CHAPTER XXXIV.THE PEACE-OFFERING.
I give thee allI can, no more.
I give thee allI can, no more.
I give thee allI can, no more.
I give thee all
I can, no more.
Alexander Lyon arrived in London on the morning train, and in a pouring rain. He was pale and faint from his long illness and his fatiguing journey, but he was sustained by intense mental excitement.
His first thought, on leaving the train, was this:
How should he find his lost child in this boundless Babylon?
For the advertisement in the Times, of that morning, had already informed him that the baby-boy was still missing.
Sending on his valet with his luggage to Mivart’s, he himself got into a cab and drove to the Morley House. Arrived there, he went into the reading-room to make inquiries, for the child might have been found, even after that last advertisement had been sent to the paper.
“Has the lost boy been found up to this morning?” he inquired of the bookkeeper or clerk of the house.
“No, sir,—nor ever will be, I fear; but here is Mr. Hammond—perhaps he can tell you more,” answered that official.
Alexander turned, and found himself face to face with Dick.
They had parted in anger the last time they had spoken together; but now, for different reasons, both forgot that anger,—Alexander, in his recovered sanity and in his gratitude for Dick’s services; and Dick himself in thefrankness of his heart and the compassion he felt for the sick and suffering man. Their hands met, and——
“Dick!”
“Alick!”
Were the first words they spoke.
“Has the child been heard of?”
“No,” sighed Hammond.
“Come out, and walk with me; I wish to ask you about it.”
“But it is pouring rain, and you have been ill. You are so still. Let us go into some unoccupied private parlor and have coffee ordered there. You will need it.”
“Just as you please, Dick.”
Hammond beckoned a waiter to show them to a private room: and, when they had reached it, he ordered breakfast for two to be brought there.
“Now tell me ofher. How is she? How does she bear this heavy sorrow?” inquired Alexander, as soon as the waiter had left the room.
“Badly enough. She scarcely ever eats or sleeps. She is wasted to a shadow. She is dying—she will die, unless the child is restored,” answered Dick.
“The child shall be restored, if he is above ground!” said Alick, bringing his fist down heavily upon the table.
Dick shook his head, and sighed.
“I tell you he shall. I arose from my death-bed to seek for him, and find him, and bring him to his mother—and I will do it!”
“Will you go to her and tell her that?” said Dick, solemnly.
“No, I will not. There is too much—too much to be forgiven me. I will not go near until I can place her child in her arms. And, Hammond, mind, this is a confidential interview—do not speak to her of it, or of me.”
“Certainly not, if such is your wish.”
“Does she pray now as she used to pray in all her troubles?”
“She does little else than pray; she does nothing else but pray and search for her child.”
“Shesearch?”
“Yes, she lives in a cab; has lived so ever since the child was lost.”
“And does she believe that she will find him?”
“Yes. She believes that he is alive, and therefore to be found. It is her belief in that theory which keeps her alive through all the agony of suspense. If she thought he was dead she would die. I am sure of it.”
“Keep up that faith in her heart, Dick. Lead her to believe also in the restitution of her child as an event that may occur any day, any hour, as you know it may.”
Dick sighed heavily.
“But it may! And it shall! I, too, sinner that I am, have learned to pray. I pray daily, hourly, that I may be permitted to find the child and bring it as a peace offering to my dear, injured wife. And I shall do it. I feel sure that I shall.”
“Heaven grant that you may,” sighed Dick; “but recollect that already everything has been done that experience, interest, energy, money, skill, can do.”
“But not all thatdespaircan do! Oh, Dick! I have so set my heart on finding this child and bringing him to his mother that I shall surely do it.”
“The Lord send it.”
“And therefore, Dick, I want you to prepare her to expect the child; or, rather, to believe it probable that he will soon be found; so that when I do bring him to her she may not die from a shock of joy.”
“I will do as you request, Alick; but I shall have to act with great discretion in the matter.”
“Certainly you will, and you can. Does she know anything about——” Alick hesitated to name theaffair of honorof which he was now so heartily ashamed. “Does she know anything about——”
“Your illness in Jersey, or its cause?” said Dick, delicately coming to his help. “Of course not. We were not going to tell her anything to add to her troubles.”
