Chapter V: The Good French Governess (10)

Oliver was eager to explain. "Do you know, Howard," said he, "how all this came about? Do you know your aunt's gone to Bow-street, and has taken the mulatto woman with her, and Mr. Russell is gone with her? and she thinks--and _I_ think--she'll certainly have her jewels, her grandmother's jewels, that were left in Jamaica."

"How? but how?" exclaimed Howard.

"Why," said Oliver, "by the toothpick-case. The reason I chose that toothpick-case out of the Jew's box was, because it came into my head, the minute I saw it, that the mulatto woman's curious thimble--you remember her thimble, Howard--would just fit one end of it. I ran home and tried it, and the thimble screwed on as nicely as possible; and the chasing, as Mr. Russell said, and the colour of the gold, matched exactly. Oh! Mrs. Howard was so surprised when we showed it to her--so astonished to see this toothpick-case in England; for it had been left, she said, with all her grandmother's diamonds and _things_, in Jamaica."

"Yes," interrupted Howard; "I remember my aunt told us, when you asked her about Cuba's thimble, that she gave it to Cuba when she was a child, and that it belonged to some old trinket.--Go on."

"Well, where was I?--Oh, then, as soon as she saw the toothpick-case, she asked how it had been found; and I told her all about the lottery and Mr. Carat; then she and Mr. Russell consulted, and away they went, with Cuba, in a coach; and all the rest you know; and I wish I could hear the end of it!"

"And so you shall, my good little fellow; we'll all go together to hear the Jew's examination: you shall go with me in my coach to Bow-street," said Alderman Holloway.

In the midst of their bustle, the poor stage-coachman, who had waited with uncommon patience in the hope that Alderman Holloway would at last recollect him, pressed forward, and petitioned to be paid his five guineas for the lost parcel.--"I have lost my place already," said he, "and the little goods I have will be seized this day, for the value of that unlucky parcel, master."

The alderman put his hand slowly into his purse; but just when he had pulled out five guineas, a servant came into the room, to inform Dr. B. that a sailor was waiting in the hall, who desired to speak, directly, about something of consequence, to the stage-coachman.

Dr. B., who imagined that the sailor might have something to do with the business in question, ordered that he might be shown into the room.

"I wants one Gregory Giles, a stage-coachman, if such a one be here amongst ye, gentlefolks, and nobody else," cried the sailor, producing a parcel, wrapped up in brown paper.

"It's my very parcel!" exclaimed the stage-coachman. "I am Gregory Giles! God bless your honest heart!--Where did ye find it?--Give it me!"

The sailor said he had found it in a dry ditch on the Bath road, a little beyond the first turnpike, going out of town; that he had inquired at the turnpike-house; had heard that the stage had been overturned a few days before, and that a parcel had been lost, about which the coachman had been in great trouble; that he had gone directly to the inn where the coach put up; had traced the coachman from place to place; and was heartily glad he had found him at last.

"Thank'ee, with all my heart," said the coachman, "for all the trouble you've been at; and here's the crown reward that I offered for it, and my thanks into the bargain."

"No, no," said the honest sailor, pushing back the money; "I won't take any thing from a poor fellow like myself: put your silver into your pocket: I hear you lost your place already by that parcel. There was a great talk at the turnpike-house about your losing your place, for giving some young gentleman a lift.--Put up your money."

All present were eager in rewarding the honest sailor.

A hackney-coach was now come to the door for Mr. Carat, and every body hurried off as fast as possible.

"Where are they all steering to?" said the sailor. The stage-coachman told him all that he had heard of the matter. "I'll be in their wake, then," cried the sailor; "I shall like to see the Jew upon his court-martial; I was choused once by a Jew myself." He got to Bow-street as soon as they did.

