“There it is, Bella,” said Kellett, as he entered the cottage at nightfall, and threw a sealed letter on the table. “I hadn't the courage to open it. A fellow came into the office and said, 'Is one Kellett here? This is a letter from Mr. Davenport Dunn.' He was Mister, and I was one Kellett. Wasn't I low enough when I couldn't say a word to it?—wasn't I down-in the world when I had to bear it in silence?”
“Shall I read it for you?” said she, gently.
“Do, darling; but before you begin, give me a glass of whiskey-and-water. I want courage for it, and something tells me, Bella, I'll need courage too.”
“Come, come, papa, this is not like yourself; this is not the old Albuera spirit you are so justly proud of.”
“Five-and-thirty years' hard struggling with the world never improved a man's pluck. There was n't a fellow in the Buffs had more life in him than Paul Kellett. It was in general orders never to sell my traps or camp furniture when I was reported missing; for, as General Pack said, 'Kellett is sure to turn up to-morrow or the day after.' And look at me now!” cried he, bitterly; “and as to selling me out, they don't show me much mercy, Bella, do they?”
She made no reply, but slowly proceeded to break the seal of the letter.
“What a hurry ye're in to read bad news!” cried he, peevishly; “can't you wait till I finish this?” And he pointed to the glass, which he sipped slowly, like one wishing to linger over it.
A half-melancholy smile was all her answer, and he went on,—
“I'm as sure of what's in that letter there as if I read it. Now, mark my words, and I'll just tell you the contents of it: Kellett's Court is sold, the first sale confirmed, and the Master's report on your poor mother's charge is unfavorable. There's not a perch of the old estate left us, and we're neither more nor less than beggars. There it is for you in plain English.”
“Let us learn the worst at once, then,” said she, resolutely, as she opened the letter.
“Who told you that was the worst?” broke he in, angrily. “The worst isn't over for the felon in the dock when the judge has finished the sentence; there's the 'drop' to come, after that.”
“Father, father!” cried she, pitifully, “be yourself again. Remember what you said the other night, that if we had poor Jack back again you'd not be afraid to face life in some new world beyond the seas, and care little for hardships or humble fortune if we could only be together.”
“I was dreaming, I suppose,” muttered he, doggedly.
“No; you were speaking out of the fulness of your love and affection; you were showing me how little the accidents of fortune touch the happiness of those resolved to walk humbly, and that, once divested of that repining spirit which was ever recalling the past, we should confront the life before us more light of heart than we have felt for many a year.”
“I wonder what put it in my head,” muttered he, in the same despondent tone.
“Your own stout heart put it there. You were recalling what young Conway was telling us about poor Jack's plans and projects; and how, when the war was over, he 'd get the Sultan to grant him a patch of land close to the Bosphorus, where he'd build a little kiosk for us all, and we 'd grow our own corn and have our own vines and fig-trees, seeking for nothing but what our own industry should give us.”
“Dreams, dreams!” said he, sighing drearily. “You may read the letter now.” And she began,—
“I told you,—that's just what I was saying,” burst in Kellett; “there's not sixpence left us!”
She ran hurriedly over to herself the tiresome intricacies that followed, till she came to the end, where a brief postscript ran,—
A wild, hysterical burst of laughter broke from Kellett as she ceased.
“Isn't there any more good news, Bella? Look over it carefully, darling, and you 'll surely discover something else.”
The terrible expression of his face shocked her, and she could make no reply.
“I 'll wager a crown, if you search well, you 'll see something about sending me to jail, or, maybe, transporting me.—Who's that knocking at the door there?” cried he, angrily, as a very loud noise resounded through the little cottage.
“'T is a gentleman without wants to speak to the master,” said the old woman, entering.
“I 'm engaged, and can't see anybody,” rejoined Kellett, sternly.
“He says it's the same if he could see Miss Bella,” reiterated the old woman.
“He can't, then; she 's engaged too.”
The woman still lingered at the door, as if she expected some change of purpose.
“Don't you hear me?—don't you understand what I said?” cried he, passionately.
“Tell him that your master cannot see him,” said Bella.
“If I don't make too bould,—if it's not too free of me,—maybe you 'd excuse the liberty I 'm taking,” said a man, holding the door slightly open, and projecting a round bullet head and a very red face into the room.
“Oh, Mr. Driscoll,” cried Bella. “Mrs. Hawkshaw's brother, papa,” whispered she, quietly, to her father, who, notwithstanding the announcement, made no sign.
“If Captain Kellett would pardon my intrusion,” said Driscoll, entering with a most submissive air, “he'd soon see that it was at laste with good intentions I came out all the way here on foot, and a bad night besides,—a nasty little drizzling rain and mud,—such mud!” And he held up in evidence a foot about the size of an elephant's.
“Pray sit down, Mr. Driscoll,” said Bella, placing a chair for him. “Papa was engaged with matters of business when you knocked,—some letters of consequence.”
“Yes, miss, to be sure, and did n't want to be disturbed,” said Driscoll, as he sat down, and wiped his heated forehead. “I 'm often the same way myself; but when I 'm at home, and want nobody to disturb me, I put on a little brown-paper cap I have, and that's the sign no one's to talk to me.”
Kellett burst into a laugh at the conceit, and Driscoll so artfully joined in the emotion that when it ceased they were already on terms of intimacy.
“You see what a strange crayture I am. God help me!” said Driscoll, sighing. “I have to try as many dodges with myself as others does be using with the world, for my poor head goes wanderin' away about this, that, and the other, and I 'm never sure it will think of what I want.”
“That's a sad case,” said Kellett, compassionately.
“I was like everybody else tell I had the fever,” continued Driscoll, confidentially. “It was the spotted fever, not the scarlet fever, d' ye mind; and when I came out of it on the twenty-ninth day, I was the same as a child, simple and innocent You 'd laugh now if I told you what I did with the first half-crown I got. I bought a bag of marbles!”
And Kellett did laugh heartily; less, perhaps, at the circumstance than at the manner and look of him who told it.
“Ay, faith, marbles!” muttered Driscoll to himself; “'tis a game I'm mighty fond of.”
“Will you take a little whiskey-and-water? Hot or cold?” asked Kellett, courteously.
