No sooner was the house clear of my cousin than I began to reckon up,
ruefully enough, the probable results of what had passed. Here were a
number of pots broken, and it looked to me as if I should have to pay for
all! Here had been this proud, mad beast goaded and baited both publicly
and privately, till he could neither hear nor see nor reason; whereupon
the gate had been set open, and he had been left free to go and contrive
whatever vengeance he might find possible. I could not help thinking it
was a pity that, whenever I myself was inclined to be upon my good
behaviour, some friends of mine should always determine to play a piece
of heroics and cast me for the hero—or the victim—which is very much the
same. The first duty of heroics is to be of your own choosing. When
they are not that, they are nothing. And I assure you, as I walked back
to my own room, I was in no very complaisant humour: thought my uncle and
Mr. Romaine to have played knuckle-bones with my life and prospects;
cursed them for it roundly; had no wish more urgent than to avoid the
pair of them; and was quite knocked out of time, as they say in the ring,
to find myself confronted with the lawyer.
He stood on my hearthrug, leaning on the chimney-piece, with a gloomy,
thoughtful brow, as I was pleased to see, and not in the least as though
he were vain of the late proceedings.
‘Well?’ said I. ‘You have done it now!’
‘Is he gone?’ he asked.
‘He is gone,’ said I. ‘We shall have the devil to pay with him when he
comes back.’
‘You are right,’ said the lawyer, ‘and very little to pay him with but
flams and fabrications, like to-night’s.’
‘To-night’s?’ I repeated.
‘Ay, to-night’s!’ said he.
‘To-night’s _what_?’ I cried.
‘To-night’s flams and fabrications.’
‘God be good to me, sir,’ said I, ‘have I something more to admire in
your conduct than ever _I_ had suspected? You cannot think how you
interest me! That it was severe, I knew; I had already chuckled over
that. But that it should be false also! In what sense, dear sir?’
I believe I was extremely offensive as I put the question, but the lawyer
paid no heed.
‘False in all senses of the word,’ he replied seriously. ‘False in the
sense that they were not true, and false in the sense that they were not
real; false in the sense that I boasted, and in the sense that I lied.
How can I arrest him? Your uncle burned the papers! I told you so—but
doubtless you have forgotten—the day I first saw you in Edinburgh Castle.
It was an act of generosity; I have seen many of these acts, and always
regretted—always regretted! “That shall be his inheritance,” he said, as
the papers burned; he did not mean that it should have proved so rich a
one. How rich, time will tell.’
‘I beg your pardon a hundred thousand times, my dear sir, but it strikes
me you have the impudence—in the circumstances, I may call it the
indecency—to appear cast down?’
‘It is true,’ said he: ‘I am. I am cast down. I am literally cast down.
I feel myself quite helpless against your cousin.’
‘Now, really!’ I asked. ‘Is this serious? And is it perhaps the reason
why you have gorged the poor devil with every species of insult? and why
you took such surprising pains to supply me with what I had so little
need of—another enemy? That you were helpless against them? “Here is my
last missile,” say you; “my ammunition is quite exhausted: just wait till
I get the last in—it will irritate, it cannot hurt him. There—you
see!—he is furious now, and I am quite helpless. One more prod, another
kick: now he is a mere lunatic! Stand behind me; I am quite helpless!”
Mr. Romaine, I am asking myself as to the background or motive of this
singular jest, and whether the name of it should not be called
treachery?’
‘I can scarce wonder,’ said he. ‘In truth it has been a singular
business, and we are very fortunate to be out of it so well. Yet it was
not treachery: no, no, Mr. Anne, it was not treachery; and if you will do
me the favour to listen to me for the inside of a minute, I shall
demonstrate the same to you beyond cavil.’ He seemed to wake up to his
ordinary briskness. ‘You see the point?’ he began. ‘He had not yet read
the newspaper, but who could tell when he might? He might have had that
damned journal in his pocket, and how should we know? We were—I may say,
we are—at the mercy of the merest twopenny accident.’
‘Why, true,’ said I: ‘I had not thought of that.’
