CHAPTER XLVII. A HAPPY ACCIDENT
Having written a hurried letter to Quackinboss acquainting him with the causes which should prevent him from keeping his rendezvous at St. Louis, and informing him how he had met with his father, he briefly mentioned that they were about to return to New York with all speed, in the hope of coming up with Winthrop before he sailed for England. “Come what may,” he added, “we shall await you there. We long to meet you, and add your counsels to our own.” This letter he addressed to St Louis, and posted at once.
It was ten days after this they reached New York. Their journey had been delayed by a series of accidents, – a railroad smash at Detroit amongst the number; and when they arrived at the capital, it was to learn that the “Asia” had sailed that very morning for Liverpool, and at the agent’s office they found that Mr. Harvey Winthrop was a passenger, and with him a certain Mr. Jacob Trover.
“Trover!” repeated Alfred, “he came out in the same ship with us, and it was in his company Quackinboss went down to the South, fully convinced that the man was the agent in some secret transaction.”
As he stood looking at the name on the agent’s list with that unreasoning steadfastness that in a difficulty often attaches us to the incident which has first awakened us to a sense of embarrassment, he heard a well-remembered voice behind him exclaim, “What! sailed this mornin’? Well, darn me considerable, if that ain’t takin’ the ropes of us!” He turned, and it was Quackinboss. After the heartiest of greetings on both sides, Alfred presented his father to his friend.
“Well, sir,” said the Colonel, impressively, “there ain’t that man livin’ I want to shake the hand of as I do yours. I know you, sir, better, mayhap, than that youth beside you. I have studied your character in your writin’s, and I ‘m here to say there ain’t your superior, if there be your equal, in your country or mine.”
“This opinion will make our intimacy very difficult,” said the old man, smiling. “I can scarcely hope to keep up the delusion, even for twenty-four hours.”
“Yes, sir, you can,” replied the Colonel; “jest talk the way you write.”
“You have seen this, I suppose?” said Alfred, pointing to the list of the lately departed passengers, and desirous of engaging his friend in another theme.
“Yes, and gone with Winthrop too,” said the Colonel. “You would n’t believe how he doubled on me, that man Trover. I thought I had him too. We were a-travellin’ together as thick as thieves, a-tellin’ each other all our bygones in life and our plans for the future, and at last as good as agreed we ‘d go partners in a mill that was for sale, about three miles from Carthage. But he wanted to see the water-power himself, and so we left the high-road, and set out to visit it. At our arrival, as we was gettin’ out of the wagon, he sprained his ankle, and had to be helped into the house.
“‘I am afraid,’ said he, ‘there’s more mischief than a sprain here; have you any skill as a surgeon?’
“‘Well,’ said I, ‘I ain’t so bad about a fracture or dislocashin, and, what’s better, I ‘ve got a note-book with me full of all manner of receipts for washes and the like.’ It was your journal, Dr. Layton, that I spoke of. It was, as you may remember, filled with hints about useful herbs and odd roots, and so on, and there was all about that case of a man called Hawke as was poisoned at Jersey, – a wonderful trial that had a great hold upon me, as your son will tell you another time, – but I did n’t think of that at the moment; but turnin’ to the part about sprains, I began to read him what you said: ‘“You must generally leech at first,” says he,’ I began; ‘“particularly where there is great pain with swellin’.”’
“‘Ah! I thought so,’ sighed he; ‘only how are we to get leeches in a place like this, and who is to apply them?’
“‘I ‘ll engage to do both within half an hour.’ said I; and I put on my hat and set out.
“Now, I war n’t sorry, you see, for the accident. I thought to myself, ‘Here’s a crittur goin’ to be laid up ten days or a fortnight; I’ll have all the care o’ him, and it’s strange if he won’t let out some of his secrets between whiles. I ‘m curious to know what’s a-brought him out here; he’s not travellin’ like one afraid of being pursued; he goes about openly and fearlessly, but he’s always on the sharp, like a fellow that had somethin’ on his mind, if one could only come at it. If there’s anythin’ one can be sure of, it is that a man with a heavy conscience will try to relieve himself of the load; he’s like a fellow always changin’ the ballast of his boat to make her sail lighter, or a crittur that will be a-movin’ his saddle, now on the withers, now on the croup, but it won’t do, never a bit, when there’s a sore back underneath.’ It was reflectin’ over these things I fell into a sort of dreamy way, and did n’t remember about the leeches for some time. At last I got ‘em, and hastened back to the inn.
