Old Layton never questioned his son whither they were going, or for what, till the third day of their journeying together. Such, indeed, was the preoccupation of his mind, that he travelled along unmindful of new places and new people, all his thoughts deeply engaged by one single theme. Brief as this interval was, what a change had it worked in his appearance! Instead of the wild and haggard look his features used to wear, their expression was calm, somewhat stern, perhaps, and such as might have reminded one who had seen him in youth of the Herbert Layton of his college days. He had grown more silent, too, and there was in his manner the same trait of haughty reserve which once distinguished him. His habits of intemperance were abandoned at once, and without the slightest reference to motive or intention he gave his son to see that he had entered on a new course in life.
“Have you told me where we are going, Alfred, and have I forgotten it?” said he, on the third day of the journey.
“No, father; so many other things occurred to us to talk over that I never thought of this. It is time, however, I should tell you. We are going to meet one who would rather make your acquaintance than be the guest of a king.”
The old man smiled with a sort of cold incredulity, and his son went on to recount how, in collecting the stray papers and journals of the “Doctor,” as they styled him between them, this stranger had come to conceive the greatest admiration for his bold energy of temperament and the superior range of his intellect. The egotism, so long dormant in that degraded nature, revived and warmed up as the youth spoke, and he listened with proud delight at the story of all the American's devotion to him.
“He is a man of science, then, Alfred?”
“Nothing of the kind.”
“He is, at least, one of those quick-minded fellows who in this stirring country adapt to their purpose discoveries they have had no share in making; is he not?”
“Scarcely even that. He is a man of ordinary faculties, many prejudices, but of a manly honesty of heart I have never seen surpassed.”
“Then he is poor,” said the old man, sarcastically.
“I know little of his circumstances, but I believe they are ample.”
“Take my word for it, boy, they are not,” said the other, with a bitter smile. “Fortune is a thrifty goddess, and where she bestows a generous nature she takes care it shall have nothing to give away.”
“I trust your precept will not apply to this case, at all events. I have been his pensioner for nigh a year back: I am so still. I had hoped, indeed, by this project of lecturing—”
“Nay, nay, boy, no success could come of that. Had you been a great name in your own country, and come here heralded by honors won already, they would have given you a fair hearing and a generous recompense, but they will not take as money the unstamped metal; they will not stoop to accept what the old country sends forth without acknowledgment, as good enough forthem. Believe me, this race is prouder than our own, and it is not by unworthy sneers at them that we shall make them less vainglorious.”
“I scarcely know them, but for the sake of that one man I owe them a deep affection,” said Alfred, warmly.
“I have a scheme for you,” said the old man, after a pause; “but we will talk of it later on. For the present, I want you to aid me in a plan of my own. Ever since I have been in this country I have endeavored to find out a person whose name alone was known to me, and with whom I gave a solemn promise to communicate,—a death-bed promise it was, and given under no common circumstances. The facts were these:—
“I was once upon a time, when practising as a physician at Jersey, sent for to attend a patient taken suddenly and dangerously ill. The case was a most embarrassing one. There were symptoms so incongruous as to reject the notion of any ordinary disease, and such as might well suggest the suspicion of poisoning, and yet so skilfully and even patiently had the scheme been matured, the detection of the poison during life was very difficult. My eagerness in the inquiry was mistaken by the patient for a feeling of personal kindness towards himself,—an error very familiar to all medical men in practice. He saw in my unremitting attention and hourly watching by his bedside the devotion of one like an old friend, and not the scientific ardor of a student.
“It is just possible that his gratitude was the greater, that the man was one little likely to conciliate good feeling or draw any sympathy towards him. He was a hard, cold, selfish fellow, whose life had been passed amongst the worst classes of play-men, and who rejected utterly all thought of truth or confidence in his old associates. I mention this to show how, in a very few days, the accident of my situation established between us a freedom and a frankness that savored of long acquaintance.
“In his conversations with me he confessed that his wife had been divorced from a former husband, and, from circumstances known to him, he believed she desired his death. He told me of the men to whom in particular his suspicions attached, and the reasons of the suspicions; that these men would be irretrievably ruined if his speculations on the turf were to succeed, and that there was not one of them would not peril his life to get sight of his book on the coming Derby. I was curious to ascertain why he should have surrounded himself with men so obviously his enemies, and he owned it was an act prompted by a sort of dogged courage, to show them that he did not fear them. Nor was this the only motive, as he let out by an inadvertence; he cherished the hope of detecting an intrigue between one of his guests and his wife, as the means of liberating himself from a tie long distasteful to him.
“One of the party had associated himself with him in this project, and promised him all his assistance. Here was a web of guilt and treachery, entangled enough to engage a deep interest! For the man himself, I cared nothing; there was in his nature that element of low selfishness that is fatal to all sense of sympathy. His thoughts and speculations ranged only over suspicions and distrusts, and the only hopes he ever expressed were for the punishment of his enemies. Scarcely, indeed, did a visit pass in which he did not compel me to repeat a solemn oath that the mode of his death should be explored, and his poisoners—if there were such—be brought to trial. As he drew nigh his last, his sufferings gave little intervals of rest, and his mind occasionally wandered. Even in his ravings, however, revenge never left him, and he would break out into wild rhapsodies in imitation of the details of justice, calling on the prisoners, and by name, to say whether they would plead guilty or not; asking them to stand forward, and then reciting with hurried impetuosity the terms of an indictment for murder. To these there would succeed a brief space of calm reason, in which he told me that his daughter—a child by a former wife—was amply provided for, and that her fortune was so far out of the reach of his enemies that it lay in America, where her uncle, her guardian, resided. He gave me his name and address, and in my pocket-book—this old and much-used pocket-book that you see—he wrote a few tremulous lines, accrediting me to this gentleman as the one sole friend beside him in his last struggles. As he closed the book, he said, 'As you hope to die in peace, swear to me not to neglect this, nor leave my poor child a beggar.' And I swore it.
