WHAT HAD DETAINED SIR CHARLES.
The arrangement for the trial of the ponies had been one of some
standing between Sir Charles and his wife, and one to which he fully
intended to adhere. It is true that on waking after the supper with
Messrs. Bligh, Winton, Pontifex, and their companions, he did not feel
quite so fresh as he might have wished, and would very much have liked
a couple of hours' additional sleep; yet so soon as he remembered the
appointment, he determined that Georgie should not be disappointed;
and by not having the "chill" taken off his shower-bath as usual, he
was soon braced up to his ordinary good condition. Nevertheless, with
all his good intentions, he was nearly an hour later than usual; and
Georgie had gone up to dress for the drive when Sir Charles descended
to the breakfast-room to discuss the second relay of broiled bone and
devilled kidney which had been served up to tempt his sluggish
appetite. He was making a not very successful attempt to eat, and
between each mouthful was reading in the newspaper Mr. Rose's
laudatory notice of Mr. Spofforth's play, when his servant, entering,
told him that a "person" wanted to speak to him. There is no sharper
appreciator of worldly position than your well-trained London servant,
and Banks was a treasure.
"What is it, Banks?" asked Sir Charles, looking up.
"A person wishing to see you, Sir Charles," replied Banks.
"A person! is it a man or a woman?"
"The party," said Banks, varying his word, but not altering the
generic appellation,--"the party is a man, sir."
"Do I know him?"
"I should say certainly not, Sir Charles," replied Banks in a tone
which intimated that if his master did know the stranger, he ought to
be ashamed of himself.
"Did he give no name?"
"I ast him for his name, Sir Charles, and he only says, 'Tell your
master,' he says, 'that a gentleman,' he says, 'wants to see him.'"
"Oh, tell him that he must call some other time and send in his
business. I can't see him now; I'm just going out for a drive with
Lady Mitford. Tell him to call again."
"There was a time, and not very long ago either," said Sir Charles,
taking up the paper as Banks retired, "that if I'd been told that a
man who wouldn't give his name wanted to speak to me, I should have
slipped out the back-way and run for my life. But, thank God, that's
all over now.--Well, Banks, what now?"
"The party is very arbitrary, Sir Charles; he won't take 'no' for an
answer; and when I told him you must know his business, he bust out
larfin' and told me to say he was an old messmate of yours, and had
sailed with you on board the Albatross."
A red spot burned on Sir Charles Mitford's cheek as he laid the
newspaper aside and said, "Show this person into the library, and deny
me to every one while he remains. Let your mistress be told I am
prevented by business from driving with her to-day. Look sharp!"
Mr. Banks was not accustomed to be told to "look sharp!" and during
his three-months' experience of his master he had never heard him
speak in so petulant a tone. "I'd no idea he'd been a seafarin' gent,"
he said downstairs, "or I'd a never undertook the place. The tempers
of those ship-captains is awful."
When Banks had left the room Sir Charles walked to the sideboard, and
leant heavily against it while he poured out and drank a liqueur-glass
of brandy.
"The Albatross!" he muttered with white lips; "which of them can it
be? I thought I had heard the last of that cursed name. Banks said a
man; it's not the worst of them, then. That's lucky."
He went into the library and seated himself in an armchair facing the
door. He had scarcely done so when Banks gloomily ushered in the
stranger.
He was a middle-sized dark man, dressed in what seemed to be a seedy
caricature of the then prevailing fashion. His coat had once been a
bright-claret colour, but was now dull, threadbare, and frayed round
the edges of the breast-pocket, out of which peeped the end of a
flashy silk handkerchief. He had no shirt-collar apparent; but wore
round his neck a dirty blue-satin scarf with two pins, one large and
one small, fastened together by a little chain. His trousers were of a
staring green shawl-pattern, cut so as to hide nearly all the boot and
tightly strapped down, as was the fashion of those days; and the
little of his boots visible was broken and shabby. Sir Charles looked
at him hard and steadily, then gave a sigh of relief. He had never
seen the man before. He pointed to a chair, into which his visitor
dropped with an easy swagger; then crossed his legs, and looking at
Sir Charles, said familiarly, "And how are _you?_"
"You have the advantage of me," said Sir Charles.
"I think I have," said the man grinning; "and what's more, I mean to
keep it too. Lord, what a precious dance you have led me, to be sure!"
"Look here, sir," said Mitford "be good enough to tell me your
business, and go. I'm engaged."
"Go! Oh, you're on the high jeff, are you? And engaged too! Going to
drive your missis out in that pretty little trap I saw at the door?
Well, I'm sorry to stop you; but you must."
"Must!"
"Yes, must. 'Tain't a nice word; but it's the word I want. Must; and
I'll tell you why. You recollect Tony Butler?"
Sir Charles Mitford's colour, which had returned when he saw that his
visitor was a stranger to him, and which had even increased under the
insolence of the man's manner, fled at the mention of this name. His
face and lips were quite white as he said, "I do indeed."
