ROBERT CARR'S VISIT.
Mrs. Arkell sat in her drawing-room with a visitor. She was listening to
what struck her as being the very strangest tale she had ever heard or
dreamt of. The Reverend Mr. Prattleton, who had reached home the
previous night, had come this afternoon to tell her of the disappearance
of Mr. Dundyke.
"Your sister wished me to give you the particulars as soon as I got
home," he observed. "There was little, if any, acquaintance between you
and Mr. Dundyke," he said, "but she felt sure you would feel concern for
him, now he was dead, and would like to hear the details. It is a sad
thing; I may say an awful thing."
"I never heard of such a thing," exclaimed Mrs. Arkell, forgetting her
contempt for the Dundykes in the moment's interest. "It appears
incredible that such a thing could happen. Do you really think he was
murdered, Mr. Prattleton?"
"No, no; I don't think that," said the minor canon. "Of course there is
the possibility; but I incline to the belief that he must have fallen
into the lake, leaving his pocket-book on the shore. Indeed, I feel
convinced of it, and I think Mrs. Dundyke felt so at last. In the first
uncertainty and suspense, I hardly know what horrible things she did not
fancy."
"But surely all proper search was made for him!"
"Of course it was. I am not sure that the police took so much interest
in it, all of us being foreigners, and temporary sojourners in the town,
as they would have done if a native had been missing. It was with
difficulty they were persuaded to take a serious view of the case. The
gentleman had only gone off somewhere else, they thought, without
telling his wife. However, they did their best to find traces of him;
but it proved useless."
"What could have taken them to Geneva?" exclaimed Mrs. Arkell.
"A desire for change and recreation, I suppose. The same that took
me--that takes us all."
"But----those common working-people don't require change," had been on
Mrs. Arkell's tongue; but she altered the words. Mrs. Dundyke _was_ her
sister, and unfortunately she could not deny it. "But----Geneva was very
far to go."
"Not very, in these days of travelling. It is twenty years, Mrs.
Arkell, since I was on the continent, and one seems to get about there
ten times as quick as formerly. It's true I took the rail this time as
much as I could; the Dundykes, on the contrary, preferred the old
diligences, wherever they were to be had."
"Did you see Mr. Dundyke?"
"No," said the minor canon. "He had disappeared--is it not a strangely
sounding word?--before we reached Geneva."
"What a mercy that it was not after it!" thought Mrs. Arkell,
remembering the graces of manner of the ill-fated common-councilman.
"Mrs. Dundyke has returned home, you say?"
"Oh, yes. When all hope was gone, we left Geneva. She went on home
direct, but we stayed in Paris. I very much wished to call upon her as
we came through London, but we had remained beyond our time, and I could
not. I assure you, Mrs. Arkell, I do not know when I have met with
anyone that so won on my regard and on Mary's, as your sister."
Mrs. Arkell raised her eyes in pure surprise. _Her_ sister, humble
Betsey Dundyke, win upon anybody's regard! It struck her that the
clergyman must be saying it out of some notion of politeness; he could
surely never mean it. The fact was, Mrs. Arkell had so long been
accustomed to regard her sister in a disparaging point of view, that
she could not look upon her in any other light.
"She was always a poor, weak sort of girl, between ourselves, Mr.
Prattleton. Otherwise you know she never could have made such a
marriage. The man was most inferior; dreadfully inferior."
"Indeed! Then I think he must have got on well," said Mr. Prattleton.
"He was to have been one of the sheriffs, I believe, next year."
Mrs. Arkell superciliously drew down her still pretty lips. "A great
many of those civic London people are quite inferior tradesmen," she
said; "at least I have heard so. I only hope poor Betsey has enough left
to keep her from want. When these business people die, it often happens
that all they have dies with them, and--oh, William, Mr. Prattleton has
brought us the strangest news! Mr. Dundyke--Betsey's husband, you
know--is either murdered or drowned."
