Jasper Vermont was instantly on the alert. He was not above encouraging a servant to gossip, and, although Norgate was not given to err in this direction as a rule, upon the present occasion his grievance got the better of him, and Vermont was soon in possession of such slight facts as could be gleaned.

CHAPTER V

Johann Wilfer, Jessica's adopted father, was German by birth, and the son of an innkeeper in one of the tiny villages on the banks of the Rhine. In his youth he had studied as an art-student at Munich; but, finally, by his idle and dissolute behaviour, so angered the authorities that he had been compelled to return home. Tiring of the rural life there, he finally obtained from his parents sufficient money to come to London to try his fortune.

Here he soon obtained some work from the smaller art dealers, which enabled him to live in comparative comfort, and had it not been for his unreliability and his love of drink he might have seen to be a good artist.

Wilfer was a handsome young fellow in those days, and while on one of his wandering tours in Kent he met and won the heart of a simple little country girl, named Lucy Goodwin. Lucy believed her lover to be everything that was good, and, trusted him even to the extent of her betrayal; so that, under some pretence, young Wilfer was able to entice the girl to Canterbury, where, a few weeks later, he deserted her.

She was the only daughter of a widower, a clerk in the employ of a country bank, who, broken-hearted at his daughter's ruin, threw up his situation, changed his name to that of George Harker, and fled to London with his beloved child. Here he found it extremely difficult to obtain work. His savings soon evaporated, and alas! further trouble was in store for him; for one afternoon a smooth-faced gentleman appeared at their quiet lodgings. This was none other than Jasper Vermont, who in a long private interview with the unhappy Harker informed him that he had heard of Lucy's escapade, and threatened to proclaim her shame, if Mr.

Harker failed to comply with a proposition he was about to make to him.

The business which he suggested was one entirely abhorrent to the ex-bank clerk; but with money running short, and the thought of his daughter's misery should her secret be revealed, what could the father do but submit?

The result of this interview was that, a month or two later, a new moneylending firm sprang up in a narrow street in the city, under the t.i.tle of Harker's Ltd., and none of the numerous clients who patronised it ever recognised that the manager, Mr. Harker, was speaking the literal truth when he repeatedly a.s.serted his own impotence in the business. Every one believed the story to be a fict.i.tious one, invented to a.s.sist him in his extortions.

Time pa.s.sed on, and Lucy's pretty face and modest ways, perhaps her very sadness, which clung to her in never-ending remorse, caught the heart of a simple-minded man, one John Ashford. He was a flourishing grocer in a village on the banks of the Thames, and was then staying in London on a visit. After a hard struggle with herself the poor girl returned his love, and ventured to become his wife.

Wilfer, from inquiries made by Mr. Harker, was supposed to be dead.

None, she thought, knew her secret except her father, for Lucy believed that Vermont had employed Mr. Harker out of friendship and sympathy, and did not know until long after her marriage that she, and therefore her husband, were in his power. So she ventured to grasp the happiness held out to her, thus strengthening the chain which bound her father and herself in slavery to Jasper Vermont's will. For if they feared disclosure before, how much more did they dread it now, when Lucy was married to a man who prided himself upon his good name and untarnished respectability!

Johann Wilfer, however, was not dead, nor had he left London. He had become a member of a gang of ingenious rascals, who lived by imitating the less known gems of the old masters, and palming them off on the credulous public and wealthy collectors as genuine. The impostures were very cleverly manipulated, and quite a little system was inst.i.tuted to bring them to perfection. Mr. Wilfer's part of the undertaking was "toning"; that is, bringing to the imitations the necessary mistiness and discoloration supposed to be produced by age.

He did very well at this business; so well, indeed, that he took a house in Cracknell Court, Soho, and if he could have restrained himself from the drinking of beer and spirits he would have been in comfortable circ.u.mstances.

This perpetual intoxication eventually made its mark upon Mr. Wilfer's countenance, and contorted his face into a caricature--with its mottled skin and bleary eyes--of the good looks which had won Lucy Goodwin's heart in former times. His language had also degenerated as well as his looks. All trace of German accent had been carefully obliterated, in order that no suspicion should be aroused when selling a faked picture.

He played the part of a c.o.c.kney so frequently and so well that that particular accent seemed, as it were, to be his mother-tongue.

As the years went by even the gang became tired of his habitual intoxication, and only occasionally gave him employment, so that he turned his attention to scenery painting for the stage. In this way, when engaged at the Rockingham Theatre, he met Martha Feltham, Ada Lester's dresser, and by means of boasting of his wealth finally persuaded her to marry him. It was in this manner that Jessica had first come under his sway.

