"Ait-choo!" sneezed the doctor one morning towards the end of October,
when the weather was getting damp and misty, as he entered his
comfortable breakfast parlour, where Deborah was sitting as usual before
the fire darning her interminable stockings. I believe if you walked
into that room at any hour of the day or night, you would always find
her at the same task, darning stockings, and she always seemed to have
the same stocking, a half grey and white one with plenty of holes about
the heel, in her hand.
"Ait-choo!" sneezed the doctor again. "Bless my soul, Deb," he
exclaimed, "I believe I have taken a cold. Confound it! Just what I
might expect from toddling up to The Poplars last night on such a wild
goose chase."
"Well, you know, Richard, you would go out, and you threw off that
comforter I took the trouble to wrap round your neck."
"A lot of molly coddling! But you're a good soul, Deb. What an old
catamaran that old woman is to be sure."
"Do you mean Mrs Hartshorne, Richard?"
"Bless my soul, Deb! Of course; who else should I mean? She's a
regular old devil incarnate, and her temper, never very good, has got
quite awful now. I wanted her to go according to Trump's advice; he's a
sensible man, and told her to compromise that case. It will never stand
in law, so Trump says; and it's better to give that rascal Markworth
half the money now than expose the whole family, and have to give up the
whole lot by and bye. Half a loaf is better than no bread, I say, and I
would rather have it so for that poor girl's sake."
"And she won't do it, Richard?"
"The devil a scrap she says. Bless my soul, Deb! she won't hear of a
compromise; she says she will see that rascal hanged first before he
gets a penny of her money--and she's right, too, by Gad?"
"Oh! Richard, Richard!" said Pythias, warningly.
"Well, she did not use exactly that language, but she meant it. I tell
you what I've a mind to do, Deb."
"What, Richard? Nothing rash I hope!" observed Deborah, with anxiety:
she always looked upon her brother as a gay young fellow, who might
suddenly rush off and commit some escapade, so she consequently was
constantly on the tenter hooks of suspense. You see the doctor had a
partiality for the fair sex. He was always fancying himself in love
with every pretty young lady he came across, and innumerable were the
frights Deborah had had in consequence. The doctor in fact was always
committing himself, and only his universal _bonhomie_ saved him from
breaches of promises without number. He would be sensible enough and
hold his own with men, but with women he was a very child in their
hands. Deborah looked upon everybody in petticoats as special tempters
and snares set in the path of her brother. She thought he was
irresistible: and it was therefore a wonder with all the chances he had
had and the many very serious flirtations he had engaged in that he had
not yet been caught. He had got over his partiality for Miss Kingscott,
now that the charmer had gone away, not that I wish to accuse the doctor
of heartless conduct, or of being a "gay deceiver." But to be in love
was a chronic epidemic with him, and as Miss Kingscott was gone, he was
in duty and of necessity bound to take up with someone else, Deborah
knew that the doctor had of late been very attentive to a certain pretty
little widow who had come down to stop at Bigton, and had called in the
services of Aesculapius for some trifling nervous ailment--who knows
what might come of it? The doctor had escaped often but he might be
caught at last! The pitcher that often is carried scatheless to the
well is broken in the end; so she was now in terror that the doctor was
going to declare in his well-known manner that this pretty little widow
was "a dooced fine girl!" and state that he was going to marry her.
"Women are so designing; the artful wretches!" Pythias thought,
"especially widows!" and she waited in nervous expectation to hear what
Damon had "a mind to do!"
The doctor was in a thinking fit. He twirled his hat in his hands; and
then that not being sufficient to conduce to reflection, he pulled out
his bandana pocket-handkerchief and began to twist it round his fingers
in all sorts of fanciful shapes.
"I tell you what I've a mind to do, Deb. I'm hanged if I don't go over
to that foreign Frenchy place, and try and fetch Susan back myself! Tom
has gone away, and I daresay he made a mull of it before, and the old
woman won't do anything. I promised poor Roger Hartshorne to look after
his children, and I'm hanged if I don't go over there and bring her
back!"