“Just a taste, to take off the deadness of the water,” said Driscoll. “I 'm obleeged to be as cautious as if I was walkin' on eggs. Dr. Dodd says to me, 'Terry,' says he, 'you had never much brains in your best days, but now you 're only a sheet of thin paper removed from an idiot, and if you touch spirits it's all up with you.'”
“That was plain speaking, anyhow,” said Kellett, smiling.
“Yes,” said Driscoll, while he seemed struggling to call up some reminiscence: and then, having succeeded, said, “Ay, 'There's five-and-twenty in Swift's this minute,' said he, 'with their heads shaved, and in blue cotton dressing-gowns, more sensible than yourself.' But, you see, there was one thing in my favor,—I was always harmless.”
The compassionate expression with which Kellett listened to this declaration guaranteed how completely the speaker had engaged his sympathy.
“Well, well,” continued Driscoll, “maybe I'm just as happy, ay, happier than ever I was! Every one is kind and good-natured to me now. Nobody takes offence at what I say or do; they know well in their hearts that I don't mean any harm.”
“That you don't,” broke in Bella, whose gratitude for many a passing word of kindness, as he met her of a morning, willingly seized upon the opportunity for acknowledgment.
“My daughter has often told me of the kind way you always spoke to her.”
“Think of that, now,” muttered Terry to himself; “and I saying all the while to my own heart, ''T is a proud man you ought to be to-day, Terry Driscoll, to be giving good-morning to Miss Kellett of Kellett's Court, the best ould blood in your own county.'”
“Your health, Driscoll,—your health,” cried Kellett, warmly. “Let your head be where it will, your heart's in the right place, anyhow.”
“Do you say so, now?” asked he, with all the eagerness of one putting a most anxious question.
“I do, and I 'd swear it,” cried Kellett, resolutely. “'Tis too clever and too 'cute the world's grown; they were better times when there was more good feeling and less learning.”
“Indeed—indeed, it was the remark I made to my sister Mary the night before last,” broke in Driscoll. “'What is there,' says I, 'that Miss Kellett can't teach them? They know the rule of three and What 's-his-name's Questions as well as I know my prayers. You don't want them to learn mensuration and the use of the globes?' 'I 'll send them to a school in France,' says she; 'it's the only way to be genteel.'”
“To a school in France?” cried Bella; “and is that really determined on?”
“Yes, miss; they 're to go immediately, and ye see that was the reason I walked out here in the rain to-night I said to myself, 'Terry,' says I, 'they 'll never say a word about this to Miss Kellett till the quarter is up; be off, now, and break it to her at once.'”
“It was so like your own kind heart,” burst out Bella.
“Yes,” muttered Driscoll, as if in a revery, “that's the only good o' me now,—I can think of what will be of use to others.”
“Did n't I tell you we were in a vein of good luck, Bella?” said Kellett, between his teeth; “didn't I say awhile ago there was more coming?”
“'But,' says I to Mary,” continued Driscoll, “'you must take care to recommend Miss Kellett among your friends—'”
Kellett dashed his glass down with such force on the table as to frighten Driscoll, whose speech was thus abruptly cut short, and the two men sat staring fixedly at each other. The expression of poor Terry's vacant face, in which a struggling effort to deprecate anger was the solitary emotion readable, so overcame Kellett's passion that, stooping over, he grasped the other's hand warmly, and said,—
“You 're a kind-hearted creature, and you 'd never hurt a living soul. I 'm not angry with you.”
“Thank you, Captain Kellett,—thank you,” cried the other, hurriedly, and wiped his brow, like one vainly endeavoring to follow out a chain of thought collectedly. “Who is this told me that you had another daughter?”
“No,” said Kellett; “I have a son.”
“Ay, to be sure! so it was a son, they said, and a fine strapping young fellow too. Where is he?”
“He 's with his regiment, the Rifles, in the Crimea.”
“Dear me, now, to think of that,—fighting the French, just the way his father did.”
“No,” said Kellett, smiling, “it 's the Russians he 's fighting, and the French are helping him to do it.”
“That's better any day,” said Driscoll; “two to one is a pleasanter match. And so he's in the Rifles?” And here he laid his head on his hand and seemed lost in thought. “Is he a captain?” asked he, after a long pause.
“No, not yet,” said Kellett, while his cheek flushed at the evasion he was practising.
“Well, maybe he will soon,” resumed the other, relapsing once more into deep thought. “There was a young fellow joined them in Cork just before they sailed, and I lent him thirty shillings, and he never paid me. I wonder what became of him? Maybe he's killed.”
“Just as likely,” said Kellett, carelessly.
“Now, would your son be able to make him out for me?—not for the sake of the money, for I would n't speak of it, but out of regard for him, for I took a liking to him; he was a fine, handsome fellow, and bold as a lion.”
“He mightn't be in Jack's battalion, or he might, and Jack not know him. What was his name?” said Kellett, in some confusion.
“I 'll tell you if you 'll pledge your word you 'll never say a syllable about the money, for I can't think but he forgot it.”
“I 'll never breathe a word about it.”
“And will you ask your son all about him,—if he likes the sarvice, or if he 'd rather be at home, and how it agrees with him?” “And the name?”
“The name?—I wrote it down on a bit of paper just for my own memory's sake, for I forget everything; the name is Conway,—Charles Conway.”
“Why, that's the very—” When he got so far, a warning look from Bella arrested Kellett's voice, and he ceased speaking, looking eagerly at his daughter for some explanation. Had he not been so anxious for some clew to her meaning, he could scarcely have failed to be struck by the intense keenness of the glance Driscoll turned from the countenance of the father to that of the daughter. She, however, marked it, and with such significance that a deathlike sickness crept suddenly over her, and she sank slowly down into a seat.
“You ware saying, 'That's the very—'” said Driscoll, repeating the words, and waiting for the conclusion.
“The very name we read in a newspaper,” said Bella, who, with a sort of vague instinct of some necessity for concealment, at once gave this evasive reply. “He volunteered for somewhere, or was first inside a battery, or did something or other very courageous.”
“It was n't killed he was?” said Driscoll, in his habitual tone.
“No, no,” cried Kellett, “he was all safe.”
