Mildred Arkell, (Vol 3 of 3)

It happened on that same second of December that Mr. Littelby took his place for the first time as conductor of the business of Mynn and Mynn. He had arrived at Eckford the previous day, as per agreement, but was not installed formally in the office until this. Old Mynn, not in his gout now, had come down early, and was brisk and lively; George Mynn was also there.

He was an admitted solicitor just as much as were Mynn and Mynn; he was to be their confidential locum tenens; the whole management and conduct of affairs was, during their absence, to fall upon him; he was, in point of fact, to be practically a principal, not a clerk, and at the end of a year, if all went well, he was to be allowed a share in the business, and the firm would be Mynn, Mynn, and Littelby.

It was not, then, to be wondered at, that the chief of the work this day was the inducting him into the particulars of the various cases that Mynn and Mynn happened to have on hand, more especially those that were to come on for trial at the Westerbury assizes, and would require much attention beforehand. They were shut up betimes, the three, in the small room that would in future be Mr. Littelby's-a room which had hitherto been nobody's in particular, for the premises were commodious, but which Mr. Richards had been in the habit of appropriating as his own, not for office purposes, but for private uses. Quite a cargo of articles belonging to Mr. Richards had been there: coats, parcels, pipes, letters, and various other items too numerous to mention. On the previous day, Richards had received a summary mandate to "clear it out," as it was about to be put in order for the use of Mr. Littelby. Mr. Richards had obeyed in much dudgeon, and his good feeling towards the new manager-his master in future-was not improved. It had not been friendly previously, for Mr. Richards had a vague idea that his way would not be quite so much his own as it had been.

He sat now at his desk in the public office, into which clients plunged down two steps from the landing on the first flight of stairs, as if they had been going into a well. His subordinate, a steady young man named Pope, who was browbeaten by Richards every hour of his life, sat at a small desk apart. Mr. Richards, ostensibly occupied in the perusal of some formidable-looking parchment, was, in reality, biting his nails and frowning, and inwardly wishing he could bring the ceiling down on Mr. Littelby's head, shut up in that adjoining apartment; and could he have invented a decent excuse for sending out Pope, in the teeth of the intimation Mr. George Mynn had just given, that Pope was to stop in, for he should want him, Mr. Richards would have had his own ear to the keyhole of the door.

Mr. Littelby and Mr. Mynn sat at the square table, some separate bundles of papers before them, tied up with red string; Mr. George Mynn stood with his back to the fire. Never was there a keener or a better man of business than Mynn the elder, when his state of health allowed him a respite from pain. He had been well for two or three weeks now, and the office found the benefit of it. He was the one to explain matters to Mr. Littelby; Mr. George only put in a word here and there. In due course they came to a small bundle of papers labelled "Carr," and Mr. Mynn, in his rapid, clear, concise manner, gave an outline of the case. Before he had said many words, Mr. Littelby raised his head, his face betokening interest, and some surprise.

"But I thought the Carr case was at an end," he observed. "At least, I supposed it would naturally be so."

"Oh dear no," said old Mynn; "it's coming on for trial at the assizes-that is, if the other side are so foolish as to go on to action. I don't myself think they will be."

"The other side? You mean the widow of Robert Carr the clergyman?" asked Mr. Littelby, scarcely thinking, however, that Mr. Mynn could mean it.

"The widow and the brother-yes. Fauntleroy, of Westerbury, acts for them. But he'll never, as I believe, bring so utterly lame a case into court."

Mr. Littelby wondered what his new chief could mean; he did not understand at all.

"I should have supposed the case would have been brought to an end by you," he observed. "From the moment that the marriage was discovered to have taken place, your clients, the Carrs of Eckford, virtually lost their cause."

"But the marriage has not been discovered to have taken place," said Mr. Mynn.

"Yes, it has. Is it possible that you have not had intimation of it from Mr. Fauntleroy?"

Mr. Mynn paused a moment. Mr. George, who had been looking at his boots, raised his head to listen.

"Where was it discovered?-who discovered it?" asked Mr. Mynn, with the air of a man who does not believe what is being said to him.

"The widow, young Mrs. Carr, found the notice of it. In searching her late father-in-law's desk, she discovered a letter written by him to his son. It was the week subsequent to her husband's death. The letter had slipped between the leaves of an old blotting-book, and lain there unsuspected. While poor Robert Carr the clergyman was wearing away his last days of life in those fruitless searchings of the London churches, he little thought how his own carelessness had forced it upon him. He examined this very desk when his father died, for any papers there might be in it, and must have examined it imperfectly, for there the letter must have been."

