Chapter 26

Time rolled on, and no Roger, true or false, made his appearance. One day the Dowager happened to see in a newspaper a mention of the fact that there was in Sydney a man named Cubitt, who kept what he called a "Missing Friends' Office." To Cubitt accordingly she wrote a long rambling letter, in which, among other tokens of her state of mind, she gave a grossly incorrect account of her son's appearance, and even of his age; but Cubitt was to insert her long advertisement in the Australian papers, and he was promised a handsome reward. Cubitt, in reply, amused the poor lady with vague reports of her son being found in the capacity of a private soldier in New Zealand; and as there was war there at that time the poor lady wrote back in an agony of terror to entreat that he might be bought out of the regiment. Mr. Cubitt soon perceived the singular person he had to deal with; and his letters from that time were largely occupied with requests for money for services which had no existence out of the letters. At last came more definite information. A Mr. Gibbes, an attorney at the little town of Wagga-Wagga, two hundred miles inland from Sydney, had, he said, found the real Roger living "in a humble station of life," and under an assumed name. Again money was wanted. Then Gibbes, apparently determined to steal a march on Cubitt, wrote directly to the credulous lady, and there was much correspondence between them. At first there were some little difficulties. The man who, after a certain amount of coyness, had pleaded guilty to being the long-lost heir, still held aloof in a strange way, concealed his present name and occupation, and instead of going home at once, preferred to bargain for his return through the medium of an attorney and the keeper of a missing-friends' office. All this, however, did not shake the faith of Lady Tichborne. Then he gave accounts of himself which did not in the least tally with the facts of Roger's life. He said he was born in Dorsetshire, whereas Roger was born in Paris; he accounted for being an illiterate man by saying that he had suffered greatly in childhood from St. Vitus's dance, which had interfered with his studies. "My son," says Lady Tichborne, in reply, "never had St. Vitus's dance." When asked if he had not been in the army, he replied, "Yes," but that he did not know much about it, because he had merely enlisted as a private soldier "in the Sixty-sixth Blues," and had been "bought off" by his father after only thirteen days' service. What ship did you leave Europe in? inquired Mr. Gibbes, with a view of sending further tokens of identity to the Dowager. To this inquiry, Roger Tichborne might have been expected to answer in "La Pauline," but, as was shown in the trial, this mysterious person replied, in "The Jessie Miller." "And when did she sail?" "On the 28th of November, 1852," was the reply; whereas Roger sailed on the 1st of March, 1853. Asked as to where he was educated, the long-lost heir replied, "At a school in Southampton," where Roger never was at school. But it happened that Lady Tichborne in a letter to Mr. Gibbes had said that her son was for three years at the Jesuit College of Stonyhurst, in Lancashire; Mr. Gibbes accordingly suggested to the client "in a humble station of life," that his memory was at fault on that point, but the client maintained his ground. "Did she say he had been at Stonyhurst College? If so, it was false;" and, he added, with an oath, "I have a good mind never to go near her again for telling such a story." Yet this strange person was able to confirm the entire story of the tramping sailors. He _had_ embarked in the "Bella," he _had_ been picked up at sea with other survivors in a boat off the coast of Brazil, and it was quite true that he was landed with them in Melbourne. In short, he corroborated the Dowager's long advertisement in every particular; but beyond that he had nothing of the slightest importance to tell which was not absurdly incorrect. His replies, however, were forwarded to the Lady Tichborne, with pressing requests to send £200, then £250, and finally £400, to enable the lost heir to pay his debts--an indispensable condition of his leaving the colony. It is evident that the statements thus reported puzzled the poor lady a little, and she seems to have been unable to account for the lost heir sending his kind remembrance to his "grandpa," because Roger's' paternal grandfather died before he was born; and