THE AUDLEY BIBLE
Angry with Stubbs as he was—and with some reason—Lord Audley was not
the man to bite off his nose to spite his face. He pondered long what
he would say to him, and more than once he rehearsed the scene, toning
down this phrase and pruning that. For he knew that after all Stubbs
was a good agent. He was honest, he thought much and made much of the
property, and nothing would be gained by changing him. Then his
influence in the borough was such that even if my lord quarrelled with
him, Mottisfont would hardly venture to discard him.
For these reasons Audley had no mind to break with his agent. But he
did wish to punish him. He did wish to make his displeasure felt. And
he wished this the more because he began to suspect that if Stubbs had
been less bigoted, he might have carried the borough the way he
wished—the way that would pay him best.
Stubbs on his side foresaw an unpleasant quarter of an hour. He had
been too easy. He had paid too little heed to John Audley’s trespasses,
and had let things pass that he should have stopped. Then, too, he had
been over-positive that there were no more documents at the Great
House. Evil had not come of this, but it might have; and he made up his
mind to hear some hard words.
But when he obeyed my lord’s summons his reception tried his patience.
A bright fire burned in the grate, half a dozen wax candles shed a
softened light on the room. The wine stood at Audley’s elbow, and his
glass was half full. But he did not give Stubbs even two fingers, nor
did he ask him to take wine. And his tone was colder than Stubbs had
ever known it. He made it plain that he was receiving a servant, and a
servant with whom he was displeased.
Still he was Lord Audley, something of divine right survived in him,
and Stubbs knew that he had been himself in the wrong. He took the bull
by the horns. “You are displeased, my lord,” he said, as he took the
seat to which the other pointed. “And I admit with some cause. I have
been mistaken and, perhaps, a little remiss! But it is the exception,
and it will be a lesson to me. I am sorry, my lord,” he added frankly.
“I can say no more than that.”
“And much good that will do us,” my lord growled, “in certain events,
Mr. Stubbs!”
“At any rate it will be a sharp lesson to me,” Stubbs replied. “It has
cost Mr. Audley his life.”
“He had no right to be there!”
“No, my lord, he had no right to be there. But he would not have been
there if I had seen that the place was properly secured. I take all the
blame.”
“Unfortunately,” the other flung at him contemptuously, “you cannot pay
the penalty; that may fall upon me. Anyway, it was a d—d silly thing,
Mr. Stubbs, to leave the place open, and you see what has come of it.”
“I cannot deny it, my lord,” Stubbs said patiently. “But I hope that
nothing will come of it. I will tell your lordship first what my own
observations were. I made a careful examination of the two chests of
papers and I came to the conclusion that Mr. Audley had done little
more than open the first when he was taken ill. One chest showed some
disturbance. The upper layer had been taken out and replaced. The other
box had not been opened.”
“What if he found what he wanted and searched no further?” Audley asked
grimly. “But the point of the matter does not lie there. It lies in
another direction, as I should have thought any lawyer would see.”
“My lord?”
“Who was with him?” Lord Audley rapped the table with his fingers.
“That’s the point, sir! Who was with him?”
“I think I have ascertained that,” Stubbs replied, less put out than
his employer expected. “I have little doubt that his man-servant, a man
called Toft, was with him.”
“Ha!” the other exclaimed, “I expected that!”
Stubbs raised his eyebrows. “You know him, my lord?”
“I know him for a d—d blackmailing villain!” Audley broke out. Then he
remembered himself. He had not told Stubbs of the blackmailing. And,
after all, what did it matter? He had made himself safe. Whatever
papers he had found, John Audley was dead, and John Audley’s heiress
was going to be his wife! The danger to him was naught, and the
blackmailer was already disarmed. Still he was not going to spare
Stubbs by telling him that. Instead, “What did the boxes contain?” he
asked ungraciously.
“Nothing of any value when I examined them, my lord. Old surrenders,
fines, and recoveries with some ancient terriers. I could find no
document among them that related to the title.”
“That may be,” Audley retorted. “But John Audley expected to find
something that related to the title! He knew more than we knew. He knew
that those boxes existed, and he knew what he expected to find in
them.”
“No doubt. And if your lordship had given me a little more time I
should have explained before this that he was disappointed in his
expectation; nay, more, that it was that disappointment—as I have
little doubt—that caused his collapse and death.”
