CHAPTERLXXIII.LAURA STANBRIDGE AT HOME—A CONFERENCE AND A SCENE.The reader will remember the young scapegrace, Alf Purvis, who was driven from Stoke Ferry Farm with the hare round his neck. He had now grown up to a slim, handsome young man, with an almost feminine cast of features.His education was by this time completed. His instructor and trainer, Laura Stanbridge, in conjunction with her lawless associates, had transformed the country lad into one of the most expert and daring young London thieves of the period.Alf was lost, irretrievably lost, and no one who knew him at the farmhouse could recognise him as the boy who gave such trouble to Mr. Jamblin. He was so completely metamorphosed, personally as well as mentally.We have had, during the progress of this work, occasion to give the reader some little insight into the lives and careers of juvenile and adult pickpockets.Alf Purvis was the most accomplished one of the whole fraternity. He had a certain amount of education, was quick-witted, aristocratic in his appearance, and was, therefore, a dangerous person to be let loose on society. He had, moreover, for his accomplice a woman, even more dangerous than himself—a sort of harpy or beautiful demon, if such a term can with propriety be applied to one of the softer sex.Alf Purvis frequented places of fashionable resort, and had the faculty of obtaining an entrance to select coteries in a manner which was altogether unaccountable.He was, in short, the George Barrington of his day. His manners were so soft and winning that he was able to deceive and hoodwink his betters.It is terrible to think of the change which had come over the farmer’s boy.Let us pay a visit to the house at the back of Regent-street. It was one of those hours of the night in which honest folk are asleep, and fools revel, and thieves work.The vermin of society, like the vermin of the woods and fields, shun the light of Heaven, in which they see the effulgence of an Omnipotent power.A man, with his face muffled by a cloak, was walking quickly through the courts and alleys which join Regent-street to Piccadilly.The last of these passages ended in a mews, which we have already described.Upon his arriving at this place the pedestrian came to a halt, and, glancing furtively around, he affected to be expecting somebody.Drawing himself under the wall, he looked round till he saw a shadow on the pavement, and heard a step quick, cautious, and as stealthy as his own.He looked round again, and seeing no policeman in sight, he gave a low whistle, and as soon as it was responded to, advanced into the middle of the road. The other man did the same, and then said in a whisper—“Any crushers?”“No; the man on the beat has passed a few minutes since—the coast is clear.”“Make tracks then.”The two men went down the yard, and thence into a narrow deserted street, in which stood the house in the occupation of Laura Stanbridge.They knocked in a peculiar manner at the door of the house, which to all appearance was uninhabited, for shutters were up before all the windows.Any one, however, who supposed the habitation was without an occupant would be greatly mistaken.The knocks were heard and answered on the instant.A maid servant opened the door, when, without a word, the two men went in.The girl looked the door after them, bolted it top and bottom, and finally secured it with a chain, which made it resemble the door of a prison.All this had been done in the space of a few seconds.“Is the missis in, my dear?” said one of the men, in a tone half husky and half oleaginous.“Yes, sir,” returned the girl. “I think she’s been expecting you; or, if it’s not you, it’s somebody else. You will find her in the little parlour.”The men looked at one another, nodded in a mysterious self-satisfied manner, and entered the room.The little parlour in which they found themselves was furnished in a grotesque and peculiar style. The chairs were all of a different shape, size, and pattern. The carpet would have suited a large dining-room in some palatial mansion, and the paper a summer boudoir; while the dark oak bureau, in one corner of the apartment, frowned with all the sternness of antiquity upon a new and fashionable maple-wood cabinet in the other. As to any furnitureen suite, as the modern advertisements have it, that was altogether out of the question.The pictures, however, which disfigured the walls were all of the same caste and quality, equally indifferent in morality and art.They consisted of portraits of celebrated criminals, executions, highwaymen stopping carriages and coaches, smugglers attacked by the preventive men, and pirates committing atrocities on the high seas.“I thought she said her mistress was here,” observed one of the men.The other shrugged his shoulders and said, “She aint far off, I’ll wager.”They took off their capes and comforters and sat down.Both these personages have been already introduced on the night Laura Stanbridge paid a visit to the thieves’ haunt in Whitechapel.One was the “Smoucher,” the other was the “Cracksman,” and perhaps such another pair of scoundrels could not be found in the metropolis.The Smoucher threw himself into a chair with the perpendicular back of the Elizabethan age—the Cracksman luxuriated in the soft depths of the latest patent spring.Presently the sounds of footsteps were heard in the passage, and Miss Stanbridge entered. She was dressed in the height of fashion, and certainly looked what might be termed captivating.“Glad you’ve come,” said she, with a smile. “You managed to get here without meeting with any impediment?”“It was all fair sailing,” returned the Smoucher. “No Queen’s service men to overhaul us, but we took care to come by different roads, and walked the quiet sides of the streets.”“Where’s the Prince?” inquired the cracksman.The Prince was a nickname they had given to Alf Purvis—now, however, no longer Alf Purvis, but Algernon Sutherland.“He’s not come, but won’t be long, I expect,” said Miss Stanbridge.“Oh, in course he’s not here,” cried the cracksman. “Aint likely. He’s dancing after some pretty face, and forgot all about ourchapel, and all about the traps, too, I s’pose. I never saw such an owdacious chap. He’d follow a girl into a police station if he fancied her.”Laura Stanbridge tapped the ground impatiently with her feet. It was evident enough that she was vexed.“What business is it of yours?” said the Smoucher. “I make it a rule myself never to interfere with a young man’s private affairs.”“I aint a saying anything against him,” observed the other man, “only I ’spose there’s no harm in speaking one’s mind. Concerning the women the Prince is as weak and wivery-wavery as a cabman that’s lived on Haymarket gin.”“Well, and if he is, what of that? It’s his only fault. He’s a star—a regular out and outer. What wonders he’s done for us already. Why, he knows more than any of us, and he’s little more than a lad now.”“Ah, he’s a right down good un—a regular stunner,” cried the cracksman, with the enthusiasm of a true connoisseur. “He did that last job to rights.”“Lord, missus,” said Miles Slann, the Whitechapel cracksman, “if yer’d been there yer heart would have melted to see how he walked into them safety locks. Chubbs are puzzlers to him, but at the hanky-panky business, the light-fingered part of the profession, there aint any one to touch him.”“Ah, he’s very clever—there isn’t the slightest doubt of that,” said Miss Stanbridge.“Clever! I just think he was. He does yer credit, and it’s a good thing yer picked up with him when he was so young. He’s been well taught, and I say agen he does yer credit. He does all on us credit,” repeated Mr. Slann, in a still more forcible manner.“Don’t speak in so loud a tone, you noisy wretch!” exclaimed Laura. “Can’t you say what you have to say in a lower tone?”“Oh, I beg pardon, I forgot. We are not in Whitechapel now, but among the aristocracy. I forgot.”“Well, don’t forgot next time,” suggested the Smoucher.“All right, governor. It’s a way I’ve got, ’specially when I am speaking of the Prince; but Lord bless him he never keeps his own long. His blunt is blewed as soon as it is got.”“Hush!” cried Laura Stanbridge. “I hear his step—he has come in by the back way.”“Oh, you know his step—do you?”“I should think I did. Silence, hark—yes, ’tis he!”A tall, slim, young man entered the room. His features were almost womanly in their grace and beauty, but there was an expression upon them which it would be impossible to define, and which seemed to emanate from the eyes more than from any other feature, which were of a cold and cruel grey.“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,” said the young thief. “I know I am a little late, but it couldn’t be helped, and so now to business, pals,” he said, in a clear, sharp voice, every tone of which bespoke promptitude and decision. “You’ve both of you been too rash. There’s no doubt, after that last job which you made such a mess of, that the blue bloodhounds will soon be after you.”“We shall bechanted in the leer(advertised in the papers) to-morrow,” said the cracksman, in the brutal language of his craft. “We mustspeel-to-the drum(go into the country), captain.”These men, old in crime, already recognised him as their master.“Yes,” he replied, calmly, “you must make up your minds to go into the country, or to cross the herring pond. You are too well known in London to remain here with safety.”“Well, we must hook it, I s’pose,” said Miles Slann. “There aint no help for it. Look here,” he said, in continuation, addressing himself to his younger companion, “you were born and bred in the country, though nobody would believe it, to look at you now. Are there any “plants” to be made there nowadays?”Mr. Algernon Sutherland crossed his legs in a symmetrical manner, and passed his hands through his flowing locks.“Umph!” he ejaculated. “I hardly know how to answer your question. In the country dwell a race of men called farmers, who utterly disbelieve in banks, those nefarious institutions which have extinguished highway robbery—the high art of our profession—in order that they may pillage percentage from the million, and, by breaking now and then, utterly ruin the fatherless and the widows. But these farmers, who are honest fellows in the main, ride home from market at a particular season of the year with a twelvemonth’s income in their pockets, which season is the autumn, now close at hand.”“Oh, aint that fortunate?” cried the Smoucher. “But are there no banks in the country, then?”