by the author of "A Skeleton in Every House," [William Russell].
Originally published in St. James's Magazine (W. Kent) vol.3 #1 (Dec 1861).
Prelude.
On the afternoon of March 12, 1803, died suddenly—so suddenly that an inquest was held on the body—Lambert Tracy, Esquire, of Bristol, an eminent West India merchant—in those palmy days of flourishing sugar-islands, the lion's share of the trade with which was then in the hands of the commercial magnates of the English western metropolis. The jury reported that Lambert Tracy "died by the visitation of God."
No other verdict could have been returned had all the circumstances attendant upon the catastrophe been disclosed at the inquest. Lambert Tracy had, in fact, as the post mortem examination proved, died of apoplexy—a rush of blood to the brain, the fatal consequence of which the highest medical aid, immediately summoned, was powerless to avert.
"The sudden reverse of fortune which had befallen the deceased," said the coroner, addressing Mr. Beadon, attorney-at-law and Lambert Tracy's intimate friend, "helped, I have no doubt, to bring about the sad event?"
Mr. Beadon concurred. A docquet in bankruptcy had been struck against Mr. Tracy, and but a few hours previous to his death a messenger from the Court arrived to take possession. "My late highly-respected client and friend," added the lawyer, "was an extremely sensitive, excitable, proud man—proud in a legitimate, honourable sense." The verdict was then formally drawn up, signed, and the jurors departed, quite satisfied that the coup de sang which had precipitated Lambert Tracy, Esquire, into the tomb at the comparatively early age of forty-seven, had been dealt by the docquet in bankruptcy.
They were, in part, mistaken. The blow which struck him down was inflicted by Arthur Tracy, his only son, who arrived home from Jamaica a short time before his father (whom he had not seen for many months) expired.
To explain this it will be necessary to transcribe some passages in the early life of Mr. Lambert Tracy. He was a native of Bath, where his father, who had twice failed in business and was much straitened in circumstances, nevertheless contrived to give him a good, common education. Quick of apprehension, of unflagging industry, and remarkably prepossessing in appearance and manner, young Tracy was a great favourite with all who knew him. He had not long completed his fifteenth year when his father, long a widower, died, leaving Lambert so utterly unprovided for that but for the active sympathies of friends the young man would have wanted bread. A situation was obtained for him in the counting-house of Mr. Sherwood, a wealthy merchant of Bristol; and with such skilful assiduity did the handsome clerk avail himself of the opening afforded, so completely did he succeed in ingratiating himself with Mr. Sherwood and his daughter and heiress, Priscilla Sherwood, that on his twenty-first birthday he married that neither fair nor youthful lady, but whose dowry was a third share in the business, thenceforth to be that of "Sherwood and Company." Mrs. Lambert Tracy is said to have been a woman of violent temper, who thoroughly governed both her father and husband. Certainly, the marriage was not one of affection on the part of lucre-loving, ambitious Lambert Tracy; but there appears to be no reason for believing, or suspecting, that his share in her cruel death—the manner of which I shall presently relate—had its source in any baser prompting than that of pitiable cowardice.
Lambert Tracy was really what Falstaff humorously assumed to be—a coward upon instinct; by which I mean, that if exposed to great and sudden peril, he was animally, instinctively, a wretched craven, possessed by the very insanity of fear to such a degree as scarcely to be morally responsible for his actions. On the other hand—according to the testimony of Mr. Beadon, who must have known the truth—if he had notice of a great danger to be confronted, time to summon and prepare his faculties, he could look that danger, how great soever, in the face as calmly and determinedly as the bravest. The circumstances of his wife's death will, however, better illustrate one phase of this dual nature of the man than any comment of mine.
Sixteen years of wedded life had passed away. Their son, baptized Arthur after the wife's father, was at Eton. Mr. Sherwood, long since dead, had bequeathed his realized wealth absolutely to his daughter, which wealth she, who loved her husband with the passionate, wayward wilfulness of her peculiar temperament, invested in the business, thereby enabling him to vastly enlarge the scale of his commercial operations. She took care, however, to reserve the right to recall one-half the capital she advanced at a very short notice.
Such were the financial relations to each other of Tracy and wife in 1796, during the early autumn of which year they indulged themselves in a carriage excursion along the south-western coast, in the course of which they arrived at the village of Blue-Anchor, Bridgewater Bay. The day was oppressively hot; but a light breeze rippled the calmly-breathing bay, and Lambert Tracy proposed to hire a boat, and have two or three hours' sail upon the sparkling summer sea. His lady acquiesced, and they put off in a light skiff, managed by one youthful, inexperienced waterman. About two miles off the shore they were surprised by a summer-storm. Thunder rolled, lightning flashed, and the fierce hissing squall lashed the waters into wild but quickly-passing fury. The skiff, unskilfully handled, capsized, and Lambert Tracy, his wife, and the waterman, were flung, screaming, into the sea.
Mrs. Tracy accidentally clutched a short, light fragment of a spar, that floated out from under the upturned boat. She held to it with the strong grasp of fear; and it sufficed, barely sufficed, to sustain her, half drowning, from being engulfed. It did, however, suffice; and she would no doubt have been able to hold on till succour, already close at hand, arrived. The accident had been observed by a brig at no great distance off, and a well-manned boat was speeding to the rescue.
Now comes the horrible part of the affair. Lambert Tracy, a very indifferent swimmer, half blinded by the spray, demented by mortal terror, feeling that he could not many moments resist the down-draught of his saturated clothes, found himself whirled by the waves into contact with his wife. He caught at her dress; his hand struck the slight spar to which she clung for life; he, too, seized hold of it. It could not support them both; and Tracy, mad with fear, struggled for its exclusive possession with the ferocity of a wild beast. He struck her fiercely in the face, tore at her hair, bit her hands, finally succeeded in wrenching away her grasp,—and the unfortunate lady went down at once with a scream heard above the crashing thunder and the roaring sea. The frightful scene was witnessed by the waterman, who had clambered upon the upturned boat, and who shouted to Tracy that he might save himself in the same way. So at least he afterwards declared. If he did, Tracy did not hear—at all events did not heed him. The two men were picked up, and conveyed safely on board the brig. Mrs. Tracy did not reappear. The hungry sea held fast its prey till about a week had passed, when the body, during a second summer-squall, was cast upon the shore.