She had broken off thus on the entrance of her husband. Mr. Arkell,
as he shook hands with the clergyman, listened in amazement little
less great than his wife's, and asked question upon question,
greatly interested. You see there was sufficient--what shall I
say?--uncertainty, about the matter still, to make them look upon it
more as an uncleared-up mystery, than a certain tragedy, and perhaps
the chief feeling excited in all minds when they first heard it, was
that of marvel. In the midst of Mr. Prattleton's explanations, the
college clock struck three, and the bell rang out for afternoon
service. It was the minor canon's signal.
"I must go," he said, as he rose; "it is my week for chanting. Mr.
Wilberforce took the duty for me the two first days. I did intend to get
home on Saturday last, but somehow the time slipped on."
Mr. Arkell was going into the town, and he walked with Mr. Prattleton as
far as the large cathedral gates; for the minor canon went round to the
front way that afternoon, as it lay in the road for Mr. Arkell. Lounging
about in an idle mood, now against the contiguous railings, now against
a post of the great doorway, in a manner not often seen at cathedral
doors, and not altogether appropriate to them, was a rather tall,
bilious-looking young man, with fair hair. He did not see them; his head
was turned the other way.
"Can't you find anything better to do, George?"
The words came from the clergyman, and the young man turned with a
start. It was George Prattleton, the half-brother of the minor canon,
but very, very much younger. Mr. George held a good civil appointment in
India, but he was now home on sick leave, and his days were eaten up
with _ennui_. He made the Rev. Mr. Prattleton's his home, who
good-naturedly allowed him to do it; but he was inclined to be what the
world calls fast, and, except at the intervals (somewhat rare ones) when
he had plenty of money in his pocket, he felt that the world was a
wearisome sort of place, of no good to anybody. A good-natured,
inoffensive young fellow on the whole; free from actual vice; but
extravagant, incorrigibly lazy, and easily imposed upon. He generally
called his brother "Mr. Prattleton." The difference in their ages
justified it, and they had not been brought up together.
"I was deliberating whether I should go in to service this afternoon,"
said George--a sort of excuse for lounging against the door-post, as he
shook hands with Mr. Arkell.
"By way of passing away the time!" cried the clergyman, some covert
reproof in his tone.
"Well--yes," returned George, who was by no means unwilling to confess
to his shortcomings. "It _is_ a bore, having nothing to do."
"When you first came home you brought a cartload of books with you,
red-hot upon studying Hindustanee. I wonder how many times you have
opened them!"
Mr. Prattleton passed into the cathedral as he spoke. It was time he
did, for the bell had been going twelve minutes. George pulled a rueful
face as he thought of his Hindustanee.
"I tried it for six whole days after I came home, Mr. Arkell--I give you
my word I did; but I couldn't get on at all by myself, and there is not
a master to be had in the town. I shall set to it in right earnest
before I go out again."
Mr. Arkell laughed. He rather liked the good-natured young man, and
Travice he knew was fond of him.
"But, George, you should remember one thing," he said: "idleness does
not get a man on in the world. You have a fine career before you out
yonder, if you only take the trouble to secure it."
"I know that, Mr. Arkell; and I assure you not a fellow in all the three
presidencies is steadier than I am, or works harder than I do, when I am
there. It is only here, where I have no work before me, that I get into
this dawdling way."
Mr. Arkell left him, passed out of the cathedral inclosure, and
continued his way up the town. George Prattleton remained where he was,
wondering what on earth he could do with himself. It was too late to go
in to service, for the bell had ceased, the organ was pealing out, and
he caught a glimpse, across the great body of the cathedral, of the
white surplices of the dean and two of the chapter, as they whisked in
at the cloister door. George Prattleton believed time must be given to
mortals as a punishment for their sins. He had not a sixpence in his
pocket; he owed so much at the billiard-rooms that he did not like to
show his face there; he was in debt to all the tobacconists of the
place; he had borrowed money from private friends; and altogether he
rather wished for an earthquake, or something of that light nature, by
way of a diversion to the general stagnation of the sultry afternoon.
Mr. Arkell meanwhile reached the house of lawyer Fauntleroy, for that
was the place he was bound for. Mr. Fauntleroy was not his solicitor,
but he had a question to ask him on a matter unconnected with
professional business. As he was turning out of the office again, he
nearly ran against a stranger in deep mourning, who was looking up, as
though he wanted to find the number of the house. He was a slight,
delicate-looking young man; and it instantly struck Mr. Arkell that he
had seen his face before, or one like it.
