Birds of Prey by M.E. Braddon

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

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And then her fancies went vagabondising off to that little archetype of
a cottage on the heights of Wimbledon-common, in which she and
Valentine were to live when they were married. She was always
furnishing and refurnishing this cottage, building it up and pulling it
down, as the caprice of the moment dictated. Now it had bow-windows and
white stuccoed walls--now it was Elizabethan--now the simplest,
quaintest, rose-embowered cottager's dwelling, with diamond-paned
casements, and deep thatch on the old gray roof. This afternoon she
amused herself by collecting a small library for Valentine, while
waiting Mr. Sheldon's next observation. He was to have all her
favourite books, of course; and they were to be bound in the prettiest,
most girlish bindings. She could see the dainty volumes, primly ranged
on the little carved oak bookcase, which Valentine was to "pick up" in
Wardour-street. She fancied herself walking down that mart of
bric-a-brac arm-in-arm with her lover, intent on "picking up." Ah,
what happiness! what dear delight in the thought! And O, of all the
bright dreams we dream, how few are realised upon this earth! Do they
find their fulfilment in heaven, those visions of perfect bliss?

Mr. Sheldon looked up from his desk at last. Miss Halliday remarked to
herself that his face was pale and haggard in the chill wintry
sunlight; but she knew how hard and self-denying a life he led in his
stern devotion to business, and she was in no manner surprised to see
him looking ill.

"I want to say a few words to you on a matter of business, Lotta," he
began, "and I must ask you to give me all your attention."

"I will do so with pleasure, papa, but I am awfully stupid about
business."

"I shall do my best to make matters simple. I suppose you know what
money your father left, including the sums his life had been insured
for?"

"Yes, I have heard mamma say it was eighteen thousand pounds. I do so
hate the idea of those insurances. It seems like the price of a man's
life, doesn't it? I daresay that is a very unbusiness-like way of
considering the question, but I cannot bear to think that we got money
by dear papa's death."

These remarks were too trivial for Mr. Sheldon's notice. He went on
with what he had to say in the cold hard voice that was familiar to his
clerks and to the buyers and sellers of shares and stock who had
dealings with him.

"Your father left eighteen thousand pounds; that amount was left to
your mother without reservation. When she married me, without any
settlement, that money became mine, in point of law--mine to squander
or make away with as I pleased. You know that I have made good use of
that money, and that your mother has had no reason to repent her
confidence in my honour and honesty. The time has now come in which
that honour will be put to a sharper test. You have no legal claim on
so much as a shilling of your father's fortune."

"I know that, Mr. Sheldon," cried Charlotte, eagerly, "and Valentine
knows also; and, believe me, I do not expect----"

"I have to settle matters with my own conscience as well as with your
expectations, my dear Lotta," Mr. Sheldon said, solemnly. "Your father
left you unprovided for; but as a man of honour I feel myself bound to
take care that you shall not suffer by his want of caution. I have
therefore prepared a deed of gift, by which I transfer to you five
thousand pounds, now invested in Unitas Bank shares."

"You are going to give me five thousand pounds!" cried Charlotte,
astounded.

"Without reservation."

"You mean to say that you will give me this fortune when I marry,
papa?" said Charlotte, interrogatively.

"I shall give it to you immediately," replied Mr. Sheldon. "I wish you
to be thoroughly independent of me and my pleasure. You will then
understand, that if I insist upon the prudence of delay, I do so in
your interest and not in my own. I wish you to feel that if I am a
hindrance to your immediate marriage, it is not because I wish to delay
the disbursement of your dowry."

"O, Mr. Sheldon, O, papa, you are more than generous--you are noble! It
is not that I care for the money. O, believe me, there is no one in the
world who could care less for that than I do. But your thoughtful
kindness, your generosity, touches me to the very heart. O, please let
me kiss you, just as if you were my own dear father come back to life
to protect and guide me. I have thought you cold and worldly. I have
done you so much wrong."

She ran to him, and wound her arms about his neck before he could put
her off, and lifted up her pretty rosy mouth to his dry hot lips. Her
heart was overflowing with generous emotion, her face beamed with a
happy smile. She was so pleased to find her mother's husband better
than she had thought him. But, to her supreme astonishment, he thrust
her from him roughly, almost violently, and looking up at his face she
saw it darkened by a blacker shadow than she had ever seen upon it
before. Anger, terror, pain, remorse, she knew not what, but an
expression so horrible that she shrunk from him with a sense of alarm,
and went back to her chair, bewildered and trembling.