The first thing Howard learned was, that the jewels, which had been all found at Mr. Carat's, precisely answered the description which his aunt had given of them. The Jew was in the utmost consternation: finding that the jewels were positively sworn to, he declared, upon his examination, that he had bought them from a captain of a ship; that he had paid the full value for them; and that, at the time he purchased them, he had no suspicion of their having been fraudulently obtained. This defence appearing evidently evasive, the magistrates who examined Mr. Carat informed him, that, unless he could produce the person from whom he had bought the jewels, he must be committed to Newgate for receiving stolen goods. Terrified at this sentence, the Jew, though he had at first asserted that he knew nothing of the captain from whom he had received the diamonds, now acknowledged that he actually lodged at his house.

"Hah!" exclaimed Holloway: "I remember, the day that I and Lord Rawson called at your house, you were settling accounts, your foreman told us, with a captain of a ship, who was to leave England in a few days: it's well he's not off."

An officer was immediately sent to Mr. Carat's in quest of this captain; but there were great apprehensions that he might have escaped at the first alarm of the search for the jewels. Fortunately, however, he had not been able to get off, as two constables had been stationed at Mr. Carat's house. The officer from Bow-street found him in his own bed-chamber, rummaging a portmanteau for some papers, which he wanted to burn. His papers were seized, and carried along with him before the magistrate.

Alderman Holloway knew the captain the moment he was brought into the room, though his dress and whole appearance were very different from what they had been when he had waited upon the alderman some months before this time, with a dismal, plausible story of his own poverty and misfortunes. He had then told him that his mate and he had had a quarrel, upon the voyage from Jamaica; that the mate knew what a valuable cargo he had on board; that just when they got in sight of land, the crew rose upon him; the mate seized him, and by force put him into a boat, and set him ashore.

The discovery of the jewels at Mr. Carat's at once overturned the captain's whole story: cunning people often insert something in their narration to make it better, which ultimately tends to convict them of falsehood. The captain having now no other resource, and having the horrors of imprisonment, and the certainty of condemnation upon a public trial, full before him, threw himself, as the only chance that remained for him, upon Mrs. Howard's mercy; confessed that all that he had told her before was false; that his mate and he had acted in concert; that the rising of the crew against him had been contrived between them; that he had received the jewels, when he was set ashore, for his immediate share of the booty; and that the mate had run the ship off to Charlestown, to sell her cargo. According to agreement, the captain added, he was to have had a share in the cargo; but the mate had _cheated him_ of that; he had never heard from him, or of him, he would take his oath, from the day he was set ashore, and knew nothing of him or the cargo.

"Avast, friend, by your leave," cried the honest sailor who had found the stage-coachman's parcel--"avast, friend, by your leave," said he, elbowing his way between Alderman Holloway and his next neighbour, and getting clear into the middle of the circle--"I know more of this matter, _my lord_, or please your worship, which is much the same thing, than any body here; and I'm glad on't, mistress," continued the tar, pulling a quid of tobacco out of his mouth, and addressing himself to Mrs. Howard: then turning to the captain, "Wasn't _she_ the _Lively Peggy_, pray?--it's no use tacking. Wasn't your mate one John Matthews, pray? Captain, your face tells truth, in spite of your teeth."

The captain instantly grew pale, and trembled: on which the sailor turned abruptly from him, and went on with his story. "Mistress," said he, "though I'm a loser by it, no matter. The Lively Peggy and her cargo are safe and sound in Plymouth, at this very time being, and we have her mate in limbo, curse him. We made a prize of him, coming from America, for he was under French colours, and a fine prize we thought we'd made. But her cargo belongs to a British subject; and there's an end to our prize money: no matter for that. There was an ugly look with Matthews from the first; and I found, the day we took her, something odd in the look of her stern. The rascals had done their best to paint over her name; but _I_, though no great scholar, made a shift to spell the Lively Peggy through it all. We have the mate in limbo at Plymouth: but it's all come out, without any more to do; and, mistress, I'll get you her bill of lading in a trice, and I give ye joy with all my heart."

