The Child Wife

“Well, that I can’t remember. You see, there’s so many goin’ and comin’. From their name being high up on the list, I d’say they went by a mornin’ train.”

“You’re sure they left no note for any one?”

“I can ask inside. What name?”

“Swinton – Mr Richard Swinton.”

“Seems to me they inquired for that name, several times. Yes, the old lady did – the mother of the young ladies, I mean. I’ll see if there’s a note.”

The man slippered off towards the office, in the interior of the hotel; leaving Mr Swinton, for it was he, upon the door-mat.

The countenance of the ex-guardsman, that had turned suddenly blank, again brightened up. It was at least gratifying to know that he had been inquired for. It was to be hoped there was a note, that would put him on their trace of travel.

“No, not any,” was the chilling response that came out from the official oracle. “None whatever.”

“You say they made inquiries for a Mr Swinton. Was it from yourself, may I ask?” The question was put seductively, accompanied by the holding out of a cigar-case.

“Thank you, sir,” said the flattered official, accepting the offered weed. “The inquiries were sent down to me from their rooms. It was to ask if a Mr Swinton had called, or left any card. They also asked about a lord. They didn’t give his name. There wasn’t any lord – leastwise not for them.”

“Were there any gentlemen in the habit of visiting them? You’ll find that cigar a good one – I’ve just brought them across the Atlantic. Take another? Such weeds are rather scarce here in London.”

“You’re very kind, sir. Thank you!” and the official helped himself to a second.

“Oh, yes; there were several gentlemen used to come to see them. I don’t think any of them were lords, though. They might be. The ladies ’peared to be very respectable people. I d’say highly respectable.”

“Do you know the address of any of these gentlemen? I ask the question because the ladies are relatives of mine, and I might perhaps find out from some of them where they are gone.”

“They were all strangers to me; and to the hotel. I’ve been at this door for ten years, and never saw one of them before.”

“Can you recollect how any of them looked?”

“Yes; there was one who came often, and used to go out with the ladies. A thick-set gent with lightish hair, and round full face. Sometimes there was a thin-faced man along with him, a younger gent. They used to take the two young ladies a-ridin’ – to Rotten Row; and I think to the Opera.”

“Did you learn their names?”

“No, sir. They used to go and come without giving a card; only the first time, and I didn’t notice what name was on it. They would ask if Mrs Girdwood was in, and then go upstairs to the suite of rooms occupied by the fambly. They ’peared to be intimate friends.”

Swinton saw he had got all the information the man was capable of imparting. He turned to go out, the hall-keeper obsequiously holding the door.

Another question occurred to him.

“Did Mrs Girdwood say anything about coming back here – to the hotel I mean?”

“I don’t know, sir. If you stop a minute I’ll ask.”

Another journey to the oracle inside; another negative response.

“This is cursed luck!” hissed Swinton through his teeth, as he descended the hotel steps and stood upon the flags below. “Cursed luck!” he repeated, as with despondent look and slow, irresolute tread he turned up the street of “our best shopkeepers.”

“Lucas with them to a certainty, and that other squirt! I might have known it, from their leaving New York without telling me where they were going. They must have followed by the very next steamer; and, hang me, if I don’t begin to think that that visit to the gambling-house was a trap – a preconceived plan to deprive me of the chance of getting over after her. By the living G – it has succeeded! Here I am, after months spent in struggling to make up the paltry passage money! And here they are not; and God knows where they are! Curse upon the crooked luck!”

Mr Swinton’s reflections will explain why he had not sooner reported himself at the Bond Street hotel, and show the mistake Mrs Girdwood had made, in supposing he had “cut” them.

The thousand dollars deposited in the New York faro bank was all the money he had in the world; and after taking stock of what might be raised upon his wife’s jewellery, most of which was already under the collateral mortgage of the three golden globes, it was found it would only pay ocean passage for one.

As Fan was determined not to be left behind – Broadway having proved less congenial than Regent Street – the two had to stay in America, till the price of two cabin tickets could be obtained.

With all Mr Swinton’s talent in the “manipulation of pasteboard,” it cost him months to obtain them.

His friend Lucas gone away, he found no more pigeons in America – only hawks!

The land of liberty was not the land for him. Its bird of freedom, type of the falcon tribe, seemed too truly emblematic of its people – certainly of those with whom he had come in contact – and as soon as he could get together enough to pay for a pair of Cunard tickets – second-class at that – he took departure for a clime more congenial, both to himself and his beloved.

They had arrived in London with little more than the clothes they stood in; and taken lodgings in that cheap, semi-genteel neighbourhood where almost every street, square, park, place, and terrace, has got Westbourne for its name.

Toward this quarter Mr Swinton turned his face, after reaching the head of Bond Street; and taking a twopenny “bus,” he was soon after set down at the Royal Oak, at no great distance from his suburban domicile.

“They’re gone!” he exclaimed, stepping inside the late taken apartments, and addressing himself to a beautiful woman, their sole occupant.

It was “Fan,” in a silk gown, somewhat chafed and stained, but once more a woman’s dress! Fan, with her splendid hair almost grown again – Fan no longer disguised as a valet, but restored to the dignity of a wife!

“Gone! From London, do you mean? Or only the hotel?” The question told of her being still in her husband’s confidence. “From both.”

“But you know where, don’t you?”

“I don’t.”

“Do you think they’ve left England?”

“I don’t know what to think. They’ve left the Clarendon on the 25th of last month – ten days ago. And who do you suppose has been there – back and forward to see them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Guess!”

“I can’t.”

She could have given a guess. She had a thought, but she kept it in her own heart, as about the same man she had kept other thoughts before. Had she spoken it, she would have said, “Maynard.”

She said nothing, leaving her husband to explain. He did so, at once undeceiving her.

“Well, it was Lucas. That thick-skulled brute we met in Newport, and afterwards in New York.”

“Ay; better you had never seen him in either place. He proved a useless companion, Dick.”

“I know all that. Perhaps I shall get square with him yet.”

“So they’ve gone; and that, I suppose, will be the end of it. Well, let it be; I don’t care. I’m contented enough to be once more in dear old England!”