The Story of Charles Strange Volume I Part 16

Just as gay, just as light-hearted, just as _debonnaire_ as ever was Tom Heriot. To see him and to hear him as he sat this evening with them in Gloucester Place, you might have thought him as free from care as an Eton boy--as flourishing as a duke-royal. Little blame to Blanche that she suspected nothing of the existing state of things.

When Charles rose to say "Good-night," Tom Heriot said it also, and they went away together.

"Charley, lad," said the latter, as the street-door closed behind them, "could you put me up at your place for two nights--until after this wedding is over?"

"To be sure I can. Leah will manage it."

"All right. I have sent a portmanteau there."

"You did not come up from Southampton to-day, Tom? Blanche thought you did."

"And I am much obliged to them for allowing her to think it. I would have staked my last five-pound note, if you'll believe me, Charley, that old Carlen had not as much good feeling in him. I am vegetating in London; have been for some time, Blanche's letter was forwarded to me by a comrade who lets me use his address."

"And what are you doing in London?" asked Charles.

"Hiding my 'diminished head,' old fellow," answered Tom, with a laugh.

No matter how serious the subject, he could not be serious over it.

"How much longer do you mean to stand here?" continued Charles--for the Captain (people still gave him his t.i.tle) had not moved from the door.

"Till an empty cab goes by."

"We don't want a cab this fine night, Tom. Let us walk. Look how bright the moon is up there."

"Ay; my lady's especially bright tonight. Rather too much so for people who prefer the shade. How you stare, Charley! Fact is, I feel safer inside a cab just now than parading the open streets."

"Afraid of being taken for debt?" whispered Charles.

"Worse than that," said Tom laconically.

"Worse than that!" repeated Charles. "Why, what do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing," and Tom Heriot laughed again. "Except that I am in the deuce's own mess, and can't easily get out of it. There's a cab! Here, driver! In with you, Charley."

And on the following Thursday, when his sister's marriage with Lord Level took place, who so gay, who so free from care, who so attractive as Tom Heriot?--when giving her away. Lord Level had never before seen his future brother-in-law (or _half_ brother-in-law, as the more correct term would be), and was agreeably taken with him. A random young fellow, no doubt, given to playing the mischief with his own prospects, but a thorough gentleman, and a very prepossessing one.

"And this is my other brother--I have always called him so," whispered Blanche to her newly-made husband, as she presented Charles Strange to him on their return from church to Gloucester Place. Lord Level shook hands heartily; and Charles, who had been prejudiced against his lordship, of whom tales were told, took rather a liking to the tall, fine man of commanding presence, of handsome face and easy, genial manners.

After the breakfast, to which very few guests were bidden, and at which Mrs. Guy presided, as well as her nerves permitted, at one end of the table and Major Carlen at the other, Lord and Lady Level departed for Dover on their way to the Continent.

And in less than a week after the wedding, poor Thomas Heriot, who could not do an unkind action, who never had been anyone's enemy in the whole world, and never would be anyone's, except his own, was taken into custody on a criminal charge.

The blow came upon Charles Strange as a clap of thunder. That Tom was in a mess of some kind he knew well; nay, in half a dozen messes most likely; but he never glanced at anything so terrible as this. Tom had fenced with his questions during the day or two he stayed in Ess.e.x Street, and laughed them off. What the precise charge was, Charles could not learn at the first moment. Some people said felony, some whispered forgery. By dint of much exertion and inquiry, he at last knew that it was connected with "Bills."

Certain bills had been put into circulation by Thomas Heriot, and there was something wrong about them. At least, about one of them; since it bore the signature of a man who had never seen the bill.

"I am as innocent of it as a child unborn," protested Thomas Heriot to Charles, more solemnly in earnest than he had ever been heard to speak. "True, I got the bills discounted: accommodation bills, you understand, and they were to have been provided for; but that any good name had been _forged_ to one of them, I neither knew nor dreamt of."

"Yet you knew the good name was there?"

"But I thought it had been genuinely obtained."

This was at the first interview Charles held with him in prison.

"Whence did you get the bills?" Charles continued.

"They were handed to me by Anstey. He is the true culprit in all this, Charles, and he is slinking out of it, and will get off scot-free.

People warned me against the fellow; said he was making a cat's-paw of me; and by Jove it's true! I could not see it then, but my eyes are open now. He only made use of me for his own purposes. He had all, or nearly all, the money."

And this was just the truth of the business. The man Anstey, a gentleman once, but living by his wits for many years past, had got hold of light-headed, careless Tom Heriot, cajoled him of his friendship, and _used_ him. Anstey escaped completely "scot-free,"

and Tom suffered.

Tom was guilty in the eyes of the law; and the law only takes cognizance of its own hard requirements. After examination, he was committed for trial. Charles Strange was nearly wild with distress; Mr. Brightman was much concerned; Arthur Lake (who was now called to the Bar) would have moved heaven and earth in the cause. Away went Charles to Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar: and that renowned special pleader and good-hearted man threw his best energies into the cause.

All in vain. At the trial, which shortly came on at the Old Bailey, Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar exerted his quiet but most telling eloquence uselessly. He might as well have wasted it on the empty air. Though indeed it did effect something, causing the sentence p.r.o.nounced upon the unfortunate prisoner to be more lenient than it otherwise would have been. Thomas Heriot was sentenced to be transported for seven years.

Transportation beyond the seas was still in force then. And Thomas Heriot, with a cargo of greater or lesser criminals, was shipped on board the transport _Vengeance_, to be conveyed to Botany Bay.

It seemed to have taken up such a little s.p.a.ce of time! Very little, compared with the greatness of the trouble. June had hardly come in when Tom was first taken; and the _Vengeance_ sailed the beginning of August.

If Mrs. Guy had lamented beforehand the market that poor Tom Heriot had "brought his eggs to," what did she think of it now?

One evening in October a nondescript sort of vehicle, the German makers of which could alone know the name, arrived at a small village not far from the banks of the Rhine, clattering into the yard of the only inn the place contained. A gentleman and lady descended from it, and a parley ensued with the hostess, more protracted than it might have been, in consequence of the travellers' imperfect German, and her own imperfect French. Could madame accommodate them for the night, was the substance of their demand.

"Well--yes," was madame's not very a.s.sured answer: "if they could put up with a small bedroom."

"How small?"

She opened the door of--it was certainly not a room, though it might be slightly larger than a boot-closet; madame called it a cabinet-de-toilette. It was on the ground-floor, looking into the yard, and contained a bed, into which one person might have crept, provided he bargained with himself not to turn; but two people, never.

Three of her beds were taken up with a milor and miladi Anglais, and their attendants.

Mrs. Ravensworth--a young wife--turned to her husband, and spoke in English. "Arnold, what can we do? We cannot go on in the dark, with such roads as these."

"My love, I see only one thing for it: you must sleep here, and I must sit up."

Madame interrupted; it appeared she added a small stock of English to her other acquirements. "Oh, but dat meeseraable for monsieur: he steef in legs for morning."

"And stiff in arms too," laughed Arnold Ravensworth. "Do try and find us a larger bedroom."

"Perhaps the miladi Anglaise might give up one of her rooms for dis one," debated the hostess, bustling away to ask.

She returned, followed by an unmistakable Englishwoman, fine both in dress and speech. Was _she_ the miladi? She talked enough for one: vowing she would never give up her room to promiscuous travellers, who prowled about with no _avant courier_, taking their own chance of rooms and beds; and casting, as she spoke, annihilating glances at the benighted wanderers.

"Is anything the matter, Timms?" inquired a gentle voice in the background.