Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/496

19, 1860.] you come, I hope we shall have a better: in fact, there is no doubt of it. These are the papers that you see spread over the table. I am going through them myself. There is only one little point to lay hold of—the hidden spring, as I may term it, of the machine; and then the whole affair will be as clear as daylight, and equity cannot refuse to find a verdict in our favour; in fact, you may consider the whole matter as settled. Of course it will make a great change in Carry’s prospects, as she will then be heiress to about £15,000 a year; and I think I am not going too far in saying that she will then be one of the most eligible young ladies in England; in fact, between ourselves, I intend her to marry into the aristocracy. But remember, Harry, my boy, wherever my home is, there is yours also. I hope then to have influence to get you some snug little thing under Government, far better than the miserable affair you are at now. Oh never fear that I shall forget your interests!”

Here was an end to all Harry’s brilliant visions, for the captain spoke with such seeming authority—with so much pretension and earnestness—that the young man could hardly believe that such vast expectations had no foundation in fact. Anyway, it would not do for him to stay there any longer, stealing away the heart of his benefactor’s daughter. Let the cost and pain be what they might, he must go at once. He was constrained and silent for the remainder of the day, and though Carry perceived the change in his demeanour, she was at a loss to account for it. He parted from her that night with a tenderness which he tried in vain to conceal; but next morning, when they all expected him there to breakfast, they found a note on the table, addressed to Captain Luard, in which Welford stated that sudden business had called him away to Liverpool, and that several weeks would probably elapse before his return. Carry felt hurt and grieved that he should go away so suddenly without a parting word to her, but was too proud to show how deeply her feelings were wounded. Parish was out of temper all that day, and kept muttering under her breath something about the lad being a fool, and not knowing when he was well off.

So day after day passed away, and matters resumed their old course in the house. There was neither letter nor message from Welford, and it seemed, to Carry at least, as though he had entirely forgotten them. Day after day, from breakfast-time till midnight, the captain sat in his scantily-furnished room, poring over the documents pertaining to the great Pinchbeck suit—title-deeds, mortgages, bills of sale, genealogical tables, abstracts of counsel’s opinion, deeds of transfer, extracts from parish registers, bills of costs, and copies of wills, all mixed up in inextricable confusion—filling one sheet of foolscap after another with figures and remarks; striving in vain to pick out from the dismal chaos before him that hidden link, that magical Open Sesame, which, he was firmly persuaded, would banish poverty from his hearth for ever. Every morning he set to work with renewed vigour, and every evening he retired from the contest with weary brain, with fainting heart, and aching eyes. He became more gaunt and fierce-looking every day. He had been weak and suffering in health for a long time, and it was evident that he was only upheld by the strange feverish excitement in which he lived; and that had any rude hand scattered the foundations of his airy castle, both the mind and body of the builder would have gone to pieces in the wreck.

The house still continued to present from the street a shut-up, desolate, and forlorn appearance; and among the children of the neighbourhood it soon acquired the delightfully dreadful reputation of being haunted. For, coming home from school in the drear November afternoons, between daylight and dark, did they not sometimes hear strange noises, ghostly trampings up and down stairs, weird coughings and moanings; and if one were bold enough to peep through the key-hole, might not one sometimes discern a tall figure, dressed in black, coming slowly down-stairs with a lighted candle in its hand—a sight to make a schoolboy’s flesh creep, and his blood run cold!

So dull November passed away, and the last month of the year was come, when one evening Captain Luard startled his daughter and Parish by bursting into the room where they were sitting—a wild flame of excitement burning in his eyes.

“I’ve seen him!” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “I knew he would find me out wherever I might be! Something bade me go into the front room and look out of the window; and I saw him standing under the lamp-post, looking up at the house. There is no more peace for us here.”

“What man is it, papa?”

“The man with the green studs.”

“But you may have been mistaken, papa. How could you distinguish his studs from the place where you were standing?”

“Mistaken, girl! A man is never mistaken in the person of his bitterest enemy. What nonsense you talk! I tell you that I saw him—nay, he is probably there still. Come, let us go and look; but be careful that his sharp eyes do not find you out. Allons!”

They followed him up-stairs, trembling a little, and hardly knowing what to think. He led them into one of the front rooms, which was faintly lighted up by a lamp on the opposite side of the street.

“Behold him!” he whispered, seizing Carry by the shoulders. “See, he is leaning with folded arms against the lamp-post. His green studs shine in the dark like serpents’ eyes.”

There was no one there.

Next morning Captain Luard was so ill as to be unable to rise. The doctor who was called in merely shook his head when Parish took him on one side to ask his opinion, and said, “Wait awhile; I cannot pronounce at present.”

But day after day passed without much visible change in the captain’s condition. He remained too weak to rise, and lay there—a feeble wreck of a man—heedless, for the most part, of what was passing around; buried in his own sad reflections, and, perhaps, discerning dimly the dark issue whither he was tending. Now and always he was very anxious about his box of papers, and had