When Harcourt had finished the reading of that letter we have presented
in our last chapter, he naturally turned for information on the subject
which principally interested him to the enclosure. It was a somewhat
bulky packet, and, from its size, at once promised very full and ample
details. As he opened it, however, he discovered it was in various
handwritings; but his surprise was further increased by the following
heading, in large letters, in the top of a page: “Sulphur Question,” and
beginning, “My Lord, by a reference to my despatch, No. 478, you
will perceive that the difficulties which the Neapolitan
Government--” Harcourt turned over the page. It was all in the same
strain. Tariffs, treaties, dues, and duties occurred in every line.
Three other documents of like nature accompanied this; after which came
a very ill-written scrawl on coarse paper, entitled, “Hints as to diet
and daily exercise for his Excellency's use.”
The honest Colonel, who was not the quickest of men, was some time
before he succeeded in unravelling to his satisfaction the mystery
before him, and recognizing that the papers on his table had been
destined for a different address, while the letter of the Princess had,
in all probability, been despatched to the Foreign Office, and was now
either confounding or amusing the authorities in Downing Street. While
Harcourt laughed over the blunder, he derived no small gratification
from thinking that nothing but great geniuses ever fell into these
mistakes, and was about to write off in this very spirit to Upton,
when he suddenly bethought him that, before an answer could arrive, he
himself would be far away on his journey to India.
“I asked nothing,” said he, “that could be difficult to reply to. It was
plain enough, too, that I only wanted such information as he could
have given me off-hand. If I could but assure Glencore that the boy
was worthy of him,--that there was stuff to give good promise of future
excellence, that he was honorable and manly in all his dealings,--who
knows what effect such assurance might have had? There are days when it
strikes me Glencore would give half his fortune to have the youth beside
him, and be able to call him his own. Why he cannot, does not do it, is
a mystery which I am unable to fathom. He never gave me his confidence
on this head; indeed, he gave me something like a rebuff one evening,
when he erroneously fancied that I wanted to probe the mysterious
secret. It shows how much he knows of my nature,” added he, laughing.
“Why, I'd rather carry a man's trunk or his portmanteau on my back than
his family secrets in my heart. I could rest and lay down my burden in
the one case,--in the other, there's never a moment of repose! And now
Glencore is to be here this very day--the ninth--to learn my news. The
poor fellow comes up from Wales, just to talk over these matters, and I
have nothing to offer him but this blundering epistle. Ay, here 's the
letter:--
“Dear Harcourt,--Let me have a mutton-chop with you on the ninth, and
give me, if you can, the evening after it.
“Yours,
“Glencore.”
“A man must be ill off for counsel and advice when he thinks of such aid
as mine. Heaven knows, I never was such a brilliant manager of my own
fortunes that any one should trust his destinies in my hands. Well, he
shall have the mutton-chop, and a good glass of old port after it; and
the evening, or, if he likes it, the night shall be at his disposal.”
And with this resolve, Harcourt, having given orders for dinner at
six, issued forth to stroll down to his club, and drop in at the Horse
Guards, and learn as much as he could of the passing events of the
day,--meaning, thereby, the details of whatever regarded the army-list,
and those who walk in scarlet attire.
It was about five o'clock of a dreary November afternoon that a
hackney-coach drew op at Harcourt's lodgings in Dover Street, and a tall
and very sickly looking man, carrying his carpet-bag in one hand and a
dressing-case in the other, descended and entered the house.
“Mr. Massy, sir?” said the Colonel's servant, as he ushered him in;
for such was the name Glencore desired to be known by. And the stranger
nodded, and throwing himself wearily down on a sofa, seemed overcome
with fatigue.
“Is your master out?” asked he, at length.
“Yes, sir; but I expect him immediately. Dinner was ordered for six, and
he 'll be back to dress half an hour before that time.”
“Dinner for two?” half impatiently asked the other.
“Yes, sir, for two.”
“And all visitors in the evening denied admittance? Did your master say
so?”
“Yes, sir; out for every one.”
Glencore now covered his face with his hands, and relapsed into silence.
At length he lifted his eyes till they fell upon a colored drawing over
the chimney. It was an officer in hussar uniform, mounted on a splendid
charger, and seated with all the graceful ease of a consummate horseman.
