A COOL REQUEST.
IT was natural that my hatred of that heinous race should be doubled.
Violence and falsehood in the fiercer times, cunning and falsehood in
these latter days had robbed two generations of honest growers of all
that they valued most on earth. No one, however light and careless,
could help being struck with the strange resemblance between my uncle’s
sad history and my own. It was now quite manifest why he had striven
against my affection for Kitty at first, and then when he saw that it
could not be checked, had sympathized with me in the dark results.
His wrongs must be avenged, as well as mine; and the sweet repose of
Christian contentment must not be indulged in, till justice had been
fed. The fatal point was that I could see no way; but the way was being
paved for it, without my knowledge.
It was out of my power, and outside my nature, to play the spy upon
anybody; but we managed through good Mrs. Wilcox to keep a sharp eye
upon Downy Bulwrag. I rode up to see her at least once a week, fearing
above all things that he might give me the slip, and be off to some
foreign quarters, possibly even to my darling’s prison. That she was
immured in some out-of-the-way place was now my settled conviction,
and I pondered a thousand wild plans for roaming the world at large
in search of her. The money would have been at my disposal, for Aunt
Parslow was most generous; but where to begin was a boundless question,
and where to end would have been endless.
The only thing possible was to wait; and the thing most reasonable was
to hope, though impatience vowed it otherwise. The spring came back to
a heavy heart, and there was no spring in my voice or gait.
One April evening I went down to the Halliford brook for watercress
for my Uncle Corny’s supper. He had not been very well of late, and
fancied this, or disliked that, in a manner quite unusual with him. I
was uneasy, and begged him daily to seek the advice of Dr. Sippets, but
he only laughed, or bristled up, as stubborn as a rusty nail in heart
of oak. Then I told him not to smoke so much, and he replied by filling
his biggest pipe.
I passed the place where I first had Kitty in my arms, a year and a
half ago. Then all had been storm, and flood, and roar. Now all was
calm, and sunny silence, broken only by the lapping of the brook. I
leaned against the old carved stone, from which she had leaped into my
embrace, and the budding shadows of the alder bush, like bars of sad
music, stole over me. It seemed to me, in my disconsolate mood, that
the young leaf had better spring back into the bud, and the flower get
quickly through its work, and die. But my thoughts were interrupted by
a grating voice.
“Halloa, young man, you look down in the mouth! Not much luck for you
in my house, by all accounts. Ha, that was a scurvy trick?”
I answered not a word, for I disliked the man, an ill-conditioned,
evil-omened fellow—old Harker, who had meant to live rent-free for ever
in Honeysuckle Cottage. He looked very shabby, and shaky, and uncombed,
as if he slept in a hay-rick, and washed himself with it.
“Ah, you wouldn’t be quite so uppish, my brave young cock, if you knew
all that I could tell you. Give my love to old bonfire-raker. Hear
he’ll come to ashes himself pretty soon.”
This was so mean and ungrateful of him, after all my uncle’s
forbearance, that I seized him by the collar, as he stepped upon the
bridge, and brought him back and made him look at me.
“Now, Harker, you’ll just have the kindness,” I said, “to speak out,
like a man, what your meaning is. I am not going to hurt you, if you do
the right thing. Otherwise you shall have a wash, and not before you
want it. Out with it. Out with everything that you can tell me; though
I don’t believe there’s much of it.”
“Very likely not. And I would not say a word of it—such as it is—for
any fear of you; but only because he has treated me shabby. Promised me
five pounds, and only gave me one. That wasn’t arkerate, you know. Why
it hardly paid for shoe-leather. What will you give me, Master Kit, to
tell you all I know of him, and all his tricks about you?”
“That depends upon what I find it worth. In the first place, who is the
he you talk of?”
“As if you didn’t know? Well you are a pretty muff, if you don’t know
when a man hates you. I have no love for you, mind, because of the
scurvy way I was treated; but I would not go out of my way to hurt
you, without being paid for it. What will you give? You will be glad to
know it; though I don’t promise you it will help you much. I am always
arkerate, I am.”
I promised him a pound, if it should prove to be of value, or a crown
if I could make no use of it; and although it could help me but little
for the future, I considered it worth the larger sum, when I had heard
the whole of it; because it cleared up so many little points which had
puzzled me up to that moment. This man Harker, by his own confession,
had been employed for weeks to keep close watch upon us, and report all
our doings to Bulwrag. That demon discovered that this low fellow bore
a grudge against us, because of his expulsion from the cottage; and
what better spy could he wish for than one who had lived in the place,
and knew every twig and stone? It is awful for a simple man (who lives
without much thought, and says and does everything without looking
round) to find that all his little doings have been watched, by an eye
that was anything except the eye of God. We had kept a very distant
sort of outlook upon Bulwrag; but that was different altogether, and
as a rogue he must long have been accustomed to it. To think that in
our gardens (where every tree knew me, and the line of every shadow
was known to me) I could not even move without somebody behind me, was
enough to scatter all delight, and simplicity, and carelessness.
