Book: The Evil Genius

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Mrs. Linley handed the letter to her. The one line of writing
contained these words: "I refuse positively to part with my
child.--Catherine Linley."

"Have you considered what is likely to happen, when he gets
this?" Mrs. Presty inquired.

"No, mamma."

"Will you consult Randal?"

"I would rather not consult him."

"Will you let me consult him for you?"

"Thank you--no."

"Why not?"

"After what Randal has written to me, I don't attach any value to
his opinion." With that reply she sent her letter to the post,
and went back again to Kitty.

After this, Mrs. Presty resolved to wait the arrival of Herbert
Linley's answer, and to let events take their course. The view
from the window (as she passed it, walking up and down the room)
offered her little help in forecasting the future. Kitty had
returned to her fishing; and Kitty's mother was walking slowly up
and down the pier, deep in thought. Was she thinking of what
might happen, and summoning the resolution which so seldom showed
itself on ordinary occasions?


Chapter XXV.


Consultation.


No second letter arrived. But a telegram was received from the
lawyer toward the end of the week.

"Expect me to-morrow on business which requires personal
consultation."

That was the message. In taking the long journey to Cumberland,
Mrs. Linley's legal adviser sacrificed two days of his precious
time in London. Something serious must assuredly have happened.

In the meantime, who was the lawyer?

He was Mr. Sarrazin, of Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Was he an Englishman or a Frenchman?

He was a curious mixture of both. His ancestors had been among
the persecuted French people who found a refuge in England, when
the priest-ridden tyrant, Louis the Fourteenth, revoked the Edict
of Nantes. A British subject by birth, and a thoroughly
competent and trustworthy man, Mr. Sarrazin labored under one
inveterate delusion; he firmly believed that his original French
nature had been completely eradicated, under the influence of our
insular climate and our insular customs. No matter how often the
strain of the lively French blood might assert itself, at
inconvenient times and under regrettable circumstances, he never
recognized this foreign side of his character. His excellent
spirits, his quick sympathies, his bright mutability of mind--all
those qualities, in short, which were most mischievously ready to
raise distrust in the mind of English clients, before their
sentiment changed for the better under the light of later
experience--were attributed by Mr. Sarrazin to the exhilarating
influence of his happy domestic circumstances and his successful
professional career. His essentially English wife; his
essentially English children; his whiskers, his politics, his
umbrella, his pew at church, his plum pudding, his _Times_
newspaper, all answered for him (he was accustomed to say) as an
inbred member of the glorious nation that rejoices in hunting the
fox, and believes in innumerable pills.

This excellent man arrived at the cottage, desperately fatigued
after his long journey, but in perfect possession of his
incomparable temper, nevertheless.

He afforded a proof of this happy state of mind, on sitting down
to his supper. An epicure, if ever there was one yet, he found
the solid part of the refreshments offered to him to consist of a
chop. The old French blood curdled at the sight of it--but the
true-born Englishman heroically devoted himself to the national
meal. At the same time the French vivacity discovered a kindred
soul in Kitty; Mr. Sarrazin became her intimate friend in five
minutes. He listened to her and talked to her, as if the child
had been his client, and fishing from the pier the business which
had brought him from London. To Mrs. Presty's disgust, he turned
up a corner of the table-cloth, when he had finished his chop,
and began to conjure so deftly with the spoons and forks that
poor little Kitty (often dull, now, under the changed domestic
circumstances of her life) clapped her hands with pleasure, and
became the joyous child of the happy old times once more. Mrs.
Linley, flattered in her maternal love and her maternal pride,
never thought of recalling this extraordinary lawyer to the
business that was waiting to be discussed. But Mrs. Presty looked
at the clock, and discovered that her grandchild ought to have
been in bed half-an-hour ago.

"Time to say good-night," the grandmother suggested.

The grandchild failed to see the subject of bed in the same
light. "Oh, not yet," she pleaded; "I want to speak to Mr.--"
Having only heard the visitor's name once, and not finding her
memory in good working order after the conjuring, Kitty
hesitated. "Isn't your name something like Saracen?" she asked.

"Very like!" cried the genial lawyer. "Try my other name, my
dear. I'm Samuel as well as Sarrazin."

"Ah, that'll do," said Kitty. "Grandmamma, before I go to bed,
I've something to ask Samuel."

Grandmamma persisted in deferring the question until the next
morning. Samuel administered consolation before he said
good-night. "I'll get up early," he whispered, "and we'll go on
the pier before breakfast and fish."