When Ada found that her sister would never recover from the mental shock inflicted by Jasper Vermont when he told her that their marriage was illegal, she had made arrangements to get the child out of the house.

Naturally the little girl was an eyesore and an enc.u.mbrance to her; especially as Julia--blissfully ignorant that she herself was the mother--was always worrying her sister as to the reason of Jessica's presence. Accordingly, when Ada, by reason of her improved position and higher salary, moved away from the Bloomsbury lodgings into a house of her own, she gave the child over to the care of her dresser, Martha, now Mrs. Wilfer, and had always paid regularly for her board and keep.

Mr. Wilfer did not object to this addition to his income, though he still worked occasionally for the picture gang; and it was on one of their jobs that he came within reach of Jasper Vermont.

One day he had been sent to play the usual proceedings to Mr. George Harker, presuming, naturally enough, that being a moneylender he was rich, and hearing that he had a liking for "old masters."

Johann Wilfer saw Mr. Harker, and notwithstanding the changes which time brings to us all, and the entire transformation of name and surroundings, recognised him as the father of the girl whom he had once so cruelly deceived.

The old man never having heard the name of Lucy's betrayer--for she had purposely kept it from him--knew nothing of his visitor, and eventually purchased the picture, after consulting with Jasper, who discovered the imposition at a glance, but saw in the impostor a possible new tool.

He instructed Harker to obtain a written guarantee of the genuineness of the picture, and Wilfer, being half intoxicated at the time, for once forgot his usual caution, and gave the required pledge. With that in his possession, Jasper Vermont had Wilfer in his power, and only left him undisturbed because he saw no present opportunity of using him.

But when he wanted him he knew that he had only to exert the authority which the warrant gave him, and Johann Wilfer would be his obedient servant, as many better men were already.

The picture he intended--through Mr. Harker--to compel one of the firm's wealthy clients to take as part of a loan, a well-known trick of the worst cla.s.s of moneylenders.

Quite unconscious of the sword that hung over him, Mr. Wilfer, after a bout of hard drinking, went home, and it was in his drunken frenzy that he had struck Jessica. She, bruised and frightened, fled into the streets, where Adrien Leroy found her.

Left to himself--for his wife was away for a day or two--Mr. Wilfer fell into a deep slumber, in which he remained for the rest of the evening.

Early for him, on the following morning he was roused by a loud knocking at his front door. Now thoroughly sobered, he hurriedly dressed, stumbled down the rickety staircase, and opened the door, to himself confronted by Miss Ada Lester. Her face was flushed, and the angry light Jasper Vermont had called up by his sneers at her vulgarity the previous evening still shone in her dark eyes.

"Where is the gal?" she asked abruptly.

"The gal!" he repeated, staring at her in stolid amazement.

"Yes--Jessica!" retorted Miss Lester, her jewels flashing in a chance ray of sunlight which had found its way through the dingy court. "Where is she?"

"She is not at home," said Mr. Wilfer. "She and Martha 'ave gone out for the day to Greenwich. If you'd wrote a-sayin' you was goin' to call I'd have made 'em stay till you came."

Miss Lester looked at him keenly.

"If you don't believe me," said Wilfer, "go upstairs and look at her room."

Ada ran past him up the stairs, and quickly returned.

"It's locked," she said.

"Of course; she's quite the lady--keeps the keys 'erself," sneered Johann. "Look 'ere, 'ere's her hat and coat; there's one of 'er boots, so she must be comin' back afore long."

Miss Lester appeared convinced. She breathed more freely, as if a weight had been taken off her mind.

"Here," she said, putting some gold coins in his hand, "is something to make up for my troubling you. But I was real anxious to know if everything was right with the gal."

Wilfer--debauched and demoralised by drink--was disposed to look at the worst side of things; and from this point of view thought she meant the reverse of what she said.

"Would you be very much cut up," he said slyly, "if she wasn't able to trouble you any more or answer awkward questions, miss?"

She turned on him with a fierceness that made him recoil.

"If anything happens to that gal," she shouted, "I'll turn the police on you. For, mind my words--I mean them--I shouldn't have cared yesterday very much if I had learnt she was dead, but now I want her. Do you hear?

I want her, and you take care she's alive and ready when I come for her."

Then, without vouchsafing any further information, she flounced away, leaving Mr. Wilfer staring blankly after her, and wishing for once that he had stayed his hand, instead of driving the girl into the miseries and dangers of the streets.

Little did Wilfer or Miss Lester imagine that Jessica had found safety and refuge in Adrien Leroy's chambers.

CHAPTER VI

Love is the universal epidemic, effectual in all climes and conditions; there is no inoculation that will secure exemption from its influence; only given a warm human heart, and there is the natural susceptibility.