“You were right!—But what a heartless wretch she must think me, to be in town and to show no interest in the loss of my child!” exclaimed Alexander.
Dick could not help remembering that Drusilla had had quite cause enough to believe him a “heartless wretch” without this. But Dick was very good-natured, so he said:
“She knows that you were not in town. She went toyour hotel at once to apprize you of the loss of your child——”
“She did! Drusilla did that!” exclaimed Alexander, interrupting him.
“Yes, she did—within an hour after the discovery was made, and——-”
“Bless her! bless her!” fervently ejaculated Alexander.
—“She was told that you had left town for Southampton. I think she received the impression that you had sailed for America.”
“I am very glad of that. But is it not strange that she did not see that ill-natured paragraph in the papers referring to the——”
“Not at all. The paragraph in question was in but one day’s issue, and that was the day she was in her greatest agony about her child; and besides, she never has looked at paper or book since her heavy loss. She has done nothing but pray and search, as I said before.”
“Poor child! poor child! Dick, tell her nothing of me. I do not wish that she shall see me, or hear from me, until I bring her the child. But give my love and thanks to my uncle, and tell him what I am about. But here comes the waiter.”
Breakfast was brought in and arranged upon the table, and the friends drew up to it.
Alexander ate nothing, but he drank down in quick succession about six cups of coffee; for “sorrow is dry,” just as surely as if the drunkards had never said it was, and made it an excuse for more drinking.
Then Alexander got up from the table and said:
“I would like to meet you here every morning about this hour for a few minutes to compare notes. Would it be convenient or agreeable?”
“Certainly—both, Alick. I am entirely at your service. And God grant you success!”
Then Alexander took up his hat and gloves, saying:
“I am going to Police Head-Quarters first.”
Dick laughed lugubriously.
“Alick,” he said, “the detective police have been using their utmost skill to find the lost child. They have been hard at work for a month.”
“I know it, but they work in a routine; they also have come to move in a groove. The thieves know the detectives’ ways by this time and elude them. I shall go about the business in an original manner. Good-by, Dick. I thank you earnestly for all your patient forbearance and goodness to me. Help them to take care of my poor girl.”
“Certainly I will. But, Alick! do you take care ofyourself. It is very damp.”
“Never fear. No one takes cold who has so much else to think about and do. Well, once more—good-by till to-morrow, Dick.”
And the friends shook hands and parted.
Alexander threw himself into his cab, and drove off to Scotland Yard.
There he saw the chief of police, and had a long talk with him. Under the seal of confidence, he explained something of the circumstances of his marriage, his temporary estrangement from his wife, who bore his family name; and of his subsequent accession to the title and estate of Killcrichtoun—a title which, it appeared, his wife shrank from sharing until they should be reconciled. This, he said, he divulged that the chief might understand why it was that he took so deep an interest, and was willing to pay so high a reward, and give besides all his own time and attention for the recovery of the lost child.
These circumstances and all others he deemed necessary he explained to the chief, who, by the way, had heard it all before from Dick, although he did not deem it discreet to interrupt Lord Killcrichtoun’s narrative by telling him so.
Alexander also made some suggestions as to the best manner of conducting the further search, that the chief declared to have been inspired.
After leaving Scotland Yard, Alexander went to his apartments at Mivart’s, where he found that his valet had unpacked and arranged his clothes and toilet apparatus, and had brought up the letters and papers that had accumulated for him during him absence.
He looked over his letters, but found nothing of great importance.
Then he sent for the clerk of the house and made inquiriesas to who had called on him, or what had happened concerning him during the last month.
He heard in reply several things in which we are not interested, and one thing in which we are, rather—namely, the visit of two ladies, who inquired for him in connection with the missing child.
Of course he knew at once that the ladies referred to must have been Anna and Drusilla, and the child little Lenny.
He made very particular inquiries concerning these visitors merely because he liked to hear of Drusilla; and having learned all that the clerk had to tell, he thanked and dismissed him.
For the next eight days Alexander occupied himself by carrying into execution all the ingenious plans he had originated for finding the child; but as none of these plans succeeded, it is not necessary to detail them.
