Chapter XXX: Little Lenny’s Enemy

Where the haters meet
In the crowded city’s horrible street.—BROWNING.

Pina was right in her surmises as to the manner of little Lenny’s abduction. And he really had been carried off by one of the two men whom she had detected in watching him.

And this necessitates the explanation of some circumstances, which, however, did not become known until some time afterward.

It not unfrequently happens that the heirs of an estate, or a title long held in abeyance and supposed to be extinct, are poor and obscure people, quite ignorant of their connection with, or right in such an inheritance.

The claim recently confirmed by the House of Lords is a case in point. The claim to the barony of Killcrichtoun is another.

Alexander Lyon was totally uninformed as to his right to the title and estate of Killcrichtoun until his visit to England and Scotland, when, in searching the records of his mother’s family, he discovered the facts that led to his subsequent action in claiming the barony.

But the investigations that ensued developed other facts, and brought forward other heirs, or rather one other, who would surely have been the heir had Alexander been out of existence.

This was a descendant of a younger sister of that ancestress through whom Alexander Lyon claimed the title.

The name of this man was Clarence Everage. He was that most to be pitied of all human creatures—a poor gentleman, with more children than means to support them; more mouths to feed than money to find food; more intellect than integrity; more refinement than firmness. A man now about thirty-five years of age, with a long, hopeless life before him; a man with some beauty of person, dignity of presence, and graciousness of manner; with sensitive feelings, and delicate tastes, and soft white hands; a man who loved fragrant baths and fresh linen every day; and cool, clean, quiet rooms to live in; and well-dressed, soft-speaking light-stepping people about him; and respect and attention and observance from all who came in contact with him; one who loving to be happy and comfortable himself, loved still more to make others happy and comfortable; one naturally more prone to confer favors than to ask them; more willing to give than to take; naturally rather vain than proud, sensitive than irritable, and weak than wicked.

And yet a man who had to live in mean lodgings in a small, dark house, in a narrow dirty street in the Strand, where in two musty stuffy rooms he crowded his wife, who was as refined and delicate as himself, and six little girls, who would have been beautiful had they not suffered so much from confined air, bad food and scant clothing.

His position really was not at fault. England, and especially London, is so fearfully overcrowded; the competition in all trades, professions and occupations is so hopelessly great.

He was an usher in a third-rate London school, and he had an income barely sufficient to support himself in comfort; and of course it will be said that he ought not to have married.

Ah! but Nature had fooled him in his youth as she fools so many. And yet I take that back. I will utter no such blasphemy against Holy Nature. No doubt Nature is always right, and it is always well that children should be born, even though they should suffer cruelly and die early, since they are born for the eternal life, through to which this earthly life is but a short, rough gateway, soon passed.

But without excusing themselves with any such hypothesis as this, the young man and young girl had followed Nature, taken the leap in the dark, and plunged head—no, _heart_ foremost, into their imprudent marriage. And the natural consequences ensued. The beautiful children came as unhesitatingly as if they were entering upon a heritage of wealth, health and happiness, instead of want, illness, and misery; and every year added to their number.

The wretched father groaned for himself and his wife.

But the gentle mother reminded him that Heaven, in afflicting them with lighter trials, had always spared them the one great trial that they never could be able to bear—namely, the loss of their children. Not one of the little ones had been taken from them. Each and all had fought valiantly and successfully through measles, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, and the rest; but whether _because_ of, or in _spite_ of the cheap quack medicines the impoverished parents poured down their throats, I cannot say.

It was when they were expecting their seventh child that Clarence Everage, who had been hunted out by Alexander Lyon and the lawyers, was suddenly called from his obscurity to bear witness in the investigation of Mr. Lyon’s claim to the Barony of Killcrichtoun.

It was but a link in the chain of evidence that he was to furnish. But any information he was expected to be able to give was as nothing compared to the tremendous revelation that was about to be made to himself.

He, the poor usher, starving in a miserable third-floor back in Wellington street, Strand—heir presumptive to a barony!—the ancient Barony of Killcrichtoun! And but for this intrusive foreigner actually Baron of Killcrichtoun himself. For be it remembered that Clarence Everage knew nothing whatever of Alexander Lyon’s wife and child.

The investigation, as you know, terminated in Alexander’s favor.

