Walter Besant
All Sorts and Conditions of Men: An Impossible Story
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE MISSING LINK
The professor then started on his quest with a cheerful heart, caused by the certainty of dinner for some days to come. But he was an honest Professor, and he did not prolong his absence for the sake of those dinners. On the other hand, he made the most rapid dispatch consistent with thorough work, and returned after an absence of four days, bearing with him the fruits of his research.
"I think," said Harry, after reading his report, "I think, Miss Kennedy, that we have found the Missing Link."
"Then they really will make their claim good?"
"I did not say that – quite. I said that we have found a Missing Link. There might be, if you will think of it – two. One of them would have connected the condescending wheelwright with his supposed parent, the last Lord Davenant. The other would connect him with – quite another father."
The truth, which was for some time carefully concealed from the illustrious pair, was, in fact, this.
There is a village of Davenant, surrounding or adjoining a castle of Davenant, just as Alnwick, Arundel, Durham, Lancaster, Chepstow, Ragland, and a great many more English towns have a castle near them. And whether Davenant town was built to be protected by the castle, or the castle for the protection of the town, is a point on which I must refer you to the county historian, who knows all about it, and is not likely to deceive you on so important a point. The castle is now a picturesque ruin, with a country-house built beside it. In this country-house the last Lord Davenant died and the last heir to the title was born. There is an excellent old church, with a tower and ivy, and high-pitched roof, as an ancient church should have, and in the family vault under the chancel all the Davenants, except the last heir, lie buried.
There is also in the village a small country inn called the Davenant Arms, where the professor put up and where he made himself extraordinarily popular, because, finding himself among an assemblage of folk slow to see and slower still to think, he astonished them for four nights consecutively. The rustics still tell, and will continue to tell, so long as memory lasts, of the wonderful man who took their money out of their waistcoats, exchanged handkerchiefs, conveyed potatoes into strange coat-pockets, read their thoughts, picked out the cards they had chosen, made them take a card he had chosen whether they wanted it or not, caused balls of glass to vanish, changed halfpence into half-crowns, had a loaded pistol fired at himself and caught the ball, with other great marvels, all for nothing, to oblige and astonish the villagers, and for the good of the house. These are the recreations of his evening hours. The mornings he spent in the vestry of the old church searching the registers.
There was nothing professional about it, only the drudgery of clerk's work; to do it at all was almost beneath his dignity; yet he went through with it conscientiously, and restrained himself from inviting the sexton, who stayed with him, to lend him his handkerchief or to choose a card. Nor did he even hide a card in the sexton's pocket, and then convey it into the parish register. Nothing of the sort. He was sternly practical, and searched diligently. Nevertheless, he noted how excellent a place for the simple feasts would be the reading-desk. The fact is, that gentlemen of his profession never go to church, and, therefore, are ignorant of the uses of its various parts. On Sunday morning they lie in bed; on Sunday afternoon they have dinner, and perhaps the day's paper, and on Sunday evening they gather at a certain house of call for conjurers in Drury Lane, and practise on each other. There is, therefore, no room in the conjurer's life for church. Some remedy should be found for this by the bishops.
"What have I got to look for?" said the professor, as the sexton produced the old books. "Well, I've got to find what families there were living here a hundred years ago, or thereabouts, named Davenant, and what Christian names they had, and whether there were two children born and baptized here in one year, both bearing the name of Davenant."
The sexton shook his head. He was only a middle-aged man, and therefore not yet arrived at sextonial ripeness; for a sexton only begins to be mellow when he is ninety or thereabouts. He knew nothing of the Davenants except that there were once Lords Davenant, now lying in the family vault below the chancel, and none of them left in the parish at all, nor any in his memory, nor in that of his father's before him, so far as he could tell.
After a careful examination of the books, the professor was enabled to state with confidence that at the time in question the Davenant name was borne by none but the family at the castle; that there were no cousins of the name in the place; and that the heir born in that year was christened on such a day, and received the name of Timothy Clitheroe.
