CHAPTER XVI. A STARLIT NIGHT
Late at night of the same day on which the conversation of last chapter occurred, Sewell was returning to the Priory: he was on foot, having failed to find a carriage at that late hour, and was depressed and wretched in mind, for he had lost a large sum at the Club, which he had no means whatever to meet on the coming morning.
It was a rare event with him to take a retrospect of his life; and his theory was that he owed any success he had ever won to the fact that he brought to the present – to the actual casualty before him – an amount of concentration which men who look back or look forward never can command. Now, however, the past would force itself upon him, and his whole career, with all its faults and its failures, was before him.
It was a bitter memory, the very bitterest one can imagine, not in its self-accusation or reproach, but in the thought of all the grand opportunities he had thrown away, the reckless way in which he had treated Fortune, believing that she never would fail him. All his regrets were for the occasions he had suffered to slip by him unprofitably. He did not waste a thought on those he had ruined, many of them young fellows starting hopefully, joyously in life. His mind only dwelt on such as had escaped his snares. Ay, the very fellows to whom he had lost largely that night, had once been in his power! He remembered them when they “joined;” he had met them when they landed at Calcutta, in all their raw inexperience of life, pressing their petty wagers upon him, and eagerly, almost ignominiously courting acquaintance with the favored aide-de-camp of the Governor-General.
And there they were now, bronzed, hard-featured, shrewd men of the world, who had paid for their experience, and knew its worth.
Nothing to be done with them! Indeed, there was little now “to be done” anywhere. The whole machinery of life was changed. Formerly, when fellows started in life, they were trustful, uncalculating, and careless. Now, on the contrary, they were wary, cautious, and suspectful. Instead of attaching themselves to older men as safe guides and counsellors, they hung back from them as too skilful and too crafty to be dealt with. Except Trafford he had not seen one – not one, for many a day – who could be “chaffed” into a bet, or laughed into play against his inclination. And what had he made of Trafford? A few hundred pounds in hand, and those letters which now Fossbrooke had insisted on his giving up. How invariably it was that same man who came up at every crisis of his life to thwart and defeat him. And it was a hard, a cruelly hard, thing to remember that this very man who had been the dupe of hundreds, who had been rogued and swindled out of all he had, should still have brought all his faculties to the task of persecuting him!
“One might have thought,” said he, with a bitter laugh, “that he had troubles enough of his own not to have spare time to bestow upon me and my affairs. He was once, I own indeed, a rich man, with station and influence, and now he is a beggar. There was a time no society refused him entrée; now it is thought a very gracious thing to know him. Why will these things occupy him? And this stupid rebellion! I wonder how far he is compromised, or how far one could manage to have him compromised, by it? It is doubtless some personal consideration, some liking for this or that man, that has entangled him in it. If Pemberton were not so close, he could tell this; but these lawyers are so reserved, so crafty, they will not even tell what a few hours later the whole world will read in the public papers.
“If I were to have my choice, it would puzzle me sorely to determine whether I’d rather be left a fine estate, – four or five thousand a year, – or be able to send old Fossbrooke to a penal settlement. I am afraid, sorely afraid, my disinterestedness would gain the day, and that I ‘d sacrifice my enjoyment to my vengeance! He has done me such a long list of wrongs, I ‘d like to square the account. It would be a moment worth living for, – that instant when the word Guilty would drop from the jury-box, and that I could lean over the dock and exchange a look with him. I ‘m not so sure he ‘d quail, though; but the shame, – the shame might unman him!”
He had reached the gate of the avenue as he thus mused, and was about to insert the key in the lock, when a man arose from a little bench beside the lodge, and said, – “A fine night, sir; I ‘m glad you ‘re come.”
“Who are you? Stand off!” cried Se well, drawing his revolver, as he spoke, from his breast-pocket.
“O’Reardon, your honor, – only O’Reardon,” said the fellow, in his well-known whine.