his grandfather by the mother's side had also died several years before Roger left England, as the young man knew well enough. She was clearly a little surprised to hear that the resuscitated Roger did not understand a word of French, for "my son," she says, "was born in Paris, and spoke French better than English." But yet, with the strange pertinacity which causes people to cling to that which they know to be wrong, and try to force themselves into belief of its truth, she believed in the _bona-fides_ of the claimant for maternal solicitude and the paternal acres. "I fancied," she said in one letter to Gibbes, "that the photographies you sent me are like him, but of course after thirteen years' absence there must have been some difference in the shape, as Roger was very slim; but," she added, "I suppose all those large clothes would make him appear bigger than he is." Again, alluding to the "photographies," she remarks that at least the hand in the portrait is small, and adds, "that peculiar thing has done a good deal with me to make me recognise him. A year and a half was consumed in these tedious hagglings with brokers and agents for the restoration of a lost heir, and during great part of that time the lost heir himself made no sign, but contented himself with begging trifling loans of Gibbes on the strength of his pretensions. Sometimes a pound was the modest request; sometimes more. He had married, and a child was born, and on that occasion he implored for "three pound," plaintively declaring that he was "more like a mannick than a B. of B.K. (supposed to mean a Baronet of British Kingdom) to have a child born in such a hovel." Still the new man wrapped himself in impenetrable secrecy. The Dowager Lady Tichborne complained that while pressed to send everybody money, she was not even allowed to know the whereabouts nor present name of her lost Roger; and she entreated piteously to be allowed to communicate more directly. It was nothing to her that the accounts the pretender had given of Roger's life were wrong in every particular, except where her own advertisement had furnished information. I think she said on this point, "My poor dear Roger confuses everything in his head just as in a dream, and I believe him to be my son, though his statements differ from mine." In the midst of this curious correspondence trouble once more entered the old home at Tichborne. Sir Alfred, the younger brother of Roger, was dead, and the poor half-crazed mother in a solitary lodging in her loved Paris was left more than ever desolate. Widowed and childless, she had nothing now but to brood over her sorrows, and cling to the old dream of the miraculous saving of her eldest born, who, since the terrible hour of shipwreck--now twelve years past--had given no real token of existence. The position of affairs at Tichborne was remarkable, for though there were hopes of an heir to Tichborne, Sir Alfred had left no child. Should the child--unborn, but already fatherless--prove to be a girl, or other mischance befall, there was an end of the old race of Tichborne. The property would then go to collaterals, and the baronetcy must become extinct. It was under the weight of these new sorrows that the Dowager Lady Tichborne wrote pitiable letters to Gibbes, promising money and asking for more particulars; while enclosing at the same time to the man who thus so unaccountably kept himself aloof a letter beginning, "My dear and beloved Roger, I hope you will not refuse to come back to your poor afflicted mother. I have had the great misfortune to lose your poor dear father, and lately I have lost my beloved son Alfred. I am now alone in this world of sorrow, and I hope you will take that into consideration, and come back." It is hardly surprising that during this time Mr. Gibbes was constantly urging his mysterious client to relinquish his disguise. Why not write to the mother and mention some facts known only to those two which would at once convince her? True, he had already mentioned "facts," which turned out to be fictions, and yet the Dowager's faith was unabated. Mr. Gibbes's client was therefore justified in his answer, that he "did not think it needful." But Gibbes was pressing, for it happened that the Dowager had in one of her letters said, "I shall expect an answer from him. As I know his handwriting, I shall know at once whether it is him." Accordingly we find the Claimant, under the direction of Mr. Gibbes, penning this:--

