Whilst the domestic _tete-a-tete_, feebly described in the foregoing
chapter, was in progress, the nobleman, more than once referred to, was
passing miserable moments in his temporary lodgings at the Salisbury
Hotel, in Oxford Street. A more unhappy gentleman than Baron Downy it
would be impossible to find in or out of England. The inheritor of a
cruelly-burdened title, he had spent a life in adding to its
incumbrances, rather than in seeking to disentangle it from the meshes
in which it had been transmitted to him. In the freest country on the
globe, he had never known the bliss of liberty. He had moved about with
a drag-chain upon his spiritual and physical energies, as long as he
could remember his being. At school and at college, necessarily limited
in his allowance, he contracted engagements which followed him for at
least ten years after his entrance into life, and then only quitted him
to leave him bound to others far more tremendous and inextricable. His
most frequent visitors, his most constant friends, his most familiar
acquaintance, were money-lenders. He had borrowed money upon all
possible and unimaginable securities, from the life of his grandmother
down to that last resource of the needy gentleman, the family repeater,
chain, and appendages. His lordship, desperate as his position was, was
a man of breeding, a nobleman in thought and feeling. But the more
incapable of doing wrong, so much the more liable to deceit and fraud.
He had been passed, so to speak, from hand to hand by all the
representatives of the various money-lending classes that thrive in
London on the folly and necessity of the reckless and the needy. All had
now given him up. His name had an odour in the market, where his paper
was a drug. His bills of a hundred found few purchasers at a paltry five
pounds, and were positively rejected by all but wine-merchant-sheriff's
officers, who took them at nothing, and contrived to make a handsome
profit out of them into the bargain. Few had so little reason to be
proud as the man whose name had become a by-word and a joke amongst the
most detestable and degraded of their race; and yet, strange as it may
seem, few had a keener sense of their position, or could be so readily
stung by insult, let it but proceed from a quarter towards which
punishment might be directed with credit or honour. A hundred times Lord
Downy had cursed his fate, which had not made him an able-bodied porter,
or an independent labourer in the fields, rather than that saddest of
all sad contradictions, a nobleman without the means of sustaining
nobility--a man of rank with no dignity--a superior without the shadow
of pre-eminence; but for all the wealth of the kingdom, he would not
have sullied the order to which he belonged, by what he conceived to be
one act of meanness or sordid selfishness; as if there could be any
thing foul or base in any act that seeks, by honourable industry, to
repair the errors of a wayward fortune.
Upon the day of which we speak, there sat with Lord Downy a rude,
ill-favoured man, brought into juxtaposition with the peer by the
unfortunate relation that connected the latter with so many men of
similar stamp and station. He seemed more at home in the apartment than
the owner, and took some pains to over-act his part of vulgar
independence. He had never been so intimate with a nobleman
before--certainly no nobleman had ever been in his power until now. The
low and abject mind holds its jubilee when it fancies that it reduces
superiority to its own level, and can trample upon it for an hour
without fear of rebuke or opposition.
"For the love of heaven! Mr Ireton, if for no kindness towards me," said
Lord Downy, "give me one day longer to redeem those sacred pledges. They
are heirlooms--gifts of my poor dear mother. I had no right to place
them in your hands--they belong to my child."
"Then why did you? I never asked you; I could have turned my money
twenty times over since you have had it. I dare say you think I have
made a fortune out of you."
"I have always paid you liberally--and given you your terms."
"I thought so--it's always the way. The more you do for great people the
more you may. I might have taken the bed from under your lordship many a
time, if so I had been so disposed; but of course you have forgotten all
about _that_."
"About these jewels, Mr Ireton. They are not of great value, and cannot
be worth your selling. I shall receive two hundred and fifty pounds
to-morrow--it shall be made three hundred, and you shall have the whole
sum on account. Surely four-and-twenty hours are not to make you break
your faith with me?"
"As for breaking faith, Lord Downy, I should like to know what you'd do
if I were in your place and you in mine."
"I hope"--
"Oh, yes! it's easy enough to talk now, when you aint in my position;
but I know very well how you all grind down the poor fellows that are in
your power--how you make them slave on five shillings a-week, to keep
you in luxury, and all the rest of it. Not that I blame you. I know it's
human nature to get what one can out of every body, and I don't complain
to see men try it on."
"I have nothing more to say, Mr Ireton. You must do with me as you think
proper."
"I am to wait till to-morrow, you say?"
"Yes; only until to-morrow. I shall surely be in receipt of money then."
"Oh, sure of course!" said Mr Ireton. "You gentlemen are always sure
till the time comes, and then you can't make it out how it is you are
disappointed. No sort of experience conquers your spirits; but the more
your hopes are defeated, the more sanguine you get. I'll wait till
to-morrow then"--
"A thousand thanks."
"Wait a bit--on certain terms. You know as well as I do, that I could
put you to no end of expense. I don't wish to do it; but I don't prefer
to be out of pocket by the matter. I must have ten pounds for the
accommodation."
"Ten!" exclaimed poor Lord Downy.
"Yes, only ten; and I'll give you twenty if you'll pay me at once;"
added Mr Ireton--knowing very well that his victim could as easily have
paid off the national debt.
Lord Downy sighed.
"There's a slip of paper before you. Give me your I O U for the trifle,
and pay principal and interest to-morrow."
His lordship turned obediently to the table, wrote in silence the
acknowledgment required, and with a hand that trembled from vexation and
anxiety, presented the document to his tormentor. The latter vanished.
He had scarcely departed before Lord Downy rang his bell with violence,
and a servant entered.
"Are there any letters for me, Mason?" inquired his lordship eagerly.
"None, my lord," answered Mason with some condescension, and a great
deal of sternness.
Lord Downy bit his lip, and paced the room uneasily.
"My lord," said Mason, "I beg your"----
"Nothing more, nothing more;" replied the master, interrupting him.
"Should any letters arrive, let them be brought to me immediately."
"Beg your pardon, my lord," said Mason, taking no notice of the order,
"the place doesn't suit me."
"How?"
"Nothing to complain of, my lord--only wish to get into a good family."
"Sirrah!"
"It isn't the kind of thing, my lord," continued Mason, growing bolder,
"that I have been used to. I brought a character with me, and I want to
take it away again. I'm talked about already."
"What does the fellow mean?"
"I don't wish to hurt your lordship's feelings, and I'd rather not be
more particular. If it gets blown in the higher circles that I have been
here, my character, my lord, is smashed."
"You may go, sir, when your month has expired."
"I'd rather go at once, my lord, if it's all the same to you. As for the
salary, my lord, it's quite at your service--quite. I never was a
grasping man; and in your lordship's unfortunate situation,"----Lord
Downy walked to the window, flung it open, and commenced whistling a
tune----"I should know better than to take advantage," proceeded Mr
Mason. "There is a young man, my lord, a friend of mine, just entering
life, without any character at all, who would be happy, I have no doubt,
to undertake"----
Lord Downy banged the window, and turned upon the flunky with an
expression of rage that might have put a violent and ever-to-be-lamented
stop to this true history, had not the door of his lordship's apartment
opened, and _boots_ presented himself with the announcement of "MR
WARREN DE FITZALBERT."