CHAPTER II.

WHICH IS ELUCIDATORY AND RETROSPECTIVE.

Before resuming the thread of my narrative I must needs go back a little, and see in what relation the different people who are to play the principal parts in this true history stand to one another.

I have said that Hugh Atherton and I had been friends from the time we were boys at school, he being some five years my junior. He and Lister Wilmot were nephews, on their mother's side, of old Gilbert Thorneley, and, as every one supposed, his nearest relatives. They were both orphans; both brought up and educated by their uncle, and both were given to understand that they would equally inherit his immense fortune at his death. But Thorneley had made his money by the sweat of his brow,--beginning by sweeping his master's office, and ending by being the possessor of some million of money,--and he did not choose, as he said, to leave it to two idle dogs. He had worked, and so should they: they might choose their own profession or business, and he would do all that was requisite to forward them in life; but work in one way or another they should. Hugh, guided very much by my advice, went to college, and then read for the bar. His career at Oxford had not been a brilliant one, but he had passed his "great go" very creditably, and taken his bachelor's degree with fair honor to himself. Then he came to London, took chambers in the Temple, and set himself down to read with steady earnestness of purpose; after a while he was called to the bar and his first brief was held for a client of mine. It was a righteous cause, and he gained it by his straightforward grappling with the evidence, his simple yet manly eloquence. At the time when the events happened which are now recorded, and cast one great lasting shadow over his life and mine, he was in very fair practice. But one thing I ever noticed about him, and it was that he was almost invariably retained for the defense. I don't think he could have conducted a case for prosecution; I don't think he could have stood up and pleaded for the conviction of any poor wretched miserable criminal shivering at the bar, brought thither by what crushing amount of degradation, want, or luring temptation to sin God only knew,--God only, in His infinite mercy, would remember. Do you recollect that portrait in one of Mr. Dickens's works of the barrister, who was always retained at the Old Bailey by great criminals, and who never refused to defend them, guilty or not guilty--that man, with the unpoetical name of Jaggers, who used to wash his hands after coming from the court or dismissing a client? Well, that man always reminded me of Hugh Atherton; and when I read the book, I did homage to my friend in his person. You don't see at first what Mr. Dickens is driving at, nor the whole of his conception in the character of Jaggers; but after a while it bursts upon you what a raft he must have been for the poor drowning wretches going to their trial to catch at.

With a fund of good common-sense, a dear head, and sound judgment, Atherton possessed what gave such a charm to him and won so many hearts,--the boyish lightheartedness which clung to him; with his genial manner, his kindly words and deeds. He had his faults--he was passionate and hot-headed, obstinate in his likes and dislikes; but he {444} had what few young men of his age could boast, a freedom from vice, a guilelessness of soul, which in the midst of all the corruption, the temptations, and snares of London life, carried him through unscathed. I never knew but one other who was like him in that respect,--though indeed I have heard that such have been, but are now gone to their grave,--who, with the brave undaunted heart of a thoroughly English youth, carried within him the mark of innocence, and wore it stamped upon his open brow. He is thousands of miles away now, and these lines may never reach him; but those who love him and long for his return will recognize the son and brother whose worth, perchance, we never fully knew until the parting came.

Of Lister Wilmot I had seen comparatively but very little. He was a weak puny lad, unfit for roughing it in a public school, and had therefore received his education from private tutors and governors. Through his uncle's interest he obtained a civil appointment in one of the government-offices, and though fond of dress and amusements, I never heard much harm of him, beyond an inclination to extravagance, which I imagined old Thorneley knew well how to keep in check. Yet, I don't know how it was, I never liked Wilmot. Hugh was fond of him, and very anxious that he and I should be friends; certainly it was not Wilmot's fault that a greater amount of cordiality did not exist between us. He was very agreeable, very civil, very amiable, very attentive to me; but I could not bear him. I often took myself severely to task for this unreasonable antipathy; and I decided it could only be because he was such a contrast to Hugh in everything that I did not take to him. Not that I pitched their relative goodness, and drew conclusions against him; as I said before, I knew no harm of him, but simply I did not like him. A story went about that his mother (Thorneley's sister) had made a very unhappy marriage, and died soon after her son's birth. What had become of his father no one ever seemed to know; and if Wilmot did, he never named him.

