Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II.

She sat still and almost stupefied, trying to see an escape from these difficulties, but actually overwhelmed by the number and the nature of them.

“I told you awhile ago that I did not believe one word of this story of the mine, and the untold wealth that has fallen to old Fossbrooke: you, however, do believe it; you affirm the tale as if you had seen and touched the ingots; so that you need have no reluctance to ask him to help you.”

“You do not object to this course, then?” asked she, eagerly.

“How can I object? If I clutch at a plank when I’m drowning, I don’t let go because it may have nails in it. Tell him that you want to buy me off, to get rid of me; that by a couple of hundred pounds, – I wish he ‘d make it five, – you can insure my leaving the country, and that my debts here will prevent my coming back again. It’s the sort of compact he ‘ll fully concur in; and you can throw in, as if accidentally, how useless it is for him to go on persecuting me, that his confounded memory for old scores has kept my head under water all my life; and hint that those letters of Trafford’s he insists on having – ”

“He insists on having!”

“To be sure he does; I thought I had told you what brought him over here! The old meddling humbug, in his grand benevolence vein, wants to smooth down the difficulties between Lucy Lendrick and Trafford, one of which was thought to be the fellow’s attachment to you. Don’t blush; take it as coolly as I do. I ‘m not sure whether reading the correspondence aloud isn’t the best way to dispel this illusion. You can say that better than I can.”

“Trafford never wrote one line to me of which I should be afraid or ashamed to see in print.”

“These are matters of taste. There are scores of women like publicity, and would rather be notorieties for scandal than models of unnoticed virtue, so we ‘ll not discuss that. There, there; don’t look so supremely indignant and contemptuous. That expression became you well enough at three-and-twenty; but ten years, ten long years of not the very smoothest existence, leave their marks!”

She shook her head mournfully, but in silence.

“At all events,” resumed he, “declare that you object to the letters being in other hands than your own; and as to a certain paper of mine, – a perfectly worthless document, as he well knows, – let him give it to you or burn it in your presence.”

She pushed her hair back from her temples, and pressed her hands to either side of her head, as though endeavoring to collect her thoughts, and rally herself to an effort of calm determination’.

“How much of this is true?” said she, at last.

“What do you mean?” said he, sternly.

“I mean this,” said she, resolutely, – “that I want to know, if you should get this money, is it really your intention to go abroad?”

“You want a pledge from me on this?” said he, with a jeering laugh. “You are not willing to stoop to all this humiliation without having the price of it afterwards? Is not that your meaning?”

Her lips moved, but no sound was audible.

“All fair and reasonable,” said he, calmly. “It’s not every woman in the world would have the pluck to tell her husband how much meanness she would submit to simply to get rid of him; but you were always courageous, that I will say, – you have courage enough.”

“I had need of it.”

“Go on, Madam, finish your speech. I know what you would say. ‘You had need of courage for two;’ that was the courteous speech that trembled on your lip. The only thing that beats your courage is your candor! Well, I must content myself with humbler qualities. I cannot accompany you into these high flights of excellence, but I can go away; and that, after all, is something. Get me this money, and I will go, – I promise you faithfully, – go, and not come back.”

“The children,” said she, and stopped.

“Madam!” said he, with a mock-heroic air, “I am not a brute! I respect your maternal feelings, and would no more think of robbing you of your children – ”

“There, – there, that will do. Where is Sir Brook to be found, – where does he live?”

“I have his address written down, – here it is,” said he, – “the last cottage on the southern side of Howth. There is a porch to the door, which, it would seem, is distinctive, as well as three chimneys; my informant was as descriptive as Figaro. You had better keep this piece of paper as a reminder; and the trains deposit you at less than half a mile from the place.”

“I will go early to-morrow morning. Shall I find you here on my return?”

“Of that you may be certain. I can’t venture to leave the house all day; I ‘m not sure there will not be a writ out against me.”

She arose and seemed about to say something, – hesitated for a moment or two, and then slowly entered the house, and disappeared.

