Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  “D — n their impudence!” Lord Audley exclaimed. And after that he gave no further heed to the postscript. As long as the issue was certain, the election was Mottisfont’s and Stubbs’s affair. As for Basset, the more money he chose to waste the better.

  But John Audley’s death was news — it was great news! So he was gone at last — the man whom he had always regarded as a menace! Whom he had feared, whose very name had rung mischief in his ears, by whom, during many a sleepless night, he had seen himself ousted from all that he had gained from title, income, lands, position! He was gone at last; and gone with him were the menace, the danger, the night alarms, the whole pile of gloomy fancies which apprehension had built up!

  The relief was immense. Audley read the letter twice, and it seemed to him that a weight was lifted from him. John Audley was dead. In his dressing-gown and smoking-cap my lord paced his rooms at the Albany and said again and again, “He’s dead! By gad, he’s dead!” Later, he could not refrain from the thought that if the death had taken place a few weeks earlier, in that first attack, he would have been under no temptation to make himself safe. As it was — but he did not pursue the thought. He only reflected that he had followed love handsomely!

  A day later a third letter came from Stubbs, and one from Mary. The tidings they brought were such that my lord’s face fell as he read them, and he swore more than once over them. John Audley, the lawyer wrote, had been found dead in the Great House. He had been found lying on the stairs, a lantern beside him. Stubbs had visited the house the moment the facts became known. He had examined the muniment room and found part of the wall broken down, and in the room two boxes of papers which had been taken from a recess which the breach had disclosed. One of the boxes had been broken open. At present Stubbs could only say that the papers had been disturbed, he could not say whether any were missing. He begged his lordship — he was much disturbed, it was clear — to come down as quickly as possible. In the meantime, he would go through the papers and prepare a report. They appeared to be family documents, old, and not hitherto known to his lordship’s advisers.

  Audley was still swearing, when his man came in. “Will you wear the black velvet vest, my lord?” he asked, “or the flowered satin?”

  “Go to the devil!” his master cried — so furiously that the man fled without more.

  When he was gone Audley read the letter again, and came to the conclusion that in making himself safe he had builded more wisely than he knew. For who could say what John Audley had found? Or who, through those papers, had a hold on him? He remembered the manservant’s visit, and the thing looked black. Very black. Alive or dead, John Audley threatened him.

  Then he felt bitterly angry with Stubbs. There had been the most shocking carelessness. Had he not himself pointed out what was going on? Had he not put it to Stubbs that the place should be guarded? But the lawyer, stubborn in his belief that there were no papers there, had done nothing. Nothing! And this had come of it! This which might spell ruin!

  Or, no. Stubbs had indeed done his best to ruin him, but he had saved himself. He turned with relief to Mary’s letter.

  It was written sadly, and it was rather cold. He noticed this, but her tone did not alarm him, because he set it down to the reserve of his own letters.

  He took care to answer this letter, however, by that day’s post, and he wrote more affectionately than before — as if her trouble had broken down a reserve natural to him. He wrote with tact, too. He could not attend the funeral; the dead man’s feelings towards him forbade that he should. But his agent would attend, and his carriage and servants. When he had written the letter he was satisfied with it: more than satisfied when he had added a phrase implying that their happiness would not long be postponed.

  After he had posted the letter he wondered if she would expect him to come to her. It was a lonely house and with death in it — but no, in the circumstances it was not possible. He would go down to The Butterflies next day. That would be the most that could be expected of him. He would be at hand if she needed anything.

  But when the next day came he did not go. A letter from a man belonging to the inner circle of politics reached him. The great man, who had been and might be again in the Cabinet, suggested a meeting. Nothing came of the meeting — it was one of those will-of-the-wisps that draw the unwary on until they find themselves committed. But it kept Audley in London, and it was not until the evening of Monday, the day of the funeral, that, chilled and out of temper, after posting the last stage from Stafford, he reached his quarters at The Butterflies, and gave short answers to Mrs. Jenkinson’s inquiries after his health.

  “Poor dear young man!” she said, when she rejoined her sisters. “He has a kind heart and he feels it. Mr. John was Mr. John, and odd, very odd. But still he was an Audley!”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THE AUDLEY BIBLE

  Angry with Stubbs as he was — and with some reason — Lord Audley was not the man to bite off his nose to spite his face. He pondered long what he would say to him, and more than once he rehearsed the scene, toning down this phrase and pruning that. For he knew that after all Stubbs was a good agent. He was honest, he thought much and made much of the property, and nothing would be gained by changing him. Then his influence in the borough was such that even if my lord quarrelled with him, Mottisfont would hardly venture to discard him.

  For these reasons Audley had no mind to break with his agent. But he did wish to punish him. He did wish to make his displeasure felt. And he wished this the more because he began to suspect that if Stubbs had been less bigoted, he might have carried the borough the way he wished — the way that would pay him best.

  Stubbs on his side foresaw an unpleasant quarter of an hour. He had been too easy. He had paid too little heed to John Audley’s trespasses, and had let things pass that he should have stopped. Then, too, he had been over-positive that there were no more documents at the Great House. Evil had not come of this, but it might have; and he made up his mind to hear some hard words.

