"I STAND UPON THE GROUND OF MINE OWN HONOUR."
Lavendale left Ringwood Abbey more than ever in love with his former
mistress, and savagely jealous of her other admirers, from Bolingbroke
downwards. But it was against her husband that his hatred was deadliest.
Those dark stories of Mr. Topsparkle's youth and ripening years had
taken a strong grip upon Lavendale's mind. He had been a profligate
himself, and his own wild youth gave him but little justification for
setting up as a moralist; but Lavendale's sins had been the vices of an
accomplished gentleman, sunning his follies in the full blaze of
notoriety, parading his amours, his gambling adventures and duels,
advertising all his laxities of conduct and opinion, glorying in his
shame; while Topsparkle's vices had been dark and secret, obscure as the
rites of an antique religion, only guessed at dimly by the multitude.
To Lavendale the very presence of the man inspired loathing, albeit Mr.
Topsparkle was generally esteemed a very pretty fellow, and a wonder of
careful preservation and artistic treatment.
"By lamplight our dear Topsparkle might pass for forty-five," said
Bolingbroke, discussing his late host at White's one evening after the
opera, "and yet I have reason to know that he is nearer seventy than
sixty--and upon my soul, gentlemen, it is a very meritorious thing for a
man of seventy to pass for young. 'Tis not so easy as you young
gentlemen think."
"There is a quiet elegance about Topsparkle which is very taking," said
Mr. Chevenix, a prosperous barrister; "and when one remembers that his
father made his money in the City, and that he is only one generation
removed from hides and tallow--"
"There you are mistaken, my dear Chevenix," interposed Asterley; "the
elder Topsparkle was a drysalter."
"And pray does not that mean hides and tallow? I thought they were all
one," said Chevenix, with a languid fine-gentleman air.
"Alderman Topsparkle was a very clever fellow," said Bolingbroke. "You
are not to suppose that he made his vast fortune all in the beaten way
of trade, out of pickles and saltpetre. 'Tis said he speculated largely
on 'Change; and it is also said that before the Peace of Utrecht he used
to buy up all the spoiled gunpowder in the country and sell it again to
a very great man, whose name I would be the last to mention for two good
reasons. He is dead; and he was once my friend."
"Nothing like a long war for enriching clever tradesmen," said Chevenix.
"Now, I really think it very estimable in Topsparkle, considering his
low origin, that he manages to pass for almost a gentleman."
"I know he is much genteeler than many of us, and far more courteous,"
said Bolingbroke.
"Ah, that is his chief mistake. He overdoes the courtly air. He is
monotonous in his gentility, and has none of the easy variety which
belongs to high breeding. He has all the faults of a novice in the art
of good manners."
That refined air and superficial polish, which satisfied society at
large, revolted Lord Lavendale. He hated mincing manners in any man, but
most of all in Vyvyan Topsparkle. He hated the man's small white hands
and smooth feminine tones of voice, hated his pencilled eyebrows and
white-lead complexion, his slim waist and attenuated legs.
He told himself that this aversion of his was but a natural instinct, an
innate revulsion of the mind at the aspect of hidden sin; yet in his
heart of hearts it was as Judith's husband he hated this man. He thought
of him as her owner, the wretch who had bought her with his fortune, who
held her captive by the malignant power of his ill-gotten wealth--who in
the privacy of domestic life might insult and bully her, for anything
Lavendale knew to the contrary. That smooth Janus countenance had
doubtless its darker side; and he who in public was ever the adoring
husband might be a tyrant in private.
Stimulated by this ill-feeling, Lavendale was more than ever bent on
ferreting out the secret of Mr. Topsparkle's early life, and the fate of
that Italian mistress whom he had for a little while acknowledged as his
wife. He had exhausted all his own and Philter's powers of research,
and had come by no proof or even circumstantial evidence of guilt. There
was but one person likely to know all Mr. Topsparkle's secrets, and he
would be unlikely to reveal them. That person was Fétis, the
confidential valet, whom Lavendale had met sometimes in the corridors at
Ringwood Abbey, looking the very essence of discretion and respectful
dumbness.
"Difficult to get a man to speak when all his interests are in favour of
silence," thought Lavendale.
He communicated his perplexities to his friend Durnford. Since his
lordship's renunciation of Irene they were more brotherly together than
ever they had been.
"And I, too, am devoured with curiosity about Topsparkle's past life,"
said Herrick; "that hidden picture with its strange likeness to the girl
I love has mystified me consumedly. 'Tis but a chance likeness, of
course, since we can trace Irene's lineage into the remote past without
coming upon any track of an Italian marriage. I have examined the
Bosworth family-tree--you must have noticed it framed and glazed in the
dining-parlour--and there is not a foreign twig in all its
ramifications. Yet when I ponder on my dear one's passion for music, her
ardent impulsive temperament, her southern style of beauty, I am at a
loss to comprehend how that sober British tree can have put forth so
bright a flower. In any case I should like to know more about that
lovely girl whose picture is hidden in Mr. Topsparkle's sanctum. By his
pallor when he caught us looking at the portrait, one might guess he has
painful memories of the original."
