LUCIUS HAGGARD IS BEWILDERED.
John, Earl of Pit Town, was above all things an art-worshipper. He was
never tired of perambulating the great galleries of Pit Town Castle and
admiring the collection, which it had been his life-long labour of love
to bring together. When his son, the late Lord Hetton, had come to his
sudden and dreadful end, the old man had felt the blow severely; when
his heir, Reginald Haggard, had been snatched away in the pride of his
manhood, it had affected him in a less degree; but he had felt the blow
from its very suddenness. Ever since Reginald Haggard's wife had come to
live at the Castle, he had ceased to feel that he was alone in the
world, and a deep affection had sprung up between the two. As for
Haggard's boys, now bursting into early manhood, he loved them somewhat
for themselves, but still more for the sake of the woman who had been a
daughter to him, and the stay and comfort of his waning years. Always
orderly and methodical, he had settled the ultimate disposition of his
property with justice and discretion. He was immensely wealthy. As we
have said, the entailed property was extremely large, but was exceeded
in actual money value by the great mineral wealth which was disposable
by will. The value of several ordinary estates, too, was locked up in
the vast collection contained in the new galleries.
The future possessor of the Pit Town title would be a lucky man indeed
if he got the treasures so laboriously accumulated, during his long
lifetime, by old Lord Pit Town. The old man lived by strict rule. He had
a curious theory that, barring accidents, the span of human life might
be ordinarily calculated at sixty-five years; that is, supposing that
one third of the time, or eight hours a day, was given to sleep. He
believed, too, that just as the span of life is undoubtedly shortened by
indiscretions and excesses, particularly in the matters of diet and
drink; so he considered that span to be indubitably lengthened, if the
ordinary rules of common prudence were carefully observed. But Lord Pit
Town went further than this. Continual association with Dr. Wolff had
converted the old nobleman to an extraordinary and original theory which
was held by the doctor of philosophy. This theory was a delightfully
simple one. Dr. Wolff was accustomed to sum it up as follows: "The human
body is a machine, and would go on working for ever did not certain
parts of it gradually wear out. It is our duty to make the machine last
as long as possible. When not in use it should be run at the lowest rate
of speed, in order to reduce the rapidity of the deterioration." "If I
don't want to wear out my boots," Dr. Wolff would triumphantly remark,
"I put on my slippers; therefore, as my body is more precious to me than
even my new boots, I never unnecessarily wear it out. A certain minimum
amount of exercise is undoubtedly necessary to health; let us take that
by all means, but no more. Let us avoid unnecessary exertion of all
kinds, physical or mental; let us not ride if we can drive, let us not
walk if we can ride, let us not stand when we can sit, and certainly we
should not sit if we can lie down; above all things we should not remain
awake if we can possibly sleep, and even in sleeping we should, if
possible, refrain from dreams. The valuable machine which we are
possessed of should be run at the lowest possible speed, that it may
last the longer. Strong emotions of all kinds should be just as
obnoxious to us as strong drinks. Holding it as an absolute fact that,
barring unavoidable accidents, a certain definite amount of wakefulness
is allotted to every man, every opportunity should be seized for running
the machine at the lowest possible rate by the simplest means; that is
to say, to put it shortly, never remain awake without an object, as you
are uselessly expending the allotted time of _Life_, that is to say, of
_Wakefulness_." But Dr. Wolff and his disciple went further than this:
they looked upon sleep as the secret recuperative power of nature. They
considered that in sleep they had discovered the real _vis medicatrix
naturæ_. Their curiosity was aroused as to the success of their theory;
they were neither of them particularly anxious to become very old men,
except that their doing so would tend to prove the correctness of their
views.
Lord Pit Town himself had already reached an almost patriarchal age; he
slept and dozed frequently in the daytime, thus carrying out the
principles of what the doctor proudly termed the "Wolffian Theory."
Under no pretext whatever would any servant at Walls End Castle have
dared to awaken either the doctor or the old lord; they were never
called in the morning, and in the midst of the most interesting
conversations they were both of them in the habit, without the slightest
apology, of suddenly closing their eyes and taking a deep draught of
what they called nature's recuperative elixir. Everybody in Walls End
Castle knew perfectly well what the servants meant, when they said that
either the old lord or his faithful henchman was engaged; it simply
signified that the two human dormice were carrying out the Wolffian
Theory.