And this witness and self-styled heir presumptive was liberally remunerated and sent home to his poor lodgings, pale wife and pining children, to brood over the vicissitudes of this life—to brood until he, whose temper had through all his trials been sweet, kind and cheerful, became soured and embittered and sorely tempted.

What right, he asked himself, had this man—whose branch of the Killcrichtoun family had been self-expatriated for generations—to come over here and claim the ancient barony?

He was not a Scotchman, nor even an Englishman, that should he hold it.

And what good did it do him, after all?

Beyond the mere title, the new baron cared little for the inheritance. He had not even visited Killcrichtoun. While to him the poor usher, what a god-send, what a treasure, what a paradise it might have been. This estate which was nothing to the wealthy Virginian, would have been everything to himself.

_He_, had he possessed it, would have sold one-half the land to get funds to cultivate the other half. He would have pulled down the most ruinous parts of the castle to get materials to build up the better part of it. And he would have employed the starving tenants of the little hamlet in repairing his dwelling and tilling his ground, and a part of the wages he paid them would have come back to himself in the form of rents.

He, the despised usher, oppressed by master and chafed by pupils, would then be lord of the manor, with servants, and tenantry dependent upon him.

His poor wife, who was looked down upon by small shopkeepers and snubbed by her laundress, would be a baroness and “my lady.”

His pale little girls, bleached by the fogs of London, would grow strong and rosy on the bracing air of the Highlands.

All this would happen, if only he, and not this interloping American, were Baron of Killcrichtoun.

He brooded too constantly and profoundly over the advantages that must have accrued to him had he been the fortunate inheritor of Killcrichtoun, as might have happened had it not been for this interloping stranger who had no business in the country.

He felt a morbid interest in the foreigner who was so fortunate as to succeed to the title, and be able to disregard the small estate that came with it.

He took pains to learn as much as possible of Lord Killcrichtoun’s history. He was often in his lordship’s company, in streets and shops and other common ground where they could meet on equal terms. He talked much _to_ him and of him, and so learned more of his antecedents than was known to any one else out of the family in London.

He often met Alexander in his well-known haunts, walked with him, sat with him, and smoked with him. Occasionally, at Alick’s invitation, he ate and drank with him.

Why not? If Lord Killcrichtoun was unmarried, as he was generally supposed to be, then Clarence Everage was heir presumptive to the title and estate.

True, he knew that the present baron was some five or six years younger than himself, and in that view of the case there was little hope of the inheritance.

But, on the other hand, Alexander, like the generality of American men, was tall and lank, thin and sallow, with that appearance of ill-health which was not real, but which was greatly enhanced by the careworn and haggard expression of countenance which had characterized his face ever since his abandonment of Drusilla.

So, upon the whole, Clarence Everage, gazing gloomily upon Lord Killcrichtoun, thought the chances of his lordship’s death by consumption, and of his own accession to the title and estate, within a year or two, were very good.

“If only,” he said to himself, “the fool should not in the meantime marry and have an heir. That would make the case hopeless indeed.”

This anxiety lest Lord Killcrichtoun should marry and have an heir before death should claim him, so preyed upon the poor gentleman’s spirits that he watched over his lordship more carefully, and inquired about him more anxiously than ever.

In the places where they chanced to meet, he could neither see nor hear any sign of the misfortunes he dreaded. No one knew whether his lordship was meditating matrimony or not; no rumor of his contemplating conjugal life was afloat.

Of course the impoverished gentleman in his threadbare coat, limp linen and broken gloves, could not go into those circles from which Lord Killcrichtoun would be likely to select a bride; and so, though Everage in their mutual resorts learned nothing to alarm him, he was tormented with uneasiness as to what might be going on out of his sight in places from which his poverty excluded him.

He went into coffee-rooms, not to partake of the refreshments for which he could not pay, but to look at the fashionable news, longing to see at what dinners, dances, or conversaziones, he, who was keeping him out of his estate, had been seen, and fearing to find, under the head of “APPROACHING MARRIAGES IN HIGH LIFE,” some announcement of the calamity he so much dreaded—the impending marriage of the baron. But of course he never found anything of the sort.