“‘There’s a note for you, sir, at the bar,’ said the landlord. I took it, and read: —
“‘Dear Colonel, – Thinking a little fresh air might serve me, I have gone out for a short drive. – Yours, till we meet again,
“‘J. T.’
“Yes, sir, he was off; and worse, too, had carried away with him that great book with all the writin’ in, and that account of Hawke’s poison in’. I started in pursuit as quick as they could get me a wagon hitched, but I suppose I took the wrong road. I went to Utica, and then turned north as far as Albany, but I lost him. Better, perhaps, that I did so; I was riled considerable, and I ain’t sure that I mightn’t have done somethin’ to be sorry for. Ain’t it wonderful how ill one takes anythin’ that reflects on one’s skill and craftiness? – just as if such qualities were great ones; I believe, in my heart, we are readier to resent what insults our supposed cleverness than what is an outrage on our honesty. Be that as it may, I never came up with him after, nor heard of him, till I read his name in that sheet.”
“His theft of that book, connected with his companionship with Winthrop, suggests strongly the thought that his business here is the same as our own,” said the doctor.
“That’s the way I reasoned it too,” said the Colonel.
“It is not impossible, besides, that he had some suspicion of your own object in this journey. Did the name of Winthrop ever come up in conversation between you?”
“Yes. I was once describin’ my brother’s location down in Ohio, – I did it a purpose to see if he would show any signs of interest about Peddar’s Clearin’s and Holt’s Acre, – and then I mentioned, as if by chance, one Harvey Winthrop.
“‘Oh, there was a man of that name in Liverpool once,’ said he, ‘but he died about two years gone.’
“‘Did he?’ said I, lookin’ him hard.
“‘Yes,’ said he, – ’ of a quinsy.’
“It was as good as a play the way we looked at each other arter this. It was jest a game of chess, and I said, ‘Move,’ and he said, ‘It ain’t me to move, – it’s your turn.’ And there we was.”
“The fellow was shrewd, then?”
“Yes, sir, arter his fashion.”
“We must follow him, that’s certain. They will reach Liverpool by the 10th or 12th. When can we sail from this?”
“There’s a packet sails on Wednesday next; that’s the earliest.”
“That must do, then. Let them be active as they may, they will scarcely have had time for much before we are up with them.”
“It’s as good as a squirrel-hunt,” said Quackinboss. “I ‘m darned if it don’t set one’s blood a-bilin’ out of sheer excitement. What do you reckon this chap’s arter?”
“He has, perhaps, found out this girl, and got her to make over her claim to this property; or she may have died, and he has put forward some one to personate her; or it is not improbable he may have arranged some marriage with himself, or one of his friends, for her.”
“Then it ain’t anythin’ about the murder?” asked the Colonel, half disappointedly.
“Nothing whatever; that case was disposed of years ago. Whatever guilt may attach to those who escaped, the law cannot recognize now. They were acquitted, and they are innocent.”
“That may be good law, sir, but it’s strange justice. If I owed you a thousand dollars, and was too poor to pay it, I ‘m thinkin’ you ‘d have it out of me some fine day when I grew rich enough to discharge the debt.”
Layton shook his head in dissent at the supposed parallel.
“Ain’t we always a-talkin’ about the fallibility of our reason and the imperfection of our judgments? And what business have we, then, to say, ‘There, come what will tomorrow of evidence or proof, my mind is made up, and I ‘m determined to know nothin’ more than I know now’?”
“What say you to the other side of the question, – that of the man against whom nothing is proven, but who, out of the mere obscurity that involves a crime, must live and die a criminal, just because there is no saying what morning may not bring an accusation against him? As a man who has had to struggle through a whole life against adverse suspicions, I protest against the doctrine of not proven! The world is too prone to think the worst to make such a practice anything short of an insufferable tyranny.”
With a delicacy he was never deficient in, Quackinboss respected the personal application, and made no reply.
