Marlow could not be hard-hearted with a woman, and he felt for the
terrible state of agitation and alarm, to which John Ayliffe's mother
was reduced.
"We must be gentle with her," he said in French to the Commissary of
Police, who was with him, and whom we have hitherto called the man in
black.
"_Oui, monsieur_," replied the other, taking a pinch of snuff, and
perfectly indifferent whether he was gentle or not,--for the
Commissary had the honor, as he termed it, of assisting at the
breaking of several gentlemen on the wheel, to say nothing of sundry
decapitations, hangings, and the question, ordinary and extraordinary,
all of which have a certain tendency, when witnessed often, slightly
to harden the human heart, so that he was not tender.
Marlow was approaching to speak to the unfortunate woman, when
removing her hands from her eyes, she looked wildly round, exclaiming,
"Oh! have you come to take me, have you come to take me?"
"That must depend upon circumstances, madam," replied Marlow, in a
quiet tone. "I have obtained sufficient proofs of the conspiracy in
which your son has been engaged with yourself and Mr. Shanks, the
attorney, to justify me in applying to the Government of his most
Christian Majesty for your apprehension and removal to England. But I
am unwilling to deal at all harshly with you, if it can be avoided."
"Oh! pray don't, pray don't!" she exclaimed vehemently; "my son will
kill me, I do believe, if he knew that you had found me out; for he
has told me, and written to me so often to hide myself carefully, that
he would think it was my fault."
"It is his own fault in ordering your letters to him to be sent to the
Silver Cross at Hartwell," replied Marlow. "Every body in the house
knew the handwriting, and became aware that you were not dead, as had
been pretended. But your son will soon be in a situation to kill
nobody; for the very fact of your being found here, with the other
circumstances we know, is sufficient to convict him of perjury."
"Then he'll lose the property and the title, and not be Sir John any
more," said the unhappy woman.
"Beyond all doubt," replied Marlow. "But to return to the matter
before us; my conduct with regard to yourself must be regulated
entirely by what you yourself do. If you furnish me with full and
complete information in regard to this nefarious business, in which I
am afraid you have been a participator, as well as a victim, I will
consent to your remaining where you are, under the superintendence of
the police, of which this gentleman is a Commissary."
"O, I have been a victim, indeed," answered Mrs. Ayliffe, weeping. "I
declare I have not had a moment's peace, or a morsel fit to eat since
I have been in this outlandish country, and I can hardly get any body,
not even a servant girl, who understands a word of English, to speak
to."
Marlow thought that he saw an inclination to evade the point of his
questions, in order to gain time for consideration, and the Commissary
thought so too: though both of them were, I believe, mistaken; for
collaterality, if I may use such a word, was a habit of the poor
woman's mind.
The Commissary interrupted her somewhat sharply in her catalogue of
the miseries of France, by saying, "I will beg you to give me your
keys, madame, for we must have a visitation of your papers."
"My keys, my keys!" she said, putting her hands in the large pockets
then worn. "I am sure I do not know what I have done with them, or
where they are."
"O, we will soon find keys that will open any thing," replied the
Commissary. "There are plenty of hammers in St. Germain."
"Stay, stay a moment," said Marlow; "I think Mrs. Ayliffe will save us
the trouble of taking any harsh steps."
"O yes, don't; I will do any thing you please," she said, earnestly.
"Well then, madame," said Marlow, "will you have the goodness to state
to this gentleman, who will take down your words, and afterwards
authenticate the statement, what is your real name, and your ordinary
place of residence in England?"
She hesitated, and he added more sternly, "You may answer or not, as
you like, madame; we have proof by the evidence of Mr. Atkinson here,
who has known you so many years, that you are living now in France,
when your son made affidavit that you were dead. That is the principal
point; but at the same time I warn you, that if you do not frankly
state the truth in every particular, I must demand that you be removed
to England."
"I will indeed," she said, "I will indeed;" and raising her eyes to
the face of the Commissary, of whom she seemed to stand in great
dread, she stated truly her name and place of abode, adding, "I would
not, indeed I would not have taken a false name, or come here at all,
if my son had not told me that it was the only way for him to get the
estate, and promised that I should come back directly he had got it.
But now, he says I must remain here forever, and hide myself;" and she
wept bitterly.
In the mean while, the Commissary continued to write actively, putting
down all she said. She seemed to perceive that she was committing
herself, but, as is very common in such cases, she only rendered the
difficulties worse, adding, in a low tone, "After all, the estate
ought to have been his by right."
"If you think so, madame," replied Marlow, "you had better return to
England, and prove it; but I can hardly imagine that your son and his
sharp lawyer would have had recourse to fraud and perjury in order to
keep you concealed, if they judged that he had any right at all."
