“I didn’t, I swear.”
“Oh! you did; I heard every syllable; ‘false’ was the word.”
“Well, if I said ‘false,’ I must have been thinking of her hair; for she is really a very honest old woman.”
At this moment a female voice in distress is heard, and poor Lady May comes pushing out of the pretty little room, in which Grace Maubray had placed her, sobbing and shedding floods of tears.
“I can’t stay there any longer, for I hear everything; I can’t help hearing every word — honest old woman, and all — opprobrious. Oh! how can people be so? how can they? Oh! I’m very angry — I’m very angry — I’m very angry!”
If Miss Maubray were easily moved to pity she might have been at sight of the big innocent eyes turned up at her, from which rolled great tears, making visible channels through the paint down her cheeks. She sobbed and wept like a fat, goodnatured child, and pitifully she continued sobbing, “Oh, I’m a-a-ho — very angry; wha-at shall I do-o-o, my dear? I-I’m very angry — oh, oh — I’m very a-a-angry!”
“So am I,” said Grace Maubray, with a fiery glance at the young baronet, who stood fixed where he was, like an image of death; “and I had intended, dear Lady May, telling you a thing which Sir Richard Arden may as well hear, as I mean to write to tell Alice to-day; it is that I am to be married — I have accepted Lord Wynderbroke — and — and that’s all.”
Sir Richard, I believe, said “Goodbye.” Nobody heard him. I don’t think he remembers how he got on his horse. I don’t think the ladies saw him leave the room — only, he was gone.
Poor Lady May takes her incoherent leave. She has got her veil over her face, to baffle curiosity. Miss Maubray stands at the window, the tip of her finger to her brilliant lip, contemplating Lady May as she gets in with a great jerk and swing of the carriage, and she hears the footman say “Home,” and sees a fat hand, in a lilac glove, pull up the window hurriedly. Then she sits down on a sofa, and laughs till she quivers again, and tears overflow her eyes; and she says in the intervals, almost breathlessly, —
“Oh, poor old thing! I really am sorry. Who could have thought she cared so much? Poor old soul! what a ridiculous old thing!”
Such broken sentences of a rather contemptuous pity rolled and floated along the even current of her laughter.
CHAPTER LXVII.
BOND AND DEED.
The summer span of days was gone; it was quite dark, and long troops of withered leaves drifted in rustling trains over the avenue, as Mr. Levi, observant of his appointment, drove up to the grand old front of Mortlake, which in the dark spread before him like a house of white mist.
“I shay,” exclaimed Mr. Levi, softly, arresting the progress of the cabman, who was about running up the steps, “I’ll knock myshelf — wait you there.”
Mr. Levi was smoking. Standing at the base of the steps, he looked up, and right and left with some curiosity. It was too dark; he could hardly see the cold glimmer of the windows that reflected the grey horizon. Vaguely, however, he could see that it was a grander place than he had supposed. He looked down the avenue, and between the great trees over the gate he saw the distant lights, and heard through the dim air the chimes, far off, from London steeples, succeeding one another, or mingling faintly, and telling all whom it might concern the solemn lesson of the flight of time.
Mr. Levi thought it might be worth while coming down in the daytime, and looking over the house and place to see what could be made of them; the thing was sure to go a dead bargain. At present he could see nothing but the wide, vague, grey front, and the faint glow through the hall windows, which showed their black outlines sharply enough.
“Well, he’sh come a mucker, anyhow,” murmured Mr. Levi, with one of his smiles that showed so wide his white sharp teeth.
He knocked at the door and rang the bell. It was not a footman, but Crozier who opened it. The old servant of the family did not like the greasy black curls, the fierce jet eyes, the sallow face and the large, moist, sullen mouth, that presented themselves under the brim of Mr. Levi’s hat, nor the tawdry glimmer of chains on his waistcoat, nor the cigar still burning in his fingers. Sir Richard had told Crozier, however, that a Mr. Levi, whom he described, was to call at a certain hour, on very particular business, and was to be instantly admitted.
