A Stranger in Cambridge
'I am sorry you will not come out to us to-morrow.' On the day before
the christening, which was at last fixed for a certain Tuesday in the
middle of February, John Caldigate went into Cambridge, and at once
called upon the attorney at his office. This he did partly instigated
by his own feelings, and partly in compliance with his wife's wishes.
Before that letter had come he and his brother-in-law had been fast
friends; and now, though for a day or two he had been angry with what he
had thought to be unjustifiable interference, he regretted the loss of
such a friend. More than three months had now passed since the letter
had come, but his mind was far from being at ease, and he felt that if
trouble should come it would be very well for him to have Robert Bolton
on his side.
'Margaret is going,' said the attorney.
'Why do you not bring her?'
'Days are days with me, my boy. I can't afford to give up a morning for
every baby that is born.'
'That of course may be true, and if that is the reason, I have nothing
more to say.' As he spoke he looked in his brother-in-law's face, so as
almost to prevent the possibility of continued pretence.
'Well, Caldigate, it isn't the reason altogether,' said the other. 'If
you would have allowed it to pass without further explanation so would
I. But if the truth must be spoken in so many words, I will confess that
I would rather not go out to Folking till I am sure we shall be no more
troubled by your friends in Australia.'
'Why not? Why should you not go out to Folking?'
'Simply because I may have to take an active part against you. I do not
suppose it will come to that, but it is possible. I need not say that I
trust there may be nothing of the kind, but I cannot be sure. It is on
the cards.'
'I think that is a hard judgment. Do you mean to say that you believe
that woman's statement not only against mine, but against the whole
tenor of my life and character?'
'No; I do not believe the woman's statement. If I did, I should not be
talking to you now. The woman has probably lied, and is probably a tool
in the hands of others for raising money, as you have already suggested.
But, according to your own showing there has been much in your life to
authorise the statement. I do not know what does or does not constitute
a marriage there.'
'The laws are the same as ours.'
'There at any rate you are wrong. Their marriage laws are not the same
as ours, though how they may differ you and I probably do not accurately
know. And they may be altered at any time as they may please. Let the
laws be what they will, it is quite possible, after what you have told
me, that they may bring up evidence which you would find it very
difficult to refute. I don't think it will be so. If I did I should use
all my influence to remove my sister at once.'
'You couldn't do it,' said Caldigate, very angrily.
'I tell you what I should endeavour to do. You must excuse me if I stand
aloof just at present. I don't suppose you can defend such a condition
of things as you described to me the other day.'
'I do not mean to be put upon my defence,--at any rate by you,' said
Caldigate, very angrily. And then he left the office.
He had come into Cambridge with the intention of calling at Puritan
Grange after he had left the attorney, and when he found himself in the
street he walked on in the direction of Chesterton. He had wished to
thank his wife's mother for her concession and had been told by Hester
that if he would call, Mrs. Bolton would certainly see him now. Had
there been no letter from the woman in Australia, he would probably not
have obeyed his wife's behest in this matter. His heart and spirit would
then have been without a flaw, and, proud in his own strength and his
own rectitude, he would have declared to himself that the absurd
prejudices of a fanatic woman were beneath his notice. But that letter
had been a blow, and the blow, though it had not quelled him, had
weakened his forces. He could conceal the injury done him even from his
wife, but there was an injury. He was not quite the man that he had been
before. From day to day, and from hour to hour, he was always
remonstrating with himself because it was so. He was conscious that in
some degree he had been cowed, and was ever fighting against the
feeling. His tenderness to his wife was perhaps increased, because he
knew that she still suffered from the letter; but he was almost ashamed
of his own tenderness, as being a sign of weakness. He made himself very
busy in these days,--busy among his brother magistrates, busy among his
farming operations, busy with his tenants, busy among his books, so as
to show to those around him that he was one who could perform all the
duties of life, and enjoy all the pleasures, with an open brow and a
clear conscience. He had been ever bold and self-asserting; but now he
was perhaps a little over-bold. But through it all the Australian letter
and the Australian woman were present to him day and night.
It was this resolution not to be quelled that had made him call upon the
attorney at his office; and when he found himself back in the street he
was very angry with the man. 'If it pleases him, let it be so,' he said
to himself. 'I can do in the world without him.' And then he thought of
that threat,--when the attorney had said that he would remove his
sister. 'Remove her! By heavens!' He had a stick in his hand, and as he
went he struck it angrily against a post. Remove his wife! All the
Boltons in Cambridgeshire could not put a hand upon her, unless by his
leave! For some moments his anger supported him; but after a while that
gave way to the old feeling of discomfort which pervaded him always. She
was his wife, and nobody should touch her. Nevertheless he might find it
difficult, as Robert Bolton had said, to prove that that other woman
was not his wife.
