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

The very visiting-cards which lay scattered over a Sèvres dish offended him; the names of all that were most distinguished in rank and station, with here and there some little civility inscribed on the corner, – “Thanks,” “Come, if possible,” or “Of course we expect you,” – showing the social request in which Jekyl stood.

“Ay,” muttered he to himself, “here is one that can neither give dinners nor balls, get places nor pensions nor orders, lend money nor lose it, and yet the world wants him, and cannot get on without him. The indolence of profligacy seeks the aid of his stimulating activity, and the palled appetite of sensualism has to borrow the relish from vice that gives all its piquancy. Without him as the fly-wheel, the whole machinery of mischief would stand still. His boast is, that, without a sou, no millionnaire is richer than he, and that every boon of fortune is at his beck. He might add, that in his comprehensive view of wickedness he realizes within himself all the vice of this good capital. I ‘d send such a fellow to the treadmill; I ‘d transport him for life; I ‘d sentence him to hunt kangaroos for the rest of his days; I’d – ” He stopped short in his violent tirade; for he suddenly bethought him how he himself was at that very moment seeking aid and assistance at his hands; and somewhat abashed by the recollection, he called out, “Mr. Jekyl, are you ready yet?”

No answer was returned to this question, and Grounsell repeated it in a louder voice. All was silent, and not even the dulcet sounds of the air from “Lucia” broke the stillness; and now the doctor, losing all patience, drew aside the curtain and looked in. The chamber was empty, and Jekyl was gone! His little portmanteau, and his still smaller carpet-bag, his hat-case, his canes – every article of his personnel– were away; and while Grounsell stood cursing the “little rascal,” he himself was pleasantly seated opposite Lady Hester and Kate in the travelling-carriage, and convulsing them with laughter at his admirable imitation of the poor doctor.

Great as was Grounsel’s anger at this trickery, it was still greater when he discovered that he had been locked in. He quite forgot the course of time passed in his meditations, and could not believe it possible that there was sufficient interval to have effected all these arrangements so speedily.

Too indignant to brook delay, he dashed his foot through the door, and passed out The noise at once summoned the people of the house to the spot, and, to Grounsell’s surprise, the police officer amongst them, who, in all the pomp of office, now barred the passage with a drawn sword.

“What is it? – what’s this?” cried he, in astonishment.

“Effraction by force in case of debt is punishable by the 127th section of the ‘Code,’” said a dirty little man, who, with the air of a shoeblack, was still a leading member of the Florence “Bar.”

“I owe nothing here, – not a farthing, sir; let me pass,” cried Grounsell.

“‘Fathers for sons of nonage or over that period, domiciliated in the same house,’” began the Advocate, reading out of a volune in his hand, “‘are also responsible.’”

“What balderdash, sir! I have no son; I never was married in my life; and as for this Mr. Jekyl, if you mean to father him on me, I’ll resist to the last drop of my blood.”

“‘Denunciation and menace, with show of arms or without,’” began the lawyer again, “‘are punishable by fine and imprisonment.’”

Grounsell was now so worked up by fury that he attempted to force a passage by main strength; but a general brandishing of knives by all the family, from seven years of age upwards, warned him that the attempt might be too serious, while a wild chorus of abusive language arose from various sympathizers who poured in from the street to witness the scene.

A father who would not pay for his own son! an “assassin,” who had no bowels for his kindred; a “Birbante,” a “Briccone,” and a dozen similar epithets, rattled on him like hail, till Grounsell, supposing that the “bite” might be in proportion to the “bark,” retreated into a small chamber, and proposed terms of accommodation. Few men take pleasure in acquitting their own debts, fewer still like to pay those of their neighbors, and Grounsell set about the task in anything but a pleasant manner. There was one redeeming feature, however, in the affair. Jekyl’s schedule could not have extracted a rebuke from the severest Commissioner of Bankruptcy. His household charges were framed on the most moderate scale of expenditure. A few crowns for his house-rent, a few “Pauls” for his eatables, and a few “Grazie” for his washing, comprised the whole charge of his establishment, and not even Hume would have sought to cut down the “estimates.” Doubtless more than one half of the demands were unjust and extortionate, and many were perhaps already acquitted; but as all the rogueries were but homoeopathic iniquities after all, their doses might be endured with patience. His haste to conclude the arrangements had, however, a very opposite tendency. The more yielding he became, the greater grew their exactions, and several times the treaty threatened to open hostilities again; and at last it was full an hour after Jekyl’s departure that Grounsell escaped from durance, and was free to follow George Onslow to Pratolino.

