Mr. Sarrazin.
As a lawyer, Randal’s guest understood that a narrative of events can
only produce the right effect, on one condition: it must begin at the
beginning. Having related all that had been said and done during his
visit to the cottage, including his first efforts in the character of
an angler under Kitty’s supervision, he stopped to fill his glass
again--and then astonished Randal by describing the plan that he had
devised for escaping from the spies by crossing the lake in the fog.
“What did the ladies say to it?” Randal inquired. “Who spoke first?”
“Mrs. Presty, of course! She objected to risk her life on the water, in
a fog. Mrs. Linley showed a resolution for which I was not prepared. She
thought of Kitty, saw the value of my suggestion, and went away at once
to consult with the landlady. In the meantime I sent for the gardener,
and told him what I was thinking of. He was one of those stolid
Englishmen, who possess resources which don’t express themselves
outwardly. Judging by his face, you would have said he was subsiding
into a slumber under the infliction of a sermon, instead of listening
to a lawyer proposing a stratagem. When I had done, the man showed the
metal he was made of. In plain English, he put three questions which
gave me the highest opinion of his intelligence. ‘How much luggage,
sir?’ ‘As little as they can conveniently take with them,’ I said. ‘How
many persons?’ ‘The two ladies, the child, and myself.’ ‘Can you row,
sir?’ ‘In any water you like, Mr. Gardener, fresh or salt’. Think of
asking Me, an athletic Englishman, if I could row! In an hour more we
were ready to embark, and the blessed fog was thicker than ever. Mrs.
Presty yielded under protest; Kitty was wild with delight; her mother
was quiet and resigned. But one circumstance occurred that I didn’t
quite understand--the presence of a stranger on the pier with a gun in
his hand.”
“You don’t mean one of the spies?”
“Nothing of the sort; I mean an idea of the gardener’s. He had been a
sailor in his time--and that’s a trade which teaches a man (if he’s
good for anything) to think, and act on his thought, at one and the same
moment. He had taken a peep at the blackguards in front of the house,
and had recognized the shortest of the two as a native of the place,
perfectly well aware that one of the features attached to the cottage
was a boathouse. ‘That chap is not such a fool as he looks,’ says the
gardener. ‘If he mentions the boat-house, the other fellow from London
may have his suspicions. I thought I would post my son on the pier--that
quiet young man there with the gun--to keep a lookout. If he sees
another boat (there are half a dozen on this side of the lake) putting
off after us, he has orders to fire, on the chance of our hearing him.
A little notion of mine, sir, to prevent our being surprised in the fog.
Do you see any objection to it?’ Objection! In the days when diplomacy
was something more than a solemn pretense, what a member of Congress
that gardener would have made! Well, we shipped our oars, and away we
went. Not quite haphazard--for we had a compass with us. Our course was
as straight as we could go, to a village on the opposite side of the
lake, called Brightfold. Nothing happened for the first quarter of an
hour--and then, by the living Jingo (excuse my vulgarity), we heard the
gun!”
“What did you do?”
“Went on rowing, and held a council. This time I came out as the clever
one of the party. The men were following us in the dark; they would
have to guess at the direction we had taken, and they would most likely
assume (in such weather as we had) that we should choose the shortest
way across the lake. At my suggestion we changed our course, and made
for a large town, higher up on the shore, called Tawley. We landed, and
waited for events, and made no discovery of another boat behind us. The
fools had justified my confidence in them--they had gone to Brightfold.
There was half-an-hour to spare before the next train came to Tawley;
and the fog was beginning to lift on that side of the lake. We looked at
the shops; and I made a purchase in the town.”
“Stop a minute,” said Randal. “Is Brightfold on the railway?”
“No.”
“Is there an electric telegraph at the place?”
“Yes.”
“That was awkward, wasn’t it? The first thing those men would do would
be to telegraph to Tawley.”
“Not a doubt of it. How would they describe us, do you think?”
Randal answered. “A middle-aged gentleman--two ladies, one of them
elderly--and a little girl. Quite enough to identify you at Tawley, if
the station-master understood the message.”
“Shall I tell you what the station-master discovered, with the message
in his hand? No elderly lady, no middle-aged gentleman; nothing more
remarkable than _one_ lady--and a little boy.”
Randal’s face brightened. “You parted company, of course,” he said; “and
you disguised Kitty! How did you manage it?”
“Didn’t I say just now that we looked at the shops, and that I made a
purchase in the town? A boy’s ready-made suit--not at all a bad fit for
Kitty! Mrs. Linley put on the suit, and tucked up the child’s hair under
a straw hat, in an empty yard--no idlers about in that bad weather. We
said good-by, and parted, with grievous misgivings on my side, which
proved (thank God!) to have been quite needless. Kitty and her mother
went to the station, and Mrs. Presty and I hired a carriage, and drove
away to the head of the lake, to catch the train to London. Do you know,
Randal, I have altered my opinion of Mrs. Presty?”