When that happened, Lambert Tracy was lying upon what was supposed would be his death-bed, at the mansion in Bristol. The fiery arrows of remorse and shame had kindled the flame of fever in his brain, and for many days his life hung upon a thread. He recovered his bodily, but never his placid, mental health. During his illness, Fryer, the Blue-Anchor boatman, called several times to make inquiries; and he was the first person with whom Lambert Tracy, when sufficiently restored to health, transacted business. A strictly business transaction was that settled between the merchant and the waterman. Fryer's object was to sell his silence at the highest figure he could get; he received a large sum down, and, not being one of those very rare rascals who illustrate the apocryphal axiom that there is honour amongst thieves, in after days, it will be found, made a second sale of the terrible sight he had witnessed.
Meanwhile, Lambert Tracy applied himself more sedulously than ever to business. Only amidst its whirring buz, its clanging vicissitude of speculative ventures, constantly increasing in audacity, could he find partial respite from the upbraidings of his conscience—deafen himself to that wild scream which the commonest incidents would suddenly evoke from the chords of memory:—
"The billows told him of it: the winds
Did sing it to him; and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe,
Pronounced her name!"
Mr. Tracy nevertheless bore himself bravely before the world; and as for several years his success as a commercial gamester was in the main prodigious, he was held to be one of the most fortunate and enviable of men. To Mr. Beadon, his intimate and faithful friend, he alone disclosed the sad secret which poisoned his life, and turned his golden gains to dust and bitter ashes. The hard-headed lawyer did not see the lamentable occurrence in so terrible a light as did Tracy. "There was no malice prepense," he argued, "in a deed solely prompted by an uncontrollable instinct of self-preservation." There was some truth in this view of the subject, but the lawyer's reasoning shed no balm over Lambert Tracy's wounded spirit.
I must now introduce Lambert Tracy's son upon the scene. In person, Arthur Tracy resembled his handsome father; in mind and disposition, he was a masculine exaggerated reflex of his mother—more fiercely wilful, and a yet more eager worshipper of wealth, than she. For that to him ever-indulgent mother he had felt as strong an attachment as he could feel for any human being—except himself; and her sudden, tragical death very painfully affected him. For his father, Arthur Tracy felt rather admiration and respect as a wealthy, pushing merchant, than the reverential regard of a son.
Four years passed away. Arthur Tracy having completed his education, and passed his majority, went to reside with his father till a decision was arrived at as to his career in the world. Some startling sentences incautiously uttered by Mr. Tracy and his friend Beadon, and overheard by Arthur, strengthening a vague, dreamy suspicion which other indices had awakened in the son's mind—the shuddering horror, for example, which blanched Mr. Tracy's face and shook his frame whenever the slightest allusion was made to his wife's death—a wife whom, though to her he owed everything, Arthur Tracy well knew he had never really loved—determined the young man to make secret but strict inquiry at Blue Anchor into all the circumstances. He did so: met with Fryer the waterman, who, in consideration of a large bribe, disclosed all the details—coarsely coloured, one may fairly presume—of the catastrophe.
Arthur Tracy was greatly shocked; and in the first transport of indignation purposed to openly upbraid his mother's murderer, as he deemed him to be, with his tiger cruelty and cowardice. A very little reflection showed him the folly of such a proceeding. No legal crime had been committed. His father was rich—immensely so, the world said. By some blunder of the lawyers, Mrs. Tracy's wealth, she having died intestate, had passed absolutely to her husband, who had the power to disinherit his son; which son must, therefore, of necessity, seal up the tragic story in his own breast!
Early in 1802, Arthur Tracy was despatched by his father to Jamaica. The wildly-speculative merchant had loosely permitted a large planter there to draw heavily upon him, in anticipation of growing crops of coffee and canes. Those crops had partially failed: Mr. Lambert Tracy was, in consequence, a long way out; and it was necessary to send a clever, confidential agent to the island, in order to the winding up of the business. Arthur readily accepted the mission, and, narrowly escaping being snapped up by a French privateer, reached Jamaica in safety.
The affair was more complicated, and required a much longer time to bring to a final issue, than had been anticipated; so that it was the first week in February, 1803, when Arthur Tracy re-embarked for England in the Mail Packet bound for London, where he arrived on the 10th of March, two days only before his father was officially adjudged bankrupt.
Amongst his fellow-passengers was a Mrs. Warner, a fascinating widow of about his own age, and mother of an infant daughter, named Emmeline. The lady was a native of Norfolk, and her departure from Jamaica had been hastened by a letter from the London solicitors of her maternal grandfather, Francis Ryder, Esquire, recently deceased, whom she had offended by her marriage with Captain Warner; but who, repenting of his obduracy, had bequeathed her, by a will executed several months before his death, an estate, the net value of which was above three thousand pounds per annum, with remainder to the little Emmeline.
Arthur Tracy had made the lady's acquaintance during her husband's life-time, and that acquaintance was so well improved during the voyage home, that when he parted from her in London, it had been settled that their marriage should take place as soon as the necessary settlements could be arranged between Tracy, senior, and the charming widow's legal representatives.
The young and charming widow's grace and beauty had really touched Arthur Tracy's heart, though not, I imagine, very deeply; and now his Life-bark, so richly freighted with Youth, Love, Riches, was doomed to be engulfed, whilst entering the very port of its destination, in the quick-sands of bankruptcy!
It is easier to imagine than describe the, for a time, wordless dismay of the young man, when such terrible tidings of ruin flashed like a thunderbolt from the lips of the attorney, Beadon, in presence of the shaking, speechless bankrupt. Recovering himself, stung to fury by the completeness of the destruction that had fallen upon him, Arthur burst into a torrent of merciless invective, denounced Lambert Tracy as the cowardly murderer of his wife—as the base, heartless squanderer of the wealth which she had destined for her son. The prematurely aged father had not many weeks before been seized with a slight apoplectic fit, upon opening some letters announcing frightful losses from the fall of sugars (in consequence of the peace, or truce, of Amiens,) of which he held an immense stock. And now, trembling in every limb—fascinated by terror, he staggered, reeled, beneath the maledictions of his son, as if they had been dagger-strokes; and when at last that son, exhausted by his own mad fury, hurled his last curse, and flung out of the room, Lambert Tracy, with a faint, bubbling cry, and catching wildly at the air, fell heavily upon the floor in an apoplectic fit,—not a slight one this time. The result has been told. In less than half an hour the eminent Bristol merchant had ceased to breathe.
