The Cour de Bade, at which excellent hotel the Martins were installed, received on the day we have just chronicled a new arrival. He had come by the diligence, one of that undistinguishable ten thousand England sends off every week from her shores to represent her virtues or her vices, her oddities, vulgarities, and pretensions, to the critical eyes of continental Europe.
Perfectly innocent of any foreign language, and with a delightful ambiguity as to the precise geography of where he stood, he succeeded, after some few failures, in finding out where the Martins stopped, and had now sent up his name to Lady Dorothea, that name being “Mr. Maurice Scanlan.”
Lady Dorothea Martin had given positive orders that except in the particular case of this individual she was not to be interrupted by any visitor. She glanced her eye at the card, and then handed it across the table to her son, who coolly read it, and threw it from him with the air of one saying to himself, “Here's more of it! more complication, more investigation, deeper research into my miserable difficulties, and consequently more unhappiness.” The table at which they were seated was thickly covered with parchments, papers, documents, and letters of every shape and size. There were deeds, and bonds, and leases, rent-rolls, and valuations, and powers of attorney, and all the other imposing accessories of estated property. There were also voluminous bills of costs, formidable long columns of figures, “carried over” and “carried over” till the very eye of the reader wearied of the dread numerals and turned recklessly to meet the awful total at the bottom! Terrified by the menacing applications addressed to Mr. Martin on his son's account, and which arrived by every post, Lady Dorothea had resolved upon herself entering upon the whole state of the Captain's liabilities, as well as the complicated questions of the property generally.
Distrust of her own powers was not in the number of her Ladyship's defects. Sufficiently affluent to be always able to surround herself with competent subordinates, she fancied—a not very uncommon error, by the way—that she individually accomplished all that she had obtained through another. Her taste in the fine arts, her skill in music, her excellence as a letter-writer, were all accomplishments in this wise; and it is not improbable that, had she been satisfied to accept her success in finance through a similar channel, the result might have proved just as fortunate. A shrinking dislike, however, to expose the moneyed circumstances of the family, and a feeling of dread as to the possible disclosures which should come out, prevented her from accepting such co-operation. She had, therefore, addressed herself to the task with no other aid than that of her son,—a partnership, it must be owned, which relieved her very little of her burden.
Had the Captain been called away from the pleasures and amusements of life to investigate the dry records of some far-away cousin's embarrassments,—to dive into the wearisome narrative of money-borrowing, bill-renewing, and the rest of it, by one whom he had scarcely known or seen,—his manner and bearing could not possibly have betrayed stronger signs of utter weariness and apathy than he now exhibited. Smoking his cigar, and trimming his nails with a very magnificent penknife, he gave short and listless replies to her Ladyship's queries, and did but glance at the papers which from time to time she handed to him for explanation or inquiry.
“So he is come at last!” exclaimed she, as the Captain threw down the visiting-card. “Shall we see him at once?”
“By Jove! I think we've had enough of 'business,' as they call it, for one morning,” cried he. “Here have we been since a little after eleven, and it is now four, and I am as sick of accounts and figures as though I were a Treasury clerk.”
“We have done next to nothing, after all!” said she, peevishly.
“And I told you as much when you began,” said he, lighting a fresh cigar. “There's no seeing one's way through these kind of things after the lapse of a year or two. Fordyce gets hold of the bills you gave Mossop, and Rawkins buys up some of the things you had given renewals for, and then all that trash you took in part payment of your acceptances turns up, some day or other, to be paid for; and what between the bills that never were to be negotiated—but somehow do get abroad—and the sums sent to meet others applied in quite a different direction, I'll lay eighty to fifty in tens or ponies there's no gentleman living ever mastered one of these embarrassments. One must be bred to it, my Lady, take my word for it. It's like being a crack rider or a poet,—it's born with a man. 'The Henderson,'” added he, after a pause, “she can do it, and I should like to see what she couldn't!”
“I am curious to learn how you became acquainted with these financial abilities of Miss Henderson?” said Lady Dorothea, haughtily.
“Simply enough. I was poring over these confounded accounts one day at Manheim, and I chanced to ask her a question,—something about compound interest, I think it was,—and so she came and looked over what I was doing, or rather endeavoring to do. It was that affair with Throgmorton, where I was to meet one third of the bills, and Merl and he were to look to the remainder; but there was a reservation that if Comus won the Oaks, I was to stand free—no, that's not it—if Comus won the double event—”
“Never mind your stupid contract. What of Miss Henderson?” broke in Lady Dorothea.
“Well, she came over, as I told you, and took up a pencil and began working away with all sorts of signs and crosses,—regular algebra, by Jove!—and in about five minutes out came the whole thing, all square, showing that I stood to win on either event, and came off splendidly if the double should turn up. 'I wish,' said I to her, 'you 'd just run your eye over my book and see how I stand.' She took it over to the fire, and before I could well believe she had glanced at it, she said: 'This is all full of blunders. You have left yourself open to three casualties, any one of which will sweep away all your winnings. Take the odds on Roehampton, and lay on Slingsby a couple of hundred more,—three, if you can get it,—and you 'll be safe enough. And when you 've done that,' said she, 'I have another piece of counsel to give; but first say will you take it?' 'I give you my word upon it,' said I. 'Then it is this,' said she: 'make no more wagers on the turf. You haven't skill to make what is called a “good book,” and you 'll always be a sufferer.'”
“Did n't she vouchsafe to offer you her admirable assistance?” asked her Ladyship, with a sneer.
“No, by Jove!” said he, not noticing the tone of sarcasm; “and when I asked her, 'Would not she afford me a little aid?' she quickly said, 'Not on any account. You are now in a difficulty, and I willingly come forward to extricate you. Far different were the case should I conspire with you to place others in a similar predicament. Besides, I have your pledge that you have now done with these transactions, and forever.'”
“What an admirable monitor! One only wonders how so much morality coexists with such very intimate knowledge of ignoble pursuits.”
“By Jove! she knows everything,” broke in the Captain. “Such a canter as she gave me t' other morning about idleness and the rest of it, saying how I ought to study Hindostanee, and get a staff appointment, and so on,—that every one ought to place himself above the accidents of fortune; and when I said something about having no opportunity at hand, she replied, 'Never complain of that; begin with me. I know quite enough to initiate you; and as to Sanscrit, I 'm rather “up” in it.'”
