‘Another man might not have come here, Mr. Wylder, until his presence had been specially invited, after the–the—-‘ when he came to define the offence it was not very easy to do so, inasmuch as it consisted in the vicar’s having unconsciously very nearly escaped from his fangs; ‘but let that pass. I have had, I grieve to say, by this morning’s post a most serious letter from London;’ the attorney shook his head, while searching his pocket. ‘I’ll read just a passage or two if you’ll permit me; it comes from Burlington and Smith. I protest I have forgot it at home; however, I may mention, that in consequence of the letter you authorised me to write, and guaranteed by your bond, on which they have entered judgment, they have gone to the entire expense of drawing the deeds, and investigating title, and they say that the purchaser will positively be off, unless the articles are in their office by twelve o’clock to-morrow; and, I grieve to say, they add, that in the event of the thing falling through, they will issue execution for the amount of their costs, which, as I anticipated, a good deal exceeds four hundred pounds. I have, therefore, my dear Mr. Wylder, casting aside all unpleasant feeling, called to entreat you to end and determine any hesitation you may have felt, and to execute without one moment’s delay the articles which are prepared, and which must be in the post-office within half an hour.’
Then Mr. Jos. Larkin entered pointedly and briefly into Miss Lake’s offer, which he characterised as ‘wholly nugatory, illusory, and chimerical;’ told him he had spoken on the subject, yesterday evening, to the young lady, who now saw plainly that there really was nothing in it, and that she was not in a position to carry out that part of her proposition, which contemplated a residence in the vicar’s family.
This portion of his discourse he dismissed rather slightly and mysteriously; but he contrived to leave upon the vicar’s mind a very painful and awful sort of uncertainty respecting the young lady of whom he spoke.
Then he became eloquent on the madness of further indecision in a state of things so fearfully menacing, freely admitting that it would have been incomparably better for the vicar never to have moved in the matter, than, having put his hand to the plough, to look back as he had been doing. If he declined his advice, there was no more to be said, but to bow his head to the storm, and that ponderous execution would descend in wreck and desolation.
So the vicar, very much flushed, in panic and perplexity, and trusting wildly to his protesting lawyer’s guidance, submitted. Buggs and the bilious youngster entered with the deed, and the articles were duly executed, and the vicar signed also a receipt for the fanciful part of the consideration, and upon it and the deed he endorsed a solemn promise, in the terms I have mentioned before, that he would never take any step to question, set aside, or disturb the purchase, or any matter connected therewith.
Then the attorney, now in his turn flushed and very much elated, congratulated the poor vicar on his emancipation from his difficulties; and ‘now that it was all done and over, told him, what he had never told him before, that, considering the nature of the purchase, he had got a _splendid_ price for it.’
The good man had also his agreement from Lake to sell Five Oaks.
The position of the good attorney, therefore, in a commercial point of view, was eminently healthy and convenient. For less than half the value of Five Oaks alone, he was getting that estate, and a vastly greater one beside, to be succeeded to on Mark Wylder’s death.
No wonder, then, that the good attorney was more than usually bland and happy that day. He saw the pork-butcher in his back-parlour, and had a few words to say about the chapel-trust, and his looks and talk were quite edifying. He met two little children in the street, and stopped and smiled as he stooped down to pat them on the heads, and ask them whose children they were, and gave one of them a halfpenny. And he sat afterwards, for nearly ten minutes, with lean old Mrs. Mullock, in her little shop, where toffey, toys, and penny books for young people were sold, together with baskets, tea-cups, straw-mats, and other adult ware; and he was so friendly and talked so beautifully, and although, as he admitted in his lofty way, ‘there might be differences in fortune and position,’ yet were we not all members of one body? And he talked upon this theme till the good lady, marvelling how so great a man could be so humble, was called to the receipt of custom, on the subject of ‘paradise’ and ‘lemon-drops,’ and the heavenly-minded attorney, with a celestial condescension, recognised his two little acquaintances of the street, and actually adding another halfpenny to his bounty–escaped, with a hasty farewell and a smile, to the street, as eager to evade the thanks of the little people, and the admiration of Mrs. Mullock.
It is not to be supposed, that having got one momentous matter well off his mind, the good attorney was to be long rid of anxieties. The human mind is fertile in that sort of growth. As well might the gentleman who shaves suppose, as his fingers glide, after the operation, over the polished surface of his chin–_factus ad unguem_–that he may fling his brush and strop into the fire, and bury his razor certain fathoms in the earth. No! One crop of cares will always succeed another–not very oppressive, nor in any wise grand, perhaps–worries, simply, no more; but needing a modicum of lather, the looking glass, the strop, the diligent razor, delicate manipulation, and stealing a portion of our precious time every day we live; and this must go on so long as the state of man is imperfect, and plenty of possible evil in futurity.
The attorney must run up to London for a day or two. What if that mysterious, and almost illegible brute, James Dutton, should arrive while he was away. Very unpleasant, possibly! For the attorney intended to keep that gentleman very quiet. Sufficient time must be allowed to intervene to disconnect the purchase of the vicar’s remainder from the news of Mark Wylder’s demise. A year and a-half, maybe, or possibly a year might do. For if the good attorney was cautious, he was also greedy, and would take possession as early as was safe. Therefore arrangements were carefully adjusted to detain that important person, in the event of his arriving; and a note, in the good attorney’s hand, inviting him to remain at the Lodge till his return, and particularly requesting that ‘he would kindly abstain from mentioning to _anyone_, during his absence, any matter he might intend to communicate to him in his professional capacity or otherwise.’
This, of course, was a little critical, and made his to-morrow’s journey to London a rather anxious prospect.
In the meantime our friend, Captain Lake, arrived in a hired fly, with his light baggage, at the door of stately Brandon. So soon as the dust and ashes of railway travel were removed, the pale captain, in changed attire, snowy cambric, and with perfumed hair and handkerchief, presented himself before Dorcas.
‘Now, Dorkie, darling, your poor soldier has come back, resolved to turn over a new leaf, and never more to reserve another semblance of a secret from you,’ said he, so soon as his first greeting was over. ‘I long to have a good talk with you, Dorkie. I have no one on earth to confide in but you. I think,’ he said, with a little sigh, ‘I would never have been so reserved with you, darling, if I had had anything pleasant to confide; but all I have to say is triste and tiresome–only a story of difficulties and petty vexations. I want to talk to you, Dorkie. Where shall it be?’
They were in the great drawing-room, where I had first seen Dorcas Brandon and Rachel Lake, on the evening on which my acquaintance with the princely Hall was renewed, after an interval of so many years.
‘This room, Stanley, dear?’
‘Yes, this room will answer very well,’ he said, looking round. ‘We can’t be overheard, it is so large. Very well, darling, listen.’
CHAPTER LXII.
THE CAPTAIN EXPLAINS WHY MARK WYLDER ABSCONDED.
‘How delicious these violets are!’ said Stanley, leaning for a moment over the fragrant purple dome that crowned a china stand on the marble table they were passing. ‘You love flowers, Dorkie. Every perfect woman is, I think, a sister of Flora’s. You are looking pale–you have not been ill? No! I’m very glad you say so. Sit down for a moment and listen, darling. And first I’ll tell you, upon my honour, what Rachel has been worrying me about.’
Dorcas sate beside him on the sofa, and he placed his slender arm affectionately round her waist.
‘You must know, Dorkie, that before his sudden departure, Mark Wylder promised to lend William, his brother, a sum sufficient to relieve him of all his pressing debts.’
‘Debts! I never knew before that he had any,’ exclaimed Dorcas. ‘Poor William! I am so sorry.’
‘Well, he has, like other fellows, only he can’t get away as easily, and he has been very much pressed since Mark went, for he has not yet lent him a guinea, and in fact Rachel says she thinks he is in danger of being regularly sold out. She does not say she knows it, but only that she suspects they are in a great fix about money.’
‘Well, you must know that _I_ was the sole cause of Mark Wylder’s leaving the country.’
‘_You_, Stanley!’
‘Yes, _I_, Dorkie. I believe I thought I was doing a duty; but really I was nearly mad with _jealousy_, and simply doing my utmost to drive a rival from _your_ presence. And yet, without hope for myself, _desperately_ in love.’
Dorcas looked down and smiled oddly; it was a sad and bitter smile, and seemed to ask whither has that desperate love, in so short a time, flown?
‘I know I was right. He was a stained man, and was liable at any moment to be branded. It was villainous in him to seek to marry you. I told him at last that, unless he withdrew, your friends should know all. I expected he would show fight, and that a meeting would follow; and I really did not much care whether I were killed or not. But he went, on the contrary, rather quietly, threatening to pay me off, however, though he did not say how. He’s a cunning dog, and not very soft-hearted; and has no more conscience than that,’ and he touched his finger to the cold summit of a marble bust.
‘He is palpably machinating something to my destruction with an influential attorney on whom I keep a watch, and he has got some fellow named Dutton into the conspiracy; and not knowing how they mean to act, and only knowing how utterly wicked, cunning, and bloody-minded he is, and that he hates me as he probably never hated anyone before, I must be prepared to meet him, and, if possible, to blow up that Satanic cabal, which without _money_ I can’t. It was partly a mystification about the election; of course, it will be expensive, but nothing like the other. Are you ill, Dorkie?’
He might well ask, for she appeared on the point of fainting.
Dorcas had read and heard stories of men seemingly no worse than their neighbours–nay, highly esteemed, and praised, and liked–who yet were haunted by evil men, who encountered them in lonely places, or by night, and controlled them by the knowledge of some dreadful crime. Was Stanley–her husband–whose character she had begun to discern, whose habitual mystery was, somehow, tinged in her mind with a shade of horror, one of this two-faced, diabolical order of heroes?
Why should he dread this cabal, as he called it, even though directed by the malignant energy of the absent and shadowy Mark Wylder? What could all the world do to harm him in free England, if he were innocent, if he were what he seemed–no worse than his social peers?
Why should it be necessary to buy off the conspirators whom a guiltless man would defy and punish?
The doubt did not come in these defined shapes. As a halo surrounds a saint, a shadow rose suddenly, and enveloped pale, scented, smiling Stanley, with the yellow eyes. He stood in the centre of a dreadful medium, through which she saw him, ambiguous and awful; and she sickened.
‘Are you ill, Dorkie, darling?’ said the apparition in accents of tenderness. ‘Yes, you _are_ ill.’
And he hastily threw open the window, close to which they were sitting, and she quickly revived in the cooling air.
She saw his yellow eyes fixed upon her features, and his face wearing an odd expression–was it interest, or tenderness, or only scrutiny; to her there seemed a light of insincerity and cruelty in its pallor.
