LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER LV.AN INTERRUPTED LUNCHEON.
Mrs. Smith of Tupper's cottage and Mr. Henry Drone, solicitor, and clerk to the magistrates at South Wennock, were holding a hot argument, almost a fight. With the dawn of the winter's morning, Mrs. Smith had presented herself at that gentleman's office, demanding, and obstinately persisting in the demand, that the case should be laid before the magistrates as soon as they met, and a warrant asked for to apprehend Mr. Carlton. Mr. Drone dissented: he saw no reason for being so precipitate.
"Look here," said he, "if you let this affair get wind before it's ripe, you may defeat your own ends. I am not sure that the magistrates would grant a warrant as the case stands; it's a ticklish thing, mind you, to arrest a gentleman of hitherto good repute; once the case is taken before the court, it will be blazoned from one end of South Wennock to the other, and Mr. Carlton—if he felt so inclined—might find escape facile."
"That's just what I want to prevent," retorted Mrs. Smith. "If the warrant is granted at once, he can't escape."
"But we cannot make sure that they will grant the warrant. I don't know that I would myself if I were one of the bench. I declare I couldn't sleep last night for thinking of the story, it is so strange a one; doubt after doubt of it arose in my mind; and I came to the conclusion, times and again, that there must be some great mistake; that it could not be true."
"And you don't mean to go on with it!" resentfully spoke Mrs. Smith. "I'd not have told you all I have, if I had thought that."
"Softly, ma'am," returned the lawyer, "I have said nothing of the sort. I do mean to go on with it. That is, I'll lay the case before their worships, and they can do as they please in it. What I urge is, don't strike before the iron's hot. When the subject of the accusation is a man like Mr. Carlton, enjoying the confidence of the town, and the husband of a peer's daughter, the bench won't grant a warrant lightly; they must have something beyond mere suspicion."
"And is there nothing here beyond mere suspicion?" asked Mrs. Smith.
"As you put it—yes. And perhaps the magistrates may consider so. But I say we should be at a great deal more certainty if we could get the copy of the marriage certificate down. I tell you I have telegraphed for it: that is, I have telegraphed for the register at old St. Pancras Church to be searched. If it's found, that copy will be down here in the course of the morning."
"And if it's not found, sir?" rejoined Mrs. Smith in a blaze of anger. "It's quite a wild-goose sort of chase to search for it at all, in my opinion. She might just as well have been married at any other church in London as at that. The remark she made might have meant nothing. If it had meant anything, I should have seen and suspected it at the time."
"I think it likely that it did mean something. We lawyers, ma'am, are apt to suspect these remarks; at any rate, we sometimes think it worth while to discover if, may be, they have a meaning or not."
"Then I'm thankful that I am not a lawyer," was the retort.
Mr. Drone shrugged his shoulders, as taking the words literally. "It's as pleasant a life as any, for what I see. All callings have their annoyances and drawbacks. But what I wished to point out to you was this; that if that certificate comes down and we can produce it to the magistrates, they will have no loop-hole of excuse; they must grant the warrant of apprehension. And as I expect the certificate (if it is in existence) will be down this morning, the application had better wait an hour or two."
"Then, sir, I tell you that I'll not wait the hour or two. No, nor a minute. As soon as the court doors are open and the magistrates on the bench, the application shall be made. And if you don't like to appear and make it, I'll do it myself in person."
It was somewhat strange that Mrs. Smith, with her phlegmatic temperament, should put herself into this fever of resolute haste. Did she fear that Mr. Carlton would suspect, and slip away? It may be that she was vexed with herself for not having suspected him before, all the months that he had been visiting, almost daily, at her house. One thing was certain: so entirely was she convinced the past guilt was Mr. Carlton's alone, and so incensed was her feeling against him in consequence, that if she could have genteelly appended the surgeon with one of her silk pocket-handkerchiefs to any convenient beam, she had hastened to do it, and not waited for the delay and intricacies of the law.
