Chapter 75
A month has elapsed,--and we stand in the bedchamber of Sir JohnChester. Through the half-opened window, the Temple Garden looks greenand pleasant; the placid river, gay with boat and barge, and dimpledwith the plash of many an oar, sparkles in the distance; the sky is blueand clear; and the summer air steals gently in, filling the room withperfume. The very town, the smoky town, is radiant. High roofs andsteeple-tops, wont to look black and sullen, smile a cheerful grey;every old gilded vane, and ball, and cross, glitters anew in the brightmorning sun; and, high among them all, St Paul's towers up, showing itslofty crest in burnished gold.
Sir John was breakfasting in bed. His chocolate and toast stood upon alittle table at his elbow; books and newspapers lay ready to his hand,upon the coverlet; and, sometimes pausing to glance with an air oftranquil satisfaction round the well-ordered room, and sometimes togaze indolently at the summer sky, he ate, and drank, and read the newsluxuriously.
The cheerful influence of the morning seemed to have some effect, evenupon his equable temper. His manner was unusually gay; his smile moreplacid and agreeable than usual; his voice more clear and pleasant. Helaid down the newspaper he had been reading; leaned back upon hispillow with the air of one who resigned himself to a train of charmingrecollections; and after a pause, soliloquised as follows:
'And my friend the centaur, goes the way of his mamma! I am notsurprised. And his mysterious friend Mr Dennis, likewise! I am notsurprised. And my old postman, the exceedingly free-and-easy youngmadman of Chigwell! I am quite rejoiced. It's the very best thing thatcould possibly happen to him.'
After delivering himself of these remarks, he fell again into hissmiling train of reflection; from which he roused himself at lengthto finish his chocolate, which was getting cold, and ring the bell formore.
The new supply arriving, he took the cup from his servant's hand;and saying, with a charming affability, 'I am obliged to you, Peak,'dismissed him.
'It is a remarkable circumstance,' he mused, dallying lazily with theteaspoon, 'that my friend the madman should have been within an ace ofescaping, on his trial; and it was a good stroke of chance (or, as theworld would say, a providential occurrence) that the brother of my LordMayor should have been in court, with other country justices, into whosevery dense heads curiosity had penetrated. For though the brother of myLord Mayor was decidedly wrong; and established his near relationshipto that amusing person beyond all doubt, in stating that my friendwas sane, and had, to his knowledge, wandered about the country with avagabond parent, avowing revolutionary and rebellious sentiments; I amnot the less obliged to him for volunteering that evidence. These insanecreatures make such very odd and embarrassing remarks, that they reallyought to be hanged for the comfort of society.'
The country justice had indeed turned the wavering scale against poorBarnaby, and solved the doubt that trembled in his favour. Grip littlethought how much he had to answer for.
'They will be a singular party,' said Sir John, leaning his head uponhis hand, and sipping his chocolate; 'a very curious party. The hangmanhimself; the centaur; and the madman. The centaur would make a veryhandsome preparation in Surgeons' Hall, and would benefit scienceextremely. I hope they have taken care to bespeak him.--Peak, I am notat home, of course, to anybody but the hairdresser.'
This reminder to his servant was called forth by a knock at the door,which the man hastened to open. After a prolonged murmur of question andanswer, he returned; and as he cautiously closed the room-door behindhim, a man was heard to cough in the passage.
'Now, it is of no use, Peak,' said Sir John, raising his hand indeprecation of his delivering any message; 'I am not at home. I cannotpossibly hear you. I told you I was not at home, and my word is sacred.Will you never do as you are desired?'
Having nothing to oppose to this reproof, the man was about to withdraw,when the visitor who had given occasion to it, probably renderedimpatient by delay, knocked with his knuckles at the chamber-door, andcalled out that he had urgent business with Sir John Chester, whichadmitted of no delay.
'Let him in,' said Sir John. 'My good fellow,' he added, when the doorwas opened, 'how come you to intrude yourself in this extraordinarymanner upon the privacy of a gentleman? How can you be so whollydestitute of self-respect as to be guilty of such remarkableill-breeding?'
