Майн Рид
The Child Wife
Chapter Seventy Seven.
The Count De Valmy
If ever Mrs Girdwood had a surprise in her life, it was when Mr Swinton called at the Clarendon Hotel, and asked if she and her girls would accept an invitation to a reception at Lord – ’s.
The entertainment was at the residence in Park Lane. The storekeeper’s widow gave her consent, without consulting her girls; and the invitation came on a sheet of tinted paper, bearing the well-known crest.
Mrs Girdwood went to the reception, the girls along with her; Julia carrying twenty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds upon her head and shoulders.
Otherwise they were as well-dressed as any British damsel who presented herself in his lordship’s drawing-rooms; and among these were the noblest in the land.
So far as appearance went, the American ladies had no need to be ashamed of the gentleman who escorted them. Though to them but plain Mr Swinton, Mrs Girdwood was subjected to a fresh shock of surprise, when the noble host, coming up to the group, accosted him as “My dear Count,” and begged an introduction to his companions.
It was gracefully given; and now for the first time in her life was Mrs Girdwood certain of being surrounded by true titled aristocracy.
There could be no deception about the people of that party, who were of all ranks known to “Burke’s British Peerage.” Nor could there be any doubt now, that Mr Swinton was a “somebody.”
“A count he is, and no mistake!” was Mrs Girdwood’s muttered soliloquy. “He isn’t a lord; he never said he was one. But a count’s the same thing, or the next to it.
“Besides, there are counts with great estates – far greater than some lords. Haven’t we heard so?”
The question was in a side whisper to Julia, after all three had been introduced to their august entertainer.
Just then Julia had no opportunity of making answer to it, for the noble host, whose guests they were, was so condescending as to chat with her; and continued chatting such a long time, that the Count appeared to be getting jealous of him! As if observing this, his lordship withdrew, to extend a like courtesy to the twenty other beautiful young damsels who graced the reception, – leaving the Girdwood group to their own and their Count’s guidance for the remainder of the evening.
Receptions do not last more than a couple of hours, beginning at ten and breaking up about twelve, with light refreshments of the “kettle-drum” kind, that serve, very unsatisfactorily, for supper.
In consequence, the Count de Valmy (for such was Mr Swinton’s title) invited the ladies to a petit souper of a more substantial kind, at one of the snug refectories to be found a little farther along Piccadilly. There, being joined by the other count – met by them at Mr Swinton’s dinner-table, and who on this occasion was unaccompanied by his countess – they passed a pleasant hour or two, as is usually the case at a petit souper.
Even the gentle Cornelia enjoyed herself though not through the company of the two counts. She had met a gentleman at the reception – a man old enough to have been her father – but one of those noble natures with which the heart of a young confiding girl readily sympathises. They had chatted together. He had said some words to her, that made her forget the disparity of years, and wish for more of his conversation. She had given consent to his calling on her, and the thought of this hindered her from feeling forsaken, even when the Count de Valmy confined his attention to her cousin, and the married count made himself amiable to her aunt!
The Champagne and Moselle were both of best quality; and Mrs Girdwood was induced to partake of both freely, as was also her daughter.
The two counts were agreeable companions – but more especially he who had so long passed as Mr Swinton, and who was no longer careful about keeping up his incognito.
It ended in Mrs Girdwood’s heart warming towards him with the affection of a mother; while Julia’s became almost softened to that other affection which promised to bestow upon her the title of “Countess.”
“What could be better, or prettier?” thought she, repeating the words of her willing mother. A stylish countess, with a handsome count for husband – dresses and diamonds, carriages and cash, to make the title illustrious!
Of the last the count himself appeared to have plenty; but whether or no, her mother had given promise that it should not be wanting.
And what a grand life it would be to give receptions herself – not only in great London, but in the Fifth Avenue, New York!
And then she could go back to Newport in the height of the fashionable season; and how she could spite the J – ’s, and the L – ’s, and the B – ’s; make them envious to the tips of their fingers, by flaunting herself before their faces as the “Countess de Valmy!”
What if she did not love her count to distraction! She would not be the first – not by millions – who had stifled the cherished yearnings of a heart, and strained its tenderest chords, to submit to a marriage de convenance!
In this mood Swinton found her, when, under his true and real name, he once more made his proposal.
And she answered it by consenting to become the Countess de Valmy.
