The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly

“Out with it, by all means,” said Jack. “The servants have left the room now, and here we are in close committee.”

Sedley looked towards Augustus, who replied by a gesture of assent; and the lawyer, taking his spectacles from his pocket, said, “I shall simply read you the entry of my notebook. Much of it will surprise, and much more gratify you; but let me entreat that if you have any doubts to resolve or questions to put, you will reserve them till I have finished. I will only say that for everything I shall state as fact there appears to me to be abundant proofs, and where I mention what is simply conjecture I will say so. You remember my condition, then? I am not to be interrupted.”

“Agreed,” cried Jack, as though replying for the most probable defaulter. “I ‘ll not utter a word, and the others are all discretion.”

“The case is this,” said Sedley. “Montague Bramleigh, of Cossenden Manor, married Enrichetta, daughter of Giacomo Lami, the painter. The marriage was celebrated at the village church of Portshandon, and duly registered. They separated soon after, – she retiring to Holland with her father, who had compromised himself in the Irish rebellion of ‘98. A son was born to this marriage, christened and registered in the Protestant church at Louvain as Godfrey Lami Bramleigh. To his christening Bramleigh was entreated to come; but under various pretexts he excused himself, and sent a costly present for the occasion. His letters, however, breathed nothing but affection, and fully recognized the boy as his son and his heir. Captain Bramleigh is, I know, impatient at the length of these details, but I can’t help it. Indignant at the treatment of his daughter, Lami sent back the gift with a letter of insulting meaning. Several letters were interchanged of anger and recrimination; and Enrichetta, whose health had long been failing, sunk under the suffering of her desertion, and died. Lami left Holland, and repaired to Germany, carrying the child with him. He was also accompanied by a younger daughter, Carlotta, who, at the time I refer to, might have been sixteen or seventeen years of age. Lami held no intercourse with Bramleigh from this date, nor, so far as we know, did Bramleigh take measures to learn about the child, – how he grew up, or where he was. Amongst the intimates of Lami’s family was a man whose name is not unfamiliar to newspaper readers of some thirty or forty years back, – a man who had figured in various conspiracies, and contrived to escape scathless where his associates had paid the last penalty of their crimes. This man became the suitor of Carlotta, and won her affections, although Giacomo neither liked nor trusted Niccolo Baldassare – ”

“Stop, there,” cried Jack, rising, and leaning eagerly across the table. “Say that name again.”

“Niccolo Baldassare.”

“My old companion, – my comrade at the galleys,” exclaimed Jack; “we were locked to each other, wrist and ankle, for eight months.”

“He lives, then?”

“I should think he does. The old beggar is as stout and hale as any one here. I can’t guess his age; but I’ll answer for his vigor.”

“This will be all important hereafter,” said Sedley, making a note. “Now to my narrative. From Lami, Baldassare learned the story of Enrichetta’s unhappy marriage and death, and heard how the child, then a playful little boy of three years or so, was the rightful heir of a vast fortune, – a claim the grandfather firmly resolved to prosecute at some future day. The hope was, however, not destined to sustain him, for the boy caught a fever and died. His burial-place is mentioned, and his age, four years.”

“So that,” cried Augustus, “the claim became extinct with him?”

“Of course; for though Montague Bramleigh re-married, it was not till six years after his first wife’s death.”

“And our rights are unassailable?” cried Nelly, wildly.

“Your estates are safe; at least, they will be safe.”

“And who is Pracontal de Bramleigh?” asked Jack.

“I will tell you. Baldassare succeeded in winning Carlotta’ s heart, and persuaded her to elope with him. She did so, carrying with her all the presents Bramleigh had formerly given to her sister, – some rings of great price, and an old watch with the Bramleigh arms in brilliants, among the number. But these were not all. She also took the letters and documents that established her marriage, and a copy of the registration. I must hasten on, for I see impatience on every side. He broke the heart of this poor girl, who died, and was buried with her little boy, in the same grave, leaving old Lami desolate and childless. By another marriage, and by a wife still living, Marie Pracontal, Baldassare had a son; and he bethought him, armed as he was with papers and documents, to prefer the claim to the Bramleigh estates for this youth; and had even the audacity to ask Lami’s assistance to the fraud, and to threaten him with his vengeance if he betrayed him.