“His death took place that night; the inquest followed on the day after. My suspicions were correct; he had died of corrosive sublimate; the quantity would have killed a dozen men. There was a trial and a conviction. One of them, I know, was executed, and, if I remember aright, sentence of transportation passed on another. The woman, however, was not implicated, and her reputed lover escaped. My evidence was so conclusive and so fatal that the prisoners' counsel had no other resource than to damage my credit by assailing my character, and in his cross-examination of me he drew forth such details of my former life, and the vicissitudes of my existence, that I left the witness-table a ruined man. It was not a very difficult task to represent a life of poverty as one of ignominy and shame. The next day my acquaintances passed without recognizing me, and from that hour forth none ever consulted me. In my indignation at this injustice I connected all who could have in any way contributed to my misfortune, and this poor orphan child amongst the rest. Had I never been engaged in that ill-starred case, my prospects in life had been reasonably fair and hopeful. I was in sufficient practice, increasing in repute, and likely to succeed, when this calamitous affair crossed me.
“Patience under unmerited suffering was never amongst my virtues, and in various ways I assailed those who had attacked me. I ridiculed the lawyer who had conducted the defence, sneered at his law, exposed his ignorance of chemistry, and, carried away by that fatal ardor of acrimony I never knew how to restrain, I more than suggested that, when he appealed to Heaven in the assertion of his client's innocence, he held in his possession a written confession of his guilt. For this an action of libel was brought against me; the damages were assessed at five hundred pounds, and I spent four years in a jail to acquit the debt. Judge, then, with what memories I ever referred to that event of my life. It was, perhaps, the one solitary incident in which I had resisted a strong temptation. I was offered a large bribe to fail in my analysis, and yet it cost me all the prosperity it had taken years of labor to accomplish!
“Imprisonment had not cooled my passion. The first thing which I did when free was to dramatize the trial for one of those low pot-houses where Judge and Jury scenes are represented; and so accurately did I caricature my enemy, the counsel, that he was actually laughed out of court and ruined. If I could have traced the other actors in the terrible incident, I would have pursued them with like rancor; but I could not: they had left England, and gone Heaven knows where or how! As to the orphan girl, whose interest I had sworn to watch over, any care for her now would only have insulted my own misery; my rage was blind and undiscriminating, and I would not be guided by reason. It was, therefore, in a spirit of unreflecting vengeance that I never took any steps regarding her, but preserved, even to this hour, a letter to her guardian,—it is there, in that pocket-book,—which might perhaps have vindicated her right to wealth and fortune. 'No,' thought I, 'they have beenmyruin; I will not be the benefactor of one of them!'
“I kept my word; and even when my own personal distresses were greatest, I would not have raised myself out of want at the price of relinquishing that revenge. I have lived to think and feel more wisely,” said he, after a pause; “I have lived to learn the great lesson that every mishap of my life was of my own procuring, and that self-indulgence and a vindictive spirit are enough to counterbalance tenfold more than all the abilities I ever possessed. The world will no more confide its interests to men like me than they will take a tiger for a house-dog. I want to make some reparation for this wrong, Alfred. I want to seek out this person I have spoken of, and, if this girl still live, to place her in possession of her own. You will help me in this, will you not?”
It was not without a burning impatience that young Layton had listened to his father's narrative; he was eager to tell him that his friend the Colonel had already addressed himself to the enterprise, all his interests being engaged by the journals and letters he had collected when in Ireland. Alfred now, in a few hurried words, related all this, and told how, at that very hour, Quackinboss was eagerly prosecuting the inquiry. “He has gone down to Norfolk in search of this Winthrop,” said he.
“He will not find him there,” said old Layton. “He left Norfolk, for the Far West, two years back. He settled at Chicago, but he has not remained there. So much I have learned, and it is all that is known about him.”
“Let us go to Chicago, then,” said Alfred.
“It is what I would advise. He is a man of sufficient note and mark to be easily traced. It is a well-known name, and belongs to a family much looked up to. These are my credentials, if I should ever chance to come up with him.”
As he spoke, he unclasped a very old and much-worn leather pocket-book, searching through whose pages he at last found what he sought for. It was a leaf, scrawled over in a trembling manner, and ran thus: “Consult the bearer of this, Dr. Layton, about Clara; he is my only friend at this dreadful hour, and he is to be trusted in all things. Watch well that they who have murderedmedo not robher. He will tell you—” It concluded thus abruptly, but was signed firmly, “Godfrey Hawke, Nest, Jersey,” with the date; and underneath, “To Harvey Winthrop, Norfolk, D. S.”
“This would be a meagre letter of credit, Alfred, to most men; but I have heard much of this same Winthrop. All represent him as a fine-hearted, generous fellow, who has done already much to trace out his niece, and restore to her what she owns. If we succeed in discovering him, I mean to offer my services to search out the girl. I saw, a short time before I left England, one of the men who were implicated in the murder. I knew him at once. The threat of reviving the old story of shame will soon place him in my power, if I can but find him; and throughhimI am confident we shall traceher.”
To understand the ardor with which the old man entered upon this inquiry, one must have known the natures of those men to whom the interest of such a search has all the captivation of a game. It was, to his thinking, like some case of subtle analysis, in which the existence of a certain ingredient was to be tested; it was a problem requiring all his acuteness to solve, and he addressed himself to the task with energy and zeal. The young man was not slow to associate himself in the enterprise; and in his desire for success there mingled generous thoughts and more kindly sympathies, which assuredly did not detract from the interest of the pursuit.
The theme engrossed all their thoughts; they discussed it in every fashion, speculated on it in every shape, pictured to themselves almost every incident and every stage of the inquiry, imagining the various obstacles that might arise, and planning how to overcome them. Thus journeying they arrived at Chicago, but only to learn that Winthrop had left that city, and was now established farther to the westward, at a place called Gallina. Without halting or delay they started for Gallina. The road was a new and a bad one, the horses indifferent, and the stages unusually long. It was on the fourth evening of the journey that they arrived at a small log-house on the skirt of a pine wood, at which they were given to expect fresh horses. They were disappointed, however, for the horses had already been sent to bring up two travellers from Gallina, and who had taken the precaution of securing a rapid transit.
“We are here, then, for the night,” said old Layton, with a faint sigh, as he endeavored to resign himself to the delay.
“Here they come!” said the host of the log-hut, as the rattle of a heavy wagon was heard from the dense wood. “Our sheriff don't let the moss grow under his feet. Listen to the pace he 's coming.”
Seated, with his son beside him, on the wooden bench before the door, the old man watched the arrival of the newcomers. The first to descend from the wagon was a man somewhat advanced in life, but hale and stout, with a well-bronzed face, and every semblance of a vigorous health. He saluted the host cordially, and was received with a sort of deference only accorded to men of official station. He was followed by a younger man, but who displayed, as he moved, evident signs of being fatigued by the journey.