“How the devil do you know that?”
“If your lordship will have patience I will explain,” Stubbs said, a
gleam of malice in his eyes. He rose from his seat and took from a
chair beside the door a parcel which he had laid there on his entrance.
“I have here that which he found, and that which I don’t doubt caused
his death.”
“The deuce you have!” Audley cried, rising to his feet in his surprise.
And he watched with all his eyes while the lawyer slowly untied the
tape and spread wide the wrappers. The action disclosed a thick quarto
volume bound in blue leather, sprinkled on the sides with silver
butterflies, and stamped with the arms of Audley. “Good G—d!” Audley
continued, “the Family Bible!”
“Yes, the Family Bible,” the lawyer answered, gazing at it
complacently, “about which there was so much talk at the opening of the
suit. It was identified by a score of references, called for by both
sides, sought for high and low, and never produced!”
“And here it is!”
“Here it is. Apparently at some time or other it went out of fashion,
was laid aside and lost sight of, and eventually bricked up with a mass
of old and valueless papers.”
Audley steadied his voice with difficulty. “And what is its effect?” he
asked.
“Its effect, my lord, is to corroborate our case in every particular,”
the lawyer answered proudly. “Its entries form a history of the family
for a long period, and amongst them is an entry of the marriage of
Peter Paravicini Audley on the date alleged by us; an entry made in the
handwriting of his father, and one of eleven made by the same hand.
This entry agrees in every particular with the suspected statement in
the register which we support, and fully bears out our case.”
“And John Audley found that?” my lord cried, after a moment of pregnant
silence. He had regained his composure. His eyes were shining.
“Yes, and it killed him,” Stubbs said gravely. “Doubtless he came on it
at the moment when he thought success was within his grasp, and the
shock was too much for him.”
“Good Lord! Good Lord! And how did you get it?”
“From Mr. Basset.”
“Basset?”
“Who obtained it, I have no doubt, from the man, Toft, either by
pressure or purchase.”
“The rascal! The d—d rascal! He ought to be prosecuted!”
“Possibly,” the lawyer agreed. “But he was only an accomplice, and we
could not prosecute him without involving others; without bringing Mr.
John’s name into it—and he is dead. As a fact, I have passed my word to
Mr. Basset that no steps should be taken against him, and I think your
lordship will agree with me that I could not do otherwise.”
“Still—the man ought to be punished!”
“He ought, but if any one has paid for his silence or for this book, it
is not we.”
After that there was a little more talk about the Bible, which my lord
examined with curiosity, about the singularity of its discovery, about
the handwriting of the entries, which the lawyer said he could himself
prove. Stubbs was made free of the decanter, and of everything but my
lord’s mind. For Audley said nothing of his engagement to Mary—the
moment was hardly opportune; and nothing—it was too late in the day—of
Toft’s former exploit. He stood awhile absorbed and dreaming, staring
through the haze of the candles. Here at last was final and complete
relief. No more fears, no more calculations. Here was an end at last of
the feeling that there was a mine under him. Traditions, when they are
bred in the bone, die slowly, and many a time he had been hard put to
it to resist the belief, so long whispered, that his branch was
illegitimate. At last the tradition was dead. There was no more need to
play for safety. What he had he had, and no one could take it from him.
And presently the talk passed to the election.
“There’s no doubt,” Stubbs said, “that Mr. Basset is a stronger
candidate than either side expected.”
“But he’s no politician! He has no experience!”
The lawyer sat forward, with his legs apart and a hand on either knee.
“No,” he said. “But the truth is, though it is beyond me how a
gentleman of his birth can be so misled, he believes what he says—and
it goes down!”
“Is he a speaker?”
“He is and he isn’t! I slipped in myself one night at the back of one
of the new-fangled meetings his precious League has started. I wanted
to see, my lord, if any of our people were there. I heard him for ten
minutes, and at the start he was so jumpy I thought that he would break
down. But when he got going—well, I saw how it was and what took the
people. He believes what he says, and he says it plain. The way he
painted Peel giving up everything, sacrificing himself, sacrificing his
party, sacrificing his reputation, sacrificing all to do what he
thought was right—the devil himself wouldn’t have known his own!”
“He almost converted you?”
