The Cour de Bade, at which excellent hotel the Martins were installed,
received on the day we have just chronicled a new arrival. He had come
by the diligence, one of that undistinguishable ten thousand England
sends off every week from her shores to represent her virtues or her
vices, her oddities, vulgarities, and pretensions, to the critical eyes
of continental Europe.
Perfectly innocent of any foreign language, and with a delightful
ambiguity as to the precise geography of where he stood, he succeeded,
after some few failures, in finding out where the Martins stopped, and
had now sent up his name to Lady Dorothea, that name being “Mr. Maurice
Scanlan.”
Lady Dorothea Martin had given positive orders that except in the
particular case of this individual she was not to be interrupted by any
visitor. She glanced her eye at the card, and then handed it across the
table to her son, who coolly read it, and threw it from him with the air
of one saying to himself, “Here's more of it! more complication, more
investigation, deeper research into my miserable difficulties, and
consequently more unhappiness.” The table at which they were seated was
thickly covered with parchments, papers, documents, and letters of every
shape and size. There were deeds, and bonds, and leases, rent-rolls,
and valuations, and powers of attorney, and all the other imposing
accessories of estated property. There were also voluminous bills of
costs, formidable long columns of figures, “carried over” and “carried
over” till the very eye of the reader wearied of the dread numerals and
turned recklessly to meet the awful total at the bottom! Terrified by
the menacing applications addressed to Mr. Martin on his son's account,
and which arrived by every post, Lady Dorothea had resolved upon herself
entering upon the whole state of the Captain's liabilities, as well as
the complicated questions of the property generally.
Distrust of her own powers was not in the number of her Ladyship's
defects. Sufficiently affluent to be always able to surround herself
with competent subordinates, she fancied--a not very uncommon error, by
the way--that she individually accomplished all that she had obtained
through another. Her taste in the fine arts, her skill in music, her
excellence as a letter-writer, were all accomplishments in this wise;
and it is not improbable that, had she been satisfied to accept her
success in finance through a similar channel, the result might have
proved just as fortunate. A shrinking dislike, however, to expose the
moneyed circumstances of the family, and a feeling of dread as to the
possible disclosures which should come out, prevented her from accepting
such co-operation. She had, therefore, addressed herself to the task
with no other aid than that of her son,--a partnership, it must be
owned, which relieved her very little of her burden.
Had the Captain been called away from the pleasures and amusements
of life to investigate the dry records of some far-away cousin's
embarrassments,--to dive into the wearisome narrative of
money-borrowing, bill-renewing, and the rest of it, by one whom he had
scarcely known or seen,--his manner and bearing could not possibly
have betrayed stronger signs of utter weariness and apathy than he
now exhibited. Smoking his cigar, and trimming his nails with a
very magnificent penknife, he gave short and listless replies to her
Ladyship's queries, and did but glance at the papers which from time to
time she handed to him for explanation or inquiry.
“So he is come at last!” exclaimed she, as the Captain threw down the
visiting-card. “Shall we see him at once?”
“By Jove! I think we've had enough of 'business,' as they call it, for
one morning,” cried he. “Here have we been since a little after eleven,
and it is now four, and I am as sick of accounts and figures as though I
were a Treasury clerk.”
“We have done next to nothing, after all!” said she, peevishly.
“And I told you as much when you began,” said he, lighting a fresh
cigar. “There's no seeing one's way through these kind of things after
the lapse of a year or two. Fordyce gets hold of the bills you gave
Mossop, and Rawkins buys up some of the things you had given renewals
for, and then all that trash you took in part payment of your
acceptances turns up, some day or other, to be paid for; and what
between the bills that never were to be negotiated--but somehow do get
abroad--and the sums sent to meet others applied in quite a different
direction, I'll lay eighty to fifty in tens or ponies there's no
gentleman living ever mastered one of these embarrassments. One must be
bred to it, my Lady, take my word for it. It's like being a crack rider
or a poet,--it's born with a man. 'The Henderson,'” added he, after a
pause, “she can do it, and I should like to see what she couldn't!”
“I am curious to learn how you became acquainted with these financial
abilities of Miss Henderson?” said Lady Dorothea, haughtily.
“Simply enough. I was poring over these confounded accounts one day at
Manheim, and I chanced to ask her a question,--something about compound
interest, I think it was,--and so she came and looked over what I was
doing, or rather endeavoring to do. It was that affair with Throgmorton,
where I was to meet one third of the bills, and Merl and he were to
look to the remainder; but there was a reservation that if Comus won the
Oaks, I was to stand free--no, that's not it--if Comus won the double
event--”
“Never mind your stupid contract. What of Miss Henderson?” broke in Lady
Dorothea.
