by Ellen Wood
“In his early days he may have been. But you may depend upon it that when he married he left his wild ways behind him.”
“All right, young Charles. And, upon my word, you are pretty near as young in the world’s depths as Blanche herself is,” was the Major’s sarcastic remark. “Do you wish to tell me there’s nothing up at Marshdale, with all these mysterious telegrams to Level, and his scampers back in answer? Come!”
“I admit that there seems to be some mystery at Marshdale. Something that we do not understand, and that Lord Level does not intend us to understand; but I must have further proof before I can believe it is of any such nature as you hint it, Major. For a long time past, Lord Level has appeared to me like a man in trouble; as if he had some anxiety on his mind.”
“Well,” acquiesced the Major equably, “and what can trouble a man’s mind more than the exactions of these foreign syrens? Let them be Italian, or Spanish, or French — what you will — they’ll worry your life out of you in the long-run. What does that Italian girl do at Marshdale?”
“I cannot say. For my own part I do not know that one is there. But if she be, if there be a whole menagerie of Italian ladies there, as you have just expressed it, Major — —”
“I said a menagerie of monkeys,” he growled.
“Monkeys, then. But whether they be monkeys or whether they be ladies, I feel convinced that Lord Level is acting no unworthy part — that he is loyal to his wife.”
“You had better tell her so,” nodded the Major; “perhaps she’ll believe you. I told her the opposite. I told her that when women marry gay and attractive men, they must look out for squalls, and learn to shut their eyes a bit in going through life. I bade her bottle up her fancies, and let Marshdale and her husband alone, and not show herself a simpleton before the public.”
“What did she say to that?”
“Say? It was that piece of advice which raised the storm. She burst out of the room like a maniac, declaring she wouldn’t remain in it to listen to me. The next thing was, I heard the street-door bang, and saw my lady go out, putting on her gloves as she went. You came up two minutes afterwards.”
I was buried in thought again. He stood staring at me, as if I had no business to have any thought.
“Look here, Major: one thing strikes me forcibly: the very fact of Lord Level allowing these telegrams to come to him openly is enough to prove that matters are not as you and Blanche suspect. If — —”
“How can a telegram come secretly?” interrupted the Major.
“He would take care that they did not come at all — to his house.”
“Oh, would he?” cried the old reprobate. “I should like to know how he could hinder it if any she-fiend chooses to send them.”
“Rely upon it he would hinder it. Level is not one to be coerced against his will by either man or woman. Have you any idea how long Blanche will remain out?”
“Just as much as you have, Charley. She may remain away till night, for all I know.”
It was of no use, then, my staying longer; and time, that day, was almost as precious to me as gold. Major Carlen threw on his cloak, and we went out together.
“I should not wonder if my young lady has gone to Seymour Street,” remarked the Major. “The thought has just occurred to me.”
“To your lodgings, you mean?” I asked, thinking it very unlikely.
“Yes; Mrs. Guy is there. The poor old thing arrived from Jersey on Saturday. She has come over on her usual errand — to consult the doctors; grows more ridiculously fanciful as she grows older. You might just look in upon her now, Charles; it’s close by: and then you’ll see whether Blanche is there or not.”
I spared a few minutes for it. Poor Mrs. Guy looked very poorly indeed; but she was meek and mild as ever, and burst into tears as I greeted her. Her ailments I promised to go and hear all about another time. Yes, Blanche was there. When we went in, she was laughing at something Mrs. Guy had said, and her indignation seemed to have subsided.
I could not stay long. Blanche came out with me, thinking I should go back with her to Gloucester Place. But that was impossible; I had already wasted more time than I could well spare. Blanche was vexed.
“My dear, you should not have gone out when you were expecting me. You know how very much I am occupied.”
“Papa vexed me, and drove me to it,” she answered. “He said — oh, such wicked things, that I could not and would not stay to listen. And all the while I knew it was not that he believed them, but that he wanted to make excuses for Lord Level.”
I did not contradict her. Let her retain, and she could, some little veneration for her step-father.
“Charles, I want to have a long conversation with you, so you must come to me as soon as you can,” she said. “I mean to have a separation from my husband; perhaps a divorce, and I want you to tell me how I must proceed in it. I did think of applying to Jennings and Ward, Lord Level’s solicitors, but, perhaps, you will be best.”
I laughed. “You don’t suppose, do you, Blanche, that Lord Level’s solicitors would act for you against him.”
“Now, Charles, you are speaking lightly; you are making game of me. Why do you laugh? I can tell you it is more serious than you may think for! and I am serious. I have talked of this for a long time, and now I will act. How shall I begin?”
“Do not begin at all, Blanche,” I said, with earnestness. “Do nothing. Were your father living — were your mother living, they would both give you this advice — and this is not the first time I have enjoined it on you. Ah, my dear, you do not know — you little guess what misery to the wife such a climax as this which you propose would involve.”
Blanche had turned to the railings round the interior of Portman Square, and halted there, apparently looking at the shrubs. Her eyes were full of tears.
“On the other hand, Charles, you do not know, you cannot guess, what I have to bear — what a misery it makes of my life.”
