Ричард Марш
The Twickenham Peerage
CHAPTER XX
THE OPENING OF THE COFFIN
Shall I ever forget the day which followed? – the greatest in all my life! I'll have to be very old first, and far gone in my dotage. When I woke up in the morning I couldn't think where I was. I hadn't slept out of Little Olive Street, since James took me there after we were married, I don't think half-a-dozen times. And never in such a room as I was in then; nor yet in one anywhere like it.
When it all came back to me somehow I felt happier than I'd done for I don't know how long. I'd had a good night's sleep; not a worry on my mind. I could have sung as I lay in bed; yes, and laughed. There were the children; Jimmy on one side, and Pollie on the other. They'd wanted to make up a separate bed for them, but I wouldn't hear of it; and when that grand lady, who it seemed was the housekeeper, put on airs, as if they were her children, I let her see-and I felt sure that, before very long, their father'd be beside me too.
I wasn't a bit afraid. With the night even the last shadow of a doubt had gone. Whatever or whoever was in that mausoleum place they talked about, and which we should soon be going to see, I knew it wasn't James there. There might be trouble in it for some one, but I was sure it wasn't for me.
We had breakfast with the family-oh dear! it was a meal. There was the young gentleman and Miss Desmond and the children and me. I was on pins and needles all the time lest the children should do something they didn't ought. They weren't used to eating in company; and everything was that grand I was in a muddle enough myself without having to think of them. The servants-the serving-men that is-they were the worst. The children couldn't eat their breakfast for staring at them. They asked all sorts of questions-about their white stockings, and their white hair and I don't know what. The young gentleman seemed to think it was a joke. But Miss Desmond could see I wasn't comfortable; so she sent the men out of the room, and then we had a little peace.
It was a lovely morning when we started to drive to the station, Miss Desmond, the young gentleman, and me; in a beautiful carriage, with such a pair of horses! I'd have liked to have stroked them, only I didn't dare. I hadn't touched a horse since I was at home at the farm. There was a special whole carriage engaged for us in the train; and waiting for us on the platform was Sir Gregory Hancock, and Dr. Clinton, and, of course, Mr. FitzHoward. He was the most important person of us all. I don't know if he was supposed to be managing everything, but he might just as well have been. He was dressed in black from head to foot, with a band of crape right up to the top of his hat, and another round his arm. He did make me so angry. Just as though any one was dead who had to do with him-or me either. As if I didn't know my James was alive. I was dressed as I always am. When he saw it he looked at me as if I'd done something improper. About some things he has no sense.
Just as the train was going to start up came Mr. Howarth, and, with him, Lady Violet. I don't believe either of them was expected. Lady Violet was pretty stiff. She just gave Miss Desmond an icy kiss on the cheek, the young gentleman the tips of her fingers, and towards me she gave a little movement with her head, as if she wished me to understand that she saw me, and that was all she intended to do. Mr. Howarth seemed quite ill. He even walked like a sick man; coming along the platform with uncertain steps, as if he found it difficult to lift his feet.
We were a strange company, as the train bore us into the country out of the town. Mr. Howarth's face got on my nerves. That something was badly wrong with him one couldn't help seeing. I couldn't help looking his way every now and again, and every time I did my spirits sank a little lower. Lady Violet sat as straight as a broom handle; with pale face, shut lips, and gleaming eyes. Scarcely a word would she speak to any one. The way she treated the young gentleman-considering they were sweethearts, as Miss Desmond had told me-was queer. These two had a depressing effect on all of us. And when you put to that the fact that Mr. FitzHoward had taken it into his head all of a sudden to behave as if he were a mute at a funeral, and would do nothing except look straight along the tip of his nose, it will be seen that we weren't exactly lively. If it hadn't been for the two doctors I doubt if a dozen words would have been said. Somehow I felt that the whole affair amused Dr. Clinton; and he and Sir Gregory kept talking together in whispers nearly the whole of the way.
There were carriages to meet us at the station where we stopped-though I had begun to think that we never should get there; and presently we were bowling along through country lanes. After we had gone some way, perhaps three or four miles, we turned through some open gates into an avenue of trees. One thing I noticed, that they were all elms and silver beeches; and that they were planted in turns, so that when there was an elm on one side there was a beech upon the other.
