Volume 7.
CHAPTER XLII. MY FRIENDS ARE PROVEN
At the door of my lodgings I was confronted by Banks, red with indignation and fidgety from uneasiness.
“O Lord, Mr. Carvel, what has happened, sir?” he cried. “Your honour's agent 'as been here since noon. Must I take orders from the likes o' him, sir?”
Mr. Dix was indeed in possession of my rooms, lounging in the chair Dolly had chosen, smoking my tobacco. I stared at him from the threshold. Something in my appearance, or force of habit, or both brought him to his feet, and wiped away the smirk from his face. He put down the pipe guiltily. I told him shortly that I had heard the news which he must have got by the packet: and that he should have his money, tho' it took the rest of my life: and the ten per cent I had promised him provided he would not press my Lord Comyn. He hesitated, and drummed on the table. He was the man of business again.
“What security am I to have, Mr. Carvel?” he asked.
“My word,” I said. “It has never yet been broken, I thank God, nor my father's before me. And hark ye, Mr. Dix, you shall not be able to say that of Grafton.” Truly I thought the principal and agent were now well matched.
“Very good, Mr. Carvel,” he said; “ten per cent. I shall call with the papers on Monday morning.”
“I shall not run away before that,” I replied.
He got out, with a poor attempt at a swagger, without his customary protestations of duty and humble offers of service. And I thanked Heaven he had not made a scene, which in my state of mind I could not have borne, but must have laid hands upon him. Perhaps he believed Grafton not yet secure in his title. I did not wonder then, in the heat of my youth, that he should have accepted my honour as security. But since I have marvelled not a little at this. The fine gentlemen at Brooks's with whom I had been associating were none too scrupulous, and regarded money-lenders as legitimate prey. Debts of honour they paid but tardily, if at all. A certain nobleman had been owing my Lord Carlisle thirteen thousand pounds for a couple of years, that his Lordship had won at hazard. And tho' I blush to write it, Mr. Fox himself was notorious in such matters, and was in debt to each of the coterie of fashionables of which he was the devoted chief.
The faithful Banks vowed, with tears in his eyes, that he would never desert me. And in that moment of dejection the poor fellow's devotion brought me no little comfort. At such times the heart is bitter. We look askance at our friends, and make the task of comfort doubly hard for those that remain true. I had a great affection for the man, and had become so used to his ways and unwearying service that I had not the courage to refuse his prayers to go with me to America. I had not a farthing of my own—he would serve me for nothing—nay, work for me. “Sure,” he said, taking off my coat and bringing me my gown,—“Sure, your honour was not made to work.” To cheer me he went on with some foolish footman's gossip that there lacked not ladies with jointures who would marry me, and be thankful. I smiled sadly.
“That was when I was Mr. Carvel's heir, Banks.”
“And your face and figure, sir, and masterful ways! Faith, and what more would a lady want!” Banks's notions of morality were vague enough, and he would have had me sink what I had left at hazard at Almack's. He had lived in this atmosphere. Alas! there was little chance of my ever regaining the position I had held but yesterday. I thought of the sponging-house, and my brow was moist. England was no place, in those days, for fallen gentlemen. With us in the Colonies the law offered itself. Mr. Swain, and other barristers of Annapolis, came to my mind, for God had given me courage. I would try the law. For I had small hopes of defeating my Uncle Grafton.
The Sunday morning dawned brightly, and the church bells ringing brought me to my feet, and out into Piccadilly, in the forlorn hope that I might see my lady on her way to morning service,—see her for the last time in life, perhaps. Her locket I wore over my heart. It had lain upon hers. To see her was the most exquisite agony in the world. But not to see her, and to feel that she was scarce quarter of a mile away, was beyond endurance. I stood beside an area at the entrance to Arlington Street, and waited for an hour, quite in vain; watching every face that passed, townsmen in their ill-fitting Sunday clothes, and fine ladies with the footmen carrying velvet prayerbooks. And some that I knew only stared, and others gave me distant bows from their coach windows. For those that fall from fashion are dead to fashion.
Dorothy did not go to church that day.
It is a pleasure, my dears, when writing of that hour of bitterness, to record the moments of sweetness which lightened it. As I climbed up to my rooms in Dover Street, I heard merry sounds above, and a cloud of smoke blew out of the door when I opened it.
“Here he is,” cried Mr. Fox. “You see, Richard, we have not deserted you when we can win no more of your money.”
“Why, egad! the man looks as if he had had a calamity,” said Mr. Fitzpatrick.
“And there is not a Jew here,” Fox continued. “Tho' it is Sunday, the air in my Jerusalem chamber is as bad as in any crimps den in St. Giles's. 'Slife, and I live to be forty, I shall have as many underground avenues as his Majesty Louis the Eleventh.”
“He must have a place,” put in my Lord Carlisle.
“We must do something for him,” said Fox, “albeit he is an American and a Whig, and all the rest of the execrations. Thou wilt have to swallow thy golden opinions, my buckskin, when we put thee in office.”
I was too overwhelmed even to protest.
