"I had thought," said the Earl, "of leaving them unopened. We have got what we want."
"Very proper. But I only wish to read the directions." No harm in this, anyhow. A second packet was opened. It was the one in the woman's hand, all postmarked "Darenth Mill" and "Macquarie." Then it was that Thothmes, with impassive shrewdness, made up for his blunder, with interest. He saw why the ink of one word of the forged direction was black. It was the same ink as the English directions, and, on close examination, the same hand. This had not been clear at first, as the word was mixed with the English postmark, "Darenth Mill"--so much so as not to clash with the pale hand of the forgery. "That word," said Thothmes, "was never written in Van Diemen's Land. The English stamp is on the top of it."
Gwen took it from him, and saw that this was true. "But then the rest of the direction was written in Australia," said she, "if this man wrote it at all! Oh dear, I am so puzzled." And indeed she was at her wit's end.
"I won't say another word," said Mr. Hawtrey. "I have made one blunder, and won't run any further risks. I must think about this. If you will trust me with the letter, you shall have it back to-morrow morning. I dare say your lordship will now excuse me. I have an appointment at the High Court at eleven, and it's now a quarter past.... Oh no--it's not a hanging matter.... I shall make my man drive fast.... So I will wish your ladyship a very good morning. I wish those two old ladies could have known this earlier. But better late than never!"
The Earl accompanied his legal adviser to the head of the stairs to give him a civil send off, while his daughter, white with tension of excitement and impatience, awaited his return. Coming back, he was not the least surprised that she should fall into his arms with a tempest of tears, crying out:--"Oh, papa dearest--fifty years!--think of it! All their lives! Oh, my darling old Mrs. Prichard! and Granny Marrable too--it's the same for both! Oh, think, that they were girls--yes, nearly girls, only a few years older than me, when they parted! And the _horrible_ wickedness of the trick--the horrible, horrible wickedness!
And then the dear old darling's own daughter, who has almost never seen her, thinks her _mad_!... No, papa dear, don't shish me down, because cry I _must_! Let me have a good cry over it, and I shall be better. Sit down by me, and don't let go--there!--here on the sofa, like that.... Oh dear, I wish I was made of wood, like some people, and could say better late than never!" This was the wind-up of a good deal more, and similar, expression of feeling. For tears and speech come easily to a generous impulsive nature like Gwen's, when strong sympathy and sorrow for others bid them come, though its own affliction might have made it stupefied and dumb.
Her father soothed and calmed her as he would a child; for was she not a child to him--in the nursery only the other day? "I'm not made of wood, darling, am I?" said he. And Gwen replied, refitting spars in calmer water:--"No, dear, that you are not, but Lincoln's Inn Fields is.
Sitting there like an Egyptian God, with his hands on his knees!" She repacked a stray flood of gold that had escaped from its restraints--the most conspicuous record of the recent gale--and reassured her father with a liberal kiss. Then she thawed towards the legal mind. "I'm sure he's very good and kind and all that--Lincoln's Inn Fields, I mean, is--because people _are_. Only it's at heart they are, and I want it to come out like a rash." No doubt an interview with Dr. Dalrymple yesterday was answerable for this, having reference to the Typhus Fever patient. The eruption, he said, was subsiding favourably, and he was hourly expecting a fall in the temperature. But he had made a stand against her seeing the patient.
"If Hawtrey came out in a rash over all his clients' botherations," said the Earl, "he would very soon be in a state of confluent smallpox. What he's wanted for now is his brains. You'll see we shall have a letter from him, clearing it all up...."
"And you know what he'll say, I suppose? That is, if he's as clever as you think him!"
"I can't say that I feel absolutely certain. What do you suppose?"
Then Gwen gave a very fair conjectural review of the facts as this story knows them; saying, whenever she felt the ground insecure beneath her feet, that of course it was this way and not the other. A blessed expression that, to reinforce one's convictions!
However, she was not far wrong on any point, if the letter her father received next day from "Lincoln's Inn Fields" was right. It came by messenger, just as the family were sitting down to lunch with two or three friends, and his lordship said, "Will you excuse me?" without waiting for an answer, though one of his guests was a Rajah. Then he read the letter through, intently, while his Countess looked thunderclouds at him. "'Fore God, they are both of a tale!" said he, quoting. Then he sent it to Gwen by Norbury, who was embarrassed by her ladyship the Countess saying stiffly:--"Surely afterwards would do." But Gwen cut in with:--"No--I can't wait. Give it to me, Norbury!" And took it and read it as intently as her father had done. Having finished, she telegraphed to him, all the length of the table:--"Isn't that just what I said?" And then things went on as before. Only the Earl and his daughter had come off their _P_'s and _Q_'s, most lawlessly.
