Counting the Cost. A novel

Front matter

COUNTING THE COST. % i»6ll. BY WILLIAM DUTHIE, AUTHOR OF "A TRAMP'S WALLET," AND " THE PEARL OF THE RHONE." IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: CHARLES W. WOOD. 1.3, TAVISTOCK STREET, STRAND. 1867. [All rights reserved?} CONTENTS. BOOK THE THIRD. A TURN OF THE WHEEL. Continued. CHAPTEE PAQE X. IN BANKRUPTCY . . . . 1 Xt. THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION . . 18 III. AVEDDINU FAVOUBS . . .45 XIII. ELYSIUM . . . .59 BOOK THE FOURTH. AS GOOD AS GOLD. I. BACK TO MOSSFELL . . .81 II. HAED AT AVOBK ... 93 III. DOBCA8 ..... 109 IV. PLAYING THE SPY . . . 127 V. NEITHER MEEEY NOR ATISE . . 142 VI. A LAST APPEAL . . . 160 VII. A CELEBRATION . . . CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE VIII. PUFF AND PERFUMERY . . 186 IX. TURNED OUT OF DOORS . . 206 x. aunt penelope's flower garden . 225 XI. GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY ? . . 245 XII. MONSIEUR LELOUX PLAYS A RETURN GAME 263 XIII. MORE PARTNERS THAN ONE . .

CHAPTER X. IN BANKRUPTCY.

To say that my father's bankruptcy — for such it was — cast me adrift upon the world, would but poorly express the forlorn condition to which that event reduced me. To drift in open water without helm or oar is helpless enough, but even that hapless state presup poses a certain power of self-sustention, a buoyancy sufficient to keep the frail craft above water. With me it was not merely a question of drifting before every vagrant wind, but of how I should float at all. My education had been of such a thoroughly VOL. III. student character, and so little directed to any practical end ; our family circle was so narrow, and the habits of my life had been of so reserved, even exclusive a kind • that I seemed by this mischance to find myself all at once in the midst of the wide waters in a leaky craft, with scarcely a vessel within hail.

Chapter I. Back To Mossfell

" It is the most extraordinary case," said Walter Tresscott, turning to his wife, " that we have had for many years." " Is it not dreadful, Walter ?" exclaimed Fanny, otherwise Mrs. Tresscott. " Well, it is dreadful in its way ; but you see, Fanny, all the dreadful part of it happened so many years ago that people do not regard it so much on that account now. It is the audacity of the accused which rivets public attention. Is it not, Greg ? " The time : one pleasant summer afternoon ; the place -. the bright back -parlour in Walter Tresscott's suburban villa, with the pretty green lawn sweeping away from the open VOL. in. glass-door, and the gay flowers flashing beyond in a little intricacy of path and border. Two years had elapsed since the last chro nicle of my story, and although to me full of eventful deeds, and perhaps the most momentous period of my life, I have purposely passed over it to alight on the particular incidents here to be narrated, and shall only refer to the past as it may help to explain the present, or cast a light into the future.

" It is the audacity of the accused which rivets public attention. Is it not, Greg ?" "It is so to me, Walter," I replied, " because I am so thoroughly read in this story. But with you, who are a lawyer ; and with the general public, it must be a question whether the return of Mr. Rewstraddle is the result of audacicy or of innocence." " Good gracious, Gregory !" cried Fanny. "How can a man be innocent who has killed two people ?" " That has to be proved, my dear," inter posed Walter. " Then he is only accused of killing one, although suspected of having put an end to the other." " I should not think there was much doubt of it," replied Fanny, " to judge from the terrible story you were reading to me yester day." " Just so," said Walter, " ' The Romance of Mossfell.' But then a great deal of that story is not evidence ; and much more that would have been evidence, owing to the lapse of years, will be beyond capability of proof.

So that looking at it in a legal light, the case against the accused is by no means strong." " Ah, dear me !" sighed Fanny, " this legal light seems to be a very uncertain, and some times a very misleading glimmer. Everything seems quite clear till the lawyers step in, and then begins the confusion." " My love, that's rather personal," smiled Walter. "Pr. sent company excepted, of course," laughed Fanny. " But really is it not not so, Walter ? The lawyers are a great deal too clever, that's it ; they find out so many sub- 6—2 tleties where common people only read a plain story." " They see human nature at its worst," suggested I, " or at least in its most selfish aspect; and from special cases which come under their own eye, generalize a theory for all mankind." " Not a bit of it," asserted Walter stoutly.