“You are not in such a cursed bad way, when all is said, Richard,” said Fitzpatrick. “Charles, when he loses a fortune, immediately borrows another.”
“If you stick to whist and quinze,” said Charles, solemnly, giving me the advice they were forever thrusting upon him, “and play with system, you may make as much as four thousand a year, sir.”
And this was how I was treated by those heathen and cynical macaronies, Mr. Fox's friends. I may not say the same for the whole of Brooks's Club, tho' I never darkened its doors afterwards. But I encountered my Lord March that afternoon, and got only a blank stare in place of a bow.
Charles had collected (Heaven knows how!) the thousand pounds which he stood in my debt, and Mr. Storer and Lord Carlisle offered to lend me as much as I chose. I had some difficulty in refusing, and more still in denying Charles when he pressed me to go with them to Richmond, where he had rooms for play over Sunday.
Banks brought me the news that Lord Comyn was sitting up, and had been asking for me that day; that he was recovering beyond belief. But I was resolved not to go to Brook Street until the money affairs were settled on Monday with Mr. Dix, for I knew well that his Lordship would insist upon carrying out with the agent the contract he had so generously and hastily made, rather than let me pay an abnormal interest.
On Monday I rose early, and went out for a bit of air before the scene with Mr. Dix. Returning, I saw a coach with his Lordship's arms on the panels, and there was Comyn himself in my great chair at the window, where he had been deposited by Banks and his footman. I stared as on one risen from the dead.
“Why, Jack, what are you doing here?” I cried.
He replied very offhand, as was his manner at such times:
“Blicke vows that Chartersea and Lewis have qualified for the College of Surgeons,” says he. “They are both born anatomists. Your job under the arm was the worst bungle of the two, egad, for Lewis put his sword, pat as you please, between two of my organs (cursed if I know their names), and not so much as scratched one.”
“Look you, Jack,” said I, “I am not deceived. You have no right to be here, and you know it.”
“Tush!” answered his Lordship; “I am as well as you.” And he took snuff to prove the assertion. “Why the devil was you not in Brook Street yesterday to tell me that your uncle had swindled you? I thought I was your friend,” says he, “and I learn of your misfortune through others.”
“It is because you are my friend, and my best friend, that I would not worry you when you lay next door to death on my account,” I said, with emotion.
And just then Banks announced Mr. Dix.
“Let him wait,” said I, greatly disturbed.
“Show him up!” said my Lord, peremptorily.
“No, no!” I protested; “he can wait. We shall have no business now.”
But Banks was gone. And I found out, long afterward, that it was put up between them.
The agent swaggered in with that easy assurance he assumed whenever he got the upper hand. He was the would-be squire once again, in top-boots and a frock. I have rarely seen a man put out of countenance so easily as was Mr. Dix that morning when he met his Lordship's fixed gaze from the arm-chair.
“And so you are turned Jew?” says he, tapping his snuffbox. “Before you go ahead so fast again, you will please to remember, d—n you, that Mr. Carvel is the kind that does not lose his friends with his fortune.”
Mr. Dix made a salaam, which was so ludicrous in a squire that my Lord roared with laughter, and I feared for his wound.
“A man must live, my Lord,” sputtered the agent. His discomfiture was painful.
“At the expense of another,” says Comyn, dryly. “That is your motto in Change Alley.”
“If you will permit, Jack, I must have a few words in private with Mr. Dix,” I cut in uneasily.
His Lordship would be damned first. “I am not accustomed to be thwarted, Richard, I tell you. Ask the dowager if I have not always had my way. I am not going to stand by and see a man who saved my life fall into the clutches of an usurer. Yes, I said usurer, Mr. Dix. My attorney, Mr. Kennett, of Lincoln's Inn, has instructions to settle with you.”
And, despite all I could say, he would not budge an inch. At last I submitted under the threat that he would never after have a word to say to me. By good luck, when I had paid into Mr. Dix's hand the thousand pounds I had received from Charles Fox, and cleared my outstanding bills, the sum I remained in Comyn's debt was not greatly above seven hundred pounds. And that was the end of Mr. Dix for me; when he had backed himself out in chagrin at having lost his ten per centum, my feelings got the better of me. The water rushed to my eyes, and I turned my back upon his Lordship. To conceal his own emotions he fell to swearing like mad.
“Fox will get you something,” he said at length, when he was a little calmed.
I told him, sadly, that my duty took me to America.
“And Dorothy?” he said; “you will leave her?”
I related the whole miserable story (all save the part of the locket), for I felt that I owed it him. His excitement grew as he listened, until I had to threaten to stop to keep him quiet. But when I had done, he saw nothing but good to come of it.
“'Od's life! Richard, lad, come here!” he cried. “Give me your hand. Why, you ass, you have won a thousand times over what you lost. She loves you! Did I not say so? And as for that intriguing little puppy, her father, you have pulled his teeth, egad. She heard what you said to him, you tell me. Then he will never deceive her again, my word on't. And Chartersea may come back to London, and be damned.”
