Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1929 page)

“I hardly know,” said Percy, still under the impression of the formidable warning which he had just received.

“Let me jog your memory,” the other continued. “You went on with the consultation by yourself, after I had left the Doctor’s house. It will be really doing me a favor if you can call to mind what Lagarde saw in the trance — in my absence?”

Thus entreated Percy roused himself. His memory of events were still fresh enough to answer the call that his friend had made on it. In describing what had happened, he accurately repeated all that the Doctor had said.

Bervie dwelt on the words with alarm in his face as well as surprise.

“A man like me, trying to persuade a woman like — ” he checked himself, as if he was afraid to let Charlotte’s name pass his lips. “Trying to induce a woman to go away with me,” he resumed, “and persuading her at last? Pray, go on! What did the Doctor see next?”

“He was too much exhausted, he said, to see any more.”

“Surely you returned to consult him again?”

“No; I had had enough of it.”

“When we get to London,” said the Captain, “we shall pass along the Strand, on the way to your chambers. Will you kindly drop me at the turning that leads to the Doctor’s lodgings?”

Percy looked at him in amazement. “You still take it seriously?” he said.

“Is it
not
serious?” Bervie asked. “Have you and I, so far, not done exactly what this man saw us doing? Did we not meet, in the days when we were rivals (as he saw us meet), with the pistols in our hands? Did you not recognise his description of the lady when you met her at the ball, as I recognised it before you?”

“Mere coincidences!” Percy answered, quoting Charlotte’s opinion when they had spoken together of Doctor Lagarde, but taking care not to cite his authority. “How many thousand men have been crossed in love? How many thousand men have fought duels for love? How many thousand women choose blue for their favorite colour, and answer to the vague description of the lady whom the Doctor pretended to see?”

“Say that it is so,” Bervie rejoined. “The thing is remarkable, even from your point of view. And if more coincidences follow, the result will be more remarkable still.”

Arrived at the Strand, Percy set the Captain down at the turning which led to the Doctor’s lodgings. “You will call on me or write me word, if anything remarkable happens?” he said.

“You shall hear from me without fail,” Bervie replied.

That night, the Captain’s pen performed the Captain’s promise, in few and startling words.

“Melancholy news! Madame Lagarde is dead. Nothing is known of her son but that he has left England. I have found out that he is a political exile. If he has ventured back to France, it is barely possible that I may hear something of him. I have friends at the English embassy in Paris who will help me to make inquiries; and I start for the Continent in a day or two. Write to me while I am away, to the care of my father, at ‘The Manor House, near Dartford.’ He will always know my address abroad, and will forward your letters. For your own sake, remember the warning I gave you this afternoon! Your faithful friend, A. B.”

C
HAPTER IX.

O
FFICIAL SECRETS

THERE WAS a more serious reason than Bervie was aware of, at the time, for the warning which he had thought it his duty to address to Percy Linwood. The new footman who had entered Mr. Bowmore’s service was a Spy.

Well practiced in the infamous vocation that he followed, the wretch had been chosen by the Department of Secret Service at the Home Office, to watch the proceedings of Mr. Bowmore and his friends, and to report the result to his superiors. It may not be amiss to add that the employment of paid spies and informers, by the English Government of that time, was openly acknowledged in the House of Lords, and was defended as a necessary measure in the speeches of Lord Redesdale and Lord Liverpool.*

The reports furnished by the Home Office Spy, under these circumstances, begin with the month of March, and take the form of a series of notes introduced as follows:

“MR. SECRETARY — Since I entered Mr. Bowmore’s service, I have the honour to inform you that my eyes and ears have been kept in a state of active observation; and I can further certify that my means of making myself useful in the future to my honourable employers are in no respect diminished. Not the slightest suspicion of my true character is felt by any person in the house.

FIRST NOTE.

“The young gentleman now on a visit to Mr. Bowmore is, as you have been correctly informed, Mr. Percy Linwood. Although he is engaged to be married to Miss Bowmore, he is not discreet enough to conceal a certain want of friendly feeling, on his part, toward her father. The young lady has noticed this, and has resented it. She accuses her lover of having allowed himself to be prejudiced against Mr. Bowmore by some slanderous person unknown.

“Mr. Percy’s clumsy defense of himself led (in my hearing) to a quarrel! Nothing but his prompt submission prevented the marriage engagement from being broken off.

“‘If you showed a want of confidence in Me’ (I heard Miss Charlotte say), ‘I might forgive it. But when you show a want of confidence in a man so noble as my father, I have no mercy on you.’ After such an expression of filial sentiment as this, Mr. Percy wisely took the readiest way of appealing to the lady’s indulgence. The young man has a demand on Parliament for moneys due to his father’s estate; and he pleased and flattered Miss Charlotte by asking Mr. Bowmore to advise him as to the best means of asserting his claim. By way of advancing his political interests, Mr. Bowmore introduced him to the local Hampden Club; and Miss Charlotte rewarded him with a generosity which must not be passed over in silence. Her lover was permitted to put an engagement ring on her finger, and to kiss her afterward to his heart’s content.”

SECOND NOTE.

