Birds of Prey by M.E. Braddon

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"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 could any man with his wits about him see you two
sentimental young simpletons together _without_ seeing how things were
going on? You are in love with Charlotte, and Charlotte is in love with
you. What more natural than that you two should make a match of it?
Charlotte is her own mistress, and hasn't sixpence in the world that
any one but you and I know of; for, of course, my brother Phil will
continue to stick to every penny of poor old Tom's money. All you have
to do is to follow up the young lady; it's the course that would
suggest itself to any man in the same case, even if Miss Halliday were
the ugliest old harridan in Christendom, instead of being a very jolly
kind of girl, as girls go."

My employer said this with the tone of a man who had never considered
the genus girl a very interesting part of creation. I suppose I looked
at him rather indignantly; for he laughed as he resumed,--

"I'll say she's an angel, if you like," he said; "and if you think her
one, so much the better. You may consider it a very lucky thing that
you came in my way, and a still more lucky thing that Miss Halliday has
been silly enough to fall in love with you. I've heard of men being
born with silver spoons in their mouths; but I should think you must
have come into the world with a whole service of plate. However, that
is neither here nor there. Your policy will be to follow up your
advantages; and if you can persuade the young lady to change her name
for Hawkehurst on the quiet some fine morning, without stopping to ask
permission of her stepfather, or any one else, so much the better for
you, and so much the more agreeable to me. I'd rather do business with
you than with my brother Phil; and I shan't be sorry to cry quits with
that gentleman for the shabby trick he played me a few years ago."

My Sheldon's brow darkened as he said this, and the moody fit returned.
That old grudge which my patron entertains against his brother must
have relation to some very disagreeable business, if I may judge by
George Sheldon's manner.

Here was a position for me, Valentine Hawkehurst, soldier of fortune,
cosmopolitan adventurer, and child of the nomadic tribes who call
Bohemia their mother country! Already blest with the sanction of my
dear love's simple Yorkshire kindred, I was now assured of George
Sheldon's favour; nay, urged onward in my paradisiac path by that
unsentimental Mentor. The situation was almost too much for my
bewildered brain. Charlotte an heiress, and George Sheldon eager to
bring about my participation in the Haygarthian thousands!

And now I sit in my little room 1a Omega-street, pondering upon the
past, and trying to face the perplexities of the future.

Is this to be? Am I, so hopeless an outsider in the race of life, to
come in with a rush and win the prize which Fortune's first favourite
might envy? Can I hope or believe it? Can the Fates have been playing a
pleasant practical joke with me all this time, like those fairies who
decree that the young prince shall pass his childhood and youth in the
guise of a wild boar, only to be transformed into an Adonis at last by
the hand of the woman who is disinterested enough to love him despite
his formidable tusks and ungainly figure?

No! a thousand times no! The woman I love, and the fortune I have so
often desired, are not for me. Every man has his own especial Fates;
and the three sisters who take care of me are grim, hard-visaged,
harder-hearted spinsters, not to be mollified by propitiation, or by
the smooth tongue of the flatterer. The cup is very sweet, and it seems
almost within my grasp; but between that chalice of delight and the
lips that thirst for it, ah, what a gulf!

_Nov. 13th_. The above was written late at night, and under the
influence of my black dog. What an ill-conditioned cur he is, and how
he mouths and mangles the roses that bestrew his pathway, always bent
upon finding the worm at the core!

I kicked the brute out of doors this morning, on finding a letter from
my dear one lying in my plate. "Avaunt, aroint thee, foul fiend!" I
cried. "Thou art the veritable poodle in whose skin Mephistopheles
hides when bent on direst mischief. I will set the sign of the cross
upon my threshold, and thou shalt enter no more."

This is what I said to myself as I tore open Charlotte's envelope, with
its pretty little motto stamped on cream-coloured sealing-wax, "_Pensez
a moi._" Ah, love; "while memory holds a seat in this distracted
globe." I saw the eyes of my friend Horatio fixed upon me as I opened
my letter, and knew that my innermost sentiments were under inspection.
Prudence demands all possible caution where the noble Captain is
concerned. I cannot bring myself to put implicit faith in his account
of his business at Ullerton. He may have been there, as he says, on
some promoting spec; but our meeting in that town was, to say the
least, a strange coincidence, and I am not a believer in coincidences--
off the stage, where a gentleman invariably makes his appearance
directly his friends begin to talk about him.

I cannot forget my conviction that Jonah Goodge was bought over by a
rival investigator, and that Rebecca Haygarth's letters were tampered
with; nor can I refrain from connecting that shapely but well-worn
lavender glove with the person of my dandy friend, Horatio Paget. The
disappearance of a letter from the packet intrusted to me by Miss
Judson is another mysterious circumstance; nor can I do away with the
impression that I heard the name Meynell distinctly pronounced by
Philip Sheldon the last time I was at the villa.

George Sheldon tells me the secret cannot by any possibility have been
betrayed, unless by me; and I have been prudence itself.

Supposing my suspicions of Mr. Goodge to be correct, the letters
extracted from Mrs. Rebecca's correspondence might tell much, and might
even put Horatio on the track of the Meynells. But how should he get
his first inkling of the business?

