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A 1 A = 0 = 0 s p i™ - 3>-l b 33 1 1 Z 1 S JD 1 |3 = 8 = ■ o 1 |z] ■ > 1 = 1 — 1 0 = ■ 1 — 1 = si 4 SS — 5 E -r-^l 1 U ■ 3> 1 I6 " s -< 1 l 9 1 I THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES = '" i : __ THE IIARTEYS VOL. II. THE HARVEYS. BY HENRY KINGSLEY, authob of " hetty," "old mahgabbt," "gboffry hamlyit," "batenshoe," etc. etc. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: TINSLEY BROS., IS, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1S72. LONDON : WXMAN AND SONS, PEINTEEB, GEBAT QUEEN-STBEET, LINCOLN'e-INN-FIBLDS. U -2_ CONTENTS OE VOL. II. CHAP. PAGE 1. OUR MECHANICAL SYREN 1 2. FOLLOWERS 23 3. THE FIRST VICTIM 37 4. DICK IN A NEW LIGHT 51 5. MORE LETTERS 65 6. I AM EXAMINED ON A CHARGE OF MURDER 74 7. PRISON 83 8. OFFICIOUS FRIENDS 96 555751 vi Contents. CHAP. PAGE 9. THE GLACIS 107 10. A DUEL 115 11. purgatory 137 12. ciel d'alsace 144 13. THE HEIR 155 14. THE NEW LIFE, WITH GLEAMS OF THE OLD 163 15. dick's return from the sea 172 16. AN UNEXPECTED meeting 192 17. the last news of madame d'estrada 197 THE HARYEYS. CHAPTER I. OUR MECHANICAL SYREN. jjEALTH, freedom, and, in pro- spect, honour and a grand posi- tion ! After all these weary years, what a prospect for me ! As I sat on the deck of the old Soho, as she was going down the river, I said to myself that only one thing was left for me to desire in this world, and that one thing was personal beauty. Like the young cub which I was, II. b The Harvey s. I once or twice was sorry that I was not handsome. What worthless, selfish prigs many- boys are. I don't claim to be worse than the majority of clever boys, but at this very time, when by a stroke of fortune the world was at my feet, when I was starting on my first holiday journey to new lands, with every chance of relieving the man I loved best in the world — my father — from all future difficulty, I remem- ber that I was jealous of the personal beauty of a lad of my own age, who was on board. It is painful to write oneself down a fool, but I fear I must do so on this occasion. Before we got to Gravesend I had out my water-colour box, and had sketched the man at the wheel, I think successfully ; I Our Mechanical Syren. was nearly finishing, when a voice in my ear said, " I envy you." I turned, and I saw a handsome lad. I replied, " I envy you ; for what do you envy me ? " "Your art," he said. "For what do you envy me ? " " Your beauty," I said ; " sit there and let me paint you." And ho sat down wearily and quietly. "Am I, then, so handsome?'1 he said. " You are very handsome," I replied. " It is almost a pity," he said, rather wearily, " because I am going to Nice." " What are you going to do there ? " I asked. " To die. The English doctors have given me over, and will not even allow me B 2 The Harvey s. to die among my own people. I may live three months more by going to Nice, but I do not care to take the trouble. I am dying of consumption." I left my sketching-block and went up to him at once. I put my arm round his neck, and he said, "Take care of my breath, it is death. Is your name Harvey ?" "Yes." " I thought so. My name is Chetwynd. I am half-brother to your friend John Chetwynd. " Have you any power over your sister? " "No." "If you had I should say, keep her from him ; but as you have not, paint me. Hark ! how beautiful that is. "When I am dead I shall be up there and know the mystery of those wonderful echoes." For a sudden thunderstorm from the Our Mechanical Syren. south-west had broken close to us, and the lightning and thunder had come before the rain. We gathered up everything, and went to the cabin, where in a quiet corner we talked much and talked long. Then on deck again we sat together, while the river grew broader and wider, and at last we outsat all the others, talking until — " With stars and sea-winds for her raiment, Night sank on the sea." Then I took him down, and left him to get to bed; but I came on deck again and smoked, walking up and down half the night thinking about all that he had told me about Chetwynd, and feeling as entirely unhappy on my first great holiday as ever I had done in my life. The sea-winds were in a most disconsolate humour that night, and seemed to moan of nothing but death. The Savveys. The approach to the great city of Ant- werp is not lively by any means, and with the exception of Flushing, which is cer- tainly fine in colour, I thought that Holland was rather flat, and in a scenical point of view a failure. At the same time it was foreign parts, and so by eleven o'clock, when I had got my things to the Grand Laboreur (the old Grand Laboreur), had left a message for my aunt, had de- clined to breakfast until I returned, and had set off on foot with my new friend for the cathedral, I felt, indeed, that I was beginning to see life. I was as free as a swallow or an eagle, everything was so entirely new to me that I did not know what to look at first. The music