“Calumny, too,” continued the old man, whose passion was now roused, “is conducted on the division-of-labor principle. One man contributes so much, and another adds so much more; some are clever in suggesting the motive, some indicate the act; others are satisfied with moralizing over human frailties, and display their skill in showing that the crime was nothing exceptional, but a mere illustration of the law of original sin. And all these people, be it borne in mind, are not the bad or the depraved, but rather persons of reputable lives, safe opinions, and even good intentions. Only imagine, then, what the weapon becomes when wielded by the really wicked. I myself was hunted down by honorable men, – gentlemen all of them, and of great attainments. Has he told you my story?” said he, pointing to his son.
“Yes, sir; and I only say that it could n’t have happened in our country here.”
“To be sure it could,” retorted the other, quickly; “the only difference is, that you have made Lynch law an institution, and we practise it as a social accident.”
Thus chatting, they reached the hotel where they were to lodge till the packet sailed.
The short interval before their departure passed off agreeably to all. Quackinboss never wearied at hearing the doctor talk, and led him on to speak of America, and what he had seen of the people, with an intense interest.
“Could you live here, sir?” asked Quackinboss, at the close of one of these discussions.
“It is my intention to live and die here,” said the doctor. “I go back to England now, that this boy may pay off a long load of vengeance for me. Ay, Alfred, you shall hear my long-cherished plan at once. I want you to become a fellow of that same University which drove me from its walls. They were not wrong, perhaps, – at least, I will not now dispute their right, – but I mean to be more in the right than they were. My name shall stand upon their records associated with their proudest achievements, and Layton the scholar, Layton the discoverer, eclipse the memory of Layton the rebel.”
This was the dream of many a year of struggle, defeat, and depression; and now that it was avowed, it seemed as though his heart were relieved of a great load of care. As for Alfred, the goal was one to stimulate all his energies, and he pledged himself fervently to do his utmost to attain it.
“And I must be with you the day you win,” cried Quackinboss, with an enthusiasm so unusual with him that both Layton and his son turned their glances towards him, and saw that his eyes were glassy with tears. Ashamed of his emotion, he started suddenly up, saying, “I’ll go and book our berths for Wednesday next.”
CHAPTER XLVIII. AT ROME
Let us now return to some of the actors in our drama who for a while back have been playing out their parts behind the scenes. The Heathcote family, consisting of Sir William and his ward, May Leslie, Mrs. Morris and her late husband’s friend, Captain Holmes, were domesticated in a sumptuous residence near the “Pincian,” but neither going out into the world nor themselves receiving visitors. Sir William’s health, much broken and uncertain as it was, formed the excuse for this reclusion; but the real reason was the fact, speedily ascertained by the Captain, and as speedily conveyed to his daughter, that “Society” had already decided against them, and voted the English family at the Palazzo Balbi as disfranchised.
Very curious and very subtle things are the passively understood decrees of those who in each city of Europe call themselves the “World.” The delicate shades by which recognition is separated from exclusion; the fine tints, perceptible only to the eyes of fashion, by which certain frailties are relieved from being classed with grave derelictions; the enduring efficacy of the way in which the smell of the roses will cling to the broken vase of virtue and rescue its fragments from dishonor, – are all amongst the strangest and most curious secrets of our civilization.
Were it not for a certain uniformity in the observances, one might be disposed to stigmatize as capricious the severity occasionally displayed here, while a merciful lenity was exhibited there; but a closer examination will show that some fine discriminating sense is ever at work, capable of distinguishing between genteel vice and the wickedness that forgets conventionalities. As in law, so in morals, no man need criminate himself, but he who does so by an inadvertence is lost. Now the Heathcotes were rich, and yet lived secluded. The world wanted not another count in the indictment against them. A hundred stories were circulated about them. They had come to place the “girl” in a convent. Old Sir William had squandered away all her fortune, and the scheme now was to induce her to turn Catholic and take the veil. “The old fool” – the world is complimentary on these occasions – was going to marry that widow, whom he had picked up at Leamington or Ems or Baden-Baden. If the Captain had not kept the Hell in the Circus, he was the very double of the man who had it. At all events, it was better not to have him in the Club; and so the banker, who was to have proposed, withdrew him.
It may be imagined that some very palpable and sufficient cause was at work to induce society thus to stand on the defensive towards these new-comers. Nothing of the kind. All the evidence against them was shadowy; all the charges such as denied detail. They were an odd set, they lived in a strange fashion, they knew nobody; and to accusations like these even spotless integrity must succumb.