It was fated that the father should find the child when he was not looking for him, but when he was in the act of performing a piece of disinterested benevolence.
And this is how it came about:
Among other better thoughts that had visited Alexander on his bed of illness were certain reflections in connection with his distant relative—our poor gentleman. His mind dwelt much upon the poor usher and his half-famished family, and he reproved himself for his late strange, incomprehensible blindness, thoughtlessness and selfishness in regard to them.
“A wife and six children to be fed and clothed on sixty pounds a year! Good Heaven! how could I have been so preoccupied as not to think of this when I had the power to help them—I who fling away every day of my idle and worthless life as much as he gets for his hard work and usefulness a whole year. I ought to do something for him. I ought to have done it long ago. But the question is—what to do? He is as proud as Satan, and he would not take money.”
After much reflection, Alexander hit upon a plan of helping the poor gentleman without hurting his pride. It was a plan that required some considerable sacrifice on Alexander’s part; and when you hear of it I think you will say that it was generous, if not magnanimous.
On Alexander’s arrival in London, and for the first eight days after that, he had been so occupied with the search for his child that he had almost forgotten his plans for the relief of poor Everage; but on this ninth day he opened his eyes in the morning with these thoughts:
“I have been here more than a week, and spent all my time, energy and ingenuity in the search, and I have not found my child yet.”
And then he fell into profound reverie, in the midst of which some good angel whispered to his spirit:
“You have been here eight days, intent only upon finding your child and taking him to his mother as a peace offering, and all for your own happiness; and you have not once thought of the poor gentleman and his famishing family.”
“No, I have not,” said Alexander to himself, “when it would have required no more than fifteen minutes to have done it either. I will find time to see poor Everage to-day, and put him out of his misery.”
And he kept his word.
He knew exactly where the Newton Institute was situated, and he knew the hour of the afternoon at which the boys were dismissed, and at that hour he walked towards the Institute to meet Everage as the latter should come out after his pupils. He met first a troop of boys, and afterwards sawhimcome creeping along. But oh! how changed since Alexander had last seen him! He was now pale, thin, haggard, and somewhat gray. His eyes were cast down, and his shoulders were bowed, and he crept along like an old man of eighty.
The truth is that the poor gentleman had mistaken his vocation—it was not that of a deep-dyed villain; he had no genius for crime, and moreover, he had no stomach for it; it did not agree with him; he could not digest it; it made him ill, and was like to kill him unless he could get it off his stomach, or—his conscience.
His passions, his poverty, and his temptations had drawn him on to a deed which, just as soon as it was done, filled his soul with a corroding remorse.
Of all who suffered from the abduction of little Lenny, Clarence Everage, the abductor, suffered the most. Every night he was drawn by some irresistible influence to look upon his little victim.
He was himself a very loving father, and he had a little girl of Lenny’s age, who was his favorite child, named Clara, after himself; and when he saw poor Lenny fading in the close confinement of that dark, damp attic, and for the want of sunshine, and weeping and wailing for his mother, the sinner’s remorse was intensified to agony. He let his own family suffer that he might bring a few dainties to little Lenny.
The other lodgers in the house, who had never had a glimpse of the baby-boy, but who knew that a child had been put to “mind” with Mother Rooter, and who saw this poor, shabby gentleman come every night to bring it “goodies,” jumped to the natural conclusion that he was the father of the boy, whom for some reason or other he was keeping in concealment; and this supposition shut out the suspicion that little Lenny was the missing child whose loss was posted all over London. We who know the facts easily see the connection between the two sets of circumstances; but they who did not even suspect them, could see no such relations.
So deep was the remorse of poor Everage, that it not only dried up his blood, and wasted his flesh, and bowed his frame, and blanched his hair, but it drove him to the desperate determination to take the child and go to police head-quarters and give himself up as its abductor. And so fixed was his resolution that he was only waiting for his wife to get safely over her confinement, which was daily expected, before he should do this.
In this very frame of mind, and thinking of this very purpose, he came down the street to where Alexander was waiting for him.
