Dorothy's Double Volume Iii Part 3

Certainly she would much rather that this woman had been discovered by some one else. But this was not all. If the news had come a day earlier she supposed that she should have accepted Captain Armstrong, and there would have been an end of it. She had promised that she would let him know if this was ever cleared up. Now, in honour she ought to write to him. Anyhow, there was no occasion for that to-day. He had only left that morning; it would look ridiculous were he to get her letter the day he arrived in town. If they were going back she could wait until they were in England. It would be a difficult letter to write, most difficult; and she sat down for a time thinking, and ended by being as unjustly angry with Captain Armstrong as she had been with Ned Hampton.

'I believe I am getting quite idiotic,' she said, getting up impatiently. 'I shall begin to think that storm on the glacier has affected my brain. When I ought to be the happiest girl possible, here I am discontented with everything.'

The result of the conversation between Mr. Hawtrey and his friend was that at luncheon the former announced that a letter that he had received that morning told him his presence was required in London, and as Dorothy was so much better, he should give up the idea of a visit to Italy, and should go home with her at once.

'Let us all go together,' Clara said. 'I am sure that I am strong enough to travel, and I do so long to be home.'

As it was agreed that a couple of days could make no difference to her, orders were at once given for the carriages to be ready the next morning, and at an early hour they started on their way down to Geneva.

CHAPTER XIX

Mr. Hawtrey made but a few hours' stay in London, Dorothy urging her father to leave at once for home. He would have preferred stopping for a day or two to confer with Mr. Charles Levine, and to get the matter with the jeweller settled before he went North, but Dorothy pressed the point so much that he gave way.

'What is the use, father,' she urged, 'of employing people to do your law business and then doing it yourself? I should think when Gilliat sees a copy of those papers Mr. Danvers sent us, he will be convinced that he has been wrong all through, but even if he isn't, you could not argue the matter with him. Mr. Levine could say a great deal more than you could. I quite understand, from what you told me, that there is really nothing to connect this woman with the theft; still, anyone could see that it would be more likely that she should do it than I should.'

'Except this, Dorothy--that you were in London at the time, and there is no proof that she was; and that these people all swear it was you, while the most that we can prove is that there is in existence some one who is wonderfully like you. It is an immense satisfaction to us to have got as far as we have. We have, at any rate, a strong defence, and the story will at least satisfy all who know you. Still, Singleton agrees with me that a jury would hardly be satisfied, and that the verdict would probably be against us.

'I don't expect the jeweller to give up his claim. I don't think it would be reasonable to expect it. The man has been robbed of valuable goods, and he and his two a.s.sistants were absolutely convinced that it was you who took them. There were reports about that you were being pressed for money; and our defence that a woman, so like you that your portrait was taken for hers, crossed from Hamburg to New York a week after the robbery, cannot be taken as conclusive that it was this woman and not you who was at the jeweller's shop. My greatest comfort in the matter is at present that this woman is at the other side of the Atlantic, and I am quite prepared to meet the jeweller half-way and share the loss with him if Levine does not think that in case this woman does return, as it is almost certain she will do, and attempts similar frauds, my having compromised the matter would weaken our position.'

'I see all that, father, but I don't see why you should not write about it to Mr. Levine, instead of going into it with him personally. He is sure to want you to stay in town, and then there is no saying how long we might be kept. You will be up in town again in the spring.'

'Very well, Dorothy, we will start to-morrow morning. If Levine thinks it is absolutely necessary he should see me I must run up again. The train takes us so far towards home now that it is only eighteen hours'

travelling, and I must own that I shall be heartily glad to be at home again. We have been away more than eight months, which is longer than I can remember having been from home all my life.'

Mr. Singleton was glad when his friend told him that they would travel down together.

'I would rather have stayed a couple of days, Singleton, but Dorothy has set her mind upon starting at once.'

'I don't wonder at that; she has had a rough time of it altogether, and must long for the quiet of home; besides, as you know, my theory is that she refused to give any decided answer to Armstrong because of this business. I should not be at all surprised if she is afraid he might get to know she is in town and might call to see her, and she wants to have time to think it over quietly before she has to give him a decided answer one way or the other.'

'But you thought she would accept him, Singleton; you told me you had quite made up your mind that she would do so.'