"Yes, I knew you would. Well, he's dead, Tony is."
"Thank God!" said Sir Charles; "he was a horrible villain."
"Yes," said the man pleasantly; "I think I'm with you in both those
remarks. It's a good job he's dead; and he _was_ a bad 'un, was Tony,
though he was my brother."
"Your brother!"
"Ah! that's just it. We never met before, because I was in America
when you and Tony were so thick together. You see I'm not such a swell
as Tony was; and they--him and father, I mean--were glad to get me out
of the country for fear I should spoil any of their little games. When
I came back, you had given Tony a licking, so far as I could make out,
though he'd never tell exactly, and your friendship was all bust up,
and he was dreadfully mad with you. And that's how we never came to
meet before."
"And why have we met now, pray?" said Sir Charles. "What is your
business with me?"
"I'm coming to that in good time. Tony's last words to me were, 'If
you want to do a good thing for yourself, Dick,' he says, 'find out a
fellow named Charles Mitford. He's safe to turn up trumps some day,'
says Tony, 'he's so uncommonly sharp; and whenever you get to speak to
him, before you say who you are, tell him you sailed in the
Albatross.' Lord bless you! I knew the lot of 'em-Crockett, and Dunks,
and Lizzie Ponsford; they said you and she used to be very sweet on
each other, and--"
The door opened suddenly, and Lady Mitford hurried into the room; but
seeing a stranger, she drew back. Sir Charles went to the door.
"What do you want, Georgie?" said he sharply.
"I had no idea you had any one here, Charles, or I wouldn't have
disturbed you. Oh, Charley, send that horrid man away, and come and
drive me out."
She looked so pretty and spoke so winningly that he patted her cheek
with his hand, and said in a much softer voice, "I can't come now,
child. This man is here on special business, and I must go through it
with him. So goodbye, pet, and enjoy yourself."
She made a little _moue_ of entreaty, and put her hands before his
face in a comic appeal; but he shook his head, kissed her cheek, and
shut the door.
"Pretty creechur, that!" said his companion; "looks as well in her
bonnet as out of it; and there's few of 'em does, I think."
"When did you ever see Lady Mitford before, sir?" asked Sir Charles
haughtily.
"Ah! that's just it," replied Mr. Butler with a sniggering laugh. "I
told you you'd led me a precious dance to find you, and so you had.
Tony told me that you had regularly come to grief since you parted
with him, and I had a regular hunt after you, in all sorts of
lodging-houses and places. There are lots of my pals on the lookout
for you now."
"Upon my soul, you're devilish kind to take all this trouble about me,
Mr.--Butler. What your motive was I can't imagine."
"You'll know all in good time; I'm coming to that; and not 'Butler,'
please: Mr. Effingham is my name just now; I'll tell you why by and
by. Well, I couldn't get hold of you anyhow, and I thought you'd gone
dead or something, when last night, as I was standing waiting to come
out of the Parthenium, I heard the linkmen outside hollering 'Lady
Mitford's carriage!' like mad. The name strikes on my ears, and I
thought I'd wait and see her ladyship. Presently down came the lady
we've just seen, leaning on the arm of a cove in a big black beard
like a foreigner. 'No go,' says I, 'that's not my man;' and I says to
a flunkey who was standing next to me, 'He's a rum 'un to look at, is
her husband.' 'That's not her husband,' he says; 'this is Sir Charles
coming now.' The name Charles and the figure being like struck me at
once; so I took the flunkey into the public next door, and we had a
glass, and he told me all about the old gent and his kids being
drowned, and your coming in for the title. 'That's my man,' says I to
myself; and I found out where you lived, and came straight on here
this morning."
"And now that your prying and sneaking has been successful and you
have found me, what do you want?"
"Ah! I thought you'd lose your temper; Tony always said you was
hotheaded. What do I want! Well, to be very short and come to the
point at once--money."
"I guessed as much."
"Yes, there's no denying it; I'm regularly stumped. I suppose you were
surprised now to hear I wasn't flush, after seeing me so well got-up?
But it's a deal of it dummy. These pins now,--Lowther Arcade! No
ticker at the end of this guard; nothing but a key-look!" And he
twitched a key out of his waistcoat-pocket. "My boots too are
infernally leaky; and my hat has become quite limp from being
perpetually damped and ironed. Yes, I want money badly."
"Look here, Mr.----"
"Effingham."
"Mr. Effingham, you have taken, as you yourself admit, an immense deal
of trouble to hunt me up, and having found me you ask me for money, on
the ground of your being the brother of an infernal scoundrel whom I
had once the ill-luck to be associated with--don't interrupt me,
please. It wasn't Tony Butler's fault that I didn't die on a dunghill,
or that I am not now--"
"In Norfolk Island," said Mr. Effingham, getting in his words this
time.
Sir Charles glared fiercely at him for an instant, and then continued:
"Now I expected I should have to encounter this sort of thing from the
people who pillaged me when I was poor, and would make that an excuse
for further extortion, and I determined not to accede to any
application. But as you're the first who has applied, and as you've
neither bullied nor whined, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you,
on condition I never see or hear of you again, this five-pound note."
