Let us be serious.—Business!
The new scene plunges us head foremost into the affairs of the Levant trading-house of Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca. What on earth do we know about the Levant Trade? Courage! If we have ever known what it is to want money we are perfectly familiar with the subject at starting. The Levant Trade does occasionally get into difficulties.—Turlington wanted money.
The letter which had been handed to him on board the yacht was from his third partner, Mr. Branca, and was thus expressed:
“A crisis in the trade. All right, so far—except our business with the small foreign firms. Bills to meet from those quarters, (say) forty thousand pounds—and, I fear, no remittances to cover them. Particulars stated in another letter addressed to you at Post-office, Ilfracombe. I am quite broken down with anxiety, and confined to my bed. Pizzituti is still detained at Smyrna. Come back at once.”
The same evening Turlington was at his office in Austin Friars, investigating the state of affairs, with his head clerk to help him.
Stated briefly, the business of the firm was of the widely miscellaneous sort. They plied a brisk trade in a vast variety of commodities. Nothing came amiss to them, from Manchester cotton manufactures to Smyrna figs. They had branch houses at Alexandria and Odessa, and correspondents here, there, and everywhere, along the shores of the Mediterranean, and in the ports of the East. These correspondents were the persons alluded to in Mr. Branca’s letter as “small foreign firms;” and they had produced the serious financial crisis in the affairs of the great house in Austin Friars, which had hurried Turlington up to London.
Every one of these minor firms claimed and received the privilege of drawing bills on Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca for amounts varying from four to six thousand pounds—on no better security than a verbal understanding that the money to pay the bills should be forwarded before they fell due. Competition, it is needless to say, was at the bottom of this insanely reckless system of trading. The native firms laid it down as a rule that they would decline to transact business with any house in the trade which refused to grant them their privilege. In the ease of Turlington’s house, the foreign merchants had drawn their bills on him for sums large in the aggregate, if not large in themselves; had long since turned those bills into cash in their own markets, for their own necessities; and had now left the money which their paper represented to be paid by their London correspondents as it fell due. In some instances, they had sent nothing but promises and excuses. In others, they had forwarded drafts on firms which had failed already, or which were about to fail, in the crisis. After first exhausting his resources in ready money, Mr. Branca had provided for the more pressing necessities by pledging the credit of the house, so far as hecouldpledge it without exciting suspicion of the truth. This done, there were actually left, between that time and Christmas, liabilities to be met to the extent of forty thousand pounds, without a farthing in hand to pay that formidable debt.
After working through the night, this was the conclusion at which Richard Turlington arrived, when the rising sun looked in at him through the windows of his private room.
The whole force of the blow had fallen onhim. The share of his partners in the business was of the most trifling nature. The capital was his, the risk was his. Personally and privately,hehad to find the money, or to confront the one other alternative—ruin.
How was the money to be found?
With his position in the City, he had only to go to the famous money-lending and discounting house of Bulpit Brothers—reported to “turn over” millions in their business every year—and to supply himself at once with the necessary funds. Forty thousand pounds was a trifling transaction to Bulpit Brothers.
Having got the money, how, in the present state of his trade, was the loan to be paid back?
His thoughts reverted to his marriage with Natalie.
“Curious!” he said to himself, recalling his conversation with Sir Joseph on board the yacht. “Graybrooke told me he would give his daughter half his fortune on her marriage. Half Graybrooke’s fortune happens to be just forty thousand pounds!” He took a turn in the room. No! It was impossible to apply to Sir Joseph. Once shake Sir Joseph’s conviction of his commercial solidity, and the marriage would be certainly deferred—if not absolutely broken off. Sir Joseph’s fortune could be made available, in the present emergency, in but one way—he might use it to repay his debt. He had only to make the date at which the loan expired coincide with the date of his marriage, and there was his father-in-law’s money at his disposal, or at his wife’s disposal—which meant the same thing. “It’s well I pressed Graybrooke about the marriage when I did!” he thought. “I can borrow the money at a short date. In three months from this Natalie will be my wife.”
He drove to his club to get breakfast, with his mind cleared, for the time being, of all its anxieties but one.
Knowing where he could procure the loan, he was by no means equally sure of being able to find the security on which he could borrow the money. Living up to his income; having no expectations from any living creature; possessing in landed property only some thirty or forty acres in Somersetshire, with a quaint little dwelling, half farm house, half-cottage, attached—he was incapable of providing the needful security from his own personal resources. To appeal to wealthy friends in the City would be to let those friends into the secret of his embarrassments, and to put his credit in peril. He finished his breakfast, and went back to Austin Friars—failing entirely, so far, to see how he was to remove the last obstacle now left in his way.
The doors were open to the public; business had begun. He had not been ten minutes in his room before the shipping-clerk knocked at the door and interrupted him, still absorbed in his own anxious thoughts.
“What is it?” he asked, irritably.
“Duplicate Bills of Lading, sir,” answered the clerk, placing the documents on his ma ster’s table.
Found! There was the security on his writing-desk, staring him in the face! He dismissed the clerk and examined the papers.
They contained an account of goods shipped to the London house on board vessels sailing from Smyrna and Odessa, and they were signed by the masters of the ships, who thereby acknowledged the receipt of the goods, and undertook to deliver them safely to the persons owning them, as directed. First copies of these papers had already been placed in the possession of the London house. The duplicates had now followed, in case of accident. Richard Turlington instantly determined to make the duplicates serve as his security, keeping the first copies privately under lock and key, to be used in obtaining possession of the goods at the customary time. The fraud was a fraud in appearance only. The security was a pure formality. His marriage would supply him with the funds needed for repaying the money, and the profits of his business would provide, in course of time, for restoring the dowry of his wife. It was simply a question of preserving his credit by means which were legitimately at his disposal. Within the lax limits of mercantile morality, Richard Turlington had a conscience. He put on his hat and took his false security to the money-lenders, without feeling at all lowered in his own estimation as an honest man.