With his adventures in the interval the reader is sufficiently acquainted; and we now come back to that moment where, bewildered and lost, he sat down upon the bench beside the high-road.

CHAPTER II. A SAD HOUSEHOLD

It was already past noon when Grounsell reached Florence. He was delayed at the gate by the authorities examining a peasant’s cart in front of him, – a process which appeared to take a most unusual degree of care and scrutiny, – and thus gave the doctor another occasion for inveighing against the “stupid ignorance of foreigners, who throw every possible impediment in the way of traffic and intercourse.”

“What have they discovered now?” cried he, testily, as in a crowd of vehicles, of all sorts and sizes, he was jammed up like a coal-vessel in the river. “Is the peasant a revolutionary general in disguise? or has he got Bibles or British cutlery under the straw of his baroccino?”

“No, Eccellenza.” (Every one in a passion in Italy is styled Eccellenza, as an “anodyne.”) “It’s a sick man, and they don’t know what to do with him.”

“Is there a duty on ague or nervous fever?” asked he, angrily.

“They suspect he’s dead, Eccellenza; and if so, there’s no use in bringing him into the city, to bring him out again by and by.”

“And don’t they know if a man be dead or alive?”

“Not when he’s a foreigner, Illustrissimo; and such is the case here.”

“Ah, very true!” said Grounsell, dryly, as if acquiescing in the truth of the remark. “Let me have a look at him; perhaps I can assist their judgment.” And with this he descended, and made his way through the crowd, who, in all the eagerness of curiosity, thronged around the cart A peasant’s great-coat was drawn over the figure and even the face of the sick man, as he lay at full length on the mat flooring of the baroccino; and on his chest some pious hand had deposited a rosary and a wooden crucifix.

Grounsell hastily drew back the covering, and then clutching an arm of those at either side of him, he uttered a faint cry, for the pale and deathlike features before him were those of George Onslow. The instincts of the doctor, however, soon rose above every other feeling, and his hand seized the wrist and felt for the pulse. Its beatings were slow, labored, and irregular, denoting the brain as the seat of injury. Grounsell, therefore, proceeded to examine the head, which, covered with clogged and matted blood, presented a terrific appearance; yet neither there nor elsewhere was there any trace of injury by fire-arms. The history of discovery was soon told. A shepherd had detected the body as he passed the spot, and, hailing some peasants on their way to Florence, advised their taking charge of it to the city, where they would be surely recompensed. The natural suggestion of Grounsel’s mind was that, in making his escape from the gendarmes, Onslow had fallen over a cliff. To convey him home, and get him to bed, if possible, before Sir Stafford should hear of the misfortune, was his first care; and in this he succeeded. It was the time when Sir Stafford usually slept; and Grounsell was able to examine his patient, and satisfy himself that no fatal injury was done, long before the old Baronet awoke.

“Sir Stafford wishes to see you, sir; he asked for you repeatedly to-day,” said Proctor.

“Has he heard – does he know anything of this?” said Grounsell, with a gesture to the bed where George lay.

“Not a word, sir. He was very cheerful all the morning, but wondering where you could have gone, and what Mister George was doing.”

“Now for it, then,” muttered Grounsell to himself, as, with clasped hands and knitted brows, he walked along; his mind suffering the very same anxieties as had oftentimes beset him on the eve of some painful operation in his art.

“Well, Grounsell,” said the old man, with a smile, as he entered, “is it to give me a foretaste of my altered condition that you all desert me to-day? You have never come near me, nor George either, so far as I can learn.”

“We’ve had a busy morning of it, Stafford,” said the doctor, sitting down on the bed, and laying his finger on the pulse. “You are better – much better to-day. Your hand is like itself, and your eye is free from fever.”

“I feel it, Gronnsell, – I feel as if, with some twenty years less upon my back, I could like to begin my tussle with the world, and try issue with the best.”

“You ‘re young enough, and active enough yet, for what is before you, Stafford. Yesterday I told you of everything in colors perhaps gloomier than reality. The papers of to-day are somewhat more cheery in their tidings. The hurricane may pass over, and leave us still afloat; but there is another trial for you, my old friend, and you must take heart to bear it well and manfully.”

