Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 692

Mrs Tipper hurriedly rose from her seat, and crossed over to Lilian's side.

'Married to Ma!' ejaculated Marian, gazing at us with dilating eyes and parted lips. 'My gracious! And if Ma was his wife, I must be his daughter – his eldest daughter, and I've as good a right' – She paused, for the moment quite dazzled by the light which was breaking in upon her; then presently added, a little more doubtfully: 'But you forget; Ma died only fifteen years ago, and Lilian is over seventeen. How could he have two wives, unless' —

'It is Lilian's mother who was wronged,' I explained, feeling that the sooner it was all said the better, if I wished to spare Lilian as much as possible from hearing the other's comments.

'My goodness!' In her surprise and excitement, forgetting company manners and her usual fine-ladyism, as well as being entirely oblivious of Lilian's position and consequent feelings in the matter. 'Then that was what you meant when you questioned me so closely the other day about the exact time of Ma's death. You were sharp!'

Mrs Tipper had Lilian in her arms, murmuring tender love-speeches over her. Marian might go on as she pleased now.

It did please her to go on. 'To think of Ma being Mrs Farrar after all! I should like to hear what Mr Pratt will say to that, after talking about being able to tell a lady when he saw her! Mrs Farrar! And I'm the eldest daughter, and' – A new thought occurred to her, and she went on with raised colour: 'Why, if I'm the eldest daughter, the real Miss Farrar, and there was no will, everything must be mine!'

'Everything you most care for will most probably be yours.'

My words brought back the recollection of Arthur Trafford, and she eagerly whispered: 'Does he know, Miss Haddon? Will it make any difference to him, do you think?'

I turned away in disgust, and went towards Lilian.

'Come, Lilian; you need rest and quiet: come to your room, dear. – You will come with us – will you not, Mrs Tipper?'

'Certainly I will,' returned Mrs Tipper promptly, rising to accompany us: 'my place is with her.'

There was no necessity to apologise for leaving Marian alone. She was for the moment too entirely absorbed in the contemplation of the great change in her prospects to take any notice of our proceedings. 'Miss Farrar!' I heard her repeating to herself, as she stood gazing out of the window at the Fairview terraces and gardens, whilst we made our way towards the door – 'Miss Farrar!'

Well, we were not entirely comfortless; we three could wonderfully help each other. Mrs Tipper had at once returned to her allegiance; and from thenceforth, I knew that Lilian would reign alone in her heart. Indeed I think it was some time before the dear little woman could forgive herself for being so disloyal to Lilian as to allow the other to reign with her, even for a time. Marian's reception of the news had shocked her a great deal more than it had shocked me, because she was less prepared to see the former as she really was.

We were sitting together, and were already I was thankful to find beginning to be able to face the worst and talk over the event with some degree of calmness, when Lydia the housemaid tapped at the door with a message from 'Miss Farrar.'

'If you please, ma'am, Miss Farrar wishes to know if you will come to tea, or if you would prefer its being sent up here?' said the girl, staring at us with all her eyes, astonishment depicted in every line of her face.

Truly Marian had lost no time in making the change in her fortune known. But that was, I suppose, to be expected. Obeying a sign from Lilian and her aunt, I bade Lydia bring us some tea there.

We none of us went down again that night, although two or three very gracious messages were sent up by 'Miss Farrar.' The repetition of the name, and the girl's whole manner very evidently shewed that she had been taken into Marian's confidence. I could see by her hesitating reply to a question of Lilian's, that she had been informed that her young mistress had no right to her father's name; and this made me at length decide to give Lydia the true version of the story for circulation. There was now no helping its getting about, and therefore I determined that Lilian's unhesitating justice should be made known. Following her out of the room, I rapidly gave Lydia an account of what had happened. It was not necessary to dwell upon Lilian's unswerving truth and justice. I just related the facts, and they spoke for themselves.

Lydia was astounded; too much so to pick and choose her words, or to assume a higher morality than she really felt.

'My! Give up all that, when she might so easily have kept it all! Oh, Miss Haddon, an angel straight down from heaven couldn't do more than that! It's almost too good, it really is' (regretfully), 'giving up this beautiful house, and thousands and thousands a year, when she might have just torn up that paper, and nobody ever been the wiser! One wouldn't mind if a bad person had to give it up; but it don't seem right for dear Miss Lilian to suffer – it really don't.'

'Do not you think she is better able to endure suffering than a bad person would be, Lydia?'

'I suppose she is, Miss; I suppose that's religion; but – There; I can't bear to think of it! That Miss Reed, who isn't fit to hold a candle to her for goodness, leave alone ladified ways, to be set up above over Miss Lilian! A pretty mistress she will make; though,' added Lydia, gradually awakening to the possibility of certain consequences accruing to herself, 'I shan't be here long to see it. I've let her see what I think of her, a good deal too plain for that; and for the matter of that, so has every one of us, though she's only got herself to thank for it.'