of the carillons, which seemed hardly to have ceased since I landed, attracted me more than anything, and I was not satisfied until Our Mechanical Syren. I arrived at the tower from which they came, and heard them four hundred feet overhead. I looked up at the soaring ribs of stone above me, and like a child as I was, I determined that I would climb the tower before anything, and hear them ring aloft. I told my companion so. "I hope you will not spoil the romance by getting behind the scenes," he said, smiling. " I am a Roman Catholic, you know." (I did not know it.) "And my advice to you is not to get behind the high altar as you can do here, and take Monseigneur a tergo. I did it once at a wedding here, and saw a sulky-looking young acolyte mixing oils, as if he was doing a chemical experiment. Once also I went behind the scenes at the opera ; but I never went twice. Leave the bells alone, there is nothing up there but dead metal 8 The Harvey s. and barrels like those of street organs. Continue your illusion that they are played by the angels, and come to High Mass with me, among the sailors' wives, who are praying for their husbands at sea ; it is much more in your way." But I climbed the steeple, and put my head to the largest bell while it was ringing ; and then I got on to the topmost pinnacle and looked at the great tower of Mechlin forty miles away (where there are finer chimes than those which were dinning in my ears), and then I came down again under the impression that I had spent a very profitable morning, and thought that I would go and see my aunt. When I arrived opposite the hotel, I became aware of a small crowd under a particular window, and of an extremely Our Mechanical Syren. 9 magnificent feminine voice issuing from it, singing in Italian. The crowd grew greater as I approached, and I did not wonder at it, for more splendid singing I never heard before or since. Yet it was interrupted, and frequently one passage was repeated time after time, which puzzled me rather. I went into the concierge, and got the commissionnaire to show me my aunt's rooms. " What is the reason of the crowd out- side ? " I asked. " Do you not know, monsieur ? It is to hear the Comtesse D' Estrada sing. Mon- sieur's aunt, the Duchess Harvey, is her companion, her tutor, her second self. It is said that your aunt, the good duchess, is a better singer than she is. I remember, madame the duchess singing in Paris, it is 10 The Harvey s. now nearly twenty years ago. Entrez, monsieur." I thought to myself, as I opened the door, of what my new friend had said to me ; and that I had better still believe that the music was that of an angel, and not produced by mechanical means. The lady who confronted me when I entered, however, seemed by no means a mechanical lady, inasmuch as she was decidedly in a most outrageous ill-temper. " Allez, allez," she said to me, very angrily, and then turning to my aunt, who was sitting as cool as a cucumber by the piano, she went on, " Madame, you kill me with your inexorable temper ; it is now five times I have sung that passage to you, and each time worse." " Each time worse," said my aunt, coolly. Our Mechanical Syren. 11 " You madden me. Is one eternally to sing to an old woman ? " " No," said my aunt, "you have to sing shortly before the audience at La Scala, which is not entirely composed of old women. "Well, here is my nephew, be civil to him." Madame D' Estrada was extremely civil to me ; more civil than any lady had ever been before. She was a handsome girl, as I have said before, excessively dark and gipsy-looking, with very fine eyes, which seemed to wander in a rather vague way until they fixed themselves on something, at which time, as I noticed now and after- wards, there was a trifle too much expres- sion in them either of admiration or anger. In fact, those eyes of madame's were so extremely remarkable and expressive, that she was sometimes addressed by strangers 12 The Harvey s. in the street, although a woman of heroic and transcendant virtue and carefulness of carriage. On one occasion also, when a sergent de ville had trodden on her toes, she had looked at him so dreadfully that he had called for assistance, and told his comrades that madame had looked at him in such a frightfully emportee manner that he trembled for his life. Nobody ever clearly knew anything pre- cise about Monsieur D' Estrada. Some said that he was dead, some said that he was not dead, and some said that he never lived. All that I ever got out of my aunt on the subject was that the man was an old mauvcds sujet, who had treated his young wife in the most shameful manner, and had driven her on to the stage. My aunt gave the young lady the best of Our Mechanical Syren. 