Chapter VIII: Part 8

"Much use you would be, to be sure! I suppose you would teach him the last waltz step, and tell him how to flirt, you dog!"

"Oh, sir--you'll oblige me, Colonel, won't you? and do me this favour?"

"Well, I don't mind if I do, Tom. You are a young scamp I know, but I've a sort of liking for you, and I'll give you a letter of introduction to Sir Charles. But you must go up to London at once, for he'll be off in a day or two. I daresay you can catch him at that den of thieves, the Horse Guards, or else at his club."

"Oh I thank you, sir," said Tom, shaking the old veteran heartily by the hand. "Oh! thank you, Colonel; I'll never forget your kindness."

"There, there, my boy--take it easily. And now if you will kindly let me have my arm to myself, I will sit down and write you your letter at once, and also one to the commander-in-chief, which will facilitate your movements."

The Colonel then sat down and wrote as he promised; and Tom was off in a jiffey to London. In the joy of going off, he had for a moment forgotten Lizzie, only to remember her with a ten times greater fondness a moment or two later.

Being diligent in his explorations, Tom speedily found his new chief, who received him very cordially, and said how very glad he was to be able to do anything for the old Plunger veteran, from whom he had just come. Tom, to his great joy, was appointed one of the aides-de-camp of the general who was going off with the expeditionary force to Abyssinia. He was only just in time, however, for the places had all been filled up. Tom indeed owed his luck to the sudden illness of one of the officers already appointed.

What a wonderful thing that Abyssinian Expedition was! The world sees some queer changes in its time. Twenty-eight hundred and fifty years ago the Queen of Sheba paid her celebrated visit to King Solomon at Jerusalem, and here, so many centuries after, we have the children of the Gentiles and the inhabitants of the Isles of the West sallying out and getting them ready to battle against the descendants of the self-same King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba across the waters of the Red Sea.

Tom had very few days in which to prepare for his departure. It was now October, and he had to go by the overland route to India first, and then to sail from Bombay with the advance guard of the invading army.

His mother was very much vexed at his going away. She did not think he would have acted up to what he had threatened; but Tom had the same stubborn temper at bottom, and what he had said he would stick to, so she could not alter it. As she saw this she did not press him, for she knew it would be no use; his preparations were therefore rather hurried.

Tom, however, was not going to part from Lizzie in that way. He had rushed off that time in a passion, but he was not going to leave her so abruptly, and he went down again to the parsonage to make his peace in his own way.

The little conservatory witnessed many little tender scenes before the day of his departure came, although the time was but short for them to be acted in. Pringle had interposed scruples at first, but his calm course of ecstasy with the languid Laura made him somewhat more lenient than the campaigner, his future mother-in-law--the time was drawing on now--would have approved.

Tender little scenes of love these were in that romantic conservatory, which had witnessed all Tom's love-making and all his short happiness. Little repetitions and conjugations of the same verb _amo_ over and over again, with its present, and its past, and its future subjunctive tenses. Who has not lived and loved and can fill in all these details? Ah! how well remembered they are--the looks, the smiles, the tears, the joys, the sorrows, the ecstasies of love's young dream! Tom Moore was more eloquent on the subject than Goethe, who told--

Ich habe genossen das irdische Gluck;
Ich habe gelebt und geliebt,

Is not half so expressive as the Irish Catullus.

Fond hearts are severed however, if sometimes only for a time. Tom came down one day to the parsonage to take his last farewell. He had bidden adieu to his mother before. Lizzie he wanted to see last of all! She was the girl he left behind him.

It was very sad for the young lovers to part like this, just when they were beginning to know each other.

But perhaps it was for the best. With true love "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," with the article of dross the reverse proverb holds true. Perhaps as it is preferable to be able to know which is the real Simon Pure: a separation sometimes works well.

There is little good in dwelling on last words.

The parting was only for a time, as Tom fondly told Lizzie, trying to cheer her up.

One long embrace, one last kiss, and Tom was off. The young Dunois had sallied forth for the Orient, and Lizzie wept like Medora at the departure of Conrad the Corsair, thinking, if not exclaiming--

"And is he gone?" On sudden solitude
How oft that question will intrude!
"'Twas but an instant past, and here he stood!
And now"--without the portal's porch she rush'd,
And then her tears at length in freedom gush'd;
Big, bright, and fast, unknown to her they fell,
And still her lips refused to send "Farewell!"

Volume 2, Chapter XII.

COUNTER TRAPS.

Clara Kingscott, when Mrs Hartshorne sent her away from The Poplars in that ignominious manner, telling her she did not require her services any further, was more than half inclined not to prosecute her design against Markworth in revealing her share in inducing Susan to go away with him, out of pure spite against the old dowager.

"I'll make the old cat pay for it," she said to herself. "If I don't prove anything against Markworth she'll have to pay him all that money, and she shall too!"

But after some deliberation in the matter Miss Kingscott saw that she would, according to the proverb, "be biting off her nose to spite her face," and surrendering her long cherished revenge from a mere passing pique. It would never do; she thought she had been cold and calculating enough to achieve her purpose, and here she was going off at a tangent and sacrificing all she looked and hoped for these many years but for a petty loss of temper. No, she might be sent away from The Poplars, but she would still achieve that grand purpose of her life, and no regret at benefitting the harsh old woman she called her mistress should prevent her from ruining Markworth. That she had sworn, and would stick to.

