Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)

“I will be as explicit as you can desire, sir. Your communication was gratifying to me in so far that it showed me how my old and esteemed friend, Mr. Corrigan, had thrown off the delusion in which he had indulged regarding you, and saw you as I have always thought you, – a clever worldly man, without scruples as to his means when an object had once gained possession of his wishes, and who never could have dreamed of making Miss Leicester his wife were there not other and deeper purposes to be attained by so doing.”

“You are candor itself, sir,” said Linton; “but I cannot feel offence at a frankness I have myself asked for. Pray extend the favor, and say what could possibly be these other and deeper purposes you allude to? What advantages could I propose myself by such an alliance, save increased facilities of conversation with Dr. Tiernay, and more frequent opportunities of indulging in ‘tric-trac’ with Mr. Corrigan?”

Tiernay winced under the sarcasm, but only said, —

“To divine your motives would be to become your equal in skill and cleverness. I have no pretensions to such excellence.”

“So that you are satisfied with attributing to another objects for which you see no reason and motive, and of which you perceive no drift?”

“I am satisfied to believe in much that I cannot fathom.”

“We will pursue this no further,” said Linton, impatiently. “Let us reverse the medal. Mr. Corrigan’s refusal of me, coupled with his uncourteous conduct, may lead to unpleasant results. Is he prepared for such?”

“I have never known him to shrink from the consequences of his own conduct,” replied Tiernay, steadfastly.

“Even though that conduct should leave him houseless?” whispered Linton.

“It cannot, sir, while I have a roof.”

“Generously spoken, sir,” said Linton, while he threw his eyes over the humble decorations of his chamber with an expression of contempt there was no mistaking.

“Humble and poor enough it is, sir,” said Tiernay, answering the glance, “but the fruit of honest industry. Neither a father’s curse, nor a mother’s tear, hovers over one of the little comforts around me.”

“An ancient Roman in virtue!” exclaimed Linton, affectedly. “How sad that our degenerate days so ill reward such excellence!”

“You are wrong there, sir. Even for merits poor and unobtrusive as mine, there are tributes of affection more costly than great men know of. There are those on every hand around me who would resign health, and hope, and life itself, to do me service. There are some who, in their rude zeal, would think little of making even Mr. Linton regret his having needlessly insulted me. Ay, sir, I have but to open that window and speak one word, and you would sorely repent this day’s proceeding.”

Linton sat calm and collected under this burst of anger, as though he were actually enjoying the outbreak he had provoked. “You have a lawless population here, it would seem, then,” said he, smiling blandly, as he rose from his seat. “I think the Government is badly rewarded by bestowing its resources on such a neighborhood. A police-barracks would suit you better than an hospital, and so I shall tell Mr. Downie Meek.”

Tiernay grew suddenly pale. The threat was too papable to be mistaken, nor was he sufficiently conversant with the world of policy to detect its fallacy.

“Two hundred pounds a year,” resumed Linton, “can be of no moment to one who is surrounded by such generous devotion; while some respect for law or order will be a good ‘alterative,’ – is n’t that the phrase, doctor?”

Tiernay could not utter a word. Like many men who pass their lives in seclusion, he had formed the most exaggerated ideas of the despotism of those in power; he believed that for the gratification of a mere whim or passing caprice they would not scruple at an act of oppression that might lead to ruin itself; he felt shocked at the peril to which a hasty word had exposed him. Linton read him like a book, and, gazing fixedly at him, said, “Your craft has taught you little of worldly skill, Dr. Tiernay, or you would have seen that it is better to incur a passing inconvenience than run the risk of a severe and perhaps fatal misfortune. Me-thinks that a science of expediencies might have instilled a few of its wise precepts into every-day life.”

The doctor stared, half in astonishment, half in anger, but never spoke.

“Reflect a little upon this point,” said Linton, slowly; “remember, too, that a man like myself, who never acts without an object, may be a very good associate for him who has neither courage nor energy for action at all; and lastly, bethink you that the subtlety and skill which can make a useful friend, can become very readily the materials of a dangerous enemy.”

Linton knew well the force and significance of vagueness, either in threat or promise; and no sooner had he done speaking than he left the room and the house; while Tiernay, bewildered and terrified, sat down to think over what had passed.

