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"Dr. Chaos and the Devil Snar'd," Cassell, London, 1933
Dr. Chaos is a brilliant but morally ambiguous scientist whose experiments push the boundaries of life and death. His obsession with controlling fate and bending natural laws leads him into increasingly dark territory. Set in old London, the novel is eerie, cerebral, and richly atmospheric, with Bowen's signature blend of historical detail and gothic suspense.
".... At my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of Vast Eternity."
Andrew Marvell
THE upper part of the house in the alley which ran between Holborn and Lincoln's Inn had long been empty; the lower floor was occupied by a taciturn watchmaker whose window was full of medley of curious objects. The passage was dark and narrow, two posts at either end prevented any but foot-passengers passing through; the houses had once been respectable dwelling-places, but had long since fallen into decay and disrepute and most of them were now used as storehouses for the goods of the little shops beneath. There was a print-seller, a cobbler, an old woman who sold haberdashery, and another who made toffee and coconut tart.
The watchmaker's shop was at one corner near the posts that divided the alley from the large cobbled square of Lincoln's Inn Fields and the fine opulent mansions of brick and stone. The watchmaker, whose name, Uriah Lilliecarp, was written in a tall, scrolling hand in gold letters above the shop, seemed to do but little business beyond that of the making and repairing of watches and clocks, for the stock behind the dirty glass of the bow-fronted window never altered. The bundles of heavy silver knives and forks with foliated handles, the cases of knives in horn and agate tarnished unheeded from week to week. And the various antique clocks in brass and silver-gilt remained stopped, each at a different hour, until the rusted hands dropped from the dials on which the figures were no longer decipherable.
Among there heavier objects were a few cases of jewels, cut steel buckles and sword-tassels, a necklace of large pink stones that were like drops of blood curdling into milk, several little broken toys in gold and silver, and here and there a faded miniature showing in a broken leather case. And always, as long as anyone who passed down the passage could remember, the sparrows nested undisturbed about the chimney-pots above the watchmaker's shop.
One day in early spring, the boards were taken down from in front of the broken casement of the upper floor, repaired with clean glass, and hung with curtains of green serge, while on a narrow door which gave on to the passage and which served both the watchmaker and the upper part of the house, a placard was put out on which was written: "Dr. Chaos, Doctor of Physics"; under this was a list of various medicines and their properties and the prices at which Dr. Chaos sold lotions, drinks, ointments and pills.
This was sufficient of a novelty to arouse the curiosity of the passers-by, and those who had occasion to step into Mr. Lilliecarp's shop for the repair of a watch-glass or the works of a clock, asked him, where he sat in a corner of the window catching the scanty light of the alley, who was the new-comer, and what were his antecedents and pretensions?
Mr. Lilliecarp, however, a man with a white greasy skin and pale strained eyes, who seemed to have neither age nor character, knew nothing. He himself slept in a little room at the back of the shop and had been there more years than anyone could remember.
The letting of the upper part of the house, he muttered, we nothing to do with him, and those who were curious must make inquiries of the landlord.
Nobody was sufficiently interested to go to this amount of trouble. They smiled, shrugged, passed on, and forgot Dr. Chaos and his placard. This, however, attracted the attention of the Ancient Royal College of Physicians who, by virtue of their Royal Charter from His Gracious Majesty King Henry VII, in peremptory fashion bade Dr. Chaos remove his board. They also summoned him to appear before their Council and to explain his pretensions, display his diplomas, prove his knowledge, or be regarded as an impostor and a cheat.
Dr. Chaos made no reply to this challenge, but he complied with the law. He removed the offending board an substituted it by another on which was merely written: "Dr. Chaos".
One evening he came down into the watchmaker's shop and asked him to mend a chain for him. It was in very delicate linked red gold. Uriah Lilliecarp looked at it with that interest and curiosity which he no longer had for anything save matters appertaining to his craft. He asked questions about the gold, where it had been assayed and where it had been worked; he remarked that it must be of considerable value owing to its great fineness, for it was almost without alloy and therefore, being too soft, had broken.
Dr. Chaos smiled and replied that the gold had come from mid-Germany.
He sat on the high stool, worn smooth and polished by the patience of many customers, while the watchmaker retiring into his taciturnity set to work to examine and to advise on the repair of the exquisite chain.
"It is not ordinary gold," he grumbled at last, "and I do not know if I am capable of mending it. You must leave it with me for a least a day or two."
"How dark it grows in the shop," replied Dr. Chaos. "Had you not better light a candle?"
"Thank you, I can still see quite well here by the window, though it is true that daylight leaves the alley very early."
"I wonder you do not choose a better position for work so delicate and requiring so much light."
The watchmaker came to the counter and stared at his visitor through the dusk.
"I might say the same of you. Why have you taken those old and disused rooms? I can promise you that you will get very little practice here."
The two men looked intently one at the other. The person who named himself Dr. Chaos was of an odd and extraordinary appearance, neither young nor old, heavily made, yet with a look of swiftness as if no occasion would find him at disadvantage. He seemed like one ever on the alert, who could strike or run or shout or command instantly, powerfully, and with success. His head was large, but his features were small, neat, bloodless and obscured first by a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles and secondly by the shadow of a large, tow-coloured wig which was in need of curling and dressing. His clothes were shabby and non-descript, his powerful and finely-formed hands stained from dyes and chemicals. He spoke with a foreign accent. He would have well passed in a crowd for a lawyer or doctor of a meaner sort, yet, on a close inspection there was something peculiar about the man.
Uriah Lilliecarp lit the candle of mutton-fat that he might the better inspect the visitor. Not that the watchmaker's curiosity was aroused, for he had no longer any interest in human affairs, but he had thought, without fear or surprise: "Perhaps the fellow is a rogue, and has taken the rooms in order one night to murder me and rob my goods," and he added in his mind: "I shall have some bolts put on my door and sleep safely." Then he remembered the gold chain and his thin lips curled with a dry smile, for it was worth all his belongings put together.
"Why have you come to England?" he asked, watching the new flame melt the hard yellow fat of the candle.
"I have practised my business in many cities—it is not like the first time that I have been to London. Very likely I shall not stay long."
"What is your business?" asked the watchmaker indifferently.
He fixed his blurred glance—for his eyes were blood-shot and tired through concentrating on minute pieces of mechanism and handling very small instruments— on the face of the stranger. He saw that the pinched features were overcast by an expression of despair which gave them almost a deathlike look, as if they were settling and fixing into the likeness of a stony mask.
"If you come upstairs one day I will show you my business. Physic is not my only profession; I am an alchemist, a great adept. If I told you I knew hot wot make gold, would you, with that chain in your possession, laugh at me?"
"I do not concern myself," replied the watchmaker, "with laughing at anything. I have heard before of gentlemen with such pretensions and even met them. I was not, in my youth, as quiet as I am now, but travelled abroad. But these magicians always seemed in poverty, despite their golden secrets, and I commonly heard them named impostors, charlatans, and frauds."
Dr. Chaos was not offended at this plain speaking. He replied:
"I follow out my own purposes in my own way. I have greater powers than you, or perhaps any others, would think. If anyone should come into your shop and want other things to mend beside watches, pray send them up to me and I will remit something to you of my fee."
"Money is of little use to me," muttered the watchmaker. "I have neither wife, child, nor chattel. I work here in my window all day, and sleep well, in the bed I have made myself, all night, and I eat with relish, ay, and drink with zest, the pies and ale sent in to me from the cookshop and the tavern."
"Do you, then, never dream?" asked Dr. Chaos.
"Very likely, in my sleep. When I wake I forget everything."
"I see you are an honest man," remarked the stranger. His spectacles in their silver rims flashed in the strengthening light of the squat candle. " I trust you with my gold chain. I suppose you have your stop strongly locked at night, and the watchman is warned that you have treasures here?"
"It is safe enough; but if you have any doubt, take it upstairs with you and bring it down to me in the morning."
Dr. Chaos bowed with a certain foreign and stately grace that the watchmaker despised. As he took his way back to the upper part of the house Mr. Lilliecarp put away his instruments for the night, then went outside and directed the boy, who came always at this hour to put up the shutters and drop in place the iron bars across them. He heard the man upstairs walking to and fro, and saw a light in the windows— looking on to the alley—which had been so long shuttered and sealed with dust and cobwebs.
The spring air was chill, the street lamps the colour of primroses in the thickening darkness of the passage and the paler bluish shadows of Lincoln's Inn Fields beyond. Multitudes of small stars like chips of ice began to twinkle above the dark crooked lines of the city.
Some people passed so often down the passage that it almost had become part of their lives. They knew all that there was in the windows: when the stock of the pastrywoman changed, when her cakes became stale and fly-blown; at what hour the cobbler would be standing in the doorway in his leather apron, and at what hour he could be seen in the window cutting soles and heels, stitching with hairy fingers and bare arm upraised in the gloom of the shop. They knew, these passers to and fro, when the boys came to put the shutters up at night, when they came to take them down in the morning, and that there was never any sun in the passage, but, even at midday, dark shadows.
One of these people who knew the passage so well was Miss Pleasant Rawlins, who had come to and fro between Holborn and Lincoln's Inn since she was a small child. She lived with her guardian, Sir Thomas Lemoine, in Great Queen Street, and when she was in town she went every Sunday to a chapel the other side of Holborn, near Gray's Inn. Also, sometimes two or three times a day, she would use the passage to go shopping or visiting her friends in Red Lion Square and Queen's Square, or any such distance that was not far enough away for the coach to be brought out.
She was an independent young woman, and liked, if possible, to go afoot, but she had never been down the passage alone. She was always accompanied by a maid, or a footman, or Miss Jane Vondy her governess. She was seventeen years old, and for the most part of the year she was at school in Hampstead; but, as she was restless and capricious and a great heiress, she was often allowed to come home, and stay, not only for the holidays but at any time that might suit her whim, at the house in Great Queen Street with Miss Vondy.
Miss Pleasant was an orphan, and her guardian was often abroad or at his country place. He did not trouble much about the girl whom he found rather disagreeable and tiresome, but he did his duty by her conscientiously, paying handsomely for her education, and fee'd a number of dependents to wait always upon her and guard her person.
The handsome house in Great Queen Street was Miss Rawlins's own property. She had lived there with her father and mother, both of whom she could remember but slightly. Her father had been killed in the war, and her mother had died so suddenly that people said it was from a broken heart. They had left Miss Pleasant a considerable fortune both in land and in stocks, house property, and in pictures, jewels and furniture.
But, though she was so rich an heiress that her fortune might have been reckoned at no less than thirty thousand pounds—she had few friends, partly on account of her circumstances (having been so early orphaned, without brothers or sisters, and under the guardianship of a man who had but little interest in her), and partly owing to her disposition which was dreamy, brooding and sullen.
She yearned after liberty, yet she did not know what she would have done with it had she had it, she wanted to travel but had no idea what were the places she would like to see. She wanted, and this above all, lovers, yet she could not tell what quality she most admired in men. She greatly needed encouragement and reassuring; she thought, in the secrecy of her proud heart, that she was no beauty, that were it not for her money many might pass her by as a creature without charm or grace.
But here she a little wronged herself. She had a pleasing shape and a flawless complexion, a quality of bright brown hair and grey eyes both lively and gentle. But her teeth caught on her lower lip, which was too full; her forehead was over-high, and she had nothing of that happy expression of docile sweetness which was commonly expected of so young a girl.
The source of all her trouble was that she was lonely and dreamt too much, but no one cared sufficiently about her to fathom her discontent. Miss Vondy did her duty by her and nothing more; the governess was saving against the day when she would be done with this dreary task and be away to Edinburgh and marry a poor gentleman who loved her and waited for her there.
That spring, Miss Pleasant came home from the school in Hampstead. Her excuse was that there had been much illness in that suburb and she feared to risk her health. Miss Daulby, who kept this select and expensive school, gave her consent, so the girl came to the large, precisely-ordered, handsomely-appointed house in Great Queen Street in which there was nobody but the servants. There was nothing for her to do but to go walks with Miss Jane and call on such friends as she knew in the neighbourhood.
The first time she went down the passage she noted that great novelty, the board with the name of "Dr. Chaos". She teased Miss Jane to go into the shop that they might make inquiries as to who this stranger could be, but the governess rebuked her nervously and hastened on. She did not like the look of that board displayed beside the watchmaker's shop, and it gave her, she knew not why, an unpleasant sensation to see those windows, which she could remember shuttered over for so long, open. At one of them she had seen a large transparent globe in which there were splinters of light caught from the strip of a sky above the passage, and some strange instrument.
"The man is a quack," she said, and Miss Pleasant pouted; this gave her already slightly heavy face a sensuous, unpleasant expression.
When they next passed down the passage she insisted on stopping at the haberdasher's and buying some pins and laces, though Miss Jane protested that the goods were too cheap and common. Little did Miss Pleasant care if they were, for she began immediately, not looking at the boxes that were placed before her, to ask Widow Dawson who was the man who had hung out the board next to Mr. Uriah Lilliecarp's door.
The Widow Dawson had heard nothing good of the stranger. Of course, everyone in the alley had had something to say about him, and those who believed in such things said that he was a wizard, magician, or alchemist, that he affected to brew potions and to make charms.
"Love potions and love charms?" asked Miss Pleasant Rawlins, though Miss Jane frowned and fidgeted and would have her go on with the choosing of her braids and pins.
The haberdasher became prudent and discreet. She really knew nothing. The man called himself a Doctor of Physic, but the name was strange, was it not? She did not think that any sensible person would go to him. He might be a forger or a coiner, though for her part she must say she thought he was peaceful enough. She had seen him coming and going down the passage, mostly in early morning or after dark when the lamps were lit. He walked with a stick, as if he had gout or rheumatism; he bought his food at the pie-shop but drank neither beer nor ale.
"So you see," put in the governess, "this is a most ordinary person and we will waste no more time discussing him. Come, Miss Pleasant, choose your braid and pins and we will be gone." And she frowned at Widow Dawson to say nothing more on this subject lest it should take the fancy of the wilful girl.
Miss Pleasant quite understood their purpose, but was not to be denied indulging her curiosity. Indeed, she seldom denied herself anything.
"But you live above your shop, Mrs. Dawson, and you must be able to observe him if you wish to!"
"Surely, miss, I have something better to do."
The haberdasher spoke self-consciously, for she knew that she had spent many an hour peeping from behind her curtains across the narrow way into the room occupied by Dr. Chaos.
The heiress fingered, without looking at it, a length of scarlet braid.
"Do any people go there? Does he always draw his curtains at night? What does Mr. Lilliecarp know of him? I have a broken watch, I shall take it in to-morrow."
But this was too much for the equanimity of the governess. She insisted that Mrs. Dawson should not these impertinent questions and she hurried the purchases and took away her petulant charge.
"A wizard," sighed Miss Pleasant, as they stepped into the alley. She looked up at the two windows above the watchmaker's where the globe gleamed faintly against the newly-set panes of glass.
"And if he were a wizard," replied the governess crossly, "what need have you of him? You have everything you want, miss, without having recourse to magic."
The girl laughed. The sound of this laugh touched the elder woman, for it was horribly unhappy. The governess thought, with a touch of almost remorse, of her own good fortune, of the man and the home and the agreeable future, safe, protected, awaiting her in Edinburgh. She was sorry for the rich and desolate girl beside her, so she said, in far warmer tones than she usually employed, towards her charge:
"Life has not begun for you yet, Miss Pleasant. You will find a husband, someone who will love you, who will find in you what no one else can, who will think you are different from all the world, and so will change all the world for you."
"Someone who will love me," said Miss Pleasant Rawlins.
They passed the watchmaker's window; the girl would pause—though her companion urged her on—and look in.
"How long those pink stones have been there! I remember them since I was a child, and those piles of silver knives and forks! I wonder who used them last and who will use them next. Is he not a strange man—Mr. Lilliecarp, always seated in that window mending a watch? He reminds me of God, Who, as I suppose, always sits like that in Heaven making souls."
The light was beginning to recede from the sky, it was very quickly dark in the narrow passage. The girl looked up at the two windows above the watchmaker's. She saw a taper lit there, and reflected like many fallen stars in the globe.
"Oh, Miss Vondy, could we but go up, perhaps he would tell our fortunes!"
But the conscientious governess knew that she was with the heiress exactly to prevent such follies as this.
"No, Miss Pleasant, we must go home now, it is getting dark."
"Go home! For what?" asked the girl, and her sad laugh rang down the passage, which was quite empty save for these two debating women. "And what shall we do when we get home? The curtains will be drawn and our dinner will be served and then we shall sit and sew, or perhaps play a game of cards, or I shall sing a song and you will tell me my mistakes. Or you will write to Scotland and I shall read a book. Oh, it is all dull, dull, dull!"
They came out into Lincoln's Inn Square. The sky, pure of any speck of cloud, was the colour of a fading harebell; the creeping air was very still, the houses looked forlorn and shapeless round the dark square.
"It is as cold as if it blew off an iceberg," said Miss Pleasant.
"Whatever makes you think of an iceberg?" asked the governess.
The young girl did not reply, but clung to her arm and looked round absently. There was no one about except a few coachmen who sat idly on their boxes swishing the necks of their sleeping horses with long whips.
Another person to whom the passage was very familiar was Haagen Swendson, a Danish timber merchant whose ship often put in at Rotherhithe. He used the passage because, where it joined Holborn, was a shop where he bought tobacco. This was a short cut for him when he came up from the inn, "The Four Billiard Tables," where he lodged in the Strand.
His ship the Ice Maiden, with a load of deal, put into the Thames soon after Pleasant Rawlins had first noticed the board with the name of "Dr. Chaos" upon its dirty surface.
The young merchant, turning down the familiar passage in search of his favourite tobacco shop, smiled at the board; he had often seen such placards. He wondered a little at one appearing in this place, which has always been to him meticulously respectable, and he pondered, very idly, what manner of clients this Dr. Chaos might hope to obtain.
He had taken this walk more or less mechanically, because it was well known to him and one that he never failed to make frequently when he was in London. And when he reached the tobacconist's shop he stood staring in a self-absorbed fashion through the diamond-paned windows at the pipes and cut tobacco and rose-wood roots displayed there, and presently turned away with his hands in his pockets without making any purchases. Frowning, walking slowly and still absently so that he often jostled into angry passers-by, he came to "The Black Bull" at Holborn, which was a tavern with which he was very familiar.
He entered, ordered a pint of ale, and sat very moodily with his chin in his neckcloth and his hands still in his pockets, his feet thrust out. The ale was served but he did not drink it; people came and went in the busy public parlour but he did not see them. The only thing of which he was conscious was a small coin the finger and thumb of his right hand grasped in his breeches pocket. He was interested in this because he was thinking of money, and this coin represented to his overheated fancy almost the whole of his fortune. He was, briefly, ruined. He did not know how he could possibly tell his father, who was neither very generous nor very wealthy, how he had gambled away, in Copenhagen, far more money than he could possibly pay, and how he had written out bills that he could not hope to meet, and how the whole of his substantial but modest fortune of the timber merchant would not suffice to meet these secret extravagances of his son.
He had left Denmark in an agony, snatching at the chance of the voyage to England as an excuse to put off the day of reckoning, and while he had been on the North Sea, master of the beautiful ship and her company of strong men, he had felt a sense of liberation and freedom, even felt proud in a way, of himself, of his own strength and youth and health, as if he were beyond the possibility of degradation or misfortune.
During those few days he had felt able to battle with any difficulty, and the terrible situation in which he stood had become almost a matter of indifference to him. But when the Ice Maiden had put into the wide reaches of the river gradually narrowing to the docks, and had at last cast anchor amid the fogs and vapours of the alien capital, Haagen Swendson had felt despair return.
He had hardly been able to follow his familiar custom of landing from the ship and, attended by his servants with his baggage, going to his usual lodgings at the tavern in the Strand.
He had now several days of inactivity before him, for he had very little business to transact while the ship should be unloaded and reloaded, and he knew not how he should endure this space of waiting. While he had been in his mood of wild exultation on the sea he had thought that he would use this time in London to raise money; now he realised that though he might be able to make a loan on his own note of hand, and even to raise something on his father's expectations and perhaps be paid in cash for the load of the deal instead of by bills, yet all of this put together would amount to nothing compared with the sums he owed in Copenhagen.
Seated there, with one hand fumbling round the coin in his pocket and the other slack and idle, and his chin in his neckcloth and his heels on the sawdust floor, the young man thought of suicide, but even as the idea come into his head it seemed to him a stupid, a ridiculous action. He could not conceive of himself as dead; he was so much alive that he seemed part of all the life in the world, and he could not imagine an end to all the zest, vigour, and activities that was himself.
At last, with a sudden movement of self-disgust, he plucked out the last coin from his pocket, paid for this untouched drink, and went out again into the sunlight, the pale, northern, melancholy sunlight, and turning down Holborn again came to the passage.