"But what was in the letter?" asked George Mynn, speaking for the first time since the topic arose.

"It stated that he had married the young lady who went away with him, Martha Ann Hughes, on the morning they left Westerbury-married her at her own parish church, St.-St.-I forget the name."

"Her parish church was St. James the Less," said Mr. Mynn, speaking very fast.

"Yes, that was it; I remember now. It struck me at the time as being a somewhat uncommon appellation. That is where the marriage took place, on the morning they left Westerbury."

Mr. Mynn sat down; he had need of some rest to recover his consternation. Mr. George never spoke: he said afterwards, that the thought flashed upon him, he could not tell how or why, that the letter was a fraud.

"How did you know of this?" was Mr. Mynn's first question.

Mr. Littelby related how: that Mrs. Carr had informed him of it at the time of the discovery: and, it may be observed, that he was unconscious of breaking any faith in repeating it. Mrs. Carr, attaching little importance to Mr. Fauntleroy's request of keeping it to herself, had either forgotten or neglected to caution Mr. Littelby, to whom it had at once been told. Mr. Littelby, on his part, had never supposed but the discovery had been made known to Mynn and Mynn and the Carrs of Eckford, by Mr. Fauntleroy, and that the litigation had thus been brought to an end.

"And you say this is known to Mr. Fauntleroy?" asked old Mynn.

"Certainly. Mrs. Carr forwarded the letter to him the very hour she discovered it."

"Then what can possess the man not to have sent us notice of it?" he exclaimed. "He'd never be guilty of the child's play of concealing this knowledge until the cause was before the court, and then bringing it forward as a settler! Fauntleroy's sharp in practice; but he'd hardly do this."

"Is it certain that the marriage did take place there?" quietly put in Mr. George Mynn.

They both looked at him; his quiet tone was so full of significance: and Mr. Mynn had to turn round in his chair to do it.

"It appears to me to be a very curious story," continued the younger man. "What sort of a woman is this Mrs. Carr?"

A pause. "You are not thinking that she is capable of-of-concocting any fraud, are you?" cried Mr. Littelby.

"I should be sorry to say it. I only say the thing wears a curious appearance."

"She is entirely incapable of it," returned Mr. Littelby, warmly. "She is quite a young girl, although she has been a wife and mother. Besides, the letter, remember, only stated where the marriage took place, and where its record might be found. I remember she told me that the words in the letter were, that the marriage would be found duly entered in the register."

Mr. Mynn was leaning back in his chair; his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his eyes half closed in thought.

"Did you see this letter, Mr. Littelby?" he inquired, rousing himself.

"No. Mrs. Carr had sent it off to Mr. Fauntleroy. She told me its contents, I daresay nearly word for word."

"Because I really do not think the marriage could have taken place as described. It would inevitably have been known if it had: some persons, surely, would have seen them go into the church; and the parson and clerk must have been cognisant of it! How was it that these people kept the secret? Besides, the parties were away from the town by eight o'clock, or thereabouts."

"I don't know anything about the details," said Mr. Littelby; "but I do know that the letter, stating what I have told you, was found by Mrs. Carr, and that she implicitly believes in it. Would the letter be likely to assert a thing that a minute's time could disprove? If the record of the marriage is not on the register of St. James the Less, to what end state that it is?"

"If this letter stated what you say, Mr. Littelby, rely upon it that the record is there. There have been such things known, mind you"-and old Mynn lowered his voice as he spoke-"as frauds committed on registers; false entries made. And they have passed for genuine, too, to unsuspicious eyes. But, if this is one, it won't pass so with me," he added, rising. "Not a man in the three kingdoms has a keener eye than mine."

"It is impossible that a false entry can have been made in the register!" exclaimed Mr. Littelby, speaking slowly, as if debating the question in his own mind.

"We shall see. I assure you I consider it equally impossible for the marriage to have taken place, as stated, without detection."

"But-assuming your suspicion to be correct-who can have been wicked enough to insert the entry?" cried Mr. Littelby.

"That, I can't tell. The entry of the marriage would take the property from our clients, the Carrs of Eckford, therefore they are exempt from the suspicion. I wonder," continued Mr. Mynn in a half-secret tone, "whether that young clergyman got access to the register when he was down here?"

"That young clergyman was honest as the day," emphatically interrupted Mr. Littelby. "I could answer for his truth and honour with my life. The finding of that letter would have sent him to his grave easier than he went to it."

"There's another brother, is there not?"

