Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Lord Chatham raised his head, and for the first time since the attorney’s entrance looked at him with a peevish attention. ‘If we are to go into this, Dagge should be here,’ he said impatiently. ‘Or your lawyer, Sir George.’ with a look as fretful in that direction. ‘Well, man, what is it?’

  ‘My lord,’ Mr. Fish wick answered, ‘I desire first to impress upon your lordship and Sir George Soane that this claim was set on foot in good faith on the part of my client, and on my part; and, as far as I was concerned, with no desire to promote useless litigation. That was the position up to Tuesday last, the day on which the lady was forcibly carried off. I repeat, my lord, that on that day I had no more doubt of the justice of our claim than I have to-day that the sky is above us. But on Wednesday I happened in a strange way — at Bristol, my lord, whither but for that abduction I might never have gone in my life — on a discovery, which by my client’s direction I am here to communicate.’

  ‘Do you mean, sir,’ the Earl said with sudden acumen, a note of keen surprise in his voice, ‘that you are here — to abandon your claim?’

  ‘My client’s claim,’ the attorney answered with a sorrowful look. ‘Yes, my lord, I am.’

  For an instant there was profound silence in the room; the astonishment was as deep as it was general. At last, ‘are the papers which were submitted to Mr. Dagge — are they forgeries then?’ the Earl asked.

  ‘No, my lord; the papers are genuine,’ the attorney answered. ‘But my client, although the identification seemed to be complete, is not the person indicated in them.’ And succinctly, but with sufficient clearness, the attorney narrated his chance visit to the church, the discovery of the entry in the register, and the story told by the good woman at the ‘Golden Bee.’ ‘Your lordship will perceive,’ he concluded, ‘that, apart from the exchange of the children, the claim was good. The identification of the infant whom the porter presented to his wife with the child handed to him by his late master three weeks earlier seemed to be placed beyond doubt by every argument from probability. But the child was not the child,’ he added with a sigh. And, forgetting for the moment the presence in which he stood, Mr. Fishwick allowed the despondency he felt to appear in his face and figure.

  There was a prolonged silence. ‘Sir!’ Lord Chatham said at last — Sir George Soane, with his eyes on the floor and a deep flush on his face, seemed to be thunderstruck by this sudden change of front— ‘it appears to me that you are a very honest man! Yet let me ask you. Did it never occur to you to conceal the fact?’

  ‘Frankly, my lord, it did,’ the attorney answered gloomily, ‘for a day. Then I remembered a thing my father used to say to us, “Don’t put molasses in the punch!” And I was afraid.’

  ‘Don’t put molasses in the punch!’ his lordship ejaculated, with a lively expression of astonishment. ‘Are you mad, sir?’

  ‘No, my lord and gentlemen,’ Mr. Fishwick answered hurriedly.’ But it means — don’t help Providence, which can very well help itself. The thing was too big for me, my lord, and my client too honest. I thought, if it came out afterwards, the last state might be worse than the first. And — I could not see my way to keep it from her; and that is the truth,’ he added candidly.

  The statesman nodded. Then,

  ‘Dissimulare etiam sperasti, perfide tantum

  Posse nefas, tacitusque meam subducere terram?’

  he muttered in low yet sonorous tones.

  Mr. Fishwick stared. ‘I beg your lordship’s pardon,’ he said. ‘I do not quite understand.’

  ‘There is no need. And that is the whole truth, sir, is it?’

  ‘Yes, my lord, it is.’

  ‘Very good. Very good,’ Lord Chatham replied, pushing away the papers which the attorney in the heat of his argument had thrust before him. ‘Then there is an end of the matter as far as the trustees are concerned. Sir George, you have nothing to say, I take it?’

  ‘No, I thank you, my lord — nothing here,’ Soane answered vaguely. His face continued to wear the dark flush which had overspread it a few minutes before. ‘This, I need not say, is an absolute surprise to me,’ he added.

  ‘Just so. It is an extraordinary story. Well, good-morning, sir,’ his lordship continued, addressing the attorney. ‘I believe you have done your duty. I believe you have behaved very honestly. You will hear from me.’

  Mr. Fishwick knew that he was dismissed, but after a glance aside, which showed him Sir George standing in a brown study, he lingered. ‘If your lordship,’ he said desperately, ‘could see your way to do anything — for my client?’