As he passed the watchmaker's shop the young man chanced to glance up, and he saw the object which had so often attracted the curious glance of Pleasant Rawlins, a globe, made of some gleaming material, in which the high lights danced and sparkled. And, as if some chance ray of this light had fallen into his own heart, he felt a sudden thrill of hope. He was not yet lost and damned; there was, at least, a few days' respite before him. He need not be, for the moment, penniless. He could easily discount a bill of his merchant father.
He dare to think, the instinct of the born gambler reviving in him: "Perhaps I might be lucky. With a few pounds in my pocket and chance on my side I might regain hundreds, nay, thousands, and have sufficient to make of me again an honourable man."
These thoughts were so powerful that they had caused him to pause in the narrow passage, and as he stood thus motionless and glancing up at the gleaming object in the window of Dr. Chaos, he saw behind it the large skull and small, pale, death-like features of that person himself, who was without his wig and had a red and white spotted foulard tied around his head so that it seemed almost as if he had bandaged a wound on his brow, for the kerchief appeared blood-stained.
"That is a man who knows something," thought the young Dane, and almost he turned into the narrow doorway beside the board and went up the dark, crooked stairs, to seek out that strange-looking creature and demand if he could be of any help to him in his deep trouble. But he argued with himself: "I am not a boy. My plight cannot be bettered by deals with charlatans. I should know better than this, I must be weakening in my intellect."
He passed on towards Lincoln's Inn Fields. Dr. Chaos leant out of his narrow window and looked after him long and eagerly.
A footman brought to Mr. Uriah Lilliecarp a watch that needed repairing. It was a lady's watch, egg-shaped, crystal back and front so that the works were as visible as the dial. It came, like an egg out of its shell, from the exact-fitting metal case which was enamelled with pink and blue flowers.
The watchmaker had not often been entrusted with so valuable a toy. He examined it with a loving and intent interest and then declared:
"There is nothing the matter with this; it is in perfect order."
The footman grinned.
"My young mistress bade me bring it. She says that it does not keep the time. She will come in herself this afternoon to ask your advice."
"What is the name of this lady who understands so little about watches?"
"Miss Pleasant Rawlins. She is the heiress of Great Queen Street; you will have heard of her of course, Mr. Lilliecarp?"
"I know nothing about any of my neighbours," replied the watchmaker. "They do not in the least interest me."
"Well, however that may be," replied the lackey, lingering on the worn threshold of the little shop, "I suppose you have some curiosity regarding the strange curmudgeon who lodges above—this Dr. Chaos, as he calls himself, and a mighty insolent name for a doctor of physic to give himself, so it seems to me."
"I know nothing about him," replied the watchmaker. "He has been in the shop once on the matter of a trifling repair. I much wonder that I should be so plagued by questions about this fellow. Here, take back your watch, there is nothing amiss with it. It must have cost at least a hundred guineas and was well worth the money."
But the footman refused to take the toy; he did not wish, he said, to disobey orders and lose a good place.
Lounging in the doorway, he endeavoured, with the insolence of a lackey who cannot find sufficient malice to amuse his indolence, to discover what Mr. Uriah Lilliecarp might know of the man who lodged above. But the watchmaker replied: "Nothing!" with so sour a look and so tight a snap of his lips that the footman, with a curse, went his way.
When Mr. Uriah Lilliecarp said: "Nothing!" in reply to the questions about Dr. Chaos, he was not telling the truth. Only twenty-four hours before, when the shutters had been up and the candles lit in the little room at the back of the shop, Dr. Chaos had come down the stairs and forced his company on Mr. Lilliecarp for a least a couple of hours. He had brought his pipe with him and he certainly smoked the most wonderful tobacco—the perfume of it lingered yet about the little shop. He had also brought, in a little pouch of soft leather, a handful of unset gems which interested Mr. Lilliecarp very much. He had often read of such things and he had a large book where there were diagrams and paintings of precious jewels, but he had never handled them. He was pleased and impressed to be able to run them through his fingers: blue, orange, green, and violet fire, hard as brilliant.
Dr. Chaos had seemed indifferent to these pleasures. He had talked of himself and his adventures and of the marvels that had come his way during his progress from one country to another. He had lived on a whaler in the White Seas and descended the silver mines of Nassau; for an entire summer he had dwelt on the summit of one of the mountains of the Caucasus Range and for an entire winter in the valley of the Cashmere.
With Miss Pleasant Rawlins's watch in his hand, Mr. Lilliecarp stood reflectively, trying to think what Dr. Chaos had really talked of the night before. The narrative had held him enthralled at the time, but now he discovered that he could remember very little of it. It had been extraordinary, and although told in a dull monotonous tone he remembered it as something brilliant and glittering.
The watch was very valuable. Mr. Lilliecarp wondered if the little fool to whom it belonged knew that it really was not out of order at all. He locked it carefully away among his greater treasures: set opals, morsels of fluorspar from Derbyshire and bright, gleaming, valueless pebbles of variegated colours.
One still afternoon Miss Pleasant Rawlins came to the alley to claim her watch. She was out alone and this gave her an air of breathless excitement. She scarcely knew how she had achieved so great an adventure; very silly and skilfully she had deceived Miss Vondy, pretending that she had the megrims, and must lie down alone in a shadowed room. And then, when the governess had gone out on her own business, the girl came creeping downstairs, in stockinged feet with her shoes in her hand, opening the big door very carefully and closing it with great precaution, and then, slipping on her shoes and flying round the corner across the cobbles of Lincoln's Inn so that the lazy hackney-coachmen stared at her, and so into the watchmaker's shop where she stood breathless and a little ashamed.
"There is nothing the matter with your watch, miss," said Mr. Lilliecarp sullenly, for he did not like being disturbed at his work, particularly for a frivolous excuse. He unlocked the drawer under the counter and brought out the smooth, egg-shaped crystal, which Miss Pleasant received negligently.
"Yes, it goes very well," she agreed. "My guardian bought if for me in Paris last year for my birthday. I liked it very much at first, but I am now tired of it. Of course, Mr. Lilliecarp, you understood that I only sent it here that I might have the excuse to come and fetch it. I want to ask you something about Dr. Chaos."
Mr. Lilliecarp frowned with annoyance, but the spoilt girl was not to be so easily thwarted. She rested her elbows on the counter and leant forward eagerly, her hood falling back from her bright hair, her slightly prominent eyes sparkling with real excitement as she added:
"Tell me, do many people go up to him? Does he sell love potions and make charms?"
"What should I know of any such matters, Miss Rawlins?"
The watchmaker returned to his work, mounting his stool before the little table in the window.
"If I am so pestered by questions about the fellow I shall have to move."
Miss Rawlins laughed.
"Why, you would never do that, Mr. Lilliecarp, you have been here so many years. I can remember you when I was a very little girl and used to come here with my mother. She brought a necklace once, to be mended. Come now," she insisted in a coaxing tone, "tell me about this man. I saw a curious globe in his window and once, himself, looking out. He has a strange face."
Before Mr. Uriah Lilliecarp could answer, there was a step on the stair and the girl turned quickly and stared through the little side door which had been left partly open. A woman was coming down from Dr. Chaos's room. She was meanly dressed and had an insignificant presence, but there was about her expression and deportment a lively air as if she had received good news. Miss Pleasant Rawlins clapped her hands in an ecstasy.
"See, Mr. Lilliecarp," she said, lowering her voice, "people do go up to him, and that woman looks pleased. He has told her something quite delightful, I am sure."
"It is no business of mine," grumbled Mr. Lilliecarp, fixing his magnifying glass in the eye, and taking up the tweezers with which he lifted his tiny cogs and wheels into place. Then, cautious as he was, he felt it his duty to utter a warning. "This Dr. Chaos may be, for all I know, a rogue and a thief, and in my opinion an honest young woman should have nothing to do with him."
He spoke with some feeling, for he was recently much disgusted with the foreign doctor. He had made an effort over his natural reserve and gone upstairs and visited the strange lodger in his newly-furnished rooms. He had not liked the look of the place nor the manner in which Dr. Chaos greeted him, but he had brought himself to ask for another sight of the jewels with which Dr. Chaos had dazzled his eyes the other evening when he had told him his adventures by the light of the candle in the little room behind the shop. At this, the Doctor had laughed unpleasantly, and had declared with a sneer that those were not jewels but fabrications of glass, or of a material something like glass, which he had been able to make himself by dint of long study and much diligent application to science.
The watchmaker was annoyed that he had been deceived, and he was also suspicious that, when it suited him, Dr. Chaos would endeavour to pass those false gems off as genuine. Perhaps, indeed, that was the purpose for which he had come to London. Dr. Chaos must have read these doubts in the dull eyes of Mr. Lilliecarp, for he said, sarcastically:
"If I had wanted to cheat with the jewels should I have told you that they were only sham?"
And then, with no courtesy, he had closed the door in the face of the watchmaker.
It passed into his mind to tell this story to Miss Rawlins but he could not give himself the fatigue of doing so. He was quite sure that she had no business to be out alone. She was, after all, no affair of his; he did not like her, nor understand her, nor the world in which she moved, so he made no protest as, with another laugh, she slipped the crystal watch into the silk bag which was fastened by long blue ribbons to her waist and excitedly tiptoed out of the shop and up the dark stairs that led to the room of Dr. Chaos.
At the top of the stairs was another door, and on it was the board which Dr. Chaos had been forbidden by the College of Physicians to hang in the alley. Miss Rawlins peered at it speculatively and saw thereon a list of the services which the foreign doctor was prepared to render to his fellow-men. She was much delighted to read that he offered to tell fortunes, to make potions, that he was an expert in washes for the complexion, in pills for the gout, the falling sickness, and quinsies, that he could cast horoscopes and foretell storms on the sea and land.
So much was set forward in plain English, but there was a great deal more in a foreign tongue that might have been Latin or Greek or even Hebrew for all that Miss Pleasant Rawlins knew. She bit her full under-lip in some trepidation and then, with her little bare knuckles, knocked at the dark and formidable-looking door. Her need for haste urged her cowardice; she knew that at any moment her absence from the house in Great Queen Street might be discovered and that Miss Vondy, with the servants or footmen, would come hot-foot after her. It was very likely that the governess, who was no fool, would think of looking for her in the watchmaker's shop. It was true that she had given Charles, the lackey, a gold piece not to say that she had sent him with the watch the other morning, but then she did not trust him and knew that he did not trust her.
When her knock was not instantly answered her spirits fell and the narrow stairway and the dim shadows with which it was full seemed to hold a menace. Her courage ebbed away; she was about to descend the stairs when the door was suddenly opened and Dr. Chaos, in ragged gown, tow wig, with his pinched, pale features and silver-rimmed spectacles which were filled with a dim bluish glass, stood looking down at Miss Pleasant.
"Well, madam," said he, with a grave air of respect that greatly increased her confidence, "what do you want with me? Will you please step inside?" And, with a courteous air, he held open the door.
Miss Pleasant Rawlins thus entered the first of the apartments of Dr. Chaos. She looked round very eagerly, expecting some great wonder or curiosity, but the room was bare and poorly furnished and her disappointment showed in her instant pout.
"Where is the room with the globe in the window?" she demanded.
"That is my private room, workshop and laboratory, and one in which I never allow strangers. You will tell me your business here, if you please, madam."
Dr. Chaos set a plain wooden chair for the spoilt young woman who, having, under the influence of his respectful manner, recovered her full self-assurance, contrived to flounce and toss her high head.
"I've no business; I hoped you were a wise man or a wizard and could tell me something of the future."
"And if I could, madam, what help would that be to you?"
He regarded her keenly, while his long white, capable fingers played along his chin.
"If you knew something of my history, Dr. Chaos, you would be sorry for me," and her full lips quivered with self-pity.
"You are too young to have had much of a history, Miss Rawlins."
"You know my name, then."
"You are almost a neighbour of mine. You live in Great Queen Street just across the square of Lincoln's Inn Fields. I make it my business to find out something of my neighbours."
"So that you can more easily tell their fortune," said she disappointedly. "Is there no magic in it after all?"
At that he smiled in a manner that chilled her flippancy.
"There is magic enough in it for you, madam. Now tell me what you desire."
At that the foolish girl, angling for she knew not what golden bait, related her history and her discontent. She was an heiress and an orphan, at once guarded and lonely. She feared she was unattractive, no amorous adventure had come her way. She was incurably romantic and fancied things from day-dreaming. She longed for a lover—a handsome, gorgeous, splendid lover who would woo her for herself alone, having no care for her fortune. She had scarcely ever seen a man who came up to her expectations, she wanted to know if any such existed and if there was any chance of meeting him. But this she did not tell to Dr. Chaos nor did she need to, he understood her perfectly, leaning against the bare wall biting his forefinger and looking at her while she exposed her soul, at once sly and simple, her heart full of innocent guile, her shallow mind, her empty discontented days.
He knew more about her than she had told him. He was aware, for instance, of such facts as the exact amount of money she had, how much was invested in the Stocks, what her property consisted of, the position of her guardian, the number of servants who attended her, the vigilant devotion of Miss Jane Vondy to her duty. He knew all about the school at Hampstead where Miss Pleasant Rawlins sighed away her idle hours.
"You must have patience," he remarked, and as that was the last word she wished to hear, fierce disappointment sprang into the girl's prominent eyes. She rose pettishly.
"Why, that is what my guardian and what Miss Jane says whenever I complain of anything. Patience indeed! It is true that I am only seventeen, but it already seems to me as if I had waited a lifetime for something to happen."
"Something will happen soon enough," remarked Dr. Chaos in a tone of conviction that again brought the colour to her cheeks, the sparkle to her eyes.
She clasped her hands eagerly.
"Oh, do tell me! I can pay you well. I have nine gold pieces on me now—they are my quarter's allowance—but I do not need to spend them for I run accounts in the shops. See, I would have given you ten, but Charles had to have one for taking the watch this morning and saying nothing about it."
He checked her foolish chatter. He needed no more self-revelations from her, he could see her entire heart and soul clear before him just as Mr. Uriah Lilliecarp could see the works of her watch through its crystal case.
"You must not stay now," he said in a soothing tone. "That would be stupid, would it not? Your absence would be detected and you would be so carefully guarded that you would never be able to get out again."
"Yes, yes, that is very true," she agreed immediately.
"Well, then, you have made my acquaintance and that, for the moment, is enough. I know all about you and I will endeavour to discover something of your future. You must come again. Perhaps you would write a little note, pushed under my door, or even sent through the post, I do not know how much liberty you can contrive," and he gave his sudden disagreeable smile.
Miss Pleasant Rawlins thought that if she had some definite object in view she could contrive a good many secret absences from the mansion in Great Queen Street.
"Can you really tell my fortune? Can you see what is coming to me?"
"Who is coming to you, you mean," smiled Dr. Chaos, opening the door for his foolish client. "Not yet, but I shall soon know everything. You are not so unimportant as you think, my child," he added reassuringly. "A great and glorious destiny is opening before you. You are on the threshold of something entirely new and brilliant. Eat well, sleep well, keep up your heart and reveal yourself to no one."
"When shall I come again?" cried Miss Rawlins, quivering with joy.
"When you can contrive it. Not too soon, I have much to think of. I am also greatly occupied, not only do numbers of people come to consult me but I make many experiments. Next time I will show you my workroom and some of the curious things that I have there. Now you had better hurry home."
And, with a very genteel air, he handed the heiress on to the head of the stair and closed the door in her face. She stood for a second and looked at the placard, which shook with the rattling of the lock into place. Then she tripped downstairs, feeling happier than she had ever felt in her life before. The strange, the new, and the wonderful was opening out before her puzzled and enthralled gaze.
As Miss Pleasant Rawlins stepped into the passage Haagen Swendson was passing. He had changed a bill of his father's, he had money in his pocket; he had eaten a good meal and drunk a bottle of wine, and, moreover, he had been down to the ship and stood again on the deck of the Ice Maiden among his countrymen who were unlading the long, pale pinkish planks of wood. The scent of the sawn pine trees and the sea creeping into port had been in his nostrils and he had felt some faint reflection of the strength and courage he had known when crossing the North Sea.
He had thought of his home, the substantial mansion, the handsome country house in Denmark, of his father, his mother, his brothers and his sisters, and he had felt buttressed and fortified by that stolid life behind him, by all that silent but real affection. It had seemed to him that it was impossible that he should come to real harm, that somehow this horror would lift. Perhaps he might visit a gambling hell that very evening and win back at least a large portion of the money.
So he had turned into the familiar passage with a heart and a step lighter than he had known in the morning and he had determined this time to buy some of his favourite tobacco and not to turn away like a distracted fool from the shop window.
As he passed the watchmaker's he again glanced up at the globe which had caught his eye and his fancy before, and at that moment Miss Pleasant Rawlins stepped into the passage. He looked at her quickly and curiously, at once suspecting that she was a client of Dr. Chaos. He was surprised to see that she was so young and a gentlewoman, but he guessed that she had no right to be out unescorted. He thought her plain and uninteresting, but he marked her expression of elated expectancy just as she marked this same expression on the face of the woman who had visited the doctor before her, and he thought to himself: "I wonder if he could help me after all?"
Miss Rawlins did not notice the young merchant at all. He was on the other side of the passage and her head was in the air and full of whimsies. She was also hurrying, for she wished to reach home before Miss Vondy missed her. If she had noticed him she would certainly have looked at him keenly for he was remarkably handsome, much above the common build and stature, and of a distinction beyond his station and prospects; this beauty of his had been largely his undoing, by getting him into the company of those who had more money and leisure and fewer responsibilities than himself.
When he had bought his tobacco the young Dane lingered in Holborn and turned over in his mind the various places that he knew of in London where they gambled. It was a wild hope that the few pounds in his pocket might be turned into hundreds and thousands, but there was nothing before him but wild hopes, and he recalled, as he leant against the shop window and filled his long pipe with the tobacco he had just bought, that even if he lost all the money there were other things he had which he could turn into money or even pledge as they were—links, studs, buckles, his handsome dress-sword, and even a watch set with sapphires that a woman above him in rank had one given to him in Copenhagen. And remembering the watch which always remained in his pocket, he thought of Mr. Lilliecarp and, like Pleasant Rawlins, decided that a visit to the watchmaker would be an obvious excuse to find out something about Dr. Chaos.
It was most unlikely that the charlatan would be able to help him, indeed, it was most unlikely that any person or thing would ever be able to help him again but the old rogue might know a few tricks that would prove useful in this horrible crisis.
At this point the young man checked his thoughts. He was both honest and honourable, and frowned to think to what desperate extremities he was turning in his mind.
Haagen Swendson passed the board on which was written the name of "Dr. Chaos" and entered Mr. Lilliecarp's shop. Without ado he put the watch set with sapphires on the counter and asked the irritated old man what was the value of the trinket.
"Beyond my buying," replied the watchmaker sharply, for he did not think that the Dane was a customer of his but only one who came spying or inquiring after Dr. Chaos.
The young man replied with native good humour.
"I did not seek to sell it, only to know the value of it in English money."
Mr. Lilliecarp reluctantly took the jewel in his hand. It was an exquisite object, as beautiful and as valuable as that which Miss Pleasant Rawlins had recently left so uselessly in his charge.
"I suppose," he said, "you might get fifty guineas for it." And he added with rude intent: "Unless it is stolen property and the constables are after you."
"No, it is my own," replied the young Dane, who had taken no offence at these uncivil words; he took some mournful pleasure in adding: " I am a gentleman and of some standing," for he did not know how long he would be able to make that boast with propriety.
Mr. Lilliecarp was slightly rebuked. He liked Haagen Swendson almost as much as he had disliked Pleasant Rawlins. Even to the jaundiced eyes of the watchmaker the young man was attractive in his candour and good nature, besides being extremely agreeable to look upon. He was so tall and fair, clear-eyed and fresh complexioned, spoke with such a gleam of white teeth and curve of clear-cut lips, was so neatly and precisely appointed that he seemed to make a light even in the dim, dirty old shop. So that when he asked the question which was now as familiar as it was tiresome to Mr. Lilliecarp that person replied with good humour surprising even to himself, for when the young man said:
"Who is this Dr. Chaos who lives above?" The watchmaker replied:
"He is some sort of quack, and though I am not one to gossip about my neighbours, I would avoid him if I were you. Surely a gentleman of your appearance can be in no need of such as he."
"You would be surprised," said the young man softly, "how much I do need—well, someone."
"I suppose so," said the watchmaker. He stared down at the circle of sapphires on the watch which still remained on the counter. The bright colour, like little stars or mountain flowers, was the brightest thing in the place and these sparkles of azure light dazzled the old man's eyes. He felt inclined to talk, which was a very strange thing for him for he had been largely silent for many, many years.
