CHAPTER LVIII. SIR WITHIN ABROAD

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SIR Within, accompanied by Grenfell, who was now become an “indispensable” to him, left Dalradern for the Continent. The old man neither knew nor cared what direction he should take. The consciousness that any avowal of his love for Kate would but expose him to bitter raillery and ridicule, debarred him from all the sympathy he so much needed. Such a passion at his age was exactly one of those follies that all concur to laugh at, and it is precisely in the class that this old man pertained to, these dowagers of the world of statecraft, that ridicule is most powerful. The man who deems a witty “mot” a triumph, is just as ready to accept a severe epigram as a death-wound.

One would not have believed how a few days of sorrow could have aged him. It was not alone that a stern melancholy sat on his features, but that even his erect carriage and firm step had left him, and he walked now with bent-down head feebly and uncertainly. Arrived at Paris, Grenfell endeavoured to interest him by some of the pleasures of that marvellous capital. He induced him to dine at the “Rocher,” and to drive in the Bois; he narrated all the passing gossip of the day; told him the scandals in vogue, and showed him the actors in them as they drove by on the Boulevards; but it seemed as though all the world of these vanities had closed for him, and he neither smiled nor vouchsafed a word as he listened.

Once only did he betray the slightest animation of voice or manner; it was when Grenfell pointed out to him in a carriage one of the great beauties of the time. The old man looked fixedly for an instant at her, and then, turning away his head, muttered, “Sheis infinitely more beautiful.”

Paris he soon discovered to be too noisy and too bustling. For Switzerland, the season was already late, and the climate was severe. Spain or Italy remained, and he was yet hesitating which to take, when Grenfell mentioned that he saw Mr. M’Kinlay’s name amongst the arrivals at the hotel, and, on inquiry, learned that he was on his way out to Italy to see Vyner, and was to leave Paris that night.

“I think I should like to see Vyner too; that is, if he would receive me,” said Sir Within, feebly. “Could you manage to catch this Mr. M’Kinlay?”

“Shall we have him to dinner to-day?”

“No; I think not. I’m not equal to it.”

“Suppose you were to try. He’s not a person to make much ceremony with. If he bores you, pretend indisposition, and leave him.”

The old man smiled—a strange, dubious sort of smile it was; perhaps it amused him to receive a lesson in social craft or address from “a Mr. George Grenfell.” At all events, Grenfell read the smile as a partial concurrence with his suggestion, and went on:

“M’Kinlay would be flattered by the invitation; and, if you should want him in any other way, he will be all the more tractable.”

“Thatis certainly something,” replied he, musing.

“Not to say,” added Grenfell, laughing, “that we run no great risk in being tired of him, since the mail leaves at ten, and he’ll scarcely remain after nine!”

“That is also something,” said Sir Within again.

“Here goes, then, for a note; or stay, I’ll just see if he be in the house. We shall say six o’clock dinner, and alone; these men abhor the idea of dressing, if they can help it.”

Sir Within merely raised his eyebrows, half pitifully, that there were such people; and Grenfell hastened away on his mission. He was back in a moment. “Just caught him getting into a cab; he’ll be delighted—hewasdelighted when I gave him your message. He goes off to-night, as the waiter said, and apparently full of important news. Vyner, it would seem, has come all right. All he told me was: ‘Sir Gervais will be on his legs again;’ but we’ll have it all after dinner.”

Sir Within heard the tidings with far less interest than Grenfell looked for. He smiled benignly, indeed; he muttered something about being “charmed to hear it;” and then heaved a heavy sigh and sat down with his back to the light. How heartless and unfeeling did it seem to him to have so much compassion for loss of mere fortune, and not one word of sympathy for a broken and bereaved heart! What a world it was! What a world of perverted feeling and misapplied generosity!

Grenfell said something about the epicurism of the lawyer class, and went off to give special directions about the dinner; and the old man dozed, and woke, and wandered on in thought over the past, and dozed again, till his servant came to apprise him it was time to dress.

It was the first time he was to encounter the presence of a stranger after some months of seclusion, and he shrank from the effort, and would have retreated altogether if he could only have found a pretext. Conventionalities are, however, the tyrants of such men as himself, and the bare idea of anything unseemly in politeness was unendurable. He suffered his valet, therefore, to restore him to something of his former appearance. His eyebrows were newly tinted and well arched; his furrowed cheeks were skilfully smoothed over and suffused with a soft, permanent blush; and his whiskers were ingeniously brought into keeping with the vigorous darkness of his raven wig, imparting to him altogether a sort of surcharged vitality, that, to an acute observer, might have imparted a sense little short of horror. The very brilliants of his rings caught a twinkling lustre from his tremulous hands, as though to impress the beholder with the contrast between splendour and decay.

