Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

‘Why, what has he to do with it?’ Soane asked, curiously.

  ‘He — he had an accident the other night,’ Mr. Thomasson answered. ‘A monstrous nuisance for him. He and his noble friend, Lord Almeric Doyley, played a little trick on a — on one of the College servants. The clumsy fellow — it is marvellous how awkward that class of persons is — fell down the stairs and hurt himself.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Somewhat. Indeed — in fact he is dead. And now there is a kind of feeling about it in the town. I persuaded Mr. Dunborough to take up his quarters here for the night, but he is so spirited he would dine abroad. Now I fear, I really fear, he may be in trouble!’

  ‘If it is he they are hooting in St. Aldate’s,’ Sir George answered drily, ‘I should say he was in trouble! But in my time the gownsmen would have sallied out and brought him off before this. And given those yelpers a cracked crown or two!’

  The roar of voices in the narrow streets was growing clearer and more threatening. ‘Ye-es?’ said the Reverend Frederick, moving about the room, distracted between his anxiety and his respect for his companion. ‘Perhaps so. But there is a monstrous low, vulgar set in College nowadays; a man of spirit has no chance with them. Yesterday they had the insolence to break into my noble friend’s rooms and throw his furniture out of window! And, I vow, would have gone on to — but Lord! this is frightful! What a shocking howling! My dear sir, my very dear Sir George,’ Mr. Thomasson continued, his voice tremulous and his fat cheeks grown on a sudden loose and flabby, ‘do you think that there is any danger?’

  ‘Danger?’ Sir George answered, with cruel relish — he had gone to the window, and was looking out. ‘Well, I should say that Madam Venus there would certainly have to stand shot. If you are wise you will put out some of those candles. They are entering the lane now. Gad, Tommy, if they think your lad of spirit is here, I would not give much for your window-glass!’

  Mr. Thomasson, who had hastened to take the advice, and had extinguished all the candles but one, thus reducing the room to partial darkness, wrung his hands and moaned for answer. ‘Where are the proctors?’ he said. ‘Where are the constables? Where are the — Oh, dear, dear, this is dreadful!’

  And certainly, even in a man of firmer courage a little trepidation might have been pardoned. As the unseen crowd, struggling and jostling, poured from the roadway of St. Aldate’s into the narrow confines of Pembroke Lane, the sound of its hooting gathered sudden volume, and from an intermittent murmur, as of a remote sea, swelled in a moment into a roar of menace. And as a mob is capable of deeds from which the members who compose it would severally shrink, as nothing is so pitiless, nothing so unreasoning, so in the sound of its voice is a note that appals all but the hardiest. Soane was no coward. A year before he had been present at the siege of Bedford House by the Spitalfields weavers, where swords were drawn and much blood was spilled, while the gentlemen of the clubs and coffee-houses looked on as at a play; but even he felt a slackening of the pulse as he listened. And with the Reverend Frederick it was different. He was not framed for danger. When the smoking glare of the links which the ringleaders carried began to dance and flicker on the opposite houses, he looked about him with a wild eye, and had already taken two steps towards the door, when it opened.

  It admitted two men about Sir George’s age, or a little younger. One, after glancing round, passed hurriedly to the window and looked out; the other sank into the nearest chair, and, fanning himself with his hat, muttered a querulous oath.

  ‘My dear lord!’ cried the Reverend Frederick, hastening to his side — and it is noteworthy that he forgot even his panic in the old habit of reverence— ‘What an escape! To think that a life so valuable as your lordship’s should lie at the mercy of those wretches! I shudder at the thought of what might have happened.’

  ‘Fan me, Tommy’ was the answer. And Lord Almeric, an excessively pale, excessively thin young man, handed his hat with a gesture of exhaustion to the obsequious tutor. ‘Fan me; that is a good soul. Positively I am suffocated with the smell of those creatures! Worse than horses, I assure you. There, again! What a pother about a common fellow! ‘Pon honour, I don’t know what the world is coming to!’

  ‘Nor I,’ Mr. Thomasson answered, hanging over him with assiduity and concern on his countenance. ‘It is not to be comprehended.’

  ‘No, ‘pon honour it is not!’ my lord agreed. And then, feeling a little recovered, ‘Dunborough,’ he asked, ‘what are they doing?’

