“Vain he is, but not without some reason. He has had great triumphs, great distinctions in life.”
“So he has told me. I have listened for hours long to descriptions of the sensation he created in the House – it was always the Irish House, by the way – by his speech on the Regency Bill, or some other obsolete question; and how Flood had asked the House to adjourn and recover their calm and composure, after the overwhelming power of the speech they had just listened to; and how, at the Bar, Plunkett once said to a jury, ‘Short of actual guilt, there is no such misfortune can befall a man as to have Sergeant Lendrick against him.’ I wish I was independent, – I mean, rich enough, to tell him what I think of him; that I had just five minutes – I ‘d not ask more – to convey my impression of his great and brilliant qualities! and to show him that, between the impulses of his temper and his vanity together, he is, in matters of the world, little better than a fool! What do you think he is going to do at this very moment? I had not intended speaking of it, but you have pushed me to it. In revenge for the Government having passed him over on the Commission, he is going to supply some of these ‘Celt’ rascals with means to employ counsel, and raise certain questions of legality, which he thinks will puzzle Pemberton to meet. Of course, rash and indiscreet as he is, this is not to be done openly. It is to be accomplished in secret, and through
me!
I am to go to-morrow morning at eleven o’clock to the Richmond Jail. I have the order for my admission in my pocket. I am there to visit Heaven knows whom; some scoundrel or other, – just as likely a Government spy as a rebel, who will publish the whole scheme to the world. At all events, I am to see and have speech of the fellow, and ascertain on what evidence he was committed to prison, and what kind of case he can make as to his innocence. He is said to be a gentleman, – the very last reason, to my thinking, for taking him up; for whenever a gentleman is found in any predicament beneath him, the presumption is that he ought to be lower still. The wise judge, however, thinks otherwise, and says, ‘Here is the very opportunity I wanted.’”
“It is a most disagreeable mission, Dudley. I wish sincerely you could have declined it.”
“Not at all. I stand to win, no matter how it comes off: if all goes right, the Chief must make me some acknowledgment on my success; if it be a failure, I ‘ll take care to be so compromised that I must get away out of the country, and I leave to yourself to say what recompense will be enough to repay a man for the loss of his home, and of his wife and his children.”
The laugh with which he concluded this speech rang out with something so devilish in its cadence that she turned away sickened and disgusted.
“If I thought you as base as your words bespeak you, I’d never see you again,” said she, rising and moving towards the door.
“I’ll have one cigar, mother, before I join you in the drawing-room,” said he, taking it out as he spoke. “I’d not have indulged if you had not left me. May I order a little more sherry?”
“Ring for whatever you want,” said she, coldly, and quitted the room.
CHAPTER XIII. THE VISIT TO THE JAIL
Colonel Sewell was well known in the city, and when he presented himself at the jail, was received by the deputy-governor with all fitting courtesy. “Your house is pretty full, I believe, Mr. Bland,” said Sewell, jocularly.
“Yes, sir; I never remember to have had so many prisoners in charge; and the Mountjoy Prison has sent off two drafts this morning to England, to make room for the new committals. The order is all right, sir,” said he, looking at the paper Sewell extended towards him. “The governor has given him a small room in his own house. It would have been hard to put him with the others, who are so inferior to him.”
“A man of station and rank, then?” asked Sewell.
“So they say, sir.”
“And his name?”
“You must excuse me, Colonel. It is a case for great caution; and we have been strictly enjoined not to let his name get abroad at present. Mr. Spencer’s note – for he wrote to us last night – said, ‘If it should turn out that Colonel Sewell is acquainted with the prisoner, as he opines, you will repeat the caution I already impressed upon him, not to divulge his name.’ The fact is, sir,” said he, lowering his voice to a confidential tone, “I may venture to tell you that his diary contains so many names of men in high position, that it is all-important we should proceed with great secrecy, for we find persons involved whom nobody could possibly have suspected could be engaged in such a scheme.”
“It is not easy to believe men could be such asses,” said Sewell, contemptuously. “Is this gentleman Irish?”
“Not at liberty to say, sir. My orders are peremptory on the subject of his personality.”
“You are a miracle of discretion, Mr. Bland.”
“Charmed to hear you say so, Colonel Se well. There ‘s no one whose good word I ‘d be more proud of.”
“And why is n’t he bailed?” said Sewell, returning to the charge. “Had he no one to be his surety?”