“Are you sure of the facts that make the misery?”
“Why, of course I am.”
“I think not, Blanche. I think you are mistaken.”
She turned to me in surprise. “But I can’t be mistaken,” she said. “How can I be? If Lord Level does not go to Marshdale to — to — to see people, what does he go for?”
“He may go for something quite different. My dear, I have more confidence in your husband than you have, and I think you are wrong. I must be off; I’ve not another moment; but these are my last words to you, Blanche. — Take no action. Be still. Do nothing.”
By half-past four o’clock, the most pressing of my work was over for the day, and then I took a cab to Lincoln’s Inn to see Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar. He had often said to me, good old uncle that he was: “Come to me always, Charles, when you are in any legal doubt or difficulty, or deem that my opinion may be of use to you.” I was in one of those difficulties now. Some remarkably troublesome business had been laid before me by a client; I could not see my way in it at all, and was taking it to Serjeant Stillingfar.
The old chambers were just as they used to be; as they were on the day which the reader has heard of, when I saw them for the first time. Running up the stairs, there sat a clerk at the desk in the narrow room, where young Lake, full of impudence, had sat that day, Mr. Jones’s empty place beside it now, as it was then.
“Is the Serjeant in?” I asked the clerk.
“No, sir; he’s not out of Court yet. Mr. Jones is in.”
I went on to the inner room. Old Jones, the Serjeant’s own especial clerk, was writing at his little desk in the corner. Nothing was changed; not even old Jones himself. He was not, to appearance, a day older, and not an ounce bigger. Lake used to tell him he would make his fortune if he went about the country in a caravan and called himself a consumptive lamp-post.
“My uncle is not back from Court, Graham says,” I observed to the clerk, after shaking hands.
“Not yet,” he answered. “I don’t think he’l
l be long. Sit down, Mr. Strange.”
I took the chair I had taken that first day years ago, and waited. Mr. Jones finished the writing he was about, arranged his papers, and then came and stood with his back to the fire, having kept his quill in his hand. It must be a very hot day indeed which did not see a fire in that grate.
“If the Serjeant is not back speedily, I think I must open my business to you, and get your opinion, Mr. Jones,” I said. “I dare say you could give me one as well as he.”
“Some complicated case that you can’t quite manage?” he rejoined.
“It’s the most complicated, exasperating case I nearly ever had brought to me,” I answered. “I think it is a matter more for a detective officer to deal with than a solicitor. If Serjeant Stillingfar says the same, I shall throw it up.”
“Curious things, some of those detective cases,” remarked Mr. Jones, gently waving his pen.
“They are. I wouldn’t have to deal with them, as a detective, for the world. Shall I relate this case to you?”
He took out his watch and looked at it. “Better wait a bit longer, Mr. Charles. I expect the Serjeant every minute now.”
“Don’t you wonder that my uncle continues to work?” I cried presently. “He is old now. I should retire.”
“He is sixty-five. If you were not young yourself, you would not call that old.”
“Old enough, I should say, for work to be a labour to him.”
“A labour that he loves, and that he is as capable of performing as he was twenty years ago,” returned old Jones. “No, Mr. Charles, I do not wonder that he should continue to work.”
“Did you know that he had been offered a judgeship?”
Old Jones laughed a little. I thought it was as much as to say there was little which concerned the Serjeant that he did not know.
“He has been offered a judgeship more than once — had it pressed upon him, Mr. Charles. The last time was when Mr. Baron Charlton died.”
“Why! that is only a month or two ago!”
“Just about nine weeks, I fancy.”
“And he declined it?”
“He declines them all.”
“But what can be his motive? It would give him more rest than he enjoys now — —”
“I don’t altogether know that,” interrupted the clerk. “The judges are very much over-worked now. It would increase his responsibility; and he is one to feel that, perhaps painfully.”
“You mean when he had to pass the dread sentence of death. A new judge must always feel that at the beginning.”
“I heard one of our present judges say — it was in this room, too, Mr. Charles — that the first time he put on the black cap he never closed his eyes the whole night after it. All the Bench are not so sensitive as that, you know.”
A thought suddenly struck me. “Surely,” I cried, “you do not mean that that is the reason for my uncle’s refusing a seat on the Bench!”
“Not at all. He’d get over that in time, as others do. Oh no! that has nothing to do with it.”
“Then I really cannot see what can have to do with it. It would give him a degree of rest; yes, it would; and it would give him rank and position.”
“But it would take from him half his income. Yes, just about half, I reckon,” repeated Mr. Jones, attentively regarding the feather of the pen.
“What of that? He must be putting by heaps and heaps of money — and he has neither wife nor child to put by for.”
“Ah!” said the clerk, “that is just how we all are apt to judge of a neighbour’s business. Would it surprise you very much, sir, if I told you that the Serjeant is not putting by?”
“But he must be putting by. Or what becomes of his money?”
“He spends it, Mr. Charles.”
“Spends it! Upon what?”
“Upon other people.”
Mr. Jones looked at me from across the hearthrug, and I looked at him. The assertion puzzled me.
