Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex

“Well, I only bet half a crown, and that I lost. I think Spanker could have beaten most of them. They don’t seem to me to go at any pace at all.”

“That is what a greenhorn always thinks. If you were on their backs you would soon find out the difference. Well, let’s have some supper, and be off by the night mail. But you look queer. Have you met any one you know, old chap?”

“Not a soul that I know, except Mr. Chalker; and I only know him by sight. But this afternoon I saw a face that I have seen before, though I have no idea who the owner is. I looked for you to tell me, but I could not find you.”

“Very likely not. I went to see the saddling. You seem in a way about it. What makes you take it up so?”

Upon this I told Henderson about the man who had gazed at me so, through the clipped Arbor vitæ; and that now I had seen the same man in the throng on the Heath, and could swear to him anywhere. At first he was inclined to laugh, and thought I must have dreamed it; but seeing how serious and positive I was, he naturally asked how it was I let him go, without at least ascertaining who he was. I told him that I had done my best; and that I believed the man knew me, for our eyes met point-blank, until he turned his away. And then I had pushed through the crowd to seize him, but a fat man on horseback came clearing the course, and a rush of some hundreds of people swept us back, and when I could get out of it, the man had disappeared. I described him and his dress, to the best of my ability; and then Sam gave a whistle and said – “I don’t think it can be. He can scarcely have been here without my knowledge.”

“You recognize him? Who is he?” I asked with some excitement. “Don’t keep it back, Sam. It is most important to me.”

“Well, the face, and the hat, and the green pearl in the scarf-pin remind me uncommonly of Downy Bulwrag; though I do not know him very well; and it can hardly be. He is out of England, I am told, and if he had been here I should have met him in the ring. For he always comes to bet, and he is a very deep file, though he knows very little of racing. He comes to invest for old Pot sometimes, and it is the only time Pot ever makes any money.”

“But he may have gone off, when he saw me,” I said; “he would hardly dare to run the risk of meeting me again.”

“Wouldn’t he? It would take ten of you to drive him. Downy Bulwrag is the coolest hand I ever came across. I give him a wide berth myself; for there is nothing but bad luck to be made out of him. He is worse than his mother, a thousand times; and everybody knows what she is. I am very glad you missed him. For he would have had the best of you.”

“Would he indeed?” I exclaimed rather hotly. “I am not a milksop, Sam; and I fear no man on earth, when I have reason to believe that he has wronged me.”

“You are strong enough, Kit,” Sam returned, with some contempt; “we are all aware of that, my friend. You are stronger, I dare say, than Downy Bulwrag, although he is no chicken. But he is one of the first boxers in England. He has made a hobby of it. He can hold his own with the biggest prize fighters. He could double you up, before you got near him. And it is not only that, my boy. Likely enough he would not have touched you; for he never loses his temper they say. He would have had you up before the Bench to-morrow. He can always put anybody in the wrong. And then how should we have gone on to-night? No, it was a lucky thing that you got no chance to tackle him, supposing it was Downy, which I scarcely can believe. All the fellows are gone who could have told me. But I dare say I shall find out in London. Now let us have some grub, or we shall miss our train.”

Sam Henderson’s words set me pondering deeply. I had not intended to assault that stranger, whoever he might be, but just to bring him to a halt, and make him tell me who he was, and what he meant by coming on the sly into my uncle’s garden, and watching me in that peculiar manner. Now I felt pretty certain as to who he was, in spite of the difficulties Sam had found about it. If my description tallied so closely with that of Donovan Bulwrag, it was likely to be no one else who had come so to spy upon me. For there was the motive at once made plain. The man, who had robbed me of my wife, would naturally come to see how I bore it, to learn perhaps what sort of adversary I was, and to gloat upon my lonely misery. I felt delighted when I called to mind that I had indulged in no sighs or soliloquy that evening, but worked away steadily and even cheerfully, whistling every now and then for company to myself. My deadly enemy could not say – “Poor devil, how miserable he looks!”

And then why should I have such a bitter enemy? I had never done harm to this Bulwrag, except by marrying a young lady upon whom he had set his wicked heart, but who never would have had him, whatever he had done. And again I had defied his mother, and thrown her into one of her furious fits; but even if he had heard of that, it could not have moved him to any great wrath. From all I had heard, he was not so very deeply attached to his mother; and he must know, as everybody else did, how little was enough to infuriate her.

