"Fact, I a.s.sure you! I have a confoundedly bad memory; it has got me into scores of sc.r.a.pes all through life. Then, this very evening, thinking that the Chief could n"t rub through, I made a stupid wager with Balfour that the seat on the Bench would be vacant within a week; and finished my bad run of luck by losing--I can"t say how much, but very heavily, indeed--at the Club."
A low faint sigh escaped her, but not a word.
"As to bills renewed, protested, and to be protested," said he, in the same easy tone, "they are legion. These take their course, and are no worse than any other man"s bills; I don"t fret myself about _them_. As in the old days of chivalry one never cared how scurvily he treated the "villeins," so he behaved like a knight to his equals; so nowadays a man must book up at Tattersall"s though he cheat his tailor. I like the theory too; it keeps "the ball rolling," if it does nothing else."
All this he rattled out as though his own fluency gave him a sort of Dutch courage; and who knows, too,--for there is a fund of vanity in these men,--if he was not vain of showing with what levity he could treat dangers that might have made the stoutest heart afraid?
"Taking the "tottle of the whole" of these,--as old Joe Hume used to say,--it"s an ugly balance!"
"What do you mean to do?" said she, quietly.
"Bolt, I suppose. I see nothing else for it."
"And will that meet the difficulty?"
"No, but it will secure _me_; secure me from arrest, and the other unpleasant consequences that might follow arrest. To do this, however, I need money, and I have not five pounds--no, nor, I verily believe, five shillings--in the world."
"There are a few trinkets of mine upstairs. I never wear them--"
"Not worth fifty pounds, the whole lot; nor would one get half fifty for them in a moment of pressure."
"We have some plate--"
"We had, but I sold it three weeks ago; and that reminds me there was a rum old tea-urn got somehow mixed up with our things, and I sold it too, though it has Lendrick"s crest upon it. You "ll have to get it back some of these days,--I told the fellow not to break it up till he heard from you."
"Then what is to be done?" said she, eagerly.
"That"s the question; travelling is the one thing that can"t be done on tick."
"If you were to go down to the Nest--"
"But our tenure expires on the seventeenth, just one fortnight hence,--not to say that I couldn"t call myself safe there one hour. No, no; I must manage to get abroad, and instantly, that I may escape from my present troubles; but I must strike out some way of life,--something that will keep me."
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 doc.u.ment, 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 p.r.o.ne 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.