She took some temporary satisfaction out of the old dowager by abusing her to her heart's content to her face, so astonishing that worthy lady, who had not had a person exchange retorts with her for years, that Miss Kingscott made her exit with flying colours just shortly before Tom started off for Abyssinia.

No one was very much grieved at her departure, except the old doctor, who said it was "A dooced shame sending away a poor girl like that, marm!" to the mistress of The Poplars, who told him in reply to mind his own business, and not to "be dancing to her house" any more, as he "had nothing and nobody to dance there for now, thank goodness!"

The doctor had held his peace, and went his way a wiser if a sadder man, saying unto himself, "Bless my soul! It's an infernal shame, and she's a dooced fine girl, and it's a great pity," after taking an affecting adieu of his late love, whom he commanded to have no scruples about writing to him in case she wanted any assistance. You see the old lady was present all the while, and the doctor could not repeat his declaration in her presence, however much he may have been tempted so to do.

In this manner Clara Kingscott went away, shaking the Sussex dust from her feet and came to London, The Poplars being left to its own solitude after Tom's departure, with the old dowager twice as cross and rancorous and grinding to her tenants as before. I believe she even missed the governess after a time, for now the old doctor hardly ever came, and she had no one to quarrel with; no one who would answer her back again that is, for "Garge" took all she gave him, as did the old women servant, and there is no fun in having the quarrelling all to oneself. It takes two to make a fair quarrel, but the poor old dowager had no one now but herself. She paid off, however, her deprivation on Mr Trump, writing long letters every day to him about the progress of the suit, and making the lawyer swear at old ladies in general and Mrs Hartshorne in particular, and curse the inventors of pen, ink, and paper, and Sir Rowland Hill for the penny post.

The governess, when she arrived in London, took some comfortable apartments for herself; she could afford to wait awhile, for she had plenty of money besides her salary, which latter she had rigorously exacted from the dowager to the last penny, including a month's notice, for which she gave a receipt in full, and she could afford to look about and suit her own convenience as to her future plans.

By a strange coincidence, she, after hunting about for a day or two, took lodgings in the very house where Markworth had formerly lived in Bloomsbury, and had the very same landlady, Mrs Martin, as hostess. That good lady being very fond of chat, like most landladies, and as "the parlours," as Miss Kingscott became called from taking these rooms, had no friends coming to see her, she would frequently drop in "of an evenink" to pass the time of day: also, like most landladies, Mrs Martin would recount all the deeds and doings of her former lodgers, in which narrative she did not fail to mention Mr Markworth, "The best gentleman as any lady ever had; so quiet and giving no trouble, and always paying his rent that regular as you might depend upon it like the Bank of England as ever was!"

It was not surprising under these circumstances, therefore, that Miss Kingscott soon got a little further information about the gentleman around whom she was busily weaving her coils, and learnt in a very short time--just through passing curiosity, that's all, she was so much interested in what that good Mrs Martin had to tell of her lodgers--all about the habits of Markworth, and that "sister" of his he had brought up from the country, and how he had removed all his things, and gone off at last without a word of warning; although "I'll do him the justice to say he behaved as a perfect gentleman, that he did, and paid a month's rent in advance," said Mrs Martin, which capped what the governess had got out of the old dowager, and placed the lodging-house keeper and herself on a par.

"Markworth _versus_ Hartshorne" was rapidly coming on for trial, when late one evening, just as he was thinking of shutting up his office, and going home for the night--the clerks, but one, had all departed an hour since--Mr Trump had a visitor.

"Ah, ha! Miss Kingscott, glad to see you," said the lawyer, rising from his chair as she entered. He was by himself, Sequence and the "Co." having retired for the evening, and he was then writing busily by the aid of a couple of greasy candles, which flared, now to the right, now to the left, from the draught through the half-open door. "Glad to see you; can I do anything for you? it's rather late, but never too late for business, you know!" And he rubbed his hands with a sort of congratulatory and metallic rub.

"Yes," answered the governess, speaking deliberately, in her cold, calm voice; "I wanted to speak to you, and that's the reason you see me here. You know, I suppose, that I have left Mrs Hartshorne's employment?"

"Yes--sorry for it too--hasty business; but you must remember the old lady is a leetel hasty sometimes, and I ought to know it as well as anybody."

"You are right, sir; she is too hasty sometimes, and was a little too much so for her own good very nearly: only that it serves my purpose to help her, I would not now be here. That case is very nearly coming on, is it not?"

"What, Markworth _versus_ Hartshorne? Yes; but I thought you were subpoenaed on the other side?"

"So I am, but I can help your side a good deal!"

"Indeed, Miss Kingscott! I do not like as a rule to tamper with an opponent's witness, but as they played so very sharply with us, I think we may stretch a point in the present instance." And the lawyer again rubbed his hands expectantly, waiting for what the governess had to say.

"Now, what I am going to tell you," continued Miss Kingscott, "I am going to disclose in confidence, and I wish you to pledge me your word-- I know you to be a gentleman, and I believe you to be a man of honour-- that not a particle of the information I give you is to be mentioned by you until the day the trial comes on, when, of course, you are welcome to make what use you please of it!"

