Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 369, July 1846

With this imperfect information, I returned to my couch, not to sleep, but to form some plan that would save my unhappy friend from the fangs of the sharks who were about to sacrifice him to their rapacity. He stood upon the very verge of destruction. There could be no doubt of it. How to get sight of him – how to warn him of his danger – how to help him out of the difficulties into which extravagance and wickedness had brought him? These were some of the questions that crowded upon my disturbed mind during the whole of the anxious night – questions that easily came – were less easily dismissed, and still less easily answered with comfort to myself, or with prospect of salvation to my friend.

The first individual I saw, upon leaving my apartment on the following morning, was General Travis himself. He was walking hastily down-stairs, evidently about to quit the hotel. I called his name. He started more like the thief "who fears each bush an officer," than the traveller "who fears each bush a thief," and turned his restless eye upon me. At first he pretended not to know me – then he bowed, and continued his way.

"One moment, general," said I, stopping him. "I have a word to say to you."

"I am somewhat pressed for time this morning – but a moment is easily spared," replied the general very collectedly. He followed me up-stairs, and entered my room. I closed the door.

"You have seen my friend lately?" I asked in nervous haste.

"Your friend?" rejoined General Travis. "To whom have I the honour to speak?"

His effrontery was amusing. I looked at him hard – but his countenance in no way betrayed him.

"My name is Wilson," said I; "that of my friend, Rupert Sinclair."

"O – h! I remember!" exclaimed the cunning master, with all the affectation of extreme surprise. "And how did you leave Sinclair – gay, giddy, and happy as ever?"

I gazed upon the man with a view to shame him into blushing. I was grievously disappointed. He returned me gaze for gaze, and looked unconscious innocence itself. I resolved to bring our business to a crisis without further parley.

"General Travis," I began, "I was last night, I will not say the unwilling, but certainly the unintentional listener to the plan propounded by you to my inexperienced friend, your son-in-law, of whose presence in this town you seem so lamentably ignorant."

The general did change colour now. He was about to speak, when I stopped him.

"Hear me!" I continued aloud and sternly. "I know the man with whom I have to deal. It is but fair that we should be on equal terms. I go this day to London to denounce your conspiracy, and to prevent its success. Your scheme for beggaring your children, and enriching yourself, clever as it is, is killed in the bud. Attempt to carry it out, and the law shall reach you even here."

"My dear Mr" – interposed the general.

"Let us have no argument," I proceeded in the same loud tone; "my business is to prevent the havoc you would bring about, and rest assured I will. Make no new attempts upon the credulity of your victim, and you are safe. Take another step in the nefarious business, and I solemnly vow to heaven that I will not leave you till I have exacted a fearful penalty for your crime."

"You really, Mr Wilson, do" – stammered the general, with increasing awkwardness at every word.

"Where is Mr Sinclair now?" I vehemently asked.

"Gone," replied the general.

"Whither?"

"To England."

"Satisfy me of the truth of this – give me your solemn promise to urge him no more to the commission of an act which insures his ruin, and I leave you. Refuse me, and I will expose your designs, and brand you to the world as the unnatural and cruel destroyer I have found you."

The general manifestly believed me to be in possession of more than I knew. He fairly quailed beneath my impetuosity and anger. I had expected resistance and battle. I met with mean capitulation and fear. He shuffled out apologies – entreated me to believe that he was actuated only by the sincerest wishes for his children's welfare – indeed, how could it be otherwise? – and assured me that although he might have been mistaken in the plans he had formed for Mr Sinclair's extrication, his motives were unquestioned, and as pure as could be. Still I might see these things with different eyes, and a better remedy might suggest itself to me. For his part, he should be glad to listen to it, and to recommend it to Sinclair's attention. At all events, he was prepared to engage to proceed no further with the transaction of which I had obtained knowledge, and all he asked in return was, that I should not wait upon Lord Railton, and acquaint him with what had transpired. To communicate the matter to his lordship, would be to shut out finally and for ever the last hopes of the unhappy children.

