SCUMBERG'S.
The Dean as he walked across the park towards Albemarle Street had many
misgivings. He did not at all believe that the Marquis entertained
friendly relations in regard to him, or even such neutral relations as
would admit of the ordinary courtesies of civilized life. He made up
his mind that he would be insulted,--unless indeed he should be so
cowed as to give way to the Marquis. But, that he himself thought to be
impossible. The more he reflected about it, the more assured he became
that the Marquis had not expected him to obey the summons. It was
possible that something might be gained on the other side by his
refusal to see the elder brother of his son-in-law. He might, by
refusing, leave it open to his enemies to say that he had rejected an
overture to peace, and he now regarded as his enemies almost the entire
Germain family. His own son-in-law would in future, he thought, be as
much opposed to him as the head of the family. The old Marchioness, he
knew, sincerely believed in Popenjoy. And the daughters, though they
had at first been very strong in their aversion to the foreign mother
and the foreign boy, were now averse to him also, on other grounds. Of
course Lord George would complain of his wife at Cross Hall. Of course
the story of the Kappa-kappa would be told in a manner that would
horrify those three ladies. The husband would of course be indignant at
his wife's disobedience in not having left London when ordered by him
to do so. He had promised not to foster a quarrel between Mary and Lord
George, but he thought it by no means improbable that circumstances
would for a time render it expedient that his daughter should live at
the deanery, while Lord George remained at Cross Hall. As to nothing
was he more fully resolved than this,--that he would not allow the
slightest blame to be attributed to his daughter, without repudiating
and resenting the imputation. Any word against her conduct, should such
word reach his ears even through herself, he would resent, and it would
go hard with him, but he would exceed such accusations by
recriminations. He would let them know, that if they intended to fight,
he also could fight. He had never uttered a word as to his own
liberality in regard to money, but he had thought of it much. Theirs
was the rank, and the rank was a great thing in his eyes; but his was
at present the wealth; and wealth, he thought was as powerful as rank.
He was determined that his daughter should be a Marchioness, and in
pursuit of that object he was willing to spend his money;--but he
intended to let those among whom he spent it know that he was not to be
set on one side, as a mere parson out of the country, who happened to
have a good income of his own.
It was in this spirit,--a spirit of absolute pugnacity,--that he asked
for the Marquis at Scumberg's hotel. Yes;--the Marquis was at home, and
the servant would see if his master could be seen. "I fancy that I have
an appointment with him," said the Dean, as he gave his card. "I am
rather hurried, and if he can't see me perhaps you'll let me know at
once." The man soon returned, and with much condescension told the Dean
that his lordship would see him. "That is kind, as his lordship told me
to come," said the Dean to himself, but still loud enough for the
servant to hear him. "His Lordship will be with you in a few minutes,"
said the man, as he shut the door of the sitting room.
"I shall be gone if he's not here in a very few minutes," said the
Dean, unable to restrain himself.
And he very nearly did go before the Marquis came to him. He had
already walked to the rug with the object of ringing the bell, and had
then decided on giving the lord two minutes more, resolving also that
he would speak his mind to the lord about this delay, should the lord
make his appearance before the two minutes were over. The time had just
expired when his lordship did make his appearance. He came shuffling
into the room after a servant, who walked before him with the pretence
of carrying books and a box of papers. It had all been arranged, the
Marquis knowing that he would secure the first word by having his own
servant in the room. "I am very much obliged to you for coming, Mr.
Dean," he said. "Pray sit down. I should have been here to receive you
if you had sent me a line."
"I only got your note this morning," said the Dean angrily.
"I thought that perhaps you might have sent a message. It doesn't
signify in the least. I never go out till after this, but had you named
a time I should have been here to receive you. That will do,
John,--shut the door. Very cold,--don't you think it."
"I have walked, my lord, and am warm."
"I never walk,--never could walk. I don't know why it is, but my legs
won't walk."
"Perhaps you never tried."
"Yes, I have. They wanted to make me walk in Switzerland twenty years
ago, but I broke down after the first mile. George used to walk like
the very d----. You see more of him now than I do. Does he go on
walking?"
"He is an active man."
"Just that. He ought to have been a country letter-carrier. He would
have been as punctual as the sun, and has quite all the necessary
intellect."
