Learmont at Home.—The Baronetcy.—A Visitor.—The Rejected Offer.
A rich, glowing summer’s sun was shining through the stained glass in a
large window of one of the principal rooms in the mansion of Learmont.
The very air seemed filled with glorious tints, rivalling in hues of
gorgeous beauty the brightest refulgence of the rainbow. The songs of
birds from the gardens came sweetly to the ear: a dreamy stillness,
such as is often to be observed towards the close of some delicious
summer day, seemed to pervade all things. He, however, who sat in that
richly-decked apartment, had no ear for the melodies of nature; for him
the glorious sunlight had no romantic charms. His brow was knit with
anxious care—deep furrows were on his cheeks, and a nervous irritation
of manner betrayed the heart ill at ease.
It was Squire Learmont himself who thus sat at the close of that
summer’s day, and the change in his appearance since we last presented
him to the reader was so great that it might have been supposed many
years had passed over his head instead of the comparatively short time
that had actually elapsed. His lank black hair was thickly mingled with
grey tints, and the sallow of his complexion had changed more and more
to a sickly awful white, such as might be supposed to sit upon the
countenance of one risen from the grave.
He sat for a long time silent, although his lips moved as if he were
muttering to himself something that formed the principal subject of his
meditation.
“Well,” he suddenly said, half aloud, “if I have made so great an
inroad in my accumulated wealth as to reduce it by one-fourth of its
whole amount, I have achieved something—ay, a great deal, for I have
made the first step up the ladder of nobility. This baronetcy that is
promised me is what I suggested to myself long since. Yes, that is the
commencement of power, the limit of which who shall define—then a
marriage—one of those marriages of convenience on one side and ambition
on the other. My wealth will make me a most acceptable suitor to some
branch of a noble family, whose peerage will look all the better for a
new coat of gilding. Humph, what says the minister?”
He took from the table before him a note which lay open, and read it
slowly and distinctly. It ran thus;—
There can be no doubt of his Majesty’s most gracious inclination to
confer a baronetcy upon you, without the slightest reference to your
patriotic and disinterested offer to purchase the means of occupying
six seats in the lower house. The matter may be well concluded this
present week.
“May it?” muttered Learmont. “It shall. I am not one who brooks delays.
I have paid dearly for my baronetcy, and I will have it. Those six
seats have cost me thrice their sums in thousands—ay, more than that.
There can indeed be no doubt of the gracious intentions of his Majesty;
that business is settled. I am to all intents and purposes even now a
baronet—I have paid the price, and, thank the Fates, this is a country
where all things have a price, nobility included; and now, how much
longer am I to be tortured by these rascals, Gray and Britton? My
bitterest curses on them both. Gray’s demands increase each time he
comes here; his love of gold is insatiable, and he never relaxes in his
caution. How on earth to cope with that man I know not. Must I ever be
the victim of his avarice until some day he dies, leaving behind him
that which might condemn me? No; this must, cannot last. Too long
already have I groaned under the weight of this man’s hideous presence,
and frequent visits. Some bold or hazardous scheme must rid me of him;
and, too, he peremptorily refuses aught to do with the destruction of
Britton. He thinks the job too dangerous, and taunts me with the sneer
that he gets of me already what gold he chooses to demand. Jacob Gray,
beware. Some accident may yet arise to place you at my mercy—my mercy?
Ha! Ha! Oh, if I could invent some torture—some—Ha! What now?”
“Master Gray desires speech of your worship,” said a servant.
In a moment Gray entered the room. Anxiety of mind, and the necessity
of constant caution, had had all their effect upon Jacob Gray. He
stooped considerably, and moved along with a slow, silent, shuffling
tread, as if he feared the very sound of his own footsteps would betray
him. He peered into the face of Learmont from his half-closed eyes, and
then gently sliding to a seat, he said, in a half whisper,—
“Well, squire, how fares it with you?”
“Indifferently well, Jacob Gray,” said Learmont. “You look pale and
ill.”