“I trust you accepted the offer?” said her Ladyship, with an ambiguous smile.
“Well, I can't say I did. I hate work,—at least that kind of work. Besides, one doesn't like to come out 'stupid' in these kind of things, and so I merely said, 'I 'd think of it—very kind of her,' and so on.”
“Did it never occur to you all this while,” began her Ladyship; and then suddenly correcting herself, she stopped short, and said, “By the way, Mr. Scanlan is waiting for his answer. Ring the bell, and let him come in.”
Perhaps it was the imperfect recollection of that eminent individual,—perhaps the altered circumstances in which she now saw him, and possibly some actual changes in the man himself,—but really Lady Dorothea almost started with surprise as he entered the room, dressed in a dark pelisse, richly braided and frogged, an embroidered travelling-cap in his hand, and an incipient moustache on his upper lip,—all evidencing how rapidly he had turned his foreign experiences to advantage. There was, too, in his address a certain confident assurance that told how quickly the habits of the “Table d'hôte” had impressed him, and how instantaneously his nature had imbibed the vulgar ease of the “Continent.”
“You have just arrived, Mr. Scanlan?” said her Ladyship, haughtily, and not a little provoked at the shake-hand salutation her son had accorded him.
“Yes, my Lady, this instant, and such a journey as we 've had! No water on the Rhine for the steamers; and then, when we took to the land, a perfect deluge of rain, that nearly swept us away. At Eisleben, or some such name, we had an upset.”
“What day did you leave Ireland?” asked she, in utter indifference as to the casualty.
“Tuesday fortnight last, my Lady. I was detained two days in Dublin making searches—”
“Have you brought us any letters, sir?”
“One from Miss Mary, my Lady, and another from Mr. Repton—very pressing he said it was. I hope Mr. Martin is better? Your Ladyship's last—”
“Not much improvement,” said she, stiffly, while her thin lips were compressed with an expression that might mean pride or sorrow, or both.
“And the country, sir? How did you leave it looking?”
“Pretty well, my Lady. More frightened than hurt, as a body might say. They 've had a severe winter, and a great deal of sickness; the rains, too, have done a deal of mischief; but on the whole matters are looking up again.”
“Will the rents be paid, sir?” asked she, sharply.
“Indeed, I hope so, my Lady. Some, of course, will be backward, and beg for time, and a few more will take advantage of Magennis's success, and strive to fight us off.”
“There must have been some gross mismanagement in that business, sir,” broke in her Ladyship. “Had I been at home, I promise you the matter would have ended differently.”
“Mr. Repton directed all the proceedings himself, my Lady. He conferred with Miss Mary.”
“What could a young lady know about such matters?” said she, angrily. “Any prospect of a tenant for the house, sir?”
“If your Ladyship really decides on not going back—”
“Not the slightest intention of doing so, sir. If it depended upon me, I'd rather pull it down and sell the materials than return to live there. You know yourself, sir, the utter barbarism we were obliged to submit to. No intercourse with the world—no society—very frequently no communication by post. Surrounded by a set of ragged creatures, all importunity and idleness, at one moment all defiance and insolence, at the next crawling and abject. But it is really a theme I cannot dwell upon. Give me your letters, sir, and let me see you this evening.” And taking the papers from his hand, she swept out of the room in a haughty state.
The Captain and Mr. Scanlan exchanged looks, and were silent, but their glances were far more intelligible than aught either of them would have ventured to say aloud; and when the attorney's eyes, having followed her Ladyship to the door, turned and rested on the Captain, the other gave a brief short nod of assent, as though to say, “Yes, you are right; she's just the same as ever.”
“And you, Captain,” said Scanlan, in his tone of natural familiarity,—“how is the world treating you?”
“Devilish badly, Master Scanlan.”
“Why, what is it doing, then?”
“I'll tell you what it's doing! It's charging me fifty—ay, sixty per cent; it's protesting my bills, stimulating my blessed creditors to proceed against me, worrying my very life out of me with letters. Letters to the governor, letters to the Horse Guards, and, last of all, it has just lamed Bonesetter, the horse 'I stood to win' on for the Chester Cup, I would n't have taken four thousand for my book yesterday morning!”
“Bad news all this.”
“I believe you,” said he, lighting a cigar, and throwing another across the table to Scanlan. “It's just bad news, and I have nothing else for many a long day past. A fellow of your sort, Master Maurice, punting away at county races and small sweepstakes, has a precious deal better time of it than a captain of the King's Hussars with his head and shoulders in the Fleet.”
“Come, come, who knows but luck will turn, Captain? Make a book on the Oaks.”
“I've done it; and I'm in for it, too,” said the other, savagely.
“Raise a few thousands, you can always sell a reversion.”
“I have done that also,” said he, still more angrily.
“With your position and advantages you could always marry well. If you'd just beat up the manufacturing districts, you'd get your eighty thousand as sure as I'm here! And then matrimony admits of a man's changing all his habits. He can sell off hunters, get rid of a racing stable, and twenty other little embarrassments, and only gain character by the economy.”
“I don't care a brass farthing for that part of the matter, Scanlan. No man shall dictate to me how I 'm to spend my money. Do you just find me the tin, and I 'll find the talent to scatter it.”
“If it can't be done by a post-obit—”
“I tell you, sir,” cried Martin, peevishly, “as I have told you before, that has been done. There is such a thing as pumping a well dry, is n't there?”
Scanlan made a sudden exclamation of horror; and after a pause, said, “Already!”
“Ay, sir, already!”
“I had my suspicions about it,” muttered Scanlan, gloomily.
“You had? And how so, may I beg to ask?” said Martin, angrily.
“I saw him down there, myself.”
“Saw whom? Whom are you talking of?”
“Of that Jew, of course. Mr. Merl, he calls himself.”
A faint groan was all Martin's reply, as he turned away to hide his face.