My promise was given, as soon as I learned for certain that Rupert had set sail for London by the packet that quitted Calais harbour at an early hour that morning. My own business urged me to proceed forthwith to Paris, but I could not be easy until I had secured the fulfilment of General Travis's engagement by another interview with Rupert. Accordingly, I returned to England. My task with Sinclair was an easy one. He had already had the good sense to discover that to part with all that he had in the world for a sum that must be dissipated in a few years at the most, would be an act of madness which no amount of pressing difficulty could warrant. Moreover, the sum of money that was offered by the gentleman whose honesty and generosity had been so highly lauded by the general, had been so shamefully small, that Rupert retreated with horror from the abyss towards which he had so incautiously advanced. I received a full assurance from the harassed man that he would suffer any extremity rather than listen again to similar propositions, and then I recommenced my journey with an easier conscience. So far, a tremendous blow had been averted. But what would happen next – what scheme the general would next suggest – what measures the very critical condition of Sinclair's affairs would make absolutely necessary – it was impossible to guess – to foresee, or to think of without deep anxiety and great alarm.

Six months elapsed, and Rupert Sinclair was still rapidly descending. With increased and increasing liabilities, there was more profuseness and greater recklessness. No one knew better than Rupert himself the folly and even sinfulness of his mode of life, yet any body would have found it easier than himself to put a stop to it. He was absorbed in the existence of his wife. As I have already said, her life was his – her wishes, her thoughts, and aims. She could not desire, and he not gratify; she could not ask to be a queen amidst the throng in which she moved, and he not place her on the throne at any sacrifice, however costly; at any risk, however desperate. This was the secret of his misery. And then from day to day, he lived bankrupt-like, on hope. Something would happen. He had faith in the love of his mother, in the natural goodness of a father's heart. Time would heal the wound that had been inflicted; and incline them to look with commiseration on youthful errors easy to repair.

A glimmering of promise stole forth at this crisis of the history. The critical position of the ministry for the time being, had brought Lord Railton and his wife back to England; and I resolved, in my eagerness to serve my unhappy pupil, to see her ladyship, and to make an attempt at reconciliation, even if it should be repulsed with the insult I had met with at her husband's hands. I could not suffer Sinclair to sink, so long as one effort might save him. I had heard that, cold and selfish as Lady Railton was, love for her child had been a redeeming point in her character from the moment of his birth. Feeling surely was not dead within her! Could I but gain an interview, would it not be easy to recall in her heart natural emotions, which, though deadened, might never be entirely hushed, and to extract sympathy from a bosom already inclined to pity by love? The attempt was a bold one – but the prize, in the event of success, was not small; and surely worth a venture. I took courage, and was not wholly disappointed.

His lordship, I had heard upon inquiry, was generally absent from home during the forenoon. One morning, at ten o'clock precisely, I presented myself at Grosvenor Square, and sent my card to her ladyship. I was admitted at once. In an elegantly furnished boudoir, surrounded by all the luxuries that money could furnish, or the pampered sense demand, I beheld Lady Railton, for the first time since the marriage of her son. She sat behind an open screen, through which she spoke to me, with her eyes bent to the table on which her arms rested. She had been writing at the moment of my announcement; and though excited by my presence, her countenance betrayed more satisfaction than displeasure at my visit. A visible change had taken place in her. She was much thinner than when I saw her last; her eyes were sunken, and her cheek was very pale; she was evidently suffering from the shock which I had occasioned her, for her thin lips were tightly pressed together, and quivering at the corners. I felt deep pity for the slave of fashion; but gathered courage also from the pleasing exhibition of sensibility in one whom God had made a mother to save her from heartlessness.

"Shut the door, Mr Wilson," said Lady Railton in an under tone, "and pray be seated."

I complied with her request.

"You have been somewhat tardy, methinks, in finding your way hither," proceeded her ladyship.

I informed her of my visit to Lord Railton, and its disagreeable termination. She had not heard of it.

"Lord Railton," she continued, "has requested me to hold no intercourse with my son, and his lordship's requests have ever been commands to me. I have not disobeyed him. But I have looked for you. I made no promise to deny admittance to you. You were his friend. When did you see him?"

"Very lately, madam," I answered.

"He is in great difficulty and trouble – is he not?"

I shook my head.

Kind nature pleaded for poor Rupert. The mother attempted to speak – once – twice: her lips trembled: she could not: a flood of tears saved her from choking.

"He is well?" she asked at length.

"Well," I answered, "but for his trials – which are severe indeed."

"What can be done?" inquired Lady Railton.

