GERALD MEETS HUBBARD.
The fair invalid’s convalescence was very rapid after that, and as soon as she was able to travel, the happy couple started for the home of the Lyttletons, in Illinois, where, upon their arrival, the family were astounded to learn that Mabel had been a wife for nearly a year, and would soon leave them again, to reside permanently in England.
The brothers, who worshiped their only sister—the baby and pet of the household—at once accorded their new brother-in-law a hearty welcome, and rather enjoyed the romance that had attended Mabel’s marriage; but their father, a reserved, austere man, was inclined to be very harsh with his daughter for having played them such a trick.
It was not, however, in the power of any one to long resist the frank, manly young husband, who boldly asserted that he might have been wrong in enticing his wife into a secret marriage, but that “he would do it over again if it were necessary, rather than run the risk of losing her.”
Such a spirit rather staggered the old gentleman, but, on the whole, he secretly admired the handsome sinner; while the fact of being father-in-law to an English Baronet, to have one’s daughter addressed as Lady Bromley, proved to be a salve to his wounded dignity and love of authority; therefore, the erring little lady’s indiscretion was finally condoned, and all was well.
After a few weeks spent in her home, she departed for England with her husband, where, with the exception of occasional visits to this country, she had resided ever since, and led a very happy life.
Her husband had died the year previous to Gerald’s connection with Mr. Lyttleton, and the “complicated case,” which this gentleman was conducting for his sister, was the settlement of the Bromley estate, a distant relative having laid claim to it, upon the ground of being nearest of kin, since Sir Charles had left no heir.
The property had been largely augmented by the fortune of the distant cousin, whom the elder baronet had wished his son to marry. The lady had always cherished a secret affection for the young man, and her love proving stronger and more enduring than her resentment against him for choosing a younger and fairer bride, she had bequeathed everything to him upon her death, which occurred some ten years after the present Lady Bromley had come to Bromley Court, and of whom also she became very fond.
Thus the Bromley fortune was a magnificent inheritance, and Richard Lyttleton was doing his utmost to save it for his sister. Nevertheless, a court of chancery was an almost hopeless labyrinth in which to become involved, and it might be years before the case would be settled.
Lady Bromley was a fair, sweet-faced woman of about thirty-eight or forty years, and, from the moment of their meeting, Gerald had been strongly attracted to her, and she to him.
Therefore, upon learning of the terrible shock and sorrow that had recently come to him, her sympathies were instantly enlisted in his behalf, and she went to him often during his illness, to be sure he had proper care and to cheer him as well as she could.
When he was able to leave his room, she conceived a plan by which she hoped to be of real benefit to him. She made him come to lunch with her one day, and, after she had induced him to speak freely of his bereavement and his love for the beautiful girl whom he had hoped to marry, she confided to him something of her own story, as related above.
“Come and stay here with me for a while,” she pleaded during this exchange of confidence; “I am almost alone in this great, silent house”—glancing around the spacious, luxurious room with a sigh—“and I should be glad to have some young life about me. Richard, you know, is always so busy he can never spare me much of his time, and my evenings are especially lonely. I want you to tell me more of this lovely Allison Brewster; it will do you good to talk of her, even though the story is so sad. Ah! I shall never forget the dreadful day when I read that tragic account in the newspaper and believed my husband to be lying in the depths of the sea!”
So, with her sweet sympathy and her plea for companionship, she won her point, and almost every day after that, when his work was done, Gerald might have been seen driving about or visiting some place of interest with her. There was a gentle graciousness about her—a sort of elder-sisterly manner toward him, that made her very charming, and he soon grew to feel as if he must always have known her, and he became devoted to her.
This pleased Mr. Lyttleton, who was intensely relieved to see that the face of his confidential clerk was beginning to lose its tense look of pain, and that, when he came to his work in the morning, he no longer appeared jaded and haggard, as if he had spent the whole night in grieving.
Thus time passed, and it was nearly the first of October when, one day, Mr. Lyttleton announced that, for the fourth time, the long-contested case had been put off until another term; and accordingly they would return to New York at the end of another week.
