The Child Wife

Fan made no rejoinder. Had her husband closely scanned her countenance at that moment, he might have seen upon it a smile not caused by any admiration of his cleverness.

She had her own thoughts as to what and to whom he was indebted for the favourable turn in his fortunes.

“Yes; much more to come,” said he, continuing the hopeful prognostic. “In fact, Fan, our fortune’s made, or will be, if you only do – ”

“Do what?” she asked, seeing that he hesitated. “What do you want me to do next?”

“Well, in the first place,” drawled he, showing displeasure at her tone, “get up and dress yourself. I’ll tell you what I want afterwards.”

“Dress myself! There’s not much chance of that, with such rags as are left me!”

“Never mind the rags. We can’t help it just now. Besides, love, you look well enough for anything.”

Fan tossed her head, as if she cared little for the compliment.

“Arrange the rags, as you call ’em, best way you can for to-night. To-morrow, it will be different. We shall take a stroll among the milliners and mantua-makers. Now, girl, go; do as I tell you!”

So encouraged, she rose from the couch, and turned towards the stairway that conducted to her sleeping apartment.

She commenced ascending.

“Put on your best looks, Fan!” said her husband, calling after her. “I expect a gentleman, who’s a stranger to you; and I don’t wish him to think I’ve married a slut. Make haste, and get down again. He may be in at any moment.”

There was no response to show that the rude speech had given offence. Only a laugh, sent back from the stair-landing.

Swinton resumed his cigar, and sat waiting.

He knew not which would be heard first – a ring at the gate-bell, or the rustling of silk upon the stairway.

He desired the latter, as he had not yet completed the promised instructions.

He had not much more to say, and a moment would suffice:

He was not disappointed: Fan came first. She came sweeping downstairs, snowy with Spanish chalk, and radiant with rouge.

Without these she was beautiful, with them superb.

Long usage had made them almost a necessity to her skin; but the same had taught her skill in their limning. Only a connoisseur could have distinguished the paint upon her cheeks from the real and natural colour.

“You’ll do,” said Swinton, as he scanned her with an approving glance.

“For, what, pray?” was the interrogatory.

It was superfluous. She more than conjectured his meaning.

“Sit down, and I’ll tell you.”

She sat down.

He did not proceed at once. He seemed under some embarrassment. Even he – the brute – was embarrassed!

And no wonder, with the vile intent in his thoughts – upon the tip of his tongue; for he intended counselling her to shame!

Not to the ultimate infamy, but to the seeming of it.

Only the seeming; and with the self-excuse of this limitation, he took courage, and spoke.

He spoke thus:

“Look here, Fan. The gentleman I’m expecting, is the same that has put us into this little snuggery. It’s Lord – . I’ve told you what sort of a man he is, and what power he’s got. He can do wonders for me, and will, if I can manage him. But he’s fickle and full of conceit, as all of his kind. He requires skilful management; and you must assist me.”

“I assist you! In what way?”

“I only want you to be civil to him. You understand me?”

Fan made no reply; but her glance of assumed incredulity told of a perfect comprehension!

The ringing of the gate-bell interrupted the chapter of instructions.

Chapter Fifty Seven.

Patron and Protégé

The ringing of the bell did not cause Mr Swinton to start. It might have done so had he been longer in his new residence. His paper “kites” were still carried about London, with judgments pinned on to them; and he might have supposed that the bearer of one of them was bringing it home to him.

But the short time he had been installed in the McTavish villa, with the fact that a visitor was expected, rendered him comparatively fearless; and his composure was only disturbed by a doubt, as to whether the ringer of the bell was his patron, or only a deputy sent with the promised instructions.

The maid-of-all-work, that day hastily engaged, was despatched to answer the ring. If it was an elderly gentleman, tall and stoutish, she was to show him in at once, and without parley.

On opening the gate, a figure was distinguished outside. It was that of a gentleman. He was enveloped in an ample cloak, with a cap drawn over his ears. This did not prevent the servant from seeing that he was tall and stoutish; while the gleam of the hall-lamp, falling on his face, despite a dyed whisker, showed him to answer the other condition for admittance.