“He ‘ll come to terms, I see that!” cried Linton to himself, as he entered the park of Tubbermore. “A little time, a sleepless night or two, the uncertainty of that future which to every man past fifty gets another tinge of black with each year, will do the business, and I ‘ll have him suing for the conditions he would now reject.”

Never yet, however, had time been a greater object with Linton. The host of creditors whom he had staved off for some months back – some by paying large sums on account; others by the assurance that he was on the eve of a rich marriage – would, at the very first semblance of his defeat, return and overwhelm him. Many of his debts were incurred to hush up play transactions, which, if once made public, his station in society would be no longer tenable. Of his former associates, more than one lived upon him by the mere menace of the past. Some were impatient, too, at the protracted game he played with Roland, and reproached him with not “finishing him off” long before, by cards and the dice-box. Others were indignant that they were not admitted to the share of the spoil, with all the contingent advantages of mixing in a class where they might have found the most profitable acquaintances. To hold all these in check had been a difficult matter, and few save himself could have accomplished it To restrain them much longer was impossible. With these thoughts he walked along, scarce noticing the long string of carriages which now filled the avenue, and hastened towards the house. Occasionally a thought would cross his mind, “What if the bullet had already done its work? What if that vast estate were now once more thrown upon the wide ocean of litigation? Would Corrigan prefer his claim again, or would some new suitor spring up? – and if so, what sum could recompense the possession of that pardon by which the whole property might be restored to its ancient owners?” Amid all these canvassings, no feeling arose for the fate of him who had treated him as a bosom friend, – not one regret, not so much as one sensation of pity. True, indeed, he did reflect upon what course to adopt when the tidings arrived. Long did he vacillate whether Tom Keane should not be arrested on suspicion. There were difficulties in either course, and, as usual, he preferred that coming events should suggest their own conduct.

At last he reached the great house, but instead of entering by the front door, he passed into the courtyard, and gained his own apartment unobserved. As he entered he locked the door, and placed the key in such a manner that none could peep through the keyhole. He then walked leisurely around the room; and although he knew there was no other outlet, he cast a glance of scrutinizing import on every side, as if to ensure himself that he was alone. This done, he opened a small cupboard in the wall behind his bed, and took forth the iron box, in which, since its discovery, he had always kept the pardon, as well as the forged conveyance of Tubber-beg.

Linton placed the box before him on the table, and gazed at it in a kind of rapture. “There,” thought he, “lies the weapon by which at once I achieve both fortune and revenge. Let events take what turn they will, there is a certain source of wealth. A great estate like this will have its claimants; with me it rests who shall be the successful one.”

A hurried knocking at the door interrupted the current of these musings; and Linton, having replaced the casket in the press, unlocked the door. It was Mr. Phillis, who, in all the gala of full dress, and with a rare camellia in his button-hole, entered.

“Well, Phillis, is all going on as it ought?” said Linton, carelessly.

“Scarcely so, sir,” said the soft-voiced functionary; “the house is filling fast, but there is no one to receive the company; and they are walking about staring at each other, and asking who is to do the honors.”

“Awkward, certainly,” said Linton, coolly; “Lady Kilgoff ought to have been the person.”

“She is gone, sir,” said Phillis.

“Gone! gone! When, and where?”

“I cannot say, sir; but my Lord and her Ladyship left this morning early, with post-horses, taking the Dublin road.”

Linton did not speak, but the swollen vein in his forehead, and the red flush upon his brow, told how the tidings affected him. He had long speculated on witnessing the agonies of her grief when the hour of his revenge drew nigh; and this ecstasy of cruelty was now to be denied him.

“And my Lord – had he regained any consciousness, or was he still insensible?”

“He appeared like a child, sir, when they lifted him into the carriage.”

“And Lady Kilgoff?”

“She held her veil doubled over her face as she passed; but I thought she sighed, and even sobbed, as she handed me this letter.”

“‘For Roland Cashel, Esquire,’” said Linton, reading as he took it. “Did she speak at all, Phillis?”

“Not a word, sir. It was a sad-looking procession altogether, moving away in the dim gray of the morning.”

Linton placed the letter in a rack upon the chimney, and for some seconds was lost in thought.

“If Lady Janet, sir, would be kind enough to receive the company,” murmured Phillis, softly.

“Pooh, man, it is of no consequence!” said Linton, roughly, his mind dwelling on a very different theme. “Let who will play host or hostess.”

