The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn Part 29

"Have you money?"

"My husband seems to have money enough at present, but we have none to fall back upon."

"What friends have you?"

"None that I can apply to."

"H'm," he said. "Well, you must make use of me, and as far as I can manage it of my purse too, in case of an emergency. I mean, you know, Mrs. Hawker," he added, looking full at her, "to make this offer to you as I would to my own sister. Don't in G.o.d's name refuse my protection, such as it is, from any mistaken motives of jealousy. Now tell me, as honestly as you dare, how do you believe your husband gets his living?"

"I have not the least idea, but I fear the worst."

"You do right," he said. "Forewarned is forearmed, and, at the risk of frightening you, I must bid you prepare for the worst. Although I know nothing about what he is engaged in, yet I know that the man Maitland, who lives above, and who you say is your husband's constant companion, is a desperate man. If anything happens apply to me straightway, and I will do all I can. My princ.i.p.al hope is in putting you in communication with your friends. Could you not trust me with your story, that we might take advice together?"

She told him all from beginning to the end, and at the last she said, "If the worst should come, whatever that may be, I would write for help to Major Buckley, for the sake of the child that is to come."

"Major Buckley!"--he asked eagerly,--"do you mean James Buckley of the --th?"

"The same man," she replied, "my kindest friend."

"Oh, Lord!" he said, growing pale, "I've got one of these spasms coming on. A gla.s.s of water, my dear lady, in G.o.d's name!"

He held both hands on his heart, and lay back in his chair a little, with livid lips, gasping for breath. By degrees his white hands dropped upon his lap, and he said with a sigh, "Nearer still, old friend, nearer than ever. Not far off now."

But he soon recovered and said, "Mrs. Hawker, if you ever see that man Buckley again, tell him that you saw Charley Biddulph, who was once his friend, fallen to be the consort of rogues and thieves, cast off by everyone, and dying of a heart complaint; but tell him he could not die without sending a tender love to his good old comrade, and that he remembered him and loved him to the very end."

"And I shall say too," said Mary, "when all neglected me, and forgot me, this Charles Biddulph helped and cheered me; and when I was fallen to the lowest, that he was still to me a courteous gentleman, and a faithful adviser; and that but for him and his goodness I should have sunk into desperation long ago. Be sure that I will say this too."

The door opened, and George Hawker came in.

"Good evening, Captain Saxon," said he. "My wife seems to make herself more agreeable to you than she does to me. I hope you are pleased with her. However, you are welcome to be. I thank G.o.d I ain't jealous.

Where's Maitland?"

"He has not been here to-night, George," she said, timidly.

"Curse him then. Give me a candle; I'm going up-stairs. Don't go on my account, Captain Saxon. Well, if you will, good night."

Saxon bade him good-night, and went. George went up into Maitland's room, where Mary was never admitted; and soon she heard him hammer, hammering at metal, over-head. She was too used to that sound to take notice of it; so she went to bed, but lay long awake, thinking of poor Captain Saxon.

Less than a week after that she was confined. She had a boy, and that gave her new life. Poorly provided for as that child was, he could not have been more tenderly nursed or more prized and loved if he had been born in the palace, with his Majesty's right honourable ministers in the ante-room, drinking dry Sillery in honour of the event.

Now she could endure what was to come better. And less than a month after, just as she was getting well again, all her strength and courage were needed. The end came.

She was sitting before the fire, about ten o'clock at night, nursing her baby, when she heard the street-door opened by a key; and the next moment her husband and Maitland were in the room.

"Sit quiet, now, or I'll knock your brains out with the poker," said George; and, seizing a china ornament from the chimney-piece, he thrust it into the fire, and heaped the coals over it.

"We're caught like rats, you fool, if they have tracked us," said Maitland; "and nothing but your consummate folly to thank for it. I deserve hanging for mixing myself up with such a man in a thing like this. Now, are you coming; or do you want half-an hour to wish your wife good-bye?"

George never answered that question. There was a noise of breaking gla.s.s down-stairs, and a moment after a sound of several feet on the stair.