About a year before the story opens Hugh Atherton was engaged to be married. Let me relate all this very clearly, very calmly; it is needful I should; and while I write, let me think only, as before heaven I have ever tried to think, of the interests of two beings who always were and always will be dearest to me on earth.

A client of mine left me at his death the joint guardianship with his wife of an only daughter. She was heiress to a considerable fortune; blest with a mother who was none of the wisest of guides for a young girl who was beautiful, high-spirited, and gifted with no ordinary intellect. I fulfilled my dead friend's trust with all the care, vigilance, and tenderness in my power. I watched Ada Leslie grow up into girlhood, and from girlhood into womanhood,--for I was a young man in years when that charge was committed to me, though old in character, and old and grim in looks,--I saw her beauty of face and form unfold, her winning gracefulness become more graceful and more winsome; I marked the powers of her mind and intellect develop, and all the noble qualities of her heart reveal themselves in a thousand ways. I watched her with the solicitude of a father, with the affection of a brother; I never thought of myself in any other light with regard to her; but her confidence in me became very precious, her companionship very sweet.

One day I took Hugh Atherton with me to Mrs. Leslie's, and in that first visit I foresaw how all would end; it was but the precursor of many more visits, and after a while they both told me how things stood between them. There was no difficulty. Money, in the mother's eye, was all that was needed to make a good match, and Hugh was well enough off now, and likely to be a rich man in the future; money was all that Gilbert Thorneley required for his nephew's future bride, and Ada Leslie's fortune was ample, even to his sordid mind. I knew _she_ could have {445} no worthier man for husband than Hugh Atherton. I knew--ah, who should know better?--that _he_ could find no woman worthier of his tenderest love and honor than my ward; and so I bade God to bless them and sanctify their union. If for a while my life was somewhat more lonely than it had seemed before; if a few years were added to thought and feeling, and I began then more solemnly to realize what a gray old bachelor I should appear to Hugh's little children when they climbed about my knee,--well, it was but a foolishness that was quickly buried down deep in my heart and would never more rise to the surface. And Hugh's full tide of happiness and _her_ deep but tender joy soon kindled bright again in the chambers of my soul a light that for a time had been very dim; and I learnt the best lesson life can teach us, and which in more ways than one is intimated to us by the words, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." They would have been married before this, but Ada's father bad specified his wish that she should not marry until she was twenty-one, unless her guardians judged it otherwise expedient, and she was desirous of abiding by that decision. She would be of age the third of this coming December, and after Christmas the wedding was to take place.

I noticed there was something peculiar in their manner of mentioning to me the day they had fixed on for their marriage. It was the day before I started on this last trip to my favorite Swiss mountains; we had all gone down to Kew by water, and we were strolling about the gardens enjoying the cool of the evening air after a day of unusual sultriness. Mrs. Leslie, Wilmot, and I, were walking together, whilst the other two went away by themselves. We had not spoken very much--at least I had not, for many thoughts were busy within me. Presently Ada came back alone, and putting her arm in mine she drew me aside into a little shady walk where the trees met overhead and the air was laden with the perfume of the lime-blossom. In the last summer of my life, at eventide I shall see that narrow pathway with its leafy covering, and smell those fragrant trees; I shall hear the nightingale's note as it sang to me (so I thought) the refrain of a simple ballad I had often heard my mother sing in early childhood.

"Loyal je serai durant la vie."

"Dear friend," said Ada, looking up into my face with her soft, kind, brown eyes, so truthful and sincere, "Hugh and I have been speaking of the future;" and the bright warm color came into her cheek, and the long golden lashes fell as she spoke.

"Yes, Ada, that is right. What says Hugh?"

"He says we had better settle when it is to be. You know I am of age in December, and he thinks of after Christmas; and do you know he wants it to be on the day but one after the Epiphany? because he says--that funny old Hugh!--that it is _your_ birthday; or if it isn't, that it ought to be; and insists on it. However, he has set his mind on it. He wanted to come and ask you, for I said I would not have it fixed until you had been asked. And then I thought I would rather come myself."

The kind eyes were looking at me again, just a little anxiously, I thought. For a moment there seemed to be a choking sensation in my throat. I turned my head away, and the evening bird sang out once more, clear and silvery in the calm still air,

"Loyal je serai durant la vie."