Kitty expressed her gratitude in her own outspoken way. "Oh,
dear, how nice it would be, Samuel, if you lived with us!" Mrs.
Linley laughed for the first time, poor soul, since the
catastrophe which had broken up her home. Mrs. Presty set a
proper example. She moved her chair so that she faced the lawyer,
and said: "Now, Mr. Sarrazin!"

He acknowledged that he understood what this meant, by a very
unprofessional choice of words. "We are in a mess," he began,
"and the sooner we are out of it the better."

"Only let me keep Kitty," Mrs. Linley declared, "and I'll do
whatever you think right."

"Stick to that, dear madam, when you have heard what I have to
tell you--and I shall not have taken my journey in vain. In the
first place, may I look at the letter which I had the honor of
forwarding some days since?"

Mrs. Presty gave him Herbert Linley's letter. He read it with the
closest attention, and tapped the breast-pocket of his coat when
he had done.

"If I didn't know what I have got here," he remarked, "I should
have said: Another person dictated this letter, and the name of
the person is Miss Westerfield."

"Just my idea!" Mrs. Presty exclaimed. "There can't be a doubt of
it."

"Oh, but there is a very great doubt of it, ma'am; and you will
say so too when you know what your severe son-in-law threatens to
do." He turned to Mrs. Linley. "After having seen that pretty
little friend of mine who has just gone to bed (how much nicer it
would be for all of us if we could go to bed too!), I think I
know how you answered your husband's letter. But I ought perhaps
to see how you have expressed yourself. Have you got a copy?"

"It was too short, Mr. Sarrazin, to make a copy necessary."

"Do you mean you can remember it?"

"I can repeat it word for word. This was my reply: I refuse,
positively, to part with my child."

"No more like that?"

"No more."

Mr. Sarrazin looked at his client with undisguised admiration.
"The only time in all my long experience," he said, "in which I
have found a lady's letter capable of expressing itself strongly
in a few words. What a lawyer you will make, Mrs. Linley, when
the rights of women invade my profession!"

He put his hand into his pocket and produced a letter addressed
to himself.

Watching him anxiously, the ladies saw his bright face become
overclouded with anxiety. "I am the wretched bearer of bad news,"
he resumed, "and if I fidget in my chair, that is the reason for
it. Let us get to the point--and let us get off it again as soon
as possible. Here is a letter, written to me by Mr. Linley's
lawyer. If you will take my advice you will let me say what the
substance of it is, and then put it back in my pocket. I doubt if
a woman has influenced these cruel instructions, Mrs. Presty;
and, therefore, I doubt if a woman influenced the letter which
led the way to them. Did I not say just now that I was coming to
the point? and here I am wandering further and further away from
it. A lawyer is human; there is the only excuse. Now, Mrs.
Linley, in two words; your husband is determined to have little
Miss Kitty; and the law, when he applies to it, is his obedient
humble servant."

"Do you mean that the law takes my child away from me?"

"I am ashamed, madam, to think that I live by the law; but that,
I must own, is exactly what it is capable of doing in the present
case. Compose yourself, I beg and pray. A time will come when
women will remind men that the mother bears the child and feeds
the child, and will insist that the mother's right is the best
right of the two. In the meanwhile--"

"In the meanwhile, Mr. Sarrazin, I won't submit to the law."

"Quite right, Catherine!" cried Mrs. Presty. "Exactly what I
should do, in your place."

Mr. Sarrazin listened patiently. "I am all attention, good
ladies," he said, with the gentlest resignation. "Let me hear how
you mean to do it."

The good ladies looked at each other. They discovered that it is
one thing to set an abuse at defiance in words, and another thing
to apply the remedy in deeds. The kind-hearted lawyer helped them
with a suggestion. "Perhaps you think of making your escape with
the child, and taking refuge abroad?"

Mrs. Linley eagerly accepted the hint. "The first train to-morrow
morning starts at half-past seven," she said. "We might catch
some foreign steamer that sails from the east coast of Scotland."

Mrs. Presty, keeping a wary eye on Mr. Sarrazin, was not quite so
ready as her daughter in rushing at conclusions. "I am afraid,"
she acknowledged, "our worthy friend sees some objection. What is
it?"

"I don't presume to offer a positive opinion, ma'am; but I think
Mr. Linley and his lawyer have their suspicions. Plainly
speaking, I am afraid spies are set to watch us already."

"Impossible!"