“So perfectly propped was the pretension by circumstances of actual events, – Niccolo knew everything, – that Bramleigh not only sent several sums of money to stifle the demand, but actually despatched a confidential person abroad to see the claimant, and make some compromise with him; for it is abundantly evident that Montague Bramleigh only dreaded the scandal and the éclat such a story would create, and had no fears for the title to his estates, he all along believing that there were circumstances in the marriage with Enrichetta which would show it to be illegal, and the issue consequently illegitimate.”

“I must say, I think our respected grandfather,” said Augustus, gravely, “does not figure handsomely in this story.”

“With the single exception of old Lami,” cried Jack, “they were a set of rascals, – every man of them.”

“And is this the way you speak of your dear friend Niccolo Baldassare?” asked Nelly.

“He was a capital fellow at the galleys; but I suspect he ‘d prove a very shady acquaintance in more correct company.”

“And, Mr. Sedley, do you really say that all this can be proven?” cried Nelly. “Do you believe it all yourself?”

“Every word of it. I shall test most of it within a few days. I have already telegraphed to London for one of the clever investigators of registries and records. I have ample means of tracing most of the events I need. These papers of old Lami’s are full of small details; they form a closer biography than most men leave behind them.”

“There was, however, a marriage of my grandfather with Enrichetta Lami?” asked Augustus.

“We give them that,” cried the lawyer, who fancied himself already instructing counsel. “We contest nothing, – notice, registry, witnesses, all are as legal as they could wish. The girl was Mrs. Bramleigh, and her son, Montague Bramleigh’s heir. Death, however, carried away both, and the claim fell with them. That these people will risk a trial now is more than I can believe; but if they should, we will be prepared for them. They shall be indicted before they leave the court, and Count Pracontal de Bramleigh be put in the dock for forgery.”

“No such thing, Sedley!” broke in Bramleigh, with an energy very rare with him. “I am well inclined to believe that this young man was no party to the fraud, – he has been duped throughout; nor can I forget the handsome terms he extended to us when our fortune looked darkest.”

“A generosity on which late events have thrown a very ugly light,” muttered Sedley.

“My brother is right. I ‘ll be sworn he is,” cried Jack. “We should be utterly unworthy of the good luck that has befallen us, if the first use we made of it was to crush another.”

“If your doctrines were to prevail, sir, it would be a very puzzling world to live in,” said Sedley, sharply.

“We ‘d manage to get on with fewer lawyers, anyway.”

“Mr. Sedley,” said Nelly, mildly, “we are all too happy and too gratified for this unlooked-for deliverance to have a thought for what is to cause suffering anywhere. Let us, I entreat you, have the full enjoyment of this great happiness.”

“Then we are probably to include the notable Mr. Cutbill in this act of indemnity?” said Sedley, sneeringly.

“I should think we would, sir,” replied Jack. “Without the notable Mr. Cutbill’s aid we should never have chanced on those papers you have just quoted to us.”

“Has he been housebreaking again?” asked Sedley, with a grin.

“I protest,” interposed Bramleigh, “if the good fairy who has been so beneficent to us were only to see us sparring and wrangling in this fashion, she might well think fit to withdraw her gift.”

“Oh, here’s Julia,” cried Nelly; “and all will go right now.”

“Well,” said Julia, “has any one moved the thanks of the house to Mr. Sedley; for if not, I ‘m quite ready to do it. I have my speech prepared.”

“Move! move!” cried several, together.

“I first intend to have a little dinner,” said she; “but I have ordered it in the small dining-room; and you are perfectly welcome, any or all of you, to keep me company, if you like.”

To follow the conversation that ensued would be little more than again to go over a story which we feel has been already impressed with tiresome reiteration on the reader. Whatever had failed in Sedley’s narrative, Julia’s ready wit and quick intelligence had supplied by conjecture, and they talked on till late into the night, bright gleams of future projects shooting like meteors across the placid heaven of their enjoyment, and making all bright around them.

Before they parted it was arranged that each should take his separate share of the inquiry; for there were registries to be searched, dates confirmed in several places; and while L’Estrange was to set out for Louvain, and Jack for Savoy, Sedley himself took charge of the weightier question to discover St. Michel, and prove the burial of Godfrey Bramleigh.

