Volume Three—Chapter Ten.
Caught at Last.
“Even the worst laws are so necessary for our guidance, that without them, men would devour one another,” remarks Epicurus—in order to exemplify the frailty of human nature, according to Plutarch, the moralist. Putting the point of cannibalism aside, and thus obviating a trip to the Feejee Islands, or New Zealand, for example, it cannot be disputed that the dictum of the Epicurean philosopher is based on a fundamental truth, which is fairly exhibited in every-day life. Granting, however, that laws are necessary for human progress, the philosophical enquirer is still as much at fault as ever, for he becomes, as it were, like Hamlet, plunged into a sea of troubles, which no opposition will limit, the moment he begins his search into the mysteries of jurisprudence. The progress of the blind goddess with the sinister and dexter scale has been by no means commensurate with the advancement of civilisation, for the name of laws is legion; and between good laws and bad laws, and what may be termed legal laws and moral laws, there are as wide differences and as great discrepancies as exist among the several offenders and offences against the same.
A law may be a good law, and a necessary law, and yet be a bad law, speaking according to law; while a bad and unjust law, merely regarded as a piece of law-making, becomes good when weighed in the same forensic balance. This seems paradoxical, but can be verified readily in overlooking the legal code. Law, itself, is wise, and good, and necessary; but, “too many cooks spoil the broth,” so our original Magna Charta of Liberty has become a hotch-potch pie of precedents, thanks to the many law-makers we have had, who lead the blind goddess into the gutter, and so transform Themis that no one would know her again in her original guise. There are so many cities of refuge provided for criminals within the statutes of the justice book, so many loopholes for chicanery and fraud to sneak through, that no criminal need trouble himself for fear of consequences at committing any offence in the decalogue or calendar, short of murder—even that often becomes justified under the appellative “homicide” in the minds, and under the verdict of “a free and enlightened jury!”—save the mark.
The various turnings and windings of our great national bulwark—the Law—are many and wonderful.
A man who commits a greater offence can only be, perhaps, indicted under a lesser plea, and the small criminal again is treated proportionately more severely than the man who deals in crime wholesale. Some reforms have, indeed, been made already, but more are still needed. Perhaps one of the greatest agitated of late has been the abolishment of imprisonment for debt, one of the most iniquitous statutes we have been cursed with. The debtor had been held on a par with the thief and the murderer, and has often been condemned to a greater term of imprisonment than the criminal who commits a burglary or takes human life. However, this will soon be numbered amongst the other mistakes of the past, like the old Fleet prison.
Following out the analogy, it seems strange that Markworth, who had been deemed guilty of graver offences under the eye of the law should only be caught at last through a ca ça, ex parte Solomonson, the Jew money lender.
He had puzzled Mrs Hartshorne’s lawyers in proving the abduction; he would have gained a large fortune by his scheming, but through the little mistake of a date; he had evaded the French police, and escaped the arrest of a murderer; and here he was imprisoned at last, in a sponging-house, only on a question of debt—a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. Oh, the anachronisms of the law! But enough has been already said in these pages of its Penelopean web of trickery and evasion.
To return to our hero, perhaps the best example of terror which could be mentioned, is that of seeing a drove of wild animals on the prairies of the far west, flying from a bush fire. The herds of buffalo, deer, and even bears and panthers, are then seized with a maddening influence of fright and flight combined, and rush pell mell in front of the blazing torrent of fire which spreads behind them. They do not care where they go, and will encroach even upon the haunts of men, of whom they are generally afraid, the panther running by the side of the bison, which does not now mind the proximity of its enemy, all flying in their wild scare for safety, with heaving flanks and panting breath.
It was under the influence of such a fright that Markworth fled from the heights of Ingouville, when he escaped from Clara Kingscott’s clutches: he could fancy that he still heard Susan’s wild shriek ringing in his ears.
