Chapter Twenty Five.
A Difficult Mission.
Every one in the room uttered an ejaculation at the housekeeper’s announcement, but the old lawyer remained calm.
“I’ll come and speak to him,” he said. “Don’t be alarmed,” he turned and whispered to Mrs Hampton. “Some mistake of the old woman’s. Try and keep her calm. A messenger, I think.”
As he reached the door, the old woman laid her hand upon his arm, and whispered to him: “But it is not Mr George, sir.”
“No, of course not, woman. A message from him. Where is the gentleman?”
“The dining-room things were not all cleared away, sir, and I showed him into the study.”
Mr Hampton nodded, and in a quiet, business-like way went out, and crossed the hall to the study, where the visitor, a tall, deeply sun-browned, frank-looking young man, who looked hollow-cheeked, as if from some long illness, rose from his seat.
The lawyer bowed.
“I want to see Miss Gertrude Bellwood,” said the visitor.
“I am her nearest friend, sir; and, I may say, I am deputed to hear your business. You come from Mr George Harrington, I presume?”
“Well, no, sir. I only reached Liverpool yesterday, London this afternoon. I am George Harrington.”
“What?”
“You seem surprised. I received letters from my grandfather, asking me, urgently, to return to England. I had made my preparations for returning, when I met with—an accident, and I have been dangerously ill. When I recovered and reached San Francisco, I found another letter announcing my grandfather’s death, and I came on at once.”
The old man looked at his visitor curiously.
“May I ask to whom I am speaking?” continued the young man.
“My name is Hampton, sir. I was the late Mr Harrington’s confidential legal adviser and executor.”
“Oh, indeed. Then that makes matters easy for me. You know everything, then?”
“Yes, I know everything,” said the lawyer, with a very searching look.
“Then my cousin, sir—she has always been spoken of in letters as my cousin, though no relation.”
The lawyer raised his eyebrows a little.
“I am, of course, under the circumstances, anxious to meet her.”
“May I ask under what circumstances, sir?”
“I understood you to say you knew everything, sir. We are betrothed—Miss Gertrude Bellwood is to be my wife.”
Both started, for at that moment Gertrude, whom Mrs Hampton had been unable to restrain, stood in the doorway, with the old lady at her elbow.
She took a couple of steps forward, gazing wildly in the frank, handsome face before her—a face which lit up with satisfaction as it encountered the earnest gaze of the young girl.
“Are you Gertrude?” he exclaimed, advancing with extended hands.
“Stop?” said the old lawyer, interposing, as he tried to master the difficulties of his position. “You will excuse me, sir, but you come here an utter stranger. You are, you say, Mr George Harrington.”
“Certainly. Who doubts it?”
“We will not discuss that matter now, sir. Recollect we live in days when impositions are practised.”
“Oh, I see. Of course. Quite right, my dear sir. As my grandfather’s executor, you are bound to be careful. Pray go on.”
“Mrs Hampton,” faltered Gertrude.
“Hush, my child; be calm,” whispered the old lady.
“Then, perhaps, sir, you will give me some proof that you are the gentleman you say.”
“Proofs? Are any needed?” said the young man laughingly, as if it was absurd that his word should be doubted. “Oh, well, then, first and foremost here I am, George Harrington, my father’s son, happily in the flesh, though I have had a very narrow escape from death.”
“Very good, sir; now some other proof. Gertrude, my child, had you not better retire?”
“No, Mr Hampton,” said Gertrude firmly.
“That’s quite right,” said the young man, giving her a keen, earnest look, so full of pleased admiration that Gertrude trembled, and her eyes fell. There was something so new in that look. “If any one ought to stay here, Miss Bellwood, it should be you. Well, Mr Hampton, you want proofs?”
“Yes, sir—the letters, for instance.”
“I have only the one I received. The others were stolen from me.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, sir, with everything of value that I possessed. Hang it all, man, don’t look so sceptical.”
“I beg pardon, sir. Go on. Of course you see I must have proof that you are the gentleman you represent yourself to be.”
“Well, let me see. I disposed of everything I had before I went upon a hunting expedition, all but a few necessaries, and bought other things suitable for my expedition. These, I regret to say, I have lost, and but for the kindness of some people in the West, I should not have been able to get here.”
“Then you have nothing you can show?” said the old lawyer.
Gertrude looked wildly and inquiringly at their visitor, for vaguely it seemed as if some one had been holding out to her a hand to save her from a fate from which she shrank more and more as the hours glided by, but that, after all, this stretched-out hand was only a delusion and a snare.
“Well, no,” said their visitor, with his broad brow puckering up with perplexity. “You see,”—and he gave all a frank, half-smiling look, which won upon Mrs Hampton, though she received it in the most stony way—“I came here to-night all eager, and expecting to be received with open arms, and you all look like ice, and treat me as if I were an impostor. No, sir, I have no proofs; and, for the moment, I don’t know how to establish my identity. Of course it will be all right. I can only say now that I am George Harrington.”
Gertrude, in spite of herself, gave him a pitying glance, to which he responded by one so bold and masterful that he felt for the moment as if held, and the colour, which had been absent from her cheeks for weeks, slowly began to mantle there.
“Here, stop a bit, sir. This is The Mynns. I came and stayed here once.”
“Ah!” said the lawyer slowly; “then you recollect all about the place?”
“No,” said the young man thoughtfully, “I was such a little kidling. No; I don’t recollect anything. I don’t know, though; have you any portrait of the old man? I might remember him.”
