“Humph,” muttered the Captain, “here is a change indeed!”
“Well, yes,” Mr. Sheldon answered coolly. “I dare say my conduct does seem rather capricious; but you see George put me out of temper the other day, and I was determined, if he had got a good thing, to cut the ground from under his feet. All your communications from Ullerton tend to show me that he has not got hold of a good thing, and that in any attempt to circumvent him I should only be circumventing myself, wasting your time, and my own money. This Judson family seems numberless; and it is evident to me that the Reverend John Haygarth’s fortune will be a bone of contention amongst the Judsons in the High Court of Chancery for any indefinite number of years between this and the milennium. So I really think, my dear Paget, we’d better consider this transaction finished. I will give you whatever honorarium you think fit to name for your trouble, and we’ll close the affair. I shall find plenty more business as good, or better, for you to do.”
“You are very good,” replied the Captain, in nowise satisfied by this promise. It was all too smooth, too conciliatory. And there was a suddenness in this change of plan that was altogether mysterious. So indeed might a capricious man be expected to drop a speculation he had been eager to inaugurate, but Philip Sheldon was the last of men to be suspected of caprice.
“You must have taken an immense deal of trouble with those extracts, now,” said the stockbroker carelessly, as Horatio rose to depart, offended and angry, but anxious to conceal his anger. “What, are you off so soon? I thought you would stop and take a chop with us.”
“No, thanks; I have an engagement elsewhere. Yes, I took an inordinate trouble with those extracts, and I am sorry to think they should be useless.”
“Well, yes, it is rather provoking to you, I dare say. The extracts would be very interesting from a social point of view, no doubt, to people who care about such things; but in a legal sense they are waste-paper. I can’t understand why Hawkehurst was in Ullerton; for, as you yourself suggested, that Peter Judson who went to India must be the Judson wanted for this case.”
“Your brother may be in league with some other branch of the Judson family. Or what if he is hunting for an heir on the Haygarth side?” asked the Captain, with a very close watch upon Mr. Sheldon’s face. Let the stockbroker be never so skilful a navigator of the high seas of life, there was no undercurrent, no cross trade-wind, no unexplained veering of the magnetic needle to the west, in the mysteries whereof the Captain was not also versed. When Columbus wanted to keep his sailors quiet on that wondrous voyage over an unknown ocean to the Western world, the diplomatic admiral made so bold as to underrate the length of each day’s sail in an unveracious log, which he kept for the inspection of his crew; but no doctoring of the social log-book could mislead the acute Horatio.
“How about the Haygarth side of the house?” he asked again; for it had seemed to him that at his first mention of the name of Haygarth Mr. Sheldon had winced, ever so little. This time, however, he betrayed not the faintest concern; but he was doubtless now on his guard.
“Well, I don’t see how there can be any claimant on that side of the house,” he said carelessly. “You see, according to your old landlord’s statement — which I take to be correct — Jonathan Haygarth had but one son, a certain Matthew, who married one Rebecca So-and-so, and had, in his turn one only son, the intestate John. Now, in that case, where is your heir to come from, except through Matthew’s sister Ruth, who married Peter Judson?”
“Isn’t it just possible that Matthew Haygarth may have married twice, and had other children? Those letters certainly suggest the idea of a secret alliance of some kind on Haygarth’s part, and the existence of a family, to whom he appears to have been warmly attached. My first idea of this affair was that it must have been a low liaison; but I could hardly realize the fact of Matthew’s confiding in his sister under any such circumstances, however lax in his morals that gentleman may have been. Mrs. Matthew Haygarth’s letters hint at some mystery in her husband’s life. Is it not likely that this hidden family was a legitimate one?”
“I can’t quite see my way to that idea,” Mr. Sheldon answered, in a meditative tone. “It seems very unlikely that any marriage of Haygarth’s could have remained unknown to his townsmen; and even if it were so, I doubt the possibility of our tracing the heirs from such a marriage. No, my dear Paget, I have resolved to wash my hands of the business, and leave my brother George in undisturbed possession of his ground.”
“In that case, perhaps, you will return my notes; they are interesting to me.”
Here again the faintest indication of annoyance in the stockbroker’s face told its tale to Captain Paget. For your accomplished navigator of the unknown seas there is no ocean bird, no floating weed, that has not a language and a significance.
“You can have your notes, if you want them,” answered Mr. Sheldon; “they are at my office. I’ll hunt them up and send them to you; or you had better look in upon me in the City early next week, and I can give you a cheque at the same time.”
“Thanks. I will be sure and do so.”
“You say the orthography of the original letters was queer. I suppose your copies were faithful in all matters except the orthography. And in the names, you of course adhered to the original spelling?”
“Most decidedly,” replied Captain Paget, opening the door to depart, and with a somewhat cynical smile upon his face, which was hidden from Mr. Sheldon.
“I suppose there is no doubt of your accuracy with regard to the name of
Meynell, now?”
“Not the least. Good afternoon. Ah, there’s our young friend Hawkehurst!” exclaimed the Captain, in his “society” voice, as he looked out into the hall, where Valentine was parting with Diana.
