about him, while some touch of pity leavened the envy +excited by his wonderful fortune. He looked like a decayed gentleman--a +man who had been a military dandy in the days that were gone, and who +had all the old pretensions still, without the power to support them--a +Brummel languishing at Caen; a Nash wasting slowly at Bath. + +At last the girl's face brightened suddenly as she glanced upwards; and +it would have been very easy for the observant traveller--if any such +person had existed--to construe aright that bright change in her +countenance. The some one she had been watching for had arrived. + +The doors swung open to admit a man of about five-and-twenty, whose +darkly-handsome face and careless costume had something of that air +which was once wont to be associated with the person and the poetry of +George Gordon Lord Byron. The new-comer was just one of those men whom +very young women are apt to admire, and whom worldly-minded people are +prone to distrust. There was a perfume of Bohemianism, a flavour of the +Quartier Latin, about the loosely-tied cravat, the wide trousers, and +black-velvet morning coat, with which the young man outraged the +opinions of respectable visitors at Forêtdechêne. There was a +semi-poetic vagabondism in the half-indifferent, half-contemptuous +expression of his face, with its fierce moustache, and strongly-marked +eyebrows overshadowing sleepy gray eyes--eyes that were half hidden, by +their long dark lashes; as still pools of blue water lie sometimes +hidden among the rushes that nourish round them. + +He was handsome, and he knew that he was handsome; but he affected to +despise the beauty of his proud dark face, as he affected to despise +all the brightest and most beautiful things upon earth: and yet there +was a vagabondish kind of foppery in his costume that contrasted +sharply with the gentlemanly dandyism of the shabby gamester sitting at +the table. There was a distance of nearly half a century between the +style of the Regency dandy and the Quartier-Latin lion. + +The girl watched the new-comer with sad earnest eyes as he walked +slowly towards the table, and a faint blush kindled in her cheeks as he +came nearer to the spot where she stood. He went by her presently, +carrying an atmosphere of stale tobacco with him as he went; and he +gave her a friendly nod as he passed, and a "Good morning, Diana;" but +that was all. The faint blush faded and left her very pale: but she +resumed her weary task with the card and the pin; and if she had +endured any disappointment within those few moments, it seemed to be a +kind of disappointment that she was accustomed to suffer. + +The young man walked round the table till he came to the only vacant +chair, in which he seated himself, and after watching the game for a +few minutes, began to play. From the moment in which he dropped into +that vacant seat to the moment in which he rose to leave the table, +three hours afterwards, he never lifted his eyes from the green cloth, +or seemed to be conscious of anything that was going on around or about +him. The girl watched him furtively for some little time after he had +taken his place at the table; but the stony mask of the professed +gambler is a profitless object for a woman's earnest scrutiny. + +She sighed presently, and laid her hand heavily on the chair behind +which she was standing. The action aroused the man who sat in it, and +he turned and looked at her for the first time. + +"You are tired, Diana?" + +"Yes, papa, I am very tired." + +"Give me your card, then, and go away," the gamester answered +peevishly; "girls are always tired." + +She gave him the mysteriously-perforated card, and left her post behind +his chair; and then, after roaming about the great saloon with a weary +listless air, and wandering from one open window to another to look +into the sunny quadrangle, where well-dressed people were sitting at +little tables eating ices or drinking lemonade, she went away +altogether, and roamed into another chamber where some children were +dancing to the sound of a feeble violin. She sat upon a velvet-covered +bench, and watched the children's lesson for some minutes, and then +rose and wandered to another open window that overlooked the same +quadrangle, where the well-dressed people were enjoying themselves in +the hot August sunshine. + +"How extravagantly everybody dresses!" she thought, "and what a shabby +poverty-stricken creature one feels amongst them! And yet if I ask papa +to give me a couple of napoleons out of the money he won to-day, he +will only look at me from head to foot, and tell me I have a gown and a +cloak and a bonnet, and ask me what more I can want, in the name of all +that is unreasonable? And I see girls here whose fathers are so fond of +them and so proud of them--ugly girls, decked out in silks and muslins +and ribbons that have cost a small fortune--clumsy awkward girls, who +look at _me_ as if I were some new kind of wild animal." + +The saloons at Forêtdechêne were rich in monster sheets of looking-glass; +and in wandering discontentedly about the room Diana Paget saw herself +reflected many times in all her shabbiness. It was only very lately she +had discovered that she had some pretension to good looks; for her +father, who could not or would not educate her decently or clothe her +creditably, took a very high tone of morality in his paternal teaching, +and, in the fear that she might one day grow vain of her beauty, had +taken care to impress upon her at an early age that she was the very +incarnation of all that is lean and sallow and awkward. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE EASY DESCENT + + +Amongst the many imprudences of which Horatio Paget--once a cornet in +a crack cavalry regiment, always a captain in his intercourse with the +world--had been guilty during the course of a long career, there was +none for which he so bitterly reproached himself as for a certain +foolish marriage which he had made late in his life. It was when he +had thrown away the last chance that an indulgent destiny had given +him, that the ruined fop of the Regency, the sometime member of the +Beef-steak Club, the man who in his earliest youth had worn a silver +gridiron at his button-hole, and played piquet in the gilded saloons of +Georgina of Devonshire, found himself laid on a bed of sickness in +dingy London lodgings, and nearer death than he bad ever been in the +course of his brief military career; so nearly gliding from life's +swift-flowing river into eternity's trackless ocean, that the warmest +thrill of gratitude which ever stirred the slow pulses of his cold +heart quickened its beating as he clasped the hand that had held him +back from the unknown region whose icy breath had chilled him with an +awful fear. Such men as Horatio Paget are apt to feel a strange terror +when the black night drops suddenly down upon them, and the "Gray +Boatman's" voice sounds hollow and mysterious in the darkness, +announcing that the ocean is near. The hand that held the ruined +spendthrift back when the current swept so swiftly oceanward was a +woman's tender hand; and Heaven only knows what patient watchfulness, +what careful administration of medicines and unwearying preparation of +broths and jellies and sagos and gruels, what untiring and devoted +slavery, had been necessary to save the faded rake who looked out upon +the world once more, a ghastly shadow of his former self, a penniless +helpless burden for any one who might choose to support him. + +"Don't thank _me_," said the doctor, when his feeble patient whimpered +flourishing protestations of his gratitude, unabashed by the +consciousness that such grateful protestations were the sole coin with +which the medical man would be paid for his services; "thank that young +woman, if you want to thank anybody; for if it had not been for her you +wouldn't be here to talk about gratitude. And if ever you get such +another attack of inflammation on the lungs, you had better pray for +such another nurse, though I don't think you're likely to find one." + +And with this exordium, the rough-and-ready surgeon took his departure, +leaving Horatio Paget alone with the woman who had saved his life. + +She was only his landlady's daughter; and his landlady was no +prosperous householder in Mayfair, thriving on the extravagance of +wealthy bachelors, but an honest widow, living in an obscure +little street leading out of the Old Kent-road, and letting a +meagrely-furnished little parlour and a still more meagrely-furnished +little bedroom to any single gentleman whom reverse of fortune might +lead into such a locality. Captain Paget had sunk very low in the +world when he took possession of that wretched parlour and laid +himself down to rest on the widow's flock-bed. + +There is apt to be a dreary interval in the life of such a man--a +blank dismal interregnum, which divides the day in which he spends his +last shilling from the hour in which he begins to prey deliberately +upon the purses of other people. It was in that hopeless interval that +Horatio Paget established himself in the widow's parlour. But though he +slept in the Old Kent-road, he had not yet brought himself to endure +existence on that Surrey side of the water. He emerged from his lodging +every morning to hasten westward, resplendent in clean linen and +exquisitely-fitting gloves, and unquestionable overcoat, and varnished +boots. + +The wardrobe has its Indian summer; and the glory of a first-rate +tailor's coat is like the splendour of a tropical sun--it is glorious +to the last, and sinks in a moment. Captain Paget's wardrobe was in its +Indian summer in these days; and when he felt how fatally near the +Bond-street pavement was to the soles of his feet, he could not refrain +from a fond admiration of the boots that were so beautiful in decay. + +He walked the West-end for many weary hours every day during this +period of his decadence. He tried to live in an honest gentlemanly way, +by borrowing money of his friends, or discounting an accommodation-bill +obtained from some innocent acquaintance who was deluded by his +brilliant appearance and specious tongue into a belief in the transient +nature of his difficulties. He spent his days in hanging about the +halls and waiting-rooms of clubs--of some of which he had once been a +member; he walked weary miles between St James's and Mayfair, +Kensington Gore and Notting Hill, leaving little notes for men who were +not at home, or writing a little note in one room while the man to whom +he was writing hushed his breath in an adjoining chamber. People who +had once been Captain Paget's fast friends seemed to have +simultaneously decided upon spending their existence out of doors, as +it appeared to the impecunious Captain. The servants of his friends +were afflicted with a strange uncertainty as to their masters' +movements. At whatever hall-door Horatio Paget presented himself, it +seemed equally doubtful whether the proprietor of the mansion would be +home to dinner that day, or whether he would be at home any time next +day, or the day after that, or at the end of the week, or indeed +whether he would ever come home again. Sometimes the Captain, calling +in the evening dusk, in the faint hope of gaining admittance to some +friendly dwelling, saw the glimmer of light under a dining-room door, +and heard the clooping of corks and the pleasant jingling of glass and +silver in the innermost recesses of a butler's pantry; but still the +answer was--not at home, and not likely to be home. All the respectable +world was to be out henceforth for Horatio Paget. But now and then at +the clubs he met some young man, who had no wife at home to keep watch +upon his purse and to wail piteously over a five-pound note +ill-bestowed, and who took compassion on the fallen spendthrift, and +believed, or pretended to believe, his story of temporary embarrassment; +and then the Captain dined sumptuously at a little French restaurant +in Castle-street, Leicester-square, and took a half-bottle of chablis +with his oysters, and warmed himself with chambertin that was brought +to him in a dusty cobweb-shrouded bottle reposing in a wicker-basket. + +But in these latter days such glimpses of sunshine very rarely +illumined the dull stream of the Captain's life. Failure and +disappointment had become the rule of his existence--success the rare +exception. Crossing the river now on his way westward, he was wont to +loiter a little on Waterloo Bridge, and to look dreamily down at the +water, wondering whether the time was near at hand when, under cover of +the evening dusk, he would pay his last halfpenny to the toll-keeper, +and never again know the need of an earthly coin. + +"I saw a fellow in the Morgue one day,--a poor wretch who had drowned +himself a week or two before. Great God, how horrible he looked! If +there was any certainty they would find one immediately, and bury one +decently, there'd be no particular horror in that kind of death. But to +be found _like that_, and to lie in some riverside deadhouse down by +Wapping, with a ghastly placard rotting on the rotting door, and +nothing but ooze and slime and rottenness round about one--waiting to +be identified! And who knows, after all, whether a dead man doesn't +_feel_ that sort of thing?" + +It was after such musings as these had begun to be very common with +Horatio Paget that he caught the chill which resulted in a very +dangerous illness of many weeks. The late autumn was wet and cold and +dreary; but Captain Paget, although remarkably clever after a certain +fashion, had never been a lover of intellectual pursuits, and +imprisonment in Mrs. Kepp's shabby parlour was odious to him. When he +had read every page of the borrowed newspaper, and pished and pshawed +over the leaders, and groaned aloud at the announcement of some wealthy +marriage made by one of his quondam friends, or chuckled at the record +of another quondam friend's insolvency--when he had poked the fire +savagely half a dozen times in an hour, cursing the pinched grate and +the bad coals during every repetition of the operation--when he had +smoked his last cigar, and varnished his favourite boots, and looked +out of the window, and contemplated himself gloomily in the wretched +little glass over the narrow chimney-piece,--Captain Paget's +intellectual resources were exhausted, and an angry impatience took +possession of him. Then, in defiance of the pelting rain or the +lowering sky, he flung his slippers into the farthest corner--and the +farthest corner of Mrs. Kepp's parlour was not very remote from the +Captain's arm-chair--he drew on the stoutest of his varnished boots-- +and there were none of them very stout now--buttoned his perfect +overcoat, adjusted his hat before the looking-glass, and sallied forth, +umbrella in hand, to make his way westward. Westward always, through +storm and shower, back to the haunts of his youth, went the wanderer +and outcast, to see the red glow of cheery fires reflected on the +plate-glass windows of his favourite clubs; to see the lamps in +spacious reading-rooms lit early in the autumn dusk, and to watch the +soft light glimmering on the rich bindings of the books, and losing +itself in the sombre depths of crimson draperies. To this poor worldly +creature the agony of banishment from those palaces of Pall Mall or St. +James's-street was as bitter as the pain of a fallen angel. It was the +dullest, deadest time of the year, and there were not many loungers in +those sumptuous reading-rooms, where the shaded lamps shed their +subdued light on the chaste splendour of the sanctuary; so Captain +Paget could haunt the scene of his departed youth without much fear of +recognition: but his wanderings in the West grew more hopeless and +purposeless every day. He began to understand how it was that people +were never at home when he assailed their doors with his fashionable +knock. He could no longer endure the humiliation of such repulses, for +he began to understand that the servants knew his errand as well as +their masters, and had their answers ready, let him present himself +before them when he would: so he besieged the doors of St. James's and +Mayfair, Kensington Gore and Netting Hill, no longer. He knew that the +bubble of his poor foolish life had burst, and that there was nothing +left for him but to die. + +It seemed about this time as if the end of all was very near. Captain +Paget caught a chill one miserable evening on which he returned to his +lodging with his garments dripping, and his beautiful varnished boots +reduced to a kind of pulp; and the chill resulted in a violent +inflammation of the lungs. Then it was that a woman's hand was held out +to save him, and a woman's divine tenderness cared for him in his dire +extremity. + +The ministering angel who comforted this helpless and broken-down +wayfarer was only a low-born ignorant girl called Mary Anne Kepp--a +girl who had waited upon the Captain during his residence in her +mother's house, but of whom he had taken about as much notice as he had +been wont to take of the coloured servants who tended him when he was +with his regiment in India. Horatio Paget had been a night-brawler and +a gamester, a duellist and a reprobate, in the glorious days that were +gone; but he had never been a profligate; and he did not know that the +girl who brought him his breakfast and staggered under the weight of +his coal-scuttle was one of the most beautiful women he had ever looked +upon. + +The Captain was so essentially a creature of the West-end, that Beauty +without her glitter of diamonds and splendour of apparel was scarcely +Beauty for him. He waited for the groom of the chambers to announce her +name, and the low hum of well-bred approval to accompany her entrance, +before he bowed the knee and acknowledged her perfection. The Beauties +whom he remembered had received their patent from the Prince Regent, +and had graduated in the houses of Devonshire and Hertford. How should +the faded bachelor know that this girl, in a shabby cotton gown, with +unkempt hair dragged off her pale face, and with grimy smears from the +handles of saucepans and fire-irons imprinted upon her cheeks--how +should he know that she was beautiful? It was only during the slow +monotonous hours of his convalescence, when he lay upon the poor faded +little sofa in Mrs. Kepp's parlour--the sofa that was scarcely less +faded and feeble than himself--it was then, and then only, that he +discovered the loveliness of the face which had been so often bent over +him during his delirious wanderings. + +"I have mistaken you for all manner of people, my dear," he said to his +landlady's daughter, who sat by the little Pembroke-table working, +while her mother dozed in a corner with a worsted stocking drawn over +her arm and a pair of spectacles resting upon her elderly nose. Mrs. +Kepp and her daughter were wont to spend their evenings in the lodger's +apartment now; for the invalid complained bitterly of "the horrors" +when they left him. + +"I have taken you for all sorts of people, Mary Anne," pursued the +Captain dreamily. "Sometimes I have fancied you were the Countess of +Jersey, and I could see her smile as she looked at me when I was first +presented to her. I was very young in the beautiful Jersey's time; and +then there was the other one--whom I used to drink tea with at +Brighton. Ah me! what a dull world it seems nowadays! The King gone, +and everything changed--everything--everything! I am a very old man, +Mary Anne." + +He was fifty-two years of age; he felt quite an old man. He had spent +all his money, he had outlived the best friends of his youth; for it +had been his fate to adorn a declining era, and he had been a youngster +among elderly patrons and associates. His patrons were dead and gone, +and the men he had patronised shut their doors upon him in the day of +his poverty. As for his relations, he had turned his back upon them +long ago, when first he followed in the shining wake of that gorgeous +vessel, the Royal George. In this hour of his penniless decline there +was none to help him. To have outlived every affection and every +pleasure is the chief bitterness of old age; and this bitterness +Horatio Paget suffered in all its fulness, though his years were but +fifty-two. + +"I am a very old man, Mary Anne," he repeated plaintively. But Mary +Anne Kepp could not think him old. To her eyes he must for ever appear +the incarnation of all that is elegant and distinguished. He was the +first gentleman she had ever seen. Mrs. Kepp had given shelter to other +lodgers who had called themselves gentlemen, and who had been pompous +and grandiose of manner in their intercourse with the widow and her +daughter; but O, what pitiful lacquered counterfeits, what Brummagem +paste they had been, compared to the real gem! Mary Anne Kepp had seen +varnished boots before the humble flooring of her mother's dwelling was +honoured by the tread of Horatio Paget, but what clumsy vulgar boots, +and what awkward plebeian feet had worn them! The lodger's slim white +hands and arched instep, the patrician curve of his aquiline nose, the +perfect grace of his apparel, the high-bred modulation of his courteous +accents,--all these had impressed Mary Anne's tender little heart so +much the more because of his poverty and loneliness. That such a man +should be forgotten and deserted--that such a man should be poor and +lonely, seemed so cruel a chance to the simple maiden: and then when +illness overtook him, and invested him with a supreme claim upon her +tenderness and pity,--then the innocent girl lavished all the treasures +of a compassionate heart upon the ruined gentleman. She had no thought +of fee or reward; she knew that her mother's lodger was miserably poor, +and that his payments had become more and more irregular week by week +and month by month. She had no consciousness of the depth of feeling +that rendered her so gentle a nurse; for her life was a busy one, and +she had neither time nor inclination for any morbid brooding upon her +own feelings. + +She protested warmly against the Captain's lamentation respecting his +age. + +"The idear of any gentleman calling hisself old at fifty!" she said-- +and Horatio shuddered at the supererogatory "r" and the "hisself," +though they proceeded from the lips of his consoler;--"you've got +many, many years before you yet, sir, please God," she added piously; +"and there's good friends will come forward yet to help you, I make no +doubt." + +Captain Paget shook his head peevishly. + +"You talk as if you were telling my fortune with a pack of cards," he +said. "No, my girl, I shall have only one friend to rely upon, if ever +I am well enough to go outside this house; and that friend is myself. I +have spent the fortune my father left me; I have spent the price of my +commission; and I have parted with every object of any value that I +ever possessed--in vulgar parlance, I am cleaned out, Mary Anne. But +other men have spent every sixpence belonging to them, and have +contrived to live pleasantly enough for half a century afterwards; and +I daresay I can do as they have done. If the wind is tempered to the +shorn lamb, I suppose the hawks and vultures take care of themselves. I +have tried my luck as a shorn lamb, and the tempest has been very +bitter for me; so I have no alternative but to join the vultures." + +Mary Anne Kepp stared wonderingly at her mother's lodger. She had some +notion that he had been saying something wicked and blasphemous; but +she was too ignorant and too innocent to follow his meaning. + +"O, pray don't talk in that wild way, sir," she entreated. "It makes me +so unhappy to hear you go on like that." + +"And why should anything that I say make you unhappy, Mary Anne?" asked +the lodger earnestly. + +There was something in his tone that set her pale face on fire with +unwonted crimson, and she bent very low over her work to hide those +painful blushes. She did not know that the Captain's tone presaged a +serious address; she did not know that the grand crisis of her life was +close upon her. + +Horatio Paget had determined upon making a sacrifice. The doctor had +told him that he owed his life to this devoted girl; and he would have +been something less than man if he had not been moved with some +grateful emotion. He was grateful; and in the dreary hours of his slow +recovery he had ample leisure for the contemplation of the woman to +whom he owed so much, if his poor worthless life could indeed be much. +He saw that she was devoted to him; that she loved him more truly than +he had ever been conscious of being loved before. He saw too that she +was beautiful. To an ugly woman Captain Paget might have felt extremely +grateful; but he could never have thought of an ugly woman as he +thought of Mary Anne Kepp. The end of his contemplation and his +deliberation came to this: She was beautiful, and she loved him, and +his life was utterly wretched and lonely; so he determined on proving +his gratitude by a sublime sacrifice. Before the girl had lifted her +face from the needlework over which she had bent to hide her blushes, +Horatio Paget had asked her to be his wife. Her emotion almost +overpowered her as she tried to answer him; but she struggled against +it bravely, and came to the sofa on which he lay and dropped upon her +knees by his side. The beggar-maid who was wooed by a king could have +felt no deeper sense of her lover's condescension than that which +filled the heart of this poor simple girl as she knelt by her mother's +gentleman lodger. + +"I--to be your wife!" she exclaimed. "O, surely, sir, you cannot mean +it?" + +"But I do mean it, with all my heart and soul, my dear," answered the +Captain. "I'm not offering you any grand chance, Mary Anne; for I'm +about as low down in the world as a man can be. But I don't mean to be +poor all my life. Come, my dear, don't cry," he exclaimed, just a +little impatiently--for the girl had covered her face with her hands, +and tears were dropping between the poor hard-working fingers--"but +lift up your head and tell me whether you will take a faded old +bachelor for your husband or not." + +Horatio Paget had admired many women in the bright years of his youth, +and had fancied himself desperately in love more than once in his life; +but it is doubtful whether the mighty passion had ever really possessed +the Captain's heart, which was naturally cold and sluggish, rarely +fluttered by any emotion that was not engendered of selfishness. +Horatio had set up an idol and had invented a religion for himself very +early in life; and that idol was fashioned after his own image, and +that religion had its beginning and end in his own pleasure. He might +have been flattered and pleased by Miss Kepp's agitation; but he was +ill and peevish; and having all his life been subject to a profound +antipathy to feminine tearfulness, the girl's display of emotion +annoyed him. + +"Is it to be yes, or no, my dear?" he asked, with, some vexation in his +tone. + +Mary Anne looked up at him with tearful, frightened eyes. + +"O, yes, sir, if I can be of any use to you, and nurse you when you are +ill, and work for you till I work my fingers to the bone." + +She clenched her hands spasmodically as she spoke. In imagination she +was already toiling and striving for the god of her idolatry--the +GENTLEMAN whose varnished boots had been to her as a glimpse of another +and a fairer world than that represented by Tulliver's-terrace, Old +Kent-road. But Captain Paget checked her enthusiasm by a gentle gesture +of his attenuated hands. + +"That will do, my dear," he murmured languidly; "I'm not very strong +yet, and anything in the way of fuss is inexpressibly painful to me. +Ah, my poor child," he exclaimed, pityingly, "if you could have seen a +dinner at the Marquis of Hertford's, you would have understood how much +can be achieved without fuss. But I am talking of things you don't +understand. You will be my wife; and a very good, kind, obedient little +wife, I have no doubt. That is all settled. As for working for me, my +love, it would be about as much as these poor little hands could do to +earn me a cigar a day--and I seldom smoke less than half a dozen +cigars; so, you see, that is all so much affectionate nonsense. And now +you may wake your mother, my dear; for I want to take a little nap, and +I can't close my eyes while that good soul is snoring so intolerably; +but not a word about our little arrangement, Mary Anne, till you and +your mother are alone." + +And hereupon the Captain spread a handkerchief over his face and +subsided into a gentle slumber. The little scene had fatigued him; +though it had been so quietly enacted, that Mrs. Kepp had slept on +undisturbed by the brief fragment of domestic drama performed within a +few yards of her uneasy arm-chair. Her daughter awoke her presently, +and she resumed her needlework, while Mary Anne made some tea for the +beloved sleeper. The cups and saucers made more noise to-night than +they were wont to make in the girl's careful hands. The fluttering of +her heart seemed to communicate itself to the tips of her fingers, and +the jingling of the crockery-ware betrayed the intensity of her +emotion. He was to be her husband! She was to have a gentleman for a +husband; and such a gentleman! Out of such base trifles as a West-end +tailor's coat and a West-end workman's boots may be engendered the +purest blossom of womanly love and devotion. Wisely may the modern +philosopher cry that the history of the world is only a story of old +clothes. Mary Anne had begun by admiring the graces of Stultz and Hoby, +and now she was ready to lay down her life for the man who wore the +perishing garments. + + * * * * * + +Miss Kepp obeyed her lover's behest; and it was only on the following +day, when she and her mother were alone together in the dingy little +kitchen below Captain Paget's apartments, that she informed that worthy +woman of the honour which had been vouchsafed to her. And thereupon +Mary Anne endured the first of the long series of disappointments which +were to arise out of her affection for the penniless Captain. The widow +was a woman of the world, and was obstinately blind to the advantages +of a union with a ruined gentleman of fifty. "How's he to keep you, I +should like to know," Mrs. Kepp exclaimed, as the girl stood blushing +before her after having told her story; "if he can't pay me regular?-- +and you know the difficulty I have had to get his money, Mary Anne. If +he can't keep hisself, how's he to keep you?" + +"Don't talk like that, mother," cried the girl, wincing under her +parent's practical arguments; "you go on as if all I cared for was +being fed and clothed. Besides, Captain Paget is not going to be poor +always. He told me so last night, when he----" + +"_He_ told you so!" echoed the honest widow with unmitigated scorn; +"hasn't he told me times and often that I should have my rent regular +after this week, and regular after that week, and have I _ever_ had it +regular? And ain't I keeping him out of charity now?--a poor +widow-woman like me--which I may be wanting charity myself before long: +and if it wasn't for your whimpering and going on he'd have been out of +the house three weeks ago, when the doctor said he was well enough to +be moved; for I ast him." + +"And you'd have turned him out to die in the streets, mother!" cried +Mary; "I didn't think you was so 'artless." + +From this time there was ill-feeling between Mrs. Kepp and her +daughter, who had been hitherto one of the most patient and obedient of +children. The fanatic can never forgive the wretch who disbelieves in +the divinity of his god; and women who love as blindly and foolishly as +Mary Anne Kepp are the most bigoted of worshippers. The girl could not +forgive her mother's disparagement of her idol,--the mother had no +mercy upon her daughter's folly; and after much wearisome contention +and domestic misery--carefully hidden from the penniless sybarite in +the parlour--after many tears and heart-burnings, and wakeful nights +and prayerful watches, Mary Anne Kepp consented to leave the house +quietly one morning with the gentleman lodger while the widow had gone +to market. Miss Kepp left a piteous little note for her mother, rather +ungrammatical, but very womanly and tender, imploring pardon for her +want of duty; and, "O, mother, if you knew how good and nobel he is, +you coudent be angery with me for luving him has I do, and we shall +come back to you after oure marige, wich you will be pade up honourabel +to the last farthin'." + +After writing this epistle in the kitchen, with more deliberation and +more smudging than Captain Paget would have cared to behold in the +bride of his choice, Mary Anne attired herself in her Sabbath-day +raiment, and left Tulliver's-terrace with the Captain in a cab. She +would fain have taken a little lavender paper-covered box that +contained the remainder of her wardrobe, but after surveying it with a +shudder, Captain Paget told her that such a box would condemn them +_anywhere_. + +"You may get on sometimes without luggage, my dear," he said +sententiously; "but with such luggage as _that_, never!" + +The girl obeyed without comprehending. It was not often that she +understood her lover's meaning, nor did he particularly care that she +should understand him. He talked to her rather in the same spirit in +which one talks to a faithful canine companion--as Napoleon III. may +talk to his favourite Nero; "I have great plans yet unfulfilled, my +honest Nero, though you may not be wise enough to guess their nature. +And we must have another Boulevard, old fellow; and we must settle that +little dispute about Venetia; and we must do something for those +unfortunate Poles, eh--good dog?" and so on. + +Captain Paget drove straight to a registrar's office, where the new +Marriage Act enabled him to unite himself to Miss Kepp _sans façon_, in +presence of the cabman and a woman who had been cleaning the door-step. +The Captain went through the brief ceremonial as coolly as if it had +been the settlement of a water-rate, and was angered by the tears that +poor Mary Anne shed under her cheap black veil. He had forgotten the +poetic superstition in favour of a wedding-ring, but he slipped a +little onyx ring off his own finger, and put it on the clumsier finger +of his bride. It was the last of his jewels--the rejected of the +pawnbrokers, who, not being learned in antique intaglios, had condemned +the ring as trumpery. There is always something a little ominous in the +bridegroom's forgetfulness of that simple golden circle which typifies +an eternal union; and a superstitious person might have drawn a +sinister augury from the subject of Captain Paget's intaglio, which was +a head of Nero--an emperor whose wife was by no means the happiest of +women. But as neither Mary Anne nor the registrar, neither the cabman +nor the charwoman who had been cleaning the door-step, had ever heard +of Nero, and as Horatio Paget was much too indifferent to be +superstitious, there was no one to draw evil inferences: and Mary Anne +went away with her gentleman husband, proud and happy, with a happiness +that was only disturbed now and then by the image of an infuriated +mother. + +Captain Paget took his bride to some charming apartments in +Halfmoon-street, Mayfair; and she was surprised to hear him tell the +landlady that he and his wife had just arrived from Devonshire, and +that they meant to stay a week or so in London, _en passant_, before +starting for the Continent. + +"My wife has spent the best part of her life in the country," said the +Captain, "so I suppose I must show her some of the sights of London in +spite of the abominable weather. But the deuce of it is, that my +servant has misunderstood my directions, and gone on to Paris with the +luggage. However, we can set that all straight to-morrow." + +Nothing could be more courteously acquiescent than the manner of the +landlady; for Captain Paget had offered her references, and the people +to whom he referred were among the magnates of the land. The Captain +knew enough of human nature to know that if references are only +sufficiently imposing, they are very unlikely to be verified. The +swindler who refers his dupe to the Duke of Sutherland and Baring +Brothers has a very good chance of getting his respectability accepted +without inquiry, on the mere strength of those sacred names. + + * * * * * + +From this time until the day of her death Mary Anne Paget very seldom +heard her husband make any statement which she did not know to be +false. He had joined the ranks of the vultures. He had lain down upon +his bed of sickness a gentlemanly beggar; he arose from that couch of +pain and weariness a swindler. + +Now began those petty shifts and miserable falsifications whereby the +birds of prey thrive on the flesh and blood of hapless pigeons. Now the +dovecotes were fluttered by a new destroyer--a gentlemanly vulture, +whose suave accents and perfect manners were fatal to the unwary. +Henceforth Horatio Cromie Nugent Paget flourished and fattened upon the +folly of his fellow-men. As promoter of joint-stock companies that +never saw the light; as treasurer of loan-offices where money was never +lent; as a gentleman with capital about to introduce a novel article of +manufacture from the sale of which a profit of five thousand a year +would infallibly be realized, and desirous to meet with another +gentleman of equal capital; as the mysterious X.Y.Z. who will--for so +small a recompense as thirty postage-stamps--impart the secret of an +elegant and pleasing employment, whereby seven-pound-ten a-week may be +made by any individual, male or female;--under every flimsy disguise +with which the swindler hides his execrable form, Captain Paget plied +his cruel trade, and still contrived to find fresh dupes. Of course +there were occasions when the pigeons were slow to flutter into the +fascinating snare, and when the vulture had a bad time of it; and it +was a common thing for the Captain to sink from the splendour of +Mayfair or St. James's-street into some dingy transpontine +hiding-place. But he never went back to Tulliver's-terrace, though +Mary Anne pleaded piteously for the payment of her poor mother's debt. +When her husband was in funds, he patted her head affectionately, and +told her that he would see about it--i.e. the payment of Mrs. Kepp's +bill; while, if she ventured to mention the subject to him when his +purse was scantily furnished, he would ask her fiercely how he was to +satisfy her mother's extortionate claims when he had not so much as a +sixpence for his own use. + +Mrs. Kepp's bill was never paid, and Mary Anne never saw her mother's +face again. Mrs. Paget was one of those meek loving creatures who are +essentially cowardly. She could not bring herself to encounter her +mother without the money owed by the Captain; she could not bring +herself to endure the widow's reproaches, the questioning that would be +so horribly painful to answer, the taunts that would torture her poor +sorrowful heart. + +Alas for her brief dream of love and happiness! Alas for her foolish +worship of the gentleman lodger! She knew now that her mother had been +wiser than herself, and that it would have been better for her if she +had renounced the shadowy glory of an alliance with Horatio Cromie +Nugent Paget, whose string of high-sounding names, written on the cover +of an old wine-book, had not been without its influence on the ignorant +girl. The widow's daughter knew very little happiness during the few +years of her wedded life. To be hurried from place to place; to dine in +Mayfair to-day, and to eat your dinner at a shilling ordinary in +Whitecross-street to-morrow; to wear fine clothes that have not been +paid for, and to take them off your back at a moment's notice when they +are required for the security of the friendly pawnbroker; to know that +your life is a falsehood and a snare, and that to leave a place is to +leave contempt and execration behind you,--these things constitute the +burden of a woman whose husband lives by his wits. And over and above +these miseries, Mrs. Paget had to endure all the variations of temper +to which the schemer is subject. If the pigeons dropped readily into +the snare, and if their plumage proved well worth the picking, the +Captain was very kind to his wife, after his own fashion; that is to +say, he took her out with him, and after lecturing her angrily because +of the shabbiness of her bonnet, bought her a new one, and gave her a +dinner that made her ill, and then sent her home in a cab, while he +finished the evening in more congenial society. But if the times were +bad for the vulture tribe--O, then, what a gloomy companion for the +domestic hearth was the elegant Horatio! After smiling his false smile +all day, while rage and disappointment were gnawing at his heart, it +was a kind of relief to the Captain to be moody and savage by his own +fireside. The human vulture has something of the ferocity of his +feathered prototype. The man who lives upon his fellow-men has need to +harden his heart; for one sentiment of compassion, one touch of human +pity, would shatter his finest scheme in the hour of its fruition. +Horatio Paget and compassion parted fellowship very early in the course +of his unscrupulous career. What if the pigeon has a widowed mother +dependent on his prosperity, or half a dozen children who will be +involved in his ruin? Is the hawk to forego his natural prey for any +such paltry consideration as a vulgar old woman or a brood of squalling +brats? + +Captain Paget was not guilty of any persistent unkindness towards the +woman whose fate he had deigned to link with his own. The consciousness +that he had conferred a supreme honour oh Mary Anne Kepp by offering +her his hand, and a share of his difficulties, never deserted him. He +made no attempt to elevate the ignorant girl into companionship with +himself. He shuddered when she misplaced her h's and turned from her +peevishly, with a muttered oath, when she was more than usually +ungrammatical: but though he found it disagreeable to hear her, he +would have found it troublesome to set her right; and trouble was a +thing which Horatio Paget held in gentlemanly aversion. The idea that +the mode of his existence could be repulsive to his wife--that this +low-born and low-bred girl could have scruples that he never felt, and +might suffer agonies of remorse and shame of which his coarser nature +was incapable--never entered the Captain's mind. It would have been too +great an absurdity for the daughter of plebeian Kepps to affect a +tenderness of conscience unknown to the scion of Pagets and Cromies and +Nugents. Mary Anne was afraid of her elegant husband; and she +worshipped and waited upon him in meek silence, keeping the secret of +her own sorrows, and keeping it so well that he never guessed the +manifold sources of that pallor of countenance and hollow brightness of +eye which had of late annoyed him when he looked at his wife. She had +borne him a child--a sweet girl baby, with those great black eyes that +always have rather a weird look in the face of infancy; and she would +fain have clung to the infant as the hope and consolation of her +joyless life. But the vulture is not a domestic bird, and a baby would +have been an impediment in the rapid hegiras which Captain Paget and +his wife were wont to make. The Captain put an advertisement in a daily +paper before the child was a week old; and in less than a fortnight +after Mary Anne had looked at the baby face for the first time, she was +called upon to surrender her treasure to an elderly woman of fat and +greasy aspect, who had agreed to bring the infant up "by hand" in a +miserable little street in a remote and dreary district lying between +Vauxhall and Battersea. + +Mary Anne gave up the child uncomplainingly, as meekly as she would +have surrendered herself if the Captain had brought a masked +executioner to her bedside, and had told her a block was prepared for +her in the adjoining chamber. She had no idea of resistance to the will +of her husband. She endured her existence for nearly five years after +the birth of her child, and during those miserable years the one effort +of her life was to secure the miserable stipend paid for the little +girl's maintenance; but before the child's fifth birthday the mother +faded off the face of the earth. She died in a miserable lodging not +very far from Tulliver's-terrace, expiring in the arms of a landlady +who had comforted her in her hour of need, as she had comforted the +ruined gentleman. Captain Paget was a prisoner in Whitecross-street at +the time of his wife's death, and was much surprised when he missed her +morning visits, and the little luxuries she had been wont to bring him. + +He had missed her for more than a week, and had written to her twice-- +rather angrily on the second occasion--when a rough unkempt boy in +corduroy waited upon him in the dreary ward, where he and half a dozen +other depressed and melancholy men sat at little tables writing +letters, or pretending to read newspapers, and looking at one another +furtively every now and then. There is no prisoner so distracted by his +own cares that he will not find time to wonder what his neighbour is +"in for." + +The boy had received instructions to be careful how he imparted his +dismal tidings to the "poor dear gentleman;" but the lad grew nervous +and bewildered at sight of the Captain's fierce hook-nose and +scrutinising gray eyes, and blurted out his news without any dismal +note of warning. + +"The lady died at two o'clock this morning, please, sir; and mother +said I was to come and tell you, please, sir." + +Captain Paget staggered under the blow. + +"Good God!" he cried, as he dropped upon a rickety Windsor chair, that +creaked under his weight; "and I did not even know that she was ill!" + +Still less did he know that all her married life had been one long +heart-sickness--one monotonous agony of remorse and shame. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +"HEART BARE, HEART HUNGRY, VERY POOR." + + +Diana Paget left the Kursaal, and walked slowly along the pretty +rustic street; now dawdling before a little print-shop, whose contents +she knew by heart, now looking back at the great windows of that temple +of pleasure which she had just quitted. + +"What do they care what becomes of me?" she thought, as she looked up +at the blank vacant windows for the last time before she left the main +street of Forêtdechêne, and turned into a straggling side-street, whose +rugged pavement sloped upward towards the pine-clad hills. The house in +which Captain Paget had taken up his abode was a tall white habitation, +situated in the narrowest of the narrow by-ways that intersect the main +street of the pretty Belgian watering-place; a lane in which the +inhabitants of opposite houses may shake hands with one another out of +the window, and where the odour of the cabbages and onions so liberally +employed in the _cuisine_ of the native offends the nose of the +foreigner from sunrise to sunset. + +Diana paused for a moment at the entrance to this lane, but, after a +brief deliberation, walked onwards. + +"What is the use of my going home?" she thought; "_they_ won't be home +for hours to come." + +She walked slowly along the hilly street, and from the street into a +narrow pathway winding upward through the pine-wood. Here she was quite +alone, and the stillness of the place soothed her. She took off her +hat, and slung the faded ribbons across her arm; and the warm breeze +lifted the loose hair from her forehead as she wandered upwards. It was +a very beautiful face from which that loose dark hair was lifted by the +summer wind. Diana Paget inherited something of the soft loveliness of +Mary Anne Kepp, and a little of the patrician beauty of the Pagets. The +eyes were like those which had watched Horatio Paget on his bed of +sickness in Tulliver's-terrace. The resolute curve of the thin flexible +lips, and the fine modelling of the chin, were hereditary attributes of +the Nugent Pagets; and a resemblance to the lower part of Miss Paget's +face might have been traced in many a sombre portrait of dame and +cavalier at Thorpehaven Manor, where a Nugent Paget, who acknowledged +no kindred with the disreputable Captain, was now master. + +The girl's reflections as she slowly climbed the hill were not +pleasant. The thoughts of youth should be very beautiful; but youth +that has been spent in the companionship of reprobates and tricksters +is something worse than age; for experience has taught it to be bitter, +while time has not taught it to be patient. For Diana Paget, childhood +had been joyless, and girlhood lonely. That blank and desolate region, +that dreary flat of fenny waste ground between Vauxhall and Battersea, +on which the child's eyes had first looked, had been typical of her +loveless childhood. With her mother's death faded the one ray of light +that had illumined her desolation. She was shifted from one nurse to +another; and bar nurses were not allowed to love her, for she remained +with them as an encumbrance and a burden. It was so difficult for the +Captain to pay the pitiful sum demanded for his daughter's support--or +rather it was so much easier for him not to pay it. So there always +came a time when Diana was delivered at her father's lodgings like a +parcel, by an indignant nurse, who proclaimed the story of her wrongs +in shrill feminine treble, and who was politely informed by the Captain +that her claim was a common debt, and that she had the remedy in her +own hands, but that the same code of laws which provided her with that +remedy, forbade any obnoxious demonstration of her anger in a +gentleman's apartment. And then Miss Paget, after hearing all the +tumult and discussion, would be left alone with her father, and would +speedily perceive that her presence was disagreeable to him. + +When she outgrew the age of humble foster-mothers and cottages in the +dreariest of the outlying suburbs, the Captain sent his daughter to +school: and on this occasion he determined on patronising a person whom +he had once been too proud to remember among the list of his kindred. +There are poor and straggling branches upon every family tree; and the +Pagets of Thorpehaven had needy cousins who, in the mighty battle of +life, were compelled to fight amongst the rank and file. One of these +poor cousins was a Miss Priscilla Paget, who at an early age had +exhibited that affection for intellectual pursuits and that +carelessness as to the duties of the toilet which are supposed to +distinguish the predestined blue-stocking. Left quite alone in the +world, Priscilla put her educational capital to good use; and after +holding the position of principal governess for nearly twenty years in +a prosperous boarding-school at Brompton, she followed her late +employer to her grave with unaffected sorrow, and within a month of the +funeral invested her savings in the purchase of the business, and +established herself as mistress of the mansion. To this lady Captain +Paget confided his daughter's education; and in Priscilla Paget's house +Diana found a shelter that was almost like a home, until her kinswoman +became weary of promises that were never kept, and pitiful sums paid on +account of a debt that grew bigger every day--very weary likewise of +conciliatory hampers of game and barrels of oysters, and all the flimsy +devices of a debtor who is practised in the varied arts of the +gentlemanly swindler. + +The day came when Miss Paget resolved to be rid of her profitless +charge; and once more Diana found herself delivered like a parcel of +unordered goods at the door of her father's lodging. Those are +precocious children who learn their first lessons in the school of +poverty; and the girl had been vaguely conscious of the degradation +involved in this process at the age of five. How much more keenly did +she feel the shame at the age of fifteen! Priscilla did her best to +lessen the pain of her pupil's departure. + +"It isn't that I've any fault to find with you, Diana, though you must +remember that I have heard some complaints of your temper," she said, +with gentle gravity; "but your father is too trying. If he didn't make +me any promises, I should think better of him. If he told me frankly +that he couldn't pay me, and asked me to keep you out of charity,"-- +Diana drew herself up with a little shiver at this word,--"why, I might +turn it over in my mind, and see if it could be done. But to be +deceived time after time, as I've been deceived--you know the solemn +language your father has used, Diana, for you have heard him--and to +rely on a sum of money on a certain date, as I have relied again and +again, after Horatio's assurance that I might depend upon him--it's too +bad, Diana; it's more than any one can endure. If you were two or three +years older, and further advanced in your education, I might manage to +do something for you by making you useful with the little ones; but I +can't afford to keep you and clothe you during the next three years for +nothing, and so I have no alternative but to send you home." + +The "home" to which Diana Paget was taken upon this occasion was a +lodging over a toyshop in the Westminster-road, where the Captain lived +in considerable comfort on the proceeds of a Friendly and Philanthropic +Loan Society. + +But no very cordial welcome awaited Diana in the gaudily-furnished +drawing-room over the toyshop. She found her father sleeping placidly +in his easy-chair, while a young man, who was a stranger to her, sat at +a table near the window writing letters. It was a dull November day--a +very dreary day on which to find one's self thrown suddenly on a still +drearier world; and in the Westminster-bridge-road the lamps were +already making yellow patches of sickly light amidst the afternoon fog. + +The Captain twitched his silk handkerchief off his face with an +impatient gesture as Diana entered the room. + +"Now, then, what is it?" he asked peevishly, without looking at the +intruder. + +He recognised her in the next moment; but that first impatient +salutation was about as warm a welcome as any which Miss Paget received +from her father. In sad and bitter truth, he did not care for her. His +marriage with Mary Anne Kepp had been the one grateful impulse of his +life; and even the sentiment which had prompted that marriage had been +by no means free from the taint of selfishness. But he had been quite +unprepared to find that this grand sacrifice of his life should involve +another sacrifice in the maintenance of a daughter he did not want; and +he was very much inclined to quarrel with the destiny that had given +him this burden. + +"If you had been a boy, I might have made you useful to me sooner or +later," the Captain said to his daughter when he found himself alone +with her late on the night of her return; "but what on earth am I to do +with a daughter, in the unsettled life I lead? However, since that old +harridan has sent you back, you must manage in the best way you can," +concluded Captain Paget with a discontented sigh. + +From this time Diana Paget had inhabited the nest of the vultures, and +every day had brought its new lesson of trickery and falsehood. There +are men--and bad men too--who would have tried to keep the secret of +their shifts and meannesses hidden from an only child; but Horatio +Paget believed himself the victim of man's ingratitude, and his +misdoings the necessity of an evil destiny. It is not easy for the +unsophisticated intellect to gauge those moral depths to which the man +who lives by his wits must sink before his career is finished, or to +understand how, with every step in the swindler's downward road, +the conscience grows tougher, the perception of shame blunter, the +savage selfishness of the animal nature stronger. Diana Paget had +discovered some of her father's weaknesses during her miserable childhood; +and in the days of her unpaid-for schooling she had known that his most +solemn promises were no more to be relied on than the capricious breath +of a summer breeze. So the revelations which awaited her under the +paternal roof were not utterly strange or entirely unexpected. +Day by day she grew more accustomed to that atmosphere of fraud and +falsehood. The sense of shame never left her; for there is a pride +that thrives amidst poverty and degradation, and of such pride Diana +Paget possessed no small share. She writhed under the consciousness +that she was the daughter of a man who had forfeited all right to the +esteem of his fellowmen. She valued the good opinion of others, and +would fain have been beloved and admired, trusted and respected; for +she was ambitious: and the though that she might one day do something +which should lift her above the vulgar level was the day-dream that +had consoled her in many an hour of humiliation and discomfort. +Diana Paget felt the Captain's shame as keenly as her mother had felt it; +but the remorse which had agonised gentle Mary Anne, the tender +compassion for others which had wrung that fond and faithful heart, +had no place in the breast of the Captain's daughter. + +Diana felt so much compassion for herself, that she had none left to +bestow upon other people. Her father's victims might be miserable, but +was not she infinitely more wretched? The landlady who found her +apartments suddenly tenantless and her rent unpaid might complain of +the hardness of her fortune; but was it not harder for Diana, with the +sensitive feelings and keen pride of the Pagets, to endure all the +degradation involved in the stealthy carrying away of luggage and a +secret departure under cover of night? + +At first Miss Paget had been inclined to feel aggrieved by the presence +of the young man whom she had seen writing letters in the gloomy dusk +of the November afternoon; but in due time she came to accept him as a +companion, and to feel that her joyless life would have been drearier +without him. He was the secretary of the Friendly and Philanthropic +Loan Society, and of any other society organised by the Captain. He was +Captain Paget's amanuensis and representative--Captain Paget's tool, +but not Captain Paget's dupe; for Valentine Hawkehurst was not of that +stuff of which dupes are made. + +The man who lives by his wits has need of a faithful friend and +follower. The chief of the vultures must not be approached too easily. +There must be a preparatory ordeal, an outer chamber to be passed, +before the victim is introduced to the sanctuary which is irradiated by +the silver veil of the prophet. Captain Paget found an able coadjutor +in Valentine Hawkehurst, who answered one of those tempting +advertisements in which A. B.C. or X. Y. Z. was wont to offer a salary +of three hundred a year to any gentlemanly person capable of performing +the duties of secretary to a newly-established company. It was only +after responding to this promising offer that the applicant was +informed that he must possess one indispensable qualification in the +shape of a capital of five hundred pounds. Mr Hawkehurst laughed aloud +when the Captain imparted this condition with that suave and yet +dignified manner which was peculiar to him. + +"I ought to have known it was a dodge of that kind," said the young man +coolly. "Those very good things--duties light and easy, hours from +twelve till four, speedy advancement certain for a conscientious and +gentlemanly person, and so on--are always of the genus _do_. Your +advertisement is very cleverly worded, my dear sir; only it's like the +rest of them, rather _too_ clever. It is so difficult for a clever man +not to be too clever. The prevailing weakness of the human intellect +seems to me to be exaggeration. However, as I haven't a five-pound note +in the world, or the chance of getting one, I'll wish you good morning, +Captain Paget." + +There are people whose blood would have been turned to ice by the stony +glare of indignation with which Horatio Paget regarded the man who had +dared to question his probity. But Mr. Hawkehurst had done with strong +impressions long before he met the Captain; and he listened to that +gentleman's freezing reproof with an admiring smile. Out of this very +unpromising beginning there arose a kind of friendship between the two +men. Horatio Paget had for some time been in need of a clever tool; and +in the young man whose cool insolence rose superior to his own dignity +he perceived the very individual whom he had long been seeking. The +young man who was unabashed by the indignation of a scion of Nugents +and Cromies and Pagets must be utterly impervious to the sense of awe; +and it was just such an impervious young man that the Captain wanted as +his coadjutor. Thus arose the alliance, which grew stronger every day, +until Valentine took up his abode under the roof of his employer and +patron, and made himself more thoroughly at home there than the +unwelcome daughter of the house. + +The history of Valentine Hawkehurst's past existence was tolerably well +known to the Captain; but the only history of the young man's early +life ever heard by Diana was rather vague and fragmentary. She +discovered, little by little, that he was the son of a spendthrift +_littérateur_, who had passed the greater part of his career within the +rules of the King's Bench; that he had run away from home at the age of +fifteen, and had tried his fortune in all those professions which +require no educational ordeal, and which seem to offer themselves +invitingly to the scapegrace and adventurer. At fifteen Valentine +Hawkehurst had been errand-boy in a newspaper office; at seventeen a +penny-a-liner, whose flimsy was pretty sure of admission in the +lower class of Sunday papers. In the course of a very brief career +he had been a provincial actor, a _manège_ rider in a circus, a +billiard-marker, and a betting agent. It was after having exhausted +these liberal professions that he encountered Captain Paget. + +Such was the man whom Horatio Paget admitted to companionship with his +only daughter. It can scarcely be pleaded in excuse for the Captain +that he might have admitted a worse man than Valentine Hawkehurst to +his family circle, for the Captain had never taken the trouble to sound +the depths of his coadjutor's nature. There is nothing so short-sighted +as selfishness; and beyond the narrow circle immediately surrounding +himself, there was no man more blind than Horatio Paget. + + * * * * * + +It was dusk when Diana grew tired of the lonely pathways among the +hills, where the harmonies of a band stationed in the valley were +wafted in gusts of music by the fitful summer breeze. The loneliness of +the place soothed the girl's feverish spirits; and, seated in a little +classic temple upon the summit of a hill, she looked pensively downward +through the purple mists at the newly-lighted lamps twinkling faintly +in the valley. + +"One does not feel the sting of one's shabbiness here," thought Miss +Paget: "the trees are all dressed alike. Nature makes no distinction. +It is only Fortune who treats her children unfairly." + +The Captain's daughter walked slowly back to the little town in the +deepening dusk. The lodging occupied by Horatio Paget and his household +consisted of four roomy chambers on the second story of a big rambling +house. The rooms were meanly furnished, and decorated with the tawdry +ornamentation dear to the continental mind; but there were long wide +windows and an iron balcony, on which Diana Paget was often pleased to +sit. + +She found the sitting-room dark and empty. No dinner had been prepared; +for on lucky days the Captain and his _protégé_ were wont to dine at +the _table d'hôte_ of one of the hotels, or to feast sumptuously _à la +carte_, while on unlucky days they did not dine at all. Diana found a +roll and some cream cheese in a roomy old cupboard that was flavoured +with mice; and after making a very indifferent meal in the dusky +chamber, she went out upon the balcony, and sat there looking down upon +the lighted town. + +She had been sitting there for nearly an hour in the same attitude, +when the door of the sitting-room was opened, and a footstep sounded +behind her. She knew the step; and although she did not lift her head, +her eyes took a new brightness in the summer dusk, and the listless +grace of her attitude changed to a statuesque rigidity, though there +was no change in the attitude itself. + +She did not stir till a hand was laid softly on her shoulder, and a +voice said,--"Diana!" + +The speaker was Valentine Hawkehurst, the young man whose entrance to +the golden temple had been so closely watched by Captain Paget's +daughter. + +She rose as he spoke, and turned to him. "You have been losing, I +suppose, Mr. Hawkehurst," she said, "or you would not have come home?" + +"I am compelled to admit that you are right in your premise, Miss +Paget, and your deduction is scarcely worth discussion. I _have_ been +losing--confoundedly; and as they don't give credit at the board of +green cloth yonder, there was no excuse for my staying. Your father has +not been holding his own within the last hour or two; but when I left +the rooms he was going to the Hotel d'Orange with some French fellows +for a quiet game of _écarté_. Our friend the Captain is a great card, +Miss Paget, and has a delightful talent for picking up distinguished +acquaintance." + +There are few daughters who would have cared to hear a father spoken of +in this free-and-easy manner; but Diana Paget was quite unmoved. She +had resumed her old attitude, and sat looking towards the lighted +windows of the Kursaal, while Mr. Hawkehurst lounged against the angle +of the window with his hands in his pockets and a cigar in his mouth. + +For three years Valentine Hawkehurst had lived in constant +companionship with the Captain's daughter; and in that time his manner +to her had undergone considerable variation. Of late it had been +something in the manner of an elder brother, whose fraternal breast is +impervious to the influence of a sister's loveliness or a sister's +fascination. If Diana Paget had been a snub-nosed young person with red +hair and white eyelashes, Mr. Hawkehurst could scarcely have treated +her with a more friendly indifference, a more brotherly familiarity. + +Unhappily this line of conduct, which is perhaps the wisest and most +honourable plan that a man can pursue when he finds himself thrown into +a dangerously familiar association with a beautiful and unprotected +woman, is the very line of proceeding which a beautiful woman can never +bring herself to forgive. A chivalrous stiffness, a melancholy dignity, +a frozen frigidity, which suggest the fiery bubbling of the lava flood +beneath the icy surface,--these are delightful to the female mind. But +friendly indifference and fraternal cordiality constitute the worst +insult that can be offered to her beauty, the most bitter outrage upon +the majesty of her sex. + +"I suppose it will be midnight before papa comes home, Mr. Hawkehurst," +Diana said abruptly, when her companion had finished his cigar, and had +thrown the end of it over the balcony. + +"Past midnight more likely, Miss Paget. May I ask how I have become Mr. +Hawkehurst all of a sudden, when for the last three years I have been +usually known as Valentine--or Val?" + +The girl turned her head with a gesture in which the carelessness of +his own manner was imitated. She stole a rapid look at him as she +answered, "What does it matter whether I call you by one name or +another?" + +"What does anything matter? I believe Mr. Toots was an unconscious +philosopher. There is nothing in the world of any consequence, except +money. Go and look at those poor devils yonder, and you will see what +that is worth," he cried, pointing to the lighted Kursaal; "there you +behold the one great truth of the universe in action. There is nothing +but money, and men are the slaves of money, and life is only another +name for the pursuit of money. Go and look at beauty yonder fading in +the light and heat; at youth that changes to age before your eyes; at +friendship which turns to hate when the chances of the game are with my +friend and against me. The Kursaal is the world in little, Diana; and +this great globe of ours is nothing but a gigantic gaming-table--a +mighty temple for the worship of the golden calf." + +"Why do you imitate those people yonder, if you despise them so +heartily?" + +"Because I am like them and of them. I tell you that money is the +beginning and end of all things. Why am I here, and why is my life made +up of baseness and lies? Because my father was an improvident +scoundrel, and did not leave me five hundred a year. I wonder what I +should have been like, by the bye, if I had been blest with five +hundred a year?" + +"Honest and happy," answered the girl earnestly. She forgot her +simulated indifference, and looked at him with sad earnest eyes. He met +the glance, and the expression of his own face changed from its cynical +smile to a thoughtful sadness. + +"Honest perhaps; and yet I almost doubt if anything under five thousand +a year would have kept me honest. Decidedly not happy; the men who can +be happy on five hundred a year are made of a duller stuff than the +clay which serves for a Hawkehurst." + +"You talk about not being happy with five hundred a year!" Diana +exclaimed impatiently. "Surely any decent existence would be happiness +to you compared to the miserable life you lead,--the shameful, degraded +life which shuts you out of the society of respectable people and +reduces you to the level of a thief. If you had any pride, Valentine, +you would feel it as bitterly as I do." + +"But I haven't any pride. As for my life,--well, I suppose it is +shameful and degraded, and I know that it's often miserable; but it +suits me better than jog-trot respectability, I can dine one day on +truffled turkey and champagne, another day upon bread and cheese and +small beer; but I couldn't eat beef and mutton always. That's what +kills people of my temperament. There are born scamps in the world, +Diana, and I am one of them. My name is Robert Macaire, and I was +created for the life I lead. Keep clear of me if you have any hankering +after better things; but don't try to change my nature, for it is +wasted labour." + +"Valentine, it is so cruel of you to talk like that." + +"Cruel to whom?" + +"To--those--who care for you." + +It was quite dark now; but even in the darkness Diana Paget's head +drooped a little as she said this. Mr. Hawkehurst laughed aloud. + +"Those who care for me!" he cried; "no such people ever lived. My +father was a drunken scoundrel, who suffered his children to grow up +about him as he would have suffered a litter of puppies to sprawl upon +his hearth, only because there was less trouble in letting them lie +there than in kicking them out. My mother was a good woman in the +beginning, I know; but she must have been something more than a mortal +woman if she had not lost some of her goodness in twelve years of such +a life as she led with my father. I believe she was fond of me, poor +soul; but she died six months before I ran away from a lodging in the +Rules, which it is the bitterest irony to speak of as my home. Since +then I have been Robert Macaire, and have about as many friends as such +a man usually has." + +"You can scarcely wonder if you have few friends," said Miss Paget, +"since there is no one in the world whom you love." + +She watched him through the darkness after saying this, watched him +closely, though it was too dark for her to see the expression of his +face, and any emotion to which her words might have given rise could be +betrayed only by some gesture or change of attitude. She watched him in +vain, for he did not stir. But after a pause of some minutes he said +slowly,-- + +"Such a man as I cannot afford to love any one. What have I to offer to +the woman I might pretend to love? Truth, or honour, or honesty, or +constancy? Those are commodities I have never dealt in. If I know what +they are, and that I have never possessed them, it is about as much as +I do know of them. If I have any redeeming grace, Diana Paget, it lies +in the fact that I know what a worthless wretch I am. Your father +thinks he is a great man, a noble suffering creature, and that the +world has ill-used him. I know that I am a scoundrel, and that let my +fellow-men treat me as badly as they please, they can never give me +worse usage than I deserve. And am I a man to talk about love, or to +ask a woman to share my life? Good God, what a noble partner I should +offer her! what a happy existence I could assure her!" + +"But if the woman loved you, she would only love you better for being +unfortunate." + +"Yes, if she was very young and foolish and romantic. But don't you +think I should be a villain if I traded on her girlish folly? She would +love me for a year or two perhaps, and bear all the changes of my +temper; but the day would come when she would awake from her delusion, +and know that she had been cheated. She would see other women--less +gifted than herself, probably--and would see the market they had made +of their charms; would see them rich and honoured and happy, and would +stand aside in the muddy streets to be splashed by the dirt from their +carriage-wheels. And then she would consider the price for which she +had bartered her youth and her beauty, and would hate the man who had +cheated her. No, Diana, I am not such a villain as the world may think +me. I am down in the dirt myself, and I'm used to it. I won't drag a +woman into the gutter just because I may happen to love her." + +There was a long silence after this--a silence during which Diana Paget +sat looking down at the twinkling lights of the Kursaal. Valentine +lighted a second cigar and smoked it out, still in silence. The clocks +struck eleven as he threw the end of his cigar away; a tiny, luminous +speck, which shot through the misty atmosphere below the balcony like a +falling star. + +"I may as well go and see how your father is getting on yonder," he +said, as the spark of light vanished in the darkness below. "Good +night, Diana. Don't sit too long in the cold night air; and don't sit +up for your father--there's no knowing when he may be home." + +The girl did not answer him. She listened to the shutting of the door +as it closed behind him, and then folded her arms upon the iron rail of +the balcony, laid her head upon them, and wept silently. Her life was +very dreary, and it seemed to her as if the last hope which had +sustained her against an unnatural despair had been taken away from her +to-night. + +Twelve o'clock sounded with a feeble little _carillon_ from one of the +steeples, and still she sat with her head resting upon her folded arms. +Her eyes were quite dry by this time, for with her tears were very +rare, and the passion which occasioned them must needs be intense. The +night air grew chill and damp; but although she shivered now and then +beneath that creeping, penetrating cold which is peculiar to night air, +she did not stir from her place in the balcony till she was startled by +the opening of the door in the room behind her. + +All was dark within, but Diana Paget was very familiar with the +footstep that sounded on the carpetless floor. It was Valentine +Hawkehurst, and not her father, whose step her quick ear distinguished. + +"Diana," he called; and then he muttered in a tone of surprise, "all +dark still. Ah! she has gone to bed, I suppose. That's a pity!" The +figure in the balcony caught his eye at this moment. + +"What in goodness' name has kept you out there all this time?" he +asked; "do you want to catch your death of cold?" + +He was standing by the mantelpiece lighting a candle as he asked this +unceremonious question. The light of the candle shone full upon his +face when Diana came into the room, and she could see that he was paler +than usual. + +"Is there anything the matter?" she asked anxiously. + +"Yes; there is a great deal the matter. You will have to leave +Forêtdechêne by the earliest train to-morrow morning, on the first +stage of your journey to England. Look here, my girl! I can give you +just about the money that will carry you safely to London; and when you +are once there, Providence must do the rest." + +"Valentine, what do you mean?" + +"I mean, that you cannot get away from this place--you cannot dissever +yourself from the people you have been living with, too soon. Come, +come, don't shiver, child. Take a few drops of this cognac, and let me +see the colour come back to your face before I say any more." + +He poured the dregs of a bottle of brandy into a glass, and made her +drink the spirit. He was obliged to force the rim of the glass between +her set teeth before he could succeed in this. + +"Come, Diana," he said, after she had drunk, "you have been a pupil in +the school of adversity so long, that you ought to be able to take +misfortunes pretty quietly. There's a balance struck, somehow or other, +depend upon it, my girl; and the prosperous people who pay their debts +have to suffer, as well as the Macaire family. I'm a scamp and a +scoundrel, but I'm your true friend nevertheless, Diana; and you must +promise to take my advice. Tell me that you will trust me." + +"I have no one else to trust." + +"No one else in this place. But in England you have your old friend,-- +the woman with whom you were at school. Do you think she would refuse +to give you a temporary home if you sued to her _in formâ pauperis?_" + +"No, I don't think she would refuse. She was very good to me. But why +am I to go back to London?" + +"Because to stay here would be ruin and disgrace to you; because the +tie that links you to Horatio Paget must be cut at any hazard." "But +why?" + +"For the best or worst of reasons. Your father has been trying a trick +to-night which has been hitherto so infallible, that I suppose he had +grown careless as to his execution of it. Or perhaps he took a false +measure of the man he was playing with. In any case, he has been found +out, and has been arrested by the police." + +"Arrested, for cheating at cards!" exclaimed the girl, with a look of +unspeakable disgust and horror. Valentine's arm was ready to support +her, if she had shown any symptom of fainting; but she did not. She +stood erect before him, very pale but firm as a rock. + +"And you want me to go away?" she said. + +"Yes, I want you to disappear from this place before you become +notorious as your father's daughter. That would be about the worst +reputation which you could carry through life. Believe me that I wish +you well, Diana, and be ruled by me." + +"I will," she answered, with a kind of despairing resignation. "It +seems very dreary to go back to England to face the world all alone. +But I will do as you tell me." + +She did not express any sympathy for her father, then languishing under +arrest, whereby she proved herself very wicked and unwomanly, no doubt. +But neither womanly virtues nor Christian graces are wont to flourish +in the school in which Diana Paget had been reared. She obeyed +Valentine Hawkehurst to the letter, without any sentimental +lamentations whatever. Her scanty possessions were collected, and +neatly packed, in little more than an hour. At three o'clock she lay +down in her tawdry little bed-chamber to take what rest she might in +the space of two hours. At six she stood by Valentine Hawkehurst on the +platform of the railway station, with her face hidden by a brown gauze +veil, waiting till the train was wade ready to start. + +It was after she was seated in the carriage that she spoke for the +first time of her father. + +"Is it likely to go very hard with him?" she asked. + +"I hope not. We must try to pull him through it as well as we can. The +charge may break down at the first examination. Good bye." + +"Good bye, Valentine." + +They had just time to shake hands before the train moved off. Another +moment and Miss Paget and her fellow-passengers were speeding towards +Liége. + +Mr. Hawkehurst drew his hat over his eyes as he walked away from the +station. + +"The world will seem very dull and empty to me without her," he said to +himself. "I have done an unselfish thing for once in my life. I wonder +whether the recording angel will carry that up to my credit, and +whether the other fellow will blot out any of the old score in +consideration of this one little bit of self-sacrifice." + + + + + +BOOK THE THIRD. + + +HEAPING UP RICHES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A FORTUNATE MARRIAGE. + + +Eleven years had passed lightly enough over the glossy raven locks of +Mr. Philip Sheldon. There are some men with whom Time deals gently, and +he was one of them. The hard black eyes had lost none of their fierce +brightness; the white teeth flashed with all their old brilliancy; the +complexion, which had always been dusky of hue, was perhaps a shade or +two darker; and the fierce black eyes seemed all the blacker by reason +of the purple tinge beneath them. But the Philip Sheldon of to-day was, +taken altogether, a handsomer man than the Philip Sheldon of eleven +years ago. + +Within those eleven years the Bloomsbury dentist had acquired a higher +style of dress and bearing, and a certain improvement of tone and +manner. He was still an eminently respectable man, and a man whose +chief claim to the esteem of his fellows lay in the fact of his +unimpeachable respectability; but his respectability of to-day, as +compared with that of eleven years before, was as the respectability of +Tyburnia when contrasted with that of St. Pancras. He was not an +aristocratic-looking man, or an elegant man; but you felt, as you +contemplated him, that the bulwarks of the citadel of English +respectability are defended by such as he. + +Mr. Sheldon no longer experimentalised with lumps of beeswax and +plaster-of-paris. All the appalling paraphernalia of his cruel art had +long since been handed over to an aspiring young dentist, together +with the respectable house in Fitzgeorge-street, the furniture, +and--the connexion. And thus had ended Philip Sheldon's career as a +surgeon-dentist. Within a year of Tom Halliday's death his disconsolate +widow had given her hand to her first sweetheart, not forgetful of her +dead husband or ungrateful for much kindness and affection experienced +at his hands, but yielding rather to Philip's suit because she was +unable to advance any fair show of reason whereby she might reject him. + +"I told you, she'd be afraid to refuse you," said George Sheldon, when +the dentist came home from Barlingford, where Tom Halliday's widow was +living with her mother. + +Philip had answered his brother's questions rather ambiguously at +first, but in the end had been fain to confess that he had asked Mrs. +Halliday to marry him, and that his suit had prospered. + +"That way of putting it is not very complimentary to me," he said, +drawing himself up rather stiffly. "Georgy and I were attached to each +other long ago, and it is scarcely strange if----" + +"If you should make a match of it, Tom being gone. Poor old Tom! He and +I were such cronies. I've always had an idea that neither you nor the +other fellow quite understood that low fever of his. You did your best, +no doubt; but I think you ought to have pulled him through somehow. +However, that's not a pleasant subject to talk of just now; so I'll +drop it, and wish you joy, Phil. It'll be rather a good match for you, +I fancy," added George, contemplating his brother with a nervous +twitching of his lips, which suggested that his mouth watered as he +thought of Philip's good fortune. + +"It's a very nice thing you drop into, old fellow, isn't it?" he asked +presently, seeing that his brother was rather disinclined to discuss +the subject. + +"You know the state of my affairs well enough to be sure that I +couldn't afford to marry a poor woman," answered Philip. + +"And that it has been for a long time a vital necessity with you to +marry a rich one," interjected his brother. + +"Georgy will have a few hundreds, and----" + +"A few thousands, you mean, Phil," cried Sheldon the younger with +agreeable briskness; "shall I tot it up for you?" + +He was always eager to "tot" things up, and would scarcely have shrunk +from setting down the stars of heaven in trim double columns of +figures, had it seemed to his profit to do so. + +"Let us put it in figures, Phil," he said, getting his finger-tips in +order for the fray. "There's the money for Hyley Farm--twelve thousand +three hundred and fifty, I had it from poor Tom's own lips. Then +there's that little property on Sheepfield Common--say seven-fifty, +eh?--well, say seven hundred, if you like to leave a margin; and then +there are the insurances--three thou' in the Alliance, fifteen hundred +in the Phoenix, five hundred in the Suffolk Friendly; the total of +which, my dear boy, is eighteen thousand five hundred pounds; and a +very nice thing for you to drop into, just as affairs were looking +about as black as they could look." "Yes," answered Mr. Sheldon the +elder, who appeared by on means to relish this "totting-up" of his +future wife's fortune; "I have no doubt I ought to consider myself a +very lucky man." + +"So Barlingford folks will say when they hear of the business. And now +I hope you're not going to forget your promise to me." + +"What promise?" + +"That if you ever did get a stroke of luck, I should have a share of +it--eh, Phil?" + +Mr. Sheldon caressed his chin, and looked thoughtfully at the fire. + +"If my wife lets me have the handling of any of her money, you may +depend upon it I'll do what I can for you," he said, after a pause. + +"Don't say that, Phil," remonstrated George. "When a man says he'll do +what he can for you, it's a sure sign he means to do nothing. +Friendship and brotherly feeling are at an end when it comes to a +question of 'ifs' and 'cans.' If your wife lets you have the handling +of any of her money!" cried the lawyer, with unspeakable derision; +"that's too good a joke for you to indulge in with me. Do you think I +believe you will let that poor little woman keep custody of her money a +day after she is your wife, or that you will let her friends tie it up +for her before she marries you?" + +No, Phil, you didn't lay your plans for that." + +"What do you mean by my laying plans?" asked the dentist. + +"That's a point we won't discuss, Philip," answered the lawyer coolly. +"You and I understand each other very well without entering into +unpleasant details. You promised me a year ago--before Tom Halliday's +death--that if you ever came into a good thing, I should share in it. +You have come into an uncommonly good thing, and I shall expect you to +keep your promise." + +"Who says I am going to break it?" demanded Philip Sheldon with an +injured air. "You shouldn't be in such a hurry to cry out, George. You +take the tone of a social Dick Turpin, and might as well hold a pistol +to my head while you're about it. Don't alarm yourself. I have told you +I will do what I can for you. I cannot, and I shall not, say more." + +The two men looked at each other. They were in the habit of taking the +measure of all creation in their own eminently practical way, and each +took the other's measure now. After having done which, they parted with +all cordial expressions of good-will and brotherly feeling. George went +back to his dusty chambers in Gray's Inn, and Philip prepared for his +return to Barlingford and his marriage with Georgina Halliday. + +For ten years Georgy had been Philip Sheldon's wife, and she had found +no reason to complain of her second choice. The current of her life had +flowed smoothly enough since her first lover had become her husband. +She still wore moire-antique dresses and gold chains; and if the +dresses were of more simple fashion, and the chains were less +obtrusively displayed, she had to thank Mr. Sheldon for the refinement +in her taste. Her views of life in general had expanded under Mr. +Sheldon's influence. She no longer thought a high-wheeled dog-cart and +a skittish mare the acme of earthly splendour; for she had a carriage +and pair at her service, and a smart little page-boy to leap off the +box in attendance on her when she paid visits or went shopping. Instead +of the big comfortable old-fashioned farmhouse at Hyley, with its +mysterious passages and impenetrable obscurities in the way of +cupboards, she occupied an intensely new detached villa in Bayswater, +in which the eye that might chance to grow weary of sunshine and +glitter would have sought in vain for a dark corner wherein to repose +itself. + +Mr. Sheldon's fortunes had prospered since his marriage with his +friend's widow. For a man of his practical mind and energetic +temperament, eighteen thousand pounds was a strong starting-point. His +first step was to clear off all old engagements with Jews and Gentiles, +and to turn his back on the respectable house in Fitzgeorge-street. The +earlier months of his married life he devoted to a pleasant tour on the +Continent; not wasting time in picturesque by-ways, or dawdling among +inaccessible mountains, or mooning about drowsy old cathedrals, where +there were pictures with curtains hanging before them, and prowling +vergers who expected money for drawing aside the curtains; but rattling +at the highest continental speed from one big commercial city to +another, and rubbing off the rust of Bloomsbury in the exchanges and on +the quays of the busiest places in Europe. The time which Mr. Sheldon +forbore to squander in shadowy gothic aisles and under the shelter of +Alpine heights, he accounted well bestowed in crowded cafés, and at the +public tables of noted hotels, where commercial men were wont to +congregate; and as Georgy had no aspirings for the sublimity of Vandyke +and Raphael, or the gigantic splendours of Alpine scenery, she was very +well pleased to see continental life with the eyes of Philip Sheldon. +How could a half-educated little woman, whose worldly experience was +bounded by the suburbs of Barlingford, be otherwise than delighted by +the glare and glitter of foreign cities? Georgy was childishly +enraptured with everything she saw, from the sham diamonds and rubies +of the Palais Royal, to the fantastical bonbons of Berlin. + +Her husband was very kind to her--after his own particular fashion, +which was very different from blustering Tom Halliday's weak +indulgence. He allotted and regulated her life to suit his own +convenience, it is true; but he bought her handsome dresses, and took +her with him in hired carriages when he drove about the strange cities. +He was apt to leave Georgy and the hired carriage at the corner of some +street, or before the door of some cafe, for an hour at a time, in the +course of his peregrinations; but she speedily became accustomed to +this, and provided herself with the Tauchnitz edition of a novel, +wherewith to beguile the tedium of these intervals in the day's +amusement. If Tom Halliday had left her for an hour at a street-corner, +or before the door of a café, she would have tortured herself and him +by all manner of jealous suspicions and vague imaginings. But there was +a stern gravity in Mr. Sheldon's character which precluded the +possibility of any such shadowy fancies. Every action of his life +seemed to involve such serious motives, the whole tenor of his +existence was so orderly and business-like, that his wife was fain to +submit to him, as she would have submitted to some ponderous infallible +machine, some monster of modern ingenuity and steam power, which cut +asunder so many bars of iron, or punched holes in so many paving-stones +in a given number of seconds, and was likely to go on dividing iron or +piercing paving-stones for ever and ever. + +She obeyed him, and was content to fashion her life according to his +will, chiefly because she had a vague consciousness that to argue with +him, or to seek to influence him, would be to attempt the impossible. +Perhaps there was something more than this in her mind--some +half-consciousness that there was a shapeless and invertebrate +skeleton lurking in the shadowy background of her new life, a dusky +and impalpable creature which it would not be well for her to examine +or understand. She was a cowardly little woman, and finding herself +tolerably happy in the present, she did not care to pierce the veil of +the future, or to cast anxious glances backward to the past. She +thought it just possible that there might be people in the world base +enough to hint that Philip Sheldon had married her for love of her +eighteen thousand pounds, rather than from pure devotion to herself. +She knew that certain prudent friends and kindred in Barlingford had +elevated their hands and eyebrows in speechless horror when they +discovered that she had married her second husband without a +settlement; while one grim and elderly uncle had asked her whether she +did not expect her father to turn in his grave by reason of her folly. + +Georgy had shrugged her shoulders peevishly when her Barlingford +friends remonstrated with her, and had declared that people were very +cruel to her, and that it was a hard thing she could not choose for +herself for once in her life. As to the settlements that people talked +of, she protested indignantly that she was not so mean as to fancy her +future husband a thief, and that to tie up her money in all sorts of +ways would be to imply as much. And then, as it was only a year since +poor dear Tom's death, she had been anxious to marry without fuss or +parade. In fact, there were a hundred reasons against legal +interference, and legal tying-up of the money, with all that dreadful +jargon about "whereas," and "hereinafter," and "provided always," and +"nothing herein contained," which seems to hedge round a sum of money +so closely, that it is doubtful whether the actual owner will ever be +free to spend a sixpence of it after the execution of that formidable +document intended to protect it from possible marauders. + +George Sheldon had said something very near the truth when he had told +Philip that Mrs. Halliday would be afraid to refuse him. The +fair-haired, fair-faced little woman did in some manner fear the first +lover of her girlhood. She had become his wife, and so far all things +had gone well with her; but if misery and despair had been the necessary +consequences of her union with him, she must have married him all the +same, so dominant was the influence by which he ruled her. Of course +Georgy was not herself aware of her own dependence. She accepted all +things as they were presented to her by a stronger mind than her own. +She wore her handsome silk dresses, and was especially particular as to +the adjustment of her bonnet-strings, knowing that the smallest +impropriety of attire was obnoxious to the well-ordered mind of her +second husband. She obeyed him very much as a child obeys a strict but +not unkind schoolmaster. When he took her to a theatre or a racecourse, +she sat by his side meekly, and felt like a child who has been good and +is reaping the reward of goodness. And this state of things was in +nowise disagreeable to her. She was perhaps quite as happy as it was in +her nature to be; for she had no exalted capacity for happiness or +misery. She felt that it was pleasant to have a handsome man, whose +costume was always irreproachable, for her husband. Her only notion of +a bad husband was a man who stayed out late, and came home under the +influence of strong liquors consumed in unknown localities and amongst +unknown people. So, as Mr. Sheldon rarely went out after dinner, and +was on all occasions the most temperate of men, she naturally +considered her second husband the very model of conjugal perfection. +Thus it was that domestic life had passed smoothly enough for Mr. +Sheldon and his wife during the ten years which had elapsed since their +marriage. + +As to the eighteen thousand pounds which she had brought Philip +Sheldon, Georgy asked no questions. She knew that she enjoyed luxuries +and splendours which had never been hers in Tom Halliday's lifetime, +and she was content to accept the goods which her second husband +provided. Mr. Sheldon had become a stockbroker, and occupied an office +in some dusky court within a few hundred yards of the Stock Exchange. +He had, according to his own account, trebled Georgy's thousands since +they had been in his hands. How the unsuccessful surgeon-dentist had +blossomed all at once into a fortunate speculator was a problem too +profound for Georgy's consideration. She knew that her husband had +allied himself to a certain established firm of stockbrokers, and that +the alliance had cost him some thousands of Tom Halliday's money. She +had heard of preliminary steps to be taken to secure his admission as a +member of some mysterious confraternity vaguely spoken of as "the +House;" and she knew that Tom Halliday's thousands had been the seed +from which had sprung other thousands, and that her husband had been +altogether triumphant and successful. + +It may be that it is easier to rig the market than to induce a given +number of people to resort to a certain dull street in Bloomsbury for +the purpose of having teeth extracted by an unknown practitioner. It is +possible that the stockbroker is like the poet, a creature who is born, +and not made; a gifted and inspired being, not to be perfected by any +specific education; a child of spontaneous instincts and untutored +faculties. Certain it is that the divine afflatus from the nostrils of +the god Plutus seemed to have descended upon Philip Sheldon; for he had +entered the Stock Exchange an inexperienced stranger, and he held his +place there amongst men whose boyhood had been spent in the offices of +Capel-court, and whose youthful strength had been nourished in the +chop-houses of Pinch-lane and Thread-needle-street. + +Mrs. Sheldon was satisfied with the general knowledge that Mr. Sheldon +had been fortunate, and had never sought any more precise knowledge of +her husband's affairs. Nor did she seek such knowledge even now, when +her daughter was approaching womanhood, and might ere long need some +dower out of her mother's fortune. Poor Tom, trusting implicitly in the +wife he loved, and making his will only as a precautionary measure, at +a time when he seemed good for fifty years of life and strength, had +not troubled himself about remote contingencies, and had in no wise +foreseen the probability of a second husband for Georgy and-a +stepfather for his child. + +Two children had been born to Mr. Sheldon since his marriage, and both +had died in infancy. The loss of these children had fallen very heavily +on the strong hard man, though he had never shed a tear or uttered a +lamentation, or wasted an hour of his business-like existence by reason +of his sorrow. Georgy had just sufficient penetration to perceive that +her husband was bitterly disappointed when no more baby-strangers came +to replace those poor frail little lives which had withered away and +vanished in spite of his anxiety to hold them. + +"It seems as if there was a blight upon _my_ children," he once said +bitterly; and this was the only occasion on which his wife heard him +complain of his evil fortune. + +But one day, when he had been particularly lucky in some speculation, +when he had succeeded in achieving what his brother George spoke of as +the "biggest line he had ever done," Philip Sheldon came home to the +Bayswater villa in a particularly bad humour, and for the first time +since her marriage Georgy heard him quote a line of Scripture. + +"Heaping up riches," he muttered, as he paced up and down the room; +"heaping up riches, and ye cannot tell who shall gather them." + +His wife knew then that he was thinking of his children During the +brief lives of those two fragile boy-babies the stockbroker had been +wont to talk much of future successes in the way of money-making to be +achieved by him for the enrichment and exaltation of these children. +They were gone now, and no more came to replace them. And though Philip +Sheldon still devoted himself to the sublime art of money-making, and +still took delight in successful time-bargains and all the scientific +combinations of the money-market, the salt of life had lost something +of its savour, and the chink of gold had lost somewhat of its music. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CHARLOTTE. + + +The little villa at Bayswater was looking its brightest on a +resplendent midsummer afternoon, one year after Diana Paget's hurried +hegira from Forêtdechêne. If the poor dentist's house in dingy +Bloomsbury had been fresh and brilliant of aspect, how much more +brilliant was the western home of the rich stockbroker, whose gate was +within five minutes' walk of that aristocratic Eden, Kensington +Gardens! Mr. Sheldon's small domain was called The Lawn, and consisted +of something over half an acre of flower-garden and shrubbery, a +two-stall stable and coach-house, a conservatory and fernery, and a +moderate-sized house in the gothic or mediaeval style, with mullioned +windows in the dining-room and oriels in the best bedroom, and with a +great deal of unnecessary stone-work and wooden excrescence in every +direction. + +The interior of Mr. Sheldon's dwelling bore no trace of that solid +old-fashioned clumsiness which had distinguished his house in +Fitzgeorge-street. Having surrendered his ancestral chairs and tables +in liquidation of his liabilities, Philip Sheldon was free to go with +the times, and had furnished his gothic villa in the most approved +modern style, but without any attempt at artistic grace or adornment. +All was bright, and handsome, and neat, and trim; but the brightness and +the neatness savoured just a little of furnished apartments at the +seaside, and the eye sought in vain for the graceful disorder of an +elegant home. The dining-room was gorgeous with all the splendour of new +mahogany and crimson morocco; the drawing-room was glorified by big +looking-glasses, and the virginal freshness of gilt frames on which the +feet of agile house-fly or clumsy blue-bottle had never rested. The +crimsons, and blues, and greens, and drabs of the Brussels carpets +retained the vivid brightness of the loom. The drops of the chandeliers +twinkled like little stars in the sunshine; the brass birdcages were +undimmed by any shadow of dulness. To Georgy's mind the gothic villa +was the very perfection of a dwelling-place. The Barlingford +housekeepers were wont to render their homes intolerable by extreme +neatness. Georgy still believed in the infallibility of her native +town, and the primness of Barlingford reigned supreme in the gothic +villa. There were no books scattered on the polished walnut-wood tables +in the drawing-room, no cabinets crammed with scraps of old china, no +pictures, no queer old Indian feather-screens, no marvels of Chinese +carving in discoloured ivory; none of those traces which the footsteps +of the "collector" leave behind him. Mr. Sheldon had no leisure for +collecting; and Georgy preferred the gaudy pink-and-blue vases of a +Regent-street china-shop to all the dingy _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of a +Wedgwood, or the quaint shepherds and shepherdesses of Chelsea. As for +books, were there not four or five resplendent volumes primly disposed +on one of the tables; an illustrated edition of Cowper's lively and +thrilling poems; a volume of Rambles in Scotland, with copper-plate +engravings of "Melrose by night," and Glasgow Cathedral, and Ben Nevis, +and other scenic and architectural glories of North Britain; a couple +of volumes of _Punch_, and an illustrated "Vicar of Wakefield;" and +what more could elevated taste demand in the way of literature? Nobody +ever read the books; but Mrs. Sheldon's visitors were sometimes glad to +take refuge in the Scottish scenery and the pictorial Vicar during that +interval of dulness and indigestion which succeeds a middle-class +dinner. Georgy read a great many books; but they were all novels, +procured from the Bayswater branch of a fashionable circulating +library, and were condemned unread by Mr. Sheldon, who considered all +works of fiction perfectly equal in demerit, and stigmatised them, in a +general way, as "senseless trash." He had tried to read novels in the +dreary days of his Bloomsbury probation; but he had found that the +heroes of them were impracticable beings, who were always talking of +honour and chivalry, and always sacrificing their own interests in an +utterly preposterous manner; and he had thrown aside story after story +in disgust. + +"Give me a book that is something like life, and I'll read it," he +exclaimed impatiently; "but I can't swallow the high-flown prosings of +impossibly virtuous inanities." + +One day, indeed, he had been struck by the power of a book, a book +written by a certain Frenchman called Balzac. He had been riveted by +the hideous cynicism, the supreme power of penetration into the vilest +corners of wicked hearts; and he flung the book from him at last with +an expression of unmitigated admiration. + +"That man knows his fellows," he cried, "and is not hypocrite enough +to conceal his knowledge, or to trick out his puppets in the tinsel and +rags of false sentiment in order that critics and public may cry, 'See, +what noble instincts, what generous impulses, what unbounded sympathy +for his fellow-creatures this man has!' This Frenchman is an artist, +and is not afraid to face the difficulties of his art. What a scoundrel +this Philippe Bridau is! And after wallowing in the gutter, he lives to +bespatter his virtuous brother with the mire from his carriage wheels. +That is _real_ life. Tour English novelist would have made his villain +hang himself with the string of his waistcoat in a condemned cell, +while his amiable hero was declared heir to a dukedom and forty +thousand a year. But this fellow Balzac knows better than that." + +The days had passed when Mr. Sheldon had leisure to read Balzac. He +read nothing but the newspapers now, and in the newspapers he read very +little more than the money articles and such political news as seemed +likely to affect the money-market. There is no such soul-absorbing +pursuit as the race which men run whose goal is the glittering Temple +of Plutus. The golden apples which tempted Atalanta to slacken her pace +are always rolling _before_ the modern runner, and the greed of gain +lends the wings of Hermes to his feet. Mr. Sheldon had sighed for +pleasures sometimes in the days of his Bloomsbury martyrdom. He had sat +by his open window on sultry summer evenings, smoking his solitary +cigar, and thinking moodily of all the pleasant resting-places from +which other men were looking out at that golden western sky, deepening +into crimson and melting into purples which even the London smoke could +not obscure. He had sat alone, thinking of jovial parties lounging in +the bow-windows of Greenwich taverns, with cool green hock-glasses and +pale amber wine, and a litter of fruit and flowers on the table before +them, while the broad river flowed past them with all the glory of the +sunset on the rippling water, and one black brig standing sharply out +against the yellow sky. He had thought of Richmond, and the dashing +young men who drive there every summer in drags, with steel chain and +bar clanking and glittering in front of the team, and two solemn grooms +with folded arms seated stiff and statue-like behind. He had thought of +Epsom, and the great Derby mob; and all of those golden goblets of +pleasure which prosperous manhood drains to the very dregs. He had +fancied the enjoyments which would be his if ever he were rich enough +to pay for them. And now he was able to afford all such pleasures he +cared nothing for them; for the ecstasy of making money seemed better +than any masculine dissipation or delight. He did sometimes dine at +Greenwich. He knew the _menus_ of the different taverns by heart, and +had discovered that they were all alike vanity and indigestion; but he +never seated himself at one of those glistening little tables, or +deliberated with an obsequious waiter over the mysteries of the wine +_carte_, without a settled purpose to be served by the eating of the +dinner, and a definite good to be achieved by the wine he ordered. He +gave many such entertainments at home and abroad; but they were all +given to men who were likely to be useful to him--to rich men, or the +toadies and hangers-on of rich men, the grand viziers of the sultans of +the money-market. Such a thing as pleasure or hospitality pure and +simple had no place in the plan of Mr. Sheldon's life. The race in +which he was running was not to be won by a loiterer. The golden apples +were always rolling on before the runner; and woe be to him who turned +away from the course to dally with the flowers or loiter by the cool +streams that beautified the wayside. + +Thus it was that Mr. Sheldon's existence grew day by day more +completely absorbed by business pursuits and business interests. Poor +Georgy complained peevishly of her husband's neglect; but she did not +dare to pour her lamentations into the ear of the offender. It was a +kind of relief to grumble about his busy life to servants and humble +female friends and confidantes; but what could she say to Philip +Sheldon himself? What ground had she for complaint? He very seldom +stayed out late; he never came home tipsy. He was quite as cool and +clear-headed and business-like, and as well able to "tot up" any given +figures upon the back of an envelope after one of those diplomatic +little Greenwich dinners as he was the first thing after breakfast. It +had been an easy thing to tyrannise over poor Tom Halliday; but this +man was a grave inscrutable creature, a domestic enigma which Georgy +was always giving up in despair. But so completely did Mr. Sheldon rule +his wife, that when he informed her inferentially that she was a very +happy woman, she accepted his view of the subject, and was content to +believe herself blest. + +In spite of those occasional grumblings to servants and female friends, +Mrs. Sheldon did think herself happy. Those occasional complaints were +the minor notes in the harmony of her life, and only served to make the +harmony complete. She read her novels, and fed a colony of little +feeble twittering birds that occupied a big wire cage in the +breakfast-parlour. She executed a good deal of fancy-work with beads +and Berlin-wool; she dusted and arranged the splendours of the +drawing-room with her own hands; and she took occasional walks in +Kensington Gardens. + +This was the ordinary course of her existence, now and then interrupted +by such thrilling events as a dinner given to some important +acquaintance of Mr. Sheldon's, or a visit to the school at which +Charlotte Halliday was completing her education. + +That young lady had been removed from the Scarborough boarding-school +to a highly respectable establishment at Brompton, within a few months +of her mother's marriage with Mr. Sheldon. She had been a rosy-cheeked +young damsel in pinafores at the time of that event, too young to +express any strong feeling upon the subject of her mother's second +choice; but not too young to feel the loss of her father very deeply. +Tom Halliday had been fondly attached to that bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked +damsel of nine years' growth, and the girl had fully reciprocated his +affection. How often they had talked together of the future, which was +to be so delightful for them both; the new farm, which was to be such a +paradise in comparison to Hyley; the pony that Charlotte was to ride +when she should be old enough to wear a habit like a lady, and to go +about with her father to market-towns and corn-exchanges! The little +girl had remembered all this, and had most bitterly lamented the loss +of that dear and loving father. + +She remembered it all to this day; she regretted her loss to this day, +though she was nearly of age, and on the point of leaving school for +ever, after having prolonged her school-days considerably beyond the +usual period, at the express wish of her stepfather. To say that she +disliked Mr. Sheldon is only to admit that she was subject to the +natural prejudices of humanity. He had usurped the place of a beloved +father, and he was in every way the opposite of that father. He had +come between Charlotte Halliday and her mother, and had so absorbed the +weak little woman into himself, as to leave Charlotte quite alone in +the world. And yet he did his duty as few stepfathers do it. Charlotte +admitted that he was very kind to her, that he was an excellent +husband, and altogether the most conscientious and respectable of +mankind; but she admitted with equal candour that she had never been +able to like him. "I daresay it is very wicked of me not to be fond of +him, when he is so good and generous to me," she said to her chosen +friend and companion; "but I never can feel quite at home with him. I +try to think of him as a father sometimes, but I never can get over the +'step.' Do you know I have dreamed of him sometimes? and though he is +so kind to me in reality, I always fancy him cruel to me in my dreams. +I suppose it is on account of his black eyes and black whiskers," added +Miss Halliday, in a meditative tone. "It is certainly a misfortune for +a person to have blacker eyes and whiskers than the rest of the world; +for there seems something stern and hard, and almost murderous, in such +excessive blackness." + +Charlotte Halliday was a very different creature from the mother whom +Mr. Sheldon had absorbed into himself. Georgy was one of the women who +have "no characters at all," but Georgy's daughter was open to the +charge of eccentricity rather than of inanity. She was a creature of +fancies and impulses She had written wild verses in the secrecy of her +own chamber at midnight, and had torn her poetic effusions into a +thousand fragments the morning after their composition. She played and +sang very sweetly, and danced admirably, and did everything in a wild +way of her own, which was infinitely more charming than the commonplace +perfection of other women. She was not a beauty according to those +established rules which everybody believes in until they meet a woman +who sins against them all and yet is beautiful. Miss Halliday had thick +black eyebrows, and large gray eyes which people were apt to mistake +for black. She had a composite nose, and one of the sweetest mouths +that ever smiled upon enraptured mankind. Nature had given her just a +little more chin than a Greek sculptor would have allowed her; but, by +way of make-weight, the same careless Nature had bestowed upon her a +throat which Phidias himself might have sought in vain to improve upon. +And Nature had planted this young lady's head upon her shoulders with a +grace so rare that it must needs be a happy accident in the workmanship +of that immortal artist. Indeed it seemed as if Charlotte Halliday owed +her charms to a series of happy accidents. The black eyebrows which +made her face so piquant might have been destruction to another woman. +The round column-like throat needed a fine frank face to surmount it, +and the fine frank face was rendered gracious and womanly by the wealth +of waving dark hair which framed it. The girl was one of those bright +happy creatures whom men worship and women love, and whom envy can +scarcely dislike. She was so infinitely superior to both father and +mother, that a believer in hereditary attributes was fain to invent +some mythical great-grandmother from whom the girl's graces might have +been derived. But she had something of her father's easy good-nature +and imprudent generosity; and was altogether one of those impulsive +creatures whose lives are perpetual difficulties and dilemmas. More +lectures had been delivered for her edification than for any other +young lady in the Brompton boarding-school, and yet she had been the +favourite and delight of everybody in the establishment, from the +mistress of the mansion down to the iniquitous boy who cleaned the +boots, and who was hounded and hunted, and abused and execrated, from +dewy morn to dusky eve. + +"I allus puts plenty of elbow-grease on your boots, Miss 'Allundale, +though cook does heave saucepan-lids at my 'ed and call me a lazy +wiper," this incorrigible imp protested to Charlotte one morning, when +she had surprised him in tears and had consoled his woes by a donation +of pence. + +"All things love thee, so do I," says the lover to his mistress; and it +is almost impossible not to adore a young lady who is universally +beloved, for the simple reason that this general affection is very +rarely accorded to any but a loving nature. There is an instinct in +these things. From all the ruck of Cheapside a vagrant dog will select +the man who has most toleration for the canine species, and is most +likely to give him shelter. A little child coming suddenly into a +circle of strangers knows in which lap it may find a haven, on which +bosom it may discover safety and comfort. If mistress and +schoolfellows, servants and shoeblack, dogs and cats, were fond of +Charlotte Halliday, their affection had been engendered by her own +sweet smiles and loving words, and helping hands always ready to give +substantial succour or to aid by active service. + +She had been at the Brompton gynaeceum nearly eleven years--only leaving +it for her holidays--and now her education was finished, and Mr. +Sheldon could find no excuse for leaving her at school any longer, so +her departure had been finally agreed upon. + +To most damsels of twenty-one this would have been a subject for +rejoicing; but it was not so with Charlotte. She did not like her +stepfather; and her mother, though very affectionate and gentle, was a +person whose society was apt to become wearisome any time after the +first half-hour of social intercourse. At Hyde Lodge Charlotte had a +great deal more of Lingard and condensed and expurgated Gibbon than was +quite agreeable; she had to get up at a preternatural hour in the +morning and to devote herself to "studies of velocity," whose monotony +became wearing as the drip, drip, drip of water on the skull of the +tortured criminal. She was very tired of all the Hyde-Lodge lessons and +accomplishments, the irregular French verbs--the "braires" and +"traires" which were so difficult to remember, and which nobody ever +could want to use in polite conversation; the ruined castles and +dilapidated windmills, the perpetual stumpy pieces of fallen timber and +jagged posts, executed with a BBB pencil; the chalky expanse of sky, +with that inevitable flight of crows scudding across it:--why must +there be always crows scudding across a drawing-master's sky, and why +so many jagged posts in a drawing-master's ideal of rural beauty? +Charlotte was inexpressibly weary of all the stereotyped studies; but +she liked Hyde Lodge better than the gothic villa. She liked the +friendly schoolfellows with their loud talk and boisterous manners, +the girls who called her "Halliday," and who were always borrowing +her reels of crochet-cotton and her pencils, her collars and +pocket-handkerchiefs. She liked the free-and-easy schoolgirl talk +better than her mother's tame discourse; she preferred the homely +litter of the spacious schoolroom to the prim splendours of Georgy's +state chambers; and the cool lawn and shrubberies of Hyde Lodge were a +hundred-fold more pleasant to her than the stiff little parterre at +Bayswater, wherein scarlet geraniums and calceolarias flourished with +an excruciating luxuriance of growth and an aggravating brilliancy of +colour. She liked any place better than the hearth by which Philip +Sheldon brooded with a dark thoughtful face, and a mind absorbed by the +mysteries and complications of the Stock Exchange. + +On this bright June afternoon other girls were chattering gaily about +the fun of the breaking-up ball and the coming delights of the +holidays, but Charlotte sighed when they reminded her that the end of +her last half was close at hand. + +She sat under a group of trees on the lawn, with a crochet antimacassar +lying in her lap, and with her friend and favourite, Diana Paget, +sitting by her side. + +Hyde Lodge was that very establishment over which Priscilla Paget had +reigned supreme for the last seventeen years of her life, and among all +the pupils in a school of some forty or fifty girls, Diana was the one +whom Charlotte Halliday had chosen for her dearest companion and +confidante, clinging to her with a constancy not to be shaken by +ill-fortune or absence. The girl knew very well that Diana Paget was a +poor relation and dependant; that her bills had never been paid; that +all those incalculable and mysterious "extras," which are the martyrdom +of parents and the delight of schoolmistresses, were a dead letter so +far as Diana was concerned. She knew that "poor Di" had been taken home +suddenly one day, not in compliance with any behest of her father's, +but for the simple reason that her kinswoman's patience had been worn +out by the Captain's dishonesty. It is doubtful whether Priscilla Paget +had ever communicated these facts in any set phrase, but in a +boarding-school such things make themselves known, and the girls had +discussed the delinquencies of that dreadful creature, Captain Paget, +very freely in the security of their dormitories. + +Charlotte knew that her dearest friend was not a person whom it was +advantageous to know. She had seen Diana depart ignominiously, and +return mysteriously after an absence of some years, very shabby, very +poor, very sombre and melancholy, and with no inclination to talk of +those years of absence. Miss Halliday had known all this, and had asked +no questions. She took the returned wanderer to her heart, and +cherished her with an affection which was far beyond the average +measure of sisterly love. + +"I thought I should never see you again, dear," she cried when she and +Diana had retired to a corner of the schoolroom to talk confidentially +on the morning of Miss Paget's return; "and I missed you so cruelly. +Other girls are very nice and very kind to me. There is a new girl, +Miss Spencer--that girl with flaxen hair, standing by the big +Canterbury--whom I get on with delightfully; but there is no one in the +world like you, Di. And where have you been all this time? With your +papa, I suppose." + +"Yes," answered Miss Paget gloomily; "I have been with my father. Don't +ask me anything about the last three years, Lotta. I have been utterly +wretched and miserable, and I can't bear to talk about my misery." + +"And you shan't talk of it, darling," cried Charlotte, pursing up her +mouth for a kiss in a manner which might have been distraction to a +masculine mind of average susceptibility. "You shan't talk of anything +or think of anything the least, least, least bit unpleasant; and you +shall have my gold pencil-case," added Miss Halliday, wrenching that +trinket suddenly from the ribbon by which it hung at her side. Perhaps +there was just the least touch of Georgy's childishness in this +impulsive habit of giving away all her small possessions, for which +Lotta was distinguished. "Yes, you must, dear," she went on. "Mamma +gave it me last half; but I don't want it; I don't like it; in point of +fact, I have had it so long that I positively loathe it. And I know +it's a poor trumpery thing, though mamma gave two guineas for it; but +you know she is always imposed upon in shops. Do, do, do take it, +darling, just to oblige me. And now, tell me, dear,--you're going to +stop here for ever and ever, now you've come back" asked Charlotte, +after having thrust the gold pencil-case into Diana's unwilling hand. + +"I don't know about for ever and ever, dear," Miss Paget replied +presently; "but I daresay I shall stay here till I'm tired of the place +and everybody about it. You won't be here very long, you know, Lotta; +for you'll be twenty next birthday, and I suppose you'll be leaving +school before you're twenty-one. Most of the girls leave at eighteen or +nineteen at latest; and you've been here so long, and are so much +farther advanced than others are. I am not going to be a pupil again-- +that's out of the question; for I'm just twenty-two, as you know. But +Priscilla has been good enough to let me stay as a kind of second +teacher for the little ones. It will be dull work going through the +stupid abridgments of history and geography, and the scrappy bits of +botany and conchology, with those incorrigible little ones; but of +course I am very grateful to my cousin for giving me a home under any +conditions, after papa's dishonourable conduct. If it were not for her, +Lotta, I should have no home. What a happy girl you are, to have a +respectable man for your father!" + +Charlotte's brow darkened a little as her friend said this. + +"He is not my own father, you know," she said gravely, "and I should be +a great deal happier if mamma and I were alone in the world. We could +live in some dear little cottage on wide open downs near the sea, and I +could have a linsey habit, and a pony, and ride about all day, and read +and play to mamma at night. Of course Mr. Sheldon is very respectable, +and I daresay it's very wicked of me; but O, Diana, I think I should +like him better if he were not _quite_ so respectable. I saw your papa +once when he came to call, and I thought him nicer than my stepfather. +But then I'm such a frivolous creature, Di, and am always thinking what +I ought not to think." + + * * * * * + +Nearly a year had passed since Diana's return, and the girl's life had +been very monotonous during that time. She had stuck bravely to the +abridgments and the juvenile scraps of --ologies, and had been +altogether a model of propriety, sewing on such a number of strings and +buttons during the period as can only be compassed by the maternal +mind. Her existence had been by no means as joyless or desolate as such +an existence is generally represented by the writer of fiction. There +was plenty of life and bustle in the big prosperous boarding-school, if +there was not much variety. There were small scandals and small +intrigues; departures and arrivals; wonderful hampers of cake and wine +to be divided among the elect of a fashionable dormitory--for there is +as wide a difference between the tone and status of the bedrooms in a +ladies'-school as between the squares of Berkeley and Bedford. There +were breaking-up parties, and the free-and-easy idleness of the +holidays, when a few dark-complexioned girls from the colonies, a +yellow-haired damsel from the remote north of Scotland, and Miss Diana +Paget, were wont to cluster round the fire in the smaller of the +schoolrooms to tell ghost-stories or talk scandal in the gloaming. + +It was a life which, taken with all its small hardships and petty +annoyances, should have been as the life of Paradise compared to that +which Diana had led with her father and Mr. Hawkehurst. Whether the +girl fully appreciated the change from the Bohemianism of her late +existence to the respectability of Hyde Lodge was a question which no +one had asked of her. She had fits of despondency now and then, even in +the midst of her duties, and was apt to fall into a sombre reverie over +one of the abridgments, whereby she was neglectful of her pupils' +aspirates, and allowed Henry the Second to be made the poorer by the +loss of an H, or Heliogabalus to be described by a name which that +individual himself would have failed to recognise. + +There were times when, in the midst of that shrill Babel, the +schoolroom, Diana Paget heard the summer winds sighing in the +pine-woods above Forêtdechêne, and fancied herself standing once more +in that classic temple on whose plastered wall Valentine had once cut +her initials with his penknife in a fantastical monogram, surmounted by +a death's-head and encircled by a serpent. She thought of that familiar +companion very often, in spite of her juvenile pupils and the sewing-on +of tapes and buttons. He had seemed to her a perpetual enigma and +mystery when she was with him; and now that she was far away from him, +he was more than ever an inscrutable creature. Was he altogether vile, +she wondered, or was there some redeeming virtue in his nature? He had +taken trouble to secure her escape from shame and disgrace, and in +doing this he surely had performed a good action; but was it not just +possible that he had taken this opportunity of getting rid of her +because her presence was alike wearisome and inconvenient? She thought +very bitterly of her fellow Bohemian when this view of his conduct +presented itself to her; how heartlessly he had shuffled her off,--how +cruelly he had sent her out into the hard pitiless world, to find a +shelter as best she might! + +"What would have become of me if Priscilla had refused to take me in?" +she asked herself. "I wonder whether Mr. Hawkehurst ever considered +that." + + * * * * * + +More than one letter had come to Diana from her old companion since her +flight from the little Belgian watering-place. The first letter told +her that her father had "tided over _that_ business, and was in better +feather than before the burst-up at the Hôtel d'Orange." The letter was +dated from Paris, but gave no information as to the present +arrangements or future plans of the writer and his companion. Another +letter, dated from the same place, but not from the same address, came +to her six months afterwards, and anon another; and it was such a +wonderful thing for Captain Paget to inhabit the same city for twelve +months together, that Diana began to cherish faint hopes of some +amendment in the scheme of her father's life and of Valentine's, since +any improvement in her father's position would involve an improvement +in that of his _protégé_. + +Miss Paget's regard for her father was by no means an absorbing +affection. The Captain had never cared to conceal his indifference for +his only child, or pretended to think her anything but a nuisance and +an encumbrance--a superfluous piece of luggage more difficult to +dispose of than any other luggage, and altogether a stumbling-block in +the stony path of a man who has to live by his wits. So perhaps it is +scarcely strange that Diana did not think of her absent father with any +passionate tenderness or sad yearning love. She thought of him very +often; but her thoughts of him were painful and bitter. She thought +still more often of his companion; and her thoughts of him were even +more bitter. + +The experiences of Diana Paget are not the experiences which mate a +pure or perfect woman. There are trials which chasten the heart and +elevate the mind; but it is doubtful whether it can be for the welfare +of any helpless, childish creature to be familiar with falsehood and +chicanery, with debt and dishonour, from the earliest awakening of the +intellect; to feel, from the age of six or seven, all the shame of a +creature who is always eating food that will not be paid for, and lying +on a bed out of which she may be turned at any moment with shrill +reproaches and upbraidings; to hear her father abused and vilified by +vulgar gossips over a tea-table, and to be reminded every day and every +hour that she is an unprofitable encumbrance, a consumer of the bread +of other people's children, an intruder in the household of poverty, a +child whose heritage is shame and dishonour. These things had hardened +the heart of Captain Paget's daughter. There had been no counteracting +influence--no fond, foolish loving creature near at hand to save the +girl from that perdition into which the child or woman who has never +known what it is to be loved is apt to fall. For thirteen years of +Diana's life all love and tenderness, endearing words, caressing +touches, fond admiring looks, had been utterly unknown to her. To sit +in a room with a father who was busy writing letters, and who was wont +to knit his brows peevishly if she stirred, or to mutter an oath if she +spoke; to be sent to a pawnbroker's in the gloaming with her father's +watch, and to be scolded and sworn at on her return if the money-lender +had advanced a less sum than was expected on that security--do not +compose the most delightful or improving experiences of a home life. +But Diana could remember little of a more pleasant character respecting +her existence during those brief periods when she was flung back upon +her father's hands, and while that gentleman was casting about for some +new victim on whom to plant her. + +At Hyde Lodge, for the first time, the girl knew what it was to be +loved. Bright, impulsive Charlotte Halliday took a fancy to her, as the +schoolgirl phrase goes, and clung to her with a fond confiding +affection. It may be that the softening influence came too late, or +that there was some touch of natural hardness and bitterness in Diana's +mind; for it is certain that Charlotte's affection did not soften the +girl's heart or lessen her bitter consciousness of the wide difference +between her own fortunes and those of the happier daughters whose +fathers paid their debts. The very contrast between Charlotte's +position and her own may have counteracted the good influence. It was +very easy for Charlotte to be generous and amiable. _She_ had never +been hounded from pillar to post by shrewish matrons who had no words +too bitter for their unprofitable charge. _She_ had never known what it +was to rise up in the morning uncertain where she should lie down at +night, or whether there would be any shelter at all for her hapless +head; for who could tell that her father would be found at the lodging +where he had last been heard of, and how should she obtain even +workhouse hospitality, whose original parish was unknown to herself or +her protector? To Charlotte these shameful experiences would have been +as incomprehensible as the most abstruse theories of a metaphysician. +Was it any wonder, then, if Charlotte was bright and womanly, and fond +and tender--Charlotte, who had never been humiliated by the shabbiness +of her clothes, and to whom the daily promenade had never been a shame +and a degradation by reason of obvious decay in the heels of her boots? + +"If your father would dress you decently, and supply you with proper +boots, I could almost bring myself to keep you for nothing," Priscilla +had said to her reprobate kinsman's daughter; "but the more one does +for that man the less he will do himself; so the long and the short of +it is, that you will have to go back to him, for I cannot consent to +have such an expensive establishment as mine degraded by the shabbiness +of a relation." + +Diana had been obliged to listen to such speeches as this very often +during her first residence at Hyde Lodge, and then, perhaps, within a +few minutes after Priscilla's lecture was concluded, Charlotte Halliday +would bound into the room, looking as fresh and bright as the morning, +and dressed in silk that rustled with newness and richness. Keenly as +Diana felt the difference between her friend's fortune and her own, she +did nevertheless in some manner return Charlotte's affection. Her +character was not to be altered all at once by this new atmosphere of +love and tenderness; but she loved her generous friend and companion +after her own fitful fashion, and defended her with passionate +indignation if any other girl dared to hint the faintest disparagement +of her graces or her virtues. She envied and loved her at the same +time. She would accept Charlotte's affection one day with unconcealed +pleasure, and revolt against it on the next day as a species of +patronage which stung her proud heart to the Quick. + +"Keep your pity for people who ask you for it," she had exclaimed once +to poor bewildered Charlotte; "I am tired of being consoled and petted. +Go and talk to your prosperous friends, Miss Halliday; I am sick to +death of hearing about your new frocks, and your holidays, and the +presents your mamma is always bringing you." + +And then when Charlotte looked at her friend with a sad perplexed face, +Diana relented, and declared that she was a wicked discontented +creature, unworthy of either pity or affection. + +"I have had so much misery in my life, that I am very often inclined to +quarrel with happy people without rhyme or reason, or only because they +are happy," she said in explanation of her impatient temper. + +"But who knows what happiness may be waiting for you in the future, Di?" +exclaimed Miss Halliday. "You will marry some rich man by-and-by, and +forget that you ever knew what poverty was." + +"I wonder where the rich man is to come from who will marry Captain +Paget's daughter?" Diana asked contemptuously. "Never mind where he +comes from; he will come, depend upon it. The handsome young prince +with the palace by the Lake of Como will come to fall in love with my +beautiful Diana, and then she will go and live at Como; and desert her +faithful Charlotte, and live happy ever afterwards." + +"Don't talk nonsense, Lotta," cried Miss Paget. "You know what kind of +fate lies before me as well as I do. I looked at myself this morning, +as I was plaiting my hair before the glass--you know how seldom one +gets a turn at the glass in the blue room--and I saw a dark, ugly, +evil-minded-looking creature, whose face frightened me. I have been +getting wicked and ugly ever since I was a child. An aquiline nose and +black eyes will not make a woman a beauty; she wants happiness, and +hope, and love, and all manner of things that I have never known, +before she can be pretty." "I have seen a beautiful woman sweeping a +crossing," said Charlotte doubtfully. + +"Yes, but what sort of beauty was it?--a beauty that made you shudder. +Don't talk about these things, Charlotte; you only encourage me to be +bitter and discontented. I daresay I ought to be very happy, when I +remember that I have dinner every day, and shoes and stockings, and a +bed to lie down upon at night; and I am happier, now that I work for my +living, than I was in the old time, when my cousin was always grumbling +about her unpaid bills. But my life is very dreary and empty; and when +I look forward to the future, it seems like looking out upon some level +plain that leads nowhere, but across which I must tramp on for ever and +ever, until I drop down and die." + +It was something in this fashion that Miss Paget talked, as she sat in +the garden with Charlotte Halliday at the close of the half-year. She +was going to lose her faithful friend--the girl who, so much richer, +and happier, and more amiable than herself, had yet clung to her so +fondly; she was going to lose this tender companion, and she was more +sorry for the loss than she cared to express. + +"You must come and see us very often," Charlotte said for the hundredth +time; "mamma will be so glad to have you, for my sake; and my +stepfather never interferes with our arrangements. O, Di, how I wish +you would come and live with us altogether! Would you come, if I could +manage to arrange it?" + +"How could I come? What Quixotic nonsense you talk, Lotta!" + +"Not at all, dear; you could come as a sort of companion for me, or a +sort of companion for mamma. What does it matter how you come, if I can +only have you? My life will be so dreary in that dreadful new-looking +house, unless I have a companion I love. Will you come, Di?--only tell +me you will come! I am sure Mr. Sheldon would not refuse, if I asked +him to let you live with us. Will you come, dear?--yes or no. You would +be glad to come, if you loved me." + +"And I do love you, Lotta, with all my heart," answered Miss Paget, +with unusual fervour; "but then the whole of my heart is not much. As +to coming to live with you, of course it would be a hundred thousand +times pleasanter than the life I lead here; but it is not to be +supposed that Mr. Sheldon will consent to have a stranger in his house +just because his impulsive stepdaughter chooses to take a fancy to a +schoolfellow who isn't worthy of half her affection." + +"Let me be the judge of that. As to my stepfather, I am almost sure of +his consent. You don't know how indulgent he is to me; which shows what +a wicked creature I must be not to like him. You shall come to us, +Diana, and be my sister; and we will play and sing our pet duets +together, and be as happy as two birds in a cage, or a good deal +happier--for I never could quite understand the ecstatic delight of +perpetual hempseed and an occasional peck at a dirty lump of sugar." + +After this there came all the bustle of packing and preparation for +departure, and a kind of saturnalia prevailed at Hyde Lodge--a +saturnalia which terminated with the breaking-up ball: and who among +the crowd of fair young dancers so bright as Charlotte Halliday, +dressed in the schoolgirl's festal robes of cloud-like muslin, and with +her white throat set off by a black ribbon and a gold locket? + +Diana sat in a corner of the schoolroom towards the close of the +evening, very weary of her share in the festival, and watched her +friend, half in sadness, half in envy. + +"Perhaps if I were like her, _he_ would love me," she thought. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +GEORGE SHELDON'S PROSPECTS. + + +For George Sheldon the passing years had brought very little +improvement of fortune. He occupied his old dingy chambers in Gray's +Inn, which had grown more dingy under the hand of Time; and he was wont +to sit in his second-floor window on sultry summer Sundays, smoking his +solitary cigar, and listening to the cawing of the rooks in the gardens +beneath him, mingled with the voices of rebellious children, and shrill +mothers threatening to "do for them," or to "flay them alive," in +Somebody's Rents below. The lawyer used to be quite meditative on those +Sunday afternoons, and would wonder what sort of a fellow Lord Bacon +was, and how he contrived to get into a mess about taking bribes, when +so many other fellows had done it quietly enough before the Lord of +Verulam's day, and even yet more quietly since--agreeably instigated +thereto by the casuistry of Escobar. + +Mr. Sheldon's prospects were by no means promising. From afar off he +beheld his brother's star shining steadily in the commercial firmament; +but, except for an occasional dinner, he was very little the better for +the stockbroker's existence. He had reminded his brother very often, +and very persistently, of that vague promise which the dentist had made +in the hour of his adversity--the promise to help his brother if ever +he did "drop into a good thing." But as it is difficult to prevent a +man who is disposed to shuffle from shuffling out of the closest +agreement that was ever made between Jones of the one part, and Smith +of the other part, duly signed, and witnessed, and stamped with the +sixpenny seal of infallibility, so is it still more difficult to obtain +the performance of loosely-worded promises, uttered in the confidential +intercourse of kinsmen. + +In the first year of his married life Philip Sheldon gave his brother a +hundred pounds for the carrying out of some grand scheme which the +lawyer was then engaged in, and which, if successful, would secure for +him a much larger fortune than Georgy's thousands. Unhappily the grand +scheme was a failure; and the hundred pounds being gone, George applied +again to his brother, reminding him once more of that promise made in +Bloomsbury. But on this occasion Mr. Sheldon plainly told his kinsman +that he could do no more for him. + +"You must fight your own battle, George," he said, "as I have fought +mine." + +"Thank you, Philip," said the younger brother; "I would rather fight it +any other way." + +And then the two men looked at each other, as they were in the habit of +doing sometimes, with a singularly intent gaze. + +"You're very close-fisted with Tom Halliday's money," George said +presently. "If I'd asked poor old Tom himself, I'm sure he wouldn't +have refused to lend me two or three hundred." + +"Then it's a pity you didn't ask him," Mr. Sheldon answered, with +supreme coolness. + +"I should have done so fast enough, if I had thought he was going to +die so suddenly. It was a bad day for me, and for him too, when he came +to Fitzgeorge-street." + +"What do you mean by that?" asked Mr. Sheldon sharply. + +"You can pretty well guess my meaning, I should think," George answered +in a sulky tone. + +"No, I can't; and what's more, I don't mean to try. I'll tell you what +it is, Master George; you've been treating me to a good many hints and +innuendoes lately; and you must know very little of me if you don't know +that I'm the last kind of man to stand that sort of thing from you, or +from any one else. You have tried to take the tone of a man who has +some kind of hold upon another. You had better understand at once that +such a tone won't answer with me. If you had any hold upon me, or any +power over me, you'd be quick enough to use it; and you ought to be +aware that I know that, and can see to the bottom of such a shallow +little game as yours." + +Mr. Sheldon the younger looked at his brother with an expression of +surprise that was not entirely unmingled with admiration. + +"Well, you _are_ a cool hand, Phil!" he said. + +Here the conversation ended. The two brothers were very good friends +after this, and George presented himself at the gothic villa whenever +he received an invitation to dine there. The dinners were good, and the +men who ate them were men of solidity and standing in the commercial +world; and George was very glad to eat good dinners, and to meet eligible +men; but he never again asked his brother for the loan of odd hundreds. + +He grubbed on, as best he might, in the dingy Gray's-Inn chambers. Be +had a little business--business which lay chiefly amongst men who +wanted to borrow money, or whose halting footsteps required guidance +through the quagmire of the Bankruptcy Court. He just contrived to keep +his head above water, and his name in the Law-list, by means of such +business; but the great scheme of his life remained as yet unripened, +an undeveloped shadow to which he had in vain attempted to give a +substance. + +The leading idea of George Sheldon's life was the idea that there were +great fortunes in the world waiting for claimants; and that a share of +some such fortune was to be obtained by any man who had the talent to +dig it out of the obscurity in which it was hidden. He was a student of +old county histories, and a searcher of old newspapers; and his studies +in that line had made him familiar with many strange stories--stories +of field-labourers called away from the plough to be told they were the +rightful owners of forty thousand a year; stories of old white-haired +men starving to death in miserable garrets about Bethnal-green or +Spitalfields, who could have claimed lands and riches immeasurable, had +they known how to claim them; stories of half-crazy old women, who had +wandered about the world with reticules of discoloured papers +clamorously asserting their rights and wrongs unheeded and unbelieved, +until they encountered sharp-witted lawyers who took up their claims, +and carried them triumphantly into the ownership of illimitable wealth. + +George Sheldon had read of these things until it had seemed to him that +there must be some such chance for any man who would have patience to +watch and wait for it. He had taken up several cases, and had fitted +link after link together with extreme labour, and had hunted in parish +registers until the cold mouldy atmosphere of vestries was as familiar +to him as the air of Gray's Inn. But the cases had all broken down at +more or less advanced stages; and after infinite patience and trouble, +a good deal of money spent upon travelling and small fees to all manner +of small people, and an incalculable number of hours wasted in +listening to the rambling discourse of parish-clerks and oldest +inhabitants, Mr. Sheldon had been compelled to abandon his hopes time +after time, until a man with less firmly rooted ideas would have given +up the hunting of registers and grubbing up of genealogies as a +delusion and a snare. + +George Sheldon's ideas were very firmly rooted, and he stuck to them +with that dogged persistency which so often achieves great ends, that +it seems a kind of genius. He saw his brother's success, and +contemplated the grandeurs of the gothic villa in a cynical rather than +an envious spirit. How long would it all last? How long would the +stockbroker float triumphantly onward upon that wonderful tide which is +constituted by the rise and fall of the money-market? + +"That sort of thing is all very well while a man keeps his head cool +and clear," thought George; "but somehow or other men always seem to +lose their heads on the Stock Exchange before they have done with it, +and I daresay my wise brother will drop into a nice mess sooner or +later. Setting aside all other considerations, I think I would rather +have my chances than his; for I speculate very little more than my time +and trouble, and I stand in to win a bigger sum than he will ever get +in his line, let stocks rise and fall as they may." + +During that summer in which Miss Halliday bade farewell to Hyde Lodge +and her school-days, George Sheldon was occupied with the early steps +in a search which he hoped would end in the discovery of a prize rich +enough to reward him for all his wasted time and labour. + +Very early in the previous year there had appeared the following brief +notice in the _Observer_:-- + +"The Rev. John Haygarth, late vicar of Tilford Haven, Kent, died lately, +without a will, or relation to claim his property, 100.000 pounds. The +Crown therefore claimed it. And last court-day the Prerogative Court of +Canterbury decreed letters of Administration to Mr. Paul, the nominee +of the Crown." + +Some months after this an advertisement had been inserted in the +_Times_ newspaper to the following effect:-- + +"NEXT OF KIN.--If the relatives or next of kin of the Rev. John +Haygarth, late vicar of Tilford Haven, in the county of Kent, clerk, +deceased, who has left property of the value of one hundred thousand +pounds, will apply, either personally or by letter, to Stephen Paul, +Esq., solicitor for the affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury, at the +Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, London, they may hear of something to +their advantage. The late Rev. John Haygarth is supposed to have been +the son of Matthew Haygarth, late of the parish of St. Judith, +Ullerton, and Rebecca his wife, formerly Rebecca Caulfield, spinster, +late of the same parish; both long since deceased." + +Upon the strength of this advertisement George Sheldon began his +search. His theory was that there always existed an heir-at-law +somewhere, if people would only have the patience to hunt him or her +out; and he attributed his past failures rather to a want of endurance +on his own part than to the breaking down of his pet theory. + +On this occasion he began his work with more than usual determination. + +"This is the biggest chance I've ever had," he said to himself, "and I +should be something worse than a fool if I let it slip through my +fingers." + +The work was very dry and dreary, involving interminable hunting of +registers, and questioning of oldest inhabitants. And the oldest +inhabitants were so stupid, and the records of the registers so +bewildering. One after another Mr. Sheldon set himself to examine the +lines of the intestate's kindred and ancestors; his father's only +sister, his grandfather's brothers and sisters, and even to the +brothers and sisters of his great-grandfather. At that point the +Haygarth family melted away into the impenetrable darkness of the past. +They were no high and haughty race of soldiers and scholars, churchmen +and lawyers, or the tracing of them would have been a much easier +matter. Burke would have told of them. There would have been old +country houses filled with portraits, and garrulous old housekeepers +learned in the traditions of the past. There would have been mouldering +tombs and tarnished brasses in quiet country churches, with descriptive +epitaphs, and many escutcheons. There would have been crumbling +parchments recording the prowess of Sir Reginald, knight, or the +learning of Sir Rupert, counsellor and judge. The Haygarths were a race +of provincial tradesmen, and had left no better record of their +jog-trot journey through this world than the registry of births, +marriages, and deaths in obscure churches, or an occasional entry in +the fly-leaf of a family Bible. + +At present Mr. Sheldon was only at the beginning of his work. +The father and grandfather and uncle and great-uncles, the +great-grandfather and great-great-uncles, with all their progenies, +lay before him in a maze of entanglement which it would be his business +to unravel. And as he was obliged to keep his limited legal connection +together while he devoted himself to this task, the work promised to +extend over months, or indeed years; and in the meanwhile there was +always the fear that some one else, as quick-witted and indefatigable +as himself, would take up the same tangled skein and succeed in the +unravelment of it. Looking this fact full in the face, Mr. Sheldon +decided that he must have an able and reliable coadjutor; but to find +such a coadjutor, to find a man who would help him, on the chance of +success, and not claim too large a share of the prize if success came, +was more than the speculative attorney could hope. In the meantime his +work progressed very slowly; and he was tormented by perpetual terror +of that other sharp practitioner who might be following up the same +clue, and whose agents might watch him in and out of parish churches, +and listen at street-corners when he was hunting an oldest inhabitant. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +DIANA FINDS A NEW HOME. + + +The holidays at Hyde Lodge brought at least repose for Diana Paget. The +little ones had gone home, with the exception of two or three young +colonists, and even they had perpetual liberty from lessons; so Diana +had nothing to do but sit in the shady garden, reading or thinking, in +the drowsy summer afternoons. Priscilla Paget had departed with the +chief of the teachers for a seaside holiday; other governesses had gone +to their homes; and but for the presence of an elderly Frenchwoman, who +slept through one half of the day, and wrote letters to her kindred +during the other half, Diana would have been the only responsible +person in the deserted habitation. + +She did not complain of her loneliness, or envy the delights of those +who had departed. She was very glad to be quite alone, free to think +her own thoughts, free to brood over those unforgotten years in which +she had wandered over the face of the earth with her father and +Valentine Hawkehurst. The few elder girls remaining at the Lodge +thought Miss Paget unsociable because she preferred a lonely corner in +the gardens and some battered old book of namby-pamby stories to the +delights of their society, and criticised her very severely as they +walked listlessly to and fro upon the lawn with big garden-hats, and +arms entwined about each other's waists. + +Alas for Diana, the battered book was only an excuse for solitude, and +for a morbid indulgence in her own sad thoughts! She had lived the life +of unblemished respectability for a year, and looking back now at the +Bohemian wanderings, she regretted those days of humiliation and +misery, and sighed for the rare delights of that disreputable past! +Yes, she had revolted against the degraded existence; and now she was +sorry for having lost its uncertain pleasures, its fitful glimpses of +sunshine. Was that true which Valentine had said, that no man can eat +beef and mutton every day of his life; that it is better to be +unutterly miserable one day and uproariously happy the next, than to +tread one level path of dull content? Miss Paget began to think that +there had been some reason in her old comrade's philosophy; for she +found the level path very dreary. She let her thoughts wander whither +they would in this quiet holiday idleness, and they went back to the +years which she had spent with her father. She thought of winter +evenings in London when Valentine had taken her the round of the +theatres, and they had sat together in stifling upper boxes,--she +pleased, he critical, and with so much to say to each other in the +pauses of the performance. How kind he had been to her; how good, how +brotherly! And then the pleasant walk home, through crowded noisy +thoroughfares, and anon by long lines of quiet streets, in which they +used to look up at the lighted windows of houses where parties were +being given, and sometimes stop to listen to the music and watch the +figures of the dancers flitting across the blinds. She thought of the +journeys she had travelled with her father and Valentine by land and +sea; the lonely moonlight watches on the decks of steamers; the long +chill nights in railway-carriages under the feeble glimmer of an +oil-lamp, and how she and Valentine had beguiled the tedious hours with +wild purposeless talk while Captain Paget slept. She remembered the +strange cities which she and her father's _protégé_ had looked at side +by side; he with a calm listlessness of manner, which might either be +real or assumed, but which never varied; she with an inward tremor of +excitement and surprise. They had been very happy together, this lonely +unprotected girl and the reckless adventurer. If his manner to her had +been fitful, it had been sometimes dangerously, fatally kind. She +looked back now, and remembered the days which she had spent with him, +and knew that all the pleasures possible in a prosperous and successful +life could never bring for her such delight as she had known in the +midst of her wanderings; though shame and danger lurked at every +corner, and poverty, disguised in that tawdry masquerade habit in which +the swindler dresses it, accompanied her wherever she went. + +She had been happy with him because she had loved him. That close +companionship, sisterly and brotherly though it had seemed, had been +fatal for the lonely and friendless daughter of Horatio Paget. In her +desolation she had clung to the one creature who was kind to her, who +did not advertise his disdain for herself and her sex, or openly avow +that she was a nuisance and an encumbrance. Every slight put upon her +by her father had strengthened the chain that bound her to Valentine +Hawkehurst; and as the friendship between them grew closer day by day, +until all her thoughts and fancies took their colour from his, it +seemed a matter of course that he should love her, and she never +doubted his feelings or questioned her own. There had been much in his +conduct to justify her belief that she was beloved; so this +inexperienced, untutored girl may surely be forgiven if she rested her +faith in that fancied affection, and looked forward to some shadowy +future in which she and Valentine would be man and wife, all in all to +each other, free from the trammels of Captain Paget's elaborate +schemes, and living honestly, somehow or other, by means of literature, +or music, or pen-and-ink caricatures, or some of those liberal arts +which have always been dear to the children of Bohemia. They would have +lodgings in some street near the Thames, and go to a theatre or a +concert every evening, and spend long summer days in suburban parks or +on suburban commons, he lying on the grass smoking, she talking to him +or reading to him, as his fancy might dictate. Before her twentieth +birthday, the proudest woman is apt to regard the man she loves as a +grand and superior creature; and there had been a certain amount of +reverential awe mingled with Diana's regard for Mr. Hawkehurst, +scapegrace and adventurer though he was. + +Little by little that bright girlish dream had faded away. Fancy's +enchanted palace had been shattered into a heap of shapeless ruin by +those accidental scraps of hard worldly wisdom with which Valentine had +pelted the fairy fabric. He a man to love, or to marry for love! Why, +he talked like some hardened world-weary sinner who had done with every +human emotion. The girl shuddered as she heard him. She had loved him, +and believed in his love. She had fancied a tender meaning in the voice +which softened when it spoke to her, a pensive earnestness in the dark +eyes which looked at her; but just when the voice had seemed softest +and sweetest, the pensive eyes most eloquently earnest, the +adventurer's manner had changed all at once, and for ever. He had grown +hard, and cold, and indifferent. He had scarcely tried to conceal the +fact that the girl's companionship bored and wearied him. He had yawned +in her face, and had abandoned himself to moody abstraction when +accident obliged him to be alone with her. Miss Paget's pride had been +equal to the occasion. Mary Anne Kepp would have dissolved into tears +at the first unkind word from the lips of her beloved; but Mary Anne +Kepp's daughter, with the blood of the Cromie Pagets in her veins, was +quite a different person. She returned Mr. Hawkehurst's indifference +with corresponding disregard. If his manner was cold as a bleak autumn, +hers was icy as a severe winter; only now and then, when she was very +tired of her joyless existence, her untutored womanhood asserted +itself, and she betrayed the real state of her feelings--betrayed +herself as she had done on her last night at Forêtdechêne, when she and +Valentine had looked down at the lighted windows shining dimly through +the purple of the summer night. She looked back at the past now in the +quiet of the school-garden, and tried to remember how miserable +she had been, what agonies of despair she had suffered, how brief had +been her delights, how bitter her disappointments. She tried to +remember what tortures she had suffered from that wasted passion, that +useless devotion. She tried to rejoice in the consciousness of the +peace and respectability of her present life; but she could not. That +passionate yearning for the past possessed her so strongly. She could +remember nothing except that she had been with him. She had seen his +face, she had heard his voice; and now how long and weary the time +might be before she could again see that one beloved face or hear the +dear familiar voice! The brightest hope she had in these midsummer +holidays was the hope of a letter from him; and even that might be the +prelude of disappointment. She wrestled with herself, and tried to +exorcise those ghosts of memory which haunted her by day and wove +themselves into her dreams by night; but they were not to be laid at +rest. She hated her folly; but her folly was stronger than herself. + +For three weeks Diana Paget had no companions but her sorrowful +memories--her haunting shadows; but at the end of that time the +stagnant mill-pond of her life was suddenly ruffled--the dull course +of existence was disturbed by the arrival of two letters. She found +them lying by her plate upon the breakfast-table one bright July +morning; and while she was yet far away from the table she could see +that one of the envelopes bore a foreign stamp, and was directed by the +hand of Valentine Hawkehurst. She seated herself at the table in a +delicious flutter of emotion, and tore open that foreign envelope, +while the French governess poured out the tea, and while the little +group of schoolgirls nudged one another and watched her eager face with +insolent curiosity. + +The first letter contained only a few lines. + +"MY DEAR DIANA," wrote the young man, "your father has decided on +returning to London, where I believe he really intends to make a +respectable start, if he can only get the opening and the help he +wants. I know you will be glad to hear this. I don't exactly say where +we shall take up our quarters; but the Captain will of course come to +see you; and if I can chasten my outward semblance sufficiently to +venture within the sacred precincts of a lady's school, I shall come +with him. Direct to the old address, if you write before the end of +the month, and believe me, as always, your friend." "VALENTINE." + +The second letter was in Charlotte Halliday's big bold hand, and was +frank, impetuous, and loving as the girl herself. + +"MY OWN DEAREST DI,--It is all arranged," wrote Miss Halliday, dashing +at once into the heart of the subject. "I talked mamma over the very +first day after my return, and then there was nothing more to be done +than to talk over Mr. Sheldon. Of course there was just a little +difficulty in that, for he is so awfully practical; and he wanted to +know why I wanted a companion, and what _use_ you would be in the +house; as if the very last thing one required in a companion was +companionship. I'm almost afraid to tell you the iniquitous fables I +invented about your extreme usefulness; your genius for millinery, and +the mints of money you would save by making up mamma's flimsy little +caps; your taste for dress-making, &c. &c. &c. You _are_ the cleverest +creature in the world, you know, Di; for you must remember how you +altered, that green silk dress for me when Miss Person had made me a +square-shouldered fright. So, after a great deal of humming, and +haing, and argufication--_is_ there such a word as 'argufication,' I +wonder?--my stepfather said that if my heart was set upon having you, +and if I thought you would be useful, you might come to us; but that he +could not afford to give you any salary, and that if you wanted a new +dress now and then, I must buy it for you out of my own allowance; and +I will, darling, if you will only come and be my friend and sister. My +life is dreadfully dull without you. I walk up and down the stiff +little gravel paths, and stare at the geraniums and calceolarias. +Mariana might have been dreary in her moated grange; but I daresay the +Lincolnshire flowers grew wild and free, and she was spared the +abomination of gaudy little patches of red and yellow, and waving +ribbons of blue and white, which constitute the glory of modern +gardening. Do come to me, dear. I have no one to talk to, and nothing +to do. Mamma is a dear good affectionate soul; but she and I don't +understand each other. I don't care for her twittering little birds, +and she doesn't care for my whims and fancies. I have read novels until +I am tired. I am not allowed to go out by myself, and mamma can +scarcely walk to Kensington-gardens without sinking under the exertion. +We drive out sometimes; but I am sick to death of crawling slowly up +and down by the Serpentine staring at people's bonnets. I might enjoy +it, perhaps, if I had you with me to make fun out of some of the +bonnets. The house is very comfortable; but it always seems to me +unpleasantly like some philanthropic institution in miniature. I long +to scratch the walls, or break the windows; and I begin to understand +the feelings of those unhappy paupers who tear up their clothes: they +get utterly tired of their stagnation, you see, and must do something +wicked and rebellious rather than do nothing at all. You will take pity +upon my forlorn state, won't you, Di? I shall come to Hyde Lodge +to-morrow afternoon with mamma, to hear your ulti--what's its name?-- +and in the meanwhile, and for ever afterwards, believe me to be your +devoted and unchanging LOTTA." + +Diana Paget's eyes grew dim as she read this letter. + +"I love her very dearly," she thought, "but not one hundred-fold as +much as I ought to love her." + +And then she went back to Mr. Hawkehurst's epistle, and read and +re-read its half-dozen lines, wondering when he would come to London, +and whether she would see him when he came. To see him again! The +thought of that possibility seemed like a spot of vivid light, which +dazzled her eyes and made them blind to anything around or beyond it. As +for this offer of a strange home in the household of Mr. Sheldon, it +seemed to her a matter of so very little importance where she went or +what became of her, that she was quite willing to let other people +decide her existence. Anything would be better than the monotony of +Hyde Lodge. If Valentine Hawkehurst came to see her at Mr. Sheldon's +house, he would be permitted to see her alone, most likely, and it would +be something like the old times; whereas at the Lodge Priscilla Paget or +one of the governesses would undoubtedly be present at any interview +between Diana and her old friend, and the real Valentine would be +hidden under the semblance of a respectable young man, with very little +to say for himself. Perhaps this one thought exercised considerable +influence over Miss Paget's decision. She wanted so much to see +Valentine alone, to know whether he had changed, to see his face at the +first moment of meeting, and to discover, if possible, the solution of +that enigma which was the grand mystery of her life--that one perpetual +question which was always repeating itself in her brain--whether he was +altogether cold and indifferent, or if there was not some hidden +warmth, some secret tenderness beneath that repelling outward seeming. + +In the afternoon Miss Halliday called with Mrs. Sheldon, and there was +a long discussion about Diana Paget's future life. Georgy abandoned +herself as unhesitatingly to the influence of her daughter as she did +to that of her husband, and had been brought to think that it would be +the most delightful thing in the world to have Miss Paget for a useful +companion. + +"And will you really make my caps, dear?" she said, when she had grown +at her ease with Diana. "Miss Terly in the Bayswater-road charges me so +much for the simplest little lace head-dress; and though Mr. Sheldon is +very good about those sort of things, I know he sometimes thinks my +bills rather high." + +Diana was very indifferent about her future, and the heart must have +been very hard which could have resisted Charlotte's tender pleading; +so it was ultimately decided that Miss Paget should write to her +kinswoman to describe the offer that had been made to her of a new +home, and to inquire if her services could be conveniently dispensed +with at Hyde Lodge. After which decision Charlotte embraced her friend +with enthusiasm, and departed, bearing off Mrs. Sheldon to the carriage +which awaited them at the gates of Priscilla Paget's umbrageous domain. + +Diana sighed as she went back to the empty schoolroom. Even Charlotte's +affection could not altogether take the sting out of dependence. To go +into a strange house amongst strange people, and to hold a place in it +only on the condition of being perpetually useful and unfailingly +good-tempered and agreeable, is scarcely the pleasantest prospect which +this world can offer to a proud and beautiful woman. Diana remembered +her bright vision of Bohemianism in a lodging near the Strand. It would +be very delightful to ride on sufferance in Mrs. Sheldon's carriage, no +doubt; but O, how much pleasanter it would have been to sit by +Valentine Hawkehurst in a hansom cab spinning along the road to +Greenwich or Richmond! + +She had promised to despatch her letter to Priscilla by that +afternoon's post, and she kept her promise. The reply came by return of +post, and was very kind. Priscilla advised her by all means to accept +Miss Halliday's offer, which would give her a much better position than +that which she occupied at Hyde Lodge. She would have time to improve +herself, no doubt, Priscilla said, and might be able to hope for +something still better in the course of two or three years; "for you +must look the world straight in the face, Diana," wrote the +schoolmistress, "as I did before I was your age; and make up your mind +to rely upon your own exertions, since you know what your father is, +and how little you have to hope for from him. As you are to have no +salary with the Sheldons, and will no doubt be expected to make a good +appearance, I shall do what I can to help you with your wardrobe." + +This letter decided the fate of Captain Paget's daughter. A week after +Miss Halliday's visit to Hyde Lodge a hack cab carried Diana and all +her earthly possessions to the Lawn, where Charlotte received her with +open arms, and where she was inducted into a neatly furnished +bedchamber adjoining that of her friend. Mr. Sheldon scrutinised her +keenly from under the shadow of his thick black brows when he came home +to dinner. He treated her with a stiff kind of politeness during the +orderly progress of the meal; and once, when he looked at her, he was +surprised to find that she was contemplating him with an expression of +mingled wonder and reverence. + +He was the first eminently respectable man whom Miss Paget had ever +encountered in familiar intercourse, and she was regarding him +attentively, as an individual with scientific tastes might regard some +natural curiosity. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +AT THE LAWN. + + +Life at the Lawn went by very smoothly for Mr. Sheldon's family. Georgy +was very happy in the society of a companion who seemed really to have +a natural taste for the manufacture of pretty little head-dresses from +the merest fragments of material in the way of lace and ribbon. Diana +had all that versatile cleverness and capacity for expedients which is +likely to be acquired in a wandering and troubled life. She had learned +more in her three years of discomfort with her father than in all the +undeviating course of the Hyde-Lodge studies; she had improved her +French at one _table d'hôte_, her German at another; she had caught +some new trick of style in every concert-room, some fresh combination +of costume on every racecourse; and, being really grateful for +Charlotte's disinterested affection, she brought all her +accomplishments to bear to please her friend and her friend's +household. + +In this she succeeded admirably. Mrs. Sheldon found her daughter's +society much more delightful now that the whole pressure of Charlotte's +intellect and vitality no longer fell entirely upon herself. She liked +to sit lazily in her arm-chair while the two girls chattered at their +work, and she could venture an occasional remark, and fancy that she +had a full share in the conversation. When the summer weather rendered +walking a martyrdom and driving an affliction, she could recline on her +favourite sofa reading a novel, soothed by the feeble twittering of her +birds; while Charlotte and Diana went out together, protected by the +smart boy in buttons, who was not altogether without human failings, +and was apt to linger behind his fair charges, reading the boards +before the doors of newsvendors' shops, or looking at the cartoons in +_Punch_ exhibited in the stationers' windows. + +Mr. Sheldon made a point of pleasing his stepdaughter whenever it was +possible for him to do so without palpable inconvenience to himself; +and as she was to be gratified by so small a pecuniary sacrifice as the +trifling increase of tradesmen's bills caused by Miss Paget's residence +in the gothic villa, he was the last man in the world to refuse her +that indulgence. His own pursuits were of so absorbing a nature as to +leave little leisure for concern about other people's business. He +asked no questions about his stepdaughter's companion; but he was not +the less surprised to see this beautiful high-bred woman content to sit +at his board as an unsalaried dependent. + +"Your friend Miss Paget looks like a countess," he said one day to +Charlotte. "I thought girls generally pitched upon some plain homely +young woman for their pet companion, but you seem to have chosen the +handsomest girl in the school." + +"Yes, she is very handsome, is she not? I wish some of your rich City +men would marry her, papa." + +Miss Halliday consented to call her mother's husband "papa," though the +caressing name seemed in a manner to stick in her throat. She had loved +that blustrous good-tempered Tom Halliday so very dearly, and it was +only to please poor Georgy that she brought herself to address any other +man by the name that had been his. + +"My City men have something better to do than to marry a young woman +without a sixpence," answered Mr. Sheldon. "Why don't you try to catch +one of them for yourself?" + +"I don't like City men," said Charlotte quickly; and then she blushed, +and added apologetically, "at least not the generality of City men, +papa." + +Diana had waited until her destiny was settled before answering +Valentine Hawkehurst's letter; but she wrote to him directly she was +established at the Lawn, and told him the change in her plans. + +"I think papa had better let me come to see him at his lodgings," she +said, "wherever they may be; for I should scarcely care about Mr. +Sheldon seeing him. No one here knows anything definite about my +history; and as it is just possible Mr. Sheldon may have encountered my +father somehow or other, it would be as well for him to keep clear of +this house. I could not venture to say this to papa myself, but perhaps +you could suggest it without offending him. You see I have grown very +worldly-wise, and am learning to protect my own interests in the spirit +which you have so instilled into me. I don't know whether that sort of +spirit is likely to secure one's happiness, but I have no doubt it is +the wisest and best for this world." + +Miss Paget could not refrain from an occasional sneer when she wrote to +her old companion. He never returned her sneers, or noticed them. His +letters were always frank, friendly, and brotherly in tone. + +"Neither my good opinion nor my bad opinion is of any consequence to +him," Diana thought bitterly. It was late in August when Captain Paget +and his _protégé_ came to town. Valentine suggested the wisdom of +leaving Diana in her new home uncompromised by any past associations. +But this was a suggestion which Horatio Paget could not accept. His +brightest successes in the way of scheming had been matured out of +chance acquaintanceships with eligible men. A man who could afford such +a luxury as a companion for his daughter must needs be eligible, and +the Captain was not inclined to sacrifice his acquaintance from any +extreme delicacy. + +"My daughter seems to have made new friends for herself, and I should +like to see what kind of people they are," he said conclusively. "We'll +look them up this evening, Val." + +Mr. George Sheldon dined at the Lawn on the day on which Horatio Paget +determined on "looking up" his daughter's new friends, and he and the +two girls were strolling in the garden when the Captain and Mr. +Hawkehurst were announced. They had been told that Miss Paget was in +the garden. + +"Be good enough to take me straight to her," said the Captain to the +boy in buttons; "I am her father." + +Horatio Paget was too old a tactician not to know that by an +unceremonious plunge into the family circle he was more likely to +secure an easy footing in the household than by any direct approach of +the master. He had seen the little group in the garden, and had +mistaken George for the head of the house. + +Diana turned from pale to red, and from red to pale again, as she +recognised the two men. There had been no announcement of their coming. +She did not even know that they were in England. + +"Papa!" she cried, and then held out her hand and greeted him; coldly +enough, as it seemed to Charlotte, who fancied that any kind of _real_ +father must be very dear. + +But Captain Paget was not to be satisfied by that cold greeting. It +suited his purpose to be especially paternal on this occasion. He drew +his daughter to his breast, and embraced her affectionately, very much +to that young lady's surprise. + +Then, having abandoned himself entirely for the moment to this tender +impulse of paternity, he suddenly put his daughter aside, as if he had +all at once remembered his duty to society, drew himself up stiffly, +and saluted Miss Halliday and George Sheldon with uncovered head. + +"Mr. Sheldon, I believe?" he murmured. + +"George Sheldon," answered that gentleman; "my brother Philip is in the +drawing-room yonder, looking at us." + +Philip Sheldon came out into the garden as George said this, It was one +of those sultry evenings on which the most delightful of gothic villas +is apt to be too stifling for endurance; and in most of the prim +suburban gardens there were people lounging listlessly among the +flower-beds. Mr. Sheldon came to look at this patrician stranger who +had just embraced his daughter's companion; whereupon Captain Paget +introduced himself and his friend Mr. Hawkehurst. After the +introduction Mr. Sheldon and the Captain fell into an easy +conversation, while the two girls walked slowly along the gravel +pathway with Valentine by their side, and while George loitered +drearily along, chewing the stalk of a geranium, and pondering the +obscure reminiscences of the last oldest inhabitant whose shadowy +memories he had evoked in his search after new links in the chain of +the Haygarths. + +The two girls walked in the familiar schoolgirl fashion of Hyde Lodge, +Charlotte's arm encircling the waist of her friend. They were both +dressed in white muslin, and looked very shadowy and sylph-like in the +summer dusk. Mr. Hawkehurst found himself in a new atmosphere in this +suburban garden, with these two white-robed damsels by his side; for it +seemed to him that Diana with Charlotte's arm round her waist, and a +certain shy gentleness of manner which was new to him, was quite a +different person from that Miss Paget whose wan face had looked at him +so anxiously in the saloons of the Belgian. Kursaal. + +At first there was considerable restraint in the tone of the +conversation, and some little of that unnecessary discussion as to +whether this evening was warmer than the preceding evening, or whether +it was not, indeed, the warmest evening of all that summer. And then, +when the ice was broken, Mr. Hawkehurst began to talk at his ease about +Paris, which city Miss Halliday had never seen; about the last book, +the last play, the last folly, the last fashionable bonnet; for it was +one of the special attributes of this young Robert Macaire to be able +to talk about anything, and to adapt himself to any society. Charlotte +opened her eyes to their widest extent as she listened to this animated +stranger. She had been so wearied by the dry as dust arguments of City +men who had discussed the schemes of great contractors, "which will +never be carried out, sir, while money is at its present rate, mark my +words,"--or the chances of a company "which is eaten up by +debenture-bonds and preference-shares, sir, and will never pay its +original proprietors one sixpence of interest on their capital," with a +great deal more of the same character; and it was quite new to her to +hear about novels, theatres, and bonnets from masculine lips, and to +find that there were men living who could interest themselves in such +frivolities. Charlotte was delighted with Diana's friend. It was she +who encouraged Valentine every now and then by some exclamation of +surprise or expression of interest, while Miss Paget herself was +thoughtful and silent. + +It was not thus that she had hoped to meet Valentine Hawkehurst. She +stole a look at him now and then as he walked by her side. Yes, it was +the old face--the face which would have been so handsome if there had +been warmth and life in it, instead of that cold listlessness which +repelled all sympathy, and seemed to constitute a kind of mask behind +which the real man hid himself. + +Diana looked at him, and remembered her parting from him in the chill +gray morning on the platform at Forêtdechêne. He had let her go out +alone into the dreary world to encounter what fate she might, without +any more appearance of anxiety than he might have exhibited had she +been starting for a summer-day's holiday; and now, after a year of +separation, he met her with the same air of unconcern, and could +discourse conventional small talk to another woman while she walked by +his side. + +While Mr. Hawkehurst was talking to Mr. Sheldon's stepdaughter, Captain +Paget had contrived to make himself very agreeable to that gentleman +himself. Lord Lytton has said that "there is something strange and +almost mesmerical in the _rapport_ between two evil natures. Bring two +honest men together, and it is ten to one if they recognise each other +as honest; differences in temper, manner, even politics, may make each +misjudge the other. But bring together two men unprincipled and +perverted--men who, if born in a cellar, would have been food for the +hulks or gallows--and they understand each other by instant sympathy." +However this might be with these two men, they had speedily become upon +very easy terms with each other. Mr. Sheldon's plans for the making of +money were very complicated in their nature, and he had frequent need +of clever instruments to assist in the carrying out of his +arrangements. Horatio Paget was the exact type of man most likely to be +useful to such a speculator as Philip Sheldon. He was the very ideal of +the "Promoter," the well-dressed, well-mannered gentleman, beneath +whose magic wand new companies arise as if by magic; the man who, +without a sixpence in his own pocket, can set a small Pactolus flowing +from the pockets of other people; the man who, content himself to live +in a humble second floor at Chelsea, can point to gigantic hotels which +are as the palaces of a new Brobdignag, and say, "Lo, these arose at my +bidding!" Mr. Sheldon was always on the alert to discover anything or +anybody likely to serve his own interest, either in the present or the +future; and he came to the conclusion that Miss Paget's father was a +person upon whom an occasional dinner might not be altogether thrown +away. + +"Take a chop with us to-morrow at six," he said, on parting from the +Captain, "and then you can hear the two girls play and sing. They play +remarkably well, I believe, from what other people tell me; but I am +not a musical man myself." + +Horatio Paget accepted the invitation as cordially as it was given. It +is astonishing how genial and friendly these men of the world can be at +the slightest imaginable notice. One can fancy the striped tigers of +Bengal shaking paws in the jungle, the vultures hob-nobbing in a +mountain cleft over the torn carcass of a stag, the kites putting their +beaks together after dining on a nest of innocent doves. + +"Then we shall expect to see you at sharp six," said Mr. Sheldon, "and +your friend Mr. Hawkehurst with you, of course." + +After this the two gentlemen departed. Valentine shook hands with +Diana, and took a more ceremonious leave of Charlotte. George Sheldon +threw away his chewed geranium-stalk in order to bid good evening to +the visitors; and the little party walked to the garden-gate together. + +"That Sheldon seems a very clever fellow," said Captain Paget, as he +and Valentine walked towards the Park, which they had to cross on their +way to Chelsea, where the Captain had secured a convenient lodging. "I +wonder whether he is any relation to the Sheldon who is in with a low +set of money-lenders?" + +"What, the Sheldon of Gray's Inn?" exclaimed Mr. Hawkehurst. "We can +easily find that out." + + * * * * * + +Horatio Paget and Valentine Hawkehurst were frequent visitors at the +Lawn after that first evening. Mr. Sheldon found the Captain useful to +him in the carrying out of certain business arrangements on more than +one occasion, and the relations between the respectable stockbroker and +the disreputable adventurer assumed a very friendly character. Diana +wondered to see so spotless a citizen as Philip Sheldon hand-and-glove +with her father. Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte were delighted with the +Captain and his _protégé_; these two penniless Bohemians were so much +more agreeable to the feminine mind than the City men who were wont to +sit in the dining-room slowly imbibing Mr. Sheldon's old port in the +long summer evenings, while their wives endured the abomination of +desolation with Georgy and Charlotte in the drawing-room. Captain Paget +paid Mrs. Sheldon flowery compliments, and told her delightful stories +of the aristocracy and all that shining West-end world with which he +had once been familiar. Poor simple Georgy regarded him with that +reverential awe which a middle-class country-bred woman is prone to +feel for a man who bears upon him that ineffaceable stamp of high birth +and good breeding, not to be destroyed by half a century of +degradation. Nor could Charlotte withhold her admiration from the man +whose tone was so infinitely superior to that of all the other men she +had encountered. In his darkest hour Captain Paget had found his best +friends, or his easiest dupes, among women. It had gone hard with him +when his dear friend had withheld the temporary accommodation of a +five-pound note; but it had been much harder when his friend's wife had +refused the loan of "a little silver." + +Valentine Hawkehurst came very often to the Lawn, sometimes with his +friend and patron, sometimes alone. He brought the young ladies small +offerings in the way of a popular French novel adapted for feminine +perusal, or an occasional box for some theatre which had fallen upon +evil days, and was liberal in the circulation of "paper." He met the +two girls sometimes in their morning walks in Kensington-gardens, and +walked with them in the leafy avenues, and only left them at the gate +by which they departed. So much of his life was a listless waiting for +the arising of new chances, that he had ample time to waste in feminine +society, and he seemed very well inclined to loiter away the leisure +hours of existence in the companionship of Diana and her friend. + +And was Miss Paget glad of his coming, and pleased to be in his +company? Alas, no! The time had been, and only within a few months, +when she had sickened for the sight of his familiar face, and fancied +that the most exquisite happiness life could afford her would be to see +him once more, anywhere, under any circumstances. She saw him now +almost daily, and she was miserable. She saw him; but another woman had +come between her and the man she loved: and now, if his voice took a +softer tone, or if his eyes assumed a tender earnestness of expression, +it might be Charlotte's influence which wrought the transformation. Who +could say that it was not on Charlotte's account he came so often, and +lingered so long? Diana looked at him sometimes with haggard angry +eyes, which saw that it was Miss Halliday who absorbed his attention. +It was Charlotte--Charlotte, who was so bright and happy a creature +that the coldest heart must needs have been moved and melted by her +fascination. What was the cold patrician beauty of Miss Paget's face +when compared with the changeful charm of this radiant girl, with the +flashing gray eyes and piquant features, and all those artless caprices +of manner which made her arch loveliness irresistible? Diana's heart +grew sick and cold as she watched these two day by day, and saw the +innocent school-girl's ascendancy over the adventurer. The attributes +which made Charlotte charming were just those very attributes which +Valentine Hawkehurst had been least accustomed to discover in the +womankind he had hitherto encountered. He had seen beautiful women, +elegant and fascinating women, without number; but this frank girlish +nature, this happy childlike disposition, was entirely new to him. How +should he have met bright childlike creatures in the pathways which he +had trodden? For the first time in his life a fresh young heart +revealed its treasures of purity and tenderness before his world-weary +eyes, and his own heart was melted by the new influence. He had admired +Diana; he had been touched by her girlish fancy for him, and had loved +her as well as he had believed himself capable of loving any woman. But +when Prudence and Honour counselled him to stifle and crush his growing +affection for the beautiful companion of his wanderings, the struggle +had involved no agony of regret or despair. He had told himself that no +good could ever come of his love for Captain Paget's daughter, and he +had put aside that love before it had taken any vital root in his heart. +He had been very strong and resolute in this matter--resisting looks of +sad surprise which would have melted a softer nature. And he had been +proud of his own firmness. "Better for her, and better for me," he had +said to himself: "let her outlive her foolish schoolgirl fancies, and +wait patiently till her beauty wins her a rich husband. As for me, I +must marry some prosperous tradesman's widow, if I ever marry at all." + +The influence of the world in which his life had been spent had +degraded Valentine Hawkehurst, and had done much to harden him; and yet +he was not altogether hard. He discovered his own weakness very soon +after the beginning of his acquaintance with Mr. Sheldon's +stepdaughter. He knew very well that if he had been no fitting lover +for Diana Paget, he was still less a fitting lover for Charlotte +Halliday. He knew that although it might suit Mr. Sheldon's purpose to +make use of the Captain and himself as handy instruments for the +accomplishment of somewhat dirty work, he would be the very last man to +accept one of those useful instruments as a husband for his +stepdaughter. He knew all this; and knew that, apart from all worldly +considerations, there was an impassable gulf between himself and +Charlotte. What could there be in common between the unprincipled +companion of Horatio Paget and this innocent girl, whose darkest sin +had been a neglected lesson or an ill-written exercise? If he could +have given her a home and a position, an untarnished name and +respectable associations, he would even yet have been unworthy of her +affection, unable to assure her happiness. + +"I am a scoundrel and an adventurer," he said to himself, in his most +contemptuous spirit. "If some benevolent fairy were to give me the +brightest home that was ever created for man, and Charlotte for my +wife, I daresay I should grow tired of my happiness in a week or two, +and go out some night to look for a place where I could play billiards +and drink beer. Is there any woman upon this earth who could render my +existence supportable _without_ billiards and beer?" + +Knowing himself much better than the Grecian philosopher seemed to +think it possible for human nature to know itself, Mr. Hawkehurst +decided that it was his bounden duty, both for his own sake and that of +the young lady in question, to keep clear of the house in which Miss +Halliday lived, and the avenue in which she was wont to walk. He told +himself this a dozen times a day, and yet he made his appearance at the +Lawn whenever he had the poorest shadow of an excuse for going there; +and it seemed as if the whole business of his life lay at the two ends +of Charlotte's favourite avenue, so often did he find himself called +upon to perambulate that especial thoroughfare. He knew that he was +weak and foolish and dishonourable; he knew that he was sowing the +dragon's teeth from which were to spring up armed demons that would +rend and tear him. But Charlotte's eyes were unspeakably bright and +bewitching, and Charlotte's voice was very sweet and tender. A +thrilling consciousness that he was not altogether an indifferent +person in Charlotte's consideration had possessed him of late when he +found himself in that young lady's society, and a happiness which had +hitherto been strange to him gave a new zest to his purposeless life. + +He still affected the old indifference of manner, the idle listless +tone of a being who has finished with all the joys and sorrows, +affections and aspirations, of the world in which he lives. But the +pretence had of late become a very shallow one. In Charlotte's presence +he was eager and interested in spite of himself--childishly eager about +the veriest trifles which interested her. Love had taken up the glass +of Time; and the days and hours were reckoned by a new standard; +everything in the world had suffered some wondrous change, which +Valentine Hawkehurst tried in vain to understand. The very earth upon +which he walked had undergone some mystic process of transformation; +the very streets of London were new to him. He had known +Kensington-gardens from his boyhood; but not those enchanted avenues +of beech and elm in which he walked with Charlotte. In the plainest +and most commonplace phraseology, Mr. Hawkehurst had fallen in love. +This penniless adventurer, who at eight-and-twenty years of age was +steeped to the lips in the worst experiences of a very indifferent +world, found himself all at once hanging upon the words and living +upon the looks of an ignorant schoolgirl. + +The discovery that he was capable of this tender weakness had an almost +overwhelming effect upon Mr. Hawkehurst. He was ashamed of this touch +of humanity, this foolish affection which had awakened all that was +purest and best in a nature that had been so long abandoned to +degrading influences. For some time he fought resolutely against that +which he considered his folly; but the training which had made him the +master of many a perplexing position had not given him the mastery over +his own inclinations; and when he found that Charlotte's society had +become the grand necessity of his life, he abandoned himself to his +fate without further resistance. He let himself drift with the tide +that was so much stronger than himself; and if there were breakers +ahead, or fatal rocks lurking invisible beneath the blue waters, he +must take his chance. His frail bark must go to pieces when her time +came. In the meanwhile it was so delicious to float upon the summer +sea, that a man could afford to forget future possibilities in the way +of rocks and quicksands. + +Miss Paget had known very few pleasures in the course of her +uncared-for youth; but she hitherto had experienced no such anguish as +that which she had now to endure in her daily intercourse with Valentine +and Charlotte. She underwent her martyrdom bravely, and no prying eye +discovered the sufferings which her proud nature supported in silence. +"Who takes any heed of my feelings, or cares whether I am glad or +sorry?" she thought; "_he_ does not." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN. + + +The sand which ran so swiftly in the glass which that bright young +urchin Love had wrested from the hand of grim old Time ran with an +almost equal swiftness in the hour-glasses of lodging-house keepers and +tradespeople, and the necessities of every day demanded perpetual +exertion on the part of Mr. Hawkehurst, let Charlotte's eyes be never +so bright, and Charlotte's society never so dear. For Captain Paget and +his _protégé_ there was no such thing as rest; and the ingenious +Captain took care that the greater part of the labour should be +performed by Valentine, while the lion's share of the spoil was pounced +upon by the ready paw of the noble Horatio. Just now he found his pupil +unusually plastic, unusually careless of his own interests, and ready +to serve his master with agreeable blindness. Since that awkward little +affair at Forêtdechêne, that tiresome entanglement about a King of +Spades which had put in an appearance at a moment when no such monarch +was to be expected, Captain Paget had obtained the means of existence +in a manner which was almost respectable, if not altogether honest; for +it is not to be supposed that honesty and respectability are by any +means synonymous terms. It was only by the exercise of superhuman +address that the Captain had extricated himself from that perplexing +predicament at the Belgian watering-place; and it may be that the +unpleasant experiences of that particular evening were not without a +salutary effect upon the adventurer's future plans. + +"It was touch-and-go work, Val," he said to his companion; "and if I +hadn't carried matters with a high hand, and sprung my position as an +officer in the English service upon those French ruffians, I don't know +where it would have ended." + +"It might have come to a metallic ornamentation of the ankle, and some +amiable 444, who has murdered his grandmother with a red-hot poker and +extenuating circumstances, for your companion," murmured Valentine. "I +wouldn't try it on with that supererogatory king again on this side of +the Channel, if I were you." + +The Captain bestowed a freezing look on his flippant _protégé_ and then +commenced a very grave discussion of future ways and means, which ended +in an immediate departure for Paris, where the two men entered upon an +unpretentious career in the commercial line as agents and travellers +for the patentees of an improved kind of gutta percha, which material +was supposed to be applicable to every imaginable purpose, from the +sole of an infant's boot to the roof of a cathedral. There are times +when genius must stoop to pick up its daily pittance; and for twelve +months the elegant Horatio Paget was content to devote his best +energies to the perpetual praise of the Incorrodible and Indestructible +and Incombustible India-rubber, in consideration of a very modest +percentage on his commercial transactions in that material. To exert +the persuasive eloquence of a Burke or a Thurlow in order to induce a +man to roof his new warehouses with a fabric which you are aware will +be torn into ribbons by the first run of stormy weather, for the sake +of obtaining two-and-a-half per cent on his investment, may not be in +accordance with the honourable notions of a Bayard, and yet in a +commercial sense may be strictly correct. It was only when Captain +Paget had made a comfortable little purse out of his percentage upon +the Incorrodible and Incombustible that he discovered the extreme +degradation of his position as agent and traveller. He determined on +returning to the land of his birth. Joint-stock companies were +beginning to multiply in the commercial world at this period; and +wherever there are many schemes for the investment of public capital +there is room for such a man as Horatio Paget--a man who, with the aid +of a hired brougham, can inspire confidence in the breast of the least +daring speculator. + +The Captain came, accompanied as usual by that plastic tool and +subaltern, Valentine Hawkehurst, who, being afflicted with a chronic +weariness of everything in life, was always eager to abandon any +present pursuit in favour of the vaguest contingency, and to shake off +the dust of any given locality from his vagabond feet. Captain Paget +and his _protégé_ came to London, where a fortunate combination of +circumstances threw them in the way of Mr. Sheldon. + +The alliance which arose between that gentleman and the Captain opened +a fair prospect for the latter. Mr. Sheldon was interested in the +formation of a certain joint-stock company, but had his own reasons for +not wishing to be identified with it. A stalking-horse is by no means a +difficult kind of animal to procure in the cattle-fairs of London; but +a stalking-horse whose paces are sufficiently showy and imposing--a +high-stepper, of thoroughbred appearance, and a mouth sensitively alive +to the lightest touch of the curb, easy to ride or drive, warranted +neither a kicker nor a bolter--is a quadruped of rare excellence, not +to be met with every day. Just such a stalking-horse was Captain Paget; +and Mr. Sheldon lost no time in putting him into action. It is scarcely +necessary to say that the stockbroker trusted his new acquaintance only +so far as it was absolutely necessary to trust him; or that the Captain +and the stockbroker thoroughly understood each other without affecting +to do so. For Horatio Paget the sun of prosperity arose in unaccustomed +splendour. He was able to pay for his lodgings, and was an eminently +respectable person in the eyes of his landlord. He enjoyed the daily +use of a neatly-appointed brougham, in which only the most practised +eye could discover the taint of the livery stable. He dined sumptuously +at fashionable restaurants, and wore the freshest of lavender gloves, +the most delicate of waxen heath-blossoms or creamy-tinted exotics in +the button-hole of his faultless coat. + +While the chief flourished, the subaltern was comparatively idle. The +patrician appearance and manners of the Captain were a perennial source +of profit to that gentleman; but Valentine Hawkehurst had not a +patrician appearance; and the work which Mr. Sheldon found for him was +of a more uncertain and less profitable character than that which fell +to the share of the elegant Horatio. But Valentine was content. He +shared the Captain's lodging, though he did not partake of the +Captain's dinners or ride in the smart little brougham. He had a roof +to shelter him, and was rarely unprovided with the price of some kind +of dinner; and as this was the highest order of prosperity he had ever +known, he was content. He was more than content; for the first time in +his existence he knew what it was to be happy. A purer joy than life +had ever held for him until now made him careless whether his dinner +cost eighteenpence or eighteen shillings; whether he rode in the most +perfect of broughams or walked in the mud. He took no heed for the +future; he forgot the past, and abandoned himself heart and soul to the +new delights of the present. + +Never had Philip Sheldon found so willing a tool, so cheap a drudge. +Valentine was ready to do anything or everything for Charlotte's +stepfather, since his relations with that gentleman enabled him to +spend so much of his life with Charlotte. + +But even in this sublimated state of mind Mr. Hawkehurst was not exempt +from the great necessity of Mr. Skimpole and humanity at large. He +wanted pounds. His garments were shabby, and he desired new and elegant +raiment in which to appear to advantage before the eyes of the woman he +loved. It had been his privilege on several occasions to escort Mrs. +Sheldon and the two younger ladies to a theatre; and even this +privilege had cost him money. He wanted pounds to expend upon those new +books and music which served so often as the excuse for a visit to the +Lawn. He wanted pounds for very trivial purposes; but he wanted them +desperately. A lover without pounds is the most helpless and +contemptible of mankind; he is a knight-errant without his armour, +a troubadour without his lute. + +In his dilemma Mr. Hawkehurst resorted to that simple method which +civilisation has devised for the relief of pecuniary difficulties of a +temporary nature. He had met George Sheldon several times at the Lawn, +and had become tolerably intimate with that gentleman, whom he now knew +to be "the Sheldon of Gray's Inn," and the ally and agent of certain +bill-discounters. To George he went one morning; and after requesting +that Captain Paget should know nothing of his application, explained +his requirements. It was a very small sum which he asked for, modestly +conscious that the security he had to offer was of the weakest. He only +wanted thirty pounds, and was willing to give a bill at two months for +five-and-thirty. + +There was a good deal of hesitation on the part of the lawyer; but +Valentine had expected to meet with some difficulty, and was not +altogether unprepared for a point-blank refusal. He was agreeably +surprised when George Sheldon told him he would manage that "little +matter; only the bill must be for forty." But in proof of the liberal +spirit in which Mr. Hawkehurst was to be treated, the friendly lawyer +informed him that the two months should be extended to three. + +Valentine did not stop to consider that by this friendly process he was +to pay at the rate of something over a hundred and thirty per cent per +annum for the use of the money he wanted. He knew that this was his +only chance of getting money; so he shut his eyes to the expensive +nature of the transaction, and thanked Mr. Sheldon for the +accommodation granted to him. + +"And now we've settled that little business, I should like to have a +few minutes' private chat with you," said George, "on the understanding +that what passes between you and me is strictly confidential." + +"Of course!" + +"You seem to have been leading rather an idle life for the last few +months; and it strikes me, Mr. Hawkehurst, you're too clever a fellow +to care about that sort of thing." + +"Well, I have been in some measure wasting my sweetness on the desert +air," Valentine answered carelessly. "The governor seems to have +slipped into a good berth by your brother's agency; but I am not +Horatio Nugent Cromie Paget, and the brougham and lavender kids of the +Promoter are not for me." + +"There is money to be picked up by better dodges than promoting," +replied the attorney ambiguously; "but I suppose you wouldn't care for +anything that didn't bring immediate cash? You wouldn't care to +speculate the chances, however well the business might promise?" + +"_C'est selon!_ That's as may be," answered Valentine coolly. "You see +those affairs that promise so much are apt to fail when it comes to a +question of performance. I'm not a capitalist; I can't afford to become +a speculator. I've been living from hand to mouth lately by means of +occasional contributions to a sporting weekly, and a little bit of +business which your brother threw in my way. I've been able to be +tolerably useful to him, and he promises to get me something in the way +of a clerkship, foreign correspondence, and that kind of thing." + +"Humph!" muttered George Sheldon; "that means eighty pounds a year and +fourteen hours' work a day, letters that must be answered by this mail, +and so on. I don't think that kind of drudgery would ever suit you, +Hawkehurst. You've not served the right apprenticeship for that sort of +thing; you ought to try for some higher game. What should you say to an +affair that might put two or three thousand pounds in your pocket if it +was successful?" + +"I should fed very much inclined to fancy it a bubble--one of those +dazzling rainbow-tinted globes which look so bright dancing about in +the sunshine, and explode into nothing directly they encounter any +tangible substance. However, my dear Sheldon, if you really have any +employment to offer to a versatile young man who is not overburdened +with vulgar prejudices, you'd better put the business in plain words." + +"I will," answered George; "but it's not an affair that can be +discussed in five minutes. It's rather a serious matter, and involves a +good deal of consideration. I know that you're a man of the world, and +a very clever fellow into the bargain; but there's something more than +that wanted for this business, and that is patience. The hare is a very +fine animal in her way, you know; but a man must have a little of the +tortoise in him if he wants to achieve anything out of the common run +in the way of good luck. I have been working, and waiting, and +speculating the chances for the last fifteen years, and I think I've +got a good chance at last. But there's a good deal of work to be done +before the business is finished; and I find that I must have some one +to help me." + +"What sort of business is it?" + +"The search for the heir-at-law of a man who has died intestate within +the last ten years." + +The two men looked at each other at this juncture; and Valentine +Hawkehurst smiled significantly. + +"Within the last ten years?" he said. "That's rather a wide margin." + +"Do you think you would be a good hand at hunting up the missing links +in the chain of a family history?" asked Mr. Sheldon. "It's rather +tiresome work, you know, and requires no common amount of patience and +perseverance." + +"I can persevere," said Valentine decisively, "if you can show me that +it will be worth my while to do so. You want an heir-at-law, and I'm to +look for him. What am I to get while I'm looking for him? and what is +to be my reward if I find him?" + +"I'll give you a pound a week and your travelling expenses while you're +employed in the search; and I'll give you three thousand pounds on the +day the heir gets his rights." + +"Humph!" muttered Mr. Hawkehurst, rather doubtfully; "three thousand +pounds is a very respectable haul. But then, you see, I may fail to +discover the heir; and even if I do find him the chances are ten to one +that the business would be thrown into Chancery at the last moment; in +which case I might wait till doomsday for the reward of my labours." + +George Sheldon shrugged his shoulders impatiently. He had expected this +penniless adventurer to catch eagerly at the chance he offered. "Three +thousand pounds are not to be picked up in the streets," he said. "If +you don't care to work with me, I can find plenty of clever fellows in +London who'll jump at the business." + +"And you want me to begin work--?" + +"Immediately." + +"And how am I to pay forty pounds in three months out of a pound a +week?" + +"Never mind the bill," said Mr. Sheldon, with lofty generosity. "If you +work heart and soul for me, I'll square that little matter for you; +I'll get it renewed for another three months." + +"In that case I'm your man. I don't mind a little hard work just now, +and I can live upon a pound a week where another man would starve. So +now for my instructions." + +There was a brief pause, during which the lawyer refreshed himself by +walking up and down his office two or three times with his hands in his +pockets. After which relief he seated himself before his desk, took out +a sheet of foolscap, and selected a pen from the inkstand. + +"It's just as well to put things in a thoroughly business-like manner," +he said presently. "I suppose you'd have no objection to signing a +memorandum of agreement--nothing that would be of any use in a court of +law, you know, but a simple understanding between man and man, for our +own satisfaction, as a safeguard against all possibility of +misunderstanding in the future. I've every reason to consider you the +most honourable of men, you know; but honourable men turn round upon +each other sometimes. You might ask me for something more than three +thou' if you succeeded in your search." + +"Precisely; or I might make terms with the heir-at-law, and throw you +over. Perhaps that was your idea?" + +"Not exactly. The first half of the chain is in my hands, and the +second half will be worth nothing without it. But to prevent all +unpleasantness we may as well put our intentions upon record." + +"I've not the least objection," replied Valentine with supreme +indifference. "Draw up whatever memorandum you please, and I'll sign +it. If you don't mind smoke, I should like to console myself with a +cigar while you draw the bond." + +The question was a polite formula, the atmosphere of George Sheldon's +office being redolent of stale tobacco. + +"Smoke away," said the lawyer; "and if you can drink brandy-and-soda at +this time of day, you'll find the _de quoi_ in that cupboard. Make +yourself at home." + +Mr. Hawkehurst declined the brandy-and-soda, and regaled himself only +with a cigar, which he took from his own case. He sat in one of the +second-floor windows smoking, and looking dreamily into the gardens, +while George Sheldon drew up the agreement. He was thinking that any +hazard which took him away from London and Charlotte Halliday might be +a fortunate one. + +The lawyer finished his document, which he read aloud for the benefit +of the gentleman who was to sign it. The agreement was in the following +terms:-- + +"Memorandum of agreement between George Sheldon on the one part, and +Valentine Hawkehurst on the other part, whereby it is this day mutually +agreed by and between the parties hereto as follows: + +"1. That, in consideration of a weekly salary of one pound while in +pursuit of certain inquiries, and of the sum of three thousand pounds +to be paid upon the arising of a certain event, namely, the +establishment of an heir-at-law to the estates of the late John +Haygarth, the said Valentine Hawkehurst shall act as agent for the said +George Sheldon, and shall not at any time during the continuance of +this agreement do any act to prejudice the inquiry or the steps now +being taken by the said George Sheldon to discover and establish an +heir-at-law to the estates of the late John Haygarth. + +"2. That at no time hereafter shall the said Valentine Hawkehurst be +entitled to a larger recompense than is herein-before provided; nor +shall he be liable to the said George Sheldon for the return of any +moneys which the said George Sheldon may advance on account of the +said inquiries in the event of the same not resulting in the +establishment of an heir to the estates of the late John Haygarth. + +"3. That the said Valentine Hawkehurst shall not alter his character of +agent to the said George Sheldon during the prosecution of the said +inquiry; that he shall deliver over to the said George Sheldon all +documents and other forms of evidence that may arise from his, the said +Valentine Hawkehurst's, inquires; and that he shall week by week, +and every week, and as often as may be necessary, report to the said +George Sheldon the result of such inquiries, and that he shall not +on any pretence whatever be at liberty to withhold such fruits of his +researches, nor discover the same to any one else than the said George +Sheldon, under a penalty of ten thousand pounds, to be recovered as +liquidated damages previously agreed between the parties as the measure +of damages payable to the said George Sheldon upon the breach of +this agreement by the said Valentine Hawkehurst. + +"In witness whereof the parties hereto have this 20th day of September +1862 set their hands and affixed their seals." "That sounds stiff +enough to hold water in a court of law," said Valentine, when George +Sheldon had recited the contents of the document. + +"I don't suppose it would be much good in Chancery-lane," returned the +lawyer carelessly; "though I daresay it sounds rather formidable to +you. When one gets the trick of the legal jargon, it's not easy to draw +the simplest form of agreement without a few superfluous words. I may +as well call in my clerk to witness our signatures, I suppose." + +"Call in any one you like." + +The clerk was summoned from a sunless and airless den at the back of +his principal's office. The two men appended their signatures to the +document; the clerk added his in witness of the genuine nature of those +signatures. It was an affair of two minutes. The clerk was dismissed. +Mr. Sheldon blotted and folded the memorandum, and laid it aside in one +of the drawers of his desk. + +"Come," he said cheerily, "that's a business-like beginning at any +rate. And now you'd better have some brandy-and-soda, for what I've got +to say will take some time in the saying of it." + +On this occasion Mr. Hawkehurst accepted the lawyer's hospitality, and +there was some little delay before the conversation proceeded. + +It was a very long conversation. Mr. Sheldon produced a bundle of +papers, and exhibited some of them to his agent, beginning with that +advertisement in the _Times_ which had first attracted his notice, but +taking very good care _not_ to show his coadjutor the obituary in the +_Observer_, wherein the amount of the intestate's fortune was stated. +The ready wits which had been sharpened at so many different +grindstones proved keen enough for the occasion. Valentine Hawkehurst +had had little to do with genealogies or baptismal registers during his +past career; but his experiences were of such a manifold nature that he +was not easily to be baffled or mystified by any new experience. He +showed himself almost as quick at tracing up the intricacies of a +family tree as Mr. Sheldon, the astute attorney and practised +genealogist. + +"I have traced these Haygarths back to the intestate's great-grandfather, +who was a carpenter and a Puritan in the reign of Charles the First. He +seems to have made money--how I have not been able to discover with any +certainty; but it is more than probable he served in the civil wars, and +came in for some of the plunder those crop-eared, psalm-singing, +pierce-the-brain-of-the-tyrant-with-the-nail-of-Jael scoundrels were +always in the way of, at the sack of Royalist mansions. The man made +money; and his son, the grandfather of the intestate, was a wealthy +citizen in the reigns of Anne and the first George. He was a grocer, +and lived in the market-place of Ullerton in Leicestershire; an +out-of-the-way sleepy place it is now, but was prosperous enough in +those days, I daresay. This man (the grandfather) began the world well +off, and amassed a large fortune before he had done with it. The lucky +beggar lived in the days when free trade and competition were unknown, +when tea was something like sixty shillings a pound, and when a +psalm-singing sleek-haired fellow, with a reputation for wealth and +honesty, might cheat his customers to his heart's content. He had one +son, Matthew, who seems, from what I can gather, to have been a wild sort +of fellow in the early part of his career, and not to have been at any +time on the best possible terms with the sanctimonious dad. This +Matthew married at fifty-three years of age, and died a year after his +marriage, leaving one son, who afterwards became the reverend +intestate; with whom, according to the evidence at present before me, +ends the direct line of the Haygarths." The lawyer paused, turned over +two or three papers, and then resumed his explanation. "The +sanctimonious grocer, Jonathan Haygarth, had one other child besides +the son--a daughter called Ruth, who married a certain Peter Judson, +and became the mother of a string of sons and daughters; and it is +amongst the descendants of these Judsons that we may have to look for +our heir at law, unless we find him nearer home. Now my idea is that we +_shall_ find him nearer home." + +"What reason have you for forming that idea?" asked Valentine. + +"I will tell you. This Matthew Haygarth is known to have been a wild +fellow. I obtained a good deal of fragmentary information about him +from an old man in some almshouses at Ullerton, whose grandfather was a +schoolfellow of Matthew's. He was a scapegrace, and was always spending +money in London while the respectable psalm-singer was hoarding it in +Ullerton. There used to be desperate quarrels between the two men, and +towards the end of Jonathan Haygarth's life the old man made half a +dozen different wills in favour of half a dozen different people, and +cutting off scapegrace Matthew with a shilling. Fortunately for +scapegrace Matthew, the old man had a habit of quarrelling with his +dearest friends--a fashion not quite exploded in this enlightened +nineteenth century--and the wills were burnt one after another, until +the worthy Jonathan became as helpless and foolish as his great +contemporary and namesake, the Dean of St. Patrick's; and after having +died 'first at top,' did his son the favour to die altogether, +_intestate_, whereby the roisterer and spendthrift of Soho and +Covent-garden came into a very handsome fortune. The old man died in +1766, aged eighty; a very fine specimen of your good old English +tradesman of the Puritanical school. The roisterer, Matthew, was by +this time forty-six years of age, and, I suppose, had grown tired of +roistering. In any case he appears to have settled down very quietly in +the old family house in the Ullerton market-place, where he married a +respectable damsel of the Puritan school, some seven years after, and +in which house, or in the neighbourhood whereof, he departed this life, +with awful suddenness, one year after his marriage, leaving his son and +heir, the reverend intestate. And now, my dear Hawkehurst, you're a +sharp fellow, and I daresay a good hand at guessing social conundrums; +so perhaps you begin to see my idea." + +"I can't say I do." + +"My notion is, that Matthew Haygarth may possibly have married before +he was fifty-three years of age. Men of his stamp don't often live to +that ripe age without being caught in matrimonial toils somehow or +other. It was in the days of Fleet marriages--in the days when young +men about town were even more reckless and more likely to become the +prey of feminine deception than they are now. The fact that Matthew +Haygarth revealed no such marriage is no conclusive evidence against my +hypothesis. He died very suddenly--intestate, as it seems the habit of +these Haygarths to die; and he had never made any adjustment of his +affairs. According to the oldest inhabitant in Ullerton almshouses, +this Matthew was a very handsome fellow, generous-hearted, open-handed +--a devil-may-care kind of a chap, the type of the rollicking heroes in +old comedies; the very man to fall over head and ears in love before he +was twenty, and to go through fire and water for the sake of the woman +he loved: in short, the very last man upon earth to live a bachelor +until his fifty-fourth year." + +"He may--" + +"He may have been a profligate, you were going to say, and have had +baser ties than those of Church and State. So he may; but if he was a +scoundrel, tradition flatters him. Of course all the information one +can gather about a man who died in 1774 must needs be of a very +uncertain and fragmentary character. But if I can trust the rather hazy +recollections of my oldest inhabitant about what his father told him +_his_ father had said of wild Mat Haygarth, the young man's wildness +was very free from vice. There is no legend of innocence betrayed or +infamy fostered by Matthew Haygarth. He appears to have enjoyed what +the young men of that day called life--attended cock-fights, beat the +watch, gambled a little, and was intimately acquainted with the +interior of the Fleet and Marshalsea prisons. For nearly twenty years +he seems to have lived in London; and during all those years he was +lost sight of by the Ullerton people. My oldest inhabitant's +grandfather was clerk to a merchant in the city of London, and had +therefore some opportunity of knowing his old schoolfellow's +proceedings in the metropolis. But the two townsmen don't seem to have +seen much of each other in the big city. Their meetings were rare, and, +so far as I can make out, for the most part accidental. But, as I said +before, my oldest inhabitant is somewhat hazy, and excruciatingly +prolix; his chaff is in the proportion of some fifty to one of his +wheat. I've given a good deal of time to this case already, you see, +Mr. Hawkehurst; and you'll find _your_ work very smooth sailing +compared to what I've gone through." + +"I daresay that sort of investigation is rather tiresome in the earlier +stages." + +"You'd say so, with a vengeance, if you had to do it," answered George +Sheldon almost savagely. "You start with the obituary of some old bloke +who was so disgustingly old when he consented to die that there is no +one living who can tell you when he was born, or who were his father +and mother; for, of course, the old idiot takes care not to leave a +blessed document of any kind which can aid a fellow in his researches. +And when you've had the trouble of hunting up half a dozen men of the +same name, and have addled your wretched brains in the attempt to patch +the half dozen men--turning up at different periods and in different +places--into one man, they all tumble to pieces like a child's puzzle, +and you find yourself as far as ever from the man you want. However, +_you_ won't have to do any of that work," added Mr. Sheldon, who was +almost in a passion when he remembered the trouble he had gone through. +"The ground has been all laid out for you, by Jove, as smooth as a +bowling-green; and if you look sharp, you'll pick up your, three thou' +before you know where you are." + +"I hope I shall," answered Valentine coolly. He was not the sort of +person to go into raptures about three thousand pounds, though such a +sum must needs have seemed to him the wealth of a small Rothschild. "I +know I want money badly enough, and am ready and willing to work for it +conscientiously, if I get the chance. But to return to this Matthew +Haygarth. Your idea is that there may have been a marriage previous to +the one at Ullerton?" + +"Precisely. Of course there may have been no such previous marriage; +but you see it's on the cards; and since it is on the cards, my notion +is that we had better hunt up the history of Matthew Haygarth's life in +London, and try to find our heir-at-law there before we go in for the +Judsons. If you knew how the Judsons have married and multiplied, and +lost themselves among herds of other people, you wouldn't care about +tracing the ramifications of _their_ family tree," said Mr. Sheldon, +with a weary sigh. "So be it," exclaimed Mr. Hawkehurst carelessly; +"we'll leave the Judsons alone, and go in for Matthew Haygarth." + +He spoke with the air of an archaeological Hercules, to whom +difficulties were nothing. It seemed as if he would have been quite +ready to "go in" for some sidereal branch of the Plantagenets, or the +female descendants of the Hardicanute family, if George Sheldon had +suggested that the intestate's next of kin was to be found _there_. + +"Mat Haygarth, by all means," he said. He was on jolly-good-fellow-ish +terms with the dead-and-gone grocer's son already, and had the tone of +a man who had been his friend and boon companion. "Mat Haygarth is our +man. But how are we to ferret out his doings in London? A man who was +born in 1720 is rather a remote kind of animal." + +"The secret of success in these matters is time," answered the lawyer +sententiously: "a man must have no end of time, and he must keep his +brain clear of all other business. Those two conditions are impossible +for me, and that's why I want a coadjutor: now you're a clever young +fellow, with no profession, with no particular social ties, as I can +make out, and your time is all your own; ergo, you're the very man for +this business. The thing is to be done: accept that for a certainty. +It's only a question of time. Indeed, when you look at life +philosophically, what is there on earth that is _not_ a question of +time? Give the crossing-sweeper between this and Chancery-lane time +enough, and he might develop into a Rothschild. He might want nine +hundred years or so to do it in; but there's no doubt he could do it, +if you gave him time." + +Mr. Sheldon was becoming expansive under the influence of the +brandy-and-soda; for even that mild beverage is not without its effect +on the intellectual man. + +"As to this Haygarth case," he resumed, after the consumption of a +little more soda and a little more brandy, "it's a sure success, if we +work it properly; and you know three thou' is not to be despised," +added George persuasively, "even if a fellow has to wait some time for +it." + +"Certainly not. And the bulk of the Haygarthian fortune--I suppose +that's something rather stiff?" returned Valentine, in the same +persuasive tone. + +"Well, you may suppose it's a decent figure," answered Mr. Sheldon, +with an air of deprecation, "or how could I afford to give you three +thou' out of the share I'm likely to get?" + +"No, to be sure. I think I shall take to the work well enough when once +I get my hand in; but I shall be very glad of any hint you can give me +at starting." + +"Well, my advice is this: begin at the beginning; go down to Ullerton; +see my oldest inhabitant. I pumped him as dry as I could, but I +couldn't give myself enough time for thoroughly exhaustive pumping; one +has to waste a small eternity before one gets anything valuable out of +those hazy old fellows. Follow up this Matthew from his birth; see the +place where he was born; ferret out every detail of his life, so far +as it is to be ferreted; trace his way step by step to London, and +when you get him there, stick to him like a leech. Don't let him slip +through your fingers for a day; hunt him from lodging to lodging, +from tavern to tavern, into jail and out of jail--tantivy, yoicks, +hark-forward! I know it's deuced hard work; but a man must work +uncommonly hard in these days before he picks up three thou'. In a +few words, the game is all before you; so go in and win," concluded +George Sheldon, as he poured the last amber drops from the slim +smoke-coloured bottle, and swallowed his glass of brandy undiluted +by soda. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +AUNT SARAH. + + +After that interview in Gray's Inn, there were more interviews of a +like character. Valentine received further instructions from George +Sheldon, and got himself posted up in the Haygarthian history, so far +as the lawyer's information furnished the materials for such posting. +But the sum total of Mr. Sheldon's information seemed very little to +his coadjutor when the young man looked the Haygarthian business full +in the face and considered what he had to do. He felt very much like a +young prince in the fairy tale who has been bidden to go forth upon an +adventurous journey in a trackless forest, where if he escape all +manner of lurking dangers, and remember innumerable injunctions, such +as not to utter a single syllable during the whole course of his +travels, or look over his left shoulder, or pat any strange dog, or +gather forest fruit or flower, or look at his own reflection in mirror +or water-pool, shining brazen shield or jewelled helm, he will +ultimately find himself before the gates of an enchanted castle, to +which he may or may not obtain admittance. + +Valentine fancied himself in the position of this favourite young +prince. The trackless forest was the genealogy of the Haygarths; and in +the enchanted castle he was to find the crown of success in the shape +of three thousand pounds. Could he marry Charlotte on the strength of +those three thousand pounds, if he were so fortunate as to unravel the +tangled skein of the Haygarth history? Ah, no; that black-whiskered +stockbroking stepfather would ask for something more than three +thousand pounds from the man to whom he gave his wife's daughter. + +"He will try to marry her to some rich City swell, I dare say," +thought Valentine. "I should be no nearer her with three thousand +pounds for my fortune than I am without a sixpence. The best thing I +can do for her happiness and my own is to turn my back upon her, and +devote myself to hunting the Haygarths. It's rather hard too, just as I +have begun to fancy that she likes me a little." + +In the course of those interviews in Gray's Inn which occurred before +Valentine took any active steps in his new pursuit, certain conditions +were agreed upon between him and Mr. Sheldon. The first and most +serious of these conditions was, that Captain Paget should be in nowise +enlightened as to his _protégé's_ plans. This was a strong point with +George Sheldon. "I have no doubt Paget's a very good fellow," he said. +(It was his habit to call everybody a good fellow. He would have called +Nana Sahib a good fellow, and would have made some good-natured excuse +for any peccadilloes on the part of that potentate). "Paget's an +uncommonly agreeable man, you know; but he is not the man I should care +to trust with this kind of secret." Mr. Sheldon said this with a tone +that implied his willingness to trust Captain Paget with every other +kind of secret, from the contents of his japanned office-boxes to the +innermost mysteries of his soul. + +"You see Paget is thick with my brother Phil," he resumed; "and +whenever I find a man thick with my relations, I make it a point to +keep clear of that man myself. Relations never have worked well in +harness, and never will work well in harness. It seems to be against +nature. Now Phil has a dim kind of idea of the game I want to play, in +a general way, but nothing more than a dim idea. He fancies I'm a fool, +and that I'm wasting my time and trouble. I mean him to stick to that +notion. For, you see, in a thing of this kind there's always a chance +of other people cutting in and spoiling a man's game. Of course, that +advertisement I read to you was seen by other men besides me, and may +have been taken up. My hope is that whoever has taken it up has gone in +for the female branch, and got himself snowed up under a heap of +documentary evidence about the Judsons. That's another reason why we +should put our trust in Matthew Haygarth. The Judson line is the +obvious line to follow, and there are very few who would think of +hunting up evidence for a hypothetical first marriage until they had +exhausted the Judsons. Now, I rely upon you to throw dust in Paget's +eyes, so that there may be no possibility of my brother getting wind of +our little scheme through him." + +"I'll take care of that," answered Valentine; "he doesn't want me just +now. He's in very high feather, riding about in broughams and dining at +West-end taverns. He won't be sorry to get rid of me for a short time." +"But what'll be your excuse for leaving town? He'll be sure to want a +reason, you know." + +"I'll invent an aunt at Ullerton, and tell him I'm going down to stop +with her." + +"You'd better not say Ullerton; Paget might take it into his head to +follow you down there in order to see what sort of person your aunt +was, and whether she had any money. Paget's an excellent fellow, but +there's never any knowing what that sort of man will do. You'd better +throw him off the scent altogether. Plant your aunt in Surrey--say +Dorking." + +"But if he should want to write to me?" + +"Tell him to address to the post-office, Dorking, as your aunt is +inquisitive, and might tamper with your correspondence. I daresay his +letters will keep." + +"He could follow me to Dorking as easily as to Ullerton." + +"Of course he could," answered George Sheldon; "but then, you see, at +Dorking the most he could find out would be that he'd been made a fool +of; whereas if he followed you to Ullerton, he might ferret out the +nature of your business there." + +Mr. Hawkehurst perceived the wisdom of this conclusion, and agreed to +make Dorking the place of his relative's abode. + +"It's very near London," he suggested thoughtfully; "the Captain might +easily run down." + +"And for that very reason he's all the less likely to do it," answered +the lawyer; "a man who thinks of going to a place within an hour's ride +of town knows he can go any day, and is likely to think of going to the +end of the chapter without carrying out his intention. A man who +resolves to go to Manchester or Liverpool has to make his arrangements +accordingly, and is likely to put his idea into practice. The people +who live on Tower-hill very seldom see the inside of the Tower. It's +the good folks who come up for a week's holiday from Yorkshire and +Cornwall who know all about the Crown jewels and John of Gaunt's +armour. Take my advice, and stick to Dorking." + +Acting upon this advice, Valentine Hawkehurst lay in wait for the +Promoter that very evening. He went home early, and was seated by a +cheery little bit of fire, such as an Englishman likes to see at the +close of a dull autumn day, when that accomplished personage returned +to his lodgings. + +"Deuced tiresome work," said the Captain, as he smoothed the nap of his +hat with that caressing tenderness of manipulation peculiar to the man +who is not very clear as to the means whereby his next hat is to be +obtained,--"deuced slow, brain-belabouring work! How many people +do you think I've called upon to-day, eh, Val? Seven-and-thirty! What +do you say to that? Seven-and-thirty interviews, and some of them very +tough ones. I think that's enough to take the steam out of a man." + +"Do the moneyed swells bite?" asked Mr. Hawkehurst, with friendly +interest. + +"Rather slowly, my dear Val, rather slowly. The mercantile fisheries +have been pretty well whipped of late years, and the fish are artful-- +they are uncommonly artful, Val. Indeed, I'm not quite clear at this +present moment as to the kind of fly they'll rise to most readily. I'm +half inclined to be doubtful whether your gaudy pheasant-feather, your +brougham and lavender-kid business is the right thing for your angler. +It has been overdone, Val, considerably overdone; and I shouldn't +wonder if a sober little brown fly--a shabby old chap in a rusty +greatcoat, with a cotton umbrella under his arm--wouldn't do the trick +better. That sort of thing would look rich, you see, Val--rich and +eccentric; and I think on occasions--with a _very_ downy bird--I'd +even go so far as a halfp'orth of snuff in a screw of paper. I really +think a pinch of snuff out of a bit of paper, taken at the right +moment, might turn the tide of a transaction." + +Impressed by the brilliancy of this idea, Captain Paget abandoned +himself for the moment to profound meditation, seated in his favourite +chair, and with his legs extended before the cheerful blaze. He always +had a favourite chair in every caravanserai wherein he rested in his +manifold wanderings, and he had an unerring instinct which guided him +in the selection of the most comfortable chair, and that one corner, to +be found in every room, which is a sanctuary secure from the incursions +of Boreas. + +The day just ended had evidently not been a lucky one, and the +Captain's gaze was darkly meditative as he looked into the ruddy little +fire. + +"I think I'll take a glass of cold water with a dash of brandy in it, +Val," he said presently; and he said it with the air of a man who +rarely tasted such a beverage; whereas it was as habitual with him to +sit sipping brandy-and-water for an hour or so before he went to bed as +it was for him to light his chamber candle. "That fellow Sheldon knows +how to take care of himself," he remarked thoughtfully, when Valentine +had procured the brandy-and-water. "Try some of that cognac, Val; it's +not bad. To tell you the truth, I'm beginning to get sick of this +promoting business. It pays very little better than the India-rubber +agency, and it's harder work. I shall look about me for something +fresh, if Sheldon doesn't treat me handsomely. And what have you been +doing for the last day or two?" asked the Captain, with a searching +glance at his _protégé's_ face. "You're always hanging about Sheldon's +place; but you don't seem to do much business with him. You and his +brother George seem uncommonly thick." + +"Yes, George suits me better than the stockbroker. I never could get on +very well with your ultra-respectable men. I'm as ready to 'undertake a +dirty job' as any man; but I don't like a fellow to offer me dirty work +and pretend it's clean." + +"Ah, he's been getting you to do a little of the bear business, I +suppose," said the Captain. "I don't see that your conscience need +trouble you about that. Amongst a commercial people money must change +hands. I can't see that it much matters how the change takes place." + +"No, to be sure; that's a comfortable way of putting it, at any rate. +However, I'm tired of going about in the ursine guise, and I'm going to +cut it. I've an old aunt settled at Dorking who has got a little bit of +money to leave, and I think I'll go and look her up." + +"An aunt at Dorking! I never heard of her before." + +"O yes you have," answered Mr. Hawkehurst, with supreme nonchalance; +"you've heard of her often enough, only you've a happy knack of not +listening to other people's affairs. But you must have been wrapped up +in yourself with a vengeance if you don't remember to have heard me +speak of my aunt--Sarah." + +"Well, well, it may be so," murmured the Captain, almost +apologetically. "Your aunt Sarah? Ah, to be sure; I have some +recollection: is she your father's sister?" + +"No; she's the sister of my maternal grandmother--a great-aunt, you +know. She has a comfortable little place down at Dorking, and I can get +free quarters there whenever I like; so as you don't particularly want +me just now, I think I'll run down to her for a week or two." + +The Captain had no objection to offer to this very natural desire on +the part of his adopted son; nor did he concern himself as to the young +man's motive for leaving London. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHARLOTTE PROPHESIES RAIN. + + +Mr. Hawkehurst had no excuse for going to the Lawn before his +departure; but the stately avenues between Bayswater and Kensington are +free to any man; and, having nothing better to do, Valentine put a +shabby little volume of Balzac in his pocket, and spent his last +morning in town under the shadow of the mighty elms, reading one of the +great Honoré's gloomiest romances, while the autumn leaves drifted +round him, dancing fairy measures on the grass, and scraping and +scuffling on the gravel, and while children with hoops and children +with balls scampered and screamed in the avenue by which he sat. He was +not particularly absorbed by his book. He had taken it haphazard from +the tattered collection of cheap editions which he carried about with +him in his wanderings, ignominiously stuffed into the bottom of a +portmanteau, amongst boots and clothes-brushes and disabled razors. + +"I'm sick of them all," he thought; "the De Beauseants, and Rastignacs, +the German Jews, and the patrician beauties, and the Israelitish Circes +of the Rue Taitbout, and the sickly self-sacrificing provincial angels, +and the ghastly _vieilles filles_. Had that man ever seen such a woman +as Charlotte, I wonder--a bright creature, all smiles and sunshine, +and sweet impulsive tenderness; an angel who can be angelic without +being _poitri-naire_, and whose amiability never degenerates into +scrofula? There is an odour of the dissecting-room pervading all my +friend Balzac's novels, and I don't think he was capable of painting +a fresh, healthy nature. What a mass of disease he would have made Lucy +Ashton, and with what dismal relish he would have dilated upon the +physical sufferings of Amy Robsart in the confinement of Cumnor Hall! +No, my friend Honoré, you are the greatest and grandest of painters of +the terrible school; but the time comes when a man sighs for something +brighter and better than your highest type of womanhood." + +Mr. Hawkehurst put his book in his pocket, and abandoned himself to +meditation, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his face +buried in his hands, unconscious of the trundling hoops and screaming +children. + +"She is better and fairer than the fairest heroine of a novel," he +thought. "She is like Heloise. Yes, the quaint old French fits her to a +nicety: + + 'Elle ne fu oscure ne brune, + Ains fu clere comme la lune, + Envers qui les autres estoiles + Ressemblent petites chandoiles.' + +Mrs. Browning must have known such a woman: + + 'Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; + You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face;' + +and yet + + 'She was not as pretty as women I know.' + +Was she not?" mused the lover. "Is she not? Yes," he cried suddenly, +as he saw a scarlet petticoat gleaming in the distance, and a bright +young face under a little black turban hat--prettiest and most +bewitching of all feminine headgear, let fashion change as it may. +"Yes," he cried, "she is the loveliest creature in the world, and I +love her to distraction." He rose, and went to meet the loveliest +creature in the world, whose earthly name was Charlotte Halliday. She +was walking with Diana Paget, who, to more sober judges, might have +seemed the handsomer woman of the two. Alas for Diana! the day had been +when Valentine Hawkehurst considered her very handsome, and had need to +fight a hard battle with himself in order not to fall in love with her. +He had been conqueror in that struggle of prudence and honour against +nascent love, only to be vanquished utterly by Charlotte's brighter +charms and Charlotte's sunnier nature. + +The two girls shook hands with Mr. Hawkehurst. An indifferent observer +might have perceived that the colour faded from the face of one, while +a blush mounted to the cheeks of the other. But Valentine did not see +the sudden pallor of Diana's face--he had eyes only for Charlotte's +blushes. Nor did Charlotte herself perceive the sudden change in her +dearest friend's countenance. And that perhaps is the bitterest sting +of all. It is not enough that some must weep while others play; the +mourners must weep unnoticed, unconsoled; happiness is so apt to be +selfish. + +Of course the conversation was the general sort of thing under the +given circumstances--just a little more inane and disjointed than the +ordinary small talk of people who meet each other in their walks +abroad. + +"How do you do, Mr. Hawkehurst?--Very well, thank you.--Mamma is very +well; at least no, not quite well; she has one of her headaches this +morning. She is rather subject to headache, you know; and the canaries +sing so loud. Don't the canaries sing abominably loud, Diana?--loudly +they would have made me say at Hyde Lodge; but it is only awfully +clever people who know when to use adverbs." + +And Miss Halliday having said all this in a hurried and indeed almost +breathless manner, stopped suddenly, blushing more deeply than at +first, and painfully aware of her blushes. She looked imploringly at +Diana; but Diana would not come to the rescue; and this morning Mr. +Hawkehurst seemed as a man struck with sudden dumbness. + +There followed presently a little discussion of the weather. Miss +Halliday was possessed by the conviction that there would be rain-- +possibly not immediate rain, but before the afternoon inevitable rain. +Valentine thought not; was, indeed, positively certain there would be +no rain; had a vague idea that the wind was in the north; and quoted a +dreary Joe-Millerism to prove the impossibility of rain while the wind +came from that quarter. Miss Halliday and Mr. Hawkehurst held very +firmly to their several opinions, and the argument was almost a +quarrel--one of those little playful quarrels which form some of the +most delicious phases of a flirtation. "I would not mind wagering a +fortune--if I had one--on the certainty of rain," cried Charlotte with +kindling eyes. + +"And I would not shrink from staking my existence on the conviction +that there will be no rain," exclaimed Valentine, looking with +undisguised tenderness at the glowing animated face. + +Diana Paget took no part in that foolish talk about the possibilities +of the weather. She walked silently by the side of her friend +Charlotte, as far away from her old comrade, it seemed to her, as if +the Atlantic's wild waste of waters had stretched between them. The +barrier that divided them was only Charlotte; but then Miss Paget knew +too well that Charlotte in this case meant all the world. + +The ice had been broken by that discussion as to rain or no rain, and +Miss Halliday and Mr. Hawkehurst talked pleasantly for some time, while +Diana still walked silently by her friend's side, only speaking when +compelled to do so. The strangeness of her manner would have been +observed by any one not utterly absorbed by that sublime egotism called +love; but Valentine and Charlotte were so absorbed, and had no idea +that Miss Paget was anything but the most delightful and amusing of +companions. + +They had taken more than one turn in the broad avenue, when Charlotte +asked Mr. Hawkehurst some question about a piece which was speedily to +be played at one of the theatres. + +"I do so much want to see this new French actress," she said. "Do you +think there is any possibility of obtaining orders, Mr. Hawkehurst? You +know what a dislike Mr. Sheldon has to paying for admission to a +theatre, and my pocket-money was exhausted three weeks ago, or I +wouldn't think of giving you any trouble about it." + +Philosophers have observed that in the life of the plainest woman there +is one inspired moment in which she becomes beautiful. Perhaps it is +when she is asking a favour of some masculine victim--for women have a +knack of looking their prettiest on such occasions. Charlotte +Halliday's pleading glance and insinuating tone were irresistible. +Valentine would have given a lien on every shilling of his three +thousand pounds rather than disappoint her, if gold could purchase the +thing she craved. It happened fortunately that his occasional +connection with the newspapers made it tolerably easy for him to obtain +free admissions to theatres. + +"Do not speak of the trouble; there will be no trouble. The orders +shall be sent you, Miss Halliday." + +"O, thanks--a thousand thanks! Would it be possible to get a box, and +for us all to go together?" asked the fair encroacher; "mamma is so +fond of the theatre. She used to go often with poor papa, at York and +in London. And you are such an excellent critic, Mr. Hawkehurst, and it +would be so nice to have you with us,--wouldn't it, Di? You know what a +good critic Mr. Hawkehurst is?" + +"Yes," answered Diana; "we used to go to theatres together very often." + +This was a cry of anguish wrung from a bleeding heart; but to the two +absorbed egotists it seemed the simplest of casual observations. + +"Do you think you could manage to get a box, Mr. Hawkehurst?" asked the +irresistible enslaver, putting her head on one side, in a manner which, +for the protection of weak mankind, should be made penal. + +"I will try my uttermost," answered Valentine. + +"O, then I'm sure you will succeed. And we shall be amused by your +deliciously bitter criticisms between the acts. One would think you had +studied under Douglas Jerrold." + +"You do me too much honour. But before the new piece is produced I +shall have left London, and shall not have the pleasure of accompanying +you to the theatre." + +"You are going to leave London?" + +"Yes, to-morrow." + +"So soon!" cried Charlotte, with undisguised regret; "and for a long +time, I suppose?" she added, very mournfully. + +Miss Paget gave a little start, and a feverish flush lit up her face +for one brief moment. + +"I am glad he is going," she thought; "I am very glad he is going." + +"Yes," said Valentine, in reply to Charlotte's inquiry, "I am likely to +be away for a considerable time; indeed my plans are at present so +vague, that I cannot tell when I may come back to town." + +He could not resist the temptation to speak of his absence as if it +were likely to be the affair of a lifetime. He could not refrain from +the delight of sounding the pure depths of that innocent young heart. +But when the tender gray eyes looked at him, so sweet in their sudden +sadness, his heart melted, and he could trifle with her unconscious +love no longer. + +"I am going away on a matter of business," he said, "which may or may +not occupy some time; but I don't suppose I shall be many weeks away +from London." + +Charlotte gave a little sigh of relief. + +"And are you going very far?" she asked. + +"Some distance; yes--a--hundred and fifty miles or so," Valentine +answered very lamely. It had been an easy thing to invent an ancient +aunt Sarah for the mystification of the astute Horatio; but Valentine +Hawkehurst could not bring himself to tell Charlotte Halliday a +deliberate falsehood. The girl looked at him wonderingly, as he gave +that hesitating answer to her question. She was at a loss to understand +why he did not tell her the place to which he was going, and the nature +of the business that took him away. + +She was very sorry that he was going to disappear out of her life for a +time so uncertain, that while on the one hand it might be only a few +weeks, it might on the other hand be for ever. The life of a young +English damsel, in a prim villa at Bayswater, with a very commonplace +mother and a practical stockbroking stepfather, is rather a narrow kind +of existence; and to such a damsel the stranger whose hand lifts the +curtain that shrouds new and brighter worlds is apt to become a very +important personage, especially when the stranger happens to be young +and handsome, and invested with that dash of Bohemianism which to +artless and sentimental girlhood has such a flavour of romance. + +Charlotte was very silent as she retraced her steps along the broad +gravel walk. As they drew near the Bayswater-gate she looked at her +watch. It was nearly one o'clock, and she had promised Mrs. Sheldon to +be home at one for luncheon, and afterwards shopping. + +"I'm afraid we must hurry home, Di," she said. + +"I am quite ready to go," answered Miss Paget promptly. "Good-bye, +Valentine." + +"Good-bye, Diana; good-bye, Miss Halliday." + +Mr. Hawkehurst shook hands with both young ladies; but shaking hands +with Charlotte was a very slow process compared to the same performance +with Diana. + +"Good-bye," he repeated, in a lingering tone; and then, after standing +for some moments silent and irresolute, with his hat in his hand, he +put it on suddenly and hurried away. + +The two girls had walked a few steps towards the gate when Charlotte +stopped before a stony-looking alcove, which happened at this +nursery-dinner-hour to be empty. + +"I'm so tired, Di," she said, and went into the alcove, where she sat +down to rest. She had a little veil attached to her turban hat--a +little veil which she now drew over her face. The tears gathered slowly +in her eyes and fell through that flimsy morsel of lace with which she +would fain have hidden her childish sorrow. The tears gathered and fell +on her lap as she sat in silence, pretending not to cry. This much rain +at least was there to justify her prediction, uttered in such foolish +gaiety of heart half an hour before. + +Miss Halliday's eyes were undimmed by tears? when she went back to the +gothic villa; but she had a feeling that some great sorrow had come +upon her--a vague idea that the last lingering warmth and brightness of +summer had faded all in a moment, and that chill gray winter had closed +in upon Bayswater without any autumnal interval. What was it that she +had lost? Only the occasional society of a young man with a handsome +pale face, a little haggard and wan from the effect of dissipated +habits and a previous acquaintance with care and difficulty--only the +society of a penniless Bohemian who had a certain disreputable +cleverness and a dash of gloomy sentimentality, which the schoolgirl +mistook for genius. But then he was the first man whose eyes had ever +softened with a mysterious tenderness as they looked at her--the first +whose voice had grown faintly tremulous when it syllabled her name. + +There was some allusion to Mr. Hawkehurst's departure in the course of +dinner, and Philip Sheldon expressed some surprise. + +"Going to leave town?" he said. + +"Yes, papa," Charlotte answered; "he is going a long way into the +country,--a hundred and fifty miles, he said." + +"Did he tell you where he was going?" + +"No; he seemed unwilling to mention the place. He only said something +about a hundred and fifty miles." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH. + + +Mr. Sheldon had occasion to see Captain Paget early the following day, +and questioned him closely about his _protégé's_ movements. He had +found Valentine a very useful tool in sundry intricate transactions of +the commercial kind, and he expected his tools to be ready for his +service. He was therefore considerably annoyed by Valentine's abrupt +departure. + +"I think young Hawkehurst might have told me he was going out of town," +he said. "What the deuce has taken him off in such a hurry?" + +"He is going to see some mysterious old aunt at Dorking, from whom he +seems to expect money," the Captain answered carelessly. "I daresay I +can do what you want, Sheldon." + +"Very likely. But how comes that young fellow to have an aunt at +Dorking? I fancy I've heard him say he was without a relative or a +friend in the world--always excepting yourself." + +"The aunt may he another exception; some poor old soul that he's half +ashamed to own, I daresay--the inmate of an almshouse, perhaps. Val's +expectations may be limited to a few pounds hoarded in a china teapot." + +"I should have thought Hawkehurst the last man in the world to care +about looking after that sort of thing. I could have given him plenty +to do if he had stopped in town. He and my brother George are +uncommonly intimate, by the bye," added Mr. Sheldon meditatively. It +was his habit to be rather distrustful of his brother and of all his +brother's acquaintance. "I suppose you can give me Hawkehurst's +address, in case I should want to write to him?" he said. + +"He told me to send my letters to the post-office, Dorking," answered +the Captain, "which really looks as if the aunt's residence were +something in the way of an almshouse." + +No more was said about Valentine's departure. Captain Paget concluded +his business with his patron and departed, leaving the stockbroker +leaning forward upon his desk in a thoughtful attitude and scribbling +purposeless figures upon his blotting-paper. + +"There's something queer in this young man running away from town; +there's some mystification somewhere," he thought. "He has not gone to +Dorking, or he would scarcely have told Lotta that he was going a +hundred and fifty miles from town. He would be likely to be taken off +his guard by her questions, and would tell the truth. I wonder whether +Paget is in the secret. His manner seemed open enough; but that sort of +man can pretend anything. I've noticed that he and George have been +very confidential lately. I wonder whether there's any underhand game +on the cards between those two." + +The game of which Mr. Sheldon thought as he leant over his +blotting-paper was a very different kind of game from that which +really occupied the attention of George and his friend. + +"I'll go to his lodgings at once," he said to himself by-and-by, rising +and putting on his hat quickly in his eagerness to act upon his +resolution. "I'll see if he really has left town." + +The stockbroker hailed the first empty hansom to be seen in the crowded +thoroughfare from which his shady court diverged. In less than an hour +he alighted before the door of the house in which Captain Paget lodged. + +"Is Mr. Hawkehurst in?" he asked of the girl who admitted him. + +"No, sir; he's just left to go into the country. He hasn't been gone +ten minutes. You might a'most have met him." + +"Do you know where he has gone?" + +"I heard say it was Dorking, sir." + +"Humph! I should like to have seen him before he went. Did he take much +luggage?" + +"One portmanter, sir." + +"I suppose you didn't notice where he told the man to drive?" + +"Yes, sir; it was Euston-square." + +"Ah! Euston-square. I'll go there, then, on the chance of catching +him," said Mr. Sheldon. + +He bestowed a donation upon the domestic, reentered his hansom, and +told the man to drive to Euston-square "like a shot." + +"So! His destination is Dorking, and he goes from Euston-square!" +muttered Mr. Sheldon, in sombre meditation, as the hansom rattled and +rushed, and jingled and jolted, over the stones. "There's something +under the cards here." + +Arrived at the great terminus, the stockbroker made his way to the down +platform. There was a lull in the day's traffic, and only a few +listless wretches lounging disconsolately here and there, with eyes +ever and anon lifted to the clock. Amongst these there was no Valentine +Hawkehurst. + +Mr. Sheldon peered into all the waiting-rooms, and surveyed the +refreshment-counter; but there was still no sign of the man he sought. +He went back to the ticket-office; but here again all was desolate, the +shutters of the pigeon-holes hermetically closed, and no vestige of +Valentine Hawkehurst. + +The stockbroker was disappointed, but not defeated. He returned to the +platform, looked about him for a few moments, and then addressed +himself to a porter of intelligent aspect. + +"What trains have left here within the last half-hour?" he asked. + +"Only one, sir; the 2.15 down, for Manchester." + +"You didn't happen to notice a dark-eyed, dark-haired young man among +the passengers--second class?" asked Mr. Sheldon. + +"No, sir. There are always a good many passengers by that train; I +haven't time to notice their faces." + +The stockbroker asked no further questions. He was a man who did not +care to be obliged to others for information which he could obtain for +himself. He walked straight to a place where the time-tables were +pasted on the wall, and ran his finger along the figures till he came +to those he wanted. + +The 2.15 train was a fast train, which stopped at only four places-- +Rugby, Ullerton, Murford, and Manchester. + +"I daresay he has gone to Manchester," thought Mr. Sheldon--"on some +racing business most likely, which he wants to keep dark from his +patron the Captain. What a fool I am to trouble myself about him, as if +he couldn't stir without meaning mischief to me! But I don't understand +the friendship between him and George. My brother George is not likely +to take up any man without some motive." + +After these reflections Mr. Sheldon left the station and went back to +his office in another hansom, still extremely thoughtful and somewhat +disquieted. + +"What does it matter to me where they go or what they do?" he asked +himself, impatient of some lurking weakness of his own; "what does it +matter to me whether those two are friendly or unfriendly? They can do +me no harm." + +There happened to be a kind of lull in the stormy regions of the Stock +Exchange at the time of Valentine Hawkehurst's departure. Stagnation +had descended upon that commercial ocean, which is such a dismal waste +of waters for the professional speculator in its hour of calm. All the +Bulls in the zoological creation would have failed to elevate the +drooping stocks and shares and first-preference bonds and debentures, +which hung their feeble heads and declined day by day, the weaker of +them threatening to fade away and diminish to a vanishing-point, as it +seemed to some dejected holders who read the Stock-Exchange lists and +the money article in the Times with a persistent hopefulness which +struggled against the encroachments of despair. The Bears had been +busy, but were now idle--having burnt their fingers, commercial +gentlemen remarked. So Bulls and Bears alike hung listlessly about a +melancholy market, and conversed together dolefully in corners; and the +burden of all their lamentations was to the effect that there never had +been such times, and things never had been so bad, and it was a +question whether they would ever right themselves. Philip Sheldon +shared in the general depression. His face was gloomy, and his manner +for the time being lost something of its brisk, business-like +cheerfulness. The men who envied his better fortunes watched him +furtively when he showed himself amongst them, and wondered whether +Sheldon, of Jull, Girdlestone, and Sheldon, had been hit by these bad +times. + +It was not entirely the pressure of that commercial stagnation which +weighed on the spirits of Philip Sheldon. The stockbroker was tormented +by private doubts and uncertainties which had nothing to do with the +money-market. + +On the day after Valentine's journey to Ullerton, Mr. Sheldon the elder +presented himself at his brother's office in Gray's Inn. It was his +habit to throw waifs and strays of business in the attorney's way, and +to make use of him occasionally, though he had steadily refused to lend +or give him money; and it was big habit, as it were, to keep an eye +upon his younger brother--rather a jealous eye, which took note of all +George's doings, and kept suspicious watch upon all George's +associates. Going unannounced into his brother's office on this +particular morning, Philip Sheldon found him bending over an outspread +document--a great sheet of cartridge-paper covered with a net-work of +lines, dotted about with circles, and with little patches of writing in +red and black ink in the neatest possible penmanship. Mr. Sheldon the +elder, whose bright black eyes were as the eyes of the hawk, took note of +this paper, and had caught more than one stray word that stood out in +larger and bolder characters than its neighbours, before his brother could +fold it; for it is not an easy thing for a man to fold an elephantine +sheet of cartridge when he is nervously anxious to fold it quickly, and +is conscious that the eyes of an observant brother are upon him. + +Before George had mastered the folding of the elephantine sheet, Philip +had seen and taken note of two words. One of these was the word +INTESTATE, and the other the name HAYGARTH. + +"You seem in a great hurry to get that document out of the way," said +Philip, as he seated himself in the client's chair. + +"Well, to tell the truth, you rather startled me," answered George. "I +didn't know who it might be, you know; and I was expecting a fellow +who--" And then Mr. Sheldon the younger broke off abruptly, and asked, +with rather a suspicious air, "Why didn't that boy announce you?" + +"Because I wouldn't let him. Why should he announce me? One would think +you were carrying on some political conspiracy, George, and had a +modern Thistlewood gang hidden in that cupboard yonder. How thick you +and Hawkehurst are, by the bye!" + +In spite of the convenient "by the bye," this last remark of the +stockbroker's sounded rather irrelevant. + +"I don't know about being 'thick.' Hawkehurst seems a very decent young +fellow, and he and I get on pretty well together. But I'm not as +'thick' with him as I was with Tom Halliday." + +It was to be observed that Mr. Sheldon the younger was very apt to +refer to that friendship with the dead Yorkshireman in the course of +conversation with Philip. + +"Hawkehurst has just left town," said Philip indifferently. + +"Yes, I know he has." + +"When did you hear it?" + +"I saw him last night," answered George, taken off his guard by the +carelessness of his brother's manner. + +"Did you?" cried Mr. Sheldon. "You make a mistake there. He left town +at two o'clock yesterday." + +"How do you happen to know that?" asked George sharply. + +"Because I happened to be at the station and saw him take his ticket. +There's something underhand in that journey of his by the way; for +Paget told me he was going to Dorking. I suppose he and Paget have some +game of their own on the cards. I was rather annoyed by the young man's +departure, as I had some work for him. However, I can find plenty of +fellows to do it as well as Hawkehurst could have done." + +George was looking into an open drawer in his desk while his brother +said this. He had a habit of opening drawers and peering into them +absently during the progress of an interview, as if looking for some +particular paper, that was never to be found. + +After this the conversation became less personal. The brothers talked a +little of the events of the day, the money-article in that morning's +Times, the probability or improbability of a change in the rate of +discount. But this conversation soon flagged, and Mr. Sheldon rose to +depart. + +"I suppose that sheet of cartridge-paper which you had so much trouble +to fold is one of your genealogical tables," he said as he was going. +"You needn't try to keep things dark from me, George. I'm not likely to +steal a march upon you; my own business gives me more work than I can +do. But if you have really got a good thing at last, I shouldn't mind +going into it with you, and finding the money for the enterprise." + +George Sheldon looked at his elder brother with a malicious flitter in +his eyes. + +"On condition that you got the lion's share of the profits," he said. +"O yes; I know how generous you are, Phil. I have asked you for money +before today, and you have refused it." + +Mr. Sheldon's face darkened just a little at this point. "Your manner +of asking it was offensive," he said. + +"Well, I'm sorry for that," answered George politely. "However, you +refused me money when I did want it; so you needn't offer it me now I +don't want it. There are some people who think I have sacrificed my +life to a senseless theory; and perhaps you are one of them. But there +is one thing you may be certain of, Philip Sheldon: if ever I _do_ get +a good chance, I shall know how to keep it to myself." + +There are men skilled in the concealment of their feelings on all +ordinary occasions, who will yet betray themselves in a crisis of +importance. George Sheldon would fain have kept his project hidden from +his elder brother; but in this one unguarded moment he forgot himself, +and allowed the sense of triumph to irradiate his face. + +The stockbroker was a reader of men rather than books; and it is a +notable thing what superiority in all worldly wisdom is possessed by +men who eschew books. He was able to translate the meaning of George's +smile--a smile of mingled triumph and malice. + +"The fellow _has_ got a good thing," he thought to himself, "and +Hawkehurst is in it. It must be a deuced good thing too, or he wouldn't +refuse my offer of money." Mr. Sheldon was the last man in the world to +reveal any mortification which he might experience from his brother's +conduct. + +"Well, you're quite right to stick to your chance, George," he said, +with agreeable frankness. "You've waited long enough for it. As for me, +I've got my fingers in a good many pies just at present; so perhaps I +had better keep them out of yours, whatever plums there may be to be +picked out of it by an enterprising Jack Horner. Pick out your plums +for yourself, old fellow, and I'll be one of the first to call you a +good boy for your pains." + +With this Mr. Sheldon slapped his brother's shoulder and departed. + +"I think I've had the best of Master Phil for once," muttered George; +and then he thrust his sinewy hands into the depths of his +trousers-pocket, and indulged in a silent laugh, which displayed his +strong square white teeth to perfection. "I flatter myself I took a +rise out of Phil to-day," he muttered. + +The sense of a malicious triumph over a social enemy is a very +delightful kind of thing,--so delightful that a man is apt to ignore +the possible cost of the enjoyment. It is like the pleasure of kicking +a man who is down--very delicious in its way; only one never knows how +soon the man may be up again. + +George Sheldon, who was tolerably skilled in the science of human +nature, should have known that "taking a rise" out of his brother was +likely to be a rather costly operation. Philip was not the safest man +to deal with at any time; but he was most dangerous when he was +"jolly." + + + + + +BOOK THE FOURTH. + + +VALENTINE HAWKEHURST'S RECORD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE OLDEST INHABITANT. + + +Black Swan Inn, Ullerton, October 2nd. + +As the work I am now employed in is quite new to me, and I am to keep +Sheldon posted up in this business day by day, I have decided on +jotting down the results of my inquiries in a kind of diary. Instead of +writing my principal a formal letter, I shall send a copy of the +entries in the diary, revised and amended. This will insure exactitude; +and there is just the possibility that the record may be useful to me +hereafter. To remember all I hear and pick up about these departed +Haygarths without the aid of pen and ink would be out of the question; +so I mean to go in for unlimited pen and ink like a hero, not to say a +martyr. + +And I am to do all this for twenty shillings a week, and the remote +possibility of three thousand pounds! O genius, genius! in all the +markets of this round world is there no better price for you than that? + +How sweetly my Charlotte looked at me yesterday, when I told her I was +going away! If I could have dared to kneel at her feet under those +whispering elms,--unconscious of the children, unconscious of the +nursemaids,--if I could have dared to cry aloud to her, "I am a +penniless reprobate, but I love you; I am a disreputable pauper, but I +adore you! Have pity upon my love and forget my worthlessness!" If I +could have dared to carry her away from her prim suburban home and that +terrible black-whiskered stockbroking stepfather! But how is a man to +carry off the woman he adores when he has not the _de quoi_ for the +first stage of the journey? + +With three thousand pounds in my pocket, I think I could dare anything. +Three thousand pounds! One year of splendour and happiness, and then-- +the rest is chaos! + +I have seen the oldest inhabitant. _Ay de mi_! Sheldon did not +exaggerate the prosiness of that intolerable man. I thought of the +luckless wedding guest in Coleridge's grim ballad as I sat listening to +this modern-ancient mariner. I had to remind myself of all the bright +things to be bought for three thousand pounds, every now and then, in +order to endure with fortitude, if not serenity. And now the day's work +is done, I begin to think it might as well have been left undone. How +am I to disintegrate the mass of prosiness which I have heard this day? +For three mortal hours did I listen to my ancient mariner; and how much +am I the wiser for my patience? Clever as you may fancy yourself, my +friend Hawkehurst, you don't seem to be the man for this business. +You have not the legal mind. Your genius is not the genius of +Scotland-yard, and I begin to fear that in your new line you may prove +yourself a failure. + +However, where all is dark to me the astute Sheldon may see daylight, +so I'll observe the letter of my bond, and check off the residuum of +the ancient mariner's prosiness. + +By dint of much pumping I obtained from my ancient, first, his father's +recollections of Matthew Haygarth a few years before his death, and +secondly, his grandfather's recollections of Matthew in his wild youth. +It seems that in those last years of his life Matthew was a most sober +and estimable citizen; attended the chapel of a nonconforming sect; +read the works of Baxter, and followed in the footsteps of his departed +father; was a kind husband to a woman who appears to me to have been +rather a pragmatical and icy personage, but who was esteemed a model of +womanly virtue, and who had money. Strange that these respectable and +wealthy citizens should be so eager to increase their store by alliance +with respectable and wealthy citizenesses. + +In his later years Matthew Haygarth seems to have imitated his father +in many respects. Like his father, he executed more than one will; and, +like his father, he died intestate. The lawyer who drew up his will on +more than one occasion was a man called Brice--like his client, +eminently respectable. + +After his marriage, our esteemed Matthew retired to a modest mansion in +the heart of the country, and some ten or fifteen miles from Ullerton. +The mansion in question is at a place called Dewsdale, and was the +property of the wife, and accrued to him through her. + +This house and estate of some thirty acres was afterwards sold by the +rev. intestate, John Haygarth, shortly after his coming of age, and +within a year of his mother's death. + +This much and no more could I extort from the oldest inhabitant +relative to the latter days of our Matthew. + +Respecting his wild youth I obtained the following crumbs of +enlightenment. In the year 1741-2, being then one-and-twenty years of +age, he left Ullerton. It is my ancient mariner's belief that he ran +away from home, after some desperate quarrel with his father; and it is +also the belief of my ancient that he stayed away, without +intermission, for twenty years,--though on what precise fact that +belief is founded is much more than I can extract from the venerable +proser. + +My ancient suggests--always in the haziest and most impracticable +manner--the possibility that Matthew in his wild days lodged somewhere +Clerkenwell way. He has a dim idea that he has heard his grandfather +speak of St. John's-gate, Clerkenwell, in connection with Matthew +Haygarth; but, as my ancient's grandfather seems to have been almost +imbecile at the time he made such remarks, _this_ is not much. + +He has another idea--also very vague and impracticable--of having heard +his grandfather say something about an adventure of Matthew Haygarth's, +which was rather a heroic affair in its way--an adventure in which, in +some inexplicable manner, the wild Matthew is mixed up with a +dancing-girl, or player-girl, of Bartholomew Fair, and a nobleman. + +This is the sum-total of the information to be extracted in three +mortal hours from my ancient. Altogether the day has been very +unsatisfactory; and I begin to think I'm not up to the sort of work +required of me. _Oct. 3rd._ Another long interview with my ancient. I +dropped in directly after my breakfast, and about an hour after his +dinner. I sat up late last night, occupied till nearly ten in copying +my diary for Sheldon--which was just in time for the London post--and +lingering over my cigar till past midnight, thinking of Charlotte. So I +was late this morning. + +My ancient received me graciously. I took him half a pound of mild +bird's-eye tobacco, on diplomatic grounds. He is evidently the sort of +person who would receive Mephistopheles graciously, if the fiend +presented him with tobacco. + +I returned to the charge--diplomatically, of course; talked about +Ullerton and Ullerton people in general, insinuating occasional +questions about the Haygarths. I was rewarded by obtaining some little +information about Mrs. Matthew. That lady appears to have been a +devoted disciple of John Wesley, and was fonder of travelling to divers +towns and villages to hear the discourses of that preacher than her +husband approved. It seems they were wont to disagree upon this +subject. + +For some years before her marriage Mrs. Matthew was a member of a +Wesleyan confraternity, in those days newly established at Ullerton. +They held meetings and heard sermons in the warehouse of a wealthy +draper; and shortly before Mrs. Matthew's demise they built a chapel, +still extant, in a dingy little thoroughfare known as Waterhouse-lane. + +On these points my ancient mariner is tolerably clear. They belong to +the period remembered by his father. + +And now I believe him to be pumped dry. I gave him my benediction, and +left him smoking some of my tobacco, content with himself and with the +world--always excepting the authorities, or board, of the almshouses, +against whom he appears to nourish a grievance. + +After leaving him, I walked about Ullerton for an hour or so before +returning to my humble hostelry. The streets of Ullerton are sealed +with the seal of desolation--the abomination of desolation reigns in +the market-place, where the grass flourishes greenly in the interstices +of the pavement. The place has known prosperity, and is prosperous no +longer; but although its chief trade has left it, there are still some +three or four factories in full swing. I heard clanging bells, and +met bare-headed women and uncouth-looking men hurrying to and fro. +I went to look at the Wesleyan chapel in Waterhouse-lane. It is a +queer little building, and bears some resemblance to a toy Noah's Ark +in red brick. Tall warehouses have arisen about it and hemmed it in, +and the slim chimney-shaft of a waterworks throws a black shadow aslant +its unpretending facade. I inquired the name of the present minister. +He is called Jonah Goodge, began life as a carpenter, and is accounted +the pink and pattern of piety. _Oct. 4th_. A letter from Sheldon awaited +me in the coffee-room letter-rack when I went downstairs to breakfast. + +"MY DEAR HAWKEHURST,--Don't be disheartened if the work seems slow at +first. You'll soon get used to it. + +"I should recommend you to adopt the following tactics: + +"1st. Go to the house at Dewsdale, inhabited by M.H. and his wife. You +may have some difficulty in obtaining admission--and full liberty to +explore and examine--from the present servant or owner; but you are not +the man I take you for if you cannot overcome such a difficulty. I +enclose a few of my cards, which you can use at your discretion. They +show professional status. It would be as well to call yourself my +articled clerk, and to state that you are prosecuting an inquiry on the +behalf of a client of mine, who wishes to prove a certain event in the +past connected remotely with the H. family. If asked whether your +business relates to the property left by the rev. intestate, you must +reply decisively in the negative. But I must remind you that extreme +caution is required in every move you make. Wherever you can do your +work _without_ any reference to the name of Haygarth, avoid such +reference. Always remember that there may be other people on the same +scent. + +"2nd. Examine the house in detail; look for old pictures, old +furniture, old needlework--if you are lucky enough to find the Haygarth +furniture was sold with the property, which I should think probable. +The rev. intestate must have been at the University when he made the +sale; and a young Cantab would in all likelihood pass over his +ancestral chairs and tables to the purchaser of his ancestral mansion, +as so much useless lumber. It is proverbial that walls have ears. I +hope the Dewsdale walls may have tongues, and favour you with a little +information. + +"3rd. When you have done all that is to be done at Dewsdale, your next +work must be to hunt up any scion of the lawyer Brice, if such scion be +in existence at Ullerton. Or if not to be found in Ullerton, ascertain +where the descendant, or decendants, of Brice is, or are, to be found. +Brice, the lawyer, must have known the contents of those wills executed +and afterwards destroyed by Haygarth, and may have kept rough draughts, +copies, or memoranda of the same. This is most important.--Yours truly, +G.S." + +This Sheldon is a wonderful man, and a cautious!--no Signature to his +letter. + +I started for Dewidale immediately after my breakfast. I have made +arrangements for boarding in this house, which is a second-rate +commercial inn. They have agreed to give me board and lodging for +twenty shillings a week--the full amount of my stipend: so all that I +gain by my researches in the affairs of the departed Matthew is food +and shelter. However, as this food and shelter is perhaps more honestly +obtained than those little dinners which I have so often eaten with the +great Horatio, I will try to fancy a sweetness in the tough steaks and +greasy legs of mutton. O sheep of Midlandshire! why cultivate such +ponderous calves, and why so incline to sinews? O cooks of +Midlandshire! why so superficial in the treatment of your roasts, so +impetuous and inconsiderate when you boil? + +A railroad now penetrates the rural district in which the village of +Dewsdale is situated. There is a little station, something like a +wooden Dutch oven, within a mile of the village; and here I alighted. +The morning savoured of summer rather than autumn. The air was soft and +balmy, the sunshine steeped the landscape in warm light, and the red +and golden tints of the fading foliage took new splendour from that +yellow sunshine. A man whose life is spent in cities must be dull of +soul indeed if he does not feel a little touched by the beauty of +rustic scenery, when he finds himself suddenly in the heart of the +country. I had seen nothing so fair as those English fields and copses +since I left the pine-clad hills of Forêtdechêne. An idiotic boy +directed me across some fields to Dewsdale. He sent me a mile out of +the way; but I forgave and blest him, for I think the walk did me good. +I felt as if all manner of vicious vapours were being blown out of my +head as the soft wind lifted my hair. + +And so to Dewsdale. Strolling leisurely through those quiet meadows, I +fell to thinking of many things that seldom came into my mind in +London. I thought of my dead mother--a poor gentle creature--too frail +to carry heroically the burden laid upon her, and so a little soured by +chronic debt and difficulty. I have reason to remember her tenderly; we +shared so much misery together. I believe my father married her in the +Rules of the Bench; and if I am not sure upon this point, I know for a +certainty that I was born within those mystic boundaries. + +And then my mind wandered to those nomadic adventures in which poor +Diana Paget and I were so much together. I think we were a little fond +of each other in those days; but in that matter I was at least prudent; +and now the transient fancy has faded, on Di's part as well as on mine. + +If I could be as prudent where Charlotte H. is concerned! + +But prudence and Charlotte's eyes cannot hold their own in the same +brain. Of two things, one, as our neighbours say: a man must cease to +be prudent, or he must forget those bewitching gray eyes. + +I know she was sorry when she heard of my intended departure. + +This is her birthday. She is twenty-one years of age to-day. I remember +the two girls talking of it, and Miss Halliday declaring herself "quite +old." My dear one, I drink your health in this poor tavern liquor, with +every tender wish and holy thought befitting your innocent girlhood! + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE. + + +I found the house at Dewsdale without difficulty. It is a stiff, +square, red-brick dwelling-place, with long narrow windows, a high +narrow door, and carved canopy; a house which savours of the _Tatler_ +and _Spectator_; a house in which the short-faced gentleman might have +spent his summer holidays after Sir Roger's death. It stands behind a +high iron gate, surmounted by a handsome coat of arms; and before it +there lies a pleasant patch of greensward, with a pond and a colony of +cackling geese, which craned their necks and screamed at me as I passed +them. + +The place is the simplest and smallest of rural villages. There is a +public-house--the Seven Stars; a sprinkling of humble cottages; a +general shop, which is at once a shoemaker's, a grocer's, a +linen draper's, a stationer's, and a post office. These habitations, a +gray old church with a square tower, half hidden by the sombre foliage +of yews and cedars, and the house once inhabited by the Haygarths, +comprise the whole of the village. The Haygarthian household is now the +rectory. I ascertained this fact from the landlord of the Seven Stars, +at which house of entertainment I took a bottle of soda-water, in order +to _sonder le terrain_ before commencing business. + +The present rector is an elderly widower with seven children; an easy +good-natured soul, who is more prone to bestow his money in charity +than to punctuality in the payment of his debts. + +Having discovered thus much, I rang the bell at the iron gate and +boarded the Haygarthian mansion. The rector was at home, and received +me in a very untidy apartment, _par excellence_ a study. A boy in a +holland blouse was smearing his face with his inky fingers, and +wrestling with a problem in Euclid, while his father stood on a +step-ladder exploring a high shelf of dusty books. + +The rector, whose name is Wendover, descended from the step-ladder and +shook the dust from his garments. He is a little withered old man, with +a manner so lively as to be on the verge of flightiness. I observed +that he wiped his dusty palms on the skirts of his coat, and argued +therefrom that he would be an easy person to deal with. I soon found +that my deduction was correct. + +I presented Sheldon's card and stated my business, of course acting on +that worthy's advice. Could Mr. Wendover give me any information +relating to the Haygarth family? + +Fortune favoured me throughout this Dewsdale expedition. The rector is +a simple garrulous old soul, to whom to talk is bliss. He has occupied +the house five-and-thirty years. He rents it of the lord of the manor, +who bought it from John Haygarth. Not a stick of furniture has been +removed since our friend Matthew's time; and the rev. intestate may +have wrestled with the mysteries of Euclid on the same old-fashioned +mahogany table at which I saw the boy in brown holland. + +Mr. Wendover left his books and manuscripts scattered on the floor of +the study, and conducted me to a cool shady drawing-room, very +shabbily furnished with the spindle-legged chairs and tables of the +last century. Here he begged me to be seated, and here we were ever and +anon interrupted by intruding juveniles, the banging of doors, and the +shrill clamour of young voices in the hall and garden. + +I brought all the diplomacy of which I am master to bear in my long +interview with the rector; and the following is a transcript of our +conversation, after a good deal of polite skirmishing:-- + +_Myself_. You see, my dear sir, the business I am concerned in is +remotely connected with these Haygarths. Any information you will +kindly afford me, however apparently trivial, may be of service in the +affair I am prosecuting. + +_The Rector._ To be sure, to be sure! But, you see, though I've heard a +good deal of the Haygarths, it is all gossip--the merest gossip. People +are so fond of gossip, you know--especially country people: I have no +doubt you have remarked that. Yes, I have heard a great deal about +Matthew Haygarth. My late clerk and sexton,--a very remarkable man, +ninety-one when he died, and able to perform his duties very creditably +within a year of his death--very creditably; but the hard winter of '56 +took him off, poor fellow, and now I have a young man. Old Andrew Hone +--that was my late clerk's name--was employed in this house when a lad, +and was very fond of talking about Matthew Haygarth and his wife. She +was a rich woman, you know, a very rich woman--the daughter of a brewer +at Ullerton; and this house belonged to her--inherited from her +father. + +_Myself_. And did you gather from your clerk that Matthew Haygarth and +his wife lived happily together? + +_The Rector_. Well, yes, yes: I never +heard anything to the contrary. They were not a young couple, you know. +Rebecca Caulfield was forty years of age, and Matthew Haygarth was +fifty-three when he married; so, you see, one could hardly call it a +love-match. [_Abrupt inroad of bouncing damsel, exclaiming "Pa!"_] +Don't you see I'm engaged, Sophia Louisa? Why are you not at your +practice? [_Sudden retreat of bouncing damsel, followed by the +scrambling performance of scale of C major in adjoining chamber, which +performance abruptly ceases after five minutes_.] You see Mrs. +Haygarth was _not_ young, as I was about to observe when my daughter +interrupted us; and she was perhaps a little more steadfast in her +adherence to the newly arisen sect of Wesleyans than was pleasing to +her husband, although he consented to become a member of that sect. But +as their married life lasted only a year, they had little time for +domestic unhappiness, even supposing them not to be adapted to each +other. + +_Myself_. Mrs Matthew Haygarth did not marry again? + +_The Rector_. No; she devoted herself to the education of her son, and +lived and died in this house. The room which is now my study she +furnished with a small reading-desk and a couple of benches, now in my +nursery, and made it into a kind of chapel, in which the keeper of the +general shop--who was, I believe, considered a shining light amongst +the Wesleyan community--was in the habit of holding forth every Sunday +morning to such few members of that sect as were within reach of +Dewsdale. She died when her son was nineteen years of age, and was +buried in the family vault in the churchyard yonder. Her son's +adherence to the Church of England was a very great trouble to her. +[_Inroad of boy in holland, very dejected and inky of aspect, also +exclaiming "Pa!"_] No, John; not till that problem is worked out. Take +that cricket-bat back to the lobby, sir, and return to your studies. +[_Sulky withdrawal of boy._] You see what it is to have a large family, +Mr.--Sheldon. I beg pardon, Mr.