‘You are better, darling; thank Heaven, you are better.’
‘Yes–yes–a great deal better; it is passing away.’
Her colour was returning, and with a shivering sigh, she said–
‘Oh? Stanley, you must speak truth; I am your wife. Do they know anything very bad–are you in their power?’
‘Why, my dearest, what on earth could put such a wild fancy in your head?’ said Lake, with a strange laugh, and, as she fancied, growing still paler. ‘Do you suppose I am a highwayman in disguise, or a murderer, like–what’s his name–Eugene Aram? I must have expressed myself very ill, if I suggested anything so tragical. I protest before Heaven, my darling, there is not one word or act of mine I need fear to submit to any court of justice or of honour on earth.’
He took her hand, and kissed it affectionately, and still fondling it gently between his, he resumed–
‘I don’t mean to say, of course, that I have always been better than other young fellows; I’ve been foolish, and wild, and–and–I’ve done wrong things, occasionally–as all young men will; but for high crimes and misdemeanors, or for melodramatic situations, I never had the slightest taste. There’s no man on earth who can tell anything of me, or put me under any sort of pressure, thank Heaven; and simply because I have never in the course of my life done a single act unworthy of a gentleman, or in the most trifling way compromised myself. I swear it, my darling, upon my honour and soul, and I will swear it in any terms–the most awful that can be prescribed–in order totally and for ever to remove from your mind so amazing a fancy.’
And with a little laugh, and still holding her hand, he passed his arm round her waist, and kissed her affectionately.
‘But you are perfectly right, Dorkie, in supposing that I _am_ under very considerable apprehension from their machinations. Though they cannot slur our fair fame, it is quite possible they may very seriously affect our property. Mr. Larkin is in possession of all the family papers. I don’t like it, but it is too late now. The estates have been back and forward so often between the Brandons and Wylders, I always fancy there may be a screw loose, or a frangible link somewhere, and he’s deeply interested for Mark Wylder.’
‘You are better, darling; I think you are better,’ he said, looking in her face, after a little pause.
‘Yes, dear Stanley, much better; but why should you suppose any plot against our title?’
‘Mark Wylder is in constant correspondence with that fellow Larkin. I wish we were quietly rid of him, he is such an unscrupulous dog. I assure you, I doubt very much if the deeds are safe in his possession; at all events, he ought to choose between us and Mark Wylder. It is monstrous his being solicitor for both. The Wylders and Brandons have always been contesting the right to these estates, and the same thing may arise again any day.’
‘But tell me, Stanley, how do you want to apply money? What particular good can it do us in this unpleasant uncertainty?’
‘Well, Dorkie, believe me I have a sure instinct in matters of this kind. Larkin is plotting treason against us. Wylder is inciting him, and will reap the benefit of it. Larkin hesitates to strike, but that won’t last long. In the meantime, he has made a distinct offer to buy Five Oaks. His doing so places him in the same interest with us; and, although he does not offer its full value, still I should sleep sounder if it were concluded; and the fact is, I don’t think we are safe until that sale _is_ concluded.’
Dorcas looked for a moment earnestly in his face, and then down, in thought.
‘Now, Dorkie, I have told you all. Who is to advise you, if not your husband? Trust my sure conviction, and promise me, Dorcas, that you will not hesitate to join me in averting, by a sacrifice we shall hardly feel, a really stupendous blow.’
He kissed her hand, and then her lips, and he said–
‘You _will_, Dorkie, I _know_ you will. Give me your promise.’
‘Stanley, tell me once more, are you really quite frank when you tell me that you apprehend no personal injury from these people–apart, I mean, from the possibility of Mr. Larkin’s conspiring to impeach our rights in favour of Mr. Wylder?’
‘Personal injury? None in life, my darling.’
‘And there is really no secret–nothing–_tell_ your wife–nothing you fear coming to light?’
‘I swear again, nothing. _Won’t_ you believe me, darling?’
‘Then, if it be so, Stanley, I think we should hesitate long before selling any part of the estate, upon a mere conjecture of danger. You or I may over-estimate that danger, being so nearly affected by it. We must take advice; and first, we must consult Chelford. Remember, Stanley, how long the estate has been preserved. Whatever may have been their crimes and follies, those who have gone before us never impaired the Brandon estate; and, without full consideration, without urgent cause, I, Stanley, will not begin.’
‘Why, it is only Five Oaks, and we shall have the money, you forget,’ said Stanley.
‘Five Oaks is an estate in itself; and the idea of dismembering the Brandon inheritance seems to me like taking a plank from a ship–all will go down when that is done.’
‘But you _can’t_ dismember it; it is only a life estate.’
‘Well, perhaps so; but Chelford told me that one of the London people said he thought Five Oaks belonged to me absolutely.’
‘In that case the inheritance _is_ dismembered already.’
‘I will have no share in selling the old estate, or any part of it, to strangers, Stanley, except in a case of necessity; and we must do nothing precipitately; and I must insist, Stanley, on consulting Chelford before taking any step. He will view the question more calmly than you or I can; and we owe him that respect, Stanley, he has been so very kind to us.’
‘Chelford is the very last man whom I would think of consulting,’ answered Stanley, with his malign and peevish look.
‘And why?’ asked Dorcas.
‘Because he is quite sure to advise against it,’ answered Stanley, sharply. ‘He is one of those Quixotic fellows who get on very well in fair weather, while living with a duke or duchess, but are sure to run you into mischief when they come to the inns and highways of common life. I know perfectly, he would protest against a compromise. Discharge Larkin–fight him–and see us valiantly stript of our property by some cursed law-quibble; and think we ought to be much more comfortable so, than in this house, on the terms of a compromise with a traitor like Larkin. But _I_ don’t think so, nor any man of sense, nor anyone but a hairbrained, conceited knight-errant.’
‘I think Chelford one of the most sensible as well as honourable men I know; and I will take no step in selling a part of our estate to that odious Mr. Larkin, without consulting him, and at least hearing what he thinks of it.’
Stanley’s eyes were cast down–and he was nipping the struggling hairs of his light moustache between his lips–but he made no answer. Only suddenly he looked up, and said quietly,
‘Very well. Good-bye for a little, Dorkie,’ and he leaned over her and kissed her cheek, and then passed into the hall, where he took his hat and cane.
Larcom presented him with a note, in a sealed envelope. As he took it from the salver he recognised Larkin’s very clear and large hand. I suspect that grave Mr. Larcom had been making his observations and conjectures thereupon.
The captain took it with a little nod, and a peevish side-glance. It said–
‘MY DEAR CAPTAIN BRANDON LAKE,–Imperative business calls me to London by the early train to-morrow. Will you therefore favour me, if convenient, _by the bearer_, with the small note of consent, which must accompany the articles agreeing to sell.
‘I remain, &c. &c. &c.’
Larkin’s groom was waiting for an answer.
‘Tell him I shall probably see Mr. Larkin myself,’ said the captain, snappishly; and so he walked down to pretty little Gylingden.
On the steps of the reading-room stood old Tom Ruddle, who acted as marker in the billiard-room, treasurer, and book-keeper beside, and swept out the premises every morning, and went to and fro at the proper hours, between that literary and sporting institution and the post-office; and who, though seldom sober, was always well instructed in the news of the town.
‘How do you do, old Ruddle–quite well?’ asked the captain with a smile. ‘Who have you got in the rooms?’
Well, Jos. Larkin was not there. Indeed he seldom showed in those premises, which he considered decidedly low, dropping in only now and then, like the great county gentlemen, on sessions days, to glance at the papers, and gossip on their own high affairs.
But Ruddle had seen Mr. Jos. Larkin on the green, not five minutes since, and thither the gallant captain bent his steps.
CHAPTER LXIII.
THE ACE OF HEARTS.
‘So you are going to London–_to-morrow_, is not it?’ said Captain Lake, when on the green of Gylingden where visitors were promenading, and the militia bands playing lusty polkas, he met Mr. Jos. Larkin, in lavender trousers and kid gloves, new hat, metropolitan black frock-coat, and shining French boots–the most elegant as well as the most Christian of provincial attorneys.
‘Ah, yes–I think–should my engagements permit–of starting early to-morrow. The fact is, Captain Lake, our poor friend the vicar, you know, the Rev. William Wylder, has pressing occasion for some money, and I can’t leave him absolutely in the hands of Burlington and Smith.’
‘No, of course–quite so,’ said Lake, with that sly smile which made every fellow on whom it lighted somehow fancy that the captain had divined his secret. ‘Very honest fellows, with good looking after–eh?’
The attorney laughed a little awkwardly, with his pretty pink blush over his long face.
‘Well, I’m far from saying that, but it is their business, you know, to take care of _their_ client; and it would not do to give them the handling of _mine_. Can I do anything, Captain Lake, for you while in town?’
‘Nothing on earth, thank you very much. But I am thinking of doing something for you. You’ve interested yourself a great deal about Mark Wylder’s movements.’
‘Not more than my duty clearly imposed.’
‘Yes; but notwithstanding it will operate, I’m afraid, as you will presently see, rather to his prejudice. For to prevent your conjectural interference from doing him a more serious mischief, I will now, and here, if you please, divulge the true and only cause of his absconding. It is fair to mention, however, that your knowing it will make you fully as odious to him as I am–and that, I assure you, is very odious indeed. There were four witnesses beside myself–Lieutenant-Colonel Jermyn, Sir James Carter, Lord George Vanbrugh, and Ned Clinton.
‘_Witnesses_! Captain Lake. Do you allude to a legal matter?’ enquired Larkin, with his look of insinuating concern and enquiry.
‘Quite the contrary–a very lawless matter, indeed. These four gentlemen, beside myself, were present at the occurrence. But perhaps you’ve heard of it?’ said the captain, ‘though that’s not likely.’
‘Not that I recollect, Captain Lake,’ answered Jos. Larkin.
‘Well, it is not a thing you’d forget easily–and indeed it was a very well kept secret, as well as an ugly one,’ and Lake smiled in his sly quizzical way.
‘And _where_, Captain Lake, did it occur, may I enquire?’ said Larkin, with his charming insinuation.
‘You may, and you shall hear–in fact, I’ll tell you the whole thing. It was at Gray’s Club, in Pall Mall. The whist party were old Jermyn, Carter, Vanbrugh, and Wylder. Clinton and I were at piquet, and were disturbed by a precious row the old boys kicked up. Jermyn and Carter were charging Mark Wylder, in so many words, with not playing fairly–there was an ace of hearts on the table played by him, and before three minutes they brought it home–and in fact it was quite clear that poor dear Mark had helped himself to it in quite an irregular way.’