“Mr Swinton lives here?” he asked, before the gate-opener could give him invitation to enter.

“He does, sir. Please to walk in.”

Guided by the girl, the cloaked personage threaded through the lilacs and laurestinas, stepped on to the little piazza, on which Mr McTavish had oft smoked his pipe; and was at length shown into the apartment where Swinton awaited him.

The latter was alone – his wife having retired by instructions.

On the entrance of his visitor, Mr Swinton started up from his seat, and advanced to receive him.

“My lord!” said he, shamming a profound surprise, “is it possible I am honoured by your presence?”

“No honour, sir; no honour whatever.”

“From what your lordship said, I was expecting you to send – ”

“I have come instead, Mr Swinton. The instructions I have to give are upon a matter of some importance. I think it better you should have them direct from ‘myself.’ For this reason I present myself, as you see, in propria persona.”

“That’s a lie!” thought Swinton, in reference to the reason.

Of course he kept the thought to himself His reply was:

“Just like what is said of your lordship. By night, as by day, always at work – doing service to the State. Your lordship will pardon me for speaking so freely?”

“Don’t mention it, my dear sir. The business between us requires that we both speak freely.”

“Excuse me for not having asked your lordship to take a seat!”

“I’ll take that,” promptly responded the condescending nobleman, “and a cigar, too, if you’ve got one to spare.”

“Fortunately I have,” said the delighted Swinton. “Here, my lord, are some sold to me for Havanas. I can’t answer for their quality.”

“Try one of mine?”

The patron pulled a cigar-case out of the pocket of his coat. The cloak and cap had been left behind him in the hall.

The protégé accepted it with a profusion of thanks.

Both sat down, and commenced smoking.

Swinton, thinking he had talked enough, waited for the great man to continue the conversation.

He did so.

“I see you’ve succeeded in taking the house,” was the somewhat pointless remark.

“I am in it, my lord,” was the equally pointless reply.

More to the purpose was the explanation that followed:

“I regret to inform your lordship that it has cost a considerable sum.”

“How much?”

“I had to take it for a whole year – at a rent of two hundred pounds.”

“Pooh! never mind that. It’s for the service of the State. In such matters we are obliged to make liberal disbursement. And now, my dear sir, let me explain to you why it has been taken, and for what purpose you have been placed in it.”

Swinton settled down into an attitude of obsequious attention.

His patron proceeded:

“Directly opposite lives a man, whose name is already known to you.”

Without the name being mentioned, the listener nodded assent. He knew it was Kossuth.

“You will observe, ere long, that this man has many visitors.”

“I have noticed that already, my lord. All day they have been coming and going.”

“Just so. And among them are men of note; many who have played an important part in the politics of Europe. Now, sir; it is deemed convenient, for the cause of order, that the movements of these men should be known; and for this it is necessary that a watch be kept upon them. From Sir Robert Cottrell’s recommendation, we’ve chosen you for this delicate duty. If I mistake not, sir, you will know how to perform it?”

“My lord, I make promise to do my best.”

“So much then for the general purpose. And now to enter a little more into details.”

Swinton resumed his listening attitude.

“You will make yourself acquainted with the personal appearance of all who enter the opposite house; endeavour to ascertain who they are; and report on their goings and comings – taking note of the hour. For this purpose you will require two assistants; whom I authorise you to engage. One of them may appear to act as your servant; the other, appropriately dressed, should visit you as an intimate acquaintance. If you could find one who has access to the camp of the enemy, it would be of infinite importance. There are some of these refugees in the habit of visiting your neighbour, who may not be altogether his friends. You understand me?”

“I do, your lordship.”

“I see, Mr Swinton, you are the man we want. And now for a last word. Though you are to take note of the movements of Kossuth’s guests, still more must you keep your eye upon himself. Should he go out, either you or your friend must follow and find where he goes to. Take a cab if necessary; and on any such occasion report directly and without losing time. Make your report to my private secretary; who will always be found at my residence in Park Lane. This will be sufficient for the present. When you are in need of funds, let my secretary know. He has orders to attend to the supply department. Any further instructions I shall communicate to you myself. I may have to come here frequently; so you had better instruct your servant about admitting me.”

