The winter passed by and fled. Ships from foreign parts came and went
from Havre; and still, although the police with the able Chef at their
head kept a strict look out and surveillance on all comers and goers,
nothing was heard or seen of Markworth, and no circumstances arose to
unravel the web of mystery in which his disappearance and the murder of
the girl were enwrapped.
Clara Kingscott still remained at Havre. She was loth to leave the
scene where her enemy had made his last _coup_, and she was hoping on
against hope that something might arise to mature her vengeance--but
nothing came.
So at last in disgust, having made the Chef promise her, as he did
willingly in the interests of the law, to forward her the first
intimation should anything be heard of Markworth, she quitted Havre and
returned to England in order to prosecute her watch here.
She went back to the lodgings she had previously occupied in Bloomsbury.
It may be remembered that these were the same where Markworth used
formerly to live; and besides their being comfortable and suited to her
in every way as a point of attack, the governess hoped that perchance he
of whom she was in search might perchance come there unexpectedly. He
would probably have seen the news of Susan's death in the paper, and
thinking that nothing had been discovered of his crime, as she thought,
return again some time to London: where would he be more likely to come
than here? No one connected with the after circumstances of his life
knew of his having lived here but herself, and it was on the cards that
the first place that he would go to, should he return again, as was most
probable, to the scenes of his old life, when he thought pursuit had
died out, would be Mrs Martin's old apartments.
Here, therefore, Miss Kingscott sat herself down to bide her time.
Patience was never a virtue that she possessed, and it can be no wonder
that time hung heavy on her hands, and her heart was gnawed through with
vexation and impatience at the delay in all her plans, the failure of
her vengeance. Nemesis was at fault, and Nemesis showed the traces of
her mental struggles in her face: this last year had aged her more than
ten.
She paid repeated visits to the offices of Messrs. Trump, Sequence, and
Co., in Bedford Row, all to no purpose.
Mr Trump had first heard her placidly and promised assistance when she
should have secured her prey; he had next, after being sufficiently
bored, told her that it was no business of his, and washed his hands of
it; he also said that if she took his advice she too would wash her
hands of it, and leave it alone, to which Sequence, parrot-like, had
re-echoed "leave it alone!" The lawyer finally, when he had been bored
too much and had lost his admiration at the woman's fixity of purpose,
gave directions in his office that he was to be "never in" when she
called. Clara Kingscott after this waited long hours, sitting
determinedly in the outer room, amid the ill-concealed ridicule and
chaff of "sucking sheepskins," the clerks, and had finally to give up
the lawyers in the chronic disgust which was now enveloping everything
in her life.
Solomonson and Isaacs, the Jew creditors of Markworth, she also haunted;
but they, too, could not see what was to be done, and did not take that
interest in Clara Kingscott's plans which she had supposed they would
have done. To tell the truth the name of Markworth and all that was
connected with their former client stunk in their nostrils; it was not a
pleasant subject for them to dwell upon; so while their debtor was out
of their reach,--although they were ready to pounce upon him _vi et
armis_, with warrants and detainers, should he venture within the
precincts of the lion's den, _id est_, be again within the realm--they
preferred taking a dignified, albeit Hebrews, silence on the matter, and
let it lie _perdu_ for the present.
Ousted on all sides, therefore, and disappointed of her prey, Clara
Kingscott's life during this interregnum of affairs was not a happy one,
although she tried to make the best of it that she could. As she had
plenty of money for her wants she was not obliged to seek employment,
and she could afford to wait awhile and watch. But watching without
occupation, and waiting with nothing to do, is poor work at the best for
an impatient mind.
In the meantime she cultivated relationship with the lodging-house
keeper Mrs Martin, in the furtherance of her projects: "the parlours"
and the basement were on the best of terms.
The spring came and passed, the days spun out their weary length, summer
was nigh, summer had come, and yet Clara Kingscott's vengeance was not
matured; the fly kept away from the web which the spider had so
cunningly woven for him.
But her gratification came at last in reward for her patience.
One night--it was far now advanced in the summer--as she was perspiring
in the dingy parlours which she would not relinquish even in the hot
weather, notwithstanding that she had nothing to keep her in town, she
heard a double knock at the street door.
