In the house of Lord Ashborough--which is situated in Grosvenor-square, fronting the south--there is a large room, which in form would be a parallelogram, did not one of the shorter sides--which, being turned to the north, looks out upon the little rood of garden attached to the dwelling--bow out into the form of a bay window. The room is lofty, and, as near as possible, twenty-eight feet in length by twenty-four in breadth. Book-cases, well stored with tomes in lettered calf, cover the walls, and a carpet, in which the foot sinks, is spread over the floor. Three large tables occupy different parts of the room. Two covered with books and prints lie open to the world in general, but the third, on which stand inkstands and implements for writing, shows underneath, in the carved lines of the highly-polished British oak, many a locked drawer. Each chair, so fashioned that uneasy must be the back that would not there find rest, rolls smoothly on noiseless casters, and the thick walls, the double doors, and book-cases, all combine to prevent any sound from within being caught by the most prying ear without, or any noise from without being heard by those within, except when some devil of a cart runs away in Duke-street, and goes clattering up that accursed back street behind.
Such were the internal arrangements and appearance of the library at Lord Ashborough's, on a morning in September of the same year, one thousand eight hundred and something, of which we have been hitherto speaking. The morning was fine and clear; and the sun, who takes the liberty of looking into every place without asking permission of any one, was shining strongly into the little rood of garden behind the house. The languishing plants and shrubs that had been stuffed into that small space, dusty and dry with the progress of a hot summer, and speckled all over with small grains of soot--the morning benediction showered down upon them from the neighboring chimneys--no doubt wished that the sun would let them alone; and, as through an open passage-door they caught a sight of the conservatory filled with rich exotics, all watered and aired with scrupulous care, one of the poor brown lilacs might be heard grumbling to a stunted gray laburnum about the shameful partiality of the English for foreigners and strangers.
About eleven o'clock Lord Ashborough himself entered the room; and before any one else comes in to disturb us, we may as well sit down and take a full-length picture of him. He was a man of about fifty-nine or sixty, tall and well-proportioned, though somewhat thin. His face was fine, but pale, and there was a great deal of intellect expressed on his broad brow and forehead, which looked higher than it really was, from being perfectly bald as far down as the sutures of the temples. From that point, some thin dark hair, grizzled with gray, spread down, and met his whiskers, which were of the same hue, and cut square off, about the middle of his cheeks. His eyes were dark blue and fine, but somewhat stern, if not fierce, and in the space between his eyebrows there was a deep wrinkle, in which a finger might have been laid without filling up the cavity; the eyebrows themselves, though not very long, were overhanging; the nose was well formed and straight, though a little too long perhaps; but his mouth was beautifully shaped, and would have appeared the best feature in his face, had he not frequently twisted it in a very unbecoming manner, by gnawing his nether lip. His chin was round, and rather prominent; and his hand small, delicate, and almost feminine.
It is all nonsense that a man's dress signifies nothing. It is--if he takes any pains about it; and if he takes none, it comes to the same thing--it is the habitual expression of his mind or his mood; and in the little shades of difference which may exist with the moat perfect adherence to fashion, you will find a language much easier read than any of those on the Rosetta stone. Lord Ashborough was dressed more like a young than an old man, though without any extravagance. His coat was of dark green, covering a double-breasted waistcoat of some harmonizing color, while his long, thin, rather tight-fitting trowsers, displayed a well-formed leg, and were met by a neat, and highly-polished boot. Around his neck he wore a black handkerchief, exposing the smallest possible particle of white collar between his cheek and the silk; and on one of his fingers was a single seal ring. Taking him altogether he was a very good-looking man, rather like the late Mr. Canning, but with a much less noble expression of countenance.
Walking forward to the table, which we have noted as being well supplied with locks, Lord Ashborough opened one of the drawers, and, having rang the bell, sat down and took out some papers. The door opened; a servant appeared;--"Send to Mr. Tims!" said Lord Ashborough, and the man glided out. After a short pause, another person appeared, but of very different form and appearance from the servant; and therefore we must look at him more closely. He was a short, stout, bustling-looking little man, of about thirty-eight or forty, perhaps more, habited in black, rather white at the seams and edges. His countenance was originally full and broad; but the habit of thrusting his nose through small and intricate affairs had sharpened that feature considerably; and the small black eyes that backed it, together with several red blotches, one of which had settled itself for life upon the tip of the eminence, did not diminish the prying and intrusive expression of his countenance. There was impudence, too, and cunning written in very legible characters upon his face; but we must leave the rest to show itself as we go on.
As Mr. Peter Tims, of Clement's Inn, attorney-at-law--for such was the respectable individual of whom we now treat--entered the library of Lord Ashborough, he turned round and carefully closed the double-door, and then, with noiseless step, proceeded through the room till he brought himself in face of his patron. He then made a low bow--it would have been _Cow Tow_ if it had been desired--and then advanced another step, and made another bow.
"Sit down, sit down, Mr. Tims!" said Lord Ashborough, without raising his eyes, which were running over a paper he had taken from the drawer. "Sit down, sit down, I say!"
Mr. Tims did sit down, and then, drawing forth some papers from a blue bag, which he held in his hand, he began quietly to put them in order, while Lord Ashborough read on.
After a minute or two, however, his lordship ceased, saying, "Now, Mr. Tims, have you brought the annuity deed?"
"Here it is, any lord," replied the lawyer "and I have examined it again most carefully. There is not a chink for a fly to break through. There is not a word about redemption from beginning to end. The money must be paid for the term of your lordship's natural life."
