Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume Ii Part 25

"Why, you go from bad to worse, O'Reardon. I declare you are positively corrupting this morning."

"Am I, sir?" said the fellow, who now eyed him with a calm and steady defiance, as though he had submitted to all he meant to bear. Sewell felt this, and though he returned the stare, it was with a far less courageous spirit. "Well?" cried he at last, as though, no longer able to endure the situation, he desired to end it at any cost,--"well?"

"I suppose your honor wouldn't have time to settle with me now?"

"To settle with you! What do you call settle, my good fellow? Our reckonings are very short ones, or I'm much mistaken. What 's this settlement you talk of?"

"It's down here in black and white," said the other, producing a folded sheet of paper as he spoke. "I put down the payments as I made them, and the car-hire and a trifle for refreshment; and if your honor objects to anything, it's easy to take it off; though, considering I was often on the watch till daybreak, and had to come in from Howth on foot before the train started of a morning, a bit to eat and to drink was only reasonable."

"Make an end of this long story. What do you call the amount?"

"It's nothing to be afeard of, your honor, for the whole business,--the tracking him out, the false keys I had made for his trunk and writing-case, eight journeys back and forwards, two men to swear that he asked them to take the Celts' oath, and the other expenses as set down in the account. It's only twenty-seven pound four and eightpence."

"What?"

"Twenty-seven, four and eight; neither more nor less."

A very prolonged whistle was Sewell's sole reply.

"Do you know, O'Reardon," said he at last, "it gives me a painfully low opinion of myself to see that, after so many months of close acquaintance, I should still appear to you to be little short of an idiot? It is very distressing--I give you my word, it is--very distressing."

"Make your mind easy, sir; it is not _that_ I think you at all;" and the fellow lent an emphasis to the "that" which gave it a most insulting significance.

"I 'd like to know," cried Sewell, as his face crimsoned with anger, "if you could have dared to offer such a doc.u.ment as this to any man you didn't believe to be a fool."

"The devil a drop of fool's blood is in either of us," said O'Reardon, with an easy air and a low laugh of quiet a.s.surance.

"I am flattered by the companions.h.i.+p, certainly. It almost restores me to self-esteem to hear your words. I'd like to pay you a compliment in turn if I only knew how."

"Just pay me my little bill, your honor, and it will be all mask."

"I'm not over-much in a joking mood this morning, and I 'd advise you to talk of something else. There 's a five-pound note for you;" and he flung the money contemptuously towards him. "Take it, and think yourself devilish lucky that I don't have you up for perjury in this business."

O'Reardon never moved, nor made any sign to show that he noticed the money at his feet; but, crossing his arms on his chest, he drew himself haughtily up, and said: "So, then, it's defying me you 'd try now? You 'd have me up for perjury! Well, then, I begin to believe you _are_ a fool, after all. No, sir, you need n't put your hand in your waistcoat.

If you have a pistol there, I have another; and, what's more, I have a witness in that clump of trees, that only needs the word to stand beside me. There, now, Colonel, you see you 're beat, and beat at your own game too."

"D--n you!" cried Sewell, savagely. "Can't you see that I 've got no money?"

"If I have n't money, I 'll have money's worth. Short of twenty pounds I 'll not leave this."

"I tell you again, you might as well ask me for two hundred or two thousand. I 'll be in cash, I hope, by the end of the week--"

"Ay, but I'll be in France," broke in O'Reardon.

"I wish you were in------," mumbled Sewell, as he believed, to himself; but the other heard him, and dryly said, "No, sir, not yet; it's manners to let _you_ go first."

"I lost heavily two nights ago at the Club,--that's why I 'm so hard up; but I know I must have money by Sat.u.r.day. By Sat.u.r.day's post I 'll send you an order for twenty pounds. Will that content you?"

"No, sir, it will not. I had a bad bout of it last night myself, and lost every ha'penny Mr. Harman gave me for the journey,--that's the reason I 'm here."

"But if I have not got it? There, so help me! is every farthing I can call my own this minute,"--and he drew from his pocket some silver, in which a single gold coin or two mingled,--"take it, if you like."