"Ay, he might have a right in the eyes of God," replied the unhappy
woman, "not in the eyes of the law. We were as much married before
heaven as any two people could be, though we might not be married
before men."
"That is to say, you and your husband," said the Commissary in an
insinuating tone.
"I and Mr. John Hastings, old Sir John's son," she answered; and the
Commissary drawing Marlow for a moment aside, conversed with him in a
whisper.
What they said she could not hear, and could not have understood had
she heard, for they spoke in French; but she grew alarmed as they went
on, evidently speaking about her, and turning their eyes towards her
from time to time. She thought they meditated at least sending her in
custody to England, and perhaps much worse. Tales of bastiles, and
dungeons, and wringing confessions from unwilling prisoners by all
sorts of tortures, presented themselves to her imagination, and before
they had concluded, she exclaimed in a tone of entreaty, "I will tell
all, indeed I will tell all, if you will not send me any where."
"The Commissary thinks, madame," said Marlow, "that the first thing we
ought to do is to examine your papers, and then to question you from
the evidence they afford. The keys must, therefore, be found, or the
locks must be broken open."
"Perhaps they may be in that drawer," said Mrs. Ayliffe, pointing
across to an escrutoire; and there they were accordingly found. No
great search for papers was necessary; for the house was but scantily
furnished, and the escrutoire itself contained a packet of six or
seven letters from John Ayliffe to his mother, with two from Mr.
Shanks, each of them ending with the words "_read and burn_;" an
injunction which she had religiously failed to comply with. These
letters formed a complete series from the time of her quitting England
up to that day. They gave her information of the progress of the suit
against Sir Philip Hastings, and of its successful termination by his
withdrawing from the defence. The first letters held out to her, every
day, the hope of a speedy return to England. The later ones mentioned
long fictitious consultations with lawyers in regard to her return,
and stated that it was found absolutely necessary that she should
remain abroad under an assumed name. The last letter, however,
evidently in answer to one of remonstrance and entreaty from her, was
the most important in Marlow's eyes. It was very peremptory in its
tone, asked if she wanted to ruin and destroy her son, and threatened
all manner of terrible things if she suffered her retreat to be
discovered. As some compensation, however, for her disappointment,
John Ayliffe promised to come and see her speedily, and secure her a
splendid income, which would enable her to keep carriages and horses,
and "live like a princess." He excused his not having done so earlier,
on the ground that his friend Mrs. Hazleton had advanced him a very
large sum of money to carry on the suit, which he was obliged to pay
immediately. The letter ended with these words, "She is as bitter
against all the Hastings' as ever; and nothing will satisfy her till
she has seen the last of them all, especially that saucy girl; but she
is cute after her money, and will be paid. As for my part, I don't
care what she does to Mistress Emily; for I now hate her as much as I
once liked her,--but you will see something there, I think, before
long."
"In the name of Heaven," exclaimed Marlow, as he read that letter,
"what can have possessed the woman with so much malice towards poor
Emily Hastings?"
"Why, John used always to think," said Mistress Ayliffe, with a weak
smile coming upon her face in the midst of her distress, "that it was
because Madame Hazleton wanted to marry a man about there, called
Marlow, and Mistress Emily carried him off from her."
The Commissary laughed, and held out his snuff-box to Marlow, who did
not take the snuff, but fell into a deep fit of thought, while the
Commissary continued his perquisitions.
Only two more papers of importance were found, and they were of a date
far back. The one fresh, and evidently a copy of some other letter,
the other yellow, and with the folds worn through in several places.
The former was a copy of a letter of young John Hastings to the
unfortunate girl whom he had seduced, soothing her under her distress
of mind, and calling her his "dear little wife." It was with the
greatest difficulty she could be induced to part with the original, it
would seem, and had obtained a copy before she consented to do so. The
latter was the antidote to the former. It was a letter from old Sir
John Hastings to her father, and was to the following effect:
"Sir:
"As you have thought fit distinctly to withdraw all vain and
fraudulent pretences of any thing but an illicit connection between
your daughter and my late son, and to express penitence for the
insolent threats you used, I will not withhold due support from my
child's offspring, nor from the unfortunate girl to whom he behaved
ill. I therefore write this to inform you that I will allow her the
sum of two hundred pounds per annum, as long as she demeans herself
with propriety and decorum. I will also leave directions in my will
for securing to her and her son, on their joint lives, a sum of an
equal amount, which may be rendered greater if her behavior for the
next few years is such as I can approve.
"I am, sir, your obedient servant,
"JOHN HASTINGS."
Marlow folded up the letter with a smile, and the Commissary
proceeded, with all due formalities, to mark and register the whole
correspondence as found in the possession of Mrs. Ayliffe.