“Plenty for gentlemen and tradesmen, and those exceptional farmers who prefer such custody to that of their own clumsy cudgels and rusty blunderbusses. However, they are all compelled to have large sums of money in their houses for the payment of their labourers on Saturday night.”“Just the place for our money,” cried the Cracksman. “Let’s have a country tour for the benefit of our health. I don’t feel up to the knocker myself, and fresh air is needful. Besides, we aint wanted in London—leastways, if we are “wanted,” which, in course, is likely enough, why it’s as well to give the ‘crushers’ the trouble to run down to our country seat. Ah, ah! If there be kens to crack and heads to break on the main toby we’re all there. What if we do get done for a cramp, and end our days at Tuck-up Fair? There’s no need to say die on a dunghill, or talk without meat or drink. So, Lorry, let’s have somethink that way, if you please.”“You are a good one for prog and lush,” said the Smoucher. “If you were going to be ‘topped’ to-morrer, you’d ask to die with your mouth full. But take care, old sinner, he who cuts much beef has more belly than brains, and that won’t fit in our trade, you know.”“Let him have his way,” observed Laura Stanbridge. “He takes pretty good care of himself, and is not likely to starve when food is to be got; but blue ruin’s ruination, and a flash of lightning (a glass of gin) has been fatal to many a man before now.”“You must go separate at first, my lads,” said the young pickpocket, “and disguise yourselves. This is easy enough; we have plenty of togs here for that purpose. We can find whatever you want in that way.”“You’re as good as father, brother, and son to us, that’s what you are,” said the cracksman.“If either of you should get boxed into the jug, one of us must help the canary bird out of his cage, and cheat the beaks again. I will write down some notions I have on the point, and you shall decide upon them afterwards. Bring me some pens and ink.”Laura Stanbridge rose from her seat, and took from a side table a handsome bronze inkstand, some writing paper, and pens; these she placed before the young man.“All right, that will do,” said the latter, who proceeded to write down instructions for his two associates in crime.While the Cracksman was eating and the pickpocket was writing, the Smoucher whistled a popular thieves’ air in an undertone, and Laura Stanbridge remained apparently in deep thought, glancing furtively at hervis-à-vis.The four personages formed a strange contrast; the woman presented the appearance of a handsome patrician lady, the young man to all appearance belonged to the “upper ten,” and the Smoucher and the cracksman were unmistakeable ruffians of the most pronounced order.The young man presently handed the paper to his two confederates.The Cracksman frowned over it, not because he disapproved of the ideas, but because he found it difficult to decipher the words in which they were conveyed.Honest English was as unintelligible to him as the hieroglyphics of thieves would be to us.Having mastered the preliminary obstacles, however, he testified his delight by knocking down a chair on each side of him with his fist, and handed it to the Smoucher, who, on reading it, appeared no less charmed with its contents.Laura Stanbridge rose from her seat, and crept out of the room.Then they drew close together, and conversed for some time in a low and earnest tone.An hour afterwards the two men passed out. This time each carried a large parcel under his arm, and each with a satisfactory nod went his way.Algernon Sutherland, alias Alf Purvis, was left alone in the little parlour.He appeared to be perfectly at his ease and utterly ndifferent to the position of his companions in crime or the dangers which beset them both.“Bah!” he ejaculated, taking a choice Havana from his cigar case. “They are a pair of ruffians without doubt, and must take their chance. I have given them the best advice, which, if they have sufficient prudence to follow, may help them out of their present scrape.”He lighted his cigar, and puffed therefrom thin wreaths of vapoury smoke.Laura Stanbridge now returned, and entered the room.She now wore a moire-antique dress, which displayed to advantage her bust, and hands white as Parian marble.It was evident that she had made a careful toilette, for her attire was of the best and in excellent taste.The grey-eyed young man was not accustomed to be taken by surprise, or give expression to his emotions, if he had any, in a demonstrative manner; still he did just raise his eyebrows and honour his female companion with an inquiring glance as she re-entered the room.He acknowledged to himself that she was very beautiful, but round her eyes and mouth there were lines and wrinkles unnaturally deepened by the life of anxiety which she had led.Nevertheless, all things considered, she looked well, and was by no means a faded beauty, albeit the bloom had in a measure left the peach.“Alf, dear,” she said, walking towards him, “I have something to say to you—a few words concerning my own happiness.”“Indeed! Well, to begin with, I must inform you that I am no longer Alf Purvis, the farmer’s boy, from Stoke Perry farmhouse—nothing of the sort, my dear. I am Algernon Sutherland.”“Of course, I know that. But in speaking to one who has been so long my pet, I addressed him by his real name—dont’t you see?”“Oh, I see,” returned the young gentleman, puffing carelessly at his cigar. “But, my dear girl, you ought to know—but, of course, you do—that there is nothing real in the existence of a thief; it is as ephemeral as that of butterflies, ladybirds, and other poetical insects. I have changed my name as I have changed my habits, my language, my associations, and my honesty.”Mr. Algernon Sutherland took two or three more long and vigorous puffs at his cigar, which had been trying to go out under cover of his eloquence.“I will call you what you wish,” she answered in a gentle manner and tone of voice, “if you will only listen to what I am going to say.”“All right, Lorry. Say what you like. I will listen complacently enough, and of course if it concerns yourself, I will promise to be deeply interested. Can I say fairer than that?” he added, with a chuckle.“Get away, do, with your nonsense. You do love to be satirical, but that is little to the purpose. You spoke of changing, Alf—for I still cling to the name by which I have known you so long—and that very word has strengthened me in my determination.”“Your determination—eh?”“Yes.”“And what might that be—to reform? I hope you are not about to meet me with a long moral dissertation upon the past, the present, and the future?”“And if I did, there would not be much harm in such a discourse. If I did wish to make reparation for the past by a brighter and less guilty future, there would be nothing to be astonished at.”“Oh, wouldn’t there?” he remarked, carelessly.“No, of course not.”“Well, go on. Fire away.”“Alf, I have been a thief ever since I can remember,” said his companion, “and, oh, how I bitterly repent the crimes which others taught me! How sincerely I desire to atone for them by a life of virtue and repentance!”She buried her face in her hands. Sutherland, as he now termed himself, withdrew the cigar from his mouth, and indulged in a sarcastic smile. To say he was astonished would perhaps be making use of too strong a term. He was a young man who was not easily astonished—but he was amused.“Would you hear my history, Alf?” she said, as she raised her voluptuous eyes, which were now moistened with tears.“Your history?” he repeated. “Yes, I should like to hear it. Proceed.”“It will, perhaps, make you take compassion on me. It was my own mother who first taught me to steal, who beat me when I returned without money, who trained me to look upon the gallows without fear or horror, as other children are taught to look upon a happy death-bed and a peaceful grave. I was very quick and nimble, and soon made myself proficient in picking pockets and counter snatching.”“So I should suppose,” remarked her companion.“As soon as I could find I could steal for a living I worked on my own account, but let my mother have enough to keep her comfortably.“I was engaged with others in a robbery at my native town, Sheffield; my companions were arrested, but I contrived to give the police the slip, and hastened up to London; my companions were convicted, but I escaped.“In London I went into the service of an old woman, who dressed me in fine clothes and sent me to churches and theatres, where my lady-like looks enabled me to mingle with rich people without their suspecting that I was a thief, and to steal such numbers of watches, bracelets, and other articles of jewellery, that before I was seventeen I was as celebrated as Moll Cutpurse of old.No.38.Illustration: LAURA STANBRIDGE DOES A FAINT.MISS LAURA STANBRIDGE DOES A FAINT.“By escaping from the clutches of the old Jewess, who thought she had me as her slave for life, and by diligently saving my money, I was enabled after some time to purchase the lease of this house, and enter upon a new and safer line of business—I became a receiver of stolen goods.”“And your friend?” said Algernon, carelessly.“Oh, the lady you saw here when we first became acquainted.”“Precisely—the old lady.”“She was of service to me.”“So I should imagine, else you wouldn’t have had her here.”“No, I met her at a rural lodging-house, playing at hide and seek with the police about attempting infanticide or something of that sort. I do not know where she is now. We had some words, and she took herself off. After I met with her I used to ply my trade of shoplifting in fashionable quarters, parading her as my duenna.”“Oh, she could ply that part well enough, I dare say,” observed the young man, dryly.His companion proceeded—“Thus you see, Alf,” said she, “that few have had more experience in theft than myself, and few have had such success.”“I should say very few.”“Very few, indeed. I have never been in prison—I am rich, I have had nothing to discourage me, and if it were possible for a thief to be happy I ought to be so. But I am not—I am supremely miserable.”“You surprise me. Not happy?”“No, far from it.”“I, on the other hand, am a thief pursued by justice, who, fortunately for me, is blind to fact as well as fiction, and yet you see I am perfectly happy and contented with my lot.”