Checkmate

This appointment made, they parted, and he knocked at his uncle's door. The sound seemed to echo threateningly at his heart, which sank with a sudden misgiving.

CHAPTER XL

AN INTERVIEW IN THE STUDY

“Is my uncle at home?”

“No, Sir; I expect him at five. It wants about five minutes; but he desired me to show you, Sir, into the study.”

He was now alone in that large square room. The books, each in its place, in a vellum uniform, with a military precision and nattiness – seldom disturbed, I fancy, for Uncle David was not much of a book-worm – chilled him with an aspect of inflexible formality; and the busts, in cold white marble, standing at intervals on their pedestals, seemed to have called up looks, like Mrs. Pentweezle, for the occasion. Demosthenes, with his wrenched neck and square brow, had evidently heard of his dealings with Lord Pindledykes, and made up his mind, when the proper time came, to denounce him with a tempest of appropriate eloquence. There was in Cicero's face, he thought, something satirical and conceited which was new and odious; and under Plato's external solemnity he detected a pleasurable and roguish anticipation of the coming scene.

His uncle was very punctual. A few minutes would see him in the room, and then two or three sentences would disclose the purpose he meditated. In the midst of the trepidation which had thus returned, he heard his uncle's knock at the hall-door, and in another moment he entered the study.

“How d'ye do, Richard? You're punctual. I wish our meeting was a pleasanter one. Sit down. You haven't kept faith with me. It is scarcely a year since, with a large sum of money, such as at your age I should have thought a fortune, I rescued you from bad hands and a great danger. Now, Sir, do you remember a promise you then made me? and have you kept your word?”

“I confess, uncle, I know I can't excuse myself; but I was tempted, and I am weak – I am a fool, worse than a fool – whatever you please to call me, and I'm sorry. Can I say more?” pleaded the young man.

“That is saying nothing. It simply means that you do the thing that pleases you, and break your word where your inclination prompts; and you are sorry because it has turned out unluckily. I have heard that you are again in danger. I am not going to help you.” His blue eyes looked cold and hard, and the oblique light showed severe lines at his brows and mouth. It was a face which, generally kindly, could yet look, on occasion, stern enough. “Now, observe, I'm not going to help you; I'm not even going to reason with you – you can do that for yourself, if you please – I will simply help you with light. Thus forewarned, you need not, of course, answer any one of the questions I am about to put, and to ask which, I have no other claim than that which rests upon having put you on your feet, and paid five thousand pounds for you, only a year ago.”

“But I entreat that you do put them. I'm ashamed of myself, dear Uncle David; I implore of you to ask me whatever you please: I'll answer everything.”

“Well, I think I know everything; Lord Pindledykes makes no secret of it. He's the man, isn't he?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“That's the sallow, dissipated-looking fellow, with the eye that squints outward. I know his appearance very well; I knew his good-for-nothing father. No one likes to have transactions with that fellow – he's shunned – and you chose him, of all people; and he has pigeoned you. I've heard all about it. Everybody knows by this time. And you have really lost fifteen thousand pounds to him?”

“I am afraid, uncle, it is very near that.”

“This, you know,” resumed Uncle David, “is not debt: it is ruin. You chose to mortgage your reversion to some Jews, for fifteen hundred a year, during your father's lifetime. Three hundred would have been ample, with the hundred a year you had before – ample; but you chose to do it, and the estates, whenever you succeed to them, will come to you with a very heavy debt charged, for those Jews, upon them. I don't suppose the estates are destined to continue long in our family; but this is a vexation which don't touch you, nephew. I am, I confess, sorry. They were in our family, some of them, before the Conquest. No matter. What you have to consider is your present position. They will come to you, if ever, saddled with a heavy debt; and, in the meantime, you have fifteen hundred a year for your father's life; and I don't think it will sell for anything like the fifteen thousand pounds you have just lost. You are therefore insolvent; there is the story told. I see nothing for it but your becoming formally an insolvent. It is the bourgeoisie who shrink from that sort of thing; titled men, and men of pleasure and fashion, don't seem to mind it. There are Lord Harry Newgate, and the Honourable Alfred Pentonville, and Sir Aymerick Pigeon, one of the oldest baronets in England, have been in the Gazette within the last twelve months. The money I paid, on the faith of your promise, is worse than wasted. I'll pay no more into the pockets of rooks and scoundrels; I'll divide no more of my money among blackguard jockeys and villanous peers, simply to defer for a few months the consequences of a fool's incorrigible folly.”