  ‘Hanging you, my dear fellow!’ the other answered from the window, where he had taken his place within a pace of Soane, but without discovering him. He spoke in the full boisterous tone of one in perfect health and spirits, perfectly satisfied with himself, and perfectly heedless of others.

  ‘Oh, I say, you are joking?’ my lord answered. ‘Hanging me? Oh, ah! I see. In effigy!’

  ‘And your humble servant,’ said Mr. Dunborough. ‘I tell you, Tommy, we had a near run for it. Curse their impudence, they made us sweat. For a very little I would give the rascals something to howl for.’

  Perhaps he meant no more than to put a bold face on it before his creatures. But unluckily the rabble, which had come provided with a cart and gallows, a hangman, and a paunchy, red-faced fellow in canonicals, and which hitherto had busied itself with the mock execution, found leisure at this moment to look up at the window. Catching sight of the object of their anger, they vented their rage in a roar of execration, so much louder than all that had gone before that it brought the sentence which Mr. Thomasson was uttering to a quavering end. But the demonstration, far from intimidating Mr. Dunborough, provoked him to fury. Turning from the sea of brandished hands and upturned faces, he strode to a table, and in a moment returned. The window was open, he flung it wider, and stood erect, in full view of the mob.

  The sight produced a momentary silence, of which he took advantage. ‘Now, you tailors, begone!’ he cried harshly. ‘To your hovels, and leave gentlemen to their wine, or it will be the worse for you. Come, march! We have had enough of your fooling, and are tired of it.’

  The answer was a shout of ‘Cain!’ and ‘Murderer!’ One voice cried ‘Ferrers!’ and this caught the fancy of the crowd. In a moment a hundred were crying, ‘Ay, Ferrers! Come down, and we’ll Ferrers you!’

  He stood a moment irresolute, glaring at them; then something struck and shattered a pane of the window beside him, and the fetid smell of a bad egg filled the room. At the sound Mr. Thomasson uttered a cry and shrank farther into the darkness, while Lord Almeric rose hastily and looked about for a refuge. But Mr. Dunborough did not flinch.

  ‘D —— n you, you rascals, you will have it, will you?’ he cried; and in the darkness a sharp click was heard. He raised his hand. A shriek in the street below answered the movement; some who stood nearest saw that he held a pistol and gave the information to others, and there was a wild rush to escape. But before the hammer dropped, a hand closed on his, and Soane, crying, ‘Are you mad, sir?’ dragged him back.

  Dunborough had not entertained the least idea that any one stood near him, and the surprise was as complete as the check. After an instinctive attempt to wrench away his hand, he stood glaring at the person who held him. ‘Curse you!’ he said. ‘Who are you? And what do you mean?’

  ‘Not to sit by and see murder done,’ Sir George answered firmly. ‘To-morrow you will thank me.’

  ‘For the present I’ll thank you to release my hand,’ the other retorted in a freezing tone. Nevertheless, Sir George thought that the delay had sobered him, and complied. ‘Much obliged to you,’ Dunborough continued. ‘Now perhaps you will walk into the next room, where there is a light, and we can be free from that scum.’

  Mr. Thomasson had already set the example of a prudent retreat thither; and Lord Almeric, with a feeble, ‘Lord, this is very surprising! But I think that the gentleman is right, Dunny,’ was hovering in the doorway. Sir George signed to Mr. Dunborough to go first, but he would not, and Soane, shrugging his s
houlders, preceded him.

  ‘TOMMY, WHO IS — THIS-FELLOW?’ HE CRIED.

  The room into which they all crowded was no more than a closet, containing a dusty bureau propped on three legs, a few books, and Mr. Thomasson’s robes, boots, and wig-stand. It was so small that when they were all in it, they stood perforce close together, and had the air of persons sheltering from a storm. This nearness, the glare of the lamp on their faces, and the mean surroundings gave a kind of added force to Mr. Dunborough’s rage. For a moment after entering he could not speak; he had dined largely, and sat long after dinner; and his face was suffused with blood. But then, ‘Tommy, who is — this — fellow?’ he cried, blurting out the words as if each must be the last.

  ‘Good heavens!’ cried the tutor, shocked at the low appellation.’ Mr. Dunborough! Mr. Dunborough! You mistake. My dear sir, my dear friend, you do not understand. This is Sir George Soane, whose name must be known to you. Permit me to introduce him.’