Mr. Beadon did not think it expedient to speak of Arthur Tracy's agency in accelerating, to use the mildest term, his father's death. It could have answered no useful purpose to do so; and the son was consequently not called before the inquest.
He must have felt, one must suppose, some compunctious visitings of conscience. It was not from his lips that such terrible anathemas should have flown.
Arthur Tracy did not, at all events, dispiay any sign of remorse or self-upbraiding. He shut himself up in gloomy discontent in his chamber, under plea of illness, to muse over his fallen fortunes, and if possible devise some mode of, partially at least, retrieving his position. By written communications from the attorney he was made clearly aware that nothing—absolutely nothing—could be saved out of the gigantic wreck; that the estate was not expected to pay more than five shillings in the pound, if so much; and that it was ascertained Lambert Tracy had been hopelessly insolvent more than two years previous to the final downcome. As long ago as that he had written to his deceased wife's uncle, a Mr. James Sherwood, established at Madras, earnestly imploring assistance, which letter, contemptuously returned, as it appeared, without comment, had been found amongst the bankrupt's papers. Mr. Beadon further intimated that it was imperative on Mr. Arthur Tracy to give up the considerable sum which it was known he had brought with him from Jamaica: the creditors were highly incensed, and not the slightest lenity could be hoped for.
The considerable sum spoken of was over two thousand pounds, and Arthur Tracy fully resolved not to part with that without a struggle. Yet how to retain it, except by secretly and at once flying the country, he knew not. Whilst meditating that desperate step a brilliant ray of light from an unhoped-for quarter broke upon the dark future.
He received a letter dated from the Hummums Hotel, London, from the fair widow, couched in somewhat petulant, yet essentially kind, even caressing language, expressive of her surprise that she had not heard from him since he left London. The lady feared he was ill, and was anxious to receive a letter from him by the earliest post.
The charming woman was not then cognizant of the Tracy bankruptey—had not seen his father's name in the Gazette—knew not of his death. Might it not be possible to obtain her consent—a score of pretexts could be easily invented—to the immediate celebration of their marriage? The widow and he had again and again vowed to each other, with the venial perjury permissible in such cases—that the vulgar accidents of fortune—the lover happening to be heir to a millionaire, the lady entitled to a large landed estate—had not in the slightest degree influenced either in determining upon a union, to which they were solely impelled by Love's own sweet constraint.
Arthur Tracy determined to venture the audacious coup. Once the magical ceremony gone through, the lady would have no choice but to quietly accept her destiny, and would soon condone the ruse d'amour practised against her when she found, as she should find, what a kind, tender, adoring husband she was mated with.
Tracy started per mail the same day for London, having first left a note for Mr. Beadon, briefly to the effect that the writer would not fail to present himself before the Bankruptcy Commissioners upon the day advertised for the preliminary meeting.
The wily lover need not have been at such pains to weave the plausible fiction by which he purposed to inveigle Mrs. Warner into a rash, hasty marriage—to rehearse so often the impassioned solicitations by which he hoped to overcome the natural scruples she would feel to yield to his importunity. The charming widow was in the same disastrous predicament as himself. At the first interview with the solicitors, whose letter reached her at Jamaica, she was stunned by the announcement that a will of subsequent date to that under which she would have taken the landed estate had been discovered, by which instrument the capricious testator had devised the whole of his property to a grandniece, from whom it appeared he had been temporarily estranged at the time he executed the will in favour of Mrs. Warner.
The blow was a terrible one. The lady was almost literally destitute of pecuniary resources of any kind, except the pittance to which she was entitled as a captain's widow. The only hope that after a time fluttered doubtfully at her heart, was kindled by the ardent devotion with which she had inspired her rich lover, Arthur Tracy. Should she acquaint him with the cruel disappointment she had met with? At first she determined to do so. How, indeed, could she avoid the disclosure, perilous, fatal as it might prove to be?
The arrival of Arthur Tracy in hasty response to her brief note, his vehement entreaties that, for the reasons he poured forth with passionate volubility, she would not delay his happiness, caused her to forego that wise resolution; and as soon as a licence could be procured, Lydia Warner, widow, and Arthur Tracy, bachelor, were joined together at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, in the bond of wedlock. Immediately after the ceremony the happy pair left London, en route for Guernsey, where they purposed to spend the honeymoon—a locality selected by Tracy for the excellent reason that the power of the Commissioners in Bankruptcy was not, and is not, recognized in the Channel Islands.
Wrecked.
It would task a brilliant imagination to conceive a more rapturous state of felicity than had apparently fallen to the lot of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Tracy when they took possession of the best apartments of the Royal Hotel, St. Peter's Port, Guernsey. All impulses of soul and sense that help to beautify and bless the dazzling dawn of wedded life were theirs in rich abundance,—fervid, youthful passion—Beauty kissed by Love to ecstacy,—and—to descend a little—that very important item, plenty, for the time, of ready money! One easily understands, too, that under the peculiar circumstances there would be sublimation of spoken and smiling endearments; exuberance of protestation that riches were in the estimation of both mere dross,—the all-sufficing elixir of life being love—still, love! Blest as the immortal gods are they, would no doubt have been said, sung, sighed, growled, or groaned by any envious observer of the "happy pair," who had no knowledge or suspicion of the mutual, acted lies—festering, weltering, into graver proportions with every passing hour,—which converted the honey of the honey-month into poisonous gall. The skeleton at Egyptian feasts, the sword of Damocles, are obvious though not quite apposite illustrations of such a delightful state of things, seeing that the skeleton was merely a dismal reminder of, it might be reasonably hoped, a long-distant unpleasantness, and that the hair-suspended sword, if it fell and slew, would not shame, Mister D. Nevertheless, I am strongly of opinion, that had the choice been offered them, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Tracy would have unanimously elected to be exposed to the moral shame rather than the steel sword.
The inevitable discovery was delayed by one of the fierce, long-continued gales which in those steamless days often, during winter, suspended postal communication between England and the Channel Islands for weeks together. The mail-packet, more than a fortnight overdue, would, it was quite certain, bring two very decisive letters—one for the lady, one for the gentleman. The lady before leaving London had posted a note to her solicitors, Messrs. Fonblanque of Lincoln's Inn Fields, acquainting them with her, for divers imperative reasons, hasty marriage with Mr. Arthur Tracy, only son and heir of the great Bristol merchant of that name; and modestly suggesting that a letter addressed to "Mrs. Arthur Tracy, Post-office, Guernsey," informing that lady, as painful, quite unexpected news, that a will disinheriting her in favour of Mr. Francis Ryder's niece had suddenly turned up, would ensure her eternal gratitude.
