The Infant: a novel

Front matter

A NOVEL BY FREDERICK WICKS Author of '■ The Veiled Hand," " Golden Lives," " The Broadmoor Patient," &c Illustrated by A. Morrow PUBLISHED IN ONE VOLUME AT SIX SHILLINGS LONDON REMINGTON & CO., LIMITED, 15, KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN AND SYDNEY. CONTENTS. Preface - - - - - - xi. Chapter Page i. The Hero . .... j ii. The Impecunious Millionaire - - 15 111. The Lovers - - . - 31 iv. The Justinian - - - - 38 v. Re Crowder - - - - - 48 vi. The Heir-at-Law - - - - 53 vn. The New Trustee - - - - 61 vm. Marleydoe's Rights - - - 75 ix. A House Party - - - - 84 x. Five Years - - - - 100 xi. As Directed by Will - - 105 xn. A Journey - - , - - - 111 xm. Roses and some Little Thorns - - 122 xiv. The Age of Haste - 133 xv. The Gentleman Apprentice - - 144 xvi. Coincidences - 153 xvn. A Story - 155 xvin.

The Duties of a Trustee - - - 163 xix. Yachting a la Financiere - - - 170 xx. Pick 'em up Tam .... 192 xxi. A Shadow ... - - 215 xxn. The Clyde - - - - - CONTENTS. VIII Chapter PaSc xxin. Flossy's Letter - 233 xxiv. The Woman and the Man - - - 241 xxv. The Artful Jasper - - - - 250 xxvi. The Law and its Prophets - - 272 xxvn. A Reverse of Fortune - - - 281 xxvin. The Deception - 291 xxix. A Serious Difficulty - 298 xxx. The Brothers .,,-,- 304 xxxi. The Great Sacrifice - - - 311 xxxn. Merely Friends - - - - 323 xxxm. Mrs. Parcham - 329 xxxiv. Mrs. Boodle-Chubb's Trustee - - 338 xxxv. Walter Skeelman's Devotion - - 343 xxxvi. The Man and the Woman - - - 347 xxxvn. A Truly Terrible Position - - 357 xxxvm. Mr. Skeelman Advises - - - 362 xxxix. An Enterprising Pauper - - - 370 xl. The Other Party - 380 xli.

Aleck - 385 xlii. Settlements- - 392 xliii. Time ------ TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Hero ----- facing page i Alone .--.._; I2 Mrs. Boodle-Chubb demands the Opera ,, 21 Boodle-Chubb is Interviewed - ,, 45 Walter's Father Gives Advice - ,, 81 The Four-in-Hand ,, 86 A Call on Miss Fanshion - - ,, 97 Harold Deceived ,, 109 Parcham on Guard - - - ,, 114 Flossy's Birthday ,, 128 The Gentleman Apprentice - - ,, 140 A Strange Proposal ,, 187 Tam's Accident ----,, 199 A Matter of Beesiness - - - ,, 208 Dr. Challey Boards the Zante - ,, _ 239 The Forbidden Love ,, 246 The Sign - - - - - ,. 263 Maggie's Repentance - - - ,, 292 The Foster Brothers - ,, 306 Mrs. Parcham Interferes - - ,, 314 The Confessional ,, 320 A Terrible Rumpus ,, 334 The Challenge ----,, 353 Walter is Advised to Scrap it - ,, 366 Parcham at Work „

Preface

. A writer in The Gentleman' s Magazine described The Veiled Hand as " a microcosm embodying representations of many of the characters that make up the macrocosm." The description was pleasing, because it exactly represented what I conceive a work of fiction should be, and what I had aimed at producing. The Infant is another microcosmic view of the social life of to-day. It is founded neither upon an affair of blood, nor upon a breach of the seventh com mandment, nor upon an ingeniously contrived puzzle, nor upon supernatural conditions, involving fanciful conversation with the Dead, but upon the common-place social conditions of the period as distinguished from wildly abnormal growths. It will be remarked in the course of this history that, although the social conditions treated of are common, and although the consequences resulting from the common-place practices described are as much to be deplored, from an ethical point of view, as any of the mOre violent catas trophes of the day, yet they are generally made little account of, because they are observed by few and under stood in their operations by still fewer.

I do not, how ever, pretend to having been prompted by any high purpose, as commonly understood, in writing this history ; PREFA CE XII yet I find, in the result, that the record exhibits the useless ness of statutory enactments as a means of checking certain sorts of roguery, and shows once more that, while the trustworthy need no laws to control them, those who are untrustworthy will defy all law, and snap their fingers at the law-givers. For such as these, social ostracism is the only penalty that can, with any effect, be enforced against them ; and yet it must be apparent to everyone, who ob serves the manner of men in this latter part of the nine teenth century, that in nine hundred and ninety-nine of such cases out of a thousand no penalty is enforced, and in the thousandth case it is exacted because to stamp upon the particular victim of discovery in question has become a fashion.

