“Yes, uncle; it’s nice out of doors, and it’s so dark and dull in here. — But I love you, Mrs. Beppo,” the boy added, smiling at his Irish protectress; “and I’m always happy with you, because you’re so much kinder than mamma was.”
He put on a shabby little cloth cap, and declared himself ready to accompany Herr von Volterchoker; but the Irishwoman left her washtub and tied a woollen handkerchief round the boy’s neck. Then she kissed him tenderly, and handed him over to the clown.
“Ye’ll bring um back to-night?” she said to Herr von Volterchoker.
“Yes, most likely,” answered the clown; “but you needn’t be frightened if I don’t.”
He took the boy’s hand, and was half-way down the narrow staircase before the Irishwoman could make any remonstrance.
“Now, Georgey,” he said, as soon as they had left the chandler’s shop, “I want you to tell me where you lived before you came to Putney-heath that night with your father.”
“We lived in a very narrow place, crowded and dirty, like this,” the boy answered.
“You don’t know the name of the place?”
“No, I don’t know the name of it.”
“And before that, where did you live?”
“Before that we lived with grandpapa.”
“Ah, to be sure, you lived with grandpapa; but where?”
“In a street that was dark and narrow, but not very dirty, and where the children had shoes and stockings. In the last place they ran about with bare feet, or had horrid boots that let their toes comes through. I remember grandpapa’s house quite well; it was near the river, and near a big dreadful-looking place, that papa said was a prison for wicked men; and there was a big church near — O, such a big church, bigger than any other church in the world! — and another big place that wasn’t finished being built, and where there used to be lights burning at night.”
Herr von Volterchoker reflected for a few moments.
“A prison,” he muttered, “and the river, and a big church. Why, it must have been down Millbank way, I should think. Do you remember if the place was called Westminster, Georgey?”
“Yes,” the boy answered; “I think I have heard that word before.”
“Do you think you could find your grandpapa’s house, Georgey, if you were taken close to it?”
“I’d try. I should like to see grandpapa; he was always kind.”
“Very well, then,” answered the clown, “we’ll try and find grandpapa.”
He took the boy across Westminster-bridge, past the Houses of Parliament, in the direction of Millbank.
“Now, Georgey, do you know where you are?” he asked.
“Yes, yes,” the boy answered, looking about him; “there’s the water, and there’s the big church; it was this way grandpapa lived, down here.”
He pulled the clown towards a narrow street leading out of the main thoroughfare; a quiet little street, where there were humble shops and shabby-looking old-fashioned houses. The boy dragged his companion half-way down this street, and then stopped suddenly before a carver and gilder’s shop, above the window of which was painted the name of William Pickshaw.
“Look!” he cried, pointing to the picture-frames; “that’s grandpapa’s shop; I remember the gold things in the window.” Herr von Volterchoker opened the half-glass door, and a bell rang loudly to announce the entrance of a customer. A little old man, with a canvas apron round his waist, and his hands smeared with gold-leaf, came out of a back-room which was evidently used as a workshop. Georgey ran forward to him, and took hold of his hand.
“It’s me, grandpapa,” he cried; “it’s me! You know me, grandpapa, don’t you? You know Georgey?”
The old man uttered an exclamation of surprise, and then snatched the boy up in his arms.
“Georgey!” he cried; “why, Georgey, I never thought to see you again. Where’s Aggy? — where’s your mother?”
The boy shook his head.
“I don’t know, grandpapa,” he said.
“You don’t know where your mother is?”
“No; we left her. Papa took me away from her; O, a long time ago, in the summer.”
“You left her? Why?”
“Because she was unkind; because she used to beat me, grandpapa,” the boy answered, in a half whisper; “and because she used to go out and take my clothes away, and papa’s clothes, and come home and seem almost as if she was mad. I was afraid of her, grandpapa, and papa was very unhappy with her, and so we ran away; and we were very happy until papa went away and left me with uncle; and since then I’ve been with Beppo and Mrs. Beppo and the monkey.”
The old man stared at his grandson with a stupefied expression.