Robert Bolton's office was in a small street close to Pembroke College,
and when he came out of it he had intended to walk direct through
Trumpington Street and Trinity Street to Chesterton. But he found it
necessary to compose himself and so to arrange his thoughts that he
might be able to answer such foolish questions as Mrs. Bolton would
probably ask him without being flurried. He was almost sure that she had
heard nothing of the woman. He did not suspect Robert Bolton of
treachery in that respect; but she would probably talk to him about the
iniquity of his past life generally, and he must be prepared to answer
her. It was incumbent upon him to shake off, before he reached
Chesterton, that mixture of alarm and anger which at present dominated
him; and with this object, instead of going straight along the street,
he turned into the quadrangle of King's College, and passing through the
gardens and over the bridge, wandered for a while slowly under the trees
at the back of the college. He accused himself of a lack of manliness in
that he allowed himself to be thus cowed. Did he not know that such
threats as these were common? Was it not just what might have been
expected from such a one as Crinkett, when Crinkett was driven to
desperation by failing speculations? As he thought of the woman, he
shook his head, looking down upon the ground. The woman had at one time
been very dear to him. But it was clearly now his duty to go on as
though there were no such woman as Euphemia Smith, and no such man as
Thomas Crinkett. And as for Robert Bolton, he would henceforth treat him
as though his anger and his suspicions were unworthy of notice. If the
man should choose of his own accord to reassume the old friendly
relations,--well and good. No overtures should come from him--Caldigate.
And if the anger and the suspicions endured, why then, he, Caldigate,
could do very well without Robert Bolton.
As he made these resolutions he turned in at a little gate opening into
a corner of St. John's Gardens, with the object of passing through the
college back into the streets of the town. It was not quite his nearest
way, but he loved the old buildings, and the trees, and the river, even
in winter. It still was winter, being now the middle of February; but,
as it happened, the air was dry and mild, and the sun was shining.
Still, he was surprised at such a time of the year to see an elderly man
apparently asleep on one of the benches which are placed close to the
path. But there he was, asleep, with his two hands on a stick, and his
head bent forward over his stick. It was impossible not to look at the
man sleeping there in that way; but Caldigate would hardly have looked,
would hardly have dared to look, could he have anticipated what he would
see. The elderly man was Thomas Crinkett. As he passed he was quite sure
that the man was Thomas Crinkett. When he had gone on a dozen yards, he
paused for a moment to consider what he would do. A dozen different
thoughts passed through his mind in that moment of time. Why was the man
there? Why, indeed, could he have come to England except with the view
of prosecuting the demand which he and the woman had made? His presence
even in England was sufficient to declare that this battle would have to
be fought. But to Cambridge he could have come with no other object than
that of beginning the attack at once. And then, had he already commenced
his work? He had not at any rate been to Robert Bolton, to whom any one
knowing the family would have first referred him. And why was he
sleeping there? Why was he not now at work upon his project? Again,
would it be better at the present moment that he should pass by the man
as though he had not seen him; or should he go back and ask him his
purpose? As the thought passed through his mind, he stayed his step for
a moment on the pathway and looked round. The man had moved his
position, and was now sitting with his head turned away but evidently
not asleep. Then it occurred to Caldigate that Crinkett's slumbers had
been only a pretence, that the man had seen and recognised him, and at
the moment had not chosen to make himself known. And it occurred to him
also that in a matter of such importance as this he should do nothing on
the spur of the moment,--nothing without consideration. A word spoken to
Crinkett, a word without consideration, might be fatal to him. So he
passed on, having stood upon the path hardly more than a second or two.
Before he had got up to the new buildings of St. John's a cold sweat had
come out all over him. He was conscious of this, and conscious also that
for a time he was so confounded by the apparition of his enemy as to be
unable to bring his mind to work properly on the subject. 'Let him do
his worst,' he kept on saying to himself; 'let him do his worst.' But he
knew that the brave words, though spoken only to himself, were mere
braggadocio. No doubt the man would do his worst, and very bad it would
be to him. At the moment he was so cowed by fear that he would have
given half his fortune to have secured the woman's silence,--and the
man's. How much better would it have been had he acceded to the man's
first demand as to restitution of a portion of the sum paid for
Polyeuka, before the woman's name had been brought into the matter at
all?
But reflections such as these were now useless and he must do something.
It was for his wife's sake,--he assured himself,--for his wife's sake
that he allowed himself to be made thus miserable by the presence of
this wretched creature. What would she not be called upon to suffer?
The woman no doubt would be brought before magistrates and judges, and
would be made to swear that she was his wife. The whole story of his
life in Australia would be made public,--and there was so much that
could not be made public without overwhelming her with sorrow! His own
father, too, who had surrendered the estate to him, must know it all.
