AT these plain proofs of Alfred's infidelity, Julia's sweet throat began
to swell hysterically, and then her bosom to heave and pant: and,
after a piteous struggle, came a passion of sobs and tears so wild, so
heart-broken, that Edward blamed himself bitterly for telling her.
But Mrs. Dodd sobbed “No, no, I would rather have her so; only leave her
with me now: bless you, darling: leave us quickly.”
She rocked and nursed her deserted child hours and hours: and so the
miserable day crawled to its close.
Downstairs the house looked strange and gloomy: she, who had brightened
it all, was darkened herself. The wedding breakfast and flowers remained
in bitter mockery. Sarah cleared half the table, and Sampson and Edward
dined in moody silence.
Presently Sampson's eye fell upon the Deed: it lay on a small table with
a pen beside it, to sign on their return from church.
Sampson got hold of it and dived in the verbiage. He came up again
with a discovery. In spite of its feebleness, verbosity, obscurity, and
idiotic way of expressing itself, the Deed managed to convey to David
and Mrs. Dodd a life interest in nine thousand five hundred pounds, with
reversion to Julia and the children of the projected marriage. Sampson
and Edward put their heads over this, and it puzzled them, “Why, man,”
said Sampson, “if the puppy had signed this last night, he would be a
beggar now.”
“Ay,” said Edward, “but after all he did not sign it.”
“Nay, but that was your fault, not his: the lad was keen to sign.”
“That is true; and perhaps if we had pinned him to this, last night, he
would not have dared insult my sister to-day.”
Sampson changed the subject by inquiring suddenly which way he was gone.
“Curse him, I don't know; and don't care. Go where he will I shall meet
him again some day; and then--Edward spoke almost in a whisper, but a
certain grind of his white teeth and flashing of his lion eyes made the
incomplete sentence very expressive.
“What ninnies you young men are,” said the Doctor; “even you, that I dub
'my fathom o' good sense:' just finish your denner and come with me.”
“No, Doctor; I'm off my feed for once: if you had been upstairs and seen
my poor sister! Hang the grub; it turns my stomach.” And he shoved his
plate away, and leaned over the back of his chair.
Sampson made him drink a glass of wine, and then they got up from the
half-finished meal and went hurriedly to Alfred's lodgings, the Doctor,
though sixty, rushing along with all the fire and buoyancy of early
youth. They found the landlady surrounded by gossips curious as
themselves, and longing to chatter, but no materials. The one new fact
they elicited was that the vehicle was a White Lion fly, for she knew
the young man by the cast in his eye. “Come away,” shouted the Doctor
unceremoniously, and in two minutes they were in the yard of the White
Lion.
Sampson called the ostler: out came a hard-featured man, with a strong
squint. Sampson concluded this was his man, and said roughly: “Where did
you drive young Hardie this morning?”
He seemed rather taken aback by this abrupt question; but reflected and
slapped his thigh: “Why, that is the party from Mill Street.”
“Yes.”
“Druv him to Silverton station, sir: and wasn't long about it,
either--gent was in a hurry.”
“What train did he go by?”
“Well, I don't know, sir; I left him at the station.”
“Well, then, where did he take his ticket for? Where did he tell the
porter he was going? Think now, and I'll give y' a sovereign.”
The ostler scratched his head, and seemed at first inclined to guess for
the sovereign, but at last said: “I should only be robbing you gents.
Ye see, he paid the fly then and there, and gave me a crown: and I druv
away directly.”
On this they gave him a shilling and left him. But on leaving the yard
Edward said: “Doctor, I don't like that fellow's looks: let us try
the landlord.” They went into the bar and made similar inquiries. The
landlord was out, the mistress knew nothing about it, but took a book
out of a drawer, and turned over the leaves. She read out an entry to
this effect--
“Pair horse fly to Silverton: take up in Mill Street at eight o'clock.
Is that it, sir?” Sampson assented; but Edward told her the ostler said
it was Silverton station.
“No: it is Silverton in the book, sir. Well, you see it is all one to
us; the station is further than the town, but we charge seven miles
whichever 'tis.”
Bradshaw, inspected then and there, sought in vain to conceal that four
trains reach Silverton from different points between 8.50 and 9.25 A. M.
The friends retired with this scanty information. Alfred could hardly
have gone to London; for there was a train up from Barkington itself at
8.30. But he might have gone to almost any other part of the island, or
out of it for that matter. Sampson fell into a brown study.
After a long silence, which Edward was too sad to break, he said
thoughtfully: “Bring sceince to bear on this hotch-potch. Facks are
never really opposed to facks; they onnly seem to be: and the true
solution is the one which riconciles all the facks: for instance, the
chronothairmal Therey riconciles all th' undisputed facks in midicine.
