Birds of Prey Part 32

"Ah, to be sure! That was a strong point."

"I should rather think it was. I took the trouble to look up the history of Mayfair marriages and Fleet marriages before you started for Ullerton, and I examined all the evidence I could get on that subject.

I made myself familiar with the Rev. Alexander Keith of Mayfair, who helped to bring clandestine marriages into vogue amongst the swells, and with Dr. Gaynham--agreeably nicknamed Bishop of h.e.l.l--and more of the same calibre; and the result of my investigations convinced me that in those days a hare-brained young reprobate must have found it rather more difficult to avoid matrimony than to achieve it. He might be married when he was tipsy; he might be married when he was comatose from the effects of a stand-up fight with Mohawks; his name might be a.s.sumed by some sportive Bened.i.c.k of his acquaintance given to practical joking, and he might find himself saddled with a wife he never saw; or if, on the other hand, of an artful and deceptive turn, he might procure a certificate of a marriage that had never taken place,--for there were very few friendly offices which the Fleet parsons refused to perform for their clients--for a consideration."

"But how about the legality of the Fleet marriage?"

"There's the rub. Before the New Marriage Act pa.s.sed in 1753 a Fleet marriage was indissoluble. It was an illegal act, and the parties were punishable; but the Gordian knot was quite as secure as if it had been tied in the most orthodox manner. The great difficulty to my mind was the _onus probandi_. The marriage might have taken place; the marriage be to all intents and purposes a good marriage; but how produce undeniable proof of such a ceremony, when all ceremonies of the kind were performed with a manifest recklessness and disregard of law? Even if I found an apparently good certificate, how was I to prove that it was not one of those lying certificates of marriages that had never taken place? Again, what kind of registers could posterity expect from these parson-adventurers, very few of whom could spell, and most of whom lived in a chronic state of drunkenness? They married people sometimes by their Christian names alone--very often under a.s.sumed names. What consideration had they for heirs-at-law in the future, when under the soothing influence of a gin-bottle in the present? I thought of all these circ.u.mstances, and I was half inclined to despair of realising my idea of an early marriage. I took it for granted that such a secret business would be more likely to have taken place in the precincts of the Fleet than anywhere else; and having no particular clue, I set to work, in the first place, to examine all available doc.u.ments relating to such marriages."

"It must have been slow work."

"It _was_ slow work," answered Mr. Sheldon with a suppressed groan, that was evoked by the memory of a bygone martyrdom. "I needn't enter into all the details of the business,--the people I had to apply to for permission to see this set of papers, and the signing and counter-signing I had to go through before I could see that set of papers, and the extent of circ.u.mlocution and idiocy I had to encounter in a general way before I could complete my investigation. The result was nil; and after working like a galley-slave I found myself no better off than before I began my search. Your extracts from Matthew's letters put me on a new track. I concluded therefrom that there had been a marriage, and that the said marriage had been a deliberate act on the part of the young man. I therefore set to work to do what I ought to have done at starting--I hunted in all the parish registers to be found within a certain radius of such and such localities. I began with Clerkenwell, in which neighbourhood our friend spent such happy years, according to that pragmatical epistle of Mrs. Rebecca's; but after hunting in all the mouldy old churches within a mile of St.

John's-gate, I was no nearer arriving at any record of Matthew Haygarth's existence. So I turned my back upon Clerkenwell, and went southward to the neighbourhood of the Marshalsea, where Mistress Molly's father was at one time immured, and whence I thought it very probable Mistress Molly had started on her career as a matron. This time my guess was a lucky one. After hunting the registers of St.

Olave's, St. Saviour's, and St. George's, and after the expenditure of more s.h.i.+llings in donations to s.e.xtons than I care to remember, I at last lighted on a doc.u.ment which I consider worth three thousand pounds to you--and--a very decent sum of money to me."

"I wonder what colour our hair will be when we touch that money?" said Valentine meditatively. "These sort of cases generally find their way into Chancery-lane, don't they?--that lane which, for some unhappy travellers, has no turning except the one dismal _via_ which leads to dusty death. You seem in very good spirits; and I suppose I ought to be elated too. Three thousand pounds would give me a start in life, and enable me to set up in the new character of a respectable rate-paying citizen. But I've a kind of presentiment that this hand of mine will never touch the prize of the victor; or, in plainer English, that no good will ever arise to me or mine out of the reverend intestate's hundred thousand pounds."

"Why, what a dismal-minded croaker you are this morning!" exclaimed George Sheldon with unmitigated disgust; "a regular raven, by Jove! You come to a fellow's office just as matters are beginning to look like success--after ten years' plodding and ten years' disappointment--and you treat him to maudlin howls about the Court of Chancery. This is a new line you've struck out, Hawkehurst, and I can tell you it isn't a pleasant one."