------ + +_Myself_. Hawkehurst, clerk to Mr. Sheldon. + +_The Rector_. To be sure. I have some thoughts of the Law for one of my +elder sons; the Church is terribly overcrowded. However, as I was on +the point of saying when my boy John disturbed us, though I have heard +a great deal of gossip about the Haygarths, I fear I can give you very +little substantial information. Their connection with Dewsdale lasted +little more than twenty years. Matthew Haygarth was married in Dewsdale +church, his son John was christened in Dewsdale church, and he himself +is buried in the churchyard. That is about as much positive information +as I can give you; and you will perhaps remark that the parish register +would afford you as much. After questioning the good-natured old rector +rather closely, and obtaining little more than the above information, I +asked permission to see the house. + +"Old furniture and old pictures are apt to be suggestive," I said; "and +perhaps while we are going over the house you may happen to recall some +further particulars relating to the Haygarth family." + +Mr. Wendover assented. He was evidently anxious to oblige me, and +accepted my explanation of my business in perfect good faith. He +conducted me from room to room, waiting patiently while I scrutinised +the panelled walls and stared at the attenuated old furniture. I was +determined to observe George Sheldon's advice to the very letter, +though I had little hope of making any grand melodramatic discovery in +the way of documents hidden in old cabinets, or mouldering behind +sliding panels. + +I asked the rector if he had ever found papers of any kind in forgotten +nooks and corners of the house or the furniture. His reply was a +decided negative. He had explored and investigated every inch of the +old dwelling-place, and had found nothing. + +So much for Sheldon's idea. + +Mr. Wendover led me from basement to garret, encountering bouncing +daughters and boys in brown holland wherever we went; and from basement +to garret I found that all was barren. In the whole of the house there +was but one object which arrested my attention, and the interest which +that one object aroused in my mind had no relation to the Haygarthian +fortune. + +Over a high carved chimney-piece in one of the bedchambers there hung a +little row of miniatures--old-fashioned oval miniatures, pale and +faded--pictures of men and women with the powdered hair of the Georgian +period, and the flowing full-bottomed wigs familiar to St. James's and +Tunbridge-wells in the days of inoffensive Anne. There were in all +seven miniatures, six of which specimens of antique portraiture were +prim and starched and artificial of aspect. But the seventh was +different in form and style: it was the picture of a girlish face +looking out of a frame of loose unpowdered locks; a bright innocent +face, with gray eyes and marked black eyebrows, pouting lips a little +parted, and white teeth gleaming between lips of rosy red; such a face +as one might fancy the inspiration of an old poet. I took the miniature +gently from the little brass hook on which it hung, and stood for some +time looking at the bright frank face. + +It was the picture of Charlotte Halliday. Yes; I suppose there is a +fatality in these things. It was one of those marvellous accidental +resemblances which every man has met with in the course of his life. +Here was this dead-and-gone beauty of the days of George the Second +smiling upon me with the eyes and lips of Philip Sheldon's +stepdaughter! + +Or was it only a delusion of my own? Was my mind so steeped in the +thought of that girl--was my heart so impressed by her beauty, that I +could not look upon a fair woman's face without conjuring up her +likeness in the pictured countenance? However this may be, I looked +long and tenderly at the face which seemed to me to resemble the woman +I love. + +Of course I questioned the rector as to the original of this particular +miniature. He could tell me nothing about it, except that he thought it +was not one of the Caulfields or Haygarths. The man in the +full-bottomed Queen-Anne wig was Jeremiah Caulfield, brewer, father +of the pious Rebecca; the woman with the high powdered head was the +pious Rebecca herself; the man in the George-the-Second wig was +Matthew Haygarth. The other three were kindred of Rebecca's. But the +wild-haired damsel was some unknown creature, for whose presence Mr. +Wendover was unable to account. + +I examined the frame of the miniature, and found that it opened at the +back. Behind the ivory on which the portrait was painted there was a +lock of dark hair incased in crystal; and on the inside of the case, +which was of some worthless metal gilded, there was scratched the name +"Molly." + +How this Molly with the loose dark locks came to be admitted among the +prim, and pious Caulfields is certainly more than I can understand. + +My exploration of the house having resulted only in this little +romantic accident of the likeness to Charlotte, I prepared to take my +departure, no wiser than when I had first crossed the threshold. The +rector very politely proposed to show me the church; and as I +considered that it would be well to take a copy of the Haygarthian +entries in the register, I availed myself of his offer. He despatched a +maid-servant to summon his clerk, in order that that functionary might +assist in the investigation of the registers. The girl departed on this +errand, while her master conducted me across his garden, in which there +is now a gate opening into the churchyard. + +It is the most picturesque of burial-grounds, darkened by the shadow of +those solemn yews and spreading cedars. We walked very slowly between +the crumbling old tombstones, which have almost all grown one-sided +with time. Mr. Wendover led me through a little labyrinth of lowly +graves to a high and ponderous iron railing surrounding a square space, +in the midst of which there is a stately stone monument. In the railing +there is a gate, from which a flight of stone step leads down to the +door of a vault. It is altogether rather a pretentious affair, wherein +one sees the evidence of substantial wealth unelevated by artistic +grace or poetic grandeur. + +This is the family vault of the Caulfields and Haygarths. + +"I've brought you to look at this tomb," said the rector, resting his +hand upon the rusted railing, "because there is rather a romantic story +connected with it--a story that concerns Matthew Haygarth, by the bye. +I did not think of it just now, when we were talking of him; but it +flashed on my memory as we came through the garden. It is rather a +mysterious affair; and though it is not very likely to have any bearing +upon the object of your inquiry, I may as well tell you about it,--as a +leaf out of family history, you know, Mr. Hawkehurst, and as a new +proof of the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction." + +I assured the rector that I should be glad to hear anything he could +tell me. + +"I must premise that I only tell the story as I got it from my old +clerk, and that it may therefore seem rather indistinct; but there is +an entry in the register yonder to show that it is not without +foundation. However, I will waste no more words in preamble, but give +you the story, which is simply this:"-- + +The rector seated himself on a dilapidated old tombstone, while I +leaned against the rails of the Haygarth vault, looking down upon him. + +"Within a month or two of Matthew Haygarth's death a kind of melancholy +came over him," said the rector. "Whether he was unhappy with his wife, +or whether he felt his health declining, is more than I can say. You +must remember that my informant was but a lad at the time of which I +speak, and that when he talked to me about the subject sixty years +afterwards he was a very old man, and his impressions were therefore +more or less vague. But upon certain facts he was sufficiently +positive; and amongst the circumstances he remembered most vividly are +those of the story I am going to tell you. + +"It seems that within a very few weeks of Matthew's death, his wife, +Rebecca Haygarth, started on an expedition to the north, in the company +of an uncle, to hear John Wesley preach on some very special occasion, +and to assist at a love-feast. She was gone more than a fortnight; and +during her absence Matthew Haygarth mounted his horse early one morning +and rode away from Dewsdale. + +"His household consisted of three maids, a man, and the lad Andrew +Hone, afterwards my sexton. Before departing on his journey Mr. +Haygarth had said that he would not return till late the next evening, +and had requested that only the man (whose name I forget) should sit up +for him." He was punctiliously obeyed. The household, always of early +habits, retired at nine, the accustomed hour; and the man-servant +waited to receive his master, while the lad Andrew, who slept in the +stables, sat up to keep his fellow-servant company. + +"At ten o'clock Mr. Haygarth came home, gave his horse into the charge +of the lad, took his candle from the man-servant, and walked straight +upstairs, as if going to bed. The man-servant locked the doors, took +his master the key, and then went to his own quarters. The boy remained +up to feed and groom the horse, which had the appearance of having +performed a hard day's work. + +"He had nearly concluded this business when he was startled by the +slamming of the back door opening into the courtyard, in which were the +stables and outhouses. Apprehending thieves, the boy opened the door of +the stable and looked out, doubtless with considerable caution. + +"It was broad moonlight, and he saw at a glance that the person who had +opened the door was one who had a right to open it. Matthew Haygarth +was crossing the courtyard as the lad peeped out. He wore a long black +cloak, and his head drooped upon his breast as if he had been in +dejection. The lad--being, I suppose, inquisitive, after the manner of +country lads--made no more ado, but left his unfinished work and crept +stealthily after his master, who came straight to this churchyard,-- +indeed to this very spot on which we are now standing. + +"On this spot the boy Andrew Hone became the secret witness of a +strange scene. He saw an open grave close against the rails yonder, and +he saw a little coffin lowered silently into that grave by the sexton +of that time and a strange man, who afterwards went away in a mourning +coach, which was in waiting at the gate, and in which doubtless the +stranger and the little coffin had come. + +"Before the man departed he assisted to fill up the grave; and when it +was filled Matthew Haygarth gave money to both the men--gold it seemed +to the lad Andrew, and several pieces to each person. The two men then +departed, but Mr. Haygarth still lingered. + +"As soon as he fancied himself alone, he knelt down beside the little +grave, covered his face with his hands, and either wept or prayed, +Andrew Hone could not tell which. If he wept, he wept silently. + +"From that night, my sexton said, Matthew Haygarth faded visibly. +Mistress Rebecca came home from her love-feast, and nursed and tended +her husband with considerable kindness, though, so far as I can make +out, she was at the best a stern woman. He died three weeks after the +event which I have described, and was buried in that vault close to the +little grave." I thanked Mr. Wendover for his succinct narrative, and +apologised for the trouble I had occasioned him. + +"Do not speak of the trouble," he answered kindly; "I am used to +telling that story. I have heard it a great many times from poor old +Andrew, and I have told it a great many times." + +"The story has rather a legendary tone," I said; "I should have +scarcely thought such a thing possible." + +The rector shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating gesture. + +"In our own day," he replied, "such an occurrence would be almost +impossible; but you must remember that we are talking of the last +century--a century in which, I regret to say, the clergy of the Church +of England were sadly lax in the performance of their duties. The +followers of Wesley and Whitefield could scarcely have multiplied as +they did if the flocks had not been cruelly neglected by their proper +shepherds. It was a period in which benefices were bestowed constantly +on men obviously unfitted for the holy office--men who were gamblers +and drunkards, patrons of cock-pits, and in many cases open and +shameless reprobates. In such an age almost anything was possible; and +this midnight and unhallowed interment may very well have taken place +either with the consent or without the knowledge of the incumbent, who, +I am told, bore no high character for piety or morality." + +"And you say there is an entry in the register?" + +"Yes, a careless scrawl, dated Sept. 19th, 1774, recording the burial +of one Matthew Haygarth, aged four years, removed from the +burial-ground attached to the parish church of Spotswold." + +"Then it was a reinterment?" + +"Evidently." + +"And is Spotswold in this county?" + +"Yes; it is a very small village, about fifty miles from here." + +"And Matthew Haygarth died very soon after this event?" + +"He did. He died very suddenly--with an awful suddenness--and died +intestate. His widow was left the possessor of great wealth, which +increased in the hands of her son John Haygarth, a very prudent and +worthy gentleman, and a credit to the Church of which he was a member. +He only died very lately, I believe, and must therefore have attained a +great age." + +It is quite evident that Mr. Wendover had not seen the advertisement in +the Times, and was ignorant of the fact that the accumulated wealth of +Haygarths and Caulfields is now waiting a claimant. + +I asked permission to see the register containing the entry of the +mysterious interment; and after the administration of a shilling to the +clerk--a shilling at Dewsdale being equal to half a crown in London-- +the vestry cupboard was opened by that functionary, and the book I +required was produced from a goodly pile of such mouldy brown +leather-bound volumes. + +The following is a copy of the entry:-- + +"On Thursday last past, being ye 19 Sep'tr, A.D. 1774, was interr'd ye +bodie off onne Matthewe Haygarthe, ag'd foure yeres, remoov'd fromm ye +Churcheyarde off St. Marie, under ye hil, Spotswolde, in this Co. Pade +forr so doeing, sevven shill." + +After having inspected the register, I asked many further questions, +but without eliciting much further information. So I expressed my +thanks for the courtesy that had been shown me, and took my departure, +not wishing to press the matter so closely as to render myself a +nuisance to the worthy Wendover, and bearing in mind that it would be +open to me to return at any future time. + +And now I ask myself--and I ask the astute Sheldon--what is the meaning +of this mysterious burial, and is it likely to have any bearing on the +object of our search? These are questions for the consideration of the +astute S. + +I spent my evening in jotting down the events of the day, in the above +free-and-easy fashion for my own guidance, and in a more precise and +business-like style for my employer. I posted my letter before ten +o'clock, the hour at which the London mail is made up, and then smoked +my cigar in the empty streets, overshadowed by gaunt square stacks of +building and tall black chimneys; and so back to my inn, where I took a +glass of ale and another cigar, and then to bed, as the worthy Pepys +might have concluded. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. GOODGE'S WISDOM. + + +_Oct. 5th_. My dreams last night were haunted by the image of gray-eyed +Molly, with her wild loose hair. She must needs have been a sweet +creature; and how she came amongst those prim fishy-eyed men and women +with absurd head-gear is much more than I can understand. That she +should mix herself up with Diana Paget, and play _rouge-et-noir_ at +Forêtdechêne in a tucked-up chintz gown and a quilted satin petticoat, +in my dreams last night--that I should meet her afterwards in the +little stucco temple on the Belgian hills, and stab her to the heart, +whereon she changed into Charlotte Halliday--is only in the nature of +dreams, and therefore no subject for wonder. + +On referring to Sheldon's letter I found that the next people to be +looked up were descendants of Brice the lawyer; so I devoted my +breakfast-hour to the cultivation of an intimacy with the oldest of the +waiters--a very antique specimen of his brotherhood, with a white +stubble upon his chin and a tendency to confusion of mind in the matter +of forks and spoons. + +"Do you know, or have you ever known, an attorney of the name of Brice +in this town?" I asked him. + +He rubbed the white stubble contemplatively with his hand, and then +gave his poor old head a dejected shake. I felt at once that I should +get very little good out of _him_. + +"No," he murmured despondently, "not that I can call to mind." + +I should like to know what he _could_ call to mind, piteous old +meanderer! + +"And yet you belong to Ullerton, I suppose?" + +"Yes; and have belonged to it these seventy-five years, man and boy;" +whereby, no doubt, the dreary confusion of the unhappy being's mind. +Figurez donc, mon cher. Qui-que-ce-soit, fifty-five years or so of +commercial breakfasts and dinners in such a place as Ullerton! +Five-and-fifty years of steaks and chops; five-and-fifty years of ham +and eggs, indifferently buttered toasts, and perennial sixes of +brandy-and-water! After rambling to and fro with spoons and forks, and +while in progress of clearing my table, and dropping the different +items of my breakfast equipage, the poor soddened faded face of this +dreary wanderer became suddenly illumined with a faint glimmer that was +almost the light of reason. + +"There were a Brice in Ullerton when I were a lad; I've heard father +tell on him," he murmured slowly. + +"An attorney?" + +"Yes. He were a rare wild one, he were! It was when the Prince of Wales +were Regent for his poor old mad father, as the saying is, and folks +was wilder like in general in those times, and wore spencers--lawyer +Brice wore a plum-coloured one." + +Imagine then again, mon cher, an attorney in a plum-coloured spencer! +Who, in these enlightened days, would trust his business to such a +practitioner? I perked up considerably, believing that my aged imbecile +was going to be of real service to me. + +"Yes, he were a rare wild one, he were," said my ancient friend with +excitement. "I can remember him as well as if it was yesterday, at +Tiverford races--there was races at Tiverford in those days, and +gentlemen jocks. Lawyer Brice rode his roan mare--Queen Charlotte they +called her. But after that he went wrong, folks said--speckilated with +some money, you see, that he didn't ought to have touched--and went to +America, and died." "Died in America, did he? Why the deuce couldn't he +die in Ullerton? I should fancy it was a pleasanter place to die in +than it is to live in. And how about his sons?" + +"Lawyer Brice's sons?" + +"Yes, of course." + +My imbecile's lips expanded into a broad grin. + +"Lawyer Brice never had no sons," he exclaimed, with a tone which +seemed to express a contemptuous pity for my ignorance; "he never +married." + +"Well, well; his brothers. He had brothers, I suppose?" + +"Not as _I_ ever heard tell on," answered my imbecile, relapsing into +hopeless inanity. + +It was clear that no further help was to be obtained from him. I went +to the landlord--a brisk business-like individual of Transatlantic +goaheadism. From him I learned that there were no Brices in Ullerton, +and never had been within the thirty years of his experience in that +town. He gave me an Ullerton directory in confirmation of that fact--a +neat little shilling volume, which I begged leave to keep for a quarter +of an hour before returning it. + +Brice was evidently a failure. I turned to the letter G, and looked up +the name of Goodge. Goodge, Jonah, minister of Beulah Chapel, resided +at No. 7, Waterhouse-lane--the lane in which I had seen the chapel. + +I determined upon waiting on the worthy Goodge. He may be able to +enlighten me as to the name of the pastor who preached to the Wesleyan +flock in the time of Rebecca Caulfield; and from the descendants of +such pastor I may glean some straws and shreds of information. The +pious Rebecca would have been likely to confide much to her spiritual +director. The early Wesleyans had all the exaltation of the Quietists, +and something of the lunatic fervour of the Convulsionists, who kicked +and screamed themselves into epilepsy under the influence of the +Unigenitus Bull. The pious Rebecca was no doubt an enthusiast. + + * * * * * + +I found No. 7, Waterhouse-lane. It is a neat little six-roomed house, +with preternaturally green palings enclosing about sixty square feet of +bright yellow gravel, adorned by a row of whitewashed shells. Some +scarlet geraniums bloomed in pots of still more vivid scarlet; and the +sight of those bright red blossoms recalled Philip Sheldon's garden at +Bayswater, and that sweet girl by whose side I have walked its trim +pathways. + +But business is business; and if I am ever to sue for my Charlotte's +hand, I must present myself before her as the winner of the three +thousand. Remembering this, I lifted Mr. Goodge's knocker, and +presently found myself in conversation with that gentleman. + +Whether unordained piety has a natural tendency to become greasy of +aspect, and whether, among the many miracles vouchsafed to the amiable +and really great Wesley, he received for his disciples of all time to +come the gift of a miraculous straightness and lankiness of hair, I +know not; but I do know that every Methodist parson I have had the +honour to know has been of one pattern, and that Mr. Goodge is no +exception to the rule. + +I am bound to record that I found him a very civil person, quite +willing to afford me any help in his power, and far more practical and +business-like than the rector of Dewsdale. + +It seems that the gift of tongues descended on the Goodges during the +lifetime of John Wesley himself, and during the earlier part of that +teacher's career. It was a Goodge who preached in the draper's +warehouse, and it was the edifying discourse of a Goodge which +developed the piety of Miss Rebecca Caulfield, afterwards Mrs. +Haygarth. + +"That Goodge was my great-uncle," said the courteous Jonah, "and there +was no one in Ullerton better acquainted with Rebecca Caulfield. I've +heard my grandmother talk of her many a time. She used to send him +poultry and garden-stuff from her house at Dewsdale, and at his +instigation she contributed handsomely to the erection of the chapel in +which it is my privilege to preach." + +I felt that I had struck upon a vein of gold. Here was a sharp-witted, +middle-aged man--not an ancient mariner, or a meandering imbecile--who +could remember the talk of a grandmother who had known Matthew +Haygarth's wife. And this visit to Mr. Goodge was my own idea, not +prompted by the far-seeing Sheldon. I felt myself advancing in the +insidious arts of a private inquirer. + +"I am employed in the prosecution of a business which has a _remote_ +relation to the Haygarth family history," I said; "and if you can +afford me any information on that subject I should be extremely +obliged." + +I emphasised the adjective "remote," and felt myself, in my humble way, +a Talleyrand. + +"What kind of information, do you require?" asked Mr. Goodge +thoughtfully. + +"Any information respecting Matthew Haygarth or his wife." + +Mr. Goodge became profoundly meditative after this. + +"I am not given to act unadvisedly," he began--and I felt that I was in +for a little professional discourse: "the creatures of impulse are the +children of Satan, the babes of Lucifer, the infants of Beelzebub. I +take counsel in the silence of the night, and wait the whispers of +wisdom in the waking hours of darkness. You must allow me time to +ponder this business in my heart and to be still." + +I told Mr. Goodge that I would willingly await his own time for +affording me any information in his power to give. + +"That is pleasant," said the pastor blandly: "the worldly are apt to +rush blindly through life, as the roaring lion rushes through the +forest. I am not one of those rushing worldlings. I presume, by the +way, that such information as I may afford is likely to become a source +of pecuniary profit to your employer?" + +I began to see that my friend Goodge and the rector of Dewsdale were +very different kind of people, and that I must play my cards +accordingly. + +"That will depend upon the nature of your information," I replied +diplomatically; "it may be worth something to us, or it may be +worthless." + +"And in case it should be worth something?" + +"In that case my employer would be glad to remunerate the person from +whom he obtained it." + +Mr. Goodge again became meditative. + +"It was the habit of the sainted Wesley to take counsel from the +Scriptures," he said presently: "if you will call again tomorrow, young +man, I shall have taken counsel, and may be able to entreat with you." + +I did not much relish being addressed as "young man," even by such a +shining light as the Rev. Jonah Goodge. But as I wanted the Rev. +Jonah's aid, I submitted with a tolerable grace to his patriarchal +familiarity, and bade him good morning, after promising to call again +on the following day. I returned to my inn and wrote to Sheldon in time +for the afternoon mail, recounting my interview with Mr. Goodge, and +asking how far I should be authorised to remunerate that gentleman, or +to pledge myself to remunerate him for such information as he might +have to dispose of. + + +_Oct. 6th_. A letter from Sheldon. + +"DEAR HAWKEHURST,--There may be something very important behind that +mysterious burial at Dewsdale. Go without delay to Spotswold; examine +registers, tombstones, &c; hunt up oldest inhabitant or inhabitants, +from whom you may be able to discover whether any Haygarth or Haygarths +over lived there, and all that is known respecting such Haygarth or +Haygarths. You have got a cine to _something_. Follow it up till it +breaks off short, as such clues often do, or till you find it is only +leading you on a wild-goose chase. The Dewsdale business is worth +investigation. + +"Mem. How about descendants of lawyer Brice?--Yours truly, G.S. + +"G.'s Inn, Oct. 5th." + + +Before starting for Spotswold it was necessary +for me to see Mr. Goodge. I found that gentleman in a pious and yet +business-like frame of mind. He had taken counsel from the Scriptures, +like the founder of his sect; but I fancy with rather less spiritual +aspirations. + +"The text upon which the lot fell was the 12th verse of the 9th chapter +in the Book of Proverbs, 'If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for +thyself,'" he said solemnly; "whereby I perceive that I shall not be +justified in parting with that which you seek without fitting +recompense. I ask you, therefore, young man, what are you prepared to +give?" + +The Rev. Jonah's tone could scarcely have been more lofty, or his +manner more patronising, if he had been Saul and I the humble David; +but a man who is trying to earn three thousand pounds must put up with +a great deal. Finding that the minister was prepared to play the +huckster, I employed no further ceremony. + +"The price must of course depend on the quality of the article you have +to sell," I said; "I must know that before I can propose terms." + +"Suppose my information took the form of letters?" + +"Letters from whom--to whom?" + +"From Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth to my great-uncle, Samson Goodge." + +"How many of such letters have you to sell?" + +I put it very plainly; but the Rev. Jonah's susceptibilities were not +of the keenest order. He did not wince. + +"Say forty odd letters." + +I pricked up my ears; and it needed all my diplomacy to enable me to +conceal my sense of triumph. Forty odd letters! There must be an +enormous amount of information in forty odd letters; unless the woman +wrote the direst twaddle ever penned by a feminine correspondent. + +"Over what period do the dates of these letters extend?" I asked. + +"Over about seven years; from 1769 to 1776." + +Four years prior to the marriage with our friend Matthew; three years +after the marriage. + +"Are they tolerably long letters, or mere scrawls?" + +"They were written in a period when nobody wrote short letters," +answered Mr. Goodge sententiously,--"the period of Bath post and dear +postage. The greater number of the epistles cover three sides of a +sheet of letter-paper; and Mrs. Rebecca's caligraphy was small and +neat." + +"Good!" I exclaimed. "I suppose it is no use my asking you to let me +see one of these letters before striking a bargain--eh, Mr. Goodge?" +"Well, I think not," answered the oily old hypocrite. "I have taken +counsel, and I will abide by the light that has been shown me. 'If thou +be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself;' such are the words of +inspiration. No, I think not." + +"And what do you ask for the forty odd letters?" + +"Twenty pounds." + +"A stiff sum, Mr. Goodge, for forty sheets of old letter-paper." + +"But if they were not likely to be valuable, you would scarcely happen +to want them," answered the minister. "I have taken counsel, young +man." + +"And those are your lowest terms?" + +"I cannot accept sixpence less. It is not in me to go from my word. As +Jacob served Laban seven years, and again another seven years, having +promised, so do I abide by my bond. Having said twenty pounds, young +man, Heaven forbid that I should take so much as twenty pence less than +those twenty pounds!" + +The solemn unction with which he pronounced this twaddle is beyond +description. The pretence of conscientious feeling which he contrived +to infuse into his sordid bargain-driving might have done honour to +Molière's Tartuffe. Seeing that he was determined to stick to his +terms, I departed. I telegraphed to Sheldon for instructions as to +whether I was to give Goodge the money he asked, and then went back to +my inn, where I devoted myself for the next ten minutes to the study of +a railway time-table, with a view to finding the best route to +Spotswold. + +After a close perusal of bewildering strings of proper names and +dazzling columns of figures, I found a place called Black Harbour, "for +Wisborough, Spotswold, and Chilton." A train left Ullerton for Black +Harbour at six o'clock in the afternoon, and was due at the latter +place at 8.40. + +This gave me an interval of some hours, in which I could do nothing, +unless I received a telegram from Sheldon. The chance of a reply from +him kept me a prisoner in the coffee-room of the Swan Inn, where I read +almost every line in the local and London newspapers pending the +arrival of the despatch, which came at last. + +"Tell Goodge he shall have the sum asked, and get the letters at once. +Money by to-night's post." + +This was Sheldon's message; sharp and short, and within the eighteen +penny limit. Acting upon this telegram, I returned to the abode of Mr. +Goodge, told him his terms were to be complied with, showed him the +telegram, at his request, and asked for the letters. + +I ought to have known my reverend friend better than to imagine he +would part with those ancient documents except for money upon the +counter. + +He smiled a smile which might have illuminated the visage of +Machiavelli. + +"The letters have kept a long time, young man," he said, after having +studied the telegram as closely as if it had been written in Punic; +"and lo you, they are in nowise the worse for keeping: so they will +keep yet longer. 'If thou be wise, then shalt be wise for thyself.' You +can come for the letters tomorrow, and bring the money with you. Say at +11 A.M." + +I put on my hat and bade my friend good day. I have often been tempted +to throw things at people, and have withheld my hand; but I never felt +Satan so strong upon me as at that moment, and I very much fear that if +I had had anything in the way of a kitchen-poker or a carving-knife +about me, I should have flung that missile at the patriarchal head of +my saintly Jonah. As it was, I bade him good day and returned to the +Swan, where I took a hurried repast and started for the station, +carrying a light carpet-bag with me, as I was not likely to return till +the following night, at the earliest. + +I arrived at the station ten minutes before the starting of the train, +and had to endure ten minutes of that weariness called waiting. I +exhausted the interest of all the advertisements on the station walls; +found out how I could have my furniture removed with the utmost +convenience--supposing myself to possess furniture; discovered where I +ought to buy a dinner-service, and the most agreeable kind of blind to +screen my windows in sunny weather. I was still lingering over the +description of this new invention in blinds, when a great bell set up a +sudden clanging, and the down train from London came thundering into +the station. + +This was also the train for Black Harbour. There were a good many +passengers going northwards, a good many alighting at Ullerton; and in +the hurry and confusion I had some difficulty in finding a place in a +second-class carriage, the passengers therein blocking up the windows +with that unamiable exclusiveness peculiar to railway travellers. I +found a place at last, however; but in hurrying from carriage to +carriage I was startled by an occurrence which I have since pondered +very seriously. + +I ran bolt against my respected friend and patron Horatio Paget. + +We had only time to recognise each other with exclamations of mutual +surprise when the clanging bell rang again, and I was obliged to +scuffle into my seat. A moment's delay would have caused me to be left +behind. And to have remained behind would have been very awkward for +me; as the Captain would undoubtedly have questioned me as to my +business in Ullerton. Was I not supposed to be at Dorking, enjoying the +hospitality of an aged aunt? + +It would have been unlucky to lose that train. + +But what "makes" the gallant Captain in Ullerton? That is a question +which I deliberated as the train carried me towards Black Harbour. + +Sheldon warned me of the necessity for secrecy, and I have been as +secret as the grave. It is therefore next to an impossibility that +Horatio Paget can have any idea of the business I am engaged in. He is +the very man of all others to try and supersede me if he had an inkling +of my plans; but I am convinced he can have no such inkling. + +And yet the advertisement of the Haygarth property in the _Times_ was +as open to the notice of all the world as it was open to the notice of +George Sheldon. What if my patron should have been struck by the same +advertisement, and should have come to Ullerton on the same business? + +It is possible, but it is not likely. When I left town the Captain was +engaged in Philip Sheldon's affairs. He has no doubt come to Ullerton +on Philip Sheldon's business. The town, which seems an abomination of +desolation to a man who is accustomed to London and Paris, is +nevertheless a commercial centre; and the stockbroker's schemes may +involve the simple Ullertonians, as well as the more experienced +children of the metropolis. + +Having thought the business out thus, I gave myself no further trouble +about the unexpected appearance of my friend and benefactor. + +At Black Harbour I found a coach, which carried me to Spotswold, +whither I travelled in a cramped and painful position as regards my +legs, and with a pervading sensation which was like a determination of +luggage to the brain, so close to my oppressed head was the +heavily-laden roof of the vehicle. It was pitch dark when I and two +fellow-passengers of agricultural aspect were turned out of the coach +at Spotswold, which in the gloom of night appeared to consist of half +a dozen houses shut in from the road by ghastly white palings, a grim +looming church, and a low-roofed inn with a feeble light glimmering +athwart a red stuff curtain. + +At this inn I was fain to take up my abode for the night, and was +conducted to a little whitewashed bedchamber, draperied with scanty +dimity and smelling of apples--the humblest, commonest cottage chamber, +but clean and decent, and with a certain countrified aspect which was +pleasing to me. I fancied myself the host of such an inn, with +Charlotte for my wife; and it seemed to me that it would be nice to +live in that remote and unknown village, "the world forgetting, by the +world forgot." I beguiled myself by such foolish fancies--I, who have +been reared amidst the clamour and riot of the Strand! + +Should I be happy with that dear girl if she were mine? Alas! I doubt +it. A man who has led a disreputable life up to the age of +seven-and-twenty is very likely to have lost all capacity for such +pure and perfect happiness as that which good men find in the tranquil +haven of a home. + +Should I not hear the rattle of the billiard-balls, or the voice of the +_croupier_ calling the main, as I sat by my quiet fireside? Should I +not yearn for the glitter and confusion of West-end dancing-rooms, or +the mad excitement of the ring, while my innocent young wife was +sitting by my side and asking me to look at the blue eyes of my +first-born? + +No; Charlotte is not for me. There must be always the two classes--the +sheep and the goats; and my lot has been cast among the goats. + +And yet there are some people who laugh to scorn the doctrines of +Calvin, and say there is no such thing as predestination. + +Is there not predestination? Was not I predestined to be born in a gaol +and reared in a gutter, educated among swindlers and scoundrels, fed +upon stolen victuals, and clad in garments never to be paid for? Did no +Eumenides preside over the birth of Richard Savage, so set apart for +misery that the laws of nature were reversed, and even his mother hated +him? Did no dismal fatality follow the footsteps of Chatterton? Has no +mysterious ban been laid upon the men who have been called Dukes of +Buckingham? + +What foolish lamentations am I scribbling in this diary, which is +intended to be only the baldest record of events! It is so natural to +mankind to complain, that, having no ear in which to utter his +discontent, a man is fain to resort to pen and ink. + +I devoted my evening to conversation with the landlord and his wife, +but found that the name of Haygarth was as strange to them as if it had +been taken from an inscription in the tomb of the Pharaohs. I inquired +about the few inhabitants of the village, and ascertained that the +oldest man in the place is the sexton, native-born, and supposed by +mine host never to have travelled twenty miles from his birthplace. His +name is Peter Drabbles. What extraordinary names that class of people +contrive to have! My first business to-morrow morning will be to find +my friend Drabbles--another ancient mariner, no doubt--and to examine +the parish registers. + +_Oct. 7th_. A misty morning, and a perpetual drizzle--to say nothing of +a damp, penetrating cold, which creeps through the thickest overcoat, +and chills one to the bone. I do not think Spotswold can have much +brightness or prettiness even on the fairest summer morning that ever +beautified the earth. I know that, seen as I see it to-day, the place +is the very archetype of all that is darksome, dull, desolate, dismal, +and dreary. (How odd, by the way, that all that family of epithets +should have the same initial!) A wide stretch of moorland lies around +and about the little village, which crouches in a hollow, like some +poor dejected animal that seeks to shelter itself from the bitter +blast. On the edge of the moorland, and above the straggling cottages +and the little inn, rises the massive square tower of an old church, so +far out of proportion to the pitiful cluster of houses, that I imagine +it must be the remnant of some monastic settlement. + +Towards this church I made my way, under the dispiriting drip, drip of +the rain, and accompanied by a feeble old man, who is sexton, clerk, +gravedigger, and anything or everything of an official nature. + +We went into the church after my ancient mariner No. 2 had fumbled a +good deal with a bunch of ghostly-looking keys. The door opened with a +dismal scroop, and shut with an appalling bang. Grim and dark as the +church is without, it is grimmer and darker within, and damp and +vault-like, _à faire frémir_. There are all the mysterious cupboards +and corners peculiar to such edifices; an organ-loft, from which weird +noises issue at every opening or closing of a door; a vaulted roof, +which echoes one's footsteps with a moan, as of some outraged spirit +hovering in empty space, and ejaculating piteously, "Another impious +intruder after the sacramental plate! another plebeian sole trampling +on the brasses of the De Montacutes, lords of the manor!" + +The vestry is, if anything, more ghostly than the general run of +vestries; but the business mind is compelled to waive all +considerations of a supernatural character. For the moment there +flashed across my brain the shadows of all the Christmas stories I had +ever read or heard concerning vestries; the phantom bridal, in which +the bride's beautiful white hand changed to the bony fingers of a +skeleton as she signed the register; the unearthly christening, in +which all at once, after the ceremony having been conducted with the +utmost respectability, to the edification of the unauthorised intruder +hiding behind a pillar, the godfathers and godmothers, nurse and baby, +priest and clerk, became in a moment dilapidated corpses; whereon the +appalled intruder fell prone at the foot of his pillar, there to be +discovered the next morning by his friends, and the public generally, +with his hair blanched to an awful whiteness, or his noble intellect +degraded to idiocy. For a moment, the memory of about a hundred +Christmas stories was too much for me--so weird of aspect and earthy of +atmosphere was the vestry at Spotswold. And then "being gone" the +shadows of the Christmas stories, I was a man and a lawyer's clerk +again, and set myself assiduously to search the registers and +interrogate my ancient. + +I found that individual a creature of mental fogginess compared with +whom my oldest inhabitant of Ullerton would have been a Pitt, Earl of +Chatham. But I questioned and cross-questioned him until I had in a +manner turned his poor old wits the seamy side without, and had +discovered, first, that he had never known any one called Haygarth in +the whole course of those seventy-five years' vegetation which +politeness compelled me to speak of as his "life;" secondly, that he +had never known any one who knew a Haygarth; thirdly, that he was +intimately acquainted with every creature in the village, and that he +knew that no one of the inhabitants could give me the smallest shred of +such information as I required. + +Having extorted so much as this from my ancient with unutterable +expenditure of time and trouble, I next set to work upon the registers. + +If the ink manufactured in the present century is of no more durable +nature than that abominable fluid employed in the penmanship of a +hundred years ago, I profoundly pity the generations that are to come +after us. The registers of Spotswold might puzzle a Bunsen. However, +bearing in mind the incontrovertible fact that three thousand pounds is +a very agreeable sum of money, I stuck to my work for upwards of two +hours, and obtained as a result the following entries:-- + +"1. Matthew Haygarthe, aged foure yeares, berrid in this churcheyarde, +over against ye tombe off Mrs. Marttha Stileman, about 10 fete fromm ye +olde yue tre. Febevarie 6th, 1753." + +"2. Mary Haygarthe, aged twentie sevene yeers, berrid under ye yue +tree, Nov. 21, 1754." + +After copying these two entries, I went out into the churchyard to look +for Mary Haygarth's grave. + +Under a fine old yew--which had been old a hundred years ago, it seems-- +I found huddled amongst other headstones one so incrusted with moss, +that it was only after scraping the parasite verdure from the stone +with my penknife that I was able to discover the letters that had been +cut upon it. I found at last a brief inscription: + +"Here lieth ye body of MARY HAYGARTH, aged 27. Born 1727. Died 1754. +This stone has been set up by one who sorroweth without hope of +consolation." A strange epitaph: no scrap of Latin, no text from +Scripture, no conventional testimony to the virtues and accomplishments +of the departed, no word to tell whether the dead woman had been maid, +wife, or widow. It was the most provoking inscription for a lawyer or a +genealogist, but such as might have pleased a poet. + +I fancy this Mary Haygarth must have been some quiet creature, with +very few friends to sorrow for her loss; perhaps only that one person +who sorrowed without hope of consolation. + +Such a tombstone might have been set above the grave of that simple +maid who dwelt "beside the banks of Dove." + +This is the uttermost that my patience or ingenuity can do for me at +Spotswold. I have exhausted every possibility of obtaining further +information. So, having written and posted my report to Sheldon, I have +no more to do but to return to Ullerton. I take back with me nothing +but the copy of the two entries in the register of burials. Who this +Matthew Haygarth or this Mary Haygarth was, and how related to the +Matthew, is an enigma not to be solved at Spotswold. + +Here the story of the Haygarths ends with the grave under the yew-tree. + + + + + +BOOK THE FIFTH. + + +RELICS OF THE DEAD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +BETRAYED BY A BLOTTING-PAD. + + +At an early hour upon the day on which Valentine Hawkehurst telegraphed +to his employer, Philip Sheldon presented himself again at the dingy +door of the office in Gray's Inn. + +The dingy door was opened by the still more dingy boy; and Mr. Sheldon +the elder--who lived in a state of chronic hurry, and had a hansom cab +in attendance upon him at almost every step of his progress through +life--was aggravated by the discovery that his brother was out. + +"Out!" he repeated, with supreme disgust; "he always _is_ out, I think. +Where is he to be found?" + +The boy replied that his master would be back in half an hour, if Mr. +Sheldon would like to wait. + +"Like to wait!" cried the stockbroker; "when will lawyers' clerks have +sense enough to know that nobody on this earth ever _liked_ to wait? +Where's your master gone?" + +"I think he's just slipped round into Holborn, sir," the boy replied, +with some slight hesitation. He was very well aware that George had +secrets from his brother, and that it was not judicious to be too free +in his communications to the elder gentleman. But the black eyes and +white teeth of the stockbroker seemed very awful to him; and if Philip +chose to question him, he must needs answer the truth, not having been +provided by his master with any convenient falsehood in case of +inquiry. + +"What part of Holborn?" asked Philip sharply. + +"I did hear tell as it was the telegraph office." + +"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon; and then he dashed downstairs, leaving +the lad on the threshold of the door staring after him with eyes of +wonder. + +The telegraph office meant business; and any business of his brother's +was a matter of interest to Mr. Sheldon at this particular period. He +had meditated the meaning of George's triumphant smile in the secluded +calm of his own office; and the longer he had meditated, the more +deeply rooted had become his conviction that his brother was engaged in +some very deep and very profitable scheme, the nature of which it was +his bounden duty to discover. + +Impressed by this idea, Mr. Sheldon returned to the hansom-cab, which +was waiting for him at the end of Warwick-court, and made his way to +the telegraph office. The ostensible motive of his call in Gray's Inn +was sufficient excuse for this following up of his brother's footsteps. +It was one of those waifs and strays of rather disreputable business +which the elder man sometimes threw in the way of the younger. + +As the wheel of the hansom ground against the kerbstone in front of the +telegraph office, the figure of George Sheldon vanished in a little +court to the left of that establishment. Instead of pursuing this +receding figure, Philip Sheldon walked straight into the office. + +It was empty. There was no one in any of the shaded compartments, so +painfully suggestive of pecuniary distress and the stealthy +hypothecation of portable property. A sound of rattling and bumping in +an inner office betrayed the neighbourhood of a clerk; but in the +office Mr. Sheldon was alone. + +Upon the blotting-pad on the counter of the central partition the +stockbroker perceived one great blot of ink, still moist. Ha laid the +tip of his square forefinger upon it, to assure himself of that fact, +and then set himself deliberately to scrutinise the blotting-paper. He +was a man who seldom hesitated. His greatest _coups_ on the +money-market had been in a great measure the result of this faculty of +prompt decision. To-day he possessed himself of the blotting-pad, and +examined the half-formed syllables stamped upon it with as much coolness +and self-possession as if he had been seated in his own office reading +his own newspaper. A man given to hesitation would have looked to the +right and the left and watched for his opportunity--and lost it. Philip +Sheldon knew better than to waste his chances by needless precaution; +and he made himself master of all the intelligence the blotting-pad +could afford him before the clerk emerged from the inner den where the +rattling and stamping was going forward. + +"I thought as much," muttered the stockbroker, as he recognised traces +of his brother's sprawling penmanship upon the pad. The message had +been written with a heavy hand and a spongy quill pen, and had left a +tolerably clear impression of its contents on the blotting-paper. + +Here and there the words stood out bold and clear; here and there, +again, there was only one decipherable letter amongst a few broken +hieroglyphics. Mr. Sheldon was accustomed to the examination of very +illegible documents, and he was able to master the substance of that +random impression. If he could not decipher the whole, he made out +sufficient for his purpose. Money was to be offered to a man called +Goodge for certain letters. He knew his brother's affairs well enough +to know that these letters for which money was to be offered must needs +be letters of importance in some search for an heir-at-law. So far all +was clear and simple; but beyond this point he found himself at fault. +Where was this Goodge to be found? and who was the person that was to +offer him money for the letters? The names and address, which had been +written first, had left no impression on the blotting-pad, or an +impression so faint as to be useless for any practical purpose. + +Mr. Sheldon put down the pad and lingered by the door of the office +deliberating, when the rattling and hammering came to an abrupt +termination, and the clerk emerged from the interior den. + +"O," he exclaimed, "it's all right. Your message shall go directly." + +The stockbroker, whose face was half averted from the clerk, and who +stood between that functionary and the light from the open doorway, at +once comprehended the error that had arisen. The clerk had mistaken him +for his brother. + +"I'm not quite clear as to whether I gave the right address," he said +promptly, with his face still averted, and his attention apparently +occupied by a paper in his hand. "Just see how I wrote it, there's a +good fellow." + +The clerk withdrew for a few minutes, and returned with the message in +his hand. + +"From George Sheldon to Valentine Hawkehurst, Black Swan Inn, +Ullerton," he read aloud from the document. + +"All right, and thanks," cried the stockbroker. + +He gave one momentary glance at the clerk, and had just time to see +that individual's look of bewilderment as some difference in his voice +and person from the voice and person of the black-whiskered man who had +just left the office dawned upon his troubled senses. After that one +glance Mr. Sheldon darted across the pavement, sprang into his cab, and +called to the driver, "Literary Institution, Burton-street, as fast as +you can go." + +"I'll try my luck in the second column of the _Times_," he said to +himself. "If George's scheme is what I take it to be, I shall get some +clue to it there." He took a little oblong memorandum-book from his +pocket, and looked at his memoranda of the past week. Among those +careless jottings he found one memorandum scrawled in pencil, amongst +notes and addresses in ink, "_Haygarth--intestate. G.S. to see +after._" + +"That's it," he exclaimed; "Haygarth--intestate; Valentine Hawkehurst +_not_ at Dorking, but working for my brother; Goodge--letters to be +paid for. It's all like the bits of mosaic that those antiquarian +fellows are always finding in the ruins of Somebody's Baths; a few +handfuls of coloured chips that look like rubbish, and can yet be +patched into a perfect geometric design. I'll hunt up a file of the +_Times_ at the Burton Institution, and find out this Haygarth, if he +is to be found there." + +The Burton Institution was a somewhat dingy temple devoted to the +interests of science and literature, and next door to some baths that +were very popular among the denizens of Bloomsbury. People in quest of +the baths were apt to ascend the classic flight of steps leading to the +Institution, when they should have descended to a lowlier threshold +lurking modestly by the side of that edifice. The Baths and the +Institution had both been familiar to Mr. Sheldon in that period of +probation which he had spent in Fitzgeorge-street. He was sufficiently +acquainted with the librarian of the Institution to go in and out +uninterrogated, and to make any use he pleased of the reading-room. He +went in to-day, asked to see the latest bound volumes of the _Times_ +and the latest files of unbound papers, and began his investigation, +working backwards. Rapidly and dexterously as he turned the big leaves +of the journals, the investigation occupied nearly three-quarters of an +hour; but at the expiration of that time he had alighted on the +advertisement published in the March of the preceding year. + +He gave a very low whistle--a kind of phantom whistle--as he read this +advertisement. "John Haygarth!--a hundred thousand pounds!" + +The fortune for which a claimant was lacking amounted to a hundred +thousand pounds! Mr. Sheldon knew commercial despots who counted their +wealth by millions, and whose fiat could sway the exchanges of Europe; +but a hundred thousand pounds seemed to him a very nice thing +nevertheless, and he was ready to dispute the prize the anticipation +whereof had rendered his brother so triumphant. + +"He has rejected me as a coadjutor," he thought, as he went back to his +cab after having copied the advertisement; "he shall have me as an +antagonist." + +"Omega-street, Chelsea, next call," he cried to the driver; and was +soon beyond the confines of Bloomsbury, and rattling away towards the +border-land of Belgravia. He had completed his search of the newspapers +at ten minutes past twelve, and at twenty minutes to one he presented +himself at the lodging-house in Omega-street, where he found Captain +Paget, in whose "promoting" business there happened to be a lull just +now. With this gentleman he had a long interview; and the result of +that interview was the departure of the Captain by the two o'clock +express for Ullerton. Thus had it happened that Valentine Hawkehurst +and his patron encountered each other on the platform of Ullerton +station. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +VALENTINE INVOKES THE PHANTOMS OF THE PAST. + + +_Oct. 7th, Midnight_. I was so fortunate as to get away from Spotswold +this morning very soon after the completion of my researches in the +vestry, and at five o'clock in the afternoon I found myself once more +in the streets of Ullerton. Coming home in the train I meditated +seriously upon the unexpected appearance of Horatio Paget at the +head-quarters of this Haygarthian investigation; and the more I +considered that fact, the more I felt inclined to doubt my patron's +motives, and to fear his interference. Can his presence in Ullerton +have any relation to the business that has brought me here? That is the +question which I asked myself a hundred times during my journey from +Spotswold; that is the question which I ask myself still. + +I have no doubt I give myself unnecessary trouble; but I know that old +man's Machiavellian cleverness only too well; and I am inclined to look +with suspicion upon every action of his. My first business on returning +to this house was to ascertain whether any one bearing his name, or +answering to my description of him, had arrived during my absence. I +was relieved by finding that no stranger whatever had put up at the inn +since the previous forenoon. Who may have used the coffee-room is +another question, not so easily set at rest. In the evening a great +many people come in and go out; and my friend and patron may have taken +his favourite brandy-and-soda, skimmed his newspaper, and picked up +whatever information was to be obtained as to _my_ movements without +attracting any particular attention. + +In the words of the immortal lessee of the Globe Theatre, "Why I should +fear I know not ... and yet I feel I fear!" + +I found a registered letter from George Sheldon, enclosing twenty +pounds in notes, and furnished therewith I went straight to my friend +Jonah, whom I found engaged in the agreeable occupation of taking tea. +I showed him the money; but my estimate of the reverend gentleman's +honour being of a very limited nature, I took care not to give it to +him till he had produced the letters. On finding that I was really +prepared to give him his price, he went to an old-fashioned bureau, and +opened one of those secret recesses which cannot for three minutes +remain a secret to any investigator possessed of a tolerably accurate +eye or a three-foot rule. From this hiding-place--which he evidently +considered a triumph of mechanical art, worthy the cabinet of a +D'Argenson or a Fouché--he produced a packet of faded yellow letters, +about which there lurked a faint odour of dried rose-leaves and +lavender, which seemed the very perfume of the past. + +When my reverend friend had laid the packet on the table within reach +of my hand, and not till then, I gave him the bank-notes. His fat old +fingers closed upon them greedily, and his fishy old eyes were +illumined by a faint glimmer which I believe nothing but bank-notes +could have kindled in them. + +After having assured himself that they were genuine acknowledgments of +indebtedness on the part of the old lady in Thread-needle-street, and +not the base simulacra of Birmingham at five-and-twenty shillings a +dozen--thirteen as twelve--Mr. Goodge obligingly consented to sign a +simple form of receipt which I had drawn up for the satisfaction of my +principal. + +"I think you said there were forty-odd letters," I remarked, before I +proceeded to count the documents in the presence of Mr. Goodge. + +That gentleman looked at me with an air of astonishment, which, had I +not known him to be the most consummate of hypocrites, would have +seemed to be simplicity itself. + +"I said from thirty to forty," he exclaimed; "I never said there were +forty-odd letters." + +I looked at him and he looked at me. His face told me plainly enough +that he was trying to deceive me, and my face told him plainly enough +that he had no chance of succeeding in that attempt. Whether he was +keeping back some of the letters with a view to extorting more money +from me hereafter, or whether he was keeping them with the idea of +making a better bargain with somebody else, I could not tell; but of +the main fact I was certain--he had cheated me. + +I untied the red tape which held the letters together. Yes, there was a +piece of circumstantial evidence which might have helped to convict my +friend had he been on his trial in a criminal court. The red tape bore +the mark of the place in which it had been tied for half a century; and +a little way within this mark the trace of a very recent tying. Some of +the letters had been extracted, and the tape had been tied anew. + +I had no doubt that this had been done while my negotiation with Mr. +Goodge had been pending. What was I to do? Refuse the letters, and +demand to have my principal's money returned to me? I knew my friend +well enough to know that such a proceeding would be about as useless as +it would be to request the ocean to restore a cup of water that had +been poured into it. The letters he had given me might or might not +afford some slight link in the chain I was trying to put together; and +the letters withheld from me might be more or less valuable than those +given to me. In any case the transaction was altogether a speculative +one; and George Sheldon's money was hazarded as completely as if it had +been put upon an outsider for the Derby. + +Before bidding him a polite farewell, I was determined to make Mr. +Goodge thoroughly aware that he had not taken me in. + +"You said there were more than forty letters," I told him; "I remember +the phrase 'forty-odd,' which is a colloquialism one would scarcely +look for in Tillotson or in John Wesley, who cherished a prejudice in +favour of scholarship which does not distinguish all his followers. You +said there were forty-odd letters, and you have removed some of them +from the packet. I am quite aware that I have no legal remedy against +you, as our contract was a verbal one, made without witnesses; so I +must be content with what I get; but I do not wish you to flatter +yourself with the notion that you have hoodwinked a lawyer's clerk. You +are not clever enough to do that, Mr. Goodge, though you are knave +enough to cheat every attorney in the Law List." + +"Young man, are you aware----?" + +"As I have suffered by the absence of any witness to our negotiation, I +may as well profit by the absence of any witness to our interview. You +are a cheat and a trickster, Mr. Goodge, and I have the honour to wish +you good afternoon!" "Go forth, young man!" cried the infuriated Jonah +whose fat round face became beet-root colour with rage, and who +involuntarily extended his hand to the poker--for the purpose of +defence and not defiance, I believe. "Go forth, young man! I say unto +you, as Abimelech said unto Jedediah, go forth." + +I am not quite clear as to the two scriptural proper names with which +the Rev. Jonah embellished his discourse on this occasion; but I know +that sort of man always has a leaning to the Abimelech and Jedediahs of +biblical history; solely, I believe, because the names have a sonorous +roll with them that is pleasant in the mouth of the charlatan. + +As I was in the act of going forth--quite at my leisure, for I had no +fear of the clerical poker--my eye happened to alight on a small +side-table, covered with a chessboard-patterned cloth in gaudy colours, +and adorned with some of those sombre volumes which seem like an outward +evidence of the sober piety of their possessor. Among the sombre +volumes lay something which savoured of another hemisphere than that to +which those brown leather-bound books belonged. It was a glove--a +gentleman's glove, of pale lavender kid--small in size for a masculine +glove, and bearing upon it the evidence of the cleaner's art. Such +might be the glove of an exiled Brummel, but could never have encased +the squat paw of a Jonah Goodge. It was as if the _point d'Alençon_ +ruffle of Chesterfield had been dropped in the study of John Wesley. + +In a moment there flashed into my mind an idea which has haunted me +ever since. That glove had belonged to my respected patron, Horatio +Paget, and it was for his benefit the letters had been abstracted from +the packet. He had been with Jonah Goodge in the course of that day, +and had bought him over to cheat me. + +And then I was obliged to go back to the old question, Was it possible +that the Captain could have any inkling of my business? Who could have +told him? + +Who could have betrayed a secret which was known only to George Sheldon +and myself? + +After all, are there not other people than Horatio Paget who wear +cleaned lavender gloves? But it always has been a habit with the +Captain to leave one loose glove behind him; and I daresay it was the +recollection of this which suggested the idea of his interference in +the Goodge business. + +I devoted my evening to the perusal of Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters. +The pale ink, the quaint cramped hand, the old-fashioned abbreviations, +and very doubtful orthography rendered the task laborious; but I stuck +to my work bravely, and the old clock in the market-place struck two as +I began the last letter. As I get deeper into this business I find my +interest in it growing day by day--an interest _sui generis_, apart +from all prospect of gain--apart even from the consideration that by +means of this investigation I am obtaining a living which is earned +_almost_ honestly; for if I tell an occasional falsehood or act an +occasional hypocrisy, I am no worse than a secretary of legation of an +Old Bailey barrister. + +The pleasure which I now take in the progress of this research is a +pleasure that is new to me: it is the stimulus which makes a breakneck +gallop across dreary fields gridironed with dykes and stone walls so +delicious to the sportsman; it is the stimulus which makes the task of +the mathematician sweet to him when he devotes laborious days to the +solution of an abstruse problem; it is the stimulus that sustains the +Indian trapper against all the miseries of cold and hunger, foul +weather, and aching limbs; it is the fever of the chase--that +inextinguishable fire which, once lighted in the human breast, is not +to be quenched until the hunt is ended. + +I should like to earn three thousand pounds; but if I were to be none +the richer for my trouble, I think, now that I am so deeply involved in +this business, I should still go on. I want to fathom the mystery of +that midnight interment at Dewsdale; I want to know the story of that +Mary Haygarth who lies under the old yew-tree at Spotswold, and for +whose loss some one sorrowed without hope of consolation. + +Was that a widower's commonplace, I wonder, and did the unknown mourner +console himself ultimately with a new wife? Who knows? as my Italian +friends say when they discuss the future of France. Shall I ever +penetrate that mystery of the past? My task seems to me almost as +hopeless as if George Sheldon had set me to hunt up the descendants of +King Solomon's ninety-ninth wife. A hundred years ago seems as far +away, for all practical purposes, as if it were on the other side of +the flood. + +The letters are worth very little. They are prim and measured epistles, +and they relate much more to spiritual matters than to temporal +business. Mrs. Rebecca seems to have been so much concerned for the +health of her soul that she had very little leisure to think of +anything so insignificant as the bodies of other people. The letters +are filled with discourses upon her own state of mind; and the tone of +them reveals not a little of that pride whose character it is to +simulate humility. Mrs. Rebecca is always casting ashes on her head; +but she takes care to let her friend and pastor know what a saintly +head it is notwithstanding. + +I have laid aside three of the most secular letters, which I selected +after wading through unnumbered pages of bewailings in the strain of a +Wesleyan Madame Guyon. These throw some little light upon the character +of Matthew Haygarth, but do not afford much information of a tangible +kind. I have transcribed the letters verbatim, adhering even to certain +eccentricities of orthography which were by no means unusual in an age +when the Pretender to the crown of Great Britain wrote of his father as +_Gems_. + +The first letter bears the date of August 30th, 1773, one week after +the marriage of the lady to our friend Matthew. + +"REVERED FRIEND AND PASTOR,--On Monday sennite we arriv'd in London, +wich seems to me a mighty bigg citty, but of no more meritt or piety +than Babylon of old. My husband, who knows ye towne better than he +knows those things with wich it would more become him to be familiar, +was pleas'd to laugh mightily at that pious aversion wherewith I +regarded some of ye most notable sights in this place. We went t'other +night to a great garden called by some Spring Garden, by others +Vauxhall,--as having been at one time ye residence or estate of that +Arch Fiend and Papistical traitor Vaux, or Faux; but although I felt +obligated to my husband for ye desire to entertain me with a fine +sight, I could not but look with shame upon serious Christians +disporting themselves like children amongst coloured lamps, and +listening as if enraptured to profane music, when, at so much less cost +of money or of health, they might have been assembled together to +improve and edify one another. + +"My obliging Mathew would have taken me to other places of the like +character; but inspir'd, as I hope and believe, by ye direction of ye +spirit, I took upon myself to tell him what vain trifling is all such +kind of pleasure. He argu'd with me stoutly, saying that ye King and +Queen, who are both shining examples of goodness and piety, do attend +Vauxhall and Ranelagh, and are to be seen there frequent, to the +delight of their subjects. On which I told him that, much as I esteemed +my sovereign and his respectable consort, I would compleat my existence +without having seen them rather than I would seek to encounter them in +a place of vain and frivolous diversion. He listen'd to my discoorse in +a kind and sober temper, but he was not convinc'd; for by and by he +falls of a sudden to sighing and groaning, and cries out, 'O, I went to +Vauxhall once when ye garden was not many years made, and O, how bright +ye lamps shone, like ye stars of heaven fallen among bushes! and O, how +sweet ye music sounded, like ye hymns of angels in ye dewy evening! but +that was nigh upon twenty years gone by, and all ye world is changed +since then.' + +"You will conceive, Reverend Sir, that I was scandalised by such a +foolish rapsodie, and in plain words admonish'd my husband of his +folly. Whereupon he speedily became sober, and asked my pardon; but for +all that night continued of a gloomy countenance, ever and anon falling +to sighing and groning as before. Indeed, honour'd Sir, I have good +need of a patient sperrit in my dealings with him; for altho' at times +I think he is in a fair way to become a Christian, there are other +times when I doubt Satan has still a hold upon him, and that all my +prayers and admonitions have been in vaine. + +"You, who know the wildness and wickedness of his past life--so far as +that life was ever known to any but himself, who was ever of a secret +and silent disposition concerning his own doings in this city, tho' +free-spoken and frank in all common matters--you, honour'd sir, know +with how serious an intention I have taken upon myself the burden of +matrimony, hoping thereby to secure the compleat conversion of this +waywarde soul. You are aware how it was ye earnest desire of my late +respected father that Mathew Haygarth and I shou'd be man and wife, his +father and my father haveing bin friends and companions in ye days of +her most gracious majesty Queen Anne. You know how, after being lost to +all decent compary for many years, Mathew came back after his father's +death, and lived a sober and serious life, attending amongst our +community, and being seen to shed tears on more than one occasion while +listening to the discourse of our revered and inspired founder. And +you, my dear and honour'd pastor, will feel for me when I tell you how +I am tormented by ye fear of backsliding in this soul which I have +promised to restore to ye fold. It was but yesterday, when walking with +him near St. John's Gate at Clerkenwell, he came to a standstill all of +a sudden, and he cried in that impetuous manner which is even yet +natural to him, 'Look ye now, Becky, wouldst like to see the house in +which the happiest years of my life was spent?' And I making no answer, +as thinking it was but some sudden freak, he points out a black +dirty-looking dwelling-place, with overhanging windows and a wide +gabled roof. 'Yonder it stands, Becky,' he cries; 'number seven +John-street, Clerkenwell; a queer dingy box of four walls, my wench--a +tumble-down kennel, with a staircase that 'twould break your neck to +mount, being strange to it--and half a day's journey from the court-end +of town. But that house was once paradise to me; and to look at it even +now, though 'tis over eighteen years since I saw the inside of it, will +bring the tears into these poor old eyes of mine'. And then he walk'd on +so fast that I could scarce keep pace with him, till we came to +Smithfield; and then he began to tell me about Bartholomew-fair and the +brave sights he had seen; and must needs show me where had stood the +booth of one Fielding--since infamously notorious as the writer of some +trashy novels, the dulness whereof is only surpassed by their profligacy: +and then he talks of Fawkes the conjurer, who made a great fortune, and +of some humble person called 'Tiddy Doll,' a dealer in gingerbread and +such foolish wares. But he could tell me nothing of those early +preachings of our revered founder in Moorfields, which would have been +more pleasant to me than all this vain babble about drolls and jesters, +gingerbread bakers and showmen. + +"When we had walked the round of the place, and it was time to take +coach for our lodging at Chelsea--he having brought me thus far to see +St. Paul's and the prison of Newgate, the Mint and Tower--the gloomy +fit came on him again, and all that evening he was dull and sorrowful, +though I read aloud to him from the printed sermons of a rising member +of our community. So you will see, honour'd sir, how difficult it is +for these children of Satan to withdraw themselves from that master +they have once served; since at the sober age of fifty-three yeares my +husband's weak heart yet yearns after profligate faires and foolish +gardens lighted by color'd lampes. + +"And now no more, reverend friend, my paper being gone and it being +full time to reflect that y'r patience must be gone also. Service to +Mrs. Goodge. I have no more room but to assure you that y'r gayeties of +this foolish and erring citty have no power to withdraw y'r heart of +her whose chief privilege it is to subscribe herself, + +"Your humble follower and servant." + +"Rebecca Haygarth." + + +To my mind there seems just a shadowy hint of some bygone romance in +this letter. Why did the dingy house in John-street bring the tears +into Matthew's eyes? and why did the memory of Vauxhall and Bartholomew +fair seem so sweet to him? And then that sighing and groaning and +dolefulness of visage whenever the thought of the past came back to +him? + +What did it all mean, I wonder? Was it only his vanished youth, which +poor, sobered, converted, Wesleyanised Matthew regretted? or were there +pensive memories of something even sweeter than youth associated with +the coloured lamps of Vauxhall and the dinginess of Clerkenwell? Who +shall sound the heart of a man who lived a hundred years ago? and where +is the fathom-line which shall plumb its mysteries? I should need a +stack of old letters before I could arrive at the secret of that man's +life. + +The two other letters, which I have selected after some deliberation, +relate to the last few weeks of Matthew's existence; and in these again +I fancy I see the trace of some domestic mystery, some sorrowful secret +which this sober citizen kept hidden from his wife, but which he was on +several occasions half inclined to reveal to her. + +Perhaps if the lady's piety--which seems to have been thoroughly +sincere and praiseworthy, by the bye--had been a little less cold and +pragmatical in its mode of expression, poor Matthew might have taken +heart of grace and made a clean breast of it. + +That there was a secret in the man's life I feel convinced; but that +conviction goes very little way towards proving any one point of the +smallest value to George Sheldon. + +I transcribe an extract from each of the two important letters; the +first written a month before Matthew's death, the second a fortnight +after that event. + +"And indeed, honour'd sir, I have of late suffered much uneasinesse of +speritt concerning my husband. Those fits of ye mopes of w'h I informed +you some time back have again come upon him. For awhile I did hope that +these melancholic affections were ye fruit put forth by a regenerate +soul; but within this month last past it has been my sorrow to discover +that these gloomy disorders arise rather from ye promptings of the Evil +One. It has pleased Mr. Haygarthe of late to declare that his life is +nigh at an end; and indeed he affects a conviction that his days are +number'd. This profane and impertinent notion I take to be a direct +inspiration of Satan, of a like character to ye sudden and +unaccountable fitts of laughter which have seized upon many pious +Christians in the midst of earnest congregations; whereby much shame +and discomfiture has been brought upon our sect. Nor is there any +justification for this presumptuous certainty entertained by my +husband, inasmuch as his health is much as it has ordinarily been for +ye last ten years. He does acknowledge this with his own lips, and +immediately after cries out that his race is run, and ye hand of death +is upon him; which I cannot but take as ye voice of ye enemy speaking +through that weak mouth of ye flesh. + +"On Sunday night last past, ye gloomy fitt being come upon him after +prayers, Mr. Haygarthe began all on a sudden, as it is his habit to do: + +"'There is something I would fain tell ye, wench,' he cries out, +'something about those roistering days in London, which it might be +well for thee to know.' + +"But I answered him directly, that I had no desire to hear of profane +roisterings, and that it would be better for him to keep his peace, and +listen reverently to the expounding of the Scriptures, which Humphrey +Bagot, our worthy pastor and friend, had promised to explain and +exemplify after supper. We was seated at ye time in ye blue parlour, +the table being spread for supper, and were awaiting our friend from +the village, a man of humble station, being but a poor chapman and +huckster, but of exalted mind and a most holy temper, and sells me the +same growth of Bohea as that drunk by our gracious queen at Windsor. +After I had thus reproved him--in no unkind speritt--" Mr. Haygarthe +fell to sighing; and then cries out all at once: + +"'When I am on my death-bed, wife, I will tell thee something: be sure +thou askest me for it; or if death come upon me unawares, thou wouldst +do well to search in the old tulip-leaf bureau for a letter, since I +may tell thee that in a letter which I would not tell with these lips.' + +"Before there was time to answer him in comes Mr. Bagot, and we to +supper; after which he did read the sixth chapter of Hebrews and +expound it at much length for our edifying; at the end whereof Satan +had obtained fast hold of Mr. Haygarthe, who was fallen asleep and +snoring heavily." + +Here is plain allusion to some secret, which that pragmatical idiot, +Mrs. Rebecca, studiously endeavoured not to hear. The next extract is +from a letter written when the lips that had been fain to speak were +stilled for ever. Ah, Mistress Rebecca, you were but mortal woman, +although you were also a shining light amongst the followers of John +Wesley; and I wonder what you would have given for poor Matthew's +secret _then_. + +"Some days being gone after this melancholic event, I bethought me of +that which my husband had said to me before I left Dewsdale for that +excursion to the love-feasts at Kemberton and Kesfield, Broppindean and +Dawnfold, from which I returned but two short weeks before my poor +Matthew's demise. I called to remembrance that discourse about +approaching death which in my poor human judgment I did esteem a +pestilent error of mind, but which I do now recognise as a spiritual +premonition; and I set myself earnestly to look for that letter which +Matthew told me he would leave in the tulip-leaf bureau. But though I +did search with great care and pains, my trouble was wasted, inasmuch +as there was no letter. Nor did I leave off to search until ev'ry nook +and crevvis had been examin'd. But in one of ye secret drawers, hidden +in an old dog's-eared book of prayers, I did find a lock of fair hair, +as if cut from the head of a child, entwin'd curiously with a long +plait of dark hair, which, by reason of ye length thereof, must needs +have been the hair of a woman, and with these the miniature of a girl's +face in a gold frame. I will not stain this paper, which is near come +to an end, by the relation of such suspicions as arose in my mind on +finding these curious treasures; nor will I be of so unchristian a +temper as to speak ill of the dead. My husband was in his latter days +exemplarily sober, and a humble acting Xtian. Ye secrets of his earlier +life will not now be showne to me on this side heaven. I have set aside +ye book, ye picture, and ye plaited hair in my desk for conveniency, +where I will show them to you when I am next rejoic'd by y'r improving +conversation. Until then, in grief or in happiness, in health and +sickness, I trust I shall ever continue, with y'r same sincerity, + +"Your humble and obliged Servant and disciple + +"REBECCA HAYGARTHE." + +Thus end my excerpts from the correspondence of Mrs. Haygarthe. They +are very interesting to me, as containing the vague shadow of a +vanished existence; but whether they will ever be worth setting forth +in an affidavit is extremely uncertain. Doubtless that miniature of an +unknown girl which caused so much consternation in the mind of sober +Mrs. Rebecca was no other than the "Molly" whose gray eyes reminded me +of Charlotte Halliday. + +As I copied Mrs. Rebecca's quaint epistles, in the midnight stillness, +the things of which I was writing arose before me like a picture. I +could see the blue parlour that Sunday evening; the sober couple seated +primly opposite to each other; the china monsters on the high +chimneypiece; the blue-and-white Dutch tiles, with queer squat figures +of Flemish citizens on foot and on horseback; the candles burning dimly +on the spindle-legged table--two poor pale flames reflected ghastly in +the dark polished panels of the wainscot; the big open Bible on an +adjacent table; the old silver tankard, and buckhorn-handled knives and +forks set out for supper; the solemn eight-day clock, ticking drearily +in the corner; and amid all that sombre old-fashioned comfort, +gray-haired Matthew sighing and lamenting for his vanished youth. + +I have grown strangely romantic since I have fallen in love with +Charlotte Halliday. The time was when I should have felt nothing but a +flippant ignorant contempt for poor Haygarth's feeble sighings and +lamentings; but now I think of him with a sorrowful tenderness, and am +more interested in his poor commonplace life, that picture, and those +two locks of hair, than in the most powerful romance that ever emanated +from mortal genius. It has been truly said, that truth is stranger than +fiction: may it not as justly be said, that truth has a power to touch +the human heart which is lacking in the most sublime flights of a +Shakespeare, or the grandest imaginings of an Aeschylus? One is sorry +for the fate of Agamemnon; but one is infinitely more sorrowful for the +cruel death of that English Richard in the dungeon at Pomfret, who was +a very insignificant person as compared to the king of men and of +ships. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +HUNTING THE JUDSONS. + + +_Oct. 10th_. Yesterday and the day before were blank days. On Saturday +I read Mrs. Rebecca's letters a second time after a late breakfast, and +spent a lazy morning in the endeavour to pick up any stray crumbs of +information which I might have overlooked the previous night. There was +nothing to be found, however; and, estimable as I have always +considered the founder of the Wesleyan fraternity, I felt just a little +weary of his virtues and his discourses, his journeyings from place to +place, his love-feasts and his prayer-meetings, before I had finished +with Mrs. Haygarth's correspondence. In the afternoon I strolled about +the town; made inquiries at several inns, with a view to discover +whether Captain Paget was peradventure an inmate thereof; looked in at +the railway-station, and watched the departure of a train; dawdled away +half an hour at the best tobacconist's shop in the town on the chance +of encountering my accomplished patron, who indulges in two of the +choicest obtainable cigars per diem, and might possibly repair thither +to make a purchase, if he were in the place. Whether he is still in +Ullerton or not I cannot tell; but he did not come to the +tobacconist's; and I was fain to go back to my inn, having wasted a +day. Yet I do not think that George Sheldon will have cause to complain +of me, since I have worked very closely for my twenty shillings per +week, and have devoted myself to the business in hand with an amount of +enthusiasm which I did not think it possible for me to experience +--except for-- + +I went to church on Sunday morning, and was more devoutly inclined than +it has been my habit to feel; for although a man who lives by his wits +must not necessarily be a heathen or an atheist, it is very difficult +for him to be anything like a Christian. Even my devotion yesterday was +not worth much, for my thoughts went vagabondising off to Charlotte +Halliday in the midst of a very sensible practical sermon. + +In the afternoon I read the papers, and dozed by the fire in the +coffee-room--two-thirds coke by the way, and alternating from the +fierceness of a furnace to the dreary blackness of an exhausted +coal-mine--still thinking of Charlotte. + +Late in the evening I walked the streets of the town, and thought what +a lonely wretch I was. The desert of Sahara is somewhat dismal, I +daresay; but in its dismality there is at least a flavour of romance, a +smack of adventure. O, the hopeless dulness, the unutterable blankness +of a provincial town late on a Sunday night, as it presents itself to +the contemplation of a friendless young man without a sixpence in his +pocket, or one bright hope to tempt him to forgetfulness of the past in +pleasant dreaming of the future! + +Complaining again! O pen, which art the voice of my discontent, your +spluttering is like this outburst of unmanly fretfulness and futile +rage! O paper, whose flat surface typifies the dull level of my life, +your greasy unwillingness to receive the ink is emblematic of the +soul's revolt against destiny! + +This afternoon brought me a letter from Sheldon, and opened a new +channel for my explorations in that underground territory, the past. +That man has a marvellous aptitude for his work; and has, what is more +than aptitude, the experience of ten years of failure. Such a man must +succeed sooner or later. I wonder whether his success will come while I +am allied to him. I have been used to consider myself an unlucky +wretch, a creature of ill-fortune to others as well as to myself. It is +a foolish superstition, perhaps, to fancy one's self set apart for an +evil destiny; but the Eumenides have been rather hard upon me. Those +"amiable" deities, whom they of Colonae tried so patiently to conciliate +with transparent flatteries, have marked me for their prey from the +cradle--I don't suppose that cradle was paid for, by the bye. I wonder +whether there is an avenging deity whose special province it is to +pursue the insolvent--a Nemesis of the Bankruptcy Court. + +My Sheldon's epistle bears the evidence of a very subtle brain, as I +think. It is longer than his previous letters. I transcribe it here, as +I wish this record to be a complete brief of my proceedings in this +Haygarth business. + + +"Gray's Inn, Sunday night. + +"DEAR HAWKEHURST,--The copies of the letters came duly to hand, and I +think you have made your selections with much discretion, always +supposing you have overlooked nothing in the remaining mass of writing. +I will thank you to send me the rest of the letters, by the way. You +can take notes of anything likely to be useful to yourself, and it will +be as well for me to possess the originals. + +"I find one very strong point in the first letter of your selection, +viz. the allusion to a house in John-street. It is clear that Matthew +lived in that house, and in that neighbourhood there may even yet +remain some traces of his existence. I shall begin a close +investigation to-morrow within a certain radius of that spot; and if I +have the good luck to fall upon any clear-headed centenarians, I may +pick up something. + +"There are some alms-houses hard by Whitecross-street prison, where the +inmates live to ages that savour of the Pentateuch. Perhaps there I may +light upon some impoverished citizen fallen from a good estate who can +remember some contemporary of Matthew's. London was smaller in those +days than it is now, and men lived out their lives in one spot, and had +leisure to be concerned about the affairs of their neighbours. As I +have now something of a clue to Matthew's roistering days, I shall set +to work to follow it up closely; and your provincial researches and my +metropolitan investigations proceeding simultaneously, we may hope to +advance matters considerably ere long. For your own part, I should +advise you forthwith to hunt up the Judson branch. You will remember +that Matthew's only sister was a Mrs. Judson of Ullerton. I want to +find an heir-at-law in a direct line from Matthew; and you know my +theory on that point. But if we fail in that direction, we must of +course fall back upon the Judsons, who are a disgustingly complicated +set of people, and will take half a lifetime to disentangle, to say +nothing of other men who may be working the same business, and who are +pretty sure to have pinned their faith on the female branch of the +Haygarthian tree. + +"I want you to ferret out some of the Judson descendants with a view to +picking up further documentary evidence in the shape of old letters, +inscriptions in old books, and so on. That Matthew had a secret is +certain; and that he was very much inclined to reveal that secret in +his later days is also certain. Who shall say that he did not tell it +to his only sister, though he was afraid to tell it to his wife? + +"You have acted with so much discretion up to this point, that I do not +care to trouble you with any further hints or suggestions. When money +is wanted, it shall be forthcoming; but I must beg you to manage things +economically, as I have to borrow at a considerable sacrifice; and +should this affair prove a failure, my ruin is inevitable. + +"Yours, &c. G.S." + + +My friend Sheldon is a man who can never have been more than "yours +et-cetera" to any human creature. I suppose what he calls ruin would be +a quiet passage through the Bankruptcy Court, and a new set of chambers. +I should not suppose that sort of ruin would be very terrible for a man +whose sole possessions are a few weak-backed horsehair chairs, a couple +of battered old desks, half a dozen empty japanned boxes, a file of +_Bell's Life_, and a Turkey carpet in which the progress of corruption +is evident to the casual observer. + +The hunting-up of the Judsons is a very easy matter as compared to the +task of groping in the dimness of the past in search of some faint +traces of the footsteps of departed Haygarths. Whereas the Haygarth +family seem to be an extinct race, the Judsonian branch have bred and +mustered in the land; and my chief difficulty in starting has been an +_embarras de richesse_, in the shape of half a page of Judsons in the +Ullerton directory. + +Whether to seek out Theodore Judson, the attorney, in Nile street East, +or the Rev. James Judson, curate of St. Gamaliel; whether to appeal in +the first instance to Judson & Co., haberdashers and silk mercers, of +the Ferrygate, or to Judson of Judson and Grinder, wadding +manufacturers in Lady-lane--was the grand question. On inquiring of the +landlord as to the antecedents of these Judsons, I found that they were +all supposed to spring from one common stock, and to have the blood of +old Jonathan Haygarth in their veins. The Judsons had been an obscure +family--people of "no account," my landlord told me, until Joseph +Judson, chapman and cloth merchant in a very small way, was so +fortunate as to win the heart of Ruth Haygarth, only daughter of the +wealthy Nonconformist grocer in the market-place. This marriage had +been the starting-point of Joseph Judson's prosperity. Old Haygarth had +helped his industrious and respectable son-in-law along the stony road +that leads to fortune, and had no doubt given him many a lift over the +stones which bestrew that toilsome highway. My landlord's information +was as vague as the information of people in general; but it was easily +to be made out, from his scanty shreds and scraps of information, that +the well-placed Judsons of the present day had almost all profited to +some extent by the hard-earned wealth of Jonathan Haygarth. "They've +nearly all of them got the name of Haygarth mixed up with their other +names somehow," said my landlord. "Judson of Judson and Grinder is +Thomas Haygarth Judson. He's a member of our tradesman's club, and +worth a hundred thousand pounds, if he's worth a sixpence." + +I have observed, by the way, that a wealthy tradesman in a country town +is never accredited with less than a hundred thousand; there seems a +natural hankering in the human mind for round numbers. + +"There's J.H. Judson of St. Gamaliel," continued my landlord--"he's +James Haygarth Judson; and young Judson the attorney's son puts +'Haygarth Judson' on his card, and gets people to call him Haygarth +Judson when they will--which in a general way they won't, on account of +his giving himself airs, which you may see him any summer evening +walking down Ferrygate as if the place belonged to him, and he didn't +set much value on it. They _do_ say his father's heir-at-law to a +million of money left by the last of the Haygarths, and that he and the +son are trying to work up a claim to the property against the Crown. +But I have heard young Judson deny it in our room when he was spoken to +about it, and I don't suppose there's much ground for people's talk." + +I was sorry to discover there was any ground for such talk; Mr. Judson +the lawyer would be no insignificant opponent. I felt that I must give +a very wide berth to Mr. Theodore Judson the attorney, and his stuck-up +son, unless circumstances should so shape themselves as to oblige us to +work with him. In the meanwhile any move I made amongst the other +Judsons would be likely, I thought, to come to the knowledge of these +particular members of the family. + +"Are the Judson family very friendly with one another?" I artfully +inquired. + +"Well, you see, some of 'em are, and some of 'em ain't. They're most of +'em third and fourth cousins, you see, and that ain't a very near +relationship in a town where there's a good deal of competition, and +interests often clash. Young Theodore--Haygarth Judson as he calls +himself--is very thick with Judson of St. Gamaliel's, they were at +college together, you see: and fine airs they give themselves on the +strength of a couple of years or so at Cambridge. Those two get on very +well together. But Judson of the Lady-lane Mills don't speak to either +of 'em when he meets 'em in the street, and has been known to cut 'em +dead in my room. William Judson of Ferrygate is a dissenter, and keeps +himself to himself very close. The other Judsons are too fast a lot for +him: though what's the harm of a man taking a glass or two of +brandy-and-water of an evening with his friends is more than _I_ can +find out," added mine host, musingly. + +It was to William Judson the dissenter, who kept himself to himself, +that I determined to present myself in the first instance. As a +dissenter, he would be likely to have more respect for the memory of +the Nonconformist and Wesleyan Haygarths, and to have preserved any +traditions relating to them with more fidelity than the Anglican and +frivolous members of the Judson family. As an individual who kept +himself to himself, he would be unlikely to communicate my business to +his kindred. + +I lost no time in presenting myself at the house of business in +Ferrygate, and after giving the servant George Sheldon's card, and +announcing myself as concerned in a matter of business relating to the +Haygarth family, I was at once ushered into a prim counting-house, +where a dapper little old gentleman in spotless broadcloth, and a +cambric cravat and shirt frill which were soft and snowy as the plumage +of the swan, received me with old-fashioned courtesy. I was delighted +to find him seventy-five years of age at the most moderate computation, +and I should have been all the better pleased if he had been older. I +very quickly discovered that in Mr. Judson the linen draper I had to +deal with a very different person from the Rev. Jonah Goodge. He +questioned me closely as to my motive in seeking information on the +subject of the departed Haygarth, and I had some compunction in +diplomatising with him as I had diplomatised with Mr. Goodge. To +hoodwink the wary Jonah was a triumph--to deceive the confiding +linen draper was a shame. However, as I have before set down, I suppose +at the falsest I am not much farther from the truth than a barrister or +a diplomatist. Mr. Judson accepted my account of myself in all +simplicity, and seemed quite pleased to have an opportunity of talking +about the deceased Haygarths. + +"You are not concerned in the endeavour to assert Theodore Judson's +claim to the late John Haygarth's property, eh?" the old man asked me +presently, as if struck by a sudden misgiving. + +I assured him that Mr. Theodore Judson's interests and mine were in no +respect identical. + +"I am glad of that," answered the draper; "not that I owe Theodore +Judson a grudge, you must understand, though his principles and mine +differ very widely. I have been told that he and his son hope to +establish a claim to that Haygarth property; but they will never +succeed, sir--they will never succeed. There was a young man who went +to India in '41; a scamp and a vagabond, sir, who was always trying to +borrow money in sums ranging from a hundred pounds, to set him up in +business and render him a credit to his family, to a shilling for the +payment of a night's lodging or the purchase of a dinner. But that +young man was the great-grandson of Ruth Haygarth--the eldest surviving +grandson of Ruth Haygarth's eldest son; and if that man is alive, he is +rightful heir to John Haygarth's money. Whether he is alive or dead at +this present moment is more than I can tell, since he has never been +heard of in Ullerton since he left the town; but until Theodore Judson +can obtain legal proof of that man's death he has no more chance of +getting one sixpence of the Haygarth estate than I have of inheriting +the crown of Great Britain." + +The old man had worked himself into a little passion before he finished +this speech, and I could see that the Theodore Judsons were as +unpopular in the draper's counting-house as they were at the Swan Inn. + +"What was this man's Christian name?" I asked. + +"Peter. He was called Peter Judson; and was the great-grandson of my +grandfather, Joseph Judson, who inhabited this very house, sir, more +than a hundred years ago. Let me see: Peter Judson must have been about +five-and-twenty years of age when he left Ullerton; so he is a +middle-aged man by this time if he hasn't killed himself, or if the +climate hasn't killed him long ago. He went as supercargo to a merchant +vessel: he was a clever fellow, and could work hard when it suited him, +in spite of his dissipated life. Theodore Judson is a very good lawyer; +but though he may bring all his ingenuity to bear, he will never +advance a step nearer to the possession of John Haygarth's money till +he obtains evidence of Peter Judson's death; and he's afraid to +advertise for that evidence for fear he might arouse the attention of +other claimants." + +Much as I was annoyed to find that there were claimants lying in wait +for the rev. intestate's wealth, I was glad to perceive that Theodore +Judson's unpopularity was calculated to render his kindred agreeably +disposed to any stranger likely to push that gentleman out of the list +of competitors for these great stakes, and I took my cue from this in +my interview with the simple old draper. + +"I regret that I am not at liberty to state the nature of my business," +I said, in a tone that was at once insinuating and confidential; "but I +think I may venture to go so far as to say, without breach of trust to +my employer, that whoever may ultimately succeed to the Rev. John +Haygarth's money, neither Mr. Judson the lawyer nor his son will ever +put a finger on a penny of it." + +"I am not sorry to hear it," answered Mr. Judson, enraptured; "not that +I owe the young man a grudge, you must understand, but because he is +particularly undeserving of good fortune. A young man who passes his +own kindred in the streets of his native town without the common +courtesy due to age or respectability; a young man who sneers at the +fortune acquired in an honest and reputable trade; a young man who +calls his cousins counter-jumpers, and his aunts and uncles +'swaddlers'--a vulgar term of contempt applied to the earlier members +of the Wesleyan confraternity--such a young man is not the individual +to impart moral lustre to material wealth; and I am free to confess +that I had rather any one else than Theodore Judson should inherit this +vast fortune. Why, are you aware, my dear sir, that he has been seen to +drive tandem through this very street, as it is; and I should like to +know how many horses he would harness to that gig of his, or how openly +he would insult his relatives, if he had a hundred thousand pounds to +deal with?" + +"A hundred thousand pounds!" exclaimed I; "am I to understand that the +fortune left by the Reverend John Haygarth amounts to that sum?" + +"To every penny of it, sir; and a nice use Theodore Judson and that +precious son of his would make of it if it fell into their hands." + +For a second time Mr. Judson the draper had worked himself into a +little passion, and the conversation had to be discontinued for some +minutes while he cooled down to his ordinary temperament. + +"O ho!" said I within myself, while awaiting the completion of this +cooling-down process; "so _this_ is the stake for which my friend +Sheldon is playing!" + +"I'll tell you what I will do for you, Mr.