A House to Let (13 page)

"Benjamin and Benjamin's mother!"

"Exactly, ma'am. Last Thursday morning (thanks to your kindness, again)
I went to Pendlebury to my friend the chemist, to ask a few questions
about Barsham and his mother. I was told that they had both left the
town about five years since. When I inquired into the circumstances,
some strange particulars came out in the course of the chemist's answer.
You know I have no doubt, ma'am, that poor Mrs. Kirkland was confined
while her husband was at sea, in lodgings at a village called Flatfield,
and that she died and was buried there. But what you may not know is,
that Flatfield is only three miles from Pendlebury; that the doctor who
attended on Mrs. Kirkland was Barsham; that the nurse who took care of
her was Barsham's mother; and that the person who called them both in,
was Mr. Forley. Whether his daughter wrote to him, or whether he heard
of it in some other way, I don't know; but he was with her (though he had
sworn never to see her again when she married) a month or more before her
confinement, and was backwards and forwards a good deal between Flatfield
and Pendlebury. How he managed matters with the Barshams cannot at
present be discovered; but it is a fact that he contrived to keep the
drunken doctor sober, to everybody's amazement. It is a fact that
Barsham went to the poor woman with all his wits about him. It is a fact
that he and his mother came back from Flatfield after Mrs. Kirkland's
death, packed up what few things they had, and left the town mysteriously
by night. And, lastly, it is also a fact that the other doctor, Mr. Dix,
was not called in to help, till a week after the birth
and burial
of
the child, when the mother was sinking from exhaustion—exhaustion (to
give the vagabond, Barsham, his due) not produced, in Mr. Dix's opinion,
by improper medical treatment, but by the bodily weakness of the poor
woman herself—"

"Burial of the child?" I interrupted, trembling all over. "Trottle! you
spoke that word 'burial' in a very strange way—you are fixing your eyes
on me now with a very strange look—"

Trottle leaned over close to me, and pointed through the window to the
empty house.

"The child's death is registered, at Pendlebury," he said, "on Barsham's
certificate, under the head of Male Infant, Still-Born. The child's
coffin lies in the mother's grave, in Flatfield churchyard. The child
himself—as surely as I live and breathe, is living and breathing now—a
castaway and a prisoner in that villainous house!"

I sank back in my chair.

"It's guess-work, so far, but it is borne in on my mind, for all that, as
truth. Rouse yourself, ma'am, and think a little. The last I hear of
Barsham, he is attending Mr. Forley's disobedient daughter. The next I
see of Barsham, he is in Mr. Forley's house, trusted with a secret. He
and his mother leave Pendlebury suddenly and suspiciously five years
back; and he and his mother have got a child of five years old, hidden
away in the house. Wait! please to wait—I have not done yet. The will
left by Mr. Forley's father, strengthens the suspicion. The friend I
took with me to Doctors' Commons, made himself master of the contents of
that will; and when he had done so, I put these two questions to him.
'Can Mr. Forley leave his money at his own discretion to anybody he
pleases?' 'No,' my friend says, 'his father has left him with only a
life interest in it.' 'Suppose one of Mr. Forley's married daughters has
a girl, and the other a boy, how would the money go?' 'It would all go,'
my friend says, 'to the boy, and it would be charged with the payment of
a certain annual income to his female cousin. After her death, it would
go back to the male descendant, and to his heirs.' Consider that, ma'am!
The child of the daughter whom Mr. Forley hates, whose husband has been
snatched away from his vengeance by death, takes his whole property in
defiance of him; and the child of the daughter whom he loves, is left a
pensioner on her low-born boy-cousin for life! There was good—too good
reason—why that child of Mrs. Kirkland's should be registered stillborn.
And if, as I believe, the register is founded on a false certificate,
there is better, still better reason, why the existence of the child
should be hidden, and all trace of his parentage blotted out, in the
garret of that empty house."

He stopped, and pointed for the second time to the dim, dust-covered
garret-windows opposite. As he did so, I was startled—a very slight
matter sufficed to frighten me now—by a knock at the door of the room in
which we were sitting.

My maid came in, with a letter in her hand. I took it from her. The
mourning card, which was all the envelope enclosed, dropped from my
hands.