"To bring him peace of mind – to repair the mischief that has happened – to secure prudence for the future – to save him from utter ruin, I know no remedy save reconciliation with his parents."

Lady Railton sighed deeply, and exclaimed —

"Impossible!"

"Indeed!" said I, as if surprised.

"Lord Railton is inexorable. He has listened to my appeals unmoved: he will listen to them no longer. Unhappy Rupert!"

"Unhappy indeed!" said I.

"His wife is very fair, they say?"

"Lovely, madam!"

"But wilful and extravagant?"

"Wayward, perhaps, but young. Oh Lady Railton, do not revenge too harshly upon a spoiled child of nature and the world, the sins of the world's committing. Mrs Sinclair has a warm and affectionate heart; she is devoted to her husband. Your ladyship's friendship and advice would at once render her all you could hope to find in the wife of your son. Permit me to say that the absence of your countenance has alone been sufficient to" —

"Alas! you urge in vain. I dare not see them!"

"It is a hard saying, madam," I rejoined: "may you not live to repent it!"

Lady Railton rose from her seat, came from behind the screen, and paced her small chamber with perturbation. She suddenly stopped before a cabinet – a drawer of which she unlocked, and produced from it a pocket-book.

"Take this, Mr Wilson," she said in a hurried and faltering voice. "I dare not see him – must not correspond with him. I am his mother, and I feel bitterly, most bitterly for him. But I am Lord Railton's wife, and I know my duty. He has disgraced us – irreparably, irrecoverably. You cannot understand how deep the stain is which our name has suffered; you cannot calculate the wrong inflicted on my husband. Reconciliation is hopeless!"

"And this pocket-book, madam?" I coldly asked.

"Contains an order on my banker for three thousand pounds – all that I have been able to hoard up for my unhappy boy since he deserted us. The sum, I know, is trifling, compared with his exigencies. But what can I do? His own conduct has rendered me helpless."

Poor Lady Railton, to do her justice, suffered much from the struggle between maternal feeling and her mistaken sense of duty. Her eyes filled with tears again, and she sat before me sobbing bitterly.

"Let me entreat your ladyship," I exclaimed with animation, "to make one effort for the redemption of the children whom you may lose for ever by the stern course you now adopt. Your influence with Lord Railton is naturally and deservedly very great. I cannot bring myself to believe that he will be insensible to your appeals, if you will but urge them with the earnestness and tenderness which so well become you. I an satisfied that the difficulties of Mr Sinclair would cease at once, and his happiness as well as your own be secured, if he could find parents and advisers in those to whom he has a right to look for advice and aid. Whatever his extravagance may have been, whatever his youthful follies, I do implore your ladyship to bear in mind, that not he alone is answerable for them, but they also in part who deserted him in the hour of his greatest need. You may save him now – when I next meet your ladyship, the time will have passed away."

"Spare me this anguish," said her ladyship with assumed calmness. "I repeat – it is impossible. The hour may come when it shall be permitted me to satisfy the promptings of my heart. Till that hour arrives, it is but torture to be reminded of my inability and weakness."

"Pardon me, Lady Railton – I have done."

I was about to rise, when her ladyship checked me.

"In that pocket-book, Mr Wilson," she continued, "you will find a correspondence respecting the sale of Sinclair's commission."

"His commission!" said I with surprise, for I had not heard of his desire to sell out before.

"Yes. He now awaits a purchaser of his commission to be gazetted out. I have prevented the sale hitherto. Assure him – not from me, but from yourself, that however slender is the hope now of his father's ultimate forgiveness, he cuts it off entirely by that act. Let the commission be withdrawn at once from the Horse-guards; the draft that accompanies the correspondence will make up to him the sum he loses.

"Am I to present it as a gift from your ladyship?"

"No – yes – as you will; but let him not write or communicate with me in any way. I have engaged to hold no intercourse with him, and I cannot disobey the injunctions of Lord Railton." I rose; her ladyship gave me her hand with an expression of good will, and then suffered me to depart without another word.