“You are happy now because you are tasting triumph for the first time, but be assured it will soon turn bitter in your mouth. You are happy now because you have earned the respect of villains, but the time will come when you will sigh for the goodwill of honest men.”“Umph!” muttered Algernon, “this is an entirely new line of business—preaching morality. Well, I am prepared to entertain the question. What do you propose?”She placed her white hands upon his shoulders, and her lips upon his cheek.“Might we not marry, dear Algernon?” she said, in soft beseeching tone. “How happy I should then be! We would travel on the Continent, give up all our old associates, and lead a new life. We would see all the grand sights in the world, and after that,” she added, in a voice hushed as a sigh, as melodious as a song, “we would retire to some quiet nook in the country, and there dwell in delicious solitude. Say, dearest, if I may hope for this happiness?”Her gliding step, her glittering eyes, her fragrant but fiery breath as she approached made her resemble a serpent which uncoils itself to spring.He shuddered in spite of himself.Then he rose, and exclaimed, in a voice of thunder—“Marriage! And you can give utterance to that word as applied to our two selves?”“Ah!” she cried, as she clenched her hands, and recoiled a few steps, “What is the cause of this outburst?”“You have told me your history,” returned he, recovering hissang froid, and lighting a fresh cigar at the dying ashes of his first. “Permit me to relate to you the history of another young lady, for I feel assured that you will find it wondrously interesting. Indeed, it is altogether so romantic that it would appear to many persons quite incredible, but it is correct in every particular—so I have been given to understand. The tale is so instructive that it becomes an actual warning to all who might by chance be acquainted with its heroine. Her name was Margaret Oughton.”The woman uttered a horrible cry. Algernon Sutherland closed his eyes and allowed the smoke to curl voluptuously from between his lips.“Her name was Margaret Oughton. She was the daughter of a cotton operative. When she left her native town she met with a gentleman in London who was struck with her beauty. He feared to marry her; the reason for this—or rather one of the reasons—was that he was old, and she was very young. Poor man, he was wondrously smitten with the fair young creature, who told him, with embraces, that she loved him. He was vain, and therefore believed her. He believed those embraces to be pure, which were as meretricious as those of afille-de-joie.“He married her, and before a month had passed away he found that she had a lover. He ought not to have been astonished at this, and the probability is that he was brought to look upon it as a very natural sequence; anyway he forgave her. In return this angelic young wife robbed him of every farthing she could lay her hands on and eloped with her lover.”“I was his tool—a mere puppet in his hands. I was at his mercy; he made me do it. I had no power to refuse,” cried Laura Stanbridge.“Liar and murderess! That man, your partner in vice, your accomplice in crime, was discovered lying in the high road, his face covered with frightful spots, and all the signs of death by poisoning within his frame. Therefore, my dear Lorry, since I have no ambition to play Duncan to your Lady Macbeth, or to have my tea sugared with arsenic any morning that you happened to sit down to breakfast in a bad temper, I politely decline your kind offer.”She looked at him calmly for a moment, gave a low moan, and fell like a corpse upon the floor.He surveyed her with the inquisitive look of a prizefighter, who wishes to see what effect his “punishment” has had upon his adversary—a look in which sympathy is the least ingredient.“Ah,” he murmured, thoughtfully, “a knock-down blow—not with the fist, but with hard words. Well, this appears to be genuine, and, I suppose, must be attended to.”He poured out some brandy in a wine-glass, and knelt down by the side of the prostrate woman. He forced some brandy into her mouth, which he made her swallow. It seemed to revive her, for she opened her eyes and sighed.I write “seemed,” for Laura Stanbridge had only pretended to faint, in order that she might gain time to think.She had been studying a part while she had been lying prostrate on the ground.She made an effort to rise, and then groaned. Her companion placed his arms round her waist, and raised her to her feet. Then, with one arm round her, he held her in a half-fainting condition.It so chanced that at this particular crisis Peace, who had been let in by the servant girl, gave a rap at the half-open door of the little parlour, and not receiving any answer thereto, he entered without further ceremony.He beheld Laura Stanbridge in the arms of a fashionably-dressed genteel-looking young man, and felt that he had intruded at amal-apropostime.“Beg pardon,” cried Peace. “Didn’t know you were engaged.”“Oh, come in,” said Algernon. “The lady’s better now.”“Bless me, fainting fit, I suppose. How very sad!”He took a tumbler off the sideboard, half filled with water, with which he moistened the forehead and temples of his old playmate.“That will do—I am all right. Why it’s dear old Charlie!” she ejaculated, catching sight of the well-known features of our hero. “Well, I am glad to see you—oh, so very glad! The sight of you has quite restored me. Sit down, Charlie.”“But you,” inquired our hero—“how do you find yourself now?”“Oh, better. I’m all right. Don’t concern yourself about me,” said Laura Stanbridge, throwing herself into an armchair, and smoothing her brown hair across her brows.“I will see you later on,” remarked Mr. Algernon Sutherland, as he glided out of the apartment. “Farewell for the present.”He gave a graceful waive of his hand, and passed on into the passage.In another moment the front door of the habitation was gently closed, and Peace was left alone with his lady companion.“Who is that gentleman?” he inquired, after Sutherland had taken his departure.“Who? Why, don’t you know?”“How should I? Don’t remember to have seen him before.”“Why, you old mufti, it’s the boy, Alf Purvis—now a boy no longer, but a heartless young scapegrace, an ungrateful hound!”“Ungrateful, eh?”“Ah, that’s it. As base as he is ungrateful.”“The boy who used to be with farmer Jamblin?”“Certainly—didn’t you know him again?”“Dear me, no. Why he’s quite a swell, gives himself all the airs and graces of the nobility. My word, but he’s strangely altered.”“Ah, Charlie, you may well say that. He is altered. He owes everything to me, and a pretty return he makes for it.”“Would round upon you when he has the opportunity I suppose—eh?”“It doesn’t answer his purpose to do so at present, but he has shown his teeth and, doubtless, will bite in good time.”“Ah, Lorry,” cried Peace; “what falsehood and dissimulation there is in this world! One does not know whom to trust. The longer a man lives the more forcibly he becomes impressed with this melancholy fact. I never thought very much of that lad. There’s nothing open or candid about him, and he has a cruel, treacherous pair of eyes, but make your mind easy and get rid of the fellow.”“I shall have to do so, I expect, but it cannot be done at present. But I say, old man, how is it I’ve not seen anything of you for so long a time?”“For a very excellent reason,” returned Peace, with a smile. “Her Majesty required my services.”“Ah, I forgot you were landed at Sheffield for a little affair at Crooksemoor House. That was an unfortunate piece of business—but these things can’t be helped.”“I left Dartmoor but a day or two since, and came up to London just for a day or two. A kind friend sent me a letter, in which was enclosed a twenty-pound note. I guessed where it came from, and so have called to thank you.”“I did not send it,” exclaimed Laura Stanbridge, suddenly. “If I had thought of it I certainly should have forwarded you something—but, to speak frankly, the idea never occurred to me.”“You did not send it? The handwriting looked like yours, and I made certain——”“You are mistaken. I have not sent any letter to Dartmoor—indeed, I did not know you were there. I should have thought they would have sent you to Parkhurst.”“Not sent it?” muttered Peace, scratching his head in a puzzled and perplexed manner. “Who the devil did send it, then?”“That’s more than I can tell you. Still, if you are hard-up, and want a little coin, you can have something to be going on with. The least we ought to do is to help each other in a case like this.”“I don’t want any money at present. Haven’t I already told you that I had twenty quid when I left that cursed place? Well, it’s consoling to find that one has a friend, although it is an unknown one. But about this young fellow,” cried Peace, suddenly changing the subject. “You’ve been having a row with him, I suppose.”The woman nodded.“Is he a ruffian?”“He’s destitute of feeling and of gratitude.”“But Lorry, my girl, I hope he hasn’t been base enough or brute enough to raise his hand against you.”“Oh, lor, no, it hasn’t come to that. Oh dear no. We had a little bit of a dispute, that’s all.”“Ah, and he was insolent, and, ahem, abusive, I suppose?”“No, not that.”“What then?”“He was jeering, taunting, and aggravating, and I lost my temper.”“And fainted.”“Something very much like it, but enough upon this head; come, let me help you to a glass of wine, or perhaps you would prefer a little brandy?”“That would be better, certainly.”“Well help yourself, old man, and make yourself at home.”Peace mixed himself some brandy and water, and also a glass of the same for his companion, who had by this time in a measure recovered from the effects of the scene which had taken place between herself and Mr. Algernon Sutherland.“I suppose you have had a nice time of it since I saw you last?” observed Miss Stanbridge. “Dartmoor is not an inviting or cheerful place, they tell me.”“I should think not, but I got on and made a good many friends. A great deal depends upon how a chap conducts himself, and I took pretty good care to be on the safe side. I gave them as little trouble as possible, and won the good opinion of the prison authorities; but, lor’ bless you, Lorry, you’ve no idea of the wretches to be found in that heart-breaking place—fellows without fear or shame—monsters, in fact, who are worse than wild beasts.”“Oh, I dare say some of the very worst people it is possible to conceive find their way into prisons of that sort. Well, here’s better luck in the future, and, as that gentleman with the gingham umbrella said, ‘Always keep your weather eye open, my boy.’ But you have not told me how the old lady is?”“I haven’t seen mother, or any of them as yet. Came straight to London, you know.”“Oh, yes, I forgot—so you told me. Well, give my love to all our friends at Sheffield when you do return. By the way, Emma was in the last swim—wasn’t she?”“Yes, she and my sister got six months’ each.”“Ah, Master Charlie, you were always sweet on that girl.”“Nonsense—no such thing,” returned Peace, indignantly.“Ah! yes you were; you can’t deceive me. I tell you you were sweet on her, and may be now for aught I know. Well, there’s many a worse sort than Emma.”“A jolly sight worse,” said Peace.His companion laughed.“There, didn’t I tell you so? Ah! Charlie, you can’t deceive me. Well, I should like to see Emma. Tell her to give me a call if she should come to London, which it’s likely enough she may do.”“All right, I’ll tell her—that is, if we meet again.”The two quondam companions continued their conversation about matters past and present for upwards of an hour, after which he bade Laura Stanbridge farewell and “took his hook,” as he termed it.The grey mists of evening were descending over the mighty city as Charles Peace threaded his way through the streets in the direction of High Holborn. As he approached Middle-row he saw at a few yards’ distance a face which had been familiar enough to him in his earlier days.He started involuntarily, for the face that attracted his attention was so strangely altered that at first he was in doubt as to its being the one which had been so familiar to him.He came to a sudden halt, being in doubt as to his course of action.“Charles Peace!” exclaimed a man, coming forward and offering his hand. “Speak, man. You do not fear or mistrust me—me, your old chum, Tom Gatliffe.”“So it is you, then?” ejaculated Peace.“Why of course it is—didn’t you know me?”“Yes, oh dear yes, of course I did, but we have not met for so long a time and—well, to say the truth, you are greatly altered. You’ve grown a beard or something, which has quite changed your appearance, but—but—Tom I’m jolly glad to meet you.”“Ah!” murmured the young engineer, “I am indeed altered—not the same Tom Gatliffe you knew years ago; but I have been wanting to see you for a long time, and this meeting is very opportune. Still following your old business?”“Yes! I am not doing much just now—so thought I would run up to London for a day or two.”“Ah, I have got a lot to tell you, but we can’t talk in the street upon private matters. Where can we have a glass together?”“Here’s a quiet little crib just hard by—my time’s my own, and I am quite at your service. Come this way, and I’ll show you where it is.”“The ‘Blue Posts’ will do well enough,” returned Gatliffe.“Too noisy and crowded. I’ll show you a better place. Come along.”The two companions walked on until they came to a quiet, unostentatious-looking public-house.They entered and Peace led the way to a small dingy parlour, which was tenantless. Gatliffe rang the bell and ordered some wine.Glasses were filled, and they drank each other’s health.By the flare of the gas-lights Peace had an opportunity offered him of taking a more steadfast and searching glance at his companion. He noted the alteration which time or sorrow had made in his appearance.Tom Gatliffe was still handsome, but lines of care were distinctly visible on his well-formed features. The eyes had sunk deeper in their sockets, and there was a dark hue around them which Peace had never observed before.He was not a very impressionable man, but he was much concerned at the evident change for the worse in the manner and appearance of the young engineer.“You seem to be taken aback,” cried the latter. “You didn’t expect to meet me, and are surprised, I suppose.”“I didn’t expect to meet you, I admit, but for all that I’m jolly glad to see you, for barring one thing we have been the best of friends, and I owe you much.”“Ah, the one thing you refer to,” remarked his companion, in a slow and melancholy tone, “is what I more than anything else have been wishing to see you about. You know, I suppose, that Aveline and myself are separate and apart. We are strangers. It is no fault of mine that we are so—it is her wish that we should be so. She has left me, Charlie, left me for wealth, position, and rank. I am not good enough for her now—now that she is a lineal descendant of an earl.”“Are you separated, then? Are you divorced?” cried Peace.“We are separated, but not actually divorced; but I offer no obstacle, and I believe that the earl, her grandfather, is about to obtain a divorce. Well, after all, it is perhaps but a natural consequence. I am not fit to mix in the society in which they move.”“My word, but you take the matter in a most self-sacrificing way. She’s your lawful wife. Why don’t you exercise a husband’s authority, and insist upon her returning to her home?”“I don’t care to do that. If she won’t come of her own free will, let her go her ways. I have done with her for good and for all. She was always vain, Charlie—always yearned for wealth and grandeur. Now she has both, and I hope she’s satisfied. That question has been settled long ago. What I have been anxious to see you for is to learn from your own lips how it first came about that she was traced and proved to be what she most unquestionably is, the grand-daughter of that high and mighty nobleman. You brought it about, or were the main instrument in doing so. Don’t imagine for a moment that I am about to upbraid you.”“Well, you see, it was just this. When I was staying at Broxbridge, a detective—a Mr. Wrench—came and made some inquiries about some blooming Italian professor and his wife. I told him all I knew, never thinking for a moment that they had anything to do with your wife. I told him all I knew, and he was a ’cute chap, and a decent sort of fellow enough for a detective—mind I put that in—for a detective—and the earl, too, was a good sort in his way.”“Ah, you know him, do you?”“Certainly. I did some work for him—restored a picture, and made him some frames. He behaved in a very handsome manner to me, and I have every reason to speak in the highest terms of him. Well, as I was saying, I gave Wrench all the information I could; he followed up the clue, and you know the rest. But lord bless me, Tom, I don’t know as you’ve lost much. As you were saying, she was always vain, and when I saw her in the carriage, being driven to the front entrance of Broxbridge Hall, she never so much as condescended to give me a passing nod—there’s for you! And she knew at the time that I had been the chief means of proving her identity, and bringing her to all this grandeur, which she loves better than anything else, it would appear—better than her husband, better than her duty.”“Yes, yes, that is right enough,” cried Gatliffe, testily; “but she’s not so very much to blame—she has been wrought upon and over-persuaded by those about her.”“Rubbish, gammon!” cried Peace. “It’s not much persuading she wanted—not a bit of it; it’s her own free will. But, there, I don’t want to pain you by these remarks; but it’s what everybody says—everybody but you.”“I am satisfied, and am exceedingly glad I’ve seen you.”“I tell you what I’d do; but, of course, you have done so.”“Done what?”“Insisted upon the earl allowing you a handsome income for the remainder of your life.”“I will not touch a penny of his money. Would starve first. Do you think I would consent to sell my wife?”“Ah, well, that’s a matter of taste,” returned Peace. “I know which way the cat would jump if I were in your place; but, of course, all that is, as I before observed, a matter of taste.”“Ah,” murmured the young engineer, with a deep-draw nigh, “it is astonishing what different views men take in matters of this sort.”“You take it too much to heart, I’m thinking,” cried Peace.“What makes you think so?”“From your appearance, as well as from your manner.”“I am not like the same man, I admit, and yet I have no reason to complain. When Aveline was with me I had a struggle to get on to support her in a manner that she had a right to expect and desired. Since she has left me I have prospered beyond my most sanguine expectations. Two of my inventions have turned out much more perfect appliances than any one ever supposed, and they bring me in a handsome yearly income, in addition to the one I receive at the works; so that I am, as you may imagine, a prosperous man.”“But still you are not happy,” suggested Peace.“Not altogether, I admit.”“Hark ye, Tom. Don’t let your happiness be disturbed by a woman. A man’s a fool to do that.”“There’s a good many fools in the world then,” returned Gatliffe.“Admitted, but that’s no reason that you or I should add to their number.”Gatliffe made no reply. He was silent and thoughtful for some little time, after which he said, in an altered tone—“And now with regard to yourself. You have not told me how you are getting on. Don’t be offended, but if you are in need of cash—ready money, you know.”“I am not in need of any,” cried Peace. “Not at present at any rate.”“Should you be.”“Well, what then?”“You know where to apply—to me.”“A letter addressed to Mr. Gatliffe, London, will reach you I suppose?” returned our hero with a laugh.“I will give you my address. I am still at the same place—Wood Green. Come and dine with me some Sunday.”“I can’t. I return to Sheffield to-morrow, but when next in London will do so. Rest assured I shall keep the address.”And with this promise the two friends parted.“Ah!” mused Peace, as he took his way to the coffee shop where he had taken up his quarters for a night or two, “he hasn’t heard of the Crookhsemoor House business, and doesn’t know that he has been hobnobbing with a convict just discharged from Dartmoor. So much the better. After all, Tom’s a good fellow, and to say the truth he appears to have lost a good deal of his upstart ways. I s’pose it’s trouble as has done that for him.”
The reader will remember the young scapegrace, Alf Purvis, who was driven from Stoke Ferry Farm with the hare round his neck. He had now grown up to a slim, handsome young man, with an almost feminine cast of features.
His education was by this time completed. His instructor and trainer, Laura Stanbridge, in conjunction with her lawless associates, had transformed the country lad into one of the most expert and daring young London thieves of the period.