“I hope the fellow has too much sense—yes, and too much conscience, to think of taking a wife. Men in his wretched state of health should never marry; for when they do, they always entail their infirmities upon any children they may happen to have,” said Everage, with virtuous emphasis; for his wish being father to his thought, he had fully persuaded himself that Alexander was in a very bad way—a doomed man, rushing with railroad rapidity to the grave.

“If he will only refrain from marriage for a year or two all will be well,” said Everage to himself, as visions, not of wealth, rank and grandeur, but simply of independence, respectability and comfort floated before his eyes.

Sitting in his small, stifling room, surrounded by his little pale girls and his invalid wife, breathing the heavy city air, he thought of Killcrichtoun that might yet soon be his own. He saw the forests of fragrant pine and feathery firs; the fields of oats and barley; the streams full of trout and salmon; the mountains with their game; the old tower with its cool rooms. He saw his wife and daughters blooming with health and smiling with happiness; he felt the bracing breezes of the Highlands fan his brow. Sitting in his stuffy little room, he saw and felt all this in a vision, and he longed and prayed, oh how earnestly, that this vision might yet be realized.

But a very great shock was at hand for him.

One day, while Lord Killcrichtoun and himself were walking on Trafalgar square, they met a nurse and child, with whom his lordship immediately stopped to speak.

At the very first sight of the child, Everage was struck with its unmistakable likeness to Lord Killcrichtoun. And when the baron took the boy in his arms, and hugged and kissed him with effusion, Everage looked on in surprise and disapprobation, for he thought that he knew his lordship was unmarried, even while he detected the relationship between the two.

But Alexander took his son, and, desiring his friend and the child’s nurse to wait for him there, he crossed over to the Strand, and went into a toy shop.

Left alone with the girl, Everage was sorely tempted to question her, but a sense of honor and delicacy prevented his doing so.

After a few minutes, Alexander returned to the spot, leading the little boy, who had his hands full of toys.

“Take him home to his mother now, nurse. The air is too sultry to keep him out longer,” he said, kissing his child and delivering him over to Pina.

When the girl had carried off her charge, the two gentlemen walked on a little while in silence.

Everage, in his anxiety, was the first to speak.

“That is a very handsome little boy,” he said.

“Yes, he is a fine little fellow,” answered Alick.

“He is very like you,” continued Everage.

“I suppose he must be since even I can see the likeness.”

“And he is very fond of you,” persevered Everage.

“Yes,” answered Alick in a very low tone.

“Your nephew, of course?” inquired Everage, after a little hesitation, hoping that, after all, such might be the relationship of the baby to the man.

“No, he is not my nephew. I have not, nor ever had, sister or brother to give me niece or nephew. I am a lonely man, Everage.”

“Ah!” sighed the other, with a look of sympathy—but he thought in his heart, “So much the better!”

“But—he is my son, Everage!” said Alick, with emotion.

“Your son?” exclaimed the would-be heir of the barony.

It was what he had at first suspected, even when he thought Lord Killcrichtoun was unmarried; but yet he was ill-at-ease, and, out of his anxiety, burst this exclamation:

“I did not know that you had a wife.”

“Nor _have_ I! nor can I _ever_ have—that is the curse of my life! But I had one once. The subject is a painful one, Everage!”

“I _beg_ your pardon,” said the poor gentleman, with real regret that he had torn open an unsuspected wound, and real sympathy for the evident sufferings of the victim, felt amid all the disappointment and dismay with which he heard of the existence of Lord Killcrichtoun’s son and heir, and the consequent blasting of all his own hopes of the inheritance.

The tone and look of sympathy touched Alexander’s lonely heart. He longed to speak to some one of his sorrows; to some one with whom it might be discreet and safe to deposit the secret troubles of his life. To whom could he so well confide them as to this poor gentleman, who seemed to possess some fine feelings of delicacy and honor, and who was certainly by circumstances far removed from those circles in which Alexander would abhor to have his domestic miseries made known.

“There is no offense,” said Alexander, answering the last words of Everage, “you could not have known the tenderness of the chord you touched. And I thank you now for the kindness your tones and looks expressed. Come! shall we hail a hansom, and go to Véry’s to lunch?”

“Thanks,—with pleasure!” said Everage, who always keenly appreciated and enjoyed the game, the salads, and the wines at Véry’s; but—then he glanced at his rusty, threadbare coat, his dusty old boots, and his day-before-yesterday’s clean shirt-bosom.

