"None--or some reference to it must have appeared in this book."
"May I take a copy of the entry?"
"Certainly! You are a little agitated. Let me make a copy for you."
"My only chance, I suppose," said Wilding, looking sadly at the copy, "is to inquire at Mrs. Miller"s residence, and to try if her references can help me?"
"That is the only chance I see at present," answered the Treasurer. "I heartily wish I could have been of some further a.s.sistance to you."
With those farewell words to comfort him Wilding set forth on the journey of investigation which began from the Foundling doors. The first stage to make for, was plainly the house of business of the bankers in Lombard Street. Two of the partners in the firm were inaccessible to chance-visitors when he asked for them. The third, after raising certain inevitable difficulties, consented to let a clerk examine the ledger marked with the initial letter "M." The account of Mrs. Miller, widow, of Groombridge Wells, was found. Two long lines, in faded ink, were drawn across it; and at the bottom of the page there appeared this note: "Account closed, September 30th, 1837."
So the first stage of the journey was reached--and so it ended in No Thoroughfare! After sending a note to Cripple Corner to inform his partner that his absence might be prolonged for some hours, Wilding took his place in the train, and started for the second stage on the journey--Mrs. Miller"s residence at Groombridge Wells.
Mothers and children travelled with him; mothers and children met each other at the station; mothers and children were in the shops when he entered them to inquire for Lime-Tree Lodge. Everywhere, the nearest and dearest of human relations showed itself happily in the happy light of day. Everywhere, he was reminded of the treasured delusion from which he had been awakened so cruelly--of the lost memory which had pa.s.sed from him like a reflection from a gla.s.s.
Inquiring here, inquiring there, he could hear of no such place as Lime- Tree Lodge. Pa.s.sing a house-agent"s office, he went in wearily, and put the question for the last time. The house-agent pointed across the street to a dreary mansion of many windows, which might have been a manufactory, but which was an hotel. "That"s where Lime-Tree Lodge stood, sir," said the man, "ten years ago."
The second stage reached, and No Thoroughfare again!
But one chance was left. The clerical reference, Mr. Harker, still remained to be found. Customers coming in at the moment to occupy the house-agent"s attention, Wilding went down the street, and entering a bookseller"s shop, asked if he could be informed of the Reverend John Harker"s present address.
The bookseller looked unaffectedly shocked and astonished, and made no answer.
Wilding repeated his question.
The bookseller took up from his counter a prim little volume in a binding of sober gray. He handed it to his visitor, open at the t.i.tle-page.
Wilding read:
"The martyrdom of the Reverend John Harker in New Zealand. Related by a former member of his flock."
Wilding put the book down on the counter. "I beg your pardon," he said thinking a little, perhaps, of his own present martyrdom while he spoke.
The silent bookseller acknowledged the apology by a bow. Wilding went out.
Third and last stage, and No Thoroughfare for the third and last time.
There was nothing more to be done; there was absolutely no choice but to go back to London, defeated at all points. From time to time on the return journey, the wine-merchant looked at his copy of the entry in the Foundling Register. There is one among the many forms of despair--perhaps the most pitiable of all--which persists in disguising itself as Hope.
Wilding checked himself in the act of throwing the useless morsel of paper out of the carriage window. "It may lead to something yet," he thought. "While I live, I won"t part with it. When I die, my executors shall find it sealed up with my will."
Now, the mention of his will set the good wine-merchant on a new track of thought, without diverting his mind from its engrossing subject. He must make his will immediately.
The application of the phrase No Thoroughfare to the case had originated with Mr. Bintrey. In their first long conference following the discovery, that sagacious personage had a hundred times repeated, with an obstructive shake of the head, "No Thoroughfare, Sir, No Thoroughfare. My belief is that there is no way out of this at this time of day, and my advice is, make yourself comfortable where you are."
In the course of the protracted consultation, a magnum of the forty-five year old port-wine had been produced for the wetting of Mr. Bintrey"s legal whistle; but the more clearly he saw his way through the wine, the more emphatically he did not see his way through the case; repeating as often as he set his gla.s.s down empty. "Mr. Wilding, No Thoroughfare.
Rest and be thankful."
It is certain that the honest wine-merchant"s anxiety to make a will originated in profound conscientiousness; though it is possible (and quite consistent with his rect.i.tude) that he may unconsciously have derived some feeling of relief from the prospect of delegating his own difficulty to two other men who were to come after him. Be that as it may, he pursued his new track of thought with great ardour, and lost no time in begging George Vendale and Mr. Bintrey to meet him in Cripple Corner and share his confidence.
"Being all three a.s.sembled with closed doors," said Mr. Bintrey, addressing the new partner on the occasion, "I wish to observe, before our friend (and my client) entrusts us with his further views, that I have endorsed what I understand from him to have been your advice, Mr.
Vendale, and what would be the advice of every sensible man. I have told him that he positively must keep his secret. I have spoken with Mrs.
Goldstraw, both in his presence and in his absence; and if anybody is to be trusted (which is a very large IF), I think she is to be trusted to that extent. I have pointed out to our friend (and my client), that to set on foot random inquiries would not only be to raise the Devil, in the likeness of all the swindlers in the kingdom, but would also be to waste the estate. Now, you see, Mr. Vendale, our friend (and my client) does not desire to waste the estate, but, on the contrary, desires to husband it for what he considers--but I can"t say I do--the rightful owner, if such rightful owner should ever be found. I am very much mistaken if he ever will be, but never mind that. Mr. Wilding and I are, at least, agreed that the estate is not to be wasted. Now, I have yielded to Mr.