Bulpit Brothers, long desirous of having such a name as his on their books, received him with open arms. The security (covering the amount borrowed) was accepted as a matter of course. The money was lent, for three months, with a stroke of the pen. Turlington stepped out again into the street, and confronted the City of London in the character of the noblest work of mercantile creation—a solvent man.*
The Fallen Angel, walking invisibly behind, in Richard’s shadow, flapped his crippled wings in triumph. From that moment the Fallen Angel had got him.
* It may not be amiss to remind the incredulous reader thata famous firm in the City accepted precisely the samesecurity as that here accepted by Bulpit Brothers, with thesame sublime indifference to troubling themselves by makingany inquiry about it.
The next day Turlington drove to the suburbs, on the chance of finding the Graybrookes at home again. Sir Joseph disliked London, and could not prevail on himself to live any nearer to the metropolis than Muswell Hill. When Natalie wanted a change, and languished for balls, theaters, flower-shows, and the like, she had a room especially reserved for her in the house of Sir Joseph’s married sister, Mrs. Sancroft, living in that central deep of the fashionable whirlpool known among mortals as Berkeley Square.
On his way through the streets, Turlington encountered a plain proof that the Graybrookes must have returned. He was passed by Launce, driving, in company with a gentleman, in a cab. The gentleman was Launce’s brother, and the two were on their way to the Commissioners of Police to make the necessary arrangements for instituting an inquiry into Turlington’s early life.
Arrived at the gate of the villa, the information received only partially fulfilled the visitor’s expectations. The family had returned on the previous evening. Sir Joseph and his sister were at home, but Natalie was away again already. She had driven into town to lunch with her aunt. Turlington went into the house.
“Have you lost any money?” Those were the first words uttered by Sir Joseph when he and Richard met again, after the parting on board the yacht.
“Not a farthing. I might have lost seriously, if I had not got back in time to set things straight. Stupidity on the part of my people left in charge—nothing more. It’s all right now.”
Sir Joseph lifted his eyes, with heartfelt devotion, to the ceiling. “Thank God, Richard!” he said, in tones of the deepest feeling. He rang the bell. “Tell Miss Graybrooke Mr. Turlington is here.” He turned again to Richard. “Lavinia is like me—Lavinia has been so anxious about you. We have both of us passed a sleepless night.” Miss Lavinia came in. Sir Joseph hurried to meet her, and took her affectionately by both hands. “My dear! the best of all good news, Richard has not lost a farthing.” Miss Lavinia liftedhereyes to the ceiling with heartfelt devotion, and said, “Thank God, Richard!”—like the echo of her brother’s voice; a little late, perhaps, for its reputation as an echo, but accurate to half a note in its perfect repetition of sound.
Turlington asked the question which it had been his one object to put in paying his visit to Muswell Hill.
“Have you spoken to Natalie?”
“This morning,” replied Sir Joseph. “An opportunity offered itself after breakfast. I took advantage of it, Richard—you shall hear how.”
He settled himself in his chair for one of his interminable stories; he began his opening sentence—and stopped, struck dumb at the first word. There was an unexpected obstacle in the way—his sister was not attending to him; his sister had silenced him at starting. The story touching, this time, on the question of marriage, Miss Lavinia had her woman’s interest in seeing full justice done to the subject. She seized on her brother’s narrative as on property in her own right.
“Joseph should have told you,” she began, addressing herself to Turlington, “that our dear girl was unusually depressed in spirits this morning. Quite in the right frame of mind for a little serious talk about her future life. She ate nothing at breakfast, poor child, but a morsel of dry toast.”
“And marmalade,” said Sir Joseph, striking in at the first opportunity. The story, on this occasion, being Miss Lavinia’s story, the polite contradictions necessary to its successful progress were naturally transferred from the sister to the brother, and became contradictions on Sir Joseph’s side.
“No,” said Miss Lavinia, gently, “if youwillhave it, Joseph—jam.”
“I beg your pardon,” persisted Sir Joseph; “marmalade.”
“Whatdoesit matter, brother?”
“Sister! the late great and good Doctor Johnson said accuracy ought always to be studied even in the most trifling things.”
“Youwillhave your way, Joseph—“(this was the formula—answering to Sir Joseph’s ‘Let us waive the point’—which Miss Lavinia used, as a means of conciliating her brother, and getting a fresh start for her story). “Well, we took dear Natalie out between us, after breakfast, for a little walk in the grounds. My brother opened the subject with infinite delicacy and tact. ‘Circumstances,’ he said, ‘into which it was not then necessary to enter, made it very desirable, young as she was, to begin to think of her establishment in life.’ And then he referred, Richard (so nicely), to your faithful and devoted attachment—”
“Excuse me, Lavinia. I began with Richard’s attachment, and then I got on to her establishment in life.”
“Excuseme, Joseph. You managed it much more delicately than you suppose. You didn’t drag Richard in by the head and shoulders in that way.”
“Lavinia! I began with Richard.”
“Joseph! your memory deceives you.”
Turlington’s impatience broke through all restraint.
“How did it end?” he asked. “Did you propose to her that we should be married in the first week of the New Year?”
“Yes!” said Miss Lavinia.
“No!” said Sir Joseph.
The sister looked at the brother with an expression of affectionate surprise. The brother looked at the sister with a fund of amiable contradiction, expressed in a low bow.
“Do you really mean to deny, Joseph, that you told Natalie we had decided on the first week in the New Year?”
“I deny the New Year, Lavinia. I said early in January.”
“Youwillhave your way, Joseph! We were walking in the shrubbery at the time. I had our dear girl’s arm in mine, and I felt it tremble. She suddenly stopped. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘not so soon!’ I said, ‘My dear, consider Richard!’ She turned to her father. She said, ‘Don’t, pray don’t press it so soon, papa! I respect Richard; I like Richard as your true and faithful friend; but I don’t love him as I ought to love him if I am to be his wife.’ Imagine her talking in that way! What could she possibly know about it? Of course we both laughed—”
“youlaughed, Lavinia.”
