Mildred Arkell: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3)
by Mrs. Henry Wood · English · Gutenberg #39693 · 410,727 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Mildred Arkell: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3)
Author: Mrs. Henry Wood
Release date: May 14, 2012 [eBook #39693]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MILDRED ARKELL: A NOVEL. VOL. 3 (OF 3) ***
Produced by Robert Cicconetti and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
MILDRED ARKELL.
A Novel.
BY MRS. HENRY WOOD,
AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE," "LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS," "TREVLYN HOLD," ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND
1865.
_All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved._
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND--A SURPRISE 1
II. A DOUBTFUL SEARCH 24
III. DETECTION 43
IV. ASSIZE SATURDAY 68
V. ASSIZE SUNDAY 86
VI. PREACHING TO THE DEAN 103
VII. CARR VERSUS CARR 122
VIII. THE SECOND DAY 144
IX. THE SHADOWS OF DEATH 168
X. THE GRAVESTONE IN THE CLOISTERS 191
XI. THOUGHTLESS WORDS 213
XII. MISCONCEPTION 236
XIII. THE TABLES TURNED 256
XIV. A RECOGNITION 273
XV. MILDRED'S RECOMPENSE 290
XVI. MISS FAUNTLEROY LOVED AT LAST 309
MILDRED ARKELL.
CHAPTER I.
DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.--A SURPRISE.
It happened on that same second of December that Mr. Littelby took his
place for the first time as conductor of the business of Mynn and Mynn.
He had arrived at Eckford the previous day, as per agreement, but was
not installed formally in the office until this. Old Mynn, not in his
gout now, had come down early, and was brisk and lively; George Mynn was
also there.
He was an admitted solicitor just as much as were Mynn and Mynn; he was
to be their confidential _locum tenens_; the whole management and
conduct of affairs was, during their absence, to fall upon him; he was,
in point of fact, to be practically a principal, not a clerk, and at the
end of a year, if all went well, he was to be allowed a share in the
business, and the firm would be Mynn, Mynn, and Littelby.
It was not, then, to be wondered at, that the chief of the work this day
was the inducting him into the particulars of the various cases that
Mynn and Mynn happened to have on hand, more especially those that were
to come on for trial at the Westerbury assizes, and would require much
attention beforehand. They were shut up betimes, the three, in the small
room that would in future be Mr. Littelby's--a room which had hitherto
been nobody's in particular, for the premises were commodious, but which
Mr. Richards had been in the habit of appropriating as his own, not for
office purposes, but for private uses. Quite a cargo of articles
belonging to Mr. Richards had been there: coats, parcels, pipes,
letters, and various other items too numerous to mention. On the
previous day, Richards had received a summary mandate to "clear it out,"
as it was about to be put in order for the use of Mr. Littelby. Mr.
Richards had obeyed in much dudgeon, and his good feeling towards the
new manager--his master in future--was not improved. It had not been
friendly previously, for Mr. Richards had a vague idea that his way
would not be quite so much his own as it had been.
He sat now at his desk in the public office, into which clients plunged
down two steps from the landing on the first flight of stairs, as if
they had been going into a well. His subordinate, a steady young man
named Pope, who was browbeaten by Richards every hour of his life, sat
at a small desk apart. Mr. Richards, ostensibly occupied in the perusal
of some formidable-looking parchment, was, in reality, biting his nails
and frowning, and inwardly wishing he could bring the ceiling down on
Mr. Littelby's head, shut up in that adjoining apartment; and could he
have invented a decent excuse for sending out Pope, in the teeth of the
intimation Mr. George Mynn had just given, that Pope was to stop in, for
he should want him, Mr. Richards would have had his own ear to the
keyhole of the door.
Mr. Littelby and Mr. Mynn sat at the square table, some separate bundles
of papers before them, tied up with red string; Mr. George Mynn stood
with his back to the fire. Never was there a keener or a better man of
business than Mynn the elder, when his state of health allowed him a
respite from pain. He had been well for two or three weeks now, and the
office found the benefit of it. _He_ was the one to explain matters to
Mr. Littelby; Mr. George only put in a word here and there. In due
course they came to a small bundle of papers labelled "Carr," and Mr.
Mynn, in his rapid, clear, concise manner, gave an outline of the case.
Before he had said many words, Mr. Littelby raised his head, his face
betokening interest, and some surprise.
"But I thought the Carr case was at an end," he observed. "At least, I
supposed it would naturally be so."
"Oh dear no," said old Mynn; "it's coming on for trial at the
assizes--that is, if the other side are so foolish as to go on to
action. I don't myself think they will be."
"The other side? You mean the widow of Robert Carr the clergyman?" asked
Mr. Littelby, scarcely thinking, however, that Mr. Mynn could mean it.
"The widow and the brother--yes. Fauntleroy, of Westerbury, acts for
them. But he'll never, as I believe, bring so utterly lame a case into
court."
Mr. Littelby wondered what his new chief could mean; he did not
understand at all.
"I should have supposed the case would have been brought to an end by
you," he observed. "From the moment that the marriage was discovered to
have taken place, your clients, the Carrs of Eckford, virtually lost
their cause."
"But the marriage has not been discovered to have taken place," said Mr.
Mynn.
"Yes, it has. Is it possible that you have not had intimation of it from
Mr. Fauntleroy?"
Mr. Mynn paused a moment. Mr. George, who had been looking at his boots,
raised his head to listen.
"Where was it discovered?--who discovered it?" asked Mr. Mynn, with the
air of a man who does not believe what is being said to him.
"The widow, young Mrs. Carr, found the notice of it. In searching her
late father-in-law's desk, she discovered a letter written by him to his
son. It was the week subsequent to her husband's death. The letter had
slipped between the leaves of an old blotting-book, and lain there
unsuspected. While poor Robert Carr the clergyman was wearing away his
last days of life in those fruitless searchings of the London churches,
he little thought how his own carelessness had forced it upon him. He
examined this very desk when his father died, for any papers there might
be in it, and must have examined it imperfectly, for there the letter
must have been."
"But what was in the letter?" asked George Mynn, speaking for the first
time since the topic arose.
"It stated that he had married the young lady who went away with him,
Martha Ann Hughes, on the morning they left Westerbury--married her at
her own parish church, St.--St.--I forget the name."
"Her parish church was St. James the Less," said Mr. Mynn, speaking very
fast.
"Yes, that was it; I remember now. It struck me at the time as being a
somewhat uncommon appellation. That is where the marriage took place, on
the morning they left Westerbury."
Mr. Mynn sat down; he had need of some rest to recover his
consternation. Mr. George never spoke: he said afterwards, that the
thought flashed upon him, he could not tell how or why, that the letter
was a fraud.
"How did you know of this?" was Mr. Mynn's first question.
Mr. Littelby related how: that Mrs. Carr had informed him of it at the
time of the discovery: and, it may be observed, that he was unconscious
of breaking any faith in repeating it. Mrs. Carr, attaching little
importance to Mr. Fauntleroy's request of keeping it to herself, had
either forgotten or neglected to caution Mr. Littelby, to whom it had at
once been told. Mr. Littelby, on his part, had never supposed but the
discovery had been made known to Mynn and Mynn and the Carrs of Eckford,
by Mr. Fauntleroy, and that the litigation had thus been brought to an
end.
"And you say this is known to Mr. Fauntleroy?" asked old Mynn.
"Certainly. Mrs. Carr forwarded the letter to him the very hour she
discovered it."
"Then what can possess the man not to have sent us notice of it?" he
exclaimed. "He'd never be guilty of the child's play of concealing this
knowledge until the cause was before the court, and then bringing it
forward as a settler! Fauntleroy's sharp in practice; but he'd hardly do
this."
"Is it certain that the marriage did take place there?" quietly put in
Mr. George Mynn.
They both looked at him; his quiet tone was so full of significance: and
Mr. Mynn had to turn round in his chair to do it.
"It appears to me to be a very curious story," continued the younger
man. "What sort of a woman is this Mrs. Carr?"
A pause. "You are not thinking that she is capable of--of--concocting
any fraud, are you?" cried Mr. Littelby.
"I should be sorry to say it. I only say the thing wears a curious
appearance."
"She is entirely incapable of it," returned Mr. Littelby, warmly. "She
is quite a young girl, although she has been a wife and mother. Besides,
the letter, remember, only stated where the marriage took place, and
where its record might be found. I remember she told me that the words
in the letter were, that the marriage would be found duly entered in the
register."
Mr. Mynn was leaning back in his chair; his hands in his waistcoat
pockets, his eyes half closed in thought.
"Did you see this letter, Mr. Littelby?" he inquired, rousing himself.
"No. Mrs. Carr had sent it off to Mr. Fauntleroy. She told me its
contents, I daresay nearly word for word."
"Because I really do not think the marriage could have taken place as
described. It would inevitably have been known if it had: some persons,
surely, would have seen them go into the church; and the parson and
clerk must have been cognisant of it! How was it that these people kept
the secret? Besides, the parties were away from the town by eight
o'clock, or thereabouts."
"I don't know anything about the details," said Mr. Littelby; "but I do
know that the letter, stating what I have told you, was found by Mrs.
Carr, and that she implicitly believes in it. Would the letter be likely
to assert a thing that a minute's time could disprove? If the record of
the marriage is not on the register of St. James the Less, to what end
state that it is?"
"If this letter stated what you say, Mr. Littelby, rely upon it that the
record is there. There have been such things known, mind you"--and old
Mynn lowered his voice as he spoke--"as frauds committed on registers;
false entries made. And they have passed for genuine, too, to
unsuspicious eyes. But, if this is one, it won't pass so with me," he
added, rising. "Not a man in the three kingdoms has a keener eye than
mine."
"It is impossible that a false entry can have been made in the
register!" exclaimed Mr. Littelby, speaking slowly, as if debating the
question in his own mind.
"We shall see. I assure you I consider it equally impossible for the
marriage to have taken place, as stated, without detection."
"But--assuming your suspicion to be correct--who can have been wicked
enough to insert the entry?" cried Mr. Littelby.
"That, I can't tell. The entry of the marriage would take the property
from our clients, the Carrs of Eckford, therefore they are exempt from
the suspicion. I wonder," continued Mr. Mynn in a half-secret tone,
"whether that young clergyman got access to the register when he was
down here?"
"That young clergyman was honest as the day," emphatically interrupted
Mr. Littelby. "I could answer for his truth and honour with my life. The
finding of that letter would have sent him to his grave easier than he
went to it."
"There's another brother, is there not?"
"Yes. But he is in Holland, looking after the home affairs, which are
also complicated. He has not been here at all since his father's death."
"Ah, one doesn't know," said old Mynn, glancing at his watch. "Hundreds
of miles have intervened, before now, between a committed fraud and its
plotter. Well, we will say no more at present. I'll tell you more when I
have had a look at this register. It will not deceive _me_."
"Are you going over now?" asked Mr. George.
"At once," replied old Mynn, with decision; "and I'll bring you back my
report and my opinion as soon as may be."
But Mr. Mynn was away considerably longer than there appeared any need
that he should be. When he did arrive he explained that his delay arose
from the effectual and thorough searching of the register.
"I don't know what could have been the meaning or the use of that letter
you told us of, Mr. Littelby," he said, as he took off his coat; "there
is no entry of the marriage in the church register of St. James the
Less."
"No entry of it!"
"None whatever."
Mr. Littelby did not at once speak: many thoughts were crowding upon his
mind. He and old Mynn were standing now, and George Mynn was sitting
with his elbow on the table, and his aching head leaning on his hand.
The least excitement out of common, sometimes only the sitting for a day
in the close office, would bring on these intolerable headaches.
"I have searched effectually--and I don't suppose the old clerk of the
church blessed me for keeping him there--and I am prepared to take an
affidavit, if necessary, that no such marriage is recorded in the book,"
continued the elder lawyer. "What could have been the aim or object of
that letter, I cannot fathom."
"Mr. Carr will not come into the money, then?" said Mr. Littelby.
"Of course not, so far as things look at present. I thought it was very
strange, if such a thing had been there, that Fauntleroy did not let it
be known," he emphatically added.
"You are sure you have fully searched?"
"Mr. Littelby, I have fully searched," was the reply; and the lawyer was
not pleased at being asked the question after what he had said. "There
is no such marriage entered there; and rely upon it no such marriage
ever was entered there. I might go farther and say, with safety in my
opinion, that there never was such marriage entered anywhere."
"Then why should Robert Carr, the elder, have written the letter?"
"_Did_ he write it? It may be a question."
"No, he never wrote it," interposed George Mynn, looking up. "There was
some wicked plot concocted--I don't say by whom, and I can't say it--of
which this letter was the prologue. Perhaps the epilogue--the insertion
of the marriage in the register--was frustrated; possibly this letter
was found before its time, and the despatching it to Mr. Fauntleroy
marred the whole. How can we say?"
"We can't say," returned old Mynn. "One thing I can say and affirm--that
there's no record; and had the letter been a genuine one, the entry
would be there now."
"I wonder if Mr. Fauntleroy believes the entry to be there?" cried Mr.
Littelby. "I am nearly sure that he has not given notice of the contrary
to Mrs. Carr. She would have told me if he had."
"If Fauntleroy has been so foolish as to take the information in the
letter for granted, without sending to see the register, he must put up
with the consequences," said old Mynn; "I shall not enlighten him."
He spoke as he felt--cross. Mr. Mynn was not pleased at having spent the
best part of the day over what he had found to be a fool's errand;
neither did he like to have been startled unnecessarily. He sat down and
drew the papers before him, saying something to the effect that perhaps
they could attend to their legitimate business, now that the other was
disposed of. Mr. Littelby caught the cue, and resolved to say no more in
that office of Carr _versus_ Carr.
And so, it was a sort of diamond cut diamond. Mr. Fauntleroy had said
nothing to Mynn and Mynn of his private information; and Mynn and Mynn
would say nothing to Mr. Fauntleroy of theirs.
Christmas drew on. Mrs. Dundyke, alone now, for Mr. Carr had gone back
to Holland, was seated one afternoon by her drawing-room fire, in the
twilight, musing very sadly on the past. The servants were at tea in the
kitchen, and one of them had just been up to ask her mistress if she
would take a cup, as she sometimes did before her late dinner, and had
gone down again, leaving unintentionally the room door unlatched.
As the girl entered the kitchen, the sound of laughter and merriment
came forth to the ears of Mrs. Dundyke. It quite jarred upon her heart.
How often has it occurred to us, bending under the weight of some secret
trouble that goes well-nigh to break us, to envy our unconscious
servants, who seem to have no care!
The kitchen door closed again, and silence supervened--a silence that
soon began to make itself felt, as it will in these moments of gloom.
Mrs. Dundyke was aroused from it in a remarkable manner; not violently
or loudly, but still in so strange a way, that her mouth opened in
consternation as she listened, and she rose noiselessly from her chair
in a sort of horror.
_She had distinctly heard the latch-key put into the street-door lock_;
just as she had heard it many a time when her husband used to come home
from business in the year last gone by. She heard it turned in the lock,
the peculiar click it used to give, and she heard the door quietly open
and then close again, as if some one had entered. Not since they went
abroad the previous July had she heard those sounds, or had the door
thus been opened. There had been but that one latch-key to the door, and
Mr. Dundyke, either by chance or intention, had carried it away with him
in his pocket. It had been in his pocket during the whole period of
their travels, and been lost with him.
What could it mean? Who had come in? Footsteps, slow, hesitating
footsteps were crossing the hall; they seemed to halt at the
dining-room, and were now ascending the stairs. Mrs. Dundyke was by far
too practical a woman to believe in ghosts, but that anything but the
ghost of her husband could open the door with that latch-key and be
stealing up, was hard to believe.
"Betsey!"
If ever she felt a wish to sink into the wall, or through the floor, she
felt it then. The voice which had called out the familiar home name, was
her husband's voice; his, and yet not his. His, in a manner; but
querulous, worn, weakened. She stood in horror, utterly bewildered, not
daring to move, her arms clasping a chair for protection, she knew not
from what, her eyes strained on the unlatched door. That it could be her
husband returned in life, her thoughts never so much as glanced at.
He pushed open the door, and came in without any surprise in his face or
greeting on his tongue; came in and went straight to the fire, and sat
down in a chair before it, just as though he had not been gone away an
hour--he who had once been David Dundyke. Was it David Dundyke
still--_was_ it? He looked thin and shabby, and his hair was cut close
to his head, and he was altogether altered. Mrs. Dundyke was gazing at
him with a fixed, unnatural stare, like one who has been seized with
catalepsy.
He saw her standing there, and turned his head, looking at her for a
full minute.
"Betsey!"
She went forward then; it _was_ her husband, and in life. What the
mystery could have been she did not know yet--did not glance at in that
wild moment--but she fell down at his knees and clasped him to her, and
wept delirious tears of joy and agony.
It seemed--when the meeting was over, and the marvelling servants had
shaken hands with him, and he had been refreshed with dinner, and the
time came for questions--that he could not explain much of the mystery
either. He had evidently undergone some great change, physically and
mentally, and it had left him the wreck of what he was, with his
faculties impaired, and a hesitating speech.
More especially impaired in memory. He could recollect so little of the
past; indeed, their sojourn at the hotel at Geneva seemed to have gone
from his mind altogether. Mrs. Dundyke saw that he must have had some
sort of brain attack; but, what, she could not tell.
"David, where have you been all this while?" she said, soothingly, as he
lay on the sofa she had drawn to the fire, and she sat on a stool
beneath and clasped his hand.
"All this while? I came back directly."
She paused. "Came back from where?"
"From the bed."
"The bed!" she repeated; and her heart beat with a sick faintness as she
felt, for the twentieth time, that henceforth he could only be
questioned as a child. "From the bed you lay in when you were ill?"
"Yes."
"Were you ill long?"
"No. I lay in it after I got well: my head and my legs were not strong.
They turned. It was the bed in the kitchen with the large white pillows.
They slept in the back room."
"Who did?"
"Paul and Marie. She's his wife."
"Did they take care of you?"
"Yes, they took care of me. Little Paul used to fetch the water. He's
seven."
"Do you remember----" (she spoke the words with trembling, lest the name
should excite him) "Mr. Hardcastle?"
It did in some degree. He lay looking at his wife, his face and thoughts
working. "Hardcastle! It was him that--that--was with me when I fell
down."
"Where did you fall?" she asked, as quietly as she could.
"In the sun. We walked a long, long way, and he gave me something to
drink out of a bottle, and I was giddy, and he told me to go to sleep."
"Did he stay with you?"
Mr. Dundyke stared as though he did not understand the question.
"I went giddy. He took my pocket-book; he took out the letters, and put
it back to me again. Paul found it. I went to sleep in the sun."
"When did Paul find it?"
David Dundyke appeared unable to comprehend the "when." "In his cart,"
he said; "he found me too."
"David, dear, try and recollect; did Paul take you to his cottage?"
David looked puzzled, and then nodded his head several times, as if
wishing to convince himself of the fact.
"And I suppose you were ill there?"
"I suppose I was ill there; they said so. Marie spoke English; she had
been at--at--at sea."
This was not very perspicuous, but Mrs. Dundyke did not care for minor
details.
"How did you come home?" she asked. And she glanced suddenly down at his
boots; an idea presenting itself to her, that she might see them worn
and travel-stained. But they were not. They were the same boots that he
had on that last morning in Geneva, and they appeared to have been
little worn.
"How did I come home?" he repeated. "I came. Marie said I was well
enough. Paul changed the note."
"What note?" she asked.
"The note from England. He didn't see that when he took the others."
"He" evidently meant Mr. Hardcastle. She began to comprehend a little,
and put her questions accordingly.
"Mr. Hardcastle must have robbed you, David."
"Mr. Hardcastle robbed me."
She found he had a habit of repeating her words. She had noticed the
same peculiarity before, in cases of decaying intellect.
"The bank note that he did not find was the one you had written for over
and above what you wanted. Why did you write for it, David?"
This was a back question, and it took a great many others before David
could answer. "He might have wanted to borrow more," he said at length;
"I'd have lent him all then."
Poor man! That he should have had such blind faith in Mr. Hardcastle as
to send for money in case he should "want to borrow more!" Mrs. Dundyke
had taken this view of the case from the first.
"You don't believe in him now, David?"
"I don't believe in him now. He has got my bank notes; and he left me in
the sun. Paul, put me in the cart when it came by."
"David, why did you not write to me?"
David stared. "I came," he said. And she found afterwards, that he could
not write; she was to find that he never attempted to write again.
"Did you send to Geneva?--to me?"
"To Geneva?--to me?"
"To me--me, David; not to you. Did you send to Geneva?"
He shook his head, evidently not knowing what she meant, and seemed to
think. Mrs. Dundyke felt nearly sure that he must have lain long
insensible, for weeks, perhaps months; that is, not sufficiently
conscious to understand or remember; and that when he grew better,
Geneva and its doings had faded from his remembrance.
"How did you come home, David?" she asked again. "Did you come alone?"
"Did you come alone--yes, in the diligences, and rail, and sea. I told
them all to take me to England; Paul got the money for me; he took the
note and brought it back."
Paul had changed it into French money; that must be the meaning of it.
Mr. Dundyke put his hand in his pocket and pulled out sundry five-franc
pieces.
"Marie's got some. I gave her half."
Mrs. Dundyke hoped it was so. She could hardly understand yet, how he
could have found his way home alone; even with the help of "I told them
all to take me to England."
"David!" she whispered, "David! I don't know how I shall ever be
thankful enough to God!"
"I'd like some porter."
