"They belonged to a poor cripple who was murdered two months since."
"And that body that was found down among the Yorkshire Hills?"
"He was a peddler. There is nothing to induce a belief that Mountjoy has killed himself or been killed. In the former case his dead body would be found or his live body would be missing. For the second there is no imaginable cause for suspicion."
"Then where the devil is he?" said the anxious father.
"Ah, that"s the difficulty. But I can imagine no position in which a man might be more tempted to hide himself. He is disgraced on every side, and could hardly show his face in London after the money he has lost.
You would not have paid his gambling debts?"
"Certainly not," said the father. "There must be an end to all things."
"Nor could I. Within the last month past he has drawn from me every shilling that I have had at my immediate command."
"Why did you give "em to him?"
"It would be difficult to explain all the reasons. He was then my elder brother, and it suited me to have him somewhat under my hand. At any rate I did do so, and am unable for the present to do more. Looking round about, I do not see where it was possible for him to raise a sovereign as soon as it was once known that he was n.o.body."
"What will become of him?" said the father. "I don"t like the idea of his being starved. He can"t live without something to live upon."
"G.o.d tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," said the son. "For lambs such as he there always seems to be pasture provided of one sort or another."
"You would not like to have to trust to such pastures," said the father.
"Nor should I like to be hanged; but I should have to be hanged if I had committed murder. Think of the chances which he has had, and the way in which he has misused them. Although illegitimate, he was to have had the whole property,--of which not a shilling belongs to him; and he has not lost it because it was not his own, but has simply gambled it away among the Jews. What can happen to a man in such a condition better than to turn up as a hunter among the Rocky Mountains or as a gold-digger in Australia? In this last adventure he seems to have plunged horribly, and to have lost over three thousand pounds. You wouldn"t have paid that for him?"
"Not again;--certainly not again."
"Then what could he do better than disappear? I suppose I shall have to make him an allowance some of these days, and if he can live and keep himself dark I will do so."
There was in this a tacit allusion to his father"s speedy death which was grim enough; but the father pa.s.sed it by without any expression of displeasure. He certainly owed much to his younger son, and was willing to pay it by quiescence. Let them both forbear. Such was the language which he held to himself in thinking of his younger son. Augustus was certainly behaving well to him. Not a word of rebuke had pa.s.sed his lips as to the infamous attempt at spoliation which had been made. The old squire felt grateful for his younger son"s conduct, but yet in his heart of hearts he preferred the elder.
"He has denuded me of every penny," said Augustus, "and I must ask you to refund me something of what has gone."
"He has kept me very bare. A man with so great a propensity for getting rid of money I think no father ever before had to endure."
"You have had the last of it."
"I do not know that. If I live, and he lets me know his whereabouts, I cannot leave him penniless. I do feel that a great injustice has been done him."
"I don"t exactly see it," said Augustus.
"Because you"re too hard-hearted to put yourself in another man"s place.
He was my eldest son."
"He thought that he was."
"And should have remained so had there been a hope for him," said the squire, roused to temporary anger. Augustus only shrugged his shoulders. "But there is no good talking about it."
"Not the least in the world. Mr. Grey, I suppose, knows the truth at last. I shall have to get three or four thousand pounds from you, or I too must resort to the Jews. I shall do it, at any rate, under better circ.u.mstances than my brother."
Some arrangement was at last made which was satisfactory to the son, and which we must presume that the father found to be endurable. Then the son took his leave, and went back to London, with the understood intention of pushing the inquiries as to his brother"s existence and whereabouts.
The sudden and complete disappearance of Captain Scarborough struck Mrs.