Here is the letter each had read, when off them:
"My dear Lord Ancester,
"I have thoroughly considered the letter, and return it herewith. I am satisfied that it is a forgery by the hand of the convict Daverill, but it is difficult to see what his object can have been, malice apart. It is clear, however, that it was to influence his wife, to what end it is impossible to say.
"The only theory I can have about the black ink is far-fetched. It is that a letter from England of that date was erased to make way for the forgery, these few black letters having been allowed to remain, not to disturb the English postmark, which partly-obscures them. You may notice some compromise or accommodation in the handwriting of the direction, evidently to slur over the difference. I suggest that the letter should be referred to some specialist in palimpsests, who may be able to detect some of the underlying original, which is absolutely invisible to me.
"If you meet with any other letter written by this ingenious penman, I suspect it will be in the pale ink of the forgery, which no doubt was as black as the English ink, when new.
"Believe me, my lord, your very faithful and obedient servant,
"JAMES HAWTREY."
"There can't be another letter of the ingenious penman's in the lot we left tied up, because he and his wife were living together, and not writing each other letters." So said Gwen afterwards, deprecating a suggestion of her father's that the packet should be opened and examined. But he replied:--"It is only to look at the colour of the ink.
We won't read old Mrs. Prichard's love-letters." However, nothing was found, all these letters having been written in England except the one from Sydney inviting her to come out, which was referred to early in this story. The Sydney ink had been different--that was all.
So all the letters were tied up again and placed _pro tem_. in the cinquecento cabinet, to be quite safe. They had been just about to vanish therein when the Earl made his suggestion. Nothing having come of it, the documents were put away, honourably unread, and Gwen hurried off to be given a lift to Cavendish Square by her mother. Her father exacted a promise from her that she would not force her way past Dr. Dalrymple into the patient's presence, come what might! She accompanied her mother in the carriage as far as her own destination. The Countess was on a card-leaving mission in Harley Street, and devoutly hoped that Lady Blank would not be at home. In that case she might take advantage of her liberty to go to a meeting at the Duchess of Sutherland's to abolish this horrible negro slavery in America, so as not to be exceptional, which was odious; and your father--Gwen's to wit--never would exert himself about anything, and was simply wrapped up in old violins and majolica. Of course it was right to put an end to slavery, and people _ought_ to exert themselves. Her ladyship waited in the carriage at the door till Gwen could supply an intensely authentic report--not what the servants were told to say to everybody; that was no use--of the precise condition of the patient, including the figures of the pulse and temperature, and whether she had had a good night. Gwen came back with a report from the nurse, to find Dr. Dalrymple conversing with her mother at the carriage door, and to be exhorted by him to follow her maternal example in matters of prudence. For the good lady had furnished herself with a smelling-bottle and was inhaling it religiously, as a prophylactic.
When she had departed, leaving Gwen wondering why on earth she was seized with such a desire just now to abolish negro slavery, Gwen returned into the house to await the doctor's last word about her friend. Waiting for him in the sitting-room, she read the _Times_, and naturally turned to the news from the Seat of War--it was then at its height--and became engrossed in the details of the Balaklava charge, a month since. The tragedy of the Crimea--every war is a tragedy--was at this time the all-engrossing topic in London and Paris, and men hung eagerly on every word that passed current as news. The reason it has so little place in this story is obvious--none of the essential events intersect. All our narrative has to tell relates to occurrences predetermined by a past that was forgotten long before Sebastopol was anticipated.
Gwen read the story of the great historical charge with a breathless interest certainly, but only as part of the playbill of a terrible drama, where the curtain was to fall on fireworks and a triumph for her own nationality; and, of course, its ally--_ca se vit_. Dr. Dalrymple reappeared, looking hopeful, with a good report, but too engrossed in his ease to be moved even by the Charge of the Light Brigade, or the state of the hospitals at Scutari. Where was Gwen going? To Sapps Court--where was that? Oh yes, just beyond his own destination, so he could give her a lift. And the carriage could take her on to hers and wait for her, just as easily as go home and come back for him. He might be detained a long time at the Hospital. Gwen accepted his offer gratefully, as a private brougham and a coachman made a sort of convoy.
In those days young ladies were not so much at their ease without an escort, as they have been of late years. According to some authorities, the new regime is entirely due to the bicycle.