‘I warrant you,’ cried Romaine, ‘you had supposed it was nothing to be
the hero of an interesting notice in the journals! You had supposed, as
like as not, it was a form of secrecy! But not so in the least. A part
of England is already buzzing with the name of Champdivers; a day or two
more and the mail will have carried it everywhere: so wonderful a machine
is this of ours for disseminating intelligence! Think of it! When my
father was born—but that is another story. To return: we had here the
elements of such a combustion as I dread to think of—your cousin and the
journal. Let him but glance an eye upon that column of print, and where
were we? It is easy to ask; not so easy to answer, my young friend. And
let me tell you, this sheet is the Viscount’s usual reading. It is my
conviction he had it in his pocket.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said I. ‘I have been unjust. I did not
appreciate my danger.’
‘I think you never do,’ said he.
‘But yet surely that public scene—’ I began.
‘It was madness. I quite agree with you,’ Mr. Romaine interrupted. ‘But
it was your uncle’s orders, Mr. Anne, and what could I do? Tell him you
were the murderer of Goguelat? I think not.’
‘No, sure!’ said I. ‘That would but have been to make the trouble
thicker. We were certainly in a very ill posture.’
‘You do not yet appreciate how grave it was,’ he replied. ‘It was
necessary for you that your cousin should go, and go at once. You
yourself had to leave to-night under cover of darkness, and how could you
have done that with the Viscount in the next room? He must go, then; he
must leave without delay. And that was the difficulty.’
‘Pardon me, Mr. Romaine, but could not my uncle have bidden him go?’ I
asked.
‘Why, I see I must tell you that this is not so simple as it sounds,’ he
replied. ‘You say this is your uncle’s house, and so it is. But to all
effects and purposes it is your cousin’s also. He has rooms here; has
had them coming on for thirty years now, and they are filled with a
prodigious accumulation of trash—stays, I dare say, and powder-puffs, and
such effeminate idiocy—to which none could dispute his title, even
suppose any one wanted to. We had a perfect right to bid him go, and he
had a perfect right to reply, “Yes, I will go, but not without my stays
and cravats. I must first get together the nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine
chestsfull of insufferable rubbish, that I have spent the last thirty
years collecting—and may very well spend the next thirty hours a-packing
of.” And what should we have said to that?’
‘By way of repartee?’ I asked. ‘Two tall footmen and a pair of crabtree
cudgels, I suggest.’
‘The Lord deliver me from the wisdom of laymen!’ cried Romaine. ‘Put
myself in the wrong at the beginning of a lawsuit? No, indeed! There
was but one thing to do, and I did it, and burned my last cartridge in
the doing of it. I stunned him. And it gave us three hours, by which we
should make haste to profit; for if there is one thing sure, it is that
he will be up to time again to-morrow in the morning.’
‘Well,’ said I, ‘I own myself an idiot. Well do they say, _an old
soldier_, _an old innocent_! For I guessed nothing of all this.’
‘And, guessing it, have you the same objections to leave England?’ he
inquired.
‘The same,’ said I.
‘It is indispensable,’ he objected.
‘And it cannot be,’ I replied. ‘Reason has nothing to say in the matter;
and I must not let you squander any of yours. It will be enough to tell
you this is an affair of the heart.’
‘Is it even so?’ quoth Romaine, nodding his head. ‘And I might have been
sure of it. Place them in a hospital, put them in a jail in yellow
overalls, do what you will, young Jessamy finds young Jenny. O, have it
your own way; I am too old a hand to argue with young gentlemen who
choose to fancy themselves in love; I have too much experience, thank
you. Only, be sure that you appreciate what you risk: the prison, the
dock, the gallows, and the halter—terribly vulgar circumstances, my young
friend; grim, sordid, earnest; no poetry in that!’
‘And there I am warned,’ I returned gaily. ‘No man could be warned more
finely or with a greater eloquence. And I am of the same opinion still.
Until I have again seen that lady, nothing shall induce me to quit Great
Britain. I have besides—’
And here I came to a full stop. It was upon my tongue to have told him
the story of the drovers, but at the first word of it my voice died in my
throat. There might be a limit to the lawyer’s toleration, I reflected.
I had not been so long in Britain altogether; for the most part of that
time I had been by the heels in limbo in Edinburgh Castle; and already I
had confessed to killing one man with a pair of scissors; and now I was
to go on and plead guilty to having settled another with a holly stick!
A wave of discretion went over me as cold and as deep as the sea.