“Isn't it a queer thing? but I'd like to hear of him! There was some Conway s connections of my mother's, and I can't get it out of my head but he might be one of them. It's not a common name, like Driscoll.”
“Well, Jack will, maybe, be able to tell you about him,” said Kellett, still under the spell of Bella's caution.
“If you would tell me on what points you want to be informed,” said Bella, “I shall be writing to my brother in a day or two. Are there any distinct questions you wish to be answered?”
The calm but searching glance that accompanied these few words gradually gave way to an expression of pity as Bella gazed at the hopeless imbecility of poor Driscoll's face, wherein not a gleam of intelligence now lingered. It was as if the little struggle of intellect had so exhausted him that he was incapable of any further effort of reason. And there he sat, waiting till the returning tide of thought should flow back upon his stranded intelligence.
“Would you like him to be questioned about the family?” said she, looking good-naturedly at him.
“Yes, miss,—yes,” said he, half dreamily; “that is, I would n't like my own name, poor crayture as I am, to be mentioned; but if you could anyways find out if he was one of the Conway s of Abergedley,—they were my mother's people,—if you could find out that for me, it would be a great comfort.”
“I'll charge myself with the commission,” said Bella, writing down the words “Conway of Abergedley.”
“Now there was something else, if my poor head could only remember it,” said Driscoll, whose countenance displayed the most complete picture of a puzzled intelligence.
“Mix yourself another tumbler, and you'll think of it by and by,” said Kellett, courteously.
“Yes,” muttered Driscoll, accepting the suggestion at once. “It was something about mustard-seed, I think,” added he, after a pause; “they say it will keep fresh for two years if you put it in a blue-paper bag,—deep blue is best” A look of sincere compassion passed between Kellett and his daughter, and Driscoll went on, “I don't think it was that, though, I wanted to remember.” And he fell into deep reflection for several minutes, at the end of which he started abruptly up, finished off his glass, and began to button up his coat in preparation for the road.
“Don't go till I see what the night looks like,” cried Kellett, as he left the room to examine the state of the weather.
“If I should be fortunate enough to obtain any information, how shall I communicate with you?” asked Bella, addressing him hastily, as if to profit by the moment of their being alone.
Driscoll looked fixedly at her for a second or two, and gradually the expression of his face settled down into its habitual cast of unmeaning imbecility, while he merely muttered to himself, “No evidence; throw out the bills.”
She repeated her question, and in a voice to show that she believed herself well understood.
“Yes!” said he, with a vacant grin,—“yes! but they don't agree with everybody.”
“There's a bit of a moon out now, and the rain has stopped,” said Kellett, entering, “so that it would n't be friendly to detain you.”
“Good-night, good-night,” said Driscoll, hurriedly; “that spirit is got up to my head. I feel it. A pleasant journey to you both, and be sure to remember me to Mrs. Miller.” And with these incoherent words he hastened away, and his voice was soon heard singing cheerily as he plodded his way towards Dublin. “That's the greatest affliction of all,” said Kellett, as he sat down and sipped his glass. “There 's nothing like having one's faculties, one's reason, clear and unclouded. I would n't be like that poor fellow there to be as rich as the Duke of Leinster.”
“It is a strange condition,” said Bella, thoughtfully. “There were moments when his eyes lighted up with a peculiar significance, as if, at intervals, his mind had regained all its wonted vigor. Did you remark that?”
“Indeed, I did not. I saw nothing of the kind,” said Kellett, peevishly. “By the way, why were you so cautious about Conway?”
“Just because he begged that his name might not be mentioned. He said that some trifling debts were still hanging over him, from his former extravagance; and though all in course of liquidation, he dreaded the importunate appeals of creditors so certain to pour in if they heard of his being in Dublin.”
“Every one has his troubles!” muttered Kellett, as he sank into a moody reflection over his own, and sipped his liquor in silence.
Let us now follow Driscoll, who, having turned the corner of the lane, out of earshot of the cottage, suddenly ceased his song, and walked briskly along towards town. Rapidly as he walked, his lips moved more rapidly still, as he maintained a kind of conversation with himself, bursting out from time to time with a laugh, as some peculiar conceit amused him. “To be sure, a connection by the mother's side,” said he. “One has a right to ask after his own relations! And, for all I know, my grandmother was a Conway. The ould fool was so near pokin' his foot in it, and letting out that he knew him well. She's a deep one, that daughter; and it was a bould stroke the way she spoke to me when we were alone. It was just as much as to say, 'Terry, put your cards down, for I know your hand.' 'No, miss,' says I, 'I've a thrump in the heel of my fist that ye never set eyes on. Ha, ha, ha!' but she's deep for all that,—mighty deep; and if it was safe, I wish we had her in the plot! Ay! but is it safe, Mr. Driscoll? By the virtue of your oath, Terry Driscoll, do you belave she wouldn't turn on you? She's a fine-looking girl, too,” added he, after an interval. “I wish I knew her sweetheart, for she surely has one. Terry, Terry, ye must bestir yourself; ye must be up early and go to bed late, my boy. You 're not the man ye were before ye had that 'faver,'—that spotted faver!”—here he laughed till his eyes ran over. “What a poor crayture it has left ye; no memory, no head for anything!” And he actually shook with laughter at the thought. “Poor Terry Driscoll, ye are to be pitied!” said he, as he wiped the tears from his face. “Is n't it a sin and a shame there's no one to look after ye?”
“Not come in yet, sir; but he is sure to be back soon,” said Mr. Clowes, the butler, to Terry Driscoll, as he stood in the hall of Mr. Davenport Dunn's house, about eleven o'clock of the same night we have spoken of in our last chapter.
“You're expecting him, then?” asked Driscoll, in his own humble manner.
“Yes, sir,” said Clowes, looking at his watch; “he ought to be here now. We have a deal of business to get through to-night, and several appointments to keep; but he'll see you, Mr. Driscoll. He always gives directions to admit you at once.”
“Does he really?” asked Driscoll, with an air of perfect innocence.
“Yes,” said Clowes, in a tone at once easy and patronizing, “he likes you. You are one of the very few who can amuse him. Indeed, I don't think I ever heard him laugh, what I 'd call a hearty laugh, except when you 're with him.”
