Adventures of Martin Hewitt (5 page)

“The matter is rather difficult to understand, Mrs. Isitt,” he said. “If
you will compose yourself perhaps you can explain. I can assure you that
there is no desire to be vindictive. I’m afraid my manner upset you. Pray
reassure yourself. May I sit down?”

Nobody could by his manner more easily restore confidence and trust than
Hewitt, when it pleased him. Mrs. Isitt lifted her head and gazed at him once
more with a troubled though quieter expression.

“I think you wrote Mrs. Seton an anonymous letter,” Hewitt said, producing
the first of those which Mrs. Seton had brought him. “It was kind of you to
reassure the poor woman.”

“Oh, tell me,” Mrs. Isitt asked, “was she much upset at missing the little
boy? Did it make her ill?”

“She was upset, of course; but perhaps the joy of recovering him
compensated for all.”

“Yes; I took him back as soon as I possibly could, really I did, Mr.
Hewitt. And, oh! I was so tempted! My life has been so unhappy! If you only
knew!” She buried her face in her hands.

“Will you tell me?” Hewitt suggested gently. “You see, whatever happens,
an explanation of some sort is the first thing.”

“Yes, yes—of course. Oh, I am a wretched woman.” She paused for some
little while, and then went on: “Mr. Hewitt, my husband is a lunatic.” She
paused again.

“There was never a man, Mr. Hewitt, so devoted to his wife and children as
my husband. He bore even with the continual annoyance of my brother, whom you
saw,
because
he was my brother. But a little more than a year ago, as
the result of an accident, a tumour formed on his brain. The thing is
incurable except, as a remote possibility, by a most dangerous operation,
which the doctors fear to attempt except under most favourable conditions.
Without that he must die sooner or later. Meantime he is insane, though with
many and sometimes long intervals of perfect lucidity. When the disease
attacked him there was little warning, except from pains in the head, till
one dreadful night. Then he rose from bed a maniac and killed our child, a
little girl of six, whom he was devotedly attached to. He also cut my own
throat with his razor, but I recovered. I would rather say nothing more of
that—it is too dreadful, though indeed I think about little else. There
was another child, a baby boy, about a year old when his sister died, and
he—he died of scarlet fever scarcely four months ago.

“My husband was taken to a private asylum at Willesden, where he now is. I
visited him frequently, and took the baby, and it was almost terrible to
see—a part of his insanity, no doubt—how his fondness for that
child grew. When it died I never dared to tell him. Indeed the doctors
forbade it. In his state he would have died raving. But he asked for it,
sometimes earnestly, sometimes angrily, till I almost feared to visit him.
Then he began to demand it of the doctors and attendants, and his excitement
increased day by day. I was told to prepare for the worst. When I visited him
he sometimes failed to recognise me, and at others demanded the child
fiercely. I should tell you that it was only just about this time that it was
found that the tumour existed, and the idea of the operation was suggested;
but of course it was impossible in his disturbed condition. I scarcely dared
to go to see him, and yet I did so long to! Dr. Bailey did indeed suggest
that possibly we might find he would be quieted by being shown another child;
but I myself felt that to be very unlikely.

“It was while things were in this state, and about six or seven weeks ago,
that, walking toward Cricklewood one morning, I saw a little fellow trotting
along all alone, who actually startled me—startled me very
much—by his resemblance to our poor little one. The likeness was one of
those extraordinary ones that one only finds among young children. This child
was a little bigger and stronger than ours was when he died, but then it was
older—probably very nearly the age and size our own would have been had
it lived. Nobody else was in sight, and I fancied the child looked about to
cry, so I went to it and spoke. Plainly it had strayed, and could not tell me
where it lived, only that its name was Charley. I took it in my arms and it
grew quite friendly. As I talked to it suddenly Dr. Bailey’s suggestion came
in my mind. If any child could deceive my poor husband surely this was the
one. Of course I should have to find its parents—probably through the
police; but why not at any rate take it to Willesden in the meantime for an
hour or so? I could not resist the temptation—I took the first
available cab.

“The result of the experiment almost frightened me. My poor husband
received the child with transports of delight, kissed it, and laughed and
wept over it like a mother rather than a father, and refused to give it up
for hours. The child of course would not answer to its strange name at first,
but he seemed an adaptable little thing, and presently began calling my poor
husband ‘daddy.’ I had not been so happy myself for months as I was as I
watched them. I. had told Dr. Bailey—what I fear was not strictly
true—that I had borrowed the child from a friend. At length I felt I
must go and take the boy to the police, and with great difficulty I managed
to get it away, my poor husband crying like a child. Well, I took the little
fellow to the station I judged nearest to where I found him, and gave him up
to the care of the inspector. But I was a little frightened at having kept
him so long, and gave a false name and address. Still I learned from the
inspector that the child had been inquired after, and by whom.