CHAPTER XXI. GOING OUT

In a small dinner-room of the Viceregal Lodge, in the Phoenix Park, the Viceroy sat at dinner with Sir Brook Fossbrooke. He had arrived in great haste, and incognito, from England, to make preparations for his final departure from Ireland; for his party had been beaten in the House, and expected that, in the last debate on the measure before them, they would be driven to resign office. Lord Wilmington had no personal regrets on the subject. With high station and a large fortune, Ireland, to him, meant little else than estrangement from the habits and places that he liked, with the exposure to that species of comment and remark which the Press so unsparingly bestows on all public men in England. He had accepted office to please his party; and though naturally sorry for their defeat, there was a secret selfish satisfaction at being able to go back to a life more congenial to him that more than consoled him for the ministerial reverse.

It is difficult for the small world of place-hunters and office-seekers to understand this indifference; but I have little doubt that it exists largely amongst men of high position and great fortune, and imparts to their manner that seeming dignity in adversity which we humble folk are so prone to believe the especial gift of the “order.”

Cholmondely Balfour did not take matters so coolly; he had been summoned over by telegram to take his part in the “third reading,” and went away with the depressing feeling that his official sun was about to set, and all the delightful insolences of a “department” were about to be withdrawn from him.

Balfour had a brief interview with the Viceroy before he started, and hurriedly informed him how events stood in Ireland. Nor was it without a sense of indignation that he saw how little his Excellency cared for the defeat of his party, and how much more eager he seemed to see his old friend Fossbrooke, and thank him for his conduct, than listen to the details of the critical questions of the hour.

“And this is his address, you say?” said Lord Wilmington, as he held a card in his hand. “I must send off to him at once.”

“It’s all Bentley’s fault,” said Balfour, full of the House and the debate. “If that fellow were drowning, and had only breath for it, he ‘d move an amendment! And it’s so provoking, now we had got so splendidly through our prosecutions, and were winning the Catholics round to us besides; not to say that I have at last managed to induce Lendrick to resign, and we have a Judgeship to bestow.” In a few hurried words he recounted his negotiation with Sewell, placing in the Viceroy’s hand the document of the resignation.

Lord Wilmington’s thoughts were fully as much on his old friend Fossbrooke all this time as on questions of office, and not a little disconcerted the Secretary by muttering, “I hope the dear old fellow bears me no ill-will. I would not for worlds that he should think me unmindful of him.”

And now they sat over their wine together, talking pleasantly of bygone times and old friends, – many lost to them by death, and some by distance.

“I take it,” said Fossbrooke, after a pause, “that you are not sorry to get back to England.”

Lord Wilmington smiled, but said nothing.

“You never could have cared much for the pomp and state of this office, and I suppose beyond these there is little in it.”

“You have hit it exactly. There is nothing to be done here, – nothing. The shortness of the period that is given to any man to rule this country, and the insecurity of his tenure, even for that time, compel him to govern by a party; and the result is, we go on alternately pitting one faction against the other, till we end by marshalling the nation into two camps instead of massing them into one people. Then there is another difficulty. In Ireland the question is not so much what you do as by whom you do it. It is the men, not the measures, that are thought of. There is not an infringement on personal freedom I could not carry out, if you only let me employ for its enactment some popular demagogue. Give me a good patriot in Ireland, and I ‘ll engage to crush every liberty in the island.”

“I don’t envy you your office, then,” said Fossbrooke, gravely.

“Of course you don’t; and between ourselves, Fossbrooke, I ‘m not heartbroken by the thought of laying it down. I suspect, too, that after a spell of Irish official life every statesman ought to lie fallow for a while: he grows so shifty and so unscrupulous here, he is not fit for home work.”

“And how soon do you leave?”

“Let me see,” said he, pondering. “We shall be beaten to-night or to-morrow night at farthest. They ‘ll take a day to talk it over, and another to see the Queen; and allowing three days more for the negotiations back and forward, I think I may say we shall be out by this day week. A week of worry and annoyance it will be!”

“How so?”

“All the hungry come to be fed at the last hour. They know well that an outgoing administration is always bent on filling up everything in their gift. You make a clean sweep of the larder before you give up the key to the new housekeeper; and one is scarcely so inquisitive as to the capacity of the new office-holder as he would be if, remaining in power, he had to avail himself of his services. For instance, Pemberton may not be the best man for Chief Baron, but we mean to bequeath him in that condition to our successors.”

