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BIRDS OF PREY

BY

M.E. BRADDON



[Illustration: "Be good enough to take me straight to her," said the
Captain, "I am her father."]




CONTENTS:

Book the First.

FATAL FRIENDSHIP.

    I. THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY
   II. PHILIP SHELDON READS THE "LANCET"
  III. MR. AND MRS. HALLIDAY
   IV. A PERPLEXING ILLNESS
    V. THE LETTER FROM THE "ALLIANCE" OFFICE
   VI. MR. BURKHAM'S UNCERTAINTIES

Book the Second.

THE TWO MACAIRES.

    I. A GOLDEN TEMPLE
   II. THE EASY DESCENT
  III. "HEART BARE, HEART HUNGRY, VERY POOR"

Book the Third.

HEAPING UP RICHES.

    I. A FORTUNATE MARRIAGE
   II. CHARLOTTE
  III. GEORGE SHELDON'S PROSPECTS
   IV. DIANA FINDS A NEW HOME
    V. AT THE LAWN
   VI. THE COMPACT OF GRAY'S INN
  VII. AUNT SARAH
 VIII. CHARLOTTE PROPHESIES  RAIN
   IX. MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH

Book the Fourth.

VALENTINE HAWKEHURST'S RECORD.

    I. THE OLDEST INHABITANT
   II. MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE
  III. MR. GOODGE'S WISDOM

Book the Fifth.

RELICS OF THE DEAD.

    I. BETRAYED BY A BLOTTING-PAD
   II. VALENTINE INVOKES THE PHANTOMS OF THE PAST
  III. HUNTING THE JUDSONS
   IV. GLIMPSES OF A BYGONE LIFE

Book the Sixth.

THE HEIRESS OF THE HAYGARTHS.

    I. DISAPPOINTMENT
   II. VALENTINE'S RECORD CONTINUED
  III. ARCADIA
   IV. IN PARADISE
    V. TOO FAIR TO LAST
   VI. FOUND IN THE BIBLE

Book the Seventh.

CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT.

    I. "IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG"
   II. MRS. SHELDON ACCEPTS HER DESTINY
  III. MR. HAWKEHURST AND MR. GEORGE SHELDON COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING
   IV. MR. SHELDON IS PROPITIOUS
    V. MR. SHELDON IS BENEVOLENT
   VI. RIDING THE HIGH HORSE
  VII. MR. SHELDON IS PRUDENT
 VIII. CHRISTMAS PEACE



BIRDS OF PREY


BOOK THE FIRST.

FATAL FRIENDSHIP.




CHAPTER I.

THE HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY.


"What about?" There are some houses whereof the outward aspect is
sealed with the seal of respectability--houses which inspire confidence
in the minds of the most sceptical of butchers and bakers--houses at
whose area-gates the tradesman delivers his goods undoubtingly, and
from whose spotless door-steps the vagabond children of the
neighbourhood recoil as from a shrine too sacred for their gambols.

Such a house made its presence obvious, some years ago, in one of the
smaller streets of that west-central region which lies between Holborn
and St. Pancras Church. It is perhaps the nature of
ultra-respectability to be disagreeably conspicuous. The unsullied
brightness of No. 14 Fitzgeorge-street was a standing reproach to every
other house in the dingy thorough-fare. That one spot of cleanliness
made the surrounding dirt cruelly palpable. The muslin curtains in the
parlour windows of No. 15 would not have appeared of such a smoky
yellow if the curtains of No. 14 had not been of such a pharisaical
whiteness. Mrs. Magson, at No. 13, was a humble letter of lodgings,
always more or less in arrear with the demands of quarter-day; and it
seemed a hard thing that her door-steps, whereon were expended much
labour and hearthstone--not to mention house-flannel, which was in
itself no unimportant item in the annual expenses--should be always
thrown in the shade by the surpassing purity of the steps before No. 14.