CHAPTER LXVII. A WAYFARER

When the time came for the several members of the family at the villa to set out on the search after evidence, Jack, whose reluctance to leave home – he called it “home” – increased with every day, induced Cutbill to go in his stead, a change which even Mr. Sedley himself was forced to admit was not detrimental to the public service.

Cutbill’s mission was to Aix, in Savoy, to see and confer with Marie Pracontal, the first wife of Baldassare. He arrived in the nick of time; for only on that same morning had Baldassare himself entered the town, in his galley-slave uniform, to claim his wife and ask recognition amongst his fellow-townsmen. The house where she lived was besieged by a crowd, all more or less eager in asserting the woman’s cause, and denouncing the pretensions of a fellow covered with crimes, and pronounced dead to all civil rights. Amid execrations and insults, with threats of even worse, Baldassare stood on a chair in the street, in the act of addressing the multitude, as Cutbill drew nigh. The imperturbable self-possession, the cool courage of the man – who dared to brave public opinion in this fashion, and demand a hearing for what in reality was nothing but a deliberate insult to the people around him whose lives he knew, and whose various social derelictions he was all familiar with – was positively astounding. “I have often thought of you, good people,” said he, “while at the galleys; and I made a vow to myself that the first act of my escape, if ever I should escape, should be to visit this place and thank you for every great lesson I have learned in life. It was here, in this place, I committed my first theft. It was yonder in that church I first essayed sacrilege. It was you, amiable and gentle people, who gave me four associates who betrayed each other, and who died on the drop or by the guillotine, with the courage worthy of Aix; and it was from you I received that pearl of wives who is now married to a third husband, and denies the decent rights of hospitality to her first.”

This outrage was now unbearable; a rush was made at him, and he fell amongst the crowd, who had torn him limb from limb but for the intervention of the police, who were driven to defend him with fixed bayonets. “A warm reception, I must say,” cried the fellow, as they led him away, bleeding and bruised, to the jail.

It was not a difficult task for Cutbill to obtain from Marie Pracontal the details he sought for. Smarting under the insults and scandal she had been exposed to on the day before, she revealed everything, and signed in due form a procès verbal drawn up by a notary of the place, of her marriage with Baldassare, the birth of her son Anatole with the dates of his birth and baptism, and gave up, besides, some letters which he had written while at the naval school of Genoa. What became of him afterwards she knew not, nor, indeed, seemed to care. The cruelties of the father had poisoned her mind against the son, and she showed no interest in his fate, and wished not to hear of him.

Cutbill left Aix on the third day, and was slowly strolling up the Mont Cenis pass in front of his horses, when he overtook the very galley-slave he had seen addressing the crowd at Aix. “I thought they had sent you over the frontier into France, my friend,” said Cutbill, accosting him like an old acquaintance.

“So they did; but I gave them the slip at Culoz, and doubled back. I have business at Rome, and could n’t endure that roundabout way by Marseilles.”

“Will you smoke? May I offer you a cigar?”

“My best thanks,” said he, touching his cap politely. “They smashed my pipe, those good people down there. Like all villagers, they resent free speech, but they ‘d have learned something had they listened to me.”

“Perhaps your frankness was excessive.”

“Ha! you were there, then? Well, it was what Diderot calls self-sacrificing sincerity; but all men who travel much and mix with varied classes of mankind, fall into this habit. In becoming cosmopolitan you lose in politeness.”

“Signor Baldassare, your conversation interests me much. Will you accept a seat in my carriage over the mountain, and give me the benefit of your society?”

“It is I that am honored, sir,” said he, removing his cap, and bowing low. “There is nothing so distinctively well bred as the courtesy of a man in your condition to one in mine.”

“But you are no stranger to me.”

“Indeed! I remarked you called me by my name; but I’m not aware that you know more of me.”

“I can afford to rival your own candor, and confess I know a great deal about you.”

“Then you have read a very checkered page, sir. What an admirable cigar. You import these, I’d wager?”

“No, but it comes to the same. I buy them in bond, and pay the duty.”

“Yours is the only country to live in, sir. It has been the dream of my life to pass my last days in England.”

“Why not do so? I can’t imagine that Aix will prefer any strong claims in preference.”

