‘I will see them,’ Mr. Fishwick answered, wincing at the note of pain in her voice. ‘I — I was sent for this morning, for twelve o’clock. It is a quarter to eleven now.’
She looked at him, startled, a spot of red in each cheek. ‘We must go away,’ she said hurriedly, ‘while we have money. Can we do better than return to Oxford?’
The attorney felt sure that at the worst Sir George would do something for her: that Mrs. Masterson need not lament for her fifty pounds. But he had the delicacy to ignore this. ‘I don’t know,’ he said mournfully. ‘I dare not advise. You’d be sorry, Miss Julia — any one would be sorry who knew what I have gone through. I’ve suffered — I can’t tell you what I have suffered — the last twenty-four hours! I shall never have any opinion of myself again. Never!’
Julia sighed. ‘We must cut a month out of our lives,’ she murmured. But it was something else she meant — a month out of her heart!
CHAPTER XXXV
DORMITAT HOMERUS
If Julia’s return in the middle of the night balked the curiosity of some who would fain have had her set down at the door that they might enjoy her confusion as she passed through the portico, it had the advantage, appreciated by others, of leaving room for conjecture. Before breakfast her return was known from, one end of the Castle Inn to the other; within half an hour a score had private information. Sir George had brought her back, after marrying her at Salisbury. The attorney had brought her back, and both were in custody, charged with stealing Sir George’s title-deeds. Mr. Thomasson had brought her back; he had wedded her at Calne, the reverend gentleman himself performing the ceremony with a curtain-ring at a quarter before midnight, in the presence of two chambermaids, in a room hung with drab moreen. Sir George’s servant had brought her back; he was the rogue in the play; it was Lady Harriet Wentworth and footman Sturgeon over again. She had come back in a Flemish hat and a white cloth Joseph with black facings; she had come back in her night-rail; she had come back in a tabby gauze, with a lace head and lappets. Nor were there wanting other rumours, of an after-dinner Wilkes-and-Lord-Sandwich flavour, which we refrain from detailing; but which the Castle Inn, after the mode of the eighteenth century, discussed with freedom in a mixed company.
Of all these reports and the excitement which they created in an assemblage weary of waiting on the great man’s recovery and in straits for entertainment, the attorney knew nothing until he set forth to keep the appointment in Lord Chatham’s apartments; which, long the object of desire, now set his teeth on edge. Nor need he have learned much of them then; for he had only to cross the lobby of the east wing, and was in view of the hall barely three seconds. But, unluckily, Lady Dunborough, cackling shrewishly with a kindred dowager, caught sight of him as he passed; and in a trice her old limbs bore her in pursuit. Mr. Fishwick heard his name called, had the weakness to turn, and too late found that he had fallen into the clutches of his ancient enemy.
The absence of her son’s name from the current rumours had relieved the Viscountess of her worst fears, and left her free to enjoy herself. Seeing his dismay, ‘La, man! I am not going to eat you!’ she cried; for the lawyer, nervous and profoundly dispirited, really shrank before her. ‘So you have brought back your fine madam, I hear? And made an honest woman of her!’
Mr. Fishwick glared at her, but did not answer.
‘I knew what would come of pushing out of your place, my lad!’ she continued, nodding complacently. ‘It wasn’t likely she’d behave herself. When the master is away the man will play, and the maid too. I mind me perfectly of the groom. A saucy fellow and a match for her; ’tis to be hoped he’ll beat some sense into her. Was she tied up at Calne?’
‘No!’ Mr. Fishwick blurted, wincing under her words; which hurt him a hundred times more sharply than if the girl had been what he had thought her. Then he might have laughed at the sneer and the spite that dictated it. Now — something like this all the world would say.
The Viscountess eyed him cunningly, her head on one side. ‘Was it at Salisbury, then?’ she cried. ‘Wherever ’twas. I hear she had need of haste. Or was it at Bristol? D’you hear me speak to you, man?’ she continued impatiently. ‘Out with it.’
‘At neither,’ he cried.