As I thought of all these things in the train, with Sam Henderson snoring, or rather roaring in his sleep (like a celebrated horse who had won a race that day), the only conclusion I could come to was that my case was more mysterious than ever; that some fiendish trick had been played upon my wife and me; but how, and why, and by whom, was more than my simple, half-educated, country wits could discover as yet, or perhaps at any future time. Nevertheless I resolved to go on, and get to the end of it, whether round or square; whether it might be another sweet circle of happiness, or a coffin. And in this state of mind, being lifted for the moment out of the body, by the hoisting of the mind, I set my hands together – for it was a first-class carriage, and there was room to do it, though it seemed to me a showy thing upon the part of Sam, when third-class tickets would have done as well – and I prayed to the Lord, which I had not done lately, having found it lead to nothing, that He would interfere, and not allow everything to be under the control of the Evil one. After that I felt better; for faith is a fruit-tree, which requires (in a common soil) the choicest cultivation.

“Here we are,” cried Sam, who could sleep by the mile, and be wide awake at the direction-post; “what a heavy-headed chap you are! Just look to our bags, while I see about a trap. We have five miles to drive, and then we put up at old Cranky’s. There we have a shake-down, and I fare to want it, as the folk in this part of the world express it. They all know me here, and they have a black mare who can travel.”

For five miles we drove through a sleepy-looking land, with scarcely anybody yet astir, but a multitude of birds quite wide awake; and then we put up at a wayside inn; where Sam seemed, as usual, to be well-known. He told me to take it easy, and he set a fine example; for he very soon peopled the house with his sleep, while I wandered about to see how the land lay.

“Pots is never up till twelve o’clock,” Sam explained at breakfast-time; “so you see we may just as well keep our hay in cocks. I say, Cranky,” he addressed the landlord, who was coming in and out, having no maid to attend to us, “What’s-his-name been down this way lately? Fancied we saw something of him yesterday.”

“No, sir, not a sign of him, since you was here last. They don’t seem to hit it off together as they did. Leastways that was what my missus heard.”

“More chance of honest people coming by their due. How much does Sir Cumberleigh owe you, Cranky? Take thy bill, and write down quickly.”

“Lor’, sir, it would take a week to make it out. And what good would come of it when done? Sir Cumberleigh never pays nobody. No more than his father before him.” It were vain on my part to attempt to express the long-suffering of Mr. Cranky’s drawl.

“These are wonderful fellows,” Sam declared aloud to me while the landlord looked at him, as if to say – “And so are you,” and then turned to me to see if I were likewise; “they never seem to expect to get their money from their betters, as they call them. That cock would never fight, in our part of the world. Any lady been down at the Hall, this summer, Cranky? I mean any one, who has never been before? You need not be afraid of telling me, you know. I am an old friend of Sir Cumberleigh.”

This question was put in such a common sort of way, that I dropped my knife and fork, and looked furiously at Sam. For I knew what he meant; and it appeared to me too bad.

“No, sir,” answered Cranky, leaning over him confidentially, as if he were uncertain about speaking before me. “None but the two as come last winter; and not so very much of them. My missus did hear as Sir Cumberleigh were going to pull up, and to enter into holy matrimony with a beautiful young lady from London town, as had sixty thousand pounds of her own, and then we should all be paid on the nail in full. And the Hall was to be made new, and I know not what. But I said it was too good to be true, and so it seemeth.”

“Hope for ever, good Cranky. Hope can do no harm to the Hotchpot Arms. But how goes the time? We are going to call upon this reformed gentleman, as soon as he is up.”

CHAPTER XLV.

ROGUES FALL OUT

As we walked very slowly through the wilderness of thistles, which had once been a fair park trimly kept, I disturbed the mind of Sam – which was busy with abstruse calculations of all sorts of odds – by asking rather suddenly what I was to say, and how I should conduct myself in the presence of this man. For I felt a deep dislike to him, not only because he had been such a plague to Kitty, but on account of his bad character and loose ways. And my ill-will towards him had been increased by his cowardly treatment – as it seemed to me – of the patient people round him, and encroachment on their loyalty.

