One Of Them

“Fully determined now to make my escape, I sat down and wrote a few lines to Collins, saying that a relation of mine, from whom I had some small expectations, was taken suddenly ill, and sent for me to come over and see him, so that I was obliged to start for Ireland by that night’s mail. I never once alluded to Jersey, but concluded with a kindly message to all friends, and a hasty good-bye.

“Desiring to have my servant out of the way, I despatched him with this note, and then set about making my own preparations for departure. It was now later than I suspected, so that I had barely time to pack some clothes hastily into a carpet-bag, and cautiously descended the stairs with it in my hand, opened the street door and issued forth. Before I had, however, gone ten yards from the door, the large man was at my side, and in a gruff voice offered to carry my bag. I refused as roughly, and walked on towards the cab-stand. I selected a cab, and said Euston Square; and as I did so, the big fellow mounted the box and sat down beside the driver. I saw it was no use, and, affecting to have forgotten something at my lodgings, I got out, paid the cab, and returned home. How cowardly! you’d say. No, Stocmar, I knew my men: it was not cowardly. I knew that, however they might abandon a project or forego a plan, they would never, never forgive a confederate that tried to betray them. No, no,” muttered he, below his breath; “no man shall tell me it was cowardice.

“When I saw that there was no way to turn back, I determined to go forward boldly, and even eagerly, trusting to the course of events to give me a chance of escape. I wrote to Collins to say that my relative was better, and should not require me to go over; and, in short, by eleven o’clock on the appointed Saturday, we all assembled on the deck of the ‘St Helier,’ bound for Jersey.

“Never was a jollier party met for an excursion of pleasure, – all but Hawke himself; he came aboard very ill, and went at once to his berth. He was in that most pitiable state, the commencing convalescence of delirium tremens, when all the terrors of a deranged mind still continue to disturb and distress the recovering intellect. As we went down one by one to see him, he would scarcely speak, or even notice us. At times, too, he seemed to have forgotten the circumstance which brought us all there, and he would mutter to himself, ‘It was no good job gathered all these fellows together. Where can they be going to? What can they be after?’ We had just sat down to dinner, when Towers came laughing into the cabin. ‘What do you think,’ said he to me, ‘Hawke has just told me confidentially? He said, “I ‘m not at all easy about that lot on deck,” – meaning you all. “The devil doesn’t muster his men for mere drill and parade, and the moment I land in the island I ‘ll tell the police to have an eye on them.”’ We laughed heartily at this polite intention of our host, and joked a good deal over the various imputations our presence might excite. From this we went on to talk over what was to be done if Hawke should continue ill, all being agreed that, having come so far, it would be impossible to forego our projected pleasure: and at last it was decided that I, by virtue of certain domestic relations ascribed to me, should enact the host, and do the honors of the house, and so they filled bumpers to the Regency, and I promised to be a mild Prince.

“‘There’s the thing for Godfrey,’ said Towers, as some grilled chicken was handed round; and taking the dish from the waiter, he carried it himself to Hawke, and remained while he ate it. ‘Poor devil!’ said he, as he came back, ‘he seems quite soft-hearted about my little attentions to him. He actually said, “Thank you, old fellow.’’”

Perhaps our reader will thank us if we do not follow Paten through a narrative in which the minutest detail was recorded, nor any, even the most trivial, incident forgotten, graven as they were on a mind that was to retain them to the last. All the levities they indulged in during the voyage, – which was, in fact, little other than an orgie from the hour they sailed to that they landed, dashed with little gloomy visits to that darkened sick berth where Hawke lay, – all were remembered, all chronicled.

The cottage itself – The Hawke’s Nest, as it was whimsically called – he described with all the picturesque ardor of an artist. It was truly a most lovely spot, nestled down in a cleft between the hills, and so shut in from all wintry influences that the oranges and myrtles overgrew it as though the soil were Italy. The grounds were of that half-park, half-garden order, which combines greensward and flowering border, and masses into one beauteous whole the glories of the forest-tree with the spray-like elegance of the shrub. There was a little lake, too, with an island, over whose leafy copper beeches a little Gothic spire appeared, – an imitation of some richly ornamented shrine in Moorish Spain. What was it that in this dark story would still attract him to the scenery of this spot, making him linger and dally in it as though he could not tear himself away? Why would he loiter in description of some shady alley, some woodbine-trellised path, as though the scene had no other memories but those of a blissful bygone? In fact, such was the sort of fascination the locality seemed to exercise over him, that his voice grew softer, the words faltered as he spoke them, and once he drew his hand across his eyes, as though to wipe away a tear.