“But, you know, uncle, I was not quite so mad. The thing was a swindle; it can't stand. The horse was not fairly treated.”

“I daresay: I suppose it was doctored. I don't care; I only think that unless you meant to go in for drugging horses and bribing jockeys, you had no business among such people, and at that sort of game. All I want is that you clearly understand that in this matter – though I would gladly see you safely out of it – I'll waste no more money in paying gambling debts.”

“This might have happened to anyone, Sir; it might indeed, uncle. Every second man you meet is more or less on the turf, and they never come to grief by it. No one, of course, can stand against a barefaced swindle, like this thing.”

“I don't care a farthing about other people; I've seen how it tells upon you. I don't affect to value your promises, Dick; I don't think that they are worth a shilling. How many have you made me, and broken? To me it seems the vice is incurable, like drunkenness. Tattersall's, or whatever is your place of business, is no better than the gin-palace; and when once a fellow is fairly on the turf, the sooner he is under it, the better for himself and all who like him. And you have lost money at play besides. I heard that quite accidentally; and I daresay that is a ruinous item in what I may call your schedule.”

“I know what people are saying; but it isn't so immense a sum, by any means.”

“I'm sorry to hear it. I wish it was enormous; I wish it was a million. I wish your failure could ruin every blackguard in England: the more heavily you have hit them all round, the better I am pleased. They hit you and me, Dick, pretty hard last time; it is our turn now. It is not my fault now, Dick, if you don't understand me perfectly. If at any future time I should do anything for you – by my will, mind – I shall take care so to tie it up that you can't make away with a guinea. My advice is not worth much to you, but I venture to give it, and I think the best thing you can do is to submit to your misfortune, and file your schedule; and when you are your own master again, I shall see if I can manage some small thing for you. You will have to work for your bread, you know, and you can't expect very much at first; but there are things – of course, I mean in commercial establishments, and railways, and that kind of thing – where I have an influence, of from a hundred and twenty to two hundred pounds a year, and for some of them you would answer pretty well, and you can tide over the time till you succeed to the title: and after a little while I may be able to get you raised a step; and when once you get accustomed to work, you can't think how you will come to like it. So that, on the whole, the knock you have got may do you some good, and make you prize your position more when you come to it. Will you go up-stairs, and take a cup of tea with Miss Maubray?”

He used to call her Grace, when speaking to Richard. Perhaps, in the concussion of this earthquake, the fabric of a matrimonial scheme may have fallen to the ground.

Richard Arden was too dejected and too agitated to accept this invitation, I need hardly tell you. He took his leave, chapfallen.

CHAPTER XLI

VAN APPOINTS HIMSELF TO A DIPLOMATIC POST

Mr. Vandeleur had availed himself very freely of Richard Arden's invitation, to amuse himself during his absence with his cheroots and manillas, as the clouded state of the atmosphere of his drawing-room testified to that luckless gentleman – if indeed he was in a condition to observe anything, on returning from his dreadful interview with his uncle.

Richard's countenance was full of thunder and disaster. Vandeleur looked in his face, with his cigar in his fingers, and said in a faint and hollow tone —

“Well?”

To which inappropriate form of inquiry, Richard Arden deigned no reply; but in silence stalked to the box of cigars on the table, threw himself into a chair, and smoked violently for awhile.

Some minutes passed. Vandeleur's eyes were fixed, through the smoke, on Richard's, who had fixed his on the chimney-piece. Van respected his ruminations. With a delicate and noiseless attention, indeed, he ventured to slide gently to his side the water carafe, and the brandy, and a tumbler.

Still silence prevailed. After a time, Richard Arden poured brandy and water suddenly into his glass.

“Think of that fellow, that uncle of mine – pretty uncle! Kind relation – rolling in money! He sends for me simply to tell me that he won't give me a guinea. He might have waited till he was asked. If he had nothing better to say, he need not have given me the trouble of going to his odious, bleak study, to hear all his vulgar advice and arithmetic, ending in – what do you think? He says that I'm to be had up in the bankrupt court, and when all that is over he'll get me appointed a ticket-taker on a railway, or a clerk in a pawn-office, or something. By Heaven! when I think of it, I wonder how I kept my temper. I'm not quite driven to those curious expedients, that he seems to think so natural. I've some cards still left in my hand, and I'll play them first, if it is the same to him; and, hang it! my luck can't always run the same way. I'll give it another chance before I give up, and to-morrow morning things may be very different with me.”