“You mustn’t ask me, my dear fellow,” answered Sam; “the thing is out of my line altogether. You wanted to see him, and here he is. I must leave you to the light of nature, although he is rather a dark specimen. Perhaps he knows nothing about your trouble. But he is up to most of Downy Bulwrag’s tricks, or at any rate knows when to suspect him. And if he has had a row with Bulwrag, and can see his way to harm him, he will do it. For Pots is a very spiteful fellow. You had better appear first as my companion. I can manage not to let him catch your name; for he is rather hard of hearing, though he won’t allow it. I shall work matters round till Downy’s name comes up; and your business will be to hold your tongue and listen, until you can strike in with advantage. He will see me, I think, because I wrote to tell him that I had a little money for him. There is nothing like that to fetch Pots.”

After a little reconnoitring from a window at the flank, we were admitted by an ancient footman, who looked as if he never got his wages, and shown into a shabby room, fusty, damp, and comfortless. Here we waited nearly half an hour, while Henderson drummed on the floor with his stick, and at last began to blow a horn which he found behind a looking-glass. Then the master of the house appeared, and shook hands with Sam, and bowed to me.

It is easy enough to introduce a stranger, so that his name shall be still unknown; and Sir Cumberleigh, not being quick of hearing, received my name as “Johnson.” “On the turf?” he inquired; and Sam said, “Yes; he has been on it every day this week;” which was true enough in one sense; and I longed to be back in a garden again, where we grow rogues, but nothing like so many.

“Very glad to see you, very glad indeed, young sir.” This gentleman offered his hand as he spoke; but I bowed, as if I had not seen it. It may be a stupid old bit of priggery; but no man’s hand comes into mine, while I am longing to smite him in the face. And I could not help smiling at our host’s new manners, so different entirely from what he showed in London – unless he had been vastly misdescribed to me. He pretended now to dignity and distance, and a fine amount of grandeur; for no other reason that I could guess, except that he was upon his native soil, breathing the air of his ancestral vaults, and cheating folk who let him cheat because his fathers did it.

But all this air of loftiness had no effect on Sam; who had rubbed whiskers many times even with a Duke, when their minds were moving on a good thing together.

“Got a bit of rhino for you, Pots,” he said, and I thought it showed little good taste on his part, for Sam’s ancestors had been stable-boys, and I have always been a good Conservative; “not so much as I could wish; but every little is a help. And everybody says that you are awfully hard up. Hope it isn’t true; but we must have seen you at the July, if you had been at all flush.”

“I have not been very fortunate of late,” replied the Baronet, still keeping up his dignity on my account; “and my property here has been much impaired by – by a lot of things that did not come off. I was not at Newmarket, because I intend to have nothing more to do with racing matters; which I must leave to people who are sharper than myself, and have different views of integrity. But anything really due to me – ”

“Perhaps I had better not say any more about it;” Henderson’s black eyes were twinkling with contempt. “I had no right properly to receive the money; and if I had thought twice about it, I should have refused, for I had no commission from you to collect it; but Georgie Roberts knew that I was coming to see you, and knowing me so well, he took my receipt on your behalf, because he was anxious to square up. I’ll just return it to him, and he can send you a cheque. I heard a thing afterwards that put me in the wrong. Bulwrag is the proper chap to act for you. And he seems to have been there after all, but he cannot have turned up, till Friday. I’ll send back these notes, and his receipt to Georgie.” Sam put away his pocket-book, and looked contented; but Sir Cumberleigh did not see it so.

“No, Sam, no! Business is business. I will write you a receipt. How much did you say it was? Let me see. I forget these trifles. Somewhere about eighty-five, if I remember.”

“Forty-five,” said Sam; and I was struck with the amount, because it was the very sum that had so grieved me. “He had forty against you upon the Levant. Downy managed that for you.”

“Downy Bulwrag never did me any good, and he never will;” said the Baronet sternly, yet looking round, as if afraid of echoes. “He is always getting me into some vile scrape.”

“For instance, about the young lady at Hounslow. Did he carry on any more with that affair?”