In sleep they were both accustomed to seek refuge from disturbing
influences of all kinds. On the second day of Mrs. Dodd's visit to the
Castle she had seized the opportunity of improving the occasion, when
she suddenly came upon the old lord and the philosopher, each of whom
was seated in an easy chair, silently drinking in the beauties of the
celebrated Pit Town Turner, which formed one of the gems of the new
galleries.
"I hope I'm not intruding," the energetic lady remarked, as she burst in
upon the scene of tranquil enjoyment; "I don't disturb you, Lord Pit
Town?" she said.
"Certainly not, dear madam; nothing disturbs me. I allow nothing to
disturb me now."
"No, nothing disturbs us; nothing short of an earthquake, _Frau
Prediger_; it is against our principle, you know, and that is why we
don't rise at your approach," chimed in the doctor of philosophy; and
the eyes of the two gentlemen by common accord left Mrs. Dodd and
returned to their meditative contemplation of the great landscape.
Mrs. Dodd was astonished but not abashed; she had never known what it
was to be abashed in the whole course of her life. "Their conduct is
very peculiar," she thought. "That German man, if he had the instincts
of a gentleman, should at least rise and explain the pictures to me; as
for the old lord, I suppose he's in his second childhood. I wonder what
'_Frau Prediger_' means?" "Ah, Lord Pit Town," she said, apostrophising
the old nobleman and utterly ignoring the obnoxious Wolff, "I must
confess to a feeling of sadness when I look at all these beautiful
things, and when I think how much might have been done with the vast
sums that they must have cost," and she put up her eye-glass and read
the descriptive label affixed to the frame of the great Turner. "So that
is the celebrated picture," she continued, "and did it really cost four
thousand pounds? Oh, Lord Pit Town," she went on, in the tone she might
have used to a little child detected red-handed in some act of juvenile
depravity, "when we think how much might have been done with four
thousand pounds, when we read in the statistics of the Society for the
Conversion of the Jews that it costs little more than four thousand
pounds to convert one of that proverbially stiff-necked race, one cannot
look at that picture without emotion."
She waited for a moment for the old lord to excuse himself; she looked
from the picture to the venerable nobleman; his eyes were tightly shut;
he was evidently taking a deep draught of the recuperative elixir. Then
she turned in search of sympathy to the man who had called her "_Frau
Prediger_;" he too was employed in exactly the same manner. For the
first time in her life Mrs. Dodd found herself absolutely and distinctly
ignored; she was to these two dreadful men as if she did not exist; it
was too much, she turned and fled. As the vicar's wife flung out of the
gallery, the two enthusiasts reopened their eyes and resumed their
contemplation of Turner's masterpiece. From this little incident it may
be seen that the old lord and his companion were not easily disturbed in
the even tenor of their tranquil lives.
Lord Spunyarn's feelings after the stormy interview with young Lucius
Haggard were not to be envied. He hated to meddle and to make. It's
quite true that he had been forced into his present position by
Haggard's dying communication, and it was by no fault of his own that he
suddenly found himself mixed up in the exceedingly intricate family
affairs of other people. It was an unpleasant position; he had seen with
his own eyes the links of evidence which completed the chain of proof
that plainly demonstrated the truth of what his old friend had told him
on his death-bed. How and by whom the contents of the little red box had
been mysteriously spirited away he was unable to imagine; certainly not
by his friend's widow, for Mrs. Haggard, he knew, was the soul of
honour; certainly Lucius could have had no hand in the abstraction. It
seemed to Spunyarn's mind imperative upon him to communicate the whole
matter to the old earl, and so shift the entire responsibility upon the
shoulders of the head of the family. Possibly the old lord, as the
possessor of unbounded wealth, might be able to make arrangements
satisfactory to himself and to the naturally conflicting interests of
the two young men. In any case an open scandal must be avoided, and the
Pit Town title and estates, whatever might become of the old lord's
money, must not be diverted from the legitimate heir. How he wished that
he had never accepted that autumn invitation to Pit Town Castle! He knew
full well that young Lucius Haggard would not relinquish one tittle of
what he considered his rights. It was difficult to escape from the horns
of the dilemma. It was quite certain that Mrs. Haggard would not move in
the matter, and to let Lucy Warrender's child rob George Haggard of his
birthright seemed to him a crime. The only other alternative being a
scandalous trial in open court and the dragging of the whole matter
before the public. As a man of the world, Lord Spunyarn was quite aware
that a secret ceases to be a secret when there are too many depositories
of it; for this reason he could not even consult the legal advisers of
the family. He felt that George Haggard must be told sooner or later:
that was a plain duty. He felt, too, that it were better that the boy
should learn the secret from him, but the communication of the matter to
the old lord was still more imperative, and that communication must be
made at once, for Spunyarn well knew that the life of the fragile old
nobleman hung by a thread, and that there was no exaggeration in Lucius
Haggard's statement that Lord Pit Town might go off at any moment. From
what Spunyarn knew of George Haggard and his mother, he felt, in the
event of the old earl's death, that it was more than probable that
Lucius Haggard would be allowed to succeed to everything, contrary to
all the dictates of human justice. At this thought all Spunyarn's class
instincts violently revolted.
