“It’s no matter who I am,” said Richard. “The agreement between Miss Wilmot and yourself was that she should visit you, accompanied by a friend:—I am that friend. Let us now proceed to business.”
And as he spoke, our hero coolly produced a brace of pistols, which he laid upon the table.
“Sir—Miss Kate—I—I hope—” stammered the undertaker, turning pale, and recoiling in alarm.
“Fear nothing,” said Markham: “it is merely a necessary precaution. This young lady and myself are in a strange neighbourhood:—I have about me a considerable sum of money, for the purpose of buying certain papers which you profess to have; and you will pardon me if I have thought fit to adopt every precaution—yes, every precaution,” he added emphatically, “to guard against treachery.”
“But surely that dear creetur, Miss Katherine, with her angelic countenance,” said Banks, “must have told you, sir, that I’m a ’spectable man as was well known to Mr. Smithers, and that I should scorn to act dishonourable to any blessed living wessel.”
“We will not dispute upon the point, sir,” returned our hero, in an authoritative tone. “I have my reasons for acting with caution. If you intend us no harm—none can befall you. Where are these papers?”
“The papers, sir? Oh! the papers is safe enow,” said Banks, still hesitating; “but them pistols——”
“Will remain there until the bargain is concluded,” added Markham. “Again I say that I mean fairly if you do.”
Thus speaking, he drew forth a pocket-book, and, opening it, displayed to the undertaker’s eager eyes a number of Bank notes.
“Business—it looks like business,” murmured Banks; “in spite of them bles——cussed pistols. You see, dear pretty Miss—and you, good sir,—that a man moving in such a important speer as myself sees so much of the pomps and wanities——”
“A truce to these unnecessary observations, Mr. Banks,” said Markham, somewhat sternly; “or you will compel me to think that you are only talking to gain time—which could not be for any proper motive. In one word, then—have you the papers which relate to this young lady’s parentage?”
“I have, sir—I have indeed,” returned the undertaker.
With these words, he slowly unlocked an old walnut-wood desk, which stood in a recess; and thence he took a brown-paper parcel, tied round with coarse string and sealed in several places.
“This is just as I received the blessed dokiments from my friend,” he said, leisurely advancing towards the table: then, taking a seat, he handed the parcel to Markham, observing, “You may break it open, and satisfy yourself that its contents is geniwine. Two minutes will be enow for that—and two minutes is all my friend told me to give for the purpose. I haven’t read a line of them myself; and I know nothink of what they say; but my friend is as sharp a feller as here and there one, and he assures me they’re going dirt cheap—like workus coffins.”
While Banks was thus indulging his garrulity, Markham had opened the parcel by the aid of a pair of scissors which lay upon the table; and the first thing which struck him was a letter addressed to “Mr. Markham, Markham Place.”
Katherine, who watched him attentively, without, however, looking at the papers herself, observed him start as if with sudden surprise: then he tore open the letter with almost a wild precipitation, and glanced rapidly over the contents. As he read, his countenance became flushed, and his features expressed mingled joy and astonishment—joy the most fervent, astonishment the most profound.
“My God!” he exclaimed, throwing down the letter, ere he had fully perused it: “how wondrous are thy ways! Katherine, dearest girl—come to my arms—for you are my sister—my own sister!”
“Your sister, Richard!” murmured the young maiden, as she sank almost fainting upon her brother’s breast.
“Yes—my sister, Kate—my own sister!”—and he embraced her tenderly. “Compose yourself, dear girl—compose yourself: this is no place for explanations! But you are not the less my sister—and I thank God for it! I have now a natural right to be your protector—and a protector as well as an affectionate brother will you ever find me!”
“Oh! Richard—this sudden—this unexpected happiness is too much!” exclaimed Katherine, weeping through varied but ineffable emotions. “Is it possible that he whom I have known as a benefactor is indeed a brother!”
“I cannot doubt it—I do not wish to doubt it,” returned Markham. “No—I am happy that I have found a sister in her whom I already loved as one!”
And again he embraced her tenderly.
“And I to find a brother in the noblest and best of men!” murmured Katherine: “it appears to be a dream—a delicious dream!”
“It is a reality,” said Richard; “and we shall now all be happier than ever. Oh! what a surprise for those at home!”
“Then you perceive, my lord, that the dokiments is of some wally,” observed Mr. Banks, wiping his eye, with the limp ends of his cravat, as if deeply affected by the scene. “I knowed they was, and I now begin to think that I have found out your name. I’m sure it’s a unspeakable honour that a great lord and prince like you has done my poor house by setting foot in it—and all amongst the coffins too!”
“Let us now conclude this business, sir,” exclaimed Richard, with whom the undertaker’s remarks passed unheeded, so absorbed were his thoughts in the signal discovery which he had just made. “These papers are mine; and this pocket-book is yours. You may examine its contents.”
