Birds of Prey by M.E. Braddon

M >> M.E. Braddon >> Birds of Prey

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37

My ancient received me graciously. I took him half a pound of mild
bird's-eye tobacco, on diplomatic grounds. He is evidently the sort of
person who would receive Mephistopheles graciously, if the fiend
presented him with tobacco.

I returned to the charge--diplomatically, of course; talked about
Ullerton and Ullerton people in general, insinuating occasional
questions about the Haygarths. I was rewarded by obtaining some little
information about Mrs. Matthew. That lady appears to have been a
devoted disciple of John Wesley, and was fonder of travelling to divers
towns and villages to hear the discourses of that preacher than her
husband approved. It seems they were wont to disagree upon this
subject.

For some years before her marriage Mrs. Matthew was a member of a
Wesleyan confraternity, in those days newly established at Ullerton.
They held meetings and heard sermons in the warehouse of a wealthy
draper; and shortly before Mrs. Matthew's demise they built a chapel,
still extant, in a dingy little thoroughfare known as Waterhouse-lane.

On these points my ancient mariner is tolerably clear. They belong to
the period remembered by his father.

And now I believe him to be pumped dry. I gave him my benediction, and
left him smoking some of my tobacco, content with himself and with the
world--always excepting the authorities, or board, of the almshouses,
against whom he appears to nourish a grievance.

After leaving him, I walked about Ullerton for an hour or so before
returning to my humble hostelry. The streets of Ullerton are sealed
with the seal of desolation--the abomination of desolation reigns in
the market-place, where the grass flourishes greenly in the interstices
of the pavement. The place has known prosperity, and is prosperous no
longer; but although its chief trade has left it, there are still some
three or four factories in full swing. I heard clanging bells, and
met bare-headed women and uncouth-looking men hurrying to and fro.
I went to look at the Wesleyan chapel in Waterhouse-lane. It is a
queer little building, and bears some resemblance to a toy Noah's Ark
in red brick. Tall warehouses have arisen about it and hemmed it in,
and the slim chimney-shaft of a waterworks throws a black shadow aslant
its unpretending facade. I inquired the name of the present minister.
He is called Jonah Goodge, began life as a carpenter, and is accounted
the pink and pattern of piety. _Oct. 4th_. A letter from Sheldon awaited
me in the coffee-room letter-rack when I went downstairs to breakfast.

"MY DEAR HAWKEHURST,--Don't be disheartened if the work seems slow at
first. You'll soon get used to it.

"I should recommend you to adopt the following tactics:

"1st. Go to the house at Dewsdale, inhabited by M.H. and his wife. You
may have some difficulty in obtaining admission--and full liberty to
explore and examine--from the present servant or owner; but you are not
the man I take you for if you cannot overcome such a difficulty. I
enclose a few of my cards, which you can use at your discretion. They
show professional status. It would be as well to call yourself my
articled clerk, and to state that you are prosecuting an inquiry on the
behalf of a client of mine, who wishes to prove a certain event in the
past connected remotely with the H. family. If asked whether your
business relates to the property left by the rev. intestate, you must
reply decisively in the negative. But I must remind you that extreme
caution is required in every move you make. Wherever you can do your
work _without_ any reference to the name of Haygarth, avoid such
reference. Always remember that there may be other people on the same
scent.

"2nd. Examine the house in detail; look for old pictures, old
furniture, old needlework--if you are lucky enough to find the Haygarth
furniture was sold with the property, which I should think probable.
The rev. intestate must have been at the University when he made the
sale; and a young Cantab would in all likelihood pass over his
ancestral chairs and tables to the purchaser of his ancestral mansion,
as so much useless lumber. It is proverbial that walls have ears. I
hope the Dewsdale walls may have tongues, and favour you with a little
information.

"3rd. When you have done all that is to be done at Dewsdale, your next
work must be to hunt up any scion of the lawyer Brice, if such scion be
in existence at Ullerton. Or if not to be found in Ullerton, ascertain
where the descendant, or decendants, of Brice is, or are, to be found.
Brice, the lawyer, must have known the contents of those wills executed
and afterwards destroyed by Haygarth, and may have kept rough draughts,
copies, or memoranda of the same. This is most important.--Yours truly,
G.S."

This Sheldon is a wonderful man, and a cautious!--no Signature to his
letter.