Alf was lost, irretrievably lost, and no one who knew him at the farmhouse could recognise him as the boy who gave such trouble to Mr. Jamblin. He was so completely metamorphosed, personally as well as mentally.
We have had, during the progress of this work, occasion to give the reader some little insight into the lives and careers of juvenile and adult pickpockets.
Alf Purvis was the most accomplished one of the whole fraternity. He had a certain amount of education, was quick-witted, aristocratic in his appearance, and was, therefore, a dangerous person to be let loose on society. He had, moreover, for his accomplice a woman, even more dangerous than himself—a sort of harpy or beautiful demon, if such a term can with propriety be applied to one of the softer sex.
Alf Purvis frequented places of fashionable resort, and had the faculty of obtaining an entrance to select coteries in a manner which was altogether unaccountable.
He was, in short, the George Barrington of his day. His manners were so soft and winning that he was able to deceive and hoodwink his betters.
It is terrible to think of the change which had come over the farmer’s boy.
Let us pay a visit to the house at the back of Regent-street. It was one of those hours of the night in which honest folk are asleep, and fools revel, and thieves work.
The vermin of society, like the vermin of the woods and fields, shun the light of Heaven, in which they see the effulgence of an Omnipotent power.
A man, with his face muffled by a cloak, was walking quickly through the courts and alleys which join Regent-street to Piccadilly.
The last of these passages ended in a mews, which we have already described.
Upon his arriving at this place the pedestrian came to a halt, and, glancing furtively around, he affected to be expecting somebody.
Drawing himself under the wall, he looked round till he saw a shadow on the pavement, and heard a step quick, cautious, and as stealthy as his own.
He looked round again, and seeing no policeman in sight, he gave a low whistle, and as soon as it was responded to, advanced into the middle of the road. The other man did the same, and then said in a whisper—
“Any crushers?”
“No; the man on the beat has passed a few minutes since—the coast is clear.”
“Make tracks then.”
The two men went down the yard, and thence into a narrow deserted street, in which stood the house in the occupation of Laura Stanbridge.
They knocked in a peculiar manner at the door of the house, which to all appearance was uninhabited, for shutters were up before all the windows.
Any one, however, who supposed the habitation was without an occupant would be greatly mistaken.
The knocks were heard and answered on the instant.
A maid servant opened the door, when, without a word, the two men went in.
The girl looked the door after them, bolted it top and bottom, and finally secured it with a chain, which made it resemble the door of a prison.
All this had been done in the space of a few seconds.
“Is the missis in, my dear?” said one of the men, in a tone half husky and half oleaginous.
“Yes, sir,” returned the girl. “I think she’s been expecting you; or, if it’s not you, it’s somebody else. You will find her in the little parlour.”
The men looked at one another, nodded in a mysterious self-satisfied manner, and entered the room.
The little parlour in which they found themselves was furnished in a grotesque and peculiar style. The chairs were all of a different shape, size, and pattern. The carpet would have suited a large dining-room in some palatial mansion, and the paper a summer boudoir; while the dark oak bureau, in one corner of the apartment, frowned with all the sternness of antiquity upon a new and fashionable maple-wood cabinet in the other. As to any furnitureen suite, as the modern advertisements have it, that was altogether out of the question.
The pictures, however, which disfigured the walls were all of the same caste and quality, equally indifferent in morality and art.
They consisted of portraits of celebrated criminals, executions, highwaymen stopping carriages and coaches, smugglers attacked by the preventive men, and pirates committing atrocities on the high seas.
“I thought she said her mistress was here,” observed one of the men.
The other shrugged his shoulders and said, “She aint far off, I’ll wager.”
They took off their capes and comforters and sat down.
Both these personages have been already introduced on the night Laura Stanbridge paid a visit to the thieves’ haunt in Whitechapel.
One was the “Smoucher,” the other was the “Cracksman,” and perhaps such another pair of scoundrels could not be found in the metropolis.
The Smoucher threw himself into a chair with the perpendicular back of the Elizabethan age—the Cracksman luxuriated in the soft depths of the latest patent spring.
Presently the sounds of footsteps were heard in the passage, and Miss Stanbridge entered. She was dressed in the height of fashion, and certainly looked what might be termed captivating.
“Glad you’ve come,” said she, with a smile. “You managed to get here without meeting with any impediment?”
“It was all fair sailing,” returned the Smoucher. “No Queen’s service men to overhaul us, but we took care to come by different roads, and walked the quiet sides of the streets.”
“Where’s the Prince?” inquired the cracksman.
The Prince was a nickname they had given to Alf Purvis—now, however, no longer Alf Purvis, but Algernon Sutherland.
“He’s not come, but won’t be long, I expect,” said Miss Stanbridge.
“Oh, in course he’s not here,” cried the cracksman. “Aint likely. He’s dancing after some pretty face, and forgot all about ourchapel, and all about the traps, too, I s’pose. I never saw such an owdacious chap. He’d follow a girl into a police station if he fancied her.”
Laura Stanbridge tapped the ground impatiently with her feet. It was evident enough that she was vexed.
“What business is it of yours?” said the Smoucher. “I make it a rule myself never to interfere with a young man’s private affairs.”
“I aint a saying anything against him,” observed the other man, “only I ’spose there’s no harm in speaking one’s mind. Concerning the women the Prince is as weak and wivery-wavery as a cabman that’s lived on Haymarket gin.”
“Well, and if he is, what of that? It’s his only fault. He’s a star—a regular out and outer. What wonders he’s done for us already. Why, he knows more than any of us, and he’s little more than a lad now.”
“Ah, he’s a right down good un—a regular stunner,” cried the cracksman, with the enthusiasm of a true connoisseur. “He did that last job to rights.”
“Lord, missus,” said Miles Slann, the Whitechapel cracksman, “if yer’d been there yer heart would have melted to see how he walked into them safety locks. Chubbs are puzzlers to him, but at the hanky-panky business, the light-fingered part of the profession, there aint any one to touch him.”
“Ah, he’s very clever—there isn’t the slightest doubt of that,” said Miss Stanbridge.
“Clever! I just think he was. He does yer credit, and it’s a good thing yer picked up with him when he was so young. He’s been well taught, and I say agen he does yer credit. He does all on us credit,” repeated Mr. Slann, in a still more forcible manner.
“Don’t speak in so loud a tone, you noisy wretch!” exclaimed Laura. “Can’t you say what you have to say in a lower tone?”
“Oh, I beg pardon, I forgot. We are not in Whitechapel now, but among the aristocracy. I forgot.”
“Well, don’t forgot next time,” suggested the Smoucher.
“All right, governor. It’s a way I’ve got, ’specially when I am speaking of the Prince; but Lord bless him he never keeps his own long. His blunt is blewed as soon as it is got.”
“Hush!” cried Laura Stanbridge. “I hear his step—he has come in by the back way.”
“Oh, you know his step—do you?”
“I should think I did. Silence, hark—yes, ’tis he!”
A tall, slim, young man entered the room. His features were almost womanly in their grace and beauty, but there was an expression upon them which it would be impossible to define, and which seemed to emanate from the eyes more than from any other feature, which were of a cold and cruel grey.
“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,” said the young thief. “I know I am a little late, but it couldn’t be helped, and so now to business, pals,” he said, in a clear, sharp voice, every tone of which bespoke promptitude and decision. “You’ve both of you been too rash. There’s no doubt, after that last job which you made such a mess of, that the blue bloodhounds will soon be after you.”
“We shall bechanted in the leer(advertised in the papers) to-morrow,” said the cracksman, in the brutal language of his craft. “We mustspeel-to-the drum(go into the country), captain.”
These men, old in crime, already recognised him as their master.
“Yes,” he replied, calmly, “you must make up your minds to go into the country, or to cross the herring pond. You are too well known in London to remain here with safety.”
“Well, we must hook it, I s’pose,” said Miles Slann. “There aint no help for it. Look here,” he said, in continuation, addressing himself to his younger companion, “you were born and bred in the country, though nobody would believe it, to look at you now. Are there any “plants” to be made there nowadays?”
Mr. Algernon Sutherland crossed his legs in a symmetrical manner, and passed his hands through his flowing locks.
“Umph!” he ejaculated. “I hardly know how to answer your question. In the country dwell a race of men called farmers, who utterly disbelieve in banks, those nefarious institutions which have extinguished highway robbery—the high art of our profession—in order that they may pillage percentage from the million, and, by breaking now and then, utterly ruin the fatherless and the widows. But these farmers, who are honest fellows in the main, ride home from market at a particular season of the year with a twelvemonth’s income in their pockets, which season is the autumn, now close at hand.”
“Oh, aint that fortunate?” cried the Smoucher. “But are there no banks in the country, then?”
“Plenty for gentlemen and tradesmen, and those exceptional farmers who prefer such custody to that of their own clumsy cudgels and rusty blunderbusses. However, they are all compelled to have large sums of money in their houses for the payment of their labourers on Saturday night.”