“Come, Seth,” said the elder, “let us see what you have got for our supper, for we must be a-moving briskly.”
“Well, sheriff, there ain't much,” said the host; “and what there is you 'll have to share with the two gentlemen yonder; they've just come East, and are waitin' for you to get a morsel to eat.”
“Always glad to chance on good company,” said the sheriff, saluting the strangers as he spoke; and while they were interchanging their greetings, the host laid the table, and made preparation for the meal. “I must look after my fellow-traveller,” said the sheriff; “he seems so tired and jaded. I half fear he will be unable to go on to-night.”
He speedily returned with good tidings of his friend, and soon afterwards the party took their places at the supper-table.
The sheriff, like his countrymen generally, was frank and outspoken; he talked freely of the new-settled country, its advantages and its difficulties, and at last, as the night closed in, he made another visit to his friend.
“All right, Seth,” said he, as he came back; “we shall be able to push on. Let them 'hitch' the nags as soon as may be, for we 've a long journey before us.”
“You're for the Lakes, I reckon?” said Seth, inquiringly.
“Farther than that.”
“Up to Saratoga and the Springs, maybe?”
“Farther still.”
“Well, you ain't a-goin' to New York at this time of year, sheriff?”
“That am I, and farther still, Seth; I am going to the old country, where I have n't been for more than thirty years, and where I never thought to go again.”
“You might visit worse lands, sir,” said old Layton, half resentfully.
“You mistook my meaning, stranger,” said the other, “if you thought my words reflected on England. There is only one land I love better.”
The honest speech reconciled them at once, and with a hearty shake-hands and a kindly wished good journey, they separated.
“Did you remark that man who accompanied the sheriff?” said Layton to his son, as they stood at the door watching the wagon while it drove away.
“Not particularly,” said Alfred.
“Well, I did my best to catch sight of him, but I could not. It struck me that he was less an invalid than one who wanted to escape observation; he wore his hat slouched over his eyes, and covered his mouth with his hand when he spoke.”
The young man only smiled at what he deemed a mere caprice of suspicion, and the subject dropped between them. After a while, however, the father said,—
“What our host has just told me strengthens my impression. The supposed sick man ate a hearty supper, and drank two glasses of stiff brandy-and-water.'
“And if he did, can it concern us, father?” said Alfred, smiling.
“Yes, boy, if we were the cause of the sudden indisposition. He was tired, perhaps, when he arrived, but I saw no signs of more than fatigue in his movements, and I observed that, at the first glance towards us, he hurried into the inner room and never reappeared till he left. I 'm not by any means certain that the fellow had not his reasons for avoiding us.”
Rather treating this as the fancy of one whose mind had been long the prey of harassing distrusts than as founded on calmer reason, Alfred made no answer, and they separated for the night without recurring to the subject.
It was late on the following day they reached Gallina. The first question was, if Harvey Winthrop lived there? “Yes; he is our sheriff,” was the answer. They both started, and exchanged looks of strange meaning.
“And he left this yesterday?” asked old Layton.
“Yes, sir. An Englishman came two days back with some startling news for him,—some say of a great fortune left him somewhere,—and he's off to England to make out his claim.”
Old Layton and his son stood speechless and disconcerted. These were the two travellers who had passed them at the log-hut, and thus had they spent some hours, without knowing it, in the company of him they had been travelling hundreds of miles to discover.
“And his friend knew us, and avoided us, Alfred,” said old Layton. “Mark that fact, boy, and observe that, where there is ground for fear in one heart, there is reason for hope in some other. We must follow them at once.”
Having written a hurried letter to Quackinboss acquainting him with the causes which should prevent him from keeping his rendezvous at St. Louis, and informing him how he had met with his father, he briefly mentioned that they were about to return to New York with all speed, in the hope of coming up with Winthrop before he sailed for England. “Come what may,” he added, “we shall await you there. We long to meet you, and add your counsels to our own.” This letter he addressed to St Louis, and posted at once.
It was ten days after this they reached New York. Their journey had been delayed by a series of accidents,—a railroad smash at Detroit amongst the number; and when they arrived at the capital, it was to learn that the “Asia” had sailed that very morning for Liverpool, and at the agent's office they found that Mr. Harvey Winthrop was a passenger, and with him a certain Mr. Jacob Trover.
“Trover!” repeated Alfred, “he came out in the same ship with us, and it was in his company Quackinboss went down to the South, fully convinced that the man was the agent in some secret transaction.”
As he stood looking at the name on the agent's list with that unreasoning steadfastness that in a difficulty often attaches us to the incident which has first awakened us to a sense of embarrassment, he heard a well-remembered voice behind him exclaim, “What! sailed this mornin'? Well, darn me considerable, if that ain't takin' the ropes of us!” He turned, and it was Quackinboss. After the heartiest of greetings on both sides, Alfred presented his father to his friend.
“Well, sir,” said the Colonel, impressively, “there ain't that man livin' I want to shake the hand of as I do yours. I know you, sir, better, mayhap, than that youth beside you. I have studied your character in your writin's, and I 'm here to say there ain't your superior, if there be your equal, in your country or mine.”
“This opinion will make our intimacy very difficult,” said the old man, smiling. “I can scarcely hope to keep up the delusion, even for twenty-four hours.”
“Yes, sir, you can,” replied the Colonel; “jest talk the way you write.”
“You have seen this, I suppose?” said Alfred, pointing to the list of the lately departed passengers, and desirous of engaging his friend in another theme.
“Yes, and gone with Winthrop too,” said the Colonel. “You would n't believe how he doubled on me, that man Trover. I thought I had him too. We were a-travellin' together as thick as thieves, a-tellin' each other all our bygones in life and our plans for the future, and at last as good as agreed we 'd go partners in a mill that was for sale, about three miles from Carthage. But he wanted to see the water-power himself, and so we left the high-road, and set out to visit it. At our arrival, as we was gettin' out of the wagon, he sprained his ankle, and had to be helped into the house.
“'I am afraid,' said he, 'there's more mischief than a sprain here; have you any skill as a surgeon?'