Mr. Arthur Tracy, on his part—feeling upon reflection uncomfortable misgivings anent the possible consequences, to himself personally, of running off with a large sum of money belonging to the estate of an adjudicated bankrupt—had written, just before embarkation for Guernsey, to Mr. Beadon, apprising that gentleman that he was fortunately espoused to a lady of large landed property, that he would lose no time in making up the Jamaica accounts, and paying over to the assignees whatever sums he might find due to them. A much less acute person than Mr. Arthur Tracy could not indeed have failed to perceive, that for the husband of a wealthy wife to incur the hazard of seeing his name in the Hue and Cry would be in the highest degree absurd, suicidal. In his case, too, it was explained how very desirable it was that the Tracy bankruptcy should be mentioned as a sudden and utterly unforeseen catastrophe.
Thus the little games of the wedded pair were identical with each other; and when as they were about sitting down to breakfast one dull, drizzly morning, the signal that the mail-packet from England was at last in sight flew out from the mimic mast-yard of Castle Cornet, both culprits must have felt with a nervous shudder that the decisive hour, the stroke of which would echo through their lives, was about to sound. The lady, we may be sure, sought courage in the hope that dear Arthur, who, as he had so often sighed and sworn, loved his beautiful Lydia for herself alone, could not, would not, he himself being so rich, be angry with his youthful bride because a cruel grandpapa had at the last moment—(Messrs. Fonblanque had not of course been so heartless as to refuse the little favour she had asked of them?)—cancelled or superseded the will made in her favour! Impossible to suppose such a thing! It was much likelier that Arthur would love her still more dearly, if that were possible, in consequence of the harsh injustice to which she had been subjected.
And "dear Arthur," one can as readily assume, was at the same moment laying the like flattering unction to his soul, that his sweet, angelic Lydia—Mr. Beadon having, he was quite sure, done his part to make things pleasant—that his angelic, loving Lydia would feel only tenderest sympathy for a husband suffering under so unexpected and stern a stroke of fate. Nay, she would, he believed, exult in the sweet consciousness that her own ample inheritance would shield the chosen partner of her life from the worst consequences of so sad a reverse of fortune. I doubt, however, that those moral tonics gave the happy pair a hearty appetite for breakfast on that dull, drizzly morning. A paralyzed stomach is, as most of us know by experience, the accompaniment of an agitated brain.
"Only two letters, Sir, for yon and your lady, at the Post-office," says the waiter, as he lays them on the breakfast table.
"This, love, bearing the London post-mark, is from your solicitor; this, marked Bristol, is as certainly from mine. There is no mistaking the devil's children's caligraphy."
It could not perhaps have been easy to decide whose hand shook the most, or which face was palest, when husband and wife opened the letters; but the manifestation of dismay which broke from them the moment they had mastered the purport of the lawyers' missives, differed widely in mode of expression. A hot flush reddened the features of Arthur Tracy as his eyes flushed over and recoiled from the waving, blinding lines; his hand crumpled up the paper as if he grasped the throat of a living foe, and a ferocious curse churned through his ashen, quivering lips. As to the lady, the faint colour of her face faded utterly, her nerveless grasp let fall the letter, and she fell back with a sighing scream on the sofa, in a fainting state.
"Sir," wrote Mr. Beadon, "the Assignees of the estate of Lambert Tracy, deceased, desire me to state, that if the moneys received by you, as agent to your late father, are not immediately forthcoming, proceedings involving very unpleasant consequences to yourself personally will be instituted without delay. I have received," added the attorney, "a communication from Messrs. Fonblanque of Lincoln's Inn, by which I learn that you have married a woman without a penny. In reply, I stated you were in precisely the same predicament." Mr. Beadon concluded by declining any further correspondence with Mr, Arthur Tracy.
Messrs. Fonblanque's note to the lady curtly informed her that Mr. Arthur Tracy, the person she had married, was a pauper, who, if he did not hasten to restore a considerable sum of money he had surreptitiously carried off, would find himself in the clutches of the criminal law. The solicitors added, "that they could hardly understand Mrs. Arthur Tracy's request that they should pretend she was not aware, previous to her marriage, that the will of Francis Ryder, Esq., deceased, in her favour, had been practically cancelled. Messrs. F. would certainly not lend themselves to any such misrepresentation," &c. &c.
Let us turn away our eyes from the scene which quickly followed discovery of the infamous deception practised towards each other by the bridegroom and bride—close our ears to the venomous taunts, the bitter bandyings to and fro of the spoken, acted lies, interchanged during the lune de miel. It is over at last. The festering stings of shame—the rankling rage engendered by finding themselves mutually victimized—the biters, himself and herself, bitten, are unappeased, unappeasable; but the storm of wordy war is past. The lady has retired to her chamber, bolted herself in, and, with natural revulsion of feeling, is sobbing piteously. The gentleman sullen, saturnine, is meditating how he may best effectually once for all get rid of his wife, and whilst carefully avoiding Newgate, keep in hand fast the two thousand pounds odd—not very much diminished by wedding costs—which he hugs himself to think are in his actual possession. The truce of Amiens, no one doubts, will soon be at an end, and half the nations of Europe, with England in the thickest of the mélée, flying at each other's throats again. Such a state of general hurly-burly cannot, he thinks, but afford a man with a cool brain, bold heart, stout arm, and a sufficiently elastic conscience, abundance of profitable occupation. The modus operandi would require careful consideration; but in the meantime there was no question of the imperative necessity of holding on to the money and casting off the wife. Distressing, excruciating even, as it must of course be, to tear one's self away in almost the rosiest flush, when only the very brightest hues—which always go first—of marital felicity have been brushed away; distressing, excruciating, as it must be to tear one's self away under such circumstances from a beauteous, fascinating bride—the artful jade is all that—still, there is no help for it! The letters of the lawyers warn me that if I would give those keen-scented cormorant assignees the go-by, I must show them a very swift pair of heels; and how, if weighted with a wife, could that be done, I should like to know? And Lydia will console herself! For the present she will, no doubt, find a refuge and home with some relative. Naturally, she will, after no very long interval of time, find dependent indigence, and the anomalous condition of wife and widow, insupportable; and knowing that I have bidden England a final farewell, will comprehend that her wisest course is to treat that silly ceremony performed at St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, and its corollary, our little trip to this island, as absurd unrealities, suggestive only of the necessity of having a wary eye to a sealed settlement before she again gives herself away for better, for worse. Nobody but those rascally attorneys are cognisant of the secret. Besides, the lady will be able to give out, before long, that dear Arthur, who embarked for the Indies, East or West, China or Japan—no matter where—died on his voyage out, leaving her, et cetera. She could, I can answer for it, manage that little bit of fiction, as I devoutly trust it would be, very cleverly. Thus our little comedy—a delicious pièce d'occasion till the curtain rose upon the last scene—will, after all, turn out to be but a new edition, with variations (to be continued after any number of years are supposed to have elapsed), of "All's Well that Ends Well."