Lord Ashborough paused, and gnawed his lip for a moment or two. "Do you know, Mr. Tims," he said at length, "I have some idea of permitting the redemption? I am afraid we have made a mistake in refusing it."
Mr. Tims was never astonished at any thing that a great man--_i.e_. a rich man--did or said, unless he perceived that it was intended to astonish him, and then he was very much astonished indeed, as in duty bound. It was wonderful, too, with what facility he could agree in every thing a rich man said, and exclaim, "Very like an ousel!" as dexterously as Polonius, or a sick-nurse, though he had been declaring the same question "very like a whale!" the moment before. Nor was he ever at a loss for reasons in support of the new opinion implanted by his patrons. In short, he seemed to have in his head, all ticketed and ready for use, a store of arguments, moral, legal, and philosophical, in favor of every thing that could be done, said, or thought, by the wealthy or the powerful. In the present instance, he saw that Lord Ashborough put the matter as one not quite decided in his own mind; but he saw also, that his mind had such a leaning to the new view of the matter, as would make him very much obliged to any one who would push it over to that side altogether.
"I think your lordship is quite right," replied Mr. Tims. "You had every right to refuse to redeem if you thought fit; but, at the same time, you can always permit the redemption if you like; and it might indeed look more generous--though, as I said before, you had every right to refuse. Yet perhaps, after all, my lord--"
"Tush! Do not after all me, sir," cried Lord Ashborough, with some degree of impatience, which led Mr. Tims to suspect that there was some latent motive for this change of opinion, which his lordship felt a difficulty in explaining: and which he, Mr. Tims, resolved at a proper time to extract by the most delicate process he could devise. "The means, sir," added Lord Ashborough; "the means are the things to be attended to, not the pitiful balancing of one perhaps against another."
"Oh! my lord, the means are very easy," replied Tims, rubbing his hands. "You have nothing to do but to send word down that your lordship is ready to accept, and any one will advance the means to Sir ----"
"Pshaw!" again interrupted Lord Ashborough. "You do not understand me, and go blundering on;" and, rising from his chair, the peer walked two or three times up and down the room, gnawing his lip, and bending his eyes upon the ground. "There!" he cried at length, speaking with abrupt rudeness. "There! The matter requires consideration--take up your papers, sir, and begone! I will send for you when I want you."
Mr. Tims ventured not a word, for he saw that his patron had made himself angry with the attempt to arrange something in his own mind which would not be arranged; and taking up his papers, one by one, as slowly as he decently could, he deposited them in their blue bag, and then stole quietly toward the door. Lord Ashborough was still walking up and down, and he suffered him to pass the inner door without taking any notice; but, as he was pushing open the red baize door beyond, the nobleman's voice was heard exclaiming, "Stay, stay! Mr. Tims, come here!" The lawyer glided quietly back into the room, where Lord Ashborough was still standing in the middle of the floor, gazing on the beautiful and instructive spots on the Turkey carpet.. His reverie, however, was over in a moment, and he again pointed to the chair which the lawyer had before occupied, bidding him sit down, while he himself took possession of the seat on the other side of the table; and, leaning his elbow on the oak, and his cheek upon his hand, he went on in the attitude and manner of one who is beginning a long conversation. The commencement, however, was precisely similar to the former one, which had proved so short. "Do you know, Mr. Tims," he said, "I have some idea of permitting the redemption? I am afraid we have made a mistake in refusing it;" but then he added, a moment after--"for the particular purpose I propose."
Mr. Tims was as silent as a mouse, for he saw that he was near dangerous ground; and, at that moment, six-and-eightpence would hardly have induced him to say a word--at least if it went farther than, "Exactly so, my lord!"
The matter was still a difficult one for Lord Ashborough to get over; for it is wonderful how easily men can persuade themselves that the evil they wish to commit is right; and yet how troublesome they find even the attempt to persuade another that it is so, although they know him to be as unscrupulous a personage as ever lived or died unhung. Now Lord Ashborough himself had no very high idea of the rigid morality of his friend Mr. Tims's principles, and well knew that his interest would induce him to do any thing on earth; and yet, strange to say, that though Lord Ashborough only desired to indulge a gentlemanlike passion, which, under very slight modifications, or rather disguises, is considered honorable and is patronized by all sorts of people, yet he did not at all like to display, even to the eyes of Mr. Tims, the real motive that was now influencing him. As it was necessary, however, to do so to some one, and he knew that he could not do so to any one whose virtue was less ferocious than that of Mr. Tims, he drew his clenched fist, on which his cheek was resting, half over his mouth, and went on.
"The fact is, you must know, Mr. Tims," he said, "this Sir Sidney Delaware is my first cousin--but you knew that before. Well, we were never very great friends, though he and my brother were; and at college it used to be his pleasure to thwart many of my views and purposes. There is not, perhaps, a prouder man living than he is, and that intolerable pride, added to his insolent sarcasms, kept us greatly asunder in our youth, and therefore you see he has really no claim upon my friendship or affection in this business."
"None in the world! None in the world!" cried Tims. "Indeed, all I wonder at is, that your lordship does not use the power you have to annoy him!"
Mr. Tims harped aright, and it is inexpressible what a relief Lord Ashborough felt--one of the proudest men in Europe, by the way--at finding that the little, contemptible despised lawyer, whom he looked upon, on ordinary occasions, as the the dust under his feet, had, in the present instance, got the right end of a clew which he was ashamed or afraid to unwind himself. Besides, the way he put it gave Lord Ashborough an opportunity of _chucking_ fine and generous, as the Westminster fellows have it; and he immediately replied--"No, sir, no! I never had any wish to annoy him. My only wish has been to lower that pride, which is ruinous to himself, and insulting to others; and I should not have even pursued that wish so far, had it not been that a circumstance happened which called us into immediate collision."
