A Secret of Two Lives

Front matter

BY EDWARD JENKINS AUTHOR OF 'GINX'S BADY ' 'a WEEK OF TASSION ETC. LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1S86 (The rights of translation and of reproduction arc reserved) CONTENTS. CMAITCR PAGE I. Wrong and Obstinate i II. A Letter from Jack 12 III. De Mortuis— Nil nisi Bona ! .... 20 IV. A Setting Down 26 V. The Cabman's Home 35 VI. Back to Old Scenes 39 VII. The Heir and the Inheritor .... 50 VIII. A Strange Party 5S IX. Antiquarian Notions 67 X. Tom Bulsteed's Desk 75 XI. The Mysterious Papers 79 XII. A Discovery 82 Xiii. A Family Secret 87 XIV. Miss Aris 92 XV. Miss Aris is startled 102 XVI. The Flower Show 105 XVII. Miss Aris saves the County . . . .114 VI CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVIII.

Old fashioned Solicitors . . . . 119 XIX. Extraordinary Disclosures .... 12S XX. The Terrible Story 133 XXI. The Terrible Story {continued) . . . 140 XXII. Mr. Brinsden and the Lawyers . . . 146 XXIII. At Bay 15S XXIV. Restitution 165 XXV. The Baronet follows an Old Example . 172 XXVI. Captain Flinders iaki.s ms Revenge . . 177 XXVII. The Accident 1S3 XXVIII. At Brooke House 1S9 XXIX. A New Complication ..... 194 XXX. A Consultation 200 XXXI. The Realisation of the Sublime . . . 204 L'Envoi

Chapter I. Wrong And Obstinate

" Mary," said the Rev. Mr. Poyntz, turning to as neat, as pretty, as arch a looking housemaid as has ever been seen in the house of a widower clergyman, when the door opened in obedience to a rather vigorous pull at the bell-rope, "will you kindly tell Mrs. Dowdeswell that I wish to speak to her — immediately ? " The girl, after casting a quick glance at the only other occupant of the library besides Mr. Poyntz, demurely replied — " Yes, sir ; " and curtseying in old-fashioned style — the county being Somerset — she left the room. " Now," said the Rev. Mr. Poyntz, speaking in a wheezy, plethoric way, which was accounted for by his bravely rubicund face, short neck, and ample figure ; and perhaps, also, by his occupation at that moment, for he held between the fingers of his right hand the stalk of one of those thick, generous, well-cut wine-glasses, which used to defy for generations the vulgar-fractional tendencies of housemaids.

From this he was sipping a bright, mellow, deep-gold tinted liquid, not now so much in vogue as it used to be, because there is so little of it to be had, to wit, a Madeira, which sixty years ago had made the voyage to India and back again by the Cape. With his other hand he held up one of the tails of his long clerical coat, made of the finest West of England broadcloth, shiny, rich-looking, and strong ; and, as he was standing on the hearth-rug before a bright sea-coal fire, his feelings may be guessed to have been of B the most soothing and comfortable description, so far as the body was concerned. But his close-shaven face, jolly and auroral in its appearance and proportions, exhibited no sympathy with his attitude or surroundings. The heavy eyebrows were knitted over his grey-blue eyes, which looked stern and implacable.

His large mouth was pursed up in the centre of the thick, pillowy layers of fat, which no ritualistic fasting had ever accumulated upon his cheek bones, for the Reverend Arsenius Poyntz was one of the few survivors of the Calvinistic school in the Church of England. To a bon-vivant the advantages of being lapped in the doctrine of Necessity are greater than has been recognised. If he were to be saved he would be saved, if he were destined to be damned, he would be damned ; and in the meantime, while the issue remained unrevealed, he made the best of the present life, Providence having amply supplied the means. At the big library table, comfortably ensconced in the rector's arm-chair, in front of some foolscap covered with notes, sat a gentleman of middle age, holding in fingers much smaller and thinner than those of his client, a corre sponding glass of the famous island nectar.

This was Mr. Markham, the solicitor of all the county families in that neighbourhood, and in things temporal the most trusted friend and counsellor of his reverend patron. A shrewd, quiet, practical-looking face, with a twinkle of humour in the grey eyes, a head of grizzly hair thinning at the top, and greyish whiskers, with a tall, spare figure, offered a sufficiently striking contrast between the man of this world and the minister for the next, though that contrast seemed to be exactly the reverse of what ideas of fitness would have led us to expect. Still Mr. Markham toyed with his glass and tasted his wine with the air of a gourmet ; with a restrained play of amusement in his sagacious face he watched, from under the grey thatch of his prominent brows, the evident heat and moral disturbance of his host.