“'Well,' said I, 'I ain't so bad about a fracture or dislocashin, and, what's better, I 've got a note-book with me full of all manner of receipts for washes and the like.' It was your journal, Dr. Layton, that I spoke of. It was, as you may remember, filled with hints about useful herbs and odd roots, and so on, and there was all about that case of a man called Hawke as was poisoned at Jersey,—a wonderful trial that had a great hold upon me, as your son will tell you another time,—but I did n't think ofthatat the moment; but turnin' to the part about sprains, I began to read him what you said: '“You must generally leech at first,” says he,' I began; '“particularly where there is great pain with swellin'.”'
“'Ah! I thought so,' sighed he; 'only how are we to get leeches in a place like this, and who is to apply them?'
“'I 'll engage to do both within half an hour.' said I; and I put on my hat and set out.
“Now, I war n't sorry, you see, for the accident. I thought to myself, 'Here's a crittur goin' to be laid up ten days or a fortnight; I'll have all the care o' him, and it's strange if he won't let out some of his secrets between whiles. I 'm curious to know what's a-brought him out here; he's not travellin' like one afraid of being pursued; he goes about openly and fearlessly, but he's always on the sharp, like a fellow that had somethin' on his mind, if one could only come at it. If there's anythin' one can be sure of, it is that a man with a heavy conscience will try to relieve himself of the load; he's like a fellow always changin' the ballast of his boat to make her sail lighter, or a crittur that will be a-movin' his saddle, now on the withers, now on the croup, but it won't do, never a bit, when there's a sore back underneath.' It was reflectin' over these things I fell into a sort of dreamy way, and did n't remember about the leeches for some time. At last I got 'em, and hastened back to the inn.
“'There's a note for you, sir, at the bar,' said the landlord. I took it, and read:—
“'Dear Colonel,—Thinking a little fresh air might serve me, I have gone out for a short drive.—Yours, till we meet again,
“'J. T.'
“Yes, sir, he was off; and worse, too, had carried away with him that great book with all the writin' in, and that account of Hawke's poison in'. I started in pursuit as quick as they could get me a wagon hitched, but I suppose I took the wrong road. I went to Utica, and then turned north as far as Albany, but I lost him. Better, perhaps, that I did so; I was riled considerable, and I ain't sure that I mightn't have done somethin' to be sorry for. Ain't it wonderful how ill one takes anythin' that reflects on one's skill and craftiness?—just as if such qualities were great ones; I believe, in my heart, we are readier to resent what insults our supposed cleverness than what is an outrage on our honesty. Be that as it may, I never came up with him after, nor heard of him, till I read his name in that sheet.”
“His theft of that book, connected with his companionship with Winthrop, suggests strongly the thought that his business here is the same as our own,” said the doctor.
“That's the way I reasoned it too,” said the Colonel.
“It is not impossible, besides, that he had some suspicion of your own object in this journey. Did the name of Winthrop ever come up in conversation between you?”
“Yes. I was once describin' my brother's location down in Ohio,—I did it a purpose to see if he would show any signs of interest about Peddar's Clearin's and Holt's Acre,—and then I mentioned, as if by chance, one Harvey Winthrop.
“'Oh, there was a man of that name in Liverpool once,' said he, 'but he died about two years gone.'
“'Did he?' said I, lookin' him hard.
“'Yes,' said he,—' of a quinsy.'
“It was as good as a play the way we looked at each other arter this. It was jest a game of chess, and I said, 'Move,' and he said, 'It ain't me to move,—it'syourturn.' And there we was.”
“The fellow was shrewd, then?”
“Yes, sir, arter his fashion.”
“We must follow him, that's certain. They will reach Liverpool by the 10th or 12th. When can we sail from this?”
“There's a packet sails on Wednesday next; that's the earliest.”
“That must do, then. Let them be active as they may, they will scarcely have had time for much before we are up with them.”
“It's as good as a squirrel-hunt,” said Quackinboss. “I 'm darned if it don't set one's blood a-bilin' out of sheer excitement. What do you reckon this chap's arter?”
“He has, perhaps, found out this girl, and got her to make over her claim to this property; or she may have died, and he has put forward some one to personate her; or it is not improbable he may have arranged some marriage with himself, or one of his friends, for her.”
“Then it ain't anythin' about the murder?” asked the Colonel, half disappointedly.
“Nothing whatever; that case was disposed of years ago. Whatever guilt may attach to those who escaped, the law cannot recognize now. They were acquitted, and they are innocent.”
“That may be good law, sir, but it's strange justice. If I owed you a thousand dollars, and was too poor to pay it, I 'm thinkin' you 'd have it out of me some fine day when I grew rich enough to discharge the debt.”
Layton shook his head in dissent at the supposed parallel.
“Ain't we always a-talkin' about the fallibility of our reason and the imperfection of our judgments? And what business have we, then, to say, 'There, come what will tomorrow of evidence or proof, my mind is made up, and I 'm determined to know nothin' more than I know now'?”
“What say you to the other side of the question,—that of the man against whom nothing is proven, but who, out of the mere obscurity that involves a crime, must live and die a criminal, just because there is no saying what morning may not bring an accusation against him? As a man who has had to struggle through a whole life against adverse suspicions, I protest against the doctrine of not proven! The world is too prone to think the worst to make such a practice anything short of an insufferable tyranny.”
With a delicacy he was never deficient in, Quackinboss respected the personal application, and made no reply.
“Calumny, too,” continued the old man, whose passion was now roused, “is conducted on the division-of-labor principle. One man contributes so much, and another adds so much more; some are clever in suggesting the motive, some indicate the act; others are satisfied with moralizing over human frailties, and display their skill in showing that the crime was nothing exceptional, but a mere illustration of the law of original sin. And all these people, be it borne in mind, are not the bad or the depraved, but rather persons of reputable lives, safe opinions, and even good intentions. Only imagine, then, what the weapon becomes when wielded by the really wicked. I myself was hunted down by honorable men,—gentlemen all of them, and of great attainments. Hashetold you my story?” said he, pointing to his son.
“Yes, sir; and I only say that it could n't have happened in our country here.”
“To be sure it could,” retorted the other, quickly; “the only difference is, that you have made Lynch law an institution, and we practise it as a social accident.”
Thus chatting, they reached the hotel where they were to lodge till the packet sailed.
The short interval before their departure passed off agreeably to all. Quackinboss never wearied at hearing the doctor talk, and led him on to speak of America, and what he had seen of the people, with an intense interest.
“Could you live here, sir?” asked Quackinboss, at the close of one of these discussions.
