Read Ebook: The Tallants of Barton vol. 3 (of 3) by Hatton Joseph

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Ebook has 748 lines and 51043 words, and 15 pages

"And what?" exclaimed the Lieutenant.

"You're alwayth making thome mithtake or other," said Mrs. Dibble; "there, come along in the next room. I'm thorry I allowed him to come in, Mithter Thomerton, but hith headth bewildered, no doubt, with having been away from home tho much and having previouthly had my eye on him: and what he would do without ith a mythtery to me."

The Lieutenant said, "All right, Mrs. Dibble, don't apologise," and poor Dibble slunk away into the kitchen and sat down, Mrs. D. following.

"There, Thomath, never mind," said Mrs. Dibble in her blandest tones; "come and tell me all about it."

But Dibble remembered how clever that mysterious lady of the show was; how fierce she was, and he trembled at the bare idea of her exercising any of her black arts upon him, in case he should betray her secret. It was quite clear that she did not wish him to know her; but he had made no mistake at all, he was sure of that; and Mrs. Dibble was sharp enough to see that there was some mystery here which she would assuredly have cleared up before Dibble went to sleep that night.

An unfortunate night altogether was this for the "mysterious lady." Mr. Williamson had sent a messenger to the house for Lieutenant Somerton soon after Dibble's strange arrival, and Paul had taken a cab, as requested, to the Temple, where he found the barrister in company with an unknown gentleman.

"This is Mr. Bales, the detective officer, of whom you have heard me speak," said the barrister.

Paul bowed.

"My friend, Lieutenant Somerton," said the barrister, introducing Paul.

The detective nodded in deliberate professional fashion.

The detective officer nodded in reply and left the room, and then Mr. Williamson, alluding to that first gleam of suspicion in connection with Paul's attempt to borrow money, went on to tell his friend that this woman whom Paul had made up his mind to marry was the wife of Shuffleton Gibbs. He believed he should be able to produce the marriage certificate. Gibbs knew where she was, and had told this to the detective. He had found her out within a week of her disappearance, through Macschawser, and he talked boldly of an action for abduction and other tremendous things.

Paul would not believe a word of it. His friend had surely entered into a plot against him. Then he remembered the strange conduct of Dibble, and hesitated.

"I have only one duty to perform in this matter," said the barrister, "and that is to show you the character of the precipice upon which you stand, and then leave you to your fate. Have you obtained the sanction for your change of regiment?"

"Yes," said Paul; "and the vessel sails next month."

"For the Cape of Good Hope?"

"Yes."

"Now, my dear boy, I know you believe in my friendship; will you permit me to investigate this affair for you, and undertake to give the facts proper consideration before you take further action?"

"I will," said Paul, "provided that in all you do you respect her feelings, and remember that I love this woman better than all the world."

Mr. Williamson shrugged his shoulders.

"I love her better than all the world, and I only consent to this active interference because I know she will come out of the inquiry clear. The idea of her being Gibbs's wife is absurd," Paul went on.

"But supposing it is true?" said the barrister.

"I will suppose nothing. Why do you try to bring unhappiness between us? In less than a month we should have been on the sea to begin a new life in a new country--turning our backs upon the past."

"And upon your friends," said the barrister. "You would be leaving father and mother and sister and friends in the society of an abandoned woman."

"Mr. Williamson," exclaimed Paul, "I will not stand this!"

"In the society of an abandoned woman," repeated the barrister, "not like those poor people in the picture 'Seeking New Homes,' with the association of pure affection and honest noble aims of independence. Your whole life would have been blighted, your family disgraced, and yourself a miserable man."

"I will not get into a passion with you," said Paul, "but I cannot stand this, so good-night;" and before the barrister had time to intercept him, Paul rushed out of the room and hurried away into the street.

Meanwhile Mr. Bales returned. The barrister informed him that he thought it would be impossible to proceed with the case of conspiracy. The officer said he had another charge against the prisoner upon which he could secure a conviction, and so the two parted; the detective to complete his entry in the police charge-sheet and arrange for the appearance on the next day of certain witnessess, and Mr. Williamson to the residence of Mrs. Dibble, where he at once introduced himself to her interesting lodger as Lieut. Somerton's friend.

He did not hesitate at all about the part he should play. Assuming the position of Lieut. Somerton's legal adviser, he told the lady that Paul knew everything, and when she assumed an injured and indignant air, he showed her a copy of that very marriage certificate which she had burnt. Nay, more; he said that he knew where her father the showman was to be found, and that her husband, who was in custody, had explained everything to the policeman who had apprehended him.