It was a contrast that grated on her ear; the animal want following
without break on the spiritual aspiration. She was soon to find that any
finer feeling he might ever have possessed, had gone with his mind. He
could eat and drink still, and understand that; but there was something
wrong with the brain.
"How did you come down here to-night, David?"
"How did I come down here to-night? There was the omnibus."
The questions began to pain her. "He is fatigued," she thought; "perhaps
he will answer better to-morrow." The porter was brought to him, and he
fell asleep immediately after drinking it. She rose from her low seat,
and sat down in a chair opposite to him.
It was like a dream; and Mrs. Dundyke all but pinched herself to see
whether she was awake or asleep. She believed that she could tell pretty
accurately what the past had been. Mr. Hardcastle had followed her
husband to the side of the lake that morning, had in some way induced
him to go away from it; had taken him a long, long way into the cross
country--and it must have been at that time that the Swiss peasant, who
gave his testimony at Geneva, had seen them. At the proper opportunity,
Mr. Hardcastle must have, perhaps, given him some stupefying drink, and
then robbed him and left him; but Mrs. Dundyke inclined to the opinion
that the man must have believed Mr. Dundyke insensible, or he surely
would never have allowed him to see him take the notes. He must then
have lain, it was hard to say how long, before Paul found him; and the
lying thus in the sun probably induced the fit, or sun-stroke, or brain
fever, whatever it was, that attacked him. He spoke of a cart: and she
concluded that Paul must have been many miles out of the route of his
home, or else the search instituted would surely have found him, had he
been within a few miles of Geneva. Why these people had kept him, had
not declared him to the nearest authorities, it was hard to say. They
might have kept him from benevolent motives; or might have seen the bank
note in his pocket-book, and kept him from motives of worldly interest.
However it might be, they had shown themselves worthy Christian people,
and she should ever be deeply grateful. _He_ had evidently no idea of
the flight of time since; perhaps--
"What do you wear that for?"
He was lying with his eyes open, and pointing to the widow's cap. She
rose and bent over him, as she answered--
"David! David, dear! we have been mourning you as dead."
"Mourning me as dead! I am not dead."
No, he was not dead, and she was shedding happy tears for it, as she
threw the cap off from the braids of her still luxuriant hair.
As well, perhaps, almost that he had been dead! for the best part of his
life, the mind's life, was over. No more intellect; no more business for
him in Fenchurch-street; no more ambitious aspirations after the civic
chair!--it was all over for ever for poor David Dundyke.
But he had come home. He who was supposed to be lying
dead--murdered--had come home. It was a strange fact to go forth to the
world: one amidst the extraordinary tales that now and then arise to
startle it almost into disbelief.
CHAPTER II.
A DOUBTFUL SEARCH.
On the 3rd of February the college boys reassembled for school, after
the Christmas holidays. Rather explosive were the choristers at times at
getting no holidays--as they were pleased to regard it; for they had to
attend the cathedral twice daily always. Strictly speaking, the boys had
assembled on the previous day, the 2nd of February, and those who lived
at a distance, or had been away visiting, had to be back for that day.
It is Candlemas Day, as everybody knows, and a saint's day; and on
saints' days the king's scholars had to attend the services.
On the 3rd the duties of the school began, and at seven in the morning
the boys were clattering up the steps. It was not a propitious morning:
snow and sleet doing battle, one against the other. Jocelyn had left,
and the eldest of the two Prattletons had succeeded him as senior.
Cookesley was second senior, Lewis third, and the eldest of the Aultanes
was fourth.
The boys were not assembling in any great amount of good feeling. Lewis,
who with his brother had passed the holidays at the house of the late
Marmaduke Carr, and consequently had been in Westerbury, did not forget
the grudge he owed to Henry Arkell. It had been Mr. Lewis's pleasure to
spend his leisure-hours (time, possibly, hanging somewhat heavily on his
hands) in haunting the precincts of the cathedral. Morning, noon, and
night had he been seen there; now hovering like a ghost in one of the
cloister quadrants, now playing at solitary pitch-and-toss in the
grounds, and now taking rather slow, meditative steps past the deanery.
He had thus made himself aware that Henry Arkell and Miss Beauclerc not
unfrequently met; whether by accident or design on the young lady's
part, she best knew. Four times each day had Henry Arkell to be in the
grounds and cloisters on his way to and from college; and, at the very
least, on two of those occasions, Miss Beauclerc would happen to be
passing. She always stopped. Lewis had seen him sometimes walking on
with only a lift of the trencher, and Miss Beauclerc would not have it,
but stopped as usual. There was no whispering, there were apparently few
secrets; the talking was open and full of gaiety on the young lady's
part, if her laughter was anything to judge by; but Lewis was not the
less savage. When _he_ met her, she would say indifferently, "How d'ye
do, Lewis?" and pass on. Once, Lewis presumed to stop her with some item
of news that ought to have proved interesting, but Miss Beauclerc
scarcely listened, made some careless remark in answer, and continued
her way: the next minute she met Henry Arkell, and stayed with _him_.
That Lewis was in love with the dean's daughter, he knew to his sorrow.
How worse than foolish it had been on his part to suffer himself to fall
in love with her, we might say, but that this passion comes to us
without our will. Lewis believed that she loved Henry Arkell; he
believed that but for Henry Arkell being in the field, some favour might
be shown to him; and he had gone on hating him with a fierce and bitter
hatred. One day, Henry had come springing down the steps of the
cathedral, and encountered Miss Beauclerc close to him. They stood there
on the red flagstones of the cloisters, no gravestone being in that
particular spot, Georgina laughing and talking as usual. Lewis was in
the opposite quadrant of the cloisters, peeping across stealthily, and a
devout wish crossed his heart that Arkell was buried on the spot where
he then stood. Lewis was fated not to forget that wish.
How he watched, day after day, none save himself saw or knew. He was
training for an admirable detective in plain clothes. He suspected there
had been some coolness between Henry and Miss Beauclerc, and that she
was labouring to dispel it; he knew that Arkell did not go to the
deanery so much as formerly, and he heard Miss Beauclerc reproach him
for it. Lewis had given half his life for such a reproach from her lips
to be addressed to him.
There were so many things for which he hated Henry Arkell! There was his
great progress in his studies, there was the brilliant examination he
had undergone, and there was the gold medal. Could Lewis have
conveniently got at that medal, it had soon been melted down. He had
also taken up an angry feeling to Arkell on account of the doings of
that past November night--the locking up in the church of St. James the
Less. Lewis had grown to nourish a very strange notion in regard to it.
After puzzling his brain to torment, as to how Arkell _could_ have got
out, and finding no solution, he arrived at length at the conclusion
that he had never been in. He must have left the church previously,
Lewis believed, and he had locked up an empty church. It is true he had
thought he heard the organ going, but he fully supposed now that he
heard it only in fancy. Arkell's silence on the point contributed to
this idea: it was entirely beyond Lewis's creed to suppose a fellow
could have such a trick played him and not complain of it. Arkell had
never given forth token of cognisance from that hour to this, and Lewis
assumed he had not been in.
It very much augmented his ill feeling, especially when he remembered
his own night of horrible anticipation. Mr. Lewis had come to the final
conclusion that Arkell had been "out on the spree;" and but for a vague
fear that his own share in the night's events might be dragged to light,
he would certainly have contrived that it should reach the ears of Mr.
Wilberforce. He and his brother were to be for another half year
boarders at the master's house. Cookesley acted there as senior; the
senior boy, Prattleton, living at home.
The boys trooped into the schoolroom, and Prattleton stood with the roll
in his hand. Lewis had not joined on the previous day; he had obtained
grace until this, for he wanted to spend it at Eckford. As he came in
now, he made rather a parade of shaking hands with Prattleton, and
wishing him joy of his honours. Most of the boys liked to begin by being
in favour with a new senior, however they might be fated to end, and
Lewis and Prattleton were great personal friends--it may be said
confidants. Lewis had partially trusted Prattleton with the secret of
his love for Miss Beauclerc; and he had fully entrusted him with his
hatred of Henry Arkell. Scarcely a minute were they together at any
time, but Lewis was speaking against Arkell; telling this against him,
telling that. Constant dropping will wear away a stone; and Prattleton
listened until he was in a degree imbued with the same feeling.
Personally, he had no dislike to Arkell himself; but, incited by Lewis,
he was quite willing to do him any ill turn privately.
The roll was called over when Henry Arkell entered. He put down a load
of books he carried, and went up to Prattleton to shake hands, as Lewis
had done; being a chorister, he had not gone into the schoolroom on the
previous day; and he wished him all good luck.
"I am sorry to have to mark you late on the first morning, Arkell,"
Prattleton quietly said as he shook hands with him. "The school has a
superstition, you know--that anyone late on the first morning will be
so, as a rule, through the half."
"I know," answered Henry. "It is no fault of mine. Mr. Wilberforce
desired me to tell you that he detained me, therefore I am to be marked
as having been present."
"Did he detain you?"
"For ten minutes at least. I met him as I was coming in, and he caused
me to go back with him to his house and bring in these books. He then
gave me the message to you."
"All right," said Prattleton, cheerfully: and he erased the cross
against Arkell's name, and marked him as present.
Even this little incident exasperated Lewis. His ill feeling rendered
him unjust. No other boy, that he could remember, had been marked as
present, not being so. He was beginning to say something sarcastic upon
the point, when the entrance of the master himself shut up his tongue
for the present.
But we cannot stop with the college boys just now.
On this same day, later, when the sun, had there been any sun to see,
was nearing the meridian, Lawyer Fauntleroy sat in his private office,
deep in business. Not a more clever lawyer than he throughout the town
of Westerbury; and to such men business flocks in. His table stood at a
right angle with the fireplace, and the blazing fire burning there,
threw its heat upon his face, and his feet rested on a soft thick mat of
wool. Mr. Fauntleroy, no longer young, was growing fonder and fonder of
the comforts of life, and he sat there cosily, heedless of the hail that
beat on the window without.
The door softly opened, and a clerk came in. It was Kenneth. "Are you at
home, sir?"
Mr. Fauntleroy glanced up from the parchment he was bending over--a
yellow-looking deed, and his brow looked forth displeasure. "I told you
I did not care to be interrupted this morning, Kenneth, unless it was
for anything very particular. Who is it?"
"A lady, sir. 'Mrs. Carr' was the name she gave in."
"Carr--Carr?" debated Mr. Fauntleroy, unable to recal any lady of the
name amidst his acquaintance. "No. I have no leisure for ladies to-day."
Kenneth hesitated. "It's not likely to be the Mrs. Carr in Carr _v._
Carr; the lady you have had some correspondence with, is it, sir?" he
waited to ask. "She is a stranger, and is dressed as a widow."
"The Mrs. Carr in Carr _v._ Carr!" repeated Mr. Fauntleroy. "By Jupiter,
I shouldn't wonder if she's come to Westerbury! But I thought she was in
Holland. Show her in."
Mr. Kenneth retired, and came back with the visitor. It was Mrs. Carr.
Mr. Fauntleroy pushed aside the deed before him, and rose to salute her,
wondering at her extreme youth. She spoke English fluently, but with a
foreign accent, and she entered at once upon the matter which had
brought her to Westerbury.
"A circumstance has occurred to renew the old anxiety about this cause,"
she said to Mr. Fauntleroy. "Should we lose it, I shall lose all I have
at present to look forward to, for our affairs in Holland are more
complicated than ever. It may turn out, Mr. Fauntleroy, that my share of
this inheritance will be all I and my little children will have to
depend upon in the world."
"But the cause is safe," returned Mr. Fauntleroy. "The paper you found
and forwarded to me last October--or stay, November, wasn't it----"
"Would you be so kind as let me see that paper?" she interrupted.
Mr. Fauntleroy rose and brought forward a bundle of papers labelled
"Carr." He drew out a letter, and laid it open before his visitor. It
was the one you saw before; the letter written by Robert Carr the elder
to his son, stating that the marriage had been solemnized at the church
of St. James the Less, and that the entry of it would be found there.
"And there the marriage is entered, as I subsequently wrote you word,"
observed Mr. Fauntleroy. "It is singular how your husband could have
overlooked that letter."
"It had slipped between the leaves of the blotting-book, or else been
placed there purposely by Mr. Carr," she answered; "and my husband may
not have been very particular in examining the desk, for at that time he
did not know his legitimacy would be disputed. Are you sure it is in the
register, sir?" she continued, some anxiety in her tone.
"Quite sure," replied Mr. Fauntleroy. "I sent to St. James's to search
as soon as I got this letter, glad enough to have the clue at last; and
there it was found."
"Well--it is very strange," observed Mrs. Carr, after a pause. "I will
tell you what it is that has made me so anxious and brought me down.
But, in the first place, I must observe that I concluded the cause was
at an end. I cannot understand why the other side did not at once give
up when that letter was discovered."
Knowing that _he_ had kept the other side in ignorance of the letter,
Mr. Fauntleroy was not very explanatory on this point. Mrs. Carr
continued--
"My husband had a friend of the name of Littelby, a solicitor. He was
formerly the manager of an office in London, but about two months since
he left it for one in the country, Mynn and Mynn's----"
"Mynn and Mynn," interrupted Mr. Fauntleroy; "that's the firm who are
conducting the case for your adversaries--the Carrs, of Eckford.
Littelby? Yes, it is the name of their new man, I remember."
"Well, sir, last week Mr. Littelby was in London, and he called at Mrs.
Dundyke's, where I had been staying since I came over from Holland, a
fortnight before. The strangest thing has happened there! Mr.
Dundyke--but you will not thank me to take up your time, perhaps, with
matters that don't concern you. Mr. Littelby spoke to me upon the
subject of the letter that I had found, and he said he feared there was
something wrong about it, though he could not conceive how, for that
there had been no marriage, so far as could be discovered."
"He can say the moon's made of green cheese if he likes," cried Mr.
Fauntleroy.
"He said that the opinion of Mynn and Mynn was, that the pretended
letter had been intended as a _ruse_--a false plea, written to induce
the other side to give up peaceably; but that most positively there was
no truth in the statement of the marriage being in the register. Sir, I
am sure Mr. Littelby must have had good cause for saying this,"
emphatically continued Mrs. Carr "He is a man incapable of deceit, and
he wishes well to me and my children. The last advice he gave me was,
not to be sanguine; for Mynn and Mynn were clever and cautious
practitioners, and he knew they made sure the cause was theirs."
"Sharp men," acquiesced Mr. Fauntleroy, nodding his head with a
fellow-feeling of approval; "but we have got the whip hand of them in
your case, Mrs. Carr."
"I thought it better to tell you this," said she, rising. "It has made
me so uneasy that I have scarcely slept since; for I know Mr. Littelby
would not discourage me without cause."
"Without fancying he has cause," corrected Mr. Fauntleroy. "Be at ease,
ma'am: the marriage is as certain as that oak and ash grow. Where are
you staying in Westerbury?"
"In some lodgings I was recommended to in College-row," answered she,
producing a card. "Perhaps you will take down the address----"
"Oh, no need for that," said Mr. Fauntleroy, glancing at it, "I know the
lodgings well. Mind they don't shave you."
Mrs. Carr was shown out, and Mr. Fauntleroy called in his managing
clerk. "Kenneth," said he, "let the Carr cause be completed for counsel;
and when the brief's ready, I'll look over it to refresh my memory. Send
Omer down to St. James the Less, to take a copy of the marriage."
"I thought Omer brought a copy," observed Mr. Kenneth.
"No; I don't think so. It will save going again if he did. Ask him."
Mr. Kenneth returned to the clerks' office. "Omer, did you bring a copy
of the marriage in the case, Carr _v._ Carr, when you searched the
register at St. James's church?" he demanded.
"No," replied Omer.
"Then why did you not?"
"I had no orders, sir. Mr. Fauntleroy only told me to look whether such
an entry was there."
"Then you must go now----What's that you are about? Winter's settlement?
Why, you have had time to finish that twice over."
"I have been out all the morning with that writ," pleaded Omer, "and
could not get to serve it at last. Pretty well three hours I was
standing in the passage next his house, waiting for him to come out, and
the wind whistling my head off all the time."
Mr. Kenneth vouchsafed no response to this; but he would not disturb the
clerk again from Winter's deed. He ordered another, Mr. Green, to go to
St. James's church for the copy, and threw him half-a-crown to pay for
it.
Young Mr. Green did not relish the mission, and thought himself
barbarously used in being sent upon it, inasmuch as that he was an
articled clerk and a gentleman, not a paid nobody. "Trapesing through
the weather all down to that St. James's!" muttered he, as he snatched
his hat and greatcoat.
It struck three o'clock before he came back. "Where's Kenneth?" asked
he, when he entered.
"In the governor's room. You can go in."
Mr. Green did go in, and Mr. Kenneth broke out into anger. "You have
taken your time!"
"I couldn't come quicker," was Mr. Green's reply. "I had to look all
through the book. The marriage is not there."
"It is thrift to send you upon an errand," retorted Mr. Kenneth. "You
have not been searching."
"I have done nothing else but search since I left. If the entry had been
there, Mr. Kenneth, I should have been back in no time. It is not
exactly a day to stop for pleasure in a mouldy old church that's colder
than charity, or to amuse oneself in the streets."
Mr. Fauntleroy looked up from his desk. "The entry is there, Green: you
have overlooked it."
"Sir, I assure you that the entry is not there," repeated Mr. Green. "I
looked very carefully."
"Call in Omer," said Mr. Fauntleroy. "You saw the entry of Robert Carr's
marriage to Martha Ann Hughes?" he continued, when Omer appeared.
"Yes, sir."
"You are sure of it?"
"Certainly, sir. I saw it and read it."
"You hear, Mr. Green. You have overlooked it."
"If Omer can find it there, I'll do his work for a week," retorted young
Green. "I will pledge you my veracity, sir----"
"Never mind your veracity," interrupted Mr. Fauntleroy; "it is a case of
oversight, not of veracity. Kenneth, you have to go down to Clark's
office about that bill of costs; you may as well go on to St, James's
and get the copy."
"Two half-crowns to pay instead of one, through these young fellows'
negligence," grumbled Mr. Kenneth. "They charge it as many times as they
open their vestry."
"What's that to him? it doesn't come out of his pocket," whispered Green
to Omer, as they returned to their own room. "But if they find the Carr
marriage entered there, I'll be shot in two."
"And I'll be shot in four if they don't," retorted Omer. "What a blind
beetle you must have been, Green!"
Mr. Kenneth came back from his mission. He walked straight into the
presence of Mr. Fauntleroy, and beckoning Omer in after him, attacked
him with a storm of reproaches.
"Do you drink, Mr. Omer?"
"Drink, sir!"
"Yes, drink. Are the words not plain enough?"
"No, sir, I do not," returned Omer, in astonishment.
"Then, Mr. Omer, I tell you that you do. No man, unless he was a drunken
man, could pretend to see things which have no place. When you read that
entry of Robert Carr's marriage in the register, you saw double, for it
never was anywhere but in your brain. There is no entry of the marriage
in St. James's register," he added, turning to Mr. Fauntleroy.
Mr. Fauntleroy's mouth dropped considerably. "No entry!"
"Nothing of the sort!" continued Mr. Kenneth. "There's no name, and no
marriage, and no anything--relating to Robert Carr."
"Bless my heart, what an awful error to have been drawn into!" uttered
Mr. Fauntleroy, who was so entirely astounded by the news, that he, for
the moment, doubted whether anything was real about him. "All the
expense I have been put to will fall upon me; the widow has not a rap,
certain; and to take her body in execution would bring no result, save
increasing the cost. Mr. Omer, are you prepared to take these charges on
yourself, for the error your carelessness has led us into? I should not
have gone on paying costs myself but for that alleged entry in the
register."
Mr. Omer looked something like a mass of petrifaction, unable to speak
or move.
"But for the marriage being established--as we were led to suppose--we
never should have gone on to trial. Mrs. Carr must have relinquished
it," continued Mr. Fauntleroy.
"Of course we should not," chimed in the managing clerk.
"I thought there must be some flaw in the wind; I declare I did, by the
other side's carrying it on, now that I find Mynn and Mynn knew of the
alleged marriage," exclaimed Mr. Fauntleroy. "I shall look to you for
reimbursement, Omer. And, Mr. Kenneth, you'll search out some one in his
place: we cannot retain a clerk in our office who is liable to lead us
into ruinous mistakes, by asserting that black is white."
Mr. Omer was beginning to recover his senses. "Sir," he said, "you are
angry with me without cause. I can be upon my oath that the marriage of
Robert Carr with Martha Ann Hughes is entered there: I repeated to you,
sir, the date, and the names of the witnesses: how could I have done
that without reading them?"
"That's true enough," returned Mr. Fauntleroy, his hopes beginning to
revive.
"Here's a proof," continued the young man, taking out a worn
pocket-book. "I am a bad one to remember Christian names, so I just
copied the names of the witnesses here in pencil. 'Edward Blisset
Hughes,' and 'Sophia Hughes,'" he added, holding it towards Mr.
Fauntleroy.
"They were her brother and sister," remarked Mr. Fauntleroy, in
soliloquy, looking at the pencilled marks. "Both are dead now; at least,
news came of her death, and he has not been heard of for years: she
married young Pycroft."
"Well, sir," argued Omer, "if these names had not been in the register,
how could I have taken them down? I did not know the names before, or
that there ever were such people."
The argument appeared unanswerable, and Mr. Fauntleroy looked at his
head clerk. The latter was not deficient in common sense, and he was
compelled to conclude that he had himself done what he had accused Mr.
Green of doing--overlooked it.
"Allow me to go down at once to St. James's, sir," resumed Omer.
