Charlotte's Inheritance, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [dar e dil novel online reading .TXT] 📗

Hastings, if possible."

"That won't do."

"Why not?"

"Because Jedd's appearance would give Phil the office. Jedd gave evidence on the Fryar trial, and must be a marked man to him. All Jedd can tell you is that Charlotte is being poisoned. You know that already. Of course she'll want medical treatment, and so on, to bring her round; but she can't get that under my brother's roof. What you have to do is to get her away from that house."

"You do not know how ill she is. I doubt if she could bear the removal."

"Anything is better than to remain. _That_ is certain death."

"But your brother would surely dispute her removal."

"He would, and oppose it inch by inch. We must get him away, before we attempt to remove her."

"How?"

"I will find the means for that. I know something of his business relations, and can invent some false cry for luring him off the trail. We _must_ get him away. The poor girl was not in actual danger when you left her, was she?"

"No, thank God, there was no appearance of immediate danger. But she was very ill. And that man holds her life in his hand. He knows that I have come to London in search of a doctor. What if--"

"Keep yourself quiet, Hawkehurst. He will not hasten her death unless he is desperate; for a death occurring immediately after your first expression of alarm would seem sudden. He'll avoid any appearance of suddenness, if he can, depend upon it. The first thing is to get him away. But the question is, how to do it? There must be a bait. What bait? Don't talk to me, Hawkehurst. Let me think it out, if I can."

The lawyer leaned his elbows on the table, and abandoned himself to profound cogitation, with his forehead supported by his clenched hands. Valentine waited patiently while he thus cogitated.

"I must go down to Phil's office," he said at last, "and ferret out some of his secrets. Nothing but stock-exchange business, of an important character, would induce him to leave Charlotte Halliday. But if I can telegraph such a message as will bring him to town, I'll do it. Leave all that to me. And now, what about your work?"

"I am at a loss what to do, if I am not to take Dr. Jedd to Harold's Hill."

"Take him to St. Leonards; and if I get my brother out of the way, you can have Charlotte conveyed to an hotel in St. Leonard's, where she can stop till she picks up strength enough to come to London."

"Do you think her mother will consent to her removal?

"Do I think you will be such an idiot as to ask for her consent?" cried George Sheldon impatiently. "My brother's wife is so weak a fool, that the chances are she'd insist on her daughter stopping quietly, to be poisoned. No; you must get Mrs. Sheldon out of the way somehow. Send her to look at the shops, or to bathe, or to pick up shells on the beach, or anything else equally inane. She's easy enough to deal with. There's that young woman, Paget's daughter, with them still, I suppose? Yes. Very well, then, you and she can get Charlotte away between you."

"But for me to take those two girls to an hotel--the chance of scandal, of wonder, of inquiry? There ought to be some other person--some nurse. Stay, there's Nancy Woolper--the very woman! My darling has told me of that old woman's affectionate anxiety about her health--an anxiety which was singularly intense, it seemed to Lotta. Good God! do you think she, Nancy Woolper, could have suspected the cause of Mr. Halliday's death?"

"I dare say she did. She was in the house when he died, and nursed him all through his illness. She's a clever old woman. Yes, you might take her down with you; I think she would be of use in getting Charlotte away."

"I'll take her, if she will go."

"I am not sure of that; our north-country folks have stiffish notions about fidelity to old masters, and that kind of thing. Nancy Woolper nursed my brother Phil."

"If she knows or suspects the fate of Charlotte's father, she will try to save Charlotte," said Valentine, with conviction. "And now, good bye! I trust to you for getting your brother out of the way, George Sheldon; remember that."

He held out his hand; the lawyer took it with a muscular grip, which, on this occasion, meant something more than that base coin of jolly good fellowship which so often passes current for friendship's virgin gold.

"You may trust me," George Sheldon said gravely. "Stop a moment, though; I have a proposition to make. If my brother Philip has induced that girl to make a will, as it is my belief he has, we must counter him. Come down with me to Doctors' Commons. You've a cab? Yes; the business won't take half an hour."

"What business?"

"A special licence for your marriage with Charlotte Halliday."

"A marriage?"

"Yes; her marriage invalidates her will, if she has made one, and does away with Phil's motive. Come along; we'll get the licence."

"But the delay?"

"Exactly half an hour. Come!"

The lawyer dashed out of his office. "At home in an hour," he shouted to the clerk, and then ran downstairs, followed closely by Valentine, and did not cease running until he was in the King's Road, where the cab was waiting.

"Newgate Street and Warwick Lane to Doctors' Commons!" he cried to the cabman; and Valentine was fain to take his seat in the cab without further remonstrance.

"I don't understand--" he began, as the cabman drove away.

