Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II.

Charles James Lever

Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II

CHAPTER I. A LEVANTER

The storm raged fearfully during the night, and the sea rose to a height that made many believe some earthquake had occurred in one of the islands near. Old trees that resisted the gales of former hurricanes were uprooted, and the swollen streams tore down amongst the fallen timber, adding to the clamor of the elements and increasing the signs of desolation and ruin that abounded.

It was, as Tom called it, a “regular Levanter,” one of those storms which in a brief twenty-four hours can do the work of years in destruction and change.

Amongst the group of fishermen who crouched under a rock on the shore, sad predictions were uttered as to the fate of such as were at sea that night, and the disasters of bygone years were recalled, and the story of a Russian liner that was lost off Spartivento, and the Spanish admiral who was wrecked on the rocks off Melissa, were told with all the details eyewitnesses could impart to them.

“Those fellows have driven me half distracted, Lucy,” said Tom, as he came in wet and dripping, “with their tales of shipwreck; and one of them declares that he saw a large paddle-wheel steamer under English colors drifting to the southward this morning, perfectly helpless and unmanageable. I wish I could get over to Cagliari, and hear tidings of her.”

“Of course that is impossible,” said she, with a shudder.

“So they tell me. They say there’s not a boat in the island would live five minutes in that sea.”

“And the gale seems increasing too.”

“So it does. They say, just before the storm ends it blows its very hardest at the finish, and then stops as suddenly as it burst forth.”

By noon the gale began to decline, the sun burst out, and the sea gradually subsided, and in a few hours the swollen torrents changed to tiny rivulets, clear as crystal. The birds were singing in the trees, and the whole landscape, like a newly washed picture, came out in fresher and brighter color than ever. Nor was it easy to believe that the late hurricane had ever existed, so little trace of it could be seen on that rocky island.

A little before sunset a small “latiner” rounded the point, and stood in towards the little bay. She had barely wind enough to carry her along, and was fully an hour in sight before she anchored. As it was evident she was a Cagliari boat, Tom was all impatient for her news, and went on board of her at once. The skipper handed him a letter from Sir Brook, saying, “I was to give you this, sir, and say I was at your orders.” Tom broke the seal, but before he had read half-a-dozen lines, he cried out: “All right! shove me on shore, and come in to me in an hour. By that time I ‘ll tell you what I decide on.”

“Here’s great news, Lucy,” cried he. “The ‘Cadmus’ troop-ship has put into Cagliari disabled, foremast lost, one paddle-wheel carried away, all the boats smashed, but her Majesty’s – th safe and sound. Colonel Cave very jolly, and Major Trafford, if you have heard of such a person, wild with joy at the disaster of being shipwrecked.”

“Oh, Tom, do be serious. What is it at all?” said she, as, pale with anxiety, she caught his arm to steady herself.

“Here’s the despatch, – read it yourself if you won’t believe me. This part here is all about the storm and the other wrecks; but here, this is the important part, in your eyes at least.

“‘Cave is now with me up here, and Trafford is to join us to-night. The ship cannot possibly be fit for sea before ten days to come; and the question is, Shall we go over and visit you, or will you and Lucy come here? One or other of these courses it must be, and it is for you to decide which suits you best. You know as well as myself what a sorry place this is to ask dear Lucy to come to, but, on the other hand, I know nothing as to the accommodation your cottage offers. For my own part it does not signify; I can sleep on board any craft that takes me over; but have you room for the soldiers? – I mean Cave and Trafford. I have no doubt they will be easily put up; and if they could be consulted, would rather bivouac under the olives than not come. At all events, let the boat bring yourselves or the invitation for us, – and at once, for the impatience of one here (I am too discreet to particularize) is pushing my own endurance to its limits.’

“Now, Lucy, what’s it to be? Decide quickly, for the skipper will be here soon for his answer.”

“I declare I don’t know, Tom,” said she, faltering at every word. “The cottage is very small, the way we live here very simple: I scarcely think it possible we can ask any one to be a guest – ”

“So that you opine we ought to go over to Cagliari?” burst he in.

“I think you ought, Tom, certainly,” said she, still more faintly.