Scanlan watched him for a minute or so, and then resumed: “I guessed at once what he was at; he never deceived me, talking about snipe and woodcocks, and pretending to care about hare-hunting. I saw my man at a glance. 'It's not sporting ever brought you down to these parts,' said I. 'Your game is young fellows, hard up for cash, willing to give up their birthright for a few thousands down, and never giving a second thought whether they paid twenty per cent, or a hundred and twenty.' Well, well, Captain, you ought to have told me all about it. There wasn't a man in Ireland could have putted you through like myself.”
“How do you mean?” cried Martin, hurriedly.
“Sure, when he was down in the West, what was easier? Faix, if I had only had the wind of a word that matters were so bad, I 'd have had the papers out of him long ago. You shake your head as if you did n't believe me; but take my word for it, I 'm right, sir. I 'd put a quarrel on him.”
“He'd not fight you!” said Martin, turning away in disappointment.
“Maybe he wouldn't; but mightn't he be robbed? Couldn't he be waylaid, and carried off to the Islands? There was no need to kill him. Intimidation would do it all! I'd lay my head upon a block this minute if I would n't send him back to London without the back of a letter in his company; and what's more, a pledge that he 'd never tell what's happened to him!”
“These cockney gents are more 'wide awake' than you suspect, Master Maurice, and the chances are that he never carried a single paper or parchment along with him.”
“Worse for him, then,” said Scanlan. “He'd have to pass the rest of his days in the Arran Islands. But I'm not so sure he's as 'cute as you think him,” added Maurice, after a pause. “He left a little note-book once behind him that told some strange stories, by all accounts.”
“What was that you speak of?” cried Martin, eagerly.
“I did n't see it myself, but Simmy Crow told me of it; and that it was full of all the fellows he ruined,—how much he won from this man, what he carried off from that; and, moreover, there was your own name, and the date of the very evening that he finished you off! It was something in this wise: 'This night's work makes me an estated gentleman, vice Harry Martin, Esquire, retired upon less than half-pay!'”
A terrible oath, uttered in all the vehemence of a malediction, burst from Martin, and seizing Scanlan's wrist, he shook his arm in an agony of passion.
“I wish I had given you a hint about him, Master Scanlan,” said he, savagely.
“It's too late to think of it now, Captain,” said the other; “the fellow is in Baden.”
“Here?” asked Martin.
“Ay. He came up the Rhine along with me; but he never recognized me,—on account of my moustaches perhaps,—he took me for a Frenchman or a German, I think. We parted at Mayence, and I saw no more of him.”
“I would that I was to see no more of him!” said Martin, gloomily, as he walked into another room, banging the door heavily behind him.
Kate Henderson sat alone in her room reading a letter from her father, her thoughtful brow a shade more serious perhaps than its wont, and at times a faint, half-sickly smile moving her dimpled cheek. The interests of our story have no concern with that letter, save passingly, nor do we regret it. Enough, if we say it was in reply to one of her own, requesting permission to return home, until, as she phrased it, she could “obtain another service.” That the request had met scant favor was easy to see, as, folding up the letter, she laid it down beside her with a sigh and a muttered “I thought as much!—'So long as her Ladyship is pleased to accept of your services,'” said she, repeating aloud an expression of the writer. “Well, I suppose he's right; such is the true reading of the compact, as it is of every compact where there is wealth on one side, dependence on the other! Nor should I complain,” said she, still more resolutely, “if these same services could be rendered toilfully, but costing nothing of self-sacrifice in honorable feeling. I could be a drudge—a slave—to-morrow; I could stoop to any labor; but I cannot—no, I cannot—descend to companionship! They who hire us,” cried she, rising, and pacing the room in slow and measured tread, “have a right to our capacity. We are here to do their bidding; but they can lay no claim to that over which we ourselves have no control—our sympathies, our affections—we cannot sell these; we cannot always give them, even as a gift.” She paused, and opening the letter, read it for some seconds, and then flinging it down with a haughty gesture, said, “'Nothing menial—nothing to complain of in my station!' Can he not see that there is no such servitude as that which drags out existence, by subjecting, not head and hands, but heart and soul, to the dictates of another? The menial—the menial has the best of it. Some stipulate that they are not to wear a livery; but what livery exacts such degradation as this?” And she shook the rich folds of her heavy silk dress as she spoke. The tears rose up and dimmed her eyes, but they were tears of offended pride, and as they stole slowly along her cheeks, her features acquired an expression of intense haughtiness. “They who train their children to this career are but sorry calculators!—educating them but to feel the bitter smart of their station, to see more clearly the wide gulf that separates them from what they live amongst!” said she, in a voice of deep emotion.
“Her Ladyship, Miss Henderson,” said a servant, throwing wide the door, and closing it after the entrance of Lady Dorothea, who swept into the room in her haughtiest of moods, and seated herself with all that preparation that betokened a visit of importance.
“Take a seat, Miss Henderson,” said she. And Kate obeyed in silence. “If in the course of what I shall have to say to you,” resumed her Ladyship,—“if in what I shall feel it my duty to say to you, I may be betrayed into any expression stronger than in a calmer moment would occur to me,—stronger in fact, than strict justice might warrant—”
“I beg your Ladyship's pardon if I interrupt, but I would beg to remark—”
“What?” said Lady Dorothea, proudly.
“That simply your Ladyship's present caution is the best security for future propriety. I ask no other.”
“You presume too far, young lady. I cannot answer that my temper may not reveal sentiments that my judgment or my breeding might prefer to keep in abeyance.”
“If the sentiments be there, my Lady, I should certainly say, better to avow them,” said Kate, with an air of most impassive coldness.
“I 'm not aware that I have asked your advice on that head, Miss Henderson,” said she, almost insolently. “At the same time, your habits of late in this family may have suggested the delusion.”
“Will your Ladyship pardon me if I confess I do not understand you?”
“You shall have little to complain of on that score, Miss Henderson; I shall not speak in riddles, depend upon it. Nor should that be an obstacle if your intelligence were only the equal of your ambition.”
“Now, indeed, is your Ladyship completely beyond me.”
“Had you felt that I was as much 'above' you, Miss Henderson, it were more to the purpose.”
