"Every instinct tells me that she does," I replied, "though love is undeclared on both sides as yet, and must so remain until she returns from France. But already I would trust her with my life. She has long held Daunt in contempt; only think, sir, how she will regard him once he is revealed in his true colours as the instigator of the attack on her father. I have not the slightest doubt that she will support us in all our endeavours to unmask his villainy, and so expose his true character to Lord Tansor." And then I told him of Daunt"s a.s.sociation with Pluckrose; of his criminal career, as described to me by Lewis Pettingale, including his involvement in the swindle perpetrated against the firm; and finally of my conviction that Mr Carteret had been set upon by Pluckrose acting on Daunt"s orders.
He made no attempt to write a response, though the pen was in his hand. Instead he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, apparently overcome with fatigue.
"Sir," I said gently. "There is one more thing I must say to you." Mr Tredgold remained immobile. "I believe I know where the final proof of my ident.i.ty may be found."
He opened his eyes slowly and looked at me.
As I had spoken the words, Miss Tredgold had entered the room, preventing me from speaking further. On seeing her brother"s face, she p.r.o.nounced him unfit to continue with the conversation and I had no choice but to withdraw, though it was agreed that I might come again the following Wednesday, if his condition continued to improve.
But I did not keep the appointment. When I returned to Temple-street I found a letter waiting for me bearing a Paris postmark. I saw immediately that the envelope had not been inscribed by Miss Carteret; but I tore it open all the same. It was a short note from Mademoiselle Buisson.
DEAR MR DARK HORSE - I am bidden by our mutual friend to inform you that she will be returning to England on Monday next and will be most happy to receive you at the house of Mrs Manners on Wednesday. She has a slight indisposition at the present which prevents her from writing to you herself. I may say, entre nous, that she has been a very dull companion indeed, the blame for which I lay entirely at your door. It has been "Mr Glapthorn this" and "Mr Glapthorn that" these weeks past, as if there was no other topic of conversation in the world but Mr Edward Glapthorn. And then with all Paris to play in, she has done nothing but keep to the house, except for little walks alone in the Bois on fine mornings, with her nose in a book. Today she is reading a book of poetry by M. de Lisle, which I had to go out and buy with my own money! Et enfin, Mr Glapthorn, you are welcome to her. But do not fall in love with her. I am serious now.
Adieu, chere Monsieur, MARIE-MADELEINE BUISSON.
I read the note through again, smiling as I called to mind the writer"s little-girlish look and her mischievously mocking ways. Serious! Flitting, fluttering Miss Buisson could never be serious. Her admonition was nothing but a piece of ironic teasing; for she must know that it was already too late.
Wednesday came the day when I should have gone back to Canterbury to see Mr Tredgold. Instead, at eleven o"clock exactly, I knocked on the door of Mrs Manners" house in Wilton-crescent and asked if Miss Emily Carteret was at home.
"She is, sir," said the maid. "You are expected."
"There," she said as I entered the drawing-room, "I have kept my promise, you see. I am back, and you are the first person I have seen."
We quickly fell into a friendly way of conversation. Miss Carteret spoke of how she"d pa.s.sed her time in Paris, and I told her of the improvement in Mr Tredgold"s condition. Lord Tansor, she said, was away, gone to his West Indian estates with Lady Tansor; the great house had been shut up, and so she would be staying with her aunt in London until his Lordship returned.
"Mr Daunt has gone with him," she added, with a little sideways look.
"Why do you tell me that?" I asked.
"Because you always seem interested in where Mr Daunt is and what he is doing."
"I am sorry to have given that impression," I replied. "I can a.s.sure you that I do not find Mr Phoebus Daunt in the least bit interesting."
"My sentiments exactly," she said. "So now, Mr Glapthorn, if you will be good enough to examine me, viva voce, on my knowledge of Monsieur de Lisle, I do not think you will find me wanting."