  ‘For your client? Why?’ the Earl cried, with a sudden return of his gouty peevishness. ‘Why, sir — why?’

  ‘She has been drawn,’ the lawyer muttered ‘out of the position in which she lived, by an error, not her own, my lord.’

  ‘Yours!’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘And why drawn?’ the Earl continued regarding him severely. ‘I will tell you, sir. Because you were not content to await the result of investigation, but must needs thrust yourself in the public eye! You must needs assume a position before it was granted! No, sir, I allow you honest; I allow you to be well-meaning; but your conduct has been indiscreet, and your client must pay for it. Moreover, I am in the position of a trustee, and can do nothing. You may go, sir.’

  After that Mr. Fishwick had no choice but to withdraw. He did so; and a moment later Sir George, after paying his respects, followed him. Dr. Addington was clear-sighted enough to fear that his friend had gone after the lawyer, and, as soon as he decently could, he went himself in pursuit. He was relieved to find Sir George alone, pacing the floor of the room they shared.

  The physician took care to hide his real motive and his distrust of Soane’s discretion under a show of heartiness. ‘My dear Sir George, I congratulate you!’ he cried, shaking the other effusively by the hand. ‘Believe me, ’tis by far the completest way out of the difficulty; and though I am sorry for the — for the young lady, who seems to have behaved very honestly — well, time brings its repentances as well as its revenges. It is possible the match would have done tolerably well, assuming you to be equal in birth and fortune. But even then ’twas a risk; ’twas a risk, my dear sir! And now—’

  ‘It is not to be thought of, I suppose?’ Sir George said; and he looked at the other interrogatively.

  ‘Good Lord, no!’ the physician answered. ‘No, no, no!’ he added weightily.

  Sir George nodded, and, turning, looked thoughtfully through the window. His face still wore a flush. ‘Yet something must be done for her,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I can’t let her here, read that.’

  Dr. Addington took the open letter the other handed to him, and, eyeing it with a frown while he fixed his glasses, afterwards proceeded to peruse it.

  ‘Sir,’ it ran — it was pitifully short— ‘when I sought you I deemed myself other than I am. Were I to seek you now I should be other than I deem myself. We met abruptly, and can part after the same fashion. This from one who claims to be no more than your well-wisher. — JULIA.’

  The doctor laid it down and took a pinch of snuff. ‘Good girl!’ he muttered. ‘Good girl. That — that confirms me. You must do something for her, Sir George. Has she — how did you get that, by the way?’

  ‘I found it on the table. I made inquiry, and heard that she left Marlboro’ an hour gone.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘I could not learn.’

  ‘Good girl! Good girl! Yes, certainly you must do something for her.’

  ‘You think so?’ Sir George said, with a sudden queer look at the doctor, ‘Even you?’

  ‘Even I! An allowance of — I was going to suggest fifty guineas a year,’ Dr. Addington continued impulsively. ‘Now, after reading that letter, I say a hundred. It is not too much, Sir George! ‘Fore Gad, it is not too much. But—’

  ‘But what?’

  The physician paused to take an elaborate pinch of snuff. ‘You’ll forgive me,�
�� he answered. ‘But before this about her birth came out, I fancied that you were doing, or going about to do the girl no good. Now, my dear Sir George, I am not strait-laced,’ the doctor continued, dusting the snuff from the lappets of his coat, ‘and I know very well what your friend, my Lord March, would do in the circumstances. And you have lived much, with him, and think yourself, I dare swear, no better. But you are, my dear sir — you are, though you may not know it. You are wondering what I am at? Inclined to take offence, eh? Well, she’s a good girl, Sir George’ — he tapped the letter, which lay on the table beside him— ‘too good for that! And you’ll not lay it on your conscience, I hope.’

  ‘I will not,’ Sir George said quietly.

  ‘Good lad!’ Dr. Addington muttered, in the tone Lord Chatham had used; for it is hard to be much with the great without trying on their shoes. ‘Good lad! Good lad!’

  Soane did not appear to notice the tone. ‘You think an allowance of a hundred guineas enough?’ he said, and looked at the other.