"I will go with you," said Mr. Fauntleroy. The truth was, he was ill at
ease.
They proceeded together to St. James's church, causing old Hunt to
believe that Lawyer Fauntleroy and his establishment of clerks had all
gone crazy together. "Search the register three times in one day!"
muttered he; "nobody has never done such a thing in the memory of man."
But neither Omer nor his master, Mr. Fauntleroy, could find any such
entry in the register.
CHAPTER III.
DETECTION.
Afternoon school was over. Mr. Wilberforce had been some time at home,
and was bestowing a sharp lecture on his son Edwin for some delinquency,
when he was told that Lawyer Fauntleroy waited in his study. The master
brought his anger to a summary conclusion, and went into the presence of
his visitor.
"My business is not of a pleasant nature," he premised. "I must tell you
in confidence, Mr. Wilberforce, that after all the doubt and discredit
cast upon the affair, Robert Carr was discovered to have married that
girl at St. James's--your church now--and the entry was found there."
"I know it," said Mr. Wilberforce. "I saw it in the register."
The lawyer stared. "Just repeat that, will you?" said he, putting his
hand to his ear as if he were deaf.
"I heard it was to be found there, and the first time afterwards that I
had occasion to make an entry in the register, I turned back to the
date, out of curiosity, and read it."
"Now I am as pleased to hear you say that as if you had put me down a
five-hundred pound note," cried Mr. Fauntleroy. "I daresay you'll not
object, if called upon, to bear testimony that the marriage was
registered there."
"The register itself will be the best testimony," observed Mr.
Wilberforce.
"It would have been," said the lawyer; "but that entry has been taken
out of the register."
"Taken out!" repeated Mr. Wilberforce.
"Taken out. It is not in now."
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried the master.
"So I said, when my clerks brought me word to-day that it was not in.
The first sent, Green--you know the young dandy; it's but the other day
he was in the college school--came back and said it was not there.
Kenneth gave him a rowing for carelessness, and went himself. He came
back and said it was not there. Then I thought it was time to go; and I
went, and took Omer with me, who saw the entry in the book last
November, and copied part of it. Green was right, and Kenneth was right;
there is no such entry there."
"This is an incredible tale," exclaimed Mr. Wilberforce.
The old lawyer drew forward his chair, and peered into the rector's
face. "There has been some devilry at work--saving your calling."
"Not saving it at all," retorted Mr. Wilberforce, as hot as when he had
been practically demonstrating of what birch is made in the college
schoolroom. "Devilry has been at work, in one sense or another, and
nothing short of devilry, if it be as you say."
"It has not only gone, but there's no trace of it's going, or how it
went. The register looks as smooth and complete as though it had never
been in any hands but honest ones. But now," added the lawyer, "there's
another thing that is puzzling me almost as much as the disappearance
itself; and that is, how you got to know of it."
"I heard of it from Travice Arkell."
"From Travice Arkell!"
"Yes, I did. And the way I came to hear of it was rather curious,"
continued the master. "One of my parishioners was thought to be dying,
and I was sent for in a hurry, out of early school. Mr. Prattleton
generally attends these calls for me, but this poor man had expressed a
wish that I myself should go to him. It was between eight and nine
o'clock, and Travice Arkell was standing at their gates as I passed,
reading a letter which the postman had just delivered to him. It was
from Mrs. Dundyke, with whom the Carrs were stopping----"
"When was this?" interrupted Mr. Fauntleroy.
"The beginning of November. Travice Arkell stopped me to tell of the
strange news that the letter conveyed to him; that a paper had been
found in Robert Carr the elder's writing, stating that the marriage had
taken place at St. James the Less, the morning he and Miss Hughes left
Westerbury, and it would be found duly entered in the register. The news
appeared to me so excessively improbable, that I cautioned Travice
Arkell against speaking of it, and recommended him to keep it to himself
until the truth or falsehood of it should be ascertained."
"What made you give him this caution?"
"I tell you; I thought it so improbable that any such marriage should
have taken place. I thought it a hoax, set afloat out of mischief,
probably by the Carrs of Eckford; and I did not choose that my church,
or anything in it, should be made a jest of publicly. Travice Arkell
agreed with my view, and gave me his promise not to mention it. His
father was away at the time."
"Where?"
"I really forget. I know he had come home only the day before from a
short visit to London, and went out again, somewhere the same day.
Travice said he did not expect him back that second time for some days."
"Well?" said Mr. Fauntleroy, in his blunt manner, for the master had
stopped, in thought.
"Well, the next morning Travice Arkell called upon me here. He had had a
second letter from Mrs. Dundyke, begging him not to mention to anyone
what she had said about the marriage, for Mrs. Carr had received a hasty
letter from Mr. Fauntleroy, forbidding her to speak of it to anyone. So,
after all, that caution that I gave to Travice might have been an
instinct."
"And do you think he had not mentioned it?"
"I feel sure that he has never allowed it to escape his lips. He has too
great a regard for his aunt, Mrs. Dundyke. She feared she had done
mischief, and was most anxious. On the following Sunday, when I was
marrying a couple in my church before service, and had got the register
out, I looked back to the date, and there, sure enough, was the marriage
duly entered."
"And _you_ have not spoken of it?"
"I have not. If, as you say, the marriage is no longer there, it is a
most strange thing; an incredible thing. But I'll see into it."
"Somebody must see into it," returned the lawyer, as he departed. "A
parish register ought to be kept as sacred as the crown jewels."
Mr. Wilberforce--a restless man when anything troubled him--started off
to Clark Hunt's, disturbing that gentleman at his tea. "Hunt, follow
me," said he, as he took the key from its niche, "and bring some matches
and a candle with you. I want to examine the register."
"If ever I met with the like o' this!" cried Hunt, when the master had
walked on. "Register, register, register! my legs is aching with the
tramping back'ards and for'ards, to that vestry to-day."
He walked after Mr. Wilberforce as quickly as his lameness would allow.
The latter was already in the vestry. He procured the key of the safe
(kept in a secret place which no one knew of save himself, the clerk,
and the Reverend Mr. Prattleton) opened it, and laid the book before
him. Mr. Wilberforce knew, by the date, where the entry ought to be,
where it had been, and he was not many minutes ascertaining that it was
no longer there.
"Gone and left no trace, as Fauntleroy said," he whispered to himself.
"How can it have been done? The leaf must have been taken out! oh yes,
it's as complete a thing as ever I saw accomplished: and how is it to be
proved that it's gone? This comes of their careless habit of not paging
their leaves in those old days: had they been paged, the theft would
have been evident. Hunt," cried he, aloud, raising his head, "this
register has been tampered with."
"Law, sir, that's just what that great lawyer, Fauntleroy, wanted to
persuade me on. He has been a-putting it into your head, maybe; but
don't you be frighted with any such notion, sir. 'Rob the register!'
says I to him; 'no, not unless they robs me of my eyesight first. It's
never touched, nor looked at,' says I, 'but when I'm here to take care
on it.'"
"A leaf has been taken out. Who has had access here?"
"Not a soul has never had access to this vestry, sir, unless I have been
with 'em, except yourself or Mr. Prattleton," persisted the old register
keeper. "It's not possible, sir, that the book has been touched."
"Now don't argue like that, Hunt," testily returned Mr. Wilberforce, "I
tell you that the register has been rifled, and it could not have been
done without access being obtained to it. To whom have you entrusted the
key of the church?"
"Never to nobody, save the two young college gents, what comes to play
the organ," said the clerk, stoutly.
"And they could not get access to the register. Some one else must have
had the key."
The old man sat down on a chair, opposite Mr. Wilberforce; placing his
two hands on his knees, he stared very fixedly on vacancy. Mr.
Wilberforce, who knew his countenance, fancied he was trying to recal
something.
"I remember a morning, some time ago," cried he, slowly, "that one of
them senior college gents--but that couldn't have had nothing to do with
the register."
"What do you remember?" questioned Mr. Wilberforce.
"Your asking if anybody had had the key, put me in mind of it, sir. One
of them college seniors; Lewis, it was; came to my house soon after I
got up. A rare taking he seemed to be in; with fright, or something like
it; and wanted me to lend him the key of the church. 'No, no, young
gent,' says I, 'not without the master's orders.' He was a panting like
anything, and looked as resolute as a bear, and when he heard that, he
snatched the key, and tore off with it. Presently, back he comes, saying
it was the wrong key and wouldn't undo the door. Mr. George Prattleton
had come round then: Mr. Prattleton had told him to ask about the time
fixed for a funeral--which, by token, I remember was Dame Furbery's--and
he took the key from Mr. Lewis, and hung it up, and railed off at me for
trusting it to the college gents. Lewis finding he couldn't get it from
me, went after Mr. George Prattleton, and they came back, and Mr. George
took the key from the hook to go to the church with Lewis. What it was
Lewis had said to him, I don't pertend to guess, but they was both as
white as corpses--as white I know, as ever was dead Dame Furbery in her
coffin: which was just about then a being screwed down. After all, they
hung the key up again, and didn't go into the church."
"When was this?" asked Mr. Wilberforce.
"It was the very day, sir, after our cat's chaney saucer was done for;
and that was done for the day after the grand audit dinner at the
deanery. Master Henry Arkell, after going into the church to practise,
couldn't be contented to bring the key back and hang it up, like a
Christian, but must dash it on to the kitchen floor, where it split the
cat's chaney saucer to pieces, and scattered the milk, a-frighting the
cat, who had just got her nose in it, a'most into fits, and my missis
too. Well, sir, when I opened my shutters the next morning, who should
be a standing at the gate but Arkell, so I fetched him in to see the
damage he had done; and it was while he was in the kitchen, a-counting
the pieces, that Lewis came to the door."
"But this must have been early morning," cried Mr. Wilberforce.
"Somewhere about half after six, sir: it was half moonlight and half
twilight. I remember what a bright clear morning it was for November."
"Why, at that hour both Lewis and Arkell must have been in their beds,
asleep, at my house."
"Law, sir, who can answer for schoolboys, especially them big college
gents? When they ought to be a-bed, they're up; and when they ought to
be up, they're a-bed. They was both at my house that morning."
Mr. Wilberforce could not make much of the tale, except that two of his
boarders were out when he had deemed them safe in bed; and he left the
church. It was dusk then. As he was striding along, in an irascible
mood, he met Henry Arkell. He touched his cap to the master, and was
passing on.
"Not so fast, Mr. Arkell. I want a word with you."
Arkell stopped and stood before Mr. Wilberforce, his truthful eye and
open countenance raised fearlessly.
"I gave you credit for behaving honourably, and as a gentleman ought,
during the time you were residing in my house, but I find I was
deceived. Who gave you leave, pray, to sneak out of it at early morning,
when everybody else was in bed?"
"I never did, sir," replied Henry.
"Take care, Arkell. If there's one fault I punish more than another, it
is a falsehood; and that you know. I say that you did sneak out of my
house at untoward and improper hours."
"Indeed, sir, I never did," he replied with respectful earnestness.
The master raised his forefinger, and shook it at his pupil. "You were
down at Hunt's one morning last November, by half-past six, perhaps
earlier; you must have gone down by moonlight----Ah, I see," added the
master, in an altered tone, for a change flashed over Henry Arkell's
features, "conscience is accusing you of the falsehood."
"No, sir, I told no falsehood. I don't deny that I was at Hunt's one
morning."
"Then how can you deny that you stole out of my house to get there?
Perhaps you will explain, sir."
What was Henry Arkell to do? Explain, in the full sense of the word, he
could not; but explain, in a degree, he must, for Mr. Wilberforce was
not one to be trifled with. He was a perfectly ingenuous boy, both in
manner and character, and Mr. Wilberforce had hitherto known him for a
truthful one: indeed, he put more faith in Arkell than in all the rest
of the thirty-nine king's scholars.
"Perhaps you will dare to tell me that you stopped out all night,
instead of sneaking out in the morning?" pursued the master.
"Yes, sir, I did; but it was not my fault: I was kept out."
"Where were you, and who kept you out?"
"Oh, sir, if you would be so kind as not to press me--for indeed I
cannot tell. I was kept out, and I could not help myself."
"I never heard so impudent an avowal from any boy in my life," proceeded
Mr. Wilberforce, when he recovered his astonishment. "What was the
nature of the mischief you were in? Come; I will know it."
"I was not in any mischief, sir. If I might tell the truth, you would
say that I was not.'"
"This is most extraordinary behaviour," returned the master. "What
reason have you for not telling the truth?"
"Because--because--well, sir, the reason is, that I could not speak
without getting others into trouble. Indeed, sir," he earnestly added,
"though I did stop out from your house all night, I did no wrong; I was
in no mischief, and it was no fault of mine."
Strange perhaps to say, the master believed him: from his long
experience of the boy, he could believe nothing but good of Harry
Arkell, and if ever words bore the stamp of truth, his did now.
"I am in a hurry at present," said the master, "but don't flatter
yourself this matter will rest."
Henry touched his cap again, and the master strode on to the residence
of the Reverend Mr. Prattleton, and entered it without ceremony. Mr.
Prattleton was seated with his two sons, and with George.
"Send the boys away for a minute, will you?" cried the master to his
brother clergyman.
The boys went away, exceedingly glad to be sent. "You can go on with
your Greek in the other room," said their father. But to that suggestion
they were conveniently deaf, preferring to take an evening gallop
through some of the more obscure streets, where they knocked furiously
at all the doors, and pulled out a few of the bell-wires.
"An unpleasant affair has happened, Prattleton," began the master. "The
register at St. James's has been robbed."
"The register robbed!" echoed Mr. Prattleton. "Not the book taken?"
"Not the book itself. A leaf has been taken out of it."
"How?"
"We must endeavour to find out how. Hunt protests that nobody has had
access to it but ourselves, save in his presence."
"I do not suppose they have," returned Mr. Prattleton. "How could they?
When was it taken?"
"Sometime since the beginning of November. And there'll be a tremendous
stir over it, as sure as that we are sitting here: it was wanted
for--for--some trial at the next assizes," concluded the master,
recollecting that Mr. Fauntleroy had cautioned him still not to speak of
it. "Fauntleroy's people went to-day to take a copy of it, and found it
gone; so Fauntleroy came on to me."
"You are sure it is gone?" continued Mr. Prattleton. "An entry is so
easily overlooked."
"I am sure it is not in the book now: and I read it there last
November."
"Well, this is an awkward thing. Have you no suspicion?--no clue?"
"Not any. Hunt was telling a tale----By the way," added Mr. Wilberforce,
turning to George Prattleton, who had moved himself to a polite
distance, as if not caring to hear, "you were mixed up in that. He says,
that last November you and Lewis had some secret between you, about the
church. Lewis went down to his house one morning by moonlight, got the
key by stratagem, and brought it back, saying it was the wrong one: and
you then went to the church with him, and both of you were agitated.
What was it all about? What did he want in the church?"
"Oh--something had been left there, I think he said, when one of the
college boys had gone in to practise. That was nothing, Mr. Wilberforce.
We did not go into the church, after all."
George Prattleton spoke with eagerness, and then hastened from the room,
but not before Mr. Wilberforce had caught a glimpse of his countenance.
"What is the matter with George?" whispered he.
Mr. Prattleton turned, and looked at the door by which he had gone out.
"With George?" he repeated: "nothing that I know of. Why?"
"He turned as pale as my cravat: just as Hunt describes him to have been
when he went into the church with Lewis. I shall begin to think there is
a mystery in this."
"But not one that touches the register," said Mr. Prattleton. "I'll tell
you what that mystery was, but you must not bring in me as your
informant; and don't punish the boy, now it's over, Wilberforce; though
it was a disgraceful and dangerous act. It seems that young Arkell--what
a nice lad that is! but he comes of a good stock--went into St. James's
one evening to practise, and Lewis, who owed him a grudge, stole after
him and locked him in, and took back the key to Hunt's, where he broke
some heirloom of the dame's, in the shape of a china saucer, Hunt and
his wife taking it to be Arkell. Arkell was locked in the church all
night."
"Locked in the church all night!" repeated the amazed Sir. Wilberforce.
"Why the fright might have turned him--turned him--stone blind!"
"It might have turned him stone dead," rejoined Mr. Prattleton. "Lewis,
it appears, got terrified for the consequences, and as soon as your
servants were up, he went to Hunt's to get the key and let Arkell out.
Hunt would not give it him, and Lewis appealed to George. That's what
has sent George out of the room, pale, as you call it; he was afraid
lest you should question him too closely, and he passed his word to
Lewis not to betray him."
"What a villanous rascal!" uttered the master. "I never liked Lewis, but
I would not have given him credit for this. Did George tell you?"
"Not he; he is not aware I know it. Lewis, some days afterwards,
imparted the exploit to my boy, Joe. Joe, in his turn, imparted it to
his brother, under a formidable injunction of secrecy, and I happened to
overhear them, and became as wise as they were."
"You ought to have told me this," remarked Mr. Wilberforce, his
countenance bearing its most severe expression.
"Had one of my own boys been guilty of it, I would have brought him to
you and had him punished in the face of the school; but as no harm had
come of it, I did not care to inform against Lewis: though I don't
excuse him; it was a dastardly action."
"Well, this explains what Lewis wanted in the church, but it brings us
no nearer the affair of the register. I think I shall offer a reward for
the discovery."
Mr. Wilberforce proceeded home, and into the study where his boarders
were assembled, some half dozen of the head boys. One of them, a great
tall fellow, stood on his head on a table, his feet touching the wall.
"Who's that?" uttered the master. "Is that the way you prepare your
lessons, sir?"
Down clattered the head and the feet, and the gentleman stood upright on
the floor. It was Lewis senior. Mr. Wilberforce took a seat, and the
boys held their breath: they saw something was wrong.
"Vaughan."
"Yes, sir."
"Did you lock Henry Arkell up in St. James's Church, and compel him to
pass a night there?"
Mr. Vaughan opened all the eyes he possessed.
"I, sir! I have not locked him up, sir. I don't think Arkell is locked
up," added Vaughan, in the confusion of his ideas. "I saw him talking to
you, sir, just now, in Wage-street."
Lewis pricked up his ears, which had turned of a fiery red; then Arkell
_had_ been locked in! Mr. Wilberforce sharply seized upon Vaughan's
words.
"What brought you in Wage-street, pray?"
"If you please, sir," coughed Vaughan, feeling he had betrayed himself,
"I only went out for an exercise book. I finished mine last night, sir,
and forgot it till I went to do my Latin just now. I didn't stop
anywhere a minute, sir; I ran there and back as quick as lightning.
Here's the book, sir."
Believing as much of this as he chose, Mr. Wilberforce did not pursue
the subject. "Then which of you gentlemen was it who did shut up
Arkell?" asked he, gazing round. "Lewis, senior, what is the matter with
you, that you are skulking behind? Did _you_ do it?"
Lewis saw that all was up. "That canting hound has been peaching at
last," quoth he to himself. "I laid a bet with Prattleton he'd do it."
"It is the most wicked and cowardly action that I believe ever disgraced
the college school," continued Mr. Wilberforce, "and it depends upon how
you meet it, Lewis, whether or not I shall expel you. Equivocate to me
now, if you dare. Had it come to my knowledge at the time, you should
have been flogged till you could not stand, and ignominiously expelled.
Flogged you will be, as it is. Do you know, sir, that he might have died
through it?"
Lewis hung his head, wishing Arkell had died; and then he could not have
told the master.
"I think the best punishment will be, to lock you up in St. James's all
the night, and see how you will like it," continued Mr. Wilberforce.
Lewis wondered whether he was serious; and the perspiration ran down him
at the thought. "He was not locked in all night," he said, sullenly, by
way of propitiating the master. "When we went to open the church, he was
gone."
"Gone! What do you mean now?"
"He had got out somehow, sir, for Hunt said he had just seen him, and
when I ran back to morning school, he was in the college hall. Mr.
George Prattleton advised me not to make a stir, to know how he had got
out, but to let it drop."
As Lewis spoke, Mr. Wilberforce suddenly remembered that Hunt said Henry
Arkell was in his kitchen, when Lewis came, frightened, and thumping for
the key. It occurred to him now, for the first time, to wonder how that
could have been.
"When you locked Arkell in, what did you do with the key?"
"I took it to Hunt's, sir."
"And gave it to Hunt?"
"Yes, sir. That is," added Lewis, thinking it might be as well to be
correct, "I pushed it into the kitchen, where Hunt was."
"And broke Dame Hunt's saucer," retorted Mr. Wilberforce. "When did you
have the key again. Speak up, sir?"
"I didn't have it again, sir," returned Lewis. "The key I took from the
hook, next morning, would not fit into the lock, and I took it back.
Hunt said it was the right key, and George Prattleton said it was the
key; but I am sure it was not, although George Prattleton called me a
fool for thinking so."
The master revolved all this in his mind, and thought it very strange.
He was determined to come to the bottom of it, and despatched Vaughan to
Arkell's house to fetch him. The two boys came back together, and Mr.
Wilberforce, without circumlocution, addressed the latter.
"When this worthy companion of yours," waving his hand contemptuously
towards Lewis, "locked you in the church, how did you get out?"
Henry Arkell glanced at Lewis, and hesitated in his answer. "I can't
tell, sir."
"You can't tell!" exclaimed Mr. Wilberforce. "Did you walk out of it in
your sleep? Did you get down from a window?--or through the locked door?
How did you get out, I ask?"
Before there was time for any reply, the master's servant entered, and
said the Rev. Mr. Prattleton was waiting to speak to the master
immediately. Mr. Wilberforce, leaving the study door open, went into the
opposite room. Mr. Prattleton, who stood there, came forward eagerly.
