Birds of Prey - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (icecream ebook reader .TXT) 📗

it, I'll lay."

Charlotte looked over my shoulder as I examined the fly-leaf of the family Bible. Even with this incentive to distraction I contrived to be tolerably business-like; and this is the record which I found on the faded page:

"Samuel Matthew Meynell, son of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. March 9, 1796, baptised at St. Giles's, Cripplegate, in this city.

"Susan Meynell, daughter of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. June 29, 1798, also baptised in the same church.

"Charlotte Meynell, second daughter of the above Christian and Sarah, b. October 3, 1800, baptised at the above-mentioned church of St. Giles, London."

Below these entries, in blacker ink and in a different hand-writing--a bold, business-like, masculine caligraphy--came the following:

"Charlotte Meynell married to James Halliday, in the parish church of Barngrave, Yorks. April 15, 1819.

"Thomas Halliday, son of the above James and Charlotte Halliday, b. Jan. 3d, 1821, baptised in the parish church of Barngrave, Feb. 20 in the same year.

"Mary Halliday, daughter of the above-named James and Charlotte Halliday, b. May 27th, 1823, baptised at Barngrave, July 1st in the same year."

Below this there was an entry in a woman's penmanship:

"Susan, the beloved sister of C. H., died in London, July 11, 1835.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged.

"I came to call sinners, and not the righteous, to repentance."

This record seemed to hint vaguely at some sad story: "Susan, the beloved sister;" no precise data of the death--no surname! And then those two deprecating sentences, which seemed to plead for the dead.

I had been led to understand that Christian Meynell's daughters had both died in Yorkshire--one married, the other unmarried.

The last record in the book was the decease of James Halliday, my dear girl's grandfather.

After pondering long over the strangely-worded entry of Susan Meynell's death, I reflected that, with the aid of those mysterious powers Hook and Crook, I must contrive to possess myself of an exact copy of this leaf from a family history, if not of the original document. Again my duty to my Sheldon impelled me to be false to all my new-born instincts, and boldly give utterance to another bouncer.

"I am very much interested in a county history now preparing for the press," I said to my honoured uncle, who was engaged in a hand at cribbage with his wife; "and I really think this old leaf from a family Bible would make a very interesting page in that work."

I blushed for myself as I felt how shamefully I was imposing upon my newly-found kinsman's credulity. With scarcely any one but uncle Joe could I have dared to employ so shallow an artifice.

"Would it really, now?" said that confiding innocent.

"Well, I suppose old papers, and letters, and such like, are uncommonly interesting to some folks. I can't say I care much about 'em myself."

"Would you have any objection to my taking a copy of these entries?" I asked.

"My word, no, lad; not I. Take half a dozen copies, and welcome, if they can be of any use to you or other people. That's not much to ask for."

I thanked my simple host, and determined to write to a stationer at Hull for some tracing-paper by the first post next morning. There was some happiness, at least, in having found this unlooked-for end to my researches. I had a good excuse for remaining longer near Charlotte Halliday.

"It's only for my poor Mary's sake I set any value on that old volume," the farmer said, presently, in a meditative tone. "You see the names there are the names of her relations, not mine; and this place and all in it was hers. Dorothy and I are only interlopers, as you may say, at the best, though I brought my fortune to the old farm, and Dorothy brought her fortune, and between us we've made Newhall a much better place than it was in old James Halliday's time. But there's something sad in the thought that none of those that were born on the land have left chick or child to inherit it." Uncle Joseph fell for a while into a pensive reverie, and I thought of that other inheritance, well-nigh fifty times the value of Newhall farm, which is now waiting for a claimant. And again I asked myself, Could it be possible that this sweet girl, whose changeful face had saddened with those old memories, whose innocent heart knew not one sordid desire--could it be indeed she whose fair hand was to wrest the Haygarthian gold from the grip of Crown lawyers?

The sight of that old Bible seemed to have revived Mr. Mercer's memory of his first wife with unwonted freshness.

"She was a sweet young creature," he said; "the living picture of our Lottie, and sometimes I fancy it must have been that which made me take to Lottie when she was a little one. I used to see my first wife's eyes looking up at me out of Lottie's eyes. I told Tom it was a comfort to me to have the little lass with me, and that's how they let her come over so often from Hyley. Poor old Tom used to bring her over in his Whitechapel cart, and leave her behind him for a week or so at a stretch. And then, when my Dorothy, yonder, took pity upon a poor lonely widower, she made as much of the little girl as if she'd been her own, and more, perhaps; for, not having any children of her own, she thought them such out-of-the-way creatures, that you couldn't coddle them and pet them too much. There's a little baby lies buried in Barngrave churchyard with Tom Halliday's sister that would have been a noble young man, sitting where you're sitting, Mr. Hawkehurst, and looking at me as bright as you're looking, perhaps, if the Lord's will hadn't been otherwise. We've all our troubles, you see, and that was mine; and if it hadn't been for Dorothy, life would not have been worth much for me after that time--but my Dorothy is all manner of blessings rolled up in one."