"You'd hardly believe," he began, "there was a young woman in here now—why, she has everything there is in the world, pampered, rich; why, she had a watch worth a hundred guineas in her hand and a bag full of gold pieces. I know all about her and where she lives and what her fortune is. I've seen her go up and down this passage since she was a little whining child, and now she must run away from her guardians and come in here puling about her troubles and her discontent, asking after this same Dr. Chaos, if you believe it, and running upstairs to see him. She went out but now."
"I saw her," replied the Dane without much interest. "I thought that she had no right to be out alone."
"She'll do something foolish before she's finished." said Mr. Lilliecarp with disgust. "A silly, spoiled creature with her head full of fairy tales."
"She looked happy as if the rogue had told her some good news."
"That wouldn't be difficult would it, sir?"
Mr. Lilliecarp smiled, and the young Dane was fascinated by this contortion on the stiff features.
"Perhaps not," he said. "Do you think this old villain could tell me anything to make me smile?"
He took up the watch and returned it to his pocket. He thought of the woman who had given it to him, he had been very fond of her and hoped much from her affection. She could have put him beyond the reach of his present misery, but the difference between their two stations had been too great, cowardice and pride had overruled her love. At the last minute she had drawn back. Very likely he would never see her again, or, what was worse, at such a distance that they would never speak.
"Fifty guineas," he repeated absently. "Of course, it is worth a great deal more than that."
"That is all you will get for it," said Mr. Lilliecarp sourly. His native ill humour returned.
"I am again wasting my time on a customer who is no use to me," he muttered to himself. "This is not an ante-chamber for Dr. Chaos's clients to linger in."
Haagen Swendson smiled.
"But I certainly should pay you for your trouble," said he, bringing out his purse.
But the watchmaker waved him aside and returned to his seat in the window. Haagen Swendson sighed. There was something in the shop lulling to the senses, he would have liked to have lingered there, it seemed a retreat from all his distresses and troubles. His pipe had grown cold, he put it in his pocket, went out at the door without speaking again to the taciturn watchmaker, turned and after only a moment's self-ridicule, up the narrow stairs to the upper door where the board hung which detailed all the pretensions of Dr. Chaos. On reading these the young Dane laughed aloud, and knocked vigorously.
Dr. Chaos answered this summons almost immediately. His tone was quite different from that with which he had greeted the young lady.
"Well, my fine young man, and what can I do for you?" he asked in a tone of hollow joviality, and plucking the reluctant merchant by the sleeve drew him inside. "Why, I am busy to-day", he said with laughs between the words; "quite busy. It seems to me that my stay in London will be extremely profitable."
"To you or to your clients?" asked Haagen Swendson. With a smile at his own folly he glanced round the bare room and at the shabby attire of Dr. Chaos.
Here was a man who obviously could do nothing for himself. Was it likely that he would be able to do anything for others? Dr. Chaos seemed to read the young man's glance and smile, for he said instantly:
"You despise me, no doubt, but maybe I can give you some good advice. I shall not pretend that I know who you are or anything about you. Tell me your story."
The Dane shook his head.
"All I need tell you is that I require, quite definitely, a large sum on money. I am only in London for a few days, and in that short space of time this money must be raised or——" He raised his hand and let it fall again.
"A common enough situation," replied Dr. Chaos. "I have met with it in most cities where I have sojourned. Do you think I can help you?"
"No, I scarcely think that. I came here because I am in a wretched state of unrest. I saw your globe at the window."
"H'm, that seems to attract people," smiled Dr. Chaos. "It is not, of course, so difficult to make money. I have been quite successful in that direction myself on several occasions."
The young merchant laughed good-humouredly.
"I quite understand that anyone like yourself would be, as you say, successful; you must know a great many tricks. And then, of course, it is possible for you to move from capital to capital under different names to try different expedients. But for me," he added sadly, "it is different. I am young, I am definitely placed in a city in a certain society, I cannot become a rogue and an adventurer."
"You want, in short," said Dr. Chaos agreeably, "money to enable you to stay in your present position and respectability?"
Haagen Swendson nodded. He was, as Pleasant Rawlins had been, rather depressed by the drab, unfurnished room and the shabby appearance of Dr. Chaos himself. If this man were a clever charlatan he seemed one down on his luck and not likely to be of much use to anyone.
Dr. Chaos read the young man's expression as he had read that of the young woman, and laughed now, as then.
"I can, I repeat, give you some good advice, which no doubt you have greatly lacked. Tell me, first, of your own ideas. You say you are in London for a few days and in that time you must raise a large sum of money. How large is it?"
Haagen Swendson named it, and Dr. Chaos pursed up his lips and moved his head quickly so that the slant light from the window gleamed on his spectacles.
"You must have been a fool," he remarked. "What sort of fun did you get for all that expenditure?"
"I don't want to think of that now, but only how I can get out of my present difficulty. I intend to be quiet and sober for the rest of my life. I very well perceive my own folly; I was under some infatuation."
Dr. Chaos grimaced.
"Well, what do you propose to do? Tell me that first, before I make my suggestions."
"I have a few guineas in my pocket," smiled the young Dane sadly, "and a few valuables. I intended to find out some club where the play is high and again try my luck."
He looked, half-shamefacedly and half-expectantly at Dr. Chaos as he spoke, and laughed again. Then, as if profoundly dissatisfied with himself he rose from the bare chair which the physician had set for him and went to the small window. He was so tall that his fair head almost touched the low ceiling as he peered down into the shadowed passage and into the dust-soiled panes of the tiny shop opposite where there were old books which had not been read for many a year, piled indifferently one on the other, and old portraits where the likenesses were obscured by cobwebs and dirt.
"Do you expect me," asked Dr. Chaos proudly, "to suggest some trick whereby you may load the dice or mark the cards? I am afraid, sir, that all such devices are too well-known, and in the kind of place where you propose to go people will be on the look-out for just such fooleries."
Haagen Swendson looked over the shoulder of his fine blue coat.
"No, I hadn't thought of that," he answered indifferently. "I thought that you might have an idea——"
"I have several. My first advice to you is not to waste any of that money you have gambling. Live plainly and hoard all you have got; you may find that a few odd guineas will make all the difference between success and failure."
"You have then," exclaimed the young merchant eagerly, "thought out some scheme?"
"I have thought of a scheme, yes, I wonder it did not occur to you yourself. Why do you not get married?—an heiress, some woman with plenty of money and not too disagreeable in her person?"
Haagen Swendson shrugged.
"I certainly thought of that. But if a man wants to marry a woman with money he must have money too. There are always parents or guardians, people who make a thousand inquiries, looking after her. There are one or two women whom I could marry at home; they have respectable fortunes, but not sufficient to pay my debts and keep us in comfort, too. Besides, if it came to talk of a marriage there would be contracts, lawyers and settlements, and my father"—here he winced—"would get to know my desperate affairs."
"It is not so difficult as all that," said Dr. Chaos smoothly. "An heiress may be won secretly; she may be married without her guardian's consent; she may even, on occasion, be abducted—a marriage can be arranged in this country very privately. You may have a chaplain up from the Fleet for a few guineas, and at half an hour's notice he will marry you to some trusting creature and make you master of her fortune."
The young Dane looked incredulous. Although he came so frequently to London he did not know much about England.
"But afterwards?" he said, "would not such a marriage be at once annulled?"
"It could not be without a special Act of Parliament. The law in this peculiar country is most obliging towards needy gentlemen like yourself," smiled Dr. Chaos. "I have been here before, and, if I may say so, with due modesty, have had a hand in one or two such enterprises which have been completely successful. The abducting and marrying of an heiress is in itself quite an entertaining sport," he added thoughtfully.
"It does not attract me," replied the young merchant. "If you have nothing better to suggest——" And he reached out for his hat which he had flung on the chair.
"Nothing better to suggest!" cried Dr. Chaos, again moving his head rapidly so that there was an angry gleam on his spectacles. "Surely this is a very easy way of gaining a large sum of money? No, indeed, I have nothing better to suggest. In fact, I know of no other means by which you could, in the space of a few days, nay, a few hours, make yourself master, perhaps, of a hundred thousand pounds in cash, the stocks, and property."
"A hundred thousand pounds," repeated the young man, dazzled by the thought of so large an amount. "That would indeed get me out of my difficulties! I could pay all my creditors without my family or my father knowing anything of it."
"And settle down again to a respectable life with the lady," smiled Dr. Chaos.
"Ah, the lady! That's the difficulty! I don't want to get married and I certainly don't want to have to make love to a strange woman."
"Well, if you are stiff-necked there is the door."
"No, no," said the young man hurriedly; "I can quite see that I must be prepared for something distasteful. Yet you talk so glibly of an heiress; do you know of one? Is there any such creature whom I might come at?"
"She sat here but now," said Dr. Chaos, indicating with a flick of his finger the chair on which lay the young man's hat. "She sat there complaining to me of her hard destiny. She is spoilt and very young and peevish, is at school at Hampstead and longs for a lover."
Haagen Swendson looked downcast. He was no man for an intrigue, especially an intrigue in which a woman was mingled. He thrust his hand in his pocket as he stared down at the dirty boards.
"She has neither father nor mother. Her guardian is often away, she is in the care of servants and the governess. They are quite careless how they allow her to come from the school to the house they have in Great Queen Street. She was able to get away to-day and pay me a visit."
"What did she come here for?" cried the young man with a look of distaste. "With due courtesy, Dr. Chaos, you are no company for a schoolgirl."
"She wanted to know the future, my dear sir. She wanted some kind of excitement. Of course, she longed for me to tell her of a lover. I prophesied everything brilliant and beautiful and sent her away happy."
At this last word Haagen Swendson's blue eyes flashed.
"Ah, that was the little creature who was leaving the shop just as I came past—I remember. Happy!—yes, she did look happy. I noticed nothing else about her," he added regretfully.
"She is not beauty. She has a hundred thousand pounds at a mean computation, almost certainly much more," said Dr. Chaos.
"Her guardian, whoever he may be—I suppose he is a man of wealth and position—would not be likely to think of me as a husband."
"Certainly not. Were you to apply for her hand to Sir Thomas Lemoine you would be thrown out of the house. Did I speak of any such folly as waiting on her guardian!"
"What then am I to do?" asked the Dane reluctantly.
"There are several things that you can do. One way is—you might make her love you. It would not be difficult, I can contrive that you meet here."
Haagen Swendson interrupted hastily.
"I should not care to do that. Indeed, I have no aptitude; I should be clumsy and half-hearted," and he added in a mutter, half under his breath, "there is something very mean about the transaction."
"Then you could abduct her," suggested Dr. Chaos. "I could arrange that also. There are many ways in which it could be done. You only need a coach and a pair of good horses and two o three servants whom I could very easily hire for the occasion. She could be snatched up while she is out walking, or delivered into their hands when she comes here on one of her foolish errands. I need only allow her to stare into the crystal and then someone comes behind and claps a kerchief, with a little laudanum on it, over her mouth."
Again Haagen Swendson interrupted and this time very uneasily.
"That is very horrible, I do not care to even hear it talked about."
"How, then, do you think you are going to get her—if every contrivance is horrible to you? It would be much better if you were to make her love you. There is, however, yet a third way. You may pretend a false arrest: you can get two sham bailiffs who will put her out of her coach and say she is but a cheat who owes her tradesmen money and so you can hurry her off to the sponging-house. And there, when she is thoroughly frightened and distressed, you can tell her that she will be free of all her debts if she has a husband, and then you may come in with a chaplain and so you can be married."
But Haagen Swendson dismissed this suggestion with a shake of his head.
"I cannot do it."
"Then I am afraid you are wasting my time," said Dr. Chaos, thrusting his hands in his pockets and hunching up his shoulders, "and I must charge you a couple of guineas for half an hour's consultation, which, though useless to you, need not be wholly unprofitable for myself."
Without demur the young man searched in his pockets for the money.
"I suppose you think I am a fool?"
"I certainly do. I have known many a fine young fellow put on his feet by such an expedient. For the last few years it has been quite a favourite diversion among our young men of fashion."
The Dane jingled the two guineas in his broad white palm and then asked suddenly:
"This is against the law, the English law. What is the penalty?"
"One that is never enforced," smiled Dr. Chaos.
"But the penalty—there must be one. Tell me. You do not think that I should be so stupid as to embark on this enterprise and not know what I was risking?"
"Considering that you said your affairs were desperate," replied Dr. Chaos angrily; "considering also that I have not the least doubt that even this morning you contemplated suicide"—the way the young man started showed him his surmise was correct; he smiled at the success of this shot in the dark—"I do not think it is for you to be talking of danger. Under an old law of Henry VII the penalty for abducting an heiress is death on the gallows, but we need not think of that for a single moment. The family very seldom prosecutes in these cases and even if you were arrested and tried you would be acquitted. No one need know of the embarrassment of your fortunes and your action would pass as the impatience of a lover. Besides," he added impressively, "here is your protection. You cannot be convicted of such an offence unless the woman herself swears against you, swears that she was forced and married unwillingly under some fear either of death or imprisonment."
"And any woman," said Haagen Swendson, "so outraged would so swear."
"I perceive that you know very little of the fair sex," said Dr. Chaos with an odious smirk. "You must also be a man of singularly little vanity. Let me then assure you that you are quite a personable fellow and that the little victim I have in mind will enjoy the whole affair thoroughly. What did she come here and ask me for if it was not for such an adventure as I have set forth?"
Haagen Swendson laughed sadly and uneasily. He laughed at himself, at destiny, at the charlatan. He despised them all, yet could not find the strength to turn his back on temptation.
"Poor child," he said tenderly. "She came to you to buy dreams and this is what you would sell her."
"Dreams come true," nodded Dr. Chaos. "I think that I shall do her a very good turn. Where would she find a more likely husband? If you will only be a little complacent you may very likely come to love her yourself. She is, after all, quite charming, and so young she might easily be trained. You might make of her," added the quack, "exactly the kind of woman you wish, and how glad your worthy father and mother will be when you take home to them a beautiful English maiden of unexceptional birth and education with a large fortune as a dowry!"
Haagen Swendson listened intently. He could judge the old rogue for exactly what he was worth, yet these scoundrels knew a good deal—they travelled all over the world and picked up experience and wisdom, sly and gutter-bred very often, but none the less extremely useful wherever they went. It must have been through some stroke of good luck that he, in so desperate a plight, had thought of coming up the crooked stairs to the door of the man who named himself Dr. Chaos, for here was a scheme ready-made and not too difficult (though repugnant to all finer feelings), of which he himself had never for one moment thought—to marry by force or guile or treachery an English heiress. There was, in the Dane's blood, something wild and daring, something bold and headstrong, a streak of the sea-rover beneath the deep veneer of the respectability of a man of business. To that part of his nature this reckless enterprise appealed. For the danger he did not give a second thought; he was naturally fearless and it did not occur to him that any woman, much less a schoolgirl, would swear away a man's life.
As he saw it, though he did not trouble to reflect so far, any female creature, however deeply wronged and outraged, would save a gentleman from the gallows by declaring that she had gone willingly to her wedding. He thought of the girl with regret and compunction. As he had said to the quack, she had come in her folly to buy dreams and she was to be offered a fortune-hunter—— He wished that she were more beautiful, a little older, not a fool; and he thought of the woman who had given him the watch set with sapphires.
At the same time he intended to reform and why not have this woman as his wife as well as another? No doubt, as the charlatan had suggested, she was docile and could be well trained.
"Supposing she doesn't come again?" he suggested. "My time is short. I must take up these bills and cognizances when I return to Denmark; I cannot at the utmost, have more than ten days in London."
Anxiety, pitiful to see in one so young, clouded his handsome eyes.
"Leave it to me," said Dr. Chaos; "she will come again and that soon. I can contrive everything—at a price, you know."
"From me and from her, I suppose," said the young man; "how much do you want?"
"Five per cent. on her fortune," replied Dr. Chaos promptly; "that is very little more than government interest, and surely a small price to save you from death and damnation."
He spoke with an ugly menace and shook his lean forefinger at the young man like some hideous schoolmaster suddenly admonishing a pupil.
"Death and damnation!" The words were not too strong. It had been that. To shoot himself, to return to Copenhagen, to face disgrace, worse than disgrace—humiliation, the ruin of those who loved him, to see the name, the family, the firm, all reduced into confusion because of his criminal folly. Better, surely, this design on the person of a schoolgirl. What harm would it do her?—and he could, if he chose, spend the rest of his life in making her happy. He promised himself that, applying a quick salve to a conscience too easily wounded to be a pleasant companion for a man of his temperament.
"Where are you staying?" asked Dr. Chaos.
"At the 'Four Billiard Tables' in the Strand."
"Keep yourself close, don't spend any more money than you can help. I perceive you are well dressed, I suppose you have other fine clothes?"
"Above my station," replied the young man shortly.
Dr. Chaos nodded.
"That is well. You are made for the part, and so is she," he laughed, rubbing his hands together, "and so is she! And in twenty-four hours I shall have heard from her again. I can arrange for you to meet here and we will see what impression you make upon her heart."
Haagen Swendson did not reply to this. He had gone as far in the business as he, for the moment, could. He bowed gravely, and without touching the quack's hand, descended the crooked stairs into the alley where the shadows then lay thick.
The light was already lit in Mr. Lilliecarp's window and he was seated on his high stool, busy with his tweezers, cogs and wheels, as the young merchant passed by into the blue gloom of Lincoln's Inn. The wind blew cold and crept under his warm clothes and his fur-lined cloak; it blew from the river, the sea, from the north, from the ice-floes, or so he imagined. He thought with homesickness of his ship the Ice Maiden so clean-scrubbed and newly-painted with her great figure-head of a high-breasted woman with red drapery girdled round her waist, yellow hair flying back, and staring blue eyes, monstrous, splendid, dauntless.
He wished that he could sleep on the ship, but he did not dare do this because of the comments it would cause. He had a deep nostalgia for his own country and a hatred for this foreign land, even though in it salvation seemed promised. Never before in his careless, protected youth had he counted the cost of folly. He longed for happiness, for safety, for a pure and pleasant affection.
He walked down Great Queen Street and looked at the flat-fronted mansions and wondered in which of them Pleasant Rawlins dwelt. A fragment of paper and a few straws blew down the street; in the gin-shop on the corner of Drury Lane were sounds of loud quarrelling and the yellow flares of lamps fed by rank oil.
Haagen Swendson turned through Covent Garden and walked carefully between the heaped-up garbage of rotting vegetables, decaying flowers and broken fruit. Before the church of St. Paul's he pulled up suddenly like one who meets an unexpected obstacle. He was, at heart, a very religious man, and of a noble and generous disposition. Pale clouds, blue from moonshine, rose curdling into the greenish heavens. The street lamps were lit one by one, primrose-yellow in the dusk. On an impulse that he mistrusted but could not resist, Haagen Swendson turned into the church, which was lit by warm, even, dull yellow light in which the newly-varnished pews and gallery, made of deal such as himself shipped from the pine forests of Norway, glistened. The walls were whitewashed and on them were mural tablets covered by the names and virtues of deceased men and women. On the altar were two vases of lilies.
It did not seem a place in which to pray, but the young Dane bent his knees shyly in one of the pews, and folding his hands with a touching confidence that he was nearer to God in this place than outside in the streets on which the moon looked down and above which the lonely clouds curdled in the eternal blue.
He could not form his prayer, but he knew that he wanted to put up some petition for himself and for Pleasant Rawlins. He had a childish and a frantic hope that out of the evil he planned some good might come, that out of the dishonour he was more than half-inclined to undertake, honour might grow. Though he could not bring himself to lure her to love him, he thought that he might so far force his inclination as to make himself love her, and he believed, in a kind of confused simplicity, that if he could bring this to pass he would be justified before her, before himself, and before God.
There was an evening service in St. Paul's, and the pew-opener in the black dress and shawl came to set the books in their places. At sight of her the young man rose self-consciously and tiptoed out of the church. The old woman's bleared eyes peered after him, not because she saw he was a foreigner, but because of his considerable handsomeness. She sighed as she went back to her dull task; there was something about the young man that emphasized the ugliness of the church.
Miss Pleasant Rawlins could not sleep that night for fierce excitement. She lay under the heavy rose-coloured worsted curtains of her bed which hung like a cloud in a corner of the room, and made her, crouching on the pillows, appear small and insignificant in comparison.
Her mind dwelt on yesterday wherein lay enshrined the one adventure of her life—the visit to Dr. Chaos and his extravagant but not, as it seemed to the girl, his impossible promises. How confidently he had spoken of her brilliant future! He had not mentioned a lover, but of course it was a lover he had meant. Had she not everything else? She clasped her hands behind her bright hair which she had carefully rolled into curls before she got into bed and lay sunk in the pillows, dreaming by the light of a little opal-shaded lamp. All the house seemed to be dreaming, it was so silent and wrapped-in on itself, in the midst of the noises of the city traffic, coaches going past over the cobbles, distant shouts, a dim hurly-burly in far-off streets.