Dressed in a robe de chambre that would have made the fortune of a French Vaudeville actor, with a gold-tasselled fez, and slippers to match, the Captain sat, smoking a splendid meerschaum, in a well-cushioned chair, while his daughter was engaged at her embroidery, opposite to him. Though it was midwinter, the sun streamed in through the orange-trees on the terrace, and made a rainbow of the spray that dashed from the marble fountain. The room itself combined all the sumptuous luxury we understand by the word “comfort,” with the graceful elegance of a Southern existence. There were flowers and fresh air, and the song of birds to be enjoyed on the softest of sofas and the best carpeted of floors.
A large goblet of some amber-colored drink, in which a rock of pure ice floated, stood at the Captain’s elbow, and he sipped and puffed, with his head thrown well back, in an attitude that to smokers must have some Elysian ecstasy. Nor was his daughter the least ornamental part of the situation; a morning dress of white muslin, tastefully trimmed with sky-blue ribbons, and a rich fall of Brussels lace over her head, making a very charming picture of the graceful figure that now bent over the embroidery-frame.
“I tell you it won’t do, Loo,” said he, removing his pipe, and speaking in a firm and almost authoritative voice. “I have been thinking a great deal over it, and you must positively get away from this.”
“I know that too,” said she, calmly; “and I could have managed it easily enough but for this promised visit of Charles. He comes through on his way to Malta, and Sir William would not hear of anything that risked the chance of seeing him.”
“I ‘d rather risk that than run the hazards we daily do in this place,” said he, gravely.
“You forget, papa, that he knows nothing of these hazards. He is eager to see his son, for what he naturally thinks may be the last time. I ‘m sure I did my best to prevent the meeting. I wrote to Lord Agincourt; I wrote to Charles himself. I represented all the peril the agitation might occasion his father, and how seriously the parting might affect a constitution so impressionable as his, but to no purpose; he coldly replies, ‘Nothing short of my father’s refusal to see me shall prevent my coming to see him,’ or ‘embrace him,’ or – I forget the words, but the meaning is, that come he will, and that his arrival may be counted on before the end of the week.”
“What stay will he make?”
“He speaks of three or four days at farthest. We can learn the limit easily enough by the time of the P. and O. steamer’s sailing. Ask for it at the banker’s.”
“I don’t call in there now,” said he, peevishly. “Since they took down my name for the Club-ballot, I have not gone to the bank.”
She sighed heavily; there was more than one care on her heart, and that sigh gathered in a whole group of anxieties.
“They have got up all sorts of stories about us; and it is always out of these false attacks of scandal comes the real assault that storms the citadel.”
She sighed again, but did not speak.
“So long as Heathcote keeps the house and sees nobody, all may go on well; but let him be about again, able to ramble amongst the galleries and churches, he is certain to meet some amiable acquaintance, who will startle him with a few home truths. I tell you again, we are banqueting over a powder-magazine; and even as to the marriage itself, I don’t like it. Are you aware of the amount he is able to settle? I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the draft. It is neither more nor less than eight thousand pounds. Fancy taking such a husband for eight thousand pounds!”
“You scarcely put the case fairly, papa,” said she, smiling; “the eight thousand is the compensation for losing him.”
“Are you in love with him, then?” asked he, with a sarcastic twinkle of the eye.
“I don’t think so, – at least, not to desperation.”
“It is scarcely for the sake of being ‘My Lady.’”
“Oh dear, no; that is a snobbery quite beyond me. Now, I neither marry for the title, nor the man, nor his money, nor his station; but out of that mass of motives which to certain women have the force of a principle. I can explain what I mean, perhaps, by an illustration: Were you to tell a fashionable physician, in first-rate practice, that if he got up out of bed at midnight, and drove off two miles to a certain corner of Regent’s Park, where under a particular stone he ‘d find a guinea, it is more than certain he ‘d not stir; but if you sent for the same man to a case of illness, he’d go unhesitatingly, and accept his guinea as the due recompense of his trouble. This is duty, or professional instinct, or something else with a fine name, but it’s not gold-seeking. There now, make out my meaning out of my parable, as best you may. And, after all, papa, I’m not quite sure that I intend to marry him.”