“Well, she came over, as I told you, and took up a pencil and began
working away with all sorts of signs and crosses,--regular algebra, by
Jove!--and in about five minutes out came the whole thing, all square,
showing that I stood to win on either event, and came off splendidly
if the double should turn up. 'I wish,' said I to her, 'you 'd just
run your eye over my book and see how I stand.' She took it over to the
fire, and before I could well believe she had glanced at it, she said:
'This is all full of blunders. You have left yourself open to three
casualties, any one of which will sweep away all your winnings. Take
the odds on Roehampton, and lay on Slingsby a couple of hundred
more,--three, if you can get it,--and you 'll be safe enough. And when
you 've done that,' said she, 'I have another piece of counsel to give;
but first say will you take it?' 'I give you my word upon it,' said
I. 'Then it is this,' said she: 'make no more wagers on the turf. You
haven't skill to make what is called a “good book,” and you 'll always
be a sufferer.'”
“Did n't she vouchsafe to offer you her admirable assistance?” asked her
Ladyship, with a sneer.
“No, by Jove!” said he, not noticing the tone of sarcasm; “and when I
asked her, 'Would not she afford me a little aid?' she quickly said,
'Not on any account. You are now in a difficulty, and I willingly come
forward to extricate you. Far different were the case should I conspire
with you to place others in a similar predicament. Besides, I have your
pledge that you have now done with these transactions, and forever.'”
“What an admirable monitor! One only wonders how so much morality
coexists with such very intimate knowledge of ignoble pursuits.”
“By Jove! she knows everything,” broke in the Captain. “Such a canter as
she gave me t' other morning about idleness and the rest of it, saying
how I ought to study Hindostanee, and get a staff appointment, and
so on,--that every one ought to place himself above the accidents of
fortune; and when I said something about having no opportunity at hand,
she replied, 'Never complain of that; begin with _me_. I know quite
enough to initiate you; and as to Sanscrit, I 'm rather “up” in it.'”
“I trust you accepted the offer?” said her Ladyship, with an ambiguous
smile.
“Well, I can't say I did. I hate work,--at least that kind of work.
Besides, one doesn't like to come out 'stupid' in these kind of things,
and so I merely said, 'I 'd think of it--very kind of her,' and so on.”
“Did it never occur to you all this while,” began her Ladyship; and then
suddenly correcting herself, she stopped short, and said, “By the way,
Mr. Scanlan is waiting for his answer. Ring the bell, and let him come
in.”
Perhaps it was the imperfect recollection of that eminent
individual,--perhaps the altered circumstances in which she now saw him,
and possibly some actual changes in the man himself,--but really Lady
Dorothea almost started with surprise as he entered the room, dressed
in a dark pelisse, richly braided and frogged, an embroidered
travelling-cap in his hand, and an incipient moustache on his upper
lip,--all evidencing how rapidly he had turned his foreign experiences
to advantage. There was, too, in his address a certain confident
assurance that told how quickly the habits of the “Table d'hôte” had
impressed him, and how instantaneously his nature had imbibed the vulgar
ease of the “Continent.”
“You have just arrived, Mr. Scanlan?” said her Ladyship, haughtily, and
not a little provoked at the shake-hand salutation her son had accorded
him.
“Yes, my Lady, this instant, and such a journey as we 've had! No water
on the Rhine for the steamers; and then, when we took to the land, a
perfect deluge of rain, that nearly swept us away. At Eisleben, or some
such name, we had an upset.”
“What day did you leave Ireland?” asked she, in utter indifference as to
the casualty.
“Tuesday fortnight last, my Lady. I was detained two days in Dublin
making searches--”
“Have you brought us any letters, sir?”
“One from Miss Mary, my Lady, and another from Mr. Repton--very pressing
he said it was. I hope Mr. Martin is better? Your Ladyship's last--”
“Not much improvement,” said she, stiffly, while her thin lips were
compressed with an expression that might mean pride or sorrow, or both.
“And the country, sir? How did you leave it looking?”
“Pretty well, my Lady. More frightened than hurt, as a body might say.
They 've had a severe winter, and a great deal of sickness; the rains,
too, have done a deal of mischief; but on the whole matters are looking
up again.”
“Will the rents be paid, sir?” asked she, sharply.
“Indeed, I hope so, my Lady. Some, of course, will be backward, and beg
for time, and a few more will take advantage of Magennis's success, and
strive to fight us off.”
“There must have been some gross mismanagement in that business, sir,”
broke in her Ladyship. “Had I been at home, I promise you the matter
would have ended differently.”
“Mr. Repton directed all the proceedings himself, my Lady. He conferred
with Miss Mary.”
“What could a young lady know about such matters?” said she, angrily.
“Any prospect of a tenant for the house, sir?”
“If your Ladyship really decides on not going back--”
“Not the slightest intention of doing so, sir. If it depended upon
me, I'd rather pull it down and sell the materials than return to live
there. You know yourself, sir, the utter barbarism we were obliged to
submit to. No intercourse with the world--no society--very frequently
no communication by post. Surrounded by a set of ragged creatures, all
importunity and idleness, at one moment all defiance and insolence, at
the next crawling and abject. But it is really a theme I cannot dwell
upon. Give me your letters, sir, and let me see you this evening.” And
taking the papers from his hand, she swept out of the room in a haughty
state.
The Captain and Mr. Scanlan exchanged looks, and were silent, but their
glances were far more intelligible than aught either of them would have
ventured to say aloud; and when the attorney's eyes, having followed her
Ladyship to the door, turned and rested on the Captain, the other gave a
brief short nod of assent, as though to say, “Yes, you are right; she's
just the same as ever.”