Things were really mending. In Lady Railton we had unquestionably a friend, time and opportunity serving. It was of the highest consequence to be assured of that. With her upon our side, I had no fear of eventual peace and harmony, provided measures could be taken for present difficulties; whilst, without her, every effort would have been purposeless, and even worse. Nor was this our only gleam of sunshine. When I returned to Rupert, the glad messenger of good tidings, I found that another friend had been sent by Providence to the rescue. Amongst the many high-born and eminent individuals whom the beauty and genius of Elinor had attracted to the gay habitation of Rupert Sinclair, was one who enjoyed, in an especial degree, the favour of his sovereign, and who was intimately connected by ties of blood and friendship with the commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces. The Earl of Minden had little to recommend him beyond his influence with the court and the powers that were. He belonged to an old family, of which he was the last lineal representative; was master of unbounded wealth, but was selfish, grasping, and mean to the last degree. He had a small body, but still smaller mind. Generation after generation, the head of the family to which he belonged, had held high office in the state, and had helped to govern the country without genius for statesmanship, or the ordinary ability of their humble business men. Office came to them as a matter of right, and custom had induced a people, slow to interfere with prescription, to regard the Earls of Minden as divinely appointed rulers, whom it would be sacrilege to depose. By marriage, the Earl of Minden was connected with the chief families of England: he had represented his king and country at the principal courts of Europe, where his magnificence and prodigality – for meanness itself may be lavish – had gained for him, as a matter of course, inordinate admiration and regard. Powerful with the ministry – the owner of four boroughs – the acknowledged friend, and even associate of royalty – what commoner did not feel honoured by his patronage? – what noble not gratified by his esteem? Lord Minden had but few of the weaknesses common to mankind. Proud and self-sufficient, he acknowledged no supremacy but that of woman. The only graceful infirmity of which his contemporaries could accuse his lordship, and to which posterity might point, was the infirmity of the best and bravest – that of a facile heart in the affairs of love.

Lord Minden, charmed by the bewitching grace of Elinor Sinclair, had, as it were, gladly resigned himself to its sweet influence. He was never happier, after what were deemed the fatigues of office, than in the brilliant assembly which she could summon at her bidding; never so gay as when listening at her side to the arch sallies which drew smiles of approval from lips that seldom cared to relax. The overbearing peer was content to play the humblest part in the scene of which she was the heroine, and to which she imparted a life and spirit that were sought in vain elsewhere. The intervention of Lady Railton had been already superseded by the generosity of one far more influential. The Earl of Minden himself had taken Rupert under his all-powerful wing. Not only was the commission restored, but promises of advancement were made, and the most flattering assurances of friendship and regard liberally offered. Lady Railton's draft, at her own request, was applied to the payment of a pressing debt. I contrived to make her acquainted with the new and incalculable acquisition that had been made. The information had all the effect I could desire; her ladyship, dazzled by the brilliancy of the prospect, and eager to make as much of it as she could, to my great astonishment sent for me, and actually opened negotiations for an interview between herself and her so recently discarded son. Oh world! world!

Before these negotiations, however, could lead to any satisfactory result, a new colour was given to the state of things, by some incidents of a most disagreeable and painful character. I was sitting in my room one morning, conning in my mind the most advisable means to adopt for the presentation of Sinclair at the parental abode, when a modest knock at my door announced a visitor of humble rank. My request to "walk in" was timidly responded to by a very old friend, in the shape of John Humphrys, the valet of Sinclair, and the oldest servant in his establishment. John had nursed his master on his knee, having been himself nursed in the house of Lord Railton's father, whose coachman had acknowledged John for his son. John had never been married, but he loved his master as faithfully as though he had been his own child, and had resigned as good a situation as any in the kingdom to follow the fortunes of the exile, whatever they might be. With this unbounded reverence for Rupert, Humphrys regarded Rupert's former instructor in the light of a demigod.

"Ah, John, is it you?" said I. "Step in, old friend, and be seated."

John obeyed awkwardly, twirled his hat about, coughed and hemmed, but said nothing.

"Well, Humphrys, what news?" I continued, to give him confidence.

Humphrys shook his head despondingly.

I grew alarmed. "Any thing amiss?" I exclaimed. "Mr Sinclair ill, or" —

"All well – in health, sir," stammered John – "all well there. I – I am going, sir."

"Going!"

"Yes, sir," said Humphrys in a whisper, and getting up to close the door. "My heart's broke."

"Don't desert your master now, John," said I encouragingly. "You have weathered the storm hitherto. Things are mending. Take my word for it, we shall be in smooth water presently."

