“It is not in a drawer,” whispered Stephen, “it is in the writing-desk that stands upon the table in his bed-room.”
“And that desk is locked, I presume, my stout-hearted hero?”
“Yes;” was the pithy answer.
“And where docs the adored grandfather keep the key?” was the next inquiry.
“In his pocket,” replied Stephen; who now literally did tremble both from rage and fear.
“Compose yourself, young man, compose yourself,” returned his mocking visitor. “The task I shall assign you in the transaction shall be a very easy one; and it is lucky for both of us that I can contrive to make it so, for, I grieve to say it! I very much doubt if your valour is of a quality likely to ensure your self-possession in any difficult enterprise. However, it matters not, upon the present occasion, for all I require of you is, that when you go into your beloved grandfather’s room to wish him an affectionate good night, you should take his keys out of his pocket for me. And it is quite time that you should set about this directly. He is, probably, already in bed. If he is asleep, do your errand and return to me instantly. If he is awake, or if you wake him, tell him that you thought you heard him call. You told me, I think, that our damnably proud grandmother sleeps in another room?”
“But she will hear as plain as if she were in the same!” said Stephen, in a whisper that seemed frightened at the sound itself had made, — for his voice actually failed him altogether when he attempted to add some further observation.
“COWARD!” exclaimed the other, in a tone that almost paralysed Stephen, though it was a whisper too; but it was a whisper eloquent both of contempt and rage.
“This is no moment for child’s play,” he resumed. “A convict’s mode of existence would soon send me to the other world, and therefore it is a business of life and death to me; and so it must be looked at, boy, and so it must be gone through with.. Escape from the job you cannot, for you are in my power. Strive to be a man, you craven, for one short hour, and by that time I shall be off, and you may creep safely to bed, and pray that you may not dream of robbing a beloved grandfather, — for if you do, you will be sure to scream so loud as to wake the whole household! Now wait for a moment here, while I reconnoitre.”
And having said this, poor Stephen’s agreeable visitor took off his shoes, opened the door, and stepped cautiously out into the passage.
“Everything is profoundly still,” he said, in a low whisper, as he returned to the room. “Now go! go quietly; but yet go fearlessly. Whether the old man sleeps or wakes, you may do your errand without risk of any kind.”
This was said in a tone that was neither gibing, nor angry; and the unfortunate youth appeared in some degree to recover his self-possession, for he rose from the chair he had occupied, took his bed-candle, and prepared to leave the room.
“Trust me, Stephen, when I tell you that what you are going to do involves no danger of any kind; only remember, boy, that if you do not perform it, I must, — and then the work may have to be done in a less peaceable manner. I have no intention whatever of hurting the old man — that is to say, if the business can be done without it. Now then, GO! I shall wait for your return in the passage.” These words were uttered by Mr. William White as his trembling accomplice walked through the door.
CHAPTER LXI.
WHILE all this was done and said beneath the umwhile peaceful roof of the Grange, the two plotting gentlemen who had left it together did not immediately separate, although they certainly did not walk off to Proctor Castle.
“What brought you to us so suddenly to-night, Sir Herbert?” said the priest, as soon as they were quite certain of being unwatched and alone.
“I will tell you,” replied Sir Herbert; “though I may thereby run the risk of being laughed at by your reverence. I came to the Grange this evening, solely because Miss Anderson had found out a likeness for Mr. Stephen Cornington’s gigantic friend; and I felt some curiosity to ascertain whether her eye was a correct one. Do you smell a rat — as the phrase goes?”
“Go on, Sir Herbert; let me beg you to explain yourself,” said Mr. Cuthbridge, gravely.
“Is it possible, my dear Sir, that the same idea can have occurred to you as to her?” said Herbert, eagerly.
“I think it very possible,” said the priest. “If I guess rightly, she has told you that she thinks this man, calling him self William White, is like to the other man that calls himself Stephen Cornington.”