“Was it not strange, Stocmar,” broke he suddenly in, “I was never able to see her one moment alone? She avoided it in fifty ways! Hawke kept his room for two days after we arrived, and we scarcely ever saw her, and when we did, it was hurriedly and passingly. Godfrey, too, he would send for one of us, – always one, mark you, alone; and after a few muttering words about his suffering, he ‘d be sure to say, ‘Can you tell me what has brought them all down here? I can’t get it out of my head that there ain’t mischief brewing.’ Now each of us in turn had heard this speech, and we conned it over and over again. ‘It’s the woman has put this notion in his head,’ said Towers. ‘I ‘ll take my oath it came from her. Look to that, Paul Hunt,’ said he to me, ‘for you have influence in that quarter.’ I retorted angrily to this, and very high words passed between us; in fact, the altercation went so far that, when we met at dinner, we never addressed or noticed each other. I ‘ll never forget that dinner. Wake seemed to range himself on Towers’s side, and Collins looked half disposed to take mine; everything that was said by one was sure to be capped by some sharp impertinence by another, and we sat there interchanging slights and sneers and half-covert insolences for hours.

“If there had been a steamer for Southampton, I ‘d have started next morning. I told Collins so when I went to my room; but he was much opposed to this, and said, ‘If we draw back now, it must be with Towers and Wake, – all or none!’ We passed nearly the entire night in discussing the point, and could not agree on it.

“I suppose that Hawke must have heard how ill we all got on together. There was a little girl – a daughter by his first wife – always in and out of the room where we were; and though in appearance a mere infant, the shrewdest, craftiest little sprite I ever beheld. Now this Clara, I suspect, told Hawke everything that passed. I know for certain that she was in the flower-garden, outside the window, during a very angry altercation between Towers and myself, and when I went up afterwards to see Hawke he knew the whole story.

“What a day that was! I had asked Loo to let me speak a few words with her alone, and, after great hesitation, she promised to meet me in the garden in the evening. I had determined on telling her everything. I was resolved to break with Towers and Wake, and I trusted to her clear head to advise how best to do it. The greater part of the morning Towers was up in Hawke’s room; he had always an immense influence over Godfrey; he knew things about him none others had ever heard of, and, when he came downstairs, he took the doctor – it was your old Professor, that mad fellow – into the library, and spent full an hour with him. When Towers came out afterwards, he seemed to have got over his angry feeling towards me, and, coming up in all seeming frankness, took my arm, and led me out into the shrubbery.

“‘Hawke is sinking rapidly,’ said he; ‘the doctor says he cannot possibly recover.’

“‘Indeed!’ said I, amazed. ‘What does he call the malady?’

“‘He says it’s a break-up, – a general smash, – lungs, liver, brain, all destroyed; a common complaint with fellows who have lived hard.’ He looked at me steadily, almost fiercely, as he said this, but I seemed quite insensible to his gaze. ‘He ‘ll not leave her a farthing,’ added he, after a moment.

“‘The greater villain he, then,’ said I. ‘It was for him she ruined herself.’

“‘Yes, yes, that was all true enough once; but now, Master Paul, – now there’s another story, you know.’

“‘If you mean under the guise of a confidence to renew the insults you dared to pass upon me yesterday,’ said I, ‘I tell you at once I ‘ll not bear it.’

“‘Can’t you distinguish between friendship and indifference?’ said he, warmly. ‘I don’t ask you to trust me with your secrets, but let us talk like men, not like children. Hawke intends to alter his will to-morrow. It had been made in her favor; at least, he left her this place here, and some small thing he had in Wales; he’s going to change everything and leave all to the girl.’

“‘It can’t be a considerable thing, after all,’ said I, peevishly, and not well knowing what I said.

“‘Pardon me,’ broke he in; ‘he has won far more than any of us suspected. He has in hard cash above two thousand pounds in the house, a mass of acceptances in good paper, and several bonds of first-rate men. I went over his papers this morning with him, and saw his book, too, for the Oaks, – a thing, I suppose, he had never shown to any living man before. He has let us all in there, Paul; he has, by Jove! for while telling us to put all upon Jeremy, he ‘s going to win with Proserpine!’

“I confess the baseness of this treachery sickened me.

“‘"How Paul will storm, and rave, and curse me when he finds it out,” said he; “but there was no love lost between us.” He never liked you, Hunt, – never.’

“‘It’s not too late yet,’ said I, ‘to hedge about and save ourselves.’

“‘No, there’s time still, especially if he “hops the twig.” Now,’ said he, after a long pause, ‘if by any chance he were to die to-night, she ‘d be safe; she’d at least inherit some hundreds a year, and a good deal of personal property.’