“No, I don’t care for Aix, though it is pretty, and I have passed some days of happy tranquillity on that little Lac de Bourges; but to return: to what fortunate circumstance am I indebted for the knowledge you possess of my biography?”

“You have been a very interesting subject to me for some time back. First of all, I ought to say that I enjoy the pleasure of your son’s acquaintance.”

“A charming young man, I am told,” said he, puffing out a long column of smoke.

“And without flattery, I repeat it, – a charming young man, good-looking, accomplished, high-spirited and brave.”

“You delight me, sir. What a misfortune for the poor fellow that his antecedents have not been more favorable; but you see, Mr. – ”

“Cutbill is my name.”

“Mr. Cutbill, you see that I have not only had a great many irons in the fire through life, but occasionally it has happened to me that I took hold of them by the hot ends.”

“And burned your fingers?”

“And burned my fingers.”

They walked on some steps in silence, when Baldassare said, —

“Where, may I ask, did you last see my son?”

“I saw him last in Ireland, about four months ago. We travelled over together from England, and I visited a place called Castello, in his company, – the seat of the Bramleigh family.”

“Then you know his object in having gone there? You know who he is, what he represents, what he claims?”

“I know the whole story by heart.”

“Will you favor me with your version of it?”

“With pleasure; but here is the carriage. Let us get in, for the narrative is somewhat long and complicated.”

“Before you begin, sir, one question: where is my son now? is he at Rome?”

“He is; he arrived there on Tuesday last.”

“That is enough, – excuse my interrupting, – I am now at your orders.”

The reader will readily excuse me if I do not follow Mr. Cutbill in his story, which he told at full length, and with what showed a perfect knowledge of all the circumstances. It is true he was so far disingenuous that he did not confess the claim had ever created alarm to the minds of the Bramleighs. There were certain difficulties, he admitted, and no small expense incurred in obtaining information abroad, and proving, as it was distinctly proved, that no issue of Montague Bramleigh had survived, and that the pretensions of Pracontal were totally groundless.

“And your visit to Savoy was on this very business?” asked Baldassare.

“You are right; a small detail was wanting which I was able to supply.”

“And how does Anatole bear the discovery?”

“He has not heard of it; he is at Rome, paying court to an English lady of rank to whom he hopes to be married.”

“And how will he bear it; in what spirit will he meet the blow?”

“From what I have seen of him, I ‘d say he ‘d stand up nobly under misfortune, and not less so here, that I know he firmly believed in his right; he was no party to the fraud.”

“These frauds, as you call them, succeed every day, and when they occur in high places we have more courteous names to call them by. What say you to the empire in France?”

“I’ll not discuss that question with you; it takes too wide a range.”

“Anatole must bethink him of some other livelihood now, that’s clear. I mean to tell him so.”

“You intend to see him – to speak with him?”

“What, sir, do you doubt it? Is it because my wife rejects me that I am to be lost to the ties of parental affection?” He said this with a coarse and undisguised mockery, and then, suddenly changing to a tone of earnestness, added, “We shall have to link our fortunes now, and there are not many men who can give an adventurer such counsels as I can.”

“From what I know of the Bramleighs, they would willingly befriend him if they knew how, or in what way to do it.”

“Nothing easier. All men’s professions can be brought to an easy test, – so long as money exists.”

“Let me know where to write to you, and I will see what can be done.”

“Or, rather, let me have your address, for my whereabouts is somewhat uncertain.”

Cutbill wrote his name and Cattaro on a slip of paper, and the old fellow smiled grimly, and said, “Ah! that was your clew, then, to this discovery. I knew Giacomo died there, but it was a most unlikely spot to track him to. Nothing but chance, the merest chance, could have led to it?”

This he said interrogatively; but Cutbill made no reply.

“You don’t care to imitate my frankness, sir; and I am not surprised at it. It is only a fellow who has worn rags for years that does n’t fear nakedness. Is my son travelling alone, or has he a companion?”

“He had a companion some short time back; but I do not know if they are together now.”

“I shall learn all that at Rome.”

“And have you no fears to be seen there? Will the authorities not meddle with you?”

“Far from it. It is the one state in Europe where men like myself enjoy liberty. They often need us, – they fear us always.”