“It's an awful pity you quarrelled with Longcluse!” exclaimed Vandeleur.

“That's done, and can't be undone,” said Richard Arden, resuming his cigar.

“I wonder why you quarrelled with him. Why, good heavens! that man is made of money, and he got you safe out of that fellow's clutches – I forget his name – about that bet with Mr. Slanter, don't you remember – and he was so very kind about it; and I'm sure he'd shake hands if you'd only ask him, and one way or another he'd pull you through.”

“I can't ask him, and I won't; he may ask me if he likes. I'm very sure there is nothing he would like better, for fifty reasons, than to be on good terms with me again, and I have no wish to quarrel any more than he has. But if there is to be a reconciliation, I can't begin it. He must make the overtures, and that's all.”

“He seemed such an awfully jolly fellow that time. And it is such a frightful state we are both in. I never came such a mucker before in my life. I know him pretty well. I met him at Lady May Penrose's, and at the Playfairs', and one night I walked home with him from the opera. It is an awful pity you are not on terms with him, and – by Jove! I must go and have something to eat; it is near eight o'clock.”

Away went Van, and out of the wreck of his fortune contrived a modest dinner at Verey's; and pondering, after dinner, upon the awful plight of himself and his comrade, he came at last to the heroic resolution of braving the dangers of a visit to Mr. Longcluse, on behalf of his friend; and as it was now past nine, he hastily paid the waiter, took his hat, and set out upon his adventure. It was a mere chance, he knew, and a very unlikely one, his finding Mr. Longcluse at home at that hour. He knew that he was doing a very odd thing in calling at past nine o'clock; but the occasion was anomalous, and Mr. Longcluse would understand. He knocked at the door, and learned from the servant that his master was engaged with a gentleman in the study, on business. From this room he heard a voice, faintly discoursing in a deep metallic drawl.

“Who shall I say, Sir?” asked the servant.

If his mission had been less monotonous, and he less excited and sanguine as to his diplomatic success, he would have, as he said, “funked it altogether,” and gone away. He hesitated for a moment, and determined upon the form most likely to procure an interview.

“Say Mr. Vandeleur – a friend of Mr. Richard Arden's; you'll remember, please – a friend of Mr. Richard Arden's.”

In a moment the man returned.

“Will you please to walk up-stairs?” and he showed him into the drawing-room.

In little more than a minute, Mr. Longcluse himself entered. His eyes were fixed on the visitor with a rather stern curiosity. Perhaps he had interpreted the term “friend” a little too technically. He made him a ceremonious bow, in French fashion, and placed a chair for him.

“I had the pleasure of being introduced to you, Mr. Longcluse, at Lady May Penrose's. My name is Vandeleur.”

“I have had that honour, Mr. Vandeleur, I remember perfectly. The servant mentioned that you announced yourself as Mr. Arden's friend, if I don't mistake.”

CHAPTER XLII

DIPLOMACY

Mr. Vandeleur and Mr. Longcluse were now seated, and the former gentleman said —

“Yes, I am a friend of Mr. Arden's – so much so, that I have ventured what I hope you won't think a very impertinent liberty. I was so very sorry to hear that a misunderstanding had occurred – I did not ask him about what – and he has been so unlucky about the Derby, you know – I ought to say that I am, upon my honour, a mere volunteer, so perhaps you will think I have no right to ask you to listen to me.”

“I shall be happy to continue this conversation, Mr. Vandeleur, upon one condition.”

“Pray name it.”

“That you report it fully to the gentleman for whom you are so kind as to interest yourself.”

“Yes, I'll certainly do that.”

Mr. Longcluse looked by no means so jolly as Van remembered him, and he thought he detected, at mention of Richard Arden's name, for a moment, a look of positive malevolence – I can't say absolutely, it may have been fancy – as he turned quickly, and the light played suddenly on his face.

Mr. Longcluse could, perhaps, dissemble as well as other men; but there were cases in which he would not be at the trouble to dissemble. And here his expression was so unpleasant, upon features so strangely marked and so white, that Van thought the effect ugly, and even ghastly.