When this was done, what may be called the examination of that good
lady was continued, but the sight of those letters in the hands of
Marlow, and the well-satisfied smile with which he read them, had
convinced her that all farther attempt at concealment would be vain.
Terror had with her a great effect in unloosing the tongue, and, as is
very common in such cases, she flew into the extreme of loquacity,
told every thing she knew, or thought, or imagined, and being, as is
common with very weak people, of a prying and inquisitive turn, she
could furnish ample information in regard to all the schemes and
contrivances by which her son had succeeded in convincing even Sir
Philip Hastings himself of his legitimacy.
Her statements involved Mr. Shanks the lawyer in the scheme of fraud
as a principal, but they compromised deeply Mrs. Hazleton herself as
cognizant of all that was going on, and aiding and abetting with her
personal advice. She detailed the whole particulars of the plan which
had been formed for bringing Emily Hastings to Mrs. Hazleton's house,
and frightening her into a marriage with John Ayliffe; and she dwelt
particularly on the tutoring he had received from that lady, and his
frantic rage when the scheme was frustrated. The transactions between
him and the unhappy man Tom Cutter she knew only in part; but she
admitted that her eon had laughed triumphantly at the thought of how
Sir Philip would be galled when he was made to believe that his
beloved Emily had been to visit her young reprobate son at the cottage
near the park, and that, too, at a time when he had been actually
engaged in poaching.
All, in fact, came forth with the greatest readiness, and indeed much
more was told than any questions tended to elicit. She seemed indeed
to have now lost all desire for concealment, and to found her hopes
and expectations on the freest discovery. Her only dread, apparently,
being that she might be taken to England, and confronted with her son.
On this point she dwelt much, and Marlow consented that she should
remain in France, under the supervision of the police, for a time at
least, though he would not promise her, notwithstanding all her
entreaties, that she should never be sent for. He endeavored, however,
to obviate the necessity of so doing, by taking every formal step that
could be devised to render the evidence he had obtained available in a
court of law, as documentary testimony. A magistrate was sent for, her
statements were read over to her in his presence by the commissary of
police, and though it cannot be asserted that either the style or the
orthography of the worthy commissary were peculiarly English, yet Mrs.
Ayliffe signed them, and swore to them in good set form, and in the
presence of four witnesses.
To Marlow, the scene was a very painful one; for he had a natural
repugnance to seeing the weakness and degradation of human nature so
painfully exhibited by any fellow-creature, and he left her with
feelings of pity, but still stronger feelings of contempt.
All such sensations, however, vanished when he reached the inn again,
and he found himself in possession of evidence which would clear his
beloved Emily of the suspicions which had been instilled into her
father's mind, and which he doubted not in the least would effect the
restoration of Sir Philip Hastings to his former opulence and to his
station in society.
The mind of man has a sun in its own sky, which pours forth its
sunshine, or is hidden by clouds, irrespective of the atmosphere
around. In fact we always see external objects through stained glass,
and the hues imparted are in our windows, not in the objects
themselves. It is wonderful how different the aspect of every thing
was to the eyes of Marlow as he returned towards Paris, from that
which the scene had presented as he went. All seemed sunshine and
brightness, from the happiness of his own heart. The gloomy images,
which, as I have shown, had haunted him on his way from his own house
to Hartwell--the doubts, if they can be so called--the questionings of
the unsatisfied heart in regard the ways of Providence--the cloudy
dreads which almost all men must have felt as to the real, constant,
minute superintendence of a Supreme Power being but a sweet vision,
the child of hope and veneration, were all dispelled. I do not mean to
say that they were dissipated by reason or by thought, for his was a
strong mind, and reason and thought with him were always on the side
of faith; but those clouds and mists were suddenly scattered by the
success which he had obtained, and the cheering expectation which
might be now well founded upon that success. Is was not enough for him
that he knew, and understood, and appreciated to the full the beauty
and excellence of his Emily's character. He could not be contented
unless every one connected with her understood and appreciated it
also. He cared little what the world thought of himself, but he would
have every one think well of her, and the deepest pang he had perhaps
ever felt in life had been experienced when he first found that Sir
Philip Hastings doubted and suspected his own child. Now, all must be
clear--all must be bright. The base and the fraudulent will be
punished and exposed, the noble and the good honored and justified. It
was his doing; and as he alighted from the carriage, and mounted the
stairs of the hotel in Paris, his step was as triumphant as if he had
won a great victory.
Fate will water our wine, however--I suppose lest we should become
intoxicated with the delicious draught of joy. Marlow longed and hoped
to fly back to England with the tidings without delay, but certain
formalities had to be gone through, official seals and signatures
affixed to the papers he had obtained, in order to leave no doubt of
their authenticity. Cold men of office could not be brought to
comprehend or sympathize with, his impetuous eagerness, and five whole
days elapsed before he was able to quit the French capital.