“youlaughed, Joseph.”
“Get on, for God’s sake!” cried Turlington, striking his hand passionately on the table by which he was sitting. “Don’t madden me by contradicting each other! Did she give way or not?”
Miss Lavinia turned to her brother. “Contradicting each other, Joseph!” she exclaimed, lifting her hands in blank amazement.
“Contradicting each other!” repeated Sir Joseph, equally astonished on his side. “My dear Richard, what can you be thinking of? I contradict my sister! We never disagreed in our lives.”
“I contradict my brother! We have never had a cross word between us from the time when we were children.”
Turlington internally cursed his own irritable temper.
“I beg your pardon—both of you,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was saying. Make some allowance for me. All my hopes in life are centered in Natalie; and you have just told me (in her own words, Miss Lavinia) that she doesn’t love. You don’t mean any harm, I dare say; but you cut me to the heart.”
This confession, and the look that accompanied it, touched the ready sympathies of the two old people in the right place. The remainder of the story dropped between them by common consent. They vied with each other in saying the comforting words which would allay their dear Richard’s anxiety. How little he knew of young girls. How could he be so foolish, poor fellow! as to attach any serious importance to what Natalie had said? As if a young creature in her teens knew the state of her own heart! Protestations and entreaties were matters of course, in such cases. Tears even might be confidently expected from a right-minded girl. It had all ended exactly as Richard would have wished it to end. Sir Joseph had said, “My child! this is a matter of experience; love will come when you are married.” And Miss Lavinia had added, “Dear Natalie, if you remembered your poor mother as I remember her, you would know that your father’s experience is to be relied on.” In that way they had put it to her; and she had hung her head and had given—all that maiden modesty could be expected to give—a silent consent. “The wedding-day was fixed for the first week in the New Year.” (“No, Joseph; not January—the New Year.”) “And God bless you, Richard! and may your married life be a long and happy one.”
So the average ignorance of human nature, and the average belief in conventional sentiment, complacently contemplated the sacrifice of one more victim on the all-devouring altar of Marriage! So Sir Joseph and his sister provided Launcelot Linzie with the one argument which he wanted to convince Natalie: “Choose between making the misery of your life by marryinghim, and making the happiness of your life by marryingme.”
“When shall I see her?” asked Turlington, with Miss Lavinia (in tears which didhercredit) in possession of one of his hands, and Sir Joseph (in tears which didhimcredit) in possession of the other.
“She will be back to dinner, dear Richard. Stay and dine.”
“Thank you. I must go into the City first. I will come back and dine.”
With that arrangement in prospect, he left them.
An hour later a telegram arrived from Natalie. She had consented to dine, as well as lunch, in Berkeley Square—sleeping there that night, and returning the next morning. Her father instantly telegraphed back by the messenger, insisting on Natalie’s return to Muswell Hill that evening, in time to meet Richard Turlington at dinner.
“Quite right. Joseph,” said Miss Lavinia, looking over her brother’s shoulder, while he wrote the telegram.
“She is showing a disposition to coquet with Richard,” rejoined Sir Joseph, with the air of a man who knew female human nature in its remotest corners. “My telegram, Lavinia, will have its effect.”
Sir Joseph was quite right. His telegramhadits effect. It not only brought his daughter back to dinner—it produced another result which his prophetic faculty had altogether failed to foresee.
The message reached Berkeley Square at five o’clock in the afternoon. Let us follow the message.
Between four and five in the afternoon—when the women of the Western regions are in their carriages, and the men are at their clubs—London presents few places more conveniently adapted for purposes of private talk than the solitary garden inclosure of a square.
On the day when Richard Turlington paid his visit to Muswell Hill, two ladies (with a secret between them) unlocked the gate of the railed garden in Berkeley Square. They shut the gate after entering the inclosure, but carefully forbore to lock it as well, and carefully restricted their walk to the westward side of the garden. One of them was Natalie Graybrooke. The other was Mrs. Sancroft’s eldest daughter. A certain temporary interest attached, in the estimation of society, to this young lady. She had sold well in the marriage market. In other words, she had recently been raised to the position of Lord Winwood’s second wife; his lordship conferring on the bride not only the honors of the peerage, but the additional distinction of being stepmother to his three single daughters, all older than herself. In person, Lady Winwood was little and fair. In character, she was dashing and resolute—a complete contrast to Natalie, and (on that very account) Natalie’s bosom friend.
“My dear, one ambitious marriage in the family is quite enough! I have made up my mind thatyoushall marry the man you love. Don’t tell me your courage is failing you—the excuse is contemptible; I decline to receive it. Natalie! the men have a phrase which exactly describes your character. You want back-bone!”
The bonnet of the lady who expressed herself in these peremptory terms barely reached the height of Natalie’s shoulder. Natalie might have blown the little airy, light-haired, unsubstantial creature over the railings of the garden if she had taken a good long breath and stooped low enough. But who ever met with a tall woman who had a will of her own? Natalie’s languid brown eyes looked softly down in submissive attention from an elevation of five feet seven. Lady Winwood’s brisk blue eyes looked brightly up in despotic command from an elevation of four feet eleven (in her shoes).
“You are trifling with Mr. Linzie, my dear. Mr. Linzie is a nice fellow. I like him. I won’t have that.”
“Louisa!”
“Mr. Turlington has nothing to recommend him. He is not a well-bred old gentleman of exalted rank. He is only an odious brute who happens to have made money. You shallnotmarry Mr. Turlington. And youshallmarry Launcelot Linzie.”
“Will you let me speak, Louisa?”
“I will let you answer—nothing more. Didn’t you come crying to me this morning? Didn’t you say, ‘Louisa, they have pronounced sentence on me! I am to be married in the first week of the New Year. Help me out of it, for Heaven’s sake!’ You said all that, and more. And what did I do when I heard your story?”