“And where the devil have you been this fortnight? What rascally treachery have you been hatching since I saw you? No long stories, my friend, and no lies. What have you been at?”
“I was never on any other errand than your honor’s service, so help me – ”
“Don’t swear, old fellow, if you want me to believe you. Perjury has a sort of bird-lime attraction for scoundrels like you; so just keep away from an oath.”
O’Reardon laughed. “His honor was droll, – he was always droll, – and though not an Irishman himself, sorrow man living knew them better;” and with this double compliment to his patron and his country, the fellow went on to show that he had been on “the tracks of the ould man” since the day they parted. He had got a “case against him,” – the finest and fullest ever was seen. Mr. Spencer declared that “better informations never was sworn;” and on this they arrested him, together with his diary, his traps, his drawings, his arms, and his bullet-mould. There were grave reasons for secrecy in the case, and great secrecy was observed. The examination was in private, and the prisoner was sent to the Richmond Jail, with a blank for his name.
To the very circumstantial and prolix detail which O’Reardon gave with all the “onction” of a genuine informer, Sewell listened with a forced patience. Perhaps the thought of all the indignities that were heaped upon his enemy compensated him for the wearisomeness of the narrative. At last he stopped him in his story, and said, “And how much of this accusation do you believe?”
“All of it, – every word.”
“You mean to say that he is engaged in this rebellion, and a sworn member of the Celt association?”
“I do. There ‘s more than thirty already off to transportation not so deep in it as him.”
“And if it should turn out that he is a man of station, and who once had a great fortune, and that in his whole life he never meddled with politics, – that he has friends amongst the first families of England, and has only to ask to have men of rank and position his sureties, – what then?”
“He ‘ll have to show what he was ‘at’ a year ago when he lodged in my house at Cullen’s Wood, and would n’t give his name, nor the name of the young man that was with him, nor ever went out till it was dark night, and stole away at last with all sorts of tools and combustibles. He ‘ll have to show that I did n’t give his description up at the Castle, and get Mr. Balfour’s orders to watch him close; and what’s more, that he did n’t get a private visit one night from the Lord-Lieutenant himself, warning him to be off as quick as he could. I heard their words as I listened at the door.”
“So that, according to your veracious story, Mr. O’Rear-don, the Viceroy himself is a Celt and a rebel, eh?”
“It’s none of my business to put the things together, and say what shows this, and what disproves that; that’s for Mr. Hacket and the people up at the Castle. I ‘m to get the facts, – nothing but the facts, – and them’s facts that I tell you.”
“You ‘re on a wrong scent this time, O’Reardon; he is no rebel. I wish he was. I ‘d be better pleased than yourself if we could keep him fast where he is, and never let him leave it.”
“Well, he’s out now, and it’ll not be so easy to get him ‘in’ again.”
“How do you mean? – out!”
“I mean he’s free. Mr. Balfour came himself with two other gentlemen, and they took him away in a coach.”
“Where to?”
“That’s more than I know.”
“And why was I not kept informed on these matters? My last orders to you were to write to me daily.”
“I was shut up myself the morning your honor left town. When I swore the informations they took me off, and never liberated me till this evening at eight o’clock.”
“You ‘ll soon find out where he is, won’t you?”
“That I will. I ‘ll know before your honor’s up in the morning.”
“And you ‘ll be able to tell what he’s after, – why he is here at all; for, mind me, O’Reardon, I tell you again, it’s not rebellion he’s thinking of.”
“I ‘ll do that too, sir.”
“If we could only get him out of the country, – persuade him that his best course was to be off. If we could manage to get rid of him, O’Reardon, – to get rid of him!” and he gave a fierce energy to the last words.
“That would be easier than the other,” said the fellow, slyly.
“What would be easier?” cried Sewell, hurriedly.
“What your honor said last,” said the fellow, with a knowing leer, as though the words were better not repeated.