"Wilberforce, a thought has struck me, and I came in to suggest it. When
the boy passed the night in the church, did he get playing with the
register?"
"He would not do it; Arkell would not," spoke the master, in the first
flush of thought.
"Not mischievously; but he may have got fingering anything he could lay
his hands upon--and it is the most natural thing he would do, to while
away the long hours. A spark may have fallen on the leaf, and----"
"How could he get a light?--or find the key of the safe?" interrupted
Mr. Wilberforce.
"Schoolboys can ferret out anything, and he may have found its
hiding-place. As to a light, half the boys keep matches in their
pockets."
Mr. Wilberforce mused upon the suggestion till it grew into a
probability. He called in Arkell, and shut the door.
"Now," said he, confronting him, "will you speak the truth to me, or
will you not?"
"I have hitherto spoken the truth to you, sir," answered Arkell, in a
tone of pain.
"Well; I believe you have: it would be bad for you now, if you had not.
It is about that register, you know," added Mr. Wilberforce, speaking
slowly, and staring at him.
There was but one candle on the table, and Henry Arkell pulled out his
handkerchief and rubbed it over his face: between the handkerchief and
the dim light, the master failed to detect any signs of emotion.
"Did you get fingering the register-book in St. James's, the night you
were in the church?"
"No, sir, that I did not," he readily answered.
"Had you a light in the church?"
"You boys have a propensity for concealing matches in your clothes, in
defiance of the risk you run," interrupted Mr. Prattleton. "Had you any
that night?"
"I had no matches, and I had no light," replied Henry. "None of the boys
keep matches about them except those who"--smoke, was the ominous word
which had all but escaped his lips--"who are careless."
"Pray what did you do with yourself all the time?" resumed the master.
"I played the organ for a long while, and then I lay down on the
singers' seat, and went to sleep."
"Now comes the point: how did you get out?"
"I can't say anything about it, sir, except that I found the door open
towards morning, and I walked out."
"You must have been dreaming, and fancied it," said the master.
"No, sir, I was awake. The door was open, and I went out."
"Is that the best tale you have got to tell?"
"It is all I can tell, sir. I did get out that way."
"You may go home for the present," said Mr. Wilberforce, in anger.
"Are you satisfied?" asked Mr. Prattleton, as Arkell retired.
"I am satisfied that he is innocent as to the register; but not as to
how he escaped from the church. Allowing it to be as he says--and I have
always found him so strictly truthful--that he found the door open in
the middle of the night, how did it come open? Who opened it? For what
purpose?"
"It is an incomprehensible affair altogether," said the Rev. Mr.
Prattleton. "Let us sit down and talk it over."
As Arkell left the room, Lewis, senior, appeared at the opposite door,
propelling forth the fire-tongs, a note held between them.
"This is for you," cried he, rudely, to Arkell, who took the note. Lewis
flung the tongs back in their place. "My hands shouldn't soil themselves
by touching yours," said he.
When Arkell got out, he opened the letter under a gas-lamp, and read it
as well as he could for the blots. The penmanship was Lewis, junior's.
"Mr. ARKELL,--Has you have chozen to peech to the master, like a
retch has you ar, we give you notise that from this nite you will
find the skool has hot has the Inphernal Regeons, a deal to hot for
you. And my brother don't care a phether for the oisting he is to
get, for he'll serve you worce. And if you show this dockiment to
any sole, you'l be a dowble-died sneek, and we will thresh your
life out of you, and then duck you in the rivor."
Henry Arkell tore the paper to bits, and ran home, laughing at the
spelling. But it was a very fair specimen of the orthography of
Westerbury collegiate school.
CHAPTER IV.
ASSIZE SATURDAY.
To attempt to describe the state of Mr. Fauntleroy would be a vain
effort. It was the practice of that respected solicitor never to advance
a fraction of money out of his pocket for any mortal client, unless the
repayment was as safe and sure as the Bank of England. He had deemed the
return so in the case of Mrs. Carr, and had really advanced a good bit
of money; and now there was no marriage recorded in the register.
How had it gone out of it? Mr. Fauntleroy's first thought, in his
desperation, was to suspect Mynn and Mynn, clean-handed practitioners
though he knew them to be, as practitioners went, of having by some
sleight of hand spirited the record away. But for the assertion of Mr.
Wilberforce, that he had read it, the lawyer would have definitely
concluded that it had never been there, in spite of Mr. Omer and his
pencilled names. He went tearing over to Mynn and Mynn's in a fine state
of excitement, could see neither Mr. Mynn nor Mr. George Mynn, hired a
gig at Eckford, and drove over to Mr. Mynn's house, two miles distant.
Mr. Mynn, strong in the gout, and wrapped up in flannel and cotton wool
in his warm sitting-room, thought at first his professional brother had
gone mad, as he listened to the tale and the implied accusation, and
then expressed his absolute disbelief that any record of any such
marriage had ever been there.
"You must be mad, Fauntleroy! Go and tamper with a register!--suspect us
of stealing a page out of a church's register! If you were in your
senses, and I had the use of my legs, I'd kick you out of my house for
your impudence. I might just as well turn round and tell you, you had
been robbing the archives of the Court of Chancery."
"Nobody knew of the record's being there but you, and I, and the
rector," debated Mr. Fauntleroy, wiping his great face. "You say you
went and saw it."
"I say I went and didn't see it," roared the afflicted man, who had a
dreadful twinge just then. "It seems--if this story of yours is
true--that I never heard it was there until it was gone. Don't be a
simpleton, Fauntleroy."
In his heart of hearts, of course Mr. Fauntleroy did not think Mynn and
Mynn had been culpable, only in his passion. His voice began to cool
down to calmness.
"I'm ready to accuse the whole world, and myself into the bargain," he
said. "So would you be, had you been played the trick. I wish you'd tell
me quietly what you know about the matter altogether."
"That's where you should have begun," said old Mynn. "We never heard of
any letter having been found, setting forth that the record of the
marriage was in the register of St. James's, never thought for a moment
that there had been any marriage, and I don't think it now, for the
matter of that," he added, _par parenthese_, "until the day our new
manager, Littelby, took possession, and I and George were inducting him
a little into our approaching assize and other causes. We came to Carr
_versus_ Carr, in due course, and then Littelby, evidently surprised,
asked how it was that the letter despatched to you--to you, Mr.
Fauntleroy, and which letter it seems you kept to yourself, and gave us
no notice of--had not served to put an end to the cause. Naturally I and
my brother inquired what letter Mr. Littelby alluded to, and what were
its contents, and then he told us that it was a letter written by Robert
Carr, of Holland, stating that the marriage had taken place at the
church of St. James the Less, and that its record would be found entered
on the register. My impression at the first moment was--and it was
George's very strongly--that there had been nothing of the sort; no
marriage, and consequently no record; but immediately a doubt arose
whether any fraud had been committed by means of making a false entry in
the register. I went off at once to Westerbury, fully determined to
detect and expose this fraud--and my eyes are pretty clear for such
things--I paid my half-crown, and went with the clerk and examined the
register, and found I had my journey for nothing. There was no such
record in the register--no mention whatever of the marriage. _That_ is
all I know of the affair, Mr. Fauntleroy."
Had Mr. Fauntleroy talked till now, he could have learnt no more. It
evidently was all that his confrere knew; and he went back to Westerbury
as wise as he came, and sought the house of Mr. Wilberforce. The record
must have been taken out between the beginning of November and the 2nd
of December, he told the master. Omer, and the master himself, had both
seen it at the former time; old Mynn searched on the 2nd of December,
and it was gone.
This information did not help Mr. Wilberforce in his perplexity, as to
who could have tampered with it. It was impossible but that his
suspicion should be directed to the night already spoken of, when Arkell
was locked up in the church, and seemed to have got out in a manner so
mysterious nobody knew how. Arkell adhered to his story: he had found
the door open in the night, and walked out; and that was all that could
be got from him. The master took him at his word. Had he pressed him
much, he might have heard more; had he only given him a hint that he
knew the register had been robbed, and that both trouble and injustice
were likely to arise from it, he might have heard all; for Henry fully
meant to keep his word with George Prattleton, and declare the truth, if
a necessity arose for it. But it appeared to be the policy of both the
master and Mr. Fauntleroy to keep the register out of sight and
discussion altogether. Not a word of the loss was suffered to escape.
Mr. Fauntleroy had probably his private reasons for this, and the rector
shrank from any publicity, because the getting at the register seemed to
reflect some carelessness on him and his mode of securing it.
Meanwhile the public were aware that some internal commotion was
agitating the litigants in the great cause Carr _versus_ Carr. What it
was, they could not penetrate. They knew that a young lady, Mrs. Carr
the widow, was stopping in Westerbury, and had frequent interviews with
Mr. Fauntleroy; and they saw that the renowned lawyer himself was in a
state of ferment; but not a breath touching the register in any way had
escaped abroad, and George Prattleton and Henry Arkell were in ignorance
that there was trouble connected with it. George had ventured to put a
question to the Reverend Mr. Prattleton, regarding Mr. Wilberforce's
visit in connection with it, and was peremptorily ordered to mind his
own business.
And the whole city, ripe for gossip and for other people's affairs, as
usual, lived in a perpetual state of anticipation of the assizes, and
the cause that was to come on at them.
It is probable that this blow to Mr. Fauntleroy--and he regarded it in
no less a light--rendered him more severe than customary in his other
affairs. On the first of March, another ten pound was due to him from
Peter Arkell. The month came in, and the money was not paid; and Mr.
Fauntleroy immediately threatened harsh measures: that he would sell him
up for the whole of the debt. He had had judgment long ago, and
therefore possessed the power to do it; and Peter Arkell went to him.
But the grace he pleaded for, Mr. Fauntleroy refused longer to give;
refused it coarsely and angrily; and Peter was tempted to remind him of
the past. Never yet had he done so.
"Have you forgotten what I did for you?" he asked. "I saved you once
from what was perhaps worse than debt."
"And what if you did?" returned the strong-minded lawyer--not to speak
more plainly. "I paid you back again."
"Yes; but how? In driblets, which did me no good. And if you did repay
me, does that blot out the obligation? If any one man should be lenient
to another, you ought to be so to me, Fauntleroy."
"Have I not been lenient?"
"No. It is true, you have not taken the extreme measures you threaten
now, but what with the sums you have forced me to pay, the costs, the
interest, I know not what all, for I have never clearly understood it,
you have made my life one of worry, hardship, and distress. But for that
large sum I had to pay suddenly for you I might have done differently in
the world. It was my ruin; yes, I assert it, for it is the simple truth,
the finding of that sum was my ruin. It took from me all hope of
prosperity, and I have been obliged ever since to be a poor, struggling
man."
"I paid you, I say; what d'ye mean?" roughly spoke Mr. Fauntleroy.
Peter Arkell shook his head. He had said his say, and was too
gentle-minded, too timid-mannered to contend. But the interview did him
no good: it only served to further anger Mr. Fauntleroy.
A few days more, and Assize Saturday came in--as it is called in the
local phraseology. The judges were expected in some time in the
afternoon to open court, and the town was alive with bustle and
preparation. On this bright day--and it was one of the brightest March
ever gave us--a final, peremptory, unmistakable missive arrived for
Peter Arkell from Mr. Fauntleroy. And yet the man boasted in it of his
leniency of giving him a few hours more grace; it even dared to hint
that perhaps Mr. Arkell, if applied to, might save his home. But the
gist of it was, that if the ten pounds were not paid that afternoon by
six o'clock, at Mr. Fauntleroy's office, on Monday morning he should
proceed to execution.
It was not a pleasant letter for Mrs. Peter Arkell. _She_ received it.
Peter was out; and she lay on the sofa in great agitation, as might be
seen from the hectic on her cheeks, the unnatural brightness of her
eyes. How lovely she looked as she lay there, a lace cap shading her
delicate features, no description could express. The improvement so
apparent in her when they returned from the sea-side had not lasted; and
for the last few weeks she had faded ominously.
The cathedral clock chimed out the quarter to three, and the bell rang
out for service. It had been going some time, when Henry, who had been
hard at his studies in the little room that was once exclusively his
father's, came in. The great likeness between mother and son was more
apparent than ever, and the tall, fine boy of sixteen had lost none of
his inherited beauty. It was the same exquisite face; the soft, dark
eyes, the transparent complexion, the pure features. Perhaps I have
dwelt more than I ought on this boy's beauty; but he is no imaginary
creation; and it was of that rare order that enchains the eye and almost
enforces mention whenever seen, no matter how often. It is still vivid
in the remembrance of Westerbury.
"I am going now, mamma."
"You will be late, Henry."
Something in the tone of the voice struck on his ear, and he looked
attentively at his mother. The signs of past emotion were not quite
obliterated from her face.
"Mamma, you have been crying."
It was of no use to deny it; indeed the sudden accusation brought up
fresh tears then. Painful matters had been kept as much as possible from
Henry; but he could not avoid knowing of the general embarrassments:
unavoidable, and, so to speak, honourable embarrassments.
"What is it now?" he urgently asked.
"Nothing new; only the old troubles over and over again. Of course, the
longer they go on, the worse they get. Never mind, dear; _you_ cannot
mend matters, so there's no necessity for allowing them to trouble you.
There is an invitation come for you from the Palmers'. I told Lucy to
put the note on the mantel-piece."
He saw a letter lying there and opened it. His colour rose vividly as he
read, and he turned to look at the direction. It was addressed "Mr.
Peter Arkell;" but Henry had read it then.
"You see, they want you to spend Monday with them at Heath Hall, and as
it will be the judges' holiday, you can get leave from college and do
so."
"Mother," he interrupted--and every vestige of colour had forsaken his
sensitive face--"what does this letter mean?"
Mrs. Arkell started up and clasped her hands. "Oh, Henry! what have you
been reading? What has Lucy done? She has left out the wrong letter.
That was not meant for you."
"Does it mean a prison for papa?" he asked, controlling his voice and
manner to calmness, though his heart turned sick with fear. "You must
tell me all, mother, now I have read this."
"Perhaps it does, Henry. Or else the selling up of our home. I scarcely
know what myself, except that it means great distress and confusion."
He could hardly speak for consternation. But, if he understood the
letter aright, a sum of ten pounds would for the present avert it. "It
is not much," he said aloud to his mother.
"It is a great deal to us, Henry; more than we know where to find."
"Papa could borrow it from Mr. Arkell."
"I am sure he will not, let the consequences be what they may. I don't
wonder. If you only knew, my dear, how much, how often, he has had to
borrow from William Arkell--kind, generous William Arkell!--you could
hardly wish him to."
"But what will be done?" he urged.
"I don't know. Unless things come to the crisis they have so long
threatened. Child," she added, bursting into tears, "in spite of my
firmly-seated trust, these petty anxieties are wearing me out. Every
time a knock comes to the door, I shiver and tremble, lest it should be
people come to ask for money which we cannot pay. Henry, you will be
late."
"Plenty of time, mamma. I timed myself one day, and ran from this to the
cloister entrance in two minutes and a half. Are you being pressed for
much besides this?" he continued, touching the letter.
"Not very much for anything else," she replied. "That is the worst: if
that were settled, I think we might manage to stave off the rest till
brighter days come round. If we can but retain, our home!--several times
it would have gone, but for Mr. Arkell. But I was wrong to speak of this
to you," she sighed: "and I am wrong to give way, myself. It is not
often that I do. God never sent a burden, but He sent strength to bear
it: and we have always, hitherto, been wonderfully helped. Henry, you
will surely be late."
He slowly took his elbow from the mantel-piece, where it had been
leaning. "No. But if I were, it would be something new: it is not often
they have to mark me late."
Kissing his mother, he walked out of the house in a dreamy mood, and
with a slow step; not with the eager look and quick foot of a schoolboy,
in dread of being marked late on the cathedral roll. As he let the gate
swing to, behind him, and turned on his way, a hand was laid upon his
shoulder. Henry looked round, and saw a tall, aristocratic man, looking
down upon him. In spite of his mind's trouble, his face shone with
pleasure.
"Oh, Mr. St. John! Are you in Westerbury?"
"Well, I think you have pretty good ocular demonstration of it. Harry,
you have grown out of all knowledge: you will be as tall as my lanky
self, if you go on like this. How is Mrs. Arkell?"
"Not any better, thank you. I am so very pleased to see you," he
continued: "but I cannot stop now. The bell has been going ten minutes."
"In the choir still? Are you the senior boy?"
"Senior chorister as before, but not senior boy yet. Prattleton is
senior. Jocelyn went to Oxford in January. Did you come home to-day?"
"Of course. I came in with the barristers."
"But you are not a barrister?" returned Henry, half puzzled at the
words.
"I a barrister! I am nothing but my idle self, the heir of all the St.
Johns. How is your friend, Miss Beauclerc?"
"She is very well," said Henry; and he turned away his head as he
answered. Did St. John's heart beat at the name, as his did, he
wondered.
"Harry, I must see your gold medal."
"Oh, I'll fetch it out in a minute: it is only in the parlour."
He ran in, and came out with the pretty toy hanging to its blue ribbon.
Mr. St. John took it in his hand.
"The dean displayed taste," was his remark. "Westerbury cathedral on one
side, and the inscription to you on the other. There; put it up, and be
off. I don't want you to be marked late through me."
There was not another minute to be lost, so Henry slipped the medal into
his jacket-pocket, flew away, and got on to the steps in his surplice
one minute before the dean came in.
There was a bad practice prevailing in the college school, chiefly
resorted to by the senior boys: it was that of pledging their goods and
chattels. Watches, chains, silver pencil-cases, books, or anything else
available, were taken to Rutterley, the pawnbroker's, without scruple.
Of course this was not known to the masters. A tale was told of Jones
tertius having taken his surplice to Rutterley's one Monday morning;
and, being unable to redeem it on the Saturday, he had lain in bed all
day on the Sunday, and sent word to the head master that he had sprained
his ankle. On the Monday, he limped into the school, apparently in
excruciating pain, to the sympathy of the masters, and intense
admiration of the senior boys. Henry Arkell had never been guilty of
this practice, but he was asking himself, all college time, why he
should not be, for once, and so relieve the pressure at home. His gold
watch, the gift of Mr. Arkell, was worth, at his own calculation, twenty
pounds, and he thought there could be no difficulty in pledging it for
ten. "It is not an honourable thing, I know," he reasoned with himself;
"but the boys do it every day for their own pleasures, and surely I may
in this dreadful strait."
Service was over in less than an hour, and he left the cathedral by the
front entrance. Being Saturday afternoon, there was no school. The
streets were crowded; the high sheriff and his procession had already
gone out to meet the judges, and many gazers lingered, waiting for their
return. Henry hastened through them, on his way to the pawnbroker's.
Possessed of that sensitive, refined temperament, had he been going into
the place to steal, he could not have felt more shame. The shop was
partitioned off into compartments or boxes, so that one customer should
not see another. If Henry Arkell could but have known his ill-luck! In
the box contiguous to the one he entered, stood Alfred Aultane, the boy
next below him in the choir, who had stolen down with one of the family
tablespoons, which he had just been protesting to the pawnbroker was his
own, and that he would have it out on Monday without fail, for his
godfather the counsellor was coming in with the judges, and never failed
to give him half a sovereign. But that disbelieving pawnbroker
obstinately persisted in refusing to have anything to do with the spoon,
for he knew the Aultane crest; and Mr. Alfred stood biting his nails in
mortification.
"Will you lend me ten pounds on this?" asked Henry, coming in, and not
suspecting that anybody was so near.
"Ten pounds!" uttered Rutterley, after examining the watch. "You college
gentlemen have got a conscience! I could not give more than half."
"That would be of no use: I must have ten. I shall be sure to redeem it,
Mr. Rutterley."
"I am not afraid of that. The college boys mostly redeem their pledges;
I will say that for them. I will lend you six pounds upon it, not a
farthing more. What can you be wanting with so large a sum?"
"That is my business, if you please," returned Henry, civilly.
"Oh, of course. Six pounds: take it, or leave it."
A sudden temptation flashed across Henry's mind. What if he pledged the
gold medal? But for his having it in his pocket, the thought would not
have occurred to him. "But how can I?" he mentally argued----"the gift
of the dean and chapter! But it is my own," temptation whispered again,
"and surely this is a righteous cause. Yes: I will risk it: and if I
can't redeem it before, it must wait till I get my money from the choir.
So he put the watch and the gold medal side by side on the counter, and
received two tickets in exchange, and eight sovereigns and four
half-sovereigns.
"Be sure keep it close, Mr. Rutterley," he enjoined; "you see my name is
on it, and there is no other medal like it in the town. I would not have
it known that I had done this, for a hundred times its worth."
"All right," answered Mr. Rutterley; "things left with me are never
seen." But Alfred Aultane, from the next box, had contrived both to hear
and see.
Henry Arkell was speeding to the office of Mr. Fauntleroy, when he heard
sounds behind him "Iss--iss--I say! Iss!"
It was Aultane. "What became of you that you were not at college this
afternoon?" demanded Henry, who, as senior chorister, had much authority
over the nine choristers under him.
"College be jiggered! I stopped out to see the show; and it isn't come
yet. If Wilberforce kicks up a row, I shall swear my mother kept me to
make calls with her. I say, Arkell, you couldn't do a fellow a service,
could you?"
Henry was surprised at the civil, friendly tone--never used by some of
the boys to him. "If I can, I will," said he. "What is it?"
"Lend me ten bob, in gold. I _must_ get it: it's for something that
can't wait. I'll pay you back next week. I know you must have as much
about you."
