“But the existence of that letter bears witness that Miss Meynell believed in the honesty of her lover’s intentions.”
“To be sure it does, poor lass,” answered Mr. Mercer pensively. “She believed in the word of a scoundrel, and she was made to pay dearly for her simplicity. James Halliday did all he could to find her. He searched London through, as far as any man can search such a place as London; but it was no use, and for a very good reason, as I said before. The end of it was, he was obliged to go back to Newhall no wiser than when he started.”
“And was nothing further ever discovered?” I asked eagerly, for I felt that this was just one of those family complications from which all manner of legal difficulties might arise.
“Don’t be in a hurry, my lad,” answered uncle Joe; “wickedness is sure to come to light sooner or later. Three years after this poor young woman ran away there was a drunken groom dismissed from Lord Durnsville’s stable; and what must he needs do but come straight off to James Halliday, to vent his spite against his master, and perhaps to curry favour at Newhall. ‘You shouldn’t have gone to London to look for the young lady, Muster Halliday,’ he said; ‘you should have gone the other way. I know a man as drove Mr. Kingdon and your wife’s sister across country to Hull with two of my lord’s own horses, stopping to bait on the way. They went aboard ship at Hull, Mr. Kingdon and the young lady — a ship that was bound for foreign parts.’ This is what the groom said; but it was little good knowing it now. There’d been advertisements in the papers beseeching her to come back; and everything had been done that could be done, and all to no end. A few years after this back comes Mr. Kingdon as large as life, married to some dark-faced, frizzy-haired lady, whose father owned half the Indies, according to people’s talk: but he fought very shy of James Halliday; but when they did meet one day at the covert side, Jim rode up to the honourable gentleman and asked him what he had done with Susan Meynell. Those that saw the meeting say that Montagu Kingdon turned as white as a ghost when he saw Jim Halliday riding up to him on his big, raw-boned horse; but nothing came of the quarrel. Mr. Kingdon did not live many years to enjoy the money his frizzy-haired West-Indian lady brought him. He died before his brother, Lord Durnsville, and left neither chick nor child to inherit his money, nor yet the Durnsville title, which was extinct on the death of the viscount.”
“And what of the poor girl?”
“Ay, poor lass, what of her? It was fourteen years after she left her home before her sister got so much as a line to say she was in the land of the living. When a letter did come at last, it was a very melancholy one. The poor creature wrote to her sister to say she was in London, alone and penniless, and, as she thought, dying.”
“And the sister went to her?”
I remembered that deprecating sentence in the family Bible, written in a woman’s hand.
“That she did, good honest soul, as fast as she could travel, carrying a full purse along with her. She found poor Susan at an inn near Aldersgate-street — the old quarter, you see, that she’d known in her young days. Mrs. Halliday meant to have brought the poor soul back to Yorkshire, and had settled it all with Jim; but it was too late for anything of that kind. She found Susan dying, wandering in her mind off and on, but just able to recognise her sister, and to ask forgiveness for having trusted to Montagu Kingdon, instead of taking counsel from those that wished her well.”
“Was that all?” I asked presently.
Mr. Mercer made long pauses in the course of his narrative, during which we walked briskly on; he pondering on those past events, I languishing for further information.
“Well, lad, that was about all. Where Susan had been in all those years, or what she had been doing, was more than Mrs. Halliday could find out. Of late she had been living somewhere abroad. The clothes she had last worn were of foreign make, very poor and threadbare; and there was one little box in her room at the inn that had been made at Rouen, for the name of a Rouen trunkmaker was on the inside of the lid. There were no letters or papers of any kind in the box; so you see there was no way of finding out what the poor creature’s life had been. All her sister could do was to stay with her and comfort her to the last, and to see that she was quietly laid to rest in a decent grave. She was buried in a quiet little city churchyard, somewhere where there are green trees among the smoke of the chimney-pots. Montagu Kingdon had been dead some years when that happened.”
“Is that last letter still in existence?” I asked.
“Yes; my first wife kept it with the rest of her family letters and papers. Dorothy takes care of them now. We country folks set store by those sort of things, you know.”
I would fain have asked Mr. Mercer to let me see this last letter written by Susan Meynell; but what excuse could I devise for so doing? I was completely fettered by my promise to George Sheldon, and could offer no reasonable pretence for my curiosity.
There was one point which I was bound to push home in the interests of my Sheldon, or, shall I not rather say, of my Charlotte? That all-important point was the question of marriage or no marriage. “You feel quite clear as to the fact that Montagu Kingdon never did marry this young woman?” I said.
“Well, yes,” replied uncle Joe; “that was proved beyond doubt, I’m sorry to say. Mr. Kingdon never could have dared to come back here with his West-Indian wife in poor Susan Meynell’s lifetime if he had really married her.”
“And how about the lady he was said to have married in Spain?”
“I can’t say anything about that. It may have been only a scandal, or, if there was a marriage, it may have been illegal. The Kingdons were Protestants, and the Spaniards are all papists, I suppose. A marriage between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic wouldn’t be binding.”