“Perhaps you would come down yourself soon, sir?” asked Phillis, who read in the impatience of Linton’s manner the desire to be alone, and coupled that desire with some mysterious purpose.

“Yes, leave me, Phillis; I’m going to dress,” said he, hurriedly. “Has he returned yet?”

“No, sir; and we expected him at five o’clock.”

“And it is now nine,” said the other, solemnly; “four hours later.”

“It is very singular!” exclaimed Phillis, who was more struck by the altered expression of Linton’s face than by the common-place fact he affected to marvel at.

“Why singular? What is remarkable? That a man should be delayed some time on a business matter, particularly when there was no urgency to repair elsewhere?”

“Nothing more common, sir; only that Mr. Cashel said positively he should be here at five. He had ordered the cob pony to be ready for him, – a sign that he was going to pay a visit at the cottage.”

Linton made no reply, but his lips curled into a smile of dark and ominous meaning.

“Leave me, Phillis,” said he, at length; “I shall be late with all this cumbrous finery I am to wear.”

“Shall I send your man, sir?” said Phillis, slyly eying him as he spoke.

“Yes – no, Phillis – not yet I ‘ll ring for him later.”

And with these words Linton seated himself in a large chair, apparently unconscious of the other’s presence.

Mr. Phillis withdrew noiselessly – but not far; for after advancing a few steps along the corridor, he cautiously returned, and listened at the door.

Linton sat for a few seconds, as if listening to the other’s retreating footsteps; and then, noiselessly arising from his chair, he approached the door of the chamber, at which, with bent-down head, Phillis watched. With a sudden jerk of the handle Linton threw open the door, and stood before the terrified menial.

“I was afraid you were ill, sir. I thought your manner was strange.”

“Not half so strange as this conduct, Mr. Phillis,” said Linton, slowly, as he folded his arms composedly on his breast. “Come in.” He pointed, as he spoke, to the room; but Phillis seemed reluctant to enter, and made a gesture of excuse. “Come in, sir,” said Linton, peremptorily; and he obeyed. Linton immediately locked the door, and placed the key upon the chimney-piece; then deliberately seating himself full in front of the other, he stared at him long and fixedly. “So, sir,” said he, at length, “you have thought fit to become a spy upon my actions. Now, there is but one amende you can make for such treachery, – which is, to confess frankly and openly what it is you want to know, and what small mystery is puzzling your puny intelligence, and making your nights sleepless. Tell me this candidly, and I’ll answer as freely.”

“I have really nothing to confess, sir. I was fearful lest you were unwell. I thought – it was mere fancy, perhaps – that you were flurried and peculiar this morning; and this impression distressed me so, that – that – ”

“That you deemed fit to watch me. Be it so. I have few secrets from any one; I have none from my friends. You shall hear, therefore what – without my knowing it – has made me appear unusually agitated. It was my intention to leave this house to-morrow, Phillis, and in the preparation for my departure I was arranging my letters and papers, among which I found a very considerable quantity that prudence would consign to the flames, – that is to say, if prudence were to be one-sided, and had only regard for the interests of one individual where there were two concerned. In plain language, Phillis, I was just about to burn the mass of documents which fill that iron safe, and which it were to the honor and credit of Mr. Phillis should be reduced to charcoal as speedily as may be, the same being nothing more nor less than the accounts of that ‘honest steward,’ pinned to the real and bona fide bills of Mr. Cashel’s tradespeople. There are, it is true, strange little discrepancies between the two, doubtless capable of satisfactory explanation, but which, to plain-thinking men like myself, are difficult to reconcile; and in some one or two instances – a wine merchant’s account, for example, and a saddler’s bill – savor somewhat of that indiscreet procedure people call forgery. What a mistake – what an inadvertence, Phillis!”

There was something of almost coaxing familiarity in the way Linton uttered the last words; and Phillis grew sick at heart as he listened to them.

“A moment more, an instant later, and I had thrown them into the fire; but your footsteps, as you walked away, sounded too purpose-like; you were so palpably honest that I began to suspect you. Eh, Phillis, was I right?”

Phillis essayed a smile, but his features only accomplished a ghastly grin.

“I will keep them, therefore, where they are,” said Linton. “These impulses of rash generosity are very costly pleasures; and there is no such good practical economy as to husband one’s confidence.”