So now sairch for a solution to riconcile the Deed with the puppy
levanting.”
Edward searched, but could find none; and said so.
“Can't you?” said Sampson; “then I'll give you a couple. Say he is
touched in the upper story for one.”
“What do you mean? Mad?”
“Oh: there are degrees of Phrinzy. Here is th' inconsistency of conduct
that marks a disturbance of the reason: and, to tell the truth, I once
knew a young fellow that played this very prank at a wedding, and the
nixt thing we hard, my lorrd was in Bedlam.”
Edward shook his head: “It is the villain's heart, not his brain.”
Sampson then offered another solution, in which he owned he had more
confidence--
“He has been courting some other wumman first: she declined, or made
believe; but, when she found he had the spirit to go and marry an
innocent girl, then the jade wrote to him and yielded. It's a married
one, likely. I've known women go further for hatred of a wumman than
they would for love of a man and here was a temptation! to snap a lover
off th' altar, and insult a rival, all at one blow. He meant to marry:
he meant to sign that deed: ay and at his age, even if he had signed
it, he would have gone off at passion's call, and beggared himself.
What enrages me is that we didn't let him sign it, and so nail the young
rascal's money.”
“Curse his money,” said Edward, “and him too. Wait till I can lay my
hand on him: I'll break every bone in his skin.”
“And I'll help you.”
In the morning, Mrs. Dodd left Julia for a few minutes expressly to
ask Sampson's advice. After Alfred's conduct she was free, and fully
determined, to defend herself and family against spoliation by any means
in her power: so she now showed the doctor David's letter about the
L. 14,000; and the empty pocket-book; and put together the disjointed
evidence of Julia, Alfred, and circumstances, in one neat and luminous
statement. Sampson was greatly struck with the revelation: he jumped
off his chair and marched about excited: said truth was stranger than
fiction, and this was a manifest swindle: then he surprised Mrs. Dodd
in her turn by assuming that old Hardie was at the bottom of yesterday's
business. Neither Edward nor his mother could see that, and said so: his
reply was characteristic: “Of course you can't; you are Anglosaxins; th'
Anglosaxins are good at drawing distinctions: but they can't gineralise.
I'm a Celt, and gineralise--as a duck swims. I discovered th' unity
of all disease: it would be odd if I could not trace the maniform
iniquities you suffer to their one source.”
“But what is the connecting link?” asked Mrs. Dodd, still incredulous.
“Why, Richard Hardie's interest.”
“Well, but the letter?” objected Edward.
“There goes th' Anglosaxin again,” remonstrated Sampson: “puzzling his
head over petty details; and they are perhaps mere blinds thrown out by
the enemy. Put this and that together: Hardie senior always averse to
this marriage; Hardie senior wanting to keep L. 14,000 of yours: if
his son, who knows of the fraud, became your mother's son, the swinidle
would be hourly in danger (no connection? y' unhappy Anglosaxins; why
the two things are interwoven). And so young Hardie is got out of the
way: old Hardie's doing, or I'm a Dutchman.”
This reasoning still appeared forced and fanciful to Edward but it began
to make some little impression on Mrs. Dodd, and encouraged her to own
that her poor daughter suspected foul play.
“Well, that is possible, too: whativer tempted man has done, tempted man
will do: but more likely he has bribed Jezebel to write and catch the
goose by the heart. Gintlennen, I'm a bit of a physiognomist: look at
old Hardie's lines; his cords, I might say: and deeper every time I see
him. Sirs, there's an awful weight on that man's mind. Looksee! I'll
just send a small trifle of a detective down to watch his game, and pump
his people: and, as soon as it is safe, we'll seize the old bird, and,
once he is trapped the young one will reappear like magic: th' old one
will disgorge; we'll just compound the felony--been an old friend--and
recover the cash.”
A fine sketch; but Edward thought it desperately wild, and Mrs. Dodd
preferred employing a respectable attorney to try and obtain justice in
the regular way. Sampson laughed at her; what was the use of attacking
in the regular way an irregular genius like old Hardie? “Attorneys are
too humdrum for such a job,” said he; “they start with a civil letter
putting a rogue on his guard; they proceed t' a writ and then he digs a
hole in another county and buries the booty; or sails t' Australia with
it. N'list'me; I'm an old friend, and an insane lover of justice--I say
insane, because my passion is not returned, or the jade wouldn't keep
out of my way so all these years--you leave all this to me.”
“Stop a minute,” said Edward; “you must not go compromising us: and we
have no money to pay for luxuries like detectives.”
“I won't compromise any one of you: and my detective shan't cost y' a
penny.”
