The People of the Mist

"Look at him, Bill," said one youth to an acquaintance; "he's escaped from Madame Tussaud's, he has. Painted hisself over with Day & Martin's best, and bought a secondhand Guy Fawkes nose."

Just then his remarks were cut short, for Otter, having been made to understand by the driver that they had arrived at their destination, descended from the box in a manner so original, that it is probably peculiar to the aborigines of Central Africa, and frightened that boy away.

From the cab emerged Leonard and Juanna, looking very much the better for their sea journey. Indeed, having recovered her health and spirits, and being very neatly dressed in a grey frock, with a wide black hat trimmed with ostrich feathers, Juanna looked what she was, a very lovely woman. Entering an outer office Leonard asked if Messrs. Thomson & Turner were to be seen.

"Mr. Turner is within, sir," answered a clerk of venerable appearance.

"Mr. Thomson"--here his glance fell upon Otter and suddenly he froze up, then added with a jerk--"has been dead a hundred years! Thomson, sir,"

he explained, recovering his dignity, but with his eyes still fixed on Otter, "was the founder of this firm; he died in the time of George III. That is his picture over the door--the person with a harelip and a snuffbox."

"Indeed!" said Leonard. "As Mr. Thomson is not available, perhaps you will tell Mr. Turner that a gentleman would like to speak to him."

"Certainly, sir," said the old clerk, still staring fixedly at Otter, whose aspect appeared to fascinate him as much as that worthy had been fascinated by the eyes of the Water-Dweller. "Have you an appointment, sir?"

"No," answered Leonard. "Tell him that it is in reference to an advertis.e.m.e.nt which his firm inserted in the 'Times' some months ago."

The clerk started, wondering if this could be the missing Mr. Outram.

That much-sought-for individual was understood to have resided in Africa, which is the home of dwarfs and other oddities. Once more he stared at Otter and vanished through a swing door.

Presently he returned. "Mr. Turner will see you, sir, if you and the lady will please to step in. Does this--gentleman--wish to accompany you?"

"No," said Leonard, "he can stop here."

Thereupon the clerk handed Otter a tall stool, on which the dwarf perched himself disconsolately. Then he opened the swing door and ushered Leonard and his wife into Mr. Turner's private room.

"Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?" said a bland, stout gentleman, rising from before a table strewn with papers. "Pray be seated, madam."

Leonard drew from his pocket a copy of the weekly "Times" and handed it to him, saying:

"I understand that you inserted this advertis.e.m.e.nt."

"Certainly we did," answered the lawyer after glancing at it. "Do you bring me any news of Mr. Leonard Outram?"

"Yes, I do. I am he, and this lady is my wife."

The lawyer bowed politely. "This is most fortunate," he said; "we had almost given up hope--but, of course, some proofs of ident.i.ty will be required."

"I think that they can be furnished to your satisfaction," answered Leonard briefly. "Meanwhile, for the sake of argument, perhaps you will a.s.sume that I am the person whom I state myself to be, and inform me to what this advertis.e.m.e.nt refers."

"Certainly," answered the lawyer, "there can be no harm in that. Sir Thomas Outram, the late baronet, as you are doubtless aware, had two sons, Thomas and Leonard. Leonard, the second son, as a young man was engaged to, or rather had some love entanglement with, a lady--really I forget her maiden name, but perhaps you can inform me of it----"

"Do you happen to mean Miss Jane Beach?" said Leonard quietly.

At this point Juanna turned in her chair and became extraordinarily, indeed almost fiercely, interested in the conversation.

"Quite so; Beach was the name. You must excuse my forgetfulness. Well, Sir Thomas's affairs fell into confusion, and after their father's death Mr. Leonard Outram, with his elder brother Thomas, emigrated to South Africa. In that same year Miss Jane--eh--Beach married a client of ours, Mr. Cohen, whose father had purchased the estate of Outram from the trustees in bankruptcy."

"Indeed!" said Leonard.

"Shortly afterwards," went on the lawyer, "Mr. Cohen, or rather Sir Jonas Cohen, succeeded to the estate on the death of his father. Two years ago he died leaving all his property, real and personal, to his only child, a daughter named Jane, with reversion to his widow in fee simple. Within a month of his death the child Jane died also, and nine months later her mother, Lady Cohen, _nee_ Jane Beach, followed her to the grave."

"Yes," said Leonard in a dull voice, and hiding his face in his hand; "go on, sir."

"Lady Cohen made a somewhat peculiar will. Under the terms of that will she bequeaths the mansion house and estates of Outram, together with most of her personal property, amounting in all to something over a hundred thousand pounds, to her old friend Leonard Outram and the heirs of his body, with reversion to her brother. This will has not been disputed; therefore, if you are Leonard Outram, I may congratulate you upon being once more the owner of your ancestral estate and a considerable fortune in cash."