On finding that simple personal hatred and revenge--feelings that might have been stated in three words--were the real and sole motives which Lord Ashborough found it so difficult to enunciate, Mr. Tims chuckled--but mark me, I beg--it was not an open and barefaced cachination--it was, on the contrary, one of those sweet internal chuckles that gently shake the diaphragm and the parietes of the abdomen, and cause even a gentle percussion of the ensiform cartilage, without one muscle of the face vibrating in sympathy, or the slightest spasm taking place in the trachea or epiglottis. There is the anatomy of a suppressed chuckle for you! The discovery, however, was of more service than in the simple production of such agreeable phenomena. Mr. Tims, perceiving the motive of his patron, perceived also the precise road on which he was to lead, and instantly replied, "Whatever circumstance called your lordship into competition with Sir Sidney Delaware, must of course have been very advantageous to yourself, if you chose to put forth your full powers. But that, let me be permitted to say, is what I should suspect, from all that I have the honor of knowing of your lordship's character, you would not do. For I am convinced you have already shown more lenity than was very consistent with your own interest, and perhaps more than was even beneficial to the object; but I humbly crave your lordship's pardon for presuming to--"
Lord Ashborough waved his hand. "Not at all, Mr. Tims! Not at all!" he said. "Your intentions, I know, are good. But hear me. We came in collision concerning the lady whom he afterward married, and made a well bred beggar of. He had known her, and, it seems, obtained promises from her before I became acquainted: and though a transitory fancy for her took place in my own bosom"--and Lord Ashborough turned deadly pale--"yet of course, when I heard of my cousin's arrangements with her, I withdrew my claims, without, as you say, exerting power that I may flatter myself--"
He left the sentence unfinished, but he bowed his head proudly, which finished it sufficiently; and Mr. Tims immediately chimed in, "Oh, there can be no doubt--if your lordship had chosen--who the deuce is Sir Sidney Delaware, compared--" &c., &c., &c., &c.
"Well, I forgot the matter entirely," continued Lord Ashborough, in a frank and easy tone, for it is wonderful how the lawyer's little insignificances helped him on. "Well, I forgot the matter entirely."
"But you never married any one else," thought the lawyer, "and you remember it now." All this was thought in the lowest possible tone, so that Satan himself could hardly hear it--but Lord Ashborough went on. "I never, indeed, remembered the business more, till, on lending the money to his father, I found from a letter which the late man let me see, that the present man had not forgiven me some little progress I had made in the lady's affection. He said--I recollect the words very well--he said, that he could have borne his father borrowing the money at any rate of interest from any person but myself, who had endeavored to supplant him--and all the rest that you can imagine. Well, from that moment I determined to bow that man's pride, for his own sake, as well as other people's. I thought I had done so pretty well too; but, on my refusing to suffer the redemption--which no one can doubt that I had a right to do--he wrote me that letter; and his lordship threw across the table, to his solicitor, the letter which he had taken out of the drawer, just as the other entered. It was in the form of a note, and couched in the following terms:--
"Sir Sidney Delaware acknowledges the receipt of Lord Ashborough's letter, formally declining to accept the offer he made to redeem the annuity chargeable upon the estate of Emberton. The motives, excuses, or apologies--whichever Lord Ashborough chooses to designate the sentences that conclude his letter--were totally unnecessary, as Sir Sidney Delaware was too well acquainted with Lord Ashborough, in days of old, not to appreciate fully the principles on which he acts at present.
"Emberton Park, 1st September, 18--."
"Infamous! brutal! heinous!" cried Mr. Tims. "What does your lordship intend to do? I hope you will, without scruple, punish this man as he deserves. I trust that, for his own sake, you will make him feel that such ungrateful and malignant letters as that, are not to be written with impunity--ungrateful I may well call them! for what cause could your lordship have to write to him at all except to soften the disappointment you conceived he would feel?"
"You say very true, Mr. Tims," replied Lord Ashborough, with a benign smile. "You say very true, indeed; and I do think myself, in justice to society, bound to correct such insolence, though, perhaps, I may not be inclined to carry the chastisement quite so far as yourself."
"Nothing could be too severe for such a man!" cried Mr. Tims, resolved to give his lordship space enough to manœuvre in. "Nothing could be too severe!"
"Nay, nay, that is saying too much," said Lord Ashborough. "We will neither hang him, Mr. Tims, nor burn him in the hand, if you please," and he smiled again at his own moderation.
"A small touch of imprisonment, however, would do him a world of good," said Mr. Tims, feeling his ground--Lord Ashborough smiled benignly a third time. "But the mischief is," continued the lawyer, "he pays the annuity so regularly that it would be difficult to catch him."
"That is the reason why I say we have done wrong in refusing to allow the redemption," rejoined the peer. "Do you not think, Mr. Tims, some accident might occur to stop the money which he was about to borrow for the purpose of redeeming and if we could but get him to give bills payable at a certain day, we might have him arrested, in default?"
The lawyer shook his head. "I am afraid, my lord, if you had permitted the redemption, the money would have been ready to the minute," he said. "My uncle, I hear, was to have raised it for him; and, as he was to have had a good commission, it would have been prepared to the tick of the clock."
"And was your uncle to have lent the money himself, sir?" demanded Lord Ashborough, with a mysterious smile of scorn. "Did your uncle propose to give the money out of his own strongbox?"