I started for Dewidale immediately after my breakfast. I have made
arrangements for boarding in this house, which is a second-rate
commercial inn. They have agreed to give me board and lodging for
twenty shillings a week--the full amount of my stipend: so all that I
gain by my researches in the affairs of the departed Matthew is food
and shelter. However, as this food and shelter is perhaps more honestly
obtained than those little dinners which I have so often eaten with the
great Horatio, I will try to fancy a sweetness in the tough steaks and
greasy legs of mutton. O sheep of Midlandshire! why cultivate such
ponderous calves, and why so incline to sinews? O cooks of
Midlandshire! why so superficial in the treatment of your roasts, so
impetuous and inconsiderate when you boil?

A railroad now penetrates the rural district in which the village of
Dewsdale is situated. There is a little station, something like a
wooden Dutch oven, within a mile of the village; and here I alighted.
The morning savoured of summer rather than autumn. The air was soft and
balmy, the sunshine steeped the landscape in warm light, and the red
and golden tints of the fading foliage took new splendour from that
yellow sunshine. A man whose life is spent in cities must be dull of
soul indeed if he does not feel a little touched by the beauty of
rustic scenery, when he finds himself suddenly in the heart of the
country. I had seen nothing so fair as those English fields and copses
since I left the pine-clad hills of Foretdechene. An idiotic boy
directed me across some fields to Dewsdale. He sent me a mile out of
the way; but I forgave and blest him, for I think the walk did me good.
I felt as if all manner of vicious vapours were being blown out of my
head as the soft wind lifted my hair.

And so to Dewsdale. Strolling leisurely through those quiet meadows, I
fell to thinking of many things that seldom came into my mind in
London. I thought of my dead mother--a poor gentle creature--too frail
to carry heroically the burden laid upon her, and so a little soured by
chronic debt and difficulty. I have reason to remember her tenderly; we
shared so much misery together. I believe my father married her in the
Rules of the Bench; and if I am not sure upon this point, I know for a
certainty that I was born within those mystic boundaries.

And then my mind wandered to those nomadic adventures in which poor
Diana Paget and I were so much together. I think we were a little fond
of each other in those days; but in that matter I was at least prudent;
and now the transient fancy has faded, on Di's part as well as on mine.

If I could be as prudent where Charlotte H. is concerned!

But prudence and Charlotte's eyes cannot hold their own in the same
brain. Of two things, one, as our neighbours say: a man must cease to
be prudent, or he must forget those bewitching gray eyes.

I know she was sorry when she heard of my intended departure.

This is her birthday. She is twenty-one years of age to-day. I remember
the two girls talking of it, and Miss Halliday declaring herself "quite
old." My dear one, I drink your health in this poor tavern liquor, with
every tender wish and holy thought befitting your innocent girlhood!

CHAPTER II.

MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE.

I found the house at Dewsdale without difficulty. It is a stiff,
square, red-brick dwelling-place, with long narrow windows, a high
narrow door, and carved canopy; a house which savours of the _Tatler_
and _Spectator_; a house in which the short-faced gentleman might have
spent his summer holidays after Sir Roger's death. It stands behind a
high iron gate, surmounted by a handsome coat of arms; and before it
there lies a pleasant patch of greensward, with a pond and a colony of
cackling geese, which craned their necks and screamed at me as I passed
them.

The place is the simplest and smallest of rural villages. There is a
public-house--the Seven Stars; a sprinkling of humble cottages; a
general shop, which is at once a shoemaker's, a grocer's, a
linen draper's, a stationer's, and a post office. These habitations, a
gray old church with a square tower, half hidden by the sombre foliage
of yews and cedars, and the house once inhabited by the Haygarths,
comprise the whole of the village. The Haygarthian household is now the
rectory. I ascertained this fact from the landlord of the Seven Stars,
at which house of entertainment I took a bottle of soda-water, in order
to _sonder le terrain_ before commencing business.

The present rector is an elderly widower with seven children; an easy
good-natured soul, who is more prone to bestow his money in charity
than to punctuality in the payment of his debts.

Having discovered thus much, I rang the bell at the iron gate and
boarded the Haygarthian mansion. The rector was at home, and received
me in a very untidy apartment, _par excellence_ a study. A boy in a
holland blouse was smearing his face with his inky fingers, and
wrestling with a problem in Euclid, while his father stood on a
step-ladder exploring a high shelf of dusty books.

