Fenton's Quest Part 17

"And this Mr. Holbrook is now Miss Nowell's husband? and you want to know who he is? With what end?"

"I want to find the man who has done me the deadliest wrong one man can do another."

"My dear fellow, don't you see that it is fate, and not Mr. Holbrook, that has done you this wrong? If Miss Nowell had really loved you as she ought to have loved you, it would have been quite impossible for her to be tempted away from you. It was her destiny to marry this Holbrook, rely upon it; and had you been on the spot to protect your own interests, the result would have been just the same. Believe me, I am very sorry for you, and can fully sympathise with your feelings in this business; but I cannot see what good could possibly arise out of a meeting between you and your fortunate rival. The days of duelling are past; and even if it were not so, I think you are too generous to seek to deprive Miss Nowell of her husband."

"I do not know about that. There are some wrongs which all a man's Christianity is not wide enough to cover. I think if that man and I were to meet, there would be very little question of mercy on my side. I hold a man who could act as he has acted unworthy of all consideration--utterly unworthy of the woman he has won from me."

"My dear fellow, you know the old saying. A man who is in love thinks everything fair. There is no such thing as honour in such a case as this.

Of course, I don't want to defend this Holbrook; I only want to awaken your senses to the absurdity of any vindictive pursuit of the man. If the lady did not love you, believe me you are well out of the business."

"Yes, that is what every one would tell me, I daresay," Gilbert answered impatiently. "But is there to be no atonement for my broken life, rendered barren to me by this man's act? I tell you, Sir David, there is no such thing as pardon for a wrong like this. But I know how foolish this talk must seem to you: there is always something ridiculous in the sufferings of a jilted lover."

"Not at all, my dear Fenton. I heartily wish that I could be of use to you in this matter; but there is very little chance of that; and, believe me, there is only one rational course open to you, which is, to forget Miss Nowell, or Mrs. Holbrook, with all possible a.s.siduity."

Gilbert smiled, a melancholy incredulous smile. Sir David's advice was only the echo of John Saltram's counsel--the counsel which he would receive from every man of the world, no doubt--the counsel which he himself would most likely have given to a friend under the same circ.u.mstances.

Sir David was very cordial, and wanted his visitor to dine and sleep at Heatherly; but this Gilbert declined. He was eager to get back to London now that his business was finished.

He arrived in town late that night; and went back to his office-work next day with a dreary feeling that he must needs go through the same dull routine day after day in all the time to come, without purpose or hope in his life, only because a man must go on living somehow to the end of his earthly pilgrimage, whether the sun shine upon him or not.

He went to Queen Anne's Court one evening soon after his return, and told Mr. Nowell all he had discovered at Wygrove. The old man showed himself keenly interested in his grand-daughter's fate.

"I would give a great deal to see her before I die," he said. "Whatever I have to leave will be hers. It may be little or much--I won't speak about that; but I've lived a hard life, and saved where other men would have spent. I should like to see my son's child; I should like to have some one of my own flesh and blood about me in my last days."

"Would it not be a good plan to put an advertis.e.m.e.nt into the _Times_, addressed to Mrs. Holbrook, from a relation? She would be likely to answer that, when she would not reply to any appeal coming directly from me."

"Yes," answered Jacob Nowell; "and her husband would let her come to me for the sake of what I may have to leave her. But that can't be helped, I suppose; it is the fate of a man who lives as I have lived, to be cared for at last only for what he has to give. I'll put in such an advertis.e.m.e.nt as you speak of; and we'll see what comes of it."

CHAPTER XII.

A FRIENDLY COUNSELLOR.

Gilbert Fenton called several times in the Temple without being able to see John Saltram; a slip of paper pasted on the outer door of that gentleman's chamber informed the public that he was "out of town," and that was all. Gilbert took the trouble to penetrate the domicile of the laundress who officiated in Mr. Saltram's chambers, in order to obtain some more particular information as to her employer's movements, and after infinite difficulty succeeded in finding that industrious matron in the remote obscurity of a narrow court near the river. But the laundress could tell Mr. Fenton very little. She did not know whither Mr. Saltram had gone, or when he was likely to return. He was one of the most uncertingest gentlemen she had to do for; and he had been out of town a great deal lately; which was not to be wondered at, considering the trying hot weather, when it was not to be supposed that gentlefolks as was free to do what they pleased would stay in London. It was hard enough upon working people with five children to wash and mend and cook for, and over in the court besides, and provisions dearer than they had been these ten years. Gilbert asked if Mr. Saltram had left any orders about his letters; but the woman told him, no; there never was such a careless gentleman about letters. He never cared about having them sent after him, and would let them lie in the box till the dust got thick upon them.

Gilbert left a brief note for John Saltram with the woman--a note begging his friend to come to him when he was next in London; and having done this, he paid no more visits to the Temple, but waited patiently for Mr. Saltram's coming, feeling very sure that his request would not be neglected. If anything could have intensified the gloom of his mind at this time it would have been the absence of that one friend, whom he loved better than he had ever loved any one in this world, except Marian Nowell. He stayed in town all through the blank August and September season, working harder than he had worked since the early days of his commercial life, taking neither pleasure nor interest in anything, and keeping as much as possible out of the way of all his old acquaintance.