“Oh, never mind your dress, man! Who the mischief ever dresses to go to lunch in the morning?—Cab!”

The empty hansom that was passing drew up. The two gentlemen got in to it, and Alexander gave the order:

“Véry’s, corner of Regent and Oxford streets.”

Arrived at the famous restaurant, Alexander told the cabman to wait, and led his friend into the saloon.

There curtained off in a snug recess, and seated at a neat table, upon which was arranged a relishing repast, Alexander, while making a slight pretense of eating and drinking, told his story, or part of it to Clarence Everage, who listened attentively, even while doing full justice to the good things set before him.

“You will understand now,” said Lord Killcrichtoun, in conclusion, “how it is, that though I am a husband and a father, I have neither wife nor child.”

“That is very deplorable, if it is really so,” said the poor man, with a real compassion for sorrows that he was inclined to consider much heavier than he had been called upon to endure. For what, he asked himself, were the worst pangs of toil, care and want compared to the grief that would be his portion should he, in any way, lose his own fond wife and dear children?—“Very, very lamentable, if it is indeed true! but let us hope it is not so; that your imagination exaggerates the circumstance. Let us trust that the quarrel is not irreconcilable; that the husband has still a wife, the father still a child.”

“No, I have no wife nor ever shall have one; for though Drusilla is neither dead nor divorced, she is hopelessly estranged from me. I have no wife, nor ever shall have one.”

“But you have a child. He at least is not estranged from you.”

“No, but he belongs to his mother who bore him in peril of her own life, and has nurtured him tenderly and loves him fondly, I know. He belongs to her.”

“But the _law_ gives him to you. You can claim him when you will.”

“But I would cut off my right hand, I would lay down my life, before I would take him from his mother, or do anything else to give her pain.”

“But, man, he is your heir!”

“Yes, he is my heir, and only child. If he should live, of course he will inherit Killcrichtoun. If he should not, why the barony will go to some distant branch of the family, unearthed in the investigation set on foot by my lawyers, when I laid claim to the title and estates. And—why, bless my soul, old fellow, it may go to you! May it not?”

“Failing yourself and heirs of your body, it may,” replied the poor gentleman, gravely. And then he pushed back his chair and showed signs of impatience to be off.

The usher was allowed but half an hour to take his lunch, and even now he was due at his schoolroom and in danger of a reprimand from his principal.

Alexander perceived his uneasiness and rang the hand bell that stood upon the table.

Everage took out his purse.

“Put that up, if you please, Everage. I invited you here; and you are my guest,” said Alexander, taking out _his_ purse.

“See here, Killcrichtoun! upon one pretense or another _you always_ contrive to do this thing. Now I am not going to stand it any longer. Unless you let me foot the bill sometimes, and unless you let me foot it now, I can never lunch with you again,” said the poor gentleman, with much dignity; then turning to the waiter who at that instant made his appearance, he added—“Let me have our bill immediately.”

The mercury vanished to execute the order.

“But, really, Everage——” began Alexander.

“But, really, Killcrichtoun,” interrupted the poor gentleman, “though this is too small a matter to dispute about, you must let me have my will.”

Alexander gave way.

The waiter came and put the bill in Everage’s hands and the usher, who had that day received his second quarter’s salary, amounting to barely fifteen pounds, paid thirty shillings for their lunch, and bestowed half a crown on the waiter who served them.

Alexander sighed and groaned in the spirit as he saw this; but he could do nothing on earth to prevent it, or to remedy it. What in the world is one to do in such a case with a sensitive, poor gentleman? He would be alive to all your ruses, and feel hurt by them and defeat them. Alexander would rather have paid ten times the amount from his own ample means than seen the usher discharge the bill from his slender stock.

Then they arose from the table and went back to their cab.

And Alick ordered the cabman to drive to the street where the school-house in which Everage served was situated, and he dropped the usher.

I declare that up to this day Clarence Everage had entertained no idea of gaining his ends by evil means.

