IN WHICH SOMETHING IS SAID OF PHILLIP REDGILL, OLD SIR ANDREW, AND
IN WHICH ONE OF PHILLIP’S VICTIMS IS MADE A HAPPY MAN AND A FATHER.
Upon the elegant house, and its fashionably dressed inmates, in
Minerva Street, of which Phillip had heard many strange rumours, Mr.
Redgill never bestowed a single thought, although he had more than
crude suspicions of who the much-talked-of “Madame Fannie St. Claire”
might be.
Old Sir Andrew had never thought of asking Phillip anything regarding
his daughter.
She had separated from her husband he full well knew, but as Phillip
never broached the subject, Sir Andrew, for purposes of avarice and
greed, refrained from doing so.
“She has made her own nest,” he would sometimes say to his old
and asthmatic wife, propped up in her arm-chair beside the fire,
“therefore let her lie in it.
“I don’t know nor care where she is. Don’t bother me with your
questions and nonsense, woman. I have something else to think about.
“I don’t care what has become of her—there. Don’t sit there
snivelling, you old fool, or I’ll leave the place altogether.
“In a few weeks, I hope, I shall be doing business in the City, and
not in this miserable hole, with a crabbed old woman coughing all day
and night.
“What’ll folks think then of old Sir Andy, as they call me, when I
appear on ’Change again, and with a large banker’s account at my back?
“What’ll they say then to the old president of the Phœnix Insurance
Company, whom they refuse to speak to, or even recognise now, eh?
“I’ll show ’em all what money can do. I’m just as honest as any of
’em; it’s all speculation in this world; so long as you’ve got the
cash you needn’t care a snap of your finger for any of ’em.
“Don’t sit there prating, you old hag! If you open your lips again,
I’ll squeeze the life out of you, I will, you miserable old thing. I
hate the sight of you!”
And, from the number of times that old Sir Andrew raised his chair
in anger, it seemed probable that at some time, in moments of fury,
he really would send the aged and afflicted woman unexpectedly into
eternity.
Augustus Fumbleton, Esq., it must be confessed, was not at all
troubled with matrimonial jars or grievances.
He was not a married man, but, as he often expressed it, “soon would
be.”
“In a month or two, all this business of Phillip’s will be over, and
then I’ll settle down,” he thought, “turn over a new leaf, and have
his wife for my mistress. What a head old Sir Andrew, her father, has
got to be sure.
“He attends church regularly, I hear, and is looked upon out in the
country as a perfect ‘saint.’
“Ah, church-going folks ain’t always the best. There’s many a man
sits with a prayer book in his hand who’s thinking of something else.
Never mind, we’ll do this little trick and then I’ll cry ‘quits.’”
If Messrs. Redgill, Sir Andrew and Fumbleton were situated as we have
described, Charley Warbeck, Ned’s brother, was in the greatest sorrow
and concern for the safety of his young wife, and very despondent in
spirits.
NOW READY,
THE BOY SAILOR;
OR,
LIFE ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR.
This will be found one of the most exciting and powerful tales of the
day. The scene of the story is laid in Cornwall, and it abounds with
the wild legends and strange adventures of the daring wreckers and
smugglers that haunt the bays and inlets of that rocky coast.
FOUR ENGRAVINGS,
IN A
HANDSOME COLOURED BORDER,
GIVEN AWAY WITH NUMBERS 1 and 2.
ORDER EARLY. ONE PENNY WEEKLY.
[Illustration: THE DISCOVERY OF THE VICTIM.—_See Number 18._]
Her health had been very precarious for several weeks, and the
anxious young husband was troubled exceedingly for her safety.
For the doctors in attendance in consultation looked very serious and
gloomy, and held out but little hope of her recovery.
Dame Worthington and Mistress Haylark were almost in constant
attendance both day and night.
But the latter was so much given to long naps in her arm-chair, and
so fretful during her occasional attendance, that Dame Worthington
thought it advisable to stay up at night herself, now that she had
somewhat recovered from the poison Sir Andrew had given her.
Instead of frightening the poor girl with stories and hobgoblin
notions regarding her particularly critical position, the good, kind,
old lady cheered her with all the funny anecdotes she could remember,
and often made her laugh heartily and forget all about her sickness.
Oftentimes when Clara was asleep, this ever-watchful old lady would
lean across the bed and kiss her, and then turn away with tears in
her eyes.
Night after night she watched beside the poor suffering girl, and
her delicate patient could not disturb a single curl upon her pillow
without she arose, readjusted the bed-clothes and dampened her
fevered brow.
The parting of Charley with his wife every morning ere he went to
business, was of the most tender description.
He thought, and with sufficient reason, that perhaps he might never
see her alive again; and, it must be confessed, as he leaned over her
to say good morning, his eyes were moist as she passionately kissed
him.
“Don’t weep, Charley dear,” poor Clara would say, as she passed her
thin, white, delicate arms around his neck in unaffected simplicity
and affection.
