THE COLD SHOULDER.
Lady Bellinger at least was pleased. When her lord, reflecting that the
robbery he had sustained would render abortive his journey to the West,
ordered the horses' heads to be turned for London, his wife accepted
this alteration in their plans with a fervour of gratitude that
sufficiently indicated her dread of a prolonged _tête-à-tête_ with her
husband. Nor was his lordship unwilling to resume the dissipations of
the town, though entertaining shrewd misgivings as to the reception he
was likely to meet with from the sovereign and his ministers. In war, in
politics, or in love--in public affairs, as in private, there is no
excuse for failure! Success does not necessarily imply merit; but merit,
in the eyes of mankind, is a less valuable quality than success. There
have been shrewd and prosperous managers of the world's most important
matters, who have gone so far as to lay down this practical rule: "Never
employ an unlucky man!"
Lady Bellinger was not obliged to have recourse to her drops more than
half-a-dozen times between Hounslow and London on the return journey.
She contradicted my lord hardly twice as often, and was good enough to
express a qualified approval of the scenery, the weather, even the
roads, which last were execrable. Mistress Rachel, too, seemed pleased
to think she was on her way back to civilized life, fresh from an
adventure that made her a heroine in her own eyes. The champion with the
blunderbuss was already reinstated in her favour; the other servants, by
dint of frequent excuses for their poltroonery, and by talking the
matter over till they had multiplied a hundred-fold the number and
weapons of their assailants, were persuaded they had shown a fair amount
of courage; and the whole party, with the exception of its chief, drove
back in the highest spirits through the leafy glades of Kensington, to
their town residence in Leicester Square. But Lord Bellinger's heart
sank as he approached his home. Even for a man of pleasure there is
something exceedingly fascinating in a political career, and here had he
failed the very first time he was put to trial! It is hard to fall and
break one's neck from the very lowest round of the ladder! Had he
managed his business discreetly and well, no doubt his name would have
been entered on that mysterious roll which prime ministers are supposed
to keep, for the advancement of their friends and supporters,
apportioning rewards for service, as an animal's food is regulated by
its work. To support in many divisions, a baronetcy; to expenditure in a
few elections, a peerage; for one timely change of opinion, an earldom;
and so on. But it seemed to Lord Bellinger that he had played his stake
in the great game--and lost!
No sooner did he arrive at home, than, sending for a modish barber to
powder and arrange his hair, he dressed with exceeding splendour--a
ceremony his lordship never neglected, and to which he owed much of his
social success, assumed cane, sword, and snuff-box, called a chair, and
caused himself to be carried straightway to the Cocoa Tree Club and
Coffee-house. It was early in the afternoon, and several gentlemen were
absent at their country-seats, yet this resort of loungers and idlers
seemed sufficiently full. With the self-consciousness of human nature,
an instinct, that years of worldly training cannot wholly eradicate,
Lord Bellinger believed that his recent failure had made him a marked
man; and observing a knot of members congregated in the room, one of
whom held the scanty sheet of the _North Briton_ in his hand, felt
persuaded they must be engaged in discussing his politics, his
shortcomings, his inefficiency as a lord-lieutenant, and even his
character as a gentleman. There was something of disappointment mingled
with a sense of relief to observe that his arrival caused no break in
their conversation, created no more sensation than if one of the waiters
had entered and withdrawn. It is unpleasant, no doubt, to occupy public
attention only to be abused; but it is more unpleasant still to be
ignored entirely, and to find that when we thought the world was talking
about us, our name has never been mentioned at all.
"I'll be judged by Bellinger!" exclaimed the gentleman who held the
paper, looking at the new-comer over the others' heads. "Bellinger
knows; Bellinger shall decide; Bellinger never leaves town even for a
day. Five guineas, Bellinger gives it in my favour!"
"Done!" said a little man in a plum-coloured suit, with enormous ruffles
at his wrists, offering his snuff-box to the referee, who looked from
one to the other in vague surprise.
"The fact is this," said the little man; "our friend Sir Alexander,
there, has been reading an account in the _North Briton_ of a fellow who
lives somewhere near Covent Garden, and keeps a kind of prophesy shop,
where half the ladies in town go to learn each other's secrets, and tell
their own. The newspaper affirms that he has been driving this trade for
years; and though all the while the prophet, or whatever he calls
himself, is a spy from over the water, that our ministry never found it
out! Sir Alexander vows it's impossible, and appeals to you, my lord, as
knowing more of the town and its wicked ways than any man in this room.
What say you, Bellinger? I have only five guineas on it; but if I had
five hundred, I would abide by your award!"