“Poor soul!” thought Alick, as he gazed upon him, “he is ageing very fast. His cares are too much for him. Or, perhaps, he has been ill, or in some distress even greater than usual. I ought to have looked after him long ago. I will do it at once.”
And Alick quickened his steps to overtake the poor gentleman, who, in his deep preoccupation of mind, had passed without even lifting his eyes from the ground.
Alexander quickly overtook him, and, lightly touching his arm, said:
“Everage?”
The poor gentleman started, turned around, and, seeing Alexander, looked aghast, as a criminal might at a constable.
“How do you do, Everage? I fear you have been ill,” said Alick.
Everage shook in every limb, and said nothing.
“Youhavebeen ill, that is plain enough! Come—shall we hail a cab, and go to Véry’s? It ismyturn now, you remember,” said Alick cheerfully.
But Everage continued to gaze at him aghast, until at length he got breath enough to gasp:
“Good Heaven, my lord, is it you?”
“Come, Everage; your nerves are all unstrung, and you’re shocked to see me looking so like a ghost. Indeed, I had liked to have been one. But here I am, alive at least, and likely to get well. Come—shall it be Véry’s?”
“No, no, no—not that!” groaned the poor gentleman.
“The green-turtle soup is prime; now shall we go to that place in the Exchange?”
“No, no, no, Lord Killcrichtoun! I can go nowhere to eat or to drink with you! I cannot! I cannot! Heaven have mercy on me! I am a lost soul.”
“Why, what is the matter with you, Everage?”
“I am ill, ill, ill!”
“Your nervous system is broken down; life has been too hard with you, my friend! But come—I have news for you that will cheer you up! Let us drop into the nearest tavern, and get a private room, where we may converse confidentially,—here is the ‘King’s Head’ near, shall we go there and have something comfortable?”
“No, no, no; I told you I would go nowhere to eat or drink with you, my lord!”
“Is your digestive apparatus so much out of order as all that? Well, then, if you don’t go to eat and drink, we will go to talk. I tell you I have news for you—‘you will hear of something to your advantage,’ as the mysterious newspaper paragraphs say.”
“Well, well, I will go with you, my lord; and perhaps I will tell you ‘something toyouradvantage,’” he muttered, in a low tone.
So they went to the King’s Head, and Alick called for a private parlor, where they sat down to talk.
“Everage,” said Alick, gravely, “I have had a long and dangerous fit of illness, from which I have scarcely yet recovered.”
“Indeed, my lord! I had not heard of it: but, really now I observe that you do not look well. I am sorry, my lord.”
“Everage, you heard of the affair in which I was engaged? the——”
The word stuck in his throat; he would not utter it.
Everage looked puzzled for a moment.
“You know—the affair in which I was engaged in Jersey! the——”
“Oh, yes, certainly, my lord; I heard of the——”
And, in courtesy, the poor gentleman paused exactly where his friend had done.
“Well, Everage, I was severely wounded, and, in the illness that followed, I came nearer facing my Judge than I ever expected to do, without hearing my sentence. In the convalescence that followed, you may believe that I was brought to very serious reflection. Among other subjects, I thought of you, Everage, and took myself to task for not having done so before—nay, now, do not shrink and turn from me; I mean no such an impertinence as patronage to you, Everage. I would just as soon venture to patronize one of the royal princes. But I thought of a plan for improving the circumstances of your family, which even you might meet without detriment to your honest pride.”
“Oh, Heaven! oh, Heaven, have mercy on me!” groaned the poor gentleman.
“Everage, you are exhausted; you reallymusthave something,” said Alick.
And he rang for a waiter, and ordered brandy; which was quickly brought.
Everage gulped a small glassful and then said:
“You thought of me—you thought of me on your sick-bed! You think of me still in your days of deep affliction! for youcannothave come to London without learning the loss of——”
Everage’s voice broke down in sobs.
“My child? yes; I learned the loss from the newspapers—from the very first newspapers that fell into my handsafter I was convalescent. I have thought of little else since my arrival. For the last eight days, I have done nothing but devise and carry out plans for his recovery. But, this morning, I remembered you and your affairs, and reproached myself for forgetting them. So, now——”
“But, about your child,—howcanyou think of any one or of anything while he is missing?”
