Birds of Prey Part 16

CHAPTER VI.

THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN.

The sand which ran so swiftly in the gla.s.s which that bright young urchin Love had wrested from the hand of grim old Time ran with an almost equal swiftness in the hour-gla.s.ses of lodging-house keepers and tradespeople, and the necessities of every day demanded perpetual exertion on the part of Mr. Hawkehurst, let Charlotte's eyes be never so bright, and Charlotte's society never so dear. For Captain Paget and his _protege_ there was no such thing as rest; and the ingenious Captain took care that the greater part of the labour should be performed by Valentine, while the lion's share of the spoil was pounced upon by the ready paw of the n.o.ble Horatio. Just now he found his pupil unusually plastic, unusually careless of his own interests, and ready to serve his master with agreeable blindness. Since that awkward little affair at Foretdechene, that tiresome entanglement about a King of Spades which had put in an appearance at a moment when no such monarch was to be expected, Captain Paget had obtained the means of existence in a manner which was almost respectable, if not altogether honest; for it is not to be supposed that honesty and respectability are by any means synonymous terms. It was only by the exercise of superhuman address that the Captain had extricated himself from that perplexing predicament at the Belgian watering-place; and it may be that the unpleasant experiences of that particular evening were not without a salutary effect upon the adventurer's future plans.

"It was touch-and-go work, Val," he said to his companion; "and if I hadn't carried matters with a high hand, and sprung my position as an officer in the English service upon those French ruffians, I don't know where it would have ended."

"It might have come to a metallic ornamentation of the ankle, and some amiable 444, who has murdered his grandmother with a red-hot poker and extenuating circ.u.mstances, for your companion," murmured Valentine. "I wouldn't try it on with that supererogatory king again on this side of the Channel, if I were you."

The Captain bestowed a freezing look on his flippant _protege_ and then commenced a very grave discussion of future ways and means, which ended in an immediate departure for Paris, where the two men entered upon an unpretentious career in the commercial line as agents and travellers for the patentees of an improved kind of gutta percha, which material was supposed to be applicable to every imaginable purpose, from the sole of an infant's boot to the roof of a cathedral. There are times when genius must stoop to pick up its daily pittance; and for twelve months the elegant Horatio Paget was content to devote his best energies to the perpetual praise of the Incorrodible and Indestructible and Incombustible India-rubber, in consideration of a very modest percentage on his commercial transactions in that material. To exert the persuasive eloquence of a Burke or a Thurlow in order to induce a man to roof his new warehouses with a fabric which you are aware will be torn into ribbons by the first run of stormy weather, for the sake of obtaining two-and-a-half per cent on his investment, may not be in accordance with the honourable notions of a Bayard, and yet in a commercial sense may be strictly correct. It was only when Captain Paget had made a comfortable little purse out of his percentage upon the Incorrodible and Incombustible that he discovered the extreme degradation of his position as agent and traveller. He determined on returning to the land of his birth. Joint-stock companies were beginning to multiply in the commercial world at this period; and wherever there are many schemes for the investment of public capital there is room for such a man as Horatio Paget--a man who, with the aid of a hired brougham, can inspire confidence in the breast of the least daring speculator.

The Captain came, accompanied as usual by that plastic tool and subaltern, Valentine Hawkehurst, who, being afflicted with a chronic weariness of everything in life, was always eager to abandon any present pursuit in favour of the vaguest contingency, and to shake off the dust of any given locality from his vagabond feet. Captain Paget and his _protege_ came to London, where a fortunate combination of circ.u.mstances threw them in the way of Mr. Sheldon.

The alliance which arose between that gentleman and the Captain opened a fair prospect for the latter. Mr. Sheldon was interested in the formation of a certain joint-stock company, but had his own reasons for not wis.h.i.+ng to be identified with it. A stalking-horse is by no means a difficult kind of animal to procure in the cattle-fairs of London; but a stalking-horse whose paces are sufficiently showy and imposing--a high-stepper, of thoroughbred appearance, and a mouth sensitively alive to the lightest touch of the curb, easy to ride or drive, warranted neither a kicker nor a bolter--is a quadruped of rare excellence, not to be met with every day. Just such a stalking-horse was Captain Paget; and Mr. Sheldon lost no time in putting him into action. It is scarcely necessary to say that the stockbroker trusted his new acquaintance only so far as it was absolutely necessary to trust him; or that the Captain and the stockbroker thoroughly understood each other without affecting to do so. For Horatio Paget the sun of prosperity arose in unaccustomed splendour. He was able to pay for his lodgings, and was an eminently respectable person in the eyes of his landlord. He enjoyed the daily use of a neatly-appointed brougham, in which only the most practised eye could discover the taint of the livery stable. He dined sumptuously at fas.h.i.+onable restaurants, and wore the freshest of lavender gloves, the most delicate of waxen heath-blossoms or creamy-tinted exotics in the b.u.t.ton-hole of his faultless coat.