“Exactly so,” replied Sir Herbert; adding, with a good deal of interest, “do you agree with her?”
“I do,” was the reply; “and I can guess, too, the inference she draws from it,” added Mr. Cuthbridge. “She thinks,” he continued, “that this middle-aged gentleman who has now invaded our peaceful shades, is probably the father of the young gentleman who invaded our peaceful shades about ten months ago?”
“Were you a conjurer as well as a priest,” returned Sir Herbert, “you could not have divined more correctly. Janet is seized with an unreasonably strong conviction, that this handsome illegitimate descendant of our well-beloved, but not very wise neighbour, Mr. Mathews, is an impostor.”
“And did Miss Janet tell all that might hang upon such a discovery?” demanded Mr. Cuthbridge.
“No,” replied Sir Herbert, “she did not enter upon the subject at all; but, of course, we all know that if the silly old man could be made aware that this vulgar and most audacious youth was, in truth, no grandson at all, the relief to the family would be great indeed. It would be great to the old man himself, but infinitely greater to our dear Mrs. Mathews and her Janet.”
“Yes!” said the priest, with great energy; “the relief would be great!”
“But, even if these two men really are father and son, and that we could have the great good-fortune of proving it, I do not see how that relieves Mr. Mathews from the misfortune of being the young fellow’s grandfather,” observed Sir Herbert.
“But, in order to prove this, you must prove also that this huge fellow that we have seen to-day is Mr. Mathews’ son,” replied Mr. Cuthbridge.
“I don’t believe that the huge fellow is Mr. Mathews’ son,” said Herbert; “nor do I see why the grandsonship might not arise from the mother of the young man.”
“For one very simple reason; namely, that Mr. Mathews, as he has told me himself, never had but one child, — and that child was a boy,” said Mr. Cuthbridge.
“Nay, then, this question of resemblance does, indeed, become interesting,” said Sir Herbert, gravely; “for if Miss Anderson be right — if, indeed, the grandson be an impostor — the arrival of his father here may have as nefarious an object as the imposition of the son. — Extortion, — rapine! may be the object.”
“Assuredly,” replied the priest; “with the opinion I have formed of both, it is difficult to say where my suspicions would stop. I have dined with them to-day, Sir Herbert, and one fact became very clearly evident to me; namely, that this visit from the senior is very far from being welcome to the junior. I have seldom seen a young fellow more completely disconcerted than Mr. Stephen appeared at table to-day; he looked ill-at-ease in every way; and if I had believed that there was any reason for his being alarmed, I certainly should have thought him under the influence of fear. But I accounted for his evident embarrassment by thinking that his pride was wounded by having to display so very underbred a personage in the character of his intimate friend. But now, methinks, the feeling displayed was a much deeper one. How do we know at this moment, Herbert, that this precious father and son may not be robbing our dear friends, pistol in hand?”
Without answering this query, which seemed to have been spoken jestingly, Sir Herbert seemed to be revolving rather anxiously the various reasons which there were for thinking that all was not right in the strangely-constituted group which surrounded his Janet at this moment.
“You jest, dear Cuthbridge,” he replied, very gravely; “but take my word for it, this is no jesting matter. As to any dang
er arising from the vulgar young man who has thus far succeeded in persuading poor old Mathews that he is his grandson, and very like him, I do not suspect it, I do not think of it,”
“In short, Sir Herbert, you think too well of Mr. Stephen Cornington to believe him capable of anything more atrocious than a vulgar, though very handsome exterior?” said the priest, interrupting him; and then he added, in a tone that had no jesting in it, “I differ from you.”
“I know very little about him,” returned Sir Herbert; “it is very probable you may know more. I only meant to say, that his position in the family is already so very advantageous a one, that it was not very likely he should use any violent means to improve it. But in fact, it is not of him that I am thinking. If that man who is so decidedly like him in feature be not a ruffian, Cuthbridge, I will give up phrenology for ever.”