CHAPTER XLIII. ANNAPOLIS ONCE MORE
Three days after that I was at sea, in the Norfolk packet, with the farewells of my loyal English friends ringing in my ears. Captain Graham, the master of the packet, and his passengers found me but a poor companion. But they had heard of my misfortune, and vied with each other in heaping kindnesses upon me. Nor did they intrude on my walks in the night watches, to see me slipping a locket from under my waistcoat—ay, and raising it to my lips. 'Twas no doubt a blessing that I had lesser misfortunes to share my attention. God had put me in the way of looking forward rather than behind, and I was sure that my friends in Annapolis would help me to an honest living, and fight my cause against Grafton.
Banks was with me. The devoted soul did his best to cheer me, tho' downcast himself at leaving England. To know what to do with him gave me many an anxious moment. I doubted not that I could get him into a service, but when I spoke of such a thing he burst into tears, and demanded whether I meant to throw him off. Nor was any argument of mine of use.
After a fair and uneventful voyage of six weeks, I beheld again my native shores in the low spits of the Virginia capes. The sand was very hot and white, and the waters of the Chesapeake rolled like oil under the July sun. We were all day getting over to Yorktown, the ship's destination. A schooner was sailing for Annapolis early the next morning, and I barely had time to get off my baggage and catch her. We went up the bay with a fresh wind astern, which died down at night.
The heat was terrific after England and the sea-voyage, and we slept on the deck. And Banks sat, most of the day, exclaiming at the vast scale on which this new country was laid out, and wondering at the myriad islands we passed, some of them fair with grain and tobacco; and at the low-lying shores clothed with forests, and broken by the salt marshes, with now and then the manor-house of some gentleman-planter visible on either side. Late on the second day I beheld again the cliffs that mark the mouth of the Severn, then the sail-dotted roads and the roofs of Annapolis.
We landed, Banks and I, in a pinnace from the schooner, and so full was my heart at the sight of the old objects that I could only gulp now and then, and utter never a word. There was the dock where I had paced up and down near the whole night, when Dolly had sailed away; and Pryse the coachmaker's shop, and the little balcony upon which I had stood with my grandfather, and railed in a boyish tenor at Mr. Hood. The sun cast sharp, black shadows. And it being the middle of the dull season, when the quality were at their seats, and the dinner-hour besides, the town might have been a deserted one for its stillness, as tho' the inhabitants had walked out of it, and left it so. I made my way, Banks behind me, into Church Street, past the “Ship” tavern, which brought memories of the brawl there, and of Captain Clapsaddle forcing the mob, like chaff, before his sword. The bees were humming idly over the sweet-scented gardens, and Farris, the clock-maker, sat at his door, and nodded. He jerked his head as I went by with a cry of “Lord, it is Mr. Richard back!” and I must needs pause, to let him bow over my hand. Farther up the street I came to mine host of the Coffee House standing on his steps, with his hands behind his back.
“Mr. Claude,” I said.
He looked at me as tho' I had risen from the dead.
“God save us!” he shouted, in a voice that echoed through the narrow street. “God save us!”
He seemed to go all to pieces. To my bated questions he replied at length, when he had got his breath, that Captain Clapsaddle had come to town but the day before, and was even then in the coffee-room at his dinner. Alone? Yes, alone. Almost tottering, I mounted the steps, and turned in at the coffee-room door, and stopped. There sat the captain at a table, the roast and wine untouched before him, his waistcoat thrown open. He was staring out of the open window into the inn garden beyond, with its shade of cherry trees. Mr. Claude's cry had not disturbed his reveries, nor our talk after it. I went forward. I touched him on the shoulder, and he sprang up, and looked once into my face, and by some trick of the mind uttered the very words Mr. Claude had used.
“God save us! Richard!” And he opened his arms and strained me to his great chest, calling my name again and again, while the tears coursed down the furrows of his cheeks. For I marked the furrows for the first time, and the wrinkles settling in his forehead and around his eyes. What he said when he released me, nor my replies, can I remember now, but at last he called, in his ringing voice, to mine host:
“A bottle from your choicest bin, Claude! Some of Mr. Bordley's. For he that was lost is found.”
The hundred questions I had longed to ask were forgotten. A peace stole upon me that I had not felt since I had looked upon his face before. The wine was brought by Mr. Claude, and opened, and it was mine host who broke the silence, and the spell.
“Your very good health, Mr. Richard,” he said; “and may you come to your own again!”
“I drink it with all my heart, Richard,” replied Captain Daniel. But he glanced at me sadly, and his honest nature could put no hope into his tone. “We have got him back again, Mr. Claude. And God has answered our prayers. So let us be thankful.” And he sat down in silence, gazing at me in pity and tenderness, while Mr. Claude withdrew. “I can give you but a sad welcome home, my lad,” he said presently, with a hesitation strange to him. “'Tis not the first bad news I have had to break in my life to your family, but I pray it may be the last.” He paused. I knew he was thinking of the black tidings he had once brought my mother. “Richard, your grandfather is dead,” he ended abruptly.
I nodded wonderingly.
“What!” he exclaimed; “you have heard already?”