Nor was his manner less unreal than his appearance. With his darkened eyebrows and his diamond studs he had put on his old tone of soft insinuation, and all that was natural in the Man was merged in the crafty devices of the Minister. No wonder was it M’Kinlay was charmed with a tone and address that had done service in Courts. Sir Within thus “warmed to his work,” and actually at last began to feel pleasure in the success he achieved; and even Grenfell, long trained to the habits of the world, was astonished at conversational resources for which he had never given him credit.

Thus happily did the dinner proceed; and when the servants retired, M’Kinlay had arrived at that point of beatitude in which he regarded the company as something superlatively high, and himself fully worthy of it.

“You are on your way to my old friend Vyner, I think?” said Sir Within, with a heartiness that ignored all estrangement between them.

“Yes, Sir; on a pleasanter mission, I rejoice to say, than when I last travelled the same road.”

“He is all right again, I hear,” said Grenfell, who meant, by an abrupt declaration, to disarm all the conventional reserve of the lawyer.

“Well, that would be saying too much, perhaps—too much; but I hope, Mr. Grenfell, he is on the way to it.”

“With M’Kinlay for his pilot, he’ll make the harbour, I have no doubt whatever,” said Sir Within, smiling graciously.

“I shall certainly do my best, Sir,” said the other, bowing. “Not alone because it is my duty, but that Sir Gervais has been good enough to regard me, for many years back, in the light of his friend as well as his lawyer.”

“Of that I am well aware,” said Sir Within, lifting his glass and appearing to be quietly pledging Mr. M’Kinlay to himself as a toast.

“Has the scoundrel who ran away with his securities been caught?” asked Grenfell, impatiently.

“No, Sir; he is beyond being caught—he is dead.” After a pause, which Sir Within and Grenfell saw all the importance of not breaking but leaving to M’Kinlay the task of continuing his narrative, that gentleman went on: “It is quite a romance—positively a romance in real life. I’m afraid,” said he, looking at his watch, “I shall not have time to tell you the story in all its details. I must start by the ten-twenty train for Lyons.”

“We are only a few minutes after eight now,” said Grenfell. “Let us hear the story.”

“Even in outline,” chimed in Sir Within, blandly. “Pray help yourself to the wine—it is beside you.”

“I can give you but a sketch—a mere sketch, Sir. It would seem, Sir, that ever since the French conquest of Algeria, a French company has been engaged in the supply of munitions of war to the Arabs, and to this end had established agents at Tripoli, Tunis, and Morocco, who were thus enabled to transport these supplies into the interior of Africa. The director of this company was La Harpe, the Parisian banker, with whom Sir Gervais became acquainted through Mr. Gennet, himself the owner of many shares in the undertaking.”

Grenfell sighed drearily at the long-windedness which he saw awaited them; but Sir Within looked intensely interested, and M’Kinlay went on, and, with a prolixity that I have no desire to imitate, entered upon the nature of this company, its operations, and its gains. With a painstaking minuteness he described the false trade-marks used to prevent discovery, and how the weapons, which were forged in France, bore the stamp of Sheffield or Birmingham.

“Giving ‘La perfide Albion’ all the credit of the treachery,” said Sir Within, smiling.

“Precisely, Sir,” said M’Kinlay, delighted at the attention so graciously vouchsafed him. “I see you understand it all. Indeed, I may remark here, that a very sharp interchange of notes took place between the two Governments on the subject, the French alleging, and with apparent reason——”

“Get on, in Heaven’s name, to what concerns Vyner,” cried Grenfell, “or it only wants a quarter to nine, otherwise you’ll have to leave us without the catastrophe.”

“I obey, Sir,” said M’Kinlay, with a certain irritation of voice at the same time. “I must observe, you will find it very difficult to fill up for yourselves the gaps you insist on my passing over. Mr. Gennet, then, for it is of him you wish me to speak, very soon perceiving that Sir Gervais Vyner was not a man to be drawn into such an illicit traffic, assumed to have obtained from the Bey of Tunis and others most valuable concessions to mines of various kinds, and by specimens of ore, reports of scientific mineralogists, and such-like, imposed on him so far as to induce him to enter largely into the speculation, not at all aware that every shilling he advanced was directed to the great enterprise of La Harpe and Company. It was not a very difficult task for an accomplished swindler like Gennet to show that the mines, which had no existence, had proved a failure. Indeed, the disastrous issue of the enterprise was so plausibly described, and the affairs were wound up with such apparent fairness, that it was no wonder if poor Sir Gervais actually pitied Gennet, and went so far as to beg he might not be molested. I assure you, Sir, I have a letter in my desk that says——”

“Nine o’clock!” solemnly ejaculated Grenfell, as the hour rang out from a neighbouring steeple.

“I hear it, Sir, and regret much that my time should be so limited; but to resume. So soon as Gennet had established the fact of the mock bankruptcy, he fled from Europe, and it was believed took refuge in America, where he had lived many years as partner in a mercantile house—the firm of Reay, Pate, and Brothers, Forty-sixth-street, New York, large shipowners, and importers on their own account. I feel I am prolix, Mr. Grenfell, even without the admonition of that painful sigh. But really, gentlemen, I am merely selecting the salient points of a very complicated incident, and not entering upon any but the strictly essential details.”

