The next day, the friend and legal adviser of Agnes Lockwood, Mr. Troy,
called on her by appointment in the evening.
Mrs. Ferrari—still persisting in the conviction of her husband’s
death—had sufficiently recovered to be present at the consultation.
Assisted by Agnes, she told the lawyer the little that was known
relating to Ferrari’s disappearance, and then produced the
correspondence connected with that event. Mr. Troy read (first) the
three letters addressed by Ferrari to his wife; (secondly) the letter
written by Ferrari’s courier-friend, describing his visit to the palace
and his interview with Lady Montbarry; and (thirdly) the one line of
anonymous writing which had accompanied the extraordinary gift of a
thousand pounds to Ferrari’s wife.
Well known, at a later period, as the lawyer who acted for Lady
Lydiard, in the case of theft, generally described as the case of “My
Lady’s Money,” Mr. Troy was not only a man of learning and experience
in his profession—he was also a man who had seen something of society
at home and abroad. He possessed a keen eye for character, a quaint
humour, and a kindly nature which had not been deteriorated even by a
lawyer’s professional experience of mankind. With all these personal
advantages, it is a question, nevertheless, whether he was the fittest
adviser whom Agnes could have chosen under the circumstances. Little
Mrs. Ferrari, with many domestic merits, was an essentially commonplace
woman. Mr. Troy was the last person living who was likely to attract
her sympathies—he was the exact opposite of a commonplace man.
“She looks very ill, poor thing!” In these words the lawyer opened the
business of the evening, referring to Mrs. Ferrari as unceremoniously
as if she had been out of the room.
“She has suffered a terrible shock,” Agnes answered.
Mr. Troy turned to Mrs. Ferrari, and looked at her again, with the
interest due to the victim of a shock. He drummed absently with his
fingers on the table. At last he spoke to her.
“My good lady, you don’t really believe that your husband is dead?”
Mrs. Ferrari put her handkerchief to her eyes. The word “dead” was
ineffectual to express her feelings. “Murdered!” she said sternly,
behind her handkerchief.
“Why? And by whom?” Mr. Troy asked.
Mrs. Ferrari seemed to have some difficulty in answering. “You have
read my husband’s letters, sir,” she began. “I believe he discovered—”
She got as far as that, and there she stopped.
“What did he discover?”
There are limits to human patience—even the patience of a bereaved
wife. This cool question irritated Mrs. Ferrari into expressing herself
plainly at last.
“He discovered Lady Montbarry and the Baron!” she answered, with a
burst of hysterical vehemence. “The Baron is no more that vile woman’s
brother than I am. The wickedness of those two wretches came to my poor
dear husband’s knowledge. The lady’s maid left her place on account of
it. If Ferrari had gone away too, he would have been alive at this
moment. They have killed him. I say they have killed him, to prevent it
from getting to Lord Montbarry’s ears.” So, in short sharp sentences,
and in louder and louder accents, Mrs. Ferrari stated _her_ opinion of
the case.
Still keeping his own view in reserve, Mr. Troy listened with an
expression of satirical approval.
“Very strongly stated, Mrs. Ferrari,” he said. “You build up your
sentences well; you clinch your conclusions in a workmanlike manner. If
you had been a man, you would have made a good lawyer—you would have
taken juries by the scruff of their necks. Complete the case, my good
lady—complete the case. Tell us next who sent you this letter,
enclosing the bank-note. The ‘two wretches’ who murdered Mr. Ferrari
would hardly put their hands in their pockets and send you a thousand
pounds. Who is it—eh? I see the post-mark on the letter is ‘Venice.’
Have you any friend in that interesting city, with a large heart, and a
purse to correspond, who has been let into the secret and who wishes to
console you anonymously?”
It was not easy to reply to this. Mrs. Ferrari began to feel the first
inward approaches of something like hatred towards Mr. Troy. “I don’t
understand you, sir,” she answered. “I don’t think this is a joking
matter.”
Agnes interfered, for the first time. She drew her chair a little
nearer to her legal counsellor and friend.
“What is the most probable explanation, in your opinion?” she asked.
“I shall offend Mrs. Ferrari if I tell you,” Mr. Troy answered.