“Mr. Manners told me, in London,” I said, completely mystified.
“London!” he cried, starting forward. “London and Mr. Manners! Have you been to London?”
“You had my letters to Mr. Carvel?” I demanded, turning suddenly sick.
His eye flashed.
“Never a letter. We mourned you for dead, Richard. This is Grafton's work!” he cried, springing to his feet and striking the table with his great fist, so that the dishes jumped. “Grafton Carvel, the prettiest villain in these thirteen colonies! Oh, we shall hang him some day.”
“Then Mr. Carvel died without knowing that I was safe?” I interrupted.
“On that I'll lay all my worldly goods,” replied Captain Daniel, emphatically. “If any letters came to Marlboro' Street from you, Mr. Carvel never dropped eyes on 'em.”
“What a fool was I not to have written you!” I groaned.
He drew his chair around the table, and close to mine.
“Had the news that you escaped death been cried aloud in the streets, my lad, 'twould never have got to your grandfather's ear,” he said, in lower tones. “I will tell you what happened, tho' I have it at second hand, being in the North, as you may remember. Grafton came in from Kent and invested Marlboro' Street. He himself broke the news to Mr. Carvel, who took to his bed. Leiden was not in attendance, you may be sure, but that quack-doctor Drake. Swain sent me a message, and I killed a horse getting here from New York. But I could no more gain admittance to your grandfather, Richard, than to King George the Third. I was met in the hall by that crocodile, who told me with too many fair words that I could not see my old friend; that for the present Dr. Drake denied him everybody. Then I damned Dr. Drake, and Grafton too. And I let him know my suspicions. He ordered me off, Richard—from that house which has been my only home for these twenty years.” His voice broke.
“Mr. Carvel thought me dead, then.”
“And most mercifully. Your black Hugo, when he was somewhat recovered, swore he had seen you killed and carried off. Sooth, they say there was blood enough on the place. But we spared no pains to obtain a clew of you. I went north to Boston, and Lloyd's factor south to Charleston. But no trace of the messenger who came to the Coffee House after you could we find. Hell had opened and swallowed him. And mark this for consummate villany: Grafton himself spent no less than five hundred pounds in advertising and the like.”
“And he is not suspected?” I asked. This was the same question I had put to Mrs. Manners. It caused the captain to flare up again.
“'Tis incredible how a rogue may impose upon men of worth and integrity if he but know how to smirk piously, and never miss a service. And then he is an exceeding rich man. Riches cover a multitude of sins in the most virtuous community in the world. Your Aunt Caroline brought him a pretty fortune, you know. We had ominous times this spring, with the associations forming, and the 'Good Intent' and the rest being sent back to England. His Excellency was at his wits' end for support. It was Grafton Carvel who helped him most, and spent money like tobacco for the King's cause, which, being interpreted, was for his own advancement. But I believe Colonel Lloyd suspects him, tho' he has never said as much to me. I have told Mr. Swain, under secrecy, what I think. He is one of the ablest lawyers that the colony owns, Richard, and a stanch friend of yours. He took your case of his own accord. But he says we have no foothold as yet.”
When I asked if there was a will the captain rapped out an oath.
“'Sdeath! yes,” he cried, “a will in favour of Grafton and his heirs, witnessed by Dr. Drake, they say, and another scoundrel. Your name does not occur throughout the length and breadth of it. You were dead. But you will have to ask Mr. Swain for those particulars. My dear old friend was sadly gone when he wrote it, I fear. For he never lacked shrewdness in his best days. Nor,” added Captain Daniel, with force, “nor did he want for a proper estimation of Grafton.”
“He has never been the same since that first sickness,” I answered sadly.
When the captain came to speak of Mr. Carvel's death, the son and daughter he loved, and the child of his old age in the grave before him, he proceeded brokenly, and the tears blinded him. Mr. Carvel's last words will never be known, my dears. They sounded in the unfeeling ears of the serpent Grafton. 'Twas said that he was seen coming out of his father's house an hour after the demise, a smile on his face which he strove to hide with a pucker of sorrow. But by God's grace Mr. Allen had not read the prayers. The rector was at last removed from Annapolis, and had obtained the fat living of Frederick which he coveted.
“As I hope for salvation,” the captain concluded, “I will swear there is not such another villain in the world as Grafton. The imagination of a fiend alone could have conceived and brought to execution the crime he has committed. And the Borgias were children to him. 'Twas not only the love of money that urged him, but hatred of you and of your father. That was his strongest motive, I believe. However, the days are coming, lad, when he shall have his reward, unless all signs fail. And we have had enough of sober talk,” said he, pressing me to eat. “Faith, but just now, when you came in, I was thinking of you, Richard. And—God forgive me! complaining against the lot of my life. And thinking, now that you were taken out of it, and your father and mother and grandfather gone, how little I had to live for. Now you are home again,” says he, his eyes lighting on me with affection, “I count the gray hairs as nothing. Let us have your story, and be merry. Nay, I might have guessed you had been in London, with your fine clothes and your English servant.”