Sir Within assured him he felt an unbounded confidence in his discretion, and he resumed:

“There chanced to be in the employ of that firm a merchant captain named Dodge, a man of remarkable energy of character and great daring; and here I may mention, as a curious circumstance, that I once happened by a singular coincidence to meet with this man, and be his fellow-traveller, under no common circumstances.”

“I believe I can recal them,” said Sir Within. “I was the guest of my friend Sir Gervais on the night you told a very remarkable story, in which this man’s name occurred. The name was a strange one, and it held a place in my memory. If I mistake not, you crossed over to the Arran Islands in his company?”

“I am much flattered to find, Sir Within, that you remember the incident, though I see how trying it proves to Mr. Grenfell’s patience.”

“Not in the least, if you will only consent to start by the morning’s train instead of to-night’s. Do that, and you will find you never had a more patient nor more interested listener.”

“Perfectly impossible, Sir. I have timed the whole journey by Bradshaw; and to catch the mail-boat—theQueen Hortense—at Marseilles, on Saturday, I must arrive by the early train, and there is the half-hour now chiming. I trust Sir Within Wardle will forgive my abrupt leave-taking. One more glass of this excellent claret, and I am off.”

“Pray give my very kindest regards to Sir Gervais, and my most respectful homage to the ladies. Though I am not permitted to learn how the good fortune came, let me, I beg, be associated with every congratulation the event inspires.” And with this Frenchified expression of his satisfaction, the old diplomatist drew himself up like one who felt that he stood once more on his native heath.

So wrapt up was he, indeed, in this revival of an old part he had so long played with success, that he never noticed how Grenfell had left the room along with M’Kinlay, and he sat gazing at the fire and thinking over bygones. Nor was he aware how time flitted past, when Grenfell returned and took his place opposite him.

“I was determined to have all I could get out of him,” said Grenfell. “I jumped into the cab with him, and went to the railroad station. What between his dreary tiresomeness and the street noises as we rattled along, I gained very little; but this much I have learned: That the man Gennet, who had once, as the lawyers call it, ‘compassed’ the life of Dodge, by sending him to sea in a rotten vessel, immensely insured, and predestined to shipwreck, was recognised by this same skipper in the street at Tripoli. Dodge, it seems, had just been landed with one other survivor of his crew, having blown up his vessel to prevent its falling into the hands of some Riff pirates, and after unheard-of peril and sufferings was picked up at sea with his companion, both badly wounded by the explosion, though they had thrown themselves into the sea before the vessel blew up. All I could do would not hurry M’Kinlay over this part of the story, which I believe he imagined he told effectively, and I had only got him to Tripoli as we drove into the yard of the station. While higgling with the cabman and the porters, he stammered out something about Dodge standing at his Consul’s door as Gennet rode past with a large suite of Arab followers; that the skipper sprang upon him like a tiger and tore him from his horse. A dreadful struggle must have ensued, for Gennet died of his wounds that night, and Dodge was nearly cut to pieces by the guard, his life being saved by the desperate bravery of his friend, who was at last rescued by the members of the Consulate. The bell rang as we arrived at this critical moment, but I followed him to his compartment, and, at the risk of being carried off, sat down beside him. The miserable proser wanted to involve me in an account of the criminal law of Tripoli when any one holding office under the Bey should have been the victim of attack, but I swore I knew it perfectly, and asked what about Gennet? He then began to narrate how the French Consul, having intervened to defend the interests of his countryman, discovered the whole plot against France, found all the details of the purchase of war materials, bills of lading, and such-like: and, besides these, masses of Vyner’s acceptances, which had never been negotiated. Another—the last—bell now rang out, and as I sprang from my seat he leaned out of the window, and said: ‘Dodge, it is thought, will recover; his friend is now with Sir Gervais, at Chiavari, and turns out to be Luttrell, the young fellow whom we picked up——’ When, where, or how, I cannot say, for the train now moved on, and the tiresome old dog was carried off at a very different pace from that of his narrative.”

Sir Within listened with all the semblance of interest and attention. Once or twice he interjected an “Ah!” or, “How strange!” But it is only truthful to own that he paid very little real attention to the story, and could not well have said at the end whether Dodge was not the villain of the piece, and young Luttrell his guilty accomplice.

Very grateful was he, however, when it ended, and when Grenfell said, “I suppose Vyner has had enough of speculation now to last his lifetime.”

“I trust so sincerely,” said Sir Within, with a smile.

“It is such rank folly for a man to adventure into a career of which he knows nothing, and take up as his associates a set of men totally unlike any he has ever lived with.”

“I perfectly agree with you,” said the other, with an urbane bow. “You have admirably expressed the sentiment I experience at this moment; and even with my brief opportunity of arriving at a judgment, I am free to confess that I thought this gentleman who has just left us, Mr. M’Kinlay, I think he is called—a very dangerous man—a most dangerous man.”