" The fact is, men and women come before us as they really are — without disguise, — for it's of no use disguising themselves to their law yer. And so we see the world without that ' couleur de rose which dazzles the eyes of most people." " Of course," said Fanny, with a comical gravity. " But, now, Walter, tell me how it is that this dreadful crime has remained so long unpunished, and how it has at last been brought to light." " A case for the defendant ! " cried Walter. " See here, now, Fanny ; I dare say you think that this crime has remained inscrutably hidden until eternal justice, in its own good time, has drawn it forth. You think this is an example of how 'murder will out,' let man try to hide it as he will. It is nothing of the sort, my dear. It is simply human cupidity working in another way.

It has be come a property question : and the heir-at-law of this estate of Brenton House, in order to possess himself of it, is perfectly willing, in deed rather anxious, to hang the present holder. So that you see the result of punish ing a great offender, if it should come about, will merely arise from human selfishness avail ing itself of legal forms to effect its purposes ; and not from any special interposition of Pro vidence." " We never supposed that Providence had anything to do with legal forms, Walter," in terposed Fanny with a sly laugh. Walter made a motion as if he would have seized the satirical assailant, and punished her with a kiss, on the spot ; but my presence restrained him. So he merely shook his head as he continued : " I owe you one for that, Fanny. And now to our story.

Taking it up at the date of the commission of the crime, there cer tainly would appear to have been some extra ordinary negligence in the means taken to arrest the criminal. A warrant was issued for the apprehension of Charles Meredith Rewstraddle, on a charge of murder. Fur ther : a reward was offered by government for his capture — one hundred pounds, I think — but no additional sum, either by the county or by any persons interested in his arrest. We know the reason why the Rewstraddles of Mossfell did not move in the matter; it was out of a superstitious dread, lest, having offended in the removal of a neighbour's land mark, they should themselves be objects of punishment by Divine Providence. But why the authorities of the county took no more active steps than they did for the discovery of the murderer, is unaccountable.

Mr. Charles Meredith Rewstraddle evaded the fangs of the law, and at the time of his flight took care to be abundantly provided with cash. " So long as the accused kept out of the reach of the criminal judges, I really don't see that the law could act. It was not for the law to seize the estates of the accused, and declare them forfeited, for a crime for which he was not yet tried. The confession of Joshua Ditton made no doubt a verv dam aging impression against Rewstraddle ; but then, after all, it was only the accusation of an accomplice, and was almost necessarily un supported by confirmatory evidence. Indeed, before Ditton's story could be sifted to the bottom, Ditton himself had made a noose of his shoe-strings, and circumvented the hang man. All we can say is, Rewstraddle's flight from justice was jjriind facie evidence of his guilt, and he confirmed that evidence by re maining in concealment for nearly thirty years.

And not only had he provided himself with a considerable sum of money, but he had made over the whole of the estate, and what remained of personal property, to his mother, with full power to deal with it in every con ceivable way she might please, except to sell it ; and in this manner had sought to bar the possible claim of the next heir. It is a very doubtful point with me whether this comfort able arrangement would have held good in law ; but nobody chose to dispute it, and so the little scheme perfectly answered its purpose." " And what has brought this monster back to the scene of his crimes ?" asked Fanny in dignantly. " A conjunction of circumstances," answered Walter. "But, my dear, you must not call him a monster before he is convicted ; you must not talk of his ' crime ' before it is proved that he committed one."

"I am sorry for that," remarked Fanny, " because I have convicted and condemned him in my own mind, long ago. But what conjunction of circumstances, Walter ?" " In the first case, the death of Miss Rew straddle, which relieved him of an implacable, although — so long as he remained in exile — a quiescent foe ; then the action of the heir-at law, who having grown up to man's estate in the interim, now thought it was time to set up his claim to a property which, nominally held by a feeble old woman, and become through neglect a ruin, and a desolate wilder ness, was in reality owned by a fugitive from justice. Lastly, the sudden death of this feeble old woman herself, his mother ; almost alone in the rotting, crumbling mansion. Here were reasons enough to bring even an accused criminal from his hiding place ; but one might expect that such a man would return to the scenes of his imputed crimes in as quiet and unobtrusive a way as the nature of the case would admit.

Not so reasons this Rewstraddle. He returns with the haughty, indignant air of a persecuted man. Openly declares that there existed so powerful a cabal pledged to bring about his conviction of a crime he had been falsely, maliciously, and cruelly accused of, that there was no hope of his receiving a fair trial so long as that wicked compact held his enemies together. Places himself without reserve in the hands of the officers of justice, and demands to be tried by a jury of his countrymen." " Bless me !" cried Fanny. " Perhaps he is innocent after all !" " Off at a tangent," remarked Walter in a dry tone. " By what you say, my dear Fanny, I see how true is Mr. Rewstraddle's estimate of human nature. This act of his is either the result of the audacity of guilt, or of the boldness of innocence.