“My lord, would you accept of a key? Excuse me for asking. It would save your lordship from the disagreeable necessity of waiting outside the gate, and perhaps being recognised by the passers, or those opposite?”

Without showing it, Swinton’s patron was charmed with the proposal. The key might in time become useful, for other purposes than to escape recognition by either “the passers or those opposite.” He signified his consent to accept it.

“I see you are clever, Mr Swinton,” he said, with a peculiar, almost sardonic smile. “As you say, a key will be convenient. And now, I need scarce point out to you the necessity of discretion in all that you do. I perceive that your windows are furnished with movable Venetians. That is well, and will be suitable to your purpose. Fortunately your own personal appearance corresponds very well to such an establishment as this – a very snug affair it is – and your good lady – ah! by the way, we are treating her very impolitely. I owe her an apology for keeping you so long away from her. I hope you will make it for me, Mr Swinton. Tell her that I have detained you on business of importance.”

“My lord, she will not believe it, unless I tell her whom I’ve had the honour of receiving. May I take that liberty?”

“Oh! certainly – certainly. Were it not for the hour, I should have asked you to introduce me. Of course, it is too late to intrude upon a lady.”

“There’s no hour too late for an introduction to your lordship. I know the poor child would be delighted.”

“Well, Mr Swinton, if it’s not interfering with your domestic arrangements, I, too, would be delighted. All hours are alike to me.”

“My wife is upstairs. May I ask her to come down?”

“Nay, Mr Swinton; may I ask you to bring her down?”

“Such condescension, my lord! It is a pleasure to obey you.”

With this speech, half aside, Swinton stepped out of the room; and commenced ascending the stairway.

He was not gone long. Fan was found upon the first landing, ready to receive the summons.

He returned almost too soon for his sexagenarian visitor, who had placed himself in front of the mantel mirror, and was endeavouring with dyed locks to conceal the bald spot upon his crown!

The introduction was followed by Mr Swinton’s guest forgetting all about the lateness of the hour, and resuming his seat. Then succeeded a triangular conversation, obsequious on two rides, slightly patronising on the third; becoming less so, as the speeches were continued; and then there was an invitation extended to the noble guest to accept of some refreshment, on the plea of his long detention – a courtesy he did not decline.

And the Abigail was despatched to the nearest confectionery, and brought back sausage rolls and sandwiches, with a Melton Mowbray pie; and these were placed upon the table, alongside a decanter of sherry; of which his lordship partook with as much amiable freedom as if he had been a jolly guardsman!

And it ended in his becoming still more amiable; and talking to Swinton as to an old bosom friend; and squeezing the hand of Swinton’s wife, as he stood in the doorway repeatedly bidding her “good-night” – a bit of by-play that should have made Swinton jealous, had the hall-lamp been burning bright enough for him to see. He only guessed it, and was not jealous!

“She’s a delicious creature, that!” soliloquised the titled roué, as he proceeded to the Park Road, where a carriage, drawn up under the shadow of the trees, had been all the while waiting for him. “And a trump to boot! I can tell that by the touch of her taper fingers.”

“She’s a trump and a treasure!” was the almost simultaneous reflection of Swinton, with the same woman in his thoughts – his own wife!

He made it, after closing the door upon his departing guest; and then, as he sat gulping another glass of sherry, and smoking another cigar, he repeated it with the continuation:

“Yes; Fan’s the correct card to play. What a stupid I’ve been not to think of this before! Hang it! it’s not yet too late. I’ve still got hold of the hand; and this night, if I’m not mistaken, there’s a game begun that’ll give me all I want in this world – that’s Julia Girdwood.”

The serious tone in which the last three words were spoken told he had not yet resigned his aspirations after the American heiress.

Chapter Fifty Eight.

Improved Prospects

To those who take no note of social distinctions, Swinton’s scheme in relation to Julia Girdwood will appear grotesque. Not so much on account of its atrocity, but from the chances of its success seeming so problematical.