It was a great old house we came to. We passed under an arch into a courtyard, where there was a fountain in the middle. If all this indeed belonged to my James I couldn't help wondering more and more why he gave it all up; and, above all, how he ever came to marry the likes of me. There was a huge fire blazing in the hall, which cheered it up a bit. It wanted brightening, for it was so large, and the black oak walls made it seem more than a little grim and sombre.
'We'll first have some lunch,' explained the young gentleman to us, as we stood all together in the hall; 'and then afterwards we'll drive over to the mausoleum.'
It wasn't a festive luncheon. Only the doctors and Mr. FitzHoward ate anything. I'm sure the rest of us would have been just as well without it; particularly Mr. Howarth, for he did nothing else but drink. In spite of myself I kept getting more and more into the dumps. The air of the place and the air of the people, the feeling, too, that something unpleasant was at hand, began to fill me with a sense of worry. Mr. Howarth's face and manner, and the way he drank, made it worse. He must have had two or three bottles of wine to himself; if not more, tumbler after tumbler. What wine it was I couldn't say. The fact that nobody else drank anything at all made the fact of his drinking so much all the more conspicuous. We all sat peering at him out of the corners of our eyes, wondering what was going to happen.
By the time lunch was over, and we were getting ready to start, I was all of a fidget. I was still persuaded that there was no bad news in store for me, but I was equally sure that there was for some one. What Mr. Howarth feared I couldn't think. I remembered once reading an account of a man who was hanged; how, as he approached the gallows, his face seemed to get more and more set, and he moved more and more like a rickety machine. It all came back to me as I looked at Mr. Howarth. I wished it wouldn't. In particular I did wish that he'd manage to put himself somewhere where I couldn't see him. The fear that was on him began to pass to me. Miss Desmond's face was like a sheet for whiteness. When she came close to me I saw that she was shivering, and that there were deep lines about the corners of her lips and eyes.
As a servant came to tell us all was ready, the young gentleman, noticing how strange she looked, came towards us with an anxious face. He himself didn't look as well as he might have done. But he was resolute and stern rather than white with the terror of what was to come; as she was.
'Edith, I think that you had better stay behind; and you, too.'
This was to me. But I would have no truck with any such suggestion. I had no fear of what I was going to see; I knew it wouldn't be my James. It was because I had no fear that I was resolved to see. Their eyes I wouldn't trust; not Mr. FitzHoward's, nor Dr. Clinton's, nor any one's, except my own. If James was dead, and in that coffin, of which I'd heard so much, then for me there was an end of everything. But I knew he wasn't, and, let them tell what tales they might, I'd require the evidence of my own eyes before I believed he was. It was right and proper that Miss Desmond should stay behind, for that she was in a piteous plight was plain; and this was a business in which her concern was as nothing compared to mine, but with me it was a different tale.
'I shall go. But you-' I turned to her; 'I think that you had better stay.'
'I can't! I can't!' she said. Then she dropped her voice. 'I daren't!'
The young gentleman's face grew darker.
'I shall have to forbid you. You are not well; there is no reason why you should come; rather there is why you shouldn't; and you must excuse my saying, Edith, that we want no scenes.'
'Don't-don't forbid me.' She put her hand on his arm. 'I promise you shall have no scene.'
She went; she and I alone together in a carriage. It turned out that the mausoleum wasn't very far away; half a mile, perhaps, or three-quarters; but she never would have walked it. All the way she sat holding my hand, sometimes squeezing it so tight that she hurt. And such a look upon her face! Just before we stopped she spoke; I expect because she couldn't keep still any longer.
'What do you think he's afraid of?'
The question took me aback; because I had been wondering myself, and the more I wondered the less I could think.
'I don't know. But if I were you I wouldn't trouble, whatever it is.'
'You wouldn't trouble? And he's my man?'
I knew she was hinting at what I'd said about James. When she spoke like that I'd nothing else to say.
I never saw anything like that mausoleum. It was like a little church built of granite. We went through a door into a sort of tiny room. The two doctors met us. Sir Gregory spoke.