If this had been the only evidence, the case would have made in favor of the Canaan City claimant; but, unfortunately, there was another discovery made by the professor, at sight of which he whistled, and then shook his head, and then considered whether it would not be best to cut out the page, while the sexton thought he was forcing a card, or palming a ball, or boiling an egg, or some other ingenious feat of legerdemain. For he instantly perceived that the fact recorded before his eyes had an all-important bearing upon the case of his illustrious friends.
The little story which he saw was, in short, this:
In the same year of the birth of the infant Timothy Clitheroe, there was born of a poor vagrant woman, who wandered no one knew where from, into the parish and died in giving him to the world, a man-child. There was no one to rejoice over him, or to welcome him, or to claim him: therefore he became parish property, and had to be christened, fed, flogged, admonished, and educated, so far as education in those days was considered necessary, at the charge of the parish. The first step was to give him a name. For it was formerly, and may be still, a custom in country parishes to name a waif of this kind after the village itself, which accounts for many odd surnames, such as Stepney, Marylebone, or Hoxton. It was not a good custom, because it might lead to complications, as perhaps it did in this case, when there was already another family legitimately entitled to bear the name. The authorities, following this custom, conferred upon the baby the lordly name of Davenant. Then, as it was necessary that he should have a Christian name, and it would be a pity to waste good Richard or Robin upon a beggar brat, they gave him the day of the week on which he was born. This was intended to keep him humble, and to remind him that he had no right to any of the distinguished Christian names bestowed upon respectably born children.
He was called Saturday Davenant.
The name, the date, and the circumstances were briefly recorded in the parish register.
In most cases this book contains three entries for each name – those of the three important events in his life; the beginning, the marrying, which is the making or the marring, and the ending. One does not of course count the minor occasions in which he may be mentioned, as on the birth or death of a child. The professor turned over the pages of the register in vain for any farther entry of this Saturday Davenant.
He appeared no more. His one public appearance, as far as history records it, was on that joyful occasion when, held in hireling arms, he was received into the Christian Church. The one thing to which he was born was his brotherhood in the Christian faith – no doubt the grandest of all possessions, yet in itself not professing to provide the material comforts of life. The baby was presented at the font, received a contemptuous name, squealed a little, no doubt, when he felt the cold water, and then – then – nothing more. What he did, whither he went, where he died, might be left to conjecture. A parish brat, a cottage home, bread and bacon to eat, with more bread and bacon, plenty of stick, the Church Catechism, and particular attention called to the clauses about picking and stealing; practical work as a scarecrow at seven; the plough later on; for pleasures, quarter-staff, wrestling, fighting, bull-baiting and perhaps poaching, with strong beer and small beer for drink; presently a wife, then children, then old age, then death. One was free to conjecture, because there was no more mention of this baby; he did not marry in the parish, nor did he die in it. He, therefore, went away. In those days, if a man went away it was for two reasons: either he fell into trouble and went away, to escape the wrath of the squire; or he enlisted, marched off with beer in his head and ribbons in his hat, swore terribly with the army in Flanders, and presently earned the immortal glory which England rejoices to confer upon the private soldier who falls upon the ensanguined field. The enjoyment of this glory is such a solid, substantial, and satisfying thing that fighting and war and the field of honor are, and always will be, greatly beloved and desired by private soldiers.
There was no other entry of this boy's name. When the professor had quite satisfied himself upon this point he turned back to the first entry, and then became aware of a note, in faded ink, now barely legible, written in the margin. It was as follows, and he copied it exactly:
" Ye above sd Saturday Dnt was a Roag in Grane; he was bro't up in the fear of God yet Feared Him not; taught his Duty, yet did it not; admonished without stint of Rodd in Virtue, yet still inclined to Vice: he was appd to the wheelwright – was skillful, yet indolent; notorious as a Poacher who could not be caught; a Deceiver of Maidens; a Tosspot and a Striker. Compelled to leave the Parish to avoid Prison and the Lash he went to London, Latronum officina. Was reported to have been sent to His Majesty's Plantations in Virginia, whereof nothing certain is known."
This was the note which the professor read and copied out, with misgivings that it would not prove acceptable. Of course, he knew the story and quite understood what this might mean.