Cutbill was silent for some time. He seemed like one revolving some project in his mind, but unable to decide on what he should do. At last he said, —

“You remember a young Englishman who made his escape from Ischia last June?”

“To be sure I do, – my comrade.”

“You will be astonished to know he was a Bramleigh, – a brother of the owner of the estate.”

“It was so like my luck to have trusted him,” said the other, bitterly.

“You are wrong there. He was always your friend, – he is so at this moment. I have heard him talk of you with great kindliness.”

A careless shrug of the shoulders was the reply.

“Tell him from me,” said he, with a savage grin, “that Onofrio, – don’t forget the name, – Onofrio is dead. We threw him over the cliff the night we broke the jail. There, let me write it for you,” said he, taking the pencil from Cutbill’s hand, and writing the word Onofrio in a large bold character.

“Keep that pencil-case, will you, as a souvenir?” said Cutbill.

“Give me ten francs instead, and I’ll remember you when I pay for my dinner,” said he, with a grating laugh; and he took the handful of loose silver Cutbill offered him, and thrust it into his pocket. “Is n’t that Souza we see in the valley there? Yes; I remember it well. I’ll go no further with you – there’s a police-station where I had trouble once. I ‘ll take the cross-path here that leads down to the Pinarola Road. I thank you heartily. I wanted a little good-nature much when you overtook me. Goodbye.”

He leaped from the carriage as he spoke, and crossing the little embankment of the road, descended a steep slope, and was out of sight almost in an instant.

CHAPTER LXVIII. A MEETING AND A PARTING

In the same room where Pracontal and Longworth had parted in anger, the two men, reconciled and once more friends, sat over their dessert and a cigar. The handsome reparation Pracontal had offered in a letter had been frankly and generously met, and it is probable that their friendship was only the more strongly ratified by the incident.

They were both dressed with unusual care, for Lady Augusta “received” a few intimate friends on that evening, and Pracontal was to be presented to them in his quality of accepted suitor.

“I think,” said Longworth, laughingly, “it is the sort of ordeal most Englishmen would feel very awkward in. You are trotted out for the inspection of a critical public, who are to declare what they think of your eyes and your whiskers, if they augur well of your temper, and whether, on the whole, you are the sort of person to whom a woman might confide her fate and future.”

“You talk as if I were to be sent before a jury and risk a sentence,” said Pracontal, with a slight irritation in his tone.

“It is something very like it.”

“And I say, there is no resemblance whatever.”

“Don’t you remember what Lord Byron in one of his letters says of a memorable drive through Ravenna one evening, where he was presented as the accepted? – There’s that hang-dog rascal that followed us through the gardens of the Vatican this morning, there he is again, sitting directly in front of our window, and staring at us.”

“Well, I take it those benches were placed there for fellows to rest on who had few arm-chairs at home.”

“I don’t think, in all my experience of humanity, I ever saw a face that revolted me more. He is n’t ugly, but there is something in the expression so intensely wicked, that mockery of all goodness, that Retsch puts into Mephistopheles; it actually thrills me.”

“I don’t see that – there is even drollery in the mouth.”

“Yes, diabolic humor, certainly. Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“Did n’t you see that when I lifted my glass to my lips, he made a pantomime of drinking too, and bowed to me, as though in salutation?”

“I knew there was fun in the fellow. Let us call him over and speak to him.”

“No, no, Pracontal; do not, I beseech you. I feel an aversion towards him that I cannot explain. The rascal poisons the very claret I ‘m drinking just by glancing at me.”

“You are seldom so whimsical.”

“Would n’t you say the fellow knew we were talking of him? See he is smiling now; if that infernal grin can be called a smile.”

“I declare, I will have him over here; now don’t go, sit down like a good fellow; there’s no man understands character better than yourself, and I am positively curious to see how you will read this man on a closer inspection.”

“He does not interest, he merely disgusts, me.”

Pracontal arose, drew nigh the window, and waved his napkin in sign to the man, who at once got up from his seat, and slowly, and half indolently, came over to the window. He was dressed in a sort of gray uniform of jacket and trousers, and wore a kerchief on his head for a cap, a costume which certainly in no degree contributed to lessen the unfavorable impression his face imparted, for there was in his look a mixture of furtiveness and ferocity positively appalling.