“You don’t understand him, do you, sir?” said Herr von Volterchoker. “I suppose it is some time since you last saw him?”
“It is, indeed, sir,” answered the old man; “I haven’t set eyes upon the child, or my daughter, or my daughter’s husband, for the last twelve months. They left me last Christmas twelvemonth, sir; because, to tell the truth, I was obliged to turn them out, as you may say. Gervoise Gilbert hadn’t a sixpence to bless himself with, so he couldn’t afford to pay me any rent for my rooms, and I couldn’t afford to go without the money, bein’ a poor man, sir, and working very hard to pay my way. So they went, and where they went I never found out, for Gervoise had a good deal of pride about him, and poverty seemed to sour and turn him, somehow or other, and he was very close and high in his ways. And as for my unfortunate daughter, I’m sorry to say she’d taken to drinking before that time, and didn’t seem to care what became of her. Not that the blame’s all due to her, sir, for if she’d had a different kind of husband she might have been a different woman. So I let ’em go, sir, and I never heard any more of ‘em, from that day to this. But I suppose you know all about ‘em, sir?”
Herr von Volterchoker shook his head.
“No, indeed,” he said, “I know very little of them.”
“You know where my poor Agatha is?”
“No; I only know that your son-in-law, Gervoise Gilbert, disappeared last summer, leaving this boy upon my hands.”
“Disappeared! but how, and where?”
The clown paused and reflected before he answered this question.
“Why, it was in the neighbourhood of Manchester,” he said presently. “Your son-in-law had been painting scenery for a theatrical company, a wandering kind of company, of which I was a member; and one night after the performances were finished, he told me he was going away, and asked me to take care of his boy for him till he came back, or sent to me for the child. I’m rather a soft-hearted fellow about children; and I really couldn’t find the heart to say no. So I took the boy, and I’ve done the best I could for him ever since. — Haven’t I, Georgey?”
“Yes, uncle.”
“The boy calls me uncle,” said Herr von Volterchoker; “that’s his affection. However, I’ve done my best for the child, out of friendship for the father; and as things have just taken a bit of a turn with me, I shall be able to do a good deal better for him henceforward, Mr. Pickshaw; but what I want is a little bit of a talk with you, so that I may understand what I’m doing before I go any farther.”
“To be sure, to be sure,” answered the old man; “nothing could be fairer than that. Any information I can give you, sir, you’re free and welcome to. But I wish you’d brought me some news about my daughter. I wish you could tell me something about my poor girl.”
Herr von Volterchoker shook his head.
“I’m sorry I can’t do that,” he said.
He meant to keep the secret of Agatha Palgrave’s death. It was a secret that might prove a mine of gold to him, if he knew how to play his cards properly.
“Will you walk upstairs, sir?” said Mr. Pickshaw; “we can talk a great deal more comfortably in the room over this. Not that there’s many customers to interrupt us, sir; trade’s very slack just now; very slack indeed. But the shop’s cold; so, perhaps
you’d be kind enough to step upstairs?”
He opened the door, and led his visitor and the boy up a narrow flight of stairs, and into a decent sitting-room, with old-fashioned windows looking out upon the street.
There were deep oaken seats in these windows, and on one of them a girl was sitting, with her back turned towards the door. She turned round as she heard the footsteps of the men entering the room. It was quite dusk; but as the girl turned, the light of the fire shone full upon her face, and the clown saw that it was the living resemblance of that dead face which he had seen in the tavern at Pendon.
Herr von Volterchoker had considerable difficulty in refraining from some expression of surprise at the wonderful likeness between the living and the dead; but he recollected himself in time. He had declared himself an entire stranger to Agatha Palgrave, and he must therefore conceal his astonishment at the likeness betwixt the two sisters.
“I suppose that young lady is your daughter, Mr. Pickshaw,” he said carelessly.
“Yes,” answered the old man; “that’s Susan, my youngest daughter. She’s three years younger than Agatha.”