'Twas a long story, as you know, my dears. He lighted his pipe and laid his big hand over mine, and filled my glass, and I told him most of that which had happened to me. But I left out the whole of that concerning Mr. Manners and the Duke of Chartersea, nor did I speak of the sponging-house. I believe my only motive for this omittance was a reluctance to dwell upon Dorothy, and a desire to shield her father for her sake. He dropped many a vigorous exclamation into my pauses, but when I came to speak of my friendship with Mr. Fox, his brow clouded over.
“'Ad's heart!” he cried, “'Ad's heart! And so you are turned Tory, and have at last been perverted from those principles for which I loved you most. In the old days my conscience would not allow me to advise you, Richard, and now that I am free to speak, you are past advice.”
I laughed aloud.
“And what if I tell you that I made friends with his Grace of Grafton, and Lord Sandwich, and was invited to Hichinbroke, his Lordship's seat?” said I.
His honest face was a picture of consternation.
“Now the good Lord deliver us!” he exclaimed fervently. “Sandwich! Grafton! The devil!”
I gave myself over to the first real merriment I had had since I had heard of Mr. Carvel's death.
“And when Mr. Fox learned that I had lost my fortune,” I went on, “he offered me a position under Government.”
“Have you not friends enough at home to care for you, sir?” he said, his face getting purple. “Are you Jack Carvel's son, or are you an impostor?”
“I am Jack Carvel's son, dear Captain Daniel, and that is why I am here,” I replied. “I am a stouter Whig than ever, and I believe I might have converted Mr. Fox himself had I remained at home sufficiently long,” I added, with a solemn face. And, for my own edification, I related how I had bearded his Majesty's friends at Brooks's, whereat he gave a great, joyful laugh, and thumped me on the back.
“You dog, Richard! You sly rogue!” And he called to Mr. Claude for another bottle on the strength of that, and we pledged the Association. He peppered me with questions concerning Junius, and Mr. Wilkes, and Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia. Had I seen him in London? “I would not doubt a Carvel's word,” says the captain, “(always excepting Grafton and his line, as usual), but you may duck me on the stool and I comprehend why Mr. Fox and his friends took up with such a young rebel rapscallion as you—and after the speech you made 'em.”
I astonished him vastly by pointing out that Mr. Fox and his friends cared a deal for place, and not a fig for principle; that my frankness had entertained rather than offended them; and that, having a taste for a bit of wild life and the money to gratify it, and being of a tolerant, easy nature withal, I had contrived to make many friends in that set, without aiming at influence. Whereat he gave me another lick between the shoulders.
“It was so with Jack,” he cried; “thou art a replica. He would have made friends with the devil himself. In the French war, when all the rest of us Royal Americans were squabbling with his Majesty's officers out of England, and cursing them at mess, they could never be got to fight with Jack, tho' he gave them ample provocation. There was Tetherington, of the 22d foot,—who jeered us for damned provincials, and swaggered through three duels in a week,—would enter no quarrel with him. I can hear him say: 'Damn you, Carvel, you may slap my face and you will, or walk in ahead of me at the general's dinner and you will, but I like you too well to draw at you. I would not miss your company at table for all the world.' And when he was killed,” Captain Daniel continued, lowering his voice, “some of them cried like women, Tetherington among 'em,—and swore they would rather have lost their commissions at high play.”
We sat talking until the summer's dusk grew on apace, and one thing this devoted lover of my family told me, which lightened my spirits of the greatest burden that had rested upon them since my calamity befell me. I had dwelt at length upon my Lord Comyn, and upon the weight of his services to me, and touched upon the sum which I stood in his debt. The captain interrupted me.
“One day, before your mother died, she sent for me,” said he, “and I came to Carvel Hall. You were too young to remember. It was in September, and she was sitting on the seat under the oak she loved so well,—by Dr. Hilliard's study.
“The lace shawl your father had given her was around her shoulders, and upon her face was the smile that gave me a pang to see. For it had something of heaven in it, Richard. She called me 'Daniel' then for the second time in her life. She bade me be seated beside her. 'Daniel,' she said, 'when I am gone, and father is gone, it is you who will take care of Richard. I sometimes believe all may not be well then, and that he will need you.' I knew she was thinking of Grafton,” said the captain. “'I have a little money of my own, Daniel, which I have saved lately with this in view. I give it into your charge, and if trouble comes to him, my old friend, you will use it as you see fit.'
“It was a bit under a thousand pounds, Richard. And when she died I put it out under Mr. Carroll's direction at safe interest. So that you have enough to discharge your debt, and something saved against another emergency.”
He fell silent, sunk into one of those reveries which the memory of my mother awoke in him. My own thoughts drifted across the sea. I was again at the top of the stairs in Arlington Street, and feeling the dearest presence in the world. The pale oval of Dorothy's face rose before me and the troubled depths of her blue eyes. And I heard once more the tremble in her voice as she confessed, in words of which she took no heed, that love for which I had sought in vain.