My lady’s eyes sparkled with rage. ‘Hoity-toity!’ she answered. ‘D’you say No to me in that fashion? I’ll thank you to mend your manners, Fishwick, and remember to whom you are speaking. Hark ye, sirrah, is she Sir George’s cousin or is she not?’
‘She is not, my lady,’ the attorney muttered miserably.
‘But she is married?’
‘No,’ he said; and with that, unable to bear more, he turned to fly.
She caught him by the sleeve. ‘Not married?’ she cried, grinning with ill-natured glee. ‘Not married? And been of three days with a man! Lord, ’tis a story as bald as Granby! She ought to be whipped, the hussy! Do you hear? She ought to the Roundhouse, and you with her, sirrah, for passing her of on us!’
But that was more than the attorney, his awe of the peerage notwithstanding, could put up with. ‘God forgive you!’ he cried. ‘God forgive you, ma’am, your hard heart!’
She was astonished. ‘You impudent fellow!’ she exclaimed. ‘What do you know of God? And how dare you name Him in the same breath with me? D’you think He’d have people of quality be Methodists and live as the like of you? God, indeed! Hang your impudence! I say, she should to the Roundhouse — and you, too, for a vagabond! And so you shall!’
The lawyer shook with rage. ‘The less your ladyship talks of the Roundhouse,’ he answered, his voice trembling, ‘the better! There’s one is in it now who may go farther and fare worse — to your sorrow, my lady!’
You rogue!’ she cried. ‘Do you threaten me?’
‘I threaten no one,’ he answered. ‘But your son, Mr. Dunborough, killed a man last night, and lies in custody at Chippenham at this very time! I say no more, my lady!’
He had said enough. My lady glared; then began to shake in her turn. Yet her spirit was not easily quelled; ‘You lie!’ she cried shrilly, the stick, with which she vainly strove to steady herself, rattling on the floor.’ Who dares to say that my son has killed a man?’
‘It is known,’ the attorney answered.
‘Who — who is it?’
‘Mr. Pomeroy of Bastwick, a gentleman living near Calne.’
‘In a duel! ’Twas in a duel, you lying fool!’ she retorted hoarsely. ‘You are trying to scare me! Say ’twas in a duel and I — I’ll forgive you.’
‘They shut themselves up in a room, and there were no seconds,’ the lawyer answered, beginning to pity her. ‘I believe that Mr. Pomeroy gave the provocation, and that may bring your ladyship’s son off. But, on the other hand—’
‘On the other hand, what? What?’ she muttered.
‘Mr. Dunborough had horsewhipped a man that was in the other’s company.’
‘A man?’
‘It was Mr. Thomasson.’
Her ladyship’s hands went up. Perhaps she remembered that but for her the tutor would not have been there. Then ‘Sink you! I wish he had flogged you all!’ she shrieked, and, turning stiffly, she went mumbling and cursing down the stairs, the lace lappets of her head trembling, and her gold-headed cane now thumping the floor, now waving uncertainly in the air.
A quarter of an hour earlier, in the apartments for which Mr. Fishwick was bound when her ladyship intercepted him, two men stood talking at a window. The room was the best in the Castle Inn — a lofty panelled chamber with a southern aspect looking upon the smooth sward and sweet-briar hedges of Lady Hertford’s terrace, and commanding beyond these a distant view of the wooded slopes of Savernake. The men spoke in subdued tones, and more than once looked towards the door of an adjacent room, as if they feared to disturb some one.
‘My dear Sir George,’ the elder said, after he had listened patiently to a lengthy relation, in the course of which he took snuff a dozen times, ‘your mind is quite made up, I su
ppose?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Well, it is a remarkable series of events; a — most remarkable series,’ Dr. Addington answered with professional gravity. ‘And certainly, if the lady is all you paint her — and she seems to set you young bloods on fire — no ending could well be more satisfactory. With the addition of a comfortable place in the Stamps or the Pipe Office, if we can take his lordship the right way — it should do. It should do handsomely. But’, with a keen glance at his companion, ‘even without that — you know that he is still far from well?’
‘I know that all the world is of one of two opinions,’ Sir George answered, smiling. ‘The first, that his lordship ails nothing save politically; the other, that he is at death’s door and will not have it known.’
