Book: The Evil Genius

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"I know nothing about my daughter," Mrs. Presty answered, "except
that she had a bad night. Thinking, no doubt, over your advice,"
the old lady added with a mischievous smile.

"Will you kindly inquire if Mrs. Linley has made up her mind
yet?" the lawyer ventured to say.

"Isn't that your business?" Mrs. Presty asked slyly. "Suppose you
write a little note, and I will send it up to her room." The
worldly-wisdom which prompted this suggestion contemplated a
possible necessity for calling a domestic council, assembled to
consider the course of action which Mrs. Linley would do well to
adopt. If the influence of her mother was among the forms of
persuasion which might be tried, that wary relative maneuvered to
make the lawyer speak first, and so to reserve to herself the
advantage of having the last word.

Patient Mr. Sarrazin wrote the note.

He modestly asked for instructions; and he was content to receive
them in one word--Yes or No. In the event of the answer being
Yes, he would ask for a few minutes' conversation with Mrs.
Linley, at her earliest convenience. Tha t was all.

The reply was returned in a form which left Yes to be inferred:
"I will receive you as soon as you have finished your breakfast."


Chapter XXVII.


Resolution.


Having read Mrs. Linley's answer, Mr. Sarrazin looked out of the
breakfast-room window, and saw that the fog had reached the
cottage. Before Mrs. Presty could make any remark on the change
in the weather, he surprised her by an extraordinary question.

"Is there an upper room here, ma'am, which has a view of the road
before your front gate?"

"Certainly!"

"And can I go into it without disturbing anybody?"

Mrs. Presty said, "Of course!" with an uplifting of her eye brows
which expressed astonishment not unmixed with suspicion. "Do you
want to go up now?" she added, "or will you wait till you have
had your breakfast?"

"I want to go up, if you please, before the fog thickens. Oh,
Mrs. Presty, I am ashamed to trouble you! Let the servant show me
the room."

No. For the first time in her life Mrs. Presty insisted on doing
servant's duty. If she had been crippled in both legs her
curiosity would have helped her to get up the stairs on her
hands. "There!" she said, opening the door of the upper room, and
placing herself exactly in the middle of it, so that she could
see all round her: "Will that do for you?"

Mr. Sarrazin went to the window; hid himself behind the curtain;
and cautiously peeped out. In half a minute he turned his back on
the misty view of the road, and said to himself: "Just what I
expected."

Other women might have asked what this mysterious proceeding
meant. Mrs. Presty's sense of her own dignity adopted a system of
independent discovery. To Mr. Sarrazin's amusement, she imitated
him to his face. Advancing to the window, she, too, hid herself
behind the curtain, and she, too, peeped out. Still following her
model, she next turned her back on the view--and then she became
herself again. "Now we have both looked out of window," she said
to the lawyer, in her own inimitably impudent way, "suppose we
compare our impressions."

This was easily done. They had both seen the same two men walking
backward and forward, opposite the front gate of the cottage.
Before the advancing fog made it impossible to identify him, Mr.
Sarrazin had recognized in one of the men his agreeable
fellow-traveler on the journey from London. The other man--a
stranger--was in all probability an assistant spy obtained in the
neighborhood. This discovery suggested serious embarrassment in
the future. Mrs. Presty asked what was to be done next. Mr.
Sarrazin answered: "Let us have our breakfast."

In another quarter of an hour they were both in Mrs. Linley's
room.

Her agitated manner, her reddened eyes, showed that she was still
suffering under the emotions of the past night. The moment the
lawyer approached her, she crossed the room with hurried steps,
and took both his hands in her trembling grasp. "You are a good
man, you are a kind man," she said to him wildly; "you have my
truest respect and regard. Tell me, are
you--really--really--really sure that the one way in which I can
keep my child with me is the way you mentioned last night?"

Mr. Sarrazin led her gently back to her chair.

The sad change in her startled and distressed him. Sincerely,
solemnly even, he declared that the one alternative before her
was the alternative that he had mentioned. He entreated her to
control herself. It was useless, she still held him as if she was
holding to her last hope.

"Listen to me!" she cried. "There's something more; there's
another chance for me. I must, and will, know what you think of
it."

"Wait a little. Pray wait a little!"

"No! not a moment. Is there any hope in appealing to the lawyer
whom Mr. Linley has employed? Let me go back with you to London.
I will persuade him to exert his influence--I will go down on my
knees to him--I will never leave him till I have won him over to
my side--I will take Kitty with me; he shall see us both, and
pity us, and help us!"