“I sincerely hope that I have never forgotten all the deference I owe your Ladyship,” said Kate. Nor could humble words have taken a more humble accent; and yet they availed little to conciliate her to whom they were addressed; nay, this very humility seemed to irritate and provoke her to a greater show of temper, as with an insolent laugh she said,—“This mockery of respect never imposed on we, young lady. I have been bred and born in a rank where real deference is so invariable that the fictitious article is soon detected, had there been any hardy enough to attempt it.”
Kate made no other answer to this speech than a deep inclination of her head. It might mean assent, submission, anything.
“You may remember, Miss Henderson,” said her Ladyship, with all the formality of a charge in her manner,—“you may remember that on the day I engaged your services you were obliging enough to furnish me with a brief summary of your acquirements.” She paused, as if expecting some intimation of assent, and after an interval of a few seconds, Kate smiled, and said,—“It must have been a very meagre catalogue, my Lady.”
“Quite the reverse. It was a perfect marvel to me how you ever found time to store your mind with such varied information; and yet, notwithstanding that imposing array of accomplishments, I now find that your modesty—perhaps out of deference to my ignorance—withheld fully as many more.”
Kate's look of bewilderment at this speech was the only reply she made.
“Oh, of course you do not understand me,” said Lady Dorothea, sneeringly; “but I mean to be most explicit. Have you any recollection of the circumstance I allude to?”
“I remember perfectly the day, madam, I waited on you for the first time.”
“That's exactly what I mean. Now, pray, has any portion of our discourse dwelt upon your mind?”
“Yes, my Lady; a remark of your Ladyship's made a considerable impression upon me at the moment, and has continued frequently to rise to my recollection since that.”
“May I ask what it was?”
“It was with reference to the treatment I had been so long accustomed to in the family of the Duchesse de Luygnes, and which your Ladyship characterized by an epithet I have never forgotten. At the time I thought it severe; I have learned to see it just. You called it an 'irreparable mischief.' Your Ladyship said most truly.”
“I was never more convinced of the fact than at this very moment,” said Lady Dorothea, as a flush of anger covered her cheek. “The ill-judging condescension of your first protectors has left a very troublesome legacy for their successors. Your youth and inexperience—I do not desire to attribute it to anything more reprehensible—led you, probably, into an error regarding the privileges you thus enjoyed, and you fancied that you owed to your own claims what you were entirely indebted to from the favor of others.”
“I have no doubt that the observation of your Ladyship is quite correct,” said Kate, calmly.
“I sincerely wish that the conviction had impressed itself upon your conduct then,” said Lady Dorothea, whose temper was never so outraged as by the other's self-possession. “Had such been the case, I might have spared myself the unpleasantness of my present task.” Her passion was now fully roused, and with redoubled energy she continued: “Your ambition has taken a high flight, young lady, and, from the condescension by which I accorded you a certain degree of influence in this family, you have aspired to become its head. Do not affect any misconception of my meaning. My son has told me everything—everything—from your invaluable aid to him in his pecuniary difficulties, to your sage counsels on his betting-book; from the admirable advice you gave him as to his studies, to the disinterested offer of your own tuition. Be assured if he has not understood all the advantages so generously presented to him, I, at least, appreciate them fully. I must acknowledge you have played your game cleverly, and you have made the mock independence of your character the mask of your designs. With another than myself you might have succeeded, too,” said her Ladyship, with a smile of bitter irony; “but I have few self-delusions, Miss Henderson, nor is there amongst the number that of believing that any one serves me, in any capacity, from any devotion to my own person. I natter myself, at least, that I have so much of humility.”
“If I understand your Ladyship aright, I am charged with some designs on Captain Martin?” said Kate, calmly.
“Yes; precisely so,” said Lady Dorothea, haughtily.
“I can only protest that I am innocent of all such, my Lady,” said she, with an expression of great deference. “It is a charge that does not admit of any other refutation, since, if I appeal to my conduct, your Ladyship's suspicions would not exculpate me.”
“Certainly not.”
“I thought so. What, then, can I adduce? I'm sure your Ladyship's own delicacy will see that this is not a case where testimony can be invoked. I cannot—you would not ask me to—require an acquittal from the lips of Captain Martin himself; humble as I stand here, my Lady, you never could mean to expose me to this humiliation.” For the first time did her voice falter, and a sickly paleness came over her as she uttered the last words.
“The humiliation which you had intended for this family, Miss Henderson, is alone what demands consideration from me. If what you call your exculpation requires Captain Martin's presence, I confess I see no objection to it.”
“It is only, then, because your Ladyship is angry with me that you could bring yourself to think so, especially since another and much easier solution of the difficulty offers itself.”
“How so? What do you mean?”
“To send me home, madam.”
“I understand you, young lady. I am to send you back to your father's house as one whose presence here was too dangerous, whose attractions could only be resisted by means of absence and distance. A very interesting martyrdom might have been made of it, I 've no doubt, and even some speculation as to the conduct of a young gentleman so suddenly bereaved of the object of his affections. But all this is much too dignified for me. My son shall be taught to respect himself without the intervention of any contrivance.”
As she uttered the last words, she arose and approached the bell.
“Your Ladyship surely is not going—”
“I am going to send for Captain Martin, Miss Henderson.”
“Do not, I entreat of you,—I implore your Ladyship,” cried Kate, with her clasped hands trembling as she spoke.
“This agitation is not without a cause, and would alone decide me to call for my son.”
“If I have ever deserved well at your hands, my Lady,—if I have served you faithfully in anything,—if my devotion has lightened you of one care, or aided you through one difficulty,—spare me, oh, spare me, I beseech you, this—degradation!”
“I have a higher consideration to consult here, Miss Henderson, than any which can have reference to you.” She pulled the bell violently, and while her hand still held the cord, the servant entered. “Tell Captain Martin to come here,” said she, and sat down.
Kate leaned her arm upon the chimney-piece, and, resting her head on it, never uttered a word.
For several minutes the silence was unbroken on either side. At last Lady Dorothea started suddenly, and said,—“We cannot receive Captain Martin here.”
“Your Ladyship is full of consideration,” said Kate, bitterly. “For a moment I had thought it was only an additional humiliation to which you had destined me.”
“Follow me into the drawing-room, Miss Henderson,” said Lady Dorothea, proudly, as she left the room. And with slow, submissive mien Kate quitted the chamber, and walked after her.
