Birds of Prey by M.E. Braddon

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

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"My dear Mr. Sheldon, how shall I ever thank you for this!" cried
Valentine, surprised into a belief in the purity of the stockbroker's
intentions.

"Don't be in a hurry," replied that gentleman coolly; "you haven't
heard me out yet. Though I may consent to take the very opposite line
of conduct which I might be expected to take as a man of the world, I
am not going to allow you and Charlotte to make fools of yourselves.
There must be no love-in-a-cottage business, no marrying on nothing a
year, with the expectation that papa and mamma will make up the
difference between that and a comfortable income. In plain English, if
I consent to receive you as Charlotte's future husband, you and she
must consent to wait until you can, to my entire satisfaction, prove
yourself in a position to keep a wife." Valentine sighed doubtfully.

"I don't think either Miss Halliday or I are in an unreasonable hurry
to begin life together," he said thoughtfully; "but there must be some
fixed limit to our probation. I am afraid the waiting will be a very
long business, if I am to obtain a position that will satisfy you
before I ask my dear girl to share my fate."

"Are your prospects so very black?"

"No; to my mind they seem wonderfully bright. But the earnings of a
magazine-writer will scarcely come up to your idea of an independence.
Just now I am getting about ten pounds a month. With industry, I may
stretch that ten to twenty; and with luck I might make the twenty into
thirty--forty--fifty. A man has only to achieve something like a
reputation in order to make a handsome living by his pen."

"I am very glad to hear that," said Mr. Sheldon; "and when you can
fairly demonstrate to me that you are earning thirty pounds a month,
you shall have my consent to your marriage with Charlotte, and I will
do what I can to give you a fair start in life. I suppose you know that
she hasn't a sixpence in the world, that she can call her own?"

This was a trying question for Valentine Hawkehurst, and Mr. Sheldon
looked at him with a sharp scrutinising glance as he awaited a reply.
The young man flushed crimson, and grew pale again before he spoke.

"Yes," he said, "I have long been aware that Miss Halliday has no legal
claim on her father's fortune."

"There you have hit the mark," cried Mr. Sheldon. "She has no claim to
a sixpence in law; but to an honourable man that is not the question.
Poor Halliday's money amounted in all to something like eighteen
thousand pounds. That sum passed into my possession when I married my
poor friend's widow, who had too much respect for me to hamper my
position as a man of business by any legal restraints that would have
hindered my making the wisest use of her money. I have used that money,
and I need scarcely tell you that I have employed it with considerable
advantage to myself and Georgy. I therefore can afford to be generous,
and I mean to be so; but the manner in which I do things must be of my
own choosing. My own children are dead, and there is no one belonging
to one that stands in Miss Halliday's way. When I die she will inherit
a handsome fortune. And if she marries with my approval, I shall
present her with a very comfortable dowry. I think you will allow that
this is fair enough."

"Nothing could be fairer or more generous," replied Valentine with
enthusiasm.

Mr. Sheldon's agreeable candour had entirely subjugated him. Despite of
all that George had said to his brother's prejudice, he was ready to
believe implicitly in Philip's fair dealing.

"And in return for this I ask something on your part," said Mr.
Sheldon. "I want you to give me your promise that you will take no
serious step without my knowledge. You won't steal a march upon me. You
won't walk off with Charlotte some fine morning and marry her at a
registry-office, or anything of that kind, eh?"

"I will not," answered Valentine resolutely, with a very unpleasant
recollection of his dealings with George Sheldon.

"Give me your hand upon that," cried the stockbroker.

Upon this the two men shook hands, and Valentine's fingers were almost
crushed in the cold hard grip of Mr. Sheldon's muscular hand. And now
there came upon Valentine's ear the sound of one of Mendelssohn's
_Lieder ohne Worte_, tenderly played by the gentle hands he knew so
well. And the lover began to feel that he could no longer sit sipping
the stockbroker's port with a hypocritical pretence of appreciation,
and roasting himself before the blazing fire, the heat whereof was
multiplied to an insufferable degree by grate and fender of reflecting
steel.

Mr. Sheldon was not slow to perceive his guest's impatience, and having
made exactly the impression he wanted to make, was quite willing that
the interview should come to an end.

"You had better be off to the drawing-room," he said, good naturedly;
"I see you are in that stage of the fever in which masculine society is
only a bore. You can go and hear Charlotte play, while I read the
evening papers and write a few letters. You can let her know that you
and I understand each other. Of course we shall see you very often.
You'll eat your Christmas turkey with us, and so on; and I shall trust
to your honour for the safe keeping of that promise you made me just
now," said Mr. Sheldon.