“I see,” said he, dryly, “you ‘ll not be afraid of being left alone here?”

“No, not in the least,” said she; and her voice was now a mere whisper, and she swayed slightly back and forward like one about to faint.

“Such being the case,” resumed Tom, “what you advise strikes me as admirable. I can make your apologies to old Sir Brook. I can tell him, besides, that you had scruples on the propriety, – there may be Mrs. Grundys at Cagliari, who would be shocked, you know; and then, if you should get on here comfortably, and not feel it too lonely, why, perhaps, I might be able to stay with them till they sail.”

She tried to mutter a Yes, but her lips moved without a sound.

“So that is settled, eh?” cried he, looking full at her.

She nodded, and then turned away her head.

“What an arrant little hypocrite it is!” said he, drawing his arm around her waist; “and with all the will in the world to deceive, what a poor actress! My child, I know your heart is breaking this very moment at my cruelty, my utter barbarity, and if you had only the courage, you ‘d tell me I was a beast!”

“Oh! Tom, – oh! dear Tom,” said she, hiding her face on his shoulder.

“Dear Tom, of course, when there ‘s no help for it. And this is a specimen of the candor and frankness you promised me!”

“But, Tom,” said she, faltering at every word, “it is not – as you think; it is not as you believe.”

“What is not as I believe?” said he, quickly.

“I mean,” added she, trembling with shame and confusion, “there is no more – that it ‘s over – all over!” And unable to endure longer, she burst into tears, and buried her face between her hands.

“My own dear, dear sister,” said he, pressing her to his side, “why have you not told me of this before?”

“I could not, I could not,” sobbed she.

“One word more, Lu, and only one. Who was in fault? I mean, darling, was this your doing or his?”

“Neither, Tom; at least, I think so. I believe that some deceit was practised, – some treachery; but I don’t know what, nor how. In fact, it is all a mystery to me; and my misery makes it none the clearer.”

“Tell me, at least, whatever you know.”

“I will bring you the letter,” said she, disengaging herself from him.

“And did he write to you?” asked he, fiercely.

“No; he did not write, – from him I have heard nothing.”

She rushed out of the room as she spoke, leaving Tom in a state of wild bewilderment. Few as were the minutes of her absence, the interval to him seemed like an age of torture and doubt. Weak, and broken by illness, his fierce spirit was nothing the less bold and defiant; and over and over as he waited there, he swore to himself to bring Trafford to a severe reckoning if he found that he had wronged his sister.

“How noble of her to hide all this sorrow from me, because she saw my suffering! What a fine nature! And it is with hearts like these fellows trifle and temper, till they end by breaking them! Poor thing! might it not be better to leave her in the delusion of thinking him not a scoundrel, than to denounce and brand him?”

As he thus doubted and debated with himself, she entered the room. Her look was now calm and composed, but her face was lividly pale, and her very lips bloodless. “Tom,” said she, gravely, “I don’t think I would let you see this letter but for one reason, which is, that it will convince you that you have no cause of quarrel whatever with him.”

“Give it to me, – let me read it,” burst he in, impatiently; “I have neither taste nor temper for any more riddles, – leave me to find my own road through this labyrinth.”

“Shall I leave you alone, Tom?” said she, timidly, as she handed him the letter.

“Yes, do so. I think all the quicker when there’s none by me.” He turned his back to the light, as he sat down, and began the letter.

“I believe I ought to tell you first,” said she, as she stood with her hand on the lock of the door, “the circumstances under which that was written.”

“Tell me nothing whatever, – let me grope out my own road;” and now she moved away and left him.

He read the letter from beginning to end, and then re-read it. He saw there were many allusions to which he had no clew; but there was a tone in it which there was no mistaking, and that tone was treachery. The way in which the writer deprecated all possible criticism of her life, at the outset, showed how sensitive she was to such remark, and how conscious of being open to it. Tom knew enough of life to be aware that the people who affect to brave the world are those who are past defying it. So far at least he felt he had read her truly; but he had to confess to himself that beyond this it was not easy to advance.