"You sent for me, Lord Brotherton----"
"Yes; yes. I had something that I thought I might as well say to you,
though, upon my word, I almost forget what it was."
"Then I may as well take my leave."
"Don't do that. You see, Mr. Dean, belonging to the church militant as
you do, you are so heroically pugnacious! You must like fighting very
much."
"When I have anything which I conceive it to be my duty to fight for, I
think I do."
"Things are generally best got without fighting. You want to make your
grandson Marquis of Brotherton."
"I want to ensure to my grandson anything that may be honestly and
truly his own."
"You must first catch a grandson."
It was on his lips to say that certainly no heir should be caught on
his side of the family after the fashion that had been practised by his
lordship in catching the present pseudo-Popenjoy; but he was restrained
by a feeling of delicacy in regard to his own daughter. "My lord," he
said, "I am not here to discuss any such contingency."
"But you don't scruple to discuss my contingency, and that in the most
public manner. It has suited me, or at any rate it has been my chance,
to marry a foreigner. Because you don't understand Italian fashions you
don't scruple to say that she is not my wife."
"I have never said so."
"And to declare that my son is not my son."
"I have never said that."
"And to set a dozen attorneys to work to prove that my heir is a
bastard."
"We heard of your marriage, my lord, as having been fixed for a certain
date,--a date long subsequent to that of the birth of your son. What
were we to think?"
"As if that hadn't been explained to you, and to all the world, a dozen
times over. Did you never hear of a second marriage being solemnized in
England to satisfy certain scruples? You have sent out and made your
inquiries, and what have they come to? I know all about it."
"As far as I am concerned you are quite welcome to know everything."
"I dare say;--even though I should be stung to death by the knowledge.
Of course I understand. You think that I have no feeling at all."
"Not much as to duty to your family, certainly," said the Dean,
stoutly.
"Exactly. Because I stand a little in the way of your new ambition, I
am the Devil himself. And yet you and those who have abetted you think
it odd that I haven't received you with open arms. My boy is as much to
me as ever was your daughter to you."
"Perhaps so, my lord. The question is not whether he is beloved, but
whether he is Lord Popenjoy."
"He is Lord Popenjoy. He is a poor weakling, and I doubt whether he may
enjoy the triumph long, but he is Lord Popenjoy. You must know it
yourself, Dean."
"I know nothing of the kind," said the Dean, furiously.
"Then you must be a very self-willed man. When this began George was
joined with you in the unnatural inquiry. He at any rate has been
convinced."
"It may be he has submitted himself to his brother's influence."
"Not in the least. George is not very clever, but he has at any rate
had wit enough to submit to the influence of his own legal adviser,--or
rather to the influence of your legal adviser. Your own man, Mr.
Battle, is convinced. You are going on with this in opposition even to
him. What the devil is it you want? I am not dead, and may outlive at
any rate you. Your girl hasn't got a child, and doesn't seem likely to
have one. You happen to have married her into a noble family, and now,
upon my word, it seems to me that you are a little off your head with
downright pride."
"Was it for this you sent for me?"
"Well;--yes it was. I thought it might be as well to argue it out. It
isn't likely that there should be much love between us, but we needn't
cut each other's throats. It is costing us both a d----d lot of money;
but I should think that my purse must be longer than yours."
"We will try it, my lord."
"You intend to go on with this persecution then?"
"The Countess Luigi was presumably a married woman when she bore that
name, and I look upon it as a sacred duty to ascertain whether she was
so or not."
"Sacred!" said the Marquis, with a sneer.
"Yes;--sacred. There can be no more sacred duty than that which a
father owes to his child."
"Ah!" Then the Marquis paused and looked at the Dean before he went on
speaking. He looked so long that the Dean was preparing to take his hat
in his hand ready for a start. He showed that he was going to move, and
then the Marquis went on speaking. "Sacred! Ah!--and such a child!"
"She is one of whom I am proud as a father, and you should be proud as
a sister-in-law."
"Oh, of course. So I am. The Germains were never so honoured before. As
for her birth I care nothing about that. Had she behaved herself, I
should have thought nothing of the stable."
"What do you dare to say?" said the Dean, jumping from his seat.
The Marquis sat leaning back in his arm-chair, perfectly motionless.