"Listen, Ada; do you hear what the nightingale is singing? She is bidding me say 'God bless you both!' Let it be when Hugh thinks best. Go and tell him so."

She took my hand and pressed it to her lips; there was a warm tear on it when she let it go. I turned aside and walked away for a little while by myself. Then I went back to them, and we left the gardens.

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Hugh and I walked home together that night; and as we parted at his door he told me all was settled between him and Ada, very gently, very softly, as if he were breaking some news to me. There was no need. I bade him God speed with my cheeriest voice, and told him the heartfelt truth--that to no other man would I have trusted her with such perfect trust.

I had happy letters from them both whilst I was abroad. Hugh had taken a very pretty house some ten miles from town; workmen were busily engaged in alterations, fittings-up, and decorations, whilst he and Ada were full of the furniture and all those numerous etceteras which help to make the home such a one as should be prepared to receive a fair young bride. Mr. Thorneley had behaved very liberally to his nephew, and given him _carte blanche_ in the matter of the expenditure; if his nature were capable of loving any human being, I think he was fond of Hugh Atherton, and I am quite sure that Hugh, in his generous oversight of all that must have jarred upon and shocked his mind, was sincerely and gratefully attached to his uncle, who, he often said to me, had acted a father's part by him. Thus, amidst much sunshine and little shade, all was hastening on toward the consummation of their union, and as the new year tided round it was to find them man and wife.

And now I must relate a circumstance which happened about a fortnight before I started for the Continent. I had been dining at the house of my married sister, who lived at Highgate. She was one of those ladies who are very fond of collecting about them the heterogeneous society of all the nondescripts, hangers-on, and adventurers who are only too willing to frequent the houses of those gifted with a taste for such companionship. With good-nature verging, I often told her, on absolute idiotcy, she could not be made to see how eccentricity of manner, person, or conversation was often but the veil thrown over a character too stained or doubtful to be revealed in its proper light. It is true that in many cases her hospitality was rewarded; equally true that in the majority it was abused; and my brother-in-law, good man, suffered severely for it in the matter of his pocket.

To return: amongst the various guests I met at dinner that evening was one man who strangely riveted my attention, aided by the feeling so well known to most people, that I had somewhere or other seen him before, but in other guise, and when a much younger man. His manner was quiet and reserved, but scarcely gentlemanlike; and I noticed that in many of the little _convenances_ of society he was quite at a loss. I judged him to be about fifty or fifty-five years of age, his hair was grey, and he wore a thick beard and moustache; at first I took him for a foreigner until I heard him speak, and then I perceived the broad Irish accent betraying his nationality in a most unmistakable manner.

"Who's your Irish friend, Elinor?" I asked of my sister when I got her quietly in the drawing-room after dinner.

"Which one do you mean, John? There's the O'Callaghan of Callaghan, who sat by me at dinner; and there's Mr. Burke, who writes those spirited patriotic articles in the _Emerald-Green Gazette;_ and there's Phelim O'Mara, the author of _Gems_---"

"I know them all, my dear."

"Then who can you mean, for there isn't another Irishman here? These three wouldn't have been asked together--for they are all of different politics, and I have been on thorns all the evening lest they should get into a discussion--but I couldn't well avoid it; for you know--"

Again I was obliged to use a brother's delightful privilege and be rude, for Elinor, though an excellent woman and a pattern wife, was discursive in conversation, and I saw her husband trying to catch her eye for some purpose; so I said:

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"Yes, I know all about it--there's Henry looking for you. The man I mean sat opposite to me; grey beard--there he is, standing by Montague."

"Oh! _he?_ he is my last treasure-trove: he's not Irish, my dear; he's half French and half English. An author, but very rich; has travelled all over the world. Here," beckoning to him, "Mr. de Vos, allow me to introduce you to my brother, Mr. Kavanagh."

O Elinor, you good blind soul, your Frenchman was no more French and no more English than the man in the moon, though certainly I am not acquainted with the nationality of that gentleman. I saw it in two minutes. We talked commonplaces for a little, till some one came up and asked me if it were true that Atherton was engaged to my ward, Miss Leslie. I answered in the affirmative.

"You know Mr. Atherton very well then, I conclude," said De Vos.

"I have known him from a boy; no one knows him better than I."

