Part 33 (1/2)
As Italima and Esmeralda saw more of Madame de Trafford, they learned that she was the second wife of Mr. Trafford of Wroxham in Norfolk. He did not live with her, because he said that when he married her he intended to marry Mademoiselle Martine Larmignac, but he did not intend to marry ”Maricot,” as she called the spirit--the ”voice”--which spoke through her lips, and live with Maricot he would not. He showed his wife every possible attention, and placed implicit confidence in her. He left her entire control of her fortune. He constantly visited her, and always came to take leave of her when she set off on any of her journeys; but he could not live with her.
One day Italima received a letter from her eldest son Francis, who said that he knew she would not believe him, but that Mr. B. was a penniless bankrupt, and that she would receive no more money from him. She did not believe Francis a bit, still the letter made her anxious and uncomfortable: no money had come in answer to her repeated letters, and there were many things at Geneva to be paid for. That day she came down to the table-d'h?te looking very much hara.s.sed. Madame de Trafford said to my sister, ”Your mother looks very much agitated: what is it?”
Esmeralda felt that, whether she told her or not, Madame de Trafford would know what had happened, and she told her the simple truth. Madame de Trafford said, ”Now, do not be surprised at what I am going to say; don't be grateful to me; it's my vocation in life. Here is ?80: take it at once. That is the sum you owe in Geneva, and you have no money. I knew that you wanted that sum, and I brought it down to dinner with me.
Now I know all that is going to happen: it is written before me like an open book,--and I know how important it is that you should go to England at once. I have prepared for that, and I am going with you. In an hour you must start for England.” And such was the confidence that Italima and Esmeralda now had in Madame de Trafford, such was her wonderful power and influence, that they did all she told them: they paid their bills at Geneva with the money she gave, they left F?lix and Victoire to pack up and to follow them to Paris, and they started by the night-train the same evening with Madame de Trafford.
That was an awful night. My sister never lost the horror of it. ”Madame de Trafford had told me that extraordinary things often happened to her between two and four in the morning,” said Esmeralda. ”When we went with her through the night in the coup? of the railway-carriage, she was very anxious that I should sleep. Mama slept the whole time. 'Mais dormez donc, ma ch?re,' she said, 'dormez donc.'--'Oh, je dormirai bient?t,' I always replied, but I was quite determined to keep awake. It was very dreadful, I thought, but if anything _did_ happen, I would see what it was. As it drew near two o'clock I felt the most awful sensation of horror come over me. Then a cold perspiration broke out all over me.
Then I heard--oh, I cannot describe it! a most awful sound--a voice--a sort of squeak. It spoke, it was a language; but it was a language I did not understand,[172] and then something came out of the mouth of Madame de Trafford--bur-r-r-r! It pa.s.sed in front of me, black but misty. I rushed at it. Madame de Trafford seized me and forced me back upon the seat. I felt as if I should faint. Her expression was quite awful. No one knows it but Mama. Some time after, Mr. Trafford spoke to me of a hunchback in Moli?re, who had a voice speaking inside him, over which he had no control, and then he said, 'What my wife has is like that.'”
As they drew near Paris, Madame de Trafford began to describe her apartments to my sister. It was like a description of Aladdin's palace, and Esmeralda did not believe it. When they reached the station, Madame de Trafford said, ”I have one peculiarity in my house: I have no servants. I used to have them, but I did not like them; so now, when I am at Paris, I never have them: therefore, on our way from the station, we will stop as we pa.s.s through the Rue St. Honor?, and buy the bread, and milk, and candles--in fact, all the things we want.” And so they did.
The carriage stopped before a _porte coch?re_ in the Champs Elys?es, where Madame de Trafford got a key from the concierge, and preceded her guests up a staircase. When she unlocked the door of the apartment, it was quite dark, and hot and stuffy, as closed rooms are, but when the shutters were opened, all that Madame de Trafford had said as to the magnificence of the furniture, &c., was more than realised--only there were no servants. Madame de Trafford herself brought down mattresses from the attics, she aired and made the beds, and she lighted the fire and boiled the kettle for supper and breakfast.
