“I do not think there will be any difficulty as to identity,” Mr. Crafton replied suavely. “Your present address is the same as that which Mr. Watson gave our lamented client, and he further described you as the son of the Rector of Helmsleigh, Devon, a detail no doubt elicited by Mr. Milford’s inquiry. Here is a copy of the will. You would like to hear it, perhaps,” suggested Mr. Crafton, as the clerk entered and laid the document before him.
“Very much.”
Mr. Crafton read in a clear, distinct voice and with great unction. The will was dated six months previously, and was made at Nice. It opened with a long list of legacies, to old servants, to the clerks in three banking-houses, in London, Marseilles, Nice, to numerous charities, to Mr. Crafton and his partner, Mr. Cranberry. Hillersdon sat aghast as he heard thousands and fives and tens of thousands disposed of in this manner. To the Hospital for Children, Great Ormond Street, ten thousand; five thousand to St. George’s Hospital; a thousand each to ten Orphanages; five thousand to a Convalescent Hospital; three thousand to an Asylum for the Blind. Would there be anything left for him after this lavish distribution? The passage in the will which concerned himself came at last, and was simple and brief. “Finally, I bequeath the residue of my estate, real and personal, to Gerard Hillersdon, younger son of the Rev. Edward Hillersdon, Rector of Helmsleigh, Devon, in recognition of his generosity and courage in saving my life at the hazard of his own in the railway station in this place, on the 14th of February, 1879, and I appoint James Crafton, Solicitor, of 190, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, sole executor of this my will.”
“It is a noble reward for an action to which I never attached the slightest importance,” said Hillersdon, pale to the lips with suppressed emotion. “I saw a young man at Newton Abbot do almost as much to save a dog, which was running up and down the line, scared by the porters who shouted at him. That young man jumped down upon the metals and picked up the dog in front of the engine — somebody else’s cur, not even his own property. And I — because in common humanity I plucked an old man from instant death — yes, it was a near shave, I know, and might have ended badly for me — but it was only instinctive humanity, after all — I am left a fortune. It is a fortune, I suppose?”
“Yes, Mr. Hillersdon, a large fortune — something over two millions, consisting of lands, houses, consols, bank stock, railway and other shares, together with the sole interest in the firm of Milford Brothers, Bankers, of London, Marseilles, and Nice.
Hillersdon broke down utterly at this point. He turned his face from the spectators, principal and clerk, and fought hard with himself to keep back a burst of hysterical tears mixed with hysterical laughter.
“It is too ridiculous,” he said, when he had recovered his speech. “Yesterday I was in the depths of despair. It is real, isn’t it?” he asked piteously. “You are not fooling me — you are real men, you two, not shadows? This is not a dream?”
He struck his hand on the table so heavily as to produce severe pain.
“That is real, at any rate,” he muttered.
Solicitor and clerk looked at each other dubiously. They were afraid their news had been too sudden, and that it had turned this possible client’s head.
“Advance me some money,” asked Hillersdon abruptly. “Come, Mr. Crafton, give me your cheque for a good round sum, and when I have cashed that cheque I shall begin to believe in Mr. Milford’s will and in your good faith. I am up to my eyes in debt, and it will be a new sensation to be able to pay the most pressing of my creditors.”
Mr. Crafton had his cheque-book open and his pen dipped in the ink before this potential client had done speaking.
“How much would you like?” he asked.
“How much? Would five hundred be too large an advance?”
“A thousand, if you like.”
“No, five hundred will do. You will act as my solicitors, I suppose — carry through this business for me. I am as ignorant of the law as the sheep who provide your parchment. I shall have to prove the will I suppose. I haven’t the faintest notion what that means.”
“That will be my duty as executor. Our firm will settle all details for you, if you have no family lawyer whom you would prefer to employ.”
“I don’t care a rap for our family lawyer. He has never done anything to endear himself to me. If you were good enough for Mr. Milford — my benefactor — you are good enough for me. And now I’ll go and cash this cheque.”