‘Oh, dear, Captain Lake, oh, dear, how shocking–how inexpressibly shocking! Is not it _melancholy_?’ said Larkin, in his finest and most pathetic horror.
‘Yes; but don’t cry till I’ve done,’ said Lake, tranquilly. ‘Mark tried to bully, but the cool old heads were too much for him, and he threw himself at last entirely on our mercy–and very abject he became, poor thing.’
‘How well the mountains look! I am afraid we shall have rain to-morrow.’
Larkin uttered a short groan.
‘So they sent him into the small card-room, next that we were playing in. I think we were about the last in the club–it was past three o’clock–and so the old boys deliberated on their sentence. To bring the matter before the committee were utter ruin to Mark, and they let him off, on these conditions–he was to retire forthwith from the club; he was never to play any game of cards again; and, lastly, he was never more to address any one of the gentlemen who were present at his detection. Poor dear devil!–how he did jump at the conditions;–and provided they were each and all strictly observed, it was intimated that the occurrence should be kept secret. Well, you know, that was letting poor old Mark off in a coach; and I do assure you, though we had never liked one another, I really was very glad they did not move his expulsion–which would have involved his quitting the service–and I positively don’t know how he could have lived if that had occurred.’
‘I do solemnly assure you, Captain Lake, what you have told me has beyond expression amazed, and I will say, horrified me,’ said the attorney, with a slow and melancholy vehemence. ‘Better men might have suspected something of it–I do solemnly pledge my honour that nothing of the kind so much as crossed my mind–not naturally suspicious, I believe, but all the more shocked, Captain Lake, on that account’
‘He was poor then, you see, and a few pounds were everything to him, and the temptation immense; but clumsy fellows ought not to try that sort of thing. There’s the highway–Mark would have made a capital garrotter.’
The attorney groaned, and turned up his eyes. The band was playing ‘Pop goes the weasel,’ and old Jackson, very well dressed and buckled up, with a splendid smile upon his waggish, military countenance, cried, as he passed, with a wave of his hand, ‘How do, Lake–how do, Mr. Larkin–beautiful day!’
‘I’ve no wish to injure Mark; but it is better that you should know at once, than go about poking everywhere for information.’
‘I do assure you—-‘
‘And having really no wish to hurt him,’ pursued the captain, ‘and also making it, as I do, a point that you shall repeat this conversation as little as possible, I don’t choose to appear singular, as your sole informant, and I’ve given you here a line to Sir James Carter–he’s member, you know, for Huddlesbury. I mention, that Mark, having broken his promise, and played for heavy stakes, too, both on board his ship, and at Plymouth and Naples, which I happen to know; and also by accosting me, whom, as one of the gentlemen agreeing to impose these conditions, he was never to address, I felt myself at liberty to mention it to you, holding the relation you do to me as well as to him, in consequence of the desirableness of placing you in possession of the true cause of his absconding, which was simply my telling him that I would not permit him, slurred as he was, to marry a lady who was totally ignorant of his actual position; and, in fact, that unless he withdrew, I must acquaint the young lady’s guardian of the circumstances.’
There was quite enough probability in this story to warrant Jos. Larkin in turning up his eyes and groaning. But in the intervals, his shrewd eyes searched the face of the captain, not knowing whether to believe one syllable of what he related.
I may as well mention here, that the attorney did present the note to Sir J. Carter with which Captain Lake had furnished him; indeed, he never lost an opportunity of making the acquaintance of a person of rank; and that the worthy baronet, so appealed to, and being a blunt sort of fellow, and an old acquaintance of Stanley’s, did, in a short and testy sort of way, corroborate Captain Lake’s story, having previously conditioned that he was not to be referred to as the authority from whom Mr. Larkin had learned it.
The attorney and Captain Brandon Lake were now walking side by side over the more sequestered part of the green.
‘And so,’ said the captain, coming to a stand-still, ‘I’ll bid you good-bye, Larkin; what stay, I forgot to ask, do you make in town?’
‘Only a day or two.’
‘You’ll not wait for the division on Trawler’s motion?’
‘Oh, dear, no. I calculate I’ll be here again, certainly, in three days’ time. And, I suppose, Captain Lake, you received my note?’
‘You mean just now? Oh, yes; of course it is all right; but one day is as good as another; and you have got my agreement signed.’
‘Pardon me, Captain Brandon Lake; the fact is, one day, in this case, does _not_ answer as well as another, for I must have drafts of the deeds prepared by my conveyancer in town, and the note is indispensable. Perhaps, if there is any difficulty, you will be so good as to say so, and I shall then be in a position to consider the case in its new aspect.’
‘What the devil difficulty _can_ there be, Sir? I can’t see it, any more than what _hurry_ can possibly exist about it,’ said Lake, stung with a momentary fury. It seemed as though everyone was conspiring to perplex and torment him; and he, like the poor vicar, though for very different reasons, had grown intensely anxious to sell. He had grown to dread the attorney, since the arrival of Dutton’s letter. He suspected that his journey to London had for its object a meeting with that person. He could not tell what might be going on in the dark. But the possibility of such a conjunction might well dismay him.
On the other hand, the more Mr. Larkin relied upon the truth of Dutton’s letter, the cooler he became respecting the purchase of Five Oaks. It was, of course, a very good thing; but not his first object. The vicar’s reversion in that case was everything; and of it he was now sure.
‘There is no difficulty about the note, Sir; it contains but four lines, and I’ve given you the form. No difficulty can exist but in the one quarter; and the fact is,’ he added, steadily, ‘unless I have that note before I leave to-morrow-morning, I’ll assume that you wish to be off, Captain Lake, and I will adapt myself to circumstances.’
‘You may have it _now_,’ said the captain, with a fierce carelessness. ‘D–d nonsense! Who could have fancied any such stupid hurry? Send in the morning, and you shall have it.’ And the captain rather savagely turned away, skirting the crowd who hovered about the band, in his leisurely and now solitary ramble.
The captain was sullen that evening at home. He was very uncomfortable. His heart was failing him for the things that were coming to pass. One of his maniacal tempers, which had often before thrown him, as it were, ‘off the rails,’ was at the bottom of his immediate troubles. This proneness to sudden accesses of violence and fury was the compensation which abated the effect of his ordinary craft and self-command.
He had done all he could to obviate the consequences of his folly in this case. He hoped the attorney might not succeed in discovering Jim Dutton’s whereabouts. At all events, he had been beforehand, and taken measures to quiet that person’s dangerous resentment. But it was momentous in the critical state of things to give this dangerous attorney a handsome share in his stake–to place him, as he had himself said, ‘in the same boat,’ and enlist all his unscrupulous astuteness in maintaining his title: and if he went to London disappointed, and that things turned out unluckily about Dutton, it might be a very awful business indeed.
Dinner had been a very dull _tête-à-tête_. Dorcas sat stately and sad–looking from the window toward the distant sunset horizon, piled in dusky gold and crimson clouds, against the faded, green sky–a glory that is always melancholy and dreamy. Stanley sipped his claret, his eyes upon the cloth. He raised them and looked out, too; and the ruddy light tinted his pale features.
A gleam of good humour seemed to come with it, and he said,
‘I was just thinking, Dorkie, that for you and me, _alone_, these great rooms are a little dreary. Suppose we have tea in the tapestry room.’
‘The Dutch room, Stanley–I think so–I should like it very well. So, I am certain, would Rachel. I’ve written to her to come. I hope she will. I expect her at nine. The brougham will be with her. She wrote such an odd note to-day, addressed to you; but _I opened it_. Here it is.’
She did not watch his countenance, or look in his direction, as he read it. She addressed herself, on the contrary, altogether to her Liliputian white lap-dog, Snow, and played with his silken ears; and chatted with him as ladies will.
A sealed envelope broken. That scoundrel, Larcom, knew perfectly it was meant for _me_. He was on the point of speaking his mind, which would hardly have been pleasant to hear, upon this piece of detective impertinence of his wife’s. He could have smashed all the glass upon the table. But he looked serene, and leaned back with the corner of Rachel’s note between two fingers. It was a case in which he clearly saw he must command himself.
CHAPTER LXIV.
IN THE DUTCH ROOM.
His heart misgave him. He felt that a crisis was coming; and he read–
‘I cannot tell you, my poor brother, how miserable I am. I have just learned that a very dangerous person has discovered more about that dreadful evening than we believed known to anybody in Gylingden. I am subjected to the most agonising suspicions and _insults_. Would to Heaven I were dead! But living, I cannot endure my present state of mind longer. To-morrow morning I will see Dorcas–poor Dorcas!–and tell her all. I am weary of urging you, _in vain_, to do so. It would have been much better. But although, after that interview, I shall, perhaps, never see her more, I shall yet be happier, and, I think, relieved from suspense, and the torments of mystery. So will she. At all events, it is her _right_ to know all–and she shall.
‘YOUR OUTCAST AND MISERABLE SISTER.’
On Stanley’s lips his serene, unpleasant smile was gleaming, as he closed the note carelessly. He intended to speak, but his voice caught. He cleared it, and sipped a little claret.
‘For a clever girl she certainly does write the most wonderful rubbish. Such an effusion! And she sends it tossing about, from hand to hand, among the servants. I’ve anticipated her, however, Dorkie.’ And he took her hand and kissed it. ‘She does not know I’ve told you _all_ myself.’
Stanley went to the library, and Dorcas to the conservatory, neither very happy, each haunted by an evil augury, and a sense of coming danger. The deepening shadow warned Dorcas that it was time to repair to the Dutch room, where she found lights and tea prepared.
In a few minutes more the library door opened and Stanley Lake peeped in.
‘Radie not come yet?’ said he entering. ‘We certainly are much pleasanter in this room, Dorkie, more, in proportion, than we two should have been in the drawing-room.’
He seated himself beside her, drawing his chair very close to hers, and taking her hand in his. He was more affectionate this evening than usual. What did it portend? she thought. She had already begun to acquiesce in Rachel’s estimate of Stanley, and to fancy that whatever he did it was with an unacknowledged purpose.
‘Does little Dorkie love me?’ said Lake, in a sweet undertone.
There was reproach, but love too, in the deep soft glance she threw upon him.
‘You must promise me not to be frightened at what I am going to tell you,’ said Lake.
She heard him with sudden panic, and a sense of cold stole over her. He looked like a ghost–quite white–smiling. She knew something was coming–the secret she had invoked so long–and she was appalled.
‘Don’t be frightened, darling. It is necessary to tell you; but it is really not much when you hear me out. You’ll say so when you have quite heard me. So you won’t be frightened?’
She was gazing straight into his wild yellow eyes, fascinated, with a look of expecting terror.
‘You are nervous, darling,’ he continued, laying his hand on hers. ‘Shall we put it off for a little? You are frightened.’
