Egerton perused the two confessions, and thereby obtained a complete insight into the real characters of Sir Rupert Harborough and Mr. Chichester. If any doubt had remained in his mind, this elucidation was even more than sufficient to convince him that he had only been courted by his fashionable friends on account of his purse; and heartfelt indeed was the gratitude which he expressed towards the Prince for having thus intervened to save him from utter ruin.
But how was that gratitude increased, and how profound became the young man’s horror of the course which he had lately been pursuing, when Richard drew a forcible and deeply touching picture of the usual career of the gambler,—importing into the narrative the leading incidents of Major Anderson’s own biography, without however specifying that gentleman’s name,—and concluding with an earnest appeal to Egerton henceforth to avoid the gaming-table, if he hoped to enjoy prosperity and peace.
“Would you rush madly into a thicket where venomous reptiles abound?” demanded the Prince: “would you plunge of your own accord into a forest where the most terrible wild beasts are prowling? would you, without a sufficient motive, leave the wholesome country and take up your abode in a plague-stricken city? No: and it would be an insult to your understanding—to that intelligence with which God has endowed you—to put such questions to you, were it not for the purpose of conveying a more impressive moral. For the gaming-house is the thicket where reptiles abound—it is the forest where wild beasts prowl, ravenous after their prey—it is the city of pestilence into which one hurries from the salubrious air. Pause, then—reflect, my young friend,—and say whether the folly of the gambler be not even as great as his wickedness?”
Egerton fell at our hero’s feet: he seized the Prince’s hand, and pressed it to his lips—covering it also with his tears.
“You have converted me, my lord—you have saved me!” cried the young man, retrospecting with unfeigned horror upon the desperate career which he had lately been pursuing. “Oh! how can I express my gratitude? But you may read it in those tears which I now shed—tears of contrition for the past, and bright hopes for the future!”
Richard raised the penitent from his kneeling posture, saying, “Enough! I see that you are sincere. And now listen to the plan which I have conceived to shame the men who have been preying upon you; for such punishment is their due—and it may even be salutary.”
The Prince then unfolded his designs in this respect to Egerton; but it is not necessary to explain them at present. Suffice it to say that the young man willingly assented to the arrangement proposed by one on whom he naturally looked as his saviour; and when the scheme was fully digested, our hero conducted his new friend into an adjoining apartment, where luncheon was served up.
Egerton was then enabled to judge of the domestic happiness which always prevailed in that mansion where virtue, love, friendship and good-fellowship were the presiding divinities of the place.
The faultless beauty of the Princess Isabella, the splendid charms of Ellen,—and the retiring loveliness of Katherine, fascinated him for a time; but as the conversation developed the amiability of their minds and evinced the goodness of their hearts, he learnt that woman possesses attractions far—far more witching, more permanent, and more endearing than all the boons which nature ever bestowed upon their countenances or their forms!
Old Monroe was present; and while he looked upon our hero with all the affection which a fond father might bestow upon a son, the Prince on his part treated him with the respect which a good son manifests towards an honoured father. Between Markham, too, and Mario Bazzano the most sincere friendship existed: in a word, the bond which united that happy family was one that time could never impair.
* * *
Three days after the event just recorded, Albert Egerton gave a dinner-party at his lodgings in Stratton Street.
The guests were Lord Dunstable, Colonel Cholmondeley, Sir Rupert Harborough, and Mr. Chichester.
The dinner-hour was seven; and, contrary to the usual arrangements, the table was spread in the drawing-room, instead of the dining-room, which was behind the former, folding doors communicating between the two magnificent apartments.
Let us suppose the cloth to have been drawn, and the dessert placed upon the table.
The wine circulated rapidly; and never had Egerton appeared in more animated and better spirits, nor more affably courteous towards his boon friends.
“Well, I really began to suppose that you had determined to cut us altogether,” said Dunstable, as he sipped his wine very complacently. “For three whole days we saw nothing of you——”
“Have I not already assured you that I was compelled to pass that time with my relatives, in order to appease them after the exposure at Ravensworth?”’ exclaimed Egerton, in an excited tone.
“And we have accepted the apology as a valid one,” observed Chichester.
“Upon my honour,” said the baronet, “if I had known you were doing the amiable on Finsbury Pavement, I should have called just to help you in your endeavours to regain the favour of those excellent ladies.”
“I am afraid your reception would have been none of the best, Harborough,” exclaimed Colonel Cholmondeley.
“I must confess that the old lady was terribly enraged,” said Egerton; “not only against me, but also against you all, as she looked upon you as my accomplices in the cheat.”
“Well, we must take same opportunity of making our peace in that quarter,” observed Lord Dunstable. “I will send her a dozen of champagne and a Strasburg pie to-morrow, with my compliments. But what shall we do to pass away an hour or two?”
“What shall we do?” repeated Chichester. “Why, amuse ourselves—as gentlemen of rank and fashion are always accustomed—eh, Egerton?”
“Oh! decidedly. I am willing to fall in with your views. You have been my tutor,” he added, with a peculiar smile; “and the pupil will not prove rebellious.”