“It is my intention to live and die here,” said the doctor. “I go back to England now, that this boy may pay off a long load of vengeance for me. Ay, Alfred, you shall hear my long-cherished plan at once. I want you to become a fellow of that same University which drove me from its walls. They were not wrong, perhaps,—at least, I will not now dispute their right,—but I mean to be more in the right than they were. My name shall stand upon their records associated with their proudest achievements, and Layton the scholar, Layton the discoverer, eclipse the memory of Layton the rebel.”
This was the dream of many a year of struggle, defeat, and depression; and now that it was avowed, it seemed as though his heart were relieved of a great load of care. As for Alfred, the goal was one to stimulate all his energies, and he pledged himself fervently to do his utmost to attain it.
“And I must be with you the day you win,” cried Quackinboss, with an enthusiasm so unusual with him that both Layton and his son turned their glances towards him, and saw that his eyes were glassy with tears. Ashamed of his emotion, he started suddenly up, saying, “I'll go and book our berths for Wednesday next.”
Let us now return to some of the actors in our drama who for a while back have been playing out their parts behind the scenes. The Heathcote family, consisting of Sir William and his ward, May Leslie, Mrs. Morris and her late husband's friend, Captain Holmes, were domesticated in a sumptuous residence near the “Pincian,” but neither going out into the world nor themselves receiving visitors. Sir William's health, much broken and uncertain as it was, formed the excuse for this reclusion; but the real reason was the fact, speedily ascertained by the Captain, and as speedily conveyed to his daughter, that “Society” had already decided against them, and voted the English family at the Palazzo Balbi as disfranchised.
Very curious and very subtle things are the passively understood decrees of those who in each city of Europe call themselves the “World.” The delicate shades by which recognition is separated from exclusion; the fine tints, perceptible only to the eyes of fashion, by which certain frailties are relieved from being classed with grave derelictions; the enduring efficacy of the way in which the smell of the roses will cling to the broken vase of virtue and rescue its fragments from dishonor,—are all amongst the strangest and most curious secrets of our civilization.
Were it not for a certain uniformity in the observances, one might be disposed to stigmatize as capricious the severity occasionally displayed here, while a merciful lenity was exhibited there; but a closer examination will show that some fine discriminating sense is ever at work, capable of distinguishing between genteel vice and the wickedness that forgets conventionalities. As in law, so in morals, no man need criminate himself, but he who does so by an inadvertence is lost. Now the Heathcotes were rich, and yet lived secluded. The world wanted not another count in the indictment against them. A hundred stories were circulated about them. They had come to place the “girl” in a convent. Old Sir William had squandered away all her fortune, and the scheme now was to induce her to turn Catholic and take the veil. “The old fool”—the world is complimentary on these occasions—was going to marry that widow, whom he had picked up at Leamington or Ems or Baden-Baden. If the Captain had not kept the Hell in the Circus, he was the very double of the man who had it. At all events, it was better not to have him in the Club; and so the banker, who was to have proposed, withdrew him.
It may be imagined that some very palpable and sufficient cause was at work to induce society thus to stand on the defensive towards these new-comers. Nothing of the kind. All the evidence against them was shadowy; all the charges such as denied detail. They were an odd set, they lived in a strange fashion, they knew nobody; and to accusations like these even spotless integrity must succumb.
Dressed in arobe de chambrethat would have made the fortune of a French Vaudeville actor, with a gold-tasselled fez, and slippers to match, the Captain sat, smoking a splendid meerschaum, in a well-cushioned chair, while his daughter was engaged at her embroidery, opposite to him. Though it was midwinter, the sun streamed in through the orange-trees on the terrace, and made a rainbow of the spray that dashed from the marble fountain. The room itself combined all the sumptuous luxury we understand by the word “comfort,” with the graceful elegance of a Southern existence. There were flowers and fresh air, and the song of birds to be enjoyed on the softest of sofas and the best carpeted of floors.
A large goblet of some amber-colored drink, in which a rock of pure ice floated, stood at the Captain's elbow, and he sipped and puffed, with his head thrown well back, in an attitude that to smokers must have some Elysian ecstasy. Nor was his daughter the least ornamental part of the situation; a morning dress of white muslin, tastefully trimmed with sky-blue ribbons, and a rich fall of Brussels lace over her head, making a very charming picture of the graceful figure that now bent over the embroidery-frame.
“I tell you it won't do, Loo,” said he, removing his pipe, and speaking in a firm and almost authoritative voice. “I have been thinking a great deal over it, and you must positively get away from this.”
“I know that too,” said she, calmly; “and I could have managed it easily enough but for this promised visit of Charles. He comes through on his way to Malta, and Sir William would not hear of anything that risked the chance of seeing him.”
“I 'd rather risk that than run the hazards we daily do in this place,” said he, gravely.
“You forget, papa, thatheknows nothing of these hazards. He is eager to see his son, for what he naturally thinks may be the last time. I 'm sure I did my best to prevent the meeting. I wrote to Lord Agincourt; I wrote to Charles himself. I represented all the peril the agitation might occasion his father, and how seriously the parting might affect a constitution so impressionable as his, but to no purpose; he coldly replies, 'Nothing short of my father's refusal to see me shall prevent my coming to see him,' or 'embrace him,' or—I forget the words, but the meaning is, that come he will, and that his arrival may be counted on before the end of the week.”
“What stay will he make?”
“He speaks of three or four days at farthest. We can learn the limit easily enough by the time of the P. and O. steamer's sailing. Ask for it at the banker's.”
“I don't call in there now,” said he, peevishly. “Since they took down my name for the Club-ballot, I have not gone to the bank.”
She sighed heavily; there was more than one care on her heart, and that sigh gathered in a whole group of anxieties.
“They have got up all sorts of stories about us; and it is always out of these false attacks of scandal comes the real assault that storms the citadel.”
She sighed again, but did not speak.
“So long as Heathcote keeps the house and sees nobody, all may go on well; but let him be about again, able to ramble amongst the galleries and churches, he is certain to meet some amiable acquaintance, who will startle him with a few home truths. I tell you again, we are banqueting over a powder-magazine; and even as to the marriage itself, I don't like it. Are you aware of the amount he is able to settle? I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the draft. It is neither more nor less than eight thousand pounds. Fancy taking such a husband for eight thousand pounds!”