Having arrived at that jocular and comfortable conclusion, Arthur Tracy went out for a stroll; but quickly tiring of perambulating the "cursed streets of stairs," for which Guernsey is quite as distinguished as Malta, returned to the Royal Hotel a few minutes after the mail-packet from Jersey to Weymouth was signalled to be in sight.
Nothing could be luckier! He would take passage in her, notwithstanding the sailors idling about on the pier predicted that it would be blowing great guns again in a few hours, and that his own opinion fully coincided with theirs. [Tracy's West India voyage out and home, and one or two trips to Cuba and Saint Domingo, had not only given him a capital pair of sea-legs, but made him half a sailor—the best half, regard being had to intelligence. It was no doubt a latent consciousness of his fitness for a Rover's life, which suggested the notion that he might play a successful part in the sea-strife about, men said, to be re-inaugurated upon a grand scale.]
Yes, it would be soon blowing great guns, with a vengeance too, Arthur Tracy had no doubt; but that was a peril he would cheerfully confront rather than incur the possibility of being nabbed, per next mail, by officers from England, who, he had discovered during his sojourn in the island, could, if armed by an almost matter-of-course order from the Privy Council Office, carry out that objectionable process. Then his wife, who was still closely shut up and spitefully sobbing, he could take leave of by letter, politely explaining that for both their sakes the separation must be immediate and eternal—that he should at once go abroad—whither, not decided upon. That letter, enclosing a £50 bank-note, he would slip under dear Lydia's chamber door, as soon as the packet brought up in the Roads; by that means avoiding an irritating and useless personal interview.
It was growing late in the day when Tracy stepped into the first boat putting off for the packet. Already a fierce gale was blowing, and there was such a tremendous sea on, in that dangerous Road, that the boat twice narrowly missed being swamped, short as was the distance to be traversed.
Tracy had not been many minutes upon the Ariadne's deck, when glancing pierward he saw his wife coming. off to the vessel. Greatly exasperated, and resolved not to be seen or be spoken to by the unhappy lady, he instantly went below, and turned into bis berth in the cabin appropriated to gentlemen—where, of course, she could not follow him. Arrived at Weymouth during the night, as was expected, he would easily give her the slip, the more easily that he knew she would, in such weather, be utterly prostrated by sea-sickness. Not, lovely Lydia, to be so easily caught—a second time—as you imagine! No, no!
Had Arthur Tracy remained on deck he would have known that his wife did not succeed in reaching the packet. The boat in which she came off was a very heavy one, pulled by two oars only; and such slow way did she make that Captain Goodridge, anxious to thread the far-reaching, rocky labyrinth before him by daylight, lost patience, and ordered the moorings to be slipped. The boat was consequently obliged to re-land its passenger. Tracy, remaining ignorant of that fact, fully believed his wife had come on board, and been conducted to the ladies' cabin—a misapprehension which in his after life led to singular results. This was not the only mistake he made on that, to him, fateful day. His wife had no intention, no wish, to thrust her society, her presence, upon him. Her purpose in putting off to the vessel was to insist upon the restoration of her jewel-case, which, though not containing gems of high value, held family mementos she greatly prized. Mr. Tracy, she quickly discovered, had, intentionally or unintentionally, packed it away in his portmanteau—another circumstance, the unguessed-of consequences of which were written in the unrolled scroll of Time.
Re-landed on the pier, Mrs. Arthur Tracy watched the fast-receding vessel with "a boding, aching heart," her own expression—(she was a loving Woman, and a mourning Bride you know,) till it disappeared in the thick storm and darkness; then returned sorrowfully to the hotel, mentally associating, we may be sure, the gloomy future of her life, as it lay before her, with the night and danger into which the Ariadne had vanished.
About a fortnight subsequently, the following paragraph went the round of the English papers:—
"The Mail-Packet Ariadne.—The Ariadne, Captain Goodridge, from Jersey and Guernsey, was driven upon the Casket Rocks during the tremendous hurricane which swept the Channel during the night of the 7th instant, and almost instantly went to pieces. Only one, out of about twenty male and female passengers, was saved—a Mr. Smith—and two of the crew. Information has reached Bristol that Mr. Arthur Tracy, son of Mr. Lambert Tracy, formerly an eminent merchant of that city, and one who had acquired the esteem of all who knew him, embarked at Guernsey in the ill-fated Ariadne, and has consequently perished."
Pausing a moment to remark, that "The Caskets" is a group of rocks about midway, I think, between Alderney and the Isle of Wight, and whereon, I am sure, the Victory, a one hundred-gun ship—predecessor in the Navy List of the Victory—was lost, with all her hands, during a tempestuous night in 1786, I proceed to correct an important item in the newspaper statement just quoted.
Some two or three hours after the Ariadne slipped her Guernsey Road moorings, Arthur Tracy, feeling quite sure that the ladies on board—Mrs. Arthur Tracy in particular—would, in the terrific tempest that had arisen, keep strictly below, turned out and went on deck. The hurricane was at its height; the sea swept the vessel fore and aft in tremendous volume, and it was plain to Arthur Tracy that the old crank, crazy tub, badly handled moreover, was quite as likely, if not much more likely, to turn turtle or go down stern or stem foremost, as to fetch Portland. Now, miserable poltroon in a moral sense as he was, young Tracy, in presence of mere bodily danger, was no more susceptible of fear than Nelson. In such a situation he was a man to play his last card as coolly as if he still held a heap of trumps, safe to win, whatever might befall the game of Life versus Death.