'Everything is ready. Now, my dear ladies, this young lady'-meaning me-'is the only one of you for whose presence there is the slightest necessity. Lady Violet, and you, Miss Desmond, if you take my urgent advice, will remain here till she returns.'
He spoke in a way which showed that he meant that his advice should be attended to; I dare say the young gentleman had been saying a word or two upon the road. Anyhow they did as he wished. They stayed behind, and I went with him and Dr. Clinton into a kind of room which was beyond. It was a dome-shaped place. The walls and floor were of bare granite. The only light came through some small painted windows which were high above the ground. There were narrow holes in the walls here and there to let the air come through. All round the place were shelves; on some of the shelves were coffins. One of them, which had been taken, I expect, from where it had stood upon a shelf, was raised above the ground on a black pall in the centre of the floor. Four men, who looked like mechanics, stood one at either corner, each with a screw-driver in his hand.
'This is my brother's coffin' said the young gentleman. 'As I have already informed you, I thought it better that it should not be touched except in our presence. I need not remark that it has not been opened since it came.'
'How do we know? How do we know?'
This was Mr. Howarth.
'You do know,' was all the young gentleman replied. He nodded to the four men. They began to remove the screws.
The young gentleman had made me take his arm. I was glad of it before they'd got those screws all out. I don't know how many there were, but I thought they never would come to the end of them. No one spoke a word. I don't believe I ever breathed. I know I had to lean upon the young gentleman's arm to help me to stand. When they made ready to remove the lid I gave a start.
'Not yet,' he whispered. 'There's a shell within.'
I'd forgotten that the gentry are buried in two coffins, and sometimes three. When my turn comes I know that one will be enough. I shouldn't like to be fastened up in all that quantity of wood. Sure enough, when the lid was taken off, there was another one beneath. There was another weary lot of screws, though I don't think quite so many as before. Then one of the men said,
'That's the last.'
We all drew closer. The young gentleman spoke, his voice seeming strange.
'Remove the lid.'
The four men lifted it. Then all was still. I think that each was reluctant to be the first to see what might be seen. Mr. Howarth, indeed, drew back. I felt that the arm on which I leaned was trembling. That made me tremble too. The two doctors advanced together. They leaned over the open coffin. Sir Gregory spoke first.
'That is the Marquis of Twickenham.'
Then Dr. Clinton:
'Then the Marquis of Twickenham and Mr. Montagu Babbacombe were one; for that certainly is Mr. Babbacombe.'
When he said that, if it had not been for the young gentleman I believe I should have fallen. I could neither move nor speak. Mr. FitzHoward joined them.
'That's Babbacombe right enough; but he looks as if he were alive.'
'Alive? Alive?' gasped Mr. Howarth. 'Pray God-that he is alive.'
'He certainly is in a wonderful state of preservation,' murmured Dr. Gregory. 'Altogether beyond anything I expected to find.'
My strength returning, I tried to go forward. But the young gentleman stopped me.
'Be careful! Haven't you heard enough?'
'I want to see! I want to see!'
I went and saw.
I saw something lying in a coffin; something so like my James that it wasn't strange they should think that it was he. But I was his wife; and I saw with different eyes; so that I knew better in an instant.
'That's not my James! That's not my James! Why-I don't believe-that-it's a man at all.'
Dr. Clinton, putting out his hand, touched the face which lay there staring up at us.
'She's right. It's some sort of a dummy.'
There was a curious cry, like none I'd heard before, and the sound of a heavy body falling. It was Mr. Howarth tumbling to the ground. Miss Desmond, hastening in, knelt on the floor at his side.
BOOK III. – THE GENTLEMAN WITH NINE LIVES
THE ADVENTURES OF A GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF
FORTUNE, AS TOLD BY HIMSELF
CHAPTER XXI
A PEER IN EMBRYO
Extraordinary how small the world Is. A remark which is not original. Thus making the fact still more conspicuous. For a thing must be very obvious to force itself on the attention of the ordinary ass.
Who would have thought that a lying scamp was telling the truth when I supposed him to be more than usually engaged in its perversion?