'My business, Sir John, is not of a common kind, I do assure you,'returned the person he addressed. 'If I have taken any uncommon courseto get admission to you, I hope I shall be pardoned on that account.'
'Well! we shall see; we shall see,' returned Sir John, whose facecleared up when he saw who it was, and whose prepossessing smile was nowrestored. 'I am sure we have met before,' he added in his winning tone,'but really I forget your name?'
'My name is Gabriel Varden, sir.'
'Varden, of course, Varden,' returned Sir John, tapping his forehead.'Dear me, how very defective my memory becomes! Varden to be sure--MrVarden the locksmith. You have a charming wife, Mr Varden, and a mostbeautiful daughter. They are well?'
Gabriel thanked him, and said they were.
'I rejoice to hear it,' said Sir John. 'Commend me to them when youreturn, and say that I wished I were fortunate enough to convey, myself,the salute which I entrust you to deliver. And what,' he asked verysweetly, after a moment's pause, 'can I do for you? You may command mefreely.'
'I thank you, Sir John,' said Gabriel, with some pride in hismanner, 'but I have come to ask no favour of you, though I come onbusiness.--Private,' he added, with a glance at the man who stoodlooking on, 'and very pressing business.'
'I cannot say you are the more welcome for being independent, and havingnothing to ask of me,' returned Sir John, graciously, 'for I should havebeen happy to render you a service; still, you are welcome on any terms.Oblige me with some more chocolate, Peak, and don't wait.'
The man retired, and left them alone.
'Sir John,' said Gabriel, 'I am a working-man, and have been so, all mylife. If I don't prepare you enough for what I have to tell; if I cometo the point too abruptly; and give you a shock, which a gentleman couldhave spared you, or at all events lessened very much; I hope you willgive me credit for meaning well. I wish to be careful and considerate,and I trust that in a straightforward person like me, you'll take thewill for the deed.'
'Mr Varden,' returned the other, perfectly composed under this exordium;'I beg you'll take a chair. Chocolate, perhaps, you don't relish? Well!it IS an acquired taste, no doubt.'
'Sir John,' said Gabriel, who had acknowledged with a bow the invitationto be seated, but had not availed himself of it. 'Sir John'--hedropped his voice and drew nearer to the bed--'I am just now come fromNewgate--'
'Good Gad!' cried Sir John, hastily sitting up in bed; 'from Newgate,Mr Varden! How could you be so very imprudent as to come from Newgate!Newgate, where there are jail-fevers, and ragged people, and bare-footedmen and women, and a thousand horrors! Peak, bring the camphor, quick!Heaven and earth, Mr Varden, my dear, good soul, how COULD you come fromNewgate?'
Gabriel returned no answer, but looked on in silence while Peak (who hadentered with the hot chocolate) ran to a drawer, and returning witha bottle, sprinkled his master's dressing-gown and the bedding; andbesides moistening the locksmith himself, plentifully, described acircle round about him on the carpet. When he had done this, he againretired; and Sir John, reclining in an easy attitude upon his pillow,once more turned a smiling face towards his visitor.
'You will forgive me, Mr Varden, I am sure, for being at first a littlesensitive both on your account and my own. I confess I was startled,notwithstanding your delicate exordium. Might I ask you to do me thefavour not to approach any nearer?--You have really come from Newgate!'
The locksmith inclined his head.
'In-deed! And now, Mr Varden, all exaggeration and embellishment apart,'said Sir John Chester, confidentially, as he sipped his chocolate, 'whatkind of place IS Newgate?'
'A strange place, Sir John,' returned the lo
cksmith, 'of a sad anddoleful kind. A strange place, where many strange things are heard andseen; but few more strange than that I come to tell you of. The case isurgent. I am sent here.'
'Not--no, no--not from the jail?'
'Yes, Sir John; from the jail.'
'And my good, credulous, open-hearted friend,' said Sir John, settingdown his cup, and laughing,--'by whom?'