"Yes. But he is in Holland, looking after the home affairs, which are also complicated. He has not been here at all since his father's death."

"Ah, one doesn't know," said old Mynn, glancing at his watch. "Hundreds of miles have intervened, before now, between a committed fraud and its plotter. Well, we will say no more at present. I'll tell you more when I have had a look at this register. It will not deceive me."

"Are you going over now?" asked Mr. George.

"At once," replied old Mynn, with decision; "and I'll bring you back my report and my opinion as soon as may be."

But Mr. Mynn was away considerably longer than there appeared any need that he should be. When he did arrive he explained that his delay arose from the effectual and thorough searching of the register.

"I don't know what could have been the meaning or the use of that letter you told us of, Mr. Littelby," he said, as he took off his coat; "there is no entry of the marriage in the church register of St. James the Less."

"No entry of it!"

"None whatever."

Mr. Littelby did not at once speak: many thoughts were crowding upon his mind. He and old Mynn were standing now, and George Mynn was sitting with his elbow on the table, and his aching head leaning on his hand. The least excitement out of common, sometimes only the sitting for a day in the close office, would bring on these intolerable headaches.

"I have searched effectually-and I don't suppose the old clerk of the church blessed me for keeping him there-and I am prepared to take an affidavit, if necessary, that no such marriage is recorded in the book," continued the elder lawyer. "What could have been the aim or object of that letter, I cannot fathom."

"Mr. Carr will not come into the money, then?" said Mr. Littelby.

"Of course not, so far as things look at present. I thought it was very strange, if such a thing had been there, that Fauntleroy did not let it be known," he emphatically added.

"You are sure you have fully searched?"

"Mr. Littelby, I have fully searched," was the reply; and the lawyer was not pleased at being asked the question after what he had said. "There is no such marriage entered there; and rely upon it no such marriage ever was entered there. I might go farther and say, with safety in my opinion, that there never was such marriage entered anywhere."

"Then why should Robert Carr, the elder, have written the letter?"

"Did he write it? It may be a question."

"No, he never wrote it," interposed George Mynn, looking up. "There was some wicked plot concocted-I don't say by whom, and I can't say it-of which this letter was the prologue. Perhaps the epilogue-the insertion of the marriage in the register-was frustrated; possibly this letter was found before its time, and the despatching it to Mr. Fauntleroy marred the whole. How can we say?"

"We can't say," returned old Mynn. "One thing I can say and affirm-that there's no record; and had the letter been a genuine one, the entry would be there now."

"I wonder if Mr. Fauntleroy believes the entry to be there?" cried Mr. Littelby. "I am nearly sure that he has not given notice of the contrary to Mrs. Carr. She would have told me if he had."

"If Fauntleroy has been so foolish as to take the information in the letter for granted, without sending to see the register, he must put up with the consequences," said old Mynn; "I shall not enlighten him."

He spoke as he felt-cross. Mr. Mynn was not pleased at having spent the best part of the day over what he had found to be a fool's errand; neither did he like to have been startled unnecessarily. He sat down and drew the papers before him, saying something to the effect that perhaps they could attend to their legitimate business, now that the other was disposed of. Mr. Littelby caught the cue, and resolved to say no more in that office of Carr versus Carr.

And so, it was a sort of diamond cut diamond. Mr. Fauntleroy had said nothing to Mynn and Mynn of his private information; and Mynn and Mynn would say nothing to Mr. Fauntleroy of theirs.

Christmas drew on. Mrs. Dundyke, alone now, for Mr. Carr had gone back to Holland, was seated one afternoon by her drawing-room fire, in the twilight, musing very sadly on the past. The servants were at tea in the kitchen, and one of them had just been up to ask her mistress if she would take a cup, as she sometimes did before her late dinner, and had gone down again, leaving unintentionally the room door unlatched.

As the girl entered the kitchen, the sound of laughter and merriment came forth to the ears of Mrs. Dundyke. It quite jarred upon her heart. How often has it occurred to us, bending under the weight of some secret trouble that goes well-nigh to break us, to envy our unconscious servants, who seem to have no care!

The kitchen door closed again, and silence supervened-a silence that soon began to make itself felt, as it will in these moments of gloom. Mrs. Dundyke was aroused from it in a remarkable manner; not violently or loudly, but still in so strange a way, that her mouth opened in consternation as she listened, and she rose noiselessly from her chair in a sort of horror.