“No, no!” said Gray, quickly, “I’m very well, quite well and strong. I
shall have many years to live yet, I am quite well and strong.”
“Your looks belie you then; your hands tremble; you are weak, Jacob
Gray.”
“And yet so strong,” said Gray, trembling, his small eyes fixed at
Learmont, “that those who would destroy me dare not lay a finger on me
in violence!”
“I understand your taunt,” said Learmont; “it has long been settled
between us that I dare not take your life, Jacob Gray. But even now,
will nothing tempt you to conclude a business which is slowly but
sorely hurrying you to the grave?”
“Squire Learmont,” said Gray calmly, “it may be hurrying me to my
grave, but I do not wish to avoid the hurry by being at once placed in
it; I may be ill, but I am not yet disposed to take death as a remedy.
You understand me, Squire Learmont?”
“’Twere needless to affect to be ignorant of your meaning; you think
that I would be so foolish as to run the great risk of not letting you
go in peace.”
“I know it.”
“You are wrong, Jacob Gray. There was a time, I admit, when I panted
for your destruction—I longed to be revenged upon you for your hints
and instructions to Britton, but that time is past—personal safety is
now all I care for.”
“Humph!” said Gray, “revenge is such a long-lived passion, ’tis
sometimes like a blazing fire craving fiercely for its prey, and then
it moves to something desperate and dangerous; but at others ’tis like
a smouldering combustion, scarcely telling of its existence, but still
slowly and surely burning on till the end of time, as if it were by
some mysterious means fed by its own ashes. Squire Learmont, I do not
say absolutely nay to your offer. There may come a day when I shall
wish for freedom of action in another land; then I will bring the boy
perchance to you, reserving the confession until my foot is on the
shore, or some other safe method which I have not yet matured: at
present, however, we will wait; yes, we will have a little patience,
Squire Learmont.”
Learmont bit his lips, and bent a scowl of such fierce hatred at Gray,
that if he had for a moment doubted the flame of resentment still lived
in Learmont’s breast or not, such doubt would have been at once
dissipated, and he would have felt convinced that their relative
positions had not altered one iota.
“Well, well,” said Gray, after a moment’s pause, “we will talk of other
things. The boy improves exceedingly.”
Learmont bent on him a glance of peculiar meaning as he said—
“Gray, that boy would be to me a dainty sight in his coffin.”
“No doubt—no doubt,” said Gray. “The time may come when you may enjoy
such a sight; but not yet—not yet.”
“I must needs wait your pleasure in this matter, Master Gray; but you
are not serious in refusing to exert your skill in the destruction of
the besotted knave, Britton? Ah! Jacob Gray, you stand in your own
light most grievously.”
“Do I?” said Gray. “Hem! Squire Learmont, some time since I listened to
your proposals for the death of Britton, the savage smith, I agreed
with you that his love of drink should be the means used to lure him to
destruction. The plan was thus to stultify his judgment and never very
active caution by the strong stimulants he so dotes on, till I wound
from him the secret of where he kept the papers, you know, and the
confession, if indeed he had written one—a fact I always doubted; and
then a subtle poison in his cup would remove him for ever. Two things
prompted me to the deed, Squire Learmont.”
“What were they?”
“The one was my love of gold. Look ye, sir; had I obtained the papers
which prove, as I well know, your illegitimacy, and bar you for ever
from possessing the estates of Learmont, be assured I should have kept
them.”
“Kept them, Gray?”
“Ay, kept them.”
“But you had—you have—sufficient hold on me already, in the person of
that boy.”
“A hold I had, but scarcely sufficient, squire. I am as a careful
mariner who in the calmest sea, would like two anchors to hold his
bark. The boy is a great thing; a valuable property; but human life is
uncertain, and the Squire of Learmont deep and bold.”
“What mean you?”
“I mean, that I have lived upon the rack!“ said Gray, his pale face
quivering with emotion. “Was I not by you watched, hunted like a wild
beast to my lair? You know I was; and the possession of these papers
would have made me sleep more soundly at night, for it would scarcely
have been prudent of you to hunt a man who possessed such certain means
of disinheriting you, even although you had paved your path to wealth
with oceans of blood. I tell you I would possess these papers.”