“That ‘s strange enough, sir. Mr. Spencer put it to him that he ‘d better have some legal adviser; and though he would n’t go so far as to say they ‘d take bail for him, he hinted that probably he would like to confer with some friend, and all the answer he got was, ‘It’s all a mistake from beginning to end. I ‘m not the man you ‘re looking for; but if it gives the poor devil time to make his escape, perhaps he’ll live to learn better; and so I’m at your orders.’”
“I suppose that pretext did not impose upon the magistrate?”
“Not for a moment, sir. Mr. Spencer is an old bird, and not to be caught by such chaff. He sent him off here at once. He tried the same dodge, though, when he came in. ‘If I could have a quiet room for the few days I shall be here, it would be a great comfort to me,’ said he to the governor. ‘I have a number of letters to write; and if you could manage to give me one with a north light, it would oblige me immensely, for I’m fond of painting.’ Not bad that, sir, for a man suspected of treason-felony, – a north light to paint by!”
“You need not announce me by name, Mr. Bland, for it’s just as likely I shall discover that this gentleman and I are strangers to each other; but simply say, ‘A gentleman who wishes to see you.’”
“Take Colonel Sewell up to the governor’s corridor,” said he to a turnkey, “and show him to the small room next the chapel.”
Musing over what Mr. Bland had told him, Sewell ascended the stairs. His mission had not been much to his taste from the beginning. If it at first seemed to offer the probability of placing the old Judge in his power by some act of indiscretion, by some rash step or other, a little reflection showed that to employ the pressure such a weakness might expose him to, would necessitate the taking of other people into confidence. “I will have no accomplices!” muttered Sewell; “no fellows to dictate the terms on which they will not betray me! If I cannot get this old man into my power by myself alone, I ‘ll not do it by the help of another.”
“I shall have to lock you in, sir,” said the man, apologetically, as he proceeded to open the door.
“I suppose you will let me out again?” said Sewell, laughing.
“Certainly, sir. I’ll return in half an hour.”
“I think you’d better wait and see if five minutes will not suffice.”
“Very well, sir. You ‘ll knock whenever you wish me to open the door.”
When Sewell entered the room, the stranger was seated at the window, with his back towards the door, and apparently so absorbed in his thoughts that he had not heard his approach. The noise of the door being slammed to and locked, however, aroused him, and he turned suddenly round, and almost as suddenly sprang to his feet. “What! Sir Brook Fossbrooke!” cried Sewell, falling back towards the door.
“Your surprise is not greater than mine, sir, at this meeting. I have no need to be told, however, that you did not come here to see me.”
“No; it was a mistake. The man brought me to the wrong room. My visit was intended for another,” muttered Sewell, hastily.
“Pray, sir, be seated,” said Fossbrooke, presenting a chair. “Chance will occasionally do more for us than our best endeavors. Since I have arrived in Ireland I have made many attempts to meet you, but without success. Accident, however, has favored me, and I rejoice to profit by my good luck.”
“I have explained, Sir Brook, that I was on my way to see a gentleman to whom my visit is of great consequence. I hope you will allow me to take another opportunity of conferring with you.”
“I think my condition as a prisoner ought to be the best answer to your request. No, sir. The few words we need say to each other must be said now. Sit there, if you please;” and as he placed a chair for Sewell towards the window, he took his own place with his back to the door.
“This is very like imprisonment,” said Sewell, with an attempt at a laugh.
“Perhaps, sir, if each of us had his due, you have as good a right to be here as myself; but let us not lose time in an exchange of compliments. My visit to this country was made entirely on your account.”
“On mine! How upon mine?”
“On yours, Colonel Sewell. You may remember at our last conversation – it was at the Chief Baron’s country-house – you made me a promise with regard to Miss Lendrick – ”
“I remember,” broke in Sewell, hastily, for he saw in the flush of the other’s cheek how the difficulty of what he had to say was already giving him a most painful emotion. “You stipulated something about keeping my wife apart from that young lady. You expressed certain fears about contamination – ”
“Oh, sir, you wrong me deeply,” said the old man, with broken utterance.
“I’d be happy to think I had misunderstood you,” said Sewell, still pursuing his advantage. “Of course, it was very painful to me at the time. My wife, too, felt it bitterly.”
Fossbrooke started at this as if stung, and his brow darkened and his eyes flashed as he said: “Enough of this, sir. It is not the first time I have been calumniated in the same quarter. Let us talk of something else. You hold in your hand certain letters of Major Trafford, – Lionel Trafford, – and you make them the ground of a threat against him. Is it not so?”
“I declare, Sir Brook, the interest you take in what relates to my wife somewhat passes the bounds of delicacy.”