The accusation of Clara Kingscott had paralysed him with a morbid terror. His first impulse was, when Susan disappeared over the precipice, to rush down and save her. Then he had been stopped so unexpectedly, and on the governess accusing him of murdering the girl, his mind had rapidly grasped the circumstances attending, and he saw how strong the proof of circumstantial evidence would be against him.
The cries of Clara Kingscott would now have alarmed the neighbourhood. Morbid terror possessed him. How to escape! Was there time to fly?
And he fled with all the fear of a hunted animal.
He did not know in which direction he went, but he suddenly arrested his fleeing footsteps: he saw somebody in the distance, and turned back.
It would never do to continue the path down which the body of Susan might be lying; if he were to be found near at hand he might be lost.
He bent aside and rapidly made his way down the steep incline, and after wheeling around in various directions so as to discern any possible pursuit, he made up his mind to go first to the lodgings in the Rue Montmartre. He must get off out of the way, and as nobody would search for him yet awhile—it was so late, and quiet, and dark—he could find time to collect his things, and get on board some steamer in the harbour before anyone would dream of searching for him. Besides, there might be no pursuit at all, he thought to himself, his native courage rapidly returning as he got further and further from the scene of action. He would proceed cautiously; but he must go away: yes, it was best to go away. What was the use in remaining now? Susan was the only link that bound him to Havre, and now she was providentially put out of his way. Poor girl! He pitied her; but it was, perhaps, best as it was, and somebody else would see after her now. It would have been an unpleasant business if he had stopped by her at any rate. She even might not be dead after all: somebody else would see to her; that devil Clara was there at all events.
These thoughts flitted through his brain, as he walked leisurely along the now deserted streets of the town. It would never do to appear in a hurry, for Havre was respectable, and went to bed at an early hour, with the exception of the fisher folk, who were still carousing in the low cabarets down by the quays.
By this time he had reached his door, and opening it with his pass key, he let himself in.
In the passage he met the little husband of the Mère Cliquelle, whom he told that Madame sa femme, was unwell and stopping at a friends, and he was going out again for her. He then went into his rooms and began to pack a portmanteau leisurely, for he thought “if they are hunting for me this is the last place they would seek for me.” And so he arranged matters quite at his ease.
He had nearly a hundred pounds left in money, and that he thought would see him through a good deal. He could not stop in England, he considered, and on the other hand Clara Kingscott would make the Continent too hot to hold him. Where should he go?
America, he decided, in a moment. That blessed land for aliens and criminals would receive him and offer him a convenient shelter; besides, if all he heard was true, he was in no doubt that he could pick up a living by his wits amongst his transatlantic cousins. The moment he came to this determination he proceeded to act upon it.
At all events, there was no use in stopping in the Rue Montmartre any longer, so he opened the door, after putting the things in order, and taking up the valise in his hand, he walked towards the passage.
“Bon soir!” he shouted to the Mère Cliquelle and her husband above, who thought the evening’s proceedings rather strange on the whole but consoled themselves with the reflection that “Ces Anglais sont drôles!”
“Bon soir, Monsieur! Au revoir!” they responded; and Markworth walked out of the Mère Cliquelle’s house for the last time. It was now nearly ten o’clock, and all was quiet about the street, which was quite dark. He was unnoticed, and free to go where he pleased, and so he turned his steps this time down towards the steamboat quay. There, although it was so late, he managed to come across a fisherman, who was just starting off in his little boat.
For a small consideration, as it lay in his way, the man consented to land him over at Honfleur, on the opposite banks of the Seine, Markworth telling him that he had a sick wife, whom he must visit that night.
“Pauvre fille!” said the Ignobile Pescatore, with a sympathetic shrug, “we must take you to madame;” and setting his brawny arms to work, in addition to the lugsail, for there was little wind, Markworth was, after the lapse of a short interval, set ashore at length at Honfleur, leaving the broad and muddy Seine between himself and his Nemesis. He could now breathe freely. His plans were made up, and he had only to wait until the early morning for carrying them into execution.