" Now," the parson wheezed out, " go on ! " "But really, Mr. Poyntz," said the solicitor, sipping a mouthful from his glass, " let me entreat you to consider before you take the fatal step." "Not another word, Markham. I have considered, I tell you, and my mind's made up. He shall never touch a penny — not a penny of my money— no, not if I knew him to be starving, dying in a garret, rotting in a hovel with the miserable woman who has seduced him from his father's home and affection. No, no ; he has chosen his bed — let him lie in it. I don't know him any more. He has ceased to be my son in ceasing to recognise the first duty of a son — absolute, unconditional obedience to his father's wishes. I " At this moment, after a gentle but audible knock at the door, a short, brisk, ladylike little woman entered the room, and made a reverence to the two gentlemen.

She seemed to be about sixty years of age, with clean-cut face, two bands of smooth silver hair over a low forehead, and brown eyes of extraordinary brilliancy but of singular gentleness. A neat white cap, and black silk dress and apron, from the string of which depended a bunch of small keys, proclaimed the housekeeper, Mrs. Dowdeswell, the rector's right-hand woman and vicegerent, with unlimited powers over all his domestic affairs ever since the death of his wife, which had taken place now more than thirty years ago. Passing her thin small white hands once over the surface of her apron, she joined them together, and stood waiting for her employer to speak. A quick glance of intelligence had passed between her and the solicitor, but so rapid and furtive that it had not been detected by the parson, as, taking a preliminary sip of wine, he cleared his throat and said — " Mrs. Dowdeswell, I want to know — outside the kitchen — I don't want to leave a stick of old deal to a Poyntz, however degenerate— outside the kitchen, what do you con sider to be the oldest and least valuable piece of furniture in this house?

" Surprised at such a question, gravely put to her by the Rev. Mr. Poyntz, in the presence of the family solicitor, after having formally invited her attendance in the library, Mrs. Dowdeswell's hands unfolded, and again passed mechanically over her dainty little apron, while her eyes sought the rector's face with an expression of amazement. " Well, Mrs. Dowdeswell, it is a simple question. Surely you can answer it off-hand — there isn't a stick of furniture in this house that hasn't passed under your eye and hand every day this thirty years ; please vouchsafe a reply, I — I am rather pressed for time." The rector took a large gold watch out of a pocket con- 1-2 structed in his immense silk waistcoat in such a manner as to lie a little below the apex of the arc of rotundity described by his portly form, and glanced at it, while the little woman threw a puzzled look at the solicitor, who, however, raised his glass, and shutting one eye, seemed absorbed in con templation of the golden glories of the Madeira, though there was a humorous twitch of the muscles at the corner of his mouth.

" Well, sir," she said, in a slow, quiet, and rather pleasing voice, " there isn't a single piece of what you would call common furniture in the house that I know of, though some of the handsomest of the things are old enough. There's that old worm-eaten carved box in the back hall " "What! my old oak coffer?" exclaimed the parson. " Why, Mrs. Dowdeswell, that was the chest in which the ladies of the Poyntz family used to keep their linen, if they wore any, in the time of Henry the First, or thereabouts. It is one of the most valuable bits of furniture in the house ; I could get a couple of hundred guineas for it at South Kensington. Don't you remember we showed it to the Somerset Antiquaries when they came down that time and nearly emptied one of the bins of '34 port, and they put a sketch of it in the Illustrated London News ?

No, no ! Jack Poyntz shall never have that — one of the proudest heirlooms of the family ! Think of something else." The little lady had listened attentively, and a very slight shock had gone through her slight frame when the name of the Rev. Mr. Poyntz's son (and heir by all natural rights) passed his lips. She now guessed what was " towards," and, pursing up her lips, reflected a minute. The solicitor went on sipping his wine and eyeing her askance. " You remember, sir," she said at length, " a little old desk-table ; the late Mrs. Poyntz used to call it a scrutineer, or something of that sort." " Escritoire" corrected the rector, nodding. " It came with those things, you remember, she had sent here after the death of her brother, the India merchant." " Ha ! yes, I remember ! " cried Mr. Poyntz.

" It used to be in her room." " Yes, sir. I had it removed up to the garret because one of the feet was loose. There are some old papers in it." 'To be sure — mostly letters from that very man, Thomas Bulsteed, her brother, Jack's uncle. I once looked over them. Just such another obstinate, self-willed temper. The very thing ! We'll give him that, Mr. Markham, and all the rubbish that's in it — just as it stands. His uncle's letters may amuse him. And all the rest of my property, real and personal, of any kind or description whatsoever, I hereby Oh ! thank you, Mrs. Dowdeswell, that is all I wanted, and, as usual, you have supplied the need in a twinkling." With a quiet reverence to the gentlemen, Mrs. Dowdeswell retired, but outside the door her nervous hands were clasped together, and the tears came into her eyes.