She had distinctly heard the latch-key put into the street-door lock; just as she had heard it many a time when her husband used to come home from business in the year last gone by. She heard it turned in the lock, the peculiar click it used to give, and she heard the door quietly open and then close again, as if some one had entered. Not since they went abroad the previous July had she heard those sounds, or had the door thus been opened. There had been but that one latch-key to the door, and Mr. Dundyke, either by chance or intention, had carried it away with him in his pocket. It had been in his pocket during the whole period of their travels, and been lost with him.

What could it mean? Who had come in? Footsteps, slow, hesitating footsteps were crossing the hall; they seemed to halt at the dining-room, and were now ascending the stairs. Mrs. Dundyke was by far too practical a woman to believe in ghosts, but that anything but the ghost of her husband could open the door with that latch-key and be stealing up, was hard to believe.

"Betsey!"

If ever she felt a wish to sink into the wall, or through the floor, she felt it then. The voice which had called out the familiar home name, was her husband's voice; his, and yet not his. His, in a manner; but querulous, worn, weakened. She stood in horror, utterly bewildered, not daring to move, her arms clasping a chair for protection, she knew not from what, her eyes strained on the unlatched door. That it could be her husband returned in life, her thoughts never so much as glanced at.

He pushed open the door, and came in without any surprise in his face or greeting on his tongue; came in and went straight to the fire, and sat down in a chair before it, just as though he had not been gone away an hour-he who had once been David Dundyke. Was it David Dundyke still-was it? He looked thin and shabby, and his hair was cut close to his head, and he was altogether altered. Mrs. Dundyke was gazing at him with a fixed, unnatural stare, like one who has been seized with catalepsy.

He saw her standing there, and turned his head, looking at her for a full minute.

"Betsey!"

She went forward then; it was her husband, and in life. What the mystery could have been she did not know yet-did not glance at in that wild moment-but she fell down at his knees and clasped him to her, and wept delirious tears of joy and agony.

It seemed-when the meeting was over, and the marvelling servants had shaken hands with him, and he had been refreshed with dinner, and the time came for questions-that he could not explain much of the mystery either. He had evidently undergone some great change, physically and mentally, and it had left him the wreck of what he was, with his faculties impaired, and a hesitating speech.

More especially impaired in memory. He could recollect so little of the past; indeed, their sojourn at the hotel at Geneva seemed to have gone from his mind altogether. Mrs. Dundyke saw that he must have had some sort of brain attack; but, what, she could not tell.

"David, where have you been all this while?" she said, soothingly, as he lay on the sofa she had drawn to the fire, and she sat on a stool beneath and clasped his hand.

"All this while? I came back directly."

She paused. "Came back from where?"

"From the bed."

"The bed!" she repeated; and her heart beat with a sick faintness as she felt, for the twentieth time, that henceforth he could only be questioned as a child. "From the bed you lay in when you were ill?"

"Yes."

"Were you ill long?"

"No. I lay in it after I got well: my head and my legs were not strong. They turned. It was the bed in the kitchen with the large white pillows. They slept in the back room."

"Who did?"

"Paul and Marie. She's his wife."

"Did they take care of you?"

"Yes, they took care of me. Little Paul used to fetch the water. He's seven."

"Do you remember--" (she spoke the words with trembling, lest the name should excite him) "Mr. Hardcastle?"

It did in some degree. He lay looking at his wife, his face and thoughts working. "Hardcastle! It was him that-that-was with me when I fell down."

"Where did you fall?" she asked, as quietly as she could.

"In the sun. We walked a long, long way, and he gave me something to drink out of a bottle, and I was giddy, and he told me to go to sleep."

"Did he stay with you?"

Mr. Dundyke stared as though he did not understand the question.

"I went giddy. He took my pocket-book; he took out the letters, and put it back to me again. Paul found it. I went to sleep in the sun."

"When did Paul find it?"

David Dundyke appeared unable to comprehend the "when." "In his cart," he said; "he found me too."

"David, dear, try and recollect; did Paul take you to his cottage?"

David looked puzzled, and then nodded his head several times, as if wishing to convince himself of the fact.

"And I suppose you were ill there?"

"I suppose I was ill there; they said so. Marie spoke English; she had been at-at-at sea."

This was not very perspicuous, but Mrs. Dundyke did not care for minor details.

"How did you come home?" she asked. And she glanced suddenly down at his boots; an idea presenting itself to her, that she might see them worn and travel-stained. But they were not. They were the same boots that he had on that last morning in Geneva, and they appeared to have been little worn.

"How did I come home?" he repeated. "I came. Marie said I was well enough. Paul changed the note."

"What note?" she asked.

"The note from England. He didn't see that when he took the others."