“Because I cherish a great faith that I shall soon find him. But about your affairs. I wish to speak ofthem,” said Alick.
The poor gentleman waved his hand with a gesture of resignation and became silent.
“Everage, on that bed of illness and self-examination, I made many a retrospection of my past life, and many a resolution for my future one. Among my retrospections was a review of my motives in going to so much trouble and expense in establishing my claim to the Barony of Killcrichtoun, which I really did not want. I believe now that my only incentives to that action were idleness andennui. I had nothing to do; and I was weary of my life. But having made the discovery of my descent from the old baron, I took some little interest in tracing back the lineage; and found some little excitement in following up the investigation and proving my claim. But as soon as all that was over and I found myself addressed on all sides as ‘Lord Killcrichtoun,’ ‘your lordship,’ and ‘my lord,’—on my soul, Everage, I felt heartily ashamed of myself and title——”
“Yet it is an ancient and an honorable title,” sighed the poor gentleman, and he thought—“He values it so lightly, this proud Virginian, while I—I have staked my soul upon the bare chance of some day gaining it!”
“Yes, it is an ancient and honorable title; and it would well become an English heir—it would well become yourself, Everage! And but for me you would have been the bearer of it.”
“But for you, my lord, I should never have heard of my remote connection with it.”
“Everage, my friend, will you do me the favor to leave out all reference to that title in speaking to me? To hear it so applied makes me feel like a fool and that is a fact. I am a plain Republican gentleman, a little proudor perhaps I should say, conceited, on account of my old State, and still more so in respect of my native country; but I am not such an ass as to want to be a ‘Lord.’ Enough of that. What I have said, what I may yet say of myself will only be to explain my plan for you. Listen. Everage; I shall not claim your attention very long.”
“I am listening, sir.”
“I am going to try to be reconciled to my poor wife. (My illness brought me to my senses on that subject also.) I am going to try to be reconciled to my wife; and then we are going to return to our native land. But before I do either—before I do anything—I shall make over the Killcrichtoun estate toyou.”
At this announcement the poor gentleman sprang to his feet, as if he had been shot from his chair; then, sinking back again, he covered his face with his hands and uttered such deep, heart-rending groans as could only be wrenched from a bosom wrung by remorse.
“Everage! Everage! my friend, what is the matter? Good Heavens! how nervous you are! How shattered your health must be! But you will recover your strength again when you leave this stifling atmosphere composed of smoke and fog, and get away to the bracing breezes of the Highlands!” said Alick, kindly.
“Too late! too late! too late!” moaned Everage.
“Too late? No, it isn’t. You have no fatal malady. You are only broken down by hard work! You will recover in the Highlands. Think how your children will enjoy the freedom and fine air of the mountains. And you can take them to Killcrichtoun and enter on possession as soon as you like. The necessary deeds of conveyance of the land shall be made out as soon as I can get the slow lawyers to do it.”
“It is too much! it is too much! Great Heaven! this is too much to bear! You overwhelm me, my lord!” groaned Everage.
“But why do you say so? Everage! look here! I really do think that you have more right—a great deal more right to the estate than I have. You and all your ancestors were British born. I and my immediate progenitors were American born. What right had I to come over here and claim this title and estate? None whateverinright, whatever I might have had in law. And I cannot continue to hold it and to transmit it to my son, unless I expatriate myself and become a British subject. And I will not do that. Therefore I do notwantKillcrichtoun. A man is not even to be thanked for giving away what he don’t want. As I said before, I shall make over the whole of the landed estate toyou. I wish to Heaven I could also give you the title; but that cannot be so transferred, I believe; so the title must be dropped; for, of course, I cannot continue to bear it in my own country—it would make me simply ridiculous. When, however, you become the owner of Killcrichtoun, although you cannot be the baron, yet you will have the territorial title, according to the custom of Scotland. You will be called ‘Killcrichtoun’ or ‘Everage of Killcrichtoun.’ Come, come! cheer up, man!”
“Too much! it is too much! too much and too late!” groaned the poor gentleman, as he sat with his hands clasped tightly around his head, his bosom heaving and his eyes streaming with tears.