His father hitherto had not heard the name of Mrs. Smith, and had been
told only of Crinkett's dishonest successes and dishonest failures. When
Caldigate had spoken of Crinkett to his father, he had done so with a
triumph as of a man whom he had weighed and measured and made use
of,--whose frauds and cunning he had conquered by his own honesty and
better knowledge. Now he could no longer weigh and measure and make use
of Crinkett. Crinkett had been a joke to him in talking with his father.
But Crinkett was no joke now.
While walking through the College quad, he was half stupefied by his
confusion, and was aware that such was his condition. But going out
under the gate he paused for a moment and shook himself. He must at any
rate summon his own powers to his aid at the moment and resolve what he
would do. However bad all this might be, there was a better course and a
worse. If he allowed this confusion to master him he would probably be
betrayed into the worse course. Now, at this moment, in what way would
it become him to act? He drew himself together, shaking his head and
shoulders,--so as to shake off his weakness,--pressing his foot for a
moment on the earth so as to convince himself of his own firmness, and
then he resolved.
He was on the way out to see his mother-in-law, but he thought that
nothing now could be gained by going to Chesterton. It was not
impossible that Crinkett might have been there. If so the man would have
told something of his story; and his wife's mother was the last person
in the world whom, under such circumstances, he could hope to satisfy.
He must tell no lie to any one; he must at least conceal nothing of the
things as they occurred now. He must not allow it to be first told by
Crinkett that they two had seen each other in the Gardens. But he could
not declare this to Mrs. Bolton. For the present, the less he saw of
Mrs. Bolton the better. She would come to the christening
to-morrow,--unless indeed Crinkett had already told enough to induce her
to change her mind,--but after that any intimacy with the house at
Chesterton had better be postponed till this had all been settled.
But how much would have to be endured before that! Robert Bolton had
almost threatened to take his wife away from him. No one could take his
wife away from him,--unless, indeed, the law were to say that she was
not his wife. But how would it be with him if she herself, under the
influence of her family, were to wish to leave him! The law no doubt
would give him the custody of his own wife, till the law had said that
she was not his wife. But could he keep her if she asked him to let her
go? And should she be made to doubt,--should her mind be so troubled as
it would be should she once be taught to think it possible that she had
been betrayed,--would she not then want to go from him? Would it not
be probable that she would doubt when she should be told that this
woman had been called by her husband's name in Australia, and when he
should be unable to deny that he had admitted, or at least had not
contradicted, the appellation?
On a sudden, when he turned away from the street leading to Chesterton
as he came out of the College, he resolved that he would at once go back
to Robert Bolton. The man was offensive, suspicious and self-willed;
but, nevertheless, his good services, if they could be secured, would be
all-important. For his wife's sake, as Caldigate said to himself,--for
his wife's sake he must bear much. 'I have come to tell you something
that has occurred since I was here just now,' said Caldigate, meeting
his brother-in-law at the door of the office. 'Would you mind coming
back?'
'I am rather in a hurry.'
'It is of importance, and you had better hear it,' said Caldigate,
leading the way imperiously to the inner room. 'It is for your sister's
sake. That man Crinkett is in Cambridge.'
'In Cambridge?'
'I saw him just now.'
'And spoke to him?' the attorney asked.
'No. I passed him; and I do not know even whether he recognised me. But
he is here, in Cambridge.'
'And the woman?'
'I have told you all that I know. He has not come here for nothing.'
'Probably not,' said the attorney, with a scornful smile. 'You will hear
of him before long.'
'Of course I shall. I have come to you now to ask a question. I must put
my case at once into a lawyer's hands. Crinkett, no doubt, will commit
perjury and I must undergo the annoyance and expense of proving him to
be a perjurer. She probably is here also, and will be ready to commit
perjury. Of course I must have a lawyer. Will you act for me?'
'I will act for my sister.'
'Your sister and I are one; and I am obliged, therefore, to ask again
whether you will act for me? Of course I should prefer it. Though you
are, I think, hard to me in this matter, I can trust you implicitly. It
will be infinitely better for Hester that it should be so. But I must
have some lawyer.'
'And so must she.'
'Hers and mine must be the same. As to that I will not admit any
question. Can you undertake to fight this matter on my behalf,--and on
hers? If you feel absolutely hostile to me you had better decline. For
myself, I cannot understand why there should be such hostility.'
Caldigate had so far conquered his own feelings of abasement as to be
able to say this with a determined face, looking straight into the
attorney's eyes, at any rate without sign of fear.
'It wants thinking about,' said Robert Bolton.
'To-morrow the baby is to be christened, and for Hester's sake I will
endeavour to put this matter aside;--but on Wednesday I must know.'
'On Wednesday morning I will answer your question. But what if this man
comes to me in the meantime?'
'Listen to him or speak to him, just as seems good to you. You know
everything that there is to tell, and may therefore know whether he lies
or speaks the truth.'
Then Caldigate went to the inn, got his horse, and rode back to Folking.