“Well, I’m very sorry, so I am, Mr. Ashwoode, that you are in such a hurry — I declare to —— I am,” observed Chancey, supplying big goblet afresh from the larger measure. “Eliza, have you the box? Well, bring it here, and put it down on the table, like an elegant little girl.”
The girl shoved a small oaken chest over to Chancey’s elbow; and he forthwith proceeded to unlock it, and to draw forth the identical red leather pocketbook which had received in its pages the records of Ashwoode’s disasters upon the evening of their last meeting.
“Here I have them. Captain Markham — no, that is not it,” said Chancey, sleepily turning over the leaves; “but this is it, Mr. Ashwoode — ay, here; first, two hundred pounds, promissory note — payable one week after date. Mr. Ashwoode, again, one hundred and fifty — promissory note — one week. Lord Kilblatters — no — ay, here again — Mr. Ashwoode, two hundred — promissory note — one week. Mr. Ashwoode, two hundred and fifty — promissory note — one week. Mr. Ashwoode, one hundred; Mr. Ashwoode, fifty. Oh, dear me! dear me! Mr. Ashwoode, three hundred.” And so on, till it appeared that Sir Henry Ashwoode stood indebted to Gordon Chancey, Esq., in the sum of six thousand four hundred and fifty pounds, for which he had passed promissory notes which would all become due in two days’ time.
“I suppose,” said Ashwoode, “these notes have hardly been negotiated. Eh?”
“Oh, dear me! No — oh, no, Mr. Ashwoode,” replied Chancey. “They have not gone out of my desk. I would not put them into the hands of a stranger for any trifling advantage to myself. Oh, dear me! not at all.”
“Well, then, I suppose you can renew them for a fortnight or so, or hold them over — eh?” asked Ashwoode.
“I’m sure I can,” rejoined Chancey. “The bills belong to the old cripple that lent the money; and he does whatever I bid him. He trusts it all to me. He gives me the trouble, and takes the profit himself. Oh! he does confide in me. I have only to say the word, and it’s done. They shall be renewed or held over as often as you wish. Indeed, I can answer for it. Dear me, it would be very hard if I could not.”
“Well, then, Mr. Chancey,” replied Ashwoode, “I may require it, or I may not. Craven has the promise of a large sum of money, within two or three days — part of the loan he has already gotten. Will you favour me with a call on tomorrow afternoon at Morley Court. I will then have heard definitely from Craven, and can tell you whether I require time or not.”
“Very good, sir — very fair, indeed, Mr. Ashwoode. Nothing fairer,” rejoined the lawyer. “But don’t give yourself any uneasiness. Oh, dear, on no account; for I declare to —— I would hold them over as long as you like. Oh, dear me — indeed but I would. Well, then, I’ll call out at about four o’clock.”
“Very good, Mr. Chancey,” replied Ashwoode. “I shall expect you. Meanwhile, goodnight.” So they separated.
The young baronet reached his ancestral dwelling without adventure of any kind, and Mr. Gordon Chancey poured out the last drops of beer from the inverted can into his pewter cup, and draining it calmly, anon buttoned his waistcoat, shook the wet from his cravat, and tied it on, thrust his feet into his shoes, and flinging his cocked hat carelessly upon his head, walked forth in deep thought into the street, whistling a concerto of his own invention.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE DIABOLIC WHISPER.
Gordon Chancey sauntered in his usual lazy, lounging way, with his hands in his pockets, down the street. After a listless walk of half-an-hour he found himself at the door of a handsome house, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Castle. He knocked, and was admitted by a servant in full livery.
“Is he in the same room?” inquired Chancey.
“Yes, sir,” replied the man; and without further parley, the learned counsel proceeded upstairs, and knocked at the drawingroom door, which, without waiting for any answer, he forthwith opened.
Nicholas Blarden — with two ugly black plaisters across his face, his arm in a sling, and his countenance bearing in abundance the livid marks of his late rencounter — stood with his back to the fireplace; a table, blazing with waxlights, and stored with glittering wine-flasks and other matters, was placed at a little distance before him. As the man of law entered the room, the countenance of the invalid relaxed into an ugly grin of welcome.
