It struck Ashwoode that there was something, he could not exactly say what, unusual and sinister in the manner of Mr. Chancey, as well as in his emphasis and language, and he fixed his eye upon him for a moment with a searching glance. The barrister, however, busied himself with tumbling over some papers in a drawer.
“Well, why don’t you get it?” asked Ashwoode, impatiently.
“Never mind, never mind,” replied Chancey; “do you reckon your money over, and be very sure the bond will come time enough. I don’t wonder, though, you’re eager to have it fast in your own hands again — but it will come — it will come.”
Ashwoode proceeded to open the pocketbook and to turn over the notes.
“They’re all right,” said he, “they’re all right. But, hush!” he added, slightly changing colour— “I hear something stirring in the next room.”
“Oh, dear, dear, it’s nothing but the cat,” rejoined Chancey, with an ugly laugh.
“Your cat treads very heavily,” said Ashwoode, suspiciously.
“So it does,” rejoined Chancey, “it does tread heavy; it’s a very large cat, so it is; it has wonderful great claws; it can see in the dark; it’s a great cat; it never missed a rat yet; and I’ve seen it lure the bird off a branch with the mere power of its eye; it’s a great cat — but reckon your money, and I’ll go in for the bond.”
This strange speech was uttered in a manner at least as strange, and Chancey, without waiting for commentary or interruption, passed into the next room. The step crossed the adjoining chamber, and Ashwoode heard the rustling of papers; it then returned, the door opened, and not Gordon Chancey, but Nicholas Blarden entered the room and confronted Sir Henry Ashwoode. Personal fear in bodily conflict was a thing unknown to the young baronet, but now all courage, all strength forsook him, and he stood gazing in vacant horror upon that, to him, most tremendous apparition, with a face white as ashes, and covered with the starting dews of terror.
With that hideous combination, a smile and a scowl, stamped upon his coarse features, the wretch stood with folded arms, in an attitude of indescribable exultation, gazing with savage, gloating eyes full upon his appalled and terror-stricken victim. Fixed as statues they both remained for several minutes.
“Ho, ho, ho! you look frightened, young man,” exclaimed Blarden, with a horse laugh; “you look as if you were going to be hanged — you look as if the hemp were round your neck — you look as if the hangman had you by the collar, you do — ho, ho, ho!”
Ashwoode’s bloodless lips moved, but utterance was gone.
“It’s hard to get the words out,” continued Blarden, with ferocious glee. “I never knew the man yet could do a last dying speech smooth — a sort of choking comes on, eh? — the sight of the minister and the hangman makes a man feel so quare, eh? — and the coffin looks so ugly, and all the crowd; it’s confusing somehow, and puts a man out, eh? — ho, ho, ho!”
Ashwoode laid his hand upon his forehead, and gazed on in blank horror.
“Why, you’re not such a great man, by half, as you were in the playhouse the other evening,” continued Blarden; “you don’t look so grand, by any manner of means. Some way or other, you look a little sickish or so. I’m afraid you don’t like my company — ho, ho, ho!”
Still Sir Henry remained locked in the same stupefied silence.
“Ho, ho! you seem to think your hemp is twisted, and your boards sawed,” resumed Blarden; “you seem to think you’re in a fix at last — and so do I, by —— !” he thundered, “for I have the rope fairly round your weasand, and, by —— I’ll make you dance upon nothing, at Gallows Hill, before you’re a month older. Do you hear that — do you — you swindler? Eh — you gaol-bird, you common forger, you robber, you crows’ meat — who holds the winning cards now?”
“Where — where’s the bond?” said Ashwoode, scarce audibly.
“Where’s your precious bond, you forger, you gibbet-carrion?” shouted Blarden, exultingly. “Where’s your forged bond — the bond that will crack your neck for you — where is it, eh? Why, here — here in my breeches pocket — that’s where it is. I hope you think it safe enough — eh, you gallows-tassle?”
Yielding to some confused instinctive prompting to recover the fatal instrument, Ashwoode drew his sword, and would have rushed upon his brutal and triumphant persecutor; but Blarden was not unprepared even for this. With the quickness of light, he snatched a pistol from his coat pocket, recoiling, as he did so, a hurried pace or two, and while he turned, coward as he was, pale and livid as death, he levelled it at the young man’s breast, and both stood for an instant motionless, in the attitudes of deadly antagonism.