Since the very startling communication which had been made to him,
Lucius Haggard had thought of nothing else. To be suddenly told that one
is a bastard is bad enough even for an ordinary mortal, but to a youth
who has considered himself _porphyro-genitus_ to be informed that he is
but of common clay after all, and, worse than that, base-born, is
terrible indeed. Since he had heard the story, young Lucius had been
unable to obtain even a sip of the doctor's recuperative elixir. He
believed the tale--he couldn't doubt it--for he knew that the woman who
had been a mother to him could not lie. So Lucius Haggard believed the
story, and his only consolation was that the proofs were missing.
Possession is nine points of the law he very well knew, and he thanked
his stars that the _onus probandi_, fortunately for him, lay with those
whom he already looked upon as "the other side." But he could not rest,
for the mysterious contents of the box, whatever they had been, might be
discovered at any moment, and, like Damocles, he trembled at the
suspended sword.
"You're not looking well, sir," said Mr. Capt, as he appeared with the
dressing materials in the morning. "Won't you lie a little while
longer?" said the valet. "I can bring up your breakfast, sir."
"I'm all right, Capt. I've only had a bad night," and then the valet
drew the curtains, and the young fellow looked once more upon the
well-timbered landscape which till yesterday he had regarded as all his
own. And then he gave a long sigh, which came from the very bottom of
his heart.
"The light seems to hurt your eyes, sir," said the valet, as he shut
out what had now become a hateful picture.
"I think you're right, Capt, I'll have an extra hour's sleep; you can
leave me, and when I want my breakfast I'll ring for it," and Lucius
Haggard turned his face to the wall as the valet left the room. But he
didn't attempt to sleep; he began once more to turn over the matter in
his mind and to meditate upon the best course of action to pursue.
Should he have an interview with the possessor of his father's heritage,
the heir to what he had once looked upon as his own birthright? He well
knew young George Haggard's generosity. Should he make a clean breast of
the whole matter to George, and propose that come what might, they two
should share and share alike by mutual consent? Of course such a
contract would not be legally binding, as he well knew, but he felt that
should George consent to such an arrangement, he, the more astute, could
break the contract whenever he saw fit. If he could only get hold of
those papers, or whatever they were, and destroy them, his position
would become almost impregnable; he would still remain practically Lord
Pit Town's heir. Should the old man be talked over, even he, could not
keep him out of the title and the entailed property. Could it be that in
her love and affection for him, or in a horror of a scandal being
attached to her name or to her dead husband's, that Mrs. Haggard had
destroyed what the little red box had once contained? No, he couldn't
hope that. To whose interest was it that the proofs, whatever they were,
should disappear? To his, and to his alone. But surely no one would
commit so stupendous an act of villainy merely to benefit him, or to
wrong the man whom he still called his brother? Would Spunyarn lay the
whole matter before the old lord? And if he did so would Lord Pit Town
take the tale for gospel without proof--proof, the very existence of
which was now problematical? Should he at once go to the earl and pose
as the outraged victim of a base conspiracy, with the hope of enlisting
the powerful support of the head of the family? The more he thought over
all these things, the more was he overwhelmed with a sense of his own
impotence. If he could only get hold of what the box had contained and
destroy it, he would be comparatively safe; for he felt that even were
he to peaceably come into the possession of what he had once considered
his own, what a life of doubt and terror would be unquestionably his, so
long as those proofs, those dreadful proofs, existed. If the whole
strange story were but a fabrication after all--even that was possible.