‘Not much frightened, Stanley,’ she whispered.
‘Well, we had better wait. I see, Dorcas, you _are_ frightened and nervous. Don’t keep looking at me; look at something else, can’t you? You make yourself nervous that way. I promise, upon my honour, I’ll not say a word about it till you bid me.’
‘I know, Stanley–I know.’
‘Then, why won’t you look down, or look up, or look any way you please, only don’t stare at me so.’
‘Yes–oh, yes,’ and she shut her eyes.
‘I’m sorry I began,’ he said, pettishly. ‘You’ll make a fuss. You’ve made yourself quite nervous; and I’ll wait a little.’
‘Oh! no, Stanley, _now_–for Heaven’s sake, _now_. I was only a little startled; but I am quite well again. Is it anything about marriage? Oh, Stanley, in mercy, tell me was there any other engagement?’
‘Nothing, darling–nothing on earth of the sort;’ and he spoke with an icy little laugh. ‘Your poor soldier is altogether yours, Dorkie,’ and he kissed her cheek.
‘Thank God for that!’ said Dorcas, hardly above her breath.
‘What I have to say is quite different, and really nothing that need affect you; but Rachel has made such a row about it. Fifty fellows, I know, are in much worse fixes; and though it is not of so much consequence, still I think I should not have told you; only, without knowing it, you were thwarting me, and helping to get me into a serious difficulty by your obstinacy–or what you will–about Five Oaks.’
Somehow trifling as the matter was, Stanley seemed to grow more and more unwilling to disclose it, and rather shrank from it now.
‘Now, Dorcas, mind, there must be no trifling. You must not treat me as Rachel has. If you can’t keep a secret–for it _is_ a secret–say so. Shall I tell you?’
‘Yes, Stanley–yes. I’m your wife.’
‘Well, Dorcas, I told you something of it; but only a part, and some circumstances I _did_ intentionally colour a little; but I could not help it, unless I had told everything; and no matter what you or Rachel may say, it was kinder to withhold it as long as I could.’
He glanced at the door, and spoke in a lower tone.
And so, with his eyes lowered to the table at which he sat, glancing ever and anon sideways at the door, and tracing little figures with the tip of his finger upon the shining rosewood, he went on murmuring his strange and hateful story in the ear of his wife.
It was not until he had spoken some three or four minutes that Dorcas suddenly uttered a wild scream, and started to her feet. And Stanley also rose precipitately, and caught her in his arms, for she was falling.
As he supported her in her chair, the library door opened, and the sinister face of Uncle Lorne looked in, and returned the captain’s stare with one just as fixed and horrified.
‘Hush!’ whispered Uncle Lorne, and he limped softly into the room, and stopped about three yards away, ‘she is not dead, but sleepeth.’
‘Hallo! Larcom,’ shouted Lake.
‘I tell you she’s dreaming the same dream that I dreamt in the middle of the night.’
‘Hallo! Larcom.’
‘Mark’s on leave to-night, in uniform; his face is flattened against the window. This is his lady, you know.’
‘Hallo! D– you–are you there?’ shouted the captain, very angry.
‘I saw Mark following you like an ape, on all-fours; such nice white teeth! grinning at your heels. But he can’t bite yet–ha, ha, ha! Poor Mark!’
‘Will you be so good, Sir, as to touch the bell?’ said Lake, changing his tone.
He was afraid to remove his arm from Dorcas, and he was splashing water from a glass upon her face and forehead.
‘No–no. No bell yet–time enough–ding, dong. You say, dead and gone.’
Captain Lake cursed him and his absent keeper between his teeth; still in a rather flurried way, prosecuting his conjugal attentions.
‘There was no bell for poor Mark; and he’s always listening, and stares so. A cat may look, you know.’
‘Can’t you touch the bell, Sir? What are you standing there for?’ snarled Lake, with a glare at the old man. He looked as if he could have murdered him.
‘Standing between the living and the dead!’
‘Here, Reuben, here; where the devil have you been–take him away. He has terrified her. By —- he ought to be shot.’
The keeper silently slid his arm into Uncle Lorne’s, and, unresisting, the old man talking to himself the while, drew him from the room.
Larcom, about to announce Miss Lake, and closely followed by that young lady, passed the grim old phantom on the lobby.
‘Be quick, you are wanted there,’ said the attendant as he passed.
Dorcas, pale as marble, sighing deeply again and again, her rich black hair drenched in water, which trickled over her cheeks, like the tears and moisture of agony, was recovering. There was water spilt on the table, and the fragments of a broken glass upon the floor.
The moment Rachel saw her, she divined what had happened, and, gliding over, she placed her arm round her.
‘You’re better, darling. Open the window, Stanley. Send her maid.’
‘Aye, send her maid,’ cried Captain Lake to Larcom. ‘This is your d–d work. A nice mess you have made of it among you.’
‘Are you better, Dorcas?’ said Rachel.
‘Yes–much better. I’m glad, darling, I understand you now. Radie, kiss me.’
Next morning, before early family prayers, while Mr. Jos. Larkin was locking the despatch box which was to accompany him to London Mr. Larcom arrived at the Lodge.
He had a note for Mr. Larkin’s hand, which he must himself deliver; and so he was shown into that gentleman’s official cabinet, and received with the usual lofty kindness.
‘Well, Mr. Larcom, pray sit down. And can I do anything for you, Mr. Larcom?’ said the good attorney, waving his long hand toward a vacant chair.
‘A note, Sir.’
‘Oh, yes; very well.’ And the tall attorney rose, and, facing the rural prospect at his window, with his back to Mr. Larcom, he read, with a faint smile, the few lines, in a delicate hand, consenting to the sale of Five Oaks.
He had to look for a time at the distant prospect to allow his smile to subside, and to permit the conscious triumph which he knew beamed through his features to discharge itself and evaporate in the light and air before turning to Mr. Larcom, which he did with an air of sudden recollection.
‘Ah–all right, I was forgetting; I must give you a line.’
So he did, and hid away the note in his despatch-box, and said–
‘The family all quite well, I hope?’ whereat Larcom shook his head.
‘My mistress’–he always called her so, and Lake the capting–‘has been takin’ on hoffle, last night, whatever come betwixt ’em. She was fainted outright in her chair in the Dutch room; and he said it was the old gentleman–Old Flannels, we calls him, for shortness–but lor’ bless you, she’s too used to him to be frightened, and that’s only a make-belief; and Miss Dipples, her maid, she says as how she was worse up stairs, and she’s made up again with Miss Lake, which _she_ was very glad, no doubt, of the making friends, I do suppose; but it’s a bin a bad row, and I suspeck amost he’s used vilins.’
‘Compulsion, I suppose; you mean constraint?’ suggested Larkin, very curious.
‘Well, that may be, Sir, but I amost suspeck she’s been hurted somehow. She got them crying fits up stairs, you know; and the capting, he’s hoffle bad-tempered this morning, and he never looked near her once, after his sister came; and he left them together, talking and crying, and he locked hisself into the library, like one as knowed he’d done something to be ashamed on, half the night.’
‘It’s not happy, Larcom, I’m much afraid; it’s _not_ happy,’ and the attorney rose, shaking his tall bald head, and his hands in his pockets, and looked down in meditation.
‘In the Dutch room, after tea, I suppose?’ said the attorney.
‘Before tea, Sir, just as Miss Lake harrived in the brougham.’
And so on. But there was no more to be learned, and Mr. Larcom returned and attended the captain very reverentially at his solitary breakfast.
Mr. Jos. Larkin was away for London. And a very serene companion he was, if not very brilliant. Everything was going perfectly smoothly with him. A celestial gratitude glowed and expanded within his breast. His angling had been prosperous hitherto, but just now he had made a miraculous draught, and his nets and his heart were bursting. Delightful sentiment, the gratitude of a righteous man; a man who knows that his heart is not set upon the things of the world; who has, like King Solomon, made wisdom his first object, and who finds riches added thereto!
There was no shadow of self-reproach to slur the sunny landscape. He had made a splendid purchase from Captain Lake it was true. He drew his despatch-box nearer to him affectionately, as he thought on the precious records it contained. But who in this wide-awake world was better able to take care of himself than the gallant captain? If it were not the best thing for the captain, surely it would not have been done. Whom have I defrauded? My hands are clean! He had made a still better purchase from the vicar; but what would have become of the vicar if he had not been raised up to purchase? And was it not speculative, and was it not possible that he should lose all that money, and was it not, on the whole, the wisest thing that the vicar, under his difficulties, could have been advised to do?
So reasoned the good attorney, as with a languid smile and a sigh of content, his long hand laid across the cover of the despatch-box by his side, he looked forth through the plate-glass window upon the sunny fields and hedgerows that glided by him, and felt the blessed assurance, ‘look, whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper,’ mingling in the hum of surrounding nature. And as his eyes rested on the flying diorama of trees, and farmsteads, and standing crops, and he felt already the pride of a great landed proprietor, his long fingers fiddled pleasantly with the rough tooling of his morocco leather box; and thinking of the signed articles within, it seemed as though an angelic hand had placed them there while he slept, so wondrous was it all; and he fancied under the red tape a label traced in the neatest scrivenery, with a pencil of light, containing such gratifying testimonials to his deserts, ‘as well done good and faithful servant,’ ‘the saints shall inherit the earth,’ and so following; and he sighed again in the delicious luxury of having secured both heaven and mammon. And in this happy state, and volunteering all manner of courtesies, opening and shutting windows, lending his railway guide and his newspapers whenever he had an opportunity, he at length reached the great London terminus, and was rattling over the metropolitan pavement, with his hand on his despatch-box, to his cheap hotel near the Strand.
CHAPTER LXV.
I REVISIT BRANDON HALL.
Rachel Lake was courageous and energetic; and, when once she had taken a clear view of her duty, wonderfully persistent and impracticable. Her dreadful interview with Jos. Larkin was always in her mind. The bleached face, so meek, so cruel, of that shabby spectre, in the small, low parlour of Redman’s Farm, was always before her. There he had spoken the sentences which made the earth tremble, and showed her distinctly the cracking line beneath her feet, which would gape at his word into the fathomless chasm that was to swallow her. But, come what might, she would not abandon the vicar and his little boy, and good Dolly, to the arts of that abominable magician.
The more she thought, the clearer her conviction. She had no one to consult with; she knew the risk of exasperating that tall man of God, who lived at the Lodge. But, determined to brave all, she went down to see Dolly and the vicar at home.