Lord Bellinger's presence of mind rarely deserted him; and although with
the topic thus broached, the possibility of Katerfelto's treachery
flashed across his brain, he answered quietly: "You do me too much
honour, my lord; I cannot give an opinion. I have been in the country
more than a week."
"The country!" repeated half-a-dozen voices, in tones of surprise and
incredulity. "Bellinger in the country! What, in the name of all that is
innocent, should take you to the country? You who have never slept a
night out of town since you came of age. Think of the risks! You might
have caught milk-fever or chicken-pox! We must believe it, my lord,
because your lordship says so."
"It only shows how little a fellow is missed!" replied Lord Bellinger,
not too well pleased to find his absence had been unnoticed by those
among whom he considered himself a man of mark. "Did you never hear of
my coach being robbed; money and papers carried off; myself, my lady,
and my servants made prisoners on _parole_ by a band of gipsies, and a
highwayman riding a grey horse? On my honour, gentlemen, I believe not
one of you cares a brass farthing for any earthly thing that takes place
beyond ten miles from London or two from Newmarket!"
He spoke bitterly, and with an energy so unlike his usual careless
manner, that the man in the plum-coloured coat gazed at him in
undisguised astonishment.
"A grey horse!" repeated this nobleman, tapping his snuff-box. "The
best-actioned horse I ever saw in my life was a grey, and belonged to a
highwayman--a fellow they called Galloping Jack. It must have been the
very man!"
"Two to one against him!" interrupted a bystander. "Ten guineas to five,
my lord, that no gentleman of the road would show such bad taste as to
rob Bellinger, or such deplorable ignorance as to suppose his purse was
worth taking."
"I'll go you halves," said a tall youth. "I remember the grey horse, and
the man in the mask who rode him; what became of the horse I never
heard, but the man was hanged at Tyburn last November!"
In the confusion of tongues created by this statement, offering, as it
did, a wide field for speculation, and originating many wagers on the
personal identity of the robber in the mask, Bellinger felt an arm
thrust under his own to withdraw him from the noisy circle into the
recess of a bay-window fronting the street, while a friendly voice
whispered in his ear: "Welcome back, my lord. I knew you had left the
town, if no one else did. I wish from my soul these gipsies and robbers,
and other scoundrels had turned you back before you reached Kensington!"
It was Harry St. Leger who spoke, his comrade and associate in many a
scene of pleasure and dissipation little removed from vice, yet a
staunch friend nevertheless--not to be detached by misfortune, nor
daunted by disgrace. Such cases are less rare than those who hold by the
laws of ethics might suppose. The growth of the bog-myrtle is fresh and
fair, its fibres are tough and clinging, though it takes root in the
blackest and miriest of swamps. Harry St. Leger would have offered him
his last guinea ungrudgingly, and with no less flippant a jest, than he
would have shed his last drop of blood in a duel, to share his friend's
quarrel, as principal or second, or anything he pleased.
"Why so, Harry?" asked Lord Bellinger. "Have you seen the minister? What
have you heard?"
"They're in a devil of a stew down there," answered the other,
intimating with a jerk of his head the locality in which his Majesty's
Council conducted their deliberations. "They've had an enemy in the
camp, it seems, ever since the late king's death. Our Gracious himself
has been sitting on a powder-barrel, only he does not believe it; and
would care very little if he did. They've plenty of courage, _that_
family, I must admit; we can't say as much for the others. Well, the
Scotchman is in a fearful state! The only thief-taker in the town who
knows a thief when he sees one, or how to take him, or can be persuaded
to try, was with the minister more than two hours yesterday. The other
side will put up somebody to ask a question directly Parliament meets.
The House is very ticklish about treachery. There's no saying how things
might go; and he dare not--no, he _dare_ not risk a general election.
The 'man in the street' says it's all _your_ doing. Fred, mind I know
nothing for certain."
Lord Bellinger pondered. "Has anybody confessed anything?" he asked,
after some consideration.
"Nobody who _had_ anything to confess!" answered his friend with a
smile. "The only man who could have told them what they wanted to know
wisely took himself out of the way. That idiotic newspaper which Sir
Alexander has been flourishing over his empty head made a better shot
than usual. There _has_ been a spy among us, no doubt, and rumour
mentions one or two names, I dare _not_. The fortune-teller, I can well
believe, had a finger in the pie; and people go so far as to say that
meetings were held in his house between staunch Hanoverian friends of
yours and mine, and other friends of ours who are supposed to be over
the water and unable to come back. Also, that arms were found in his
cellar, and gunpowder under his bed! All this goes in at one ear and out
at the other; but there's an ugly story about some royal warrants that
were never served; and I can tell you for certain, a very great man
holds your lordship to blame."
