A wiser head than that of Annesley Beecher might have felt some
confusion on awaking the morning after the events we have just related.
Indeed, his first sensations were those of actual bewilderment as he
opened his eyes, and beheld the pine-clad mountains rising in endless
succession; the deep glens; the gushing streams, crossed by rude bridges
of a single tree; the rustic saw-mills all dripping with spray. And
trembling with the force of their own machinery. Where was he? What
strange land was this? How came he there? Was this in reality the “new
world beyond the seas” Davis had so often described to him? By a slow,
laborious process, like filtering, stray memories dropped, one by one,
through his clouded faculties; and, at length, he remembered the scene
of the preceding night, and all that had passed between Davis and
himself. Yet, withal, there was much of doubt and uncertainty mixed up,
nor could he, by any effort, satisfy himself how much was fact, how much
mere speculation. Was it true that Lackington was to lose his peerage?
Was it possible such a dreadful blow was to fall on their house? If
so, what portion of the estates would follow the title? Would a great
part--would all the property be transferred to the new claimant? What
length of time, too, might the suit occupy?--such things often lasted
for years upon years. Was it too late for a compromise? Could not some
arrangement be come to “some way”? Grog was surely the man to decree
a plan for this; at all events, he could protract and spin out
proceedings. “It's not p.p.; the match may never come off,” muttered
Beecher, “and I 'll back old Grog to 'square it' _somehow_.”
And then the bills, the forged acceptances,--they were actually burned
before his face! It was well-nigh incredible; but he had seen them, held
them in his own hand, and watched them as the night wind wafted
away their blackened embers never more to rise in judgment against
him,--never to cost him another night of sleepless terror! Who would
have believed Davis capable of such magnanimity? Of all men living, he
had deemed him the last to forego any hold over another; and then
the act was his own spontaneous doing, without reservation, without
condition.
Beecher's heart swelled proudly as he thought over this trait of his
friend. Was it that he felt a sense of joy in believing better of
mankind? Was it that it awoke within his breast more hopeful thoughts of
his fellow-men? Did it appeal to him like a voice, saying, “Despair of
no man; there are touches of kindliness in natures the very roughest,
that redeem whole lives of harshness”? No, my good reader, it would be
unfair and unjust to you were I to say that such sentiments as these
swayed him. Annesley Beecher's thoughts flowed in another and very
different channel. The words he whispered to his heart were somewhat
in this wise: “What a wonderful fellow must you be, Beecher, to acquire
such influence over a man like Davis; what marvellous gifts must you not
be endowed with! Is it any wonder that Grog predicts a brilliant future
to him who can curb to his will the most stubborn of natures, and elicit
traits of sacrifice out of the most selfish of men? Who but yourself
could work this miracle?” Mean and ignoble as such a mode of arguing may
seem, take my word for it, most patient reader, it is not unfrequent
in this world of ours, nor is Annesley Beecher the only one who has
ascribed all his good fortune to his own deservings.
“Shrewd fellow, that Davis! He always saw what stuff was in _me; he_
recognized the real metal, while others were only sneering at the
dross,--just as he knows this moment, that if I start fresh without
name, fortune, or title, that I 'm sure to be at the top of the tree
at last. Give me his daughter! I should think he would! It's not all up
with Lackington yet, dark as it looks; we 're in possession, and there
is a 'good line of country' between the Honorable Annesley Beecher, next
Viscount in succession, and Kit Davis, commonly called Grog of that
ilk! Not that the girl isn't equal to any station,--there's no denying
_that!_ Call her a Greville, a Stanley, or a Seymour, and she's a match
for the finest man in England! Make her a Countess to-morrow, and she
'll look it!”
It is but fair to acknowledge that Beecher was not bewildered without
some due cause; for if Davis had at one time spoken to him as one who
no longer possessed claim to rank and station, but was a mere adventurer
like himself, at another moment he had addressed him as the future
Viscount, and pictured him as hurling a proud defiance to the world in
the choice he had made of his wife. This was no blunder on Grog's part.
That acute individual had, in the course of his legal experiences,
remarked that learned counsel are wont to insert pleas which are
occasionally even contradictory, alleging at times that “there was no
debt,” and then, that “if there had been, it was already paid.” In the
same spirit did Davis embrace each contingency of fortune, showing that,
whether Peer or Commoner, Annesley Beecher “stood to win” in making
Lizzy his wife. “Scratch the pedigree, and she 'll be a stunning
peeress; and if the suit goes against us, show me the girl like her to
meet the world!” This was the sum of the reflections that cost him a
whole morning's intellectual labor, and more of actual mental fatigue
than befalls a great parliamentary leader after a stormy debate.