“Will you allow our messenger to do that for you?”‘
“Thanks, no. I like the sensation of a bank counter when I have money to receive. How will I have it? A hundred in tens, the rest in fifties. How I shall astonish my worthy landlord! Good day. Send for me when you want me to execute deeds, or sign documents,”
He went out on to the sunny pavement where the hansom was waiting for him; went out with a step so light he was scarcely conscious of the pavement under his feet. Even yet he could scarcely divest himself of the idea that he was the sport of dreams, or of some strange jugglery worked by the man with the light-blue eyes and the uncanny laugh.
He drove to the Union Bank, in Chancery Lane, cashed his cheque, and then drove about the West End, to tailor, hatter, hairdresser, hosier, paying fifties on account. He had only a hundred and fifty left when he got back to his lodgings, and out of this he paid his landlord a hundred. The remaining fifty was for pocket-money. It was such a new sensation to have satisfied his creditors, that he felt as it’ he were made of air. He was convinced of the fact now. This thing was a reality. Fortune had turned her wheel — turned it so completely that he who had been at the bottom was now at the top. What would his own people think of this wonder that had befallen him? A millionaire! he, the thriftless son, who had until now been only a burden and a care to father and mother. He would not write. He would run down to Devonshire in a day or two, and tell them this wonderful story with his own lips.
And but for Justin Jermyn’s interference he would have shot himself last night, and would have been lying stark and stiff this morning. Yet, no, the letter was delivered at his lodgings last night, at ten o’clock. Fortune had turned her wheel. The tidings of her bounty were waiting for him while he was fooling in the Fate-reader’s room, the sport of a shallow trickster.
“And yet he seemed to know,” thought Hillersdon; “he hinted at a change of fortune — he led me on to talk of the old man at Nice.”
He felt a sudden desire to see Jermyn, to tell him what had happened; to talk over his monstrous luck; to see what effect the news would have upon the Fate-reader. There were other people he wanted to see — most especially Edith Champion — but the desire to see Jermyn was the strongest of all. He got into a cab, and told the man to drive to Holborn.
He hadn’t the remotest idea whereabouts in Holborn that old Inn was situated, or whether in any adjacent thoroughfare. He dismissed his cab at Warwick Court, and went about on foot, in and out of dingy old gateways, and in all the “dusty purlieus of the law,” as existent in the neighbourhood of Holborn; but nowhere could he find gate-house, or semi-deserted inn that in any wise resembled the place to which Jermyn had taken him last night.
After nearly two hours of ineffectual exploration he gave up the search, and drove to the West End, where, at the Sensorium, a smart dilettante club of which he was a member, he hoped to hear Jermyn’s address. It was tea-time, and there were a good many men in the reading-room and adjacent smoke-room, and among them several of Hillersdon’s friends.
He sat down in the midst of a little knot of acquaintances, and ordered his tea at a table where he was welcomed with marked cordiality — welcomed by men who knew not that they were welcoming a millionaire.
“You know everything that’s going on, Vane,” he said, to one of these; “so of course you know Jermyn, the Fate-reader?”
“Intimately. It was I who secured him for Lady Fridoline yesterday. He doesn’t, as a rule, show himself at the common or garden-party, but he went to Fridoline House to oblige me.”
“Will you tell me where he fives?”
“Nowhere. He is much too clever to put an address on his card, like a commonplace individual. He is to be heard of here, or at the Heptachord. He is a member of both clubs, though he rarely shows at either — but as to an address, a vulgar lodging-house address, like yours or mine. Pas si bête! If he put anything on his card it would be Styx, or Orcus.”
“My dear fellow, I supped with him last night at his chambers.”
“Then you know where they are?”
“That is exactly what I do not know. Jermyn insisted upon my going to supper with him last night after the opera. We walked from Covent Garden to his chambers. We were talking all the time, and except that we passed through Queen Street and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, I haven’t an idea as to what direction we took, or where the curious shabby old Inn is situated.”
Youth’s frank laughter greeted this avowal.
