Elster's Folly Part 80

Anne smiled. "I am a clergyman's daughter, you know, Val."

"If she is wise, she'll abstain from offending you in my presence. I'm not sure but I should lose command of myself, and send her off there and then."

"I don't fear that. She was quite civil when we came up from dinner, and--"

"As she generally is then. She takes her share of wine."

"And asked me if I would excuse her falling into a doze, for she never felt well without it."

Anne was right. The cunning old woman changed her tactics, finding those she had started would not answer. It has been remarked before, if you remember, that she knew particularly well on which side her bread was b.u.t.tered. Nothing could exceed her graciousness from that evening. The past scene might have been a dream, for all traces that remained of it.

Out of the house she was determined not to go in anger; it was too desirable a refuge for that. And on the following day, upon hearing Edward attempt some impudent speech to his new mother, she put him across her knee, pulled off an old slipper she was wearing, and gave him a whipping. Anne interposed, the boy roared; but the good woman had her way.

"Don't put yourself out, dear Lady Hartledon. There's nothing so good for them as a wholesome whipping. I used to try it on my own children at times."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

MR. PIKE ON THE WING.

The time went on. It may have been some twelve or thirteen months later that Mr. Carr, sitting alone in his chambers, one evening, was surprised by the entrance of his clerk--who possessed a latch-key as well as himself.

"Why, Taylor! what brings you here?"

"I thought you would most likely be in, sir," replied the clerk. "Do you remember some few years ago making inquiries about a man named Gorton--and you could not find him?"

"And never have found him," was Mr. Carr's comment. "Well?"

"I have seen him this evening. He is back in London."

Thomas Carr was not a man to be startlingly affected by any communication; nevertheless he felt the importance of this, for Lord Hartledon's sake.

"I met him by chance, in a place where I sometimes go of an evening to smoke a cigar, and learned his name by accident," continued Mr. Taylor.

"It's the same man that was at Kedge and Reck's, George Gorton; he acknowledged it at once, quite readily."

"And where has he been hiding himself?"

"He has been in Australia for several years, he says; went there directly after he left Kedge and Reck's that autumn."

"Could you get him here, Taylor? I must see him. Tell me: what coloured hair has he?"

"Red, sir; and plenty of it. He says he's doing very well over there, and has only come home for a short change. He does not seem to be in concealment, and gave me his address when I asked him for it."

According to Mr. Carr's wish, the man Gorton was brought to his chambers the following morning by Taylor. To the barrister's surprise, a well-dressed and really rather gentlemanly man entered. He had been accustomed to picturing this Gorton as an Arab of London life. Casting a keen glance at the red hair, he saw it was indisputably his own.

A few rapid questions, which Gorton answered without the slightest demur, and Mr. Carr leaned back in his chair, knowing that all the trouble he had been at to find this man might have been spared: for he was not the George Gordon they had suspected. But Mr. Carr was cautious, and betrayed nothing.

"I am sorry to have troubled you," he said. "When I inquired for you of Kedge and Reck some years ago, it was under the impression that you were some one else. You had left; and they did not know where to find you."

"Yes, I had displeased them through arresting a wrong man, and other things. I was down in the world then, and glad to do anything for a living, even to serving writs."

"You arrested the late Lord Hartledon for his brother," observed Mr.

Carr, with a careless smile. "I heard of it. I suppose you did not know them apart."

"I had never set eyes on either of them before," returned Gorton; unconsciously confirming a point in the barrister's mind; which, however, was already sufficiently obvious.

"The man I wanted to find was named Gordon. I thought it just possible that you might have changed your name temporarily: some of us finding it convenient to do so on occasion."

"I never changed mine in my life."

"And if you had, I don't suppose you'd have changed it to one so notorious as George Gordon."

"Notorious?"

"It was a George Gordon who was the hero of that piratical affair; that mutiny on board the _Morning Star_."

"Ah, to be sure. And an awful villain too! A man I met in Australia knew Gordon well. But he tells a curious tale, though. He was a doctor, that Gordon; had come last from somewhere in Kirkcudbrightshire."

