Birds of Prey Part 30

"_Nov_. 1751. I thank my dear sister kindly for her friendlinesse and compashin; b.u.t.t, ah, he is gone, and their semes to be no plesure or comforte on this erth without him! onlie a littel childe of 6 yeres, and yett so dere a creetur to this harte that the worlde is emty and lonely without him. M. droopes sadly, and is more ailing everry day.

Indede, my dere Ruth, I see nothing b.u.t.t sorrow before me, and I wou'd be right gladd to lay down at peece in my littel M.'s grave."

I can find no actual announcements of death, only sad allusions here and there. I fancy the majority of Matthew's letters must have been lost, for the dates of those confided to my hands are very far apart, and there is evidence in all of them of other correspondence. After the letter alluding to little M.'s death, there is a hiatus of eight years.

Then comes a letter with the post-mark London very clear, from which I transcribe an extract. "_October 4th_, 1759. The toun is very sadd; everry body, high and low, rich and pore, in morning for Gennerel Wolf: wot a n.o.bel deth to die, and how much happier than to live, when one considers the cairs and miseries of this life; and sech has bin the oppinion of wiser fokes than y'r humble servent. Being in companie on Thersday sennite with that distingwish'd riter, Dr. Johnson,--whose admir'd story of _Rasela.s.s_ I sent you new from ye press, but who I am bound to confesse is less admirable as a fine gentlemann than as an orther, his linning siled and his kravatt twisted ary, and his manners wot in a more obskure personn wou'd be thort ungenteel,--he made a remark wich impress'd me much. Some one present, being almost all gentelmenn of parts and learning, except y'r pore untuter'd brother, observed that it was a saying with the ainchents that ye happiest of men was him wich was never born; ye next happy him wich died the soonest. On wich Dr. Johnson cried out verry loud and angry, 'That was a Paggann sentyment, sir, and I am asham'd that a Xtian gentelmann shou'd repete it as a subject for admerashun. Betwene these heathen men and ye followers of Christ their is all ye differenc betwene a slave and a servent of a kind Master. Eche bears the same burden; b.u.t.t ye servent knows he will recieve just wages for his work, wile ye slave hopes for nothing, and so conkludes that to escape work is to be happy!' I could but aknowlege the wisdomm and pyety of this speche; yett whenn I see ye peopel going bye in their black rayment, I envy the young Gennerel his gloreous deth, and I wish I was laying amongst the plane on the hites of Quebeck. I went to look at ye old house in J.

St., but I wou'd not go in to see Mr. F. or ye old roomes; for I think I shou'd see the aparishions of those that once liv'd in them. C.

thrivs at Higate, wear the aire is fresh and pewer. I go to see her offen. She is nerely as high as you. Give my servis to Mrs. Rebecka, sinse you say it will plese my father to do so, and he is now dispos'd to think more kindly of me. b.u.t.t if he thinks I shal everr arske her to be my wife he is mityly mistaken. You know wear my harte lies--in ye grave with all that made life dere. Thank my father for the Bill, and tell him I pa.s.s my time in good companie, and neether drink nor play; and will come to Ullerton to pay him my respeckts when he pleses to bid me. b.u.t.t I hav no desire to leeve London, as I am gladd to be neare C."

Who was C., whom Matthew visited at Highgate, and who was nearly as tall as Ruth Judson? Was she not most likely the same C. mentioned in conjunction with the little M. in the earlier letters? and if so, can there be any doubt that she was the daughter of Matthew Haygarth? Of whom but of a daughter would he write as in this letter? She was at Highgate, at school most likely, and he goes to see her. She is nearly as tall as Mrs. Judson. This height must have been a new thing, or he would scarcely impart it as a piece of news to his sister. And then he has no desire to leave London, as he is glad to be near C.

My life upon it, C. is a daughter.

Acting upon this conviction, I have transcribed all pa.s.sages relating to C., at whatever distance of time they occur.

Thus, in 1763, I find--"C. has grone very hansome, and Mrs. N. tells me is much admir'd by a brother of her frend Tabitha. She never stirs abrorde but with Tabitha, and if a dutchess, cou'd be scarce wated on more cairfully. Mrs. N. loves her verry tenderly, and considers her the sweetest and most wel bredd of young women. I hav given her the new edishun of Sir Charls Grandisson, wich they read alowde in ye evenings, turn and turn about, to Mrs. N. at her spinning. C. has given me a wool comforter of her owne worke, and sum stockings wich are two thick to ware, but I hav not told her so."