Two hours pa.s.sed most delightfully; but then Mrs Manners appeared in the doorway, to remind her niece of some engagement they were both obliged to fulfil. Miss Carteret accompanied me into the hall.
"Will you come next Wednesday?" she asked.
Thus my world began to contract to a single point of all-absorbing interest. I could think of nothing but Miss Carteret: everything else was driven from my mind. In between our weekly conversations in Wilton-crescent I lived in a kind of featureless dream, from which I only awoke to full consciousness every Wednesday morning at eleven o"clock. I went occasionally to Blithe Lodge of an evening, but always left early on some excuse or other. When Bella asked me if anything was the matter I would smile and tell her that I had never felt better.
"I have a great deal of work to occupy me at the moment," I said in answer to one such enquiry. "I shall be more myself when it is all done."
"My poor Eddie! You must not work so hard, you know. It will make you ill. Come and lay your head on my lap." When I had settled myself at her feet she began to run her long fingers gently through my hair as she sang an Italian lullaby, and for a few sweet minutes I was a child again, listening to the cry of sea birds and the wind coming in from the Channel as my mother read me to sleep.
I should have resisted her tender ministrations and told Bella the stark truth; but honesty continued to seem the greater evil when dissimulation spared her from pain. And as time went by, I began to perceive that my heart had not been entirely conquered by Miss Carteret; that there yet remained a place in it small and sequestered, but impregnable for Isabella Gallini, of blessed memory.
As spring came on, I began to suggest little outings to Miss Carteret. Would she and her aunt feel inclined to go the Opera, or to a concert at the Hanover-square rooms? What would she think about mounting an expedition to view the a.s.syrian antiquities at the British Museum? All my proposals, however, were firmly declined. But then one morning, just as I was despairing of ever getting her out of the confines of her aunt"s house, she suddenly expressed a wish to see the snakes in the Zoological Gardens. "I have never seen a snake in my life," she said, "and would very much like to do so. Can it be arranged?" "Most certainly," I said. "When shall we go?"
The visit was set for the following week, the sixteenth of April. Mrs Manners was otherwise engaged, and so we went alone. The rattle-snakes, in particular, delighted her, and she stood entranced for several minutes without saying a word. Later we walked and talked in the sunshine as if we had not a care in the world. She laughed at the hippopotamus, which suddenly plunged into its bath, liberally soaking everyone close by with cold water, and clapped her hands in amus.e.m.e.nt at the pelicans being fed. As we were leaving the Gardens, descending a short flight of steps, she lost her footing and reached out to me to prevent herself from falling down. I grasped her hand tightly until she had regained her balance; but I did not let go, and she did not pull away, not immediately. For some moments we stood a little awkwardly, hand in hand, and then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she gently released herself and placed her arm through mine as we walked on.
"Where shall we go now?" she asked. "It is such a beautiful day, and I do not wish to go home quite yet."
"Might you like to see St Paul"s?"
When we arrived, after observing a notice setting out the charges, she expressed an immediate determination to ascend to the Golden Gallery. I tried to dissuade her, knowing the final part of the ascent to be dirty and awkward, and unsuitable in my view for a lady to attempt. But she would not be put off; and so, much against my judgement, we paid our sixpences and began to mount the steps to the Whispering Gallery. Here we paused for breath. "What shall we whisper?" she asked, placing her mouth against the cold stone. "You have to speak, not whisper," I said." "Run, then. See if you can hear." And so I ran over to the other side of the gallery placed my ear to the wall, and waved my readiness. At first I could hear nothing, and signalled to her to speak again; then, gradually, her words began to percolate eerily through the very walls, indistinct, but sporadically audible: ". . . blind fool . . . to mine eyes . . . they behold . . . not what they see".2 "Did you hear it?" she asked excitedly when I returned to her. "Did you mean me to hear it?" I asked. "Of course. Come. I wish to go up higher."
