“This is but an excuse to break with me,” said Montague: “you no longer love me.”
“No—not as I did twelve hours ago.”
“You never loved me! It is impossible to divest oneself of that passion so suddenly as this.”
“Love in my mind is a species of worship or adoration, and can be damaged by the evil suspicions that may suddenly be thrown upon its object.”
“No—that is not love,” exclaimed Montague, passionately: “true love will make a woman follow her lover or her husband through all the most hideous paths of crime—even to the scaffold.”
“The woman who truly loves, will follow her husband as a duty, but not her lover to countenance him in his crimes. We are not, however, going to argue this point:—for my part, I am not acting according to the prescribed notions of romances or a false sentimentality, but strictly in accordance with my own idea of what is suitable to my happiness and proper to my condition. I repeat, I am not the heroine of a novel in her teens—I am a woman of a certain age, and can reflect calmly in order to act decidedly.”
Montague made no reply, but walked towards the window. Strange and conflicting sentiments were agitating in his brain.
’Twas thus he reasoned within himself.
“If I use threats and menaces, I shall merely open her eyes to the real objects which Stephens has in view; and she will shrink from the fearful dangers she is about to encounter. Whether she changes her mind or not with regard to me, and whether I proceed farther in the business or not, the secret is in my hands; and Stephens will pay me handsomely to keep it. Perhaps I had even better stop short where I am: I am still in a position to demand hush-money, and avoid the extreme peril which must accrue to all who appear prominently in the affair on the 26th of the month.”
The selfish mind of George Montague thus revolved the various phases of his present position: and in a few moments he was determined how to act.
Turning towards Walter Sydney, he exclaimed, “You are decided not to forgive me?”
“I have made known to you my resolution—that we should now part, for ever.”
“How can we part for ever, when your friend and benefactor, Mr. Stephens, requires my services?”
“Mr. Stephens informed me ‘that a third person was necessary to the complete success of his designs, and that he had fixed upon you.’ Consequently, another friend may fill the place which he intended you to occupy.”
“You seem to have well weighed the results of your resolution to see me no more,” said Montague bitterly.
“There is time for thought throughout the livelong night, when sleep is banished from the pillow,” returned the lady proudly.
“I can scarcely comprehend your conduct,” said Montague, after another pause. “You do not choose that your servants should know what occurred last night: is it your intention to acquaint Mr. Stephens with the real truth?”
“That depends entirely upon yourself. To speak candidly, I do not wish to come to any explanation with Mr. Stephens upon the subject. He will blame me for having concealed from him the attachment which has subsisted between us; and he will imagine that some levity on my part must have encouraged you to violate the sanctity of my chamber. If you, sir, are a man of honour,” added the lady emphatically,—“and if you have a spark of feeling and generosity left, you will take measures with Mr. Stephens to spare me that last mortification.”
“I will do as you require,” returned Montague, well pleased with this arrangement. “This very day will I communicate to Mr. Stephens my desire to withdraw from any further interference in his affairs; and I will allege the pressing nature of my own concerns as an excuse.”
“Act as you will,” said the lady; “but let there remain behind no motive which can lead you to repeat your visits to this house. You comprehend me?”
“Perfectly,” replied Montague. “But once more let me implore you—”
“Enough—enough!” exclaimed Walter. “You know not the firmness of the female mind: perhaps I have this morning taught you a lesson in that respect. We must now part, Mr. Montague, and believe me—believe me, that, although no power on earth can alter the resolution to which I came during the long and painful vigil of the past night, I still wish you well;—and, remember, my gratitude accompanies you!”
Walter hesitated for a moment, as if another observation were trembling upon her tongue: then stifling her emotions with a powerful effort, she waved her hand to the delinquent, and abruptly left the room.
“Is this a loftiness of mind of which not even the greatest of men often afford example? or is it the miserable caprice of a vacillating woman?” said Montague to himself, as he prepared to take his departure from the villa in which he had spent some happy hours. “I must candidly admit that this time I am at fault. All appears to be lost in this quarter—and that, too, through my own confounded folly. But Stephens’ secret still remains to me; and that secret shall be as good as an annuity for years to come. Let me see—I must have money now to insure my silence, upon breaking off all further connexion with the business. Then I must keep an eye upon him; and should he succeed on the 26th of this month—and he must succeed, if this punctilious lady does not see through his designs in the meantime—then can I step forward and demand another sum under a threat of exposing the entire scheme. And then, too,” he added, while his countenance wore an expression of mingled revenge and triumph,—“then, too, can I appear before this vain, this scrupulous, this haughty woman, and with one word send her on her knees before me! Then will she stoop her proud brow, and her prayers and intercessions upon that occasion shall be expressed as humbly as her reproaches and her taunts were tyrannically levelled at me to-day! Yes!—I will keep my eye upon Walter Sydney and her benefactor Stephens,” he said, with an ironical chuckle: “they may obtain their princely fortune, but a due share shall find its way into my pocket!”
These or similar reflections continued to occupy the mind of George Montague, after he had left the villa, and while he was on his way to the nearest point where he could obtain a conveyance to take him into the City.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE OLD HOUSE IN SMITHFIELD AGAIN.