'Yes, I am almost sure that if it had not been for the affair of the diamonds she would have done so any time during that last fortnight at Chamounix; but, you see, she was under the spell of the place then, and of the adventure on the glacier. She considered he had saved her life, and no doubt he did, though I do not say the guides might not have managed it somehow if left to themselves; still, we may put it that he saved her. Of course that went for a great deal with her; before that I don't think she thought about it. I watched her closely, and there was really no difference in her manner to him and to Fitzwarren. She looked upon them both simply as pleasant companions. I saw the change directly afterwards. Then there is no denying he is a very good fellow in all respects, and likely to take with ninety-nine girls out of a hundred, so that I have no doubt she would have accepted him if it had not been for this other business. Now, of course, she has been away from him a week.

The jewel business has to a great extent been cleared up. At any rate, there is an explanation consistent with her innocence, which there was not before, and she is therefore face to face with the question--shall she accept Armstrong? She wants to think it over, and does not want to be pressed; therefore, she is in a fever to get away down into the country, before he can know that she has come back. I believe it will come to the same thing. Perhaps she told him she would take him if she felt free to do so. At any rate, Hampton has put himself out of the running by his own folly, and I have nothing more to say on the matter.

However, I am glad we are all going back together.'

Accordingly the next morning they started by train, slept at Nottingham that night, and then posted the remaining sixty miles.

Mr. Hawtrey saw with satisfaction that as soon as Dorothy took up her own life again, her spirits, which had been very uneven since she left Switzerland, began to return. There was much to occupy her--all her pensioners in the village to visit, hours to be spent with the head gardener in the greenhouses and conservatories, walks to be taken with the dogs, and the horses to be visited and petted. Into all this she threw herself with her whole energy. Her father had written a long letter to Danvers on the morning after his return; ten days later the reply came.

'My dear sir,--I have bad news to give you. I have been away on the Continent for a fortnight, and only received your letter this morning, and at the same time, one from Hampton. It was a long chatty letter, giving me an amusing account of his voyage to New Orleans. It was written a few hours after he landed there, and he said that he was writing because the mail went out next day, and he should keep it open in case he had any news to send me. It is finished by some one else. Where Ned left off are a few scrambling misspelt words, so badly written that I had the greatest difficulty in making them out. I transcribe them as sent.'

'Sir,--This hear is to tel you has the Captin as got a-stabed by a niggur last nite, he his very bad but the docters thinks he will git hover it.--JACOB.'

'What is it, father?' Dorothy asked, as he uttered an exclamation of regret.

'It is from Danvers, my dear. He writes to tell me that he hears that Ned Hampton has been badly hurt--stabbed, it seems, by some negro.'

Dorothy turned very pale, and set down the teapot hastily.

'He is not killed, father?'

'No; the person who writes says he is very bad, but the doctors think he will get over it. Nothing more is known about it, he says. Hampton wrote him a long, chatty letter, which he left unfinished, as the post was not going out until next day. It was finished by some one else--a few misspelt words'--and he read Jacob's addition.

'Here is a bit more. "As Hampton told me before he started that he had taken a boy with him, as a sort of servant, I have just been to his old lodgings in Jermyn Street, and find that the lad's name was Jacob. It is a satisfaction to know that Hampton has some one with him who is attached to him, even if only a boy, as I have no doubt this lad is, for Hampton almost picked him off the street. I will let you know as soon as I hear again."'

'This is a very bad business, Dorothy.'

'Very bad, father. I am indeed sorry. How could he have got into a quarrel with a negro?'

'That is more than I can tell, dear. I would give a great deal if this hadn't happened. I have an immense liking for the young fellow. I was fond of him as a boy and he has grown up just as I thought he would--a man one can rely upon in every emergency--clear-headed, sensible, without a shadow of nonsense about him, and as true as steel. There, I can eat no more breakfast,' and he pushed his plate from him and rising hastily left the room. Dorothy went about the house with a pale face all day. Her father rode off directly after breakfast to carry the news to Singleton who was greatly distressed thereat.

'Did you tell Dorothy that it was at New Orleans?' he asked presently.

'No, I did not mention the place. I thought it was as well to wait until we got another letter. Of course she knew from those affidavits that the man and woman had gone down there.'

'I would have told her,' Mr. Singleton said. 'Ned begged us to say nothing about it, and though I did not give any specific promise, I have held my tongue thus far, though I have been strongly inclined to tell her a dozen times; but there is no reason why she should not know it was New Orleans. If she likes to put two and two together, she can. I wonder whether this attack on him had anything to do with our affair.'

'That is what I was thinking as I rode over, Singleton. I don't see how it could have done so. You see he had only just arrived there--but there is no saying; the boy distinctly says it was a n.i.g.g.e.r, and it may only have been an attempt at robbery. I suppose the letter was written in the evening. If the boat had come in early he would have set about making inquiries at once, but as he was evidently leaving it until the next day, I take it he must have written after dinner and then gone out for a stroll and perhaps got stabbed by some vagabond or other for the sake of his watch.'