Chapter Seventy Eight.
Contemplating a Canal
Swinton’s triumph seemed complete.
He already had a title, which no one could take from him – not even he who had bestowed it.
He possessed both the patent and parchments of nobility; and he intended taking care of them. But he still wanted fortune; and this seemed now before him. Julia Girdwood had consented to become his wife, with a dower of 50,000 pounds, and the expectation of as many thousands more!
It had been a rare run of luck, or rather a chapter of cunning – subtle as fiendish.
But it was not yet complete. The marriage remained to be solemnised. And when solemnised, what then?
The sequel was still in doubt, and full of darkness. It was darkened by dangers, and fraught with fears.
If Fan should prove untrue? True to herself but untrue to him? Supposing her to become stirred with an instinct of opposition to this last great dishonour, and forbid the banns? She might act so at the eleventh hour; and then to him, disappointment, disgrace, ruin!
But he had no great fear of this. He felt pretty sure she would continue a consenting party, and permit his nefarious scheme to be consummated. But then? And what then?
She would hold over him a power he had reason to dread – a very sword of Damocles!
He would have to share with her the ill-gotten booty – he knew her well enough for this – submit to her will in everything, for he knew also that she had a will – now that she was re-established on the ride of Rotten Row as one of its prettiest horse-breakers.
There was something, beside the thought of Fan’s reclaiming him, that vexed him far more than the fear of any mulct. He would be willing to bleed black-mail to any amount convenient – even to the half of Julia Girdwood’s fortune, to insure his past wife keeping quiet for ever.
Strange to say, he had grown to care little for the money; though it may not appear strange when the cause is declared.
It will only seem so, considering the character of the man. Wicked as Swinton was, he had fallen madly in love with Julia Girdwood – madly and desperately.
And now on the eve of possessing her, to hold that possession as by a thread, that might be cut at any moment by caprice.
And that caprice the will of an injured wife! No wonder the wretch saw in his future a thorny entanglement – a path, if bestrewed with flowers, beset also by death’s-heads and skeletons!
Fan had helped him in his scheme for acquiring an almost fabulous fortune; at a touch she could destroy it.
“By heaven! she shall not!” was the reflection that came forth from his lips as he stood smoking a cigar, and speculating on the feared future. Assisted in conception by that same cigar, and before it was smoked to a stump, he had contrived a plan to secure him against his wife’s future interference in whatever way it might be exerted.
His scheme of bigamy was scarce guilt, compared with that now begotten in his brain.
He was standing upon the edge of the canal, whose steep bank formed the back inclosure of his garden. The tow-path was on the other side, so that the aqueous chasm yawned almost directly under his feet.
The sight of it was suggestive. He knew it was deep. He saw it was turbid, and not likely to tell tales.
There was a moon coursing through the sky. Her beams, here and there, fell in bright blotches upon the water. They came slanting through the shrubbery, showing that it was a young moon, and would soon go down.
It was already dark where he stood in the shadow of a huge laurustinus; but there was light enough to show that with a fiend’s face he was contemplating the canal.
“It would do!” he muttered to himself; “but not here. The thing might be fished up again. Even if it could be made to appear suicide, there’d be the chance of an identification and connection with me. More than chance – a dead, damnable certainty.
“That would be damnable! I should have to appear at a coroner’s quest to explain.
“Bah! what use in speculating? Explanation, under the circumstances, would be simply condemnation.
“Impossible! The thing can’t be done here!
“But it can be done,” he continued; “and in this canal, too. It has been done, no doubt, many a time. Yes, silent sluggard! if you could but speak, you might tell of many a plunge made into your sluggish waves, alike by the living and the dead!
“You will suit for my purpose; but not here. I know the place, the very place – by the Park Road bridge.
“And the time, too – late at night. Some dark night, when the spruce tradesmen of Wellington Road have gone home to the bosom of their families.
“Why not this very night?” he asked himself, stepping nervously out from the laurustinus, and glaring at the moon, whose thin crescent flickered feebly through cumulus clouds. “Yonder farthing dip will be burnt out within the hour, and if that sky don’t deceive me, we’ll have a night dark as doom. A fog, too, by heavens!” he added, raising himself on tiptoe, and making survey of the horizon to the east. “Yes! there’s no mistake about that dun cloud coming up from the Isle of Dogs, with the colour of the Thames mud upon it.