Harker told me all about the secret of the door into Love Lane. I knew
that it was bolted, I was sure it had been bolted, I could almost swear
that it had not been opened by any honest person from the inside, for
a long time before Kitty vanished through it. It ought to have been
locked as well, of course; as Tabby Tapscott (who had the true feminine
knack of hitting a blot) observed. But now all that became plain as a
pikestaff. That sneak of a Harker knew a dodge for undoing the bolt
from the outside, by tapping on a sprung piece of tongued board, when
the bolt (which was loose in the socket) would glide back.
I remembered what appeared to be a pretty turn of Kitty’s, when I asked
her to come and take a walk in Love Lane. “Not unless you seem to want
it, my dear. We have our love inside, and it is not a gloomy lane.” For
she always loved fruit-trees, and fair alleys, and the way one looks up
at the sky through balls of gold.
However, that sort of thing was out of Harker’s line; and I asked
him a few questions, with a sovereign in my hand; at which he kept
glancing, as a dog of better manners assures his master that he loves
the hand ever so much more than the tit-bit inside it. He told me—for
his mind was made up now—that he had suspected Bulwrag’s scheme, but
had nothing to do with the final stroke, except that he had opened the
road for it. I conjured him by all that he valued—if he valued anything
besides himself—to tell me where my dear wife was likely to be now, if
indeed she were in the world at all.
He had no fine feeling to be appealed to, and having had a bad wife—his
own fault, I dare say—could not at all enter into my concern. But he
took a great weight from my heart by declaring that there was no fear
of Kitty being made away with.
“’Tis a bit of revenge, and nothing more,” he said; “the man is so
deep and slippery that you can never circumvent him. You are a baby
altogether to him. Although he employed me for weeks together, he never
let me into any one of his devices. He never does anything as you
expect it. When you find out this, if you live long enough to do it,
you will find it come contrary to all your guesses. If you ask what I
think is the best way, I will tell you. But it might be quite wrong for
all that, you know.”
“Very well,” he said, when I had asked most earnestly, and promised
him five pounds, if it turned out well; “you just do this, and see
what comes of it. Collect all your money, and get your uncle to sell a
good piece of his land for building, they are talking of that sort of
thing, you know; and there is sure to be a railway by-and-by, and the
old Topper’s land is the best in the parish. Then when you have raised
a thousand pounds, take it in a bag, or a purse with open meshes, and
lay it on his table—not too near him, mind—and then be very humble, and
say, ‘Mr. So and So, you have beaten me out and out, and I give in. You
shall have all this, and I’ll cry quits, and give you any undertaking
you require, as soon as I get my wife back again.’ It is my belief,
Master Kit, that you would have her in a week; for that sort of man
will do anything for money.”
This was altogether a new view to me, and I began to suspect things
immediately. Possibly this man had even been sent to propose a bargain
in this sly way. I could raise the thousand pounds, by selling out
what I possessed; and my wife was worth more than all the money in the
world, or even than my own life to me. But my pride, and sense of
right, swelled against the low idea; and I knew that even Kitty would
condemn so vile a bargain.
“If that is the only way to do it, it will never be done,” I answered
sternly; “but tell me one thing—did you see her go? Did you see the man
who came to fetch her?”
“No. It was managed too well for that. They got all they could out of
me, and trusted me no further. I did not even know that it was going to
be done. I was ordered off to Hampton, on that very day.”
Seeing some one in the distance coming towards us from the village,
I gave the man his sovereign, and let him go, after learning where
he might be found in case of being needed. And before I could even
think the matter over, Mrs. Marker was crossing the planks towards me,
dressed very prettily, and smiling at me pleasantly.
“What memories this spot does evoke!” She had taken to rather fine
language lately, and seemed to become more and more romantic. “Oh, Mr.
Kit, Mr. Kit, is it possible that I meet you here again? Alas, I fear
that you seek this spot, to heave the sad sigh, and to shed the briny
tear.”
I replied that I was only come to look for watercress, but was very
glad to meet her; for we always had been friends, and perhaps she could
tell me many things I wished to know.
“Whatever I know is at your command. My deep and heartfelt but
unavailing pity has followed your fortunes for many a long month. Why
the bridal morn seems but yesterday, so to speak; and yet a rolling
year has passed over us since then! Robbed of your bride in less than
half the honeymoon, and before she understood the price of sugar—you
remember that she was to have laid it in cheap, second whites before it
went up for preserving. Oh, Mr. Kit, we well may say inscrutable are
the decrees of Heaven. But all shall be well yet, all must be well, if
we trust in the Lord, and gird up our loins with trembling. Excuse the
remark if too personal, but my heart does bleed for you. Any new light
shed upon this dark dispensation?”
“That is the very thing I was going to ask you. But first of all, tell
me, dear Mrs. Marker, are you convinced, are you absolutely certain,
that my Kitty would never prove false to me?”