* * * * *
Lady Tredgold carried her niece back to London, and Irene reëntered the
glittering circle of fashion and folly, and mixed with women among whom
high principles and virtuous inclinations were as exceptional as the
Pitt diamond among gems. The rage for play had spread like a leprous
taint through the whole fabric of society. Women sat night after night
squabbling over cards, and were ready to stab each other with the golden
bodkins they wore in their hair, if Spadillio was unkind, or Manillio in
the hand of an adversary. Lady Tredgold was an inveterate gamester, but
dared not play high, and was fain to affect the society of ladies of
limited means, who could only afford to ruin themselves and their
families in a small way. Yet if her losses were not large, her temper
suffered as severely as if she had been losing thousands; while she was
careful not to parade her winnings before her lean and hard-featured
daughters, who had something of the harpy in their natures, and were
always pestering their mother for new clothes or pocket-money. They,
too, were fond of cards, despite the awful example furnished by their
parent; they, too, had their losses, which had to be supplied somehow.
Card-money was in those days a necessity of fashionable existence.
Better to be buried alive in some rustic vicarage, combing lap-dogs and
reading Mrs. Behn or Mrs. Manly, than to be launched in a London
drawing-room with an empty purse.
Rena, whose purse was always full, declined to play, whereupon she was
characterised as cold and proud and witless, a beautiful nonentity, a
woman altogether wanting in spirit.
"You should gamble, child; 'tis the only excitement in life," said Lady
Judith, tapping the heiress on the cheek at a fine house in Gerard
Street, where the tables were set for ombre and basset.
"It is an excitement that seems to make nobody happy, madam," answered
Rena quietly. "So I would as soon be dull."
"What a prude your heiress is!" Judith said to Lavendale, a few minutes
after: "she glides about a room looking as if she were a being of
superior mould, and had nothing in common with mortals."
"She is but a child just escaped from the nursery," answered Lavendale
lightly, "and doubtless her soul is overwhelmed with wonder."
"Nay, I would not mind if she were shy and abashed among us," retorted
Judith, "for I admit that we are somewhat startling to a novice. It is
her impertinent assurance which annoys me. That calm half-unconscious
air of superiority would provoke a saint."
"If there were any saints in our set to be provoked," said Lavendale;
"but I don't think there is anything saintly to be met with in a West
End card-room."
"Look at her now, as she stands with her elbow leaning on yonder
mantelpiece, not deigning even to pretend to listen to Mr. Dapperwit's
compliments. I wonder, for my part, that he wastes his cleverness upon a
creature of ice. Where did she get that cold impregnable air?"
"From the gods, whose daughter she should be, if looks could vouch for a
pedigree," answered Lavendale, delighted to tease the woman he adored.
"O, I beg your lordship's pardon," said Judith, with a curtsy. "I forgot
for the moment that I was criticising the future Lady Lavendale."
"Don't apologise. We are not plighted yet, and that impregnable air of
Mrs. Bosworth may keep me off as well as her other lovers."
"What, are you not engaged yet?"
"No, nor ever likely to be, Judith, as you know very well."
They were in a doorway between a secondary drawing-room and a third room
still smaller--jostled and hemmed in by the crowd. He could snatch her
hand and clasp it for a moment unperceived. Their eyes met as the crowd
drifted them nearer, met in fond entanglement, and Judith's alabaster
bosom glowed with a sudden blush like the crimson light of a winter dawn
reflected upon snow. It was but an instantaneous betrayal of passionate
feeling on either side; yet from that moment the possibility of pretence
or concealment was over. Each knew that the old fires still burned.
Light words and lighter laughter and all the studied arts of coquetry
could henceforward avail nothing.
The crowd which had drifted them together speedily jostled them apart;
Lady Judith passed on in a bevy of fashion and chatter, talking as loud
as her friends, and with just as much elegant inanity.
Everybody decided that evening that Irene was dull. A pity that so much
beauty and wealth should be thrown away upon a simpleton. She had not
even that hoydenish audacity, that knack of saying improper things
innocently, which could alone make simplicity interesting to well-bred
people. She was not in the least amusing. She was only beautiful: and
one might say as much of a statue.
Irene looked with dreamy eyes upon that strange and brilliant crowd,
caring very little what anybody thought of her. Already she was tired
of that gay world which had dazzled her so at first: or rather it seemed
only fair to her when her lover was near. When Herrick came into one of
those crowded rooms--approaching her suddenly, perhaps, and
unawares--her eyes shone out like twin stars. But if he were not there,
all was dull and dreary, and the company seemed to her no better than an
assemblage of grimacing puppets, moving on wires. She liked Lord
Lavendale because he was Herrick's friend, and she always brightened
when she talked to him, a fact which Judith's keen eye had noted.
It was not always that Herrick received a card for the assemblies to
which Lady Tredgold and her girls were bidden. He was too proud to go
into society as Lavendale's satellite, so he only frequented those
houses where he was asked on his own account as a young man of parts and
much promise; and it was in the best houses that he was oftenest seen.
