Volume Three—Chapter Five.Before the Juge de Paix.Following the Chef, on her arrival at the office, Miss Kingscott found Monsieur le Juge de Paix to be an oldish man, with sharp striking features, his nose having an unfair advantage over the others; and his skin, tightly drawn over the face, was of that saffron hue which adapts itself to the complexion of most Frenchmen, and Messieurs les Espagnols as well, after they have entered their eighth lustrum. He was seated in his official chamber, surrounded with all the majesty of the law, as suited his elevated position. A clerk occupied a lower desk in the same room, and the majestic demeanour of his superior seemed reflected, although in an inferior degree, on him.Dèchemal and Auguste, the Chefs aides, were both there. So also was the Mère Cliquelle and her husband, appearing terribly frightened, and imagining that they were going to be guillotined at the least. A bust of Napoleon the Third looked down from a niche in the wall, facing the judge, sternly on all, giving an air of dignity to the whole proceedings. The judge was taking notes, his clerk following suit; themouchardscontemplating the impassable physiognomy of the “Man of Destiny;” the Mère Cliquelle and her small better-half awaiting their turn for examination in the background. There was no crowd, no troops of friends and spectators and idlers, such as you would see in a disorderly English court-room; no, they manage these things very differently in France. There were only those persons present who were absolutely necessary for conducting the enquiry; all was silent and quiet, although the machinery of the law Gallic was in rapid motion.The wheels of justice run in greased grooves on the other side of the Channel.The arrival of the Chef and his important witness, Miss Kingscott, accelerated movements.The governess deposed, on oath, as follows:—That on the previous day she had crossed over from Southampton, Angleterre, to Havre,par la vapeur; her object was to see a certain Monsieur Anglais, by name Allynne Markworth (the judge had some difficulty in arriving at the exact etymology of the name, being inclined more than persistently to call it “Makervorts;” so Miss Kingscott had to spell it succinctly, and afterwards write it down for the correct information of the clerk). This gentleman lived, when at Havre, at the house Numéro 7, Rue Montmartre; he had lived there for the last three months, she believed, with his wife—that is a lady whom he had married in England, after abducting her from her home; it was not yet settled whether she was legally his wife or not—there was a law-suit, orprocès civil, at present pending in England on the subject. She (Miss Kingscott) knew this lady—Markworth’s wife—very well; she had, indeed, been hergouvernanteat her mother’s house for some months; she had reason to know her, she should think, and would not have any difficulty in recognising her. Her name was Susan Hartshorne. This Susan Hartshorne came from thedépartement de Sussex, au sud de l’Angleterre; her mother wasune veuve, and a largepropriétaire; her address was The Poplars, Sussex, England (direction given by the judge, and note taken by clerk to forward information to said address); she (Miss Kingscott) had crossed in the boat, as she had said, yesterday, and arrived at Havre about mid-day. Perhaps it was before that time, she could not be certain, and, at all events, it did not matter. (Witness was here cautioned by the judge not to make any irrelevant observations. Nothing was too insignificant to be taken note of; the eye of justice was wide, and comprehended everything in its vision.) Markworth probably came over in the same boat with her.“Did Mademoiselle seece Monsieur làon board?”“Yes, Mademoiselle did see him on board; it was at night, and dark; but she saw him come on the boat at Southampton, and she saw him leave it yesterday when they arrived at Havre; she had been watching him.”“Did Mademoiselle accompany Monsieur?”“No, certainly not; she had not spoken to him all the time they were on board; she did not think that he knew she was there.”“It is very strange. I thought Mademoiselle came over especially to see this Monsieur Markworth?Mon Dieu! Here she was on board with him all the time on the boat, and she had not spoken to him! She did not think even that this monsieur knew she was there! It was very strange!”“Yes, it might be strange; but she had her own reasons for acting as she did. She did not wish this Markworth to know that she was there, or to meet him until after he had landed and gone home; she had her reasons.”“Mademoiselle then hadMonsieurunder surveillance?”“Well, they might call it spying if they liked. She had watched this Markworth enter the house already pointed out in the Rue Montmartre. She had then herself gone to the Hotel du Côte d’Or, and secured anappartement. After this she had returned to the Rue Montmartre, and asked at the house of the Mère Cliquelle to see M. Markworth. She had been refused admittance, although she knew he waschez lui. In carrying out her purpose of watching his movements, she had gone over to a café on the opposite side of the street, from the upper room of which she was able to observe the house atNuméro Sept. She watched there until late in the afternoon—evening it was, for it was after seven—nearly eight o’clock she thought. At that time she then saw Markworth come out of the house along with his wife—the girl Susan Hartshorne, to whom she had before referred.”“Can you swear it was her?”“Je le jure” responded Miss Kingscott, and then went on with her deposition. She went out from her place of observation quickly after them. They went in the direction of Ingouville, up the heights; Markworth walking by the side of his wife, or reputed wife, and she, Miss Kingscott some little distance behind them. She did not speak to them, and did not think that they knew of her propinquity. She let them get on some distance ahead of her, although she still followed and kept them in sight. When they got on the heights they stopped walking, and she hid herself behind a projecting wall. She feared some mischief, and watched to see what Markworth was going to do. Presently she heard his voice raised as if in anger, and then the voice of the girl Susan as if in supplication. She then heard a scream from the unfortunate girl. She, Miss Kingscott, rushed forward to help her. She was too late.Hélas! She saw this Markworth, this villain, throw the girl over the precipice.“You saw him throw her over?”“Yes, I swear it. I then tried to stop the murderer, but he escaped from my hands, knocked me senseless with a blow—here is the cut on my forehead now—and he got off, heaven only knows where. I had cried, ‘à voleur’ and ‘assassinat’ as loud as I could before I became insensible, but no one came to my help. When I recovered my consciousness I walked feebly down the path, and meeting asergent de ville, told him all about the murder, but he arrested me, thinking, he says, I was drunk, and I was locked up in a cell till this evening, when the Chef released me, apologising for the mistake of his subordinate. I have only to add,” observed Miss Kingscott, after she had finished answering the questions put to her, “that had it not been for this mistake on the part of your boastedsergents de ville, which could only have arisen from sheer stupidity, the murderer might never have got off.”“C’est possible!” said the judge, making a note against the name of the unfortunate guardian of the peace who had arrested the governess. “But Mademoiselle will recollect that according to her statement it was several hours after the escape of her assailant that she was thusarrêtée. Call the next witnesses!”And the interrogatory went on.The Mère Cliquelle and her husband, “son petit bon homme,” as she called him, were then examined to the same purport as already detailed by the Chef to Miss Kingscott, Dèchemal corroborating what had been previously told him, and certifying to their arrest by him, and importation before the Juge de Paix.Auguste, the other of the Chefs inquisitors, had little to tell. He had searched thecabaretsand hotels, and enquired at the office of the Steamboat Company, and along the quays. No Englishman, or any one else resembling Markworth’s description had been seen or heard of since yesterday evening, or had taken passage for England.This was all the evidence that could be obtained, and on it Monsieur le Juge de Paix framed theacte d’accusation, by which the charge of wilful murder was established against Markworth, and a warrant issued for his arrest.The police, therefore, acting under the orders of the Chef, were on the alert.Directions were also given to the fishermen and sailors about the quays to look out for a body in the river: the Seine was then dragged with better effect, for the very next day the surmises of the Judge and the Chef were set at rest.The body of a fair woman, with light brown hair and about twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, was discovered floating beneath the battlements of the centre quay. The features were nearly indistinguishable from the action of the water or the attacks of crustacea, but the remains of a crimson merino dress still clung around the body, which Miss Kingscott immediately recognised and identified as that of Susan Hartshorne. The Mère Cliquelle and her husband were also certain that the remains were those of the poor English lady, although neither were positive about the dress. Madame Cliquelle said that she had never observed any particular colour in the dress of Madame (Miss Kingscott had testified in her deposition that Susan Hartshorne always wore robes of bright hue, different, as a rule, from anyone else), but she might have worn this particular dress and gone out in it that evening without her having noticed it.Hélas! however, what need had they to be particular about a worthless dress when they had the body of the poor Madame before them! The Mère Cliquelle wept over the lifeless shell of humanity; and even her little husband shed tears as he recounted how he andla pauvre belle ange Anglaiseused to “spik Inglese togeders.”The afternoon of the same day, too, a fisherman from Honfleur communicated with the police, and gave evidence that about ten o’clock on the night of the murder he had conveyed an Englishman, answering in every respect to the description of Markworth, across from Havre to his own village: he had been out to sea and along the coast since then, and had consequently not heard of the inquiry before.There was no doubt of this being Markworth, as the fisherman described him to a hair with two or three telling word-strokes. The landlord of the Auberge, also, where he had stopped at Honfleur, produced a torn envelope which had been carelessly dropped by his guest. It was addressed “Allynne Markworth, Esqr.;” that settled the question.Two clear days, however, had passed; and although the object of their search was traced to Paris, all further clue of his track was lost, and where he had gone remained an unsolved problem.The French police, with all their acuteness andfinesse, in the exercise of which they are far ahead of our blundering English detectives (and those vile, social-inquisitorial dens of humbug and area-sneakishness called “Private Inquiry Offices,” too) were at fault, and the game had to be given up. From some papers found amongst the things he had left behind him at the Rue Montmartre, it was surmised that Markworth had gone to America; a photograph of himself was also discovered, which he had had taken with one of his wife—it may be remembered that Markworth had shown a carte de visite of Susan to Mr Trump, when he had gone to the lawyers to tell of his marriage, and claim the reward for the missing girl. These photographs were carefully preserved by the police, and copies of Markworth’s likeness despatched to various points to secure his arrest in case he put foot on French ground.Nothing more could be done, however, by the Juge de Paix or the Chef. The machinery of justice had been set in motion; and although its wheels were greased it had to stop working; itsbûtwas non-apparent.The depositions and evidence of the witnesses, who were now released from surveillance, were preserved until the occasion should arise for their utility.Miss Kingscott was a potent pursuer, but the prey had escaped her again: she had still to wait for vengeance.In the meantime the body of the girl was kept for burial until word should be received from England,The chief of the police had communicated with the mother of Markworth’s victim, having written to theveuveHartshorne, according to the address given by Miss Kingscott; the latter personage had also sent her version of the affair to the widow lady’s lawyers, and both were now awaiting response.
