Markworth recovered himself in a moment.

"I beg your pardon, Mr Trump," he said, apologising; "I forgot myself; what was it that you said?"

"Pray don't mention it, my dear sir--my dear sir. I shan't bring any action for a.s.sault and battery. You see, my dear sir,"--Trump got very affectionate here, as he had just played his winning card--"we are accustomed to these little emotions now and then. But to return to what I was saying, Mr Markworth, it is a very unfortunate circ.u.mstance for you; the son Tom was born on the 27th August, 1847, and Susan, the daughter, on the 29th August, '46, and your mistake probably thus arose; but I can't help feeling glad on my clients behalf, that your marriage took place the day before Susan Hartshorne came of age. Consequently you must admit it, as she did not marry with her mother's consent, the marriage being, indeed, after an elopement, and our client, being ready to prove that it was entirely without her consent or knowledge, Susan Hartshorne--as your wife--has forfeited all right to the twenty thousand pounds mentioned in her father's will."

Markworth seemed to be quite dazed. This sudden blow to all his expectations quite unnerved him. He spoke absently, as if in a dream.

"Have you got the proofs?" he said abruptly; for he knew all the consequences which his oversight would entail. "Where are the papers?"

"Here is the certificate of her birth," said the lawyer, producing it as he spoke, "dated the 29th August, 1846. Here is also the written evidence of her mother, Mrs Hartshorne, and here, too, the old Family Bible, with the date and entry of her birth inscribed in it, by the hand of the late Squire Roger Hartshorne, as I myself can testify. Quite sufficient evidence, Mr Markworth, in any court of law, to establish the date of Susan Hartshorne's birth, and the consequent failure of your little plan to get her fortune. Very unfortunate, Mr Markworth! Very unfortunate!"

And the lawyer rubbed his hands with triumph, and smiled as if he was telling his victim a piece of remarkably good news.

Markworth never took any notice of the lawyer's words. He examined eagerly the papers before him; and when he saw the convincing entry in the family Bible, he gave up. The figure 9 in the date "29th August,"

might easily have been taken for a 7, and he cursed Clara Kingscott for making the mistake, which she had very naturally made in this instance quite unintentionally, and without any thought as to the effects of the error.

He bore his defeat bravely, however, although all his schemes were thus dashed to the ground when they were trembling on the verge of success.

He knew at once that he had now no more chance of getting the fortune, for which he had risked so much, than the veriest beggar whom he might pick out of the street. He would have to leave England at once, or his next step would be into a gaol, on account of his debts: the harpies would be upon him the moment his failure was known. What on earth to do with himself, or with the girl he called his wife, whom he had tackled himself to, he did not know. The first thing, however, was to get away, and that as soon as possible.

"I suppose the suit will have to be dropped now, for I have no object in carrying it on. Good morning, gentlemen," he said, to the lawyers; "I suppose you don't want me any longer."

And he walked out of the office as calmly as if he had achieved a victory, although all his hopes and plans were utterly wrecked.

"He's a plucky fellow, and deserved to win," said Mr Trump to his partner, when Markworth had disappeared, and his steps were heard going down the staircase.

"That he is; that he did," responded parrot Sequence, and both dismissed him from their minds, and set about filing the necessary papers which would soon put an end to the longed talked of suit of "Markworth _versus_ Hartshorne."

Volume 2, Chapter XIV.

THE DOCTOR GOES ABROAD.

"Ait-choo!" sneezed the doctor one morning towards the end of October, when the weather was getting damp and misty, as he entered his comfortable breakfast parlour, where Deborah was sitting as usual before the fire darning her interminable stockings. I believe if you walked into that room at any hour of the day or night, you would always find her at the same task, darning stockings, and she always seemed to have the same stocking, a half grey and white one with plenty of holes about the heel, in her hand.

"Ait-choo!" sneezed the doctor again. "Bless my soul, Deb," he exclaimed, "I believe I have taken a cold. Confound it! Just what I might expect from toddling up to The Poplars last night on such a wild goose chase."

