John Caldigate Part 49

'Wonderful!' said Bollum, enthusiastically.

'And as I was once in partners.h.i.+p with your uncle, I do not like to think that I enriched myself by a bargain which impoverished him.'

'It ain't nice, is it,--that you should have it all, and he nothing?'

'Feeling that very strongly,' continued Caldigate, merely shaking his head in token of displeasure at Bollum's interruption, 'I have determined to repay Mr. Crinkett an amount that seems to me to be fair.

He shall have back twenty thousand pounds.'

'He's a lucky fellow, and he'll be off like a shot;--like a shot.'

'He and others have conspired to rob me of all my happiness, thinking that they might so most probably get this money from me. They have invented a wicked lie,--a wicked d.a.m.nable lie,--a d.a.m.nable lie! They are miscreants,--foul miscreants!'

'Come, come, Mr. Caldigate.'

'Foul miscreants! But they shall have their money, and you shall hear me tell them when I give it to them,--and they must both be here to take it from my hands,--that I do not at all require their absence. There is to be no bargain between us. They are free to remain and swear their false oaths against me. Whether they go or whether they stay will be no affair of mine.'

'They'll go, of course, Mr. Caldigate.'

'Not at my instance. I will take care that that shall be known. They must both come; and into their joint hands will I give the cheque, and they must come prepared with a receipt declaring that they accept the money as rest.i.tution of the loss incurred by them in purchasing the Polyeuka mine from me. Do you understand? And I shall bring a witness with me to see them take the money.' Bollum who was considerably depressed by his companion's manner, said that he did understand.

'I suppose I can have a private room here, at noon to-morrow?' asked Caldigate, turning to the woman at the bar.

When that was settled he a.s.sured Bollum that a cheque for the amount should be placed in the joint hands of Timothy Crinkett and Euphemia Smith if he, and they with him, would be there at noon on the following day. Bollum in vain attempted to manage the payment without the personal interview, but at last agreed that the man and the woman should be forthcoming.

That night Caldigate dined at his Club, one of the University Clubs, at which he had been elected just at the time of his marriage. He had seldom been there, but now walked into the dinner-room, resolving that he would not be ashamed to show himself. He fancied that everybody looked at him, and probably there were some present who knew that he was about to stand his trial for bigamy. But he got his dinner, and smoked his cigar; and before the evening was over he had met an old College friend. He was in want of a friend, and explained his wants. He told something of his immediate story, and then asked the man to be present at the scene on the morrow.

'I must have a witness, Gray,' said he, 'and you will do me a kindness if you will come.' Then Mr. Gray promised to be present on the occasion.

On the following morning he met Gray at the Club, having the cheque ready in his pocket, and together they proceeded to Levant Court. Again he was a little before his time, and the two sat together in the gloomy little room up-stairs. Bollum was the first to come, and when he saw the stranger, was silent,--thinking whether it might not be best to escape and warn Crinkett and the woman that all might not be safe. But the stranger did not look like a detective; and, as he told himself, why should there be danger? So he waited, and in a few minutes Crinkett entered the room, with the woman veiled.

'Well, Caldigate,' said Crinkett, 'how is it with you?'

'If you please, Mrs. Smith,' said Caldigate, 'I must ask you to remove your veil,--so that I may be sure that it is you.'

She removed her veil very slowly, and then stood looking him in the face,--not full in the face, for she could not quite raise her eyes to meet his. And though she made an effort to brazen it out, she could not quite succeed. She attempted to raise her head, and carry herself with pride; but every now and again there was a slight quiver,--slight, but still visible. The effort, too, was visible. But there she stood, looking at him, and to be looked at,--but without a word. During the whole interview she never once opened her lips.

She had lost all her comeliness. It was now nearly seven years since they two had been on the Goldfinder together, and then he had found her very attractive. There was no attraction now. She was much aged; and her face was coa.r.s.e, as though she had taken to drinking. But there was still about her something of that look of intellect which had captivated him more, perhaps, than her beauty. Since those days she had become a slave to gold,--and such slavery is hardly compatible with good looks in a woman. There she stood,--ready to listen to him, ready to take his money, but determined not to utter a word.

