Toppleton's Client Part 12

"'Thanks,' said the fiend. 'a.s.suming that you are Miss Arabella Hicksworthy-Johnstone, I would say to you that I should like to know upon what your father's claim that you and I are engaged rests.'

"'Really, Edward,' she returned impatiently, 'I cannot comprehend your singular behaviour this afternoon. You know how we became engaged. You know you asked me to be your wife, and you know that after keeping you on your knees for several hours I consented.'

"'Madam,' observed the fiend, 'I never went on my knees to a woman in my life. I never asked but one woman in this world to be my wife, and you are not she.'

"'What!' cried Arabella. 'Do you mean to say to me, Edward, that you did _not_ ask me to be your wife?'

"'I meant to say exactly what I said. That I am engaged to be married to Lady Ariadne Maude Fackleton, daughter of the Earl of Pupley, the only woman to whom I ever spoke or thought of speaking a word of love in my life. I mean to say that Lady Ariadne Maude Fackleton and I expect to be married before the month is up. I mean to say that I never saw you before in my life, and I should like to know what your intentions are concerning this absurd claim that I am engaged to you may be, for I do not intend to have my future marred by any breach of promise suits. In short, madam, do you intend to claim me as your matrimonial prize or not? If not, all well and good. If so, I shall secure an injunction restraining you from doing anything of the sort. Even should you force me to the altar itself I should then and there forbid the banns.'

"'Sir,' said my Arabella, drawing herself up like a queen, 'you may leave this house, and never set foot again within its walls. I should as soon think of claiming that celebrated biblical personage, of whom you remind me, Ananias, for a husband as you. Do not flatter yourself that I shall ever dispute the Lady Ariadne's possession of so accomplished a lord and master as yourself,--though I should do so were I more philanthropically disposed. If it be the duty of one woman to protect the happiness of another, I should do all that lies in my power to prevent this marriage; but inasmuch as my motive in so doing would, in all likelihood, be misconstrued, I must abstain; I must hold myself aloof, though the whole future happiness of one of my own s.e.x be at stake. Farewell, sir, and good riddance. If you will leave me Lady Ariadne's address, I will send her my sympathy as a wedding gift.'

"'Madam,' returned the fiend, bowing low, 'your kind words have taken a heavy load from my heart. You deserve a better fate; but farewell.'

"Then as the fiend departed Arabella swooned away. My first impulse was to follow the fiend, and to discover if possible his address; but I could not bring myself to leave Arabella at that moment, she was so overcome. I floated to the prostrate woman, and whispered the love I felt for her in her ear.

"'Arabella,' I said. 'Arabella--my love--it is all a mistake. Open your eyes and see. I am here ready to explain all if you will only listen.'

"Her answer was a moan and a fluttering of the eyelids.

"'Arabella,' I repeated. 'Don't you hear me, sweetheart? Open your eyes and look at me. It is I, Edward.'

"'Edward!' she gasped, her eyes still closed. 'What _does_ it all mean?

Why have you treated me so?'

"'It is not I who have done this Arabella; it is another vile being over whose actions I have no control. He is a fiend who has me in his power.

He is--oh, Arabella, do not ask me, do not insist upon knowing all, only believe that I am not to blame!'

"'Kiss me, Edward,' she murmured. 'One little kiss.'

"Hopkins," moaned the exile, "just think of that! One little kiss was all she asked, and I--I hadn't anything to kiss her with--not the vestige of a lip.

"'Kiss me, Edward,' she repeated.

"'I cannot,' I cried out in anguish.

"'Why not?' she demanded, sitting up on the floor and gazing wildly around her, and then seeing that she was absolutely alone in the room, and had been conversing with--"

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hopkins, wringing his hands. "Dear me! The poor girl must have been nearly crazy."

"Nearly, Hopkins?" said the exile, in a sepulchral tone. "Nearly?

Arabella never did anything by halves or by nearlies. She became quite crazy, and as far as I know has remained so until this day, for with the restoration of consciousness, and the shock of opening her eyes to see nothing that could speak with her, and yet had spoken, her mind gave way, and she fled chattering like an imbecile from the room. I have never seen her since!"

"And the fiend?" queried Toppleton.

"I saw him at St. George's on the following Wednesday," returned the exile. "I had been wandering aimlessly and distractedly about London for four days since the dreadful episode at Arabella's, when I came to St.

George's Church. There was an awning before the door, and from the handsome equipages drawn up before the edifice I knew that some notable function was going on within. The crowds, the usual London crowds, were being kept back by the police, but I, of course, being invisible, floated over their heads, past the guards, through the awning into the church. There was a wedding in progress, and the groom's back seemed familiar, though I could not place it at first, and naturally, Toppleton, for it was my own, as I discovered, a moment later. When the last irrevocable words binding me to a woman I had never before seen had been spoken, and the organ began to peal forth the melodious measures of the Lohengrin March, the bride and groom, made one, turned and faced the brilliant a.s.semblage of guests, among whom were the premier and the members of his cabinet, and as complete a set of nabobs, mentioned in Burke, as could be gathered in London at that time of the year, and I recognized my own face wreathed in smiles, my own body dressed in wedding garb, standing on the chancel steps ready to descend.

"I was married, Hopkins, at last. Married to a woman of beauty and wealth and high position, utterly unknown to me, and not only were my own mother and my best friends absent, but I myself had only happened in by accident.

