THE END OF THE FIRST ACT.
"The question now is," said Lewis Granger to Beau Bufton that night,
"what is to be done? How are you, and I, which latter is perhaps of
more considerable importance, to continue to exist? I have had no
money for a long time, and in a short time you also will have none.
What do you intend to do?"
As he spoke, he cast his eyes upon the man who now sat the picture of
despair in his rooms in the Haymarket, and was, in truth, in about as
miserable a frame of mind as it was possible for any person to be.
Miserable and broken down in more ways than one; through lack of money
as well as a lack of knowledge of where any was to come from;
miserable also through the certainty that by to-morrow all
London would ring with the manner in which he had been tricked and
deceived. While, which was perhaps the worst of all disasters, his
long-meditated plan of espousing some heiress or another was now and
for ever impossible. Who would marry him, a man who might or might not
be the husband of the singing, dancing girl of Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and
Marylebone Gardens; what heiress, even though he could get free of
Anne Pottle, would not know him in his true colours: those of a
fortune-hunter?
There was no gibe nor jeer left in him now, not even of that
lower-form schoolboy order, which Granger had so often derided with
savage contempt. How could he ever jeer and jest at others henceforth?
He, who had stood so pitiful and exposed a fool before others that
morning. In the future, whatever became of him, he could sneer or
scoff no more, for fear that in his teeth should be thrown his own
idiocy.
But, in place of the little quips and contemptuous insolence he had
been wont to pride himself upon, there had come now into his heart a
passion, black and venomous, that had taken the place of those other
qualities which once he had considered all-sufficient--a passion that
was a thirst, a determination for revenge. Yet, against whom it was to
be exercised he scarcely knew, even now. His wife, if she were his
wife, perhaps; and then--afterwards--against all who had aided and
abetted her, all who, knowing what was to be done, had stood by and
had not interfered in the doing thereof. Undoubtedly there were two
such persons, if no more. Surely the real Ariadne Thorne had known;
surely, too, the man who had proclaimed himself as her future husband.
The man who, on the two occasions when they had come together, had
treated him with icy contempt and scorn; who had driven him from the
avenue with ignominy; and had spoken to him as though he were dirt
beneath his feet. Who had spoken thus to him!--to him!--whose whole
system had been to treat others so.
"You do not answer me," said Lewis Granger, filling his glass as he
spoke. "I have asked you what is to be done. How are you and I to
live? You owe me five thousand pounds, which, as you have not married
the lady who possesses twenty times that amount, I presume it is
little use dunning you for. But the wherewithal to live, that is the
question of the moment."
"I am ruined," Bufton said. "The Fleet Prison will ere long be my
home----"
"Tush! tush!" exclaimed Granger. "Never. What! A bold cock of the walk
like Algernon Bufton languish in the Fleet? Never, I say. Are there
not the clubs, the gaming-houses, the credit given by dupes? You are
skilful at--well--sleight of hand----"
"Clubs! gaming-houses! credit!" exclaimed Bufton. "Who will give me
credit now; who play with me? Man, I am ruined. Lost. Sunk. I have but
thirty gold pieces in the world."
"You will have but thirty in an hour or so, when you have shared what
you possess with me; but at present you have sixty, or had when you
went to your wedding to-day, and you have spent nothing since then."
"Curse you!" cried Bufton angrily. "Before God, I think you are my
evil genius."
"As I was when you were at Cambridge, eh? In the Glastonbury affair?"
"No! no! I meant not that. But--but--Lewis, what is to become of me?"
"Make money. If you cannot enter clubs here, or gamble, you
can do so elsewhere. There is Bath--Tunbridge I do not suggest, for
reasons--painful reasons--but there is Bath. Your cleverness with
your--well!--fingers and hands--should stand you in good stead."
"It will be known at Bath as well as in London. I can show my face
nowhere."
"What then to do? What are you thinking of? You are burdened with me,
you see; you have to keep me for ever--until, at least, the
Glastonbury affair is wiped away. You do it devilish ill; I live in a
garret, you in sumptuous rooms; yet it is something. Am I to keep
myself henceforth? Wherefore again I say, what are you thinking of
doing?"