George Forley was no more. He had departed this life three days since,
on the evening of Friday.

"Did our last chance of discovering the truth," I asked, "rest with
him
? Has it died with
his
death?"

"Courage, ma'am! I think not. Our chance rests on our power to make
Barsham and his mother confess; and Mr. Forley's death, by leaving them
helpless, seems to put that power into our hands. With your permission,
I will not wait till dusk to-day, as I at first intended, but will make
sure of those two people at once. With a policeman in plain clothes to
watch the house, in case they try to leave it; with this card to vouch
for the fact of Mr. Forley's death; and with a bold acknowledgment on my
part of having got possession of their secret, and of being ready to use
it against them in case of need, I think there is little doubt of
bringing Barsham and his mother to terms. In case I find it impossible
to get back here before dusk, please to sit near the window, ma'am, and
watch the house, a little before they light the street-lamps. If you see
the front-door open and close again, will you be good enough to put on
your bonnet, and come across to me immediately? Mr. Forley's death may,
or may not, prevent his messenger from coming as arranged. But, if the
person does come, it is of importance that you, as a relative of Mr.
Forley's should be present to see him, and to have that proper influence
over him which I cannot pretend to exercise."

The only words I could say to Trottle as he opened the door and left me,
were words charging him to take care that no harm happened to the poor
forlorn little boy.

Left alone, I drew my chair to the window; and looked out with a beating
heart at the guilty house. I waited and waited through what appeared to
me to be an endless time, until I heard the wheels of a cab stop at the
end of the street. I looked in that direction, and saw Trottle get out
of the cab alone, walk up to the house, and knock at the door. He was
let in by Barsham's mother. A minute or two later, a decently-dressed
man sauntered past the house, looked up at it for a moment, and sauntered
on to the corner of the street close by. Here he leant against the post,
and lighted a cigar, and stopped there smoking in an idle way, but
keeping his face always turned in the direction of the house-door.

I waited and waited still. I waited and waited, with my eyes riveted to
the door of the house. At last I thought I saw it open in the dusk, and
then felt sure I heard it shut again softly. Though I tried hard to
compose myself, I trembled so that I was obliged to call for Peggy to
help me on with my bonnet and cloak, and was forced to take her arm to
lean on, in crossing the street.

Trottle opened the door to us, before we could knock. Peggy went back,
and I went in. He had a lighted candle in his hand.

"It has happened, ma'am, as I thought it would," he whispered, leading me
into the bare, comfortless, empty parlour. "Barsham and his mother have
consulted their own interests, and have come to terms. My guess-work is
guess-work no longer. It is now what I felt it was—Truth!"

Something strange to me—something which women who are mothers must often
know—trembled suddenly in my heart, and brought the warm tears of my
youthful days thronging back into my eyes. I took my faithful old
servant by the hand, and asked him to let me see Mrs. Kirkland's child,
for his mother's sake.

"If you desire it, ma'am," said Trottle, with a gentleness of manner that
I had never noticed in him before. "But pray don't think me wanting in
duty and right feeling, if I beg you to try and wait a little. You are
agitated already, and a first meeting with the child will not help to
make you so calm, as you would wish to be, if Mr. Forley's messenger
comes. The little boy is safe up-stairs. Pray think first of trying to
compose yourself for a meeting with a stranger; and believe me you shall
not leave the house afterwards without the child."

I felt that Trottle was right, and sat down as patiently as I could in a
chair he had thoughtfully placed ready for me. I was so horrified at the
discovery of my own relation's wickedness that when Trottle proposed to
make me acquainted with the confession wrung from Barsham and his mother,
I begged him to spare me all details, and only to tell me what was
necessary about George Forley.