His letters in the Whig journals had attracted attention, and his talent
shone out all the more conspicuously because most of the best writers
had gone over to the Opposition, disgusted by Walpole's neglect of
literature. His name was becoming familiar among the ranks of
journalists; but journalism was then in its infancy, and was but poorly
paid, while the writers of books, unless the book was as famous as
_Gulliver's Travels_ or Pope's _Iliad_, might count upon years of toil
and privation before they attained even a competence.
Herrick's outlook, therefore, was far from hopeful, and he delayed the
avowal of his passion to Irene's father with a hesitation which he
himself denounced as cowardly.
He felt that love once avowed, hands and hearts pledged for life, there
should be no more secrecy. Concealment was a dishonour to his innocent
mistress.
"I must beard the lion," he said to himself; "come the worst, I can but
steal her by a Mayfair marriage. He can never lock her up so close, or
carry her so far away, or hide her so cunningly that love would not
follow and find her. I will at least give him the chance of acting
generously."
So one morning, in cold blood, Mr. Durnford waited upon Squire Bosworth
at his lodgings in Arlington Street, at an hour when he knew, by
private information obtained from Irene over-night, that the gentleman
would be at home.
He was shown into a parlour where Mr. Bosworth was drinking chocolate
and reading the _St. James's Weekly Journal_, a Tory paper; for he was
still at heart attached to the exiled family, although self-interest and
the Stock Exchange made him a zealous adherent to Walpole. To that great
financier he could not refuse his allegiance.
He received Herrick with a cold civility which was not encouraging. Lady
Tredgold had hinted her suspicions about Durnford, and put the Squire on
his guard.
"Can I do anything in the City for you, sir?" asked Bosworth; "I should
be glad to oblige any friend of my friend Lord Lavendale."
"Nothing, sir, unless you could put me up to some trick of winning a
fortune suddenly, without any capital to speculate with. But I take it
that it is beyond even your power, and I must trust such poor talents as
I may possess, backed by industry, to make my way in the world. Mr.
Bosworth, it is ill beating about the bush when a man has a weak cause
to advocate. In four words, sir, I love your daughter."
"Indeed, sir! You are vastly civil and mightily candid. And may I ask do
you design to maintain Mrs. Bosworth by your pen, as a political
pamphleteer, and to lodge her in a three-pair back in Grub Street?"
"I think we could both be happy, sir, even in a garret, with no better
view than the chimney-stacks, and no better fare than bread and cheese."
"What, sir! you have dared to steal my daughter's heart--you, an arrant
pauper?"
"There was no stealing, Mr. Bosworth. Our hearts came together
unawares--flew towards each other like two young birds on St.
Valentine's Day. Let me have her, sir, because she loves me, and because
there is no other man on this earth who can ever love her more truly
than I do. Forget that she is a great fortune, and remember that if I am
poor I am well-born, and that the world says I am not without ability.
The arena of public life is open to all comers. Lavendale has promised
me his interest at the next election. In the House of Commons I should
be at least a gentleman--"
"You are not there, sir, yet. Why, you talk as if you were a Pelham, and
had but to ask and have! Let there be no more fooling between us, I beg.
I don't want to lose my temper if I can help it. My daughter _is_ a
great fortune, as well as a very handsome girl, and I mean her to marry
either rank or wealth. I want the fortune which I have made--slowly,
laboriously in part, and in part by sudden strokes of luck--to remain
behind me as an enduring monument when I am dust. I want the security of
a great name and a large landed estate. I can afford to buy them both,
and my daughter is handsome enough to marry well, were she only a
milkmaid. I have been disposed to look kindly on Lavendale, because our
estates join; but his fortune is shattered, his reputation is bad, and
his title a paltry one. Such a girl as mine should mate with a duke, and
could I find a respectable duke a bachelor, I would offer her to him.
These are my views, Mr. Durnford. You have been candid with me, and I am
pleased to reciprocate your candour."
"You give me no hope, sir?"
"None. And mark you, sir, you may think it a clever thing to run away
with my daughter, as Wortley Montagu did with the Duke of Kingston's
girl. Remember that in such a case your wife will be penniless. I will
leave every shilling and every acre I own to a hospital; and I will
never look upon my disobedient daughter's face again. If you love her,
as you pretend, you will not attempt to reduce her to beggary."
"No, sir. It would be a cowardly thing to do. But if ever the day come
when I am secure of five hundred a year, you may be very sure that I
shall ask her to choose between love and fortune. Perhaps she will
renounce her inheritance just as willingly as Lady Mary Pierrepoint
renounced hers."
"If she is as crackbrained a person she may perhaps oblige you,"
answered the Squire, "but until this morning I have had reason to
consider her a sensible girl. And now, sir, as I am due in Change Alley
before noon, I must ask you--"
"I have the honour to wish you good-morning, sir."
They saluted each other stiffly and parted. Herrick felt that he had
injured his chance of winning Irene by stealth, yet his conscience was
relieved from a burden. He could face the world better. And who can
separate youth from hope? He trusted to the unforeseen. Something would
happen, some kindly chance would favour him and Irene. Mr. Bosworth
would lose his head, perhaps, and ruin himself on the Stock Exchange.
What could be greater bliss than to see his beloved reduced to poverty
by no fault of his?