FROM PETER BARRINGTON TO HIS SISTER MISS DINAH BARRINGTON.
Long's Hotel, Bond Street.
My dear Dinah,—I hardly know how to tell you what has happened, or what is happening around me. I came over here to meet Major Stapylton, but find that there is no such person,—the man who calls himself so being a mere adventurer, who had taken the name, and, I believe, no small share of the goods, of its owner, got into the Bengal army, thence into our own service, and though not undistinguished for gallantry, seems to have led a life of ceaseless roguery and intrigue. He knew all about poor George's business, and was in correspondence with those we believe to be our friends in India, but who now turn out to be our inveterate enemies. This we have got at by the confession of one of those Oriental fellows they call Moonshees, who has revealed all their intercourse for years back, and even shown a document setting forth the number of rupees he was to receive when Stapylton had been married to Josephine. The Moonshee is very ill, and his examination can only be conducted at intervals; but he insists on a point of much importance to us, which is, that Stapylton induced him to tear out of the Rajah's Koran the page on which the adoption of George was written, and signed by the Meer himself. He received a large sum for this service, which, however, he evaded by a fraud, sending over to England not the real document itself, but a copy made by himself, and admirably counterfeited. It was the possession of this by Stapylton which enabled him to exercise a great control over our suit,—now averring that it was lost; now, under pledge of secrecy, submitting it to the inspection of some of the Indian authorities. Stapylton, in a word, saw himself in a position to establish our claim, whenever the time came that by making Josephine his wife, he could secure the fortune. This is all that we know up to this, but it is a great deal, and shows in what a maze of duplicity and treachery we have been involved for more than twenty years. The chief point, however, is that the real deed, written in the Meer's Koran, and torn out of it by the Moonshee, in his first impulse to forward it to Stapylton, is now extant, and the Koran itself is there to show the jagged margin of the torn-out leaf, and the corresponding page on the opposite side of the volume. Stapylton refuses to utter one word since the accusation against him has been made; and as the charges stand to falsifying documents, abstraction of funds, and other derelictions in India, he is now under a heavy bail to appear when called on.
The whole business has made me so nervous and excitable that I cannot close my eyes at night, and I feel feverish and restless all day. It is very shocking to think of a man one has never injured, never heard of, animated with a spirit so inimical as to pass years of life in working ill to us. He would appear to have devoted himself to the task of blackening poor George's character and defaming him. It would seem that Mr. Howard Stapylton was one of those who took an active part against George. Whether this young fellow caught the contagion of this antipathy, or helped to feed it, I cannot tell; but it is certain that all the stories of cruelty and oppression the India Board used to trump up to us came from this one source; and at the end of all he seeks to be one of a family he has striven for years to ruin and to crush! I am lost in my efforts to understand this, though Stamer and Withering assure me they can read the man like print. Indeed, they see inferences and motives in fifty things which convey nothing to me; and whenever I feel myself stopped by some impassable barrier, to them it is only a bridge that conducts to a fresh discovery.
The Stapyltons are all in arms now that another sportsman has winged the bird for them; and each day increases the number of accusations against this unfortunate fellow. It is true, dear Dinah, that our own prospects brighten through all this. I am constantly receiving civil messages and hopeful assurances; and even some of the directors have called to express sympathy and good wishes. But how chilled is the happiness that comes dashed with the misfortune of another! What a terrible deal it detracts from our joy to know that every throb of pleasure to ourselves has cost a pang of misery elsewhere! I wish this fellow could have gone his way, never minding us; or, if that could n't be, that he 'd have grown tired of persecuting those who had never harmed him, and given us up!
They are now assailing him on all sides. One has found that he forged a will; another that he falsified a signature; and a miserable creature—a native Indian, who happened to be in that Manchester riot the other day—has now been ferreted out to swear that Stapylton followed him through a suburb, down a lane, and into a brick-field, where he cut him down and left him for dead. There seems a great deal of venom and acrimony in all this; and though the man is unquestionably not my friend, and I see that this persecution continues, I find it very hard not to stand by him.
As for Withering, it has made the veteran ten years younger. He is up every morning at five, and I hear that he never goes to his room till long past midnight. These are the pastimes that to such men replace the sports of the field and the accidents of the chase. They have their vacillations of hope and fear, their moments of depression and of triumph in them; and they run a fellow-creature to earth with all the zest of a hard rider after a fox.
Tell my darling Fifine that I am longing to be at home again,—longing for the quiet roof, and the roses at the window, and the murmur of the river, and her own sweet voice better than them all. And what a deal of happiness is in our power if we would only consent to enjoy it, without running after some imaginary good, some fancied blessing, which is to crown our wishes! If I could but only have guessed at the life of anxiety, doubt, and vacillation the pursuit of this claim would have cost me,—the twenty years of fever,—
I give you my word, Dinah, I 'd rather have earned my daily bread with a spade, or, when too old for that, taken to fishing for a livelihood.
But why do I complain of anything at this moment? When have I been so truly happy for many a long year? Conyers never leaves me,—he talks of George from morning to night. And I now see that with all my affection for that dear boy, I only half knew his noble nature, his fine and generous character. If you only heard of the benevolent things he has done; the poor fellows he has sent home to their families at his own cost; the sums he has transmitted to wives and widows of soldiers in England; the children whose care and support he has provided for! These were the real drains on that fortune that the world thought wasted and squandered in extravagance. And do you know, Dinah, there is a vein of intense egotism in my heart that I never so much as suspected! I found it out by chance,—it was in marking how far less I was touched by the highest and best traits of my poor boy than by the signs of love to myself! and when Conyers said, “He was always talking about you; he never did anything important without the question, 'How would “Dad” like this, I wonder? would “Dad” say “God speed” in this case?' And his first glass of wine every day was to the health of that dear old father over the seas.”