CHAPTER CXCII.

MRS. MORTIMER IN LONDON AGAIN.

“This is really most fortunate, my lords!” exclaimed the old woman, as she entered with a smirking countenance and a self-sufficient air. “I wished to see you both as early as convenient this morning--and, behold! I find you together. How is the pretty Agnes? Has not your lordship discovered that I told you the truth, when I referred you to this house for information respecting her?” she inquired, turning towards the Marquis.

“Yes, madam,” he exclaimed, hastily: “and as I shall proceed direct hence to my bankers, to instruct them relative to certain cheques which I recently gave in Paris, you may present your draft in the course of the day with the certainty of receiving the amount. I presume that it was for this purpose you desired to see me!”

“Precisely so, my lord,” responded the old woman, scarcely able to conceal the boundless joy which she now experienced: for the Marquis had given her precisely the very information which she was anxious to obtain--namely, _that his banker would in the course of the day be directed to cash the various cheques he had recently given when in Paris!_

“And what business can you possibly have to transact with me, madam?” demanded Lord William Trevelyan, in a tone of the most chilling hauteur.

“I thought of doing your lordship a service,” answered Mrs. Mortimer; “and yet the manner in which I am received, is but a sorry recompense for my good intentions.”

“To speak candidly, madam,” said the young noble, “I mistrust your intentions and do not require your services.”

“It is true enough that the presence of the Marquis here has forestalled the purport of my own visit,” observed Mrs. Mortimer, secretly enjoying the vexation which she evidently caused Lord William by remaining in the room. “But I may as well prove to you that those intentions which you affect to mistrust, were really good; and therefore I will at once inform your lordship that I came to relate to you all that took place between the Marquis and me in Paris three days ago. For I thought that I might as well prepare you for a visit on the part of my Lord Delmour; and I was in hopes of being the first to reveal to you the high birth of the young lady whom you had believed to be plain _Agnes Vernon_.”

“For which officiousness you would have expected a handsome remuneration,” said Lord William, with a contemptuous curling of the lip. “No--madam: you will not obtain a single guinea from me! I can read your character thoroughly--and, grieved as I am to be compelled to address a female in so harsh a manner, I must nevertheless beg you to relieve me of your presence as speedily as possible.”

“I have no wish to intrude myself any longer upon your lordships,” observed Mrs. Mortimer; and, with a respectful curtsey to the Marquis and a stiff inclination of the head to Trevelyan, she took her departure.

“And now, my lord,” said the impatient Marquis, “that we are relieved of the company of that despicable woman--for in no other light can I regard her--may I solicit your decision in the important matter that yet remains to be settled?”

“It grieves me--believe me, my dear Marquis, it pains me to keep you in suspense,” returned Trevelyan: “but on one side my inclination prompts me to act in accordance with your wishes--on the other, my word is pledged to retain the abode of--of----”

“Mrs. Sefton,” interrupted the old nobleman, hastily.

“To retain the address of that lady a profound secret,” added Trevelyan. “But this much I will promise--this much I will undertake:--without delay to repair to Mrs. Sefton and urge her to deliver up Lady Agnes to your care. I have that confidence in her rectitude of principle, which induces me to hope for success when I shall have placed the entire matter before her in its proper light.”

“With this assurance I must rest contented for the present,” observed the Marquis. “But hear the resolution to which I have come,” he continued, rising from his seat, and speaking in a tone of excitement. “Hitherto I have done all I could--aye, and far more than the generality of injured husbands would have done--to cast a veil over the unhappy circumstances which I have this morning related to you. But should she refuse to deliver up my daughter to my care--should she entrench herself behind the decision of the Chancery Court--I shall then remain peaceable no longer. It shall be war--open war--between her and me. I will appeal to the tribunals of my country--I will apply to the Ecclesiastical Court and the House of Lords for a divorce--and I will adopt the necessary proceedings and furnish the proper evidence to induce the Lord Chancellor to deprive the erring mother of the care of her child. Such is my determination, Lord William--and you may use the menace, which is no idle one, to bring that woman to reason.”

With these words the Marquis pressed the hand of the young nobleman, and took his leave hastily.

Mrs. Mortimer, who was seated in a cab at a little distance, watching for the departure of the Marquis, beheld him enter his carriage, which immediately drove away; and the humbler vehicle was thereupon directed to follow the more imposing equipage.

The carriage proceeded into the Strand, and stopped at the door of an eminent banking-house, which the Marquis entered.

Mrs. Mortimer, having dogged him thither, alighted at a little distance and dismissed the cab.

She watched the old nobleman come forth again; and then she repaired to a coffee-house in the neighbourhood where she ordered some refreshment to be served up in a private room. She likewise demanded writing materials; and when she was left to herself, she drew forth the cheque for six hundred pounds which the Marquis of Delmour had given her.

