The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 18: what you’re looking at

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THE MYSTERIES OF THE COUBT. elapesd since he wes discarded. he had 900/. to re- evive. Forgetting for the moment his thoughts of geance, he plunged headlong once more into dis- gipation : but he was shortly startled from his de- Saxondale was a third time a mother—and on this occasion had presented her husband with a son. Ralph Farefield was consequently no longer the heir tu a lordly title and vast estate: but then, as he ob- served to his dissolute associates, “it was but a miserable new-born babe that stood between him and the hope of still inheriting the ancestral wealth and honours.” We have now explained to the reader how it was and under what peculiar circumstances the venera- ble Lord Saxondale contracted a second marriage at the age of sixty. Four years had elapsed since the day when he led Harriet Clifton to the alter; and he was consequently now sixty-four. This was the year 1825, when in the earlier part of the chapter we first introduced his lordship to the reader. Lady Saxondale was at this time a splendid woman; and she filled her exalted position with as much grace- ful dignity as if she had been from her very birth reared in the atmosphere of aristocracy and fashion. Not onee did the old nobleman regret having mar- ried her: for not merely was his vindictive feeli of an heir, but he had also experienced much real domestic happiness in his recurrence to a wedded state. For, as he had foreseen, his wife regarded him with gratitude as the author of the brilliant position to which she had been raised; and though she could not positively love a man old enough to be her grandfather, nor indeed had a heart susceptible of the tender feeling at all, yet she behaved towards him with kindness, and was ever solicitous for his eomfort and well-bemg. Ledy Saxondale was a woman of passions, but not of sentiments: the former were strong in proportion as they occupied the place which the latter ought to have held in her soul ;— and those passions being egotistical and selfish, as ' fore favoured the former alternative ; and as she was ambitious, she felt grateful to ‘the man who had ministered to her ambition. She now felt, too, that she occupied the proud position of the mother of that heir to whom her husband’s title and estates would but little chance of these estates passing away from These - husband who had given her this position and had =o eae ae aap ie -~ invested her as it were with this proud responai- eedatences to her mind and demeanour ; one-and-twenty, Lady Saxondale, while still in the bloom of youthful beauty, possessed the experience and bore the air of « woman of several years older. But lest we should be misunderstood in any portion of these remarks, we must observe, that the lanse of those four years aince her marriage, so far from hav- fag ip sny way marred her loveliness, had tended ently te develop her charms to the height of their splendour, and to convert « precocious girlhood into ® grand and magnificent womanhood. exter GPs 3 6 The reader is already aware that three were the fruit of hor marriage with Lord Saxondale- The two eldest were girls, and were respectively christened Juliana and Constance: the last-born, now a couple of months old, was named Edmund. In respect to the infant babe, we must observe that he was marked on the shoulder with a strawberry. This mark was but very small : still in its diminutive ions it bore an resemblance to the above-named fruit; and of course the old nurse, the female servants, and the goesips of the neigh- bourhood, were positive in declaring that Lady Saxondale must have longed for strawberries ere the birth of her son. Be this as it may—it is not the lese certain that the mark was there, upon the child's shoulder; and her ladyship congratulated herself that it wae thus upon a part of the body where it could not be considered a disfigurement. to the Saxondale in the middle of the year 1823, at which date our narrative opened. CHAPTER It THE CRIME. Ratpm FaRevizip was, as we have already ob- served, startled from what may be termed the lethargy of a cpntinuous debauch, upon receiving the intelli that Saxondale had presented her husband with a son and heir. He suddenly be- pated habits, as he would a garment which he had worn long enough, he began not merely to deliberate with calmness, but also to act with decision. His acquaintance with the low dens of debauchery in London had taught him where, in case of need, he could lay his hands upon the desperate characters suited to his purpose: and these he was not long in finding out. In the first instance he despatched a secret emissary down into Lincolnshire, who was in- structed to prowl about Saxondale Castle and take note of any circumstances which might tend to for- ward the scheme that Ralph Farefield had in view. This was nothing more nor less than to carry off the infant Edmund, and make away with him. The emissary was accordingly instructed to watch when the child was taken out for an airing—where it was so taken—by whom—and whether its nurse ever walked to any distance from the immediate precincts of the castle. The man whom Ralph employed on this service, was astute, cunning, and wary; and .| promised to fulfil his mission with despatch and fidelity. Profligate and anprincipled as Ralph Farefichi wae—bitter as were his vindictive feelings against his uncie, and his hatred fer Lady Saxondale—deep too as was the stake which he had to play — he nevertheless recoiled from the idea of committing murder with his own hand. He shrank thus, not merely from that instinctive horror of shedding blood, which, when the ides is first conodived, seizes upon even the most unprincipled and unscrupulous; but he was likewise afraid of involving himself in the trammels of the law. His plan therefore was to consummate the entire iniquity, not with his own hands, but through the medium of agents; sod as. he purposed to remain in London and show himseli —————— CONNEC MOO SS COMM