"You frightened me, Mr. Sheldon," she said faintly.

"Not more than you frightened me," answered the stockbroker, walking to
the window and taking his stand there, with his face hidden from
Charlotte. "I did not know there was so much feeling in me. For God's
sake, let us have no sentiment!"

"Were you angry with me just now?" asked the girl, falteringly, utterly
at a loss to comprehend the change in her stepfather's manner.

"No, I was not angry. I am not accustomed to these strong emotions,"
replied Mr. Sheldon, huskily; "I cannot stand them. Pray let us avoid
all sentimental discussion. I am anxious to do my duty in a
straightforward, business-like way. I don't want gratitude--or fuss.
The five thousand pounds are yours, and I am pleased to find you
consider the amount sufficient. And now I have only one small favour to
ask of you in return."

"I should be very ungrateful if I refused to do anything you may ask,"
said Charlotte, who could not help feeling a little chilled and
disappointed by Mr. Sheldon's stony rejection of her gratitude.

"The matter is very simple. You are young, and have, in the usual
course of things, a long life before you. But--you know there is always
a 'but' in these cases--a railway accident--a little carelessness in
passing your drawing-room fire some evening when you are dressed in
flimsy gauze or muslin--a fever--a cold--any one of the many dangers
that lie in wait for all of us, and our best calculations are
falsified. If you were to marry and die childless, that money would go
to your husband, and neither your mother nor I would ever touch a
sixpence of it, Now as the money, practically, belongs to your mother,
I consider that this contingency should be provided against--in her
interests as well as in mine. In plain words, I want you to make a will
leaving that money to me."

"I am quite ready to do so," replied Charlotte.

"Very good, my dear. I felt assured that you would take a sensible view
of the matter. If you marry your dear Mr. Hawkehurst, have a family
by-and-by, we will throw the old will into the fire and make a new one;
but in the mean time it's just as well to be on the safe side. You
shall go into the City with me to-morrow morning, and shall execute the
will at my office. It will be the simplest document possible--as simple
as the will made by old Serjeant Crane, in which he disposed of half a
million of money in half a dozen lines--at the rate of five thousand
pounds per word. After we've settled that little matter, we can arrange
the transfer of the shares. The whole affair won't occupy an hour." "I
will do whatever you wish," said Charlotte, meekly. She was not at all
elated by the idea of coming suddenly into possession of five thousand
pounds; but she was very much impressed by the new view of Mr.
Sheldon's character afforded her by his conduct of to-day. And then her
thoughts, constant to one point as the needle to the pole, reverted to
her lover, and she began to think of the effect her fortune might have
upon his prospects. He might go to the bar, he might work and study in
pleasant Temple chambers, with wide area windows overlooking the river,
and read law-books in the evening at the Wimbledon cottage for a few
delightful years, at the end of which he would of course become Lord
Chancellor. That he should devote such intellect and consecrate such
genius as his to the service of his country's law-courts, and _not_
ultimately seat himself on the Woolsack, was a contingency not to be
imagined by Miss Halliday. Ah, what would not five thousand pounds buy
for him! The cottage expanded into a mansion, the little case of books
developed into a library second only to that of the Duc d'Aumale, a
noble steed waited at the glass door of the vestibule to convey Mr.
Hawkehurst to the Temple, before the minute-hand of Mr. Sheldon's stern
skeleton clock had passed from one figure to another: so great an adept
was this young lady in the art of castle-building.

"Am I to tell mamma about this conversation?" asked Charlotte,
presently.

"Well, no, I think not," replied Mr. Sheldon, thoughtfully. "These
family arrangements cannot be kept too quiet. Your mamma is a talking
person, you know, Charlotte; and as we don't want every one in this
part of Bayswater to know the precise amount of your fortune, we may as
well let matters rest as they are. Of course you would not wish Mr.
Hawkehurst to be enlightened?"

"Why not, papa?"

"For several reasons. First and foremost, it must be pleasant to you to
be sure that he is thoroughly disinterested I have told him that you
will get something as a gift from me; but he may have implied that the
something would be little more than a couple of hundreds to furnish a
house. Secondly, it must be remembered, that he has been brought up in
a bad school, and the best way to make him self-reliant and industrious
is to let him think he has nothing but his own industry to depend upon.
I have set him a task. When he has accomplished that, he shall have you
and your five thousand pounds to boot. Till then I should strongly
advise you to keep this business a secret.