Scarcely had the door of the drawing-room been closed upon them than it was re-opened to admit Captain Martin. He was booted and spurred for his afternoon canter, and seemed in no wise pleased at the sudden interruption to his project.
“They said you wanted me,” cried he; “and here have I been searching for you in your dressing-room, and all over the house.”
“I desire to speak with you,” said she, proudly; and she motioned to a chair.
“I trust the séance is to be a brief one, otherwise I 'll beg a postponement,” said he, half laughingly. Then turning his glance towards Kate, he remarked for the first time the deathlike color of her face, and an expression of repressed suffering that all her self-control could not conceal. “Has anything happened? What is it?” said he, in a half-whisper.
But she never replied, nor even seemed to heed his question.
“Tell me, I beseech you,” cried he, turning to Lady Dorothea,—“tell me, has anything gone wrong?”
“It is precisely on that account I have sent for you, Captain Martin,” said her Ladyship, as she assigned to him a seat with a motion of her hand. “It is because a great deal has gone wrong here—and were it not for my vigilance, much more still likely to follow it—I have sent for you, sir, that you should hear from this young lady's lips a denial which, I own, has not satisfied me; nor shall it, till it be made in your presence and meet with your corroboration. Your looks, Miss Henderson,” said she, addressing her, “would imply that all the suffering of the present moment falls to your share; but I would beg you to bear in mind what a person in my sphere must endure at the bare possibility of the event which now demands investigation.”
“Good heavens! will not you tell me what it is?” exclaimed Martin, in the last extremity of impatience.
“I have sent for you, sir,” resumed she, “that you should hear Miss Henderson declare that no attentions on your part—no assiduities, I should perhaps call them—have ever been addressed to her; that, in fact”—here her Ladyship became embarrassed in her explanation,—“that, in fact, those counsels—those very admirable aids to your conduct which she on so many occasions has vouchsafed to afford you—have had no object—no ulterior object, I should perhaps call it—and that your—your intercourse has ever been such as beseems the heir of Cro' Martin, and the daughter of the steward on that property!”
“By Jove, I can make nothing of all this!” cried the Captain, whose bewildered looks fully corroborated the assertion.
“Lady Dorothea, sir, requires you to assure her that I have never made love to you,” said Kate Henderson, with a look of scorn that her Ladyship did not dare to reply to. “I,” added she, “have already given my pledge on this subject. I trust that your testimony will not gainsay me.”
“Confound me if I can fathom it at all!” said he, more distracted than ever. “If you are alluding to the offer I made you—”
“The offer you made,” cried Lady Dorothea. “When?—how?—in what wise?”
“No, no, I will speak out,” said he, addressing Kate. “I am certain you never divulged it; but I cannot accept that all the honorable dealing should be on one side only. Yes, my Lady, however you learned it, I cannot guess, but it is perfectly true; I asked Miss Henderson to be my wife, and she refused me.”
A low, faint sigh broke from Lady Dorothea, and she fell back into her chair.
“She would have it,—it's not my fault,—you are witness it's not,” muttered he to Kate. But she motioned him in silence to the door, and then opening the window, that the fresh air might enter, stood silently beside the chair.
A slight shivering shook her; and Lady Dorothea—her cheeks almost lividly pale—raised her eyes and fixed them on Kate Henderson.
“You have had your triumph!” said she, in a low but firm voice.
“I do not feel it such, madam,” said Kate, calmly. “Nor is it in a moment of humiliation like this that a thought of triumph can enter.”
“Hear me,—stoop down lower. You can leave this—tomorrow, if you wish it.”
Kate bowed slowly in acquiescence.
“I have no need to ask you that what has occurred here should never be mentioned.”
“You may trust me, madam.”
“I feel that I may. There—I am better—quite well, now! You may leave me.” Kate courtesied deeply, and moved towards the door. “One word before you go. Will you answer me one question? I'll ask but one; but your answer must be full, or not at all.”
“So it shall be, madam. What is it?”
“I want to know the reason—on what grounds—you declined the proposal of my son?”
“For the same good reason, madam, that should have prevented his ever making it.”
“Disparity—inequality of station, you mean?”
“Something like it, madam. Our union would have been both a blunder and a paradox. Each would have married beneath him!” And once more courtesying, and with an air of haughty dignity, Kate withdrew, and left her Ladyship to her own thoughts.
Strange and conflicting were the same thoughts; at one moment stimulating her to projects of passionate vengeance, at the next suggesting the warmest measures of reconciliation and affection. These indeed predominated, for in her heart pride seemed the emblem of all that was great, noble, or exalted; and when she saw that sentiment, not fostered by the accidents of fortune, not associated with birth, lineage, and high station, but actually rising superior to the absence of all these, she almost felt a species of worship for one so gloriously endowed.
“She might be a duchess!” was the only speech she uttered, and the words revealed a whole volume of her meditations. It was curious enough how completely all recollection of her son was merged and lost in the greater interest Kate's character supplied. But so is it frequently in life. The traits which most resemble our own are those we alone attach importance to, and what we fancy admiration of another is very often nothing more than the gratified contemplation of ourselves.
Jack Massingbred sat in expectation of Mr. Merl's arrival till nigh ten o'clock; and if not manifesting any great degree of impatience at the delay, still showing unmistakable signs of uneasiness, as though the event were not destitute of some cause for anxiety. At last a note arrived to say that a sudden and imperative necessity to start at once for England would prevent Mr. Merl from keeping his appointment. “I shall be in town by Tuesday,” continued the writer, “and if Captain Martin has any communication to make to me respecting his affairs, let it be addressed to Messrs. Twining and Scape's, solicitors, Furnival's Inn. I hope that with regard to your own matter, you will make suitable provision for the acceptance due on the ninth of next month. Any further renewal would prove a great inconvenience to yours
“Very sincerely and to command,
“Herman Merl.”
“Negotiations have ended ere they were opened, and war is proclaimed at once,” said Massingbred, as he read over this brief epistle. “You may come forth, Master Scanlan,” added he, opening the door of his bedroom, and admitting that gentleman. “Our Hebrew is an overmatch for us. He declines to appear.”