Mr. Levi looks round him, and extinguishes his cigar before following Crozier, whose countenance betrays no small contempt and dislike, as he eyes the little man askance, as if he would like well to be uncivil to him.
Crozier leads him to the right, through a small apartment, to a vast square room, long disused, still called the library, though but few books remain on the shelves, and those in disorder. It is a chilly night, and a little fire burns in the grate, over which Sir Richard is cowering. Very haggard, the baronet starts up as the name of his visitor is announced.
“Come in,” cries Sir Richard, walking to meet him. “Here — here I am, Levi, utterly ruined. There isn’t a soul I dare tell how I am beset, or anything to, but you. Do, for God’s sake take pity on me, and think of something! my brain’s quite gone — you’re such a clever fellow” (he is dragging Levi by the arm all this time towards the candles): “do now, you’re sure to see some way out. It is a matter of honour; I only want time. If I could only find my Uncle David: think of his selfishness — good heaven! was there ever man so treated? and there’s the bank letter — there — on the table; you see it — dunning me, the ungrateful harpies, for the trifle — what is it? — three hundred and something, I overdrew; and that blackguard tallow-chandler has been three times to my house in town, for payment to-day, and it’s more than I thought — near four thousand, he says — the scoundrel! It’s just the same to him two months hence; he’s full of money, the beast — a fellow like that — it’s delight to him to get hold of a gentleman, and he won’t take a bill — the lying rascal! He is pressed for cash just now — a pug-faced villain with three hundred thousand pounds! Those scoundrels! I mean the people, whatever they are, that lent me the money; it turns out it was all but at sight, and they were with my attorney to-day, and they won’t wait. I wish I was shot; I envy the dead dogs rolling in the Thames! By heaven; Levi, I’ll say you’re the best friend man ever had on earth, I will, if you manage something! I’ll never forget it to you; I’ll have it in my power, yet! no one ever said I was ungrateful; I swear I’ll be the making of you! Do, Levi, think; you’re accustomed to — to emergency, and unless you will, I’m utterly ruined — ruined, by heaven, before I have time to think!”
The Jew listened to all this with his hands in his pockets, leaning back in his chair, with his big eyes staring on the wild face of the baronet, and his heavy mouth hanging. He was trying to reduce his countenance to vacancy.
“What about them shettlements, Sir Richard — a nishe young lady with a ha-a-tful o’ money?” insinuated Levi.
“I’ve been thinking over that, but it wouldn’t do, with my affairs in this state, it would not be honourable or straight. Put that quite aside.”
Mr. Levi gaped at him for a moment solemnly, and turned suddenly, and, brute as he was, spit on the Turkey carpet. He was not, as you perceive, ceremonious; but he could not allow the baronet to see the laughter that without notice caught him for a moment, and could think of no better way to account for his turning away his head.
“That’sh wery honourable indeed,” said the Jew, more solemn than ever; “and if you can’t play in that direction, I’m afraid you’re in queer shtreet.”
The baronet was standing before Levi, and at these words from that dirty little oracle, a terrible chill stole up from his feet to the crown of his head. Like a frozen man he stood there, and the Jew saw that his very lips were white. Sir Richard feels, for the first time, actually, that he is ruined.
The young man tries to speak, twice. The big eyes of the Jew are staring up at the contortion. Sir Richard can see nothing but those two big fiery eyes; he turns quickly away and walks to the end of the room.
“There’s just one fiddlestring left to play on,” muses the Jew.
“For God’s sake!” exclaims Sir Richard, turning about, in a voice you would not have known, and for fully a minute the room was so silent you could scarcely have believed that two men were breathing in it.
“Shir Richard, will you be so good as to come nearer a bit? There, that’sh the cheeshe. I brought thish ‘ere thing.”
It is a square parchment with a good deal of printed matter, and blanks, written in, and a law stamp fixed with an awful regularity, at the corner.
“Casht your eye over it,” says Levi, coaxingly, as he pushes it over the table to the young gentleman, who is sitting now at the other side.
The young man looks at it, reads it, but just then, if it had been a page of “Robinson Crusoe,” he could not have understood it.
