Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar - Anonymous - Страница 68

“We have been singularly successful, my lord,” said Mr. Chicknell, after the detective had taken his departure. “We have not succeeded in finding your beloved daughter, but we have found your grandchild, who is beautiful, and who is moreover the image of her mother.”

“How do you know? You have not seen her,” observed the earl.

“That I admit, but Wrench has, and we can take his word.”

“What does Mr. Wrench say about her husband?”

“He says he is a fine handsome fellow. Not of high birth, it is true; but he is a superior man of his class.”

“And what might that be?”

“He is an engineer.”

“Does his wife seem warmly attached to him?”

The lawyer smiled.

“I am a better judge, my lord, of the merits of a law case than of a lady’s affection,” he returned; “but from what I am given to understand the union between the two was what is termed a love match.”

“Bah! a love match!” exclaimed the earl, with something like disgust. “A love match, indeed!”

A silence of some minutes’ duration succeeded this last speech.

The earl glanced at a portrait of one of his ancestors which hung on the wall of his room.

He sighed, and said, sadly—

“It would seem that the Ethalwoods have fallen very low during my lifetime; their name is sullied, their honour tarnished. But I am not unmindful of the respect due to myself and my ancestors. I cannot and will not receive the husband of my grandchild in this house. A man of that kind is not fit companion for me or mine.”

“I am sorry for this,” murmured the lawyer, “very sorry, but I suppose it cannot be helped. What do you propose then, my lord?”

“At present it is not easy to determine upon my course of action, but I am resolved upon one point. Nothing whatever shall induce me to recognise this miserable mechanic. But I will adopt my grand-daughter, I will make her a wealthy heiress—​she shall have the large fortune which I purposed dividing between my two sons, and I will also adopt her son. He shall be my heir, but this must be conditional.”

“And what is that?”

“She must live apart from her husband. There must be a separation—​a legal one if it can be compassed. If not, they must part by mutual consent.”

Mr. Chicknell made no reply.

“Do you understand what I have been saying?” asked the earl, testily.

“Oh yes, my lord, I comprehend most fully, but I cannot conceal from myself that there may be some difficulty in carrying out your views.”

“None whatever. I can see no difficulty.”

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders, but made no answer.

“Really, Chicknell,” observed the earl, “you seem to be offering imaginary impediments. You must look at this matter from my point of view, not from your own. I suppose you know enough of me—​you ought to do so by this time—​to be perfectly aware that I am not a man to be dictated to.”

“I would not presume to dictate to you,” observed the lawyer.

“I tell you that I will, under no circumstances, receive this young woman’s husband here. Let that suffice. It is needless for me to reiterate this.”

“Yet you would receive his child?”

“He is of my own race, but his father is an alien. The boy has noble blood in his veins—​the father has none. The former has a strong claim on me—​the latter has none whatever. You must see this; nay, I am sure you do.”

“Yes, I can understand that, but——”

“Well, sir, but what?”

“For the life of me I cannot see what this young man has done that you should seek, my lord, to tempt from him the wife he loves.”

Lord Ethalwood uttered an expression of disgust.

“If you are his champion,” he said, bitterly—​“if you plead his cause so pertinaciously, in opposition to my expressed wishes, say so at once, and I shall know how to obtain the services of another legal adviser.”

“I much regret you should for a moment imagine that I have not your interest at heart. Why should I be the champion of a young fellow whom I have never seen? I have always had the privilege of speaking plainly, and it is not because I have done so in this case that I should merit your censure. However, if you have no confidence in me, my lord, it is competent for you to obtain better advice—​or rather advice more in accordance with your own views.”

“Pardon me, Chicknell, I have been somewhat hasty. What I said was without due consideration, so let it pass; but you must do your best for me. Of course I have no desire to place the affair in any other hands than yours.”

“If you have been hasty, I acknowledge frankly that I have been mistaken.”

“In what?”

“I thought your delight would have been so great at our success that you would have for the nonce sunk all considerations as to social distinction. I find I am mistaken. I do not wonder at the revolt of the poor against the rich, of the opposition and bitter animosity displayed by one class of the community against another class.”

No. 16.

“YOU COWARDLY SCOUNDREL!” SAID THE NEW-COMER TO PEACE: “HOW DARE YOU STRIKE A WOMAN?”

Lord Ethalwood looked at the speaker in some surprise, but his countenance did not, however, wear an angry expression.

“I don’t think,” he observed with a smile, “that we shall agree upon this great social question, and it is therefore idle and useless to discuss it. I have my views, which it would appear are identical with your own. I do not like you any the less for plain speaking; nevertheless my opinion remains unchanged. I will receive my grandchild Aveline and her son, but I will not countenance her husband.”