"Hopeless. Quite hopeless, Mrs. Linley."

"Oh, don't say that!"

"My dear lady, my poor dear lady, I must say it. The man you are
talking of is the last man in the world to be influenced as you
suppose. He is notoriously a lawyer, and nothing but a lawyer. If
you tried to move him to pity you, he would say, 'Madam, I am
doing my duty to my client'; and he would ring his bell and have
you shown out. Yes! even if he saw you crushed and crying at his
feet."

Mrs. Presty interfered for the first time.

"In your place, Catherine," she said, "I would put my foot down
on that man and crush _him_. Consent to the Divorce, and you may
do it."

Mrs. Linley lay prostrate in her chair. The excitement which had
sustained her thus far seemed to have sunk with the sinking of
her last hope. Pale, exhausted, yielding to hard necessity, she
looked up when her mother said, "Consent to the Divorce," and
answered, "I have consented."

"And trust me," Mr. Sarrazin said fervently, "to see that Justice
is done, and to protect you in the meanwhile."

Mrs. Presty added her tribute of consolation.

"After all," she asked, "what is there to terrify you in the
prospect of a Divorce? You won't hear what people say about
it--for we see no society now. And, as for the newspapers, keep
them out of the house."

Mrs. Linley answered with a momentary revival of energy

"It is not the fear of exposure that has tortured me," she said.
"When I was left in the solitude of the night, my heart turned to
Kitty; I felt that any sacrifice of myself might be endured for
her sake. It's the remembrance of my marriage, Mr. Sarrazin, that
is the terrible trial to me. Those whom God has joined together,
let no man put asunder. Is there nothing to terrify me in setting
that solemn command at defiance? I do it--oh, I do it--in
consenting to the Divorce! I renounce the vows which I bound
myself to respect in the presence of God; I profane the
remembrance of eight happy years, hallowed by true love. Ah, you
needn't remind me of what my husband has done. I don't forget how
cruelly he has wronged me; I don't forget that his own act has
cast me from him. But whose act destroys our marriage? Mine,
mine! Forgive me, mamma; forgive me, my kind friend--the horror
that I have of myself forces its way to my lips. No more of it!
My child is my one treasure left. What must I do next? What must
I sign? What must I sacrifice? Tell me--and it shall be done. I
submit! I submit!"

Delicately and mercifully Mr. Sarrazin answered that sad appeal.

All that his knowledge, experience and resolution could suggest
he addressed to Mrs. Presty. Mrs. Linley could listen or not
listen, as her own wishes inclined. In the one case or in the
other, her interests would be equally well served. The good
lawyer kissed her hand. "Rest, and recover," he whispered. And
then he turned to her mother--and became a man of business once
more.

"The first thing I shall do, ma'am, is to telegraph to my agent
in Edinburgh. He will arrange for the speediest possible hearing
of our case in the Court of Session. Make your mind easy so far."

Mrs. Presty's mind was by this time equally inaccessible to
information and advice. "I want to know what is to be done with
those two men who are watching the gate," was all she said in the
way of reply.

Mrs. Linley raised her head in alarm.

"Two!" she exclaimed--and looked at Mr. Sarrazin. "You only spoke
of one last night."

"And I add another this morning. Rest your poor head, Mrs.
Linley, I know how it aches; I know how it burns." He still
persisted in speaking to Mrs. Presty. "One of those two men will
follow me to the station, and see me off on my way to London. The
other will look after you, or your daughter, or the maid, or any
other person who may try to get away into hiding with Kitty. And
they are both keeping close to the gate, in the fear of losing
sight of us in the fog."

"I wish we lived in the Middle Ages!" said Mrs. Presty.

"What would be the use of that, ma'am?"

"Good heavens, Mr. Sarrazin, don't you see? In those grand old
days you would have taken a dagger, and the gardener would have
taken a dagger, and you would have stolen out, and stabbed those
two villains as a matter of course. And this is the age of
progress! The vilest rogue in existence is a sacred person whose
life we are bound to respect. Ah, what good that national hero
would have done who put his barrels of gunpowder in the right
place on the Fifth of November! I have always said it, and I
stick to it, Guy Fawkes was a great statesman."

In the meanwhile Mrs. Linley was not resting, and not listening
to the expression of her mother's political sentiments. She was
intently watching Mr. Sarrazin's face.

"There is danger threatening us," she said. "Do you see a way out
of it?"