Randal smiled. “You too have found something in that old woman,” he
said, “which doesn’t appear on the surface.”
“The occasion seems to bring that something out,” the lawyer remarked.
“When I proposed the separation, and mentioned my reasons, I expected
to find some difficulty in persuading Mrs. Presty to give up the
adventurous journey with her daughter and her grandchild. I reminded her
that she had friends in London who would receive her, and got snubbed
for taking the liberty. ‘I know that as well as you do. Come along--I’m
ready to go with you.’ It isn’t agreeable to my self-esteem to own it,
but I expected to hear her say that she would consent to any sacrifice
for the sake of her dear daughter. No such clap-trap as that passed her
lips. She owned the true motive with a superiority to cant which won
my sincerest respect. ‘I’ll do anything,’ she said, ‘to baffle Herbert
Linley and the spies he has set to watch us.’ I can’t tell you how glad
I was that she had her reward on the same day. We were too late at the
station, and we had to wait for the next train. And what do you think
happened? The two scoundrels followed us instead of following Mrs.
Linley! They had inquired no doubt at the livery stables where we hired
the carriage--had recognized the description of us--and had taken the
long journey to London for nothing. Mrs. Presty and I shook hands at the
terminus the best friends that ever traveled together with the best of
motives. After that, I think I deserve another glass of wine.”
“Go on with your story, and you shall have another bottle!” cried
Randal. “What did Catherine and the child do after they left you?”
“They did the safest thing--they left England. Mrs. Linley distinguished
herself on this occasion. It was her excellent idea to avoid popular
ports of departure, like Folkestone and Dover, which were sure to be
watched, and to get away (if the thing could be done) from some place on
the east coast. We consulted our guide and found that a line of steamers
sailed from Hull to Bremen once a week. A tedious journey from our part
of Cumberland, with some troublesome changing of trains, but they got
there in time to embark. My first news of them reached me in a telegram
from Bremen. There they waited for further instructions. I sent the
instructions by a thoroughly capable and trustworthy man--an Italian
courier, known to me by an experience of twenty years. Shall I confess
it? I thought I had done rather a clever thing in providing Mrs. Linley
with a friend in need while I was away from her.”
“I think so, too,” said Randal.
“Wrong, completely wrong. I had made a mistake--I had been too clever,
and I got my reward accordingly. You know how I advised Mrs. Linley?”
“Yes. You persuaded her, with the greatest difficulty, to apply for a
Divorce.”
“Very well. I had made all the necessary arrangements for the trial,
when I received a letter from Germany. My charming client had changed
her mind, and declined to apply for the Divorce. There was my reward for
having been too clever!”
“I don’t understand you.”
“My dear fellow, you are dull to-night. I had been so successful in
protecting Mrs. Linley and the child, and my excellent courier had
found such a charming place of retreat for them in one of the suburbs of
Hanover, that ‘she saw no reason now for taking the shocking course
that I had recommended to her--so repugnant to all her most cherished
convictions; so sinful and so shameful in its doing of evil that good
might come. Experience had convinced her that (thanks to me) there was
no fear of Kitty being discovered and taken from her. She therefore
begged me to write to my agent in Edinburgh, and tell him that her
application to the court was withdrawn.’ Ah, you understand my position
at last. The headstrong woman was running a risk which renewed all my
anxieties. By every day’s post I expected to hear that she had paid the
penalty of her folly, and that your brother had succeeded in getting
possession of the child. Wait a little before you laugh at me. But for
the courier, the thing would have really happened a week since.”
Randal looked astonished. “Months must have passed,” he objected.
“Surely, after that lapse of time, Mrs. Linley must have been safe from
discovery.”
“Take your own positive view of it! I only know that the thing happened.
And why not? The luck had begun by being on one side--why shouldn’t the
other side have had its turn next?”
“Do you really believe in luck?”
“Devoutly. A lawyer must believe in something. He knows the law too well
to put any faith in that: and his clients present to him (if he is a man
of any feeling) a hideous view of human nature. The poor devil believes
in luck--rather than believe in nothing. I think it quite likely that
accident helped the person employed by the husband to discover the wife
and child. Anyhow, Mrs. Linley and Kitty were seen in the streets of
Hanover; seen, recognized, and followed. The courier happened to be with
them--luck again! For thirty years and more, he had been traveling
in every part of Europe; there was not a landlord of the smallest
pretensions anywhere who didn’t know him and like him. ‘I pretended not
to see that anybody was following us,’ he said (writing from Hanover
to relieve my anxiety); ‘and I took the ladies to a hotel. The hotel
possessed two merits from our point of view--it had a way out at the
back, through the stables, and it was kept by a landlord who was an
excellent good friend of mine. I arranged with him what he was to say
when inquiries were made; and I kept my poor ladies prisoners in their
lodgings for three days. The end of it is that Mr. Linley’s policeman
has gone away to watch the Channel steam-service, while we return
quietly by way of Bremen and Hull.’ There is the courier’s account of
it. I have only to add that poor Mrs. Linley has been fairly frightened
into submission. She changes her mind again, and pledges herself once
more to apply for the Divorce. If we are only lucky enough to get our
case heard without any very serious delay, I am not afraid of my client
slipping through my fingers for the second time. When will the courts of
session be open to us? You have lived in Scotland, Randal--”
“But I haven’t lived in the courts of law. I wish I could give you the
information you want.”