Sir Stafford sat up in his bed, and, grasping Grounsell by either shoulder, cried out, “Go on – tell it quickly.”

“Be calm, Stafford; be yourself, my old friend,” said Grounsell, terrified at the degree of emotion he had called up. “Your own courageous spirit will not desert you now.”

“I know it,” said the old man, as, relaxing his grasp, he fell back upon the pillow, and then, turning on his face, he uttered a deep groan. “I know your tidings now,” cried he, in a burst of agony. “Oh, Grounsell, what is all other disgrace compared to this?”

“I am speaking of George – of your son,” interposed Gronnsell, hastily, and seizing with avidity the opportunity to reveal all at once. “He left this for Pratolino this morning to fight a duel, but by some mischance has fallen over a cliff, and is severely injured.”

“He’s dead, – you would tell me he is dead!” said the old man, in a faint, thrilling whisper.

“Far from it Alive, and like to live, but still sorely crushed and wounded.”

“Oh, God!” cried the old man, in a burst of emotion, “what worldliness is in my heart when I am thankful for such tidings as this! When it is a relief to me to know that my child – my only son – lies maimed and broken on a sick-bed, instead of – instead of – ” A gush of tears here broke in upon his utterance, and he wept bitterly.

Grounsell knew too well the relief such paroxysms afford to interfere with their course; while, to avoid any recurrence, even in thought, to the cause, he hurriedly told all that he knew of George’s intended meeting with the Frenchman, and his own share in disturbing the rendezvous.

Sir Stafford never spoke during this recital. The terrible shock seemed to have left its stunning influence on his faculties, and he appeared scarcely able to take in with clearness the details into which the other entered.

“She’s gone to Como, then,” were the first words he uttered, – “to this villa the Prince has lent her?”

“So I understand; and, from what Proctor says, the Russian is going to marry the Dalton girl.”

“Miss Dalton is along with Lady Hester?”

“To be sure; they travel together, and George was to have followed them.”

“Even scandal, Grounsell, can make nothing of this. What say you, man?”

“You may defy it on that score, Stafford. But let us talk of what is more imminent, – of George.”

“I must see him, Grounsell; I must see my poor boy,” said he, rising, and making an effort to get out of bed; but weakness and mental excitement together overcame him, and he sank back again, fainting and exhausted. To this a deep, heavy sleep succeeded, and Grounsell stole away, relieved in mind by having acquitted himself of his painful task, and free to address his thoughts to other cares.

“Lord Norwood wishes to see you, sir,” said a servant to the doctor, as he at last seated himself for a moment’s rest in his chamber; and before Grounsell could reply, the noble Viscount entered.

“Excuse this abrupt visit, sir; but I have just heard of poor Onslow’s accident Is there any danger in his condition?”

“Great and imminent danger, my Lord.”

“By Jove! – sorry for it you don’t happen to know how it occurred?”

“A fall, evidently, was the cause; but how incurred, I cannot even guess.”

“In the event of his coming about again, when might we expect to see him all right, – speaking loosely, of course?”

“Should he recover, it will take a month, or, perhaps, two, before he convalesces.”

“The devil it will! These Frenchmen can’t be made to understand the thing at all; and as Guilmard received a gross personal outrage, he is perfectly out of his mind at the delay in obtaining satisfaction. What is to be done?”

“I am a poor adviser in such cases, my Lord; nor do I see that the matter demands any attention from us whatever.”

“Not from you, perhaps,” said Norwood, insolently; “but I had the misfortune to go out as his friend! My position is a most painful and critical one.”

“I should suppose that no one will understand how to deal with such embarrassments better than your Lordship.”

“Thanks for the good opinion; the speech I take to be a compliment, however you meant it. I believe I am not altogether unskilled in such affairs, and it is precisely because such is the case that I am here now. Onslow, in other hands than mine, is a ruined man. The story, tell it how you will, comes to this: that, having gone out to meet a man he had grossly insulted, he wanders away from the rendezvous, and is found some hours after at the foot of the cliff, insensible. He may have fallen, he may have been waylaid, – though everything controverts this notion; or, lastly, he may have done the act himself. There will be advocates for each view of the case; but it is essential, for his honor and reputation, that one story should be authenticated. Now, I am quite ready to stand godfather to such a version, taking all the consequences, however serious, on myself.”