To persist in trying to spare her was plainly useless; Mr.
Sarrazin answered her directly.

"The danger of legal proceedings to obtain possession of the
child," he said, "is more near and more serious than I thought it
right to acknowledge, while you were in doubt which way to
decide. I was careful--too careful, perhaps--not to unduly
influence you in a matter of the utmost importance to your future
life. But you have made up your mind. I don't scruple now to
remind you that an interval of time must pass before the decree
for your Divorce can be pronounced, and the care of the child be
legally secured to the mother. The only doubt and the only danger
are there. If you are not frightened by the prospect of a
desperate venture which some women would shrink from, I believe I
see a way of baffling the spies."

Mrs. Linley started to her feet. "Say what I am to do," she
cried, "and judge for yourself if I am as easily frightened as
some women."

The lawyer pointed with a persuasive smile to her empty chair.
"If you allow yourself to be excited," he said, "you will
frighten me. Please--oh, please sit down again!"

Mrs. Linley felt the strong will, asserting itself in terms of
courteous entreaty. She obeyed. Mrs. Presty had never admired the
lawyer as she admired him now. "Is that how you manage your
wife?" she asked.

Mr. Sarrazin was equal to the occasion, whatever it might be. "In
your time, ma'am," he said, "did you reveal the mysteries of
conjugal life?" He turned to Mrs. Linley. "I have something to
ask first," he resumed, "and then you shall hear what I propose.
How many people serve you in this cottage?"

"Three. Our landlady, who is housekeeper and cook. Our own maid.
And the landlady's daughter, who does the housework."

"Any out-of-door servants?"

"Only the gardener."

"Can you trust these people?"

"In what way, Mr. Sarrazin?"

"Can you trust them with a secret which only concerns yourself?"

"Certainly! The maid has been with us for years; no truer woman
ever lived. The good old landlady often drinks tea with us. Her
daughter is going to be married; and I have given the
wedding-dress. As for the gardener, let Kitty settle the matter
with him, and I answer for the rest. Why are you pointing to the
window?"

"Look out, and tell me what you see."

"I see the fog."

"And I, Mrs. Linley, have seen the boathouse. While the spies are
watching your gate, what do you say to crossing the lake, under
cover of the fog?"



FOURTH BOOK.

Chapter XXVIII.


Mr. Randal Linley.


Winter had come and gone; spring was nearing its end, and London
still suffered under the rigid regularity of easterly winds.
Although in less than a week summer would begin with the first of
June, Mr. Sarrazin was glad to find his office warmed by a fire,
when he arrived to open the letters of the day.

The correspondence in general related exclusively to proceedings
connected with the law. Two letters only presented an exception
to the general rule. The first was addressed in Mrs. Linley's
handwriting, and bore the postmark of Hanover. Kitty's mother had
not only succeeded in getting to the safe side of the lake--she
and her child had crossed the German Ocean as well. In one
respect her letter was a remarkable composition. Although it was
written by a lady, it was short enough to be read in less than a
minute:



"MY DEAR MR. SARRAZIN--I have just time to write by this
evening's post. Our excellent courier has satisfied himself that
the danger of discovery has passed away. The wretches have been
so completely deceived that they are already on their way back to
England, to lie in wait for us at Folkestone and Dover. To-morrow
morning we leave this charming place--oh, how unwillingly!--for
Bremen, to catch the steamer to Hull. You shall hear from me
again on our arrival. Gratefully yours,


CATHERINE LINLEY."



Mr. Sarrazin put this letter into a private drawer and smiled as
he turned the key. "Has she made up her mind at last?" he asked
himself. "But for the courier, I shouldn't feel sure of her even
now."

The second letter agreeably surprised him. It was announced that
the writer had just returned from the United States; it invited
him to dinner that evening; and it was signed "Randal Linley." In
Mr. Sarrazin's estimation, Randal had always occupied a higher
place than his brother. The lawyer had known Mrs. Linley before
her marriage, and had been inclined to think that she would have
done wisely if she had given her hand to the younger brother
instead of the elder. His acquaintance with Randal ripened
rapidly into friendship. But his relations with Herbert made no
advance toward intimacy: there was a gentlemanlike cordiality
between them, and nothing more.

At seven o'clock the two friends sat at a snug little table, in
the private room of a hotel, with an infinite number of questions
to ask of each other, and with nothing to interrupt them but a
dinner of such extraordinary merit that it insisted on being
noticed, from the first course to the last.

Randal began. "Before we talk of anything else," he said, "tell
me about Catherine and the child. Where are they?"

