On entering the sitting-room, which had been appropriated to him,
Beauchamp cast himself back in a chair, and, for a moment, reflected
on the extraordinary interview he had just gone through. But a new
discomfort now assailed him, and he felt a degree of confusion of
thought, and even indistinctness of memory, that pained and alarmed
him. Could the blow he had received on the head, he asked himself, the
consequences of which he had entirely neglected--could it have injured
his brain! Nevertheless, his personal feelings occupied him but for an
instant, and were only permitted to cut across his thoughts of Blanche
Delaware, and interrupt the ideas which his conversation with her had
called up, when the dizzy mistiness of his brain prevented him from
pursuing clearly any defined train of thinking.
Should he engage a boat, he asked himself, and follow Sir Sidney to
Cherbourg, in search of farther explanations--perhaps, I might say, in
search of farther hopes; for with all the confused and painful
feelings that his brief interview with Blanche Delaware had excited,
there had also been left behind a sweet, consoling hope, that after
all he was beloved, and that time might yet make her his own.
He paused upon that idea, which, like a gleam of sunshine upon the
dark and struggling waters of the sea, gave one bright spot for the
mind's eye to rest upon, in the midst of the doubts and anxieties that
whirled around him. Should he follow her, he thought, and inquire what
was meant by her allusion to her brother; or should he stay and do
what he conceived to be his duty, in bringing to justice, as far as he
could effect it, the men who had committed the crime at Ryebury. "I
will see what has been already discovered," he said at length, "and
then act as I find necessary."
In consequence of this resolution, he rang the bell, and demanded the
newspapers of the last two or three days; but for some minutes after
they were brought, he could scarcely read the matter they contained,
so fearfully did the letters dance before his sight when he attempted
to fix his eyes upon the page. He succeeded at length in gathering the
contents; and it may be unnecessary to say, that, when he did so, he
found sufficient at once to determine his conduct. The whole account
of what had taken place at Emberton was now before him; and, with
feelings that it is impossible to describe, he perceived that the very
means he had taken to remove the difficulties of Sir Sidney Delaware
and his family had, on the contrary, accumulated upon them a load of
evils and distresses which his utmost apprehensions could never have
anticipated.
Summoning the waiter once more, he ordered breakfast, and a place to
be secured for him in the London coach. All was done according to his
desire, with prompt activity; and, by a quarter after ten, Henry
Beauchamp was on his way to London, in the inside of a hot
stage-coach, crammed full of humanity; while his own feelings
consisted of a compound of intense mental anxiety, and all those
horrible corporeal sensations which precede a violent attack of fever.
His hands and his head burned like living coals; his feet were as cold
as ice; and a faint sort of chilly shiverings thrilled over all his
frame, alternating with a degree of heat that became sometimes
intolerable.
He endured all this with firm determination for six mortal hours; but
at length he found that nature would bear no more, and that he must
stop. At Hartford Bridge, then, where his name and station in society
were well known, from his having often spent a night in that most
pleasant of all country inns--the White Lion--he desired the coachman
to put him down, and entered the house. His appearance was so altered,
that the old waiter did not recognize him for a moment; but the moment
that he did so, he declared, upon his word then, that Major Beauchamp
must be ill, in which assertion Beauchamp found strong reason within
his own bosom to coincide.
The result, therefore, was, that, before the sixth day after he had
been carried from Emberton was completely over, Henry Beauchamp was in
bed, with an apothecary gently compressing his wrist on one side, and
a waiter holding the candle on the other. After innumerable questions,
to all of which the young gentleman answered like a lamb--which showed
how ill he was--the apothecary declared him in a state of fever, and
bled him considerably. By this depletion he certainly felt relieved
for the time, and the next morning was not at all worse than he had
been the day before. Nevertheless, he was troubled with no inclination
to rise; and the landlord asked anxiously of the man of medicine
whether he conceived his patient to be in any danger, as he was aware
that the gentleman had relations of high rank in London, whom he might
wish to write to, if he knew himself in precarious circumstances.