“I ‘m sure, sir, I never thought I should have seen the day – ”

“Go on, man; don’t falter. What day do you mean? – that on which you had attempted to outwit me; or, that on which I should show you all the peril of your attempting it? Ay, and there is peril, Mr. Phillis: a felony whose punishment is transportation for life is no small offence.”

“Oh, sir! – oh, Mr. Linton, forgive me!” cried the other, in the most abject voice. “I always believed that my devotion to your interests would claim your protection.”

“I never promised to further anything that was base or dishonest,” said Linton, with an air of assumed morality.

“You opened and read letters that were addressed to another; you spied his actions, and kept watch upon all his doings; you wrote letters in his name, and became possessed of every secret of his life by treachery; you – ”

“Don’t talk so loud, Phillis; say all you have to say to me.”

“Oh, dear, sir, forgive me the burst of passion. I never meant it. My temper carried me away in spite of me.” And he burst into tears as he spoke.

“What a dangerous temper, that may at any moment make a felon of its owner! Go, Phillis, there is no need of more between us. You know me. I almost persuaded myself that I knew you. But if I know anything, it is this” – here he approached, and laid his hand solemnly on the other’s shoulder – “that I would make hell itself the punishment of him who injured me, were I even to share it with him.”

Phillis’s knees smote each other with terror at the look that accompanied these words; they were spoken without passion or vehemence, but there was that in their tone that thrilled to his inmost heart Powerless, and overcome by his emotions, he could not stir from the spot: he wanted to make explanations and excuses, but all his ingenuity deserted him; he tried to utter vows of attachment and fidelity, but shame was too strong for him there also. He would have resorted to menace itself rather than remain silent, but he had no courage for such a hazardous course. Linton appeared to read in turn each change of mood that passed across the other’s mind; and after waiting, as it were, to enjoy the confusion under which he suffered, said, —

“Just so, Phillis; it is a sad scrape you fell into. But when a man becomes bankrupt either in fame or fortune, it is but loss of time to bewail the past; the wiser course is to start in business again, and make a character by a good dividend. Try that plan. Good-bye!”

These words were a command; and so Phillis understood them, as, with an humble bow, he left the room. Linton again locked the door, and drawing the table to a part of the room from which no eavesdropper at the door could detect it, he once more sat down at it. His late scene with Phillis had left no traces upon his memory; such events were too insignificant to claim any notice beyond the few minutes they occupied; his thoughts were now upon the greater game, where all his fortune in life was staked. He took out the key, which he always wore round his neck, and placed it in the lock; at the same instant the clock on the chimney-piece struck ten. He sat still, listening to the strokes; and when they ceased, he muttered, “Ay, mayhap cold enough ere this!” A slight shuddering shook him as he uttered these words, and a dreamy revery seemed to gather around him; but he arose, and walking to the window, opened it. The fresh breeze of the night rallied him almost at once, and he closed the sash and returned to his place.

“To think that I should hold within my hands the destinies of those whom most of all the world I hate!” muttered he, as he turned the key and threw back the lid. The box was empty! With a wild cry, like the accent of intense bodily pain, he sprang up and dashed both hands into the vacant space, and then held them up before his eyes, like one who could not credit the evidence of his own senses. The moment was a terrible one, and for a few seconds the staring eyeballs and quivering lips seemed to threaten the access of a fit; but reason at last assumed the mastery, and he sat down before the table and leaned his head upon it to think. Twice before in life had it been his lot to lose a fortune at one turn of the die, but never before had he staked all the revengeful feelings of his bad heart, which, baffled in their flow, now came back upon himself.

He sat thus for nigh an hour; and when he arose at last, his features were worn as though by a long illness; and as he moved his fingers through his hair, it came away in masses, like that of a man after fever.

CHAPTER XXVI. AN UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE DUPE AND HIS VICTIM

So, then, we meet at last. – Harold.

As the rooms began to fill with company, costumed in every variety that taste, fancy, or absurdity could devise, many were surprised that neither was there a host to bid them welcome, nor was there any lady to perform the accustomed honors of reception. The nature of the entertainment, to a certain extent, took off from the awkwardness of this want. In a masquerade, people either go to assume a part, or to be amused by the representation of others, and are less dependent on the attentions of the master or mistress of the house; so that, however struck at first by the singularity of a fête without the presence of the giver, pleasure, ministered to by its thousand appliances, overcame this feeling, and few ever thought more of him beneath whose roof they were assembled.