“Isn't that quare, now!” exclaimed Driscoll. “Lord knows it's little fun is in me now!”
“Come in and take a chair; charge you nothing for the sitting,” said Clowes, laughing at his own smartness as he led the way into a most comfortably furnished little room which formed his own sanctum.
The walls were decorated with colored prints and drawings of great projected enterprises,—peat fuel manufactories of splendid pretensions, American packet stations on the west coast, of almost regal architecture, vied with ground-plans of public parks and ornamental model farms; fish-curing institutions, and smelting-houses, and beetroot-sugar buildings, graced scenes of the very wildest desolation, and, by an active representation of life and movement, seemed to typify the wealth and prosperity which enterprise was sure to carry into regions the very dreariest and least promising.
“A fine thing, that, Mr. Driscoll!” said Clowes, as Terry stood admiring a large and highly colored plate, wherein several steam-engines were employed in supplying mill-streams with water from a vast lake, while thousands of people seemed busily engaged in spade labor on its borders. “That is the 'Lough Corrib Drainage and Fresh Strawberry Company,' capital eight hundred thousand pounds! Chemical analysis has discovered that the soil of drained lands, treated with a suitable admixture of the alkaline carbonates, is peculiarly favorable to the growth of the strawberry,—a fruit whose properties are only now receiving their proper estimate. The strawberry, you are perhaps not aware, is a great anti-scorbutic. Six strawberries, taken in a glass of diluted malic acid of a morning, fasting, would restore the health of those fine fellows we are now daily losing in such numbers in the Crimea. I mean, of course, a regular treatment of three months of this regimen, with due attention to diet, cleanliness, and habit of exercise,—all predisposing elements removed, all causes of mental anxiety withdrawn. To this humane discovery this great industrial speculation owes its origin. There you see the engines at full work; the lake is in process of being drained, the water being all utilized by the mills you see yonder, some of which are compressing the strawberry pulp into a paste for exportation. Here are the people planting the shoots; those men in blue, with the watering-pots, are the alkaline feeders, who supply the plant with the chemical preparation I mentioned, the strength being duly marked by letters, as you see. B. C. P. means bi-carbonate of potash; S. C. S., sub-carbonate of soda; and so on. Already, sir,” said he, raising his voice, “we have contracts for the supply of twenty-eight tons a week, and we hope,” added he, with a tremulous fervor in his voice, “to live to see the time when the table of the poorest peasant in the land will be graced by the health-conducing condiment.”
“With all my heart and soul I wish you success,” said Driscoll; while he muttered under his breath what sounded like a fervid prayer for the realization of this blessed hope.
“Of that we are pretty certain, sir,” said Clowes, pompously; “the shares are now one hundred and twelve,—paid up in two calls, thirty-six pounds ten shillings, He,” said Clowes, with a jerk of his thumb towards Mr. Dunn's room, meant to indicate its owner,—“he don't like it; calls it a bubble, and all that, but I have, known him mistaken, sir,—ay, and more than once. You may remember that vein of yellow marble—giallo antico, they call it—found on Martin's property—That's his knock; here he comes now,” cried he, hurrying away to meet his master, and leaving the story of his blunder unrelated. “All right,” said Clowes, re-entering, hastily; “you can go in now. He seems in a precious humor to-night,” added he, in a low whisper; “something or other has gone wrong with him.”
Driscoll had scarcely closed the inner door of cloth that formed the last security of Davenport Dunn's privacy, when he perceived the correctness of Mr. Clowes's information. Dunn's brow was dark and clouded, his face slightly flushed, and his eye restless and excited.
“What is it so very pressing, Driscoll, that could n't wait till to-morrow?” said he, peevishly, and not paying the slightest attention to the other's courteous salutation.
“I thought this was the time you liked best,” said Driscoll, quietly; “you always said, 'Come to me when I've done for the day—'”
“But who told you I had done for the day? That pile of letters has yet to be answered; many of them I have not even read. The Attorney-General will be here in a few minutes about these prosecutions too.”
“That's a piece of good luck, anyhow,” said Driscoll, quickly.
“How so? What d' ye mean?”
“Why, we could just get a kind of travelling opinion out of him about this case.”
“What nonsense you talk!” said Dunn, angrily; “as if a lawyer of standing and ability would commit himself by pronouncing on a most complicated question, the details of which he was to gather from you!” The look and emphasis that accompanied the last word were to the last degree insulting, but they seemed to give no offence whatever to him to whom they were addressed; on the contrary, he met them with a twinkle of the eye, and a droll twist of the mouth, as he muttered half to himself,—
“Yes, God help me, I 'll never set the Liffey on fire!”
“You might, though, if you had it heavily insured,” said Dunn, with a savage irony in his manner that might well have provoked rejoinder; but Driscoll was proof against whatever he didn't want to resent, and laughed pleasantly at the sarcasm.
“You were dining at the Lodge, I suppose, to-day?” asked he, eager to get the conversation afloat at any cost.
“No, at Luscombe's,—the Chief Secretary's,” said Dunn, curtly.
“They say he's a clever fellow,” said Driscoll.
“They are heartily welcome to this opinion who think so,” broke in Dunn, peevishly. “Let them call him a fortunate one if they like, and they 'll be nearer the mark.—What of this affair?” said he, at last “Have you found out Conway?”
“No; but I learned that he dined and passed the evening with ould Paul Kellett He came over to Ireland to bring him some news of his son, who served in the same regiment, and so I went out to Kellett to pump them; but for some reason or other they're as close as wax. The daughter beats all ever you saw! She tried a great stroke of cunning with me, but it wouldn't do.”
“It was your poor head and the spotted fever,—eh?” said Dunn, laughing.
“Yes,” said Driscoll; “I never was rightly myself since that” And he laughed heartily.
“This is too slow for me, Driscoll; you must find out the young fellow at once, and let me see him. I have read over the statement again, and it is wonderfully complete. Hatch-ard has it now before him, and will give me his opinion by Sunday next On that same day Mr. Beecher is to dine with me; now if you could manage to have Conway here on Monday morning, I 'd probably be in a condition to treat openly with him.”
“You're going too fast,—too fast, entirely,” said Driscoll; “sure, if Conway sees the road before him, he may Just thravel it without us at all.”