“I don’t think I understand you, – speak out. What is it you mean?”
“Just this, then, that if it was that he was a trouble to any one, or that he ‘d be better out of the way, it would be the easiest thing in life to make some of the boys believe he was an informer and they ‘d soon do for him.”
“Murder him, eh?”
“I would n’t call it murdering if a man was a traitor; nobody could call that murder.”
“We’ll not discuss that point now;” and as he spoke, they came out from the shade of the avenue into the open space before the door, at which, late as it was, a carriage was now standing. “Who can be here at this hour?” muttered Sewell.
“That’s a doctor’s coach, but I forget his name.”
“Oh! to be sure. It is Dr. Beattie’s carriage. You may leave me now, O’Reardon; but come up here early to-morrow, – come to my room, and be sure to bring me some news of what we were talking about.” As the man moved away, Sewell stood for a moment or two to listen, – he thought he heard voices in the hall, which, being large and vaulted, had a peculiar echo. Yes, he heard them now plainly enough, and had barely time to conceal himself in the copse when Dr. Beattie and Mrs. Sewell descended the steps, and walked out upon the gravel. They passed so close to where Sewell stood that he could hear the very rustle of her silk dress as she walked. It was Beattie spoke, and his voice sounded stern and severe. “I knew he could not stand it. I said so over and over again. It is not at his age that men can assume new modes of life, new associates, and new hours. Instead of augmenting, the wise course would have been to have diminished the sources of excitement to him. In the society of his granddaughter, and with the few old friends whose companionship pleased him, and for whom he exerted himself to make those little harmless displays of his personal vanity, he might have gone on for years in comparative health.”
“It was not I that devised these changes, doctor,” broke she in. “I never asked for these gayeties that you are condemning.”
“These new-fangled fopperies, too!” went on Beattie, as though not heeding her apology. “I declare to you that they gave me more pain, more true pain, to witness than any of his wild outbursts of passion. In the one, the man was real; and in the other, a mere mockery. And what ‘s the consequence?” added he, fiercely; “he himself feels the unworthy part he has been playing; instead of being overjoyed at the prospect of seeing his son again, the thought of it overwhelms him with confusion. He knows well how he would appear to the honest eyes of poor simple-hearted Tom Lendrick, whose one only pride in life was his father’s greatness.”
“And he is certainly coming?”
“He has made an exchange for Malta, and will pass through here to see the Chief, – so he says in his short letter. He expects, too, to find Lucy here, and to take her out with him. I believe you don’t know Tom Lendrick?”
“I met him at the Cape. He dined with us twice, if I remember aright; but he was shy and awkward, and we thought at the time that he had not taken to us.”
“First acquaintance always chilled him, and his deep humility ever prevented him making those efforts in conversation which would have established his true value. Poor fellow, how little he was always understood! Well, well! I am keeping you out in the night air all this time – ”
“Oh, it is perfectly delicious, doctor. It is like a night in the tropics, so balmy and so bright.”
“I don’t like to offer rude counsels, but my art sometimes gives a man scant choice,” said he, after a brief pause. “I’d say, take your husband away, get him down to that place on the Shannon, – you have it still? Well, get him down there; he can always amuse himself; he’s fond of field-sports, and people are sure to be attentive to him in the neighborhood; and leave the old Judge to fall back into the well-worn groove of his former life. He’ll soon send for Tom and his daughter, and they ‘ll fall into his ways, or, what ‘s better, he will fall into theirs, – without either ruining his health or his fortune; plain speaking all this, Mrs. Sewell, but you asked for frankness, and told me it would not be ill taken.”
“I don’t think Colonel Sewell would consent to this plan.”
“Would you?” asked he, bluntly.
“My consent would not be asked; there’s no need to discuss it.”
“I meant, do you sufficiently concur in it to advise it?”
“I can advise nothing. I advance nothing. I oppose nothing. I had thought, Dr. Beattie, that your visits to this house might have taught you the place I occupy, and the consideration I am held in.”