"All the money I have about me is wanted for a specific purpose. I have
not a sixpence that I can lend: if I had, you should be welcome to it."
"Nasty mean wretch!" grunted Aultane, in his heart. "Won't I serve him
out!"
The cathedral bells had been for some time ringing merrily, giving token
that the procession had met the judges, and was nearing the city, on its
return. Just then a blast was heard from the trumpets of the advancing
heralds, and Aultane tore away to see the sight.
CHAPTER V.
ASSIZE SUNDAY.
The next day was Assize Sunday. A dense crowd collected early round the
doors of the cathedral, and, as soon as they were opened, rushed in, and
took possession of the edifice, leaving vacant only the pulpit, the
bishop's throne, and the locked-up seats. It was the custom for the
bishop (if in Westerbury), the dean and chapter, and the forty king's
scholars, to assemble just inside the front entrance and receive the
judges, who were attended in state to the cathedral, just as they had
been attended into Westerbury the previous afternoon, the escort being
now augmented by the mayor and corporation, and an overflowing shoal of
barristers.
The ten choristers were the first to take up their standing at the front
entrance. They were soon followed by the rest of the king's scholars,
the surplices of the whole forty being primly starched for the occasion.
They had laid in their customary supply of pins, for it was the boys'
pleasure, during the service on Assize Sunday, to stick pins into
people's backs, and pin women's clothes together; the density of the mob
permitting full scope to the delightful amusement, and preventing
detection.
The thirty king's scholars bustled in from the cloisters two by two,
crossed the body of the cathedral to the grand entrance, and placed
themselves at the head of the choristers. Which was wrong: they ought to
have gone below them. Henry Arkell, as senior chorister, took precedence
of all when in the cathedral; but not when out of it, and that was a
somewhat curious rule. Out of the cathedral, Arkell was under
Prattleton; the latter, as senior boy, being head of all. He told
Prattleton to move down.
Prattleton declined. "Then we must move up," observed Henry.
"Choristers."
He was understood: and the choristers moved above the king's scholars.
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Prattleton. "How dare you disobey
me, Mr. Arkell?"
"How dare you disobey me?" was Henry Arkell's retort, but he spoke
civilly. "I am senior here, and you know it, Prattleton." It must be
understood that this sort of clashing could only occur on occasions like
the present: on ordinary Sundays and on saints' days the choristers and
king's scholars did not come in contact in the cathedral.
"I'll let you know who's senior," said Prattleton. "Choristers, move
down; you juniors, do you hear me? Move down, or I'll have you hoisted
to-morrow."
"If Mr. Arkell tells us, please, sir," responded a timid junior, who
fancied Mr. Prattleton looked particularly at him.
The choristers did not stir, and Prattleton was savage. "King's
scholars, move up, and shove."
Some of the king's scholars hesitated, especially those of the lower
school. It was no light matter to disobey the senior chorister in the
cathedral. Others moved up, and proceeded to "shove." Henry Arkell
calmly turned to one of his own juniors.
"Hardcast, go into the vestry, and ask Mr. Wilberforce to step here.
Should he have gone into college, fetch him out of the chanting-desk."
"Remain where you are, Hardcast," foamed Prattleton. "I dare you to
stir."
Hardcast, a little chap of ten, was already off, but he turned round at
the word. "I am not under your orders, Mr. Prattleton, when the senior
chorister's present."
A few minutes, and then the Reverend Mr. Wilberforce, in his surplice
and hood, was seen advancing. Hardcast had fetched him out of the
chanting-desk.
"What's all this? what hubbub are you boys making? I'll flog you all
to-morrow. Arkell, Prattleton, what's the matter?"
"I thought it better to send for you, sir, than to have a disturbance
here," said Arkell.
"A disturbance here! You had better not attempt it."
"Don't the king's scholars take precedence of the choristers, sir?"
demanded Prattleton.
"No, they don't," returned the master. "If you have not been years
enough in the college to know the rules, Mr. Prattleton, you had better
return to the bottom of school, and learn them. Arkell, in this place,
you have the command. King's scholars move down, and be quick over it:
and I'll flog you all round," concluded Mr. Wilberforce, "if you strike
up a dispute in college again."
The master turned tail, and strode back as fast as his short legs would
carry him: for the dean and chapter, marshalled by a verger and the
bedesmen, were crossing the cathedral; and a flourish of trumpets,
outside, told of the approach of the judges. The Reverend Mr.
Wilberforce was going to take the chanting for an old minor canon whose
voice was cracked, and he would hardly recover breath to begin.
The choristers all grinned at the master's decision, save Arkell and
Aultane, junior: the latter, though second chorister, took part with
Prattleton, because he hated Arkell; and as the judges passed in their
flowing scarlet robes with the trains held up behind, and their imposing
wigs, so terrible to look at, the bows of the choristers were much more
gracious than those of the king's scholars. The additional mob, teeming
in after the judges' procession, was unlimited; and a rare field had the
boys and their pins that day.
The hubbub and the bustle of the morning passed, and the cathedral bell
was again tolling out for afternoon service. Save the dust, and there
was plenty of that, no trace remained of the morning's scene. The king's
scholars were already in their seats in the choir, and the ten
choristers stood at the choir entrance, for they always waited there to
go in with the dean and chapter. One of them, and it was Mr.
Wilberforce's own son, had made a mistake in the morning in fastening
his own surplice to a countrywoman's purple stuff gown, instead of two
gowns together; and, when they came to part company, the surplice proved
the weakest. The consequence was an enormous rent, and it had just taken
the nine other choristers and three lay-clerks five minutes and
seventeen pins, fished out of different pockets, to do it up in any way
decent. Young Wilberforce, during the process, rehearsing a tale over in
his mind, for home, about that horrid rusty nail that would stick out of
the vestry door.
The choristers stood facing each other, five on a side, and the dean and
canons would pass between them when they came in. They stood at an
equidistance, one from the other, and it was high treason against the
college rules for them to move an inch from their places. Arkell headed
one line, Aultane the other, the two being face to face. Suddenly a
college boy, who was late, came flying from the cloisters and dashed
into the choir, to crave the keys of the schoolroom from the senior boy,
that he might procure his surplice. It was Lewis junior; so, against the
rules, Prattleton condescended to give him the keys; almost any other
boy he would have told to whistle for them, and marked him up for
punishment as "absent." Prattleton chose to patronise him, on account of
his friendship with Lewis senior. Lewis came out again, full pelt,
swinging the keys in his hand, rather vain of showing to the choristers
that he had succeeded in obtaining them, just as two little old
gentlemen were advancing from the front entrance.
"Hi, Lewis! stop a moment," called out Aultane, in a loud whisper, as he
crossed over and went behind Arkell.
"Return to your place, Aultane," said Arkell.
Mr. Aultane chose to be deaf.
"Aultane, to your place," repeated Henry Arkell, his tone one of hasty
authority. "Do you see who are approaching?"
Aultane looked round in a fluster. But not a soul could he see, save a
straggler or two making their way to the side aisles; and two
insignificant little old men, arm-in-arm, close at hand, in rusty black
clothes and brown wigs. Nobody to affect _him_.
"I shall return when I please," said he, commencing a whispered parley
with Lewis.
"Return this instant, Aultane. I _order_ you."
"You be----"
The word was not a blessing, but you are at liberty to substitute one.
The little old men, to whom each chorister had bowed profoundly as they
passed him, turned, and bent their severe yellow faces upon Aultane.
Lewis junior crept away petrified; and Aultane, with the red flush of
shame on his brow, slunk back to his place. They were the learned
judges.
They positively were. But no wonder Aultane had failed to recognise
them, for they bore no more resemblance to the fierce and fiery visions
of the morning, than do two old-fashioned black crows to stately
peacocks.
"What may your name be, sir?" inquired the yellower of the two. Aultane
hung his head in an agony: he was wondering whether they could order him
before them on the morrow and transport him. Wilberforce was in another
agony, lest those four keen eyes should wander to his damaged surplice
and the pins. Somebody else answered: "Aultane, my lord."
The judges passed on. Arkell would not look towards Aultane: he was too
noble to add, even by a glance, to the confusion of a fallen enemy: but
the other choristers were not so considerate, and Aultane burst into a
flow of bad language.
"Be silent," authoritatively interrupted Henry Arkell. "More of this,
and I will report you to the dean."
"I shan't be silent," cried Aultane, in his passionate rage. "There! not
for you." Beside himself with anger, he crossed over, and raised his
hand to strike Arkell. But one of the sextons, happening to come out of
the choir, arrested Aultane, and whirled him back.
"Do you know where you are, sir?"
In another moment they were surrounded. The dean's wife and daughter had
come up; and, following them, sneaked Lewis junior, who was settling
himself into his surplice. Mrs. Beauclerc passed on, but Georgina
stopped. Even as she went into college, she would sometimes stop and
chatter to the boys.
"You were quarrelling, young gentlemen! What is the grievance?"
"That beggar threatened to report me to the dean," cried Aultane, too
angry to care what he said, or to whom he spoke.
"Then I know you deserved it; as you often do," rejoined Miss
Beauclerc; "but I'd keep a civil tongue in my head, if I were you,
Aultane. I only wonder he has not reported you before. You should have
me for your senior."
"If he does go in and report me, please tell the dean to ask him where
his gold medal is," foamed Aultane. "And to make him answer it."
"What do you mean?" she questioned.
"_He_ knows. If the dean offered him a thousand half-crowns for his
medal, he could not produce it."
"What does he mean?" repeated Miss Beauclerc, looking at Henry Arkell.
He could not answer: he literally could not. Could he have dropped down
without life at Georgina's feet, it had been welcome, rather than that
she should hear of an act, which, to his peculiarly refined temperament,
bore an aspect of shame so utter. His face flushed a vivid red, and then
grew white as his surplice.
"He can't tell you," said Aultane; "that is, he won't. He has put it
into pawn."
"And his watch too," squeaked Lewis, from behind, who had heard of the
affair from Aultane.
Henry Arkell raised his eyes for one deprecating moment to Miss
Beauclerc's face; she was struck with their look of patient anguish. She
cast an annihilating frown at Lewis, and, raising her finger haughtily
motioned Aultane to his place. "I believe nothing ill of _you_," she
whispered to Henry, as she passed on to the choir.
The next to come in was Mr. St. John. "What's the matter?" he hurriedly
said to Henry, who had not a vestige of colour in his cheeks or lips.
"Nothing, thank you, Mr. St. John."
Mr. St. John went on, and Lewis skulked to his seat, in his wake.
Lewis's place was midway on the bench on the decani side, seven boys
being above him and seven below him. The choristers were on raised seats
in front of the lay-clerks, five on one side the choir, five opposite on
the other; Arkell, as senior, heading the five on the decani side.
The dean and canons came in, and the service began. While the afternoon
psalms were being sung, Mr. Wilberforce pricked the roll, a parchment
containing the names of the members of the cathedral, from the dean
downwards, marking those who were present. Aultane left his place and
took the roll to the dean, continuing his way to the organ-loft, to
inquire what anthem had been put up. He brought word back to Arkell,
'The Lord is very great and terrible. Beckwith.' Aultane would as soon
have exchanged words with the yellow-faced little man sitting in the
stall next the dean, as with Arkell, just then, but his duty was
obligatory. He spoke sullenly, and crossed to his seat on the opposite
side, and Arkell rose and reported the anthem to the lay-clerks behind
him. Mr. Wilberforce was then reading the first lesson.
Now it happened that there was only one bass at service that afternoon,
he on the decani side, Mr. Smith; the other had not come; and the moment
the words were out of Arkell's mouth, "The Lord is very great.
Beckwith," Mr. Smith flew into a temper. He had a first-rate voice, was
a good singer, and being inordinately vain, liked to give himself airs.
"I have a horrid cold on the chest," he remonstrated, "and I cannot do
justice to the solo; I shan't attempt it. The organist knows I'm as
hoarse as a raven, and yet he goes and puts up that anthem for to-day!"
"What is to be done?" whispered Henry.
"I shall send and tell him I can't do it. Hardcast, go up to the
organ-loft, and tell----Or I wish you would oblige me by going yourself,
Arkell: the juniors are always making mistakes. My compliments to Paul,
and the anthem must be done without the bass solo, or he must put up
another."
Henry Arkell, ever ready to oblige, left his stall, proceeded to the
organ-loft, and delivered the message. The organist was wroth: and but
for those two little old gentlemen, whom he knew were present, he would
have refused to change the anthem, which had been put up by the dean.
"Where's Cliff, this afternoon?" asked he, sharply, alluding to the
other bass.
"I don't know," replied Henry. "He is not at service."
The organist took up one of the anthem books with a jerk, and turned
over its leaves. He came to the anthem, "I know that my Redeemer
liveth," from _the Messiah_.
"Are you prepared to do justice to this?" he demanded.
"Yes, I believe I am," replied Henry. "But----"
"But me no buts," interrupted the organist, who was always very short
with the choristers. "'I know that my Redeemer liveth. Pitt.'"
As Henry Arkell descended the stairs, Mr. Wilberforce was concluding the
first lesson. So instead of giving notice of the change of anthem to Mr.
Wilberforce and the singers on the cantori side, he left that until
later, and made haste to his own stall, to be in time for the soli parts
in the Cantate Domino, which was being sung that afternoon in place of
the Magnificat. In passing the bench of king's scholars, a foot was
suddenly extended out before him, and he fell heavily over it, striking
his head on the stone step that led to the stalls of the minor canons. A
sexton, a verger, and one or two of the senior boys, surrounded, lifted,
and carried him out.
The service proceeded; but his voice was missed in the Cantate;
Aultane's proved but a poor substitute.
"I wonder whether the anthem's changed?" debated the bass to the contre
tenor.
"Um--no," decided the latter. "Arkell was coming straight to his place.
Had there been any change, he would have gone and told Wilberforce and
the opposites. Paul is in a pet, and won't alter it."
"Then he'll play the solo without my accompaniment," retorted the bass,
loftily.
Henry Arkell was only stunned by the fall, and before the conclusion of
the second lesson, he appeared in the choir, to the surprise of many.
After giving the requisite notice of the change in the anthem to Mr.
Wilberforce and Aultane, he entered his stall; but his face was white as
the whitest marble. He sang, as usual, in the Deus Misereatur. And when
the time for the anthem came, Mr. Wilberforce rose from his knees to
give it out.
"The anthem is taken from the burial service."
The symphony was played, and then Henry Arkell's voice rose soft and
clear, filling the old cathedral with its harmony, and the words falling
as distinctly on the ear as if they had been spoken. "I know that my
Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the
earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh
I shall see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall
behold, and not another." The organist could not have told _why_ he put
up that particular anthem, but it was a remarkable coincidence, noticed
afterwards, that it should have been a funeral one.
But though Henry Arkell's voice never faltered or trembled, his changing
face spoke of bodily disease or mental emotion: one moment it was bright
as a damask rose, the next of a transparent whiteness. Every eye was on
him, wondering at the beauty of his voice, at the marvellous beauty of
his countenance: some sympathised with his emotion; some were wrapt in
the solemn thoughts created by the words. When the solo was concluded,
Henry, with an involuntary glance at the pew of Mrs. Beauclerc, fell
against the back of his stall for support: he looked exhausted. Only for
a moment, however, for the chorus commenced.
He joined in it; his voice rose above all the rest in its sweetness and
power; but as the ending approached, and the voices ceased, and the last
sound of the organ died upon the ear, his face bent forward, and rested
without motion on the choristers' desk.
"Arkell, what are you up to?" whispered one of the lay-clerks from
behind, as Mr. Wilberforce recommenced his chanting.
No response.
"Nudge him, Wilberforce; he's going to sleep. There's the dean casting
his eyes this way."
Edwin Wilberforce did as he was desired, but Arkell never stirred.
So Mr. Tenor leaned over and grasped him by the arm, and pulled him up
with a sudden jerk. But he did not hold him, and the poor head fell
forward again upon the desk. Henry Arkell had fainted.
Some confusion ensued: for the four choristers below him had every one
to come out of the stall before he could be got out. Mr. Wilberforce
momentarily stopped chanting, and directed his angry spectacles towards
the choristers, not understanding what caused the hubbub, and inwardly
vowing to flog the whole five on the morrow. Mr. Smith, a strong man,
came out of his stall, lifted the lifeless form in his arms, and carried
it out to the side aisle, the head, like a dead weight, hanging down
over his shoulder. All the eyes and all the glasses in the cathedral
were bent on them; and the next to come out of his stall, by the
prebendaries, and follow in the wake, was Mr. St. John, a flush of
emotion on his pale face.
The dean's family, after service, met Mr. St. John in the cloisters. "Is
he better?" asked Mrs. Beauclerc. "What was the matter with him the
second time?"
"He fainted; but we soon brought him to in the vestry. Young Wilberforce
ran and got some water. They are walking home with him now."
"What caused him to fall in the choir?" continued Mrs. Beauclerc.
"Giddiness?"
"It was not like giddiness," remarked Mr. St. John. "It was as if he
fell over something."
"So I thought," interrupted Georgina. "Why did you leave your seat to
follow him?" she continued, in a low tone to Mr. St. John, falling
behind her mother.
"It was a sudden impulse, I suppose. I was unpleasantly struck with his
appearance as I went into college. He was looking ghastly."
"The choristers had been quarrelling: Aultane's fault, I am sure. He
lifted his hand to strike Arkell. Aultane reproached him with
having"--Georgina Beauclerc hesitated, with an amused look--"disposed of
his prize medal."
"Disposed of his prize medal?" echoed Mr. St. John.
"Pawned it."
St. John uttered an exclamation. He remembered the tricks of the college
boys, but he could not have believed this of his favourite, Henry
Arkell.
"And his watch also, Lewis junior added," continued Georgina. "They gave
me the information in a spiteful glow of triumph. Henry did not deny it:
he looked as if he could not. But I know he is the soul of honour, and
if he has done anything of the sort, those beautiful companions of his
have over-persuaded him: possibly to lend the money to them."
"I'll see into this," mentally spoke Mr. St. John.
CHAPTER VI.
PEACHING TO THE DEAN.
Mr. St. John went at once to Peter Arkell's. Henry was alone, lying on
his bed.
"After such a fall as that, how could you be so imprudent as to come
back and take the anthem?" was his unceremonious salutation.
"I felt equal to it," replied Henry. "The one, originally put up, could
not be done."
"Then they should have put up a third, for me. The cathedral does not
lack anthems, I hope. Show me where your head was struck."
Henry put his hand to his ear, then higher up, then to his temple. "It
was somewhere here--all about here--I cannot tell the exact spot."
As he spoke, a tribe of college boys was heard to clatter in at the
gate. Henry would have risen, but Mr. St. John laid his arm across him.
"You are not going to those boys. I will send them off. Lie still and go
to sleep, and dream of pleasant things."
"Pleasant things!" echoed Henry Arkell, in a tone full of pain. Mr. St.
John leaned over him.
"Henry, I have never had a brother of my own; but I have almost loved
you as such. Treat me as one now. What tale is it those demons of
mischief have got hold of, about your watch and medal?"
With a sharp cry, Henry Arkell turned his face to the pillow, hiding its
distress.
"I suppose old Rutterley has got them. But that's nothing; it's the
fashion in the school: and I expect you had some urgent motive."
"Oh, Mr. St. John, I shall never overget this day's shame: they told
Georgina Beauclerc! I would rather die this moment, here, as I lie, than
see her face again."
His tone was one of suppressed anguish, and Mr. St. John's heart ached
for him: though he chose to appear to make light of the matter.
"Told Georgina Beauclerc: what if they did? She is the very one to glory
in such exploits. Had she been the dean's son, instead of his daughter,
she would have been in Rutterley's sanctum three times a week. I don't
think she would stand at going, as it is, if she were hard up."
"But why did they tell her! I could not have acted so cruelly by them.
If I could but go to some far-off desert, and never face her, or the
school, again!"
"If you could but work yourself into a brain fever, you had better say!
that's what you seem likely to do. As to falling in Georgina Beauclerc's
opinion, which you seem to estimate so highly (it's more than I do), if
you pledged all you possess in a lump, and yourself into the bargain,
she would only think the better of you. Now I tell you so, for I know
it."
"I could not help it; I could not, indeed. Money is so badly wanted----"
He stopped in confusion, having said more than he meant: and St. John
took up the discourse in a careless tone.
"Money is wanted badly everywhere. I have done worse than you, Harry,
for I am pawning my estate, piecemeal. Mind! that's a true confession,
and has never been given to another soul: it must lie between us."
"It was yesterday afternoon when college was over," groaned Henry. "I
only thought of giving Rutterley my watch: I thought he would be sure to
let me have ten pounds upon it. But he would not; only six: and I had
the medal in my pocket; I had been showing it to you. I never did such a
thing in all my life before."
"That is more than your companions could say. How did it get to their
knowledge?"
"I cannot think."
"Where's the----the exchange?"
"The what?" asked Henry.
"How dull you are!" cried Mr. St. John. "I am trying to be genteel, and
you won't let me. The ticket. Let me see it."
"They are in my jacket-pocket. Two." He languidly reached forth the
pieces, and Mr. St. John slipped them into his own.
"Why do you do that, Mr. St. John?"
"To study them at leisure. What's the matter?"
"My head is beginning to ache."
"No wonder, with, all this talking. I'm off. Good-bye. Get to sleep as
fast as you can."
The boys were in the garden and round the gate still, when he went down.
"Oh, if you please, sir, is he half killed? Edwin Wilberforce says so."
"No, he is not half killed," responded Mr. St. John. "But he wants
quiet, and you must disperse, that he may have it."