In three days she was to go back to Hampstead. How she wished she could tell the other girls—none of whom she liked very much—her secret; it would make her appear in their eyes a grown-up woman. The flowers would be out on Hampstead Heath, it would be pleasant whenever she could escape from her lesson-books and her embroidery and her exercises on the harp, to wander there and dream of the future and look at the city lying in a many-coloured shade beneath her, the gold cross of the huge church sparkling above the mist.
Then she began to plan as to how she could visit Dr. Chaos again, and to fret deeply against the tyranny that made this simple action so perilous. The man lived so near, she passed his dwelling so often, yet how difficult to outwit Miss Vondy and visit him again! The first time she had been undetected, nobody had seen her either go or return. But she knew well enough that the servants were all engaged to spy upon her; she could not look for such luck twice, so she began to fret over the difficulties of returning to the physician, and sighed, pondered, planned and despaired until her little lamp flickered out, and through the thick curtains of rose-coloured worsted which matched those under which she lay and that hung long and straight at the window came the first hesitant light of dawn.
Then the girl sprang impatiently out of her bed and bare-footed ran to the window and dragged aside the curtains. The rings made a rasping noise on the pole as she did so. She pressed her face against the pane and looked up and down the grey empty street along which blew fragments of paper and a few straws.
How dismal life was! How dull and flat! Unless one did something daring to enliven it! Here one would not even know that it was spring. Her room was quite cold, she shivered in her thin nightgown. She did not want to return to her bed, which was associated with too many long hours of tossing and turning over problems.
Supposing she were to go to Dr. Chaos now; put on her clothes and run out! But of course this was absurd: Mr. Lilliecarp's shop would not be open and she could not stand in the passage knocking and ringing at a closed door.
She left the window and went to her mirror. Her eyes were swollen and reddened through lack of sleep, her over-full mouth was tremulous. She disliked her own appearance and began to weep.
Was she lovely? Would she ever be lovely and be loved? Would anyone ever tell her that she was beautiful, praise and cherish her? Not for her money—she already knew the value of that in the eyes of the world—but for herself, for her own wretched insignificant self? The day was just breaking and the day after that and the day after, and so on for weeks and months and years stretched before her with incredible desolation.
She began to weep so loudly that the ever-watchful Miss Vondy in the adjoining room heard her and came running in fearful of some misfortune, but there was nothing, only an attack of the megrims as usual, and the girl went sullenly back to bed with camphor drops on her forehead and a bottle of distilled lavender to hold to her nostrils, and bitter rebellion in her heart.
When Miss Pleasant Rawlins and Miss Vondy went out that morning they turned as usual down the passage. Indeed, the governess had no reason to avoid it since she did not know that her charge took any further interest in the quack whose board hung by Mr. Lilliecarp's shop.
The heiress looked up with deepest longing at the window in which gleamed the globe—the magic globe as she called it to herself, in which no doubt Dr. Chaos could, if he would, see all her destiny mirrored; and unable any longer to endure her yearning and suspense she broke away from Miss Vondy and ran into the shop.
"I want," she cried out in an excited tone, "to ask the price of the pink necklace." She spoke at random, for as she turned to the doorway her eye had caught the pale gleams of the beads that were like milk mingled with blood lying among the piles of tarnished knives and forks, and clocks stopped at different hours.
No one heard Miss Vondy's protest:
"There is nothing in here that is worth your buying, child!"
The passage was empty and Miss Pleasant Rawlins was already in the shop and it was the duty of the governess to follow her; it was her duty also to ignore her charge's unpleasant scowl.
"Oh, Mr. Lilliecarp, you must excuse Miss Rawlins. She has taken a sudden whimsical fancy to the pink beads in your window."
"Eh?" said Mr. Lilliecarp, leaving his high stool. He looked maliciously at the girl; he saw through her device, and that the necklace, like the watch in the crystal case, was only an excuse. She wanted, of course, to talk of Dr. Chaos, but there again she had been baulked by the interference of the governess. But he obeyed his instinct as a shopkeeper and slowly and laboriously disentangled the beads, which were flung loose without a case, from the medley of objects which surrounded them. There were thirty-two of these, all the same size and, when held up to the light they were very pale indeed, almost transparent, just faintly clouded by the milky pink.
"They are very pretty, I am sure, Mr. Lilliecarp," said the governess civilly; "but I am afraid they would not suit Miss Pleasant, nor indeed many people," she added, "they are so frail and insipid."
Mr. Lilliecarp made no comment. He never expected to sell the medley of objects in his window nor made any effort to trade with this strange merchandise. He stood patiently, his hands resting on the counter, his eyes downcast. He was wondering what the girl would do to further her secret designs, and rather enjoying her embarrassment as she ran the beads through her round white fingers. He noted that she had very charming hands.
The heiress was indeed in a quandary; she did not know what to do to get rid of Jane Vondy, but her wits were rather quicker than she herself gave them credit, and it was not very long before she said:
"I want to buy a watch for Margaret's birthday. You know, Margaret Beecham at the school. She is to have a birthday next month; she has asked me to a party which Miss Daulby is giving for her."
She ran on, using as much time as she could with her futile narrative, and ended with a request that she might remain in the shop and choose a watch while Miss Vondy continued the walk alone. They were going to Golden Square to buy slippers.
"You know the slippers are for you, Miss Jane," said Miss Pleasant slyly. "I don't see why I should be troubled. I shall be quite safe sitting in Mr. Lilliecarp's shop until you return."
The governess thought so, too. Conscientious as she was, she could not see what harm the girl could come to if she remained with the watchmaker. And she had her temptation, also. She very much wanted to go for a walk by herself without the tiresome company of this foolish girl. She wanted, in this agreeable springtime, to indulge in thoughts of Scotland and her lover waiting there, and it would be very delightful, she thought, to be able to try the slippers on without the girl sitting beside her making impertinent and impatient remarks. So she said, very politely:
"I hope, Mr. Lilliecarp, that Miss Rawlins will not disturb you if she waits here till my return. When she has finished her purchase she must wait and give you no trouble till I come back, which will not be for long."
So the governess hurried away, wishing to make her hour of liberty as long as possible, and Pleasant Rawlins laughed slyly as the door closed on her guardian.
"I hope," said Mr. Lilliecarp gravely, "that you really want to buy a watch, miss, for this sort of thing, you know, is wasting my time."
"Indeed I will buy a watch, the most expensive you have. Don't trouble to show me any, I care nothing about the pattern. It is true that Margaret Beecham has a birthday next month and I am to give her something. You have some watch suitable for a lady?"
"Oh, I have several. I am sorry you do not care to look at them," said the watchmaker, who was pleased at the thought of making this handsome sale; "but you did not really come here to buy a watch, I think, Miss Rawlins. You deceived your governess; you are going to run upstairs to visit Dr. Chaos again and you expect me to say nothing about it."
"You may put the price of your silence on to the price of the watch," said Miss Rawlins, with a touch of pretty insolence. She added in a coaxing tone: "Nay, you know I do no harm. I am only amusing myself and life is very dull."
"It has nothing to do with me," said Mr. Lilliecarp. "The watch will be twenty guineas and I hope you have as much money."
"I can get as much money as I want," replied the girl; and he thought that the statement and the manner in which she made it were both sad.
"Very well, then, run upstairs and consult your wizard, and when you come down the watch will be ready."
And so it happened that even sooner than he had expected, Dr. Chaos opened the door on Miss Pleasant Rawlins. He was delighted to see her, for this visit saved him a certain amount of trouble. He would have been put to many shifts and contrivances to get to speech of her. He invited her in and she noticed the difference in his manner from that with which he had greeted her the first time.
"Would you like to come into the inner chamber, Miss Rawlins? I have cast your horoscope, I have drawn your fortune in the sand and I find that you are going to be very lucky indeed."
She was too overjoyed to speak, but clasped her hands on her breast with such a pretty movement of excitement, there was such a bright flush on her cheeks and such a deep sparkle in her eyes that she looked quite lovely and Dr. Chaos thought:
"Well, if he could see now he would overcome his reluctance no doubt."
He led her into the inner room which he had carefully furnished with due regard to what is likely to impress superstitious and terrify the credulous. A skeleton hung in one corner; on a shelf were several vases and pots containing dried reptiles, bats and lizards. On a table beneath was a long black box in the form of a coffin, there was a slit in it intended for Dr. Chaos' clients to push coins through. The narrow window-place was entirely occupied by the globe, which had taken the fancy of both Miss Rawlins and Haagen Swendson, and this beautiful object of flawless crystal mounted on an ebony stand caught the light so powerfully, though it was not large, that there was a nimbus around it that made it appear several times its size. On one wall was a large chart of the stars, on another a case of large clasped books.
Dr. Chaos very courteously set a chair for Miss Pleasant and asked her if she would like to foresee her brilliant destiny in the crystal. The frightened, excited girl instantly agreed; he lifted the brilliant ball of light from the window, and placed it in its stand on a little table near her. Never had she stared at anything with such eager impatience as she gazed at the crystal, and she was at first disappointed to see nothing but a distorted reflection of the room and a high-light formed by the window.
"I can't see anything," she exclaimed, in sharp disappointment, "not even a reflection of my own face."
"Take it in your hands, warm it, clasp it tight, and look again," replied Dr. Chaos.
"Do not be disappointed if you can see nothing; perhaps you have not the gift of clairvoyance. Many, at the first attempt, are blind."
The girl took the crystal with some awe and trepidation in her long charming hand and stared into it, but still she could see nothing but a medley of crossed lights and shadows golden-brown and silver-grey, strange objects of the room shown upside down.
"Let me look," said Dr. Chaos serenely. His long dry fingers closed on the crystal ball and removed it from her hot clasp.
Miss Pleasant Rawlins gave him a slantways look which implored him to feed her curiosity and her expectation.
"There is a man in the crystal," said Dr. Chaos. "A very handsome young gentleman with fair hair and blue eyes. He wears a blue coat something the colour of his eyes, but a darker shade, which is braided all over with steel-coloured braid. He is taking out of his pocket his watch which is gold with a ring of sapphires on it. I see him walking down Great Queen Street past your house; he often looks up at the windows."
Dr. Chaos, from behind his silver-rimmed spectacles, shot his keen glance at the childish face of the girl who sat absorbed in this recital.
"He is foreigner and a man of good position with plenty of money. The crystal clouds over—I can see no more,but you will meet him quite soon."
But this bold revelation was too crude and sudden for the girl's taste. She was, if ardent, sensitive, and she shrank away shy and confused.
"What has this gentleman to do with me?" she muttered; and while her prominent eyes were downcast, Dr. Chaos gave her a malicious glance for a spoilt, tiresome brat, but his well-trained voice had no inflexion of anger or alarm as he replied:
"He is your fate, your destiny; he is going, in some way, to influence you, and I think it is good fortune he brings. You must look out for him. If he should speak to you do not be frightened, offended or angry, but listen to him. He is exceedingly handsome; there are not many men like him."
"I know no such one," said the heiress, ingenuously, "there is no such person among the gentlemen who visit my guardian."
"No, you have not yet seen him, but you will do so very soon. Did I not tell you yesterday that your future was brilliant and would come suddenly and unexpectedly? You must be brave." Dr. Chaos spoke with a sudden tone of menace: "There must be no foolishness nor hanging back." Then he added a question which surprised her very much: "When are you going back to your school at Hampstead?"
"Oh, in quite a short while, about a week or ten days. I ought to go now, for they say the illness is all over, but I am staying here as long as I can. It is dull here and it is dull at Hampstead, but here in Great Queen Street," she added frankly, "I can come and see you."
"Watch Lilliecarp's shop, you are not wrong in thinking that your destiny is bound up with that."
Miss Rawlins did not know that she had had that thought, but she was not disposed to deny it now that Dr. Chaos had put it into her mind.
"You can make some excuse to frequently go there?" he asked.
"Yes, I have bought a watch there to-day. I can say I wish the name engraved on it and call again. Very likely Miss Vondy, my governess, will be with me."
"Certainly," said Dr. Chaos reflectively, "we must think of some way of getting rid of her. She is, indeed, going to be a difficulty. Now, my pretty miss," he said in sharp practical tone, "you had better run back to the shop and wait for this same governess who, I suppose, you have on some excuse or other, got rid of."
"Do I not pay you something for these visits?" asked Miss Pleasant nervously.
"You shall pay me in good time, when I have rendered you some service. Come again to Mr. Lilliecarp's to-morrow, I shall be watching for you, and by then something may have happened."
This assurance filled the foolish girl's heart with joy. She ran downstairs with a light step and, very dutiful and wrapped in her own dreams, remained sitting on the high stool in a corner of the shop until Miss Vondy returned. Mr. Lilliecarp kept at his work and took no notice of her. He took no interest whatever, either in the girl on her follies; he was glad that he had sold the watch to her at a good price, not an extravagant price, for he was a conscientious tradesman, but it was a beautiful watch and one that in the ordinary way he might have had difficulty in disposing of; the money, however, he soon reflected, was of no use to him. He became melancholy again.
An old woman hobbled into the parlour of "The Four Billiard Tables." She carried a rush basket which was full of small bunches of primroses which she offered with an indifferent air to the men smoking, lounging and reading the newspapers at the long deal table. No one bought her flowers but some threw her a few coins with which she appeared quite satisfied. When she reached Haagen Swendson she gave him a large bunch of primroses without waiting for his consent. He was about to accept them out of native good humour when he noticed some letters on the paper in which they were wrapped—this was the messenger employed by Dr. Chaos to communicate with him, no doubt. She left without waiting for payment, and he put the pale, sweet flowers in his bosom and read the message:
"The little girl is as ready as a ripe peach to fall into your hand. I have prepared everything. I have also made inquiries about her fortune which is even more than I thought. If you do not care to trust me you may go into the matter yourself; but, in the view of possible after events, it would be better if your name did not appear in this affair.
"She is quite innocent, pliable, and docile; there is nothing to be feared from her. You will be able to do what you will with her. Contrive to be here to-morrow morning when she will pay me a third visit. I do not know at what hour she will arrive, but you must be prepared to lose some time over this business. I think you will agree that you will, in the end, be well repaid."
Haagen Swendson screwed up this hideous epistle and lit his pipe with it, crushing the ash of the paper between his finger and thumb. Some of the charred fragments fell, an ugly defilement, on the wilting primroses so pale, starry, and fragrant that he had thrust over his heart.
He did not have very long to wait on the morrow. He had not walked up and down the passage more than three or four times when he saw her hastening towards the watchmaker's shop. He knew her again and he looked at her very earnestly, absorbed then, not in his design on her fortune, but in his own wonderment as to whether or no he could ever love her. He was, despite what he proposed to do, very jealous of his honour and resolute on this point: that he would compensate to her for everything if he could but contrive to make her love him.
She paused in her timidity by the watchmaker's window and he saw her glance up at the globe which, set almost above the shadows of the passage, continued to catch sparkles of light. She was pretty he thought, and so young! She looked tender, gentle and rather foolish; he was infinitely sorry for her, not because of himself and his designs but because he sensed her loneliness, her desperate need of something more than formalities and futilities with which to fill her empty days. And, quite unselfconsciously, he stepped forward to look at her closer; and she, turning at last over the threshold, turned and looked at him. She noted instantly that he answered to the description Dr. Chaos had given her of the man he saw in the crystal.
The fresh rain falling on them as they stood there facing each other in the narrow passage. The clouds were low and swift overhead. Neither of them noticed anything save the other and the mind of each was full of strangeness of this encounter. She was so rapturously confounded that she lost all thought of herself and stared at him without embarrassment, and he on his part was considering: "This is the beginning of my chance, I must take advantage of it. I have not many days to spare."
So he pulled off his hat and addressed her, her amazement giving him ample opportunity. She remained arrested where she stood and he noticed the spring rain pearling in her loose bright hair. He asked her, very courteously, if she were ill, if he could be of any service of her? But he was not used to any manner of villainy or deception, and in his agitation he forgot his English, and his address was slurred and broken so that she did not understand him. At her continued candid stare, which had an expression of joyous recognition, he cried out in his own language a curse on himself and a word of compassion for her wronged simplicity.
"A foreigner!" said Pleasant Rawlins aloud, but to herself. She had not thought that. In all her dreams her lover had been an Englishman.
"I am a Dane. My name is Haagen Swendson." Thought of his desperate peril loomed closer on him and gave him a false self-assurance. "You are ill, you are overcome. Will you go with me into the shop and rest a little?"
"The shop!"
She glanced at it in nervous excitement. The shop of Mr. Uriah Lilliecarp—how it seemed to be the setting of the whole of this adventure!
He opened the door for her and she passed over the threshold. She hardly knew what she said and yet she began to be aware that the strangeness of this meeting must have some excuse even in the eyes of so dull and unimportant an observer as the watchmaker, so she exclaimed:
"The beads! The pink beads!"
The young man was so grateful for this excuse and quick to snatch at it. He was not aware that Miss Pleasant Rawlins was well known to Mr. Lilliecarp, so he said, with a good show of ease:
"Will you please, sir, give us the pink beads out of the window? I desire to purchase them for the lady."
He had noticed them when he was going up and down the passage, seen them lying among the piles of rusty knives and tarnished silver folks, and had wondered at them a little, vaguely surmising as to who had worn them last and who might wear them again.
Miss Rawlins sat down on the high stool and rested her elbows on the table and took her face in her hands. She was quite overwhelmed by the meeting with this man who was the exact replica of the cavalier whom Dr. Chaos had seen in the crystal. Never in her life before had she felt so happy and so sincere; a sense of remorse for all her past tempers and impatiences and discourtesies came over her. If only she could have known that this great good fortune was in store for her how good and patient she would have been with everyone! She felt that she was not deserving of her present felicity, and she trembled lest, by bad behaviour, it might be snatched away.
She wanted to do good to everyone; she should like to have put fifty pounds into the hands of Mr. Lilliecarp so that he, the poor, frail, tired hard-working man might go away and take a holiday which she was sure he had not had for years, nor had she till now concerned herself with the matter. She would like to pay Miss Vondy a handsome dowry so that she could leave at once the semi-servitude in which she was, and marry the patient, hard-working lover in Edinburgh.
All these generous and noble thoughts passed through her mind in the short space of time that it took Mr. Lilliecarp to bring the stones again from the window, where he had tossed them indifferently on Miss Vondy's rejection, and place them on the counter.
Miss Rawlins did not move. Rather abashed by her attitude and her silence, Haagen Swendson turned over the beads. She furtively watched his hands, large, well-shaped, capable; she noted the details of the linen fastened round his wrists by the small studs of amber and silver, and the buttons on his blue cuffs.
"Here is the necklace," he said at length, rather stiffly. "Do you, after all, like it?"
His embarrassment had returned on him; he felt a villain and an awkward fool, yet he tried to give the impression to the watchmaker that he was an accepted friend of the young lady.
"I like it very well," murmured the heiress. She did, indeed, like it more than anything she had ever seen in her life before—her first present from her future lover! It was precious beyond computation in her sight.
Haagen Swendson paid for the beads, they were only a few shillings. He thought: "That quack above would call this a good investment," and he wondered how he should pursue his acquaintanceship with the heiress. As he told out his coins on the counter compassion for her again overcame him. She was so young, obviously so foolish, there was something tender and pitiful about her. She was pale and slight like the primroses which he had thrust in his bosom the other day—the primroses that had accompanied the odious letter from Dr. Chaos which had been consumed so quickly by fire.
He began to perceive he had a very bitter lesson to learn, that a man who gets himself into difficulties must drop all niceties of honour if he wishes to extricate himself with any success. It was with a certain gesture of appeal that he gave her the beads, putting the matter into her hands as it were, though she had so much less experience, courage or sense that himself.
She stood up and put the pale cold chain round her throat; it was too long and hung low on her slight bosom.
Mr. Lilliecarp watched the comedy with some disgust which gradually changed into amusement. He could understand both the young man and the girl very well and the part that Dr. Chaos was playing in their destinies. One was a rogue and the other was a fool, and it was not his business to concern himself with either. It was likely, too, that he would make a little money out of the affair. He wondered that the girl was not better guarded, and he was a little surprised that so fine a young man should be conniving with a charlatan like Dr. Chaos to win the good graces of an heiress.
Mr. Lilliecarp had also a third matter for wonderment, and that was the latent evil in his own nature which made him almost rejoice at the disaster he saw ahead for these two, she looking so sweet and simple, palpitating with pleasure as she clasped the cheap ornament round her neck, he looking so fine and manly, so strong and upright as he watched the little victim round which he was slowly casting his net. It was the young man who spoke first. Again his realization of his hideous plight roused him into action. He said:
"It has ceased raining, shall we now leave!" and he offered her his arm and they stepped out of the watchmaker's.