“Why so? How is that?” asked Scanlan.
“There 's his note,” said the other; “read and digest it.”
“This smacks of suspicion,” said Scanlan. “He evidently suspects that we have concerted some scheme to entangle him, and he is resolved not to be caught.”
“Precisely; he 'll do nothing without advice. Well, well, if he but knew how unprepared we are, how utterly deficient not only in resources, but actually in the commonest information of our subject, he might have ventured here in all safety.”
“Has Captain Martin not put you in possession of the whole case, then?”
“Why, my good Scanlan, the Captain knows nothing, actually nothing, of his difficulties. He has, it is true, a perfect conviction that he is out of his depth; but whether he be in five fathom water or fifty, he doesn't know; and, what 's stranger, he does n't care!”
“After all, if it be over his head, I suppose it's pretty much the same thing,” said Scanlan, with a bitter laugh.
“I beg to offer my dissent to that doctrine,” said Mas-singbred, gently. “Where the water is only just out of a man's depth, the shore is usually not very distant. Now, if we were quite certain such were the case here, we might hope to save him. If, on the contrary, he has gone down out of all sight of land—” He stopped, gazed steadily at Scanlan for a few seconds, and then in a lower tone, not devoid of a touch of anxiety, said, “Eh, do you really know this to be so?”
“I'll tell you all I know, Mr. Massingbred,” said he, as having turned the key in the door, he took his seat at the table. “And I 'll tell you, besides, how I came by the knowledge, and I 'll leave it to your own judgment to say what his chance is worth. When Merl was stopping at Kilkieran, he left there a little pocket-book, with memorandums of all his secret transactions. Mighty nice doings they were,—and profitable, too,—as you 'll perceive when you look over it.”
“You have it, then,” cried Jack, eagerly.
“Here it is,” said he, producing the precious volume, and laying his hand firmly on it. “Here it is now. I got it under a pledge to hand it to himself, which I need n't tell you I never had the slightest intention of performing. It's not every day in the week one has the good luck to get a peep into the enemy's brief, and this is exactly what you 'll find here.”
Massingbred stretched out his hand to take the book, but Scanlan quietly replaced it in his pocket, and, with a dry and very peculiar smile, said,—“Have a little patience, sir. We must go regularly to work here. You shall see this book—you shall examine it—and even retain it—but it must be on conditions.” “Oh, you may confide in me, Scanlan. Even if Mr. Merl were my friend,—which I assure you he is not,—I could not venture to betray you.”
“That's not exactly what I 'm thinking of, Mr. Massingbred. I 'm certain you 'd say nothing to Merl of what you saw here. My mind is easy enough upon that score.”
“Well, then, in what direction do your suspicions point?”
“They 're not suspicions, sir,” was the dry response.
“Fears,—hesitations,—whatever you like to call them.”
“Are we on honor here, Mr. Massingbred?” said Scanlan, after a pause.
“For myself, I say decidedly so,” was the firm reply.
“That will do, sir. I ask only one pledge, and I 'm sure you 'll not refuse it: if you should think, on reflection, that what I propose to you this evening is neither practicable nor advisable,—that, in fact, you could neither concur in it nor aid it,—that you'll never, so long as you live, divulge it to any one,—man, woman, or child. Have I that promise?”
“I think I may safely say that.”
“Ay, but do you say it?”
“I do; here is my promise.”
“That will do. I don't ask a word more. Now, Mr. Massingbred,” said he, replacing the book on the table, “I 'll tell you in the fewest words I can how the case stands,—and brevity is essential, for we have not an hour to lose. Merl is gone to London about this business, and we 'll have to follow him. He 'd be very glad to be rid of the affair to-morrow, and he 'll not waste many days till he is so. Read that bit there, sir,” said he, pointing to a few closely written lines in the note-book.
“Good heavens!” cried Jack, “this is downright impossible. This is a vile falsehood, devised for some infernal scheme of roguery. Who 'd believe such a trumpery piece of imposition? Ah, Scanlan, you are not the wily fellow I took you for. This same precious note-book was dropped as a decoy, as I once knew a certain noble lord to have left his betting-book behind him. An artful device, that can only succeed once, however. And you really believed all this?”
“I did, and I do believe it,” said Scanlan, firmly.
“If you really say so, we must put the matter to the test. Captain Martin is here,—we 'll send for him, and ask him the question; but I must say I don't think your position will be a pleasant one after that reply is given.”
“I must remind you of your promise already, it seems,” said Scanlan. “You are pledged to say nothing of this, if you cannot persuade yourself to act along with me in it.”
“Very true,” said Massingbred, slowly; “but I never pledged myself to credit an impossibility.”
“I ask nothing of the kind. I only claim that you should adhere to what you have said already. If this statement be untrue, all my speculations about it fall to the ground at once. I am the dupe of a stale trick, and there's an end of it.”
“Ay, so far all well, Master Scanlan; but I have no fancy to be associated in the deception. Can't you see that?”
“I can, sir, and I do. But perhaps there may be a readier way of satisfying your doubts than calling for the Captain's evidence. There is a little page in this same volume devoted to one Mr. Massingbred. You surely may have some knowledge about his affairs. Throw your eye over that, sir, and say what you think of it.”
Massingbred took the book in his hand and perused the place pointed out to him.
“By Jove! this is very strange,” said he, after a pause. “Here is my betting-book on the St. Hubert all transcribed in full,—however the Jew boy got hold of it; and here 's mention of a blessed hundred-pound note, which, in less than five years, has grown to upwards of a thousand!”
“And all true? All fact?”
“Perfectly true,—most lamentable fact, Master Scanlan! How precise the scoundrel is in recording this loan as 'after supper at Dubos'!' Ay, and here again is my unlucky wager about Martingale for the 'Chester,' and the handicap with Armytage. Scanlan, I recant my rash impression. This is a real work of its great author! Aut Merl—aut Diabolus.”
“I could have sworn it,” said Scanlan.
“To be sure you could, man, and have done, ere this time o' day, fifty other things on fainter evidence. But let me tell you it requires strong testimony to make one believe that there should live such a consummate fool in the world as would sell his whole reversionary right to a splendid state of some twelve thousand—”
“Fifteen at the lowest,” broke in Scanlan.