THE visitor to the Polytechnic Institution or the Adelaide Gallery,[78] has doubtless seen the exhibition of the microscope. A drop of the purest water, magnified by that instrument some thousands of times, appears filled with horrible reptiles and monsters of revolting forms.
Such is London.
Fair and attractive as the mighty metropolis may appear to the superficial observer, it swarms with disgusting, loathsome, and venomous objects, wearing human shapes.
Oh! London is a city of strange contrasts!
The bustle of business, and the smile of pleasure,—the peaceful citizen, and the gay soldier,—the splendid shop, and the itinerant pastry-stall,—the gorgeous equipage, and the humble market-cart,—the palaces of nobles, and the hovels of the poor,—the psalm from the chapel, and the shout of laughter from the tavern,—the dandies lounging in the west-end streets, and the paupers cleansing away the mud,—the funeral procession, and the bridal cavalcade,—the wealthy and high-born lady whose reputation is above all cavil, and the lost girl whose shame is below all notice,—the adventurer who defends his honour with a duel, and the poor tradesman whom unavoidable bankruptcy has branded as a rogue,—the elegantly-clad banker whose insolvency must soon transpire, and the ragged old miser whose wealth is not suspected,—the monuments of glory, and the hospitals of the poor,—the temples where men adore a God with affectation, and the shrines at which they lose their gold to a deity whom they adore without affectation,—in a word, grandeur and squalor, wealth and misery, virtue and vice,—honesty which has never been tried, and crime which yielded to the force of irresistible circumstances,—all the features, all the characteristics, all
the morals, of a great city, must occupy the attention of him who surveys London with microscopic eye.
And what a splendid subject for the contemplation of the moralist is a mighty city which, at every succeeding hour, presents a new phase of interest to the view;—in the morning, when only the industrious and the thrifty are abroad, and while the wealthy and the great are sleeping off the night’s pleasure and dissipation:—at noon, when the streets are swarming with life, as if some secret source without the walls poured at that hour myriads of animated streams into the countless avenues and thoroughfares;—in the evening, when the men of pleasure again venture forth, and music, and dancing, and revelry prevail around;—and at night,—when every lazar-house vomits forth its filth, every den lets loose its horrors, and every foul court and alley echoes to the footsteps of crime!
It was about two o’clock in the morning, (three hours after the burglarious attempt upon the villa,) that a man, drenched by the rain which continued to pour in torrents, with his hat drawn over his eyes, and his hands thrust in his pockets to protect them against the cold, crept cautiously down West Street, from Smithfield, dodged past the policeman, and entered the old house which we have described at the opening of our narrative.
Having closed and carefully bolted the front door, he hastily ascended to the room on the first floor where Walter Sydney had seen him and his companion conceal their plunder four years and four months previously.
This man—so wet, so cold, and so miserable—was Bill Bolter, the murderer.
Having groped about for a few moments, he found a match, struck it, and obtained a light. One of the secret recesses furnished a candle; and the flickering glare fell upon the haggard, unshaven, and dirty countenance of the ruffian.
Scarcely had he lighted the candle, when a peculiar whistle was heard in the street, just under the window. The features of Bolter became suddenly animated with joy; and, as he hastily descended the stairs, he muttered to himself, “Well, at all events here’s one on ’em.”
The individual to whom he opened the door was Dick Flairer—in no better plight, mentally and bodily, than himself.
“Is there any bingo, Bill?” demanded Dick, the moment he set foot in the up-stairs room.
“Not a drain,” answered Bolter, after a close inspection of the cupboard in the wall between the windows; “and not a morsel of grub neither.”
“Blow the grub,” said Dick. “I ain’t in no humour for eating; but I could drink a gallon. I’ve been thinking as I come along, and after the first shock was over, wot cursed fools you and me was to be humbugged in this here affair. Either that young feller was the brother of the one which we threw down the trap ——”
“No: I could swear that he is the same,” interrupted Bill.
“Well—then he must have made his escape—and that’s all,” added Dick Flairer.
“That must be it,” observed Bolter, after a long pause. “But it was so sudden upon us—and then without no time to think—and all that——”
“You may say what you like, Bill—but I shall never forgive myself. I was the first to bolt; and I was a coward. How shall I ever be able to look the Cracksman in the face again, or go to the parlour of the boozing-ken?”
“It’s no use complaining like this, Dick. You was used to be the bold ’un—and now it seems as if it was me that must say ‘Cheer up.’ The fact is, someot must be done without delay. I told you and Tom what had happened at my crib; and so, lay up for some time I must. Come, now—Dick, you won’t desert a pal in trouble?”
“There’s my hand, Bill. On’y say wot you want done, and I’m your man.”
“In the first place, do you think it’s safe for me to stay here? Won’t that young feller give the alarm, and say as how his house was attempted by the same cracksmen that wanted to make a stiff ’un of him between four and five years ago at this old crib; and then won’t the blue-bottles come and search the place from chimley-pot down to foundation-stone?”