"No, sir; it's no good to me. Short of twenty pounds, I could n't start on the journey."

"And if I haven't got it! Am I to go out and rob for you?" cried Sewell, as his eyes flashed indignantly at him.

"I don't want you to rob; but it isn't a house like this hasn't twenty pounds in it."

"You mean," said Sewell, with a sneering laugh, "that if there 's not cash, there must be plate, jewels, and such-like, and so I 'm to lay an embargo on the spoons; but you forget there is a butler who looks after these things."

"There might be many a loose thing on your Lady's table that would do as well,--a ring or two, or a bracelet that she's tired of."

Sewell started,--a sudden thought flashed across him; if he were to kill the fellow as he stood there, how should he conceal the murder and hide the corpse? It was quick as a lightning flash, this thought, but the horror of the consequences so overcame him that a cold sweat broke out over his body, and he staggered back to a seat, and sank into it exhausted and almost fainting.

"Don't take it to heart that way, sir," said the fellow, gazing at him.

"Will I get you a gla.s.s of water?"

"Yes. No--no; I'll do without it. It's pa.s.sing off. Wait here for a moment; I 'll be back presently." He arose as he spoke, and moved slowly away. Entering the house, he ascended the stairs and made for his wife's room. As he reached the door, he stopped to listen. There was not a sound to be heard. He turned the handle gently, and looked in. One shutter was partly open, and a gleam of the breaking daylight crossed the floor and fell upon the bed on which she lay, dressed, and fast asleep,--so soundly, indeed, that though the door creaked loudly as he pushed it wider, she never heard the noise. She had evidently been sitting up with a sick man, and was now overcome by fatigue. His intention had been to consult with her,--at least to ask her to a.s.sist him with whatever money she had by her,--and he had entered thus stealthily not to startle her; for somehow, in the revulsion of his mind from the late scene of outrage and insult, a sense of respect, if not of regard, moved him towards her, who, in his cruelest moments, had never ceased to have a certain influence over him. He looked at her as she slept; her fine features, at rest, were still beautiful, though deep traces of sorrow were seen in the darkened orbits and the lines about that mouth, while three or four glistening white hairs showed themselves in the brown braid over her temple. Sewell sat down beside the bed, and, as he looked at her, a whole life pa.s.sed in review before him, from the first hour he met her to that sad moment of the present. How badly they had played their game! how recklessly misused every opportunity that might have secured their fortune! What had _he_ made of all his shrewdness and ready wit? And what had _she_ done with all her beauty, and a fascination as great as even her beauty? It was an evil day that had brought them together. Each, alone, without the other, might have achieved any success. There had been no trust, no accord between them.

They wanted the same things, it is true, but they never agreed upon the road that led to them. As to principles, she had no more of them than he had; but she had scruples--scruples of delicacy, scruples of womanhood--which often thwarted and worried him, and ended by making them enemies; and here was now the end of it! _Her_ beauty was wasted, and _his_ luck played out, and only ruin before them.

And yet it calmed him to sit there; her softly drawn breathing soothed his ruffled spirit. He felt it as the fevered man feels the ice-cold water on his brow,--a transient sense of what it would be to be well again. Is there that in the contemplation of sleep--image as it is of the great sleep of all--that subdues all rancor of heart,--all that spirit of conflict and jar by which men make their lives a very h.e.l.l of undying hates, undying regrets?

His heart, that a few moments ago had almost burst with pa.s.sion, now felt almost at ease; and in the half-darkened room, the stillness, and the calm, there stole over him a feeling of repose that was almost peacefulness. As he bent over her to look at her, her lips moved. She was dreaming; very softly, indeed, came the sounds, but they seemed as if entreating. "Yes," she said,--"yes--all--everything--I consent. I agree to all, only--Cary--let me have Cary, and I will go."

Sewell started. His face became crimson in a moment. How was it that these words scattered all his late musings, as the hurricane tears and severs the cloud-ma.s.ses, and sends them riven and shattered through the sky? He arose and walked over to the table; a gold comb and two jewelled hair-pins lay on the gla.s.s; he clutched them coa.r.s.ely in his hand, and moved away. Cautiously and noiselessly he crept down the stairs, and out into the garden. "Take these, and make your money of them; they are worth more than your claim; and mind, my good fellow,--mind it well, I say, or it will be worse for you,--our dealings end here. This is our last transaction, and our last meeting. I 'll never harm you, if you keep only out of my way. But take care that you never claim me, nor a.s.sume to know me; for I warn you I'll disown you, if it should bring you to the gallows. That's plain speaking, and you understand it."

"I do, every word of it," said the fellow, as he b.u.t.toned up his coat and drew his hat over his eyes. "I 'm taking the 'fiver,' too, as it's to be our last meetin'. I suppose your honor will shake hands with me and wish me luck. Well, if you won't, there's no harm done. It's a quare world, where the people that's doin' the same things can't be friends, just because one wears fine cloth and the other can only afford corduroy. Good-bye, sir,--good-bye, any-_how_;" and there was a strange cadence in the last words no description can well convey.

Sewell stood and looked after him for a moment, then turned into the house, and threw himself on a sofa, exhausted and worn out.

CHAPTER XVIII. A PLEASANT MEETING

No sooner did Sir Brook find himself once more at liberty than he went to the post-office for his letters, of which a goodly stock had acc.u.mulated during his absence. A telegram, too, was amongst the number, despatched by Tom in great haste eight days before. It ran thus:--

"Great news! We have struck silver in the new shaft. Do not sell, do not even treat till you hear from me. I write by this post.

"Lendrick."

Had Tom but seen the unmoved calm with which Foss-brooke read this astounding tidings,--had he only seen the easy indifference with which the old man threw down the slip of paper after once reading it, and pa.s.sed on to a letter of Lord Wilmington from Crew Keep,--his patience would certainly have been sorely tried. Nor was it from any indifference to good fortune, still as little from any distrust of the tidings. It was simply because he had never doubted that the day was coming that was to see him once more rich., It might be a little later or a little earlier. It might be that wealth should shower itself upon him in a gradually increasing measure, or come down in a very deluge of prosperity. These were things he did not, could not know; but of the fact--the great Fact itself--he had as firm a belief as he had of his own existence; and had he died before realizing it, he would have bequeathed his vast fortune, with blanks for the amount, as conscientiously as though it were bank stock for which he held the vouchers.

When most men build castles in the air, they know on what foundations their edifices are based, and through all their imaginative ardor there pierces the sharp pang of unreality. Not so with Fossbrooke. It was simply a question of time with him when the costly palace might become fit for habitation, and this great faith in himself rescued him from all that vacillation so common to those who keep a debtor and creditor account between their hopes and fears. Neither was he at all impatient because Destiny did not bestir herself and work quicker. The world was always pleasant, always interesting; and when to-morrow or next day Fortune might call him to a higher station and other modes of life, he almost felt he should regret the loss of that amusing existence he now enjoyed, amongst people all new and all strange to him.

At last he came to Tom Lendrick's letter,--four closely written pages, all glowing with triumph. On the day week after Sir B.'s departure, he wrote:--

"They had come upon a vein of lead so charged with silver as to seem as though the whole ma.s.s were of the more precious metal. All Cagliari came down to see a block of ore upwards of two hundred-weight, entirely crusted with silver, and containing in the ma.s.s forty per cent. We had to get a guard from the Podesta, merely to keep off the curious, for there was no outrage nor any threat of outrage. Indeed, your kind treatment of our workpeople now begins to bear its fruit, and there was nothing but good-will and kind feeling for our lucky fortune. The two Jews, Heenwitz and Voss, of the Contrada Keale, were amongst the first visitors, and had actually gone down into the shaft before I knew of it.

They at once offered me a large sum for a share in the mine; and when I told them it was with you they must treat, they proposed to open a credit of three hundred thousand francs with their house in my favor, to go on with the working till I heard from you and learned your intentions. This offer, too, I have declined, till I get your letter.