The farmer looked fondly at his second wife as he said this, and she blushed and smiled upon him with responsive tenderness. I fancy a woman's blushes and smiles wear longer in these calm solitudes than amid the tumult and clamour of a great city.

Finding my host inclined to dwell upon the past, I ventured to hazard an indirect endeavour to obtain some information respecting that entry in the Bible which had excited my curiosity.

"Miss Susan Meynell died unmarried, I believe?" I said. "I see her death recorded here, but she is described by her Christian name only."

"Ah, very like," replied Mr. Mercer, with an air of indifference, which I perceived to be assumed. "Yes, my poor Molly's aunt Susan died unmarried."

"And in London? I had been given to understand that she died in Yorkshire."

I blushed for my own impertinence as I pressed this inquiry. What right had I to be given to understand anything about these honest Meynells? I saw poor uncle Joe's disconcerted face, and I felt that the hunter of an heir-at-law is apt to become a very obnoxious creature.

"Susan Meynell died in London--the poor lass died in London," replied Joseph Mercer, gravely; "and now we'll drop that subject, if you please, my lad. It isn't a pleasant one."

After this I could no longer doubt that there was some painful story involved in those two deprecating sentences of the gospel.

It was some time before uncle Joe was quite his own jovial and rather noisy self again, and on this evening we had no whist. I bade my friends good night a little earlier than usual, and departed, after having obtained permission to take a tracing of the fly-leaf as soon as possible.

On this night the starlit sky and lonesome moor seemed to have lost their soothing power. There was a new fever in my mind. The simple plan of the future which I had mapped out for myself was suddenly shattered. The Charlotte of to-night--heiress-at-law to an enormous fortune--ward in Chancery--claimant against the Crown--was a very different person from the simple maid "whom there were none"--or only a doating simpleton in the person of the present writer--"to praise, and very few to love."

The night before last I had hoped so much; to-night hope had forsaken me. It seemed as if a Titan's hand had dug a great pit between me and the woman I loved--a pit as deep as the grave.

Philip Sheldon might have consented to give me his stepdaughter unpossessed of a sixpence; but would he give me his stepdaughter with a hundred thousand pounds for her fortune? Alas! no; I know the Sheldonian intellect too well to be fooled by any hope so wild and baseless. The one bright dream of my misused life faded from me in the hour in which I discovered my dearest girl's claim to the Haygarthian inheritance. But I am not going to throw up the sponge before the fight is over. Time enough to die when I am lying face downward in the ensanguined mire, and feel the hosts of the foemen trampling above my shattered carcass. I will live in the light of my Charlotte's smiles while I can, and for the rest--"_Il ne faut pas dire, fontaine, je ne boirai pas de ton eau_." There is no cup so bitter that a man dare say, I will not drain it to the very dregs. "What must be, shall be--that's a certain text;" and in the mean time _carpe diem_. I am all a Bohemian again.

_Nov. 5th_. After a day's delay I have obtained my tracing-paper, and made two tracings of the entries in the Meynell Bible, How intercourse with the Sheldonian race inclines one to the duplication of documents! I consider the copying-press of modern civilization the supreme incarnation of man's distrust of his fellow-men.

I spent this afternoon and evening with my dear love--my last evening in Yorkshire. To-morrow I shall see my Sheldon, and inform him of the very strange termination which has come to my researches. Will he communicate at once with his brother? Will he release me from my oath of secrecy? There is nothing of the masonic secretiveness in my organisation, and I am very weary of the seal that has been set upon my unwary lips. Will Charlotte be told that she is the reverend intestate's next of kin? These are questions which I ask myself as I sit in the stillness of my room at the Magpie, scribbling this wretched diary of mine, while the church clock booms three solemn strokes in the distance.

O, why did not the reverend intestate marry his housekeeper, and make a will, like other honest citizens, and leave my Charlotte to walk the obscure byways of honest poverty with me? I do believe that I could have been honest; I do believe that I could have been brave and true and steadfast for her dear sake. But it is the office of man to propose, while the Unseen disposes. Perhaps such a youth as mine admits of no redemption. I have written circulars for Horatio Paget. I have been the willing remorseless tool of a man who never eats his dinner without inflicting a wrong upon his fellow-creatures. Can a few moments of maudlin sentimentality, a vague yearning for something brighter and better, a brief impulse towards honesty, inspired by a woman's innocent eyes--can so little virtue in the present atone for so much