To Mr Lessingham this was a blow between the eyes. For a moment it almost stunned him. Recovering, he was first violent, then plaintive, then violent again. But Mr Magdalen, now tight of lip and hard of eye, remained unmoved, and the end of the matter was that Mr Lessingham went off to Highgate and Sir John with ruin staring him in the face. For he knew his uncle too well to doubt that the disclosure of how he had raised money on the prospect of the nawab’s death would put an end to all his hopes of inheriting a shilling beyond the wretched little estate that went with the title.
At all costs that knowledge must be kept from Sir John.
In sheer despair, rather than consent to marry the daughter of that greasy little thief in Essex Street he chose the lesser evil of an appeal to the already exasperated nawab.
He may or may not have been mistaken in making his prayer more or less in the form of an accusation. It was Sir John’s hardness towards him, he urged, that had driven him into the clutches of a rascally moneylender. To extricate himself completely he needed at once a matter of six or seven thousand pounds. The nawab’s reply amounted to a sketch of his nephew’s character as succinct as it was accurate and blistering, at the end of which he bade him go to the devil.
Mr Lessingham accounted that to marry Magdalen’s daughter would be tantamount to obeying this injunction. But if he was to avoid the ruin of his hopes and the immediate possibility of debtor’s gaol, there was no choice but to consent to make this probably greasy wench the future Lady Lessingham. It would be necessary to humble himself to the dust so as to obtain from Mr Magdalen a renewal of the offer he had so insolently rejected; and he must lose no time. It must be done at once if he would prevent Mr Magdalen’s journey to Lessingham Park tomorrow with the post-obit.
He came raging to the summit of Highgate Hill. Without eyes for the fine prospect, with London under a haze at his feet, and the broad ribbon of the Thames visible for a dozen miles with its burden of shipping, he spurred his big black horse down the slope towards Holloway.
It was at the foot of the hill that Jack o’Lantern met him, and, to his undoing, was tempted to arrest his headlong course.
At the sight of the black-visored horseman and the levelled pistol, Mr Lessingham stood, as he was bidden. But as for delivering, it came to him as a climax of irony to swell his already excessive rage that such an invitation should be issued to a man in his desperate case.
Jack o’Lantern was, of course, not to know this. Nor had he any means of perceiving that the horseman he had brought to a standstill was a reckless, dangerous fellow at the best of times, and in particularly savage mood this afternoon. By the time he might have suspected it, he was beyond suspecting anything. For, with sudden, lightning speed, Mr Lessingham’s heavy riding-crop had crashed into his temple and knocked him senseless from the saddle.
When the highwayman recovered consciousness, he was lying on the turf of a meadow beyond a belt of trees by which the horses were tethered, with his assailant sitting cross-legged and watchful beside him.
Mr Lessingham had taken the natural precaution of depriving him of his weapons. He had drawn a second pistol from its holster, and he had removed the sword the highwayman was wearing, a pretty piece of workmanship with a mother of pearl handle and for pommel a milky crystal the size of a pigeon’s egg, that might have been a moonstone. It was attached to a baldrick of red Spanish leather adorned with a pattern of oak-leaves in gold bullion, and by this it was now slung from Mr Lessingham’s own shoulder. To make sure that the rascal had no other weapon about him, Mr Lessingham had gone through his pockets. Amongst some lesser effects, he had found a gold snuff-box, and a heavy purse of red silk mesh that was stuffed with guineas and contained in addition a diamond ring of price. Perceiving no sin in robbing a thief, Mr Lessingham’s easy conscience regarded these valuables as a windfall, and he transferred them to his own pocket. After that he sat down to await the man’s recovery, and he smiled as he waited, for it seemed to him that nothing could have been more opportune. The encounter which had so infuriated him had ended by bringing inspiration. It prompted an easier way to deliverance from his difficulties than that to which he had been so dejectedly riding.
Jack o’Lantern sat up, straightened his wig on an aching head and in doing so became aware of the lump on his brow. He looked about him with eyes that were still dazed, met the derisive smile of Mr Lessingham and awakened a little further.