“Then all I can say, my dear Hillersdon, is that you were rather more ‘on’ than a man generally is when he leaves the opera. You were very lucky to get out of Bow Street.”
“Would you be surprised to hear that I had taken nothing stronger than Salutaris at dinner, and nothing whatever after dinner? No, wine had nothing to do with my mental condition. Jermyn and I were talking. I was in a somewhat dreamy mood, and allowed myself to be piloted without taking any notice of the way we went. I will own that when I left him at four o’clock this morning my head was not quite so clear, and London might be Bagdad for all I know of the streets and squares through which I made tracks for Piccadilly.”
“So Jermyn entertains, does he?” exclaimed Roger Larose, the æsthetic architect, and elegant idler, a man who always looked as if he had just stepped out of one of Marcus Stone’s pictures; “this must be inquired into. He has never entertained me. Was your drunkenness a pleasant intoxication? Was his wine irreproachable?”
“More, it was irresistible. He gave me some old Madeira that was like melted gold, and his champagne had the cool freshness of a wild rose, an aroma as delicate as the perfume of the flower.”
“I believe he hypnotised you, and that there was nothing; or perhaps bread and cheese and porter,” said Larose. “Where are you going, and what are you going to do this afternoon? I’ve some Hurlingham vouchers in my pocket. Shall we go and see the polo match, or shoot pigeons, and dine on the lawn?”
A thrill went through Hillersdon’s heart at the thought that yesterday, had Larose made such a proposition, he would have been obliged to decline, with whatever excuse he might invent on the spur of the moment. Yesterday the half-guinea gate-money and the risk of being let in to pay for the dinner would have made Hurlingham forbidden ground. To-day he was eager to taste the new joy of spending money without one agonising scruple, one pang of remorse for extravagance that meant dishonesty.
“I am going to call on some ladies,” he said. “If you can give me a couple of ladies’ tickets and one for myself, I will meet you in time for dinner.”
“Do I know the ladies? Is Mrs. Champion one of them?”
“Yes.”
“Delightful — a parti carré. It is going to be a piping night. We will dine on the lawn, hear the chimes at midnight, stealing softly along the river from the great bell at Westminster. We will fancy we see fireflies and that Fulham is Tuscany — fancy ourselves in the Cascine Gardens, which are not half so pretty as Hurlingham or Barn Elms, when all is said and done. Get along with you, Hillersdon. In spite of your debauch you are looking as happy as if you had just had a fortune left you.”
Gerard Hillersdon laughed somewhat hysterically, and hurried out of the club. He had not the courage to tell any one what had happened to him — not yet. That word hypnotism frightened him, even after this seemingly substantial evidence of his good luck. The lawyer’s office, the bank, the notes, and tradesmen’s receipts! Might not all these be part and parcel of the same hypnotic trance. He pulled a bundle of receipted accounts out of his pocket. Yes, those were real, or as real as anything can be to a man who dares not be sure that he is not dreaming.
He drove to Hertford Street. Mrs. Champion was at home, and alone. Her carriage was at the door ready to take her to the Park. Mrs. Gresham was again engaged in the cause of the Anglican Orphans, serving tea and cake to the shilling people on the second day of the bazaar at the Riding School, and was to be called for at sis o’clock.
Mrs. Champion was sitting in a darkened drawing-room, in an atmosphere of tropical flowers, dressed in India muslin, the room and the lady alike suggestive of coolness and repose after the glare and the traffic of the streets. She looked up from her book with a start of surprise at hearing Hillersdon’s name.
“I thought you were half way to Germany by this time,” she said, evidently not ill-pleased at his return, as it were a bird fluttering back to the open door of his cage, “but perhaps you missed your train and are going to-morrow.”
“No, Mrs. Champion, I changed my mind, and I am not going at all.”
“How nice!” she said sweetly, laying aside her book and preparing to be confidential. “Was it to please me you stayed?”
He made up his mind that he must tell her. His mouth grew dry and hot at the very thought; but he could not keep the knowledge of his altered fate from this woman who had been, who was 6till, perhaps, the other half of his soul.