And so up we went, past the Clock Room, higher and higher, steeper and steeper, counting out the narrow steps as we went. At length, after much puffing and laughter at our situation, stooping through low-ceilinged staircases and holding ourselves close to the walls of the landings to let other visitors pa.s.s by, we emerged into hazy sunlight on the Golden Gallery, just below the Lantern. Her black dress was dirtied with dust and cobwebs, and the exertion of climbing over five hundred steps had coloured her cheeks. As we stepped outside, we were immediately buffeted by a cool wind, and she gripped my arm tightly as we approached the low iron rail.
We stood in wondering silence. It seemed as if we were on the deck of a great ship floating across an endless ocean of dirty cloud, through which glimpses could be caught of great thoroughfares far below crowded with ant-like people and slow-moving streams of vehicles. The eye picked out familiar steeples and towers, palaces and parks, and distant factory chimneys belching plumes of black smoke; the sun flashed off windows and gilded finials, and laid a shimmering cloak of gold over the grey river; but beyond London-bridge it was as if a dark curtain had been brought down across the port of the capital: not a single mast of the many ships moored there could be seen. Elsewhere, too, the drifting haze rendered every detail smudged, indefinite, and dreamlike. From this point of vantage, one did not so much see the great heaving metropolis below as feel its pulsing presence. I knew it well, that sense of the living power of Great Leviathan. But to her, its terrible sublimity came as a revelation, and she stood in a kind of wordless rapture, her great black eyes open to their widest extent, breathing quickly, and gripping me so hard that I could feel her finger-nails digging into me through her gloves.
She continued thus for several minutes, holding herself close to me as she looked down into the misty vastness. The illusion of her dependence on me was thrilling, though I knew it for what it was. But I look back on that frail and fleeting moment as one of the happiest of my life, standing with the woman I loved far above the dirty deceitful world of strife and sin, alone with her on a little platform poised between earth and heaven, with the restless smoky city sprawled below us, and the infinite sky above.
"I wonder what it would be like?" she said at length, in a strange quiet voice.
"What do you mean?"
"To throw yourself out from here and fall through all this great height to the hard earth. What would you think, what would you see and feel as you fell?"
"You would have to be unhappy indeed to contemplate such an act," I said, pulling her back a little from the rail. "And you are not so very unhappy, are you?"
"Oh no," she said brightly. "I was not thinking of me. I am not unhappy at all."
Throughout the month of May, and into the following month, I continued to wait upon Miss Carteret whom I had now been allowed to call by her first name nearly every day. Sometimes we would sit and talk for an hour or two, or perhaps stroll round Belgrave-square six or seven times, lost in conversation; at others we would go off on little expeditions I recall with especial pleasure taking her to see the wax-work figures at the late Madame Tussaud"s bazaar3 in Baker-street (where, at Emily"s insistence, we paid an extra sixpence to view the grisly exhibits in the Chamber of Horrors). We went also to the Botanic Gardens at Kew, and on another occasion took a leisurely trip by steamboat from Chelsea to Blackwall, during which of course we pa.s.sed the Temple Gardens, where I had walked so often with Mr Tredgold, and the Temple Pier, where my own skiff was moored. To observe her in such proximity to these familiar places gave me a kind of guilty pleasure, making me smile inwardly with delight, and with the hope that, one day soon, she would walk with me through those same streets and lanes, sit with me in the Temple Church, and climb the stairs to my room in the eaves, as mine and mine alone.
She appeared to take unfeigned pleasure in my company, always greeting me with a sunny smile as I entered the drawing-room of her aunt"s house, slipping her arm into mine as we walked, and allowing me to kiss her hand when I arrived to see her and when I left.
She had become the most companionable of companions, the most considerate of friends; but now I began to discern unmistakable signs of something more certain gestures and looks; a tone of voice; my hand retained a little longer, and held a little tighter, than previously; the eager bright-eyed greetings; the intentional brush of her body against mine as we stood waiting to cross a road. These all spoke of something more much more than friendship; and I was overwhelmed with joy to know that love had finally come upon her, as it had come upon me.