Poor Dolly was tired; she had been sitting up all night with sick little Fairy. He was better to-day; but last night he had frightened them so, poor little man! he began to rave about eleven o’clock; and more or less his little mind continued wandering until near six, when he fell into a sound sleep, and seemed better for it; and it was such a blessing there certainly was neither scarlatina nor small-pox, both which enemies had appeared on the northern frontier of Gylingden, and were picking down their two or three cases each in that quarter.
So Rachel first made her visit to little man, sitting up in his bed, very pale and thin, and looking at her, not with his pretty smile, but a languid, earnest wonder, and not speaking. How quickly and strikingly sickness tells upon children. Little man’s frugal store of toys, chiefly the gifts of pleasant Rachel, wild beasts, Noah and his sons, and part of a regiment of foot soldiers, with the usual return of broken legs and missing arms, stood peacefully mingled upon the board across his bed which served as a platform.
But little man was leaning back; his fingers once so busy, lay motionless on the coverlet, and his tired eyes rested on the toys with a joyless, earnest apathy.
‘Didn’t play with them a minute,’ said the maid.
‘I’ll bring him a new box. I’m going into the town; won’t that be pretty?’ said Rachel, parting his golden locks over the young forehead, and kissing him; and she took his little hand in hers–it was hot and dry.
‘He looks better–a little better, don’t you think; just a little better?’ whispered his mamma, looking, as all the rest were, on that wan, sad little face.
But he really looked worse.
‘Well, he can’t look better, you know, dear, till there’s a decided change. What does Doctor Buddle say?’
‘He saw him yesterday morning. He thinks it’s all from his stomach, and he’s feverish; no meat. Indeed he won’t eat anything, and you see the light hurts his eyes.
There was only a chink of the shutter open.
‘But it is always so when he is ever so little ill, my precious little man; and I _know_ if he thought it anything the _least_ serious, Doctor Buddle would have looked in before now, he’s so very kind.’
‘I wish my darling could get a little sleep. He’s very tired, nurse,’ said Rachel.
‘Yes’m, very tired’m; would he like his precious head lower a bit? No; very well, darling, we’ll leave it so.’
‘Dolly, darling, you and nurse must be so tired sitting up. I have a little wine at Redman’s Farm. I got it, you remember, more than a year ago, when Stanley said he was coming to pay me a visit. I never take any, and a little would be so good for you and poor nurse. I’ll send some to you.’
So coming down stairs Rachel said, ‘Is the vicar at home?’ Yes, he was in the study, and there they found him brushing his seedy hat, and making ready for his country calls in the neighbourhood of the town. The hour was dull without little Fairy; but he would soon be up and out again, and he would steal up now and see him. He could not go out without his little farewell at the bed-side, and he would bring him in some pretty flowers.
‘You’ve seen little Fairy!’ asked the good vicar, with a very anxious smile, ‘and you think him better, dear Miss Lake, don’t you?’
‘Why, I can’t say that, because you know, so soon as he’s better, he’ll be quite well; they make their recoveries all in a moment.’
‘But he does not look worse?’ said the vicar, lifting his eyes eagerly from his boot, which he was buttoning on the chair.
‘Well, he _does_ look more _tired_, but that must be till his recovery begins, which will be, please Heaven, immediately.’
‘Oh, yes, my little man has had two or three attacks _much_ more serious than this, and always shook them off so easily, I was reminding Dolly, always, and good Doctor Buddle assures us it is none of those horrid complaints.’
And so they talked over the case of the little man, who with Noah and his sons, and the battered soldiers and animals before him, was fighting, though they only dimly knew it, silently in his little bed, the great battle of life or death.
‘Mr. Larkin came to me the evening before last,’ said Rachel, ‘_and told me_ that the little sum I mentioned–now don’t say a word till you have heard me–was not sufficient; so I want to tell you what I have quite resolved on. I have been long intending some time or other to change my place of residence, perhaps I shall go to Switzerland, and I have made up my mind to sell my rent-charge on the Dulchester estate. It will produce, Mr. Young says, a very large sum, and I wish to lend it to you, either _all_ or as much as will make you _quite_ comfortable–you must not refuse. I had intended leaving it to my dear little man up stairs; and you must promise me solemnly that you will not listen to the advice of that bad, cruel man, Mr. Larkin.’
‘My dear Miss Lake, you misunderstood him. But what can I say–how can I thank you?’ said the vicar, clasping her hand.
‘A wicked and merciless man, I say,’ repeated Miss Lake. ‘From my observation of him, I am certain of two things–I am sure that he has some reason for thinking that your brother, Mark Wylder, is dead; and secondly, that he is himself deeply interested in the purchase of your reversion. I feel a little ill; Dolly, open the window.’
There was a silence for a little while, and Rachel resumed:–
‘Now, William Wylder, I am convinced, that you and your wife (and she kissed Dolly), and your dear little boy, are marked out for plunder–the objects of a conspiracy; and I’ll lose my life, but I’ll prevent it.’
‘Now, maybe, Willie, upon my word, perhaps, she’s quite right; for, you know, if poor Mark is dead, then would not _he_ have the estate _now_; is not that it, Miss Lake, and–and, you know, that would be dreadful, to sell it all for next to nothing, is not that what you mean, Miss Lake–Rachel dear, I mean.’
‘Yes, Dolly, stripping yourselves of a splendid inheritance, and robbing your poor little boy. I protest, in the name of Heaven, against it, and you have no excuse now, William, with my offer before you; and, Dolly, it will be inexcusable _wickedness_ in you, if you allow it.’
‘Now, Willie dear, do you hear that–do you hear what she says?’
‘But, Dolly darling–dear Miss Lake, there is no reason whatever to suppose that poor Mark is dead,’ said the vicar, very pale.
‘I tell you again, I am convinced the attorney _believes_ it. He did not say so, indeed; but, cunning as he is, I think I’ve quite seen through his plot; and even in what he said to me, there was something that half betrayed him every moment. And, Dolly, if you allow this sale, you deserve the ruin you are inviting, and the remorse that will follow you to your grave.’
‘Do you hear that, Willie?’ said Dolly, with her hand on his arm.
‘But, dear, it is too late–I _have_ signed this–this instrument–and it is too late. I hope–God help me–I have not done wrong. Indeed, whatever happens, dear Miss Lake, may Heaven for ever bless you. But respecting good Mr. Larkin, you are, indeed, in error; I am sure you have quite misunderstood him. You don’t know how kind–how _disinterestedly_ good he has been; and _now_, my dear Miss Lake, it is too late–_quite_ too late.’
‘No; it is _not_ too late. Such wickedness as that cannot be lawful–I won’t believe the law allows it,’ cried Rachel Lake. ‘It is all a fraud–even if you have signed–all a fraud. You must procure able advice at once. Your enemy is that dreadful Mr. Larkin. Write to some good attorney in London. I’ll pay everything.’
‘But, dear Miss Lake, I can’t,’ said the vicar, dejectedly; ‘I am bound in honour and conscience not to disturb it–I have written to Messrs. Burlington and Smith to that effect. I assure you, dear Miss Lake, we have not acted inconsiderately–nothing has been done without careful and deep consideration.’
‘You _must_ employ an able attorney immediately. You have been duped. Your little boy must not be ruined.’
‘But–but I do assure you, I have so pledged myself by the letter I have mentioned, that I _could_ not–no, it is _quite impossible_,’ he added, as he recollected the strong and pointed terms in which he had pledged his honour and conscience to the London firm, to guarantee them against any such disturbance as Miss Lake was urging him to attempt.
‘I am going into the town, Dolly, and so are you,’ said Rachel, after a little pause. ‘Let us go together.’
And to this Dolly readily assented; and the vicar, evidently much troubled in mind, having run up to the nursery to see his little man, the two ladies set out together. Rachel saw that she had made an impression upon Dolly, and was resolved to carry her point. So, in earnest terms, again she conjured her, at least, to lay the whole matter before some friend on whom she could rely; and Dolly, alarmed and eager, quite agreed with Rachel, that the sale must be stopped, and she would do whatever dear Rachel bid her.
‘But do you think Mr. Larkin really supposes that poor Mark is dead?’
‘I do, dear–I suspect he knows it.’
‘And what makes you think that, Rachel, darling?’
‘I can’t define–I’ve no proofs to give you. One knows things, sometimes. I perceived it–and I think I can’t be mistaken; and now I’ve said all, and pray ask me no more upon that point.’
Rachel spoke with a hurried and fierce impatience, that rather startled her companion.
It is wonderful that she showed her state of mind so little. There was, indeed, something feverish, and at times even fierce, in her looks and words. But few would have guessed her agony, as she pleaded with the vicar and his wife; or the awful sense of impending consequences that closed over her like the shadow of night, the moment the excitement of her pleading was over–‘Rachel, are you mad?–Fly, fly, fly!’ was always sounding in her ears. The little street of Gylingden, through which they were passing, looked strange and dream-like. And as she listened to Mrs. Crinkle’s babble over the counter, and chose his toys for poor little ‘Fairy,’ she felt like one trifling on the way to execution.
But her warnings and entreaties, I have said, were not quite thrown away; for, although the vicar was inflexible, she had prevailed with his wife, who, at parting, again promised Rachel, that if she could do it, the sale should be stopped.
When I returned to Brandon, a few mornings later, Captain Lake received me joyfully at his solitary breakfast. He was in an intense electioneering excitement. The evening papers for the day before lay on the breakfast table.
‘A move of some sort suspected–the opposition prints all hinting at tricks and ambuscades. They are whipping their men up awfully. Old Wattles, not half-recovered, went by the early train yesterday, Wealdon tells me. It will probably kill him. Stower went up the day before. Lee says he saw him at Charteris. He never speaks–only a vote–and a fellow that never appears till the minute.’
‘Brittle, the member for Stoney-Muckford, was in the next carriage to me yesterday; and he’s a slow coach, too,’ I threw in. ‘It does look as if the division was nearer than they pretend.’
‘Just so. I heard from Gybes last evening–what a hand that fellow writes–only a dozen words–“Look out for squalls,” and “keep your men in hand.” I’ve sent for Wealdon. I wish the morning papers were come. I’m a quarter past eleven–what are you? The post’s in at Dollington fifty minutes before we get our letters here. D–d nonsense–it’s all that heavy ‘bus of Driver’s–I’ll change that. They leave London at five, and get to Dollington at half-past ten, and Driver never has them in sooner than twenty minutes past eleven! D–d humbug! I’d undertake to take a dog-cart over the ground in twenty minutes.’
‘Is Larkin here?’ I asked.
‘Oh, no–run up to town. I’m so glad he’s away–the clumsiest dog in England–nothing clever–no invention–only a bully–the people hate him. Wealdon’s my man. I wish he’d give up that town-clerkship–it can’t be worth much, and it’s in his way–I’d make it up to him somehow. Will you just look at that–it’s the ‘Globe’–only six lines, and tell me what _you_ make of it?’