“Let ’em search it,” ejaculated Flairer: “they’ll on’y do it once; and who cares for that? You can lie as snug down stairs for a week or so as if you was a thousand miles off. Besides, who’d think for a instant that you’d hide yourself in the wery spot that the young feller could point out as one of our haunts? Mark me, Bill—if yer goes up to Rat’s Castle in Saint Giles’s,[79] you would find too many tongues among them cursed Irishers to ask ‘Who is he?’ and ‘What is he?’ If you goes over to the Mint, you’ll be sure to be twigged by a lot o’ them low buzgloaks and broken-down magsmen as swarms there; and they’ll nose upon you for a penny. Whitechapel back-slums isn’t safe; for the broom-gals, the blacks, and the ballad singers which occupies all that district, is always a quarrelling; and the blue-bottles is constantly poking their nose in every crib in consekvence. Here you are snug; and I can bring you your grub and tell you the news of an evenin’ arter dark.”
“But to be penned up in that infernal hole for a fortnit or three weeks, till the storm’s blowed over, is horrible to think on,” said Bill.
“And scragging[80] more horrible still,” said Dick, significantly.
Bill Bolter shuddered; and a convulsive motion agitated his neck, as if he already felt the cord around it. His countenance became ashy pale; and, as he glanced fearfully around, he exclaimed, “Yes, you’re right, Dick: I’ll take myself to the hiding-crib, and you can give me the office[81] at any moment, if things goes wrong. To-morrow you must try and find out whether there’s much of a row about the affair in the Court.”
The ruffian never expressed the least anxiety relative to the fate of his children.
“To-morrow!” exclaimed Dick: “to-day you mean—for it can’t be far off from three o’clock. And now talking about grub is all very easy; but getting it is quite another thing. Neither you nor me hasn’t got a scurrick; and where to get a penny loaf on tick I don’t know.”
“By hell, I shall starve, Dick!” cried the murderer, casting a glance of alarm and horror upon his companion.
“Whatever I get shall be for you first, Bill; and to get anythink at all I must be wide awake. The grass musn’t grow under my feet.”
At that moment a whistle, similar to the sound by which Dick Flairer had notified his approach to Bill Bolter, emanated from the street and fell upon the ears of those worthies.
Dick hastened to respond to this summons, and in a short time introduced the Cracksman.
The moment this individual entered the room, he demanded if there were anything to eat or to drink upon the premises. He of course received a melancholy negative: but, instead of being disheartened, his countenance appeared to wear a smile of pleasure.
“Now, you see, I never desert a friend in distress,” he exclaimed; and, with these words, he produced from his pocket a quantity of cold victuals and a large flask of brandy.
Without waiting to ask questions or give explanations, the three thieves fell tooth and nail upon the provender.
“I knowed you’d come to this here crib, because Bill don’t dare go to the boozing-ken till the affair of the Court’s blowed over,” said the Cracksman, when his meal was terminated; “and so I thought I’d jine you. Arter I left the place out by Clapton——”
“And how the devil did you get away?” demanded Dick.
“Just the same as you did. It would have sarved you right if I’d never spoke to you agen, and blowed you at the ken into the bargain; but I thought to myself, thinks I, ‘It must be someot very strange that made the Flairer and the Bolter cut their lucky and leave their pal in the lurch; so let’s hear wot they has to say for themselves fust.’ Then, as I come along, I found a purse in a gentleman’s pocket just opposite Bethnal Green New Church; and that put me into good humour. So I looked in at the ken, got the grub and the bingo, and come on here.”
“You’r
e a reg’lar trump, Tom!” ejaculated Dick Flairer; “and I’ll stick to you like bricks from this moment till I die. The fact is—me and Bill has told you about that young feller which we throwed down the trap some four or five year back.”
“Yes—I remember.”
“Well—we seed him to-night.”
“To-night! What—at the crib up there?”
“The swell that you got a grip on in the dark was the very self-same one.”
“Then he must have got clear off—that’s all!” cried the Cracksman. “It was no ghost—but rale plump flesh and hot blood, I’ll swear.”
“So we both think now, to be sure,” said Dick: “but you don’t bear any ill-will, Tom?”
“Not a atom. Here’s fifteen couters[82] which was in the purse of the swell which I met at Bethnal Green; and half that’s yourn. But, about Bill there—wot’s he a-going to do?”
Dick pointed with his finger downwards: Tom comprehended the signal, and nodded approvingly.
The brandy produced a cheering effect upon the three ruffians: and pipes and tobacco augmented their joviality. Their discourse gradually became coarsely humorous; and their mirth boisterous. At length Bill Bolter, who required every possible means of artificial stimulant and excitement to sustain his spirits in the fearful predicament in which he was placed, called upon the Cracksman for a song.
Tom was famous amongst his companions for his vocal qualifications; and he was not a little proud of the reputation he had acquired in the parlours of the various “boozing-kens” and “patter-cribs”[83] which he was in the habit of frequenting. He was not, therefore, backward in complying with his friend’s request; and, in a somewhat subdued tone, (for fear of making too much noise—a complaint not often heard in Chick Lane), he sang the following lines:—
The Mysteries of London Volume 1 Page 20