--Mr. Hawke-shell,"--Mr. +Judson said at last, making a compound of my own and my employer's +names; "I will give you a line of introduction to my sister. If any one +can help you in hunting up intelligence relating to the past she can. +She is two years my junior--seventy-one years of age, but as bright and +active as a girl. She has lived all her life in Ullerton, and is a +woman who hoards every scrap of paper that comes in her way. If old +letters or old newspapers can assist you, she can show you plenty +amongst her stores." + +Upon this the old man wrote a note, which he dried with sand out of a +perforated bottle, as Richard Steele may have dried one of those airy +tender essays which he threw off in tavern parlours for the payment of +a jovial dinner. + +Provided with this antique epistle, written on Bath post and sealed +with a great square seal from a bunch of cornelian monstrosities which +the draper carried at his watch-chain, I departed to find Miss +Hephzibah Judson, of Lochiel Villa, Lancaster-road. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +GLIMPSES OF A BYGONE LIFE. + + +_October 10th_. I found the villa inhabited by Miss Hephzibah Judson +very easily, and found it one of those stiff square dwelling-houses +with brass curtain-rods, prim flower-beds, and vivid green palings, +only to be discovered in full perfection in the choicer suburb of a +country town. + +I had heard enough during my brief residence in Ullerton to understand +that to live in the Lancaster-road was to possess a diploma of +respectability not easily vitiated by individual conduct. No +disreputable persons had ever yet set up their unholy Lares and Penates +in one of those new slack-baked villas; and that person must have been +very bold who, conscious of moral unfitness or pecuniary shortcoming, +should have ventured to pitch his tent in that sacred locality. + +Miss Hephzibah Judson was one of the individuals whose shining sanctity +of life and comfortable income lent a reflected brightness to the +irreproachable suburb. I was admitted to her abode by an elderly woman +of starched demeanour but agreeable visage, who ushered me into a +spotless parlour, whereof the atmosphere was of that vault-like +coldness peculiar to a room which is only inhabited on state occasions. +Here the starched domestic left me while she carried my letter of +introduction to her mistress. In her absence I had leisure to form some +idea of Miss Judson's character on the mute evidence of Miss Judson's +surroundings. From the fact that there were books of a sentimental and +poetical tenor amongst the religious works ranged at mathematically +correct distances upon the dark green table-cover--from the presence +of three twittering canaries in a large brass cage--from the evidence of +a stuffed Blenheim spaniel, with intensely brown eyes, reclining on a +crimson velvet cushion under a glass shade--I opined that Miss Judson's +piety was pleasantly leavened by sentiment, and that her Wesleyanism +was agreeably tempered by that womanly tenderness which, failing more +legitimate outlets, will waste itself upon twittering canaries and +plethoric spaniels. + +I was not mistaken. Miss Judson appeared presently, followed by the +servant bearing a tray of cake and wine. This was the first occasion on +which I had been offered refreshment by any person to whom I had +presented myself. I argued, therefore, that Miss Judson was the weakest +person with whom I had yet had to deal; and I flattered myself with the +hope that from Miss Judson's amiable weakness, sentimentality, and +womanly tenderness, I should obtain better aid than from more +business-like and practical people. + +I fancied that with this lady it would be necessary to adopt a certain +air of candour. I therefore did not conceal from her the fact that my +business had something to do with that Haygarthian fortune awaiting a +claimant. + +"The person for whom you are concerned is not Mr. Theodore Judson?" she +asked, with some asperity. + +I assured her that I had never seen Theodore Judson, and that I was in +no manner interested in his success. + +"In that case I shall be happy to assist you as far as lies in my +power; but I can do nothing to advance the interests of Theodore Judson +junior. I venture to hope that I am a Christian; and if Theodore Judson +junior were to come here to me and ask my forgiveness, I should accord +that forgiveness as a Christian; but I cannot and will not lend myself +to the furtherance of Theodore Judson's avaricious designs. I cannot +lend myself to the suppression of truth or the assertion of falsehood. +Theodore Judson senior is not the rightful heir to the late John +Haygarth's fortune, though I am bound to acknowledge that his claim +would be prior to my brother's. There is a man who stands before the +Theodore Judsons, and the Theodore Judsons know it. But were they the +rightful claimants, I should still consider them most unfitted to enjoy +superior fortune. If that dog could speak, he would be able to testify +to ill-usage received from Theodore Judson junior at his own +garden-gate, which would bespeak the character of the man to every +thoughtful mind. A young man who could indulge his spiteful feelings +against an elderly kinswoman at the expense of an unoffending animal +is not the man to make worthy use of fortune." + +I expressed my acquiescence with this view of the subject; and I was +glad to perceive that with Miss Judson, as with her brother, the +obnoxious Theodores would stand me in good stead. The lady was only two +years younger than her brother, and even more inclined to be +communicative. I made the most of my opportunity, and sat in the +vault-like parlour listening respectfully to her discourse, and from +time to time hazarding a leading question, as long as it pleased her +to converse; although it seemed to me as if a perennial spring of cold +water were trickling slowly down my back and pervading my system during +the entire period. As the reward of my fortitude I obtained Miss +Judson's promise to send me any letters or papers she might find +amongst her store of old documents relating to the personal history of +Matthew Haygarth. + +"I know I have a whole packet of letters in Matthew's own hand amongst +my grandmother's papers," said Miss Judson. "I was a great favourite +with my grandmother, and used to spend a good deal of my time with her +before she died--which she did while I was in pinafores; but young +people wore pinafores much longer in my time than they do now; and I +was getting on for fourteen years of age when my grandmother departed +this life. I've often heard her talk of her brother Matthew, who had +been dead some years when I was born. She was very fond of him, and he +of her, I've heard her say; and she used often to tell me how handsome +he was in his youth; and how well he used to look in a chocolate and +gold-laced riding coat, just after the victory of Culloden, when he +came to Ullerton in secret, to pay her a visit--not being on friendly +terms with his father." + +I asked Miss Judson if she had ever read Matthew Haygarth's letters. + +"No," she said; "I look at them sometimes when I'm tidying the drawer +in which I keep them, and I have sometimes stopped to read a word here +and there, but no more. I keep them out of respect to the dead; but I +think it would make me unhappy to read them. The thoughts and the +feelings in old letters seem so fresh that they bring our poor +mortality too closely home to us when we remember how little except +those faded letters remains of those who wrote them. It is well for us +to remember that we are only travellers and wayfarers on this earth; +but sometimes it seems just a little hard to think how few traces of +our footsteps we leave behind us when the journey is finished." + +The canaries seemed to answer Miss Judson with a feeble twitter of +assent: and I took my leave, with a feeling of compassion in my heart. +I, the scamp--I, Robert Macaire the younger--had pity upon the caged +canaries, and the lonely old woman whose narrow life was drawing to its +close, and who began to feel how very poor a thing it had been after +all. + +_Oct. 11th_. I have paid the penalty of my temerity in enduring the +vault-like chilliness of Miss Hephzibah Judson's parlour, and am +suffering to-day from a sharp attack of influenza; that complaint which +of all others tends to render a man a burden to himself, and a nuisance +to his fellow-creatures. Under these circumstances I have ordered a +fire in my own room--a personal indulgence scarcely warranted by +Sheldon's stipend--and I sit by my own fire pondering over the story of +Matthew Haygarth's life. + +On the table by my side are scattered more than a hundred letters, all +in Matthew's bold hand; but even yet, after a most careful study of +those letters, the story of the man's existence is far from clear to +me. The letters are full of hints and indications, but they tell so +little plainly. They deal in enigmas, and disguise names under the mask +of initials. + +There is much in these letters which relates to the secret history of +Matthew's life. They were written to the only creature amongst his +kindred in whom he fully confided. This fact transpires more than once, +as will be seen anon by the extracts I shall proceed to make; if my +influenza--which causes me to shed involuntary tears that give me the +appearance of a drivelling idiot, and which jerks me nearly out of my +chair every now and then with a convulsive sneeze--will permit me to do +anything rational or useful. + +I have sorted and classified the letters, first upon one plan, then +upon another, until I have classified and sorted them into chaos. +Having done this, my only chance is to abandon all idea of +classification, and go quietly through them in consecutive order +according to their dates, jotting down whatever strikes me as +significant. George Sheldon's acumen must do the rest. + +Thus I begin my notes, with an extract from the fourth letter in the +series. Mem. I preserve Matthew's own orthography, which is the most +eccentric it was ever my lot to contemplate. + +"_December_ 14, '42. Indeed, my dear Ruth, I am ventursom wear you are +concurn'd, and w'd tell you that I w'd taik panes to kepe fromm +another. I saw ye same girl w'h it was my good fortun to saive from ye +molestashun of raketters and mohoks at Smithfelde in September last +past. She is ye derest prittiest creture you ever saw, and as elegant +and genteel in her speche and maner as a Corte lady, or as ye best +bredd person in Ullerton. I mett her in ye nayborood of ye Marchalsee +prison wear her father is at this pressent time a prisener, and had +som pleassant talke with her. She rememberr'd me at once, and seme'd +mitily gladd to see me. Mem. Her pritty blu eys wear fill'd with teares +wen she thank'd me for having studd up to be her champyun at ye Fare. +So you see, Mrs. Ruth, ye brotherr is more thort off in London than +with them which hav ye rite to regard him bestt. If you had scen ye +pore simpel childeish creetur and heeard her tell her arteless tale, I +think y'r kinde hart w'd have bin sore to considder so much unmiritted +misfortun: ye father is in pore helth, a captiv, ye mother has binn +dedd thre yeres, and ye pore orfann girl, Mollie, has to mentane ye +burden of ye sick father, and a yung helples sister. Think of this, +kinde Mrs. Ruth, in y'r welthy home. Mem. Pore Mrs. Mollie is prittier +than ye fineist ladies that wear to be sene at ye opening of ye grand +new roome at Ranellar this spring last past, wear I sor ye too Miss +Gunings and Lady Harvey, wich is alsoe accounted a grate buty." + +I think this extract goes very far to prove that my friend Matthew was +considerably smitten by the pretty young woman whose champion he had +been in some row at Bartholomew Fair. This fits into one of the scraps +of information afforded by my ancient inhabitant in Ullerton +Almshouses, who remembers having heard his grandfather talk of Mat +Haygarth's part in some fight or disturbance at the great Smithfield +festival. + +My next extract treats again of Mollie, after an interval of four +months. It seems as if Matthew had confided in his sister so far as to +betray his tenderness for the poor player-girl of the London booths; +but I can find no such letter amongst those in my hands. Such an +epistle may have been considered by Mrs. Ruth too dangerous to be kept +where the parental eye might in some evil hour discover it. Matthew's +sister was unmarried at this date, and lived within the range of that +stern paternal eye. Matthew's letter appears to me to have been written +in reply to some solemn warning from Ruth. + +"_April_ 12, 1743. Sure, my dear sister cannot think me so baise a +retch as to injoore a pore simpel girl hoo confides in me as ye best +and trooest of mortals, wich for her dere saik I will strive to be. If +so be my sister cou'd think so ill of me it wou'd amost temt me to +think amiss of her, wich cou'd imagen so vile a thort. You tel me that +Mrs. Rebecka Caulfeld is mor than ever estemed by my father; but, Ruth, +I am bounde to say, my father's esteme is nott to be ye rule of my +ackshuns thro' life, for it semes to me their is no worser tyrrannie +than ye wich fathers do striv to impose on there children, and I do +acount that a kind of barbarity wich wou'd compel ye hart of youth to +sute ye proodense of age. I do not dout but Mrs. Rebecka is a mitey +proper and well-natur'd person, tho' taken upp with this new sekt of +methodys, or, as sum do call them in derission, swaddlers and jumpers, +set afoot by ye madbrain'd young man, Wesley, and one that is still +madder, Witfelde. Thear ar I dare sware many men in Ullerton wich wou'd +be gladd to obtane Mrs. Rebecka's hand and fortun; but if ye fortun +wear ten times more, I wou'd not preetend to oferr my harte to herr +w'h can never be its misteress. Now, my deare sister, having gone +as farr towards satisfieing all y'r queerys as my paper wou'd welle +permitt, I will say no more but to begg you to send me all ye knews, +and to believe that none can be more affectionately y'r humble servant +than your brother." "MATHEW HAYGARTH." + +In this extract we have strong ground for supposing that our Matthew +truly loved the player-girl, and meant honestly by his sweetheart. +There is a noble indignation in his repudiation of his sister's doubts, +and a manly determination not to marry Mrs. Rebecca's comfortable +fortune. I begin to think that Sheldon's theory of an early and secret +marriage will turn up a trump card; but Heaven only knows how slow or +how difficult may be the labour of proving such a marriage. And then, +even if we can find documentary evidence of such an event, we shall +have but advanced one step in our obscure path, and should have yet to +discover the issue of that union, and to trace the footsteps of +Matthew's unknown descendants during the period of a century. + +I wonder how Sisyphus felt when the stone kept rolling back upon him. +Did he ever look up to the top of the mountain and calculate the +distance he must needs traverse before his task should be done? + +The next letter in which I find a passage worth transcribing is of much +later date, and abounds in initials. The postmark is illegible; but I +can just make out the letters PO and L, the two first close together, +the third after an interval; and there is internal evidence to show +that the letter was written from some dull country place. Might not +that place have been Spotswold? the PO and the L of the postmark would +fit very well into the name of that village. Again I leave this +question to the astute Sheldon. The date is March, 1749. + +"M. is but porely. Sumtimes I am pain'd to believe this quiett life is +not well suted to herr disposishun, having bin acustumed to so much +livlinesse and nois. I hav reproched her with this, but she tolde me, +with teres in her eys, to be neare mee and M. and C. was to be happie, +and ye it is il helth onlie wich is ye cawse of ye sadnesse. I pray +heaven M.'s helth may be on ye mending hand soone. Little M. grows more +butiful everry day; and indede, my dear sisterr, if you cou'd stele +another visitt this waye, and oblidge yr affectionat brother, you wou'd +considerr him ye moste butifull creetur ever scene. So much enteligence +with sich ingaging temper endeares him to all hartes. Mrs. J. says she +adors him, and is amost afraide to be thort a Paygann for bestoeing so +much affection on a erthly creetur, and this to oure good parson who +cou'd find no reproche for her plesant folly. + +"We hav had heavy ranes all ye week last past. Sech wether can but +serve to hinderr M.'s recovery. The fysichion at G., wear I tooke her, +saies she shou'd hav much fresh aire everry day--if not afoot, to be +carrid in a chaire or cotche; but in this wether, and in a plaice wear +neeither chaire nor cotche can be had, she must needs stop in doors. I +hav begg'd her to lett me carry her to G., but she will not, and says +in ye summerr she will be as strong as everr. I pray God she may be so. +Butt theire are times whenn my harte is sore and heavy; and the rane +beeting agenst the winder semes lik dropps of cold worter falling uponn +my pore aking harte. If you cou'd stele a visitt you wou'd see wether +she semes worse than whenn you sor her last ortumm; she is trieing ye +tansy tea; and beggs her service to you, and greatfull thanks for y'r +rememberence of her. I dare to say you here splended acounts of my +doins in London--at cok fites and theaters, dansing at Vorxhall, and +beeting ye wotch in Covin Garden. Does my F. stil use to speke harsh +agenst me, or has he ni forgott their is sech a creetur living? If he +has so, I hope you wil kepe him in sech forgetfullnesse,--and obliage, + +"Yr loving brother and obediant servent." + +"MATHEW HAYGARTH." + + +To me this letter is almost conclusive evidence of a marriage. Who can +this little M. be, of whom he writes so tenderly, except a child? Who +can this woman be, whose ill health causes him such anxiety, unless a +wife? Of no one _but_ a wife could he write so freely to his sister. +The place to which he asks her to "steal a visit" must needs be a home +to which a man could invite his sister. I fancy it is thus made very +clear that at this period Matthew Haygarth was secretly married and +living at Spotswold, where his wife and son were afterwards buried, and +whence the body of the son was ultimately removed to Dewsdale to be +laid in that grave which the father felt would soon be his own +resting-place. That allusion to the Ullerton talk of London roisterings +indicates that Matthew's father believed him to be squandering the +paternal substance in the metropolis at the very time when the young +man was leading a simple domestic life within fifty miles of the +paternal abode. No man could do such a thing in these days of rapid +locomotion, when every creature is more or less peripatetic; but in +that benighted century the distance from Ullerton to Spotswold +constituted a day's journey. That Matthew was living in one place while +he was supposed to be in another is made sufficiently clear by several +passages in his letters, all more or less in the strain of the +following:-- + +"I was yesterday--markett-day--at G., wear I ran suddennly agenst Peter +Browne's eldest ladd. The boy openn'd his eyes wide, stearing like an +owle; butt I gaive him bakk his looke with interrest, and tolde him if +he was curiouse to know my name, I was Simon Lubchick, farmer, at his +servise. The pore simpel ladd arsk'd my pardonn humbly for having +mistook me for a gentelman of Ullerton--a frend of his father; on wich +I gaive him a shillin, and we parted, vastly plesed with eche other; +and this is nott the fust time the site of Ullerton fokes has putt me +into a swett." + +Amongst later letters are very sad ones. The little M. is dead. The +father's poor aching heart proclaims its anguish in very simple words: + +"_Nov_. 1751. I thank my dear sister kindly for her friendlinesse and +compashin; butt, ah, he is gone, and their semes to be no plesure or +comforte on this erth without him! onlie a littel childe of 6 yeres, +and yett so dere a creetur to this harte that the worlde is emty and +lonely without him. M. droopes sadly, and is more ailing everry day. +Indede, my dere Ruth, I see nothing butt sorrow before me, and I wou'd +be right gladd to lay down at peece in my littel M.'s grave." + +I can find no actual announcements of death, only sad allusions here +and there. I fancy the majority of Matthew's letters must have been +lost, for the dates of those confided to my hands are very far apart, +and there is evidence in all of them of other correspondence. After the +letter alluding to little M.'s death, there is a hiatus of eight years. +Then comes a letter with the post-mark London very clear, from which I +transcribe an extract. "_October 4th_, 1759. The toun is very sadd; +everry body, high and low, rich and pore, in morning for Gennerel Wolf: +wot a nobel deth to die, and how much happier than to live, when one +considers the cairs and miseries of this life; and sech has bin the +oppinion of wiser fokes than y'r humble servent. Being in companie on +Thersday sennite with that distingwish'd riter, Dr. Johnson,--whose +admir'd story of _Raselass_ I sent you new from ye press, but who I am +bound to confesse is less admirable as a fine gentlemann than as an +orther, his linning siled and his kravatt twisted ary, and his manners +wot in a more obskure personn wou'd be thort ungenteel,--he made a +remark wich impress'd me much. Some one present, being almost all +gentelmenn of parts and learning, except y'r pore untuter'd brother, +observed that it was a saying with the ainchents that ye happiest of +men was him wich was never born; ye next happy him wich died the +soonest. On wich Dr. Johnson cried out verry loud and angry, 'That was +a Paggann sentyment, sir, and I am asham'd that a Xtian gentelmann +shou'd repete it as a subject for admerashun. Betwene these heathen men +and ye followers of Christ their is all ye differenc betwene a slave +and a servent of a kind Master. Eche bears the same burden; butt ye +servent knows he will recieve just wages for his work, wile ye slave +hopes for nothing, and so conkludes that to escape work is to be +happy!' I could but aknowlege the wisdomm and pyety of this speche; +yett whenn I see ye peopel going bye in their black rayment, I envy the +young Gennerel his gloreous deth, and I wish I was laying amongst the +plane on the hites of Quebeck. I went to look at ye old house in J. +St., but I wou'd not go in to see Mr. F. or ye old roomes; for I think +I shou'd see the aparishions of those that once liv'd in them. C. +thrivs at Higate, wear the aire is fresh and pewer. I go to see her +offen. She is nerely as high as you. Give my servis to Mrs. Rebecka, +sinse you say it will plese my father to do so, and he is now dispos'd +to think more kindly of me. Butt if he thinks I shal everr arske her to +be my wife he is mityly mistaken. You know wear my harte lies--in ye +grave with all that made life dere. Thank my father for the Bill, and +tell him I pass my time in good companie, and neether drink nor play; +and will come to Ullerton to pay him my respeckts when he pleses to bid +me. Butt I hav no desire to leeve London, as I am gladd to be neare C." + +Who was C., whom Matthew visited at Highgate, and who was nearly as +tall as Ruth Judson? Was she not most likely the same C. mentioned in +conjunction with the little M. in the earlier letters? and if so, can +there be any doubt that she was the daughter of Matthew Haygarth? Of +whom but of a daughter would he write as in this letter? She was at +Highgate, at school most likely, and he goes to see her. She is nearly +as tall as Mrs. Judson. This height must have been a new thing, or he +would scarcely impart it as a piece of news to his sister. And then he +has no desire to leave London, as he is glad to be near C. + +My life upon it, C. is a daughter. + +Acting upon this conviction, I have transcribed all passages relating +to C., at whatever distance of time they occur. + + * * * * * + +Thus, in 1763, I find--"C. has grone very hansome, and Mrs. N. tells me +is much admir'd by a brother of her frend Tabitha. She never stirs +abrorde but with Tabitha, and if a dutchess, cou'd be scarce wated on +more cairfully. Mrs. N. loves her verry tenderly, and considers her the +sweetest and most wel bredd of young women. I hav given her the new +edishun of Sir Charls Grandisson, wich they read alowde in ye evenings, +turn and turn about, to Mrs. N. at her spinning. C. has given me a wool +comforter of her owne worke, and sum stockings wich are two thick to +ware, but I hav not told her so." + +Again, in 1764: "Tabitha Meynell's brother goes more than ever to +Higate. He is a clark in his father's wearhouse; very sober and +estimabel, and if it be for ye hapiness of C. to mary him, I wou'd be +ye laste of men to sett my orthoritty agenst her enclinashun. She is +yett but ayteen yeres of age, wich is young to make a change; so I tell +Mrs. N. we will waite. Meanwhile ye young peapel see eche other offen." + +Again, in 1765: "Young Meynell is still constant, expressing much love +and admirashun for C. in his discorse with Mrs. N., butt sattisfide to +wait my plesure before spekeing oppenly to C. He semes a most exempelry +young man; his father a cittizen of some repewt in Aldersgait-street, +ware I have din'd since last riting to you, and at hoose tabel I was +paid much considerashun. He, Tomas Meynell ye father, will give his son +five hundred pound, and I prommis a thousand pound with C. and to +furnish a house at Chelsee, a verry plesent and countriefide vilage; so +I make no doubt there will soon be a wedding. + +"I am sorrie to here my father is aleing; give him my love and servise, +and will come to Ullerton immediate on receiving his commands. I am +plesed to think Mrs. Rebecka Caulfeld is so dutifull and kind to him, +and has comfortedd him with prairs and discorses. I thank her for this +more than for any frendshipp for my undeserving self. Pray tell her +that I am much at her servise. + +"Our new king is lov'd and admir'd by all. His ministers not so; and +wise peopel do entertain themselfs with what I think foollish jokes +a-bout a _Skotch boote_. Perhapps I am not cleverr enuff to see the funn +in this joke." + +In this letter I detect a certain softening of feeling towards Mrs. +Rebecca Caulfield. In the next year--'66--according to my notes, +Matthew's father died, and I have no letters bearing the date of that +year, which our Matthew no doubt spent at home. Nor have I any letters +from this time until the year of Matthew's marriage with Rebecca +Caulfield. In the one year of his union with Mrs. Rebecca, and the last +year of his life, there are many letters, a few from London and the +rest from the manor-house at Dewsdale. But in these epistles, +affectionate and confidential as they are, there is little positive +information. + +These are the letters of the regenerate and Wesleyanised Matthew; and, +like the more elaborate epistles of his wife Rebecca, deal chiefly with +matters spiritual. In these letters I can perceive the workings of a +weak mind, which in its decline has become a prey to religious terrors; +and though I fully recognise the reforming influence which John Wesley +exercised upon the people of England, I fancy poor Matthew would have +been better in the hands of a woman whose piety was of a less severe +type than that of Wesleyan Rebecca. There is an all-pervading tone of +fear in these letters--a depression which is almost despair. In the +same breath he laments and regrets the lost happiness of his youth, and +regrets and laments his own iniquity in having been so ignorantly and +unthinkingly happy. + +Thus in one letter he says,-- + +"When I think of that inconsideratt foolish time with M., and how to be +nere her semed the highest blisse erth cou'd bistowe or Heven prommis, +I trimbel to think of my pore unawaken'd sole, and of her dome on wich +the tru light never shown. If I cou'd believe she was happy my owne +sorow wou'd be lesse; but I canot, sence all ye worthyest memberrs of +our seck agree that to die thinking onely of erthly frends, and +clingeng with a passhunate regrett to them we luv on erth is to be +lesse than a tru Xtian, and for sech their is but one dome." + +And again, in a still later epistle, he writes,-- + +"On Toosday sennite an awakning discorse fromm a verry young man, until +lately a carppenter, but now imploid piusly in going from toun to toun +and vilage to vilage, preching. He says, that a life of cairlesse +happyness, finding plesure in ye things of this worlde, is--not being +repentied of--irretrevable damnation. This is a maloncally thort! I +fell to mewsing on M., with hoom I injoy'd such compleat happyness, tel +Deth came like a spekter to bannish all comforte. And now I knowe that +our lives wear vainity. I ashure you, dear sister, I am prodidjusly +sadd when I reffleckt upon this truth--ashuredly it is a harde saying." + +Anon comes that strange foreknowledge of death--that instinctive sense +of the shadowy hand so soon to lay him at rest; and with that mystic +prescience comes a yearning for the little child M. to be laid where +his father may lay down beside him. There are many passages in the +latter letters which afford a clue to that mysterious midnight burial +at Dewsdale. + +"Last nite I drem't of the cherchyarde at S. I satte under the olde +yewe tree, as it semed in my dreme, and hurd a childes voice crying in +a very piteous mannerr. The thort of this dreme has oppress'd my +speritts all day, and Rebecka has enquier'd more than wunce wot ales +me. If little M. but lay nere at hande, in ye graive to wich I fele I +must soone be carrid, I beleive I shou'd be happyer. Reproove me for +this folley if you plese. I am getting olde, and Sattan temts me with +seche fooleish thorts. Wot dose it matter to my sole wear my vile bodie +is laid? and yet I have a fonde fooleish desier to be berrid with +littel M." + +And in these latest letters there is ample evidence of that yearning on +Matthew's part to reveal a secret which Rebecca's own correspondence +betrays. + +"We tawked of manny things, and she was more than ordinnary kind and +gentel. I had a mind to tell her about M, and aske her frendship for +C; but she seemed not to cair to here my sekrets, and I think wou'd be +offended if she new the trooth. So I cou'd not finde courrage to tell +her. Before I die I shal speek planely for the saik of C. and M. and ye +little one. I shal cum to U. erly nex weak to make my Wille, and this +time shal chainge my umour no more. I have burnt ye laste, not likeing +it." + +This passage occurs in the last letter, amongst the packet confided to +me. The letter is dated September 5, 1774. On the fourteenth of the +following month Matthew died, and in all probability the will here +alluded to was never executed. Certain it is that Matthew, whose end +was awfully sudden at the last, died intestate, whereby his son John +inherited the bulk, and ultimately the whole, of his fortune. There are +many allusions to this infant son in the last few letters; but I do not +think the little creature obtained any great hold on the father's +heart. No doubt he was bound and swaddled out of even such small +semblance to humanity as one may reasonably expect in a child of six or +seven weeks old, and by no means an agreeable being. And poor +weak-minded Matthew's heart was with that player-girl wife whom he +never acknowledged, and the little M. And thus ends the story of +Matthew Haygarth, so far as I have been able to trace it in the +unfathomable gloom of the past. + +It seems to me that what I have next to do will be to hunt up +information respecting that young man Meynell, whose father lived in +Aldersgate Street, and was a respectable and solid citizen, of that +ilk; able to give a substantial dinner to the father of his son's +sweetheart, and altogether a person considerable enough, I should +imagine, to have left footprints of some kind or other on the sands of +Time. The inscrutable Sheldon will be able to decide in what manner the +hunt of the Meynells must begin. I doubt if there is anything more to +be done in Ullerton. + +I have sent Sheldon a fair copy of my extracts from Matthew's +correspondence, and have returned the letters to Miss Judson, carefully +packed in accordance with her request. I now await my Sheldon's next +communication and the abatement of my influenza before making my next +move in the great game of chess called Life. + +What is the meaning of Horatio Paget's lengthened abode in this town? +He is still here. He went past this house to-day while I was standing +at my window in that abject state of mind known only to influenza and +despair. I think I was suffering from a touch of both diseases, by the +bye. What is that man doing here? The idea of his presence fills me +with all manner of vague apprehensions. I cannot rid myself of the +absurd notion that the lavender glove I saw lying in Goodge's parlour +had been left there by the Captain. I know the idea _is_ an absurd one, +and I tell myself again and again that Paget _cannot_ have any inkling +of my business here, and therefore _cannot_ attempt to forestall me or +steal my hard-won information. But often as I reiterate this--in that +silent argument which a man is always elaborating in his own mind--I am +still tormented by a nervous apprehension of treachery from that man. I +suppose the boundary line between influenza and idiocy is a very narrow +one. And then Horatio Paget is such a thorough-paced scoundrel. He is +_lié_ with Philip Sheldon too--another thorough-paced scoundrel in a +quiet gentlemanly way, unless my instinct deceives me. + +_October 12th_. There is treachery somewhere. Again the Haygarthian +epistles have been tampered with. Early this morning comes an indignant +note from Miss Judson, reminding me that I promised the packet of +letters should be restored to her yesterday at noon, and informing me +that they were not returned until last night at eleven o'clock, when +they were left at her back garden-gate by a dirty boy who rang the bell +as loudly as if he had been giving the alarm of fire, and who thrust +the packet rudely into the hand of the servant and vanished +immediately. So much for the messenger. The packet itself, Miss Judson +informed me, was of a dirty and disgraceful appearance, unworthy the +hands of a gentlewoman, and one of the letters was missing. + +Heedless of my influenza, I rushed at once to the lower regions of the +inn, saw the waiter into whose hands I had confided my packet at +half-past ten o'clock yesterday morning, and asked what messenger had +been charged with it. The waiter could not tell me. He did not remember. +I told him plainly that I considered this want of memory very +extraordinary. The waiter laughed me to scorn, with that quiet +insolence which a well-fed waiter feels for a customer who pays twenty +shillings a week for his board and lodging. The packet had been given +to a very respectable messenger, the waiter made no doubt. As to +whether it was the ostler, or one of the boys, or the Boots, or a young +woman in the kitchen who went on errands sometimes, the waiter wouldn't +take upon himself to swear, being a man who would perish rather than +inadvertently perjure himself. As to my packet having been tampered +with, that was ridiculous. What on earth was there in a lump of +letter-paper for any one to steal? Was there money in the parcel? I was +fain to confess there was no money; on which the waiter laughed aloud. + +Failing the waiter, I applied myself severally to the ostler, the boys, +the Boots, and the young woman in the kitchen; and then transpired the +curious fact that no one had carried my packet. The ostler was sure he +had not; the Boots could take his Bible oath to the same effect; the +young woman in the kitchen could not call to mind anything respecting a +packet, though she was able to give me a painfully circumstantial +account of the events of the morning--where she went and what she did, +down to the purchase of three-pennyworth of pearl-ash and a pound of +Glenfield starch for the head chambermaid, on which she dwelt with a +persistent fondness. + +I now felt assured that there had been treachery here, as in the Goodge +business; and I asked myself to whom could I impute that treachery? + +My instinctive suspicion was of Horatio Paget. And yet, was it not more +probable that Theodore Judson, senr. and Theodore Judson, junr. were +involved in this business, and were watching and counterchecking my +actions with a view to frustrating the plans of my principal? This was +one question which I asked myself as I deliberated upon this mysterious +business. Had the Theodore Judsons some knowledge of a secret marriage +on the part of Matthew Haygarth? and did they suspect the existence of +an heir in the descendant of the issue of that marriage? These were +further questions which I asked myself, and which I found it much more +easy to ask than to answer. After having considered these questions, I +went to the Lancaster-road, saw Miss Judson--assured her, on my word as +a gentleman, that the packet had been delivered by my hands into those +of the waiter at eleven o'clock on the previous day, and asked to see +the envelope. There it was--my large blue wire-wove office envelope, +addressed in my own writing. But in these days of adhesive envelopes +there is nothing easier than to tamper with the fastening of a letter. +I registered a mental vow never again to trust any important document +to the protection of a morsel of gummed paper. I counted the letters, +convinced myself that there was a deficiency, and then set to work to +discover which of the letters had been abstracted. Here I failed +utterly. For my own convenience in copying my extracts, I had numbered +the letters from which I intended to transcribe passages before +beginning my work. My pencilled figures in consecutive order were +visible in the corner of the superscription of every document I had +used. Those numbered covers I now found intact, and I could thus assure +myself that the missing document was one from which I had taken no +extract. + +This inspired me with a new alarm. Could it be possible that I had +overlooked some scrap of information more important than all that I had +transcribed? + +I racked my brains in the endeavour to recall the contents of that one +missing letter; but although I sat in that social tomb, Miss Judson's +best parlour, until I felt my blood becoming of an arctic quality, I +could remember nothing that seemed worth remembering in the letters I +had laid aside as valueless. + +I asked Miss Judson if she had any suspicion of the person who had +tampered with the packet. She looked at me with an icy smile, and +answered in ironical accents, which were even more chilling than the +atmosphere of her parlour,-- + +"Do not ask if I know who has tampered with those letters, Mr. +Hawkehurst. Your affectation of surprise has been remarkably well put +on; but I am not to be deceived a second time. When you came to me in +the first instance, I had my suspicions; but you came furnished with a +note from my brother, and as a Christian I repressed those suspicions. +I know now that I have been the dupe of an impostor, and that in +entrusting those letters to you I entrusted them to an emissary and +tool of THEODORE JUDSON." + +I protested that I had never to my knowledge set eyes upon either of +the Theodore Judsons; but the prejudiced kinswoman of those gentlemen +shook her head with a smile whose icy blandness was eminently +exasperating. + +"I am not to be deceived a second time," she said. "Who else but +Theodore Judson should have employed you? Who else but Theodore Judson +is interested in the Haygarth fortune? O, it was like him to employ a +stranger where he knew his own efforts would be unavailing; it was like +him to hoodwink me by the agency of a hireling tool." + +I had been addressed as a "young man" by the reverend Jonah, and now I +was spoken of as a "hireling tool" by Miss Judson. I scarcely knew +which was most disagreeable, and I began to think that board and +lodging in the present, and a visionary three thousand pounds in the +future, would scarcely compensate me for such an amount of ignominy. + +I went back to my inn utterly crestfallen--a creature so abject that +even the degrading influence of influenza could scarcely sink me any +lower in the social scale. I wrote a brief and succinct account of my +proceedings, and despatched the same to George Sheldon, and then I sat +down in my sickness and despair, as deeply humiliated as Ajax when he +found that he had been pitching into sheep instead of Greeks, as +miserable as Job amongst his dust and ashes, but I am happy to say +untormented by the chorus of one or the friends of the other. In that +respect at least I had some advantage over both. + +_October 13th_. This morning's post brought me a brief scrawl from +Sheldon. + +"Come back to town directly. I have found the registry of Matthew +Haygarth's marriage." + +And so I turn my back on Ullerton; with what rejoicing of spirit it is +not in language to express. + + + + + +BOOK THE SIXTH. + + +THE HEIRESS OF THE HAYGARTHS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +DISAPPOINTMENT. + + +Of all places upon this earth, perhaps, there is none more obnoxious +to the civilized mind than London in October; and yet to Valentine +Hawkehurst, newly arrived from Ullerton per North-Western Railway, that +city seemed as an enchanted and paradisiacal region. Were not the +western suburbs of that murky metropolis inhabited by Charlotte +Halliday, and might he not hope to see her? + +He did hope for that enjoyment. He had felt something more than hope +while speeding Londonwards by that delightful combination of a liberal +railway management, a fast and yet cheap train. He had beguiled himself +with a delicious certainty. Early the next morning--or at any rate as +early as civilization permitted--he would hie him to Bayswater, and +present himself at the neat iron gate of Philip Sheldon's gothic villa. +_She_ would be there, in the garden most likely, his divine Charlotte, +so bright and radiant a creature that the dull October morning would be +made glorious by her presence--she would be there, and she would +welcome him with that smile which made her the most enchanting of +women. + +Such thoughts as these had engaged him during his homeward journey; and +compared with the delight of such visions, the perusal of daily papers +and the consumption of sandwiches, whereby other passengers beguiled +their transit, seemed a poor amusement. But, arrived in the dingy +streets, and walking towards Chelsea under a drizzling rain, the bright +picture began to grow dim. Was it not more than likely that Charlotte +would be absent from London at this dismal season? Was it not very +probable that Philip Sheldon would give him the cold shoulder? With +these gloomy contingencies before him, Mr. Hawkehurst tried to shut +Miss Halliday's image altogether out of his mind, and to contemplate +the more practical aspect of his affairs. + +"I wonder whether that scoundrel Paget has come back to London?" he +thought. "What am I to say to him if he has? If I own to having seen +him in Ullerton, I shall lay myself open to being questioned by him as +to my own business in that locality. Perhaps my wisest plan would be to +say nothing, and hear his own account of himself. I fully believe he +saw me on the platform that night when we passed each other without +speaking." + +Horatio Paget was at home when his _protegé_ arrived. He was seated by +his fireside in all the domestic respectability of a dressing-gown and +slippers, with an evening paper on his knee, a slim smoke-coloured +bottle at his elbow, and the mildest of cigars between his lips, when +the traveller, weary and weather-stained, entered the lodging-house +drawing-room. + +Captain Paget received his friend very graciously, only murmuring some +faint deprecation of the young man's reeking overcoat, with just such a +look of gentlemanly alarm as the lamented Brummel may have felt when +ushered into the presence of a "damp stranger." + +"And so you've come back at last," said the Captain, "from Dorking?" He +made a little pause here, and looked at his friend with a malicious +sparkle in his eye. "And how was the old aunt? Likely to cut up for any +considerable amount, eh? It could only be with a view to that +cutting-up process that you could consent to isolate yourself in such +a place as Dorking. How did you find things?" "O, I don't know, I'm +sure," Mr. Hawkehurst answered rather impatiently, for his worst +suspicions were confirmed by his patron's manner; "I only know I found +it tiresome work enough." + +"Ah, to be sure! elderly people always are tiresome, especially when +they are unacquainted with the world. There is a perennial youth about +men and women of the world. The sentimental twaddle people talk of the +freshness and purity of a mind unsullied by communion with the world is +the shallowest nonsense. Your Madame du Deffand at eighty and your +Horace Walpole at sixty are as lively as a girl and boy. Your +octogenarian Voltaire is the most agreeable creature in existence. But +take Cymon and Daphne from their flocks and herds and pastoral valleys +in their old age, and see what senile bores and quavering imbeciles you +would find them. Yes, I have no doubt you found your Dorking aunt a +nuisance. Take off your wet overcoat and put it out of the room, and +then ring for more hot water. You'll find that cognac very fine. Won't +you have a cigar?" + +The Captain extended his russia-leather case with the blandest smile. +It was a very handsome case. Captain Paget was a man who could descend +into some unknown depths of the social ocean in the last stage of +shabbiness, and who, while his acquaintance were congratulating +themselves upon the fact of his permanent disappearance, would start up +suddenly in an unexpected place, provided with every necessity and +luxury of civilized life, from a wardrobe by Poole to the last +fashionable absurdity in the shape of a cigar-case. + +Never had Valentine Hawkehurst found his patron more agreeably disposed +than he seemed to be this evening, and never had he felt more inclined +to suspect him. + +"And what have you been doing while I have been away?" the young man +asked presently. "Any more promoting work?" + +"Well, yes, a little bit of provincial business; a life-and-fire on a +novel principle; a really good thing, if we can only find men with +perception enough to see its merits, and pluck enough to hazard their +capital. But promoting in the provinces is very dull work. I've been to +two or three towns in the Midland districts--Beauport, Mudborough, and +Ullerton--and have found the same stagnation everywhere." + +Nothing could be more perfect than the semblance of unconscious +innocence with which the Captain gave this account of himself: whether +he was playing a part, or whether he was telling the entire truth, was +a question which even a cleverer man than Valentine Hawkehurst might +have found himself unable to answer. + +The two men sat till late, smoking and talking; but to-night Valentine +found the conversation of his "guide, philosopher, and friend" +strangely distasteful to him. That cynical manner of looking at life, +which not long ago had seemed to him the only manner compatible with +wisdom and experience, now grated harshly upon those finer senses which +had been awakened in the quiet contemplative existence he had of late +been leading. He had been wont to enjoy Captain Paget's savage +bitterness against a world which had not provided him with a house in +Carlton-gardens, and a seat in the Cabinet; but to-night he was +revolted by the noble Horatio's tone and manner. Those malicious sneers +against respectable people and respectable prejudices, with which the +Captain interlarded all his talk, seemed to have a ghastly grimness in +their mirth. It was like the talk of some devil who had once been an +angel, and had lost all hope of ever being restored to his angelic +status. + +"To believe in nothing, to respect nothing, to hope for nothing, to +fear nothing, to consider life as so many years in which to scheme and +lie for the sake of good dinners and well-made coats--surely there can +be no state of misery more complete, no degradation more consummate," +thought the young man, as he sat by the fireside smoking and listening +dreamily to his companion. "Better to be Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth, +narrow-minded and egotistical, but always looking beyond her narrow +life to some dimly-comprehended future." + +He was glad to escape at last from the Captain's society, and to retire +to his own small chamber, where he slept soundly enough after the day's +fatigues, and dreamed of the Haygarths and Charlotte Halliday. + +He was up early the next morning; but, on descending to the +sitting-room, he found his patron toasting his _Times_ before a cheerful +fire; while his gold hunting-watch stood open on the breakfast-table, and +a couple of new-laid eggs made a pleasant wabbling noise in a small +saucepan upon the hob. + +"You don't care for eggs, I know, Val," said the Captain, as he took +the saucepan from the hob. + +He had heard the young man object to an egg of French extraction too +long severed from its native land; but he knew very well that for rural +delicacies from a reliable dairyman, at twopence apiece, Mr. Hawkehurst +had no particular antipathy. Even in so small a matter as a new-laid +egg the Captain knew how to protect his own interest. + +"There's some of that Italian sausage you're so fond of, dear boy," he +said politely, pointing to a heel of some grayish horny-looking +compound. "Thanks; I'll pour out the coffee; there's a knack in these +things; half the clearness of coffee depends on the way in which it's +poured out, you see." + +And with this assurance Captain Paget filled his own large breakfast-cup +with a careful hand and a tender solemnity of countenance. If he was a +trifle less considerate in the pouring out of the second cup, and if +some "grounds" mingled with the second portion, Valentine Hawkehurst +was unconscious of the fact. + +"Do try that Italian sausage," said the Captain, as he discussed his +second egg, after peeling the most attractive crusts from the French +rolls, and pushing the crumb to his _protégé_. + +"No, thank you; it looks rather like what your shop-people call an old +housekeeper; besides, there's a little too much garlic in those +compositions for my taste." + +"Your taste has grown fastidious," said the Captain; "one would think +you were going to call upon some ladies this morning." + +"There are not many ladies on my visiting-list. O, by the way, how's +Diana? Have you seen her lately?" + +"No," answered the Captain, promptly. "I only returned from my +provincial tour a day or two ago, and have had no time to waste dancing +attendance upon her. She's well enough, I've no doubt; and she's +uncommonly well off in Sheldon's house, and ought to think herself so." + +Having skimmed his newspaper, Captain Paget rose and invested himself +in his overcoat. He put on his hat before the glass over the +mantelpiece, adjusting the brim above his brows with the thoughtful +care that distinguished his performance of all those small duties which +he owed to himself. + +"And what may _you_ be going to do with yourself to-day, Val?" he asked +of the young man, who sat nursing his own knee and staring absently at +the fire. + +"Well, I don't quite know," Mr. Hawkehurst answered, hypocritically; "I +think I may go as far as Gray's Inn, and look in upon George Sheldon." + +"You'll dine out of doors, I suppose?" + +This was a polite way of telling Mr. Hawkehurst that there would be no +dinner for him at home. + +"I suppose I shall. You know I'm not punctilious on the subject of +dinner. Anything you please--from a banquet at the London Tavern to a +ham-sandwich and a glass of ale at fourpence." + +"Ah, to be sure; youth is reckless of its gastric juices. I shall find +you at home when I come in to-night, I daresay. I think I may dine in +the city. _Au plaisir_." + +"I don't know about the pleasure," muttered Mr. Hawkehurst. "You're a +very delightful person, my friend Horatio; but there comes a crisis in +a man's existence when he begins to feel that he has had enough of you. +Poor Diana! what a father!" + +He did not waste much time on further consideration of his patron, but +set off at once on his way to Gray's Inn. It was too early to call at +the Lawn, or he would fain have gone there before seeking George +Sheldon's dingy offices. Nor could he very well present himself at the +gothic villa without some excuse for so doing. He went to Gray's Inn +therefore; but on his way thither called at a tavern near the Strand, +which was the head-quarters of a literary association known as the +Ragamuffins. Here he was fortunate enough to meet with an acquaintance +in the person of a Ragamuffin in the dramatic-author line, who was +reading the morning's criticisms on a rival's piece produced the night +before, with a keen enjoyment of every condemnatory sentence. From this +gentleman Mr. Hawkehurst obtained a box-ticket for a West-end theatre; +and, armed with this mystic document, he felt himself able to present a +bold countenance at Mr. Sheldon's door. + +"Will she be glad to see me again?" he asked himself. "Pshaw! I daresay +she has forgotten me by this time. A fortnight is an age with some +women; and I should fancy Charlotte Halliday just one of those bright +impressionable beings who forget easily. I wonder whether she is +_really_ like that 'Molly' whose miniature was found by Mrs. Haygarth +in the tulip-leaf escritoire; or was the resemblance between those two +faces only a silly fancy of mine?" + +Mr. Hawkehurst walked the whole distance from Chelsea to Gray's Inn; +and it was midday when he presented himself before George Sheldon, whom +he found seated at his desk with the elephantine pedigree of the +Haygarths open before him, and profoundly absorbed in the contents of a +note-book. He looked up from this note-book as Valentine entered, but +did not leave off chewing the end of his pencil as he mumbled a welcome +to the returning wanderer. It has been seen that neither of the Sheldon +brothers were demonstrative men. + +After that unceremonious greeting, the lawyer continued his perusal of +the note-book for some minutes, while Valentine seated himself in a +clumsy leather-covered arm-chair by the fireplace. + +"Well, young gentleman," Mr. Sheldon exclaimed, as he closed his book +with a triumphant snap, "I think _you're_ in for a good thing; and you +may thank your lucky stars for having thrown you into my path." + +"My stars are not remarkable for their luckiness in a general way," +answered Mr. Hawkehurst, coolly, for the man had not yet been born from +whom he would accept patronage. "I suppose if I'm in for a good thing, +you're in for a better thing, my dear George; so you needn't come the +benefactor quite so strong for my edification. How did you ferret out +the certificate of gray-eyed Molly's espousals?" + +George Sheldon contemplated his coadjutor with an admiring stare. "It +has been my privilege to enjoy the society of cool hands, Mr. +Hawkehurst; and certainly you are about the coolest of the lot--bar +one, as they say in the ring. But that is _ni ci ni là_. I have found +the certificate of Matthew Haygarth's marriage, and to my mind the +Haygarth succession is as good as ours." + +"Ah, those birds in the bush have such splendid plumage! but I'd rather +have the modest sparrow in my hand. However, I'm very glad our affairs +are marching. How did you discover the marriage-lines?" + +"Not without hard labour, I can tell you. Of course my idea of a secret +marriage was at the best only a plausible hypothesis; and I hardly +dared to hug myself with the hope that it might turn up trumps. My idea +was based upon two or three facts, namely, the character of the young +man, his long residence in London away from the ken of respectable +relatives and friends, and the extraordinary state of the marriage laws +at the period in which our man lived." + +"Ah, to be sure! That was a strong point." + +"I should rather think it was. I took the trouble to look up the +history of Mayfair marriages and Fleet marriages before you started for +Ullerton, and I examined all the evidence I could get on that subject. +I made myself familiar with the Rev. Alexander Keith of Mayfair, who +helped to bring clandestine marriages into vogue amongst the swells, +and with Dr. Gaynham--agreeably nicknamed Bishop of Hell--and more of +the same calibre; and the result of my investigations convinced me that +in those days a hare-brained young reprobate must have found it rather +more difficult to avoid matrimony than to achieve it. He might be +married when he was tipsy; he might be married when he was comatose +from the effects of a stand-up fight with Mohawks; his name might be +assumed by some sportive Benedick of his acquaintance given to +practical joking, and he might find himself saddled with a wife he +never saw; or if, on the other hand, of an artful and deceptive turn, +he might procure a certificate of a marriage that had never taken +place,--for there were very few friendly offices which the Fleet +parsons refused to perform for their clients--for a consideration." + +"But how about the legality of the Fleet marriage?" + +"There's the rub. Before the New Marriage Act passed in 1753 a Fleet +marriage was indissoluble. It was an illegal act, and the parties were +punishable; but the Gordian knot was quite as secure as if it had been +tied in the most orthodox manner. The great difficulty to my mind was +the _onus probandi_. The marriage might have taken place; the marriage +be to all intents and purposes a good marriage; but how produce +undeniable proof of such a ceremony, when all ceremonies of the kind +were performed with a manifest recklessness and disregard of law? Even +if I found an apparently good certificate, how was I to prove that it +was not one of those lying certificates of marriages that had never +taken place? Again, what kind of registers could posterity expect from +these parson-adventurers, very few of whom could spell, and most of +whom lived in a chronic state of drunkenness? They married people +sometimes by their Christian names alone--very often under assumed +names. What consideration had they for heirs-at-law in the future, when +under the soothing influence of a gin-bottle in the present? I thought +of all these circumstances, and I was half inclined to despair of +realising my idea of an early marriage. I took it for granted that such +a secret business would be more likely to have taken place in the +precincts of the Fleet than anywhere else; and having no particular +clue, I set to work, in the first place, to examine all available +documents relating to such marriages." + +"It must have been slow work." + +"It _was_ slow work," answered Mr. Sheldon with a suppressed groan, +that was evoked by the memory of a bygone martyrdom. "I needn't enter +into all the details of the business,--the people I had to apply to for +permission to see this set of papers, and the signing and +counter-signing I had to go through before I could see that set of +papers, and the extent of circumlocution and idiocy I had to encounter +in a general way before I could complete my investigation. The result +was nil; and after working like a galley-slave I found myself no better +off than before I began my search. Your extracts from Matthew's letters +put me on a new track. I concluded therefrom that there had been a +marriage, and that the said marriage had been a deliberate act on the +part of the young man. I therefore set to work to do what I ought to +have done at starting--I hunted in all the parish registers to be found +within a certain radius of such and such localities. I began with +Clerkenwell, in which neighbourhood our friend spent such happy years, +according to that pragmatical epistle of Mrs. Rebecca's; but after +hunting in all the mouldy old churches within a mile of St. John's-gate, +I was no nearer arriving at any record of Matthew Haygarth's existence. +So I turned my back upon Clerkenwell, and went southward to the +neighbourhood of the Marshalsea, where Mistress Molly's father was at +one time immured, and whence I thought it very probable Mistress Molly +had started on her career as a matron. This time my guess was a lucky +one. After hunting the registers of St. Olave's, St. Saviour's, and St. +George's, and after the expenditure of more shillings in donations to +sextons than I care to remember, I at last lighted on a document which +I consider worth three thousand pounds to you--and--a very decent sum +of money to me." + +"I wonder what colour our hair will be when we touch that money?" said +Valentine meditatively. "These sort of cases generally find their way +into Chancery-lane, don't they?--that lane which, for some unhappy +travellers, has no turning except the one dismal _via_ which leads to +dusty death. You seem in very good spirits; and I suppose I ought to be +elated too. Three thousand pounds would give me a start in life, and +enable me to set up in the new character of a respectable rate-paying +citizen. But I've a kind of presentiment that this hand of mine will +never touch the prize of the victor; or, in plainer English, that no +good will ever arise to me or mine out of the reverend intestate's +hundred thousand pounds." + +"Why, what a dismal-minded croaker you are this morning!" exclaimed +George Sheldon with unmitigated disgust; "a regular raven, by Jove! You +come to a fellow's office just as matters are beginning to look like +success--after ten years' plodding and ten years' disappointment--and +you treat him to maudlin howls about the Court of Chancery. This is a +new line you've struck out, Hawkehurst, and I can tell you it isn't a +pleasant one." + +"Well, no, I suppose I oughtn't to say that sort of thing," answered +Valentine in an apologetic tone; "but there are some days in a man's +life when there seems to be a black cloud between him and everything he +looks at. I feel like that today. There's a tightening sensation about +something under my waistcoat--my heart, perhaps--a sense of depression +that may be either physical or mental, that I can't get rid of. If a +man had walked by my side from Chelsea to Holborn whispering +forebodings of evil into my ear at every step, I couldn't have felt +more downhearted than I do." + +"What did you eat for breakfast?" asked Mr. Sheldon impatiently. "A +tough beefsteak fried by a lodging-house cook, I daresay--they _will_ +fry their steaks. Don't inflict the consequences of your indigestible +diet upon me. To tell me that there's a black cloud between you and +everything you look at, is only a sentimental way of telling me that +you're bilious. Pray be practical, and let us look at things from a +business point of view. Here is Appendix A.--a copy of the registry of +the marriage of Matthew Haygarth, bachelor, of Clerkenwell, in the +county of Middlesex, to Mary Murchison, spinster, of Southwark, in the +county of Surrey. And here is Appendix B.--a copy of the registry of +the marriage between William Meynell, bachelor, of Smithfield, in the +county of Middlesex, to Caroline Mary Haygarth, spinster, of Highgate, +in the same county." + +"You have found the entry of a second Haygarthian marriage?" + +"I have. The C. of Matthew's letters is the Caroline Mary here +indicated, the daughter and heiress of Matthew Haygarth--doubtless +christened Caroline after her gracious majesty the consort of George +II., and Mary after the Molly whose picture was found in the tulip-leaf +bureau. The Meynell certificate was easy enough to find, since the +letters told me that Miss C.'s suitor had a father who lived in +Aldersgate-street, and a father who approved his son's choice. The +Aldersgate citizen had a house of his own, and a more secure social +status altogether than that poor, weak, surreptitious Matthew. It was +therefore only natural that the marriage should be celebrated in the +Meynell mansion. Having considered this, I had only to ransack the +registers of a certain number of churches round and about +Aldersgate-street in order to find what I wanted; and after about a day +and a half of hard labour, I did find the invaluable document which +places me one generation nearer the present, and on the high-road to +the discovery of my heir-at-law. I searched the same registry for +children of the aforesaid William and Caroline Mary Meynell, but could +find no record of such children nor any further entry of the name of +Meynell. But we must search other registries within access of +Aldersgate-street before we give up the idea of finding such entries +in that neighbourhood." + +"And what is to be the next move?" + +"The hunting-up of all descendants of this William and Caroline Mary +Meynell, wheresoever such descendants are to be found. We are now +altogether off the Haygarth and Judson scent, and have to beat a new +covert." + +"Good!" exclaimed Valentine more cheerfully. "How is the new covert to +be beaten?" + +"We must start from Aldersgate-street. Meynell of Aldersgate-street +must have been a responsible man, and it will be hard if there is no +record of him extant in all the old topographical histories of wards, +without and within, which cumber the shelves of your dry-as-dust +libraries. We must hunt up all available books; and when we've got all +the information that books can give us, we can go in upon hearsay +evidence, which is always the most valuable in these cases." + +"That means another encounter with ancient mariners--I beg your pardon-- +oldest inhabitants," said Valentine with a despondent yawn. "Well, I +suppose that sort of individual is a little less obtuse when he lives +within the roar of the great city's thunder than when he vegetates in +the dismal outskirts of a manufacturing town. Where am I to find my +octogenarian prosers? and when am I to begin my operations upon them?" +"The sooner you begin the better," replied Mr. Sheldon. "I've taken all +preliminary steps for you already, and you'll find the business +tolerably smooth sailing. I've made a list of certain people who may be +worth seeing." + +Mr. Sheldon selected a paper from the numerous documents upon the +table. + +"Here they are," he said: "John Grewter, wholesale stationer, +Aldersgate-street; Anthony Sparsfield, carver and gilder, in Barbican. +These are, so far as I can ascertain, the two oldest men now trading in +Aldersgate-street; and from these men you ought to be able to find out +something about old Meynell. I don't anticipate any difficulty about +the Meynells, except the possibility that we may find more of them than +we want, and have some trouble in shaking them into their places." + +"I'll tackle my friend the stationer to-morrow morning," said +Valentine. + +"You'd better drop in upon him in the afternoon, when the day's +business may be pretty well over," returned the prudent Sheldon. "And +now all you've got to do, Hawkehurst, is to work with a will, and work +on patiently. If you do as well in London as you did at Ullerton, +neither you nor I will have any cause to complain. Of course I needn't +impress upon you the importance of secrecy." + +"No," replied Valentine; "I'm quite alive to that." + +He then proceeded to inform George Sheldon of that encounter with +Captain Paget on the platform at Ullerton, and of the suspicion that +had been awakened in his mind by the sight of the glove in Goodge's +parlour. + +The lawyer shook his head. + +"That idea about the glove was rather far-fetched," he said, +thoughtfully; "but I don't like the look of that meeting at the +station. My brother Philip is capable of anything in the way of +manoeuvring; and I'm not ashamed to confess that I'm no match for him. +He was in here one day when I had the Haygarth pedigree spread out on +the table, and I know he smelt a rat. We must beware of him, +Hawkehurst, and we must work against time if we don't want him to +anticipate us." + +"I shan't let the grass grow under my feet," replied Valentine. "I was +really interested in that Haygarthian history: there was a dash of +romance about it, you see. I don't feel the same gusto in the Meynell +chase, but I daresay I shall begin to get up an interest in it as my +investigation proceeds. Shall I call the day after to-morrow and tell +you my adventures?" + +"I think you'd better stick to the old plan, and let me have the result +of your work in the form of a diary," answered Sheldon. And with this +the two men parted. + +It was now half-past two o'clock; it would be half-past three before +Valentine could present himself at the Lawn--a very seasonable hour at +which to call upon Mrs. Sheldon with his offering of a box for the new +play. + +An omnibus conveyed him to Bayswater at a snail's pace, and with more +stoppages than ever mortal omnibus was subjected to before, as it +seemed to that one eager passenger. At last the fading foliage of the +Park appeared between the hats and bonnets of Valentine's opposite +neighbours. Even those orange tawny trees reminded him of Charlotte. +Beneath such umbrage had he parted from her. And now he was going to +see the bright young face once more. He had been away from town about a +fortnight; but taken in relation with Miss Halliday, that fortnight +seemed half a century. + +Chrysanthemums and china-asters beautified Mr. Sheldon's neat little +garden, and the plate-glass windows of his house shone with all their +wonted radiance. It was like the houses one sees framed and glazed in +an auctioneer's office--the greenest imaginable grass, the bluest +windows, the reddest bricks, the whitest stone. "It is a house that +would set my teeth on edge, but for the one sweet creature who lives in +it," Valentine thought to himself, as he waited at the florid iron +gate, which was painted a vivid ultramarine and picked out with gold. + +He tried in vain to catch a glimpse of some feminine figure in the +small suburban garden. No flutter of scarlet petticoat or flash of +scarlet plume revealed the presence of the divinity. + +The prim maid-servant informed him that Mrs. Sheldon was at home, and +asked if he would please to walk into the drawing-room. + +Would he please? Would he not have been pleased to walk into a raging +furnace if there had been a chance of meeting Charlotte Halliday amid +the flames? He followed the maid-servant into Mrs. Sheldon's +irreproachable apartment, where the show books upon the show table were +ranged at the usual mathematically correct distances from one another, +and where the speckless looking-glasses and all-pervading French polish +imparted a chilly aspect to the chamber. A newly-lighted fire was +smouldering in the shining steel grate, and a solitary female figure +was seated by the broad Tudor window bending over some needlework. + +It was the figure of Diana Paget, and she was quite alone in the room. +Valentine's heart sank a little as he saw the solitary figure, and +perceived that it was not the woman he loved. + +Diana looked up from her work and recognised the visitor. Her face +flushed, but the flush faded very quickly, and Valentine was not +conscious of that flattering indication. + +"How do you do, Diana?" he said. "Here I am again, you see, like the +proverbial bad shilling. I have brought Mrs. Sheldon an order for the +Princess's." "You are very kind; but I don't think she'll care to go. +She was complaining of a headache this afternoon." + +"O, she'll forget all about her headache if she wants to go to the +play. She's the sort of little woman who is always ready for a theatre +or a concert. Besides, Miss Halliday may like to go, and will easily +persuade her mamma. Whom could she not persuade?" added Mr. Hawkehurst +within himself. + +"Miss Halliday is out of town," Diana replied coldly. + +The young man felt as if his heart were suddenly transformed into so +much lead, so heavy did it seem to grow. What a foolish thing it seemed +that he should be the victim of this fair enslaver!--he who until +lately had fancied himself incapable of any earnest feeling or deep +emotion. + +"Out of town!" he repeated with unconcealed disappointment. + +"Yes; she has gone on a visit to some relations in Yorkshire. She +actually has relations; doesn't that sound strange to you and me?" + +Valentine did not notice this rather cynical remark. + +"She'll be away ever so long, I suppose?" he said. + +"I have no idea how long she may stay there. The people idolise her, I +understand. You know it is her privilege to be idolised; and of course +they will persuade her to stay as long as they can. You seem +disappointed at not seeing her." + +"I am very much disappointed," Valentine answered frankly; "she is a +sweet girl." + +There was a silence after this. Miss Paget resumed her work with rapid +fingers. She was picking up shining little beads one by one on the +point of her needle, and transferring them to the canvas stretched upon +an embroidery frame before her. It was a kind of work exacting extreme +care and precision, and the girl's hand never faltered, though a +tempest of passionate feeling agitated her as she worked. + +"I am very sorry not to see her," Valentine said presently, "for the +sight of her is very dear to me. Why should I try to hide my feelings +from you, Diana? We have endured so much misery together that there +must be some bond of union between us. To me you have always seemed +like a sister, and I have no wish to keep any secret from you, though +you receive me so coldly that one would think I had offended you." + +"You have not offended me. I thank you for being so frank with me. You +would have gained little by an opposite course. I have long known your +affection for Charlotte." + +"You guessed my secret?" + +"I saw what any one could have seen who had taken the trouble to watch +you for ten minutes during your visits to this house." + +"Was my unhappy state so very conspicuous?" exclaimed Valentine, +laughing. "Was I so obviously spoony? _I_ who have so ridiculed +anything in the way of sentiment. You make me blush for my folly, +Diana. What is that you are dotting with all those beads?--something +very elaborate." + +"It is a prie-dieu chair I am working for Mrs. Sheldon. Of course I am +bound to do something for my living." + +"And so you wear out your eyesight in the working of chairs. Poor girl! +it seems hard that your beauty and accomplishments should not find a +better market than that. I daresay you will marry some millionaire +friend of Mr. Sheldon's one of these days, and I shall hear of your +house in Park-lane and three-hundred guinea barouche." + +"You are very kind to promise me* a millionaire. The circumstances of my +existence hitherto have been so peculiarly fortunate that I am +justified in expecting such a suitor. [*My millionaire printer's typo] +shall ask you to dinner at my house in Park-lane; and you shall play +_écarté_ with him, if you like--papa's kind of _écarté_." + +"Don't talk of those things, Di," said Mr. Hawkehurst, with something +that was almost a shudder; "let us forget that we ever led that kind of +life." + +"Yes," replied Diana, "let us forget it--if we can." + +The bitterness of her tone struck him painfully. He sat for some +minutes watching her silently, and pitying her fate. What a sad fate it +seemed, and how hopeless! For him there was always some chance of +redemption. He could go out into the world, and cut his way through the +forest of difficulty with the axe of the conqueror. But what could a +woman do who found herself in the midst of that dismal forest? She +could only sit at the door of her lonesome hut, looking out with weary +eyes for the prince who was to come and rescue her. And Valentine +remembered how many women there are to whom the prince never comes, and +who must needs die and be buried beneath that gloomy umbrage. + +"O! let us have women doctors, women lawyers, women parsons, women +stone-breakers--anything rather than these dependent creatures who sit +in other people's houses working prie-dieu chairs and pining for +freedom," he thought to himself, as he watched the pale stern face in +the chill afternoon light. + +"Do leave off working for a few minutes, and talk to me, Di," he said +rather impatiently. "You don't know how painful it is to a man to see a +woman absorbed in some piece of needlework at the very moment when he +wants all her sympathy. I am afraid you are not quite happy. Do confide +in me, dear, as frankly as I confide in you. Are these people kind to +you? Charlotte is, of course. But the elder birds, Mr. and Mrs. +Sheldon, are they kind?" "They are very kind. Mr. Sheldon is not a +demonstrative man, as you know; but I am not accustomed to have people +in a rapturous state of mind about me and my affairs. He is kinder to +me than my father ever was; and I don't see how I can expect more than +that. Mrs. Sheldon is extremely kind in her way--which is rather a +feeble way, as you know." + +"And Charlotte--?" + +"You answered for Charlotte yourself just now. Yes, she is very, very, +very good to me; much better than I deserve. I was almost going to +quote the collect, and say 'desire or deserve.'" + +"Why should you not desire or deserve her goodness?" asked Valentine. + +"Because I am not a loveable kind of person. I am not sympathetic. I +know that Charlotte is very fascinating, very charming; but sometimes +her very fascination repels me. I think the atmosphere of that horrible +swampy district between Lambeth and Battersea, where my childhood was +spent, must have soured my disposition." + +"No, Diana; you have only learnt a bitter way of talking. I know your +heart is noble and true. I have seen your suppressed indignation many a +time when your father's meannesses have revolted you. Our lives have +been very hard, dear; but let us hope for brighter days. I think they +must come to us." + +"They will never come to me," said Diana. + +"You say that with an air of conviction. But why should they not come +to you--brighter and better days?" + +"I cannot tell you that. I can only tell you that they will not come. +And do you hope that any good will ever come of your love for Charlotte +Halliday--you, who know Mr. Sheldon?" + +"I am ready to hope anything." + +"You think that Mr. Sheldon would let his stepdaughter marry a +penniless man?" + +"I may not always be penniless. Besides, Mr. Sheldon has no actual +authority over Charlotte." + +"But he has moral influence over her. She is very easily influenced." + +"I am ready to hope even in spite of Mr. Sheldon's opposing influence. +You must not try to crush this one little floweret that has grown up in +a barren waste, Diana. It is my prison-flower." + +Mrs. Sheldon came into the room as he said this. She was very cordial, +very eloquent upon the subject of her headache, and very much inclined +to go to the theatre, notwithstanding that ailment, when she heard that +Mr. Hawkehurst had been kind enough to bring her a box. + +"Diana and I could go," she said, "if we can manage to be in time after +our six o'clock dinner. Mr. Sheldon does not care about theatres. All +the pieces tire him. He declares they are all stupid. But then, you +see, if one's mind is continually wandering, the cleverest piece must +seem stupid," Mrs. Sheldon added thoughtfully; "and my husband is so +very absent-minded." + +After some further discussion about the theatres, Valentine bade the +ladies good afternoon. + +"Won't you stop to see Mr. Sheldon?" asked Georgina; "he's in the +library with Captain Paget. You did not know that your papa was here, +did you, Diana, my dear? He came in with Mr. Sheldon an hour ago." + +"I won't disturb Mr. Sheldon," said Valentine. "I will call again in a +few days." + +He took leave of the two ladies, and went out into the hall. As he +emerged from the drawing-room, the door of the library was opened, and +he heard Philip Sheldon's voice within, saying,-- + +"--your accuracy with regard to the name of Meynell." + +It was the close of a sentence; but the name struck immediately upon +Valentine's ear. Meynell!--the name which had for him so peculiar an +interest. + +"Is it only a coincidence," he thought to himself, "or is Horatio Paget +on our track?" + +And then he argued with himself that his ears might have deceived him, +and that the name he had heard might not have been Meynell, but only a +name of somewhat similar sound. + +It was Captain Paget who had opened the door. He came into the hall and +recognised his _protégé_. They left the house together, and the Captain +was especially gracious. + +"We will dine together somewhere at the West-end, Val," he said; but, +to his surprise, Mr. Hawkehurst declined the proffered entertainment. + +"I'm tired out with a hard day's work," he said, "and should be very +bad company; so, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to Omega-street and +get a chop." + +The Captain stared at him in amazement. He could not comprehend the man +who could refuse to dine luxuriously at the expense of his fellow-man. + +Valentine had of late acquired new prejudices. He no longer cared to +enjoy the hospitality of Horatio Paget. In Omega-street the household +expenses were shared by the two men. It was a kind of club upon a small +scale; and there was no degradation in breaking bread with the elegant +Horatio. + +To Omega-street Valentine returned this afternoon, there to eat a +frugal meal and spend a meditative evening, uncheered by one glimmer of +that radiance which more fortunate men know as the light of home. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +VALENTINE'S RECORD CONTINUED. + + +_October 15th_. I left Omega-street for the City before noon, after a +hasty breakfast with my friend Horatio, who was somewhat under the +dominion of his black dog this morning, and far from pleasant company. +I was not to present myself to the worthy John Grewter, wholesale +stationer, before the afternoon; but I had no particular reason for +staying at home, and I had a fancy for strolling about the old City +quarter in which Matthew Haygarth's youth had been spent. I went to +look at John-street, Clerkenwell, and dawdled about the immediate +neighbourhood of Smithfield, thinking of the old fair-time, and of all +the rioters and merry-makers, who now were so much or so little dust +and ashes in City churchyards, until the great bell of St. Paul's +boomed three, and I felt that it might be a leisure time with Mr. +Grewter. + +I found the stationer's shop as darksome and dreary as City shops +usually are, but redolent of that subtle odour of wealth which has a +mystical charm for the nostrils of the penniless one. Stacks of +ledgers, mountains of account-books, filled the dimly-lighted +warehouse. Some clerks were at work behind a glass partition, and +already the gas flared high in the green-shaded lamps above the desk at +which they worked. I wondered whether it was a pleasant way of life +theirs, and whether one would come to feel an interest in the barter of +day-books and ledgers if they were one's daily bread. Alas for me! the +only ledger I have ever known is the sainted patron of the northern +racecourse. One young man came forward and asked my business, with a +look that plainly told me that unless I wanted two or three gross of +account-books I had no right to be there. I told him that I wished to +see Mr. Grewter, and asked if that gentleman was to be seen. + +The clerk said he did not know; but his tone implied that, in his +opinion, I could _not_ see Mr. Grewter. + +"Perhaps you could go and ask," I suggested. + +"Well, yes. Is it old or young Mr. Grewter you want to see?" + +"Old Mr. Grewter," I replied. + +"Very well, I'll go and see. You'd better send in your card, though." + +I produced one of George Sheldon's cards, which the clerk looked at. He +gave a little start as if an adder had stung him. + +"You're not Mr. Sheldon?" he said. + +"No; Mr. Sheldon is my employer." + +"What do you go about giving people Sheldon's card for?" asked the +clerk, with quite an aggrieved air. "I know Sheldon of Gray's Inn." + +"Then I'm sure you've found him a very accommodating gentleman," I +replied, politely. + +"Deuce take his accommodation! He nearly accommodated me into the +Bankruptcy Court. And so you're Sheldon's clerk, and you want the +governor. But you don't mean to say that Grewter and Grewter are--" + +This was said in an awe-stricken undertone. I hastened to reassure the +stationer's clerk. + +"I don't think Mr. Sheldon ever saw Mr. Grewter in his life," I said. + +After this the clerk condescended to retire into the unknown antres +behind the shop, to deliver my message. I began to think that George +Sheldon's card was not the best possible letter of introduction. + +The clerk returned presently, followed by a tall, white-bearded man, +with a bent figure, and a pair of penetrating gray eyes--a very +promising specimen of the octogenarian. + +He asked me my business in a sharp suspicious way, that obliged me to +state the nature of my errand without circumlocution. As I got farther +away from the Rev. John Haygarth, intestate, I was less fettered by the +necessity of secrecy. I informed my octogenarian that I was prosecuting +a legal investigation connected with a late inhabitant of that street, +and that I had taken the liberty to apply to him, in the hope that he +might be able to afford me some information. + +He looked at me all the time I spoke as if he thought I was going to +entreat pecuniary relief--and I daresay I have something the air of a +begging-letter writer. But when he found that I only wanted +information, his hard gray eyes softened ever so little, and he asked +me to walk into his parlour. + +His parlour was scarcely less gruesome than his shop. The furniture +looked as if its manufacture had been coeval with the time of the +Meynells, and the ghastly glare of the gas seemed a kind of +anachronism. After a few preliminary observations, which were not +encouraged by Mr. Grewter's manner, I inquired whether he had ever +heard the name of Meynell. + +"Yes," he said; "there was a Meynell in this street when I was a young +man--Christian Meynell, a carpet-maker by trade. The business is still +carried on--and a very old business it is, for it was an old business +in Meynell's time; but Meynell died before I married, and his name is +pretty well forgotten in Aldersgate-street by this time." + +"Had he no sons?" I asked. + +"Well, yes; he had one son, Samuel, a kind of companion of mine. But he +didn't take to the business, and when his father died he let things go +anyhow, as you may say. He was rather wild, and died two or three years +after his father." "Did he die unmarried?" + +"Yes. There was some talk of his marrying a Miss Dobberly, whose father +was a cabinet-maker in Jewin-street; but Samuel was too wild for the +Dobberlys, who were steady-going people, and he went abroad, where he +was taken with some kind of fever and died." + +"Was this son the only child?" + +"No; there were two daughters. The younger of them married; the elder +went to live with her--and died unmarried, I've heard say." + +"Do you know whom the younger sister married?" I asked. + +"No. She didn't marry in London. She went into the country to visit +some friends, and she married and settled down in those parts--wherever +it might be--and I never heard of her coming back to London again. The +carpet business was sold directly after Samuel Meynell's death. The new +people kept up the name for a good twenty years--'Taylor, late Meynell, +established 1693,' that's what was painted on the board above the +window--but they've dropped the name of Meynell now. People forget old +names, you see, and it's no use keeping to them after they're +forgotten." + +Yes, the old names are forgotten, the old people fade off the face of +the earth. The romance of Matthew Haygarth seemed to come to a lame and +impotent conclusion in this dull record of dealers in carpeting. + +"You can't remember what part of England it was that Christian +Meynell's daughter went to when she married?" + +"No. It wasn't a matter I took much interest in. I don't think I ever +spoke to the young woman above three times in my life, though she lived +in the same street, and though her brother and I often met each other +at the Cat and Salutation, where there used to be a great deal of talk +about the war and Napoleon Bonaparte in those days." + +"Have you any idea of the time at which she was married?" I inquired. + +"Not as to the exact year. I know it was after I was married; for I +remember my wife and I sitting at our window upstairs one summer Sunday +evening, and seeing Samuel Meynell's sister go by to church. I can +remember it as well as if it was yesterday. She was dressed in a white +gown and a green silk spencer. Yes--and I didn't marry my first wife +till 1814. But as to telling you exactly when Miss Meynell left +Aldersgate-street, I can't." + +These reminiscences of the past seemed to exercise rather a mollifying +influence upon the old man's mind, commonplace as they were. He ceased +to look at me with sharp, suspicious glances, and he seemed anxious to +afford me all the help he could. "Was Christian Meynell's father called +William?" I asked, after having paused to make some notes in my +pocket-book. + +"That I can't tell you; though, if Christian Meynell was living to-day, +he wouldn't be ten years older than me. His father died when I was +quite a boy; but there must be old books at the warehouse with his name +in them, if they haven't been destroyed." + +I determined to make inquiries at the carpet warehouse; but I had +little hope of finding the books of nearly a century gone by. I tried +another question. + +"Do you know whether Christian Meynell was an only son, or the only son +who attained manhood?" I asked. + +My elderly friend shook his head. + +"Christian Meynell never had any brothers that I heard of," he said; +"but the parish register will tell you all about that, supposing that +his father before him lived all his life in Aldersgate-street, as I've +every reason to believe he did." + +After this I asked a few questions about the neighbouring churches, +thanked Mr. Grewter for his civility, and departed. + +I went back to Omega-street, dined upon nothing particular, and devoted +the rest of my evening to the scrawling of this journal, and a tender +reverie, in which Charlotte Halliday was the central figure. + +How bitter poverty and dependence have made Diana Paget! She used to be +a nice girl too. + +_Oct. 16th_. To-day's work has been confined to the investigation of +parish registers--a most wearisome business at the best. My labours +were happily not without result. In the fine old church of St. Giles, +Cripplegate, I found registries of the baptism of Oliver Meynell, son +of William and Caroline Mary Meynell, 1768; and of the burial of the +same Oliver in the following year. I found the record of the baptism of +a daughter to the same William and Caroline Mary Meynell, and further +on the burial of the said daughter, at five years of age. I also found +the records of the baptism of Christian Meynell, son of the same +William and Caroline Mary Meynell, in the year 1772, and of William +Meynell's decease in the year 1793. Later appeared the entry of the +burial of Sarah, widow of Christian Meynell. Later still, the baptism +of Samuel Meynell; then the baptism of Susan Meynell; and finally, that +of Charlotte Meynell. + +These were all the entries respecting the Meynell family to be found in +the registry. There was no record of the burial of Caroline Mary, wife +of William Meynell, nor of Christian Meynell, nor of Samuel Meynell, +his son; and I knew that all these entries would be necessary to my +astute Sheldon before his case would be complete. After my search of +the registries, I went out into the churchyard to grope for the family +vault of the Meynells, and found a grim square monument, enclosed by a +railing that was almost eaten away by rust, and inscribed with the +names and virtues of that departed house. The burial ground is +interesting by reason of more distinguished company than the Meynells. +John Milton, John Fox, author of the Martyrology, and John Speed, the +chronologer, rest in this City churchyard. + +In the hope of getting some clue to the missing data, I ventured to +make a second call upon Mr. Grewter, whom I found rather inclined to be +snappish, as considering the Meynell business unlikely to result in any +profit to himself, and objecting on principle to take any trouble not +likely to result in profit. I believe this is the mercantile manner of +looking at things in a general way. + +I asked him if he could tell me where Samuel Meynell was buried. + +"I suppose he was buried in foreign parts," replied the old gentleman, +with considerable grumpiness, "since he died in foreign parts." + +"O, he died abroad, did he? Can you tell me where?" + +"No, sir, I can't," replied Mr. Grewter, with increasing grumpiness; "I +didn't trouble myself about other people's affairs then, and I don't +trouble myself about them now, and I don't particularly care to be +troubled about them by strangers." + +I made the meekest possible apology for my intrusion, but the outraged +Grewter was not appeased. + +"Your best apology will be not doing it again," he replied. "Those that +know my habits know that I take half an hour's nap after dinner. My +constitution requires it, or I shouldn't take it. If I didn't happen to +have a strange warehouseman on my premises, you wouldn't have been +allowed to disturb me two afternoons running." + +Finding Mr. Grewter unappeasable, I left him, and went to seek a more +placable spirit in the shape of Anthony Sparsfield, carver and gilder, +of Barbican. + +I found the establishment of Sparsfield and Son, carvers and gilders. +It was a low dark shop, in the window of which were exhibited two or +three handsomely carved frames, very much the worse for flies, and one +oil-painting, of a mysterious and Rembrandtish character. The +old-established air that pervaded almost all the shops in this +neighbourhood was peculiarly apparent in the Sparsfield establishment. + +In the shop I found a mild-faced man of about forty engaged in +conversation with a customer. I waited patiently while the customer +finished a minute description of the kind of frame he wanted made for a +set of proof engravings after Landseer; and when the customer had +departed, I asked the mild-faced man if I could see Mr. Sparsfield. + +"I am Mr. Sparsfield," he replied politely. + +"Not Mr. Anthony Sparsfield?" + +"Yes, my name is Anthony." + +"I was given to understand that Mr. Anthony Sparsfield was a much older +person." + +"O, I suppose you mean my father," replied the mild-faced man. "My +father is advanced in years, and does very little in the business +nowadays; not but what his head is as clear as ever it was, and there +are some of our old customers like to see him when they give an order." + +This sounded hopeful. I told Mr. Sparsfield the younger that I was not +a customer, and then proceeded to state the nature of my business. I +found him as courteous as Mr. Grewter had been disobliging. + +"Me and father are old-fashioned people," he said; "and we're not above +living over our place of business, which most of the Barbican +tradespeople are nowadays. The old gentleman is taking tea in the +parlour upstairs at this present moment, and if you don't mind stepping +up to him, I'm sure he'll be proud to give you any information he can. +He likes talking of old times." + +This was the sort of oldest inhabitant I wanted to meet with--a very +different kind of individual from Mr. Grewter, who doled out every +answer to my questions as grudgingly as if it had been a five-pound +note. + +I was conducted to a snug little sitting-room on the first-floor, where +there was a cheerful fire and a comfortable odour of tea and toast. I +was invited to take a cup of tea; and as I perceived that my acceptance +of the invitation would be accounted a kind of favour, I said yes. The +tea was very weak, and very warm, and very sweet; but Mr. Sparsfield +and his son sipped it with as great an air of enjoyment as if it had +been the most inspiring of beverages. + +Mr. Sparsfield the elder was more or less rheumatic and asthmatic, but +a cheerful old man withal, and quite ready to prate of old times, when +Barbican and Aldersgate-street were pleasanter places than they are +to-day, or had seemed so to this elderly citizen. + +"Meynell!" he exclaimed; "I knew Sam Meynell as well as I knew my own +brother, and I knew old Christian Meynell almost as well as I knew my +own father. There was more sociability in those days, you see, sir. The +world seems to have grown too full to leave any room for