"My brother, the senior boy, says he must have fallen down from
vexation, because his tricks came out," cried Prattleton junior.
Mr. St. John ran his eyes over the assemblage. "What tricks?"
"He has been pawning the gold medal, Mr. St. John," cried Cookesley, the
second senior of the school. "Aultane junior has told the dean: Bright
Vaughan heard him."
"Oh, he has told the dean, has he?"
"The dean was going into the deanery, sir, and Miss Beauclerc was
standing at the door, waiting for him," explained Vaughan to Mr. St.
John. "Something she said to Aultane put him in a passion, and he took
and told the dean. It was his temper made him do it, sir."
"Such a disgrace, you know, Mr. St. John, to take the dean's medal
_there_," rejoined Cookesley. "Anything else wouldn't have signified."
"Oh, been rather meritorious, no doubt," returned Mr. St. John. "Boys!"
"Yes, Mr. St. John."
"You know I was one of yourselves once, and I can make allowance for you
in all ways. But when I was in the school, our motto was, Fair play, and
no sneaking."
"It's our motto still," cried the flattered boys.
"It does not appear to be. We would rather, any one of us, have pitched
ourselves off that tower," pointing to it with his hand, "than have gone
sneaking to the dean with a private complaint."
"And so we would still, in cool blood," cried Cookesley. "Aultane must
have been out of his mind with passion when he did it."
"How does Aultane know that Arkell's medal is in pawn?"
"He does not say how. He says he'll pledge his word to it."
"Then listen to me, boys: my word will, I believe, go as far with you as
Aultane's. Yesterday afternoon I met Henry Arkell at the gate here; I
asked to see his medal, and he brought it out of the house to show me.
He is in bed now, but perhaps if you ask him to-morrow, he will be able
to show it to you. At any rate, do not condemn him until you are sure
there's a just reason. If he did pledge his medal, how many things have
you pledged? Some of you would pledge your heads if you could. Fair
play's a jewel, boys--fair play for ever!"
Off came the trenchers, and a shout was being raised for fair play and
Mr. St. John; but the latter put up his hand.
"I thought it was Sunday. Is that the way you keep Sunday in Westerbury?
Disperse quietly."
"I'll clear him," thought Mr. St. John, as he walked home. "Aultane's a
mean-spirited coward. To tell the dean!"
Indeed, the incautious revelation of Mr. Aultane was exciting some
disagreeable consternation in the minds of the seniors; and that
gentleman himself already wished his passionate tongue had been bitten
out before he made it.
The following morning the college boys were astir betimes, and flocked
up in a body to the judges' lodgings, according to usage, to beg what
was called the judges' holiday. The custom was for the senior judge to
send his card out and his compliments to the head master, requesting him
to grant it; and the boys' custom was, as they tore back again, bearing
the card in triumph, to raise the whole street with their shouts of
"Holiday! holiday!"
But there was no such luck on this morning. The judges, instead of the
card and the request, sent out a severe message--that from what they had
heard the previous day in the cathedral, the school appeared to merit
punishment rather than holiday. So the boys went back, dreadfully
chapfallen, kicking as much mud as they could over their trousers and
boots, for it had rained in the night, and ready to buffet Aultane
junior as the source of the calamity.
Aultane himself was in an awful state of mind. He felt perfectly certain
that the affair in the cathedral must now come out to the head master,
who would naturally inquire into the cause of the holiday's being
denied; and he wondered how it was that judges dared to come abroad
without their gowns and wigs, deceiving unsuspicious people to
perdition.
Before nine, Mr. St. John was at Henry Arkell's bedside. "Well," said
he, "how's the head?"
"It feels light--or heavy. I hardly know which. It does not feel as
usual. I shall get up presently."
"All right. Put on this when you do," said Mr. St. John, handing him the
watch. "And put up this in your treasure place, wherever that may be,"
he added, laying the gold medal beside it.
"Oh, Mr. St. John! You have----"
"I shall have some sport to-day. I have wormed it all out of Rutterley;
and he tells me who was down there and on what errand. Ah, ah, Mr.
Aultane! so you peached to the dean. Wait until your turn comes."
"I wonder Rutterley told you anything," said Henry, very much surprised.
"He knew me, and the name of St. John bears weight in Westerbury,"
smiled he who owned it. "Harry, mind! you must not attempt to go into
school to-day."
"It is the judges' holiday."
"The judges have refused it, and the boys have sneaked back like so many
dogs with their tails scorched."
"Refused it! Refused the holiday!" interrupted Henry. Such a thing had
never been heard of in his memory.
"They have refused it. Something must be wrong with the boys, but I am
not at the bottom of the mischief yet. Don't you attempt to go near
school or college, Harry: it might play tricks with your head. And now
I'm going home to breakfast."
Henry caught his arm as he was departing. "How can I ever thank you, Mr.
St. John? I do not know when I shall be able to repay you the money; not
until----"
"You never will," interrupted Mr. St. John. "I should not take it if you
were rolling in gold. I have done this for my own pleasure, and I will
not be cheated out of it. I wonder how many of the boys have got their
watches in now. Good-bye, old fellow."
When Mr. Wilberforce came to know of the refused holiday, his
consternation nearly equalled Aultane's. _What_ could the school have
been doing that had come to the ears of the judges? He questioned
sharply the senior boy, and it was as much as Prattleton's king's
scholarship was worth to attempt to disguise by so much as a word, or to
soften down, the message sent out from the judges. But the closer the
master questioned the rest of the boys, the less information he could
get; and all he finally obtained was, that some quarrel had taken place
between the two head choristers, Arkell and Aultane, on the Sunday
afternoon, and that the judges overheard it.
Early school was excused that morning, as a matter of necessity; for the
master--relying upon the holiday--did not emerge from his bed-chamber
until between eight and nine; and you may be very sure that the boys did
not proceed to the college hall of their own accord. But after breakfast
they assembled as usual at half-past nine, and the master, uneasy and
angry, went in also to the minute. Henry Arkell failed to make his
appearance, and it was remarked upon by the masters.
"By the way," said Mr. Wilberforce, "how came he to fall down in college
yesterday? Does anybody know?"
"Please, sir, he trod upon a surplice," said Vaughan the bright. "Lewis
junior says so."
"Trod upon a surplice!" repeated Mr. Wilberforce. "How could he do that?
You were standing. Your surplices are not long enough to be trodden
upon. What do you mean by saying that, Lewis junior?"
Lewis junior's face turned red, and he mentally vowed a licking to
Bright Vaughan, for being so free with his tongue; but he looked up at
the master with an expression as innocent as a lamb's.
"I only said he might have trodden on a surplice, sir. Perhaps he was
giddy yesterday afternoon, as he fainted afterwards."
The subject dropped. The choristers went into college for service at ten
o'clock, but the master remained in his place. It was not his week for
chanting. Before eleven they were back again; and the master had called
up the head class, and was again remarking on the absence of Henry
Arkell, when the dean and Mr. St. John walked into the hall. Mr.
Wilberforce rose, and pushed his spectacles to the top of his brow in
his astonishment.
"Have the goodness to call up Aultane," said the dean, after a few words
of courtesy, as he stood by the master's desk.
"Senior, or junior, Mr. Dean?"
"The chorister."
"Aultane, junior, walk up," cried the master. And Aultane, junior,
walked up, wishing himself and his tongue and the dean, and all the rest
of the world within sight and hearing, were safely boxed up in the
coffins in the cathedral crypt.
"Now, Aultane," began the dean, regarding him with as much severity as
it was in the dean's nature to regard anyone, even a rebellious college
boy, "you preferred a charge to me yesterday against the senior
chorister; that he had been pledging his gold medal at Rutterley's. Have
the goodness to substantiate it."
"Oh, my heart alive, I wish he'd drop through the floor!" groaned
Aultane to himself. "What will become of me? What a jackass I was!"
"I did not enter into the matter then," proceeded the dean, for Aultane
remained silent. "You had no business to make the complaint to me on a
Sunday. What grounds have you for your charge?"
Aultane turned red and white, and green and yellow. The dean eyed him
closely. "What proof have you?"
"I have no proof," faltered Aultane.
"No proof! Did you make the charge to me, knowing it was false?"
"No, sir. He _has_ pledged his medal."
"Tell me how you know it. Mr. St. John knows he had it in his own house
on Saturday."
Aultane shuffled first on one foot, and then on the other; and the dean,
failing explanation from him, appealed to the school, but all disclaimed
cognizance of the matter. "If you behave in this extraordinary way, you
will compel me to conclude that you have made the charge to prejudice me
against Arkell; who, I hear, had a serious charge to prefer against
_you_ for ill-behaviour in college," continued the dean to Aultane.
"If you will send to the place, you will find his medal is there, sir,"
sullenly replied Aultane.
"The shortest plan would be to send to Arkell's, and request him to
dispatch his medal here, if the dean approves," interposed Mr. St. John,
speaking for the first time.
The dean did approve, and Cookesley was despatched on the errand. He
brought back the medal. Henry was not in the way, but Mrs. Arkell had
found it and given it to him.
"Now what do you mean by your conduct?" sternly asked the dean of
Aultane.
"I know he pledged it on Saturday, if he has got it out to-day,"
persisted the discomfited Aultane, who was in a terrible state, between
wishing to prove his charge true, and the fear of compromising himself.
"I know Henry Arkell could not be guilty of a despicable action," spoke
up Mr. St. John; "and, hearing of this charge, I went to Rutterley's to
ask him a few questions. He informed me there _was_ a college boy at his
place on Saturday, endeavouring to pledge a table-spoon, but he knew the
crest, and would not take it in--not wishing, he said, to encourage boys
to rob their parents. Perhaps Aultane can tell the dean who that was?"
There was a dead silence in the school, and the look of amazement on the
head-master's face was only matched by the confusion of Aultane's. The
dean, a kind-hearted man, would not examine further.
"I do not press the matter until I hear the complaint of the senior
chorister against Aultane," said he aloud, to Mr. Wilberforce. "It was
something that occurred in the cathedral yesterday, in the hearing,
unfortunately, of the judges. But a few preliminary tasks, by way of
present punishment, will do Aultane no harm."
"I'll give them to him, Mr. Dean," heartily responded the master, whose
ears had been so scandalised by the mysterious allusions to Rutterley's,
that he would have liked to treat the whole school to "tasks" and to
something else, all round. "I'll give them to him."
"You see what a Tom-fool you have made of yourself!" grumbled Prattleton
senior to Aultane, as the latter returned to his desk, laden with work.
"That's all the good you have got by splitting to the dean."
"I wish the dean was in the sea, I do!" madly cried Aultane, as he
savagely watched the retreat of that very reverend divine, who went out
carrying the gold medal between his fingers, and followed by Mr. St.
John. "And I wish that brute, St. John was hung! He----"
Aultane's words and bravery alike faded into silence, for the two were
coming back again. The master stood up.
"I forgot to tell you, Mr. Wilberforce, that I have recommended Henry
Arkell to take a holiday for a day or two. That was a violent fall
yesterday; and his fainting afterwards struck me as not wearing a
favourable appearance."
"Have you seen him, Mr. Dean?"
"I saw him an hour ago, just before service. I was going by the house as
he came out of it, on his way to college, I suppose. It is a strange
thing what it could have been that caused the fall."
"So it is," replied the master. "I was inquiring about it just now, but
the school does not seem to know anything."
"Neither does he, so far as I can learn. At any rate, rest will be best
for him for a day or two."
"No doubt it will, Mr. Dean. Thank you for thinking of it."
They finally went out, St. John casting a significant look behind him,
at the boys in general, at Aultane junior in particular. It said as
plainly as looks could say, "I'd not peach again, boys, if I were you;"
and Aultane junior, but for the restraining presence of the head master,
would assuredly have sent a yell after him.
How much St. John told of the real truth to the dean, that the medal
_had_ been pledged, we must leave between them. The school never knew.
Henry himself never knew. St. John quitted the dean at the deanery, and
went on to restore the medal to its owner: although Georgina Beauclerc
was standing at one of the deanery windows, looking down expectantly, as
if she fancied he was going in.
Travice was at that moment at Peter Arkell's, perched upon a side-table,
as he talked to them. Henry leaned rather languidly back in an
elbow-chair, his fingers pressed upon his head; Lucy was at work near
the window; Mrs. Peter, looking very ill, sat at the table. Travice had
not been at service on the previous afternoon, and the accident had been
news to him this morning.
"But how did you fall?" he was asking with uncompromising plainness,
being unable to get any clear information on the point. "What threw you
down?"
"Well--I fell," answered Henry.
"Of course you fell. But how? The passage is all clear between the seats
of the king's scholars and the cross benches; there's nothing for you to
strike your foot against; how _did_ you fall?"
"There was some confusion at the time, Travice; the first lesson was
just over, and the people were rising for the cantate. I was walking
very fast, too."
"But something must have thrown you down: unless you turned giddy, and
fell of your own accord."
"I felt giddy afterwards," returned Henry, who had been speaking with
his hand mostly before his eyes, and seemed to answer the questions with
some reluctance. "I feel giddy now."
"I think, Travice, he scarcely remembers how it happened," spoke Mrs.
Arkell. "Don't press him; he seems tired. I am so glad the dean gave him
holiday."
At this juncture, Mr. St. John came in with the medal. He stayed a few
minutes, telling Harry he should take him for a drive in the course of
the day, which Mrs. Arkell negatived; she thought it might not be well
for the giddiness he complained of in the head. St. John took his leave,
and Henry went with him outside, to hear the news in private of what had
taken place in the college hall. Mrs. Arkell had left the room then, and
Travice took the opportunity to approach Lucy.
"Does it strike you that there's any mystery about this fall, Lucy?"
"Mystery!" she repeated, raising her eyes. "In what way?"
"It is one of two things: either that he does not remember how he fell,
or that he won't tell. I think it is the latter; there is a restraint in
his manner when speaking of it: an evident reluctance to speak."
"But why should he not speak of it?"
"There lies what I call the mystery. A sensational word, you will say,
for so slight a matter. I may be wrong--if you have not noticed
anything. What's that you are so busy over?"
Lucy held it up to the light, blushing excessively at the same time. It
was Harry's rowing jersey, and it was getting the worse for wear.
Boating would soon be coming in.
"It wants darning nearly all over, it is so thin," she said. "And the
difficulty is to darn it so that the darn shall be neither seen nor
suspected on the right side."
"Can't you patch it?" asked Travice.
She laughed out loud. "Would Harry go rowing in a patched jersey? Would
you, Travice?"
He laughed too. "I don't think I should much mind it."
"Ah, but you are Travice Arkell," she said, her seriousness returning.
"A rich man may go about without shoes if he likes; but a poor one must
not be seen even in mended ones."
"True: it's the way of the world, Lucy. Well, I should mend that jersey
with a new one. Why, you'll be a whole day over it."
"I dare say I shall be two. Travice, there's Mr. St. John looking round
for you. He was beckoning. Did you not see him.
"No, I only saw you," answered Travice, in a tone that was rather a
significant one. "I see now; he wants me. Good-bye, Lucy."
He took her hand in his. There was little necessity for it, seeing that
he came in two or three times a day. And he kept it longer than he need
have done.
CHAPTER VII.
CARR VERSUS CARR.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and a crowd of busy idlers was
gathered round the Guildhall at Westerbury, for the great cause was
being brought on--Carr _versus_ Carr.
That they could not get inside, you may be very sure, or they would not
have been round it. In point of fact, the trial had not been expected to
come on before the Tuesday; but in the course of Monday morning two
causes had been withdrawn, and the Carr case was called on. The Nisi
Prius Court immediately became filled to inconvenience, and at two
o'clock the trial began.
It progressed equably for some time, and then there arose a fierce
discussion touching the register. Mr. Fauntleroy's counsel, Serjeant
Wrangle, declaring the marriage was there up to very recently; and Mynn
and Mynn's counsel, Serjeant Siftem, ridiculing the assertion. The judge
called for the register.
It was produced and examined. The marriage was not there, neither was
there any sign of its having been abstracted. Lawrence Omer was called
by Serjeant Wrangle; and he testified to having searched the register,
seen the inscribed marriage, and copied the names of the witnesses to
it. In proof of this, he tendered his pocket-book, where the names were
written in pencil.
Up rose Serjeant Siftem. "What day was this, pray?"
"It was the 4th of November."
"And so you think you saw, amidst the many marriages entered in the
register, that of Robert Carr and Martha Ann Hughes?"
"I am sure I saw it," replied Mr. Omer.
"Were you alone?"
"I looked over the book alone. Hunt, the clerk of the church, was
present in the vestry."
"It must appear to the jury as a singular thing that you only, and
nobody else, should have seen this mysterious entry," continued Serjeant
Siftem.
"Perhaps nobody else looked for it; they'd have seen it if they had,"
shortly returned the witness, who felt himself an aggrieved man, and
spoke like one, since Mynn and Mynn had publicly accused him that day of
having gone down to St. James's in his sleep, and seen the entry in a
dream alone.
"Does it not strike you, witness, as being extraordinary that this one
particular entry, professed to have been seen by your eyes, and by yours
alone, should have been abstracted from a book safely kept under lock
and key?" pursued Serjeant Siftem. "I am mistaken if it would not strike
an intelligent man as being akin to an impossibility."
"No, it does not strike me so. But events, hard of belief, happen
sometimes. I swear the marriage was in the book last November: why it is
not there now, is the extraordinary part of the affair."
It was no use to cross-examine the witness further; he was cross and
obstinate, and persisted in his story. Serjeant Siftem dismissed him;
and Hunt was called, the clerk of the church, who came hobbling in.
The old man rambled in his evidence, but the point of it was, that he
didn't believe any abstraction had been made, not he; it must be a farce
to suppose it; a crotchet of that great lawyer, Fauntleroy; how could
the register be touched when he himself kept it sure and sacred, the key
of the safe in a hiding-place in the vestry, and the key of the church
hanging up in his own house, outside his kitchen door? His rector said
it had been robbed, and in course he couldn't stand out to his face as
it hadn't, but he were upon his oath now, and must speak the truth
without shrinking.
Serjeant Wrangle rose. "Did the witness mean to tell the court that he
never saw or read the entry of the marriage?"
"No, he never did. He never heard say as it were there, and he never
looked."
"But you were present when the witness Omer examined the register?"
persisted Serjeant Wrangle.
"Master Omer wouldn't have got to examine it, unless I had been,"
retorted Hunt to Serjeant Wrangle. "I was a-sitting down in the vestry,
a-nursing of my leg, which were worse than usual that day; it always is
in damp weather, and--"
"Confine yourself to evidence," interrupted the judge.
"Well, sir, I was a-nursing of my leg whilst Master Omer looked into the
book. I don't know what he saw there; he didn't say; and when he had
done looking I locked it safe up again."
"Did you see him make an extract from it?" demanded Serjeant Wrangle.
"Yes, I saw him a-writing' something down in his pocket-book."
"Have you ever entrusted the key of the safe to strange hands?"
"I wouldn't do such a thing," angrily replied the witness. "I never gave
it to nobody, and never would; there's not a soul knows where it is to
be found, but me, and the rector, and the other clergyman, Mr.
Prattleton, what comes often to do the duty. I couldn't say as much for
the key of the church, which sometimes goes beyond my custody, for the
rector allows one or two of the young college gents to go in to play the
organ. By token, one on 'em--the quietest o' the pair, it were,
too--flung in that very key on to our kitchen floor, and shivered our
cat's beautiful chaney saucer into seven atoms, and my missis----"
"That is not evidence," again interrupted the judge.
Nothing more, apparently, that was evidence, could be got from the
witness, so he was dismissed.
Call the Reverend Mr. Wilberforce.
The Reverend Mr. Wilberforce, rector of St. James the Less, minor canon
and sacrist of Westerbury Cathedral, and head-master of the collegiate
school, came forward, and was sworn.
"You are the rector of St. James the Less?" said Serjeant Wrangle.
"I am," replied Mr. Wilberforce.
"Did you ever see the entry of Robert Carr's marriage with Martha Ann
Hughes in the church's register."
"Yes, I did." Serjeant Siftem pricked up his ears.
"When did you see it?"
"On the 7th of last November."
"How do you fix the date, Mr. Wilberforce?" inquired, the judge,
recognising him as the minor canon who had officiated in the chanter's
desk the previous day in the cathedral.
"I had been marrying a couple that morning, my lord, the 7th. After I
had entered their marriage, I turned back and looked for the registry of
Robert Carr's, and I found it and read it."
"What induced you to look for it?" asked the counsel.
"I had heard that his marriage was discovered to have taken place at St.
James's, and that it was recorded in the register;" and Mr. Wilberforce
then told how he had heard it. "Curiosity induced me to turn back and
read it," he continued.
"You both saw it and read it?" continued Serjeant Wrangle.
"I both saw it and read it," replied Mr. Wilberforce.
"Then you testify that it was undoubtedly there?"
"Most certainly it was."
"The reverend gentleman will have the goodness to remember that he is
upon his oath," cried Serjeant Siftem, impudently bobbing up.
"_Sir!_" was the indignant rebuke of the clergyman. "You forget to whom
you are speaking," he added, amidst the dead silence of the court.
"Can you remember the words written?" resumed Serjeant Wrangle.
"The entry was properly made; in the same manner that the others were,
of that period. Robert Carr and Martha Ann Hughes had signed it; also
her brother and sister as witnesses."
"You have no doubt that the entry was there, then, Mr. Wilberforce?"
observed the judge.
"My lord," cried the reverend gentleman, somewhat nettled at the
question, "I can believe my own eyes. I am not more certain that I am
now giving evidence before your lordship, than I am that the marriage
was in the register."