Pythias was at once relieved in her mind. It was not that artful
designing creature then that Damon had in her thoughts. "Indeed,
Richard!" she said, "but it is a long journey, and do you think at your
time of life you can stand it?" she, like most country people who have
never stirred out of their native wilds, looked upon a journey to France
as if it comprised the circumnavigation of the globe.
"Bosh, Deb! Why it's only a hundred and fifty miles or so from here to
Havre, and I'll be back in a couple of days at most! It is right for me
to go, and I can just manage now to get away for two or three days, for
there's nobody ill and nothing doing; and that coal merchant fellow
Dobbins, who came down here to set up for surgeon, can mind my practice
for me. I'll go round and ask him this morning; he'll jump at the
offer."
"Well, if you think you ought to go, you must I suppose; and it is
better now than any other time."
"Of course I ought, and I will to, by Gad!" The doctor being a man of
resolution, although he often did make hasty resolves, quickly settled
his departure; and to the intense astonishment of everybody went away
from Bigton for a week as he said, although he only intended to be away
two days at the most, the whilom coal merchant Dobbins driving about in
the doctor's chaise, which he seldom used himself unless the gout was
very bad indeed, and making the most of his short resign until
Aesculapius proper should come back to his own again.
Doctor Jolly had never stirred out of his native town, save of course on
short excursions into the surrounding neighbourhood, for nearly a
quarter of a century; not for twenty-five years, ever since the time
when he went to London to walk the boards of Guy's Hospital, in order to
acquire his medical education; and naturally such an expedition as the
present was quite an era in his life.
But the doctor did not make "any bones" about it, as the popular
expression runs. He packed up his traps in a small portmanteau; and
after a very affecting farewell with Deborah, who fell upon his neck and
embraced him, as if she were never going to see him again, telling him,
"Take care of yourself, Richard! _Do_ take care of yourself!" to which
he responded in his cheery voice, "God bless my soul! Deb, of course I
will. God bless you!" he rubbed his eyes, which were glistening, with
his horny fist, and blowing his nose vigorously with his bandana, the
doctor went off on his travels.
He made his way safely to Havre, and got over all right with the
exception of being fearfully sea-sick on the passage. Oh! the blessing
of being thin! Fat men suffer the tortures of the direst days of the
Inquisition when attacked by the fell _mal du mer_! while the Misters
Slenders escaped scatheless.
He had some little difficulty with the gendarmes of the custom house and
the hotel touts, the latter of whom struggled for the possession of his
manly form; but he finally escaped after being taken summarily to a
caravanserai, where he left his luggage, and shortly afterwards set
about finding the abode of Susan and Markworth.
By some mistake or other he got carried off to the railway station, and
was taken some miles on the road to Paris. A fellow countryman,
however, convinced him of his mistake, and showed him how to get back
again to Havre. By the time he got back, however, evening had set in,
and he experienced the greatest difficulty in finding the direction of
the Rue Montmartre, for, even after finding the direction in which it
lay, he was still at fault. How he blessed the "frog eating race" as he
called them.
As the doctor's knowledge of French was somewhat limited,--indeed, he
only knew the word _oui_ which he pronounced "Ooo"--he found some
difficulty in finding his way. However, by dint of continually bawling
out in an extra stentorian voice "Roo Mount Martha," as he called it, to
every passer-by whom he met, he at length reached the street of which he
was in search.
It was some time before he got to the right number, as he would persist
in asking, of course in English, for "Number-o'-seven," instead of
_numero sept_. But in due course he arrived at the _logement_ of La
Mere Cliquelle.
The door was opened by the husband of that good lady--it is curious how
some men lose their individuality on getting married; they become mere
nonentities--how often you hear a man described as Mrs So-and-So's
husband. The doctor, thinking that by speaking his words very
distinctly, and in a loud tone of voice, he could make any Frenchman
understand English, acted on that plan.