“Oh, you were so kind—”
“Kind doesn’t half express it. I have committed crimes on your account. I have deceived my husband and my mother. For your sake I got mamma to ask Mr. Linzie to lunch (asmyfriend!). For your sake I have banished my unoffending husband, not an hour since, to his club. You wretched girl, who arranged a private conference in the library? Who sent Mr. Linzie off to consult his friend in the Temple on the law of clandestine marriage? Who suggested your telegraphing home, and stopping here for the night? Who made an appointment to meet your young man privately in this detestable place in ten minutes’ time? I did! I did! I did! All in your interests. All to prevent you from doing what I have done—marrying to please your family instead of to please yourself. (I don’t complain, mind, of Lord Winwood, or of his daughters.Heis charming; his daughters I shall tame in course of time. You are different. And Mr. Turlington, as I observed before, is a brute.) Very well. Now what do you owe me on your side? You owe it to me at least to know your own mind. You don’t know it. You coolly inform me that you daren’t run the risk after all, and that you can’t face the consequences on second thoughts. I’ll tell you what! You don’t deserve that nice fellow, who worships the very ground you tread on. You are a bread-and-butter miss. I don’t believe you are fond of him!”
“Not fond of him!” Natalie stopped, and clasped her hands in despair of finding language strong enough for the occasion. At the same moment the sound of a closing gate caught her ear. She looked round. Launce had kept his appointment before his time. Launce was in the garden, rapidly approaching them.
“Now for the Law of Clandestine Marriage!” said Lady Winwood. “Mr. Linzie, we will take it sitting.” She led the way to one of the benches in the garden, and placed Launce between Natalie and herself. “Well, Chief Conspirator, have you got the License? No? Does it cost too much? Can I lend you the money?”
“It costs perjury, Lady Winwood, in my case,” said Launce. “Natalie is not of age. I can only get a License by taking my oath that I marry her with her father’s consent.” He turned piteously to Natalie. “I couldn’t very well do that,” he said, in the tone of a man who feels bound to make an apology, “could I?” Natalie shuddered; Lady Winwood shrugged her shoulders.
“In your place a woman wouldn’t have hesitated,” her ladyship remarked. “But men are so selfish. Well! I suppose there is some other way?”
“Yes, there is another way,” said Launce. “But there is a horrid condition attached to it—”
“Something worse than perjury, Mr. Linzie? Murder?”
“I’ll tell you directly, Lady Winwood. The marriage comes first. The condition follows. There is only one chance for us. We must be married by banns.”
“Banns!” cried Natalie. “Why, banns are publicly proclaimed in church!”
“They needn’t be proclaimed inyourchurch, you goose,” said Lady Winwood. “And, even if they were, nobody would be the wiser. You may trust implicitly, my dear, in the elocution of an English clergyman!”
“That’s just what my friend said,” cried Launce. “‘Take a lodging near a large parish church, in a remote part of London’—(this is my friend’s advice)—‘go to the clerk, tell him you want to be married by banns, and say you belong to that parish. As for the lady, in your place I should simplify it. I should say she belonged to the parish too. Give an address, and have some one there to answer questions. How is the clerk to know? He isn’t likely to be over-anxious about it—his fee is eighteen-pence. The clerk makes his profit out of you, after you are married. The same rule applies to the parson. He will have your names supplied to him on a strip of paper, with dozens of other names; and he will read them out all together in one inarticulate jumble in church. You will stand at the altar when your time comes, with Brown and Jones, Nokes and Styles, Jack and Gill. All that you will have to do is, to take care that your young lady doesn’t fall to Jack, and you to Gill, by mistake—and there you are, married by banns.’ My friend’s opinion, stated in his own words.”
Natalie sighed, and wrung her hands in her lap. “We shall never get through it,” she said, despondingly.
Lady Winwood took a more cheerful view.
“I see nothing very formidable as yet, my dear. But we have still to hear the end of it. You mentioned a condition just now, Mr. Linzie.
“I am coming to the condition, Lady Winwood. You naturally suppose, as I did, that I put Natalie into a cab, and run away with her from the church door?”
“Certainly. And I throw an old shoe after you for luck, and go home again.”
Launce shook his head ominously.
“Natalie must go home again as well as you!”
Lady Winwood started. “Is that the condition you mentioned just now?” she asked.
“That is the condition. I may marry her without anything serious coming of it. But, if I run away with her afterward, and if you are there, aiding and abetting me, we are guilty of Abduction, and we may stand, side by side, at the bar of the Old Bailey to answer for it!”
Natalie sprang to her feet in horror. Lady Winwood held up one finger warningly, signing to her to let Launce go on.
“Natalie is not yet sixteen years old,” Launce proceeded. “She must go straight back to her father’s house from the church, and I must wait to run away with her till her next birthday. When she’s turned sixteen, she’s ripe for elopement—not an hour before. There is the law of Abduction! Despotism in a free country—that’s what I call it!”
Natalie sat down again, with an air of relief.
“It’s a very comforting law, I think,” she said. “It doesn’t force one to take the dreadful step of running away from home all at once. It gives one time to consider, and plan, and make up one’s mind. I can tell you this, Launce, if I am to be persuaded into marrying you, the law of Abduction is the only thing that will induce me to do it. You ought to thank the law, instead of abusing it.”
Launce listened—without conviction.
“It’s a pleasant prospect,” he said, “to part at the church door, and to treat my own wife on the footing of a young lady who is engaged to marry another gentleman.”
“Is it any pleasanter forme,” retorted Natalie, “to have Richard Turlington courting me, when I am all the time your wife? I shall never be able to do it. I wish I was dead!”
“Come! come!” interposed Lady Winwood. “It’s time to be serious. Natalie’s birthday, Mr. Linzie, is next Christmas-day. She will be sixteen—”
“At seven in the morning,” said Launce; “I got that out of Sir Joseph. At one minute past seven, Greenwich mean time, we may be off together. I gotthatout of the lawyer.”