'By a man called Dennis--for many years the hangman, and to-morrowmorning the hanged,' returned the locksmith.
Sir John had expected--had been quite certain from the first--that hewould say he had come from Hugh, and was prepared to meet him on thatpoint. But this answer occasioned him a degree of astonishment, which,for the moment, he could not, with all his command of feature, preventhis face from expressing. He quickly subdued it, however, and said inthe same light tone:
'And what does the gentleman require of me? My memory may be atfault again, but I don't recollect that I ever had the pleasure ofan introduction to him, or that I ever numbered him among my personalfriends, I do assure you, Mr Varden.'
'Sir John,' returned the locksmith, gravely, 'I will tell you, as nearlyas I can, in the words he used to me, what he desires that you shouldknow, and what you ought to know without a moment's loss of time.'
Sir John Chester settled himself in a position of greater repose, andlooked at his visitor with an expression of face which seemed to say,'This is an amusing fellow! I'll hear him out.'
'You may have seen in the newspapers, sir,' said Gabriel, pointing tothe one which lay by his side, 'that I was a witness against this manupon his trial some days since; and that it was not his fault I wasalive, and able to speak to what I knew.'
'MAY have seen!' cried Sir John. 'My dear Mr Varden, you are quitea public character, and live in all men's thoughts most deservedly.Nothing can exceed the interest with which I read your testimony,and remembered that I had the pleasure of a slight acquaintance withyou.---I hope we shall have your portrait published?'
'This morning, sir,' said the locksmith, taking no notice of thesecompliments, 'early this morning, a message was brought to me fromNewgate, at this man's request, desiring that I would go and see him,for he had something particular to communicate. I needn't tell youthat he is no friend of mine, and that I had never seen him, until therioters beset my house.'
Sir John fanned himself gently with the newspaper, and nodded.
'I knew, however, from the general report,' resumed Gabriel, 'that theorder for his execution to-morrow, went down to the prison last night;and looking upon him as a dying man, I complied with his request.'
'You are quite a Christian, Mr Varden,' said Sir John; 'and in thatamiable capacity, you increase my desire that you should take a chair.'
'He said,' continued Gabriel, looking steadily at the knight, 'that hehad sent to me, because he had no friend or companion in the whole world(being the common hangman), and because he believed, from the way inwhich I had given my evidence, that I was an honest man, and would acttruly by him. He said that, being shunned by every one who knew hiscalling, even by people of the lowest and most wretched grade, andfinding, when he joined the rioters, that the men he acted with had nosuspicion of it (which I believe is true enough, for a poor fool of anold 'prentice of mine was one of them), he had kept his own counsel, upto the time of his being taken and put in jail.'
'Very discreet of Mr Dennis,' observed Sir John with a slight yawn,though still with the utmost affability, 'but--except for your admirableand lucid manner of telling it, which is perfect--not very interestingto me.'
'When,' pursued the locksmith, quite unabashed and wholly regardless ofthese interruptions, 'when he was taken to the jail, he found that hisfellow-prisoner, in the same room, was a young man, Hugh by name, aleader in the riots, who had been betrayed and given up by himself. Fromsomething which fell from this unhappy creature in the course of theangry words they had at meeting, he discovered that his mother hadsuffered the death to which they both are now condemned.--The time isvery short, Sir John.'
The knight laid down his paper fan, replaced his cup upon the table athis side, and, saving for the smile that lurked about his mouth, lookedat the locksmith with as much steadiness as the locksmith looked at him.
'They have been in prison now, a month. One conversation led to manymore; and the hangman soon found, from a comparison of time, and place,and dates, that he had executed the sentence of the law upon this woman,himself. She had been tempted by want--as so many people are--into theeasy crime of passing forged notes. She was young and handsome; and thetraders who employ men, women, and children in this traffic, lookedupon her as one who was well adapted for their business, and whowould probably go on without suspicion for a long time. But they weremistaken; for she was stopped in the commission of her very firstoffence, and died for it. She was of gipsy blood, Sir John--'
It might have been the effect of a passing cloud which obscured the sun,and cast a shadow on his face; but the knight turned deadly pale. Stillhe met the locksmith's eye, as before.
