Birds of Prey, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [ebooks online reader txt] 📗

things, you know."

I would fain have asked Mr. Mercer to let me see this last letter written by Susan Meynell; but what excuse could I devise for so doing? I was completely fettered by my promise to George Sheldon, and could offer no reasonable pretence for my curiosity.

There was one point which I was bound to push home in the interests of my Sheldon, or, shall I not rather say, of my Charlotte? That all-important point was the question of marriage or no marriage. "You feel quite clear as to the fact that Montagu Kingdon never did marry this young woman?" I said.

"Well, yes," replied uncle Joe; "that was proved beyond doubt, I'm sorry to say. Mr. Kingdon never could have dared to come back here with his West-Indian wife in poor Susan Meynell's lifetime if he had really married her."

"And how about the lady he was said to have married in Spain?"

"I can't say anything about that. It may have been only a scandal, or, if there was a marriage, it may have been illegal. The Kingdons were Protestants, and the Spaniards are all papists, I suppose. A marriage between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic wouldn't be binding."

"Not upon such a man as this Kingdon."

It seems more than probable that the opinion arrived at by this poor soul's friends must be correct, and that Montagu Kingdon was a scoundrel. But how about Susan Meynell's after-life?--the fourteen years in which she was lost sight of? May she not have married some one else than Mr. Kingdon? and may she not have left heirs who will arise in the future to dispute my darling's claim?

Is it a good thing to have a great inheritance? The day has been when such a question as that could not by any possibility have shaped itself in my mind. Ah! what is this subtle power called love, which worketh such wondrous changes in the human heart? Surely the miracle of the cleansed leper is in some manner typical of this transformation. The emanation of divine purity encircled the leper with its supernal warmth, and the scales fell away beneath that mysterious influence. And so from the pure heart of a woman issues a celestial fire which burns the plague-spot out of the sinner's breast. Ah, how I languish to be at my darling's feet, thanking her for the cure she has wrought!

I have given my Sheldon the story of Susan Meynell's life, as I had it from uncle Joseph. He agrees with me as to the importance of Susan's last letter, but even that astute creature does not see a way to getting the document in his hands without letting Mr. Mercer more or less into our secret.

"I might tell this man Mercer some story about a little bit of money coming to his niece, and get at Susan Meynell's letter that way," he said; "but whatever I told him would be sure to get round to Philip somehow or other, and I don't want to put him on the scent."

My Sheldon's legal mind more than ever inclines to caution, now that he knows the heiress of the Haygarths is so nearly allied to his brother Philip.

"I'll tell you what it is, Hawkehurst," he said to me, after we had discussed the business in all its bearings, "there are not many people I'm afraid of, but I don't mind owning to you that I am afraid of my brother Phil. He has always walked over my head; partly because he can wear his shirt-front all through business hours without creasing it, which I can't, and partly because he's--well--more unscrupulous than I am."

He paused meditatively, and I too was meditative; for I could not choose but wonder what it was to be more unscrupulous than George Sheldon.

"If he were to get an inkling of this affair," my patron resumed presently, "he'd take it out of our hands before you could say Jack Robinson--supposing anybody ever wanted to say Jack Robinson, which they don't--and he'd drive a bargain with us, instead of our driving a bargain with him."

My friend of Gray's Inn has a pleasant way of implying that our interests are coequal in this affair. I caught him watching me curiously once or twice during our last interview, when Charlotte's name was mentioned. Does he suspect the truth, I wonder?

_Nov. 12th_. I had another interview with my patron yesterday, and rather a curious interview, though not altogether unsatisfactory. George Sheldon has been making good use of his time since my return from Yorkshire.

"I don't think we need have any fear of opposition from children or grandchildren of Susan Meynell," he said; "I have found the registry of her interment in the churchyard of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. She is described in that registry by her maiden name, and there is a plain headstone in a corner of the ground, inscribed with the name of Susan Meynell, who died July 14th, 1835, much lamented; and then the text about 'the one sinner that repenteth,' and so on," said Mr. Sheldon, as if he did not care to dwell on so hackneyed a truism.

"But," I began, "she might have been married, in spite of--"

"Yes, she might," replied my Sheldon, captiously; "but then, you see, the probability is that she wasn't. If she had been married, she would have told her sister as much in that last letter, or she would have said as much when they met."

"But she was delirious."