“And what becomes of Sir William Lendrick?”

“He resigns.”

“With his peerage?”

“Nothing of the kind; he gets nothing. I ‘m not quite clear how the matter was brought about. I heard a very garbled, confused story from Balfour. As well as I could gather, the old man intrusted his step-son, Sewell, with the resignation, probably to enable him to make some terms for himself; and Sewell – a shifty sort of fellow, it would seem – held it back – the Judge being ill, and unable to act – till he found that things looked ticklish. We might go out, – the Chief Baron might die, – Heaven knows what might occur. At all events he closed the negotiation, and placed the document in Balfour’s hands, only pledging him not to act upon it for eight-and-forty hours.”

“This interests me deeply. I know the man Sewell well, and I know that no transaction in which he is mixed up can be clean-handed.”

“I have heard of him as a man of doubtful character.”

“Quite the reverse; he is the most indubitable scoundrel alive. I need not tell you that I have seen a great deal of life, and not always of its best or most reputable side. Well, this fellow has more bad in him, and less good, than any one I have ever met. The world has scores, thousands, of unprincipled dogs, who, when their own interests are served, are tolerably indifferent about the rest of humanity. They have even, at times, their little moods of generosity, in which they will help a fellow blackguard, and actually do things that seem good-natured. Not so Sewell. Swimming for his life, he ‘d like to drown the fellow that swam alongside of him.”

“It is hard to believe in such a character,” said the other.

“So it is! I stood out long – ay, for years – against the conviction; but he has brought me round to it at last, and I don’t think I can forgive the fellow for destroying in me a long-treasured belief that no heart was so depraved as to be without its relieving trait.”

“I never heard you speak so hardly before of any one, Fossbrooke.”

“Nor shall you ever again, for I will never mention this man more. These fellows jar upon one’s nature, and set it out of tune towards all humanity.”

“It is strange how a shrewd old lawyer like the Chief Baron could have taken such a man into his confidence.”

“Not so strange as it seems at first blush. Your men of the world – and Sewell is eminently one of these – wield an immense influence over others immeasurably their superiors in intellect, just by force of that practical skill which intercourse with life confers. Think for a moment how often Sewell might refer some judgment or opinion of the old Chief to that tribunal they call ‘Society,’ of whose ways of thought, or whose prejudices, Lendrick knows as much as he knows of the domestic habits of the Tonga Islanders. Now Sewell was made to acquire this influence, and to employ it.”

“That would account for his being intrusted with this,” said the Viceroy, drawing from his breast-pocket the packet Balfour had given him. “This is Sir William’s long-waited-for resignation.”

“The address is in Sewell’s writing. I know the hand well.”

“Balfour assured me that he was well acquainted with the Chief Baron’s writing, and could vouch for the authenticity of the document. Here it is.” As he said this, he opened the envelope, and drew forth a half-sheet of post paper, and handed it to Fossbrooke.

“Ay, this is veritable. I know the hand, too, and the style confirms it.” He pondered for some seconds over the paper, turned it, looked at the back of it, examining it all closely and carefully, and then, holding it out at arm’s length, he said, “You know these things far better than I do, and you can say if this be the sort of document a man would send on such an occasion.”

“You don’t mean that it is a forgery”

“No, not that; nor is it because a forgery would be an act Sewell would hold back from, I merely ask if this looks like what it purports to be? Would Sir William Lendrick, in performing so solemn an act, take a half sheet of paper, – the first that offered, it would seem, – for see, here are some words scribbled on the back, – and send in his resignation blurred, blotted, and corrected like this?”

“I read it very hurriedly. Balfour gave it to me as I landed, and I only ran my eyes over it; let me see it again. Yes, yes,” muttered he, “there is much in what you say; all these smudges and alterations are suspicious. It looks like a draft of a despatch.”

“And so it is. I ‘ll wager my head on it, – just a draft.”

“I see what you mean. It was a draft abstracted by Sewell, and forwarded under this envelope.”