“And _you_, Captain,” said Scanlan, in his tone of natural
familiarity,--“how is the world treating _you?_”
“Devilish badly, Master Scanlan.”
“Why, what is it doing, then?”
“I'll tell you what it's doing! It's charging me fifty--ay, sixty per
cent; it's protesting my bills, stimulating my blessed creditors to
proceed against me, worrying my very life out of me with letters.
Letters to the governor, letters to the Horse Guards, and, last of all,
it has just lamed Bonesetter, the horse 'I stood to win' on for the
Chester Cup, I would n't have taken four thousand for my book yesterday
morning!”
“Bad news all this.”
“I believe you,” said he, lighting a cigar, and throwing another across
the table to Scanlan. “It's just bad news, and I have nothing else for
many a long day past. A fellow of your sort, Master Maurice, punting
away at county races and small sweepstakes, has a precious deal better
time of it than a captain of the King's Hussars with his head and
shoulders in the Fleet.”
“Come, come, who knows but luck will turn, Captain? Make a book on the
Oaks.”
“I've done it; and I'm in for it, too,” said the other, savagely.
“Raise a few thousands, you can always sell a reversion.”
“I have done that also,” said he, still more angrily.
“With your position and advantages you could always marry well. If you'd
just beat up the manufacturing districts, you'd get your eighty thousand
as sure as I'm here! And then matrimony admits of a man's changing all
his habits. He can sell off hunters, get rid of a racing stable, and
twenty other little embarrassments, and only gain character by the
economy.”
“I don't care a brass farthing for that part of the matter, Scanlan. No
man shall dictate to me how I 'm to spend my money. Do you just find me
the tin, and I 'll find the talent to scatter it.”
“If it can't be done by a post-obit--”
“I tell you, sir,” cried Martin, peevishly, “as I have told you before,
that has been done. There is such a thing as pumping a well dry, is n't
there?”
Scanlan made a sudden exclamation of horror; and after a pause, said,
“Already!”
“Ay, sir, already!”
“I had my suspicions about it,” muttered Scanlan, gloomily.
“You had? And how so, may I beg to ask?” said Martin, angrily.
“I saw him down there, myself.”
“Saw whom? Whom are you talking of?”
“Of that Jew, of course. Mr. Merl, he calls himself.”
A faint groan was all Martin's reply, as he turned away to hide his
face.
Scanlan watched him for a minute or so, and then resumed: “I guessed
at once what he was at; _he_ never deceived me, talking about snipe and
woodcocks, and pretending to care about hare-hunting. I saw my man at a
glance. 'It's not sporting ever brought you down to these parts,' said
I. '_Your_ game is young fellows, hard up for cash, willing to give up
their birthright for a few thousands down, and never giving a second
thought whether they paid twenty per cent, or a hundred and twenty.'
Well, well, Captain, you ought to have told me all about it. There
wasn't a man in Ireland could have putted you through like myself.”
“How do you mean?” cried Martin, hurriedly.
“Sure, when he was down in the West, what was easier? Faix, if I had
only had the wind of a word that matters were so bad, I 'd have had
the papers out of him long ago. You shake your head as if you did n't
believe me; but take my word for it, I 'm right, sir. I 'd put a quarrel
on him.”
“_He'd_ not fight you!” said Martin, turning away in disappointment.
“Maybe he wouldn't; but mightn't he be robbed? Couldn't he be waylaid,
and carried off to the Islands? There was no need to kill him.
Intimidation would do it all! I'd lay my head upon a block this minute
if I would n't send him back to London without the back of a letter
in his company; and what's more, a pledge that he 'd never tell what's
happened to him!”
“These cockney gents are more 'wide awake' than you suspect, Master
Maurice, and the chances are that he never carried a single paper or
parchment along with him.”
“Worse for him, then,” said Scanlan. “He'd have to pass the rest of
his days in the Arran Islands. But I'm not so sure he's as 'cute as you
think him,” added Maurice, after a pause. “He left a little note-book
once behind him that told some strange stories, by all accounts.”
“What was that you speak of?” cried Martin, eagerly.
“I did n't see it myself, but Simmy Crow told me of it; and that it was
full of all the fellows he ruined,--how much he won from this man, what
he carried off from that; and, moreover, there was your own name, and
the date of the very evening that he finished you off! It was something
in this wise: 'This night's work makes me an estated gentleman, _vice_
Harry Martin, Esquire, retired upon less than half-pay!'”
A terrible oath, uttered in all the vehemence of a malediction, burst
from Martin, and seizing Scanlan's wrist, he shook his arm in an agony
of passion.
“I wish I had given you a hint about him, Master Scanlan,” said he,
savagely.
“It's too late to think of it now, Captain,” said the other; “the fellow
is in Baden.”
“Here?” asked Martin.
“Ay. He came up the Rhine along with me; but he never recognized me,--on
account of my moustaches perhaps,--he took me for a Frenchman or a
German, I think. We parted at Mayence, and I saw no more of him.”
“I would that I was to see no more of him!” said Martin, gloomily, as he
walked into another room, banging the door heavily behind him.