“Well, Gordy, boy, how goes the game? Out with your news, old rat-catcher,” said Blarden, in high good humour.
“Dear me, dear me! but the night is mighty chill, Mr. Blarden,” observed Chancey, filling a glass of wine to the brim, and sipping it uninvited. “News,” he continued, letting himself drop into a chair— “news; well, there’s not much stirring worth telling you.”
“Come, what is it? You’re not come here for nothing, old fox,” rejoined Blarden, “I know by the —— twinkle in the corner of your eye.”
“Well, he has been with me, just now,” drawled Chancey.
“Ashwoode?”
“Yes.”
“Well! what does he want — what does he want, eh?” asked Blarden, with intense excitement.
“He says he’ll want time for the notes,” replied Chancey.
“God be thanked!” ejaculated Blarden, and followed this ejaculation with a ferocious burst of laughter. “We’ll have him, Chancey, boy, if only we know how to play him — by —— , we’ll have him, as sure as there’s heat in hell.”
“Well, maybe we will,” rejoined Chancey.
“Does he say he can’t pay them on the day?” asked Blarden, exultingly.
“No; he says maybe he can’t,” replied the jackal.
“That’s all one,” cried Blarden. “What do you think? Do you think he can?”
“I think maybe he can, if we squeeze him,” replied Chancey.
“Then don’t squeeze him — he must not get out of our books on any terms — we’ll lose him if he does,” said Nicholas.
“We’ll not renew the notes, but hold them over,” said Chancey. “He must not feel them till he can’t pay them. We’ll make them sit light on him till then — give him plenty of line for a while — rope enough and a little patience — and the devil himself can’t keep him out of the noose.”
“You’re right — you are, Gordy, boy,” rejoined Blarden. “Let him get through the ready money first — eh? — and then into the stone jug with him — we’ll just choose our own time for striking.”
“I tell you what it is, if you are just said and led by me, you’ll have a quare hold on him before three months are past and gone,” said Chancey, lazily— “mind I tell you, you will.”
“Well, Gordy, boy, fill again — fill again — here’s success to you.”
Chancey filled, and quaffed his bumper, with, a matter-of-fact, businesslike air.
“And do you mind me, boy,” continued Blarden, “spare nothing in this business — bring Ashwoode entirely under my knuckle — and, by —— , I’ll make it a great job for you.”
“Indeed — indeed but I will, Mr. Blarden, if I can,” rejoined Chancey; “and I think I can — I think I know a way, so I do, to get a halter round his neck — do you mind? — and leave the rope’s end in your hand, to hang him or not, as you like.”
“To hang him!” echoed Blarden, like one who hears something too good to be true.
“Yes, to hang him by the neck till he’s dead — dead — dead,” repeated Chancey, imperturbably.
“How the blazes will you do it?” demanded the wretch, anxiously. “Pish, it’s all prate and vapour.”
Gordon Chancey stole a suspicious glance round the room from the corner of his eye, and then suffering his gaze to rest sleepily upon the fire once more, he stretched out one of his lank arms, and after a little uncertain groping, succeeding in grasping the collar of his companion’s coat, and drawing his head down toward him. Blarden knew Mr. Chancey’s way, and without a word, lowered his ear to that gentleman’s mouth, who forthwith whispered something into it which produced a marked effect upon Mr. Blarden.
“
If you do that,” replied he with ferocious exultation, “by —— , I’ll make your fortune for you at a slap.”
And so saving, he struck his hand with heavy emphasis upon the barrister’s shoulder, like a man who clenches a bargain.
“Well, Mr. Blarden,” replied Chancey, in the same drowsy tone, “as I said before, I declare it’s my opinion I can, so it is — I think I can.”
“And so do I think you can — by —— , I’m sure of it,” exclaimed Blarden triumphantly; “but take some more — more wine, won’t you? take some more, and stay a bit, can’t you?”
Chancey had made his way to the door with his usual drowsy gait; and, passing out without deigning any answer or word of farewell, stumbled lazily downstairs. There was nothing odd, however, in this leavetaking; it was Chancey’s way.