On the second reading, however, all appeared more clear and simple. It was the perfidious apology of a treacherous woman for a wrong which she had hoped, but had not been able, to inflict. “I see it all,” cried Tom; “her jealousy has been stimulated by discovering Trafford’s love for Lucy, and this is her revenge. It is just possible, too, she may have entangled him. There are meshes that men can scarcely keep free of. Trafford may have witnessed the hardship of her daily life – seen the indignities to which she submits – and possibly pitied her; if he has gone no further than this, there is no great mischief. What a clever creature she must be!” thought he again, – “how easy it ought to be for a woman like that to make a husband adore her; and yet these women will not be content with that. Like the cheats at cards, they don’t care to win by fair play.” He went to the door, and called out “Lucy!”

The tone of his voice sounded cheerily, and she came on the instant.

“How did you meet after this?” asked he, as she entered.

“We have not met since that. I left the Priory, and came abroad three days after I received it.”

“So then that was the secret of the zeal to come out and nurse poor brother Tom, eh?” said he, laughing.

“You know well if it was,” said she, as her eyes swam in tears.

“No, no, my poor dear Lu, I never thought so; and right glad am I to know that you are not to live in companionship with the woman who wrote that letter.”

“You think ill of her?”

“I will not tell you half how badly I think of her; but Trafford is as much wronged here as any one, or else I am but a sorry decipherer of mysterious signs.”

“Oh, Tom!” cried she, clasping his hand and looking at him as though she yearned for one gleam of hope.

“It is so that I read it; but I do not like to rely upon my own sole judgment in such a case. Will you trust me with this letter, and will you let me show it to Sir Brooke? He is wonderfully acute in tracing people’s real meaning through all the misty surroundings of expression. I will go over to Cagliari at once, and see him. If all be as I suspect, I will bring them back with me. If Sir Brook’s opinion be against mine, I will believe him to be the wiser man, and come back alone.”

“I consent to everything, Tom, if you will give me but one pledge, – you must give it seriously, solemnly.”

“I guess what you mean, Lucy; your anxious face has told the story without words. You are afraid of my hot temper. You think I will force a quarrel on Trafford, – yes, I knew what was in your thoughts. Well, on my honor I will not. This I promise you faithfully.”

She threw herself into his arms and kissed him, muttering, in a low voice, “My own dear brother,” in his ear.

“It is just as likely you may see me back again tomorrow, Lucy, and alone too. Mind that, girl! The version I have taken of this letter may turn out to be all wrong. Sir Brook may show me how and where and why I have mistaken it; and if so, Lu, I must have a pledge from you, – you know what I mean.”

“You need none, Tom,” said she, proudly; “you shall not be ashamed of your Sister.”

“That was said like yourself, and I have no fears about you now. You will be anxious – you can’t help being anxious, my poor child – about all this; but your uncertainty shall be as short as I can make it. Look out for me, at all events, with the evening breeze. I’ll try and catch the land-wind to take me up. If I fly no ensign, Lucy, I am alone; if you see the ‘Jack,’ it will mean I have company with me. Do you understand me?”

She nodded, but did not speak.

“Now, Lu, I’ll just get my traps together, and be off; that light Tramontana wind will last till daybreak, and by that time the sea-breeze will carry me along pleasantly. How I ‘d like to have you with me!”

“It is best as it is, Tom,” said she, trying to smile.

“And if all goes wrong, – I mean if all does not go right, – Lucy, I have got a plan, and I am sure Sir Brook won’t oppose it. We ‘ll just pack up, wish the lead and the cobalt and the rest of it a good-bye, and start for the Cape and join father. There’s a project after your own heart, girl.”

“Oh, Tom dearest, if we could do that!”

“Think over it till we meet again, and it will at least keep away darker thoughts.”

CHAPTER II. BY THE MINE AT LA VANNA

The mine of Lavanna, on which Sir Brook had placed all his hopes of future fortune, was distant from the town of Cagliari about eighteen miles. It was an old, a very old shaft; Livy had mentioned it, and Pliny, in one of his letters, compares people of sanguine and hopeful temperament with men who believe in the silver ore of Lavanna. There had therefore been a traditionary character of failure attached to the spot, and not impossibly this very circumstance had given it a greater value in Fossbrooke’s estimation; for he loved a tough contest with fortune, and his experiences had given him many such.