"Well, you know, Richard, you would go out, and you threw off that comforter I took the trouble to wrap round your neck."

"A lot of molly coddling! But you're a good soul, Deb. What an old catamaran that old woman is to be sure."

"Do you mean Mrs Hartshorne, Richard?"

"Bless my soul, Deb! Of course; who else should I mean? She's a regular old devil incarnate, and her temper, never very good, has got quite awful now. I wanted her to go according to Trump's advice; he's a sensible man, and told her to compromise that case. It will never stand in law, so Trump says; and it's better to give that rascal Markworth half the money now than expose the whole family, and have to give up the whole lot by and bye. Half a loaf is better than no bread, I say, and I would rather have it so for that poor girl's sake."

"And she won't do it, Richard?"

"The devil a sc.r.a.p she says. Bless my soul, Deb! she won't hear of a compromise; she says she will see that rascal hanged first before he gets a penny of her money--and she's right, too, by Gad?"

"Oh! Richard, Richard!" said Pythias, warningly.

"Well, she did not use exactly that language, but she meant it. I tell you what I've a mind to do, Deb."

"What, Richard? Nothing rash I hope!" observed Deborah, with anxiety: she always looked upon her brother as a gay young fellow, who might suddenly rush off and commit some escapade, so she consequently was constantly on the tenter hooks of suspense. You see the doctor had a partiality for the fair s.e.x. He was always fancying himself in love with every pretty young lady he came across, and innumerable were the frights Deborah had had in consequence. The doctor in fact was always committing himself, and only his universal _bonhomie_ saved him from breaches of promises without number. He would be sensible enough and hold his own with men, but with women he was a very child in their hands. Deborah looked upon everybody in petticoats as special tempters and snares set in the path of her brother. She thought he was irresistible: and it was therefore a wonder with all the chances he had had and the many very serious flirtations he had engaged in that he had not yet been caught. He had got over his partiality for Miss Kingscott, now that the charmer had gone away, not that I wish to accuse the doctor of heartless conduct, or of being a "gay deceiver." But to be in love was a chronic epidemic with him, and as Miss Kingscott was gone, he was in duty and of necessity bound to take up with someone else, Deborah knew that the doctor had of late been very attentive to a certain pretty little widow who had come down to stop at Bigton, and had called in the services of Aesculapius for some trifling nervous ailment--who knows what might come of it? The doctor had escaped often but he might be caught at last! The pitcher that often is carried scatheless to the well is broken in the end; so she was now in terror that the doctor was going to declare in his well-known manner that this pretty little widow was "a dooced fine girl!" and state that he was going to marry her.

"Women are so designing; the artful wretches!" Pythias thought, "especially widows!" and she waited in nervous expectation to hear what Damon had "a mind to do!"

The doctor was in a thinking fit. He twirled his hat in his hands; and then that not being sufficient to conduce to reflection, he pulled out his bandana pocket-handkerchief and began to twist it round his fingers in all sorts of fanciful shapes.

"I tell you what I've a mind to do, Deb. I'm hanged if I don't go over to that foreign Frenchy place, and try and fetch Susan back myself! Tom has gone away, and I daresay he made a mull of it before, and the old woman won't do anything. I promised poor Roger Hartshorne to look after his children, and I'm hanged if I don't go over there and bring her back!"

Pythias was at once relieved in her mind. It was not that artful designing creature then that Damon had in her thoughts. "Indeed, Richard!" she said, "but it is a long journey, and do you think at your time of life you can stand it?" she, like most country people who have never stirred out of their native wilds, looked upon a journey to France as if it comprised the circ.u.mnavigation of the globe.

"Bosh, Deb! Why it's only a hundred and fifty miles or so from here to Havre, and I'll be back in a couple of days at most! It is right for me to go, and I can just manage now to get away for two or three days, for there's n.o.body ill and nothing doing; and that coal merchant fellow Dobbins, who came down here to set up for surgeon, can mind my practice for me. I'll go round and ask him this morning; he'll jump at the offer."

"Well, if you think you ought to go, you must I suppose; and it is better now than any other time."