"I beg your pardon," said the stranger, taking his hat more completely
off than an Englishman generally does to one of his own sex, "can you
tell me whether this is Mr. Fauntleroy's?"
"It is Mr. Fauntleroy's. I think--I think you are the son of Robert
Carr!" impulsively cried Mr. Arkell, as the resemblance to the exiled
and now dead friend of his boyhood flashed across his memory.
It was no other. The Reverend Robert Carr had hastened to Westerbury as
soon as family arrangements and his own health permitted him. A few
moments of conversation, and Mr. Arkell turned back with him to
introduce him to Lawyer Fauntleroy, thinking at the same time that he
had rarely seen anyone look so thin, so pale, so shadowy as Robert Carr.
It was a handsome house, this of Lawyer Fauntleroy's--and if you object
to the term "Lawyer Fauntleroy," as old-fashioned, you must not blame me
for using it. Westerbury rarely called him anything else; does not call
him anything else now, if it has occasion to recal him or his doings.
The offices were on either side of the door, as you entered; Mr.
Fauntleroy's private room, a large, well fitted-up apartment, being on
the right; a small ante-room led to it, generally the sanctum of the
managing clerk.
Mr. Fauntleroy was at leisure, and the whole affair in all its details,
past and present, was related to Robert Carr. Mr. Arkell remained also.
It was not a pleasant office to have to seek to convince this young man
of his own illegitimacy, never a doubt of which had arisen in his mind.
"My mother not married!" he repeated, a streak of suspicious
crimson--suspicious when taken in conjunction with that hacking cough,
those shadowy hands--"indeed you would not entertain such a thought had
you known her. She was, I believe, of inferior family, but in herself
she was a lady, and her children had cause to love and bless her. Not
married! Why, are you aware, Mr. Fauntleroy, that my father was a
partner in one of the first merchant's houses in Rotterdam, and that my
mother held her own, and was visited, and respected as few are, so long
as she lived?"
Lawyer Fauntleroy shook his head. He was a man who took practical views
of most things, utterly scorning theoretical ones.
"I don't doubt your word, Mr. Carr, that your mother was a most
estimable lady; I remember her myself, an uncommon pretty girl; but that
does not prove that she was married."
Mr. Carr's eyes flashed. "Not prove it! Do you think, being what I tell
you she was, a good, religious woman, that she would have lived with my
father unless they had been married?"
"I have known such cases," cried the lawyer, with his dry practicalness,
if there is such a word. "One of the first men in this city--if you
except the clergy and that set--Haughton was his name, and plenty of
money he had, and lived in style, as Mr. Arkell here can tell you, his
sons sticking themselves above everybody, his wife and daughters
setting the fashions--well, Mr. Carr, when he died, it was discovered
that his wife was not his wife; that his children were nothing in the
eyes of the law. Westerbury was electrified, I can tell you, and bestows
hard names upon old Haughton to this day, for having so imposed upon
them."
"You should not put such a case on a parallel with ours," said the young
clergyman, in pained reproof.
"But, my good sir, it _is_ on a parallel; so far, at all events. I tell
you this family were looked upon as superior, as everything that was
moral; not a word could be urged against the wife (as we'll call her for
the argument's sake); she was respected and visited; and not until old
Haughton died, and his will came to be read, did the secret ooze out. He
left his money to them, but he could not leave it in the usual
straightforward way. By the way," added the lawyer briskly, as a thought
struck him; "in what manner was your father's will worded? How was your
mother styled in it?"
"You forget that my mother has been dead for some time. The will was
made only two years ago. It was a perfectly legally-drawn-up will,
according to the Dutch laws; there can be no doubt of that."
"Do you remember how you are described in it, and your brothers and
sisters?" persisted Mr. Fauntleroy.
"I have but one brother and one sister; we are described in what I
suppose is the usual manner, by our Christian names, Robert, Thomas, and
Mary Augusta, the sons and daughter of Robert Carr. It is something to
that effect; I did not take particular notice of the wording."