Following the Chef, on her arrival at the office, Miss Kingscott found Monsieur le Juge de Paix to be an oldish man, with sharp striking features, his nose having an unfair advantage over the others; and his skin, tightly drawn over the face, was of that saffron hue which adapts itself to the complexion of most Frenchmen, and Messieurs les Espagnols as well, after they have entered their eighth lustrum. He was seated in his official chamber, surrounded with all the majesty of the law, as suited his elevated position. A clerk occupied a lower desk in the same room, and the majestic demeanour of his superior seemed reflected, although in an inferior degree, on him.
Dèchemal and Auguste, the Chefs aides, were both there. So also was the Mère Cliquelle and her husband, appearing terribly frightened, and imagining that they were going to be guillotined at the least. A bust of Napoleon the Third looked down from a niche in the wall, facing the judge, sternly on all, giving an air of dignity to the whole proceedings. The judge was taking notes, his clerk following suit; themouchardscontemplating the impassable physiognomy of the “Man of Destiny;” the Mère Cliquelle and her small better-half awaiting their turn for examination in the background. There was no crowd, no troops of friends and spectators and idlers, such as you would see in a disorderly English court-room; no, they manage these things very differently in France. There were only those persons present who were absolutely necessary for conducting the enquiry; all was silent and quiet, although the machinery of the law Gallic was in rapid motion.
The wheels of justice run in greased grooves on the other side of the Channel.
The arrival of the Chef and his important witness, Miss Kingscott, accelerated movements.
The governess deposed, on oath, as follows:—That on the previous day she had crossed over from Southampton, Angleterre, to Havre,par la vapeur; her object was to see a certain Monsieur Anglais, by name Allynne Markworth (the judge had some difficulty in arriving at the exact etymology of the name, being inclined more than persistently to call it “Makervorts;” so Miss Kingscott had to spell it succinctly, and afterwards write it down for the correct information of the clerk). This gentleman lived, when at Havre, at the house Numéro 7, Rue Montmartre; he had lived there for the last three months, she believed, with his wife—that is a lady whom he had married in England, after abducting her from her home; it was not yet settled whether she was legally his wife or not—there was a law-suit, orprocès civil, at present pending in England on the subject. She (Miss Kingscott) knew this lady—Markworth’s wife—very well; she had, indeed, been hergouvernanteat her mother’s house for some months; she had reason to know her, she should think, and would not have any difficulty in recognising her. Her name was Susan Hartshorne. This Susan Hartshorne came from thedépartement de Sussex, au sud de l’Angleterre; her mother wasune veuve, and a largepropriétaire; her address was The Poplars, Sussex, England (direction given by the judge, and note taken by clerk to forward information to said address); she (Miss Kingscott) had crossed in the boat, as she had said, yesterday, and arrived at Havre about mid-day. Perhaps it was before that time, she could not be certain, and, at all events, it did not matter. (Witness was here cautioned by the judge not to make any irrelevant observations. Nothing was too insignificant to be taken note of; the eye of justice was wide, and comprehended everything in its vision.) Markworth probably came over in the same boat with her.
“Did Mademoiselle seece Monsieur làon board?”
“Yes, Mademoiselle did see him on board; it was at night, and dark; but she saw him come on the boat at Southampton, and she saw him leave it yesterday when they arrived at Havre; she had been watching him.”
“Did Mademoiselle accompany Monsieur?”
“No, certainly not; she had not spoken to him all the time they were on board; she did not think that he knew she was there.”
“It is very strange. I thought Mademoiselle came over especially to see this Monsieur Markworth?Mon Dieu! Here she was on board with him all the time on the boat, and she had not spoken to him! She did not think even that this monsieur knew she was there! It was very strange!”
“Yes, it might be strange; but she had her own reasons for acting as she did. She did not wish this Markworth to know that she was there, or to meet him until after he had landed and gone home; she had her reasons.”
“Mademoiselle then hadMonsieurunder surveillance?”
“Well, they might call it spying if they liked. She had watched this Markworth enter the house already pointed out in the Rue Montmartre. She had then herself gone to the Hotel du Côte d’Or, and secured anappartement. After this she had returned to the Rue Montmartre, and asked at the house of the Mère Cliquelle to see M. Markworth. She had been refused admittance, although she knew he waschez lui. In carrying out her purpose of watching his movements, she had gone over to a café on the opposite side of the street, from the upper room of which she was able to observe the house atNuméro Sept. She watched there until late in the afternoon—evening it was, for it was after seven—nearly eight o’clock she thought. At that time she then saw Markworth come out of the house along with his wife—the girl Susan Hartshorne, to whom she had before referred.”
“Can you swear it was her?”
“Je le jure” responded Miss Kingscott, and then went on with her deposition. She went out from her place of observation quickly after them. They went in the direction of Ingouville, up the heights; Markworth walking by the side of his wife, or reputed wife, and she, Miss Kingscott some little distance behind them. She did not speak to them, and did not think that they knew of her propinquity. She let them get on some distance ahead of her, although she still followed and kept them in sight. When they got on the heights they stopped walking, and she hid herself behind a projecting wall. She feared some mischief, and watched to see what Markworth was going to do. Presently she heard his voice raised as if in anger, and then the voice of the girl Susan as if in supplication. She then heard a scream from the unfortunate girl. She, Miss Kingscott, rushed forward to help her. She was too late.Hélas! She saw this Markworth, this villain, throw the girl over the precipice.
“You saw him throw her over?”
“Yes, I swear it. I then tried to stop the murderer, but he escaped from my hands, knocked me senseless with a blow—here is the cut on my forehead now—and he got off, heaven only knows where. I had cried, ‘à voleur’ and ‘assassinat’ as loud as I could before I became insensible, but no one came to my help. When I recovered my consciousness I walked feebly down the path, and meeting asergent de ville, told him all about the murder, but he arrested me, thinking, he says, I was drunk, and I was locked up in a cell till this evening, when the Chef released me, apologising for the mistake of his subordinate. I have only to add,” observed Miss Kingscott, after she had finished answering the questions put to her, “that had it not been for this mistake on the part of your boastedsergents de ville, which could only have arisen from sheer stupidity, the murderer might never have got off.”
“C’est possible!” said the judge, making a note against the name of the unfortunate guardian of the peace who had arrested the governess. “But Mademoiselle will recollect that according to her statement it was several hours after the escape of her assailant that she was thusarrêtée. Call the next witnesses!”
And the interrogatory went on.
The Mère Cliquelle and her husband, “son petit bon homme,” as she called him, were then examined to the same purport as already detailed by the Chef to Miss Kingscott, Dèchemal corroborating what had been previously told him, and certifying to their arrest by him, and importation before the Juge de Paix.
Auguste, the other of the Chefs inquisitors, had little to tell. He had searched thecabaretsand hotels, and enquired at the office of the Steamboat Company, and along the quays. No Englishman, or any one else resembling Markworth’s description had been seen or heard of since yesterday evening, or had taken passage for England.
This was all the evidence that could be obtained, and on it Monsieur le Juge de Paix framed theacte d’accusation, by which the charge of wilful murder was established against Markworth, and a warrant issued for his arrest.
The police, therefore, acting under the orders of the Chef, were on the alert.
Directions were also given to the fishermen and sailors about the quays to look out for a body in the river: the Seine was then dragged with better effect, for the very next day the surmises of the Judge and the Chef were set at rest.
The body of a fair woman, with light brown hair and about twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, was discovered floating beneath the battlements of the centre quay. The features were nearly indistinguishable from the action of the water or the attacks of crustacea, but the remains of a crimson merino dress still clung around the body, which Miss Kingscott immediately recognised and identified as that of Susan Hartshorne. The Mère Cliquelle and her husband were also certain that the remains were those of the poor English lady, although neither were positive about the dress. Madame Cliquelle said that she had never observed any particular colour in the dress of Madame (Miss Kingscott had testified in her deposition that Susan Hartshorne always wore robes of bright hue, different, as a rule, from anyone else), but she might have worn this particular dress and gone out in it that evening without her having noticed it.Hélas! however, what need had they to be particular about a worthless dress when they had the body of the poor Madame before them! The Mère Cliquelle wept over the lifeless shell of humanity; and even her little husband shed tears as he recounted how he andla pauvre belle ange Anglaiseused to “spik Inglese togeders.”
The afternoon of the same day, too, a fisherman from Honfleur communicated with the police, and gave evidence that about ten o’clock on the night of the murder he had conveyed an Englishman, answering in every respect to the description of Markworth, across from Havre to his own village: he had been out to sea and along the coast since then, and had consequently not heard of the inquiry before.
There was no doubt of this being Markworth, as the fisherman described him to a hair with two or three telling word-strokes. The landlord of the Auberge, also, where he had stopped at Honfleur, produced a torn envelope which had been carelessly dropped by his guest. It was addressed “Allynne Markworth, Esqr.;” that settled the question.
Two clear days, however, had passed; and although the object of their search was traced to Paris, all further clue of his track was lost, and where he had gone remained an unsolved problem.
The French police, with all their acuteness andfinesse, in the exercise of which they are far ahead of our blundering English detectives (and those vile, social-inquisitorial dens of humbug and area-sneakishness called “Private Inquiry Offices,” too) were at fault, and the game had to be given up. From some papers found amongst the things he had left behind him at the Rue Montmartre, it was surmised that Markworth had gone to America; a photograph of himself was also discovered, which he had had taken with one of his wife—it may be remembered that Markworth had shown a carte de visite of Susan to Mr Trump, when he had gone to the lawyers to tell of his marriage, and claim the reward for the missing girl. These photographs were carefully preserved by the police, and copies of Markworth’s likeness despatched to various points to secure his arrest in case he put foot on French ground.
Nothing more could be done, however, by the Juge de Paix or the Chef. The machinery of justice had been set in motion; and although its wheels were greased it had to stop working; itsbûtwas non-apparent.
The depositions and evidence of the witnesses, who were now released from surveillance, were preserved until the occasion should arise for their utility.
Miss Kingscott was a potent pursuer, but the prey had escaped her again: she had still to wait for vengeance.
In the meantime the body of the girl was kept for burial until word should be received from England,
The chief of the police had communicated with the mother of Markworth’s victim, having written to theveuveHartshorne, according to the address given by Miss Kingscott; the latter personage had also sent her version of the affair to the widow lady’s lawyers, and both were now awaiting response.