“I 'll take care he shall not know which path to take, Driscoll; trust me for that. Remember that the documents we have are all-essential to him. Before he sees one of them our terms must be agreed on.”
“I'll have ten thousand paid down on the nail. 'Tis eight years I am collectin' them papers. I bought that shooting-lodge at Banthry, that belonged to the Beechers, just to search the old cupboard in the dinner-room. It was plastered over for fifty years, and Denis Magrath was the only man living knew where it was.”
“I am aware of all that. The discovery—if such it prove—was all your own, Driscoll; and as to the money remuneration, I 'll not defraud you of a sixpence.”
“There was twelve hundred pounds,” continued Driscoll, too full of his own train of thought to think of anything else, “for a wretched ould place with the roof fallin' in, and every stack of it rotten! Eight years last Michaelmas,—that's money, let me tell you! and I never got more than thirty pounds any year out of it since.”
“You shall be paid, and handsomely paid.”
“Yes,” said Terry, nodding.
“You can have good terms on either side.”
“Yes, or a little from both,” added Driscoll, dryly.
It was late at night, and Grog Davis sat alone by a solitary candle in his dreary room. The fire had long burned out, and great pools of wet, driven by the beating rain through the rickety sashes, soaked the ragged carpet that covered the floor, while frequent gusts of storm scattered the slates, and shook the foundations of the frail building.
To all seeming, he paid little attention to the poor and comfortless features of the spot. A short square bottle of Hollands, and a paper of coarse cigars beside him, seemed to offer sufficient defence against such cares, while he gave up his mind to some intricate problem which he was working out with a pack of cards. He dealt, and shuffled, and dealt again, with marvellous rapidity. There was that in each motion of the wrist, in every movement of the finger, that bespoke practised manipulation, and a glance quick as lightning on the board was enough to show him how the game fared.
“Passed twelve times,” muttered he to himself; then added aloud, “Make your game, gentlemen, make your game. The game is made. Red, thirty-two. Now for it, Grog,—man or a mouse, my boy. Mouse it is! by——,” cried he, with an infamous oath. “Red wins! Confound the cards!” cried he, dashing them on the floor. “Two minutes ago I had enough to live on the rest of my days. I appeal to any man in the room,” said he, with a look of peculiar defiance around him, “if he ever saw such ill luck! There's not another fellow breathing ever got it like me!” And as he spoke, he arose and walked up and down the chamber, frowning savagely, and turning glances of insolent meaning on every side of him. At last, approaching the table, he filled out a glass of gin and drank it off; and then, stooping down, he gathered up the cards and reseated himself. “Take you fifty on the first ace,” cried he, addressing an imaginary bettor, while he began to deal out the cards in two separate heaps. “Won!” exclaimed he, delightedly. “Go you double or quits, sir?—Any gentleman with another fifty?—A pony if you like, sir?—Done! Won again, by jingo! This is the only game, after all; decided in a second. I make the bank, gentlemen, two hundred in the bank. Why, where are the bettors this evening? This is only punting, gentlemen. Any one say five hundred—four—three—one hundred—for the first knave?” And the cards fell from his hands with wondrous rapidity. “Now, if no one is inclined to play, let 's have a broiled bone,” said he, rising, and bowing courteously around him.
“Second the motion!” cried a cheery voice, as the door opened and Annesley Beecher entered. “Why, Grog, my hearty, I thought you had a regular flock of pigeons here. I heard you talking as I came up the stairs, and fancied you were doing a smart stroke of work.”
“What robbery have you been at with that white choker and that gimcrack waistcoat?” said Davis, sulkily.
“Dining with Dunn, and a capital dinner he gave me. I 'm puzzled to say whether I like his wine or his cookery best.”
“Were there many there?”
“None but ourselves.”
“Lord! how he must have worked you!” cried Davis, with an insolent grin.
“Ain't such a flat as you think me, Master Grog. Solomon was a wise man, and Samson a strong one, and A. B. can hold his own with most 'in the ruck.'”
A most contemptuous look was the only answer Davis condescended to this speech. At last, after he had lighted a fresh cigar, and puffed it into full work, he said, “Well, what was it he had to say to you?”
“Oh, we talked away of everything; and, by Jupiter! he knows a little of everything. Such a memory, too; remembers every fellow that was in power the last fifty years, and can tell you how he was 'squared,' for it 's all on the 'cross' with them, Grog, just as in the ring. Every fellow rides to order, and half the running one sees is no race! Any hot water to be had?”
“No, there's cold in that jug yonder. Well, go on with Dunn.”
“He is very agreeable, I must say; for, besides having met everybody, he knows all their secret history,—how this one got out of his scrape, and why that went into the hole. You see in a moment how much he must be trusted, and that he can make his book on life as safe as the Bank of England. Fearfully strong that gin is!”
“No, it ain't,” said Grog, rudely; “it's not the velvety tipple Dunn gave you, but it's good British gin, that's what it is.”
“You would n't believe, too, how much he knows about women! He's up to everything that's going on in town. Very strange that, for a fellow like him! Don't you think so?”
Davis made no answer, but puffed away slowly. “And after women, what came next?”
“He talked next—let me see—about books. How he likes Becky Sharp,—how he enjoys her! He says that character will do the same service as the published discovery of some popular fraud; and that the whole race of Beckys now are detected swindlers,—nothing less.”
“And what if they are? Is that going to prevent their cheating? Hasn't the world always its crop of flats coming out in succession like green peas? What did he turn to after that?”
“Then we had a little about the turf.”
“He don't know anything about the turf!” said Grog, with intense contempt.
“I 'm not so sure of that,” said Beecher, cautiously.
“Did he speak of me at all?” said Grog, with a peculiar grin.
“No; only to ask if you were the same Captain Davis that was mentioned in that affair at Brighton.”
“And what did you say?”
“Said! Not knowing, could n't tell, Master Grog. Knew you were a great friend of my brother Lackington's, and always hand and glove with Blanchard and the swells.”
“And how did he take that?”
“Said something about two of the same name, and changed the subject.”
Davis drew near the table, and taking up the cards began to shuffle them slowly, like one seeking some excuse for a moment of uninterrupted reflection. “I've found out the way that Yankee fellow does the king,” said he, at last. “It's not the common bridge that everybody knows. It's a Mississippi touch, and a very neat one. Cut them now wherever you like.”