"WAGGA-WAGGA, _Jan_. 17 66. MY DEAR MOTHER,--The delay which has taken place since my last Letter Dated 22d April 54 Makes it very difficult to Commence this Letter. I deeply regret the truble and anxoiety I must have cause you by not writing before. But they are known to my Attorney And the more private details I will keep for your own Ear. Of one thing rest Assured that although I have been in A humble conditoin of Life I have never let any act disgrace you or my Family. I have been A poor Man and nothing worse Mr. Gilbes suggest to me as essential. That I should recall to your Memory things which can only be known to you and me to convince you of my Idenitity I dont thing it needful my dear Mother, although I sind them Mamely the Brown Mark on my side. And the Card Case at Brighton. I can assure you My Dear Mother I have keep your promice ever since. In writing to me please enclose your letter to Mr. Gilbes to prevent unnesersery enquiry as I do not wish any person to know me in this Country. When I take my proper prosition and title. Having therefore mad up my mind to return and face the Sea once more I must request to send me the Means of doing so and paying a fue outstranding debts. I would return by the overland Mail. The passage Money and other expences would be over two Hundred pound, for I propose Sailing from Victoria not this colonly And to Sail from Melbourne in my own Name. Now to annable me to do this my dear Mother you must send me"--

The half-sheet is torn off at this point, but it has been stated by Lady Tichborne's solicitor, who saw it when complete, that the ending originally contained the words "How's Grandma?" This must have again puzzled the Dowager, for Roger had no "Grandma" living when he went away. The date "22d April 54" was also incorrect, for the "Bella" sailed on April 20th. But there were other difficulties; Lady Tichborne had never seen, and, what is more, had never heard of any brown mark on her son Roger; she could say nothing about the "card case at Brighton" (which referred, according to Mr. Gibbes, to the Claimant's assertion that he had left England in consequence of having been swindled out of £1500 by Johnny and Harry Broome, prize-fighters, and others at Brighton races); and lastly, the anxious mother could not recognise the handwriting. The Australian correspondent was somewhat disappointed that the mother did not at once acknowledge him as her son. But the Dowager soon declared her unabated faith; sent small sums and then larger, and finally made up her mind to forward the four hundred pounds. Meanwhile she sent to him, as well as to her other Australian correspondents, much family information. Among other things she told him that there was a man named Guilfoyle at Sydney, who had been gardener for many years at Upton and Tichborne, and another man in the same town named Andrew Bogle, a black man, who had been in the service of Sir Edward. Mr. Gibbes's client lost no time in finding out both these persons, and soon became pretty well primed. It was shortly after this period that it became known in Victoria and New South Wales that there was a man named Thomas Castro, living in Wagga-Wagga as a journeyman slaughter-man and butcher, who was going to England to lay claim to the baronetcy and estates of Tichborne. From the letters and other facts it is manifest that it was originally intended to keep all this secret even from the Dowager. "He wishes," says his attorney, Mr. Gibbes, "that his present identity should be totally disconnected from his future." It happened that one Cator, a Wagga-Wagga friend of the Claimant, whose letters show him to have been a coarse-minded and illiterate man, was leaving for England shortly before the time that Castro had determined to embark. Whether invited or not Cator was not unlikely to favour his friend with a visit in the new and flourishing condition which appeared to await him in that country. Perhaps to make a virtue of necessity, Castro gave to Cator a sealed envelope, bearing outside the words, "To be open when at sea," and inside a note which ran as follows:--

"WAGGA-WAGGA, _April 2nd_, 1866. Mr. Cater,--At any time wen you are in England you should feel enclined for a month pleasure Go to Tichborne, in Hampshire, Enquire for Sir Roger Charles Tichborne, Tichborne-hall, Tichborne, And you will find One that will make you a welcome guest. But on no account Mension the Name of Castro or Alude to me being a Married Man, or that I have being has a Butcher. You will understand me, I have no doubt. Yours truely, Thomas Castro. I Sail by the June Mail."

All this secrecy, however, was soon given up as impracticable for articles in the Melbourne, Wagga-Wagga, and Sydney journals, quickly brought the news to England, and finally Castro determined to take with him his wife and family. One of his earliest steps was to take into his service the old black man Bogle, and pay the passage-money both of himself and his son to Europe with him. Certain relics of Upton and of Tichborne which the Claimant forwarded to a banker at Wagga-Wagga from whom he was trying to obtain advances, were described by the Claimant himself as brought over by "my uncle Valet who is now living with me." The bankers, however, were cautious; and "declined to make loans." Nevertheless, the Claimant had the good fortune to convince a Mr. Long, who was in Sydney, and had seen Roger "when a boy of ten years old riding in Tichborne Park," and accordingly this gentleman advanced him a considerable sum. Finally the Claimant embarked aboard the "Rakaia," on his way to France _viâ_ Panama, and accompanied by his family, and attended by old Bogle, his son, and a youthful secretary, left Sydney on September 2d, 1866, and was expected by the Dowager in Paris within two months from that date. But nearly four months elapsed, and there were no tidings. Between Christmas day and New Year's eve of 1866, there arrived in Alresford a mysterious stranger, who put up at the Swan Hotel in that little town, and said that his name was Taylor. He was a man of bulk and eccentric attire. He wrapped himself in large greatcoats, muffled his neck and chin in thick shawls, and wore a cap with a peak of unusual dimensions, which, when it was pulled down, covered a considerable portion of his features. The stranger, at first very reserved, soon showed signs of coming out of his shell. He sent for Rous, the landlord, and had a chat with him, in the course of which he asked Rous to take him the next day for a drive round the neighbourhood of Tichborne. Rous complied, and the innkeeper, chatting all the way on local matters, showed his guest Tichborne village, Tichborne park and house, the church, the mill, the village of Cheriton, and all else that was worth seeing in that neighbourhood. In fact, Mr. Taylor became very friendly with Rous, invited him to drink in his room, and then confided to him an important secret--which, however, was by this time no secret at all, for Mr. Rous had just observed upon his guest's portmanteau the initials "R.C.T." Indeed it was already suspected in the smoking-room of the Swan that the enormous stranger was the long-expected heir. Suspicion became certainty when the stranger telegraphed for Bogle, and that faithful black, once familiar in the streets of Alresford, suddenly made his appearance there, began reconnoitring the house at Tichborne, contrived to get inside the old home, to learn that it had been let by the trustees of the infant baronet to a gentleman named Lushington, and to examine carefully the position of the old and new pictures hanging on the walls. This done, the stranger and his black attendant disappeared as suddenly as they had come. But the news spread abroad, and reached many persons who were interested. Roger's numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins heard of the sudden appearance of the long-expected Australian claimant. The Dowager in Paris, the mother of the infant, then at Ryde, all heard the news; and finally Mr. Gosford, Roger's dearest and most intimate friend and confidant, then in North Wales, got intelligence, and hastened to London to ascertain if the joyful news could be true.