“I’m not quite myself, I can’t follow it; too much to think of. What is it?”
“A bond and warrant to confess judgment.”
“What is it for?”
“Ten thoushand poundsh.”
“Sign it, shall I? Can you do anything with it?”
“Don’t raishe your voishe, but lishten. Your friend” — and at the phrase Mr. Levi winked mysteriously— “has enough to do it twishe over; and upon my shoul, I’ll shwear on the book, azh I hope to be shaved, it will never shee the light; he’ll never raishe a pig on it, sho’ ‘elp me, nor let it out of hish ‘ands, till he givesh it back to you. He can’t ma-ake no ushe of it; I knowshe him well, and he’ll pay you the ten thoushand tomorrow morning, and he wantsh to shake handsh with you, and make himself known to you, and talk a bit.”
“But — but my signature wouldn’t satisfy him,” began Sir Richard bewildered.
“Oh! no — no, no?” murmured Mr. Levi, fiddling with the corner of the bank’s reminder which lay on the table.
“Mr. Longcluse won’t sign it,” said Sir Richard.
Mr. Levi threw himself back in his chair, and looked with a roguish expression still upon the table, and gave the corner of the note a little fillip.
“Well,” said Levi, after both had been some time silent, “it ain’t much, only to write his name on the penshil line, there, you see, and there — he shouldn’t make no bonesh about it. Why, it’s done every day. Do you think I’d help in a thing of the short if there was any danger? The Sheneral’s come to town, is he? What are you afraid of? Don’t you be a shild — ba-ah!”
All this Mr. Levi said so low that it was as if he were whispering to the table, and he kept looking down as he put the parchment over to Sir Richard, who took it in his hand, and the bond trembled so much that he set it down again.
“Leave it with me,” he said faintly.
Levi got up with an unusual hectic in each cheek, and his eyes very brilliant.
“I’ll meet you what time you shay tonight; you had besht take a little time. It’sh ten now. Three hoursh will do it. I’ll go on to my offish by one o’clock, and you come any time from one to two.”
Sir Richard was trembling.
“Between one and two, mind. Hang it! Shir Richard, don’t you be a fool about nothing,” whispers the Jew, as black as thunder.
He is fumbling in his breastpocket, and pulling out a sheaf of letters; he selects one, which he throws upon the parchment that lies open on the table.
“That’sh the note you forgot in my offish yeshterday, with hish name shined to it. There, now you have everything.”
Without any form of valediction, the Jew had left the room. Sir Richard sits with his teeth set, and a strange frown upon his face, scarcely breathing. He hears the cab drive away. Before him on the table lie the papers.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
SIR RICHARD’S RESOLUTION.
Two hours had passed, and more, of solitude. With a candle in his hand, and his hat and greatcoat on, Sir Richard Arden came out into the hall. His trap awaited him at the door.
In the interval of his solitude, something incredible has happened to him. It is over. A spectral secret accompanies him henceforward. A devil sits in his pocket, in that parchment. He dares not think of himself. Something sufficient to shake the world of London, and set all English Christian tongues throughout the earth wagging on one theme, has happened.
Does he repent? One thing is certain: he dares not falter. Something within him once or twice commanded him to throw his crime into the fire, while yet it is obliterable. But what then? what of tomorrow? Into that sheer black sea of ruin, that reels and yawns as deep as eye can fathom beneath him, he must dive and see the light no more. Better his chance.
He won’t think of what he has done, of what he is going to do. He suspects his courage: he dares not tempt his cowardice. Braver, perhaps, it would have been to meet the worst at once. But surely, according to the theory of chances, we have played the true game. Is not a little time gained, everything? Are we not in friendly hands? Has not that little scoundrel committed himself, by an all but actual participation in the affair? It can never come to that. “I have only to confess, and throw myself at Uncle David’s feet, and the one dangerous debt would instantly be brought up and cancelled.”
These thoughts came vaguely, and on his heart lay an all but insupportable load. The sight of the staircase reminded him that Alice must long since have gone to her room. He yearned to see her and say goodnight. It was the last farewell that the brother she had known from her childhood till now should ever speak or look. That brother was to die tonight, and a spirit of guilt to come in his stead.