"Well, no, I suppose I oughtn't to say that sort of thing," answered Valentine in an apologetic tone; "but there are some days in a man's life when there seems to be a black cloud between him and everything he looks at. I feel like that today. There's a tightening sensation about something under my waistcoat--my heart, perhaps--a sense of depression that may be either physical or mental, that I can't get rid of. If a man had walked by my side from Chelsea to Holborn whispering forebodings of evil into my ear at every step, I couldn't have felt more downhearted than I do."

"What did you eat for breakfast?" asked Mr. Sheldon impatiently. "A tough beefsteak fried by a lodging-house cook, I daresay--they _will_ fry their steaks. Don't inflict the consequences of your indigestible diet upon me. To tell me that there's a black cloud between you and everything you look at, is only a sentimental way of telling me that you're bilious. Pray be practical, and let us look at things from a business point of view. Here is Appendix A.--a copy of the registry of the marriage of Matthew Haygarth, bachelor, of Clerkenwell, in the county of Middles.e.x, to Mary Murchison, spinster, of Southwark, in the county of Surrey. And here is Appendix B.--a copy of the registry of the marriage between William Meynell, bachelor, of Smithfield, in the county of Middles.e.x, to Caroline Mary Haygarth, spinster, of Highgate, in the same county."

"You have found the entry of a second Haygarthian marriage?"

"I have. The C. of Matthew's letters is the Caroline Mary here indicated, the daughter and heiress of Matthew Haygarth--doubtless christened Caroline after her gracious majesty the consort of George II., and Mary after the Molly whose picture was found in the tulip-leaf bureau. The Meynell certificate was easy enough to find, since the letters told me that Miss C.'s suitor had a father who lived in Aldersgate-street, and a father who approved his son's choice. The Aldersgate citizen had a house of his own, and a more secure social status altogether than that poor, weak, surrept.i.tious Matthew. It was therefore only natural that the marriage should be celebrated in the Meynell mansion. Having considered this, I had only to ransack the registers of a certain number of churches round and about Aldersgate-street in order to find what I wanted; and after about a day and a half of hard labour, I did find the invaluable doc.u.ment which places me one generation nearer the present, and on the high-road to the discovery of my heir-at-law. I searched the same registry for children of the aforesaid William and Caroline Mary Meynell, but could find no record of such children nor any further entry of the name of Meynell. But we must search other registries within access of Aldersgate-street before we give up the idea of finding such entries in that neighbourhood."

"And what is to be the next move?"

"The hunting-up of all descendants of this William and Caroline Mary Meynell, wheresoever such descendants are to be found. We are now altogether off the Haygarth and Judson scent, and have to beat a new covert."

"Good!" exclaimed Valentine more cheerfully. "How is the new covert to be beaten?"

"We must start from Aldersgate-street. Meynell of Aldersgate-street must have been a responsible man, and it will be hard if there is no record of him extant in all the old topographical histories of wards, without and within, which c.u.mber the shelves of your dry-as-dust libraries. We must hunt up all available books; and when we've got all the information that books can give us, we can go in upon hearsay evidence, which is always the most valuable in these cases."

"That means another encounter with ancient mariners--I beg your pardon--oldest inhabitants," said Valentine with a despondent yawn.

"Well, I suppose that sort of individual is a little less obtuse when he lives within the roar of the great city's thunder than when he vegetates in the dismal outskirts of a manufacturing town. Where am I to find my octogenarian prosers? and when am I to begin my operations upon them?" "The sooner you begin the better," replied Mr. Sheldon.

"I've taken all preliminary steps for you already, and you'll find the business tolerably smooth sailing. I've made a list of certain people who may be worth seeing."

Mr. Sheldon selected a paper from the numerous doc.u.ments upon the table.

"Here they are," he said: "John Grewter, wholesale stationer, Aldersgate-street; Anthony Sparsfield, carver and gilder, in Barbican.

These are, so far as I can ascertain, the two oldest men now trading in Aldersgate-street; and from these men you ought to be able to find out something about old Meynell. I don't antic.i.p.ate any difficulty about the Meynells, except the possibility that we may find more of them than we want, and have some trouble in shaking them into their places."

"I'll tackle my friend the stationer to-morrow morning," said Valentine.

"You'd better drop in upon him in the afternoon, when the day's business may be pretty well over," returned the prudent Sheldon. "And now all you've got to do, Hawkehurst, is to work with a will, and work on patiently. If you do as well in London as you did at Ullerton, neither you nor I will have any cause to complain. Of course I needn't impress upon you the importance of secrecy."

"No," replied Valentine; "I'm quite alive to that."