‘In short, sir, this is a matter of feeling,’ I concluded, ‘and nothing
will prevent my going to Edinburgh.’
If I had fired a pistol in his ear he could not have been more startled.
‘To Edinburgh?’ he repeated. ‘Edinburgh? where the very paving-stones
know you!’
‘Then is the murder out!’ said I. ‘But, Mr. Romaine, is there not
sometimes safety in boldness? Is it not a common-place of strategy to
get where the enemy least expects you? And where would he expect me
less?’
‘Faith, there is something in that, too!’ cried the lawyer. ‘Ay,
certainly, a great deal in that. All the witnesses drowned but one, and
he safe in prison; you yourself changed beyond recognition—let us
hope—and walking the streets of the very town you have illustrated by
your—well, your eccentricity! It is not badly combined, indeed!’
‘You approve it, then?’ said I.
‘O, approve!’ said he; ‘there is no question of approval. There is only
one course which I could approve, and that were to escape to France
instanter.’
‘You do not wholly disapprove, at least?’ I substituted.
‘Not wholly; and it would not matter if I did,’ he replied. ‘Go your own
way; you are beyond argument. And I am not sure that you will run more
danger by that course than by any other. Give the servants time to get
to bed and fall asleep, then take a country cross-road and walk, as the
rhyme has it, like blazes all night. In the morning take a chaise or
take the mail at pleasure, and continue your journey with all the decorum
and reserve of which you shall be found capable.’
‘I am taking the picture in,’ I said. ‘Give me time. ’Tis the _tout
ensemble_ I must see: the whole as opposed to the details.’
‘Mountebank!’ he murmured.
‘Yes, I have it now; and I see myself with a servant, and that servant is
Rowley,’ said I.
‘So as to have one more link with your uncle?’ suggested the lawyer.
‘Very judicious!’
‘And, pardon me, but that is what it is,’ I exclaimed. ‘Judicious is the
word. I am not making a deception fit to last for thirty years; I do not
found a palace in the living granite for the night. This is a shelter
tent—a flying picture—seen, admired, and gone again in the wink of an
eye. What is wanted, in short, is a _trompe-l’œil_ that shall be good
enough for twelve hours at an inn: is it not so?’
‘It is, and the objection holds. Rowley is but another danger,’ said
Romaine.
‘Rowley,’ said I, ‘will pass as a servant from a distance—as a creature
seen poised on the dicky of a bowling chaise. He will pass at hand as a
smart, civil fellow one meets in the inn corridor, and looks back at, and
asks, and is told, “Gentleman’s servant in Number 4.” He will pass, in
fact, all round, except with his personal friends! My dear sir, pray
what do you expect? Of course if we meet my cousin, or if we meet
anybody who took part in the judicious exhibition of this evening, we are
lost; and who’s denying it? To every disguise, however good and safe,
there is always the weak point; you must always take (let us say—and to
take a simile from your own waistcoat pocket) a snuff box-full of risk.
You’ll get it just as small with Rowley as with anybody else. And the
long and short of it is, the lad’s honest, he likes me, I trust him; he
is my servant, or nobody.’
‘He might not accept,’ said Romaine.
‘I bet you a thousand pounds he does!’ cried I. ‘But no matter; all you
have to do is to send him out to-night on this cross-country business,
and leave the thing to me. I tell you, he will be my servant, and I tell
you, he will do well.’
I had crossed the room, and was already overhauling my wardrobe as I
spoke.
‘Well,’ concluded the lawyer, with a shrug, ‘one risk with another: _à la
guerre comme à la guerre_, as you would say. Let the brat come and be
useful, at least.’ And he was about to ring the bell, when his eye was
caught by my researches in the wardrobe. ‘Do not fall in love with these
coats, waistcoats, cravats, and other panoply and accoutrements by which
you are now surrounded. You must not run the post as a dandy. It is not
the fashion, even.’
‘You are pleased to be facetious, sir,’ said I; ‘and not according to
knowledge. These clothes are my life, they are my disguise; and since I
can take but few of them, I were a fool indeed if I selected hastily!
