The result of this interview was that, a month or two later, a new moneylending firm sprang up in a narrow street in the city, under the title of Harker's Ltd., and none of the numerous clients who patronised it ever recognised that the manager, Mr. Harker, was speaking the literal truth when he repeatedly asserted his own impotence in the business. Every one believed the story to be a fictitious one, invented to assist him in his extortions.
Time passed on, and Lucy's pretty face and modest ways, perhaps her very sadness, which clung to her in never-ending remorse, caught the heart of a simple-minded man, one John Ashford. He was a flourishing grocer in a village on the banks of the Thames, and was then staying in London on a visit. After a hard struggle with herself the poor girl returned his love, and ventured to become his wife.
Wilfer, from inquiries made by Mr. Harker, was supposed to be dead. None, she thought, knew her secret except her father, for Lucy believed that Vermont had employed Mr. Harker out of friendship and sympathy, and did not know until long after her marriage that she, and therefore her husband, were in his power. So she ventured to grasp the happiness held out to her, thus strengthening the chain which bound her father and herself in slavery to Jasper Vermont's will. For if they feared disclosure before, how much more did they dread it now, when Lucy was married to a man who prided himself upon his good name and untarnished respectability!
Johann Wilfer, however, was not dead, nor had he left London. He had become a member of a gang of ingenious rascals, who lived by imitating the less known gems of the old masters, and palming them off on the credulous public and wealthy collectors as genuine. The impostures were very cleverly manipulated, and quite a little system was instituted to bring them to perfection. Mr. Wilfer's part of the undertaking was "toning"; that is, bringing to the imitations the necessary mistiness and discoloration supposed to be produced by age.
He did very well at this business; so well, indeed, that he took a house in Cracknell Court, Soho, and if he could have restrained himself from the drinking of beer and spirits he would have been in comfortable circumstances.
This perpetual intoxication eventually made its mark upon Mr. Wilfer's countenance, and contorted his face into a caricature--with its mottled skin and bleary eyes--of the good looks which had won Lucy Goodwin's heart in former times. His language had also degenerated as well as his looks. All trace of German accent had been carefully obliterated, in order that no suspicion should be aroused when selling a faked picture. He played the part of a Cockney so frequently and so well that that particular accent seemed, as it were, to be his mother-tongue.
As the years went by even the gang became tired of his habitual intoxication, and only occasionally gave him employment, so that he turned his attention to scenery painting for the stage. In this way, when engaged at the Rockingham Theatre, he met Martha Feltham, Ada Lester's dresser, and by means of boasting of his wealth finally persuaded her to marry him. It was in this manner that Jessica had first come under his sway.
When Ada found that her sister would never recover from the mental shock inflicted by Jasper Vermont when he told her that their marriage was illegal, she had made arrangements to get the child out of the house. Naturally the little girl was an eyesore and an encumbrance to her; especially as Julia--blissfully ignorant that she herself was the mother--was always worrying her sister as to the reason of Jessica's presence. Accordingly, when Ada, by reason of her improved position and higher salary, moved away from the Bloomsbury lodgings into a house of her own, she gave the child over to the care of her dresser, Martha, now Mrs. Wilfer, and had always paid regularly for her board and keep.
Mr. Wilfer did not object to this addition to his income, though he still worked occasionally for the picture gang; and it was on one of their jobs that he came within reach of Jasper Vermont.
One day he had been sent to play the usual proceedings to Mr. George Harker, presuming, naturally enough, that being a moneylender he was rich, and hearing that he had a liking for "old masters."