At an auberge in the centre of the town he got a lodging for the night, and in the early morning was travelling north.
From Paris to Brussels—train again—miles of railroad—on, on to Bremen, or rather Bremenhaven as the port is properly called. Time to catch one of the German American steamships of the Nord Deutsche line, that ply between that port and New York, touching at Southampton on the way. Caught it! Be certain tho’ that Markworth landed not at the stopping-place on the route! He had too wholesome a dread of his creditor, Solomonson, and the possibilities of a “capias” or “ca ça” administered by one of the greasy hands of mine host of Curseover Street, Chancery Lane. No more treading on British soil for him!
Bremen to Southampton—a two days’ trip. One day more lying there alongside the railroad dock, and afterwards far out in the harbour, where the hull of the steamer looked like a gigantic lizard, or the far-famed sea-serpent. Then, on a Wednesday morning, he finally sailed for the land of the setting sun—“the home of the brave and free;” where, according to the poetical license of transatlantic eulogists, “the Bird o’ Freedom claps her wings in exultation over the star-spangled banner in the ethereal expanse of perennial blue.”
On landing in New York, Markworth found it very similar to any other city of the old world in which he had been. There was no Eldorado here: the streets were not profusely strewn with gold for the needy to pick up. New York was only another temple of Mammon, where he who had money was a brave gentleman, and he who had none might starve and be hanged to him!
For labouring men and mechanics, there is a wide field for industry in the Empire City and the adjacent country round about; but for clerks, “gentlemen,” and Chevaliers d’Industrie, New York possesses few facilities, and it is harder work to pick up a living there than even in our own over-crowded London.
Markworth’s available funds melted down into greenbacks, and the wretched paper currency that forms the circulating medium of our transatlantic brethren, did not stretch very far. The essays he made to increase his store by his wits shrunk his purse still less.
Although “enterprise” is one of the proverbial characteristics of Jonathan, still there is no country in the world, in spite of all the fabulous anecdotes we hear of swindling and “bogus” schemes, where adventurers without capital have such small chances of success. Jonathan may take in other people with his wooden nutmegs, pewter dollars, and Connecticut clocks, warranted to go for eight days, but a person is required to “get up extremely early in the morning” to get over him. The land of humbug, which possesses its native Barnums in shoals, is one of the “cutest countries in creation, I guess,” and can “whip” any “coon” that comes from “tother side of Jordan.”
Markworth thought himself shrewd; but here, in the race of wits, he found himself a sluggard.
He had at last to take to gambling, but even there he was no match for the smart Yankees with whom he played. Talk of Homburg and Baden-Baden! They cannot hold a candle to the Faro banks and other gambling hells of New York and Saratoga. Gambling is supposed to be contrary to the laws of the United States, but when their senators and law-makers practise it, it cannot be wondered that the people hold it up en masse, while justice winks at their doings.
Finding chance no ally, all his endeavours to get employment vain, and the country with its people and belongings hateful to him, Markworth became possessed with that intense home longing, which none but those who have experienced it can appreciate. It is strange, the effects of that same maladie du pays, as the French call it. Numbers of conscripts die from it every year in Algiers, pining for their belle France to the last; only the Ethiopian, or modern negro, seems unaffected by its influence. Even he, too, may long to be back again in his beloved Congo, when sweltering in the shambles of Cuba, where, thank goodness, slavery only now exists; there, however, it is also doomed to be mercifully blotted out.
While suffering from this home sickness, homeless, friendless, nearly penniless, Markworth had a sudden and lucky coup at Faro, which just gained him sufficient money wherewith to pay his passage back to England. Sick he was of the Yankees, but he blessed them now!
He eagerly jumped at the chance, and without a thought of the consequences of debt and imprisonment, or of the harpies looking out for him, he paid his passage money—“third class” this time—and was on his way home in one of those steamships that land at London, some six months or so after he had gone out so valiantly, a man of money, to the New World. He did not care, however: his one dream was to get back home again—“home,” though it be ever so homely, and he—but in rags.