Reginald Haggard was his father; both Lord Spunyarn and Mrs. Haggard had
agreed in this. He had always stood much in awe of his father, and had
never given him cause of offence. It was strange that, knowing him to be
a bastard, his father should have treated him in all things as his
legitimate heir. Why had his father failed to provide for him in any
way by will? For the apparently simple reason that he looked upon him as
the old lord's natural successor. If it were true that he was but a
base-born child, then his father must have been aware of the fact, and
he and Mrs. Haggard must have been co-conspirators in an ignoble plot.
What possible object could Reginald Haggard have had, and by what
possible means could he have induced his wife to be his accomplice in so
abominable a crime? As he looked back upon the long years of affection
that the woman, who until to-day he had called his mother, had lavished
upon him, he became the more bewildered. Could it be possible that the
whole matter was but a hallucination of his mother's, caused by her
recent bereavement? That supposition wouldn't hold water for a moment,
for the philanthropic but notoriously hard-headed Spunyarn had actually
seen the proofs, and Spunyarn was an honourable man; and he well
remembered that Spunyarn himself had asserted his power of supplying the
missing links in the chain. Was it possible after all that the
mysterious contents of the little red box would never be discovered and
that he might be still the old man's heir for want of legal proof to the
contrary? Such a solution was the best that could be hoped for. He felt
more than ever powerless, as he reflected that his future lot remained
in the hands of Mrs. Haggard, the woman who in his rage and despair he
had insulted by base suspicion and met by an open defiance. That was a
mistake, he saw it now but too clearly. But the mistake was not
irreparable. Gradually the policy he should pursue became more and more
clearly marked out in his troubled mind. "I will not quarrel with them,"
he thought; "I will express my readiness to do what is right, and should
the contents of the box be ever forthcoming, then I must trust to their
generosity. That is the simplest and safest way, the only wise course
and the only prudent one; she may after all be bound to secrecy," he
thought.
And then he rang for his breakfast, and afterwards proceeded to
interview his father's friend. He found Lord Spunyarn in what had been
called Reginald Haggard's own room. When Lucius entered it, Lord
Spunyarn was engaged with a mass of papers.
"Spunyarn," he said abruptly, "I owe you an apology; I behaved badly
yesterday. Forgive me," he continued, as he held out his hand, "I
behaved badly enough to you," he went on, "but I behaved worse to my
mother, for I must call her my mother still," he added in a broken
voice.
Spunyarn rose and took the offered hand. "Say no more, Lucius, I'm glad
you thought better of it. After all it was a terrible position for you,
my poor boy, a terrible position for us all," he continued, "and for her
especially."
"There's one thing I have to say to you, Lord Spunyarn," said Lucius,
and the crafty young fellow spoke the words gracefully and trippingly;
"in this matter I can only place my interests and my honour unreservedly
in your hands. You were my father's friend, Lord Spunyarn, and you are
his widow's and mine. It is for you, then, to say what is to be done."
"One thing must be done, Lucius; the honour of the family and of the
dead," he added solemnly, "must be respected."
"That of course," said the young fellow, as he seated himself and fixed
his eyes upon the carpet.
"You will ask for nothing but what is just, Lucius; you would not wish
to see your brother wronged?"
"Surely not, Lord Spunyarn, surely not."
"It'll have to be done, I suppose, sooner or later, and perhaps it's
better done now. I don't think I could rake up all the miserable story
in your mother's presence, Lucius, but you have a right to hear it. A
good deal of the sad little drama was enacted before my very eyes. I
once loved your mother, Lucius, your real mother, and I wanted to make
her my wife. Lucius, don't ask me to name her--she is dead, poor girl.