Volume Three—Chapter Six.The Dowager Aroused—the Dowager Struck Down!Dead!“What? Susan dead!” She could not believe it; she wouldn’t, and that was a fact. “Stuff and nonsense! don’t tell me,” she exclaimed; “I won’t believe it.”“But, my dear madam,” interposed Mr Trump, who had come down especially to The Poplars, for the purpose of breaking the news, and considering what was to be done on receiving Miss Kingscott’s letter. “But, my dear madam, I have received the most satisfactory intelligence about the unfortunate event, and we must do something.”“Nonsense! don’t tell me! Susan dead, indeed! What should make her die? She is a hale, strong girl, much stronger than I am, and I am not going to die yet. It’s all some lying nonsense or other; that woman, the governess, who wrote to you, is capable of anything, after what you told me of her helping that villain to go away—and she as meek as a mouse all the time as if butter would not melt in her mouth! Stuff and nonsense! It’s all a lie from beginning to end.” But the old dowager did not speak with her customary absolute quality of expression. There was a lingering dread in her voice as if she wanted to be assured of the truth of what she herself had declared, and as if she feared the worst to be confirmed.Mr Trump, from his previous knowledge of the family, did not think that Mrs Hartshorne would grieve very much about her daughter, and so he did not mince matters. He took out Miss Kingscott’s letter, and showed it her.The old lady grasped it with trembling hands, and read it from first to last in silence, although her fingers shook, and the paper rustled in her clutch.“I can’t read it,” she said, after a long pause, in a faint voice, without its usual querulous intonation. “My eyes are weak; they are not so strong as they were. The light to-day is very bad. That handwriting is so small, I cannot make it out. Here, take the worthless thing and read it out to me yourself. I cannot make head or tail of it.”Mr Trump resumed possession of the document; his sight was not deficient, nor the light too bad for him, or the calligraphy beyond his comprehension. He read as follows, in his loud, clear voice:—“Havre.“Mr Trump,—“Sir,—You will remember our conversation some days since with reference to the abduction of Susan Hartshorne by Markworth, and the desire I expressed to avow my share in the conspiracy? I have something now far more dreadful to communicate; the poor girl Susan has been murdered by that villain, Markworth! Finding, I suppose, all his hopes of gaining the girl’s fortune fruitless, after his explanation with you, he returned to Havre the same evening. For reasons of my own, I followed him over from England. The very same evening he returned here he took out the girl for a walk, and this ended in his throwing her over a precipice and murdering her—I suppose, in order to get rid of her, as he could not secure the money. How I came to be present will be explained in the accompanying attested copies of my deposition, and that of the other witnesses taken before the Juge de Paix, or principal magistrate of this town. The body of the poor girl was found this afternoon, floating in the river Seine, close to the scene of the brutal murder. I have seen it, and there is no doubt of its being Susan Hartshorne, but the authorities need some further identification by some member of the unfortunate victim’s family (or by some person authorised by them) before it is buried, or any further proceedings taken. I entreat you, my dear sir, to come over here at once. The murderer has escaped, the police seem undetermined; and although I have done all I could to stir them up, still I am only a woman, and cannot have that influence over them which a man would possess. They say that Markworth has gone to America, but surely something ought to be done, so you had better come over here, if you have got any interest in the fate of the poor girl. I believe the chief of the police has written to Mrs Hartshorne, but whether she will be able to come I do not know, and I think she had better not. Pray come yourself at once, or else the murderer will escape, and his crime be unavenged; and, besides, there are many other things to be attended to, notwithstanding that I have done my best. Come at once, and see what is to be done; you can take the night boat, which leaves Southampton at midnight, after seeing Mrs Hartshorne on your way.“Yours, in haste,“Clara Kingscott.“Messrs Trump, Sequence, and Co.,“Bedford Row, London.”The old lady never moved, or spoke once during the time which Mr Trump was occupied in reading the governess’s long letter and the legal documents that accompanied it, although if the lawyer had looked at her, instead of at the papers, which he was perusing, he would have observed a strange and wonderful change in her face.“Is that all? Have you done?” she asked, in a deep, hollow voice, so unlike her own, that the lawyer started and looked at her inquiringly.“That is all,” he answered.The old dowager had received no intimation before of the startling news. The Chef had undoubtedly forwarded a communication to theveuvebereaved; but, addressed as it wasau sud de l’Angleterre, it would take some weeks for it to reach The Poplars, if it ever got there.Mr Trump waited in vain for some time for what the old lady would say, glancing over the depositions, which Clara Kingscott had had translated for his benefit.At last the dowager spoke.“Go! Go!” she screamed out in a shrill, unearthly voice. “Pursue him! The murderer! The villain! The swindling rogue!”As Mr Trump looked at her in amazement her face became of a blue and livid colour.“I—I will go too! Get my—” The blue colour had now turned to black, and the old lady seemed to draw herself up as she exclaimed in disjointed sentences. “Get my—Susan!—Husband!—Where am I!”And with a still shriller shriek she fell forward on her face on the floor.“Apoplexy, my dear sir,” as Mr Trump said afterwards in detailing the circumstance to aconfrère. “Apoplexy, my dear sir! It often happens to people like her from a sudden shock!” But he was wrong, it was a more insidious if not so fatal a disease—it was paralysis, the fell enemy of muscularity.The lawyer at once sent for a doctor; and “Garge,” the messenger despatched, went to Bigton for Doctor Jolly, as he was the only medical man recognised in the country round. But our old friend was not at home, he had not returned yet from his unusual absence abroad; and Dobbins, the whilom coal merchant, who was acting in his stead, shortly came to see the dowager. After a hasty inspection he saw what was the case, and telling Mr Trump that further assistance would be required, the lawyer telegraphed up to London for the great doctor, Stephanos Jenner, who arrived in the evening. This great authority confirmed the opinion of the lesser medical light. He said, after a preliminary “Ha! Hum!” that the treatment of the patient was everything that could be desired; and, accepting a fee of fifty guineas, which Mr Trump presented him by cheque, went off again to London after a few minutes’ consultation, leaving the dowager in the hands of Dobbins, who, to do him justice, knew what he was about; and of Mr Trump, who hardly knew what to do.The lawyer was puzzled at the first; but his logical mind, keen to action, comprehended the situation, and prepared to act. He could not help moralising for a moment, however, on the vanity of human wishes, and the truthfulness of the proverb which tells us that “L’homme propose mais le bon Dieu dispose.” The dowager had not been “going to die yet;” she had been ready to do anything and everything, and derided the idea of death and sickness; but here she was struck down in all her strength, and lying stretched out there a senseless lump of humanity without either the power or even the will to do anything.Tali sunt solicitae vitae!However, as she could not, he had to act. So, after a hasty whisper with Dobbins—it was now getting late in the December night—he determined to proceed to Havre alone. Somebody had to go, for much had to be done; so much does not fall on all lawyer’s shoulders as rested on Mr Trump’s then. The dowager was accordingly left in the hands of Dobbins—who said that Doctor Jolly would probably return the next day, when he would undoubtedly take charge—and of the old woman-servant, who had described herself as being as hard-worked as “a pore nigger slave,” but who now cheerfully attended to her mistress, with whom she had lived for some twenty years, having treated with indignation the suggestion of calling in a hired nurse. “Not if I knows it,” she said, vehemently, “these hands wot ’ave worked for her twenty year will nuss her now; I should like ter know who else has any right to displace I?” So Dobbins conceded the points, at all events until Aesculapius proper should return; and he and the old woman nursed the dowager between them, and got her to bed, while Mr Trump went off on his travels. There was quite a revolution and a dark shadow in the old house, while the leafless poplars which encircled it seemed like funeral plumes, and the old house itself a hearse, in the hazy light of the dull December night.The lawyer’s journey was a comparatively easy one in comparison with that which our old friend the doctor had taken some time before.He travelled rapidly to Southampton by the express, which he caught at Bigton—only occasional trains stopped at Hartwood—and was in plenty of time to despatch sundry telegraphic instructions to his clerks in London before embarking in the night boat for Havre. At midnight, instead of going to his warm bed in his comfortable suburban retreat, as he usually did at that hour, Mr Trump had to pull on his nightcap between the rolls of the waves, and ensconce himself in the narrow bunk that fell to his share of the cabin in the channel-crossing steam-packet. However, Mr Trump was a man of the world besides being a man of business, and knew how to accommodate himself to circumstances, and make matters as comfortable as he could under unforeseen data. So there is little doubt that he went to sleep at last, in spite of the narrowness of his lodging, and just as probably, he snored harmoniously to the accompaniment of the steamboat’s paddles.The morning found him at Havre, prepared to set about his business as methodically as if he were only going down to his chambers in Bedford Row as usual, instead of being in a strange country.He first went to the police office, and subsequently to the address given by Miss Kingscott. Mr Trump never trusted to individual evidence. With the governess and Monsieur le Chef, he proceeded to view the remains of what had been Susan Hartshorne, and identify them. The inspection was merely a work of detail, for the face was irrecognisable, even more so now than when it had been first taken out of the water. The lawyer, to the best of his belief, thought it to be Susan. And then the corpse was buried in the cemetery with a single headstone above the grave, on which the name “Susan,” alone was inscribed, and her age.Mr Trump had already explained his position, and stated himself to be the representative of the deceased’s family to the chief of the police, who was most cordial and polite to him on learning that he wasun avocat Anglais. The chef, to the lawyer’s astonishment, spoke English fluently, just as if he were a native, and told him he knew Bedford Row as well as the Palais Royal in Paris. From him also, Mr Trump learnt a more coherent, and less one-sided story than from Miss Kingscott, although her statements were confirmed. From the evidence of the one witness, the case was evidently strong against Markworth, both the chef and the lawyer determined; but then the one witness was, on her own testimony, and from Mr Trump’s previous knowledge, strongly antagonistic to Markworth; and his legal mind compassed the probabilities of something to be said on the other side. Markworth’s disappearance was the great thing against him, for the girl might have drowned herself, and the scene which Clara Kingscott described never have taken place at all. It is true her story was somewhat corroborated, and the doctors had said, on the examination of the dead girl’s body, that death might have ensued from a jagged wound in the head which probably had been caused by a fall; but they had only said this when they had been asked their opinion on these points, and Miss Kingscott’s revelations been told them.Altogether, Mr Trump thought it better to let the French police pursue their own course in the matter, and not interfere with them by any proceedings of his own. He also gave up to their possession all the poor girl’s things which had been left behind at the Rue Montmartre; and he had a kindly word to say to the Mère Cliquelle and her husband for their kindness and treatment towards the ill-fated Susan.Miss Kingscott was in a rage of mortification at the lawyer’s apparent apathy; but her words had no weight with him; he had conceived a species of aversion towards her ever since her disclosure to him that night in Bedford Row; and the avowal of her purpose since, to track Markworth to the death, had not increased his regard, although it heightened his judgment on her as a “woman with a purpose.”After an absence of three days or more, Mr Trump returned to England. His hands drew up the advertisement of Susan’s death, which he caused to be inserted in theTimes. The circumstances of the mystery had not got abroad, and he did not wish to court public enquiry as yet, so he worded the announcement very simply:At Havre, on the 27th ultimo, from an accident, Susan, wife of Allynne Markworth, and only daughter of Roger Hartshorne, Esq., of The Poplars, Sussex.The lawyer then went down to see how the old lady was getting on.She was still speechless—thoughtless—lying as it were on the brink of eternity; and Doctor Jolly, who had now returned, and was attending her, did not yet know whether she would recover or not. The doctor and Mr Trump had a long conversation together, and mutual explanations. The lawyer was more than ever glad that he had taken no further proceedings about Susan’s death, although he wrote out to Tom Hartshorne, now among the heights of Abyssinia, telling him all about it.Meanwhile, the old lady—struck down in her prime—was hovering on the edge of the grave, in her great, old solitary house at The Poplars. Her son had flown away, her daughter was among the departed, and she alone was left to struggle with the Mower’s scythe, alone—although she neither seemed to think nor feel—Doctor Jolly and strangers ministering to her. It is sad being alone—sadder being alone at the last! May you, reader, never feel it!