“No, sir, you won’t!” cried Mrs. Ferrari, hating Mr. Troy undisguisedly
by this time.
The lawyer leaned back in his chair. “Very well,” he said, in his most
good-humoured manner. “Let’s have it out. Observe, madam, I don’t
dispute your view of the position of affairs at the palace in Venice.
You have your husband’s letters to justify you; and you have also the
significant fact that Lady Montbarry’s maid did really leave the house.
We will say, then, that Lord Montbarry has presumably been made the
victim of a foul wrong—that Mr. Ferrari was the first to find it
out—and that the guilty persons had reason to fear, not only that he
would acquaint Lord Montbarry with his discovery, but that he would be
a principal witness against them if the scandal was made public in a
court of law. Now mark! Admitting all this, I draw a totally different
conclusion from the conclusion at which you have arrived. Here is your
husband left in this miserable household of three, under very awkward
circumstances for _him_. What does he do? But for the bank-note and the
written message sent to you with it, I should say that he had wisely
withdrawn himself from association with a disgraceful discovery and
exposure, by taking secretly to flight. The money modifies this
view—unfavourably so far as Mr. Ferrari is concerned. I still believe
he is keeping out of the way. But I now say he is _paid_ for keeping
out of the way—and that bank-note there on the table is the price of
his absence, sent by the guilty persons to his wife.”
Mrs. Ferrari’s watery grey eyes brightened suddenly; Mrs. Ferrari’s
dull drab-coloured complexion became enlivened by a glow of brilliant
red.
“It’s false!” she cried. “It’s a burning shame to speak of my husband
in that way!”
“I told you I should offend you!” said Mr. Troy.
Agnes interposed once more—in the interests of peace. She took the
offended wife’s hand; she appealed to the lawyer to reconsider that
side of his theory which reflected harshly on Ferrari. While she was
still speaking, the servant interrupted her by entering the room with a
visiting-card. It was the card of Henry Westwick; and there was an
ominous request written on it in pencil. “I bring bad news. Let me see
you for a minute downstairs.” Agnes immediately left the room.
Alone with Mrs. Ferrari, Mr. Troy permitted his natural kindness of
heart to show itself on the surface at last. He tried to make his peace
with the courier’s wife.
“You have every claim, my good soul, to resent a reflection cast upon
your husband,” he began. “I may even say that I respect you for
speaking so warmly in his defence. At the same time, remember, that I
am bound, in such a serious matter as this, to tell you what is really
in my mind. I can have no intention of offending you, seeing that I am
a total stranger to you and to Mr. Ferrari. A thousand pounds is a
large sum of money; and a poor man may excusably be tempted by it to do
nothing worse than to keep out of the way for a while. My only
interest, acting on your behalf, is to get at the truth. If you will
give me time, I see no reason to despair of finding your husband yet.”
Ferrari’s wife listened, without being convinced: her narrow little
mind, filled to its extreme capacity by her unfavourable opinion of Mr.
Troy, had no room left for the process of correcting its first
impression. “I am much obliged to you, sir,” was all she said. Her eyes
were more communicative—her eyes added, in _their_ language, “You may
say what you please; I will never forgive you to my dying day.”
Mr. Troy gave it up. He composedly wheeled his chair around, put his
hands in his pockets, and looked out of window.
After an interval of silence, the drawing-room door was opened.
Mr. Troy wheeled round again briskly to the table, expecting to see
Agnes. To his surprise there appeared, in her place, a perfect stranger
to him—a gentleman, in the prime of life, with a marked expression of
pain and embarrassment on his handsome face. He looked at Mr. Troy, and
bowed gravely.
“I am so unfortunate as to have brought news to Miss Agnes Lockwood
which has greatly distressed her,” he said. “She has retired to her
room. I am requested to make her excuses, and to speak to you in her
place.”
Having introduced himself in those terms, he noticed Mrs. Ferrari, and
held out his hand to her kindly. “It is some years since we last met,
Emily,” he said. “I am afraid you have almost forgotten the ‘Master
Henry’ of old times.” Emily, in some little confusion, made her
acknowledgments, and begged to know if she could be of any use to Miss
Lockwood. “The old nurse is with her,” Henry answered; “they will be
better left together.” He turned once more to Mr. Troy. “I ought to
tell you,” he said, “that my name is Henry Westwick. I am the younger
brother of the late Lord Montbarry.”
