The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume I

“As to the ‘Whip,’ I may as well tell you, that I scratched my own name myself. They are a set of low ‘Legs,’ and, except poor Effy, and two or three others of the same brilliant stamp, not a gentleman amongst them.”

“The defalcation is, however, true?” asked Sir Stafford.

“If you mean to ask whether a man always wins at Doncaster or Newmarket, the question is of the easiest to answer.”

“I certainly presume that he always pays what he loses, my Lord,” replied Sir Stafford, coloring at the evasive impertinence of the other.

“Of course he does, when he has it, Sir Stafford; but that is a most essential condition, for the ‘Turf’ is not precisely like a mercantile pursuit.”

Sir Stafford winced under the flippant insolence with which this was spoken.

“There is not exactly a fair way to calculate profit, nor any assurance against accidental loss. A horse, Sir Stafford, is not an Indiaman; a betting man is, therefore, in a position quite exceptional.”

“If a man risks what he cannot pay, he is dishonorable,” said Sir Stafford, in a short, abrupt tone.

“I see that you cannot enter into a theme so very different from all your habits and pursuits. You think there is a kind of bankruptcy when a man gets a little behind with his bets. You don’t see that all these transactions are on ‘honor,’ and that if one does ‘bolt,’ he means to ‘book up’ another time. There was George, your own son – ”

“What of him? what of George?” cried Sir Stafford, with a convulsive grasp of the chair, while the color fled from his cheek, and he seemed ready to faint with emotion.

“Oh, nothing in the world to cause you uneasiness. A more honorable fellow never breathed than George.”

“Then, what of him? How comes his name to your lips at such a discussion as this? Tell me, this instant, my Lord. I command I entreat you!”

And the old man shook like one in an ague; but Norwood saw his vantage-ground, and determined to use it unsparingly. He therefore merely smiled, and said, “Pray be calm, Sir Stafford. I repeat that there is nothing worthy of a moment’s chagrin. I was only about to observe that if I had the same taste for scandal-writing as poor Effy, I might have circulated a similar story about your son George. He left England, owing me a good round sum, for which, by the way, I was terribly ‘hard up;’ and although the money was paid eventually, what would you have thought of me what would the world have thought of him if I had written such an epistle as this?”

And as he spoke, his voice and manner warmed into a degree of indignant anger, in which, as if carried away, he snatched the letter from the chimney-piece and threw it into the fire. The act was unseen by Sir Stafford, who sat with his head deeply buried between his hands, a low faint groan alone bespeaking the secret agony of his heart.

“My son has, then, paid you? He owes nothing, my Lord?” said he, at last, looking up, with a countenance furrowed by agitation.

“Like a trump!” said Norwood, assuming the most easy and self-satisfied manner. “My life upon George Onslow! Back him to any amount, and against the field anywhere! A true John Bull! no humbug, no nonsense about him! straightforward and honorable, always!”

“Your position is, then, this, my Lord,” said Sir Stafford, whose impatience would not permit him to listen longer, “you have quitted England, leaving for future settlement a number of debts, for which you have not the remotest prospect of liquidation.”

“Too fast, you go too fast!” said the Viscount, laughing.

“Lord Effingdale writes the amount at thirty thousand pounds, and adds that, as a defaulter – ”

“There’s the whole of it,” broke in Norwood. “You ring the changes about that one confounded word, and there is no use in attempting a vindication. ‘Give a dog a bad name,’ as the adage says. Now, I took the trouble this very morning to go over the whole of this tiresome business with George. I explained to him fully, and, I hope, to his entire satisfaction, that I was simply unfortunate in it, nothing more. A man cannot always ‘ride the winner; ‘I ‘m sure I wish I could. Of course, I don’t mean to say that it ‘s not a confounded ‘bore’ to come out here and live in such a place as this, and just at the opening of the season, too, when town is beginning to fill; but ‘needs must,’ we are told, ‘when a certain gent sits on the coach-box.’”