“Put up your sword; I have you there, as well as everywhere else — regularly checkmated, by —— !” shouted Blarden, with the ferocity of half-desperate cowardice. “Put up your sword, I say, and don’t be a bloody idiot, along with everything else. Don’t you see you’re done for? — there’s not a chance left you. You’re in the cage, and there’s no need to knock yourself to pieces against the bars — you’re done for, I tell you.”
With a mute but expressive gesture of despair, Ashwoode grasped his sword by the slender, glittering blade, and broke it across. The fragments dropped from his hands, and he sunk almost lifeless into a chair — a spectacle so ghastly, that Blarden for a moment thought that death was about to rescue his victim.
“Chancey, come out here,” exclaimed Blarden; “the fellow has taken the staggers — come out, will you?”
“Oh! dear me, dear me,” said Chancey, in his own quiet way, “but he looks very bad.”
“Go over and shake him,” said Blarden, still holding the pistol in his hand. “What are you afraid of? He can’t hurt you — he has broken his bilbo across — the symbol of gentility. By —— ! he’s a good deal down in the mouth.”
While they thus debated, Ashwoode rose up, looking more like a corpse endowed with motion than a living man.
“Take me away at once,” said he, with a sullen wildness— “take me away to gaol, or where you will — anywhere were better than this place. Take me away; I am ruined — blasted. Make the most of it — your infernal scheme has succeeded — take me to prison.”
“Oh, murder! he wants to go to gaol — do you hear him, Chancey?” cried Blarden— “such an elegant, fine gentleman to think of such a thing: only to think of a baronet in gaol — and for forgery, too — and the condemned cell such an ungentlemanly sort of a hole. Why, you’d have to use perfumes to no end, to make the place fit for the reception of your aristocratic visitors — my Lord this, and my Lady that — for, of course, you’ll keep none but the best of company — ho, ho, ho! Perhaps the judge that’s to try you may turn out to be an old acquaintance, for your luck is surprising — isn’t it, Chancey? — and he’ll pay you a fine compliment, and express his regret when he’s going to pass sentence, eh? — ho, ho, ho! But, after all, I’d advise you, if the condescension is not too much to expect from such a very fine gentleman as you, to consort as much as possible with the turnkey — he’s the most useful friend you can make, under your peculiarly delicate circumstances — ho, ho! — eh? It’s just possible he mayn’t like to associate with you, for some of them fellows are rather stiff, d’ye see, and won’t keep company with certain classes of the coves in quod, such as forgers or pickpockets; but if he’ll allow it, you’d better get intimate with him — ho, ho, ho! — eh?”
“Take me to the prison, sir,” said Ashwoode, sternly— “I suppose you mean to do so. Let your officers remove me at once — you have, no doubt, men for the purpose in the next room. Let them call a coach, and I will go with them — but let it be at once.”
“Well, you’re not far out there, by —— !” replied Blarden. “I have a broad-shouldered acquaintance or two, and a little bit of a warrant — you understand? — in the next apartment. Grimes, Grimes, come in here — you’re wanted.”
A huge, ill-looking fellow, with his coat buttoned up to his chin, and a short pipe
protruding from the corner of his mouth, swaggered into the chamber, with that peculiar gait which seems as if contracted by habitually shouldering and jostling through mobs and all manner of riotous assemblies.
“That’s the bird?” said the fellow, interrogatively, and pointing with his pipe carelessly at Ashwoode. “You’re my prisoner,” he added, gruffly addressing the unfortunate young man, and at the same time planting his ponderous hand heavily upon his shoulder, he in the other exhibited a crumpled warrant.
“Grimes, go call a coach,” said Blarden, “and don’t be a brace of shakes about it, do you mind.”
Grimes departed, and Blarden, after a long pause, suddenly addressing himself to Ashwoode, resumed, in a somewhat altered tone, but with intenser sternness still, —
“Now, I tell you what it is, my young cove, I have a sort of half a notion not to send you to gaol at all, do you hear?”
“Pshaw, pshaw!” said Ashwoode, turning bitterly away.
