THE END OF THE CASE.
This dinner, to which her ladyship will always look back with the
liveliest satisfaction, was the climax, the highest point, so to speak,
of her greatness, which was destined to have a speedy fall. Angela asked
Lord Jocelyn to read through the papers and advise. She told him of the
professor's discovery, and of the book which had belonged to the
wheelwright, and everything. Of course the opinion which he formed was
exactly that formed by Angela herself, and he told her so.
"I have asked them to my house," Angela wrote, "because I want them to
go home to their own people with pleasant recollections of their stay in
London. I should like them to feel, not that their claim had broken
down, and that they were defeated, but that it had been examined, and
was held to be not proven. I should be very sorry if I thought that the
little lady would cease to believe in her husband's illustrious descent.
Will you help me to make her keep her faith as far as possible and go
home with as little disappointment as possible?"
"I will try," said Lord Jocelyn.
He wrote to Lady Davenant that he had given careful consideration to the
Case, and had taken opinions, which was also true, because he made a
lawyer, a herald, and a peer all read the documents, and write him a
letter on the subject. He dictated all three letters, it is true; but
there is generally something to conceal in this world of compromises.
He went solemnly to Portman Square bearing these precious documents with
him. To Lady Davenant his opinion was the most important step which had
yet occurred in the history of the claim; she placed her husband in the
hardest arm-chair that she could find, with strict injunctions to keep
broad awake; and she had a great array of pens and paper laid out on the
table in order to look business-like. It must be owned that the good
feeling of the last two months, with carriage exercise, had greatly
increased his lordship's tendency to sleep and inaction. As for the
Case, he had almost ceased to think of it. The Case meant worry, copying
out, writing and re-writing, hunting up facts, and remembering; when the
Case was put away he could give up his mind to breakfast, lunch, and
dinner. Never had the present moment seemed so delightful to him.
Lord Jocelyn wore an expression of great gravity, as befitted the
occasion. In fact, he was intrusted with an exceedingly delicate
mission; he had to tell these worthy people that there was not the
slightest hope for them; to recommend them to go home again; and, though
the counsel would be clothed in sugared words, to renounce forever the
hope of proving their imaginary claim. But it is better to be told these
things kindly and sympathetically, by a man with a title, than by any
coarse or common lawyer.
"Before I begin"--Lord Jocelyn addressed himself to the lady instead of
her husband--"I would ask if you have any relic at all of that first
Timothy Clitheroe who is buried in your cemetery at Canaan City?"
"There is a book," said her ladyship. "Here it is."
She handed him a little book of songs, roughly bound in leather; on the
title-page was written at the top "Satturday," and at the bottom
"Davvenant."
Lord Jocelyn laid the book down and opened his case.
First, he reminded them that Miss Messenger in her first letter had
spoken of a possible moral, rather than legal, triumph; of a possible
failure to establish the claim before a committee of the House of Peers
to whom it would be referred. This, in his opinion, was the actual
difficulty; he had read the Case, as it had been carefully drawn up and
presented by his lordship--and he complimented the writer upon his lucid
and excellent style of drawing up of facts--and he had submitted the
Case for the opinion of friends of his own, all of them gentlemen
eminently proper to form and to express an opinion on such a subject. He
held the opinions of these gentlemen in his hands. One of them was from
Lord de Lusignan, a nobleman of very ancient descent. His lordship wrote
that there were very strong grounds for supposing it right to
investigate a case which presented, certainly, very remarkable
coincidences, if nothing more; that further investigations ought to be
made on the spot; and that, if this Timothy Clitheroe Davenant turned
out to be the lost heir, it would be another romance in the history of
the Peerage. And his lordship concluded by a kind expression of hope
that more facts would be discovered in support of the claim.
"You will like to keep this letter," said the reader, giving it to Lady
Davenant. She was horribly pale and trembled, because it seemed as if
everything was slipping from her.
"The other letters," Lord Jocelyn went on, "are to the same effect. One
is from a lawyer of great eminence, and the other is from a herald. You
will probably like to keep them, too, when I have read them."
Lady Davenant took the letters, which were cruel in their kindness, and
the tears came into her eyes.
Lord Jocelyn went on to say that researches made in their interest in
the parish registers had resulted in a discovery which might even be
made into an argument against the claim. There was a foundling child
baptized in the church in the same year as the young heir; he received
the name of the village, with the day of the week on which he was found
for Christian name; that is to say, he was called Saturday Davenant.
Then, indeed, his lordship became very red, and her ladyship turned
still paler, and both looked guilty. Saturday Davenant! the words in the
book. Suppose they were not a date and a name, but a man's whole name
instead!
"He left the parish," said Lord Jocelyn, "and was reported to have gone
to America."
