Charlotte's Inheritance Part 56

"We have shared adversity, my love," he said sadly, when he talked with his daughter in the last few days; "but your prosperity I am to have no share in. Well, I suppose I have no right to complain. My life has been an erring one; but poverty is the most vicious companion that a man can consort with. If I had come into six or seven thousand a year, I might have been as starch in my notions as a bishop; but I have been obliged to live, Diana--that was the primary necessity, and I learnt to accommodate myself to it."

That he had erred, the Captain was very ready to acknowledge. That he had sinned deeply, and had much need to repent himself of his iniquity, he was very slow to perceive. But sometimes, in the still watches of the night, when the faint lamplight on the shadowy wall was more gloomy than darkness, when the nurse, hired to a.s.sist his own man in these last days, dozed in her comfortable chair, the truth came hope to his shallow soul, and Horatio Paget knew that he had been indeed a sinner, and very vile among sinners. Then, for a moment, the veil of self-deception was lifted, and he saw his past life as it had really been,--selfish, dishonourable, cruel beyond measure in reckless injury of others. For a moment the awful book was opened, and the sinner saw the fearful sum set against his name.

"What can wipe out the dread account?" he asked himself. "Is there such a thing as forgiveness for a selfish useless life--a life which is one long offence against G.o.d and man?"

In these long wakeful nights the dying man thought much of his wife. The sweet tender face came back to him, with its mournful wondering look. He knew, now, how his falsehoods and dishonours had wounded and oppressed that gentle soul. He remembered how often she had pleaded for the right, and how he had ridiculed her arguments, and set at naught her tender pleadings. He had fancied her in a manner inimical to himself when she urged the cause of some angry creditor or meek deluded landlady. Now, with the light that is not upon earth or sea s.h.i.+ning on the picture of his past career, he could see and understand things as he had never seen or understood them before. He knew now that it was for his own sake that faithful and devoted wife had pleaded, his own interest that had been near to her pitying heart, as well as the interest of bakers and butchers, landladies and tailors.

"She might have made a good man of me, if I had let her have her way," he thought to himself. "I know that she is in heaven. Will she plead for me, I wonder, at the foot of the Great Throne? I used to laugh at her bad English, or fly in a pa.s.sion with her sometimes, poor soul, when I wanted her to pa.s.s for a lady, and she broke down outrageously. But there her voice will be heard when mine appeals in vain. Dear soul! I wonder who taught her to be so pure and unselfish, and trusting and faithful? She was a Christian without knowing it. 'I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.'"

He thought of his wife's lonely deathbed, and compared it with his own.

For him there was luxury; by him watched a devoted and all-forgiving daughter, a generous friend and son-in-law. All that could be done to soothe the painful descent was done for him. For her there had been nothing but loneliness and sorrow.

"But she might be certain of a speedy welcome in a better home," thought Horatio; "and I--? Ah, dear kind creature, _there_ the difference was all in her favour."

As the closing scene grew nearer, he thought more and more of his gentle low-born wife, whose hold upon him in life had been so slender, whose memory had occupied until now so insignificant a place in his mind. His daughter watched with him unceasingly in the last two days and nights.

His mind wandered. On the day of his death he mistook Diana for that long-lost companion.

"I have not been a kind husband, Mary, my dear," he faltered; "but the world has been hard upon me--debts--difficulties--crack regiment--expensive mess--set of gamblers--no pity on a young man without fortune--force of example--tied a millstone round my wretched neck before I was twenty-one years of age."

Later, when the doctor had felt his pulse for the last time, he cried out suddenly, "I have made a statement of my affairs, the liabilities are numerous--the a.s.sets nil; but I rely on the clemency of this court."

These were his last words. He sank into a kind of stupor betwixt sleeping and waking, and in this he died.

CHAPTER VII.

BETTER THAN GOLD.

The little fleet of paper boats which Mr. Sheldon had pioneered so skilfully over the commercial seas came to grief very soon after the disappearance of the admiral. A bill drawn upon the Honduras Mahogany Company, Limited, was the first to reach maturity. The bill was referred to the drawer--the drawer was not to be found.

"I have not seen Sheldon for the last fortnight," Mr. Orcott informed the gentleman who brought him the doc.u.ment.

"Out of business for a fortnight?"

"He has not been in business for a month. His stepdaughter has been very ill--at death's door, and all that kind of thing, and my governor was awfully cut up about it. There used to be a couple of doctors at the house every day, and no end of fuss. I took Sheldon his letters, and managed matters for him here, and so on. And one fine morning my young lady runs off and gets married on the quiet; so I suspect there was a good deal of shamming about the illness--and those old fogies, the doctors, winked at it. Between them all, I fancy Sheldon was completely sold; and he has turned savage and gone off somewhere in the sulks."

"I wish he had chosen any other time for his sulks," said the holder of the bill; "my partner and I have discounted several acceptances for him.

He gave us liberal terms, and we considered any paper of his as safe as a Bank of England note; and now this confounded bill comes back to us through our bankers, noted, 'Refer to drawer'--a most unpleasant thing, you know, and very inconsiderate of Sheldon to leave us in such a fix."

"He has forgotten the bill, I suppose," said Mr. Orcott.

"Well, but you see, really now, a business man ought not to forget that kind of thing. And so Miss Halliday has made a runaway match, has she? I remember seeing her when I dined at Bayswater--an uncommonly fine girl.

And she has gone and thrown herself away upon some penniless scapegrace, most likely? Now, by the bye, how about this Honduras Company, Mr.

