THE REVELATION OF FRANCIS HILLISTON.
ONCE upon a time popular imagination pictured a lawyer as a cadaverous
creature, arrayed in rusty black, with bulging blue-bag, and dry
forensic lore on his tongue. So was the child of Themis represented in
endless Adelphia farces; and his moral nature, as conceived by the
ingenious playwright, was even less inviting than his exterior. He was a
scamp, a rogue, a compiler of interminable bills, an exactor of the last
shilling, a legal _Shylock_, hard-fisted and avaricious. To a great
extent this type is a thing of the past, for your latter-day lawyer is
an alert, well-dressed personage, social and amiable. Still he is looked
on with awe as a dispenser of justice,--very often of injustice,--and
not all the fine raiment in the world can rob him of his ancient
reputation: when he was a dread being to the dwellers of Grub Street,
who mostly had the task of limning his portrait, and so impartial
revenge pictured him as above.
All of which preamble leads up to the fact that Francis Hilliston was a
lawyer of the new school, despite his sixty and more years. In
appearance he was not unlike a farmer, and indeed owned a few arable
acres in Kent, where he played the rôle of a modern Cincinnatus. There
he affected rough clothing and an interest in agricultural subjects, but
in town in his Lincoln's Inn Fields' office he was solemnly arrayed in a
frock coat with other garments to match, and conveyed into his twinkling
eyes an expression of dignified learning. He was a different man in
London to what he was in Kent, and was a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
for moral transformations. On this special occasion frock-coated
legality was uppermost.
Yet he unbent for a moment or so when receiving Claude Larcher, for
childless himself, the young man was to him a very Absalom; and he loved
him with an affection truly paternal. No one can have the conduct of a
child up to the age of twenty--at which period Claude made his _début_
in the engineering world, without feeling a tugging at the heart
strings. Had Larcher been indeed his son, and he a father in place of a
guardian, he could have scarcely received the young man more warmly, or
have welcomed him with more heartfelt affection.
But the first outburst over, and Claude duly greeted and seated in a
convenient chair, Mr. Hilliston recurred to his legal stiffness, and,
with no smile on his lips, sat eyeing his visitor. He had an awkward
conversation before him, and was mentally wondering as to the best way
of breaking the ice. Claude spared him the trouble by at once plunging
headlong into the subject of Margaret Bezel and her mysterious letter.
"Here you are, sir," said he, handing it to his guardian. "I have
brought the letter of this woman with me as you wished, and I have also
abstained from seeing her in accordance with your desire."
"Humph!" muttered Hilliston, skimming the letter with a legal eye, "I
thought she would write."
"Do you know her, sir?"
"Oh, yes!" said the other dryly. "I know her. But," he added after a
thoughtful pause, "I have not set eyes on her for at least
five-and-twenty years."
"Twenty-five years," repeated Claude, thoughtful in his turn. "It was
about that time I came into your house."
Hilliston looked up sharply, as though conceiving that the remark was
made with intention, but satisfied that it was not from the absent
expression in Larcher's face, he resumed his perusal of the letter and
commented thereon.
"What do you think of this communication, Claude?"
"I don't know what to think," replied the young man promptly. "I confess
I am curious to know why this woman wishes to see me. Who is she?"
"A widow lady with a small income."
"Does she know anything of my family?"
"Why do you ask that?" demanded Hilliston sharply, and, as it seemed to
Claude, a trifle uneasily.
"Well, as I am a stranger to her, she cannot wish to see me on any
personal matter, sir. And as you mention that you have not seen her for
five-and-twenty years, about which time my parents died, I naturally
thought----"
"That I had some object in asking you not to see her?"
"Well, yes."
"You are a man of experience now, Claude," said Hilliston, with apparent
irrelevance, "and have been all over the world. Consequently you know
that life is full of--trouble."
"I believe so; but hitherto no trouble has come my way."
"You might expect that it would come sooner or later, Claude. It has
come now."
"Indeed!" said Larcher, in a joking tone. "Am I about to lose my small
income of five hundred a year?"
"No, that is safe enough!" answered Hilliston abruptly, rising to his
feet. "The trouble of which I speak will not affect your material
welfare. Indeed, if you are a hardened man of the world, as you might
be, it need affect you very little in any case. You are not responsible
for the sins of a former generation, and as you hardly remember your
parents, cannot have any sympathy with their worries."
"I certainly remember very little of my parents, sir," said Larcher,
moved by the significance of this speech. "Yet I have a faint memory of
two faces. One a dark, handsome face, with kind eyes, the other a
beautiful, fair countenance."