"I wonder what the law is, over there, with regard to legitimacy?" mused
Mr. Fauntleroy, his eyes seeing an imaginary Holland in the distance.
"But, Mr. Carr, this is waste of time," he added, rousing himself; "the
plain case round which the question will revolve, is not so much whether
your father and mother were married, as whether it can be _proved_ that
they were. The law, in a case like this, requires proof actual--and very
right that it should."
"I suppose there will not be the slightest difficulty in proving it,"
said Robert Carr, resenting the very suggestion.
"Can _you_ prove it? Do you know where it took place?"
The young man shook his head. "I never heard where. It can be readily
found out."
"Did you ever question your father upon the point?"
"No; it was not likely I should, seeing that my attention was never
drawn to any doubt of the sort."
"Well, Westerbury has never entertained any doubt the other way," said
the lawyer. "It is not agreeable to say these things to your face, Mr.
Carr; but there's no help for it; and the sooner the question is set at
rest for you, one way or the other, the better. I should not think
there's a single person living still in Westerbury, who recollects the
circumstances as they took place, that would believe your father married
Miss Hughes after she went away with him."
"It is probable they were married before they did go away," spoke Robert
Carr, hating more than he liked to show the being compelled to this
discussion.
"That, I can answer for, they were not. When they left here she was
Martha Ann Hughes."
"Mr. Fauntleroy is right so far," interposed Mr. Arkell. "They were not
married when they left Westerbury: on that point there can be no
mistake. The question that remains is, were they married subsequent to
it?"
"They must have been," said Robert Carr.
"But there is no must in the case," dissented the lawyer. "The
probabilities are that they were not: the belief is such."
"I do not see why you should persistently seek to cast this opprobrium
on my father and mother, Mr. Fauntleroy!" exclaimed Robert Carr, his
hollow face lighting up with reproach.
"Bless you, my good sir, I don't seek to cast it," said the lawyer,
good-humouredly. "Facts are facts. If you can prove that Robert Carr
married Miss Hughes, and your own legal birth with it, you will take the
property; but if you can't prove it, Squire Carr must keep possession,
and things will remain as they are. Where's the use of shutting our eyes
to the truth?"
"There can be no doubt whatever of the marriage. I am sure of it; I
would stake all my hopes upon it here and--I was going to
say--hereafter."
"But you so speak only according to your belief, sir? You have no shadow
of proof."
"True; but----"
"Just so," interrupted Mr. Fauntleroy, in his decisive and rather
overbearing manner. "All the proofs lie on the other side--negative
proofs, at any rate. They went away together without being married; that
is certain--and, by the way, they hoaxed my friend here, William Arkell,
into helping them off; and I believe his father never forgave him for
it. Neither were there wanting subsequent proofs--negative ones,
perhaps, as I say--that they remained unmarried; at any rate, for some
years. Rely upon one thing, Mr. Robert Carr: that old Marmaduke, just
dead, would have left his money away from his son unless he had been
thoroughly certain that no marriage took place. He had sworn to
disinherit his son if he married Miss Hughes, and he was a man to keep
his word."
"Excuse me," said Robert Carr: "you do not perceive that this very fact
may have been the motive that induced my father to keep his marriage a
secret."
"I perceive it very well. But it is a great deal more probable that
there never was a marriage. Weigh all the circumstances well, Mr. Carr;
without prejudice: though, of course, it is difficult for you to do so.
Over and over again your father was heard to say that he had no
intention of marrying the girl----"
"You forget that you are speaking to me of my mother," interrupted
Robert Carr.
"Well, yes, I did," acknowledged the lawyer. "It is difficult to speak
to a son upon these things; but I think, Mr. Carr, you had better hear
them. Mr. Arkell there, who was your father's intimate acquaintance, can
testify how positively he disclaimed, even to him, any intention of
marriage. Next came the----"
"Allow me," interposed the clergyman, his haughty tone bespeaking how
painful all this was to him. "I presume no suspicion was cast upon my
mother's name while she was in Westerbury?"