"That's very strange, Miss Kingscott, very strange. I don't know what I might be binding myself to!"

"You will find nothing to reflect on you, sir," resumed the governess, "I shall be the only one who will suffer; and the very fact of my telling you what I will do will be a proof of its truthfulness and veracity. You can, in the meantime, substantiate anything I say by your own personal enquiry."

"It's very strange! very strange, indeed, madam! But I take your word for it, and will pledge myself as you require, excepting always," he added, with his legal acumen, "that it does not prejudice my future act on in the matter."

"It certainly will not; I shall want you to act!" said Miss Kingscott; and thereupon she told the astonished lawyer all about her complicity with Markworth, the compact between them, and how it was carried out.

"Dear me, this is very strange!" said the lawyer, when she had concluded. "You haven't got any document to show, have you, in proof of what you say?"

"No; only my word."

"Quite so! Quite so! What am I thinking of? Why, the very fact of your coming forward, and implicating yourself in the conspiracy will be proof enough."

The lawyer did not look on Miss Kingscott with the same deference that he had previously shown her. He eyed her somewhat askance, but he presently resumed his cross-examination.

"And you gave him the date of Susan's coming of age, eh!"

"Yes; I got it out of the family Bible. It was the 27th of August, I remember it well--just the day before they had the pic-nic--when he took Susan off."

"Humph! The 27th of August," said Mr Trump, reflectively, as he looked over a little document he had before him, at first carelessly, but in a moment or two more eagerly. "The 27th of August, eh--that's strange!" He continued to pore upon the mass of papers on his desk, and then he suddenly seized a large, old-fashioned volume that also lay before him. "The twenty-seventh, eh? Then, by George, Miss Kingscott, I'm a born idiot! Hurrah!" he shouted, rising, and dashing the volume to the other end of the room, as if he were taken suddenly mad, and quite alarming the governess, who hastily got up, and cried out--

"Mr Trump! Mr Trump! what is the matter, sir?"

"Matter, eh? Matter enough. I'm a born fool! Why that rascal married the girl before she came of age. She was not of age until the 29th of August; and, by George, the mistake in the figure will spoil every chance he had, and prevent the necessity of your services, or any trial at all!"

"Gracious! Mr Trump, is that really so, and it is only found out now?"

"Fact, madam. I'm a born idiot! Why, the whole thing could have been nipped in the bud at once; and none of us to have seen that thing which was glaring in our faces all the time, and going to let the case come on for trial! Dear! Dear! I'm a born idiot, madam, and so is Sequence, and we'd better now shut up shop!"

"And that will end the case at once?"

"Certainly, at once; why, he's got no right to claim anything now, as he will know very shortly, from the very wording of the will."

"I'm glad of it; but I should have liked mine to have been the hand to work his ruin."

"Very sorry, I'm sure, for your sake, madam; but you see we don't want your help now, although I should have been very glad to use it a minute or two ago! I shall write to that vagabond at once. He gave me an address at an hotel the other day, and he said he would stop there until the trial came on, in case we wanted to compromise, which, I confess, I once did. But now, hurrah! the rascal's done for without that. I shall be happy to see you any other time, Miss Kingscott; but I shall have to be very busy now, and if you will excuse me--yes--good evening, madam-- ah--" And the governess was bowed out.

Mr Trump, when he was by himself, gave vent to a long, congratulatory chuckle; after which he called out to his clerk, Smiffens, in the outer office, and told him all about it.

"By George, Smiffens! what fools we all have been to be sure. There was that plain evidence of the girl's birth, and the date of the marriage staring us in the face all the time, and not one of us perceived it! By George! Smiffens, what a fool I am!"

"Certainly, sir," answered the old clerk, meekly, his hair standing bolt upright as he spoke.

"Go to the devil, sir! What do you mean? Confound your impudence!"

"Certainly, sir," said Smiffens, in the same tone of voice as before; and he went towards the door, slowly.

"Stop!" sang out Mr Trump, who had not paused a moment writing all the time. "Here, copy these two letters, and deliver them before you go home. One is for Mr Markworth fixing an appointment for to-morrow morning, so be sure to tell the waiter or porter at the Tavistock, where he is staying, to be certain and give it to him to-night. The other letter is for Solomonson and Isaacs, which you can post."

The clerk did as he was bidden; and Mr Trump went off to his suburban home very well satisfied with his day's work. No cause now or need for any witnesses or evidence, or for the praiseworthy exertions of Sergeants Thickhyde and Silvertong. The suit of "Markworth _versus_ Hartshorne" was quashed ere yet it had begun.

Volume 2, Chapter XIII.

THE BITER BIT.

The lawyer's letter surprised him somewhat, but Markworth had no fears or presentiment of what was the motive or would be the upshot of the missive.

"Ha!" he thought, "they want to compromise, do they? It's rather late in the day for that, and they won't catch me with any chaff. But I may as well go round and see what they are after."

At eleven o'clock precisely, the hour they had fixed for the interview, Markworth tapped at the half-open green baize door which led into the outer office of Messrs. Trump, Sequence and Co.'s chambers in Bedford Row.

"Mr Trump in?" he asked of the old clerk, whose desk, surmounted by the mahogany face and head, with the grizzled hair standing upon end as if it had been electrified, faced the door.