"You shall hear. I travel second-class; one saves money and one
finds people to talk to--and at what sacrifice? Only a hard
cushion to sit on! In the same carriage with me there was a very
conversable person--a smart young man with flaming red hair. When
we took the omnibus at your station here, all the passengers got
out in the town except two. I was one exception, and the smart
young man was the other. When I stopped at your gate, the omnibus
went on a few yards, and set down my fellow-traveler at the
village inn. My profession makes me sly. I waited a little before
I rang your bell; and, when I could do it without being seen, I
crossed the road, and had a look at the inn. There is a moon
to-night; I was very careful. The young man didn't see me. But I
saw a head of flaming hair, and a pair of amiable blue eyes, over
the blind of a window; and it happened to be the one window of
the inn which commands a full view of your gate. Mere suspicion,
you will say! I can't deny it, and yet I have my reasons for
suspecting. Before I left London, one of my clerks followed me in
a great hurry to the terminus, and caught me as I was opening the
carriage door. 'We have just made a discovery,' he said; 'you and
Mrs. Linley are to be reckoned up.' Reckoned up is, if you
please, detective English for being watched. My clerk might have
repeated a false report, of course. And my fellow-traveler might
have come all the way from London to look out of the window of an
inn, in a Cumberland village. What do you think yourselves?"

It seemed to be easier to dispute the law than to dispute Mr.
Sarrazin's conclusions.

"Suppose I choose to travel abroad, and to take my child with
me," Mrs. Linley persisted, "who has any right to prevent me?"

Mr. Sarrazin reluctantly reminded her that the father had a
right. "No person--not even the mother--can take the child out of
the father's custody," he said, "except with the father's
consent. His authority is the supreme authority--unless it
happens that the law has deprived him of his privilege, and has
expressly confided the child to the mother's care. Ha!" cried Mr.
Sarrazin, twisting round in his chair and fixing his keen eyes on
Mrs. Presty, "look at your good mother; _she_ sees what I am
coming to."

"I see something more than you think," Mrs. Presty answered. "If
I know anything of my daughter's nature, you will find yourself,
before long, on delicate ground."

"What do you mean, mamma?"

Mrs. Presty had lived in the past age when persons occasionally
used metaphor as an aid to the expression of their ideas. Being
called upon to explain herself, she did it in metaphor, to her
own entire satisfaction.

"Our learned friend here reminds me, my dear Catherine, of a
traveler exploring a strange town. He takes a turning, in the
confident expectation that it will reward him by leading him to
some satisfactory result--and he finds himself in a blind alley,
or, as the French put it (I speak French fluently), in a _cool de
sack_. Do I make my meaning clear, Mr. Sarrazin?"

"Not the least in the world, ma'am."

"How very extraordinary! Perhaps I have been misled by my own
vivid imagination. Let me endeavor to express myself plainly--let
me say that my fancy looks prophetically at what you are going to
do, and sincerely wishes you well out of it. Pray go on."

"And pray speak more plainly than my mother has spoken," Mrs.
Linley added. "As I understood what you said just now, there is a
law, after all, that will protect me in the possession of my
little girl. I don't care what it costs; I want that law."

"May I ask first," Mr. Sarrazin stipulated, "whether you are
positively resolved not to give way to your husband in this
matter of Kitty?"

"Positively."

"One more question, if you please, on a matter of fact. I have
heard that you were married in Scotland. Is that true?"

"Quite true."

Mr. Sarrazin exhibited himself once more in a highly
unprofessional aspect. He clapped his hands, and cried, "Bravo!"
as if he had been in a theater.

Mrs. Linley caught the infection of the lawyer's excitement. "How
dull I am!" she exclaimed. "There is a thing they call
'incompatibility of temper'--and married people sign a paper at
the lawyer's and promise never to trouble each other again as
long as they both live. And they're readier to do it in Scotland
than they are in England. That's what you mean--isn't it?"

Mr. Sarrazin found it necessary to reassume his professional
character.

"No, indeed, madam," he said, "I should be unworthy of your
confidence if I proposed nothing better than that. You can only
secure the sole possession of little Kitty by getting the help of
a judge--"

"Get it at once," Mrs. Linley interposed.

"And you can only prevail on the judge to listen to you," Mr.
Sarrazin proceeded, "in one way. Summon your courage, madam.
Apply for a divorce."

There was a sudden silence. Mrs. Linley rose trembling, as if she
saw--not good Mr. Sarrazin--but the devil himself tempting her.
"Do you hear that?" she said to her mother.

Mrs. Presty only bowed.

"Think of the dreadful exposure!"

Mrs. Presty bowed again.

The lawyer had his opportunity now.

"Well, Mrs. Linley," he asked, "what do you say?"

