The Child Wife

And then she could go back to Newport in the height of the fashionable season; and how she could spite the J – ’s, and the L – ’s, and the B – ’s; make them envious to the tips of their fingers, by flaunting herself before their faces as the “Countess de Valmy!”

What if she did not love her count to distraction! She would not be the first – not by millions – who had stifled the cherished yearnings of a heart, and strained its tenderest chords, to submit to a marriage de convenance!

In this mood Swinton found her, when, under his true and real name, he once more made his proposal.

And she answered it by consenting to become the Countess de Valmy.

Chapter Seventy Eight.

Contemplating a Canal

Swinton’s triumph seemed complete.

He already had a title, which no one could take from him – not even he who had bestowed it.

He possessed both the patent and parchments of nobility; and he intended taking care of them. But he still wanted fortune; and this seemed now before him. Julia Girdwood had consented to become his wife, with a dower of 50,000 pounds, and the expectation of as many thousands more!

It had been a rare run of luck, or rather a chapter of cunning – subtle as fiendish.

But it was not yet complete. The marriage remained to be solemnised. And when solemnised, what then?

The sequel was still in doubt, and full of darkness. It was darkened by dangers, and fraught with fears.

If Fan should prove untrue? True to herself but untrue to him? Supposing her to become stirred with an instinct of opposition to this last great dishonour, and forbid the banns? She might act so at the eleventh hour; and then to him, disappointment, disgrace, ruin!

But he had no great fear of this. He felt pretty sure she would continue a consenting party, and permit his nefarious scheme to be consummated. But then? And what then?

She would hold over him a power he had reason to dread – a very sword of Damocles!

He would have to share with her the ill-gotten booty – he knew her well enough for this – submit to her will in everything, for he knew also that she had a will – now that she was re-established on the ride of Rotten Row as one of its prettiest horse-breakers.

There was something, beside the thought of Fan’s reclaiming him, that vexed him far more than the fear of any mulct. He would be willing to bleed black-mail to any amount convenient – even to the half of Julia Girdwood’s fortune, to insure his past wife keeping quiet for ever.

Strange to say, he had grown to care little for the money; though it may not appear strange when the cause is declared.

It will only seem so, considering the character of the man. Wicked as Swinton was, he had fallen madly in love with Julia Girdwood – madly and desperately.

And now on the eve of possessing her, to hold that possession as by a thread, that might be cut at any moment by caprice.

And that caprice the will of an injured wife! No wonder the wretch saw in his future a thorny entanglement – a path, if bestrewed with flowers, beset also by death’s-heads and skeletons!

Fan had helped him in his scheme for acquiring an almost fabulous fortune; at a touch she could destroy it.

“By heaven! she shall not!” was the reflection that came forth from his lips as he stood smoking a cigar, and speculating on the feared future. Assisted in conception by that same cigar, and before it was smoked to a stump, he had contrived a plan to secure him against his wife’s future interference in whatever way it might be exerted.

His scheme of bigamy was scarce guilt, compared with that now begotten in his brain.

He was standing upon the edge of the canal, whose steep bank formed the back inclosure of his garden. The tow-path was on the other side, so that the aqueous chasm yawned almost directly under his feet.

The sight of it was suggestive. He knew it was deep. He saw it was turbid, and not likely to tell tales.

There was a moon coursing through the sky. Her beams, here and there, fell in bright blotches upon the water. They came slanting through the shrubbery, showing that it was a young moon, and would soon go down.

It was already dark where he stood in the shadow of a huge laurustinus; but there was light enough to show that with a fiend’s face he was contemplating the canal.

“It would do!” he muttered to himself; “but not here. The thing might be fished up again. Even if it could be made to appear suicide, there’d be the chance of an identification and connection with me. More than chance – a dead, damnable certainty.

“That would be damnable! I should have to appear at a coroner’s quest to explain.

“Bah! what use in speculating? Explanation, under the circumstances, would be simply condemnation.

“Impossible! The thing can’t be done here!

“But it can be done,” he continued; “and in this canal, too. It has been done, no doubt, many a time. Yes, silent sluggard! if you could but speak, you might tell of many a plunge made into your sluggish waves, alike by the living and the dead!

“You will suit for my purpose; but not here. I know the place, the very place – by the Park Road bridge.

“And the time, too – late at night. Some dark night, when the spruce tradesmen of Wellington Road have gone home to the bosom of their families.

“Why not this very night?” he asked himself, stepping nervously out from the laurustinus, and glaring at the moon, whose thin crescent flickered feebly through cumulus clouds. “Yonder farthing dip will be burnt out within the hour, and if that sky don’t deceive me, we’ll have a night dark as doom. A fog, too, by heavens!” he added, raising himself on tiptoe, and making survey of the horizon to the east. “Yes! there’s no mistake about that dun cloud coming up from the Isle of Dogs, with the colour of the Thames mud upon it.

“Why not to-night?” he again asked himself, as if by the question to strengthen him in his terrible resolve. “The thing can’t wait. A day may spoil everything. If it is to be done, the sooner the better. It must be done!

“Yes, yes; there’s fog coming over that sky, if I know aught of London weather. It will be on before midnight God grant it may stay till the morning!”

The prayer passing from his lips, in connection with the horrid scheme in his thoughts, gave an expression to his countenance truly diabolical.

Even his wife, used to see the “ugly” in his face, could not help noticing it, as he went back into the house – where she had been waiting for him to go out for a walk.

It was a walk to the Haymarket, to enjoy the luxuries of a set supper in the Café d’Europe, where the “other count,” with the Honourable Geraldine, and one or two friends of similar social standing, had made appointment to meet them.

It was not the last promenade Swinton intended to take with his beloved Fan. Before reaching the Haymarket, he had planned another for that same night, if it should prove to be a dark one.

Chapter Seventy Nine.

A Petit Souper

The supper was provided by “Kate the coper,” who had lately been “in luck”; having netted handsomely on one of her steeds, sold to a young “spoon” she had recently picked up, and who was one of the party.

The “coped” individual was no other than our old friend Frank Scudamore, who, by the absence of his cousin abroad, and her benign influence over him, had of late taken to courses of dissipation.

The supper given by Kate was a sort of return to her friend Fan for the dinner at the McTavish villa; and in sumptuousness was a spread no way inferior.

In point of time it might have been termed a dinner; for it commenced at the early hour of eight.

This was to give opportunity for a quiet rubber of whist to be played afterward, and in which “Spooney,” as she called young Scudamore – though not to his face – was expected to be one of the corners.

There was wine of every variety – each of the choicest to be found in the cellars of the café. Then came the cards, and continued till Scudamore declared himself cleared out; and then there was carousal.