This much alone he could perceive from where he lay, and indolently
raising himself on one arm, he asked if it were “a portrait of his
master”?
“No, sir; of my master's colonel, Lord Glencore, when he commanded the
Eighth, and was said to be the handsomest man in the service.”
“Show it to me!” cried he, eagerly, and almost snatched the drawing from
the other's hands. He gazed at it intently and fixedly, and his sallow
cheek once reddened slightly as he continued to look.
“That never was a likeness!” said he, bitterly.
“My master thinks it a wonderful resemblance, sir,--not of what he is
now, of course; but that was taken fifteen years ago or more.”
“And is he so changed since that?” asked the sick man, plaintively.
“So I hear, sir. He had a stroke of some kind, or fit of one sort or
another, brought on by fretting. They took away his title, I'm told.
They made out that he had no right to it, that he wasn't the real lord.
But here's the Colonel, sir;” and almost as he spoke, Harcourt's step
was on the stair. The next moment his hand was cordially clasped in that
of his guest.
“I scarcely expected you before six; and how have you borne the
journey?” cried he, taking a seat beside the sofa. A gentle motion of
the eyebrows gave the reply.
“Well, well, you'll be all right after the soup. Marcom, serve the
dinner at once. I'll not dress. And mind, no admittance to any one.”
“You have heard from Upton?” asked Glencore.
“Yes.”
“And satisfactorily?” asked he, more anxiously.
“Quite so; but you shall know all by and by. I have got mackerel for
you. It was a favorite dish of yours long ago, and you shall taste such
mutton as your Welsh mountains can't equal. I got the haunch from the
Ardennes a week ago, and kept it for you.”
“I wish I deserved such generous fare; but I have only an invalid's
stomach,” said Glencore, smiling faintly.
“You shall be reported well, and fit for duty to-day, or my name is not
George Harcourt. The strongest and toughest fellow that ever lived could
n't stand up against the united effects of low diet and low spirits.
To act generously and think generously, you must live generously,
take plenty of exercise, breathe fresh air, and know what it is to be
downright weary when you go to bed,--not bored, mark you, for that's
another thing. Now, here comes the soup, and you shall tell me whether
turtle be not the best restorative a man ever took after twelve hours of
the road.”
Whether tempted by the fare, or anxious to gratify the hospitable wishes
of his host, Glencore ate heartily, and drank what for his abstemious
habit was freely, and, so far as a more genial air and a more ready
smile went, fully justified Harcourt's anticipations.
“By Jove! you 're more like yourself than I have seen you this many a
day,” said the Colonel, as they drew their chairs towards the fire,
and sat with that now banished, but ever to be regretted, little
spider-table, that once emblematized after-dinner blessedness, between
them. “This reminds one of long ago, Glencore, and I don't see why we
cannot bring to the hour some of the cheerfulness that we once boasted.”
A faint, very faint smile, with more of sorrow than joy in it, was the
other's only reply.
“Look at the thing this way, Glencore,” said Harcourt, eagerly. “So long
as a man has, either by his fortune or by his personal qualities, the
means of benefiting others, there is a downright selfishness in shutting
himself up in his sorrow, and saying to the world, 'My own griefs are
enough for me; I 'll take no care or share in yours.' Now, there never
was a fellow with less of this selfishness than you--”
“Do not speak to me of what I was, my dear friend. There's not a plank
of the old craft remaining. The name alone lingers, and even that will
soon be extinct.”
“So, then, you still hold to this stern resolution? Shall I tell you
what I think of it?”
“Perhaps you had better not do so,” said Glencore, sternly.
“By Jove! then, I will, just for that menace,” said Harcourt. “I said,
'This is vengeance on Glencore's part.'”
“To whom, sir, did you make this remark?”
“To myself, of course. I never alluded to the matter to any other;
never.”
“So far, well,” said Glencore, solemnly; “for had you done so, we had
never exchanged words again!”
“My dear fellow,” said Harcourt, laying his hand affectionately on the
other's, “I can well imagine the price a sensitive nature like yours
must pay for the friendship of one so little gifted with tact as I am.