“I tell you I’m speaking what I mean,” rejoined Blarden; “I’ll not send you there now at any rate. I want to have a bit of chat with you this evening, and it shall rest with you whether you go there at all or not; I’ll give you the choice fairly. We’ll meet, then, at Morley Court this evening, at eight o’clock; and for fear of accidents in the meantime, you’ll have no objection to our mutual friend, Mr. Chancey, and our common acquaintance, Mr. Grimes, accompanying you home in the coach, and just keeping an eye on you till I come, for fear you might be out walking when I call — you understand me? But here’s Grimes. Mr. Grimes, my particular friend Sir Henry Ashwoode has taken an extraordinary remarkable fancy to you, and wishes to know whether you’ll do him the favour to take a jaunt with him in a carriage to see his house at Morley Court, and to spend the day with him and Mr. Chancey, for he finds that his health requires him to keep at home, and he has a particular objection to be left alone, even for a minute. Sir Henry, the coach is at the door. You’d better bundle up your banknotes, they may be useful to you. Chancey, tell Sir Henry’s groom, as you pass, that he’ll not want his horse any more to-day.”
The party went out; Sir Henry, pale as death, and scarcely able to support himself on his limbs, walking between Chancey and the herculean constable. Blarden saw them safely shut up in the vehicle, and giving the coachman his orders, gazed after them as they drove away in the direction of Morley Court, with a flushed face and a bounding heart.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
STRANGE GUESTS AT THE MANOR.
The coach jingled, jolted, and rumbled on, and Ashwoode lay back in the crazy conveyance in a kind of stupefied apathy. The scene which had just closed was, in his mind, a chaos of horrible confusion — a hideous, stunning dream, whose incidents, as they floated through his passive memory, seemed like unreal and terrific exaggerations, into whose reality he wanted energy and power to inquire. Still before him sate a breathing evidence of the truth of all these confused and horrible recollections — the stalwart, ruffianly figure of the constable — with his great red horny hands, and greasy cuffs, and the heavy coat buttoned up to his unshorn chin — and the short, discoloured pipe, protruding from the corner of his mouth — lounging back with half-closed eyes, and the air of a man who had passed the night in wearisome vigils among strife and riot, and who has acquired the compensating power of dividing his faculties at all times pretty nearly between sleep and waking — a kind of sottish, semi-existence — something between that of a swine and a sloth. Over this figure the eyes of the young man vacantly wandered, and thence to the cheerful fields and trees visible from the window, and back again to the burly constable, until every seam and button in his coat grew familiar to his mind as the oldest tenants of his memory. Beside him, too, sate Chancey — his artful, cowardly betrayer. Yet even against him he could not feel anger; all energy of thought and feeling seemed lost to him; and nothing but a dull ambiguous incredulity and a scared stupor were there in their stead. On — on they rolled and rumbled, among pleasant fields and stately hedgerows, toward the ancestral dwelling of the miserable prisoner, who sate like a lifeless effigy, yielding passively to every jolt and movement of the carriage.
“I say, Grimes, were you ever out here before?” inquired Mr. Chancey. “We’ll soon be in the manor, driving up to Morley Court. It’s a fine place, I’m given to understand. I never was here but once before, long as I know Sir Henry; but better late than never. Do you know this place, Mr. Grimes?”
A negative grunt and a short nod relieved Mr. Grimes from the painful necessity of removing his pipe for the purpose of uttering an articulate answer.
“Oh, dear me, dear me,” resumed Mr. Chancey, “but I’m uncommon hungry and dry. I wish to God we were safe and sound in Sir Henry’s house. Grimes, are you dry?”
Mr. Grimes removed his pipe, and spat upon the coach floor.
“Am I dhry?” said he. “About as dhry as a sprat in a tindher-box, that’s all. Is there much more to go?”
Chancey stretched his head out of the coach window.
“I see the old piers of the avenue,” said he; “and God knows but it’s I that’s glad we’re near our journey’s end. Now we’re passing in — we’re in the avenue.”
Mr. Grimes hereupon uttered a grunt of approbation; and pressing down the ashes of his pipe with his thumb, he deposited that instrument in his waistcoat pocket — whence, at the same time, he drew a small plug of tobacco, which he inserted in his mouth, and rolled it about with his tongue from time to time during the remainder of their progress.