Lord and Lady Tansor returned from the West Indies in the third week of June; Daunt was making his separate way home, having literary business in New York. Accordingly, Miss Carteret began to make preparations to leave her aunt"s house for Evenwood. On the morning before her departure we walked out into Hyde-park. The day was overcast, and after an hour we found ourselves in a deserted corner of the park running towards a large oak tree to shelter from a sudden downpour of rain.
We stood for several minutes, huddled closely together and laughing like children as the raindrops pitter-pattered through the branches. Then, away to the west, came a faint rumble of thunder, the sound of which caused her to look round anxiously.
"We are not safe here," she said.
I told her there was no danger, and that the storm was too far away to be of concern.
"But I am frightened nonetheless."
"But, dearest, there is no reason."
She paused before replying. "Perhaps it is not the storm that frightens me," she said softly, with her eyes to the ground, "but the greater tumult in my heart."
In a moment I had pulled her close to me. Her breath was sweet and warm as I pressed my lips to hers, gently at first, then more urgently. The body I had once thought immune to desire now yielded willingly, eagerly, to my touch and thrust itself so hard against mine that I almost lost my balance. And still she would not break off the embrace, matching me blow for blow and returning each new a.s.sault with even fiercer retaliation. Like some mighty onrush of water, irreversible and immense, she broke against me, battered me, submerged me, until, like a drowning man, my life seemed to pa.s.s before my eyes and I offered myself up to sweet oblivion.
She clung to me, panting, her bonnet fallen back on her shoulders, her hair awry and disordered, her face spattered with rain.
"I have loved you from the very first moment," I whispered.
"And I you."
We stood in silence, her head resting on my shoulder, her fingers gently tracing little circles on the nape of my neck, until the rain began to ease.
"Will you love me always?" she asked.
"Always."
40:.
Nec scire fas est omnia1 _*
From that day onwards I felt renewed, vivified, happier, and more free of care than at any time since my student days in Heidelberg. But then I received a letter from Mr Tredgold which shamed me back to a contemplation of all the things I had neglected.
My dear Edward, - I was most concerned when you did not come back to Canterbury as arranged. Many weeks have pa.s.sed without word from you, & now Mr Orr has written to say that you have not been to Paternoster-row this past month, which makes me fear some harm may have come to you. I am much improved, as you see by my handwriting, & as you could observe for yourself. But as I am still unable to leave Canterbury, I beg you to write to me as speedily as you may, to put my mind at rest that all is well with you.
I shall make no mention here of the other matter that has been constantly on my mind since your last visit I allude of course to the remark you made as you were leaving, concerning what you have been seeking other than to say that it is of such moment that it would be foolish, for both of us, to commit anything concerning it to paper. I hope you will write soon to let me know when I might expect you here, so that we may discuss this matter face to face.
May G.o.d bless you and protect you, my dear boy.
C. TREDGOLD.
My employer"s words roused me from my lotos-dream, and on the day my dearest girl travelled north to Evenwood, I took train to Canterbury.
I found Mr Tredgold sitting in a wicker chair under a lilac tree, in a sunny garden at the rear of Marden House. He had a rug over his knees and was in the act of making some notes in a little leather-bound book. His face, shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat, was thin and worn, but he had regained a little of his old suavity of manner, as evidenced by the beaming smile with which he greeted me.
"Edward, my dear, dear boy! You have come. Sit down! Sit down!"
