"Sir, you must not judge these eastern mendicants by your London beggars. They are not thieves, nor avaricious, but religious men practising self-denial, who collect alms merely to support life, and believe that money so bestowed blesses the giver."
"A singularly perverted race!" was the apothecary"s comment.
Captain Bewes turned towards Mr. Samuel, who next spoke from the penumbra at the far end of the table. "I believe, Captain," said he, "that these mendicants are as a rule the most harmless of men?"
"Wouldn"t hurt a fly, sir. I have known some whose charity extended to the vermin on their own bodies."
Mrs. Wesley sat tapping the mahogany gently with her finger-tips.
"To my thinking, the key of this mystery, if there be one, lies at Surat. My brother had powerful enemies: his letters make that clear.
We must inquire into _them_--their numbers and the particular grudge they bore him--and also into the state of his mind. He was not the sort of person to be kidnapped in open day."
--"By a Thames waterman, for instance, madam?" said Captain Bewes, jocularly, but instantly changed his tone. "You suggest that he may have disappeared on his own account? To avoid his enemies, you mean?"
"As to his motives, sir, I say nothing: but it certainly looks to me as if he had planned to give you the slip."
"Tut-tut!" exclaimed Matthew. "And left his money behind?
Not likely!"
"We have still his boxes to search--"
"Under power of attorney," Sam suggested. "We must see about getting it to-morrow."
"Well, madam"--Captain Bewes knocked out his pipe, drained his gla.s.s, and rose--"the boxes shall be delivered up as soon as you bring me authority: and I trust, for my own sake as well as yours, the contents will clear up this mystery for us. I shall be tied to my ship for the next three days, possibly for another week--"
He was holding out his hand to Mrs. Wesley when the door opened behind him, and Sally appeared.
"If you please," she announced, "there"s a gentleman without, wishes to see the company. He calls himself Mr. Wesley."
"It cannot be Charles?" Mrs. Wesley turned towards her son Sam.
"But Charles must be at Westminster and in bed these two hours!"
"Surely," said he.
""Tis not young Master Charles, ma"am, nor anyone like him: but a badger-faced old gentleman who snaps up a word before "tis out of your mouth."
"Show him in," commanded Matthew: and the words were scarcely out before the visitor stood in the doorway. Mrs. Wesley recognised him at once as the old gentleman who had stood beside her that morning and watched the fight.
"Good evening, ma"am. I learned your address at Westminster: or, to be precise, at the Reverend Samuel Wesley"s. You are he, I suppose?"--here he swung round upon Sam--"Your amiable wife told me I should find you here: and so much the better, my visit being on family business. Eh? What? I hope I"m not turning out this gentleman?"--indicating Captain Bewes--"No? Well, if you were leaving, sir, I won"t detain you: since, as I say, mine is family business. Mr. Matthew Wesley, I presume?"--with a quick turn towards his host as Captain Bewes slipped away--"And brother of this lady"s husband? Quite so. No, I thank you, I do not smoke; but will take snuff, if the company allows. I have heard reports of your skill, sir. My name is Wesley also: Garrett Wesley, of Dangan, County Meath, in Ireland: I sit for my county in Parliament and pa.s.s in this world for a respectable person. You"ll excuse these details, ma"am; but when a man breaks in upon a family party at this hour of the night, he ought to give some account of himself."
Mrs. Wesley rose from her chair and dropped him a stately curtsey.
"The name suffices for us, sir. I make my compliments to one of my husband"s family."
"I"m obliged to you, ma"am, and pleased to hear the kinship acknowledged. A good family, as families go, though I say it.
We have held on to Dangan since Harry Fifth"s time; and to our name since Guy of Welswe was made a thane by Athelstan. We have a knack, ma"am, of staying the course: small in the build but sound in the wind. It did me good, to-day, to see that son of yours step out for the last round."
"Excuse me--" put in Samuel, pushing a candle aside and craning forward (he was short-sighted) for a better look at the visitor.
"Ha? You have not heard? Well, well--oughtn"t to tell tales out of school, and certainly not to the Usher: but your mother and I, sir, had the fortune, this morning, to witness a bout of fisticuffs--Whig against Tory--and perhaps it will not altogether distress you to learn that the Whig took a whipping. I like that boy of yours, ma"am: he has breed. I do not forget"--with another bow--"his mother"s descent from the Annesleys of Anglesea and Valentia: but she will forgive me that, while watching him, I thought rather of his blood derived from my own great-great-grandfather Robert, and of our common ancestors--Walter, the king"s standard-bearer, Edward, who carried the heart of the Bruce to Palestine--but I weary Mr. Matthew perhaps?"
"Not at all, sir," the apothecary protested: rubbing a lump of sugar on the rind of a lemon. "You will suffer me to mix you a gla.s.s of punch while I listen? I am a practical man, who has been forced to make his own way in the world, and has made it, I thank G.o.d. I never found these ancestors of any use to me; but if one of them had time and leisure to carry the heart of the Bruce to Jerusalem I hope I have the leisure to hear about it. Did he return, may I ask?"