"Yes, sir," answered that worthy, speaking through his shut lips, "Mr Trump and Mr Sequence both in. Yer name Markworth, b'lieve?"--and Markworth nodded--"Waiting to see you. Both in there!" pointing to the door of the inner office, where, on entering, our friend found the lawyers arranged in state, one on each side of a table, covered with papers and a wrinkled parchment folio, endorsed on the outside, "Last will and testament of Roger Hartshorne, deceased." Markworth took in all the preparations at a glance, the lawyers with their pleasant about-to-perform-an-operation expression of face, the paper-covered table, the will, the dentist-like looking easy chair, placed handily for him between the solicitors, exposing him to their fire on either flank, and all.

"Aha! Good morning, Mr Markworth. Fine day," said Mr Trump; and "Aha! Good morning, Mr Markworth. Fine day," echoed Mr Sequence after him, as customary, in his feeble treble.

"Good morning," he answered, "You sent for me, eh?"

"We sent for you, Mr Markworth, because," said Mr Trump, smiling and rubbing his hands gleefully, as he always did before plunging into his subject. "We sent for you, Mr Markworth, because," said the echo, without any smile, however, or rubbing of hands.

"Because what, sir?" exclaimed Markworth, turning round abruptly on poor little Sequence, who of course had not a word to say for himself until his principal gave him the cue.

Mr Trump came gallantly to the rescue.

"We sent for you, Mr Markworth, because we wished to have some conversation on the subject of the case put down for the present term of Markworth _versus_ Hartshorne. We represent the defendant, as you know."

"Certainly, Mr Trump; but don't you think you had better consult my solicitor, as the matter is entirely out of my hands?"

"Hum! I think you'll agree with us after hearing what we have to say, that the communication which we have to make had better be addressed to you in the first instance."

"You wish to compromise the thing, I suppose?"

"Pray don't be so hasty, my _dear_ sir," responded Trump, still smiling affably.

And "My _dear_ sir!" chimed in Sequence, as usual.

"We don't suppose anything, and we don't pledge or commit ourselves to anything. Don't be so hasty, my _dear_ sir; it's very unprofessional, _very_ unprofessional."

And "Very unprofessional," squeaked Sequence.

"I wish you would come to the point at once!" said Markworth, angrily.

Mr Trump at once dropped his professional smile. Glancing his eyes carelessly over a paper before him, and taking up the will, he spoke out in a straight, business-like manner, while Mr Sequence sat himself bolt upright in his chair, and tried to look very stern and pre-occupied indeed.

"You are aware," said Mr Trump, looking Markworth full in the face, "that the late Roger Hartshorne, deceased"--he smacked out his adjectives with an oily gusto, did Mr Trump--"Deceased;" he repeated the word as if loth to abandon it, "left his daughter Susan the sum of twenty thousand pounds sterling, free of legacy duty, to be inherited by her on her arriving at the age of twenty-one years; or, should she marry before arriving at the said age of twenty-one years, and after she had attained the age of eighteen years, _providing_ that the said marriage should be sanctioned, and by the express will and consent of her mother, if alive, or in case of her death by an appointed guardian, a certain Doctor Richard Jolly, as mentioned in the will of the Testator, then and in such case she was to receive the annual interest at the rate of five per cent, per annum, chargeable on the property of the Testator, until she should arrive at the said age of twenty-one years, when she would be put in possession of all right, title, and interest whatever in the said sum of twenty thousand pounds, free of legacy duty. I believe that's the wording of the will?"

"My dear sir," interrupted Markworth, blandly, "what on earth are you repeating all that legal gibberish to me for? I knew all that long ago."

"I've no doubt, sir, no doubt of _that_. You are a man of the world, Mr Markworth, like myself, and you'll pardon my hinting that you probably took a glance at this self-same will before committing yourself in the matrimonial noose with our rustic young friend. Ha! ha!"

And Mr Trump laughed a taking, "good joke" sort of laugh. So genial was he, in fact, that Markworth could not help joining in the laugh, and thought himself a very smart and clever fellow indeed.

"You're a sharp fellow, Mr Trump," he said roguishly, giving Mr Trump a metaphorical poke in the ribs.

"A sharp fellow! a sharp fellow!" chorused Mr Sequence; and the three were all at once laughing cordially together, as friendly as you please.

What charming agreeable fellows dentists are: what capital jokes they make, and what highly seasoned anecdotes they retail just before drawing out a tooth.

Mr Trump was now going to produce his pliers; he had had them concealed in the professional way up his sleeve all this time.

"Pardon me, Mr Markworth," he said, all at once, when the chuckle had died out, turning grave and business-like once more. "Pardon me, but what I was reading from that will has a good deal to do with what I am now going to say. Supposing that I admitted for argument's sake, only as a mere figure of speech so to say, that Susan Hartshorne when she married you was perfectly sane, and was not coerced into the measure against her will?"

"Ha! you admit that."

"I don't admit it at all, my dear sir; I only used it just for mere argument's sake."

"That, Mr Trump, is just the question we are going to try, and I flatter myself our case is very good; you have got to prove that she was insane, and it seems incomprehensible to me how you are going to do it against the evidence we have--that of her governess and people who had seen her before the marriage--indeed we will have her own evidence in the witness-box. I don't see how, Mr Trump, you will be able to prove a conspiracy after that. Besides, we will produce her medical attendant and guardian, as you term him, Doctor Jolly."