His speech was a little slurred, and I noticed that his hand was shaking slightly as he polished his eye-gla.s.s; but in all other respects he appeared to have suffered no permanent disablement. He wasted no time on idle chatter but began at once by telling me that a deed had now been enrolled in Chancery to break the entailed portion of Lord Tansor"s inheritance and that, in antic.i.p.ation of this succeeding, a new will had been drawn up that would make Phoebus Daunt his Lordship"s legal heir. "Lord Tansor has instructed all concerned that he wishes the matter to be expedited," said Mr Tredgold, "and though of course the Law cannot be hurried, it is certain that it will feel obliged to pick up its skirts and do its best to walk a little faster. Sir John Mounteagle has been retained by Lord Tansor to see the deed through Chancery, which he will do with his customary vigour, I have no doubt. I think we may expect matters to be settled by the autumn. And so, Edward, if we are to prevent the will being signed, it will be necessary to lay our hands on some invincible instrument. Do you, as you inferred, have possession of such an instrument?"
"I have nothing in my possession," I replied, except my foster-mother"s journals and Mr Carteret"s Deposition, which you advised will be insufficient to prove my case. But I have a strong conviction where the final proof may be hidden, and I believe Mr Carteret shared my conviction."
"And where might this place be?"
"In the Mausoleum at Evenwood. In the tomb of Lady Tansor."
The eye-gla.s.s dropped from his trembling fingers.
"In Lady Tansor"s tomb! What possible grounds do you have for this extraordinary conviction?"
And then I told him of the words Miss Eames had written on a slip of paper and sent to Mr Carteret the same words that were graven on my mother"s tomb.
Mr Tredgold took off his hat and placed his head in his hands. After a little time, in which nothing was said by either of us, he turned his sad blue eyes towards me.
"What do you wish to do?"
"With your permission, I wish to put my conviction to the test."
"And if I cannot give you my permission?"
"Then of course I shall take no further action."
"Dear Edward," he said, the light returning to his eyes, "you always say the right thing. I have protected her memory for too long. Carteret was right. What she did was a crime and I was party to it. She had no right to deny you what should have been yours, and to make you a stranger to your own family. I shall always love her, but the dead must take care of themselves. You are my care now you, her living son. You have my permission, therefore, to do whatever is required, for the sake of the truth. Come back as soon as you can, and may G.o.d forgive us both. And now I feel a little cold. Will you help me inside?"
He leaned on me as we walked slowly down a winding gravel path towards the house, still deep in conversation as we went.
"One thing has never been clear to me," I said, as we made our way through a tunnel of pale roses. "It is the thing on which all else hangs, and yet my foster-mother"s journals, and Mr Carteret"s Deposition, are silent on the matter."
"You refer, I suspect," replied Mr Tredgold, "to the reason why Lady Tansor embarked on her extraordinary action."
"Why, yes. That is it exactly. What could possibly have driven a woman of Lady Tansor"s station to abandon her child to the care of another?"
"It was quite simple. She denied her husband the one thing he craved above all others because he had denied her something which, to her, was equally paramount. Quid pro quo. There you have it, in a nutsh.e.l.l." He saw my puzzled expression and began to elaborate. "On their marriage, Lord Tansor had bought out the mortgage on his father-in-law"s house and grounds at Church Langton; but after a long period of non-payments by Squire Fairmile, his Lordship took the only course of action a man of business can take, and duly foreclosed on the loan. Lady Tansor cajoled, she pleaded, she threatened to leave, she wheedled, she raged all to no avail. His Lordship could make no exception to the inviolable principles that governed his business dealings. Squire Fairmile had defaulted. Lord Tansor"s firm principle in such cases was to foreclose. He pointed out that he had already been generous in allowing his father-in-law a year to put things straight, something he would not ordinarily have contemplated. But an end must be made. The loan must be called in.
"The business finished the Squire, who was forced to sell the house in which he had been born, along with the last small holdings of land he had retained, and move to cramped accommodation in Taunton, leaving nothing to pa.s.s on to his only son. The old man died not long afterwards, a broken and bitter man.
"Her Ladyship had asked her husband to make this one exception to his rules of business and he had refused her. Soon afterwards, finding that she was with child, she resolved to keep her husband in ignorance of the fact, and to compound her revenge in the most terrible fashion by conspiring with her closest friend to bring the child up as her own."