He came and greeted his young friend, and they left the house together.
This was the occasion upon which Valentine was startled by hearing the name “Meynell” pronounced by the lips of Philip Sheldon.
CHAPTER IV.
CAPTAIN PAGET IS PATERNAL.
Horatio Paget left the Lawn after the foregoing interview, fully convinced that Mr. Sheldon was only desirous to throw him off the scent, in order to follow up the chase alone, for his sole profit and advantage.
“My last letter conveyed some intelligence that altered his whole plan of action,” thought the Captain; “that is perfectly clear. He was somewhat wanting in tact when he recalled me so suddenly. But I suppose he thought it would be easy to throw dust in my poor old eyes. What was the intelligence that made him change his mind? That is the grand question.” Captain Paget dined alone at a West-End restaurant that evening. He dined well, for he had in hand certain moneys advanced by his patron, and he was not disposed to be parsimonious. He sat for some time in meditative mood over his pint bottle of Chambertin, and the subject of his meditation was Philip Sheldon.
“Yes,” he murmured at last, “that is it. The charm is in the name of Meynell. Why else should he question me about the orthography of that name? I sent him information about Matthew Haygarth in the wife’s letters, and he took no special notice of that information. It was only when the name of Meynell cropped up that he changed his tactics and tried to throw me over. It seems to me that he must have some knowledge of this Meynell branch, and therefore thinks himself strong enough to act alone, and to throw me over the bridge. To throw me over,” the Captain repeated to himself slowly. “Well, we’ll see about that. We’ll see; yes, we’ll see.”
At noon on the following day Captain Paget presented himself again at the Bayswater villa, where his daughter ate the bread of dependence. He appeared this time in a purely paternal character. He came to call upon his only child. Before paying this visit the Captain had improved the shining hour by a careful study of the current and two or three back volumes of the Post-Office and Trade Directories; but all his researches in those interesting volumes had failed to reveal to him the existence of any metropolitan Meynells.
“The M
eynells whom Sheldon knows may be in the heart of the country,” he said to himself, after these futile labours.
It was a fine autumnal morning, and as Miss Paget was at home and disengaged, her affectionate father suggested that she should take a walk with him in Kensington Gardens. Such a promenade had very little attraction for the young lady; but she had a vague idea that she owed a kind of duty to her father not remitted by his neglect of all duties to her; so she assented with a smile, and went out with him, looking very handsome and stylish in her simple but fashionable attire, no part of which had been provided by the parent she accompanied.
The Captain surveyed her with some sense of family pride. “Upon my word, my dear, you do me credit!” he exclaimed, with a somewhat patronising kindness of tone and manner; “indeed any man might be proud of such a daughter. You are every inch a Paget.”
“I hope not, papa,” said the girl involuntarily; but the Captain’s more delicate instincts had been considerably blunted in the press and jostle of life, and he did not feel the sting of this remark.
“Well, perhaps you are right, my love,” he replied blandly; “the Pagets are an unlucky family. Like those Grecian people, the Atri — , what’s-his-name — the man who was killed in his bath, you know. His wife, or the other young person who had come to visit his daughters, made the water too hot, you know — and that kind of thing. I am not quite clear about the story, but it’s one of those farragos of rubbish they make young men learn at public schools. Yes, my dear, I really am amazingly pleased by your improved appearance. Those Sheldon people dress you very nicely; and I consider your residence in that family a very agreeable arrangement for all parties. You confer a favour on the girl by your society, and so on, and the mother provides you with a comfortable home; All I wonder is that your good looks haven’t made their mark before this with some of Sheldon’s rich stockbroking fellows.”
“We see very little of the stockbroking fellows, as you call them, at the
Lawn, papa.”
“Indeed! I thought Sheldon kept a great deal of company.”
“O no. He gives a dinner now and then, a gentleman’s dinner usually; and poor Mrs. Sheldon is very anxious that it should all go off well, as she says; but I don’t think he is a person who cares much for society.”
“Really, now?”
“His mind seems completely occupied by his business, you see, papa. That horrible pursuit of gain seems to require all his thoughts, and all his time. He is always reading commercial papers, the Money Market and On Change, and the Stockbrokers’ Vade Mecum, and publications of that kind. When he is not reading he is thinking; and by his manner one would fancy his thoughts were always gloomy and unpleasant. What a miserable, hateful, unholy life to lead! I would not be that man for all the money in the Bank of England. But it is a kind of treachery to tell these things. Mr. Sheldon is very good to me. He lets me sit at his table and share the comforts of his home, and I must be very ungrateful to speak against him. I do not mean to speak against him, you see, papa — I only mean that a life devoted to money-making is in itself hateful.”
“My dear child, you may be assured that anything you say to me will go no further,” said the Captain, with dignity; “and in whom should you confide, if not in your father? I have a profound respect for Sheldon and his family — yes, my love, a profound respect; and I think that girl Sarah — no, I mean Charlotte — a very charming young person. I need scarcely tell you that the smallest details of your life in that family possess a keen interest for me. I am not without a father’s feelings, Diana, though circumstances have never permitted me to perform a father’s duties.”
