It might be thought that I was too hard on my Lord Blackadder, but only those few indeed who were unacquainted with the circumstances of his divorce would find fault with me. The scandal was quite recent, and the Blackadder case had been in everybody's mouth. The papers had been full of it, and the proceedings were not altogether to his lordship's credit. They had been instituted by him, however, on grounds that induced the jury to give him a verdict, and the judge had pronounced a decree nisi on the evidence as it stood.
Yet the public sympathies were generally with the respondent, the Countess of Blackadder. It had been an unhappy marriage, an ill-assorted match, mercenary, of mere convenience, forced upon an innocent and rather weak girl by careless and callous guardians, eager to rid themselves of responsibility for the two twin sisters, Ladies Claire and Henriette Standish, orphans, and with no near relations.
Lord Blackadder was immensely rich, but a man of indifferent moral character, a
roue and a voluptuary, with a debilitated constitution and an unattractive person, possessing none of the gifts that take a maiden's fancy.
Estrangement soon followed the birth of the son and heir to his title and great estates. My lord was a great deal older than his beautiful young wife, and desperately jealous of her. Distrust grew into strong suspicion, and presently consumed him when an old flame of Lady Henriette's, Charlie Forrester, of the Dark Horse, turned up from foreign service, and their names came to be bracketed together by the senseless gossiping busybodies ever ready to tear a pretty woman's reputation to tatters. It was so much put about, so constantly dinned into Lord Blackadder's ears, that he was goaded into a perfect fury, and was at length determined, by hook or by crook, to put away his wife, leaving it to certain astute and well-practised solicitors to manufacture a clear, solid case against her.
Lady Blackadder, who hated and despised her lord, foolishly played into his hands. She never really went wrong, so her friends stoutly averred, especially her sister Claire, a staunch and loyal soul, but she gave a handle to innuendo, and more than once allowed appearances to go against her.
There was one very awkward story that could not be disproved as it was told, and in the upshot convicted her. It was clearly shown in evidence that she had made up her mind to leave Lord Blackadder; more, that she meant to elope with Major Forrester. It was said, but not so positively, that she had met him at Victoria Station; they were seen there together, had travelled by the same train, and there was a strong presumption that they had arrived together at Brighton; one or two railway officials deposed to the fact.
Lady Blackadder denied this entirely, and gave a very different complexion to the story. She had gone to Brighton; yes, but quite alone. Major Forrester had seen her off, no doubt, but they had parted at the carriage door. Her visit to Brighton had been for the purpose of seeing and staying with an old servant, once a very confidential maid for whom she had a great liking, and had often taken refuge with when worried and in trouble. She thought, perhaps, to make this the first stage in the rupture with my lord.
This maid had earnestly adjured her not to break with her husband, and to return to Grosvenor Square.
This flight was the head and corner-stone of Lady Blackadder's offending. It was interpreted into guilt of the most heinous kind; the evidence in support of it seemed overwhelming. Witnesses swore positively to the companionship of Major Forrester, both at Victoria and Brighton, and it was to be fairly assumed that they were at the latter place together.
No rebutting evidence was forthcoming. The maid, a woman married to an ex-French or Swiss courier, by name Bruel, could not be produced, simply because she could not be found in Brighton. They were supposed to be settled there as lodging-house keepers, but they had not resided long enough to be in the Directory, and their address was not known. Lord Blackadder's case was that they were pure myths, they had never had any tangible existence, but were only imported into the case to support an ingenious but untenable defence.
It was more than hinted that they had been spirited away, and they were not the first material witnesses, it was hinted, in an intricate case, conducted by Messrs. Gadecker and Gobye, who had mysteriously disappeared. So the plausible, nay, completely satisfactory explanation of Lady Blackadder's visit to Brighton could not be put forward, much less established, and there was no sort of hope for her. She lost her case in the absence of the Bruels, man and wife. The verdict was for Lord Blackadder, and he was adjudged to have the care and custody of the child, the infant Viscount Aspdale.
I had not the smallest doubt when I realized with whom I had to do that the unhappy mother had made a desperate effort to redress her wrongs, as she thought them, and had somehow contrived to carry off her baby before she could be deprived of it.