It was at a certain house of call in San Francisco that I first met him-M'Croskay's, where they knew a thing or two. There was a man standing before the fire when I went in. When he saw me he said, 'Hollo! You're me!' That was the first time I heard him speak the truth, and, until the other day, I believed it was the last. It was a fact. I was him; his alter ego; his brother Dromio. The joke was, he was a blackguard too. At a sale we might have been exploited as an interchangeable lot; and a bitter bargain. If there was anything he'd stick at, I never found it. He was as mad as I was. And as great a liar. There was only one point on which we differed; and that was tongue. How that man could talk! A hundred and twenty thousand words to my one.
It was convenient, at times-that conversational gift of his. For he'd contradict himself so often in the course of half-an-hour that you'd begin to wonder if the truth hadn't slipped into the mess by accident. It seems it actually did. Though it took me ten years to discover just where.
He was fond of telling us who he was. But it seemed that he was so many people that one got to feel that it didn't matter over-much which particular one of them he might happen to be. One night when we'd been having a little euchre, and he'd had a bottle or so of Bourbon, and lost, and wanted to play on the nod, and we wouldn't have it, he started clearing his mind of what he thought of us. And he told us he was an English nobleman; one of the greatest English noblemen; and that his yearly income was in the neighbourhood of a million dollars. As he'd been a Russian banker a little earlier in the evening, and an Australian squatter a bit ahead of that, and two or three other things besides, we didn't think his tale was good enough to play for owings on. If I'd taken interest enough in what he said I'd have asked him what nobleman he was. Then I might have been in front of Mr. Smith.
Four years afterwards-six years ago-I married. It was all done in a week. So quick that I haven't got used to it yet. When I remember I'm married I brace myself, and a sort of shudder of wonder goes right through my bones. One promise I made to myself when I stood with her before the registrar-and to myself I always keep my word. That I'd keep her out of the mud in which I live, and move, and have my being. Whenever I've gone home to her I've left everything that wasn't clean outside. So that to this hour she's as simple as on the day on which I married her; and that's saying something; and she hasn't found me out. It's the queerest thing in the world to know that there's some one thinks you're good.
This encounter with Mr. John Smith is likely to cause a complication. As my life was already such an intricate piece of machinery, it didn't seem as if there was room for many more complications. But when he would have it that I was the Marquis of Twickenham, my thoughts flew back to that master of lies who was so like me, and who would have it that he was an English nobleman. It was something to wake from a thirty days' sleep-with occasional intervals for exercise and refreshment-to find oneself a Marquis. That interview with Mr. Smith at the York did tickle me. So I was a Marquis; and as a Marquis I was to die, for his benefit-and a thousand pounds. I'm a fool; we're all fools; but I'm not the kind of fool who can't see things when they're shown him. When he began to talk like that, I saw the infinite possibilities of the position in a flash. I'd had a go at some pretty big things in my time, but never at anything within a good few miles of this. The first thing was to die, and then- Why then, we'd see. And so probably would Mr. Smith.
I died. I've died before, for money. Same as I've slept for thirty days. But it's not a pleasing pastime. Not the kind of thing I should recommend to any gentleman who's looking for some agreeable occupation with which to fill up his spare time. Especially when you have to ready yourself for it in two or three hours, as I had then. By the time you are ready you feel as if it was going to be a case of genuine death at last. I know I did. Then I had got up the game so thoroughly that I had to cling on to life by my eyelids.
The show was artistically a success; though, while it lasted, I kept thinking of the Chinaman from whom I'd learnt the trick. For reasons of his own-most of them connected with the police-that ingenious yellow terror was constantly finding it convenient to slip his cable. Once, as I'd cause for knowing, he slipped it so well that it parted for ever. As I lay that Monday afternoon, with the various members of the noble house of Twickenham standing by my bed of suffering, the memory of that Chinaman came back more clearly than I liked, and I devoutly hoped that I wasn't going to follow his example. It had been my original intention to prolong the agony, and to keep on dying for a day or two. There were a good many little hints I wanted to pick up from the members of my family. But the agony turned out to be so very real that the idea of prolonging it didn't appeal to me one little bit. So we had to part before we'd really met; and I had to postpone, until after my death, the acquirement of the information I stood so much in need of.