“Why, what do you mean?”
“Oh, pray don’t be frightened. I merely meant to say that there was an eventuality which might rescue me from this necessity. I have told you nothing about it hitherto, dear papa, because I inherit your own wholesome dislike to entertaining my friends with what may turn out mere moonshine. Now, however, that the project has a certain vitality in it, you shall hear it.”
Holmes drew his chair close to her, and, laying down his pipe, prepared to listen with all attention.
“If I hate anything,” said she, half peevishly, “it is to talk of the bygone, and utter the names of people that I desire never to hear again. It can’t be helped, however; and here goes. After the events in Jersey, you remember I left the island and came abroad. There were all sorts of confusion about H.‘s affairs. The law had taken possession of his papers, placed seals on everything, and resisted my application to remove them, on the vexatious plea that I was not his wife, and could not administer as such. A long litigation ensued, and at last my marriage was admitted, and then I took out probate and received a few thousand pounds, and some little chance property; the bulk of his fortune was, however, in America, and settled on Clara by a will, which certain writings showed was in the possession of her uncle, now nominated to be her guardian, a certain Harvey Winthrop, of Norfolk, Virginia. I opened a correspondence with him, and suggested the propriety of leaving Clara with me, as I had always regarded her as my own child, and hinting at the appropriateness of some allowance for her maintenance and education. He replied with promptitude and much kindness, expressed great sympathy for my late loss, and made a very liberal settlement for Clara.
“All went on peaceably and well for two years, when one morning came a letter from Winthrop of a most alarming nature. Without any positive charge, it went on to say that he had, for reasons which his delicacy would prefer to spare me, decided on himself assuming the guardianship of his niece, and that if I would kindly come to London, or name any convenient place on the Continent for our meeting, he would punctually present himself at the time agreed on. Of course I guessed what had occurred, – indeed, it had always been a matter of astonishment to me how long I had been spared; at all events, I determined on resistance. I wrote back a letter, half sorrow, half indignation; I spoke of the dear child as all that remained of consolation to my widowed heart; I said that though it was in his competence to withhold from me the little pittance which served to relieve some of the pressure of our narrow means, yet I would not separate myself from my darling child, even though at the cost of sharing with her a mere sufficiency for support. I told him, besides, that he should never hear from me more, nor would all his efforts enable him to trace us. It was then I became Mrs. Penthony Morris. I suppose Winthrop was sorry for his step; at least, by a variety of curious advertisements in English papers, he suggested that some accommodation might be arranged, and entreated me to renew intercourse with him. There were many reasons why I could not agree to this. Clara, too, was of great use to me. To a lone woman in the world, without any definite belongings, a child is invaluable. The advertisements were continued, and even rewards offered for such information as might lead to my discovery. All in vain: he never succeeded in tracing me, and at length gave up the pursuit.
“I must now skip over some years which have no bearing on this incident, and come to a period comparatively recent, when, in the transaction of certain purchases of American securities, I came unexpectedly on the mention of a new railroad line through a district whose name was familiar to me. I set myself to think where, when, and how I had heard of this place before, and at last remembered it was from H – , who used to talk of this property as what would one day make his daughter a great heiress. My moneyed speculations had led me into much intimacy here with a banker, Mr. Trover, over whom an accidental discovery gave me absolute power. It was no less than a forgery he had committed on my name, and of which, before relinquishing the right to take proceedings against him, I obtained his full confession in writing. With this tie over the man, he was my slave; I sent him here and there at my pleasure, to buy, and sell, and gain information, and so on, and, above all, to obtain a full account of the value of this American property, where it lay, and how it was occupied. It was in the midst of these inquiries came a great financial crash, and my agent was obliged to fly. At first he went to Malta; he came back, but, after a few weeks, he set out for the States. He was fully in possession of the circumstances of this property, and Clara’s right to it, and equally so of my determination that she should never inherit it. We had, on one of the evenings he was here, a long conversation on the subject, and he cunningly asked me, —
“‘How was the property settled in reversion?’
“It was a point I never knew, for I never saw H.‘s will.
“‘The will was made four years before his death; might he not have made a later one on his death-bed? – might he not have bequeathed the estate in reversion to yourself in case she died? – might she not have died?’