  ‘Then take that for a meddler and a coxcomb, Sir George Soane!’ cried the angry man; and quick as thought he struck Sir George, who was at elbows with him, lightly in the face.

  Sir George stepped back, his face crimson. ‘You are not sober, sir!’ he said.

  ‘Is not that enough?’ cried the other, drowning both Mr. Thomasson’s exclamation of horror and Lord Almeric’s protest of, ‘Oh, but I say, you know—’ under the volume of his voice. ‘You have a sword, sir, and I presume you know how to use it. If there is not space here, there is a room below, and I am at your service. You will not wipe that off by rubbing it,’ he added coarsely.

  Sir George dropped his hand from his face as if it stung him. ‘Mr. Dunborough,’ he said trembling — but it was with passion, ‘if I thought you were sober and would not repent to-morrow what you have done to-night—’

  ‘You would do fine things,’ Dunborough retorted. ‘Come, sir, a truce to your impertinence! You have meddled with me, and you must maintain it. Must I strike you again?’

  ‘I will not meet you to-night,’ Sir George answered firmly. ‘I will be neither Lord Byron nor his victim. These gentlemen will bear me out so far. For the rest, if you are of the same mind to-morrow, it will be for me and not for you to ask a meeting.’

  ‘At your service, sir,’ Mr. Dunborough said, with a sarcastic bow. ‘But suppose, to save trouble in the morning, we fix time and place now.’

  ‘Eight — in Magdalen Fields,’ Soane answered curtly. ‘If I do not hear from you, I am staying at the Mitre Inn. Mr. Thomasson, I bid you good-night. My lord, your servant.’

  And with that, and though Mr. Thomasson, wringing his hands over what had occurred and the injury to himself that might come of it, attempted some feeble remonstrances, Sir George bowed sternly, took his hat and went down. He found his chair at the foot of the stairs, but in consideration of the crowd he would not use it. The college porters, indeed, pressed him to wait, and demurred to opening even the wicket. But he had carried forbearance to the verge, and dreaded the least appearance of timidity; and, insisting, got his way. The rabble admired so fine a gentleman, and so resolute a bearing, gave place to him with a jest, and let him pass unmolested down the lane.

  It was well that they did, for he had come to the end of his patience. One man steps out of a carriage, picks up a handkerchief, and lives to wear a Crown. Another takes the same step; it lands him in a low squabble from which he may extricate himself with safety, but scarcely with an accession of credit. Sir George belonged to the inner circle of fashion, to which neither rank nor wealth, nor parts, nor power, of necessity admitted. In the sphere in which he moved, men seldom quarrelled and as seldom fought. Of easiest habit among themselves, they left bad manners and the duello to political adventurers and cubbish peers, or to the gentlemen of the quarter sessions and the local ordinary. It was with a mighty disgust, therefore, that Sir George considered alike the predicament into which a caprice had hurried him, and the insufferable young Hector whom fate had made his antagonist. They would laugh at White’s. They would make a jest of it over the cakes and fruit at Betty’s. Selwyn would turn a quip. And yet the thing was beyond a joke. He must be a target first and a butt afterwards — if any afterwards there were.

  As he entered the Mitre, sick with chagrin, and telling himself he might have known that something of this kind would come of stooping to vulgar company, he bethought him — for the first time in an hour — of the girl. ‘Lord!’ he said, thinking of her request, her passion, and her splendid eyes; and he stood. For the âge des philosophes, destiny seemed to be taking too large a part in the play. This must be the very man with whom she had striven to embroil him!

  His servant’s voice broke in on his thoughts. ‘At what hour will your honour please to be called?’ he asked, as he carried off the laced coat and wig.

  Soane stifled a groan. ‘Called?’ he said. ‘At half-past six. Don’t stare, booby! Half-past six, I said. And do you go now, I’ll shift for myself. But first put out my despatch-case, and see there is pen and ink. It’s done? Then be off, and when you come in the morning bring the landlord and another with you.’

  The man lingered. ‘Will your honour want horses?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know. Yes! No! Well, not until noon. And where is my sword?’

  ‘I was taking it down to clean it, sir.’

  ‘Then don’t take it; I will look to it myself. And mind you, call me at the time I said.’