It was not surprising that the old fossil of a doctor announced that I was dead; for I had done the thing so extremely well, and was in such a state of collapse, that I myself wasn't sure I wasn't.
My experiences, on that occasion, by no means terminated with my decease. It's an odd sensation to be 'laid out' by a lady of a certain age and peculiar habits. It's a funny thing to be measured for your coffin. It's a still funnier one to be placed inside it. And it was when I was placed inside it that one of the not least difficult and delicate parts of the game began.
I've often thought that there's something to be said for an Irish wake, besides the pleasing opportunity it gives for the consumption of Irish whisky. And still more for the custom which obtains of never leaving a corpse alone until it's underground. From my point of view. For if they hadn't left me alone I'd have been in a trifling fix. Mr. Smith's idea was that he should appear upon the scene before the undertaker's men, that I there and then should come to life, and that we should screw down the lid upon an empty coffin. But apart from the fact that I didn't trust Mr. Smith, not half as far as I could see him, that notion of his was worth just nothing. He hadn't allowed for the absence of my weight from that elegant chest. They'd have to be a rummy lot of undertakers' men who couldn't tell, even when they were dead drunk, an empty coffin from a full one. But as I'd made arrangements of my own for supplying the deficiency I didn't trouble to go into details with Mr. Smith. As things turned out, from every point of view, it was just as well I had.
I took with me to Cortin's Hotel my double. There were only two men in the world who ever knew of its existence. I'm one; the other's dead. Real dead; and not for money. He was a Frenchman named Pétion-Edward Pétion. He was a modeller in wax. He had been attached to a waxworks museum in Paris; where, I fancy, propriety according to English notions was not the strongest point. That had been before I made his acquaintance. At the time I knew him the only thing to which he was attached was absinthe. The bonds of that attachment were never relaxed. He was penniless. And though he required no food he did want drink. With that I provided him on condition that he made my double. And he did.
It was made on the principle of a lay figure, with flexible limbs; and in every respect was an exact copy of the great original-so far, that is, as the means available permitted. The result altogether exceeded my expectations. It was my weight to an ounce. And when it was lying down, with its eyes closed, not the keenest observer, standing at a little distance-unless he had some prior cause of his own for doubt-would suspect that it wasn't me, especially when the light was a little bad. In support of that statement I need only mention that the public-and even my own manager-has stared at it when it was inside a glass frame without entertaining the faintest suspicion of the substitution which had taken place. With one accord they imagined themselves to be looking at me.
This was the double which I had taken with me to Cortin's Hotel. And when the time came that I judged myself to have had enough of being cribbed and cabined in that elegant example of the undertaker's art, I just got out of it, placed the garments in which I was attired on Myself No. 2, and laid him comfortably to rest in the position I had recently quitted. That any one would detect the change, without entering on a closer examination than in such a case was likely, I knew from experience was in the highest degree improbable.
My intention was, when Mr. Smith did arrive, to come out of my hiding-place, tell him what I had done, and so render detection practically impossible. But, as it happened, the fact that the undertakers' men came first introduced a new factor into the situation. They made no bones about the matter. Only one fellow glanced at the corpse, and his one remark was to the effect that 'the old chap looks pretty fresh.' Without any waste of time they proceeded to put on the lid. I could not help reflecting, as I viewed the proceedings, that it was just as well that things weren't what they seemed.
Just as they had got the last screw home, Mr. Smith did arrive. I was curious to know what would happen now. Practically nothing happened. He let them walk off with the coffin, in the full belief that I was its contents, without moving so much as a finger to save me from the living death to which he supposed me to be doomed. Beyond doubt his intention was to murder, and so rid himself of the unfortunate wretch whom he had incited to conspiracy. I had a queer shivery-shakery feeling as I thought of the fate I had escaped. I also reflected that, although he didn't know it, he had put another card into my hand. Hardly had he left the room, than I followed him down the stairs-not as my own proper self, but as a bearded individual who they probably imagined, in the confusion, was one of the guests of the house.