Such a question, though so frequently put, remains still one of
tremendous difficulty to the professors of the healing art, inasmuch
as, on the one hand, they never can like, by acknowledging that there
is great danger, to run the risk of other advice being called in, and
yet they neither choose to lose the credit which may accrue from
curing a bad case, nor to incur the blame that will attach to them if
their patient dies without their having admitted his peril. However,
as vanity and covetousness are, generally speaking, stronger passions
than apprehension, the followers of Esculapius usually seem to prefer
running all risks, rather than have their cases interfered with by
another practitioner. In the present instance, it occurred that the
apothecary was really in the right when he informed the worthy
landlord that, although his guest had certainly a sharp fever upon
him, yet he did not see any present danger.
Thus passed over the day. No one was written to; and, before night,
Beauchamp was not in a state to write to any one himself, having
become completely delirious. The apothecary grew a little frightened;
but as the landlord did not know the precise address of Beauchamp's
friends, and as the patient could not give it himself, there was no
remedy but patience and perseverance.
The delirium continued, with but little interval, for two days; but as
the medical man was really a person of skill, his patient's
constitution excellent, and the fever not very malignant in its
nature, favorable symptoms began to show themselves sooner than could
have been expected, and, at the end of five days more, the young
gentleman was pronounced convalescent. Though for some time he felt
himself very weak, and incapable of much mental exertion, yet, from
the moment the delirium left him, Henry Beauchamp found his thoughts
much clearer and more exact than they had been since the day of his
leaving Emberton; and, as he considered the various events which had
taken place, a number of circumstances which the reader's mind may
easily recall, without minute recapitulation, led him to suspect that
his uncle's lawyer, if not his uncle himself, had increased, if not
created, many of those difficulties which, combined with accidental
occurrences, had overwhelmed Sir Sidney Delaware and his family in
ruin and in sorrow.
He was unwilling, indeed, to admit to his own mind that Lord
Ashborough would descend to any thing mean or dishonorable, ever to
affect the very honorable purpose of revenge, which, when formalized
by the rules of the monomachia, justifies murder; and, therefore, may
surely equally well justify robbery, or fraud, or petty larceny, or
any other peccadillo. But, at the same time, Beauchamp could not shut
out the conviction that the ruin of Sir Sidney Delaware and his
family, by whatever means effected, would be in no degree disagreeable
to the noble earl. In fact, he had seen more deeply into his uncle's
character and into his uncle's heart than Lord Ashborough knew; and
though his discoveries were rendered less harsh by the natural
affection of kindred, yet they had certainly not tended to increase
that affection in any extraordinary degree.
However, all his reflections terminated in an uncertainty as to the
past conduct of his uncle and his uncle's lawyer, which made him
resolve to investigate the whole matter farther before he acted; for
though he was unchangeably resolved that justice to William Delaware
should be done, yet he was anxious, of course, that it should be
rendered with as little obloquy to his own relation as possible.
"Thank God, he has made his escape!" he thought; "and the earl, too,
must have left London soon after I quitted it myself, so that he can
not be at all acquainted with my share in this unfortunate business at
Ryebury. I will, therefore, remain quietly where I am till I can
proceed to London, and then investigate every circumstance before I
fix upon any farther plans. Of course, I shall easily discover the
residence of Sir Sidney Delaware in France; and, when I have cleared
his son's fair fame, may meet them all with better hopes and brighter
prospects."
Such were some of the reflections and resolutions of Henry Beauchamp,
as he was recovering from the fever which had detained him at Hartford
Bridge; and though he certainly indulged in a great many other
reflections, and formed a great many more resolutions, yet they were
all conceived in the same strain, and tended to the same effect. As
day by day, however, he began to acquire strength, and saw that, at
the end of two or three more whirls of the great humming-top, he would
be able to set out for London, a new difficulty pressed upon him of
somewhat a novel nature. He had an inn bill to pay, which could not be
small--he had an apothecary's bill to pay, which must be still larger,
and sick-nurses, &c., came at the end to swell the amount. Ten
sovereigns was all that remained in his purse; and had Beauchamp been
aware that, in the opinion of all his friends and relations, he was
actually dead and buried under water, if not under ground, he might
have been still more puzzled how to proceed than he was in his state
of blessed ignorance regarding all these facts.