" So," she murmured, " he is going to do it after all. That dreadful Captain Flinders will get everything, and my poor dear Jack will be left without a penny. . . . Well," she said, with sudden energy, turning towards the closed door of the library, and speaking as if she could carry her spirit through it to the hard man on the other side, " I've served you now thirty years and more, for her sake, as I promised her I would when she was at her last gasp — and watched over poor Jack for her, just as if she was alive. Ay, she knew you were a cold, hard, obstinate_ man, and seared that the child you would bring up in your clumsy, tyrannical way would be but a broken-hearted thing, and she charged me to do all that I could to shield him from your influence, to keep him from trusting the hard creed by which you ruled your life, and to preserve in him the spirit of independence which, well I know, every Bulsteed loved ; for was I not brought up among 'em ?

And did not Thomas Bulsteed run away and go to India because Sir Henry, his father, would have him marry a woman he never loved ? Ay, Master John, and lucky for you I was here ; for, but for me, he would have beaten the Bulsteed spirit clean out of you, and turned you into a coward and a milksop. Thank God, I saved you from that ! You have let him see that you have a will of your own, and now he is going to hand over all that belongs of right to you, and some of it his mother's, to a strange man he never saw but once in his life, and a captain in the army, too, who will soon make ducks and drakes of it all, or my name is not Ann Eliza Dowdeswell. Well, if there is a God in heaven, you will have to repent of this in some way !" And with this charitable reflection Mrs. Dowdeswell took her way to her room, while the subject of this monologue calmly continued to sip his Madeira, and give directions for the new will by which he disinherited Jack Poyntz.

"All?" said Mr. Markham, pausing a moment, with his pencil in air. " Did I understand you to say all, to Captain Reginald Poyntz Flinders, of her Majesty's 15th Hussars?" " Yes, certainly. Say ' to my well-beloved and dutiful ' —d'ye hear, ' dutiful ' — ' nephew, the son of my dearly beloved sister Catherine Egeria Poyntz' — with the exception of that 1,000/. to the Bible Society and the 500/. to Mrs. Dowdeswell, every penny is to go to Hinders, and all the pictures and furniture, provided he assumes the name of Poyntz, which he will do soon enough, for he hasn't an acre to his name." " But," said Mr. Markham, " if my memory serves me, there was a sum of 5,000/. settled on Mrs. Poyntz, or given to her by her father, which came to you at her death — surely you will not divert that from her issue to one of your own family ?

" " Certainly I would, if ' her issue ' chose to set himself against his own father, defy his authority, and go off and marry a low-born, penniless girl, in the teeth of positive commands to the contrary. Besides, that money is fairly mine. I settled on her a thousand a year for life, taking care not to grant the reversion to our offspring ; for, as a clergyman, I had seen so much of this filial disobedience and independence in other people's families, that I resolved I would at least retain complete control of the purse-strings ; and what has happened proves the wisdom of my foresight. At the same time I arranged, and for the same reason, that whatever money she had should fall in to me absolutely at her death. She perfectly understood it, so that I am not committing any wrong, or doing any injustice to her memory."

" Well, Mr. Poyntz," said the solicitor quietly, but in a firm tone, as he laid down his pencil, "notwithstanding what you say, and admitting to the full the impropriety of your son's conduct, I still think that in ordinary justice, money which was his mother's in her own right ought not to be willed away from him to a total stranger to her family ; and good friends as we have been for these five and-forty years, and large as are my obligations to you for trusting me with the management of your estate, I cannot really allow myself to be made the instrument of committing this injustice, against which, lam sure, the late Mrs, Poyntz, were she here, would strenuously protest. I have already told you that I think — it is my humble judgment at least — that you are taking this matter too much to heart, and that time will heal the wound to your pride and paternal dignity which this poor boy has inflicted."

" Never ! " said the Rev. Mr. Poyntz, drawing a deep breath as the purple mounted to his temples and seemed to set his face on sire. " Besides," continued Mr. Markham, not heeding the interruption, "the girl's family is a good one, perfectly respectable, if she has been obliged to go out as a governess — her father was in your own profession." The hot blood seemed to be rolling into Mr. Poyntz's head and swelling it out in a manner which threatened to explode it, if he did not get some relief, and he burst out loudly — " I tell you, Markham, once for all, my mind is made up, and I don't wish to hear another word. I am sick of those arguments. If the girl were a Princess of England, and he had married her without my consent, I would treat him as if he had never been my son. Now wiil you or will you not carry my wishes into effect?