“This is very kind, very generous, indeed, my Lord,” said Grounsell, suddenly warming into an admiration of one he was always prejudiced against.

“Oh, I’m a regular John Bull!” said the Viscount, at once assuming the burden of that canticle, which helped him in all moments of hypocrisy. “Always stand by the old stock, – nothing like them, sir. The Anglo-Saxon blood will carry all before it yet; never suffer a rascally foreigner to put his foot on one of your countrymen. Have him out, sir; parade the fellow at once: that’s my plan.”

“I like your spirit!” cried Grounsell, enthusiastically.

“To be sure you do, old cock!” exclaimed Norwood, clapping him familiarly on the shoulder. “Depend upon it, I ‘ll pull George through this. I ‘ll manage the matter cleverly. There must be no mistake about it; no room for doubt or equivocation, you know. All straightforward, open, and manly: John Bull every inch of It That’s my notion, at least, – I hope it’s yours?”

“Perfectly, – thoroughly so!”

“Well, then, just hand that note to Sir Stafford.” Here he placed a sealed letter in Grounsell’s hand. “Tell him what I’ve just told you. Let him fairly understand the whole question, and let me have the contents this evening at the café in the Santa Trinita, – say about nine o’clock; not later than that These fellows always gather about that hour.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Grounsell.

“All right!” cried Norwood, gayly, as he arose and adjusted the curls beneath his hat. “My compliments to the old gent, and tell George not to make himself uneasy. He ‘s in safe hands. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, my Lord, good-bye,” said Grounsell, who, as he looked after him, felt, as it were, unconsciously recurring to all his former prejudices and dislikes of the noble Viscount “Those fellows,” muttered he, “are as inexplicable to me as a new malady, of which I neither know the stages nor the symptoms. The signs I take for those of health may be precisely the indications of corruption; and what I deem unsound may turn out to be exactly the opposite.” And so be fell into a musing fit, in which certainly his estimate of Lord Norwood continued steadily to fall lower and lower the longer he thought of him. “He must be a rogue! – he must be a scoundrel! Nature makes all its blackguards plausible, just as poison-berries are always brilliant to look at They are both intended to be the correctives of rash impressions, and I was only a fool ever to be deceived by him. Out of this, at all hazards, – that’s the first thing!” muttered Grounsell to himself, as he walked hastily up and down the room. “The place is like a plague district, and we must not carry an infected rag away from it! Glorious Italy, forsooth! There’s more true enlightenment, there’s a higher purpose, and a nobler view of life in the humblest English village, than in the proudest halls of their Eternal City!”

In such pleasant reflections on national character he entered Sir Stafford’s room, and found his friend seated at a table covered with newly arrived letters; the seals were all unbroken, and the sick man was turning them over, and gazing at the different handwritings with a sad and listless apathy.

“I ‘m glad you ‘ve come, Grounsell. I have not courage for this,” said he, pointing to the mass of letters before him.

“Begging impostors, one half of them, I ‘ll be sworn!” said Grounsell, seating himself to the work. “Was I not right? Here’s a Cabinet Minister suing for your vote on an Irish question, and entreating your speedy return to England, ‘where, he trusts, the object you are both interested in may be satisfactorily arranged.’ Evasive rascal! Could n’t he say, ‘you shall have the Peerage for your support’? Would n’t it be more frank and more intelligible to declare, ‘We take you at your price’? These,” said he, throwing half a dozen contemptuously from him, “are all from your constituents. The ‘independent borough’ contains seventy electors; and if you owned the patronage of the two services, with a fair share of the public offices and India, you could n’t content them. I ‘d tell them fairly, ‘I have bought you already; the article is paid for and sent home. Let us hear no more about it!’ This is more cheering. Shoenhals, of Riga, stands firm, and the Rotterdam house will weather the gale. That’s good news, Onslow!” said he, grasping the old man’s hand. “This is from Calcutta. Prospects are brightening a little in that quarter, too. Come, come, – there’s some blue in the sky. Who knows what good weather ‘s in store for us?”

Onslow’s lip trembled, and he passed his hand over his eyes without speaking.