His resource, in the present instance, was to indite a letter to his
worthy friend and agent, Mr. Wilkinson, informing him, in a few words,
that he had been ill at Hartford Bridge, and would thank him to send
him down, either by post or coach, a sufficient sum to pay his
temporary expenses.
This epistle reached Mr. Wilkinson just as he was drawing up a general
statement of the money matters of the late Henry Beauchamp, Esq.,
formerly of his Majesty's--regiment of dragoons; and the letter of the
living Mr. Beauchamp, of course, put a sudden stop to the affairs of
the dead one. The handwriting, however, although certainly bearing a
great resemblance to that of his client, was, as Mr. Wilkinson
observed, more like a copy of his hand than his hand itself; and the
illness which had produced this difference, had also produced a
brevity and carelessness of style, in which Henry Beauchamp was not
accustomed to indulge. The consequence of all this was, that Mr.
Wilkinson, calculating that Hartford Bridge was only thirty miles from
London, and that two or three guineas was better lost than two or
three hundreds put himself at once into the coach which was to have
conveyed the money; and in a few hours he was sitting beside the
identical Henry Beauchamp, who had left London about two months
before, and was assisting him most conscientiously to dispatch the
first meat meal he had been allowed to taste since his recovery.
As may well be supposed, this interview was destined to enlighten
Beauchamp greatly as to many events which had taken place; and, after
having laughed at his own death more heartily than a merrier matter
might have occasioned, the invalid entered into explanations with his
lawyer, which in turn gave him a new but sad insight into the
occurrences of the last three weeks.
"I am afraid, sir," said Mr. Wilkinson--"I am afraid, sir, there has
been very foul play! This Mr. Tims--who, between you and me, bears so
bad a character in the profession, that it is a very general wonder
how your noble relative continues to employ him--has, since your
death--God bless me!--I mean, since your supposed decease--has, I say,
presented the very note for ten thousand pounds (which you say you
gave to the murdered man at Ryebury) as payment of the sum owed to
your account by his client, your uncle; and yet, though this, and the
vouchers which he must have found concerning the fifteen thousand
pounds sent before, can not have failed to show him that the money
tendered by Captain Delaware was advanced by you, yet he is, I
understand, pursuing the business against that unfortunate young
gentleman with greater virulence than ever. I heard only yesterday,
that his name had been struck out of the Navy List."
"God forbid!" cried Beauchamp; "God forbid! But does the rascal keep
both the twenty-five thousand pounds paid, and the ten thousand which
my uncle should have transferred to my account?"
"Not only that," answered the lawyer, "but contending that, as the
money had been stolen, it did not constitute a legal discharge of Lord
Ashborough's claim upon Sir Sidney Delaware, he has plunged the whole
business into Chancery--has, at the same time, started a point which
can only be decided by a common law court; and as he has all the most
obsolete and vexatious decisions at his fingers' ends, would
undoubtedly have kept the business embroiled for years, had you not
suddenly started up to prove that the payment was legal, and therefore
the whole difficulty at an end."
"And if I had not started up," said Burrel, "and William Delaware had
been taken, I suppose one of the most gallant officers in his
Majesty's service, and one of the most generous-spirited gentlemen in
England, would have been hanged for a crime he never committed."
"Why, I am sorry to say, that it is very probable he might have been
so dealt with," answered Mr. Wilkinson.
"Then, immortal honor to Robert Peel!" said Beauchamp, "for having
begun a reformation in laws, which, though far superior to those of
any other nation in the world, are yet so imperfect as to risk such a
loud-tongued iniquity; and may he have life and power granted to him
to correct all their evils without diminishing their efficiency. But
you speak, my dear sir, of my starting up. Now, do you know, I have a
great mind not to start up for some time yet, and to give this rogue,
Tims, time enough to show himself in his true colors. As I am dead,
and the mourning bought, and all those whose hearts would break upon
my account are broken-hearted already, I do not see why I should
announce my resuscitation in the newspapers till I have obtained not
only the proofs--which, indeed, I can furnish myself--of William
Delaware's complete innocence, but the proofs also of the guilt of
those who really did commit the murder; and which, with a little of
your good advice, I doubt not easily to acquire. In the mean time, if
I am not mistaken, good Mr. Tims, counting upon my death, will plunge
deeper and deeper into the quagmire of deceit and villainy through
which he is now struggling, and we shall have an opportunity of at
once exposing him, and opening my uncle's eyes to his knavery."