Neither of them spoke. His lordship looked slowly around the room, as if
expecting that everything, even the solid mahogany of the library
shelves, would vanish suddenly away. And he groaned, thinking of the
dinners which would soon be things of the golden past.
"But, my friends," Lord Jocelyn went on, "do not be downcast. There is
always a possibility of new facts turning up. Your grandfather's name
may have been really Timothy Clitheroe, in which case I have very little
doubt that he was the missing heir; but he may, on the other hand, have
been the Saturday Davenant, in which case he lived and died with a lie
on his lips, which one would be sorry to think possible."
"Well, sir--if that is so--what do you advise that we should do now?"
asked the grandson of this mystery. He seemed to have become an American
citizen again, and to have shaken off the aristocratic manner.
"What I should advise is this. You will never, most certainly never get
recognition of your claim without stronger evidence than you at present
offer. On the other hand, no one will refuse to admit that you have a
strong case. Therefore I would advise you to go home to your own people,
to tell them what has happened--how your case was taken up and carefully
considered by competent authorities"--here he named again the lawyer,
the herald, and the peer--"to show them their opinions, and to say that
you have come back for further evidence, if you can find any, which will
connect you beyond a doubt with the lost heir."
"That is good advice, sir," said the claimant. "No, Clara Martha, for
once I will have my own way. The connection is the weak point; we must
go home and make it a strong point, else we had better stay there. I
said, all along, that we ought not to have come. Nevertheless, I'm glad
we came, Clara Martha. I shan't throw it in your teeth that we did come.
I'm grateful to you for making us come. We've made good friends here,
and seen many things which we shouldn't otherwise have seen. And the
thought of this house and the meals we've had in it--such breakfasts,
such luncheons, such dinners--will never leave us, I am sure."
Lady Davenant could say nothing. She saw everything torn from her at a
rough blow--her title, her consideration, the envy of her
fellow-citizens, especially of Aurelia Tucker. She put her handkerchief
to her eyes and sobbed aloud.
"You should not go back as if you were defeated," Lord Jocelyn went on,
in sympathy with the poor little woman. "You are as much entitled to the
rank you claim as ever. More: your case has been talked about; it is
known; should any of the antiquaries who are always grubbing about
parish records find any scrap of information which may help, he will
make a note of it for you. When you came you were friendless and
unknown. Now the press of England has taken you up; your story is
romantic; we are all interested in you, and desirous of seeing you
succeed. Before you go you will write to the papers stating why you go,
and what you hope to find. All these letters and papers and proofs of
the importance of your claim should be kept and shown to your friends."
"We feel mean about going back, and that's a fact," said his lordship.
"Still, if we must go back, why, we'd better go back with drums and
trumpets than sneak back----"
"Ah!" said his wife, "if you'd only shown that spirit from the
beginning, Timothy!"
He collapsed.
"If we go back," she continued, thoughtfully, "I suppose there's some
sort of work we can find, between us. Old folks hadn't ought to work
like the young, and I'm sixty-five, and so is my husband. But----"
She stopped, with a sigh.
"I am empowered by Miss Messenger," Lord Jocelyn went on, with great
softness of manner, "to make you a little proposition. She thinks that
it would be most desirable for you to have your hands free while you
make those researches which may lead to the discoveries we hope for.
Now, if you have to waste the day in work you will never be able to make
any research. Therefore Miss Messenger proposes--if you do not mind--if
you will accept--an annuity on your joint lives of six hundred dollars.
You may be thus relieved of all anxiety about your personal wants. And
Miss Messenger begs only that you may let this annuity appear the
offering of sympathizing English friends."
"But we don't know Miss Messenger," said her ladyship.
"Has she not extended her hospitality to you for two months and more? Is
not that a proof of the interest she takes in you?"
"Certainly it is. Why--see now--we've been living here so long, that
we've forgotten it is all Miss Messenger's gift."
"Then you will accept?"
"Oh, Lord Jocelyn, what can we do but accept?"
"And with grateful hearts," added his lordship. "Tell her that. With
grateful hearts. They've a way of serving quail in her house, that----"
He stopped and sighed.
They have returned to Canaan City; they live in simple sufficiency. His
lordship, when he is awake, has many tales to tell of London. His
friends believe Stepney Green to be a part of May-fair, and Mrs.
Bormalack to be a distinguished though untitled ornament of London
society; while as for Aurelia Tucker, who fain would scoff, there are
her ladyship's beautiful and costly dresses, and her jewels, and the
letters from Lord Jocelyn le Breton and the rich Miss Messenger, and the
six hundred dollars a year drawn monthly, which proclaim aloud that
there is something in the claim.
There are things which cannot be gainsaid.
Nevertheless, no new discoveries have yet rewarded his lordship's
researches.