Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  ‘I’ve caught a many that way,’ the old fellow answered as he pouched the shilling. ‘But there, I do a lot of work upon them. There is not a better register kept anywhere than that, nor a parish clerk that knows more about his register than I do, though I say it that should not. It is clear and clean from old Henry Eighth, with never a break except at the time of the siege, and, by the way, there is an entry about that that you could see for another shilling. No? Well, if you would like to see a year for nothing — No? Now, I know a lad, an attorney’s clerk here, name of Chatterton, would give his ears for the offer. Perhaps your name is Smith?’ the old fellow continued, looking curiously at Mr. Fishwick. ‘If it is, you may like to know that the name of Smith is in the register of burials just three hundred-and eighty-three times — was last Friday! Oh, it is not Smith? Well, if it is Brown, it is there two hundred and seventy times — and one over!’

  ‘That is an odd thought of yours,’ said the lawyer, staring at the conceit.

  ‘So many have said,’ the old man chuckled. ‘But it is not Brown? Jones, perhaps? That comes two hundred and — Oh, it is not Jones?’

  ‘It is a name you won’t be likely to have once, let alone four hundred times!’ the lawyer answered, with a little pride — heaven knows why.

  ‘What may it be, then?’ the clerk asked, fairly put on his mettle. And he drew out a pair of glasses, and settling them on his forehead looked fixedly at his companion.

  ‘Fishwick.’

  ‘Fishwick! Fishwick? Well, it is not a common name, and I cannot speak to it at this moment. But if it is here, I’ll wager I’ll find it for you. D’you see, I have them here in alphabet order,’ he continued, bustling with an important air to a cupboard in the wall, whence he produced a thick folio bound in roughened calf. ‘Ay, here’s Fishwick, in the burial book, do you see, volume two, page seventeen, anno domini 1750, seventeen years gone, that is. Will you see it? ‘Twill be only a shilling. There’s many pays out of curiosity to see their names.’

  Mr. Fishwick shook his head.

  ‘Dods! man, you shall!’ the old clerk cried generously; and turned the pages. ‘You shall see it for what you have paid. Here you are. “Fourteenth of September, William Fishwick, aged eighty-one, barber, West Quay, died the eleventh of the month.” No, man, you are looking too low. Higher on the page! Here ’tis, do you see? Eh — what is it? What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Mr. Fishwick muttered. But he continued to stare at the page with a face struck suddenly sallow, while the hand that rested on the corner of the book shook as with the ague.

  ‘Nothing?’ the old man said, staring suspiciously at him. ‘I do believe it is something. I do believe it is money. Well, it is five shillings to extract. So there!’

  That seemed to change Mr. Fishwick’s view. ‘It might be money,’ he confessed, still speaking thickly, and as if his tongue were too large for his mouth. ‘It might be,’ he repeated. ‘But — I am not very well this morning. Do you think you could get me a glass of water?’

  ‘None of that!’ the old man retorted sharply, with a sudden look of alarm. ‘I would not leave you alone with that book at this moment for all the shillings I have taken! So if you want water you’ve got to get it.’

  ‘I am better now,’ Mr. Fishwick answered. But the sweat that stood on his brow went far to belie his words. ‘I — yes, I think I’ll take an extract. Sixty-one, was he?’

  ‘Eighty-one, eighty-one, it says. There’s pen and ink, but you’ll please to give me five shillings before you write. Thank you kindly. Lord save us, but that is not the one. You’re taking out the one above it.’

  ‘I’ll have ’em all — for identification,’ Mr. Fishwick replied, wiping his forehead nervously.

  ‘Sho! You have no need.’

  ‘I think I will.’

  ‘What, all?’

  ‘Well, the one before and the one after.’

  ‘Dods! man, but that will be fifteen shillings!’ the clerk cried, aghast at such extravagance.

  ‘You’ll only charge for the entry I want?’ the lawyer said with an effort.

  ‘Well — we’ll say five shillings for the other two.’

  Mr. Fishwick closed with the offer, and with a hand which was still unsteady paid the money and extracted the entries. Then he took his hat, and hurriedly, his eyes averted, turned to go.

  ‘If it’s money,’ the old clerk said, staring at him as if he could never satisfy his inquisitiveness, ‘you’ll not forget me?’