'She was of gipsy blood, Sir John,' repeated Gabriel, 'and had a high,free spirit. This, and her good looks, and her lofty manner, interestedsome gentlemen who were easily moved by dark eyes; and efforts were madeto save her. They might have been successful, if she would have giventhem any clue to her history. But she never would, or did. There wasreason to suspect that she would make an attempt upon her life. A watchwas set upon her night and day; and from that time she never spokeagain--'
Sir John stretched out his hand towards his cup. The locksmith going on,arrested it half-way.
--'Until she had but a minute to live. Then she broke silence, and said,in a low firm voice which no one heard but this executioner, for allother living creatures had retired and left her to her fate, "If I hada dagger within these fingers and he was within my reach, I would strikehim dead before me, even now!" The man asked "Who?" She said, "Thefather of her boy."'
Sir John drew back his outstretched hand, and seeing that the locksmithpaused, signed to him with easy politeness and without any newappearance of emotion, to proceed.
'It was the first word she had ever spoken, from which it could beunderstood that she had any relative on earth. "Was the child alive?" heasked. "Yes." He asked her where it was, its name, and whether she hadany wish respecting it. She had but one, she said. It was that the boymight live and grow, in utter ignorance of his father, so that no artsmight teach him to be gentle and forgiving. When he became a man,she trusted to the God of their tribe to bring the father and theson together, and revenge her through her child. He asked her otherquestions, but she spoke no more. Indeed, he says, she scarcely saidthis much, to him, but stood with her face turned upwards to the sky,and never looked towards him once.'
Sir John took a pinch of snuff; glanced approvingly at an elegant littlesketch, entitled 'Nature,' on the wall; and raising his eyes to thelocksmith's face again, said, with an air of courtesy and patronage,'You were observing, Mr Varden--'
'That she never,' returned the locksmith, who was not to be diverted byany artifice from his firm manner, and his steady gaze, 'that she neverlooked towards him once, Sir John; and so she died, and he forgot her.But, some years afterwards, a man was sentenced to die the same death,who was a gipsy too; a sunburnt, swarthy fellow, almost a wild man; andwhile he lay in prison, under sentence, he, who had seen the hangmanmore than once while he was free, cut an image of him on his stick, byway of braving death, and showing those who attended on him, how littlehe cared or thought about it. He gave this stick into his hands atTyburn, and told him then, that the woman I have spoken of had left herown people to join a fine gentleman, and that, being deserted by him,and cast off by her old friends, she had sworn within her own proudbreast, that whatever her misery might be, she would ask no help of anyhuman being. He told him that she had kept her word to the last; andthat, meeting even him in the streets--he had been fond of her once, itseems--she had slipped from him by a trick, and he never saw her again,unti
l, being in one of the frequent crowds at Tyburn, with some ofhis rough companions, he had been driven almost mad by seeing, inthe criminal under another name, whose death he had come to witness,herself. Standing in the same place in which she had stood, he toldthe hangman this, and told him, too, her real name, which only her ownpeople and the gentleman for whose sake she had left them, knew. Thatname he will tell again, Sir John, to none but you.'
'To none but me!' exclaimed the knight, pausing in the act of raisinghis cup to his lips with a perfectly steady hand, and curling up hislittle finger for the better display of a brilliant ring with which itwas ornamented: 'but me!--My dear Mr Varden, how very preposterous, toselect me for his confidence! With you at his elbow, too, who are soperfectly trustworthy!'
'Sir John, Sir John,' returned the locksmith, 'at twelve tomorrow, thesemen die. Hear the few words I have to add, and do not hope to deceiveme; for though I am a plain man of humble station, and you are agentleman of rank and learning, the truth raises me to your level, andI KNOW that you anticipate the disclosure with which I am about to end,and that you believe this doomed man, Hugh, to be your son.'