"Ah! that was sharp practice subpoenaing him! I give you great credit for that stroke, Mr Markworth; but allow me to say we are not arguing the case now."

"And I don't see how I can come into any compromise so late in the day, Mr Trump! We have the whole thing as clear as a pikestaff, and you won't have a leg to stand upon when it is brought into court."

"Humph! we'll see," ejaculated the senior partner, and "we will see," followed Mr Sequence, parrot-like, after him. "But I did not make any allusion to such a thing as a compromise, Mr Markworth," continued Mr Trump.

"Then what have you brought me here for? I will wish you good morning," he said, rising, and taking up his hat to go, angrily.

"Stay! Don't be so hasty; pray don't be so hasty, Mr Markworth; you may be certain that I would not have asked you to call unless I had something important to communicate," said Mr Trump, soothingly.

"Then, why don't you get to it at once, instead of beating about the bush," he answered, still only half appeased, and resuming his seat in the dentist-like chair.

"I am just coming to the point, my dear sir, just coming to that; but, you see, we must speak of things in a professional way."

"Certainly, in a professional way," said Mr Sequence, nodding his head sagaciously, as if in confirmation of Mr Trump's remark; while Markworth twirled his hat impatiently between his fingers, and wondered what "those two rogues were after now!"

"By the terms of the will of the late Roger Hartshorne, deceased," resumed Mr Trump, unctiously, "without exactly phrasing it in legal language, Mr Markworth, you will see that, putting the question of Susan Hartshorne's sanity or insanity, as I said before, entirely out of the argument--and that remains to be proved"--he said, significantly, "if she married you without her mother's consent before she was twenty-one years of age, she forfeited all right and claim to the bequest mentioned in her father's will."

"Quite right, and I thought we settled all that before," responded Markworth, knowingly. He continued, as if in response to a question from the lawyer. "Quite right, Mr Trump. But you see, I took very good care that the happy day on which I called her mine should not be until after the date on which she came of age;" and Markworth laughed very heartily. Strange to say, neither Mr Trump nor his partner joined in the laugh this time; both of them looked more stolid and parchmenty than ever. The senior of the firm went on straight to the point.

"That is just the question we have to decide, Mr Markworth."

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I say," answered Mr Trump, calmly. "That's the point," said Mr Sequence; and both looked at their subject composedly--just like dentists!

"What the devil do you mean? staring at me like that," said Markworth, angrily, and turning pale with apprehension. "What pettifoggery are you raking up now? I'm not to be frightened easily."

"We are not pettifoggers, Mr Markworth, and have no wish to intimidate you or any other person; but the date of your marriage, or quasi-marriage"--Mr Trump corrected himself--"with the girl has got a good deal to do with us, and you too."

"Go on, man, go on, and say all you've got to say without any more unnecessary words. By Heavens! I can't bear all this talking."

Mr Trump went on systematically inserting the forceps, without paying any attention to the excitement of the other.

"The date of your marriage was--?"

"You know well enough. Have you not got the copy of the marriage certificate?"

"The 28th of August, I believe?"

"Right," said Markworth, curtly. "And what then?"

"The date of your marriage, you allow then, with Susan Hartshorne, was on the twenty-eighth of last August; and, my dear sir, she did not come of legal age until the 29th of August, the day after the marriage." Mr Trump could not refrain from putting an inflection of triumph in his voice, as with a mental twist of his wrist he extracted the metaphorical tooth. Even Mr Sequence gave vent to a faint chuckle, without, however, disturbing a single line in his immobile face, as he squeaked out in a sort of victorious way, "The day after the marriage; the day after, my dear sir--" the longest sentence he had ever yet been known to utter.

"By heavens! it can't be--it can't be. It's an infernal swindle," exclaimed Markworth, violently, his face flaming with passion, as he jumped up; and, seizing the lawyer by the collar, he shook him as a terrier would a rat; "it can't be; it's a confounded swindle!"

Mr Trump remained as calm as ever under this unexpected assault; but as for little Sequence he hedged himself into the corner by the window, having his chair and the table as a sort of barricade before him.

Markworth recovered himself in a moment.

"I beg your pardon, Mr Trump," he said, apologising; "I forgot myself; what was it that you said?"

"Pray don't mention it, my dear sir--my dear sir. I shan't bring any action for assault and battery. You see, my dear sir,"--Trump got very affectionate here, as he had just played his winning card--"we are accustomed to these little emotions now and then. But to return to what I was saying, Mr Markworth, it is a very unfortunate circumstance for you; the son Tom was born on the 27th August, 1847, and Susan, the daughter, on the 29th August, '46, and your mistake probably thus arose; but I can't help feeling glad on my clients behalf, that your marriage took place the day before Susan Hartshorne came of age. Consequently you must admit it, as she did not marry with her mother's consent, the marriage being, indeed, after an elopement, and our client, being ready to prove that it was entirely without her consent or knowledge, Susan Hartshorne--as your wife--has forfeited all right to the twenty thousand pounds mentioned in her father's will."

Markworth seemed to be quite dazed. This sudden blow to all his expectations quite unnerved him. He spoke absently, as if in a dream.

"Have you got the proofs?" he said abruptly; for he knew all the consequences which his oversight would entail. "Where are the papers?"