Try to think of your mother, Lucius, as the life-long victim of a
girlish folly, as one who paid very dearly for her fault. Let us speak
of her no more. I will tell you all you need know. I must tell you, or
you would not be able to take in the situation. Just before you were
born, Lucius, your mother, who was a dear friend of the much-wronged
woman who sacrificed herself for you, feeling that her condition could
be no longer concealed, appealed to your father's wife to save her from
the consequences of her fault. Remember, Lucius, that Mrs. Haggard had
no inkling of the truth that her friend's lover was her own husband. She
never knew it, poor thing, till he was in his grave. If she chose to
make the great sacrifice demanded of her, it was in her power to save
her friend's reputation, and your mother, Lucius, was her dearest
friend. She made the sacrifice, but when she made it she little knew the
price she would have to pay, for in sacrificing herself, she sacrificed
the rights of her own then unborn son; and for twenty years that poor
woman supposed that she was deceiving, tricking and wronging your
father. But it was not so, Lucius, for your father was aware of the
whole conspiracy from the very first. Your mother's letters proved that,
and the box contained further evidence, which rendered doubt upon the
subject impossible. But when my poor friend was on his death-bed, Mrs.
Haggard could be silent no longer. She, the woman who had sacrificed her
whole life for the sake of a girlish friendship, on his death-bed, asked
the forgiveness of the man who had wronged her. Then, and then only,
with his dying breath, your father revealed to her that he had been a
consenting party to the fraud and aware of it from the first. And then
she forgave him, Lucius. What was she to do, poor thing? At your
father's dying request, I, as his executor, having come into possession
of the secret, handed the proofs to my friend's widow."
"And you saw those proofs, Lord Spunyarn?"
"Yes, I saw them, Lucius."
The young man rose. "Then, Lord Spunyarn," he said, "there is but one
course open to me. As a man of honour I place myself freely and fully in
your hands. Whatever you think is the right course to pursue, that
course I will follow; for I feel, as you told me yesterday, that I have
no rights. My very presence here as my father's bastard, is an insult to
her whom, I would to heaven, I could still call my mother, and to the
head of the family. I can say no more than this, Lord Spunyarn--I place
myself in your hands."
Spunyarn took the young fellow by the hand affectionately. "Lucius,"
said he, "you are behaving nobly. But the dilemma is none the less; the
proofs, unfortunately, have disappeared. I know full well that you will
never have cause to regret your generosity. Pray God that we may yet be
able to avoid a public scandal. I have sent for Brookes; he is, as you
know, the old lord's lawyer, and to him we must come sooner or later. If
we could only get the contents of the box once more into our possession,
all would be simple enough; but the proofs have disappeared, perhaps for
ever; and my poor friend's wife, Lucius, is smitten by a terrible
affliction; they found her speechless this morning, and the family
practitioner tells me she may never recover. God knows," he added with a
groan, "perhaps the hand of heaven has closed her mouth for ever."
"You don't say that she is ill, Lord Spunyarn, perhaps dying?" cried the
young man in an awe-stricken whisper, as he repressed his exultation
with an effort. "Let me see her at once. Poor mother!" he added with a
sigh.
I verily believe that should fortune desert young Lucius Haggard he need
never really starve, for his talents as a light comedian should
certainly be worth several guineas a week to him.
"Spunyarn," said Lucius after a pause, "who can have taken these papers?
Have you any suspicion?"
"It's a mystery I cannot penetrate," he replied. "Brookes may be able to
get at the bottom of it, however; I hope and trust so."
"Can it be possible," said Lucius, "that my mother destroyed the papers
herself, or has secreted them?"
"I hardly think so; she seemed as much astonished as I was, when we
found them gone. Besides, why should she destroy them? Lucius, she
trusted you; and she judged you rightly, my boy; you have chosen the
only honourable and manly course. No man has cause to regret running
straight in this world. You will never have reason to repent of it,
Lucius."
"Do you think no one outside the family, Lord Spunyarn, by any
possibility can be in possession of the key to the secret?"
"No one. Besides it interests no one, save my dear old friend, your
brother, and yourself."
"Yes, I suppose after all George is my brother, in a sort of way,
still."
"George will never forget that he is your brother, Lucius."
There was a pause.
"Let us go to her," said Lucius Haggard with a sigh.
The elder man consented, and they left the room.