Grenfell looked at him, and fortunate was it that Sir Within did not note that look, so full was it of pitiless contempt; and then rising, he said, “It is later than I thought. You said something about Versailles for to-morrow, didn’t you?”

“I have not heard whether his Majesty will receive me.”

Grenfell started, and stared at him. Had it come to this already? Was the mind gone and the intellect shattered?

“You spoke of a day in the country somewhere,” reiterated Grenfell “St. Germains, or Versailles.”

“Very true. I am most grateful for your reminder. It will be charming. I am quite in the humour for a few pleasant people, and I hope the weather will favour us.”

“Good-night,” said Grenfell abruptly, and left the room.

Mr. Grenfell sat in an easy-chair, wrapped in a most comfortable dressing-gown, and his feet encased in the softest of slippers, before a cheery wood fire, smoking. His reflections were not depressing. The scene from which he had just come satisfied him as to a fact—which men like Grenfell have a sort of greedy appetite to be daily assured of—that “Money is not everything in this world.” Simple as the proposition seems, it takes a long and varied knowledge of life to bring home that conviction forcibly and effectually. Men are much more prone to utter it than to believe it, and more ready to believe it than to act upon it.

Now, though Grenfell was ready to admit that “Money was not everything,” he coupled it with what he believed to be just as true—that it was a man’s own fault that made it so. He instanced to his mind the old man he had just quitted, and who, except in the quality of years, was surrounded with everything one could desire—name, fortune, station, more than average abilities, and good health—and yet he must needs fall in love! By what fatality was it that a man always chose the worst road? What malevolent ingenuity ever selected the precise path that led to ruin? Were there no other vices he could have taken to? Wine, gambling, gluttony, would have spared his intellect for a year or two certainly. The brains of old people stand common wear and tear pretty well; it is only when the affections come to bear upon the mind that the system gives way. That a man should assume old age gracefully and becomingly, the heart ought to decay and grow callous, just as naturally as hair whitens and teeth fail. Nature never contemplated such a compact as that the blood at seventy should circulate as at thirty, and that the case-hardened, world-worn man should have a revival of Hope, Trustfulness, and Self-delusion. It was thus Grenfell regarded the question, and the view was not the less pleasing that he felt how safely he stood as regards all those seductions which fool other men and render their lives ridiculous. At all events, the world should not laugh athim. This is a philosophy that suffices for a large number of people in life; and simple as the first element of it may seem, it involves more hard-heartedness, more cruel indifference to others, and a more practical selfishness, than any other code I know of.

If he was well pleased that Vyner should “come all right again,” it was because he liked a rich friend far better than a poor one; but there mingled with his satisfaction a regret that he had not made overtures to the Vyners—the “women,” he called them—in their hour of dark fortune, and established with them a position he could continue to maintain in their prosperity. “Yes,” thought he, “I ought to have been taught by those people who always courted the Bourbons in their exile, and speculated on their restoration.” But the restoration of the Vyner dynasty was a thing he had never dreamed of. Had he only had the very faintest clue to it, what a game he might have played! What generous proffers he might have made, how ready he might have been with his aid! It is only just to him to own that he very rarely was wanting in such prescience; he studied life pretty much as a physician studies disease, and argued from the presence of one symptom what was to follow it.

His present speculations took this form. Vyner will at once return to England, and go back to “the House;” he’ll want occupation, and he’ll want, besides, to reinstate himself with the world. With his position and his abilities—fair abilities they were—he may aspire to office, and Grenfell liked official people. They were a sort of priesthood, who could slip a friend into the sanctuary occasionally, not to add, that all privileged classes have an immense attraction for the man whose birth has debarred him from their intimacy. Now, he could not present himself more auspiciously to the Vyners than in the company of Sir Within Wardle, who was most eager to renew all his former relations with them. Nor was it quite impossible but that Grenfell might seem to be the agency by which the reconciliation was brought about. A clever stroke of policy that, and one which would doubtless go far to render him acceptable to the “women.”

If we must invade the secresy of a very secret nature, we must confess that Mr. Grenfell, in his gloomier hours, in his dark days at home, when dyspeptic and depressed, speculated on the possible event that he might at last be driven to marry. He thought of it the way men think of the precautions instilled by a certain time of life, the necessity of more care in diet, more regular hours, and such-like.

There would come a time, he suspected, when country-houses would be less eager for him, and the young fellows who now courted and surrounded him, would have themselves slipped into “mediævalty,” and need him no more. It was sad enough to think of, but he saw it, he knew it. Nothing, then, remained but a wife.