"No, my lord, no!" replied Tims, eagerly; "no, no! He would not do that without much higher interest than he was likely to have got. Had he been the person, of course your lordship might have commanded him; but it was to be raised from some gentleman connected with Messrs. Steelyard and Wilkinson--a very respectable law house, indeed!"
"Some gentleman connected with Messrs. Steelyard and Wilkinson!" repeated Lord Ashborough, curling his haughty lip; "and who do you suppose that gentleman is, but my own nephew, Harry Beauchamp?"
The lawyer started off his chair with unaffected astonishment, the expression of which was, however, instantly mastered, and down he sat again, pondering, as fast as he could, the probable results that were to be obtained from this very unexpected discovery. Some results he certainly saw Lord Ashborough was prepared to deduce; and he knew that his only plan was to wait the development thereof, assisting as much as in him lay, the parturition of his patron's designs. But Lord Ashborough having spoken thus far, found very little difficulty in proceeding.
"The simple fact is this, Mr. Tims," he said; "Harry Beauchamp, full of all the wild enthusiasm--which would have ruined his father, if we had not got him that governorship in which he died--to my certain knowledge has gone down to Emberton, with the full determination of assisting these people, of whom his father was so fond. I have reason to think even, that the coming up of that young man, the son, was at Henry's instigation, although they affected not to know each other, and I am told carried their dissimulation so far as to pass each other in the hall as strangers. At all events, they went down together in a stage-coach, and are now, beyond all doubt, laying out their plans for frustrating all my purposes."
"Shameful, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Tims.
"On Harry's part," replied Lord Ashborough, affecting a tone of candor and moderation; "on Harry's part it is but a piece of boyish enthusiasm--a touch of his father's folly. I love the boy, who, as you know, will succeed me--when it pleases Heaven," he added, piously,--"to remove me from this life. I love the boy, and I do not choose to see him spend his splendid fortune, which will make a noble addition to the family estates, upon a set of mean and designing beggars; and I wish at once to punish them for their low and cunning schemes, and to save my nephew from their snares. Can we not, Mr. Tims, do you think, hit upon some plan by which this may be effected?"
"Why, my lord," replied Mr. Tims, hesitating slightly, for he was totally unprepared either for the intelligence he had received, or the demand that followed it; "why, my lord, your lordship's views are as kind and generous as usual; and doubtless--doubtless we may soon devise some means by which your lordship's nephew may be extricated from this little entanglement--but it will, of course, require thought--though perhaps your lordship's clear and perspicuous mind may have already devised some project. Indeed, I can not doubt it," he added, seeing a slight but well satisfied smile cross the features of the noble earl. "Your lordship has so much of what Burke used to call creative talent, that I doubt not you have already discovered the fitting means, and only require an agent in your most devoted servant."
"Something more, Mr. Tims, something more than a mere servant," replied Lord Ashborough. "I require your legal advice. We must proceed cautiously, and not suffer either zealous indignation, or regard for my nephew, to lead us into any thing that is not quite lawful. A slight scheme of the matter may, indeed, have suggested itself to my mind, but I want you to consider it well, and legalize it for me, as well as some of the details. Could we not, I say--could we not--it is but a supposition, you know, sir--could we not give notice to this Sir Sidney Delaware, that we are willing to permit the redemption; and even to give him time to pay the money, canceling, in the mean time, the annuity deed--"
"Not before you have got the amount!" exclaimed the lawyer, in unutterable astonishment.
"Yes, sir, before I have got the amount," replied Lord Ashborough, phlegmatically, "but not before I have got bills or notes of hand, payable within a certain time, and with an expressed stipulation, that unless those are duly paid, the annuity itself holds in full force."
"Ay; but if they be paid, my lord," cried Mr. Tims, "the annuity is at an end; and then where is your lordship?"
"But can not we find means to stop their being paid, Mr. Tims?" said Lord Ashborough, fixing his eyes steadily upon the lawyer. "In all the intricate chambers of your brain, I say, is there no effectual way you can discover to stop the supplies upon which this Delaware may have been led to reckon, and render him unable to pay the sum on the day his bills fall due? Remember, sir, your uncle is the agent, as I am led to believe, between this person and my nephew. Harry Beauchamp, forsooth, has too fine notions of delicacy to offer the money in his own person; but he is the man from whom the money is to come, and it has been for some weeks lodged in the hands of Steelyard and Wilkinson, his solicitors, awaiting the result--that is to say, the whole of it except ten thousand pounds in my hands, which I have promised to sell out for him to-morrow, and pay into their office. Are there no means, sir, for stopping the money?"
"Plenty, plenty, my lord!" replied the lawyer. "The only difficulty will be the choice of them. But, first, can not your lordship refuse to pay the ten thousand?"
"That will not do," answered the peer. "I know Harry well; and his first act would be to sell out the necessary sum to supply the deficiency. You must devise something else."
"Let us make the bills payable at Emberton, my lord," said the attorney; "at the house of my uncle. Mr. Beauchamp must then either come to town for the money, or send some one to receive it; and in either case it may be staid."
"How so?" demanded Lord Ashborough. "If he come, the matter is hopeless. He has sold out of the army, too; so there is no chance of his being called away there."
"Ay, but there is a little process at law going on against him, my lord," replied the attorney, "of which he knows nothing as yet. Some time ago, he threw the valet he had then down stairs, head foremost, for seducing the daughter of his landlady. The fellow has since prosecuted him for assault, and served the process upon me, whom he employed in the affair. I am not supposed to know where he is, so that the matter may be easily suffered to go by default; and, one way or another, we can contrive to get him arrested for a day or two, no doubt--especially as it is all for his own good and salvation, I may call it."