friendship. +It's all push and struggle, and struggle and push, as you may say; and +a man will make you a frame for five-and-twenty shillings that will +look more imposing like than what I could turn out for five pound, Only +the gold-leaf will all drop off after a twelvemonth's wear; and that's +the way of the world nowadays. There's a deal of gilding, and things +are made to look uncommon bright; but the gold all drops off 'em before +long." + +After allowing the old man to moralise to his heart's content, I +brought him back politely to the subject in which I was interested. + +"Samuel Meynell was as good a fellow as ever breathed," he said; "but +he was too fond of the tavern. There were some very nice taverns round +about Aldersgate-street in those days; and you see, sir, the times were +stirring times, and folks liked to get together and talk over the day's +news, with a pipe of tobacco and a glass of their favourite liquor, all +in a sociable way. Poor Sam Meynell took a little too much of his +favourite liquor; and when the young woman that he had been keeping +company with--Miss Dobberly of Jewin-street--jilted him and married a +wholesale butcher in Newgate Market, who was old enough to be her +father, Sam took to drinking, and neglected his business. One day he +came to me and said, 'I've sold the business, Tony,'--for it was Sam +and Tony with us, you see, sir,--'and I'm off to France.' This was soon +after the battle of Waterloo; and many folks had a fancy for going over +to France now that they'd seen the back of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was +generally alluded to in those days by the name of monster or tiger, and +was understood to make his chief diet off frogs. Well, sir, we were all +of us very much surprised at Sam's going to foreign parts; but as he'd +always been wild, it was only looked upon as a part of his wildness, +and we weren't so much surprised to hear a year or two afterwards that +he'd drunk himself to death upon cheap brandy--odyvee as _they_ call +it, poor ignorant creatures--at Calais." + +"He died at Calais?" + +"Yes," replied the old man; "I forget who brought the news home, but I +remember hearing it. Poor Sam Meynell died and was buried amongst the +Mossoos." + +"You are sure he was buried at Calais?" + +"Yes, as sure as I can be of anything. Travelling was no easy matter in +those days, and in foreign parts there was nothing but diligences, +which I've heard say were the laziest-going vehicles ever invented. +There was no one to bring poor Sam's remains back to England, for his +mother was dead, and his two sisters were settled somewhere down in +Yorkshire." + +In Yorkshire! I am afraid I looked rather sheepish when Mr. Sparsfield +senior mentioned this particular county, for my thoughts took wing and +were with Charlotte Halliday before the word had well escaped his lips. + +"Miss Meynell settled in Yorkshire, did she?" I asked. + +"Yes, she married some one in the farming way down there. Her mother +was a Yorkshirewoman, and she and her sister went visiting among her +mother's relations, and never came back to London. One of them married, +the other died a spinster." + +"Do you remember the name of the man she married?" + +"No," replied Mr. Sparsfield, "I can't say that I do." + +"Do you remember the name of the place she went to--the town or +village, or whatever it was?" + +"I might remember it if I heard it," he responded thoughtfully; "and I +ought to remember it, for I've heard Sam Meynell talk of his sister +Charlotte's home many a time. She was christened Charlotte, you see, +after the Queen. I've a sort of notion that the name of the village was +something ending in Cross, as it might be Charing Cross, or Waltham +Cross." + +This was vague, but it was a great deal more than I had been able to +extort from Mr. Grewter. I took a second cup of the sweet warm liquid +which my new friends called tea, in order to have an excuse for +loitering, while I tried to obtain more light from the reminiscences of +the old frame-maker. + +No more light came, however. So I was fain to take my leave, reserving +to myself the privilege of calling again on a future occasion. + +_Oct. 18th_. I sent Sheldon a statement of my Aldersgate-street +researches the day before yesterday morning. He went carefully through +the information I had collected, and approved my labours. + +"You've done uncommonly well, considering the short time you've been at +the work," he said; "and you've reason to congratulate yourself upon +having your ground all laid out for you, as my ground has never been +laid out for me. The Meynell branch seems to be narrowing itself into +the person of Christian Meynell's daughter and her descendants, and our +most important business now will be to find out when, where, and whom +she married, and what issue arose from such marriage. This I think you +ought to be able to do." + +I shook my head rather despondingly. + +"I don't see any hope of finding out the name of the young woman's +husband," I said, "unless I can come across another oldest inhabitant, +gifted with a better memory for names and places than my obliging +Sparsfield or my surly Grewter." + +"There are the almshouses," said Sheldon; "you haven't tried them yet." + +"No; I suppose I must go in for the almshouses," I replied, with the +sublime resignation of the pauper, whose poverty must consent to +anything; "though I confess that the prosiness of the almshouse +intellect is almost more than I can endure." + +"And how do you know that you mayn't get the name of the place out of +your friend the carver and gilder?" said George Sheldon; "he has given +you some kind of clue in telling you that the name ends in Cross. He +said he should know the name if he heard it; why not try him with it?" + +"But in order to do that, I must know the name myself," replied I, "and +in that ease I shouldn't want the aid of my Sparsfield." + +"You are not great in expedients," said Sheldon, tilting back his +chair, and taking a shabby folio from a shelf of other shabby folios. +"This is a British gazetteer," he said, turning to the index of the +work before him. "We'll test the ancient Sparsfield's memory with every +Cross in the three Ridings, and if the faintest echo of the name we +want still lingers in his feeble old brain, we'll awaken it." My patron +ran his finger-nail along one of the columns of the index. + +"Just take your pencil and write down the names as I call them," he +said. "Here we are--Aylsey Cross; and here we are again--Bowford Cross, +Callindale Cross, Huxter's Cross, Jarnam Cross, Kingborough Cross." +Then, after a careful examination of the column, he exclaimed, "Those +are all the Crosses in the county of York, and it will go hard with us +if you or I can't find the descendants of Christian Meynell's daughter +at one of them. The daughter herself may be alive, for anything we +know." + +"And how about the Samuel Meynell who died at Calais? You'll have to +find some record of his death, won't you? I suppose in these cases one +must prove everything." + +"Yes, I must prove the demise of Samuel," replied the sanguine +genealogist; "that part of the business I'll see to myself, while you +hunt out the female branch of the Meynells. I want an outing after a +long spell of hard work; so I'll run across to Calais and search for +the register of Samuel's interment. I suppose somebody took the trouble +to bury him, though he was a stranger in the land." + +"And if I extort the name we want from poor old Sparsfield's +recollection?" + +"In that case you can start at once for the place, and begin your +search on the spot. It can't be above fifty years since this woman +married, and there must be some inhabitant of the place old enough to +remember her. O, by the bye, I suppose you'll be wanting more cash for +expenses," added Mr. Sheldon, with a sigh. He took a five-pound note +from his pocket-book, and gave it to me with a piteous air of +self-sacrifice. I know that he is poor, and that whatever money he does +contrive to earn is extorted from the necessities of his needier +brethren. Some of this money he speculates upon the chances of the +Haygarthian succession, as he his speculated his money on worse chances +in the past. "Three thousand pounds!" he said to me, as he handed me +the poor little five-pound note; "think what a prize you are working +for, and work your hardest. The nearer we get to the end, the slower +our progress seems to me; and yet it has been very rapid progress, +considering all things." + +So sentimental have I become, that I thought less of that possible +three thousand pounds than of the fact that I was likely to go to +Yorkshire, the county of Charlotte's birth, the county where she was +now staying. I reminded myself that it was the largest shire in +England, and that of all possible coincidences of time and place, there +could be none more unlikely than the coincidence that would bring about +a meeting between Charlotte Halliday and me. + +"I know that for all practical purposes I shall be no nearer to her in +Yorkshire than in London," I said to myself; "but I shall have the +pleasure of fancying myself nearer to her." + +Before leaving George Sheldon, I told him of the fragmentary sentences +I had heard uttered by Captain Paget and Philip Sheldon at the Lawn; +but he pooh-poohed my suspicions. + +"I'll tell you what it is, Valentine Hawkehurst," he said, fixing those +hard black eyes of his upon me as if he would fain have pierced the +bony covering of my skull to discover the innermost workings of my +brain; "neither Captain Paget nor my brother Phil can know anything of +this business, unless you have turned traitor and sold them my secrets. +And mark me, if you have, you've sold yourself and them into the +bargain: my hand holds the documentary evidence, without which all your +knowledge is worthless." + +"I am not a traitor," I told him quietly, for I despise him far too +heartily to put myself into a passion about anything he might please to +say of me; "and I have never uttered a word about this business either +to Captain Paget or to your brother. If you begin to distrust me, it is +high time you should look out for a new coadjutor." + +I had my Sheldon, morally speaking, at my feet in a moment. + +"Don't be melodramatic, Hawkehurst," he said; "people sell each other +every day of the week, and no one blames the seller, provided he makes +a good bargain. But this is a case in which the bargain would be a very +bad one." + +After this I took my leave of Mr. Sheldon. He was to start for Calais +by that night's mail, and return to town directly his investigation was +completed. If he found me absent on his return, he would conclude that +I had obtained the information I required and started for Yorkshire. In +this event he would patiently await the receipt of tidings from that +county. + +I went straight from Gray's Inn to Jewin-street. I had spent the +greater part of the day in Sheldon's office, and when I presented +myself before my complacent Sparsfield junior, Sparsfield senior's tea +and toast were already in process of preparation; and I was again +invited to step upstairs to the family sitting-room, and again treated +with that Arcadian simplicity of confidence and friendliness which it +has been my fate to encounter quite as often in the heart of this +sophisticated city as in the most pastoral of villages. With people who +were so frank and cordial I could but be equally frank. + +"I am afraid I am making myself a nuisance to you, Mr. Sparsfield," I +said; "but I know you'll forgive me when I tell you that the affair I'm +engaged in is a matter of vital importance to me, and that your help +may do a great deal towards bringing matters to a crisis." + +Mr. Sparsfield senior declared himself always ready to assist his +fellow-creatures, and was good enough further to declare that he had +taken a liking to me. So weak had I of late become upon all matters of +sentiment, I thanked Mr. Sparsfield for his good opinion, and then went +on to tell him that I was about to test his memory. + +"And it ain't a bad un," he cried, cheerily, clapping his hand upon his +knee by way of emphasis. "It ain't a bad memory, is it, Tony?" + +"Few better, father," answered the dutiful Anthony junior. "Your +memory's better than mine, a long way." + +"Ah," said the old man, with a chuckle, "folks lived different in my +day. There weren't no gas, and there weren't no railroads, and London +tradespeople was content to live in the same house from year's end to +year's end. But now your tradesman must go on his foreign tours, like a +prince of the royal family, and he must go here and go there; and when +he's been everywhere, he caps it all by going through the Gazette. +Folks stayed at home in my day; but they made their fortunes, and they +kept their health, and their eyesight, and their memory, and their +hearing, and many of 'em have lived to see the next generation make +fools of themselves." + +"Why, father," cried Anthony junior, aghast at this flood of eloquence, +"what an oration!" + +"And it ain't often I make an oration, is it, Tony?" said the old man, +laughing. "I only mean to say that if my memory's pretty bright, it may +be partly because I haven't frittered it away upon nonsense, as some +folks have. I've stayed at home and minded my own business, and left +other people to mind theirs. And now, sir, if you want the help of my +memory, I'm ready to give it." + +"You told me the other day that you could not recall the name of the +place where Christian Meynell's daughter married, but you said you +should remember it if you heard it, and you also said that the name +ended in Cross." + +"I'll stick to that," replied my ancient friend. "I'll stick to that." +"Very well then. It is a settled thing that the place was in +Yorkshire?" + +"Yes, I'm sure of that too." + +"And that the name ended in Cross?" + +"It did, as sure as my name is Sparsfield." + +"Then in that case, as there are only six towns or villages in the +county of York the names of which end in Cross, it stands to reason +that the place we want must be one of those six." + +Having thus premised, I took my list from my pocket and read aloud the +names of the six places, very slowly, for Mr. Sparsfield's edification. + +"Aylsey Cross--Bowford Cross--Callindale Cross--Huxter's Cross--Jarnam +Cross--Kingborough Cross." + +"That's him!" cried my old friend suddenly. + +"Which?" I asked eagerly. + +"Huxter's Cross; I remember thinking at the time that it must be a +place where they sold things, because of the name Huxter, you see, +pronounced just the same as if it was spelt with a cks instead of an x. +And I heard afterwards that there'd once been a market held at the +place, but it had been done away with before our time. Huxter's Cross; +yes, that's the name of the place where Christian Meynell's daughter +married and settled. I've heard it many a time from poor Sam, and it +comes back to me as plain as if I'd never forgotten it." + +There was an air of conviction about the old man which satisfied me +that he was not deceived. I thanked him heartily for his aid as I took +my leave. + +"You may have helped to put a good lump of money in my pocket, Mr. +Sparsfield," I said; "and if you have, I'll get my picture taken, if +it's only for the pleasure of bringing it here to be framed." + +With this valedictory address I left my simple citizens of Barbican. My +heart was very light as I wended my way across those metropolitan wilds +that lay between Barbican and Omega-street. I am ashamed of myself when +I remember the foolish cause of this elation of mind. I was going to +Yorkshire, the county of which my Charlotte was now an inhabitant. My +Charlotte! It is a pleasure even to write that delicious possessive +pronoun--the pleasure of poor Alnascher, the crockery-seller, dreaming +his day-dream in the eastern market-place. + +Can any one know better than I that I shall be no nearer Charlotte +Halliday in Yorkshire than I am in London? No one. And yet I am glad my +Sheldon's business takes me to the woods and wolds of that wide +northern shire. + +Huxter's Cross--some Heaven-forgotten spot, no doubt. I bought a +railway time-table on my way home to-night, and have carefully studied +the bearings of the place amongst whose mouldy records I am to discover +the history of Christian Meynell's daughter and heiress. + +I find that Huxter's Cross lies off the railroad, and is to be +approached by an obscure little station--as I divine from the +ignominious type in which its name appears--about sixty miles northward +of Hull. The station is called Hidling; and at Hidling there seems to +be a coach which plies between the station and Huxter's Cross. + +Figure to yourself again, my dear, the heir-at-law to a hundred +thousand pounds vegetating in the unknown regions of Huxter's Cross cum +Hidling, unconscious of his heritage! + +Shall I find him at the plough-tail, I wonder, this mute inglorious +heir-at-law? or shall I find an heiress with brawny arms meekly +churning butter? or shall I discover the last of the Meynells taking +his rest in some lonely churchyard, not to be awakened by earthly voice +proclaiming the tidings of earthly good fortune? + +I am going to Yorkshire--that is enough for me. I languish for the +starting of the train which shall convey me thither. I begin to +understand the nostalgia of the mountain herdsman: I pine for that +northern air, those fresh pure breezes blowing over moor and wold-- +though I am not quite clear, by the bye, as to the exact nature of a +wold. I pant, I yearn for Yorkshire. I, the cockney, the child of +Temple Bar, whose cradle-song was boomed by the bells of St. Dunstan's +and St. Clement's Danes. + +Is not Yorkshire my Charlotte's birthplace? I want to see the land +whose daughters are so lovely. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ARCADIA. + + +_November 1st_. This is Huxter's Cross, and I live here. I have lived +here a week. I should like to live here for ever. O, let me be rational +for a few hours, while I write the record of this last blissful week; +let me be reasonable, and business-like, and Sheldon-like for this one +wet afternoon, and then I may be happy and foolish again. Be still, +beating heart! as the heroines of Minerva-press romances were +accustomed to say to themselves on the smallest provocation. Be still, +foolish, fluttering, schoolboy heart, which has taken a new lease of +youth and folly from a fair landlord called Charlotte Halliday. + +Drip, drip, drip, O rain! "The day is dark and cold and dreary, and the +vine still clings to the mouldering wall; and with every gust the dead +leaves fall:" but thy sweet sad verse wakes no responsive echo in my +heart, O tender Transatlantic Poet, for my heart is light and glad-- +recklessly glad--heedless of to-morrow--forgetful of yesterday--full to +the very brim with the dear delight of to-day. + +And now to business. I descend from the supernal realms of fancy to the +dry record of commonplace fact. This day week I arrived at Hidling, +after a tedious journey, which, with stoppages at Derby and Normanton, +and small delays at obscurer stations, had occupied the greater part of +the day. It was dusk when I took my place in the hybrid vehicle, half +coach, half omnibus, which was to convey me from Hidling to Huxter's +Cross. A transient glimpse at Hidling showed me one long straggling +street and a square church-tower. Our road branched off from the +straggling street, and in the autumn dusk I could just discover the dim +outlines of distant hills encircling a broad waste of moor. + +I have been so steeped in London that this wild barren scene had a +charm for me which it could scarcely possess for others. Even the gloom +of that dark waste of common land was pleasant to me. I shared the +public vehicle with one old woman, who snored peacefully in the +remotest corner, while I looked out at the little open window and +watched the darkening landscape. + +Our drive occupied some hours. We passed two or three little clusters +of cottages and homesteads, where the geese screamed and the cocks +crowed at our approach, and where a few twinkling tapers in upper +windows proclaimed the hour of bed-time. At one of these clusters of +habitation, a little island of humanity in the waste of wold and moor, +we changed horses, with more yo-oh-ing and come-up-ing than would have +attended the operation in a civilised country. At this village I heard +the native tongue for the first time in all its purity; and for any +meaning which it conveyed to my ear I might as well have been listening +to the _patois_ of agricultural Carthage. + +After changing horses, we went up hill, with perpetual groanings, and +grumblings, and grindings, and whip-smacking and come-up-ing, for an +indefinite period; and then we came to a cluster of cottages, suspended +high up in the sharp autumn atmosphere as it seemed to me; and the +driver of the vehicle came to my little peephole of a window, and told +me with some slight modification of the Carthaginian _patois_ that I +was "theer." + +I alighted, and found myself at the door of a village inn, with the red +light from within shining out upon me where I stood, and a battered old +sign groaning and creaking above my head. For me, who in all my life +had been accustomed to find my warmest welcome at an inn, this was to +be at home. I paid my fare, took up my carpet-bag, and entered the +hostelry. + +I found a rosy-faced landlady, clean and trim, though a trifle floury +as to the arms and apron. She had emerged from a kitchen, an +old-fashioned chamber with a floor of red brick; a chamber which was +all in a rosy glow with the firelight, and looked like a Dutch picture, +as I peeped at it through the open doorway. There were the most +picturesque of cakes and loaves heaped on a wooden bench by the hearth, +and the whole aspect of the place was delicious in its homely comfort. + +"O," I said to myself, "how much better the northern winds blowing over +these untrodden hills, and the odour of home-made loaves, than the +booming bells of St. Dunstan's, and the greasy steam of tavern chops +and steaks!" + +My heart warmed to this Yorkshire and these Yorkshire people. Was it +for Charlotte's sake, I wonder, that I was so ready to open my heart to +everybody and everything in this unknown land? + +A very brief parley set me quite at ease with my landlady. Even, the +Carthaginian _patois_ became intelligible to me after a little +experience. I found that I could have a cosy, cleanly chamber, and be +fed and cared for upon terms that seemed absurdly small, even to a +person of my limited means. My cordial hostess brought me a meal which +was positively luxurious; broiled ham and poached eggs, such as one +scarcely hopes to see out of a picture of still life; crisp brown cakes +fresh from that wonderful oven whose door I had seen yawning open in +the Flemish interior below; strong tea and cream--the cream that one +reads of in pastoral stories. + +I enjoyed my banquet, and then opened my window and looked out at the +still landscape, dimly visible in the faint starlight. + +I was at the top of a hill--the topmost of an ascending range of hills-- +and to some minds that alone is rapture. To inhale the fresh night air +was to drink deeply of an ethereal beverage. I had never experienced so +delicious a sensation since I had stood on the grassy battlements of +the Chateau d'Arques, with the orchards and gardens of sunny Normandy +spread like a carpet below my feet. + +But this hill was loftier than that on which the feudal castle rears +its crumbling towers, and the landscape below me was wilder than +verdant Normandy. + +No words can tell how I rejoiced in this untrodden region--this +severance from the Strand and Temple Bar. I felt as if my old life was +falling away from me--like the scales of the lepers who were cleansed +by the Divine Healer. I felt myself worthier to love, or even to be +loved by, the bright true-hearted girl whose image fills my heart. Ah, +if Heaven gave me that dear angel, I think my old life, my old +recklessness, my old want of principle, would drop away from me +altogether, and the leper would stand forth cleansed and whole. Could I +not be happy with her here, among these forgotten hills, these widely +scattered homesteads? Could I not be happy dissevered eternally from +billiard-room and kursaal, race-ground and dancing-rooms? Yes, +completely and unreservedly happy--happy as a village curate with +seventy pounds a year and a cast-off coat, supplied by the charity of a +land too poor to pay its pastors the wage of a decent butler--happy as +a struggling farmer, though the clay soil of my scanty acres were never +so sour and stubborn, my landlord never so hard about his rent--happy +as a pedlar, with my pack of cheap tawdry wares slung behind me, and my +Charlotte tramping gaily by my side. + +I breakfasted next morning in a snug little parlour behind the bar, +where I overheard two carters conversing in the Carthaginian _patois_, +to which I became hourly more accustomed. My brisk cheery landlady came +in and out while I took my meal; and whenever I could detain her long +enough, I tried to engage her in conversation. + +I asked her if she had ever heard the name of Meynell; and after +profound consideration she replied in the negative. + +"I don't mind hearing aught of folks called Meynell," she said with +more or less of the _patois_, which I was beginning to understand; "but +I haven't got mooch memory for nee-ams. I might have heard o' such +folks, and not minded t' nee-am." + +This was rather dispiriting; but I knew that if any record of Christian +Meynell's daughter existed at Huxter's Cross, it was in my power to +discover it. + +I asked if there was any official in the way of a registrar to be found +in the village; and found that there was no one more important than an +old man who kept the keys of the church. The registers were kept in the +vestry, my landlady believed, and the old man was called Jonas Gorles, +and lived half a mile off, at the homestead of his son-in-law. But my +landlady said she would send for him immediately, and pledged herself +to produce him in the course of an hour. I told her that I would find +my way to the churchyard in the mean time, whither Mr. Gorles could +follow me as soon as convenient. + +The autumnal morning was fresh and bright as spring, and Huxter's Cross +seemed the most delightful place on earth to me, though it is only a +cluster of cottages, relieved by one farmhouse of moderate pretensions, +my hostelry of the Magpie, a general shop, which is also the +post-office, and a fine old Norman church, which lies away from the +village, and bears upon it the traces of better days. Near the church +there is an old granite cross, around which the wild flowers and +grasses grow rank and high. It marks the spot where there was once a +flourishing market-place; but all mortal habitations have vanished, +and the Huxter's Cross of the past has now no other memorial than this +crumbling stone. + +The churchyard was unutterably still and solitary. A robin was perched +on the topmost bar of the old wooden gate, singing his joyous carol. As +I approached, he hopped from the gate to the low moss-grown wall, and +went on singing as I passed him. I was in the humour to apostrophise +skylark or donkey, or to be sentimental about anything in creation, +just then; so I told my robin what a pretty creature he was, and that I +would sooner perish than hurt him by so much as the tip of a feather. + +Being bound to remember my Sheldon even when most sentimental, I +endeavoured to combine the meditative mood of a Hervey with the +business-like sharpness of a lawyer's clerk; and while musing on the +common lot of man in general, I did not omit to search the mouldering +tombstones for some record of the Meynells in particular. + +I found none; and yet, if the daughter of Christian Meynell had been +buried in that churchyard, the name of her father would surely have +been inscribed upon her tombstone. I had read all the epitaphs when the +wooden gate creaked on its hinges, and admitted a wizen little old man +--one of those ancient meanderers who seem to have been created on +purpose to fill the post of sexton. + +With this elderly individual I entered the church of Huxter's Cross, +which had the same mouldy atmosphere as the church at Spotswold. The +vestry was an icy little chamber, which had once been a family vault; +but it was not much colder than Miss Judson's best parlour; and I +endured the cold bravely while I searched the registries of the last +sixty years. + +I searched in vain. After groping amongst the names of all the +nonentities who had been married at Huxter's Cross since the beginning +of the century, I found myself no nearer the secret of Charlotte +Meynell's marriage. And then I reflected upon all the uncertainties +surrounding that marriage. Miss Meynell had gone to Yorkshire, to visit +her mother's relations, and had married in Yorkshire; and the place +which Anthony Sparsfield remembered having heard of in connection with +that marriage was Huxter's Cross. But it did not by any means follow +that the marriage had taken place at that obscure village. Miss Meynell +might have been married at Hull, or York, or Leeds, or at any of the +principal places of the county. With that citizen class of people +marriage was a grand event, a solemn festivity; and Miss Meynell and +her friends would have been likely to prefer that so festive an +occasion should be celebrated anywhere rather than at that forgotten +old church among the hills. "I shall have to search every register in +Yorkshire till I light upon the record I want," I thought to myself, +"unless Sheldon will consent to advertise for the Meynell marriage +certificate. There could scarcely be danger in such an advertisement, +as the connection between the name of Meynell and the Haygarth estate +is only known to ourselves." + +Acting upon this idea, I wrote to George Sheldon by that afternoon's +post, urging him to advertise for descendants of Miss Charlotte +Meynell. + +Charlotte! dear name, which is a kind of music for me. It was almost a +pleasure to write that letter, because of the repetition of that +delightful noun. + +The next day I devoted to a drive round the neighbourhood, in a smart +little dog-cart, hired on very moderate terms from mine host. I had +acquainted myself with the geography of the surrounding country; and I +contrived to visit every village church within a certain radius of +Huxter's Cross. But my inspection of mildewed old books, and my heroic +endurance of cold and damp in mouldy old churches, resulted in nothing +but disappointment. + +I returned to my "Magpie" after dark a little disheartened and +thoroughly tired, but still very well pleased with my rustic quarters +and my adopted county. My landlord's horse had shown himself a very +model of equine perfection. + +Candles were lighted and curtains drawn in my cosy little chamber, and +the table creaked beneath one of those luxurious Yorkshire teas which +might wean an alderman from the coarser delights of turtle or +conger-eel soup and venison. + +At noon the following day a very primitive kind of postman brought me a +letter from Sheldon. That astute individual told me that he declined to +advertise, or to give any kind of publicity to his requirements. + +"If I were not afraid of publicity, I should not be obliged to pay you +a pound a week," he remarked, with pleasing candour, "since +advertisements would get me more information in a week than you may +scrape together in a twelvemonth. But I happen to know the danger of +publicity, and that many a good thing has been snatched out of a man's +hands just as he was working it into shape. I don't say that this could +be done in my case; and you know very well that it could not be done, +as I hold papers which are essential to the very first move in the +business." + +I perfectly understand the meaning of these remarks, and I am inclined +to doubt the existence of those important papers. Suspicion is a +fundamental principle in the Sheldon mind. My friend George trusts me +because he is obliged to trust me--and only so far as he is obliged-- +and is tormented, more or less, by the idea that I may at any moment +attempt to steal a march upon him. + +But to return to his letter: + +"I should recommend you to examine the registries of every town or +village within, say, thirty miles of Huxter's Cross. If you find +nothing in such registries, we must fall back upon the larger towns, +beginning with Hull, as being nearest to our starting-point. The work +will, I fear, be slow, and very expensive for me. I need scarcely again +urge upon you the necessity of confining your outlay to the minimum, as +you know that my affairs are desperate. It couldn't well be lower water +than it is with me, in a pecuniary sense; and I expect every day to +find myself aground. + +"And now for my news. I have discovered the burial-place of Samuel +Meynell, after no end of trouble, the details of which I needn't bore +you with, since you are now pretty well up in that sort of work. I am +thankful to say I have secured the evidence that settles for Samuel, +and ascertained by tradition that he died unmarried. The _onus +probandi_ would fall upon any one purporting to be descended from the +said Samuel, and we know how uncommonly difficult said person would +find it to prove anything. + +"So, having disposed of Samuel, I came back to London by the next mail; +Calais, in the month of November, not being one of those wildly-gay +watering-places which tempt the idler. I arrived just in time to catch +this afternoon's post; and now I look impatiently to your Miss +Charlotte Meynell, of Huxter's Cross.--Yours, &c. G.S." + +I obeyed my employer to the letter; hired my landlord's dog-cart for +another day's exploration; and went further afield in search of Miss +Charlotte's marriage-lines. I came home late at night--this time +thoroughly worn out--studied a railway guide with a view to my +departure, and decided on starting for Hull by a train that would leave +Hidling station at four o'clock on the following afternoon. + +I went to bed tired in body and depressed in spirit. Why was I so sorry +to leave Huxter's Cross? What subtle instinct of the brain or heart +made me aware that the desert region amongst the hills held earth's +highest felicity for me? + +The next morning was bright and clear. I heard the guns of sportsmen +popping merrily in the still air as I breakfasted before an open +window, while a noble sea-coal fire blazed on the hearth opposite me. +There is no stint of fuel at the Magpie. Everything in Yorkshire seems +to be done with a lavish hand. I have heard Yorkshiremen called mean. +As if meanness could exist in the hearts of my Charlotte's countrymen! +My own experience of the county is brief; but I can only say that my +friends of the Magpie are liberality itself, and that a Yorkshire tea +is the very acme of unsophisticated bliss in the way of eating and +drinking. I have dined at Philippe's; I know every dish in the _menu_ +of the Maison Dorée; but if I am to make my life a burden beneath the +dark sway of the demon dyspepsia, let my destruction arrive in the +shape of the ham and eggs, the crisp golden-brown cakes, and undefiled +honey, of this northern Arcadia. + +I told my friendly hostess that I was going to leave her, and she was +sorry. She was sorry for me, the wanderer. I can picture to myself the +countenance of a London landlady if informed thus suddenly of her +lodger's departure, and her suppressed mutterings about the +ill-convenience of such a proceeding. + +After breakfast I went out to take my own pleasure. I had done my duty +in the matter of mouldy churches and mildewed registries; and I +considered myself entitled to a holiday during the few hours that must +elapse before the starting of the hybrid vehicle for Hidling. + +I sauntered past the little cluster of cottages, admiring their +primitive aspect, the stone-crop on the red-tiled roofs, that had sunk +under the weight of years. All was unspeakably fresh and bright; the +tiny panes of the casement twinkled in the autumn sunlight, birds sang, +and hardy red geraniums bloomed in the cottage windows. What pleasure +or distraction had the good housewives of Huxter's Cross to lure them +from the domestic delights of scrubbing and polishing? I saw young +faces peeping at me from between snow-white muslin curtains, and felt +that I was a personage for once in my life; and it was pleasant to feel +one's self of some importance even in the eyes of Huxter's Cross. + +Beyond the cottages and the post-office there were three roads +stretching far away over hill and moorland. With two of those roads I +had made myself thoroughly familiar; but the third remained to be +explored. + +"So now for 'fresh fields and pastures new,'" I said to myself as I +quickened my pace, and walked briskly along my unknown road. + +Ah, surely there is some meaning in the fluctuations of the mental +barometer. What but an instinctive consciousness of approaching +happiness could have made me so light-hearted that morning? I sang as I +hastened along that undiscovered road. Fragments of old Italian +serenades and barcarolles came back to me as if I had heard them +yesterday for the first time. The perfume of the few lingering +wild-flowers, the odour of burning weeds in the distance, the fresh +autumn breeze, the clear cold blue sky,--all were intensely delicious +to me; and I felt as if this one lonely walk were a kind of renovating +process, from which my soul would emerge cleansed of all its stains. + +"I have to thank George Sheldon for a great deal," I said to myself, +"since through him I have been obliged to educate myself in the school +of man's best teacher, Solitude. I do not think I can ever be a +thorough Bohemian again. These lonely wanderings have led me to +discover a vein of seriousness in my nature which I was ignorant of +until now. How thoroughly some men are the creatures of their +surroundings! With Paget I have been a Paget. But a few hours +_tête-à-tête_ with Nature renders one averse from the society of Pagets, +be they never so brilliant." + +From moralising thus, I fell into a delicious day-dream. All my dreams +of late had moved to the same music. How happy I could be if Fate gave +me Charlotte and three hundred a year! In sober moods I asked for this +much of worldly wealth, just to furnish a nest for my bird. In my +wilder moments I asked Fate for nothing but Charlotte. + +"Give me the bird without the nest," I cried to Fortune; "and we will +take wing to some trackless forest where there are shelter and berries +for nestless birds. We will imitate that delightful bride and +bridegroom of Parisian Bohemia, who married and settled in an attic, +and when their stock of fuel was gone fell foul of the staircase that +led to their bower, and so supplied themselves merrily enough till the +staircase was all consumed, and the poor little bride, peeping out of +her door one morning, found herself upon the verge of an abyss. + +"And then came the furious landlord, demanding restitution. But close +behind the landlord came the good fairy of all love-stories, with +Pactolus in her pocket. Ah, yes, there is always a providence for true +lovers." + +I had passed away by this time from the barren moor to the regions of +cultivation. The trimly-cut hedges on each side of the way showed me +that my road now lay between farm lands. I was outside the boundary of +some upland farm. I saw sheep cropping trefoil in a field on the other +side of the brown hedgerow, and at a distance I saw the red-tiled roof +of a farm-house. + +I looked at my watch, and found that I had still half an hour to spare; +so I went on towards the farm-house, bent upon seeing what sort of +habitation it was. In a solitary landscape like this, every +dwelling-place has a kind of attraction for the wayfarer. + +I went on till I came to a white gate, against which a girlish figure +was leaning. + +It was a graceful figure, dressed in that semi-picturesque costume +which has been adopted by women of late years. The vivid blue of a +boddice was tempered by the sober gray of a skirt, and a bright-hued +ribbon gleamed among rich tresses of brown hair. + +The damsel's face was turned away from me, but there was something in +the carriage of the head, something in the modelling of the firm full +throat, which reminded me of-- + +But then, when a man is over head and ears in love, everything in +creation reminds him more or less of his idol. Your pious Catholic +gives all his goods for the adornment of a church; your true lover +devotes his every thought to the dressing up of one dear image. + +The damsel turned as my steps drew near, loud on the crisp gravel. She +turned, and showed me the face of Charlotte Halliday. + +I must entreat posterity to forgive me, if I leave a blank at this +stage of my story. "There are chords in the human heart which had +better not be wibrated," said Sim Tappertit. There are emotions which +can only be described by the pen of a poet. I am not a poet; and if my +diary is so happy as to be of some use to posterity as a picture of the +manners of a repentant Bohemian, posterity must not quarrel with my +shortcomings in the way of sentimental description. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +IN PARADISE. + + +We stood at the white gate talking to each other, my Charlotte and I. +The old red-tiled roof which I had seen in the distance sheltered the +girl I love. The solitary farm-house which it had been my whim to +examine was the house in which my dear love made her home. It was here, +to this untrodden hillside, that my darling had come from the prim +modern villa at Bayswater. Ah, what happiness to find her here, far +away from all those stockbroking surroundings--here, where our hearts +expanded beneath the divine influence of Nature! + +I fear that I was coxcomb enough to fancy myself beloved that day we +parted in Kensington-gardens. A look, a tone--too subtle for +definition--thrilled me with a sudden hope so bright, that I would not +trust myself to believe it could be realised. + +"She is a coquette," I said to myself. "Coquetry is one of the graces +which Nature bestows upon these bewitching creatures. That little +conscious look, which stirred this weak heart so tumultuously, is no +doubt common to her when she knows herself beloved and admired, and has +no meaning that can flatter my foolish hopes." This is how I had +reasoned with myself again and again during the dreary interval in +which Miss Halliday and I had been separated. But, O, what a hardy +perennial blossom hope must be! The tender buds were not to be crushed +by the pelting hailstones of hard common sense. They had survived all +my philosophical reflections, and burst into sudden flower to-day at +sight of Charlotte's face. She loved me, and she was delighted to see +me. That was what her radiant face told me; and could I do less than +believe the sweet confession? For the first few moments we could +scarcely speak to each other, and then we began to converse in the +usual commonplace strain. + +She told me of her astonishment on seeing me in that remote spot. I +could hardly confess to having business at Huxter's Cross, so I was +fain to tell my dear love a falsehood, and declare that I was taking a +holiday "up at the hills." + +"And how did you come to choose Huxter's Cross for your holiday?" she +asked _naïvely_. + +I told her that I had heard the place spoken of by a person in the +city--my simple-minded Sparsfield to wit. + +"And you could not have come to a better place," she cried, "though +people do call it the very dullest spot in the world. This was my dear +aunt Mary's house--papa's sister, you know. Grandpapa Halliday had two +farms. This was one, and Hyley the other. Hyley was much larger and +better than this, you know, and was left to poor papa, who sold it just +before he died." + +Her face clouded as she spoke of her father's death. "I can't speak +about that without pain even now," she said softly, "though I was only +nine years old when it happened. But one can suffer a great deal at +nine years old." + +And then, after a little pause, she went on to speak of her Yorkshire +home. + +"My aunt and uncle Mercer are so kind to me; and yet they are neither +of them really related to me. My aunt Mary died very young, when her +first baby was born, and the poor little baby died too: and uncle +Mercer inherited the property from his wife, you see. He married again +after two years, and his second wife is the dearest, kindest creature +in the world. I always call her aunt, for I don't remember poor papa's +sister at all; and no aunt that ever lived could be kinder to me than +aunt Dorothy. I am always so happy here," she said; "and it seems such +a treat to get away from the Lawn--of course I am sorry to leave mamma, +you know," she added, parenthetically--"and the stiff breakfasts, and +Mr. Sheldon's newspapers that crackle, crackle, crackle so shockingly +all breakfast-time; and the stiff dinners, with a prim parlor-maid +staring at one all the time, and bringing one vegetables that one +doesn't want if one only ventures to breathe a little louder than +usual. Here it is Liberty Hall. Uncle Joe--he is aunt Dorothy's +husband--is the kindest creature in the world, just the very reverse of +Mr. Sheldon in everything. I don't mean that my stepfather is unkind, +you know. O, no, he has always been very good to me--much kinder than I +have deserved that he should be. But uncle Joe's ways are _so_ +different. I am sure you will like him; and I am sure he will like you, +for he likes everybody, dear thing. And you must come and see us very +often, please, for Newhall farm is open house, you know, and the +stranger within the gates is always welcome." + +Now my duty to my Sheldon demanded that I should scamper back to +Huxter's Cross as fast as my legs would carry me, in order to be in +time for the hybrid vehicle that was to convey me to Hidling station; +and here was this dear girl inviting me to linger, and promising me a +welcome to the house which was made a paradise by her presence. + +I looked at my watch. It would have been impossible for me to reach +Huxter's Cross in time for the vehicle. Conscience whispered that I +could hire my landlord's dog-cart, and a boy to drive me to Hidling; +but the whispers of conscience are very faint; and love cried aloud, +"Stay with Charlotte: supreme happiness is offered to you for the first +time in your life. Fool that would reject so rare a gift!" + +It was to this latter counsellor I gave my ear. My Sheldon's interests +went overboard; and I stayed by the white gate, talking to Charlotte, +till it was quite too late to heed the reproachful grumblings of +conscience about that dog-cart. + +My Charlotte--yes, I boldly call her mine now--my dear is great in +agriculture. She enlightened my cockney mind on the subject of upland +farms, telling me how uncle and aunt Mercer's land is poor and sandy, +requiring very little in the way of draining, but producing by no means +luxuriant crops. It is a very picturesque place, and has a certain +gentlemanlike air with it pleasing to my snobbish taste. The house lies +in a tract of open grass-land, dotted here and there by trees, and +altogether of a park-like appearance. True that the mild and useful +sheep rather than the stately stag browses on that greensward, and few +carriages roll along the winding gravel road that leads to the house. + +I felt a rapturous thirst for agricultural knowledge as I listened to +my Charlotte. Was there a vacancy for hind or herdsman on Newhall farm, +I wondered. What is the office so humble I would not fill for her dear +sake? O, how I sighed for the days of Jacob, that first distinguished +usurer, so that I might serve seven years and again seven years for my +darling! + +I stayed by the white gate, abandoning all thought of my employer's +behests, unconscious of time--unconscious of everything except that I +was with Charlotte Halliday, and would not have resigned my position to +be made Lord Chancellor of England. + +Anon came uncle Joe, with a pleasant rubicund visage beaming under a +felt hat, to tell Lotta that dinner was ready. To him I was immediately +presented. + +"Mr. Mercer, my dear uncle Joseph--Mr. Hawkehurst, a friend of my +stepfather's," said Charlotte. + +Two or three minutes afterwards we were all three walking across the +park-like sward to the hospitable farm-house; for the idea of my +departing before dinner seemed utterly preposterous to this friendly +farmer. + +Considered apart from the glamour that for my eyes must needs shine +over any dwelling inhabited by Charlotte Halliday, I will venture to +say that Newhall farm-house is the dearest old place in the world. Such +delightful old rooms, with the deepest window-seats, the highest +mantelpieces, the widest fireplaces possible in domestic architecture; +such mysterious closets and uncanny passages; such pitfalls in the way +of unexpected flights of stairs; such antiquated glazed +corner-cupboards for the display of old china!--everything redolent +of the past. + +In one corner a spinning-wheel, so old that its spindle might be the +identical weapon that pierced Princess Sleeping Beauty's soft white +hand; in another corner an arm-chair that must have been old-fashioned +in the days of Queen Anne; and O, what ancient flowered chintzes, what +capacious sofas, what darling mahogany secretaries and bureaus, with +gleaming brazen adornments in the way of handles!--and about everything +the odour of rose-leaves and lavender. + +I have grown familiar with every corner of the dear old place within +the last few days, but on this first day I had only a general +impression of its antiquated aspect and homely comfort. I stayed to +dine at the same unpretending board at which my Charlotte had sat years +ago, elevated on a high chair, and as yet new to the use of knives and +forks. Uncle Joe and aunt Dorothy told me this in their pleasant +friendly way; while the young lady sat by, blushing and dimpling like a +summer sea beneath the rosy flush of sunrise. No words can relate how +delightful it was to me to hear them talk of my dear love's childhood; +they dwelt so tenderly upon her sweetness, they dilated with such +enthusiasm upon her "pretty ways." Her "pretty ways!" ah, how fatal a +thing it is for mankind when Nature endows woman with those pretty +ways! From the thrall of Grecian noses and Castilian eyes there may be +hope of deliverance, but from the spell of that indescribable witchery +there is none. + +I whistled my Sheldon down the wind without remorse, and +allowed myself to be as happy as if I had been the squire of valley and +hillside, with ten thousand a year to offer my Charlotte with the heart +that loves her so fondly. I have no idea what we had for dinner. I know +only that the fare was plenteous, and the hospitality of my new friends +unbounded. We were very much at ease with one another, and our laughter +rang up to the stalwart beams that sustained the old ceiling. If I had +possessed the smallest fragment of my heart, I should have delivered it +over without hesitation to my aunt Dorothy--pardon!--my Charlotte's +aunt Dorothy, who is the cheeriest, brightest, kindest matron I ever +met, with a sweet unworldly spirit that beams out of her candid blue +eyes. + +Charlotte seems to have been tenderly attached to her father the poor +fellow who died in Philip Sheldon's house--uncomfortable for Sheldon, I +should think. The Mercers talk a good deal of Thomas Halliday, for whom +they appear to have entertained a very warm affection. They also spoke +with considerable kindness of the two Sheldons, whom they knew as young +men in the town of Barlingford; but I should not imagine either uncle +Joseph or aunt Dorothy very well able to fathom the still waters of the +Sheldon intellect. + +After dinner uncle Joe took us round the farm. The last stack of corn +had been thatched, and there was a peaceful lull in the agricultural +world. We went into a quadrangle lined with poultry sheds, where I saw +more of the feathered race than I had ever in my life beheld +congregated together; thence to the inspection of pigs--and it was +agreeable to inspect even those vulgar querulous grunters, with +Charlotte by my side. Her brightness shed a light on all those common +objects; and O, how I longed to be a farmer, like uncle Mercer, and +devote my life to Charlotte and agriculture! + +When uncle Joe had done the honours of his farm-yards and +threshing-machinery, he left us to attend to his afternoon duties; and +we wandered together over the breezy upland at our own sweet wills, or +at _her_ sweet will rather, since what could I do but follow where she +pleased to lead? + +We talked of many things: of the father whom she had loved so dearly, +whose memory was still so mournfully dear to her; of her old home at +Hyley; of her visits to these dear Mercers; of her schooldays, and her +new unloved home in the smart Bayswater villa. She confided in me as +she had never done before; and when we turned in the chill autumn +gloaming, I had told her of my love, and had won from her the sweet +confession of its return. + +I have never known happiness so perfect as that which I felt as we +walked home together--home--yes; that old farm-house must be my home as +well as hers henceforward; for any habitation which she loved must be a +kind of home for me. Sober reflection tells me how reckless and +imprudent my whole conduct has been in this business; but when did ever +love and prudence go hand-in-hand? We were children, Charlotte and I, +on that blessed afternoon; and we told each other our love as children +might have told it, without thought of the future. We have both grown +wiser since that time, and are quite agreed as to our imprudence and +foolishness; but, though we endeavour to contemplate the future in the +most serious manner, we are too happy in the present to be able to +analyse the difficulties and dangers that lie in our pathway. + +Surely there must be a providence for imprudent lovers. + +The November dews fell thick, and the November air was chill, as we +walked back to the homestead. I was sorry that there should be that +creeping dampness in the atmosphere that night. It seemed out of +harmony with the new warmth in my heart. I pressed my darling's little +hand closer to my breast, and had no more consciousness of any +impediments to my future bliss than of the ground on which I walked-- +and that seemed air. + +We found our chairs waiting for us at aunt Dorothy's tea-table; and I +enjoyed that aldermanic banquet, a Yorkshire tea, under circumstances +that elevated it to an Olympian repast. + +I thought of the Comic Latin Grammar: + + "Musa, musae, the gods were at tea; + Musae musam, eating raspberry jam." + +I was Jove, and my love was Juno. I looked at her athwart the misty +clouds that issued from the hissing urn, and saw her beautified by a +heightened bloom, and with a sweet, shy conscious look in her eyes +which made her indeed divine. + +After tea we played whist; and I am bound to confess that my divinity +played execrably, persistently disdaining to return her partner's lead, +and putting mean little trumps upon her adversary's tricks, with a +fatuous economy of resources which is always ruin. + +I stayed till ten o'clock, reckless of the unknown country which +separated me from the Magpie, and then walked home alone, under the +faint starlight, though my friendly host would fain have lent me a +dog-cart. The good people here lend one another dog-carts as freely as +a cockney offers his umbrella. I went back to Huxter's Cross alone, and +the long solitary walk was very pleasant to me. + +Looking up at the stars as I tramped homeward, I could but remember an +old epigram:-- + + Were you the earth, dear love, and I the skies, + My love should shine on you like to the sun, + And look upon you with ten thousand eyes, + Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world were done. + +I had ample leisure for reflection during that long night-walk, and +found myself becoming a perfect Young--Hervey--Sturm--what you will, in +the way of meditation. I could not choose but wonder at myself when I +looked back to this time last year, and remembered my idle evenings in +third-rate _cafés_, on the _rive gauche_, playing dominoes, talking the +foul slang of Parisian bohemia, and poisoning my system with +adulterated absinthe. And now I feast upon sweet cakes and honey, and +think it paradisiac enjoyment to play whist--for love--in a farm-house +parlour. I am younger by ten years than I was twelve months ago. + +Ah, let me thank God, who has sent me my redemption. + +I lifted my hat, and pronounced the thanksgiving softly under that +tranquil sky. I was almost ashamed to hear the sound of my own voice. I +was like some shy child who for the first time speaks his father's +name. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +TOO FAIR TO LAST. + + +In my confidences with my dear girl I had told her neither the nature +of my mission in Yorkshire, nor the fact that I was bound to leave +Huxter's Cross immediately upon an exploring expedition to nowhere in +particular, in search of the archives of the Meynells. How could I +bring myself to tell her that I must leave her?--how much less could I +bring myself to do it? + +Rendered desperately unmindful of the universe by reason of my +all-absorbing happiness, I determined on giving myself a holiday +boldly, in defiance of Sheldon and the Sheldonian interests. + +"Am I a bounden slave?" I asked myself, "that I should go here or there +at any man's bidding, for the pitiful stipend of twenty shillings a +week?" + +It is to be observed that the rate of hire makes all the difference in +these cases; and while it is ignominious for a lawyer's clerk to hasten +to and fro in the earning of his weekly wage, it is in no way +dishonourable for the minister of state to obey the call of his chief, +and hurry hither and thither in abnegation of all his own +predilections, and to the aggravation of his chronic gout. + +I wrote to my Sheldon, and told him that I had met with friends in the +neighbourhood of Huxter's Cross, and that I intended to give myself a +brief holiday; after which I would resume my labours, and do my +uttermost to make up for wasted time. I had still the remnant of my +borrowed thirty pounds, and amongst these northern hills I felt myself +a millionaire. + +Three thousand pounds at five per cent--one hundred and fifty pounds a +year. I felt that with such an income assured to us, and the fruits of +my industry, Charlotte and I might be secure from all the storms of +life. Ah, what happiness it would be to work for her! And I am not too +old to begin life afresh; not too old for the bar; not too old to make +some mark as a writer on the press; not too old to become a respectable +member of society. + +After having despatched my letter to Sheldon, I made off for Newhall +farm with all speed. I had received a sort of general invitation from +the kindest of uncles and aunts, but I contrived with becoming modesty +to arrive after Mr. Mercer's dinner-hour. I found Charlotte alone in +the dear old-fashioned parlour, aunt Dorothy being engaged in some +domestic operations in the kitchen, and uncle Joseph making his usual +after-dinner rounds amongst the pig-styes and the threshing-machines. I +discovered afterwards that it was Miss Halliday's wont to accompany her +kind kinsman in this afternoon investigation; but to-day she had +complained of a headache and preferred to stay at home. Yet there were +few symptoms of the headache when I found her standing in the +bow-window, watching the path by which I came, and the face of Aurora +herself could scarcely be brighter or fresher than my darling's +innocent blushes when I greeted her with the privileged kiss of +betrothal. + +We sat in the bow-window talking till the twilight shadows crept over +the greensward, and the sheep were led away to their fold, with +cheerful jingling of bells and barking of watchful dog. My dearest girl +told me that our secret had already been discovered by the penetrating +eyes of aunt Dorothy and uncle Joseph. They had teased her +unmercifully, it seemed, all that day, but were graciously pleased to +smile upon my suit, like a pair of imprudent Arcadians as they are. + +"They like you very much indeed," my Lotta said joyously; "but I +believe they think I have known you much longer than I really have, and +that you are very intimate with my stepfather. It seems almost like +deceiving them to allow them to think so, but I really haven't the +courage to tell the truth. How foolish and bold they would think me if +they knew how very short a time I have known you!" + +"Twenty times longer than Juliet had known Romeo when they met in the +Friar's cell to be married," I urged. + +"Yes, but that was in a play," replied Charlotte, "where everything is +obliged to be hurried; and at Hyde Lodge we all of us thought that +Juliet was a very forward young person." + +"The poets all believe in love at first sight, and I'll wager our dear +uncle Joe fell over head and ears in love with aunt Dorothy after +having danced with her two or three times at an assize ball," said I. +After this we became intensely serious, and I told my darling girl that +I hoped very soon to be in possession of a small fixed income, and to +have begun a professional career. I told her how dear an incentive to +work she had given me, and how little fear I had for the future. + +I reminded her that Mr. Sheldon had no legal power to control her +actions, and that, as her father's will had left her entirely to her +mother's guardianship, she had only her mother's pleasure to consult. + +"I believe poor mamma would let me marry a crossing-sweeper, if I cried +and declared it would make me miserable not to marry him," said +Charlotte; "but then, you see, mamma's wishes mean Mr. Sheldon's +wishes; she is sure to think whatever he tells her to think; and if he +is strongly against our marriage--" + +"As I am sure he will be," I interjected. + +"He will work upon poor mamma in that calm, persistent, logical way of +his till he makes her as much against it as himself." + +"But even your mamma has no legal power to control your actions, my +love. Were you not of age on your last birthday?" + +My darling replied in the affirmative. + +"Then of course you are free to marry whom you please; and as I am +thankful to say you don't possess a single sixpence in your own right, +there need be no fuss about settlements or pin-money. We can marry any +fine morning that my dear girl pleases to name, and defy all the stern +stepfathers in creation." + +"How I wish I had a fortune, for your sake!" she said with a sigh. + +"Be glad for my sake that you have none," I answered. "You cannot +imagine the miserable complications and perplexities which arise in +this world from the possession of money. No slave so tightly bound as +the man who has what people call 'a stake in the country' and a balance +at his banker's. The true monarch of all he surveys is the penniless +reprobate who walks down Fleet-street with his whole estate covered by +the seedy hat upon his head." + +Having thus moralized, I proceeded to ask Miss Halliday if she was +prepared to accept a humbler station than that enjoyed by her at the +Lawn. + +"No useful landau, to be an open carriage at noon and a family coach at +night," I said; "no nimble page to skip hither and thither at his fair +lady's commands, if not belated on the way by the excitement of tossing +halfpence with youthful adventurers of the byways and alleys; no trim +parlour-maids, with irreproachable caps, dressed for the day at 11 +o'clock A.M.--but instead of these, a humble six-roomed bandbox of a +house, and one poor hardworking slavey, with perennial smudges from +saucepan-lids upon her honest pug-nose. Consider the prospect +seriously, Charlotte, and ask yourself whether you can endure such a +descent in the social scale." + +My Charlotte laughed, as if the prospect had been the most delightful +picture ever presented to mortal vision. + +"Do you think I care for the landau or the page?" she cried. "If it +were not for mamma's sake, I should detest that prim villa and all its +arrangements. You see me so happy here, where there is no pretence of +grandeur--" + +"But I am bound to warn you that I shall not be able to provide +Yorkshire teas at the commencement of our domestic career," I remarked, +by way of parenthesis. + +"Aunt Dorothy will send us hampers of poultry and cakes, sir, and for +the rest of our time we can live upon bread and water." + +On this I promised my betrothed a house in Cavendish or Portman-square, +and a better-built landau than Mr. Sheldon's, in the remote future. +With those dear eyes for my pole-stars, I felt myself strong enough to +clamber up the slippery ascent to the woolsack. The best and purest +ambition must surely be that which is only a synonym for love. + +After we had sat talking in the gloaming to our hearts' content, aunt +Dorothy appeared, followed by a sturdy handmaid with lighted candles, +and a still sturdier handmaid with a ponderous tea-tray. The two made +haste to spread a snow-white cloth, and to set forth the species of +banquet which it is the fashion nowadays to call high tea. Anon came +uncle Joseph, bringing with him some slight perfume from the piggeries, +and he and aunt Dorothy were pleased to be pleasantly facetious and +congratulatory in their conversation during the social meal which +followed their advent. + +After tea we played whist again, aunt Dorothy and I obtaining a +succession of easy victories over Charlotte and uncle Joe. I felt +myself hourly more and more completely at home in that simple domestic +circle, and enjoyed the proud position of an accepted lover. My +Arcadian friends troubled themselves in nowise as to the approval or +disapproval of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon, or with regard either to my +prospects or my antecedents. They saw me devoted to my dear girl, they +saw my dearest pleased by my devotion, and they loved her so well that +they were ready to open their hearts without reserve to the man who +adored her and was loved by her, let him be rich or poor, noble or +base-born. As they would have given her the wax-doll of her desire ten +or twelve years ago without question as to price or fitness of things, +so they now gave her their kindly smiles and approval for the lover of +her choice. "I know Phil Sheldon is a man who looks to the main +chance," said uncle Joe, in the course of a discussion about his +niece's future which dyed her cheeks with blushes in the present; "and +I'll lay you'll find him rather a difficult customer to deal with, +especially as poor Tom's will left all the money in Georgy's hands, +which of course is tantamount to saying that Sheldon has got the +disposal of it." + +I assured uncle Joe that money was the very last thing which I desired. + +"Then in that case I don't see why he shouldn't let you have +Charlotte," replied Mr. Mercer; "and if she's cheated out of her poor +dad's money, she shan't be cheated out of what her old aunt and uncle +may have to leave her by-and-by." + +Here were these worthy people promising me an heiress with no more +compunction than if they had been offering me a cup of tea. + +I walked homeward once more beneath the quiet stars. O, how happy I +was! Can happiness so perfect, joy so sinless, endure? I, the +friendless wanderer and penniless Bohemian, asked myself this question; +and again I paused upon the lonely moorland road to lift my hat as I +thanked God for having given me such bright hopes. + +But George Sheldon's three thousand pounds must be mine before I can +secure the humblest shelter for my sweet one; and although it would be +bliss to me to tramp through the world barefoot with Charlotte by my +side, the barefooted state of things is scarcely the sort of prospect a +man would care to offer to the woman he loves. So once more to the +chase. One more day in this delicious island of the lotus-eaters, +Newhall farm; and then away!--hark forward!--tantivy!--and hey for the +marriage-lines of Charlotte Meynell, great-granddaughter of Matthew +Haygarth, and, if still in the flesh, rightful heiress to the one +hundred thousand pounds at present likely to be absorbed by the +ravening jaws of the Crown! One more day, one more delightful idle day, +in the land where it is always afternoon, and then away to Hidling in +the hybrid vehicle, and thence to Hull, from Hull to York, from York to +Leeds, then Bradford, Huddersfield--_toute la boutique!_ + +The rain beats against the diamond panes of my casement as I write. The +day has been hopelessly wet, so I have stayed in my snug little chamber +and occupied myself in writing this record. Foul wind or weather would +have little power to keep me from my darling; but even if it had been a +fine day, I could not with any grace have presented myself at Newhall +farm for a third afternoon. To-morrow my immediate departure will +afford me an excuse for presenting myself once more before my kind +uncle and aunt. It will be my farewell visit. I wonder whether +Charlotte will miss me this afternoon. I wonder whether she will be +sorry when I tell her that I am going to leave this part of the +country. Ah, shall we ever meet again under such happy auspices? Shall +I ever again find such kind friends or such a hospitable dwelling as +those I shall leave amidst these northern hills? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +FOUND IN THE BIBLE. + + +_November_ 3d_. The most wonderful event has befallen--surely the +most wonderful that ever came to pass outside the realms of fiction. +Let me set down the circumstances of yesterday coolly and quietly if I +can. I invoke the placid spirit of my Sheldon. I invoke all the +divinities of Gray's Inn and "The Fields." Let me be legal and +specific, perspicacious and logical--if this beating heart, this +fevered brain, will allow me a few hours' respite. + +The autumn sunshine blessed the land again yesterday. Moorland and +meadow, fallow and clover-field, were all the brighter for the steady +downfall of the previous day. I walked to Newhall directly after +breakfast, and found my dearest standing at the white five-barred gate, +dressed in her pretty blue jacket, and with ribbons in her bonny brown +hair. + +She was pleased to see me, though at first just a little inclined to +play the _boudeuse_ on account of my absence on the previous day. Of +course I assured her that it had been anguish for me to remain away +from her, and quoted that divine sonnet of our William's to the like +effect: + + "How like a winter hath my absence been!" + +and again: + + "O, never say that I was false of heart, + Though absence seemed my flame to qualify." + +Equally of course my pet pretended not to believe me. After this little +misunderstanding we forgave each other, and adored each other again +with just a little more than usual devotion; and then we went for a +long ramble among the fields, and looked at the dear placid sheep, who +stared at us wonderingly in return, as if exclaiming to themselves, +"And these are a specimen couple of the creatures called lovers!" + +We met uncle Joe in the course of our wanderings, and returned with him +in time for the vulgar superstition of dinner, which we might have +forgotten had we been left by ourselves. After dinner uncle Joe made +off to his piggeries; while aunt Dorothy fell asleep in a capacious old +arm-chair by the fire, after making an apologetic remark to the effect +that she was tired, and had been a good deal "tewed" that morning in +the dairy. "Tewed," I understand, is Yorkshire for "worried." + +Aunt Dorothy having departed into the shadowy realm of dreams, +Charlotte and I were left to our own devices. + +There was a backgammon board on a side-table, surmounted by an old +Indian bowl of dried rose-leaves; and, _pour nous distraire_, I +proposed that I should teach my dearest that diverting game. She +assented, and we set to work in a very business-like manner, Miss +Halliday all attention, I serious as a professional schoolmaster. + +Unfortunately for my pupil's progress, the game of backgammon proved +less entertaining than our own conversation, so, after a very feeble +attempt on the one side to learn and on the other to teach, we closed +the board and began to talk;--first of the past, then of the future, +the happy future, which we were to share. + +There is no need that I should set down this lovers' talk. Is it not +written on my heart? The future seemed so fair and unclouded to me, as +my love and I sat talking together yesterday afternoon. Now all is +changed. The strangest, the most surprising complications have arisen; +and I doubt, I fear. + +After we had talked for a long time, Miss Halliday suddenly proposed +that I should read to her. + +"Diana once told me that you read very beautifully," said this +flatterer; "and I should so like to hear you read--poetry of course. +You will find plenty of poems in that old bookcase--Cowper, and +Bloomfield, and Pope. Now I am sure that Pope is just the kind of poet +whose verses you would read magnificently. Shall we explore the +bookcase together?" + +Now if there is any manner of beguiling an idle afternoon, which seems +to me most delightful, it is by the exploration of old bookcases; and +when that delight can be shared by the woman one fondly loves, the +pleasure thereof must be of course multiplied to an indefinite amount. + +So Charlotte and I set to work immediately to ransack the lower shelves +of the old-fashioned mahogany bookcase, which contained the entire +library of the Mercer household. + +I am bound to admit that we did not light upon many volumes of +thrilling interest. The verses of Cowper, like those of Southey, have +always appeared to me to have only one fault--there are too many of +them. One shrinks appalled from that thick closely-printed volume of +morality cut into lengths of ten feet; and beyond the few well-worn +quotations in daily use, I am fain to confess that I am almost a +stranger to the bard of Olney. + +Half a dozen odd volumes of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, three or four +of the _Annual Register_, a neatly-bound edition of _Clarissa Harlowe_ +and _Sir Charles Grandison_ in twelve volumes, Law's _Holy Call to a +Serious Life_, _Paradise Lost_, _Joseph Andrews_, _Hervey's +Meditations_, and _Gulliver's Travels_, formed the varied contents of +the principal shelves. Above, there were shabbily-bound volumes and +unbound pamphlets. Below, there were folios, the tops whereof were +thickly covered with the dust of ages, having escaped the care of the +handmaidens even in that neatly-appointed household. + +I knelt down to examine these. + +"You'll be covered with dust if you touch them," cried Charlotte. "I +was once curious enough to examine them, but the result was very +disappointing." + +"And yet they look so delightfully mysterious," I said. "This one, for +instance?" + +"That is an old history of London, with curious plates and maps; rather +interesting if one has nothing more amusing to read. But the perennial +supply of novels from Mudie's spoils one for that kind of book." + +"If ever I come to Newhall again, I shall dip into the old history. One +is never tired of dead and gone London. But after Mr. Knight's +delightful book any old history must seem very poor. What is my burly +friend here?" + +"O, a dreadful veterinary-surgeon's encyclopaedia--_The Farmer's Friend_ +I think it is called; all about the ailments of animals." + +"And the next?" + +"The next is an odd volume of the _Penny Magazine_. Dear aunt Dorothy +is rich in odd volumes." + +"And the next,--my bulky friend number two,--with a cracked leather +back and a general tendency to decay?" + +"O, that is the Meynell Bible." + +The MEYNELL BIBLE! A hot perspiration broke out upon my face as I knelt +at Charlotte Halliday's feet, with my hand resting lightly on the top +of the book. + +"The Meynell Bible!" I repeated; and my voice was faintly tremulous, in +spite of the effort I made to control myself. "What do you mean by the +Meynell Bible?" + +"I mean the old family Bible that belonged to my grand-mamma. It was +her father's Bible, you know; and of course he was my great-grandfather +--Christian Meynell. Why, how you stare at me, Valentine! Is +there anything so wonderful in my having had a great-grandfather?" + +"No, darling; but the fact is that I--" + +In another moment I should have told her the entire truth; but I +remembered just in time that I had pledged myself to profound secrecy +with regard to the nature and progress of my investigation, and I had +yet to learn whether that pledge did or did not involve the observance +of secrecy even with those most interested in my researches. Pending +further communication with Sheldon, I was certainly bound to be silent. + +"I have a kind of interest in the name of Meynell," I said, "for I was +once engaged in a business matter with people of that name." + +And having thus hoodwinked my beloved with a bouncer, I proceeded to +extract the Bible from its shelf. The book was so tightly wedged into +its place, that to remove it was like drawing a tooth. It was a +noble-looking old volume, blue with the mould of ages, and redolent of +a chill dampness like the atmosphere of a tomb. + +"I should so like to examine the old book when the candles come in," I +said. + +Fortunately for the maintenance of my secret, the darkness was closing +in upon us when I discovered the volume, and the room was only fitfully +illuminated by the flame that brightened and faded every minute. + +I carried the book to a side-table, and Charlotte and I resumed our +talk until the candles came, and close behind them uncle Joe. I fear I +must have seemed a very inattentive lover during that brief interval, +for I could not concentrate my thoughts upon the subject of our +discourse. My mind would wander to the strange discovery that I had +just made, and I could not refrain from asking myself whether by any +extraordinary chance my own dear love should be the rightful claimant +to John Haygarth's hoarded wealth. + +I hoped that it might not be so. I hoped that my darling might be +penniless rather than the heir to wealth, which, in all likelihood, +would create an obstacle strong enough to sever us eternally. I longed +to question her about her family, but could not as yet trust myself to +broach the subject. And while I doubted and hesitated, honest +blustering uncle Joe burst into the room, and aunt Dorothy awoke, and +was unutterably surprised to find she had slept so long. + +After this came tea; and as I sat opposite my dearest girl I could not +choose but remember that gray-eyed Molly, whose miniature had been +found in the tulip-wood bureau, and in whose bright face I had seen the +likeness of Philip Sheldon's beautiful stepdaughter. And Mr. Sheldon's +lovely stepdaughter was the lineal descendant of this very Molly. +Strange mystery of transmitted resemblances! Here was the sweet face +that had bewitched honest, simple-minded Matthew Haygarth reproduced +after the lapse of a century. + +My Charlotte was descended from a poor little player girl who had +smiled on the roisterous populace of Bartholomew Fair. Some few drops +of Bohemian blood mingled with the pure life-stream in her veins. It +pleased me to think of this; but I derived no pleasure from the idea +that Charlotte might possibly be the claimant of a great fortune. + +"She may have cousins who would stand before her," I said to myself; +and there was some comfort in the thought. + +After tea I asked permission to inspect the old family Bible, much to +the astonishment of uncle Joe, who had no sympathy with antiquarian +tastes, and marvelled that I should take any interest in so mouldy a +volume. I told him, with perfect truth, that such things had always +more or less interest for me; and then I withdrew to my little table, +where I was provided with a special pair of candles. + +"You'll find the births and deaths of all poor Molly's ancestors on the +first leaf," said uncle Joe. "Old Christian Meynell was a rare one for +jotting down such things; but the ink has gone so pale that it's about +as much as you'll do to make sense of it, I'll lay." + +Charlotte looked over my shoulder as I examined the fly-leaf of the +family Bible. Even with this incentive to distraction I contrived to be +tolerably business-like; and this is the record which I found on the +faded page: + +"Samuel Matthew Meynell, son of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. March +9, 1796, baptised at St. Giles's, Cripplegate, in this city. + +"Susan Meynell, daughter of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. June 29, +1798, also baptised in the same church. + +"Charlotte Meynell, second daughter of the above Christian and Sarah, +b. October 3, 1800, baptised at the above-mentioned church of St. +Giles, London." + +Below these entries, in blacker ink and in a different hand-writing--a +bold, business-like, masculine caligraphy--came the following: + +"Charlotte Meynell married to James Halliday, in the parish church of +Barngrave, Yorks. April 15, 1819. + +"Thomas Halliday, son of the above James and Charlotte Halliday, b. +Jan. 3d, 1821, baptised in the parish church of Barngrave, Feb. 20 in +the same year. + +"Mary Halliday, daughter of the above-named James and Charlotte +Halliday, b. May 27th, 1823, baptised at Barngrave, July 1st in the +same year." + +Below this there was an entry in a woman's penmanship: + +"Susan, the beloved sister of C. H., died in London, July 11, 1835. + +"Judge not, that ye be not judged. + +"I came to call sinners, and not the righteous, to repentance." + +This record seemed to hint vaguely at some sad story: "Susan, the +beloved sister;" no precise data of the death--no surname! And then +those two deprecating sentences, which seemed to plead for the dead. + +I had been led to understand that Christian Meynell's daughters had +both died in Yorkshire--one married, the other unmarried. + +The last record in the book was the decease of James Halliday, my dear +girl's grandfather. + +After pondering long over the strangely-worded entry of Susan Meynell's +death, I reflected that, with the aid of those mysterious powers Hook +and Crook, I must contrive to possess myself of an exact copy of this +leaf from a family history, if not of the original document. Again my +duty to my Sheldon impelled me to be false to all my new-born +instincts, and boldly give utterance to another bouncer. + +"I am very much interested in a county history now preparing for the +press," I said to my honoured uncle, who was engaged in a hand at +cribbage with his wife; "and I really think this old leaf from a family +Bible would make a very interesting page in that work." + +I blushed for myself as I felt how shamefully I was imposing upon my +newly-found kinsman's credulity. With scarcely any one but uncle Joe +could I have dared to employ so shallow an artifice. + +"Would it really, now?" said that confiding innocent. + +"Well, I suppose old papers, and letters, and such like, are uncommonly +interesting to some folks. I can't say I care much about 'em myself." + +"Would you have any objection to my taking a copy of these entries?" I +asked. + +"My word, no, lad; not I. Take half a dozen copies, and welcome, if +they can be of any use to you or other people. That's not much to ask +for." + +I thanked my simple host, and determined to write to a stationer at +Hull for some tracing-paper by the first post next morning. There was +some happiness, at least, in having found this unlooked-for end to my +researches. I had a good excuse for remaining longer near Charlotte +Halliday. + +"It's only for my poor Mary's sake I set any value on that old volume," +the farmer said, presently, in a meditative tone. "You see the names +there are the names of her relations, not mine; and this place and all +in it was hers. Dorothy and I are only interlopers, as you may say, at +the best, though I brought my fortune to the old farm, and Dorothy +brought her fortune, and between us we've made Newhall a much better +place than it was in old James Halliday's time. But there's something +sad in the thought that none of those that were born on the land have +left chick or child to inherit it." Uncle Joseph fell for a while into +a pensive reverie, and I thought of that other inheritance, well-nigh +fifty times the value of Newhall farm, which is now waiting for a +claimant. And again I asked myself, Could it be possible that this +sweet girl, whose changeful face had saddened with those old memories, +whose innocent heart knew not one sordid desire--could it be indeed she +whose fair hand was to wrest the Haygarthian gold from the grip of +Crown lawyers? + +The sight of that old Bible seemed to have revived Mr, Mercer's memory +of his first wife with unwonted freshness. + +"She was a sweet young creature," he said; "the living picture of our +Lottie, and sometimes I fancy it must have been that which made me take +to Lottie when she was a little one. I used to see my first wife's eyes +looking up at me out of Lottie's eyes. I told Tom it was a comfort to +me to have the little lass with me, and that's how they let her come +over so often from Hyley. Poor old Tom used to bring her over in his +Whitechapel cart, and leave her behind him for a week or so at a +stretch. And then, when my Dorothy, yonder, took pity upon a poor +lonely widower, she made as much of the little girl as if she'd been +her own, and more, perhaps; for, not having any children of her own, +she thought them such out-of-the-way creatures, that you couldn't +coddle them and pet them too much. There's a little baby lies buried in +Barngrave churchyard with Tom Halliday's sister that would have been a +noble young man, sitting where you're sitting, Mr. Hawkehurst, and +looking at me as bright as you're looking, perhaps, if the Lord's will +hadn't been otherwise. We've all our troubles, you see, and that was +mine; and if it hadn't been for Dorothy, life would not have been worth +much for me after that time--but my Dorothy is all manner of blessings +rolled up in one." + +The farmer looked fondly at his second wife as he said this, and she +blushed and smiled upon him with responsive tenderness. I fancy a +woman's blushes and smiles wear longer in these calm solitudes than +amid the tumult and clamour of a great city. + +Finding my host inclined to dwell upon the past, I ventured to hazard +an indirect endeavour to obtain some information respecting that entry +in the Bible which had excited my curiosity. + +"Miss Susan Meynell died unmarried, I believe?" I said. "I see her +death recorded here, but she is described by her Christian name only." + +"Ah, very like," replied Mr. Mercer, with an air of indifference, which +I perceived to be assumed. "Yes, my poor Molly's aunt Susan died +unmarried." + +"And in London? I had been given to understand that she died in +Yorkshire." + +I blushed for my own impertinence as I pressed this inquiry. What right +had I to be given to understand anything about these honest Meynells? I +saw poor uncle Joe's disconcerted face, and I felt that the hunter of +an heir-at-law is apt to become a very obnoxious creature. + +"Susan Meynell died in London--the poor lass died in London," replied +Joseph Mercer, gravely; "and now we'll drop that subject, if you +please, my lad. It isn't a pleasant one." + +After this I could no longer doubt that there was some painful story +involved in those two deprecating sentences of the gospel. + +It was some time before uncle Joe was quite his own jovial and rather +noisy self again, and on this evening we had no whist. I bade my +friends good night a little earlier than usual, and departed, after +having obtained permission to take a tracing of the fly-leaf as soon as +possible. + +On this night the starlit sky and lonesome moor seemed to have lost +their soothing power. There was a new fever in my mind. The simple plan +of the future which I had mapped out for myself was suddenly shattered. +The Charlotte of to-night--heiress-at-law to an enormous fortune--ward +in Chancery--claimant against the Crown--was a very different person +from the simple maid "whom there were none"--or only a doating +simpleton in the person of the present writer--"to praise, and very few +to love." + +The night before last I had hoped so much; to-night hope had forsaken +me. It seemed as if a Titan's hand had dug a great pit between me and +the woman I loved--a pit as deep as the grave. + +Philip Sheldon might have consented to give me his stepdaughter +unpossessed of a sixpence; but would he give me his stepdaughter with a +hundred thousand pounds for her fortune? Alas! no; I know the +Sheldonian intellect too well to be fooled by any hope so wild and +baseless. The one bright dream of my misused life faded from me in the +hour in which I discovered my dearest girl's claim to the Haygarthian +inheritance. But I am not going to throw up the sponge before the fight +is over. Time enough to die when I am lying face downward in the +ensanguined mire, and feel the hosts of the foemen trampling above my +shattered carcass. I will live in the light of my Charlotte's smiles +while I can, and for the rest--"_Il ne faut pas dire, fontaine, je ne +boirai pas de ton eau_." There is no cup so bitter that a man dare say, +I will not drain it to the very dregs. "What must be, shall be--that's +a certain text;" and in the mean time _carpe diem_. I am all a Bohemian +again. + +_Nov. 5th_. After a day's delay I have obtained my tracing-paper, and +made two tracings of the entries in the Meynell Bible, How intercourse +with the Sheldonian race inclines one to the duplication of documents! +I consider the copying-press of modern civilization the supreme +incarnation of man's distrust of his fellow-men. + +I spent this afternoon and evening with my dear love--my last evening +in Yorkshire. To-morrow I shall see my Sheldon, and inform him of the +very strange termination which has come to my researches. Will he +communicate at once with his brother? Will he release me from my oath +of secrecy? There is nothing of the masonic secretiveness in my +organisation, and I am very weary of the seal that has been set upon my +unwary lips. Will Charlotte be told that she is the reverend +intestate's next of kin? These are questions which I ask myself as I +sit in the stillness of my room at the Magpie, scribbling this wretched +diary of mine, while the church clock booms three solemn strokes in the +distance. + +O, why did not the reverend intestate marry his housekeeper, and make a +will, like other honest citizens, and leave my Charlotte to walk the +obscure byways of honest poverty with me? I do believe that I could +have been honest; I do believe that I could have been brave and true +and steadfast for her dear sake. But it is the office of man to +propose, while the Unseen disposes. Perhaps such a youth as mine admits +of no redemption. I have written circulars for Horatio Paget. I have +been the willing remorseless tool of a man who never eats his dinner +without inflicting a wrong upon his fellow-creatures. Can a few moments +of maudlin sentimentality, a vague yearning for something brighter and +better, a brief impulse towards honesty, inspired by a woman's innocent +eyes--can so little virtue in the present atone for so much guilt in +the past? Alas! I fear not. + +I had one last brief _tête-à-tête_ with my dear girl while I took the +tracing from the old Bible. She sat watching me, and distracting me +more or less while I worked; and despite the shadow of doubt that has +fallen upon me, I could not be otherwise than happy in her sweet +company. + +When I came to the record of Susan Meynell's death, my Charlotte's +manner changed all at once from her accustomed joyousness to a pensive +gravity. + +"I was very sorry you spoke of Susan Meynell to uncle Joseph," she +said, thoughtfully. + +"But why sorry, my dear?" + +I had some vague notion as to the cause of this sorrow; but the +instincts of the chase impelled me to press the subject. Was I not +bound to know every secret in the lives of Matthew Haygarth's +descendants? + +"There is a very sad story connected with my aunt Susan--she was my +great-aunt, you know," said Charlotte, with a grave earnest face. "She +went away from home, and there was great sorrow. I cannot talk of the +story, even to you, Valentine, for there seems something sacred in +these painful family secrets. My poor aunt Susan left all her friends, +and died many years afterwards in London." + +"She was known to have died unmarried?" I asked. This would be an +important question from George Sheldon's point of sight. + +"Yes," Charlotte replied, blushing crimson. + +That blush told me a great deal. + +"There was some one concerned in this poor lady's sorrow," I said; +"some one to blame for all her unhappiness." + +"There was." + +"One whom she loved and trusted, perhaps?" + +"Whom she loved and trusted only too well. O, Valentine, must not that +be terrible? To confide with all your heart in the person you love, and +to find him base and cruel! If my poor aunt had not believed Montagu +Kingdon to be true and honourable, she would have trusted her friends a +little, instead of trusting so entirely in him. O, Valentine, what am I +telling you? I cannot bear to cast a shadow on the dead." + +"My dear love, do you think I cannot pity this injured lady? Do you +think I am likely to play the Pharisee, and be eager to bespatter the +grave of this poor sufferer? I can almost guess the story which you +shrink from telling me--it is one of those sad histories so often +acted, so often told. Your aunt loved a person called Montagu Kingdon-- +her superior in station, perhaps?" + +I looked at Charlotte as I said this, and her face told me that I had +guessed rightly. + +"This Montagu Kingdon admired and loved her," I said. "He seemed eager +to make her his wife, but no doubt imposed secrecy as to his +intentions. She accepted his word as that of a true-hearted lover and a +gentleman, and in the end had bitter reason to repent her confidence. +That is an outline of the story, is it not, Charlotte?" + +"I am sure that it was so. I am sure that when she left Newhall she +went away to be married," cried Charlotte, eagerly; "I have seen a +letter that proves it--to me, at least. And yet I have heard even mamma +speak harshly of her--so long dead and gone off the face of this earth-- +as if she had deliberately chosen the sad fate which came to her." + +"Is it not possible that Mr. Kingdon did marry Miss Meynell, after +all?" + +"No," replied Charlotte, very sadly; "there is no hope of that. I have +seen a letter written by my poor aunt years afterwards--a letter that +tells much of the cruel truth; and I have heard that Mr. Kingdon came +back to Yorkshire and married a rich lady during my aunt's lifetime." + +"I should like to see that letter," I said, involuntarily. + +"Why, Valentine?" asked my darling, looking at me with sorrowful, +wondering eyes, "To me it seems so painful to talk of these things: it +is like reopening an old wound." + +"But if the interests of other people require--" I began, in a very +blundering manner. + +"Whose interest can be served by my showing you my poor aunt's letter? +It would seem like an act of dishonour to the dead." + +What could I say after this--bound hand and foot as I am by my promise +to Sheldon? + +After a long talk with my sweet one, I borrowed uncle Joe's dog-cart, +and spun across to Barngrave, where I found the little church, beneath +whose gray old roof Charlotte Meynell plighted her troth to James +Halliday. I took a copy of all entries in the register concerning Mrs. +Meynell Halliday and her children, and then went back to Newhall to +restore the dog-cart, and to take my last Yorkshire tea at the +hospitable old farm-house. + +To-morrow I am off to Barlingford, fifteen miles from this village, to +take more copies from registries concerning my sweet young heiress--the +registries of her father's marriage, and her own birth. After that I +think my case will be tolerably complete, and I can present myself to +Sheldon in the guise of a conqueror. + +Is it not a great conquest to have made? Is it not almost an act of +chivalry for these prosaic days to go forth into the world as a private +inquirer, and win a hundred thousand pounds for the lady of one's love? +And yet I wish any one rather than my Charlotte were the lineal +descendant of Matthew Haygarth. + +_Nov. 10th_. Here I am in London once more, with my Sheldon in +ecstatics, and our affairs progressing marvellously well, as he informs +me; but with that ponderous slowness peculiar to all mortal affairs in +which the authorities of the realm are in any way concerned. + +My work is finished. Hawkehurst the genealogist and antiquarian sinks +into Hawkehurst the private individual. I have no more to do but to +mind my own business and await the fruition of time in the shape of my +reward. + +Can I accept three thousand pounds for giving my dearest her +birthright? Can I take payment for a service done to her? Surely not: +and, on the other hand, can I continue to woo my sweet one, conscious +that she is the rightful claimant to a great estate? Can I take +advantage of her ignorance, and may it not be said that I traded on my +secret knowledge? + +Before leaving Yorkshire, I stole one more day from the Sheldon +business, in order to loiter just a few hours longer in that northern +Arcadia called Newhall farm. What assurance have I that I shall ever +re-enter that pleasant dwelling? What hold have I, a wanderer and +vagabond, on the future which respectable people map out for themselves +with such mathematical precision? And even the respectable people are +sometimes out in their reckoning. To snatch the joys of to-day must +always be the policy of the adventurer. So I took one more happy +afternoon at Newhall. Nor was the afternoon entirely wasted; for, in +the course of my farewell visit, I heard more of poor Susan Meynell's +history from honest uncle Joseph. He told me the story during an +after-dinner walk, in which he took me the round of his pig-styes and +cattle-sheds for the last time, as if he would fain have had them leave +their impress on my heart. + +"You may see plenty of cattle in Yorkshire," he remarked, complacently, +"but you won't see many beasts to beat that." + +He pointed to a brown and mountainous mass of inert matter, which he +gave me to understand was something in the way of cattle. + +"Would you like to see him standing?" he asked, giving the mass a prod +with the handle of his walking-stick, which to my cockney mind seemed +rather cruel, but which, taken from an agricultural point of view, was +no doubt the correct thing. "He _can_ stand. Coom up, Brownie!" + +I humbly entreated that the ill-used mass might be allowed to sprawl in +undisturbed misery. + +"Thorley!" exclaimed Mr. Mercer, laying his finger significantly +against the side of his unpretending nose. + +I had not the faintest comprehension of my revered uncle-in-law's +meaning; but I said, "O, indeed!" with the accents of admiration. + +"Thorley's Condiment," said my uncle. "You'll see some fine animate at +the Cattle-show; but if you see a two-year-old ox to beat him, my name +is not Joe Mercer." + +After this I had to pay my respects to numerous specimens of the bovine +race, all more or less prostrate under the burden of superabundant +flesh, all seeming to cry aloud for the treatment of some Banting of +the agricultural world. + +After we had "done" the cattle-sheds, with heroic resignation on my +part, and with enthusiasm on the part of Mr. Mercer, we went a long way +to see some rarities in the way of mutton, which commodity was to be +found cropping the short grass on a distant upland. + +With very little appreciation of the zoological varieties, and with the +consciousness that my dear one was sitting in the farm-house parlour, +wondering at my prolonged absence, this excursion could not be +otherwise than a bore to me. But it was a small thing to sacrifice my +own pleasure for once in a way, when by so doing I might gratify the +kindest of men and of uncles; so I plodded briskly across the fields +with the friendly farmer. + +I had my reward; for, in the course of this walk, Mr. Mercer gave me +the history of poor Susan Meynell. + +"I didn't care to talk about the story the other night before the young +lass," he said, gravely; "for her heart's so full of pity and +tenderness, pretty dear, that any tale such as that is like to upset +her. But the story's known to almost all the folks in these parts; so +there's no particular reason against my telling it to you. I've heard +my poor mother talk of Susan Meynell many a time. She was a regular +beauty, it seems; prettier than her sister Charlotte, and she was a +pretty woman, as you may guess by looking at _our_ Charlotte, who is +thought the image of her grandmother. But Susan was one of those +beauties that you don't see very often--more like a picture than flesh +and blood. The gentry used to turn round to look at her at Barngrave +church, I've heard my mother say. She was a rare one for dress, too; +for she had a few hundreds left her by her father and mother, who had +both of them been very well-to-do people. The mother was daughter to +William Rand, of Barngrave, a man who farmed above a thousand acres of +his own land; and the father kept a carpet warehouse in +Aldersgate-street." + +This information I received with respectful deference, and a +hypocritical assumption of ignorance respecting Miss Meynell's +antecedents. + +Mr. Mercer paused to take breath, and then continued the story after +his own rambling fashion. + +"Well, my lad, what with her fine dress, and what with her pretty +looks, Susan Meynell seems to have thought a little too much of +herself; so that when Montagu Kingdon, of Kingdon-place, younger +brother to Lord Durnsville, fell in love with her, and courted her--not +exactly openly, but with the knowledge of her sister, Mrs. Halliday-- +she thought it no more than natural that he should intend to make her +his wife. Mr. Kingdon was ten years older than Susan, and had served in +Spain, and had not borne too good a character abroad. He had been in a +hard-drinking cavalry regiment, and had spent all his money, and sold +out directly the war was over. There was very little of all this known +down hereabouts, where Mr. Kingdon stood very high, on account of his +being Lord Durnsville's brother. But it was known that he was poor, and +that the Durnsville estates were heavily encumbered into the bargain." + +"Then this gentleman would have been no grand match for Miss Meynell, +if--" "If he had married her? No, my lad; and it might have been the +knowledge of his poverty that made Susan and her sister think less of +the difference between his station and the girl's. The two women +favoured him, anyhow; and they kept the secret from James Halliday, who +was a regular upstraight-and-downright kind of fellow, as proud as any +lord in his own way. The secret was kept safe enough for some time, and +Mr. Kingdon was always dropping in at Newhall when Jim was out of the +way; but folks in these parts are very inquisitive, and, lonesome as +our place is, there are plenty of people go by between Monday and +Saturday; so by-and-by it got to be noticed that there was very often a +gentleman's horse standing at Newhall gate, with the bridle tied to one +of the gate-posts; and those that knew anything, knew that the horse +belonged to Montagu Kingdon. A friend of Jim Halliday's told him as +much one day, and warned him that Mr. Kingdon was a scamp, and was said +to have a Spanish wife somewhere beyond seas. This was quite enough for +James Halliday, who flew into a roaring rage at the notion of any man, +most of all Lord Durnsville's brother, going to his house and courting +his sister-in-law in secret. It was at Barngrave he was told this, one +market-day, as he was lounging with his friends in the old yard of the +Black Bull inn, where the corn exchange used to be held in those days. +He called for his horse the next minute, and left the town at a gallop. +When he came to Newhall, he found Montagu Kingdon's chestnut mare tied +to the gate-post, and he found Mr. Kingdon himself, dawdling about the +garden with Miss Meynell." + +"And then I suppose there was a scene?" I suggested, with unfeigned +interest in this domestic story. + +"Well, I believe there was, my lad. I've heard all about it from my +poor Molly, who had the story from her mother. James Halliday didn't +mince matters; he gave Mr. Kingdon a bit of his mind, in his own rough +outspoken way, and told him it would be the worse for him if he ever +crossed the threshold of Newhall gate again. 