"Here is the certificate of her birth," said the lawyer, producing it as he spoke, "dated the 29th August, 1846. Here is also the written evidence of her mother, Mrs Hartshorne, and here, too, the old Family Bible, with the date and entry of her birth inscribed in it, by the hand of the late Squire Roger Hartshorne, as I myself can testify. Quite sufficient evidence, Mr Markworth, in any court of law, to establish the date of Susan Hartshorne's birth, and the consequent failure of your little plan to get her fortune. Very unfortunate, Mr Markworth! Very unfortunate!"

And the lawyer rubbed his hands with triumph, and smiled as if he was telling his victim a piece of remarkably good news.

Markworth never took any notice of the lawyer's words. He examined eagerly the papers before him; and when he saw the convincing entry in the family Bible, he gave up. The figure 9 in the date "29th August," might easily have been taken for a 7, and he cursed Clara Kingscott for making the mistake, which she had very naturally made in this instance quite unintentionally, and without any thought as to the effects of the error.

He bore his defeat bravely, however, although all his schemes were thus dashed to the ground when they were trembling on the verge of success.

He knew at once that he had now no more chance of getting the fortune, for which he had risked so much, than the veriest beggar whom he might pick out of the street. He would have to leave England at once, or his next step would be into a gaol, on account of his debts: the harpies would be upon him the moment his failure was known. What on earth to do with himself, or with the girl he called his wife, whom he had tackled himself to, he did not know. The first thing, however, was to get away, and that as soon as possible.

"I suppose the suit will have to be dropped now, for I have no object in carrying it on. Good morning, gentlemen," he said, to the lawyers; "I suppose you don't want me any longer."

And he walked out of the office as calmly as if he had achieved a victory, although all his hopes and plans were utterly wrecked.

"He's a plucky fellow, and deserved to win," said Mr Trump to his partner, when Markworth had disappeared, and his steps were heard going down the staircase.

"That he is; that he did," responded parrot Sequence, and both dismissed him from their minds, and set about filing the necessary papers which would soon put an end to the longed talked of suit of "Markworth _versus_ Hartshorne."

Volume 2, Chapter XIV.

THE DOCTOR GOES ABROAD.

"Ait-choo!" sneezed the doctor one morning towards the end of October, when the weather was getting damp and misty, as he entered his comfortable breakfast parlour, where Deborah was sitting as usual before the fire darning her interminable stockings. I believe if you walked into that room at any hour of the day or night, you would always find her at the same task, darning stockings, and she always seemed to have the same stocking, a half grey and white one with plenty of holes about the heel, in her hand.

"Ait-choo!" sneezed the doctor again. "Bless my soul, Deb," he exclaimed, "I believe I have taken a cold. Confound it! Just what I might expect from toddling up to The Poplars last night on such a wild goose chase."

"Well, you know, Richard, you would go out, and you threw off that comforter I took the trouble to wrap round your neck."

"A lot of molly coddling! But you're a good soul, Deb. What an old catamaran that old woman is to be sure."

"Do you mean Mrs Hartshorne, Richard?"

"Bless my soul, Deb! Of course; who else should I mean? She's a regular old devil incarnate, and her temper, never very good, has got quite awful now. I wanted her to go according to Trump's advice; he's a sensible man, and told her to compromise that case. It will never stand in law, so Trump says; and it's better to give that rascal Markworth half the money now than expose the whole family, and have to give up the whole lot by and bye. Half a loaf is better than no bread, I say, and I would rather have it so for that poor girl's sake."

"And she won't do it, Richard?"

"The devil a scrap she says. Bless my soul, Deb! she won't hear of a compromise; she says she will see that rascal hanged first before he gets a penny of her money--and she's right, too, by Gad?"

"Oh! Richard, Richard!" said Pythias, warningly.

"Well, she did not use exactly that language, but she meant it. I tell you what I've a mind to do, Deb."

"What, Richard? Nothing rash I hope!" observed Deborah, with anxiety: she always looked upon her brother as a gay young fellow, who might suddenly rush off and commit some escapade, so she consequently was constantly on the tenter hooks of suspense. You see the doctor had a partiality for the fair sex. He was always fancying himself in love with every pretty young lady he came across, and innumerable were the frights Deborah had had in consequence. The doctor in fact was always committing himself, and only his universal _bonhomie_ saved him from breaches of promises without number. He would be sensible enough and hold his own with men, but with women he was a very child in their hands. Deborah looked upon everybody in petticoats as special tempters and snares set in the path of her brother. She thought he was irresistible: and it was therefore a wonder with all the chances he had had and the many very serious flirtations he had engaged in that he had not yet been caught. He had got over his partiality for Miss Kingscott, now that the charmer had gone away, not that I wish to accuse the doctor of heartless conduct, or of being a "gay deceiver." But to be in love was a chronic epidemic with him, and as Miss Kingscott was gone, he was in duty and of necessity bound to take up with someone else, Deborah knew that the doctor had of late been very attentive to a certain pretty little widow who had come down to stop at Bigton, and had called in the services of Aesculapius for some trifling nervous ailment--who knows what might come of it? The doctor had escaped often but he might be caught at last! The pitcher that often is carried scatheless to the well is broken in the end; so she was now in terror that the doctor was going to declare in his well-known manner that this pretty little widow was "a dooced fine girl!" and state that he was going to marry her. "Women are so designing; the artful wretches!" Pythias thought, "especially widows!" and she waited in nervous expectation to hear what Damon had "a mind to do!"