“Worse again. Fifteen thousand a year for twenty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-four pounds sterling.”
“And he has done it.”
“No, no; the thing is utterly incredible, man. Any one must see that if he did want to make away with his inheritance, that he could have obtained ten, twenty times that sum amongst the tribe of Merl.”
“No doubt, if he were free to negotiate the transaction. But you 'll see, on looking over these pages, in what a network of debt he was involved,—how, as early as four years ago, at the Cape, he owed Merl large sums, lost at play, and borrowed at heavy interest. So that, at length, this same twenty-two thousand, assumed as paid for the reversion, was in reality but the balance of an immense demand for money lost, bills renewed, sums lent, debts discharged, and so on. But to avoid the legal difficulty of an 'immoral obligation,' the bale of the reversion is limited to this simple payment of twenty-two thousand—”
“Seven hundred and sixty-four pounds, sir. Don't let us diminish the price by a fraction,” said Massingbred. “Wonderful people ye are, to be sure; and whether in your talent for savings, or dislike for sausages, alike admirable and praiseworthy! What a strange circle do events observe, and how irrevocable is the law of the material, the stern rule of the moral world, decay, decomposition, and regeneration following on each other; and as great men's ashes beget grubs, so do illustrious houses generate in their rottenness the race of Herman Merls.”
Scanlan tried to smile at the rhapsodical conceit, but for some private reason of his own he did not relish nor enjoy it.
“So, then, according to the record,” said Massingbred, holding up the book, “there is an end of the 'Martins of Cro' Martin'?”
“That's it, sir, in one word.”
“It is too shocking—too horrible to believe,” said Mas-singbred, with more of sincerity than his manner usually displayed. “Eh, Scanlan,—is it not so?” added he, as waiting in vain for some show of concurrence.
“I believe, however,” said the other, “it's the history of every great family's downfall: small liabilities growing in secrecy to become heavy charges, severe pressure exerted by those out of whose pockets came eventually the loans to meet the difficulties,—shrewdness and rapacity on one side, folly and wastefulness on the other.”
“Ay, ay; but who ever heard of a whole estate disposed of for less than two years of its rental?”
“That's exactly the case, sir,” said he, in the same calm tone as before; “and what makes matters worse, we have little time to look out for expedients. Magennis will put us on our title at the new trial next assizes. Merl will take fright at the insecurity of his claim, and dispose of it,—Heaven knows to whom,—perhaps to that very league now formed to raise litigation against all the old tenures.”
“Stop, stop, Scanlan! There is quite enough difficulty before us, without conjuring up new complications,” cried Massingbred. “Have you anything to suggest? What ought to be done here?”
Scanlan was silent, and leaning his head on his hand seemed lost in thought.
“Come, Scanlan, you 've thought over all this ere now. Tell me, man, what do you advise?”
Scanlan was silent.
“Out with it, Scanlan. I know, I feel that you have a resource in store against all these perils! Out with it, man.”
“Have I any need to remind you of your promise, Mr. Massingbred?” asked the other, stealthily.
“Not the slightest, Scanlan. I never forget a pledge.”
“Very well, sir; that's enough,” said Scanlan, speaking rapidly, and like one anxious to overcome his confusion by an effort. “We have just one thing to do. We must buy out Merl. Of course as reasonably as we can, but buy him out we must. What between his own short experiences of Ireland, and the exposure that any litigation is sure to bring with it, he's not likely to be hard to deal with, particularly when we are in possession, as I suppose we may be, through your intimacy with the Captain, of all the secret history of these transactions. I take it for granted that he 'll be as glad of a settlement that keeps all 'snug,' as ourselves. Less than the twenty-two thousand we can't expect he'll take.”
“And how are we to raise that sum without Mr. Martin's concurrence?”
“I wish that was the only difficulty,” said Scanlan.
“What do you mean?”
“Just this: that in his present state no act of his would stand. Sure his mind is gone. There isn't a servant about him could n't swear to his fancies and imaginations. No, sir, the whole thing must be done amongst ourselves. I have eight thousand some hundred pounds of my own available at a moment; old Nelligan would readily—for an assignment of the Brewery and the Market Square—advance us ten thousand more;—the money, in short, could be had—more if we wanted it—the question—”
“As to the dealing with Merl?” broke in Jack.
“No, sir, not that, though of course it is a most important consideration.”
“Well, what then?”
“As to the dealing with Maurice Scanlan, sir,” said he, making a great effort. “There's the whole question in one word.”
“I don't see that there can be any grave obstacle against that. You know the property.”
“Every acre of it.”
“You know how you'd like your advance to be secured to you—on what part of the estate. The conditions, I am certain, might be fairly left in your own hands; I feel assured you'd not ask nor expect anything beyond what was equitable and just.”
“Mr. Massingbred, we might talk this way a twelvemonth, and never be a bit nearer our object than when we began,” said Scanlan, resolutely. “I want two things, and I won't take less than the two together. One is to be secured in the agency of the estate, under nobody's control whatever but the Martins themselves. No Mister Repton to say 'Do this, sign that, seal the other.' I 'll have nobody over me but him that owns the property.”
“Well, and the other condition?”
“The other—the other—” said Scanlan, growing very red—“the other, I suppose, will be made the great difficulty—at least, on my Lady's side. She 'll be bristling up about her uncle the Marquis, and her half-cousin the Duke, and she'll be throwing in my teeth who I am, and what I was, and all the rest of it, forgetting all the while where they 'll be if they reject my terms, and how much the most noble Viceroy will do for her when she has n't a roof over her head, and how many letters his Grace will write when she has n't a place to address them to,—not to say that the way they're treating the girl at this very moment shows how much they think of her as one of themselves, living with old Catty Broon, and cantering over the country without as much as a boy after her. Sure, if they were n't Pride itself, it's glad they might be that a—a—a respectable man, that is sure to be devoted to their own interests forever, and one that knows the estate well, and, moreover than that, that doesn't want to be going over to London,—no, nor even to Dublin,—that doesn't care a brass farthing for the castle and the lodge in the park,—that, in short, Mr. Massingbred, asks nothing for anybody, but is willing to trust to his industry and what he knows of life—There it is now,—there's my whole case,” said he, stammering, and growing more and more embarrassed. “I haven't a word to add to it, except this: that if they'd rather be ruined entirely, left without stick or stone, roof or rafter in the world, than take my offer, they 've nothing to blame but themselves and their own infernal pride!” And with this peroration, to deliver which cost him an effort like a small apoplexy, Maurice Scanlan sat down at the table, and crossed his arms on his breast like one prepared to await his verdict with a stout heart.
