Put Yourself in His Place Part 101

Tender, but very proud, this sensitive creature saw herself dethroned from her love. Jael Dence had eclipsed her in every way; had saved his life with her strong arm, had almost perished with him; and had tried to kill herself when he was dead. SHE was far behind this rival in every thing. She had only loved, and suffered, and nearly died. "No, no," she said to herself, "she could not love him better than I did: but HE loved HER best; and she knew it, and that made her arm strong to fight, and her heart strong to die for him. I am n.o.body--nothing." Then the scalding tears ran down her cheeks. But soon her pride got the upper hand, and dried her cheeks, and nearly maddened her.

She began to blush for her love, to blush for her illness. She rose into that state of exasperation in which persons of her s.e.x do things they look back upon with wonder, and, strange to say, all this without one unkind thought of him whose faults she saw, but excused--he was dead.

She now began to struggle visibly, and violently, against her deadly sorrow. She forced herself to take walks and rides, and to talk, with nothing to say. She even tried to laugh now and then. She made violent efforts to be gracious and pitiful to Mr. Coventry, and the next minute made him suffer for it by treating him like a troublesome hound.

He loved her madly, yet sometimes he felt tempted to kill her, and end both her torture and his own.

Such was the inner life of Grace Carden for many days; devoid of striking incident, yet well worthy of study by those who care to pierce below the surface, and see what pa.s.ses in the hearts of the unhappy, and to learn how things come gradually about that sound incredible when not so traced, yet are natural and almost inevitable results of certain conflicting pa.s.sions in a virgin heart.

One day Mr. Carden telegraphed from London to Mr. Coventry at Hillsborough that he was coming down to Eastbank by the midday express, and would be glad to meet him there at four o'clock. He also telegraphed to Grace, and said, "Dinner at five."

Both gentlemen arrived about the same time, a little before dinner.

Soon after dinner was over, Grace observed a restlessness in her father's manner, which convinced her he had something private to say to Mr. Coventry. Her suspicions were aroused: she fancied he was going to encourage Mr. Coventry to court her. Instantly the whole woman was in arms, and her love for the deceased came rus.h.i.+ng back tenfold. She rose, soon after dinner, and retired to the drawing-room; but, as soon as she got there, she slipped quietly into the veranda, and lay softly down upon her couch. The dining-room window was open, and with her quick ears, she could hear nearly every word.

She soon found that all her bitterness and her preparation for hostilities were wasted. Her father was telling Mr. Coventry the story of Richard Martin; only he carried it a step further than I have done.

"Well, sir," said he, "the money had not been paid more than a month, when an insurance office down at Liverpool communicated with us. The same game had been played with them; but, somehow, their suspicions were excited. We compared notes with them, and set detectives to work.

They traced Martin's confederates, and found one of them was in prison awaiting his trial for some minor offense. They worked on him to tell the truth (I am afraid they compounded), and he let out the whole truth.

Every one of those villains could swim like ducks, and Richard Martin like a fish. Drowned? not he: he had floated down to Greenwich or somewhere--the blackguard! and hid himself. And what do you think the miscreants did next? Bought a dead marine; and took him down in a box to some low public-house by the water-side. They had a supper, and dressed their marine in Richard Martin's clothes, and shaved its whiskers, and broke its tooth, and set it up in a chair, with a table before it, and a pot of ale, and fastened a pipe in its mouth; and they kept toasting this ghastly corpse as the thing that was to make all their fortunes."

At this grotesque and horrible picture, a sigh of horror was uttered in the veranda. Mr. Carden, occupied with his narrative, did not hear it, but Coventry did. "Then, when it was pitch dark, they staggered down to the water with it, and planted it in the weeds. And, mark the cunning!

when they had gone through their farce of recognizing it publicly for Richard Martin, they bribed a churchwarden and buried it under our very noses: it was all done in a way to take in the very devil. There's no Richard Martin; there never was a Richard Martin; there never will be: all this was contrived and executed by a swindler well known to the police, only they can't catch him; he is here, and there and everywhere; they call him 's.h.i.+fty d.i.c.k.' He and his myrmidons have bled the 'Gosshawk' to the tune of nine hundred pounds."