Wilding"s desire to keep an advertis.e.m.e.nt at intervals flowing through the newspapers, cautiously inviting any person who may know anything about that adopted infant, taken from the Foundling Hospital, to come to my office; and I have pledged myself that such advertis.e.m.e.nt shall regularly appear. I have gathered from our friend (and my client) that I meet you here to-day to take his instructions, not to give him advice. I am prepared to receive his instructions, and to respect his wishes; but you will please observe that this does not imply my approval of either as a matter of professional opinion."
Thus Mr. Bintrey; talking quite is much _at_ Wilding as _to_ Vendale. And yet, in spite of his care for his client, he was so amused by his client"s Quixotic conduct, as to eye him from time to time with twinkling eyes, in the light of a highly comical curiosity.
"Nothing," observed Wilding, "can be clearer. I only wish my head were as clear as yours, Mr. Bintrey."
"If you feel that singing in it coming on," hinted the lawyer, with an alarmed glance, "put it off.--I mean the interview."
"Not at all, I thank you," said Wilding. "What was I going to--"
"Don"t excite yourself, Mr. Wilding," urged the lawyer.
"No; I _wasn"t_ going to," said the wine-merchant. "Mr. Bintrey and George Vendale, would you have any hesitation or objection to become my joint trustees and executors, or can you at once consent?"
"_I_ consent," replied George Vendale, readily.
"_I_ consent," said Bintrey, not so readily.
"Thank you both. Mr. Bintrey, my instructions for my last will and testament are short and plain. Perhaps you will now have the goodness to take them down. I leave the whole of my real and personal estate, without any exception or reservation whatsoever, to you two, my joint trustees and executors, in trust to pay over the whole to the true Walter Wilding, if he shall be found and identified within two years after the day of my death. Failing that, in trust to you two to pay over the whole as a benefaction and legacy to the Foundling Hospital."
"Those are all your instructions, are they, Mr. Wilding?" demanded Bintrey, after a blank silence, during which n.o.body had looked at anybody.
"The whole."
"And as to those instructions, you have absolutely made up your mind, Mr.
Wilding?"
"Absolutely, decidedly, finally."
"It only remains," said the lawyer, with one shrug of his shoulders, "to get them into technical and binding form, and to execute and attest. Now, does that press? Is there any hurry about it? You are not going to die yet, sir."
"Mr. Bintrey," answered Wilding, gravely, "when I am going to die is within other knowledge than yours or mine. I shall be glad to have this matter off my mind, if you please."
"We are lawyer and client again," rejoined Bintrey, who, for the nonce, had become almost sympathetic. "If this day week--here, at the same hour--will suit Mr. Vendale and yourself, I will enter in my Diary that I attend you accordingly."
The appointment was made, and in due sequence, kept. The will was formally signed, sealed, delivered, and witnessed, and was carried off by Mr. Bintrey for safe storage among the papers of his clients, ranged in their respective iron boxes, with their respective owners" names outside, on iron tiers in his consulting-room, as if that legal sanctuary were a condensed Family Vault of Clients.
With more heart than he had lately had for former subjects of interest, Wilding then set about completing his patriarchal establishment, being much a.s.sisted not only by Mrs. Goldstraw but by Vendale too: who, perhaps, had in his mind the giving of an Obenreizer dinner as soon as possible. Anyhow, the establishment being reported in sound working order, the Obenreizers, Guardian and Ward, were asked to dinner, and Madame Dor was included in the invitation. If Vendale had been over head and ears in love before--a phrase not to be taken as implying the faintest doubt about it--this dinner plunged him down in love ten thousand fathoms deep. Yet, for the life of him, he could not get one word alone with charming Marguerite. So surely as a blessed moment seemed to come, Obenreizer, in his filmy state, would stand at Vendale"s elbow, or the broad back of Madame Dor would appear before his eyes. That speechless matron was never seen in a front view, from the moment of her arrival to that of her departure--except at dinner. And from the instant of her retirement to the drawing-room, after a hearty partic.i.p.ation in that meal, she turned her face to the wall again.
Yet, through four or five delightful though distracting hours, Marguerite was to be seen, Marguerite was to be heard, Marguerite was to be occasionally touched. When they made the round of the old dark cellars, Vendale led her by the hand; when she sang to him in the lighted room at night, Vendale, standing by her, held her relinquished gloves, and would have bartered against them every drop of the forty-five year old, though it had been forty-five times forty-five years old, and its nett price forty-five times forty-five pounds per dozen. And still, when she was gone, and a great gap of an extinguisher was clapped on Cripple Corner, he tormented himself by wondering, Did she think that he admired her! Did she think that he adored her! Did she suspect that she had won him, heart and soul! Did she care to think at all about it! And so, Did she and Didn"t she, up and down the gamut, and above the line and below the line, dear, dear! Poor restless heart of humanity! To think that the men who were mummies thousands of years ago, did the same, and ever found the secret how to be quiet after it!
"What do you think, George," Wilding asked him next day, "of Mr.
Obenreizer? (I won"t ask you what you think of Miss Obenreizer.)"
"I don"t know," said Vendale, "and I never did know, what to think of him."
"He is well informed and clever," said Wilding.
"Certainly clever."