While the chief flourished, the subaltern was comparatively idle. The patrician appearance and manners of the Captain were a perennial source of profit to that gentleman; but Valentine Hawkehurst had not a patrician appearance; and the work which Mr. Sheldon found for him was of a more uncertain and less profitable character than that which fell to the share of the elegant Horatio. But Valentine was content. He shared the Captain's lodging, though he did not partake of the Captain's dinners or ride in the smart little brougham. He had a roof to shelter him, and was rarely unprovided with the price of some kind of dinner; and as this was the highest order of prosperity he had ever known, he was content. He was more than content; for the first time in his existence he knew what it was to be happy. A purer joy than life had ever held for him until now made him careless whether his dinner cost eighteenpence or eighteen s.h.i.+llings; whether he rode in the most perfect of broughams or walked in the mud. He took no heed for the future; he forgot the past, and abandoned himself heart and soul to the new delights of the present.

Never had Philip Sheldon found so willing a tool, so cheap a drudge.

Valentine was ready to do anything or everything for Charlotte's stepfather, since his relations with that gentleman enabled him to spend so much of his life with Charlotte.

But even in this sublimated state of mind Mr. Hawkehurst was not exempt from the great necessity of Mr. Skimpole and humanity at large. He wanted pounds. His garments were shabby, and he desired new and elegant raiment in which to appear to advantage before the eyes of the woman he loved. It had been his privilege on several occasions to escort Mrs.

Sheldon and the two younger ladies to a theatre; and even this privilege had cost him money. He wanted pounds to expend upon those new books and music which served so often as the excuse for a visit to the Lawn. He wanted pounds for very trivial purposes; but he wanted them desperately. A lover without pounds is the most helpless and contemptible of mankind; he is a knight-errant without his armour, a troubadour without his lute.

In his dilemma Mr. Hawkehurst resorted to that simple method which civilisation has devised for the relief of pecuniary difficulties of a temporary nature. He had met George Sheldon several times at the Lawn, and had become tolerably intimate with that gentleman, whom he now knew to be "the Sheldon of Gray's Inn," and the ally and agent of certain bill-discounters. To George he went one morning; and after requesting that Captain Paget should know nothing of his application, explained his requirements. It was a very small sum which he asked for, modestly conscious that the security he had to offer was of the weakest. He only wanted thirty pounds, and was willing to give a bill at two months for five-and-thirty.

There was a good deal of hesitation on the part of the lawyer; but Valentine had expected to meet with some difficulty, and was not altogether unprepared for a point-blank refusal. He was agreeably surprised when George Sheldon told him he would manage that "little matter; only the bill must be for forty." But in proof of the liberal spirit in which Mr. Hawkehurst was to be treated, the friendly lawyer informed him that the two months should be extended to three.

Valentine did not stop to consider that by this friendly process he was to pay at the rate of something over a hundred and thirty per cent per annum for the use of the money he wanted. He knew that this was his only chance of getting money; so he shut his eyes to the expensive nature of the transaction, and thanked Mr. Sheldon for the accommodation granted to him.

"And now we've settled that little business, I should like to have a few minutes' private chat with you," said George, "on the understanding that what pa.s.ses between you and me is strictly confidential."

"Of course!"

"You seem to have been leading rather an idle life for the last few months; and it strikes me, Mr. Hawkehurst, you're too clever a fellow to care about that sort of thing."

"Well, I have been in some measure wasting my sweetness on the desert air," Valentine answered carelessly. "The governor seems to have slipped into a good berth by your brother's agency; but I am not Horatio Nugent Cromie Paget, and the brougham and lavender kids of the Promoter are not for me."

"There is money to be picked up by better dodges than promoting,"

replied the attorney ambiguously; "but I suppose you wouldn't care for anything that didn't bring immediate cash? You wouldn't care to speculate the chances, however well the business might promise?"

"_C'est selon!_ That's as may be," answered Valentine coolly. "You see those affairs that promise so much are apt to fail when it comes to a question of performance. I'm not a capitalist; I can't afford to become a speculator. I've been living from hand to mouth lately by means of occasional contributions to a sporting weekly, and a little bit of business which your brother threw in my way. I've been able to be tolerably useful to him, and he promises to get me something in the way of a clerks.h.i.+p, foreign correspondence, and that kind of thing."

"Humph!" muttered George Sheldon; "that means eighty pounds a year and fourteen hours' work a day, letters that must be answered by this mail, and so on. I don't think that kind of drudgery would ever suit you, Hawkehurst. You've not served the right apprentices.h.i.+p for that sort of thing; you ought to try for some higher game. What should you say to an affair that might put two or three thousand pounds in your pocket if it was successful?"

