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 today.”
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.&rdquo............