‘What the devil . . .’ he began, and checked there.
‘Give yourself no concern, my friend,’ said his captor. ‘The worst has happened to you, unless you show no more sense than a woodcock.’
The highwayman’s eyes alighted on the baldrick with the oak-leaves pattern. He felt in his pockets. Then his lip curled.
‘So that’s what you are,’ said he. ‘A dog that eats dog.’
Mr Lessingham laughed joyously, as a man will whose soul has suddenly been delivered of a burden of care. ‘A mastiff that dines on poodles, if you will. But a tobyman by proxy, and that for one occasion only, provided you show sense. In that case you may go your ways to the devil when you’ve served my turn. In any other you’ll ride with me to the Bridewell.’
Jack o’Lantern gathered up his legs and embraced his knees. Out of a lean, keen young face, wide of mouth and tip-tilted of nose, a pair of astute eyes calmly took the measure of Mr Lessingham. Whatever the rascal’s emotions, he kept a mask upon them, and fear was certainly not amongst them.
‘Could you be plainer?’ he asked.
‘As plain as you please. Early tomorrow we take the road together, hereabouts. That belt of trees will supply the screen we’ll need, and we’ll wait for a certain hackney coach that’ll be coming from London on its way over the hill there. There’ll not be many hackneys come as far as this, so we’re not likely to be mistook, besides ye’ll not stir until I’ve seen who rides in it. When I give you the word, you’ll halt it. You’ll require the traveller to strip himself and hand you his clothes besides anything else in the way of baggage that he may have with him. When you’ve delivered these to me, you may go your ways. Is it clear?’
‘Clear enough, codso! I’m to pull chestnuts from the fire for you, so as if any fingers is burnt it’ll be mine. But what do I get for doing it?’
‘It’s what’ll you get for not doing it. The gallows. That’s what you’ll get.’
‘Spoke like a gentleman,’ said Jack. Then he passed a hand over an aching brow. ‘Ye’ve got a pistol at my head. I must stand and deliver, I suppose. Do the dirty work ye’re too fine to do for yourself.’
‘I’m glad ye’re sensible. And speaking of pistols, an empty one will serve your turn tomorrow. Our subject is an old man, and the hackney driver’s only thought will be to keep a whole skin. So don’t be building any false hopes.’
‘Ye take no chances,’ said Jack with the suspicion of a sneer.
‘None, as you’ll find. Remember it. For tonight you’ll be my guest for bed and supper.’
‘I had a notion that it was you might be mine, being as ye’ve filched my purse,’ said Jack.
Mr Lessingham got up. ‘I’ll trouble you to keep a civil tongue, my lad. Get that into your brain-pan, and let it simmer there. Come on now. Up with you.’
Jack o’Lantern came slowly to his feet. He stood swaying a little, a hand to his head again.
‘Odsbud! I’m giddy. Lend me your arm, sir.’
A smile twisted Mr Lessingham’s full, cruel lips. ‘I’ll lend you nothing. Step out ahead, and no tricks, you rogue, or you’ll forfeit your only chance of postponing acquaintance with the gallows. You’ll not slip through my fingers; not if you were as slippery as Jack o’Lantern himself.’
Jack’s only answer to that was a wistful smile. He went forward staggering a little, Mr Lessingham following closely, his riding-crop in readiness. Thus they reached the horses, untethered them, mounted, and picked their way through the trees to the road.
With the highwayman leading by half a length, so
that the eye of this captor who took no chances was upon his every movement, they came, as dusk was closing in, to the Bull at Islington, where Mr Lessingham had resolved that they should lie the night, in readiness for the morrow’s business of waylaying Mr Magdalen.
They left their horses with the ostler in the yard, and strode forward towards an open side-door from which the light was shining, the highwayman leading ever, with Mr Lessingham close upon his heels. Voices met them, coming from a room at the far end of the passage by which they were advancing, and what Jack o’Lantern heard made him check in his stride. The movement was instinctive, but so momentary that he seemed merely to have stumbled.
‘And a bay mare, ye say, sir? I’ll wager my bones that’d be Jack o’Lantern, as sure as my name be Tom Bowles.’