The doctor was in a thinking fit. He twirled his hat in his hands; and then that not being sufficient to conduce to reflection, he pulled out his bandana pocket-handkerchief and began to twist it round his fingers in all sorts of fanciful shapes.

"I tell you what I've a mind to do, Deb. I'm hanged if I don't go over to that foreign Frenchy place, and try and fetch Susan back myself! Tom has gone away, and I daresay he made a mull of it before, and the old woman won't do anything. I promised poor Roger Hartshorne to look after his children, and I'm hanged if I don't go over there and bring her back!"

Pythias was at once relieved in her mind. It was not that artful designing creature then that Damon had in her thoughts. "Indeed, Richard!" she said, "but it is a long journey, and do you think at your time of life you can stand it?" she, like most country people who have never stirred out of their native wilds, looked upon a journey to France as if it comprised the circumnavigation of the globe.

"Bosh, Deb! Why it's only a hundred and fifty miles or so from here to Havre, and I'll be back in a couple of days at most! It is right for me to go, and I can just manage now to get away for two or three days, for there's nobody ill and nothing doing; and that coal merchant fellow Dobbins, who came down here to set up for surgeon, can mind my practice for me. I'll go round and ask him this morning; he'll jump at the offer."

"Well, if you think you ought to go, you must I suppose; and it is better now than any other time."

"Of course I ought, and I will to, by Gad!" The doctor being a man of resolution, although he often did make hasty resolves, quickly settled his departure; and to the intense astonishment of everybody went away from Bigton for a week as he said, although he only intended to be away two days at the most, the whilom coal merchant Dobbins driving about in the doctor's chaise, which he seldom used himself unless the gout was very bad indeed, and making the most of his short resign until Aesculapius proper should come back to his own again.

Doctor Jolly had never stirred out of his native town, save of course on short excursions into the surrounding neighbourhood, for nearly a quarter of a century; not for twenty-five years, ever since the time when he went to London to walk the boards of Guy's Hospital, in order to acquire his medical education; and naturally such an expedition as the present was quite an era in his life.

But the doctor did not make "any bones" about it, as the popular expression runs. He packed up his traps in a small portmanteau; and after a very affecting farewell with Deborah, who fell upon his neck and embraced him, as if she were never going to see him again, telling him, "Take care of yourself, Richard! _Do_ take care of yourself!" to which he responded in his cheery voice, "God bless my soul! Deb, of course I will. God bless you!" he rubbed his eyes, which were glistening, with his horny fist, and blowing his nose vigorously with his bandana, the doctor went off on his travels.

He made his way safely to Havre, and got over all right with the exception of being fearfully sea-sick on the passage. Oh! the blessing of being thin! Fat men suffer the tortures of the direst days of the Inquisition when attacked by the fell _mal du mer_! while the Misters Slenders escaped scatheless.

He had some little difficulty with the gendarmes of the custom house and the hotel touts, the latter of whom struggled for the possession of his manly form; but he finally escaped after being taken summarily to a caravanserai, where he left his luggage, and shortly afterwards set about finding the abode of Susan and Markworth.

By some mistake or other he got carried off to the railway station, and was taken some miles on the road to Paris. A fellow countryman, however, convinced him of his mistake, and showed him how to get back again to Havre. By the time he got back, however, evening had set in, and he experienced the greatest difficulty in finding the direction of the Rue Montmartre, for, even after finding the direction in which it lay, he was still at fault. How he blessed the "frog eating race" as he called them.

As the doctor's knowledge of French was somewhat limited,--indeed, he only knew the word _oui_ which he pronounced "Ooo"--he found some difficulty in finding his way. However, by dint of continually bawling out in an extra stentorian voice "Roo Mount Martha," as he called it, to every passer-by whom he met, he at length reached the street of which he was in search.

It was some time before he got to the right number, as he would persist in asking, of course in English, for "Number-o'-seven," instead of _numero sept_. But in due course he arrived at the _logement_ of La Mere Cliquelle.

The door was opened by the husband of that good lady--it is curious how some men lose their individuality on getting married; they become mere nonentities--how often you hear a man described as Mrs So-and-So's husband. The doctor, thinking that by speaking his words very distinctly, and in a loud tone of voice, he could make any Frenchman understand English, acted on that plan.

"Is--Susan? Bless my soul! What the dooce am I thinking of?" interrupted the doctor to himself. He commenced anew. "Is--Missis-- Mark--worth--in?"

"Hein?" grunted the Frenchman, interrogatively.

The doctor repeated his question, only this time asking for "madam" instead of "mistress."

The Gaul's face brightened, and he looked more intelligent. "Ah-h! Yase! yase, yase, yase!" he said, nodding his head violently, "de madame? de Inglismans, hay?"

"Yes, yes! quite right," ejaculated the doctor. "I say you are quite right," bawling out the words at the top of his voice. "Confound these stupid French frogs," he muttered to himself; "why, they can't understand plain English! Is--she--you--know--who in?" And seeing that the Gaul liked to nod, he nodded his head until he grew quite apoplectic in the face.

