Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  ‘Jupiter!’ he muttered at last, ‘what a — a Pactolus I have missed! Three months ago, two months ago, she would have gone on her knees to marry me! And with all that money — Lord! I would have died Bishop of Oxford. It is monstrous! Positively, I am fit to kill myself when I think of it!’

  He paused awhile to roll the morsel on the palate of his imagination, and found that the pathos of it almost moved him to tears. But before long he fell from the clouds to more practical matters. The secret was his, but what was he going to do with it? Where make his market of it? One by one he considered all the persons concerned. To begin with, there was her ladyship. But the knowledge did not greatly affect the viscountess, and he did not trust her. He dismissed the thought of applying to her. It was the same with Dunborough; money or no money was all one to him, he would take the girl if he could get her. He was dismissed as equally hopeless. Soane came next; but Sir George either knew the secret, or must know it soon; and though his was a case the tutor pondered long, he discerned no profit he could claim from him. Moreover, he had not much stomach for driving a bargain with the baronet; so in the end Sir George too was set aside.

  There remained only the Buona Figliuola — the girl herself. ‘I might pay my court to her,’ the tutor thought, ‘but she would have a spite against me for last night’s work, and I doubt I could not do much. To be sure, I might put her on her guard against Dunborough, and trust to her gratitude; but it is ten to one she would not believe me. Or I could let him play his trick — if he is fool enough to put his neck in a noose — and step in and save her at the last moment. Ah!’ Mr. Thomasson continued, looking up to the ceiling in a flabby ecstasy of appreciation, ‘If I had the courage! That were a game to play indeed, Frederick Thomasson!’

  It was, but it was hazardous; and the schemer rose and walked the floor, striving to discover a safer mode of founding his claim. He found none, however; and presently, with a wry face, he took out a letter which he had received on the eve of his departure from Oxford — a letter from a dun, threatening process and arrest. The sum was one which a year’s stipend of a fat living would discharge; and until the receipt of the letter the tutor, long familiar with embarrassment, had taken the matter lightly. But the letter was to the point, and meant business — a spunging house and the Fleet; and with the cold shade of the Rules in immediate prospect, Mr. Thomasson saw himself at his wits’ end. He thought and thought, and presently despair bred in him a bastard courage.

  Buoyed up by this he tried to picture the scene; the lonely road, the carriage, the shrieking girl, the ruffians looking fearfully up and down as they strove to silence her; and himself running to the rescue; as Mr. Burchell ran with the big stick, in Mr. Goldsmith’s novel, which he had read a few months before. Then the struggle. He saw himself knocked — well, pushed down; after all, with care, he might play a fine part without much risk. The men might fly either at sight of him, or when he drew nearer and added his shouts to the girl’s cries; or — or some one else might come up, by chance or summoned by the uproar! In a minute it would be over; in a minute — and what a rich reward he might reap.

  Nevertheless he did not feel sure he would be able to do it. His heart thumped, and his smile grew sickly, and he passed his tongue again and again over his dry lips, as he thought of the venture. But do it or not when the time came, he would at least give himself the chance. He would attend the girl wherever she went, dog her, watch her, hang on her skirts; so, if the thing happened, he would be at hand, and if he had the courage, would save her.

  ‘It should — it should stand me in a thousand!’ he muttered, wiping his damp brow, ‘and that would put me on my legs.’

  He put her gratitude at that; and it was a great sum, a rich bribe. He thought of the money lovingly, and of the feat with trembling, and took his hat and unlocked his door and went downstairs. He spied about him cautiously until he learned that Mr. Dunborough had departed; then he went boldly to the stables, and inquired and found that the gentleman had started for Bristol in a post-chaise. ‘In a middling black temper,’ the ostler added, ‘saving your reverence’s presence.’