No answer came to Jacob Nowell's advertis.e.m.e.nt, although it appeared several times; and the old man began to despair of ever seeing his granddaughter. Gilbert used to drop in upon him sometimes of an evening during this period, at his urgent request. He was interested in the solitary silversmith for Marian's sake, and very willingly sacrificed an occasional evening for his gratification. He fancied that these visits of his inspired some kind of jealousy in the breast of the sallow-faced, sleek-haired shopman; who regarded him always on these occasions with a look of suppressed malevolence, and by every stratagem in his power tried to find out the nature of the conversation between the visitor and his employer, making all kinds of excuses to come into the parlour, and showing himself proof against the most humiliating treatment from his master.

"Does that young man expect you to leave him money? and does he look upon me as a possible rival?" Gilbert asked one night, provoked by the shopman's conduct.

"Very likely," Mr. Nowell answered, with a malicious grin.

"One gets good service from a man who expects his reward in the future.

Luke Tulliver serves me very well indeed, and of course I am not responsible for his delusions."

"Do you know, Mr. Nowell, that is a man I should scarcely care to trust.

To my mind there is a warning of danger in his countenance."

"My dear sir, I have never trusted any one in my life," answered the silversmith promptly. "I don't for a moment suppose that Luke Tulliver would be honest if I gave him an opportunity to cheat me. As to the badness of his countenance, that is so much the better. I like to deal with an obvious rogue. The really dangerous subject is your honest fool, who goes on straight enough till he has lulled one into a false security, and then turns thief all at once at the instigation of some clever tempter."

"That young man lives in the house with you, I suppose?"

"Yes; my household consists of Luke Tulliver, and an old woman who does the cooking and other work. There are a couple of garrets at the top of the house where the two sleep; my own bedroom is over this; and the room over the shop is full of pictures and other unsaleable stuff, which I have seldom occasion to show anybody. My business is not what it once was, Mr. Fenton. I have made some rather lucky hits in the way of picture-dealing in the course of my business career, but I haven't done a big line lately."

Gilbert was inclined to believe that Jacob Nowell was a much richer man than he cared to confess, and that the fortune which Marian Nowell might inherit in the future was a considerable one. The old man had all the attributes of a miser. The house in which he lived had the aspect of a place in which money has been made and h.o.a.rded day by day through long dull years.

It was not until the end of October that John Saltram made his appearance at his old friend's lodgings. He had just come up from the country, and was looking his best--brighter and younger than Gilbert had seen him look for a long time.

"My dear Jack, I began to think I should never see you again. What have you been doing all this time, and where have you been?"

"I have been hard at work, as usual, for the reviews, down Oxford way, at a little place on the river. And how has the world been going with you, Gilbert? I saw your advertis.e.m.e.nt offering a reward for evidence of Miss Nowell's marriage. Was there any result?"

"Yes; I know all about the marriage now, but I don't know who or what the man is," Gilbert answered; and then went on to give his friend a detailed account of his experience at Wygrove, and his visit to Sir David Forster.

"My dear foolish Gilbert," said John Saltram, "how much useless trouble you have given yourself! Was it not enough to know that this girl had broken faith with you? I think, were I in your place, that would be the end of the story for me. And now you know more than that--you know that she is another man's wife. If you find her, nothing can come of it."

"It is the man I want to find, John; the man whom I shall make it the business of my life to discover."

"For what good?"

"For the deadliest harm to him," Gilbert answered moodily. "If ever he and I meet, I will have some payment for my broken life; some compensation for my ruined hopes. We two should not meet and part lightly, rely upon it."

"You can make no excuse for his love, that fatal irresistible pa.s.sion, which outweighs truth and honour when they are set in the opposite scale.

I did not think you could be so hard, Gilbert; I thought you would have more mercy on the man who wronged you."

"I could pardon any injury but this. I will never forgive this."

John Saltram shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating air.

"It is a mistake, my dear fellow," he said. "Life is not long enough for these strong pa.s.sions. There is nothing in the world worth the price these bitter hatreds and stormy angers cost us. You have thrown away a great deal of deep feeling on a lady, whose misfortune it was not to be able to return your affection as she might have done--as you most fully deserved at her hands. Why waste any further emotion in regrets that we as useless as they are foolish?"

"You may as well ask me why I exist," Gilbert answered quietly. "Regret for all I have lost is a part of my life."

After this there was no more to be said, and Mr. Saltram went on to speak of pleasanter topics. The two men dined together, and sat by the fire afterwards with a bottle of claret between them, smoking their cigars, and talking till late into the night.

It was not to be supposed that Adela Branston's name could be omitted entirely from this confidential talk.

"I have seen nothing and heard very little of her while I have been away," John Saltram said, in answer to a question of Gilbert's; "but I called in Cavendish-square this afternoon, and was fortunate enough to find her at home. She wants me to dine with her next Sunday, and I half promised to do so. Will you come too? I know that she would be glad to see you."

"I cannot see that I am wanted, John."

"But I tell you that you are wanted. I wish you to go with me. Mrs.

Branston likes you amazingly, if you care to know the opinion of so frivolous a person."