“You scarcely put the case fairly, papa,” said she, smiling; “the eight thousand is the compensation for losing him.”
“Are you in love with him, then?” asked he, with a sarcastic twinkle of the eye.
“I don't think so,—at least, not to desperation.”
“It is scarcely for the sake of being 'My Lady.'”
“Oh dear, no;thatis a snobbery quite beyond me. Now, I neither marry for the title, nor the man, nor his money, nor his station; but out of that mass of motives which to certain women have the force of a principle. I can explain what I mean, perhaps, by an illustration: Were you to tell a fashionable physician, in first-rate practice, that if he got up out of bed at midnight, and drove off two miles to a certain corner of Regent's Park, where under a particular stone he 'd find a guinea, it is more than certain he 'd not stir; but if you sent for the same man to a case of illness, he'd go unhesitatingly, and accept his guinea as the due recompense of his trouble. This is duty, or professional instinct, or something else with a fine name, but it's not gold-seeking. There now, make out my meaning out of my parable, as best you may. And, after all, papa, I'm not quite sure that I intend to marry him.”
“Why, what do you mean?”
“Oh, pray don't be frightened. I merely meant to say that there was an eventuality which might rescue me from this necessity. I have told you nothing about it hitherto, dear papa, because I inherit your own wholesome dislike to entertaining my friends with what may turn out mere moonshine. Now, however, that the project has a certain vitality in it, you shall hear it.”
Holmes drew his chair close to her, and, laying down his pipe, prepared to listen with all attention.
“If I hate anything,” said she, half peevishly, “it is to talk of the bygone, and utter the names of people that I desire never to hear again. It can't be helped, however; and here goes. After the events in Jersey, you remember I left the island and came abroad. There were all sorts of confusion about H.'s affairs. The law had taken possession of his papers, placed seals on everything, and resisted my application to remove them, on the vexatious plea that I was not his wife, and could not administer as such. A long litigation ensued, and at last my marriage was admitted, and then I took out probate and received a few thousand pounds, and some little chance property; the bulk of his fortune was, however, in America, and settled on Clara by a will, which certain writings showed was in the possession of her uncle, now nominated to be her guardian, a certain Harvey Winthrop, of Norfolk, Virginia. I opened a correspondence with him, and suggested the propriety of leaving Clara with me, as I had always regarded her as my own child, and hinting at the appropriateness of some allowance for her maintenance and education. He replied with promptitude and much kindness, expressed great sympathy for my late loss, and made a very liberal settlement for Clara.
“All went on peaceably and well for two years, when one morning came a letter from Winthrop of a most alarming nature. Without any positive charge, it went on to say that he had, for reasons which his delicacy would prefer to spare me, decided on himself assuming the guardianship of his niece, and that if I would kindly come to London, or name any convenient place on the Continent for our meeting, he would punctually present himself at the time agreed on. Of course I guessed what had occurred,—indeed, it had always been a matter of astonishment to me how long I had been spared; at all events, I determined on resistance. I wrote back a letter, half sorrow, half indignation; I spoke of the dear child as all that remained of consolation to my widowed heart; I said that though it was in his competence to withhold from me the little pittance which served to relieve some of the pressure of our narrow means, yet I would not separate myself from my darling child, even though at the cost of sharing with her a mere sufficiency for support. I told him, besides, that he should never hear from me more, nor would all his efforts enable him to trace us. It was then I became Mrs. Penthony Morris. I suppose Winthrop was sorry for his step; at least, by a variety of curious advertisements in English papers, he suggested that some accommodation might be arranged, and entreated me to renew intercourse with him. There were many reasons why I could not agree to this. Clara, too, was of great use to me. To a lone woman in the world, without any definite belongings, a child is invaluable. The advertisements were continued, and even rewards offered for such information as might lead to my discovery. All in vain: he never succeeded in tracing me, and at length gave up the pursuit.
“I must now skip over some years which have no bearing on this incident, and come to a period comparatively recent, when, in the transaction of certain purchases of American securities, I came unexpectedly on the mention of a new railroad line through a district whose name was familiar to me. I set myself to think where, when, and how I had heard of this place before, and at last remembered it was from H———, who used to talk of this property as what would one day make his daughter a great heiress. My moneyed speculations had led me into much intimacy here with a banker, Mr. Trover, over whom an accidental discovery gave me absolute power. It was no less than a forgery he had committed on my name, and of which, before relinquishing the right to take proceedings against him, I obtained his full confession in writing. With this tie over the man, he was my slave; I sent him here and there at my pleasure, to buy, and sell, and gain information, and so on, and, above all, to obtain a full account of the value of this American property, where it lay, and how it was occupied. It was in the midst of these inquiries came a great financial crash, and my agent was obliged to fly. At first he went to Malta; he came back, but, after a few weeks, he set out for the States. He was fully in possession of the circumstances of this property, and Clara's right to it, and equally so of my determination that she should never inherit it. We had, on one of the evenings he was here, a long conversation on the subject, and he cunningly asked me,—
“'How was the property settled in reversion?'
“It was a point I never knew, for I never saw H.'s will.
“'The will was made four years before his death; might he not have made a later one on his death-bed?—might he not have bequeathed the estate in reversion to yourself in case she died?—might she not have died?'
“All these he asked, and all of them had been my own unceasing thoughts for years back. It was a scheme I had planned and brooded over days and nights long. It was to prepare the road for it that I sent away Clara, and, under the name of Stocmar, had her inscribed at the Conservatoire of Milan. Was it that Trover had read my secret thoughts, or had he merely chanced upon them by mere accident? I did not dare to ask him, for I felt that by his answerIshould be as much inhispower as he was in mine.
“'I have often imagined there might be such a will,' said I; 'there is no reason to suppose it is not in existence. Could it not be searched for and found?'
“He understood me at once, and replied,—
“'Have you any of Hawke's handwriting by you?'
“'A quantity,' said I; 'and it is a remarkable hand, very distinctive, and not hard to imitate,—at least, by any one skilled in such accomplishments.'
“He blushed a little at the allusion, but laughed it off.
“'The girl could have died last year; she might have been buried,—where shall we say?' added he, carelessly.
“'At Meisner, in the Tyrol,' said I, catching at the idea that just struck me, for my maid died in that place, and I had got the regular certificate of her death and burial from the Syndic, and I showed him the document.
“'This is admirable,' said he; 'nothing easier than to erase this name and insert another.'