“And it isn’t an eternity to wait from now till Christmas-day. You get that, by way of completing the list of your acquisitions, out ofme. In the mean time, can you, or can you not, manage to meet the difficulties in the way of the marriage?”
“I have settled everything,” Launce answered, confidently. “There is not a single difficulty left.”
He turned to Natalie, listening to him in amazement, and explained himself. It had struck him that he might appeal—with his purse in his hand, of course—to the interest felt in his affairs by the late stewardess of the yacht. That excellent woman had volunteered to do all that she could to help him. Her husband had obtained situations for his wife and himself on board another yacht—and they were both eager to assist in any conspiracy in which their late merciless master was destined to play the part of victim. When on shore, they lived in a populous London parish, far away from the fashionable district of Berkeley Square, and further yet from the respectable suburb of Muswell Hill. A room in the house could be nominally engaged for Natalie, in the assumed character of the stewardess’s niece—the stewardess undertaking to answer any purely formal questions which might be put by the church authorities, and to be present at the marriage ceremony. As for Launce, he would actually, as well as nominally, live in the district close by; and the steward, if needful, would answer forhim. Natalie might call at her parochial residence occasionally, under the wing of Lady Winwood; gaining leave of absence from Muswell Hill, on the plea of paying one of her customary visits at her aunt’s house. The conspiracy, in brief, was arranged in all its details. Nothing was now wanting but the consent of the young lady; obtaining which, Launce would go to the parish church and give the necessary notice of a marriage by banns on the next day. There was the plot. What did the ladies think of it?
Lady Winwood thought it perfect.
Natalie was not so easily satisfied.
“My father has always been so kind to me!” she said. “The one thing I can’t get over, Launce, is distressing papa. If he had been hard on me—as some fathers are—I shouldn’t mind.” She suddenly brightened, as if she saw her position in a new light. “Why should you hurry me?” she asked. “I am going to dine at my aunt’s to-day, and you are coming in the evening. Give me time! Wait till to-night.”
Launce instantly entered his protest against wasting a moment longer. Lady Winwood opened her lips to support him. They were both silenced at the same moment by the appearance of one of Mrs. Sancroft’s servants, opening the gate of the square.
Lady Winwood went forward to meet the man. A suspicion crossed her mind that he might be bringing bad news.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon, my lady—the housekeeper said you were walking here with Miss Graybrooke. A telegram for Miss Graybrooke.”
Lady Winwood took the telegram from the man’s hand; dismissed him, and went back with it to Natalie. Natalie opened it nervously. She read the message—and instantly changed. Her cheeks flushed deep; her eyes flashed with indignation. “Even papa can be hard on me, it seems, when Richard asks him!” she exclaimed. She handed the telegram to Launce. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Youlove me,” she said, gently—and stopped. “Marry me!” she added, with a sudden burst of resolution. “I’ll risk it!”
As she spoke those words, Lady Winwood read the telegram. It ran thus:
“Sir Joseph Graybrooke, Muswell Hill. To Miss Natalie Graybrooke; Berkeley Square. Come back immediately. You are engaged to dine here with Richard Turlington.”
Lady Winwood folded up the telegram with a malicious smile. “Well done, Sir Joseph!” thought her ladyship. “We might never have persuaded Natalie—but for You!”
The time is morning; the date is early in the month of November. The place is a church, in a poor and populous parish in the undiscovered regions of London, eastward of the Tower, and hard by the river-side.
A marriage procession of five approaches the altar The bridegroom is pale, and the bride is frightened. The bride’s friend (a resolute-looking little lady) encourages her in whispers. The two respectable persons, apparently man and wife, who complete the procession, seem to be not quite clear as to the position which they occupy at the ceremony. The beadle, as he marshals them before the altar, sees something under the surface in this wedding-party. Marriages in the lower ranks of life are the only marriages celebrated here. Is this a runaway match? The beadle anticipates something out of the common in the shape of a fee.
The clergyman (the junior curate) appears from the vestry in his robes. The clerk takes his place. The clergyman’s eye rests with a sudden interest and curiosity on the bride and bridegroom, and on the bride’s friend; notices the absence of elderly relatives; remarks, in the two ladies especially, evidences of refinement and breeding entirely unparalleled in his professional experience of brides and brides’ friends standing before the altar of that church; questions, silently and quickly, the eye of the clerk, occupied also in observing the strangers with interest “Jenkinson” (the clergyman’s look asks), “is this all right?” “Sir” (the clerk’s look answers), “a marriage by banns; all the formalities have been observed.” The clergyman opens his book. The formalities have been observed; his duty lies plainly before him. Attention, Launcelot! Courage, Natalie! The service begins.
Launce casts a last furtive look round the church. Will Sir Joseph Graybrooke start up and stop it from one of the empty pews? Is Richard Turlington lurking in the organ-loft, and only waiting till the words of the service appeal to him to prohibit the marriage, or “else hereafter forever to hold his peace?” No. The clergyman proceeds steadily, and nothing happens. Natalie’s charming face grows paler and paler, Natalie’s heart throbs faster and faster, as the time comes nearer for reading the words which unite them for life. Lady Winwood herself feels an unaccustomed fluttering in the region of the bosom. Her ladyship’s thoughts revert, not altogether pleasantly, to her own marriage: “Ah me! what was I thinking of when I was in this position? Of the bride’s beautiful dress, and of Lady Winwood’s coming presentation at court!”
The service advances to the words in which they plight their troth. Launce has put the ring on her finger. Launce has repeated the words after the clergyman. Launce has married her! Done! Come what may of it, done!
The service ends. Bridegroom, bride, and witnesses go into the vestry to sign the book. The signing, like the service, is serious. No trifling with the truth is possible here. When it comes to Lady Winwood’s turn, Lady Winwood must write her name. She does it, but without her usual grace and decision. She drops her handkerchief. The clerk picks it up for her, and notices that a coronet is embroidered in one corner.