"Yes," answered Charlotte, meditatively; "I think you are right. It
would have been very nice to tell him of your kindness; but I want to
be quite sure that he loves me for myself alone--from first to last--
without one thought of money."

"That is wise," said Mr. Sheldon, decisively; and thus ended the
interview.

Charlotte accompanied her stepfather to the city early next morning,
and filled in the blanks in a lithographed form, prepared for the
convenience of such testators as, being about to dispose of their
property, do not care to employ the services of a legal adviser.

The will seemed to Charlotte the simplest possible affair. She
bequeathed all her property, real and personal, to Philip Sheldon,
without reserve. But as her entire fortune consisted of the five
thousand pounds just given her by that gentleman, and as her personal
property was comprised in a few pretty dresses and trinkets, and desks
and workboxes, she could not very well object to such an arrangement.

"Of course, mamma would have all my books and caskets, and boxes and
things," she said thoughtfully; "and I should like Diana Paget to have
some of my jewellery, please, Mr. Sheldon. Mamma has plenty, you know."

"There is no occasion, to talk of that, Charlotte," replied the
stockbroker. "This will is only a matter of form."

Mr. Sheldon omitted to inform his stepdaughter that the instrument just
executed would, upon her wedding-day, become so much waste paper, an
omission that was not in harmony with the practical and careful habits
of that gentleman.

"Yes, I know that it is only a form," replied Charlotte; "but, after
making a will, one feels as if one was going to die. At least I do. It
seems a kind of preparation for death. I don't wonder people rather
dislike doing it.

"It is only foolish people who dislike doing it," said Mr. Sheldon, who
was in his most practical mood to-day. "And now we will go and arrange
a more agreeable business--the transfer of the shares."

After this, there was a little commercial juggling, in the form of
signing and countersigning, which, was quite beyond Charlotte's
comprehension: which operation being completed, she was told that she
was owner of five thousand pounds in Unitas Bank shares, and that the
dividends accruing from time to time on those shares would be hers to
dispose of as she pleased.

"The income arising from your capital will be more than you can spend
so long as you remain under my roof," said Mr. Sheldon. "I should
therefore strongly recommend you to invest your dividends as they
arise, and thus increase your capital."

"You are so kind and thoughtful," murmured Charlotte; "I shall always
be pleased to take your advice." She was strongly impressed by the
kindness of the man her thoughts had wronged.

"How difficult it is to understand these reserved, matter-of-fact
people!" she said to herself. Because my stepfather does not talk
sentiment, I have fancied him hard and worldly; and yet he has proved
himself as capable of doing a noble action as if he were the most
poetical of mankind.

Mrs. Sheldon had been told that Charlotte was going into the City to
choose a new watch, wherewith to replace the ill-used little Geneva toy
that had been her delight as a schoolgirl; and as Charlotte brought
home a neat little English-made chronometer from a renowned emporium on
Ludgate-hill, the simple matron accepted this explanation in all good
faith.

"I'm sure, Lotta, you must confess your stepfather is kindness itself
in most matters," said Georgy, after an admiring examination of the new
watch. "When I think how kindly he has taken this business about Mr.
Hawkehurst, and how disinterested he has proved himself in his ideas
about your marriage, I really am inclined to think him the best of
men."

Georgy said this with an air of triumph. She could not forget that
there were people in Barlingford who had said hard things about Philip
Sheldon, and had prophesied unutterable miseries for herself and her
daughter as the bitter consequence of the imprudence she had been
guilty of in her second marriage.

"He has indeed been very good, mamma," Charlotte replied gravely, "and,
believe me, I am truly grateful. He does not like fuss or sentiment;
but I hope he knows that I appreciate his kindness."

CHAPTER VI.

RIDING THE HIGH HORSE.

Never, in his brightest dreams, had Valentine Hawkehurst imagined the
stream of life so fair and sunny a river as it seemed to him now.
Fortune had treated him so scurvily for seven-and-twenty years of his
life, only to relent of a sudden and fling all her choicest gifts into
his lap.