Certainly not from me or from George Sheldon. But might not his
attention have been attracted by that advertisement for heirs-at-law to
the Haygarthian estate which appeared in the _Times_?

These are questions with which the legal intellect of my Sheldon may
best grapple. For myself, I can only drift with the resistless stream
called life.

I was so unfortunate as to make my appearance in our common
sitting-room five minutes after my patron. There had been time enough
for him to examine the superscription and postmark of my letter. He
was whistling when I went into the room. People who have been looking
at things that don't belong to them always whistle.

I did not care to read Charlotte's first letter with those hawk's eyes
fixed upon me. So I just glanced at the dear handwriting, as if running
over an ordinary letter with the eye of indifference, and then put the
document into my pocket with the best assumption of carelessness I was
capable of. How I longed for the end of that tedious meal, over which
Captain Paget lingered in his usual epicurean fashion!

My friend Horatio has shown himself not a little curious about my late
absence from the joint domicile. I again resorted to the Dorking
fiction,--my aged aunt breaking fast, and requiring much propitiation
from a dutiful nephew with an eye to her testamentary arrangements. I
had been compelled to endow my shadowy relative with a comfortable
little bit of money, in order to account for my devotion; since the
powerful mind of my Horatio would have refused to grasp the idea of
disinterested affection for an ancient kinswoman.

There was an ominous twinkle in the Captain's sharp gray eyes when I
gave this account of my absence, and I sorely doubt his acceptance of
this second volume of the Dorking romance. Ah, what a life it is we
lead in the tents of Ishmael, the cast-away! through what tortuous
pathways wander the nomad tribes who call Hagar, the abandoned, their
mother! what lies, what evasions, what prevarications! Horatio Paget
and I watch each other like two cunning fencers, with a stereotyped
smile upon our lips and an eager restlessness in our eyes, and who
shall say that one or other of our rapiers is not poisoned, as in the
famous duel before Claudius, usurper of Denmark? My dear one's letter
is all sweetness and love. She is coming home; and much as she prefers
Yorkshire to Bayswater, she is pleased to return for my sake--for my
sake. She leaves the pure atmosphere of that simple country home to
become the central point in a network of intrigue; and I am bound to
keep the secret so closely interwoven with her fate. I love her more
truly, more purely than I thought myself capable of loving; yet I can
only approach her as the tool of George Sheldon, a rapacious
conspirator, bent on securing the hoarded thousands of old John
Haygarth.

Of all men upon this earth I should be the last to underrate the
advantages of wealth,--I who have been reared in the gutter, which is
Poverty's cradle. Yet I would fain Charlotte's fortune had come to her
in any other fashion than as the result of my work in the character of
a salaried private inquirer.

BOOK THE SEVENTH.

CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT.

CHAPTER I.

"IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG."

Miss Halliday returned to the gothic villa at Bayswater with a bloom on
her cheeks, and a brightness in her eyes, which surpassed her wonted
bloom and brightness, fair and bright as her beauty had been from the
hour in which she was created to charm mankind. She had been a creature
to adore even in the first dawn of infancy, and in her christening-hood
and toga of white satin had been a being to dream of. But now she
seemed invested all at once with a new loveliness--more spiritual, more
pensive, than the old.

Might not Valentine have cried, with the rapturous pride of a lover:
"Look at the woman here with the new soul!" and anon: "This new soul is
mine!"

It was love that had imparted a new charm to Miss Halliday's beauty.
Diana wondered at the subtle change as her friend sat in her favourite
window on the morning after her return, looking dreamily out into the
blossomless garden, where evergreens of the darkest and spikiest
character stood up stern and straight against the cold gray sky. Diana
had welcomed her friend in her usual reserved manner, much to
Charlotte's discomfiture. The girl so yearned for a confidante. She had
no idea of hiding her happiness from this chosen friend, and waited
eagerly for the moment in which she could put her arms round Diana's
neck and tell her what it was that had made Newhall so sweet to her
during this particular visit.

She sat in the window this morning thinking of Valentine, and
languishing to speak of him, but at a loss how to begin. There are some
people about whose necks the arms of affection can scarce entwine
themselves. Diana Paget sat at her eternal embroidery-frame, picking up
beads on her needle with the precision of some self-feeding machine.
The little glass beads made a hard clicking sound as they dropped from
her needle,--a very frosty, unpromising sound, as it seemed to
Charlotte's hyper-sensitive ear.

There had been an unwonted reserve between the girls since Charlotte's
return,--a reserve which arose, on Miss Halliday's part, from the
contest between girlish shyness and the eager desire for a confidante;
and on the part of Miss Paget, from that gloomy discontent which had of
late possessed her.

She watched Charlotte furtively as she picked up her beads--watched her
wonderingly, unable to comprehend the happiness that gave such
spiritual brightness to her eyes. It was no longer the childlike gaiety
of heart which had made Miss Halliday's girlhood so pleasant. It was
the thoughtful, serene delight of womanhood.

