The time has come when all true Reformers must band together for the public weal. Let there be union,—union of all sects and parties who are in favour of progress, no matter what their denomination may be,—whether Republicans, Radicals, Chartists, or Democrats. “Union Is strength,” says the proverb; and the truth thereof maybe fully justified and borne out in the present age, and in the grand work of moral agitation for the People’s Rights.[15]
We now proceed with the thread of our narrative; but it is not necessary to give at any length the particulars of the interview which took place between Lord Ellingham and Richard Markham, now Grand Duke of Castelcicala. Suffice it to say, that his Sovereign Highness, though deeply afflicted by the news of his father-in-law’s demise, welcomed the English nobleman with the utmost cordiality, and immediately consented to receive Charles Hatfield as one of his aides-de-camp. The Earl hastened back to Pall-mall, and, sending for the young man to his private apartment, reasoned with him in an impressive way upon the necessity of retrieving the past by the conduct which he should pursue in future. Charles listened with profound attention to all that the excellent peer said upon this occasion, and promised that his behaviour should henceforth render him worthy of all the signal favours bestowed upon him.
The preparations for his departure were in the meantime made with all possible despatch; and in the course of a few hours Charles Hatfield took leave of his family, and hastened to Markham Place, to join the suite of the new Sovereign of Castelcicala.
CHAPTER CLVIII.
Mrs. Mortimer in London.
Mrs. Mortimer,—as we must now call her whom we have already known as Mrs. Slingsby, Mrs. Torrens, and Mrs. Fitzhardinge,—arrived in London two days after the scene which took place between her daughter and herself in the Rue Monthabor at Paris.
The wily woman was intent upon accomplishing the aim that had brought her back to the English metropolis; but as the reader may well imagine, she had not the least trace of her husband—nor the slightest clue to his whereabout. Indeed, it was only a conjecture with her that he was in London at all;—but she had worked this suspicion up into a certainty in her own mind; and the object she hoped to gain was quite important enough to lead her to resolve upon leaving no stone unturned in order to arrive at a successful issue.
On setting foot in the metropolis, she took up her abode at a small coffee-house in an obscure street in the Borough of Southwark; and having assumed a somewhat mean attire, she repaired, in the dusk of the evening after her arrival, to the vicinity of the dwelling which in former times bore the name of Torrens Cottage.
This house, as the reader will recollect, was situate between Streatham and Norwood; and the old woman, who knew the world well, and read the human heart profoundly, calculated that Torrens, impelled by that inscrutable and mysterious curiosity which prompts persons under such circumstances, was likely, if indeed in London, to visit the neighbourhood where he had once dwelt, and which had proved for him the scene of such dire misfortune.
Mrs. Mortimer knew that Torrens had passed many happy days at that cottage, and had there cherished the grandest hopes of acquiring a great fortune by means of building-speculations: she was also aware that he had at the same place bargained for the sale of his daughter’s virtue—beheld the ravisher lying murdered upon the sofa—and been arrested on suspicion of the heinous crime. The place, then, was replete with the most varied and conflicting reminiscences for the old man; and Mrs. Mortimer said to herself, “The morbid feelings which must exist in such a heart as his, will probably induce him to visit the neighbourhood of the house that once was his home.”