The next day, nothing more remaining to be found in the register, the professor examined the brasses and tablets in the church, and paid a visit to the castle. And when he had faithfully executed his commission, he went away, amid the regrets of the villagers, who had never before been entertained by so delightful and surprising a stranger, and brought back his spoils.
"What are we to think," said Harry, after reading this report. "'The Roag in Grane,' this wheelwright by trade, who can he be but the grandfather of our poor old friend?"
"I fear it must be so," said Angela. "Saturday Davenant. Remember the little book."
"Yes," said Harry, "the little book came into my mind at once."
"Not a doubt," added the professor. "Why, it stands to reason. The fellow found himself a long way from England, among strangers, with no money and only his trade. What was to prevent him from pretending to be one of the family whose name he bore?"
"And at the same time," said Harry, "with reserve. He never seems to have asserted that he was the son of Lord Davenant: he only threw out ambiguous words; he fired the imagination of his son; he christened him by the name of the lost heir; he pretended that it was his own Christian name, and it was not until they found out that this was the hereditary name that the claim was thought of. This poacher and striker seems to have possessed considerable native talent."
"But what," asked Angela, "are we to do?"
"Let us do nothing, Miss Kennedy. We have our secret, and we may keep it for the present. Meantime, the case is hopeless on account of the absolute impossibility of connecting the wheelwright with the man supposed to have been drowned. Let them go on 'enjoying' the title, ignorant of the existence of this unlucky Saturday Davenant."
So, for the present, the thing was hidden away, and nothing was said about it. And though about this time the Professor gave one or two entertainments in the drawing-room, we cannot suppose that his silence was bought, and it would be unjust to the noble profession of which he was a member to think that he would let out the secret had not Miss Kennedy paid him for their performance. Indeed, the Professor was an extremely honorable man, and would have scorned to betray confidence, and it was good to Miss Kennedy to find out that an evening of magic and miracle would do the girls good.
But a profound pity seized the heart of Angela. These poor people who believed themselves to be entitled to an English peerage, who were so mistaken, who would be so disappointed, who were so ignorant, who knew so little what it was they claimed – could not something be done to lessen their disappointment, to break their fall?
She pondered long over this difficulty. That they would in the end have to return to their own country was a thing about which there could be no doubt whatever; that they should return with no knowledge whatever of the reality of the thing they had claimed; what it meant, what it involved, its splendors and its obligations, seemed to her a very great pity. A little experience, she thought even a glimpse of the life led by the best bred and most highly cultivated and richest people in England would be of so much advantage to them that it would show them their own unfitness for the rank which they assumed and claimed. And presently she arrived at a project which she put into execution without delay. What this was you will presently see.
CHAPTER XXIV.
LORD JOCELYN'S TROUBLES
As the season advanced and the autumn deepened into winter, Angela found that there were certain social duties which it was impossible altogether to escape. The fiction of the country-house was good enough for the general world, but for her more intimate friends and cousins this would not do for long. Therefore, while she kept the facts of her present occupation and place of residence a secret from all except Constance Woodcote, now the unsympathizing, she could not wholly shut herself off from the old circle. Among others there was one lady whose invitations she was in a sense bound to accept. What her obligations were, and who this lady was, belong in no way to this history – that is to say, the explanation belongs to Angela's simple chronicle of the old days, when she was only Miss Messenger, the heiress presumptive of the great brewery. Therefore, it need not concern us. Suffice it to say that she was a lady in society, and that she gave great dinners, and held other gatherings, and was at all times properly awake to the attractions which the young and beautiful and wealthy Angela Messenger lent to her receptions.
On this occasion Constance Woodcote, among others, was invited to meet her old friend; she came, but she was ungracious, and Angela felt, more than she had expected, how great already was the gulf between the old days of Newnham and her life of active, practical work. Six months before such coldness would have hurt and pained her; now she hardly felt it. Yet Constance meant to demonstrate by a becoming frost of manner how grievous was her disappointment about those scholarships. Then there were half a dozen men – unmarried men, men in society, men of clubs, men who felt strongly that the possession of Miss Messenger's millions might reconcile them to matrimony, and were much interested by the possibility of an introduction to her, and came away disappointed because they got nothing out of her, not even an encouragement to talk; and everybody said that she was singularly cold, distraite, and even embarrassed that evening; and those who had heard that Miss Messenger was a young lady of great conversational powers went away cynically supposing that any young lady with less than half her money could achieve the same reputation at the same cost of energy. The reason of this coldness, this preoccupation, was as follows.
