Johann Wilfer, Jessica's adopted father, was German by birth, and the
son of an innkeeper in one of the tiny villages on the banks of the
Rhine. In his youth he had studied as an art-student at Munich; but,
finally, by his idle and dissolute behaviour, so angered the authorities
that he had been compelled to return home. Tiring of the rural life
there, he finally obtained from his parents sufficient money to come to
London to try his fortune.
Here he soon obtained some work from the smaller art dealers, which
enabled him to live in comparative comfort, and had it not been for his
unreliability and his love of drink he might have seen to be a good
artist.
Wilfer was a handsome young fellow in those days, and while on one of
his wandering tours in Kent he met and won the heart of a simple little
country girl, named Lucy Goodwin. Lucy believed her lover to be
everything that was good, and, trusted him even to the extent of her
betrayal; so that, under some pretence, young Wilfer was able to entice
the girl to Canterbury, where, a few weeks later, he deserted her.
She was the only daughter of a widower, a clerk in the employ of a
country bank, who, broken-hearted at his daughter's ruin, threw up his
situation, changed his name to that of George Harker, and fled to London
with his beloved child. Here he found it extremely difficult to obtain
work. His savings soon evaporated, and alas! further trouble was in
store for him; for one afternoon a smooth-faced gentleman appeared at
their quiet lodgings. This was none other than Jasper Vermont, who in a
long private interview with the unhappy Harker informed him that he had
heard of Lucy's escapade, and threatened to proclaim her shame, if Mr.
Harker failed to comply with a proposition he was about to make to him.
The business which he suggested was one entirely abhorrent to the
ex-bank clerk; but with money running short, and the thought of his
daughter's misery should her secret be revealed, what could the father
do but submit?
The result of this interview was that, a month or two later, a new
moneylending firm sprang up in a narrow street in the city, under the
title of Harker's Ltd., and none of the numerous clients who patronised
it ever recognised that the manager, Mr. Harker, was speaking the
literal truth when he repeatedly asserted his own impotence in the
business. Every one believed the story to be a fictitious one, invented
to assist him in his extortions.
Time passed on, and Lucy's pretty face and modest ways, perhaps her very
sadness, which clung to her in never-ending remorse, caught the heart of
a simple-minded man, one John Ashford. He was a flourishing grocer in a
village on the banks of the Thames, and was then staying in London on a
visit. After a hard struggle with herself the poor girl returned his
love, and ventured to become his wife.
Wilfer, from inquiries made by Mr. Harker, was supposed to be dead.
None, she thought, knew her secret except her father, for Lucy believed
that Vermont had employed Mr. Harker out of friendship and sympathy, and
did not know until long after her marriage that she, and therefore her
husband, were in his power. So she ventured to grasp the happiness held
out to her, thus strengthening the chain which bound her father and
herself in slavery to Jasper Vermont's will. For if they feared
disclosure before, how much more did they dread it now, when Lucy was
married to a man who prided himself upon his good name and untarnished
respectability!
Johann Wilfer, however, was not dead, nor had he left London. He had
become a member of a gang of ingenious rascals, who lived by imitating
the less known gems of the old masters, and palming them off on the
credulous public and wealthy collectors as genuine. The impostures were
very cleverly manipulated, and quite a little system was instituted to
bring them to perfection. Mr. Wilfer's part of the undertaking was
"toning"; that is, bringing to the imitations the necessary mistiness
and discoloration supposed to be produced by age.
He did very well at this business; so well, indeed, that he took a house
in Cracknell Court, Soho, and if he could have restrained himself from
the drinking of beer and spirits he would have been in comfortable
circumstances.
This perpetual intoxication eventually made its mark upon Mr. Wilfer's
countenance, and contorted his face into a caricature--with its mottled
skin and bleary eyes--of the good looks which had won Lucy Goodwin's
heart in former times. His language had also degenerated as well as his
looks. All trace of German accent had been carefully obliterated, in
order that no suspicion should be aroused when selling a faked picture.
He played the part of a Cockney so frequently and so well that that
particular accent seemed, as it were, to be his mother-tongue.
As the years went by even the gang became tired of his habitual
intoxication, and only occasionally gave him employment, so that he
turned his attention to scenery painting for the stage. In this way,
when engaged at the Rockingham Theatre, he met Martha Feltham, Ada
Lester's dresser, and by means of boasting of his wealth finally
persuaded her to marry him. It was in this manner that Jessica had first
come under his sway.
When Ada found that her sister would never recover from the mental shock
inflicted by Jasper Vermont when he told her that their marriage was
illegal, she had made arrangements to get the child out of the house.
