Caught in a Trap Part 23

He had been looking forwards to this, and thinking over the scene all the time he had been laid up, and he was quite prepared to act it.

"Lizzie, my darling," he whispered, after a pause, into her little pink ear, which was temptingly near him, "will you be my own darling little wife?"

And Lizzie said nothing; she only looked up in his face. And their lips met in one long thrilling kiss.

Of course it was the old or new story all over again. Rehea.r.s.e it, Damon; fight the love-strife over again, Phyllis, and you have the scene complete.

They were in the conservatory all the time; and it was curious how after Pringle came in what a tremendous lot of gardening Lizzie had to do, and how she could not move the pots about, or exercise her little trowel without Tom's help. Shortly afterwards she darted off up-stairs somehow with a very flushed face. Stooping always does send the colour to one's head, you know. And then Tom told Lizzie's brother all about it.

"I'm awfully glad, old fellow," said Herbert Pringle, B.A.--"I am awfully glad, old fellow. Nothing could have pleased me better. I thought you were rather spoony on Lizzie, you know, all along, and I was expecting something like this."

And they shook hands together in mutual congratulation. Tom thought Lizzie's brother a very fine, good-natured, clever fellow indeed!

"By-the-way," said Pringle, after a pause, "have you asked your mother about this?"

Tom looked rather glum; he thought Lizzie's brother a little like the stern parent now.

"Not yet," he answered. "I am going up to tell her now; but it'll be all right, you know."

"I am very glad to hear it, for I would not let you and Lizzie enter into any engagement without her consent. It would not be right, as she's placed me here in her parish, you know."

Herbert Pringle had very serious thoughts on the subject of etiquette, and rather doubted the dowager's consent being obtained, from all he had heard of her from the campaigner, and knew of her himself.

"Oh! that'll be all right," said Tom.

And then Lizzie had come down again, looking bewitchingly beautiful, and Tom spent an hour of ecstasy, after which he took up his hat to go.

Lizzie knew the errand he was now going on--to speak to the dowager--and she wished tearful success to him, and gave him a pretty adieu as he went off exultant: for he said his mother would never refuse her consent to an angel!

How he fared in his enterprise has been already detailed, for as soon as he hinted at the thing his mother had broken out with her characteristic diatribe.

And now the pleasant little drama was brought to an abrupt conclusion.

It was all over! He could not marry Lizzie without his mother's consent; the crimson sea of love was now covered with the heaving billows of adversity. He would go abroad somewhere, for he should go mad if he stopped here and could not see his darling, and Lizzie, of course, she would die of a broken heart: it was always the usual routine in tragedies like this.

Tom was very miserable, for he had yet to see Lizzie and her brother-- from whom he had gone off so exultant--and tell of his defeat.

The world was a blank to him now!

"Fiddle-de-dee!"

Volume 2, Chapter X.

MARKWORTH VERSUS HARTSHORNE.

Markworth was as good as his word.

As soon as he saw that there was no chance of prevailing on the old dowager to pay over Susan's inheritance without calling in the aid of the law, he quickly set the slowly-moving wheels of that ponderous and unwieldly machinery in motion.

The very day Mr Trump and himself both got back to London, Mrs Hartshorne was served, through her solicitors, with a notice to refund the sum of twenty thousand pounds cash, trust money held by her on behalf of her daughter, Susan Markworth _nee_ Hartshorne, and bequeathed by the late Roger Hartshorne, deceased, now claimed by Allynne Markworth on behalf of his wife Susan, as beforesaid.

This legal notice was sent to Messrs. Trump, Sequence, and Co., by a firm of Jewish notoriety, Solomonson and Isaacs, unknown to Mr Trump, save through the columns of the "Law List"--although their names were frequently seen in the newspapers, under the head of "Police Intelligence," as the defenders of low cla.s.s criminals and receivers of stolen goods.

"Mishter Sholomonshon" had not only been willing to act as Markworth's banker, "for a shtrong conshiderashun, ma dere shir," pending the suit, but also agreed to act as his legal adviser in the matter, and instruct counsel for carrying on the case. As Markworth looked upon all attorneys as alike, they all being, in his estimation, "limbs of the devil," without any distinction between them, he consented willingly to the arrangement, particularly as he knew Solomonson was as sharp as a needle, and he was not at all averse to his being a Jew; besides, he already knew all about the matter, and Markworth was not personally acquainted with any other lawyers.

"Sharp work!" said Mr Trump, rubbing his hands gleefully in antic.i.p.ation of a lengthy suit and a long bill of costs when this notice was served. "Sharp work; but I don't like to have to act with that rascally Jew firm; I wish the rogue had respectable solicitors. It can't be helped though now--"

"Quite so," murmured Mr Sequence, affirmatively, looking at his partner straight in the face, with his dull eyes and expressionless features.

"But we'll stop their little game," continued Mr Trump, as if speaking to himself, without taking any notice of Sequence at the moment. He presently turned to him, however, and the two, after some little deliberation, settled upon what course they should pursue.

Mr Trump was resolved, according to the dowager's express wish and his own personal inclination--that fifty pounds rankled sorely in his breast!--to fight the case to the death.

The notice was answered by a peremptory refusal to pay over the trust money.

Whereupon Mrs Hartshorne was invited in judicial parlance through her solicitors to show cause why she should not refund the said sum of twenty thousand pounds.