“Just the place for our money,” cried the Cracksman. “Let’s have a country tour for the benefit of our health. I don’t feel up to the knocker myself, and fresh air is needful. Besides, we aint wanted in London—leastways, if we are “wanted,” which, in course, is likely enough, why it’s as well to give the ‘crushers’ the trouble to run down to our country seat. Ah, ah! If there be kens to crack and heads to break on the main toby we’re all there. What if we do get done for a cramp, and end our days at Tuck-up Fair? There’s no need to say die on a dunghill, or talk without meat or drink. So, Lorry, let’s have somethink that way, if you please.”
“You are a good one for prog and lush,” said the Smoucher. “If you were going to be ‘topped’ to-morrer, you’d ask to die with your mouth full. But take care, old sinner, he who cuts much beef has more belly than brains, and that won’t fit in our trade, you know.”
“Let him have his way,” observed Laura Stanbridge. “He takes pretty good care of himself, and is not likely to starve when food is to be got; but blue ruin’s ruination, and a flash of lightning (a glass of gin) has been fatal to many a man before now.”
“You must go separate at first, my lads,” said the young pickpocket, “and disguise yourselves. This is easy enough; we have plenty of togs here for that purpose. We can find whatever you want in that way.”
“You’re as good as father, brother, and son to us, that’s what you are,” said the cracksman.
“If either of you should get boxed into the jug, one of us must help the canary bird out of his cage, and cheat the beaks again. I will write down some notions I have on the point, and you shall decide upon them afterwards. Bring me some pens and ink.”
Laura Stanbridge rose from her seat, and took from a side table a handsome bronze inkstand, some writing paper, and pens; these she placed before the young man.
“All right, that will do,” said the latter, who proceeded to write down instructions for his two associates in crime.
While the Cracksman was eating and the pickpocket was writing, the Smoucher whistled a popular thieves’ air in an undertone, and Laura Stanbridge remained apparently in deep thought, glancing furtively at hervis-à-vis.
The four personages formed a strange contrast; the woman presented the appearance of a handsome patrician lady, the young man to all appearance belonged to the “upper ten,” and the Smoucher and the cracksman were unmistakeable ruffians of the most pronounced order.
The young man presently handed the paper to his two confederates.
The Cracksman frowned over it, not because he disapproved of the ideas, but because he found it difficult to decipher the words in which they were conveyed.
Honest English was as unintelligible to him as the hieroglyphics of thieves would be to us.
Having mastered the preliminary obstacles, however, he testified his delight by knocking down a chair on each side of him with his fist, and handed it to the Smoucher, who, on reading it, appeared no less charmed with its contents.
Laura Stanbridge rose from her seat, and crept out of the room.
Then they drew close together, and conversed for some time in a low and earnest tone.
An hour afterwards the two men passed out. This time each carried a large parcel under his arm, and each with a satisfactory nod went his way.
Algernon Sutherland, alias Alf Purvis, was left alone in the little parlour.
He appeared to be perfectly at his ease and utterly ndifferent to the position of his companions in crime or the dangers which beset them both.
“Bah!” he ejaculated, taking a choice Havana from his cigar case. “They are a pair of ruffians without doubt, and must take their chance. I have given them the best advice, which, if they have sufficient prudence to follow, may help them out of their present scrape.”
He lighted his cigar, and puffed therefrom thin wreaths of vapoury smoke.
Laura Stanbridge now returned, and entered the room.
She now wore a moire-antique dress, which displayed to advantage her bust, and hands white as Parian marble.
It was evident that she had made a careful toilette, for her attire was of the best and in excellent taste.
The grey-eyed young man was not accustomed to be taken by surprise, or give expression to his emotions, if he had any, in a demonstrative manner; still he did just raise his eyebrows and honour his female companion with an inquiring glance as she re-entered the room.
He acknowledged to himself that she was very beautiful, but round her eyes and mouth there were lines and wrinkles unnaturally deepened by the life of anxiety which she had led.
Nevertheless, all things considered, she looked well, and was by no means a faded beauty, albeit the bloom had in a measure left the peach.
“Alf, dear,” she said, walking towards him, “I have something to say to you—a few words concerning my own happiness.”
“Indeed! Well, to begin with, I must inform you that I am no longer Alf Purvis, the farmer’s boy, from Stoke Perry farmhouse—nothing of the sort, my dear. I am Algernon Sutherland.”
“Of course, I know that. But in speaking to one who has been so long my pet, I addressed him by his real name—dont’t you see?”
“Oh, I see,” returned the young gentleman, puffing carelessly at his cigar. “But, my dear girl, you ought to know—but, of course, you do—that there is nothing real in the existence of a thief; it is as ephemeral as that of butterflies, ladybirds, and other poetical insects. I have changed my name as I have changed my habits, my language, my associations, and my honesty.”
Mr. Algernon Sutherland took two or three more long and vigorous puffs at his cigar, which had been trying to go out under cover of his eloquence.
“I will call you what you wish,” she answered in a gentle manner and tone of voice, “if you will only listen to what I am going to say.”
“All right, Lorry. Say what you like. I will listen complacently enough, and of course if it concerns yourself, I will promise to be deeply interested. Can I say fairer than that?” he added, with a chuckle.
“Get away, do, with your nonsense. You do love to be satirical, but that is little to the purpose. You spoke of changing, Alf—for I still cling to the name by which I have known you so long—and that very word has strengthened me in my determination.”
“Your determination—eh?”
“Yes.”
“And what might that be—to reform? I hope you are not about to meet me with a long moral dissertation upon the past, the present, and the future?”
“And if I did, there would not be much harm in such a discourse. If I did wish to make reparation for the past by a brighter and less guilty future, there would be nothing to be astonished at.”
“Oh, wouldn’t there?” he remarked, carelessly.
“No, of course not.”
“Well, go on. Fire away.”
“Alf, I have been a thief ever since I can remember,” said his companion, “and, oh, how I bitterly repent the crimes which others taught me! How sincerely I desire to atone for them by a life of virtue and repentance!”
She buried her face in her hands. Sutherland, as he now termed himself, withdrew the cigar from his mouth, and indulged in a sarcastic smile. To say he was astonished would perhaps be making use of too strong a term. He was a young man who was not easily astonished—but he was amused.
“Would you hear my history, Alf?” she said, as she raised her voluptuous eyes, which were now moistened with tears.
“Your history?” he repeated. “Yes, I should like to hear it. Proceed.”
“It will, perhaps, make you take compassion on me. It was my own mother who first taught me to steal, who beat me when I returned without money, who trained me to look upon the gallows without fear or horror, as other children are taught to look upon a happy death-bed and a peaceful grave. I was very quick and nimble, and soon made myself proficient in picking pockets and counter snatching.”
“So I should suppose,” remarked her companion.
“As soon as I could find I could steal for a living I worked on my own account, but let my mother have enough to keep her comfortably.
“I was engaged with others in a robbery at my native town, Sheffield; my companions were arrested, but I contrived to give the police the slip, and hastened up to London; my companions were convicted, but I escaped.
“In London I went into the service of an old woman, who dressed me in fine clothes and sent me to churches and theatres, where my lady-like looks enabled me to mingle with rich people without their suspecting that I was a thief, and to steal such numbers of watches, bracelets, and other articles of jewellery, that before I was seventeen I was as celebrated as Moll Cutpurse of old.
No.38.
Illustration: LAURA STANBRIDGE DOES A FAINT.MISS LAURA STANBRIDGE DOES A FAINT.
MISS LAURA STANBRIDGE DOES A FAINT.
“By escaping from the clutches of the old Jewess, who thought she had me as her slave for life, and by diligently saving my money, I was enabled after some time to purchase the lease of this house, and enter upon a new and safer line of business—I became a receiver of stolen goods.”
“And your friend?” said Algernon, carelessly.
“Oh, the lady you saw here when we first became acquainted.”
“Precisely—the old lady.”
“She was of service to me.”
“So I should imagine, else you wouldn’t have had her here.”
“No, I met her at a rural lodging-house, playing at hide and seek with the police about attempting infanticide or something of that sort. I do not know where she is now. We had some words, and she took herself off. After I met with her I used to ply my trade of shoplifting in fashionable quarters, parading her as my duenna.”
“Oh, she could ply that part well enough, I dare say,” observed the young man, dryly.
His companion proceeded—
“Thus you see, Alf,” said she, “that few have had more experience in theft than myself, and few have had such success.”
“I should say very few.”
“Very few, indeed. I have never been in prison—I am rich, I have had nothing to discourage me, and if it were possible for a thief to be happy I ought to be so. But I am not—I am supremely miserable.”
“You surprise me. Not happy?”
“No, far from it.”
“I, on the other hand, am a thief pursued by justice, who, fortunately for me, is blind to fact as well as fiction, and yet you see I am perfectly happy and contented with my lot.”
“You are happy now because you are tasting triumph for the first time, but be assured it will soon turn bitter in your mouth. You are happy now because you have earned the respect of villains, but the time will come when you will sigh for the goodwill of honest men.”