“'I cannot hear of such a thing, Mr. Trover,' said I; 'nor can I, after such a proposal, suffer the paper to leave my hands.' And with this I gave it to him.
“'I could not dream of such an act, madam,' said he, with great seriousness; 'it would amount to a forgery. Now for one last question,' said he, after a little interval of silence: 'what would you deem a suitable reward to the person who should discover this missing will, and restore this property to the rightful owner? Would twenty per cent on the value appear to you too much?'
“'I should say that the sum was a high one, but if the individual acquitted himself with all the integrity and all the delicacy the situation demanded, never by even an implication involving any one who trusted him, conducting the transaction to its end on his own responsibility and by his own unaided devices, why, then, it is more than probable that I would judge the reward to be insufficient.'
“So much, dear papa, will put you in possession of the treaty then ratified between us. I was to supply all the funds for present expenses; Mr. Trover to incur all the perils. He was invested with full powers, in fact, to qualify himself for Botany Bay; and I promised to forward his views towards a ticket of leave if the worst were to happen him. It was a very grave treaty very laughingly and playfully conducted. Trover had just tact enough for the occasion, and was most jocose wherever the point was a perilous one. From the letters and papers in my possession, he found details quite ample enough to give him an insight into the nature of the property, and also, what he deemed of no small importance, some knowledge of the character of this Mr. Winthrop, Clara's uncle. This person appeared to be an easy-tempered, good-natured man, not difficult to deal with, nor in any way given to suspicion. Trover was very prompt in his proceedings. On the evening after our conversation he showed me the draft of Hawke's will, dated at Jersey, about eight days before his death. It was then, for the first time, I learned that Trover knew the whole story, and whoIwas. This rather disconcerted me at first. There are few things more disconcerting than to find out that a person who has for a long intercourse never alluded to your past history, has been all the while fully acquainted with it. The way he showed his knowledge of the subject was characteristic In pointing out to me Hawke's signature, he remarked,—
“'I have made the witnesses—Towers, who was executed, and Collier, who, I have heard, died in Australia.'
“'How familiar you are with these names, sir!' said I, curiously.
“'Yes, madam,' said he; 'I edited a well-known weekly newspaper at that time, and got some marvellous details from a fellow who was on the spot.'
“I assure you, papa, though I am not given to tremors, I shuddered at having for my accomplice a man that I could not deceive as to my past life. It was to be such an open game between us that, in surrendering all the advantages of my womanly arts, I felt I was this man's slave, and yet he was a poor creature. He had the technical craft for simulating a handwriting and preparing a false document, but was miserably weak in providing for all the assaults that must be directed against its authenticity.
“His plan was, armed with what he called an attested copy of H.'s will, to set out for America and discover this Mr. Winthrop. Cleverly enough, he had bethought him of securing this gentleman's co-operation by making him a considerable inheritor under the will. In fact, he charged the estate with a very handsome sum in his favor, and calculated on all the advantages of this bribe; and without knowing it, Mr. Winthrop was to be 'one of us.'
“He sailed in due time, but I heard no more of him; and, indeed, I began to suspect that the two bank-notes I had given him, of one hundred each, had been very unprofitably invested, when by this day's post a letter reaches me to say that success had attended him throughout. By a mere accidental acquaintance on a railroad, he 'fell in' with—that's his phrase, which may mean that he stole—some very curious documents which added to his credit with Winthrop. He describes this gentleman as exactly what he looked for, and with this advantage, that having latterly been somewhat unfortunate in speculation, he was the more eager to repair his fortune by the legacy. He says that only one embarrassing circumstance occurred, and this was that Winthrop determined at once on coming over to England, so that the authenticity of the will should be personally ascertained by him, and all his own proceedings in the matter be made sure. 'For this purpose,' he writes, 'we shall sail from this place by the first steamer for Liverpool, where let me have a letter addressed to the Albion to say where you are to be found. Winthrop's first object will be to meet you, and you must bethink you well what place you will deem most suitable for this purpose. Of course the more secluded and private the better. I have explained to him that so overwhelmed were you by the terrible event of H.'s death you had never entered the world since; and, in fact, so averse to anything that might recall the past that you had never administered to the will, nor assumed any of your rights to property, and it would be well for him, if he could, to arouse you out of this deadly lethargy, and call you back to something like existence. This explained why I had taken the journey out to America to meet him.' You will perceive, papa, that Mr. Trover knows how to lie 'with the circumstance,' and is not unitarian in his notions of falsehood.
“I am far from liking this visit of Mr. Winthrop. I wish from my heart that his scruples had been less nice, and that he had been satisfied to eat his cake without inquiring whether every one else had got his share; but, as he is coming, we must make the best of it. And now, what advice have you to give me? Of course, we cannot suffer him to come here.”
“Certainly not, Loo. We must have out the map, and think it over. Does Trover tell you what amount the property may be worth?”
“He says that there are three lots. Two have been valued at something over a million of dollars; the third, if the railroad be carried through it, will be more valuable still. It is, he says, an immense estate and in high productiveness. Let us, however, think of our cards, papa, and not the stake; there is much to provide. I have no certificate of my marriage with Hawke.”
“That must be thought of,” said he, musingly.
“Clara, too, must be thought of,—married, if possible, to some one going abroad,—to Australia or New Zealand. Perhaps O'Shea.” And she burst out a-laughing at the thought.
“Or Paten. I 'd say Ludlow—”
A look of sickly aversion crossed his daughter's face at the suggestion, and she said,—
“Nothing on earth would induce, me to consent to it.”
The Captain might have regarded this as a woman's weakness, but he said nothing.
“It will be very difficult for me to get away at this moment too,” said she, after a pause. “I don't fancy being absent while young Heathcote is here. He will be making all manner of inquiries about Clara,—where she is, with whom, and for what? If I were on the spot, I could suppress such perquisitions.”
“After all, dear Loo, the other is the great event I conclude, if all goes smoothly about this work, you 'll never dream of the marriage with Sir William?”
“Perhaps not,” said she, roguishly. “I am not so desperately in love as to do an imprudence. There is, however, much to be thought of, papa. In a few days more Ludlow is to be back here with my letters, more than ever necessary at this moment, when any scandal might be fatal. If he were to know anything of this accession of fortune, his demands would be insupportable.”
“No doubt of that. At the same time, if he merely hears that your marriage with the Baronet is broken off, he will be more tractable. How are you to obtain these letters?”