"On their way to England, after a residence in Germany."

"And the old lady?"

"Mrs. Presty has been staying with friends in London."

"What! have they parted company? Has there been a quarrel?"

"Nothing of the sort; a friendly separation, in the strictest
sense of the word. Oh, Randal, what are you about? Don't put
pepper into this perfect soup. It's as good as the _gras double_
at the Cafe Anglais in Paris."

"So it is; I wasn't paying proper attention to it. But I am
anxious about Catherine. Why did she go abroad?"

"Haven't you heard from her?"

"Not for six months or more. I innocently vexed her by writing a
little too hopefully about Herbert. Mrs. Presty answered my
letter, and recommended me not to write again. It isn't like
Catherine to bear malice."

"Don't even think such a thing possible!" the lawyer answered,
earnestly. "Attribute her silence to the right cause. Terrible
anxieties have been weighing on her mind since you went to
America."

"Anxieties caused by my brother? Oh, I hope not!"

"Caused entirely by your brother--if I must tell the truth. Can't
you guess how?"

"Is it the child? You don't mean to tell me that Herbert has
taken Kitty away from her mother!"

"While I am her mother's lawyer, my friend, your brother won't do
that. Welcome back to England in the first glass of sherry; good
wine, but a little too dry for my taste. No, we won't talk of
domestic troubles just yet. You shall hear all about it after
dinner. What made you go to America? You haven't been delivering
lectures, have you?"

"I have been enjoying myself among the most hospitable people in
the world."

Mr. Sarrazin shook his head; he had a case of copyright in hand
just then. "A people to be pitied," he said.

"Why?"

"Because their Government forgets what is due to the honor of the
nation."

"How?"

"In this way. The honor of a nation which confers right of
property in works of art, produced by its own citizens, is surely
concerned in protecting from theft works of art produced by other
citizens."

"That's not the fault of the people."

"Certainly not. I have already said it's the fault of the
Government. Let's attend to the fish now."

Randal took his friend's advice. "Good sauce, isn't it?" he said.

The epicure entered a protest. "Good?" he repeated. "My dear
fellow, it's absolute perfection. I don't like to cast a slur on
English cookery. But think of melted butter, and tell me if
anybody but a foreigner (I don't like foreigners, but I give them
their due) could have produced this white wine sauce? So you
really had no particular motive in going to America?"

"On the contrary, I had a very particular motive. Just remember
what my life used to be when I was in Scotland--and look at my
life now! No Mount Morven; no model farm to look after; no
pleasant Highland neighbors; I can't go to my brother while he is
leading his present life; I have hurt Catherine's feelings; I
have lost dear little Kitty; I am not obliged to earn my living
(more's the pity); I don't care about politics; I have a pleasure
in eating harmless creatures, but no pleasure in shooting them.
What is there left for me to do, but to try change of scene, and
go roaming around the world, a restless creature without an
object in life? Have I done something wrong again? It isn't the
pepper this time--and yet you're looking at me as if I was trying
your temper."

The French side of Mr. Sarrazin's nature had got the better of
him once more. He pointed indignantly to a supreme preparation of
fowl on his friend's plate. "Do I actually see you picking out
your truffles, and putting them on one side?" he asked.

"Well," Randal acknowledged, "I don't care about truffles."

Mr. Sarrazin rose, with his plate in his hand and his fork ready
for action. He walked round the table to his friend's side, and
reverently transferred the neglected truffles to his own plate.
"Randal, you will live to repent this," he said solemnly. "In the
meantime, I am the gainer." Until he had finished the truffles,
no word fell from his lips. "I think I should have enjoyed them
more," he remarked, "if I had concentrated my attention by
closing my eyes; but you would have thought I was going to
sleep." He recovered his English nationality, after this, until
the dessert had been placed on the table, and the waiter was
ready to leave the room. At that auspicious moment, he underwent
another relapse. He insisted on sending his compliments and
thanks to the cook.

"At last," said Randal, "we are by ourselves--and now I want to
know why Catherine went to Germany."


Chapter XXIX.

Mr. Sarrazin.

As a lawyer, Randal's guest understood that a narrative of events
can only produce the right effect, on one condition: it must
begin at the beginning. Having related all that had been said and
done during his visit to the cottage, including his first efforts
in the character of an angler under Kitty's supervision, he
stopped to fill his glass again--and then astonished Randal by
describing the plan that he had devised for escaping from the
spies by crossing the lake in the fog.