Beecher cut the cards with all due care, and leaned eagerly over the table.
“King of diamonds!” cried Grog, slapping the card on the board.
“Do it again,” said Beecher, admiringly; and once more Davis performed the dexterous feat.
“It's a nick!” cried Beecher, examining the edge of the card minutely.
“It ain't no such thing!” said Davis, angrily. “I'd give you ten years to find it out, and twenty to do it, and-you 'd fail in both.”
“Let's see the dodge, Grog,” said Beecher, half-coaxingly.
“You don't see my hand till you put yours on the table,” said Davis, fiercely. Then crossing his arms before him, and fixing his red fiery eyes on Beecher's face, he went on, “What do you mean by this fencing—just tell me what you mean by it?”
“I don't understand you,” said Beecher, whose features were now of ashy paleness.
“Then you shall understand me!” cried Davis, with an oath. “Do you want me to believe that Dunn had you to dine with him all alone, just to talk about politics, of which you know nothing, or books, of which you know less; that he 'd give you four precious hours of a Sunday evening to bear your opinions about men or women or things in general? Do you ask me to swallow that, sir?”
“I ask you to swallow nothing,” stammered out Beecher, in whose heart pride and fear were struggling for the mastery. “I have told you what we spoke of. If anything else passed between us, perhaps it was of a private and personal nature; perhaps it referred to family topics; perhaps I might have given a solemn assurance not to reveal the subject of it to any one.”
“You did,—did you?” said Davis, with a sneer.
“I said, perhaps I might have done so. I did n't say I had.”
“And so you think—you fancy—that you 're a going to double on me,” said Davis, rising, and advancing towards him with a sort of insulting menace. “Now, look here, my name ain't Davis but if ever you try it—try it, I say, because, as to doing it, I dare you to your face—but if you just try it, twelve hours won't pass over till the dock of a police court is graced by the Honorable Annesley Beecher on a charge of forgery.”
“Oh, Davis!” cried Beecher, as he placed his hands over the other's lips, and glanced in terror through the room. “There never was anything I did n't tell you,—you 're the only man breathing that knows me.”
“And I do know you, by Heaven, I do!” cried the other, savagely; “and I know you'd sneak out of my hands to-morrow, if you dared; but this I tell you, when you leave mine it will be to exchange into the turnkey's. You fancy that because I see you are a fool that I don't suspect you to be a crafty one. Ah! what a mistake you make there!”
“But listen to me, Grog,—just hear me.”
“My name 's Davis, sir,—Captain Davis,—let me hear you call me anything else!”
“Well, Davis, old fellow,—the best and truest friend ever fellow had in the world,—now what's all this about? I 'll tell you every syllable that passed between Dunn and myself. I'll give you my oath, as solemnly as you can dictate it to me, not to conceal one word. He made me swear never to mention it. It was he that imposed the condition on me. What he said was this: 'It's a case where you need no counsel, and where any counsel would be dangerous. He who once knows your secret will be in a position to dictate to you. Lord Lackington must be your only adviser, since his peril is the same as your own.'”
“Go on,” said Davis, sternly, as the other seemed to pause too long.
Beecher drew a long breath, and, in a voice faint and broken, continued: “It's a claimant to the title,—a fellow who pretends he derives from the elder branch,—the Conway Beechers. All stuff and nonsense,—they were extinct two hundred years ago,—but no matter, the claim is there, and so circumstantially got up, and so backed by documents and the rest of it, that Lackington is frightened,—frightened out of his wits. The mere exposure, the very rumor of the thing, would distract him. He's proud as Lucifer,—and then he's hard up; besides, he wants a loan, and Dunn tells him there's no getting it till this affair is disposed of, and that he has hit on the way to do it.”
“As how?” said Davis, dryly.
“Well,” resumed Beecher, whose utterance grew weaker and less audible at every word, “Lackington, you know, has no children. It 's very unlikely he ever will now; and Dunn's advice is that for a life interest in the title and estates I should bind myself not to marry. That fellow then, if he can make good his claim, comes in as next of kin after me; and as to who or what comes after me,” cried he, with more energy, “it matters devilish little. Once 'toes up' and Annesley Beecher won't fret over the next match that comes off,—eh, Grog, old fellow?” And he endeavored by a forced jocularity to encourage his own sinking heart.
“Here's a shindy!” said Grog, as he mixed himself a fresh tumbler and laid his arms crosswise on the table; “and so it's no less than the whole stakes is on this match?”
“Title and all,” chimed in Beecher.
“I was n't thinking of the title,” said Grog, gruffly, as he relapsed into a moody silence. “Now, what does my Lord say to it all?” asked he, after a long pause.
“Lackington?—Lackington says nothing, or next to nothing. You read the passage in his letter where he says, 'Call on Dunn,' or 'Speak to Dunn,' or something like that,—he did n't even explain about what; and then you may remember the foolish figure we cut on that morning we waited on Dunn ourselves, not being able to say why or how we were there.”
“I remember nothing about cutting a foolish figure anywhere or any time. It's not very much my habit. It ain't my way of business.”
“Well, I can't say as much,” said Beecher, laughing; “and I own frankly I never felt less at ease in my life.”
“That's your way of business,” said Grog, nodding gravely at him.
“Every fellow is n't born as sharp as you, Davis. Samson was a wise man—no, Solomon was a wise man—”
“Leave Samson and Solomon where they are,” said Grog, puffing his cigar. “What we have to look to here is whether there be a claim at all, and then what it's worth. The whole affair may be just a cross between this fellow Dunn and one of his own pals. Now, it's my Lord's business to see to that. You are only the second horse all this while. If my Lord knows that he can be disqualified, he's wide awake enough to square the match, he is. But it maybe that Dunn hasn't put the thing fairly before him. Well, then, you must compare your book with my Lord's. You'll have to go over to him, Beecher.” And the last words were uttered with a solemnity that showed they were the result of a deep deliberation.
“It's all very well, Master Davis, to talk of going over to Italy; but where's the tin to come from?”
“It must be had somehow,” said Davis, sententiously. “Ain't there any fellows about would give you a name to a bit of stiff, at thirty-one days' date?”