"It is not in now?" said the judge.
"No, my lord; it must have been cleverly abstracted."
"The whole leaf, I presume?" said Serjeant Wrangle.
"Undoubtedly. The marriage entered below Robert Carr's was that of Sir
Thomas Ealing: I read that also, with its long string of witnesses: that
is also gone."
"Can you account for its disappearance?" asked Serjeant Wrangle.
"Not in the least. I wish I could: and find out the offenders."
"The incumbent of the parish at that time is no longer living, I
believe?" observed Serjeant Wrangle.
"He has been dead many years," replied Mr. Wilberforce. "But it was not
the incumbent who married them: it was a strange clergyman who performed
the ceremony, a friend of Robert Carr's."
"How do you know that?" snapped Serjeant Siftem, bobbing up again.
"Because he signed the register as having performed it," replied Mr.
Wilberforce, confronting the Serjeant with a look as undaunted as his
own.
What cared Serjeant Siftem for being confronted? "How do you know he was
a friend of Robert Carr's?" went on he.
"In that I speak from hearsay. But there are many men of this city,
older than I am, who remember that the Reverend Mr. Bell and Robert Carr
were upon exceedingly intimate terms: they can testify it to you, if you
choose to call them."
Serjeant Siftem growled, and sat down; but was up again in a moment.
"Who was clerk of the parish at that time?" asked he.
"There was no clerk," replied the witness. "The office was in abeyance.
Some of the parishioners wanted to abolish it; but they did not succeed
in doing so."
"Allow me to ask you, sir," resumed Serjeant Wrangle, "whether the
entrance of the marriage there is not a proof of its having taken
place?"
"Most assuredly," replied Mr. Wilberforce. "A proof indisputable."
But courts of justice, judges, and jury require ocular and demonstrative
proof. It is probable there was not a soul in court, including the judge
and Serjeant Siftem, but believed the evidence of the Reverend Mr.
Wilberforce, even had they chosen to doubt that of Lawrence Omer; but
the register negatively testified that there had been no marriage, and
upon the register, in law, must rest the onus of proof. Had there been
positive evidence, not negative, of the abstraction of the leaf from the
register, had the register itself afforded such, the aspect of affairs
would have been very different. Mr. Mynn testified that on the 2nd day
of December he had looked and could find no trace of the marriage in the
register: it was certainly evident that it was not in now. When the
court rose that night, the trial had advanced down to the summing-up of
the judge, which was deferred till morning: but it was felt by everybody
that that summing-up would be dead against the client of Mr. Fauntleroy,
and that Squire Carr had gained the cause.
The squire, and his son Valentine, and Mynn and Mynn, and one or two of
the lesser guns of the bar, but not the great gun, Serjeant Siftem, took
a late dinner together, and drank toasts, and were as merry and
uproarious as success could make them: and Westerbury, outside, echoed
their sentiments--that 'cute old Fauntleroy had not a leg to stand upon.
'Cute old Fauntleroy--'cute enough, goodness knew, in general--was
thinking the same thing, as he took a solitary chop in his own house:
for he did not get home until long past the dinner-hour, and his
daughters were out. After the meal was finished, he sat over the fire in
a dreamy mood, he scarcely knew how long, he was so full of vexation.
The extraordinary revelation, that the disputed marriage had taken place
at St. James the Less, and lain recorded all those years unsuspiciously
in the register, with the still more extraordinary fact that it had been
mysteriously taken out of it, electrified Westerbury. The news flew from
one end of the city to the other, and back again, and sideways, and
everywhere.
But not until late in the evening was it carried to Peter Arkells.
Cookesley, the second senior of the school, went in to see Henry, and
told it; and then, for the first time, Henry found that the abstraction
of the leaf had reference to the great cause--Carr versus Carr.
"Will Mrs. Carr lose her verdict through it?" he asked of Cookesley.
"Of course she will. There's no proof of the leaf's having been taken
out. If they could only prove that, she'd gain it; and very unjust it
will be upon her, poor thing! We had such a game in school!" added
Cookesley, passing to private interests. "Wilberforce was at the court
all the afternoon, giving evidence; and Roberts wanted to domineer over
us upper boys; as if we'd let him! He was so savage."
Cookesley departed. Henry had his head down on the table: Mrs. Arkell
supposed it ached, and bade him go to bed. He apparently did not hear
her; and presently started up and took his trencher.
"Where are you going?" she asked, in surprise.
"Only to Prattleton's. I want to speak to George."
"But, Henry----"
Remonstrance was useless. He had already gone. Prattleton senior came to
the door to him.
"George? George is at Griffin's; Griffin has got a bachelor's party.
Whatever do you want with him? I say, Arkell, have you heard of the row
in school this morning? The dean came in about that medal business--what
a fool Aultane junior was for splitting!--and St. John spoke about one
of the fellows having been at Rutterley's on Saturday, trying to pledge
a spoon with the Aultane crest upon it: he didn't say actually the crest
was the Aultanes', or that the fellow was Aultane, but his manner let us
know it. Wasn't Aultane in a way! He said afterwards that if he had had
a pistol ready capped and loaded, he should have shot himself, or the
dean, or St. John, or somebody else. Serve him right for his false
tongue! There'll be an awful row yet. I know I'd shoot myself, before
I'd go and peach to the dean!"
But Prattleton was wasting his words on air. Henry had flown on to
Griffin's--the house in the grounds formerly occupied by Mr. and Mrs.
Lewis. The Reverend Mr. Griffin was the old minor canon, with the
cracked voice, and it was his son and heir who was holding the
bachelor's party. George Prattleton came out.
There ensued a short, sharp colloquy--Henry insisting upon being
released from his promise; George Prattleton, whom the suggestion had
startled nearly out of his senses, refusing to allow him to divulge
anything.
"She'll not get her cause," said Henry, "unless I speak. It will be
awfully unjust."
"You'll just keep your tongue quiet, Arkell. What is it to you? The Carr
folks are not your friends or relatives."
"If I were to let the trial go against her, for the want of telling the
truth, I should have it on my conscience always."
"My word!" cried George Prattleton, "a schoolboy with a conscience! I
never knew they were troubled with any."
"Will you release me from my promise of not speaking?"
"Not if you go down on your knees for it. What a green fellow you are!"
"Then I shall speak without."
"You won't," cried Prattleton.
"I will. I gave the promise only conditionally, remember; and, as things
are turning out, I am under no obligation to keep it. But I would not
speak without asking your consent first, whether I got it or not."
"I have a great mind to carry you by force, and fling you into the
river," uttered Prattleton, in a savage tone.
"You know you couldn't do it," returned Henry, quietly: "if I am not
your equal in age and strength, I could call those who are. But there's
not a moment to be lost. I am off to Mr. Fauntleroy's."
Henry Arkell meant what he said: he was always resolute in _right_: and
Prattleton, after a further confabulation, was fain to give in. Indeed
he had been expecting nothing less than this for the last hour, and had
in a measure prepared himself for it.
"I'll tell the news myself," said George Prattleton, "if it must be
told: and I'll tell it to Mr. Prattleton, not to Fauntleroy, or any of
the law set."
"I must go to Mr. Prattleton with you," returned Henry.
"You can wait for me out here, then. We are at whist, and my coming out
has stopped the game. I shan't be more than five minutes."
George Prattleton retreated indoors, and Henry paced about, waiting for
him. He crossed over towards the deanery, and came upon Miss Beauclerc.
She had been spending an hour at a neighbouring house, and was returning
home, attended by an old man-servant. Muffled in a shawl and wearing a
pink silk hood, few would have known her, except the college boy. His
heart beat as if it would burst its bounds.
"Why, it's never you!" she cried. "Thank you, Jacob, that will do," she
added to the servant. "Don't stand, or you'll catch your rheumatism; Mr.
Arkell will see me indoors."
The old man turned away with a bow, and she partially threw back her
pink silk hood to talk to Henry, as they moved slowly on to the deanery
door.
"Were you going to call upon us, Harry?"
"No, Miss Beauclerc. I am waiting for George Prattleton. He is at
Griffin's."
"Miss Beauclerc!" she echoed; "how formal you are to-night. I'd not be
as cold as you, Henry Arkell, for the whole world!"
"I, cold!"
He said no more in refutation. If Georgina could but have known his real
feelings! If she could but have divined how his pulses were beating, his
veins coursing! Perhaps she did.
"Are you better? What a fall you had! And to faint after it!"
"Yes, I think I am better, thank you. It hurt my head a little."
"And you had been annoyed with those rebellious school boys! You are not
half strict enough with the choristers. I hope Aultane will get a
flogging, as Lewis did for locking you up in St. James's Church. I asked
Lewis the next day how he liked it: he was so savage. I think he'd
murder you if he could: he's jealous, you know."
She laughed as she spoke the last words, and her gay blue eyes were bent
on him; he could discern them even in the dark, obscure corner where the
deanery door stood. Henry did not answer: he was in wretched spirits.
"Harry, tell me--why is it you so rarely come to the deanery? Do you
think any other college boy would dare to set at nought the dean's
invitations--and mine?"
"Remembering what passed between us one night at the deanery--the audit
night--can you wonder that I do not oftener come?" he inquired.
"Oh, but you were so stupid."
"Yes, I know. I have been stupid for years past."
Miss Beauclerc laughed. "And you think that stopping away will cure
you?"
"It will not cure me; years will not cure me," he passionately broke
forth, in a tone whose anguish was irrepressible. "Absence and _you_
alone will do that. When I go to the university----" He stopped, unable
to proceed.
"When you go to the university you will come back a wise man. Henry,"
she continued, changing her manner to seriousness, "it was the height of
folly to suffer yourself to care for me. If I--if it were reciprocated,
and I cared for you, if I were dying of love for you, there are barriers
on all sides, and in all ways."
"I am aware of it. There is the barrier between us of disparity of
years; there is a wide barrier of station; and there is the greatest
barrier of all, want of love on your side. I know that my loving you has
been nothing short of madness, from the first: madness and double
madness since I knew where your heart was given."
"So you will retain that crotchet in your head!"
"It is no crotchet. Do you think my loving eyes--my jealous eyes, if you
so will it--have been deceived? You must be happy, now that he has come
back to Westerbury."
"Stupid!" echoed Miss Beauclerc.
"But it has been your fault, Georgina," he resumed, reverting to
himself. "I _must_ reiterate it. You saw what my feelings were becoming
for you, and you did all you could to draw them on; you may have deemed
me a child then in years; you knew I was not, in heart. They might have
been checked in the onset, and repressed: why did you not do it? why did
you do just the contrary, and give me encouragement? You called it
flirting; you thought it good sport: but you should have remembered that
what is sport to one, may be death to another."
"This estrangement makes me uncomfortable," proceeded Miss Beauclerc,
ignoring the rest. "Papa keeps saying, 'What is come to Henry Arkell
that he is never at the deanery?' and then I invent white stories, about
believing that your studies take up your time. I miss you every day; I
do, Henry; I miss your companionship; I miss your voice at the piano; I
miss your words in speaking to me. But here comes your friend George
Prat, for that's the echo of old Griffin's door. I know the different
sounds of the doors in the grounds. Good night, Harry: I must go in."
She bent towards him to put her hand in his, and he--he was betrayed out
of his propriety and his good manners. He caught her to his heart, and
held her there; he kissed her face with his fervent lips.
"Forgive me, Georgina," he murmured, as she released herself. "It is the
first and the last time."
"I will forgive you for this once," cried the careless girl; "but only
think of the scandal, had anybody come up: my staid mamma would go into
a fit. It is what _he_ has never done," she added, in a deeper tone.
"And why your head should run upon him I cannot tell. Mine doesn't."
Henry wrung her hand. "But for him, Georgina, I should think you cared
for me. Not that the case would be less hopeless."
Miss Beauclerc rang a peal on the door-bell, and was immediately
admitted--whilst Henry Arkell walked forward to join George Prattleton,
his heart a compound of sweet and bitter, and his brain in a mazy dream.
But we left Mr. Fauntleroy in a dream by the side of his fire, and by no
means a pleasant one. He sat there he did not know how long, and was at
length interrupted by one of his servants.
"You are wanted, sir, if you please."
"Wanted now! Who is it?"
"The Rev. Mr. Prattleton, sir, and one or two more. They are in the
drawing-room, and the fire's gone out."
"He has come bothering about that tithe case," grumbled Mr. Fauntleroy
to himself. "I won't see him: let him come at a proper time. My
compliments to Mr. Prattleton, Giles, but I am deep in assize business,
and cannot see him."
Giles went out and came in again. "Mr. Prattleton says they must see
you, sir, whether or no. He told me to say, sir, that it is about the
cause that's on, Carr and Carr."
Mr. Fauntleroy proceeded to his drawing-room, and there he was shut in
for some time. Whatever the conference with his visitors may have been,
it was evident, when he came out, that for him it had borne the deepest
interest, for his whole appearance was changed; his manners were
excited, his eyes sparkling, and his face was radiant.
They all left the house together, but the lawyer's road did not lie far
with theirs. He stopped at the lodgings occupied by Serjeant Wrangle,
and knocked. A servant-maid came to the door.
"I want to see Serjeant Wrangle," said Mr. Fauntleroy, stepping in.
"You can't sir. He is gone to bed."
"I must see him for all that," returned Mr. Fauntleroy.
"Missis and master's gone to bed too," she added, by way of remonstrance.
"I was just a-going."
"With all my heart," said Mr. Fauntleroy. "I must see the serjeant."
"'Tain't me, then, sir, that'll go and awaken him," cried the girl.
"He's gone to bed dead tired, he said, and I was not to disturb him till
eight in the morning."
"Give me your candle," replied Mr. Fauntleroy, taking it from her hand.
"He has the same rooms as usual, I suppose; first floor."
Mr. Fauntleroy went up the stairs, and the girl stood at the bottom, and
watched and listened. She did not approve of the proceedings, but did
not dare to check them; for Mr. Fauntleroy was a great man in
Westerbury, and their assize lodger, the serjeant, was a greater.
Tap--tap--tap: at Serjeant Wrangle's door.
No response.
Tap--tap--tap, louder.
"Who the deuce is that?" called out the serjeant, who was only dignified
in his wig and gown. "Is it you, Eliza? what do you want? It's not
morning, is it?"
"'Tain't me, sir," screamed out Eliza, who had now followed Mr.
Fauntleroy. "I told the gentleman as you was dead tired and wasn't to be
woke up till eight in the morning, but he took my light and would come
up."
"I must see you, Serjeant," said Mr. Fauntleroy.
"See me! I'm in bed and asleep. Who the dickens is it?"
"Mr. Fauntleroy. Don't you know my voice? Can I come in?"
"No; the door's bolted."
"Then just come and undo it. For, see you, I must."
"Can't it wait?"
"If it could I should not have disturbed you. Open the door and you
shall judge for yourself."
Serjeant Wrangle was heard to tumble out of bed in a lump, and undo the
bolt of the door. Eliza concluded that he was in his night attire, and
modestly threw her apron over her face. Mr. Fauntleroy entered.
"The most extraordinary thing has turned up in Carr versus Carr," cried
he. "Never had such a piece of luck, just in the nick of time, in all my
practice."
"Do shut the door," responded Serjeant Wrangle; "I shall catch the
shivers."
Mr. Fauntleroy shut the door, shutting out Eliza, who forthwith sat down
on the top stair, and wished she had ten ears. "Have you not a
dressing-gown to put on?" cried he to the serjeant.
"I'll listen in bed," replied the serjeant, vaulting into it.
A whole hour did that ill-used Eliza sit on the stairs, and not a
syllable could she distinguish, listen as she would, nothing but an
eager murmuring of voices. When Mr. Fauntleroy came out, he put the
candle in her hand and she attended him to the door, but not in a
gracious mood.
"I thought you were going to stop all night, sir," she ventured to say.
"Dreadful dreary it was, sitting there, a-waiting."
"Why did you not wait in the kitchen?"
"Because every minute I fancied you must be coming out. Good night,
sir."
"Good night," returned Mr. Fauntleroy, putting half-a-crown in her hand.
"There; that's in case you have to wait on the stairs for me again."
Eliza brightened up, and officiously lighted Mr. Fauntleroy some paces
down the street, in spite of the gas-lamp at the door, which shone well.
"What a good humour the old lawyer's in!" quoth she. "I wonder what his
business was? I heard him say something had arose in Carr and Carr."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SECOND DAY.
Tuesday morning dawned, and before nine o'clock the Nisi Prius court was
more densely packed than on the preceding day: all Westerbury--at least,
as many as could push in--were anxious to hear his lordship's summing
up. At twenty-eight minutes after nine, the javelins of the sheriff's
men appeared in the outer hall, ushering in the procession of the
judges.
The senior judge proceeded to the criminal court; the other, as on the
Monday, took his place in the Nisi Prius. His lordship had his notes in
his hand, and was turning to the jury, preparatory to entering on his
task, when Mr. Serjeant Wrangle rose.
"My lord--I must crave your lordship's permission to state a fact,
bearing on the case, Carr versus Carr. An unexpected witness has arisen;
a most important witness; one who will testify to the abstraction from
the register; one who was present when that abstraction was made. Your
lordship will allow him to be heard?"
Serjeant Siftem, and Mynn and Mynn, and Squire Carr and his son
Valentine, and all who espoused that side, looked contemptuous daggers
of incredulity at Serjeant Wrangle. But the judge allowed the witness to
be heard, for all that.
He came forward; a remarkably handsome boy, at the stage between youth
and manhood. The judge put his silver glasses across his nose and gazed
at him: he thought he recognised those beautiful features.
"Swear the witness," cried some official.
The witness was sworn.
"What is your name?" demanded Serjeant Wrangle.
"Henry Cheveley Arkell."
"Where do you reside?"
"In Westerbury, near the cathedral."
"You are a member of the college school and a chorister, are you not?"
interposed the judge, whose remembrance had come to him.
"A king's scholar, my lord, and senior chorister."
"Were you in St. James's Church on a certain night of last November?"
resumed Serjeant Wrangle.
"Yes. On the twentieth."
"For how long? And how came you to be there?"
"I went in to practise on the organ, when afternoon school was over, and
some one locked me in. I was there until nearly two in the morning."
"Who locked you in?"
"I did not know then. I afterwards heard that it was one of the senior
boys."
"Tell the jury what you saw."
Henry Arkell, amidst the confused scene, so unfamiliar to him, wondered
which was the jury. Not knowing, he stood as he had done before, looking
alternately at the examining counsel and the judge.
"I went to sleep on the singers' seat in the organ-gallery, and slept
until a noise awoke me. I saw two people stealing up the church with a
light; they turned into the vestry, and I went softly downstairs and
followed them, and stood at the vestry door looking in."
"Who were those parties?"
"The one was Mr. George Prattleton; the other a stranger, whose name I
had heard was Rolls. George Prattleton unlocked the safe and gave Rolls
the register, and Rolls sat down and looked through it: he was looking a
long while."
"What next did you see?"
"When George Prattleton had his back turned to the table, I saw Rolls
blow out the light. He pretended it had gone out of itself, and asked
George Prattleton to fetch the matches from the bench at the entrance
door. As soon as George Prattleton had gone for them, a light reappeared
in the vestry, and I saw Rolls place what looked to be a piece of thick
pasteboard behind one of the leaves, and then draw a knife down it and
cut it out. He put the leaf and the board and the knife into his pocket,
and blew out the candle again.
"Did George Prattleton see nothing of this?"
"No. He was gone for the matches, and when he came back the vestry was
in darkness, as he had left it. 'Nothing risk, nothing win; I thought I
could do him,' I heard Rolls say to himself."
"After that?"
"After that, when Mr. George Prattleton came back with the matches,
Rolls lighted the candle and continued to look over the register, and
George Prattleton grumbled at him for being so long. Presently Rolls
shut the book and hurrahed, saying that it was not in, and Mr.
Prattleton might put it up again."
"Did you understand what he meant by 'it.' Can you repeat the words he
used?"
"I believe I can, or nearly so, for I have thought of them often since.
'It's not in the register, Prattleton,' he said. 'Hurrah! It will be
thousands of pounds in our pockets. When the other side brought forth
the lame tale that there was such an entry, we thought it a bag of
moonshine.' I think that was it."
"What next happened?"
"I saw Rolls hand the book to George Prattleton, and then I went down
the church as quietly as I could, and found the key in the door and got
out. I hid behind a tombstone, and I saw them both come from the church,
and Mr. George Prattleton locked it and put the key in his pocket. I
heard them disputing at the door, when they found it open; Rolls accused
George Prattleton of unlocking the door when he went to get the matches;
and George Prattleton accused Rolls of having neglected to lock it when
they entered the church."
"Meanwhile it was you who had unlocked it, to let yourself out?"
"Yes. And I was in too great a hurry, for fear they should see me, to
shut it after me."
"A very nicely concocted tale!" sneered Serjeant Siftem, after several
more questions had been asked of Henry, and he rose to cross examine.
"You would like the court and jury to believe you, sir?"
"I hope all will believe, who hear me, for it is the truth," he
answered, with simplicity. And he had his wish; for all did believe him;
and Serjeant Siftem's searching questions, and insinuations that the
fancied George Prattleton and Rolls were nothing but ghosts, failed to
shake his testimony, or their belief.
The next witness called was Roland Carr Lewis, who had just come into
court, marshalled by the second master. A messenger, attended by a
javelin man, had been despatched in hot haste to the college schoolroom,
demanding the attendance of Roland Lewis. Mr. Roberts, confounded by
their appearance, and perplexed by the obscure tale of the messenger,
that "two of the college gentlemen, Lewis and another, was found to have
had som'at to do with the theft from the register, though not, he
b'lieved, in the way of thieving it theirselves," left his desk and his
duties, and accompanied Lewis. The head master had been in court all the
morning.
