BALTHAZAR.
Mr. Simnel sat calmly over his breakfast in his rooms in Piccadilly,
little dreaming of all that had occurred on the previous day in
Saxe-Coburg Square. He skimmed the newspaper; he dallied with his
toast; he laid down his knife and fork and paused in his meal, smiling
to himself with the air of a man who had reason for self-gratulation.
Such reason had Mr. Simnel. He had fought a very long and arduous and
up-hill fight--a fight in which the odds were all against him, and
which he had won entirely by patience and excellent generalship. And
now the difficulties were surmounted; the land lay straight before
him; and he was just about to clutch the prize which, with so much
trouble, he had won. "You shall have it, Robert!" those were the last
words which she had said to him; words which haunted his memory, which
he found himself repeating over and aver again. The woman he had loved
so long and so quietly, who at one time appeared far beyond the power
of his grasp, had succumbed; he had won her honestly, and by his own
tact and perseverance; and she would be his own! There would be a bar
sinister in her escutcheon, but what of that? Against herself, against
the propriety of her conduct, no one had ever dared to drop a hint.
Her father should make such a settlement on her as, coupled with his
own money, would relieve her from the necessity of pursuing her then
occupation, of doing any thing but play her part as mistress of her
house, and enjoy herself. What a fool was Beresford!--ah, that opened
up a fresh vein of thought! He had said yesterday that, failing in his
pursuit of Mrs. Schröder, should fall back on Kate Mellon, and try and
patch up that severed alliance. Simnel's heart beat loudly as this
recurred to his mind; he knew how deep had been the attachment which
Kate had formed for Beresford, and he was not sure that she would not
be even yet willing to listen to proposals of peace. She must not have
the chance--that was what he determined; and he rang his bell
hurriedly, and sat biting his nails until it was answered.
"You saw Mr. Scadgers?" he demanded of his servant.
"Yes, sir; he will be at your office at one o'clock."
"Good; now go over at once to Austin Friars to Mr. Townshend's office.
Tell the head-clerk," said he, taking a telegraphic despatch from his
pocket, "that his master will arrive at London Bridge at half-past
one, and that he must send some one to meet him. Say that I shall be
with Mr. Townshend at three sharp. You understand?" The valet answered
in the affirmative and left the room, returning in a few minutes and
ushering in Mr. Beresford. That gentleman looked any thing but happy;
his face was of a dull leaden hue, his eyes were dull and red-rimmed,
and the tell-tale muscles of his mouth were working visibly. He flung
himself into, a chair, and as soon as the door closed, said: "Here's a
devil of a go!"
"What's the matter, man?" asked Simnel. "Look here--you're all out of
sorts--lips going and hands shaking--just steady yourself before you
speak. Here!" and he unlocked a sideboard and placed a liqueur-stand
before his friend.
"That's better!" said Beresford, draining a wine-glass of brandy. "I am
all wrong, and enough to make me! Thought I'd catch you here before
you went down to work. I've no end to tell you--"
"Tell on!" said Mr. Simnel; and, so encouraged, Beresford narrated
every thing that had occurred between him and Barbara the preceding
day, respecting the anonymous letter and the conversation that had
ensued thereanent, word for word.
As Mr. Simnel listened his heart sunk within him, and it was with the
greatest difficulty that he prevented himself from displaying his
emotion. He succeeded, however, so admirably, that though the colour
of his face might have gone a shade or two paler, not a muscle of it
moved, and when Beresford stopped, he said, without a tremor in his
voice, "What do you intend to do?"
"To do!" screamed Beresford--"well, upon my soul, Simnel, you are a
wonderful man! I tell you this tremendous story, which, for heartless
villany, beats any thing I ever heard--and done by a woman too!--and
all you ask is, what I intend to do! Do!--I intend to punish that
she-devil, cost what it may! to--"
"Steady, sir! you're using strong language--"
"Oh! what! Kate Mellon, I mean; not Mrs. Schröder--my mind's made up
with regard to her! I shall--"
"Look here, Beresford; did you come here to rave and storm before me,
or to ask my advice?--which?"
"I don't know what the deuce you mean by raving and storming! You'd do
the same if you'd been treated in this way by a--there, never mind,
I'll take your advice if--"
"If it agrees with your own plans! generous creature! Now look here;
you're in a horrible state of rage and fever, in which you can do no
good. My advice to you is, to go away straight at once. Go out of town
somewhere for a fortnight, and then come back and see how the land
lies."
