Of all places upon this earth, perhaps, there is none more obnoxious to the civilized mind than London in October; and yet to Valentine Hawkehurst, newly arrived from Ullerton per North–Western Railway, that city seemed as an enchanted and paradisiacal region. Were not the western suburbs of that murky metropolis inhabited by Charlotte Halliday, and might he not hope to see her?
He did hope for that enjoyment. He had felt something more than hope while speeding Londonwards by that delightful combination of a liberal railway management, a fast and yet cheap train. He had beguiled himself with a delicious certainty. Early the next morning — or at any rate as early as civilization permitted — he would hie him to Bayswater, and present himself at the neat iron gate of Philip Sheldon’s gothic villa. She would be there, in the garden most likely, his divine Charlotte, so bright and radiant a creature that the dull October morning would be made glorious by her presence — she would be there, and she would welcome him with that smile which made her the most enchanting of women.
Such thoughts as these had engaged him during his homeward journey; and compared with the delight of such visions, the perusal of daily papers and the consumption of sandwiches, whereby other passengers beguiled their transit, seemed a poor amusement. But, arrived in the dingy streets, and walking towards Chelsea under a drizzling rain, the bright picture began to grow dim. Was it not more than likely that Charlotte would be absent from London at this dismal season? Was it not very probable that Philip Sheldon would give him the cold shoulder? With these gloomy contingencies before him, Mr. Hawkehurst tried to shut Miss Halliday’s image altogether out of his mind, and to contemplate the more practical aspect of his affairs.
“I wonder whether that scoundrel Paget has come back to London?” he thought. “What am I to say to him if he has? If I own to having seen him in Ullerton, I shall lay myself open to being questioned by him as to my own business in that locality. Perhaps my wisest plan would be to say nothing, and hear his own account of himself. I fully believe he saw me on the platform that night when we passed each other without speaking.”
Horatio Paget was at home when his protegé arrived. He was seated by his fireside in all the domestic respectability of a dressing-gown and slippers, with an evening paper on his knee, a slim smoke-coloured bottle at his elbow, and the mildest of cigars between his lips, when the traveller, weary and weather-stained, entered the lodging-house drawing-room.
Captain Paget received his friend very graciously, only murmuring some faint deprecation of the young man’s reeking overcoat, with just such a look of gentlemanly alarm as the lamented Brummel may have felt when ushered into the presence of a “damp stranger.”
“And so you’ve come back at last,” said the Captain, “from Dorking?” He made a little pause here, and looked at his friend with a malicious sparkle in his eye. “And how was the old aunt? Likely to cut up for any considerable amount, eh? It could only be with a view to that cutting-up process that you could consent to isolate yourself in such a place as Dorking. How did you find things?” “O, I don’t know, I’m sure,” Mr. Hawkehurst answered rather impatiently, for his worst suspicions were confirmed by his patron’s manner; “I only know I found it tiresome work enough.”
“Ah, to be sure! elderly people always are tiresome, especially when they are unacquainted with the world. There is a perennial youth about men and women of the world. The sentimental twaddle people talk of the freshness and purity of a mind unsullied by communion with the world is the shallowest nonsense. Your Madame du Deffand at eighty and your Horace Walpole at sixty are as lively as a girl and boy. Your octogenarian Voltaire is the most agreeable creature in existence. But take Cymon and Daphne from their flocks and herds and pastoral valleys in their old age, and see what senile bores and quavering imbeciles you would find them. Yes, I have no doubt you found your Dorking aunt a nuisance. Take off your wet overcoat and put it out of the room, and then ring for more hot water. You’ll find that cognac very fine. Won’t you have a cigar?”
The Captain extended his russia-leather case with the blandest smile. It was a very handsome case. Captain Paget was a man who could descend into some unknown depths of the social ocean in the last stage of shabbiness, and who, while his acquaintance were congratulating themselves upon the fact of his permanent disappearance, would start up suddenly in an unexpected place, provided with every necessity and luxury of civilized life, from a wardrobe by Poole to the last fashionable absurdity in the shape of a cigar-case.
Never had Valentine Hawkehurst found his patron more agreeably disposed than he seemed to be this evening, and never had he felt more inclined to suspect him.
“And what have you been doing while I have been away?” the young man asked presently. “Any more promoting work?”