"And I shall keep an uncommonly close watch upon you and the young
lady, my friend," added that gentleman, communing with his own thoughts
as he crossed the smart little hall, where two Birmingham iron knights
in chain armour bestrode their gallant chargers, on two small tables of
sham malachite.

Mr. Sheldon's library was not a very inspiring apartment. His ideas of
a _sanctum sanctorum_ did not soar above the commonplace. A decent
square room, furnished with plenty of pigeon-holes, a neat brass scale
for the weighing of letters, a copying-press, a waste-paper basket, a
stout brass-mounted office inkstand capable of holding a quart or so of
ink, and a Post-office Directory, were all he asked for his hours of
leisure and meditation. In a handsome glazed bookcase, opposite his
writing-table, appeared a richly-bound edition of the _Waverley_
_Novels_, Knight's _Shakespeare_, Hume and Smollett, Fielding,
Goldsmith, and Gibbon; but, except when Georgy dusted the sacred
volumes with her own fair hands, the glass doors of the bookcase were
never opened.

Mr. Sheldon turned on the gas, seated himself at his comfortable
writing-table, and took up his pen. A quire of office note-paper, with
his City address upon it, lay ready beneath his hand; but he did not
begin to write immediately. He sat for some time with his elbows on the
table, and his chin in his hands, meditating with dark fixed brows.

"Can I trust her?" he asked himself. "Is it safe to have her near me--
after---after what she said to me in Fitzgeorge-street? Yes, I think I
can trust her, up to a certain point; but beyond that I must be on my
guard. She might be more dangerous than a stranger. One thing is quite
clear--she must be provided for somehow or other. The question is,
whether she is to be provided for in this house or out of it; and
whether I can make her serve me as I want to be served?"

This was the gist of Mr. Sheldon's meditations; but they lasted for
some time. The question which he had to settle was an important one,
and he was too wise a man not to contemplate a subject from every
possible point of sight before arriving at his decision. He took a
letter-clip from one side of his table, and turned over several open
letters in search of some particular document.

He came at last to the letter he wanted. It was written on very common
note-paper, with brown-looking ink, and the penmanship was evidently
that of an uneducated person; but Mr. Sheldon studied its contents with
the air of a man who is dealing with no unimportant missive.

This was the letter which so deeply interested the stockbroker:--

"HONORED SIR--This coms hopping that You and Your Honored ladie are
well has it leevs me tho nott so strong has i coud wish wich his nott
too bee expect at my time off life my pore neffew was tooke with the
tyfus last tewsday weak was giv over on thirsday and we hav berried him
at kensil grean Honored Mr. Sheldon I hav now no home my pore neece
must go hout into survis. Luckly there har no Childring and the pore
gurl can gett hur living as housmade wich she were in survis hat hi
gate befor she marrid my pore Joseff Honored sir i ham trewly sorry too
trubbel you butt i think for hold times you will forgiv the libertey
off this letter i would nott hintrewd on you iff i had enny frend to
help me in my old aig,

"Your obeddient survent."

"17 Litle Tottles-yarde lambeft."

AN WOOLPER

"No friend to help her in her old age," muttered Mr. Sheldon; "that
means that she intends to throw herself upon me for the rest of her
life, and to put me to the expense of burying her when she is so
obliging as to die. Very pleasant, upon my word! A man has a servant
in the days of his poverty, pays her every fraction he owes her in the
shape of wages, and wishes her good speed when she goes to settle
down among her relations; and one fine morning, when he has got into a
decent position, she writes to inform him that her nephew is dead, and
that she expects him to provide for her forthwith. That is the gist of
Mrs. Woolper's letter; and if it were not for one or two considerations,
I should be very much inclined to take a business-like view of the
case, and refer the lady to her parish. What are poor-rates intended
for, I should like to know, if a man who pays four-and-twopence in the
pound is to be pestered in this sort of way?"

And then Mr. Sheldon, having given vent to his vexation by such
reflections as these, set himself to examine the matter in another
light.

"I must manage to keep sweet with Nancy Woolper somehow or other,
that's very clear; for a chattering old woman is about as dangerous an
enemy as a man can have. I might provide for her decently enough out of
doors for something like a pound a week; and that would be a cheap
enough way of paying off all old scores. But I'm not quite clear that
it would be a safe way. A life of idleness might develop Mrs. Woolper's
latent propensity for gossip--and gossip is what I want to avoid. No,
that plan won't do."