Dead!
“What? Susan dead!” She could not believe it; she wouldn’t, and that was a fact. “Stuff and nonsense! don’t tell me,” she exclaimed; “I won’t believe it.”
“But, my dear madam,” interposed Mr Trump, who had come down especially to The Poplars, for the purpose of breaking the news, and considering what was to be done on receiving Miss Kingscott’s letter. “But, my dear madam, I have received the most satisfactory intelligence about the unfortunate event, and we must do something.”
“Nonsense! don’t tell me! Susan dead, indeed! What should make her die? She is a hale, strong girl, much stronger than I am, and I am not going to die yet. It’s all some lying nonsense or other; that woman, the governess, who wrote to you, is capable of anything, after what you told me of her helping that villain to go away—and she as meek as a mouse all the time as if butter would not melt in her mouth! Stuff and nonsense! It’s all a lie from beginning to end.” But the old dowager did not speak with her customary absolute quality of expression. There was a lingering dread in her voice as if she wanted to be assured of the truth of what she herself had declared, and as if she feared the worst to be confirmed.
Mr Trump, from his previous knowledge of the family, did not think that Mrs Hartshorne would grieve very much about her daughter, and so he did not mince matters. He took out Miss Kingscott’s letter, and showed it her.
The old lady grasped it with trembling hands, and read it from first to last in silence, although her fingers shook, and the paper rustled in her clutch.
“I can’t read it,” she said, after a long pause, in a faint voice, without its usual querulous intonation. “My eyes are weak; they are not so strong as they were. The light to-day is very bad. That handwriting is so small, I cannot make it out. Here, take the worthless thing and read it out to me yourself. I cannot make head or tail of it.”
Mr Trump resumed possession of the document; his sight was not deficient, nor the light too bad for him, or the calligraphy beyond his comprehension. He read as follows, in his loud, clear voice:—
“Havre.
“Mr Trump,—
“Sir,—You will remember our conversation some days since with reference to the abduction of Susan Hartshorne by Markworth, and the desire I expressed to avow my share in the conspiracy? I have something now far more dreadful to communicate; the poor girl Susan has been murdered by that villain, Markworth! Finding, I suppose, all his hopes of gaining the girl’s fortune fruitless, after his explanation with you, he returned to Havre the same evening. For reasons of my own, I followed him over from England. The very same evening he returned here he took out the girl for a walk, and this ended in his throwing her over a precipice and murdering her—I suppose, in order to get rid of her, as he could not secure the money. How I came to be present will be explained in the accompanying attested copies of my deposition, and that of the other witnesses taken before the Juge de Paix, or principal magistrate of this town. The body of the poor girl was found this afternoon, floating in the river Seine, close to the scene of the brutal murder. I have seen it, and there is no doubt of its being Susan Hartshorne, but the authorities need some further identification by some member of the unfortunate victim’s family (or by some person authorised by them) before it is buried, or any further proceedings taken. I entreat you, my dear sir, to come over here at once. The murderer has escaped, the police seem undetermined; and although I have done all I could to stir them up, still I am only a woman, and cannot have that influence over them which a man would possess. They say that Markworth has gone to America, but surely something ought to be done, so you had better come over here, if you have got any interest in the fate of the poor girl. I believe the chief of the police has written to Mrs Hartshorne, but whether she will be able to come I do not know, and I think she had better not. Pray come yourself at once, or else the murderer will escape, and his crime be unavenged; and, besides, there are many other things to be attended to, notwithstanding that I have done my best. Come at once, and see what is to be done; you can take the night boat, which leaves Southampton at midnight, after seeing Mrs Hartshorne on your way.
“Yours, in haste,
“Clara Kingscott.
“Messrs Trump, Sequence, and Co.,
“Bedford Row, London.”
The old lady never moved, or spoke once during the time which Mr Trump was occupied in reading the governess’s long letter and the legal documents that accompanied it, although if the lawyer had looked at her, instead of at the papers, which he was perusing, he would have observed a strange and wonderful change in her face.
“Is that all? Have you done?” she asked, in a deep, hollow voice, so unlike her own, that the lawyer started and looked at her inquiringly.
“That is all,” he answered.
The old dowager had received no intimation before of the startling news. The Chef had undoubtedly forwarded a communication to theveuvebereaved; but, addressed as it wasau sud de l’Angleterre, it would take some weeks for it to reach The Poplars, if it ever got there.
Mr Trump waited in vain for some time for what the old lady would say, glancing over the depositions, which Clara Kingscott had had translated for his benefit.
At last the dowager spoke.
“Go! Go!” she screamed out in a shrill, unearthly voice. “Pursue him! The murderer! The villain! The swindling rogue!”
As Mr Trump looked at her in amazement her face became of a blue and livid colour.
“I—I will go too! Get my—” The blue colour had now turned to black, and the old lady seemed to draw herself up as she exclaimed in disjointed sentences. “Get my—Susan!—Husband!—Where am I!”
And with a still shriller shriek she fell forward on her face on the floor.
“Apoplexy, my dear sir,” as Mr Trump said afterwards in detailing the circumstance to aconfrère. “Apoplexy, my dear sir! It often happens to people like her from a sudden shock!” But he was wrong, it was a more insidious if not so fatal a disease—it was paralysis, the fell enemy of muscularity.
The lawyer at once sent for a doctor; and “Garge,” the messenger despatched, went to Bigton for Doctor Jolly, as he was the only medical man recognised in the country round. But our old friend was not at home, he had not returned yet from his unusual absence abroad; and Dobbins, the whilom coal merchant, who was acting in his stead, shortly came to see the dowager. After a hasty inspection he saw what was the case, and telling Mr Trump that further assistance would be required, the lawyer telegraphed up to London for the great doctor, Stephanos Jenner, who arrived in the evening. This great authority confirmed the opinion of the lesser medical light. He said, after a preliminary “Ha! Hum!” that the treatment of the patient was everything that could be desired; and, accepting a fee of fifty guineas, which Mr Trump presented him by cheque, went off again to London after a few minutes’ consultation, leaving the dowager in the hands of Dobbins, who, to do him justice, knew what he was about; and of Mr Trump, who hardly knew what to do.
The lawyer was puzzled at the first; but his logical mind, keen to action, comprehended the situation, and prepared to act. He could not help moralising for a moment, however, on the vanity of human wishes, and the truthfulness of the proverb which tells us that “L’homme propose mais le bon Dieu dispose.” The dowager had not been “going to die yet;” she had been ready to do anything and everything, and derided the idea of death and sickness; but here she was struck down in all her strength, and lying stretched out there a senseless lump of humanity without either the power or even the will to do anything.Tali sunt solicitae vitae!
However, as she could not, he had to act. So, after a hasty whisper with Dobbins—it was now getting late in the December night—he determined to proceed to Havre alone. Somebody had to go, for much had to be done; so much does not fall on all lawyer’s shoulders as rested on Mr Trump’s then. The dowager was accordingly left in the hands of Dobbins—who said that Doctor Jolly would probably return the next day, when he would undoubtedly take charge—and of the old woman-servant, who had described herself as being as hard-worked as “a pore nigger slave,” but who now cheerfully attended to her mistress, with whom she had lived for some twenty years, having treated with indignation the suggestion of calling in a hired nurse. “Not if I knows it,” she said, vehemently, “these hands wot ’ave worked for her twenty year will nuss her now; I should like ter know who else has any right to displace I?” So Dobbins conceded the points, at all events until Aesculapius proper should return; and he and the old woman nursed the dowager between them, and got her to bed, while Mr Trump went off on his travels. There was quite a revolution and a dark shadow in the old house, while the leafless poplars which encircled it seemed like funeral plumes, and the old house itself a hearse, in the hazy light of the dull December night.
The lawyer’s journey was a comparatively easy one in comparison with that which our old friend the doctor had taken some time before.
He travelled rapidly to Southampton by the express, which he caught at Bigton—only occasional trains stopped at Hartwood—and was in plenty of time to despatch sundry telegraphic instructions to his clerks in London before embarking in the night boat for Havre. At midnight, instead of going to his warm bed in his comfortable suburban retreat, as he usually did at that hour, Mr Trump had to pull on his nightcap between the rolls of the waves, and ensconce himself in the narrow bunk that fell to his share of the cabin in the channel-crossing steam-packet. However, Mr Trump was a man of the world besides being a man of business, and knew how to accommodate himself to circumstances, and make matters as comfortable as he could under unforeseen data. So there is little doubt that he went to sleep at last, in spite of the narrowness of his lodging, and just as probably, he snored harmoniously to the accompaniment of the steamboat’s paddles.
The morning found him at Havre, prepared to set about his business as methodically as if he were only going down to his chambers in Bedford Row as usual, instead of being in a strange country.
He first went to the police office, and subsequently to the address given by Miss Kingscott. Mr Trump never trusted to individual evidence. With the governess and Monsieur le Chef, he proceeded to view the remains of what had been Susan Hartshorne, and identify them. The inspection was merely a work of detail, for the face was irrecognisable, even more so now than when it had been first taken out of the water. The lawyer, to the best of his belief, thought it to be Susan. And then the corpse was buried in the cemetery with a single headstone above the grave, on which the name “Susan,” alone was inscribed, and her age.