“‘There’s no chance of that, though,’ said I, negligently.

“‘Who told you so, Paul?’ said he, with a cunning cast of his eye.’ That old drunken doctor said he ‘d not insure him for twenty-four hours. A rum old beast he is! Do you know what he said to me awhile ago? “Captain,” said he, “do you know anything about chemistry?” “Nothing whatever,” said I. “Well,” said he, with a hiccup, – for he was far gone in liquor, – “albumen is the antidote to the muriate; and if you want to give him a longer line, let him have an egg to eat”.’”

“Good Heavens! Do you mean that he suspected – ”

“He was dead drunk two minutes afterwards, and said that Hawke was dying of typhus, and that he’d certify under his hand. ‘But no matter about him,’ said he, impatiently. ‘If Hawke goes off to-night, it will be a good thing for all of us. Here’s this imp of a child!’ muttered he, below his breath; ‘let us be careful.’ And so we parted company, each taking his own road.

“I walked about the grounds alone all day, – I need not tell you with what a heavy heart and a loaded conscience, and only came back to dinner. We were just sitting down to table, when the door opened, and, like a corpse out of his grave, Hawke stole slowly in, and sat down amongst us. He never spoke a word, nor looked at any one. I swear to you, so terrible was the apparition, so ghastly, and so death-like, that I almost doubted if he were still living.

“‘Well done, old boy! there ‘s nothing will do you such good as a little cheering up,’ cried Towers.

“‘She’s asleep,’ said he, in a low, feeble voice, ‘and so I stole down to eat my last dinner with you.’

“‘Not the last for many a year to come,’ said Wake, filling his glass. ‘The doctor says you are made of iron.’

“‘A man of mettle, I suppose,’ said he, with a feeble attempt to laugh.

“‘There! isn’t he quite himself again?’ cried Wake. ‘By George! he ‘ll see us all down yet!’

“‘Down where?’ said Hawke, solemnly. And the tone and the words struck a chill over us.

“We did not rally for some time, and when we did, it was with an effort forced and unnatural. Hawke took something on his plate, but ate none of it, turning the meat over with his fork in a listless way. His wine, too, he laid down when half-way to his lips, and then spat it out over the carpet, saying to himself something inaudible.

“‘What’s the matter, Godfrey? Don’t you like that capital sherry?’ said Towers.

“‘No,’ said he, in a hollow, sepulchral voice.

“‘We have all pronounced it admirable,’ went on the other.

“‘It burns, – everything burns,’ said the sick man.

“I filled him a glass of iced water and handed it to him, and Towers gave me a look so full of hate and vengeance that my hand nearly let the tumbler drop.

“‘Don’t drink cold water, man!’ cried Towers, catching his arm; ‘that is the worst thing in the world for you.’

“‘It won’t poison me, will it?’ said Hawke. And he fixed his leaden, glazy gaze on Towers.

“‘What the devil do you mean?’ cried he, savagely. ‘This is an ugly jest, sir.’

“The sick man, evidently more startled by the violence of the manner than by the words themselves, looked from one to the other of us all round the table.

“‘Forgive me, old fellow,’ burst in Towers, with an attempt to laugh; ‘but the whole of this day, I can’t say why or how, but everything irritates and chafes me. I really believe that we all eat and drink too well here. We live like fighting-cocks, and, of course, are always ready for conflict.’

“We all did our best to forget the unpleasant interruption of a few minutes back, and talked away with a sort of over-eagerness. But Hawke never spoke; there he sat, turning his glazed, filmy look from one to the other, as though in vain trying to catch up something of what went forward. He looked so ill – so fearfully ill, all the while, that it seemed a shame to sit carousing there around him, and so I whispered to Collins; but Towers overheard me, and said,

“‘All wrong. You don’t know what tough material he is made of. This is the very thing to rally him, – eh, Godfrey?’ cried he, louder. ‘I ‘m telling these fellows that you ‘ll be all the better for coming down amongst us, and that when I’ve made you a brew of that milk-punch you are so fond of – ’

“‘It won’t burn my throat, will it?’ whined out the sick man.

“‘Burn your throat! not a bit of it; but warm your blood up, give energy to your heart, and brace your nerves, so that before the bowl is finished you ‘ll sing us “Tom Hall;” or, better still, “That rainy day I met her,” —

“That rainy day I met her,When she tripped along the street,And, with petticoat half lifted,Showed a dainty pair of feet.”

“‘How does it go?’ said he, trying to catch the tune.