“There, don’t, don’t weep, my good, good, boy, or you will make me
worse, darling; there, smile. Oh, how different you look, pet; what
a shame it is that you look so solemn. There, go away smiling, and
it will make me happy all the day,” she would laughingly add as he
bestowed a parting embrace and departed.
While Charley was full of business, one morning at the office—but,
it must be confessed, in a very disturbed state of mind—a messenger
arrived, saying, “He was wanted at home immediately, his wife was
dying!”
If a shot had struck him he could not have felt more pain and alarm.
He seized his hat, and ran down to the ferry-boat like a maniac.
He had to wait fifteen minutes before the boat started.
It was unearthly torture to him.
He could plainly see his house, on the south side of the river, which
appeared to be no more than a few hundred yards distant.
He sought for a row-boat, but none was at hand.
He felt as if he could have jumped across the river, and paced up and
down, like one demented.
Just as the regular boat was about to leave the ferry wharf, old Sir
Richard appeared, and in company with one of the best physicians of
the city.
He had been informed by the same messenger of the critical nature of
the case, had left the India House on the instant, and had forced his
old friend, Dr. Stevens, to accompany him.
“Never mind your engagements, doctor—this is a case of life or death.
I would not have her die for thousands!”
Within a few moments the boat started, and the three gentlemen were
soon landed on the other side.
Two minutes’ walk sufficed to bring them to Charley’s residence.
Charley rushed upstairs, and would have entered his wife’s apartment.
Mistress Haylark, looking double her ordinary size, stood outside the
door, blocking up the door, and denied him entrance.
“Go in there, sir,” she said, pointing majestically to a back room
with her right hand, holding a basin of gruel in the left.
“Go in there, sir!” she repeated, with awful solemnity of voice and
manner, “and stay until you’re called, and don’t dare come in the
room!”
Charley, the young and anxious husband, was stupefied, but
mechanically obeyed.
He had not remained long in suspense, when the connecting door
between the back and front bed-rooms opened, and Dame Worthington,
all smiles and tears, appeared with something in her arms, which,
rolled up in flannels and shawls, appeared to be an armful of
newly-made muffins.
“Look at that, my dear! look at your own dear boy, and kiss him!”
Old Sir Richard, Charley, and Dr. Stevens gazed upon the tiny face of
the babe, who, with its little fists tightly closed, half-opened its
eyes and began to cry right lustily.
Dame Worthington gave old Sir Richard a peculiar look, and that
respectable old gentleman smiled, shook Charley by the hand, took a
pinch of snuff, and turned aside.
Dr. Stevens pronounced it “an extraordinary infant,” and said it must
have weighed ten pounds.
While Charley, overjoyed to hear of Clara’s safety, took his
first-born from the good old lady’s arms, kissed it, and, going into
the front room, placed it beside its mother.
Poor Clara, weak, faint, pale, and suffering, languidly opened her
eyes, faintly smiled, and sighed.
Charley kissed her, of course, very fondly, and would have remained
by her side, but the merry, laughing old dame, and the august,
solemn-spoken mother-in-law bade her daughter dry up her tears, and
remember she was “one of the Haylarks,” and quickly hustled poor
Charley out of the room.
Full of excitement, he knew not what to do.
For the first time in his life, he determined to pay court to
Bacchus, and old Sir Richard, apparently appearing nothing loth, they
both sat down to a substantial meal, and beguiled the rest of the
evening by paying exclusive attention to a box of havannahs and some
excellent cognac.
In his merriment and good humour, he kissed everybody; even his
mother-in-law, whom he discovered coming up stairs with medicines
and gruel; but that majestic lady, in her cap well stocked with
flaming ribbons, frowned, and said he ought to be ashamed of himself,
and should have more “dignity,” a quality he would have doubtless
possessed in superabundance, only he was unfortunately not one of
“the Haylarks.”
Mr. Warbeck had no sooner become a father, than he began to look and
act like a much different man.
He was gay and lively as ever, it is true, and, if anything, far more
so; but he began to assume the air and bearing of one upon whose
shoulders rested serious “responsibilities.”
He went to the office every morning with cheerfulness and alacrity;
and there his chief thought during the day was for the approach of
evening, when he might hurry homewards, to enjoy the quiet delights
of his own fireside, in the company of his wife and child.
Clara, it must be confessed, soon recovered from her illness, and
moved about the house with great grace and amiability, looking more
comely and captivating than ever.
With “baby” in her arms, she would walk up and down the parlour
singing all manner of pretty ditties to solace the child to sleep,
and, it had scarcely closed its little eyes, ere she would commence
to kiss and hug it, and to talk to it in baby prattle, and wake
it again, and then begin to scold some imaginary being for having
disturbed its slumbers.
When the day of christening arrived there was much controversy as to
the name it should bear. Charles proposed that it should be named
“Charles Warbeck,” but to this proposition the mother-in-law made
vehement resistance.
It was one of “the Haylarks,” she said, and should be so named; so
that to quiet the old lady, and to prevent any more quarrelings, and
historical lectures regarding her illustrious relatives, both father
and mother agreed it should be named “Charles Edward Worthington
Haylark Warbeck.”