“Pumped them all dry long ago!” said Beecher, laughing. “There's not a man in the garrison would join me to spoil a stamp; and, as to the civilians, I scarcely know one who isn't a creditor already.”
“You are always talking to me of a fellow called Kellett,—why not have a shy at him?”
“Poor Paul!” cried Beecher, with a hearty laugh. “Why, Paul Kellett's ruined—cleaned out—sold in the Encumbered what d'ye-call-'ems, and has n't a cross in the world!”
“I ought to have guessed as much,” growled out Grog, “or he'd not have been on such friendly terms with you.”
“A polite speech that, Grog,” said Beecher, smiling.
“It's true, and that's better,” said Davis. “The only fellows that stick close to a man in his poverty are those a little poorer than himself.”
“Not but, if he had it,” said Beecher, following up his own thoughts,—“not but, if he had it, he's just the fellow to do a right good-natured thing.”
“Well, I suppose he's got his name,—they have n't sold that, have they?”
“No, but it's very much like the estate,” said Beecher. “It's far too heavily charged ever to pay off the encumbrances.”
“Who minds that, nowadays? A bad bill is a very useful thing sometimes. It's like a gun warranted to burst, and you can always manage to have it in the right man's hands when it comes the time for the explosion.”
“You are a rum un, Davis,—you are, indeed,” said Beecher, admiringly; for it was in the delivery of such wise maxims that Davis appeared to him truly great.
“Get him down for fifty,—that ain't much,—fifty at three months. My Lord says he 'll stand fifty himself, in that letter I read. It was to help you to a match, to be sure; but that don't matter. There can be no question of marrying now. Let me see how this affair is going to turn. Well, I'll see if I can't do something myself. I've a precious lot of stamped paper there,”—and he pointed to an old secretary,—“if I could hit upon a sharp fellow to work it.”
“You are a trump, Grog!” cried Beecher, delightedly.
“If we had a clear two hundred, we could start to-morrow,” said Grog, laying down his cigar, and staring steadfastly at him.
“Why, would you come, too?” muttered Beecher, who had never so much as imagined the possibility of this companionship on the Continent.
“I expect I would,” said Davis, with a very peculiar grin. “It ain't likely you'd manage an affair like this without advice.”
“Very true,—very true,” said Beecher, hurriedly. “But remember, Lackington is my brother,—we 're both in the same boat.”
“But not with the same skulls,” said Grog. And he grinned a savage grin at the success of his pun.
Beecher, however, so far from appreciating the wit, only understood the remark as a sneer at his intelligence, and half sulkily said,—
“Oh! I'm quite accustomed to that, now,—I don't mind it.”
“That's right,—keep your temper,” said Grog, calmly; “that's the best thing in your book. You 're what they call good-tempered. And,” added he, in the moralizing tone, “though the world does take liberties with the good-tempered fellows, it shies them many a stray favor,—many a sly five-pun'-note into the bargain. I've known fellows go through life—and make a rare good thing of it, too—with no other stock-in-trade than this same good temper.”
Beecher did not pay his habitual attention to Grog's words, but sat pondering over all the possible and impossible objections to a tour in such company. There were times and places where men might be seen talking to such a man as Davis. The betting-ring and the weighing-stand have their privileges, just like the green-room or the “flats,” but in neither case are the intimacies of such localities exactly of a kind for parade before the world. Of all the perils of such a course none knew better than Beecher. What society would think,—what clubs would say of it,—he could picture to his mind at once.
Now, there were very few of life's casualties of which the Honorable Annesley Beecher had not tasted. He knew what it was to have his bills protested, his chattels seized, his person arrested; he had been browbeaten by Bankruptcy Commissioners, and bullied by sheriffs' officers; tradesmen had refused him credit; tailors abjured his custom; he had “burned his fingers” in one or two not very creditable transactions; but still, with all this, there was yet one depth to which he had not descended,—he was never seen in public with a “wrong man.” He had a jerk of the head, a wink, or a glance for the leg who met him in Piccadilly, as every one else had. If he saw him in the garden of the Star and Garter, or the park at Greenwich, he might even condescend to banter him on “looking jolly,” and ask what new “robbery” he was in for; but as to descending to intimacy or companionship openly before the gaze of the world, he 'd as soon have thought of playing cad to a 'bus, or sweep at a crossing.
It was true the Continent was not Hyde Park,—the most strait-laced and well-conducted did fifty things there they had never ventured on at home. Foreign travel had its license, and a passport was a sort of plenary indulgence for many a social transgression; but, with all this, there were a few names—about half a dozen in all Europe—that no man could afford to link his own along with.
As for Grog, he was known everywhere. From Ostend to Odessa his fame extended, and there was scarcely a police prefect in the travelled districts of the Continent that had not a description of his person, and some secret instructions respecting him. From many of the smaller states, whose vigilance is in the ratio of their littleness, he was rigidly excluded; so that in his journeying through Europe, he was often reduced to a zigzag and erratic procedure, not unlike the game known to schoolboys as scotch-hop. In the ten minutes—it was not more—that Beecher passed in recalling these and like facts to his memory, his mind grew more and more perplexed; nor was the embarrassment unperceived by him who caused it. As Davis sipped and smoked, he stole frequent glances at his companion's face, and strove to read what was passing in his mind. “It may be,” thought Grog, “he does n't see his way to raising the money. It may be that his credit is lower in the market than I fancied; or”—and now his fiery eyes grew fiercer and his lip more tense—“or it may be that he doesn't fancy my company. If I was only sure it was that,” muttered he between his teeth; and had Annesley Beecher only chanced to look at him as he said it, the expression of that face would have left a legacy of fear behind it for many a day.
“Help yourself,” said Grog, passing the bottle across the table,—“help yourself, and the gin will help you, for I see you are 'pounded.'”
“Pounded? No, not a bit; nothing of the kind,” said Beecher, blushing. “I was thinking how Lackington would take all this; what my Lady would say to it; whether they 'd regard it seriously, or whether they 'd laugh at my coming out so far about nothing.”
“They'll not laugh, depend on't; take my word for it, they won't laugh,” said Davis, dryly.
