University of Virginia Library

31. XXXI.
Guerlin versus Quid.

THE GUERLIN, meantime, pushes her claims
with vigor. She has secured a very proper
and business-like attorney. His name is Brazitt.
He is well known about town for a somewhat
shabby dress of black, and for the great fervor and
success with which he pushes on a dinner, a suit, or
an election. He is a man who knows the people
“about the courts;” who has always a friend in the
newspaper service; who is posted up in the Cuban
business; who is very sly; who doesn't want office
for himself, but who gets offices for other people.

He doesn't live showily, but receives large fees;
he is a capital lobby-member, and is frequently at

Albany during a session—making a judicious distribution
of champagne during a dinner. He occasionally
finds his way to the inner rooms of editors;
sometimes putting his hand to an article, for which
he receives no pay. In short, he is a progressive,
energetic, well-informed, rapid, cautious, social, self-made,
successful man.

There is a Mrs. Brazitt; this, however, does not
concern the Fudges; nor—very much—the attorney.

Mr. Brazitt not only takes up the cause of the
Guerlin, which bids fair to become a conspicuous
one, but he befriends her. A romantic sketch of
her life, and trials, and expectations, suddenly
appears, one Saturday morning, in the Herald.
The affair is talked of. A pictorial paper has
gained permission (from Brazitt) to engrave a
wood-cut likeness of the Countess. The Pinkertons,
it is understood, have asked her to pass a day at
their “fine place” in the country. The Spindles
arrange a tableau-vivant, in the course of which an
episode in the life of the Countess is represented,
and the Countess weeps.

Sympathy takes a strong flow in her favor: “nice
people” speak harshly of young Quid. It appears
(from newspaper paragraphs) that the Countess has
the best cause in the world. A kind of Kossuth

admiration possesses people. It is needless to say
that Mr. Brazitt is a man who admires and encourages
this feeling.

He has no special admiration for titles, it is true;
he doesn't care for titles a straw: he dislikes titles:
but was it the poor lady's fault? She came from
a country where such titles were respectable; he
might even say, desirable. Was he to shut his
doors upon her?

She had lived a life of hardships—of great adventure;
she had found accidentally, in a distinguished
young townsman (Mrs. Fudge bought thirteen
copies of the newspaper in which this mention
occurred), a friend and a relative; she discovered
through him traces of her mother's family; she
found her ties upon society multiplied; she had
come to claim and to enjoy her own.

Mr. Quid, indeed, was not a little troubled by the
spirited manner in which the new claim was brought
forward. Upon careful examination, he found considerable
difficulty in securing proof of his having
married his own wife! It is always an awkward
thing to be driven to the search of such proof; it
is still more awkward—not to find it.

The papers of the Countess were certainly of a
strong character; there was abundant evidence to
show that her parent, if not the widow of the unfortunate

elder branch of the Bodgers, was certainly
very intimately allied with that widow. The Countess,
moreover, was possessed of abundance of tender
letters, from the Monsieur de Guerlin, who had subsequently
married the widow, in which that kindhearted
gentleman speaks pathetically of the lasting
affection he entertains for her mother, and of his
firm determination to regard her child as his own.

In short, it is alleged, on the part of the vigorous
adviser of the Countess, that the late Mrs. Quid
was nothing more than the daughter of the nurse
or femme de chambre of the proper Bodgers widow;
who, in virtue of this connection, became possessed
of the family secrets, letters, etc., and finally assumed
the name of her lady-patroness.

This representation was so well based as to occasion,
as I have already said, infinite annoyance to
Mr. Quid: and even if the Guerlin claim did not
prove altogether sound, it certainly appeared to the
discerning eye of Mr. Brazitt to possess sufficient
force and plausibility to warrant prosecution; and
to insure the levy of some round sum, in way of
compromise, from the timorous defendant.