Popular opinion certainly set down the mine as a disastrous enterprise, and the list of those who had been ruined by the speculation was a long one. Nothing daunted by all he had heard, and fully convinced in his own mind that his predecessors had earned their failures by their own mistakes, Fossbrooke had purchased the property many years before, and there it had remained, like many of his other acquisitions, uncared for and unthought of, till the sudden idea had struck him that he wanted to be rich, and to be rich instantaneously.

He had coffee-plantations somewhere in Ceylon, and he had purchased largely of land in Canada; but to utilize either of these would be a work of time, whereas the mine would yield its metal bright and ready for the market. It was so much actual available money at once.

His first care was to restore, so far as to make it habitable, a dreary old ruinous barrack of a house, which a former speculator had built to hold all his officials and dependants. A few rooms that opened on a tumble-down terrace – of which some marble urns yet remained to bear witness of former splendor – were all that Sir Brook could manage to make habitable, and even these would have seemed miserable and uncomfortable to any one less bent on “roughing it” than himself.

Some guns and fishing-gear covered one wall of the room that served as dinner-room; and a few rude shelves on the opposite side contained such specimens of ore as were yet discovered, and the three or four books which formed their library; the space over the chimney displaying a sort of trophy of pipes of every sort and shape, from the well-browned meerschaum to the ignoble “dudeen” of Irish origin.

These were the only attempts at decoration they had made, but it was astonishing with what pleasure the old man regarded them, and with what pride he showed the place to such as accidentally came to see him.

“I’ll have a room yet, just arrayed in this fashion, Tom,” would he say, “when we have made our fortune, and go back to live in England. I ‘ll have a sort of snuggery a correct copy of this; all the old beams in the ceiling, and those great massive architraves round the doors, shall be exactly followed, and the massive stone mantelpiece; and it will remind us, as we sit there of a winter’s night, of the jolly evenings we have had here after a hard day’s work in the shaft. Won’t I have the laugh at you, Tom, too, as I tell you of the wry face you used to make over our prospects, the hang-dog look you ‘d give when the water was gaining on us, and our new pump got choked!”

Tom would smile at all this, though secretly nourishing no such thoughts for the future. Indeed, he had for many a day given up all hope of making his fortune as a miner, and merely worked on with the dogged determination not to desert his friend.

On one of the large white walls of their sitting-room Sir Brook had sketched in charcoal a picture of the mine, in all the dreariest aspect of its poverty, and two sad-looking men, Tom and himself, working at the windlass over the shaft; and at the other extremity of the space there stood a picturesque mansion, surrounded with great forest trees, under which deer were grouped, and two men – the same – were riding up the approach on mettlesome horses; the elder of the two, with outstretched arm and hand, evidently directing his companion’s attention to the rich scenes through which they passed. These were the “now” and “then” of the old man’s vision, and he believed in them, as only those believe who draw belief from their own hearts, unshaken by all without.

It was at the close of a summer day, just in that brief moment when the last flicker of light tinges the earth at first with crimson and then with deep blue, to give way a moment later to black night, that Sir Brook sat with Colonel Cave after dinner, explaining to his visitor the fresco on the wall, and giving, so far as he might, his reasons to believe it a truthful foreshadowing of the future.

“But you tell me,” said Cave, “that the speculation has proved the ruin of a score of fellows.”

“So it has. Did you ever hear of the enterprise, at least of one worth the name, that had not its failures? or is success anything more in reality than the power of reasoning out how and why others have succumbed, and how to avoid the errors that have beset them? The men who embarked in this scheme were alike deficient in knowledge and in capital.”

“Ah, indeed!” muttered Cave, who did not exactly say what his looks implied. “Are you their superior in these requirements?”

Sir Brook was quick enough to note the expression, and hastily said, “I have not much to boast of myself in these respects, but I possess that which they never had, – that without which men accomplish nothing in life, going through the world mere desultory ramblers, and not like sturdy pilgrims, ever footing onward to the goal of their ambition. I have Faith!”

“And young Lendrick, what says he to it?”

“He scarcely shares my hopes, but he shows no signs of backwardness.”

“He is not sanguine, then?”