There was a smile,--almost a pleasant smile on his face. But there was
a very devil in his eye, and the Dean, who stood some six feet removed
from him, saw the devil plainly. "I live a solitary life here, Mr.
Dean," said the Marquis, "but even I have heard of her."
"What have you heard?"
"All London have heard of her,--this future Marchioness, whose ambition
is to drive my son from his title and estates. A sacred duty, Mr. Dean,
to put a coronet on the head of that young ----!" The word which we
have not dared to print was distinctly spoken,--more distinctly, more
loudly, more incisively, than any word which had yet fallen from the
man's lips. It was evident that the lord had prepared the word, and had
sent for the father that the father might hear the word applied to his
own daughter,--unless indeed he should first acknowledge himself to
have lost his case. So far the interview had been carried out very much
in accordance with the preparations as arranged by the Marquis; but, as
to what followed, the Marquis had hardly made his calculations
correctly.
A clergyman's coat used to save him from fighting in fighting days; and
even in these days, in which broils and personal encounters are held to
be generally disreputable, it saves the wearer from certain remote
dangers to which other men are liable. And the reverse of this is also
true. It would probably be hard to extract a first blow from the whole
bench of bishops. And deans as a rule are more sedentary, more
quiescent, more given to sufferance even than bishops. The normal Dean
is a goodly, sleek, bookish man, who would hardly strike a blow under
any provocation. The Marquis, perhaps, had been aware of this. He had,
perhaps, fancied that he was as good a man as the Dean who was at least
ten years his senior. He had not at any rate anticipated such speedy
violence as followed the utterance of the abominable word.
The Dean, as I have said, had been standing about six feet from the
easy chair in which the Marquis was lolling when the word was spoken.
He had already taken his hat in his hand and had thought of some means
of showing his indignation as he left the room. Now his first impulse
was to rid himself of his hat, which he did by pitching it along the
floor. And then in an instant he was at the lord's throat. The lord had
expected it so little that up to the last he made no preparation for
defence. The Dean had got him by his cravat and shirt-collar before he
had begun to expect such usage as this. Then he simply gurgled out some
ejaculated oath, uttered half in surprise and half in prayer. Prayer
certainly was now of no use. Had five hundred feet of rock been there
the Marquis would have gone down it, though the Dean had gone with him.
Fire flashed from the clergyman's eyes, and his teeth were set fast and
his very nostrils were almost ablaze. His daughter! The holy spot of
his life! The one being in whom he believed with all his heart and with
all his strength!
The Dean was fifty years of age, but no one had ever taken him for an
old man. They who at home at Brotherton would watch his motions, how he
walked and how he rode on horseback, how he would vault his gates when
in the fields, and scamper across the country like a schoolboy, were
wont to say that he was unclerical. Perhaps Canons Pountner and
Holdenough, with Mr. Groschut, the bishop's chaplain, envied him
something of his juvenile elasticity. But I think that none of them had
given him credit for such strength as he now displayed. The Marquis, in
spite of what feeble efforts he made, was dragged up out of his chair
and made to stand, or rather to totter, on his legs. He made a clutch
at the bell-rope, which to aid his luxurious ease had been brought
close to his hand as he sat, but failed, as the Dean shook him hither
and thither. Then he was dragged on to the middle of the rug, feeling
by this time that he was going to be throttled. He attempted to throw
himself down, and would have done so but that the Dean with his left
hand prevented him from falling. He made one vigorous struggle to free
himself, striving as he did so to call for assistance. But the Dean
having got his victim's back to the fireplace, and having the poor
wretch now fully at his command, threw the man with all his strength
into the empty grate. The Marquis fell like a heap within the fender,
with his back against the top bar and his head driven further back
against the bricks and iron. There for a second or two he lay like a
dead mass.
Less than a minute had done it all, and for so long a time the Dean's
ungoverned fury had held its fire. What were consequences to him with
that word as applied to his child ringing in his ears? How should he
moderate his wrath under such outrage as that? Was it not as though
beast had met beast in the forest between whom nothing but internecine
fight to the end was possible? But when that minute was over, and he
saw what he had done,--when the man, tumbled, dishevelled, all alump
and already bloody, was lying before him,--then he remembered who he
was himself and what it was that he had done. He was Dean Lovelace, who
had already made for himself more than enough of clerical enmity; and
this other man was the Marquis of Brotherton, whom he had perhaps
killed in his wrath, with no witness by to say a word as to the
provocation he had received.