"My rage knew no bounds, and as the fiend and his bride pa.s.sed down the aisle amid the showered congratulations of the aristocratic mult.i.tude, I impotently endeavoured to strike him, of which he was serenely unconscious; but as he left the church my voice, which had been stifled with indignation, at last grew clear, and I howled out high above the crowds,--

"'You vile scoundrel, restore me to myself! Give me back the presence of which you have robbed me, or may every curse in all the universe fall upon you and your house for ever.'

"He heard me, Toppleton, and his answer was a smile--a green smile--seeing which his bride, the Lady Ariadne Maude Fackleton, fainted as they drove away.

"That, Hopkins, is substantially the tale of villainy I have come to tell. Little remains to be told. The fiend has been true to his promise to make me famous, for every pa.s.sing year has brought some new honour to my name. I have been elevated to the peerage; I have been amba.s.sador to the most brilliant courts of Europe; I have been all that one could hope to be, and yet I have not been myself. I ask your a.s.sistance. Will you not give it to me?"

"Edward," said Toppleton warmly, "I will. I will be candid with you, Edward. I am almost as ignorant of law as a justice of the peace, but for your sake I will study and see what can be done. I will fight your case for you to the very last, but first tell me one thing. Your name is what?"

"Edward Pompton Chatford."

"What!" cried Toppleton, "the famous novelist?"

"He made me so," said the exile.

"And the fiend's present t.i.tle is?"

"Lord Barncastle of Burningford."

"He?" said Toppleton, incredulously, recognizing the name as that of one who fairly bent beneath the honours of the world.

"None other," returned the exile.

"Heavens!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Toppleton. "How Morley, Harkins, Perkins, Mawson, Bronson, Smithers, and Hicks will open their eyes when I tell them that I have been retained to inst.i.tute _habeas corpus_ proceedings in the case of Chatford v. Barncastle of Burningford! Morley particularly, I am afraid will die of fright!"

CHAPTER XI.

TOPPLETON CONSULTS THE LAW AND FORMS AN OPINION.

AT the conclusion of the exile's story Hopkins glanced at his watch, and discovered that he had barely time to return to his lodging and dress for a little dinner he had promised to attend that evening.

"I will look up the law in this case of yours, Chatford," he said, rising from his chair and putting on his hat and coat, "and in about a week I rather think we shall be able to decide upon some definite line of action. It will be difficult, I am afraid, to find any precedent to guide us in a delicate matter of this sort, but as a lay lawyer, if I may be allowed the expression, it seems to me that there ought to be some redress for one who has been made the victim of so many different kinds of infamy at once as you have. The weak part of our case is that you were yourself an accessory to every single one of the fiend's crimes, and in inst.i.tuting a suit at law we cannot get around the fact that in a measure you are both plaintiff and defendant. I believe those are the terms usually employed to designate the two parties to a suit, except in the case of an appeal, when there is an appellant and a repellant if my memory serves me."

"It may be as you say," returned the exile, sadly. "I'll have to take your word for it entirely, since, as I have already told you, all the law I ever knew I have forgotten, and then, too, my business being purely one of adjudication, I used to distinguish my clients one from another--representing, as I did, both sides--by calling them, respectively, the compromisee and the compromisor."

"Well," Toppleton said, "I'll find out all about it and let you know, say, by Friday next. We'll first have to decide in what capacity you shall appear in court, whether as a plaintiff or defendant. I think under the circ.u.mstances you will have to go as a plaintiff, though in a case in which my father was interested some years ago, I know that it was really the plaintiff who was put on the defensive as soon as the old gentleman took him in hand to cross-examine him. It was said by experts to have been the crossest examination on the calendar that year; and between you and me, Edward, the plaintiff never forgave his attorneys for not retaining the governor on his side in the beginning. If you would rather go as a defendant, I suppose I could arrange to have it so, but it strikes me as a disadvantageous thing to do in these days, because in most cases, it is the defendant who has committed the wrong upon which the suit is based, and a man who starts in as the underdog, has to combat the prejudices of judge, jury and general public, with whom it is a time-honoured custom to believe a man guilty until he has proven his innocence. I think, on the whole, it would be easier for you to prove Lord Barncastle's guilt than your own innocence."

"I know from the lucid manner in which you talk, Toppleton," said the exile, with a deep sigh indicating satisfaction, "from the readiness and extemporaneousness with which you grasp the situation, not losing sight of side issues, that I have made no mistake in coming to you. Heaven bless you, sir. You will never regret the a.s.sistance you are so n.o.bly giving to one you have never seen."

"Don't mention it, Sallie--I should say Chatford," said Toppleton. "I am an American citizen and will ever be found championing the cause of the oppressed against the oppressor. My ears are ever open to the plaint of the plaintiff, nor shall I be deaf to the defendant in case you choose to be the latter. Count on me, Edward, and all will yet be well!"

With these inspiring words, Toppleton lit his cigar and walked jauntily from the room, and the exile relapsed into silence.

Faithful to his promise, Toppleton applied himself a.s.siduously to the study of the law as it seemed to him to bear upon the case of his mysterious client. To be sure, his library was not quite as extensive as it might have been, and there may have been points in other books than the ones he had, which would have affected his case materially, but the young lawyer was more or less self-reliant, and what he had to read he read intelligently.