"No--never!" She made that positive reply; and disposed
beforehand of everything that might have been urged, in the way
of remonstrance and persuasion, by leaving the room. The two
persons who remained, sitting opposite to each other, took
opposite views.

"Mr. Sarrazin, she won't do it."

"Mrs. Presty, she will."



Chapter XXVI.


Decision.


Punctual to his fishing appointment with Kitty, Mr. Sarrazin was
out in the early morning, waiting on the pier.

Not a breath of wind was stirring; the lazy mist lay asleep on
the further shore of the lake. Here and there only the dim tops
of the hills rose like shadows cast by the earth on the faint
gray of the sky. Nearer at hand, the waters of the lake showed a
gloomy surface; no birds flew over the colorless calm; no passing
insects tempted the fish to rise. From time to time a last-left
leaf on the wooded shore dropped noiselessly and died. No
vehicles passed as yet on the lonely road; no voices were audible
from the village; slow and straight wreaths of smoke stole their
way out of the chimneys, and lost their vapor in the misty sky.
The one sound that disturbed the sullen repose of the morning was
the tramp of the lawyer's footsteps, as he paced up and down the
pier. He thought of London and its ceaseless traffic, its roaring
high tide of life in action--and he said to himself, with the
strong conviction of a town-bred man: How miserable this is!

A voice from the garden cheered him, just as he reached the end
of the pier for the fiftieth time, and looked with fifty-fold
intensity of dislike at the dreary lake.

There stood Kitty behind the garden-gate, with a fishing-rod in
each hand. A tin box was strapped on one side of her little body
and a basket on the other. Burdened with these impediments, she
required assistance. Susan had let her out of the house; and
Samuel must now open the gate for her. She was pleased to observe
that the raw morning had reddened her friend's nose; and she
presented her own nose to notice as exhibiting perfect sympathy
in this respect. Feeling a misplaced confidence in Mr. Sarrazin's
knowledge and experience as an angler, she handed the
fishing-rods to him. "My fingers are cold," she said; "you bait
the hooks." He looked at his young friend in silent perplexity;
she pointed to the tin box. "Plenty of bait there, Samuel; we
find maggots do best." Mr. Sarrazin eyed the box with undisguised
disgust; and Kitty made an unexpected discovery. "You seem to
know nothing about it," she said. And Samuel answered, cordially,
"Nothing!" In five minutes more he found himself by the side of
his young friend--with his hook baited, his line in the water,
and strict injunctions to keep an eye on the float.

They began to fish.

Kitty looked at her companion, and looked away again in silence.
By way of encouraging her to talk, the good-natured lawyer
alluded to what she had said when they parted overnight. "You
wanted to ask me something," he reminded her. "What is it?"

Without one preliminary word of warning to prepare him for
the shock, Kitty answered: "I want you to tell me what has
become of papa, and why Syd has gone away and left me. You know
who Syd is, don't you?"

The only alternative left to Mr. Sarrazin was to plead ignorance.
While Kitty was instructing him on the subject of her governess,
he had time to consider what he should say to her next. The
result added one more to the lost opportunities of Mr. Sarrazin's
life.

"You see," the child gravely continued, "you are a clever man;
and you have come here to help mamma. I have got that much out of
grandmamma, if I have got nothing else. Don't look at me; look at
your float. My papa has gone away and Syd has left me without
even saying good-by, and we have given up our nice old house in
Scotland and come to live here. I tell you I don't understand it.
If you see your float begin to tremble, and then give a little
dip down as if it was going to sink, pull your line out of the
water; you will most likely find a fish at the end of it. When I
ask mamma what all this means, she says there is a reason, and I
am not old enough to understand it, and she looks unhappy, and
she gives me a kiss, and it ends in that way. You've got a bite;
no you haven't; it's only a nibble; fish are so sly. And
grandmamma is worse still. Sometimes she tells me I'm a spoiled
child; and sometimes she says well-behaved little girls don't ask
questions. That's nonsense--and I think it's hard on me. You look
uncomfortable. Is it my fault? I don't want to bother you; I only
want to know why Syd has gone away. When I was younger I might
have thought the fairies had taken her. Oh, no! that won't do any
longer; I'm too old. Now tell me."

Mr. Sarrazin weakly attempted to gain time: he looked at his
watch. Kitty looked over his shoulder: "Oh, we needn't be in a
hurry; breakfast won't be ready for half an hour yet. Plenty of
time to talk of Syd; go on."