“Well, yes, a little bit of provincial business; a life-and-fire on a novel principle; a really good thing, if we can only find men with perception enough to see its merits, and pluck enough to hazard their capital. But promoting in the provinces is very dull work. I’ve been to two or three towns in the Midland districts — Beauport, Mudborough, and Ullerton — and have found the same stagnation everywhere.”
Nothing could be more perfect than the semblance of unconscious innocence with which the Captain gave this account of himself: whether he was playing a part, or whether he was telling the entire truth, was a question which even a cleverer man than Valentine Hawkehurst might have found himself unable to answer.
The two men sat till late, smoking and talking; but to-night Valentine found the conversation of his “guide, philosopher, and friend” strangely distasteful to him. That cynical manner of looking at life, which not long ago had seemed to him the only manner compatible with wisdom and experience, now grated harshly upon those finer senses which had been awakened in the quiet contemplative existence he had of late been leading. He had been wont to enjoy Captain Paget’s savage bitterness against a world which had not provided him with a house in Carlton-gardens, and a seat in the Cabinet; but to-night he was revolted by the noble Horatio’s tone and manner. Those malicious sneers against respectable people and respectable prejudices, with which the Captain interlarded all his talk, seemed to have a ghastly grimness in their mirth. It was like the talk of some devil who had once been an angel, and had lost all hope of ever being restored to his angelic status.
“To believe in nothing, to respect nothing, to hope for nothing, to fear nothing, to consider life as so many years in which to scheme and lie for the sake of good dinners and well-made coats — surely there can be no state of misery more complete, no degradation more consummate,” thought the young man, as he sat by the fireside smoking and listening dreamily to his companion. “Better to be Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth, narrow-minded and egotistical, but always looking beyond her narrow life to some dimly-comprehended future.”
He was glad to escape at last from the Captain’s society, and to retire to his own small chamber, where he slept soundly enough after the day’s fatigues, and dreamed of the Haygarths and Charlotte Halliday.
He was up early the next morning; but, on descending to the sitting-room, he found his patron toasting his Times before a cheerful fire; while his gold hunting-watch stood open on the breakfast-table, and a couple of new-laid eggs made a pleasant wabbling noise in a small saucepan upon the hob.
“You don’t care for eggs, I know, Val,” said the Captain, as he took the saucepan from the hob.
He had heard the young man object to an egg of French extraction too long severed from its native land; but he knew very well that for rural delicacies from a reliable dairyman, at twopence apiece, Mr. Hawkehurst had no particular antipathy. Even in so small a matter as a new-laid egg the Captain knew how to protect his own interest.
“There’s some of that Italian sausage you’re so fond of, dear boy,” he said politely, pointing to a heel of some grayish horny-looking compound. “Thanks; I’ll pour out the coffee; there’s a knack in these things; half the clearness of coffee depends on the way in which it’s poured out, you see.”
And with this assurance Captain Paget filled his own large breakfast-cup with a careful hand and a tender solemnity of countenance. If he was a trifle less considerate in the pouring out of the second cup, and if some “grounds” mingled with the second portion, Valentine Hawkehurst was unconscious of the fact.
“Do try that Italian sausage,” said the Captain, as he discussed his second egg, after peeling the most attractive crusts from the French rolls, and pushing the crumb to his protégé.
“No, thank you; it looks rather like what your shop-people call an old housekeeper; besides, there’s a little too much garlic in those compositions for my taste.”
“Your taste has grown fastidious,” said the Captain; “one would think you were going to call upon some ladies this morning.”
“There are not many ladies on my visiting-list. O, by the way, how’s Diana? Have you seen her lately?”
“No,” answered the Captain, promptly. “I only returned from my provincial tour a day or two ago, and have had no time to waste dancing attendance upon her. She’s well enough, I’ve no doubt; and she’s uncommonly well off in Sheldon’s house, and ought to think herself so.”
Having skimmed his newspaper, Captain Paget rose and invested himself in his overcoat. He put on his hat before the glass over the mantelpiece, adjusting the brim above his brows with the thoughtful care that distinguished his performance of all those small duties which he owed to himself.
“And what may you be going to do with yourself to-day, Val?” he asked of the young man, who sat nursing his own knee and staring absently at the fire.