But the story that he had heard from Alexander was a startling and curious and interesting one; and he could not help brooding over it and speculating upon it. Lord Killcrichtoun had a wife and child! The fact at first view seemed very fatal to Everage’s hopes of ever succeeding to the title; but upon closer consideration it was not so. Lord Killcrichtoun was hopelessly estranged from his wife; but he was not divorced from her, nor free to marry again. He had but one child, his son and heir; and if anything should happen to this child, Lord Killcrichtoun, in his peculiar circumstances, could not hope for other legal offspring, and Everage would be quite secure in his position as heir presumptive of the barony.

And Alexander really looked paler, thinner, and more cadaverous than ever! Truly in much worse health than before! Clearly not long for this world! And if anything should happen to the child before his father’s death, Everage would not long be kept out of his inheritance!

_If anything should happen to the child!_ Dangerous, speculation! In monarchies it is treason even to _imagine_ the death of the sovereign. And it is so with much good reason, since such imaginings often realize themselves.

It could not be treason; but it was treachery in Clarence Everage even to imagine the removal of the little child that stood between him and the inheritance of Killcrichtoun. It was not only wrong but perilous for him to do so. But it seemed as if he could not help it. Day and night he brooded over the idea, with a morbid intensity akin to monomania. And there was his poverty, and the pale faces of his poor wife and little girls, to goad him on. And there was that painful computation of pounds, shillings and pence, that agonized straining of his soul to make his meagre wages meet their merest wants. And now the cruel extravagance into which his pride and sensitiveness had betrayed him in paying for that lunch at Véry’s had almost ruined him for this quarter. There was now no possible way in which he could make the two ends meet for the time.

And he knew, as only the experienced in such matters can know, and he dreaded as only the proud and sensitive can dread, the troubles that must follow—the degrading squabbles with his landlady, the humiliating apologies to the butcher and the baker—nay, the sight of his wife’s shabby dress and his little daughters’ all but bare feet.

And he thought how different all this would be were he the heir of Killcrichtoun, as he should be but for Alexander Lyon’s son.

He thus “imagined” the death of the child and the advantages that must accrue to himself in that event. But would he have “compassed” the death of the child for any such advantage?

Oh, no! not for Killcrichtoun, or a hundred Killcrichtouns, would he have committed such a crime. But—he was too prone to consider certain facts in the statistics of population, life and death; how it was set down that more than one half the children born, died before they had attained the age of three years. He supposed little Lenny to be about two years and a half old. He wondered whether the child had passed safely through measles, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, and all the other perilous “ills” to which children’s “flesh is heir,” or whether he had yet to encounter all or any of them.

He had gathered from Lord Killcrichtoun’s narrative that the child lived with his mother and her friends at the Morley House, and that he was often taken by his nurse to walk in Trafalgar square and its vicinity.

And so, morning, noon, and evening, when not engaged in his school duties or with his family, he prowled about the neighborhood, to waylay little Lenny and his nurse, and watch over his health.

One day, when no one else was very near, he saw Pina and her charge together, and accosted them.

“How do you do, my little man?” he inquired, patting Lenny on the head or rather, the hat.

“Me not man—me itty boy,” answered Lenny, staring.

“Oh, little boy, are you? Well, how do you do, little boy?” smiled Everage.

“Me very well,—how you?” politely responded Lenny.

“I’m very well too.”

“Me dad you very well too.”

“Thank you.”

“You dot itty boy home?”

“No, I’ve got no little boy at home; but I have got six little girls.”

“Sit itty dirl? Me habben dot itty dirl home.”

“Haven’t you? what a pity!”

“You bin you itty dirl hee me?”

“Yes, I’ll bring my little girls to see you,” said the poor gentleman, turning away from the child with some emotion, and beginning to talk with Pina,—who was looking on and smiling with proud delight at the bright intelligence and gracious manners of her little charge.

“He is a very fine little fellow, nurse,” said Everage.

“Yes, sir, lots of ladies and gentlemen, who stop to speak to him, say the same,” answered Pina, gazing with satisfaction upon her little Lenny.

“And he is very like his father,” pursued Everage.

“Well, sir, I never could see the likeness myself, I’m sure,” answered the girl resentfully, and wondering how this stranger came to know who was little Lenny’s father.

“He seems to be perfectly healthy?” went on the would-be heir presumptive.

“Why, he never had any real illness for an hour, sir. Even when he was teething, he only ailed a little—nothing to speak of at all, sir.”