“A ghastly grin – an expression more horrible than I ever saw on a human face before – was Hawke’s recognition of this appeal to him, and, beating his fingers feebly on the table, he seemed trying to recall the air.

“‘I can’t stand this any longer,’ whispered Wake to me; ‘the man is dying!’

“‘Confound you for a fool!’ said Towers, angrily. ‘You ‘ll see what a change an hour will make in him. I ‘ve got the receipt for that milk-punch up in my room. I ‘ll go and fetch it’ And with this he arose, and hastily left the room.

“‘Where’s Tom?’ said the sick man, with a look of painful eagerness. ‘Where is he?’

“‘He’s gone for the receipt of the milk-punch; he’s going to make a brew for you!’ said I.

“‘But I won’t take it. I ‘ll taste nothing more,’ said he, with a marked emphasis. ‘I ‘ll take nothing but what Loo gives me,’ muttered he, below his breath. And we all exchanged significant looks with each other.

“‘This will never do,’ murmured Wake, in a low voice. ‘Say something – tell a story – but let us keep moving.’

“And Collins began some narrative of his early experiences on the Turf. The story, like all such, was the old burden of knave and dupe, – the man who trusted and the man who cheated. None of us paid much attention to the details, but drank away at our wine, and sent the decanters briskly round, when suddenly, at the mention of a horse being found dead in his stall on the morning he was to have run, Hawke broke in with ‘Nobbled! Just like me!’

“Though the words were uttered in a sort of revery, and with a bent-down head, we all were struck dumb, and gazed ruefully at each other. ‘Where’s Towers all this time?’ said Collins to me, in a whisper. I looked at my watch, and saw that it was forty-four minutes since he left the room. I almost started up from my seat with terror, as I thought what this long absence might portend. Had he actually gone off, leaving us all to the perils that were surrounding us? Was it that he had gone to betray us to the law? I could not speak from fear when the door opened, and he came in and sat down in his place. Though endeavoring to seem easy and unconcerned, I could mark that he wore an air of triumph and success that he could not subdue.

“‘Here comes the brew,’ said he, as the servant brought in a large smoking bowl of fragrant mixture.

“‘I ‘ll not touch it!’ said Hawke, with a resolute tone that startled us.

“‘What! after giving me more than half an hour’s trouble in preparing it,’ said Towers. ‘Come, old fellow, that is not gracious.’

“‘Drink it yourselves!’ said Hawke, sulkily.

“‘So we will, after we have finished this Burgundy,’ said Towers. ‘But, meanwhile, what will you have? It’s poor fun to sit here with an empty glass.’ And he filled him out a goblet of the milk-punch and placed it before him. ‘Here’s to the yellow jacket with black sleeves,’ said he, lifting his glass; ‘and may we see him the first “round the corner.”’

“‘First “round the corner!”’ chorused the rest of us. And Hawke, catching up the spirit of the toast, seized his glass and drank it off.

“‘Iknew he ‘d drink his own colors if he had one leg in the grave!’ said Towers.

“The clock on the mantelpiece struck ten at the moment. It was the hour I was to meet her in the shrubbery; and so, pretending to go in search of my cigar-case, I slipped away and left them. As I was passing behind Hawke’s chair, he made a gesture to me to come near him. I bent down my head to him, and he said, ‘It won’t do this time; she ‘ll not meet you, Paul.’ These were the last words I ever heard him speak.”

When Paten had got thus far, he walked away from his friend, and, leaning his arm on the bulwark, seemed overwhelmed with the dreary retrospect. He remained thus for a considerable time, and only rallied as Stocmar, drawing his arm within his, said, “Come, come, this is no fresh sorrow now. Let me hear the remainder.”

“He spoke truly,” said he, in a broken voice. “She never came! I walked the grounds for above an hour and a half, and then I came back towards the cottage. There was a light in her room, and I whistled to attract her notice, and threw some gravel against the glass, but she only closed the shutters, and did not mind me. I cannot tell you how my mind was racked between the actual terror of the situation and the vague dread of some unknown evil. What had produced this change in her? Why had she broken with me? Could it be that Towers had seen her in that long interval he was absent from the table, and, if so, to what intent? She always hated and dreaded him; but who could tell what influence such a man might acquire in a moment of terrible interest? A horrible sense of jealousy – not the less maddening that it was shadowy and uncertain – now filled my mind; and – would you believe it? – I thought worse of Towers for his conduct towards me than for the dreadful plot against Hawke. Chance led me, as I walked, to the bank of the little lake, where I stood for some time thinking. Suddenly a splash – too heavy for the spring of a fish – startled me, and immediately after I heard the sound of some one forcing his way through the close underwood beside me. Before I had well rallied from my astonishment, a voice I well knew to be that of Towers, cried out, —

“‘Who ‘s there? – who are you?’