This was ground the doctor would not enter upon, and he adroitly said: “I think it will be the saving of Colonel Sewell himself. Club gossip says that he loses heavily every night; and though his means may be considerable – ”
“But they are not, – he has nothing, – not a shilling, except what this place brings in.”
“All the more reason not to play; but I must not keep you out here all night. I ‘ll come early in the morning, and hope to find him better. Remember how essential quiet is to him; let him not be disturbed; no talking by way of amusing him; pure rest – mind that.”
“If he wishes to see my husband, or asks for him – ” “I’d make some excuse; say he is out. Colonel Se well excites him; he never fully understood Sir William; and I fear, besides, that he now and then took a humoristic pleasure in those bursts of temper which it is always only too easy to provoke.”
“He is very fond of my little boy, – might he go in?” “I think not. I’d say downright repose and isolation. You yourself can step in noiselessly from time to time, and only speak if you see that he wishes it; but on no account mention anything that could awaken interest, – nothing to arouse or to excite. You saw the fearful state that letter threw him into to-night, and the paroxysm of rage with which he called for his will to erase Tom Lendrick’s name. Now in all probability he will have totally forgotten the whole incident by to-morrow. Good-night.”
After he drove off, she still lingered about the spot where they had been talking. Whatever interest the subject might have had for her, it was not through her affections that interest worked, for she hummed an opera air, “Bianca Luna,” and tried to recall some lines of Alfred de Musset’s to the “timid planet,” and then sat down upon the steps and gazed at the stars.
Sewell moved out into the avenue, and, whistling carelessly to announce his approach, walked up to where she was sitting. “Romantic, certainly!” said he. “Whose carriage was that I met driving out?”
“Dr. Beattie’s. He has been here to see Sir William.” “Will he die this time, or is it only another false start?” “He is seriously ill. Some news he received from his son gave him a severe shock, and brought on one of his worst attacks. He has been raving since six o’clock.”
“I should like to know when he has done anything else. I should like to see the man who ever heard from his lips other than the wildest, crudest nonsense. The question is, is he going to die?”
“Beattie’s opinion is very unfavorable.”
“Unfavorable! To whom? To him or to us?”
“His death could scarcely be favorable to us.”
“That ‘s as it might be. We stand to win on one or two of these twenty wills he has made; and if he should recover and live on, I don’t think – indeed I ‘m full sure – I couldn’t bear it much longer; so that, take it either way, I’d rather he’d die.”
“Beattie wishes his granddaughter were here.”
“Well, send for her. Though, if he is as ill as you say, it won’t be of much use.”
“He has come through so many of these attacks, and has such great power of constitution, the doctor still thinks he might rally.”
“And so he will, I’ll be sworn. There’s a vitality in those people who plague and torment others that ought to get insurance offices to take them at half premium. Has he asked for me?”
“Only in his ravings. He rang his bell violently, and inquired if you had been at the prison, and asked what tidings you had brought him; and then he went off to say that all this Celt affair was no rebellion at all, and that he would prove it. Then he talked of quitting the Bench and putting on his stuff gown to defend these men against the Government.”
“Sick or well, sane or insane, it’s always the same story. His only theme is himself.”
“Beattie was struck with the profound things and the witty things he said throughout all his rambling. He said that the intellect was never actually overthrown, that it only tottered.”
“What rot! as if he knew anything about it! These fellows talk of a man’s brain as if it was the ankle-joint. Was there any question of a will?”
“Yes. He made Beattie take a will out of his writing-desk; and he erased the name of Lendrick in every part of it. Beattie and he had some angry words together, but that was before he was raving; and I heard Sir William tell him, ‘Sir, you are neither my priest nor my lawyer; and if your skill as a doctor be only on a par with your tact as a friend, my recovery is all but hopeless.’”