Mr Trump had already explained his position, and stated himself to be the representative of the deceased’s family to the chief of the police, who was most cordial and polite to him on learning that he wasun avocat Anglais. The chef, to the lawyer’s astonishment, spoke English fluently, just as if he were a native, and told him he knew Bedford Row as well as the Palais Royal in Paris. From him also, Mr Trump learnt a more coherent, and less one-sided story than from Miss Kingscott, although her statements were confirmed. From the evidence of the one witness, the case was evidently strong against Markworth, both the chef and the lawyer determined; but then the one witness was, on her own testimony, and from Mr Trump’s previous knowledge, strongly antagonistic to Markworth; and his legal mind compassed the probabilities of something to be said on the other side. Markworth’s disappearance was the great thing against him, for the girl might have drowned herself, and the scene which Clara Kingscott described never have taken place at all. It is true her story was somewhat corroborated, and the doctors had said, on the examination of the dead girl’s body, that death might have ensued from a jagged wound in the head which probably had been caused by a fall; but they had only said this when they had been asked their opinion on these points, and Miss Kingscott’s revelations been told them.
Altogether, Mr Trump thought it better to let the French police pursue their own course in the matter, and not interfere with them by any proceedings of his own. He also gave up to their possession all the poor girl’s things which had been left behind at the Rue Montmartre; and he had a kindly word to say to the Mère Cliquelle and her husband for their kindness and treatment towards the ill-fated Susan.
Miss Kingscott was in a rage of mortification at the lawyer’s apparent apathy; but her words had no weight with him; he had conceived a species of aversion towards her ever since her disclosure to him that night in Bedford Row; and the avowal of her purpose since, to track Markworth to the death, had not increased his regard, although it heightened his judgment on her as a “woman with a purpose.”
After an absence of three days or more, Mr Trump returned to England. His hands drew up the advertisement of Susan’s death, which he caused to be inserted in theTimes. The circumstances of the mystery had not got abroad, and he did not wish to court public enquiry as yet, so he worded the announcement very simply:
At Havre, on the 27th ultimo, from an accident, Susan, wife of Allynne Markworth, and only daughter of Roger Hartshorne, Esq., of The Poplars, Sussex.
The lawyer then went down to see how the old lady was getting on.
She was still speechless—thoughtless—lying as it were on the brink of eternity; and Doctor Jolly, who had now returned, and was attending her, did not yet know whether she would recover or not. The doctor and Mr Trump had a long conversation together, and mutual explanations. The lawyer was more than ever glad that he had taken no further proceedings about Susan’s death, although he wrote out to Tom Hartshorne, now among the heights of Abyssinia, telling him all about it.
Meanwhile, the old lady—struck down in her prime—was hovering on the edge of the grave, in her great, old solitary house at The Poplars. Her son had flown away, her daughter was among the departed, and she alone was left to struggle with the Mower’s scythe, alone—although she neither seemed to think nor feel—Doctor Jolly and strangers ministering to her. It is sad being alone—sadder being alone at the last! May you, reader, never feel it!
Volume Three—Chapter Seven.Bigton Bewitched.The quiet, little unpretending, out-of-the-way and not-of-much-account watering place of Bigton, was emphatically upside-down and out of its mind.Bigton was, in a word, bewitched—good reason, too, if all things were taken into consideration. It is not every day, according to our Hibernian friends, that “Morris kills a pig.” Following out the analogy, it was not every day that Bigton had a wedding—a wedding, moreover, where the bride was the daughter of a lady, “in her own right;” and the happy man, if not “a lord of high degree,” a shining light in the church, and closely related to a high and eminent political personage, such as Sir Boanerges Todhunter.Besides, the nuptial ceremony was to be celebrated by the right reverend prelate, the Lord Bishop of Chumpchopster, who was renowned far and wide as the most imposing of confirmists in the annual laying on of hands; and distinguished, not only as being one of the most ornate of orators, but for having published the well-known refutation of Judaism on the part of the pork-consuming portion of the population. A treatise which proclaimed his unswerving adherence to the time-honoured thirty-nine articles and undoubted hostility to the pre-adamite theologians. The fact that he would be there was quite enough to set Bigton in a whirligig of wonder and expectation, quite apart from the contingent circumstances attending the auspicious event.The engagement between the present contracting parties had not been a very long one, the campaigner being in favour of early marriages, she said—having daughters to dispose of; but her probable reason was to get the irrevocable knot tied so that there might be no backing-out and no backsliding on the part ofI promessi sposi.Lady Inskip took all the arrangements in her own hands. Having brought Pringle to book, she decided upon the length of the engagement, fixed the wedding day, and then told the languid Laura and her expectant son-in-law all about it. They had nothing whatever to do with the affair at all; they were to be married, and that was sufficient for them. She considered the pair as children in her hands, who had only to do as they were told. Hers be it to act, and plan, and settle everything; theirs to acquiesce in what she planned, and be thankful for the considerate forethought of their mamma-of-action.Pringle glided readily and easily into such an improved order of things; he accepted the gifts the gods gave him with admirable complacency. He consented to every arrangement that was made; indeed, it was well that the campaigner took matters in her own hands, for the young incumbent was of such an easy-going temperament, that even if he had gone to the length of popping the question to the languid Laura on his own behalf, it might have been years before he summoned up resolution enough to take the final plunge into matrimony. All things considered, therefore, it was better for the campaigner to act; and act she did, with promptitude and despatch.The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., behaved, throughout, as a very decorous, about-to-be-married man, and expectant filial. Of course he paid a regular visit every day to the cottage on the esplanade to see hisfiancée. He enjoyed her placid society, and went through all the formulas expected and required of him—even to the extent of going shopping for his presumptive mother-in-law, and selecting gaudy wools of many colours for mat manufacture, and purchasing garden seeds, besides attending to the redecoration and preparation of the parsonage for the reception of his bride, under the stern and uncompromising eye of the campaigner, who would have “this” done, and “that” altered, as she pleased: her word was already law to him.The gloom that had fallen over the house of Hartshorne did not, in any way, affect the approaching marriage.A rumour had got abroad that something was wrong at The Poplars, from the chattering of the villagers, but no real facts had leaked out; and everybody put down the old dowager’s attack of paralysis and subsequent long illness to the news of her daughter Susan’s sudden death, which they had read of in the necropolitan portion of theTimesnewspaper. Doctor Jolly, with the exception of such observations as, “Bless my soul! Sad pity! sad pity!” and “By Gad!” ’Twas a fearful “shock to the old woman!” kept a sealed tongue in his head; and the lawyer, who was the only other person that now had theentréeat The Poplars, was naturally and professionally reticent. At the parsonage, the calamities of the “big house” had, of course, created interest. Herbert Pringle thought, from his religious position, and Lizzie, from her sympathetic little heart, which naturally yearned towards anyone in affliction—particularly now, and when the object of her sympathy was the mother of her lover—both made attempts to minister at The Poplars, and both were unsuccessful.The old lady was, for weeks, speechless; and so ill, as not to be able to bear the sight of a new face. Doctor Jolly would not hear of the young incumbent seeing her; she could not understand anything said to her, and, for the present—the doctor told him gravely—any religious question which she wanted settled must rest between herself and her God! The doctor thought that but little spiritual consolation could be imparted by a flippant young man, who only wore a cassock for temporal purposes: as the means of obtaining a living, to a woman old enough to be his mother, and who was already, even now, struggling, with the Infinite!To Lizzie, however, the doctor spoke kindly. He recognised the spirit in which her sympathy was tendered; and he told her that as soon as the old lady got round a bit he would be glad of her services. When she recovered her consciousness, a brighter face around her than that of the old servant, who now attended her, would conduce to her recovery; and Lizzie, you may be sure, was very glad to hear this, and longed for the time when she could be of use to “Tom’s mother.”Although the old dowager, therefore, lay sick unto death, the marriage preparations were not set aside. Pringle, indeed, had hinted to the campaigner that perhaps it would not be in good taste to celebrate the festival while the great proprietress of the county, his especial patroness, was in this state, but that intrepid lady had incontinently derided the notion, asking what was the dowager to them? following up the question with another and more potent one, as to whether he wished to postpone the marriage with her darling girl in a very aggrieved tone of voice. Upon this Pringle was hastily “shut up,” and had to pour out a hundred apologies of, “Really, Lady Inskip, not for the world!” and so on.The end of the old year came, and the beginning of the new ushered in the wedding morn.Many things had been achieved before this, however, as may have been expected, from the great preparations which had been going on ever since Pringle’s proposal,ex partethe campaigner, and the settlement of the engagement.The parsonage had been newly decorated and painted throughout from top to basement; on the campaigner’s express stipulation, the drawing-room had been refurnished in a gorgeous suite of velvet and gold; and, although Lizzie’s special domain in the garden had not been interfered with, everything else about the young incumbent’s mansion had been altered and duly prepared for the coming event. At Laburnum Cottage, too, the occasion was not disregarded.To do her the justice, the campaigner was not stingy in her present expenditure. Whether it was the joy of marrying off one of her marriageable daughters opened her purse-strings in the same extent as it gladdened her heart, or that it arose from a desire to shine amidst the thing, or that it was owing to a union of both sentiments, cannot be exactly decided: suffice it to say that the campaigner opened her purse with a lavish hand.For many days large boxes had come down from various haberdashers—“dry goods establishments,” the Americans call them—and milliners in London; and every little shop in Bigton had been ransacked to the same intent by Lady Inskip and her daughters. The languid Laura was provided with such a gigantictrousseauthat she would probably attain the rank of grandmother before she wore out one half the number of “dozens” provided, while a perfect corps of needlewomen was kept in constant employment, basting, fitting, hemming, stitching, cutting out, felling, “goring,” and trying on, for upwards of a fortnight or more.The campaigner had an additional motive in thus providing for her eldest darling. You see, Lady Inskip had nodôt, as she elegantly phrased it, with which to endow her “poor, portionless darlings,” and the fact of giving them a handsome “rig-out,” as their brother Mortimer said, would perhaps blind the eyes of Caelebs in search of a wife. Be that as it may, however, the needlewomen worked apace, thetrousseauwas fully provided, and Monday night, the eve of the wedding day, Tuesday, the seventh of January, anno domini 1868, found everything ready for the auspicious event.Lizzie was necessarily one of the bridesmaids—that highly necessarycorps d’armée, without which no bride of any pretensions will allow herself to be conducted to Hymen’s sacrificial font. Carry, the bride’s sister, was another; and the places of the two additional ladies-in-waiting (for espousal themselves) were supplied by two distant cousins of the Inskips, who had already officiated in a similar capacity so many times that they had most probably made up their maiden minds that this was the only problematical manner in which they would ever officiate at a wedding. Some people seem doomed always to play second fiddle through life, and bridesmaids are no exceptions to the rule.The campaigner had spared no pains, as she had grudged no expense. All her influence, whether important or slight, was brought to bear on the contingent circumstances of the affair.By back-stairs beseeching she so worked round the maternal aunt of the Bishop of Chumpchopster, that the right reverend prelate was persuaded—inasmuch as he had temporal expectations from the said maternal aunt—to accompany her to Bigton, and officiate in the tying of the matrimonial noose between Herbert Pringle, of whom his lordship was pleased to take some considerable notice, and Laura. The prelate and his maternal aunt became the honoured guests of Lady Inskip for a day and a night in consequence; but how on earth they were stowed in Laburnum Cottage, and what accommodation was provided for them, remains to this day a puzzle.