'Nay,' said Sir John, bantering him with a gay air; 'the wild gentleman,who died so suddenly, scarcely went as far as that, I think?'
'He did not,' returned the locksmith, 'for she had bound him by somepledge, known only to these people, and which the worst among themrespect, not to tell your name: but, in a fantastic pattern on thestick, he had carved some letters, and when the hangman asked it, hebade him, especially if he should ever meet with her son in after life,remember that place well.'
'What place?'
'Chester.'
The knight finished his cup of chocolate with an appearance of infiniterelish, and carefully wiped his lips upon his handkerchief.
'Sir John,' said the locksmith, 'this is all that has been told to me;but since these two men have been left for death, they have conferredtogether closely. See them, and hear what they can add. See this Dennis,and learn from him what he has not trusted to me. If you, who hold theclue to all, want corroboration (which you do not), the means are easy.'
'And to what,' said Sir John Chester, rising on his elbow, aftersmoothing the pillow for its reception; 'my dear, good-natured,estimable Mr Varden--with whom I cannot be angry if I would--to whatdoes all this tend?'
'I take you for a man, Sir John, and I suppose it tends to some pleadingof natural affection in your breast,' returned the locksmith. 'I supposeto the straining of every nerve, and the exertion of all the influenceyou have, or can make, in behalf of your miserable son, and the manwho has disclosed his existence to you. At the worst, I suppose to yourseeing your son, and awakening him to a sense of his crime and danger.He has no such sense now. Think what his life must have been, when hesaid in my hearing, that if I moved you to anything, it would be tohastening his death, and ensuring his silence, if you had it in yourpower!'
'And have you, my good Mr Varden,' said Sir John in a tone of mildreproof, 'have you really lived to your present age, and remained sovery simple and credulous, as to approach a gentleman of establishedcharacter with such credentials as these, from desperate men in theirlast extremity, catching at any straw? Oh dear! Oh fie, fie!'
The locksmith was going to interpose, but he stopped him:
'On any other subject, Mr Varden, I shall be delighted--I shall becharmed--to converse with you, but I owe it to my own character not topursue this topic for another moment.'
'Think better of it, sir, when I am gone,' returned the locksmith;'think better of it, sir. Although you have, thrice within as manyweeks, turned your lawful son, Mr Edward, from your door, you may havetime, you may have years to make your peace with HIM, Sir John: but thattwelve o'clock will soon be here, and soon be past for ever.'
'I thank you very much,' returned the knight, kissing his delicate handto the locksmith, 'for your guileless advice; and I only wish, my goodsoul, although your simplicity is quite captivating, that you had alittle more worldly wisdom. I never so much regretted the arrival of myhairdresser as I do at this moment. God bless you! Good morning! You'llnot forget my message to the ladies, Mr Varden? Peak, show Mr Varden tothe door.'
Gabriel said no more, but gave the knight a parting look, and left him.As he quitted the room, Sir John's face changed; and the smile gaveplace to a haggard and anxious expression, like that of a weary actorjaded by the performance of a difficult part. He rose from his bed witha heavy sigh, and wrapped himself in his morning-gown.
'So she kept her word,' he said, 'and was constant to her threat! Iwould I had never seen that dark face of hers,--I might have read theseconsequences in it, from the first. This affair would make a noiseabroad, if it rested on better evidence; but, as it is, and by notjoining the scattered links of the chain, I can afford to slightit.--Extremely distressing to be the parent of such an uncouth creature!Still, I gave him very good advice. I told him he would certainly behanged. I could have done no more if I had known of our relationship;and there are a great many fathers who have never done as much for THEIRnatural children.--The hairdresser may come in, Peak!'
The hairdresser came in; and saw in Sir John Chester (whoseaccommodating conscience was soon quieted by the numerous precedentsthat occurred to him in support of his last observation), the sameimperturbable, fascinating, elegant gentleman he had seen yesterday, andmany yesterdays before.