“For once in my life,” he said quietly, “or let me say for once since I first met you — your wish was not my only law. Something has happened to me — to change my life altogether since yesterday.”
That hoarse broken voice and the intensity of his look scared her. Imagination set off at a gallop.
“You are engaged to be married,” she cried, rising suddenly out of her low chair, straight as a dart, and deadly pale. “These things always end so. You have been loyal to me for years, and now you have grown weary, and you want a wife — Elaine instead of Guinevere — and you meant to run away to Germany and break the thing to me in a letter — and then you changed your mind and took courage to tell me with your own false lips.”
This burst of passion — her white face and flashing eyes — were a revelation to him. He had thought her as calm and cold as a snow figure that children build in a garden; and behold he had been playing with fire all this time.
He was standing by her side in an instant, holding her icy hands, drawing her nearer to him.
“Edith, Edith, can you think so poorly of me? Engaged! Why, you know there is no other woman I care for — have ever cared for. Engaged, in a day, in an hour! Have I not given you my life? What more could I do?”
“You are not! Oh, thank God. I could bear anything but that.”
“And yet — and yet — you hold me at arm’s length,” he said fondly, with his lips near hers.
She was the snow figure again in a moment, standing before him in her matronly dignity, cold, proud, unapproachable.
“I was foolish to put myself in a passion,” she said, “and, after all, whenever you want to marry I shall have no right to hinder you. Only I should like to know your plans in good time, so that I may accustom myself to the idea. The horses have been at the door ever so long, and that hard working Rosa will be waiting for me. Will you come for a drive round the Park?”
“I shall be charmed; but I want you and Mrs. Gresham to dine with me at Hurlingham. We can go on there when you have done your Park.”
“I don’t care a straw for the Park. Let us go straight to Hurlingham and see the Polo. But I am so carelessly dressed; shall I do, do you think, or must I put on a smarter gown?”
She stood up before him in a cloud of muslin and lace, a gown so flowing and graceful in its draping over bust and hips, that it might have been a cloud of spray clothing a nymph at a fountain.
“Your careless costume is simply perfection. Only be sure and bring a warm map, for we may be sitting late upon the lawn.”
She touched a spring bell, and her maid appeared with a white Gainsborough hat and a pair of lo
ng suede gloves. Wraps were gent for, the butler was informed that his mistress would not dine at home, and the barouche drove off with Gerard on the front seat, opposite Mrs. Champion.
“What can have happened to change your life, if you are not going to be married?” she asked, as they turned into Piccadilly. “You mystify me. I hope it is nothing bad — no misfortune to any of your people?”
“No, it is something distinctly good. An eccentric old man, whom I was once so fortunate as to oblige, has left me the bulk of his fortune.”
“I congratulate you,” she said; but there was a troubled look in her face that surprised him.
Surely she ought to be glad.
“Does that mean that you are a rich man?” she asked, after a pause.
“Yes, I am a rich man.”
“How rich?”
“As rich as anybody need care to be. I am told that the fortune left me is something over two millions.”
“Two millions of francs?”
“Two millions sterling.”
“Good heavens! Why, Champion is a pauper compared with you. This is too absurd!”
“It does savour of the ridiculous, I admit,” said Hillersdon, somewhat piqued by her manner of treating the subject. “Poverty was my métier no doubt. I was born to be a hanger-on upon the great world; to taste its pleasures by the favour of other people; to visit in smart houses on sufferance; to live in a shabby lodging and find my warmest welcome at a club.”
“Two millions! “repeated Edith. “I am sure James has not as much. Two millions! You will have to marry now, of course.”
“Have to! Why should I be constrained to marry just when I have the means of enjoying a bachelor’s life?”
“You will be made to marry, I tell you,” she answered impatiently. “You don’t know what women are who have daughters to marry. You don’t know what girls are — hardened worldly girls, in their third or fourth season — who want to secure a rich husband. You can’t possibly estimate the influences that will be brought to bear upon you. All the spinsters in London will be at your feet.”
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 895