The knock was nothing unusual in itself. It was a knock which perhaps
any gentleman or lady might have given--but there was this point about
it, it was undecided. Miss Kingscott had been previously reviewing in
her mind all the chain of events that had interwoven her life and her
purpose with that of Markworth. She had been tracing down the panorama
of the last year from its inception to the part where the canvas had
been roughly torn across. There was nothing unusual in this, it was her
constant practice to do this nearly every night--to evolve the various
thoughts which had been passing through her mind during the day, as they
did every day. But by one of those sudden mental clutches which strike
across our brain sometimes, she seized upon the past and worked it into
the present. Like as a sudden noise which we hear in our sleep--such as
the report of a gun, or the sudden exclamation of someone who intrudes
on our slumbers--is worked into our dreams and forms the subject of a
complete mental phantasmagoria, so this stray knock at the street door
of Mrs Martin's lodgings was worked by Clara Kingscott into her present
thoughts. "He's here!" she exclaimed to herself in the tumultuous
throbbing of her excited imagination. "He's here! I feel it! I have
waited long, but he is caught at last!" But she did not go to the door,
she waited and watched still: in spite of all, however, she was right
for once.
It was Markworth.
By and bye, later in the evening, Mrs Martin came up to tell her the
important news. Her former lodger had returned--so poor--so
ill-dressed--so changed from what she had formerly remembered him.
What did he want? Had she sent him about his business?
Not she! The worldly lodging-house keeper had still a heart left; and
the poor wanderer who had returned had been one of her best tenants. He
was worn out, poor fellow--she said--and she had put him in one of her
best bedrooms, where she hoped he was sleeping comfortably after all the
troubles he had gone through. "It made her heart bleed to hear 'im,"
said the twenty-five-shillings-a-week-and-coals-extra vampire. There is
charity in all of us, friend, if you can find it out; even in a London
lodging-house keeper; and some of us, returning prodigals, can quote
with the poet, that they found their warmest welcome at an inn.
Strangers are sometimes even more compassionate than friends!
"At last! At last!" murmured Miss Kingscott; and she had planned well
before what she should do in such an emergency.
Early the next morning, while the wanderer was yet enjoying the soundest
sleep he had had since the night he fled like a hunted animal from
Havre, the ex-governess was up and doing.
Pressing business this time with Solomonson and Isaacs: they did not
refuse now to hear her news, and act upon it too.
Disruption of the prodigal's dreams.
Dire disgust in the Bloomsbury lodgings!
Before twelve o'clock that day, Allynne Markworth was removed in a cab
under the escort of two sheriffs officers (much to the disgust of Mrs
Martin, who had lent her prodigal lodger five pounds "until he could go
to the bank," as he said) to Chancery Lane--or rather a small street
running out of the same.
He changed his lodgings a second time, from the worthy Mrs Martin's
first-floor to the apartments of a certain Abednego in Curseover Street,
who keeps a court of reception--popularly know as a sponging-house, of
the class immortalised by Hogarth--for gentlemen under a pecuniary
cloud.
Markworth was arrested at the suit of certain _confreres_ of Mister
Abednego, twixt "Solomonson and Isaacs, solicitors," on a writ for a
largish sum of money, which he certainly could not pay.
Was the detainer heavy!
3,000 pounds and costs!
And he hadn't a penny in his pocket but Mrs Martin's five pounds!
Pleasant!
"But your friends will soon come and see you," said the Cerberus of the
sponging-house in words of comfort. If Markworth had been arrested for
a trifling sum, he would have taken no notice of him whatever. There is
a dignity even in debt, if it be large enough! Your paltry insolvents
are but small fry: a colossal defaulter is a man to be looked up to and
envied, _vide_ the annals of the Bankruptcy Court. So Markworth was
comfortably treated, and had a private room, as he owed a heavy sum,
and, moreover, had money in his pocket.
Oh! yes, there was not the least doubt Markworth's friends would look
after him. He had a visitor the very first day of his incarceration,
and who it was may easily be guessed.
Volume 3, Chapter IX.