“Oh! I’ve no doubt they’re all right, my lord,” said Banks, grasping the treasure now handed to him; “but I’ll just look over ’em—merely for form’s sake. It’s more business-like. And nice new flimsies they are, too,” continued the undertaker, as he scrutinised the notes one by one. “Ah! what miserable wessels we should be without money, my lord—in this wicked world;—mind what would become of us if our friends had no cash to buy us nice coffins when we are blessed defunct carkisses! It’s awful to think of! Four fifties—two hundreds—and ten tens: that’s five hundred—sure enow.”
And Mr. Banks proceeded to lock up the pocket-book, with its valuable contents, in his desk.
Richard and Katherine rose, as if to depart.
“May be, your lordship and this pretty young lady will just wash your mouths out,” said Mr. Banks, attempting a pleasant smile. “A leetle drop of wine—one glass; and I’ll step myself to the public-house to fetch it.”
“Do so,” returned Markham, throwing a sovereign upon the table.
Katherine looked at her brother in astonishment; but he affected not to perceive the impression which his strange conduct had thus created.
Banks seemed overjoyed at the affability of the nobleman; and gathering up the piece of gold, the change out of which he already considered as his own perquisite, he hastened to execute the commission;—but not without trying the lid of the desk ere he left the room, to convince himself that it was securely locked.
He passed through the shop, which was empty; and, muttering to himself something about “his unnat’ral boys who had gone off to the public without finishing the economic coffins,” opened the street door and went out.
The moment he was gone, Richard seized his pistol, and saying in a hurried tone to Katherine, “Remain here, dear sister, for a few moments,” hastened from the room by a door leading to the inner part of the dwelling.
He rushed down a passage, and entered the yard—as if well acquainted with the undertaker’s premises.
The moment he set foot in the yard, he whistled in a peculiar manner.
“Damnation!—treachery!” cried a man, darting forward from the corner near the window.
“Stand—or I fire!” exclaimed Markham, advancing towards him, and presenting a pistol.
“Fool!” said the man; and he threw himself with desperate fu
ry upon our hero.
But Richard, maintaining his footing gallantly, closed with his assailant, and threw him to the ground, his pistol going off with the shock—without, however, inflicting any injury.
And at the same moment three police-officers leapt over the wall, in time to put an end to the struggle between Markham and his opponent, the latter of whom they made their prisoner and immediately bound with strong cords.
“Is your Highness hurt?” asked one of the officers.
“No, Benstead,” was the reply: “a little bruised, perhaps—but it is nothing. Bring the prisoner this way.”
The whole transaction,—from the moment when Richard left the undertaker’s parlour to that when he re-entered it, followed by the policemen with the captive,—had not occupied two minutes.
He found Katherine reclining back in her chair—half fainting and paralysed by terror, so deeply had the report of the pistol and the concomitant scuffle in the yard alarmed her.
But the moment she heard her brother’s voice, she started up, gazed wildly around, and threw herself into his arms.
“You are not hurt, Richard? Oh! tell me—that pistol!” she exclaimed, terror still depicted on her countenance.
“No, dear sister—I am not hurt,” exclaimed Richard. “Calm yourself. Every thing has resulted according to my expectations. Look, Kate—that terrible man is at length in the hands of the officers of justice.”
Katherine turned a rapid glance towards the group on the other side of the room, and beheld the sinister and ferocious countenance of the individual whom she had seen in the company of the old hag near Bennet’s farm.
At this moment the door communicating with the shop opened, and Mr. Banks made his appearance, carrying a bottle in his hand.
He started back in astonishment and alarm when his eyes encountered the police-officers, with his friend Anthony Tidkins securely bound in the midst of them.
But as his glances wandered from one to another, he suddenly appeared to recollect something; and fixing his eyes on Benstead, he examined, “Ah! now I twig it all. What a cussed fool I was not to know a trap even in plain clothes! But I was blind, ’cause I thought I’d got a ’spectable man coming as a fust floor lodger. No wonder you poked your nose in every hole and corner—’specially the yard. I was a idiot—a ass—a addle-pated old wessel! But p’rhaps the gen’lemen will take a glass of wine, since they’re here?” added Mr. Banks, with a smirking countenance.
This semi-pleasantry on his part was only assumed; for his own life had not been so immaculate as to preclude the existence of certain fears when he found himself in the dangerous vicinity of the police.
He was, however, speedily reassured on this head.
“Keep your wine, sir,” exclaimed Markham, “for those who can enjoy it in your company; and consider yourself fortunate that, in becoming the agent of that man,”—pointing with deep disgust towards Tidkins,—“you have not committed yourself in any way which at present endangers your safety. I see that you glance uneasily at your desk:—you need not fear that I shall attempt to deprive you of the sum which you have extorted as the purchase-money for the papers now in my possession. No:—although I do not envy you the feelings which could prompt you thus to lend yourself to make a market of secrets so sacred as those which the documents contain, I cannot question your right thus to act, seeing that the papers were in your possession. And were I compelled to pay a thousand times the sum given to obtain them, I should consider they were cheaply bought, inasmuch—— But you cannot understand such feelings!” he added, addressing these words to the undertaker, but glancing affectionately towards where Katherine was standing.