Sapps Court had not been itself since the exciting event of the accident; at least, so said Aunt M'riar, referring to the disappearance of Mrs. Prichard chiefly. For the identity of Sapps depended a good deal on the identity of its inhabitants, and its interests penetrated very little into the great world without. It was very little affected even by the news of the War, favourable or the reverse: its patriotism was too great for that. This must be taken to mean that its confidence in its country's power of routing its foes was so deep-seated that an equally firm belief that its armies were starving and stricken with epidemics, and armed with guns that would not go off, and commanded by the lame, halt, and blind in their second childhood, did not in the least interfere with its stability. Whatever happened, the indomitable courage of Tommy Atkins and Jack would triumph over foes, who, when all was said and done, were only foreigners. Sapps Court's faith in Jack was so great that his position was even above Tommy's. When Jack was reported to have gone ashore at Balaklava to help Tommy to get his effete and useless artillery to bear on the walls of Sebastopol, Sapps Court drew a long breath of relief. Misgivings were germinating in its bosom as to whether cholera patients _could_ take fortresses on an empty stomach. But it would be all right now!
No doubt the Court's philosophical endurance of its share of the anxiety about the War was partly due to the fact that it hadn't got no relations there; or, at least, none to speak of. Michael Ragstroar's 'arf-sister's brother-in-law had certainly took the shilling, but Michael's father had expressed the opinion that this young man wouldn't do no good soldiering, and would only be in the way. Which had led Michael to say that this connection of his by marriage would ultimately get himself cashiered by Court Martial, for 'inderin'. Much better have stuck to chopping up live heels and makin' of 'em into pies at Ball's Pond, than go seeking glory at the cannon's mouth! Michael had not reflected on the comparative freedom of his own life, contrasted with the monotonous lot of this ill-starred young man; if, indeed, we may safely accept Micky's description of it as accurate. Sapps Court did so, and went on in the belief that the Ball's Pond recruit would prove a _gene_ upon the movements of the allied troops in the Crimea.
The interest of the Court, therefore, in the contemporary events which were thrilling the remainder of Europe, was ethical or strategical, and one had to go outside its limits to be brought into touch with personal connecting links. But they were to be met with near at hand, for Mrs.
Riley had ilivin relatives at the Sate of War, sivin of her own name, thray Donnigans, and one O'Rourke, a swate boy, though indade only a fosther-brother of her nayce Kathleen McDermott. Mrs. Tapping was unable to enumerate any near relations serving Her Majesty, but laid claim to consanguinity with distinguished officers, Generals of Division and Captains of three-deckers, all of whom had an exalted opinion of her own branch of the Family.
In the main, Sapps regarded the War as a mere Thing in the Newspapers, of which Uncle Mo heard more accurate details, at The Sun. There is nothing more unaccountable than the alacrity with which the human mind receives any statement in print, unless it is its readiness to surrender its belief on hearing a positive contradiction from a person who cannot possibly know anything about the matter. One sometimes feels forced to the conclusion that an absolute disqualification to speak on any subject is a condition precedent of procuring belief. Certainly a claim to inspiration enlists disciples quicker than the most subtle argument; acts, so to speak, as an aperient to the mind--a sort of intellectual Epsom Salts. Uncle Mo, in the simplicity of his heart, went every day for an hour to The Sun parlour, taking with him a profound belief in the latest news from the Seat of War, to have it shattered for him by the positive statements of persons who had probably not read the papers at all, and sometimes couldn't. For in those happy days there were still people who were unable to read or write.
Perhaps the only other customer in the parlour at The Sun, when Uncle Mo was smoking his pipe there, on the afternoon which saw the Countess interest herself in negro slavery, _was_ able to read and write, unknown to his friends, who had never seen him do either. They, however, knew, or professed to feel assured, that old Billy--for that was his only ascertainable name--knew everything. This may have been their vulgar fun; but if it was, old Billy's own convictions of his omniscience were not shaken by it, any more than a creed he professed, that small doses of rum shrub, took reg'lar, kept off old age. In a certain sense he took them regularly, counting the same number in every bar, with nearly the same pauses between each dose. Whether they were really helping him against Time and Decay or not, they were making him pink and dropsical, and had not prevented, if they had not helped to produce, a baldness as of an eggshell. This he would cover in, to counteract the draughty character which he ascribed to all bar parlours alike, with a cloth cap having ear-flaps, as soon as ever he had hung up a beaver hat which he might have inherited from a coaching ancestor.
This afternoon he was eloquent on foreign policy. Closing one eye to accentuate the shrewd vision of the other, and shaking his head continuously to express the steadiness and persistency of his convictions, he indicted Louis Napoleon as the _bete noire_ of European politics. "Don't you let yourself be took in, Mr. Moses," he said, "by any of these here noospapers. They're a bad lot. This here Nicholas, he's a Rooshian--so him I say nothin' about. Nor yet these here Turkeys--them and their Constant Eye No Pulls!"--this with great scorn.
"None of 'em no better, I lay, than Goard A'mighty see fit to make 'em, so it ain't, so as you might say, their own fault, not in a manner of speaking. But this Louis Sneapoleum, _he's_ your sly customer. He's as bad as the whole lot, all boiled up together in a stoo! Don't you be took in by him, Mr. Moses. Calls hisself a Coodytar! _I_ call him ..."
etcetera _de rigueur_, as some of old Billy's comparisons were unsavoury.