"I must be the prince in the fairy tale who begins life as a revolting
animal of the rhinoceros family, and ends by marrying the prettiest
princess in Elfindom," he said to himself gaily, is he paced the broad
walks of Kensington-gardens, where the bare trees swung their big black
branches in the wintry blast, and the rooks cawed their loudest at
close of the brief day.

What, indeed, could this young adventurer demand from benignant Fortune
above and beyond the blessings she had given, him? The favoured suitor
of the fairest and brightest woman he had ever looked upon, received by
her kindred, admitted to her presence, and only bidden to serve a due
apprenticeship before he claimed her as his own for ever. What more
could he wish? what further boon could he implore from the Fates?

Yes, there was one thing more--one thing for which Mr. Hawkehurst
pined, while most thankful for his many blessings. He wanted a decent
excuse for separating himself most completely from Horatio Paget. He
wanted to shake himself free from all the associations of his previous
existence. He wanted to pass through the waters of Jordan, and to
emerge purified, regenerate, leaving his garments on the furthermost
side of the river; and, with all other things appertaining to the past,
he would fain have rid himself of Captain Paget.

"'Be sure your sin will find you out,'" mused the young man; "and
having found you, be sure that it will stick to you like a leech, if
your sin takes the shape of an unprincipled acquaintance, as it does in
my case. I may try my hardest to cut the past, but will Horatio Paget
let me alone in the future? I doubt it. The bent of that man's genius
shows itself in his faculty for living upon other people. He knows that
I am beginning to earn money regularly, and has begun to borrow of me
already. When I can earn more, he will want to borrow more; and
although it is very sweet to work for Charlotte Halliday, it would not
be by any means agreeable to slave for my friend Paget. Shall I offer
him a pound a week, and ask him to retire into the depths of Wales or
Cornwall, amend his ways, and live the life of a repentant hermit? I
think I could bring myself to sacrifice the weekly sovereign, if there
were any hope that Horatio Paget could cease to be--Horatio Paget, on
this side the grave. No, I have the misfortune to be intimately
acquainted with the gentleman. When he is in the swim, as he calls it,
and is earning money on his own account, he will give himself cosy
little dinners and four-and-sixpenny primrose gloves; and when he is
down on his luck, he will come whining to me."

This was by no means a pleasant idea to Mr. Hawkehurst. In the old days
he had been distinguished by all the Bohemian's recklessness, and even
more than the Bohemian's generosity in his dealings with friend or
companion. But now all was changed. He was no longer reckless. A
certain result was demanded from him as the price of Charlotte
Halliday's hand, and he set himself to accomplish his allotted task
with all due forethought and earnestness of purpose. He had need even
to exercise restraint over himself, lest, in his eagerness, he should
do too much, and so lay himself prostrate from the ill effects of
overwork; so anxious was he to push on upon the road whose goal was so
fair a temple, so light seemed that labour of love which was performed
for the sake of Charlotte.

He communed with himself very often on the subject of that troublesome
question about Captain Paget. How was he to sever his frail skiff from
that rakish privateer? What excuse could he find for renouncing his
share in the Omega-street lodgings, and setting up a new home
elsewhere?

"Policy might prompt me to keep my worthy friend under my eye," he said
to himself, "in order that I may be sure there is no underhand work
going on between him and Philip Sheldon. But I can scarcely believe
that Philip Sheldon has any inkling about the Haygarthian fortune. If
he had, he would surely not receive me as Charlotte's suitor. What
possible motive could he have for doing so?"

This was a question which Mr. Hawkehurst had frequently put to himself;
for his confidence in Mr. Sheldon was not of that kind which asks no
questions. Even while most anxious to believe in that gentleman's
honesty of purpose, he was troubled by occasional twinges of unbelief.

During the period which had elapsed since his return from Yorkshire, he
had been able to discover nothing of any sinister import from the
proceedings of Captain Paget. That gentleman appeared to be still
engaged upon the promoting business, although by no means so profitably
as heretofore. He went into the City every day, and came home in the
evening toilworn and out of spirits. He talked freely of his
occupation--how he had done much or done nothing, during the day; and
Valentine was at a loss to perceive any further ground for the
suspicion that had arisen in his mind after the meeting at the Ullerton
station, and the shuffling of the sanctimonious Goodge with regard to
Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters.

Mr. Hawkehurst therefore determined upon boldly cutting the knot that
tied him to the familiar companion of his wanderings.