Could he have got the girl to love him, it would have changed the aspect of affairs. Love breaks down all barriers; and to a mind constituted as hers, no obstacle could have intervened – not even the idea of danger.

She did not love him; but he did not know it. A guardsman, and handsome to boot, he had been accustomed to facile conquests. In his own way of thinking, the time had not arrived when these should be deemed difficult.

He was no longer in the Guards; but he was still young, and he knew he was still handsome English dames thought him so. Strange if a Yankee girl should have a different opinion!

This was the argument on his side; and, trusting to his attractions, he still fancied himself pretty sure of being able to make a conquest of the American – even to making her the victim of an illegal marriage.

And if he should succeed in his bigamous scheme, what then? What use would she be as a wife, unless her mother should keep that promise he had overheard: to endow her with the moiety of her own life-interest in the estate of the deceased storekeeper?

To many Julia Girdwood against her mother’s wish would be a simple absurdity. He did not dread the danger that might accrue from the crime. He did not think of it. But to become son-in-law to a woman, whose daughter might remain penniless as long as she herself lived, would be a poor speculation. A woman, too, who talked of living another half-century! The jest was not without significance; and Swinton thought so.

He felt confident that he could dupe the daughter into marrying him; but to get that half-million out of the mother, he must stand before the altar as a lord!

These were Mrs Girdwood’s original conditions. He knew she still adhered to them. If fulfilled, she would still consent; but not otherwise.

To go on, then, the sham incognito must be continued – the deception kept up.

But how?

This was the point that puzzled him.

The impersonation had become difficult. In Newport and New York it had been easy; in Paris still easier; but he was at length in London, where such a cheat would be in danger of being detected.

Moreover, in his last interview with the ladies, he had been sensible of some change in their behaviour toward him – an absence of the early congeniality. It was shown chiefly by Mrs Girdwood herself! Her warm friendship suddenly conceived at Newport, continued in New York, and afterwards renewed in Paris, appeared to have as suddenly grown cool.

What could be the cause? Had she heard anything to his discredit? Could she have discovered the counterfeit? Or was she only suspicious of it?

Only the last question troubled him. He did not think he had been found out. He had played his part skilfully, having given no clue to his concealed title. And he had given good reasons for his care in concealing it.

He admitted to himself that she had cause for being suspicious. She had extended hospitality to him in America. He had not returned it in Europe, for reasons well-known.

True, he had only met his American acquaintances in Paris; but even there, an English lord should have shown himself more liberal; and she might have felt piqued at his parsimony.

For similar reasons he had not yet called upon them in London.

On the contrary, since his return, he had purposely kept out of their way.

In England he was in his own country; and why should he be living under an assumed name? If a lord, why under straitened circumstances? In Mrs Girdwood’s eyes these would be suspicious circumstances.

The last might be explained – by the fact of their being poor lords, though not many. Not many, who do not find the means to dress well, and dine sumptuously – to keep a handsome house, if they feel disposed.

Since his return from the States, Swinton could do none of these things. How, then, was he to pass himself off for a lord – even one of the poorest?

He had almost despaired of being able to continue the counterfeit; when the patronage of a lord, real and powerful, inspired him with fresh hope. Through it his prospects had become entirely changed. It had put money in his purse, and promised more. What was equally encouraging, he could now, in real truth, claim being employed in a diplomatic capacity. True, it was but as a spy; but this is an essential part of the diplomatic service!

There was his apparent intimacy with a distinguished diplomatic character – a nobleman; there would be his constant visits to the grand mansion in Park Lane – strange if with these appearances in his favour he could not still contrive to throw dust in the eyes of Dame Girdwood!

Certainly his scheme was far from hopeless. By the new appointment a long vista of advantages had been suddenly disclosed to him; and he now set himself to devise the best plan for improving them.

Fan was called into his counsels; for the wife was still willing. Less than ever did she care for him, or what he might do. She, too, had become conscious of brighter prospects; and might hope, at no distant day, to appear once more in Rotten Row.