13 characters, and, knowing my aunt as I did, I was certain that she believed en- tirely in her and her story. Still my aunt, in some ways, was very simple and foolish, and, after the first glimpse of these eyes on my not very handsome face, I rather distrusted the young lady. The history of my aunt's engagement with her had been simply this : Madame D' Estrada, at this very time only twenty- four years of age, had been trying to give music lessons. My aunt, who had been in the same way of business under an assumed name, had come across her, and had discovered a voice such as she had never heard before, combined with very low musical education, and great intel- lectual stupidity. My aunt had discovered that the poor young lady loved her art, 1-Jj The Savveys. and had kindly taken her in hand. If we had ever been in the world we should have known that my aunt, under her assumed name, was possibly the greatest mechanical mistress in Europe. We knew nothing of it, and my aunt would sit and hear Dora's miserable strumming hour by hour without one attempt at assistance. My aunt had always a fear that the fact of her teaching music would be an injury to my father's position. But the time came on when my father's position was likely to be compromised by his doctrines, and then she spoke and acted in her own quaint way. At the very first opening she saw she sent Dora into the world. She acted on Lady Frogmarsh and Mr. Hawkins, with what result our readers have seen. But she still wanted money, and a great deal of it, for my Our Mechanical Syren. 15 father's case would soon be that of a broken man. Him she was determined never to desert. She had made two attempts previously with poor young Madame D'Estrada. Some old theatre-goers remember the awful failure which a certain Miss Boyce made at the Surrey Theatre under Mr. Bunn. That young lady was no other than Madame D'Estrada. She forgot her part, and began crying. It was pitiable. The audience were very kind, and she got through somehow, but her engagement came to an end at a price which kept her for six months ; after which time my aunt kept her until a certain great impresario began to talk about her as a magnificent failure, and my aunt watched her time and studied with her. The time came. The three days' dis- 16 The Harvey s. appearance of a great actress may be remembered. It was an odd and mys- terious affair, with which we have nothing to do. My aunt went to the manager, and said, " Have my Adalgisa for one night; she will be back by Thursday." The manager said that he must do so at all hazards. When the audience saw a total stranger come on to answer to the name still in the playbill, there was a slight disturbance, upon which the manager came forward and explained the unhappy position in which he was suddenly placed. The part did not suit the girl, and she was obviously scared, but her appearance was three-quarters of a great success. After the first act Madame D'Estrada lost her timidity, and sang with great verve and splendour, but at times with Our Mechanical Syren. 17 great incorrectness. She would not do yet, as my aunt told her as she put her shawl on. She must have another year's study. So ended the two attempts with Madame D'Estrada. At the time of the break-up, for so I may call it, of our old house, the extra year's study was finished, and my aunt would not be beholden to any impresario in the world. She executed an agreement with Madame D'Estrada to receive one-third of her earnings for five years. My aunt had nearly kept that lady for above a year, and had devoted the principal part of her time to her. Moreover, the expenses of travel were to be borne by my aunt, and so Madame D'Estrada had made an excellent bargain for herself. My aunt had taken the most excellent care to advertise in a way which II. c 18 The Harvey s. is only possible by those who have lived in the great world. Enormous posters have their use, or what would become of the bill-stickers ? But a dozen letters to old friends in the best society, from a beautiful duke's daughter, who had ro- mantically retired from the world after a romantic marriage, did more for Madame D'Estrada than all the posters in the world. The fact is, that my aunt's posi- tion was rather romantic, and many leaders of society remembered my aunt singing in old times, while the men remembered not only her singing but her beauty. In short, my aunt did what all the mysterious posters in the world could not do, she got her protegee tallied about. Now, if you can get any painter, novelist, or poet talked about in Our Mechanical Syren. 