  ‘I think it very handsome,’ the doctor answered. ‘D —— d handsome.’

  ‘Good!’ Sir George rejoined. ‘Then she shall have that allowance;’ and after staring awhile at the table he nodded assent to his thoughts and went out.

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  A HANDSOME ALLOWANCE

  The physician might not have deemed his friend so sensible — or so insensible — had he known that the young man proposed to make the offer of that allowance in person. Nor to Sir George Soane himself, when he alighted five days later before The George Inn at Wallingford, did the offer seem the light and easy thing,

  ‘Of smiles and tears compact,’

  it had appeared at Marlborough. He recalled old clashes of wit, and here and there a spark struck out between them, that, alighting on the flesh, had burned him. Meanwhile the arrival of so fine a gentleman, travelling in a post-chaise and four, drew a crowd about the inn. To give the idlers time to disperse, as well as to remove the stains of the road, he entered the house, and, having bespoken dinner and the best rooms, inquired the way to Mr. Fishwick the attorney’s. By this time his servant had blabbed his name; and the story of the duel at Oxford being known, with some faint savour of his fashion, the landlord was his most obedient, and would fain have guided his honour to the place cap in hand.

  Rid of him, and informed that the house he sought was neighbour on the farther side, of the Three Tuns, near the bridge, Sir George strolled down the long clean street that leads past Blackstone’s Church, then in the building, to the river; Sinodun Hill and the Berkshire Downs, speaking evening peace, behind him. He paused before a dozen neat houses with brass knockers and painted shutters, and took each in turn for the lawyer’s. But when he came to the real Mr. Fishwick’s, and found it a mere cottage, white and decent, but no more than a cottage, he thought that he was mistaken. Then the name of ‘Mr. Peter Fishwick, Attorney-at-Law,’ not in the glory of brass, but painted in white letters on the green door, undeceived him; and, opening the wicket of the tiny garden, he knocked with the head of his cane on the door.

  The appearance of a stately gentleman in a laced coat and a sword, waiting outside Fishwick’s, opened half the doors in the street; but not that one at which Sir George stood. He had to knock again and again before he heard voices whispering inside. At last a step came tapping down the bricked passage, a bolt was withdrawn, and an old woman, in a coarse brown dress and a starched mob, looked out. She betrayed no surprise on seeing so grand a gentleman, but told his honour, before he could speak, that the lawyer was not at home.

  ‘It is not Mr. Fishwick I want to see,’ Sir George answered civilly. Through the brick passage he had a glimpse, as through a funnel, of green leaves climbing on a tiny treillage, and of a broken urn on a scrap of sward. ‘You have a young lady staying here?’ he continued.

  The old woman’s stiff grey eyebrows grew together. ‘No!’ she said sharply. ‘Nothing of the kind!’

  ‘A Miss Masterson.’

  ‘No’ she snapped, her face more and more forbidding. ‘We have no Misses here, and no baggages for fine gentlemen! You have come to the wrong house!’ And she tried to shut the door in his face.

  He was puzzled and a little affronted; but he set his foot between the door and the post, and balked her. ‘One moment, my good woman,’ he said. ‘This is Mr. Fishwick’s, is it not?’

  ‘Ay, ’tis,’ she answered, breathing hard with indignation. ‘But if it is him your honour wants to see, you must come when he is at home. He is not at home to-day.’

  ‘I don’t want to see him,’ Sir George said. ‘I want to speak to the young lady who is staying here.’

  ‘And I tell you that there is no young lady staying here!’ she retorted wrathfully. ‘There is no soul in the house but me and my serving girl, and she’s at the wash-tub. It is more like the Three Tuns you want! There’s a flaunting gipsy-girl there if you like — but the less said about her the better.’

  Sir George stood and stared at the woman. At last, on a sudden suspicion, ‘Is your servant from Oxford?’ he said.

  She seemed to consider him before she answered. ‘Well, if she is?’ she said grudgingly. ‘What then?’

  ‘Is her name Masterson?’

  Again she seemed to hesitate. At last, ‘May be and may be not!’ she snapped, with a sniff of contempt.