"Your father and mother, Claude."
"Yes. So much I remember of them. But what have they to do with Margaret
Bezel--or Mrs. Bezel, as I suppose she is called? Why does she want to
see me?"
"To tell you a story which I prefer to relate myself."
"About whom?"
"About your parents."
"But they are dead!"
"Yes," said Hilliston, "they are dead."
He walked about the room, opened a box, and took out a roll of papers,
yellow with age. These were neatly tied up with red tape and inscribed
"The Larcher Affair." Placing them on the table before him, Hilliston
resumed his seat, and looked steadfastly at his ward. Claude, vaguely
aware that some unpleasant communication was about to be made to him,
sat silently waiting the words of ill omen, and his naturally fresh
color faded to a dull white with apprehension.
"I have always loved you like a son, Claude," said Hilliston solemnly,
"ever since you came to my house, a tiny boy of five. It has been my aim
to educate you well, to advance your interests, to make you happy, and
above all," added the lawyer, lowering his voice, "to keep the contents
of these papers secret from you."
Claude said nothing, though Hilliston paused to enable him to speak, but
sat waiting further explanation.
"I thought the past was dead and buried," resumed his guardian, in a low
voice. "So far as I can see it is foolish to rake up old scandals--old
crimes."
"Crimes!" said Claude, rising involuntarily to his feet.
"Crimes," repeated Hilliston sadly. "The time has come when you must
know the truth about your parents. The woman who wrote this letter has
been silent for five-and-twenty years. Now, for some reason with which I
am unacquainted, she is determined to see you and reveal all. A few
months ago she called here to tell me so. I implored her to keep silent,
pointing out that no good could come of acquainting you with bygone
evils; but she refused to listen to me, and left this office with the
full intention of finding you out, and making her revelation."
"But I have been in New Zealand."
"She did not know that, nor did I tell her," said Hilliston grimly; "in
fact, I refused to give her your address, but she is not the woman to be
easily beaten, as I well know. I guessed she would find out the name of
your club and write to you there, therefore I sent that letter to you so
as to counter-plot the creature. I expected that you would find a letter
from her at your club on your arrival. I was right. Here is the letter.
She has succeeded so far, but I have managed to checkmate her by
obtaining the first interview with you. Should you call on her,--and
after reading these papers I have little doubt but that you will do
so,--she will be able to tell you nothing new. I cannot crush the viper,
but at least I can draw its fangs."
"You speak hardly of this woman, sir."
"I have reason to," said Hilliston quietly. "But for this woman your
father would still be alive."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that your father, George Larcher, was murdered!"
"Murdered!"
"Yes! Murdered at Horriston, in Kent, in the year 1866."
Stunned by this information, which he was far from expecting, Claude
sank down in his chair with a look of horror on his face, while
Hilliston spoke rapidly.
"I have kept this secret all these years because I did not want your
young life to be shadowed by the knowledge of your father's fate. But
now Mrs. Bezel intends to tell you the truth, and will give you a
garbled version of the same, making herself out a martyr. I must be
beforehand with her, and I wish you to take those papers, and read the
account of the case which ended in the acquittal of your mother."
"My mother! Acquitted! Do you mean----"
"I mean that Mrs. Larcher was accused of the murder of her husband, and
was tried and acquitted."
"Great Heavens! But she is now dead?"
"I say no more," said Hilliston, evading a direct reply. "You will know
the truth when you read these papers."
Larcher mechanically took the packet held out to him, and placed it in
his pocket. Then he rose to go. A thousand questions were on the tip of
his tongue, but he dare not ask one. It would be better, he thought, to
learn the truth from the papers, in place of hearing it from the lips of
Francis Hilliston, who might, for all he knew, give as garbled a version
of the affair as Mrs. Bezel. Hilliston guessed his thoughts, and
approved of the unspoken decision.
"I think you are right," he said, with deliberation; "it is best that
you should learn the truth in that way. When you have read those papers
come and see me about them."
"One moment, sir! Who killed my father?"
"I cannot say! Your mother was suspected and proved innocent. A friend
of your father was also suspected and----"
"And proved innocent?"
"No! He was never arrested--he was never tried. He vanished on the night
of the murder and has not been heard of since. Now, I can tell you no
more. Go and read the papers, Claude."
Larcher took up his hat and hurried toward the door in a mechanical
manner. There he paused.
"Does Mrs. Bezel know the truth?"
Hilliston, arranging the papers on the table, looked up with a face
which had unexpectedly grown gray and old.
"Yes!" he said quickly. "I think Mrs. Bezel knows the 'truth.'"