“Then, Richard, I am going with you,” suddenly exclaimed Lady Bromley, as she shot a wistful look at Gerald, who had grown very pale at the thought of going home, where the loss of Allison would seem like a fresh grief to him. “I will leave all business matters in the hands of Mr. Cram, the steward, and make a little visit to my native land, where I will stay until this dreadful lawsuit is called again. I am almost ready to give up the battle. I am tired out with it, and begin to think that the whole Bromley fortune is not worth the wear and tear of all this worry.”
“Nonsense, Mabel!” impatiently returned her brother, a dogged expression settling over his face; “that is just what the other side is working for—they want to tire you out, and I’m not going to give up the fight, by any means. I know that Sir Charles wanted you to be sole mistress of everything. I have often heard him say that you were to have all, in case anything happened to him; and how he ever allowed himself to be so negligent, and leave no will, I cannot understand. I sometimes think he may have made one, and it has slipped away somewhere.”
“I’m afraid not, Richard; I have hunted the house over and over, as you know, and I am sure no such document exists,” said her ladyship, with a sigh. “However, I am going to run away from the whole business, and try to forget it for a while. I’m going home with you and Gerald,” she concluded, smiling.
“Come, and welcome, dear,” said her brother cordially.
The very next morning, as Gerald was walking down the Strand, intent upon a matter of business for Mr. Lyttleton, he was suddenly confronted by a man the sight of whom caused him to grow deathly pale, and his heart to throb suffocatingly, from various emotions.
This man was none other than John Hubbard.
The expert, upon recognizing Gerald, lifted his upper lip, and showed his gleaming teeth in a vicious grin. Then he attempted to pass on without any other sign of recognition. But the young man resolutely placed himself in his path.
“Mr. Hubbard,” he remarked, with cold constraint, “you must excuse me for delaying you, but I want to ask you a few questions. I wish to inquire if any light has been thrown upon Miss Brewster’s fate during the last few weeks?”
“Not that I am aware of,” the man stiffly replied.
“It was all true, then—the story of that railway accident, and her—her burial by some parties unknown?” questioned Gerald, with quivering lips.
“I suppose it was, since every possible effort was made to find her, but without avail,” the man returned, with a frown of annoyance, for his own pillow was, by no means, free from thorns in view of his agency in driving Allison from her home and to her death.
Often, during the night, he would start from his sleep, the perspiration standing in cold beads all over him, his heart beating wildly with fear, as if some demon had seemed to shout in his ear the word “murderer!” and warn him that the wrongs which he had perpetrated against her would yet be avenged.
“It was a mysterious affair,” he continued, after a moment of hesitation, and impelled almost against his will to make the explanation. “I went to Boston as soon as I learned of the accident, and saw her name in the paper, and made diligent inquiry for the—the body.”
Gerald gave utterance to a shuddering exclamation.
“It seems strange to me,” he said, “that, since her cards were found with her—at least, the paper so stated—any one should claim her unless there happened to be another Miss Brewster upon the train.”
“It was strange.”
“What can you tell me about this woman who claims to be Mrs. Adam Brewster?” Gerald asked, and abruptly leaving the other subject. “Where did she come from? Where has she been hiding all these years?”
“She has lived in various places in New York City during the last few years,” responded the man, flushing hotly, for Gerald was now probing a sensitive spot; but he seemed helpless to get away from his inquiries. “She’s rather a fine-looking woman, though not particularly well educated, or what one would have expected a man like Mr. Brewster to choose for a wife. Her daughter, however, has had far better advantages. She made her claims known to me not so very long after her husband’s death; but I tried to stave them off, for Allison’s sake, hoping that the matter could be quietly settled. But after her—the accident, there was nothing to be done but let the case come to trial.”
“It seems to me the most improbable story in the world,” said Gerald reflectively. “Mrs. Manning should have inherited that property.”
“She would have, but for the incontestable proofs which Mrs. Brewster presented; even had Allison lived, she would have won the suit,” returned John Hubbard, searching his companion’s pale, thin face with his cruel eyes. He was secretly gloating over every stab that he was giving him.