"Certainly, certainly!" answered Lord Ashborough. "I should feel no scruple in doing so; for no one could doubt that I am actuated alone by the desire of keeping him from injuring himself. But suppose he sends, Mr. Tims?"
"Why, that were a great deal better still," said the lawyer. "The only person he could send would be his servant, Harding, who owes me the place; and who, between you and I, my lord, might find it difficult to keep me from transporting him to Botany Bay, if I chose it. He would doubtless be easily prevailed upon to stop the money for a time, or altogether, if it could be shown him that he could get clear off, and the matter would be settled forever."
There was a tone of familiarity growing upon the lawyer, as a natural consequence of the edifying communion which he was holding with his patron, that rather displeased and alarmed Lord Ashborough, and he answered quickly, "You forget yourself, sir! Do you suppose that I would instigate my nephew's servant to rob his master?"
Mr. Peter Tims had perhaps forgot himself for the moment; but he was one of those men that never forget themselves long; and, as crouching was as natural to him as to a spaniel, he was instantly again as full of humility and submission as he had been, previously to the exposé which had morally sunk Lord Ashborough to a level with Mr. Tims. "No, my lord, no!" he exclaimed eagerly; "far be it from me to dream for one moment that your lordship would form such an idea. All I meant was, that this servant might easily be induced to delay the delivery of the money, on one pretext or another, till it be too late; and if he abscond--which perchance he might do, for his notions concerning property, either real or personal, are not very clearly defined--your lordship could easily intend to make it good to Mr. Beauchamp."
"I do not know what you propose that I should easily _intend_, Mr. Tims," replied Lord Ashborough; "but I know that it would not sound particularly well if this man were to abscond with the money, and there were found upon his person any authorization from me to delay discharging his trust to his master."
"Oh, my lord, that difficulty would be easily removed," answered Mr. Tims. "The law is very careful not to impute evil motives where good ones can be made apparent. It will be easy to write a letter to this man--what one may call a fishing letter--to see whether he will do what we wish, but stating precisely that your lordship's sole purpose and view is to save your nephew from squandering his fortune in a weak and unprofitable manner. We can keep a copy, properly authenticated; then, should he abscond, and be caught with the letter on him, your lordship will be cleared; while if, on being taken, he attempt to justify himself at your lordship's expense, the authenticated copy will clear you still."
"That is not a bad plan," said Lord Ashborough, musing. "But what if he draw for the money through your uncle, Mr. Tims? Do you think the old man could be induced to detain the money, or to deny its arrival for a day or two?"
"Why, I fear not, my lord," answered the other, shaking his head; "I fear not--he was five-and-thirty years a lawyer, my lord, and he is devilish cautious. But I will tell you what I can do. I can direct him to address all his letters, on London business, under cover to your lordship, which will save postage--a great thing in his opinion--and, as he holds a small share of my business still, I can open all the answers. So that we will manage it some way."
Lord Ashborough paused and mused for several minutes, for though his mind was comparatively at ease in having found his lawyer so eager and zealous in his co-operation, yet a certain consciousness of the many little lets and hindrances that occur in the execution of the best laid schemes, made him still thoughtful and apprehensive. Did you ever knit a stocking? No! nor I either--nor Lord Ashborough, I dare say, either. Yet we all know, that in the thousand and one stitches of which it is composed, if a single one be missed, down goes the whole concatenation of loops, and the matter is just where it began, only with a raveled thread about your fingers and thumbs, which is neither pleasant nor tidy. This consideration had some weight with the earl; so, after thinking deeply for several minutes, he rejoined--"The matter seems clear enough, Mr. Tims, but I will put it to yourself whether you can carry it through successfully or not--Hear me to an end, sir--I will on no account agree to the redemption of the annuity, if you are not certain of being able to bring about that which we propose. So, do not undertake it unless you can do so. If you do undertake it, the odds stand thus--You have five hundred pounds in addition to your fees if you be successful; but if you fail, you lose my agency forever."
"My lord," replied Tims, who was not a man to suppose that cunning could ever fail, "I will undertake the business and the risk. But, of course, your lordship must give me all your excellent advice and your powerful assistance. In the first place, you must allow me to bid my uncle send all his letters, and direct all the answers to be sent under cover to your lordship, and, in the next place, you must allow me to write immediately to Harding in your name."
"Not without letting me see the letter!" exclaimed Lord Ashborough. "But that, of course; and, if you succeed, the five hundred pounds are yours."
"Your lordship is ever generous and kind," replied Peter Tims; "and I will undertake to carry the matter through; but only"--and Mr. Tims was honest for once in his life, from the fear of after consequences--"but only I am afraid your lordship will not find the result put this Sir Sidney Delaware so completely is your power as you think."
"How so?" demanded Lord Ashborough, turning upon him almost fiercely. "How so, sir? How so?"
"Why, my lord," replied Mr. Tims, in a low and humble tone, "even suppose he is arrested, depend upon it, he will very easily find some one to lend him the money on the Emberton estates, to take up the bills he has given."
The earl's eye flashed, and the dark and bitter spirit in his heart broke forth for the first time unrestrained. "Let me but have him in prison!" he exclaimed; "let me but have him once in prison, and I will so complicate my claims upon his pitiful inheritance, and so wring his proud heart with degradations, that the beggar who robbed me of my bride shall die as he has lived, in poverty and disappointment!" and in the vehemence with which the long-suppressed passion burst forth, he struck his hand upon the table, till the ink-glasses danced in their stand.