Will you understand, once and for all, what I am seeking? To be
invisible, is the first point; the second, to be invisible in a
post-chaise and with a servant. Can you not perceive the delicacy of the
quest? Nothing must be too coarse, nothing too fine; _rien de voyant_,
_rien qui détonne_; so that I may leave everywhere the inconspicuous
image of a handsome young man of a good fortune travelling in proper
style, whom the landlord will forget in twelve hours—and the chambermaid
perhaps remember, God bless her! with a sigh. This is the very fine art
of dress.’
‘I have practised it with success for fifty years,’ said Romaine, with a
chuckle. ‘A black suit and a clean shirt is my infallible recipe.’
‘You surprise me; I did not think you would be shallow!’ said I,
lingering between two coats. ‘Pray, Mr. Romaine, have I your head? or
did you travel post and with a smartish servant?’
‘Neither, I admit,’ said he.
‘Which change the whole problem,’ I continued. ‘I have to dress for a
smartish servant and a Russia leather despatch-box.’ That brought me to
a stand. I came over and looked at the box with a moment’s hesitation.
‘Yes,’ I resumed. ‘Yes, and for the despatch-box! It looks moneyed and
landed; it means I have a lawyer. It is an invaluable property. But I
could have wished it to hold less money. The responsibility is crushing.
Should I not do more wisely to take five hundred pounds, and intrust the
remainder with you, Mr. Romaine?’
‘If you are sure you will not want it,’ answered Romaine.
‘I am far from sure of that,’ cried I. ‘In the first place, as a
philosopher. This is the first time I have been at the head of a large
sum, and it is conceivable—who knows himself?—that I may make it fly. In
the second place, as a fugitive. Who knows what I may need? The whole
of it may be inadequate. But I can always write for more.’
‘You do not understand,’ he replied. ‘I break off all communication with
you here and now. You must give me a power of attorney ere you start
to-night, and then be done with me trenchantly until better days.’
I believe I offered some objection.
‘Think a little for once of me!’ said Romaine. ‘I must not have seen you
before to-night. To-night we are to have had our only interview, and you
are to have given me the power; and to-night I am to have lost sight of
you again—I know not whither, you were upon business, it was none of my
affairs to question you! And this, you are to remark, in the interests
of your own safety much more than mine.’
‘I am not even to write to you?’ I said, a little bewildered.
‘I believe I am cutting the last strand that connects you with common
sense,’ he replied. ‘But that is the plain English of it. You are not
even to write; and if you did, I would not answer.’
‘A letter, however—’ I began.
‘Listen to me,’ interrupted Romaine. ‘So soon as your cousin reads the
paragraph, what will he do? Put the police upon looking into my
correspondence! So soon as you write to me, in short, you write to Bow
Street; and if you will take my advice, you will date that letter from
France.’
‘The devil!’ said I, for I began suddenly to see that this might put me
out of the way of my business.
‘What is it now?’ says he.
‘There will be more to be done, then, before we can part,’ I answered.
‘I give you the whole night,’ said he. ‘So long as you are off ere
daybreak, I am content.’
‘In short, Mr. Romaine,’ said I, ‘I have had so much benefit of your
advice and services that I am loth to sever the connection, and would
even ask a substitute. I would be obliged for a letter of introduction
to one of your own cloth in Edinburgh—an old man for choice, very
experienced, very respectable, and very secret. Could you favour me with
such a letter?’
‘Why, no,’ said he. ‘Certainly not. I will do no such thing, indeed.’
‘It would be a great favour, sir,’ I pleaded.
‘It would be an unpardonable blunder,’ he replied. ‘What? Give you a
letter of introduction? and when the police come, I suppose, I must
forget the circumstance? No, indeed. Talk of it no more.’
‘You seem to be always in the right,’ said I. ‘The letter would be out
of the question, I quite see that. But the lawyer’s name might very well
have dropped from you in the way of conversation; having heard him
mentioned, I might profit by the circumstance to introduce myself; and in
this way my business would be the better done, and you not in the least
compromised.’
‘What is this business?’ said Romaine.
‘I have not said that I had any,’ I replied. ‘It might arise. This is
only a possibility that I must keep in view.’
‘Well,’ said he, with a gesture of the hands, ‘I mention Mr. Robbie; and
let that be an end of it!—Or wait!’ he added, ‘I have it. Here is
something that will serve you for an introduction, and cannot compromise
me.’ And he wrote his name and the Edinburgh lawyer’s address on a piece
of card and tossed it to me.