ENVOI.
I have only a note or two to add, inessential but explanatory to the curious.
Lord Skene never forgave me for that stand made in my own rights, but persisted to the end in regarding me as an impostor who had got even something better than his deserts. His ward coming of age soon after the trial, and persisting no less obstinately in her attachment to a rascal, he washed his hands of her and committed us both to the devil. The death of his mother-in-law, I am satisfied to think, caused him some retributive pangs; for, out of pocket as he was by the action, he could not afford to ignore her substantial leavings, or fail to suffer the social penalties entailed thereby through his obligation to admit his wife’s relationship with the horrible old miser. After Mother Carey’s demise, bonds, scrip, and securities to a handsome tune were discovered hidden about her premises, besides a considerable amount of property in hard, but dirty, cash. I hope his lordship enjoyed handling it. But I bear him no grudge. Old kindly memories of him predominate in my mind.
From facts subsequently unearthed by Mr Shapter, it was believed that Mr Mark Dalston had originally purposed the infanticide, through the co-operation of his friend, Dr Blague, of the teller of this narrative, and that it was nothing more that the accidental interposition of Mother Carey which had suggested to him the compromise which, though after a long interval, was to bring about his undoing. If he had been imbued with only a little less confidence in his own managing villainy, he might have been a respected citizen at this day, and my story had never been written.
The trial had at least one sequel satisfying to justice. It led—largely through Johnny’s instrumentality—to an inquiry into the circumstances of Geoletti’s conviction (an inquiry only less notable than the one to which it was supernumerary), with the result that the victim was granted a free pardon, together with some pecuniary compensation nicely adapted to his deserts at the time of his arrest. It was sufficient, however, to his expectations; and returning with the sum to his native land, he was enabled to realise the desire of his heart in the purchase of an auberge in the Aosta Valley, where in after days I called upon him, in company with my wife, and found him a quiet prosperous man, not speaking much, but possessed with an insatiable craving to make up for past abstinences from tobacco and wine.
And, finally—of ourselves? Under the seal of love’s confessional lies locked all that is worth knowing there; but we were married, if the term is essential to the propriety of an ending. I am not fond of it myself, I confess. It is the conventional expression for a conventionally vulgar festivity. But one has to endure it, and get away from it as quickly as possible, and commit to one’s fancy a picture of the thing as one would have liked it to be—something out in the woods, perhaps, with maids dancing, and garlanded heifers, and a gentle poem of wedlock, as binding as its natural symbol in the oak and eglantine. It is nothing but a question of terms, when the sweet and solemn oath is exchanged, after all.
Well, the thing had to be, and my fairy, who should have come dressed like the green lace-wing, must drag after her a preposterous train of watered tabby, or moiré antique bombazine, or some such unnameable stuff at something terrifying the yard. Johnny, the best of men, was likewise my best man; and, in the enthusiasm of both parts, pursued us, flying, with a dropping fire of telegrams in cypher, which punctuated our honeymoon with merriment.
And afterwards? Why, I started life dependent on my wife; and what was to say against it? A sense of honour? Pooh! Fine honour or kindness to wreck two lives on a sentiment of vanity! That curse of the golden balance! Go, fall into love, my friend—really into love, I mean—and marry you a wife, and learn what mutual confidence means. After the second day you will be beating your brains to remember which of you it was brought the money into the concern. But that is not to say you will be justified in leading an idle life.
Méchant poulain, says an old French proverb, peut devenir bon cheval. Nature having given me a certain fanciful inventiveness, which might appear to be my most negotiable asset, I thought I would try writing for a living, and even began with some illusions about Literature (with a capital), and the certainty of high purpose and high endeavour meeting in time with their due recognition and reward. But long was not wanted to put me out of that preposterous conceit, and make me understand the terms upon which “literature” is permitted to include itself among the high arts, such as the forming of a trust, or the exploiting of a pill or hair wash. I then stuffed a manuscript into an old potted beef tin, and forwarded it to an enterprising publisher, with the intimation that it had been discovered on a dust-heap, and that my terms were such and such, not as author but as entrepreneur. The ruse, being appreciated at its worth by a sagacious spirit, and the venture launched on a flood-tide of puffery, proved an instant success. The literary value of the book may have been anything or nothing; it ran into its twenty-fifth edition on a much solider basis; and I found myself suddenly the possessor of capital. Ira and Johnny were both immensely indignant with me when they discovered the truth. That occurred on the very day on which my wife had unearthed from Keats a quotation which she considered peculiarly applicable to my destiny and the ideals which ruled it:
“... to die content on pleasant sward,
Leaving great verse unto a little clan.”
I laughed as I kissed her.
“Good poets make unpractical fathers,” I said—“and you must not excite yourself, my loveliness. This money, well invested, is going to prove the nest-egg of our song-bird. We must line the nest, you know, if we want the bird to sing. And now, being independent of the public, I am going to pull its ears.”
“You donkey,” she said, and pulled mine.
So ends the Great Skene Mystery, the symbol of whose “stopping” is to be found at this day, if one is curious enough to look for it, in the little lead plug let into a hole in the floor of the old Court at Westminster, where once was inserted the rod which held the screen which protected the judges from the draughts. And, if I am Richard Gaskett still, I have at least earned a popular title to my name.
[The End]