"How very interesting!" he said; and I could not make out whether his tone was earnest or satirical, for his face betrayed nothing. "I have heard of Mr. Atherton from a friend of mine in Paris."

"Ah! that little enthusiastic Gireaud, I dare say," replied I; for I knew all Hugh's friends, and he was the only one I could think of as being in Paris.

"Yes, from Gireaud;" and he was turning away.

"How is he?" I asked, meaning Gireaud; "have you seen him lately?"

"No, not lately--that is, three or four months back."

This was strange; it was only a month since the Frenchman had left England, only three months since we had first made his acquaintance, and he had been in England all the time. I felt suspicious; I often did towards my sister's friends, by reason of divers small sums borrowed in past times by them from me, and kept _in memoriam_ I suppose. I thought I would pursue the inquiry.

"Did you know M. Gireaud when he was in England?"

"No abroad--in Paris;" and he changed color and shifted uneasily on his feet.

"Did he succeed in tracing out the evidence in that celebrated cause he was conducting?" I continued pertinaciously.

"I really don't know; excuse me--how very warm this room is! I will go into the balcony and see if it is possible to get a little air;" and he turned on his heel and left me.

"So so," thought I, "you wanted to fasten yourself upon me with the dodge of knowing my friends, did you? It won't do, my fine fellow;" and I determined to give my brother-in-law a hint that his wife's "last treasure-trove" would need watching. But I found no opportunity; and when I inquired for Mr. de Vos later in the evening, I heard he had gone away, feeling very unwell. Said I to myself, "He'll be worse when he meets me again." I little recked the words then, or what they might import.

It was a beautiful August night when our party broke up; and resisting my sister's wish that I should sleep there, I determined to enjoy a moonlight walk home, smoke a cigar, and think over a difficult case I had just then in hand. My nearest way into town from Elinor's house was down Swain's Lane and round by the cemetery; it was a lonely, ghostly kind of walk, not tempting on a dark winter's night; but with a brilliant harvest-moon overhead, a stout stick, and myself standing six feet without shoes, I feared neither man nor ghost. The tombstones looked white and ghastly enough in the bright moonlight, and the trees cast their heavy shadows across my path, whilst their tops were stirred by a gentle soughing breeze. I had passed the cemetery, and was rapidly nearing the end of the lane, which turns into the high-road by the Duke of St. Alban's public-house, of omnibus notoriety, when I fancied I heard the sound of voices pitched high, as if {448} in some angry dispute. I took out my watch; it was just upon twelve o'clock. Drunken revellers, I thought, turned out of the inn. Swain's Lane winds about until you are close upon the road, and then there is a straight piece with fields upon either side. I looked ahead as I came to this latter bit, but there was no one to be seen, although the voices sounded closer and closer. I was walking on the turf beside the road, so that my footsteps falling upon the soft grass were inaudible. I passed a gate leading into a field, and then I became aware that the voices were close to me on the other side of the hedge. Not caring to be seen lest I should get drawn into some drunken row, I stooped my head and shoulders, inconveniently high just then, and was in the act of passing swiftly on when a name arrested me. "I tell you Hugh Atherton never _shall_ marry that girl!"

"And I tell you he _will_! You let every chance slip by you, you poor spiritless fool. He'll marry her, and come in for the best share, if not the whole of Gil Thorneley's money."

There was no mistaking the brogue of my Irish Anglo-French acquaintance of this evening--my sister's "last treasure-trove, the talented author, the rich man." But the other voice, whose was it? It sounded strange at first; then light began to dawn upon me. I knew it--yes, surely I knew it. Ha, by Jove! Lister Wilmot!--it must be Lister Wilmot's.

They were speaking again, quite unconscious of their auditor on the other side of the hedge.

"You are the biggest fool, and a scoundrel too, coming here, dogging my footsteps, and following me about just to bring ruin upon me with your confounded interference; going _there_ too, and meeting the very man you ought to avoid, that lawyer fellow, Kavanagh; why, he'll scent you out in less than no time." (Much obliged to you, Mr. Wilmot, thought I, for your involuntary tribute to my shrewdness: it has been deserved this time at any rate.) "You must leave London at once--to-morrow, do you hear?--or I'll whisper a certain affair about, which may make this quarter of the world unpleasant to you."