The dinner-party was large, and the conversation by no means general. So far as Angela was concerned, it was held entirely with the man who took her down, and his name was Lord Jocelyn le Breton – a rugged-faced man, with a pleasing manner and an agreeable voice; no longer young. He talked to her a good deal in a light, irresponsible vein, as if it mattered very little what he said so that it amused the young lady. He discoursed about many things, principally about dinners, asking Angela what were her own views as to dinners, and expostulating with her feminine contempt for the subject. "Each dinner," he said, "should be like a separate and distinct work of art, and should be contrived for different kinds of wine. There should be a champagne dinner, for instance, light, and composed of many dishes, but some of these substantial; there should be a claret dinner, grave and conscientious; a Burgundy dinner of few courses, and those solid; a German wine dinner, in which only the simplest plates should appear. But unto harmony and consistency in dining we have not yet arrived. Perhaps, Miss Messenger, you may be induced to bring your intellect to bear upon the subject. I hear you took high honors at Newnham lately."
She laughed.
"You do too much honor to my intellect, Lord Jocelyn. At Newnham they teach us political economy, but they have not trusted us with the art of dining. Do you know, we positively did not care much what we had for dinner!"
"My ward, Harry, used to say – but I forget if you ever met him."
"I think not. What is his name?"
"Well, he used to bear my name, and everybody knew him as Harry le Breton; but he had no right to it, because he was no relation of mine, and so he gave it up and took his own."
"Oh!" Angela felt profoundly uninterested in Mr. Harry le Breton.
"Yes. And now you never will meet him. For he is gone." Lord Jocelyn uttered these words in so sepulchral a tone that Angela gave them greater significance than they deserved.
"I am very sorry," she said.
"No, Miss Messenger, he is not dead. He is only dead to society. He has gone out of the world; he has returned to – in fact, his native rank in life."
Angela reddened. What could he mean?
"You interest me, Lord Jocelyn? Do you say that your ward has voluntarily given up society, and – and – everything?" She thought of herself for the moment, and also, but vaguely, of Harry Goslett. For although she knew that this young man had refused some kind of offer which included idleness, she had never connected him in her mind quite with her own rank and station. How could she? He was only a cabinet-maker, whose resemblance to a gentleman she had learned to accept without any further wonder.
"He gave up everything; he laughed over it – he took a header into the mob, just as if he was going to enjoy the plunge. But did you not hear of it? Everybody talked about it – the story got into the society journals, and people blamed me for telling him the truth."
"I have not been in London much this year, therefore I heard nothing," said Angela. Just then the dinner came to an end.
"Will you tell me more about your ward, Lord Jocelyn?" she asked as she left him. His words had raised in her mind a vague and uncertain anxiety.
Half an hour later he came to her side. The room by this time was all full, and Angela was surrounded. But she made room for Lord Jocelyn, and presently the others dropped away and they could talk. A young lady began, too, a long and very brilliant piece of music, under cover of which everybody could talk.
"Do you really want to hear my trouble about Harry?" he asked. "You look a very sympathetic young lady, and perhaps you will feel for me. You see I brought him up in ignorance of his father, whom he always imagined to be a gentleman, whereas he was only a sergeant in a Line regiment. What is it, Miss Messenger?"
For she became suddenly white in the cheek. Could there be two Harrys, sons of sergeants, who had taken this downward plunge? Mere wonderful than a pair of Timothy Clitheroes.
"It is nothing, Lord Jocelyn. Pray go on. Your adopted son, then – "
"I had always resolved to tell him all about his people when he was twenty-three. Who would have thought, however, that he would take it as he did?"
"You forget that you have not told me what he did do. If I am to sympathize you must tell me all."