‘It does look like it, certainly.’
‘Wealdon and I have jotted down a few names here,’ said Lake, sliding a list of names before me; ‘you know some of them, I think–rather a strong committee; don’t you think so? Those fellows with the red cross before have promised.’
‘Yes; it’s very strong–capital!’ I said, crunching my toast. ‘Is it thought the writs will follow the dissolution unusually quickly?’
‘They must, unless they want a very late session. But it is quite possible the government may win–a week ago they reckoned upon eleven.’
And as we were talking the post arrived.
‘Here they are!’ cried Lake, and grasping the first morning paper he could seize on, he tore it open with a greater display of energy than I had seen that languid gentleman exhibit on any former occasion.
CHAPTER LXVI.
LADY MACBETH.
‘Here it is,’ said the captain. ‘Beaten’–then came an oath–‘three votes–how the devil was that?–there it is, by Jove–no mistake–majority against ministers, three! Is that the “Times?” What does _it_ say?’
‘A long leader–no resignation–immediate dissolution. That is what I collect from it.’
‘How on earth could they have miscalculated so! Swivell, I see, voted in the majority; that’s very odd; and, by Jove, there’s Surplice, too, and he’s good for seven votes. Why his own paper was backing the ministers! What a fellow that is! That accounts for it all. A difference of fourteen votes.’
And thus we went on, discussing this unexpected turn of luck, and reading to one another snatches of the leading articles in different interests upon the subject.
Then Lake, recollecting his letters, opened a large-sealed envelope, with S.C.G. in the corner.
‘This is from Gybes–let us see. Oh! _before_ the division. “It looks a little fishy,” he says–well, so it does–“We may take the division to-night. Should it prove adverse, you are to expect an immediate dissolution; this on _the best authority_. I write to mention this, as I may be too much hurried to-morrow.”‘
We were discussing this note when Wealdon arrived.
‘Well, captain; great news, Sir. The best thing, I take it, could have happened ministers, ha, ha, ha! A rotten house–down with it–blow it up–three votes only–but as good as three hundred for the purpose–of the three hundred, grant but three, you know–of course, they don’t think of resigning.’
‘Oh, dear, no–an immediate dissolution. Read that,’ said Lake, tossing Gybes’ note to him.
‘Ho, then, we’ll have the writs down hot and heavy. We must be sharp. The sheriff’s all right; that’s a point. You must not lose an hour in getting your committee together, and printing your address.’
‘Who’s on the other side?’
‘You’ll have Jennings, of course; but they are talking of four different men, already, to take Sir Harry Twisden’s place. _He’ll_ resign; that’s past a doubt now. He has his retiring address written; Lord Edward Mordun read it; and he told FitzStephen on Sunday, after church, that he’d never sit again.’
‘Here, by Jove, is a letter from Mowbray,’ said Lake, opening it. ‘All about his brother George. Hears I’m up for the county. Lord George ready to join and go halves. What shall I say?’
‘Could not have a better man. Tell him you desire no better, and will bring it at once before your committee; and let him know, the moment they meet; and tell him _I_ say he knows Wealdon pretty well–he may look on it as settled. That will be a spoke in Sir Harry’s wheel.’
‘Sir Harry who?’ said Lake.
‘Bracton. I think it’s only to spoil your game, you see,’ answered Wealdon.
‘Abundance of malice; but I don’t think he’s countenanced?’
‘He’ll try to get the start of you; and if he does, one or other must go to the wall; for Lord George is too strong to be shook out. Do _you_ get forward at once; that’s your plan, captain.’
Then the captain recurred to his letters, which were a larger pack than usual this morning, chatting all the time with Wealdon and me on the tremendous topic, and tossing aside every letter that did not bear on the coming struggle.
‘Who can this be?’ said Lake, looking at the address of one of these. ‘Very like my hand,’ and he examined the seal. It was only a large wafer-stamp, so he broke it open, and drew out a shabby, very ill-written scroll. He turned suddenly away, talking the while, but with his eyes upon the note, and then he folded, or rather crumpled it up, and stuffed it into his pocket, and continued his talk; but it was now plain to me there was something more on his mind, and he was thinking of the shabby letter he had just received.
But, no matter; the election was the pressing topic, and Lake was soon engaged in it again.
There was now a grand _coup_ under discussion–the forestalling of all the horses and vehicles along the line of railway, and in all the principal posting establishments throughout the county.
‘They’ll want to keep it open for a bid from the other side. It is a heavy item any way; and if you want to engage them now, you’ll have to give double what they got last time.’
But Lake was not to be daunted. He wanted the seat, and would stick at nothing to secure it; and so, Wealdon got instructions, in his own phrase, to go the whole animal.
As I could be of no possible use in local details, I left the council of war sitting, intending a stroll in the grounds.
In the hall, I met the mistress of the house, looking very handsome, but with a certain witch-like beauty, very pale, something a little haggard in her great, dark eyes, and a strange, listening look. Was it watchfulness? was it suspicion? She was dressed gravely but richly, and received me kindly–and, strange to say, with a smile that, yet, was not joyful.
‘I hope she is happy. Lake is such a beast; I hope he does not bully her.’
In truth, there were in her exquisite features the traces of that mysterious misery and fear which seemed to fall wherever Stanley Lake’s ill-omened confidences were given.
I walked down one of the long alleys, with tall, close hedges of beech, as impenetrable as cloister walls to sight, and watched the tench basking and flickering in the clear pond, and the dazzling swans sailing majestically along.
What a strange passion is ambition, I thought. Is it really the passion of great minds, or of little. Here is Lake, with a noble old place, inexhaustible in variety; with a beautiful, and I was by this time satisfied, a very singular and interesting woman for his wife, who must have married him for love, pure and simple; a handsome fortune; the power to bring his friends–those whom he liked, or who amused him–about him, and to indulge luxuriously every reasonable fancy, willing to forsake all, and follow the beck of that phantom. Had he knowledge, public talents, training? Nothing of the sort. Had he patriotism, any one noble motive or fine instinct to prompt him to public life? The mere suggestion was a sneer. It seemed to me, simply, that Stanley Lake was a lively, amusing, and even intelligent man, without any internal resource; vacant, peevish, with an unmeaning passion for corruption and intrigue, and the sort of egotism which craves distinction. So I supposed.
Yet, with all its weakness, there was a dangerous force in the character which, on the whole, inspired an odd mixture of fear and contempt. I was bitten, however, already, by the interest of the coming contest. It is very hard to escape that subtle and intoxicating poison. I wondered what figure Stanley would make as a hustings orator, and what impression in his canvass. The latter, I was pretty confident about. Altogether, curiosity, if no deeper sentiment, was highly piqued; and I was glad I happened to drop in at the moment of action, and wished to see the play out.
At the door of her boudoir, Rachel Lake met Dorcas.
‘I am so glad, Radie, dear, you are come. You must take off your things, and stay. You must not leave me to-night. We’ll send home for whatever you want; and you won’t leave me, Radie, I’m certain.’
‘I’ll stay, dear, as you wish it,’ said Rachel, kissing her.
‘Did you see Stanley? I have not seen him to-day,’ said Dorcas.
‘No, dear; I peeped into the library, but he was not there; and there are two men writing in the Dutch room, very busily,’
‘It must be about the election.’
‘What election, dear?’ asked Rachel.
‘There is going to be an election for the county, and–only think–he intends coming forward. I sometimes think he is mad, Radie.’
‘I could not have supposed such a thing. If I were he, I think I should fly to the antipodes. I should change my name, sear my features with vitriol, and learn another language. I should obliterate my past self altogether; but men are so different, so audacious–some men, at least–and Stanley, ever since his ill-omened arrival at Redman’s Farm, last autumn, has amazed and terrified me.’
‘I think, Radie, we have both courage–_you_ have certainly; you have shown it, darling, and you must cease to blame yourself; I think you a _heroine_, Radie; but you know _I_ see with the wild eyes of the Brandons.’
‘I am grateful, Dorcas, that you don’t hate me. Most women I am sure would abhor me–yes, Dorcas–_abhor_ me.’
‘You and I against the world, Radie!’ said Dorcas, with a wild smile and a dark admiration in her look, and kissing Rachel again. ‘I used to think myself brave; it belongs to women of our blood; but this is no common strain upon courage, Radie. I’ve grown to fear Stanley somehow like a ghost; I fear it is even worse than he says,’ and she looked with a horrible enquiry into Rachel’s eyes.
‘So do _I_, Dorcas,’ said Rachel, in a firm low whisper, returning her look as darkly.
‘What’s done cannot be undone,’ said Rachel, sadly, after a little pause, unconsciously quoting from a terrible soliloquy of Shakespeare.
‘I know what you mean, Radie; and you warned me, with a strange second-sight, before the evil was known to either of us. It was an irrevocable step, and I took it, not seeing all that has happened, it is true; but forewarned. And this I will say, Radie, if I _had_ known the worst, I think even that would not have deterred me. It was madness–it _is_ madness, for I love him still. Rachel, though I know him and his wickedness, and am filled with horror–I love him desperately.’
‘I am very glad,’ said Rachel, ‘that you do know everything. It is so great a relief to have companionship. I often thought I must go mad in my solitude.’
‘Poor Rachel! I think you wonderful–I think you a heroine–I do, Radie; you and I are made for one another–the same blood–something of the same wild nature; I can admire you, and understand you, and will always love you.’
‘I’ve been with William Wylder and Dolly. That wicked attorney, Mr. Larkin, is resolved on robbing them. I wish they had anyone able to advise them. Stanley I am sure could save them; but he does not choose to do it. He was always so angry when I urged him to help them, that I knew it would be useless asking him; I don’t think he knows what Mr. Larkin has been doing; but, Dorcas, I am afraid the very same thought has been in his mind.’
‘I hope not, Radie,’ and Dorcas sighed deeply. ‘Everything is so wonderful and awful in the light that has come.’
That morning, poor William Wylder had received a letter from Jos. Larkin, Esq., mentioning that he had found Messrs. Burlington and Smith anything but satisfied with him–the vicar. What exactly he had done to disoblige them he could not bring to mind. But Jos. Larkin told him that he had done all in his power ‘to satisfy them of the _bonâ fide_ character’ of his reverend client’s dealings from the first. But ‘they still express themselves dissatisfied upon the point, and appear to suspect a disposition to shilly-shally.’ I have said ‘all I could to disabuse them of the unpleasant prejudice; but I think I should hardly be doing my duty if I were not to warn you that you will do wisely to exhibit no hesitation in the arrangements by which your agreement is to be carried out, and that in the event of your showing the slightest disposition to qualify the spirit of your strong note to them, or in anywise disappointing their client, you must be prepared, from what I know of the firm, for very sharp practice indeed.’