“Not upon such a man as this Kingdon.”
It seems more than probable that the opinion arrived at by this poor soul’s friends must be correct, and that Montagu Kingdon was a scoundrel. But how about Susan Meynell’s after-life? — the fourteen years in which she was lost sight of? May she not have married some one else than Mr. Kingdon? and may she not have left heirs who will arise in the future to dispute my darling’s claim?
Is it a good thing to have a great inheritance? The day has been when such a question as that could not by any possibility have shaped itself in my mind. Ah! what is this subtle power called love, which worketh such wondrous changes in the human heart? Surely the miracle of the cleansed leper is in some manner typical of this transformation. The emanation of divine purity encircled the leper with its supernal warmth, and the scales fell away beneath that mysterious influence. And so from the pure heart of a woman issues a celestial fire which burns the plague-spot out of the sinner’s breast. Ah, how I languish to be at my darling’s feet, thanking her for the cure she has wrought!
I have given my Sheldon the story of Susan Meynell’s life, as I had it from uncle Joseph. He agrees with me as to the importance of Susan’s last letter, but even that astute creature does not see a way to getting the document in his hands without letting Mr. Mercer more or less into our secret.
“I might tell this man Mercer some story about a little bit of money coming to his niece, and get at Susan Meynell’s letter that way,” he said; “but whatever I told him would be sure to get round to Philip somehow or other, and I don’t want to put him on the scent.”
My Sheldon’s legal mind more than ever inclines to caution, now that he knows the heiress of the Haygarths is so nearly allied to his brother Philip.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Hawkehurst,” he said to me, after we had discussed the business in all its bearings, “there are not many people I’m afraid of, but I don’t mind owning to you that I am afraid of my brother Phil. He has always walked over my head; partly because he can wear his shirt-front all through business hours without creasing it, which I can’t, and partly because he’s — well — more unscrupulous than I am.”
He paused meditatively, and I too was meditative; for I could not c
hoose but wonder what it was to be more unscrupulous than George Sheldon.
“If he were to get an inkling of this affair,” my patron resumed presently, “he’d take it out of our hands before you could say Jack Robinson — supposing anybody ever wanted to say Jack Robinson, which they don’t — and he’d drive a bargain with us, instead of our driving a bargain with him.”
My friend of Gray’s Inn has a pleasant way of implying that our interests are coequal in this affair. I caught him watching me curiously once or twice during our last interview, when Charlotte’s name was mentioned. Does he suspect the truth, I wonder?
Nov. 12th. I had another interview with my patron yesterday, and rather a curious interview, though not altogether unsatisfactory. George Sheldon has been making good use of his time since my return from Yorkshire.
“I don’t think we need have any fear of opposition from children or grandchildren of Susan Meynell,” he said; “I have found the registry of her interment in the churchyard of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate. She is described in that registry by her maiden name, and there is a plain headstone in a corner of the ground, inscribed with the name of Susan Meynell, who died July 14th, 1835, much lamented; and then the text about ‘the one sinner that repenteth,’ and so on,” said Mr. Sheldon, as if he did not care to dwell on so hackneyed a truism.
“But,” I began, “she might have been married, in spite of—”
“Yes, she might,” replied my Sheldon, captiously; “but then, you see, the probability is that she wasn’t. If she had been married, she would have told her sister as much in that last letter, or she would have said as much when they met.”
“But she was delirious.”
“Not all the time. She was sensible enough to talk about her sorrow for the past, and so on; and she must have been sensible enough to have spoken of her children, if she had ever had any. Besides, if she had been married, she would scarcely have been wandering about the world in that miserable manner, unless her husband was an uncommonly bad lot. No, Hawkehurst, depend upon it, we’ve nothing to fear in that quarter. The person we have to fear is that precious brother of mine.”
“You talked the other day about driving a bargain with him,” I said; “I didn’t quite understand your meaning. The fortune can only be claimed by Char — Miss Halliday, and your brother has no legal authority to dispose of her money.”
“Of course not,” answered my employer, with contemptuous impatience of my dulness; “but my brother Phil is not the man to wait for legal power. His ideas will be Miss Halliday’s ideas in this business. When my case is ripe for action, I shall make my bargain — half the fortune to be mine from the day of its recovery. A deed containing these conditions must be executed by Charlotte Halliday before I hand over a single document relating to the case. Now, as matters stand at present,” he went on, looking very fixedly at me, “her execution of that deed would rest with Philip.”
“And when shall you make your overtures to Mr. Sheldon?” I asked, at a loss to understand that intent look.
“Not until the last links of the chain are put together. Not before I’m ready to make my first move on the Chancellor’s chessboard. Perhaps not at all.”
“How do you mean?”