“Mr. Percy has paid more visits to the Republican Club; and Justice Bervie (father of the Captain) has heard of it, and has written to his son. The result that might have been expected has followed. Captain Bervie announces his return to England, to exert his influence for political good against the influence of Mr. Bowmore for political evil.

“In the meanwhile, Mr. Percy’s claim has been brought before the House of Commons, and has been adjourned for further consideration in six months’ time. Both the gentlemen are indignant — especially Mr. Bowmore. He has called a meeting of the Club to consider his young friend’s wrongs, and has proposed the election of Mr. Percy as a member of that revolutionary society.”

THIRD NOTE.

“Mr. Percy has been elected. Captain Bervie has tried to awaken his mind to a sense of the danger that threatens him, if he persists in associating with his republican friends — and has utterly failed. Mr. Bowmore and Mr. Percy have made speeches at the Club, intended to force the latter gentleman’s claim on the immediate attention of Government. Mr. Bowmore’s flow of frothy eloquence has its influence (as you know from our shorthand writers’ previous reports) on thousands of ignorant people. As it seems to me, the reasons for at once putting this man in prison are beyond dispute. Whether it is desirable to include Mr. Percy in the order of arrest, I must not venture to decide. Let me only hint that his seditious speech rivals the more elabourate efforts of Mr. Bowmore himself.

“So much for the present. I may now respectfully direct your attention to the future.

“On the second of April next the Club assembles a public meeting, ‘in aid of British liberty,’ in a field near Dartford. Mr. Bowmore is to preside, and is to be escorted afterward to Westminster Hall on his way to plead Mr. Percy’s cause, in his own person, before the House of Commons. He is quite serious in declaring that ‘the minions of Government dare not touch a hair of his head.’ Miss Charlotte agrees with her father And Mr. Percy agrees with Miss Charlotte. Such is the state of affairs at the house in which I am acting the part of domestic servant.

“I inclose shorthand reports of the speeches recently delivered at the Hampden Club, and have the honour of waiting for further orders.”

FOURTH NOTE.

“Your commands have reached me by this morning’s post.

“I immediately waited on Justice Bervie (in plain clothes, of course), and gave him your official letter, instructing me to arrest Mr. Bowmore and Mr. Percy Linwood.

“The venerable magistrate hesitated.

“He quite understood the necessity for keeping the arrest a strict secret, in the interests of Government. The only reluctance he felt in granting the warrant related to his son’s intimate friend. But for the peremptory tone of your letter, I really believe he would have asked you to give Mr. Percy time for consideration. Not being rash enough to proceed to such an extreme as this, he slyly consulted the young man’s interests by declining, on formal grounds, to date the warrant earlier than the second of April. Please note that my visit to him was paid at noon, on the thirty-first of March.

“If the object of this delay (to which I was obliged to submit) is to offer a chance of escape to Mr. Percy, the same chance necessarily includes Mr. Bowmore, whose name is also in the warrant. Trust me to keep a watchful eye on both these gentlemen; especially on Mr. Bowmore. He is the most dangerous man of the two, and the most likely, if he feels any suspicions, to slip through the fingers of the law.

“I have also to report that I discovered three persons in the hall of Justice Bervie’s house, as I went out.

“One of them was his son, the Captain; one was his daughter, Miss Bervie; and the third was that smooth-tongued old soldier, Major Mulvany. If the escape of Mr. Bowmore and Mr. Linwood is in contemplation, mark my words: the persons whom I have just mentioned will be concerned in it — and perhaps Miss Charlotte herself as well. At present, she is entirely unsuspicious of any misfortune hanging over her head; her attention being absorbed in the preparation of her bridal finery. As an admirer myself of the fair sex, I must own that it seems hard on the girl to have her lover clapped into prison, before the wedding-day.

“I will bring you word of the arrest myself. There will be plenty of time to catch the afternoon coach to London.

“Here — unless something happens which it is impossible to foresee — my report may come to an end.”

C
HAPTER X.

T
HE ELOPEMENT.

ON the evening of the first of April, Mrs. Bowmore was left alone with the servants. Mr. Bowmore and Percy had gone out together to attend a special meeting of the Club. Shortly afterward Miss Charlotte had left the cottage, under very extraordinary circumstances.

A few minutes only after the departure of her father and Percy, she received a letter, which appeared to cause her the most violent agitation. She said to Mrs. Bowmore:

“Mamma, I must see Captain Bervie for a few minutes in private, on a matter of serious importance to all of us. He is waiting at the front gate, and he will come in if I show myself at the hall door.”

Upon this, Mrs. Bowmore had asked for an explanation.

“There is no time for explanation,” was the only answer she received; “I ask you to leave me for five minutes alone with the Captain.”

Mrs. Bowmore still hesitated. Charlotte snatched up her garden hat, and declared, wildly, that she would go out to Captain Bervie, if she was not permitted to receive him at home. In the face of this declaration, Mrs. Bowmore yielded, and left the room.

In a minute more the Captain made his appearance.

Although she had given way, Mrs. Bowmore was not disposed to trust her daughter, without supervision, in the society of a man whom Charlotte herself had reviled as a slanderer and a false friend. She took up her position in the veranda outside the parlor, at a safe distance from one of the two windows of the room which had been left partially open to admit the fresh air. Here she waited and listened.