“I shall be happy, then, to hear anything you have to say,” said Longcluse gently.

“You are very kind. I was just going to say that he has been so unlucky – he has lost so much money – ”

“I had better say, I think, at once, Mr. Vandeleur, that nothing shall tempt me to take any part in Mr. Arden's affairs.”

Van's mild blue eyes looked on him wonderingly.

“You could be of so much use, Mr. Longcluse!”

“I don't desire to be of any.”

“But – but that may be, I think it must, in consequence of the unhappy estrangement.”

He had been conning over phrases on his way, and thought that a pretty one.

“A very happy estrangement, on the contrary, for the man who is straight and true, and who is by it relieved of a great – mistake.”

“I should be so extremely happy,” said Van lingeringly, “if I were instrumental in inducing both parties to shake hands.”

“I don't desire it.”

“But, surely, if Richard Arden were the first to offer – ”

“I should decline.”

Van rose; he fiddled with his hat a little; he hesitated. He had staked too much on this – for had he not promised to report the whole thing to Richard Arden, who was not likely to be pleased? – to give up without one last effort.

“I hope I am not very impertinent,” he said, “but I can hardly think, Mr. Longcluse, that you are quite indifferent to a reconciliation.”

“I'm not indifferent – I'm averse to it.”

“I don't understand.”

“Will you take some tea?”

“No, thanks; I do so hope that I don't quite understand.”

“That's hardly my fault; I have spoken very distinctly.”

“Then what you wish to convey is – ” said Van, with his hand now at the door.

“Is this,” said Longcluse, “that I decline Mr. Arden's acquaintance, that I won't consider his affairs, and that I peremptorily refuse to be of the slightest use to him in his difficulties. I hope I am now sufficiently distinct.”

“Oh, perfectly – I – ”

“Pray take some tea.”

“And my visit is a failure. I'm awfully sorry I can't be of any use!”

“None here, Sir, to Mr. Arden – none, no more than I.”

“Then I have only to beg of you to accept my apologies for having given you a great deal of trouble, and to beg pardon for having disturbed you, and to say good-night.”

“No trouble – none. I am glad everything is clear now. Good-night.”

And Mr. Longcluse saw him politely to the door, and said again, in a clear, stern tone, but with a smile and another bow, “Good-night,” as he parted at the door.

About an hour later a servant arrived with a letter for Mr. Longcluse. That gentleman recognised the hand, and suspended his business to read it. He did so with a smile. It was thus expressed: —

“Sir,

“I beg to inform you, in the distinctest terms, that neither Mr. Vandeleur, nor any other gentleman, had any authority from me to enter into any discussion with you, or to make the slightest allusion to subjects upon which Mr. Vandeleur, at your desire, tells me he, this evening, thought fit to converse with you. And I beg, in the most pointed manner, to disavow all connection with, or previous knowledge of, that gentleman's visit and conversation. And I do so lest Mr. Vandeleur's assertion to the same effect should appear imperfect without mine. – I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

“Richard Arden.

“To Walter Longcluse, Esq.”

“Does any one wait for an answer?” he asked, still smiling.

“Yes, Sir: Mr. Thompson, please, Sir.”

“Very well; ask him to wait a moment,” said he, and he wrote as follows: —

“Mr. Longcluse takes the liberty of returning Mr. Arden's letter, and begs to decline any correspondence with him.”

And this note, with Richard Arden's letter, he enclosed in an envelope, and addressed to that gentleman.

While this correspondence, by no means friendly, was proceeding, other letters were interesting, very profoundly, other persons in this drama.

Old David Arden had returned early from a ponderous dinner of the magnates of that world which interested him more than the world of fashion, or even of politics, and he was sitting in his study at half-past ten, about a quarter of a mile westward of Mr. Longcluse's house in Bolton Street.

Not many letters had come for him by the late post. There were two which he chose to read forthwith. The rest would, in Swift's phrase, keep cool, and he could read them before his breakfast in the morning. The first was a note posted at Islington. He knew his niece's pretty hand. This was an “advice” from Mortlake. The second which he picked up from the little pack was a foreign letter, of more than usual bulk.