“The blushing orb of day at length gilded the sky,” and “Phoebus” announced the wedding morn.Enormous dressings of bride and bridesmaids. White and scarlet were the colours adopted, if you’ve a fancy for knowing them, although the campaigner had a strong leaning, which she subsequently quenched, towards mauve and yellow. Multitudinous errands and scurryings to and fro of “slavies” and domestics, including “Buttons” and several hired menials, now addicted to Berlin gloves, although displaying raw, beefsteaky hands in every-day life. Manifold preparations for thedéjeuner, and consequent encroachments of pastry-cook’s boys with superincumbent trays and oblong covered boxes with horizontal S handles; Laburnum Cottage turned inside out, and outside in; Bigton church bells clanging “fit to bust ’emselves,” as the villagers said; Bigton upside-down—in a word, bewitched.In the early morning two cavaliers might have been seen wending their way towards the scene of the festivities; not “clad in Lincoln green,” as the late lamented G.P.R. James would have described, but dresseden règle: these were Captain Miles and Lieutenant Harrowby, who had received pressing invitations from Lady Inskip to come over from Brighton in order to be present at the ceremony. Neither was averse to coming, and, indeed, Captain Miles had certain reasons of his own, which will be detailed presently, for jumping at the offer; so the two cavaliers set out early, and wended their way to Bigton, as already chronicled in the language of the ancient “romancist.” The Americans will add an “ist” or a “cist” to every known trade or substantive under the sun, to describe the person or individual who practises or has any connection with the same: thus, a “paragraphist” is a man who writes a paragraph, and they carry it down to a “pipist,” who uses a pipe—whether for smoking or musical purposes it does not matter—and “chawist,” he who masticates tobacco—a remarkably dirty habit!Captain Miles and Lieutenant Harrowby, however, were not the only guests. Besides these were others, great and important too, although it must be observed that there was an especial lack of young men in the campaigner’s “goodlie compagnie;” whether it was because she deprecated their presence or feared their worldly ways cannot be exactly decided. The campaigner was acquainted with the truism that “young people will be young people,” and fenced herself in accordingly, as she had fears on the subject of her youngest daughter Carry, who was far too frivolous to suit her more prudent expectations, and she wanted to put temptation out of the way of the “dear girl” that she might not be led to throw herself away on an “ineligibleparti.” The campaigner thought that she knew Captain Miles very well; he had nothing but his pay, and if he were younger she would not put him in the way of any young lady whom she wished to marry well, but she was certain that the captain was no fool to let his beautiful Dundreary whiskers be sold for nothing, so she had no fears for Carry with him. Lieutenant Harrowby was perfectly allowable too: he was a simpleton, and had a very snug little fortune of five “thou” per annum.Besides the Bishop of Chumpchopster and his maternal aunt, the next most important guest who would grace the festal board at the wedding breakfast would be Sir Boanerges Todhunter, the great Conservative Reformer. He was stopping at the parsonage now with the Reverend Herbert Pringle, his distant cousin, but he had already accepted an invitation to thedéjeuner, and had in fact come over for the purpose, on the grounds of his relationship with the bridegroom, to assist in the demolition of the Strasbourgpaté, and propose the health of the about-to-be-newly-spliced pair.In the list also of the fashionable world present might have been seen the names of Captain Curry Cucumber, of the Honorable and defunct East India Company’s Service, Miss Blandish, Lady Sparrowhawk and sister, the Honorable Miss Bigges (pray be particular about the final e), the Reverend Jabez Heavieman—invited in virtue of his office more than on account of his convivial proclivities—and others.Suppose the wedding over. Picture the bride in her orange blossoms, the bridegroom in his magpie dress—he could not adopt the time-honoured blue frock, being a cleric—the bridesmaids in their scarlet and white trains of tulle and tulips—the Bishop of Chumpchopster in his voluminous lawn sleeves pronouncing the blessing in his well-known and to be-much-admired Alcaic manner. Imagine the bells of Bigton clanging out their merry peal in the frosty air: paint to yourself the gallant and gay assemblage. Fancy, in a word, the marriage to beun fait accompli; the guests returned to Laburnum Cottage; the toast of the day proposed in that highly-declamatory style which makes the name of Sir Boanerges Todhunter synonymous with that of Cicero; thanks responded in the usual halting manner by the bridegroom; the happy pair started on their tour with the customary shower of shoes; the banquet concluded. Imagine all this. Aha! and now I will a tale unfold.The campaigner had been in ecstasies with the way in which everything had gone off. The Bishop and Sir Boanerges had just driven away, late in the evening, after partaking of a hasty dinner, which had been scrambled out of the remains of the previous feast; Captain Curry Cucumber was detailing some highly-spiced Indian anecdotes to Miss Blandish, who was in a holy state of maiden indignation at some of the particulars with which the captain thought it incumbent on him to furnish her, although she listened eagerly all the while; Lieutenant Harrowby was indulging in platitudes with the Hon. Miss Bigges, while poor Lizzie was being swamped by the veteran Lady Sparrowhawk, who was imparting to our little friend—who found the whole thing fearfully dreary—her views on the girls of the present day, contrasting them, sadly to the disadvantage of the former, with the time when she was young: all, in fact, was going on just as the campaigner wished.When, suddenly, just as Lady Inskip proposed a carpet dance to break the monotony of the evening, she discovered that her darling girl Carry and Captain Miles were both missing!Horror! Where could they be? Could her worst fears be realised? The skeleton which had lurked behind the banquet now stepped forth. Heratra curanow confronted the campaigner! Uneasy was the head that wore the crown of manoeuvring triumph that day: Carry and the Captain had gone offnulla vestigia retrorsum, leaving not a trace behind.Mortimer was first dispatched to search for the fugitives; but when he returned unsuccessfully, and no trace of the delinquents was to be found, either in and about the house or in the adjacent garden, the campaigner, whose nerves had been in a state of tension all day, fairly broke down. She proclaimed her calamities to her astonished company, bursting into a passion of tears, as she threw her arms round the neck of her boy, that young imp, and exclaimed, “Oh! Morti-mer! Morti-mer! I told you so! I told you so!” over and over again, insisting all the time that she hadhimstill left to her!Thefiascoof the pic-nic was comparatively nothing to the present scene; and the excitement culminated when a note was brought in at this juncture by the campaigner’s abigail (who said she had just found it on the dressing-table in Miss Carry’s room, although she had known of its existence some hours before, and Lady Inskip discharged her, “by the same token,” as Paddy says, the next day for her complicity in the affair), telling how the young lady—somewhat “fast” on her part, it must be confessed—had gone off with Captain Miles to get married, spurred up to the point probably by the events of the day.The note, which was handed round for general perusal, in consequence of Lady Inskip’s temporary abstraction, ran as follows, in Carry’s neat calligraphy, described in violet ink, on cream-laid note:—“Dear Ma,—“Algernon and I having determined to unite our lot—(we have been in correspondence for a long time without your knowledge)—have gone off to get married without any bother. We knew you would object and ‘kick up a row,’ as dear Algernon says, and have therefore thought it best to go off without letting you know anything about the state of our affections. Any pursuit will be vain, as we are both determined. We will be married to-morrow morning. Hoping you will not be vexed very much with your ‘darling girl,’ and that Laura will be as happy as I intend to be, with the ‘prig,’ as I used to call the poor little parson,“Believe me,“Your affectionate daughter,“Carry.“P.S.—Algernon says to give you his love, and he tells you to ‘keep your pecker up.’ Tell Mortimer he can have my Persian kitten. Please excuse Abigail for helping me off. I bullied her into doing it. Forgive me, dear ma! I know I shall be as happy as a butterfly, and, at all events, I shall ever be your loving daughter, Carry.”The comments that were made on this missive may be imagined; and in the commotion that ensued the characters of the campaigner’s guests soon developed themselves, as is usually the case in moments of excitement, particularly when anesclandrearises.Old Lady Sparrowhawk and the antiquated virgin, Miss Bigges, thought it highly immoral on Lady Inskip’s part to invite them to a house where any such thing could possibly have happened. Of course they would not mention anything about it, they said, as they retired from the scene; but, strange to say, in a very little while after, the mutual friends of Lady Sparrowhawk and the campaigner were acquainted with every incident of the elopement. Indeed, from the statements of these people, you would be led to suppose that they knew a good deal more about it than had as yet transpired, with much noddings and sly gestures, and confidential “you knows.”To say that Captain Curry Cucumber was wrath, would convey but a feeble idea of his state of mind and volubility of expression, when he, too, got up to go. In the first place, he had had a slight penchant for the fair Carry, which Lady Inskip had fostered and encouraged; the remnant of his liver was consequently wrung with jealousy and baffled love—if love it may be called—which empurpled his saffron face; and he looked upon it is a special affront and injury to himself that the campaigner should have allowed her daughter thus to run away.“By Gad! sir!” he said, to Lieutenant Harrowby, who, having been a confidant of Captain Miles, was dreading in much fear and trembling that the onus of the whole affair would be laid upon his weak shoulders. “By Gad! sir, I have never been so scandalously treated in my life; not even by the Begum of Ferozesha!”He said this in sufficiently angry tones, ere he left the room; but when he got into the hall, his wrath rose to thunder, and was terrific to behold.The magnificent gold-mounted bamboo cane which he had left there, which had been presented to him by Rumagee Bumagee, the Rajah of Bugpoor, and which he valued at ever so many lakhs of rupees, was missing. The captain boiled over with indignation, called Laburnum Cottage a den of thieves, and heaped such reams of violent epithets on the heads of Lady Inskip, her daughter, and all her family, even unto the third and fourth generation, as made Miss Blandish’s scanty locks stand on end with fright, and even restored the campaigner to her senses.Captain Curry Cucumber then went out of Laburnum Cottage, for good and all, and he vowed he would never set foot within another house in Bigton for social purposes or otherwise. For the remainder of his term of residence in the sea-side retreat, he shut himself up in the red brick corner house of the terrace he inhabited, where he spent his time, it is believed, from morning until night, swearing at his Kitmaghar, a lascar servant, and eating chutney and prawn curries. The poor unhappy half caste servant’s life must have been a sad burden to him, for the captain was continually calling him an “Ooloo ka bucka,” or son of an owl, and associating his name in Hindostanee with a big black monkey, who was being perpetually consigned to the lower regions.Carry Inskip’s elopement was a “nine days’ wonder” in Bigton, and then was forgotten. It is supposed that the young lady made a better bargain of it than most runaway matches turn out, and she lives very happily on a somewhat limited income, with the gallant son of Mars, whom she espoused the day after their elopement, not at Gretna Green, but by licence at Chumpchopster, the adjacent cathedral town to Bigton.The campaigner’s star was certainly under an eclipse. She had done well for her eldest, but Carry turned out “a bold, ungrateful hussie,” as she called her. Yet she quickly recovered from the blow. In bewitching Bigton she had been bewitched herself; but she was not one to be daunted, and now that her “darling Laura” was so comfortably established, the campaigner began to agitate a most notable scheme in her worldly-wise head.