If, otherwise, she had a poor opinion of her husband, she did not despise his talent for intrigue. There was proof of it in their changed circumstances. And though she well knew the source from which their sudden prosperity had sprung, she knew, also, the advantage, to a woman of her propensities, in being a wife. “United we stand, divided we fall,” may have been the thought in her mind; but, whether it was or not, she was still ready to assist her husband in accomplishing a second marriage!

With the certificate of the first, carefully stowed away in a secret drawer of her dressing-case, she had nothing to fear, beyond the chance of a problematical exposure.

She did not fear this, so long as there was a prospect of that splendid plunder, in which she would be a sharer. Dick had promised to be “true as steel,” and she had reciprocated the promise.

With a box of cigars, and a decanter of sherry between them, a programme was traced out for the further prosecution of the scheme.

Chapter Fifty Nine.

A Distinguished Dinner-Party

It was a chill November night; but there was no coldness inside the South Bank Cottage – the one occupied by Mr Richard Swinton.

There was company in it.

There had been a dinner-party, of nine covers. The dinner was eaten; and the diners had returned to the drawing-room.

The odd number of nine precluded an exact pairing of the sexes. The ladies out-counted the gentlemen, by five to four.

Four of them are already known to the reader. They were Mrs Swinton, Mrs Girdwood, her daughter and niece. The fifth was a stranger, not only to the reader, but to Mrs Girdwood and her girls.

Three of the gentlemen were the host himself Mr Louis Lucas, and his friend Mr Spiller. The fourth, like the odd lady, was a stranger.

He did not appear strange to Mrs Swinton; who during the dinner had treated him with remarkable familiarity, calling him her “dear Gustave”; while he in turn let the company know she was his wife!

He spoke with a French accent, and by Swinton was styled “the count.”

The strange lady appeared to know him – also in a familiar way. She was the Honourable Miss Courtney – Geraldine Courtney.

With such a high-sounding name, she could not look other than aristocratic.

She was pretty as well, and accomplished; with just that dash of freedom, in speech and in manner, which distinguishes the lady of haut ton from the wife or daughter of a “tradesman.”

In Miss Courtney it was carried to a slight excess. So a prudish person might have thought.

But Mrs Girdwood was not prudish – least of all, in the presence of such people. She was delighted with the Honourable Geraldine; and wondered not at her wild way – only at her amiable condescensions!

She was charmed also with the count, and his beautiful countess.

His lordship had done the correct thing at last – by introducing her to such company. Though still passing under the assumed name of Swinton – even among his own friends – the invitation to that dinner-party disarmed her of suspicion. The dinner itself still more; and she no longer sought to penetrate the mystery of his incognito.

Besides, he had repeated the plea that hitherto satisfied her. Still was it diplomacy!

Even Julia was less distant with him. A house handsomely furnished; a table profusely spread; titled guests around it; well-dressed servants in waiting – all this proved that Mr Swinton was somebody. And it was only his temporary town residence, taken for a time and a purpose – still diplomacy. She had not yet seen his splendid place in the country, to which he had given hints of an invitation.

Proud republican as Julia Girdwood was, she was still but the child of a parvenu.

And there was something in the surroundings to affect her fancy. She saw this man, Mr Swinton, whom she had hitherto treated slightingly, now in the midst of his own friends, behaving handsomely, and treated with respect. Such friends, too! all bearing titles – all accomplished – two of them beautiful women, who appeared not only intimate with, but complaisant toward him!

Moreover, no one could fail to see that he was handsome. He had never looked better, in her eyes, than on that evening. It was a situation not only to stir curiosity, but suggest thoughts of rivalry.

And perhaps Julia Girdwood had them. It was the first time she had figured in the company of titled aristocracy. It would not be strange if her fancy was affected in such presence. Higher pride than hers has succumbed to its influence.

She was not the only one of her party who gave way to the wayward influences of the hour, and the seductions of their charming host Mr Lucas, inspired by repeated draughts of sherry and champagne, forgot his past antipathies, and of course burned to embrace him. Mr Lucas’s shadow, Spiller, was willing to do the same!