“All these he asked, and all of them had been my own unceasing thoughts for years back. It was a scheme I had planned and brooded over days and nights long. It was to prepare the road for it that I sent away Clara, and, under the name of Stocmar, had her inscribed at the Conservatoire of Milan. Was it that Trover had read my secret thoughts, or had he merely chanced upon them by mere accident? I did not dare to ask him, for I felt that by his answer I should be as much in his power as he was in mine.
“‘I have often imagined there might be such a will,’ said I; ‘there is no reason to suppose it is not in existence. Could it not be searched for and found?’
“He understood me at once, and replied, —
“‘Have you any of Hawke’s handwriting by you?’
“‘A quantity,’ said I; ‘and it is a remarkable hand, very distinctive, and not hard to imitate, – at least, by any one skilled in such accomplishments.’
“He blushed a little at the allusion, but laughed it off.
“‘The girl could have died last year; she might have been buried, – where shall we say?’ added he, carelessly.
“‘At Meisner, in the Tyrol,’ said I, catching at the idea that just struck me, for my maid died in that place, and I had got the regular certificate of her death and burial from the Syndic, and I showed him the document.
“‘This is admirable,’ said he; ‘nothing easier than to erase this name and insert another.’
“‘I cannot hear of such a thing, Mr. Trover,’ said I; ‘nor can I, after such a proposal, suffer the paper to leave my hands.’ And with this I gave it to him.
“‘I could not dream of such an act, madam,’ said he, with great seriousness; ‘it would amount to a forgery. Now for one last question,’ said he, after a little interval of silence: ‘what would you deem a suitable reward to the person who should discover this missing will, and restore this property to the rightful owner? Would twenty per cent on the value appear to you too much?’
“‘I should say that the sum was a high one, but if the individual acquitted himself with all the integrity and all the delicacy the situation demanded, never by even an implication involving any one who trusted him, conducting the transaction to its end on his own responsibility and by his own unaided devices, why, then, it is more than probable that I would judge the reward to be insufficient.’
“So much, dear papa, will put you in possession of the treaty then ratified between us. I was to supply all the funds for present expenses; Mr. Trover to incur all the perils. He was invested with full powers, in fact, to qualify himself for Botany Bay; and I promised to forward his views towards a ticket of leave if the worst were to happen him. It was a very grave treaty very laughingly and playfully conducted. Trover had just tact enough for the occasion, and was most jocose wherever the point was a perilous one. From the letters and papers in my possession, he found details quite ample enough to give him an insight into the nature of the property, and also, what he deemed of no small importance, some knowledge of the character of this Mr. Winthrop, Clara’s uncle. This person appeared to be an easy-tempered, good-natured man, not difficult to deal with, nor in any way given to suspicion. Trover was very prompt in his proceedings. On the evening after our conversation he showed me the draft of Hawke’s will, dated at Jersey, about eight days before his death. It was then, for the first time, I learned that Trover knew the whole story, and who I was. This rather disconcerted me at first. There are few things more disconcerting than to find out that a person who has for a long intercourse never alluded to your past history, has been all the while fully acquainted with it. The way he showed his knowledge of the subject was characteristic In pointing out to me Hawke’s signature, he remarked, —
“‘I have made the witnesses – Towers, who was executed, and Collier, who, I have heard, died in Australia.’
“‘How familiar you are with these names, sir!’ said I, curiously.
“‘Yes, madam,’ said he; ‘I edited a well-known weekly newspaper at that time, and got some marvellous details from a fellow who was on the spot.’
“I assure you, papa, though I am not given to tremors, I shuddered at having for my accomplice a man that I could not deceive as to my past life. It was to be such an open game between us that, in surrendering all the advantages of my womanly arts, I felt I was this man’s slave, and yet he was a poor creature. He had the technical craft for simulating a handwriting and preparing a false document, but was miserably weak in providing for all the assaults that must be directed against its authenticity.
“His plan was, armed with what he called an attested copy of H.‘s will, to set out for America and discover this Mr. Winthrop. Cleverly enough, he had bethought him of securing this gentleman’s co-operation by making him a considerable inheritor under the will. In fact, he charged the estate with a very handsome sum in his favor, and calculated on all the advantages of this bribe; and without knowing it, Mr. Winthrop was to be ‘one of us.’