“Well, I don’t quite know,” Mr. Hawkehurst answered, hypocritically; “I think I may go as far as Gray’s Inn, and look in upon George Sheldon.”
“You’ll dine out of doors, I suppose?”
This was a polite way of telling Mr. Hawkehurst that there would be no dinner for him at home.
“I suppose I shall. You know I’m not punctilious on the subject of dinner. Anything you please — from a banquet at the London Tavern to a ham-sandwich and a glass of ale at fourpence.”
“Ah, to be sure; youth is reckless of its gastric juices. I shall find you at home when I come in to-night, I daresay. I think I may dine in the city. Au plaisir.”
“I don’t know about the pleasure,” muttered Mr. Hawkehurst. “You’re a very delightful person, my friend Horatio; but there comes a crisis in a man’s existence when he begins to feel that he has had enough of you. Poor Diana! what a father!”
He did not waste much time on further consideration of his patron, but set off at once on his way to Gray’s Inn. It was too early to call at the Lawn, or he would fain have gone there before seeking George Sheldon’s dingy offices. Nor could he very well present himself at the gothic villa without some excuse for so doing. He went to Gray’s Inn therefore; but on his way thither called at a tavern near the Strand, which was the head-quarters of a literary association known as the Ragamuffins. Here he was fortunate enough to meet with an acquaintance in the person of a Ragamuffin in the dramatic-author line, who was reading the morning’s criticisms on a rival’s piece produced the night before, with a keen enjoyment of every condemnatory sentence. From this gentleman Mr. Hawkehurst obtained a box-ticket for a West-end theatre; and, armed with this mystic document, he felt himself able to present a bold countenance at Mr. Sheldon’s door.
“Will she be glad to see me again?” he asked himself. “Pshaw! I daresay she has forgotten me by this time. A fortnight is an age with some women; and I should fancy Charlotte Halliday just one of those bright impressionable beings who forget easily. I wonder whether she is really like that ‘Molly’ whose miniature was found by Mrs. Haygarth in the tulip-leaf escritoire; or was the resemblance between those two faces only a silly fancy of mine?”
Mr. Hawkehurst walked the whole distance from Chelsea to Gray’s Inn; and it was midday when he presented himself before George Sheldon, whom he found seated at his desk with the elephantine pedigree of the Haygarths open before him, and profoundly absorbed in the contents of a note-book. He looked up from this note-book as Valentine entered, but did not leave off chewing the end of his pencil as he mumbled a welcome to the returning wanderer. It has been seen that neither of the Sheldon brothers were demonstrative men.
After that unceremonious greeting, the lawyer continued his perusal of the note-book for some minutes, while Valentine seated himself in a clumsy leather-covered arm-chair by the fireplace.
“Well, young gentleman,” Mr. Sheldon exclaimed, as he closed his book with a triumphant snap, “I think you’re in for a good thing; and you may thank your lucky stars for having thrown you into my path.”
“My stars are not remarkable for their luckiness in a general way,” answered Mr. Hawkehurst, coolly, for the man had not yet been born from whom he would accept patronage. “I suppose if I’m in for a good thing, you’re in for a better thing, my dear George; so you needn’t come the benefactor quite so strong for my edification. How did you ferret out the certificate of gray-eyed Molly’s espousals?”
George Sheldon contemplated his coadjutor with an admiring stare. “It has been my privilege to enjoy the society of cool hands, Mr. Hawkehurst; and certainly you are about the coolest of the lot — bar one, as they say in the ring. But that is ni ci ni là. I have found the certificate of Matthew Haygarth’s marriage, and to my mind the Haygarth succession is as good as ours.”
“Ah, those birds in the bush have such splendid plumage! but I’d rather have the modest sparrow in my hand. However, I’m very glad our affairs are marching. How did you discover the marriage-lines?”
“Not without hard labour, I can tell you. Of course my idea of a secret marriage was at the best only a plausible hypothesis; and I hardly dared to hug myself with the hope that it might turn up trumps. My idea was based upon two or three facts, namely, the character of the young man, his long residence in London away from the ken of respectable relatives and friends, and the extraordinary state of the marriage laws at the period in which our man lived.”
“Ah, to be sure! That was a strong point.”