“Umph!” muttered Algernon, “this is an entirely new line of business—preaching morality. Well, I am prepared to entertain the question. What do you propose?”
She placed her white hands upon his shoulders, and her lips upon his cheek.
“Might we not marry, dear Algernon?” she said, in soft beseeching tone. “How happy I should then be! We would travel on the Continent, give up all our old associates, and lead a new life. We would see all the grand sights in the world, and after that,” she added, in a voice hushed as a sigh, as melodious as a song, “we would retire to some quiet nook in the country, and there dwell in delicious solitude. Say, dearest, if I may hope for this happiness?”
Her gliding step, her glittering eyes, her fragrant but fiery breath as she approached made her resemble a serpent which uncoils itself to spring.
He shuddered in spite of himself.
Then he rose, and exclaimed, in a voice of thunder—“Marriage! And you can give utterance to that word as applied to our two selves?”
“Ah!” she cried, as she clenched her hands, and recoiled a few steps, “What is the cause of this outburst?”
“You have told me your history,” returned he, recovering hissang froid, and lighting a fresh cigar at the dying ashes of his first. “Permit me to relate to you the history of another young lady, for I feel assured that you will find it wondrously interesting. Indeed, it is altogether so romantic that it would appear to many persons quite incredible, but it is correct in every particular—so I have been given to understand. The tale is so instructive that it becomes an actual warning to all who might by chance be acquainted with its heroine. Her name was Margaret Oughton.”
The woman uttered a horrible cry. Algernon Sutherland closed his eyes and allowed the smoke to curl voluptuously from between his lips.
“Her name was Margaret Oughton. She was the daughter of a cotton operative. When she left her native town she met with a gentleman in London who was struck with her beauty. He feared to marry her; the reason for this—or rather one of the reasons—was that he was old, and she was very young. Poor man, he was wondrously smitten with the fair young creature, who told him, with embraces, that she loved him. He was vain, and therefore believed her. He believed those embraces to be pure, which were as meretricious as those of afille-de-joie.
“He married her, and before a month had passed away he found that she had a lover. He ought not to have been astonished at this, and the probability is that he was brought to look upon it as a very natural sequence; anyway he forgave her. In return this angelic young wife robbed him of every farthing she could lay her hands on and eloped with her lover.”
“I was his tool—a mere puppet in his hands. I was at his mercy; he made me do it. I had no power to refuse,” cried Laura Stanbridge.
“Liar and murderess! That man, your partner in vice, your accomplice in crime, was discovered lying in the high road, his face covered with frightful spots, and all the signs of death by poisoning within his frame. Therefore, my dear Lorry, since I have no ambition to play Duncan to your Lady Macbeth, or to have my tea sugared with arsenic any morning that you happened to sit down to breakfast in a bad temper, I politely decline your kind offer.”
She looked at him calmly for a moment, gave a low moan, and fell like a corpse upon the floor.
He surveyed her with the inquisitive look of a prizefighter, who wishes to see what effect his “punishment” has had upon his adversary—a look in which sympathy is the least ingredient.
“Ah,” he murmured, thoughtfully, “a knock-down blow—not with the fist, but with hard words. Well, this appears to be genuine, and, I suppose, must be attended to.”
He poured out some brandy in a wine-glass, and knelt down by the side of the prostrate woman. He forced some brandy into her mouth, which he made her swallow. It seemed to revive her, for she opened her eyes and sighed.
I write “seemed,” for Laura Stanbridge had only pretended to faint, in order that she might gain time to think.
She had been studying a part while she had been lying prostrate on the ground.
She made an effort to rise, and then groaned. Her companion placed his arms round her waist, and raised her to her feet. Then, with one arm round her, he held her in a half-fainting condition.
It so chanced that at this particular crisis Peace, who had been let in by the servant girl, gave a rap at the half-open door of the little parlour, and not receiving any answer thereto, he entered without further ceremony.
He beheld Laura Stanbridge in the arms of a fashionably-dressed genteel-looking young man, and felt that he had intruded at amal-apropostime.
“Beg pardon,” cried Peace. “Didn’t know you were engaged.”
“Oh, come in,” said Algernon. “The lady’s better now.”
“Bless me, fainting fit, I suppose. How very sad!”
He took a tumbler off the sideboard, half filled with water, with which he moistened the forehead and temples of his old playmate.
“That will do—I am all right. Why it’s dear old Charlie!” she ejaculated, catching sight of the well-known features of our hero. “Well, I am glad to see you—oh, so very glad! The sight of you has quite restored me. Sit down, Charlie.”
“But you,” inquired our hero—“how do you find yourself now?”
“Oh, better. I’m all right. Don’t concern yourself about me,” said Laura Stanbridge, throwing herself into an armchair, and smoothing her brown hair across her brows.
“I will see you later on,” remarked Mr. Algernon Sutherland, as he glided out of the apartment. “Farewell for the present.”
He gave a graceful waive of his hand, and passed on into the passage.
In another moment the front door of the habitation was gently closed, and Peace was left alone with his lady companion.
“Who is that gentleman?” he inquired, after Sutherland had taken his departure.
“Who? Why, don’t you know?”
“How should I? Don’t remember to have seen him before.”
“Why, you old mufti, it’s the boy, Alf Purvis—now a boy no longer, but a heartless young scapegrace, an ungrateful hound!”
“Ungrateful, eh?”
“Ah, that’s it. As base as he is ungrateful.”
“The boy who used to be with farmer Jamblin?”
“Certainly—didn’t you know him again?”
“Dear me, no. Why he’s quite a swell, gives himself all the airs and graces of the nobility. My word, but he’s strangely altered.”
“Ah, Charlie, you may well say that. He is altered. He owes everything to me, and a pretty return he makes for it.”
“Would round upon you when he has the opportunity I suppose—eh?”
“It doesn’t answer his purpose to do so at present, but he has shown his teeth and, doubtless, will bite in good time.”
“Ah, Lorry,” cried Peace; “what falsehood and dissimulation there is in this world! One does not know whom to trust. The longer a man lives the more forcibly he becomes impressed with this melancholy fact. I never thought very much of that lad. There’s nothing open or candid about him, and he has a cruel, treacherous pair of eyes, but make your mind easy and get rid of the fellow.”
“I shall have to do so, I expect, but it cannot be done at present. But I say, old man, how is it I’ve not seen anything of you for so long a time?”
“For a very excellent reason,” returned Peace, with a smile. “Her Majesty required my services.”
“Ah, I forgot you were landed at Sheffield for a little affair at Crooksemoor House. That was an unfortunate piece of business—but these things can’t be helped.”
“I left Dartmoor but a day or two since, and came up to London just for a day or two. A kind friend sent me a letter, in which was enclosed a twenty-pound note. I guessed where it came from, and so have called to thank you.”
“I did not send it,” exclaimed Laura Stanbridge, suddenly. “If I had thought of it I certainly should have forwarded you something—but, to speak frankly, the idea never occurred to me.”
“You did not send it? The handwriting looked like yours, and I made certain——”
“You are mistaken. I have not sent any letter to Dartmoor—indeed, I did not know you were there. I should have thought they would have sent you to Parkhurst.”
“Not sent it?” muttered Peace, scratching his head in a puzzled and perplexed manner. “Who the devil did send it, then?”
“That’s more than I can tell you. Still, if you are hard-up, and want a little coin, you can have something to be going on with. The least we ought to do is to help each other in a case like this.”
“I don’t want any money at present. Haven’t I already told you that I had twenty quid when I left that cursed place? Well, it’s consoling to find that one has a friend, although it is an unknown one. But about this young fellow,” cried Peace, suddenly changing the subject. “You’ve been having a row with him, I suppose.”
The woman nodded.
“Is he a ruffian?”
“He’s destitute of feeling and of gratitude.”
“But Lorry, my girl, I hope he hasn’t been base enough or brute enough to raise his hand against you.”
“Oh, lor, no, it hasn’t come to that. Oh dear no. We had a little bit of a dispute, that’s all.”
“Ah, and he was insolent, and, ahem, abusive, I suppose?”
“No, not that.”
“What then?”
“He was jeering, taunting, and aggravating, and I lost my temper.”
“And fainted.”
“Something very much like it, but enough upon this head; come, let me help you to a glass of wine, or perhaps you would prefer a little brandy?”
“That would be better, certainly.”
“Well help yourself, old man, and make yourself at home.”
Peace mixed himself some brandy and water, and also a glass of the same for his companion, who had by this time in a measure recovered from the effects of the scene which had taken place between herself and Mr. Algernon Sutherland.
“I suppose you have had a nice time of it since I saw you last?” observed Miss Stanbridge. “Dartmoor is not an inviting or cheerful place, they tell me.”
“I should think not, but I got on and made a good many friends. A great deal depends upon how a chap conducts himself, and I took pretty good care to be on the safe side. I gave them as little trouble as possible, and won the good opinion of the prison authorities; but, lor’ bless you, Lorry, you’ve no idea of the wretches to be found in that heart-breaking place—fellows without fear or shame—monsters, in fact, who are worse than wild beasts.”