For some moments Mr. Sheldon meditated silently, with his brows fixed
even more sternly than before. Then he struck his hand suddenly on the
morocco-covered table, and uttered his thoughts aloud.

"I'll risk it," he said; "she shall come into the house and serve my
interests by keeping a sharp watch upon Charlotte Halliday. There shall
be no secret marriage between those two. No, my friend Valentine, you
may be a very clever fellow, but you are not quite clever enough to
steal a march upon me."

Having arrived at this conclusion, Mr. Sheldon wrote a few lines to
Nancy Woolper, telling her to call upon him at the Lawn.

CHAPTER V.

MR. SHELDON IS BENEVOLENT.

Nancy Woolper had lost little of her activity during the ten years that
had gone by since she received her wages from Mr. Sheldon, on his
breaking up his establishment in Fitzgeorge-street. Her master had
given her the opportunity of remaining in his service, had she so
pleased; but Mrs. Woolper was a person of independent, not to say
haughty, spirit, and she had preferred to join her small fortunes with
those of a nephew who was about to begin business as a chandler and
general dealer in a very small way, rather than to submit herself to
the sway of that lady whom she insisted on calling Miss Georgy.

"It's so long since I've been used to a missus," she said, when
announcing her decision to Mr. Sheldon, "I doubt if I could do with
Miss Georgy's finnickin ways. I should feel tewed like, if she came
into the kitchen, worritin' and asking questions. I've been used to my
own ways, and I don't suppose I could do with hers."

So Nancy departed, to enter on a career of unpaid drudgery in the
household of her kinsman, and to lose the last shilling of her small
savings in the futile endeavour to sustain the fortunes of the general
dealer. His death, following very speedily upon his insolvency, left
the poor soul quite adrift; and in this extremity she had been fain to
make her appeal to Mr. Sheldon. His reply came in due course, but not
without upwards of a week's delay; during which time Nancy Woolper's
spirits sank very low, while a dreary vision of a living grave--called
a workhouse--loomed more and more darkly upon her poor old eyes. She
had well-nigh given up all hope of succour from her old master when the
letter came, and she was the more inclined to be grateful for very
small help after this interval of suspense. It was not without strong
emotion that Mrs. Woolper obeyed her old master's summons. She had
nursed the hard, cold man of the world whom she was going to see once
more, after ten years of severance; and though it was more difficult
for her to imagine that Philip Sheldon, the stockbroker, was the same
Philip she had carried in her stout arms, and hushed upon her breast
forty years ago, than it would have been to fancy the dead who had
lived in those days restored to life and walking by her side, still,
she could not forget that such things had been, and could not refrain
from looking at her master with more loving eyes because of that
memory.

A strange dark cloud had arisen between her and her master's image
during the latter part of her service in Fitzgeorge-street; but, little
by little, the cloud had melted away, leaving the familiar image clear
and unshadowed as of old. She had suffered her mind to be filled by a
suspicion so monstrous, that for a time it held her as by some fatal
spell; but with reflection came the assurance that this thing could not
be. Day by day she saw the man whom she had suspected going about the
common business of life, coldly serene of aspect, untroubled of manner,
confronting fortune with his head erect, living quietly in the house
where he had been wont to live, haunted by no dismal shadows, subject
to no dark hours of remorse, no sudden access of despair, always
equable, business-like, and untroubled; and she told herself that such
a man could not be guilty of the unutterable horror she had imagined.

For a year things had gone on thus, and then came the marriage with
Mrs. Halliday. Mr. Sheldon went down to Barlingford for the performance
of that interesting ceremony; and Nancy Woolper bade farewell to the
house in Fitzgeorge-street, and handed the key to the agent, who was to
deliver it in due course to Mr. Sheldon's successor.

To-day, after a lapse of more than ten years, Mrs. Woolper sat in the
stockbroker's study, facing the scrutinising gaze of those bright black
eyes, which had been familiar to her of old, and which had lost none of
their cold glitter in the wear and tear of life.

"Then you think you can be of some use in the house, as a kind of
overlooker of the other servants, eh, Nancy--to prevent waste, and
gadding out of doors, and so on?" said Mr. Sheldon, interrogatively.