19 certain quarters, he or she must be an absolute fool unless they make their mark. To give instances would be personal, and might bring us under the law of libel; but my aunt got Madame D' Estrada talked about so well just as the English were going abroad, that she was spoken highly of, and expected in Paris by people who, to use a vulgarism, had never heard a noise out of her head. My aunt told me one day at Coblentz that Lady Frog- marsh had set the whole Evangelical party talking about her for old friendship's sake. I told Lady Frogmarsh the honest truth, that the woman was a Roman Catholic, but Lady Frogmarsh' s friendship is stronger than her fanaticism. She had the D'Estrada to her house, and made her sing Beethoven. c 2 20 The Earveys. I found also that my aunt had advertised her protegee a little for herself. She was nobody at all ; the hotel bills were made out in the name of the Comtesse D'Estrada ; the comtesse was not to be disturbed on any account whatever ; the comtesse' s carriage was to be round at such-and- such an hour ; telegrams from the opera at Paris were to be brought to Miladi Harvey, so that the comtesse was not to be disturbed. My aunt knew what she was about, and I think that I have put you fairly in possession of the state of affairs between them at the period of my first interview. I certainly thought about what my friend the younger Chetwynd had said to me about the mechanical work of the bells after I had been in the room a minute. Our Mechanical Syren. 21 " Now, Flore, come here once more. We must have that passage again. You have an audience now. Stand there, Charles. Now Flore, sing to Charles. He is ugly, but quite good enough to sing to." So she sang to me, and as she sang she saw my admiration in my eyes. She sang better and better, and with more and more careful mechanical precision. Had she known that I was as ignorant as an owl about music she might possibly have made another failure. But she sang as though she were appealing from my aunt to me, and gave perfect satisfaction ; after which we went to lunch. In the evening my aunt ordered me to take Madame D'Estrada to the theatre, and an extremely agreeable evening we 22 The Harvey s. had. Our box was nearly invisible, save from the stage, and before the end of the last piece I felt that I had known Madame D' Estrada for years. When I was in bed my aunt, coming coolly in, sat on the foot of it, and said : — " Has she been making love to you ? ' "No." " She will to-morrow," said my aunt, yawning. " She means no harm, but she can't help it. Good night." CHAPTER II. FOLLOWERS. I ADAME D'ESTRADA most cer- tainly was more polite to me than any lady had ever been before, and on my mentioning to her that I was engaged to be married, she grew more and more confiden- tial. She talked to me continually about Mary Dickson, and I liked it very much. We became the very best of friends. Flirt she would with any man who was in the least way agreeable, but she seemed to me an honest and painstaking 24 The Harvey s. young lady, and I only knew her as a genial and pleasant companion, never dreaming for an instant how my life and hers were bound up together. To me she was immensely amusing. Seeing that flirtation was out of the question with me, and seeing also that as I was not likely (to use a vulgarism which may pass) to get in tow with her, and to fetch and carry for her, she treated me simply as a friend and brother artist, and unbosomed herself in the most simple manner. " If you will let me consider myself as your sister," she said, at Bonn, before going to bed, " you will give what I have never had before, — a brother. Lovers I have had, but never a brother. Say, shall it be a pact with us ? " I said, " Yes ; but that I should behave Folloiuers. 25 as a brother, and request her to do as much for me as I did for her." "As how, then?" " Why,", I said, " you sent me out to buy gloves for you this morning, and I paid for them. Now, I will show you how to clean my palette to-morrow morning, and I shall expect you to do it." " You are what the English call a bully," she said, with a laugh; "but he whom I shall marry is a bully, too. Well, I will clean your palette, jackanapes ; but you must admire me." "I do admire you," I said; "but I should admire you more if you did not seek for admiration so much. You had a flirtation with a gentleman at the table d'hote to-day." 2G The Harvey s. " How can I help myself if the Comte D'Estrelle chose to admire me ? ' " You are going," I said, " to take a great place in the professional world of Europe : you must be very careful. Do you know, for example, who the Comte D'Estrelle is ? " " He is a French nobleman of large property." " He is Tom Jackson, the steeplechase rider : a most notorious card - sharper. There is not a young artist in Newman Street who does not know him. I went up to the billiard-room to-night, and found him among the German students. He knew me, and wanted to be quarrelsome. He was very impertinent to me, and we had an argument, at the end of which he offered to fight me (in English). I said Followers. 