But the enormous individual had vanished again. The circumstance was strange. Bogle had written letters from Australia declaring that this was the identical gentleman he had known years before as Mr. Roger Tichborne when a visitor at Sir Edward's; and the Dowager had declared herself satisfied. But why did the long-lost Roger hold aloof? No one could tell. There was no reason for such conduct, and so suspicion was engendered. With infinite pains Mr. Gosford and a gentleman connected with the Tichborne family ascertained that the person who had figured as Mr. Taylor at the Swan had taken apartments for himself and his family at a hotel near Manchester Square, and that he had even been there since Christmas day. But once more the clue was lost. Sir Roger Tichborne had gone away with his wife and children, and left no one there but Bogle and his secretary. Then by chance Mr. Gosford discovered that "Sir Roger" was staying at the Clarendon Hotel, Gravesend. Forthwith Mr. Gosford, with the gentleman referred to, and Mr. Cullington, the solicitor, went to the Clarendon Hotel at Gravesend, where, after long waiting in the hall, they saw a stout person muffled, and wearing a peaked cap over the eyes, who, having glanced at the party suspiciously, rushed past them, hurried upstairs, and locked himself in a room. In vain the party sent up cards, in vain they followed and tapped at the door. The stout person would not open, and the party descended to the coffee-room, where soon afterwards they received a mysterious note, concluding:--"pardon me gentlemen but I did not wish any-one to know where I was staying with my family. And was much annoyed to see you all here." Lady Tichborne herself had failed to recognise in the letters from Wagga-Wagga the handwriting of her son, and Mr. Gosford was equally unsuccessful. The party therefore left the house after warning the landlord that he had for a guest an "impostor and a rogue." Still the idea that his old friend, who had made him his executor and the depositary of his most secret wishes, could have come back again alive, however changed, was too pleasing to be abandoned by Mr. Gosford, even on such evidence. Accordingly, by arrangement with an attorney named Holmes, he went down again, and, more successful this time, had conversation with the stranger who called himself Roger. But nothing about the features of the man brought back to him any recollection, and subsequent interviews but confirmed the first impression.

Meanwhile, Lady Tichborne had learned that he whom she called Roger had arrived in England; and she wrote letters imploring him to come to her, to which the Claimant, who had not been in London more than a fortnight, answered, that he was "prevented by circumstances!" and added, "Oh! Do come over and see me at once." On the very day after the date of this letter, however, he arrived in Paris, accompanied by a man whose acquaintance he had made in a billiard room, and by Mr. Holmes, the attorney to whom his casual acquaintance had introduced him. The party put up at an hotel in the Rue St. Honoré. They knew Lady Tichborne's address in the Place de la Madeleine, scarcely five minutes' walk from their hotel; but they had arrived somewhat late, and "Sir Roger" paid no visit to his mother that day. Lady Tichborne had in the meantime consulted her brother and others on the subject, but though the opinions given by them were adverse to the claims of the impostor, she only became more fixed in her ideas. Early the morning after the Claimant's arrival, she sent her Irish servant, John Coyne, to the hotel in the Rue St. Honoré with a pressing message, but was told that "Sir Roger" was not well; his mistress, dissatisfied with that message, sent him again, whereupon "Sir Roger" came out of his bedroom and walked past him "slowly and with his head down," bidding him at the same time go and tell his mamma that he was not able to come to her; and his mistress, still more dissatisfied, then directed her servant "to take a cab immediately and fetch her son." Coyne then went a third time and found "Sir Roger" with his attorney and his casual acquaintance sitting at breakfast, but was again unsuccessful. Lady Tichborne that afternoon went herself to the hotel, and was then permitted to see her son in a darkened chamber, and in the presence of his attorney and friend. "Sir Roger," said Coyne, who tells the story, "was lying on the bed with his back turned to us and his face to the wall," and he added that while he was in that position, his mistress leaned over and kissed Sir Roger on the mouth, observing at the same time that "he looked like his father, though his ears were like his uncle's." Then "Sir Roger" having remarked that he was "nearly stifled," Lady Tichborne directed Coyne to "take off her son's coat and undo his braces;" which duties the faithful domestic accomplished with some difficulty, while at the same time he "managed to pull him over as well as he could." Upon this Mr. Holmes, solemnly standing up, addressed John Coyne in the words: "You are a witness that Lady Tichborne recognises her son," and John Coyne having replied, "And so are you," the ceremony of recognition was complete.