It was all-essential—indeed indispensable—that she should be a person of family and connexions; one, in fact, that might be able to keep open the door of society—even half ajar—but still enough to let him slip in and mingle with those inside. Vyner’s sister-in-law was pretty much what he wanted. She was no longer young, and consequently her market-value placed her nearer to his hopes; and although Sir Gervais had never yet made him known to Lady Vyner or Georgina, things were constantly done abroad that could not have occurred at home. Men were dear friends on the Tiber who would not have been known to each other on the Thames. The result of all his meditations was, that he must persuade Sir Within to cross the Alps, and then, by some lucky chance or other, come unexpectedly upon the Vyners. Fortune should take care of the rest.

Arrived at this conclusion, and his third cigar all but smoked out, he was thinking of bed, when a tap came to his door. Before he had well time to say “Come in,” the door opened, and young Ladarelle’s valet, Mr. Fisk, stood before him.

502

“I hope you’ll forgive me, Sir,” said he, submissively, “for obtruding upon you at such an hour, but I have been all over Paris, and only found out where you were this minute. I was at the station this evening when you drove up there, but I lost you in the crowd, and never could find you again.”

“All which zeal implies that you had some business with me,” said Grenfell, slowly.

“Yes, Sir, certainly. It is what I mean, Sir,” said he, wiping his forehead, and betraying by his manner a considerable amount of agitation.

“Now, then, what is it?”

“It is my master, Sir, Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle, has got into trouble—very serious trouble, I’m afraid, too—and ifyoucan’t help him through it, there’s nobody can, I’m sure.”

“A duel?”

“No, Sir, he don’t fight.”

“Debt?”

“Not exactly debt, Sir, but he has been arrested within the last few hours.”

“Out with it. What’s the story?”

“You have heard about that Irish business, I suppose, Sir—that story of the young girl he pretended to have married to prevent Sir Within making her my Lady——”

“I know it all; go on.”

“Well, Sir, the worst of all that affair was, that it brought my master into close intimacy with a very dangerous fellow called O’Rorke, and though Mr. Ladarelle paid him—and paid him handsomely, too—for all he had done, and took his passage out to Melbourne, the fellow wouldn’t go. No, Sir, he swore he’d see Paris, and enjoy a little of Paris life, before he’d sail.Iwas for getting him aboard when he was half drunk, and shipping him off before he was aware of it; but my master was afraid of him, and declared that he was quite capable of coming back from the farthest end of the world to ‘serve him out’ for anything like ‘a cross.’”

“Go on—come to the arrest—what was it for?” broke in Grenfell, impatiently.

“Cheating at cards, Sir,” plumped out the other, half vexed at being deemed prosy. “That’s the charge, Sir; false cards and cogged dice, and the police have them in their hands this minute. It was all this fellow’s doing, Sir; it was he persuaded Mr. Dolly to set up the rooms, and the tables, and here’s what it’s come to!” “And therewasfalse play?”

“So they say, Sir. One of the ladies that was taken up is well known to the police; she is an Italian Marchioness—at least they call her so—and the story goes ‘well protected,’ as they say here.”

“I don’t see that there’s anything to be done in the matter, Fisk; the law will deal with them, and pretty sharply, too, and none can interfere with it. Are you compromised yourself?”

“No, Sir, not in the least. I was back and forward to Town once or twice a week getting bills discounted and the like, but I never went near the rooms. I took good care of that.”

“Such being the case, I suspect your affection for your master will not prove fatal to you—eh?”

“Perhaps not, Sir; a strong constitution and reg’lar habit may help me over it, but there’s another point I ain’t so easy about. Mr. Dolly has got a matter of nigh four hundred pounds of mine. I lent it at twenty-five per cent, to him last year, and I begin to fear the security is not what it ought to be.”

“There’s something in that, certainly,” said Grenfell, slowly. “Yes, Sir, there’s a great deal in it, because they say here, if Mr. Dolly should be sent to the galleys ever so short a time, he loses civil rights, and when he losesthem, he needn’t pay no debts to any one.”

“Blessed invention those galleys must be, if they could give the immunity you mention!” said Grenfell, laughing; “but I opine your law is not quite accurate—at any rate, Fisk, there’s nothing to be done for him. If he stood alone in the case, it is just possible there would be a chance of helping him, but here he must accept the lot of his associates. By the way, what did he mean by that mock marriage? What was the object of it?” This query of Grenfell’s was thrown out in a sort of random carelessness, its real object being to see if Mr. Fisk was on “the square” with him.

“Don’t you know, Sir, that he wanted to prevent the old gent at Dalradern from marrying her? One of the great lawyers thinks that the estate doesn’t go to the Ladarelles at all if Sir Within had an heir, and though it’s not very likely, Sir, it might be possible. Master Dolly, at all events, was mortally afraid of it, and he always said that the mere chance cost him from fifteen to twenty per cent, in his dealings with money-lenders.”

“Are you known to Sir Within, Fisk? Has he seen you at the Castle?”

“Not to know me, Sir; he never notices any ofusat all. Yates, his man, knows me.”

“Yates is not with him. He has got a French valet who lived with him some years ago, and so I was thinking, perhaps, the best way to serve you would be to take you myself. What do you say to it?”