Impelled by his follower, Jack perforce went on, and as he reached the open door, the answer came delivered in a voice that was shrill with rage.
‘Jack o’Lantern or another. What’s the odds? A crying scandal to you all that such things should be done in daylight. In broad daylight. On the King’s highway. It shows the worth of your vigilance. It shows the worth of all these measures of which Sir Henry Fielding makes a boast. Measures that were to clear the country of this vermin. Why, things were no worse a hundred years ago.’
The speaker was still inveighing when Jack came to the doorway. And Jack was not encouraged when in this speaker, a portly gentleman in high leather gaiters and a short skirted frock under the tails of which his hands were now thrust, he recognized the victim of his robbery that afternoon.
Squire Kendrick’s face was inflamed with the anger into which he had lashed himself whilst denouncing the outrage suffered. For audience he had a couple of rustics, the landlord in shirt sleeves and apron, a man who held a constable’s staff and a couple of tough-looking fellows who at a glance might be recognized for Bow Street runners.
It was not the sort of company into which Jack o’Lantern would normally have cared to thrust himself. Yet now he swaggered in, a smile on his lips, a jauntiness in his step, fully approved by Mr Lessingham who followed more closely than ever upon the parlour’s sanded floor. Heads were turned to see who came, and the landlord was detaching himself from the group to give welcome to these new guests, when Jack’s hearty hail momentarily arrested them.
He had taken a swift step aside, away from his companion, and tossed up his head with a laugh of satisfaction.
‘Well met, my hearties,’ he greeted the Bow Street men, ‘and in the very nick of time. If it’s Jack o’Lantern ye’re hunting, I’ll be claiming the reward. For here you have him, led by the nose into your very arms for you.’ And he flung out a hand to indicate Mr Lessingham.
There was a moment’s silent, round-eyed amazement. Then it was Squire Kendrick who moved. His head craned forward on his stout neck, and his eyes bulging, he advanced on Mr Lessingham. Mr Lessingham, more taken aback than any of them by what he accounted a futile impudence, was uttering a fleeting laugh when Squire Kendrick flung out an accusing arm.
‘Seize him,’ he roared. ‘I recognize him.’ And at the word the Bow Street runners were upon Mr Lessingham like hounds upon a stag.
He struggled, panting and snarling in their arms, turning a face of fury upon the squire.
‘What do you mean, you pot-bellied dotard? You recognize me?’
The Squire was upon him, whilst the runners held him.
‘I mean this, you impudent rogue. This!’ He seized the sword-belt of Spanish leather with the pretty oak-leaf pattern, upon which the ready-witted Jack o’Lantern had counted when he so boldly made his staggering announcement. ‘I may not recognize your face, for that was masked; but, ecod! I recognize my own baldrick, ay, and the sword of which you robbed me this very afternoon, you damned hedge-creeper.’
The constable rolled forward importantly. ‘Here. Give way whiles I search him.’
Lessingham abandoned the struggle, commanding himself now that he began to recognize that violence would not get him out of this trap. Forth from his pockets they brought a gold snuff-box on the lid of which was the squire’s crest, a hand holding aloft an oak-leaf, and a heavy purse in which, in addition to the guineas, there was a diamond ring of price which had left the squire’s finger three hours ago.
Mr Lessingham strove desperately to be calm. ‘It looks like evidence, but it isn’t. I can explain it all.’
‘Ecod! so you shall,’ chortled the squire. ‘At Bow Street tomorrow morning. Keep your lies for the magistrate. Away with him.’
‘Tomorrow morning will be too late, you fools,’ Lessingham was suddenly beside himself, thinking of what would happen in the morning. ‘I have an engagement to keep tonight. An important engagement. You shall hear me now, sir.’
They drove him to frenzy with their mockery until the squire, wearying of the sport, bade them away with the rascal.
The constable was looking round. ‘But where’s the gentleman that took him?’ he asked.
He was answered by a clatter of departing hoofs on the kidney stones outside. Jack o’Lantern was proving true to his fame. And it was on the big black horse that he rode away, leaving the bay mare as further evidence against Mr Lessingham.