  That ascertained, the tutor needed no more. He knew that Dunborough, on his way to foreign service, had lain ten days in Bristol, whistling for a wind; that he had landed there also on his return, and made — on his own authority — some queer friends there. Bristol, too, was the port for the plantations; a slave-mart under the rose, with the roughest of all the English seatown populations. There were houses at Bristol where crimping was the least of the crimes committed; in the docks, where the great ships, laden with sugar and tobacco, sailed in and out in their seasons, lay sloops and skippers, ready to carry all comers, criminal and victim alike, beyond the reach of the law. The very name gave Mr. Thomasson pause; he could have done with Gretna — which Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act had lately raised to importance — or Berwick, or Harwich, or Dover. But Bristol had a grisly sound. From Marlborough it lay no more than forty miles away by the Chippenham and Marshfield road; a post-chaise and four stout horses might cover the distance in four hours.

  He felt, as he sneaked into the house, that the die was cast. The other intended to do it then. And that meant— ‘Oh, Lord,’ he muttered, wiping his brow, ‘I shall never dare! If he is there himself, I shall never dare!’ As he crawled upstairs he went hot one moment and shivered the next; and did not know whether he was glad or sorry that the chance would be his to take.

  Fortunately, on reaching the first floor he remembered that Lady Dunborough had requested him to convey her compliments to Dr. Addington, with an inquiry how Lord Chatham did. The tutor felt that a commonplace interview of this kind would settle his nerves; and having learned the position of Dr. Addington’s apartments, he found his way down the snug passage of which we know and knocked at the door. A voice, disagreeably raised, was speaking on the other side of the door, but paused at the sound of his knock. Some one said ‘Come in,’ and he entered.

  He found Dr. Addington standing on the hearth, stiff as a poker, and swelling with dignity. Facing him stood Mr. Fishwick. The attorney, flustered and excited, cast a look at Mr. Thomasson as if his entrance were an added grievance; but that done, went on with his complaint.

  ‘I tell you, sir,’ he said, ‘I do not understand this. His lordship was able to travel yesterday, and last evening he was well enough to see Sir George Soane.’

  ‘He did not see him,’ the physician answered stiffly. There is no class which extends less indulgence to another than the higher grade of professional men to the lower grade. While to Sir George Mr. Fishwick was an odd little man, comic, and not altogether inestimable, to Dr. Addington he was an anathema.

  ‘I said only, sir, that he was well enough to see him,’ the lawyer retorted querulously. ‘Be that as it may, his lordship was not seriously ill yesterday. To-day I have business of the utmost importance with him, and am willing to wait upon him at any hour. Nevertheless you tell me that I cannot see him to-day, nor to-morrow—’

  ‘Nor in all probability the next day,’ the doctor answered grimly.

  Mr. Fishwick’s voice rose almost to a shriek. ‘Nor the next day?’ he cried.

  ‘No, nor the next day, so far as I can judge.’

  ‘But I must see him! I tell you, sir, I must see him,’ the lawyer ejaculated. ‘I have the most important business with him!’

  ‘The most important?’

  ‘The most important!’

  ‘My dear sir,’ Dr. Addington said, raising his hand and clearly near the end of his patience, ‘my answer is that you shall see him — when he is well enough to be seen, and chooses to see you, and not before! For myself, whether you see him now or never see him, is no business of mine. But it is my business to be sure that his lordship does not risk a life which is of inestimable value to his country.’

  ‘But — but yesterday he was well enough to travel!’ murmured the lawyer, somewhat awed. ‘I — I do not like this!’

  The doctor looked
at the door.

  ‘I — I believe I am being kept from his lordship!’ Mr. Fishwick persisted, stuttering nervously. ‘And there are people whose interest it is to keep me from his lordship. I warn you, sir, that if anything happens in the meantime—’

  The doctor rang the bell.

  ‘I shall hold you responsible!’ Mr. Fishwick cried passionately. ‘I consider this a most mysterious illness. I repeat, I—’

  But apparently that was the last straw. ‘Mysterious?’ the doctor cried, his face purple with indignation. ‘Leave the room, sir! You are not sane, sir! By God, you ought to be shut up, sir! You ought not to be allowed to go about. Do you think that you are the only person who wants to see His Majesty’s Minister? Here is a courier come to-day from His Grace the Duke of Grafton, and to-morrow there will be a score, and a king’s messenger from His Majesty among them — and all this trouble is given by a miserable, little, paltry, petti — Begone, sir, before I say too much!’ he continued trembling with anger. And then to the servant, ‘John, the door! the door! And see that this person does not trouble me again. Be good enough to communicate in writing, sir, if you have anything to say.’