“I’m ever grateful, Sir, to you. I couldn’t wish for anything better.”

“It will be pleasanter than ‘Clichy,’ at all events, Fisk, and there’s no doubt the police here will look out for you when they discover you were in Mr. Ladarelle’s service.”

“And am I safe here, Sir?”

“You’ll be safe, because we leave here to-morrow. So come over here after breakfast, and we’ll settle everything. By the way, I’d not go near Mr. Ladarelle if I were you; you can’t be of use to him, and it’s as well to take care of yourself.”

“I was just thinking that same, Sir; not to say that if that fellow O’Rorke saw me, it’s just as likely he’d say I was one of the gang.”

“Quite so. Be here about twelve or one, not later.”

“What do you think about my money, Sir—the loan to Mr. Dolly, I mean?”

“It’s not a choice investment, Fisk—at least, there are securities I would certainly prefer to it.”

“Three years’ wages and perquisites, Sir!” cried he, mournfully.

“Well, your master will probably have five years to ruminate over the wrong he has done you.”

“At the galleys? Do you really mean the galleys, Sir?”

“I really mean at the galleys, Fisk; and if he be not a more amusing companion there than I have found him in ordinary life, I can only say I do not envy the man he will be chained to.”

Mr. Fisk grinned a very hearty concurrence with the sentiment, and took a respectful leave, and withdrew.

Mr. M’KINLAY was too acute an observer not to see that his arrival at the Boschetto was matter of general satisfaction, and his welcome peculiarly cordial. The Vyners had just escaped from a heavy calamity, and were profuse of grateful emotions to all who had assisted them in their troubles.

Now, M’Kinlay had not been extravagant in his offices of friendship, but, with a sort of professional instinct, he had always contemplated the possibility of a restoration, and had never betrayed by his manner any falling off from his old terms of loyalty and devotion.

The Vyners, however, had their acute attack of gratitude, and they felt very warmly towards him, and even went so far as to designate by the word “delicacy” the cold reserve which he had once or twice manifested. Vyner gave him up his own room, and the little study adjoining it, and Georgina—the haughty Georgina—vouchsafed to look over its internal economies, and see that it was perfect in all its comforts. She went further; she actually avowed to him the part she had taken in his reception, and coquettishly engaged him to remember how much of his accommodation had depended onherforesight.

Mr. M’Kinlay was delighted; he had not been without certain misgivings, as he journeyed along over the Alps, that he might have shown himself a stronger, stauncher friend to Vyner in his hour of adversity. He had his doubts as to whether he had not been betrayed once or twice into a tone of rebuke or censure, and he knew he had assumed a manner of more freedom than consorted with their former relations. Would these lapses he remembered against him now? Should he find them all colder, stiffer, haughtier than ever?

What a relief to him was the gracious, the more than gracious, reception he met with! How pleasant to be thanked most enthusiastically for the long journey he had come, with the consciousness he was to be paid for it as handsomely afterwards! How lightly he took his fatigues, how cheerily he talked of everything, slyly insinuating now and then that if they would look back to his letters, they would see that he always pointed to this issue to the case, and for his part never felt that the matter was so serious as they deemed it. “Not that I ever permitted myself to hold out hopes which might prove delusive,” added he, “for I belong to a profession whose first maxim is, ‘Nothing is certain.’”

Nor was it merely kind or complimentary they were; they were confidential. Vyner would sit down at the fire with him, and tell all the little family secrets that are usually reserved for the members themselves; and Georgina would join him in the garden, to explain how she long foresaw the infatuation of her brother-in-law, but was powerless to arrest it; and even Lady Vyner—the cold and distant Lady Vyner—informed him, in the strictest secresy, that her dear mother had latterly taken a fondness for Malaga, and actually drank two full glasses of it every day more than the doctor permitted. What may not the man do in the household who is thus accepted and trusted? So, certainly, thought Mr. M’Kinlay, and as he strolled in the garden, apparently deep in thought over the Vyner complications, his real cares were, How was he himself to derive the fullest advantage of “the situation”?

“It is while towing the wreck into harbour the best bargain can be made for salvage,” muttered M’Kinlay. “I must employ the present moments well, since, once reinstated in their old prosperity, the old pride is sure to return.” He hesitated long what course to take. Prudence suggested the slow, cautious, patient approach; but then Miss Courtenay was one of those capricious natures whose sudden turns disconcert all regular siege. And, on the other hand, if he were to attempt a “surprise,” and failed, he should never recover it. He had ascertained that her fortune was safe; he had also learned that Mrs. Courtenay had made a will in her favour, though to what precise amount he could not tell; and he fancied—nor was it mere fancy—that she inclined far more to his society than heretofore, and seemed to encourage him to a greater frankness than he had yet dared to employ in his intercourse with her.