"Is--Susan? Bless my soul! What the dooce am I thinking of?"
interrupted the doctor to himself. He commenced anew. "Is--Missis--
Mark--worth--in?"
"Hein?" grunted the Frenchman, interrogatively.
The doctor repeated his question, only this time asking for "madam"
instead of "mistress."
The Gaul's face brightened, and he looked more intelligent. "Ah-h!
Yase! yase, yase, yase!" he said, nodding his head violently, "de
madame? de Inglismans, hay?"
"Yes, yes! quite right," ejaculated the doctor. "I say you are quite
right," bawling out the words at the top of his voice. "Confound these
stupid French frogs," he muttered to himself; "why, they can't
understand plain English! Is--she--you--know--who in?" And seeing that
the Gaul liked to nod, he nodded his head until he grew quite apoplectic
in the face.
"Non," said the Mere Cliquelle's husband. "Ze Inglisman's is go--vat
you call it, eh? Ah, yase, is go oot."
"Oh! she's gone out, is she?"
"Ah-h! Yase! yase, yase!" nodded the M.C.'s husband.
"Do--you--know--when--she--will--come--back?"
The Frenchman looked puzzled for a moment, but with a foreigner's
intuitive cleverness be guessed at the gist of the question. "Ah, yase!
you vant to know _son retour_? Cee go walk mit monsieur. Cee go joost
now _a huit heures_, and cee will retour byanby, _a neuf heures_, noine
clock. _Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf_"--he
said, counting on his fingers--"o'cloke!"
"Ooo!" said the doctor, giving a satisfied nod, "I understand, she will
be back again at nine o'clock," holding up nine of his fingers in proof.
"I--am--much--obliged--to--you,--I--will--come back again--at nine!"
"Ah-h, yase! Dat is raite. You will retour?"
"Yes, I'll come back again!" said the doctor, as he walked away, after
both had bowed politely to each other, and the Gaul had entreated him to
accept a hundred thousand assurances of his extreme subserviency.
"Confound those stoopid foreigners!" muttered the doctor, as he walked
up the street in the direction of Ingouville, to pass the time.
"Confound those stoopid foreigners! Why, that fellow could have said
all that in half the time in English."
Volume 2, Chapter XV.
"END OF SECOND ACT."
The engulfment of the last straw on which he, the drowning man, had
leant his weight, left Markworth without a single loophole of escape: he
did not know where to turn.
The Jew, Solomonson, had not only advanced him the money required for
carrying on the unsuccessful lawsuit, but he was largely indebted to him
besides; and Solomonson, he knew, was a very Shylock, and although he
might bow and smile, and be the best of friends, and most cordial of
bankers, while things were going on right and he saw some prospect of
getting his money back with a large "pershentage" in addition, still
Markworth was equally well aware that the Jew would rigorously exact his
pound of flesh as soon as he saw the game was up, and the cards exposed,
and he would be the first one to come upon him for the three thousand
pounds, for which he held his bill.
Markworth judged the child of Israel very rightly; and if he had not
been a trifle earlier in the day in receiving that damming proof of the
date of Susan's coming of age, its disagreement with the date of the
marriage, and the consequent working of the clause in the will, and its
effect on his claims, he would have found Mr Solomonson so anxious
about his welfare, and considerate about his movements, that he might
have discovered some slight check, in the shape of a _capias_, was
placed in the way of any desire he might evince to leave the kingdom,
and rejoin his wife. Messrs. Trump and Sequence had communicated with
Markworth's lawyers at the same time as they had done with him, so the
news would soon reach other ears which would be attentive enough to the
information, and note its effects. He did not have a very long start in
his advance news; still it was sufficient. That was something at all
events, and he just managed to catch the tidal boat that night, and was
soon on his way to that Alsatia on the other side, where debtors, unless
their shortcomings are of a criminal nature, may laugh in safety at
their creditors in England.