Mr. Tims could understand envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness; but he was cowed by such vehemence as that into which the bare thought of seeing his detested rival in prison had betrayed his noble patron. Feeling, too, that he himself was not at all the sort of spirit to rule the whirlwind and direct the storm, he said a few quiet words about preparing every thing, and waiting on his lordship the next morning, and slunk away without more ado.
This chapter shall be, I think, what that delightful wight, Washington Irving, would call a Salmagundi, or, as it should be, perhaps, a _Salmi à la Gondi_; but, having mentioned that name, Irving, I dedicate this book to you. It is long since we first met--long since we last parted--and it may be long, long, ere we meet again. Nevertheless, Heaven speed you, wherever you are, and send you forward on your voyage, with a calm sea and a swelling sail! In all the many that I have known, and among the few that I have loved and esteemed, there is not now a living man that can compete with you in that delightful conversation where the heart pours forth its tide, and where fancy and feeling mingle together, and flow on in one ever sparkling stream. The dim Atlantic--whose very name sounds like that of eternity--may roll between us till death close the eyes of one or the other; but till the things of this world pass away, you shall not be forgotten.
Although we have now brought up the events in London nearly to the same point as the events in the country, we must still leave Henry Burrel strolling on through Emberton Park beside Blanche Delaware, while we turn for a moment to his silent servant, who having, on the same morning, walked with his usual slow and quiet step to the post-office, brought home, and deposited upon his master's table, two or three letters, after first gleaning every possible information that their outside or their inside could furnish. He then proceeded to inspect the contents of another epistle, which bore his own name and superscription. The words therein written had a considerable effect upon him, causing more twitches and contortions of the muscles of his countenance than was usually visible upon that still and patient piece of furniture. The first expression was certainly full of pleasure; but that soon relapsed into deep thought, and then a grave shake of the head, and close setting of the lower jaw, might be supposed to argue a negative determination. "No, no, Mr. Tims," he muttered, "that won't do! If one could make sure of getting clear off--well and good. But first, there is the chance of my not being sent for the money--then you would take good care to have me closely watched; and then, again, I do not know whether the chance here at Emberton may not be worth ten of the other--and I may come in for my share of the other too. No, no, Mr. Tims, it won't do!--so I will come the conscientious upon you." And down he sat to indite an epistle to Mr. Peter Tims, the agent of Lord Ashborough. It was written in one of those fair, easy, but vacillating, running-hands, which bespeak a peculiar and inherent gift or talent for committing forgery; and was to the following effect:--
"Emberton,September, 18--
"Sir--Your honored letter was duly received this morning; and I hasten to reply, as in duty bound. I am very sure that such honorable gentlemen as my lord the earl and yourself would not undertake any thing but upon good and reasonable grounds; but, hoping that you will pardon my boldness in saying so much, yet I can not imagine that I have any other than a straight forward duty to perform--namely, when my master sends me for any sum of money, or other valuable thing, to hasten to give it up into his hands as soon as I have received it; which I would certainly do, in case he should send me up to London, although I do not think it probable he will. It is very true, certainly, that I do think our notions of property are very confined and wrong; and that no man should have at his disposal a superabundance, while another man is wanting the necessaries or even the conveniences of life; and that, if things were equally distributed, a better system must spontaneously arise. This much I have learned by reading; and I heartily wish that the principles of regeneration, which are at present in active existence among the operative classes, may go on to complete a change of the old corrupt system. Nevertheless, until such time as the intellect of the country in general shall have worked such results, I can be doing no wrong in following the laws and usages established; and shall, consequently, abstain from acting upon the abstract principles of general utility, until such time as the general welfare may require a physical demonstration of popular opinion.
"In regard to certain passages of my past life, to which you are pleased to refer; although I believe that I could perfectly justify myself upon my own fixed principles for every thing that I have done through life, yet I am sorry that any thing should have occurred to make you for a moment doubt the integrity of a person you strongly recommended to Mr. Beauchamp; and I am determined to do nothing that shall confirm any evil opinion you may have unfortunately been led to form, or to maim my master regret having listened to the recommendation which you formerly thought fit to give your very humble and most obedient servant,
"Stephen Harding."
Having penned this delectable epistle, and read it over more than once, with much genuine satisfaction at the skill with which he had endeavored to raise his own character, while rejecting the offers of Mr. Tims, Harding sealed it up, and hastened to put it in the post. He then sauntered slowly through the town; and having visited the widow's cottage, and conversed for a few minutes with her son, he proceeded to walk on in the same direction which we have seen Burrel pursue upon a former occasion, shortly after his first arrival at Emberton. The purpose of the silent servant, however, was not to visit the old miser of Ryebury in person; and, ere he had gone a quarter of a mile upon the road, he was joined by the same bold vulgar personage who had, during part of the journey, occupied a place in the stage-coach which brought his master to Emberton.
They met evidently as old and familiar friends and with that sort of easy nonchalance which bespoke that their meeting was not unexpected. The servant pursued his way, scarcely pausing to say the necessary passwords of civility, and the other turning onward upon the same path, walked by his side, with his arms bent behind his back, conversing, not exactly in an under voice, but rather in that between-the-teeth sort of tone, which renders what is said more difficult to be understood by any one not quite near, than even a whisper.
The terms in which they spoke, also, were something enigmatical, and none, probably, but the initiated, could have discovered their views or purposes by such terms as the following.
