Charlotte's Inheritance Part 28

After this fashion did the invalid discourse. Gustave and Diana perceived that he still hoped to have his share in their future life, still looked to pleasant days to come in a world which he had loved, not wisely, but too well. Nor could they find it in their hearts to tell him that his journey was drawing to a close, and that on the very threshold of the peaceful home which his diplomatic arts had helped to secure, he was to abandon life's weary race.

They indulged his hopes a little, in order to win him the more easily to serious thoughts; but though at times quite ready to abandon himself to a penitential mood that was almost maudlin, there were other times when the old Adam a.s.serted himself, and the Captain resented this intrusion of serious subjects as a kind of impertinence.

"I am not aware that I am at my last gasp, Diana," he said with dignity, on one of these occasions; "or that I need to be talked to by my own daughter as if I were on my deathbed. I can show you men some years my senior driving their phaetons-and-pairs in that Park. The Gospel is all very well in its place--during Sunday-morning service, and after morning prayers, in your good old county families, where the household is large enough to make a fair show at the end of the dining-room, without bringing in hulking lads who smell of the stables: but I consider that when a man is ill, there is a considerable want of tact in bringing the subject of religion before him in any obtrusive manner."

Thus the Captain alternated from sentimental penitence to captious worldliness, during may days and weeks. The business of the Haygarthian inheritance was progressing slowly, but surely. Doc.u.ments were being prepared, attested copies of certificates of marriages, births, baptisms, and burials were being procured, and all was tending towards the grand result. Once, and sometimes twice a week, M. Fleurus came to see Captain Paget, and discussed the great affair with that invalid diplomatist. The Captain had long ago been aware that in entering upon an alliance with that gentleman, he had invoked the aid of a coadjutor likely to prove too strong for him. The event had justified his fears. M. Fleurus had something of Victor Hugo's famous _Poulpe_ in his nature. Powerful as flexible were the arms he stretched forth to grasp all prizes in the way of heirs-at-law and disputed heritages, unclaimed railway-stock, and forgotten consols. If the Captain had not played his cards very cleverly, and contrived to obtain a personal influence over Gustave Len.o.ble, he might have found himself thrust entirely out of the business by one of the Frenchman's gelatinous arms. Happily for his own success, however, the Captain did obtain a strong hold upon Gustave. This enabled him to protect his own interests throughout the negotiation, and to keep the insidious Fleurus at bay.

"My good friend," he said, in his grand Carlton-House manner, "I am bound to protect the interests of my friend M. Len.o.ble, in any agreement to be entered upon in this matter. I cannot permit M. Len.o.ble's generosity or M. Len.o.ble's inexperience to be imposed upon. My own interests are of secondary importance. That I expect to profit by the extraordinary discovery made by me--by ME--alone and unaided, I do not affect to deny.

But I will not profit at the expense of a too generous friend."

"And what recompense am I to have for my work--a work at once painful and impoverishing?" asked the little Frenchman, with an angry and suspicious look. "Do you believe that I do that to amuse me? To run the streets, to go by here, by there, in hunting the papers of that marriage, or this baptism? Believe you that is so agreeable, Monsieur the Captain? No; I desire to be paid for my work. I must have my part in the heritage which I have help to win."

"It is not won yet. We will talk of your recompense by-and-by."

"We will talk of it this instant--upon the field. It must that I comprehend where I am in this affair. I will not of mystifications, of prevarications, of lies--"

"M. Fleurus!" cried the Captain, with a hand stretched towards the bell.

"You will sound--you will chase me! Ah, but no!--you cannot afford to chase me yet. I have to find more papers of baptisms and burials. Go, then, we will talk of this affair as friends."

This friendly talk ended in Captain Paget's complete victory. M. Fleurus consented to accept his costs out of pocket in the present, and three per cent, of the heritage in the future. It was further agreed that the Captain should select the English attorney who should conduct M.

Len.o.ble's case in the Court of Chancery.

This conversation occurred at Rouen, and a day or two afterwards the necessary doc.u.ment was drawn up. Gustave pledged himself to pay over a fourth share of the Haygarthian fortune to Horatio Paget, and three per cent, upon the whole amount to Jean Francois Fleurus. The doc.u.ment was very formal, very complete; but whether such an agreement would hold water, if Gustave Len.o.ble should choose to contest it, was open to question.

The solicitor to whom Horatio Paget introduced M. Len.o.ble was a Mr.

Dashwood, of the firm of Dashwood and Vernon; a man whom the Captain had known in the past, and from whom he had received good service in some of the most difficult crises of his difficult career. To this gentleman he confided the conduct of the case; and explained his apprehensions with regard to the two Sheldons.