Sir Stafford stood, during the whole of this speech, with his arms folded and his eyes fixed upon the floor. He never heard one word of it, but was deeply intent upon his own thoughts. At length he spoke in a full, collected, and firm voice: “Lord Norwood I am, as you have told me, perfectly unfitted to pronounce upon transactions so very unlike every pursuit in which my life has been passed. I am alike ignorant of the feelings of those who engage in them, and of the rules of honor by which they are guided; but this I know, that the man whom his equals decline to associate with at home is not recognizable abroad; and that he who leaves his country with shame, cannot reside away from it with credit.”

“This would be a very rude speech, Sir Stafford Onslow, even with the palliative preface of your ignorance, if our relative ages admitted any equality between us. I am the least bellicose of men, I believe I can say I may afford to be so. So long, therefore, as you confine such sentiments to yourself, I will never complain of them; but if the time comes that you conceive they should be issued for general circulation – ”

“Well, my Lord, what then?”

“Your son must answer for it, that’s all!” said Norwood; and he drew himself up, and fixed his eye steadily on the distant wall of the room, with a look and gesture that made the old man sick at heart. Norwood saw how “his shot told,” and, turning hastily round, said: “This interview, I conclude, has lasted quite long enough for either of us. If you have any further explanations to seek for, let them come through a younger man, and in a more regular form. Good-morning.”

Sir Stafford bowed, without speaking, as the other passed out.

To have seen them both at that moment, few would have guessed aright on which side lay all the disgrace, and where the spirit of rectitude and honor.

Sir Stafford, indeed, was most miserable. If the Viscount’s mock explanations did not satisfy a single scruple of his mind, was it not possible they might have sufficed with others more conversant with such matters? Perhaps he is not worse than others of his own class. What would be his feelings if he were to involve George in a quarrel for such a cause? This was a consideration that pressed itself in twenty different forms, each of them enough to appall him. “But the man is a defaulter; he has fled from England with ‘shame,’” was the stubborn conviction which no efforts of his casuistry could banish; and the more he reflected on this, the less possible seemed anything like evasion or compromise.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE END OF THE FIRST ACT

THE point discussed in our last chapter, if not a momentous one in itself, was destined to exercise a very important influence upon the fortunes of the Onslow family. The interview between Sir Stafford and the Viscount scarcely occupied five minutes; after which the Baronet wrote a note of some length to her Ladyship, to which she as promptly replied; a second, and even a third interchange of correspondence followed. The dinner-party appointed for that day was put off; a certain ominous kind of silence pervaded the house. The few privileged visitors were denied admission. Mr. Proctor, Sir Stafford’s man, wore a look of more than common seriousness. Mademoiselle Celestine’s glances revealed a haughty sense of triumph. Even the humbler menials appeared to feel that something had occurred, and betrayed in their anxious faces some resemblance to that vague sense of half-curiosity, half-terror, the passengers of a steamboat experience when an accident, of whose nature they know nothing, has occurred to the machinery.

Their doubts and suspicions assumed more shape when the order came that Sir Stafford would dine in the library, and her Ladyship in her own room, George Onslow alone appearing in the dining-room. There was an air of melancholy over everything, the silence deepening as night came on. Servants went noiselessly to and fro, drew the curtains, and closed the doors with a half-stealthy gesture, and seemed as though fearful of awakening some slumbering outbreak of passion.

We neither have, nor desire to have, secrets from our readers. We will therefore proceed to Sir Stafford’s dressing-room, where the old Baronet sat moodily over the fire, his anxious features and sorrow-struck expression showing the ravages even a few hours of suffering had inflicted. His table was littered with papers, parchments, and other formidable-looking documents. Some letters lay sealed here, others were half-written there; everything about him showed the conflict of doubt and indecision that was going on within his mind; and truly a most painful struggle was maintained there.

For some time back he had seen with displeasure the course of extravagance and waste of all his household. He had observed the habits of reckless expense with which his establishment was maintained; but, possessing a very ample fortune, and feeling that probably some change would be made with the coming summer, he had forborne to advert to it, and endured with what patience he could a mode of life whose very display was distasteful to him. Now, however, a more serious cause for anxiety presented itself, in the class of intimates admitted by Lady Hester to her society. Of the foreigners he knew comparatively little; but that little was not to their advantage. Some were wealthy voluptuaries, glad to propagate their own habits of extravagance among those they suspected of fortunes smaller than their own. Others were penniless adventurers, speculating upon everything that might turn to their profit. All were men of pleasure, and of that indolent, lounging, purposeless character so peculiarly unpleasing to those who have led active lives, and been always immersed in the cares and interests of business.