He taps lightly at her door. She is asleep. He opens it, and dimly sees her innocent head upon the pillow. If his shadow were cast upon her dream, what an image would she have seen looking in at the door! A sudden horror seizes him — he draws back and closes the door; on the lobby he pauses. It was a last moment of grace. He stole down the stairs, mounted his taxcart, took the reins from his servant in silence, and drove swiftly into town. In Parliament Street, near the corner of the street leading to Levi’s office, they passed a policeman, lounging on the flagway. Richard Arden is in a strangely nervous state; he fancies he will stop and question him, and he touches the horse with the whip to get quickly by.
In his breastpocket he carried his ghastly secret. A pretty business if he happened to be thrown out, and a policeman should make an inventory of his papers, as he lay insensible in an hospital — a pleasant thing if he were robbed in these villanous streets, and the bond advertised, for a reward, by a pretended finder. A nice thing, good heaven! if it should wriggle and slip its way out of his pocket, in the jolting and tremble of the drive, and fall into London hands, either rascally or severe. He pulled up, and gave the reins to the servant, and felt, however gratefully, with his fingers, the crisp crumple of the parchment under the cloth! Did his servant look at him oddly as he gave him the reins? Not he; but Sir Richard began to suspect him and everything. He made him stop near the angle of the street, and there he got down, telling him rather savagely — for his fancied look was still in the baronet’s brain — not to move an inch from that spot.
It was halfpast one as his steps echoed down the street in which Mr. Levi had his office. There was a figure leaning with its back in the recess of Levi’s door, smoking. Sir Richard’s temper was growing exasperated.
It was Levi himself. Upstairs they stumble in the dark. Mr. Levi has not said a word. He is not treating his visitor with much ceremony. He lets himself into his office, secured with a heavy iron bar, and a lock that makes a great clang, and proceeds to light a candle. The flame expands and the light shows well-barred shutters, and the familiar objects.
When Mr. Levi had lighted a second candle, he fixed his great black eyes on the young baronet, who glances over his shoulder at the door, but the Jew has secured it. Their eyes meet for a moment, and Sir Richard places his hand nervously in his breastpocket and takes out the parchment. Levi nods and extends his hand. Each now holds it by a corner, and as Sir Richard lets it go hesitatingly, he says faintly —
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“Levi, you wouldn’t — you could not run any risk with that?”
Levi stands by his great iron safe, with the big key in his hand. He nods in reply, and locking up the document, he knocks his knuckles on the iron door, with a long and solemn wink.
“Sha-afe! — that’sh the word,” says he, and then he drops the keys into his pocket again.
There was a silence of a minute or more. A spell was stealing over them; an influence was in the room. Each eyed the other, shrinkingly, as a man might eye an assassin. The Jew knew that there was danger in that silence; and yet he could not break it. He could not disturb the influence acting on Richard Arden’s mind. It was his good angel’s last pleading, before the long farewell.
In a dreadful whisper Richard Arden speaks: —
“Give me that parchment back,” says he.
Satan finds his tongue again.
“Give it back?” repeats Levi, and a pause ensues. “Of course I’ll give it back; and I wash my hands of it and you, and you’re throwing away ten thoushand poundsh for nothing.”
Levi was taking out his keys as he spoke, and as he fumbled them over one by one, he said —
“You’ll want a lawyer in the Insholwent Court, and you’d find Mishter Sholomonsh azh shatisfactory a shengleman azh any in London. He’sh an auctioneer, too; and there’sh no good in your meetin’ that friendly cove here tomorrow, for he’sh one o’ them honourable chaps, and he’ll never look at you after your schedule’s lodged, and the shooner that’sh done the better; and them women we was courting, won’t they laugh!”
Hereupon, with great alacrity, Mr. Levi began to apply the key to the lock.
“Don’t mind. Keep it; and mind, you d —— d little swindler, so sure as you stand there, if you play me a trick, I’ll blow your brains out, if it were in the police-office!”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 555