"What did the ladies say to it?" Randal inquired. "Who spoke
first?"

"Mrs. Presty, of course! She objected to risk her life on the
water, in a fog. Mrs. Linley showed a resolution for which I was
not prepared. She thought of Kitty, saw the value of my
suggestion, and went away at once to consult with the landlady.
In the meantime I sent for the gardener, and told him what I was
thinking of. He was one of those stolid Englishmen, who possess
resources which don't express themselves outwardly. Judging by
his face, you would have said he was subsiding into a slumber
under the infliction of a sermon, instead of listening to a
lawyer proposing a stratagem. When I had done, the man showed the
metal he was made of. In plain English, he put three questions
which gave me the highest opinion of his intelligence. 'How much
luggage, sir?' 'As little as they can conveniently take with
them,' I said. 'How many persons?' 'The two ladies, the child,
and myself.' 'Can you row, sir?' 'In any water you like, Mr.
Gardener, fresh or salt'. Think of asking Me, an athletic
Englishman, if I could row! In an hour more we were ready to
embark, and the blessed fog was thicker than ever. Mrs. Presty
yielded under protest; Kitty was wild with delight; her mother
was quiet and resigned. But one circumstance occurred that I
didn't quite understand--the presence of a stranger on the pier
with a gun in his hand."

"You don't mean one of the spies?"

"Nothing of the sort; I mean an idea of the gardener's. He had
been a sailor in his time--and that's a trade which teaches a man
(if he's good for anything) to think, and act on his thought, at
one and the same moment. He had taken a peep at the blackguards
in front of the house, and had recognized the shortest of the two
as a native of the place, perfectly well aware that one of the
features attached to the cottage was a boathouse. 'That chap is
not such a fool as he looks,' says the gardener. 'If he mentions
the boat-house, the other fellow from London may have his
suspicions. I thought I would post my son on the pier--that quiet
young man there with the gun--to keep a lookout. If he sees
another boat (there are half a dozen on this side of the lake)
putting off after us, he has orders to fire, on the chance of our
hearing him. A little notion of mine, sir, to prevent our being
surprised in the fog. Do you see any objection to it?' Objection!
In the days when diplomacy was something more than a solemn
pretense, what a member of Congress that gardener would have
made! Well, we shipped our oars, and away we went. Not quite
haphazard--for we had a compass with us. Our course was as
straight as we could go, to a village on the opposite side of the
lake, called Brightfold. Nothing happened for the first quarter
of an hour--and then, by the living Jingo (excuse my vulgarity),
we heard the gun!"

"What did you do?"

"Went on rowing, and held a council. This time I came out as the
clever one of the party. The men were following us in the dark;
they would have to guess at the direction we had taken, and they
would most likely assume (in such weather as we had) that we
should choose the shortest way across the lake. At my suggestion
we changed our course, and made for a large town, higher up on
the shore, called Tawley. We landed, and waited for events, and
made no discovery of another boat behind us. The fools had
justified my confidence in them--they had gone to Brightfold.
There was half-an-hour to spare before the next train came to
Tawley; and the fog was beginning to lift on that side of the
lake. We looked at the shops; and I made a purchase in the town."

"Stop a minute," said Randal. "Is Brightfold on the railway?"

"No."

"Is there an electric telegraph at the place?"

"Yes."

"That was awkward, wasn't it? The first thing those men would do
would be to telegraph to Tawley."

"Not a doubt of it. How would they describe us, do you think?"

Randal answered. "A middle-aged gentleman--two ladies, one of
them elderly--and a little girl. Quite enough to identify you at
Tawley, if the station-master understood the message."

"Shall I tell you what the station-master discovered, with the
message in his hand? No elderly lady, no middle-aged gentleman;
nothing more remarkable than _one_ lady--and a little boy."

Randal's face brightened. "You parted company, of course," he
said; "and you disguised Kitty! How did you manage it?"

"Didn't I say just now that we looked at the shops, and that I
made a purchase in the town? A boy's ready-made suit--not at all
a bad fit for Kitty! Mrs. Linley put on the suit, and tucked up
the child's hair under a straw hat, in an empty yard--no idlers
about in that bad weather. We said good-by, and parted, with
grievous misgivings on my side, which proved (thank God!) to have
been quite needless. Kitty and her mother went to the station,
and Mrs. Presty and I hired a carriage, and drove away to the
head of the lake, to catch the train to London. Do you know,
Randal, I have altered my opinion of Mrs. Presty?"

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