Such men, he rightly judged, were dangerous associates to his son, the very worst acquaintances for Kate, in whom already he was deeply interested; but still no actual stain of dishonor, no palpable flaw, could be detected in their fame, till the arrival of Lord Norwood added his name to the list.

To receive a man of whose misconduct in England he had acquired every proof, was a step beyond his endurance. Here or never must he take his stand; and manfully he did so, at first, by calm argument and remonstrance, and at last by firm resolution and determination. Without adverting to what had passed between the Viscount and himself, the letter he addressed to Lady Hester conveyed his unalterable resolve not to know Lord Norwood. Lady Hester’s reply was not less peremptory, and scarcely as courteous. The correspondence continued with increasing warmth on both sides, till Sir Stafford palpably hinted at the possible consequences of a spirit of discordance and disagreement so ill-adapted to conjugal welfare. Her Ladyship caught up the suggestion with avidity, and professed that, whatever scruples his delicacy might feel, to hers there was none in writing the word, “Separation.”

If the thought had already familiarized itself to his mind, the word had not; and strange it is that the written syllables should have a power and meaning that the idea itself could never realize.

To men who have had little publicity in their lives, and that little always of an honorable nature, there is no thought so poignantly miserable as the dread of a scandalous notoriety. To associate their names with anything that ministers to gossip; to make them tea-table talk; still worse, to expose them to sneering and impertinent criticisms, by revealing the secrets of their domesticity, is a torture to which no mere physical suffering has anything to compare. Sir Stafford Onslow was a true representative of this class of feeling. The sight of his name in the list of directors of some great enterprise, as the patron of a charity, the governor of an hospital, or the donor to an institution, was about as much of newspaper notoriety as he could bear without a sense of shrinking delicacy; but to become the mark for public discussion in the relations of his private life, to have himself and his family brought up to the bar of that terrible ordeal, where bad tongues are the eloquent, and evil speakers are the witty, was a speculation too terrible to think over; and this was exactly what Lady Hester was suggesting!

Is it not very strange that woman, with whose nature we inseparably and truly associate all those virtues that take their origin in refinement and modesty, should sometimes be able to brave a degree of publicity to which a man, the very hardiest and least shamefaced, would succumb, crestfallen and abashed; that her timid delicacy, her shrinking bashfulness, can be so hardened by the world that she can face a notoriety where every look is an indictment, and every whisper a condemnation?

Now, if Lady Hester was yet remote from this, she had still journeyed one stage of the road. She had abundant examples around her of those best received and best looked on in society, whose chief claim to the world’s esteem seemed to be the contempt with which they treated all its ordinances. There was a dash of heroism in their effrontery that pleased her. They appeared more gay, more buoyant, more elastic in spirits than other people; their increased liberty seemed to impart enlarged and more generous views, and they were always “good-natured,” since, living in the very glassiest of houses, they never “shied” a pebble.

While, then, Sir Stafford sat overwhelmed with shame and sorrow at the bare thought of the public discussion that awaited him, Lady Hester was speculating upon condolences here, approbation there, panegyrics upon her high spirit, and congratulations upon her freedom. The little, half-shadowy allusions her friends would throw out from time to time upon the strange unsuitableness of her marriage with a man so much her senior, would soon be converted into comments of unrestricted license. Besides and perhaps the greatest charm of all was she would have a grievance; not the worn-out grievance of some imaginary ailment that nobody believes in but the “doctor,” not the mock agonies of a heart complaint, that saves the sufferer from eating bad dinners in vulgar company, but always allows them a respite for a dejeuner at the court, or a supper after the Opera, with a few chosen convives, but a real, substantial grievance, over which men might be eloquent and ladies pathetic. Such were the different feelings with which two persons contemplated the same event. Sir Stafford’s thoughts turned instantly towards England. What would be said there by all those friends who had endeavored to dissuade him from this ill-suited union? Their sorrowful compassion was even less endurable than the malice of others; and Grounsell, too, what would his old friend think of a catastrophe so sudden? In his heart Sir Stafford was glad that the doctor was absent; much as he needed his counsel and advice, he still more dreaded the terror of his triumphant eye at the accomplishment of his oft-repeated prediction.