"I do. It's all right; you'll put the licence in your pocket, and call at the church nearest which you hang out, Edgware Road way, give notice of the marriage, and so on; and as soon as Charlotte can bear the journey, bring her to London and marry her. I told you your course six months ago. Your obstinacy has caused the hazard of that young woman's life. Don't let us have a second edition of it."

"I will be governed by your advice," answered Valentine, submissively. "It is the delay that tortures me."

The delay was indeed torture to him. Everything and everybody in Doctors' Commons seemed the very incarnation of slowness. The hansom cab might tear and grind the pavement, the hansom cabman might swear until even monster waggons swerved aside to give him passage; but neither tearing nor swearing could move the incarnate stolidity of Doctors' Commons. When he left that quaint sanctuary of old usages, he carried with him the Archbishop of Canterbury's benign permission for his union with Charlotte Halliday. But he knew not whether it was only a morsel of waste paper which he carried in his pocket; and whether there might not ere long be need of a ghastlier certificate, giving leave and licence for the rendering back of "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust."

Valentine's first call, after leaving George Sheldon at the gate of Doctors' Commons, was at the head-quarters of the Ragamuffins. His heart sank as he ran into the bar of the hostelry to ask for the telegram which might be waiting for him.

Happily there was no telegram. To find no tidings of a change for the worse seemed to him almost equivalent to hearing of a change for the better. What had he not feared after his interview with the surgeon of Bloomsbury!

From Covent Garden the hansom bowled swiftly to Burlington Row. Here Valentine found Mr. Burkham, pale and anxious, waiting in a little den of a third room, on the ground-floor--a ghastly little room, hung with anatomical plates, and with some wax preparations in jars, on the mantelpiece, by way of ornament. To them presently came Dr. Jedd, as lively and business-like as if Miss Halliday's case had been a question of taking out a double-tooth.

"Very sad!" he said; "these vegetable poisons--hands of unscrupulous man. Very interesting article in the _Medical Quarterly_--speculative analysis of the science of toxicology as known to the ancients."

"You will come down to Harold's Hill at once, sir?" said Valentine, imploringly.

"Well, yes; your friend here, Mr. Burkham, has persuaded me to do so, though I need hardly tell you that such a journey will be to the last degree inconvenient."

"It is an affair of life and death," faltered the young man.

"Of course, my dear sir. But then, you see, I have half-a-dozen other affairs of life and death on my hands at this moment. However, I have promised. My consultations will be over in half an hour; I have a round of visits after that, and by--well, say by the five o'clock express, I will go to St. Leonards."

"The delay will be very long," said Valentine.

"It cannot be done sooner. I ought to go down to Hertfordshire this evening--most interesting case--carbuncle--three operations in three consecutive weeks--Swain as operator. At five o'clock I shall be at the London Bridge station. Until then, gentlemen, good day. Lawson, the door."

Dr. Jedd left his visitors to follow the respectable white-cravatted butler, and darted back to his consulting-room.

Mr. Burkham and Valentine walked slowly up and down Burlington Row before the latter returned to his cab.

"I thank you heartily for your help," said Valentine to the surgeon; "and I believe, with God's grace, we shall save this dear girl's life. It was the hand of Providence that guided me to you this morning. I can but believe the same hand will guide me to the end."

On this they parted. Valentine told his cabman to drive to the Edgware Road; and in one of the churches of the immediate neighbourhood of that thoroughfare he gave notice of his intention to enter the bonds of holy matrimony. He had some difficulty in arranging matters with the clerk, whom he saw in his private abode and non-official guise. That functionary was scarcely able to grasp the idea of an intending Benedick who would not state positively when he wanted to be married. Happily, however, the administration of half-a-sovereign considerably brightened the clerk's perceptions.

"I see what you want," he said. "Young lady a invalid, which she wants to leave her home as she finds uncomfortable, she being over twenty-one years of age and her own mistress. It's what you may call a runaway match, although the parties ain't beholden to any one, in a manner of speaking. _I_ understand. You give me half an hour's notice any morning within the legal hours, and I'll have one of our young curates ready for you as soon as you're ready for them; and have you and the young lady tied up tight enough before you know where you are. We ain't very long over _our_ marriages, unless it is something out of the common way."

The clerk's familiarity was more good-natured than flattering to the applicant's self-esteem; but Valentine was in no mood to object to this easy-going treatment of the affair. He promised to give the clerk the required notice; and having arranged everything in strictly legal manner, hurried back to his cab, and directed the man to drive to the Lawn.

It was now three o'clock. At five he was to meet Dr. Jedd at the station. He had two hours for his interview with Nancy Woolper, and his drive from Bayswater to London Bridge.

He had tasted nothing since daybreak; but the necessity to