“This is from Como,” said Grounsell, half angrily, tossing away a highly perfumed little three-cornered note.

“Give it to me, – let me see it,” said Onslow, eagerly; while with trembling fingers he adjusted his spectacles to read. Grounsell handed him the epistle, and walked to the window.

“She’s quite well,” read Sir Stafford, aloud; “they had delightful weather on the road, and found Como in full beauty on their arrival.” Grounsell grumbled some angry mutterings between his teeth, and shrugged up his shoulders disdainfully. “She inquires most kindly after me, and wishes me to join them there, for Kate Dalton’s betrothal.”

“Yet she never took the trouble to visit you when living under the same roof!” cried Grounsell, indignantly.

The old man laid down the letter, and seemed to ponder for some moments.

“What’s the amount? – how much is the sum?” asked Grounsell, bluntly.

“The amount! – the sum! – of what?” inquired Sir Stafford.

“I ask, what demand is she making, that it is prefaced thus?”

“By Heaven! if you were not a friend of more than fifty years’ standing, you should never address me as such again,” cried Onslow, passionately. “Has ill-nature so absorbed your faculties that you have not a good thought or good feeling left you?”

“My stock of them decreases every day, – ay, every hour, Onslow,” said he, with a deeper emotion than he had yet displayed. “It is, indeed, a sorry compromise, that if age is to make us wiser, it should make us less amiable, also!”

“You are not angry with me? – not offended, Grounsell?” said Onslow, grasping his hand in both his own.

“Not a bit of it But, as to temperament, I can no more help my distrust, than you can conquer your credulity, which is a happier philosophy, after all.”

“Then come, read that letter, Grounsell,” said Onslow, smiling pleasantly. “Put your prejudices aside for once, and be just, if not generous.”

Grounsell took the note, and walked to the window to read it. The note was just what he expected, – a prettily turned inquiry after her husband’s health, interwoven with various little pleasantries of travelling, incidents of the road, and so forth. The invitation was a mere suggestion, and Grounsell was half angry at how little there was to find fault with; for, even to the “Very sincerely yours, Hester Onslow,” all was as commonplace as need be. Accidentally turning over the page, however, he found a small slip of silver paper, – a bank check for five hundred pounds, only wanting Onslow’s signature. Grounsell crushed it convulsively in his palm, and handed the note back to Onslow, without a word.

“Well, are you convinced? – are you satisfied now?” asked Onslow, triumphantly.

“I am perfectly so!” said Grounsell, with a deep sigh. “You must write, and tell her that business requires your immediate presence in England, and that George’s condition will necessitate a return by sea. Caution her that the Daltons should be consulted about this marriage, which, so far as I know, they have not been; and I would advise, also, seeing that there may be some interval before you can write again, that you should send her a check, – say for five hundred pounds.”

“So you can be equitable, – Grounsell,” cried the other, joyously.

“And here is a letter from Lord Norwood,” said Grounsell, not heeding the remark, and breaking the seal as he spoke. “Laconic, certainly. ‘Let me have the enclosed by this evening. – N.’ The enclosed are five acceptances for two hundred each; the ‘value received’ being his Lordship’s services in upholding your son’s honor. Now here, at least, Onslow, I ‘ll have my own way.” And, with these words, he seated himself at a table and wrote: —

My Lord, – Living in a land where assassination is cheap, and even men of small fortune can keep a Bravo, I beg to return your Lordship’s bills, without submitting them to my friend for endorsement, your price being considerably above the tariff of the country, and more calculated to your own exigencies than the occasion which it was meant to remunerate. I am, yours,

Paul Grounsell.

“What have you said there, Grounsell? you look so self-satisfied, it can scarcely be over-civil.”

“There, – ‘To the Viscount Norwood’” said Grounsell, as he sealed and addressed the note. “We are getting through our work rapidly. In a week, or even less, if George’s symptoms show nothing worse, we shall get away from this; and even on the sea one feels half as though it were England.”

We need not follow Grounsell through the busy days which ensued, nor track him in his various negotiations with tradespeople, bankers, house-agents, and that legionary class which are called “commissionaires.” Enough if we say that, in arranging for the departure of his friends, his impressions of Italian roguery received many an additional confirmation; and that, when the last day of their sojourn arrived, his firm conviction was that none but a millionnaire could afford to live in this the very cheapest capital of Europe!