"She can care very little for Valentine," Diana thought, "or she could
scarcely seem so happy after such a long separation. I doubt if these
bewitching women who enchant all the world know what it is to feel
deeply. Happiness is a habit with this girl. Valentine's attentions
were very pleasant to her. The pretty little romance was very agreeable
while it lasted; but at the first interruption of the story she shuts
the book, and thinks of it no more. O, if my Creator had made _me_ like
that! If I could forget the days we spent together, and the dream I
dreamt!"

That never-to-be-forgotten vision came back to Diana Paget as she sat
at her work; and for a few minutes the clicking sound of the beads
ceased, while she waited with clasped hands until the shadows should
have passed before her eyes. The old dream came back to her like a
picture, bright with colour and light. But the airy habitation which
she had built for herself of old was no "palace lifting to Italian
heavens its marble roof." It was only a commonplace lodging in a street
running out of the Strand, with just a peep of the river from a trim
little balcony. An airy second-floor sitting-room, with engraved
portraits of the great writers on the newly-papered walls: on one side
an office-desk, on the other a work-table. The unpretending shelter of
a newspaper hack, who lives _a jour la journee_, and whose wife must
achieve wonders in the way of domestic economy in order to eke out his
modest earnings.

This was Diana Paget's vision of Paradise, and it seemed only the
brighter now that she felt it was never to be anything more than a
supernal picture painted on her brain.

After sitting silent for some little time, eager to talk, but waiting
to be interrogated, Charlotte was fain to break silence.

"You don't ask me whether I enjoyed myself in Yorkshire, Di," she said,
looking shyly down at the little bunch of charms and lockets which
employed her restless fingers.

"Didn't I, really?" replied Diana, languidly; "I thought that was one
of the stereotyped inquiries one always made."

"I hope you wouldn't make stereotyped inquiries of _me_, Diana."

"No, I ought not to do so. But I think there are times when one is
artificial even with one's best friends. And you are my best friend,
Charlotte. I may as well say my only friend," the girl added, with a
laugh.

"Diana," cried Charlotte, reproachfully, "why do you speak so bitterly?
You know how dearly I love you. I do, indeed, dear. There is scarcely
anything in this world I would not do for you. But I am not your only
friend. There is Mr. Hawkehurst, whom you have known so long."

Miss Halliday's face was in a flame; and although she bent very low to
examine the golden absurdities hanging on her watch-chain, she could
not conceal her blushes from the eyes that were so sharpened by
jealousy.

"Mr. Hawkehurst!" cried Diana, with unspeakable contempt. "If I were
drowning, do you think _he_ would stretch out his hand to save me while
you were within his sight? When he comes to this house--he who has seen
so much poverty, and misery, and shame, and--happiness with me and
mine--do you think he so much as remembers my existence? Do you think
he ever stops to consider whether I am that Diana Paget who was once
his friend and confidante and fellow-wayfarer and companion? or only a
lay figure dressed up to fill a vacant chair in your drawing-room?"

"Diana!"

"It is all very well to look at me reproachfully, Charlotte. You must
know that I am speaking the truth. You talk of friendship. What is that
word worth if it does not mean care and thought for another? Do you
imagine that Valentine Hawkehurst ever thinks of me, or considers me?"

Charlotte was fain to keep silence. She remembered how very rarely, in
those long afternoons at Newhall farm, the name of Diana Paget had been
mentioned. She remembered how, when she and Valentine were mapping out
the future so pleasantly, she had stopped in the midst of an eloquent
bit of word-painting, descriptive of the little suburban cottage they
were to live in, to dispose of Diana's fate in a sentence,--

"And dear Di can stop at the villa to take care of mamma," she had
said; whereupon Mr. Hawkehurst had assented, with a careless nod, and
the description of the ideal cottage had been continued.

Charlotte remembered this now with extreme contrition. She had been so
supremely happy, and so selfish in her happiness.

"O, Di," she cried, "how selfish happy people are!" And then she
stopped in confusion, perceiving that the remark had little relevance
to Diana's last observation.

"Valentine shall be your friend, dear," she said, after a pause.

"O, you are beginning to answer for him already!" exclaimed Miss Paget,
with increasing bitterness.

"Diana, why are you so unkind to me?" Charlotte cried, passionately.
"Don't you see that I am longing to confide in you? What is it that
makes you so bitter? You must know how truly I love you. And if Mr.
Hawkehurst is not what he once was to you, you must remember how cold
and distant you always are in your manner to him. I am sure, to hear
you speak to him, and to see you look at him sometimes, one would think
he was positively hateful to you. And I want you to like him a little
for my sake."

Miss Halliday left her seat by the window as she said this, and went
towards the table by which her friend was sitting. She crept close to
Diana, and with a half-frightened, half-caressing movement, seated
herself on the low ottoman at her feet, and, seated thus, possessed
herself of Miss Paget's cold hand.

"I want you to like Mr. Hawkehurst a little, Di," she repeated, "for my
sake."

"Very well, I will try to like him a little--for your sake," answered
Miss Paget, in a very unsympathetic tone.

"O, Di! tell me how it was he offended you."

"Who told you that he offended me?"

"Your own manner, dear. You could never have been so cold and distant
with him--having known him go long, and endured so many troubles in his
company--if you had not been deeply offended by him."

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