East Lynne Part 102

"Quite well; quite as usual. Mamma has been in better health lately. She does not know of this visit, but--"

"I must see her," interrupted Richard. "I did not see her the last time, you remember."

"All in good time to talk of that. How are you getting on in Liverpool?

What are you doing?"

"Don't inquire too closely, Barbara. I have no regular work, but I get a job at the docks, now and then, and rub on. It is seasonable help, that, which comes to me occasionally from you. Is it from you or Carlyle?"

Barbara laughed. "How are we to distinguish? His money is mine now, and mine is his. We don't have separate purses, Richard; we send it to you jointly."

"Sometimes I have fancied it came from my mother."

Barbara shook her head. "We have never allowed mamma to know that you left London, or that we hold an address where we can write to you. It would not have done."

"Why have you summoned me here, Barbara? What has turned up?"

"Thorn has--I think. You would know him again Richard?"

"Know him!" pa.s.sionately echoed Richard Hare.

"Were you aware that a contest for the members.h.i.+p is going on at West Lynne?"

"I saw it in the newspapers. Carlyle against Sir Francis Levison. I say, Barbara, how could he think of coming here to oppose Carlyle after his doing with Lady Isabel?"

"I don't know," said Barbara. "I wonder that he should come here for other reasons also. First of all, Richard, tell me how you came to know Sir Francis Levison. You say you did know him, and that you had seen him with Thorn."

"So I do know him," answered Richard. "And I saw him with Thorn twice."

"Know him by sight only, I presume. Let me hear how you came to know him."

"He was pointed out to me. I saw him walk arm-in-arm with a gentleman, and I showed them to the waterman at the cab-stand hard by. 'Do you know that fellow?' I asked him, indicating Thorn, for I wanted to come at who he really is--which I didn't do. 'I don't know that one,' the old chap answered, 'but the one with him is Levison the baronet. They are often together--a couple of swells they looked.'"

"And that's how you got to know Levison?"

"That was it," said Richard Hare.

"Then, Richard, you and the waterman made a mess of it between you. He pointed out the wrong one, or you did not look at the right. Thorn is Sir Francis Levison."

Richard stared at her with all his eyes.

"Nonsense, Barbara!"

"He is, I have never doubted it since the night you saw him in Bean lane. The action you described, of his pus.h.i.+ng back his hair, his white hands, his sparkling diamond ring, could only apply in my mind to one person--Francis Levison. On Thursday I drove by the Raven, when he was speechifying to the people, and I noticed the selfsame action. In the impulse of the moment I wrote off for you, that you might come and set the doubt at rest. I need not have done it, it seems, for when Mr.

Carlyle returned home that evening, and I acquainted him with what I had done, he told me that Thorn and Francis Levison are one and the same.

Otway Bethel recognized him that same afternoon, and so did Ebenezer James."

"They'd both know him," eagerly cried Richard. "James I am positive would, for he was skulking down to Hallijohn's often then, and saw Thorn a dozen times. Otway Bethel must have seen him also, though he protested he had not. Barbara!"

The name was uttered in affright, and Richard plunged amidst the trees, for somebody was in sight--a tall, dark form advancing from the end of the walk. Barbara smiled. It was only Mr. Carlyle, and Richard emerged again.

"Fears still, Richard," Mr. Carlyle exclaimed, as he shook Richard cordially by the hand. "So you have changed your travelling toggery."

"I couldn't venture here again in the old suit; it had been seen, you said," returned Richard. "I bought this rig-out yesterday, second-hand.

Two pounds for the lot--I think they shaved me."

"Ringlets and all?" laughed Mr. Carlyle.

"It's the old hair oiled and curled," cried d.i.c.k. "The barber charged a s.h.i.+lling for doing it, and cut my hair into the bargain. I told him not to spare grease, for I liked the curls to s.h.i.+ne--sailors always do. Mr.

Carlyle, Barbara says that Levison and that brute Thorn--the one's as much of a brute as the other, though--have turned out to be the same."

"They have, Richard, as it appears. Nevertheless, it may be as well for you to take a private view of Levison before anything is done--as you once did by the other Thorn. It would not do to make a stir, and then discover that there was a mistake--that he was not Thorn."

"When can I see him?" asked Richard, eagerly.

"It must be contrived somehow. Were you to hang about the doors of the Raven--this evening, even--you'd be sure to get the opportunity, for he is always pa.s.sing in and out. No one will know you, or think of you, either: their heads are turned with the election."

"I shall look odd to people's eyes. You don't get many sailors in West Lynne."

"Not odd at all. We have a Russian bear here at present, and you'll be n.o.body beside him."

"A Russian bear!" repeated Richard, while Barbara laughed.

"Mr. Otway Bethel has returned in what is popularly supposed to be a bear's hide; hence the new name he is greeted with. Will it turn out, Richard that he had anything to do with the murder?"

Richard shook his head.

"He couldn't have, Mr. Carlyle; I have said so all along. But about Levison. If I find him to be the man Thorn, what steps can then be taken?"

"That's the difficulty," said Mr. Carlyle.

"Who will set it agoing. Who will move in it?"

"You must, Richard."

"I!" uttered Richard Hare, in consternation. "I move in it!"

"You, yourself. Who else is there? I have been thinking it well over, and can hit upon no one."

"Why, won't you take it upon yourself, Mr. Carlyle?"

"No. Being Levison," was the answer.

"Curse him!" impetuously retorted Richard. "Curse him doubly if he be the double villain. But why should you scruple Mr. Carlyle? Most men, wronged as you have been, would leap at the opportunity for revenge."

"For the crime perpetrated upon Hallijohn I would pursue him to the scaffold. For my own wrong, no. But the remaining negative has cost me something. Many a time, since this appearance of his at West Lynne, have I been obliged to lay violent control upon myself, or I should have horsewhipped him within an ace of his life."

"If you horsewhipped him to death he would only meet his deserts."

"I leave him to a higher retribution--to One who says, 'Vengeance is mine.' I believe him to be guilty of the murder but if the uplifting of my finger would send him to his disgraceful death, I would tie down my hand rather than lift it, for I could not, in my own mind, separate the man from the injury. Though I might ostensibly pursue him as the destroyer of Hallijohn, to me he would appear ever as the destroyer of another, and the world, always charitable, would congratulate Mr.