The fees are paid. They leave the vestry. Other couples, when it is over, are talkative and happy. These two are more silent and more embarrassed than ever. Stranger still, while other couples go off with relatives and friends, all socially united in honor of the occasion, these two and their friends part at the church door. The respectable man and his wife go their way on foot. The little lady with the coronet on her handkerchief puts the bride into a cab, gets in herself, and directs the driver to close the door, while the bridegroom is standing on the church steps! The bridegroom’s face is clouded, as well it may be. He puts his head in at the window of the cab; he possesses himself of the bride’s hand; he speaks in a whisper; he is apparently not to be shaken off. The little lady exerts her authority, separates the clasped hands, pushes the bridegroom away, and cries peremptorily to the driver to go on. The cab starts; the deserted husband drifts desolately anyhow down the street. The clerk, who has seen it all, goes back to the vestry and reports what has happened.
The rector (with his wife on his arm) has just dropped into the vestry on business in passing. He and the curate are talking about the strange marriage. The rector, gravely bent on ascertaining that no blame rests with the church, interrogates, and is satisfied. The rector’s wife is not so easy to deal with. She has looked at the signatures in the book. One of the names is familiar to her. She cross-examines the clerk as soon as her husband is done with him. When she hears of the coronet on the handkerchief she points to the signature of “Louisa Winwood,” and says to the rector, “I know who it is! Lord Winwood’s second wife. I went to school with his lordship’s daughters by his first marriage. We occasionally meet at the Sacred Concerts (on the ‘Ladies’ Committee’); I shall find an opportunity of speaking to them. One moment, Mr. Jenkinson, I will write down the names before you put away the book. ‘Launcelot Linzie,’ ‘Natalie Graybrooke.’ Very pretty names; quite romantic. I do delight in a romance. Good-morning.”
She gives the curate a parting smile, and the clerk a parting nod, and sails out of the vestry. Natalie, silently returning in Lady Winwood’s company to Muswell Hill; and Launce, cursing the law of Abduction as he roams the streets—little think that the ground is already mined under their feet. Richard Turlington may hear of it now, or may hear of it later. The discovery of the marriage depends entirely on a chance meeting between the lord’s daughters and the rector’s wife.
—————————————————————————— MR. TURLINGTON,
LADY WINWOOD At Home.
Wednesday, December 15th.—Ten o’clock. ——————————————————————————
“Dearest Natalie—As the brute insists, the brute must have the invitation which I inclose. Never mind, my child. You and Launce are coming to dinner, and I will see that you have your little private opportunities of retirement afterward. All I expect of you in return is,notto look (when you come back) as if your husband had been kissing you. You will certainly let out the secret of those stolen kisses, if you don’t take care. At mamma’s dinner yesterday, your color (when you came out of the conservatory) was a sight to see. Even your shoulders were red! They are charming shoulders, I know, and men take the strangest fancies sometimes. But, my dear, suppose you wear a chemisette next time, if you haven’t authority enough over him to prevent his doing it again!
“Your affectionate LOUISA.”
The private history of the days that had passed since the marriage was written in that letter. An additional chapter—of some importance in its bearing on the future—was contributed by the progress of events at Lady Winwood’s party.
By previous arrangement with Natalie, the Graybrookes (invited to dinner) arrived early. Leaving her husband and her stepdaughters to entertain Sir Joseph and Miss Lavinia, Lady Winwood took Natalie into her own boudoir, which communicated by a curtained opening with the drawing-room.
“My dear, you are looking positively haggard this evening. Has anything happened?”
“I am nearly worn out, Louisa. The life I am leading is so unendurable that, if Launce pressed me, I believe I should consent to run away with him when we leave your house tonight.”
“You will do nothing of the sort, if you please. Wait till you are sixteen. I delight in novelty, but the novelty of appearing at the Old Bailey is beyond my ambition. Is the brute coming to-night?”
“Of course. He insists on following me wherever I go. He lunched at Muswell Hill today. More complaints of my incomprehensible coldness to him. Another scolding from papa. A furious letter from Launce. If I let Richard kiss my hand again in his presence, Launce warns me he will knock him down. Oh, the meanness and the guiltiness of the life I am leading now! I am in the falsest of all false positions, Louisa, and you encouraged me to do it. I believe Richard Turlington suspects us. The last two times Launce and I tried to get a minute together at my aunt’s, he contrived to put himself in our way. There he was, my dear, with his scowling face, looking as if he longed to kill Launce. Can you do anything for us tonight? Not on my account. But Launce is so impatient. If he can’t say two words to me alone this evening, he declares he will come to Muswell Hill, and catch me in the garden tomorrow.”
“Compose yourself, my dear; he shall say his two words to-night.”
“How?”
Lady Winwood pointed through the curtained entrance of the boudoir to the door of the drawing-room. Beyond the door was the staircase landing. And beyond the landing was a second drawing-room, the smaller of the two.
“There are only three or four people coming to dinner,” her ladyship proceeded; “and a few more in the evening. Being a small party, the small drawing-room will do for us. This drawing-room will not be lighted, and there will be only my reading-lamp here in the boudoir. I shall give the signal for leaving the dining-room earlier than usual. Launce will join us before the evening party begins. The moment he appears, send him in here—boldly before your aunt and all of us.”
“For what?”
“For your fan. Leave it there under the sofa-cushion before we go down to dinner. You will sit next to Launce, and you will give him private instructions not to find the fan. You will get impatient—you will go to find it yourself—and there you are. Take care of your shoulders, Mrs. Linzie! I have nothing more to say.”
The guests asked to dinner began to arrive. Lady Winwood was recalled to her duties as mistress of the house.
It was a pleasant little dinner—with one drawback. It began too late. The ladies only reached the small drawing-room at ten minutes to ten. Launce was only able to join them as the clock struck.
“Too late!” whispered Natalie. “He will be here directly.”
“Nobody comes punctually to an evening party,” said Launce. “Don’t let us lose a moment. Send me for your fan.”
Natalie opened her lips to say the necessary words. Before she could speak, the servant announced—“Mr. Turlington.”