I had had my suspicions that Marian was not liked amongst the servants; indeed Becky had more than once given me a hint that the former was just as much disliked in the house as Lilian was beloved. The first thing the next morning, Becky shewed me something else.

'Why, what is the matter, Becky?' I inquired, when she entered the room, her swollen eyelids and red nose betokening recent and violent emotion, which I could not wholly attribute to her attachment to Lilian, and consequent sympathy with her suffering. Though Lilian was growing in Becky's favour, the growth was slow.

'Please, don't ask me, Miss' – lugubriously. Then, after a struggle against herself, she put down the jug of water she was carrying, and burst forth into a wail of sorrow.

'I must ask you, Becky, and of course you must tell me your trouble.'

'You've got to go,' she sobbed out. 'You're going to be sent away the very first! She told Lydia so this morning. But I'll go too; I told her so. You will let me go with you; won't you, Miss Haddon, dear? You've always been my real mistress in my heart; and it won't make scarce any difference to you, till we can get another place. I can live on as little as you can; and there's another quarter's wages nearly due.'

'Hush, Becky! Don't cry so, child!' I murmured, not a little touched, and trying to wipe her tears away. 'It is not so bad as you think – not for me. I should very much prefer leaving Fairview now, I assure you, indeed – What if I tell you a secret, Becky; something which no one else, not even Miss Lilian, knows, though I love her so much? I think I can do very well without taking another situation, and I mean to have you with me.'

'Do without!' she ejaculated, her thoughts, I think, reverting to my small success in 'doing without' at Mrs Sowler's. 'Don't try that again, for' —

'Listen a moment, Becky. In three or four months I am going to be married.'

'Married! Oh, Miss Haddon, dear!' she ejaculated, her mouth expanding and her whole face brightening. 'And may I guess who he is? I think I can.'

'Yes.'

'It's that gentleman, Mr Wentworth, who comes here so often, and looks at you so. Isn't it? Mr Saunders said he knew it would come. And I don't believe there's another gentleman in all the world as is so fit for you, that I don't; for I know a little about him too. I did not like to tell you before, but that time as' —

'Stop, stop, Becky!' I ejaculated, laughing outright. 'What in the world put such an idea into your head? Mr Wentworth indeed! Certainly not; quite a different kind of gentleman.'

'Oh!' said Becky, her face falling.

'But I do not wish it mentioned, Becky. I only tell you that you may have the pleasure of feeling that you and I need have no anxiety about the future; for of course you will be with me.'

There was only one little drawback to Becky's happiness now – the regret that Robert Wentworth was not to be my husband; and I thought his being so great a favourite of hers quite sufficiently accounted for her disappointment. I, in turn, was a little disappointed that the face I had shewn her in the locket was so difficult to connect with the idea of my happiness; though I told myself Philip must look much more manly now. But having set Becky's fears at rest, I was a great deal too anxious about Lilian's future to think much about my own.

FOSSIL MEN

Men of science in their eagerness to support a theory are apt to fall into mistakes. They reason honestly enough, but from too narrow a basis of facts. For example, the skeleton of a man is found imbedded in limestone. That man must have lived in the geological period, long before the commencement of human record. This theory looks well, but is not satisfactory. We do not know at what time the limestone, which was originally a loose substance, assumed the rocky form. There is a case in point.

At the western end of the geological galleries of the British Museum may be seen a human skeleton imbedded in a block of limestone brought from Guadeloupe. At first sight this would seem to be a silent but unimpeachable witness to the remote antiquity of our race. On investigation, however, the fossil man is found to be in this point of view a bearer of most unreliable testimony. All fossils are not necessarily very old, and this skeleton is comparatively a modern one. The limestone in which it is imbedded is a very rapidly formed deposit of corals and small shells bound together by a kind of natural calcareous cement. The remains are those of an Indian, whose death is placed by some authorities at as recent a period as two hundred years ago. The same rock often contains remains of unmistakably recent origin. In England a coin of Edward I. has been found imbedded in it; in France a cannon buried in this hard stone was quarried out of a deposit on the lower Rhone.

Another 'fossil man' was found at Denise in Auvergne. The bones were beneath the hardened lava stream of an extinct volcano, and it was alleged that the volcanoes of Auvergne had not been active since the Christian era, as Julius Cæsar had actually encamped among them. This view was put forward more than thirty years ago. Since then, a more careful investigation of local history has proved that there were serious volcanic disturbances in Auvergne as late as the fifth century; and further, it appears that the original position of the buried man is very doubtful, as there has been a landslip on the spot.