"Make a fight for it," said Maitland, "if you can do nothing else. Make for the back-door."

But George stood aghast, while Mary trembled in every limb. The door was burst open, and a tall man coming in said, "In the King's name, I arrest you, George Hawker and William Maitland, for coining."

Maitland threw himself upon the man, and they fell cras.h.i.+ng over the table. George dashed at the door, but was met by two others. For a minute there was a wild scene of confusion and struggling, while Mary crouched against the wall with the child, shut her eyes, and tried to pray. When she looked round again she saw her husband and Maitland securely handcuffed, and the tall man, who first came in, wiping the blood from a deep cut in his forehead, said,

"There is nothing against this woman, is there, Sanders?"

"Nothing, sir, except that she is the prisoner Hawker's wife."

"Poor woman!" said the tall man. "She has been lately confined, too. I don't think it will be necessary to take her into custody. Take away the prisoners; I shall stay here and search."

He began his search by taking the tongs and pulling the fire to pieces.

Soon he came to the remnants of the china ornament which George had thrown in; and, after a little more raking, two or three round pieces of metal fell out of the grate.

"A very green trick," he remarked. "Well, they must stay there to cool before I can touch them;" and turning to Mary said, "Could you oblige me with some sticking-plaster? Your husband's confederate has given me an ugly blow."

She got some, and put it on for him. "Oh, sir!" she said, "Can you tell me what this is all about?"

"Easy, ma'am," said he. "Maitland is one of the most notorious coiners in England, and your husband is his confederate and a.s.sistant. We've been watching, just to get a case that there would be no trouble about, and we've got it."

"And if it is proved?" she asked, trembling.

He looked very serious. "Mrs. Hawker, I know your history, as well as your husband's, the same as if you told it to me. So I am sorry to give a lady who is in misfortune more pain than I can help; but you know coining is a hanging matter."

She rocked herself wildly to and fro, and the chair where she sat, squeezing the child against her bosom till he cried. She soothed him again without a word, and then said to the officer, who was searching every nook and cranny in the room:

"Shall you be obliged to turn me out of here, or may I stay a few nights?"

"You can stay as long as you please, madam," he said; "that's a matter with your landlady, not me. But if I was you I'd communicate with my friends, and get some money to have my husband defended."

"They'd sooner pay for the rope to hang him," she said. "You seem a kind and pitiful sort of man; tell me honestly, is there any chance for him?"

"Honestly, none. There may be some chance of his life; but there is evidence enough on this one charge, leave alone others, mind you, to convict twenty men. Why, we've evidence of two forgeries committed on his father before ever he married you; so that, if he is acquitted on this charge, he'll be arrested for another outside the court."

All night long she sat up nursing the child before the fire, which from time to time she replenished. The officers in possession slept on sofas, and dozed in chairs; but when the day broke she was still there, pale and thoughtful, sitting much in the same place and att.i.tude as she did before all this happened, the night before, which seemed to her like a year ago, so great was the change since then. "Then," thought she, "he was nothing but a villain after all. He had merely gained her heart for money's sake, and cast her off when it was gone. What a miserable fool she had been, and how rightly served now, to be left penniless in the world!"

Penniless, but not friendless. She remembered Captain Saxon, and determined to go to him and ask his advice. So when the strange weird morning had crept on to such time as the accustomed crowd began to surge through the street, she put on her bonnet, and went away for the first time to seek him at his lodgings, in a small street, leading off Piccadilly.

An old woman answered the door. "The Captain was gone," she said, "to Boulogne, and wouldn't be back yet for a fortnight. Would she leave any name?"

She hardly thought it worth while. All the world seemed to have deserted her now; but she said, more in absence of mind than for any other reason, "Tell him that Mrs. Hawker called, if you please."

"Mrs. Hawker!" the old woman said; "there's a letter for you, ma'am, I believe; and something particular too, 'cause he told me to keep it in my desk till you called. Just step in, if you please."

Mary followed her in, and she produced a letter directed to Mrs.

Hawker. When Mary opened it, which she did in the street, after the door was shut, the first thing she saw was a bank-note for five pounds, and behind it was the following note:--