At last, and with the start of one who “suddenly bethought him of a precaution that ought not to be neglected,” he said,—“Of course, this is so far all between ourselves, for if I was to go up straight to my Lady, and say, 'I want to marry your niece,' I think I know what the answer would be.”
Although Massingbred had followed this rambling and incoherent effort at explanation with considerable attention, it was only by the very concluding words that he was quite certain of having comprehended its meaning. If we acknowledge that he felt almost astounded by the pretension, it is but fair to add that nothing in his manner or air betokened this feeling. Nay, he even by a slight gesture of the head invited the other to continue; and when the very abrupt conclusion did ensue, he sat patiently, as it were revolving the question in his own mind.
Had Scanlan been waiting for the few words which from a jury-box determine a man's fate forever, he could not have suffered more acute anxiety than he felt while contemplating the other's calm and unmoved countenance. A bold, open rejection of his plan, a defiant repudiation of his presumption, would not probably have pained him more, if as much as the impassive quietness of Jack's demeanor.
“If you think that this is a piece of impudence on my part, Mr. Massingbred,—if it's your opinion that in aspiring to be connected with the Martins I'm forgetting my place and my station, just say so at once. Tell it to me frankly, and I'll know how to bear it,” said he, at last, when all further endurance had become impossible.
“Nothing of the kind, my dear Scanlan,” said Jack, smiling blandly. “Whatever snobbery once used to prevail on these subjects, we have come to live in a more generous age. The man of character, the man who unites an untarnished reputation to very considerable abilities, with talent to win any station, and virtues to adorn it, such a man wants no blazonry to illustrate his name, and it is mainly by such accessions that our English aristocracy, refreshed and invigorated as it is, preserves its great acknowledged superiority.”
It would have required a more acute critic than Maurice Scanlan to have detected the spirit in which this rhapsody was uttered. The apparent earnestness of the manner did not exactly consort with a certain pomposity of enunciation and an over-exactness in the tone of the declamation. On the whole Maurice did not like it. It smacked to his ears very like what he had often listened to in the Four Courts at the close of a “junior's” address; and there was a Nisi Prius jingle in it that sounded marvellously unlike conviction.
“If, then,” resumed Massingbred, “they who by the accidents of fortune, or the meritorious services of their forefathers, represent rather in their elevation the gratitude of their country than—”
“I 'm sorry to interrupt you, sir,—indeed, I'm ashamed of myself for doing it,—for your remarks are beautiful, downright eloquent; but the truth is, this is a case touches me too closely to make me care for a grand speech about it. I 'd rather have just a few words—to the evidence, as one might say,—or a simple answer to a plain question, Can this thing be done?”
“There's where you beat us, Scanlan. There's where we cannot approach you. You are practical. You reduce a matter at once to the simple dimension of efficacy first, then possibility, and with these two conditions before you you reject the fifty extraneous considerations, outlying contingencies, that distract and embarrass such fellows as me.
“I have no pretension to abilities like yours, Mr. Massingbred,” said Scanlan, with unassumed modesty.
“Ah, Scanlan, yours are the true gifts, take my word for it!—the recognized currency by which a man obtains what he seeks for; and there never was an era in which such qualities bore a higher value. Our statesmen, our diplomatists, our essay-writers,—nay, our very poets, addressing themselves as they do to the correction of social wrongs and class inequalities,—they are all 'practical'! That is the type of our time, and future historians will talk of this as the 'Age of Fact'!”
If one were to judge from Maurice Scanlan's face during the delivery of this peroration, it might be possibly inferred that he scarcely accepted the speech as an illustration in point, since anything less practical he had never listened to.
“When I think,” resumed he, “what a different effect I should have produced in the 'House' had I possessed this requisite! You, possibly, may be under the impression that I achieved a great success?”
“Well, I did hear as much,” said Scanlan, half doggedly.
“Perhaps it was so. A first speech, you are aware, is always listened to indulgently; not so a second, especially if a man rises soon after his first effort. They begin to suspect they have got a talkative fellow, eager and ready to speak on every question; they dread that, and even if he be clever, they 'll vote him a bore!”
“Faith! I don't wonder at it!” said Maurice, with a hearty sincerity in the tone.
“Yet, after all, Scanlan, let us be just! How in Heaven's name, are men to become debaters, except by this same training? You require men not alone to be strong upon the mass of questions that come up in debate, but you expect them to be prompt with their explanations, always prepared with their replies. Not ransacking history, or searching through 'Hansard,' you want a man who, at the spur of the moment, can rise to defend, to explain, to simplify, or mayhap to assail, to denounce, to annihilate. Is n't that true?”
“I don't want any such thing, sir!” said Scanlan, with a sulky determination that there was no misunderstanding.
“You don't. Well, what do you ask for?”
“I'll tell you, sir, and in very few words, too, what I do not ask for! I don't ask to be humbugged, listening to this, that, and the other, that I have nothing to say to; to hear how you failed or why you succeeded; what you did or what you could n't do. I put a plain case to you, and I wanted as plain an answer. And as to your flattering me about being practical, or whatever you call it, it's a clean waste of time, neither less nor more!”
“The agency and the niece!” said Massingbred, with a calm solemnity that this speech had never disconcerted.
“Them 's the conditions!” said Scanlan, reddening over face and forehead.
“You 're a plucky fellow, Scanlan, and by Jove I like you for it!” said Massingbred. And for once there was a hearty sincerity in the way he spoke. “If a man is to have a fall, let it be at least over a 'rasper,' not be thrown over a furrow in a ploughed field! You fly at high game, but I'm far from saying you'll not succeed.” And with a jocular laugh he turned away and left him.