“It is my bounded duty to act according to the instructions received from your lordship,” said the lawyer. “Tell me what you wish me to do.”

“You had better hasten at once to Wood Green, and let my grand-daughter know who she is. I should like you to bring her and her son back with you, if this be possible. I will, in the meantime, consider over the proposition we will make to her.”

“I will act in accordance with your instructions.”

“But you do not like the commission” said the earl, quickly. “You need not reply, Chicknell; I see you do not.”

“Gentlemen in our profession are constrained to undertake commissions which at times may be neither pleasing nor palatable to them. I will do my best to further your views.”

The earl bowed, and then said, in a quieter tone—

“There is another little matter, Mr. Chicknell. We have to attend to this picture-frame maker, Mr. Peace. He has been of essential service to us, and certainly deserves some recompense.”

“Certainly; that was understood.”

“What do you propose?”

“He’s a poor man. Fifty pounds would be deemed a liberal recompense.”

“I will get you to take him a cheque for a hundred.”

“Ah, that will be ample—​more than sufficient.”

“You will see what he says—​how he receives it.”

The lawyer nodded. The earl drew the cheque, and handed it to Chicknell.

“You wish me to present him with it before I leave?”

“Certainly; do so at once.”

Mr. Chicknell remained at Broxbridge Hall till the following morning after the foregoing conversation. He sallied forth, and bent his steps in the direction of Peace’s workshop.

The frame-maker was hard at work. A few brief words sufficed to explain the reason for his visit.

He handed the earl’s cheque to our hero, who accepted it, and at the same time expressed his sense of gratitude, and said it was much more than he had any right to expect.

This little bit of business having turned out perfectly satisfactory, Mr. Chicknell took the train up to London, and from thence proceeded to Wood Green.

Upon his arrival at Gatliffe’s residence he discovered the young wife in the garden, which ran at one side and in the rear of the house.

Mr. Chicknell raised his hat in a most courtly manner as Aveline advanced towards the gate at which he was standing.

“Mrs. Gatliffe, I presume?” said the lawyer.

The lady answered in the affirmative, and unlocked the gate.

“I am a stranger to you, madam,” he observed, apologetically; “but the business I am engaged in makes it a matter of necessity that we should confer together.”

“Do you wish to see me or my husband? If the latter he is not within, and will not return home till the evening.”

“It’s you I desire to communicate with, not your husband.”

Mrs. Gatliffe looked surprised, but did not make any reply.

She opened a side door, and conducted her visitor into the front parlour.

The lawyer was struck by her appearance, as well he might be. She was dressed in a neat stuff gown, which fitted tight to her graceful and symmetrical figure, and he thought she was the very personification of female loveliness without the aid of any meretricious adornment.

He entered the parlour and was handed a chair by the mistress of the establishment.

“You will, perhaps, be no wiser,” said Mr. Chicknell, with a smile, when I inform you that I am solicitor to Lord Ethalwood, seeing that in all probability even the name of his lordship may be unknown to you.”

“It is.”

“Well, madam, it must remain so no longer, as it is requisite that you should know who you are.”

A bright flash overspread the beautiful features of Aveline Gatliffe.

“Who I am!” she murmured. “Indeed—​indeed, sir, I have yearned to know this for very many years past.”

“I am not surprised at that, madam. Let me at once inform you that you belong to the aristocracy of this country.”

“Oh, sir, are you serious? Can this be possible?” inquired Aveline, in a state of the deepest anxiety.

“I am dealing with facts which are incontrovertible,” said the lawyer, in a more serious tone. “Listen, madam.”

Slowly, deliberately, and with singular dearness, Mr. Chicknell proceeded to make his companion acquainted with all those circumstances connected with his case, as he termed it.

He passed lightly over the elopement of Aveline’s mother with the Italian; neither did he dwell upon the painful scene in the infirmary after the accident on the line, but he gave her to understand that the articles of jewellery taken from the dead body of her parent were in the possession of Lord Ethalwood. Mr. Chicknell made the young wife acquainted with every grain of evidence, which taken altogether proved most incontestably her identity.

As Aveline listened her wonder-struck countenance lost much of its wonted colour; her lips grew white as lilies, and her eyes dilated with an expression which was something akin to terror.

He finished his narrative, the last words of which were of serious import.

A mist seemed to float before her eyes.

“Am I really that great lord’s grandchild?” she gasped forth with evident effort.

“You are so beyond all question,” returned the lawyer. “You are undoubtedly the daughter of Aveline Beatrice Ethalwood, who ran away from home with her music master. You are the grandchild of Lord Ethalwood, the master of Broxbridge and its rich dependencies. The child playing there (pointing through the window of the apartment to the little boy on the grass plot) may be one day an earl, and you yourself may be a wealthy heiress; but I regret to say that there is one condition attached to all this.”