The rector, whose name is Wendover, descended from the step-ladder and
shook the dust from his garments. He is a little withered old man, with
a manner so lively as to be on the verge of flightiness. I observed
that he wiped his dusty palms on the skirts of his coat, and argued
therefrom that he would be an easy person to deal with. I soon found
that my deduction was correct.

I presented Sheldon's card and stated my business, of course acting on
that worthy's advice. Could Mr. Wendover give me any information
relating to the Haygarth family?

Fortune favoured me throughout this Dewsdale expedition. The rector is
a simple garrulous old soul, to whom to talk is bliss. He has occupied
the house five-and-thirty years. He rents it of the lord of the manor,
who bought it from John Haygarth. Not a stick of furniture has been
removed since our friend Matthew's time; and the rev. intestate may
have wrestled with the mysteries of Euclid on the same old-fashioned
mahogany table at which I saw the boy in brown holland.

Mr. Wendover left his books and manuscripts scattered on the floor of
the study, and conducted me to a cool shady drawing-room, very
shabbily furnished with the spindle-legged chairs and tables of the
last century. Here he begged me to be seated, and here we were ever and
anon interrupted by intruding juveniles, the banging of doors, and the
shrill clamour of young voices in the hall and garden.

I brought all the diplomacy of which I am master to bear in my long
interview with the rector; and the following is a transcript of our
conversation, after a good deal of polite skirmishing:--

_Myself_. You see, my dear sir, the business I am concerned in is
remotely connected with these Haygarths. Any information you will
kindly afford me, however apparently trivial, may be of service in the
affair I am prosecuting.

_The Rector._ To be sure, to be sure! But, you see, though I've heard a
good deal of the Haygarths, it is all gossip--the merest gossip. People
are so fond of gossip, you know--especially country people: I have no
doubt you have remarked that. Yes, I have heard a great deal about
Matthew Haygarth. My late clerk and sexton,--a very remarkable man,
ninety-one when he died, and able to perform his duties very creditably
within a year of his death--very creditably; but the hard winter of '56
took him off, poor fellow, and now I have a young man. Old Andrew Hone
--that was my late clerk's name--was employed in this house when a lad,
and was very fond of talking about Matthew Haygarth and his wife. She
was a rich woman, you know, a very rich woman--the daughter of a brewer
at Ullerton; and this house belonged to her--inherited from her
father.

_Myself_. And did you gather from your clerk that Matthew Haygarth and
his wife lived happily together?

_The Rector_. Well, yes, yes: I never
heard anything to the contrary. They were not a young couple, you know.
Rebecca Caulfield was forty years of age, and Matthew Haygarth was
fifty-three when he married; so, you see, one could hardly call it a
love-match. [_Abrupt inroad of bouncing damsel, exclaiming "Pa!"_]
Don't you see I'm engaged, Sophia Louisa? Why are you not at your
practice? [_Sudden retreat of bouncing damsel, followed by the
scrambling performance of scale of C major in adjoining chamber, which
performance abruptly ceases after five minutes_.] You see Mrs.
Haygarth was _not_ young, as I was about to observe when my daughter
interrupted us; and she was perhaps a little more steadfast in her
adherence to the newly arisen sect of Wesleyans than was pleasing to
her husband, although he consented to become a member of that sect. But
as their married life lasted only a year, they had little time for
domestic unhappiness, even supposing them not to be adapted to each
other.

_Myself_. Mrs Matthew Haygarth did not marry again?

_The Rector_. No; she devoted herself to the education of her son, and
lived and died in this house. The room which is now my study she
furnished with a small reading-desk and a couple of benches, now in my
nursery, and made it into a kind of chapel, in which the keeper of the
general shop--who was, I believe, considered a shining light amongst
the Wesleyan community--was in the habit of holding forth every Sunday
morning to such few members of that sect as were within reach of
Dewsdale. She died when her son was nineteen years of age, and was
buried in the family vault in the churchyard yonder. Her son's
adherence to the Church of England was a very great trouble to her.
[_Inroad of boy in holland, very dejected and inky of aspect, also
exclaiming "Pa!"_] No, John; not till that problem is worked out. Take
that cricket-bat back to the lobby, sir, and return to your studies.
[_Sulky withdrawal of boy._] You see what it is to have a large family,
Mr.--Sheldon. I beg pardon, Mr.------

_Myself_. Hawkehurst, clerk to Mr. Sheldon.