Again, in 1764: "Tabitha Meynell's brother goes more than ever to Higate. He is a clark in his father's wearhouse; very sober and estimabel, and if it be for ye hapiness of C. to mary him, I wou'd be ye laste of men to sett my orthoritty agenst her enclinashun. She is yett but ayteen yeres of age, wich is young to make a change; so I tell Mrs. N. we will waite. Meanwhile ye young peapel see eche other offen."

Again, in 1765: "Young Meynell is still constant, expressing much love and admirashun for C. in his discorse with Mrs. N., b.u.t.t sattisfide to wait my plesure before spekeing oppenly to C. He semes a most exempelry young man; his father a cittizen of some repewt in Aldersgait-street, ware I have din'd since last riting to you, and at hoose tabel I was paid much considerashun. He, Tomas Meynell ye father, will give his son five hundred pound, and I prommis a thousand pound with C. and to furnish a house at Chelsee, a verry plesent and countriefide vilage; so I make no doubt there will soon be a wedding.

"I am sorrie to here my father is aleing; give him my love and servise, and will come to Ullerton immediate on receiving his commands. I am plesed to think Mrs. Rebecka Caulfeld is so dutifull and kind to him, and has comfortedd him with prairs and discorses. I thank her for this more than for any frendshipp for my undeserving self. Pray tell her that I am much at her servise.

"Our new king is lov'd and admir'd by all. His ministers not so; and wise peopel do entertain themselfs with what I think foollish jokes a-bout a _Skotch boote_. Perhapps I am not cleverr enuff to see the funn in this joke."

In this letter I detect a certain softening of feeling towards Mrs.

Rebecca Caulfield. In the next year--'66--according to my notes, Matthew's father died, and I have no letters bearing the date of that year, which our Matthew no doubt spent at home. Nor have I any letters from this time until the year of Matthew's marriage with Rebecca Caulfield. In the one year of his union with Mrs. Rebecca, and the last year of his life, there are many letters, a few from London and the rest from the manor-house at Dewsdale. But in these epistles, affectionate and confidential as they are, there is little positive information.

These are the letters of the regenerate and Wesleyanised Matthew; and, like the more elaborate epistles of his wife Rebecca, deal chiefly with matters spiritual. In these letters I can perceive the workings of a weak mind, which in its decline has become a prey to religious terrors; and though I fully recognise the reforming influence which John Wesley exercised upon the people of England, I fancy poor Matthew would have been better in the hands of a woman whose piety was of a less severe type than that of Wesleyan Rebecca. There is an all-pervading tone of fear in these letters--a depression which is almost despair. In the same breath he laments and regrets the lost happiness of his youth, and regrets and laments his own iniquity in having been so ignorantly and unthinkingly happy.

Thus in one letter he says,--

"When I think of that inconsideratt foolish time with M., and how to be nere her semed the highest blisse erth cou'd bistowe or Heven prommis, I trimbel to think of my pore unawaken'd sole, and of her dome on wich the tru light never shown. If I cou'd believe she was happy my owne sorow wou'd be lesse; but I canot, sence all ye worthyest memberrs of our seck agree that to die thinking onely of erthly frends, and clingeng with a pa.s.shunate regrett to them we luv on erth is to be lesse than a tru Xtian, and for sech their is but one dome."

And again, in a still later epistle, he writes,--

"On Toosday sennite an awakning discorse fromm a verry young man, until lately a carppenter, but now imploid piusly in going from toun to toun and vilage to vilage, preching. He says, that a life of cairlesse happyness, finding plesure in ye things of this worlde, is--not being repentied of--irretrevable d.a.m.nation. This is a maloncally thort! I fell to mewsing on M., with hoom I injoy'd such compleat happyness, tel Deth came like a spekter to bannish all comforte. And now I knowe that our lives wear vainity. I ashure you, dear sister, I am prodidjusly sadd when I reffleckt upon this truth--ashuredly it is a harde saying."

Anon comes that strange foreknowledge of death--that instinctive sense of the shadowy hand so soon to lay him at rest; and with that mystic prescience comes a yearning for the little child M. to be laid where his father may lay down beside him. There are many pa.s.sages in the latter letters which afford a clue to that mysterious midnight burial at Dewsdale.

"Last nite I drem't of the cherchyarde at S. I satte under the olde yewe tree, as it semed in my dreme, and hurd a childes voice crying in a very piteous mannerr. The thort of this dreme has oppress'd my speritts all day, and Rebecka has enquier'd more than wunce wot ales me. If little M. but lay nere at hande, in ye graive to wich I fele I must soone be carrid, I beleive I shou'd be happyer. Reproove me for this folley if you plese. I am getting olde, and Sattan temts me with seche fooleish thorts. Wot dose it matter to my sole wear my vile bodie is laid? and yet I have a fonde fooleish desier to be berrid with littel M."