“It’s true,” he said with a nod. “You have not forgotten that great calamity which happened some ten or twelve years ago, Mr. Charles? That bank which went to pieces, and broke up homes and hearts? Your money went in it.”
As if I could forget that!
“The Serjeant’s money, all he had then saved, went in it,” continued the clerk. “Mortifying enough, of course, but he was in the full swing of his prosperity, and could soon have replaced it. What he could not so easily replace, Mr. Charles, was the money he had been the means of placing in the bank belonging to other people, and which was lost. He had done it for the best. He held the bank to be thoroughly sound and prosperous; he could not have had more confidence in his own integrity than he had in that bank; and he had counselled friends and others whom he knew, who were not as well off as he was, to invest all they could spare in it, believing he was doing them a kindness. Instead of that, it ruined them.”
I thought I saw what the clerk was coming to. After a pause, he went on:
“It is these people that he has been working for, Mr. Charles. Some of them he has entirely repaid — the money, you know, which he caused them to lose. He considered it his duty to recompense them, so far as he could; and to keep them, where they needed to be kept, until he had effected that. For those who were better off and did not need present help, he put money by as he could spare it, investing it in the funds in their name: I dare say your name is amongst them. That’s what Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar does with his income, and that’s why he keeps on working.”
I had never suspected this.
“I believe it is almost accomplished now,” said the clerk. “So nearly that I thought he might, perhaps, have taken the judgeship on this last occasion. But he did not. ‘Just a few months longer in harness, Jones,’ he said to me, ‘and then —— ?’ So I reckon that we shall yet see him on the Bench, Mr. Charles.”
“He must be very good.”
“Good!” echoed old Jones, with emotion; “he is made of goodness. There are few people like him. He would help the whole world if he could. I don’t believe there’s any man who has ever done a single service for him of the most trifling nature but he would wish to place beyond the reach of poverty. ‘I’ve put a trifle by for you, Jones,’ he said to me the other day, ‘in case you might be at a loss for another such place as this when my time’s over.’ And when I tried to thank him — —”
Mr. Jones broke down. Bringing the quill pen under his eyes, as if he suddenly caught sight of a flaw thereon, I saw a drop of water fall on to it.
“Yes, Mr. Charles, he said that to me. It has taken a load from my mind. When a man is on the downhill of life and is not sure of his future, he can’t help being anxious. The Serjeant has paid me a liberal salary, as you may well guess, but he knows that it has not been in my power to put by a fraction of it. ‘You are too generous with your money, Serjeant,’ I said to him one day, a good while ago. ‘Ah no, Jones, not at all,’ he answered. ‘God has prospered me so marvellously in these later years, what can I do but strive to prosper others?’ Those were his very words.”
And with these last words of Jones’s our conference came to an end. The door was abruptly thrown open by Graham to admit the Serjeant. Mr. Jones helped him off with his wig and gown, and handed him the little flaxen top that he wore when not on duty. Then Jones, leaving the room for a few moments, came back with a glass of milk, which he handed to his master.
“Would not a glass of wine do you more good, uncle?” I asked.
“No, lad; not so much. A glass of milk after a hard day’s work in Court refreshes me. I never touch wine except at a dinner. I take a little then; not much.”
Sitting down together when Mr. Jones had again left us, I opened my business to the Serjeant as concisely as possible. He listened attentively, but made no remark until the end.
“Now go over it all again, Charles.” I did so: and this second time I was repeatedly interrupted by remarks or questions. After that we discussed the case.
“I c
annot see any reason why you should not take up the matter,” he said, when he had given it a little silent consideration. “I do not look upon it quite as you do; I think you have formed a wrong judgment. It is intricate at present; I grant you that; but if you proceed in the manner I have suggested, you will unravel it.”
“Thank you, Uncle Stillingfar. I can never thank you enough for all your kindness to me.”
“Were you so full of anxiety over this case?” he asked, as we were shaking hands, and I was about to leave. “You look as though you had a weight of it on your brow.”
“And so I have, uncle; but not about this case. Something nearer home.”
“What is it?” he returned, looking at me.
“It is —— Perhaps I had better not tell it you.”
“I understand,” he slowly said. “Tom Heriot, I suppose. Why does he not get away?”
“He is too ill for that at present: confined to his room and his bed. Of course, he does not run quite so great a risk as he did when he persisted in parading the streets, but danger is always imminent.”
“He ought to end the danger by getting away. Very ill, is he?”
“So ill that I think danger will soon be all at an end in another way; it certainly will be unless he rallies.”
“What is the matter with him?”
“I cannot help fearing that consumption has set in.”
“Poor fellow! Oh, Charles, how that fine young man has spoilt his life! Consumption? — Wait a bit — let me think,” broke off the Serjeant. “Why, yes, I remember now; it was consumption that Colonel Heriot’s first wife died of — Tom’s mother.”
“Tom said so the last time I saw him.”
“Ah. He knows it, then. Better not see him too often, Charles. You are running a risk yourself, as you must be aware.”
“Yes; I know I am. It is altogether a trial. Good-day, uncle.”
I shook hands with Jones as I passed through his room, and ran down the stairs, feeling all the better for my interview with him and with his patron, Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar.
CHAPTER VIII.