“I called out, ‘Hunt, – Paul Hunt!’

“‘And what the devil brings you here, may I ask?’ said he, insolently, but in a tone that showed he had been drinking deeply.

“It was no time to provoke discord; it was a moment that demanded all we could muster of concession and agreement, and so I simply told how mere accident had turned my steps in this direction.

“‘What if I said I don’t believe you, Paul Hunt?’ retorted he, savagely. ‘What if I said that I see your whole game in this business, and know every turn and every trick you mean to play us?’

“If you had not drunk so much of Godfrey’s Burgundy,’ said I, ‘you ‘d never have spoken this way to an old friend.’

“‘Friend be – !’ cried he, savagely. ‘I know no friends but the men who will share danger with you as well as drink out of the same bottle. Why did you leave us this evening?’

“‘I’ll be frank with you, Tom,’ said I. ‘I had made a rendezvous with Louisa; but she never came.’

“‘Why should she?’ muttered he, angrily. ‘Why should she trust the man who is false to his pals?’

“‘That I have never been,’ broke I in. ‘Ask Hawke himself. Ask Godfrey, and he’ll tell you whether I have ever dropped a word against you.’

“‘No, he would n’t,’ said he, doggedly.

“‘I tell you he would,’ cried I. ‘Let us go to him this minute.’

“‘I ‘d rather not, if the choice were given me,’ said he, with a horrid laugh.

“‘Do you mean,’ cried I, in terror, – ‘do you mean that it is all over?’

“‘All over!’ said he, gravely, and as though his clouded faculties were suddenly cleared. ‘Godfrey knows all about it by this time,’ muttered he, half to himself.

“‘Would to Heaven we had never come here!’ burst I in, for my heart was breaking with anguish and remorse. ‘How did it happen, and where?’

“‘In the chair where you last saw him. We thought he had fallen asleep, and were for having him carried up to bed, when he gave a slight shudder and woke up again.

“Where’s Loo?” cried he, in a weak voice; and then, before we could answer, he added, “Where ‘s Hunt?”

“‘"Paul was here a moment ago; he ‘ll be back immediately.”

“‘He gave a laugh, – such a laugh I hope never to hear again. Cold as he lies there now, that terrible grin is on his face yet. You ‘ve done it this time, Tom,” said he to me, in a whisper. “What do you mean?” said I. “Death!” said he; “it’s all up with me, – your time is coming.” And he gave a ghastly grin, sighed, and it was over.’

“We both sat down on the damp ground, and never spoke for nigh an hour. At last Tom said, ‘We ought to be back in the house, and trying to make ourselves useful, Paul.’

“I arose, and walked after him, not knowing well whither I was going. When we reached the little flower-garden, we could see into the dining-room. The branch of wax-candles were still lighted, but burnt down very low. All had left; there was nothing there but the dead man sitting up in his chair, with his eyes staring, and his chin fallen. ‘Craven-hearted scoundrels!’ cried Towers. ‘The last thing I said was to call in the servants, and say that their master had fainted; and see, they have run away out of sheer terror. Ain’t these hopeful fellows to go before the coroner’s inquest?’ I was trembling from head to foot all this while, and had to hold Towers by the arm to support myself. ‘You are not much better!’ said he, savagely. ‘Get to bed, and take a long sleep, man. Lock your door, and open it to none till I come to you.’ I staggered away as well as I could, and reached my room. Once alone there, I fell on my knees and tried to pray, but I could not. I could do nothing but cry, – cry, as though my heart would burst; and I fell off asleep, at last, with my head on the bedside, and never awoke till the next day at noon. Oh!” cried he, in a tone of anguish, “do not ask me to recall more of this dreadful story; I’d rather follow the others to the scaffold, than I ‘d live over again that terrible day. But you know the rest, – the whole world knows it. It was the ‘Awful Tragedy in Jersey’ of every newspaper of England; even to the little cottage, in the print-shop windows, the curiosity of the town was gratified. The Pulpit employed the theme to illustrate the life of the debauchee; and the Stage repeated the incidents in a melodrama. With a vindictive inquisitiveness, too, the Press continued to pry after each of us, whither we had gone, and what had become of us. I myself, at last, escaped further scrutiny by the accidental circumstance of a pauper, called Paul Hunt, having died in a poor-house, furnishing the journalist who recorded it one more occasion for moral reflection and eloquence. Collins lived, I know not how or where. She sailed for Australia, but I believe never went beyond the Cape.”