The Marquis groaned and impotently moved an arm as though to raise
himself. At any rate, he was not dead as yet. With a desire to do what
was right now, the Dean rang the bell violently, and then stooped down
to extricate his foe. He had succeeded in raising the man and in
seating him on the floor with his head against the arm-chair before the
servant came. Had he wished to conceal anything, he could without much
increased effort have dragged the Marquis up into his chair; but he was
anxious now simply that all the truth should be known. It seemed to him
still that no one knowing the real truth would think that he had done
wrong. His child! His daughter! His sweetly innocent daughter! The man
soon rushed into the room, for the ringing of the bell had been very
violent. "Send for a doctor," said the Dean, "and send the landlord
up."
"Has my lord had a fit?" said the man, advancing into the room. He was
the servant, not of the hotel, but of the Marquis himself.
"Do as I bid you;--get a doctor and send up the landlord immediately.
It is not a fit, but his lordship has been much hurt. I knocked him
down." The Dean made the last statement slowly and firmly, under a
feeling at the moment that it became him to leave nothing concealed,
even with a servant.
"He has murdered me," groaned the Marquis. The injured one could speak
at least, and there was comfort in that. The servant rushed back to the
regions below, and the tidings were soon spread through the house.
Resident landlord there was none. There never are resident landlords in
London hotels. Scumberg was a young family of joint heirs and
heiresses, named Tomkins, who lived at Hastings, and the house was
managed by Mrs. Walker. Mrs. Walker was soon in the room, with a German
deputy manager kept to maintain the foreign Scumberg connection, and
with them sundry waiters and the head chambermaid. Mrs. Walker made a
direct attack upon the Dean, which was considerably weakened by
accusations from the lips of the Marquis himself. Had he remained
speechless for a while the horrors of the Dean's conduct would have
been greatly aggravated. "My good woman," said the Dean, "wait till
some official is here. You cannot understand. And get a little warm
water and wash his lordship's head."
"He has broken my back," said his lordship. "Oh, oh, oh."
"I am glad to hear you speak, Lord Brotherton," said the Dean. "I think
you will repent having used such a word as that to my daughter." It
would be necessary now that everybody should understand everything; but
how terrible would it be for the father even to say that such a name
had been applied to his child!
First there came two policemen, then a surgeon, and then a sergeant. "I
will do anything that you suggest, Mr. Constable," said the Dean,
"though I hope it may not be necessary that I should remain in custody.
I am the Dean of Brotherton." The sergeant made a sign of putting his
finger up to his cap. "This, man, as you know, is the Marquis of
Brotherton." The sergeant bowed to the groaning nobleman. "My daughter
is married to his brother. There have been family quarrels, and he just
now applied a name to his own sister-in-law, to my child,--which I will
not utter because there are women here. Fouler slander never came from
a man's mouth. I took him from his chair and threw him beneath the
grate. Now you know it all. Were it to do again, I would do it again."
"She is a ----," said the imprudent prostrate Marquis. The sergeant,
the doctor who was now present, and Mrs. Walker suddenly became the
Dean's friends. The Marquis was declared to be much shaken, to have a
cut head, and to be very badly bruised about the muscles of the back.
But a man who could so speak of his sister-in-law deserved to have his
head cut and his muscles bruised. Nevertheless the matter was too
serious to be passed over without notice. The doctor could not say that
the unfortunate nobleman had received no permanent injury;--and the
sergeant had not an opportunity of dealing with deans and marquises
every day of his life. The doctor remained with his august patient and
had him put to bed, while the Dean and the sergeant together went off
in a cab to the police-office which lies in the little crowded streets
between the crooked part of Regent Street and Piccadilly. Here
depositions were taken and forms filled, and the Dean was allowed to
depart with an understanding that he was to be forthcoming immediately
when wanted. He suggested that it had been his intention to go down to
Brotherton on the following day, but the Superintendent of Police
recommended him to abandon that idea. The superintendent thought that
the Dean had better make arrangements to stay in London till the end of
the week.