Mr. Grenfell sat in an easy-chair, wrapped in a most comfortable
dressing-gown, and his feet encased in the softest of slippers, before
a cheery wood fire, smoking. His reflections were not depressing. The
scene from which he had just come satisfied him as to a fact--which
men like Grenfell have a sort of greedy appetite to be daily assured
of--that “Money is not everything in this world.” Simple as the
proposition seems, it takes a long and varied knowledge of life to bring
home that conviction forcibly and effectually. Men are much more prone
to utter it than to believe it, and more ready to believe it than to act
upon it.
Now, though Grenfell was ready to admit that “Money was not everything,”
he coupled it with what he believed to be just as true--that it was a
man’s own fault that made it so. He instanced to his mind the old man
he had just quitted, and who, except in the quality of years, was
surrounded with everything one could desire--name, fortune, station,
more than average abilities, and good health--and yet he must needs fall
in love! By what fatality was it that a man always chose the worst road?
What malevolent ingenuity ever selected the precise path that led to
ruin? Were there no other vices he could have taken to? Wine, gambling,
gluttony, would have spared his intellect for a year or two certainly.
The brains of old people stand common wear and tear pretty well; it
is only when the affections come to bear upon the mind that the system
gives way. That a man should assume old age gracefully and becomingly,
the heart ought to decay and grow callous, just as naturally as hair
whitens and teeth fail. Nature never contemplated such a compact as
that the blood at seventy should circulate as at thirty, and that
the case-hardened, world-worn man should have a revival of Hope,
Trustfulness, and Self-delusion. It was thus Grenfell regarded the
question, and the view was not the less pleasing that he felt how safely
he stood as regards all those seductions which fool other men and render
their lives ridiculous. At all events, the world should not laugh at
_him_. This is a philosophy that suffices for a large number of people
in life; and simple as the first element of it may seem, it involves
more hard-heartedness, more cruel indifference to others, and a more
practical selfishness, than any other code I know of.
If he was well pleased that Vyner should “come all right again,” it was
because he liked a rich friend far better than a poor one; but there
mingled with his satisfaction a regret that he had not made overtures to
the Vyners--the “women,” he called them--in their hour of dark fortune,
and established with them a position he could continue to maintain in
their prosperity. “Yes,” thought he, “I ought to have been taught
by those people who always courted the Bourbons in their exile, and
speculated on their restoration.” But the restoration of the Vyner
dynasty was a thing he had never dreamed of. Had he only had the very
faintest clue to it, what a game he might have played! What generous
proffers he might have made, how ready he might have been with his aid!
It is only just to him to own that he very rarely was wanting in such
prescience; he studied life pretty much as a physician studies disease,
and argued from the presence of one symptom what was to follow it.
His present speculations took this form. Vyner will at once return to
England, and go back to “the House;” he’ll want occupation, and he’ll
want, besides, to reinstate himself with the world. With his position
and his abilities--fair abilities they were--he may aspire to office,
and Grenfell liked official people. They were a sort of priesthood, who
could slip a friend into the sanctuary occasionally, not to add, that
all privileged classes have an immense attraction for the man whose
birth has debarred him from their intimacy. Now, he could not present
himself more auspiciously to the Vyners than in the company of Sir
Within Wardle, who was most eager to renew all his former relations with
them. Nor was it quite impossible but that Grenfell might seem to be the
agency by which the reconciliation was brought about. A clever stroke
of policy that, and one which would doubtless go far to render him
acceptable to the “women.”
If we must invade the secresy of a very secret nature, we must confess
that Mr. Grenfell, in his gloomier hours, in his dark days at home, when
dyspeptic and depressed, speculated on the possible event that he might
at last be driven to marry. He thought of it the way men think of the
precautions instilled by a certain time of life, the necessity of more
care in diet, more regular hours, and such-like.
There would come a time, he suspected, when country-houses would be less
eager for him, and the young fellows who now courted and surrounded him,
would have themselves slipped into “mediævalty,” and need him no more.
It was sad enough to think of, but he saw it, he knew it. Nothing, then,
remained but a wife.
It was all-essential--indeed indispensable--that she should be a person
of family and connexions; one, in fact, that might be able to keep open
the door of society--even half ajar--but still enough to let him slip in
and mingle with those inside. Vyner’s sister-in-law was pretty much what
he wanted. She was no longer young, and consequently her market-value
placed her nearer to his hopes; and although Sir Gervais had never yet
made him known to Lady Vyner or Georgina, things were constantly done
abroad that could not have occurred at home. Men were dear friends on
the Tiber who would not have been known to each other on the Thames. The
result of all his meditations was, that he must persuade Sir Within
to cross the Alps, and then, by some lucky chance or other, come
unexpectedly upon the Vyners. Fortune should take care of the rest.
Arrived at this conclusion, and his third cigar all but smoked out, he
was thinking of bed, when a tap came to his door. Before he had well
time to say “Come in,” the door opened, and young Ladarelle’s valet, Mr.
Fisk, stood before him.
[Illustration: 502]
“I hope you’ll forgive me, Sir,” said he, submissively, “for obtruding
upon you at such an hour, but I have been all over Paris, and only found
out where you were this minute. I was at the station this evening when
you drove up there, but I lost you in the crowd, and never could find
you again.”
“All which zeal implies that you had some business with me,” said
Grenfell, slowly.
“Yes, Sir, certainly. It is what I mean, Sir,” said he, wiping
his forehead, and betraying by his manner a considerable amount of
agitation.