"You see, as the case now stands, they think they have the claimant to this money in Miss Halliday--Sheldon's stepdaughter. But if they got an inkling of Susan Meynell's marriage--and, in point of fact--the actual state of the case--they might try to get hold of my friend, Gustave Len.o.ble. They could _not_ get hold of him, mind you, Dashwood, but they would try it on, and I don't want trying on of that kind."

"Of course not. I know Sheldon, of Gray's Inn. He is rather--well, say _shady_. That's hardly an actionable epithet, and it expresses what I mean. Your friend's case seems to me tolerably clear. That little Frenchman is useful, but officious. It is not a speculative affair, I suppose? There is money to meet the current expenses of the business?"

"Yes, there is money. Within reasonable limits my friend is prepared to pay for the advancement of his claims."

After this the Haygarthian business progressed, slowly, quietly. The work was up to this point underground work. There were still papers wanting--final links of the chain to be fitted together; and to the fitting of these links Messrs. Dash and Vernon devoted themselves, in conjunction with M. Fleurus.

This was how matters stood when Captain Paget drooped and languished, and was fain to abandon all active share in the struggle.

CHAPTER II.

FADING.

While the invalid in the pleasant lodgings overlooking Hyde Park grew day by day weaker, there was a change as marked in the bright young creature whose loving spirit had first brought the influence of affection to bear upon Diana Paget's character. Charlotte Halliday was ill--very ill. It was with everyday increasing anxiety that Diana watched the slow change--slow in its progress, but awfully rapid to look back upon. The pain, the regret, with which she noted her father's decay were little indeed compared with the sharp agony which rent her heart as she perceived the alteration in this dear friend, the blighting of this fair young flower.

That the withered leaves of autumn should fall is sad, but natural, and we submit to the gloomy inevitable fact of decay and death. But to see our rose of roses, the pride and glory of the garden, fade and perish in its midsummer prime, is a calamity inexplicable and mysterious. Diana watched her father's decline with a sense of natural sorrow and pity; but there was neither surprise nor horror in the thought that for him the end of all things was drawing nigh. How different was it with Charlotte--with that happy soul for whom life and love wore their brightest smile, before whose light joyous footsteps stretched so fair a pathway!

The illness, whatever it was--and neither Mr. Sheldon nor the portly and venerable physician whom he called in could find a name for it--crept upon the patient with stealthy and insidious steps. Dizziness, trembling, faintness; trembling, faintness, dizziness; the symptoms alternated day by day. Sometimes there was a respite of a few days; and Charlotte--the youthful, the sanguine, the happy--declared that her enemy had left her.

"I am sure mamma is right, Di," she said on these occasions. "My nerves are the beginning and end of the mischief; and if I could get the better of my nerves, I should be as well as ever. I don't wonder that the idea of my symptoms makes mamma almost cross. You see, she has been accustomed to have the symptoms all to herself; and for me to plagiarise them, as it were, must seem quite an impertinence. For a strong young thing like me, you know, Di dear--who have only just broken myself of plunging downstairs two and three steps at a time, and plunging upstairs in the same vulgar manner--to intrude on mamma's shattered nerves, and pirate mamma's low spirits, is utterly absurd and abominable; so I have resolved to look my nerves straight in the face, and get the better of them."

"My darling, you will get the better of them if you try," said Diana, who did at times beguile herself with the hope that her friend's ailments were mental rather than bodily. "I dare say your monotonous life has something to do with your altered health; you want change of scene, dear."

"Change of scene, when I have you and Valentine! No, Di. It would certainly be very nice to have the background shifted now and then; to see Capability Brown's prim gardens melt into Alpine heights or southern vineyards, or even into Russian steppes or Hungarian forests.

One does get a little tired of _toujours_ Bayswater; and Mr. Sheldon; and crimped skate; and sirloin of beef, and the inevitable discussion as to whether it is in a cannibal state of rawness or burnt to a cinder; and the gla.s.ses of pale sherry; and the red worsted doyleys and blue finger-gla.s.ses; and the almonds and raisins, and crisp biscuits, that n.o.body ever eats; and the dreary, dreary funereal business of dinner, when we all talk vapid nonsense, with an ever-present consciousness of the parlourmaid. I am tired of the dull dinners, and of mamma's peevish complaints about Ann Woolper's ascendancy downstairs; and of Mr.