"I have just been thinking last night, Master Harding," said his new companion, "that we had better get the other job done as soon as possible. We are wasting time, I thinks, and it seems to me as how you are growing something squeamish."
"You are a fool, Tony" replied Harding, "you are a fool for thinking, any thing of the kind. I'll tell you what, you may count yourself extremely well off that you have fallen in with a man of principle and education like myself, or you would have put your neck in a noose long ago. You take no extended views of things; and, instead of acting upon principle, which would always make you cautious in regard to times and seasons, and means and methods, you go bolt on, and would run your head into the stone pitcher, if I were not by to pull you back by the heels."
"Well, I think you're a rum covey, now!" replied the other; and was proceeding in the same strain, when he was stopped by his companion exclaiming--"Hush, hush! Curse your slang, it will betray you as soon as the mark of the hot iron would. Look here, now. I am no more squeamish than you are. I always act upon principle; and as to the job before us, considering the sum of general utility that is to be gained, I see no objection to doing the matter completely--I mean, making a finish of it. You understand? But where is the hurry? Let us go cautiously to work, learn our ground, and get every thing prepared. I say, where's the hurry?"
"As to the matter of that," answered the other, "there mayn't be no great hurry, to be sure. But we're both wasting our time somewhat; and, besides, they are looking out sharp after that other job--you see they have digged for the plate like mad--so that there is no use staying longer nor necessary, you know."
"Don't be afraid!" answered Harding, coolly, "they can make nothing of that. Besides, look here, Smithson; if we wait four or five days longer, there will be five-and-twenty thousand pounds down from London."
"Whew!" whistled Mr. Anthony Smithson, laying one finger on the side of his nose "That is a go! But are you sure?"
"I never say any thing without being sure," answered Harding, with laconic pomposity. "So make yourself easy on that score. I say there will be five-and-twenty thousand pounds down in three or four days; and, if I know the old man right, the larger half will be in gold. Have you tried Sally the maid?"
"It wont do!" answered the other, with somewhat of a rueful face. "She has lived long enough with that old fellow to be as cautious as a beak."
"Well, I suppose I must do that too!" answered the valet; "though it is a little tiresome, Master Smithson, that all the hard work is to fall upon me."
"Why, how the devil can I help it, Harding?" replied the other. "If the girl will have nothing to say to me, what can I do, you know! No, no, when it comes to the real hard work, you never find me behind!"
"Well, well," answered his worthy coadjutor, "I must come round her myself somehow, though she be but a dirty, trapesing slut, that a man of gentlemanly feelings will find some difficulty in making love to--but, nevertheless, when one acts upon principle, one learns to overcome one's repugnance to such things, from a consideration of the mass of general utility to be obtained by a trifling sacrifice."
His companion grinned, but he was too well accustomed to Mr. Harding's method a reasoning to express any farther surprise. After a few words more on both sides, however, as they judged it expedient to be seen together as little as possible, these two respectable persons separated, and, while Anthony Smithson returned to the town, Harding pursued his way onward; and having, on the strength of the communication he had received, determined to proceed to Ryebury, he took the same path that Burrel had followed before him. The beauties of nature occupied less of his thoughts than those of his master; and while, with solemn steps and slow, he wandered on his way, his ideas were much fuller of shillings and sixpences, and trips across the Atlantic, than of the verdant mead and purling stream.
As I believe I have before said, Master Harding was by no means an ugly person; and the charms of his good looks, together with a marvelous sweet voice, and a good deal more eloquence of its own peculiar kind than any one could have suspected him to possess from his usual taciturnity, he was what the French render, with somewhat profligate decency, by calling the person so gifted _un homme à bonnes fortunes_. His expedition against the heart of Sally, the miser's maid, was more successful than that of his companion had been, and he returned home flattering himself on having made more progress than he had anticipated. In fact, he had been fortunate in finding Mr. Tims out, and Sally at home; but as the intrigues of a slattern and a valet form no part of the staple of this book, we shall leave the matter as it is, without any farther elucidation.
In the mean while, Burrel--for so we shall still call him--had sauntered on, whiling away the golden minutes of a fair day, on the early side of thirty, in sweet conversation beside a beautiful girl. I have described what their conversation was like before, and I leave every one who can remember what were the sensations he experienced, when deep and fervent love just began to break upon his heart, to imagine how sweet were the winged minutes as they flew. Even the unspoken consciousness was not a burden, but a joy; and though Blanche Delaware might be said to tremble at the feelings that were growing upon her, yet there was a sort of vague internal conviction that those feelings were reciprocal--that they could not thus have crept over her heart unless some, nay, many of the signs of similar sentiments, on his side, had been sufficiently displayed to make her feel secure that she did not love unsought. Still there would every now and then come a shrinking apprehension across her mind, that she might be deceived--that it might be all merely a courteous and engaging manner, the same toward every one, which she in her ignorance had vainly fancied particular to herself. But those thoughts were but for a moment; and as Burrel walked onward by her side, there was in his tone, in his manner, and still more in the current through which all his thoughts appeared now to flow, a balmy influence that seemed to soothe away every fear. She knew not well whence she derived that balm; for had she tried--which, by the way, she did not--she could not have found one particular word he spoke, which was more appropriate to the vocabulary of love than to Johnson's Dictionary. It was, perhaps--but she knew nothing about it. It was perhaps, that pouring forth of the soul upon every topic, which can never take place but in conversation with one we love and esteem; for the hours of love are like a sunshiny day in the midst of summer, and all the flowers open, and the birds sing, and the bright things come forth through the heart's universe. It was this, perhaps, more than aught else in Burrel's manner, that made Blanche Delaware believe that she herself was loved.