"All that can be said for Mr. Forley, ma'am, is, that he was just
scrupulous enough to hide the child's existence and blot out its
parentage here, instead of consenting, at the first, to its death, or
afterwards, when the boy grew up, to turning him adrift, absolutely
helpless in the world. The fraud has been managed, ma'am, with the
cunning of Satan himself. Mr. Forley had the hold over the Barshams,
that they had helped him in his villany, and that they were dependent on
him for the bread they eat. He brought them up to London to keep them
securely under his own eye. He put them into this empty house (taking it
out of the agent's hands previously, on pretence that he meant to manage
the letting of it himself); and by keeping the house empty, made it the
surest of all hiding places for the child. Here, Mr. Forley could come,
whenever he pleased, to see that the poor lonely child was not absolutely
starved; sure that his visits would only appear like looking after his
own property. Here the child was to have been trained to believe himself
Barsham's child, till he should be old enough to be provided for in some
situation, as low and as poor as Mr. Forley's uneasy conscience would let
him pick out. He may have thought of atonement on his death-bed; but not
before—I am only too certain of it—not before!"

A low, double knock startled us.

"The messenger!" said Trottle, under his breath. He went out instantly
to answer the knock; and returned, leading in a respectable-looking
elderly man, dressed like Trottle, all in black, with a white cravat, but
otherwise not at all resembling him.

"I am afraid I have made some mistake," said the stranger.

Trottle, considerately taking the office of explanation into his own
hands, assured the gentleman that there was no mistake; mentioned to him
who I was; and asked him if he had not come on business connected with
the late Mr. Forley. Looking greatly astonished, the gentleman answered,
"Yes." There was an awkward moment of silence, after that. The stranger
seemed to be not only startled and amazed, but rather distrustful and
fearful of committing himself as well. Noticing this, I thought it best
to request Trottle to put an end to further embarrassment, by stating all
particulars truthfully, as he had stated them to me; and I begged the
gentleman to listen patiently for the late Mr. Forley's sake. He bowed
to me very respectfully, and said he was prepared to listen with the
greatest interest.

It was evident to me—and, I could see, to Trottle also—that we were not
dealing, to say the least, with a dishonest man.

"Before I offer any opinion on what I have heard," he said, earnestly and
anxiously, after Trottle had done, "I must be allowed, in justice to
myself, to explain my own apparent connection with this very strange and
very shocking business. I was the confidential legal adviser of the late
Mr. Forley, and I am left his executor. Rather more than a fortnight
back, when Mr. Forley was confined to his room by illness, he sent for
me, and charged me to call and pay a certain sum of money here, to a man
and woman whom I should find taking charge of the house. He said he had
reasons for wishing the affair to be kept a secret. He begged me so to
arrange my engagements that I could call at this place either on Monday
last, or to-day, at dusk; and he mentioned that he would write to warn
the people of my coming, without mentioning my name (Dalcott is my name),
as he did not wish to expose me to any future importunities on the part
of the man and woman. I need hardly tell you that this commission struck
me as being a strange one; but, in my position with Mr. Forley, I had no
resource but to accept it without asking questions, or to break off my
long and friendly connection with my client. I chose the first
alternative. Business prevented me from doing my errand on Monday
last—and if I am here to-day, notwithstanding Mr. Forley's unexpected
death, it is emphatically because I understood nothing of the matter, on
knocking at this door; and therefore felt myself bound, as executor, to
clear it up. That, on my word of honour, is the whole truth, so far as I
am personally concerned."

"I feel quite sure of it, sir," I answered.

"You mentioned Mr. Forley's death, just now, as unexpected. May I
inquire if you were present, and if he has left any last instructions?"

"Three hours before Mr. Forley's death," said Mr. Dalcott, "his medical
attendant left him apparently in a fair way of recovery. The change for
the worse took place so suddenly, and was accompanied by such severe
suffering, to prevent him from communicating his last wishes to any one.
When I reached his house, he was insensible. I have since examined his
papers. Not one of them refers to the present time or to the serious
matter which now occupies us. In the absence of instructions I must act
cautiously on what you have told me; but I will be rigidly fair and just
at the same time. The first thing to be done," he continued, addressing
himself to Trottle, "is to hear what the man and woman, down-stairs, have
to say. If you can supply me with writing-materials, I will take their
declarations separately on the spot, in your presence, and in the
presence of the policeman who is watching the house. To-morrow I will
send copies of those declarations, accompanied by a full statement of the
case, to Mr. and Mrs. Bayne in Canada (both of whom know me well as the
late Mr. Forley's legal adviser); and I will suspend all proceedings, on
my part, until I hear from them, or from their solicitor in London. In
the present posture of affairs this is all I can safely do."