But remember always that there's this advantage in the intercourse: you
can afford to hear and bear things from a man of _my_ stamp, that would
be outrages from perhaps the lips of a brother. As Upton, in one of his
bland moments, once said to me, 'Fellows like you, Harcourt, are the
bitters of the human pharmacopoeia,--somewhat hard to take, but very
wholesome when you're once swallowed.'”
“You are the best of the triad, and no great praise that, either,”
muttered Glencore to himself. After a pause, he continued: “It has not
been from any distrust in your friendship, Harcourt, that I have not
spoken to you before on this gloomy subject. I know well that you bear
me more affection than any one of all those who call themselves my
friends; but when a man is about to do that which never can meet
approval from those who love him, he seeks no counsel, he invites no
confidence. Like the gambler, who risks all on a single throw, he makes
his venture from the impulse of a secret mysterious prompting within,
that whispers, 'With this you are rescued or ruined!' Advice, counsel!”
cried he, in bitter mockery, “tell me, when have such ever alleviated
the tortures of a painful malady? Have you ever heard that the writhings
of the sick man were calmed by the honeyed words of his friends at the
bedside? I”--here his voice became full and loud--“I was burdened with a
load too great for me to bear. It had bowed me to the earth, and all
but crushed me! The sense of an unaccomplished vengeance was like a debt
which, unrequited ere I died, sent me to my grave dishonored. Which
of you all could tell me how to endure this? What shape could your
philosophy assume?”
“Then I guessed aright,” broke in Harcourt. “This was done in
vengeance.”
“I have no reckoning to render you, sir,” said Glencore, haughtily; “for
any confidence of mine, you are more indebted to my passion than to my
inclination. I came up here to speak and confer with you about this boy,
whose guardianship you are unable to continue longer. Let us speak of
that.”
“Yes,” said Harcourt, in his habitual tone of easy good humor, “they
are going to send me out to India again. I have had eighteen years of
it already; but I have no Parliamentary influence, nor could I trace a
fortieth cousinship with the House of Lords; but, after all, it might be
worse. Now, as to this lad, what if I were to take him out with me?
This artist life that he seems to have adopted scarcely promises much.”
“Let me see Upton's letter,” said Glencore, gravely.
“There it is. But I must warn you that the really important part is
wanting; for instead of sending us, as he promised, the communication
of his Russian Princess, he has stuffed in a mass of papers intended for
Downing Street, and a lot of doctor's prescriptions, for whose loss he
is doubtless suffering martyrdom.”
“Is this credible?” cried Glencore.
“There they are, very eloquent about sulphur, and certain refugees with
long names, and with some curious hints about Spanish flies and the
flesh-brush.”
Glencore flung down the papers in indignation, and walked up and down
the room without speaking.
“I'd wager a trifle,” cried Harcourt, “that Madame--What 's-her-name's
letter has gone to the Foreign Office in lien of the despatches; and, if
so, they have certainly gained most by the whole transaction.”
“You have scarcely considered, perhaps, what publicity may thus be given
to my private affairs,” said Glencore. “Who knows what this woman may
have said; what allusions her letter may contain?”
“Very true; I never did think of that,” muttered Harcourt.
“Who knows what circumstances of my private history are now bandied
about from desk to desk by flippant fools, to be disseminated afterwards
over Europe by every courier?” cried he, with increasing passion.
Before Harcourt could reply, the servant entered, and whispered a few
words in his ear. “But you already denied me,” said Harcourt. “You told
him that I was from home?”
“Yes, sir; but he said that his business was so important that he 'd
wait for your return, if I could not say where he might find you. This
is his card.”
Harcourt took it, and read, “Major Scaresby, from Naples.” “What think
you, Glencore? Ought we to admit this gentleman? It may be that this visit
relates to what we have been speaking about.”
“Scaresby--Scaresby--I know the name,” muttered Glencore. “To be sure!
There was a fellow that hung about Florence and Rome long ago, and
called himself Scaresby; an ill-tongued old scandal-monger people
encouraged in a land where newspapers are not permitted.”
“He affects to have something very pressing to communicate. Perhaps it
were better to have him up.”