When Markworth was safely on board, and the steamer had ploughed through
the muddy Southampton Water, and was dancing through the blue sea
beyond, somewhat rough and leadeny at this season of the year, and the
Southampton lights were far behind, his mind grew more composed, and he
began to think over all that had happened.
"Dolt that I was," he said to himself, "not to have looked at that
cursed register myself. In planning the whole scheme I neglected one of
its most trifling, and yet most important points; and that has damned
all! I see now how it all happened; the dates of Tom's and the girl's
births came so close together, one on the 27th of August, and the other
the 29th, that Clara jumbled the two together. The idiot! Curse her
carelessness! But it was easy enough to mistake that 9 for a 7, and
more fool I for trusting her! Curse my own folly! Treble fool, dolt,
ass that I was! not to see to the thing myself!" He spoke out bitterly,
looking out over the sea. "But I wonder how the devil it was those
cursed lawyers and pettifoggers did not find out that mistake of the
date before!" he added, afterwards, as if reflecting.
There was some cause for Markworth's wonderment at the lawyers'
oversight, as the discovery was as much a surprise to them as it was to
him. But such things do happen sometimes; and many an important case
having large interests at stake, has been decided ere now on just such a
similar point, which has never been discovered or brought to light until
just before, or indeed after, the case has gone into court. In many
instances the lawyers have been grubbing and searching far and wide for
remote proofs and impossible witnesses, when some little,
straightforward clue has been lying under their eyes all the time,
without being seized upon and made use of, or even dreamt of.
In the case of Susan Hartshorne, the date of her marriage and her
majority had been taken for granted to be coeval; and, indeed, there was
so little difference in the date and in the figures, that some little
allowance must be made for the palpable error of Trump, Sequence, and
Co., which was only discovered just in time, as their case could never
have been sustained in court for Susan could have proved her own sanity
on Markworth's side.
That date only saved the dowager from having to pay over her daughter's
inheritance; but Markworth would never have allowed that mistake in the
date to have occurred if he had known at first, as he knew latterly,
what a great effect it would have in the working of Roger Hartshorne's
will.
When he went down that first time to Doctors' Commons he had read
through the will carefully, but not carefully enough to understand the
absolute forfeiture of Susan's inheritance if she married before the age
of twenty-one without her mother's consent. Even when he had
subsequently digested this fact, he had been so certain about the date
that he had not given it an afterthought; and had, like Mrs
Hartshorne's lawyers, thought that the only thing he had to prove was
her sanity at the time she married him.
The three months that had passed since her marriage, the change of scene
from the place of her childhood which was associated with her calamity,
and the novel influences which had been brought to bear upon her, had so
thoroughly altered her, as has been observed before, although too much
stress cannot be placed on that point, that Susan was completely cured,
to all intents and purposes. She was no more silly, foolish, or insane
than Markworth himself, and few people would have taken him for an
idiot.
He had so thoroughly worked out her cure which he had planned when he
had seen how malleable and easily influenced she was, for this especial
purpose of putting her in the witness-box, having represented to her
that she would have to come forward at some time and prove their
marriage, or that her mother would tear her away from him--that she was
quite prepared to be very strong evidence on his side. The very idea of
her being taken back to The Poplars, and her mother, at whose name she
still trembled, and grew frightened still, was sufficient to nerve her
up to face a thousand juries, for the sake of her liberty and for
Markworth, whom she now loved with more than the child's trusting love
with which she had first regarded him.
That was all past now, however!
There was no more necessity for her coming forward, Markworth thought
savagely; no chance now for him to produce her triumphantly at the last
moment before his adversaries, and say--
"There! you say I have cajoled a lunatic into entering into an illegal
contract of marriage with me, for the sake of appropriating her fortune.
There is your alleged insane girl; examine her for yourselves, and
prove your case if you can."
The opportunity was lost, and he had to withdraw from the battle before
the very forces even were marshalled for the fight.