Then he took the cheque out of his pocket, and holding it in his hand, spoke to them as follows: 'I have explained to Mr. Bollum, and have explained to my friend here, Mr. Gray, the reasons which induce me to pay to you, Timothy Crinkett, and to you, Euphemia Smith, the large sum of twenty thousand pounds. The nature of our transactions has been such that I feel bound in honour to repay so much of the price you paid for the Polyeuka mine.'

'All right, Caldigate; all right,' said Crinkett.

'And I have explained also to both of them that this payment has nothing whatever to do with the base, false, and most wicked charge which you are bringing against me. It is not because that woman, by a vile perjury, claims me as her husband, and because I wish to buy her silence or his, that I make this rest.i.tution. I restore the money of my own free will, without any base bargain. You can go on with your perjury or abstain from it, as you may think best.'

'We understand, squire,' said Crinkett, affecting to laugh. 'You hand over the money,--that's all.' Then the woman looked round at her companion, and a frown came across her face; but she said nothing, turning her face again upon Caldigate, and endeavouring to keep her eyes steadfastly fixed upon him.

'Have you brought a receipt signed by both of you?' Then Bollum handed him a receipt signed 'Timothy Crinkett, for self and partners.' But Caldigate demanded that the woman also should sign it.

'There is a difficulty about the name, you see,' said Bollum. There was a difficulty about the name, certainly. It would not be fair, he thought, that he should force her to the use of a name she disowned, and he did not wish to be hindered from what he was doing by her persistency in calling herself by his own name.

'So be it,' said he. 'There is the cheque. Mr. Gray will see that I put it into both their hands.' This he did, each of them stretching out a hand to take it. 'And now you can go where you please and act as you please. You have combined to rob me of all that I value most by the basest of lies; but not on that account have I abstained from doing what I believe to be an act of justice.' Then he left the room, and paying for the use of it to the woman at the bar, walked off with his friend Gray, leaving Crinkett, Bollum, and the woman still within the house.

Chapter XL

Waiting For The Trial

As he returned to Cambridge Caldigate was not altogether contented with himself. He tried to persuade himself, in reference to the money which he had refunded, that in what he had done he had not at all been actuated by the charge made against him. Had there been no such accusation he would have felt himself bound to share the loss with these people as soon as he had learned the real circ.u.mstances. The money had been a burden to him. For the satisfaction of his own honour, of his own feelings, it had become necessary that the money should be refunded. And the need of doing so was not lessened by the fact that a base conspiracy had been made by a gang of villains who had thought that the money might thus be most readily extracted from him. That was his argument with himself, and his defence for what he had done. But nevertheless he was aware that he had been driven to do it now,--to pay the money at this special moment,--by an undercurrent of hope that these enemies would think it best for themselves to go as soon as they had his money in their hands. He wished to be honest, he wished to be honourable, he wished that all that he did could be what the world calls 'above board'; but still it was so essential for him and for his wife that they should go! He had been very steady in a.s.suring these wretched ones that they might go or stay, as they pleased. He had been careful that there should be a credible witness of his a.s.surance. He might succeed in making others believe that he had not attempted to purchase their absence; but he could not make himself believe it.

Even though a jury should not convict him, there was so much in his Australian life which would not bear the searching light of cross-examination! The same may probably be said of most of us. In such trials as this that he was antic.i.p.ating, there is often a special cruelty in the exposure of matters which are for the most part happily kept in the background. A man on some occasion inadvertently takes a little more wine than is good for him. It is an accident most uncommon with him, and n.o.body thinks much about it. But chance brings the case to the notice of the police courts, and the poor victim is published to the world as a drunkard in the columns of all the newspapers. Some young girl fancies herself in love, and the man is unworthy. The feeling pa.s.ses away, and none but herself, and perhaps her mother, are the wiser. But if by some chance, some treachery, a letter should get printed and read, the poor girl's punishment is so severe that she is driven to wish herself in the grave.