_The Rector_. To be sure. I have some thoughts of the Law for one of my
elder sons; the Church is terribly overcrowded. However, as I was on
the point of saying when my boy John disturbed us, though I have heard
a great deal of gossip about the Haygarths, I fear I can give you very
little substantial information. Their connection with Dewsdale lasted
little more than twenty years. Matthew Haygarth was married in Dewsdale
church, his son John was christened in Dewsdale church, and he himself
is buried in the churchyard. That is about as much positive information
as I can give you; and you will perhaps remark that the parish register
would afford you as much. After questioning the good-natured old rector
rather closely, and obtaining little more than the above information, I
asked permission to see the house.

"Old furniture and old pictures are apt to be suggestive," I said; "and
perhaps while we are going over the house you may happen to recall some
further particulars relating to the Haygarth family."

Mr. Wendover assented. He was evidently anxious to oblige me, and
accepted my explanation of my business in perfect good faith. He
conducted me from room to room, waiting patiently while I scrutinised
the panelled walls and stared at the attenuated old furniture. I was
determined to observe George Sheldon's advice to the very letter,
though I had little hope of making any grand melodramatic discovery in
the way of documents hidden in old cabinets, or mouldering behind
sliding panels.

I asked the rector if he had ever found papers of any kind in forgotten
nooks and corners of the house or the furniture. His reply was a
decided negative. He had explored and investigated every inch of the
old dwelling-place, and had found nothing.

So much for Sheldon's idea.

Mr. Wendover led me from basement to garret, encountering bouncing
daughters and boys in brown holland wherever we went; and from basement
to garret I found that all was barren. In the whole of the house there
was but one object which arrested my attention, and the interest which
that one object aroused in my mind had no relation to the Haygarthian
fortune.

Over a high carved chimney-piece in one of the bedchambers there hung a
little row of miniatures--old-fashioned oval miniatures, pale and
faded--pictures of men and women with the powdered hair of the Georgian
period, and the flowing full-bottomed wigs familiar to St. James's and
Tunbridge-wells in the days of inoffensive Anne. There were in all
seven miniatures, six of which specimens of antique portraiture were
prim and starched and artificial of aspect. But the seventh was
different in form and style: it was the picture of a girlish face
looking out of a frame of loose unpowdered locks; a bright innocent
face, with gray eyes and marked black eyebrows, pouting lips a little
parted, and white teeth gleaming between lips of rosy red; such a face
as one might fancy the inspiration of an old poet. I took the miniature
gently from the little brass hook on which it hung, and stood for some
time looking at the bright frank face.

It was the picture of Charlotte Halliday. Yes; I suppose there is a
fatality in these things. It was one of those marvellous accidental
resemblances which every man has met with in the course of his life.
Here was this dead-and-gone beauty of the days of George the Second
smiling upon me with the eyes and lips of Philip Sheldon's
stepdaughter!

Or was it only a delusion of my own? Was my mind so steeped in the
thought of that girl--was my heart so impressed by her beauty, that I
could not look upon a fair woman's face without conjuring up her
likeness in the pictured countenance? However this may be, I looked
long and tenderly at the face which seemed to me to resemble the woman
I love.

Of course I questioned the rector as to the original of this particular
miniature. He could tell me nothing about it, except that he thought it
was not one of the Caulfields or Haygarths. The man in the
full-bottomed Queen-Anne wig was Jeremiah Caulfield, brewer, father
of the pious Rebecca; the woman with the high powdered head was the
pious Rebecca herself; the man in the George-the-Second wig was
Matthew Haygarth. The other three were kindred of Rebecca's. But the
wild-haired damsel was some unknown creature, for whose presence Mr.
Wendover was unable to account.

I examined the frame of the miniature, and found that it opened at the
back. Behind the ivory on which the portrait was painted there was a
lock of dark hair incased in crystal; and on the inside of the case,
which was of some worthless metal gilded, there was scratched the name
"Molly."

How this Molly with the loose dark locks came to be admitted among the
prim, and pious Caulfields is certainly more than I can understand.

My exploration of the house having resulted only in this little
romantic accident of the likeness to Charlotte, I prepared to take my
departure, no wiser than when I had first crossed the threshold. The
rector very politely proposed to show me the church; and as I
considered that it would be well to take a copy of the Haygarthian
entries in the register, I availed myself of his offer. He despatched a
maid-servant to summon his clerk, in order that that functionary might
assist in the investigation of the registers. The girl departed on this
errand, while her master conducted me across his garden, in which there
is now a gate opening into the churchyard.