Among my earlier experiences was a visit to the Queen's Bench Prison at Southwark ; and I have a very distinct recollection of the free and easy manner of the debtors in the yard, in every variety of costume, playing tennis or perambulating the enclosure with the nonchalance of sea side promenaders. Some of them were rollicking, dare devil fellows ; and when, a few years afterwards, the abolition of Imprisonment for Debt was enacted, I was surprised to find little or no distinction was made in the method of treatment between these rascals and the really unfortunate ; but the first step having been taken, I saw one statute after another repealed, and others enacted, relieving even fraudulent debtors of every penalty likely to cause a moment's anxiety to any rogue of ordinary intelligence. We have now reached a much higher pitch of philanthropic consideration for all wrongdoers, in the belief, I suppose, that they could not possibly have meant to do wrong; and we have been provided by beneficent governments with a Bench of Judges of such tender sus-

PREFACE.

XIII ceptibilities that the turning of the cheek to the smiter, and the handing over of your cloak to the gentlemanly fellow who has robbed you of your coat, have become much more than Christian precepts, and embody the very highest worldly wisdom. I am not and never have been an advocate for the making of laws, but I cannot help thinking that the statutes would be brought more in unison with common sense and justice if, in the case of such men as Mr. Boodle-Chubb, the impecunious millionaire, who figures largely in these pages, the mere fact of having obtained credit, circumstanced as he was, were made a criminal offence. Among other potent influences that have controlled the action of this drama has been that of priestcraft. Few will deny that the cultivation of a devout spirit and a tender conscience should be encouraged before all things ; and no one would deprecate the inculcation among the young of a reverent regard for their pastors and masters ; but the manufacture of the artificial conscience is now a most thriving branch of the priestly business since education has become more general, and necessitated a revision of ghostly methods ; and there is no characteristic of these closing years of the nineteenth century more pronounced than the marvellous way in which the most finished priestly organisation ever devised by man has adapted itself to an atmosphere of independent thought.

We see something of the working of this influence in the record here set out. As I conceive it to be foreign to the business of a novel ist to deliver elaborate essays on the religious and social problems of the day, or to enforce a truth other than by the action of the story he has to tell, I have refrained from polemics. If I have been occasionally betrayed into setting

PREFACE.

down phrases that may be regarded as an indication of opinion on some aspects of present day practice or circum stance, those phrases must be judged with the incidents which called them forth, and their value must be deter mined by the truth of the situations which provoked them. Inasmuch as there is little in this life that is not in some way influenced by the grand passion, so it is impossible that human effort should in any case be wholly free from its sway. Thus it has come to pass that although these pages may not unfold a love story, as usually presented, yet it must be conceded that the chief power at work in the midst of the events here recorded, to put right things that were wrong, has been not that of our costly system of civil administration, nor those of our great national institutions, usually relied upon for the protection of the helpless and the correction of the evil-disposed, but the old fashioned, yet ceaseless and unvarying, influence of Th' Anointed Sovereign of Sighs and Groans. Hersham, March, 1895. THE HERO

Chapter I. The Hero

He was pink, and fair, and wonderfully grave of countenance, three weeks old, and born in a workhouse. He was being exhibited asleep in a cradle before the dining room fire of a house in Bedford Square, towards the end of November, in the year eighteen sixty-five. His nurse, Maggie Fellman, stood by while two old gentlemen in spected him. " There he is, Clayborne," said the elder of the two as he sat in a chair with wheels that he could work with his hands ; " and I think he has a good face." " A remarkably good face, Crowder, for one so young," said the other, examining the child through a gold-rimmed eyeglass. " I doubt whether I have ever seen so clearly defined features in an infant of three weeks. What's his name, nurse ? " " Peter Prue, sir," said Mrs. Fellman, with constraint. She clasped her hands nervously and seemed almost frightened.

She was young and handsome, the widow of a fitter who had been crushed to death by the falling of an ill-set crane ; and the engagement she was entering upon had taken her from the workhouse, as well as the infant she tended. " That name won't do," said the old man in the chair, decisively. " Impossible." B " Shall he take yours ? " asked Mr. Clayborne, who was a lawyer. " No ; I'll give you a name by and by ; but take him away now, nurse. Mr. Clayborne has seen him. That's enough." The old man spoke with decision as one accustomed to be obeyed. He had ruled thousands in all parts of the world, at war with the elements and the rough places of the earth, in the making of roads and bridges, canals, and railways. The passion of his life had been to make locomotion easy for mankind ; but now he was paralysed in his lower limbs and wheeled himself in a chair.