And yet whilst the barrister was utterly crushing the girl, and even threatening her with a police cell, he felt a strange interest in her. The remembrance of a well-known face which had fascinated him when a boy came so vividly into his mind as he stood before the showman's daughter, that he grew strangely embarrassed in his manner. Shortly, his assumed austerity gave way, and he found himself speaking very gently and tenderly.

The girl was quick enough to observe this, and she proceeded at once to make capital out of it, appealing to his kindness and sympathy, assuring him that she loved his friend with all her heart, acknowledging to the full how she had deceived him, and then humbly soliciting the barrister's advice.

Old memories came back to the barrister as the woman continued to talk, and her tears did not fail to soften the hues of that picture of old which would rise up between himself and the humiliated woman before him. Leading her on from one topic to another he induced her to narrate her history, and by slow degrees she repeated to him the heads of the story which she had told Dibble on the Severntown race-course. Feeling sure that this would excite the barrister's sympathy, she hoped that it might in some way make him her friend.

Watching the effect of all she was saying, the girl perceived that her listener was peculiarly touched; and when at the proper moment she produced that little miniature which she had shown to Dibble, Mr. Arundel Williamson, exclaiming "Good heavens, can it be possible!" threw himself back in his chair and nearly fainted.

Fixing her eyes upon him as he grasped the locket, the woman, with the cunning of the race-course and the lodging-house, the precocity of poverty, and her fixed faith in Carkey's prophecy about her parentage, felt at once that the hour of discovery had come.

"You are my father!" she said, with an air of pride and triumph. "That lady was your wife."

"God help us!" said the barrister solemnly. "He visits the sins of the fathers upon the children indeed!"

"You won't drive me away now," said the girl quickly; "you won't try to make him hate me, and put me in prison now. If you don't like me to be your daughter, let me go away with him; tell him all that about Gibbs is a lie,--he will believe you--he will believe anything--don't separate us--I will never tell anybody you are my father."

The barrister made no reply; he rocked himself to and fro in his chair, and looked vacantly at the girl, as if he were in a dream.

"I am your father," said the barrister presently; "there is no doubt about that. The sin and the punishment are so equal, and the parentage is so fearfully verified in your own career and conduct: there is no cheating heaven, no tricking the law of punishment in this world. God knows I have suffered too, without this additional pain and degradation."

"You're ashamed of me, then?" said the woman. "Lieutenant Somerton is not; let me go away with him."

"Never!" exclaimed the barrister: "never!"

"Well, it thertainly ith the motht exthraordinary thing I ever heard of," whispered Mrs. Dibble to herself and Thomas in the passage after she had been listening at the keyhole for nearly half an hour: "motht wonderful. Now come here, thir, and juth tell me all you know about that woman. It's bad enough to have one's money lotht and brought to poverty, without secrets of this sort being kept away from the lawful wife of your bootham, Mithter Dibble. You thall tell me every word before you go to bed."

Dibble struggled a little against this decree, but without avail. Whilst he was telling his wife all that he knew about Christabel, Mr. Williamson was endeavouring to bring that remarkable young woman to a sense of her position. To what extent he succeeded we may hope to learn hereafter.

COMING HOME.

Yes, they were coming home; the Earl and Countess of Verner were coming home. The "Severntown Mercury" said so, and mentioned the exact day on which they would return. Nay, more, the accomplished journalist announced that during that very week his lordship had accepted the colonelship of the Severnshire Yeomanry, and that the local troop would receive the distinguished couple at the Severntown Station, and escort them to the Junction, from whence they would continue their journey to Avonworth. A member of the oldest county family, and the most distinguished of the local aristocracy, the "Mercury" suggested that the civic authorities should show his lordship some mark of their respect as he passed through the ancient city on his way to the historic home of his fathers.

The Countess of Verner had also sprung of a stock not by any means of small celebrity. Her parentage might be said to have represented the aristocracy of birth and commercial enterprise. Her father, the late Christopher Tallant, Esq., had ranked high amongst the merchant princes of Great Britain, and had come of an old Yorkshire family. Her mother, a lady of the noble house of Petherington, was a descendant of the Petheringtons of Fife. The Lord Petherington of that ilk it was who distinguished himself in Egypt in 1800, and who fell fighting the battles of his country in Spain. Celebrated for their beauty, the daughters of the house of Petherington would be familiar to those admirers of "female loveliness" who had studied "Garton's Beauties of the Court."