"I'll not stir without that fifty pounds. You blow upon me, and I'll blow upon you in a quarter you wouldn't care to have those small bits of paper shown that I've got in my pocket-book here."

The remark seemed to have been untimely.

"Scoundrel!" shouted the other voice I believed to be Wilmot's, and I heard them close together and struggle.

At the same moment I leaped the gate, determined to make sure of their identity; but with singular ill-luck I caught my foot against the topmost bar, and fell with no small force my whole length on the other side. The noise and sight of me disturbed the combatants, and before I could rise or recover myself, they had separated, and fled in opposite directions across the field. Pursuit was a vain thought. I had twisted my ankle in the fall, and for a few moments the pain was unbearable; when I could put my foot to the ground both fugitives were out of sight. There was nothing left for me but to hobble back, gain the road, and seize upon the first empty cab returning to London to convey me to my chambers.

I mentioned the adventure to Atherton on the following morning, and my conviction that Lister Wilmot was one of the two men.

"It is impossible," replied Hugh; "Lister was with me last evening till eleven o'clock, and then he went home to bed."

"Did you see him home?" I asked.

"Yes, and went in with him; saw him undressed, and ready to get into bed. He was not well, poor fellow. One of his bad colds seemed to be threatening him, and he was very out of spirits. I am afraid he's exceeding his allowance, and getting into debt. He asked me to lend, him twenty pounds for a month."

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"Which of course you didn't do?"

"Which of course I did, and told him he was heartily welcome to it; but I wished he'd draw in his expenses, for I was certain if Uncle Gilbert heard of his being in difficulty, there would be no end to pay. I'll get him to make a clean breast of it some day soon to me, and see what I can do to help him and set him right."

So like Hugh, with his generous impulses ever ready to do a kindness.

"Well, but it is very odd. I could have sworn it was Lister in the field; as for the other fellow, why there is not the smallest shadow of a doubt about him. If I hadn't recognized his brogue, why, the words of his companion pointed him out as the De Vos of the dinner-party. Do you know such a man, Hugh?" and I gave a graphic description of him.

Hugh shook his head.

"Don't know such a bird as that, Jack. Can't think who it can be, nor what they both meant. The 'girl,' indeed! Did they mean Ada, forsooth? I'd like to punch their skulls for daring to name her. I say, let's go to Lister's at once and ask him if he knows a man answering to the name De Vos."

We drove to Wilmot's lodgings in the Albany--he affected aristocratic-bachelor neighborhoods--and found him over a late breakfast, looking very pale and haggard. Hugh attacked him in his straightforward blunt manner.

"What did you go up to Highgate for, last night. Lister, when I thought you were going to bed?"

Wilmot's fork fell on the floor and he stooped to pick it up before answering. Then he looked up with an air of the greatest astonishment.

"Go up to Highgate last night! I! Are you mad, Hugh?"

"I heard your voice last night in a field close by the Highgate Road, or I never was more mistaken in my life," I said.

He turned his face to me: there was the most unaffected surprise and bewilderment written on it as he stared at me.

"Are you out of your senses too?" he asked at last with a loud laugh. "Why, Hugh saw me into bed almost. You must have been wandering, or Mr. Craven's" (my brother-in-law) "wines were too potent for your sober brain."

I was completely at a nonplus. "Do you know that Mr. de Vos is in England?" I said, resolved to try another "dodge."

"Who is Mr. de Vos?" was the answer, given in the most unconcerned tone.

Hugh broke in: "Tell him all about it, John."

I did so, relating word for word what I had heard, with my eye fixed upon his face. He never flinched once, and there was not the smallest embarrassment in his look or manner.

"You were of course entirely mistaken," he said; "I never left my room last night after Hugh went away. Of this Mr. de Vos I know nothing--not even by name."

There was nothing for it but to be satisfied, and yet somehow I was not. I suppose my old dislike of Wilmot got the better of me and made me distrustful. Then such dear--such precious interests had been called in question--were perhaps in danger; and I could not rid myself of the great anxiety which oppressed me.

The next move was after De Vos. He had utterly and totally disappeared by the time I had obtained his address from my sister and hunted out the wretched doubtful sort of lodgings he had inhabited near Leicester Square. So the affair died a natural death, and I left England for the Continent. Could I but have foreseen what my return would bring forth!

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