“That probably was one of the profound or witty things the doctor was so delighted with.”
“Dr. Beattie took nothing addressed to himself in ill part.”
“No; that’s part of medical education. These fellows begin life as such ‘cads,’ they never attain to the feeling of being gentlemen.”
There was not light enough for Sewell to see the scornful curl of his wife’s lip at this speech; but in the little short cough by which she suppressed her temptation to reply, he noted her indignation.
“I know he’s one of your especial favorites, Madam,” said he, harshly; “but even that gives him no immunity with me.”
“I ‘m sure I could never think it would.”
“No; not even from being aware that one of his chief claims upon the wife was the unhandsome way he spoke of the husband.”
“He seldom mentions you,” said she, superciliously.
“I am not so scrupulous about him, then; I have not forgotten his conduct when that fellow got his skull cracked at the Nest. I saw it all, Madam; but I have a trick of seeing and saying nothing that might have suggested some alarm to you ere this.”
“You have many tricks, but not one that alarms me,” said she, coldly; “the wholesome fear of consequences will always be enough to keep you harmless.”
He almost sprang at her at these words; indeed, he came so close that his hot breath brushed her face. “It is a favorite taunt of yours to sneer at my courage,” said he, fiercely; “you may do it once too often.”
She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously, and slowly arose from where she sat.
“Where are you going?” asked he, roughly.
“Going in.”
“I have many things to say yet; I want to hear more, too, about the old man’s illness.”
“I have told you all I know. Good-night.”
He turned away without acknowledging her salutation, and strolled into the grass. What a web of troubles he was involved in, and how hopelessly he turned from this or that expedient to extricate himself! It was but a short time before that, as a member of the committee of his Club, he had succeeded in passing a law by which all play debts should be discharged within twenty-four hours, on penalty of the defaulter being declared excluded from the Club. He was a winner at the time; but now luck had changed: he had lost heavily, and had not the slightest prospect of being able to meet his losses. “How like my fate!” muttered he, in intense passion, – “how like my fate! my whole life has been a game I have played against myself. And that woman, too,” – it was of his wife he spoke, – “who once helped me through many a strait, assumes now to be too pure and too virtuous to be my associate, and stands quietly aloof to see me ruined.”
A long thin streak of light crossed his path as he went; he looked up, and saw it came from between the shutters of the Chief’s room. “I wonder how it fares with him!” muttered he. He pondered for some time over the old man’s case, his chances of recovery, and the spirit in which convalescence would find him; and then entering the house, he slowly mounted the stairs, one by one, his heart feeling like a load almost too heavy to carry. The unbroken stillness of the house seemed to whisper caution, and he moved along the corridor with noiseless tread till he came to the door of the Judge’s room. There he stooped and listened. There were the long-drawn breathings of a heavy sleeper plainly to be heard, but they sounded stronger and fuller than the respirations of a sick man. Sewell gently turned the handle of the door and entered. The suspicion was right. The breathings were those of the hospital nurse, who, seated in a deep arm-chair, slept profoundly. Sewell stood several minutes at the door before he ventured further; at last he crept stealthily forward to the foot of the bed, and, separating the curtains cautiously, he peeped in. The old man lay with his eyes closed, and his long shrivelled arms outside the clothes. He continued to talk rapidly, and by degrees his voice grew stronger and dearer, and had all that resonance of one speaking in a large assembly. “I have now,” said he, “shown the inexpediency of this course. I have pointed out where you have been impolitic; I will next explain where you are illegal. This Act was made in the 23d year of Henry VI., and although intended only to apply to cases of action personal, or indictment of trespass – What is the meaning of this interruption? Let there be silence in the Court. I will have the tribunal in which I preside respected. The public shall learn – the representatives of the press – and if there be, as I am told there are – ” His voice grew weaker and weaker, and the last audible words that escaped him were “judgment for the plaintiff.”