“Precisely. The Chief Baron, I am told, is a hot, hasty, passionate man, with moments of rash, impetuous action; in one of these he sat down and wrote this, as Italians say, ‘per sfogarsi.’ Warm-tempered men blow off their extra steam in this wise, and then go on their way like the rest of us. He wrote this, and, having written it, felt he had acquitted a debt he owed his own indignation.”

“It looks amazingly like it; and now I remember in a confused sort of way something about a bet Balfour lost; a hundred – I am not sure it was not two hundred – ”

“There, there,” said Fossbrooke, laughing, “I recognize my honorable friend at once. I see the whole, as if it were revealed to me. He grows bolder as he goes on. Formerly his rascalities were what brokers call ‘time bargains,’ and not to be settled for till the end of the month, but now he only asks a day’s immunity.”

“A man must be a consummate scoundrel who would do this.”

“And so he is, – a fellow who stops at nothing. Oh, if the world only knew how many brigands wore diamond shirt-buttons, there would be as much terror in going into a drawing-room as people now feel about a tour in Greece. You will let me have this document for a few hours?”

“To be sure, Fossbrooke. I know well I may rely on your discretion; but what do you mean to do with it?”

“Let the Chief Baron see it, if he’s well enough; if not, I ‘ll show it to Beattie, his doctor, and ask his opinion of it. Dr. Lendrick, Sir William’s son, is also here, and he will probably be able to say if my suspicions are well founded.”

“It seems odd enough to me, Fossy, to hear you talk of your suspicions! How hardly the world must have gone with you since we met to inflict you with suspicions! You never had one long ago.”

“And shall I tell you how I came by them, Wilmington?” said he, laughing. “I have grown rich again, – there ‘s the whole secret. There’s no such corrupter as affluence. My mine has turned out a perfect Potosi, and here am I ready to think every man a knave and a rascal, and the whole world in a conspiracy to cheat me!”

“And is this fact about the mine? – tell me all about it.”

And Fossbrooke now related the story of his good fortune, dwelling passingly on the days of hardship that preceded it; but frankly avowing that it was a consummation of which he never for a moment doubted. “I knew it,” said he; “and I was not impatient. The world is always an amusing drama, and though one may not be ‘cast’ for a high part, he can still ‘come on’ occasionally, and at all events he can enjoy the performance.”

“And is this fortune to go like the others, Fossy?” said the Viceroy, laughing.

“Have I not told you how much wiser I have grown, that I trust no one? I ‘m not sure that I ‘ll not set up as a moneylender.”

“So you were forty years ago, Fossy, to my own knowledge; but I don’t suspect you found it very profitable.”

“Have I not had my fifty – ay, my five hundred – per cent in my racy enjoyment of life? One cannot be paid in meal and malt too; and I have ‘commuted,’ as they call it, and ‘taken out’ in cordiality what others prefer in cash. I do not believe there is a corner of the globe where I could not find some one to give me a cordial welcome.”

“And what are your plans?”

“I have fully a thousand; my first, however, is to purchase that place on the Shannon, where, if you remember, we met once, – the Swan’s Nest. I want to settle my friends the Lendricks in their old home. I shall have to build myself a crib near them. But before I turn squatter I ‘ll have a run over to Canada. I have a large tract there near Huron, and they have built a village on me, and now are asking me for a church and a schoolhouse and an hospital. It was but a week ago they might as well have asked me for the moon! I must see Ceylon too, and my coffee-fields. I am dying to be ‘bon Prince’ again and lower my rents. ‘There’s arrant snobbery,’ some one told me t’ other day, ‘in that same love of popularity;’ but they ‘ll have to give it even a worse name before they disgust me with it. I shall have to visit Cagliari also, and relieve Tom Lendrick, who would like, I have no doubt, to take that ‘three months in Paris’ which young fellows call ‘going over to see their friends.’”

“You are a happy fellow, Brook; perhaps the happiest I ever knew.”

“I’ll sell my secret for it cheap,” said Fossbrooke, laughing. “It is, never to go grubbing for mean motives in this life; never tormenting yourself what this might mean or that other might portend, but take the world for what it seems, or what it wishes you to believe it. Take it with its company face on, and never ask to see any one in déshabille but old and dear friends. Life has two sides, and some men spin the coin so as always to make the wrong face of the medal come uppermost. I learned the opposite plan when I was very young, and I have not forgotten it. Good-night now; I promised Beattie to look in on him before midnight, and it’s not far off, I see.”

