Book 4 Chapter 10
"You can't have that table, sir, it is engaged," said a waiter at theAthenaeum to a member of the club who seemed unmindful of the type ofappropriation which in the shape of an inverted plate, ought to havewarned him off the coveted premises.
"It is always engaged," grumbled the member. "Who has taken it?"
"Mr Hatton, sir."
And indeed at this very moment, it being about eight o'clock of the sameday on which the meeting detailed in the last chapter had occurred,a very handsome dark brougham with a beautiful horse was stopping inWaterloo Place before the portico of the Athenaeum Club-house, fromwhich equipage immediately emerged the prosperous person of BaptistHatton.
This club was Hatton's only relaxation. He had never entered society;and now his habits were so formed, the effort would have been a painfulone; though with a first-rate reputation in his calling and supposed tobe rich, the openings were numerous to a familiar intercourse with thosemiddle-aged nameless gentlemen of easy circumstances who haunt clubs,and dine a great deal at each others' houses and chambers; men whotravel regularly a little, and gossip regularly a great deal; who leada sort of facile, slipshod existence, doing nothing, yet mightilyinterested in what others do; great critics of little things; profusein minor luxuries and inclined to the respectable practice of a decorousprofligacy; peering through the window of a clubhouse as if they werediscovering a planet; and usually much excited about things with whichthey have no concern, and personages who never heard of them.
All this was not in Hatton's way, who was free from all pretension,and who had acquired, from his severe habits of historical research,a respect only for what was authentic. These nonentities flitted abouthim, and he shrunk from an existence that seemed to him at once dull andtrifling. He had a few literary acquaintances that he had made atthe Antiquarian Society, of which he was a distinguished member; avice-president of that body had introduced him to the Athenaeum. Itwas the first and only club that Hatton had ever belonged to, and hedelighted in it. He liked splendour and the light and bustle of a greatestablishment. They saved him from that melancholy which after a dayof action is the doom of energetic celibacy. A luxurious dinner withouttrouble, suited him after his exhaustion sipping his claret, herevolved his plans. Above all, he revelled in the magnificent library,and perhaps was never happier, than when after a stimulating repast headjourned up stairs, and buried himself in an easy chair with Dugdale orSelden, or an erudite treatise on forfeiture or abeyance.
To-day however Hatton was not in this mood. He came in exhaustedand excited; eat rapidly and rather ravenously; despatched a pint ofchampagne; and then called for a bottle of Lafitte. His table cleared; adevilled biscuit placed before him, a cool bottle and a fresh glass,he indulged in that reverie, which the tumult of his feelings and thephysical requirements of existence had hitherto combined to prevent.
"A strange day," he thought, as with an abstracted air he filled hisglass, and sipping the wine, leant back in his chair. "The son of WalterGerard! A chartist delegate! The best blood in England! What would I notbe, were it mine.
"Those infernal papers! They made my fortune--and yet, I know not how itis, the deed has cost me many a pang. Yet it seemed innoxious! the oldman dead--insolvent; myself starving; his son ignorant of all, to whomtoo they could be of no use, for it required thousands to work them, andeven with thousands they could only be worked by myself. Had I not doneit, I should ere this probably have been swept from the surface ofthe earth, worn out with penury, disease, and heart-ache. And now I amBaptist Hatton with a fortune almost large enough to buy Mowbray itself,and with knowledge that can make the proudest tremble.
"And for what object all this wealth and power? What memory shall Ileave? What family shall I found? Not a relative in the world, excepta solitary barbarian, from whom when, years ago I visited him as astranger I recoiled with unutterable loathing.
"Ah! had I a child--a child like the beautiful daughter of Gerard!"
And here mechanically Hatton filled his glass, and quaffed at once abumper.
"And I have deprived her of a principality! That seraphic being whoselustre even now haunts my vision the ring of whose silver tone even nowlingers in my ear. He must be a fiend who could injure her. I am thatfiend. Let me see--let me see!"
And now he seemed wrapt in the very paradise of some creative visionstill he filled the glass, but this time he only sipped it, as if hewere afraid to disturb the clustering images around him.
"Let me see--let me see. I could make her a baroness. Gerard is as muchBaron Valence as Shrewsbury is a Talbot. Her name is Sybil. Curious how,even when peasants, the good blood keeps the good old family names! TheValences were ever Sybils.
"I could make her a baroness. Yes! and I could give her wherewith toendow her state. I could compensate for the broad lands which should behers, and which perhaps through me she has forfeited.
"Could I do more? Could I restore her to the rank she would honour,assuage these sharp pangs of conscience, and achieve the secret ambitionof my life? What if my son were to be Lord Valence?
"Is it too bold? A chartist delegate--a peasant's daughter. With allthat shining beauty that I witnessed, with all the marvellous gifts thattheir friend Morley so descanted on,--would she shrink from me? I'm nota crook-backed Richard.
"I could proffer much: I feel I could urge it plausibly. She must bevery wretched. With such a form, such high imaginings, such thoughts ofpower and pomp as I could breathe in her,--I think she'd melt. And toone of her own faith, too! To build up a great Catholic house again; ofthe old blood, and the old names, and the old faith,--by holy Mary it isa glorious vision!"
Sybil, Or, The Two Nations Page 42