Mr. Wilkinson shook his head with a dry "hum!" at the last sentence
which Beauchamp spoke; but the other part of his young client's
proposal he approved very much, saying, "Certainly, certainly! The
plan is a good one; and we must never show our adversary our cards, as
Mr. Pleydel is made to observe, by the only great romance-writer that
the world has produced since Cervantes, and Le Sage, and Fielding. But
you forget, Mr. Beauchamp, that I do not fully know what information
you possess. Your lawyer must be your confessor, my dear sir, if you
would have his advice of any avail."
Beauchamp in reply recounted all that had happened to him since he
left Emberton on the morning before the murder--the fact of his
servant Harding overtaking him at Dr. Wilton's rectory--his own return
to Ryebury--his first and second visit to the miser--his compulsory
voyage with the murderers--and his stay at the house of the
smuggler--all, in short, that had occurred, with the exception of a
brief interview in the corridor of the inn at ----, which he thought
proper to leave untold.
Mr. Wilkinson rubbed his hands at each pause, and in the end declared
that nothing was more plain than the facts, and nothing would be more
easy than the proof. "The man Harding," he said, "whom you think you
recognized in the boat with this Walter Harrison, has never returned
to your house in London; and therefore we may conclude from the fact
of the powder-flask, and from your recognition, that he it really was
who committed the murder, with the other two, and the maid-servant, as
accessories. Information must be obtained from this man Small, in
regard to the port at which his cutter landed them in France; and once
having gained that, we have nothing to do but to set a Bow Street
officer on the track, and he will follow it like a bloodhound. I
entertain as strange doubts in regard to this Mr. Peter Tims as you
do; and believe, from some memoranda on the back of your note of hand,
that he knows fully, at this moment, that Captain Delaware never had
any thing to do with the murder of his uncle. Such a man well deserves
to be punished; and if you like to lie _incog_. for a week or so, we
will watch his proceedings; but you must not take it ill, my dear sir,
if I say, that we must be careful not to implicate any one whom we
might not like to inculpate."
Beauchamp's cheek flushed a good deal, but he replied calmly, "I
understand you, Mr. Wilkinson; but I am sure there is no fear of that.
However, my own intention is to go at once to France--I shall
certainly endeavor to see my sister first; for if any one on earth
grieves for me indeed, it is poor Maria. But, as I said, I shall
certainly go to France, and may help in tracing these villains
myself."
"But, my dear sir," said Mr. Wilkinson; "you must pause a few days. I
will write to the local magistrates, and gain a clear view of all they
have discovered in the neighborhood. We must have this man Small
examined; and I do not well see how we can do without your presence in
England; suppose, for instance, Captain Delaware should be taken and
brought to trial?"
"Why, of course, I will stay a few days," replied Beauchamp, musing;
"and, before I go, I will make a formal deposition on oath before a
magistrate, which, I suppose, I must do, in order to induce him to
grant me an officer to seek the culprits in France."
"There is an officer in Paris already, I believe," replied Mr.
Wilkinson; "but, at all events, we must get full information ere we
proceed. Believe me, my dear sir, the man that meddles with law,
either criminal or civil, without obtaining a clear knowledge of every
circumstance before he takes a single step, is very likely, indeed, to
burn his fingers."
"It is a dangerous thing to touch, I know full well," replied
Beauchamp, with a smile; "and God forbid that I should have more to do
with it than necessary. I will therefore come to London, where I
suppose that there is not a mortal being left by this time but you
gentlemen of the law, and I may very well pass my time _incog_., at an
hotel."
"Nay, indeed, you are mistaken as to the paucity of better people than
lawyers in London," replied Mr. Wilkinson. "Your noble uncle is
himself in town, and your sister. The latter I have had the honor of
seeing, and found her equally in despair about yourself and Captain
Delaware."
"Indeed!" said Beauchamp, smiling at a small twinkling of fun that
danced for a moment in Mr. Wilkinson's eyes, as he mentioned Miss
Beauchamp's anxiety in regard to William Delaware. "Indeed! and does
Maria show herself so greatly distressed about this accusation against
her cousin?"