The summer dusk was gathering. Outside, under the cherry trees, I saw Banks holding forth to an admiring circle of negro 'ostlers. And presently Mr. Claude came in to say that Shaw, the town carpenter, and Sol Mogg, the ancient sexton of St. Anne's, and several more of my old acquaintances were without, and begged the honour of greeting me.
CHAPTER XLIV. NOBLESSE OBLIGE
I lay that night in Captain Clapsaddle's lodgings opposite, and slept soundly. Banks was on hand in the morning to assist at my toilet, and was greatly downcast when I refused him this privilege, for the first time. Captain Daniel was highly pleased with the honest fellow's devotion in following me to America. To cheer him he began to question him as to my doings in London, and the first thing of which Banks must tell was of the riding-contest in Hyde Park, which I had omitted. It is easy to imagine how this should have tickled the captain, who always had my horsemanship at heart; and when it came to Chartersea's descent into the Serpentine, I thought he would go into apoplexy. For he had put on flesh with the years.
The news of my return had spread all over town, so that I had a deal more handshaking to do when we went to the Coffee House for breakfast. All the quality were in the country, of course, save only four gentlemen of the local Patriots' committee, of which Captain Daniel was a member, and with whom he had an appointment at ten. It was Mr. Swain who arrived first of the four.
This old friend of my childhood was a quiet man (I may not have specified), thin, and a little under stature, with a receding but thoughtful forehead. But he could express as much of joy and welcome in his face and manner as could Captain Daniel with his heartier ways.
“It does me good to see you, lad,” he said, pressing my hand. “I heard you were home, and sent off an express to Patty and the mother last night.”
“And are they not here?” I asked, with disappointment.
Mr. Swain smiled.
“I have done a rash thing since I saw you, Richard, and bought a little plantation in Talbot, next to Singleton's. It will be my ruin,” he added. “A lawyer has no business with landed ambitions.”
“A little plantation!” echoed the captain. “'Od's life, he has bought one of his Lordship's own manors—as good an estate as there is in the province.”
“You overdo it, Daniel,” said he, reprovingly.
At that moment there was a stir in the doorway, and in came Mr. Carroll, the barrister, and Mr. Bordley and Colonel Lloyd. These gentlemen gave me such a welcome as those warm-hearted planters and lawyers knew how to bestow.
“What, he!” cried Mr. Lloyd, “I'm stamped and taxed if it isn't young Richard Carvel himself. Well,” says he, “I know one who will sleep easier o' nights now,—one Clapsaddle. The gray hairs are forgot, Daniel. We had more to-do over your disappearance than when Mr. Worthington lost his musical nigger. Where a deuce have you been, sir?”
“He shall tell us when we come back,” said Mr. Bordley. “He has brought our worthy association to a standstill once, and now we must proceed about our business. Will you come, Richard? I believe you have proved yourself a sufficiently good patriot, and in this very house.”
We went down Church Street, I walking behind with Colonel Lloyd, and so proud to be in such company that I cared not a groat whether Grafton had my acres or not. I remembered that the committee all wore plain and sober clothes, and carried no swords. Mr. Swain alone had a wig. I had been away but seven months, and yet here was a perceptible change. In these dignified and determined gentlemen England had more to fear than in all the mobs at Mr. Wilkes's back. How I wished that Charles Fox might have been with me.
The sun beat down upon the street. The shopkeepers were gathered at their doors, but their chattering was hushed as the dreaded committee passed. More than one, apparently, had tasted of its discipline. Colonel Lloyd whispered to me to keep my countenance, that they were not after very large game that morning,—only Chipchase, the butcher. And presently we came upon the rascal putting up his shutters in much precipitation, although it was noon. He had shed his blood-stained smock and breeches, and donned his Sunday best,—a white, thick-set coat, country cloth jacket, blue broadcloth breeches, and white shirt. A grizzled cut wig sat somewhat awry under his bearskin hat. When he perceived Mr. Carroll at his shoulder, he dropped his shutter against the wall, and began bowing frantically.
“You keep good hours, Master Chipchase,” remarked Colonel Lloyd.
“And lose good customers,” Mr. Swain added laconically.
The butcher wriggled.
“Your honours must know there be little selling when the gentry be out of town. And I was to take a holiday to-day, to see my daughter married.”
“You will have a feast, my good man?” Captain Daniel asked.
“To be sure, your honour, a feast.”
“And any little ewe-lambs?” says Mr. Bordley, very innocent.
Master Chipchase turned the colour of his meat, and his wit failed him.
“'Fourthly,'” recited Mr. Carroll, with an exceeding sober face, “'Fourthly, that we will not kill, or suffer to be killed, or sell, or dispose to any person whom we have reason to believe intends to kill, any ewe-lamb that shall be weaned before the first day of May, in any year during the time aforesaid.' Have you ever heard anything of that sound, Mr. Chipchase?”
Mr. Chipchase had. And if their honours pleased, he had a defence to make, if their honours would but listen. And if their honours but knew, he was as good a patriot as any in the province, and sold his wool to Peter Psalter, and he wore the homespun in winter. Then Mr. Carroll drew a paper from his pocket, and began to read: “Mr. Thomas Hincks, personally known to me, deposeth and saith,—”
Master Chipchase's knees gave from under him.