Though his lips still moved rapidly, no sound came forth, but his hands were continually in motion, and his lean arms twitched with short convulsive jerks. Sewell now crept quietly round towards the side of the bed, on which several sheets of paper and writing-materials lay. One of the sheets alone was written on; it was in the large bold hand of the old Judge, who even at his advanced age wrote in a vigorous and legible character. It was headed, “Directions for my funeral,” and began thus: “As Irishmen may desire to testify their respect for one who, while he lived, maintained with equal energy the supremacy of the law and the inviolability of the man, and as my obsequies may in some sort become an act of national homage, I write these lines to convey my last wishes, legacies of which my country will be the true executors.
“First, I desire that I may be buried within the nave of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The spot I have selected is to the right of Swift’s monument, under the fifth window, and for this purpose that hideous monument to Sir Hugh Brabazon may be removed, and my interment will, in this way, confer a double benefit upon my country. Secondly, as by my will, dated this twenty-eighth day of October, 18 – , I have bequeathed, with exception of certain small legacies, all my estate, real and personal, to Dudley Sewell, Esq., late Colonel in her Majesty’s service, it is my wish that he alone should – ” Here the writing finished.
Three several times Sewell read over the lines, and what a thrill of delight ran through him! It was like a reprieve to a man on the very steps of the scaffold! The Judge was not rich, probably, but a considerable sum of money he still might have, and it was money, – cash. It was not invested in lands or houses or ships; it was all available for that life that Sewell led, and which alone he liked.
If he could but see this will, – it must be close at hand somewhere, – what a satisfaction it would be to read over the details by which at last – at last! – he was to be lifted above the casualties of a life of struggle! He tried three or four drawers of the large ebony cabinet in which the Chief used to throw his papers, with the negligence of a man who could generally rewrite as easily as he could search for a missing document. There were bills and receipts, notes of trials, and letters in abundance – but no will. The cumbrous old writing-desk, which Sir William rarely used, was not in its accustomed place, but stood on the table in the centre of the room, and the keys beside it. The will might possibly be there. He drew nigh the bed to assure himself that the old man was still sleeping, and then he turned towards the nurse, whose breathings were honest vouchers for insensibility; and thus fortified, he selected the key – he knew it well – and opened the desk. The very first paper he chanced upon was the will. It was a large sheet of strong post-paper, labelled “My last Will and Testament. – W. L.” While Sewell stood examining the writing, the door creaked gently, and his wife moved softly and noiselessly into the room. If the sentiment that overcame him was not shame, it was something in which shame blended with anger. It was true she knew him well: she knew all the tortuous windings of his plotting, scheming nature; she knew that no sense of honor, no scruple of any kind, could ever stand between him and his object. He had done those things which, worse than deep crimes, lower a man in the eyes of a woman, and that woman his wife, and that she thus knew and read him he was well aware; but, strangely enough, there is a world of space between being discovered through the results of a long inquiry, and being detected flagrante delicto, – taken in the very act, red-handed in iniquity; and so did this cold-hearted, callous man now feel it.
“What are you doing here?” said she, calmly and slowly, as she came forward.
“I wanted to see this. I was curious to know how he treated us,” said he, trembling as he spoke.
She took the paper from his hand, replaced it in the desk, and locked it up, with the calm determination of one who could not be gainsaid.
“But I have not read it,” whispered he, in a hissing voice.
“Nor need you,” said she, placing the keys under the old man’s pillow. “I heard you coming here, – I heard you enter the room. I am thankful it is no worse.”
“What do you mean by no worse?” cried he, seizing her by the wrist, and staring savagely at her, – “say what you mean, woman!” She made no reply; but the scornful curl of her lip, and the steady unflinching stare of her eyes showed that neither his words nor his gesture had terrified her.
“You shall hear more of this to-morrow,” said he, bending on her a look of intense hate; and he stole slowly away, while she seated herself at the bedside, and hid her face in the curtain.