Naturally the little girl was an eyesore and an encumbrance to her;
especially as Julia--blissfully ignorant that she herself was the
mother--was always worrying her sister as to the reason of Jessica's
presence. Accordingly, when Ada, by reason of her improved position and
higher salary, moved away from the Bloomsbury lodgings into a house of
her own, she gave the child over to the care of her dresser, Martha, now
Mrs. Wilfer, and had always paid regularly for her board and keep.
Mr. Wilfer did not object to this addition to his income, though he
still worked occasionally for the picture gang; and it was on one of
their jobs that he came within reach of Jasper Vermont.
One day he had been sent to play the usual proceedings to Mr. George
Harker, presuming, naturally enough, that being a moneylender he was
rich, and hearing that he had a liking for "old masters."
Johann Wilfer saw Mr. Harker, and notwithstanding the changes which time
brings to us all, and the entire transformation of name and
surroundings, recognised him as the father of the girl whom he had once
so cruelly deceived.
The old man never having heard the name of Lucy's betrayer--for she had
purposely kept it from him--knew nothing of his visitor, and eventually
purchased the picture, after consulting with Jasper, who discovered the
imposition at a glance, but saw in the impostor a possible new tool.
He instructed Harker to obtain a written guarantee of the genuineness of
the picture, and Wilfer, being half intoxicated at the time, for once
forgot his usual caution, and gave the required pledge. With that in his
possession, Jasper Vermont had Wilfer in his power, and only left him
undisturbed because he saw no present opportunity of using him.
But when he wanted him he knew that he had only to exert the authority
which the warrant gave him, and Johann Wilfer would be his obedient
servant, as many better men were already.
The picture he intended--through Mr. Harker--to compel one of the firm's
wealthy clients to take as part of a loan, a well-known trick of the
worst class of moneylenders.
Quite unconscious of the sword that hung over him, Mr. Wilfer, after a
bout of hard drinking, went home, and it was in his drunken frenzy that
he had struck Jessica. She, bruised and frightened, fled into the
streets, where Adrien Leroy found her.
Left to himself--for his wife was away for a day or two--Mr. Wilfer fell
into a deep slumber, in which he remained for the rest of the evening.
Early for him, on the following morning he was roused by a loud knocking
at his front door. Now thoroughly sobered, he hurriedly dressed,
stumbled down the rickety staircase, and opened the door, to himself
confronted by Miss Ada Lester. Her face was flushed, and the angry light
Jasper Vermont had called up by his sneers at her vulgarity the previous
evening still shone in her dark eyes.
"Where is the gal?" she asked abruptly.
"The gal!" he repeated, staring at her in stolid amazement.
"Yes--Jessica!" retorted Miss Lester, her jewels flashing in a chance
ray of sunlight which had found its way through the dingy court. "Where
is she?"
"She is not at home," said Mr. Wilfer. "She and Martha 'ave gone out for
the day to Greenwich. If you'd wrote a-sayin' you was goin' to call I'd
have made 'em stay till you came."
Miss Lester looked at him keenly.
"If you don't believe me," said Wilfer, "go upstairs and look at her
room."
Ada ran past him up the stairs, and quickly returned.
"It's locked," she said.
"Of course; she's quite the lady--keeps the keys 'erself," sneered
Johann. "Look 'ere, 'ere's her hat and coat; there's one of 'er boots,
so she must be comin' back afore long."
Miss Lester appeared convinced. She breathed more freely, as if a weight
had been taken off her mind.
"Here," she said, putting some gold coins in his hand, "is something to
make up for my troubling you. But I was real anxious to know if
everything was right with the gal."
Wilfer--debauched and demoralised by drink--was disposed to look at the
worst side of things; and from this point of view thought she meant the
reverse of what she said.
"Would you be very much cut up," he said slyly, "if she wasn't able to
trouble you any more or answer awkward questions, miss?"
She turned on him with a fierceness that made him recoil.
"If anything happens to that gal," she shouted, "I'll turn the police on
you. For, mind my words--I mean them--I shouldn't have cared yesterday
very much if I had learnt she was dead, but now I want her. Do you hear?
I want her, and you take care she's alive and ready when I come for
her."
Then, without vouchsafing any further information, she flounced away,
leaving Mr. Wilfer staring blankly after her, and wishing for once that
he had stayed his hand, instead of driving the girl into the miseries
and dangers of the streets.
Little did Wilfer or Miss Lester imagine that Jessica had found safety
and refuge in Adrien Leroy's chambers.