He had played his game well, but one false move had lost him all, and
what to do now he neither knew nor cared. All his aims and ends had
become so bound up in the successful termination of that law suit, that
now that he was vanquished he seemed to be completely shipwrecked.
His last straw had sunk, and he was lost. He knew it and felt it!
With a strong effort of his native indomitable will, he dismissed the
past from his mind, and tried to concentrate his thoughts on some plan
for the future.
All hopes of getting any money from the Hartshornes were idle to indulge
in; the old lady certainly would see him in Tartarus first before she
gave him a penny; and Tom, although he had offered to take his sister
back, and would provide for her, would as certainly not assist him, for
he had seen from their last interview that Tom was not nearly of so
plastic a nature as he had thought him at first. Besides, he was far
away now. There was only the doctor to ask, and he would do nothing, he
thought; and, above all, he could not go back to England himself.
His best plan, therefore, would be to pack up his things when he arrived
at Havre, and scrape together all the money he could by selling any
unnecessary superfluities. He was not going to be "troubled with that
girl any longer."
He would send Susan back to her home, and tell her people to do what
they liked with her, as he had no further need of her.
"Curse her!" he thought, for clogging himself to her, "the idiot! and
curse myself, too, for my folly in not looking before I leaped."
He stopped on deck the whole night during the passage across, for he
could not sleep, his mind was so at war with every thing. If he had
gone below he might, perhaps, have discovered who two of his fellow
passengers were, but he did not.
Nemesis was with him, but he knew it not; and besides Nemesis there was
another person, whom neither would have dreamt of seeing there.
It was broad day now--a beautiful morning; but the morning had no charms
for him; and he was glad when it waxed towards noon, and Havre came in
sight with its quaint lighthouse, and its twin rows of houses on the
heights above, and the muddy Seine with its Babel of a landing place.
The _machine a vapeur_ quickly plied her way along, and in another half
hour broadly opened her destination on her port bow.
They were soon alongside the pier, and Markworth having no luggage, was
not delayed in passing through the _Douane_.
Saying to the officer--"_Rien a declarer_!" he passed rapidly along the
gangway on to the pier, and up through the busy little streets, until he
reached his lodgings in the Rue Montmartre.
"Oh! Allynne! you're come at last. I've been longing so to see you; it
has been so lonely here all this time by myself," said Susan, rising and
going forward eagerly to meet him, as he opened the door of their little
sitting room.
"Stop! Damn it! I don't want any humbug and foolishness. None of that
snivelling for me," he said, savagely, repulsing her as she came towards
him.
"Oh! Allynne! what have I done? Why are you angry with me?" said
Susan, entreatingly.
The slightest change in his voice affected her at once, and all her joy
and gladness at his return was frozen up in a moment.
When he perceived the effects of his words he relented and spoke kindly
to her, and Susan was soothed in a moment.
But he was ill at ease, for he was busily debating with himself all day
how he should break the news of his going away to her. The day passed
drearily enough for him, and he was longing for evening to come; the
sickly gleams of the November sun angered him: he wanted the day and all
its belongings to be shut out.
Dreading that Solomonson might have sent a sheriff's officer after him,
he gave strict injunctions to the Mere Cliquelle to say he was not at
home, and not to admit any one on any pretence at all to see him; at all
events, during the day. In the evening it would not matter.
Someone came in the afternoon he heard, and beyond a muttered oath at
the intruder, whom he did not make any inquiries respecting, he was left
to himself all day.
He wanted to settle matters with Susan, and break the news to her, and
he did not know how to set about it. He knew or fancied what might be
the effects of a sudden shock on her. Evening came at last, and he felt
he could not stop in any longer. So he told Susan he wanted her to come
out with him for a walk.