Mountjoy with the deepest awe. It was not at first borne in upon her to believe that Captain Mountjoy Scarborough, an officer in the Coldstreams, and the acknowledged heir to the Tretton property, had vanished away as a stray street-sweeper might do, or some milliner"s lowest work-woman. But at last there were advertis.e.m.e.nts in all the newspapers and placards on all the walls, and Mrs. Mountjoy did understand that the captain was gone. She could as yet hardly believe that he was no longer heir to Tretton: and in such short discussions with Florence as were necessary on the subject she preferred to express no opinion whatever as to his conduct. But she would by no means give way when urged to acknowledge that no marriage between Florence and the captain was any longer to be regarded as possible. While the captain was away the matter should be left as if in abeyance; but this by no means suited the young lady"s views. Mrs. Mountjoy was not a reticent woman, and had no doubt been too free in whispering among her friends something of her daughter"s position. This Florence had resented; but it had still been done, and in Cheltenham generally she was regarded as an engaged young lady. It had been in vain that she had denied that it was so. Her mother"s word on such a subject was supposed to be more credible that her own; and now this man with whom she was believed to be so closely connected had disappeared from the world among the most disreputable circ.u.mstances. But when she explained the difficulty to her mother her mother bade her hold her tongue for the present, and seemed to hold out a hope that the captain might at last be restored to his old position.
"Let them restore him ever so much, he would never be anything to me, mamma." Then Mrs. Mountjoy would only shake her head and purse her lips.
On the evening of the day after the fracas in the street Harry Annesley went down to Buston, and there remained for the next two or three days, holding his tongue absolutely as to the adventure of that night. There was no one at Buston to whom he would probably have made known the circ.u.mstances. But there was clinging to it a certain flavor of disreputable conduct on his own part which sealed his lips altogether.
The louder and more frequent the tidings which reached his ears as to the captain"s departure, the more strongly did he feel that duty required him to tell what he knew upon the matter. Many thoughts and many fears encompa.s.sed him. At first was the idea that he had killed the man by the violence of his blow, or that his death had been caused by the fall. Then it occurred to him that it was impossible that Scarborough should have been killed and that no account should be given as to the finding of the body. At last he persuaded himself that he could not have killed the man, but he was a.s.sured at the same time that the disappearance must in some sort have been occasioned by what then took place. And it could not but be that the captain, if alive, should be aware of the nature of the struggle which had taken place. He heard, chiefly from the newspapers, the full record of the captain"s illegitimacy; he heard of his condition with the creditors; he heard of those gambling debts which were left unpaid at the club. He saw it also stated--and repeated--that these were the grounds for the man"s disappearance. It was quite credible that the man should disappear, or endeavor to disappear, under such a cloud of difficulties. It did not require that he and his violence should be adduced as an extra cause.
Indeed, had the man been minded to vanish before the encounter, he might in all human probability have been deterred by the circ.u.mstances of the quarrel. It gave no extra reason for his disappearance, and could in no wise be counted with it were he to tell the whole story, in Scotland Yard. He had been grossly misused on the occasion, and had escaped from such misusage by the only means in his power. But still he felt that, had he told the story, people far and wide would have connected his name with the man"s absence, and, worse again, that Florence"s name would have become entangled with it also. For the first day or two he had from hour to hour abstained from telling all that he knew, and then when the day or two were pa.s.sed, and when a week had run by,--when a fortnight had been allowed to go,--it was impossible for him not to hold his tongue.
He became nervous, unhappy, and irritated down at Buston, with his father and mother and sister"s, but more especially with his uncle.
Previous to this his uncle for a couple of months had declined to see him; now he was sent for to the Hall and interrogated daily on this special subject. Mr. Prosper was aware that his nephew had been intimate with Augustus Scarborough, and that he might, therefore, be presumed to know much about the family. Mr. Prosper took the keenest interest in the illegitimacy and the impecuniosity and final disappearance of the captain, and no doubt did, in his cross-examinations, discover the fact that Harry was unwilling to answer his questions. He found out for the first time that Harry was acquainted with the captain, and also contrived to extract from him the name of Miss Mountjoy. But he could learn nothing else, beyond Harry"s absolute unwillingness to talk upon the subject, which was in itself much. It must be understood that Harry was not specially reverential in these communications. Indeed, he gave his uncle to understand that he regarded his questions as impertinent, and at last declared his intention of not coming to the Hall any more for the present. Then Mr. Prosper whispered to his sister that he was quite sure that Harry Annesley knew more than he choose to say as to Captain Scarborough"s whereabouts.