He drew his breath and proceeded more calmly. "However, a lesson of this kind is never thrown away upon a public man, and it has given me some very curious ideas about another matter. You know what I mean."

Coventry stared, and looked quite taken aback by this sudden turn.

However he stammered out, "I suppose you mean--but, really, I can't imagine what similarity--" he paused, and, inadvertently, his eye glanced uneasily toward the veranda.

"Oh," said Mr. Carden, "these diabolical frauds are not done upon one pattern, or, of course, there would soon be an end of their success. But come now, what proof have we got that what they found in the river at Hillsborough was the remains of Henry Little?"

"I don't know, I am sure. But n.o.body seems to doubt it. The situation, the clothes, the ring--so many coincidences."

"That is all very well, if there were no rogues in the world. But there are; and I know it, to my cost. The 'Gosshawk' has just lost nine hundred pounds by not suspecting. It shall not lose five thousand by the same weakness; I'll take care of that."

He paused a moment, and then proceeded to argue the matter:

"The very idea of an imposture has never occurred to any body; in Little's case, it did not occur to me until this business of s.h.i.+fty d.i.c.k enlightened me. But, come now, just admit the idea of imposture into that honest, unsuspicious mind of yours, and you'll find the whole thing wears a very doubtful appearance directly. A common workman--he was no more at the time--insures his life, for how much? three hundred pounds?

no; five thousand. Within one year after that he disappears, under cover of an explosion. Some weeks afterward--about as many as the Martin swindle--there is found in the river a fragment of humanity; an arm, and a hand, and a piece of a human trunk; but no face, mind you: arms are pretty much alike, faces differ. The fragment is clad in brown tweed, and Little wore brown tweed: that is all very well; but the marine was found dressed from head to foot in s.h.i.+fty d.i.c.k's very clothes. But let us go on. There was a plain gold ring found on the hand in Hillsborough river, and my poor daughter had given Little a plain gold ring. But what was there to hinder an impostor from buying some pauper's body, and putting a plain gold ring on the hand? Why, paupers' bodies are constantly sold, and the funeral services gabbled over a coffin full of stones. If I had paper and ink here, and could put Little's case and Martin's in two columns, I should soon show you that Martin and his gang faced and overcame more and greater difficulties in the way of imposture than any that have been overcome in Little's case. The Martin gang dealt with the face; here, that is s.h.i.+rked. The Martin gang planted a body, not a fragment. Does it not strike you as very odd that the rest of Henry Little is not to be found? It may be all right; but, of the two, I incline to think it is a plan, and that some person, calling himself the heir or a.s.sign of Little, will soon apply to the 'Gosshawk' for five thousand pounds. Well, let him. I shall look on that person as the agent of a living man, not the heir of a dead one; and I shall tell him I don't believe in arms, and shoulders, and tweed suits, and plain gold rings--(why, wedding-rings are the very things conjurors take from the public at random to play hanky-panky with; they are so like one another). I shall demand to see the man's face; and the mother who bore him must identify that face before I will pay one s.h.i.+lling to his heirs or a.s.signs. I am waiting to see who will come forward and claim. n.o.body moves; and that is curious. Well, when they do, I shall be ready for them. You look pale! But no wonder: it is really no subject for an after-dinner conversation."

Coventry was pale indeed, and his mind all in a whirl as to what he should say; for Mr. Carden's sagacity terrified him, and the worst of it was, he felt sure that Grace Carden heard every word.

At last, however, his natural cunning came to his aid, and he made a very artful speech, directed princ.i.p.ally to his unseen hearer.

"Mr. Carden," said he, "this seems to me very shrewd; but surely it fails in one respect: you leave the man's character out of the account.

Mr. Little came between me and one I love, and inflicted great misery on me; but I will try and be just to him. I don't believe he was an impostor of that kind. He was false in love; he had been reared amongst workmen, and every body says he loved a working-girl more than he did your daughter; but as for his cheating you or any other person out of five thousand pounds, I can't believe it. They all say he was as honest a man in money matters as ever breathed."