The physician shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. ‘Neither is true,’ he said. ‘The simple fact is, he has the gout; and the gout is an odd thing, Sir George, as you’ll know one of these days,’ with another sharp glance at his companion. ‘It flies here and there, and everywhere.’
‘And where is it now?’ Soane asked innocently.
‘It has gone to his head,’ Addington answered, in a tone so studiously jejune that Sir George glanced at him. The doctor, however, appeared unaware of the look, and merely continued: ‘So, if he does not take things quite as you wish, Sir George, you’ll — but here his lordship comes!’
The doctor thought that he had sufficiently prepared Soane for a change in his patron’s appearance. Nevertheless, the younger man was greatly shocked when through the door, obsequiously opened — and held open while a man might count fifty, so that eye and mind grew expectant — the great statesman, the People’s Minister at length appeared. For the stooping figure that moved to a chair only by virtue of a servant’s arm, and seemed the taller for its feebleness, for dragging legs and shrunken, frame and features sharpened by illness and darkened by the great peruke it was the Earl’s fashion to wear, he was in a degree prepared. But for the languid expression of the face that had been so eloquent, for the lacklustre eyes and the dulness of mind that noticed little and heeded less, he was not prepared; and these were so marked and so unlike the great minister —
‘A daring pilot in extremity
Pleased with the danger when the waves went high’
— so unlike the man whose eagle gaze had fluttered Courts and imposed the law on Senates, that it was only the presence of Lady Chatham, who followed her lord, a book and cushion in her hands, that repressed the exclamation which rose to Sir George’s lips. So complete was the change indeed that, as far as the Earl was concerned, he might have uttered it! His lordship, led to the head of the table, sank without a word into the chair placed for him, and propping his elbow on the table and his head on his hand, groaned aloud.
Lady Chatham compressed her lips with evident annoyance as she took her stand behind her husband’s chair; it was plain from the glance she cast at Soane that she resented the presence of a witness. Even Dr. Addington, with his professional sang-froid and his knowledge of the invalid’s actual state, was put out of countenance for a moment. Then he signed to Sir George to be silent, and to the servant to withdraw.
At last Lord Chatham spoke. ‘This business?’ he said in a hollow voice and without uncovering his eyes, ‘is it to be settled now?’
‘If your lordship pleases,’ the doctor answered in a subdued tone.
‘Sir George Soane is there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sir George,’ the Earl said with an evident effort, ‘I am sorry I cannot receive you better.’
‘My lord, as it is I am deeply indebted to your kindness.’
‘Dagge finds no flaw in their case,’ Lord Chatham continued apathetically. ‘Her ladyship has read his report to me. If Sir George likes to contest the claim, it is his right.’
‘I do not propose to do so.’
Sir George had not this time subdued his voice to the doctor’s pitch; and the Earl, whose nerves seemed alive to the slightest sound, winced visibly. ‘That is your affair,’ he answered querulously. ‘At any rate the trustees do not propose to do so.’
Sir George, speaking with more caution, replied that he acquiesced; and then for a few seconds there was silence in the room, his lordship continuing to sit in the same attitude of profound melancholy, and the others to look at him with compassion, which they vainly strove to dissemble. At last, in a voice little above a whisper, the Earl asked if the man was there.
‘He waits your lordship’s pleasure,’ Dr. Addington answered. ‘But before he is admitted,’ the physician continued diffidently and with a manifest effort, ‘may I say a word, my lord, as to the position in which this places Sir George Soane?’
‘I was told this morning,’ Lord Chatham answered, in the same muffled tone, ‘that a match had been arranged between the parties, and that things would remain as they were. It seemed to me, sir, a prudent arrangement.’
Sir George was about to answer, but Dr. Addington made a sign to him to be silent. ‘That is so,’ the physician replied smoothly. ‘But your lordship is versed in Sir George Soane’s affairs, and knows that he must now go to his wife almost empty-handed. In these circumstances it has occurred rather to his friends than to himself, and indeed I speak against his will and by sufferance only, that — that, in a word, my lord—’
Lord Chatham lowered his hand as Dr. Addington paused. A faint flush darkened his lean aquiline features, set a moment before in the mould of hopeless depression. ‘What?’ he said. And he raised himself sharply in his chair. ‘What has occurred to his friends?’