“I know what you mean. I know the advantage you would take of me, and which you took awhile ago; but I will not suffer it. I want these letters, – what’s their price?”
“They are in the hands of my solicitors, Kane & Kincaid; and I think it very unlikely they will stay the proceedings they have taken on them by any demand of yours.”
“I want them, and must have them.”
Sewell shrugged his shoulders, and made a gesture to imply that he had already given him his answer.
“And what suit would you pretend – But why do I ask you? What is it to me by what schemes you prosecute your plans? Look here, sir; I was once on a time possessed of a document which would have subjected you to the fate of a felon; it was the forgery of my name – ”
“My dear Sir Brook, if your memory were a little better you would remember that you had once to apologize for that charge, and avow it was totally unfounded.”
“It is untrue, sir; and you know it is untrue. I declared I would produce a document before three or four of your brother officers, and it was stolen from me on the night before the meeting.”
“I remember that explanation, and the painful impression your position excited at the time; but really I have no taste for going back over a long-past period. I ‘m not old enough, I suppose, to care for these reminiscences. Will you allow me to take my leave of you?”
“No, sir; you shall hear me out: It may possibly be to your own advantage to bestow a little time upon me. You are fond of compromises, – as you ought to be, for your life has been a series of them: now I have one to propose to you. Let Trafford have back his letters, and you shall hear of this charge no more.”
“Really, sir, you must form a very low estimate of my intelligence, or you would not have made such a proposition; or probably,” added he, with a sneer, “you have been led away by the eminence of the position you occupy at this moment to make this demand.”
Fossbrooke started at the boldness of this speech, and looked about him, and probably remembered for the first time since the interview began that he was a prisoner. “A few days – a few hours, perhaps – will see me free,” said the old man, haughtily. “I know too well the difficulties that surround men in times like these to be angry or impatient at a mistake whose worst consequences are a little inconvenience.”
“I own, sir, I was grieved to think you could have involved yourself in such a scheme.”
“Nothing of the kind, sir. You were only grieved to think that there could be no solid foundation for the charge against me. It would be the best tidings you could hear to learn that I was to leave this for the dock, with the convict hulk in the distance; but I forget I had promised myself not to discuss my own affairs with you. What say you to what I have proposed?”
“You have proposed nothing, Sir Brook, – at least nothing serious, since I can scarcely regard as a proposition the offer not to renew a charge which broke down once before for want of evidence.”
“What if I have that evidence? What if I am prepared to produce it? Ay, sir, you may look incredulous if you like. It is not to a man of
your
stamp I appeal to be believed on my word; but you shall see the document, – you shall see it on the same day that a jury shall see it.”
“I perceive, Sir Brook, that it is useless to prolong this conversation. Your old grudge against me is too much even for your good sense. Your dislike surmounts your reason. Yes, open the door at once. I am tired waiting for you,” cried he, impatiently, as the turnkey’s voice was heard without.
“Once more I make you this offer,” said Fossbrooke, rising from his seat. “Think well ere you refuse it.”
“You have no such document as you say.”
“If I have not, the failure is mine.”
The door was now open, and the turnkey standing at it.
“They will accept bail, won’t they?” said Sewell, adroitly turning the conversation. “I think,” continued he, “this matter can be easily arranged. I will go at once to the Head Office and return here at once.”
“We are agreed, then?” said Fossbrooke, in a low voice.
“Yes,” said Sewell, hastily, as he passed out and left him.
The turnkey closed and locked the door, and overtook Sewell as he walked along the corridor. “They are taking information this moment, sir, about the prisoner. The informer is in the room.”
“Who is he? What’s his name?”
“O’Reardon, sir; a fellow of great ‘cuteness. He’s in the pay of the Castle these thirty years.”
“Might I be present at the examination? Would you ask if I might hear the case?”
The man assured him that this was impossible; and Sewell stood with his hand on the balustrade, deeply revolving what he had just heard.
“And is O’Reardon a prisoner here?”
“Not exactly, sir; but partly for his own safety, partly to be sure he ‘s not tampered with, we often keep the men in confinement till a case is finished.”
“How long will this morning’s examination last? At what hour will it probably be over?”
“By four, sir, or half-past, they’ll be coming out.”
“I’ll return by that time. I ‘d like to speak to him.”
CHAPTER XIV. A GRAND DINNER AT THE PRIORY
The examination was still proceeding when Sewell returned at five o’clock; and although he waited above an hour in the hope of its being concluded, the case was still under consideration; and as the Chief Baron had a large dinner-party on that day, from which the Colonel could not absent himself, he was obliged to hasten back in all speed to dress.