The rule, "to show cause," was retorted to by sundry pleas, the first of which averred never indebtedness, and the others that the plaintiff, Allynne Markworth, had coerced the said Susan Hartshorne, falsely termed Susan Markworth, on whose behalf the trust money was claimed, which claim was null and void, and without foundation in the eyes of the law, inasmuch as the said plaintiff "had entered into a conspiracy to obtain the money of a person of unsound mind, under the pretence of going through a marriage ceremony with a person who, in the eye of the law, could not make a binding contract."

These pleas were replicated, and the whole thing resolved itself into a formal case at law--a very important case of medical jurisprudence, wherein the evidence for the defence was to impeach the sanity of the plaintiffs princ.i.p.al witness.

Everything was at length arranged. The preliminaries of the combat were all settled, and counsel were engaged on either side. The foemen were eager for the fray, a day was fixed for the trial, late in the Michaelmas term, and on the day of battle appointed, the lists would be lined by the partisans of the respectives combatants, who would then enter the arena with visors closed and lances couched--visors of legal dust with which to blind their opponent's eyes, and not to save their own, and lances of parchment briefs with substantial b.u.t.ts of strong witnesses--to fight the be-wigged and be-gowned battle until either foe should fall. When "G.o.d defend the right," or in the more colloquial language of the prize ring, "may the best man win."

The case of "Markworth _versus_ Hartshorne" created an immense sensation in legal circles when it was known that a day had been appointed for giving it a hearing.

The issues involved were very intricate; and, as in most cases based on a point of lunacy, the sympathy of the public, who, as yet, knew nothing reliable about the matter, was in favour of Markworth and his wife, the latter of whom would be, it was said, produced in court to testify her own sanity at the time she married the plaintiff.

The whole case, in fact, rested upon this point--whether the marriage was a real marriage or not--that is to say, whether Susan Hartshorne was sane or insane at the time she ran away with Markworth. If she was in her right senses at the time, then the marriage was _bona fide_, and the old dowager would have to hand over the nice little amount of her daughter's inheritance that was due; if Susan was proved to be imbecile, then the marriage would be void, the dowager would still retain her hold of the twenty thousand pounds, and Markworth be indictable for conspiracy.

It was a civil suit, so to speak, based on criminal ends; so it would go worse with the plaintiff than the defendant should his case fall through.

Solomonson and Isaacs, however, were sharp pract.i.tioners, and one of their first proceedings was to subpoena Doctor Jolly, who had attended Susan so long as her medical adviser, and who, of course, would be a very material witness: this was in order to prevent the other side from getting hold of him; and Miss Kingscott was also favoured with a little oblong slip of paper and a guinea in order to insure her attendance to the same end.

They were sharp enough, as Mr Trump found out to his cost; for before the day fixed for the trial, the dowager's lawyers were at their wits end how to support their case. They had got hold of Joseph Begg, who had witnessed the marriage, and the curate who solemnised it, to bear out the alleged charge of conspiracy against Markworth, but beyond that they felt they could do nothing. If Susan were placed in the witness-box, and stood her cross-examination so as to prove her sanity, the case would be all put out of court, or, as Mr Trump graphically expressed it, "it would be all up."

Indeed, Mr Trump had such very serious thoughts about the termination of the case, after he had thoroughly gone into the evidence _pro_ and _con_, that he took upon himself to advise Mrs Hartshorne to compromise the matter before it came on for trial. This was just after Tom came back from his visit to Susan and reported how happy and changed she was.

But the dowager would not hear a word of compromise. She was determined to "fight it out on that line," as General Grant is reported to have said when besieging Richmond in the Southern States, not only "if it took all the summer," but the winter too.

Accordingly the case of "Markworth _versus_ Hartshorne," was regularly put down for trial; and Sergeants Thickhyde, Q.C., and Silvertong retained for the defence. The Jew lawyers had got hold of the well-known Bra.s.sy, considered A1 at the criminal bar, and Serjeant Interpleader, to conduct their case on Markworth's behalf.

Volume 2, Chapter XI.

"THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME."

"_Partant pour la Syrie_" should have been the proper t.i.tle for this chapter, only instead of _la Syrie_, read _l'Abysinne_; but as "The girl I left behind me" is more appropriate to the matter, if not to the motive of what follows, the latter heading has been adopted in preference. "The Girl I left behind me!" That would-be jovial and yet melancholy air, with its dreary rub-a-dub-dub which the band plays when the regiment is marching out so gaily oh! with the route for foreign service. The Light Brigade played it when they started off to the Crimea; the Royals when they sailed for India, to avenge the deaths of our murdered kinswomen at Cawnpore: how many that departed so gallantly marching to the strains of that sad hackneyed tune, saw their native land again, or met the welcome of the girls they left behind them!

The "fiddle-de-dee" conversation with the old dowager had levelled the charming little Spanish castle which Tom had erected down to the ground; so it was with a very sad heart that he called at the parsonage on the following day to acquaint Lizzie and her brother with the upshot of his interview with his mother.

He was obliged to speak out straight and tell the truth: and it resulted in his worst fears being realised. Herbert Pringle said he could not hear of an engagement between them, as Mrs Hartshorne would not give her consent; and Lizzie, with a very pale little face and a determined little air, as if she was a martyr and being led to the stake, said she would have to do as her brother told her.