Partly because of the arduous task of investigating Vyner’s accounts, and partly that he was a man who required abundant time and quiet before he could make up his mind on any difficulty, he breakfasted alone in his own room, and rarely mixed with the family before dinner-hour. He knew well how all this seeming industry redounded to his credit; the little entreaties to him to take some fresh air, to take a walk or a drive, were all so many assurances of friendly interest in his behalf; and when Vyner would say, “Have a care, M’Kinlay; remember what’s to become ofusif you knock up,” Lady Vyner’s glance of gratitude, and Miss Courtenay’s air of half confusion, were an incense that positively intoxicated him with ecstasy.

A short stroll in the garden he at last permitted himself to take, and of this brief period of relaxation he made a little daily history—one of those small jokes great men weave out of some little personal detail, which they have a conscious sense, perhaps, history will yet deal with more pompously.

“Five times from the orangery to the far summer-house to-day! There’s dissipation for you,” would he say, as he entered the drawing-room before dinner. “Really I feel like a pedestrian training for a race.” And how pleasantly would they laugh at his drollery, as we all do laugh every day at some stupid attempt at fun by those whose services we stand in need of, flattering ourselves the while that our sycophancy is but politeness.

Vyner was absent one day, and Mr. M’Kinlay took the head of the table, and did the honours with somewhat more pretension than the position required, alluding jocularly to his high estate and its onerous responsibilities, but the ladies liked his pleasantry, and treasured up little details of it to tell Sir Gervais on his return.

When they left him to his coffee and his cigar on the terrace, his feeling was little less than triumphant. “Yes,” thought he, “I have won the race; I may claim the cup when I please.” While he thus revelled, he saw, or fancied he saw, the flutter of a muslin dress in the garden beneath. Was it Georgina? Could it be that she had gone there designedly to draw him on to a declaration? If Mr. M’Kinlay appear to my fair readers less gallant than he might be, let them bear in mind that his years were not those which dispose to romance, and that he was only a “solicitor” by profession.

“Now or never, then,” said he, finishing a second liqueur-glass of brandy, and descending the steps into the garden.

Though within a few days of Christmas, the evening was mild and even genial, for Chiavari is one of those sheltered nooks where the oranges live out of doors through the winter, and enjoy a climate like that of Naples. It was some time before he could detect her he was in search of, and at last came suddenly to where she was gathering some fresh violets for a bouquet.

“What a climate—what a heavenly climate this is, Miss Courtenay!” said he, in a tone purposely softened and subdued for the occasion; and she started and exclaimed:

“Oh! how you frightened me, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay. I never heard you coming. I am in search of violets; come and help me, but only take the deep blue ones.”

Now, if Mr. M’Kinlay had been perfectly sure—which he was not—that her eyes were blue, he would have adventured on a pretty compliment, but, as a lawyer, he knew the consequences of “misdescription,” and he contented himself with expressing all the happiness he felt at being associated with her in any pursuit.

“Has my sister told you what Gervais has gone about?” asked she, still stooping to cull the flowers.

“Not a word of it.”

“Then I will, though certainly you scarcely deserve such a proof of my confidence, seeing how very guarded you are as to your own secrets.”

“I, my dear Miss Courtenay?Iguarded! and towardsyou!I pray you tell me what you allude to.”

“By-and-by, perhaps; for the present, I want to speak of our own mysteries. Know, then, that my brother has gone to Genoa to bring back with him the young gentleman through whose means much of our late discovery has been made, and who turns out to be Mr. Luttrell. He was here for a couple of days already, but so overwhelmed by the news of his father’s death, that we scarcely saw anything of him. He then left us to go back and nurse his wounded friend the captain, who insists, it seems, on being treated in the public hospital.”

“Luttrell—Luttrell! You mean one of that family who lived on the rock off the Irish coast?”

“His son.”

“The boy I remember having rescued at the peril of my own life! I wonder will his memory recal it? And why is Sir Gervais——”

He stopped; he was about to ask what interest could attach to any one so devoid of fortune, friends, or station, and she saw the meaning of his question, and said, though not without a certain confusion:

“My brother-in-law and this young man’s father were once on a time very intimate; he used to be a great deal with us—I am speaking of very long ago—and then we lost sight of him. A remote residence and an imprudent marriage estranged him from us, and the merest accident led my brother to where he lived—the barren island you spoke of—and renewed in some sort their old friendship—in so far, at least, that Gervais promised to be the guardian of his friend’s son——”

“I remember it all; I took a part in the arrangement.”

“But it turns out there is nothing to take charge of. In a letter that my brother got from Mr. Grenfell some time since, we find that Mr. Luttrell has left everything he possessed to a certain niece or daughter. Which was she, Mr. M’Kinlay?”

“Niece, I always understood.”

“Which did you always believe?” said she, looking at him with a steady, unflinching stare.

“Niece, certainly.”

“Indeed?”

“On my word of honour.”

“And all this wonderful story about her beauty and captivation, and the running away and the secret marriage, how much ofthatdoes Mr. M’Kinlay believe?”

“I don’t know one word of what you allude to.”