If not, much as I detest the fellow, I must send for Middleton to draw my will, for I will not delay the matter an hour longer if I can help it." " That is entirely at your discretion," replied Mr. Mark ham, with dignity ; " and," he continued, rising, " as you wish to call in other legal assistance, my proper course is to retire. I know I have no right to offer any opinion or pass any criticism on your exercise of undoubted rights in the disposition of your property, but the late Mrs. Poyntz was the daughter of my old friend and client Sir Henry Bulsteed ; she was kind enough to treat me always as an intimate friend. And now, my dear sir, before I go away and everything is closed between us " — Mr. Markham put his hand on the big, powerful arm which was wrapped in the clerical broadcloth, and spoke with deep solemnity of toneand manner — " let me tell you of something I never men tioned to you before, and should not allude to now, had it not become absolutely necessary for my own vindication, and in order to prevent you from doing an act of grave injustice."

The rector moved uneasily, but did not seek to interrupt the solicitor. " I had a conversation with Mrs. Poyntz only a few days before she took to her room in that illness which proved to be her last. You know that she had never fully recovered from the shock given to her system by the birth of that boy, and she had a presentiment that her end was not far off. I saw her in the dining-room. The child, then only seven months old, was lying in the cradle by her side. She talked freely of the presentiment I refer to, and told me her only anxiety was as to the suture of that boy. Speaking of you with all love and esteem, she alluded to the very fact you have just recalled, your reservation of a complete control over the disposition of all your property and hers in the event of her death. She said you were the soul of honour and high principle " — the rector seemed to wince a little as Mr. Markham, fixing him with his cool grey eye, repeated these words with a clear and calm emphasis ; " but," con tinued Mr. Markham, "that you were very firm and inflexible in your notions of right and wrong" — the rector nodded, as if appreciating this posthumous testimony of his wife to a character on which he had always prided himself; "and that if any one happened to cross your views of — of the right, you would be apt to behave with great rigour — perhaps without mercy " — the rector frowned ; Mr. Mark ham, however, went on pitilessly — "unless you had some one by you, whom you loved and respected, to point out to you the extenuating circumstances.

She said she felt very anxious about the boy ; that most likely he would develop the same obstinacy of character which distinguished both the Poyntzes and the Bulsteeds; and that if any difference should happen to arise between you and him it would be a serious one. It might be a case in which there was a little wrong on both sides " " That case has not arisen," said the rector severely. " There is nothing whatever to be said for him. He has defied and disobeyed his father— broken one of the most emphatic of the ten commandments. He must suffer the consequences." " However, my dear friend— let me call you so still, in spite of your perversity— the dear lady's heart yearned after her son in that imaginary hour of disagreement with you. She knew that she would not be there to mediate, so she charged me solemnly to look after her son's interests so long as I should live, and to act as mediator in her place, in the event of the occasion unhappily arising.

I promised her that I would do so. That promise, so sacredly made, I am now fulfilling. She is not here ; but she, in effect, speaks to you through me. Be at least just, even if you would not be merciful. The boy, as we still call him — though he is, indeed, a man, and a very fine one, of whom any father might be proud — has, unfortunately, fixed his affections on a girl who, in all respects except those of birth and fortune, is, from all I can gather, worthy of them. She will soon be a mother. Her child will be your grandchild, and bear your name. Do what you will with the large fortune which you owe to your own family, but at least leave him the money you received from his mother. That is all I have a right to urge, and I urge it on the ground of common honesty." The rector's face had grown hotter and hotter.

Great drops had broken out on his forehead while the solicitor made this powerful appeal at once to his reason and his feelings. But at the implied censure on his honour he broke out — " Common honesty, Mr. Markham ! Really you are rather exceeding the privileges of friendship in using such language to me. I do not require you to school me in the principles of morality or Christianity either. I will act as my own conscience dictates. Will you or will you not confine yourself to your duties as my legal adviser, or must I look up some other lawyer who has a better conception of the functions of his profession, and will carry out his clients' wishes without intruding his advice on matters which are quite outside of his line of duty?" '• Mr. Poyntz," said Mr. Markham, drawing himself up and retiring to the table, where he gathered up his memoranda and thrust them into a small bag which had been lying by his side, " you have said more than enough.

