THE MEETING IN THE MORNING AT THE HOTEL.—THE PREPARATIONS
OF THE ATTORNEY.
It is no less than strange, the difference that takes place in people’s
feelings with regard to precisely the same circumstances in the
morning, from what they really felt and thought in the evening, and
when the shadows of night were upon them.
This mental phenomenon was not wanting in the case of Mr. Lake.
He felt as he rose the next day, and the sun was shining in at the
window of his bedroom, most thoroughly ashamed of his fears and his
nervous tremors of the preceding night.
His wife saw with a smile the change in his feelings.
“You are no longer,” she said, “afraid of the vampyre.”
“Oh, say no more about it,” was his reply. “I shall go immediately
after breakfast and see Mr. Miller, and with him make such arrangements
as will bring the affair upon which we have set our hearts to a crisis,
and while I am gone you can instruct our son in what he has to do.”
“I will.”
The breakfast passed over in rather a constrained manner. Mrs. Lake had
made an attempt to persuade Annetta that she was really too unwell to
get up for an hour or two, but that Annetta would not submit to, as she
felt herself, notwithstanding all her sufferings and all her fright,
really capable of rising.
The consequence was, that she appeared at the breakfast table, and
stopped most effectually anything in the shape of a confidential
discourse taking place among the Lakes.
The meal therefore passed off rather silently, and there were only a
few remarks made, incidentally, about the preceding night’s alarm.
Annetta was evidently in a state of great nervousness, as well she
might be, for the idea that she would be again subjected to the
frightful visits of the vampyre, was ever present to her, and she was
denied the consolation which the letter of Varney might, and most
probably would have given her.
After the morning meal, Mr. Lake gave his wife a significant look
to intimate that he was then going to Mr. Miller’s, and that in his
absence she was to play her part.
She perfectly understood him, and nodded in return, and thus this
worthy pair separated.
We will follow Mr. Lake.
The attorney did not live in one of the most respectable haunts of the
profession, but he was a man of his word, and by the time Mr. Lake
reached his chambers he was there, it being then not much above ten
o’clock.
There was some delay in admitting Mr. Lake to the private room of the
attorney, and he thought that the clerk who was in the outer office
looked a little confused.
“Is anybody with Mr. Miller?” asked Lake.
“Yes—that is to say—I mean no.”
“A strange answer. Yes, and you mean no.”
“Why, Sir, I only meant that Mr. Miller was rather busy, and we are
so much in the habit when that is the case, of saying that he has
some one with him that it slipped out unawares, only as we would not
deceive you, sir, for the world, you understand that that was why, you
perceive, sir, that in a manner of speaking, I corrected myself.”
This explanation was rather more wordy than satisfactory to Mr. Lake,
however, for want of a better, he was compelled to put up with it, and
he said nothing, but waited with the most exemplary patience, until Mr.
Miller’s bell rang.
The clerk answered it, and in a few moments returned to say that Mr.
Miller had got through a legal document he had been engaged upon, and
that he much regretted having kept Mr. Lake waiting, but was then quite
at his disposal.
Now Lake could have sworn that he had heard the sound of a voice from
the private room of the attorney, and he consequently did not feel
quite easy.
When he went in he found Mr. Miller with a number of letters before him.
“Ah, my dear sir,” cried the lawyer, “sit down.”
“Thank you. I thought somebody was with you?”
“Oh, dear no, not at all. I was going through a lease, you see, and
from long experience in such matters, I have found that I have a better
and clearer understanding of the matter, if I read it aloud to myself,
but perhaps that is only a peculiarity of mine.”
“Then it was your voice I heard just now?”
Mr. Lake’s suspicions were about half removed, certainly not more than
half, but he could say no more about it, although he cast now and then
suspicious glances round the room; yet if he had been asked what he
was suspicious of, he would hardly have been able to give a clear and
understandable answer to the question.
It is one of the curses of conscious guilt ever to live in an
atmosphere of doubt and dread, and to the full did Mr. Lake feel that
curse.
“Well, Mr. Miller,” he said, after a pause, “I have called upon you to
say that I hope it will suit your convenience to settle a little affair
to-day at twelve o’clock at the hotel.”
“Twelve—let me see—twelve. Not at the hotel my dear sir, I am compelled
to be in chambers in case of a letter coming on very particular
business, but if you will bring her here, I can manage it very nicely;
if she don’t leave this place with a conviction that she has a father
in London, I’ll eat my boots.”
“Well, I don’t see why we should not come here, as you give me great
satisfaction Mr. Miller by avowing yourself to be so confident of the
result.”
“I am as confident as that I sit on this three legged stool.”
“Good—then you may depend upon our coming here at twelve o’clock
precisely. There will be myself. Mrs. Lake, my son and the young lady.
Mind she is no fool, she must be perfectly overwhelmed with proofs of
what we wish to make her believe.”
“Exactly, that she is not the daughter of Lord Lake, but a mere
changeling imposed upon him as his own child—the said own child being
dead.”
“Precisely.”
“Agreed, sir, agreed. With respect to my reward, I have been thinking
that I should like, you know, to have some acknowledgement. You tell
me you have no money now, but that this obstacle once removed you will
come in for all the Lake estates, and that Lord Lake cannot live long.”
“That’s the state of the case.”
“Then sir, will you give me a note for £2000, payable on demand.”
“On demand?”
“Yes; of course it would be needless folly of me to present it until
you have money you know.”
“True, true.”
We need not pursue the conversation further, but satisfy the reader by
stating the result, which was, that the attorney got the note for £2000
from Lake, likewise a paper signed, which admitted the debt more fully
still, and effectually barred Lake from objecting to any proceedings
on account of want of consideration for the promissory note, or
that it had not been fairly obtained of him, pleas which might have
inconvenienced Mr. Miller if he chose to pursue Lake for the amount.
In the meantime Mrs. Lake had not been idle, but had spoken to her
booby and cowardly son, making him aware of what he had to do in the
business, namely, to shew his great disinterestedness in taking for his
wife Annetta after she was supposed to be proved not the daughter of
Lord Lake, but quite a different personage, and altogether destitute of
pecuniary resources.
He managed pretty well always to understand any villainy, and so
entered life and soul into the scheme of his mother.
“Ah! I like that a monstrous deal better than keeping watch for
a vampyre, which is a sort of job that don’t at all suit such a
constitution as mine, do you see?”
Mrs. Lake not being aware of the alteration of arrangements by which
they were all to proceed to the lawyer’s chambers, instead of coming
to the hotel, took no trouble with Annetta, conceiving that it would
perhaps be better at twelve o’clock, when the parties were assembled,
to take her by surprise, than to say anything to her beforehand, which
might have the effect of preparing her for what was to come, and so
getting up a spirit of resistance and of inquiry which it might be
difficult to resist or satisfactorily to meet.
When Mr. Lake came home from Gray’s Inn, she was made aware of the
alteration, and consultations ensued as to how Annetta was to be got
there at all. At length after several modes of managing the matter had
been discussed, Mrs. Lake said,
“You two can walk there, and then I can say to Annetta that I am going
for a drive and to make a few purchases, so that she will have no
objection to go with me for an airing, and I will take good care to be
with you at the hour of twelve.”
“That will do prime,” said the son. “Leave mother alone for managing
things.”
“Well,” said Mr. Lake, “it shall be so, I don’t see any objection to
the scheme, nor can I suggest a better one, so we will look upon that
as settled. All you have to do,” turning to his son, “is to play your
part well.”
“Oh! never fear me, I like the girl and I like money.”