“Now for the grand blow,” she thought within herself, as she carefully examined the draft: “and it must be struck boldly, too! But the aim is worth all the risk:--sixty thousand pounds or transportation--those are the alternatives! I have been possessed of enough money in my life to know how sweet it is--and I have seen enough of transportation to be well aware how bitter it is! And the former is so sweet that it is worth while chancing all the bitters of the latter to obtain it. Besides--apart from the delicious feeling of having a vast fortune at my command--how delightful will it be to over-reach the haughty Perdita--or Laura, as she chooses to call herself!”

And here the old woman’s lips curled into a contemptuous sneer.

“I have hitherto managed matters cleverly enough,” she continued in her musings. “Ah! hah! Lord William Trevelyan thought that I called upon him either to gratify some idle curiosity or to extort money. He little suspected my drift! It was to see whether the Marquis had been to him--to learn whether my information had been found correct--to ascertain whether I might present the draft at the bankers’. And then the old Marquis himself!--it was lucky that I found him there--I was saved the trouble of calling at his mansion to worm out of him whether he had instructed his bankers to pay the cheque,--not _my_ paltry draft for six hundred--but Perdita’s grand amount of sixty thousand! In all this I succeeded admirably: and now for the desperate venture.”

Having thus communed with herself, Mrs. Mortimer partook of a little refreshment; for she was anxious to while away an hour before she went to the bank, so as not to present herself too soon after the visit of the Marquis of Delmour to the establishment.

When she had eaten and drank as drunk as much as she cared for, she addressed herself to the grand project which she had in view, and in furtherance of which she had demanded the private room and the writing materials at the coffee-house.

The writing of the Marquis was execrably bad; and it was not a very difficult matter to add _ty_ to the _six_, and transform the word _hundred_ into _thousand_, in the body of the cheque; while the simple addition of 00 to the 600_l._ written in figures in the corner, completed the forgery.

The cheque, therefore, now stood for _sixty thousand pounds_, instead of _six hundred_, payable to _bearer_, no particular name being mentioned as the intended recipient.

When the old woman had thus transformed the document, a glow of triumph animated her hideous countenance: but in a few moments a chill--a cold, creeping tremor came over her--as if a clammy snake were gradually coiling itself around her form, underneath her clothes;--for she remembered all the sensations which she had experienced when she committed the forgery of Sir Henry Courtenay’s name nineteen years previously!

By a desperate effort the old woman shook off the painful feeling that thus influenced her; and, resolving to allow herself no more leisure for reflection, _lest her thoughts should make a coward of her_, she rang the bell--paid the trifling amount incurred--and took her departure from the coffee-house.

During her walk to the bank, which was close at hand, she rapidly calculated in her mind all the chances of success. The Marquis had unquestionably been thither to give instructions relative to the draft held by Laura as well as that which had been given to herself; and there was not the slightest reason to fear that her daughter had followed so closely on her steps from Paris as to have been able to visit the bank during the hour that had just elapsed. As for the excellence of the forgery--or rather of the alterations, Mrs. Mortimer entertained no apprehension on that score; and thus, all things considered, she deemed failure to be impossible.

With an apparent outward composure, but with a palpitating heart, the old woman entered the bank, and presented her cheque to one of the clerks. He surveyed it narrowly--took it into the private office, or parlour, doubtless to submit it to one of the proprietors of the establishment or some responsible person--and remained away upwards of two minutes.

Two minutes!--but that interval was an age--a perfect age in the imagination of the old woman! It was an interval composed of such intense feelings that the hair of a young person might have turned suddenly grey,--feelings of such burning hope and such awful suspense, of such profound terror and fervid expectation, that while molten lead appeared to drop upon one side of her heart, ice seemed to lay upon the other!

At length the clerk came back; and Mrs. Mortimer darted a rapid--searching--penetrating glance at his countenance.

Nothing save respect and civility could she trace thereon: and she instantly knew that she was safe!

Then came such a revulsion of feeling--such a subsiding of the terrors and such an exaltation of the hopes which she had conceived--that it was as if she were shooting upwards from the profundity of a deluge of dark waters and suddenly breathed the fresh air again and beheld the bright sun and the smiling heavens overhead.

The clerk proceeded to count out bank-notes for the sum specified in the cheque; and as he handed the fortune--yes, literally a fortune--over to the old woman, he considerately gave her a caution to take care of the vile characters who frequently lurked about the doors of banking-houses.

Mrs. Mortimer thanked the clerk for his well-meant advice, and sallied forth from the establishment, with a heart so elate that she could scarcely believe in the success of the tremendous fraud, now that it had passed triumphantly through the ordeal.

But as she was crossing the threshold, she heard a name suddenly mentioned; and, hastily turning her head, she found herself face to face with Jack Rily, the Doctor!