“Ah, my dear friend,” said Mrs. Dodd, “the fact is, you do not know all
the difficulties that beset us. Tell him, Edward. Well, then, let _me._
The poor boy is attached to this gentleman's daughter, whom you propose
to treat like a felon: and he is too good a son and too good a friend
for me to--what, what, shall I do?”
Edward coloured up to the eyes. “Who told you that, mother?” said he.
“Well, yes, I do love her, and I'm not ashamed of it. Doctor,” said
the poor fellow after a while, “I see now I am not quite the person to
advise my mother in this matter. I consent to leave it in your hands.”
And in pursuance of this resolution, he retired to his study.
“There's a damnable combination,” said Sampson drily. “Truth is
sairtainly more wonderful than feckshin. Here's my fathom o' good sense
in love with a wax doll, and her brother jilting his sister, and her
father pillaging his mother. It _beats_ hotch-potch.”
Mrs. Dodd denied the wax doll: but owned Miss Hardie was open to vast
objections: “An inestimable young lady; but so odd; she is one of these
uneasy-minded Christians that have sprung up: a religious egotist, and
_malade imaginaire,_ eternally feeling her own spiritual pulse----”
“I know the disorrder,” cried Sampson eagerly: “the pashints have a hot
fit (and then they are saints): followed in due course by the cold fit
(and then they are the worst of sinners): and so on in endless rotation:
and, if they could only realise my great discovery, the perriodicity of
all disease, and time their sintiments, they would find the hot fit and
the cold return chronometrically, at intervals as rigular as the
tide's ebb and flow; and the soul has nothing to do with either febrile
symptom. Why Religion, apart from intermittent Fever of the Brain, is
just the caumest, peaceablest, sedatest thing in all the world.”
“Ah, you are too deep for me, my good friend. All I know is that she
is one of this new school, whom I take the liberty to call 'THE FIDGETY
CHRISTIANS.' They cannot let their poor souls alone a minute; and they
pester one day and night with the millennium; as if we shall not all
be dead long before that. But the worst is, they apply the language of
earthly passion to the Saviour of mankind, and make one's flesh creep
at their blasphemies; so coarse, so familiar: like that rude multitude
which thronged and pressed Him when on earth. But, after all, she
came to the church, and took my Julia's part; so that shows she has
_principle;_ and do pray spare me her feelings in any step you take
against that dishonourable person her father. I must go back to his
victim, my poor, poor child--I dare not leave her long. Oh, Doctor, such
a night! and, if she dozes for a minute, it is to wake with a scream and
tell me she sees him dead: sometimes he is drowned; sometimes stained
with blood, but always dead.”
This evening Mr. Hardie came along in a fly with his luggage on the box,
returning to Musgrove Cottage as from Yorkshire: in passing Albion Villa
he cast it a look of vindictive triumph. He got home and nodded by the
fire in his character of a man wearied by a long journey. Jane made him
some tea, and told him how Alfred had disappeared on his wedding-day.
“The young scamp,” said he; he added, coolly, “It is no business
of mine. I had no hand in making the match, thank Heaven.” In the
conversation that ensued, he said he had always been averse to the
marriage; but not so irreconcilably as to approve this open breach of
faith with a respectable young lady. “This will recoil upon our name,
you know, at this critical time,” said he.
Then Jane mustered courage to confess that she had gone to the wedding
herself: “Dear papa,” said she, “it was made clear to me that the
Dodds are acting in what they consider a most friendly way to you. They
think--I cannot tell you what they think. But, if mistaken, they are
sincere: and so, after prayer, and you not being here for me to consult,
I did go to the church. Forgive me, papa: I have but one brother; and
she is my dear friend.”
Mr. Hardie's countenance fell at this announcement, and he looked almost
diabolical. But on second thoughts he cleared up wonderfully: “I will be
frank with you, Jenny: if the wedding had come off; I should have been
deeply hurt at your supporting that little monster of ingratitude. He
not only marries against his father's will (that is done every day), but
slanders and maligns him publicy in his hour of poverty and distress.
But now that he has broken faith and insulted Miss Dodd as well as me,
I declare I am glad you were there, Jenny. It will separate us from his
abominable conduct. But what does he say for himself? What reason does
he give?”
“Oh, it is all mystery as yet.”
“Well, but he must have sent some explanation to the Dodds.”
“He may have: I don't know. I have not ventured to intrude on my poor
insulted friend. Papa, I hear her distress is fearful; they fear for her
reason. Oh, if harm comes to her, God will assuredly punish him whose
heartlessness and treachery has brought her to it. Mark my words,” she
continued with great emotion, “this cruel act will not go unpunished
even in this world.”
“There, there, change the subject,” said Mr. Hardie peevishly. “What
have I to do with his pranks? He has disowned me for his father, and I
disown him for my son.”