  But when he obeyed my lord’s summons his reception tried his patience. A bright fire burned in the grate, half a dozen wax candles shed a softened light on the room. The wine stood at Audley’s elbow, and his glass was half full. But he did not give Stubbs even two fingers, nor did he ask him to take wine. And his tone was colder than Stubbs had ever known it. He made it plain that he was receiving a servant, and a servant with whom he was displeased.

  Still he was Lord Audley, something of divine right survived in him, and Stubbs knew that he had been himself in the wrong. He took the bull by the horns. “You are displeased, my lord,” he said, as he took the seat to which the other pointed. “And I admit with some cause. I have been mistaken and, perhaps, a little remiss! But it is the exception, and it will be a lesson to me. I am sorry, my lord,” he added frankly. “I can say no more than that.”

  “And much good that will do us,” my lord growled, “in certain events, Mr. Stubbs!”

  “At any rate it will be a sharp lesson to me,” Stubbs replied. “It has cost Mr. Audley his life.”

  “He had no right to be there!”

  “No, my lord, he had no right to be there. But he would not have been there if I had seen that the place was properly secured. I take all the blame.”

  “Unfortunately,” the other flung at him contemptuously, “you cannot pay the penalty; that may fall upon me. Anyway, it was a d — d silly thing, Mr. Stubbs, to leave the place open, and you see what has come of it.”

  “I cannot deny it, my lord,” Stubbs said patiently. “But I hope that nothing will come of it. I will tell your lordship first what my own observations were. I made a careful examination of the two chests of papers and I came to the conclusion that Mr. Audley had done little more than open the first when he was taken ill. One chest showed some disturbance. The upper layer had been taken out and replaced. The other box had not been opened.”

  “What if he found what he wanted and searched no further?�
�� Audley asked grimly. “But the point of the matter does not lie there. It lies in another direction, as I should have thought any lawyer would see.”

  “My lord?”

  “Who was with him?” Lord Audley rapped the table with his fingers. “That’s the point, sir! Who was with him?”

  “I think I have ascertained that,” Stubbs replied, less put out than his employer expected. “I have little doubt that his man-servant, a man called Toft, was with him.”

  “Ha!” the other exclaimed, “I expected that!”

  Stubbs raised his eyebrows. “You know him, my lord?”

  “I know him for a d — d blackmailing villain!” Audley broke out. Then he remembered himself. He had not told Stubbs of the blackmailing. And, after all, what did it matter? He had made himself safe. Whatever papers he had found, John Audley was dead, and John Audley’s heiress was going to be his wife! The danger to him was naught, and the blackmailer was already disarmed. Still he was not going to spare Stubbs by telling him that. Instead, “What did the boxes contain?” he asked ungraciously.

  “Nothing of any value when I examined them, my lord. Old surrenders, fines, and recoveries with some ancient terriers. I could find no document among them that related to the title.”

  “That may be,” Audley retorted. “But John Audley expected to find something that related to the title! He knew more than we knew. He knew that those boxes existed, and he knew what he expected to find in them.”

  “No doubt. And if your lordship had given me a little more time I should have explained before this that he was disappointed in his expectation; nay, more, that it was that disappointment — as I have little doubt — that caused his collapse and death.”

  “How the devil do you know that?”

  “If your lordship will have patience I will explain,” Stubbs said, a gleam of malice in his eyes. He rose from his seat and took from a chair beside the door a parcel which he had laid there on his entrance. “I have here that which he found, and that which I don’t doubt caused his death.”

  “The deuce you have!” Audley cried, rising to his feet in his surprise. And he watched with all his eyes while the lawyer slowly untied the tape and spread wide the wrappers. The action disclosed a thick quarto volume bound in blue leather, sprinkled on the sides with silver butterflies, and stamped with the arms of Audley. “Good G — d!” Audley continued, “the Family Bible!”

  “Yes, the Family Bible,” the lawyer answered, gazing at it complacently, “about which there was so much talk at the opening of the suit. It was identified by a score of references, called for by both sides, sought for high and low, and never produced!”

  “And here it is!”

  “Here it is. Apparently at some time or other it went out of fashion, was laid aside and lost sight of, and eventually bricked up with a mass of old and valueless papers.”

  Audley steadied his voice with difficulty. “And what is its effect?” he asked.

  “Its effect, my lord, is to corroborate our case in every particular,” the lawyer answered proudly. “Its entries form a history of the family for a long period, and amongst them is an entry of the marriage of Peter Paravicini Audley on the date alleged by us; an entry made in the handwriting of his father, and one of eleven made by the same hand. This entry agrees in every particular with the suspected statement in the register which we support, and fully bears out our case.”

  “And John Audley found that?” my lord cried, after a moment of pregnant silence. He had regained his composure. His eyes were shining.

  “Yes, and it killed him,” Stubbs said gravely. “Doubtless he came on it at the moment when he thought success was within his grasp, and the shock was too much for him.”

  “Good Lord! Good Lord! And how did you get it?”

  “From Mr. Basset.”

  “Basset?”