27 that I would give him an answer to- morrow morning. I left him to his own devices, and talked with Von Lieber, of the Brandenburg Hussars. We watched him, and caught him cheating young Yon Hildesheim at ecarte. I then exposed him, and told his real name. He was turned out of the room, and has orders to leave the town by the police ; for, thank heaven, we are in a land of law." " He seemed gentlemanly," she said. " Yes, but you must take greater care," I answered. "I am the only man of the party, and your indiscretions endanger my life. If the question had been between Von Lieber or Von Hildesheim, and not with a broken-down steeplechase rider, I must have fought. Do be more careful. Why, that man, Tom Jackson, started in 28 The Harveys. life as a common groom, and has merely gained advancement by his personal beauty and his nearly mathematical brain in gambling." " You are jealous of him, because you are ugly," was her woman's argument. " I suppose that is the state of the case," I replied, coolly and good-humouredly ; " but the next time you flirt, don't let the object of your tendresse be a common card- sharper." " You are a young devil," she said ; from which remark it may be readily gathered that Madame D'Estrada and I had managed to get on rather familiar terms during our journey from Antwerp to Bonn. My aunt never told us day after day to which point she was going to make, and Folloivcrs. 29 so, knowing her habits of secrecy, I was not in the least degree surprised at finding that she took us up the Moselle to Treves. Nor was I at all surprised at her saying that she was going to stay a few days there, as there was no hurry at all about getting to Italy. I now became so entirely absorbed in my art studies that, with the exception of writing to my father and Mr. Hawkins, I left all English affairs to take their own course. The amount of paint which I used at Treves alone was so great that my British stock was exhausted, and I had to come on local resources. My aunt calculated that at this rate we should require a special train before we got to Home for my canvasses alone. I replied to her that if the followers of Madame 30 The Harvey s. D' Estrada increased at their present rate, we should most certainly require a special train for them, and so my canvasses might go into it without extra charge. " What do you mean ? " she said. " I suppose you know that Von Lieber and Von Hildesheim are both here on furlough, having followed us." " No," said my aunt, vexed. " I suppose also that you know that Jack Chetwynd's half-brother is here." " Hum," said my aunt, " have you heard from Dora ? " " Not a word." " I don't know what to do," said she. " Those young Prussian monkeys can't cross into France on furlough, I sup- pose ? " I asked, and found they could not leave Followers. 31 Prussia ; and so we resumed the conver- sation. " Let us go to Luxemburg, my dear, and we shall be rid of them. Have you much more work to do here ? " I said three days' work, or about that. " It is paramount that your mind should be expanded. It is absolutely paramount. I can at present manage with regard to money, but the whole burden of keeping the family will ultimately fall on your shoulders. I am by no means sure of Dora's future ; and if Lady Frogmarsh did provide for her, we could not live on her money ; and Dora is a very tiresome girl, with a will of her own. Suppose she was to marry Jack Chetwynd, she would break with Hawkins and Lady Frogmarsh ; and I don't like Chetwynd." 32 The Harvey s. " Nor do I." "The fact is," said my aunt, "that although I am here, I wish I was at home again. This girl, D'Estrada, is very diffi- cult and tiresome, though she is very good, and I like her very much. She will flirt. I wish I could throw young Chetwynd against her at the zenith of her fame, and get him away from Dora." " Is her fame so certain, aunt ? ' " She is one of the greatest singers who ever lived," said my aunt, quietly. " But, aunt, the officers in the cafe talk about her. They speak of her in a way in which I would never allow Dora to be spoken of." " Men always talk so of public singers. They cannot say any harm of her, or she would not be under my protection an hour 5 5 Folloioers. 33 " They say no exact harm of her, but they do not speak of her as I would malce them speak of yourself or Dora." " The girl has sold herself to the public, and she must take the consequences," replied my aunt, with perfect stoicism. " I, in old times, in the world, have seen girls of the highest family and the most correct behaviour who were habitually talked about and toasted at taverns ; those girls are now mothers of the best families in the land. Why, I was what they called a reigning toast for more than a year under the name of ' The Irish Fawn.' The Prince Regent and Brummel used to break their glasses when they drank my health. Those manners have died out in England with duelling and much more, but they remain in a military nation like Prussia. IT. D 34 The Harvey $. There is nothing in it all but a somewhat barbarous admiration of woman." All this sounded like pure common sense until I got to bed, and there it sounded like utter nonsense. Why the truth about affairs should only come to one in the dark, and when one is in a horizontal position, I am unable to determine. I only know that it is so in my case. I lay awake that night upon my back, and came to the conclusion that the D'Estrada would bring us no good. I threw the feather mattress off me, and I was cold. I put it on again, and I was hot. I cursed German beds, and lost my temper. I rose in my shirt, and looked out of the window at the Porta Nigra, frowning horribly at the street's end. Below were two of the awful black watchmen, which I believe are no Followers. 