"Non," said the Mere Cliquelle's husband. "Ze Inglisman's is go--vat you call it, eh? Ah, yase, is go oot."

"Oh! she's gone out, is she?"

"Ah-h! Yase! yase, yase!" nodded the M.C.'s husband.

"Do--you--know--when--she--will--come--back?"

The Frenchman looked puzzled for a moment, but with a foreigner's intuitive cleverness be guessed at the gist of the question. "Ah, yase! you vant to know _son retour_? Cee go walk mit monsieur. Cee go joost now _a huit heures_, and cee will retour byanby, _a neuf heures_, noine clock. _Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf_"--he said, counting on his fingers--"o'cloke!"

"Ooo!" said the doctor, giving a satisfied nod, "I understand, she will be back again at nine o'clock," holding up nine of his fingers in proof. "I--am--much--obliged--to--you,--I--will--come back again--at nine!"

"Ah-h, yase! Dat is raite. You will retour?"

"Yes, I'll come back again!" said the doctor, as he walked away, after both had bowed politely to each other, and the Gaul had entreated him to accept a hundred thousand assurances of his extreme subserviency.

"Confound those stoopid foreigners!" muttered the doctor, as he walked up the street in the direction of Ingouville, to pass the time. "Confound those stoopid foreigners! Why, that fellow could have said all that in half the time in English."

Volume 2, Chapter XV.

"END OF SECOND ACT."

The engulfment of the last straw on which he, the drowning man, had leant his weight, left Markworth without a single loophole of escape: he did not know where to turn.

The Jew, Solomonson, had not only advanced him the money required for carrying on the unsuccessful lawsuit, but he was largely indebted to him besides; and Solomonson, he knew, was a very Shylock, and although he might bow and smile, and be the best of friends, and most cordial of bankers, while things were going on right and he saw some prospect of getting his money back with a large "pershentage" in addition, still Markworth was equally well aware that the Jew would rigorously exact his pound of flesh as soon as he saw the game was up, and the cards exposed, and he would be the first one to come upon him for the three thousand pounds, for which he held his bill.

Markworth judged the child of Israel very rightly; and if he had not been a trifle earlier in the day in receiving that damming proof of the date of Susan's coming of age, its disagreement with the date of the marriage, and the consequent working of the clause in the will, and its effect on his claims, he would have found Mr Solomonson so anxious about his welfare, and considerate about his movements, that he might have discovered some slight check, in the shape of a _capias_, was placed in the way of any desire he might evince to leave the kingdom, and rejoin his wife. Messrs. Trump and Sequence had communicated with Markworth's lawyers at the same time as they had done with him, so the news would soon reach other ears which would be attentive enough to the information, and note its effects. He did not have a very long start in his advance news; still it was sufficient. That was something at all events, and he just managed to catch the tidal boat that night, and was soon on his way to that Alsatia on the other side, where debtors, unless their shortcomings are of a criminal nature, may laugh in safety at their creditors in England.

When Markworth was safely on board, and the steamer had ploughed through the muddy Southampton Water, and was dancing through the blue sea beyond, somewhat rough and leadeny at this season of the year, and the Southampton lights were far behind, his mind grew more composed, and he began to think over all that had happened.

"Dolt that I was," he said to himself, "not to have looked at that cursed register myself. In planning the whole scheme I neglected one of its most trifling, and yet most important points; and that has damned all! I see now how it all happened; the dates of Tom's and the girl's births came so close together, one on the 27th of August, and the other the 29th, that Clara jumbled the two together. The idiot! Curse her carelessness! But it was easy enough to mistake that 9 for a 7, and more fool I for trusting her! Curse my own folly! Treble fool, dolt, ass that I was! not to see to the thing myself!" He spoke out bitterly, looking out over the sea. "But I wonder how the devil it was those cursed lawyers and pettifoggers did not find out that mistake of the date before!" he added, afterwards, as if reflecting.

There was some cause for Markworth's wonderment at the lawyers' oversight, as the discovery was as much a surprise to them as it was to him. But such things do happen sometimes; and many an important case having large interests at stake, has been decided ere now on just such a similar point, which has never been discovered or brought to light until just before, or indeed after, the case has gone into court. In many instances the lawyers have been grubbing and searching far and wide for remote proofs and impossible witnesses, when some little, straightforward clue has been lying under their eyes all the time, without being seized upon and made use of, or even dreamt of.

In the case of Susan Hartshorne, the date of her marriage and her majority had been taken for granted to be coeval; and, indeed, there was so little difference in the date and in the figures, that some little allowance must be made for the palpable error of Trump, Sequence, and Co., which was only discovered just in time, as their case could never have been sustained in court for Susan could have proved her own sanity on Markworth's side.

That date only saved the dowager from having to pay over her daughter's inheritance; but Markworth would never have allowed that mistake in the date to have occurred if he had known at first, as he knew latterly, what a great effect it would have in the working of Roger Hartshorne's will.

When he went down that first time to Doctors' Commons he had read through the will carefully, but not carefully enough to understand the absolute forfeiture of Susan's inheritance if she married before the age of twenty-one without her mother's consent. Even when he had subsequently digested this fact, he had been so certain about the date that he had not given it an afterthought; and had, like Mrs Hartshorne's lawyers, thought that the only thing he had to prove was her sanity at the time she married him.