"You judge him by yourself. Besides, men begin by deceiving women, but they go on to--Why, Grace, my poor child--Good heavens! have you--?"

Grace was leaning against the open window, ghastly and terrible.

"Yes," said she haughtily, "I have been guilty of the meanness of listening, and I suffer for it. It is but one pang more to a broken heart. Mr. Coventry, you are just, you are generous; and I will try and reward you for those words. No, papa, no impostor, but a man sore tried, sore tempted. If he is alive, we shall soon know."

"How?"

"He will write--TO JAEL DENCE."

Having uttered this strange speech, she rushed away with a wild cry of agony, and n.o.body saw her face again that night.

She did not come down-stairs next day. Mr. Carden went up to her. He stayed with her an hour, and came down looking much dejected; he asked Mr. Coventry to take a turn in the garden with him. When they were alone, he said, gravely, "Mr. Coventry, that unfortunate conversation of ours has quite upset my poor girl. She tells me now she will not believe he is dead until months and months have pa.s.sed without his writing to Jael Dence."

"Well, but, sir," said Coventry, "could you not convince her?"

"How can I, when I am myself convinced he is alive, and will give us a great deal of trouble yet? for it is clear to me the poor girl loves him more than she knows. Look here, Coventry, there's no man I so desire for a son-in-law as yourself; you have shown a patience, a fidelity!--but as a just man, and a man of honor, I must now advise you to give up all thoughts of her. You are not doing yourself justice; she will never marry you while that man is alive and unmarried. I am provoked with her: she will not leave her room while you are in the house. Shall I tell you what she said? 'I respect him, I admire him, but I can't bear the sight of him now.' That is all because I let out last night that I thought Little was alive. I told her, alive or not, he was dead to her."

"And what did she say to that?"

"Not a word. She wrung her hands, and burst out crying terribly. Ah! my friend, may you never know what it is to be a father, and see your child wring her hands, and cry her heart out, as I have seen mine."

His own tears flowed, and his voice was choked. He faltered out, "We are two miserable creatures; forgive us, and leave us to our fate."

Coventry rose, sick at heart, and said, "Tell her I will not intrude upon her."

He telegraphed to Lally, and went back to Hillsborough as miserable as those he left behind; but with this difference, he deserved his misery, deserved it richly.

Ere he had been two days in Hillsborough a telegram came from him to Mr.

Carden:

"Re Little. Important discovery. Pray come here at once."

Mr. Carden had the prudence to withhold from Grace the nature of this communication. He merely told her business called him suddenly to Hillsborough. He started by the next train and found Mr. Coventry awaiting him at "Woodbine Villa" with strange news: it was not conjecture, nor a matter of deduction, but a piece of undeniable evidence; and it knocked both Mr. Carden's theory and his daughter's to atoms at one blow.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

Meantime the history of Raby House was the history of what French dramatists call "a pious lie."

Its indirect effect in keeping Grace Carden apart both from Mrs. Little and Jael Dence was unforeseen and disastrous; its immediate and direct effect on Mrs. Little was encouraging to those concerned; what with the reconciliation to her brother, the return to native air and beloved scenes, the tenderness and firmness of Jael Dence, and the conviction that her son was safe out of the clutches of the dreaded Unions, she picked up flesh and color and spirit weekly.

By-and-by she turned round upon Jael Dence, and the nurse became the pupil. Mrs. Little taught her grammar, p.r.o.nunciation, dancing, carriage, and deportment. Jael could already sing from notes; Mrs. Little taught her to accompany herself on the pianoforte. The teacher was so vigilant, and the pupil so apt and attentive, that surprising progress was made.

To be sure, they were together night and day.

This labor of love occupied Mrs. Little's mind agreeably, and, as the pupil was equally resolute in making the teacher walk or ride on horseback with her every day, the hours glided swiftly, and, to Mrs.