From George he met no support whatever. He either believed, or thought that he believed, Norwood’s garbled explanation. Intercourse with a certain set of “fast men” had shown him that a man might do a “screwy” thing now and then, and yet not be cut by his acquaintance. And the young Guardsman deemed his father’s rigid notions nothing but prejudices, very excellent and commendable ones, no doubt, but as inapplicable to our present civilization as would be a coat of mail or a back-piece of chain-armor. George Onslow, therefore, halted between the two opinions. Adhering to his father’s side from feelings of affection and respect, he was drawn to Lady Hester’s by his convictions; not, indeed, aware how formidable the difference had already become between them, and that, before that very night closed in, they had mutually agreed upon a separation, which while occupying the same house, was essentially to exclude all intercourse.

One consideration gave Sir Stafford much painful thought. What was to become of Kate Dalton in this new turn of affairs? The position of a young girl on a visit with a family living in apparent unity and happiness was very wide apart from her situation as the companion of a woman separated, even thus much, from her husband. It would be equally unfair to her own family, as unjust to the girl herself, to detain her then in such a conjuncture. And yet what was to be done? Apart from all the unpleasantness of proposing an abrupt return to her home, came the thought of the avowal that must accompany the suggestion, the very confession he so dreaded to make. Of course the gossiping of servants would soon circulate the rumor. But then they might not spread it beyond the Alps, nor make it the current talk of a German watering-place. Thus were his selfish feelings at war with higher and purer thoughts. But the struggle was not a long one. He sat down and wrote to Lady Hester. Naturally assuming that all the reasons which had such force for himself would weigh equally with her, he dwelt less upon the arguments for Kate’s departure than upon the mode in which it might be proposed and carried out. He adverted with feeling to the sacrifice the loss would inflict upon Lady Hester, but professed his conviction in the belief that all merely selfish considerations would give way before higher and more important duties.

“As it is,” said he, “I fear much that we have done anything but conduce to this dear girl’s welfare and happiness. We have shown her glimpses of a life whose emptiness she cannot appreciate, but by whose glitter she is already attracted. We have exposed her to all the seductions of flattery, pampering a vanity which is perhaps her one only failing. We have doubtless suggested to her imagination dreams of a future never to be realized, and we must now consign her to a home where all the affections of fond relatives will be unequal to the task of blinding her to its poverty and its obscurity. And yet even this is better than to detain her here. It shall be my care to see in what way I can I was about to write ‘recompense;’ nor would the word be unsuitable recompense Mr. Dalton for the injury we have done him as regards his child; and if you have any suggestion to make me on this head, I will gladly accept it.”

The note concluded with some hints as to the manner of making the communication to Kate, the whole awkwardness of which Sir Stafford, if need were, would take upon himself.

The whole temper of the letter was feeling and tender. Without even in the most remote way adverting to what had occurred between Lady Hester and himself, he spoke of their separation simply in its relation to Kate Dalton, for whom they were both bound to think and act with caution. As if concentrating every thought upon her, he did not suffer any other consideration to interfere. Kate, and Kate only, was all its theme.

Lady Hester, however, read the lines in a very different spirit. She had just recovered from a mesmeric trance, into which, to calm her nervous exaltation, her physician, Dr. Buccellini, had thrown her. She had been lying in a state of half-hysterical apathy for some hours, all volition, almost all vitality, suspended, under the influence of an exaggerated credulity, when the letter was laid upon the table.

“What is that your maid has just left out of her hand?” asked the doctor, in a tone of semi-imperiousness.

“A letter, a sealed letter,” replied she, mystically waving her hand before her half-closed eyes.

The doctor gave a look of triumph at the bystanders, and went on:

“Has the letter come from a distant country, or from a correspondent near at hand?”

“Near!” said she, with a shudder.

“Where is the writer at this moment?” asked he.

“In the house,” said she, with another and more violent shuddering.

