The Castle Inn: Chapter 27

Chapter 27

MR. FISHWICK'S DISCOVERY

We left Sir George Soane and his companions stranded in the little
alehouse at Bathford, waiting through the small hours of the night for a
conveyance to carry them forward to Bristol. Soap and water, a good
meal, and a brief dog's sleep, in which Soane had no share--he spent the
night walking up and down--and from which Mr. Fishwick was continually
starting with cries and moanings, did something to put them in better
plight, if in no better temper. When the dawn came, and with it the
chaise-and-four for which they had sent to Bath, they issued forth
haggard and unshaven, but resolute; and long before the shops in Bristol
had begun to look for custom, the three, with Sir George's servant,
descended before the old Bush Inn, near the Docks.

The attorney held strongly the opinion that they should not waste a
second before seeking the persons whom Mr. Dunborough had employed; the
least delay, he urged, and the men might be gone into hiding. But on
this a wrangle took place, in the empty street before the half-roused
inn; with a milk-girl and a couple of drunken sailors for witnesses. Mr.
Dunborough, who was of the party will-he, nill-he, and asked nothing
better than to take out in churlishness the pressure put upon him, stood
firmly to it, he would take no more than one person to the men. He would
take Sir George, if he pleased, but he would take no one else.

'I'll have no lawyer to make evidence!' he cried boastfully. 'And I'll
take no one but on terms. I'll have no Jemmy Twitcher with me.
That's flat.'

Mr. Fishwick in a great rage was for insisting; but Sir George stopped
him. 'On what terms?' he asked the other.

'If the girl be unharmed, we go unharmed. One and all!' Mr. Dunborough
answered. 'Damme!' he continued with a great show of bravado, 'do you
think I am going to peach on 'em? Not I. There's the offer, take it or
leave it.'

Sir George might have broken down his opposition by the same arguments
addressed to his safety which had brought him so far. But time was
everything, and Soane was on fire to know the best or worst. 'Agreed!'
he cried. 'Lead the way, sir! And do you, Mr. Fishwick, await me here.'

'We must have time,' Mr. Dunborough grumbled, hesitating, and looking
askance at the attorney--he hated him. 'I can't answer for an hour or
two. I know a place, and I know another place, and there is another
place. And they may be at one or another, or the other. D'you see?'

'I see that it is your business,' Sir George answered with a glance,
before which the other's eyes fell. 'Wait until noon, Mr. Fishwick. If
we have not returned at that hour, be good enough to swear an
information against this gentleman, and set the constables to work.'

Mr. Dunborough muttered that it lay on Sir George's head if ill came of
it; but that said, swung sulkily on his heel. Mr. Fishwick, when the two
were some way down the street, ran after Soane, and asked in a whisper
if his pistols were primed; when he returned satisfied on that point,
the servant, whom he had left at the door of the inn, had vanished. The
lawyer made a shrewd guess that he would have an eye to his master's
safety, and retired into the house with less misgiving.

He got his breakfast early, and afterwards dozed awhile, resting his
aching bones in a corner of the coffee-room. It was nine and after, and
the tide of life was roaring through the channels of the city when he
roused himself, and to divert his suspense and fend off his growing
stiffness went out to look about him. All was new to him, but he soon
wearied of the main streets, where huge drays laden with puncheons of
rum and bales of tobacco threatened to crush him, and tarry seamen,
their whiskers hanging in ringlets, jostled him at every crossing.
Turning aside into a quiet court he stood to stare at a humble wedding
which was leaving a church. He watched the party out of sight, and then,
the church-door standing open, he took the fancy to stroll into the
building. He looked about him at the maze of dusty green-cushioned pews
with little alleys winding hither and thither among them; at the great
three-decker with its huge sounding-board; at the royal escutcheon, and
the faded tables of the law, and was about to leave as aimlessly as he
had entered, when he espied the open vestry door. Popping in his head,
his eye fell on a folio bound in sheepskin, that lay open on a chest, a
pen and ink beside it.

The attorney was in that state of fatigue of body and languor of mind in
which the least trifle amuses. He tip-toed in, his hat in his hand, and
licking his lips as he thought of the law-cases that lay enshrined
between those covers, he perused a couple of entries with a kind of
professional enthusiasm. He was beginning a third, which, being by a
different hand, was a little hard to decipher, when a black gown that
hung on a hook over against him swung noiselessly outward from the wall,
and a little old man emerged from the doorway which it masked.

The lawyer, who was stooping over the register, raised himself
guiltily. 'Hallo!' he said, to cover his confusion.

'Hallo!' the old man answered with a wintry smile. 'A shilling, if you
please.' And he held out his hand.

'Oh!' said Mr. Fishwick, much chap-fallen, 'I was only just--looking out
of curiosity.'