Mr. Sarrazin looked at his watch. “For all I know to the contrary,” he
said, “we may be wasting precious time while we are talking here. Will
you excuse me if I go away to my club?”
“Are you going in search of information?”
“Yes. We have some inveterate old whist-players who are always to be
found in the card-room. One of them formerly practiced, I believe, in
the Scotch courts. It has just occurred to me that the chance is worth
trying.”
“Will you let me know if you succeed?” Randal asked.
The lawyer took his hand at parting. “You seem to be almost as anxious
about it as I am,” he said.
“To tell you the truth, I am a little alarmed when I think of Catherine.
If there is another long delay, how do we know what may happen before
the law has confirmed the mother’s claim to the child? Let me send one
of the servants here to wait at your club. Will you give him a line
telling me when the trial is likely to take place?”
“With the greatest pleasure. Good-night.”
Left alone, Randal sat by the fireside for a while, thinking of the
future. The prospect, as he saw it, disheartened him. As a means of
employing his mind on a more agreeable subject for reflection, he opened
his traveling desk and took out two or three letters. They had been
addressed to him, while he was in America, by Captain Bennydeck.
The captain had committed an error of which most of us have been guilty
in our time. He had been too exclusively devoted to work that interested
him to remember what was due to the care of his health. The doctor’s
warnings had been neglected; his over-strained nerves had given way; and
the man whose strong constitution had resisted cold and starvation in
the Arctic wastes, had broken down under stress of brain-work in London.
This was the news which the first of the letters contained.
The second, written under dictation, alluded briefly to the remedies
suggested. In the captain’s case, the fresh air recommended was the air
of the sea. At the same time he was forbidden to receive either letters
or telegrams, during his absence from town, until the doctor had
seen him again. These instructions pointed, in Captain Bennydeck’s
estimation, to sailing for pleasure’s sake, and therefore to hiring a
yacht.
The third and last letter announced that the yacht had been found, and
described the captain’s plans when the vessel was ready for sea.
He proposed to sail here and there about the Channel, wherever it might
please the wind to take him. Friends would accompany him, but not in any
number. The yacht was not large enough to accommodate comfortably more
than one or two guests at a time. Every now and then, the vessel would
come to an anchor in the bay of the little coast town of Sandyseal, to
accommodate friends going and coming and (in spite of medical advice) to
receive letters. “You may have heard of Sandyseal,” the Captain wrote,
“as one of the places which have lately been found out by the doctors.
They are recommending the air to patients suffering from nervous
disorders all over England. The one hotel in the place, and the few
cottages which let lodgings, are crammed, as I hear, and the speculative
builder is beginning his operations at such a rate that Sandyseal will
be no longer recognizable in a few months more. Before the crescents
and terraces and grand hotels turn the town into a fashionable
watering-place, I want to take a last look at scenes familiar to me
under their old aspect. If you are inclined to wonder at my feeling
such a wish as this, I can easily explain myself. Two miles inland from
Sandyseal, there is a lonely old moated house. In that house I was born.
When you return from America, write to me at the post-office, or at the
hotel (I am equally well known in both places), and let us arrange for
a speedy meeting. I wish I could ask you to come and see me in my
birth-place. It was sold, years since, under instructions in my father’s
will, and was purchased for the use of a community of nuns. We may look
at the outside, and we can do no more. In the meantime, don’t despair of
my recovery; the sea is my old friend, and my trust is in God’s mercy.”
These last lines were added in a postscript:
“Have you heard any more of that poor girl, the daughter of my old
friend Roderick Westerfield--whose sad story would never have been
known to me but for you? I feel sure that you have good reasons for not
telling me the name of the man who has misled her, or the address at
which she may be found. But you may one day be at liberty to break your
silence. In that case, don’t hesitate to do so because there may happen
to be obstacles in my way. No difficulties discourage me, when my end in
view is the saving of a soul in peril.”
Randal returned to his desk to write to the Captain. He had only got as
far as the first sentences, when the servant returned with the lawyer’s
promised message. Mr. Sarrazin’s news was communicated in these cheering
terms:
“I am a firmer believer in luck than ever. If we only make haste--and
won’t I make haste!--we may get the Divorce, as I calculate, in three
weeks’ time.”