Orcott; they don't seem to have any London offices?"

"I believe not. We've some of their prospectuses somewhere about, I think. Would you like to see one?"

"I should, very much."

Mr. Orcott opened two or three drawers, and after some little trouble produced the required doc.u.ment.

It was a very flouris.h.i.+ng prospectus, setting forth the enormous benefits to be derived by shareholders from the profitable dealings of the company. Some good high-sounding names figured in the list of directors, and the chairman was Captain H. N. Cromie Paget. The prospectus looked well enough, but the holder of Mr. Sheldon's dishonoured bill was not able to derive much comfort from high-sounding phrases and high-sounding names.

"I'll go down to Bayswater, and see if I can hear anything of your governor," he said to Mr. Orcott.

"He was not there yesterday when I called, and his servants could tell me nothing of his whereabouts," the young Yorks.h.i.+reman said very coolly.

"Indeed!" cried the holder of the dishonoured bill in some alarm. "Now, really, that is not right; a business man ought not to do that kind of thing."

He called a cab and drove to the Lawn. There was the smart gothic villa, with its pointed gables, and florid chimneys, and oriel windows, and in the Tudor cas.e.m.e.nts of the ground-floor appeared the bills of a West-end auctioneer, announcing in large letters that the lease of this charming mansion, together with the nearly new furniture, linen, books, china, plate, carefully-selected proof-prints after distinguished modern artists, small cellar of choice wines, &c., &c., &c., would be disposed of by auction on the following day.

Mr. Sheldon's victim went into the house, where he found some men preparing for the forthcoming sale.

"What is the meaning of all this?" he asked, aghast.

"A bill of sale, sir. Messrs. Napthali and Zabulon."

This was enough. The holder of the bill went back to the City. Another bill came due on the following day, and before the members of the Stock Exchange took their luncheon, it was known that Philip Sheldon's credit was among the things of the past.

"I always thought he was out of his depth," said one set of talkers.

"He was the last man I should have expected to see come to grief," said another set of talkers.

On settling-day came the awful proclamation--Philip Sheldon had absconded, and would not meet his differences.

On the same day came a terrible revelation to Mr. George Sheldon, of Gray's Inn, solicitor, genealogist, and pedigree hunter. The first official step in the advancement of Gustave Len.o.ble's claim against the Crown was taken by Messrs. Dashwood and Vernon, the solicitors, of Whitehall; and George Sheldon discovered that between Charlotte Hawkehurst and the Haygarth estate there stood a prior claimant, whereby all his toil, trouble, costs out of pocket, and wear and tear of body and mind, had been wasted.

"It is enough to make a man go and cut his throat," cried George, in his first savage sense of utter disappointment.

He went into his slovenly bedroom, and took out one of his razors, and felt the corrugated surface of the left side of his neck meditatively.

But the razor was blunt, and the corrugated surface seemed very tough and unmanageable; so George Sheldon decided that this kind of operation was an affair which might be deferred.

He heard the next day that his brother was _non est_, and, in his own phraseology, that there was a pretty kettle of fish in the City.

"Upon my word, Phil and I seem to have brought our pigs to a very nice market," he said. "I dare say, wherever that fellow has gone, he has carried a well-lined purse with him. But I wouldn't have his conscience for all the wealth of the Rothschilds. It's bad enough to see Tom Halliday's face as I see it sometimes. What must it be to _him_?"

A little more than a year after this, and the yellow corn was waving on the fertile plains of Normandy, fruit ripening in orchards on hillside and in valley; merry holiday folks splas.h.i.+ng and dabbling in the waves that wash the yellow sands of Dieppe; horses coming to grief in Norman steeplechases; desperate gamesters losing their francs and half-francs in all kinds of frivolous games in the Dieppe _etabliss.e.m.e.nt_; and yonder, in the heart of Normandy, beyond the tall steeples of Rouen, a happy family a.s.sembled at the Chateau Cotenoir.

One happy family--two happy families rather, but so closely united by the bonds of love and friends.h.i.+p as to seem indeed one. Here are Gustave Len.o.ble and his young wife Diana, with two tall slender damsels by their side; and here is Valentine Hawkehurst, the successful young scribbler, with his fair young wife Charlotte; and out on the terrace yonder are two nurses walking with two babies, at that early, and, to some minds, obnoxious stage of babyhood in which a perpetual rocking, and pacing to and fro, and swaying backwards and forwards in the air, is necessary for the preservation of anything approaching tranquillity. But to the minds of the two young mothers and the two proud fathers, these small creatures in their long white robes seem something too bright for earth. The united ages of the babies do not amount to six months; but the mothers have counted every gradual stage of these young lives, and to both it seems as if there had been no time in which the children were not, with so firm a hold have they possessed themselves of every thought in the foolish maternal mind, of every impulse in the weak maternal heart.

Mrs. Hawkehurst has brought her son to see his aunt Diana; for Diana has insisted upon a.s.suming that relations.h.i.+p by letters-patent, as it were.

Madame Len.o.ble's baby is a daughter, and this fact in itself seems to the two friends to be a special interposition of Providence.

"Would it not be delightful if they should grow up to love each other and marry?" exclaimed Diana; and Charlotte agreed with her that such an event in the future did indeed seem in a manner foreshadowed by the conduct of the infants in the present.

"He takes notice of her already!" she exclaimed, looking out at the little creature in white muslin robes, held up against the warm blue sky; "see, they are cooing at each other! I am sure that must be cooing."