Mr. Quid, however, was not idle. His son's
character in the fashionable world was at stake;
there were hints of his having been already blackballed
in an up-town club, by reason of the low and

disagreeable suspicions cast upon his parentage.
Mr. Quid senior had a friend in Paris, who has
already been once or twice brought to notice. I
allude to Mr. Jenkins, the father of Miss Jenkins,
who had carried his fortune and his daughter to the
French capital, in the hope of achieving an agreeable
social eminence. A full purse, a pretty daughter,
frequent suppers, with a passable knowledge of
French, are, I am told, pretty sure to secure the
companionship of a considerable bevy of middle-aged
Parisian gentlemen, well-informed, single, and
“distinguished.”

To Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Quid made application;
setting forth the embarrassments of his position;
directing him to the proper quarter to secure evidences
of his marriage, to be forwarded per mail;
and begging him further to give such information as
could be relied upon in regard to the character and
history of a certain Countess de Guerlin, one time
of the Rue de Helder, and more recently embarked
with Mr. Washington Fudge, at the port of Havre,
en route for New York.

Nor is this the only precautionary measure of
Mr. Quid. He feels that the question of parentage
of stray European ladies at the German spas and
elsewhere, is a very delicate one, not susceptible
always of legal tracery. As a young man, he was

not scrupulous on those points. Events might show
that he was less so than a cautious man should be.
To tell truth, he did not feel positive assurance
that his wife may have been altogether what she
pretended to be. The Guerlin affair, unexpected as
it was, might prove a very awkward one.

In such event, his hope lay in Adolphe. He
therefore spurred on his son to increased vigilance.
He begged him to make a “dashing campaign.”
He took a romantic interest in his excursions and
in his reports. He even ventured into a visit of
reconnaissance on his own part to the quiet village
of Newtown. He was charmed with the agreeable
and conciliating manners of the old lady, Mrs.
Fleming, who put on her best cap to do honor to
the distinguished visitor. She talked of Adolphe
with a motherly affection, and dropped hints about
the attachment of the young people, in a way that
quite charmed and satisfied Mr. Quid. Even Kitty
herself, mindful, perhaps, that the old gentleman
had been kind in extending to them a home, was
full of her little tokens of respect and gratitude,
and to the chance inuendoes of the admiring father,
she lent such pretty and easy-coming blushes as
fairly captivated the old man.

Mrs. Fleming was satisfied, in her own mind,
that he had come for no other purpose than to ask

the hand of Kitty for Adolphe; and she had an
answer prepared—arranged in her mind since the
time she caught the first glimpse of Mr. Quid
through the curtains of her chamber-window. And
Kitty, in virtue of her mother's winks and smiles,
had a fear that the affair of Adolphe might become
very soon one of serious question and answer: but
she, even yet, blush as she might, had no answer
ready.

Howbeit, the old gentleman was in capital humor
(as he had abundant reason to be) with the present
aspect of affairs. The chances of Adolphe appeared
good. It seemed plain that the property in any
event would revert to the Quid name; and even
supposing his own possession established, in opposition
to the Guerlin claim, the most graceful gift
that he could confer upon his pretty daughter-in-law,
would be (he thought) her own rights. He
even allowed himself, in a cheerful vein, to paint the
delicate and fatherly manner in which he would perform
that service; the blushes of the bride, the
wild enthusiasm of his son, the admiration of society,
and the confusion of both Blimmer and the
Countess. Not for many days—I might even say
weeks—had there passed a happier body down
through the walk which is skirted with hollyhock
blossoms, all the way from the Bodgers' door to

the gate, than passed that day in the person of Mr.
Quid senior.

But it occurred to this gentleman, when the gate
was closed upon him, and his pleasant imaginative
burst had subsided, that, in order to secure this
agreeable diversion of the Bodgers' property, to the
pretty prospective bride of Adolphus, it would be
essential to keep a sharp lookout for the preservation
and the proving of the will, now in the hands
of Mr. Blimmer. Heretofore, indeed, up to the
date when the Guerlin first made her appearance,
and before he had gained his present satisfied state
of feeling in respect to the gallant advances of
Adolphus, he had looked upon the paper in the
possession of Mr. Blimmer with an evil eye. At
present, however, he felt a peculiar regard for that
document. He was anxious to arrange preliminaries
by which it might be gracefully and naturally
brought into notice.

With this view, he determined to pay a friendly
visit at the office of Mr. Bivins, the attorney.