'It is a shilling to look,' the newcomer retorted with a chuckle. 'Only
one year, I think? Just so, anno domini seventeen hundred and
sixty-seven. A shilling, if you please.'

Mr. Fishwick hesitated, but in the end professional pride swayed him, he
drew out the coin, and grudgingly handed it over. 'Well,' he said, 'it
is a shilling for nothing. But, I suppose, as you have caught me, I
must pay.'

'I've caught a many that way,' the old fellow answered as he pouched the
shilling. 'But there, I do a lot of work upon them. There is not a
better register kept anywhere than that, nor a parish clerk that knows
more about his register than I do, though I say it that should not. It
is clear and clean from old Henry Eighth, with never a break except at
the time of the siege, and, by the way, there is an entry about that
that you could see for another shilling. No? Well, if you would like to
see a year for nothing--No? Now, I know a lad, an attorney's clerk here,
name of Chatterton, would give his ears for the offer. Perhaps your name
is Smith?' the old fellow continued, looking curiously at Mr. Fishwick.
'If it is, you may like to know that the name of Smith is in the
register of burials just three hundred-and eighty-three times--was last
Friday! Oh, it is not Smith? Well, if it is Brown, it is there two
hundred and seventy times--and one over!'

'That is an odd thought of yours,' said the lawyer, staring at the
conceit.

'So many have said,' the old man chuckled. 'But it is not Brown? Jones,
perhaps? That comes two hundred and--Oh, it is not Jones?'

'It is a name you won't be likely to have once, let alone four hundred
times!' the lawyer answered, with a little pride--heaven knows why.

'What may it be, then?' the clerk asked, fairly put on his mettle. And
he drew out a pair of glasses, and settling them on his forehead looked
fixedly at his companion.

'Fishwick.'

'Fishwick! Fishwick? Well, it is not a common name, and I cannot speak
to it at this moment. But if it is here, I'll wager I'll find it for
you. D'you see, I have them here in alphabet order,' he continued,
bustling with an important air to a cupboard in the wall, whence he
produced a thick folio bound in roughened calf. 'Ay, here's Fishwick, in
the burial book, do you see, volume two, page seventeen, anno domini
1750, seventeen years gone, that is. Will you see it? 'Twill be only a
shilling. There's many pays out of curiosity to see their names.'

Mr. Fishwick shook his head.

'Dods! man, you shall!' the old clerk cried generously; and turned the
pages. 'You shall see it for what you have paid. Here you are.
"_Fourteenth of September, William Fishwick, aged eighty-one, barber,
West Quay, died the eleventh of the month_." No, man, you are looking
too low. Higher on the page! Here 'tis, do you see? Eh--what is it?
What's the matter with you?'

'Nothing,' Mr. Fishwick muttered. But he continued to stare at the page
with a face struck suddenly sallow, while the hand that rested on the
corner of the book shook as with the ague.

'Nothing?' the old man said, staring suspiciously at him. 'I do believe
it is something. I do believe it is money. Well, it is five shillings to
extract. So there!'

That seemed to change Mr. Fishwick's view. 'It might be money,' he
confessed, still speaking thickly, and as if his tongue were too large
for his mouth. 'It might be,' he repeated. 'But--I am not very well this
morning. Do you think you could get me a glass of water?'

'None of that!' the old man retorted sharply, with a sudden look of
alarm. 'I would not leave you alone with that book at this moment for
all the shillings I have taken! So if you want water you've got to
get it.'

'I am better now,' Mr. Fishwick answered. But the sweat that stood on
his brow went far to belie his words. 'I--yes, I think I'll take an
extract. Sixty-one, was he?'

'Eighty-one, eighty-one, it says. There's pen and ink, but you'll please
to give me five shillings before you write. Thank you kindly. Lord save
us, but that is not the one. You're taking out the one above it.'

'I'll have 'em all--for identification,' Mr. Fishwick replied, wiping
his forehead nervously.

'Sho! You have no need.'

'I think I will.'

'What, all?'

'Well, the one before and the one after.'

'Dods! man, but that will be fifteen shillings!' the clerk cried, aghast
at such extravagance.

'You'll only charge for the entry I want?' the lawyer said with an
effort.

'Well--we'll say five shillings for the other two.'

Mr. Fishwick closed with the offer, and with a hand which was still
unsteady paid the money and extracted the entries. Then he took his hat,
and hurriedly, his eyes averted, turned to go.

'If it's money,' the old clerk said, staring at him as if he could
never satisfy his inquisitiveness, 'you'll not forget me?'

'If it's money,' Mr. Fishwick said with a ghastly smile, 'it shall be
some in your pocket.'

'Thank you kindly. Thank you kindly, sir! Now who would ha' thought when
you stepped in here you were stepping into fortune, so to speak?'