I never put this question to any of my own sex. But it always did me
good to receive from a woman, who must understand women so much better,
the strong confirmation of my own strong faith. To their credit be it
said that not one of them refused it.
“Fie, fie! How can you ever bring yourself to ask the question? Though
I am sure, I am not surprised, after all that has happened. But I will
tell your Kitty of it, and we will have a laugh together. For the
triumph of the wicked cannot last much longer. I suppose you have heard
what the wretch is doing?”
“Not very lately. I was going to ask you. We were told in the autumn,
by a lady who seemed to know, that everything was settled, and even
the day fixed for his marriage with a very rich young lady, the only
child of a very wealthy Earl? But it seems to hang fire, and I cannot
discover that anything is settled even now. Do tell me what you have
heard of it. Miss Coldpepper surely ought to know.”
“I should think she ought, considering what he has done. It appears
that the lady is quite willing; she is under some foolish spell, and
thinks him such a hero. But her father, though he seemed to give in at
first, heard something, which induced him to change his mind. And now
he insists, as is only fair, upon something being brought in by the
gentleman as well. They are doing all they can to get over the hitch.
And what do you suppose he had the impudence to do? He came down here
about a week ago—drove down in a handsome cab all the way; nobody was
to know it of course, but I did; and then and there he had the face to
ask his aunt to declare him the heir, and to bind herself to it, of all
her estates and property. It quite took my breath away when I heard
it—that any one should have such assurance. And after all that has
happened in the family.”
“A nice lord of the manor he would make. Did his mother come down with
him?”
“Not she. He was too wide awake for that. The sisters can never be in
one room half an hour without fighting. He went on about the honour of
the family, and adding to the estates with the old Earl’s wealth, and
taking the name of Coldpepper, and I don’t know what else—for of course
I was not there; but she told me of it afterwards, and she laughed
very heartily I can tell you. ‘It is a mere business arrangement,’ she
replied, ‘and it must be done in business form, if at all. Write to my
solicitors on the subject, proposing exactly what you have proposed to
me. Give your reasons for wishing that it may be settled so, and add
that there could have been no occasion for it, if your mother had not
run away with your aunt’s lover, after locking her in a dark hole where
she might have died. You may be quite certain of my consent, as your
mother was, when she turned the key on me. Don’t let me detain you, for
fear of losing time. Solicitors are never very rapid in their work.’
He could scarcely have been disappointed, but Charles said he did look
savage, when he showed him out. And now, what do you think his next
card is?”
“How can I tell? Perhaps he’ll come to Uncle Corny, and ask him to sell
his garden, and settle it upon him.”
“You are not so very far out after all. Your Kitty has a very rich aunt
in the north—no relative of his in any way, not even a connection,
for she is related to Kitty on her mother’s side. But she has the
reputation of being rather soft, and so off he goes without telling
anybody. But we heard of it; we hear a great deal more now; because
we’ve got a maid whose sister lives there, and waits upon the two
young ladies who are always chattering about their brother; and our
Mary can’t do without her Anne, for more than a week, because they are
twins. Every Sunday our Mary goes up to the Park, or their Anne comes
down to the Manor. And perhaps you may know what ladies’-maids are,
Mr. Kit. They really seem to take a deeper interest in the family they
serve than the one they belong to. So we know all the young ladies
know, and perhaps more than their mother knows; for being so masterful
she has things kept from her, as is only natural. And I can tell you
one thing, Mr. Kit, which you won’t be sorry to hear perhaps, or at
any rate didn’t ought to be. Mr. Downy Bulwrag is in more trouble; not
about money I mean, but something worse, or at any rate deeper than
money is. His sisters know this; but they don’t know what it is, or
else they are afraid to speak of it.”
I thought of Tony Tonks, and the man called Migwell Bengoose, who
appeared to Tony to be an English sailor, fallen into foreign ways; and
I thought it very likely that he might have brought bad news.
“He goes away at night,” continued Mrs. Marker, “without a word of
notice to anybody, and he sneers, or is grumpy, if they ask him about
it; and he has been seen with very shabby-looking people, though he
used to be so particular about that. And he carries one of those
new-fangled pistols, that go off a dozen times with one load, and every
one is afraid to go near him almost, because of his temper and all
that. From all I am told, you may depend upon it, he is not enjoying
himself, Mr. Kit, so very much more than you are. And that is not very
much, to go by your face; sorry as I am to see it, sir, after saving me
from the jaws of death.”
“Nonsense, Mrs. Marker; you saved yourself, by your presence of mind,
and a light young foot.”
“You say things beautifully, Mr. Kit. It was always your gift as a
child, I have heard, though not old enough here to remember it. And
now, sir, remember that you have one good friend, who will never be
happy, till you are. A feeble friend, but a warm one, and able perhaps
to do more than you think. Nothing shall go by me that you ought to
hear of. Good-bye, sir, good-bye. Everything will come right, and you
shall pay me, for telling your fortune.”