The next day Peggy Black called, and asked to see master. Old Betty,
after the first surprise, looked at her from head to foot, and foot to
head, as if measuring her for a suit of disdain; and told her she might
carry her own message; then flounced into the kitchen, and left her to
shut the street door, which she did. She went and dropped her curtsey at
the parlour door, and in a miminy piminy voice said she was come to make
her submission, and would he forgive her, and give her another trial?
Her penitence, after one or two convulsive efforts, ended in a very fair
flow of tears.
Mr. Hardie shrugged his shoulders, and asked Jane if the girl had ever
been saucy to her.
“Oh no, papa: indeed I have no fault to find with poor Peggy.”
“Well, then, go to your work, and try and not offend Betty; remember she
is older than you.”
Peggy went for her box and bandbox, and reinstated herself quietly, and
all old Betty's endeavours to irritate her only elicited a calm cunning
smile, with a depression of her downy eyelashes.
_Albion Villa._
Next morning Edward Dodd was woke out of a sound sleep at about four
o'clock, by a hand upon his shoulder: he looked up, and rubbed his
eyes; it was Julia standing by his bedside, dressed, and in her bonnet.
“Edward,” she said in a hurried whisper, “there is foul play: I cannot
sleep, I cannot be idle. He has been decoyed away, and perhaps murdered.
Oh, pray get up and go to the police office or somewhere with me.”
“Very well; but wait till morning.”
“No; now; now--now--now. I shall never go out of doors in the daytime
again. Wait? I'm going crazy with wait, wait, wait, wait, waiting.”
Her hand was like fire on him, and her eyes supernaturally bright.
“There,” said Edward with a groan, “go downstairs, and I will be with
you directly.”
He came down: they went out together: her little burning hand pinched
his tight, and her swift foot seemed scarcely to touch the ground; she
kept him at his full stride till they got to the central police station.
There, at the very thought of facing men, the fiery innocent suddenly
shrank together, and covered her blushing face with her hot hands. She
sent him in alone. He found an intelligent superintendent, who entered
into the case with all the coolness of an old official hand.
Edward came out to his sister, and as he hurried her home, told her what
had passed: “The superintendent asked to see the letter; I told him
he had taken it with him: that was a pity, he said. Then he made me
describe Alfred to a nicety: and the description will go up to London
this morning, and all over Barkington, and the neighbourhood, and the
county.”
She stopped to kiss him, then went on again with her head down, and
neither spoke till they were nearly home: then Edward told her “the
superintendent felt quite sure that the villain was not dead; nor in
danger of it.”
“Oh, bless him! bless him! for saying so.”
“And that he will turn up in London before very long; not in this
neighbourhood. He says he must have known the writer of the letter, and
his taking his luggage with him shows he has gone off deliberately. My
poor little Ju, now do try and look at it as he does, and everybody else
does; try and see it as you would if you were a bystander.”
She laid her soft hand on his shoulder as if to support herself floating
in her sea of doubt: “I do see I am a poor credulous girl; but how can
my Alfred be false to me? Am I to doubt the Bible? Am I to doubt the
sun? Is nothing true in heaven or earth? Oh, if I could only have died
as I was dressing for church--died while he seemed true! He _is_ true;
the wicked creature has cast some spell on him: he has gone in a moment
of delirium; he will regret what he has done, perhaps regrets it now. I
am ungrateful to you, Edward, and to the good policeman, for saying he
is not dead. What more do I require? He is dead to me. Edward, let us
leave this place. We _were_ going: let us go to-day; this very day; oh,
take me, and hide me where no one that knows me can ever see me again.”
A flood of tears came to her relief: and she went along sobbing and
kissing her brother's hand every now and then.
But, as they drew near the gate of Albion Villa, twilight began to usher
in the dawn. Julia shuddered at even that faint light, and fled like a
guilty thing, and hid herself sobbing in her own bedroom.
Mr. Richard Hardie slept better now than he had done for some time past,
and therefore woke more refreshed and in better spirits. He knew an
honest family was miserable a few doors off; but he did not care. He got
up and shaved with a mind at ease. One morning, when he had removed the
lather from one half his face, he happened to look out of window, and
saw on the wall opposite--a placard: a large placard to this effect:
“ONE HUNDRED GUINEAS REWARD!
Whereas, on the 11th instant Mr. Alfred Hardie disappeared mysteriously
from his lodgings in 15 Mill Street, under circumstances suggesting a
suspicion of foul play, know all men that the above reward will be paid
to any person or persons who shall first inform the undersigned where
the said Alfred Hardie is to be found, and what person or persons, if
any, have been concerned in his disappearance.
“ALEXANDER SAMPSON, 39 Pope Street, Napoleon Square London.”