“I am more inclined to give up Mr. William White than to give up phrenology,” replied the priest. “But the very circumstance you allude to — I mean the excellent position which the young man holds in the family — is pretty well enough to convince us that he is not likely to endanger it for the sake of assisting the other in robbing the house.”
“But I see nothing very preposterous in supposing that he may have no very easy means of preventing it,” replied Sir Herbert.
“If the likeness which we think we have discovered has anything in it,” he continued, after a pause, “ in short, if these men be really father and son, it becomes evident that they are concerned together in a plot, of which money is the object. While ensconced beside the embroidery frame, in order to reconnoitre this resemblance, I examined the face of the young man, as well as that of the older one; and if the features of the latter spake the ruffian, those of the former betrayed a perfect agony of fear.”
“What do you suppose he is afraid of?” demanded Mr. Cuthbridge. “Do you think it likely that he should anticipate such observations as we have been making upon him? Do you think he fears that we should suspect this Mr. William White of being his father?”
“He?” replied Sir Herbert; “nothing can be much less likely, Depend upon it, Mr. Stephen Cornington recognises no resemblance between this huge stranger and himself. But it might be that he feared some other danger from his arrival — and something worse too, than merely having to present a vulgar friend. For in the first place, I doubt his being as conscious of this fact as you and I are; and in the second, his unmitigated impertinence to Mrs. Mathews, since the death of her father, renders it very unlikely that he should greatly care whether this stranger annoyed her by his vulgarity or not. But that the young man feared something, I am certain. In short, Cuthbridge, it is his fear that has created mine. I do not like the position in which our friends are placed; I do not like the position in which we have left them. I devoted several minutes before we took leave to meditating on the possibility of inventing some excuse for not leaving them; but I could think of none. I expect that you will laugh at me for this, but I would rather stand your ridicule than not enjoy the comfort of hearing myself contradicted.”
“I have no such consolation to bestow on you, Sir Herbert,” replied Mr. Cuthbridge, meditating for a few moments on what he had said. “On the contrary, I am greatly disposed to agree with you. Far from having too good an opinion of this young man, my opinion of him is so very bad, so very much worse than it is at all likely yours should be, that I have endeavoured to drive suspicion from me respecting the strange scene we have just left, from the consciousness that I was prejudiced, very strongly prejudiced, against one of the parties. But my prejudices have very certainly not influenced your judgment, inasmuch as till this hour I have never expressed them to any man; nevertheless your own observation has led you further than my prejudice has led me, for it has induced you not only to conceive, but to express suspicion. And now then, I will confess,” continued the priest, suddenly stopping short in his walk, “now then I will confess that I am by no means certain that we are doing right, or acting like the loyal friends to the Grange that we profess ourselves to be, by thus deliberately walking away from it.”
“Then to the right about, in Heaven’s name!” exclaimed Sir Herbert, suiting the action to the word; and turning himself round, he began to retrace his steps at a pace considerably more active than when walking in the opposite direction.
“And what do we mean to do, Sir Herbert, when we reach the house?” said the priest.
“That must be decided by what we may chance to hear, or to see;” replied his friend.
“But much might be going on within the house,” returned Mr. Cuthbridge, “of which we should perhaps know nothing without, till it was too late for our presence to be of any use. Don’t you think so?”
“True, my good friend! too true!” replied Sir Herbert, despondingly “But is it quite impossible,” he added, “that we should ourselves enact the part of housebreakers? You have known the premises longer than I have done, Cuthbridge; is there no such point by which we could make good an entrance?”
“None, that I know of, Sir Herbert,” replied the priest. “But I know of a stronghold, that if it could be made to hear a warning word from us, might enable us to make a very secret entry.”
“Where? — and how?” said Sir Herbert, eagerly.
