Birds of Prey Part 40

Aunt Dorothy having departed into the shadowy realm of dreams, Charlotte and I were left to our own devices.

There was a backgammon board on a side-table, surmounted by an old Indian bowl of dried rose-leaves; and, _pour nous distraire_, I proposed that I should teach my dearest that diverting game. She a.s.sented, and we set to work in a very business-like manner, Miss Halliday all attention, I serious as a professional schoolmaster.

Unfortunately for my pupil's progress, the game of backgammon proved less entertaining than our own conversation, so, after a very feeble attempt on the one side to learn and on the other to teach, we closed the board and began to talk;--first of the past, then of the future, the happy future, which we were to share.

There is no need that I should set down this lovers' talk. Is it not written on my heart? The future seemed so fair and unclouded to me, as my love and I sat talking together yesterday afternoon. Now all is changed. The strangest, the most surprising complications have arisen; and I doubt, I fear.

After we had talked for a long time, Miss Halliday suddenly proposed that I should read to her.

"Diana once told me that you read very beautifully," said this flatterer; "and I should so like to hear you read--poetry of course.

You will find plenty of poems in that old bookcase--Cowper, and Bloomfield, and Pope. Now I am sure that Pope is just the kind of poet whose verses you would read magnificently. Shall we explore the bookcase together?"

Now if there is any manner of beguiling an idle afternoon, which seems to me most delightful, it is by the exploration of old bookcases; and when that delight can be shared by the woman one fondly loves, the pleasure thereof must be of course multiplied to an indefinite amount.

So Charlotte and I set to work immediately to ransack the lower shelves of the old-fas.h.i.+oned mahogany bookcase, which contained the entire library of the Mercer household.

I am bound to admit that we did not light upon many volumes of thrilling interest. The verses of Cowper, like those of Southey, have always appeared to me to have only one fault--there are too many of them. One shrinks appalled from that thick closely-printed volume of morality cut into lengths of ten feet; and beyond the few well-worn quotations in daily use, I am fain to confess that I am almost a stranger to the bard of Olney.

Half a dozen odd volumes of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, three or four of the _Annual Register_, a neatly-bound edition of _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _Sir Charles Grandison_ in twelve volumes, Law's _Holy Call to a Serious Life_, _Paradise Lost_, _Joseph Andrews_, _Hervey's Meditations_, and _Gulliver's Travels_, formed the varied contents of the princ.i.p.al shelves. Above, there were shabbily-bound volumes and unbound pamphlets. Below, there were folios, the tops whereof were thickly covered with the dust of ages, having escaped the care of the handmaidens even in that neatly-appointed household.

I knelt down to examine these.

"You'll be covered with dust if you touch them," cried Charlotte. "I was once curious enough to examine them, but the result was very disappointing."

"And yet they look so delightfully mysterious," I said. "This one, for instance?"

"That is an old history of London, with curious plates and maps; rather interesting if one has nothing more amusing to read. But the perennial supply of novels from Mudie's spoils one for that kind of book."

"If ever I come to Newhall again, I shall dip into the old history. One is never tired of dead and gone London. But after Mr. Knight's delightful book any old history must seem very poor. What is my burly friend here?"

"O, a dreadful veterinary-surgeon's encyclopaedia--_The Farmer's Friend_ I think it is called; all about the ailments of animals."

"And the next?"

"The next is an odd volume of the _Penny Magazine_. Dear aunt Dorothy is rich in odd volumes."

"And the next,--my bulky friend number two,--with a cracked leather back and a general tendency to decay?"

"O, that is the Meynell Bible."

The MEYNELL BIBLE! A hot perspiration broke out upon my face as I knelt at Charlotte Halliday's feet, with my hand resting lightly on the top of the book.

"The Meynell Bible!" I repeated; and my voice was faintly tremulous, in spite of the effort I made to control myself. "What do you mean by the Meynell Bible?"

"I mean the old family Bible that belonged to my grand-mamma. It was her father's Bible, you know; and of course he was my great-grandfather--Christian Meynell. Why, how you stare at me, Valentine! Is there anything so wonderful in my having had a great-grandfather?"

"No, darling; but the fact is that I--"

In another moment I should have told her the entire truth; but I remembered just in time that I had pledged myself to profound secrecy with regard to the nature and progress of my investigation, and I had yet to learn whether that pledge did or did not involve the observance of secrecy even with those most interested in my researches. Pending further communication with Sheldon, I was certainly bound to be silent.