Sam put this question in the most off-handed manner, just as if he had said – “Any news to-day?” But being unused to any mystery on shuffling, I looked for the answer with extreme anxiety, and Sir Cumberleigh observed it, and was put upon his guard.

“How can I tell? I know nothing of his doings;” he answered, with his eyes on me, while speaking to my friend. “Downy is too deep for me; he is always up to something. Mr. Johnson, do you know him? You almost look as if you did.”

“No, I have never had that honour,” I answered as calmly as I could; “I live in the country, and have little to do with London, except when I am there on business.”

“Very well then, I may tell you, Henderson,” our host continued, as he put aside the notes, after counting them, and giving his receipt; “that Master Downy has not behaved of late in a very friendly manner towards myself. He has not the high principle, I am afraid, which has always governed my conduct, at least in all matters of friendship and money. My rule is rather to wrong myself, than any other living being. We have held these estates for some centuries, Mr. Johnson; and no Hotchpot has ever yet sullied the name. Fortune has continually been against us; but we have borne ourselves bravely, and won universal esteem, and even affection. I never praise myself; but when my time is over, the same thing will always be said of me.”

He spoke with such firm conviction that I was impressed with his words, and began to feel sure that report must have wronged him; until I thought of Kitty, who was no harsh judge of character.

“Hear, hear!” cried Sam; “you have done it well, Pots. After that, you can scarcely do less than invite us to drink your good health in a bottle of champagne.”

“That I will, with pleasure. Only you must excuse me, while I see to it myself. The Hotchpots are down in the world, Mr. Johnson, because we could never curry favour. We cannot keep our butlers and our coach-and-four, and our deer-park, as we used to do. Instead of that, I keep the key of my own cellar. But I feel no shame in that. The shame lies rather – ”

“Look sharp, old chap; I am as dry as a herring.” Sam was always rough and rude in his discourse; and Sir Cumberleigh set off, with a significant glance at me.

“He has taken a liking to you, the old rogue,” Henderson informed me, when the door was shut; “because he believes that you suck all his brag in, like a child. You stick to that; it suits you well, for your face is no end of innocent. An old stupe like that can be buttered up to anything, if it is laid on by the right card. You don’t suck up to him, you see; but you let him suck up to himself. We shall draw him of everything he knows, and what matters more, everything he suspects. Only you leave the whip-hand to me; green you are, and green you will be to the last.”

“You are altogether out in that,” I said, though I knew it was hopeless to reason with him; “you fellows, who see such a lot of fast life, are none the more sagacious for it. You doubt what everybody says, unless you can find a bad motive for it. And you generally go wrong in the end, because you can only see black all round. But if this is a black sheep, you take the shearing of him. Only I hate to go under a wrong name.”

These words of mine proved that I was not a fool, at least to my own satisfaction. Sam stared at me, as much as to say – “There is more in you, than I thought there was;” but I did not care to press the point; for he might take a huff, and say, “Do it yourself, then.” Only I resolved to listen carefully, and see if there was anything to be learned. And before he could answer, our host returned, with a bottle of champagne under each arm, and the old retainer following with glasses and a corkscrew having a blade attached to it. And I thought that he could not be bad altogether, but must at least have intervals.

“Henderson, will you oblige me by being our – what’s his name? Diomede, or something. I have a touch of rheumatism in one wrist. No corkscrew wanted, if the cork is cork, and not wood, as a great many of them are. But he understands it. Well done, Sam! Fill for Mr. Johnson first. Ah, this is the right sort. Now we know what we are up to. Mr. Johnson, your good health, and the same to you, Sam!”

“Sir Cumberleigh, here’s confusion to your enemies,” cried Sam, standing up to give force to it; “and especially to one whom I could name. Ah, he has led you a pretty dance, and feathered his own nest out of it. However, we won’t say any more about him. A downy fellow can’t help being downy. Every man for his own hand, in this little world.”

“Sam, you know more than you have said. You go about more than I do now. Do you mean to say, that he has let me in purposely?”

“No, I never could believe that he would do it. It looks rather queer, but it must be straight enough. No doubt everything can be explained. You remember about Flying Goose at least?”

They began to talk a quantity of racing stuff, which was nothing but jargon to me; till Sir Cumberleigh rose from his chair, and struck the table, glaring with his eyes, and turning purple in the face.