“If I can tide over for a little time, I may throw Philip overboard altogether, and get some one else to manage Miss Halliday for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you, Hawkehurst,” answered my patron, resting his elbows on the table by which we were sitting, and looking me through with those penetrating black eyes of his. “My brother Phil played me a shabby trick a few years ago, which I have not forgotten or forgiven. So I shouldn’t mind paying him out in some of his own coin. Beyond which, I tell you again, I don’t like the idea of his having a finger in this business. Where that kind of man’s finger can go, his whole hand will follow; and if once that hand fastens on John Haygarth’s money, it’ll be bad times for you and me. Miss Halliday counts for exactly nothing in my way of reckoning. If her stepfather told her to sign away half a million, she’d scribble her name at the bottom of the paper, and press her pretty little thumb upon the wafer, without asking a single question as to the significance of the document. And, of course, she’d be still less inclined to make objections if it was her husband who asked her to execute the deed. Aha! my young friend, how is it you grow first red and then white when I mention Miss Halliday’s husband?”
I have no doubt that I did indeed blanch when that portentous word was uttered in conjunction with my darling’s name. Mr. Sheldon leant a little further across the table, and his hard black eyes penetrated a little deeper into the recesses of my foolish heart.
“Valentine Hawkehurst,” he said, “shall we throw my brother Phil overboard altogether? Shall you and I go shares in this fortune?”
“Upon my word and honour I don’t understand you,” I said, in all sincerity.
“You mean that you won’t understand me,” answered George Sheldon, impatiently; “but I’ll make myself pretty clear presently; and as your own interest is at stake, you’ll be very unlike the rest of your species if you don’t find it easy enough to understand me. When first I let you in for the chance of a prize out of this business, neither you nor I had the slightest idea that circumstances would throw the rightful claimant to the Haygarth estate so completely into our way. I had failed so many times with other cases before I took up this case, that it’s a wonder I had the courage to work on. But, somehow or other, I had a notion that this particular business would turn up trumps. The way seemed a little clearer than it usually is; but not clear enough to tempt Tom, Dick, and Harry. And then, again, I had learnt a good many secrets from the experience of my failures. I was well up to my work. I might have carried it on, and I ought to have carried it on, without help; but I was getting worn out and lazy, so I let you into my secret, having taken it into my head that I could venture to trust you.”
“You didn’t trust me further than you could help, my friend,” I replied with my usual candour. “You never told me the amount left by the reverend intestate; but I heard that down at Ullerton. A half share in a hundred thousand pounds is worth trying for, Mr. Sheldon.”
“They call it a hundred thousand down there, do they?” asked the lawyer, with charming innocence. “Those country people always deal in high figures. However, I don’t mind owning that the sum is a handsome one, and if you and I play our cards wisely, we may push Philip out of the game altogether, and share the plunder between us.”
Again I was obliged to confess myself unable to grasp my employer’s meaning.
“Marry Charlotte Halliday out of hand,” he said, bringing his eyes and his elbows still nearer to me, until his bushy black whiskers almost touched my face. “Marry her before Philip gets an inkling of this affair, and then, instead of being made a tool of by him, she’ll be safe in your hands, and the money will be in your hands into the bargain. Why, how you stare, man! Do you think I haven’t seen how the land lies between you two? Haven’t I dined at Bayswater when you’ve been there? and could any man with his wits about him see you two sentimental young simpletons together without seeing how things were going on? You are in love with Charlotte, and Charlotte is in love with you. What more natural than that you two should make a match of it? Charlotte is her own mistress, and hasn’t sixpence in the world that any one but you and I know of; for, of course, my brother Phil will continue to stick to every penny of poor old Tom’s money. All you have to do is to follow up the young lady; it’s the course that would suggest itself to any man in the same case, even if Miss Halliday were the ugliest old harridan in Christendom, instead of being a very jolly kind of girl, as girls go.”
My employer said this with the tone of a man who had never considered the genus girl a very interesting part of creation. I suppose I looked at him rather indignantly; for he laughed as he resumed, —
“I’ll say she’s an angel, if you like,” he said; “and if you think her one, so
much the better. You may consider it a very lucky thing that you came in my way, and a still more lucky thing that Miss Halliday has been silly enough to fall in love with you. I’ve heard of men being born with silver spoons in their mouths; but I should think you must have come into the world with a whole service of plate. However, that is neither here nor there. Your policy will be to follow up your advantages; and if you can persuade the young lady to change her name for Hawkehurst on the quiet some fine morning, without stopping to ask permission of her stepfather, or any one else, so much the better for you, and so much the more agreeable to me. I’d rather do business with you than with my brother Phil; and I shan’t be sorry to cry quits with that gentleman for the shabby trick he played me a few years ago.”
My Sheldon’s brow darkened as he said this, and the moody fit returned.
That old grudge which my patron entertains against his brother must
have relation to some very disagreeable business, if I may judge by
George Sheldon’s manner.
Here was a position for me, Valentine Hawkehurst, soldier of fortune, cosmopolitan adventurer, and child of the nomadic tribes who call Bohemia their mother country! Already blest with the sanction of my dear love’s simple Yorkshire kindred, I was now assured of George Sheldon’s favour; nay, urged onward in my paradisiac path by that unsentimental Mentor. The situation was almost too much for my bewildered brain. Charlotte an heiress, and George Sheldon eager to bring about my participation in the Haygarthian thousands!
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 364