Mr. Effingham laughed, a real hearty laugh, as he shook his head, and
said: "Won't do: nothing like enough."
Sir Charles lost his temper, and said: "Stop this infernal tomfoolery,
sir! Not enough! Why, d--n it, one would think you had a claim upon
me!"
"And suppose I have, Sir Charles Mitford, what then?" said Mr.
Effingham, leaning forward in his chair and confronting his companion.
"What then? Why--pooh, stuff! this is a poor attempt at extortion. You
don't think to get any money out of me by threatening to tell of my
connection with the Albatross crew? You don't think I should mind the
people to whom you could tell it knowing it, do you?"
"I don't know; perhaps not; and yet I think I shall be able before
I've done to prove to you I've a claim on you."
"What is it?"
"All tiled here, eh? Nobody within earshot? That sleek cove in black
that wouldn't let me see you, not listening at the door, is he?"
"There is no one to hear," said Sir Charles, who was getting more and
more uncomfortable at all this mystery.
"All right, then. Sorry to rake up disagreeables; but I must. You
recollect making a slight mistake about your Christian name once,
fancying it was Percy instead of Charles; writing it as Percy across a
stamped bit of paper good for two hundred quid, and putting Redmoor as
your address after it?"
"Well, what if I do?" His lips were so parched he could hardly frame
the words.
"It would be awkward to have anything of that sort brought up just
now, wouldn't it?"
Sir Charles hesitated for an instant, then gave a great sigh of relief
as he said: "You infernal scoundrel! you think to frighten me with
that, do you? To make that the ground for your extortion? Why, you
miserable wretch, I myself burnt that--that--document in Moss's
office!"
"How you do run on, Sir Charles! I just mentioned something about a
little bill, and you're down upon me in a moment. I guessed that was
destroyed; at all events I knew it was all safe; and Sir Percy's dead,
so it don't much matter. But, Lord! with your memory you must surely
recollect _another_ little dockyment,--quite a little one, only
five-and-twenty pound,-where you mistook both your names that time,
and accepted it as Walter Burgess:--recollect?"
The pallor had spread over Mitford's face again, and his lips quivered
as he said: "That was destroyed--destroyed by Tony Butler long
since--before the other one was done."
"Yes, yes, I know this was the first,--a little one just to get your
hand in. But it ain't destroyed. It's all right, bless you! I can see
it now with a big black 'FORGED' stamped across it by the
bank-people."
"Where is it?"
"Oh, it's in very safe keeping with a friend of mine who scarcely
knows its value. Because, though he knows its a forgery, he don't know
who done it; now, you see, through my brother Tony, I do know who done
it; and I do know that Walter Burgess is alive, and is a large
hop-factor down Maidstone way, and owing you a grudge for that
thrashing you gave him in the billiard-rooms at Canterbury, which he's
never forgotten, would come forward and prosecute at once."
"You--you might prove the forgery; but how could you connect me with
it?"
"Not bad, that. But I'm ready for you. People at the bank will prove
you had the money; and taken in connection with the other little
business, which is well known, and which there are lots of people to
prove, a jury would convict at once."
Sir Charles Mitford shuddered, and buried his face in his hands. Then,
looking up, said: "How much do you want for that bill?"
"Well, you see, that's scarcely the question. It's in the hands of a
man who don't know its value, and if he did he'd open his mouth pretty
wide, and stick it on pretty stiff, I can tell you. So we can let him
bide a bit. Meantime I know about it, and, as Tony told me, I intend
to make it serve me. Now you want to get rid of me, and don't want to
see me for some little time? I thought so. I'm not an extravagant
cove; give me fifty pounds."
"Until that bill is destroyed, you will wring money from me when you
choose."
"If you refused me money and I cut up rough, the bill should be
produced, and you'd be in quod and Queer Street in a jiffy! Better do
as I say--give me the fifty, and you shan't see me for a blue moon!"
Whether Sir Charles was stimulated by the period named or not, it is
certain he sat down at his desk, and producing his cheque-book, began
to write. Mr. Effingham looked over his shoulder.
"Make it payable to some number--295, or anything--not a name, please.
And you needn't cross it. Lord! you didn't take much trouble to
disguise your fist when you put Walter Bur--, beg pardon! quite forgot
what I was saying. Thank you, Sir Charles. I'll keep my word all
right, you shall see. I'm not an idle beggar; I'm always at something;
so that I shan't depend entirely on this bit of gray paper; but it'll
ease my springs and grease my wheels a bit. Good-day to you, Sir
Charles. Never mind ringing for that solemn cove to let me out; I
ain't proud. Good-day."
Mr. Effingham gave a very elaborate bow, and departed. As the door
shut upon him, Sir Charles Mitford pulled his chair to the fire, and
fell into a deep reverie, out of which he did not rouse himself until
his wife's return.