“Oh, Mr. M’Kinlay, this is more than lawyer-like reserve!”

“I will swear it, if you desire.”

“But surely you’ll not say that you did not dine with Sir Within Wardle at the Hôtel Windsor, as you came through Paris?”

“I have not the slightest intention to deny it.”

“And is it possible, Mr. M’Kinlay, that nothing of what I have just mentioned was dropped during the dinner? No allusion to the beautiful Miss Luttrell, or Mrs. Ladarelle? Mr. Grenfell is in doubt which to call her.”

“Not a syllable; her name was never-uttered.”

“And what did you talk of, in Heaven’s name!” cried she, impatiently. “Was it town gossip and scandal?”

For a moment Mr. M’Kinlay was almost scared by her impetuosity, but he rallied, and assured her that Sir Within spoke with the warmest interest of Sir Gervais, and alluded in the most cordial way to their old relations of friendship, and with what pleasure he would renew them. “He charged me with innumerable kind messages, and almost his last word was a hope that he should be fortunate enough to meet you again.”

“And through all this no mention of the ‘beauty’—I mean, of Miss Luttrell?”

“Not a word.”

“How strange—how incomprehensible!” said she, pausing, and seeming to reflect.

“Remember, my dear Miss Courtenay, it was a very hurried meeting altogether. We dined at half-past six, and at ten I was on the railroad.”

“Did Sir Within strike you as looking so very ill—so much cut upas Mr. Grenfell phrases it?”

“I thought him looking remarkably well; for a man of his age, wonderfully well. He must be—let me see—he must be—not very far from eighty.1’

“Not within ten years of it, Sir, I’m confident,” broke she in, almost fiercely. “There is no error more common than to overrate the age of distinguished men. The public infers that familiarity with their name implies long acquaintance, and it is a most absurd mistake.”

Now, Mr. M’Kinlay thoroughly understood that he was typified under that same public, who only knew great men by report, and misrepresented them through ignorance. He was, however, so strong in “his brief,” that he would not submit to be put down; he had taken pains to look over a record of Sir Within’s services, and had seen that he was attached to the Russian embassy fifty-two years ago.

“What do you say to that, Miss Courtenay? Fifty-two years ago.”

“I say, Sir, that I don’t care for arithmetic, and never settle any question by a reference to mere figures. When I last saw Sir Within he was in the prime of life, and if great social talents and agreeability were to be any test, one of the youngest persons of the company.”

“Oh, I’m the first to extol his conversational powers. He is a perfect mine of good stories.”

“I detest good stories. I like conversation, I like reply, rejoinder, even amplification at times; anecdote is almost always a mistake.”

Mr. M’Kinlay was aghast. How disagreeable he must have made himself, to render her so sharp and so incisive all at once.

“I can say all this toyou,” said she, with a sweet tone, “for it is a fault you never commit. And so, you remark, that Sir Within showed no remarkable gloom or depression—nothing, in fact, that argued he had met with any great shock?”

“My impression was, that I sow him in high spirits and in the best possible health.”

“I thought so!” cried she, almost triumphantly. “I declare I thought so!” But why she thought so, or what she thought, or how it could be matter of such pleasure, she did not go on to explain. After a moment, she resumed: “And was there nothing said about why he had left Dalradern, and what induced him to come abroad?”

“Nothing—positively nothing.”

“Well,” said she, with a haughty toss of her head, “it is very possible that the whole subject occupies a much larger space in Mr. Grenfell’s letter than in Sir Within’s mind; and, for my own part, I only inquired about the matter as it was once the cause of a certain coldness, a half estrangement between Dalradern and ourselves, and which, as my brother takes much pleasure in Sir Within’s society, I rejoice to perceive exists no longer.”

All this was a perfect riddle to Mr. M’Kinlay, who had nothing for it but to utter a wise sentiment on the happiness of reconciliation. Even this was unfortunate, for she tartly told him that “there could be no reconciliation where there was no quarrel;” and then dryly added, “Is it not cold out here?”

“I protest I think it delightful,” said he.

“Well, then, it is damp, or it’s something or other,” said she, carelessly, and turned towards the house.

M’Kinlay followed her; gloomy enough was he. Here was the opportunity he had so long wished for, and what had he made of it? It had opened, too, favourably; their first meeting was cordial; had he said anything that might have offended her? or had he—this was his last thought as they reached the porch—had henotsaid what she expected he ought to have said?Thatsupposition would at once explain her chagrin and irritation.

“Miss Georgina,” said he, with a sort of reckless daring, “I have an entreaty to make of you—I ask a favour at your hands.”

“It is granted, Mr. M’Kinlay,” said she, smiling. “I guess it already.”

“You guess it already, and you grant it!” cried he, in ecstasy.

“Yes,” said she, still graciously, as she threw off her shawl. “You are impatient for your tea, and you shall have it at once.”

And with that she moved hurriedly forward, and left him overwhelmed with shame and anger.

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