Neither of them looked back to see the grin on Mr. Lilliecarp's dun-coloured face as he peered at them through his dirty pane.
Miss Pleasant followed Haagen Swendson in blind obedience, resting the tips of her fingers on his blue sleeve. He did not know in the least what to do with her, where to go or what to say and he felt that she was waiting for his commands. He turned down the passage towards Lincoln's Inn, but she shrank back.
"I do not think we ought to be seen," she said, glancing up at him confidentially. "I am not allowed to speak to strangers."
"No, no, of course," he muttered in confusion. "I wonder that you should be out alone;" and again they paused and looked at each other in the narrow passage, standing in front of the print-shop now where the old, forgotten, and dusty books lay tumbled behind the panes thick with dirt.
A scatter of rain fell again; the sky was pale and fading violet, the clouds, faint, low, and few, were scattered like ashes flung into the air.
"Do you know me?" asked Pleasant Rawlins.
He told her that he did and gave her name. He added, confusion giving an air of sincerity to commonplace words, that he had seen her walking abroad with her companion, and sometimes at the window of her guardian's house in Great Queen Street.
"I have never seen you before," said Miss Pleasant, "but I have heard of you."
"How is that possible?" he asked.
And then she told him, ingenuously, of the vision in the crystal and he was so ashamed that he knew not what to say or do, but heaved a sigh and turned his head away. He thought to himself: "I cannot go on with this. This girl is too young and innocent." So he said patiently:
"I should not have spoken to you; I should not have disturbed you. I must go away very soon. I have a ship lying now in London port that will sail in a few days. Yes," he repeated, half to her and half-thinking of his own need, "I have only a few days."
"So have I," said Miss Pleasant. "I have to return to my school at Hampstead," and at the thought of the dreariness ahead of her if this stranger went away, tears lay in her slightly prominent eyes. "You are my friend, are you not?" she pleaded.
"I do not know if I should be allowed to be your friend, Miss Pleasant. Your guardian does not know me. I am a gentleman, and of some standing in my own country, but in London—nothing."
At this obstacle she showed a sudden cunning which considerably lessened his pity for her simplicity, for she said immediately:
"You could tell my guardian, Sir Thomas Lemoine, that you are the son of a friend of my father. He knew some Danes in Flanders, I remember it quite well, officers in the Duke of Holstein's troop. My guardian is indifferent and kindly, he would suspect nothing. Then," she said, with a flush of joy, "you could come and go quite freely and we could meet without hindrance."
At her slyness and her eagerness he became stern and selfish. He thought it was odious that she was so ready to plot and that there was something wanton in the instant favour that she showed him—a stranger; he was as disgusted as if she had been his own sister.
"Do you want me to come to your guardian's house?" he asked. "You know nothing of me, Miss Pleasant. I might be a sad fellow."
She shook her head, and at her reply he was again sorry for the forlorn little fool.
"It is so dull," she said.
She did not remind him of the vision in the crystal, but he knew that she was thinking of that.
"Would you like to see my ship?" he asked on a sudden impulse, and he knew as he spoke that he must have liked her more than he thought he did, for he never mentioned his ship save to those whom he trusted.
She could scarcely reply for pleasure—his ship! She would have liked to see anything that belonged to him, his horse, his sword, his house, and of course, his ship.
"It is in London Docks," he said, as they sauntered very slowly to the end of the passage; and she had an instant vision of it, monstrous, magnificent, filling the whole of the river with its painted brilliant bulk, the whole of the sky with sails and flags.
"When can I come?" she asked breathlessly.
And he replied:
"I had better send my credentials to your guardian."
She shook her head, at once bitterly cunning again.
"No, he is away and it would take too long. There would be delays and you say you have only a few days, so have I. Go to Hampstead, to Miss Daulby's school on the Heath and tell her who you are, say that you think to find me there. You can satisfy her, I know, and she will send you to Great Queen Street, and then when you arrive there I can talk round Miss Vondy, that is my governess."
And again the young man repeated, trying to save this wilful impetuous creature from herself:
"Why do you want to know me, Miss Pleasant? I don't think I am worth your pains."
She presented some dignity to this protest.
"Are we not meant to know each other?" she asked, holding her head high. "Is it not intended?" Then, like a child once more: "Please arrange it soon. If I am allowed to know you openly, I and miss Vondy can easily go and see your ship. Will you come to-morrow?" she urged.
The quick clouds had become slower in their movements, the straight rain was descending like broken lances in the clear spring air. Haagen Swendson still held his broad-leaved hat under his arm and his bright stiff curls were becoming beaded with moisture.
"You must go home, Miss Pleasant, it is beginning to rain quite fast."
"Yes, perhaps I had better do so; Miss Vondy will be looking for me. To-morrow!— remember! it is a solemn engagement."
She turned away with a quick dignity and decision that moved his respect, and walked away across Lincoln's Inn Fields. But when she reached the house in Great Queen Street she found that the governess was indeed spying out for her The girl had a fine excuse. She pointed to the pink beads round her throat.
"You see, I felt I had to have them. I went back and bought them after all."
Miss Vondy was relieved that the escapade had amounted to no more than that, but she was also a little troubled by the brightness of the girl's eyes, the radiance of her bearing. She seemed a creature suddenly transformed into loveliness, as if the pink beads were an enchantment.
Haagen Swendson loitered a little about the wet streets, then returned and quickly mounted the stairs to the chambers of Dr. Chaos. There, diffidently and sullenly, he recounted his adventure with the heiress, still half-inclined to cast up the whole matter and walk unarmed upon his dreadful fate, still half-inclined to wholly put himself in the hands of Dr. Chaos.
That personage wholly approved of the young man's conduct, and expressed his admiration for the wit displayed by Miss Pleasant Rawlins.
"You see, you need have no compunction or scruples. She knows what she wants and intends to get it. Why, I dare say she would marry you to-morrow without any demur. He design for passing you off as a son of her father's friend is excellent, and so is that of your journeying to Hampstead. I dare swear you will be able to talk round this Miss Daulby," and Dr. Chaos, who liked to exercise his skill, asked a few questions, made a few notes, and set himself with zest to forge carefully various letters and documents which went to prove that Haagen Swendson's father had at one time been an officer in the Duke of Holstein's troop in Denmark, where he had made the acquaintance of Sir Jonathan Rawlins, father of Miss Pleasant.
The young man demurred at this deception:
"This makes me out a low cheat. I do not need these forged papers. Afterwards it will put a very ugly complexion on the whole affair."
But Dr. Chaos merely smiled and gave one of those quick movements of the head which flashed the light in a menacing and sinister fashion from the glasses of his square, silver-rimmed spectacles.
"What does it matter what happens afterwards, Mr. Swendson, when you have that woman and all her money? She will be easy and loving I dare swear. You will have no difficulty in getting every ha'penny out of her. And then, if you do not like her, or she is tiresome, you need not be troubled with her for very long."
And at this the young merchant cried out hotly and swore that it was his firm intention to make the unfortunate girl, for so with every emphasis he named her, the best of husbands; and again Dr. Chaos smiled.
Haagen Swendson, with his fine appearance, good address, and candid face, found no difficulty i persuading Miss Daulby of the truth of his story; for indeed, frankly told as it was told, and supported as it was by the papers prepared by Dr. Chaos, there was no reason in the world to doubt it. The schoolmistress liked the handsome young man, and in her heart wished him good fortune as she gave him the address of Miss Rawlins in Great Queen Street.
The girl, she said, would be returning to school in a few days, but she was quite sure that she would be pleased to see the son of her father's friend and delighted to go with her governess and visit the ship as the young man had suggested.
She thought, as she saw him ride away through the pale bloom of spring which hung above the full flowering hawthorn bushes on the Heath, that it would be a very agreeable thing for the spoilt, restless, and discontented girl if she could find so good a husband as the manly young Dane who appeared to be, indeed, no contemptible match since his father, once a brave soldier, must be a merchant in a large way of business to be able to send his own ship loaded with timber to the Port of London.
But, Miss Daulby thought with a sigh, there is not much chance that so likely a young fellow will take a fancy to a peevish girl like poor Pleasant.
So the young man was able to be true to his appointment, and twenty-four hours after he had left Pleasant running across Lincoln's Inn Fields in the rain, he was on her doorstep begging her to receive him as the son of her father's friend.
Nor did Miss Rawlins find any difficulty in persuading Miss Vondy that they should see this young man. There was to the governess a pleasant flavour about the words Dane and ships, and the thoughts of the young merchant from the north, the fresh clean cargo of pinewood being unloaded at the London Docks, and she received the young foreigner very courteously.
He stayed and had tea with the two young women, and his native frankness and candour served him as well as his handsome person so that no suspicion was aroused in the mind of Miss Vondy, who said that she would send his papers to Miss Rawlin's guardian who was expected in town in a few days, and then no doubt Sir Thomas himself would be delighted to make the acquaintance of the son of his old friend.
Haagen Swendson fell silent for a little space on these words. The expression "a few days" had begun of late to haunt him. He had only a few days before his ultimate disaster; Miss Rawlins had only a few days before she must return to school at Hampstead; Dr Chaos had spoken "of everything being over in a few days," and here again was Miss Vondy talking of the guardian coming to London in a few days. He said at last, suddenly aware that the two young women were waiting for him to speak:
"Will you come on the ship to-morrow? The weather is fine, and it might be amusing for you. Bring any friends whom you like," he added eagerly, for it was always in his heart to protect this young woman against herself. He thought that there might be among her acquaintances some man who was fond of her and who should be given this chance to save her from the designs of a villain like himself.
So self-divided was this young man, who against his own nature had set his hand to dishonour.
Miss Vondy was making a plait of brading, green, blue, and violet. She had pinned it to the end of a tapestry chair and was twisting the coloured ends quickly through her pretty fingers. As she spoke she introduced another colour, scarlet, into the braid.
Haagen Swendson was watching her and he thought, oddly, that what she said introduced another strand into the intrigue just as her fingers had brought another colour into the braid she was plaiting, for she announced with a charming dignity that her betrothed husband was now in London, and though it was beyond her duty to see much of him since she had promised to keep a strict companionship with Miss Rawlins, still she thought on this occasion—if they might stretch the courtesy of Mr. Haagen so far—she would like him to accompany them on their visit to the Ice Maiden.
Haagen Swendson of course agreed, and as he did so he reflected how much easier his own affair would be made by introduction into he matter of this man who might be counted upon to occupy Miss Vondy's attention, and even, with careful management, much of her time.
The Danish sailors made a festival on the deck of the Ice Maiden to receive their young master's friends. The timber merchant and his son were both popular with the captain and crew. Not one of all these men had the least suspicion that anything was amiss with the fortunes of Mr. Haagen, for he had been to agonizing pains to conceal all his recklessnesses, stupidity and folly.
So the occasion seemed quite of a holiday and joyous nature. The deck, always spotless, was newly scrubbed, the brasswork shone like pale gold, and new Danish flags fluttered from the rigging. There was an awning on the deck, and under it a table set with refreshments and stuck with spring flowers. The weather had become suddenly hot, the grey-green river flowed mildly eastward; in the distance, faintly veiled by mauve clouds, was the low façade and squat domes of Greenwich Hospital, and beyond, above the tops of trees and church spires was the queer shape of the temple of the star-gazers.
The docks were full of shipping; it was high tide, and a multitude of sea-gulls floated lazily up and down against the rigid lines of the bare masts. In the gardens of the merchants, which sloped to the river's edge, the first roses were beginning to glow and the grass was very green.
The three English people made themselves very agreeable in return for this hospitality. It was only natural that Miss Vondy and her affianced husband should be much together, thus leaving the heiress to the care of the young Mr. Haagen; but the sailors innocently concluded that this was his choice—a lady who had, no doubt, his father's approval. And so she was observed closely by these men who took her at the time for an ordinary, pretty young girl, but afterwards when her name had become almost a legend they each gave a separate account of her appearance, dwelling with awe on every detail of her person and attire.
She was dressed in a gown of stiff silk on which were small knots of coloured flowers, she had a frilled mantle of a clear green, and a wide hat that cast her face into shadow. Several men noted as she went up and down the gangways inspecting, with her pretty laughing curiosity, the great ship, her saffron-coloured sandals and her white stockings. She had never been on a ship before and was really excited and interested. She was, too, living in a day-dream which had suddenly become real; she was in a strange place with a magnificent lover, what more could any hour offer such as Pleasant Rawlins?
All her schemes, which she had made up in a moment in the passage off Lincoln's Inn, had worked so smoothly that she believed she saw the hand of destiny in the furtherance of them. She did not think that there would ever be any obstacle between her and this splendid stranger. It heightened him in her estimation to see him on board his own ship where he was master and all were deferential to him. She had a great impression of his wealth and importance; to her ignorant eyes the Ice Maiden seemed worth thousands of pounds, more than the whole of her fortune, and she thought the cargo of English goods which were being loaded on in place of the planks of pines was of great value: woollens and cutlery from the Midlands, lace from Buckingham and silk from Spitalfields; all seemed very costly to her.
She stood with Haagen Swendson on the deck. The sunshine, which was really bright for the first time that year, gave a rosy lustre to the beads round her throat; those dull-pink stones which had lain so long in the window of Mr. Lilliecarp had been tenderly cleaned and polished, and next her warm flash showed a charming lustre. They were, after all, quite beautiful.
On board his own ship Haagen Swendson had recovered much of his self-respect. His vanity was assuaged by the fact that Miss Vondy and her betrothed, a respectable young Scots gentleman, received him without any question. The fact that these three people had not the least suspicion of him helped to heal the wound in his own self-esteem which had been made by the horrid part he was playing. It was easy for him standing there, where he was master, with the pretty young girl beautifully dressed for his pleasure by his side, to persuade himself that he did nothing mean or despicable.
"Why should she not like me?" he asked himself defiantly. "Why should I not like her? We may be quite happy. Her money will save me, and Sir Thomas will forgive me this secret marriage."
Yet he was galled to think that he must be secret, dare not go to the heiress's guardian and put his case before him. But there would be inquiries, at the very best, and delays that he could not afford. Only that morning a boat had put in from Copenhagen which had on board a letter from one of his creditors, an angry threatening message. He had—and here again the short sentence was jangled through his mind, which was recently bit and stung—"only a few days."
He put his hand over hers where it lay on the bright rail, and felt her start and quiver as he had sometimes felt a horse start and quiver beneath him when he had thrust the rowel into its tender side.
"Will you marry me, Pleasant?" he said, fiercely, under his breath. "I think it has been ordained for both of us. There is no escape."
He meant what he said. It seemed to him that they were indeed snared, as if there was no escape for him from his bitter necessity, and no escape for her from her folly. To his shame he saw that she was deeply enamoured of him. He had been touched by what he had learnt of her empty, most innocent life from her and from Miss Vondy. She had never spoken alone to a man before; she was indeed nothing but a stupid schoolgirl.
He could not bring himself to say "I love you," yet in that moment he thought that he did love her a little. He clasped the quivering hand more tightly on the bright rail and said:
"I will be honest with you." Then, in his slightly stiff English: "I will act honourably towards you."
She was silent, for she wanted to hear him plead. She wanted to prolong this moment which instinct told her would be the most ecstatic of her life, as long as possible. For ever was imprinted on her memory, the slow, grey-green river beneath, the houses and gardens opposite, the pale, misty sky through which the sunlight gleamed like gold sifted through a veil.
"Will you marry me?" he insisted. "Do you care enough for me to trust me? I vow you shall not be mistaken."
She found nothing curious in this sudden proposal. She had dreamt too long of such happiness, dwelt too long on such thoughts of sudden love. She looked at him, unable even for her own pleasure to hold silent any longer, and said with the utmost sincerity:
"Of course I will marry you."
So she made him the gift of her heart and soul, of her person and her fortune, with no more ado than if she took a spring flower from one of the bouquets behind them on the festival table and offered it to him carelessly.
He was deeply moved and snatched up her hand and kissed it. His blond hair fell down about her wrist, and Pleasant Rawlins found nothing wrong with all the world.
He bound her easily to secrecy. She wanted no intruder on her marvellous happiness. She would, if it had been possible, have married him at once and sailed with him on the Ice Maiden to his own country far away from what she considered the glooms and melancholy, the fogs and dullness of her native country.
It seemed to her most fitting and desirable that she should put up her small belongings in a small parcel, slip out one night, meet him at his inn, go somewhere where they could be married, and depart with him suddenly out of her own commonplace life into a world that would be new and strange and intoxicatingly glorious.
She was quite cunning at concealing her wild excitement, yet not wholly successful. If Miss Vondy had not been herself absorbed in the presence of her own lover she would have noticed something of the girl's feverish agitation. But conscientious as the governess was, it was but human that she should be on this occasion a little careless. She saw no danger on the horizon, and if it did come into her mind that the young merchant, who had played the host so courteously on board his beautiful ship, might be a possible suitor for the young girl, she thought, as Miss Daulby had thought, that the advantages would be all on the side of Miss Pleasant, for Haagen Swendson was obviously young, handsome, and agreeable, while Miss Vondy believed that he was quite as wealthy as her young charge.
It was only four days before the ship was due to sail, and the heiress due to return to her school at Hampstead, so the lovers had very little time. This gave her a sense of delicious urgency and him a sensation of frantic pursuit. He felt like one doubling, turning, panting, running, before the advance of an invisible enemy, while she felt as if invisible spirits of delight hastened her forward to an unutterable felicity.
It was not difficult for her to visit again Mr. Lilliecarp, to inquire after the presentation watch.
It was finished. The sentimental inscription was complete, but Miss Pleasant did not read it. She put down her money and ran on a breath upstairs to the rooms of Dr. Chaos, where her lover was waiting for her.
The pale, bilious eyes of Mr. Lilliecarp followed her and fixed themselves unpleasantly on the door which she had left half-open behind her. The watchmaker, who, living so much alone, had ample time for reflection, had become ashamed of the evil impulse which had made him rejoice in the impending misfortune of this young girl. He felt it was his duty to warn her or to apprise her guardian of her danger. He was not himself exempt from the fascination of the company of Dr. Chaos.
He had been up there the night before to play a game of cards with the quack.
He had thought that he had almost forgotten any game of skill; but Dr. Chaos had soon revived the rules in his mind and it had been very agreeable, the watchmaker had found, to play game after game in the little room above the passage in which was the crystal globe, books, and plants on their various shelves.
When they had played for an hour or so, Dr. Chaos had brought out a greenish flagon with black seals which contained a potent liquor distilled, he had said, by monks dwelling outside Florence, and when Mr. Lilliecarp had drunk a glass or two of this he had felt very much exalted and in love with life, which was a strange sensation for him, and he had settled himself back in Dr. Chaos' easy, worn chair and listened with pleasure to the malicious conversation of the charlatan.
Dr. Chaos had been careful, even with such a dull and discreet listener as Mr. Lilliecarp, and even after he had himself drunk several glasses of the good liqueur, but the watchmaker had been able to glean some light on the story of Haagen Swendson and Pleasant Rawlins. His suspicions had been confirmed by chuckling words that Dr. Chaos let drop, by sly smiles that chased each other across the small, death-like face.
The young merchant, Mr. Lilliecarp had learnt, who made so brave a show, was in reality, a ruined gambler, and the little heiress, who was nothing more than a child, and who was indeed still at school and should have been better looked after, was just a love-sick fool whose fancy had been played on by a pretended vision in the crystal.
Mr. Lilliecarp also gleaned the information that a secret marriage was intended. The girl was to be taken away from her home, friends and country, and married to the villainous young stranger who would use all her fortune in repaying his debts and saving his reputation.
Dr. Chaos had thought that he knew his man and had judged it wise to take the watchmaker a little bit into his confidence, since from his post of vantage in the shop below he was likely to be able to study the intrigue at first hand. So, while not wholly telling him the tale, nor indeed wishing him to understand as much of it as he did, he yet made it clear to him that it would be worth his while to be silent as to what he might see in the comings and goings of the young merchant and the heiress in the little passage.
He had already sold a valuable watch which he had expected to have long on his hands, also the pink necklace, no doubt not for very much, but still for more than it was worth. Other work might come his way, and, if need be, a good round sum would be paid him for his silence. Money was no use to him, yet the thought of it could give him a transient, false pleasure.
At the time, Mr. Lilliecarp, sitting at the card-table and looking up at the bottles in which were the small dried bats and reptiles, had grinned and acquiesced; but with the morning, when his head was heavy and his throat sour from the fumes of the unaccustomed liquor, he thought with some disgust of Dr. Chaos; and his conscience began to prick and stir. By degrees he became heartily ashamed of himself.