He arrived at last; he landed, and he was cast upon the sea of London life without a penny in his pockets, and no luggage to overburden him.
Markworth, however, did not mind this. He had been hard pushed before; and having always managed to wriggle himself out of pecuniary difficulties, he saw no reason why he should not raise himself again, even though his fortunes were at such a very low ebb. Indeed, he did not doubt his ability so to do for a moment.
His first care was to get a little money to go on with, and he had no fear but that Joseph Begg, his former confidant, would readily assist him, as he could soon pay him back in his own time; for a habitation, of which he had also to be careful, he determined to go back to his old lodgings at Mrs Martin’s in Bloomsbury.
Begg’s billiard rooms in Oxford Street accordingly formed his first destination. As it was getting late, and “pool” the natural thing at the time, he was certain of finding Joseph Begg in; but he was doomed to be disappointed.
On inquiring for his old friend of an Irish marker, who alone was in the room, he heard to his astonishment that Joseph Begg was dead!
“Yis, yer ’anner,” said this man, with a strong Dublin brogue; “he’s did an’ bur’d mor’n foor month. He wint to dhrink a pint of rhum agin some City swell or other for a bet of a fife-pun-nut, and be Jabers! it kilt poor Begg enthirely! Shure, yer ’anner, he jist dhropped down did on the flure, he did, yer ’anner. Good luck till him! Faith he wor one of the raal sort, too, and he desarved to win, but the rhum was too much for him—bad cess to it!”
It seemed another link in the chain of ill-luck which had enwrapped him ever since his marriage with Susan Hartshorne; and Markworth turned away with a heavy heart to seek his quarters at Mrs Martin’s, while the Irish lad was crooning out some ditty about a “gintlemun” who—
“Turned up his nose,
And the tips of his toes,
To the roots of the daisies, oh!”
But he readily found an asylum in Bloomsbury, as he had thought; still even there his fate still pursued him, and he was arrested next day, as already told.
The first visitor who came to see him in the sponging-house was she who had last held him on the heights of Ingouville, and called him murderer. He was proportionately glad to see her: a mutual pleasure, without doubt!
But his troubles had much shaken him, and Markworth was not the Markworth of before—the cool collected man of the world with a strong spice of the devil-may-care element; he was cowed and beaten.
“What do you want here with me, Clara Kingscott?” he growled out, as he cowered from her fixed gaze of hate. “What do you want now, for God’s sake! I paid you, at all events!”
“What do I want, Allynne Markworth? I wanted to see you caged at last, villain! and now I’m satisfied!”
“Well, you’ve seen me now, so you may go away and be happy! But I don’t know why you hate me so, I’m sure; I don’t owe you any money at all events!”
“Money, money, money! that has always been the burden of your song—and now you see its worth!”
“I know it would take me out of here; that’s what I know!” he replied, with a faint attempt at a jocular laugh—it was a very faint one.
“Would it? Do you know who put you here?”
“Solomonson, I suppose; my worthy friend to whom I am slightly indebted. I don’t think he’ll get his money, though; for I am hanged if I don’t go through ‘the Court.’” He laughed, still keeping up appearances.
The governess went on, however, in her cold grating voice, without apparently noticing his interruption.
“I placed you here!” she said, with bitter emphasis. “I got you arrested. I knew that you came to those lodgings last night! I have been watching for you for weeks; and I went down this morning to those attorneys, and told them where you were. I would have gone last night if it had not been so late! You have got to thank me for your arrest!”
“You! you she devil! Why, what on earth have I done to you?” he exclaimed, in astonishment.
“Done to me! If you have forgotten ten years ago, and the way you deceived me, Allynne Markworth, I have not!”
“Good God, Clara! I thought that was all past and gone. No one could have regretted it more than I! and you, yourself, said we had better let bygones be bygones! Why, you accepted money from me, you—”
“Yes, I did! It was only to work your own ruin!”