"I am tired of watching and suspecting," he said to himself. "If my
dear love has a right to this fortune, it will surely come to her; or
if it should never come, we can live very happily without it. Indeed,
for my own part, I am inclined to believe that I should be prouder and
happier as the husband of a dowerless wife, than as prince-consort to
the heiress of the Haygarths. We have built up such a dear, cheery,
unpretentious home for ourselves in our talk of the future, that I
doubt if we should care to change it for the stateliest mansion in
Kensington Palace-gardens or Belgrave-square. My darling could not be
my housekeeper, and make lemon cheese-cakes in her own pretty little
kitchen, if we lived in Belgrave-square; and how could she stand at one
of those great Birmingham ironwork gates in the Palace-gardens to watch
me ride away to my work?"

To a man as deeply in love as Mr. Hawkehurst, the sordid dross which
other people prize so highly is apt to become daily more indifferent; a
kind of colour-blindness comes over the vision of the true lover, and
the glittering yellow ore seems only so much vulgar earth, too mean a
thing to be regarded by any but the mean of soul. Thus it was that Mr.
Hawkehurst relaxed his suspicion of Captain Paget, and neglected his
patron and ally of Gray's Inn, much to the annoyance of that gentleman,
who tormented the young man with little notes demanding interviews.

These interviews had of late been far from agreeable to either of the
allies. George Sheldon urged the necessity of an immediate marriage;
Valentine declined to act in an underhand manner, after the
stockbroker's unexpected generosity.

"Generosity!" echoed George Sheldon, when Valentine had given him this
point-blank refusal at the close of a stormy argument. "Generosity! My
brother Phil's generosity! Egad, that is about the best thing I've
heard for the last ten years. If I pleased, Mr. Valentine Hawkehurst, I
could tell you something about my brother which would enable you to
estimate his generosity at its true value. But I don't please; and if
you choose to run counter to me and my interests, you must pay the
price of your folly. You may think yourself uncommonly lucky if the
price isn't a stiff one."

"I am prepared to abide by my decision," answered Valentine. "Miss
Halliday without a shilling is so dear to me, that I don't care to
commit a dishonourable action in order to secure my share of the
fortune she may claim. I turned over a new leaf on the day when I first
knew myself possessed of her affection. I don't want to go back to the
old leaves."

George Sheldon gave himself an impatient shrug. "I have heard of a
great many fools," he said, "but I never heard of a fool who would play
fast-and-loose with a hundred thousand pounds, and until to-day I
couldn't have believed there was such an animal."

Mr. Hawkehurst did not deign to notice this remark.

"Do be reasonable, Sheldon," he said. "You ask me to do what my sense
of right will not permit me to do, and you ask me that which I fully
believe to be impossible. I cannot for a moment imagine that any
persuasion of mine would induce Charlotte to consent to a secret
marriage, after your brother's fair and liberal conduct."

"Of course not," cried George, with savage impatience; "that's my
brother Phil all over. He is so honourable, so plain and
straightforward in all his dealings, that he would get the best of
Lucifer himself in a bargain. I tell you, Hawkehurst, you don't know
how deep he is--as deep as the bottomless pit, by Jove! His very
generosity makes me all the more afraid of him. I don't understand his
game. If he consented to your marriage in order to get rid of
Charlotte, he would let you marry her off-hand; but instead of doing
that, he makes conditions which must delay your marriage for years.
There is the point that bothers me."

"You had better pursue your own course, without reference to me or my
marriage with Miss Halliday," said Valentine.

"That is exactly what I must do. I can't leave the Haygarth estate to
the mercy of Tom, Dick, and Harry, while you try to earn thirty pounds
a month by scribbling for the magazines. I must make my bargain with
Philip instead of with you, and I can tell you that you'll be the loser
by the transaction."

"I don't quite see that."

"Perhaps not. You see, you don't quite understand my brother Phil. If
this money gets into his hands, be sure some of it will stick to them."

"Why should the money get into his hand?"

"Because, so long as Charlotte Halliday is under his roof, she is, to a
certain extent, under his authority. And then, I tell you again, there
is no calculating the depth of that man. He has thrown dust in your
eyes already. He will make that poor girl believe him the most
disinterested of mankind."

"You can warn her."

"Yes; as I have warned you. To what purpose? You are inclined to
believe in Phil rather than to believe in me, and you will be so
inclined to the end of the chapter. You remember that man Palmer, at
Rugely, who used to go to church, and take the sacrament?"

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