“And your honours please,” he cried piteously, “I killed the lamb, but 'twas at Mr. Grafton Carvel's order, who was in town with his Excellency.” (Here Mr. Swain and the captain glanced significantly at me.) “And I lose Mr. Carvel's custom, there is twelve pounds odd gone a year, your honours. And I am a poor man, sirs.”
“Who is it owns your shop, my man?” asks Mr. Bordley, very sternly.
“Oh, I beg your honours will not have me put out—”
The wailing of his voice had drawn a crowd of idlers and brother shopkeepers, who seemed vastly to enjoy the knave's discomfiture. Amongst them I recognized my old acquaintance, Weld, now a rival butcher. He pushed forward boldly.
“And your honours please,” said he, “he has sold lamb to half the Tory gentry in Annapolis.”
“A lie!” cried Chipchase; “a lie, as God hears me!”
Now Captain Clapsaddle was one who carried his loves and his hatreds to the grave, and he had never liked Weld since the day, six years gone by, he had sent me into the Ship tavern. And when Weld heard the captain's voice he slunk away without a word.
“Have a care, Master Weld,” says he, in a quiet tone that boded no good; “there is more evidence against you than you will like.”
Master Chipchase, after being frightened almost out of his senses, was pardoned this once by Captain Daniel's influence. We went thence to Mr. Hildreth's shop; he was suspected of having got tea out of a South River snow; then to Mr. Jackson's; and so on. 'Twas after two when we got back to the Coffee House, and sat down to as good a dinner as Mr. Claude could prepare. “And now,” cried Colonel Lloyd, “we shall have your adventures, Richard. I would that your uncle were here to listen to them,” he added dryly.
I recited them very much as I had done the night before, and I warrant you, my dears, that they listened with more zest and eagerness than did Mr. Walpole. But they were all shrewd men, and kept their suspicions, if they had any, to themselves. Captain Daniel would have me omit nothing,—my intimacy with Mr. Fox, the speech at Brooks's Club, and the riding-match at Hyde Park.
“What say you to that, gentlemen?” he cried. “Egad, I'll be sworn he deserves credit,—an arrant young spark out of the Colonies, scarce turned nineteen, defeating a duke of the realm on horseback, and preaching the gospel of 'no taxation' at Brooks's Club! Nor the favour of Sandwich or March could turn him from his principles.”
Modesty, my dears, does not permit me to picture the enthusiasm of these good gentlemen, who bore the responsibility of the colony of Maryland upon their shoulders. They made more of me than I deserved. In vain did I seek to explain that if a young man was but well-born, and had a full purse and a turn for high play, his principles might go hang, for all Mr. Fox cared. Colonel Lloyd commanded that the famous rose punch-bowl be filled to the brim with Mr. Claude's best summer brew, and they drank my health and my grandfather's memory. It mattered little to them that I was poor. They vowed I should not lose by my choice. Mr. Bordley offered me a home, and added that I should have employment enough in the days to come. Mr. Carroll pressed me likewise. And big-hearted Colonel Lloyd desired to send me to King's College, as was my grandfather's wish, where Will Fotheringay and my cousin Philip had been for a term. I might make a barrister of myself. Mr. Swain alone was silent and thoughtful, but I did not for an instant doubt that he would have done as much for me.
Before we broke up for the evening the gentlemen plied me with questions concerning the state of affairs in England, and the temper of his Majesty and Parliament. I say without vanity that I was able to enlighten them not a little, for I had learned a deeper lesson from the set into which I had fallen in London than if I had become the confidant of Rockingham himself. America was a long way from England in those days. I regretted that I had not arrived in London in time to witness Lord Chatham's dramatic return to politics in January, when he had completed the work of Junius, and broken up the Grafton ministry. But I told them of the debate I had heard in St. Stephen's, and made them laugh over Mr. Fox's rescue of the King's friends, and the hustling of Mr. Burke from the Lords.
They were very curious, too, about Mr. Manners; and I was put to much ingenuity to answer their queries and not reveal my own connection with him. They wished to know if it were true that some nobleman had flung a bottle at his head in a rage because Dorothy would not marry him, as Dr. Courtenay's letter had stated. I replied that it was so. I did not add that it was the same nobleman who had been pitched into the Serpentine. Nor did I mention the fight at Vauxhall. I made no doubt these things would come to their ears, but I did not choose to be the one to tell them. Mr. Swain remained after the other gentlemen, and asked me if I would come with him to Gloucester Street; that he had something to say to me. We went the long way thither, and I was very grateful to him for avoiding Marlboro' Street, which must needs bring me painful recollections. He said little on the way.
I almost expected to see Patty come tripping down from the vine-covered porch with her needlework in her hand, and the house seemed strangely empty without her. Mr. Swain had his negro, Romney, place chairs for us under the apple tree, and bring out pipes and sangaree. The air was still, and heavy with the flowers' scent, and the sun was dipping behind the low eaves of the house. It was so natural to be there that I scarce realized all that had happened since last I saw the back gate in the picket fence. Alas! little Patty would never more be smuggled through it and over the wall to Marlboro' Street. Mr. Swain recalled my thoughts.