"I should feel very much inclined to fancy it a bubble--one of those dazzling rainbow-tinted globes which look so bright dancing about in the suns.h.i.+ne, and explode into nothing directly they encounter any tangible substance. However, my dear Sheldon, if you really have any employment to offer to a versatile young man who is not overburdened with vulgar prejudices, you'd better put the business in plain words."

"I will," answered George; "but it's not an affair that can be discussed in five minutes. It's rather a serious matter, and involves a good deal of consideration. I know that you're a man of the world, and a very clever fellow into the bargain; but there's something more than that wanted for this business, and that is patience. The hare is a very fine animal in her way, you know; but a man must have a little of the tortoise in him if he wants to achieve anything out of the common run in the way of good luck. I have been working, and waiting, and speculating the chances for the last fifteen years, and I think I've got a good chance at last. But there's a good deal of work to be done before the business is finished; and I find that I must have some one to help me."

"What sort of business is it?"

"The search for the heir-at-law of a man who has died intestate within the last ten years."

The two men looked at each other at this juncture; and Valentine Hawkehurst smiled significantly.

"Within the last ten years?" he said. "That's rather a wide margin."

"Do you think you would be a good hand at hunting up the missing links in the chain of a family history?" asked Mr. Sheldon. "It's rather tiresome work, you know, and requires no common amount of patience and perseverance."

"I can persevere," said Valentine decisively, "if you can show me that it will be worth my while to do so. You want an heir-at-law, and I'm to look for him. What am I to get while I'm looking for him? and what is to be my reward if I find him?"

"I'll give you a pound a week and your travelling expenses while you're employed in the search; and I'll give you three thousand pounds on the day the heir gets his rights."

"Humph!" muttered Mr. Hawkehurst, rather doubtfully; "three thousand pounds is a very respectable haul. But then, you see, I may fail to discover the heir; and even if I do find him the chances are ten to one that the business would be thrown into Chancery at the last moment; in which case I might wait till doomsday for the reward of my labours."

George Sheldon shrugged his shoulders impatiently. He had expected this penniless adventurer to catch eagerly at the chance he offered. "Three thousand pounds are not to be picked up in the streets," he said. "If you don't care to work with me, I can find plenty of clever fellows in London who'll jump at the business."

"And you want me to begin work--?"

"Immediately."

"And how am I to pay forty pounds in three months out of a pound a week?"

"Never mind the bill," said Mr. Sheldon, with lofty generosity. "If you work heart and soul for me, I'll square that little matter for you; I'll get it renewed for another three months."

"In that case I'm your man. I don't mind a little hard work just now, and I can live upon a pound a week where another man would starve. So now for my instructions."

There was a brief pause, during which the lawyer refreshed himself by walking up and down his office two or three times with his hands in his pockets. After which relief he seated himself before his desk, took out a sheet of foolscap, and selected a pen from the inkstand.

"It's just as well to put things in a thoroughly business-like manner,"

he said presently. "I suppose you'd have no objection to signing a memorandum of agreement--nothing that would be of any use in a court of law, you know, but a simple understanding between man and man, for our own satisfaction, as a safeguard against all possibility of misunderstanding in the future. I've every reason to consider you the most honourable of men, you know; but honourable men turn round upon each other sometimes. You might ask me for something more than three thou' if you succeeded in your search."

"Precisely; or I might make terms with the heir-at-law, and throw you over. Perhaps that was your idea?"

"Not exactly. The first half of the chain is in my hands, and the second half will be worth nothing without it. But to prevent all unpleasantness we may as well put our intentions upon record."

"I've not the least objection," replied Valentine with supreme indifference. "Draw up whatever memorandum you please, and I'll sign it. If you don't mind smoke, I should like to console myself with a cigar while you draw the bond."

The question was a polite formula, the atmosphere of George Sheldon's office being redolent of stale tobacco.

"Smoke away," said the lawyer; "and if you can drink brandy-and-soda at this time of day, you'll find the _de quoi_ in that cupboard. Make yourself at home."

Mr. Hawkehurst declined the brandy-and-soda, and regaled himself only with a cigar, which he took from his own case. He sat in one of the second-floor windows smoking, and looking dreamily into the gardens, while George Sheldon drew up the agreement. He was thinking that any hazard which took him away from London and Charlotte Halliday might be a fortunate one.

The lawyer finished his doc.u.ment, which he read aloud for the benefit of the gentleman who was to sign it. The agreement was in the following terms:--

"Memorandum of agreement between George Sheldon on the one part, and Valentine Hawkehurst on the other part, whereby it is this day mutually agreed by and between the parties hereto as follows: