"Dunborough, you"ll outface the devil when you meet him!" my lady added--for a closing shot. She knew how to carry the war into the enemy"s country.
He glared at her, uncertain what to believe. "I"ll see for myself," he said at last; but sullenly, and as if he foresaw a check.
He was in the act of turning to carry out his intention, when Lady Dunborough, with great presence of mind, called to a servant who was pa.s.sing the foot of the stairs. The man came. "Go and fetch this gentleman the book," she said imperiously, "with the people"s names.
Bring it here. I want to see it."
The man went, and in a moment returned with it. She signed to him to give it to Mr. Dunborough. "See for yourself," she said contemptuously.
She calculated, and very shrewdly, that as the lawyer and his companions had given the name of Soane and taken possession of Sir George"s rooms, only the name of Soane would appear in the book. And so it turned out.
Mr. Dunborough sought in vain for the name of Masterson or for a party of three, resembling the one he pursued; he found only the name of Sir George Soane entered when the rooms were ordered.
"Oh!" he said with an execration. "He is here, is he? Wish you joy of him, my lady! Very well, I go on. Good night, madam!" The viscountess knew that opposition would stiffen him. "Stop!" she cried.
But he was already in the hall, ordering fresh saddle-horses for himself and his man. My lady heard the order, and stood listening. Mr. Thoma.s.son heard it, and stood quaking. At any moment the door of the room in which the girl was supping might open--it was adjacent to the hall--and she come out, and the two would meet. Nor did the suspense last a moment or two only. Fresh horses could not be ready in a minute, even in those times, when day and night post-horses stood harnessed in the stalls.
Even Mr. Dunborough could not be served in a moment. So he roared for a pint of claret and a crust, sent one servant flying this way, and another that, hectored up and down the entrance, to the admiration of the peeping chambermaids; and for a while added much to the bustle. Once in those minutes the fateful door did open, but it emitted only a waiter. And in the end, Mr. Dunborough"s horses being announced, he strode out, his spurs ringing on the steps, and the viscountess heard him clatter away into the night, and drew a deep breath of relief. For a day or two, at any rate, she was saved. For the time, the machinations of the creature below stairs were baffled.
CHAPTER XI
DR. ADDINGTON
It did not occur to Lady Dunborough to ask herself seriously how a girl in the Mastersons" position came to be in such quarters as the Castle Inn, and to have a middle-aged and apparently respectable attorney for a travelling companion. Or, if her ladyship did ask herself those questions, she was content with the solution, which the tutor out of his knowledge of human nature had suggested; namely, that the girl, wily as she was beautiful, knew that a retreat in good order, flanked after the fashion of her betters by duenna and man of business, doubled her virtue; and by so much improved her value, and her chance of catching Mr. Dunborough and a coronet.
There was one in the house, however, who did set himself these riddles, and was at a loss for an answer. Sir George Soane, supping with Dr.
Addington, the earl"s physician, found his attention wander from the conversation, and more than once came near to stating the problem which troubled him. The cosy room, in which the two sat, lay at the bottom of a snug pa.s.sage leading off the princ.i.p.al corridor of the west wing; and was as remote from the stir and bustle of the more public part of the house as the silent movements of Sir George"s servant were from the clumsy haste of the helpers whom the pressure of the moment had compelled the landlord to call in.
The physician had taken his supper earlier, but was gourmet enough to follow, now with an approving word, and now with a sigh, the different stages of Sir George"s meal. In public, a starched, dry man, the ideal of a fashionable London doctor of the severer type, he was in private a benevolent and easy friend; a judge of port, and one who commended it to others; and a man of some weight in the political world. In his early days he had been a mad doctor; and at Batson"s he could still disconcert the impertinent by a shrewd glance, learned and practised among those unfortunates.
With such qualifications, Dr. Addington was not slow to perceive Sir George"s absence of mind; and presuming on old friendship--he had attended the younger man from boyhood--he began to probe for the cause.
Raising his half-filled gla.s.s to the light, and rolling the last mouthful on his tongue, "I am afraid," he said, "that what I heard in town was true?"
"What was it?" Soane asked, rousing himself.
"I heard, Sir George, that my Lady Hazard had proved an inconstant mistress of late?"
"Yes. Hang the jade! And yet--we could not live without her!"
"They are saying that you lost three thousand to my Lord March, the night before you left town?"
"Halve it."
"Indeed? Still--an expensive mistress?"
"Can you direct me to a cheap one?" Sir George said rather crustily.
"No. But doesn"t it occur to you a wife with money--might be cheaper?"
the doctor asked with a twinkle in his eye.
Sir George shrugged his shoulders for answer, and turning from the table--the servant had withdrawn--brushed the crumbs from his breeches, and sat staring at the lire, his gla.s.s in his hand. "I suppose--it will come to that presently," he said, sipping his wine.
"Very soon," the doctor answered, drily, "unless I am in error."
Sir George looked at him. "Come, doctor!" he said. "You know something!
What is it?"
"I know that it is town talk that you lost seven thousand last season; and G.o.d knows how many thousands in the three seasons before it!"
"Well, one must live," Sir George answered lightly.
"But not at that rate."
"In that state of life, doctor, into which G.o.d has been pleased--you know the rest."
"In that state of life into which the devil!" retorted the doctor with heat." If I thought that my boy would ever grow up to do nothing better than--than--but there, forgive me. I grow warm when I think of the old trees, and the old pictures, and the old Halls that you fine gentlemen at White"s squander in a night! Why, I know of a little place in Oxfordshire, which, were it mine by inheritance--as it is my brother"s--I would not stake against a Canons or a Petworth!"
"And Stavordale would stake it against a bootjack--rather than not play at all!" Sir George answered complacently.
"The more fool he!" snapped the doctor.
"So I think."
"Eh?"
"So I think," Sir George answered coolly. "But one must be in the fashion, doctor."
"One must be in the Fleet!" the doctor retorted. "To be in the fashion you"ll ruin yourself! If you have not done it already," he continued with something like a groan. "There, pa.s.s the bottle. I have not patience with you. One of these fine days you will awake to find yourself in the Rules."
"Doctor," Soane answered, returning to his point, "you know something."
"Well--"
"You know why my lord sent for me."
"And what if I do?" Dr. Addington answered, looking thoughtfully through his wine. "To tell the truth, I do, Sir George, I do, and I wish I did not; for the news I have is not of the best. There is a claimant to that money come forward. I do not know his name or anything about him; but his lordship thinks seriously of the matter. I am not sure," the doctor continued, with his professional air, and as if his patient in the other room were alone in his mind, "that the vexation attending it has not precipitated this attack. I"m not--at all--sure of it. And Lady Chatham certainly thinks so."
Sir George was some time silent. Then, with a fair show of indifference, "And who is the claimant?" he asked.
"That I don"t know," Dr. Addington answered. "He purports, I suppose, to be your uncle"s heir. But I do know that his attorney has forwarded copies of doc.u.ments to his lordship, and that Lord Chatham thinks the matter of serious import."
"The worse for me," said Sir George, forcing a yawn. "As you say, doctor, your news is not of the best."
"Nor, I hope, of the worst," the physician answered with feeling. "The estate is entailed?"
Sir George shook his head. "No," he said. "It is mortgaged. But that is not the same thing."
The doctor"s face showed genuine distress. "Ah, my friend, you should not have done that," he said reproachfully. "A property that has been in the family--why, since--"