'Just so,' Mr. Fishwick answered, a spasm distorting his face. 'Who'd
have thought it? Good morning!'

'And good-luck!' the clerk bawled after him. 'Good-luck!'

Mr. Fishwick fluttered a hand backward, but made no answer. His first
object was to escape from the court; this done, he plunged through a
stream of traffic, and having covered his trail, went on rapidly,
seeking a quiet corner. He found one in a square among some warehouses,
and standing, pulled out the copy he had made from the register. It was
neither on the first nor the second entry, however, that his eyes
dwelled, while the hand that held the paper shook as with the ague. It
was the third fascinated him:--

'_September 19th,_' it ran, '_at the Bee in Steep Street, Julia,
daughter of Anthony and Julia Soane of Estcombe, aged three, and buried
the 21st of the month_.'

Mr. Fishwick read it thrice, his lips quivering; then he slowly drew
from a separate pocket a little sheaf of papers, frayed at the corners,
and soiled with much and loving handling. He selected from these a slip;
it was one of those which Mr. Thomasson had surprised on the table in
the room at the Castle Inn. It was a copy of the attestation of birth
'of Julia, daughter of Anthony Soane, of Estcombe, England, and Julie
his wife'; the date, August, 1747; the place, Dunquerque.

The Attorney drew a long quivering breath, and put the papers up again,
the packet in the place from which he had taken it, the extract from the
Bristol register in another pocket. Then, after drawing one or two more
sighs as if his heart were going out of him, he looked dismally upwards
as in protest against heaven. At length he turned and went back to the
thoroughfare, and there, with a strangely humble air, asked a passer-by
the nearest way to Steep Street.

The man directed him; the place was near at hand. In two minutes Mr.
Fishwick found himself at the door of a small but decent grocer's shop,
over the portal of which a gilded bee seemed to prognosticate more
business than the fact performed. An elderly woman, stout and
comfortable-looking, was behind the counter. Eyeing the attorney as he
came forward, she asked him what she could do for him, and before he
could answer reached for the snuff canister.

He took the hint, requested an ounce of the best Scotch and Havannah
mixed, and while she weighed it, asked her how long she had lived there.

'Twenty-six years, sir,' she answered heartily, 'Old Style. For the New,
I don't hold with it nor them that meddle with things above them. I am
sure it brought me no profit,' she continued, rubbing her nose. 'I have
buried a good husband and two children since they gave it us!'

'Still, I suppose people died Old Style?' the lawyer ventured.

'Well, well, may be.'

'There was a death in this house seventeen years gone this September,'
he said, 'if I remember rightly.'

The woman pushed away the snuff and stared at him. 'Two, for the matter
of that,' she said sharply. 'But should I remember you?'

'No.'

'Then, if I may make so bold, what is't to you?' she retorted. 'Do you
come from Jim Masterson?'

'He is dead,' Mr. Fishwick answered.

She threw up her hands. 'Lord! And he a young man, so to speak! Poor
Jim! Poor Jim! It is ten years and more--ay, more--since I heard from
him. And the child? Is that dead too?'

'No, the child is alive,' the lawyer answered, speaking at a venture, 'I
am here on her behalf, to make some inquiries about her kinsfolk.'

The woman's honest red face softened and grew motherly. 'You may
inquire,' she said, 'you'll learn no more than I can tell you. There is
no one left that's kin to her. The father was a poor Frenchman, a
monsieur that taught the quality about here; the mother was one of his
people--she came from Canterbury, where I am told there are French and
to spare. But according to her account she had no kin left. He died the
year after the child was born, and she came to lodge with me, and lived
by teaching, as he had; but 'twas a poor livelihood, you may say, and
when she sickened, she died--just as a candle goes out.'

'When?' Mr. Fishwick asked, his eyes glued to the woman's face.

'The week Jim Masterson came to see us bringing the child from foreign
parts--that was buried with her. 'Twas said his child took the fever
from her and got its death that way. But I don't know. I don't know. It
is true they had not brought in the New Style then; but--'

'You knew him before? Masterson, I mean?'

'Why, he had courted me!' was the good-tempered answer. 'You don't know
much if you don't know that. Then my good man came along and I liked him
better, and Jim went into service and married Oxfordshire way. But when
he came to Bristol after his journey in foreign parts, 'twas natural he
should come to see me; and my husband, who was always easy, would keep
him a day or two--more's the pity, for in twenty-four hours the child he
had with him began to sicken, and died. And never was man in such a
taking, though he swore the child was not his, but one he had adopted to
serve a gentleman in trouble; and because his wife had none. Any way, it
was buried along with my lodger, and nothing would serve but he must
adopt the child she had left. It seemed ordained-like, they being of an
age, and all. And I had two children to care for, and was looking for
another that never came; and the mother had left no more than buried her
with a little help. So he took it with him, and we heard from him once
or twice, how it fared, and that his wife took to it, and the like; and
then--well, writing's a burden. But,' with renewed interest, 'she's a
well-grown girl by now, I guess?'