'How did Dorothy take it?'

'She seemed very sorry; but, in fact, I did not notice much. I was regularly upset, and got out of the room as soon as I could, for if I had talked about it I should have broken down. Poor lad, to think of his having gone through half-a-dozen desperate fights in India and then to be stabbed by a negro thief at New Orleans.'

'Evidently the boy thought there was some hope,' Mr. Singleton said; 'so we must trust that the next letter will bring better news. I cannot bring myself to believe that we are going to lose Ned Hampton in this way.'

The days pa.s.sed quietly. Dorothy had put off writing to Captain Armstrong, telling herself that there was no hurry, for although, if he met the Fortescues, he might learn she had returned to England, he would not know that any change had occurred in reference to the matter of which she had spoken to him. She had asked her father on the evening on which the letter came to let her read it, and although she had said nothing on the subject had not failed to notice that it was at New Orleans he had been wounded. She knew enough of America to be aware that he could not have gone there on his way to the districts where he might be going to shoot game, and she wondered whether he had really gone down there in order to find out something more about this woman.

It was very good of him if he had done so, and had put aside his own plans for the purpose. She had lately been thinking of him with a good deal of contrition. He had really taken a great deal of pains to try and find this man, and that after she had been so angry with him he should have pursued his inquiries in New York, had given her a sharp pang, and had opened her eyes still more widely to the injustice with which she had treated him. He had only spent a day over it; but still, it had showed that her affairs still occupied his mind; but if he had really given up his plans in order to follow these people down to New Orleans, it was a real sacrifice, and one that she felt she had not deserved.

She did not admit to herself that this had anything whatever to do with the delay in writing to Captain Armstrong, any more than she had admitted that she had been prevented from writing at once from Chamounix by any thought of Ned. She did acknowledge to herself that if Ned Hampton was to die of this wound, which he never would have received had he not gone down to New Orleans on her business, it would be a matter of deep regret to her all her life. She shrank from speaking of him, and the subject was never alluded to, unless her father or Mr. Singleton spoke of it, which they always did when the latter came over, and she then seldom joined in the conversation.

It was nearly a month later when Mr. Hawtrey one morning found among his letters one from Danvers. Three or four letters had pa.s.sed between them.

Mr. Levine had seen the jeweller, who, although admitting that the evidence of the existence of another person who strongly resembled Miss Hawtrey was remarkable, pointed out the absence of any proof whatever that this person had even been in London at the time the diamonds were taken away, and declaring that his own impressions remained unchanged.

At the same time, he was perfectly ready to let the matter remain open for a year or more if necessary, and would, indeed, much rather do so than accept any offer for part payment or even for entire payment from Mr. Hawtrey.

It seemed highly probable that proof would by that time be obtained that might clear the matter up entirely. If he had been the subject of an extraordinarily clever fraud he was willing to submit to the entire loss, and would, indeed, hail with satisfaction any evidence that would convince him that he and his a.s.sistants had been deceived, and would thus entirely clear away the unjust suspicion that he could not otherwise but feel of a young lady who was the daughter of an old and valued customer of the firm.

'The man speaks fairly enough, I must confess,' Danvers had written; 'he is evidently absolutely convinced that he and his a.s.sistants cannot have made a mistake as to the lady who visited them. He was, of course, much struck at the depositions from New York, but remarked that people are liable to be deceived by photographs, that it is one thing to see a likeness, perhaps accidental, between a photograph and a living person, but another altogether to mistake a living person you know well for another. He is evidently greatly disturbed and troubled over the affair.

He said over and over again, "I would infinitely rather lose the money and that Miss Hawtrey should be cleared; but, upon the other hand, I cannot give way without evidence that will absolutely convince me that my senses have been deceived in so extraordinary a manner."'

Mr. Hawtrey, then, expected no news of any importance from Danvers as to his affairs, but it was possible the letter might contain some later intelligence from New Orleans. It was nearly a month since they had heard, and in a case like this no news is very far from being good news; he opened it, therefore, with great reluctance, the more so that the letter was lying at the top of the others, and he saw by the anxiety with which Dorothy was watching him that she had at once recognised the handwriting. As his eye fell upon the contents he uttered an exclamation of thankfulness.

'It is from Ned himself,' Mr. Hawtrey said. 'Thank G.o.d for that!'