“Well said, my boy!” cried Dunstable. “Have you your dice-box handy?”
“My rascal of a tiger has lost it,” answered Egerton. “But I know that the baronet seldom goes abroad without the usual implements.”
“Ah! you dog!” chuckled Sir Rupert, as if mightily amused by this sally. “You are, however, quite right; and I do not think that any fashionable man about town should forget to provide himself with the means of the most aristocratic of all innocent recreations. Upon my honour, that is my opinion.”
“Just what my friend the Duke of Highgate said the other day—even to the very words,” exclaimed Dunstable.
“How singular!” observed the baronet, as he produced a box and a pair of dice.
“By the by, Dunstable,” said Egerton, “you promised to introduce me to his Grace.”
“So I did, my dear boy—and so I will. Let me see—I shall see the Duke on Monday, and I will make an appointment for him to join us at dinner somewhere.”
“The very thing,” said Egerton: “I shall be quite delighted—particularly if his Grace be one of your own sort.”
“Oh! he is—to the utmost,” returned Dunstable, who did not perceive a lurking irony beneath the tranquillity of Egerton’s manner.
“I am glad of that,” continued the young man. “If I only knew three or four more such gay, dashing, good-hearted fellows as you all are, I should be as contented as possible. By the way, Chichester, I will tell you a very odd, curious thing.”
“Indeed! what is it?”’ inquired that gentleman.
“Oh! nothing more than a strange coincidence. Just this:—I told you that I had been staying a day or two with my respected aunt on the Pavement. Well, yesterday I wandered through the Tower Hamlets—merely for a ramble—and without any fixed purpose: but, as I was strolling down Brick Lane—a horrid, low, vulgar neighbourhood——”
“Dreadful!” cried Chiche
ster, sitting somewhat uneasily on his chair.
“Oh! terrible—filthy, degrading,” continued Egerton, emphatically. “You may therefore conceive my surprise when I perceived the aristocratic name of Chichester printed in huge yellow letters, shaded with brown, over a shop-front in that same Brick Lane.”
“How very odd!” ejaculated Chichester, filling himself a bumper of champagne.
“Yes—but those coincidences of course do occur,” said the baronet, who, after eyeing his host suspiciously, saw nothing beneath his calm exterior to indicate a pointed object in raising the present topic.
“And what made the thing more ludicrous,” continued the young man, “was that over the aristocratic name of Chichester hung three dingy yellow balls.”
“Capital! excellent!” exclaimed the gentleman whom this announcement so particularly touched, and who scarcely knew how to cover his confusion.
“Yes: I had a good laugh at the coincidence,” said Egerton. “At the same time I knew very well that there could be nothing in common between Mr. Chichester, the pawnbroker of Brick Lane, and the Honourable Arthur Chichester of the fashionable world.”
“I should hope not, indeed!” exclaimed Chichester, re-assured by this observation.
“Come—take the box, Egerton,” said Sir Rupert Harborough.
“Oh! willingly,” replied the young man. “But we must play on credit, because I have no money in the house; and he who loses shall pay by cheque or note of hand.”
“With pleasure,” said the baronet.
The two gentlemen began to play; and Egerton lost considerably. He, however, appeared to submit with extraordinary patience and equanimity to his ill-luck, and continued to chatter in a gay and unusually jocular manner.
“Seven’s the main. Come, Dunstable, fill your glass: the wine stands with you. By the by, has your rascally steward sent you up your remittances yet? You know you were complaining to me about him the other day.”
“No—he is still a defaulter,” returned the young nobleman, laughing.
“And likely to continue so, I’m afraid,” added Egerton. “But where is that estate of yours, old fellow?”
“Oh! down in the country——”
“Yes—I dare say it is. But where?”
“Why—in Somersetshire, to be sure. I thought you knew that,” cried Dunstable, not altogether relishing either the queries themselves or the manner in which they were put.
“That makes seven hundred I owe you, Harborough,” said Egerton. “Do pass the wine, Chichester. Five’s the main. Let me see—what were we talking about? Oh! I recollect—Dunstable’s estate. And so it’s in Somersetshire? Beautiful county! What is the name of the estate, my dear fellow?”
“My own name—Dunstable Manor,” was the reply; but the nobleman began to cast suspicious glances towards his friend.
“Dunstable Manor—eh? What a sweet pretty name!” ejaculated Egerton. “And yet it is very strange—I know Somersetshire as well as any one can know a county; but I do not recollect Dunstable Manor. How foolish I must be to forget such a thing as that.”
With these words, he rose from the table and took down a large volume from the bookcase.
“What are you going to do?” inquired Dunstable, now feeling particularly uneasy.
“Only refreshing my memory by a reference to this Gazetteer,” answered Egerton, as he deliberately turned over the pages of the book.
“Oh! come—none of this nonsense!” exclaimed Dunstable, snatching the volume from Egerton’s hands. “Who ever thinks of reading before company?”
“It would be rude, I admit,” said Egerton, recovering the volume from the other’s grasp, “were we not such very particular and intimate friends—so intimate indeed, that we have one purse in common between us all five, and that purse happens to be the one which I have the honour to carry in my pocket.”