What could they do to him, or why should they hurt him, or what had he done to excite either the suspicion or the temper of the firm? They expected their client, the purchaser, in a day or two. He was already grumbling at the price, and certainly would stand no trifling. Neither would Messrs. Burlington and Smith, who, he must admit, had gone to very great expense in investigating title, preparing deeds, &c., and who were noted as a very expensive house. He was aware that they were in a position to issue an execution on the guarantee for the entire amount of their costs; but he thought so extreme a measure would hardly be contemplated, notwithstanding their threats, unless the purchaser were to withdraw or the vendor to exhibit symptoms of–he would not repeat their phrase–irresolution in his dealing. He had, however, placed the vicar’s letter in their hands, and had accompanied it with his own testimony to the honour and character of the Rev. William Wylder, which he was happy to say seemed to have considerable weight with Messrs. Burlington and Smith. There was also this passage, ‘Feeling acutely the anxiety into which the withdrawal of the purchaser must throw you–though I trust nothing of that sort may occur–I told them that rather than have you thrown upon your beam-ends by such an occurrence, I would myself step in and purchase on the terms agreed on. This will, I trust, quiet them on the subject of their costs, and also prevent any low _dodging_ on the part of the purchaser.’
This letter would almost seem to have been written with a supernatural knowledge of what was passing in Gylingden, and was certainly well contrived to prevent the vicar from wavering.
But all this time the ladies are conversing in Dorcas’s boudoir.
‘This election frightens me, Radie–everything frightens me now–but this is _so_ audacious. If there be powers either in heaven or hell, it seems like a defiance and an invocation. I am glad you are here, Radie–I have grown so nervous–so superstitious, I believe; watching always for signs and omens. Oh, darling, the world’s ghastly for me now.’
‘I wish, Dorcas, we were away–as you used to say–in some wild and solitary retreat, living together–two recluses–but all that is visionary–quite visionary now.’
Dorcas sighed.
‘You know, Rachel, the world must not see this–we will carry our heads high. Wicked men, and brave and suffering women–that is the history of our family–and men and women always quite unlike the rest of the world–unlike the human race; and somehow they interest me unspeakably. I wish I knew more about those proud, forlorn beauties, whose portraits are fading on the walls. Their spirit, I am sure, is in us, Rachel; and their pictures and traditions have always supported me. When I was a little thing, I used to look at them with a feeling of melancholy and mystery. They were in my eyes, reserved prophetesses, who could speak, if they would, of my own future.’
‘A poor support, Dorcas–a broken reed. I wish we could find another–the true one, in the present, and in the coming time.’
Dorcas smiled faintly, and I think there was a little gleam of a ghastly satire in it. I am afraid that part of her education which deals with futurity had been neglected.
‘I am more likely to turn into a Lady Macbeth than a _dévote_,’ said she, coldly, with the same painful smile. ‘I found myself last night sitting up in my bed, talking in the dark about it.’
There was a silence for a time, and Rachel said,–
‘It is growing late, Dorcas.’
‘But you must not go, Rachel–you _must_ stay and keep me company–you must, _indeed_, Radie,’ said Dorcas.
‘So I will,’ she answered; ‘but I must send a line to old Tamar; and I promised Dolly to go down to her to-night, if that darling little boy should be worse–I am very unhappy about him.’
‘And is he in danger, the handsome little fellow?’ said Dorcas.
‘Very great danger, I fear,’ said Rachel. ‘Doctor Buddle has been very kind–but he is, I am afraid, more desponding than poor William or Dolly imagines–Heaven help them!’
‘But children recover wonderfully. What is his ailment?’
‘Gastric fever, the doctor says. I had a foreboding of evil the moment I saw him–before the poor little man was put to his bed.’
Dorcas rang the bell.
‘Now, Radie, if you wish to write, sit down here–or if you prefer a message, Thomas can take one very accurately; and he shall call at the vicar’s, and see Dolly, and bring us word how the dear little boy is. And don’t fancy, darling, I have forgotten what you said to me about duty–though I would call it differently–only I feel so wild, I can think of nothing clearly yet. But I am making up my mind to a great and bold step, and when I am better able, I will talk it over with you–my only friend, Rachel.’
And she kissed her.
CHAPTER LXVII.
MR. LARKIN IS VIS-A-VIS WITH A CONCEALED COMPANION.
The time had now arrived when our friend Jos. Larkin was to refresh the village of Gylingden with his presence. He had pushed matters forward with wonderful despatch. The deeds, with their blue and silver stamps, were handsomely engrossed–having been approved in draft by Crompton S. Kewes, the eminent Queen’s Counsel, on a case furnished by Jos. Larkin, Esq., The Lodge, Brandon Manor, Gylingden, on behalf of his client, the Reverend William Wylder; and in like manner on behalf of Stanley Williams Brandon Lake, of Brandon Hall, in the county of —-, Esq.
In neither draft did Jos. Larkin figure as the purchaser by name. He did not care for advice on any difficulty depending on his special relations to the vendors in both these cases. He wished, as was his custom, everything above-board, and such ‘an opinion’ as might be published by either client in the ‘Times’ next day if he pleased it. Besides these matters of Wylder and of Lake, he had also a clause to insert in a private Act, on behalf of the trustees of the Baptist Chapel, at Naunton Friars; a short deed to be consulted upon on behalf of his client, Pudder Swynfen, Esq., of Swynfen Grange, in the same county; and a deed to be executed at Shillingsworth, which he would take _en route_ for Gylingden, stopping there for that night, and going on by next morning’s train.
Those little trips to town paid very fairly.
In this particular case his entire expenses reached exactly £5 3_s._, and what do you suppose was the good man’s profit upon that small item? Precisely £62 7_s._! The process is simple, Jos. Larkin made his own handsome estimate of his expenses, and the value of his time to and from London, and then he charged this in its entirety–shall we say integrity–to each client separately. In this little excursion he was concerned for no less than _five_.
His expenses, I say, reached exactly £5 3_s_. But he had a right to go to Dondale’s if he pleased, instead of that cheap hostelry near Covent Garden. He had a right to a handsome lunch and a handsome dinner, instead of that economical fusion of both meals into one, at a cheap eating-house, in an out-of-the-way quarter. He had a right to his pint of high-priced wine, and to accomplish his wanderings in a cab, instead of, as the Italians say, ‘partly on foot, and partly walking.’ Therefore, and on this principle, Mr. Jos. Larkin had ‘no difficulty’ in acting. His savings, if the good man chose to practise self-denial, were his own–and it was a sort of problem while he stayed, and interested him curiously–keeping down his bill in matters which he would not have dreamed of denying himself at home.
The only client among his wealthy supporters, who ever went in a grudging spirit into one of these little bills of Jos. Larkin’s, was old Sir Mulgrave Bracton–the defunct parent of the Sir Harry, with whom we are acquainted.
‘Don’t you think, Mr. Larkin, you could perhaps reduce _this_, just a little?’
‘Ah, the expenses?’
‘Well, yes.’
Mr. Jos. Larkin smiled–the smile said plainly, ‘what would he have me live upon, and where?’ We do meet persons of this sort, who would fain ‘fill our bellies with the husks’ that swine digest; what of that–we must remember who we are–_gentlemen_–and answer this sort of shabbiness, and every other endurable annoyance, as Lord Chesterfield did–with a bow and a smile.
‘I think so,’ said the baronet, in a bluff, firm way.
‘Well, the fact is, when I represent a client, Sir Mulgrave Bracton, of a certain rank and position, I make it a principle–and, as a man of business, I find it tells–to present myself in a style that is suitably handsome.’
‘Oh! an expensive house–_where_ was this, now?’
‘Oh, Sir Mulgrave, pray don’t think of it–I’m only too happy–pray, draw your pen across the entire thing.’
‘I think so,’ said the baronet unexpectedly. ‘Don’t you think if we said a pound a-day, and your travelling expenses?’
‘Certainly–_any_thing–what_ever_ you please, Sir.’
And the attorney waved his long hand a little, and smiled almost compassionately; and the little alteration was made, and henceforward he spoke of Sir Mulgrave as not quite a pleasant man to deal with in money matters; and his confidential friends knew that in a transaction in which he had paid money out of his own pocket for Sir Mulgrave he had never got back more than seven and sixpence in the pound; and, what made it worse, it was a matter connected with the death of poor Lady Bracton! And he never lost an opportunity of conveying his opinion of Sir Mulgrave, sometimes in distinct and confidential sentences, and sometimes only by a sad shake of his head, or by awfully declining to speak upon the subject.
In the present instance Jos. Larkin was returning in a heavenly frame of mind to the Lodge, Brandon Manor, Gylingden. Whenever he was away he interpolated ‘Brandon Manor,’ and stuck it on his valise and hat-case; and liked to call aloud to the porters tumbling among the luggage–‘Jos. Larkin, Esquire, _Brandon Manor, if_ you please;’ and to see the people read the inscription in the hall of his dingy hostelry. Well might the good man glow with a happy consciousness of a blessing. In small things as in great he was prosperous.
This little excursion to London would cost him, as I said, exactly £5 3_s._ It might have cost him £13 10_s._ and at that sum his expenses figured in his ledger; and as he had five clients on this occasion, the total reached £67 10_s._, leaving a clear profit, as I have mentioned, of £62 7_s._ on this item.
But what was this little tip from fortune, compared with the splendid pieces of scrivenery in his despatch box. The white parchment–the blue and silver stamps in the corner–the German text and flourishes at the top, and those broad, horizontal lines of recital, `habendum,’ and so forth–marshalled like an army in procession behind his march of triumph into Five Oaks, to take the place of its deposed prince? From the captain’s deed to the vicar’s his mind glanced fondly.
He would yet stand the highest man in his county. He had found time for a visit to the King-at-Arms and the Heralds’ Office. He would have his pictures and his pedigree. His grandmother had been a Howard. Her branch, indeed, was a little under a cloud, keeping a small provision-shop in the town of Dwiddleston. But this circumstance need not be in prominence. She was a Howard–_that_ was the fact he relied on–no mortal could gainsay it; and he would be, first, J. Howard Larkin, then Howard Larkin, simply; then Howard Larkin Howard, and the Five Gaks’ Howards would come to be very great people indeed. And the Brandons had intermarried with other Howards, and Five Oaks would naturally, therefore, go to Howards; and so he and his, with clever management, would be anything but _novi homines_ in the county.