“Nature did not make him so, and a man can no more alter his temperament than his stature. I began life with such a capital of confidence that, though I have been an arrant spendthrift, I have still a strong store by me. The cunning fellows laugh at us and call us dupes; but let me tell you, Cave, if accounts were squared, it might turn out that even as a matter of policy incredulity has not much to boast of, and were it not so, this world would be simply intolerable.”

“I’d like, however, to hear that your mine was not all outlay,” said Cave, bringing back the theme to its starting-point.

“So should I,” said Fossbrooke, dryly.

“And I ‘d like to learn that some one more conversant – more professional in these matters – ”

“Less ignorant than myself, in a word,” said Fossbrooke, laughing. “You mean you’d like to hear a more trustworthy prophet predict as favorably; and with all that I agree heartily.”

“There’s no one would be better pleased to be certain that the fine palace on the wall there was not a castle in Spain. I think you know that.”

“I do, Cave, – I know it well; but bear in mind, your best runs in the hunting-field have not always been when you have killed your fox. The pursuit, when it is well sustained, with its fair share of perils met, dared, and overcome, – this is success. Whatever keeps a man’s heart up and his courage high to the end, is no mean thing. I own to you I hope to win, and I don’t know that there is any such failure possible as would quench this hope.”

“Just what Trafford said of you when he came back from that fishing-excursion,” cried Cave, as though carried away by a sudden burst of thought.

“What a good fellow he is! Shall we have him up here to-night?”

“No; some of our men have been getting into scrapes at Cagliari, and I have been obliged to ask him to stay there and keep things in order.”

“Is his quarrel with his family final, or is there still an opening to reconciliation?”

“I ‘m afraid not. Some old preference of his mother’s for the youngest son has helped on the difference; and then certain stories she brought back from Ireland of Lionel’s doings there, or at least imputed doings, have, I suspect, steeled his father’s heart completely against him.”

“I’ll stake my life on it there is nothing dishonorable to attach to him. What do they allege?”

“I have but a garbled version of the story, for from Trafford himself I have heard nothing; but I know, for I have seen the bills, he has lost largely at play to a very dangerous creditor, who also accuses him of designs on his wife; and the worst of this is that the latter suspicion originated with Lady Trafford.”

“I could have sworn it. It was a woman’s quarrel, and she would sacrifice her own son for vengeance. I ‘ll be able to pay her a very refined compliment when I next see her, Cave, and tell her that she is not in the least altered from the day I first met her. And has Lionel been passed over in the entail?”

“So he believes, and I think with too good reason.”

“And all because he loved a girl whose alliance would confer honor on the proudest house in the land. I think I ‘ll go over and pay Holt a visit. It is upwards of forty years since I saw Sir Hugh, and I have a notion I could bring him to reason.”

Cave shook his head doubtingly.

“Ay, to be sure,” sighed Fossbrooke, “it does make a precious difference whether one remonstrates at the head of a fine fortune or pleads for justice in a miner’s jacket. I was forgetting that, Cave. Indeed, I am always forgetting it. And have they made no sort of settlement on Lionel, – nothing to compensate him for the loss of his just expectations?”

“I suspect not. He has told me nothing beyond the fact that he is to have the purchase-money for the lieutenant-colonelcy, which I was ready and willing to vacate in his favor, but which we are unable to negotiate, because he owes a heavy sum, to the payment of which this must go.”

“Can nothing be done with his creditor? – can we not manage to secure the debt and pay the interest?”

“This same creditor is one not easily dealt with,” said Cave, slowly.

“A money-lender?”

“No. He ‘s the man I just told you wanted to involve Trafford with his own wife. As dangerous a fellow as ever lived. I take shame to myself to own that, though acquainted with him for years, I never really knew his character till lately.”

“Don’t think the worse of yourself for that, Cave. The faculty to read bad men at sight argues too much familiarity with badness. I like to hear a fellow say, ‘I never so much as suspected it.’ Is this, man’s name a secret?”

“No. Nothing of the kind. I don’t suppose you ever met him, but he is well known in the service, – better perhaps in India than at home, – he served on Rolffe’s staff in Bengal. His name is Sewell.”

“What! Dudley Sewell?”