Still the spirit remained, and looked out from the keen dark eye, and spoke from the firm set mouth. The woman carried away the cradle and the sleeping child as if she had been handling a basket of clothes. She seemed to have somewhat of a scared look, and was clearly glad the interview had ended. " Look," said the old man. " He and I are much in the same case. We have to rely on other legs than our own." Then, turning to his friend, who had drawn a chair to the fire, and sat beside him, he said in a plaintive voice, and with a smile that would have graced the face of a woman: " You are very good, Clayborne, to have come to me so promptly." " Not at all," said the lawyer, settling his black satin stock with the air of a man, who recognised that he was at least acting generously. " We have run the race for fifty years, and surely when one of us goes lame the other will not desert him."

"No," said the old man, meditatively, "but I have become fearful of desertion. I have been thinking, Clayborne, during my long illness, of the exceeding smallness of what I may call our personal world ; and of the strain put upon our better natures by the violence of commercial competition. The terrible rush in which we live provokes among most of us a disregard for the graces of life ; and, although I know that the circle of one's real friends must of necessity be always very small, I am tempted to fear that even these will cool, when the friction of life directs their energies into new channels, creates new interests, and destroys old recollections." crowder will not be forgotten. 3 " We are all going the same road, Crowder," said the other ; " and cannot help but fail in one another's company — some earlier and some later.

Perhaps you will see us out yet." " Well, indeed, Clayborne, the doctor says I may live a good many years, or, rather, what is left of me, may live ; and he and I have together schemed out an excellent way of making the best of a bad job. You know, Clayborne," he continued in a more cheerful strain, " although I'm as good as dead and buried, from my legs downwards, yet sitting here in this chair talking to you — as we have talked many a day, old friend — I feel as hearty as ever I have felt in my life. You know, Clayborne," he added, slapping his friend's knee, " I don't want legs at my time of life — seventy-two." "True philosophy, true philosophy, Crowder ! " said the lawyer, rubbing his hand over his bald head and bringing it round his shaven chin. " Besides," exclaimed the old man, with a sudden revival of hopefulness, almost amounting to high spirits, and with an air of general approval of the laws of nature, " it eases one down.

I've had seventy years of active, vigorous life. I've done good work. I assert it, because the work has proved good, and lives. I have no care, except the responsibilities attached to the disposal of great wealth. These discharged, I shall have nothing else to do, but to guide my managers — to whom I owe guidance — into the region of self dependence. For the rest I must enjoy my self in the society of my old and tried friends — my old and tried friends," he emphasised, pressing the arm of the lawyer. " And your friends, my dear Crowder, will not forget you," responded the other, cheerily. " No, they will not forget me. They have not forgotten me. The doctor has been a true friend. Having patched me up, he has arranged my new clothes for me, and bullied my tailor into the realisation of all kinds of wild schemes that he and I have contrived for the comfort of what is left of me.

Warmth, ease, facility of movement, almost perfect independence of servants is still mine, notwithstanding I am dead half way up. That's a great consolation, Clayborne ! " The old man grew humorous over the doctor's contrivances, and pointed with glee to a set of rings at the four corners B — of the removable lining of his chair, by which he said it was intended he should be hoisted into his carriage by his two servants. He said they hadn't dared suggest it yet, but if his men ever dropped him he would erect a crane in front of the house, and treat himself as the navvies dealt with a barrow load of bricks when hoisting them to the top of a building. " All my rooms you know, Clayborne, are now on the ground floor," he continued ; " I intend to wheel myself from one to the other, unassisted, for the sake of the exercise ; and I shall drive out every fine day for an hour at noon.

But most important of all, I shall dine at seven, and the table will always be set for four." He waved his hand towards the round dinner table already set in readiness for the approaching festival. " What you have to do, Clay borne, is to be one of the four as often as you can ; and, when a friend asks you to dinner, say you are engaged to me and bring him with you, to help keep the life in what's left of me." " I will ; I will," said the lawyer, rising ; " but here are my clerks." Two young men entered as he spoke, one, the elder, a thin, red-headed, blue-nosed, pimply youth — an unlovely, unlovable, harsh specimen of humanity, holding a parchment deed in his hand ; and the other, a dark youth with a very large nose, that notwithstanding its size turned up with a wayward curve, and conveyed by its form the idea of a wedge and a lever.