“Why not to-night?” he again asked himself, as if by the question to strengthen him in his terrible resolve. “The thing can’t wait. A day may spoil everything. If it is to be done, the sooner the better. It must be done!
“Yes, yes; there’s fog coming over that sky, if I know aught of London weather. It will be on before midnight God grant it may stay till the morning!”
The prayer passing from his lips, in connection with the horrid scheme in his thoughts, gave an expression to his countenance truly diabolical.
Even his wife, used to see the “ugly” in his face, could not help noticing it, as he went back into the house – where she had been waiting for him to go out for a walk.
It was a walk to the Haymarket, to enjoy the luxuries of a set supper in the Café d’Europe, where the “other count,” with the Honourable Geraldine, and one or two friends of similar social standing, had made appointment to meet them.
It was not the last promenade Swinton intended to take with his beloved Fan. Before reaching the Haymarket, he had planned another for that same night, if it should prove to be a dark one.
Chapter Seventy Nine.
A Petit Souper
The supper was provided by “Kate the coper,” who had lately been “in luck”; having netted handsomely on one of her steeds, sold to a young “spoon” she had recently picked up, and who was one of the party.
The “coped” individual was no other than our old friend Frank Scudamore, who, by the absence of his cousin abroad, and her benign influence over him, had of late taken to courses of dissipation.
The supper given by Kate was a sort of return to her friend Fan for the dinner at the McTavish villa; and in sumptuousness was a spread no way inferior.
In point of time it might have been termed a dinner; for it commenced at the early hour of eight.
This was to give opportunity for a quiet rubber of whist to be played afterward, and in which “Spooney,” as she called young Scudamore – though not to his face – was expected to be one of the corners.
There was wine of every variety – each of the choicest to be found in the cellars of the café. Then came the cards, and continued till Scudamore declared himself cleared out; and then there was carousal.
The mirth was kept up till the guests had got into that condition jocularly called “How come you so?”
It applied alike to male and female. Fan, the Honourable Geraldine, and two other frail daughters of Eve, having indulged in the grape juice as freely as their gentlemen fellow-revellers.
At breaking up, but one of the party seemed firm upon his feet. This was the Count de Valmy.
It was not his habit to be hard-headed; but on this occasion he had preserved himself, and for a purpose.
Busy with their own imbibing, nobody noticed him secretly spilling his liquor into the spittoon, while pretending to “drink fair.”
If they had, they might have wondered, but could not have guessed why. The fiend himself could not have imagined his foul design in thus dodging the drink.
His gay friends, during the early part of the entertainment, had observed his abstraction. The Honourable Geraldine had rallied him upon it. But in due time all had become so mellow, and merry, that no one believed any other could be troubled with depression of spirits.
An outside spectator closely scrutinising the countenance of Mr Swinton might have seen indications of such, as also on his part an effort to conceal it His eyes seemed at times to turn inward, as if his thoughts were there, or anywhere except with his roystering companions.
He had even shown neglectful of his cards; although the pigeon to be plucked was his adversary in the game.
Some powerful or painful reflection must have been causing his absent-mindedness; and it seemed a relief to him when, satiated with carousal, the convives gave tacit consent to a general débandade.
There had been eight of the supper party, and four cabs, called to the entrance door of the café, received them in assorted couples.
It was as much as most of them could do to get inside; but aided by a brace of Haymarket policemen, with a like number of waiters out of the hotel, they were at length safely stowed, and the cabs drove off.
Each driver obeyed the direction given him, Scudamore escorting home the Honourable Geraldine, or rather the reverse; while Swinton, in charge of his tipsy wife, gave his cabman the order —
“Up the Park Road to Saint John’s Wood.”
It was spoken, not loudly, but in a low muttered voice, which led the man to think they could not be a married couple.
No matter, so long as he had his fare, along with a little perquisite, which the gentleman gave him.
Swinton’s weather prophecy had proved true to a shade. The night was dark as pitch, only of a dun colour on account of the fog.
And this was so thick that late fashionables, riding home in their grand carriages, were preceded each carriage by a pair of linkmen.
Along Piccadilly and all through Mayfair, torches were glaring through the thick vapour; the tongues of their bearers filling the streets with jargon.