I had met her in full flight upon the Engadine express.
What next? Was she to be overtaken and despoiled, legally, of course, but still cruelly, separated from her own flesh and blood? The Court might order such an unnatural proceeding, but I was moved by every chivalrous impulse to give her my unstinting and unhesitating support to counteract it.
I was full of these thoughts, and still firmly resolved to help Lady Blackadder, when l'Echelle, the conductor whose services I still retained, sought me out hurriedly, and told me that he believed the others were on the point of leaving Brieg.
"I saw Falfani and milord poring over the pages of the
Indicateur, and heard the word Geneva dropped in a whisper. I think they mean to take the next train along the lake shore."
"Not a doubt of it," I assented; "so will we. They must not be allowed to go beyond our reach."
When the 6.57 P.M. for Geneva was due out from Brieg, we, l'Echelle and I, appeared on the platform, and our intention to travel by it was made plain to Lord Blackadder. The effect upon him was painfully manifest at once. He chafed, he raged up and down, grimacing and apostrophizing Falfani; once or twice he approached me with clenched fists, and I really thought would have struck me at last. Seeing me enter the same carriage with him, with the obvious intention of keeping him under my eye, he threw himself back among the cushions and yielded himself with the worst grace to the inevitable.
The railway journey was horribly slow, and it must have been past 11 P.M. before we reached Geneva. We alighted in the Cornavin station, and as they moved at once towards the exit I followed. I expected them to take a carriage and drive off, and was prepared to give chase, when I found they started on foot, evidently to some destination close at hand. It proved to be the Cornavin Hotel, not a stone's-throw from the station.
They entered, and went straight to the bureau, where the night clerk was at his desk. I heard them ask for a person named Tiler, and without consulting his books the clerk replied angrily:
"Tiler! Tiler!
Ma foi, he is of no account, your Tiler. He has gone off from the dinner-table and without paying his bill."
"That shall be made all right," replied Lord Blackadder loftily, as he detailed his name and quality, before which the employe bowed low. "And might I ask," his lordship went on, "whether a certain Mrs. Blair, a lady with her child and its nurse, is staying in the hotel?"
"But certainly, milord. They have been here some days. Salon and suite No. 17."
"At any rate, that's well, Falfani," said Lord Blackadder, with a sigh of satisfaction. "But what of your friend Tiler? Thick-headed dolt, unable to keep awake, I suppose."
At that moment a shabbily dressed person approached Falfani, touched his hat, and offered him a note, saying:
"This must be for you, monsieur. I heard your name--"
"From Tiler, my lord, aha! This explains." And he passed the scrap of paper on to his employer.
"I'll be hanged if I see it! He says the parties have gone, and that he is in close attendance; yet this fellow here," pointing to the clerk, "assures us she is in this very house. I don't understand it, by Gad!"
"There is some fresh trick, my lord, you may be sure. The devil himself isn't half so clever as this fine lady. But we'll get at the bottom of it. We shall hear more from Tiler, and we've got the lady here, under our hand."
"Ah! but have we? This chap's as likely as not to be mistaken. How do you know, sir," to the clerk, "that Mrs. Blair is still in the hotel? When did you come on duty? What if she left without your knowing it?"
"It could not be, milord. See, it is marked in the register. No. 17 is occupied. I could not let it. Mrs. Blair holds it still."
"But she may not be in it, all the same. Can't you see? She may retain it, but not use it."
"Look, my lord, look, there's one of her party, anyway," interposed Falfani, and he called his attention to a female figure standing a little aloof in the shadow of the staircase, and which I had already recognized.
It was Philpotts, "Mrs. Blair's" maid, and she was trying to attract my attention. Lord Blackadder had not seen her, and now his eye, for the first time, fell upon me. He turned on me furiously.
"You! You! Still at my heels? This is perfectly monstrous. It amounts to persecution. You still dare to intrude yourself. Can I have no privacy? Take yourself off, or I will not answer for the consequences."
I confess I only laughed and still held my ground, although my lord's outcry had attracted much attention. Several people ran up, and they might have sided against me, when I heard a voice whisper into my ear:
"Come, sir, come. Slip away. My lady is dying to see you. She is terribly upset."