"Because my cowardly servants wouldn't back me up, and I couldn't fight
a score of men single-handed!" exclaimed Lord Bellinger indignantly.
"Those were the very warrants that gaol-bird took out of my coach. I see
the whole thing now, and how cleverly it was done! I'm in a false
position, Harry, to say the least of it. The treason I don't so much
mind; but I cannot bear to think I should have been so 'bit.' Harry!
Harry! I shall be the laugh of the town!"
"'Faith, when the town comes to learn it, I think you will!" replied his
friend. "But, in the meantime, 'tis as much a secret as anything _can_
be that is known to half-a-dozen people. I'm the only man in this room
who has heard a word of it, you may see that for yourself. The conjuror,
or whatever he is, has departed without beat of drum. I need hardly
observe, that when they sent to arrest him he had eight-and-forty hours'
start. The house was shut up, and they were forced to break in the door.
I am told, when they did search it, they found an empty bottle on the
table, an empty chair at the fire-place, and an empty skull on the
chimney-piece. There were no directions left where the owner was to be
found; but I understand many very respectable people want him sadly now
he's gone!"
"That's another difficulty," mused Lord Bellinger. "We shall never get
money at such short notice from anybody else. If you paid enough for it,
you could take it away with you then and there. He was a most useful
person, and I shall miss him prodigiously for one. However, that is not
the question. Harry, you have a head on your shoulders; what would you
do in my place?"
"Get into my chair, and wait on the minister at once," answered his
friend. "When a man knows he is in the wrong, he should always take the
bull by the horns. The Scotchman believes you have been tampering with
the other side, and thinking it more formidable than it is, will scarce
venture to break with your lordship, once for all. It is but a game of
brag, Fred, and the boldest player wins. We will sup here together at
nine o'-the-clock, and you shall tell me how you came off."
So Lord Bellinger, taking his friend's advice, mounted gravely into his
chair, and caused himself to be set down without delay at the minister's
official residence, where he found the great man holding a levee,
composed of the many who came to ask for something, and the few who
returned to give thanks.
It chafed his lordship in no slight degree to be kept waiting in the
ante-room, while meaner men, not half so well-dressed, were admitted to
the presence of the minister. His own equals in rank and position nodded
to him as they passed in and out, but their greetings at such a time
were necessarily short and formal, so that he was unable to gather from
their manner how widely his failure had become known, or how deeply he
was supposed to be disgraced. It was not till the mayor of a country
town, a doctor of divinity, and a poor author who had helped to line
many a trunk, were admitted before him, that his patience utterly
failed. He was in the act of desiring his chair to be called, when a
grave man, addressing him in broad Scotch, held open the door of the
inner chamber, with an austere bow.
There were some half-score persons present, bearing the proudest names,
holding the highest offices in the country. Lord Bellinger's quick eye
did not fail to mark how each looked eagerly from the new-comer to the
minister, as though to observe the nature of his reception.
More erect than usual, for his blood was up, but with the graceful
bearing that never deserted him, his lordship stepped across the room
and made a low bow, almost defiant in the excess of courtesy which it
seemed to affect. The minister, who was engaged with a paper in his
hand, did not return the salutation for more than a minute. Lord
Bellinger ground his teeth, and the bystanders glanced in each other's
faces.
Presently the great man raised his head, stared coldly at his visitor,
and returned his obeisance without a word.
The bystanders breathed freely; there was no more doubt, then, of their
chief's displeasure, and they believed the interest of the scene was
past. But, as they told each other afterwards, "Bellinger was a very
awkward fellow to set down!"
"My lord," said he, "I have waited on your lordship in self-defence."
"My lord," was the answer, "your lordship's explanations must be made in
public, and reserved for another place."
Then the minister turned on him a broad, ungainly back; and he knew that
in the Game of Brag, concerning which Harry St. Leger spoke so
hopefully, he had come off second best.
But he did not fail to keep his appointment at the Cocoa Tree, arriving
there, indeed, somewhat earlier than the hour agreed on, and with an
appetite no whit impaired by the contrarieties he had experienced. "It's
the country air, I suppose," he observed lightly to his friend. "'Faith,
Harry, should I be forced to retire into the country altogether it won't
break my heart, if I'm always to be as hungry as now. Waiter! what can
we have for supper?"
"Aitch-bone of beef, my lord," was the answer. "Beg pardon, my lord, his
grace has finished the aitch-bone; his grace never eats anything else.
Cold game-pie, cold chicken and tongue, cold partridges, wild duck or
teal, cold shoulder of mutton."
"Anything but _that_, you knave!" replied his lordship, with a laugh.
"No, no, Harry; I've had enough cold shoulder to-day to last me the rest
of my life!"