“Sir Henry, we’re arrived,” said Chancey, admonishing the baronet with his elbow— “we’re at the hall-door at Morley Court. Sir Henry — dear me, dear me, he’s very abstracted, so he is. I say, Sir Henry, we’re at Morley Court.”
Ashwoode looked vacantly in Chancey’s face, and then upon the stately door of the old house, and suddenly recollecting himself, he said with strange alacrity, —
“Ay, ay — at Morley Court — so we are. Come, then, gentlemen, let us get down.”
Accordingly the three companions descended from the conveyance, and entered the ancient dwelling-house together.
“Follow me, gentlemen,” said Ashwoode, leading the way to a small, oak-wainscoted parlour. “You shall have refreshments immediately.”
He called the servant to the door, and continued addressing himself to Chancey, and his no less refined companion.
“Order what you please, gentlemen — I can’t think of these things just now; and, sirrah, do you hear me, bring a large vessel of water — my throat is literally scorched.”
“Well, Mr. Chancey, what do you say?” said Grimes. “I’m for a couple of bottles of sack, and a good pitcher of ale, to begin with, in the way of liquor.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be that bad,” said Chancey. “What meat have you on the spit, my good man?”
“I don’t exactly know, sir,” replied the wondering domestic; “but I’ll inquire.”
“And see, my good man,” continued Chancey, “ask them whether there isn’t some cold roast beef in the buttery; and if so, bring it up in a jiffy, for, I declare to G — d I’m uncommon hungry; and let the cook send up a hot joint directly; — and do you mind, my honest man, light a bit of a fire here, for it’s rather chill, and put plenty of dry sticks — — “
“Give us the ale and the sack this instant minute, do you see,” said Mr. Grimes. “You may do the rest after.”
“Yes, you may as well,” resumed Chancey; “for indeed I’m lost with the drooth myself.”
“Cut your stick, saucepan,” said Mr. Grimes, authoritatively; and the servant departed in unfeigned astonishment to execute his various commissions.
Ashwoode threw himself into a seat, and in silence endeavoured to collect his thoughts. Faint, sick, and stunned, he nevertheless began gradually to comprehend every particular of his position more and more fully — until at length all the ghastly truth stood revealed to his mind’s eye in vivid and glaring distinctness. While Ashwoode was enga
ged in his agreeable ruminations, Mr. Chancey and Mr. Grimes were busily employed in discussing the substantial fare which his larder had supplied, and pledging one another in copious libations of generous liquor.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE BARGAIN, AND THE NEW CONFEDERATES.
At length the evening came — darkness closed over the old place, and as the appointed hour approached, Ashwoode became more and more excited.
“I must,” thought he, “keep every faculty intensely on the stretch, to detect, if possible, the nature of their schemes. Blarden and Chancey have unquestionably hatched some other d —— d plot, though what worse can befall me? I am netted as completely as their worst malice can desire. It is now seven o’clock. Another hour will determine all my doubts. Hark you, sirrah!” continued he, raising his voice, and addressing a servant who had entered the chamber, “I expect a gentleman upon particular business at eight o’clock. On his arrival conduct him directly to this room.”
He then relapsed into the same train of gloomy and agitated thought.
Chancey and his burly companion both sat snugly before the fire smoking their pipes in silent enjoyment, while their miserable host paced the room from wall to wall in mental torments indescribable.
At length the weary interval expired, and within a few minutes of the appointed hour, Nicholas Blarden was admitted by the servant, and ushered into the chamber in which Ashwoode expected his arrival.
“Well, Sir Henry,” exclaimed Blarden, as he swaggered into the room, “you seem a little flustered still — eh? Hope you found your company pleasant. My friends’ society is considered uncommon agreeable.”
The visitor here threw himself into a chair, and continued —
“By the holy Saint Paul, as I rode up your cursed old dusky avenue, I began to think the chances were ten to one you had brought your throat and a razor acquainted before this. I have known men do it under your circumstances — of course I mean gentlemen, with fine friends and delicate habits, and who could not stand exposure and all that kind of thing. I say, Mr. Grimes, my sweet fellow, you may leave the room, but keep within call, do ye mind. Mr. Chancey and I want to have a little confidential conversation with my friend, Sir Henry. Bundle out, and the moment you hear me call your name, bolt in again like a shot.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 27