Why had he rejoiced in the downfall of this wretched young girl? What had she ever done to him? He had been a respectable man all his life, earning a hard living by honest toil, and when he came to think of it he had no need at all for money. It was too late—bribes were of no use to him. Custom had set so firm a seal upon him that he knew he would not be able to leave the passage even for a brief holiday. No; the first time that he would go very far, that he would go more than a few paces away from his home, would be when he was carried out feet foremost and taken to rest in the nearest churchyard.
So now, when he saw Miss Pleasant snatch up her watch and run upstairs, when he marked her panting bosom and moist lips and sparkling eyes, her turned over in hi slow, perturbed mind as to how he might save her without involving himself in questions or trouble, or bringing her to open disgrace.
The young woman knew nothing of what was in Mr. Lilliecarp's mind. With a light rap she gave her summons on the door of Dr. Chaos' room, and the charlatan himself, his manner as sweet as honey, opened to her; and there within, in the bare poor ante-chamber, stood Haagen Swendson, making all the world bright for her dazzled eyes.
Dr. Chaos had just been urging the young man to hasten matters. Time was slipping away, the days were now very few indeed. Haagen Swendson would not be able to delay his sailing, he would not be able to delay her return to Hampstead, so with averted eyes and stiff lips he took her two hands in his and began urging her forcefully, and using many words of his own language in his confusion, to marry him at once.
She mistook this embarrassment for the ecstasies of passion and responded by a whole-hearted and child-like obedience. She would do everything he said. She believed that she could slip away from the house and meet him in the twilight at the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Once she was in his hands what more did she need to know? But he insisted on telling her his plans.
He would take her to "The Four Billiard Tables" in the Strand, and he emphasized (she wondered why, for the point to her was indifferent) the great respectability of this place. A clergyman and two witnesses would be there; he would fetch them from the purlieus of the Fleet. He had gone into all the points of English law and discovered that such a marriage, strange as it seemed to him, would be perfectly legal. She would then be his wife and could sail with him on the Ice Maiden for Copenhagen. From his own country he would write to her guardian. He would take her to his home and put her under the protection of his mother, and on this point he was again emphatic—she would be under the protection of his mother. This, like the insistence of the respectability of the tavern where he lodged, was to salve his conscience, for he was thinking miserably that as soon as he got her to Copenhagen he would have to take steps to put himself in possession of her fortune. He would have to let his creditors in Copenhagen know that he had married an heiress.
All this had been arranged with Dr. Chaos, who was going to act as his agent in London, but it was hateful, humiliating to dwell upon.
The young girl agreed to everything that he said. She loved him to the extent that she had been ready to love anyone who was comely and kindly to her and who professed devotion to her person. She loved him for everything she noted about him: for his foreign accent, for his great stature, for his blond hair, for his blue eyes that had so often, she knew not why, an anxious frown above them, for his brusque caresses which seemed to be given unwillingly and quickly checked, for all the promise there was in his voice and look and touch.
Dr. Chaos, who had been hovering in the shadow at the back of the room, broke in on this low lovers' conversation. They stood close together in the window-place near the crystal ball.
"Miss Rawlins, I have stood your friend in this, and I hope you will not resent it if I give you a little good advice. Have you any jewels?"
The girl nodded, wondering, however, what this question could have to do with her present ecstasy.
"You will, of course, bring them with you. It would be dangerous to leave them behind in Great Queen Street, somebody might steal them in your absence."
The girl shook her head, smiling.
"Only Miss Vondy and myself know where they are."
"Still, you must bring them with you. You do not wish to look like a pauper to your husband's people. No doubt they are of value."
The girl thought they were. She was not often allowed to wear them. She knew where they were kept in a strong box in a cupboard above the wall in her bedroom. She could remember some rubies and pearls, several golden bracelets and paste shoe-buckles.
"They will not take up much room," urged Dr. Chaos; "you will bring them with you. Lift them out of the case and wrap them in kerchiefs and linen. If you have any money, and it seems to me that you are well supplied for so young a person, bring that with you also."
Miss Rawlins replied that her guardian did keep her very well supplied with money. She had all she needed, too much, indeed. She gave away a great deal in charities.
"Your charities must now be in your husband's care," said Dr. Chaos. "Bring all the money you can with you, both in gold and in bills of exchange or whatever you may be able to lay your hands on. Remember that the house in Great Queen Street and all that is in it is your property and will be your husband's when you are married."
Haagen Swendson stood in the window-place biting his lips with chagrin and looking down at the dark passage below. He would like to have fled from the room when Dr. Chaos began to talk like this, but shame held him in his place. Miss Pleasant Rawlins, however, smiled with delight at the charlatan's words. This was the first time she had realized that her property would go to her husband when she was married. All such questions had been quite out of her reckoning. It gave her much pleasure to think that she would be able to bring something with her for this magnificent creature who deigned to make her his wife.
"Why, yes, I am quite an heiress, am I not!" she exclaimed ingenuously; "I had forgotten that. I have other properties, too," she added proudly, "in the country, and I think some houses in London and quite a handsome sum in stocks."
"Yes, yes," interrupted Dr. Chaos, glancing uneasily at the young man, from whom he feared some outburst of passion; "but that is no matter to Mr. Swendson, who has plenty of money of his own. Remember his fine ship full of goods that you saw. His father is a great man in Denmark."
The heiress had needed no reassurance on this point. She believed implicitly that her lover was even wealthier than she was, but it did bring another reflection to her mind and she said, rather sadly:
"I think I would like to be married with the countenance of my friends. I am sure my guardian would make no objection. Could not Mr. Swendson ride into Kent and ask Sir Thomas to be present at my marriage?"
"There is so little time," said Dr. Chaos, while the young man, leaning his head against the dingy window-place, did not answer. In the twilight in face looked sickly pale.
"There is so little time," repeated the charlatan, laying his hand with a paternal air on the young girl's shoulder. "You must understand that, my dear young lady. It is a case of love at first sight, of a sudden and violent passion on the part of our young friend here. Who knows what may happen if he sails and leaves you behind! Some other gallant may win your favour."
"No, no! It is impossible!" interrupted Pleasant.
"One never knows," smiled the charlatan, "and in that case your lover would break his heart. Besides, is there not something dull and commonplace in an ordinary marriage made publicly? Would you not prefer to preserve your dream intact? To run out into the twilight," and his voice became very soft and coaxing, "to find your lover waiting for you there in the shadows, take his hand, go away with him into a new country and a new life?"
"Yes, I would prefer that."
"And you need not fear afterwards"—smiled Dr. Chaos—"any opposition from your friends, for they will be only too pleased that you have chosen so well and so wisely. Who would not," he added, rubbing his hands together lightly, "be delighted to welcome so handsome and wealthy a young gentleman as Mr. Haagen Swendson?"
Pleasant Rawlins was happy as an unblemished flower opening to a cloudless sun. She was completely dazzled by joy and Miss Jane Vondy noticed the change in her and believed she had fallen in love with the Danish merchant and saw no harm in that. "Indeed," she thought with tenderness, "that was what was wrong with the child! She never had had anybody to love her. If the young man will have her it will make of her not only a happy but a good and useful woman."
But Miss Vondy was rather prim and precise in her thoughts and judged others by herself. She had been much distressed by the whims, caprices, and tempers of the heiress.
Miss Pleasant Rawlins lay in her bed under the dark-rose brocade curtains which were like a cloud in the corner of the high bedchamber. She held up the pink beads against her bare bosom. In twenty-four hours she would be his wife! Everything in the world seemed to her to blend in an exquisite harmony. There was no flaw in her contentment: she questioned nothing, nothing roused in her any wonder. He had not needed to use any deception, she bore her own illusion within her own credulous heart. Happiness had given her self-assurance, the passing of her discontent had made her almost beautiful. She had blossomed rapidly under the false smiles of this reluctant lover. The image of his ship was always before her eyes; waking or sleeping she saw it as it had been decked for her reception with the awning on the deck, the table set with flowers, cakes and wine, the grey-blue river hurrying eastward below, the veiled clouds shot with sunshine above and the gardens with the newly-blown roses on either bank.
Soon—ah, how soon, he and she would be on that ship together! She had read so many old tales where lovers stood hand in hand on board ship with the wind blowing in the sails and taking their hair—ah, his blond hair—back from their faces, while they faced a world, more beautiful surely than this world ever could be save in the imagination of a lover.
They would go away to his own country, brightly dark (as she thought of it), with blue towers and black forests rising into brilliant sky and a feeling of ice in the air even in summer. She would no longer be a schoolgirl, she would be a woman loved as a wife. All the futilities and pettiness of her childhood fell from her, she thought that never again would she be angry with anyone, nor jealous, nor lazy. For his sake she would learn so much and learn it with joy.
Never again would she be untidy nor rude. She hoped to do much good before she died. In the midst of her reflections she shuddered with a sudden incredulous realization of her extraordinary happiness. It was hardly to be believed that out of the women whom he might have had he had chosen her. Her heart sang within like a bird on a flowering bough. For the first time in her life she did not think selfishly, not of herself nor her money and position nor what the world owed her nor what she might expect or demand from other people, but only of what she might give and the service she might render to others, and what she might do, humbly, to justify her extraordinary good fortune.
She was, although she dreamt so deeply, like everyone engaged in a clandestine intrigue, alert for every sound, and she heard at once the scatter of small pebbles on her windows behind the thick curtains and in a second she was out of bed and had put on the first garment which came to hand—the taffeta mantle of apple-green with frills which she had worn where she went aboard the Ice Maiden. It was he!—he had come a day and a night earlier than the arrangement. Then her excess of joy fell to terror. Had something happened? Was he there to tell her that there must be delay—some misfortune?
She dragged aside the dark, rose-pink curtains and peered out into the short, straight street with the flat house-fronts bluish in the moonlight. A man's figure was distinctly to be seen below. He wore a cloak and a hat pulled over his brow, and she knew at once that he was not her lover for he had no magnificence. He was only half, so it seemed to her, the height and stature of Haagen Swendson.
But this man when he saw her at the curtain made an anxious signal with his hands and she concluded that it was a messenger from her promised husband. Everyone in the house and the street, it seemed, was asleep; the deep silence was unearthly as Pleasant Rawlins opened the casement and putting out her head asked cautiously:
"Who is it? Do you wish to speak to me?"
She did not recognize the voice in which the man replied:
"Miss Rawlins, if you value your future or your happiness, come down at once and speak to me."
"Oh, God," thought the girl, "something has gone wrong with our enterprise."
She turned to the room, leaving the curtains pulled behind her and by the light of that shaft of moonshine put on her clothes, not noticing how she adjusted them, and crept downstairs in her saffron-coloured sandals that made no noise on the oak boards. She undid the chain and opened the door very cautiously, and there was the man standing on the door-step. She saw then, by that bluish moonlight haze, that it was Mr. Lilliecarp the watchmaker and she nearly fainted with apprehension.
"I won't come in," said Mr. Lilliecarp in a low anxious voice, "what I have to tell you won't take two minutes."
"You are a messenger from him?" breathed the girl.
The watchmaker shook his head.
"No, I come on my own account."
"Then this is a strange time to come?" she questioned, curiously and with great apprehension.
For the first time she saw Mr. Lilliecarp apart from his shop and realized him as a human being and not as an automaton who made and mended watches all day long. This puzzled her, and the man whom she had known all her life seemed an utter stranger and this added to her fear. She had never heard him speak of anything but his work, and she noted that he had difficulty with his words, for he was indeed unaccustomed to frame any but the shortest sentences and what he had to say would not be easy even to one glib of tongue. What she heard between his stiff, awkward distress and her own horror was this:
"Miss Rawlins, I didn't want to tell you this in the shop though I might have had the chance, for I thought maybe you would rather hear it in the dark and have the night for a covering than publicly and in the daylight. This young foreigner who has got hold of you is a rogue, a ruined gambler much pressed by his creditors. He went to that scoundrel who calls himself Dr. Chaos and asked him to find him an heiress, and they fixed on you as being young and simple and not too well looked after. The quack got you by describing the young man, who is likely enough to look at, in the crystal, and he was lounging about in the passage to have a chance of speaking to you. I meant to let it go at first. I thought you would know how to look after yourself; but I am sorry to say from what I can hear they seem to have trapped you. If there is any talk of a secret marriage, don't let them take you in, miss, they're only a couple of rogues after your money."
The young heiress leant in the doorway; the apple-green taffeta looked a livid colour in the moonlight. To the anxious eyes of the jeweller her face appeared blank, expressionless, almost featureless, as if wiped out by a white veil of cloud.
"I know what I'm saying, madam; I shouldn't have taken this trouble for nothing. If you like I'll say what I know to your guardian, but perhaps it would be better for all concerned to keep mum about it. I should go back to Hampstead if I were you and forget. I know it's only a piece of girlish nonsense and you will soon live it down."
"He doesn't then, care for me!"
The girl's whisper was so horrible that it pierced even the callous heart of Mr. Lilliecarp.
"I've come to warn you," he replied, shuffling away down the steps; "you must do what you think fit. He is a ruined gambler and they're a couple of rogues. It don't stand to reason that he should take a fancy to you in so short a time. Think it over, madam. As I say, I'll make public all I know if you say the word."
He gave a pull at his broad-leaved hat and hastened away down the empty, moonlit street.
Miss Rawlins closed the door and hastened upstairs to her room. Her paramount terror was that she should be heard, discovered, and robbed of her most necessary solitude.
Of course, she believed nothing of what she had heard. Her fidelity would stand a greater test than this. Mr. Lilliecarp was mad, or wicked, or lied for some sour jesting purpose.
She took off her clothes and was surprised when her fingers touched her flesh to find how cold she was. Her heart must be cold, too. She put her hand to her bosom and it seemed as if she were ice inside.
"A couple of rogues, and a ruined gambler!"
She believed she heard of such things, had heard warnings from Miss Daulby about strangers. She had been persuading herself that this man was not a stranger; now she remembered that it was on her own suggestion that he had passed himself off as the son of her father's friend. She remembered the letters he had brought to Hampstead—who had forged them for him? But, of course, it had all been on her advice and made no difference to their great love.
She stood for a moment on the bed-step beneath the cloud-like dark-rose brocade curtains and then, as she set down her head towards the pillow meaning to cast herself into oblivion, she reeled where she stood and fell unconscious, her soft, foolish face showing white in the shaft of bluish moonlight which fell through the still undrawn curtains.
The man and the girl endured during the next day an eternity of misery. He, in doubt and horror of himself; she, in doubt and horror of him. But each was true to the appointment; they met at the entrance to the arcade at the side of Newcastle House. The moon was rising high above the clouds which were tipped with a cold white light. The city was black, stark, and silent about them.
In his shame and confusion he could give her no greeting, but took her hand and drew her into the shadow of the narrow arches. Even now his instinct was to protect her against himself. He longed to draw her hand through his arm and take her back to her house in Great Queen Street only a few paces away and tell her never again to listen to specious strangers, foreigners, of whom she knew nothing, and not, under any excuse, to visit rogues like Dr. Chaos.
It seemed to him such a shameful thing that she should care in her innocent fancy sufficiently for him to leave her home, her friends, and all she knew, to go with him into a vast uncertainty.
His silence was ominous to her anguished doubt. Never again after last night's revelations which Mr. Lilliecarp had made could she feel the same towards Haagen Swendson. She assured herself that she did not believe a word of what must be vindictive malice on the part of the watchmaker, but nevertheless her pure enthusiasm was tainted.
Each noted the hesitancy and silence of the other and he was the first to speak, but what he said was not the lover-like and passionate sentence that would have swept aside all her scruples and fears:
"Do you wish to go back? Are you afraid? Miss Rawlins, even now you have time."
"You sound very indifferent," she replied. "You speak as if you did not greatly care whether I came or not. Do you think it has been easy for me to get here?"
He felt their relationship was jarred. Something had changed her since he had last spoken to her. He wondered, with a pang of acute shame, if someone had warned her against him. They passed under the arches into the moonlit street, he took her arm and said almost harshly:
"No, no, that is the wrong direction. We must go towards the Strand. Let me take the case that you carry."
She could not see his face for the shadow of his broad-leaved hat was full over it.
The moon, clear for a little space of the encroaching clouds, cast everything into this sharp black and white. He noted that she was not finely dressed, but seemed rather to wear a mourning suit and he noted again with a dreadful pang, her hesitancy. This was not the abandoned lovesick schoolgirl who had been too ready to fall into his arms and acquiesce in all his plans. What she said as she stared up at his face which she could not see, startled him:
"Swear to me, Mr. Swendson, that you are not a villain?"
"Surely it is childish of you, Miss Rawlins, to ask me that now? Why should you even consider me a villain?" he parried.
"I know nothing of you," she replied. "I helped you deceive my friends. Those papers that were your credentials were forged. I suppose Dr. Chaos wrote them?" And she added in a wild, penetrating whisper: "Is it true that you have visited that man before I had and that therefore he was able to describe your vision in the crystal?"
"Who told you that?" he muttered, not able even to get a petty lie across his tongue, so overborne was he by her sudden accusation.
"You do not deny it; it is then, perhaps true? Tell me another thing—are you a ruined gambler, owing huge sums in Copenhagen? Do you want to marry me because I have money?"
This bitter truth, coming from the lips of one whom he had looked upon as a fool, utterly confounded the young man. He groaned and put his hands to his eyes, but in a second he had recovered himself and was ready with a passionate denials and specious excuses, but these came just that second too late. Wounded vanity pricked the girl like a gadfly; she hated him with all the fury of one who has been deceived on the tenderest points, and her whole soul was shaken by such a blast of disappointment that she scarcely knew what she did. Her one instinct was flight. Before he could detain her she had run from his side; before he could follow she was well ahead. He came up with her only in time to see the heavy door of the great mansion close softly— he noted that even in that moment she did not forget prudence—in his face.
The young man sat with Dr. Chaos in the upper room in the little passage. His mood had also changed; he had lost all tenderness and compassion for the girl, he was thinking only of his own necessity. If she were a vixen it was easier for him to be a scoundrel. In the contemplation of his own peril he lost all niceties—another ship had come in from Copenhagen only the day before, bringing yet more letters from some of his creditors in the Danish capital. He would have to pay, and pay soon, or be exposed before his father and his friends.
He sat sullenly, holding his handsome face in his hands, his elbows on his knees, and Dr. Chaos viewed him with some dislike.
"You are not the man for this affair, sir," he said. "Remember that I have given up much time in endeavouring to help you. You are getting further into debt by employing me."
"Oh, threaten and menace as you will," replied the young Dane; "I tell you the girl gave me no chance. Somebody had informed against me. And who could it have been? There is no one in London who knows my story."
"Informed against you!—bah!" replied the charlatan, impatiently. "It is the governess, or the school-mistress, or some officious female friend who has merely told her to beware of good-looking young foreigners. And you, of course," he added with contempt, "have been a cold lover. You have not known how to play your part. Why, even to-night, the very fact that she came shows she is really on your side—or her heart is at least, and with a few words you could have won her round."
"Cease reproaching me; tell me what I am to do next," demanded the young man.
"There is hardly any time left; we must abduct her," said Dr. Chaos calmly. "Have you any men on your ship who would do the work?"
"I have men there who would do anything for me, but before God I will not have them mixed up in this affair."
"Then we shall have to hire people. I know plenty whom I could get easily enough, but it will cost money."
"I still have a few guineas, enough for that, as I suppose."
"Very well, then, the thing is easily done; but it would have been better if you could have employed your own people. In the case of a miscarriage in the adventure they would not have borne evidence against you, and these ruffians, whom we shall be forced to employ, would."
The young man did not reply to this, he seemed preoccupied with other thoughts, and Dr. Chaos asked rather curiously:
"Are you not concerned at all as to the possible penalties? It is, in this country, you know, a hanging matter. I suppose you can rely upon the girl?"
"I think she cares for me," said the young merchant with downcast eyes and sunk voice. "Anyhow, I am sure that I can make her care for me. She would not, either, out of mere womanish compassion, if for no other motive, bear witness against me."
"I feel sure of her, too—a sentimental fool," said Dr. Chaos, "and after all, we do her no wrong. Remember, that you will make her as good a husband as she is like to get."
"When must it be?" asked Haagen Swendson. "I feel as if I could not endure even another twenty-four hours of delay."
"When can your ship sail?—the day after to-morrow?"
"To-morrow evening if need be."
"There is a need. You must have all in preparation to weight anchor. You must have her on board within an hour or two of the wedding. To-morrow will be better for the enterprise than the day after. Her guardian may, any moment, return to town; her friends, who will hear of you from the governess, may call on her; a hundred and one influences may get to work on the girl. She may even," and Dr. Chaos gave his thin-lipped smile, "see another likely fellow who takes her very easy fancy."