  ‘If it’s money,’ Mr. Fishwick said with a ghastly smile, ‘it shall be some in your pocket.’

  ‘Thank you kindly. Thank you kindly, sir! Now who would ha’ thought when you stepped in here you were stepping into fortune, so to speak?’

  ‘Just so,’ Mr. Fishwick answered, a spasm distorting his face. ‘Who’d have thought it? Good morning!’

  ‘And good-luck!’ the clerk bawled after him. ‘Good-luck!’

  Mr. Fishwick fluttered a hand backward, but made no answer. His first object was to escape from the court; this done, he plunged through a stream of traffic, and having covered his trail, went on rapidly, seeking a quiet corner. He found one in a square among some warehouses, and standing, pulled out the copy he had made from the register. It was neither on the first nor the second entry, however, that his eyes dwelled, while the hand that held the paper shook as with the ague. It was the third fascinated him: —

  ‘September 19th,’ it ran, ‘at the Bee in Steep Street, Julia, daughter of Anthony and Julia Soane of Estcombe, aged three, and buried the 21st of the month.’

  Mr. Fishwick read it thrice, his lips quivering; then he slowly drew from a separate pocket a little sheaf of papers, frayed at the corners, and soiled with much and loving handling. He selected from these a slip; it was one of those which Mr. Thomasson had surprised on the table in the room at the Castle Inn. It was a copy of the attestation of birth ‘of Julia, daughter of Anthony Soane, of Estcombe, England, and Julie his wife’; the date, August, 1747; the place, Dunquerque.

  The Attorney drew a long quivering breath, and put the papers up again, the packet in the place from which he had taken it, the extract from the Bristol register in another pocket. Then, after drawing one or two more sighs as if his heart were going out of him, he looked dismally upwards as in protest against heaven. At length he turned and went back to the thoroughfare, and there, with a strangely humble air, asked a passer-by the nearest way to Steep Street.

  The man directed him; the place was near at hand. In two minutes Mr. Fishwick found himself at the door of a small but decent grocer’s shop, over the portal of which a gilded bee seemed to prognosticate more business than the fact performed. An elderly woman, stout and comfortable-looking, was behind the counter. Eyeing the attorney as he came forward, she asked him what she could do for him, and before he could answer reached for the snuff canister.

  He took the hint, requested an ounce of the best Scotch and Havannah mixed, and while she weighed it, asked her how long she had lived there.

  ‘Twenty-six years, sir,’ she answered heartily, ‘Old Style. For the New, I don’t hold with it nor them that meddle with things above them. I am sure it brought me no profit,’ she continued, rubbing her nose. ‘I have buried a good husband and two children since they gave it us!’

  ‘Still, I suppose people died Old Style?’ the lawyer ventured.

  ‘Well, well, may be.’

  ‘There was a death in this house seventeen years gone this September,’ he said, ‘if I remember rightly.’

  The woman pushed away the snuff and stared at him. ‘Two, for the matter of that,’ she said sharply. ‘But should I remember you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then, if I may make so bold, what is’t to you?’ she retorted. ‘Do you come from Jim Masterson?’

  ‘He is dead,’ Mr. Fishwick answered.

  She threw up her hands. ‘Lord! And he a young man, so to speak! Poor Jim! Poor Jim! It is ten years and more — a
y, more — since I heard from him. And the child? Is that dead too?’

  ‘No, the child is alive,’ the lawyer answered, speaking at a venture, ‘I am here on her behalf, to make some inquiries about her kinsfolk.’

  The woman’s honest red face softened and grew motherly. ‘You may inquire,’ she said, ‘you’ll learn no more than I can tell you. There is no one left that’s kin to her. The father was a poor Frenchman, a monsieur that taught the quality about here; the mother was one of his people — she came from Canterbury, where I am told there are French and to spare. But according to her account she had no kin left. He died the year after the child was born, and she came to lodge with me, and lived by teaching, as he had; but ’twas a poor livelihood, you may say, and when she sickened, she died — just as a candle goes out.’

  ‘When?’ Mr. Fishwick asked, his eyes glued to the woman’s face.