He came in, with his stiffly-upright shirt collar and his loosely-fitting glossy black clothes. He made his sullen and clumsy bow to Lady Winwood. And then he did, what he had done dozens of times already—he caught Natalie, with her eyes still bright and her face still animated (after talking to Launce)—a striking contrast to the cold and unimpulsive young lady whom he was accustomed to see while Natalie was talking tohim.
Lord Winwood’s daughters were persons of some celebrity in the world of amateur music. Noticing the look that Turlington cast at Launce, Lady Winwood whispered to Miss Lavinia—who instantly asked the young ladies to sing. Launce, in obedience to a sign from Natalie, volunteered to find the music-books. It is needless to add that he pitched on the wrong volume at starting. As he lifted it from the piano to take it back to the stand, there dropped out from between the leaves a printed letter, looking like a circular. One of the young ladies took it up, and ran her eye over it, with a start.
“The Sacred Concerts!” she exclaimed.
Her two sisters, standing by, looked at each other guiltily: “What will the Committee say to us? We entirely forgot the meeting last month.”
“Is there a meeting this month?”
They all looked anxiously at the printed letter.
“Yes! The twenty-third of December. Put it down in your book, Amelia.” Amelia, then and there, put it down among the engagements for the latter end of the month. And Natalie’s unacknowledged husband placidly looked on.
So did the merciless irony of circumstances make Launce the innocent means of exposing his own secret to discovery. Thanks to his success in laying his hand on the wrong music-book, there would now be a meeting—two good days before the elopement could take place—between the lord’s daughters and the rector’s wife!
The guests of the evening began to appear by twos and threes. The gentlemen below stairs left the dinner-table, and joined them.
The small drawing-room was pleasantly filled, and no more. Sir Joseph Graybrooke, taking Turlington’s hand, led him eagerly to their host. The talk in the dining-room had turned on finance. Lord Winwood was not quite satisfied with some of his foreign investments; and Sir Joseph’s “dear Richard” was the very man to give him a little sound advice. The three laid their heads together in a corner. Launce (watching them) slyly pressed Natalie’s hand. A renowned “virtuoso” had arrived, and was thundering on the piano. The attention of the guests generally was absorbed in the performance. A fairer chance of sending Launce for the fan could not possibly have offered itself. While the financial discussion was still proceeding, the married lovers were ensconced together alone in the boudoir.
Lady Winwood (privately observant of their absence) kept her eye on the corner, watching Richard Turlington.
He was talking earnestly—with his back toward the company. He neither moved nor looked round. It came to Lord Winwood’s turn to speak. He preserved the same position, listening. Sir Joseph took up the conversation next. Then his attention wandered—he knew beforehand what Sir Joseph would say. His eyes turned anxiously toward the place in which he had left Natalie. Lord Winwood said a word. His head turned back again toward the corner. Sir Joseph put an objection. He glanced once more over his shoulder—this time at the place in which Launce had been standing. The next moment his host recalled his attention, and made it impossible for him to continue his scrutiny of the room. At the same times two among the evening guests, bound for another party, approached to take leave of the lady of the house. Lady Winwood was obliged to rise, and attend to them. They had something to say to her before they left, and they said it at terrible length, standing so as to intercept her view of the proceedings of the enemy. When she had got rid of them at last, she looked—and behold Lord Winwood and Sir Joseph were the only occupants of the corner!
Delaying one moment, to set the “virtuoso” thundering once more, Lady Winwood slipped out of the room and crossed the landing. At the entrance to the empty drawing-room she heard Turlington’s voice, low and threatening, in the boudoir. Jealousy has a Second Sight of its own. He had looked in the right place at starting—and, oh heavens! he had caught them.
Her ladyship’s courage was beyond dispute; but she turned pale as she approached the entrance to the boudoir.
There stood Natalie—at once angry and afraid—between the man to whom she was ostensibly engaged, and the man to whom she was actually married. Turlington’s rugged face expressed a martyrdom of suppressed fury. Launce—in the act of offering Natalie her fan—smiled, with the cool superiority of a man who knew that he had won his advantage, and who triumphed in knowing it.
“I forbid you to take your fan from that man’s hands,” said Turlington, speaking to Natalie, and pointing to Launce.
“Isn’t it rather too soon to begin ‘forbidding’?” asked Lady Winwood, good-humoredly.
“Exactly what I say!” exclaimed Launce. “It seems necessary to remind Mr. Turlington that he is not married to Natalie yet!”
Those last words were spoken in a tone which made both the women tremble inwardly for results. Lady Winwood took the fan from Launce with one hand, and took Natalie’s arm with the other.
“There is your fan, my dear,” she said, in her easy off-hand manner. “Why do you allow these two barbarous men to keep you here while the great Bootmann is playing the Nightmare Sonata in the next room? Launce! Mr. Turlington! follow me, and learn to be musical directly! You have only to shut your eyes, and you will fancy you hear four modern German composers playing, instead of one, and not the ghost of a melody among all the four.” She led the way out with Natalie, and whispered, “Did he catch you?” Natalie whispered back, “I heard him in time. He only caught us looking for the fan.” The two men waited behind to have two words together alone in the boudoir.
“This doesn’t end here, Mr. Linzie!”
Launce smiled satirically. “For once I agree with you,” he answered. “It doesn’t end here, as you say.”
Lady Winwood stopped, and looked back at them from the drawing-room door. They were keeping her waiting—they had no choice but to follow the mistress of the house.
Arrived in the next room, both Turlington and Launce resumed their places among the guests with the same object in view. As a necessary result of the scene in the boudoir, each had his own special remonstrance to address to Sir Joseph. Even here, Launce was beforehand with Turlington. He was the first to get possession of Sir Joseph’s private ear. His complaint took the form of a protest against Turlington’s jealousy, and an appeal for a reconsideration of the sentence which excluded him from Muswell Hill. Watching them from a distance, Turlington’s suspicious eye detected the appearance of something unduly confidential in the colloquy between the two. Under cover of the company, he stole behind them and listened.