Thus it occurred to him, that under the actual circumstances it would be prudent—not throwing a chance away—to securely fasten his bulky pocket-book, containing all his property in heavy bank-notes, about his person; and (well remembered!) to similarly secure the jewel-case. (Perhaps he, at the time, intended to leave it at Weymouth for dear Lydia—who knows?) Well, the bank-notes and jewel-case being skilfully assured upon his own life, Mr. Arthur Tracy went on deck again, and spite of wind and sea, managed, by holding on to the cutter's chains, to remain there. Tracy was a mighty swimmer. It has even been said, and written, that when at Jamaica in his youth, he fought his famous battle with a shark. That, however, is a mistake. The shark business took place, it will be seen, many years after he sailed from the West Indies with the fascinating, fatal, Widow Warner. Still he was, no doubt, at the time I am now writing of, a powerful swimmer; and it is likely enough that, in his estimate of imminent contingencies, he relied in some degree upon that faculty to save himself, should the Ariadne come to grief by being driven upon Alderney, the Wight, or whatever island or mainland the sea and storm might, in their capricious fury, hurl her against. To give his strong swimming the ghost of a chance of coming into successful play, it was imperative he should remain on deck—and, as I have said, he did so.
About ten o'clock on the morrow of the day upon which he embarked at Guernsey in the Ariadne, Arthur Tracy, though sorely bruised, was fully restored to consciousness and memory—thanks to the care of, and the restoratives administered by, the solitary guardians of the Casket Lights. He could recall the terrible incidents of the wreck—the frightful crash of the bows of the cutter as it struck upon the rocks—the snapping of the mast by the board—the rending asunder at the next shock of the vessel's frame, as a walnut-shell is crushed—the quickly stifled screams of despair—his own desperate fight with the sea,—all that was clear enough, but subsequent circumstances were confused in his remembrance. They were related by the Light-keepers, who, however, could only say that they found him and two seamen alive—barely alive—upon an elevated point of the Caskets, at early dawn; and that several dead bodies, and fragments of a vessel, had been flung upon the rocks.
"No one saved but two sailors and myself, you say?"
"Only you and two of the crew."
"No woman?"
"Certainly not."
It was certain, then, that his wife was drowned; and, having before ascertained that the oil-cased pocket-book and the jewel-case were safe, he joyously pronounced himself and the two seamen to be devilish lucky fellows. (Perhaps he wept, as physical wounds sometimes bleed, inwardly, for the lost Lydia!)
Another lightning thought flashed upon that excited brain. It was known—would be published in the papers—that Mr. Arthur Tracy was a passenger on board the Ariadne, Intelligence of the unfortunate young gentleman's death, on his way no doubt to square accounts with the assignees of a certain estate, would put an end to all impertinent inquiries after the said Arthur Tracy. That would be a fine lead-off in the game he was about to play.
"If," said he, addressing one of the Light-keepers—"if a box with the name of John Smith painted upon it should be flung ashore or a rock, that box is my property. I wish," he added, disconsolately surveying his torn, stained, utterly ruined dress, "I wish I had not had my Sunday suit on."
"John Smith," repeated the man, writing the name in a memorandum book, "John Smith; all right."
Thus was born, metaphorically, into the world, "Skipper Smith;" a remarkable man, and bold mariner, who may be said to have illustrated upon a reduced—an immensely reduced scale, certainly—Dundonald's Admiralty-rejected plan for arresting the Continental conquests of the French armies, by giving them enough, and more than enough, to do at home.
A Letter of Marque.
The storm had completely passed away; the clear, wintry brightness of the morning enabled the coast-guard stationed at Alderney to distinctly make out the signals displayed at the Caskets, and a boat carrying a surgeon at once put off for the rocks.
Neither Smith, alias Tracy, nor the two sailors—north-countrymen—proved to be dangerously hurt; and late the same evening they were safely landed and housed at Alderney, and as soon as they had recovered from the effects of the cuts, sprains, and bruises they had sustained, were embarked in a fishing-smack direct for Portsmouth, where they safely arrived after a swift, pleasant run.
To have landed at the great war-port a few months later, clad as he was in the dress, purchased in Alderney, of a common sailor, would to a dead certainty have put an extinguisher at once and for ever upon Arthur Tracy's cherished project. A renewal of the war with France not, however, having been finally decided upon, he passed through Portsmouth, at which place he parted company with the two seamen, ungrabbed by the British lion's naval providers—the lynx-eyed, ruthless press-gang. Imagining for a moment it could have, and had, happened to Arthur Tracy to be seized and sent on board one of his gracious Majesty's receiving ships, he would, one may be sure, have deemed himself the most infernally ill-used, most unfortunate young fellow in existence, and have awfully cursed men and things in general—the land, and its atrocious institutions, of his birth in particular. Now, I believe, on the contrary, that such an apparent misadventure would have been the very best thing that could possibly have befallen him. Say that he would not, perhaps, have had the supreme luck to vanish from the earth and a grateful country in a blaze of glory—though there was a very fair chance of obtaining that dazzling distinction in the good Trafalgar times coming, and not far off; still he might, with his qualities, have lived to be an Admiral, or Post-Captain, or Lieutenant, or Master, or Boatswain—at all events a Greenwich Pensioner, which, even throwing in two wooden legs, would, it seems to me, have been preferable to— But anon, anon!
War, however, not having actually broken out, Arthur Tracy missed that chance, and left Portsmouth, in pursuance of his destiny, a few hours after he entered it—on foot. The young man was brimful of hope and confidence; but for all that, determined to walk warily on a path where one false step might be destruction. The longer he had reflected, during the few quiet days he passed in Alderney, upon the opportuneness and other circumstances attending the wreck of the Ariadne, the more heartily he congratulated himself upon the results—his poor wife's death excepted—of course. (It was a pity, by the way, since the melancholy catastrophe was to occur, that that fifty-pound note had been lost with her.)