It is the most picturesque of burial-grounds, darkened by the shadow of
those solemn yews and spreading cedars. We walked very slowly between
the crumbling old tombstones, which have almost all grown one-sided
with time. Mr. Wendover led me through a little labyrinth of lowly
graves to a high and ponderous iron railing surrounding a square space,
in the midst of which there is a stately stone monument. In the railing
there is a gate, from which a flight of stone step leads down to the
door of a vault. It is altogether rather a pretentious affair, wherein
one sees the evidence of substantial wealth unelevated by artistic
grace or poetic grandeur.

This is the family vault of the Caulfields and Haygarths.

"I've brought you to look at this tomb," said the rector, resting his
hand upon the rusted railing, "because there is rather a romantic story
connected with it--a story that concerns Matthew Haygarth, by the bye.
I did not think of it just now, when we were talking of him; but it
flashed on my memory as we came through the garden. It is rather a
mysterious affair; and though it is not very likely to have any bearing
upon the object of your inquiry, I may as well tell you about it,--as a
leaf out of family history, you know, Mr. Hawkehurst, and as a new
proof of the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction."

I assured the rector that I should be glad to hear anything he could
tell me.

"I must premise that I only tell the story as I got it from my old
clerk, and that it may therefore seem rather indistinct; but there is
an entry in the register yonder to show that it is not without
foundation. However, I will waste no more words in preamble, but give
you the story, which is simply this:"--

The rector seated himself on a dilapidated old tombstone, while I
leaned against the rails of the Haygarth vault, looking down upon him.

"Within a month or two of Matthew Haygarth's death a kind of melancholy
came over him," said the rector. "Whether he was unhappy with his wife,
or whether he felt his health declining, is more than I can say. You
must remember that my informant was but a lad at the time of which I
speak, and that when he talked to me about the subject sixty years
afterwards he was a very old man, and his impressions were therefore
more or less vague. But upon certain facts he was sufficiently
positive; and amongst the circumstances he remembered most vividly are
those of the story I am going to tell you.

"It seems that within a very few weeks of Matthew's death, his wife,
Rebecca Haygarth, started on an expedition to the north, in the company
of an uncle, to hear John Wesley preach on some very special occasion,
and to assist at a love-feast. She was gone more than a fortnight; and
during her absence Matthew Haygarth mounted his horse early one morning
and rode away from Dewsdale.

"His household consisted of three maids, a man, and the lad Andrew
Hone, afterwards my sexton. Before departing on his journey Mr.
Haygarth had said that he would not return till late the next evening,
and had requested that only the man (whose name I forget) should sit up
for him." He was punctiliously obeyed. The household, always of early
habits, retired at nine, the accustomed hour; and the man-servant
waited to receive his master, while the lad Andrew, who slept in the
stables, sat up to keep his fellow-servant company.

"At ten o'clock Mr. Haygarth came home, gave his horse into the charge
of the lad, took his candle from the man-servant, and walked straight
upstairs, as if going to bed. The man-servant locked the doors, took
his master the key, and then went to his own quarters. The boy remained
up to feed and groom the horse, which had the appearance of having
performed a hard day's work.

"He had nearly concluded this business when he was startled by the
slamming of the back door opening into the courtyard, in which were the
stables and outhouses. Apprehending thieves, the boy opened the door of
the stable and looked out, doubtless with considerable caution.

"It was broad moonlight, and he saw at a glance that the person who had
opened the door was one who had a right to open it. Matthew Haygarth
was crossing the courtyard as the lad peeped out. He wore a long black
cloak, and his head drooped upon his breast as if he had been in
dejection. The lad--being, I suppose, inquisitive, after the manner of
country lads--made no more ado, but left his unfinished work and crept
stealthily after his master, who came straight to this churchyard,--
indeed to this very spot on which we are now standing.

"On this spot the boy Andrew Hone became the secret witness of a
strange scene. He saw an open grave close against the rails yonder, and
he saw a little coffin lowered silently into that grave by the sexton
of that time and a strange man, who afterwards went away in a mourning
coach, which was in waiting at the gate, and in which doubtless the
stranger and the little coffin had come.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37