The two stood there, as they proposed, professionally, to stand throughout life : in the way, and not to be got out of the way, without costs. " Mr. Nodgit," said Mr. Clayborne, introducing the red headed one, " and Mr. Baser," introducing the other, " my managing clerks and my successors, Mr. Crowder. I thought it well that they should hear from your own lips your desires, and see with their own eyes and understand ings that your desires are properly interpreted in the language of the instrument itself." He called it an "instrument," a "deed," a "document," anything but a will. Professional habit induced him to avoid talking of wills for fear the associations the word awakened should deprive him of the pleasure of receiving instructions to make them. The euphemism, however, was a useless precaution in the case of George Crowder, IS NAMED. 5 who had faced death often without flinching, and had, as a matter of fact, never been at any period of his life unpre pared to meet the end that he felt now to be imminent.

" Ah ! " said he, looking at the two ill-shapen, unlovely specimens of his race, " you'll have the management of this matter when Clayborne and I are no more." " We have entered into covenants to succeed Mr. Clayborne," said Nodgit in a rigid unsympathetic manner. There was a pause as of doubt upon the part of the old man ; but he shook the doubt off with a frown and a twitch of the mouth, and set himself to business. " Now let us see," said he, " whether we have the points. The boy is to be educated up to the age of sixteen at Eton ; and at sixteen he is to be placed for three years where he can learn a trade or business of his own choosing in any walk of life other than one of the learned professions ; and at nineteen he is to elect to continue the pursuit of the occupation that he has chosen, or go to one or other of the Universities.

Is that all set out, so that the boy must go through that course and no other ? " " Your trustee is required to do these things," said Nodgit in the same hard unsympathetic tones. " Shall I read the instructions ? " " You are satisfied, Clayborne ? " asked the old man. " Perfectly," said the lawyer, settling his chin in his black satin stock. " Nodgit is safe when it's a matter of tying up a trustee." " I'd rather trust the trustee than the tying up," said the old man, " and I'll trust Roger." Roger was Clayborne's son, a barrister and a student of mediæval art, Egyptology, and historical jurisprudence, a grave young man, exact and circumspect, one of those mechanical combinations in human form, who if put in a groove may be expected to run in it for the rest of time. " And now for the name," said the old man.

" Make it clear that the boy has been registered as Peter Prue, but that he is hereafter to be known as Harold Everdane. That can be done, eh ? " The question was flung at Nodgit in a voice of com mand, and with intent that what was required must be done well. The question was so pointed that Nodgit actually started, and looked at Baser, his prospective partner, as if Baser had been the cause of the incisive question. Then he brought himself to, and said in the same unsympathetic manner : "Yes, sir; there's no difficulty about that." " Very well. Bring the will here to-morrow completed ; and I'll sign it." The successors to Mr. Clayborne withdrew, and the old man rubbed his hands with satisfaction as he said : " We're getting on, Clayborne, you and I. We're settling things. You are getting rid of your responsibilities, and so am I. I shall have only three clerks upstairs in a month's time.

After that all my people will be working for their own hand, and — realising for me." The old man smiled a complacent smile, and stroked one hand over the other, as emblematical of the realisation of universal peace and order. " But there is one thing, Crowder," said the lawyer, with a little cough, in deferential apology. " Yes ? " enquired his friend. " The boy." "Yes?" " He's an infant ; and infants are not proverbially good lives. You are prepared — fully prepared to run the risk of the child's death ? " " Why not ? " asked the old man, with another smile of extreme complacency. " The control of life and death is not with me ; and if he dies, what then ? Merely that the hospitals will profit. His death in that case will benefit the multitude ; but if I make what you call a remainder man I create a bitter enemy for him — one who may wish him dead that he may enjoy his wealth.

No ; rather than do that I would leave all to the hospitals at once ; but I am pleased with the idea of casting a die with Providence. There is wealth, and there is a human being : let Provi dence adapt the one to the other. I do my best in selection of instruments. I have selected the boy ; and I have selected your son as executor and trustee, with you to guide them. I can do no more. If the scheme does not answer, then nothing can, for I cannot, nor can any man look further than I have done with any security of fulfil ment. A man may try, but in proportion as he attempts to control anything beyond the immediate present he will increase his chances of failure." AN INVITATION TO DINNER. 7 A servant, nearly as old as Crowder himself, interrupted the conversation with the announcement that the Rev. Fabian Gelmore and Dr. Challey had arrived, and were in the drawing room.