“A condition!” she replied, her face recovering its colour, her eyes flashing light. “I am bound to accept the condition, I suppose? You do not know how I have always longed to be rich and great.”

The lawyer smiled.

“It is not for me to dictate. I have only to make the proposition, which it will rest with you to either accept or refuse.”

She looked surprised and said—

“There will be no condition too difficult for me to accept.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said Mr. Chicknell. “Lord Ethalwood is a very proud man—​I should say no man living is prouder. He has the greatest reverence for what he calls the honour of his house. Think how he valued it when he treated his daughter as one dead because she married beneath her. I will be explicit and plain-spoken—​the exigencies of the case necessitate my being so. Lord Ethalwood will receive you as his grandchild; will give you a large fortune; will make your son his heir; all, upon one condition.

“And what is that?”

“That you will leave your husband, whom he considers low-born, and promise never to see him again.”

Aveline uttered an expression as of sudden pain.

“These are indeed hard terms, sir,” she exclaimed. “It might be said cruel proposals.”

“They are what I have been instructed to make to you,” returned the lawyer, with a shrug.

“Leave my husbund, who is the best and kindest that ever woman had! I would not do it for any consideration. He loves me, and I will not consent to break an honest man’s heart.”

“I expected this answer,” said Mr. Chicknell, “and it therefore does not surprise me; but if I might suggest, madam, it would be that you take time to consider the matter. This is but just and reasonable.”

“You have no right to tempt me thus by making such an offer,” she exclaimed, in an angry tone.

“I have simply done my duty,” he answered, “by acting in accordance with the instructions received from my client.”

“Tell this proud nobleman that I will never give my consent to such a course of action.”

She looked so lovely in her pride, her anger, and her tears, that the lawyer wished his client could have seen her at that moment.

He waited patiently till her indignation had in a measure passed over—​then he said—

“There will be no harm in your seeing his lordship,” he said. “On the contrary, it might have considerable weight with him, and turn him from his obstinate resolution. He requested me to say that he would be overjoyed to see you and your little boy at Broxbridge Hall.”

“Did he?”

“Yes. He said I was not to leave until you had consented to accompany me.”

“I will see him, then. I accept his invitation, but I cannot leave without first of all consulting my husband.”

“Who, in all probability, will not give his consent.”

“He will not refuse if I tell him I have promised my word.”

Mr. Chicknell inquired of his companion when she would have her husband’s answer.

“I will speak to him on the subject when he comes home this evening.”

“And if he consents you will accompany me to Broxbridge to-morrow.”

Aveline replied in the affirmative.

The lawyer took his departure, with a promise to see her again on the following morning.

Tom Gatliffe, when he returned home that evening, was perfectly bewildered when he had been made acquainted with all the circumstances connected with his young wife. A foreboding of evil took possession of him—​he was forcibly and painfully impressed with the fact that the discovery was not unattended with danger. He could, however, refuse his wife nothing, and therefore gave his consent for her to accompany the lawyer to Broxbridge Hall.

On the following morning Mr. Chicknell presented himself. Aveline and her child were arrayed in their best attire, and left their cottage in Wood Green under the protection of the man at law.

A telegram had been sent to Broxbridge, advising its owner of the visit. An open landau awaited them upon their arrival at the station. In this Mr. Chicknell and his two companions were driven to the hall.

As they approached the fine old mansion Peace passed the carriage. His eyes were rivetted on the face of its female occupant, Aveline; he thought she looked more lovely than ever.

It was the first time he had seen her since the rejection of his suit in the garden of Mrs. Maitland’s house.

A host of contending emotions rushed through his brain as he witnessed the arrival of the carriage at the great gates of the hall.

“She does not condescend to honour me with a passing notice,” he ejaculated, in a voice of concentrated passion; “the stuck-up, proud minx, and but for me she would never have been discovered. Curses on it, I was a fool to give any information—​worse than a fool. Much thanks shall I get from either her or her bumptious husband.”

He turned out of the high road and made for his workshop, but he was ill at ease. All the worst passions of his nature were in the ascendant, and he did not care about following his usual avocation.

For a long time he remained moody and thoughtful in his workshop. He was laying plans for the future.

The sight of Aveline seemed to have produced a sudden revulsion in his mind. He could not bear to see her under any circumstances; but to find her in such an exalted position was most intolerable. And yet he had been mainly instrumental in bringing this about. Now it was done he bitterly regretted. Such is the strange perversity of the human character.