"Can't foller you all the way down the lane, Willy-um," said Uncle Mo, who could hardly be expected to identify Billy's variant of _Coup d'Etat_. "Ain't he our ally?"
"That's the p'int, Mr. Moses, the very p'int to not lose sight on, or where are we? He's got hisself made our ally for to get between him and the Rooshians. What he's a-drivin' at is to get us to fight his battles for him, and him to sit snug and accoomulate cucumbers like King Solomons."
Uncle Moses felt he ought to interpose on this revision of the Authorised Version of Scripture. "You haven't hit the word in the middle, mate," said he, and supplied it, correctly enough. "You can keep it in mind by thinking of them spiky beggars at the So-logical Gardens--porky pines--them as get their backs up when wexed and bristle."
"Well--corkupines, then! Have it your own way, old Mo! My back'd get up and bristle, if I was some of them! Only when it's womankind, the likes of us can't jedge, especially when French. All I can say is, him and them's got to settle it between 'em, and if _they_ can stand his blooming moostarsh, why, it's no affair of mine." Which was so obviously true that old Billy need not have gone on muttering to himself to the same effect. One would have thought that the Tuileries had applied to him to accept an appointment as _Censor Morum_.
"What's old Billy grizzlin' on about?" said Mr. Jeffcoat, the host of The Sun, bringing in another go of the shrub, and a modest small pewter of mild for Uncle Mo, who was welcome at this hostelry even when, as sometimes happened, he drank nothing; so powerful was his moral influence on its status. In fact, the Sporting World, which drank freely, frequented its parlour merely to touch the hand of the great heavyweight of other days, however much he was faded and all his glories past. Then would Uncle Mo give a sketch of his celebrated scrap with Bob Brettle, which ended in neither coming to Time, simultaneously. Mo would complain of an absurd newspaper report of the fight, which said the Umpires stopped the fight. "No such a thing!" said Uncle Mo. "I stopped Bob and he stopped me, fair and square. And there we was, come to grass, and stopping there." Perhaps the old boy was dreaming back on something of this sort, rather than listening to boozy old Billy's reflections on Imperial Morality, that Mr. Jeffcoat should have repeated again:--"What's old Billy grizzling about? You pay for both, Mr. Moses?
Fourpence halfpenny, thank you!"
"He's letting out at the Emperor of the French, is Billy. He'd do his dags for him, Billy would, if he could get at him. Wouldn't you, Billy?
I say, Tim, whose voice was that I heard in the Bar just now, naming me by name?"
"Ah, I was just on telling you. He walks in and he says to me, when does Moses Wardle come in here, he says, and how long does he stop, mostly?
And I says to him ..."
"What sort of a feller to look at?" said Uncle Mo, interrupting. "Old or young? Long? Short? Anything about him to go by?"
This called for consideration. "Not what you would call an average party. His gills was too much slewed to one side." This was illustrated by a finger hooking down the corner of the mouth. "Looked as if his best clothes was being took care of for him."
"What did he want o' me?" Uncle Mo's interest seemed roused.
"I was telling of you. When did you come and how long did you stop? Best part of an hour, I says, and you was here now. You'll find him in the parlour, I says. Go in and see, I says. And I thought to find him in here, having took my eyes off him for the moment."
"He's not been in here," said Uncle Mo, emptying his pipe prematurely, and apparently hurrying off without taking his half of mild. "Which way did he go?"
"Which way did the party go, Soozann?" said the host to his wife in the bar. Who replied:--"Couldn't say. Said he'd be back in half an hour, and went. Fancy he went to the right, but couldn't say."
"_He_ won't be back in half an hour," said Uncle Mo. "Not if he's the man I take him for. You see, he's one of these here chaps that tells lies. You've heard o' them; seen one, p'r'aps?" Mr. Jeffcoat testified that he had, in his youth, and that rumours of their existence still reached him at odd times. Those who listen about in the byways of London will hear endless conversation on this model, always conducted with the most solemn gravity, with a perfect understanding of its inversions and perversions.
Uncle Mo hurried away, leaving instructions that his half-pint should be bestowed on any person whose tastes lay in that direction. Mr. Jeffcoat might meet with such a one. You never could tell. He hastened home as fast as his enemy Gout permitted, and saw when he turned into the short street at the end of which Sapps lay hidden, that something abnormal was afoot. There stood Dr. Dalrymple's pill-box, wondering, no doubt, why it had carried a segment of an upper circle to such a Court as this. If it had been the Doctor himself, it would not have given a thought to the matter, for it used to bear its owner to all sorts of places, from St.
James's Palace to Seven Dials.