The rooms were splendid in their decoration, lighted a giomo, and ornamented with flowers of the very rarest kind. The music consisted of a celebrated orchestra and a regimental band, who played alternately; the guests, several hundred in number, were all attired in fancy costumes, in which every age and nation found its type; while characters from well-known fictions abounded, many of them admirably sustained, and dressed with a pomp and splendor that told the wealth of the wearers.

It was truly a brilliant scene; brilliant as beauty, and the glitter of gems, and waving of plumes, and splendor of dress could make it. The magic impulse of pleasure communicated by the crash of music; the brilliant glare of wax-lights; the throng; the voices; the very atmosphere, tremulous with sounds of joy, – seemed to urge on all there to give themselves up to enjoyment. There was a boundless, lavish air, too, in all the arrangements. Servants in gorgeous liveries served refreshments of the most exquisite kind; little children, dressed as pages, distributed bouquets, bound round with lace of Valenciennes or Brussels, and occasionally fastened by strings of garnets or pearls; a jet d’eau of rose-water cooled the air of the conservatory, and diffused its delicious freshness through the atmosphere. There was something princely in the scale of the hospitality; and from every tongue words of praise and wonder dropped at each moment.

Even Lady Janet, whose enthusiasm seldom rose much above the zero, confessed that it was a magnificent fête, adding, by way of compensation for her eulogy, “and worthy of better company.”

Mrs. White was in ecstasies with everything, even to the cherubs in pink gauze wings, who handed round sherbet, and whom she pronounced quite “classical.” The Kenny-fecks were in the seventh heaven of delight, affecting little airs of authority to the servants, and showing the strangers, by a hundred little devices, that all the magnificence around was no new thing to them. Miss Kennyfeck, as the Queen of Madagascar, was a most beautiful savage; while Olivia appeared as the fair “Gabrielle,” – a sly intimation to Sir Harvey, whose dress, as Henry IV., won universal admiration. Then there were the ordinary number of Turks, Jews, Sailors, Circassians, Greeks, Highland Chiefs, and Indian Jugglers, – “Jim” figuring as a Newmarket “Jock,” to the unbounded delight and wonderment of every “sub” in the room.

If in many quarters the question ran, “Where is Mr. Cashel?” or, “Which is he?” Lady Janet had despatched Sir Andrew, attired as a “Moonshee,” to find out Linton for her. “He is certain to know every one here; tell him to come to me at once,” said she, sitting down near a doorway to watch the company.

While Lady Janet is waiting for him who, better than any other, could explain the mysterious meaning of many a veiled figure, unravel the hidden wickedness of every chance allusion, or expound the secret malice of each calembourg or jest, let us track his wanderings, and follow him as he goes.

Throwing a large cloak over his brilliant dress, Linton made his way by many a by-stair and obscure passage to the back of the theatre, by which the secret approach led to Cashel’s dressing-room. Often as he had trod that way before, never had he done so in the same state of intense excitement. With the loss of the papers, he saw before him not alone the defeat of every hope he nurtured, but discovery, shame, and ruin! He whose whole game in life was to wield power over others, now saw himself in the grasp of some one, to whom he had not the slightest clew. At one moment his suspicions pointed to Cashel himself, then to Tiernay, and lastly to Phillis. Possibly rage has no bitterer moment than that in which an habitual deceiver of others first finds himself in the toils of treachery. There was over his mind, besides, that superstitious terror that to unbelieving intellects stands in place of religion, which told him that luck had turned with him; that fortune, so long favorable, had changed at last; and that, in his own phrase, “the run had set in against him.” Now a half-muttered curse would burst from his lips over the foolhardiness that had made him so dilatory, and not suffered him to reap the harvest when it was ripe; now a deep-breathed vow, that if fate were propitious once again, no matter bow short the interval, he would strike his blow, come what might of it Sometimes he blamed himself for having deserted the safe and easy road to ruin by play, for the ambitious course he had followed; at other times he inveighed against his folly for not carrying off Mary Leicester before Cashel had acquired any intimacy at the cottage. Burning and half-maddened with this conflict of regrets and hopes, he touched the spring, moved back the panel, and entered Cashel’s room.