“My husband was quiet for some days after this, but then he began to ask
for his boy with more vehemence than ever. He grew worse and worse, and soon
his ravings were terrible. Dr. Bailey urged me to bring the child again, but
what could I do? I formed a desperate idea of going to Mrs. Seton, telling
her the whole thing, and imploring her to let me take the child again. But
then would that be likely? Would she allow her child to be placed in the arms
of a lunatic—one indeed who had already killed a child of his own? I
felt that the thing was impossible. Still I went to the house and walked
about it again and again, I scarcely knew why. And my poor husband in his
confinement screamed for his child till I dared not go near him. So it was
when one morning—last Monday morning—I had passed the front of
the Setons’ house and turned up the lane at the side. I could see over the
low fence and hedge, and as I came to the French window with the steps I saw
that the window was open at one side and little Charley was standing on the
top step. He recognised me, smiled and called just as my own child would have
done; indeed as I stood there I almost fell into the delusion of my poor mad
husband. I took the gate in my hands, shaking it impatiently, and in
attempting to open it from the wrong end, found the hinges lift out. I could
see that nobody else was in the room behind the French window. There was the
temptation—the overwhelming temptation—and I was distracted. I
took the little fellow hurriedly in my anus and pulled the window to, so that
the bottom bolt fell into the floor socket; then I replaced the gate as I
found it and ran to where I knew there was a cabstand. Oh! Mr. Hewitt, was it
so very sinful? And I meant to bring him back that same afternoon, I really
did.

“The child was in indoor clothes, and had no hat. I called at a baby-linen
shop and bought hat, cloak, frock and a new pair of shoes. Then I hurried to
Willesden. Again the effect was magical. My husband was happy once more; but
when at last I attempted to take the child away he would not let it go. It
was terrible. Oh, I can’t describe the scene. Dr. Bailey told me that, come
what might, I must stay that night in a room his wife would provide for me
and keep the child, or perhaps I must sit up with my husband and let the
child sleep on my knee. In the end it was the latter that I did.

“By the morning my senses were blunted and I scarcely cared what happened.
I determined that as I had gone so far I would keep the child that day at
least; indeed, as I say, whether by the influence of my husband I know not,
but I almost felt myself falling into his delusion that the child was ours. I
went home for an hour at midday, taking the child, and then my wretched
brother saw it and got the whole story from me. He told me that reward bills
were out about the child, and then I dimly realised that its mother must be
suffering pain, and I wrote the note you spoke of. Perhaps I had some little
idea of delaying pursuit—I don’t know. At any rate I wrote it, and
posted it at Willesden as I went back. My husband had been asleep when I
left, but now he was awake again and asking for the child once more. There is
little more to say. I stayed that night and the next day, and by that time my
husband had become tranquil and rational as he had not been for months. If
only the improvement can be sustained they think of operating to-morrow or
the next day.

“I carried Charley back in the dusk, intending to put him inside one of
the gates, ring, and watch him safely in from a little way off, but as I
passel down the side lane I saw the French window open again and nobody near.
I had been that way before and felt bolder there. I took his hat and cloak (I
had already changed his frock) and, after kissing him, put him hastily
through the window and came away. But I had forgotten the new shoes. I
remembered them, however, when I got home, and immediately conceived a fear
that the child’s parents might trace me by their means. I mentioned this fear
to my brother, and it appeared to frighten him. He borrowed some money of me
yesterday, and it seems got intoxicated. In that state he is always anxious
to do some noble action, through he is capable, I am grieved to say, of
almost any meanness when sober. He lives here at my expense, indeed, and
borrows money from his friends for drink. These may seem hard things for a
sister to say, but everybody knows it. He has wearied me, and I have lost all
shame of him. I suppose in his muddled state he got the notion that he would
accuse himself of what I had done and so shield me. I expect he repented of
his self-sacrifice this morning though.”

Hewitt knew that he had, but said nothing. Also he said nothing of the
anonymous letter he had in his pocket, wherein Mr. Oliver Neale had covertly
demanded a hundred pounds for the restoration of Charley Seton. Ho guessed
however that that gentleman had feared making the appointment that the
advertisement answering his letter had suggested.

To Mr. and Mrs. Seton Hewitt told the whole story, omitting at first names
and addresses. “I saw plainly,” he said in course of his talk, “that the
child might easily have been taken from the French window. I did not say so,
for Mrs. Seton was already sufficiently distressed, and the notion that the
child was kidnapped and not simply lost might have made her worse just then.
The toys—the cart with the string on it in particular—had been
dragged in the direction of the window, and then nothing would be easier than
for the child to open the window itself. There was nothing but a drop bolt,
working very easily, which the child must often have seen lifted, and you
will remember that the catch did not act. Once the child had opened the
window and got outside, the whole thing was simple. The gate could be lifted,
the child taken, and the window pulled to, so that the bolt would fall into
its place and leave all as before.

“As to the previous occasion, I thought it curious at first that the child
should stray before lunch and yet not be heard of again till the evening, and
then apparently not be over-fatigued. But beyond these little things, and
what I inferred from the letter, I had very little to help me indeed.
Nothing, in fact, till I got the shoes, and they didn’t carry me very far.
The drunken rant of the man in the police station attracted me because he
spoke not only of taking away the child, but of buying it Shoes. Now nobody
could know of the buying of the shoes who did not know something more. But I
knew it was a woman who had taken Charley, as you know, from the heel-mark
and the evidence of the shop people, so that when the bemused fool talked of
his sister, and sacrificing himself for her, and keeping her out of trouble,
and so on, I arranged the case up in my mind, and, so far as I ventured, I
guessed it aright. The police inspector knew nothing of the matter of the
shoes, nor of the fact of the person I was after being a woman, so thought
the thing no more-than a drunken freak.

“And now,” Hewitt said, “before I tell you this woman’s name, don’t you
think the poor creature has suffered enough?”

Both Mrs. Seton and her husband agreed that she had, and that so far as
they were concerned no further steps should be taken. And when she was told
where to go, Mrs. Seton went off at once to offer Mrs. Isitt her forgiveness
and sympathy. But Mrs. Isitt’s punishment came in twenty-four hours, when her
husband died in the surgeon’s hands.