"Here, put on your bonnet at once, and come out for a walk. I want to
speak to you seriously, and I can't breathe in this stuffy little hole,"
he said, suddenly, after a pause, looking round morosely at the quaint
little room, with its gaudy belongings, and its half-starved little
fire, composed of about a dozen small pieces of slimly cut fire-wood,
arranged with mathematical precision, in the porcelain fire-place. The
evenings were chilly now, and even the French pretence of a fire was
necessary to warm the room.
Susan was equipped in a moment; and they went out of the house,
Markworth slamming the door behind him.
"_Mon Dieu_!" said the little fat landlady, who was superintending the
cooking of her supper, to her husband, looking out of the window of her
kitchen above, as she heard the door bang, and saw the pair go down the
steps. "_Mon Dieu, Auguste! V'la Msieu et Madame qui'ls s'en vont
sortir, et Monsieur, il ne fait que d'entrer_! _C'est bien tard
promener_!"
"_Hein_!" observed her _bon homme_, reflectively, from his seat in the
corner, where he was salivating a stick of chocolate to pass the time
while waiting anxiously for the _potage_ to be ready. "_C' n'est pas
mon affaire_!" and he proceeded to suck his _chocolat_ calmly, which he
had withdrawn for a moment from his mouth for the exigencies of
conversation.
Markworth walked on rapidly, Susan keeping up with difficulty by his
side, through the town, which was now partly overhung by the sea-fog, up
to the heights of Ingouville, where the air was clearer, and the lights
shone out from the trim little rows of villa residences.
The promenade was quite deserted; but Markworth proceeded without
speaking a word until he had passed all the houses, and had reached a
lonely part of the road, with the cliff above the footpath, and a
precipitous descent on the other side nearest the town, below which was
the zigzag street, up which they had come.
Markworth now stopped suddenly, seeing that Susan was quite out of
breath from the exertions she had made to keep up with him.
"At last," he said, "I can speak to you quietly;" and he paused a
second, as if to think over his words.
He did not know that Nemesis was close behind him, for it was nearly
dark: the thud of the sea in the distance, splashing against the pier,
and the sound of the waters of the Seine at their embouchure, mingling
with the tide, drowned even the sound of a passing footstep.
It was a crisis in Markworth's fate.
"Susan," he said, abruptly, "I have to leave you. I have to go away for
a long time, and I shall send you back to-morrow to your people in
England."
He spoke rapidly. To do him justice, he knew what a pang it would be to
the poor girl; but he could not possibly take her with him, so he was
anxious to get the "scene," as he called it, over as quickly as he
could.
"Oh, Allynne! Allynne!" she cried out, piteously; "you are not going to
leave me! I shall die if I go back there!"
And she flung her arms round his neck, as if to hold him for ever. He
was her life, her all!
The avenger was close behind.
"Don't be so foolish, Susan!" Markworth said, in a half-angry,
half-coaxing manner. "I'm not going to leave you now, child. I'm
talking about to-morrow. I've been away before, and I can't be with you
always."
And he tried to unclasp her hands from his neck.
"Oh, Allynne! I can't go back there! I shall die! Take my money,
everything I've got; but do let me stay with you--don't send me back
there!" she sobbed out in broken accents.
The allusion to the money, and her entreaties seemed to madden him.
"Have done, girl! Idiot!" he said, roughly, tearing away her hands with
violence, and throwing her from him.
The poor girl started back as pale as death, as if she had been shot.
"Idiot! idiot!" she cried out, in tones that seemed to come from the
depths of a broken heart. "Oh, Allynne! That word from you! from you!"
she moaned, and wrung her hands in bitterness of spirit.
As she started back--the pathway was very narrow--she stood on the very
verge of the rocky precipice which bordered the road.
And as she uttered the last words, her foot slipped. With a scream of
genuine terror, re-echoed by Markworth, she fell back, and he could hear
the heavy fall of a body below.
"Good God!" he exclaimed aloud, rushing forward and peering into the
gulf down which she had disappeared, "she must be killed!"
He turned round hurriedly, for he could not get down to the bottom of
the cliff without retracing his steps by the winding road up which they
had just come.