The lawyer laughed disdainfully. “Not a jot!” he said. “But I saw that
he would convert some. Not many,” Stubbs continued complacently.
“There’s some that mean to, but will think better of it at the last.
And some would but daren’t! Two or three may. Still, he’s such a
candidate as we’ve not had against us before, my lord. And with cheap
bread and the preachings of this plaguy League—I shall be glad when it
is over.”
Audley rose and poked the fire. “You’re not going to tell me,” he said,
in a voice that was unnaturally even, “that he’s going to beat us?
You’re not going, after all the assurances you’ve given me——”
“God forbid,” Stubbs replied. “No, no, my lord! Mr. Mottisfont will
hold the seat! I mean only that it will be a nearer thing—a nearer
thing than it has been.”
He had no idea that his patron was fighting a new spasm of anger; that
the thought that he might, after all, have dealt with Sir Robert, the
thought that he might, after all, have bargained with the party in
power, was almost too much for the other’s self-command. It was too
late now, of course. It was too late. But if the contest was to be so
close, surely if he had cast his weight on the other side, he might
have carried it!
And what if the seat were lost? Then this stubborn, confident fool, who
was as bigoted in his faith as the narrowest Leaguer of them all, had
done him a deadly injury! My lord bit off an oath, and young as he was,
his face wore a very apoplectic look as he turned round, after laying
down the poker.
“That reminds me,” the lawyer resumed, blandly unconscious of the
crisis, and of the other’s anger. “I meant to ask your lordship what’s
to be done about the two Boshams. You remember them, my lord? They’ve
had the small holding by the bridge with the water meadow time out of
mind—for seven generations they say. They pay eighteen pounds as joint
tenants, and have votes as old freemen.”
“What of them?” the other asked impatiently.
“Well, I’m afraid they’ll not support us.”
“Do you mean that they’ll not vote for Mottisfont?”
“I’m afraid not,” Stubbs answered. “They’re as stubborn as their own
pigs! I’ve spoken to them myself and told them that they’ve only one
thing to expect if they go against their landlord.”
“And that is, to go out!” Audley said. “Well, make that quite clear to
them, Stubbs, and depend upon it—they’ll see differently.”
“I’m afraid they won’t, my lord, and that is why I trouble you. They
voted against the last lord—twice, I am told—and the story goes that he
laid his stick about Ben Bosham’s shoulders in the street—that would be
in ’31, I fancy. But he didn’t turn them out—they’d been in the holding
so long.”
“Two votes may have been nothing to him,” Audley replied coldly. “They
are something to me. They will vote for Mottisfont or they will go,
Stubbs. That is flat, and do you see to it. There, I’m tired now,” he
continued, rising from his seat.
Stubbs rose. “I don’t know if your lordship’s heard about Mr. John’s
will!”
“No!” My lord straightened himself. Earlier in the day he had given
some thought to this, and had weighed Mary Audley’s chances of
inheriting what John Audley had. “No!” he said. And he waited.
“He has left the young lady eight thousand pounds.”
“Eight thousand!” Audley ejaculated. “Do you mean—he must have had more
than that? He wasted a small fortune in that confounded suit. But he
must have had—four times that, man!”
“The residue goes to Mr. Basset.”
“Basset!” Audley cried, his face flushed with passion. “To Basset?” he
repeated. “Good G—d!”
“So I’m told, my lord,” the lawyer answered, staggered by the temper in
which his employer received the news.
“But Miss Audley was his own niece! Basset? He was no relation to him!”
“They were very old friends.”
“That’s no reason why he should leave him thirty thousand pounds of
Audley money! Money taken straight out of the Audley property! Thirty
thousand——”
“Not thirty, my lord,” Stubbs ventured. “Not much above twenty, I
should say. If you put it——”
“If I put it that you were—something of a fool at times,” the angry man
cried, “I shouldn’t be far wrong! But there, there, never mind!
Good-night! Can’t you see I’m dead tired and hardly know what I am
saying? Come to-morrow! Come at eleven in the morning.”
Stubbs hardly knew how to take it. But after a moment’s hesitation, he
made the best of the apology, muttered something, and got out of the
room. On the stairs he relieved his feelings by a word or two. In the
street he wondered what had taken the man so suddenly. Surely he had
not expected to get the money!