Most unwisely (seeing that he had to deal with a clever child,
and that child a girl), Mr. Sarrazin tried flat denial as a way
out of the difficulty. He said: "I don't know why she has gone
away." The next question followed instantly: "Well, then, what do
you _think_ about it?" In sheer despair, the persecuted friend
said the first thing that came into his head.

"I think she has gone to be married."

Kitty was indignant.

"Gone to be married, and not tell me!" she exclaimed. "What do
you mean by that?"

Mr. Sarrazin's professional experience of women and marriages
failed to supply him with an answer. In this difficulty he
exerted his imagination, and invented something that no woman
ever did yet. "She's waiting," he said, "to see how her marriage
succeeds, before she tells anybody about it."

This sounded probable to the mind of a child.

"I hope she hasn't married a beast," Kitty said, with a serious
face and an ominous shake of the head. "When shall I hear from
Syd?"

Mr. Sarrazin tried another prevarication--with better results
this time. "You will be the first person she writes to, of
course." As that excusable lie passed his lips, his float began
to tremble. Here was a chance of changing the subject--"I've got
a fish!" he cried.

Kitty was immediately interested. She threw down her own rod, and
assisted her ignorant companion. A wretched little fish appeared
in the air, wriggling. "It's a roach," Kitty pronounced. "It's in
pain," the merciful lawyer added; "give it to me." Kitty took it
off the hook, and obeyed. Mr. Sarrazin with humane gentleness of
handling put it back into the water. "Go, and God bless you,"
said this excellent man, as the roach disappeared joyously with a
flick of its tail. Kitty was scandalized. "That's not sport!" she
said. "Oh, yes, it is," he answered--"sport to the fish."

They went on with their angling. What embarrassing question would
Kitty ask next? Would she want to be told why her father had left
her? No: the last image in the child's mind had been the image of
Sydney Westerfield. She was still thinking of it when she spoke
again.

"I wonder whether you're right about Syd?" she began. "You might
be mistaken, mightn't you? I sometimes fancy mamma and Sydney may
have had a quarrel. Would you mind asking mamma if that's true?"
the affectionate little creature said, anxiously. "You see, I
can't help talking of Syd, I'm so fond of her; and I do miss her
so dreadfully every now and then; and I'm afraid--oh, dear, dear,
I'm afraid I shall never see her again!" She let her rod drop on
the pier, and put her little hands over her face and burst out
crying.

Shocked and distressed, good Mr. Sarrazin kissed her, and
consoled her, and told another excusable lie.

"Try to be comforted, Kitty; I'm sure you will see her again."

His conscience reproached him as he held out that false hope. It
could never be! The one unpardonable sin, in the judgment of
fallible human creatures like herself, was the sin that Sydney
Westerfield had committed. Is there something wrong in human
nature? or something wrong in human laws? All that is best and
noblest in us feels the influence of love--and the rules of
society declare that an accident of position shall decide whether
love is a virtue or a crime.

These thoughts were in the lawyer's mind. They troubled him and
disheartened him: it was a relief rather than an interruption
when he felt Kitty's hand on his arm. She had dried her tears,
with a child's happy facility in passing from one emotion to
another, and was now astonished and interested by a marked change
in the weather.

"Look for the lake!" she cried. "You can't see it."

A dense white fog was closing round them. Its stealthy advance
over the water had already begun to hide the boathouse at the end
of the pier from view. The raw cold of the atmosphere made the
child shiver. As Mr. Sarrazin took her hand to lead her indoors,
he turned and looked back at the faint outline of the boathouse,
disappearing in the fog. Kitty wondered. "Do you see anything?"
she asked.

He answered that there was nothing to see, in the absent tone of
a man busy with his own thoughts. They took the garden path which
led to the cottage. As they reached the door he roused himself,
and looked round again in the direction of the invisible lake.

"Was the boat-house of any use now," he inquired--"was there a
boat in it, for instance?" "There was a capital boat, fit to go
anywhere." "And a man to manage it?" "To be sure! the gardener
was the man; he had been a sailor once; and he knew the lake as
well as--" Kitty stopped, at a loss for a comparison. "As well as
you know your multiplication table?" said Mr. Sarrazin, dropping
his serious questions on a sudden. Kitty shook her head. "Much
better," she honestly acknowledged.

Opening the breakfast-room door they saw Mrs. Presty making
coffee. Kitty at once retired. When she had been fishing, her
grandmamma inculcated habits of order by directing her to take
the rods to pieces, and to put them away in their cases in the
lumber-room. While she was absent, Mr. Sarrazin profited by the
opportunity, and asked if Mrs. Linley had thought it over in the
night, and had decided on applying for a Divorce.

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