"Not all the time. She was sensible enough to talk about her sorrow for the past, and so on; and she must have been sensible enough to have spoken of her children, if she had ever had any. Besides, if she had been married, she would scarcely have been wandering about the world in that miserable manner, unless her husband was an uncommonly bad lot. No, Hawkehurst, depend upon it, we've nothing to fear in that quarter. The person we have to fear is that precious brother of mine."

"You talked the other day about driving a bargain with him," I said; "I didn't quite understand your meaning. The fortune can only be claimed by Char--Miss Halliday, and your brother has no legal authority to dispose of her money."

"Of course not," answered my employer, with contemptuous impatience of my dulness; "but my brother Phil is not the man to wait for legal power. His ideas will be Miss Halliday's ideas in this business. When my case is ripe for action, I shall make my bargain--half the fortune to be mine from the day of its recovery. A deed containing these conditions must be executed by Charlotte Halliday before I hand over a single document relating to the case. Now, as matters stand at present," he went on, looking very fixedly at me, "her execution of that deed would rest with Philip."

"And when shall you make your overtures to Mr. Sheldon?" I asked, at a loss to understand that intent look.

"Not until the last links of the chain are put together. Not before I'm ready to make my first move on the Chancellor's chessboard. Perhaps not at all."

"How do you mean?"

"If I can tide over for a little time, I may throw Philip overboard altogether, and get some one else to manage Miss Halliday for me."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you, Hawkehurst," answered my patron, resting his elbows on the table by which we were sitting, and looking me through with those penetrating black eyes of his. "My brother Phil played me a shabby trick a few years ago, which I have not forgotten or forgiven. So I shouldn't mind paying him out in some of his own coin. Beyond which, I tell you again, I don't like the idea of his having a finger in this business. Where that kind of man's finger can go, his whole hand will follow; and if once that hand fastens on John Haygarth's money, it'll be bad times for you and me. Miss Halliday counts for exactly nothing in my way of reckoning. If her stepfather told her to sign away half a million, she'd scribble her name at the bottom of the paper, and press her pretty little thumb upon the wafer, without asking a single question as to the significance of the document. And, of course, she'd be still less inclined to make objections if it was her husband who asked her to execute the deed. Aha! my young friend, how is it you grow first red and then white when I mention Miss Halliday's husband?"

I have no doubt that I did indeed blanch when that portentous word was uttered in conjunction with my darling's name. Mr. Sheldon leant a little further across the table, and his hard black eyes penetrated a little deeper into the recesses of my foolish heart.

"Valentine Hawkehurst," he said, "shall we throw my brother Phil overboard altogether? Shall you and I go shares in this fortune?"

"Upon my word and honour I don't understand you," I said, in all sincerity.

"You mean that you won't understand me," answered George Sheldon, impatiently; "but I'll make myself pretty clear presently; and as your own interest is at stake, you'll be very unlike the rest of your species if you don't find it easy enough to understand me. When first I let you in for the chance of a prize out of this business, neither you nor I had the slightest idea that circumstances would throw the rightful claimant to the Haygarth estate so completely into our way. I had failed so many times with other cases before I took up this case, that it's a wonder I had the courage to work on. But, somehow or other, I had a notion that this particular business would turn up trumps. The way seemed a little clearer than it usually is; but not clear enough to tempt Tom, Dick, and Harry. And then, again, I had learnt a good many secrets from the experience of my failures. I was well up to my work. I might have carried it on, and I ought to have carried it on, without help; but I was getting worn out and lazy, so I let you into my secret, having taken it into my head that I could venture to trust you."

"You didn't trust me further than you could help, my friend," I replied with my usual candour. "You never told me the amount left by the reverend intestate; but I heard that down at Ullerton. A half share in a hundred thousand pounds is worth trying for, Mr. Sheldon."

"They call it a hundred thousand down there, do they?" asked the lawyer, with charming innocence. "Those country people always deal in high figures. However, I don't mind owning that the sum is a handsome one, and if you and I play our cards wisely, we may push Philip out of the game altogether, and share the plunder between us."

Again I was obliged to confess myself unable to grasp my employer's meaning.

"Marry Charlotte Halliday out of hand," he said, bringing his eyes and his elbows still nearer to me, until his bushy black whiskers almost touched my face. "Marry her before Philip gets an inkling of this affair, and then, instead of being made a tool of by him, she'll be safe in your hands, and the money will be in your hands into the bargain. Why, how you stare, man! Do you think I haven't seen how the land lies between you two? Haven't I dined at Bayswater when you've been there? and