And in these latest letters there is ample evidence of that yearning on Matthew's part to reveal a secret which Rebecca's own correspondence betrays.

"We tawked of manny things, and she was more than ordinnary kind and gentel. I had a mind to tell her about M, and aske her frendship for C; but she seemed not to cair to here my sekrets, and I think wou'd be offended if she new the trooth. So I cou'd not finde courrage to tell her. Before I die I shal speek planely for the saik of C. and M. and ye little one. I shal c.u.m to U. erly nex weak to make my Wille, and this time shal chainge my umour no more. I have burnt ye laste, not likeing it."

This pa.s.sage occurs in the last letter, amongst the packet confided to me. The letter is dated September 5, 1774. On the fourteenth of the following month Matthew died, and in all probability the will here alluded to was never executed. Certain it is that Matthew, whose end was awfully sudden at the last, died intestate, whereby his son John inherited the bulk, and ultimately the whole, of his fortune. There are many allusions to this infant son in the last few letters; but I do not think the little creature obtained any great hold on the father's heart. No doubt he was bound and swaddled out of even such small semblance to humanity as one may reasonably expect in a child of six or seven weeks old, and by no means an agreeable being. And poor weak-minded Matthew's heart was with that player-girl wife whom he never acknowledged, and the little M. And thus ends the story of Matthew Haygarth, so far as I have been able to trace it in the unfathomable gloom of the past.

It seems to me that what I have next to do will be to hunt up information respecting that young man Meynell, whose father lived in Aldersgate Street, and was a respectable and solid citizen, of that ilk; able to give a substantial dinner to the father of his son's sweetheart, and altogether a person considerable enough, I should imagine, to have left footprints of some kind or other on the sands of Time. The inscrutable Sheldon will be able to decide in what manner the hunt of the Meynells must begin. I doubt if there is anything more to be done in Ullerton.

I have sent Sheldon a fair copy of my extracts from Matthew's correspondence, and have returned the letters to Miss Judson, carefully packed in accordance with her request. I now await my Sheldon's next communication and the abatement of my influenza before making my next move in the great game of chess called Life.

What is the meaning of Horatio Paget's lengthened abode in this town?

He is still here. He went past this house to-day while I was standing at my window in that abject state of mind known only to influenza and despair. I think I was suffering from a touch of both diseases, by the bye. What is that man doing here? The idea of his presence fills me with all manner of vague apprehensions. I cannot rid myself of the absurd notion that the lavender glove I saw lying in Goodge's parlour had been left there by the Captain. I know the idea _is_ an absurd one, and I tell myself again and again that Paget _cannot_ have any inkling of my business here, and therefore _cannot_ attempt to forestall me or steal my hard-won information. But often as I reiterate this--in that silent argument which a man is always elaborating in his own mind--I am still tormented by a nervous apprehension of treachery from that man. I suppose the boundary line between influenza and idiocy is a very narrow one. And then Horatio Paget is such a thorough-paced scoundrel. He is _lie_ with Philip Sheldon too--another thorough-paced scoundrel in a quiet gentlemanly way, unless my instinct deceives me.

_October 12th_. There is treachery somewhere. Again the Haygarthian epistles have been tampered with. Early this morning comes an indignant note from Miss Judson, reminding me that I promised the packet of letters should be restored to her yesterday at noon, and informing me that they were not returned until last night at eleven o'clock, when they were left at her back garden-gate by a dirty boy who rang the bell as loudly as if he had been giving the alarm of fire, and who thrust the packet rudely into the hand of the servant and vanished immediately. So much for the messenger. The packet itself, Miss Judson informed me, was of a dirty and disgraceful appearance, unworthy the hands of a gentlewoman, and one of the letters was missing.

Heedless of my influenza, I rushed at once to the lower regions of the inn, saw the waiter into whose hands I had confided my packet at half-past ten o'clock yesterday morning, and asked what messenger had been charged with it. The waiter could not tell me. He did not remember. I told him plainly that I considered this want of memory very extraordinary. The waiter laughed me to scorn, with that quiet insolence which a well-fed waiter feels for a customer who pays twenty shillings a week for his board and lodging. The packet had been given to a very respectable messenger, the waiter made no doubt. As to whether it was the ostler, or one of the boys, or the Boots, or a young woman in the kitchen who went on errands sometimes, the waiter wouldn't take upon himself to swear, being a man who would perish rather than inadvertently perjure himself. As to my packet having been tampered with, that was ridiculous. What on earth was there in a lump of letter-paper for any one to steal? Was there money in the parcel? I was fain to confess there was no money; on which the waiter laughed aloud.