Tracy's immediate destination was the North—the maritime North, of England, The conversations he had held with the two north-country seamen had suggested that course. They had served in the collier-fleets, and Tracy himself knew well enough that your genuine English sea-dog, whose pulse a furious hurricane or a desperate battle would scarcely hurry one beat in an hour, was to be found in fullest perfection in the hardy, danger-cradled mariners accustomed to feel their way along the iron-bound eastern shores of England in long dark winter nights, when each rope they handled was a bar of ice, the frozen sails-sheets of iron, and who felt an ever-present careless consciousness that a gale from the westward might any day or night send them to Kingdom Come in just no time—hugging, as they necessarily did, a coast which the richest and most benignant Government in the world has to this day left unprovided with a single Harbour of Refuge. Those were the fellows for Tracy's money, and with whom he purposed to form an intimate acquaintance. He should have plenty of time to do so, The war soon to be declared would possibly last half a man's lifetime; assuredly many years. Great Britain must fight to the last in a contest for her very existence, and at the close of which, whenever it came, she would be able justly to boast that she had gained all that she had not lost;—whilst Bonaparte and his allies would be tough, ugly customers. The tremendous naval armaments preparing by England, combined and directed by Nelson, would just as certainly, in Tracy's opinion, shatter, and speedily, the war-fleets of the enemy—sweep them from the seas—from the narrow seas at all events. Then would come Captain or Skipper Smith's opportunity. Not that he for a moment contemplated engaging in common, regular privateering. That would be a poor game to play. The enemy's ports would, in the case supposed, be so strictly blockaded, that the everywhere swarming British cruisers would be sure to snap up all, or pretty nearly all, the merchant-ships that might creep out to sea, and were worth snapping up; and meddling with an enemy's war-ship of any force whatever was quite opposed to Arthur Tracy's plans for despoiling the foe and enriching himself. The game of privateering, as vulgarly understood and practised, would consequently be a sorry, unpromising one, whilst that which he had conceived, and purposed under certain conditions to vigorously engage in, was rich in promise. He would have to patiently wait till the ground—the sea rather—was cleared for him by the British fleets; then Master Frenchman should see—what he should see! Meanwhile it was essential to carefully economize his cash; and this was one reason why he chose to travel on foot; another yet more imperious one was, that in a stage-coach he might chance to meet with a lady or gentleman who knew the Arthur Tracy, Esq., at that moment believed to be, or in a few days would be believed to be, or to have been, food for fishes. Trudging along by unfrequented ways, he would incur no such hazard; and once humbly lodged in a northern sea-port town—keeping close and singing small—the story of his death fully accredited by everybody interested in the matter, the chance of recognition would be slight indeed.
The above may, I think, be taken as a sufficiently accurate sketch of the programme in process of elaboration by the embryo Filibuster—of a modern pattern—as he gaily plodded on his way from Portsmouth to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in an obscure part of which city or town he quietly settled till the time for action should arrive. Of the next two years of his life it is only known that he lived frugally, gained money by a number of small, very safe, speculations, and made some half-dozen voyages in coal-ships—mainly with a view to exercise himself in practical seamanship—doggedly persevering in that dull, hum-drum life, especially to a young man of education and refinement, till the signal he so eagerly listened for pealed forth in the thunder of Trafalgar.
Four months after that crowning victory, that is, in February, 1806, Skipper Smith—as the Captain of the Blue Jacket, Letter of Marque, and perhaps the fastest craft that up to that time had ever sailed out of the Tyne, was familiarly named by his rollicking, devil-may-care crew—had completed his preparations. The Blue Jacket, built after a model selected by Skipper Smith himself—(to ourselves adopt that appellation for our raffish acquaintance, Arthur Tracy, for a time at least)—was a long, low vessel of sharp bow, flush deck, and hermaphrodite rig. She had three masts, fitted, instead of square, with large main-sails, cutter-fashion, and could, in proportion to her tonnage, show a prodigious canvass surface. Such a craft, though not so swift in running before the wind as a square sail ship, could almost eat into the wind's eye; and in nine cases out of ten would, for that reason, have a much better chance of escaping capture, by working to windward of a pursuer, than almost any other class of vessel. The Blue Jacket carried but one piece of ordnance, a brass pivot-gun, placed amidships. Her crew, of seventy men, were the pick of the Tyne for hardihood and daring. They were engaged upon the share system—Proprietor and Skipper Smith to have one-third of the plunder obtained; the remainder to be equally divided amongst the crew—Proprietor and Skipper charging them nothing for grub and grog. Although the Blue Jacket could boast of but one gun, she was plentifully supplied with small-arms—not alone ordinary sailor weapons, such as cutlasses, pistols, tomahawks, but a musket with bayonet for every man. There were also, neatly stowed away, French and Spanish soldier-uniforms, more than sufficient for all the Blue Jackets, including officers' coats, &c., for the Skipper and Mates. The purchase and fitting out of the Blue Jacket had exhausted her venturous owner's means—but what of that? There was plenty of money in France and Spain,—solid currency too: napoleons, five-franc pieces, gold onzas (not flimsy, inconvertible paper, as in England—thanks to the instinctive general conviction, that the Bonapartean raw-head and bloody-bones could not possibly endure.) Also, plate—secular, spiritual, château, church, convent plate waiting, like resigned, acquiescent virgins, to be carried off. He had thoroughly conned his course, had Skipper Smith—knew exactly what to do, and how to do it. Thus self-assured, confident, he gave the order one fine, breezy morning, to lift anchor and be off—an order obeyed with hilarious readiness, and—
"With a wet sheet and a flowing sea,
And a wind that follows fast;
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee."
This last line, by the way, is a puzzler, since how, with a wind that follows fast, a ship, good or bad, could leave the land she sailed from on the lee, would defy any one, except Allan Cunningham or a Horse-Marine, to understand.
The Blue Jacket is off, at all events, with a spanking breeze, her course shaped for the northern coast of France, to touch first at that of the Pas de Calais, somewhere between Gravelines and Calais; next to fold her ample white wings off the sea-board of the Somme; next not far from Dieppe, Seine Inférieure; next—next—and next! Well; we shall see.
Not immediately. Place aux Dames. We shall easily overtake the rakish Blue Jacket (swiftly as she bowls along over a sea upon which, thanks to Trafalgar and countless minor victories, there floats no tricolour), after waiting for a few months, or years—(such is the privilege of a prophet of the past)—upon the unhappy, and far from blameless lady, abandoned by a selfish sensualist at Saint Peter's Port, Guernsey.