‘He shall be like a tree planted by the water-side, that will bring forth his fruit in due season. His leaf also shall not wither. So thought this good man complacently. He liked these fine consolations of the Jewish dispensation–actual milk and honey, and a land of promise on which he could set his foot. Jos. Larkin, Esq., was as punctual as the clock at the terminus. He did not come a minute too soon or too late, but precisely at the moment which enabled him, without fuss, and without a tiresome wait, to proceed to the details of ticket, luggage, selection of place, and ultimate ascension thereto.
So now having taken all measures, gliding among the portmanteaus, hand-barrows, and porters, and the clangorous bell ringing, he mounted, lithe and lank, into his place.
There was a pleasant evening light still, and the gas-lamps made a purplish glow against it. The little butter-cooler of a glass lamp glimmered from the roof. Mr. Larkin established himself, and adjusted his rug and mufflers about him, for, notwithstanding the season, there had been some cold, rainy weather, and the evening was sharp; and he set his two newspapers, his shilling book, and other triumphs of cheap literature in sundry shapes, in the vacant seat at his left hand, and made everything handsome about him. He glanced to the other end of the carriage, where sat his solitary fellow-passenger. This gentleman was simply a mass of cloaks and capes, culminating in a queer battered felt hat; his shoulders were nestled into the corner, and his face buried among his loose mufflers. They sat at corners diagonally opposed, and were, therefore, as far apart as was practicable–an arrangement, not sociable, to be sure, but on the whole, very comfortable, and which neither seemed disposed to disturb.
Mr. Larkin had a word to say to the porter from the window, and bought one more newspaper; and then looked out on the lamplit platform, and saw the officials loitering off to the clang of the carriage doors; then came the whistle, and then the clank and jerk of the start. And so the brick walls and lamps began to glide backward, and the train was off.
Jos. Larkin tried his newspaper, and read for ten minutes, or so, pretty diligently; and then looked for a while from the window, upon receding hedgerows and farmsteads, and the level and spacious landscape; and then he leaned back luxuriously, his newspaper listlessly on his knees, and began to read, instead, at his ease, the shapeless, wrapt-up figure diagonally opposite.
The quietude of the gentleman in the far corner was quite singular. He produced neither tract, nor newspaper, nor volume–not even a pocket-book or a letter. He brought forth no cigar-case, with the stereotyped, ‘Have you any objection to my smoking a cigar?’ He did not even change his attitude ever so little. A burly roll of cloaks, rugs, capes, and loose wrappers, placed in the corner, and _tanquam cadaver_, passive and motionless.
I have sometimes in my travels lighted on a strangely shaped mountain, whose huge curves, and sombre colouring have interested me indefinably. In the rude mass at the far angle, Mr. Jos. Larkin, I fancy, found some such subject of contemplation. And the more he looked, the more he felt disposed to look.
As they got on there was more night fog, and the little lamp at top shone through a halo. The fellow-passenger at the opposite angle lay back, all cloaks and mufflers, with nothing distinct emerging but the felt hat at top, and the tip–it was only the tip now–of the shining shoe on the floor.
The gentleman was absolutely motionless and silent. And Mr. Larkin, though his mind was pretty universally of the inquisitive order, began in this particular case to feel a special curiosity. It was partly the monotony and their occupying the carriage all to themselves–as the two uncommunicative seamen did the Eddystone Lighthouse–but there was, beside, an indistinct feeling, that, in spite of all these wrappers and swathings, he knew the outlines of that figure; and yet the likeness must have been of the rudest possible sort.
He could not say that he recognised anything distinctly–only he fancied that some one he knew was sitting there, unrevealed, inside that mass of clothing. And he felt, moreover, as if he ought to be able to guess who he was.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
THE COMPANION DISCLOSES HIMSELF.
But this sort of musing and wonderment leads to nothing; and Mr. Jos. Larkin being an active-minded man, and practical withal, in a little while shook it off, and from his breast-pocket took a tiny treasure of a pocket-book, in which were some bank-notes, precious memoranda in pencil, and half-a-dozen notes and letters, bearing upon cases and negotiations on which, at this juncture, he was working.
Into these he got, and now and then brought out a letter bearing on some point of speculation, and read it through, and then closed his eyes for three minutes at a time, and thought. But he had not his tin boxes there; and, with a man of his stamp, speculation, which goes upon guess as to dates and quantities, which are all ascertainable by reference to black and white, soon loses its interest. And the evidence in his pocket being pretty soon exhausted, he glanced again at his companion over the way.
He had not moved all this while. He had a high stand-up collar to the cape he wore, which covered his cheeks and nose and outside was loosely swathed a large, cream-coloured, cashmere handkerchief. The battered felt hat covered his forehead and eyebrows, and left, in fact, but a narrow streak of separation between.
Through this, however, for the first time, Jos. Larkin now saw the glitter of a pair of eyes gazing at him, he fancied. At all events there was the glitter, and the gentleman was awake.
Jos. returned the gentleman’s gaze. It was his lofty aristocratic stare; and he expected to see the glittering lights that peeped through the dark chink between brim and collar shut up under its rebuke. But nothing of the kind took place, and the ocular exercises of the attorney were totally ineffectual.
If the fellow knew that his fixed stare was observed through his narrow embrasure–and Larkin thought he could hardly be insensible to the reproof of his return fire–he must be a particularly impertinent person. It would be ridiculous, however, to continue a contest of this kind; so the attorney lowered the window and looked out. Then he pulled it up, and took to his newspaper again, and read the police cases, and a very curious letter from a poor-house doctor, describing a boy who was quite blind in daylight, but could see very fairly by gas or candle light, and then he lighted upon a very odd story, and said to be undergoing special sifting at the hands of Sir Samuel Squailes, of a policeman on a certain beat, in Fleet Street, not far from Temple Bar, who every night saw, at or about the same hour, a certain suspicious-looking figure walk along the flag-way and enter a passage. Night after night he pursued this figure, but always lost it in the same passage. On the last occasion, however, he succeeded in keeping him in view, and came up with him in a court, when he was rewarded with a sight of such a face as caused him to fall to the ground in a fit. This was the Clampcourt ghost, and I believe he was left in that debatable state, and never after either exploded or confirmed.
So having ended all these studies, the attorney lifted up his eyes again, as he lowered his newspaper, and beheld the same glittering gaze fixed upon him through the same horizontal cranny.
He fancied the eyes were laughing. He could not be sure, of course, but at all events the persistent stare was extremely, and perhaps determinedly, impertinent. Forgetting the constitutional canon through which breathes the genuine spirit of British liberty, he felt for a moment that he was such a king as that cat had no business to look at; and he might, perhaps, have politely intimated something of the kind, had not the enveloped offender made a slight and lazy turn which, burying his chin still deeper in his breast, altogether concealed his eyes, and so closed the offensive scrutiny.
In making this change in his position, slight as it was, the gentleman in the superfluous clothing reminded Mr. Jos. Larkin very sharply for an instant of–_some_body. There was the rub; who could it be?
The figure was once more a mere mountain of rug. What was the peculiarity in that slight movement–something in the knee? something in the elbow? something in the general character?
Why had he not spoken to him? The opportunity, for the present, was past. But he was now sure that his fellow-traveller was an acquaintance, who had probably recognised him. Larkin–except when making a mysterious trip at election times, or in an emergency, in a critical case–was a frank, and as he believed could be a fascinating _compagnon de voyage_, such and so great was his urbanity on a journey. He rather liked talking with people; he sometimes heard things not wholly valueless, and once or twice had gathered hints in this way, which saved him trouble, or money, which is much the same thing. Therefore upon principle he was not averse from that direst of bores, railway conversation.
And now they slackened speed, with a long, piercing whistle, and came to a standstill at ‘East Had_don_’ (with a jerk upon the last syllable), ‘East Had_don_, East Had_don_,’ as the herald of the station declared, and Lawyer Larkin sat straight up, very alert, with a budding smile, ready to blow out into a charming radiance the moment his fellow-traveller rose perpendicular, as was to be expected, and peeped from his window.
But he seemed to know intuitively that Larkin intended telling him, _apropos_ of the station, that story of the Haddon property, and Sir James Wotton’s will, which as told by the good attorney and jumbled by the clatter, was perhaps a little dreary. At all events he did not stir, and carefully abstained from wakening, and in a few seconds more they were again in motion.
They were now approaching Shillingsworth, where the attorney was to get out, and put up for the night, having a deed with him to be executed in that town, and so sweetening his journey with this small incident of profit.
Now, therefore, looking at his watch, and consulting his time table, he got his slim valise from under on top of the seat before him, together with his hat-case, despatch-box, stick, and umbrella, and brushed off with his handkerchief some of the gritty railway dust that lay drifted in exterior folds and hollows of his coat, rebuttoned that garment with precision, arranged his shirt-collar, stuffed his muffler into his coat-pocket, and made generally that rude sacrifice to the graces with which natty men precede their exit from the dust and ashes of this sort of sepulture.
At this moment he had just eight minutes more to go, and the glitter of the pair of eyes, staring between the muffler and the rim of the hat, met his view once more.
Mr. Larkin’s cigar-case was open in his hand in a moment, and with such a smile as a genteel perfumer offers his wares with, he presented it toward the gentleman who was built up in the stack of garments.
He merely shook his head with the slightest imaginable nod and a wave of a pudgy hand in a soiled dog-skin glove, which emerged for a second from under a cape, in token that he gratefully declined the favour.
Mr. Larkin smiled and shrugged regretfully, and replaced the case in his coat pocket. Hardly five minutes remained now. Larkin glanced round for a topic.
‘My journey is over for the present, Sir, and perhaps you would find these little things entertaining.’
And he tendered with the same smile ‘Punch,’ the ‘Penny Gleaner,’ and ‘Gray’s Magazine,’ a religious serial. They were, however, similarly declined in pantomime.
‘He’s not particularly polite, whoever he is,’ thought Mr. Larkin, with a sniff. However, he tried the effect of a direct observation. So getting one seat nearer, he said:–
‘Wonderful place Shillingsworth, Sir; one does not really, until one has visited it two or three times over, at all comprehend its wealth and importance; and how justly high it deserves to hold its head amongst the provincial emporia of our productive industry.’
The shapeless traveller in the corner touched his ear with his pudgy dogskin fingers, and shook his hand and head a little, in token either that he was deaf, or the noise such as to prevent his hearing, and in the next moment the glittering eyes closed, and the pantomimist appeared to be asleep.
And now, again, the train subsided to a stand-still, and Shillingsworth resounded through the night air, and Larkin scrambled forward to the window, by which sat the enveloped gentleman, and called the porter, and, with many unheeded apologies, pulled out his various properties, close by the knees of the tranquil traveller. So, Mr. Larkin was on the platform, and his belongings stowed away against the wall of the station-house.