“His Lordship has sent three times to know if you had come in, sir,” said his servant, as he entered his room.
And while he was yet speaking came another messenger to say that the Chief Baron wanted to see the Colonel immediately. With a gesture of impatience Sewell put on again the coat he had just thrown off, and followed the man to the Chief’s dressing-room.
“I have been expecting you since three o’clock, sir,” said the old man, after motioning to his valet to leave the room.
“I feared I was late, my Lord, and was going to dress when I got your message.”
“But you have been away seven hours, sir.”
The tone and manner of this speech, and the words themselves, calling him to account in a way a servant would scarcely have brooked, so overcame Sewell that only by an immense effort of self-control could he restrain his temper, and avoid bursting forth with the long-pent-up passion that was consuming him.
“I was detained, my Lord, – unavoidably detained,” said he, with a voice thick and husky with anger. What added to his passion was the confusion he felt; for he had not determined, when he entered the room, whether to avow that the prisoner was Fossbrooke or not, resolving to be guided by the Chief’s manner and temper as to the line he should take. Now this outburst completely routed his judgment, and left him uncertain and vacillating.
“And now, sir, for your report,” said the old man, seating himself and folding his arms on his chest.
“I have little to report, my Lord. They affect a degree of mystery about this person, both at the Head Office and at the jail, which is perfectly absurd; and will neither give his name nor his belongings. The pretence is, of course, to enable them to ensnare others with whom he is in correspondence. I believe, however, the truth to be, he is a very vulgar criminal, – a gauger, it is said, from Loughrea, and no such prize as the Castle people fancied. His passion for notoriety, it seems, has involved him in scores of things of this kind; and his ambition is always to be his own lawyer and defend himself.”
“Enough, sir; a gauger and self-confident prating rascal combine the two things which I most heartily detest. Pem-berton may take his will of him for me; he may make him illustrate every blunder of his bad law, and I ‘ll not say him nay. You will take Lady Ecclesfield in to dinner to-day, and place her opposite me at table. Your wife speaks French well, – let her sit next Count de Lanoy, but give her arm to the Bishop of Down. Let us have no politics over our wine; I cannot trust myself with the law-officers before me, and at my own table they must not be sacrificed.”
“Is Pemberton coming, my Lord?”
“He is, sir, – he is coming on a tour of inspection, – he wants to see from my dietary how soon he may calculate on my demise; and the Attorney-General will be here on the like errand. My hearse, sir, it is, that stops the way, and I have not ordered it up yet. Can you tell me is Lady Lendrick coming to dinner, for she has not favored me with a reply to my invitation?”
“I am unable to say, my Lord; I have not seen her; she has, however, been slightly indisposed of late.”
“I am distressed to hear it. At all events, I have kept her place for her, as well as one for Mr. Balfour, who is expected from England to-day. If Lady Lendrick should come, Lord Kilgobbin will take her in.”
“I think I hear an arrival. I ‘d better finish my dressing. I scarcely thought it was so late.”
“Take care that the topic of India be avoided, or we shall have Colonel Kimberley and his tiger stories.”
“I’ll look to it,” said Sewell, moving towards the door.
“You have given orders about decanting the champagne?”
“About everything, my Lord. There comes another carriage, I must make haste;” and so saying, he fled from the room before the Chief could add another question.
Sewell had but little time to think over the step he had just taken, but in that little time he satisfied himself that he had acted wisely. It was a rare thing for the Chief to return to any theme he had once dismissed. Indeed, it would have implied a doubt of his former judgment, which was the very last thing that could occur to him. “My decisions are not reversed,” was his favorite expression; so that nothing was less probable than that he would again revert to the prisoner or his case. As for Fossbrooke himself and how to deal with him, that was a weightier question, and demanded more thought than he could now give it.
As he descended to the drawing-room, the last of the company had just entered, and dinner was announced. Lady Lendrick and Mr. Balfour were both absent. It was a grand dinner on that day, in the fullest sense of that formidable expression. It was very tedious, very splendid, very costly, and intolerably wearisome and stupid. The guests were overlaid by the endless round of dishes and the variety of wines, and such as had not sunk into a drowsy repletion occupied themselves in criticising the taste of a banquet, which was, after all, a travesty of a foreign dinner without that perfection of cookery and graceful lightness in the detail which gives all the elegance and charm to such entertainments. The more fastidious part of the company saw all the defects; the homelier ones regretted the absence of meats that they knew, and wines they were accustomed to. None were pleased, – none at their ease but the host himself. As for him, seated in the centre of the table, overshadowed almost by a towering epergne, he felt like a king on his throne. All around him breathed that air of newness that smacked of youth; and the table spread with flowers, and an ornamental dessert, seemed to emblematize that modern civilization which had enabled himself to throw off the old man and come out into the world crimped, curled, and carmined, be-wigged and be-waistcoated.