“Was that anything like him?” said the lawyer, pointing to an oil painting of Gertrude’s father, which was over the mantelpiece.
“No; not a bit,” said the young man shortly. “Not a bit.”
Gertrude’s spirits rose a little, as in secret she began to wish that their visitor’s words were true, though she did not doubt it herself.
“Shall we walk into the dining-room?” said the lawyer; “there are several portraits there.”
“By all means. I want to clear my character, ladies. Rather hard on a man to be taken for a trickster and a cheat.”
“No one accuses you, sir, of being either,” said the old lawyer gravely. “I am one of the executors of Mr Harrington’s will, and I have a duty, greater than you realise, to perform.”
He led the way to the dining-room, where their visitor immediately fixed his eyes on the portrait of the late owner of The Mynns, to the exclusion of three other portraits on the walls.
“That’s more like what I should have taken the old man to be; but no, no, no. It would be a contemptible sham for me to pretend to recognise him, so I give that up at once. Look here, sir, can’t you—or can’t you, Miss Gertrude, cross-examine me a bit about my father and mother, and our family history?”
“Yes,” said the old lawyer; and he put a series of questions, all of which were instantly answered.
“This is all very satisfactory, sir, but I want more proof. Let me see; the late Mr Harrington gave you a watch, did he not?”
The question was asked in a slow, peculiar way, and Gertrude darted a searching look at the unmoved countenance before her.
“A watch? Gave me a watch, sir? No. The boot was on the other foot.”
Gertrude’s face lighted up again. She hardly dared to confess it, but she wanted, more and more, for this one to prove that he was the true George Harrington whom she was to love and honour.
“Oh! You gave him a watch, I am to understand?”
“Yes, with a chain made out of nuggets. The case was made of gold I found. I sent it because the old man always girded at my father for gold-hunting, and it was to show him what we could do. But will you not sit down, ladies?” he added, with a rather rough, but natural courtesy.
“Perhaps you will take a seat, too, sir,” said the old lawyer, who was impressed favourably by his visitor’s manner, and felt a lingering hope that his tale might be true, though all the while upon his guard against imposition.
“I will with pleasure, for I am tired. Stop a moment?” he cried excitedly; “I recollect that old girl. She used to take lumps of sugar, melt them in a wax-candle, and let yellow drops of the sweet fall on a piece of writing-paper. You ask her presently. By Jove!” he cried laughingly, “think of my remembering that.”
Gertrude’s heart gave a great throb, and she dared not meet the frank, merry eyes directed at her.
“Humph?” ejaculated the lawyer, scanning the face before him narrowly, and always to be met by a frank, manly look. “I find I am supposed to be wrong, then, about the watch?”
“Oh, yes, sir, you were wrong there. Why, by Jove! the old man wrote and told me he should leave me that watch.”
“There was the series of remittances then, sir,” continued the lawyer. “You will allow, then, that the late Mr Harrington made you an allowance?”
“I agree that this is a trap, Mr Lawyer,” said the young man; “but that was a thoroughly confidential matter, upon which we will not speak. Yes; have it your way if you like—the old man used to keep me.”
“Humph! I wish my co-executor was here,” said the lawyer, after a pause.
“So do I, sir, if it would simplify matters. All this is very unpleasant, of course.”
“More so, sir, than you imagine.”
“Well, pray tell me what to do. Here have I come to claim my heritage and my—I beg pardon,” he said quickly, with an admiring look at Gertrude, “my wife and my heritage, and the lady does not so much as shake hands with me.”
Gertrude, in spite of herself, gave him an apologetic look.
“And you treat me as if I were a scoundrel.”
“I am compelled to look upon your claim, sir, with suspicion.”
“Well, sir, you are a lawyer; perhaps you will let me retain your services on my behalf.”
“Certainly not, sir. You are attacking, I am for the defence.”
“Very well then, sir, I must get another advocate, I suppose, and oust you from your position.”
He paused for a few moments, and looked fixedly at Gertrude, and his gaze intensified, not in boldness, but in respectful ardour, as he slowly rose, and, with a sigh of satisfaction, held out his hand to her.
“Gertrude Bellwood,” he said, “I am a rough man; I have lived a wild pioneering life where, for the most part, I have rarely seen woman, but I inherited from my sweet, dear mother’s teaching a feeling of veneration for her, as one whom it is our duty to look upon with chivalrous respect. Frankly, I came here to-night, ready to claim the property my grandfather has bequeathed me, and to set the lady he wished me to wed quite free to follow her own bent. I feel it is my duty to do this, but I shall wait a while; meantime, I venture to think that you do not look upon me as an impostor. I am George Harrington, and though I now offer you my hand, it is only for the first friendly clasp. You will shake hands with me?”
Gertrude’s eyes were fixed on his, and held there as if fascinated. She did not speak, but looked at him wildly. But at last slowly, and in the midst of an utter silence, she said faintly:
“I don’t know what to think—you do not know. Mr Hampton, why do you not explain?”
Then gathering strength and firmness, she raised her hand and placed it in the firm, strong palm which closed upon it with a pressure that was painful, though it sent a thrill of pleasure through her, such as she had never felt before.
“No,” she said; “no one who was an impostor could look and speak like this.”
“God bless you, my darling!” he cried warmly, as the tears started to his eyes; “and none but a true, sweet woman would have spoken like this.”
“Stop!” said the old lawyer, coming between them, and holding them apart. “You have, sir, to make your pretensions good. Mr George Harrington is here in England, has claimed his own, and is this young lady’s betrothed.”
“What? Then where is he? Bring us face to face.”