It is sometimes a very difficult thing to get two people to acknowledge in any language under the sun, the feelings that are passing in their hearts. It is more especially difficult in a book; for no author likes to tell how he and his managed the matter themselves--at least, if he be not an ass or a coxcomb--and any thing that is manufactured is almost always "flat, stale, and unprofitable." A true story canters one easily over all such difficulties; and it so fortunately happened, that Henry Burrel and Blanche Delaware acknowledged it all without the slightest idea in the world that they were doing any thing of the kind.
There had been something spoken accidentally, that went too deep, and both felt, perhaps, though almost unconsciously, that nothing more could be said on that topic without saying more still; and as there was a third person by, of course the matter dropped, and equally, of course, a long pause ensued, which grew unpleasant.
"I thought," said Burrel, at length, "that we were to meet with some antiquities--even more interesting than the house itself--at least your father said so;" and conscious that he had made an awkward speech, and very little to the purpose, Burrel looked up and smiled, though many other men would have looked down and colored.
"You are not far from them," replied Captain Delaware--for Blanche's eyes were fixed upon the ground, and her thoughts were--not at Nova Zembla. "But surely you are not tired?"
"Nay, nay, any thing but tired?" answered Burrel; "but your father declared he would catechise me upon these ruins severely, and I was only afraid that I should forget them altogether."
"A piece of inattention which Blanche or I would excuse much more readily than my father," replied the good-humored sailor. "But we are close upon them. You see those two wooded banks that fall across each other, with the stream flowing out in foam from between them? They form the mouth of a little glen, about a hundred yards up which stands the Prior's Fountain, and farther still, the Hermit's Chapel. In architecture, I believe, they are unique, and there is many a curious tradition about both."
"Hush, hush, William!" cried his sister, seeing him about to proceed, "never tell the traditions but upon the spot. Oh, an old legend, in these days of steam and manufactory, can never be properly told, except under the gray stone and the ivy, where the memories of a thousand years are carved by the chisel of time on every tottering pinnacle and moldering cornice, which vouch, by their unusual forms, for the strange stories of their founders!"
"Oh, let us go on, by all means," said Burrel, smiling; "an old legend is worthy of every accessory with which we can furnish it. But there it is," he added, as they turned the angle of the bank, and, entering the little glen, had before them a small Gothic building, covered with the richest ornaments of the most luxurious age of Norman architecture. "That, I suppose, is the chapel?"
"No, that is the Prior's Fountain," answered Captain Delaware; "and certainly the monks must have attached some peculiar importance to it, from covering it over with so splendid a structure."
Another minute brought them near it, and Burrel found that, under a beautiful canopy of stone-work, supported by eight cluster pillars, was placed a small stone fountain, full of the most limpid water, which, welling from a basin somewhat like the baptismal font of a Gothic church, poured through a little channel in the pavement, and thence made a small, sparkling stream, which joined the larger one ere it had run fifty yards. Attached to the basin by an iron chain, was a cup of the same metal, of very ancient date, though, perhaps, more modern than the fountain. This cup, as soon as they approached, Captain Delaware dipped into the water, and, laughing gayly, held it to Burrel.
"You must drink of the Prior's Fountain, Mr. Burrel," he said; "but listen, listen before you do so. The monks, you know, having vowed celibacy, found that the less they had to do with love the better; and it being luckily discovered that the waters of this well were a complete and everlasting cure for that malady, one of the priors covered it over, as you see, and enjoined that, on commencing his novitiate at Emberton, every pseudo-monk should be brought hither, and made to drink one cup of the water. It is added, that the remedy was never known to fail; and now, with this warning, Burrel, drink if you will."
Burrel, by this time, had the cup in his hand, and for a single instant his eyes sought those of Blanche Delaware. She was looking down into the fountain, with one hand resting on the edge. There was a slight smile upon her lip, but there was a scarcely perceptible degree of agitation in her aspect at the same time, which Burrel understood--or, at least, hoped--might have some reference to himself, although she might believe as little as he did in the efficacy of the waters of the fountain.
"No, no!" he replied at once, giving back the cup to Captain Delaware, and laughing lightly, as people do when they have very serious feelings at their hearts--"no, no! I dare not drink of such waters--they are too cold, in every sense of the word, to drink after such a walk as this. The very cup has frozen my hand!" he added, to take out any point that he might have given to his speech.
"He is actually afraid, Blanche!" cried her brother laughing. "Come, show him what a brave girl you are, and drain the cup to the bottom!"
"No, indeed!" answered Blanche Delaware. "Mr. Burrel is very right. The water is a great deal too cold!" And, as she spoke, she blushed till the tell-tale blood spread rosy over her fair forehead, and tingled in her small rounded ear.
"Cowards both, as I live!" cried Captain Delaware, drinking off the contents, and letting the cup drop--"cowards both, as I live!" and, springing across the little streamlet, he took two or three steps onward, toward the chapel.
"Let me assist you across!" said Burrel, offering his hand. As his fingers touched those of Blanche Delaware, to aid her in crossing the rivulet, they clasped upon her hand with a gentle pressure of thanks--so slight that she could not be offended, so defined that she could not mistake. The natural impulse of surprise was to look up; and before she could recollect herself, she had done so, and her eyes met Burrel's. What she saw was all kind, and gentle, and tender; but she instantly cast down her eyes, with another blush that was painful from its intensity, and with a single tear of agitation--and perhaps delight.