Sheldon's perpetual newspapers, that crackle, crackle, crackle all the evening through; and _such_ papers!--_Money Market Monitor, Stockholder's Vade-Mec.u.m_, and all sorts of dreadful things of that kind, with not so much as an interesting advertis.e.m.e.nt in one of them. I used never to feel these things an annoyance, you know, dear, till I made the acquaintance of my nerves; but from the moment I allowed my nerves to get the better of me, all these trifles have worried and excruciated me. But I am happy with you, darling; and I am happy with Valentine. Poor Valentine!"

She p.r.o.nounced his name with a sigh; and then, after a pause, repeated mournfully, "Poor Valentine!"

"Why do you speak of him so sadly, dear?" asked Diana, very pale.

"Because--because we have planned such a happy life together, dear, and--"

"Is that a thing to be sad about, darling?"

"And--if it should happen, after all, that we have to part, and he go on alone, the world may seem so sad and lonely to him."

"Charlotte!" cried Diana, with a laugh that was almost choked by a sob, "is this looking your nerves in the face? Why, my dear one, this is indeed plagiarism of your mamma's low spirits. Lotta, you shall have change of air; yes, I am determined on that. The stately physician who came in his carriage the other day, and who looked at your tongue, and said 'Ah!' and then felt your pulse and said 'Ah!' again, and then called for pen-and-ink and wrote a little prescription, is not the doctor we want for you. We want Dr. Yorkshire; we want the breezes from the Yorkshire moors, and the smell of the farmyard, and our dear Aunt Dorothy's sillabubs, and our uncle Joe to take us for long walks across his clover-fields."

"I don't want to go to Newhall, Di. I couldn't bear to leave--him."

"But what is to prevent your meeting _him_ at the white gate this time, as you met him last October? Might not accident take _him_ to Huxter's Cross again? The archaeological work--of which we have heard no more, by the bye--might necessitate further investigations in that district. If you will go to Newhall, Lotta, I will pledge myself for Mr. Hawkehurst's speedy appearance at the white gate you have so often described to me."

"My dearest Di, you are all kindness; but even if I were inclined to go to Newhall, I doubt if mamma or Mr. Sheldon would like me to go."

"I am sure they would be pleased with any arrangement that was likely to benefit your health. But I will talk to your mamma about it. I have set my heart on your going to Newhall."

Miss Paget lost no time in carrying out her idea. She took possession of Georgy that afternoon, while teaching her a new st.i.tch in _tricot_, and succeeded in impressing her with the conviction that change of air was necessary for Charlotte.

"But you don't think Lotta really ill?" asked Mrs. Sheldon, nervously.

"I trust she is not really ill, dear Mrs. Sheldon; but I am sure she is much changed. In talking to her, I affect to think that her illness is only an affair of the nerves; but I sadly fear that it is something more than that."

"But what is the matter with her?" exclaimed Georgy, with a piteous air of perplexity; "that is the question which I am always asking. People can't be ill, you know, Diana, without having something the matter with them; and that is what I can't make out in Charlotte's case. Mr. Sheldon says she wants tone; the physician who came in a carriage and pair, and ought to know what he is talking about, says there is a lack of vigour.

But what does that all amount to? I'm sure I've wanted tone all my life.

Perhaps there never was a creature so devoid of tone as I am; and the internal sinking I feel just before luncheon is something that no one but myself can realize. I dare say Lotta is not so strong as she might be; but I do not see that she can be ill, unless her illness is something definite. My poor first husband's illness, now, was the kind of thing that any one could understand--bilious fever. The merest child knows what it is to be bilious, and the merest child knows what it is to be feverish. There can be nothing mysterious in bilious fever."

"But, dear Mrs. Sheldon," said Diana, gravely, "don't you think that the weakness of const.i.tution which rendered Charlotte's father liable to be taken off in the prime of life by a fever is a weakness that Charlotte may possibly have inherited?"

"Good heavens, Diana!" cried Georgy, with sudden terror; "you don't mean to say that you think my Charlotte is going to die?"

It was but one step with Mrs. Sheldon from peevish incredulity to frantic alarm; and Diana found it as difficult to tranquillise her newly-awakened fears as it had been to rouse her from absolute apathy.

Change of air--yes, of course--Charlotte must have change of air that instant. Let a cab be sent for immediately to take them to the terminus.

Change of air, of course. To Newhall--to Nice--to the Isle of Wight--to Malta; Mrs. Sheldon had heard of people going to Malta. Where should they go? Would Diana advise, and send for a cab, and pack a travelling bag without an instant's delay? The rest of the things could be sent afterwards. What did luggage matter, when Charlotte's life was at stake?