“We shall have a day or two of you, I hope, at Crew before you leave England.”

“When I have purchased my estate and married off my young people, I ‘ll certainly make you a visit.”

CHAPTER XXII. AT HOWTH

On the same evening that Fossbrooke was dining with the Viceroy, Trafford arrived in Dublin, and set out at once for the little cottage at Howth to surprise his old friend by his sudden appearance. Tom Lendrick had given him so accurate a description of the spot that he had no difficulty in finding it. If somewhat disappointed at first on learning that Sir Brook had dined in town, and might not return till a late hour, his mind was so full of all he had to say and to do that he was not sorry to have some few hours to himself for quiet and tranquil thought. He had come direct from Malta without going to Holt, and therefore was still mainly ignorant of the sentiments of his family towards him, knowing nothing beyond the fact that Sir Brook had induced his father to see him. Even that was something. He did not look to be restored to his place as the future head of the house, but he wanted recognition and forgiveness, – the first for Lucy’s sake more than his own. The thought was too painful that his wife – and he was determined she should be his wife – should not be kindly received and welcomed by his family. “I ask nothing beyond this,” would he say over and over to himself. “Let us be as poor as we may, but let them treat us as kindred, and not regard us as outcasts. I bargain for no more.” He believed himself thoroughly and implicitly when he said this. He was not conscious with what force two other and very different influences swayed him. He wished his father, and still more his mother, should see Lucy, – not alone see her beauty and gracefulness, but should see the charm of her manner, the fascination which her bright temperament threw around her. “Why, her very voice is a spell!” cried he, aloud, as he pictured her before him. And then, too, he nourished a sense of pride in thinking how Lucy would be struck by the sight of Holt, – one of the most perfect specimens of old Saxon architecture in the kingdom; for though a long line of descendants had added largely, and incongruously too, to the building, the stern and squat old towers, the low broad battlements and square casements, were there, better blazons of birth and blood than all the gilded decorations of a herald’s college.

He honestly believed he would have liked to show her Holt as a true type of an ancient keep, bold, bluff, and stern-looking, but with an unmistakable look of power, recalling a time when there were lords and serfs, and when a Trafford was as much a despot as the Czar himself. He positively was not aware how far personal pride and vanity influenced this desire on his part, nor how far he was moved by the secret pleasure his heart would feel at Lucy’s wondering admiration.

“If I cannot say, This is your home, this is your own, I can at least say, It is from the race who have lived here for centuries he who loves you is descended. We are no ‘new rich,’ who have to fall back upon our wealth for the consideration we count upon. We were men of mark before the Normans were even heard of.” All these, I say, he felt, but knew not. That Lucy was one to care for such things he was well aware. She was intensely Irish in her reverence for birth and descent, and had that love of the traditionary which is at once the charm and the weakness of the Celtic nature. Trafford sat thinking over these things, and thinking over what might be his future. It was clear enough he could not remain in the army; his pay, barely sufficient for his support at present, would never suffice when he had a wife. He had some debts too; not very heavy, indeed, but onerous enough when their payment must be made out of the sale of his commission. How often had he done over that weary sum of subtraction! Not that repetition made matters better to him; for somehow, though he never could manage to make more of the sale of his majority, he could still, unhappily for him, continually go on recalling some debt or other that he had omitted to jot down, – an unlucky “fifty” to Jones which had escaped him till now; and then there was Sewell! The power of the unknown is incommensurable; and so it is, there is that in a vague threat that terrifies the stoutest heart. Just before he left Malta he had received a letter from a man whose name was not known to him in these terms: —

“Sir, – It has come to my knowledge professionally, that proceedings will shortly be instituted against you in the Divorce Court at the suit of Colonel Sewell, on the ground of certain letters written by you. These letters, now in the hands of Messrs. Cane & Kincaid, solicitors, Dominick Street, Dublin, may be obtained by you on payment of one thousand pounds, and the costs incurred up to this date. If it be your desire to escape the scandal and publicity of this action, and the much heavier damages that will inevitably result, you may do so by addressing yourself to