This Man's Wife Part 53

"Ah, well, we must not do that," he cried laughingly. "Look here, though; this barrister who is to defend me, I know him--Granton, Q.C.

Did your father instruct him?"

"No: he could not. Robert, we are frightfully poor."

"Ah! it is a nuisance," he said, "thanks to my enemies; but we'll get through. Now then, who has instructed this man?"

"I cannot tell, dear."

"I see it all," he said; "it's a plan of the enemy. They employ their own man, and he will sell me, bound hand and foot, to the Philistines."

"Oh! Robert, surely no one would be so base."

"I don't know," he said. "They want to win. It's Sir Gordon's doing.

No, it's Christie Bayle. I'd lay a thousand pounds he has paid the fellow's fees."

"Then, Robert, you will not trust him; you will refuse to let him defend you. Husband, my brave, true, innocent husband," she cried, with her pale face flushing, "defend yourself!"

"Hush! Go to Sir Gordon at once. Say everything. I must be had out of this, Milly. I cannot stand my trial." She could only nod her acquiescence, for a gaoler had entered to announce that the visit was at an end.

Then, as if in a dream, confused, troubled in spirit, and hardly seeing her way for the mist before her eyes, Millicent Hallam followed the gaoler back along the white stone pa.s.sages and through the clanging gates, to be shut out of the prison and remain in a dream of misery and troubled thought, conscious of only one thing, and that one that a gentle hand had taken her by the arm and led her back to where they waited for the conveyance to take them home.

"These handsome men; these handsome men!" sighed Thibs, as she sat by Julia's bed that night, tired with her journey, but reluctant to go to her own resting-place--a mattress upon the floor. "Oh! how I wish sometimes we were back at the old house, and me scolding and stubborn with poor old missus, and in my tantrums from morning to night. Ah!

those were happy days."

Thisbe shook her head, and rocked herself to and fro, and sighed and sighed again.

"My old kitchen, and my old back door, and the big dust-hole! What a house it was, and how happy we used to be! Ah! if we could only change right back and be there once more, and Miss Milly not married to no handsome scamp. Ah! and he is; Miss Milly may say what she likes, and try to believe he isn't. He is a scamp, and I wish she had never seen his handsome face, and we were all back again, and then--Oh!--Oh! Oh!-- Oh!--Oh!" cried hard, stubborn Thisbe as she sank upon her knees by the child's bedside, sobbing gently and with the tears running down her cheeks, "and then there wouldn't be no you. Bless you! bless you! bless you!"

She kissed the child as a b.u.t.terfly might settle on a flower, so tender was her love, so great her fear of disturbing the little one's rest.

"Oh! dear me, dear me!" she said, rising and wiping the tears from her hard face and eyes, "well, there's whites and blacks, and ups and downs, and pleasures and pains, and I don't know what to say--except my prayers; and the Lord knows what's best for us after all."

Ten minutes after, poor Thisbe was sleeping peacefully, while, with burning brow, Millicent was pacing her bed-room, thinking of the morrow's interview with Sir Gordon Bourne.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

MR GEMP IS CURIOUS.

"I know'd--I know'd it all along," said Old Gemp to his friends, for the excitement of his loss seemed now to have acted in an opposite direction and to be giving him strength. "I know'd he couldn't be living at that rate unless things was going wrong. What did the magistrates say?"

"Said it was a black case, and committed him for trial," replied Gorringe the tailor. "Ah, I don't say that clothes is everything, Mr Gemp; but a well-made suit makes a gentleman of a man, and you never heard of Mr Thickens doing aught amiss."

"Nor me neither, eh, Gorringe? and you've made my clothes ever since you've been in business."

The tailor looked with disgust at his neighbour's shabby, well-worn garments, and remained silent.

"I'd have been in the court mysen, Gorringe, on'y old Luttrell said he wouldn't be answerable for my life if I got excited again, and I don't want to die yet, neighbour; there's a deal for me to see to in this world."

"Got your money, haven't you?"

"Ye-es, I've got my money, and it's put away safe; but I wanted my deeds--my writings. I've lost by that scoundrel, horribly."

"Ah, well, it might have been worse," said Gorringe, giving a snip with his scissors that made Gemp start as if it were his own well-frayed thread of life being cut through.

"Oh, of course it might have been worse; but a lot of us have lost, eh, neighbour?"

"Dixons' and Sir Gordon have come down very handsome over it," said Gorringe, who was designing a garment, as he called it, with a piece of French chalk.

"And the parson," said Gemp; "only to think of it--a parson, a curate, with one-and-twenty thousand pound in his pocket."

"Ay, it come in handy," said Gorringe.

"Now, where did he get that money, eh? It's a wonderful sight for a man like him," said Gemp, with a suspicious look.

"London. I heerd tell that he said he had been to London to get it."

"Ay, he said so," cried Gemp, shaking his head, "but it looks suspicious, mun. Here was he hand and glove with the Hallams, always at their house and mixed up like. I want to know where he got that money.

I say, sir, that a curate with twenty thousand pound of his own is a sort o' monster as ought to be levelled down."

The tailor pushed up his gla.s.ses to the roots of his hair, and left off his work to hold up his shears menacingly at his crony.

"Gemp, old man," he said, "I would not be such a cantankerous, suspicious old magpie as you for a hundred pounds; and look here, if you're going to pull b.u.t.tons off the back o' parson's coat, go and do it somewhere else, and not in my shop."

"Oh! you needn't be so up," said Gemp. "Look here," he cried, pointing straight at his friend, "what did Thickens say about the writings?"

"Spoke fair as a man could speak," said Gorringe, resuming his architectural designs in chalk and cloth, "said he felt uncomfortable about the matter first when he saw Hallam give a package to a man named Crellock--chap who often come down to see him; that he was suspicious like that for two years, but never had an opportunity of doing more than be doubtful till just lately."

"Why didn't he speak out to a friend--say to a man like me?"

"Because, I'm telling you, it was only suspicion. Hallam managed the thing very artfully, and threw dust in Thickens's eyes; but last of all he see his way clear, and went and told parson. And just then Sir Gordon were suspicious, too, and had got something to go upon, and they nabbed my gentleman just as he was going away."

"And do you believe all this?" cried Gemp.

"To be sure I do. Don't you?"

"Tchah! I'm afraid they're all in it."

"Ah! well, I'm not; and, as we've nothing to lose, I don't care."

"How did Hallam look?"

"Very white; and, my word! he did give parson a look when he was called up to give his evidence. He looked black at Thickens and at Sir Gordon, but he seemed regularly savage with parson."

"Ah, to be sure!" cried Gemp. "What did I say about being thick with parson? It's my belief that if all had their deserts parson would be standing in the dock alongside o' Hallam."

"And it's my belief, Gemp, that you're about the silliest owd maulkin that ever stepped! There, I won't quarrel with thee. Parson? Pshaw!"

"Well, thou'lt see, mun, thou'lt see! Committed for trial, eh? And how about the other fellow!"