In either case he is sure of sympathy, if not of belief, with the majority of people." "What a dreadful thing it would be," said Fanny, " if he s/iouldhe innocent !" " It would ; but not quite so dreadful as if he should be proved to be guilty." "Where then," I asked, "has he remained concealed so many years ?" " He has lived in London ever since his flight," answered Walter, " under the assumed name of Harles; which you will notice is his Christian name with the C cut off." . " Alone and miserable, no doubt," sighed Fanny. "A sort of hermit in the wilderness — of men," said Walter ; " eh, love ? I am really very sorry to contradict you so often, but in this case the facts are against you. Mr. Rewstraddle married in London — under his own 'name, too — and has one son ; a fine, handsome, gentle youth of eighteen, whom every one is fond of.

This I learned from another source, and know to be true. Mr. ' Harles ' lived in Chelsea, and managed a little wine agency, which yielded him, I have reason to believe, a respectable subsistence. His wife died nearly three years ago ; her death was a great blow to him, and all his love is now centred in his one darling boy. And from all I hear, this boy is fully worthy of the affection bestowed upon him." " Hush !" cried Fanny, at this juncture, holding up her finger. " There's baby ! He's awake !" And she vanished like an Ariel on a special mission. " Charles Meredith Rewstraddle, then," said I, " is now in Norwich Jail ?" " Yes ; awaiting his trial at the next as- >> sizes. " I feel deeply interested in the result." " So do I, Greg," answered Walter ; " and as I have friends on the circuit, I shall have full information of the trial, which you may be certain you shall share."

Chapter II. Hard At Work

A knowledge of the bankruptcy laws is by no means a branch of literature in which I can claim any proficiency. It might be urged, that having suffered so deplorably by an act of bankruptcy I should, out of mere necessity, have made myself acquainted with the princi ples of the laws through which I had suffered. But this does not follow. In the first place, I was not even a subordinate in my father's failure ; and as for any acquaintance with the details of that tremendous imbroglio, or the processes by which it was sought to make it clear, I was a mere babe in the wood. I only know for certain that the debits were very large — running into many thousands; the assets not at all contemptible ; the dividend ridiculously small. I think, upon a fair cal culation, it must have cost the commissioners fifteen shillings to pay five.

In the meantime our house had become a complete wreck ; I was raising corns upon my hands in the endeavour to learn a laborious trade ; and my father, if not an outlaw — and I know there was very little wanting of that, — was an exile and an outcast. For a long time I doubted if he still lived, for he never wrote, or in any other way gave sign of existence. I know that terribly bitter things wTere said of him by his creditors : that he had decamped with an enormous treasure ; that it was a fraud throughout ; that he was living on the continent in the enjoyment of every luxury. More than one of the exasperated losers by the bankruptcy had confronted me in the streets, and with clenched fists shaken in my face, had demanded the payment of their debts from that " pampered wretch," my father. It was fully six months from the date of his flight from London before my father wrote to me, and the letter was directed from a poor, French fishing village.

In it he begged of me to send him some help in money, for he was reduced to the last extremity. This letter was addressed to me under cover to " Walter Tresscott, Esq., Barnard's Inn ;" and to Walter was I driven, in the crisis of my distress, to seek for help. Money of my own I had none, and I knew Tom Linnell could not help mein such a difficulty ; but Walter came to my aid, and the ten pounds I borrowed from him I sent over in half notes to my father, with all the words of comfort I could think to write. The receipt of the first half notes were grate fully, even humbly, acknowledged ; but con cerning the second halves there came no reply for a fortnight. Then, on returning home one night, after a hard, wearying day's work, to my lodging, 1 was told by my landlady that a gentleman — " a foreign gentleman with a beard" — had called for me several times, and would be back again at nine o'clock.

I thought it might be Monsieur Leloux, as I knew of no other foreigner in London who was likely to pay me a visit ; and I left orders to send the gentleman up to my room whenever he came. This was a providential arrangement. Half an hour after my return, I heard a great stumbling upstairs, in consequence of my landlady omitting to light the visitor to my room, and from the same cause an unmistak able bump at my own door. I answered the unpremeditated summons, by admitting the " foreign gentleman " to my chamber. In spite of the stiff, red beard, the ample cloak, the close travelling cap with the lappets tied round his ears, and the peak drawn down over his face, I knew the " foreign gentleman " to be my father, and was almost choked with emotion at the sight of him. One might have thought my father had been the prodigal son returned from herding swine, for " he fell upon my neck and wept."