He then proceeded to inform George Sheldon of that encounter with Captain Paget on the platform at Ullerton, and of the suspicion that had been awakened in his mind by the sight of the glove in Goodge's parlour.

The lawyer shook his head.

"That idea about the glove was rather far-fetched," he said, thoughtfully; "but I don't like the look of that meeting at the station. My brother Philip is capable of anything in the way of manoeuvring; and I'm not ashamed to confess that I'm no match for him.

He was in here one day when I had the Haygarth pedigree spread out on the table, and I know he smelt a rat. We must beware of him, Hawkehurst, and we must work against time if we don't want him to antic.i.p.ate us."

"I shan't let the gra.s.s grow under my feet," replied Valentine. "I was really interested in that Haygarthian history: there was a dash of romance about it, you see. I don't feel the same gusto in the Meynell chase, but I daresay I shall begin to get up an interest in it as my investigation proceeds. Shall I call the day after to-morrow and tell you my adventures?"

"I think you'd better stick to the old plan, and let me have the result of your work in the form of a diary," answered Sheldon. And with this the two men parted.

It was now half-past two o'clock; it would be half-past three before Valentine could present himself at the Lawn--a very seasonable hour at which to call upon Mrs. Sheldon with his offering of a box for the new play.

An omnibus conveyed him to Bayswater at a snail's pace, and with more stoppages than ever mortal omnibus was subjected to before, as it seemed to that one eager pa.s.senger. At last the fading foliage of the Park appeared between the hats and bonnets of Valentine's opposite neighbours. Even those orange tawny trees reminded him of Charlotte.

Beneath such umbrage had he parted from her. And now he was going to see the bright young face once more. He had been away from town about a fortnight; but taken in relation with Miss Halliday, that fortnight seemed half a century.

Chrysanthemums and china-asters beautified Mr. Sheldon's neat little garden, and the plate-gla.s.s windows of his house shone with all their wonted radiance. It was like the houses one sees framed and glazed in an auctioneer's office--the greenest imaginable gra.s.s, the bluest windows, the reddest bricks, the whitest stone. "It is a house that would set my teeth on edge, but for the one sweet creature who lives in it," Valentine thought to himself, as he waited at the florid iron gate, which was painted a vivid ultramarine and picked out with gold.

He tried in vain to catch a glimpse of some feminine figure in the small suburban garden. No flutter of scarlet petticoat or flash of scarlet plume revealed the presence of the divinity.

The prim maid-servant informed him that Mrs. Sheldon was at home, and asked if he would please to walk into the drawing-room.

Would he please? Would he not have been pleased to walk into a raging furnace if there had been a chance of meeting Charlotte Halliday amid the flames? He followed the maid-servant into Mrs. Sheldon's irreproachable apartment, where the show books upon the show table were ranged at the usual mathematically correct distances from one another, and where the speckless looking-gla.s.ses and all-pervading French polish imparted a chilly aspect to the chamber. A newly-lighted fire was smouldering in the s.h.i.+ning steel grate, and a solitary female figure was seated by the broad Tudor window bending over some needlework.

It was the figure of Diana Paget, and she was quite alone in the room.

Valentine's heart sank a little as he saw the solitary figure, and perceived that it was not the woman he loved.

Diana looked up from her work and recognised the visitor. Her face flushed, but the flush faded very quickly, and Valentine was not conscious of that flattering indication.

"How do you do, Diana?" he said. "Here I am again, you see, like the proverbial bad s.h.i.+lling. I have brought Mrs. Sheldon an order for the Princess's." "You are very kind; but I don't think she'll care to go.

She was complaining of a headache this afternoon."

"O, she'll forget all about her headache if she wants to go to the play. She's the sort of little woman who is always ready for a theatre or a concert. Besides, Miss Halliday may like to go, and will easily persuade her mamma. Whom could she not persuade?" added Mr. Hawkehurst within himself.

"Miss Halliday is out of town," Diana replied coldly.

The young man felt as if his heart were suddenly transformed into so much lead, so heavy did it seem to grow. What a foolish thing it seemed that he should be the victim of this fair enslaver!--he who until lately had fancied himself incapable of any earnest feeling or deep emotion.

"Out of town!" he repeated with unconcealed disappointment.

"Yes; she has gone on a visit to some relations in Yorks.h.i.+re. She actually has relations; doesn't that sound strange to you and me?"

Valentine did not notice this rather cynical remark.

"She'll be away ever so long, I suppose?" he said.

"I have no idea how long she may stay there. The people idolise her, I understand. You know it is her privilege to be idolised; and of course they will persuade her to stay as long as they can. You seem disappointed at not seeing her."

"I am very much disappointed," Valentine answered frankly; "she is a sweet girl."