“Don't make me known to him, then, or let me have to talk to him,” said
Glencore, throwing himself down on a sofa; “and let his visit be as
brief as you can manage.”
Harcourt made a significant sign to his servant, and the moment after
the Major was heard ascending the stairs.
“Very persistent of me, you'll say, Colonel Harcourt. Devilish tenacious
of my intentions, to force myself thus upon you!” said the Major, as
he bustled into the room, with a white leather bag in his hand; “but I
promised Upton I'd not lie down on a bed till I saw you.”
“All the apologies should come from my side, Major,” said Harcourt,
as he handed him to a chair; “but the fact was, that having an invalid
friend with me, quite incapable of seeing company, and having matters of
some importance to discuss with him--”
“Just so,” broke in Scaresby; “and if it were not that I had given a
very strong pledge to Upton, I 'd have given my message to your servant,
and gone off to my hotel. But he laid great stress on my seeing you, and
obtaining certain papers which, if I understand aright, have reached you
in mistake, being meant for the Minister at Downing Street. Here's his
own note, however, which will explain all.”
It ran thus:--
Dear H------,--So I find that some of the despatches have got
into your enclosure instead of that “on his Majesty's service.” I
therefore send off the insupportable old bore who will deliver this,
to rescue them, and convey them to their fitting destination. “The
extraordinaries” will be burdened to some fifty or sixty pounds for it;
but they very rarely are expended so profitably as in getting rid of an
intolerable nuisance. Give him all the things, therefore, and pack
him off to Downing Street. I'm far more uneasy, however, about some
prescriptions which I suspect are along with them. One, a lotion for the
cervical vertebrae, of invaluable activity, which you may take a copy
of, but strictly, on honor, for your own use only. Scaresby will obtain
the Princess's letter, and hand it to you. It is certain not to have
been opened at F. O., as they never read anything not alluded to in the
private correspondence.
This blunder has done me a deal of harm. My nerves are not in a state to
stand such shocks; and though, in fact, you are not the culpable party,
I cannot entirely acquit you for having in part occasioned it. [Harcourt
laughed good-humoredly at this, and continued:] If you care for it,
old S. will give you all the last gossip from these parts, and be the
channel of yours to me. But don't dine him; he's not worth a dinner.
He 'll only repay sherry and soda-water, and one of those execrable
cheroots you used to be famed for. Amongst the recipes, let me recommend
you an admirable tonic, the principal ingredient in which is the oil
of the star-fish. It will probably produce nausea, vertigo, and even
fainting for a week or two, but these symptoms decline at last, and,
except violent hiccup, no other inconvenience remains. Try it, at all
events.
Yours ever, H. U.
While Harcourt perused this short epistle, Scaresby, on the invitation
of his host, had helped himself freely to the Madeira, and a plate of
devilled biscuits beside it, giving, from time to time, oblique glances
towards the dark corner of the room, where Glencore lay, apparently
asleep.
“I hope Upton's letter justifies my insistence, Colonel. He certainly
gave me to understand that the case was a pressing one,” said Scaresby.
“Quite so, Major Scaresby; and I have only to reiterate my excuses for
having denied myself to you. But you are aware of the reason;” and he
glanced towards where Glen-Core was lying.
“Very excellent fellow, Upton,” said the Major, sipping his wine, “but
very--what shall I call it?--eccentric; very odd; not like any one else,
you know, in the way he does things. I happened to be one of his guests
t'other day. He had detained us above an hour waiting dinner, when he
came in all flurried and excited, and, turning to me, said, 'Scaresby,
have you any objection to a trip to England at his Majesty's expense?'
and as I replied, 'None whatever; indeed, it would suit my book to
perfection just now.'
“'Well, then,' said he, 'get your traps together, and be here within
an hour. I 'll have all in readiness for you.' I did not much fancy
starting off in this fashion, and without my dinner, too; but egad! he's
one of those fellows that don't stand parleying, and so I just took him
at his word, and here I am. I take it the matter must be a very emergent
one, eh?”
“It is clear Sir Horace Upton thought so,” said Harcourt, rather amused
than offended by the other's curiosity.
“There's a woman in it, somehow, I 'll be bound, eh?”