‘That some provision might be made for him, my lord.’
‘From the public purse?’ the Earl cried in a startling tone. ‘Is that your meaning, sir?’ And, with the look in his eyes which had been more dreaded by the Rigbys and Dodingtons of his party than the most scathing rebuke from the lips of another, he fixed the unlucky doctor where he stood. ‘Is that your proposal, sir?’ he repeated.
The physician saw too late that he had ventured farther than his interest would support him; and he quailed. On the other hand, it is possible he had been neither so confident before, nor was so entirely crushed now, as appeared. ‘Well, my lord, it did occur to me,’ he stammered, ‘as not inconsistent with the public welfare.’
‘The public welfare!’ the minister cried in biting accents. ‘The public plunder, sir, you mean! It were not inconsistent with that to quarter on the nation as many ruined gentlemen as you please! But you mistake if you bring the business to me to do — you mistake. I have dispersed thirteen millions of His Majesty’s money in a year, and would have spent as much again and as much to that, had the affairs of this nation required it; but the gentleman is wrong if he thinks it has gone to my friends. My hands are clean,’ his lordship continued with an expressive gesture. ‘I have said, in another place, none of it sticks to them. Virtute me involvo!’ And then, in a lower tone, but still with a note of austerity in his voice, M rejoice to think,’ he continued, ‘that the gentleman was not himself the author of this application. I rejoice to think that it did not come from him. These things have been done freely; it concerns me not to deny it; but since I had to do with His Majesty’s exchequer, less freely. And that only concerns me!’
Sir George Soane bit his lip. He felt keenly the humiliation of his position. But it was so evident that the Earl was not himself — so evident that the tirade to which he had just listened was one of those outbursts, noble in sentiment, but verging on the impracticable and the ostentatious, in which Lord Chatham was prone to indulge in his weaker moments, that he felt little inclination to resent it. Yet to let it pass unnoticed was impossible.
‘My lord,’ he said firmly, but with respect, ‘it is permitted to all to make an application which the custom of the time has sanctioned. That is the extent of my action — at the highest. The propriety of granting such requests is another matter and rests with your lordship. I have nothing to do with that.’
The Earl appeared to be as easily disarmed as he had been lightly aroused. ‘Good lad! good lad!’ he muttered. ‘Addington is a fool!’ Then drowsily, as his head sunk on his hand again, ‘The man may enter. I will tell him!’
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE ATTORNEY SPEAKS
It was into an atmosphere highly charged, therefore, in which the lightning had scarcely ceased to play, and might at any moment dart its fires anew, that Mr. Fishwick was introduced. The lawyer did not know this; yet it was to be expected that without that knowledge he would bear himself but ill in the company in which he now found himself. But the task which he had come to perform raised him above himself; moreover, there is a point of depression at which timidity ceases, and he had reached this point. Admitted by Dr. Addington, he looked round, bowed stiffly to the physician, and lowly and with humility to Lord Chatham and her ladyship; then, taking his stand at the foot of the table, he produced his papers with an air of modest self-possession.
Lord Chatham did not look up, but he saw what was passing. ‘We have no need of documents,’ he said in the frigid tone which marked his dealings with all save a very few. ‘Your client’s suit is allowed, sir, so far as the trustees are concerned. That is all it boots me to say.’
‘I humbly thank your lordship,’ the attorney answered, speaking with an air of propriety which surprised Sir George. ‘Yet I have with due submission to crave your lordship’s leave to say somewhat.’
‘There is no need,’ the Earl answered, ‘the claim being allowed, sir.’
‘It is on that point, my lord.’
The Earl, his eyes smouldering, looked his displeasure, but controlled himself. ‘What is it?’ he said irritably.
‘Some days ago, I made a singular discovery, my lord,’ the attorney answered sorrowfully. ‘I felt it necessary to communicate it to my client, and I am directed by her to convey it to your lordship and to all others concerned.’ And the lawyer bowed slightly to Sir George Soane.
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