He had been foolish, very foolish, as we have seen, on board the Goldfinder,--and wicked too. There could be no doubt about that. When it would all come out in this dreaded trial he would be quite unable to defend himself. There was enough to enable Mrs. Bolton to point at him with a finger of scorn as a degraded sinner. And yet,--yet there had been nothing which he had not dared to own to his wife in the secrecy of their mutual confidence, and which, in secret, she had not been able to condone without a moment's hesitation. He had been in love with the woman,--in love after a fas.h.i.+on. He had promised to marry her. He had done worse than that. And then, when he had found that the pa.s.sion for gold was strong upon her, he had bought his freedom from her. The story would be very bad as told in Court, and yet he had told it all to his wife! She had admitted his excuse when he had spoken of the savageness of his life, of the craving which a man would feel for some feminine society, of her undoubted cleverness, and then of her avarice. And then when he swore that through it all he had still loved her,--her, Hester Bolton,--whom he had but once seen, but whom, having seen, he had never allowed to pa.s.s out of his mind, she still believed him, and thought that the holiness of that love had purified him. She believed him;--but who else would believe him? Of course he was most anxious that those people should go.

Before he left London he wrote both to Mr. Seely and to Robert Bolton, saying what he had done. The letter to his own attorney was long and full. He gave an account in detail of the whole matter, declaring that he would not allow himself to be hindered from paying a debt which he believed to be due, by the wickedness of those to whom it was owing.

'The two things have nothing to do with each other,' he said, 'and if you choose to throw up my defence, of course you can do so. I cannot allow myself to be debarred from exercising my own judgment in another matter because you think that what I decide upon doing may not tally with your views as to my defence.' To Robert Bolton he was much shorter.

'I think you ought to know what I have done,' he said; 'at any rate, I do not choose that you should be left in ignorance.' Mr. Seely took no notice of the communication, not feeling himself bound to carry out his threat by withdrawing his a.s.sistance from his client. But Robert and William Bolton agreed to have Crinkett's movements watched by a detective policeman. They were both determined that if possible Crinkett and the woman should be kept in the country.

In these days the old Squire made many changes in his residence, vacillating between his house in Cambridge and the house at Folking. His books were at Cambridge, and he could not have them brought back; and yet he felt that he ought to evince his constancy to his son, his conviction of his son's innocence, by remaining at Folking. And he was aware, too, that his presence there was a comfort both to his son and Hester. When John Caldigate had gone up to London, his father had been in Cambridge, but on his return he found the old Squire at his old house.

'Yes,' he said, telling the story of what he had just done, 'I have paid twenty thousand pounds out of hand to those rascals, simply because I thought I owed it to them!' The Squire shook his head, not being able to approve of the act.' I don't see why I should have allowed myself to be hindered from doing what I thought to be right because they were doing what they knew to be wrong.'

'They won't go, you know.'

'I daresay not, sir. Why should they?'

'But the jury will believe that you intended to purchase their absence.'

'I think I have made all that clear.'

'I am afraid not, John. The man applied to you for the money, and was refused. That was the beginning of it. Then the application was repeated by the woman with a threat; and you again refused. Then they present themselves to the magistrates, and make the accusation; and, upon that, you pay the money. Of course it will come out at the trial that you paid it immediately after this renewed application from Bollum. It would have been better to have defied them.'

'I did defy them,' said John Caldigate. But all that his father said seemed to him to be true, so that he repented himself of what he had done.

He made no inquiry on the subject, but, early in May he heard from Mr.

Seely that Crinkett and the woman were still in London, and that they had abandoned the idea of going at once to Australia. According to Mr.

Seely's story,--of the truth of which he declared himself to be by no means certain,--Crinkett had wished to go, but had been retained by the woman. 'As far as I can learn,' said Mr. Seely, 'she is in communication with the Boltons, who will of course keep her if it be possible. He would get off if he could; but she, I take it, has got hold of the money. When you made the cheque payable to her order, you effectually provided for their remaining here. If he could have got the money without her name, he would have gone, and she would have gone with him.'