At the foot of a short flight of steps we stopped for a moment to allow Mr Tredgold to catch his breath.
"So it was simple revenge then?" I asked.
"Revenge? Yes, but not simple. Lady Tansor hoped her child would escape what she called the curse of inherited wealth and privilege, which had trampled so implacably on the claims of common human feeling and family connexion. It was a fanciful notion, no doubt, but it was real enough to her, who had seen her adored father hurried to his grave by the holder of one of the most ancient peerages in England, and for no other reason than the maintenance of his public position. She told me she did not wish her child to become like his father and who can deny that she succeeded? Yet a beneficial outcome is no justification for what she did, and what I helped her to do. But now, what of Miss Carteret? Are you still in love?"
Yes," I smiled, "and likely to be for all eternity."
"And have you told her the truth about yourself? Ah, I see by your hesitation that you have not. How, then, can you be sure that she loves you, when she is ignorant even of your real name?"
"She loves me for myself," I replied, "not for my real name, or for what I may become if I succeed in my task, because she is ignorant of both; and that is why I am now prepared to tell her everything, knowing that her love for me is untainted by any base motive."
"I do not know the lady well," said Mr Tredgold as we entered the house, "but that she is beautiful and clever is undeniable. And if she loves you as you love her, then she will be a prize indeed. Yet I would counsel you to take care before placing the truth in another"s hands. Forgive me. I am a lawyer, and cannot help myself from picturing the worst. Caution comes naturally to me."
He was smiling broadly, but his eyes were serious.
"I am sensible, sir, that you only have my best interests at heart, but there can be no danger at all in revealing the truth to the woman I love. Recklessness, as you well know, is not in my nature: I only proceed on a matter when I am completely sure of the outcome."
"And you are sure of Miss Carteret"s love, and that you trust her absolutely?"
"I am."
"Well, I have done my lawyer"s duty. You will not be turned from the course you are set upon, that is clear; and I have no arguments powerful enough to persuade a man in love to be prudent G.o.d knows I have committed follies enough myself in love"s name. So there it is. You will write as soon as you can, I"m sure. Go, then, with my blessing, and may you bring back the truth, for it has been hidden for too long."
I left him at the foot of the staircase in the gloomy hall, grasping the banister with one hand as he weakly waved me good-bye with the other. I never saw him again.
My darling girl had promised to write from Evenwood, once she had settled herself in her new apartments; but a week went by, and then another, and still no word came. At last I could stand it no longer and sent off a brief note enquiring if all was well and suggesting I might travel up to Northamptonshire the following week. I was sure a reply would come by return, but was again disappointed. Finally, almost a week after sending my note, I received a communication.
Dearest,- Bless you for your sweet note, which has been sent on to me here in Shrewsbury. How horrid you must have thought me! But, dearest, I wrote to you, two weeks since, to tell you that I have been travelling with Lord and Lady Tansor in Wales whilst work is being carried out at Evenwood his Lordship has taken it into his head to have hot-water pipes installed, with consequences that you may easily imagine to one"s peace and comfort. The dust and noise are not to be spoken of. Where my letter has gone, telling you all this, I cannot imagine, but the ways are wild hereabouts and so I suppose it was simply lost or dropped somewhere. We shall be away for some time the work will not be completed for another month at least, and after we leave here we shall be going to some dreary place in Yorkshire belonging to Lady Tansor"s brother. How I wish I could escape! But I am a captive, and must go where my master bids, seeing that I am now entirely dependent on him for the provision of a roof over my head; and then you know he really seems to take pleasure in my company (Lady T. is so dreadfully tiresome never says a word, or smiles), and so I really have no choice and must do what I can to master my feelings. They are constantly fixed on a certain person, whose ident.i.ty I"m sure I need not reveal! I yearn to be free of my duties and to feel myself again in the arms of the man I love above all others, and whom I will always love, world without end.
I shall send word as soon I know when we are to return to Evenwood.