“I don't know,” said she, with a stolid look.
“Are you to buy them?”
“I don't know.”
“He will scarcely surrender them out of any impulse of generosity?”
“I don't know,” said she, again; and over her features there was a sickly pallor that changed all their expression, and made her look even years older than she was. He looked at her compassionately, for there was that in her face that might well have challenged pity.
“But, Loo, dearest,” said he, encouragingly, “place the affair in my hands, and see if I cannot bring it to a good ending.”
“He makes it a condition to treat with none but myself, and there is a cowardice in this of which he knows all the advantage.”
“It must be a question of money, after all. It is a matter of figures.”
“He would say not. At the very moment of driving his hardest bargain he would interpose some reference to what he is pleased to call 'his feelings.' I told him that even Shylock did not insult his victim with a mock sympathy, nor shed false tears over the pain his knife was about to inflict.”
“It was not the way to conciliate him, Loo.”
“Conciliate him! Oh, how you know him!” She pressed her hands over her face as she spoke, and when she withdrew them the cheeks were scalded with tears.
“Come, come, Loo, this is scarcely like yourself.”
“There, it's over now,” said she, smiling, with a half-sad look, as she pushed her hair back, as though to suffer the cool air to bathe her forehead. “Oh dear!” sighed she out, “if I only could have foreseen all the perils before me, I might have borne with George Ogden, and lived and died what the world calls respectable.”
He gave a little sigh too, which might have meant that he agreed with her, or that the alternative was a hard one, or that respectability was a very expensive thing for people of small means, or a little of all three together, which was most probable, since the Captain rarely dealt in motives that were not sufficiently mixed.
“And now, papa,” said she, “use your most ingenious devices to show me how I am to answer all these engagements, and while I meet Mr. Winthrop in Switzerland, contrive also to be on guard here, and on outpost duty with Mr. Ludlow Paten.”
“You 'll do it, Loo,—you 'll do it, or nobody else will,” said he, sipping his iced drink, and gazing on her approvingly.
“What would you say to Bregenz for our rendezvous with Winthrop?” said she, bending over the map. “It is as quiet and forgotten a spot as any I know of.”
“So it is, Loo; and one of the very few where the English never go, or, at least, never sojourn.”
“I wish we could manage to find a small house or a cottage there. I should like to be what dramatists call 'discovered' in a humbly furnished chamber, living with my dear old father, venerable in years and virtues.”
“Well, it ought not to be difficult to manage. If you like, I 'll set off there and make the arrangements. I could start this evening.”
“How good of you! Let me think a little over it, and I will decide. It would be a great comfort to me to have you here when Charles Heathcote comes. I might need your assistance in many ways, but perhaps—Yes, you had better go; and a pressing entreaty on your part for me to hasten to the death-bed of my 'poor aunt' can be the reason for my own hurried departure. Is it not provoking how many embarrassments press at the same moment? It is an attack front, rear, and on the flanks.”
“You 're equal to it, dear,—you 're equal to it,” said he, with the same glance of encouragement.
“I almost think I should go with you, papa,—take French leave of these good people, and evacuate the fortress,—if it were not that next week I expect Ludlow to be back here with the letters, and I cannot neglectthat. Can you explain it to me?” cried she, more eagerly,—“there is not one in this family for whom I entertain the slightest sense of regard,—they are all less than indifferent to me,—and yet I would do anything, endure anything, rather than they should learn my true history, and know all about my past life; and this, too, with the certainty that we were never to meet again.”
“That is pride, Loo,—mere pride.”
“No,” said she, tremulously, “it is shame. The consciousness that one's name is never to be uttered but in scorn in those places where once it was always spoken of in honor,—the thought that the fair fame we had done so much to build up should be a dreary ruin, is one of the saddest the heart can feel; for, let the world say what it will, we often give all our energies to hypocrisy, and throw passion into what we meant to be mere acting. Well, well, enough of moralizing, now for action. You will want money for this trip, papa; see if there be enough there.” And she opened her writing-desk, and pushed it towards him.
The Captain took out his double eye-glass, and then, with due deliberation, proceeded to count over a roll of English notes fresh from the bank.
“In funds, I see, Loo,” said he, smiling.
“It is part of the last three hundred I possess in the world. I drew it out yesterday, and, as I signed the check, I felt as might a sailor going over the side as his ship was sinking. Do you know,” said she, hurriedly, “it takes a deal of courage to lead the life I have done.”
“No doubt,—no doubt,” muttered he, as he went on counting. “Forty-five, fifty, fifty-five—”
“Take them all, papa; I have no need of them. Before the month ends I mean to be a millionnaire or 'My Lady.'”
“I hope not the latter, Loo; I hope sincerely not, dearest. It would be a cruel sacrifice, and really for nothing.”
“A partnership in an old-established house,” said she, with a mocking laugh, “is always something; but I won't prejudge events, nor throw my cards on the table till I have lost the game. Andà proposto losing the game, suppose that luck should turn against us,—suppose that we fail to supply some essential link in this chain of fortune,—suppose that Trover should change his mind and sell us,—suppose, in short, anything adverse you please,—what means are remaining to you, papa? Have you enough to support us in some cheap unfrequented spot at home or abroad?”
“I could get together about two hundred and forty pounds a year, not more.”
“One could live upon that, could n't one?” asked she.
“Yes, in a fashion. With a number of privations you have never experienced, self-denial in fifty things you have never known to be luxuries, with a small house and small habits and small acquaintances, one could rub through, but no more.”
“Oh, how I should like to try it!” cried she, clasping her hands together. “Oh, what would I not give to pass one year—one entire year of life—without the ever-present terror of exposure, shame, and scorn,—to feel that when I lie down to rest at night a knock at the street door should not throw me into the cold perspiration of ague, or the coming of the postman set my heart a-throbbing, as though the missive were a sentence on me! Why cannot I have peace like this?”
“Poverty has no peace, my dear Loo. It is the poorest of all wars, for it is the pettiest of all objects. It would break my heart to see you engaged in such a conflict.”
And the Captain suffered his eyes to range over the handsome room and its fine furniture, while his thoughts wandered to a French cook, and that delicious “Château Margaux” he had tasted yesterday.
Did she read what was passing in his mind, as, with a touch of scorn in her manner, she said, “Doubtless you know the world better,” and left the room?