“Well, but if it all comes to nothing,—if it be only a plant to extort money?”
“Even that ain't anything to laugh at,” said Davis. “I 've done a little that way myself, and yet I never saw the fellow who was amused by it.”
“So that you really think I ought to go out and see my brother?”
“I'm sure and certain that we must go,” said Davis, just giving the very faintest emphasis to the “we.”
“But it will cost a pot of money, Grog, even though I should travel in the cheapest way,—I mean, the cheapest way possible for a fellow as well known as I am.”
This was a bold stroke; it was meant to imply far more than the mere words announced. It was intended to express a very complicated argument in a mere innuendo.
“That's all gammon,” said Grog, rudely. “We don't live in an age of couriers and extra-post; every man travels by rail nowadays, and nobody cares whether you take a coupé or a horse-box; and as to being known, so am I, and almost as well known as most fellows going.”
This was pretty plain speaking; and Beecher well knew that Davis's frankness was always on the verge of the only one thing that was worse than frankness.
“After all,” said Beecher, after a pause, “let the journey be ever so necessary, I have n't got the money.”
“I know you haven't, neither have I; but we shall get it somehow. You 'll have to try Kellett; you 'll have to try Dunn himself, perhaps. I don't see why you should n't start with him. He knows that you ought to confer with my Lord; and he could scarce refuse your note at three months, if you made it—say fifty.”
“But, Grog,” said Beecher, laying down his cigar, and nerving himself for a great effort of cool courage, “what would suffice fairly enough for one, would be a very sorry allowance for two; and as the whole of my business will be with my own brother,—where of necessity I must be alone with him,—don't you agree with me that a third person would only embarrass matters rather than advance them?”
“No!” said Grog, sternly, while he puffed his cigar in measured time.
“I 'm speaking,” said Beecher, in a tone of apology,—“I'm speaking, remember, from my knowledge of Lackington. He's very high and very proud,—one of those fellows who 'take on,' even with their equals; and with myself, he never forgets to let me feel I'm a younger brother.”
“He would n't take any airs with me,” said Grog, insolently. And Beecher grew actually sick at the bare thought of such a meeting.
“I tell you frankly, Davis,” said he, with the daring of despair, “it wouldn't do. It would spoil all. First and foremost, Lackington would never forgive me for having confided this secret to any one. He'd say, and not unfairly either, 'What has Davis to do with this? It's not the kind of case he is accustomed to deal with; his counsel could n't possibly be essential here.' He does n't know,” added he, rapidly, “your consummate knowledge of the world; he hasn't seen, as I have, how keenly you read every fellow that comes before you.”
“We start on Monday,” said Grog, abruptly, as he threw the end of his cigar into the fire; “so stir yourself, and see about the bills.”
Beecher arose and walked the room with hurried strides, his brow growing darker and his face more menacing at every moment.
“Look here, Davis,” cried he, turning suddenly round and facing the other, “you assume to treat me as if I was a—schoolboy;” and it was evident that he had intended a stronger word, but had not courage to utter it, for Davis's wicked eyes were upon him, and a bitter grin of irony was already on Grog's mouth as he said,—
“Did you ever try a round with me without getting the worst of it? Do you remember any time where you came well out of it? You 've been mauled once or twice somewhat roughly, but with the gloves on,—always with the gloves on. Now, take my advice, and don't drive me to take them off,—don't! You never felt my knuckles yet,—and, by the Lord Harry, if you had, you'd not call out 'Encore.'”
“You just want to bully me,” said Beecher, in a whimpering tone.
“Bully you,—bully you!” said Davis, and his features put on a look of the most intense scorn as he spoke. “Egad!” cried he, with an insolent laugh, “you know very little about either of us.”
“I'd rather you'd do your worst at once than keep threatening me in this fashion.”
“No, you would n't; no—no—nothing of the kind,” said Davis, with a mockery of gentleness in his voice and manner.
“May I be hanged if I would not!” cried Beecher, passionately.
“It ain't hanging now,—they 've made it transportation,” said Davis, with a grin; “and them as has tried it says the old way was easiest.” And in the slang style of the last words there was a terrible significance,—it was as though a voice from the felons' dock was uttering a word of warning. Such was the effect on Beecher that he sank slowly down into a seat, silent and powerless.
“If you had n't been in this uncommon high style tonight,” said Grog, quietly, “I'd have told you some excellent reasons for what I was advising. I got a letter from Spicer this morning. He, and a foreign fellow he calls Count Lienstahl,—it sounds devilish like 'lie and steal,' don't it?—have got a very pretty plant together, and if they could only chance upon a good second-rate horse, they reckon about eight or ten hundred in stakes alone this coming spring. They offer me a share if I could come out to them, and mean to open the campaign at Brussels. Now, there's a thing to suit us all,—'picking for every one,' as they say in the oakum-sheds.”
“Cochin China might be had for five hundred; or there's Spotted Snake, they want to sell him for anything he'll bring,” said Beecher, with animation.
“They could manage five hundred at least, Spicer says. We 're good for about twelve thousand francs, which ought to get us what we're looking for.”
“There's Anchovy Paste—”
“Broke down before and behind.”
“Hop the Twig, own sister to Levanter; ran second for the Colchester Cup—”
“Mares don't answer abroad.”
“Well, what do you say to Mumps?”
“There's the horse for the Continent. A great heavy-headed, thick-jawed beast, with lazy action, and capped hocks. He's the animal to walk into a foreign jockey club. Oh, if we had him!”
“I know where he is!” exclaimed Beecher, in ecstasy. “There 's a Brummagem fellow driving him through Wales,—a bagman,—and he takes him a turn now and then for the county stakes that offer. I 'll lay my head on't we get him for fifty pounds.”
“Come, old fellow,” said Grog, encouragingly, “you have your wits about you, after all. Breakfast here to-morrow, about twelve o'clock, and we 'll see if we can't arrange the whole affair. It's a sure five hundred apiece, as if we had it here;” and he slapped his pockets as he spoke.
Beecher shook his friend's hand with a warmth that showed all his wonted cordiality, and with a hearty “Good-night!” they separated.
Grog had managed cleverly. He had done something by terror, and the rest he had accomplished by temptation. They were the two only impulses to sway that strange temperament.