“Oh, I dare say some of the very worst people it is possible to conceive find their way into prisons of that sort. Well, here’s better luck in the future, and, as that gentleman with the gingham umbrella said, ‘Always keep your weather eye open, my boy.’ But you have not told me how the old lady is?”
“I haven’t seen mother, or any of them as yet. Came straight to London, you know.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot—so you told me. Well, give my love to all our friends at Sheffield when you do return. By the way, Emma was in the last swim—wasn’t she?”
“Yes, she and my sister got six months’ each.”
“Ah, Master Charlie, you were always sweet on that girl.”
“Nonsense—no such thing,” returned Peace, indignantly.
“Ah! yes you were; you can’t deceive me. I tell you you were sweet on her, and may be now for aught I know. Well, there’s many a worse sort than Emma.”
“A jolly sight worse,” said Peace.
His companion laughed.
“There, didn’t I tell you so? Ah! Charlie, you can’t deceive me. Well, I should like to see Emma. Tell her to give me a call if she should come to London, which it’s likely enough she may do.”
“All right, I’ll tell her—that is, if we meet again.”
The two quondam companions continued their conversation about matters past and present for upwards of an hour, after which he bade Laura Stanbridge farewell and “took his hook,” as he termed it.
The grey mists of evening were descending over the mighty city as Charles Peace threaded his way through the streets in the direction of High Holborn. As he approached Middle-row he saw at a few yards’ distance a face which had been familiar enough to him in his earlier days.
He started involuntarily, for the face that attracted his attention was so strangely altered that at first he was in doubt as to its being the one which had been so familiar to him.
He came to a sudden halt, being in doubt as to his course of action.
“Charles Peace!” exclaimed a man, coming forward and offering his hand. “Speak, man. You do not fear or mistrust me—me, your old chum, Tom Gatliffe.”
“So it is you, then?” ejaculated Peace.
“Why of course it is—didn’t you know me?”
“Yes, oh dear yes, of course I did, but we have not met for so long a time and—well, to say the truth, you are greatly altered. You’ve grown a beard or something, which has quite changed your appearance, but—but—Tom I’m jolly glad to meet you.”
“Ah!” murmured the young engineer, “I am indeed altered—not the same Tom Gatliffe you knew years ago; but I have been wanting to see you for a long time, and this meeting is very opportune. Still following your old business?”
“Yes! I am not doing much just now—so thought I would run up to London for a day or two.”
“Ah, I have got a lot to tell you, but we can’t talk in the street upon private matters. Where can we have a glass together?”
“Here’s a quiet little crib just hard by—my time’s my own, and I am quite at your service. Come this way, and I’ll show you where it is.”
“The ‘Blue Posts’ will do well enough,” returned Gatliffe.
“Too noisy and crowded. I’ll show you a better place. Come along.”
The two companions walked on until they came to a quiet, unostentatious-looking public-house.
They entered and Peace led the way to a small dingy parlour, which was tenantless. Gatliffe rang the bell and ordered some wine.
Glasses were filled, and they drank each other’s health.
By the flare of the gas-lights Peace had an opportunity offered him of taking a more steadfast and searching glance at his companion. He noted the alteration which time or sorrow had made in his appearance.
Tom Gatliffe was still handsome, but lines of care were distinctly visible on his well-formed features. The eyes had sunk deeper in their sockets, and there was a dark hue around them which Peace had never observed before.
He was not a very impressionable man, but he was much concerned at the evident change for the worse in the manner and appearance of the young engineer.
“You seem to be taken aback,” cried the latter. “You didn’t expect to meet me, and are surprised, I suppose.”
“I didn’t expect to meet you, I admit, but for all that I’m jolly glad to see you, for barring one thing we have been the best of friends, and I owe you much.”
“Ah, the one thing you refer to,” remarked his companion, in a slow and melancholy tone, “is what I more than anything else have been wishing to see you about. You know, I suppose, that Aveline and myself are separate and apart. We are strangers. It is no fault of mine that we are so—it is her wish that we should be so. She has left me, Charlie, left me for wealth, position, and rank. I am not good enough for her now—now that she is a lineal descendant of an earl.”
“Are you separated, then? Are you divorced?” cried Peace.
“We are separated, but not actually divorced; but I offer no obstacle, and I believe that the earl, her grandfather, is about to obtain a divorce. Well, after all, it is perhaps but a natural consequence. I am not fit to mix in the society in which they move.”
“My word, but you take the matter in a most self-sacrificing way. She’s your lawful wife. Why don’t you exercise a husband’s authority, and insist upon her returning to her home?”
“I don’t care to do that. If she won’t come of her own free will, let her go her ways. I have done with her for good and for all. She was always vain, Charlie—always yearned for wealth and grandeur. Now she has both, and I hope she’s satisfied. That question has been settled long ago. What I have been anxious to see you for is to learn from your own lips how it first came about that she was traced and proved to be what she most unquestionably is, the grand-daughter of that high and mighty nobleman. You brought it about, or were the main instrument in doing so. Don’t imagine for a moment that I am about to upbraid you.”
“Well, you see, it was just this. When I was staying at Broxbridge, a detective—a Mr. Wrench—came and made some inquiries about some blooming Italian professor and his wife. I told him all I knew, never thinking for a moment that they had anything to do with your wife. I told him all I knew, and he was a ’cute chap, and a decent sort of fellow enough for a detective—mind I put that in—for a detective—and the earl, too, was a good sort in his way.”
“Ah, you know him, do you?”
“Certainly. I did some work for him—restored a picture, and made him some frames. He behaved in a very handsome manner to me, and I have every reason to speak in the highest terms of him. Well, as I was saying, I gave Wrench all the information I could; he followed up the clue, and you know the rest. But lord bless me, Tom, I don’t know as you’ve lost much. As you were saying, she was always vain, and when I saw her in the carriage, being driven to the front entrance of Broxbridge Hall, she never so much as condescended to give me a passing nod—there’s for you! And she knew at the time that I had been the chief means of proving her identity, and bringing her to all this grandeur, which she loves better than anything else, it would appear—better than her husband, better than her duty.”
“Yes, yes, that is right enough,” cried Gatliffe, testily; “but she’s not so very much to blame—she has been wrought upon and over-persuaded by those about her.”
“Rubbish, gammon!” cried Peace. “It’s not much persuading she wanted—not a bit of it; it’s her own free will. But, there, I don’t want to pain you by these remarks; but it’s what everybody says—everybody but you.”
“I am satisfied, and am exceedingly glad I’ve seen you.”
“I tell you what I’d do; but, of course, you have done so.”
“Done what?”
“Insisted upon the earl allowing you a handsome income for the remainder of your life.”
“I will not touch a penny of his money. Would starve first. Do you think I would consent to sell my wife?”
“Ah, well, that’s a matter of taste,” returned Peace. “I know which way the cat would jump if I were in your place; but, of course, all that is, as I before observed, a matter of taste.”
“Ah,” murmured the young engineer, with a deep-draw nigh, “it is astonishing what different views men take in matters of this sort.”
“You take it too much to heart, I’m thinking,” cried Peace.
“What makes you think so?”
“From your appearance, as well as from your manner.”
“I am not like the same man, I admit, and yet I have no reason to complain. When Aveline was with me I had a struggle to get on to support her in a manner that she had a right to expect and desired. Since she has left me I have prospered beyond my most sanguine expectations. Two of my inventions have turned out much more perfect appliances than any one ever supposed, and they bring me in a handsome yearly income, in addition to the one I receive at the works; so that I am, as you may imagine, a prosperous man.”
“But still you are not happy,” suggested Peace.
“Not altogether, I admit.”
“Hark ye, Tom. Don’t let your happiness be disturbed by a woman. A man’s a fool to do that.”
“There’s a good many fools in the world then,” returned Gatliffe.
“Admitted, but that’s no reason that you or I should add to their number.”
Gatliffe made no reply. He was silent and thoughtful for some little time, after which he said, in an altered tone—
“And now with regard to yourself. You have not told me how you are getting on. Don’t be offended, but if you are in need of cash—ready money, you know.”
“I am not in need of any,” cried Peace. “Not at present at any rate.”
“Should you be.”
“Well, what then?”
“You know where to apply—to me.”
“A letter addressed to Mr. Gatliffe, London, will reach you I suppose?” returned our hero with a laugh.
“I will give you my address. I am still at the same place—Wood Green. Come and dine with me some Sunday.”
“I can’t. I return to Sheffield to-morrow, but when next in London will do so. Rest assured I shall keep the address.”
And with this promise the two friends parted.
“Ah!” mused Peace, as he took his way to the coffee shop where he had taken up his quarters for a night or two, “he hasn’t heard of the Crookhsemoor House business, and doesn’t know that he has been hobnobbing with a convict just discharged from Dartmoor. So much the better. After all, Tom’s a good fellow, and to say the truth he appears to have lost a good deal of his upstart ways. I s’pose it’s trouble as has done that for him.”