“Then his name is not Bulwrag, but blackguard;” he exclaimed, turning round to me, to attest it. “And as soon as we meet, I shall tell him so.” Then he swore a round of oaths, which were of no effect, but to hurt himself, and turn up the corners of the pity we were spreading for him. What had he lost? Money only. I had lost more. I held my tongue.

“You must not be too hard upon him;” Sam began to soften, to make him harder. “Every man for his own hand. Fair play, Pots; you would do it yourself.”

“Not for any one who trusted me. That makes all the difference. He thinks he can do what he likes with me. He shall find the difference. I know a trick or two of his that would send him to the Devil, if I let out.”

“Well, we won’t talk about any secrets now;” said Sam as cool as a cucumber, while I was like a red-hot iron; “his private affairs are no concern of ours; and we don’t want to hear of them. Johnson is a very steady-going chap, with a wife and six kids. We won’t corrupt him, Pots.”

“Not much fear of that, if he is on the turf,” Sir Cumberleigh replied, with a wink at me; “see a good bit of the world there, don’t you, Mr. Johnson?”

I nodded my head, and turned away; for I never was much of an actor, and now I could not trust my voice for words. But Sir Cumberleigh was as full of his own wrongs, as I was of mine in a different way.

“I know a thing or two,” he went on, becoming more determined, as we feigned to check him, “that would stop his little tricks for a long time to come. He would have to be off to the Continent again, if I were to treat him as he deserves.”

“Then don’t do it, Pots. Forgive and forget; that’s the proper tip nowadays. Who doesn’t try to let you in? It is no concern of mine – but let us talk of something else. I dare say he is a good fellow, after all.”

“Is he?” cried Sir Cumberleigh, working himself up; “I may have done a thing or two, in my time. But I never harmed man or woman, out of pure spite. Every man must consider his own interest, and try to hurt no one, when it does not help himself. That is my idea of the rule of life. But it is not Master Downy’s, I can tell you that.”

“Never mind, old fellow. Let us drink his good health;” Sam lifted his glass, but our host set down his. “Whenever I hear a poor fellow run down, I begin to think of all that is good in him. And I don’t believe Downy would hurt any one, unless he was obliged to do it on his own account. He made a pot of money, and he dropped a bit of yours. But you must not score against him for a little thing like that.”

“It is useless to talk to you, Henderson. You have not been hit, and you may whistle over it. But I’ll just ask Mr. Johnson what he thinks, for I can see that he is a man of proper feeling. Now what should you say, Mr. Johnson, of a fellow, who wanted to marry a girl who did not like him, because he thought she had a lot of money; and then when she married a very quiet man, who took her without a halfpenny, could not let them be happy with one another, but got up some infernal scheme to separate them?”

“I should say he was a scoundrel too bad to be hanged;” I answered with warmth unaffected; and I was going to say more, but Sam checked me with a glance.

“Oh come, no fellow would ever do such a thing as that;” he spoke with contemptuous disbelief. “Any man must be a fool, who would get into such a scrape for nothing.”

“Then Downy Bulwrag is a fool, as well as what you called him, Mr. Johnson. I could tell you the story, if I chose; or at least I could tell you a part of it. But it would not interest you; and it is a long in and out of rascality. Well, I won’t say any more about it; and I don’t know how he managed it. But he will have a score to settle about that, some day.”

“That he will, and a bitter one;” I began, with hands clenched, and heart throbbing; but Sam kicked me under the table, and whispered, while Sir Cumberleigh was reaching for the other bottle —

“Don’t be such a gone idiot. Leave it to me – can’t you?”

“I should have thought Downy was too sharp for that;” Sam stroked his chin, and looked sceptical. “Of course, I don’t know him as you do, Pots. But I should have thought he was about the last man you could find to risk his hide for mere larkiness.”

“Well, I don’t know that he risked very much. The young man is in the agricultural line, and they are fair game for any one, and have been so for the last twenty years. You may stamp on those fellows, and they rather like it. By George, if we treated the mill-owners so, they would have marched upon London long ago. But a fellow with no kick in him must expect to get plenty of it from his neighbours.”