Susan Pickshaw recognised her little nephew, and took him up in her arms. She carried the boy to the window-seat, and placed him in her lap. They talked to each other in low voices, while Herr von Volterchoker and the old man seated themselves at the little table near the fireplace. The room was only lighted by the flickering glow of the fire, and the faint twilight fading in the narrow street without.
“Now, to put the matter straight before you, Mr. Pickshaw,” said the clown, “I must tell you, in the first place, that my own fortunes have undergone a change since Gervoise and I parted company. I’m happy to say I’m now pretty well off; and I’m prepared to adopt your little grandson. That’s number one. You’ve no objection to that, I suppose?”
“No, indeed, sir,” answered the old man eagerly; “I’m only glad the poor child has found a friend. I’m a struggling man myself, and I’ve more mouths about me than I can fill as it is.”
“Very well, then, number one’s a settled thing. Now for number two. I shall send the boy to a good school, and have him brought up as a gentleman, and I shall expect him to take his stand in life as a gentleman by and by. But, in order to do that, I must be able to prove his identity; I must be able to satisfy the world when the world asks questions about the boy. Do you follow me?”
“Not quite,” murmured Mr. Pickshaw; “I daresay I’m very stupid, but I don’t quite understand—”
“You don’t quite understand what I mean. I’ll make it plainer to you, then, my dear sir. I want you to give me any papers that you happen to have by you that may help to prove the boy’s identity by and by. The certificate of his mother’s marriage, for instance. I daresay now, as a prudent father, you’ve kept that yourself, eh?”
Herr von Volterchoker looked very anxiously at the old man, but Mr. Pickshaw shook his head with a hopeless expression of countenance.
“No, I didn’t,” he said; “I daresay it would have been wise of me to have kept the certificate, but I didn’t. I think Agatha had it herself. But if so, it must be in this house, for she left a desk with a lot of papers behind her. — Susan, do you know what became of that old desk of Agatha’s?”
“It is upstairs in my room, father,” the girl answered.
“Bring it down then, Susan,” said Mr. Pickshaw.—” If the certificate’s there, you shall have it. It’s no use to me. That marriage never brought me anything but unhappiness.”
“You don’t know anything of Gervoise Gilbert’s history before his marriage?”
“I only know that he came to my house as a lodger, and got deep in my debt; and then my eldest girl must needs fall in love with his handsome face. He was a gentleman by birth, he told us, and went under a false name because he didn’t want his father’s Mends to know how low he’d fallen. Palgrave is his right name, and under that name he was married; but he was never called by it. He hadn’t a sixpence in the world except what he worked for, and was never likely to have. That’s all that I ever knew about his history.”
Herr von Volterchoker smiled as Mr. Pickshaw said this. These people were utterly ignorant of Gervoise Palgrave’s rank. They were poor struggling workers for daily bread, and were by no means likely to look into the Peerage, where they might have seen the names of the Palgraves, Earls of Haughton and Barons Davenant.
Susan Pickshaw reentered the room presently with a dilapidated mahogany desk in her arms. She set this down on the table, took a candle from the mantelpiece, lighted it, and placed it before her father.
The old man opened the desk, the lock of which had long ago been broken, and turned over a heap of tumbled letters and papers, flung together in utter disregard of order. He was very long searching and fumbling amongst these; so long that the clown lost patience, and begged to be allowed to assist him. Mr. Pickshaw made no objection to this, and in less than five minutes Herr von Volterchoker had succeeded in finding the document he wanted — the certificate of Gervoise Palgrave’s marriage with Agatha Pickshaw. The clown folded this, and put it in his pocket without waiting to ask permission.
“Now,” he said, “I want the registration papers of the boy’s birth and baptism.”
Mr. Pickshaw could not give his visitor either of these, but he directed him to the office where the child had been registered, and told him the name of the church where he had been christened.
“That’s about all I want,” said Herr von Volterchoker; “so now Georgey and I will be off. — Come, my lad.”
“Ain’t I to stay with grandpapa?”
“No, Georgey: you’re going back to Mrs. Beppo, and then you’re going to a school where you’ll learn to be a gentleman.”
“But you’ll let him come and see his poor old grandfather some day, won’t you, sir?” asked the old man.