'But that was not my object,' said Caldigate angrily. Mr. Seely thereupon shrugged his shoulders. Early in June the man came back who had been sent out to Sydney in February on behalf of Caldigate. He also had been commissioned to seek for evidence, and to bring back with him, almost at any cost, whatever witness or witnesses he might find whose presence in England would serve Caldigate's cause. But he brought no one, and had learned very little. He too had been at Ahalala and at n.o.bble. At n.o.bble the people were now very full of the subject and were very much divided in opinion. There were Crinketters and anti-Crinketters, Caldigat.i.tes and anti-Caldigat.i.tes. A certain number of persons were ready to swear that there had been a marriage, and an equal number, perhaps, to swear that there had been none. But no new fact had been brought to light. d.i.c.k Shand had not been found,--who had been living with Caldigate when the marriage was supposed to have been solemnised. Nor had that register been discovered from which the copy of the certificate was supposed to have been taken. All through the Colony,--so said this agent,--a very great interest was felt in the matter. The newspapers from day to day contained paragraphs about it.

But n.o.body had appeared whom it was worth while to bring home. Mrs.

Henniker, of the hotel at n.o.bble, had offered to swear that there had been no marriage. This offer she made and repeated when she had come to understand accurately on whose behalf this last agent had come to the Colony. But then, before she had understood this, she had offered to swear the reverse; and it became known that she was very anxious to be carried back to the old country free of expense. No credible witness could be found who had heard Caldigate call the woman Mrs. Smith after the date a.s.signed to the marriage. She no doubt had used various names, had called herself sometimes Mrs. Caldigate, sometimes Mrs. Smith, but generally, in such doc.u.ments as she had to sign in reference to her mining shares, Euphemia Cettini. It was by that name that she had been known in Sydney when performing on the stage, and it was now alleged on her behalf that she had bought and sold shares in that name under the idea that she would thus best secure to herself their separate and undisturbed possession. Proof was brought home that Caldigate himself had made over to her shares in that name; but Mr. Seely did not depend much on this as proof against the marriage.

Mr. Seely seemed to depend very little on anything,--so little that Caldigate almost wished that he had carried out his threat and thrown up the case. 'Does he not believe you when you tell him?' his wife asked. Caldigate was forced to confess that apparently the lawyer did not believe him. In fact, Mr. Seely had even said as much. 'In such cases a lawyer should never believe or disbelieve; or, if he does, he should never speak of his belief. It is with your acquittal or conviction that I am concerned, in which matter I can better a.s.sist you by cool judgment than by any fervid a.s.surance.' All this made Caldigate not only angry but unhappy, for he could not fail to perceive that the public around him were in the same mind as Mr. Seely. In his own parish they believed him, but apparently not beyond his parish. It might be possible that he should escape,--that seemed to be the general opinion; but then general opinion went on to declare that there was no reason for supposing that he had not married the woman merely because he said that he had not done so.

Then gradually there fell upon poor Hester's mind a doubt,--and, after that, almost a conviction. Not a doubt as to her husband's truth! No suspicion on that score ever troubled her for a moment. But there came upon her a fear, almost more than a fear, that these terrible enemies would be strong enough to override the truth, and to carry with them both a judge and a jury. As the summer months ran on, they all became aware that for any purpose of removing the witnesses the money had been paid in vain. Crinkett was living in all opulence at a hotel at Brighton; and the woman, calling herself Mrs. Caldigate, had taken furnished apartments in London. Rumour came that she was frequently seen at the theatres, and that she had appeared more than once in an open carriage in the parks. There was no doubt but that Caldigate's money had made them very comfortable for the present. The whole story of the money had been made public, and of course there were various opinions about it. The prevailing idea was, that an attempt had been made to buy off the first wife, but that the first wife had been clever enough to get the money without having to go. Caldigate was thought to have been very foolish; on which subject Bollum once expressed himself strongly to a friend. 'Clever!' he said; 'Caldigate clever! The greatest idiot I ever came across in my life! I'd made it quite straight for him,--so that there couldn't have been a wrinkle. But he wouldn't have it. There are men so soft that one can't understand 'em.' To do Bollum justice it should be said that he was most anxious to induce his uncle and the woman to leave the country when they had got the money.