Womanly dignity, the natural pride which must ever glow in the bosom of conscious beauty, helped no doubt to strengthen the spirit of Mrs. Arthur Tracy, to dry up the bitter tears wrung from her by the desertion of a man whom she had foolishly imagined that beauty would hold in thrall. But that which gave her far mightiest aid was the sweet image, shining through the moral gloom that encompassed her, of little Emmeline, left in the care of strangers, and scarcely thought of, the mother hotly blushed to remember, during that month of delirious dalliance.
There was a future for her in the life of her child. Animated by hope of that bright future, she would resolutely battle with the dark, doleful present; but to do so with a chance of success, it was essential to vigorously verify the conditions of the contest. Governing elements in the calculation were, that Lavinia Charlton, the niece to whom Mr. Ryder had devised his real and personal estate, was far from being an unamiable or selfish person, and that from the long since precarious state of her health she was not likely to marry. Moreover, she was known to have an inordinate share of family pride—a quality, or defect, which of itself might induce her to offer a home at Stone Hall to a near relative. Once domiciled there, it would surely not be difficult to win the lasting sympathy of a kind-hearted woman, who could not but feel, with something of remorse, that she had been enriched at her hapless cousin's cost. Then, Lavinia was fond of children; Emmeline, the most engaging child in the world, already gave promise of surpassing loveliness, so that it was not only possible, but highly probable, she would be Miss Charlton's heiress, in which case a brilliant destiny, et cetera. Mothers have always been chartered dreamers.
Mrs. Arthur Tracy wrote, and very lengthily, to Miss Charlton by the next mail. She could better, more affectingly, state her sad case by letter than by a viva voce explanation. Without being guilty of untruth—not for the wide world, not for Emmeline, would she condescend to that in writing; without being guilty of untruth, she might so manipulate her phrases that, in the impression left upon the reader's mind, certain circumstances—which, written large, or brought out in the confusing cross-examination of a first personal interview, might damage her in her relative's estimation—would be so glided and gilded over, as to not in the faintest degree weaken the sorrowing sympathy which the abandonment of a wife, after a month's marriage, by a heartless, penniless adventurer, would be sure to excite in every well-regulated mind.
The lady reasoned rightly; and so judiciously did she paint her pitiable state, that quite an enthusiastic invitation reached her by return of post from Miss Charlton. Stone Hall was to be the home of herself and dear little Emmeline, as long as she chose to reside there,—and a heavy banker's draft was enclosed. The horizon was fast brightening in golden splendour.
By the same mail arrived the newspapers announcing the loss of the Ariadne Packet, on the Caskets; that but three persons, one John Smith and two sailors, had escaped drowning. Dreadful! A swift as terrible judgment had, then, overtaken Arthur Tracy! A wife, widowed by so frightful, so sudden a catastrophe, would be, was, greatly shocked. Nevertheless, the mirror at which she glances not very long afterwards reflects a face lustrous, palely lustrous, let us say, with conscious loveliness and freedom. A dreadful fate!—she shuddered to think of it;—and her jewels were gone!—true, but—(another proud glance at the large, clear mirror)—very young still—and, folly to affect not to know, very handsome! Perhaps Mrs. Arthur Tracy did not just then anticipate that the supposedly drowned husband would, in the fulness of time, be the father of a supposedly posthumous child—hers! That knowledge might not, however, have much changed the situation, in her view of it.
The imaginary widow sailed from Guernsey to Plymouth, with the intention of passing through Bristol on her way to London and Norfolk. She was desirous—in a languid degree—of acquainting herself with the exact circumstances incident to the downfall of the House of Tracy; and especially to ascertain if there were any chance, however remote and shadowy, that in the event of her giving birth to a son or daughter of Mr. Arthur Tracy, deceased, he or she might by possibility benefit by the wealth of said deceased's maternal uncle—the Mr. Sherwood, for many years located at Madras, of whom she had frequently heard mention.
Mr, Beadon received her with a sort of grim civility, which gradually softened to politest complaisance under the influence of the charming woman's winning grace—her subdued, beseeching deprecation of his displeasure. In sooth, that vibrating, patient voice of hers, pitched artistically, would have sung the savageness out of a bear, particularly a bachelor-bear of some sixty years of age. I am not sure that she might not have married him off-hand; but whether so or not, she so interested him that he promised to do all in his power for her with Mr. Sherwood, from whom a letter had been received announcing that he had wound up his business affairs, and was about to embark for England, with an enlarged liver. The lawyer zealously kept his word; and the lady, before many months had passed, knew that she had never smiled and sighed to more profitable purpose than on that fortunate day in Bristol.
Her life-bark so hopelessly wrecked, apparently, in the late rude gale, now gaily sailed with wind and stream over a summer sea. Miss Charlton, a confirmed, fast-failing invalid, received the pensive widow and her child with affectionate cordiality, and long before the next day dawned there was simmering at the pensive widow's heart a comforting conviction that she would herself be mistress of Stone Hall and its adjuncts, before the world's great clock had again twice tolled a dead year's funeral knell.
The Poet of Life truly tells us, that, when sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. It is sometimes the same with Fortune's favours; as witness the experiences of Mrs. Arthur Tracy, crowded into the brief space of some twenty months. The recital reads like the fragment of a leaf torn out of a Registrar-General's record.
Mrs. Arthur Tracy gave birth, at Stone Hall, to a son, baptized, not Arthur, after his supposedly drowned father, but James, after Mr. Sherwood. To him Mr. Sherwood, immensely rich, and dead of enlarged liver, bequeathed all he possessed, with trusteeship during infancy to the mother; and to crown all, about three or four months subsequent to the decease of Sherwood, Lavinia Charlton, spinster, departed this life, having previously devised her estate, real and personal, to "her cruelly wronged, most estimable cousin, Lydia," with remainder to her daughter: the magnificent bequest clogged with but one condition—that Mrs. Tracy should forthwith take the formal steps necessary to obtain her Sovereign's licence to assume the name of Charlton: Emmeline and James to be also Charltons. . . . Thus it fell out, that when Skipper Smith, believing his wife had long since passed to Paradise, sailed out of the Tyne in the Blue Jacket on his famous cruise, with the serene assurance of being a widower, his wife had become, by royal favour, Mrs. Charlton—by favour of munificent bequests, one of the richest relicts in Norfolk. He not knowing! Had he known! There is a misty meaning in Mr. Disraeli's remark, that a narrative of the consequences of events which never happened (for example, had Napoleon won Waterloo!) would make a remarkable history. No doubt of it; and Mr. Disraeli, a fine hand at fiction-history, should write it.