“The _late_ Lord Montbarry!” Mr. Troy exclaimed.
“My brother died at Venice yesterday evening. There is the telegram.”
With that startling answer, he handed the paper to Mr. Troy.
The message was in these words:
“Lady Montbarry, Venice. To Stephen Robert Westwick, Newbury’s Hotel,
London. It is useless to take the journey. Lord Montbarry died of
bronchitis, at 8.40 this evening. All needful details by post.”
“Was this expected, sir?” the lawyer asked.
“I cannot say that it has taken us entirely by surprise,” Henry
answered. “My brother Stephen (who is now the head of the family)
received a telegram three days since, informing him that alarming
symptoms had declared themselves, and that a second physician had been
called in. He telegraphed back to say that he had left Ireland for
London, on his way to Venice, and to direct that any further message
might be sent to his hotel. The reply came in a second telegram. It
announced that Lord Montbarry was in a state of insensibility, and
that, in his brief intervals of consciousness, he recognised nobody. My
brother was advised to wait in London for later information. The third
telegram is now in your hands. That is all I know, up to the present
time.”
Happening to look at the courier’s wife, Mr. Troy was struck by the
expression of blank fear which showed itself in the woman’s face.
“Mrs. Ferrari,” he said, “have you heard what Mr. Westwick has just
told me?”
“Every word of it, sir.”
“Have you any questions to ask?”
“No, sir.”
“You seem to be alarmed,” the lawyer persisted. “Is it still about your
husband?”
“I shall never see my husband again, sir. I have thought so all along,
as you know. I feel sure of it now.”
“Sure of it, after what you have just heard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you tell me why?”
“No, sir. It’s a feeling I have. I can’t tell why.”
“Oh, a feeling?” Mr. Troy repeated, in a tone of compassionate
contempt. “When it comes to feelings, my good soul—!” He left the
sentence unfinished, and rose to take his leave of Mr. Westwick. The
truth is, he began to feel puzzled himself, and he did not choose to
let Mrs. Ferrari see it. “Accept the expression of my sympathy, sir,”
he said to Mr. Westwick politely. “I wish you good evening.”
Henry turned to Mrs. Ferrari as the lawyer closed the door. “I have
heard of your trouble, Emily, from Miss Lockwood. Is there anything I
can do to help you?”
“Nothing, sir, thank you. Perhaps, I had better go home after what has
happened? I will call to-morrow, and see if I can be of any use to Miss
Agnes. I am very sorry for her.” She stole away, with her formal
curtsey, her noiseless step, and her obstinate resolution to take the
gloomiest view of her husband’s case.
Henry Westwick looked round him in the solitude of the little
drawing-room. There was nothing to keep him in the house, and yet he
lingered in it. It was something to be even near Agnes—to see the
things belonging to her that were scattered about the room. There, in
the corner, was her chair, with her embroidery on the work-table by its
side. On the little easel near the window was her last drawing, not
quite finished yet. The book she had been reading lay on the sofa, with
her tiny pencil-case in it to mark the place at which she had left off.
One after another, he looked at the objects that reminded him of the
woman whom he loved—took them up tenderly—and laid them down again with
a sigh. Ah, how far, how unattainably far from him, she was still! “She
will never forget Montbarry,” he thought to himself as he took up his
hat to go. “Not one of us feels his death as she feels it. Miserable,
miserable wretch—how she loved him!”
In the street, as Henry closed the house-door, he was stopped by a
passing acquaintance—a wearisome inquisitive man—doubly unwelcome to
him, at that moment. “Sad news, Westwick, this about your brother.
Rather an unexpected death, wasn’t it? We never heard at the club that
Montbarry’s lungs were weak. What will the insurance offices do?”
Henry started; he had never thought of his brother’s life insurance.
What could the offices do but pay? A death by bronchitis, certified by
two physicians, was surely the least disputable of all deaths. “I wish
you hadn’t put that question into my head!” he broke out irritably.
“Ah!” said his friend, “you think the widow will get the money? So do
I! so do I!”