  CHAPTER IV

  PEEPING TOM OF WALLINGFORD

  To be an attorney-at-law, avid of practice and getting none; to be called Peeping Tom of Wallingford, in the place where you would fain trot about busy and respected; to be the sole support of an old mother, and to be come almost to the toe of the stocking — these circumstances might seem to indicate an existence and prospects bare, not to say arid. Eventually they presented themselves in that light to the person most nearly concerned — by name Mr. Peter Fishwick; and moving him to grasp at the forlorn hope presented by a vacant stewardship at one of the colleges, brought him by coach to Oxford. There he spent three days and his penultimate guineas in canvassing, begging, bowing, and smirking; and on the fourth, which happened to be the very day of Sir George’s arrival in the city, was duly and handsomely defeated without the honour of a vote.

  Mr. Fishwick had expected no other result; and so far all was well. But he had a mother, and that mother entertained a fond belief that local jealousy and nothing else kept down her son in the place of his birth. She had built high hopes on this expedition; she had thought that the Oxford gentlemen would be prompt to recognise his merit; and for her sake the sharp-featured lawyer went back to the Mitre a rueful man. He had taken a lodging there with intent to dazzle the town, and not because his means were equal to it; and already the bill weighed upon him. By nature as cheerful a gossip as ever wore a scratch wig and lived to be inquisitive, he sat mum through the evening, and barely listened while the landlord talked big of his guest upstairs, his curricle and fashion, the sums he lost at White’s, and the plate in his dressing-case.

  Nevertheless the lawyer would not have been Peter Fishwick if he had not presently felt the stirrings of curiosity, or, thus incited, failed to be on the move between the stairs and the landing when Sir George came in and passed up. The attorney’s ears were as sharp as a ferret’s nose, and he was notably long in lighting his humble dip at a candle which by chance stood outside Sir George’s door. Hence it happened that Soane — who after dismissing his servant had gone for a moment into the adjacent chamber — heard a slight noise in the room he had left; and, returning quickly to learn what it was, found no one, but observed the outer door shake as if some one tried it. His suspicions aroused, he was still staring at the door when it moved again, opened a very little way, and before his astonished eyes admitted a small man in a faded black suit, who, as soon as he had squeezed himself in, stood bowing with a kind of desperate audacity.

  ‘Hallo!’ said Sir George, staring anew. ‘What do you want,
my man?’

  The intruder advanced a pace or two, and nervously crumpled his hat in his hands. ‘If your honour pleases,’ he said, a smile feebly propitiative appearing in his face, ‘I shall be glad to be of service to you.’

  ‘Of service?’ said Sir George, staring in perplexity. ‘To me?’

  ‘In the way of my profession,’ the little man answered, fixing Sir George with two eyes as bright as birds’; which eyes somewhat redeemed his small keen features. ‘Your honour was about to make your will.’ ‘My will?’ Sir George cried, amazed; ‘I was about to—’ and then in an outburst of rage, ‘and if I was — what the devil business is it of yours?’ he cried. ‘And who are you, sir?’

  The little man spread out his hands in deprecation. ‘I?’ he said. ‘I am an attorney, sir, and everybody’s business is my business.’

  Sir George gasped. ‘You are an attorney!’ he cried. ‘And — and everybody’s business is your business! By God, this is too much!’ And seizing the bell-rope he was about to overwhelm the man of law with a torrent of abuse, before he had him put out, when the absurdity of the appeal and perhaps a happy touch in Peter’s last answer struck him; he held his hand, and hesitated. Then, ‘What is your name, sir?’ he said sternly.

  ‘Peter Fishwick,’ the attorney answered humbly.

  ‘And how the devil did you know — that I wanted to make a will?’

  ‘I was going upstairs,’ the lawyer explained. ‘And the door was ajar.’

  ‘And you listened?’

  ‘I wanted to hear,’ said Peter with simplicity.

  ‘But what did you hear, sir?’ Soane retorted, scarcely able to repress a smile.

  ‘I heard your honour tell your servant to lay out pen and paper, and to bring the landlord and another upstairs when he called you in the morning. And I heard you bid him leave your sword. And putting two and two together, respected sir, ‘Peter continued manfully,’ and knowing that it is only of a will you need three witnesses, I said to myself, being an attorney—’