“Good God, Clara! Don’t go on like that; I’m hunted down now, or I would do anything you wanted. Don’t hit a man when he’s down!”
She still continued, working herself up into a frenzy of passion as she spoke, without noticing his words, although gazing steadily in his face with her basilisk eyes, which were widened with fury and hate.
“Do you know that if that flaw had not been discovered in the date of the girl’s age—and I only wish that I had made it and discovered it!—and that if your case had gone to trial, I would have come forward as evidence against you, and would have sworn to having assisted you to abduct that poor idiot Susan Hartshorne? Do you know that I would have sworn to this, no matter how I implicated myself, only to get you ruined? Did you ever think of that?”
“No, for God’s sake, Clara! I kept to my bargain.”
“Did you keep your bargain ten years ago? If you forget, Allynne Markworth, I do not! Now, thank God, I have got you caught at last!”
“Have you, you she devil, fiend!” he said, “You will be baulked again, my lady! Don’t make too sure! curse you, she cat! What do you come here to torment me for?”
“What do I come for, eh? I told you before—to see you caged at last—you deceiver! swindler! murderer!” she hissed between her teeth. “Ha! does not that touch you up at last? You will get out, will you! Do you forget Havre? Do you forget Susan Hartshorne, the same as you forgot me once before? Have you forgotten the murder I saw, murderer? Ah!”
“Woman! you are mad! Get out, and leave me in peace! I am no murderer, although you almost persuade me to be one now! Get out, or by God I’ll—”
“No! You won’t murder me. You cannot get away from me like you ran from Havre! I am not afraid of you, although I am a woman.”
“You are no woman, or you would not come here to torment me like this. You know I never hurt that girl. God knows I did not do it; whatever else I may have done, I am innocent of that crime, and if the poor girl is dead, no one would wish to get her back to life more than I do, as she could prove my innocence. For God’s sake, Clara, stop. You must be mad, or you would not talk like this. Think of the past between us, think of—”
“Yes, I do think of the past, and that makes me act now. I am no more mad than you are; but I have sworn to ruin you, and I will keep my oath. Do you know where I am going to now?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” he said sullenly, “only for God’s sake, leave me in peace, and go away.”
He was quite broken down now, and the expression of the woman’s strong hate, coupled with all he had gone through, made him nerveless and hopeless. She still went on in the same tone of fiendish glee: her feelings seemed to have overcome her reason.
“I am going now to have you charged with murder. Murder, do you hear? The French police were on your track. We will see what the English police will do now. You will get out, will you? You think you will escape! Bah! Just wait and see.”
“Hang you! Go away, will you. You are raving!” he said: he really thought her mad.
“Hang me? Not quite; but you will be hanged though, and then I will die happy!” she exclaimed, with the passion still in her eyes, in her gestures, in her very form and figure.
Markworth was seated in a corner of the private room in which they were speaking (Mr Abednego charged a guinea a day for the accommodation of the same), and his attitude betokened intense misery and hopelessness. It was not so much the words of his adversary, but the thought that she, too, was against him, like all the rest of the world. He was quite broken down, now.
“Do your worst,” he replied, “only go away. I can’t bear this any longer.”
“I will do my worst, never fear,” she said, as she moved towards the door. She was satisfied to see that her enemy was at length abased, and to think that she had brought down his pride.
She was now at the door; her mission had been accomplished, and, as she glanced back, the bright summer sun, streaming through the open window with its iron bars, on his bent figure, discovered the streaks of silver in his dark hair, painted by time and trouble, not forgetting the thinness of the long, sinewy hands that hid his face from her view.
A pang of compunction smote her, and stirred her heart for a moment with the thoughts of days gone by, and she seemed to hesitate before she left him, although no intention of relinquishing her purpose crossed her mind.
“Go! go!” he murmured, in a broken voice, “leave me in peace.”
And she went out, and left him alone with his misery.