Of that evening my sister wrote:--
”I shall never forget a scene with Madame de Trafford. I had gone to rest in my room, but I did not venture to stay long. She also had been up all night, but that was nothing to her--_paresse_ was what she could never endure. When I went into her room, she had the concierge with her, but she was greatly excited. She was even then contending with her spirit. 'Taisez-vous, Maricot,' she was exclaiming. 'Voulez vous vous taire: taisez-vous, Maricot.' I saw that the concierge was getting very angry, quite boiling with indignation, for there was no one else present, and she thought Madame de Trafford was talking to her. 'Mais, madame, madame, je ne parle pas,' she said. But Madame de Trafford went on, 'Va-t'en, Maricot: va-t'en donc.'--'Mais, madame, je suis toute pr?te,' said the concierge, and she went out, banging the door behind her.”[173]
Madame de Trafford told my sister in Paris that her extraordinary power had first come to her, as it then existed, many years before in the Church of S. Roch. She had gone there, not to pray, but to look about her, and, as she was walking round the ambulatory, there suddenly came to her the extraordinary sensation that she _knew_ all that those kneeling around her were thinking, feeling, and wis.h.i.+ng. Her own impression was one of horror, and an idea that the power came from evil; but kneeling down then and there before the altar, she made a solemn dedication of herself; she prayed that such strange knowledge might be taken away, but, if that were not to be, made a vow to turn the evil against itself, by using it always for good.
People suddenly ruined--whom Madame de Trafford called ”the poor rich”--she considered to be her peculiar vocation, because in her younger life she had twice been utterly ruined herself. Once it was in England. She had only a s.h.i.+lling left in the world, and, in her quaint way of narrating things, she said, ”Having only a s.h.i.+lling left in the world, I thought what I had better do, and I thought that, as I had only a s.h.i.+lling left in the world, I had better go out and take a walk. I went out, and I met a man, and the man said to me, 'Give me something, for I have nothing left in the world,' and I gave him sixpence, and I went on. And I met a woman, and the woman said to me, 'Give me something, for I have nothing whatever left in the world.' And I said, 'I cannot give you anything, for I have only sixpence left in the world, so I cannot give you anything.' And the woman said, 'But you are much richer than I, for you are well dressed; you have a good bonnet, a gown, and shawl, while I am clothed in rags, and so you must give me something.' And I thought, 'Well, that is true,' so I gave her the sixpence, and I went on. At the corner of the street I found a sovereign lying in the street. With that sovereign I paid for food and lodging.
The next day I had remittances from an uncle I had long supposed to be dead, and who expressed the wish that I should come to him. He died and left me his heiress: money has since then always flowed in, and I go about to look for the poor rich.” A presentiment would come to Madame de Trafford, or the voice of Maricot would tell her, where she would be needed, and she would set out. Thus she went to Geneva to help some one unknown. She moved from hotel to hotel until she found the right one; and she sat by person after person at the table-d'h?te, till she felt she was sitting by the right one; then she waited quietly till the moment came when she divined what was wanted.
The morning after their arrival in Paris, Madame de Trafford stood by my sister's bedside when she awoke, ready dressed, and having already put away most of the things in the apartment. As soon as breakfast was over, a carriage came to take them to the station, and they set off for Boulogne, where Madame de Trafford set her guests afloat for England with ?40 in their pockets. Thus they arrived on the scene of action.
Straight from London Bridge Station they drove to Mr. B.'s office. He was there, and apparently delighted to see them. ”Well, Mr. B., and pray why have you sent me no money?” asked Italima. ”Why, I've sent you quant.i.ties of money,” said Mr. B., without a change of countenance. ”If you write to Messrs. O. & L., the bankers at Geneva, you will find it's all there. I have sent you money several times,” and he said this with such perfect _sangfroid_ that they believed him. Italima then said, ”Well now, Mr. B., I should wish to see the mortgages,” because from time to time he had persuaded her to transfer ?46,000 of her own fortune from other securities to mortgages on a Mr. Howell's estate in Cornwall.
Mr. B. replied, ”Do you know, when you say that, it would almost seem as if you did not quite trust me.”--”That I cannot help,” said Italima, ”but I should wish to see the mortgages.”--”There is no difficulty whatever,” said Mr. B.; ”you could have seen them last year if you had wished: to-day you cannot see them because they are in the Bank, and the Bank is closed, but you can fix any other day you like for seeing them,”--and they fixed the following Wednesday. Afterwards Mr. B. said, ”Well, Mrs. Hare, you do not seem to have trusted me as I deserve, still I think it my duty to give you the pleasant news that you will be richer this year than you have ever been in your life. A great deal of money is recovered from the Paul bankruptcy, which you never expected to see again; all your other investments are prospering, and your income will certainly be larger than it has ever been before.” Italima was perfectly satisfied. That evening she made my sister write to Mrs. Julius Hare and say, ”We are convinced that Mr. B. is the best friend we have in the world. Augustus was always talking against him, and we have been brought to England by a raving mad Frenchwoman who warned us against him; but we will never doubt or mistrust him any more.”