“Egerton, what is the matter with you?” demanded Lord Dunstable, who was now convinced more than ever that something was wrong.
“Matter! nothing at all, my dear boy,” answered the young man, as he continued to turn the leaves of the volume. “Here it is—Somersetshire—a very detailed account—not even the smallest farm omitted. But how is this? Why—Dunstable Manor is not here!”
“Not there!” cried the nobleman, blushing up to his very hair.
“No—indeed it is not!” rejoined Egerton. “Now really this is a great piece of negligence on the part of the compiler of the work and if I were you, Dunstable, I would bring an action against him for damages. Because, only conceive how awkward this would make you appear before persons of suspicious dispositions. Well—upon my honour, as the baronet says—this coincidence is almost as extraordinary as that of the pawnbroker in Brick Lane.”
While Egerton was thus speaking, his four friends exchanged significant glances which seemed to ask each other what all this could possibly mean.
“Yes—suspicious people would be inclined to imagine that the Dunstable estate was in the clouds rather than in Somersetshire,” proceeded Egerton, who did not appear to notice the confusion of his guests. “But the world is so very ill-natured! Would you believe that there are persons so lamentably scandalous as to declare that our friend Chichester is no more an Honourable than I am, and that he really is the son of the pawnbroker in Brick Lane?”
“The villains!” cried Chichester, starting from his seat: “who are those persons that dare——”
“Wait one moment!” exclaimed Egerton: “it is my duty as a sincere friend to tell you each and all what I have heard. Those same scandalous and ill-natured people exceed all bounds of propriety; for they actually assert that Sir Rupert Harborough has for years been known as a profligate adventurer——”
“By God, Mr. Egerton!” cried the baronet, “I——”
“And they affirm in quite as positive a manner,” continued the young man, heedless of this interruption, “that you, Dunstable, and you too, Cholmondeley, are nothing more nor less than ruined gamesters.”
“Egerton,” exclaimed the Colonel, foaming with indignation, “this is carrying a joke too far.”
“A great deal too far,” added Dunstable.
“It really is no joke at all, my lord and gentlemen,” said the young man, now speaking in a tone expressive of the deepest disgust: “for every word I have uttered is firmly believed by myself!”
“By you!” cried the four adventurers, speaking as it were in one breath.
“Yes—and by all the world,” exclaimed Egerton, rising from his seat, and casting indignant glances upon his guests.
“This is too much!” said Cholmondeley; and, unable to restrain his passion, he rushed upon the young man, seized him by the collar, and would have inflicted a severe chastisement on him had not assistance been at hand.
But the door communicating with the dining-room was suddenly thrown open, and the individual who now made his appearance, threw himself upon Cholmondeley, tore him away from his hold upon Albert Egerton, and actually hurled him to the opposite side of the apartment.
“The Prince of Montoni!” ejaculated Harborough, as he rushed towards the door, with Chichester close at his heels.
But the Prince hastened to intercept them; and, leaning his back against the door, he exclaimed, “No one passes hence, at present. Mr. Egerton, secure those dice.”
Dunstable darted towards that part of the table where the dice lay; but Egerton had already obtained possession of them.
Richard in the meantime locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.
“Be he a king,” cried Cholmondeley, who had caught the words uttered by the baronet, “he shall suffer for his conduct to me;”—and the Colonel advanced in a menacing manner towards the Prince.
“Beware, sir, how you place a finger on me!” cried Richard. “A
pproach another step nearer, and I will lay you at my feet!”
The Colonel muttered something to himself, and retreated towards the folding-doors communicating with the dining-room; but there his way was interrupted by the presence of two stout men in plain clothes and two of Richard’s servants in handsome liveries.
“Let no one pass, Whittingham,” said the Prince, “until our present business be accomplished.”
“No, my lord,” answered the old butler, who was one of the stout men in plain clothes: then, having given the same instructions to the two servants in livery, Whittingham exclaimed in a loud tone, “And mind, my men, that you on no account let them sneaking willains Scarborough and Axminster defect their escape!”
“My lord, what means this conduct on your part?” demanded Dunstable of the Prince. “By what authority do you detain us here as prisoners?”
“Yes—by what authority?” echoed Cholmondeley, again stepping forward.
“By that authority which gives every honest man a right to expose unprincipled adventurers who are leagued to plunder and rob an inexperienced youth,” answered Richard, in a stern tone. “Mr. Egerton, give me those dice.”
This request was immediately complied with; and the other stout man in plain clothes now stepped forward from the dining-room.
To the infinite dismay of Harborough and Chichester, they immediately recognised Pocock, who did not, however, take any notice of them; but producing a very fine saw from his pocket, he set to work to cut in halves one of the dice which Richard handed to him.
The four adventurers now turned pale as death, and exchanged glances of alarm and dismay.
“Behold, Mr. Egerton,” said the Prince, after examining the die that had been sawed in halves, “how your false friends have been enabled to plunder you. Heaven be thanked that I am entirely ignorant of the disgraceful details of gamesters’ frauds; but a child might understand for what purpose this die has been thus prepared.”
The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics) Page 127