"Ay, sure, that I can, Mr. Philip," answered the old woman promptly;
"and if I don't save you more money than I cost you, the sooner you
turn me out o' doors the better. I know what London servants are, and I
know their ways; and if Miss Georgy doesn't take to the housekeeping, I
know as how things must be hugger-mugger-like below stairs, however
smart and tidy things may be above."

"Mrs. Sheldon knows about as much of housekeeping as a baby," replied
Philip, with supreme contempt. "She'll not interfere with you; and if
you serve me faithfully--"

"That I allers did, Mr. Philip."

"Yes, yes; I daresay you did. But I want faithful service in the future
as well as in the past. Of course you know that I have a stepdaughter?"

"Tom Halliday's little girl, as went to school at Scarborough."

"The same. But poor Tom's little girl is now a fine young woman, and a
source of considerable anxiety to me. I am bound to say she is an
excellent girl--amiable, obedient, and all that kind of thing; but she
is a girl, and I freely confess that I am not learned in the ways of
girls; and I'm very much inclined to be afraid of them."

"As how, sir?"

"Well, you see, Nancy, they come home from school with their silly
heads full of romantic stuff, fit for nothing but to read novels and
strum upon the piano; and before you know where you are, they fall over
head and ears in love with the first decent-looking young man who pays
them a compliment. At least, that's my experience."

"Meaning Miss Halliday, sir?" asked Nancy, simply. "Has she fallen in
love with some young chap?"

"She has, and with a young chap who is not yet in a position to support
a wife. Now, if this girl were my own child, I should decidedly set my
face against this marriage; but as she is only my stepdaughter, I wash
my hands of all responsibility in the matter. 'Marry the man you have
chosen, my dear,' say I; 'all I ask is, that you don't marry him until
he can give you a comfortable home.' 'Very well, papa,' says my young
lady in her most dutiful manner, and 'Very well, sir,' says my young
gentleman; and they both declare themselves agreeable to any amount of
delay, provided the marriage comes off some time between this and
doomsday."

"Well, sir?" asked Nancy, rather at a loss to understand why Philip
Sheldon, the closest and most reserved of men, should happen to be so
confidential to-day.

"Well, Nancy, what I want to prevent is any underhand work. I know what
very limited notions of honour young men are apt to entertain nowadays,
and how intensely foolish a boarding-school miss can be on occasion. I
don't want these young people to run off to Gretna-green some fine
morning, or to steal a march upon me by getting married on the sly at
some out-of-the-way church, after having invested their united fortunes
in the purchase of a special license. In plain words, I distrust Miss
Halliday's lover, and I distrust Miss Halliday's common sense; and I
want to have a sensible, sharp-eyed person in the house always on the
look-out for any kind of danger, and able to protect my stepdaughter's
interests as well as my own."

"But the young lady's mamma, sir--she would look after her daughter, I
suppose?"

"Her mamma is foolishly indulgent, and about as capable of taking care
of her daughter as of sitting in Parliament. You remember pretty Georgy
Cradock, and you must know what she was--and what she is. Mrs. Sheldon
is the same woman as Georgy Cradock--a little older, and a little more
plump and rosy; but just as pretty, and just as useless."

The interview was prolonged for some little time after this, and it
ended in a thorough understanding between Mr. Sheldon and his old
servant. Nancy Woolper was to re-enter that gentleman's service, and
over and above all ordinary duties, she was to undertake the duty of
keeping a close watch upon all the movements of Charlotte Halliday. In
plain words, she was to be a spy, a private detective, so far as this
young lady was concerned; but Mr. Sheldon was too wise to put his
requirements into plain words, knowing that even in the hour of her
extremity Nancy Woolper would have refused to fill such an office had
she clearly understood the measure of its infamy.

Upon the day that followed his interview with Mrs. Woolper, the
stockbroker came home from the City an hour or two earlier than his
custom, and startled Miss Halliday by appearing in the garden where she
was walking alone, looking her brightest and prettiest in her dark
winter hat and jacket, and pacing briskly to and fro among the bare
frost-bound patches of earth that had once been flower-beds.

"I wan't a few minutes' quiet talk with you, Lotta," said Mr. Sheldon.
"You'd better come into my study, where we're pretty sure not to be
interrupted."