I bought a portmanteau, together with the necessary clothes with which to fill it, crossed town in a cab, and, as Mr. Leonard, took rooms in a highly respectable house in Clifford Street, Dalston. There, while maturing my plan of campaign, I watched the issue of events. I wasn't going to die and be buried for a mere monkey, as, in course of time, Mr. Smith would learn. In trying murder he'd given the game away, and not only so, had destroyed, for ever, his own peace of mind. I knew the kind of man he was. There are plenty like him. You probably see one when you look in the glass. To cut some one's throat is the shortest way out of heaps of holes into which one gets. It is only what some call conscience, and others blue funk, which stays one's hand. It wasn't the cutting of the throat which he objected to, but what came after. He'd be glad enough to have me boarded up, and out of the way, for ever and a day. But I'd lay odds that there'd come times when he'd hear me talking to him out of that box; and at those times he'd not be happy. It's a nasty moment when the man you dropped comes out of the hole into which you shovelled him to whisper in your ear.
He'd worry a good deal about the man he'd buried alive, being, unless I erred, of a worrying nature; and then, when he'd had about enough of worrying, the live man would come unburied; and that, so far as he was concerned, would be a finisher. The remainder of the proceedings wouldn't be of much interest to him.
During the next few days I saw in some of the papers that the Marquis of Twickenham had died. They didn't all of them come out with the news together. It appeared that there had been something of a private character about that deathbed. It seemed to me that the family wanted to hush the matter up. But nowadays when the British Press has got to make a living out of anything or everything, hushing-up's not easy. The funeral was quite private. The interment took place in the family vault at Cressland in the presence of only a few members of the family. I wondered if Mr. Smith was one of them. After the funeral was over I bet his thoughts wandered Cressland way oftener than he quite liked.
Then there was more about it in the society papers.
I fancy the late Marquis wasn't altogether a credit to his family. There were some funny stories and hints galore. This was a pity-because it would have been my desire to have figured as a man of unblemished character. I always have had aspirations towards the stainless life. Odd how difficult it is to attain to one's ideal. Every time I've been some one else he's been a scamp. And it really did look as if this British nobleman was going to turn out to be the worst egg in the basket.
But there were alleviations. I'm not denying it. They were alleviations of a good and solid kind. That aristocrat at San Francisco hadn't been far out when he talked of his million dollars a year. I made some roundabout inquiries in the proper quarter, and learned that there were accumulations in the neighbourhood of a million sterling awaiting the Marquis's going home. That was apart from the annual income. The property had been carefully nursed, and those seven figures represented savings only. That's what it is to have a reasonably honest man of business. I do like honesty in another man. A million! If I could only get hold of that I wouldn't worry about the income for a year or two.
This was going to be a bigger thing even than I'd supposed. What kind of an idiot that San Francisco ruffian could have been was beyond my fathoming. I've had a few deals with sample idiots, but he was too much in the wholesale. I took it that he'd cut and run because, happening to be one of nature's blackguards, he'd done something, or perhaps two or three somethings, which didn't smell altogether sweet in the nostrils of the good. If he'd only had his character to live upon, that would have been reason enough. But seeing that there was somebody else's money, in truckfulls, the fact that that was all he had got was just the reason why he should keep hard by.
The members of the Twickenham family would find that the head of the house had changed; mercifully. Time had worked the usual wonders; we'll call it time. The days of his prodigality were at an end; relatively, let us say. And he wasn't anything near the fool he used to be. Also, certain members of the family would find that he'd developed quite a novel strain of generosity.
There sometimes is a motive for crime-though a sufficient motive is not by many chalks as indispensable a criminal property as wise folk like to think. Plenty do evil for the love of doing it. I've tried both. I've found doing evil quite as amusing as doing good. Often more. Even when you don't get any pull out of it when it's done. It's the sporting instinct in a man. When a man tells me that he's fond of sport, I know that there's more significance in his words than he himself supposes. But in the case of Mr. John Smith the motive was pretty plain. The Marquis had better be dead than keep away from his sorrowing family. You could have an occasional cut at him if you knew where he was; you couldn't if he was the Lord knows where. In his absence the law looked after his interests; cuts-except by the law itself-were barred. And there were so many who wanted one-including Mr. John Smith. So it was necessary that the Marquis should die, in order that he might have a cut at his successor.