Alderman Holloway, a man used to business, would not indulge himself in a single compliment upon this occasion, till he had cautiously searched the captain's papers. The bill of lading which had been sent with the Lively Peggy from Jamaica, was found amongst them; it was an exact list, corresponding precisely with that which Mrs. Howard's agent had sent her by post, of the consignment shipped after the sale of her plantation. The alderman, satisfied, after counting the puncheons of rum and hogsheads of sugar, turned to Mrs. Howard, and shook hands with her, with a face of mercantile congratulation, declaring that "she was now as good a woman as ever she had been, and need never desire to be better."

"My dear Oliver," cried Howard, "this is all owing to you: _you_ discovered--"

"No, no, no!" interrupted Oliver, precipitately: "all that I did was accident; all that you did was not accident. You first made me love you, by teaching me that I was not a blockhead, and by freeing me from--"

"_A tyrant_, you were going to say," cried Holloway, colouring deeply; "and, if you had, you'd have said the truth. I thought; Howard, _afterwards_, that you were a brave fellow for taking his part, I confess. But, Oliver, I thought you had forgiven me for all these things."

"Forgiven! Oh yes, to be sure," cried little Oliver; "I wasn't thinking of myself, or you either; I was only thinking of Howard's good nature; and then," continued he, "Howard was just as good to the mulatto woman as he was to me--wasn't he, Cuba?"

"That he was!" replied the poor woman; and, looking at Mrs. Howard, added, "Massa's _heart_ as good as hers."

"And his _head's_ as good as his heart, which makes it all better still," continued Oliver, with enthusiasm. "Mr. Russell, you know how hard he worked at that translation, to earn money to support poor Cuba, and to paper the room, and to pay the bricklayer _for_ the smoky chimney: these things were not done by accident, were they? though it was by accident that I happened to observe Cuba's curious thimble."

"There are some people," interrupted Mr. Russell, "who, by accident, never observe any thing. We will not allow you, Oliver, to call your quick habit of observation accident; your excellent capacity will--"

"_My_ excellent capacity," repeated Oliver, with unfeigned surprise: "why, you know, I get by rote slower than any body in the world."

"You may," said Dr. B., "notwithstanding, have an excellent capacity: much may be learned without books; much more with books, Oliver; but, for your comfort, you need not learn them by rote."

"I'm glad of it, heartily," cried Oliver; "but this put something out of my head that I was in a great hurry to say--O, one other thing about _accident_. It was not _accident_, but it was Howard's sense, in persuading me not to put into the lottery, that was the very cause of Dr. B.'s giving me the choice of all the things in the Jew's box--was it not?"

"Well, Oliver, we are ready to allow all you want us to perceive, in one word, that your friend Howard _has not been educated by accident_," said Dr. B., looking at Mrs. Howard.

The Jew and the captain of the Lively Peggy were now left in the hands of the law. The sailor was properly rewarded. Mr. Russell was engaged to superintend the education of Holloway. He succeeded, and was presented by the alderman with a living in Surrey. Mr. Supine never visited Italy, and did not meet with any consolation but in his German flute. Howard continued eager to improve himself; nor did he imagine that, the moment he left school, and parted from his tutor, his education was finished, and that his books were, "like past misfortunes," good for nothing but to be forgotten. His love for literature he found one of the first pleasures of his life; nor did he, after he came into the possession of a large fortune, find that his habits of constant occupation lessened his enjoyments, for he was never known to yawn at a window upon a rainy morning!

Little Oliver's understanding rapidly improved; his affection for his friend Howard increased as he grew up, for he always remembered that Howard was the first person who discovered that he was not a dunce. Mrs. Howard had the calm satisfaction of seeing an education well finished, which she had well begun; and she enjoyed, in her nephew's friendship, esteem, and unconstrained gratitude, all the rewards which her good sense, firmness, and benevolence had so well deserved.

ANGELINA; OR, L'AMIE INCONNUE.