Mildred Arkell: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3)

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"I say I went and didn't see it," roared the afflicted man, who had a dreadful twinge just then. "It seems—if this story of yours is true—that I never heard it was there until it was gone. Don't be a simpleton, Fauntleroy."

In his heart of hearts, of course Mr. Fauntleroy did not think Mynn and Mynn had been culpable, only in his passion. His voice began to cool down to calmness.

"I'm ready to accuse the whole world, and myself into the bargain," he said. "So would you be, had you been played the trick. I wish you'd tell me quietly what you know about the matter altogether."

"That's where you should have begun," said old Mynn. "We never heard of any letter having been found, setting forth that the record of the marriage was in the register of St. James's, never thought for a moment that there had been any marriage, and I don't think it now, for the matter of that," he added, par parenthèse, "until the day our new manager, Littelby, took possession, and I and George were inducting him a little into our approaching assize and other causes. We came to Carr versus Carr, in due course, and then Littelby, evidently surprised, asked how it was that the letter despatched to you—to you, Mr. Fauntleroy, and which letter it seems you kept to yourself, and gave us no notice of—had not served to put an end to the cause. Naturally I and my brother inquired what letter Mr. Littelby alluded to, and what were its contents, and then he told us that it was a letter written by Robert Carr, of Holland, stating that the marriage had taken place at the church of St. James the Less, and that its record would be found entered on the register. My impression at the first moment was—and it was George's very strongly—that there had been nothing of the sort; no marriage, and consequently no record; but immediately a doubt arose whether any fraud had been committed by means of making a false entry in the register. I went off at once to Westerbury, fully determined to detect and expose this fraud—and my eyes are pretty clear for such things—I paid my half-crown, and went with the clerk and examined the register, and found I had my journey for nothing. There was no such record in the register—no mention whatever of the marriage. That is all I know of the affair, Mr. Fauntleroy."

Had Mr. Fauntleroy talked till now, he could have learnt no more. It evidently was all that his confrère knew; and he went back to Westerbury as wise as he came, and sought the house of Mr. Wilberforce. The record must have been taken out between the beginning of November and the 2nd of December, he told the master. Omer, and the master himself, had both seen it at the former time; old Mynn searched on the 2nd of December, and it was gone.

This information did not help Mr. Wilberforce in his perplexity, as to who could have tampered with it. It was impossible but that his suspicion should be directed to the night already spoken of, when Arkell was locked up in the church, and seemed to have got out in a manner so mysterious nobody knew how. Arkell adhered to his story: he had found the door open in the night, and walked out; and that was all that could be got from him. The master took him at his word. Had he pressed him much, he might have heard more; had he only given him a hint that he knew the register had been robbed, and that both trouble and injustice were likely to arise from it, he might have heard all; for Henry fully meant to keep his word with George Prattleton, and declare the truth, if a necessity arose for it. But it appeared to be the policy of both the master and Mr. Fauntleroy to keep the register out of sight and discussion altogether. Not a word of the loss was suffered to escape. Mr. Fauntleroy had probably his private reasons for this, and the rector shrank from any publicity, because the getting at the register seemed to reflect some carelessness on him and his mode of securing it.

Meanwhile the public were aware that some internal commotion was agitating the litigants in the great cause Carr versus Carr. What it was, they could not penetrate. They knew that a young lady, Mrs. Carr the widow, was stopping in Westerbury, and had frequent interviews with Mr. Fauntleroy; and they saw that the renowned lawyer himself was in a state of ferment; but not a breath touching the register in any way had escaped abroad, and George Prattleton and Henry Arkell were in ignorance that there was trouble connected with it. George had ventured to put a question to the Reverend Mr. Prattleton, regarding Mr. Wilberforce's visit in connection with it, and was peremptorily ordered to mind his own business.

And the whole city, ripe for gossip and for other people's affairs, as usual, lived in a perpetual state of anticipation of the assizes, and the cause that was to come on at them.

It is probable that this blow to Mr. Fauntleroy—and he regarded it in no less a light—rendered him more severe than customary in his other affairs. On the first of March, another ten pound was due to him from Peter Arkell. The month came in, and the money was not paid; and Mr. Fauntleroy immediately threatened harsh measures: that he would sell him up for the whole of the debt. He had had judgment long ago, and therefore possessed the power to do it; and Peter Arkell went to him. But the grace he pleaded for, Mr. Fauntleroy refused longer to give; refused it coarsely and angrily; and Peter was tempted to remind him of the past. Never yet had he done so.

"Have you forgotten what I did for you?" he asked. "I saved you once from what was perhaps worse than debt."