  ‘The week Jim Masterson came to see us bringing the child from foreign parts — that was buried with her. ’Twas said his child took the fever from her and got its death that way. But I don’t know. I don’t know. It is true they had not brought in the New Style then; but—’

  ‘You knew him before? Masterson, I mean?’

  ‘Why, he had courted me!’ was the good-tempered answer. ‘You don’t know much if you don’t know that. Then my good man came along and I liked him better, and Jim went into service and married Oxfordshire way. But when he came to Bristol after his journey in foreign parts, ’twas natural he should come to see me; and my husband, who was always easy, would keep him a day or two — more’s the pity, for in twenty-four hours the child he had with him began to sicken, and died. And never was man in such a taking, though he swore the child was not his, but one he had adopted to serve a gentleman in trouble; and because his wife had none. Any way, it was buried along with my lodger, and nothing would serve but he must adopt the child she had left. It seemed ordained-like, they being of an age, and all. And I had two children to care for, and was looking for another that never came; and the mother had left no more than buried her with a little help. So he took it with him, and we heard from him once or twice, how it fared, and that his wife took to it, and the like; and then — well, writing’s a burden. But,’ with renewed interest, ‘she’s a well-grown girl by now, I guess?’

  ‘Yes,’ the attorney answered absently, ‘she — she’s a well-grown girl.’

  ‘And is poor Jim’s wife alive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah,’ the good woman answered, looking thoughtfully into the street.’ If she were not — I’d think about taking to the girl myself. It’s lonely at times without chick or child. And there’s the shop to tend. She could help with that.’

  The attorney winced. He was looking ill; wretchedly ill. But he had his back to the light, and she remarked nothing save that he seemed to be a sombre sort of body and poor company. ‘What was the Frenchman’s name?’ he asked after a pause.

  ‘Parry,’ said she. And then, sharply, ‘Don’t they call her by it?’

  ‘It has an English sound,’ he said doubtfully, evading her question.

  ‘That is the way he called it. But it was spelled Pare, just Pare.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr. Fishwick. ‘That explains it.’ He wondered miserably why he had asked what did not in the least matter; since, if she were not a Soane, it mattered not who she was. After an interval he recovered himself with a sigh. ‘Well, thank you,’ he continued, ‘I am much obliged to you. And now — for the moment — good-morning, ma’am. I must wish you good-morning,’ he repeated, hurriedly; and took up his snuff.

  ‘But that is not all?’ the good woman exclaimed in astonishment. ‘At any rate you’ll leave your name?’

  Mr. Fishwick pursed up his lips and stared at her gloomily. ‘Name?’ he said at last. ‘Yes, ma’am, certainly. Brown. Mr. Peter Brown, the — the Poultry—’

  ‘The Poultry!’ she cried, gaping at him helplessly.

  ‘Yes, the Poultry, London. Mr. Peter Brown, the Poultry, London. And now I have other business and shall — shall return another day. I must wish you good-morning, ma’am, Good-morning.’ And thrusting his face into his hat, Mr. Fishwick bundled precipitately into the street, and with singular recklessness made haste to plunge into the thickest of the traffic, leaving the good woman in a state of amazement.

  Nevertheless, he reached the inn safely. When Mr. Dunborough returned from a futile search, his failure in which condemned him to another twenty-four hours in that company, the first thing he saw was the attorney’s gloomy face awaiting them in a dark corner of the coffee-room. The sight reproached him subtly, he knew not why; he was in the worst of tempers, and, for want of a better outlet, he vented his spleen on the lawyer’s head.

  ‘D — n you!’ he cried, brutally. ‘Your hang-dog phiz is enough to spoil any sport! Hang me if I believe that there is such another mumping, whining, whimpering sneak in the ‘varsal world! D’you think any one will have luck with your tallow face within a mile of him?’ Then longing, but not daring, to turn his wrath on Sir George, ‘What do you bring him for?’ he cried.

  ‘For my convenience,’ Sir George retorted, with a look of contempt that for the time silenced the other. And that said, Soane proceeded to explain to Mr. Fishwick, who had answered not a word, that the rogues had got into hiding; but that by means of persons known to Mr. Dunborough it was hoped that they would be heard from that evening or the next. Then, struck by the attorney’s sickly face, ‘I am afraid you are not well, Mr. Fishwick,’ Sir George continued, more kindly. ‘The night has been too much for you. I would advise you to lie down for a few hours and take some rest. If anything is heard I will send word to you.’