"He did not, sir. The Saracens slew him before the Holy Sepulchre, and in fact the undertaking was, as you would regard it, unprofitable. But it gave us the palmer-sh.e.l.ls on our coat of arms-- argent, a cross sable, in each corner three escallops of the last.
I believe, ma"am, the coat differs somewhat in your husband"s branch of the family?" He spread a hand on the table so that the candle-light fell on his signet ring.
Mrs. Wesley smiled. "We keep the scallops, sir."
"Scallops!" grunted the apothecary. "Better for you, Susanna, if your husband had ever found the oyster!"
Garrett Wesley glanced at him from under his badger-gray brows.
"We may be coming to the oyster, sir, if you have patience. Crest, a wivern proper: motto, "G.o.d is love." I am thinking, ma"am, a child of yours might find some use for that motto, since children of my own I have none."
"There could be none n.o.bler, sir," Mrs. Wesley answered.
""Tis his then, ma"am, if you can spare me your son Charles."
The lump of sugar dropped from old Matthew"s fingers and splashed into the tumbler, and with that there fell a silence on the room.
Samuel half rose from his couch and pa.s.sed a nervous hand over his thick black hair. His purblind eyes sought his mother"s; hers were fastened on this eccentric kinsman, but with a look that pa.s.sed beyond him. Her lips were parted.
"G.o.d is love," she repeated it, soft and low, but with a thrill at which Garrett Wesley raised his head. "If ever I had distrusted it, that love is manifested here to-night. There was a kinsman, sir, from whom I hoped much for my son; to-day I learn that he is lost-- dead, most like--and those hopes with him. He was my brother, and G.o.d--who understands mothers, and knows, moreover, how small was ever Samuel Annesley"s kindness--must forgive me that I grieved less for him than for Charles"s sake. The tale was brought us by the honest man who has just left, and it is scarcely told when another kinsman enters and lays his fortune in Charles"s hands. Therefore I thank G.o.d for His goodness and"--her voice wavered and she ended with a frank laugh at her own expense--"you, on your part, may read the quality of the grat.i.tude to expect from me. At least I have been honest, sir."
"Ma"am, I have lived long enough to value honesty above grat.i.tude.
I make this offer to please myself. The point is, Do I understand that you accept?"
"As for that," she answered deliberately--and Sam leaned forward again--"as for that, I am a married woman, and have learnt to submit to my husband"s judgment. To be sure I have acquired some skill in guessing at it." She smiled again. "My husband is no ordinary man to jump at this offer. He has three sons, besides his women folk--"
"Whom he neglects," put in Matthew.
"His dearest ambition is to see each of these three an accredited servant of Christ. He desires learning for them, and the priest"s habit, and the living G.o.d in their hearts. It will appear strange to you that he should rate these above wealth and a castle in Ireland and a seat in Parliament; but in fact he would. I know him. Think what you will of his ambition, it has this much of sincerity, that he is willing to pinch and starve for it. This, too, I have proved."
"You might add, mother," interposed Sam, "that he would like all these the better with a little success to season them."
"No, I will add that he has perhaps enough respect for me to listen to my entreaties and allow Charles to choose for himself. And this for the moment, sir, is all I can promise, though I thank you from the bottom of my heart."
"Tut, woman!" snapped the apothecary. "Close with the offer and don"t be a fool. My brother, sir, may be pig-headed--sit down, Susanna!"
"You and I, sir," said Garrett Wesley, "as childless men, are in no position to judge a parent"s feelings."
"Children? Let me tell you that I had a son, sir, and he broke my heart. He is in India now, I believe; a middle-aged rake. I give you leave to find and adopt _him_, so long as you don"t ask me to see his face again. One was too many for me, and here"s a woman with ten children alive--Heaven knows how many she"s buried--ten children alive and half-clothed, and herself the youngest of twenty-five!"
He broke off and chuckled. "Did you ever hear tell, sir, what old Dr. Martin said after baptizing Susanna here? Someone asked him "How many children had Dr. Annesley?" "I forget for the moment,"
said the doctor, but "tis either two dozen or a quarter of a hundred." And here"s a woman, sir, with such a sense of her offspring"s importance that she higgles over accepting a fortune for one of "em!"
"Can you suffer this, ma"am?" Garrett Wesley began. But the apothecary for the moment was neither to hold nor to bind.
"Sam! _You_ have a grain of sense in your head. Don"t sit there mum-chance, man! Speak up and tell your mother not to be a fool.
You are no child; you know your father, and that, if given one chance in a hundred to act perversely, he"ll take it as sure as fate.
For heaven"s sake persuade your mother to use common caution and keep his finger out of this pie!"
"Nay, sir," answered Sam, "I think she has the right of it, that my father ought to be told; and that the chances are he will leave it to Charles to decide."