"Not a breath of it. Blame was cast, though, on her and her sisters for
allowing the visits of Robert Carr: as is usual in all cases where there
is much disparity in the social standing of the parties. Next came the
elopement, I was about to say. They went direct to London, where they
stayed together----"
"The marriage must have taken place there," again interrupted Robert
Carr.
"I believe not," said Mr. Fauntleroy, dryly. "Marmaduke Carr took care
to acquaint himself with particulars, and it was ascertained that they
did not remain in London long enough to allow of it. The law, more
particular then than it is now, required a residence of three weeks in a
place, before a marriage could be solemnized, and they left for Holland
ere the expiration of a fortnight. It was our house--my father then
being its head--which sought out these particulars for old Marmaduke.
No; rely upon it there was no marriage in London."
His tone plainly said, "Rely upon it there was no marriage, there or
elsewhere." Mr. Carr was about to speak, but the lawyer raised his hand
and continued.
"Some little time after they had settled in Rotterdam, John Carr--Squire
Carr now--went over and saw them. There's no doubt his visit was a
fishing one, hoping to find out that a marriage _had_ taken place; for
in that case, Marmaduke Carr would have wanted another heir than his
son. I am sure that John, close-fisted as he was known to be, would have
given a hundred pounds out of his pocket to be able to come back and
report that they were married; but he could not. He was obliged to
confess not only that his cousin and Miss Hughes were not married, but
that Robert had told him he never should marry her. And, indeed, it was
hardly to be supposed that he would then."
"But----"
"A moment yet, if you please, Mr. Carr. Some considerable time after
this, and when I think there was one child born--which must have been
you, sir--Mr. Carr got to see a letter written by Martha Ann Hughes to
her sister Mary. I think he got the sight of it through you, Mr.
Arkell?"
"Through my father. Mary Hughes was at work at our house, and Tring, our
maid, brought the letter on the sly to my mother. My father, I remember,
said he should like to show it to Marmaduke Carr; and he did so."
"Ay. Well, Mr. Carr, nothing could have been plainer than that letter.
Mary Ann Hughes acknowledged that she had no hope of Robert's marrying
her; but he was kind to her, she said, and she was as happy as anyone
well could be under her unfortunate circumstances. Indeed, I fear you
have no room for hope."
"Where is that letter?" asked the clergyman.
"It's impossible to say. Destroyed most likely long ago. None of your
mother's family are remaining in Westerbury."
"Are they all dead?"
"Dead or dispersed. The brother went off to America or somewhere; and
the second sister, Mary, died: it was said she grieved a great deal
about her sister, your mother. The eldest sister married a young man of
the name of Pycroft, and they also emigrated. Nothing has been heard of
any of them for years."
"You must permit me to maintain my own opinion, Mr. Fauntleroy," pursued
Robert Carr; "and I shall certainly not allow anyone to interfere with
my grandfather's property. If the other branch of the family--Squire
Carr and his sons--wish to put forth any pretensions to it, they must
first prove their right."
Mr. Fauntleroy laughed. He was amused at the clergyman's idea of law.
"The proof lies with you, Mr. Carr," he said; "and not with them. They
cannot prove a negative, you know; and they say that no marriage took
place. It is for you to prove that it did. Failing that proof, the
property will be theirs."
"And meanwhile? While we are searching for the proof?" questioned Robert
Carr, after a pause.
"Meanwhile they retain possession. I understand that Mrs. Lewis has
already come over and taken up her abode in the house."
"Who is Mrs. Lewis?" asked the clergyman.
"Squire Carr's widowed daughter. She has been living at home since her
husband died. I was told this morning that she had come to the house
with the intention of remaining."
Mr. Fauntleroy's information was correct. Mrs. Lewis _had_ come to
Marmaduke Carr's house, and was fully resolved to stop in it, fate and
the squire permitting. Mr. Lewis had died about a year before, and left
her not so well off as she could have wished. She had a competency; but
she had not riches. She broke up her household in the Grounds, and went
on a long visit to her father's, to save housekeeping temporarily;
leaving her two boys, who were on the foundation of the college school,
as boarders at the house of Mr. Wilberforce.