“And what benefit would the death of Britton have been to me, then?”
Gray smiled hideously as he replied,—
“It is always better to consolidate debts, Squire Learmont; you would
have had one creditor then, instead of two. Then, likewise, I would
have sold you the boy and left England forever.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes; with the papers.”
“And yet,” said Learmont, after a pause, “with all these advantages to
you resulting from the deed, you refuse to prosecute the enterprise of
removing Britton safely, which I am quite sure that you can do.”
“Hem!” said Gray, and his small eyes twinkled as he fixed them upon the
countenance of the squire. “There is an old fable of two dogs fighting
for a bone, while a third walks off unscathed with the object of
contention. Squire Learmont, you are scarcely yet a match for Jacob
Gray!”
Learmont was silent, and Gray laughed, and then started in alarm at the
unwonted sound of his own mirth.
“You spoke of two reasons for the death of Britton,” said Learmont,
after a pause of several minutes’ duration.
“Ay,” said Gray, “I did, and there I was indiscreet. My second reason
was, revenge. I hated Britton. I still hate him. I—I loathe him; and my
deep hatred, the direful spirit of my revenge, urged me to run some
little risk to gratify it. I knew your policy—I saw it as clearly as
the sun at noon-day. But I was a little blinded by my revenge, and I
did make an attempt to get the savage smith in my toils.”
“You failed?”
“Yes, because you were too hasty in your wish to get rid of Jacob Gray.
You recollect the Bishop’s-walk on a certain frosty morning some time
since?”
“The Bishop’s-walk?”
“Yes. There was a man who would have assisted me in the destruction of
Britton. You, Squire Learmont, left that man a mangled, bleeding corpse
in the Bishop’s Walk.”
“I!” exclaimed Learmont.
“Yes you! I did not see you do the deed, but after some thought I could
stake my life upon the fact that Sheldon, the Thames waterman, came by
his death from your sword. Thus it was squire; that man was tempted by
me to assist in the murder of Britton. Curiosity, or breach of faith,
induced him to dog my footsteps to the lonely house in which you and I
and Britton had the pleasant interview at midnight.”
Learmont made a gesture of impatience, and Gray proceeded.
“You note how candid and explanatory I am; it is not worth my while to
lie or conceal aught from you. By some means then, which I own I know
not, you met with this Sheldon. He told you my place of abode, and for
the information you murdered him.”
Learmont bit his lips with passion.
“That circumstance awakened me,” added Gray. “Oh! It did me a world of
good, I then saw on what slippery ground I stood. I let my revenge
sleep, and had its proper time for awaking. You taught me a useful
lesson, squire, a lesson on prudence.”
“Jacob Gray,” said Learmont, gravely. “You have great talent. Think
over my offers. If you can, procure me Britton’s papers. Give me up the
boy, and spend your life in any other land you choose. I will charge my
lands with an annuity of five thousand pounds per annum.”
“But the smith?”
“I will, you having rendered him innoxious by depriving him of the
papers, undertake to destroy him. He shall not live four-and-twenty
hours after that event.”
“I—will—think,” said Gray, rising.
“You had better,” cried Learmont. “Here is more money now; but you had
better take my offer. It is a large one.”
“Hem!” said Gray.
“And before you go, now,” added Learmont in a tone of excitement,
“since you have been so candid with me, know that I am not altogether
so much in your power as you, in your great cunning and admirable
wisdom, may imagine.”
“I am all attention,” answered Gray.
“Then I tell you there is a point of endurance beyond which even I may
be goaded: pass that by your demands, and I collect all my portable
wealth and leave England forever, first handing you over to the tender
mercy of the laws.”
“Indeed!” said Gray; “I have too much faith.”
“Faith in what?”
“In your love.”
“My love?”
“Ay—for yourself. I wish you a good evening, and pleasant dreams. Hem!”