The girl blushed crimson as she acceded to this request, being assured
that Mr. Sheldon was going to discuss her matrimonial engagement.
Valentine had told her of that very satisfactory interview in the
dining-room, and from that time she had been trying to find an
opportunity for the acknowledgment of her stepfather's generosity. As
yet the occasion had not arisen. She did not know how to frame her
thanksgiving, and she shrank shyly from telling Mr. Sheldon how
grateful she was to him for the liberality of mind which had
distinguished his conduct in this affair.

"I really ought to thank him," she said to herself more than once. "I
was quite prepared for his doing his uttermost to prevent my marriage
with Valentine; and instead of that, he volunteers his consent, and
even promises to give us a fortune. 'I am bound to thank him for such
generous kindness."

Perhaps there is no task more difficult than to offer grateful tribute
to a person whom one has been apt to think of with a feeling very near
akin to dislike. Ever since her mother's second marriage Charlotte had
striven against an instinctive distaste for Mr. Sheldon's society, and
an innate distrust of Mr. Sheldon's affectionate regard for herself;
but now that he had proved his sincerity in this most important crisis
of her life, she awoke all at once to the sense of the wrong she had
done.

"I am always reading the Sermon on the Mount, and yet in my thoughts
about Mr. Sheldon I have never been able to remember those words,
'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' His kindness touches me to the very
heart, and I feel it all the more keenly because of my injustice."

She followed her stepfather into the prim little study. There was no
fire, and the room was colder than a vault on this bleak December day.
Charlotte shivered, and drew her jacket more tightly across her chest
as she perched herself on one of Mr. Sheldon's shining red morocco
chairs. "The room strikes cold," she said; "very, very cold."

After this there was a brief pause, during which Mr. Sheldon took some
papers from the pocket of his overcoat, and arranged them on his desk
with an absent manner, as if he were rather deliberating upon what he
was going to say than thinking of what he was doing. While he loitered
thus Charlotte found courage to speak.

"I wish to thank you, Mr. Sheldon--papa," she said, pronouncing the
"papa" with some slight appearance of effort, in spite of her desire to
be grateful: "I--I have been wishing to thank you for the last day or
two; only it seems so difficult sometimes to express one's self about
these things."

"I do not deserve or wish for your thanks, my dear. I have only done my
duty."

"But, indeed, you do deserve my thanks, and you have them in all
sincerity, papa. You have been very, very good to me--about--about
Valentine. I thought you would be sure to oppose our marriage on the
ground of imprudence, you know, and----"

"I do oppose your marriage in the present on the ground of imprudence,
and I am only consentient to it in the future on the condition that Mr.
Hawkehurst shall have secured a comfortable income by his literary
labours. He seems to be clever, and he promises fairly----"

"O yes indeed, dear papa," cried the girl, pleased by this meed of
praise for her lover; "he is more than clever. I am sure you would say
so if you had time to read his article on Madame de Sevigne in the
_Cheapside_."

"I daresay it's very good, my dear; but I don't care for Madame de
Sevigne----"

"Or his sketch of Bossuet's career in the _Charing Cross_."

"My dear child, I do not even know who Bossuet was. All I require from
Mr. Hawkehurst is, that he shall earn a good income before he takes you
away from this house. You have been accustomed to a certain style of
living, and I cannot allow you to encounter a life of poverty."

"But, dear papa, I am not in the least afraid of poverty."

"I daresay not, my dear. You have never been poor," replied Mr.
Sheldon, coolly. "I don't suppose I am as much afraid of a rattlesnake
as the poor wretches who are accustomed to see one swinging by his tail
from the branch of a tree any day in the course of their travels. I
have only a vague idea that a cobra de capello is an unpleasant
customer; but depend upon it, those foreign fellows feel their blood
stagnate and turn to ice at sight of the cold slimy-looking monster.
Poverty and I travelled the same road once, and I know what the
gentleman is. I don't want to meet him again." Mr. Sheldon lapsed into
silence after this. His last words had been spoken to himself rather
than to Charlotte, and the thoughts that accompanied them seemed far
from pleasant to him.

Charlotte sat opposite her stepfather, patiently awaiting his pleasure.
She looked at the gaudily-bound books behind the glass doors, and
wondered whether any one had ever opened any of the volumes.

"I should like to read dear Sir Walter's stories once more," she
thought; "there never, never was so sweet a romance as the 'Bride of
Lammermoor,' and I cannot imagine that one could ever grow weary of
reading it. But to ask Mr. Sheldon for the key of that bookcase would
be quite impossible. I think his books must be copies of special
editions, not meant to be read. I wonder whether they are real books,
or only upholsterer's dummies?"

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