For a while Leonard was too agitated to speak.

"I will prove to you," he said at last, "that I am this person, that is, I will prove it _prima facie_; afterwards you can satisfy yourself of the truth of my statements by the usual methods." And he proceeded to adduce a variety of evidence as to his ident.i.ty which need not be set out here. The lawyer listened in silence, taking a note from time to time.

"I think," he said when Leonard had finished, "that, subject to those inquiries of which you yourself have pointed out the necessity in so grave a matter, I may accept it as proved that you are none other than Mr. Leonard Outram, or rather," he added, correcting himself, "if, as I understand, your elder brother Thomas is dead, than Sir Leonard Outram.

Indeed you have so entirely convinced me that this is the case, that I have no hesitation in placing in your hands a letter addressed to you by the late Lady Cohen, and deposited with me together with the executed will; though, when you have read it, I shall request you to leave that letter with me for the present.

"By the way, it may interest you to learn," Mr. Turner added, as he went to a safe built into the wall and unlocked its iron door, "that we have been hunting for you for a year or more. We even sent a man to South Africa, and he tracked you to a spot in some mountains somewhere north of Delagoa Bay, where it was reported that you, with your brother Thomas and two friends, were digging for gold. He reached the spot on the night of the ninth of May last year."

"The very day that I left it," broke in Leonard.

"And found the site of your camp and three graves. At first our representative thought that you were all dead, but afterwards he fell in with a native who appears to have deserted from your service, and who told him that one of the brothers was dying when he left the camp, but one was still in good health, though he did not know where he had gone."

"My brother Thomas died on the first of May--this day year," said Leonard.

"After that all trace of you was lost, but I still kept on advertising, for missing people have a wonderful way of turning up to claim fortunes, and you see the result. Here is the letter, Sir Leonard."

Leonard took the doc.u.ment and looked at it, while strange feelings crowded into his mind. This was the first letter that he had ever received from Jane Beach; also it was the last that he ever could receive.

"Before I open this, Mr. Turner," he said, "for my own satisfaction I may as well ask you to compare the handwriting of the address with another specimen of it that chances to be in my possession"; and producing the worn prayer-book from his pocket--Jane's parting gift--he opened it at the fly-leaf, and pointed out the inscription to the lawyer, placing the envelope beside it.

Mr. Turner took a reading-gla.s.s and examined first one writing and then the other.

"These words appear to have been written by the same hand," he said presently. "Lady Cohen's writing was peculiar, and it is difficult to be mistaken on the point, though I am no expert. To free you from responsibility, with your consent I myself will open this letter," and he slit the envelope at the top with an ivory paper-knife, and, drawing out its contents, he handed them to Leonard. They ran thus:

"My dearest Leonard,--For so I, who am no longer a wife, may call you without shame, seeing that you are in truth the dearest to my heart, whether you be still living, or dead like my husband and my child.

"The will which I am to sign to-morrow will prove to you if you are yet alive, as I believe to be the case, how deep is my anxiety that that you should re-enter into possession of the ancestral home of which fortune has deprived you. It is with the greatest pleasure that I make you this bequest, and I can do so with a clear conscience, for my late husband has left everything at my absolute disposal--being himself without near relations--in the sad event which has occurred, of the death of his daughter, our only child.

"May you live long enough to enjoy the lands and fortune which I am enabled thus to return to your family, and may your children and their descendants sit at Outram for many a generation to come!

"And now I will talk no more of this matter, for I have an explanation to make and a pardon to ask.

"It may well be, Leonard, that when your eyes fall upon these lines, you will have forgotten me--most deservedly--and have found some other woman to love you. No, as I set this down I feel that it is not true; you will never forget me altogether, Leonard--your first love--and no other woman will ever be quite the same to you as I have been; or, at least, so I believe in my foolishness and vanity.

"You will ask what explanation is possible after the way in which I have treated you, and the outrage that I have done to my own love. Such as it is, however, I offer it to you.

"I was driven into this marriage, Leonard, by my late father, who could be very cruel when he chose. To admit this is, as I know, a proof of weakness. So be it, I have never concealed from myself that I am weak.

Yet, believe me, I struggled while I could; I wrote to you even, but they intercepted my letter; and I told all the truth to Mr. Cohen, but he was self-willed and pa.s.sionate, and would take no heed of my pleading. So I married him, Leonard, and was fairly happy with him, for he was kindness itself to me, but from that hour I began to die.

"And now more than six years have pa.s.sed since the night of our parting in the snow, and the end is at hand, for I am really dying. It has pleased G.o.d to take my little daughter, and this last shock proved more than I can bear, and so I go to join her and to wait with her till such time as I shall once more see your unforgotten face.

"That is all that I have to say, dear Leonard.