“I should rather think it was. I took the trouble to look up the history of Mayfair marriages and Fleet marriages before you started for Ullerton, and I examined all the evidence I could get on that subject. I made myself familiar with the Rev. Alexander Keith of Mayfair, who helped to bring clandestine marriages into vogue amongst the swells, and with Dr. Gaynham — agreeably nicknamed Bishop of Hell — and more of the same calibre; and the result of my investigations convinced me that in those days a hare-brained young reprobate must have found it rather more difficult to avoid matrimony than to achieve it. He might be married when he was tipsy; he might be married when he was comatose from the effects of a stand-up fight with Mohawks; his name might be assumed by some sportive Benedick of his acquaintance given to practical joking, and he might find himself saddled with a wife he never saw; or if, on the other hand, of an artful and deceptive turn, he might procure a certificate of a marriage that had never taken place — for there were very few friendly offices which the Fleet parsons refused to perform for their clients — for a consideration.”
“But how about the legality of the Fleet marriage?”
“There’s the rub. Before the New Marriage Act passed in 1753 a Fleet marriage was indissoluble. It was an illegal act, and the parties were punishable; but the Gordian knot was quite as secure as if it had been tied in the most orthodox manner. The great difficulty to my mind was the onus probandi. The marriage might have taken place; the marriage be to all intents and purposes a good marriage; but how produce undeniable proof of such a ceremony, when all ceremonies of the kind were performed with a manifest recklessness and disregard of law? Even if I found an apparently good certificate, how was I to prove that it was not one of those lying certificates of marriages that had never taken place? Again, what kind of registers could posterity expect from these parson-adventurers, very few of whom could spell, and most of whom lived in a chronic state of drunkenness? They married people sometimes by their Christian names alone — very often under assumed names. What consideration had they for heirs-at-law in the future, when under the soothing influence of a gin-bottle in the present? I thought of all these circumstances, and I was half inclined to despair of realising my idea of an early marriage. I took it for granted that such a secret business would be more likely to have taken place in the precincts of the Fleet than anywhere else; and having no particular clue, I set to work, in the first place, to examine all available documents relating to such marriages.”
“It must have been slow work.”
“It was slow work,” answered Mr. Sheldon with a suppressed groan, that was evoked by the memory of a bygone martyrdom. “I needn’t enter into all the details of the business — the people I had to apply to for permission to see this set of papers, and the signing and counter-signing I had to go through before I could see that set of papers, and the extent of circumlocution and idiocy I had to encounter in a general way before I could complete my investigation. The result was nil; and after working like a galley-slave I found myself no better off than before I began my search. Your extracts from Matthew’s letters put me on a new track. I concluded therefrom that there had been a marriage, and that the said marriage had been a deliberate act on the part of the young man. I therefore set to work to do what I ought to have done at starting — I hunted in all the parish registers to be found within a certain radius of such and such localities. I began with Clerkenwell, in which neighbourhood our friend spent such happy years, according to that pragmatical epistle of Mrs. Rebecca’s; but after hunting in all the mouldy old churches within a mile of St. John’s-gate, I was no nearer arriving at any record of Matthew Haygarth’s existence. So I turned my back upon Clerkenwell, and went southward to the neighbourhood of the Marshalsea, where Mistress Molly’s father was at one time immured, and whence I thought it very probable Mistress Molly had started on her career as a matron. This time my guess was a lucky one. After hunting the registers of St. Olave’s, St. Saviour’s, and St. George’s, and after the expenditure of more shillings in donations to sextons than I care to remember, I at last lighted on a document which I consider worth three thousand pounds to you — and — a very decent sum of money to me.”
“I wonder what colour our hair will be when we touch that money?” said Valentine meditatively. “These sort of cases generally find their way into Chancery-lane, don’t they? — that lane which, for some unhappy travellers, has no turning except the one dismal via which leads to dusty death. You seem in very good spirits; and I suppose I ought to be elated too. Three thousand pounds would give me a start in life, and enable me to set up in the new character of a respectable rate-paying citizen. But I’ve a kind of presentiment that this hand of mine will never touch the prize of the victor; or, in plainer English, that no good will ever arise to me or mine out of the reverend intestate’s hundred thousand pounds.”
“Why, what a dismal-minded croaker you are this morning!” exclaimed George Sheldon with unmitigated disgust; “a regular raven, by Jove! You come to a fellow’s office just as matters are beginning to look like succes............