MISTAKEN IDENTITY
AN eminently respectable tradesman was seated in his cosy little parlour, or counting-house, at the back of his shop, within a mile of the Mansion House in the City of London, one summer afternoon in the year 1861. His wife was the only other person present on this occasion. It was an unusual circumstance for this lady to be there, as Mr. Delmar also occupied, for purposes of residence, a neat little house in an eastern suburb of the metropolis. He was, moreover, the father of a family. He had four sons and three daughters, whose ages varied between seven and twenty-two. He was churchwarden of the parish in which he carried on business. He was regarded as the very pattern of domestic virtue, and a model of rectitude in business. Few men, indeed, in the whole world enjoyed a better reputation than Mr. Delmar. Nobody had ever breathed a word against his character, and nobody had a right to do so. His fireside was as cheerful as moderate prosperity, a good wife, and dutiful children could render it.
These particulars about Mr. Delmar, his family, his connexions, his circumstances, and his reputation, are necessary to enable the reader to appreciate the incidents I have to describe.
Mrs. Delmar had come to town, on the present occasion, for the legitimate purpose of shopping. She was giving her prudent spouse an estimate of the call she needed—or considered that she needed—to make upon his purse for a variety of domestic necessities, from little child’s-shoes to her own and her eldest daughter’s bonnets. Mr. Delmar was checking off the anticipated outlay, or, as I may put it, revising the domestic estimates, with a prudence quite commendable and, I also think, consistent with a good husband and father’s affection for those dependent on him.
An assistant of Mr. Delmar’s entered the parlour, or counting-house, and observed, “A gentleman wishes to see you, sir, in the shop.”
“Show him in, Williams.”
“He says he wishes to see you privately, sir.”
“Privately!” exclaimed Mr. Delmar, in tones of surprise; “show him in;” and the speaker glanced at his better half as he finished the sentence.
Williams left the room and informed the gentleman, who was standing in the shop, that his master wished him to walk in.
“You told me,” observed the unknown visitor to the shopman, “that Mrs. Delmar was with her husband?”
“Yes, sir,” was the reply.
“I would rather Mr. Delmar should step out to me.”
“He will not do it, sir. He says you are to go in to him.”
“Well, I will see him.”
The unknown visitor advanced to the apartment in which the worthy and happy couple were closeted; he cautiously, not to say nervously, opened the door, and seemed to halt in the execution of his purpose.
“I would very much rather see you alone, sir, for a moment.”
“You cannot see me alone, sir; this lady is my wife.”
“My business is private.”
“I have no private business or secrets unknown to my wife, sir,” exclaimed Mr. Delmar, growing a little irritated.
“Well, sir, you will oblige me if you will step out a moment.”
“I tell you, sir, I have no secrets from my wife. What is your business?”
“You really, sir——“
“What do you mean, sir? I insist upon your telling me immediately what brings you here. And if you do not, I will kick you into the street.”
Mr. Delmar uttered these words in a tone which alarmed his visitor, who, perhaps, apprehended the fulfilment of the threat which his delicacy had elicited; but, summoning his courage, he advanced towards the desk and took from his pocket a paper, which he handed in silence to the astonished and indignant husband.
It was a summons to show cause why he should not maintain a female child which one Selina Wilkins, chambermaid at the Griffin’s Head Hotel (an excellent hostelry, well known to commercial travellers on the midland road who call at the town of ——), was the mother of.
Mr. Delmar was a man who had seen much of the world, although he had, happily for himself, not known many of its vicissitudes, or its wickednesses and perils. His knowledge and experience were, however, at fault on the present occasion. During two or three minutes of perfect silence, in which the three persons glanced at one another alternately, Mr. Delmar was a prey to conflicting emotions and cross purposes. At first he was disposed, without warning, to enforce the threat he had not long ago made, and punish the agent of the infamous practical joke now being practised at his expense, as he conceived it, by inflicting upon him an ignominious and severe chastisement. Next, he trembled before a vague apprehension that some foul conspiracy might have been devised for the ruin of his own and his family’s domestic peace. The inquiry passed through his mind. Had he acted prudently in compelling the disguised officer to serve the process in the presence of Mrs. Delmar? Should he treat the messenger who brought this scandalous official libel with civility? Should he take him into confidence? What, indeed, should he do?
Within the brief space of three minutes he had many times doubted whether, after all, it was a prudent thing for a man of business, and a man of the world, to let his wife know all his secrets. At last he resolved to pursue in this emergency that frankness and uprightness towards his wife, which had been the source of so much comfort to them both in those various emergencies which even the serene life of a prosperous London tradesman occasionally encounters.
The wife had looked on the previous scene in amazement and fear. The changing hues of her husband’s countenance, the twitching of the muscles in his face, the spasmodic movement of his limbs, under suppressed rage, disgust, and dread, told her that the document she had seen handed to him was the premonitory note of something very dreadful. If she had not so well and thoroughly known the rectitude and honourableness of the father of her children, she might have jumped to the conclusion, in her bewilderment, that he had committed forgery, or murdered some one, and that the summons was a warrant for his apprehension on a charge that might have consigned him to Portland or led him to the gallows.
The officer was the first to break silence.
“It is a painful duty, sir.”
“Never mind. But what does this mean?” Mr. Delmar replied, rapidly passing from affected indifference to painful curiosity.
“You see, sir, what it is,” said the officer.
Had Mr. Delmar’s leg and boot been slighter than they were, a smile might have passed from the inner to the outer man of the speaker.
“I know, sir, what it is,” retorted Mr. Delmar; and summoning all his moral resolution, and lifting himself to a height of moral dignity, which perhaps he had never occupied in any one moment of his wedded life, from the day when in his young and pure manhood he had taken that woman, every way worthy, to be his partner and help-meet to the altar, he added:
“I