And here the solitary tear which the accomplished Horatio could produce at will trembled in his eye. This one tear was always at his command. For the life of him he could not have produced a second; but the single drop never failed him, and he found one tear as effective as a dozen, in giving point and finish to a pathetic speech.
Diana looked at him, and wondered, and doubted. Alas, she knew him only too well! Any other creature in this wide world he might deceive, but not her. She had lived with him; she had tasted the bitterness of dependence upon him — ten times more bitter than dependence on strangers. She had shown him her threadbare garments day after day, and had pleaded for a little money, to be put off with a lying excuse. She could not forget this. She had forgiven him long ago, being of too generous a nature to brood upon past injuries. But she could not forget what manner of man he was, and thank him for pretty speeches which she knew to be meaningless.
They talked a little more of Mr. Sheldon and his family, but Diana did not again permit herself to be betrayed into any vehement expressions of her opinions. She answered all her father’s questions without restraint, for they were very commonplace questions, of a kind that might be answered without any breach of faith.
“Amongst the Sheldons’ acquaintances did you ever hear of any people called Meynell?” Captain Paget asked at length.
“Yes,” Diana replied, after a moment’s thought; “the name is certainly very familiar to me;” and then, after a pause, she exclaimed, “Why, the Meynells were relations of Charlotte’s! Yes, her grandmother was a Miss Meynell; I perfectly remember hearing Mrs. Sheldon talk about the Meynells. But I do not think there are any descendants of that family now living. Why do you ask the question, papa? What interest have you in the Meynells?”
“Well, my dear, I have my reasons, but they in no manner concern Mr. Sheldon or his family; and I must beg you to be careful not to mention the subject in your conversation with those worthy people. I want to know all about this Meynell family. I have come across some people of that name, and I want to ascertain the precise relationship existing between these people and the Sheldons. But the Sheldons must know nothing of this inquiry for the present. The people I speak of are poor and proud, and they would perish rather than press a relationship upon a rich man, unless fully justified by the closeness of family ties. I am sure you understand all this, Diana?”
“Not very clearly, papa.”
“Well, my dear, it is a delicate position, and perhaps somewhat difficult for the comprehension of a third party. All you need understand is the one fact, that any information respecting the Meynell family will be vitally interesting to my friends, and, through them, serviceable to me. There is, in fact, a legacy which these friends of mine could claim, under a certain will, if once assured as to the degree of their relationship to your friend Charlotte’s kindred on the Meynell side of the house. To give them the means of securing this legacy would be to help the ends of justice; and I am sure, Diana, you would wish to do that.”
“Of course, papa, if I can do so without any breach of faith with my employers. Can you promise me that no harm will result to the Sheldons, above all to Charlotte Halliday, from any information I may procure for you respecting the Meynell family?”
“Certainly, Diana, I can promise you that. I repeat most solemnly, that by obtaining such information for me you will be aiding the cause of justice.”
If Horatio Paget might ever be betrayed into the inconsistency of a truthful assertion, it seemed to his daughter that it was likely to be in this moment. His words sounded like truth; and, on reflection, Diana failed to perceive that she could by any possibility inflict wrong on her friends by obliging her father in this small affair.
“Let me think the matter over, papa,” she said.
“Nonsense, Diana; what thinking over can be wanted about such a trifle? I never before asked you a favour. Surely you cannot refuse to grant so simple a request, after the trouble I have taken to explain my reasons for making it.”
There was some further discussion, which ended in Miss Paget consenting to oblige her father.
“And you will manage matters with tact?” urged the Captain, at parting.
“There is no especial tact required, papa,” replied Diana; “the matter is easy enough. Mrs. Sheldon is very fond of talking about her own affairs. I have only
to ask her some leading question about the Meynells, and she will run on for an hour, telling me the minutest details of family history connected with them. I dare say I have heard the whole story before, and have not heeded it: I often find my thoughts wandering when Mrs. Sheldon is talking.”
Three days after this Captain Paget called on Mr. Sheldon in the City, when he received a very handsome recompense for his labours at Ullerton, and became repossessed of the extracts he had made from Matthew Haygarth’s letters, but not of the same Mr. Haygarth’s autograph letter: that document Mr. Sheldon confessed to having mislaid.
“He has mislaid the original letter, and he has had ample leisure for copying my extracts; and he thinks I am such a consummate fool as not to see all that,” thought Horatio, as he left the stockbroker’s office, enriched but not satisfied.
In the course of the same day he received a long letter from Diana containing the whole history of the Meynells, as known to Mrs. Sheldon. Once set talking, Georgy had told all she could tell, delighted to find herself listened to with obvious interest by her companion.
“I trust that you have not deceived me, my dear father,” Diana concluded, after setting forth the Meynell history. “The dear good soul was so candid and confiding, and seemed so pleased by the interest I showed in her family affairs, that I should feel myself the vilest of wretches if any harm could result to her, or those she loves, from the information thus obtained.”
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 383