"Of course I ought, and I will to, by Gad!" The doctor being a man of resolution, although he often did make hasty resolves, quickly settled his departure; and to the intense astonishment of everybody went away from Bigton for a week as he said, although he only intended to be away two days at the most, the whilom coal merchant Dobbins driving about in the doctor's chaise, which he seldom used himself unless the gout was very bad indeed, and making the most of his short resign until Aesculapius proper should come back to his own again.

Doctor Jolly had never stirred out of his native town, save of course on short excursions into the surrounding neighbourhood, for nearly a quarter of a century; not for twenty-five years, ever since the time when he went to London to walk the boards of Guy's Hospital, in order to acquire his medical education; and naturally such an expedition as the present was quite an era in his life.

But the doctor did not make "any bones" about it, as the popular expression runs. He packed up his traps in a small portmanteau; and after a very affecting farewell with Deborah, who fell upon his neck and embraced him, as if she were never going to see him again, telling him, "Take care of yourself, Richard! _Do_ take care of yourself!" to which he responded in his cheery voice, "G.o.d bless my soul! Deb, of course I will. G.o.d bless you!" he rubbed his eyes, which were glistening, with his h.o.r.n.y fist, and blowing his nose vigorously with his bandana, the doctor went off on his travels.

He made his way safely to Havre, and got over all right with the exception of being fearfully sea-sick on the pa.s.sage. Oh! the blessing of being thin! Fat men suffer the tortures of the direst days of the Inquisition when attacked by the fell _mal du mer_! while the Misters Slenders escaped scatheless.

He had some little difficulty with the gendarmes of the custom house and the hotel touts, the latter of whom struggled for the possession of his manly form; but he finally escaped after being taken summarily to a caravanserai, where he left his luggage, and shortly afterwards set about finding the abode of Susan and Markworth.

By some mistake or other he got carried off to the railway station, and was taken some miles on the road to Paris. A fellow countryman, however, convinced him of his mistake, and showed him how to get back again to Havre. By the time he got back, however, evening had set in, and he experienced the greatest difficulty in finding the direction of the Rue Montmartre, for, even after finding the direction in which it lay, he was still at fault. How he blessed the "frog eating race" as he called them.

As the doctor's knowledge of French was somewhat limited,--indeed, he only knew the word _oui_ which he p.r.o.nounced "Ooo"--he found some difficulty in finding his way. However, by dint of continually bawling out in an extra stentorian voice "Roo Mount Martha," as he called it, to every pa.s.ser-by whom he met, he at length reached the street of which he was in search.

It was some time before he got to the right number, as he would persist in asking, of course in English, for "Number-o'-seven," instead of _numero sept_. But in due course he arrived at the _logement_ of La Mere Cliquelle.

The door was opened by the husband of that good lady--it is curious how some men lose their individuality on getting married; they become mere nonent.i.ties--how often you hear a man described as Mrs So-and-So's husband. The doctor, thinking that by speaking his words very distinctly, and in a loud tone of voice, he could make any Frenchman understand English, acted on that plan.

"Is--Susan? Bless my soul! What the dooce am I thinking of?"

interrupted the doctor to himself. He commenced anew. "Is--Missis-- Mark--worth--in?"

"Hein?" grunted the Frenchman, interrogatively.

The doctor repeated his question, only this time asking for "madam"

instead of "mistress."

The Gaul's face brightened, and he looked more intelligent. "Ah-h!

Yase! yase, yase, yase!" he said, nodding his head violently, "de madame? de Inglismans, hay?"

"Yes, yes! quite right," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the doctor. "I say you are quite right," bawling out the words at the top of his voice. "Confound these stupid French frogs," he muttered to himself; "why, they can't understand plain English! Is--she--you--know--who in?" And seeing that the Gaul liked to nod, he nodded his head until he grew quite apoplectic in the face.

"Non," said the Mere Cliquelle's husband. "Ze Inglisman's is go--vat you call it, eh? Ah, yase, is go oot."

"Oh! she's gone out, is she?"