35 longer inflicted on the nerves of any popu- lation, save that of Treves, — horrible, black, dark, dim, mysterious, like silent devils. I at this moment wished, I hardly knew why, that the two watchmen had the D'Estrada between them, and were about to conduct her into the Porta Nigra, shut the door on her, and lock her up all night. I put on my trousers, and went to my aunt's bedroom, which was next to mine. I knocked at the door, and she opened it almost at once, not saying one word. " Aunt," I said, " come away." " Now ? " she said. " No, to-morrow morning. Come away to Luxemburg." "Why P " i) 2 36 The Harvey s. " To get rid of these men. There will be a quarrel, and bloodshed." " You have not been making an ass of yourself? " she said, quietly. "I? No; but we are attracting too many followers. We had best go." " Perhaps we had3" said my aunt. And so I went to bed. CHAPTER III. THE FIRST VICTIM. |NLY, however, to be haunted once more by a new form of terror. The last time I saw Treves was immediately after the battle of Forbach, before the wounded had been brought back, at which time it may be described as in a kind of solemn holiday. But the joyous solemnity of the great blue host, passing on towards assured victory, never made the place cheerful to me. I remem- bered the old night of horrors too well ; and I must do Treves the credit to say that it is 38 The Harvey s. the most ghostly place I ever was in. A deserted Luxemburg is by no means lively, when you are smoking on the fortifica- tions at midnight on a moonlight night. Sedan, three days after the battle, with the night wind moving the dead men's clothes, was far from cheerful. As for poor little innocent Longivy, during the blockade, the state of that pretty place would have moved the heart of Herod. I have seen all those places in their sharpest hour ; but if I wanted (as I do not) to make myself thoroughly miserable, I should take a house at Treves during a time of public rejoicing. Foreign nations say that we English can make ourselves more miserable for nothing than any foreign nation. I accept that as a compliment most gladly, — the more The First Victim. 39 gladly that we get so very few inter- national compliments nowadays. But I do say that if it were possible to get up an international misery show at Treves, I would desert my country, and back the Germans ; and I find that I am confirmed, for a German officer, immediately after an overwhelming victory against the national enemy, is an article which, for stoicism, we cannot compete with in these islands. I rather digress in recounting my me- mories of this most solemn and Teutonic of towns. Perhaps that may be forgiven when I state that I was met at my bedroom door, after leaving my aunt, by young Chetwynd, in a galloping consumption, and dressed only in his shirt and trousers, with a candle held before his ghastly face, 40 The Harvey 8. who requested to come into my room and talk to me. " I will sit on your bed," lie said. " I heard your room door open, and I watched you to your aunt's room. I beg you to be careful of my breath. The doctor says that it is very deadly. I don't think that I shall live to get to Nice, and so I want to speak to you. I want to talk to you very much. Your life's happiness- may depend on what I am going to tell you." " Will you obey orders ? " I said. "Yes." " Get into my bed, and I will lie on the sofa. Put this railway-rug over you at once, and drink this wine." "What wine?" " This tumbler-full of Walportsheimer." The First Victim. 41 He took it off, and thanked me with his eyes. " If you offer to move out of that bed to-night," I said, " I will knock you down and tread on you." " Yes, I will be good ; but give me tobacco, and more wine, — more wine. I take none, for I can get none without brandy in it, and that makes me cough. I could live on this wine. "Where did you get it?" "Von Hildesheim told me of it. It is probably the best wine in the world." " Yon Hildesheim. Yes. Give me that pipe of Varinas, and some more of your wine, and I shall be a man. Oh, God ! that I should have come down to this ! " I waited until he chose to speak again. It was not long. 42 The Harvey s. " You know that woman, D'Estrada, by now." " I know her perfectly well." " What made your aunt take up with her ? " " Oh, a variety of reasons." " She had much better have nothing to do with her." " Of that I am aware ; but I cannot enter into particulars. " Are you in love with her ? " " No," I replied ; I happen to be in love with some one else." " Von Hildesheim is." " So I should suppose." " My half-brother, Jack Chetwynd, is also." " He has never seen her." " They are engaged to be married. She The First Victim. 