The quiet, little unpretending, out-of-the-way and not-of-much-account watering place of Bigton, was emphatically upside-down and out of its mind.
Bigton was, in a word, bewitched—good reason, too, if all things were taken into consideration. It is not every day, according to our Hibernian friends, that “Morris kills a pig.” Following out the analogy, it was not every day that Bigton had a wedding—a wedding, moreover, where the bride was the daughter of a lady, “in her own right;” and the happy man, if not “a lord of high degree,” a shining light in the church, and closely related to a high and eminent political personage, such as Sir Boanerges Todhunter.
Besides, the nuptial ceremony was to be celebrated by the right reverend prelate, the Lord Bishop of Chumpchopster, who was renowned far and wide as the most imposing of confirmists in the annual laying on of hands; and distinguished, not only as being one of the most ornate of orators, but for having published the well-known refutation of Judaism on the part of the pork-consuming portion of the population. A treatise which proclaimed his unswerving adherence to the time-honoured thirty-nine articles and undoubted hostility to the pre-adamite theologians. The fact that he would be there was quite enough to set Bigton in a whirligig of wonder and expectation, quite apart from the contingent circumstances attending the auspicious event.
The engagement between the present contracting parties had not been a very long one, the campaigner being in favour of early marriages, she said—having daughters to dispose of; but her probable reason was to get the irrevocable knot tied so that there might be no backing-out and no backsliding on the part ofI promessi sposi.
Lady Inskip took all the arrangements in her own hands. Having brought Pringle to book, she decided upon the length of the engagement, fixed the wedding day, and then told the languid Laura and her expectant son-in-law all about it. They had nothing whatever to do with the affair at all; they were to be married, and that was sufficient for them. She considered the pair as children in her hands, who had only to do as they were told. Hers be it to act, and plan, and settle everything; theirs to acquiesce in what she planned, and be thankful for the considerate forethought of their mamma-of-action.
Pringle glided readily and easily into such an improved order of things; he accepted the gifts the gods gave him with admirable complacency. He consented to every arrangement that was made; indeed, it was well that the campaigner took matters in her own hands, for the young incumbent was of such an easy-going temperament, that even if he had gone to the length of popping the question to the languid Laura on his own behalf, it might have been years before he summoned up resolution enough to take the final plunge into matrimony. All things considered, therefore, it was better for the campaigner to act; and act she did, with promptitude and despatch.
The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., behaved, throughout, as a very decorous, about-to-be-married man, and expectant filial. Of course he paid a regular visit every day to the cottage on the esplanade to see hisfiancée. He enjoyed her placid society, and went through all the formulas expected and required of him—even to the extent of going shopping for his presumptive mother-in-law, and selecting gaudy wools of many colours for mat manufacture, and purchasing garden seeds, besides attending to the redecoration and preparation of the parsonage for the reception of his bride, under the stern and uncompromising eye of the campaigner, who would have “this” done, and “that” altered, as she pleased: her word was already law to him.
The gloom that had fallen over the house of Hartshorne did not, in any way, affect the approaching marriage.
A rumour had got abroad that something was wrong at The Poplars, from the chattering of the villagers, but no real facts had leaked out; and everybody put down the old dowager’s attack of paralysis and subsequent long illness to the news of her daughter Susan’s sudden death, which they had read of in the necropolitan portion of theTimesnewspaper. Doctor Jolly, with the exception of such observations as, “Bless my soul! Sad pity! sad pity!” and “By Gad!” ’Twas a fearful “shock to the old woman!” kept a sealed tongue in his head; and the lawyer, who was the only other person that now had theentréeat The Poplars, was naturally and professionally reticent. At the parsonage, the calamities of the “big house” had, of course, created interest. Herbert Pringle thought, from his religious position, and Lizzie, from her sympathetic little heart, which naturally yearned towards anyone in affliction—particularly now, and when the object of her sympathy was the mother of her lover—both made attempts to minister at The Poplars, and both were unsuccessful.
The old lady was, for weeks, speechless; and so ill, as not to be able to bear the sight of a new face. Doctor Jolly would not hear of the young incumbent seeing her; she could not understand anything said to her, and, for the present—the doctor told him gravely—any religious question which she wanted settled must rest between herself and her God! The doctor thought that but little spiritual consolation could be imparted by a flippant young man, who only wore a cassock for temporal purposes: as the means of obtaining a living, to a woman old enough to be his mother, and who was already, even now, struggling, with the Infinite!
To Lizzie, however, the doctor spoke kindly. He recognised the spirit in which her sympathy was tendered; and he told her that as soon as the old lady got round a bit he would be glad of her services. When she recovered her consciousness, a brighter face around her than that of the old servant, who now attended her, would conduce to her recovery; and Lizzie, you may be sure, was very glad to hear this, and longed for the time when she could be of use to “Tom’s mother.”
Although the old dowager, therefore, lay sick unto death, the marriage preparations were not set aside. Pringle, indeed, had hinted to the campaigner that perhaps it would not be in good taste to celebrate the festival while the great proprietress of the county, his especial patroness, was in this state, but that intrepid lady had incontinently derided the notion, asking what was the dowager to them? following up the question with another and more potent one, as to whether he wished to postpone the marriage with her darling girl in a very aggrieved tone of voice. Upon this Pringle was hastily “shut up,” and had to pour out a hundred apologies of, “Really, Lady Inskip, not for the world!” and so on.
The end of the old year came, and the beginning of the new ushered in the wedding morn.
Many things had been achieved before this, however, as may have been expected, from the great preparations which had been going on ever since Pringle’s proposal,ex partethe campaigner, and the settlement of the engagement.
The parsonage had been newly decorated and painted throughout from top to basement; on the campaigner’s express stipulation, the drawing-room had been refurnished in a gorgeous suite of velvet and gold; and, although Lizzie’s special domain in the garden had not been interfered with, everything else about the young incumbent’s mansion had been altered and duly prepared for the coming event. At Laburnum Cottage, too, the occasion was not disregarded.
To do her the justice, the campaigner was not stingy in her present expenditure. Whether it was the joy of marrying off one of her marriageable daughters opened her purse-strings in the same extent as it gladdened her heart, or that it arose from a desire to shine amidst the thing, or that it was owing to a union of both sentiments, cannot be exactly decided: suffice it to say that the campaigner opened her purse with a lavish hand.
For many days large boxes had come down from various haberdashers—“dry goods establishments,” the Americans call them—and milliners in London; and every little shop in Bigton had been ransacked to the same intent by Lady Inskip and her daughters. The languid Laura was provided with such a gigantictrousseauthat she would probably attain the rank of grandmother before she wore out one half the number of “dozens” provided, while a perfect corps of needlewomen was kept in constant employment, basting, fitting, hemming, stitching, cutting out, felling, “goring,” and trying on, for upwards of a fortnight or more.
The campaigner had an additional motive in thus providing for her eldest darling. You see, Lady Inskip had nodôt, as she elegantly phrased it, with which to endow her “poor, portionless darlings,” and the fact of giving them a handsome “rig-out,” as their brother Mortimer said, would perhaps blind the eyes of Caelebs in search of a wife. Be that as it may, however, the needlewomen worked apace, thetrousseauwas fully provided, and Monday night, the eve of the wedding day, Tuesday, the seventh of January, anno domini 1868, found everything ready for the auspicious event.
Lizzie was necessarily one of the bridesmaids—that highly necessarycorps d’armée, without which no bride of any pretensions will allow herself to be conducted to Hymen’s sacrificial font. Carry, the bride’s sister, was another; and the places of the two additional ladies-in-waiting (for espousal themselves) were supplied by two distant cousins of the Inskips, who had already officiated in a similar capacity so many times that they had most probably made up their maiden minds that this was the only problematical manner in which they would ever officiate at a wedding. Some people seem doomed always to play second fiddle through life, and bridesmaids are no exceptions to the rule.
The campaigner had spared no pains, as she had grudged no expense. All her influence, whether important or slight, was brought to bear on the contingent circumstances of the affair.
By back-stairs beseeching she so worked round the maternal aunt of the Bishop of Chumpchopster, that the right reverend prelate was persuaded—inasmuch as he had temporal expectations from the said maternal aunt—to accompany her to Bigton, and officiate in the tying of the matrimonial noose between Herbert Pringle, of whom his lordship was pleased to take some considerable notice, and Laura. The prelate and his maternal aunt became the honoured guests of Lady Inskip for a day and a night in consequence; but how on earth they were stowed in Laburnum Cottage, and what accommodation was provided for them, remains to this day a puzzle.
“The blushing orb of day at length gilded the sky,” and “Phoebus” announced the wedding morn.
Enormous dressings of bride and bridesmaids. White and scarlet were the colours adopted, if you’ve a fancy for knowing them, although the campaigner had a strong leaning, which she subsequently quenched, towards mauve and yellow. Multitudinous errands and scurryings to and fro of “slavies” and domestics, including “Buttons” and several hired menials, now addicted to Berlin gloves, although displaying raw, beefsteaky hands in every-day life. Manifold preparations for thedéjeuner, and consequent encroachments of pastry-cook’s boys with superincumbent trays and oblong covered boxes with horizontal S handles; Laburnum Cottage turned inside out, and outside in; Bigton church bells clanging “fit to bust ’emselves,” as the villagers said; Bigton upside-down—in a word, bewitched.