When the Wednesday came on which they were to see the mortgages, Italima was not well, and she said to my sister, ”I am quite glad I am not well, because it will be an excuse for you to go and fetch the mortgages, when we can look them over quietly together.” My sister went off to Lincoln's Inn, but before going to Mr. B., she called at the house of another lawyer, whom she knew very well, to ask if he had heard any reports about Mr. B. ”I pray to G.o.d, Miss Hare, that you are safe from that man,” was all he said. She rushed on to the office. Mr. B. was gone: the whole place was _sotto-sopra_: everything was gone: there were no mortgages: there was no Mr. Howell's estate: there was no money: ?60,000 was gone: there was absolutely nothing left whatever.
Never was ruin more complete! Italima and Esmeralda had _nothing_ left: not a loaf of bread, not a penny to buy one--nothing. My sister said she prayed within herself as to how she could possibly go back and tell her mother, and it seemed to her as if a voice said, ”Go back, go back, tell her at once,” and she went. When she reached the door of Ellison's hotel, where they were staying, the waiter said a gentleman was sitting with her mother, but it seemed as if the voice said, ”Go up, go up, tell her at once.” When she went in, her mother was sitting on the sofa, and a strange gentleman was talking to her. She went up to her mother and said, ”Mama, we are totally ruined: Mr. B. has taken flight: we have lost everything we have in the world, and we never can hope to have anything any more.” The strange gentleman came in like a special intervention of Providence. He was a Mr. Touchet, who had known Italima well when she was quite a girl, who had never seen her since, and who had come that day for the first time to renew his acquaintance. He was full of commiseration and sympathy with them over what he heard; he at once devoted himself to their service, and begged them to make use of him: the mere accident of his presence just broke the first shock.
Lady Normanby was at Sydenham when the catastrophe occurred; she at once came up to London and helped her cousins for the moment. Then Lady Sh.e.l.ley, the daughter-in-law of Italima's old friend Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley (see chap. i.), fetched them home to her at Bos...o...b.. near Bournemouth, and was unboundedly kind to them. Sir Percy Sh.e.l.ley offered them a cottage rent-free in his pine-woods, but they only remained there three weeks, and then went to Lady Williamson at Whitburn Hall near Sunderland, where I first saw them.
Everything had happened exactly as Madame de Trafford had predicted. My sister wrote to me:--
”The most dreadful news. We are _ruined_. Mr. B. has bolted, and is a fraudulent bankrupt. n.o.body knows where he is. We are nearly wild. G.o.d help us. I hardly know what I am writing. What is to become of Francis and William? We hardly know what we have lost. I fear B. has seized on Mama's mortgages. Pray for us.”
We received this letter when we were staying at Fotheringham. We were very much shocked, but we said that when my sister talked of absolute ruin, it was only a figure of speech. She and her mother might be very much poorer than they had been, but there was a considerable marriage settlement; that, we imagined, B. could not have possessed himself of.
But it was too true; he had taken everything. The marriage settlement was in favour of younger children, I being one of the three who would have benefited. Some years before, Mr. B. had been to Italima and persuaded her to give up ?2000 of my brother William's portion, during her life, in order to pay his debts. On her a.s.senting to this, Mr. B.
had subtly entered the whole sum mentioned in the settlement, instead of ?2000, in the deed of release, and the two trustees had signed without a question, so implicit was their faith in Mr. B., who pa.s.sed not only for a very honourable, but for a very religious man. Mr. B. had used the ?2000 to pay William's debts, and had taken all the rest of the money for himself. About Italima's own fortune he had been even less scrupulous. Mr. Howell's estate in Cornwall had never existed at all.
Mr. B. had taken the ?46,000 for himself; there had been no mortgages, but he had paid the interest as usual, and the robbery had pa.s.sed undetected. He had kept Italima from coming upon him during the last summer by cutting off her supplies, and all might have gone on as usual if Madame de Trafford had not brought his victims to England, and Italima had not insisted upon seeing the mortgages.