It was the first and last time that I ever saw my father give way to tears. But his spirits and manner seemed almost broken. If there was no fatted calf to kill in my poor attic, all the welcome that an affectionate heart could give, and all the material comforts that my poor purse could provide, were spread before him, and our meeting was truly a happy and a comforting one. As we sat at the bright little supper which had been improvized on so short a notice, and I still held my father's hand in mine, he said to me solemnly : " Greg, I shall give myself up." "To whom, father?" " To my creditors, and the court." " But everything we had has been already seized and swept away." " No matter ; I must give myself up. I ought to have done so at the first." " It can neither help them nor you, sir. " Whatever the result, I must give myself up," repeated my father, with increased resolution.

" I have come over on purpose. The money you sent me, Greg, paid my little debts abroad, and secured my passage home; and never was money so welcome." The very idea of my father " giving himself up " conveyed such an impression of desperate criminality on his part that I could not euter- VOL. III. tain it with any patience. I combated the intention with all the logic and energy I could command, but without moving my father in the least. " WThere will this lead to ?" I cried, almost in despair. "To the Queen's Bench," answered my father, calmly. " But to what purpose ?" " It will ease my conscience, and satisfy the law," said my father. " I am in the wrong now, and I must set myself right ; and my only road is through the Queen's Bench." My father slept in my bed that night while I made a pallet for myself on the floor ; and he gave himself up the next morning.

It is evident there is nothing in this world to be done without trouble, and it took my father a considerable amount of trouble even to get into the Queen's Bench. The majority of the creditors would not stir in the matter, and the court was a slow, formal body, not easily moved; but in due course all these difficulties were overcome, and my father was at length, I verily believe to his own intense satisfaction, safely lodged in prison. My experiences as an apprentice in the Brill are a necessary part of this story. It is a coarse, work-a-day, uninviting part, but it had to be borne ; and however common-place and even repulsive may be some of its details, the plain narrative must take its place here. There can be no doubt that there was a certain poetical halo round my first engagement with Tom Linnell which deprived it of much of its iracomeliness.

It was a brave thing to work for one's living ; it was a bold thing to venture upon a new life totally unlike the life I had hitherto led ; it was a noble thing to shape out one's own fate with one's own hands, and to feel independence in its truest sense. Oh, but it was hard ! The change was so complete and so sudden. It was a sharp, quick plunge from the genial atmosphere of indolence into a sea of ice. There were no gradations, no tender pauses on the way; no modulations, so to say, from the gentle wind which lulled one to sleep, to the 7—2 hoarse, raving, obstreperous blast of the tem pest. I think I bore with it well. I was too proud to complain, and too conscious of my own present dependence, and of the import ance of the labour I had undertaken, to flinch from my task, or to whimper over its troubles.

But the first six months was a terrible time of trial, speaking merely in a physical sense. The contusions, the tearing and ripping of the tender flesh of my hands from the unaccustomed tools ; the soreness and weariness of my limbs from their un wonted exercise, and the cramped, unusual positions required by my work ; the long hours and the unremitting nature of my toil ; all pressed hard upon me, tender and unpre pared as I was for such an experience. I seemed blistered in the skin from head to foot ; I woke so sore and weary in the morning that there seemed no punishment so great as rising in that early hour, and facing the raw, deserted streets to a new day of labour. For many weeks the result of all this effort, these pains and smartings, this overpowering weariness, was so poor, so inadequate, and so dishearten ing, that my heart sometimes grew faint at the prospect before me.

I toiled on rather with the desperate striving of despair, than the cheerful courage of hope. I seemed for a time indeed, a mere child, playing with edged tools, which did but wound and weary me, but out of which no possibly useful result could come. But I persevered ; and was encouraged and supported in my endeavours by the kind com panionship and cheery example of Tom. His spirits never seemed to flag, his perseverance never appeared to tire, his strength never failed. Without his instructions I should have failed in acquiring the merest rudiments of my trade long after I had first begun to know how to handle the rough tools ; sometimes a word from him would set me hopefully in the right way when I had blundered for hours without result. But it must also be said that if Tom was an admirable instructor, he was in some respects a hard master.