Farther on across Oxford Street there were fewer of them; and beyond Portman Square they ceased to be seen altogether – so that the cab, a four-wheeler, containing the Count de Valmy and his countess, crept slowly along Baker Street, its lamps illuminating a circle of scarce six feet around it.
“It will do,” said Swinton to himself, craning his neck out of the window, and scrutinising the night.
He had made this reflection before, as, first of his party, he came out on the steps of the Café d’Europe.
He did not speak it aloud, though, for that matter, his wife would not have heard him. Not even had he shouted it in her ear. She was asleep in a corner of the cab.
Before this she had been a “little noisy,” singing snatches of a song, and trying to repeat the words of an ambiguous jeu d’esprit she had heard that evening for the first time.
She was now altogether unconscious of where she was, or in what company – as proved by her occasionally waking up, calling out “Spooney!” – addressing her husband as the other count, and sometimes as “Kate the coper!”
Her own count appeared to be unusually careful of her. He took much pains to keep her quiet; but more in making her comfortable. She had on a long cloth cloak of ample dimensions – a sort of night wrapper. This he adjusted over her shoulders, buttoning it close around her throat that her chest should not be exposed to the fog.
By the time the cab had crawled through Upper Baker Street, and entered the Park Road, Fan had not only become quiet, but was at length sound asleep; her tiny snore alone telling that she lived.
On moved the vehicle through the dun darkness, magnified by the mist to twice its ordinary size, and going slow and silent as a hearse.
“Where?” asked the driver, slewing his body around, and speaking in through the side window.
“South Bank! You needn’t go inside the street. Set us down at the end of it, in the Park Road.”
“All right,” rejoined the Jarvey, though not thinking so. He thought it rather strange, that a gent with a lady in such queer condition should desire to be discharged in that street at such an hour, and especially on such a night!
Still it admitted of an explanation, which his experience enabled him to supply. The lady had stayed out a little too late. The gent wished her to get housed without making a noise; and it would not do for cab wheels to be heard drawing up by “the door.”
What mattered it to him, cabby, so long as the fare should be forthcoming, and the thing made “square”? He liked it all the better, as promising a perquisite.
In this he was not disappointed. At the corner designated, the gentleman got out, lifting his close muffled partner in his arms, and holding her upright upon the pavement.
With his spare hand he gave the driver a crown piece, which was more than double his fare.
After such largess, not wishing to appear impertinent, cabby climbed back to his box; readjusted the manifold drab cape around his shoulders; tightened his reins; touched the screw with his whip; and started back towards the Haymarket, in hopes of picking up another intoxicated fare.
“Hold on to my arm, Fan!” said Swinton to his helpless better half as soon as the cabman was out of hearing. “Lean upon me. I’ll keep you up. So! Now, come along!”
Fan made no reply. The alcohol overpowered her – now more than ever. She was too tipsy to talk, even to walk; and her husband had to support her whole weight, almost to drag her along. She was quite unconscious whither. But Swinton knew.
It was not along South Bank; they had passed the entrance of that quiet thoroughfare, and were proceeding up the Park Road!
And why? He also knew why.
Under the Park Road passes the Regent’s Canal, spanned by the bridge already spoken of. You would only know you were crossing the canal by observing a break in the shrubbery. This opens westward. On the east side of the road is the park wall rising high overhead, and shadowed by tall trees.
Looking towards Paddington, you see an open list, caused by the canal and its tow-path. The water yawns far below your feet, on both sides draped with evergreens; and foot-passengers along the Park Road are protected from straying over by a parapet scarce breast-high.
Upon this bridge Swinton had arrived. He had stopped and stood close up to the parapet, as if for a rest, his wife still clinging to his arm.
He was resting; but not with the intention to proceed farther. He was recovering strength for an effort so hellish, that, had there been light around them, he and his companion would have appeared as a tableau vivant– the spectacle of a murderer about to despatch his victim! And it would have been a tableau true to the life; for such in reality was his design!
There was no light to shine upon its execution; no eye to see him suddenly let go his wife’s arm, draw the wrapper round her neck, so that the clasp came behind; and then, turning it inside out, fling the skirt over her head!
There could be no ear to hear that smothered cry, as, abruptly lifted in his arms, she was pitched over the parapet of the bridge! Swinton did not even himself stay to hear the plunge. He only heard it; indistinctly blending with the sound of his own footsteps, as with terrified tread he retreated along the Park Road!