"At present I think but of one thing. Revenge! A terrible revenge!"
"On whom?"
"On him. That man, Barry. The man who is to marry the true Ariadne
Thorne; the man who, since he appeared at the church, knew very well
what was taking place and let me fall into the snare like a rat into a
trap."
"It will be hard to do. He is a sea-captain, a brave, stalwart-looking
fellow, and--he has beaten you once. He may do so again. Moreover, I
do not think he would meet you if you challenged him."
"There are other ways. Men can be hired even nowadays to do the work.
A month ago Lord D'Amboise's nose was slit to the bone--perhaps his
Ariadne would not like Sir Geoffrey so much if he were equally
disfigured! There are many ways if one will pay----"
"But you cannot pay," said Granger, with a swift glance at him, which
the other saw well enough; "that is, unless you have a secret store.
You would be like enough to have one, and keep the knowledge from me."
"I have nothing; nothing but what you know of."
"Humph! perhaps. 'But what I know of!' Well, at least I know of your
sixty guineas which you had when you went to your marriage this
morning--your wedding with the heiress," Granger said emphatically,
observing how the other winced at the word "marriage"; "I know of
that. Well! come, let us decide. You say you can support me no longer,
therefore I must now support myself. We must part, grievous as so
doing will be to me."
"Part! You and I! When we have been so much to each other. Part! Oh,
no! I--I might find a little more money somehow yet--if--if--a letter
were sent to my mother saying that I was dying--now--she might
consent. She----"
"I do not doubt you will find more money somewhere," Granger replied,
with a very profound look of disgust for the knave on his face, "no
more than I doubt that, in some way, you will wheedle the wherewithal
to live out of your mother. But--you must do it by yourself. We part
now. I can earn my living in a fashion. Come, divide."
"Not now; you will not take all at once--the full half? Think of my
debts."
"Damn your debts! Though I have confidence in your powers, Bufton; you
will by some means discover how to avoid their payment. Divide, I
say."
By strong persuasion, by the force of some hold which Granger had over
the Beau, the latter was at last induced to draw forth his purse, and
to divide into two heaps the sum of sixty guineas which it contained,
though not without much protest on his side, nor without, indeed,
almost a whimper at parting with both his money and his friend. But
the latter was inexorable, and he took the thirty guineas.
"And we shall meet no more?" Bufton said, "after so long a friendship.
Oh! it is hard. And how--how are you going to make a living? Can you
not put me in the way of doing so too?"
As he asked the question, the other started. Put him in the way of
making a living! In the way of making a living! Rather, he thought
suddenly to himself, put him in the way of going to a more utter ruin
than that which had yet fallen on him. He must think of this. His
whole life for two years had been devoted towards ruining, crushing
this man who had ruined his own career at the outset of it; and,
although by tricking him into the marriage made that day he had gone
far towards fulfilling his purpose, he was not yet content. Anne
Pottle had spoken truthfully when she told Ariadne that he had not
finished his business with Bufton yet.
"It might be," he said more gently now, and speaking in a friendlier
tone, "that I could put you in such a way--later. Perhaps! It may be
so. We will see. You must, in truth, disappear from the Beau Monde for
a time; where, therefore, can news be found of you?"
"Are we not to meet again?" Bufton asked, his face haggard from all he
had gone through that day; and, perhaps--since, although half-knave
and half-fool, he was still human--feeling doubly wretched at this
withdrawal of his principal ally and bottle-comrade.
"Not yet. I, too, leave this part of the town now. The other, the east
of the city, will be my portion for some time to come."
"What is it?" almost whispered Bufton, "what? What have you found?"
"A commercial pursuit," the other answered; "one connected with the
sea and the colonies of America. Enough! No more as yet. Say, where
shall I write you if aught arises that may be of benefit?"
"Send word to the 'Rummer'--no! no! they know me there. Instead, give
me a house to which I may send to you. I pray you do so."
For a moment Granger paused, meditating; turning over in his mind more
matters than one. Then he said, "Write to the 'Czar of Muscovy' on
Tower Hill. It will find me. And," he added to himself, "it is not too
near." Then, aloud, he exclaimed finally, "Now, farewell!"