  He saw that it was, and for an instant the hesitation was on his side. Then, ‘Let me come in!’ he said abruptly. ‘You are doing your son’s client little good by this!’ And when she had slowly and grudgingly made way for him to enter, and the door was shut behind him, ‘Where is she?’ he asked almost savagely. ‘Take me to her!’

  The old dame muttered something unintelligible. Then, ‘She’s in the back part,’ she said, ‘but she’ll not wish to see you. Don’t blame me if she pins a clout to your skirts.’

  Yet she moved aside, and the way lay open — down the brick passage. It must be confessed that for an instant, just one instant, Sir George wavered, his face hot; for the third part of a second the dread of the ridiculous, the temptation to turn and go as he had come were on him. Nor need he, for this, forfeit our sympathies, or cease to be a hero. It was the age, be it remembered, of the artificial. Nature, swathed in perukes and ruffles, powder and patches, and stifled under a hundred studied airs and grimaces, had much ado to breathe. Yet it did breathe; and Sir George, after that brief hesitation, did go on. Three steps carried him down the passage. Another, and the broken urn and tiny treillage brought him up short, but on the greensward, in the sunlight, with the air of heaven fanning his brow. The garden was a very duodecimo; a single glance showed him its whole extent — and Julia.

  She was not at the wash-tub, as the old lady had said; but on her knees, scouring a step that led to a side-door, her drugget gown pinned up about her. She raised her head as he appeared, and met his gaze defiantly, her face flushing red with shame or some kindred feeling. He was struck by a strange likeness between her hard look and the frown with which the old woman at the door had received him; and this, or something in the misfit of her gown, or the glimpse he had of a stocking grotesquely fine in comparison of the stuff from which it peeped — or perhaps the cleanliness of the step she was scouring, since he seemed to instant, just one instant, Sir George wavered, his face hot; for the third part of a second the dread of the ridiculous, the temptation to turn and go as he had come were on him. Nor need he, for this, forfeit our sympathies, or cease to be a hero. It was the age, be it remembered, of the artificial. Nature, swathed in perukes and ruffles, powder and patches, and stifled under a hundred studied airs and grimaces, had much ado to breathe. Yet it did breathe; and Sir George, after that brief hesitation, did go on. Three steps carried him down the passage. Another, and the broken urn and tiny treillage brought him up short, but on the greensward, in the sunlight, with the air of heaven fanning his brow. The garden was a very duodecimo; a single glance showed him its whole extent — and Julia.

  She was n
ot at the wash-tub, as the old lady had said; but on her knees, scouring a step that led to a side-door, her drugget gown pinned up about her. She raised her head as he appeared, and met his gaze defiantly, her face flushing red with shame or some kindred feeling. He was struck by a strange likeness between her hard look and the frown with which the old woman at the door had received him; and this, or something in the misfit of her gown, or the glimpse he had of a stocking grotesquely fine in comparison of the stuff from which it peeped — or perhaps the cleanliness of the step she was scouring, since he seemed to see everything without looking at it — put an idea into his head. He checked the exclamation that sprang to his lips; and as she rose to her feet he saluted her with an easy smile. ‘I have found you, child,’ he said. ‘Did you think you had hidden yourself?’

  She met his gaze sullenly. ‘You have found me to no purpose,’ she said. Her tone matched her look.

  The look and the words together awoke an odd pang in his heart. He had seen her arch, pitiful, wrathful, contemptuous, even kind; but never sullen. The new mood gave him the measure of her heart; but his tone lost nothing of its airiness. ‘I hope not,’ he said, ‘for we think you have behaved vastly well in the matter, child. Remarkably well! And that, let me tell you, is not only my own sentiment, but the opinion of my friends who perfectly approve of the arrangement I have come to propose. You may accept it, therefore, without the least scruple.’

  ‘Arrangement?’ she muttered. Her cheeks, darkly red a moment before, began to fade.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I hope you will think it not ungenerous. It will rid you of the need to do this — sort of thing, and put you — put you in a comfortable position. Of course, you know,’ he continued in a tone of patronage, under which her heart burned if her cheeks did not, ‘that a good deal of water has run under the bridge since we talked in the garden at Marlborough? That things are changed.’

  Her eyelids quivered under the cruel stroke. But her only answer was, ‘They are.’ Yet she wondered how and why; for if she had thought herself an heiress, he had not — then.