'Yes,' the attorney answered absently, 'she--she's a well-grown girl.'

'And is poor Jim's wife alive?'

'Yes.'

'Ah,' the good woman answered, looking thoughtfully into the street.' If
she were not--I'd think about taking to the girl myself. It's lonely at
times without chick or child. And there's the shop to tend. She could
help with that.'

The attorney winced. He was looking ill; wretchedly ill. But he had his
back to the light, and she remarked nothing save that he seemed to be a
sombre sort of body and poor company. 'What was the Frenchman's name?'
he asked after a pause.

'Parry,' said she. And then, sharply, 'Don't they call her by it?'

'It has an English sound,' he said doubtfully, evading her question.

'That is the way he called it. But it was spelled Pare, just Pare.'

'Ah,' said Mr. Fishwick. 'That explains it.' He wondered miserably why
he had asked what did not in the least matter; since, if she were not a
Soane, it mattered not who she was. After an interval he recovered
himself with a sigh. 'Well, thank you,' he continued, 'I am much obliged
to you. And now--for the moment--good-morning, ma'am. I must wish you
good-morning,' he repeated, hurriedly; and took up his snuff.

'But that is not all?' the good woman exclaimed in astonishment. 'At any
rate you'll leave your name?'

Mr. Fishwick pursed up his lips and stared at her gloomily. 'Name?' he
said at last. 'Yes, ma'am, certainly. Brown. Mr. Peter Brown, the--the
Poultry--'

'The Poultry!' she cried, gaping at him helplessly.

'Yes, the Poultry, London. Mr. Peter Brown, the Poultry, London. And now
I have other business and shall--shall return another day. I must wish
you good-morning, ma'am, Good-morning.' And thrusting his face into his
hat, Mr. Fishwick bundled precipitately into the street, and with
singular recklessness made haste to plunge into the thickest of the
traffic, leaving the good woman in a state of amazement.

Nevertheless, he reached the inn safely. When Mr. Dunborough returned
from a futile search, his failure in which condemned him to another
twenty-four hours in that company, the first thing he saw was the
attorney's gloomy face awaiting them in a dark corner of the
coffee-room. The sight reproached him subtly, he knew not why; he was in
the worst of tempers, and, for want of a better outlet, he vented his
spleen on the lawyer's head.

'D--n you!' he cried, brutally. 'Your hang-dog phiz is enough to spoil
any sport! Hang me if I believe that there is such another mumping,
whining, whimpering sneak in the 'varsal world! D'you think any one
will have luck with your tallow face within a mile of him?' Then
longing, but not daring, to turn his wrath on Sir George, 'What do you
bring him for?' he cried.

'For my convenience,' Sir George retorted, with a look of contempt that
for the time silenced the other. And that said, Soane proceeded to
explain to Mr. Fishwick, who had answered not a word, that the rogues
had got into hiding; but that by means of persons known to Mr.
Dunborough it was hoped that they would be heard from that evening or
the next. Then, struck by the attorney's sickly face, 'I am afraid you
are not well, Mr. Fishwick,' Sir George continued, more kindly. 'The
night has been too much for you. I would advise you to lie down for a
few hours and take some rest. If anything is heard I will send word
to you.'

Mr. Fishwick thanked him, without meeting his eyes; and after a minute
or two retired. Sir George looked after him, and pondered a little on
the change in his manner. Through the stress of the night Mr. Fishwick
had shown himself alert and eager, ready and not lacking in spirit; now
he had depression written large on his face, and walked and bore himself
like a man sinking under a load of despondency.

All that day the messenger from the slums was expected but did not come;
and between the two men who sat downstairs, strange relations prevailed.
Sir George did not venture to let the other out of his sight; yet there
were times when they came to the verge of blows, and nothing but the
knowledge of Sir George's swordsmanship kept Mr. Dunborough's temper
within bounds. At dinner, at which Sir George insisted that the attorney
should sit down with them, Dunborough drank his two bottles of wine, and
in his cups fell into a strain peculiarly provoking.

'Lord! you make me sick,' he said. 'All this pother about a girl that a
month ago your high mightiness would not have looked at in the street.
You are vastly virtuous now, and sneer at me; but, damme! which of us
loves the girl best? Take away her money, and will you marry her? I'd 'a
done it, without a rag to her back. But take away her money, and will
you do the same, Mr. Virtuous?'

Sir George listening darkly, and putting a great restraint on himself,
did not answer. Mr. Fishwick waited a moment, then got up suddenly, and
hurried from the room--with a movement so abrupt that he left his
wine-glass in fragments on the floor.

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