Harcourt laughed heartily at this sally, and pushed the decanter towards
his guest.
“Not that I'd give sixpence to know every syllable of the whole
transaction,” said Scaresby. “A man that has passed, as I have, the last
twenty-five years of his life between Rome, Florence, and Naples, has
devilish little to learn of what the world calls scandal.”
“I suppose you must indeed possess a wide experience,” said Harcourt.
“Not a man in Europe, sir, could tell you as many dark passages of
good society! I kept a kind of book once,--a record of fashionable
delinquencies; but I had to give it up. It took me half my day to
chronicle even the passing events; and then my memory grew so retentive
by practice, I did n't want the reference, but could give you date, and
name, and place for every incident that has scandalized the world for
the last quarter of the century.”
“And do you still possess this wonderful gift, Major?”
“Pretty well; not, perhaps, to the same extent I once did. You see,
Colonel Harcourt,”--here his voice became low and confidential,--“some
twenty, or indeed fifteen years back, it was only persons of actual
condition that permitted themselves the liberty to do these things; but,
hang it, sir! now you have your middle-class folk as profligate as their
betters. Jones, or Smith, or Thompson runs away with his neighbor's
wife, cheats at cards, and forges his friend's name, just as if he had
the best blood in his veins, and fourteen quarterings on his escutcheon.
What memory, then, I ask you, could retain all the shortcomings of
these people?”
“But I 'd really not trouble my head with such ignoble delinquents,”
said Harcourt.
“Nor do I, sir, save when, as will sometimes happen, they have a
footing, with one leg at least, in good society. For, in the present
state of the world, a woman with a pretty face, and a man with a
knowledge of horseflesh, may move in any circle they please.”
“You're a severe censor of the age we live in, I see,” said Harcourt,
smiling. “At the same time, the offences could scarcely give you
much uneasiness, or you 'd not take up your residence where they most
abound.”
“If you want to destroy tigers, you must frequent the jungle,” said
Scaresby, with one of his heartiest laughs.
“Say, rather, if you have the vulture's appetite, you must go where
there is carrion!” cried Glencore, with a voice to which passion lent a
savage vehemence.
“Eh? ha! very good! devilish smart of your sick friend. Pray present me
to him,” said Scaresby, rising.
“No, no, never mind him,” whispered Harcourt, pressing him down into
his seat. “At some other time, perhaps. He is nervous and irritable.
Conversation fatigues him, too.”
“Egad! that was neatly said, though; I hope I shall not forget it.
One envies these sick fellows, sometimes, the venom they get from bad
health. But I am forgetting myself in the pleasure of your society,”
added he, rising from the table, as he finished off the last glass in
the decanter. “I shall call at Downing Street to-morrow for that letter
of Upton's, and, with your permission, will deposit it in your hands
afterwards.”
Harcourt accompanied him to the door with thanks. Profuse, indeed, was
he in his recognitions, desiring to get him clear off the ground before
any further allusions on his part, or rejoinders from Glencore, might
involve them all in new complications.
“I know that fellow well,” cried Glencore, almost ere the door closed on
him. “He is just what I remember him some twenty years ago. Dressed up
in the cast-off vices of his betters, he has passed for a man of fashion
amongst his own set, while he is regarded as a wit by those who mistake
malevolence for humor. I ask no other test of a society than that such a
man is endured in it.”
“I sometimes suspect,” said Harcourt, “that the world never believes
these fellows to be as ill-natured as then-tongues bespeak them.”
“You are wrong, George; the world knows them well. The estimation they
are held in is, for the reflective flattery by which each listener to
their sarcasms soothes his own conscience as he says, 'I could be just
as bitter, if I consented to be as bad.'”
“I cannot at all account for Upton's endurance of such a man,” said
Harcourt.
“As there are men who fancy that they strengthen their animal system by
braving every extreme of climate, so Upton imagines that he invigorates
his _morale_ by associating with all kinds and descriptions of people;
and there is no doubt that in doing so he extends the sphere of his
knowledge of mankind. After all,” muttered he, with a sigh, “it 's only
learning the geography of a land too unhealthy to live in.”
Glencore arose as he said this, and, with a nod of leave-taking, retired
to his room.