'If you meant well by that +foolish girl, you wouldn't come sneaking here behind my back,' he said; +'but you don't mean well by her, and you've a Spanish wife hidden away +somewhere in the Peninsula.' Mr. Kingdon gave the lie to this; but he +said he shouldn't stoop to justify himself to an unmannerly yeoman. 'If +you were a gentleman,' he said, 'you should pay dearly for your +insolence.' 'I'm ready to pay any price you like,' answered James +Halliday, as bold as brass; 'but as you weren't over fond of fighting +abroad, where there was plenty to be got for it, I don't suppose you +want to fight at home, where there's nothing to be got for it.'" + +"And did Susan Meynell hear this?" I asked. I could fancy this +ill-fated girl standing by and looking on aghast while hard things +were said to the man she loved, while the silver veil of sweet romance +was plucked so roughly from the countenance of her idol by an angry +rustic's rude hand. + +"Well, I don't quite know whether she heard all," answered Mr. Mercer, +thoughtfully. "Of course, James Halliday told his wife all about the +row afterwards. He was very kind to his sister-in-law, in spite of her +having deceived him; and he talked to her very seriously, telling her +all he had heard in Barngrave against Montagu Kingdon. She listened to +him quietly enough, but it was quite clear that she didn't believe a +word he said. 'I know you have heard all that, James,' she said; 'but +the people who said it knew they were not telling the truth. Lord +Durnsville and his brother are not popular in the country, and there +are no falsehoods too cruel for the malice of his enemies.' She +answered him with some such fine speech as that, and when the next +morning came she was gone." + +"She eloped with Mr. Kingdon?" + +"Yes. She left a letter for her sister, full of romantic stuff about +loving him all the better because people spoke ill of him; regular +woman's talk, you know, bless their poor silly hearts!" murmured Mr. +Mercer, with tender compassion. "She was going to London to be married +to Mr. Kingdon, she wrote. They were to be married at the old church in +the city where she had been christened, and she was going to stay with +an old friend--a young woman who had once been her brother's +sweetheart, and who was married to a butcher in Newgate-market--till +the bans were given out, or the license bought. The butcher's wife had +a country-house out at Edmonton, and it was there Susan was going to +stay." + +"All that seemed straightforward enough," said I. + +"Yes," replied uncle Joe; "but if Mr. Kingdon had meant fairly by Susan +Meynell, it would have been as easy for him to marry her at Barngrave +as in London. He was as poor as a church mouse, but he was his own +master, and there was no one to prevent him doing just what he pleased. +This is about what James Halliday thought, I suppose; for he tore off +to London, as fast as post-horses could carry him, in pursuit of his +wife's sister and Mr. Kingdon. But though he made inquiries all along +the road he could not hear that they had passed before him, and for the +best of all reasons. He went to the butcher's house at Edmonton; but +there he found no trace of Susan Meynell, except a letter posted in +Yorkshire, on the day of the row between James and Mr. Kingdon, telling +her intention of visiting her old friend within the next few days, and +hinting at an approaching marriage. There was the letter announcing the +visit, but the visitor had not come." "But the existence of that letter +bears witness that Miss Meynell believed in the honesty of her lover's +intentions." + +"To be sure it does, poor lass," answered Mr. Mercer pensively. "She +believed in the word of a scoundrel, and she was made to pay dearly for +her simplicity. James Halliday did all he could to find her. He +searched London through, as far as any man can search such a place as +London; but it was no use, and for a very good reason, as I said +before. The end of it was, he was obliged to go back to Newhall no +wiser than when he started." + +"And was nothing further ever discovered?" I asked eagerly, for I felt +that this was just one of those family complications from which all +manner of legal difficulties might arise. + +"Don't be in a hurry, my lad," answered uncle Joe; "wickedness is sure +to come to light sooner or later. Three years after this poor young +woman ran away there was a drunken groom dismissed from Lord +Durnsville's stable; and what must he needs do but come straight off to +James Halliday, to vent his spite against his master, and perhaps to +curry favour at Newhall. 'You shouldn't have gone to London to look for +the young lady, Muster Halliday,' he said; 'you should have gone the +other way. I know a man as drove Mr. Kingdon and your wife's sister +across country to Hull with two of my lord's own horses, stopping to +bait on the way. They went aboard ship at Hull, Mr. Kingdon and the +young lady--a ship that was bound for foreign parts.' This is what the +groom said; but it was little good knowing it now. There'd been +advertisements in the papers beseeching her to come back; and +everything had been done that could be done, and all to no end. A few +years after this back comes Mr. Kingdon as large as life, married to +some dark-faced, frizzy-haired lady, whose father owned half the +Indies, according to people's talk: but he fought very shy of James +Halliday; but when they did meet one day at the covert side, Jim rode +up to the honourable gentleman and asked him what he had done with +Susan Meynell. Those that saw the meeting say that Montagu Kingdon +turned as white as a ghost when he saw Jim Halliday riding up to him +on his big, raw-boned horse; but nothing came of the quarrel. Mr. +Kingdon did not live many years to enjoy the money his frizzy-haired +West-Indian lady brought him. He died before his brother, Lord +Durnsville, and left neither chick nor child to inherit his money, nor +yet the Durnsville title, which was extinct on the death of the +viscount." + +"And what of the poor girl?" + +"Ay, poor lass, what of her? It was fourteen years after she left her +home before her sister got so much as a line to say she was in the land +of the living. When a letter did come at last, it was a very melancholy +one. The poor creature wrote to her sister to say she was in London, +alone and penniless, and, as she thought, dying." + +"And the sister went to her?" + +I remembered that deprecating sentence in the family Bible, written in +a woman's hand. + +"That she did, good honest soul, as fast as she could travel, carrying +a full purse along with her. She found poor Susan at an inn near +Aldersgate-street--the old quarter, you see, that she'd known in her +young days. Mrs. Halliday meant to have brought the poor soul back to +Yorkshire, and had settled it all with Jim; but it was too late for +anything of that kind. She found Susan dying, wandering in her mind off +and on, but just able to recognise her sister, and to ask forgiveness +for having trusted to Montagu Kingdon, instead of taking counsel from +those that wished her well." + +"Was that all?" I asked presently. + +Mr. Mercer made long pauses in the course of his narrative, during +which we walked briskly on; he pondering on those past events, I +languishing for further information. + +"Well, lad, that was about all. Where Susan had been in all those +years, or what she had been doing, was more than Mrs. Halliday could +find out. Of late she had been living somewhere abroad. The clothes she +had last worn were of foreign make, very poor and threadbare; and there +was one little box in her room at the inn that had been made at Rouen, +for the name of a Rouen trunkmaker was on the inside of the lid. There +were no letters or papers of any kind in the box; so you see there was +no way of finding out what the poor creature's life had been. All her +sister could do was to stay with her and comfort her to the last, and +to see that she was quietly laid to rest in a decent grave. She was +buried in a quiet little city churchyard, somewhere where there are +green trees among the smoke of the chimney-pots. Montagu Kingdon had +been dead some years when that happened." + +"Is that last letter still in existence?" I asked. + +"Yes; my first wife kept it with the rest of her family letters and +papers. Dorothy takes care of them now. We country folks set store by +those sort of things, you know." + +I would fain have asked Mr. Mercer to let me see this last letter +written by Susan Meynell; but what excuse could I devise for so doing? +I was completely fettered by my promise to George Sheldon, and could +offer no reasonable pretence for my curiosity. + +There was one point which I was bound to push home in the interests of +my Sheldon, or, shall I not rather say, of my Charlotte? That +all-important point was the question of marriage or no marriage. "You +feel quite clear as to the fact that Montagu Kingdon never did marry +this young woman?" I said. + +"Well, yes," replied uncle Joe; "that was proved beyond doubt, I'm +sorry to say. Mr. Kingdon never could have dared to come back here with +his West-Indian wife in poor Susan Meynell's lifetime if he had really +married her." + +"And how about the lady he was said to have married in Spain?" + +"I can't say anything about that. It may have been only a scandal, or, +if there was a marriage, it may have been illegal. The Kingdons were +Protestants, and the Spaniards are all papists, I suppose. A marriage +between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic wouldn't be binding." + +"Not upon such a man as this Kingdon." + +It seems more than probable that the opinion arrived at by this poor +soul's friends must be correct, and that Montagu Kingdon was a +scoundrel. But how about Susan Meynell's after-life?--the fourteen +years in which she was lost sight of? May she not have married some one +else than Mr. Kingdon? and may she not have left heirs who will arise +in the future to dispute my darling's claim? + +Is it a good thing to have a great inheritance? The day has been when +such a question as that could not by any possibility have shaped itself +in my mind. Ah! what is this subtle power called love, which worketh +such wondrous changes in the human heart? Surely the miracle of the +cleansed leper is in some manner typical of this transformation. The +emanation of divine purity encircled the leper with its supernal +warmth, and the scales fell away beneath that mysterious influence. And +so from the pure heart of a woman issues a celestial fire which burns +the plague-spot out of the sinner's breast. Ah, how I languish to be at +my darling's feet, thanking her for the cure she has wrought! + +I have given my Sheldon the story of Susan Meynell's life, as I had it +from uncle Joseph. He agrees with me as to the importance of Susan's +last letter, but even that astute creature does not see a way to +getting the document in his hands without letting Mr. Mercer more or +less into our secret. + +"I might tell this man Mercer some story about a little bit of money +coming to his niece, and get at Susan Meynell's letter that way," he +said; "but whatever I told him would be sure to get round to Philip +somehow or other, and I don't want to put him on the scent." + +My Sheldon's legal mind more than ever inclines to caution, now that he +knows the heiress of the Haygarths is so nearly allied to his brother +Philip. + +"I'll tell you what it is, Hawkehurst," he said to me, after we had +discussed the business in all its bearings, "there are not many people +I'm afraid of, but I don't mind owning to you that I am afraid of my +brother Phil. He has always walked over my head; partly because he can +wear his shirt-front all through business hours without creasing it, +which I can't, and partly because he's--well--more unscrupulous than I +am." + +He paused meditatively, and I too was meditative; for I could not +choose but wonder what it was to be more unscrupulous than George +Sheldon. + +"If he were to get an inkling of this affair," my patron resumed +presently, "he'd take it out of our hands before you could say Jack +Robinson--supposing anybody ever wanted to say Jack Robinson, which +they don't--and he'd drive a bargain with us, instead of our driving a +bargain with him." + +My friend of Gray's Inn has a pleasant way of implying that our +interests are coequal in this affair. I caught him watching me +curiously once or twice during our last interview, when Charlotte's +name was mentioned. Does he suspect the truth, I wonder? + +_Nov. 12th_. I had another interview with my patron yesterday, and +rather a curious interview, though not altogether unsatisfactory. +George Sheldon has been making good use of his time since my return +from Yorkshire. + +"I don't think we need have any fear of opposition from children or +grandchildren of Susan Meynell," he said; "I have found the registry of +her interment in the churchyard of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. She is +described in that registry by her maiden name, and there is a plain +headstone in a corner of the ground, inscribed with the name of Susan +Meynell, who died July 14th, 1835, much lamented; and then the text +about 'the one sinner that repenteth,' and so on," said Mr. Sheldon, as +if he did not care to dwell on so hackneyed a truism. + +"But," I began, "she might have been married, in spite of--" + +"Yes, she might," replied my Sheldon, captiously; "but then, you see, +the probability is that she wasn't. If she had been married, she would +have told her sister as much in that last letter, or she would have +said as much when they met." + +"But she was delirious." + +"Not all the time. She was sensible enough to talk about her sorrow for +the past, and so on; and she must have been sensible enough to have +spoken of her children, if she had ever had any. Besides, if she had +been married, she would scarcely have been wandering about the world in +that miserable manner, unless her husband was an uncommonly bad lot. +No, Hawkehurst, depend upon it, we've nothing to fear in that quarter. +The person we have to fear is that precious brother of mine." + +"You talked the other day about driving a bargain with him," I said; "I +didn't quite understand your meaning. The fortune can only be claimed +by Char--Miss Halliday, and your brother has no legal authority to +dispose of her money." + +"Of course not," answered my employer, with contemptuous impatience of +my dulness; "but my brother Phil is not the man to wait for legal +power. His ideas will be Miss Halliday's ideas in this business. When +my case is ripe for action, I shall make my bargain--half the fortune +to be mine from the day of its recovery. A deed containing these +conditions must be executed by Charlotte Halliday before I hand over a +single document relating to the case. Now, as matters stand at +present," he went on, looking very fixedly at me, "her execution of +that deed would rest with Philip." + +"And when shall you make your overtures to Mr. Sheldon?" I asked, at a +loss to understand that intent look. + +"Not until the last links of the chain are put together. Not before I'm +ready to make my first move on the Chancellor's chessboard. Perhaps not +at all." + +"How do you mean?" + +"If I can tide over for a little time, I may throw Philip overboard +altogether, and get some one else to manage Miss Halliday for me." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I'll tell you, Hawkehurst," answered my patron, resting his elbows on +the table by which we were sitting, and looking me through with those +penetrating black eyes of his. "My brother Phil played me a shabby +trick a few years ago, which I have not forgotten or forgiven. So I +shouldn't mind paying him out in some of his own coin. Beyond which, I +tell you again, I don't like the idea of his having a finger in this +business. Where that kind of man's finger can go, his whole hand will +follow; and if once that hand fastens on John Haygarth's money, it'll +be bad times for you and me. Miss Halliday counts for exactly nothing +in my way of reckoning. If her stepfather told her to sign away half a +million, she'd scribble her name at the bottom of the paper, and press +her pretty little thumb upon the wafer, without asking a single +question as to the significance of the document. And, of course, she'd +be still less inclined to make objections if it was her husband who +asked her to execute the deed. Aha! my young friend, how is it you grow +first red and then white when I mention Miss Halliday's husband?" + +I have no doubt that I did indeed blanch when that portentous word was +uttered in conjunction with my darling's name. Mr. Sheldon leant a +little further across the table, and his hard black eyes penetrated a +little deeper into the recesses of my foolish heart. + +"Valentine Hawkehurst," he said, "shall we throw my brother Phil +overboard altogether? Shall you and I go shares in this fortune?" + +"Upon my word and honour I don't understand you," I said, in all +sincerity. + +"You mean that you won't understand me," answered George Sheldon, +impatiently; "but I'll make myself pretty clear presently; and as your +own interest is at stake, you'll be very unlike the rest of your +species if you don't find it easy enough to understand me. When first I +let you in for the chance of a prize out of this business, neither you +nor I had the slightest idea that circumstances would throw the +rightful claimant to the Haygarth estate so completely into our way. I +had failed so many times with other cases before I took up this case, +that it's a wonder I had the courage to work on. But, somehow or other, +I had a notion that this particular business would turn up trumps. The +way seemed a little clearer than it usually is; but not clear enough to +tempt Tom, Dick, and Harry. And then, again, I had learnt a good many +secrets from the experience of my failures. I was well up to my work. I +might have carried it on, and I ought to have carried it on, without +help; but I was getting worn out and lazy, so I let you into my secret, +having taken it into my head that I could venture to trust you." + +"You didn't trust me further than you could help, my friend," I replied +with my usual candour. "You never told me the amount left by the +reverend intestate; but I heard that down at Ullerton. A half share in +a hundred thousand pounds is worth trying for, Mr. Sheldon." + +"They call it a hundred thousand down there, do they?" asked the +lawyer, with charming innocence. "Those country people always deal in +high figures. However, I don't mind owning that the sum is a handsome +one, and if you and I play our cards wisely, we may push Philip out of +the game altogether, and share the plunder between us." + +Again I was obliged to confess myself unable to grasp my employer's +meaning. + +"Marry Charlotte Halliday out of hand," he said, bringing his eyes and +his elbows still nearer to me, until his bushy black whiskers almost +touched my face. "Marry her before Philip gets an inkling of this +affair, and then, instead of being made a tool of by him, she'll be +safe in your hands, and the money will be in your hands into the +bargain. Why, how you stare, man! Do you think I haven't seen how the +land lies between you two? Haven't I dined at Bayswater when you've +been there? and could any man with his wits about him see you two +sentimental young simpletons together _without_ seeing how things were +going on? You are in love with Charlotte, and Charlotte is in love with +you. What more natural than that you two should make a match of it? +Charlotte is her own mistress, and hasn't sixpence in the world that +any one but you and I know of; for, of course, my brother Phil will +continue to stick to every penny of poor old Tom's money. All you have +to do is to follow up the young lady; it's the course that would +suggest itself to any man in the same case, even if Miss Halliday were +the ugliest old harridan in Christendom, instead of being a very jolly +kind of girl, as girls go." + +My employer said this with the tone of a man who had never considered +the genus girl a very interesting part of creation. I suppose I looked +at him rather indignantly; for he laughed as he resumed,-- + +"I'll say she's an angel, if you like," he said; "and if you think her +one, so much the better. You may consider it a very lucky thing that +you came in my way, and a still more lucky thing that Miss Halliday has +been silly enough to fall in love with you. I've heard of men being +born with silver spoons in their mouths; but I should think you must +have come into the world with a whole service of plate. However, that +is neither here nor there. Your policy will be to follow up your +advantages; and if you can persuade the young lady to change her name +for Hawkehurst on the quiet some fine morning, without stopping to ask +permission of her stepfather, or any one else, so much the better for +you, and so much the more agreeable to me. I'd rather do business with +you than with my brother Phil; and I shan't be sorry to cry quits with +that gentleman for the shabby trick he played me a few years ago." + +My Sheldon's brow darkened as he said this, and the moody fit returned. +That old grudge which my patron entertains against his brother must +have relation to some very disagreeable business, if I may judge by +George Sheldon's manner. + +Here was a position for me, Valentine Hawkehurst, soldier of fortune, +cosmopolitan adventurer, and child of the nomadic tribes who call +Bohemia their mother country! Already blest with the sanction of my +dear love's simple Yorkshire kindred, I was now assured of George +Sheldon's favour; nay, urged onward in my paradisiac path by that +unsentimental Mentor. The situation was almost too much for my +bewildered brain. Charlotte an heiress, and George Sheldon eager to +bring about my participation in the Haygarthian thousands! + +And now I sit in my little room 1a Omega-street, pondering upon the +past, and trying to face the perplexities of the future. + +Is this to be? Am I, so hopeless an outsider in the race of life, to +come in with a rush and win the prize which Fortune's first favourite +might envy? Can I hope or believe it? Can the Fates have been playing a +pleasant practical joke with me all this time, like those fairies who +decree that the young prince shall pass his childhood and youth in the +guise of a wild boar, only to be transformed into an Adonis at last by +the hand of the woman who is disinterested enough to love him despite +his formidable tusks and ungainly figure? + +No! a thousand times no! The woman I love, and the fortune I have so +often desired, are not for me. Every man has his own especial Fates; +and the three sisters who take care of me are grim, hard-visaged, +harder-hearted spinsters, not to be mollified by propitiation, or by +the smooth tongue of the flatterer. The cup is very sweet, and it seems +almost within my grasp; but between that chalice of delight and the +lips that thirst for it, ah, what a gulf! + +_Nov. 13th_. The above was written late at night, and under the +influence of my black dog. What an ill-conditioned cur he is, and how +he mouths and mangles the roses that bestrew his pathway, always bent +upon finding the worm at the core! + +I kicked the brute out of doors this morning, on finding a letter from +my dear one lying in my plate. "Avaunt, aroint thee, foul fiend!" I +cried. "Thou art the veritable poodle in whose skin Mephistopheles +hides when bent on direst mischief. I will set the sign of the cross +upon my threshold, and thou shalt enter no more." + +This is what I said to myself as I tore open Charlotte's envelope, with +its pretty little motto stamped on cream-coloured sealing-wax, "_Pensez +à moi._" Ah, love; "while memory holds a seat in this distracted +globe." I saw the eyes of my friend Horatio fixed upon me as I opened +my letter, and knew that my innermost sentiments were under inspection. +Prudence demands all possible caution where the noble Captain is +concerned. I cannot bring myself to put implicit faith in his account +of his business at Ullerton. He may have been there, as he says, on +some promoting spec; but our meeting in that town was, to say the +least, a strange coincidence, and I am not a believer in coincidences-- +off the stage, where a gentleman invariably makes his appearance +directly his friends begin to talk about him. + +I cannot forget my conviction that Jonah Goodge was bought over by a +rival investigator, and that Rebecca Haygarth's letters were tampered +with; nor can I refrain from connecting that shapely but well-worn +lavender glove with the person of my dandy friend, Horatio Paget. The +disappearance of a letter from the packet intrusted to me by Miss +Judson is another mysterious circumstance; nor can I do away with the +impression that I heard the name Meynell distinctly pronounced by +Philip Sheldon the last time I was at the villa. + +George Sheldon tells me the secret cannot by any possibility have been +betrayed, unless by me; and I have been prudence itself. + +Supposing my suspicions of Mr. Goodge to be correct, the letters +extracted from Mrs. Rebecca's correspondence might tell much, and might +even put Horatio on the track of the Meynells. But how should he get +his first inkling of the business? + +Certainly not from me or from George Sheldon. But might not his +attention have been attracted by that advertisement for heirs-at-law to +the Haygarthian estate which appeared in the _Times_? + +These are questions with which the legal intellect of my Sheldon may +best grapple. For myself, I can only drift with the resistless stream +called life. + +I was so unfortunate as to make my appearance in our common +sitting-room five minutes after my patron. There had been time enough +for him to examine the superscription and postmark of my letter. He +was whistling when I went into the room. People who have been looking +at things that don't belong to them always whistle. + +I did not care to read Charlotte's first letter with those hawk's eyes +fixed upon me. So I just glanced at the dear handwriting, as if running +over an ordinary letter with the eye of indifference, and then put the +document into my pocket with the best assumption of carelessness I was +capable of. How I longed for the end of that tedious meal, over which +Captain Paget lingered in his usual epicurean fashion! + +My friend Horatio has shown himself not a little curious about my late +absence from the joint domicile. I again resorted to the Dorking +fiction,--my aged aunt breaking fast, and requiring much propitiation +from a dutiful nephew with an eye to her testamentary arrangements. I +had been compelled to endow my shadowy relative with a comfortable +little bit of money, in order to account for my devotion; since the +powerful mind of my Horatio would have refused to grasp the idea of +disinterested affection for an ancient kinswoman. + +There was an ominous twinkle in the Captain's sharp gray eyes when I +gave this account of my absence, and I sorely doubt his acceptance of +this second volume of the Dorking romance. Ah, what a life it is we +lead in the tents of Ishmael, the cast-away! through what tortuous +pathways wander the nomad tribes who call Hagar, the abandoned, their +mother! what lies, what evasions, what prevarications! Horatio Paget +and I watch each other like two cunning fencers, with a stereotyped +smile upon our lips and an eager restlessness in our eyes, and who +shall say that one or other of our rapiers is not poisoned, as in the +famous duel before Claudius, usurper of Denmark? My dear one's letter +is all sweetness and love. She is coming home; and much as she prefers +Yorkshire to Bayswater, she is pleased to return for my sake--for my +sake. She leaves the pure atmosphere of that simple country home to +become the central point in a network of intrigue; and I am bound to +keep the secret so closely interwoven with her fate. I love her more +truly, more purely than I thought myself capable of loving; yet I can +only approach her as the tool of George Sheldon, a rapacious +conspirator, bent on securing the hoarded thousands of old John +Haygarth. + +Of all men upon this earth I should be the last to underrate the +advantages of wealth,--I who have been reared in the gutter, which is +Poverty's cradle. Yet I would fain Charlotte's fortune had come to her +in any other fashion than as the result of my work in the character of +a salaried private inquirer. + + + + + +BOOK THE SEVENTH. + + +CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +"IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG." + + +Miss Halliday returned to the gothic villa at Bayswater with a bloom on +her cheeks, and a brightness in her eyes, which surpassed her wonted +bloom and brightness, fair and bright as her beauty had been from the +hour in which she was created to charm mankind. She had been a creature +to adore even in the first dawn of infancy, and in her christening-hood +and toga of white satin had been a being to dream of. But now she +seemed invested all at once with a new loveliness--more spiritual, more +pensive, than the old. + +Might not Valentine have cried, with the rapturous pride of a lover: +"Look at the woman here with the new soul!" and anon: "This new soul is +mine!" + +It was love that had imparted a new charm to Miss Halliday's beauty. +Diana wondered at the subtle change as her friend sat in her favourite +window on the morning after her return, looking dreamily out into the +blossomless garden, where evergreens of the darkest and spikiest +character stood up stern and straight against the cold gray sky. Diana +had welcomed her friend in her usual reserved manner, much to +Charlotte's discomfiture. The girl so yearned for a confidante. She had +no idea of hiding her happiness from this chosen friend, and waited +eagerly for the moment in which she could put her arms round Diana's +neck and tell her what it was that had made Newhall so sweet to her +during this particular visit. + +She sat in the window this morning thinking of Valentine, and +languishing to speak of him, but at a loss how to begin. There are some +people about whose necks the arms of affection can scarce entwine +themselves. Diana Paget sat at her eternal embroidery-frame, picking up +beads on her needle with the precision of some self-feeding machine. +The little glass beads made a hard clicking sound as they dropped from +her needle,--a very frosty, unpromising sound, as it seemed to +Charlotte's hyper-sensitive ear. + +There had been an unwonted reserve between the girls since Charlotte's +return,--a reserve which arose, on Miss Halliday's part, from the +contest between girlish shyness and the eager desire for a confidante; +and on the part of Miss Paget, from that gloomy discontent which had of +late possessed her. + +She watched Charlotte furtively as she picked up her beads--watched her +wonderingly, unable to comprehend the happiness that gave such +spiritual brightness to her eyes. It was no longer the childlike gaiety +of heart which had made Miss Halliday's girlhood so pleasant. It was +the thoughtful, serene delight of womanhood. + +"She can care very little for Valentine," Diana thought, "or she could +scarcely seem so happy after such a long separation. I doubt if these +bewitching women who enchant all the world know what it is to feel +deeply. Happiness is a habit with this girl. Valentine's attentions +were very pleasant to her. The pretty little romance was very agreeable +while it lasted; but at the first interruption of the story she shuts +the book, and thinks of it no more. O, if my Creator had made _me_ like +that! If I could forget the days we spent together, and the dream I +dreamt!" + +That never-to-be-forgotten vision came back to Diana Paget as she sat +at her work; and for a few minutes the clicking sound of the beads +ceased, while she waited with clasped hands until the shadows should +have passed before her eyes. The old dream came back to her like a +picture, bright with colour and light. But the airy habitation which +she had built for herself of old was no "palace lifting to Italian +heavens its marble roof." It was only a commonplace lodging in a street +running out of the Strand, with just a peep of the river from a trim +little balcony. An airy second-floor sitting-room, with engraved +portraits of the great writers on the newly-papered walls: on one side +an office-desk, on the other a work-table. The unpretending shelter of +a newspaper hack, who lives _à jour la journée_, and whose wife must +achieve wonders in the way of domestic economy in order to eke out his +modest earnings. + +This was Diana Paget's vision of Paradise, and it seemed only the +brighter now that she felt it was never to be anything more than a +supernal picture painted on her brain. + +After sitting silent for some little time, eager to talk, but waiting +to be interrogated, Charlotte was fain to break silence. + +"You don't ask me whether I enjoyed myself in Yorkshire, Di," she said, +looking shyly down at the little bunch of charms and lockets which +employed her restless fingers. + +"Didn't I, really?" replied Diana, languidly; "I thought that was one +of the stereotyped inquiries one always made." + +"I hope you wouldn't make stereotyped inquiries of _me_, Diana." + +"No, I ought not to do so. But I think there are times when one is +artificial even with one's best friends. And you are my best friend, +Charlotte. I may as well say my only friend," the girl added, with a +laugh. + +"Diana," cried Charlotte, reproachfully, "why do you speak so bitterly? +You know how dearly I love you. I do, indeed, dear. There is scarcely +anything in this world I would not do for you. But I am not your only +friend. There is Mr. Hawkehurst, whom you have known so long." + +Miss Halliday's face was in a flame; and although she bent very low to +examine the golden absurdities hanging on her watch-chain, she could +not conceal her blushes from the eyes that were so sharpened by +jealousy. + +"Mr. Hawkehurst!" cried Diana, with unspeakable contempt. "If I were +drowning, do you think _he_ would stretch out his hand to save me while +you were within his sight? When he comes to this house--he who has seen +so much poverty, and misery, and shame, and--happiness with me and +mine--do you think he so much as remembers my existence? Do you think +he ever stops to consider whether I am that Diana Paget who was once +his friend and confidante and fellow-wayfarer and companion? or only a +lay figure dressed up to fill a vacant chair in your drawing-room?" + +"Diana!" + +"It is all very well to look at me reproachfully, Charlotte. You must +know that I am speaking the truth. You talk of friendship. What is that +word worth if it does not mean care and thought for another? Do you +imagine that Valentine Hawkehurst ever thinks of me, or considers me?" + +Charlotte was fain to keep silence. She remembered how very rarely, in +those long afternoons at Newhall farm, the name of Diana Paget had been +mentioned. She remembered how, when she and Valentine were mapping out +the future so pleasantly, she had stopped in the midst of an eloquent +bit of word-painting, descriptive of the little suburban cottage they +were to live in, to dispose of Diana's fate in a sentence,-- + +"And dear Di can stop at the villa to take care of mamma," she had +said; whereupon Mr. Hawkehurst had assented, with a careless nod, and +the description of the ideal cottage had been continued. + +Charlotte remembered this now with extreme contrition. She had been so +supremely happy, and so selfish in her happiness. + +"O, Di," she cried, "how selfish happy people are!" And then she +stopped in confusion, perceiving that the remark had little relevance +to Diana's last observation. + +"Valentine shall be your friend, dear," she said, after a pause. + +"O, you are beginning to answer for him already!" exclaimed Miss Paget, +with increasing bitterness. + +"Diana, why are you so unkind to me?" Charlotte cried, passionately. +"Don't you see that I am longing to confide in you? What is it that +makes you so bitter? You must know how truly I love you. And if Mr. +Hawkehurst is not what he once was to you, you must remember how cold +and distant you always are in your manner to him. I am sure, to hear +you speak to him, and to see you look at him sometimes, one would think +he was positively hateful to you. And I want you to like him a little +for my sake." + +Miss Halliday left her seat by the window as she said this, and went +towards the table by which her friend was sitting. She crept close to +Diana, and with a half-frightened, half-caressing movement, seated +herself on the low ottoman at her feet, and, seated thus, possessed +herself of Miss Paget's cold hand. + +"I want you to like Mr. Hawkehurst a little, Di," she repeated, "for my +sake." + +"Very well, I will try to like him a little--for your sake," answered +Miss Paget, in a very unsympathetic tone. + +"O, Di! tell me how it was he offended you." + +"Who told you that he offended me?" + +"Your own manner, dear. You could never have been so cold and distant +with him--having known him go long, and endured so many troubles in his +company--if you had not been deeply offended by him." + +"That is your idea, Charlotte; but, you see, I am very unlike you. I am +fitful and capricious. I used to like Mr. Hawkehurst, and now I dislike +him. As to offence, his whole life has offended me, just as my father's +life has offended me, from first to last. I am not good and amiable and +loving, like you; but I hate deceptions and lies; above all, the lies +that some men traffic in day after day." + +"Was Valentine's--was your father's life a very bad one?" Charlotte +asked, trembling palpably, and looking up at Miss Paget's face with +anxious eyes. + +"Yes, it was a mean false life,--a life of trick and artifice. I do not +know the details of the schemes by which my father and Valentine earned +their daily bread--and my daily bread; but I know they inflicted loss +upon other people. Whether the wrong done was always done deliberately +and consciously upon Valentine's part, I cannot say. He may have been +only a tool of my father's. I hope he was, for the most part an +unconscious tool." + +She said all this in a dreamy way, as if uttering her own thoughts, +rather than seeking to enlighten Charlotte. + +"I am sure he was an unconscious tool," cried that young lady, with an +air of conviction; "it is not in his nature to do anything false or +dishonourable." + +"Indeed! you know him very well, it seems," said Diana. + +Ah, what a tempest was raging in that proud passionate heart! what a +strife between the powers of good and evil! Pitying love for Charlotte; +tender compassion for her rival's childlike helplessness; and +unutterable sense of her own loss. + +She had loved him so dearly, and he was taken from her. There had been +a time when he almost loved her--almost! Yes, it was the remembrance of +that which made the trial so bitter. The cup had approached her lips, +only to be dashed away for ever. + +"What did I ask in life except his love?" she said to herself. "Of all +the pleasures and triumphs which girls of my age enjoy, is there one +that I ever envied? No, I only sighed for his love. To live in a +lodging-house parlour with him, to sit by and watch him at his work, to +drudge for him, to bear with him--this was my brightest dream of +earthly bliss; and she has broken it!" + +It was thus Diana argued with herself, as she sat looking down at the +bright creature who had done her this worst, last wrong which one woman +can do to another. This passionate heart, which ached with such cruel +pain, was prone to evil, and to-day the scorpion Jealousy was digging +his sharp tooth into its very core. It was not possible for Diana Paget +to feel kindly disposed towards the girl whose unconscious hand had +shattered the airy castle of her dreams. Was it not a hard thing that +the bright creature, whom every one was ready to adore, must needs +steal away this one heart? + +"It has always been like this," thought Diana. "The story of David and +Nathan is a parable that is perpetually being illustrated. David is so +rich--he is lord of incalculable flocks and herds; but he will not be +content till he has stolen the one little ewe lamb, the poor man's pet +and darling." + +"Diana," said Miss Halliday very softly, "you are so difficult to talk +to this morning, and I have so much to say to you." + +"About your visit, or about Mr. Hawkehurst?" + +"About--Yorkshire," answered Charlotte, with the air of a shy child who +has made her appearance at dessert, and is asked whether she will have +a pear or a peach. + +"About Yorkshire!" repeated Miss Paget, with a little sigh of relief. +"I shall be very glad to hear about your Yorkshire friends. Was the +visit a pleasant one?" + +"Very, very pleasant!" answered Charlotte, dwelling tenderly on the +words. + +"How sentimental you have grown, Lotta! I think you must have found a +forgotten shelf of Minerva Press novels in some cupboard at your +aunt's. You have lost all your vivacity." + +"Have I?" murmured Charlotte; "and yet I am happier than I was when I +went away. Whom do you think I met at Newhall, Di?" + +"I have not the slightest idea. My notions of Yorkshire are very vague. +I fancy the people amiable savages; just a little in advance of the +ancient Britons whom Julius Caesar came over to conquer. Whom did you +meet there? Some country squire, I suppose, who fell in love with your +bright eyes, and wished you to waste the rest of your existence in +those northern wilds." + +Miss Paget was not a woman to bare her wounds for the scrutiny of the +friendliest eyes. Let the tooth of the serpent bite never so keenly, +she could meet her sorrows with a bold front. Was she not accustomed to +suffer--she, the scapegoat of defrauded nurses and indignant +landladies, the dependent and drudge of her kinswoman's gynaeceum, the +despised of her father? The flavour of these waters was very familiar +to her lips. The draught was only a little more acrid, a little deeper, +and habit had enabled her to drain the cup without complaining, if not +in a spirit of resignation. To-day she had been betrayed into a brief +outbreak of passion; but the storm had passed, and a more observant +person than Charlotte might have been deceived by her manner. + +"Now you are my own Di again," cried Miss Halliday; somewhat cynical +at the best of times, but always candid and true. + +Miss Paget winced ever so little as her friend said this. + +"No, dear," continued Charlotte, with the faintest spice of coquetry; +"it was not a Yorkshire squire. It was a person you know very well; a +person we have been talking of this morning. O, Di, you must surely +have understood me when I said I wanted you to like him for my sake!" + +"Valentine Hawkehurst!" exclaimed Diana. + +"Who else, you dear obtuse Di!" + +"He was in Yorkshire?" + +"Yes, dear. It was the most wonderful thing that ever happened. He +marched up to Newhall gate one morning in the course of his rambles, +without having the least idea that I was to be found in the +neighbourhood. Wasn't it wonderful?" + +"What could have taken him to Yorkshire?" + +"He came on business." + +"But what business?" + +"How do I know? Some business of papa's, or of George Sheldon's, +perhaps. And yet that can't be. He is writing a book, I think, about +geology or archaeology--yes, that's it, archaeology." + +"Valentine Hawkehurst writing a book on archaeology!" cried Miss Paget. +"You must be dreaming, Charlotte." + +"Why so? He does write, does he not?" + +"He has been reporter for a newspaper. But he is the last person to +write about archaeology. I think there must be some mistake." + +"Well, dear, it may be so. I didn't pay much attention to what he said +about business. It seemed so strange for him to be there, just as much +at home as if he had been one of the family. O, Di, you can't imagine +how kind aunt Dorothy and uncle Joe were to him! They like him so much +--and they know we are engaged." + +Miss Halliday said these last words almost in a whisper. + +"What!" exclaimed Diana, "do you mean to say that you have promised to +marry this man, of whom you know nothing but what is unfavourable?" + +"What do I know in his disfavour? Ah, Diana, how unkind you are! and +what a dislike you must have for poor Valentine! Of course, I know he +is not what people call a good match. A good match means that one is to +have a pair of horses, whose health is so uncertain that I am sure +their lives must be a burden to them, if we may judge by our horses; +and a great many servants, who are always conducting themselves in the +most awful manner, if poor mamma's experience is any criterion; and a +big expensive house, which nobody can be prevailed on to dust. No, Di! +that is just the kind of life I hate. What I should like is a dear +little cottage at Highgate or Wimbledon, and a tiny, tiny garden, in +which Valentine and I could walk every morning before he began his +day's work, and where we could drink tea together on summer evenings--a +garden just large enough to grow a few rose-bushes. O. Di! do you think +I want to marry a rich man?" + +"No, Charlotte; but I should think you would like to marry a good man." + +"Valentine is good. No one but a good man could have been so happy as +he seemed at Newhall farm. That simple country life could not have been +happiness for a bad man." + +"And was Valentine Hawkehurst really happy at Newhall?" + +"Really--really--really! Don't try to shake my faith in him, Diana; it +is not to be shaken. He has told me a little about the past, though I +can see that it pains him very much to speak of it. He has told me of +his friendless youth, spent amongst unprincipled people, and what a +mere waif and stray he was until he met me. And I am to be his +pole-star, dear, to guide him in the right path. Do you know, Di, I +cannot picture to myself anything sweeter than that--to be a good +influence for the person one loves. Valentine says his whole nature has +undergone a change since he has known me. What am I that I should work +so good a change in my dear one? It is very foolish, is it not, Di?" + +"Yes, Charlotte," replied the voice of reason from the lips of Miss +Paget; "it is all foolishness from beginning to end, and I can foresee +nothing but trouble as the result of such folly. What will your mamma +say to such an engagement? or what will Mr. Sheldon say?" + +"Yes, that is the question," returned Charlotte, very seriously. "Dear +mamma is one of the kindest creatures in the world, and I'm sure she +would consent to anything rather than see me unhappy. And then, you +know, she likes Valentine very much, because he has given her orders +for the theatres, and all that kind of thing. But, whatever mamma +thinks, she will be governed by what Mr. Sheldon thinks; and of course +he will be against our marriage." + +"Our marriage!" It was a settled matter, then--a thing that was to be +sooner or later; and there remained only the question as to how and +when it was to be. Diana sat like a statue, enduring her pain. So may +have suffered the Christian martyrs in their death-agony; so suffers a +woman when the one dear hope of her life is reft from her, and she dare +not cry aloud. + +"Mr. Sheldon is the last man in the world to permit such a marriage," +she said presently. + +"Perhaps," replied Charlotte; "but I am not going to sacrifice +Valentine for Mr. Sheldon's pleasure. Mr. Sheldon has full power over +mamma and her fortune, but he has no real authority where I am +concerned. I am as free as air, Diana, and I have not a penny in the +world. Is not that delightful?" + +The girl asked this question in all good faith, looking up at her +friend with a radiant countenance. What irony there was in the question +for Diana Paget, whose whole existence had been poisoned by the lack of +that sterling coin of the realm which seemed such sordid dross in the +eyes of Charlotte! + +"What do you mean, Charlotte?" + +"I mean, that even his worst enemies cannot accuse Valentine of any +mercenary feeling. He does not ask me to marry him for the sake of my +fortune." + +"Does he know your real position?" + +"Most fully. And now, Diana, tell me that you will try to like him, for +my sake, and that you will be kind, and will speak a good word for me +to mamma by-and-by, when I have told her all." + +"When do you mean to tell her?" + +"Directly--or almost directly. I scarcely know how to set about it. I +am sure it has been hard enough to tell you." + +"My poor Charlotte! What an ungrateful wretch I must be!" + +"My dear Diana, you have no reason to be grateful. I love you very +dearly, and I could not live in this house without you. It is I who +have reason to be grateful, when I remember how you bear with mamma's +fidgety ways, and with Mr. Sheldon's gloomy temper, and all for love of +me." + +"Yes, Lotta, for love of you," Miss Paget answered, with a sigh; "and I +will do more than that for love of you." + +She had her arm round her happy rival's beautiful head, and she was +looking down at the sweet upturned face with supreme tenderness. She +felt no anger against this fair enslaver, who had robbed her of her +little lamb. She only felt some touch of anger against the Providence +which had decreed that the lamb should be so taken. + +No suspicion of her friend's secret entered Charlotte Halliday's mind. +In all their intercourse Diana had spoken very little of Valentine; and +in the little she had said there had been always the same half-bitter, +half-disdainful tone. Charlotte, in her simple candour, accepted this +tone as the evidence of Miss Paget's aversion to her father's +_protégé_. + +"Poor Di does not like to see her father give so much of his friendship +to a stranger while she is neglected," thought Miss Halliday; and +having once jumped at this conclusion, she made no further effort to +penetrate the mysteries of Diana's mind. + +She was less than ever inclined to speculation about Diana's feelings +now that she was in love, and blest with the sweet consciousness that +her love was returned. Tender and affectionate as she was, she could +not quite escape that taint of egotism which is the ruling vice of +fortunate lovers. Her mind was not wide enough to hold much more than +one image, which demanded so large a space. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MRS. SHELDON ACCEPTS HER DESTINY. + + +Miss Halliday had an interview with her mother that evening in Mrs. +Sheldon's dressing-room, while that lady was preparing for rest, with +considerable elaboration of detail in the way of hair-brushing, and +putting away of neck-ribbons and collars and trinkets in smart little +boxes and handy little drawers, all more or less odorous from the +presence of dainty satin-covered sachets. The sachets, and the drawers, +and boxes, and trinkets were Mrs. Sheldon's best anchorage in this +world. Such things as these were the things that made life worth +endurance for this poor weak little woman; and they were more real to +her than her daughter, because more easy to realise. The beautiful +light-hearted girl was a being whose existence had been always +something of a problem for Georgina Sheldon. She loved her after her +own feeble fashion, and would have jealously asserted her superiority +over every other daughter in the universe; but the power to understand +her or to sympathise with her had not been given to that narrow mind. +The only way in which Mrs. Sheldon's affection showed itself was +unquestioning indulgence and the bestowal of frivolous gifts, chosen +with no special regard to Charlotte's requirements, but rather because +they happened to catch Mrs. Sheldon's eye as they glittered or sparkled +in the windows of Bayswater repositories. + +Mr. Sheldon happened to be dining out on this particular evening. He +was a guest at a great City feast, to which some of the richest men +upon 'Change had been bidden; so Miss Halliday had an excellent +opportunity for making her confession. + +Poor Georgy was not a little startled by the avowal. + +"My darling Lotta!" she screamed, "do you think your papa would ever +consent to such a thing?" + +"I think my dear father would have consented to anything likely to +secure my happiness, mamma," the girl answered sadly. + +She was thinking how different this crisis in her life would have +seemed if the father she had loved so dearly had been spared to counsel +her. + +"I was not thinking of my poor dear first husband," said Georgy. This +numbering of her husbands was always unpleasant to Charlotte. It seemed +such a very business-like mode of description to be applied to the +father she so deeply regretted. I was thinking of your step-papa," +continued Mrs. Sheldon. + +"He would never consent to your marrying Mr. Hawkehurst, who really +seems to have nothing to recommend him except his good looks and an +obliging disposition with regard to orders for the theatres." + +"I am not bound to consult my stepfather's wishes. I only want to +please you, mamma." + +"But, my dear, I cannot possibly consent to anything that Mr. Sheldon +disapproves." + +"O, mamma, dear kind mamma, do have an opinion of your own for once in +a way! I daresay Mr. Sheldon is the best possible judge of everything +connected with the Stock Exchange and the money-market; but don't let +him choose a husband for me. Let me have your approval, mamma, and I +care for no one else. I don't want to marry against your will. But I am +sure you like Mr. Hawkehurst." + +Mrs. Sheldon shook her head despondingly. + +"It's all very well to like an agreeable young man as an occasional +visitor," she said, "especially when most of one's visitors are +middle-aged City people. But it is a very different thing when one's +only daughter talks of marrying him. I can't imagine what can have put +such an idea as marriage into your head. It is only a few months since +you came home from school; and I fancied that you would have stopped +with me for years before you thought of settling." + +Miss Halliday made a wry face. + +"Dear mamma," she said, "I don't want to 'settle.' That is what one's +housemaid says, isn't it, when she talks of leaving service and +marrying some young man from the baker's or the grocer's? Valentine and +I are not in a hurry to be married. I am sure, for my own part, I don't +care how long our engagement lasts. I only wish to be quite candid and +truthful with you, mamma; and I thought it a kind of duty to tell you +that he loves me, and that--I love him--very dearly." + +These last words were spoken with extreme shyness. + +Mrs. Sheldon laid down her hair-brushes while she contemplated her +daughter's blushing face. Those blushes had become quite a chronic +affection with Miss Halliday of late. + +"But, good gracious me, Charlotte," she exclaimed, growing peevish in +her sense of helplessness, "who is to tell Mr. Sheldon?" + +"There is no necessity for Mr. Sheldon to be enlightened yet awhile, +mamma. It is to you I owe duty and obedience--not to him. Pray keep my +secret, kindest and most indulgent of mothers, and--and ask Valentine +to come and see you now and then." + +"Ask him to come and see me, Charlotte! You must know very well that I +never invite any one to dinner except at Mr. Sheldon's wish. I am sure +I quite tremble at the idea of a dinner. There is such trouble about +the waiting, and such dreadful uncertainty about the cooking. And if +one has it all done by Birch's people, one's cook gives warning next +morning," added poor Georgy, with a dismal recollection of recent +perplexities. "I am sure I often wish myself young again, in the dairy +at Hyley farm, making matrimony cakes for a tea-party, with a ring and +a fourpenny-piece hidden in the middle. I'm sure the Hyley tea-parties +were pleasanter than Mr. Sheldon's dinners, with those solemn City +people, who can't exist without clear turtle and red mullet." + +"Ah, mother dear, our lives were altogether happier in those days. I +delight in the Yorkshire tea-parties, and the matrimony cakes, and all +the talk and laughter about the fourpenny-piece and the ring. I +remember getting the fourpenny-piece at Newhall last year. And that +means that one is to die an old maid, you know. And now I am engaged. +As to the dinners, mamma, Mr. Sheldon may keep them all for himself and +his City friends. Valentine is the last person in the world to care for +clear turtle. If you will let him drop in sometimes of an afternoon-- +say once a week or so--when you, and I, and Diana are sitting at our +work in the drawing-room, and if you will let him hand us our cups at +our five-o'clock tea, he will be the happiest of men. He adores tea. +You'll let him come, won't you, dear? O, mamma, I feel just like a +servant who asks to be allowed to see her 'young man.' Will you let my +'young man' come to tea once in a way?" + +"Well, Charlotte, I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Sheldon, with +increasing helplessness. "It's really a very dreadful position for me +to be placed in." + +"Quite appalling, is it not, mamma? But then I suppose it is a position +that people afflicted with daughters must come to sooner or later." + +"If it were the mere civility of asking him to tea," pursued poor +Georgy, heedless of this flippant interruption, "I'm sure I should be +the last to make any objection. Indeed, I am under a kind of obligation +to Mr. Hawkehurst, for his polite attention has enabled us to go to the +theatres very often when your papa would not have thought of buying +tickets. But then, you see, Lotta, the question in point is not his +coming to our five-o'clock tea--which seems really a perfect mockery to +any one brought up in Yorkshire--but whether you are to be engaged to +him." + +"Dear mamma, _that_ is not a question at all, for I am already engaged +to him." + +"But, Charlotte--" + +"I do not think I could bring myself to disobey you, dear mother," +continued the girl tenderly; "and if you tell me, of your own free +will, and acting on your conviction, that I am not to marry him, I must +bow my head to your decision, however hard it may seem. But one thing +is quite certain, mamma: I have given my promise to Valentine; and if I +do not marry him, I shall never marry at all; and then the dreadful +augury of the fourpenny-piece will be verified." + +Miss Halliday pronounced this determination with a decision of manner +that quite overawed her mother. It had been the habit of Georgy's mind +to make a feeble protest against all the mutations of life, but in the +end to submit very quietly to the inevitable; and since Valentine +Hawkehurst's acceptance as Charlotte's future husband seemed +inevitable, she was fain to submit in this instance also. + +Valentine was allowed to call at the Lawn, and was received with a +feeble, half-plaintive graciousness by the lady of the house. He was +invited to stop for the five-o'clock tea, and availed himself +rapturously of this delightful privilege. His instinct told him what +gentle hand had made the meal so dainty and home-like, and for whose +pleasure the phantasmal pieces of bread-and-butter usually supplied by +the trim parlour-maid had given place to a salver loaded with innocent +delicacies in the way of pound-cake and apricot jam. + +Mr. Hawkehurst did his uttermost to deserve so much indulgence. He +scoured London in search of free admissions for the theatres, hunting +"Ragamuffins" and members of the Cibber Club, and other privileged +creatures, at all their places of resort. He watched for the advent of +novels adapted to Georgy's capacity--lively records of croquêt and +dressing and love-making, from smart young Amazons in the literary +ranks, or deeply interesting romances of the sensation school, with at +least nine deaths in the three volumes, and a comic housemaid, or a +contumacious "Buttons," to relieve the gloom by their playful +waggeries. He read Tennyson or Owen Meredith, or carefully selected +"bits" from the works of a younger and wilder bard, while the ladies +worked industriously at their prie-dieu chairs, or Berlin brioches, or +Shetland couvrepieds, as the case might be. The patroness of a fancy +fair would scarcely have smiled approvingly on the novel effects in +_crochet à tricoter_ produced by Miss Halliday during these pleasant +lectures. + +"The rows will come wrong," she said piteously, "and Tennyson's poetry +is so very absorbing!" + +Mr. Hawkehurst showed himself to be possessed of honourable, not to say +delicate, feelings in his new position. The gothic villa was his +paradise, and the gates had been freely opened to admit him whensoever +he chose to come. Georgy was just the sort of person from whom people +take ells after having asked for inches; and once having admitted Mr. +Hawkehurst as a privileged guest, she would have found it very +difficult to place any restriction upon the number of his visits. +Happily for this much-perplexed matron, Charlotte and her lover were +strictly honourable. Mr. Hawkehurst never made his appearance at the +villa more than once in the same week, though the "once a week or so" +asked for by Charlotte might have been stretched to a wider +significance. + +When Valentine obtained orders for the theatre, he sent them by post, +scrupulously refraining from making them the excuse for a visit. + +"That was all very well when I was a freebooter," he said to himself, +"only admitted on sufferance, and liable to have the door shut in my +face any morning. But I am trusted now, and I must prove myself worthy +of my future mother-in-law's confidence. Once a week! One seventh day +of unspeakable happiness--bliss without alloy! The six other days are +very long and dreary. But then they are only the lustreless setting in +which that jewel the seventh shines so gloriously. Now, if I were +Waller, what verses I would sing about my love! Alas, I am only a +commonplace young man, and can find no new words in which to tell the +old sweet story!" + +If the orders for stalls and private boxes were not allowed to serve as +an excuse for visits, they at least necessitated the writing of +letters; and no human being, except a lover, would have been able to +understand why such long letters must needs be written about such a +very small business. The letters secured replies; and when the order +sent was for a box, Mr. Hawkehurst was generally invited to occupy a +seat in it. Ah, what did it matter on those happy nights how hackneyed +the plot of the play, how bald the dialogue, how indifferent the +acting! It was all alike delightful to those two spectators: for a +light that shone neither on earth nor sky brightened everything they +looked on when they sat side by side. + +And during all these pleasant afternoons at the villa, or evenings at +the theatre, Diana Paget had to sit by and witness the happiness which +she had dreamed might some day be hers. It was a part of her duty to be +present on these occasions, and she performed that duty punctiliously. +She might have made excuses for absenting herself, but she was too +proud to make any such excuses. + +"Am I such a coward as to tell a lie in order to avoid a little pain +more or less? If I say I have a headache, and stay in my own room while +he is here, will the afternoon seem any more pleasant or any shorter to +me? The utmost difference would be the difference between a dull pain +and a sharp pain; and I think the sharper agony is easier to bear." +Having argued with herself thus, Miss Paget endured her weekly +martyrdom with Spartan fortitude. + +"What have I lost?" she said to herself, as she stole a furtive glance +now and then at the familiar face of her old companion. "What is this +treasure, the loss of which makes me seem to myself such an abject +wretch? Only the love of a man who at his best is not worthy of this +girl's pure affection, and at his worst must have been unworthy even of +mine. But then at his worst he is dearer to me than the best man who +ever lived upon this earth." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. HAWKEHURST AND MR. GEORGE SHELDON COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING. + + +There was no such thing as idleness for Valentine Hawkehurst during +these happy days of his courtship. The world was his oyster, and that +oyster was yet unopened. For some years he had been hacking and hewing +the shell thereof with the sword of the freebooter, to very little +advantageous effect. He now set himself seriously to work with the +pickaxe of the steady-going labourer. He was a secessionist from the +great army of adventurers. He wanted to enrol himself in the ranks of +the respectable, the plodders, the ratepayers, the simple citizens who +love their wives and children, and go to their parish church on +Sundays. He had an incentive to steady industry, which had hitherto +been wanting in his life. He was beloved, and any shame that came to +him would be a still more bitter humiliation for the woman who loved +him. + +He felt that the very first step in the difficult path of +respectability would be a step that must separate him from Captain +Paget; but just now separation from that gentleman seemed scarcely +advisable. If there was any mischief in that Ullerton expedition, any +collusion between the Captain and the Reverend Goodge, it would +assuredly be well for Valentine to continue a mode of life which +enabled him to be tolerably well informed as to the movements of the +slippery Horatio. In all the outside positions of life expedience must +ever be the governing principle, and expedience forbade any immediate +break with Captain Paget. + +"Whatever you do, keep your eye upon the Captain," said George Sheldon, +in one of many interviews, all bearing upon the Haygarth succession. +"If there is any underhand work going on between him and Philip, you +must be uncommonly slow of perception if you can't ferret it out. I'm +very sorry you met Charlotte Halliday in the north, for of course Phil +must have heard of your appearance in Yorkshire, and that will set him +wondering at any rate, especially as lie will no doubt have heard the +Dorking story from Paget. He pretended he saw you leave town the day +you went to Ullerton, but I am half inclined to believe that was only a +trap." + +"I don't think Mr. Sheldon has heard of my appearance in Yorkshire +yet." + +"Indeed! Miss Charlotte doesn't care to make a confidant of her +stepfather, I suppose. Keep her in that mind, Hawkehurst. If you play +your cards well, you ought to be able to get her to marry you on the +quiet." "I don't think that would be possible. In fact, I am sure +Charlotte would not marry without her mother's consent," answered +Valentine, thoughtfully. + +"And of course that means my brother Philip's consent," exclaimed +George Sheldon, with contemptuous impatience. "What a slow, bungling +fellow you are, Hawkehurst! Here is an immense fortune waiting for you, +and a pretty girl in love with you, and you dawdle and deliberate as if +you were going to the dentist's to have a tooth drawn. You've fallen +into a position that any man in London might envy, and you don't seem +to have the smallest capability of appreciating your good luck." + +"Well, perhaps I am rather slow to realise the idea of my good +fortune," answered Valentine, still very thoughtfully. "You see, in the +first place, I can't get over a shadowy kind of feeling with regard to +that Haygarthian fortune. It is too far away from my grasp, too large, +too much of the stuff that dreams and novels are made of. And, in the +second place, I love Miss Halliday so fondly and so truly that I don't +like the notion of making my marriage with her any part of the bargain +between you and me." + +Mr. Sheldon contemplated his confederate with unmitigated disdain. +"Don't try that sort of thing with me, Hawkehurst," he said; "that +sentimental dodge may answer very well with some men, but I'm about the +last to be taken in by it. You are playing fast-and-loose with me, and +you want to throw me over--as my brother Phil would throw me over, if +he got the chance." + +"I am not playing fast-and-loose with you," replied Valentine, too +disdainful of Mr. Sheldon for indignation. "I have worked for you +faithfully, and kept your secret honourably, when I had every +temptation to reveal it. You drove your bargain with me, and I have +performed my share of the bargain to the letter. But if you think I am +going to drive a bargain with you about my marriage with Miss Halliday, +you are very much mistaken. That lady will marry me when she pleases, +but she shall not be entrapped into a clandestine marriage for your +convenience." "O, that's your ultimatum, is it, Mr. Joseph Surface?" +said the lawyer, biting his nails fiercely, and looking askant at his +ally, with angry eyes. "I wonder you don't wind up by saying that the +man who could trade upon a virtuous woman's affection for the +advancement of his fortune, deserves to--get it hot, as our modern +slang has it. Then I am to understand that you decline to precipitate +matters?" + +"I most certainly do." + +"And the Haygarth business is to remain in abeyance while Miss Halliday +goes through the tedious formula of a sentimental courtship?" + +"I suppose so." + +"Humph! that's pleasant for me." + +"Why should you make the advancement of Miss Halliday's claims +contingent on her marriage? Why not assert her rights at once?" + +"Because I will not trust my brother Philip. The day that you show me +the certificate of your marriage with Charlotte Halliday is the day on +which I shall make my first move in this business. I told you the other +day that I would rather make a bargain with you than with my brother." + +"And what kind of bargain do you expect to make with me when Miss +Halliday is my wife?" + +"I'll tell you, Valentine Hawkehurst," replied the lawyer, squaring his +elbows upon his desk in his favourite attitude, and looking across the +table at his coadjutor; "I like to be open and above-board when I can, +and I'll be plain with you in this matter. I want a clear half of John +Haygarth's fortune, and I think that I've a very fair claim to that +amount. The money can only be obtained by means of the documents in my +possession, and but for me that money might have remained till doomsday +unclaimed and unthought of by the descendant of Matthew Haygarth. Look +at it which way you will, I think you'll allow that my demand is a just +one." + +"I don't say that it is unjust, though it certainly seems a little +extortionate," replied Valentine. "However, if Charlotte were my wife, +and were willing to cede half the fortune, I'm not the man to dispute +the amount of your reward. When the time comes for bargain-driving, +you'll not find me a difficult person to deal with. + +"And when may I expect your marriage with Miss Halliday?" asked George +Sheldon, rapping his hard finger-nails upon the table with suppressed +impatience. "Since you elect to conduct matters in the grand style, and +must wait for mamma's consent and papa's consent, and goodness knows +what else in the way of absurdity, I suppose the delay will be for an +indefinite space of time." "I don't know about that. I'm not likely to +put off the hour in which I shall call that dear girl my own. I asked +her to be my wife before I knew that she had the blood of Matthew +Haygarth in her veins, and the knowledge of her claim to this fortune +does not make her one whit the dearer to me, penniless adventurer as I +am. If poetry were at all in your line, Mr. Sheldon, you might know +that a man's love for a good woman is generally better than himself. He +may be a knave and a scoundrel, and yet his love for that one perfect +creature may be almost as pure and perfect as herself. That's a +psychological mystery out of the way of Gray's Inn, isn't it?" + +"If you'll oblige me by talking common sense for about five minutes, +you may devote your powerful intellect to the consideration of +psychological mysteries for a month at a stretch," exclaimed the +aggravated lawyer. + +"O, don't you see how I struggle to be hard-headed and practical!" +cried Valentine; "but a man who is over head and ears in love finds it +rather hard to bring all his ideas to the one infallible grindstone. +You ask me when I am to marry Charlotte Halliday. To-morrow, if our +Fates smile upon us. Mrs. Sheldon knows of our engagement, and consents +to it, but in some manner under protest. I am not to take my dear girl +away from her mother for some time to come. The engagement is to be a +long one. In the mean time I am working hard to gain some kind of +position in literature, for I want to be sure of an income before I +marry, without reference to John Haygarth; and I am a privileged guest +at the villa." + +"But my brother Phil has been told nothing?" + +"As yet nothing. My visits are paid while he is in the City; and as I +often went to the villa before my engagement, he is not likely to +suspect anything when he happens to hear my name mentioned as a +visitor." + +"And do you really think he is in the dark--my brother Philip, who can +turn a man's brains inside out in half an hour's conversation? Mark my +words, Valentine Hawkehurst, that man is only playing with you as a cat +plays with a mouse. He used to see you and Charlotte together before +you went to Yorkshire, and he must have seen the state of the case +quite as plainly as I saw it. He has heard of your visits to the villa +since your return, and has kept a close account of them, and made his +own deductions, depend upon it. And some day, while you and pretty Miss +Charlotte are enjoying your fool's paradise, he will pounce upon you +just as puss pounces on poor mousy." + +This was rather alarming, and Valentine felt that it was very likely to +be correct. + +"Mr. Sheldon may play the part of puss as he pleases," he replied after +a brief pause for deliberation; "this is a case in which he dare not +show his claws. He has no authority to control Miss Halliday's +actions." + +"Perhaps not, but he would find means for preventing her marriage if it +was to his interest to do so. He is not _your_ brother, you see, Mr. +Hawkehurst; but he is mine, and I know a good deal about him. His +interest may not be concerned in hindering his stepdaughter's marriage +with a penniless scapegrace. He may possibly prefer such a bridegroom +as less likely to make himself obnoxious by putting awkward questions +about poor Tom Halliday's money, every sixpence of which he means to +keep, of course. If his cards are packed for that kind of marriage, +he'll welcome you to his arms as a son-in-law, and give you his +benediction as well as his stepdaughter. So I think if you can contrive +to inform him of your engagement, without letting him know of your +visit to Yorkshire, it might be a stroke of diplomacy. He might be glad +to get rid of the girl, and might hasten on the marriage of his own +volition." + +"He might be glad to get rid of the girl." In the ears of Valentine +Hawkehurst this sounded rank blasphemy. Could there be any one upon +this earth, even a Sheldon, incapable of appreciating the privilege of +that divine creature's presence? + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +MR. SHELDON IS PROPITIOUS + + +It was not very long before Valentine Hawkehurst had reason to respect +the wisdom of his legal patron. Within a few days of his interview with +George Sheldon he paid his weekly visit to the villa. Things were going +very well with him, and life altogether seemed brighter than he had +ever hoped to find it. He had set himself steadily to work to win some +kind of position in literature. He devoted his days to diligent study +in the reading-room of the British Museum, his nights to writing for +the magazines. His acquaintance with press-men had stood him in good +stead; and already he had secured the prompt acceptance of his work in +more than one direction. The young _littérateur_ of the present day has +not such a very hard fight for a livelihood, if his pen has only a +certain lightness and dash, a rattling vivacity and airy grace. It is +only the marvellous boys who come to London with epic poems, Anglo-Saxon +tragedies, or metaphysical treatises in their portmanteaus, who must +needs perish in their prime, or stoop to the drudgery of office or +counting-house. + +Valentine Hawkehurst had no vague yearnings after the fame of a Milton, +no inner consciousness that he had been born to stamp out the +footprints of Shakespeare on the sands of time, no unhealthy hungering +after the gloomy grandeur of Byron. He had been brought up amongst +people who treated literature as a trade as well as an art;--and what +art is not more or less a trade? He knew the state of the market, and +what kind of goods were likely to go off briskly, and it was for the +market he worked. When gray shirtings were in active demand, he set his +loom for gray shirtings; and when the buyers clamoured for fancy goods, +he made haste to produce that class of fabrics. In this he proved +himself a very low-minded and ignominious creature, no doubt; but was +not one Oliver Goldsmith glad to take any order which good Mr. Newberry +might give him, only writing the "Traveller" and the story of Parson +Primrose _pour se distraire_? + +Love lent wings to the young essayist's pen. It is to be feared that in +roving among those shelves in Great Russell-street he showed himself +something of a freebooter, taking his "bien" wherever it was to be +found; but did not Molière frankly acknowledge the same practice? Mr. +Hawkehurst wrote about anything and everything. His brain must needs be +a gigantic storehouse of information, thought the respectful reader. He +skipped from Pericles to Cromwell, from Cleopatra to Mary Stuart, from +Sappho to Madame de Sablé; and he wrote of these departed spirits with +such a charming impertinence, with such a delicious affectation of +intimacy, that one would have thought he had sat by Cleopatra as she +melted her pearls, and stood amongst the audience of Pericles when he +pronounced his funeral oration. "With the De Sablé and the Chevreuse, +Ninon and Marion, Maintenon and La Vallière, Anne of Austria and the +great Mademoiselle of France, he seemed to have lived in daily +companionship, so amply did he expatiate upon the smallest details of +their existences, so tenderly did he dwell on their vanished beauties, +their unforgotten graces." + +The work was light and pleasant; and the monthly cheques from the +proprietors of a couple of rival periodicals promised, to amount to the +income which the adventurer had sighed for as he trod the Yorkshire +moorland. He had asked Destiny to give him Charlotte Halliday and three +hundred a year, and lo! while yet the wish was new, both these +blessings seemed within his grasp. It could scarcely be a matter for +repining it the Fates should choose to throw in an odd fifty thousand +pounds or so. + +But was not all this something too much of happiness for a man whose +feet had trodden in evil ways? Were not the Fates mocking this +travel-stained wayfarer with bright glimpses of a paradise whose gates +he was never to pass? + +This was the question which Valentine Hawkehurst was fain to ask +himself sometimes; this doubt was the shadow which sometimes made a +sudden darkness that obscured the sunshine. + +Happily for Charlotte's true lover, the shadow did not often come +between him and the light of those dear eyes which were his pole-stars. + +The December days were shortening as the year drew to its close, and +afternoon tea seemed more than ever delightful to Charlotte and her +betrothed, now that it could be enjoyed in the mysterious half light; a +glimmer of chill gray day looking coldly in at the unshrouded window +like some ghostly watcher envying these mortals their happiness, and +the red glow of the low fire reflected upon every curve and facet of +the shining steel grate. + +To sit by the fire at five o'clock in the afternoon, watching the +changeful light upon Charlotte's face, the rosy glow that seemed to +linger caressingly on broad low brow and sweet ripe lips, the deep +shadows that darkened eyes and hair, was bliss unspeakable for Mr. +Hawkehurst. The lovers talked the prettiest nonsense to each other, +while Mrs. Sheldon dozed placidly behind the friendly shelter of a +banner-screen hooked on to the chimney-piece, or conversed with Diana +in a monotonous undertone, solemnly debating the relative wisdom of +dyeing or turning in relation to a faded silk dress. + +Upon one special evening Valentine lingered just a little longer than +usual. Christmas was near at hand, and the young man had brought his +liege lady tribute in the shape of a bundle of Christmas literature. +Tennyson had been laid aside in favour of the genial Christmas fare, +which had the one fault, that it came a fortnight before the jovial +season, and in a manner fore-stalled the delights of that time-honoured +period, making the season itself seem flat and dull, and turkey and +plum-pudding the stalest commodities in the world when they did come. +How, indeed, can a man do full justice to his aunt Tabitha's +plum-pudding, or his uncle Joe's renowned rum-punch, if he has quaffed +the steaming-bowl with the "Seven Poor Travellers," or eaten his +Christmas dinner at the "Kiddleawink" a fortnight beforehand? Are not +the chief pleasures of life joys as perishable as the bloom on a peach +or the freshness of a rose? + +Valentine had read the ghastliest of ghost-stories, and the most +humorous of word-pictures, for the benefit of the audience in Mrs. +Sheldon's drawing-room; and now, after tea, they sat by the fire +talking of the ghost-story, and discussing that unanswerable question +about the possibility of such spiritual appearances, which seems to +have been debated ever since the world began. + +"Dr. Johnson believed in ghosts," said Valentine. + +"O, please spare us Dr. Johnson," cried Charlotte, with seriocomic +intensity. "What is it that obliges magazine-writers to be perpetually +talking about Dr. Johnson? If they must dig up persons from the past, +why can't they dig up newer persons than that poor ill-used doctor?" + +The door opened with a hoarse groan, and Mr. Sheldon came into the room +while Miss Halliday was making her playful protest. She stopped, +somewhat confused by that sudden entrance. + +There is a statue of the Commandant in every house, at whose coming +hearts grow cold and lips are suddenly silent. It was the first time +that the master of the villa had interrupted one of these friendly +afternoon teas, and Mrs. Sheldon and her daughter felt that a domestic +crisis was at hand. + +"How's this?" cried the stockbroker's strong hard voice; "you seem all +in the dark." + +He took a wax-match from a little gilt stand on the mantelpiece and +lighted two flaring lamps. He was the sort of man who is always eager +to light the gas when people are sitting in the gloaming, meditative +and poetical. He let the broad glare of common sense in upon their +foolish musings, and scared away Robin Goodfellow and the fairies by +means of the Western Gaslight Company's illuminating medium. + +The light of those two flaring jets of gas revealed Charlotte Halliday +looking shyly at the roses on the carpet, and trifling nervously with +one of the show-books on the table. The same light revealed Valentine +Hawkehurst standing by the young lady's chair, and looking at Mr. +Sheldon with a boldness of countenance that was almost defiance. Poor +Georgy's face peered out from behind her favourite banner-screen, +looking from one to the other in evident alarm. Diana sat in her +accustomed corner, watchful, expectant, awaiting the domestic storm. + +To the surprise of every one except Mr. Sheldon, there was no storm, +not even the lightest breeze that ever blew in domestic hemispheres. +The stockbroker saluted his stepdaughter with a friendly nod, and +greeted her lover with a significant grin. + +"How d'ye do, Hawkehurst?" he said, in his pleasantest manner. "It's an +age since I've seen you. You're going in for literature, I hear; and a +very good thing too, if you can make it pay. I understand there are +some fellows who really do make that sort of thing pay. Seen my brother +George lately? Yes, I suppose you and George are quite a Damon and +What's-his-name. You're going to dine here to-night, of course? I +suppose we may go in to dinner at once, eh, Georgy?--it's half-past +six." + +Mr. Hawkehurst made some faint pretence of having a particular +engagement elsewhere; for, supposing Sheldon to be unconscious, he +scorned to profit by that gentleman's ignorance. And then, having +faltered his refusal, he looked at Charlotte, and Charlotte's eyes +cried "Stay," as plainly as such lovely eyes can speak. So the end of +it was, that he stayed and partook of the Sheldonian crimped skate, and +the Sheldonian roast-beef and tapioca-pudding, and tasted some especial +Moselle, which, out of the kindliness of his nature, Mr. Sheldon opened +for his stepdaughter's betrothed. + +After dinner there were oranges and crisp uncompromising biscuits, that +made an explosive noise like the breaking of windows whenever any one +ventured to tamper with them; item, a decanter of sherry in a silver +stand; item, a decanter of port, which Mr. Sheldon declared to be +something almost too good to be drunk, and to the merits of which +Valentine was supremely indifferent. The young man would fain have +followed his delight when she accompanied her mamma and Diana to the +drawing-room; but Mr. Sheldon detained him. + +"I want a few words with you, Hawkehurst," he said; and Charlotte's +cheeks flamed red as peonies at sound of this alarming sentence. "You +shall go after the ladies presently, and they shall torture that poor +little piano to their hearts' delight for your edification. I won't +detain you many minutes. You had really better try that port." + +Valentine closed the door upon the departing ladies, and went back to +his seat very submissively. If there were any battle to be fought out +between him and Philip Sheldon, the sooner the trumpet sounded to arms +the better. + +"His remarkable civility almost inclines me to think that he does +really want to get rid of that dear girl," Valentine said to himself, +as he filled his glass and gravely awaited Mr. Sheldon's pleasure. + +"Now then, my dear Hawkehurst," began that gentleman, squaring himself +in his comfortable arm-chair, and extending his legs before the cheery +fire, "let us have a little friendly chat. I am not given to beating +about the bush, you know, and whatever I have to say I shall say in +very plain words. In the first place, I hope you have not so poor an +opinion of my perceptive faculties as to suppose that I don't see what +is going on between you and Miss Lotta yonder." + +"My dear Mr. Sheldon, I--" + +"Hear what I have to say first, and make your protestations afterwards. +You needn't be alarmed; you won't find me quite as bad as the +stepmother one reads about in the story-books, who puts her +stepdaughter into a pie, and all that kind of thing. I suppose +stepfathers have been a very estimable class, by the way, as it is the +stepmother who always drops in for it in the story-books. You'll find +mo very easy to deal with, Mr. Hawkehurst, always provided that you +deal in a fair and honourable manner." + +"I have no wish to be underhand in my dealings," Valentine said boldly. +And indeed this was the truth. His inclination prompted him to candour, +even with Mr. Sheldon; but that fatal necessity which is the governing +principle of the adventurer's life obliged him to employ the arts of +finesse. + +"Good," cried Mr. Sheldon, in the cheery, pleasant tone of an +easy-going man of the world, who is not too worldly to perform a +generous action once in a way. "All I ask is frankness. You and +Charlotte have fallen in love with one another--why, I can't imagine, +except on the hypothesis that a decent-looking young woman and a +decent-looking young man can't meet half a dozen times without beginning +to think of Gretna-green, or St. George's, Hanover-square. Of course a +marriage with you, looked at from a common-sense point of view, would be +about the worst thing that could happen to my wife's daughter. She's a +very fine girl" (a man of the Sheldonian type would call Aphrodité +herself a fine girl), "and might marry some awfully rich City swell with +vineries and pineries and succession-houses at Tulse-hill or Highgate, if +I chose to put her in the way of that sort of thing. But then, you see, +the worst of it is, a man seldom comes to vineries and pineries at +Tulse-hill till he is on the shady side of forty; and as I am not in +favour of mercenary marriages, I don't care to force any of my City +connection upon poor Lotta. In the neighbourhood of the Stock Exchange +there is no sharper man of business than your humble servant; but I +don't care to bring business habits to Bayswater. Long before Lotta +left school, I had made up my mind never to come between her and her +own inclination in the matrimonial line; therefore, if she truly and +honestly loves you, and if you truly and honestly love her, I am not +the man to forbid the bans." + +"My dear Mr. Sheldon, how shall I ever thank you for this!" cried +Valentine, surprised into a belief in the purity of the stockbroker's +intentions. + +"Don't be in a hurry," replied that gentleman coolly; "you haven't +heard me out yet. Though I may consent to take the very opposite line +of conduct which I might be expected to take as a man of the world, I +am not going to allow you and Charlotte to make fools of yourselves. +There must be no love-in-a-cottage business, no marrying on nothing a +year, with the expectation that papa and mamma will make up the +difference between that and a comfortable income. In plain English, if +I consent to receive you as Charlotte's future husband, you and she +must consent to wait until you can, to my entire satisfaction, prove +yourself in a position to keep a wife." Valentine sighed doubtfully. + +"I don't think either Miss Halliday or I are in an unreasonable hurry +to begin life together," he said thoughtfully; "but there must be some +fixed limit to our probation. I am afraid the waiting will be a very +long business, if I am to obtain a position that will satisfy you +before I ask my dear girl to share my fate." + +"Are your prospects so very black?" + +"No; to my mind they seem wonderfully bright. But the earnings of a +magazine-writer will scarcely come up to your idea of an independence. +Just now I am getting about ten pounds a month. With industry, I may +stretch that ten to twenty; and with luck I might make the twenty into +thirty--forty--fifty. A man has only to achieve something like a +reputation in order to make a handsome living by his pen." + +"I am very glad to hear that," said Mr. Sheldon; "and when you can +fairly demonstrate to me that you are earning thirty pounds a month, +you shall have my consent to your marriage with Charlotte, and I will +do what I can to give you a fair start in life. I suppose you know that +she hasn't a sixpence in the world, that she can call her own?" + +This was a trying question for Valentine Hawkehurst, and Mr. Sheldon +looked at him with a sharp scrutinising glance as he awaited a reply. +The young man flushed crimson, and grew pale again before he spoke. + +"Yes," he said, "I have long been aware that Miss Halliday has no legal +claim on her father's fortune." + +"There you have hit the mark," cried Mr. Sheldon. "She has no claim to +a sixpence in law; but to an honourable man that is not the question. +Poor Halliday's money amounted in all to something like eighteen +thousand pounds. That sum passed into my possession when I married my +poor friend's widow, who had too much respect for me to hamper my +position as a man of business by any legal restraints that would have +hindered my making the wisest use of her money. I have used that money, +and I need scarcely tell you that I have employed it with considerable +advantage to myself and Georgy. I therefore can afford to be generous, +and I mean to be so; but the manner in which I do things must be of my +own choosing. My own children are dead, and there is no one belonging +to one that stands in Miss Halliday's way. When I die she will inherit +a handsome fortune. And if she marries with my approval, I shall +present her with a very comfortable dowry. I think you will allow that +this is fair enough." + +"Nothing could be fairer or more generous," replied Valentine with +enthusiasm. + +Mr. Sheldon's agreeable candour had entirely subjugated him. Despite of +all that George had said to his brother's prejudice, he was ready to +believe implicitly in Philip's fair dealing. + +"And in return for this I ask something on your part," said Mr. +Sheldon. "I want you to give me your promise that you will take no +serious step without my knowledge. You won't steal a march upon me. You +won't walk off with Charlotte some fine morning and marry her at a +registry-office, or anything of that kind, eh?" + +"I will not," answered Valentine resolutely, with a very unpleasant +recollection of his dealings with George Sheldon. + +"Give me your hand upon that," cried the stockbroker. + +Upon this the two men shook hands, and Valentine's fingers were almost +crushed in the cold hard grip of Mr. Sheldon's muscular hand. And now +there came upon Valentine's ear the sound of one of Mendelssohn's +_Lieder ohne Worte_, tenderly played by the gentle hands he knew so +well. And the lover began to feel that he could no longer sit sipping +the stockbroker's port with a hypocritical pretence of appreciation, +and roasting himself before the blazing fire, the heat whereof was +multiplied to an insufferable degree by grate and fender of reflecting +steel. + +Mr. Sheldon was not slow to perceive his guest's impatience, and having +made exactly the impression he wanted to make, was quite willing that +the interview should come to an end. + +"You had better be off to the drawing-room," he said, good naturedly; +"I see you are in that stage of the fever in which masculine society is +only a bore. You can go and hear Charlotte play, while I read the +evening papers and write a few letters. You can let her know that you +and I understand each other. Of course we shall see you very often. +You'll eat your Christmas turkey with us, and so on; and I shall trust +to your honour for the safe keeping of that promise you made me just +now," said Mr. Sheldon. + +"And I shall keep an uncommonly close watch upon you and the young +lady, my friend," added that gentleman, communing with his own thoughts +as he crossed the smart little hall, where two Birmingham iron knights +in chain armour bestrode their gallant chargers, on two small tables of +sham malachite. + +Mr. Sheldon's library was not a very inspiring apartment. His ideas of +a _sanctum sanctorum_ did not soar above the commonplace. A decent +square room, furnished with plenty of pigeon-holes, a neat brass scale +for the weighing of letters, a copying-press, a waste-paper basket, a +stout brass-mounted office inkstand capable of holding a quart or so of +ink, and a Post-office Directory, were all he asked for his hours of +leisure and meditation. In a handsome glazed bookcase, opposite his +writing-table, appeared a richly-bound edition of the _Waverley_ +_Novels_, Knight's _Shakespeare_, Hume and Smollett, Fielding, +Goldsmith, and Gibbon; but, except when Georgy dusted the sacred +volumes with her own fair hands, the glass doors of the bookcase were +never opened. + +Mr. Sheldon turned on the gas, seated himself at his comfortable +writing-table, and took up his pen. A quire of office note-paper, with +his City address upon it, lay ready beneath his hand; but he did not +begin to write immediately. He sat for some time with his elbows on the +table, and his chin in his hands, meditating with dark fixed brows. + +"Can I trust her?" he asked himself. "Is it safe to have her near me-- +after---after what she said to me in Fitzgeorge-street? Yes, I think I +can trust her, up to a certain point; but beyond that I must be on my +guard. She might be more dangerous than a stranger. One thing is quite +clear--she must be provided for somehow or other. The question is, +whether she is to be provided for in this house or out of it; and +whether I can make her serve me as I want to be served?" + +This was the gist of Mr. Sheldon's meditations; but they lasted for +some time. The question which he had to settle was an important one, +and he was too wise a man not to contemplate a subject from every +possible point of sight before arriving at his decision. He took a +letter-clip from one side of his table, and turned over several open +letters in search of some particular document. + +He came at last to the letter he wanted. It was written on very common +note-paper, with brown-looking ink, and the penmanship was evidently +that of an uneducated person; but Mr. Sheldon studied its contents with +the air of a man who is dealing with no unimportant missive. + +This was the letter which so deeply interested the stockbroker:-- + + +"HONORED SIR--This coms hopping that You and Your Honored ladie are +well has it leevs me tho nott so strong has i coud wish wich his nott +too bee expect at my time off life my pore neffew was tooke with the +tyfus last tewsday weak was giv over on thirsday and we hav berried him +at kensil grean Honored Mr. Sheldon I hav now no home my pore neece +must go hout into survis. Luckly there har no Childring and the pore +gurl can gett hur living as housmade wich she were in survis hat hi +gate befor she marrid my pore Joseff Honored sir i ham trewly sorry too +trubbel you butt i think for hold times you will forgiv the libertey +off this letter i would nott hintrewd on you iff i had enny frend to +help me in my old aig, + +"Your obeddient survent." + +"17 Litle Tottles-yarde lambeft." + +AN WOOLPER + + +"No friend to help her in her old age," muttered Mr. Sheldon; "that +means that she intends to throw herself upon me for the rest of her +life, and to put me to the expense of burying her when she is so +obliging as to die. Very pleasant, upon my word! A man has a servant +in the days of his poverty, pays her every fraction he owes her in the +shape of wages, and wishes her good speed when she goes to settle +down among her relations; and one fine morning, when he has got into a +decent position, she writes to inform him that her nephew is dead, and +that she expects him to provide for her forthwith. That is the gist of +Mrs. Woolper's letter; and if it were not for one or two considerations, +I should be very much inclined to take a business-like view of the +case, and refer the lady to her parish. What are poor-rates intended +for, I should like to know, if a man who pays four-and-twopence in the +pound is to be pestered in this sort of way?" + +And then Mr. Sheldon, having given vent to his vexation by such +reflections as these, set himself to examine the matter in another +light. + +"I must manage to keep sweet with Nancy Woolper somehow or other, +that's very clear; for a chattering old woman is about as dangerous an +enemy as a man can have. I might provide for her decently enough out of +doors for something like a pound a week; and that would be a cheap +enough way of paying off all old scores. But I'm not quite clear that +it would be a safe way. A life of idleness might develop Mrs. Woolper's +latent propensity for gossip--and gossip is what I want to avoid. No, +that plan won't do." + +For some moments Mr. Sheldon meditated silently, with his brows fixed +even more sternly than before. Then he struck his hand suddenly on the +morocco-covered table, and uttered his thoughts aloud. + +"I'll risk it," he said; "she shall come into the house and serve my +interests by keeping a sharp watch upon Charlotte Halliday. There shall +be no secret marriage between those two. No, my friend Valentine, you +may be a very clever fellow, but you are not quite clever enough to +steal a march upon me." + +Having arrived at this conclusion, Mr. Sheldon wrote a few lines to +Nancy Woolper, telling her to call upon him at the Lawn. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +MR. SHELDON IS BENEVOLENT. + + +Nancy Woolper had lost little of her activity during the ten years that +had gone by since she received her wages from Mr. Sheldon, on his +breaking up his establishment in Fitzgeorge-street. Her master had +given her the opportunity of remaining in his service, had she so +pleased; but Mrs. Woolper was a person of independent, not to say +haughty, spirit, and she had preferred to join her small fortunes with +those of a nephew who was about to begin business as a chandler and +general dealer in a very small way, rather than to submit herself to +the sway of that lady whom she insisted on calling Miss Georgy. + +"It's so long since I've been used to a missus," she said, when +announcing her decision to Mr. Sheldon, "I doubt if I could do with +Miss Georgy's finnickin ways. I should feel tewed like, if she came +into the kitchen, worritin' and asking questions. I've been used to my +own ways, and I don't suppose I could do with hers." + +So Nancy departed, to enter on a career of unpaid drudgery in the +household of her kinsman, and to lose the last shilling of her small +savings in the futile endeavour to sustain the fortunes of the general +dealer. His death, following very speedily upon his insolvency, left +the poor soul quite adrift; and in this extremity she had been fain to +make her appeal to Mr. Sheldon. His reply came in due course, but not +without upwards of a week's delay; during which time Nancy Woolper's +spirits sank very low, while a dreary vision of a living grave--called +a workhouse--loomed more and more darkly upon her poor old eyes. She +had well-nigh given up all hope of succour from her old master when the +letter came, and she was the more inclined to be grateful for very +small help after this interval of suspense. It was not without strong +emotion that Mrs. Woolper obeyed her old master's summons. She had +nursed the hard, cold man of the world whom she was going to see once +more, after ten years of severance; and though it was more difficult +for her to imagine that Philip Sheldon, the stockbroker, was the same +Philip she had carried in her stout arms, and hushed upon her breast +forty years ago, than it would have been to fancy the dead who had +lived in those days restored to life and walking by her side, still, +she could not forget that such things had been, and could not refrain +from looking at her master with more loving eyes because of that +memory. + +A strange dark cloud had arisen between her and her master's image +during the latter part of her service in Fitzgeorge-street; but, little +by little, the cloud had melted away, leaving the familiar image clear +and unshadowed as of old. She had suffered her mind to be filled by a +suspicion so monstrous, that for a time it held her as by some fatal +spell; but with reflection came the assurance that this thing could not +be. Day by day she saw the man whom she had suspected going about the +common business of life, coldly serene of aspect, untroubled of manner, +confronting fortune with his head erect, living quietly in the house +where he had been wont to live, haunted by no dismal shadows, subject +to no dark hours of remorse, no sudden access of despair, always +equable, business-like, and untroubled; and she told herself that such +a man could not be guilty of the unutterable horror she had imagined. + +For a year things had gone on thus, and then came the marriage with +Mrs. Halliday. Mr. Sheldon went down to Barlingford for the performance +of that interesting ceremony; and Nancy Woolper bade farewell to the +house in Fitzgeorge-street, and handed the key to the agent, who was to +deliver it in due course to Mr. Sheldon's successor. + +To-day, after a lapse of more than ten years, Mrs. Woolper sat in the +stockbroker's study, facing the scrutinising gaze of those bright black +eyes, which had been familiar to her of old, and which had lost none of +their cold glitter in the wear and tear of life. + +"Then you think you can be of some use in the house, as a kind of +overlooker of the other servants, eh, Nancy--to prevent waste, and +gadding out of doors, and so on?" said Mr. Sheldon, interrogatively. + +"Ay, sure, that I can, Mr. Philip," answered the old woman promptly; +"and if I don't save you more money than I cost you, the sooner you +turn me out o' doors the better. I know what London servants are, and I +know their ways; and if Miss Georgy doesn't take to the housekeeping, I +know as how things must be hugger-mugger-like below stairs, however +smart and tidy things may be above." + +"Mrs. Sheldon knows about as much of housekeeping as a baby," replied +Philip, with supreme contempt. "She'll not interfere with you; and if +you serve me faithfully--" + +"That I allers did, Mr. Philip." + +"Yes, yes; I daresay you did. But I want faithful service in the future +as well as in the past. Of course you know that I have a stepdaughter?" + +"Tom Halliday's little girl, as went to school at Scarborough." + +"The same. But poor Tom's little girl is now a fine young woman, and a +source of considerable anxiety to me. I am bound to say she is an +excellent girl--amiable, obedient, and all that kind of thing; but she +is a girl, and I freely confess that I am not learned in the ways of +girls; and I'm very much inclined to be afraid of them." + +"As how, sir?" + +"Well, you see, Nancy, they come home from school with their silly +heads full of romantic stuff, fit for nothing but to read novels and +strum upon the piano; and before you know where you are, they fall over +head and ears in love with the first decent-looking young man who pays +them a compliment. At least, that's my experience." + +"Meaning Miss Halliday, sir?" asked Nancy, simply. "Has she fallen in +love with some young chap?" + +"She has, and with a young chap who is not yet in a position to support +a wife. Now, if this girl were my own child, I should decidedly set my +face against this marriage; but as she is only my stepdaughter, I wash +my hands of all responsibility in the matter. 'Marry the man you have +chosen, my dear,' say I; 'all I ask is, that you don't marry him until +he can give you a comfortable home.' 'Very well, papa,' says my young +lady in her most dutiful manner, and 'Very well, sir,' says my young +gentleman; and they both declare themselves agreeable to any amount of +delay, provided the marriage comes off some time between this and +doomsday." + +"Well, sir?" asked Nancy, rather at a loss to understand why Philip +Sheldon, the closest and most reserved of men, should happen to be so +confidential to-day. + +"Well, Nancy, what I want to prevent is any underhand work. I know what +very limited notions of honour young men are apt to entertain nowadays, +and how intensely foolish a boarding-school miss can be on occasion. I +don't want these young people to run off to Gretna-green some fine +morning, or to steal a march upon me by getting married on the sly at +some out-of-the-way church, after having invested their united fortunes +in the purchase of a special license. In plain words, I distrust Miss +Halliday's lover, and I distrust Miss Halliday's common sense; and I +want to have a sensible, sharp-eyed person in the house always on the +look-out for any kind of danger, and able to protect my stepdaughter's +interests as well as my own." + +"But the young lady's mamma, sir--she would look after her daughter, I +suppose?" + +"Her mamma is foolishly indulgent, and about as capable of taking care +of her daughter as of sitting in Parliament. You remember pretty Georgy +Cradock, and you must know what she was--and what she is. Mrs. Sheldon +is the same woman as Georgy Cradock--a little older, and a little more +plump and rosy; but just as pretty, and just as useless." + +The interview was prolonged for some little time after this, and it +ended in a thorough understanding between Mr. Sheldon and his old +servant. Nancy Woolper was to re-enter that gentleman's service, and +over and above all ordinary duties, she was to undertake the duty of +keeping a close watch upon all the movements of Charlotte Halliday. In +plain words, she was to be a spy, a private detective, so far as this +young lady was concerned; but Mr. Sheldon was too wise to put his +requirements into plain words, knowing that even in the hour of her +extremity Nancy Woolper would have refused to fill such an office had +she clearly understood the measure of its infamy. + +Upon the day that followed his interview with Mrs. Woolper, the +stockbroker came home from the City an hour or two earlier than his +custom, and startled Miss Halliday by appearing in the garden where she +was walking alone, looking her brightest and prettiest in her dark +winter hat and jacket, and pacing briskly to and fro among the bare +frost-bound patches of earth that had once been flower-beds. + +"I wan't a few minutes' quiet talk with you, Lotta," said Mr. Sheldon. +"You'd better come into my study, where we're pretty sure not to be +interrupted." + +The girl blushed crimson as she acceded to this request, being assured +that Mr. Sheldon was going to discuss her matrimonial engagement. +Valentine had told her of that very satisfactory interview in the +dining-room, and from that time she had been trying to find an +opportunity for the acknowledgment of her stepfather's generosity. As +yet the occasion had not arisen. She did not know how to frame her +thanksgiving, and she shrank shyly from telling Mr. Sheldon how +grateful she was to him for the liberality of mind which had +distinguished his conduct in this affair. + +"I really ought to thank him," she said to herself more than once. "I +was quite prepared for his doing his uttermost to prevent my marriage +with Valentine; and instead of that, he volunteers his consent, and +even promises to give us a fortune. 'I am bound to thank him for such +generous kindness." + +Perhaps there is no task more difficult than to offer grateful tribute +to a person whom one has been apt to think of with a feeling very near +akin to dislike. Ever since her mother's second marriage Charlotte had +striven against an instinctive distaste for Mr. Sheldon's society, and +an innate distrust of Mr. Sheldon's affectionate regard for herself; +but now that he had proved his sincerity in this most important crisis +of her life, she awoke all at once to the sense of the wrong she had +done. + +"I am always reading the Sermon on the Mount, and yet in my thoughts +about Mr. Sheldon I have never been able to remember those words, +'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' His kindness touches me to the very +heart, and I feel it all the more keenly because of my injustice." + +She followed her stepfather into the prim little study. There was no +fire, and the room was colder than a vault on this bleak December day. +Charlotte shivered, and drew her jacket more tightly across her chest +as she perched herself on one of Mr. Sheldon's shining red morocco +chairs. "The room strikes cold," she said; "very, very cold." + +After this there was a brief pause, during which Mr. Sheldon took some +papers from the pocket of his overcoat, and arranged them on his desk +with an absent manner, as if he were rather deliberating upon what he +was going to say than thinking of what he was doing. While he loitered +thus Charlotte found courage to speak. + +"I wish to thank you, Mr. Sheldon--papa," she said, pronouncing the +"papa" with some slight appearance of effort, in spite of her desire to +be grateful: "I--I have been wishing to thank you for the last day or +two; only it seems so difficult sometimes to express one's self about +these things." + +"I do not deserve or wish for your thanks, my dear. I have only done my +duty." + +"But, indeed, you do deserve my thanks, and you have them in all +sincerity, papa. You have been very, very good to me--about--about +Valentine. I thought you would be sure to oppose our marriage on the +ground of imprudence, you know, and----" + +"I do oppose your marriage in the present on the ground of imprudence, +and I am only consentient to it in the future on the condition that Mr. +Hawkehurst shall have secured a comfortable income by his literary +labours. He seems to be clever, and he promises fairly----" + +"O yes indeed, dear papa," cried the girl, pleased by this meed of +praise for her lover; "he is more than clever. I am sure you would say +so if you had time to read his article on Madame de Sévigné in the +_Cheapside_." + +"I daresay it's very good, my dear; but I don't care for Madame de +Sévigné----" + +"Or his sketch of Bossuet's career in the _Charing Cross_." + +"My dear child, I do not even know who Bossuet was. All I require from +Mr. Hawkehurst is, that he shall earn a good income before he takes you +away from this house. You have been accustomed to a certain style of +living, and I cannot allow you to encounter a life of poverty." + +"But, dear papa, I am not in the least afraid of poverty." + +"I daresay not, my dear. You have never been poor," replied Mr. +Sheldon, coolly. "I don't suppose I am as much afraid of a rattlesnake +as the poor wretches who are accustomed to see one swinging by his tail +from the branch of a tree any day in the course of their travels. I +have only a vague idea that a cobra de capello is an unpleasant +customer; but depend upon it, those foreign fellows feel their blood +stagnate and turn to ice at sight of the cold slimy-looking monster. +Poverty and I travelled the same road once, and I know what the +gentleman is. I don't want to meet him again." Mr. Sheldon lapsed into +silence after this. His last words had been spoken to himself rather +than to Charlotte, and the thoughts that accompanied them seemed far +from pleasant to him. + +Charlotte sat opposite her stepfather, patiently awaiting his pleasure. +She looked at the gaudily-bound books behind the glass doors, and +wondered whether any one had ever opened any of the volumes. + +"I should like to read dear Sir Walter's stories once more," she +thought; "there never, never was so sweet a romance as the 'Bride of +Lammermoor,' and I cannot imagine that one could ever grow weary of +reading it. But to ask Mr. Sheldon for the key of that bookcase would +be quite impossible. I think his books must be copies of special +editions, not meant to be read. I wonder whether they are real books, +or only upholsterer's dummies?" + +And then her fancies went vagabondising off to that little archetype of +a cottage on the heights of Wimbledon-common, in which she and +Valentine were to live when they were married. She was always +furnishing and refurnishing this cottage, building it up and pulling it +down, as the caprice of the moment dictated. Now it had bow-windows and +white stuccoed walls--now it was Elizabethan--now the simplest, +quaintest, rose-embowered cottager's dwelling, with diamond-paned +casements, and deep thatch on the old gray roof. This afternoon she +amused herself by collecting a small library for Valentine, while +waiting Mr. Sheldon's next observation. He was to have all her +favourite books, of course; and they were to be bound in the prettiest, +most girlish bindings. She could see the dainty volumes, primly ranged +on the little carved oak bookcase, which Valentine was to "pick up" in +Wardour-street. She fancied herself walking down that mart of +bric-a-brac arm-in-arm with her lover, intent on "picking up." Ah, +what happiness! what dear delight in the thought! And O, of all the +bright dreams we dream, how few are realised upon this earth! Do they +find their fulfilment in heaven, those visions of perfect bliss? + +Mr. Sheldon looked up from his desk at last. Miss Halliday remarked to +herself that his face was pale and haggard in the chill wintry +sunlight; but she knew how hard and self-denying a life he led in his +stern devotion to business, and she was in no manner surprised to see +him looking ill. + +"I want to say a few words to you on a matter of business, Lotta," he +began, "and I must ask you to give me all your attention." + +"I will do so with pleasure, papa, but I am awfully stupid about +business." + +"I shall do my best to make matters simple. I suppose you know what +money your father left, including the sums his life had been insured +for?" + +"Yes, I have heard mamma say it was eighteen thousand pounds. I do so +hate the idea of those insurances. It seems like the price of a man's +life, doesn't it? I daresay that is a very unbusiness-like way of +considering the question, but I cannot bear to think that we got money +by dear papa's death." + +These remarks were too trivial for Mr. Sheldon's notice. He went on +with what he had to say in the cold hard voice that was familiar to his +clerks and to the buyers and sellers of shares and stock who had +dealings with him. + +"Your father left eighteen thousand pounds; that amount was left to +your mother without reservation. When she married me, without any +settlement, that money became mine, in point of law--mine to squander +or make away with as I pleased. You know that I have made good use of +that money, and that your mother has had no reason to repent her +confidence in my honour and honesty. The time has now come in which +that honour will be put to a sharper test. You have no legal claim on +so much as a shilling of your father's fortune." + +"I know that, Mr. Sheldon," cried Charlotte, eagerly, "and Valentine +knows also; and, believe me, I do not expect----" + +"I have to settle matters with my own conscience as well as with your +expectations, my dear Lotta," Mr. Sheldon said, solemnly. "Your father +left you unprovided for; but as a man of honour I feel myself bound to +take care that you shall not suffer by his want of caution. I have +therefore prepared a deed of gift, by which I transfer to you five +thousand pounds, now invested in Unitas Bank shares." + +"You are going to give me five thousand pounds!" cried Charlotte, +astounded. + +"Without reservation." + +"You mean to say that you will give me this fortune when I marry, +papa?" said Charlotte, interrogatively. + +"I shall give it to you immediately," replied Mr. Sheldon. "I wish you +to be thoroughly independent of me and my pleasure. You will then +understand, that if I insist upon the prudence of delay, I do so in +your interest and not in my own. I wish you to feel that if I am a +hindrance to your immediate marriage, it is not because I wish to delay +the disbursement of your dowry." + +"O, Mr. Sheldon, O, papa, you are more than generous--you are noble! It +is not that I care for the money. O, believe me, there is no one in the +world who could care less for that than I do. But your thoughtful +kindness, your generosity, touches me to the very heart. O, please let +me kiss you, just as if you were my own dear father come back to life +to protect and guide me. I have thought you cold and worldly. I have +done you so much wrong." + +She ran to him, and wound her arms about his neck before he could put +her off, and lifted up her pretty rosy mouth to his dry hot lips. Her +heart was overflowing with generous emotion, her face beamed with a +happy smile. She was so pleased to find her mother's husband better +than she had thought him. But, to her supreme astonishment, he thrust +her from him roughly, almost violently, and looking up at his face she +saw it darkened by a blacker shadow than she had ever seen upon it +before. Anger, terror, pain, remorse, she knew not what, but an +expression so horrible that she shrunk from him with a sense of alarm, +and went back to her chair, bewildered and trembling. + +"You frightened me, Mr. Sheldon," she said faintly. + +"Not more than you frightened me," answered the stockbroker, walking to +the window and taking his stand there, with his face hidden from +Charlotte. "I did not know there was so much feeling in me. For God's +sake, let us have no sentiment!" + +"Were you angry with me just now?" asked the girl, falteringly, utterly +at a loss to comprehend the change in her stepfather's manner. + +"No, I was not angry. I am not accustomed to these strong emotions," +replied Mr. Sheldon, huskily; "I cannot stand them. Pray let us avoid +all sentimental discussion. I am anxious to do my duty in a +straightforward, business-like way. I don't want gratitude--or fuss. +The five thousand pounds are yours, and I am pleased to find you +consider the amount sufficient. And now I have only one small favour to +ask of you in return." + +"I should be very ungrateful if I refused to do anything you may ask," +said Charlotte, who could not help feeling a little chilled and +disappointed by Mr. Sheldon's stony rejection of her gratitude. + +"The matter is very simple. You are young, and have, in the usual +course of things, a long life before you. But--you know there is always +a 'but' in these cases--a railway accident--a little carelessness in +passing your drawing-room fire some evening when you are dressed in +flimsy gauze or muslin--a fever--a cold--any one of the many dangers +that lie in wait for all of us, and our best calculations are +falsified. If you were to marry and die childless, that money would go +to your husband, and neither your mother nor I would ever touch a +sixpence of it, Now as the money, practically, belongs to your mother, +I consider that this contingency should be provided against--in her +interests as well as in mine. In plain words, I want you to make a will +leaving that money to me." + +"I am quite ready to do so," replied Charlotte. + +"Very good, my dear. I felt assured that you would take a sensible view +of the matter. If you marry your dear Mr. Hawkehurst, have a family +by-and-by, we will throw the old will into the fire and make a new one; +but in the mean time it's just as well to be on the safe side. You +shall go into the City with me to-morrow morning, and shall execute the +will at my office. It will be the simplest document possible--as simple +as the will made by old Serjeant Crane, in which he disposed of half a +million of money in half a dozen lines--at the rate of five thousand +pounds per word. After we've settled that little matter, we can arrange +the transfer of the shares. The whole affair won't occupy an hour." "I +will do whatever you wish," said Charlotte, meekly. She was not at all +elated by the idea of coming suddenly into possession of five thousand +pounds; but she was very much impressed by the new view of Mr. +Sheldon's character afforded her by his conduct of to-day. And then her +thoughts, constant to one point as the needle to the pole, reverted to +her lover, and she began to think of the effect her fortune might have +upon his prospects. He might go to the bar, he might work and study in +pleasant Temple chambers, with wide area windows overlooking the river, +and read law-books in the evening at the Wimbledon cottage for a few +delightful years, at the end of which he would of course become Lord +Chancellor. That he should devote such intellect and consecrate such +genius as his to the service of his country's law-courts, and _not_ +ultimately seat himself on the Woolsack, was a contingency not to be +imagined by Miss Halliday. Ah, what would not five thousand pounds buy +for him! The cottage expanded into a mansion, the little case of books +developed into a library second only to that of the Duc d'Aumale, a +noble steed waited at the glass door of the vestibule to convey Mr. +Hawkehurst to the Temple, before the minute-hand of Mr. Sheldon's stern +skeleton clock had passed from one figure to another: so great an adept +was this young lady in the art of castle-building. + +"Am I to tell mamma about this conversation?" asked Charlotte, +presently. + +"Well, no, I think not," replied Mr. Sheldon, thoughtfully. "These +family arrangements cannot be kept too quiet. Your mamma is a talking +person, you know, Charlotte; and as we don't want every one in this +part of Bayswater to know the precise amount of your fortune, we may as +well let matters rest as they are. Of course you would not wish Mr. +Hawkehurst to be enlightened?" + +"Why not, papa?" + +"For several reasons. First and foremost, it must be pleasant to you to +be sure that he is thoroughly disinterested I have told him that you +will get something as a gift from me; but he may have implied that the +something would be little more than a couple of hundreds to furnish a +house. Secondly, it must be remembered, that he has been brought up in +a bad school, and the best way to make him self-reliant and industrious +is to let him think he has nothing but his own industry to depend upon. +I have set him a task. When he has accomplished that, he shall have you +and your five thousand pounds to boot. Till then I should strongly +advise you to keep this business a secret. + +"Yes," answered Charlotte, meditatively; "I think you are right. It +would have been very nice to tell him of your kindness; but I want to +be quite sure that he loves me for myself alone--from first to last-- +without one thought of money." + +"That is wise," said Mr. Sheldon, decisively; and thus ended the +interview. + +Charlotte accompanied her stepfather to the city early next morning, +and filled in the blanks in a lithographed form, prepared for the +convenience of such testators as, being about to dispose of their +property, do not care to employ the services of a legal adviser. + +The will seemed to Charlotte the simplest possible affair. She +bequeathed all her property, real and personal, to Philip Sheldon, +without reserve. But as her entire fortune consisted of the five +thousand pounds just given her by that gentleman, and as her personal +property was comprised in a few pretty dresses and trinkets, and desks +and workboxes, she could not very well object to such an arrangement. + +"Of course, mamma would have all my books and caskets, and boxes and +things," she said thoughtfully; "and I should like Diana Paget to have +some of my jewellery, please, Mr. Sheldon. Mamma has plenty, you know." + +"There is no occasion, to talk of that, Charlotte," replied the +stockbroker. "This will is only a matter of form." + +Mr. Sheldon omitted to inform his stepdaughter that the instrument just +executed would, upon her wedding-day, become so much waste paper, an +omission that was not in harmony with the practical and careful habits +of that gentleman. + +"Yes, I know that it is only a form," replied Charlotte; "but, after +making a will, one feels as if one was going to die. At least I do. It +seems a kind of preparation for death. I don't wonder people rather +dislike doing it. + +"It is only foolish people who dislike doing it," said Mr. Sheldon, who +was in his most practical mood to-day. "And now we will go and arrange +a more agreeable business--the transfer of the shares." + +After this, there was a little commercial juggling, in the form of +signing and countersigning, which, was quite beyond Charlotte's +comprehension: which operation being completed, she was told that she +was owner of five thousand pounds in Unitas Bank shares, and that the +dividends accruing from time to time on those shares would be hers to +dispose of as she pleased. + +"The income arising from your capital will be more than you can spend +so long as you remain under my roof," said Mr. Sheldon. "I should +therefore strongly recommend you to invest your dividends as they +arise, and thus increase your capital." + +"You are so kind and thoughtful," murmured Charlotte; "I shall always +be pleased to take your advice." She was strongly impressed by the +kindness of the man her thoughts had wronged. + +"How difficult it is to understand these reserved, matter-of-fact +people!" she said to herself. Because my stepfather does not talk +sentiment, I have fancied him hard and worldly; and yet he has proved +himself as capable of doing a noble action as if he were the most +poetical of mankind. + +Mrs. Sheldon had been told that Charlotte was going into the City to +choose a new watch, wherewith to replace the ill-used little Geneva toy +that had been her delight as a schoolgirl; and as Charlotte brought +home a neat little English-made chronometer from a renowned emporium on +Ludgate-hill, the simple matron accepted this explanation in all good +faith. + +"I'm sure, Lotta, you must confess your stepfather is kindness itself +in most matters," said Georgy, after an admiring examination of the new +watch. "When I think how kindly he has taken this business about Mr. +Hawkehurst, and how disinterested he has proved himself in his ideas +about your marriage, I really am inclined to think him the best of +men." + +Georgy said this with an air of triumph. She could not forget that +there were people in Barlingford who had said hard things about Philip +Sheldon, and had prophesied unutterable miseries for herself and her +daughter as the bitter consequence of the imprudence she had been +guilty of in her second marriage. + +"He has indeed been very good, mamma," Charlotte replied gravely, "and, +believe me, I am truly grateful. He does not like fuss or sentiment; +but I hope he knows that I appreciate his kindness." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +RIDING THE HIGH HORSE. + + +Never, in his brightest dreams, had Valentine Hawkehurst imagined the +stream of life so fair and sunny a river as it seemed to him now. +Fortune had treated him so scurvily for seven-and-twenty years of his +life, only to relent of a sudden and fling all her choicest gifts into +his lap. + +"I must be the prince in the fairy tale who begins life as a revolting +animal of the rhinoceros family, and ends by marrying the prettiest +princess in Elfindom," he said to himself gaily, is he paced the broad +walks of Kensington-gardens, where the bare trees swung their big black +branches in the wintry blast, and the rooks cawed their loudest at +close of the brief day. + +What, indeed, could this young adventurer demand from benignant Fortune +above and beyond the blessings she had given, him? The favoured suitor +of the fairest and brightest woman he had ever looked upon, received by +her kindred, admitted to her presence, and only bidden to serve a due +apprenticeship before he claimed her as his own for ever. What more +could he wish? what further boon could he implore from the Fates? + +Yes, there was one thing more--one thing for which Mr. Hawkehurst +pined, while most thankful for his many blessings. He wanted a decent +excuse for separating himself most completely from Horatio Paget. He +wanted to shake himself free from all the associations of his previous +existence. He wanted to pass through the waters of Jordan, and to +emerge purified, regenerate, leaving his garments on the furthermost +side of the river; and, with all other things appertaining to the past, +he would fain have rid himself of Captain Paget. + +"'Be sure your sin will find you out,'" mused the young man; "and +having found you, be sure that it will stick to you like a leech, if +your sin takes the shape of an unprincipled acquaintance, as it does in +my case. I may try my hardest to cut the past, but will Horatio Paget +let me alone in the future? I doubt it. The bent of that man's genius +shows itself in his faculty for living upon other people. He knows that +I am beginning to earn money regularly, and has begun to borrow of me +already. When I can earn more, he will want to borrow more; and +although it is very sweet to work for Charlotte Halliday, it would not +be by any means agreeable to slave for my friend Paget. Shall I offer +him a pound a week, and ask him to retire into the depths of Wales or +Cornwall, amend his ways, and live the life of a repentant hermit? I +think I could bring myself to sacrifice the weekly sovereign, if there +were any hope that Horatio Paget could cease to be--Horatio Paget, on +this side the grave. No, I have the misfortune to be intimately +acquainted with the gentleman. When he is in the swim, as he calls it, +and is earning money on his own account, he will give himself cosy +little dinners and four-and-sixpenny primrose gloves; and when he is +down on his luck, he will come whining to me." + +This was by no means a pleasant idea to Mr. Hawkehurst. In the old days +he had been distinguished by all the Bohemian's recklessness, and even +more than the Bohemian's generosity in his dealings with friend or +companion. But now all was changed. He was no longer reckless. A +certain result was demanded from him as the price of Charlotte +Halliday's hand, and he set himself to accomplish his allotted task +with all due forethought and earnestness of purpose. He had need even +to exercise restraint over himself, lest, in his eagerness, he should +do too much, and so lay himself prostrate from the ill effects of +overwork; so anxious was he to push on upon the road whose goal was so +fair a temple, so light seemed that labour of love which was performed +for the sake of Charlotte. + +He communed with himself very often on the subject of that troublesome +question about Captain Paget. How was he to sever his frail skiff from +that rakish privateer? What excuse could he find for renouncing his +share in the Omega-street lodgings, and setting up a new home +elsewhere? + +"Policy might prompt me to keep my worthy friend under my eye," he said +to himself, "in order that I may be sure there is no underhand work +going on between him and Philip Sheldon. But I can scarcely believe +that Philip Sheldon has any inkling about the Haygarthian fortune. If +he had, he would surely not receive me as Charlotte's suitor. What +possible motive could he have for doing so?" + +This was a question which Mr. Hawkehurst had frequently put to himself; +for his confidence in Mr. Sheldon was not of that kind which asks no +questions. Even while most anxious to believe in that gentleman's +honesty of purpose, he was troubled by occasional twinges of unbelief. + +During the period which had elapsed since his return from Yorkshire, he +had been able to discover nothing of any sinister import from the +proceedings of Captain Paget. That gentleman appeared to be still +engaged upon the promoting business, although by no means so profitably +as heretofore. He went into the City every day, and came home in the +evening toilworn and out of spirits. He talked freely of his +occupation--how he had done much or done nothing, during the day; and +Valentine was at a loss to perceive any further ground for the +suspicion that had arisen in his mind after the meeting at the Ullerton +station, and the shuffling of the sanctimonious Goodge with regard to +Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters. + +Mr. Hawkehurst therefore determined upon boldly cutting the knot that +tied him to the familiar companion of his wanderings. + +"I am tired of watching and suspecting," he said to himself. "If my +dear love has a right to this fortune, it will surely come to her; or +if it should never come, we can live very happily without it. Indeed, +for my own part, I am inclined to believe that I should be prouder and +happier as the husband of a dowerless wife, than as prince-consort to +the heiress of the Haygarths. We have built up such a dear, cheery, +unpretentious home for ourselves in our talk of the future, that I +doubt if we should care to change it for the stateliest mansion in +Kensington Palace-gardens or Belgrave-square. My darling could not be +my housekeeper, and make lemon cheese-cakes in her own pretty little +kitchen, if we lived in Belgrave-square; and how could she stand at one +of those great Birmingham ironwork gates in the Palace-gardens to watch +me ride away to my work?" + +To a man as deeply in love as Mr. Hawkehurst, the sordid dross which +other people prize so highly is apt to become daily more indifferent; a +kind of colour-blindness comes over the vision of the true lover, and +the glittering yellow ore seems only so much vulgar earth, too mean a +thing to be regarded by any but the mean of soul. Thus it was that Mr. +Hawkehurst relaxed his suspicion of Captain Paget, and neglected his +patron and ally of Gray's Inn, much to the annoyance of that gentleman, +who tormented the young man with little notes demanding interviews. + +These interviews had of late been far from agreeable to either of the +allies. George Sheldon urged the necessity of an immediate marriage; +Valentine declined to act in an underhand manner, after the +stockbroker's unexpected generosity. + +"Generosity!" echoed George Sheldon, when Valentine had given him this +point-blank refusal at the close of a stormy argument. "Generosity! My +brother Phil's generosity! Egad, that is about the best thing I've +heard for the last ten years. If I pleased, Mr. Valentine Hawkehurst, I +could tell you something about my brother which would enable you to +estimate his generosity at its true value. But I don't please; and if +you choose to run counter to me and my interests, you must pay the +price of your folly. You may think yourself uncommonly lucky if the +price isn't a stiff one." + +"I am prepared to abide by my decision," answered Valentine. "Miss +Halliday without a shilling is so dear to me, that I don't care to +commit a dishonourable action in order to secure my share of the +fortune she may claim. I turned over a new leaf on the day when I first +knew myself possessed of her affection. I don't want to go back to the +old leaves." + +George Sheldon gave himself an impatient shrug. "I have heard of a +great many fools," he said, "but I never heard of a fool who would play +fast-and-loose with a hundred thousand pounds, and until to-day I +couldn't have believed there was such an animal." + +Mr. Hawkehurst did not deign to notice this remark. + +"Do be reasonable, Sheldon," he said. "You ask me to do what my sense +of right will not permit me to do, and you ask me that which I fully +believe to be impossible. I cannot for a moment imagine that any +persuasion of mine would induce Charlotte to consent to a secret +marriage, after your brother's fair and liberal conduct." + +"Of course not," cried George, with savage impatience; "that's my +brother Phil all over. He is so honourable, so plain and +straightforward in all his dealings, that he would get the best of +Lucifer himself in a bargain. I tell you, Hawkehurst, you don't know +how deep he is--as deep as the bottomless pit, by Jove! His very +generosity makes me all the more afraid of him. I don't understand his +game. If he consented to your marriage in order to get rid of +Charlotte, he would let you marry her off-hand; but instead of doing +that, he makes conditions which must delay your marriage for years. +There is the point that bothers me." + +"You had better pursue your own course, without reference to me or my +marriage with Miss Halliday," said Valentine. + +"That is exactly what I must do. I can't leave the Haygarth estate to +the mercy of Tom, Dick, and Harry, while you try to earn thirty pounds +a month by scribbling for the magazines. I must make my bargain with +Philip instead of with you, and I can tell you that you'll be the loser +by the transaction." + +"I don't quite see that." + +"Perhaps not. You see, you don't quite understand my brother Phil. If +this money gets into his hands, be sure some of it will stick to them." + +"Why should the money get into his hand?" + +"Because, so long as Charlotte Halliday is under his roof, she is, to a +certain extent, under his authority. And then, I tell you again, there +is no calculating the depth of that man. He has thrown dust in your +eyes already. He will make that poor girl believe him the most +disinterested of mankind." + +"You can warn her." + +"Yes; as I have warned you. To what purpose? You are inclined to +believe in Phil rather than to believe in me, and you will be so +inclined to the end of the chapter. You remember that man Palmer, at +Rugely, who used to go to church, and take the sacrament?" + +"Yes; of course I remember that case. What of him?" + +"Why, people believed in him, you know, and thought him a jolly good +fellow, up to the time when they discovered that he had poisoned a few +of his friends in a quiet gentlemanly way." + +Mr. Hawkehurst smiled at the irrelevance of this remark. He could not +perceive the connection of ideas between Palmer the Rugely poisoner, +and Philip Sheldon the stockbroker. + +"That was an extreme case," he said. + +"Yes; of course that was an extreme case," answered George, carelessly. +"Only it goes far to prove that a man may be gifted with a remarkable +genius for throwing dust in the eyes of his fellow-creatures." + +There was no further disputation between the lawyer and Valentine. +George Sheldon began to understand that a secret marriage was not to be +accomplished in the present position of affairs. + +"I am half inclined to suspect that Phil knows something about that +money," he said presently, "and is playing some artful game of his +own." + +"In that case your better policy would be to take the initiative," +answered Valentine. + +"I have no other course." + +"And will Charlotte know--will she know that I have been concerned in +this business?" asked Valentine, growing very pale all of sudden. He +was thinking how mean he must appear in Miss Halliday's eyes, if she +came to understand that he had known her to be John Haygarth's heiress +at the time he won from her the sweet confession of her love. "Will she +ever believe how pure and true my love has been, if she comes to know +this?" he asked himself despairingly, while George Sheldon deliberated +in silence for a few moments. + +"She need know nothing until the business comes to a head," replied +George at last. "You see, there may be no resistance on the part of the +Crown lawyers; and, in that case, Miss Halliday will get her rights +after a moderate amount of delay. But if they choose to dispute her +claim, it will be quite another thing--Halliday _versus_ the Queen, and +so on--with no end of swell Q.O.'s against us. In the latter case +you'll have to put all your adventures at Ullerton and Huxter's Cross +into an affidavit, and Miss H. must know everything." + +"Yes; and then she will think--ah, no; I do not believe she can +misunderstand me, come what may." + +"All doubt and difficulty might be avoided if you would manage a +marriage on the quiet off-hand," said George. "I tell you again that I +cannot do that; and that, even if it were possible, I would not attempt +it." + +"So be it. You elect to ride the high horse; take care that magnificent +animal doesn't give you an ugly tumble." + +"I can take my chance." + +"And I must take my chance against that brother of mine. The winning +cards are all in my own hand this time, and it will be uncommonly hard +if he gets the best of me." + +On this the two gentlemen parted. Valentine went to look at a +bachelor's lodging in the neighbourhood of the Edgeware-road, which he +had seen advertised in that morning's Times; and George Sheldon started +for Bayswater, where he was always sure of a dinner and a liberal +allowance of good wine from the hospitality of his prosperous kinsman. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MR. SHELDON IS PRUDENT. + + +Valentine found the apartments near the Edgeware-road in every manner +eligible. The situation was midway between his reading-room in Great +Russell-street and the abode of his delight--a half-way house on the +road between business and pleasure. The terms were very moderate, the +rooms airy and pleasant; so he engaged them forthwith, his tenancy to +commence at the end of the following week; and having settled this +matter, he went back to Omega-street, bent on dissolving partnership +with the Captain in a civil but decided manner. + +A surprise, and a very agreeable one, awaited him at Chelsea. He found +the sitting-room strewn with Captain Paget's personal property, and the +Captain on his knees before a portmanteau, packing. + +"You're just in time to give me a hand, Val," he said in his most +agreeable manner. "I begin to find out my age when I put my poor old +bones into abnormal attitudes. I daresay packing a trunk or two will be +only child's-play to you." + +"I'll pack half a dozen trunks if you like," replied Valentine. "But +what is the meaning of this sudden move? I did not know you were going +to leave town." + +"Neither did I when you and I breakfasted together. I got an unexpected +offer of a very decent position abroad this morning; a kind of agency, +that will be much better than the hand-to-mouth business I've been +doing lately." + +"What kind of agency, and where?" + +"Well, so far as I can make out at present, it is something in the +steam navigation way. My head-quarters will be at Rouen." "Rouen! Well, +it's a pleasant lively old city enough, and as mediaeval as one of Sir +Walter's novels, provided they haven't Haussmanised it by this time. I +am very glad to hear you have secured a comfortable berth." + +"And I am not sorry to leave England, Yal," answered the Captain, in +rather a mournful tone. + +"Why not?" + +"Because I think it's time you and I parted company. Our association +begins to be rather disadvantageous to you, Val. We've had our ups and +downs together, and we've got on very pleasantly, take it for all in +all. But now that you're settling down as a literary man, engaged to +that young woman, hand-in-glove with Philip Sheldon, and so on, I think +it's time for me to take myself off. I'm not wanted; and sooner or +later I should begin to feel myself in the way." + +The Captain grew quite pathetic as he said this; and little pangs of +remorse shot through Valentine's heart as he remembered how eager he +had been to rid himself of this Old Man of the Mountain. And here was +the poor old creature offering to take himself out of the way of his +own accord. + +Influenced by this touch of remorse, Mr. Hawkehurst held out his hand, +and grasped that of his comrade and patron. + +"I hope you may do well, in some--comfortable kind of business," he +said heartily. That adjective "comfortable" was a hasty substitute for +the adjective "honest," which had been almost on his lips as he uttered +his friendly wish. He was too well disposed to all the world not to +feel profound pity for this white-headed old man, who for so many years +had eaten the bread of rogues and scoundrels. + +"Come," he cried cheerily, "I'll take all the packing off your hands, +Captain; and we'll eat our last dinner and drink our last bottle of +sparkling together at my expense, at any place you please to name." + +"Say Blanchard's," replied Horatio Paget. "I like a corner-window, +looking out upon the glare and bustle of Regent-street. It reminds one +just a little of the Maison Dorée and the boulevard. We'll drink +Charlotte Halliday's health, Val, in bumpers. She's a charming young +person, and I only wish she were an heiress, for your sake." + +The eyes of the two men met as the Captain said this; and there was a +twinkle in the cold gray orbs of that gentleman which had a very +unpleasant effect upon Valentine. + +"What treachery is he engaged in now?" he asked himself. "I know that +look in my Horatio's eyes; and I know it always means mischief." + +George Sheldon made his appearance at the Lawn five minutes after his +brother came home from the City. He entered the domestic circle in his +usual free-and-easy manner, knowing himself to be endured, rather than +liked, by the two ladies, and to be only tolerated as a necessary evil +by the master of the house. + +"I've dropped in to eat a chop with you, Phil," he said, "in order to +get an hour's comfortable talk after dinner. There's no saying half a +dozen consecutive words to you in the City, where your clerks seem to +spend their lives in bouncing in upon you when you don't want them." + +There was very little talk during dinner. Charlotte and her stepfather +were thoughtful. Diana was chiefly employed in listening to the _sotto +voce_ inanities of Mrs. Sheldon, for whom the girl showed herself +admirably patient. Her forbearance and gentleness towards Georgy +constituted a kind of penitential sacrifice, by which she hoped to +atone for the dark thoughts and bitter feelings that possessed her mind +during those miserable hours in which she was obliged to witness the +happiness of Charlotte and her lover. + +George Sheldon devoted himself chiefly to his dinner and a certain dry +sherry, which he particularly affected. He was a man who would have +dined and enjoyed himself at the table of Judas Iscariot, knowing the +banquet to be provided out of the thirty pieces of silver. + +"That's as good a pheasant as I ever ate, Phil," he said, after winding +up with the second leg of the bird in question. "No, Georgy; no +macaroni, thanks. I don't care about kickshaws after a good dinner. Has +Hawkehurst dined with you lately, by the way, Phil?" + +Charlotte blushed red as the holly-berries that decorated the +chandelier. It was Christmas-eve, and her own fair hands had helped to +bedeck the rooms with festal garlands of evergreen and holly. + +"He dines with us to-morrow," replied the stockbroker. "You'll come, I +suppose, as usual, George?" + +"Well, I shall be very glad, if I'm not in the way." + +Mrs. Sheldon murmured some conventional protestation of the unfailing +delight afforded to her by George's society. + +"Of course we're always glad to see you," said Philip in his most +genial manner; "and now, if you've anything to say to me about +business, the sooner you begin the better.--You and the girls needn't +stay for dessert, Georgy. Almonds and raisins can't be much of a +novelty to you; and as none of you take any wine, there's not much to +stop for. George and I will come in to tea." + +The ladies departed, by no means sorry to return to their Berlin-wool +and piano. Diana took up her work with that saintly patience with which +she performed all the duties of her position; and Charlotte seated +herself before the piano, and began to play little bits of waltzes, and +odds and ends of polkas, in a dreamy mood, and with a slurring over of +dominant bass notes, which would have been torture to a musician's ear. + +She was wondering whether Valentine would call that evening, +Christmas-eve--a sort of occasion for congratulation of some kind from +her lover, she fancied. It was the first Christmas-eve on which she had +been "engaged." She looked back to the same period last year, and +remembered herself sitting in that very room strumming on that very +piano, and unconscious that there was such a creature as Valentine +Hawkehurst upon this earth. And, strange to say, even in that benighted +state, she had been tolerably happy. + +"Now, George," said Mr. Sheldon, when the brothers had filled their +glasses and planted their chairs on the opposite sides of the +hearth-rug, "what's the nature of this business that you want to talk +about?" + +"Well, it is a business of considerable importance, in which you are +only indirectly concerned. The actual principal in the affair is your +stepdaughter, Miss Halliday." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes. You know how you have always ridiculed my fancy for hunting up +heirs-at-law and all that kind of thing, and you know how I have held +on, hoping against hope, starting on a new scent when the old scent +failed, and so on." + +"And you have got a chance at last, eh?" + +"I believe that I have, and a tolerably good one; and I think you will +own that it is rather extraordinary that my first lucky hit should +bring luck your way." + +"That is to say, to my stepdaughter?" remarked Mr. Sheldon, without any +appearance of astonishment. + +"Precisely," said George, somewhat disconcerted by his brother's +coolness. "I have lately discovered that Miss Halliday is entitled to a +certain sum of money, and I pledge myself to put her in possession of +that money--on one condition." + +"And that is--" + +"That she executes a deed promising to give me half of the amount she +may recover by my agency." + +"Suppose she can recover it without your agency?" + +"That I defy her to do. She does not even know that she has any claim +to the amount in question." + +"Don't be too sure of that. Or even supposing she knows nothing, do you +think her friends are as ignorant as she is? Do you think me such a +very bad man of business as to remain all this time unaware of the fact +that my stepdaughter, Charlotte Halliday, is next of kin to the Rev. +John Haygarth, who died intestate, at Tilford Haven, in Kent, about a +year ago?" + +This was a cannon-shot that almost knocked George Sheldon off his +chair; but after that first movement of surprise, he gave a sigh, or +almost a groan, expressive of resignation. + +"Egad, Phil Sheldon," he said, "I ought not to be astonished at this. +Knowing you as well as I do, I must have been a confounded fool not to +expect some kind of underhand work from you." + +"What do you mean by underhand work?" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon. "The same +newspapers that were open to you were open to me, and I had better +opportunities for tracking my stepdaughter's direct descent from John +Haygarth's father." + +"How did you discover Miss Halliday's descent from Matthew Haygarth?" +asked George, very meekly. He was quite crestfallen. He began to feel +that his brother would have the upper hand of him in this business as +in all other business of this world. + +"That is my secret," replied Mr. Sheldon, with agreeable tranquillity +of manner. "You have kept your secrets, and I shall keep mine. Your +policy has been the policy of distrust. Mine shall be the same. When +you were starting this affair, I offered to go into it with you--to +advance whatever money you needed, in a friendly manner. You declined +my offer, and chose to go in for the business on your own hook. You +have made a very good thing for yourself, no doubt; but you are not +quite clever enough to keep me altogether in the dark in a matter which +concerns a member of my own family." + +"Yes," said George, with a sigh, "that's where you hold the winning +cards. Miss Halliday is your ace of trumps." + +"Depend upon it, I shall know how to hold my strength in reserve, and +when to play my leading trump." + +"And how to collar my king," muttered George between his set teeth. + +"Come," exclaimed Philip presently, "we may as well discuss this matter +in a friendly spirit. What do you mean to propose?" + +"I have only one proposition to make," answered the lawyer, with +decision. "I hold every link of the chain of evidence, without which +Miss Halliday might as well be a native of the Fiji islands for any +claim she can assert to John Haygarth's estate. I am prepared to carry +this matter through; but I will only do it on the condition that I +receive half the fortune recovered from the Crown by Miss Halliday." + +"A very moderate demand, upon my word!" + +"I daresay I shall be able to make my bargain with Miss Halliday." +"Very likely," replied Mr. Sheldon; "and I shall be able to get that +bargain set aside as illegal." + +"I doubt that. I have a deed of agreement drawn up here which would +hold water in any court of equity." + +And hereupon Mr. Sheldon the younger produced and read aloud one of +those dry as dust documents by which the legal business of life is +carried on. It was a deed to be executed by Charlotte Halliday, +spinster, of Bayswater, on the one part, and George Sheldon, solicitor, +of Gray's Inn, on the other part; and it gave to the said George +Sheldon, as securely as any deed can give anything, one half of any +property, not now in her possession or control, which the said +Charlotte Halliday might obtain by the agency of the above-mentioned +George Sheldon. + +"And pray, who is to find the costs for this business?" asked the +stockbroker. "I don't feel by any means disposed to stake my money on +such a hazardous game. Who knows what other descendants of Matthew +Haygarth may be playing at hide-and-seek in the remotest corners of the +earth, ready to spring out upon us when we've wasted a small fortune +upon law-proceedings." + +"I shan't ask you to risk your money," replied George, with sullen +dignity. "I have friends who will back me when they see that agreement +executed." + +"Very well, then, all you have to do is to alter your half share to +one-fifth, and I will undertake that Miss Halliday shall sign the +agreement before the week is out." + +"One-fifth?" + +"Yes, my dear George. Twenty thousand pounds will pay you very +handsomely for your trouble. I cannot consent to Miss Halliday ceding +more than a fifth." + +"A fig for your consent! The girl is of age, and can act upon her own +hook. I shall go to Miss Halliday herself," exclaimed the indignant +lawyer. + +"O no, you won't. You must know the danger of running counter to me in +this business. That agreement is all very well; but there is no kind of +document more easy to upset if one only goes about it in the right way. +Play your own game, and I will upset that agreement, as surely as I +turn this wine-glass bowl downwards." + +Mr. Sheldon's action and Mr. Sheldon's look expressed a determination +which George knew how to estimate by the light of past experience. + +"It is a hard thing to find you against me, after the manner in which I +have toiled and slaved for your stepdaughter's interests." + +"I am bound to hold my stepdaughter's interests paramount over every +consideration." "Yes, paramount over brotherly feeling and all that +sort of thing. I say that it is more than hard that you should be +against me, considering the special circumstances and the manner in +which I have kept my own counsel----" + +"You will take a fifth share, or nothing, George," said Mr. Sheldon, +with a threatening contraction of his black brows. + +"If I have any difficulty in arranging matters with you, I will go into +this affair myself, and carry it through without your help." + +"That I defy you to do." + +"You had better not defy me." + +"Pray how much do you expect to get out of Miss Halliday's fortune?" +demanded the aggravated George. + +"That is my business," answered Philip. "And now we had better go into +the drawing-room for our tea. O, by the bye, George," he added, +carelessly, "as Miss Halliday is quite a child in all business matters, +she had better be treated like a child. I shall tell her that she has a +claim to a certain sum of money; but I shall not tell her what sum. Her +disappointment will be less in the event of a failure, if her +expectations are not large." + +"You are always so considerate, my dear Phil," said George, with a +malignant grin. "May I ask how it is you have taken it into your head +to play the benevolent father in the matter of Valentine Hawkehurst and +Miss Halliday ?" + +"What can it signify to me whom my stepdaughter marries?" asked Philip, +coolly. "Of course I wish her well; but I will not have the +responsibility of controlling her choice. If this young man suits her, +let her marry him." + +"Especially when he happens to suit _you_ so remarkably well. I think I +can understand your tactics, Phil." + +"You must understand or misunderstand me, just as you please. And now +come to tea." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHRISTMAS PEACE. + + +Valentine Hawkehurst did not make his appearance at the Lawn on +Christmas-eve. He devoted that evening to the service of his old ally. +He performed all friendly offices for the departing Captain, dined with +him very pleasantly in Regent-street, and accompanied him to the +London-bridge terminus, where he beheld the voyager comfortably seated +in a second-class carriage of the night-train for Newhaven. + +Mr. Hawkehurst had seen the Captain take a through ticket for Rouen, +and he saw the train leave the terminus. This he held to be ocular +demonstration of the fact that Captain Paget was really going to the +Gallic Manchester. + +"That sort of customer is so uncommonly slippery," the young man said +to himself as he left the station; "nothing but the evidence of my own +eyes would have convinced me of my friend's departure. How pure and +fresh the London atmosphere seems now that the perfume of Horatio Paget +is out of it! I wonder what he is going to do at Rouen? Very little +good, I daresay. But why should I wonder about him, or trouble myself +about him? He is gone, and I have set myself free from the trammels of +the past." + + * * * * * + +The next day was Christmas-day. Mr. Hawkehurst recited scraps of +Milton's glorious hymn as he made his morning toilet. He was very +happy. It was the first Christmas morning on which he had ever awakened +with this sense of supreme happiness, or with the consciousness that +the day was brighter, or grander, or more holy than other days. It +seemed to him to-day, more than ever, that he was indeed a regenerate +creature, purified by the influence of a good woman's love. + +He looked back at his past existence, and the vision of many +Christmas-days arose before him: a Christmas in Paris, amidst +unutterable rain and mud; a Christmas-night spent in roaming the +Boulevards, and in the consumption of cognac and tobacco at a +third-rate café; a Christmas in Germany; more than one Christmas in +the Queen's Bench; one especially dreary Christmas in a long bare ward +at Whitecross-street,--how many varied scenes and changing faces arose +before his mental vision associated with that festive time! And yet +among them all there was not one on which there shone the faintest +glimmer of that holy light which makes the common holiday a sacred +season. + +It was a pleasant thing to breakfast without the society of the +brilliant Horatio, whose brilliancy was apt to appear somewhat ghastly +at that early period of the morning. It was pleasant to loiter over the +meal, now meditating on the happy future, now dipping into a tattered +copy of Southey's "Doctor;" with the consciousness that the winds and +waves had by this time wafted Captain Paget to a foreign land. + +Valentine was to spend the whole of Christmas-day with Charlotte and +her kindred. He was to accompany them to a fashionable church in the +morning, to walk with them after church, to dine and tell ghost-stories +in the evening. It was to be his first day as a recognised member of +that pleasant family at Bayswater; and in the fulness of his heart he +felt affectionately disposed to all his adopted relations; even to Mr. +Sheldon, whose very noble conduct had impressed him strongly, in spite +of the bitter sneers and covert slanders of George. Charlotte had told +her lover that her stepfather was a very generous and disinterested +person, and that there was a secret which she would have been glad to +tell him, had she not been pledged to hold it inviolate, that would +have gone far to place Mr. Sheldon in a very exalted light before the +eyes of his future son-in-law. + +And then Miss Halliday had nodded and smiled, and had informed her +lover, with a joyous little laugh, that he should have a horse to ride, +and an edition of Grote's "Greece" bound in dark-brown calf with +bevelled edges, when they were married; this work being one which the +young author had of late languished to possess. + +"Dear foolish Lotta, I fear there will be a new history of Greece, +based on new theories, before that time comes," said the lover. + +"O no, indeed; that time will come very soon. See how industriously you +work, and how well you succeed. The magazine people will soon give you +thirty pounds a month. Or who knows that you may not write some book +that will make you suddenly famous, like Byron, or the good-natured fat +little printer who wrote those long, long, long novels that no one +reads nowadays?" + +Influenced by Charlotte's hints about her stepfather, Mr. Hawkehurst's +friendly feeling for that gentleman grew stronger, and the sneers and +innuendoes of the lawyer ceased to have the smallest power over him. + +"The man is such a thorough-going schemer himself, that he cannot bring +himself to believe in another man's honesty," thought Mr. Hawkehurst, +while meditating upon his experience of the two brothers. "So far as I +have had any dealings with Philip Sheldon, I have found him +straightforward enough. I can imagine no hidden motive for his conduct +in relation to Charlotte. The test of his honesty will be the manner in +which he is acted upon by Charlotte's position as claimant of a great +fortune. Will he throw me overboard, I wonder? or will my dear one +believe me an adventurer and fortune-hunter? Ah, no, no, no; I do not +think in all the complications of life there could come about a state +of events which would cause my Charlotte to doubt me. There is no +clairvoyance so unerring as true love." + +Mr. Hawkehurst had need of such philosophy as this to sustain him in +the present crisis of his life. He was blest with a pure delight which +excelled his wildest dreams of happiness; but he was not blest with any +sense of security as to the endurance of that exalted state of bliss. + +Mr. Sheldon would learn Charlotte's position, would doubtless extort +from his brother the history of those researches in which Valentine had +been engaged; and then, what then? Alas! hereupon arose incalculable +dangers and perplexities. + +Might not the stockbroker, as a man of the world, take a sordid view of +the whole transaction, and consider Valentine in the light of a +shameless adventurer, who had traded on his secret knowledge in the +hope of securing a rich wife? Might he not reveal all to Charlotte, and +attempt to place her lover before her in this most odious aspect? She +would not believe him base; her faith would be unshaken, her love +unchanged; but it was odious, it was horrible, to think that her ears +should be sullied, her tender heart fluttered, by the mere suggestion +of such baseness. + +It was during the Christmas-morning sermon that Mr. Hawkehurst +permitted his mind to be disturbed by these reflections. He was sitting +next his betrothed, and had the pleasure of contemplating her fair +girlish face, with the rosy lips half parted in reverent attention as +she looked upward to her pastor. After church there was the walk home +to the Lawn: and during this rapturous promenade Valentine put away +from him all shadow of doubt and fear, in order to bask in the full +sunshine of his Charlotte's presence. Her pretty gloved hand rested +confidingly on his arm, and the supreme privilege of carrying a dainty +blue-silk umbrella and an ivory-bound church-service was awarded him. +With what pride he accepted the duty of convoying his promised wife +over the muddy crossings! Those brief journeys seemed to him in a +manner typical of their future lives. She was to travel dry-shod over +the miry ways of this world, supported by his strong arm. How fondly he +surveyed her toilet! and what a sudden interest he felt in the +fashions, that had until lately seemed so vulgar and frivolous! + +"I will never denounce the absurdity of those little bonnets again, +Lotta," he cried; "that conglomeration of black velvet and +maiden's-hair fern is divine. Do you know that in some places they call +that fern Maria's hair, and hold it sacred to the mother of Him who was +born to-day? so you see there is an artistic fitness in your head-dress. +Yes, your bonnet is delicious, darling; and though the diminutive size +of that velvet jacket would lead me to suppose you had borrowed it from +some juvenile sister, it seems the very garment of all garments best +calculated to render you just one hair's-breadth nearer perfection than +you were made by Nature." + +"Valentine, don't be ridiculous!" giggled the young lady. + +"How can I help being ridiculous? Your presence acts upon my nerves +like laughing-gas. Ah, you do not know what cares and perplexities I +have to make me serious. Charlotte," exclaimed the young man, with +sudden energy, "do you think you could ever come to distrust me?" + +"Valentine! Do I think I shall ever be Queen of England? One thing is +quite as likely as the other." + +"My dear angel, if you will only believe in me always, there is no +power upon earth that can make us unhappy. Suppose you found yourself +suddenly possessed of a great fortune, Charlotte; what would you do +with it?" + +"I would buy you a library as good as that in the British Museum; and +then you would not want to spend the whole of your existence in Great +Russell-street." + +"But if you had a great fortune, Lotta, don't you think you would be +very much disposed to leave me to plod on at my desk in Great +Russell-street? Possessed of wealth, you would begin to languish for +position; and you would allow Mr. Sheldon to bring you some suitor who +could give you a name and a rank in society worthy of an angelic +creature with a hundred thousand pounds or so." + +"I should do nothing of the kind. I do not care for money. Indeed, I +should be almost sorry to be very rich." + +"Why, dearest?" + +"Because, if I were very rich, we could not live in the cottage at +Wimbledon, and I could not make lemon cheese-cakes for your dinner." + +"My own true-hearted darling!" cried Valentine; "the taint of +worldliness can never touch your pure spirit." + +They were at the gates of Mr. Sheldon's domain by this time. Diana and +Georgy had walked behind the lovers, and had talked a little about the +sermon, and a good deal about the bonnets; poor Diana doing her very +uttermost to feign an interest in the finery that had attracted Mrs. +Sheldon's wandering gaze. + +"Well, I should have thought you couldn't fail to see it," said the +elder lady, as they approached the gate; "a leghorn, very small, with +holly-berries and black ribbon--quite French, you know, and _so_ +stylish. I was thinking, if I had my Tuscan cleaned and altered, it +might----" And here the conversation became general, as the family +party entered the drawing-room, where Mr. Sheldon was reading his paper +by a roaring fire. + +"Talking about the bonnets, as per usual," said the stockbroker. "What +an enormous amount of spiritual benefit you women must derive from +church-going!--Consols have fallen another eighth since Tuesday +afternoon, George," added Mr. Sheldon, addressing himself to his +brother, who was standing on the hearth-rug, with his elbow on the +chimney-piece. + +"Consols are your 'bonnets,' papa," cried Charlotte, gaily; "I don't +think there is a day upon which you do not talk about their having gone +up, or gone down, or gone somewhere." + +After luncheon the lovers went for a walk in Kensington-gardens, with +Diana Paget to play propriety. "You will come with us, won't you, dear +Di?" pleaded Charlotte. "You have been looking pale and ill lately, +and I am sure a walk will do you good." + +Valentine seconded his liege lady's request; and the three spent a +couple of hours pacing briskly to and fro in the lonelier parts of the +gardens, leaving the broad walks for the cockneys, who mustered strong +upon this seasonable Christmas afternoon. + +For two out of those three that wintry walk was rapture only too +fleeting. For the third it was passive endurance. The agonies that had +but lately rent Diana's breast when she had seen those two together no +longer tortured her. The scorpion sting was beginning to lose its +venomous power. She suffered still, but her suffering was softened by +resignation. There is a limit to the capacity for pain in every mind. +Diana had borne her share of grief; she had, in Homeric phrase, +satiated herself with anguish and tears; and to those sharp throes and +bitter torments there had succeeded a passive sense of sorrow that was +almost peace. + +"I have lost him," she said to herself. "Life can never bring me much +joy; but I should be worse than weak if I spent my existence in the +indulgence of my sorrow. I should be one of the vilest wretches upon +this earth if I could not teach myself to witness the happiness of my +friend without repining." + +Miss Paget had not arrived at this frame of mind without severe +struggles. Many times, in the long wakeful nights, in the slow, joyless +days, she had said to herself, "Peace, peace, when there was no peace." +But at last the real peace, the true balm of Gilead, was given in +answer to her prayers, and the weary soul tasted the sweetness of +repose. She had wrestled with, and had vanquished, the demon. + +To-day, as she walked beside the lovers, and listened to their happy +frivolous talk, she felt like a mother who had seen the man she loved +won from her by her own daughter, and who had resigned herself to the +ruin of all her hopes for love of her child. + +There was more genial laughter and pleasant converse at Mr. Sheldon's +dinner-table that evening than was usual at that hospitable board; +but the stockbroker himself contributed little to the merriment of the +party. He was quiet, and even thoughtful, and let the talk and laughter +go by him without any attempt to take part in it. After dinner he went +to his own room; while Valentine and the ladies sat round the fire in +the orthodox Christmas manner, and after a good deal of discursive +conversation, subsided into the telling of ghost-stories. + +George Sheldon sat apart from the circle, turning over the books upon +the table, or peering into a stereoscope with an evident sense of +weariness. This kind of domestic evening was a manner of life which Mr. +Sheldon of Gray's Inn denounced as "slow;" and he submitted himself to +the endurance of it this evening only because he did not know where +else to bestow his presence. + +"I don't think papa cares much about ghost-stories, does he, uncle +George?" Charlotte asked, by way of saying something to the gentleman, +who seemed so very dreary as he sat yawning over the books and +stereoscopes. + +"I don't suppose he does, my dear." + +"And do you think he believes in ghosts?" the young lady demanded, +laughingly. + +"No, I am sure he doesn't," replied George, very seriously. + +"Why, how seriously you say that!" cried Charlotte, a little startled +by George Sheldon's manner, in which there had been an earnestness not +quite warranted by the occasion. + +"I was thinking of your father--not my brother Phil. He died in +Philip's house, you know; and if Phil believed in ghosts, he would +scarcely have liked living in that house afterwards, you see, and so +on. But he went on living there for a twelvemonth longer. It seemed +just as good as any other house to him, I suppose." + +Hereupon Georgy dissolved into tears, and told the company how she had +fled, heartbroken, from the house in which her first husband had died, +immediately after the funeral. + +"And I'm sure the gentlemanly manner in which your step-papa behaved +during all that dreadful time, Charlotte, is beyond all praise," +continued the lady, turning to her daughter; "so thoughtful, so kind, +so patient. What I should have done if poor Tom's illness had happened +in a strange house, I don't know. And I have no doubt that the new +doctor, Mr. Burkham, did his duty, though his manner was not as decided +as I should have wished." + +"Mr. Burkham!" cried Valentine. "What Burkham is that? We've a member +of the Ragamuffins called Burkham, a surgeon, who does a little in the +literary line." + +"The Mr. Burkham who attended my poor dear husband was a very young +man," answered Georgy; "a fair man, with a fresh colour and a +hesitating manner. I should have been so much better satisfied if he +had been older." + +"That is the man," said Valentine. "The Burkham I know is +fresh-coloured and fair, and cannot be much over thirty." + +"Are you and he particularly intimate?" asked George Sheldon, +carelessly. + +"O dear no, not at all. We speak to each other when we happen to meet-- +that's all. He seems a nice fellow enough; and he evidently hasn't much +practice, or he couldn't afford to be a Ragamuffin, and to write +farces. He looks to me exactly the kind of modest deserving man who +ought to succeed, and who so seldom does." + +This was all that was said about Mr. Burkham; but there was no more +talk of ghost-stories, and a temporary depression fell upon the little +assembly. The memory of her father had always a saddening influence on +Charlotte; and it needed many tender _sotto-voce_ speeches from +Valentine to bring back the smiles to her fair young face. + +The big electro-plated tea-tray and massive silver teapot made their +appearance presently, and immediately after came Mr. Sheldon. + +"I want to have a little talk with you after tea, Hawkehurst," he said, +as he took his own cup from Georgy's hand, and proceeded to imbibe the +beverage standing. "If you will come out into the garden and have a +cigar, I can say all I have to say in a very few minutes; and then we +can come in here for a rubber. Georgy is a very decent player; and my +brother George plays as good a hand at whist as any man at the +Conservative or the Reform." + +Valentine's heart sank within him. What could Mr. Sheldon want with a +few minutes' talk, if not to revoke his gracious permission of some +days before--the permission that had been accorded in ignorance of +Charlotte's pecuniary advantages? The young man looked very pale as he +went to smoke his cigar in Mr. Sheldon's garden. Charlotte followed him +with anxious eyes, and wondered at the sudden gravity of his manner. +George Sheldon also was puzzled by his brother's desire for a +tête-à-tête. + +"What new move is Phil going to make?" he asked himself. The two men +lit their cigars, and got them well under weigh before Mr. Sheldon +began to talk. + +"When I gave my consent to receive you as Miss Halliday's suitor, my +dear Hawkehurst," he said, at last, "I told you that I was acting as +very few men of the world would act, and I only told you the truth. +Since giving you that consent I have made a very startling discovery, +and one that places me in quite a new position in regard to this +matter." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes, Mr. Hawkehurst, I have become aware of the fact that Miss +Halliday, the girl whom I thought entirely dependent upon my +generosity, is heir-at-law to a large fortune. You will, of course, +perceive how entirely this alters the position of affairs." + +"I do perceive," Valentine answered earnestly; "but I trust you will +believe that I had not the faintest idea of Miss Halliday's position +when I asked her to be my wife. As to my love for her, I can scarcely +tell you when that began; but I think it must have dated from the first +hour in which I saw her, for I can remember no period at which I did +_not_ love her." + +"If I did not believe you superior to any mercenary motives, you would +not have been under my roof to-day, Mr. Hawkehurst," said the +stockbroker, with extreme gravity. "The discovery of my stepdaughter's +position gives me no pleasure. Her claim to this wealth only increases +my responsibility with regard to her, and responsibility is what I +would willingly avoid. After all due deliberation, therefore, I have +decided that this discovery need make no alteration in your position as +Charlotte's future husband. If you were worthy of her when she was +without a fortune, you are not less worthy now." + +"Mr. Sheldon," cried Valentine, with considerable emotion, "I did not +expect so much generosity at your hands!" + +"No," replied the stockbroker, "the popular idea of a business man is +not particularly agreeable. I do not, however, pretend to anything like +generosity; I wish to take a common-sense view of the affair, but not +an illiberal one." + +"You have shown so much generosity of feeling, that I can no longer +sail under false colours," said Valentine, after a brief pause. "Until +a day or two ago I was bound to secrecy by a promise made to your +brother. But his communication of Miss Halliday's rights to you sets me +at liberty, and I must tell you that which may possibly cause you to +withdraw your confidence." + +Hereupon Mr. Hawkehurst revealed his share in the researches that had +resulted in the discovery of Miss Halliday's claim to a large fortune. +He entered into no details. He told Mr. Sheldon only that he had been +the chief instrument in the bringing about of this important discovery. + +"I can only repeat what I said just now," he added, in conclusion. "I +have loved Charlotte Halliday from the beginning of our acquaintance, +and I declared myself some days before I discovered her position. I +trust this confession will in nowise alter your estimate of me." + +"It would be a poor return for your candour if I were to doubt your +voluntary statement, Hawkehurst," answered the stockbroker. "No; I +shall not withdraw my confidence. And if your researches should +ultimately lead to the advancement of my stepdaughter, there will be +only poetical justice in your profiting more or less by that +advancement. In the mean tune we cannot take matters too quietly. I am +not a sanguine person, and I know how many hearts have been broken by +the High Court of Chancery. This grand discovery of yours may result in +nothing but disappointment and waste of money, or it may end as +pleasantly as my brother and you seem to expect. All I ask is, that +poor Charlotte's innocent heart may not be tortured by a small lifetime +of suspense. Let her be told nothing that can create hope in the +present or disappointment in the future. She appears to be perfectly +happy in her present position, and it would be worse than folly to +disturb her by vague expectations that may never be realised. She will +have to make affidavits, and so on, by-and-by, I daresay; and when that +time comes she must be told there is some kind of suit pending in which +she is concerned. But she need not be told how nearly that suit +concerns her, or the extent of her alleged claim. You see, my dear sir, +I have seen so much of this sort of thing, and the misery involved in +it, that I may be forgiven if I am cautious." + +This was putting the whole affair in a new light. Until this moment +Valentine had fancied that, the chain of evidence once established, +Charlotte's claim had only to be asserted in order to place her in +immediate possession of the Haygarth estate. But Mr. Sheldon's cool and +matter-of-fact discussion of the subject implied all manner of doubt +and difficulty, and the Haygarthian thousands seemed carried away to +the most remote and shadowy regions of Chanceryland, as by the waves of +some legal ocean. + +"And you really think it would be better not to tell Charlotte?" + +"I am sure of it. If you wish to preserve her from all manner of worry +and annoyance, you will take care to keep her in the dark until the +affair is settled--supposing it ever should be settled. I have known +such an affair to outlast the person interested." + +"You take a very despondent view of the matter." + +"I take a practical view of it. My brother George is a monomaniac on +the next-of-kin subject." + +"I cannot quite reconcile myself to the idea of concealing the truth +from Charlotte." + +"That is because you do not know the world as well as I do," answered +Mr. Sheldon, coolly. + +"I cannot imagine that the idea of this claim would have any disturbing +influence upon her," Valentine argued, thoughtfully. "She is the last +person in the world to care about money." + +"Perhaps so. But there is a kind of intoxication in the idea of a large +fortune--an intoxication that no woman of Charlotte's age could stand +against. Tell her that she has a claim to considerable wealth, and from +that moment she will count upon the possession of that wealth, and +shape all her plans for the future upon that basis. 'When I get my +fortune, I will do this, that, and the other.' _That_ is what she will +be continually saying to herself; and by-and-by, when the affair +results in failure, as it very likely will, there will remain a sense +of disappointment which will last for a lifetime, and go far to +embitter all the ordinary pleasures of her existence." + +"I am inclined to think you are right," said Valentine, after some +little deliberation. "My darling girl is perfectly happy as it is. It +may be wisest to tell her nothing." + +"I am quite sure of that," replied Mr. Sheldon. "Of course her being +enlightened or not can be in no way material to me. It is a subject +upon which I can afford to be entirely disinterested." + +"I will take your advice, Mr. Sheldon." + +"So be it. In that case matters will remain _in statu quo_. You will be +received in this house as my stepdaughter's future husband, and it is +an understood thing that your marriage is not to take place without due +consultation, with me. I am to have a voice in the business." + +"Most decidedly. It is only right that you should be deferred to." + +This brought the interview to a close very pleasantly. The gentlemen +went back to the house, and Valentine found himself presently seated at +a whist-table with the brothers Sheldon, and Georgy, who played very +well, in a feeble kind of way, holding religiously by all the precepts +of Hoyle, and in evident fear of her husband and brother-in-law. +Charlotte and Diana played duets while the whist progressed, with +orthodox silence and solemnity on the part of the four players. +Valentine's eyes wandered very often to the piano, and he was in nowise +sorry when the termination of a conquering rubber set him at liberty. +He contrived to secure a brief _tête-à-tête_ with Charlotte while he +helped her in the arrangement of the books on the music-stand, and then +the shrill chime of the clock on the mantelpiece, and an audible yawn +from Philip Sheldon, told him that he must go. + +"Providence has been very good to us," he said, in an undertone, as he +bade Miss Halliday good night. "Your stepfather's conduct is all that +is kind and thoughtful, and there is not a cloud upon our future. Good +night, and God bless you, my dearest! I think I shall always consider +this my first Christmas-day. I never knew till to-day how sweet and +holy this anniversary can be." + +He walked to Cumberland-gate in company with George Sheldon, who +preserved a sulky gravity, which was by no means agreeable. + +"You have chosen your own course," he said at parting, "and I only hope +the result may prove your wisdom. But, as I think I may have remarked +before, you don't know my brother Phil as well as I do." "Your brother +has behaved with such extreme candour and good feeling towards me, that +I would really rather not hear any of your unpleasant innuendoes +against him. I hate that 'I could an if I would' style of talk, and +while I occupy my present position in your brother's house I cannot +consent to hear anything to his discredit." + +"That's a very tall animal you've taken to riding lately, my friend +Hawkehurst," said George, "and when a man rides the high horse with me +I always let him have the benefit of his _monture_. You have served +yourself without consideration for me, and I shall not trouble myself +in the future with any regard for you or your interests. But if harm +ever comes to you or yours, through my brother Philip, remember that I +warned you. Good night." + + * * * * * + +In Charlotte's room the cheery little fire burned late upon that frosty +night, while the girl sat in her dressing-gown dreamily brushing her +soft brown hair, and meditating upon the superhuman merits and graces +in her lover. + +It was more than an hour after the family had retired, when there came +a cautious tapping at Charlotte's door. "It is only I, dear," said a +low voice; and before Charlotte could answer, the door was opened, and +Diana came in, and went straight to the hearth, by which her friend was +sitting. + +"I am so wakeful to-night, Lotta," she said; "and the light under your +door tempted me to come in for a few minutes' chat." + +"My dearest Di, you know how glad I always am to see you." + +"Yes, dear, I know that you are only too good to me--and I have been so +wayward, so ungracious. O, Charlotte, I know my coldness has wounded +you during the last few months." + +"I have been just a little hurt now and then, dear, when you have +seemed not to care for me, or to sympathise with me in all my joys and +sorrows; but then it has been selfish of me to expect so much sympathy, +and I know that, if your manner is cold, your heart is noble." + +"No, Lotta, it is not noble. It is a wicked heart." + +"Diana!" + +"Yes," said Miss Paget, kneeling by her friend's chair, and speaking +with suppressed energy; "it has been a wicked heart--wicked because +your happiness has been torture to it." + +"Diana!" + +"O, my dearest one, do not look at me with those innocent, wondering +eyes. You will hate me, perhaps, when you know all. O, no, no, no, you +will not hate--you will pity and forgive me. I loved him, dear; he was +my companion, my only friend; and there was a time--long ago--before he +had ever seen your face, when I fancied that he cared for me, and would +get to love me--as I loved him--unasked, uncared for. O, Charlotte, you +can never know what I have suffered. It is not in your nature to +comprehend what such a woman as I can suffer. I loved him so dearly, I +clung so wickedly, so madly to my old hopes, my old dreams, long after +they had become the falsest hopes, the wildest dreams that ever had +power over a distracted mind. But, my darling, it is past, and I come +to you on this Christmas night to tell you that I have conquered my +stubborn heart, and that from this time forward there shall be no cloud +between you and me." + +"Diana, my dear friend, my poor girl!" cried Charlotte, quite overcome, +"you loved him, you--as well as I--and I have robbed you of his heart!" + +"No, Charlotte, it was never mine." + +"You loved him--all the time you spoke so harshly of him!" + +"When I seemed most harsh, I loved him most. But do not look at me with +such distress in your sweet face, my dear. I tell you that the worst +pain is past and gone. The rest is very easy to bear, and to outlive. +These things do not last for ever, Charlotte, whatever the poets and +novelists may tell us. If I had not lived through the worst, I should +not be here to-night, with your arm round my neck and his name upon my +lips. I have never wished you joy until to-night, Charlotte, and now +for the first time I can wish you all good things, in honesty and +truth. I have conquered myself. I do not say that to me Valentine +Hawkehurst can ever be quite what other men are. I think that to the +end of my life there will be a look in his face, a tone of his voice, +that will touch me more deeply than any other look or tone upon earth; +but my love for you has overcome my love for him, and there is no +hidden thought in my mind to-night, as I sit here at your feet, and +pray for God's blessing on your choice." + +"My darling Diana, I know not how to thank you, how to express my faith +and my love." + +"I doubt if I am worthy of your love, dear; but, with God's help, I +will be worthy of your trust; and if ever there should come a day in +which my love can succour or my devotion serve you, there shall be no +lack of either. Listen, dear; there are the waits playing the sweet +Christmas hymn. Do you remember what Shakespeare says about the 'bird +of dawning' singing all night long, and how no evil spirit roams abroad +at this dear season,-- + + 'So hallowed and so gracious is the time?' + +"I have conquered my evil spirit, Lotta, and there shall be peace and +true love between us for evermore, shall there not, dearest friend?" + +And thus ends the story of Diana Paget's girlish love--the love that +had grown up in secret, to be put away from her heart in silence, and +buried with the dead dreams and fancies that had fostered it. For her +to-night the romance of life closed for ever. For Charlotte the sweet +story was newly begun, and the opening chapters were very pleasant--the +mystic volume seemed all delight. Blessed with her lover's devotion, +her mother's approval, and even Mr. Sheldon's benign approbation, what +more could she ask from Providence--what lurking dangers could she +fear--what storm-cloud could she perceive upon the sunlit heavens? + +There was a cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, but the harbinger of +tempest and terror. It yet remains to be shown what form that cloud +assumed, and from what quarter the tempest came. The history of +Charlotte Halliday has grown upon the writer; and the completion of +that history, with the fate of John Haygarth's fortune, will be found +under the title of, CHARLOTTE'S INHERITANCE. + + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds of Prey, by M.E. Braddon + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS OF PREY *** + +This file should be named 8prey10.txt or 8prey10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8prey11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8prey10a.txt + +Produced by J. 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