“It is a mystery to me that she never put in an appearance while Mr. Brewster was living,” the young man mused. “I suppose, however, there must have been something questionable in her life or claim, and she did not dare to. And you acted as her counsel?”
“I did.”
“That seems to me the strangest proceeding of all.”
“Well, and what are you going to do about it?” was the sneering demand; and for a moment the two men stood absolutely motionless, gazing into each other’s eyes—one with a look of dogged defiance, the other with a stern, searching, accusing expression.
“I cannot understand your doing such a thing as that, Mr. Hubbard,” Gerald remarked, his tone plainly indicating that he believed there had been foul play.
“Probably not,” was the curt, ironic retort, “and I do not know that it is necessary that you should understand it. I was the administrator of the Brewster estate, and when it was proved that there wasn’t a drop of Brewster blood in Allison’s veins, there is nothing so very remarkable about the fact that I conducted the transfer of the property—especially after the death of Allison, who might, perhaps, have contested the woman’s claim upon the ground that a will had been made in her favor, though that would easily have been broken.”
“What were these proofs that Allison was not Mr. Brewster’s own daughter?”
“Oh, some clothing and some letters that were found in a box——”
“What box—where was the box found?” queried Gerald, with breathless interest, his mind instantly reverting to one of those which he had taken from the secret vault at the banker’s command.
“I see you suspect the truth,” said John Hubbard, with a malicious grin. “Yes, it was one of those we caught you lugging off that Sunday.”
Gerald flushed at this fling, but he was too much absorbed in his own thoughts, just then, to pay much heed to it.
“Ah! I understand now!” he said; “that was why Mr. Brewster made me promise that I would never speak of my errand to any person. He wanted to get that box into his hands without having any one know of its existence—he meant to destroy the contents, so that Allison should never learn the truth.”
“It certainly looks like it; you reason very well, young man. But justice sometimes triumphs, as in this case,” sneered his companion.
“Justice!” repeated Gerald, with infinite scorn; “that is yet to be proved. But did no one question the genuineness of this woman’s proofs?”
“Oh, yes, there was some talk in that direction—there naturally would be,” returned the attorney, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. “But it didn’t amount to anything; the evidence was so conclusive it was promptly admitted by the court.”
“Where did this alleged marriage take place?” demanded Gerald.
“In New Haven, Connecticut.”
“And were the records pertaining to this event thoroughly examined?”
“Certainly; everything was conducted with all due regard to the requirements of law, Mr. Winchester. Mr. Manning made a very brave showing in the interests of his wife—he is no half-way worker; while, as for myself, I seldom undertake anything which I am not pretty sure of carrying to a successful end,” Mr. Hubbard concluded, with significant emphasis.
“All the same, I do not believe one word of that woman’s story,” stoutly affirmed our hero, a frown of perplexity gathering upon his brow. “Mr. Brewster certainly never appeared like a man who had any such skeleton in his closet. I believe him to have been a strictly honorable man in every act of his life, and——”
“Yes, I believe there was a sort of mutual admiration society between you,” sarcastically interposed John Hubbard.
“And,” the young man continued, without appearing to heed the interruption, “I am sure that if he had known that he had an own child living he never would have allowed it to live in such poverty as the papers have represented was the lot of this woman and her daughter; he would, at least, have given them a comfortable support.”
“That is your idea of the matter, young man; but stranger things than that are happening every day,” dryly observed his companion. “It is rather difficult to judge just what kind of an existence some of our aristocrats do lead; indeed, many of them have been known to have been engaged in love-intrigues that would not bear the light of day.”
Gerald’s hand clenched involuntarily at this indirect slur upon his former high-minded employer.
“Mr. Brewster was never such a man,” he said sternly; “his life was clean, through and through. Where are these women now?”
“Ahem!” said Mr. Hubbard, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. “Mrs. Adam Brewster is at present in New York City; her daughter, who is now Mrs. John Hubbard, is here, in London, and we are stopping at the Langham.”