  Mr. Fishwick thanked him, without meeting his eyes; and after a minute or two retired. Sir George looked after him, and pondered a little on the change in his manner. Through the stress of the night Mr. Fishwick had shown himself alert and eager, ready and not lacking in spirit; now he had depression written large on his face, and walked and bore himself like a man sinking under a load of despondency.

  All that day the messenger from the slums was expected but did not come; and between the two men who sat downstairs, strange relations prevailed. Sir George did not venture to let the other out of his sight; yet there were times when they came to the verge of blows, and nothing but the knowledge of Sir George’s swordsmanship kept Mr. Dunborough’s temper within bounds. At dinner, at which Sir George insisted that the attorney should sit down with them, Dunborough drank his two bottles of wine, and in his cups fell into a strain peculiarly provoking.

  ‘Lord! you make me sick,’ he said. ‘All this pother about a girl that a month ago your high mightiness would not have looked at in the street. You are vastly virtuous now, and sneer at me; but, damme! which of us loves the girl best? Take away her money, and will you marry her? I’d ‘a done it, without a rag to her back. But take away her money, and will you do the same, Mr. Virtuous?’

  Sir George listening darkly, and putting a great restraint on himself, did not answer. Mr. Fishwick waited a moment, then got up suddenly, and hurried from the room — with a movement so abrupt that he left his wine-glass in fragments on the floor.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  A ROUGH AWAKENING

  Lord Almeric continued to vapour and romance as he mounted the stairs. Mr. Pomeroy attended, sneering, at his heels. The tutor followed, and longed to separate them. He had his fears for the one and of the other, and was relieved when his lordship at the last moment hung back, and with a foolish chuckle proposed a plan that did more honour to his vanity than his taste.

  ‘Hist!’ he whispered. ‘Do you two stop outside a minute, and you’ll hear how kind she’ll be to me! I’ll leave the door ajar, and then in a minute do you come in and roast her! Lord, ‘twill be as good as a play!’

  Mr. Pomeroy shrugged his shoulders. ‘As you please,’ he growled. ‘But I have known a man go to shear and be shorn!’

  Lord Almeric smiled loftily, and waiting f
or no more, winked to them, turned the handle of the door, and simpered in.

  Had Mr. Thomasson entered with him, the tutor would have seen at a glance that he had wasted his fears; and that whatever trouble threatened brooded in a different quarter. The girl, her face a blaze of excitement and shame and eagerness, stood in the recess of the farther window seat, as far from the door as she could go; her attitude the attitude of one driven into a corner. And from that alone her lover should have taken warning. But Lord Almeric saw nothing, feared nothing. Crying ‘Most lovely Julia!’ he tripped forward to embrace her, and, the wine emboldening him, was about to clasp her in his arms, when she checked him by a gesture unmistakable even by a man in his flustered state.

  ‘My lord,’ she said hurriedly, yet in a tone of pleading — and her head hung a little, and her cheeks began to flame. ‘I ask your forgiveness for having sent for you. Alas, I have also to ask your forgiveness for a more serious fault. One — one which you may find it less easy to pardon,’ she added, her courage failing.

  ‘Try me!’ the little beau answered with ardour; and he struck an attitude. ‘What would I not forgive to the loveliest of her sex?’ And under cover of his words he made a second attempt to come within reach of her.

  She waved him back. ‘No!’ she said. ‘You do not understand me.’

  ‘Understand?’ he cried effusively. ‘I understand enough to — but why, my Chloe, these alarms, this bashfulness? Sure,’ he spouted,

  ‘How can I see you, and not love,

  While you as Opening East are fair?

  While cold as Northern Blasts you prove,

  How can I love and not despair?’

  And then, in wonder at his own readiness, ‘S’help me! that’s uncommon clever of me,’ he said. ‘But when a man is in love with the most beautiful of her sex—’

  ‘My lord!’ she cried, stamping the floor in her impatience. ‘I have something serious to say to you. Must I ask you to return to me at another time? Or will you be good enough to listen to me now?’