"And so lose every chance I've got! No, thank ye. You know all that
business yesterday was Mrs. Churchill, not Mrs. Schröder. I don't
believe the widow knows a word about that cursed letter; and there may
be a chance of getting over her yet, though that Churchill woman is as
deep as the Whissendine. She and I always hated each other, I think,
and I don't intend to let her beat me now; no! I've sent a line to
Mrs. Schröder marked private, without any flummery of former days, or
any thing of that sort,--simply begging her to meet me in the Row this
afternoon and give me five minutes' talk. If she does that, I think I
can put matters square; and if not--"
"And if not?"
"Well, if not, by George, Simnel, up goes the sponge, and no mistake.
There are three writs out against me, and I fancy some of Sloman's
people are on. There have been some fellows hanging about my door in
South Audley Street; and I fancy, from what Stephens says, they were
any thing but the right sort. What are you thinking about?"
"I was thinking," said Mr. Simnel slowly, "that if this Schröder
business does not come off,--and I don't think it will,--you'd better
send in a certificate from Prater or some one, and get away to the
Continent for six months."
"Well, we'll wait and see what to-day brings forth, at all events. If
it don't do, I'll very likely take your advice."
After Mr. Beresford had gone, Mr. Simnel sat with his feet on the
fender, slowly rubbing his knee. "It must be hurried through at once,"
he said to himself. "I'll square the settlement to-day; and if
Beresford fails with Mrs. Schröder, he must be got out of town and
abroad. Vengeance, eh? no, not quite that, my fine fellow. Long before
you come back, there'll be somebody with a right to interfere, if any
thing like vengeance is threatened."
And how fared it with Kate Mellon all this while? what had happened to
the pivot on which so many schemes of love and hate, of worship and
revenge, were turning? In a bad way was Kate Mellon mentally and
thence physically. The news of Mr. Schröder's death, which she
had read accidentally in an "odds and ends" column of a cheap
sporting-paper, had come upon her with a terrific shock. She had
compared dates, and found that it had happened on the day after the
despatch of her letter; and though there was nothing to create any
connexion between the circumstances, she felt a kind of horrible
impression that by her act she had hastened his end. This preyed upon
her mind; and as she had no one in whom to confide--(had Simnel come
up in the interval, it is probable that she would have told him all,
for the sake of getting a scrap of consolation, of advice--of mere
talk--so weightily did the retention of the secret lie on her),--she
fretted and worried herself, and each day grew more feverish, more
unsettled, more discontented. One horrible thought she had, which
swallowed up all the rest--might not she unconsciously have helped her
rival to her happiness! If this fair-haired woman cared for Charley,
as had been stated (and as she had seen with her own eyes), she could
not have cared for her husband. He was now removed, and there was
nothing to prevent a marriage between them. Here was a phantom which
nothing could lay; a spectre which would haunt her day and night, ever
mocking and gibing at her; and she tossed in ceaseless torture, and
grew paler and thinner, and took less interest in her business every
day.
On the day on which Mr. Beresford and Mr. Simnel had the conversation
just narrated, Kate Mellon lay on the sofa in her little drawing-room,
listless and drowsy, as was her wont nowadays, and with her head
buried in her hands. She roused herself at a loud knock at the door,
and bade the person enter. It was old Freeman, the stud-groom.
"Here's Hockley, miss, just coom down from town staäbles. Black harse
from Ireland, 'raived last neet."
"What horse, Freeman?"
"Waät harse, eh? Mai bairn, thee'rt gangin' daft wi' soommut; ai
heeard not waät! Waät harse? why, black harse we bought of Markis
Clonmel--black hoonter which Johnson wrote aboot last week."
"Ay, ay, I recollect! What does Hockley say of him?"
"Hockley says he's tearer! groom as browt him to steamer said as nowt
could hold him! I'se warrant we teach him manners!"
"Yes; I'll do that myself, and at once too! I want a little rousing.
Put a pair into the wagonette, Freeman, and drive me down to Down
Street. I'll give this horse a turn at once!"
Besides her establishment at The Den, Kate Mellon had a set of stables
near Piccadilly, which were mainly devoted to the reception of new
arrivals from the country, and as temporary resting-places for the
horses required for Rotten-Row pupils. These stables were equally
perfectly appointed with The Den; and when the wagonette containing
Kate and her head-groom drove in, she found a portion of her staff
ready to receive her.
"What's this new Irish horse like, Tanner?" said she to her town
manager.