And so these two men parted for the time.
That night, as Granger sat alone in his garret, while he occupied
himself with flinging hastily into a valise a second suit of clothes
which he possessed, some odd linen, and other necessaries, he muttered
more than once to himself:
"The first act is played out, and so far it is successful. He
is married to that girl, and much I doubt if he will ever free
himself from the yoke. Yet it is not enough. Enough--my God! What
can ever be enough? What can repay me for my own wasted life; my
mother's death; the loss of the woman who loved me; and--Heaven help
us both!--believed in me? Enough! What can be enough?" While, even as
he mused thus, he went to a cupboard and took from out of it a bottle.
"Still half full," he whispered, "still half full. Ah, well! it will
be empty ere day breaks."
He sat down after he had brought forth a glass also, into which he
poured a dram of spirit, and, supping it, continued his meditations,
though still they were on the same subject, and still, therefore, full
of bitterness.
"Some men," he whispered to himself, "would stop here--would be
content. Yet I will not stop--will never stop so long as Sophy's face
rises before me every night--aye, and rises more plainly as I drink
more; so long as there rises, too, the dank, reeking churchyard into
which I stole at night--the night after my mother's burial. I will
never stop," he continued, as he poured more spirits into the glass;
"never. Only--what to do? how to go on? None would believe me
now--none. None believed then that I was an innocent man and he the
guilty one. None! My mother died with her heart broken, Sophy married
the man whom she thought I had tried to rob. Curse him! I will never
stop."
Again he emptied the glass of spirits down his throat; yet, fiery as
the drams were, they did not make him drunk. Instead, only the more
resolute, the more hard, if the set look upon his face was any index
to his mind.
"He is ruined," he said to himself now. "Ruined. Still--that is not
enough. Yet, how to do more? How! how! Short of murder I cannot slay
him. There is no way. And I have sworn to slay him--his soul, if not
his body. I have sworn to slay him, and there are no means. None. I
shall never stamp on those grinning features; I can do nothing now."
Sitting there, with on one side of him the glass--again empty, and
soon again to be refilled--and on the other a guttering rushlight
which imparted to his face a sickly, cadaverous appearance, he
continued racking his brain as to how more calamity might be made to
fall upon Beau Bufton, the man who, if his meditations might be taken
as a clue to the past, had once brought terrible ruin to him. He
wondered if this man Barry (who was, beyond all doubt, the future
husband of the woman, the heiress, whom he and Anne Pottle had
contrived to make their tool believe he was himself about to marry)
could in any way be used as a means to the end; he pondered this, and
then discarded that idea as worthless. "Sir Geoffrey Barry is a
gentleman, an officer," he said. "Bufton is now an outcast. It is
impossible. Impossible. Barry would not condescend to kick him."
Again he drank--the bottle being almost empty by this time--and still
his mind did not become clouded; still he was able to think and plot
and scheme. And once he muttered, "He wishes to participate in my new
method of earning a living, not even knowing what that method is. Ah!"
he exclaimed, springing to his feet and knocking over the miserable
rushlight as he did so, whereby he was now in the dark, "he wishes
that. He wishes that! Oh, my God!" he cried, gesticulating in that
darkness, "he wishes that to be. And so it shall! So it shall! He
shall participate. Somehow, I will do it. He shall participate, even
as the sheep--which his accursed, gibbering face is something
like--participates with the butcher in the shambles to which it is
led. He shall indeed participate."
Then, in the darkness, and half-frenzied both with the drink he had
already partaken of--which was not the first that day--as well as with
the thoughts of a new scheme which had suddenly dawned in his mind, he
put out his hand and, groping for the bottle, found it, and drained
the last remnants of its contents.
After which he stumbled towards where his bed was and sought oblivion
in sleep--an oblivion that, however, was not altogether complete--that
was disturbed by dreams and visions of a girl's face, a girl's form
shaken with piteous sobs; and, also, of a newly made grave in a
country churchyard, on which the rain poured without cessation through
the night.