Not wilfully or knowingly so ; but out of the pure strength and energy of his nature. Lithe and well set in form, inured by long habit to severe labour, he never seemed to grow fatigued ; confident in his own strength he took little account of the weakness of others. And so with his mental qualifications. Energetic and persevering by nature, and accustomed ■ from much early trouble to regard no task as too difficult of accomplishment, he was apt to grow impatient and intolerant of the complaints or discourage ments of others, and to treat failure with disdain or ridicule. But Tom and I never fell out ; and in his presence, and under his guidance, being put upon my mettle, I never gave him cause to doubt my earnestness, even if he often found occasion to laugh at my want of success. If I had had none but Tom to deal with I should have escaped many annoyances ; but it must be confessed that my pride, and even my sense of propriety aad decency were constantly com ing into contact with some sharp, obtrusive angle in the manners, habits and language of those in whose company I was necessarily thrown, and with whom I was sometimes compelled intimately to associate.

My great difficulty was how to live and pay my rent for the first six months of my apprenticeship. The rent was a clear, distinct sum, from which nothing could be saved, but there was an opportunity for an immense amount of finesse and arrangement in the matter of my meals. If it had not been that my hard work induced a raging appetite, and a digestion worthy of an ostrich, I must inevitably have been choked or poisoned by the viands which my hunger and my poverty so reed me to partake of. What stony sheep's tongues, not unsavoury but eminently unsatisfactory; what suspicious saveloys, with skins like the peel of an apple ; what small fortresses of pork-pies with adamantine walls and roof, and a magazine of fat, and bristling rind, did I devour in the hope and belief that I was dining ; and what blocks and slabs of oleaginous pudding, baked and boiled, dotted with a few staring plums, did I swallow as a final stop-gap, and in the hopeful assurance that it was pastry.

Sometimes, more especially in the winter months, we would take our meals in the workshop, until Tom's " hands " increased in number, so as to render this inconvenient ; at such times " Jingo " would be our purveyor, and " Long Charlie," our cook. Jingo, a strong youth, of humorous temperament, would then sometimes indulge in such gay feats as to simulate the wild beasts in the Zoological Gardens at feeding-time, and taking his raw steak in his mouth would roam round the workshop as if in a state of savage enjoyment, and worry and tear it, until the imperative voice of Long Charlie would compel him to abandon it to the gridiron. Long Charlie, who was an honest, good-tempered fellow with a stoop and rounded shoulders, would sometimes ask to join with me in our mid-day meal, and some such conversation as this would occur : " Well, Mr. Goldbourne,"— I must claim for myself the credit of having preserved my dignity so far as never to have been lampooned with a nickname — " and what shall we have for dinner ?"

" I am not particular, Charlie ; I leave it to you to-day." " Then I vote for a pound of beef sassingers. What do you say ?" " All right, Charlie." " Here, Jingo, take your orders : two penny busters, a pot of heavy, a pound of beef sas singers, and a half-penny bundle of wood." " A bundle of wood, Charlie ?" " Yes, Mr. Goldbourne, a bundle of wood." " We're not going to eat that." " Certainly not." " What's it for, then ?" " To cook the sassingers with, to be sure," answered Charlie, sententiously. "We're out 3 1 * 33 o chips. This kind of regimen was very little varied for the first twelvemonth of my apprenticehip, excepting always on the Sunday. On the Sunday I was a gentleman again. I dressed and acted as a gentleman should, and on Sunday I dined. Yes ; I dined with Walter Tresscott and Fanny — Mrs. Tresscott, that is.

Resolute as I was, and proud as I was, and all dependent as I was upon the success of my undertaking, I think I should have broken down over and over again if it had not been for those happy Sundays. I was no restraint upon Walter, still less upon Fanny, now that it was all clear between us, and she had mar ried the man of her choice. I was with them as a brother. They had a larger house than they needed, and kept little company ; and as I never visited them in the week, I truly be lieve they were as glad to see me as I them, when the blessed Sunday wore round again. Walter did not quite approve of the choice I had made, but the question once settled, he encouraged me in my resolution ; and as I had bought a suit of clothing for every-day wear, I was enabled to make a respectable appear ance on the first day of the week.

Then, as the weeks and months pass on, the difficulties which at first beset me became fewer and more easily surmountable ; my hand grew more apt at its work, and my strength more equal to my daily task ; and as I became more capable of success, my labours became lighter. Tom, indefatigable in the pursuit of his business, was daily extending it till its mere supervision was sufficient to occupy all his time. In the pressure of his multifarious duties, his books were apt to get into confusion ; as his transactions extended, the amount of clerkship necessary to keep his affairs in anything like a clear state, was not only more than he had time to devote to them, but beyond his knowledge and control ; so he often called me to his aid. Then it was my supreme gratification to be able to clear up some involved arithmetical question ; to point out some simple method by which he would be able to keep himself from a similar entanglement in the future ; and to receive his frank, hearty acknowledgments in return for my simple service.