"He" evidently meant Mr. Hardcastle. She began to comprehend a little, and put her questions accordingly.

"Mr. Hardcastle must have robbed you, David."

"Mr. Hardcastle robbed me."

She found he had a habit of repeating her words. She had noticed the same peculiarity before, in cases of decaying intellect.

"The bank note that he did not find was the one you had written for over and above what you wanted. Why did you write for it, David?"

This was a back question, and it took a great many others before David could answer. "He might have wanted to borrow more," he said at length; "I'd have lent him all then."

Poor man! That he should have had such blind faith in Mr. Hardcastle as to send for money in case he should "want to borrow more!" Mrs. Dundyke had taken this view of the case from the first.

"You don't believe in him now, David?"

"I don't believe in him now. He has got my bank notes; and he left me in the sun. Paul, put me in the cart when it came by."

"David, why did you not write to me?"

David stared. "I came," he said. And she found afterwards, that he could not write; she was to find that he never attempted to write again.

"Did you send to Geneva?-to me?"

"To Geneva?-to me?"

"To me-me, David; not to you. Did you send to Geneva?"

He shook his head, evidently not knowing what she meant, and seemed to think. Mrs. Dundyke felt nearly sure that he must have lain long insensible, for weeks, perhaps months; that is, not sufficiently conscious to understand or remember; and that when he grew better, Geneva and its doings had faded from his remembrance.

"How did you come home, David?" she asked again. "Did you come alone?"

"Did you come alone-yes, in the diligences, and rail, and sea. I told them all to take me to England; Paul got the money for me; he took the note and brought it back."

Paul had changed it into French money; that must be the meaning of it. Mr. Dundyke put his hand in his pocket and pulled out sundry five-franc pieces.

"Marie's got some. I gave her half."

Mrs. Dundyke hoped it was so. She could hardly understand yet, how he could have found his way home alone; even with the help of "I told them all to take me to England."

"David!" she whispered, "David! I don't know how I shall ever be thankful enough to God!"

"I'd like some porter."

It was a contrast that grated on her ear; the animal want following without break on the spiritual aspiration. She was soon to find that any finer feeling he might ever have possessed, had gone with his mind. He could eat and drink still, and understand that; but there was something wrong with the brain.

"How did you come down here to-night, David?"

"How did I come down here to-night? There was the omnibus."

The questions began to pain her. "He is fatigued," she thought; "perhaps he will answer better to-morrow." The porter was brought to him, and he fell asleep immediately after drinking it. She rose from her low seat, and sat down in a chair opposite to him.

It was like a dream; and Mrs. Dundyke all but pinched herself to see whether she was awake or asleep. She believed that she could tell pretty accurately what the past had been. Mr. Hardcastle had followed her husband to the side of the lake that morning, had in some way induced him to go away from it; had taken him a long, long way into the cross country-and it must have been at that time that the Swiss peasant, who gave his testimony at Geneva, had seen them. At the proper opportunity, Mr. Hardcastle must have, perhaps, given him some stupefying drink, and then robbed him and left him; but Mrs. Dundyke inclined to the opinion that the man must have believed Mr. Dundyke insensible, or he surely would never have allowed him to see him take the notes. He must then have lain, it was hard to say how long, before Paul found him; and the lying thus in the sun probably induced the fit, or sun-stroke, or brain fever, whatever it was, that attacked him. He spoke of a cart: and she concluded that Paul must have been many miles out of the route of his home, or else the search instituted would surely have found him, had he been within a few miles of Geneva. Why these people had kept him, had not declared him to the nearest authorities, it was hard to say. They might have kept him from benevolent motives; or might have seen the bank note in his pocket-book, and kept him from motives of worldly interest. However it might be, they had shown themselves worthy Christian people, and she should ever be deeply grateful. He had evidently no idea of the flight of time since; perhaps-

"What do you wear that for?"

He was lying with his eyes open, and pointing to the widow's cap. She rose and bent over him, as she answered-

"David! David, dear! we have been mourning you as dead."

"Mourning me as dead! I am not dead."

No, he was not dead, and she was shedding happy tears for it, as she threw the cap off from the braids of her still luxuriant hair.

As well, perhaps, almost that he had been dead! for the best part of his life, the mind's life, was over. No more intellect; no more business for him in Fenchurch-street; no more ambitious aspirations after the civic chair!-it was all over for ever for poor David Dundyke.

But he had come home. He who was supposed to be lying dead-murdered-had come home. It was a strange fact to go forth to the world: one amidst the extraordinary tales that now and then arise to startle it almost into disbelief.

* * *