4A has letters from liim which would compro- mise a rich man like liim ten times over to the tune of ten thousand pounds. He writes to me, though he hates me, and he tells me that he intends to many your sister Dora." - " That he shall never do," I replied. " How will you prevent it ? " " By letting him know that he will marry a beggar," I answered. " If I know your brother, that will put an end to the matter." " It would if he believed it ; but I know a great deal. Your sister has got a hold on Mr. Hawkins and Lady Frogmarsh which will never be shaken. I am fully aware that they disapprove of the match, if match it ever will be ; but when all is said and done, I am absolutely certain that 44 The Harvey s. if my brother were to marry your sister to- morrow, it would make no material differ- ence. My brother is very handsome and very rich. He is a most excellent match. They could scarcely do better with a young lad}r like your sister ; for having a very strong will of her own, she will never marry any one she does not like, and I suspect that she is strongly attached to Jack." Really and truly, when I came to think of it, here, so far away, without Jack Chetwynd's exasperating beauty before me, I began dimly to think that Dora might do a great deal worse. "After all said," I replied, "I cannot really discuss family matters with so great a stranger as yourself; and if there is any trouble with Madame D' Estrada, I can only say that I could give an account of her The First Victim. 45 indiscretions which would take the wind out of her sails." " Of what indiscretions ?" said the dying man. " Name one." I was perfectly finished at once. I could not name one. " Indiscretions I " he said, with a laugh ; " she never committed any with me." "With you?" "A year ago," he said, " I was one of the handsomest lads in London ; and I fell in love with her when I saw her play Adalgisa. She maddened me with those gipsy eyes of hers. I got an introduction to her through my brother, who, from his cold, cruel, martinet character, has the entree, as a safe man, to all the green- rooms in England. That woman D'Estrada 46 The Harvey s. is more cold, more cruel, and more calcu- lating than lie is ; and she encouraged me, while she knew that my health was bad ; but when she found that I was poor, she threw me overboard, and the eyes were transferred to my brother. She is cleverer than he is, and she got letters from him, — letters which she showed me at Coblentz." "Why?" " Because she had heard of your sister." " But," I said, " it is not difficult to get rid of her, if Chetwynd chooses." "You speak very coldly, and, I think, very meanly," said Chetwynd. "Your sister's happiness must be something to you, surely?" "It is a great deal ; but I do not like discussing such matters with strangers." The First Victim. 47 "Well," said lie, "I can only tell you, for the first and last time, that this woman, D'Estrada, is in love with my brother. She never cared for a man before; but she cares for him, and woe betide your sister if she comes between her and my brother." I slept on the sofa, and morning came. I arose from my sofa very silently, leaving Jack Chetwynd's brother in my bed, quite quiet. I bustled about at packing until it was nearly nine o'clock, arid congratulated myself at the soundness of his sleeping. But at nine I went to wake him to say good-bye. I went to wake him as I used to wake my brother Dick when he slept too long, I passed my hands through his hair ; but without effect. I slipped out of the room. 48 The Harvei/s. and went down to that of an English doctor, whom I had met the night before. He came up at once, and rolled the dead man's heavy head over towards me : livid, with the white teeth showing, but perfectly- quiet and perfectly beautiful. "Poor fellow," said the doctor; "he has been dead some hours. Did you feel him move in the night ? " " I was not sleeping with him. I lay on the sofa." " Came to you in distress, in the night, eh ? " said the doctor. " He told me that he should not live to reach Nice," I said ; " but he did not com- plain." " Nervous shock of some kind, I fancy," said the doctor. " Did he over-talk him- self?" TJie First Victim. 49 "Yes, and on a delicate matter," Ireplied. " Lady in the case ? " " Yes." " I need not ask whom ; she will make some more victims with those eyes of hers. Poor fellow ! He came to me at Bertrick, and I told him that one lung was utterly gone, and that he must avoid all nervous excitement. It is a comfort to think that nothing could have saved him for a month ; I found that he was taking cod-liver oil, and I declined my fee. I suppose he was following her ; the worst thing he could have done. Well, I will go to the mayor and fetch another doctor or so. You are an old friend of his, of course." " I am an old friend of his half-brother," I replied, " but I hardly knew of his exist- ence a fortnight ago." n. e 50 The Harv&ys. " Well, telegraph to his brother to come at once. You must stay here, of course, until he comes. I will put everything in train for you." PKfOpJd kX££3 STfSK fUtP^'^SirN!! •— ^fev^yr^il ffj&.is^JBF T^^S^tf illi* /v?""