“I hope there’s no offence, my lord,” said Banks, shaking in every limb with vague fears and suspicions. “I’m a poor man, which tries to live honestly by undertaking on the most economic principles; and there isn’t a carkiss as goes through my hands that wouldn’t sign a certifikit in my favour if it could.”
Richard turned his back contemptuously upon Mr. Banks, and, addressing himself to Benstead, asked where he intended to lodge the prisoner for the night.
“There isn’t a station-house in London that would be safe to put such a desperate feller in,” was the reply. “He’d get out as sure as my name is Morris Benstead. I shall take him direct to Coldbath Fields, where the keeper will be sure to give him accommodation. To-morrow your Highness will be so kind as to appear against him at Lambeth Street.”
Markham promised compliance with this request. A cab was sent for; and the Resurrection Man, who had maintained a moody silence, although he never ceased from looking vindictively upon our hero, from the moment he was arrested, was now removed in safe custody.
The Prince then conducted Katherine to the carriage that was waiting for them in another street; and shortly after ten o’clock they reached Markham Place.
We shall pass over all elaborate details of the surprise and joy with which Isabella, Ellen, and Mr. Monroe received the intelligence that Katherine was our hero’s sister,—his sister without what the world calls the stigma of illegitimacy! Suffice it to say, that the discovery produced the most unfeigned pleasure in the breasts of all, and that Kate became the object of the sincerest congratulations.
Richard then related as succinctly as possible,—for he longed to peruse the precious documents in his possession,—the capture of the Resurrection Man and the scheme by which he had placed that villain in the hands of the officers of justice.
“I felt persuaded,” he said, “that Tidkins did not put implicit confidence in Banks, and that he intended to watch the negotiation. His avarice engendered suspicions and got the better of his prudence. I communicated my views yesterday morning to a faithful officer whom I know; and Morris Benstead—the person to whom I allude—visited the undertaker’s house on a pretence of hiring apartments which were to let. By those means he was enabled to reconnoitre the premises, and adopt measures accordingly. The result has answered my anticipations; and that consummate villain, who twice attempted my life, and whose atrocities are numerous as the hairs on his head, is at length in custody.”
“Ah! dearest Richard,” said Isabella, “wherefore should you have thus perilled your precious life?”
“Do not chide me, Isabel,” exclaimed the Prince, kissing her tenderly. “I only performed a duty that I owed alike to society and to myself. Let us now examine these documents which have already made so strange, and yet so welcome a revelation.”
The members of that happy party drew round the table; and Richard began by reading the various letters that accompanied the old woman’s narrative. But as those epistles merely corroborated the main points of her tale, we shall not quote them.
The narrative itself will explain all; and that important document may be found in the ensuing chapter.
CHAPTER CCXXV.
THE OLD HAG’S HISTORY.
“I must carry my recollection back between seventeen and eighteen years. Not that it requires any effort to call to mind the leading facts in this sad history; no—no—they are too well impressed upon my memory;—but there are certain details connected with my own position at the time which will need the fullest explanation, in order to show how one like me could have become the friend of Harriet Wilmot.
“At that epoch I kept a boarding-house—a fashionable boarding-house, in a fashionable street at the West End. I was not then ugly and withered as I am now: I had the remains of great beauty—for I was very beautiful when young! I was also of pleasant and agreeable manners, and knew well how to do the honours of a table. You will not therefore be surprised when I tell you that I was a great favourite with the persons who lodged at my establishment, and with the still more numerous visitors. It is true that this establishment was a boarding-house; and it was conducted to all outward appearances, in a most respectable manner. But it had its interior m
ysteries as well as many other dwellings in this metropolis. The fact is, that I was well known to a large circle of nobles and gentlemen who employed all their leisure time in intrigues and amours. Having been gay myself from fifteen to forty, I was deeply versed in the various modes of entrapping respectable young persons, and even ladies, in the meshes artfully spread to ensure a constant supply of new victims to the lust of those men of pleasure. Having changed my name and thrown a veil as it were over the past, I opened the boarding-house by means of the funds supplied by my patrons, and soon experienced great success. By paying all my tradesmen with the utmost punctuality, I acquired a good character in the neighbourhood; for your tradesmen can always make or mar you, their shops being the scandal-marts where all reports, favourable or unfavourable, are put into circulation; and as they consider that those who pay well must necessarily be respectable, regularity on that point is certain to ensure their advantageous opinion. Having thus founded the respectability of my establishment, the rest was easy enough. The calculations made by myself and patrons were these:—Boarding-houses are usually inhabited by ladies possessing incomes which, though derived from sources that are sure, are too small to enable them to set up in housekeeping for themselves. Elderly widows with their daughters,—young widows who, coming from the country or from abroad, are strangers in London, but who wish to marry again, and therefore seek that society which is most easily entered,—friendless orphans who possess small annuities,—aunts and their nieces,—grandmothers with their grand-daughters,—these are the class of ladies who principally support boarding-houses. Thus there is always a large proportion of young ladies in those establishments; and out of a dozen there are sure to be three or four very good-looking. There can now be no difficulty in understanding the motives which induced my patrons to place me at the head of a boarding-house.
The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics) Page 94