“I now take the letter in my hand,” said the doctor, “and what am I looking at?”

“A seal with two griffins supporting a spur.”

The doctor showed the letter on every side, with a proud and commanding gesture. “There is a name written in the corner of the letter, beneath the address. Do you know that name?”

A heavy, thick sob was the reply.

“There there be calm, be still,” said he, majestically motioning with both hands towards her; and she immediately became composed and tranquil. “Are the contents of this letter such as will give you pleasure?”

A shake of the head was the answer.

“Are they painful?”

“Very painful,” said she, pressing her hand to her temples.

“Will these tidings be productive of grand consequences?”

“Yes, yes!” cried she, eagerly.

“What will you do, when you read them?”

“Act!” ejaculated she, solemnly.

“In compliance with the spirit, or in rejection?”

“Rejection!”

“Sleep on, sleep on,” said the doctor, with a wave of his hand; and, as he spoke, her head drooped, her arm fell listlessly down, and her long and heavy breathing denoted deep slumber. “There are people, Miss Dalton,” said he to Kate, “who affect to see nothing in mesmerism but deception and trick, whose philosophy teaches them to discredit all that they cannot comprehend. I trust you may never be of this number.”

“It is very wonderful, very strange,” said she, thoughtfully.

“Like all the secrets of nature, its phenomena are above belief; yet, to those who study them with patience and industry, how compatible do they seem with the whole order and spirit of creation. The great system of vitality being a grand scheme of actionary and reactionary influences, the centrifugal being in reality the centripetal, and those impulses we vainly fancy to be our own instincts being the impressions of external forces do you comprehend me?”

“Not perfectly; in part, perhaps,” said she, diffidently.

“Even that is something,” replied he, with a bland smile. “One whose future fortunes will place her in a station to exert influence is an enviable convert to have brought to truth.”

“I!” said she, blushing with shame and surprise together; “surely you mistake, sir. I am neither born to rank, nor like to attain it.”

“Both one and the other, young lady,” said he, solemnly; “high as your position will one day be, it will not be above the claims of your descent. It is not on fallible evidence that I read the future.”

“And can you really predict my fortune in life?” asked she, eagerly.

“More certainly than you would credit it, when told,” said he, deliberately.

“How I should like to hear it; how I should like to know” She stopped, and a deep blush covered her face.

“And why should you not know that your dreams will be realized?” said he, hastily, as if speaking from some irresistible impulse. “What more natural than to desire a glance, fleeting though it be, into that black vista where the bright lightning of prophecy throws its momentary splendor?”

“And how know you that I have had dreams?” said she, innocently.

“I know of them but by their accomplishment. I see you not in the present or the past, but in the future. There your image is revealed to me, and surrounded by a splendor I cannot describe. It is gorgeous and barbaric in magnificence; there is something feudal in the state by which you are encompassed that almost speaks of another age.”

“This is mere dreamland, indeed,” said she, laughing.

“Nay, not so; nor is it all bright and glorious, as you think. There are shadows of many a dark tint moving along the sunlit surface.”

“But how know you all this?” asked she, half incredulously.

“As you slept last evening in a mesmeric slumber on that sofa; but I will hear no further questioning. Look to our patient here, and if that letter agitate her over-much, let me be sent for.” And, with these words, delivered oracularly, the doctor left the room, while Kate seated herself beside the sofa where Lady Hester slept.

It was late in the night when Lady Hester awoke, and soon remembering that a letter had arrived, broke the seal and read it. If the proposal of Sir Stafford was in every way unacceptable, there was something which compensated for all in the excitement of spirits an act of opposition was sure to produce; nor was it without a sense of triumph that she read lines penned in evident sorrow and depression of spirit. In fact, she made the not uncommon error of mistaking sorrow for repentance, and thought she perceived in her husband’s tone a desire to retrace his steps. It is difficult to say whether such an amende would have given her pleasure; certainly she would not have accepted it without subjecting him to a term of probation of more or less length. In any case, as regarded Kate, she was decided at once upon a positive refusal; and as, with her, a resolve and a mode of action were usually the work of the same moment, she motioned to Kate to sit down beside her on the sofa, and passing her arm around her, drew her fondly towards her.