“Eighty-seven! my father and he were contemporaries,” said Lord Kilgobbin, as they assembled in the drawing-room; “a wonderful man, – a really wonderful man for his age.”
The Bishop muttered something in concurrence, only adding “Providence” to the clause; while Pemberton whispered the Attorney-General that it was the most painful attack of acute youth he had ever witnessed. As for Colonel Kimberley, he thought nothing of the Chiefs age, for he had shot a brown bear up at Rhumnuggher, “the natives knew to be upwards of two hundred years old, some said three hundred.”
As they took their coffee in groups or knots, Sewell drew his arm within Pemberton’s and led him through the open sash-door into the garden. “I know you want a cigar,” said he, “and so do I. Let us take a turn here and enjoy ourselves. What a bore is a big dinner! I ‘d as soon assemble all my duns as I ‘d get together all the dreary people of my acquaintance. It’s a great mistake, – don’t you think so?” said Sewell, who, for the first time in his life, accosted Pemberton in this tone of easy familiarity.
“I fancy, however, the Chief likes it,” said the other, cautiously; “he was particularly lively and witty to-day.”
“These displays cost him dearly. You should see him after the thing was over. With the paint washed off, palpitating on a sofa steeped with sulphuric ether, and stimulated with ammonia, one wouldn’t say he’d get through the night.”
“What a constitution he must have!”
“It’s not that; at least, that’s not the way I read him. My theory is, it is his temper – that violent, irascible, fervid temper – burning like a red-hot coal within him, sustains the heat that gives life and vigor to his nature. If he has a good-humored day, – it’s not a very frequent occurrence, but it happens now and then, – he grows ten years older. I made that discovery lately. It seems as though if he could n’t spite the world, he ‘d have no objection to taking leave of it.”
“That sounds rather severe,” said Pemberton, cautiously; for though he liked the tone of the other’s conversation, he was not exactly sure it was quite safe to show his concurrence.
“It’s the fact, however, severe or not. There’s nothing in our relations to each other that should prevent my speaking my mind about him. My mother had the bad luck to marry him, and being gifted with a temper not very unlike his own, they discovered the singular fact that two people who resemble each other can become perfectly incompatible. I used to think that she could n’t be matched. I recant, however, and acknowledge candidly he could ‘give her a distance.’”
Pemberton gave a little laugh, as it were of encouragement to go on, and the other proceeded.
“My wife understands him best of all. She gives way in everything; all he says is right, all he opines is wisdom, and it’s astonishing how this yielding, compliant, submissive spirit breaks him down; he pines under it, just as a man accustomed to sharp exercise would waste and decay by a life of confinement. I declare there was one week here we had got him to a degree of gentleness that was quite edifying, but my mother came and paid a visit when we were out, and when we returned there he was! violent, flaring, and vigorous as ever, wild with vanity, and mad to match himself with the first men of the day.”
While Sewell talked in this open and indiscreet way of the old Judge, his meaning was to show with what perfect confidence he treated his companion, and at the same time how fair and natural it would be to expect frankness in return. The crafty lawyer, however, trained in the school where all these feints and false parries are the commonest tricks of fence, never ventured beyond an expression of well-got-up astonishment, or a laugh of enjoyment at some of Sewell’s smartnesses.
“You want a light?” said Sewell, seeing that the other held his cigar still unlit in his fingers.
“Thanks. I was forgetting it. The fact is, you kept me so much amused, I never thought of smoking; nor am I much of a smoker at any time.”
“It ‘s the vice of the idle man, and you are not in that category. By the way, what a busy time you must have of it now, with all these commitments?”
“Not so much as one might think. The cases are numerous, but they are all the same. Indeed, the informations are identical in nearly every instance. Tim Branegan had two numbers of the ‘Green Flag’ newspaper, some loose powder in his waistcoat-pocket, and an American drill-book in the crown of his hat.”
“And is that treason-felony?”
“With a little filling-up it becomes so. In the rank of life these men belong to, it’s as easy to find a rebel as it would be in Africa to discover a man with a woolly head.”
“And this present movement is entirely limited to that class?” said Sewell, carelessly.
“So we thought till a coup