“Ah, well, he’s like a young bear—all his troubles are before him.”

“Indeed, sir; then I think you are more of a bear, yourself to be a-saying of such things! Come, master Leonard, let us go home—mamma will be wanting us.”

“Dood-by! come hee me soon,” said Lenny, holding out his hand to the stranger.

“Good-by, my little lad!” said Everage, pressing the child’s offered hand as he turned away.

Little Lenny and his nurse went back to the Morley House, and Everage bent his steps to the Newton Institute for Young Gentlemen.

“More than one-half the children that are born alive die before they reach the age of three years, do they? Well—clearly this youngster belongs to the half that live! Never has had any of those infantile disorders that slay Infants of ‘two years old and under,’ with a massacre more terrible than that of Herod of Galilee. Ah! but the little fellow has them all to meet, for they are sure to come, sooner or later; yes, but he has a fine constitution with which to fight disease; well, but still this is certain, that children of robust frames, full-fleshed and full-blooded, never get over these inflammatory fevers as easily as do those of thinner and feebler organization. These very healthy children are exceedingly apt to go off in these acute attacks of disease. Master Lyon, Master of Killcrichtoun, you will have to take the risk with the rest.”

Such were the reflections of Everage as he bent his steps that afternoon to the Newton Institute, and while he sat at his desk examining boys in their Latin and Greek exercises and algebraic and geometrical problems; and while he sauntered sorrowfully and wearily home to his gloomy lodgings.

But he hated himself with a righteous hatred for these evil haunting thoughts, that he had no moral power to exorcise.

From what he had heard from Lord Killcrichtoun, and from what he had observed with his own eyes, some things seemed very certain.

As that Lord Killcrichtoun would never be legally divorced from his first wife, and therefore would never be free to take a second; that he would never be reconciled to her, and therefore never have another child; that his lordship was in a very bad way and could not long hold the barony of Killcrichtoun; and, finally, that little Lenny would be the future Baron of Killcrichtoun, unless he should very soon die, or—_disappear_; and, finally, that little Lenny was not inclined to die to please anybody!

But there was that other alternative:—he might _disappear_—he might disappear as children had often done before now, he might disappear forever.

I know not at what precise time this last alternative presented itself to the poor gentleman’s mind. But it would not be banished, it clung to him, it tempted him, it nearly crazed him.

He prowled about Trafalgar square, and waylaid little Lenny and his nurse, and informed himself as to the child’s haunts and habits.

If Pina never spoke of this “poor white herring,” as she disrespectfully called him, it was because he was only one of several persons who, passing daily at the hours the nurse would be out with the child, would stop to notice him, to smile on him, or—when time permitted—to talk to him, being charmed by his infantile beauty, intelligence, and graciousness. And, even if the nurse had told the mother of this stranger’s seeming partiality for the child, the information would not have surprised her, for to Drusilla it seemed inevitable that every one who saw her peerless boy must be charmed and delighted with his beauty and brightness.

So unsuspected and unrestricted, Everage contrived to see a great deal of little Lenny—a great deal more than even his father saw of him.

But Alexander was entirely ignorant of these interviews, for Pina did not love little Lenny’s father well enough to gossip with him on that or any other subject, or indeed to open her mouth to him with one unnecessary word.

And the poor gentleman, for his part, took good care never to approach the child while his father happened to be near him.

In fact, of late days, Clarence Everage had seen but little of Lord Killcrichtoun. From some latent sense of honor or sting of conscience, the poor gentleman had kept out of the way of the wealthy baron. Since Everage had been speculating on the chances of the child’s death or the practicability of his “disappearance,” he could not bring himself to look that child’s father in the face, much less to eat or drink with him, as had for a time been his frequent custom.

But Everage brooded over the possibility of little Lenny’s “disappearance,” as he called it, until, as I said, it tempted, blinded, crazed him.

The vague dream “_disappearance_” began to shape itself into the very distinct idea, “ABDUCTION.”

Children had been abducted before now, for less reason and with more difficulty than could be the case with this child; for how great a reason, almost how just a cause, he said to himself, had he for abducting Leonard Lyon; and how easily, in the child’s unguarded walks, might he be snatched up and carried off; and how completely in crowded London might he be concealed.

The idea grew and formed itself into a purpose.