THE END
THE AUGMENTATION OF MERCURY
I warn you at the outset not to take him for a vulgar rogue. A rogue he was undoubtedly, but vulgar never. Himself, for all his frankness, he would not admit even so much. He discriminates finely. Indeed, as a splitter of hairs Casanova is unrivalled among all those who have made philosophy. “The honest ruse,” he says somewhere in the course of his voluminous memoirs, “may be taken to be the sign of a prudent spirit. It is a virtue, true, which resembles rascality. But he who cannot in case of need exercise it with dignity is a fool.”
Lest even after this warning you should be disposed to pass a harsh judgement upon the exploit I am about to relate, let me make clear the desperate position in which he found himself.
He had embarked at Venice for Ancona two days ago with fifty gold sequins in his pocket. And in a cellar at Chiozza — the first port of call — he had been so soundly drubbed at faro that he had lost not only that fifty, but a further thirty sequins yielded by the sale of his trunk of clothes.
Disconsolate, and very hungry — not having tasted food for four-and-twenty hours — he sat now upon a bale of cordage in the vessel’s waist, reckoning up his assets.
Besides the semi-clerical but becoming garments in which he stood, he was possessed of a handsome figure, an iron constitution, an effrontery that was proof against all things, a doctor’s degree in canon law, some very considerable learning for his eighteen years, a remarkable histrionic talent inherited from his parents, both of whom had achieved some renown upon the stage, and a letter of introduction to the Bishop of Martorano in Calabria, who was to advance him in the ecclesiastical career to which he was destined.
Casanova’s tastes, heaven knows, were far from ecclesiastical. He had wished to study medicine, having indeed a certain taste for chemistry, and a perception that of all professions medicine offers the greatest scope to empiricism. But his mother, now a considerable actress in Dresden, and those whom she had made responsible for his education, had insisted that he should study not merely law, but canon law, and that he should take holy orders. He submitted in obedience to the /sequere deum/ of the Stoics, which he had taken for his own motto; and as you behold him now upon the threshold of his career, you shall judge how justified were the instincts that warned him that he was as little likely in the end to become a priest as a physician.
He sat there on his bale of cordage, lugubriously looking out across the sunlit waters to the receding coast of Istria. Despite the genial warmth of the day — for it was August, of 1743 — he was shivering with cold from lack of nourishment.
A shuffling step approached him. A voice deep and harsh, yet vaguely solicitous, enquired:
“Are you ill, sir?”
He turned slowly to survey a tall,
vigorous young Franciscan with a coarsely pleasant countenance, whose tonsured head was fringed with tufts of coarse red hair. Small, dark, inquisitive eyes met Casanova’s bold magnetic glance.
“I am troubled,” he answered shortly.
“Troubled?” quoth the friar. “I have medicine here that will dispel trouble — a capon, sausages, a bottle of good wine, and my own company if you’ll suffer it.” And out of one of the amazing sack-like pockets of his habit he produced the articles he named.
Casanova frowned, considering him. The invitation came so pat upon his urgent need. Had the shaveling been spying upon him? And if so what profit did the fellow look to make? This misanthropical suspicion proceeded from a cynicism newly begotten of his Chiozza adventure. Still his need was urgent.
Rising, he accepted the invitation, but with condescension rather than gratitude. Already at that early age he had some of the lordly airs that were later to distinguish him, a gift of accepting favours with all the appearance of bestowing them.
Together they sat down to dine, and as they ate and drank, Casanova’s dignity lessening, he listened more and more affably to the garrulous confidences of the friar. Brother Stefano — as he was called — displayed with ostentation treasures of bread and wine, cheese, sausages and a ham which he had received as alms in Orsara, and with which the unfathomable pockets of his habit were now cumbered.
“Do you receive money as well?” quoth Casanova, genuinely interested.
“God forbid!” cried the friar. “It is against the rules of our glorious order. Besides,” he added slyly, “if I asked for money what should I receive? A few coppers, of which you behold here ten times the value. St Francis, believe me, was a shrewd fellow.”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 532