The great Bootmann had arrived at that part of the Nightmare Sonata in which musical sound, produced principally with the left hand, is made to describe, beyond all possibility of mistake, the rising of the moon in a country church-yard and a dance of Vampires round a maiden’s grave. Sir Joseph, having no chance against the Vampires in a whisper, was obliged to raise his voice to make himself audible in answering and comforting Launce. “I sincerely sympathize with you,” Turlington heard him say; “and Natalie feels about it as I do. But Richard is an obstacle in our way. We must look to the consequences, my dear boy, supposing Richard found us out.” He nodded kindly to his nephew; and, declining to pursue the subject, moved away to another part of the room.
Turlington’s jealous distrust, wrought to the highest pitch of irritability for weeks past, instantly associated the words he had just heard with the words spoken by Launce in the boudoir, which had reminded him that he was not married to Natalie yet. Was there treachery at work under the surface? and was the object to persuade weak Sir Joseph to reconsider his daughter’s contemplated marriage in a sense favorable to Launce? Turlington’s blind suspicion overleaped at a bound all the manifest improbabilities which forbade such a conclusion as this. After an instant’s consideration with himself, he decided on keeping his own counsel, and on putting Sir Joseph’s good faith then and there to a test which he could rely on as certain to take Natalie’s father by surprise.
“Graybrooke!”
Sir Joseph started at the sight of his future son-in-law’s face.
“My dear Richard, you are looking very strangely! Is the heat of the room too much for you?”
“Never mind the heat! I have seen enough to-night to justify me in insisting that your daughter and Launcelot Linzie shall meet no more between this and the day of my marriage.” Sir Joseph attempted to speak. Turlington declined to give him the opportunity. “Yes! yes! your opinion of Linzie isn’t mine, I know. I saw you as thick as thieves together just now.” Sir Joseph once more attempted to make himself heard. Wearied by Turlington’s perpetual complaints of his daughter and his nephew, he was sufficiently irritated by this time to have reported what Launce had actually said to him if he had been allowed the chance. But Turlington persisted in going on. “I cannot prevent Linzie from being received in this house, and at your sister’s,” he said; “but I can keep him out ofmyhouse in the country, and to the country let us go. I propose a change in the arrangements. Have you any engagement for the Christmas holidays?”
He paused, and fixed his eyes attentively on Sir Joseph. Sir Joseph, looking a little surprised, replied briefly that he had no engagement.
“In that case,” resumed Turlington, “I invite you all to Somersetshire, and I propose that the marriage shall take place from my house, and not from yours. Do you refuse?”
“It is contrary to the usual course of proceeding in such cases, Richard,” Sir Joseph began.
“Do you refuse?” reiterated Turlington. “I tell you plainly, I shall place a construction of my own upon your motive if you do.”
“No, Richard,” said Sir Joseph, quietly, “I accept.”
Turlington drew back a step in silence. Sir Joseph had turned the tables on him, and had takenhimby surprise.
“It will upset several plans, and be strongly objected to by the ladies,” proceeded the old gentleman. “But if nothing less will satisfy you, I say, Yes! I shall have occasion, when we meet to-morrow at Muswell Hill, to appeal to your indulgence under circumstances which may greatly astonish you. The least I can do, in the meantime, is to set an example of friendly sympathy and forbearance on my side. No more now, Richard. Hush! the music!”
It was impossible to make him explain himself further that night. Turlington was left to interpret Sir Joseph’s mysterious communication with such doubtful aid to success as his own unassisted ingenuity might afford.
The meeting of the next day at Muswell Hill had for its object—as Turlington had already been informed—the drawing of Natalie’s marriage-settlement. Was the question of money at the bottom of Sir Joseph’s contemplated appeal to his indulgence? He thought of his commercial position. The depression in the Levant trade still continued. Never had his business at any previous time required such constant attention, and repaid that attention with so little profit. The Bills of Lading had been already used by the firm, in the ordinary course of trade, to obtain possession of the goods. The duplicates in the hands of Bulpit Brothers were literally waste paper. Repayment of the loan of forty thousand pounds (with interest) was due in less than a month’s time. There was his commercial position! Was it possible that money-loving Sir Joseph had any modification to propose in the matter of his daughter’s dowry? The bare dread that it might be so struck him cold. He quitted the house—and forgot to wish Natalie goodnight.
Meanwhile, Launce had left the evening party before him—and Launce also found matter for serious reflection presented to his mind before he slept that night. In other words, he found, on reaching his lodgings, a letter from his brother marked “private.” Had the inquiry into the secrets of Turlington’s early life—now prolonged over some weeks—led to positive results at last? Launce eagerly opened the letter. It contained a Report and a Summary. He passed at once to the Summary, and read these words:
“If you only want moral evidence to satisfy your own mind, your end is gained. There is, morally, no doubt that Turlington and the sea-captain who cast the foreign sailor overboard to drown are on e and the same man. Legally, the matter is beset by difficulties, Turlington having destroyed all provable connection between his present self and his past life. There is only one chance for us. A sailor on board the ship (who was in his master’s secrets) is supposed to be still living (under his master’s protection). All the black deeds of Turlington’s early life are known to this man. He can prove the facts, if we can find him, and make it worth his while to speak. Under what alias he is hidden we do not know. His own name is Thomas Wildfang. If we are to make the attempt to find him, not a moment is to be lost. The expenses may be serious. Let me know whether we are to go on, or whether enough has been done to attain the end you have in view.”
Enough had been done—not only to satisfy Launce, but to produce the right effect on Sir Joseph’s mind if Sir Joseph proved obdurate when the secret of the marriage was revealed. Launce wrote a line directing the stoppage of the proceedings at the point which they had now reached. “Here is a reason for her not marrying Turlington,” he said to himself, as he placed the papers under lock and key. “And if she doesn’t marry Turlington,” he added, with a lover’s logic, “why shouldn’t she marry Me?”