CHAPTER XLIII

A LETTER AND A SUMMONS

Paris? Yes, he knew the hand well. His face darkened a little with a peculiar anxiety. This he will read first. He draws the candles all together, near the corner of the table at which he sits. He can't have too much light on these formal lines, legible and tall as the letters are. He opens the thin envelope, and reads what follows: —

“Dear and Honoured Sir,

“I am in receipt of yours of the 13th instant. You judge me rightly in supposing that I have entered on my mission with a willing mind, and no thought of sparing myself. On the 11th instant I presented the letter you were so good as to provide me with to M. de la Perriere. He received me with much consideration in consequence. You have not been misinformed with regard to his position. His influence is, and so long as the present Cabinet remain in power will continue to be, more than sufficient to procure for me the information and opportunities you so much desire. He explained to me very fully the limits of that assistance which official people here have it in their power to afford. Their prerogative is more extensive than with us, but at the same time it has its points of circumscription. Every private citizen has his well-defined rights, which they can in no case invade. He says that had I come armed with affidavits criminating any individual, or even justifying a strong and distinct suspicion, their powers would be much larger. As it is, he cautions me against taking any steps that might alarm Vanboeren. The baron is a suspicious man, it seems, and has, moreover, once or twice been under official surveillance, which has made him crafty. He is not likely to be caught napping. He ostensibly practises the professions of a surgeon and dentist. In the latter capacity he has a very considerable business. But his principal income is derived, I am informed, from sources of a different kind.”

“H'm! what can he mean? I suppose he explains a little further on,” mused Mr. Arden.

“He is, in short, a practitioner about whom suspicions of an infamous kind have prevailed. One branch of his business, a rather strange one, has connected him with persons, more considerable in number than you would readily believe, who were, or are, political refugees.”

“Can this noble baron be a distiller of poisons?” David Arden ruminated.

“In all his other equivocal doings, he found, on the few occasions that seemed to threaten danger, mysterious protectors, sufficiently powerful to bring him off scot-free. His relations of a political character were those which chiefly brought him under the secret notice of the police. It is believed that he has amassed a fortune, and it is certain that he is about to retire from business. I can much better explain to you, when I see you, the remarkable circumstances to which I have but alluded. I hope to be in town again, and to have the honour of waiting upon you, on Thursday, the 29th instant.”

“Ay, that's the day he named at parting. What a punctual fellow that is!”

“They appear to me to have a very distinct bearing upon some possible views of the case in which you are so justly interested. The Baron Vanboeren is reputed very wealthy, but he is by no means liberal in his dealings, and is said to be insatiably avaricious. This last quality may make him practicable – ”

“Yes, so it may,” acquiesced Uncle David.

“so that disclosures of importance may be obtained, if he be approached in the proper manner. Lebas was connected, as a mechanic, with the dentistry department of his business. Mr. L – has been extremely kind to Lebas' widow and children, and has settled a small annuity upon her, and fifteen hundred francs each upon his children.”

“Eh? Upon my life, that is very handsome – extremely handsome. It gives me rather new ideas of this man – that is, if there's nothing odd in it,” said Mr. Arden.

“The deed by which he has done all this is, in its reciting part, an eccentric one. I waited, as I advised you in mine of the 12th, upon M. Arnaud, who is the legal man employed by Madame Lebas, for the purpose of handing him the ten napoleons which you were so good as to transmit for the use of his family; which sum he has, with many thanks on the part of Madame Lebas, declined, and which, therefore, I hold still to your credit. When explaining to me that lady's reasons for declining your remittance, he requested me to read a deed of gift from Mr. Longcluse, making the provisions I have before referred to, and reciting, as nearly in these words as I can remember: – ‘Whereas I entertained for the deceased Pierre Lebas, in whose house in Paris I lodged when very young, for more than a year and a half, a very great respect and regard: and whereas I hold myself to have been the innocent cause of his having gone to the room, as appears from my evidence, in which, unhappily, he lost his life: and whereas I look upon it as a disgrace to our City of London that such a crime could have been committed in a place of public resort, frequented as that was at the time, without either interruption or detection; and whereas, so regarding it, I think that such citizens as could well afford to subscribe money, adequately to compensate the family of the deceased for the pecuniary loss which both his widow and children have sustained by reason of his death, were bound to do so; his visit to London having been strictly a commercial one; and all persons connected with the trade of London being more or less interested in the safety of the commercial intercourse between the two countries: and whereas the citizens of London have failed, although applied to for the purpose, to make any such compensation; now this deed witnesseth,’ etc.”