"As far as the world knows, he went away on leave, so to speak. Perhaps it is only on leave, after all. But it is a long leave, and it looks more like desertion."
"You are mysterious, Lord Jocelyn."
"Are you curious, Miss Messenger?"
"Say I am sympathetic. Tell me as much as you can about your ward."
Lord Jocelyn looked in his listener's face. Yes; there was sympathy in it and interest, both, as phrenologists say, largely developed.
"Then I will explain to you, Miss Messenger, how the boy did this most remarkable and unexpected thing." He paused a moment, considering. "Imagine a boy whom I had taken away from his own people at three, or thereabouts, so that he should never know anything of them at all, or dream about them, or yearn, you know, or anything of that kind – an orphan, too, with nothing but an uncle Bunker – it is inconceivable!"
"But we do not get on," said Angela, in great impatience; yet relieved to find from the reference to her worthy friend, Bunker, that there was only one Harry. "What is inconceivable?"
"I am coming to that. I gave the boy the best education I could get for him; he was so eager and apt that he taught himself more than he could be taught; if he saw anybody doing a thing well, he was never satisfied till he could do it as well himself – not better, mark you! a cad might have wanted to do it better; a gentleman is content to do it as well as any – any other gentleman. There is hardly anything he could not do; there was nobody who did not love him; he was a favorite in society; he had hosts of friends; nobody cared who was his father: what did that matter? As I put it to him, I said, 'Look at So-and-So and So-and-So, who are their fathers? Who cares? Who asks?' Yet when he learned the truth, he broke away, gave up all, and went back to his own relations – to Whitechapel!"
Angela blushed again, and her lip trembled a little. Than she said softly:
"To Whitechapel! That is very interesting to me. Because, Lord Jocelyn, I belong to Whitechapel myself."
"Do you?" She might as well have said that she belonged to Seven Dials. In fact, much better, because in his young days, his Corinthian days, Lord Jocelyn had often repaired to Seven Dials to see noble sportsmen chez Ben Caunt, and rat-killing, and cock-fighting, and many other beautiful forms of sport. "Do you really? Do you belong to that remarkable part of London?"
"Certainly. My grandfather – did you know him?"
Lord Jocelyn shook his head.
"He had the brewery, you know, Messenger, Marsden & Company, in Whitechapel. He was born there, and always called himself a Whitechapel man. He seemed to be proud of it, so that in common filial respect I, too, should be proud of it. I am, in fact, a Whitechapel granddaughter."
"But that does not seem to help my unlucky Harry."
"It gives one a little more sympathy, perhaps," she said. "And that is, you know, so very useful a possession."
"Yes," but he did not seem to recognize its usefulness as regards his ward. "Well, he went to Whitechapel with a light heart. He would look round him, make the acquaintance of his own people, then he would come back again, and we would go on just as usual. At least he did not exactly say this, but I understood him so. Because it seemed impossible that a man who had once lived in society, among ourselves, and formed one of us, could ever dream of living down there." Angela laughed. From her superior knowledge of "down there," she laughed.
"He went away and I was left without him, for the first time for twenty years. It was pretty dull. He said he would give the thing a trial; he wrote to me that he was trying it; that it was not so bad as it seemed, and yet he talked as if the experiment would be a short one. I left him there. I went away for a cruise in the Mediterranean; when I came home he returned to me."
"He did return, then?"
"Yes, he came back one evening, a good deal changed. I should not have thought it possible for a boy to change so much in so short a time. He wasn't ill-fed; he hadn't suffered any privation, apparently; but he was changed: he was more thoughtful; his smile and his laugh were not so ready. Poor boy!"
Lord Jocelyn sighed heavily. Angela's sympathy grew deeper, for he evidently loved the "boy."
"What had he done, then?"
"He came to say farewell to me; he thanked me, for you know what a good honest lad would say; and he told me that he had an offer made to him of an unexpected nature which he had determined to accept. You see, he is a clever fellow with his fingers; he can play and paint and carve, and do all sorts of things. And among his various arts and accomplishments he knows how to turn a lathe, and so he has become a joiner or a cabinet-maker, and he told me that he has got an appointment in some great factory or works or something, as a cabinet-maker in ordinary."