"To-morrow, then," agreed the young Dane sullenly.
Dr. Chaos got out papers and pen from a drawer and proceeded in a neat and careful handwriting to design a plan.
"This is what you must do, and so you must act," he said in a precise voice. "Had she gone willingly there had been the less trouble and the less danger, but as it must be an abduction, we must take some precautions. Listen to me," he added sharply, after a vexed glance at the young man's haggard face; "you must keep up your courage. Remember what depends on your success."
He opened a cupboard and got out a bottle of the liqueur in the dark-green glass with the black seals from which he had once filled Mr. Lilliecarp's glass, placed this on the table with a small lamp, drew up his chair and began to give his instructions in clear terms to the young man who listened reluctantly and yet keenly.
It was the middle of the night, but Mr. Lilliecarp in his small room behind the shop was not asleep. He lay and listened to the footsteps overhead. He had heard the bell of Dr. Chaos ring very late; he had heard the quack's light steps go cautiously downstairs and then return, with a heavier tread beside his light, shuffling footfalls.
Mr. Lilliecarp guessed, of course, the whole affair. The girl had had the sense to take his warning and she had drawn back, and these two villains were consulting as to how they could again get her in their power. Mr. Lilliecarp felt a glow of virtuous satisfaction; he had saved the little fool from the trap into which she was walking. It was true that he disliked her, her mincing ways, shrill affectations, her vanity and pampered peevishness, but it was also true that he disliked still more Dr. Chaos and the young foreigner who seemed to be his colleague in crime.
He decided, as he listened to the two footfalls—one heavy and one light—above, that if the charlatan got up to any more of his pranks he would keep a most stern watch on him, as he was well able to do from his very favourable position in the shop on the ground floor, and if need be, go to Bow Street and inform the constables.
"The man," thought the jeweller, "may be, for all I know, coining or forging or endeavouring to pass off those clever bits of glass he showed me, as real stones. We don't want him in this country, we've rogues enough on our own and I should like to see him shipped back from where he came."
And the watchmaker with his conscience thus at ease, fell soundly asleep before the dawn.
At this hour; Mr. Haagen Swendson having made his plans very carefully with Dr. Chaos, sick at heart and reeling from wine and lack of sleep, came out into the passage and, with a groan, saluted the pallid day.
Miss Rawlins was ill, there could be no question of that, and Miss Vondy was seriously alarmed. The doctor could make nothing of the white, sullen, apathetic lassitude of the girl, and Miss Vondy, with a keen desire to shift her responsibility decided that the air at Hampstead would be the very thing for her charge. So it was decided that the girl should return to school two days before she had been supposed to do so.
When she heard this verdict Miss Pleasant was in complete despair. She did not know how she could endure this exile, this return to the routine which now seemed so unutterably commonplace, nor did she know of any possible excuse she could put forward in objection to the plan.
The moment the great door had closed on Haagen Swendson, the night before, she had fearfully regretted her action. She had nothing against the man whatever, only the malicious foolish talk of Mr. Lilliecarp. She loved him and she should have given him an opportunity to say that he loved her. Instead of that she had yielded to temper. She did not know how she could find him again. It was impossible for her to leave the house, for Miss Vondy, anxious at her state, never left her for a moment. And all the while the guarded girl, lying on the bed, her face in the pillows, was planning in her agitated mind as to how she might slip from the house, even for five minutes, to run into the passage and face Mr. Lilliecarp in daylight with his charges, or else run upstairs to the rooms of Dr. Chaos and demand of him the truth.
She became, at length, so desperate that she suggested to Miss Vondy that they should go together to the watchmaker's and have the inscription on the watch she had bought for her schoolfellow, altered. She thought that she might, somehow, once she got free of the house, find an opportunity to speak either to Mr. Lilliecarp or to Dr. Chaos alone.
But Miss Vondy reminded her with a little sad severity that the day was Sunday and the shops would all be closed.
"And if you are well enough to go abroad, dear Pleasant, we will have the coach and go as far as the chapel in Oxenden Road. You know that I promised to take you there every Sunday, and for two weeks, under one excuse and another, we have not, alas, gone."
After a little debate Miss Rawlins agreed to this proposal. It was better to be abroad, she argued to herself, than to be closed in the house. Oxenden chapel was some way off and during the ride there and back she might, peering from the windows, possibly see Mr. Swendson in the streets. Might he not be watching for her? Might he not take an opportunity of slipping a note through the coach window into her hand? Might he not be able to give her some signal, some look which would perhaps, change all the world for her? Nay, might he not come up, countenanced as he was by Miss Vondy, and openly address them, even bear them company in the chapel, perhaps come home afterwards with them to the house in Great Queen Street?
These hopes stimulated Miss Pleasant like wine. She rose with alacrity and dressed herself, not however, in the apple-green frilled taffeta which had now such unpleasant associations—she would always see it, she was sure, livid as it had looked in the moonlight while she had listened to the lies of Mr. Lilliecarp—but in a coat of straw-coloured cloth that matched her saffron shoes and a wide hat of chipped straw with black strings.
It was a beautiful day, the air very mild and fragrant. The streets had the usual Sunday air of desertion, many of the windows were opened and there were quantities of spring flowers on the sills, tresses of Persian lilac, lavender, and bright, stiff, gleaming buttercups brought in from the country, and roses with the petals breaking through the glossy sheaths.
Miss Pleasant felt her spirits rise, it was a day surely for love and thoughts of love. From her coach, which was but a modest equipage (she could have afforded one far finer but her guardian believed that this simple one-horse cabriolet was sufficiently sumptuous for a girl), as they passed Lincoln's Inn she glanced towards the passage which lay in shadows. She could not make out the dirty panes of Mr. Lilliecarp's shop window and the indistinct shape of the board with the name of Dr. Chaos painted thereon. She put her hand to her throat where the pink beads nestled warm and smooth. Last night, surely, was a mere nightmare interlude in the course of true love. He must appear again! She was certain that he cared for her as much as she cared for him—there would be a rapturous reunion. The next time she would not hesitate, she would go with him anywhere.
The coach left the high road and turned down an unfrequented street on its way to the chapel which Miss Rawlins was expected to attend, for it had been largely endowed by her grandfather. They were proceeding very slowly, for the way was uneven and in bad repair, when Miss Vondy remarked that some ugly-looking fellows seemed for a while to have been following them, at a safe distance, but persistently.
The heiress at once thought of her lover and glanced in joyous expectation from the window. But with disgust she observed that the creatures whom her governess had mentioned were indeed nothing but four ugly ruffians, dirty and detestable. She sighed in disappointment, while Miss Vondy said nervously:
"I hope they are not footpads who think to rob us. I shall feel much safer when we get inside the chapel."
Her apprehension proved to be only too well-founded. As the light coach came to a turn in the road the four men hastened their pace and without difficulty overtook it. One presented a blunderbuss at the coachman while the other three ranged themselves by the door, shouting out that they were bailiffs who had come to arrest Miss Rawlins for a debt she owed to tradespeople, declaring with many oaths, in their hideous raucous voices, that she was nothing but a common cheat.
At this monstrous and utterly unexpected charge, both the women were confounded. They did not for a moment suppose that these men were sham bailiffs; they thought there had been some ridiculous mistake and eagerly gave their names and quality, and promised to satisfy anyone who had a legitimate account with them.
Miss Vondy searched her mind as to who could be thus suddenly vindictive and, as the bailiffs insisted on their case and even cited the names of tradespeople in Holborn, the unhappy governess began to suspect the girl of having run up extravagant debts without her knowledge; Miss Rawlins herself was confused, she was very careless about money and often did not pay off her accounts regularly. While there were thus debating and protesting, the ruffians had taken action. Miss Rawlins had been forced from the coach and hurried away down the lane; Miss Vondy shrieking after her, was held in her place by another man who had sprung from the hedge. That was the last that Miss Pleasant Rawlins saw of her governess for some while.
The two men who had arrested her hurried her over a stile, across a field, and into another road where a coach and pair was waiting. The girl, who had but little courage, was by now crying and lamenting, protesting that she would pay immediately all that was asked of her if only she might be taken home and spared this insulting treatment. But all her cries and prayers however, the men answered grossly: "That she might tell that tale when she was in the sponging-house, and there send for her friends. But as for them they were doing their duty and arresting her for monies long overdue."
She was assisted not too gently into the coach and the doors locked upon her, and there, with the leathern blinds drawn, she was obliged to crouch in the utmost terror while the coach rattled along at a spanking pace, but in what direction she had no means of knowing. It seemed to her a considerable time before the coach stopped, the doors were opened and the steps were let down. The same ruffians who had arrested her were waiting to assist her descend. She saw that she was in a mean and ugly street, somewhere, she believed, in the City or Southwark (for all she knew they might have crossed the river), and that the coach was drawn up as close as possible to a dirty building, round the door of which were grouped several fellows of the same kidney as those who had arrested her.
She supposed that this was the sponging-house in which she must lie till rescued by her friends, and with a movement of revulsion and terror, hurled herself back into the coach. Without any ado her captors dragged her out, and hustling her across the filthy pavement, forced her into the house. The door was immediately closed behind her, and sick and faint with disgust and terror, the girl dropped against the wall, now past speech, almost past realization of the misery of this misfortune.
One of the men, who seemed in command of the others and was slightly superior to them in dress and bearing, spoke to her in a tone of rough kindliness.
"Come now, missie, don't take on so, everything's going to come to a happy end, I can assure you. Step in there and make yourself comfortable."
He opened the door in the passage, and the girl, afraid that he would again use force, shuddered away from him and tiptoed into the room which was sordid enough and dismal enough to bring down her pride and fortitude if she had either left by then. The plaster was flaking from the walls, the ceiling was blackened by lamp and candle smoke, the window was unglazed, the panes being replaced with paper and rags. There was a filthy broken sofa and two chairs with the stuffing torn from them, a table covered with foul glasses and cups and, incongruously, a solitary shelf on which were three tattered volumes, an inkhorn, and a packet of dirty, broken quills.
"There's some mistake," sobbed the heiress. "I cannot owe anybody any money, and if I do, surely they would not treat me like this! When my guardian hears of it he will be very angry and no doubt punish you all."
To this futile defiance the man replied with a grin:
"Indeed, we have made no mistake. You are the female whom we were told to take, and I should dry your eyes if I were you, missie, and not take it too hard, for you will not get away till what's going to be done is done."
"Surely, surely," moaned the girl, wringing her hands, "they will not send me to Newgate, herd me with all those miserable wretches? Why, I should die of shame and disgust before the morrow. I will pay you well, indeed I will, though I have no money with me now, if you will take a message to my guardian—Sir Thomas Lemoine."
The man only stuck his hands deeper in his pockets, and replied with an odious wink:
"Perhaps, missie, you're not so unfortunate as you think. I should wait awhile if I was you and see what's intended for you. It's a pity," he added, "that you haven't got a husband. They couldn't send you to Newgate if you had, you know. A married woman can't be arrested for debt."
She stared at him, wondering what this meant. Before she had settled her wits the door opened and Haagen Swendson entered, his magnificence putting that sordid place utterly to shame. He motioned away, with an angry frown, the man who was talking to Miss Pleasant and then closed the door and turned on her a look of such appeal and shame that all her courage returned.
"You have done this," she said, and there was a note in her voice which he mistook for indignation, but that was really a joyous surprise.
"There was no other way," he faltered, approaching her. "I wanted you, Pleasant, for my wife. It seems that we must be married and I had to do this." He looked round the room in the deepest distress. "This odious place! Must these villains work in such purlieus? Will you have pity on me, Miss Pleasant? Will you marry me and put me out of my great shame and misery?"
"You love me?" she whispered, and closed her eyes and settled back into her foolish wilful dreams. She heard his voice, soft and sweet.
"Yes, I love you, Pleasant. I swear I will always love you. Yet even you must realize the foolishness of such oaths. How can you be sure of yourself in the future? Sure of me?"
"You must love me to have done this."
"Tell me what Mr. Lilliecarp said."
"Those—lies!"
"Ah, it was Lilliecarp was it?—the watchmaker! I never thought of that. So, he put two and two together did he?"
"Yes, it was he; he came to warn me."
She opened her eyes now and looked at him and took such joy in that she forgot her hideous surroundings.
"How could I have been so stupid as to listen to him! I drove you to despair and you were forced to carry me off!" It was like a thousand fairy tales.
He said fiercely:
"Mr. Lilliecarp the jeweller can know nothing about me. He has only guessed—and guessed wrong!"
"But you were so strange when I asked you! Yet I suppose it startled you. Tell me, though, tell me—you are not a ruined gambler! This is not for my money!"
He had schooled himself well for this moment, now it had come he set himself at it as he had often set himself at a high jump.
"I swear to you, Pleasant, that I am a gentleman of position and substance. I am in no need of money, my fortune equals yours. I am doing this because I love you; because I cannot be patient, I cannot allow obstacles to come between us. My ship sails to-night and I must take you with me." His voice rang with conviction in his own ears and almost he believed what he said and wholly she believed him. "You will understand," he continued, a flush overspreading his handsome face, "that I could not communicate with you and that I did not know how to write to you or to see you. There was no other way but this. The men were not bailiffs—it was a trick, a very vile trick taught me by one who is not scrupulous. There is a clergyman here from the Fleet with two witnesses. Our marriage will be valid, and I swear before God"—and here he was sincere enough—"you shall not repent it if you will now become my wife."
"I will do so very willingly," she said. "I will sail with you to-night and never regret it."
It was now he who warned her not to ask as to the future, but, he added passionately:
"I will do my utmost to keep sorrow from you, so help me Christ."
"I will marry you, Haagen, and immediately. Only let us get away from this dreadful place. They may, too, be searching for me. Miss Vondy will have raised the alarm."
"Indeed, madam, I fear we are only too safely hidden. This is a very filthy part of London where no decent people come. I would these wretches could have worked their game without this."
She hoped that he would turn and caress her, take her in his arms and kiss her, renew his vows, but instead he left her sitting at the wretched table while he opened the door.
A clergyman was waiting in the passage without, he had two tired, shabby creatures with watery eyes, greasy complexions, and fallen chaps behind him, who edged timidly into the room. These were professional witnesses who always hung about the Fleet ready with their services for a few shillings. The sallow-faced, pock-marked clergyman took down the volumes (which proved to be Bible and prayer-books) from the dirty shelf in the corner and set them on the table.
Haagen Swendson brought a gold ring from his pocket. He frowned and kept his eyes downcast; the girl was too happy to notice how deeply he was troubled. The clergyman had the register under his arm, he put it on the table and married these two who, a week before, had never heard of each other's existence. They signed their names, the man put down the fee, and the girl turned the ring, which was too large for her, about on her finger. Then they got in the coach, which still waited in the narrow street, and were driven off the direction of the docks.
As soon as they were alone together in the coach she turned to him with complete elation.
"See, Haagen, how I have trusted you, completely believed in you!"
He allowed her to say no more but drew her to him and held her, she thought, more in anguish than pleasure, clasping her tight as if she were a shield against some unnameable disaster.
"You do love me, Pleasant? That will redeem everything. You understand, don't you? You want to go with me, you think that I can make you happy?"
"Of course I want to go with you; of course I believe in you and that you can make me happy. Happy!—I don't know what it is if it is not being with you. I beg your pardon for my foolishness last night. That wicked man disturbed me with his lies."
"Don't talk of it, Pleasant; don't talk of it! We will never think of such things again. When we are in Denmark we will be married again. All my family will be present, there will be feasts and much honour for you and a beautiful gown and everything as you wish it."
She laughed, and loved him for his simplicity.
"Do you suppose I care for any of that? We are married, I am your wife—think of that, Haagen!" She held up her finger, the pale shadow of the coach showed the gleaming gold he had just placed there. The ring was slightly twisted, it was one of the links from the chain belonging to Dr. Chaos.
"I ought to make up to you," he muttered. "I want to give you some compensation for what you have suffered through me. I ought to prove that I am not a scoundrel," and still passionately, with a desperation that thrilled her but which she could not understand, he reiterated: "You do love me, Pleasant? You are willingly my wife— you do love me?"
She came joyously on board the Ice Maiden and into his cabin which had been made gay for her reception. He assured her earnestly that she should not be disturbed nor troubled by a single word or look of his until they reached Copenhagen. He had hired a woman to be her servant, who would come on board presently before they weighed anchor. He had done what he could for her comfort, all the supplies of the handsomely appointed ship were at her command.
She laughed in her throat and thought, though she did not say: "As if I wanted anything but you."
When they were alone in the cabin he went on his knees before her and kissed her hands and implored her pardon. She was so happy that she nearly laughed; she put her hands on his thick blond hair as if she gave him her blessing. The twilight was beginning to thicken over the city and went on deck to give his commands.
They were waiting for a last consignment of goods. He knew that already there was a hue and cry out over the abducted heiress, but he did not suppose that any would search for her on his ship, and if they did—well, he had his answer. She was his wife! Willingly!—how he stressed that word in his mind—his wife and willingly.
Pleasant Swendson, who had been Pleasant Rawlins so short a time before, slept in the cabin of the Ice Maiden, for she was exhausted by fatigue. But the excitement did not allow her a long repose. It was not yet completely dark when she roused herself, dragged herself from slumber, from dreams, and sat up with a cry of rapture at realizing where she was.
She looked round for her husband. She left the cabin and went up on deck; she had hoped when she woke to find herself out at sea, but they were still in the port of London, she could see the dim light and the faint outline of the city behind her, and all about the masts of ships, and above, the paling sky. She could not, after all, have slept more than a very little while.
She dreaded pursuit. Supposing even now they were to find her and drag her home? She was his wife, certainly, but there might be some power by which they could claim her. She knew so little of these things, so little indeed of anything.
Unnoticed, she crept along the shadow of the deck—there was her husband, leaning on the rail, unmistakable in any crowd and in shadows. She was coming forward joyously to claim him, when she noticed his companion—Dr. Chaos, in very sober attire with, for once, his spectacles in his hand and his tired, red-rimmed eyes sparkling with vivid malice.
Pleasant Swendson did not wish to meet this man. She drew back behind the boat which swung it its davits nearby and she would have returned immediately to her cabin had she not heard her husband's voice in an accent of terror say: "Hush! For God's sake, hush!"
Dr. Chaos replied in a low, piercing voice which distinctly reached Pleasant Swendson where she stood in the shadow of the boat.
"Bah! None of your sailors understand English, but you must understand me. I want some of the money before you sail."
"You know that I have none," replied the young man. "All that was in my possession went on the expenses for this wretched affair to-day. I think, too, I have been robbed and cheated there. Everyone was a-gape for payment."
"And quite rightly, too," replied the quack. "Why should we work for you for nothing? After all, we know nothing of you except that you are a ruined gambler."
"Hush, for God's sake, hush!"
"Yes, when I have had my say. Remember the service I have done you. The little fool is worth more than a hundred thousand pounds."
"Be silent, I entreat you. I assure you that when I reach home, when I touch her money, I will at once send you your fee—all I engaged to pay, and more."
"I want some earnest. It is useless saying you have nothing. What of that watch with the sapphires? Give me that, I could get a least fifty pounds for it."
"I do not want to part with that. I value it for the sake of the giver."
Dr. Chaos laughed.
"You are in no position to be hoarding sentimental relics. Why didn't the woman who gave you so valuable a toy, help you? But I know what it is—I know you're in love with somebody else and that's why you acted so foolishly towards this tiresome little simpleton whose fortune has saved you. Why, it has taken all my wits to pull you through; and, if we had not been dealing with a foolish schoolgirl sick with vanity who had no experience whatever, you never would have carried the business off."
Pleasant Swendson edged away from the shadow of the boat. She drew her breath in great, gasping sighs like one who has been running beyond his strength.
With native duplicity she was very cautious and silent and made her way from one pool of shadow on the deck to another till she came to the gangway along which the sailors at rare intervals were coming and going. There was no one to question her, she was very swift and slight and not easily seen in the crossed lights and shadows.
She was soon on land. She looked back once; they had just lit the great lantern on the prow of the Ice Maiden, the figure-head, with the noble, upflung stern face, yellow hair, the staring blue eyes and the white bosom, was clear in the yellow rays. The girl stared for a moment and then turned quickly and began to dodge among the capstans and the bales of goods and the groups of lounging men until she reached the narrow streets, and then she ran swiftly westward towards the London that she knew.
Pleasant Rawlins (no one of her acquaintances would give her any other name) sat safe again in the large room in the mansion in Great Queen Street. Miss Vondy stood beside her and was ready with drops of strong salts. Her guardian, Sir Thomas Lemoine, his lawyers, a magistrate, and several friends were present, all stern, determined, bitterly inflamed by the outrage which had been perpetrated on the person of this English girl. An outrage for which there must be an immediate and terrible revenge.
