The Changeling

by Walter Besant

He put back the volume. "It's a very remarkable Red Book," he said; "nobody knows how they get at these facts. Now, I, for my part, don't seem able to get at the truth, however much I try; and there 'Debrett' has it in print, for all the world to read."

He then looked up the same work twelve years before. He found under the name of Woodroffe the fact that Sir Humphrey the elder retired from active service, and returned to England early in February, 1874.

"The old man came home, then," he said, "at the very time when the adoption was negotiated. At that very time. How does that bear on the case? Well, if his own child died, there was perhaps time to get another to take its place before he got home."

Now, Dick in a small way was a story-teller; he was in request by those who knew him because he told stories very well, and also because he told very few, and would only work when he could capture an idea, and when a story came of its own accord; he was the author of one or two comediettas; further, he had been on the stage, and had played many parts. From this variegated experience he understood the value of drawing your conclusion first, and putting together your proofs afterwards: perhaps the proofs might fail to arrive; but the conclusion would remain. Geometry wants to build up proofs and arrive at a conclusion which one would not otherwise guess. Who could possibly imagine that the square on the side opposite the right angle is equal to the sum of the squares on the sides containing the right angle? Not even the sharpest woman ever created would arrive at such a conclusion without proofs. In law also, chiefly because men are mostly liars, exact proof is demanded—proof arrived at by painfully picking the truth out of the lies. This young man, for his part, partly because he was a story-teller and a dramatist, partly because he was a musician, found it the best and readiest method to jump at the truth first, and to prove it afterwards. He arrived at this conclusion, which perfectly satisfied him, without any reason, like a kangaroo, by a jump. In fact, he took two jumps.

It is always a great help in cases requiring thought and argument and construction—because every good case is like a story in requiring construction—to consult the feminine mind; if you are interested in the owner, or tenant, of a certain mind, it makes the consultation all the better. Richard Woodroffe consulted Molly every day. By talking over the case again and again, and by looking at it in company, one becomes more critical and at the same time clearer in one's views. There were, as you know, many reasons why Richard should consult this young lady, apart from her undoubted intelligence.

"Why, Molly," he asked—"why—I put it to your feminine perceptions—why was this good lady so profoundly moved by the mere sight of the fellow? She wasn't moved by the sight of me. Yet I am exactly like him, I believe. It was at the theatre. She was in a private box; he was one of a line of Johnnies in the stalls. She was so much affected that she had to leave the house. She met him again at Steele's dinner. She was affected in the same way. Why? She is presumed never to have seen the fellow before; she certainly has not seen him for twenty-four years. Why, I ask, was she so much affected? She tells me that the sight of him always affects her in exactly the same way—with the same mysterious yearning and longing and with a sadness indescribable.

"Wait a minute. Hear me out. Is it his resemblance to a certain man—her first husband? But again, I am like him, and she does not yearn after me a bit. What can it be except an unknown sense—the maternal instinct—which is awakened in her? What is it but his own identity, which she alone can understand—with her child?"

"Dick," said Molly, "it's a tremendous jump. Yet, of course——"

"Of course. I knew you would agree with me. The intuitions—the conclusions—the insight of women are beyond everything. Molly, it is a blessed thing that you are retained in this case. The sight of you is to me a daily refresher; the look of you is a heavy fee; and the voice of you is an encouragement. Stand by me, Molly—and I will pull this half-brother of mine down from that bad eminence and ask him, when he stands beside me, with an entirely new and most distinguished company of cousins, how he feels, and what has become of his superiority. You shall introduce him to the pew-opener, and I will present him to the draper."

Again, there was the second jump. "I ask you that, Molly. Do you imagine that the doctor is really and truly as ignorant as he would have us believe, of the lady's name? He knows Lady Woodroffe; he asks her son to dinner. To be sure, he knows half the world. If he attended the dead child, of course he would have known her name. But I suppose he did not. If so, since the lady came to him immediately after the death, he might have consulted the registers, to find what children of that age had died during a certain week in Birmingham—if the child did die there, of which we are not certain. Even in a great city like Birmingham there are not many children of that age dying every day; very few dying in hotels; and very few children indeed belonging to visitors and strangers. Molly mine—if the doctor did not know, the doctor might have known. Is that so? Deny it if you can."