"I have a kind of interest in the name of Meynell," I said, "for I was once engaged in a business matter with people of that name."

And having thus hoodwinked my beloved with a bouncer, I proceeded to extract the Bible from its shelf. The book was so tightly wedged into its place, that to remove it was like drawing a tooth. It was a n.o.ble-looking old volume, blue with the mould of ages, and redolent of a chill dampness like the atmosphere of a tomb.

"I should so like to examine the old book when the candles come in," I said.

Fortunately for the maintenance of my secret, the darkness was closing in upon us when I discovered the volume, and the room was only fitfully illuminated by the flame that brightened and faded every minute.

I carried the book to a side-table, and Charlotte and I resumed our talk until the candles came, and close behind them uncle Joe. I fear I must have seemed a very inattentive lover during that brief interval, for I could not concentrate my thoughts upon the subject of our discourse. My mind would wander to the strange discovery that I had just made, and I could not refrain from asking myself whether by any extraordinary chance my own dear love should be the rightful claimant to John Haygarth's h.o.a.rded wealth.

I hoped that it might not be so. I hoped that my darling might be penniless rather than the heir to wealth, which, in all likelihood, would create an obstacle strong enough to sever us eternally. I longed to question her about her family, but could not as yet trust myself to broach the subject. And while I doubted and hesitated, honest bl.u.s.tering uncle Joe burst into the room, and aunt Dorothy awoke, and was unutterably surprised to find she had slept so long.

After this came tea; and as I sat opposite my dearest girl I could not choose but remember that gray-eyed Molly, whose miniature had been found in the tulip-wood bureau, and in whose bright face I had seen the likeness of Philip Sheldon's beautiful stepdaughter. And Mr. Sheldon's lovely stepdaughter was the lineal descendant of this very Molly.

Strange mystery of transmitted resemblances! Here was the sweet face that had bewitched honest, simple-minded Matthew Haygarth reproduced after the lapse of a century.

My Charlotte was descended from a poor little player girl who had smiled on the roisterous populace of Bartholomew Fair. Some few drops of Bohemian blood mingled with the pure life-stream in her veins. It pleased me to think of this; but I derived no pleasure from the idea that Charlotte might possibly be the claimant of a great fortune.

"She may have cousins who would stand before her," I said to myself; and there was some comfort in the thought.

After tea I asked permission to inspect the old family Bible, much to the astonishment of uncle Joe, who had no sympathy with antiquarian tastes, and marvelled that I should take any interest in so mouldy a volume. I told him, with perfect truth, that such things had always more or less interest for me; and then I withdrew to my little table, where I was provided with a special pair of candles.

"You'll find the births and deaths of all poor Molly's ancestors on the first leaf," said uncle Joe. "Old Christian Meynell was a rare one for jotting down such things; but the ink has gone so pale that it's about as much as you'll do to make sense of it, I'll lay."

Charlotte looked over my shoulder as I examined the fly-leaf of the family Bible. Even with this incentive to distraction I contrived to be tolerably business-like; and this is the record which I found on the faded page:

"Samuel Matthew Meynell, son of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. March 9, 1796, baptised at St. Giles's, Cripplegate, in this city.

"Susan Meynell, daughter of Christian and Sarah Meynell, b. June 29, 1798, also baptised in the same church.

"Charlotte Meynell, second daughter of the above Christian and Sarah, b. October 3, 1800, baptised at the above-mentioned church of St.

Giles, London."

Below these entries, in blacker ink and in a different hand-writing--a bold, business-like, masculine caligraphy--came the following:

"Charlotte Meynell married to James Halliday, in the parish church of Barngrave, Yorks. April 15, 1819.

"Thomas Halliday, son of the above James and Charlotte Halliday, b.

Jan. 3d, 1821, baptised in the parish church of Barngrave, Feb. 20 in the same year.

"Mary Halliday, daughter of the above-named James and Charlotte Halliday, b. May 27th, 1823, baptised at Barngrave, July 1st in the same year."

Below this there was an entry in a woman's penmans.h.i.+p:

"Susan, the beloved sister of C. H., died in London, July 11, 1835.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged.

"I came to call sinners, and not the righteous, to repentance."