  With which poor Mr. Fishwick was hustled out, protesting but not convinced. It is seldom the better side of human nature that lawyers see; nor is an attorney’s office, or a barrister’s chamber, the soil in which a luxuriant crop of confidence is grown. In common with many persons of warm feelings, but narrow education, Mr. Fishwick was ready to believe on the smallest evidence — or on no evidence at all — that the rich and powerful were leagued against his client; that justice, if he were not very sharp, would be denied him; that the heavy purse had a knack of outweighing the righteous cause, even in England and in the eighteenth century. And the fact that all his hopes were staked on this case, that all his resources were embarked in it, that it had fallen, as it were, from heaven into his hands — wherefore the greater the pity if things went amiss — rendered him peculiarly captious and impracticable. After this every day, nay, every hour, that passed without bringing him to Lord Chatham’s presence augmented his suspense and doubled his anxiety. To be put off, not one day, but two days, three days — what might not happen in three days! — was a thing intolerable, insufferable; a thing to bring the heavens down in pity on his head! What wonder if he rebelled hourly; and being routed, as we have seen him routed, muttered dark hints in Julia’s ear, and, snubbed in that quarter also, had no resource but to shut himself up in his sleeping-place, and there brood miserably over his suspicions and surmises?

  Even when the lapse of twenty-four hours brought the swarm of couriers, messengers, and expresses which Dr. Addington had foretold; when the High Street of Marlborough — a name henceforth written on the page of history — became but a slowly moving line of coaches and chariots bearing the select of the county to wait on the great Minister; when the little town itself began to throb with unusual life, and to take on airs of fashion, by reason of the crowd that lay in it; when the Duke of Grafton himself was reported to be but a stage distant, and there detained by the Earl’s express refusal to see him; when the very KING, it was rumoured, was coming on the same business; when, in a word, it became evident that the eyes of half England were turned to the Castle Inn at Marlborough, where England’s great statesman lay helpless, and gave no sign, though the wheels of state creaked and all but stood still — even then Mr. Fishwick refused to be satisfied, declined to be comforted. In place of viewing this stir and bustle, this coming and going as a perfect confirmation of Dr. Addington’s statement, and a proof of his integrity, he looked askance at it. He saw in it a demonstration of the powers ranked against him and the principalities he had to combat; he felt, in face of it, how weak, how poor, how insignificant he was; and at one time despaired, and at another was in a frenzy, at one time wearied Julia with prophecies of treachery, at another poured his forebodings into the more sympathetic bosom of the elder woman. The reader may laugh; but if he has ever staked his all on a cast, if he has taken up a hand of twelve trumps, only to hear the ominous word ‘misdeal!’ he will find something in Mr. Fishwick’s attitude neither unnatural nor blameworthy.

  CHAPTER XV

  AMORIS INTEGRATIO

  During the early days of the Minister’s illness, when, as we have seen, all the political world of England were turning their coaches and six towards the Castle Inn, it came to be the custom for Julia to go every morning to the little bridge over the Kennet, thence to watch the panorama of departures and arrivals; and for Sir George to join her there without excuse or explanation, and as if, indeed, nothing in the world were more natural. As the Earl’s illness continued to detain all who desired to see him — from the Duke of Grafton’s parliamentary secretary to the humblest aspirant to a tide-waitership — Soane was not the only one who had time on his hands and sought to while it away in the company of the fair. The shades of Preshute churchyard, which lies in the bosom of the trees, not three bowshots from the Castle Inn and hard by the Kennet, formed the chosen haunt of one couple. A second pair favoured a seat situate on the west side of the Castle Mound, and well protected by shrubs from the gaze of the vulgar. And there were others.