In the early morning two cavaliers might have been seen wending their way towards the scene of the festivities; not “clad in Lincoln green,” as the late lamented G.P.R. James would have described, but dresseden règle: these were Captain Miles and Lieutenant Harrowby, who had received pressing invitations from Lady Inskip to come over from Brighton in order to be present at the ceremony. Neither was averse to coming, and, indeed, Captain Miles had certain reasons of his own, which will be detailed presently, for jumping at the offer; so the two cavaliers set out early, and wended their way to Bigton, as already chronicled in the language of the ancient “romancist.” The Americans will add an “ist” or a “cist” to every known trade or substantive under the sun, to describe the person or individual who practises or has any connection with the same: thus, a “paragraphist” is a man who writes a paragraph, and they carry it down to a “pipist,” who uses a pipe—whether for smoking or musical purposes it does not matter—and “chawist,” he who masticates tobacco—a remarkably dirty habit!
Captain Miles and Lieutenant Harrowby, however, were not the only guests. Besides these were others, great and important too, although it must be observed that there was an especial lack of young men in the campaigner’s “goodlie compagnie;” whether it was because she deprecated their presence or feared their worldly ways cannot be exactly decided. The campaigner was acquainted with the truism that “young people will be young people,” and fenced herself in accordingly, as she had fears on the subject of her youngest daughter Carry, who was far too frivolous to suit her more prudent expectations, and she wanted to put temptation out of the way of the “dear girl” that she might not be led to throw herself away on an “ineligibleparti.” The campaigner thought that she knew Captain Miles very well; he had nothing but his pay, and if he were younger she would not put him in the way of any young lady whom she wished to marry well, but she was certain that the captain was no fool to let his beautiful Dundreary whiskers be sold for nothing, so she had no fears for Carry with him. Lieutenant Harrowby was perfectly allowable too: he was a simpleton, and had a very snug little fortune of five “thou” per annum.
Besides the Bishop of Chumpchopster and his maternal aunt, the next most important guest who would grace the festal board at the wedding breakfast would be Sir Boanerges Todhunter, the great Conservative Reformer. He was stopping at the parsonage now with the Reverend Herbert Pringle, his distant cousin, but he had already accepted an invitation to thedéjeuner, and had in fact come over for the purpose, on the grounds of his relationship with the bridegroom, to assist in the demolition of the Strasbourgpaté, and propose the health of the about-to-be-newly-spliced pair.
In the list also of the fashionable world present might have been seen the names of Captain Curry Cucumber, of the Honorable and defunct East India Company’s Service, Miss Blandish, Lady Sparrowhawk and sister, the Honorable Miss Bigges (pray be particular about the final e), the Reverend Jabez Heavieman—invited in virtue of his office more than on account of his convivial proclivities—and others.
Suppose the wedding over. Picture the bride in her orange blossoms, the bridegroom in his magpie dress—he could not adopt the time-honoured blue frock, being a cleric—the bridesmaids in their scarlet and white trains of tulle and tulips—the Bishop of Chumpchopster in his voluminous lawn sleeves pronouncing the blessing in his well-known and to be-much-admired Alcaic manner. Imagine the bells of Bigton clanging out their merry peal in the frosty air: paint to yourself the gallant and gay assemblage. Fancy, in a word, the marriage to beun fait accompli; the guests returned to Laburnum Cottage; the toast of the day proposed in that highly-declamatory style which makes the name of Sir Boanerges Todhunter synonymous with that of Cicero; thanks responded in the usual halting manner by the bridegroom; the happy pair started on their tour with the customary shower of shoes; the banquet concluded. Imagine all this. Aha! and now I will a tale unfold.
The campaigner had been in ecstasies with the way in which everything had gone off. The Bishop and Sir Boanerges had just driven away, late in the evening, after partaking of a hasty dinner, which had been scrambled out of the remains of the previous feast; Captain Curry Cucumber was detailing some highly-spiced Indian anecdotes to Miss Blandish, who was in a holy state of maiden indignation at some of the particulars with which the captain thought it incumbent on him to furnish her, although she listened eagerly all the while; Lieutenant Harrowby was indulging in platitudes with the Hon. Miss Bigges, while poor Lizzie was being swamped by the veteran Lady Sparrowhawk, who was imparting to our little friend—who found the whole thing fearfully dreary—her views on the girls of the present day, contrasting them, sadly to the disadvantage of the former, with the time when she was young: all, in fact, was going on just as the campaigner wished.
When, suddenly, just as Lady Inskip proposed a carpet dance to break the monotony of the evening, she discovered that her darling girl Carry and Captain Miles were both missing!
Horror! Where could they be? Could her worst fears be realised? The skeleton which had lurked behind the banquet now stepped forth. Heratra curanow confronted the campaigner! Uneasy was the head that wore the crown of manoeuvring triumph that day: Carry and the Captain had gone offnulla vestigia retrorsum, leaving not a trace behind.
Mortimer was first dispatched to search for the fugitives; but when he returned unsuccessfully, and no trace of the delinquents was to be found, either in and about the house or in the adjacent garden, the campaigner, whose nerves had been in a state of tension all day, fairly broke down. She proclaimed her calamities to her astonished company, bursting into a passion of tears, as she threw her arms round the neck of her boy, that young imp, and exclaimed, “Oh! Morti-mer! Morti-mer! I told you so! I told you so!” over and over again, insisting all the time that she hadhimstill left to her!
Thefiascoof the pic-nic was comparatively nothing to the present scene; and the excitement culminated when a note was brought in at this juncture by the campaigner’s abigail (who said she had just found it on the dressing-table in Miss Carry’s room, although she had known of its existence some hours before, and Lady Inskip discharged her, “by the same token,” as Paddy says, the next day for her complicity in the affair), telling how the young lady—somewhat “fast” on her part, it must be confessed—had gone off with Captain Miles to get married, spurred up to the point probably by the events of the day.
The note, which was handed round for general perusal, in consequence of Lady Inskip’s temporary abstraction, ran as follows, in Carry’s neat calligraphy, described in violet ink, on cream-laid note:—
“Dear Ma,—
“Algernon and I having determined to unite our lot—(we have been in correspondence for a long time without your knowledge)—have gone off to get married without any bother. We knew you would object and ‘kick up a row,’ as dear Algernon says, and have therefore thought it best to go off without letting you know anything about the state of our affections. Any pursuit will be vain, as we are both determined. We will be married to-morrow morning. Hoping you will not be vexed very much with your ‘darling girl,’ and that Laura will be as happy as I intend to be, with the ‘prig,’ as I used to call the poor little parson,
“Believe me,
“Your affectionate daughter,
“Carry.
“P.S.—Algernon says to give you his love, and he tells you to ‘keep your pecker up.’ Tell Mortimer he can have my Persian kitten. Please excuse Abigail for helping me off. I bullied her into doing it. Forgive me, dear ma! I know I shall be as happy as a butterfly, and, at all events, I shall ever be your loving daughter, Carry.”
The comments that were made on this missive may be imagined; and in the commotion that ensued the characters of the campaigner’s guests soon developed themselves, as is usually the case in moments of excitement, particularly when anesclandrearises.
Old Lady Sparrowhawk and the antiquated virgin, Miss Bigges, thought it highly immoral on Lady Inskip’s part to invite them to a house where any such thing could possibly have happened. Of course they would not mention anything about it, they said, as they retired from the scene; but, strange to say, in a very little while after, the mutual friends of Lady Sparrowhawk and the campaigner were acquainted with every incident of the elopement. Indeed, from the statements of these people, you would be led to suppose that they knew a good deal more about it than had as yet transpired, with much noddings and sly gestures, and confidential “you knows.”
To say that Captain Curry Cucumber was wrath, would convey but a feeble idea of his state of mind and volubility of expression, when he, too, got up to go. In the first place, he had had a slight penchant for the fair Carry, which Lady Inskip had fostered and encouraged; the remnant of his liver was consequently wrung with jealousy and baffled love—if love it may be called—which empurpled his saffron face; and he looked upon it is a special affront and injury to himself that the campaigner should have allowed her daughter thus to run away.
“By Gad! sir!” he said, to Lieutenant Harrowby, who, having been a confidant of Captain Miles, was dreading in much fear and trembling that the onus of the whole affair would be laid upon his weak shoulders. “By Gad! sir, I have never been so scandalously treated in my life; not even by the Begum of Ferozesha!”
He said this in sufficiently angry tones, ere he left the room; but when he got into the hall, his wrath rose to thunder, and was terrific to behold.
The magnificent gold-mounted bamboo cane which he had left there, which had been presented to him by Rumagee Bumagee, the Rajah of Bugpoor, and which he valued at ever so many lakhs of rupees, was missing. The captain boiled over with indignation, called Laburnum Cottage a den of thieves, and heaped such reams of violent epithets on the heads of Lady Inskip, her daughter, and all her family, even unto the third and fourth generation, as made Miss Blandish’s scanty locks stand on end with fright, and even restored the campaigner to her senses.
Captain Curry Cucumber then went out of Laburnum Cottage, for good and all, and he vowed he would never set foot within another house in Bigton for social purposes or otherwise. For the remainder of his term of residence in the sea-side retreat, he shut himself up in the red brick corner house of the terrace he inhabited, where he spent his time, it is believed, from morning until night, swearing at his Kitmaghar, a lascar servant, and eating chutney and prawn curries. The poor unhappy half caste servant’s life must have been a sad burden to him, for the captain was continually calling him an “Ooloo ka bucka,” or son of an owl, and associating his name in Hindostanee with a big black monkey, who was being perpetually consigned to the lower regions.
Carry Inskip’s elopement was a “nine days’ wonder” in Bigton, and then was forgotten. It is supposed that the young lady made a better bargain of it than most runaway matches turn out, and she lives very happily on a somewhat limited income, with the gallant son of Mars, whom she espoused the day after their elopement, not at Gretna Green, but by licence at Chumpchopster, the adjacent cathedral town to Bigton.
The campaigner’s star was certainly under an eclipse. She had done well for her eldest, but Carry turned out “a bold, ungrateful hussie,” as she called her. Yet she quickly recovered from the blow. In bewitching Bigton she had been bewitched herself; but she was not one to be daunted, and now that her “darling Laura” was so comfortably established, the campaigner began to agitate a most notable scheme in her worldly-wise head.