In 1848 some human bones were found imbedded in the rocks on the shores of Lake Monroe in Florida. It was reported at the time that the rock was a coralline limestone; and on this basis Agassiz and Lyell assigned to the fossil men an age of at least ten thousand years. But the claim to this venerable antiquity was unfortunately exploded by a discovery which shewed that the evidence on which it rested was false. Pourtalès, the original discoverer, came forward to rectify the mistake. The rock in which the bones lay was not the old coralline limestone of Florida, but a recent fresh-water sandstone, which contains (besides the bones) large numbers of shells of precisely the same species as those still indigenous to the lake.

So far we have dealt only with errors resulting from imperfect information or too hastily drawn inferences. But there are cases in which, as we have said, an uneducated man has succeeded in deceiving a geologist in his own special line of study. The well-known jaw of Moulin Quignon is a case in point. Every one has heard of M. Boucher de Perthes' careful exploration of the gravels of the Somme Valley, which resulted in the discovery of thousands of flint implements, the handiwork of primitive man in Western Europe. But up to 1863 M. Boucher de Perthes had found no human remains in the gravel, though it had been predicted that such would be found; and he was naturally anxious to make the discovery. He had offered a reward for this purpose to the workmen of the different gravel-pits in the valley. Several attempts had been made to deceive him with false discoveries, but in every case his special knowledge had saved him from falling into a trap. At length he and many others with him were completely deceived by the cunning of a workman. In 1863 a quarryman at Moulin Quignon, near Abbeville, came to M. Boucher de Perthes with the news that he had laid bare a human bone in the gravel. He had left it undisturbed, in order that the professor might himself examine it in situ, and explore the surrounding deposit for further remains. M. de Perthes and some of his friends went to the spot. Half imbedded in the gravel – a bed of pebbles stained a dull red by the presence of iron in the deposit – they found a human jawbone with several teeth still in position, the whole stained like the surrounding gravel. Close by was a flint hatchet.

As soon as the news of the discovery reached England, a number of English men of science visited Abbeville. To the doubts which they expressed as to the genuineness of the discovery, M. de Perthes replied that he had himself removed the jawbone from the undisturbed bed of gravel, and that the workmen who had uncovered it were men of irreproachable character. Two conferences of French and English geologists were held, one at Paris, the other at Abbeville; the bone and teeth were carefully examined; and though many were not fully satisfied, the general impression was that the discovery was a genuine one. M. de Quatrefages expressed his opinion that it might be regarded as 'the first human fossil ever discovered except in a cave.' But among the English geologists there were some who were not so easily convinced. One of the teeth was brought to London and subjected to microscopical examination; and it was shewn that there were no signs of mineral infiltration into its structure. The tooth was like one from a recent grave. The jawbone when sawn across at Paris had emitted the odour of fresh bone. It was pointed out that the edges of the flints found with it were quite sharp and fresh; there were no signs of rounding or rolling in an ancient river. The workmen were watched. It was discovered that they occasionally found means to introduce flint implements of modern manufacture into the gravel. It was observed too that the reddish deposit on the bone could easily be imparted to the surface of bones and flints by artificial means. Suspicion was thus aroused in many quarters, when Mr Busk opened a Celtic grave not far from Moulin Quignon, and there found the skeleton of a Gaulic warrior minus the lower jawbone. The famous jaw of Moulin Quignon was all that was needed to make the skeleton a perfect one. For most men this has settled the question of the non-authenticity of the discovery. But some still believe in it.

Another famous fossil is the 'Calaveras Skull,' alleged to have been found one hundred and fifty feet deep in the shaft of a gold mine at Angelos, in Calaveras County, California. The skull is said to have come from the gold-bearing gravel; and in the strata above are no less than five beds of lava and other volcanic rocks. Professor Whitney secured the skull for the Museum of the Californian Geological Survey; but he was not the actual discoverer, and there is a pretty general impression that he was 'hoaxed.' Dr Andrews of Chicago investigated the matter, and gives evidence that the skull was taken by two of the miners from a cave in the valley, and placed in the gravel where it was found with a view to hoax the officers of the Survey; and this would explain the fact that there are well-marked traces of stalagmite upon the skull. This 'discovery' it was that suggested to the Californian humorist Bret Harte the idea of his amusing Address to a Fossil Skull. Many of our readers are doubtless already familiar with it; they will pardon our quoting a few lines for those who are not. The poet's exordium is a solemn one:

Speak, O man less recent! fragmentary fossil!
Primal pioneer of pliocene formation,
Hid in lowest depths below the earliest stratum
Of volcanic tufa.

Older than the beasts, the oldest Palæotherium;
Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogami;
Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions
Of earth's epidermis!

He begs the skull to tell its story: what was its epoch; did its former possessor behold 'the dim and watery woodland' of the carboniferous times; or did he live when 'cheerful pterodactyls' might have circled over his head. An answer was vouchsafed to him.