"What is his name?"
"Harry Goslett."
"Goslett, Goslett!" Here she blushed again, and once more made play with the fan. "Has he got a relation, a certain Mr. Bunker?"
"Why – yes – I told you, an uncle Bunker."
"Then I remember the name. And, Lord Jocelyn, I hope you will be grateful to me, because I have been the humble means of procuring him this distinguished post. Mr. Bunker, in fact, was, or conceived that he had been, useful to my grandfather, and was said to be disappointed at getting nothing by the will. Therefore I endeavored to make some return by taking his nephew into the House. That is all."
"And a great deal more than enough, because, Miss Messenger, you have all out of your kindness done a great mischief, for if you had not employed him I am quite certain no one else would. Then he would have to come back to me. Send him away. Do send him away. Do send him away, Miss Messenger. There are lots of cabinet-makers to be had. Then he will come back to society, and I will present him to you, and he shall thank you."
She smiled and shook her head.
"People are never sent away from the brewery so long as they behave properly. But it is strange indeed, that your ward should voluntarily surrender all the advantages of life and social position for the hard work and poor pay of an artisan. Was it – was it affection for his cousins?" She blushed deeply as she put this question.
"Strange, indeed. When he came to me the other night, he told me a long story about men being all alike in every rank of life. I have noticed much the same thing in the army; of course he did not have the impudence to say that women are all alike; and he talked a quantity of prodigious nonsense about living among his own people. Presently, however, I got out of him the real truth."
"What was that?"
"He confessed that he was in love."
"With a young lady of Whitechapel? This does great credit to the excellent education you gave him, Lord Jocelyn." She blushed for the fourth or fifth time, and he wondered why, and she held her fan before her face. "But, perhaps," she added, "you are wrong, and women of all ranks, like men, are the same."
"Perhaps I ought not to have told you this, Miss Messenger. Now you will despise him. Yet he had the impudence to say that she was a lady – positively a lady – this Whitechapel dressmaker."
"A dressmaker! – oh!" She threw into her voice a little of that icy coldness with which ladies are expected to receive this kind of announcement.
"Ah! now you care no more about him. I might have known that your sympathy would cease directly you heard all. He went into raptures over this young milliner. She is beautiful as the day; she is graceful, accomplished, well-bred, well-mannered, a queen – "
"No doubt," said Angela, still frozen. "But really, Lord Jocelyn, as it is Mr. Goslett, the cabinet-maker, and not you, who is in love with this paragon, we may be spared her praises."
"And, which is more remarkable still, she won't have anything to say to him."
"That is indeed remarkable. But perhaps as she is the Queen of Dressmakers, she is looking for the King of Cabinet-Makers."
"No doubt," said Lord Jocelyn; "I think the music is coming to an end. However, Miss Messenger, one favor."
"A dozen, Lord Jocelyn, if I can grant them."
"He refuses to take any help from me; he lives on work paid for at the rate of tenpence an hour. If you will not send away – then – oh, then – "
"Quick, Lord Jocelyn, what is it?"
"Tax the resources of the brewery. Put on the odd twopence. It is the gift of the Samaritan – make it a shilling an hour."
"I will, Lord Jocelyn – hush! The music is just over, and I hope that the dressmaker will relent, and there will be a wedding in Stepney Church, and that they will be happy ever after. O brave and loyal lover! He gives up all, all" – she looked round the room, the room filled with guests, and her great eyes became limpid, and her voice fell to a murmur – "for love, for love. Do you think, Lord Jocelyn, that the dressmaker will continue to be obdurate? But perhaps she does not know, or cannot suspect, what he has thrown away – for her sake – happy dressmaker!"
"I think," said Lord Jocelyn afterward, "that if Harry had seen Miss Messenger before he saw his dressmaker we shouldn't have heard so much about the beautiful life of a working-man. Why the devil couldn't I wait? This girl is a Helen of Troy, and Harry should have written his name Paris and carried her off, by gad! before Menelaus or any other fellow got hold of her. What a woman! What a match it would have been!"