“To be sure, Mr. Pickshaw, whenever you like to have him. I’ll drop you a line, by and by, and let you know what school I fix upon for him.”
“Thank you, sir; and if you should ever hear anything of my poor girl—”
“That’s not likely,” answered the clown. “Good-night. Is your daughter here like her sister?” he asked, as Susan Pickshaw took up the candle to light him downstairs.
“Very like her, sir; as like as two peas. Susan’s face is a little longer than Aggy’s, and her hair isn’t quite as dark; that’s about all the difference between them.”
Herr von Volterchoker took the boy straight back to the dingy little chandler’s shop, and delivered him over to the Irishwoman. Then he betook himself to a comfortable but not too reputable tavern in the purlieus of the Borough, where he ordered a rumpsteak and a pot of porter, and spent the rest of the evening reading the paper, and thinking of the business of the day. Early next morning he was up and stirring. He went to the registrar’s office in Westminster, as soon as it was open, and got a certified copy of the register of George Palgrave’s birth. He did the same with the register of the baptism, and then he went back to his old haunts to pick up a living in his old manner until Lord Haughton should return from his honeymoon tour, and Herr von Volterchoker’s plans should be ripe for execution.
Paris was especially gay in the early spring, when the newly-married couple took up their abode for a brief season at the Hôtel Bristol, and the Earl of Haughton found the aristocratic salons of the Faubourg Saint Germains, and the fairy mansions of the Champs Elysées, open to himself and his fair young bride. The earl and countess in short achieved what their Gallic admirers called un succès éclatant; yet often, amid the glittering crowd that filled some long suite of fairy chambers, opening one into another in a vista of light and beauty, Gervoise Palgrave’s thoughts wandered back to that dismal garret in a court near Seven Dials, that bare and cheerless den in which he had toiled for long hours before his easel with no higher aim or hope than — bread, to keep off starvation.
He remembered that hard bitter past, and he tried to be happy. Surely, i
f ever a man had reason to rejoice, it would seem to be this man, who had been lifted from the lowest abyss of social misery to hold his place amongst the privileged creatures of this earth; and yet there were times when the Earl of Haughton would have thanked God with wild passionate gratitude, if all this splendour and high fortune had proved only a long feverish dream.
Yes, there were brief intervals of despair in which Gervoise Palgrave cried aloud, “O God, that it were only a dream! If it were but a dream, how gladly would I awake to the old life, with all its sordid misery!”
Such gloomy thoughts as these haunted Lord Haughton by night and day: strange honeymoon fancies to fill the mind of a man who loved his wife — a man to whom all the glories of the world were fresh and new, with the gilding yet untarnished by custom.
What had he done that his life should be miserable ta him? Gervoise Palgrave perpetually asked himself that question. What had he done? Was it his fault if Agatha’s life had been brought to a strange and sudden end? Was he to blame because the details of that wretched woman’s fate were shrouded in mystery?
Why, then, was he unhappy? He never voluntarily answered that question, even in his own secret thoughts. Yet it seemed as if in the dark recesses of his mind there was an answer to that awful question. He was miserable because he had committed a great crime; not a common crime, for which he might be called upon to make awful expiation on the scaffold; but a crime that was all the more terrible because another was liable to pay the penalty of this iniquity. He had suffered another man — suffered! why, he had tempted him! — to steep his soul in sin so that the tempter might have his selfish wish.
The memory of that night before the wedding at Pendon Church was for ever present to Gervoise Palgrave’s mind; he started from his sleep sometimes with a shrill hysterical cry, and the cold drops of agony upon his forehead. He tried to live in the present, but the past was more palpable to his mind than the events of the hour; and little by little he grew more and more absent in manner and gloomy of countenance, until at last the lively Parisians began to notice the young Englishman’s moody manners and melancholy looks. Then the worst horror of a guilty conscience began. Gervoise Palgrave knew that he was watched; he knew that curiosity was already aroused, and that the scorpion slander would soon lift its venomous head, rampant, unappeasable, to claim its wretched victim.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1081