"A bad 'un, miss; a rank bad 'un as ever stepped! Good 'oss, fine-made
'oss jump any think; good slopin' shoulders, and henormous quarters;
but the temper of--savin' your presence--the devil! He pinned one of
the men when he was a-dressin' him this morning, and his hi rolls
fearful;" and Mr. Tanner, who, though a thorough horseman, was an
undeniable Cockney, led the way towards the loose box where the new
arrival was standing. "They calls 'im Balthazar," said he; "and if
that means a out-an'-out bad 'un, they're right."
They found him in a loose box at the end of the yard, a big
brown-black horse, sixteen and a half, six off, with a long lean head,
deep neck, round barrel, deep chest, low back, short forehand, big
broad foot. As the door of the box opened he turned his eye round,
showing an inflamed white, put back his ears, and lashed out savagely.
"Hold on, mon!" said old Freeman; "steady, boy; let's look at thee;"
and the old man went fearlessly up to the horse's head, and placing
his hand in the head-collar, commenced turning him about.
"Send one of your men for my saddle, Tanner, and put No. 3 bridle on
him. Is No. 3 the one with the deep port? Yes, that's it," said she,
touching it with her whip. "I'll just see what he's made of in the
Row."
"Miss," said old Freeman, coming up close to her, and whispering,
"better wait till t'see waät's made of oop in tan-ride at
whoom--naästy brute, I'm thinkin' 't 'ill prove."
"Ah, never mind, Freeman; there's room in the Row to give him a very
good bucketing. Bring him out."
He came out with a bound, and backed and reared and kicked when any
one approached him, so that fully five minutes had elapsed before
Kate, with all her readiness and agility, found herself on his back.
Once mounted he started off at once, pelting over the uneven stones,
and slipping about in a manner that made old Freeman hold up his hands
and curse the Paving Commissioners, with even more than his usual
energy.
Down one incline of Piccadilly and up the other went Balthazar, now
and then trying his chance of a buck-jump, occasionally manifesting
his inclination to rear. So through the Arch and into the Row. There
Kate thought he might have his fling; there was no one within sight;
and "to take it out" of a brute like this was a feat in which at one
time she would have taken infinite pleasure; even now it promised some
excitement. So quietly drawing the curb and simultaneously touching
him with her heel, she felt the big brute give one tremendous plunge
and snort, and then dart off like lightning. And now Kate's colour
came again, and her heart leapt within her as she felt once more the
ecstasy of tearing speed. Away he goes, easy as a chair when once he
has settled into his stride, and with more real go in him than she has
felt in any horse she has ridden for months. Bravo, Balthazar! Whoop,
boy! get along! and the blue habit floats behind, and the gravel flies
round her, and she is going the real pace now, and no mistake! Who is
this rider creeping out across her path from beneath the trees?
Steady, boy, steady! by Jove, he's got the bit between his teeth, and
there's no stopping him! Soho, soho, man! a shake--another; that's
done it! the bit's free, and she pulls him up easily; and to her
pulling him rides up a man, flushed, with working lips and scarlet
face--Charles Beresford. She stares at him with starting eyes and
compressed lips, through which comes the word "Charley!"
"It _is_ you, you she-devil, is it?" said Beresford: "I thought it
must be. This is fate that has sent you here to hear me curse you. I
know what you've done, fast enough. You thought you could stab in
secret, did you, you Jezabel? and without its being known where the
blow came from! But I saw your infernal hand, and when I saw it, I
cursed you as I curse you now!"
"Charley! Charley! oh, for God's sake; oh, if ever you cared for me--"
"Cared for you! I never did! I told you so--told you at least as
plainly as a man could tell a woman; and then in sheer revenge--in
dirty, low, mean revenge--you do this; but I'll be even with you.
I'll--stand off, curse you! take your hand off, I say--"
She had laid her hand on his arm. He shook it off roughly, and in
shaking it off raised his whip-hand spasmodically, and struck
Balthazar sharply in the mouth. The Irish horse reared up on end
straight as a dart, forced to his feet, plunged for an instant,
and then started off in a mad gallop. Kate sat like a rock,
pulling--pulling without the slightest effect. Then looking down she
saw he had his eye turned back towards her, and held the bit in a firm
grip between his teeth. This time the shake was no use; he would not
loose his grip, and the bit was useless. They are nearing the end of
the Row, and she remembers, shudderingly, the heavy iron gates,
between which it would be impossible to steer him. If she could but
turn him into the Drive, and so head up towards the Serpentine bridge!
A touch with her leg and a sharp tug at the rein; the Irish horse
rises like a bird at the iron bars, but touches them with his
fore-feet, and falls headlong into the Drive, rolling over on to his
rider, who lies there crushed and motionless.