"You are in the college school," said Serjeant Wrangle, after Lewis was
sworn, and had given his name.
"King's scholar, sir, and third senior," replied Lewis, who could
scarcely speak for fright; which was not lessened when he caught sight
of the Dean of Westerbury on the bench, next the judge.
"Did you shut up a companion, Henry Cheveley Arkell, in the church of
St. James the Less, one afternoon last November, when he had gone in to
practise on the organ?"
Lewis wiped his face, and tried to calm his breathing, and glared
fearfully towards the bench, but never spoke.
"You have been sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, sir, and you must do so," said the judge, staring at his ugly
face, through his glasses. "Answer the question."
"Y--es."
"What was your motive for doing so?" asked Serjeant Wrangle.
"It was only done in fun. I didn't mean to hurt him."
"Pretty fun!" ejaculated one of the jury, who had a timid boy of his own
in the college school, and thought how horrible might be the
consequences should he get locked up in St. James's Church.
"How long did you leave him there?"
"I don't know. I took back the key to the clerk's, and the next morning,
when we went to let him out, he was gone."
"Who is 'we?' Who was with you?" cried Serjeant Wrangle, catching at the
word.
"Mr. George Prattleton. He was at the clerk's in the morning, and I told
him about it, and asked him to get the key, for Hunt would not let me
have it. So he was coming with me to open the church; but Hunt happened
to say that Arkell had just been to his house. He had got out somehow."
When this witness, after a good deal of badgering, was released,
Serjeant Siftem, a bright thought having occurred to him, desired that
the Reverend Mr. Wilberforce might get into the witness-box. The
Reverend Mr. Wilberforce did so; and the serjeant began, in an
insinuating tone:
"The witness, Henry Cheveley Arkell, is under your tuition in the
collegiate school, I assume?"
"He is," sternly replied Mr. Wilberforce, who had not forgotten Serjeant
Siftem's insult of the previous day.
"Would you believe him on his oath?"
"On his oath, or without it."
"Oh, you would, would you?" retorted the Serjeant. "Schoolboys are
addicted to romancing, though."
"Henry Arkell is of strict integrity. His word may be implicitly
trusted."
"I can bear testimony to Henry Arkell's honourable and truthful nature,"
spoke up the dean, from his place beside the judge. "His general conduct
is exemplary; a pattern to the school."
"Henry Cheveley Arkell," roared out the undaunted Serjeant Siftem,
drowning the dean's voice. "I have done with _you_, Mr. Wilberforce." So
the master left the witness-box, and Henry re-entered it.
"I omitted to put a question to you, Mr. Chorister," began Serjeant
Siftem. "Should you know this fabulous gentleman of your imagination,
this Rolls, if you were to see him?"
"Yes," replied Henry. "I saw him this morning as I came into court."
That shut up Serjeant Siftem.
"Where did you see him?" inquired the judge.
"In the outer hall, my lord. He was with Mr. Valentine Carr. But I am
not sure that his name is Rolls," added the witness. "When I pointed him
out to Mr. Fauntleroy, he was surprised, and said that was Richards,
Mynn and Mynn's clerk."
The judge whispered a word to somebody with a white wand, who was
standing near him, and that person immediately went hunting about the
court to find this Rolls or Richards, and bring him before the judge.
But Rolls had made himself scarce ere the conclusion of Henry Arkell's
first evidence; and, as it transpired afterwards, decamped from the
town. The next witness put into the box was Mr. George Prattleton.
"You are aware, I presume, of the evidence given by Henry Cheveley
Arkell," said Serjeant Wrangle. "Can you deny that part of it which
relates to yourself?"
"No, unfortunately I cannot," replied George Prattleton, who was very
down in the mouth--as his looks were described by a friend of his in
court. "Rolls is a villain."
"That is not evidence, sir," said the judge.
"He is a despicable villain, my lord," returned the witness, giving way
to his injured feelings. "He came to Westerbury, pretending to be a
stranger, and calling himself Rolls, and I got acquainted with him; that
is, he scraped acquaintance with me, and we were soon intimate. Then he
began to make use of me; he asked if I would do him a favour. He wanted
to get a private sight of the register in St. James's Church. So I
consented, I am sorry to say, to get him a private sight; but I made the
bargain that he should not copy a single word out of it, and of course I
meant to be with him and watch him."
"Did you know that his request had reference to the case of Carr versus
Carr?" inquired Serjeant Wrangle.
"No, I'll swear I did not," retorted the witness, in an earnest tone,
forgetting, probably, that he was already on his oath. "He never told me
why he wanted to look. He would go in at night: if he were seen entering
the church in the day, it might be fatal to his client's cause, was the
tale he told; and I am ashamed to acknowledge that I took him in at
night, and suffered him to look at the register. I have heard to-day
that his name is Richards."
"You knew where the key of the safe was kept?"
"Yes; I was one day in the church with the Reverend Mr. Prattleton, and
saw him take it from its place."
"Did you see Rolls (as we will call him) abstract the leaf?"
"Of course I did not," indignantly retorted the witness. "I suddenly
found the vestry in darkness, and he got me to fetch the matches, which
were left on the bench at the entrance door. It must have been done
then. Soon after I returned he gave me back the register, saying the
entry he wanted was not there, and I locked it up again. When we got to
the church door we were astonished to find it open, but----"
"But did you not suspect it was opened by one who had watched your
proceedings," interrupted the judge.
"No, my lord. Rolls left the town the next morning early; when I went to
find him he was gone, and I have never been able to see him since.
That's all I know of the transaction, and I can only publicly repeat my
deep regret and shame that I should have been drawn into such a one."
"Drawn, however, without much scruple, as it appears," rebuked the
judge, with a severe countenance. "Allow me to ask you, sir, when it was
you first became acquainted with the fact that a theft had been
perpetrated on the register?"
Mr. George Prattleton did not immediately answer. He would have given
much not to be obliged to do so: but the court wore an ominous silence,
and the judge waited his reply.
"The day after it took place, Arkell, the college boy, came and told me
what he had seen, but----"
"Then, sir, it was your duty to have proclaimed it, and to have had
steps taken to arrest your confederate, Rolls," interrupted the stern
judge.
"But, my lord, I did not believe Arkell. I did not indeed," he added,
endeavouring to impart to his tone an air of veracity, and therefore--as
is sure to be the case--imparting to it just the contrary. "I could not
believe that Rolls, or any one else in a respectable position, such he
appeared to occupy, would be guilty of so felonious an action."
"The less excuse you make upon the point, the better," observed the
judge.
For some few minutes Serjeant Siftem and his party had been conferring
in whispers. The serjeant, at this stage, spoke.
"My lord, this revelation has come upon my instructors, Mynn and Mynn,
with, the most utter surprise, and----"
"The man, Rolls, or Richards, is really clerk to Mynn and Mynn, I am
informed," interrupted the judge, in as significant a tone as a
presiding judge permits himself to assume.
"He was, my lord; but he will not be in future. They discard him from
this hour. In fact, should he not make good his escape from the country,
which it is more than likely he is already endeavouring to effect, he
will probably at the next assizes find himself placed before your
lordship for judgment, should you happen to come this circuit, and
preside in the other court. But Mynn and Mynn wish to disclaim, in the
most emphatic manner, all cognizance of this man's crime. They----"
"There is no charge to be brought against Mynn and Mynn in connexion
with it, is there?" again interposed the judge.
"Most certainly not, my lord," replied the counsel, in a lofty tone,
meant to impress the public ear.
"Then, Brother Siftem, it appears to me that you need not take up the
time of the court to enter on their defence."
"I bow to your lordship's opinion. Mynn and Mynn and their client,
Squire Carr, are not less indignant that so rascally a trick should have
been perpetrated than the public must be. But this evidence, which has
come upon them in so overwhelming a manner, they feel they cannot hope
to confute. I am therefore instructed to inform your lordship and the
jury, that they withdraw from the suit, and permit a verdict to be
entered for the other side."
"Very good," replied the judge.
And thus, after certain technicalities had been observed, the
proceedings were concluded, and the court began to empty itself of its
spectators. For once the RIGHT had prospered. But Westerbury held its
breath with awe when it came to reflect that it was the revengeful act
of Roland Carr Lewis, that locking up in the church, which had caused
his family to be despoiled of the inheritance they had taken to
themselves!
The Reverend Mr. Wilberforce laid hold of Henry Arkell, as he was
leaving the Guildhall. "Tell me," said he, but not in an angry tone,
"how much more that is incomprehensible are you keeping secret, allowing
it to come out to me piecemeal?"
Henry smiled. "I don't think there is any more, sir."
"Yes, there is. It is incomprehensible why you should not have disclosed
at the time all you had been a witness to in the church. Why did you
not?"
"I could not speak without compromising George Prattleton, sir; and if I
had, he might have been brought to trial for it."
"Serve him right too," said Mr. Wilberforce.
Presently Henry met the dean, his daughter, Frederick St. John, and Lady
Anne. The dean stopped him.
"What do you call yourself? A lion?"
Henry smiled faintly.
"I think you stand a fair chance of being promoted into one. Do you know
what I wished to-day, when you were giving your evidence?"
"No, sir."
"That you were my own son."
Henry involuntarily glanced at Georgina, and she glanced at him: her
face retained its calmness, but a flush of crimson came over his. No one
observed them but Mr. St. John.
"I want you at the deanery to-night," continued the dean, releasing
Henry. "No excuse about lessons now: your fall on Sunday has given you
holiday. You will come?"
"Yes, sir."
"I mean to dinner--seven o'clock. The judges will be there. The one who
tried the cause said he should like to meet you. Go and rest yourself
until then."
"Thank you, sir. I will come."
Georgina's eyes sparkled, and she nodded to him in triumph a dozen
times, as she walked on with the dean.
Following in the wake of the dean's party came the Rev. Mr. Prattleton.
Henry approached him timidly.
"I hope you will forgive me, sir. I could not help giving my evidence."
"Forgive you!" echoed Mr. Prattleton; "I wish nobody wanted forgiveness
worse than you do. You have acted nobly throughout. I have recommended
Mr. George to get out of the town for a while; not to remain in it in
idleness and trouble my table any longer. He can join his friend Rolls
on the continent if he likes: I understand he is most likely off
thither."
The fraud was not brought home to the Carr family. It was indisputably
certain that the squire himself had known nothing whatever of it: had
never even been aware that the marriage was entered on the register of
St. James the Less. Whether his sons Valentine and Benjamin were equally
guiltless, was a matter of opinion. Valentine solemnly protested that
nothing had ever been told to him; but he did acknowledge that Richards
came to him one evening, and said he thought the cause was likely to be
imperilled by "certain proceedings" that the other side were taking. He,
Valentine Carr, authorized him to do what he could to counteract these
proceedings (only intending him to act in a fair manner), and gave him
carte blanche in a moderate way for the money that might be required. He
acknowledged to no more: and perhaps he had no more to acknowledge:
neither did he say _how much_ he had paid to Richards. Benjamin treated
the whole matter with contempt. The most indignant of all were Mynn and
Mynn. Really respectable practitioners, it was in truth a very
disagreeable thing to have been forced upon them; and could they have
got at their ex-clerk, they would willingly have transported him.
And Mr. Fauntleroy, in the flush of his great victory, in the plenitude
of his gratitude to the boy whose singular evidence had caused him to
win the battle, went down that same day to Peter Arkell's and forgave
him the miserable debt that had so long hampered him. For once in his
life, the lawyer showed himself generous. People used to say that such
was his nature before the world hardened him.
So, taking one thing with another, it was a satisfactory termination to
the renowned cause, Carr versus Carr.
It was a large state dinner at the deanery. But the chief thing that
Henry Arkell saw at it was, that Mr. St. John sat by Georgina Beauclerc.
The judges--who did not appear in their wigs and fiery gowns, to the
relief of private country individuals of wide imaginations, that could
not usually separate them--were pleasant men, and their faces did not
look so yellow by candle-light. They talked to Henry a great deal, and
he had to rehearse over, for the general benefit, all the scene of that
past night in St. James's Church. Mrs. Beauclerc, usually so
indifferent, was aroused to especial interest, and would not quit the
theme; neither would Lady Anne St. John, now visiting at the Palmery,
and who was present with Mrs. St. John.
But Georgina--oh, the curious wiles of a woman's heart!--took little or
no notice of Henry. They had been for some time in the drawing-room
before she came near him at all--before she addressed a word to him. At
dinner she had been absorbed in Mr. St. John: gay, laughing, animated,
her thoughts, her words, were all for him. Sarah Beauclerc, conspicuous
that night for her beauty, sat opposite to them, but St. John had not
the opportunity of speaking to her, beyond a passing word now and again.
In the drawing-room, no longer fettered--though perhaps the fetters had
been willing ones--St. John went at once to Sarah, and he did not leave
her side. Ah! Henry saw it all: both those fair girls loved Frederick
St. John! What would be the ending?
Georgina sat at a table apart, reading a new book, or appearing to read
it. Was she covertly watching that sofa at a distance? It was so
different, this sitting still, from her usual restless habits of
flitting everywhere. Suddenly she closed her book, and went up to them.
"I have come to call you to account, Fred," she began, speaking in her
most familiar manner, but in a low tone. "Don't you see whose heart you
are breaking?"
He had been sitting with his head slightly bent, as he spoke in a
whisper to his beautiful companion. Her eyes were cast down, her fingers
unconsciously pulled apart the petals of some geranium she held; her
whole attitude bespoke a not unwilling listener. Georgina's salutation
surprised both, for they had not seen her approach. They looked up.
"What do you say?" cried St. John. "Breaking somebody's heart? Whose?
Yours?"
She laughed in derision, flirting some of the scent out of a golden
phial she had taken up. "Sarah, _you_ should have more consideration,"
she continued. "It is all very well when Lady Anne's not present, but
when she _is_--There! you need not go into a flaming fever and fling
your angry eyes upon me. Look at Sarah's face, Mr. St. John."
Mr. St. John walked away, as though he had not heard. Sarah caught hold
of her cousin.
"There is a limit to endurance, Georgina. If you pursue this style of
conversation to me--learnt, as I have repeatedly told you, from the
housemaids, unless it is inherent," she added, in deep scorn--"I shall
make an appeal to the dean."
"Make it," said Georgina, laughing. "It was too bad of you, Sarah, with
his future wife present. She'll go to bed and dream of jealousy."
Quitting her cousin, she went straight up to Henry Arkell. "Why do you
mope like this?" she cried.
"Mope!" he repeated.
He had been at another table leaning his head upon his hand. It was
aching much: and he told her so.
"Oh, Harry, I am sorry; I forgot your fall. Will you sing a song?"
"I don't think I can to-night."
"But papa has been talking to the judges about it. I heard him say your
singing was worth listening to. I suppose he had been telling them all
about you, and the whole romance, you know, of Mrs. Peter Arkell's
marriage, for one of them--it was the old one--said he used to be
intimate with her father, Colonel Cheveley. Here comes the dean! that's
to ask you to sing."
He sat down at once, and sang a song of the day. Then he went on to one
that I dare say you all know and like--"Shall I, wasting in despair." At
its conclusion one of the judges--it was the old one, as Georgina
irreverently called him--came to him at the piano, and asked if he could
sing Luther's Hymn.
A few chords by way of prelude, lasting some few minutes, probably
played to form a break between the worldly song and the sacred one--for
if anyone was ever endowed with an innate sense of what was due to
sacred things, it was Henry Arkell--and then the grand old hymn, in all
its beautiful simplicity, burst upon their ears. Never had it been done
greater justice to than it was by that solitary college boy. The room
was hushed to stillness; the walls echoed with the sweet sounds; the
solemn words thrilled on the listeners' hearts, and the singer's whole
soul seemed to go up with them. Oh, how strange it was, that the judge
should have called for that particular, sacred song!
The echoes of it died away in the deepest stillness. It was broken by
Henry himself; he closed the piano, as if nothing else must be allowed
to come after that; and the tacit mandate was accepted, and nobody
thought of inquiring how he came to assume the liberty in the dean's
house.
Gradually the room resumed its humming and its self-absorption, and
Georgina Beauclerc, under cover of it, went up to him.
"How could you make the excuse that your head was aching? None, with any
sort of sickness upon them, could sing as you have just done."
"Not even with heart sickness," he answered.
"Now you are going to be absurd again! What do you mean?"
"To-night has taught me a great deal, Georgina. If I have been foolish
enough--fond enough, I might say--to waver in my doubts before, that's
over for ever."
"So much the better; you will be cured now."
She had spoken only lightly, not meaning to be unkind or unfeeling; but
she saw what she had done, by his quivering lip. Leaning across him as
he stood, under cover of showing him something on the table, she spoke
in a deep, earnest tone.
"Henry, you know it could never be. Better that you should see the truth
now, than go on in this dream of folly. Stay away for a short while if
you will, and overget it; and then we will be fast friends as before."
"And this is to be the final ending?"
She stole a glance round at him, his voice had so strange a sound in it.
Every trace of colour had faded from his face.
"Yes; it is the only possible ending. If you get on well and become
somebody grand, you and I can be as brother and sister in after life."
She moved away as she spoke. It may be that she saw further trifling
would not do. But even in the last sentence, thoughtlessly though she
had spoken it, there was an implied consciousness of the wide difference
in their social standing, all too prominent to that sensitive ear.
A minute afterwards St. John looked round for him, and could not see
him.
"Where's Henry Arkell?" he asked of Georgina.
She looked round also.
"He is gone, I suppose," she answered. "He was in one of his stupid
moods to-night."
"That's something new for him. Stupid?"
"I used the word in a wide sense. Crazy would have been better."
"What do you mean, Georgina?"
"He is a little crazy at times--to me. There! that's all I am going to
tell you: you are not my father confessor."
"True," he said; "but I think I understand without confession. Take
care, Georgina."
"Take care of what?"
"Of--I may as well say it--of exciting hopes that are most unlikely to
be realized. Better play a true part than a false one."
She laughed a little saucy laugh.
"Don't you think I might turn the tables and warn you of that? What
false hopes are you exciting, Mr. St. John?"
"None," he answered. "It is not in my nature to be false, even in
sport."
Her laugh changed to one of derision; and Mr. St. John, disliking the
sound, disliking the words, turned from her, and joined the dean, who
was then deep in a discussion with one of the judges.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
The days went on; and the dull, heavy pain in the head, complained of by
Henry Arkell, increased in intensity. At first his absence from his desk
at school, his vacant place at college, excited comment, but in time, as
the newness of it wore off, it grew to be no longer noticed. It is so
with all things. On the afternoon of the fall, the family surgeon was
called in to him: he saw no cause for apprehension, he said; the head
only required rest. It might have been better, perhaps, had the head
(including the body and brain) been able to take the recommended rest;
but it could not. On the Monday morning came the excitement of the medal
affair, as related to him by Mr. St. John, and also by many of the
school; in the evening there occurred the excitement of that business of
the register; the interview with the Prattletons, and subsequently with
Mr. Fauntleroy. On the next day he had to appear as a witness; and then
came the deanery dinner in the evening and Georgina Beauclerc. All
sources of great and unwonted excitement, had he been in his usual state
of health: what it was to him now, never could be ascertained.
As the days went on, and the pain grew no better, but worse, and the
patient more heavy, it dawned into the surgeon's mind that he possibly
did not understand the case, and it might be as well to have the advice
of a physician. The most clever the city afforded was summoned, and he
did not appear to understand it either. That there was some internal
injury to the head, both agreed; but what it might be, it was not so
easy to state. And thus more days crept on, and the doctors paid their
regular visits, and the pain still grew worse; and then the
half-shadowed doubt glided into a certainty which had little shadow
about it, but stern substance--that the injury was rapidly running on to
a fatal issue.
He did not take to his bed: he would sit at his chamber window in an
easy chair, his poor aching-head resting on a pillow. "You would be
better in bed," everybody said to him. "No, he thought he was best up,"
he answered; "it was more change: when he was tired of the chair and the
pillow, he could lie down outside the bed." "It is unaccountable his
liking to be so much at the window," Mrs. Peter Arkell remarked to Lucy.
To them it might be; for how could they know that a sight of _one_ who
might pass and cast a glance up to him, made his day's happiness?
That considerable commotion was excited by the opinion of the doctors,
however cautiously intimated, was only to be expected. Mr. Arkell heard
of it, and brought another physician, without saying anything beforehand
at Peter's. But it would seem that this gentleman's opinion did not
differ in any material degree from that of his brethren.
The Reverend Mr. Wilberforce sat at the head of his dinner-table, eating
his own dinner and carving for his pupils. His face looked hot and
angry, and his spectacles were pushed to the top of his brow, for if
there was one thing more than another that excited the ire of the
master, it was that of the boys being unpunctual at meals, and Cookesley
had this day chosen to be absent. The second serving of boiled beef was
going round when he made his appearance.
"What sort of behaviour do you call this, sir?" was the master's
salutation. "Do you expect to get any dinner?"
"I am very sorry to be so late, sir," replied Cookesley, eyeing the
boiled beef wishfully, but not daring to take his seat. "I went to see
Arkell, and----"
"And who is Arkell, pray, or you either, that you must upset the
regulations of my house?" retorted the master. "You should choose your
visiting times better, Mr. Cookesley."
"Yes, sir. I heard he was worse; that's the reason I went; and when I
got there the dean was with him. I wait
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