"He did," said Thomas Carr, quietly. "What curious tale does your friend tell?"

"Well, sir, he says--or rather said, for I've not seen him since my first visit there--that George Gordon did not sail in the _Morning Star_. He was killed in a drunken brawl the night before he ought to have sailed: this man was present and saw him buried."

"But there's pretty good proof that Gordon did sail. He was the ringleader of the mutiny."

"Well, yes. I don't know how it could have been. The man was positive.

I never knew Gordon; so that the affair did not interest me much."

"You are doing well over there?"

"Very well. I might retire now, if I chose to live in a small way, but I mean to take a few more years of it, and go on to riches. Ah! and it was just the turn of a pin whether I went over there that second time, or whether I stopped in London to serve writs and starve."

"Val was right," thought the barrister.

On the following Sat.u.r.day Mr. Carr took a return-ticket, and went down to Hartledon: as he had done once or twice before in the old days. The Hartledons had not come to town this season; did not intend to come: Anne was too happy in the birth of her baby-boy to care for London; and Val liked Hartledon better than any other place now.

In one single respect the past year had failed to bring Anne happiness--there was not entire confidence between herself and her husband. He had something on his mind, and she could not fail to see that he had. It was not that awful dread that seemed to possess him in his first wife's time; nevertheless it was a weight which told more or less on his spirits at all times. To Anne it appeared like remorse; yet she might never have thought this, but for a word or two he let slip occasionally. Was it connected with his children? She could almost have fancied so: and yet in what manner could it be? His behaviour was peculiar. He rather avoided them than not; but when with them was almost pa.s.sionately demonstrative, exactingly jealous that due attention should be paid to them: and he seemed half afraid of caressing Anne's baby, lest it should be thought he cared for it more than for the others. Altogether Lady Hartledon puzzled her brains in vain: she could not make him out.

When she questioned him he would deny that there was anything the matter, and said it was her fancy.

They were at Hartledon alone: that is, without the countess-dowager.

That respected lady, though not actually domiciled with them during the past twelve-month, had paid them three long visits. She was determined to retain her right in the household--if right it could be called. The dowager was by far too wary to do otherwise; and her behaviour to Anne was exceedingly mild. But somehow she contrived to retain, or continually renew, her evil influence over the children; though so insidiously, that Lady Hartledon could never detect how or when it was done, or openly meet it. Neither could she effectually counteract it. So surely as the dowager came, so surely did the young boy and his sister become unruly with their step-mother; ill-natured and rude. Lady Hartledon was kind, judicious, and good; and things would so far be remedied during the crafty dowager's absences, as to promise a complete cure; but whenever she returned the evil broke out again. Anne was sorely perplexed. She did not like to deny the children to their grandmother, who was more nearly related to them than she herself; and she could only pray that time would bring about some remedy. The dowager pa.s.sed her time pretty equally between their house and her son's. Lord Kirton had not married again, owing, perhaps, to the watch and ward kept over him. But as soon as he started off to the Continent, or elsewhere, where she could not follow him, then off she came, without notice, to England and Lord Hartledon's. And Val, in his good-nature, bore the infliction pa.s.sively so long as she kept civil and peaceable.

In this also her husband's behaviour puzzled Anne. Disliking the dowager beyond every other created being, he yet suffered her to indulge his children; and if any little pa.s.sage-at-arms supervened, took her part rather than his wife's.

"I cannot understand you, Val," Anne said to him one day, in tones of pain. "You are not as you used to be." And his only answer was to strain his wife to his bosom with an impa.s.sioned gesture of love.

But these were only episodes in their generally happy life. Never more happy, more free from any external influence, than when Thomas Carr arrived there on this identical Sat.u.r.day. He went in unexpectedly: and Val's violet eyes, beautiful as ever, shone out their welcome; and Anne, who happened to have her baby on her lap, blushed and smiled, as she held it out for the barrister's inspection.