"My dear Peter," said Mrs. Annesley, "I really think that you are doing poor Harry an injustice."
Mrs. Annesley was always on her guard to maintain something like an affectionate intercourse between her own family and the squire.
"My dear Anne, you do not see into a millstone as far as I do. You never did."
"But, Peter, you really shouldn"t say such things of Harry. When all the police-officers themselves are looking about to catch up anything in their way, they would catch him up at a moment"s notice if they heard that a magistrate of the county had expressed such an opinion."
"Why don"t he tell me?" said Mr. Prosper.
"There"s nothing to tell."
"Ah, that"s your opinion--because you can"t see into a millstone. I tell you that Harry knows more about this Captain Scarborough than any one else. They were very intimate together."
"Harry only just knew him."
"Well, you"ll see. I tell you that Harry"s name will become mixed up with Captain Scarborough"s, and I hope that it will be in no discreditable manner. I hope so, that"s all." Harry in the mean time had returned to London, in order to escape his uncle, and to be on the spot to learn anything that might come in his way as to the now acknowledged mystery respecting the captain.
Such was the state of things at the commencement of the period to which my story refers.
CHAPTER V.
AUGUSTUS SCARBOROUGH.
Harry Annesley, when he found himself in London, could not for a moment shake off that feeling of nervous anxiety as to the fate of Mountjoy Scarborough which had seized hold of him. In every newspaper which he took in his hand he looked first for the paragraph respecting the fate of the missing man, which the paper was sure to contain in one of its columns. It was his habit during these few days to breakfast at a club, and he could not abstain from speaking to his neighbors about the wonderful Scarborough incident. Every man was at this time willing to speak on the subject, and Harry"s interest might not have seemed to be peculiar; but it became known that he had been acquainted with the missing man, and Harry in conversation said much more than it would have been prudent for him to do on the understanding that he wished to remain unconnected with the story. Men asked him questions as though he were likely to know; and he would answer them, a.s.serting that he knew nothing, but still leaving an impression behind that he did know more than he chose to avow. Many inquiries were made daily at this time in Scotland Yard as to the captain. These, no doubt, chiefly came from the creditors and their allies. But Harry Annesley became known among those who asked for information as Henry Annesley, Esq., late of St. John"s College, Cambridge; and even the police were taught to think that there was something noticeable in the interest which he displayed.
On the fourth day after his arrival in London, just at that time of the year when everybody was supposed to be leaving town, and when faded members of Parliament, who allowed themselves to be retained for the purpose of final divisions, were cursing their fate amid the heats of August, Harry accepted an invitation to dine with Augustus Scarborough at his chambers in the Temple. He understood when he accepted the invitation that no one else was to be there, and must have been aware that it was the intention of the heir of Tretton to talk to him respecting his brother. He had not seen Scarborough since he had been up in town, and had not been desirous of seeing him; but when the invitation came he had told himself that it would be better that he should accept it, and that he would allow his host to say what he pleased to say on the subject, he himself remaining reticent. But poor Harry little knew the difficulty of reticency when the heart is full. He had intended to be very reticent when he came up to London, and had, in fact, done nothing but talk about the missing man, as to whom he had declared that he would altogether hold his tongue.
The reader must here be pleased to remember that Augustus Scarborough was perfectly well aware of what had befallen his brother, and must, therefore, have known among other things of the quarrel which had taken place in the streets. He knew, therefore, that Harry was concealing his knowledge, and could make a fair guess at the state of the poor fellow"s mind.