The "Mercury" grew quite eloquent in its historical revelations, and Severntown resolved, in accordance with the editorial hint, that the Earl and Countess should be "received" at the station, and escorted to the junction in right royal fashion. So, when the day came, there was quite a crowd of people at the station. A troop of the Yeomanry Cavalry were there, and their horses pranced and curvetted, and stood upon two legs, in the most approved military fashion; a number of ladies who had seats upon the platform, presented the Countess with a handsome bracelet and a charming bouquet of flowers; the mayor came forward, and made a pretty little speech to the newly-married pair; and the Earl replied in a hearty address. Then his lordship conducted his wife to a carriage, and drove off to the junction, amidst great cheering, in company with the gallant Yeomanry on their prancing steeds.

But it was at Brazencrook where the greatest demonstration was made. Severntown was somewhat proud and dignified; but Brazencrook was full of rejoicing. Nearly the whole of the longest street in Brazencrook belonged to Earl Verner, and the people had always been warmly attached to the noble proprietors of the Castle of Montem. Brazencrook was the nearest station to the castle, and Brazencrook determined to make the return home something not to be forgotten. The Town-clerk had been instructed to prepare an address for the occasion. The cordwainers of the place had made the Countess a pair of dainty slippers; the glass-cutters had manufactured and made wonderful toilet-bottles for her; the ladies of the town had subscribed for a gold casket; and the civic authorities had ordered the town to be decorated, and the bells to be rung in honour of their distinguished friends and neighbours.

The old Guildhall was carpeted, and a da?s erected in the ancient assembly-room. The earl had consented to bring his wife here to receive the civic congratulations and the big town's presents. Brazencrook had always been celebrated for doing things well; it was one of the leading mottoes of the local newspaper, that "if it was worth while to do anything it was worth while to do it well." Thus the welcoming home of the earl and countess grew and grew out of the first proposals into a demonstration worthy of royalty. If our friend Asmodeus had taken you there on the morning of the celebration of this return-home, you might have fancied that you had been transported back to the "good old times" of provincial display. The visit of a queen, the close of a three weeks' election, the termination of a great war, the inauguration of some old-world revels, or something on an ancient scale of grandeur, would have seemed to be manifested in those fluttering flags and banners; those half-military men in the streets; that ox roasting in the market-place; those great casks of ale ready tapped under the ancient piazzas of the market-house. Bands playing, bells ringing, shops closed, triumphal arches receiving the last-finishing touches, old gabled houses with devices painted up between the windows, Odd-Fellows in sashes and aprons, gentlemen with white rosettes on their breasts, women with babies in their arms, boys climbing lamp-posts, and again Yeomanry Cavalry with brass helmets and unmanageable horses, Brazencrook had never presented such a scene of jubilation and bustle. The fine old town seemed to rub its jolly big hands, and say, "How do you do, everybody--glad to see you. Have a drink--we are going to enjoy ourself to-day. It is a little foolish to make such a tremendous fuss, we know; but never mind;--better to do a thing well, if you do it at all, you know."

Somebody had drawn an allegorical figure of the town, and it had been sculptured by a famous artist. It was a brawny athletic man, with a hammer in his hand, leaning upon a rock from which water was supposed to be bursting forth--the source of the river upon which the town was built. If the figure could have spoken it would have said something like what we have just written, and it might have laid down its hammer and smiled pleasantly at the Brazencrookians as they bustled about on that memorable morning.

There was a glow of pride and delight upon the rosy cheeks of the Countess as she sat by her lord in that pretty open brougham which conveyed them to the Guildhall. It was like the reception of a prince and princess. Lord Verner bowed like a king to his bending subjects, and the Countess smiled and bowed with a gracious condescension that was quite charming to see. The people cheered and shouted and threw up their hats, and "Welcome Home," "Long Life and Happiness," and good wishes of all kinds greeted them from nearly every banner and triumphal arch.

Meanwhile a dense crowd congregated at the Guildhall, and a fashionable throng was congregated within. There had been many local feuds about places. The town-councillors had to be accommodated first, and their wives next, and we regret to say that quarrels which time will never heal arose out of the preference shown to some ladies over others in the selection of the committee to represent the ladies who had subscribed for the casket. It was quite grand to see the aldermen in their blue cloaks and chains, the councillors in their gowns, the mayor in his cocked hat, the sword-bearers with their fur helmets on and their beavers up. Then there were the mayor's officers in their new liveries, and his Worship's own footman with a bouquet in his waistcoat as big and as round as his own rubicund face. The military pensioners with their shining accoutrements were drawn up in line ready to present arms. Even Earl Verner was struck with surprise and amazement as his coachman pulled up opposite the hall. What a scene it was, to be sure! "Eyes front--fix bayonets--present a-r-r-r-rms!" could be heard half way down the street, as a fierce old officer, on a plunging horse and half pay, thundered out these commands to the pensioners; and then, oh, how his stentorian voice was drowned with drums and fifes and "hip-hip-hip-hurrahs!"

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