Miss Pleasant did not behave as those who knew her best would have expected her to behave. She was not excited or flustered. She did not seem to enjoy the attention and sympathy which her adventures provoked. She seemed to have forgotten her vanity and she was neither voluble nor hysterical. Still wearing her straw-coloured mantel which she had put on that afternoon to go to the chapel in Oxenden Road and which was soiled round the hem by her flight through the streets near the docks until she had found a hackney-coach, with her hands in her lap, pale to the bitten lips and staring in front of her, she denounced Haagen Swendson. Her tale was simple, and easily corroborated by the known facts of the case. Miss Vondy bitterly accused herself of carelessness in admitting this young adventurer to their acquaintance. His credentials, which he had so impudently brought forward, were undoubtedly forged. Mr. Lilliecarp, the watchmaker, had very glibly given all the information he knew about the young Dane and Dr. Chaos. The case was as clear, as flagrant, as it was atrocious. Miss Vondy was witness to the fact that the girl had been forced out of the coach by sham bailiffs, and the victim herself, in a few words, related her further adventures.
She told how she had been forced into the coach driven to the sordid house in some wretched part of London, how she had been threatened first with Newgate, then with worse if she did not instantly submit and take the young foreigner as her husband. She told her horrified and indignant hearers of the arrival of the clergyman from the Fleet with some witnesses. The room was full of these ruffians.
"They threatened to murder me, I believe they meant it. I was forced to go through the ceremony with him. Afterwards, he took me at once to the ship. I entreated in vain, I was not listened to. This man who calls himself Dr. Chaos was there on the ship. They paid so little respect to me that in front of me they discussed the business—how much fortune I had, and when this wretch, this Swendson could touch it; they even spoke of another woman whom he had loved in Copenhagen. Why do you not send and have him arrested? It will soon be too late, the ship is to sail this evening."
Miss Vondy listened to this recital with a curious distress and horror. The experience seemed to have entirely changed the character of the schoolgirl. She spoke with a cool fury and vindictiveness of which the governess had not believed her capable, that was, however terrible the provocation, horrible in one so young. It was difficult, too, for Miss Vondy to believe all evil of the handsome young man who had seemed so candid and ingenuous, who had received them so courteously on his ship and who was, undoubtedly, a gentleman of position. Something was awry in the tale. She thought of her own lover and wanted to say, unreasonably, she knew: "He is your husband, cannot you stand by him and make the best of it?"
The magistrate, a friend of the girl's guardian, had something of the same thought; he cautioned Miss Pleasant to reflect well on what she said:
"This is a hanging matter, madam. Are you prepared to swear this man married you under threats, first of Newgate, and second of murder? If you do, it will cost him his life."
The girl continued to stare in front of her; her face was so pinched and strange that Miss Vondy was frightened and felt so sickened that she could no longer look at her, for all youth, gaiety, tenderness and kindness seemed to have left those small, sharpened features.
"I quite understand the importance of what I am saying," she replied. "It happened as I have told you. Should I have been married in such a place without the cognizance of my friends and guardian if I had not been forced?"
The magistrate then asked her kindly:
"You have not given this young man any encouragement? You have not seen him save on these few public occasions we know of? There have been no tender passages exchanged?"
"None! How could there be? I thought of him as but an agreeable acquaintance. He was a stranger to me—a foreigner, and," she added, with the first touch of feeling in her strange voice; "I disliked his person. Yes, he was repulsive to me."
Miss Vondy forced herself to her duty. She was profoundly troubled.
"You must get some rest, Pleasant. You have said all you need say. Come upstairs with me."
The girl rose immediately; she had the mechanical air of a sleepwalker. Her fingers strayed to a string of pink beads she wore at her throat. Miss Vondy offered to help her up the stairs but it was not necessary. She walked, erect and swift, to her room, hastened to the bed with the red brocade curtains like a cloud in the corner, and crouched there, hunched up on the defensive, like an animal at bay, still playing with the pink beads. Miss Vondy thought "She was under such terror—even of being murdered—and yet she was so slightly guarded that she was able to get away."
Haagen Swendson lay in Newgate on the capital charge of abducting an heiress. He had nothing to put forward in his defence but the unsupported story that his wife, as he named Pleasant Rawlins, and as indeed in the eyes of the law she was, had married him willingly, that she favoured him, and that at the time of their marriage she was afraid of neither prison nor murder. He did not know in the least what had caused her to change her mind. He had no witnesses to support his tale.
Mr. Lilliecarp's evidence was against him. Such of the hired ruffians as could be arrested, knew nothing of the matter, except they were paid to carry off the heiress. The clergyman and the two witnesses, of course, were ready to swear that the bride had been willing enough, but their words were useless.
Dr. Chaos had completely disappeared, subtle and cunning as he was; he had had early news of the arrest and had fled to some secret haunt.
An investigation of the young merchant's affairs proved him to be indeed of good birth and education and of an honourable family, but entirely involved in gambling debts and heavy obligations which he was unable to meet. There seemed no hope for him and when the girl's guardian spoke of getting the marriage annulled his lawyer remarked that there was no need to take that trouble since she would be soon technically a widow as she was now technically a wife.
During the days before the trial of Haagen Swendson, Pleasant Rawlins had had all the sympathy, pity, and admiration of her friends, who did their best to efface from her suffering memory the hideous outrage that she had suffered. Her guardian would have liked to have taken her away into the country, but as she was the most important witness at the trial this was impossible.
Everyone much commended her behaviour. She had the air of a heroine; her bold escape from the villain's ship was much praised. But one person dissented from this approval. Miss Vondy, the governess, endured for a while in silence what she considered a dreadful situation and then, unable to bear any more, broke out before the girl when they were alone in her chamber one evening after supper.
"When are you going to break this ghastly silence? When are you going to speak? How long are you going to allow him to suffer?"
Miss Pleasant did not reply; her face had a sly expression. The governess disliked her intensely; she seemed to have changed in the last few days and become, in the older woman's mind, wholly evil. Miss Vondy tried to think generously and speak gently.
"Pleasant Rawlins, you do not understand, you are so very young. This man—this Haagen Swendson—will be hanged unless you say that you went with him willingly."
"How can I tell a lie?" replied the girl. "I shall have to stand up in court with my hand on the Bible and swear a lie. Why should I, and save the life of a villain!"
"A lie!" exclaimed Miss Vondy distractedly; "I should not have thought so. It seemed to me that when you were on the ship together you favoured him. I, at least, thought that he was going to ask for your hand, and I shall say so in court."
"He is a ruined gambler," said Miss Rawlins, with pale obstinacy, "and one who loves another woman. He wanted nothing of me but my money."
"I do not like your tone, Pleasant, it is vindictive. It sounds as if you would be revenged for some slight. Do not you understand that you must put all that aside? If he forced you away he did very wrong, but he has already suffered for that, and it is not a wrong that a man should pay with his life. I would swear he is honest and honourable. You are his wife, too, Miss Pleasant, in the name of the law, in the eyes of the law, and before God it may be, although the clergyman was such a vile instrument."
"Why do you talk to me like that, Miss Vondy? I shall complain to my guardian! You have no right so to lecture and reproach me. This man is nothing to me, but one who has injured me sorely and I shall certainly go to the court and tell the truth."
Miss Vondy was silent for a while, in the most acute distress. She had not been able to sleep at nights for thinking of the young Dane in Newgate, and in her heart she believed, though she could not prove, that he had received some encouragement from Pleasant Rawlins, for she knew the girl, how avid she was of praise and admiration, how excited she had seemed by the attentions of Mr. Swendson, how gay and eager she had been that day they had gone on board his ship. But, even if it had not been so, if even without the least encouragement the young man had forced away the heiress with no design but a desperate desire to obtain her fortune, still Mis Vondy could not see that there was anything for Miss Pleasant to do but to swear to a lie in court and declare she had gone willingly.
"You can see what manner of man he is," she cried in despair. "You will not find a better husband, Pleasant. If you do not care for him now you need not see him, why, for years. You go your way and let him go his, and then you may meet again in the future and even, perhaps, the marriage can be annulled if you wish it, but you must not, you cannot, go and swear away his life."
"He is nothing to me," replied the girl with what sounded like a dull and stupid obstinacy, "and I shall do as my guardian and my friends bid me, and tell the truth at the trial."
Upon this, Miss Vondy, thinking of her own lover, lost all patience and declared roundly:
"Then I cannot stay and hear it done. I must tell your guardian that I must leave his service. Though it means something to me to forfeit so good a post yet I cannot stay any longer in the same house with you, Mrs. Swendson."
At this name the girl did start and wince, and Jane Vondy added:
"If you do this you will be a base woman."
The trial of Haagen Swendson did not take long. There were few witnesses to call. By his own express desire the news of his great misfortune had not been sent to his family in Denmark. They must, in time, know his dismal story, but he hoped that this would not be while there was yet breath in his body. The Ice Maiden remained in the Port of London with the flags taken down from her rigging.
Mr. Swendson's servant and the captain of the ship were in court, following the proceedings with anxious eyes. He was allowed to call them as witnesses. They did what they could for him in their halting English, but their eager loyalty was too apparent and damaged their evidence. And after all, what could they say? Only that the girl had seemed to favour Mr. Swendson when she was on board the ship during the little festival he had made for her and her friends. Only that she had seemed to come willingly with him that day she had married him, and made no struggle nor protest but had gone, as it seemed, in high spirits to the cabin which he had carefully prepared for her. More, that she had not been guarded nor any violence offered to her while she was on the Ice Maiden, and they brought out as proof of this the fact that she had been able so easily to escape.
All this was all that could be said for the defence.
For the prosecution there were more witnesses. Dr. Chaos had disappeared, but Mr. Lilliecarp was able to give a clear account of that personage and details of the comings and goings of Mr. Swendson in the charlatan's rooms, and to relate what he had gathered from the lips of Dr. Chaos himself as to the plot intended against the heiress.
Mr. Lilliecarp was not very pleased with himself as to his part in this affair. He kept his pale gaze away from the figure of the fine young man whom he was destroying. His old dislike for Miss Rawlins had returned, yet he concealed all that would have been to her disadvantage to reveal. Her guardian and her friends were powerful, and the watchmaker did not wish to involve himself in their dislikes and animosities. If he were to tell what he knew—that Miss Rawlins also had run upstairs to Dr. Chaos' rooms, that he believed she had been so far interested in Mr. Swendson that he had to go and warn her in the middle of the night by throwing gravel at her window and speaking to her in the doorway, he believed there would be an outcry against him and that, first, he would no be believed in what he might say against one who was regarded as a wronged heroine; and secondly, even if he were, he would be followed for the rest of his life by the malice of her partisans. And he comforted his conscience, which had a way of slumbering when it was convenient, by saying to himself: "After all, even if I were to tell that it would not save the prisoner. He is, no doubt, a villain."
The evidence was then taken of such of the ruffians who had abducted Miss Rawlins as could be arrested. Their tale was plain enough and deadly against Mr. Swendson.
They had been hired by the man whom they knew as Dr. Chaos to abduct an heiress and get her on board the Ice Maiden. They understood the business was for a young man who was ruined if he did not immediately marry a swinging fortune.
The prisoner was allowed to speak in his own defence. He was so comely to look at, and so noble and candid in his bearing, that there was much sympathy and compassion for him among the spectators in the court. And it was greatly hoped that the evidence of Miss Rawlins would be in his favour and that he would be, after all, acquitted or at least fined. On oath, and in English that at first faltered and was confused, the young man told his story, the plain truth, not sparing himself. He admitted his difficulties, his desperate design of abducting an heiress, the plans he had made with Dr. Chaos, that strange man who had disappeared from the rooms above Mr. Lilliecarp's in the passage. But he swore on his oath, his honour, his hope of salvation, that he would never have done what he had done, crime as he knew it to be, if he had not believed that the lady favoured him.
He declared that he had had several clandestine meetings with her, that he had asked her to be his wife, and that she had consented. She had come once to the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields ready to fly with him to his own country, but he had used no force not even any great persuasion, and she had on a sudden, taken flight on a warning, as he supposed, from one of her friends or relatives. And then, and only then, in the desperate state of affairs and on the urging of Dr. Chaos, had he been weak and foolish enough to plan the abduction, and even then, he declared passionately, he would not have married her had she not declared herself willing. And he called as witnesses the clergyman, the people of the house where the marriage had taken place, the two hired witnesses from the Fleet, and his own captain and sailors to prove that she had made no demur at becoming his wife and going with him on board of the Ice Maiden .
These witnesses were not credited by the court. Some were of too vile a character to be even listened to; others were the countrymen of the prisoner and in his employ.
Haagen Swendson looked at the judge.
"Is it likely," he asked passionately, "that I should have risked such a penalty had I not felt sure of the lady? I knew well enough that on an adverse testimony from her I might even be hanged—which is a death of such utter shame that no one of our name has ever contemplated such a fate." And he turned and looked to where the girl sat in the body of the court, beside her new governess and her guardian, surrounded by her friends, her pretty hands in her lap and her eyes modestly downcast. "Pleasant, my wife," he said, "stand up and bear witness for me. I have behaved vilely and done you a great wrong and my honour is for ever smirched, but I think that you will not allow me to he hanged. You are my wife, whatever the manner of the ceremony was, and though I have acted with an odious villainy, yet in this I do say the truth—that you came willingly, that I in no way forced your inclination, that indeed I left you so free that you were able to escape from the ship."
She looked at him and they stared at each other across the court, and everyone there was breathless, observing the looks they exchanged. She made him no answer, but, on a motion from the usher, rose and took her place in the witness-box. She wore the frilled, livid green taffeta coat she had worn on the day she visited the Ice Maiden. Her face was expressionless beneath the shade of her straw hat. She put her small hand on the Bible and took her oath; she looked so young and frail and so innocent and sad that a murmur of pity arose even from those who had lately felt compassionate towards the prisoner. The judge spoke to her kindly, encouraging her to speak, promising her protection and sympathy.
She did not look at him, nor at the prisoner, nor at her friends below, but blankly before her. She gave her evidence quietly but without hesitation or reluctance.
"I never knew Mr. Swendson save as a friend. I believed that he was the son of an old friend of my father's. Because of that I showed him some courtesies. He used to come to visit us, but I never saw him alone, my governess was always in the room. She and her betrothed husband were with me when I went on board the Ice Maiden. He never spoke of love nor marriage to me. It is not true that I used to visit the man named Dr. Chaos. I went to buy a watch for a schoolfellow of mine in Mr. Lilliecarp's shop; I also went in there once to buy a string of pink beads. I never went upstairs to the room of Dr. Chaos. It is a lie to say that I went out at night and met the prisoner at the corner of Lincoln's Inn. I never thought of him at all; I believed that he had returned to Denmark. I was frightened out of my wits when I was forced away on that fatal Sunday. I believed I was going to be thrown, on a false charge, into Newgate, but this would not have caused me to marry a man whom I, because of this, abhorred. But I was afraid that I might be murdered. I was surrounded by ruffians, who were most violent and threatening. I was forced to go through the marriage service. I went quietly on the ship because I thought it would give me a better opportunity to escape. I pretended to be asleep—I think they thought I was unconscious from exhaustion.
When I woke I found I was unguarded and crept up on deck, where I heard the prisoner quarrelling with the man Chaos about the money. They were so absorbed in that they did not notice me. In the shadow and half-dark I contrived to run ashore. This is the truth and nothing but the truth. I have no more to say."
No one doubted this recital, the matter of which should have gained the girl a great deal of sympathy, yet no one liked the manner in which she had delivered it. There were few there we did not think it would have been a pleasanter ending if, whatever had been the facts of the case, the young heiress had generously concocted some story to save the handsome young man who looked a likely enough husband for any woman. And as she came down from the witness-stand there were many there who averted their eyes from her with a certain aversion from one so young, who had so coldly fastened the rope round a fellow-creature's neck.
Haagen Swendson had listened without moving to the recital which doomed him. When the judge asked him if he had anything more to say, he replied with a half-smile:
"Nothing; I was mistaken in the girl, but even now I do not understand." Half to himself he added: "Why should she do it? Why should she be vindictive?" And he turned his blue gaze, in which there was never malice nor fury, merely a puzzled curiosity, to where she had sat with her friends. She was gone—they had hurried her away that she might not have the distress of hearing the death sentence.
Upon seeing her empty place, Haagen Swendson sighed and put his hand to his forehead. The judge again asked him if there was anything he wished to say, and he again replied:
"Nothing!"
But when the sentence was passed (he listened to it with dignity and respect), he asked if he might see the captain of the Ice Maiden and deliver to him a few of his possessions which he had been allowed to retain in Newgate. The request was granted and Haagen Swendson was led away to the condemned cell.
It was a beautiful day; fleeces of white clouds softened the brilliant blue of summer. There was sunshine in the streets and in the houses, but it was shadowed in the passage. No sunlight fell into Mr. Lilliecarp's shop. He had no heart for his watches, no interest in his work, and in his soul he cursed Dr. Chaos—whose rooms were empty overhead.
When Haagen Swendson was hanged at Tyburn, the captain of the Ice Maiden was there and handed him, through the press, a bunch of fresh roses to hold to his nostrils as he mounted the gallows' steps. The young merchant was very pale, yet composed; his glance was bewildered as if, deluded to the last, he scarcely understood what was about to befall him, nor realized the full horror of the fate that had overtaken him in this foreign country.
When the chaplain asked him for a confession he shook his blond head, and said:
"She came willingly, I never forced her. Those are my last words."
And so they were, for even when the rope was knotted round his neck he said not so much as a prayer. There was a groan among the crowd for the harshness of his fate.
Miss Pleasant Rawlins—death had annulled her marriage effectually, and no one would ever refer to her as Mrs. Haagen Swendson—was taken into the country and made much of in her guardian's establishment. Her new governess had earnest instructions never to mention to her the horrible adventure of her abduction, but she contrived to get hold of a newspaper, and read in it the account of the hanging of Haagen Swendson.
The first realization that he was dead, and dead in such a manner—the horrid details were given in the print—cast her into a panic. She ran up to her room with the full intention of sharing his punishment. She looked round for the bed-cord with which to destroy herself, not out of loathing of life, but out of loathing for herself and what she had done.
When she had made the loop she ran to her dressing-table and picked up the pink beads, she wished to die with them in her hand. And then she thought that she would leave a letter clearing his name and confessing to her false evidence. A knock on the door disturbed her in her awful preparations; she hastily unknotted the cord and concealed the pink beads.
The governess entered. Her guardian desired the attendance of Miss Pleasant in the withdrawing room. He had with him Sir Robert Townsend, a young neighbouring esquire, who, the governess whispered, was very likely her guardian's selection as her future husband.
Miss Pleasant sat crouching by the window with the pink beads hidden in a fold of her skirt. The governess, playing her part of excited confidante very well, and doing exactly as she had been bidden by the girl's guardian, expatiated on the qualities and charms of the young man. He was dark, he was good-looking, he was a fine gentleman.
"Will you not put on the blue sarcenet, Miss Pleasant? How pale you are!—I must allow you a little rouge."
A slow interest dawned in the girl's prominent eyes, a sly smile curved her full lips.
"Do you think I should look well with a little rouge?" She rose and regarded herself in the glass with interest. "Yes, I will wear the blue sarcenet. It needs a new lace; put in a gold one. What is he like, this young man?—a baronet, you say?"
"Yes; but you have dropped your beads." The governess stooped and picked up the pink necklace from Mr. Lilliecarp's shop. The girl glanced at them indifferently; her mood of horror, of remorse, was gone, as swift as a squib of wildfire. She said:
"Oh, put those away, I was going to destroy them, they are so cheap and common. I will wear the amethysts with the paste drops."
The Ice Maiden with her dreadful news had long since left the Port of London, and Mr. Lilliecarp, still in the watchmaker's shop in the passage, had become suddenly old. His neighbours noticed how he stooped, how bleared his eyes were, and how loose and slavering his lips. He seemed like a man worn down by a detestable secret or a great remorse.
The day that he read in the public print that Miss Pleasant Rawlins the heiress, whose attempted abduction by a foreigner villain had been foiled by her own courage so recently, was about to marry a wealthy young baronet, Mr. Lilliecarp did not work but sat motionless before the table on which were spread the little cogs and wheels and springs which, when put together, would make watches and clocks to tick off the hours, minutes and seconds.
Dr. Chaos had never returned to his rooms above the watchmaker's shop. When the landlord took possession of them, the crystal globe, quite dim with dust, was still in its place on the small table in the centre of the second room. There were books in strange languages lying on the shelves, and jars containing dried reptiles, toads and bats. There were cobwebs over everything, and in a corner of the room was a dead lily root with shrivelled blossoms which had been planted in a skull.
Roy Glashan's Library
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