Such were some of the reflections and resolutions of Henry Beauchamp, as he was recovering from the fever which had detained him at Hartford Bridge; and though he certainly indulged in a great many other reflections, and formed a great many more resolutions, yet they were all conceived in the same strain, and tended to the same effect. As day by day, however, he began to acquire strength, and saw that at the end of two or three more whirls of the great humming-top, he would be able to set out for London, a new difficulty pressed upon him of somewhat a novel nature. He had an inn bill to pay, which could not be small--he had an apothecary's bill to pay also, which must be still larger, and sick-nurses, &c., came at the end to swell the amount. Ten sovereigns was all that remained in his purse; and had Beauchamp been aware that, in the opinion of all his friends and relations, he was actually dead and buried under water, if not under ground, he might have been still more puzzled how to proceed than he was, in his state of blessed ignorance regarding all these facts.
His resource, in the present instance, was to indite a letter to his worthy friend and agent Mr. Wilkinson, informing him, in a few words, that he had been ill at Hartford Bridge, and would thank him to send him down, either by post or coach, a sufficient sum to pay his temporary expenses.
This epistle reached Mr. Wilkinson just as he was drawing up a general statement of the money matters of the late Henry Beauchamp, Esq., formerly of his Majesty's ---- Regiment of Dragoons; and the letter of the living Mr. Beauchamp, of course, put a sudden stop to the affairs of the dead one. The handwriting, however, although certainly bearing a great resemblance to that of his client, was, as Mr. Wilkinson observed, more like a copy of his hand than his hand itself; and the illness which had produced this difference, had also produced a brevity and carelessness of style, in which Henry Beauchamp was not accustomed to indulge. The consequence of all this was, that Mr. Wilkinson, calculating that Hartford Bridge was only thirty miles from London, and that two or three guineas was better lost than two or three hundreds, put himself at once into the coach which was to have conveyed the money; and in a few hours he was sitting beside the identical Henry Beauchamp, who had left London about two months before, and was assisting him most conscientiously to despatch the first meat meal he had been allowed to taste since his recovery.
As may well be supposed, this interview was destined to enlighten Beauchamp greatly as to many events which had taken place; and, after having laughed at his own death more heartily than a merrier matter might have occasioned, the invalid entered into explanations with his lawyer, which in turn gave him a new but sad insight into the occurrences of the last three weeks.
"I am afraid, sir," said Mr. Wilkinson--"I am afraid, sir, there has been very foul play! This Mr. Tims--who, between you and me, bears so bad a character in the profession, that it is a very general wonder how your noble relative continues to employ him--has, since your death--God bless me!--I mean, since your supposed decease--has, I say, presented the very note for ten thousand pounds, (which you say you gave to the murdered man at Ryebury,) as payment of the sum owed to your account by his client, your uncle; and yet, though this, and the vouchers which he must have found concerning the fifteen thousand pounds sent before, cannot have failed to show him that the money tendered by Captain Delaware was advanced by you, yet he is, I understand, pursuing the business against that unfortunate young gentleman with greater virulence than ever. I heard only yesterday that his name had been struck out of the Navy List."
"God forbid!" cried Beauchamp--"God forbid! But does the rascal keep both the twenty-five thousand pounds paid, and the ten thousand which my uncle should have transferred to my account?"
"Not only that," answered the lawyer; "but contending that, as the money had been stolen, it did not constitute a legal discharge of Lord Ashborough's claim upon Sir Sidney Delaware, he has plunged the whole business into Chancery--has, at the same time, started a point which can only be decided by a common law court; and as he has all the most obsolete and vexatious decisions at his fingers' ends, would undoubtedly have kept the business embroiled for years, had you not suddenly started up to prove that the payment was legal, and therefore the whole difficulty at an end."
"And if I had not started up," said Burrel, "and William Delaware had been taken, I suppose one of the most gallant officers in his Majesty's service, and one of the most generous-spirited gentlemen in England, would have been hanged for a crime he never committed."
"Why, I am sorry to say, that it is very probable he might have been so dealt with," answered Mr. Wilkinson.
"Then, immortal honour to Robert Peel!" said Beauchamp, "for having begun a reformation in laws, which, though far superior to those of any other nation in the world, are yet so imperfect, as to risk such a loud-tongued iniquity; and may he have life and power granted to him to correct all their evils without diminishing their efficiency. But you speak, my dear sir, of my starting up. Now, do you know, I have a great mind not to start up for some time yet; and to give this rogue, Tims, time enough to show himself in his true colours. As I am dead, and the mourning bought, and all those whose hearts would break upon my account are broken-hearted already, I do not see why I should announce my resuscitation in the newspapers till I have obtained not only the proofs--which, indeed, I can furnish myself--of William Delaware's complete innocence; but the proofs also of the guilt of those who really did commit the murder; and which, with a little of your good advice, I doubt not easily to acquire. In the mean time, if I am not mistaken, good Mr. Tims, counting upon my death, will plunge deeper and deeper into the quagmire of deceit and villainy through which he is now struggling, and we shall have an opportunity of at once exposing him, and opening my uncle's eyes to his knavery."