“Captain Clapsaddle has asked me to look into this matter of the will, Richard,” he began abruptly. “Altho' we thought never to see you again, we have hoped against hope. I fear you have little chance for your property, my lad.”
I replied that Captain Daniel had so led me to believe, and thanked him for his kindness and his trouble.
“'Twas no trouble,” he replied quickly. “Indeed, I wish it might have been. I shall always think of your grandfather with reverence and with sorrow. He was a noble man, and was a friend to me, in spite of my politics, when other gentlemen of position would not invite me to their houses. It would be the greatest happiness of my life if I could restore his property to you, where he would have had it go, and deprive that villain, your uncle, of the fruits of his crime.”
“Then there is nothing to be got by contesting the will?” I asked.
He shook his head soberly.
“I fear not at present,” said he, “nor can I with honesty hold out any hope to you, Richard. Your uncle, by reason of his wealth, is a man of undue influence with the powers of the colony. Even if he were not so, I doubt greatly whether we should be the gainers. The will is undoubtedly genuine. Mr. Carvel thought you dead, and we cannot prove undue influence by Grafton unless we also prove that it was he who caused your abduction. Do you think you can prove that?”
“There is one witness,” I exclaimed, “who overheard my uncle and Mr. Allen talking of South River and Griggs, the master of the slaver, in the stables at Carvel Hall.”
“And who is that?” demanded Mr. Swain, with more excitement than I believed him capable of.
“Old Harvey.”
Your grandfather's coachman? Alas, he died the day after Mr. Carvel, and was buried the same afternoon. Have you spoken of this?”
“Not to a soul,” said I.
“Then I would not. You will have to be very careful and say nothing, Richard. Let me hear what other reasons you have for believing that your uncle tried to do away with you.”
I told him, lucidly as possible, everything I have related in these pages, and the admission of Griggs. He listened intently, shaking his head now and then, but not a word out of him.
“No,” he said at length, “nothing is there which will be admitted, but enough to damn him if you yourself might be a witness. I will give you the law, briefly: descendible estates among us are of two kinds, estates in fee simple and estates in fee tail. Had your grandfather died without a will, his estate, which we suppose to be in fee simple, would have descended to you as the son of his eldest son, according to the fourth of the canons of descent in Blackstone. But with us fee simple estates are devisable, and Mr. Carvel was wholly within his right in cutting off the line of his eldest son. Do you follow me?”
I nodded.
“There is one chance,” he continued, “and that is a very slim one. I said that Mr. Carvel's estate was supposed to be in fee simple. Estates tail are not devisable. Our system of registration is far from infallible, and sometimes an old family settlement turns up to prove that a property which has been willed out of the direct line, as in fee simple, is in reality entailed. Is there a possibility of any such document?”
I replied that I did not know. My grandfather had never brought up the subject.
“We must bend our efforts in that direction,” said the barrister. “I shall have my clerks make a systematic search.”
He ceased talking, and sat sipping his sangaree in the abstracted manner common to him. I took the opportunity to ask about his family, thinking about what Dolly had said of Patty's illness.
“The mother is as well as can be expected, Richard, and Patty very rosy with the country air. Your disappearance was a great shock to them both.”
“And Tom?”
He went behind his reserve. “Tom is a d—d rake,” he exclaimed, with some vehemence. “I have given him over. He has taken up with that macaroni Courtenay, who wins his money,—or rather my money,—and your cousin Philip, when he is home from King's College. How Tom can be son of mine is beyond me, in faith. I see him about once in two months, when he comes here with a bill for his satins and his ruffles, and along face of repentance, and a lot of gaming debts to involve my honour. And that reminds me, Richard,” said he, looking straight at me with his clear, dark eyes: “have you made any plans for your future?”
I ventured to ask his advice as to entering the law.
“As the only profession open to a gentleman,” he replied, smiling a little. “No, you were no more cut out for an attorney, or a barrister, or a judge, than was I for a macaroni doctor. The time is not far away, my lad,” he went on, seeing my shame and confusion, “when an American may amass money in any way he chooses, and still be a gentleman, behind a counter, if he will.”
“I do not fear work, Mr. Swain,” I remarked, with some pride.
“That is what I have been thinking,” he said shortly. “And I am not a man to make up my mind while you count three, Richard. I have the place in Talbot, and no one to look after it. And—and in short I think you are the man.”
He paused to watch the effect of this upon me. But I was so taken aback by this new act of kindness that I could not say a word.
“Tom is fast going to the devil, as I told you,” he continued. “He cannot be trusted. If I die, that estate shall be Patty's, and he may never squander it. Captain Daniel tells me, and Mr. Bordley also, that you managed at Carvel Hall with sense and ability. I know you are very young, but I think I may rely upon you.”
Again he hesitated, eying me fixedly.
“Ah,” said he, with his quiet smile, “it is the old noblesse oblige. How many careers has it ruined since the world began!”