^!$ss ^'"Tww Kfttite: ^\ ffii$» BHUSi *a3 1 #■! Hgfl5 T^ ,y£$ l^o! ^W^y*ftufn^rTtn: CHAPTER IV. DICK IN A NEW LIGHT. WENT at once to the post-office, and sent a telegram to Jack Chetwynd, telling liim the mournful news, and begging him to come at once. I then inquired for letters, of which I found more than one for myself: one for my aunt, and a considerable number in masculine hands for Madame D'Estrada, whom I beo;an to wish at the bottom of the Moselle. First letter from my father : — E 2 52 The Harvey s. " My Dear Boy, — I will begin by the very best of good news which your aunt's most secret communication before she started — viz., that she was going by Treves, Thionville, and Metz, instead of Paris — enables me to send you, at once. " Your brother Dick is entirely provided for. Mr. Hawkins's kindness is simply unbounded. Mr. Hawkins came here the other morning, and asked after Dick ; finding that he was not at home, he asked for me, and having apologized for not having asked for me at first, said that his visit was not to me at all, but to Dick. ' I shall renew my visit to you, sir, in two days, if you think it would be convenient for me to see you and your son together.' I replied that it would do me much Dick in a New Liyht. 53 pleasure, and lie was going away when lie turned and said, in his quaint way, ' Mind, sir, neither I nor Lady Frogmarsh can pos- sibly assist you in the legal proceedings which must follow on your sermon of last Sunday. Our principles do not admit of it, In any other way, sir, you can com- mand us to any extent.' I told him that I entirely trusted to my sister-in-law and my son, and hoped that he would not think me disgraced, but remember me as an honest man. He shook my hand warmly, and departed. " In two days he came again, and Dick was at home. Dick had made a rather good month of it, being only 18s. 4d. wrong with his money. I was so cheerful about this, that I received Mr. Hawkins with a, for me, quite enthusiastic welcome. 54 The Harvey s. ' Dear sir,' he said, ' I have come to speak to you about your son.' " Dick, who was lying down, got into a sitting posture, and Mr. Hawkins went on, speaking to Dick, — "'I want to ask you, sir, if you think that for a salary of £100 a year, paid quarterly, you could contrive to lie on your back in a bunk on board ship, and occa- sionally when in port take stock of boxes and barrels, and things of that kind. You have only, do you see,' said Mr. Hawkins, eagerly, ' to see them go on board and to see them come out again, keeping of course a reckoning in your books. You think you could do that ? ' " Dick turned to me. ' Tell him about the money, father,' he said. " I explained that my son was one of Dick in a New Light. 55 the honestest lads and best sons who ever stepped, when Mr. Hawkins interrupted me. ' My dear sir,' he said, ' you need not tell me that a son of yours is honest ; it goes in the blood ; and deeply as I regret your sermon of last week, and still more deeply as I regret its consequences, I am absolutely certain that no child of the man who braved everything to preach that sermon would ever commit an act which would disgrace such a noble, though mis- taken, father.' " I explained as well as I could that Dick never could count change if it was given to him in a hurry : that once he had committed the mistake of being five pounds to the good, but that ever since then he was generally about a pound to the month to the bad. 56 The Harvev s. " ' But this is not a question of counting money,' said Mr. Hawkins. * I can't count money if I am in a hurry. Do you know that on one occasion there was a fight in my class (in my absence, which I fear was very frequent), in which ten squares of glass were broken, and for which I fined the class £2. 14s. 6d. What did I do with that money, sir ? I forgot all about it, and embezzled it, sir. By the bye, I found out afterwards that the mischief was all done by your son Charles, Dickson, Chet- wynd, and Hubert, throwing at one another the little Leipzig Herodotus, four of which were found to have gone through the window by the porter, and a fifth, with the name of Heath in it, through the dissecting- room skylight, although the boy Heath stoutly declared to the last that at that Diclc in a New Light. hi very moment lie had been set on the stove in the middle of the room by Mr. Fearnley, for howling in the corridor. But I digress. Tins is only a question of keeping an account of bales and boxes and such things. Do you think you could do that, Mr. Dick ? ' " Dick said that he would either do it or jump overboard ; and so Mr. Hawkins informed him that he was appointed super- cargo of the Lion, which ship was com- manded by his own brother, Captain Hawkins, of the Naval Reserve. 