Humphrys shook his head again.

"Never, sir!" said he with emphasis, "as sure as my name's John."

"Explain yourself, Humphrys. What is it you have learned?"

"Too much, sir. I can bear it no longer. It is the common talk of the servants! I would have stayed with him for a crust till death, but I cannot hear him so spoken of."

"You frighten me. Go on."

"I ask your forgiveness, Mr Wilson," proceeded Humphrys, mumbling on, "but there are strange things said, and I didn't believe them at first, – and I was ready to knock the man down that hinted them to me – and I would have done it, – but I have seen, sir – with my own eyes – I wish I had been blind!" suddenly and passionately exclaimed the good fellow, his eyes overflowing with honest tears.

"Man, man!" said I hastily and vexed. "You talk in riddles. What is it you drive at?"

"Can't you guess, sir?" he answered meaningly.

"Guess?"

"Yes, sir, – Mrs Sinclair!"

"Mrs Sinclair?"

"And Lord Minden."

"Lord Minden! For God sake" —

"Hush, sir!" said John, putting his finger to his lips. "I wouldn't have any body overhear us for the world. But it's true, it's true, as I am a living man."

"It is a lie!" I cried – "an infamous and slanderous lie! Some tale of a discharged and disappointed servant – a base conspiracy to destroy a good man's character. For shame, John Humphrys – for shame!"

"I don't wonder at you, sir," continued Humphrys. "They were my own words; and, until I was satisfied with my own eyes of the truth of what I had heard, I wouldn't have believed an angel from heaven. God knows, Mr Wilson, it is too true. We have lived to see terrible things, sir."

I entreated Humphrys to be still more explicit, and he was so. His communication went to show that the interference of Lord Minden in the affairs of his master was far from being disinterested, and that the price to be exacted for the preferment was much too great to make preferment or even life desirable to Rupert Sinclair. If I was horrorstruck at this announcement, how shall I describe my feelings when he further stated, with a serious and touching earnestness, that, as he hoped for salvation hereafter, he firmly believed that Rupert Sinclair was a party to his own dishonour. I was about to strike the fellow to the earth for his audacity; but I reflected for a moment, and was relieved of a load of oppression. I could have laughed outright, so overjoyed did I at once become, with the sudden upsetting of this tremendous fabrication. Sinclair a party to his own dishonour! Any thing short of that might have found me credulous. That accusation would have destroyed the unimpeached evidence of saints. I recovered myself and spoke.

"You are an honest man, John Humphrys," said I, "a good servant, and faithful, I believe. But go your ways, and let not the wicked impose upon you more. Your tale is too good by half. Tell your informants, that, if they look for success, they must be less ambitious: if they desire to bring conviction to their listeners, they must not prove so much. And beware" – I proceeded in a more serious tone – "how you give currency to the slander you have brought to me. You love your master. Show your fidelity by treating this calumny with the scorn it merits."

"Sir," answered Humphrys, "if I were to be called from this world to-night, I could not retract the words I have spoken. I have not hinted to another what, alas! I know to be true. You may be sure I have no desire to circulate Mr Sinclair's infamy. I shall leave his service, for with him I can no longer live, – and you will soon learn whether or not I have uttered the truth. Oh dear! oh dear!" he added, with a sigh of despair, – "what will the world say?"

I dismissed John Humphrys, and turned to my own affairs. It was neither prudent nor becoming to listen further to the revelations of such a person; I would not even permit him to explain to me how he had arrived at the convictions which no doubt he honestly entertained. It was sufficient to hear the charges he brought against poor Rupert, to be convinced that the man was grossly deceived; that he had been cruelly imposed upon by vicious and vindictive men. But, could I be otherwise than deeply aggrieved by the rumour which had arisen, and which was not likely to lose on the lips of those who would be too eager to give it currency? It was a new and unexpected element in the complicated misfortunes of Lord Railton's house. Unexpected? What, Walter Wilson, and had not suspicions crossed your mind before, of the probability of such slander? Had you not many times angrily repulsed intruding thoughts that savoured of uncharitableness towards the volatile and beauteous wife? Had not prejudice before her marriage rendered you cruel; and experience since – did it not tend, if not to foster cruelty, to sustain alarm? But Rupert a party to his own dishonour! Monstrous! Ridiculous! Absurd!