“Do not circulate any scandal about me,” replied Mr. Cuthbridge, stepping stoutly forward, as if inspired by some bright idea which had just occurred to him; “but I know exactly where Sally Spicer is lodged, because I have assisted in times past, and before Miss Janet filled the head of my old friend with other thoughts, at many a consultation had and holden in the said Sally Spicer’s room, as to the possibility of adding the whole, or any part of it, to the rambling library up stairs, that my whimsical old friend calls her ‘Den.’ You know this den as well as I do, Sir Herbert; and therefore you must be aware that if Sally’s room could be added to it, the said room must, of necessity, be at the top of the house. By what possible means, therefore, can we make her bear us?”
“Do you know of any part of the premises where there would be any chance of finding a ladder?” demanded the anxious Sir Herbert.
“No, truly; I know very little about the premises, considering the number of years that I have been in habits of familiar intimacy with the family. But let us go on, and trust to fortune.”
“So be it!” was the almost solemn reply of Sir Herbert; and as it seemed evident that no further consultation could avail them, they strode on together in perfect silence, as by common consent, and at a pace which, though they had walked to a considerable distance before they had turned to retrace their steps, brought them back to the house they had left a few minutes after the conversation between Stephen and his West Indian friend, which was given in the last chapter, had reached the point at which we left it.
CHAPTER LXII,
Ox reaching the house, Mr. Cuthbridge’s first manoeuvre was to open a well-known door which led into the stable-yard; for upon this stable-yard the window of Sally Spicer opened.
A very fortunate accident favoured their design, though it was one generally very much the reverse to gentry prowling round a lone country mansion, in the hope of surreptitiously obtaining an entrance. In short, the old stable-yard dog began barking furiously.
“He is securely chained,” said the priest, “so we have nothing to fear from him; and if old Sally be the faithful guardian I take her to be, she will be at her window in a moment to find out why he barks.”
And he had scarcely pronounced the words when a window high above their heads opened, and the voice of the faithful Sally was heard to demand—” Who’s there?”
“No one that wants to harm you, Sally Spicer!” replied the priest aloud. “Sir Herbert Otterborne is with me, and he has hurt his foot. Come down, and let ns in, but move quietly, that you may not alarm the family.”
“In one minute, Sir!” was the reply to their summons, and without the unnecessary delay of a moment the back door, close to which the intruders stood, w
as opened, and Sally Spicer, with a lighted candle in her hand, ushered them into the servants’ hall.
“Can Sir Herbert manage to get up stairs?” said Sally, compassionately. “There is a little room nicely ready that I put in order for that big fellow as come yesterday, only Master Stephen said it was not grand enough for him. But it is a capital good bed, Mr. Cuthbridge, if you think he could get to it.”
“How, Sally Spicer, you must show yourself to be a woman of good sense, and not get frightened at what I am going to say to you. For Sir Herbert and I have come here on purpose to prevent your being frightened. Sir Herbert has not really hurt his foot, Sally; we said that to make you let us in without delay But the truth is, Sally Spicer, that we wanted to get into the house without disturbing anybody.”
Sally Spicer was rather a quick-witted personage, but nevertheless she now looked very much puzzled indeed.
“I am sure, Sir, there is nobody as would think the letting you in a disturbance, nor Sir Herbert either. Will you please to let me speak to my mistress, and tell her you are here?”
“No, Sally, no! You must do no such thing; and you must promise into the bargain, not to be alarmed at what we are going to say to you. Here we are, both of us, you see, with a good walking-stick to defend you, so you must not pay us such a bad compliment as to be afraid.”
“Afraid of what, Sir?” said Sally, very innocently. “If you ain’t neither of you hurt, gentlemen, there can’t be anything to be afraid of in seeing you here. Only I am sure that my mistress would like to know if you want anything.”
“We only want to be certain, Sally,” said Sir Herbert, smiling so placidly, as greatly to restore her spirits, “we only want to be quite sure, my good friend, that there is no one else in the house who wants anything, and who might be inclined to take it without asking your mistress’s leave. Mr. Cuthbridge and I, Sally, don’t quite like the appearance of the tall gentleman you have got here.”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 427