" Good," said the host, "that makes our party, Clayborne ; but have you written to them as we arranged ?" " Certainly," said the lawyer, " and what is more I have the copy of the letter in my pocket. You shall hear it." The lawyer drew out his pocket book, settled his chin in his stock, coughed twice, and read : " Sir, " I am instructed by Mr. Crowder to inform you that, " (i) I have placed to your credit at your banker's the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds for your own use in the hope that you will regard it as a nest egg. " (2) Mr. Crowder will be glad if you could find it convenient to dine with him at seven o'clock this evening. " (3) Mr. Crowder is particular in desiring that no mention whatever be made of the first article in this communication. " I am, your obedient servant, " John Clayborne.' " Very good ; excellent," said the old man, smiling, " and you have not forgotten to treat yourself in the same way, eh, Clayborne ?

" The lawyer waved his hand, and bowed low in gratification. " Now, Clayborne, as that's all settled," said the old man, " touch the bell, and we'll have them in and dine." The two visitors entered the dining room with a profusion of bows and smiles, and gave numerous indications that the occasion was in their eyes an extraordinary one. It was obvious that they were disturbed by an embarrassment of pleasure. There are few things more curious in social relationship than the manner of ordinary people when their minds are full of a subject to which they dare not refer. Their anxiety to appear unconcerned, and the efforts they make to discover remote topics of conversation are fruitful of amusement to the philosophical among those in the secret. The Rev. Fabian Gelmore, a stout dark man of fifty, with a square jaw and a constant frown, put on a smug appear ance, and assumed attitudes of studied unconcern, as of one who relied on the fact that his merits were appreciated, and that it was now established that he was a person of consideration.

Dr. Challey, a thin, white-haired man, with a clear eye, and a continual smile, had acquired a calm demeanour, as of one who felt that his life had been robbed of cause for discontent, of concern for the present, and of anxiety for the future. He rubbed his hands one over the other with a satisfied air, shook his head at his friend and patient, and asked him whether it was to be a port or a Madeira dinner. " Madeira to-day, doctor," said the old man with a twinkle in his eye. " This is a grand day: the first of the new era. Be seated, gentlemen," and so saying he set the example by wheeling himself to his place. The dinner passed with talk of the day ; but with the Madeira the subject of personal interest was introduced. " Gelmore," said the host, " they've christened him Peter Prue ; but I've ordered his name to be changed to Harold Everdane.

Does the Church approve ? " "The Church, as such," said the clergyman, pretentiously, " takes no cognisance of the mundane appellation." " Then the Church approves, Clayborne," said the old man ; " and the medical faculty approves; and I approve. We need no more. Let's drink to the health of my youthful heir." The health was drunk, if not with enthusiasm, with decorum ; and the old man added, with a look of amusement at the clergyman, who sat on his left : " He's a prime little chap, and I cannot wish him a better time than I've had myself, eh, doctor ? " The old man turned with an enquiring look at the doctor on his right, and then with a glance at Clayborne opposite to him, before he settled down with a long and determined examination of the clergyman's countenance. The inevitable response to this circumstantial challenge came in apologetic tones : " Of course we cannot but say," said the clergyman, " that you have done all that any of us here could have anticipated, and " CROWDER RELIES ON OUR NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 9 " No, no," said the old man, with his lips pursed and with a deprecating shake of his left hand.

" Ah yes, I will forbear," said the clergyman, with a sickly smile, that was by no means at home on a face of singular hardness, and of far too heavy a cast to admit the expression of common-place emotions. " Yes ; but I was merely about to remark that although no one can criticise with effect a situation which is so entirely at the disposal of another, yet I may say here, among those who are fully possessed of the facts, that the responsibility of possession involves the duty of distribution ; and consequently involves the necessity of seeing that the future of one's possessions shall be well regulated and restrained." The Reverend Fabian put his hand through the shock of black hair that rose from his forehead with the vigour of a hog mane a month old, and floundered out of the involved sentence into which he had wandered with a little cough, and a look of special sternness.

" 1 agree," said the old man, " I agree, Gelmore ; and I have discharged the obligation you describe. What have we here at this table ? We have the law, which concerns our estates ; we have medicine, which concerns our physical health ; and we have the Church, which concerns our future state. Now, when I, the commonplace citizen — tradesman, manufacturer, contractor, merchant, what you will — whom you three representative institutions undertake to control, place myself in your hands I think I have done all that becomes me. If the law says that I have provided for all contingencies as far as I desire to control — " " Which I do," said the lawyer — " And medicine says that I have made this provision, while I am in full possession of my faculties — " " Which I most assuredly do," said the doctor, with a bow — " And the representative of the Church thinks that the organisation, of which he forms a part, can provide for the moral training of my successor, then I say I have nothing more to think of, and may leave the future to my successor, to these, our characteristic national institutions, and to the Controller of all things."