Failing the waiter, I applied myself severally to the ostler, the boys, the Boots, and the young woman in the kitchen; and then transpired the curious fact that no one had carried my packet. The ostler was sure he had not; the Boots could take his Bible oath to the same effect; the young woman in the kitchen could not call to mind anything respecting a packet, though she was able to give me a painfully circ.u.mstantial account of the events of the morning--where she went and what she did, down to the purchase of three-pennyworth of pearl-ash and a pound of Glenfield starch for the head chambermaid, on which she dwelt with a persistent fondness.

I now felt a.s.sured that there had been treachery here, as in the Goodge business; and I asked myself to whom could I impute that treachery?

My instinctive suspicion was of Horatio Paget. And yet, was it not more probable that Theodore Judson, senr. and Theodore Judson, junr. were involved in this business, and were watching and counterchecking my actions with a view to frustrating the plans of my princ.i.p.al? This was one question which I asked myself as I deliberated upon this mysterious business. Had the Theodore Judsons some knowledge of a secret marriage on the part of Matthew Haygarth? and did they suspect the existence of an heir in the descendant of the issue of that marriage? These were further questions which I asked myself, and which I found it much more easy to ask than to answer. After having considered these questions, I went to the Lancaster-road, saw Miss Judson--a.s.sured her, on my word as a gentleman, that the packet had been delivered by my hands into those of the waiter at eleven o'clock on the previous day, and asked to see the envelope. There it was--my large blue wire-wove office envelope, addressed in my own writing. But in these days of adhesive envelopes there is nothing easier than to tamper with the fastening of a letter.

I registered a mental vow never again to trust any important doc.u.ment to the protection of a morsel of gummed paper. I counted the letters, convinced myself that there was a deficiency, and then set to work to discover which of the letters had been abstracted. Here I failed utterly. For my own convenience in copying my extracts, I had numbered the letters from which I intended to transcribe pa.s.sages before beginning my work. My pencilled figures in consecutive order were visible in the corner of the superscription of every doc.u.ment I had used. Those numbered covers I now found intact, and I could thus a.s.sure myself that the missing doc.u.ment was one from which I had taken no extract.

This inspired me with a new alarm. Could it be possible that I had overlooked some sc.r.a.p of information more important than all that I had transcribed?

I racked my brains in the endeavour to recall the contents of that one missing letter; but although I sat in that social tomb, Miss Judson's best parlour, until I felt my blood becoming of an arctic quality, I could remember nothing that seemed worth remembering in the letters I had laid aside as valueless.

I asked Miss Judson if she had any suspicion of the person who had tampered with the packet. She looked at me with an icy smile, and answered in ironical accents, which were even more chilling than the atmosphere of her parlour,--

"Do not ask if I know who has tampered with those letters, Mr.

Hawkehurst. Your affectation of surprise has been remarkably well put on; but I am not to be deceived a second time. When you came to me in the first instance, I had my suspicions; but you came furnished with a note from my brother, and as a Christian I repressed those suspicions.

I know now that I have been the dupe of an impostor, and that in entrusting those letters to you I entrusted them to an emissary and tool of THEODORE JUDSON."

I protested that I had never to my knowledge set eyes upon either of the Theodore Judsons; but the prejudiced kinswoman of those gentlemen shook her head with a smile whose icy blandness was eminently exasperating.

"I am not to be deceived a second time," she said. "Who else but Theodore Judson should have employed you? Who else but Theodore Judson is interested in the Haygarth fortune? O, it was like him to employ a stranger where he knew his own efforts would be unavailing; it was like him to hoodwink me by the agency of a hireling tool."

I had been addressed as a "young man" by the reverend Jonah, and now I was spoken of as a "hireling tool" by Miss Judson. I scarcely knew which was most disagreeable, and I began to think that board and lodging in the present, and a visionary three thousand pounds in the future, would scarcely compensate me for such an amount of ignominy.

I went back to my inn utterly crestfallen--a creature so abject that even the degrading influence of influenza could scarcely sink me any lower in the social scale. I wrote a brief and succinct account of my proceedings, and despatched the same to George Sheldon, and then I sat down in my sickness and despair, as deeply humiliated as Ajax when he found that he had been pitching into sheep instead of Greeks, as miserable as Job amongst his dust and ashes, but I am happy to say untormented by the chorus of one or the friends of the other. In that respect at least I had some advantage over both.

_October 13th_. This morning's post brought me a brief scrawl from Sheldon.

"Come back to town directly. I have found the registry of Matthew Haygarth's marriage."

And so I turn my back on Ullerton; with what rejoicing of spirit it is not in language to express.

BOOK THE SIXTH.

THE HEIRESS OF THE HAYGARTHS.