"So much so," replied Mr. Wilkinson, "that she would insist upon
employing me in gathering evidence for his defense, which, by the way,
is the cause of my knowing so much about the case. Not only that, but
understanding apparently that there is no such stimulus to a lawyer's
exertions as money, she made me take notes for two hundred pounds to
meet the expenses."
"She is very generous, indeed," answered Beauchamp; "but pray, did she
show any inclination to ascertain my existence!"
"Oh, yes, most eagerly!" replied Mr. Wilkinson. "Come, come, my dear
sir, you must not think that interest in the cousin made her forget
the brother. On the contrary, although she says that she knows you too
well to believe that you would drown yourself--yet--"
"What! did they make it out that I had drowned myself?" cried
Beauchamp. "You did not tell me that before, Mr. Wilkinson!"
"Why, I thought it might hurt your feelings, and only said it now
incautiously," replied the lawyer; "but so indeed it is. They made it
out that you had drowned yourself in the sea near Emberton."
"They made a very great mistake, then," said Beauchamp, biting his
lip. "You need not tell me the causes assigned for the _rash act_, as
the newspapers term such things. I can divine them all, as it suited
each person to put them. The ladies, of course, said it was for love,
and the men said debt or gambling. No, no, I shall never commit
suicide. I laughed so heartily once at a philosopher at Geneva, who
determined to commit suicide in a fit of the spleen, that I am sure I
could not do it, even if I felt inclined. He went down to drown
himself in the lake, and, as it was a rainy day, he carefully took his
umbrella. When he came to the side of the water, however, and began to
put down the umbrella, the absurdity of the whole affair of a man
drowning himself with an umbrella in his hand, suddenly tickled his
fancy to such a degree, that he burst into a fit of laughter, and
turned upon his heel. Meeting him with the tears in his eyes, I soon
joined in his merriment when I heard the story; and the very idea of
suicide is connected with such ludicrous ideas, in my mind, that it
makes me laugh even to think of it.--But you were saying that my uncle
was in town; how does he console himself for my irreparable loss?"
"I have not seen his lordship," answered Mr. Wilkinson; "but every one
agrees that he has felt your supposed death more bitterly than any
event that ever occurred to him through life. Miss Beauchamp will
never give credit to the story of your death; but Lord Ashborough, I
understand, believes it firmly, and of course, I need not tell you,
that he is surrounded already by hundreds of sycophants, eager to
share in the immense wealth which is now, as they believe, without a
direct heir. Under such circumstances, would it not be better to give
his lordship intimation of your existence, as he may perhaps alter his
will, and life is precarious?"
"Not I!" answered Beauchamp, "Not I! The hereditary estates go with
the title, and I shall take no step whatever to secure any thing else.
In fact, I believe that I have contradicted my uncle more frequently
than my sense of respect would have otherwise permitted me to do,
simply because he has two or three hundred thousand pounds to leave,
and I do not choose to be thought a sycophant. I should have been a
very dutiful nephew, indeed, if it had not been for that money; the
more especially, as I know that my good uncle values it so highly
himself, that he can not help thinking I must value it highly too."
"At all events," said Mr. Wilkinson, who, saw that his client was
becoming rather fatigued, and perhaps the more unmanageable from that
circumstance--"At all events, Mr. Beauchamp, before you set out once
more, like the Knight of La Mancha, upon a new sally in search of such
perilous adventures, you must give me fuller powers to act for you,
and fuller instructions, too, as to how I am to act; for good Mr. Tims
has already been hinting at _winding up the affairs of the late Henry
Beauchamp, Esquire_, as he phrases it."
"Indeed!" said Beauchamp, "indeed! Well, I do believe that if there
were an act for hanging rogues, it would ultimately save a vast waste
of hemp upon thieves, and leave honester men in the world after all.
But I must now let you seek repose; and we will talk more of these
matters to-morrow morning, when, if my Galen will suffer me, I will
accompany you to London. For the last ten days I have been like poor
Erminia:--
'Cibo non prende gia che de suoi mali
Solo si pasce, e sol di pianto ha sete?'
But I think I have made amends for one evening at least."