“Now, then, what is it?”
“It is my master, Sir, Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle, has got into
trouble--very serious trouble, I’m afraid, too--and if _you_ can’t help
him through it, there’s nobody can, I’m sure.”
“A duel?”
“No, Sir, he don’t fight.”
“Debt?”
“Not exactly debt, Sir, but he has been arrested within the last few
hours.”
“Out with it. What’s the story?”
“You have heard about that Irish business, I suppose, Sir--that story of
the young girl he pretended to have married to prevent Sir Within making
her my Lady----”
“I know it all; go on.”
“Well, Sir, the worst of all that affair was, that it brought my master
into close intimacy with a very dangerous fellow called O’Rorke, and
though Mr. Ladarelle paid him--and paid him handsomely, too--for all he
had done, and took his passage out to Melbourne, the fellow wouldn’t
go. No, Sir, he swore he’d see Paris, and enjoy a little of Paris life,
before he’d sail. _I_ was for getting him aboard when he was half drunk,
and shipping him off before he was aware of it; but my master was afraid
of him, and declared that he was quite capable of coming back from
the farthest end of the world to ‘serve him out’ for anything like ‘a
cross.’”
“Go on--come to the arrest--what was it for?” broke in Grenfell,
impatiently.
“Cheating at cards, Sir,” plumped out the other, half vexed at being
deemed prosy. “That’s the charge, Sir; false cards and cogged dice,
and the police have them in their hands this minute. It was all this
fellow’s doing, Sir; it was he persuaded Mr. Dolly to set up the rooms,
and the tables, and here’s what it’s come to!” “And there _was_ false
play?”
“So they say, Sir. One of the ladies that was taken up is well known
to the police; she is an Italian Marchioness--at least they call her
so--and the story goes ‘well protected,’ as they say here.”
“I don’t see that there’s anything to be done in the matter, Fisk; the
law will deal with them, and pretty sharply, too, and none can interfere
with it. Are you compromised yourself?”
“No, Sir, not in the least. I was back and forward to Town once or twice
a week getting bills discounted and the like, but I never went near the
rooms. I took good care of that.”
“Such being the case, I suspect your affection for your master will not
prove fatal to you--eh?”
“Perhaps not, Sir; a strong constitution and reg’lar habit may help me
over it, but there’s another point I ain’t so easy about. Mr. Dolly
has got a matter of nigh four hundred pounds of mine. I lent it at
twenty-five per cent, to him last year, and I begin to fear the security
is not what it ought to be.”
“There’s something in that, certainly,” said Grenfell, slowly. “Yes,
Sir, there’s a great deal in it, because they say here, if Mr. Dolly
should be sent to the galleys ever so short a time, he loses civil
rights, and when he loses _them_, he needn’t pay no debts to any one.”
“Blessed invention those galleys must be, if they could give the
immunity you mention!” said Grenfell, laughing; “but I opine your law
is not quite accurate--at any rate, Fisk, there’s nothing to be done for
him. If he stood alone in the case, it is just possible there would be
a chance of helping him, but here he must accept the lot of his
associates. By the way, what did he mean by that mock marriage? What was
the object of it?” This query of Grenfell’s was thrown out in a sort
of random carelessness, its real object being to see if Mr. Fisk was on
“the square” with him.
“Don’t you know, Sir, that he wanted to prevent the old gent at
Dalradern from marrying her? One of the great lawyers thinks that the
estate doesn’t go to the Ladarelles at all if Sir Within had an heir,
and though it’s not very likely, Sir, it might be possible. Master
Dolly, at all events, was mortally afraid of it, and he always said
that the mere chance cost him from fifteen to twenty per cent, in his
dealings with money-lenders.”
“Are you known to Sir Within, Fisk? Has he seen you at the Castle?”
“Not to know me, Sir; he never notices any of _us_ at all. Yates, his
man, knows me.”
“Yates is not with him. He has got a French valet who lived with him
some years ago, and so I was thinking, perhaps, the best way to serve
you would be to take you myself. What do you say to it?”
“I’m ever grateful, Sir, to you. I couldn’t wish for anything better.”
“It will be pleasanter than ‘Clichy,’ at all events, Fisk, and there’s
no doubt the police here will look out for you when they discover you
were in Mr. Ladarelle’s service.”
“And am I safe here, Sir?”
“You’ll be safe, because we leave here to-morrow. So come over here
after breakfast, and we’ll settle everything. By the way, I’d not go
near Mr. Ladarelle if I were you; you can’t be of use to him, and it’s
as well to take care of yourself.”
“I was just thinking that same, Sir; not to say that if that fellow
O’Rorke saw me, it’s just as likely he’d say I was one of the gang.”
“Quite so. Be here about twelve or one, not later.”
“What do you think about my money, Sir--the loan to Mr. Dolly, I mean?”
“It’s not a choice investment, Fisk--at least, there are securities I
would certainly prefer to it.”
“Three years’ wages and perquisites, Sir!” cried he, mournfully.
“Well, your master will probably have five years to ruminate over the
wrong he has done you.”
“At the galleys? Do you really mean the galleys, Sir?”
“I really mean at the galleys, Fisk; and if he be not a more amusing
companion there than I have found him in ordinary life, I can only say I
do not envy the man he will be chained to.”
Mr. Fisk grinned a very hearty concurrence with the sentiment, and took
a respectful leave, and withdrew.