Not satisfied with being the very pink and pattern of respectability,
the objectionable house even aspired to a kind of prettiness. It was as
bright, and pleasant, and rural of aspect as any house within earshot
of the roar and rattle of Holborn can be. There were flowers in the
windows; gaudy scarlet geraniums, which seemed to enjoy an immunity
from all the ills to which geraniums are subject, so impossible was it
to discover a faded leaf amongst their greenness, or the presence of
blight amidst their wealth of blossom. There were birdcages within the
shadow of the muslin curtains, and the colouring of the newly-pointed
brickwork was agreeably relieved by the vivid green of Venetian blinds.
The freshly-varnished street-door bore a brass-plate, on which to look
was to be dazzled; and the effect produced by this combination of white
door-step, scarlet geranium, green blind, and brass-plate was
obtrusively brilliant.

Those who had been so privileged as to behold the interior of the house
in Fitzgeorge-street brought away with them a sense of admiration that
was the next thing to envy. The pink and pattern of propriety within,
as it was the pink and pattern of propriety without, it excited in
every breast alike a wondering awe, as of a habitation tenanted by some
mysterious being, infinitely superior to the common order of
householders.

The inscription on the brass-plate informed the neighbourhood that No.
14 was occupied by Mr. Sheldon, surgeon-dentist; and the dwellers in
Fitzgeorge-street amused themselves in their leisure hours by
speculative discussions upon the character and pursuits, belongings and
surroundings, of this gentleman.

Of course he was eminently respectable. On that question no
Fitzgeorgian had ever hazarded a doubt. A householder with such a
door-step and such muslin curtains could not be other than the most
correct of mankind; for, if there is any external evidence by which a
dissolute life or an ill-regulated mind will infallibly betray itself,
that evidence is to be found in the yellowness and limpness of muslin
window-curtains. The eyes are the windows of the soul, says the poet;
but if a man's eyes are not open to your inspection, the windows of his
house will help you to discover his character as an individual, and his
solidity as a citizen. At least such was the opinion cherished in
Fitzgeorge-street, Russell-square.

The person and habits of Mr. Sheldon were in perfect harmony with the
aspect of the house. The unsullied snow of the door-step reproduced
itself in the unsullied snow of his shirt-front; the brilliancy of the
brass-plate was reflected in the glittering brightness of his
gold-studs; the varnish on the door was equalled by the lustrous
surface of his black-satin waistcoat; the careful pointing of the
brickwork was in a manner imitated by the perfect order of his polished
finger-nails and the irreproachable neatness of his hair and whiskers.
No dentist or medical practitioner of any denomination had inhabited
the house in Fitzgeorge-street before the coming of Philip Sheldon. The
house had been unoccupied for upwards of a year, and was in the last
stage of shabbiness and decay, when the bills disappeared all at once
from the windows, and busy painters and bricklayers set their ladders
against the dingy brickwork. Mr. Sheldon took the house on a long
lease, and spent two or three hundred pounds in the embellishment of
it. Upon the completion of all repairs and decorations, two great
waggon-loads of furniture, distinguished by that old fashioned
clumsiness which is eminently suggestive of respectability, arrived
from the Euston-square terminus, while a young man of meditative aspect
might have been seen on his knees, now in one empty chamber, anon in
another, performing some species of indoor surveying, with a three-foot
rule, a loose little oblong memorandum-book, and the merest stump of a
square lead-pencil. This was an emissary from the carpet warehouse; and
before nightfall it was known to more than one inhabitant in
Fitzgeorge-street that the stranger was going to lay down new carpets.
The new-comer was evidently of an active and energetic temperament, for
within three days of his arrival the brass-plate on his street-door
announced his profession, while a neat little glass-case, on a level
with the eye of the passing pedestrian, exhibited specimens of his
skill in mechanical dentistry, and afforded instruction and amusement
to the boys of the neighbourhood, who criticised the glistening white
teeth and impossibly red gums, displayed behind the plate-glass, with a
like vigour and freedom of language. Nor did Mr. Sheldon's announcement
of his profession confine itself to the brass-plate and the glass-case.
A shabby-genteel young man pervaded the neighbourhood for some days
after the surgeon-dentist's advent, knocking a postman's knock, which
only lacked the galvanic sharpness of the professional touch, and
delivering neatly-printed circulars to the effect that Mr. Sheldon,
surgeon-dentist, of 14 Fitzgeorge-street, had invented some novel
method of adjusting false teeth, incomparably superior to any existing
method, and that he had, further, patented an improvement on nature in
the way