“We’ll do it, and easily too,” muttered Blarden with a grin of exultation. “I never knew him fail — that fellow is worth a mine. Ho! ho! Sir Henry, beware — beware. Egad, you had better keep a bright look-out. It’s rather late for green goslings to look to their necks, when the fox claps his nose in the poultry-yard.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SHOWING HOW SIR HENRY ASHWOODE PLAYED AND PLOTTED — AND OF THE SUDDEN SUMMONS OF GORDON CHANCEY.
Henry Ashwoode was but too anxious to avail himself of the indulgence offered by Gordon Chancey. With the immediate urgency of distress, any thoughts of prudence or retrenchment which may have crossed his mind vanished, and along with the command of new resources came new wants and still more extravagant prodigality. His passion for gaming was now indulged without restraint, and almost without the interruption of a day. For a time his fortune rallied, and sums, whose amount would startle credulity, flowed into his hands, only to be lost and squandered again in dissipation and extravagance, which grew but the wilder and more reckless, in proportion as the sources which supplied them were temporarily increased. At length, after some coquetting, the giddy goddess again deserted him. Night after night brought new and heavier disasters; and with this reverse of fortune came its invariable accompaniment — a wilder and more daring recklessness, and a more unmeasured prodigality in hazarding larger and larger sums; as if the victims of ill luck sought, by this frantic defiance, to bully and browbeat their capricious persecutor into subjection. There was scarcely an available security of any kind which he had not already turned into money, and now he began to feel, in downright earnest, the iron gripe of ruin closing upon him.
He was changed — in spirit and in aspect changed. The unwearied fire of a secret fever preyed upon his heart and brain; an untold horror robbed him of his rest, and haunted him night and day.
“Brother,” said Mary Ashwoode, throwing one hand fondly round his neck, and with the other pressing his, as he sate moodily, with compressed lips and haggard face, and eyes fixed upon the floor, in the old parlour of Morley Court— “dear brother, you are greatly changed; you are ill; some great trouble weighs upon your mind. Why will you keep all your cares and griefs from me? I would try to comfort you, whatever your sorrows may be. Then let me know it all, dear brother; why should your griefs be hidden from me? Are there not now but the two of us in the wide world to care for each other?” and as she said this her eyes filled with tears.
“You would know what grieves me?” said Ashwoode, after a short silence, and gazing fixedly in her face, with stern, dilated eyes, and pale features. He remained again silent for a time, and then uttered the emphatic word— “Ruin.”
“How, dear brother, what has befallen you?” asked the poor girl, pressing her brother’s hand more kindly.
“I say, we are ruined — both of us. I’ve lost everything. We are little better than beggars,” replied he. “There’s nothing I can call my own,” he resumed, abruptly, after a pause, “but that old place, Incharden. It’s worth next to nothing — bog, rocks, brushwood, old stables, and all — absolutely nothing. We are ruined — beggared — that’s all.”
“Oh! brother, I am glad we have still that dear old place. Oh, let us go down and live there together, among the quiet glens, and the old green woods; for amongst its pleasant shades I have known happier times than shall ever come again for me. I would like to ramble there again in the pleasant summer time, and hear the birds sing, and the sound of the rustling leaves, and the clear winding brook, as I used to hear them long ago. There I could think over many things, that it breaks my heart to think of here; and you and I, brother, would be always together, and we would soon be as happy as either of us can be in this sorrowful world.”
She threw her arms around her brother’s neck, and while the tears flowed fast and silently, she kissed his pale and wasted cheeks again and again.
“In the meantime,” said Ashwoode, starting up abruptly, and looking at his watch, “I must go into town, and see some of these harpies — usurers — that have gotten their fangs in me. It is as well to keep out of jail as long as one can,” and, with a very joyless laugh, he strode from the room.
As he rode into town, his thoughts again and again recurred to his old scheme respecting Lady Stukely.
“It is after all my only chance,” said he. “I have made my mind up fifty times to it, but somehow or other, d —— n me, if I could ever bring myself to do it. That woman will live for five-and-twenty years to come, and she would as easily part with the control of her property as with her life. While she lives I must be her dependent — her slave: there is no use in mincing the matter, I shall not have the command of a shilling, but as she pleases; but patience — patience, Henry Ashwoode, sooner or later death will come, and then begins your jubilee.”
As these thoughts hurried through his brain, he checked his horse at Lady Betty Stukely’s door.
As he traversed the capacious hall, and ascended the handsome staircase— “Well,” thought he, “even with her ladyship, this were better than the jail.”
In the drawingroom he found Lady Stukely, Emily Copland, and Lord Aspenly. The two latter evidently deep in a very desperate flirtation, and her ladyship meanwhile very considerately employed in trying a piece of music on the spinet.
The entrance of Sir Henry produced a very manifest sensation among the little party. Lady Stukely looked charmingly conscious and fluttered. Emily Copland smiled a gracious welcome, for though she and her handsome cousin perfectly well understood each other, and both well knew that marriage was out of the question, they had each, what is called, a fancy for the other; and Emily, with the unreasonable jealousy of a woman, felt a kind of soreness, secretly and almost unacknowledged to herself, at Sir Henry’s marked devotion to Lady Stukely, though, at the same time, no feeling of her own heart, beyond the lightest and the merest vanity, had ever been engaged in favour of Henry Ashwoode. Of the whole party, Lord Aspenly alone was a good deal disconcerted, and no wonder, for he had not the smallest notion upon what kind of terms he and Henry Ashwoode were to meet; — whether that young gentleman would shake hands with him as usual, or proceed to throttle him on the spot. Ashwoode was, however, too completely a man of the world to make any unnecessary fuss about the awkward affair of Morley Court; he therefore met the little nobleman with cold and easy politeness; and, turning from him, was soon engaged in an animated and somewhat tender colloquy with the love-stricken widow, whose last words to him, as at length he arose to take his leave, were, —
“Remember tomorrow evening, Sir Henry, we shall look for you early; and you have promised not to disappoint your cousin Emily — has not he, Emily? I shall positively be affronted with you for a week at least if you are late. I am very absolute, and never forgive an act of rebellion. I’m quite a little sovereign here, and very despotic; so you had better not venture to be naughty.”
Here she raised her finger, and shook it in playful menace at her admirer.
Lady Stukely had, however, little reason to doubt his punctuality. If she had but known the true state of the case she would have been aware that in literal matter-of-fact she had become as necessary to Sir Henry Ashwoo
de as his daily bread.
Accordingly, next evening Sir Henry Ashwoode was one of the gayest of the guests in Lady Stukely’s drawingrooms. His resolution was taken; and he now looked round upon the splendid rooms and all their rich furniture as already his own. Some chatted, some played cards, some danced the courtly minuet, and some hovered about from group to group, without any determinate occupation, and sharing by turns in the frivolities of all. Ashwoode was, of course, devoted exclusively to his fair hostess. She was all smiles, and sighs, and bashful coyness; he all tenderness and fire. In short, he felt that all he wanted at that moment was the opportunity of asking, to ensure his instantaneous acceptance. While thus agreeably employed, the young baronet was interrupted by a footman, who, with a solemn bow, presented a silver salver, on which was placed an exceedingly dirty and crumpled little note. Ashwoode instantly recognized the hand in which the address was written, and snatching the filthy billet from its conspicuous position, he thrust it into his waistcoat pocket.
“A messenger, sir, waits for an answer,” murmured the servant.
“Where is he?”
“He waits in the hall, sir.”
“Then I shall see him in a moment — tell him so,” said Ashwoode; and turning to Lady Stukely, he spoke a few sweet words of gallantry, and with a forced smile, and casting a longing, lingering look behind, he glided from the room.
“So, what can this mean?” muttered he, as he placed himself immediately under a cluster of lights in the lobby, and hastily drew forth the crumpled note. He read as follows: —
“My dear Sir Henry, — There is bad news — as bad as can be. Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, come on receipt of these, on the moment, to me. If you don’t, you’ll be done for tomorrow; so come at once. Bobby M’Quirk will hand you these, and if you follow him, will bring you where I am now. I am desirous to serve you, and if the art of man can do it, to keep you out of this pickle.
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 24