  These Corydons, however, were at ease; they basked free from care in the smiles of their Celias. But Soane, in his philandering, had to do with black care that would be ever at his elbow; black care, that always when he was not with Julia, and sometimes while he talked to her, would jog his thoughts, and draw a veil before the future. The prospect of losing Estcombe, of seeing the family Lares broken and cast out, and the family stem, tender and young, yet not ungracious, snapped off short, wrung a heart that belied his cold exterior. Moreover, when all these had been sacrificed, he was his own judge how far he could without means pursue the life which he was living. Suspense, anxiety, sordid calculation were ever twitching his sleeve, and would have his attention. Was the claim a valid claim, and must it prevail? If it prevailed, how was he to live; and where, and on what? Would the Minister grant his suit for a place or a pension? Should he prefer that suit, or might he still by one deep night and one great hand at hazard win back the thirty thousand guineas he had lost in five years?

  HE WOULD FALL SILENT IN JULIA’S COMPANY.

  Such questions, troubling him whether he would or no, and forcing themselves on his attention when they were least welcome, ruffled at last the outward composure on which as a man of fashion he plumed himself. He would fall silent in Julia’s company, and turning his eyes from her, in unworthy forgetfulness, would trace patterns in the dust with his cane, or stare by the minute together at the quiet stream that moved sluggishly beneath them.

  On these occasions she made no attempt to rouse him. But when he again awoke to the world, to the coach passing in its cloud of dust, or the gaping urchin, or the clang of the distant dinner-bell, he would find her considering him with an enigmatical smile, that lay in the region between amusement and pity; her shapely chin resting on her hand, and the lace falling from the whitest wrist in the world. One day the smile lasted so long, was so strange and dubious, and so full of a weird intelligence, that it chilled him; it crept to his bones, disconcerted him, and set him wondering. The uneasy questions that had haunted him at the first, recurred. Why was this girl so facile, who had seemed so proud, and whose full lips curved so naturally? Was she really won, or was she with some hidden motive only playing with him? The notion was not flattering to a fine gentleman’s vanity; and in any other case he would have given himself credit for conquest. But he had discovered that this girl was not as other girls; and then there was that puzzling smile. He had surprised it half a dozen times before.

  ‘What is it?’ he said abruptly, holding her eyes with his. This time he was determined to clear up the matter.

  ‘What?’ she asked in apparent innocence. But she coloured, and he saw that she understood.

  ‘What does your smile mean, Pulcherrima?’

  ‘Only — that I was reading your thoughts, Sir George,’
she answered. ‘And they were not of me.’

  ‘Impossible!’ he said. I vow, Julia—’

  ‘Don’t vow,’ she answered quickly, ‘or when you vow — some other time — I may not be able to believe you! You were not thinking of me, Sir George, but of your home, and the avenue of which you told me, and the elms in which the rooks lived, and the river in which you used to fish. You were wondering to whom they would go, and who would possess them, and who would be born in the room in which you were born, and who would die in the room in which your father died.’

  ‘You are a witch!’ he said, a spasm of pain crossing his face.

  ‘Thank you,’ she answered, looking at him over her fan. ‘Last time you said, “D — n the girl!” It is clear I am improving your manners, Sir George. You are now so polite, that presently you will consult me.’

  So she could read his very thoughts! Could set him on the rack! Could perceive when pain and not irritation underlay the oath or the compliment. He was always discovering something new in her; something that piqued his curiosity, and kept him amused. ‘Suppose I consult you now?’ he said.

  She swung her fan to and fro, playing with it childishly, looking at the light through it, and again dropping it until it hung from her wrist by a ribbon. ‘As your highness pleases,’ she said at last. ‘Only I warn you, that I am not the Bottle Conjuror.’

  ‘No, for you are here, and he was not there,’ Sir George answered, affecting to speak in jest. ‘But tell me; what shall I do in this case? A claim is made against me.’

  ‘It’s the bomb,’ she said, ‘that burst, Sir George, is it not?’

  ‘The same. The point is, shall I resist the claim, or shall I yield to it? What do you say, ma’am?’