  “Who obtained it, I have no doubt, from the man, Toft, either by pressure or purchase.”

  “The rascal! The d — d rascal! He ought to be prosecuted!”

  “Possibly,” the lawyer agreed. “But he was only an accomplice, and we could not prosecute him without involving others; without bringing Mr. John’s name into it — and he is dead. As a fact, I have passed my word to Mr. Basset that no steps should be taken against him, and I think your lordship will agree with me that I could not do otherwise.”

  “Still — the man ought to be punished!”

  “He ought, but if any one has paid for his silence or for this book, it is not we.”

  After that there was a little more talk about the Bible, which my lord examined with curiosity, about the singularity of its discovery, about the handwriting of the entries, which the lawyer said he could himself prove. Stubbs was made free of the decanter, and of everything but my lord’s mind. For Audley said nothing of his engagement to Mary — the moment was hardly opportune; and nothing — it was too late in the day — of Toft’s former exploit. He stood awhile absorbed and dreaming, staring through the haze of the candles. Here at last was final and complete relief. No more fears, no more calculations. Here was an end at last of the feeling that there was a mine under him. Traditions, when they are bred in the bone, die slowly, and many a time he had been hard put to it to resist the belief, so long whispered, that his branch was illegitimate. At last the tradition was dead. There was no more need to play for safety. What he had he had, and no one could take it from him.

  And presently the talk passed to the election.

  “There’s no doubt,” Stubbs said, “that Mr. Basset is a stronger candidate than either side expected.”

  “But he’s no politician! He has no experience!”

  The lawyer sat forward, with his legs apart and a hand on either knee. “No,” he said. “But the truth is, though it is beyond me how a gentleman of his birth can be so misled, he believes what he says — and it goes down!”

  “Is he a speaker?”

  “He is and he isn’t! I slipped in myself one night at the back of one of the new-fangled meetings his precious League has started. I wanted to see, my lord, if any of our people were there. I heard him for ten minutes, and at the start he was so jumpy I thought that he would break down. But when he got going — well, I saw how it was and what took the people. He believes what he says, and he says it plain. The way he painted Peel giving up everything, sacrificing himself, sacrificing his party, sacrificing his reputation, sacrificing all to do what he thought was right — the devil himself wouldn’t have known his own!”

  “He almost converted you?”

  The lawyer laughed disdainfully. “Not a jot!” he said. “But I saw that he would convert some. Not many,” Stubbs continued complacently. “There’s some that mean to, but will think better of it at the last. And some would but daren’t! Two or three may. Still, he’s such a candidate as we’ve not had against us before, my lord. And with cheap bread and the preachings of this plaguy League — I shall be glad when it is over.”

  Audley rose and poked the fire. “You’re not going to tell me,” he said, in a voice that was unnaturally even, “that he’s going to beat us? You’re not going, after all the assurances you’ve given me — —”

  “God forbid,” Stubbs replied. “No, no, my lord! Mr. Mottisfont will hold the seat! I mean only that it will be a nearer thing — a nearer thing than it has been.”

  He had no idea that his patron was fighting a new spasm of anger; that the thought that he might, after all, have dealt with Sir Robert, the thought that he might, after all, have bargained with the party in power, was almost too much for the other’s self-command. It was too late now, of course. It was too late. But if the contest was to be so close, surely if he had cast his weight on the other side, he might have carried it!

  And what if the seat were lost? Then this stubborn, confident fool, who was as bigoted in his faith as the narrowest Leaguer of them all, had done him a deadly injury! My lord bit off an oath, and young as he was, his face wore a very apoplectic look as he turned rou
nd, after laying down the poker.

  “That reminds me,” the lawyer resumed, blandly unconscious of the crisis, and of the other’s anger. “I meant to ask your lordship what’s to be done about the two Boshams. You remember them, my lord? They’ve had the small holding by the bridge with the water meadow time out of mind — for seven generations they say. They pay eighteen pounds as joint tenants, and have votes as old freemen.”

  “What of them?” the other asked impatiently.

  “Well, I’m afraid they’ll not support us.”

  “Do you mean that they’ll not vote for Mottisfont?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Stubbs answered. “They’re as stubborn as their own pigs! I’ve spoken to them myself and told them that they’ve only one thing to expect if they go against their landlord.”

  “And that is, to go out!” Audley said. “Well, make that quite clear to them, Stubbs, and depend upon it — they’ll see differently.”

  “I’m afraid they won’t, my lord, and that is why I trouble you. They voted against the last lord — twice, I am told — and the story goes that he laid his stick about Ben Bosham’s shoulders in the street — that would be in ‘31, I fancy. But he didn’t turn them out — they’d been in the holding so long.”

  “Two votes may have been nothing to him,” Audley replied coldly. “They are something to me. They will vote for Mottisfont or they will go, Stubbs. That is flat, and do you see to it. There, I’m tired now,” he continued, rising from his seat.

  Stubbs rose. “I don’t know if your lordship’s heard about Mr. John’s will!”

  “No!” My lord straightened himself. Earlier in the day he had given some thought to this, and had weighed Mary Audley’s chances of inheriting what John Audley had. “No!” he said. And he waited.