I shall not trouble you with my advice again. I decline positively to be in any way the instrument of what I now tell you plainly I consider to be an unjust and dishonourable act of spoliation. To all intents and purposes you are simply a trustee of that 5,000/. for the benefit of your son ; and if you leave it to Captain Flinders, hardly any words that I could employ in polite ears would express my sense of the wickedness of such a proceeding. I have been your friend and parishioner at Shepton Bassett Church for a time 50 long that it seems almost as if your familiar figure had never been absent from my life. Though I have not always agreed with your doctrines, I have always held your character and abilities in respect, and always admired your courage and manliness ; but the act you now contemplate, if you should persist in it, would sweep away from my mind every vestige of regard, for it would in my opinion be an act of gross wrong.

I decline to be responsible for it in any way ; and if you can get another member of the profession to assist you in carrying out your intentions, I shall be happy to hand him over all your papers — the sooner the better." Mr. Markham's voice, under the influence of his indig nation, had become so strong, and his manner so firm and commanding, that although his words fell with scathing effect on the rector's moral epidermis, he was for the moment too overcome with surprise that any one should venture to address such language to him to interrupt the speaker, and he listened in furious silence, the big veins in his forehead beginning to swell portentously. No sooner had Mr. Markham finished than his client burst out with — " Very well, sir. I will send for Mr. Middleton immediately." He pulled the bell-rope again as if it were one of the strong looped cords that hung in a circle in the old church tower hard by.

"After the words you have just used to me any further relations between us are at an end." " Decidedly ! " remarked Mr. Markham, in a dry tone, and with a sarcastic curl of the lip. " Good day, Mr. Poyntz." He turned to the door. The scene was a curious and a suggestive one, a fine practical example of the vanity of human relations. The half-finished decanter of Madeira, and the unemptied glasses, stood there, the silent evidences of an interrupted flow of genial feelings. For nearly forty years these two men had lived in the same town as rector and churchwarden, client and man of business, close friends and associates in home life, in politics, in parish affairs, in joys and sorrows, in their very prejudices — all the more close, perhaps, because in temperament and intellect they were so different ; and yet in a few short minutes they had shaken off the accumulated influence of all those associa tions, and the ties that had bound them together were suddenly broken for ever.

At the door the solicitor met the pretty housemaid, who, in answer to the rector's summons, came in smiling like April, all unconscious of the blustering storms of March. " Tell John to put Magnus into the dogcart," shouted the rector as he approached the table and selected some paper. " I want him to take a note to Elmley." This was by way of a Parthian shot at Mr. Markham, who quietly passed out. As he was taking up his hat in the rectory hall Mrs. Dowdeswell glided out of a side door, and, with an anxious face, said to him, in a low tone — "Well, Mr. Markham?" "No use, Mrs. Dowdeswell," he replied, shaking his head. " He is as obstinate as a mule. No moving him — though I called up the memory of his wife. I have given him a piece of my mind, though 'twas a mere waste of words, and, since he won't listen either to justice or common sense, I have left him.

I refused to do his dirty work for him ; and he is sending for Middleton. He will do it without any scruples. Good-bye. You will never see me here again. It is all over between him and me." The little woman clasped her hands. "Is there no hope whatever? Won't he leave him the money that came from his mother ? " " Not a farthing ; he is going to leave him that writing table, or whatever it was, you spoke of. Master Jack will have to pay very dearly for the luxury of having his own way." " Why, it's wicked — positively wicked ! " cried Mrs. Dowdeswell. "Take care," replied Mr. Markham, smiling ; "remember he is the rector, and I am a churchwarden. We must not speak evil of dignitaries." " I don't care," said the housekeeper. " If he don't behave like a Christian he has no right to pretend to be one.

He is a cruel, obstinate, revengeful man, and I'll tell him so to his face. I won't stay in his house another hour." " Hush-h-h ! " said Mr. Markham, looking at Mrs. Dowdeswell's sparkling eyes and heightened colour, and thinking to himself that he should like to be a hidden spectator of the scene between the angry little lady and the portly, hot-tempered rector. " I entreat you, do nothing in haste. Remember that as long as there is life there is hope. At all events, think over it well. Promise me you will not take any action without consulting me. In any case come and see me to-morrow. I must hurry away." " I will see you without fail to-morrow," said Mrs. Dowdeswell, not thinking to add the formula enjoined by the weakest of the apostles. "I had a letter from poor Master Jack. What do you think he is doing ?

And his wife expecting — you know." "Well?" " Driving a hansom, Mr. Markham, in London streets— a Poyntz driving a hansom ! " Mr. Markham shrugged his shoulders. " This comes," he said, " of bringing a young man up to a fortune. My boys could earn a living anywhere. However, it makes his father's conduct all the less excusable ; it's — h'm " (he said to himself in an undertone — " infamous "). "Good day, Mrs. Dowdeswell."