That Davis had no intention to intimidate him was clearly shown by his
destroying the acceptances: had he wished to lean on coercion, here was
the means. Take your choice between matrimony and a felony, was a short
and easy piece of argumentation, such as would well have suited Grog's
summary notions; and yet he had, of his own accord, freely and forever
relinquished this vantage ground. Beecher was now free. For the first
time for many a long year of life he arose from his bed without a fear
of the law and its emissaries. The horrible nightmare that had scared
him so often, dashing the wildest moments of dissipation with sudden
fear, deepening the depths of despondency with greater gloom, had all
fled, and he awoke to feel that there was no terror in a “Beak's” eye,
nothing to daunt him in the shrewd glances of a detective. They who have
lived years long of insecurity, tortured by the incessant sense of an
impending peril, to befall them to-day, tomorrow, or next day, become
at length so imbued with fear that when the hour of their emancipation
arrives, they are not able for a considerable time to assure themselves
of their safety. The captive dreams of his chains through many a night
after he has gained his liberty; the shipwrecked sailor can never forget
the raft and the lone ocean on which he tossed; nor was it altogether
easy for Beecher to convince himself that he could walk the world with
his head high, and bid defiance to Crown prosecutors and juries!
“I 'm out of _your_ debt, Master Grog,” said he, with a pleasant laugh
to himself; “catch me if you can running up another score in _your_
books. Wait till you see me slipping my neck into a noose held by _your_
fingers. You made me feel the curb pretty sharp for many a long day, and
might still, if you had n't taken off the bridle with your own hands;
but I 'm free now, and won't I show you a fair pair of heels! Who could
blame me, I 'd like to know? When a fellow gets out of jail, does he
take lodgings next door to the prison? _I_ never asked him to burn those
bills. It was all his own doing. I conclude that a fellow as shrewd as
he knew what he was about. Mayhap he said to himself, 'Beecher's the
downiest cove going. It will be a deuced sight better to have him as
my friend and pal than to send him to break stones in Australia. I can
stand to win a good thing on him, and why should I send him over
seas just out of spite? I'll come the grand magnanimous dodge over
him,--destroy the papers before his face, and say, “Now, old fellow,
what do you say to that for a touch of generosity?”'
“'Well, I'll tell you what I say, Master Davis,'” said he, drawing
himself up, and speaking boldly out. “'I say that you're a regular
trump, and no mistake; but you 're not the sharp fellow I took you
for. No, no, old gent, you 're no match for A. B.! He's been running in
bandages all this time past; and now that his back sinews are all right,
you'll see if he hasn't a turn of speed in him.' And what is more, I
'd say to him, 'Look here, Grog, we've jogged along these ten or twelve
years or so without much profit to either of us,--what say you if we
dissolve the partnership and let each do a little business on his own
account? If I should turn out anything very brilliant, you 'll be proud
of me, just as England says she is when a young colony takes a great
spring of success, and say, “Ay, he was one of my rearing!”' Of course
all dictation, all that bullying intolerance is at an end now, and time
it was! Wasn't I well weary of it! wasn't I actually sick of life with
it! I couldn't turn to anything, could n't think of anything, with that
eternal fear before me, always asking myself, 'Is he going to do it
now?' It is very hard to believe it's all over.” And he heaved a deep
sigh as though disburdening his heart of its last load of sorrow.
“Davis is very wide awake,” continued he; “he 'll soon see how to trim
his sails to this new wind; he 'll know that he can't bully, can't
terrorize.”
A sharp quick report of a pistol, with a clanging crash, and then a
faint tinkle of a bell, cut short his musings, and Beecher hastened to
the window and looked out. It was Davis in the vine alley practising
with the pistol; he had just sent a ball through the target, the bell
giving warning that the shot had pierced the very centre. Beecher
watched him as he levelled again; he thought he saw a faint tremor of
the hand, a slight unsteadiness of the wrist; vain illusion,--bang went
the weapon, and again the little bell gave forth the token of success.
“Give me the word--one--two,” cried out Davis to the man who loaded and
handed him the pistols. “One--two,” called out the other; and the same
instant rang out the bell, and the ball was true to its mark.
“What a shot,--what a _deadly_ shot!” muttered Beecher, as a cold
shudder came over him.
As quickly as he could take the weapons, Davis now fired;
four--five--six balls went in succession through the tiny circle, the
bell tinkling on and never ceasing, so rapidly did shot follow upon
shot, till, as if sated with success, he turned away, saying, “I' ll try
to-morrow blindfold!”
“I'm certain,” muttered Beecher, “no man is bound to go out with a
fellow like that. A duel is meant to be a hazard, not a dead certainty!
To stand before him at twenty--ay, forty paces, is a suicide, neither
more nor less; he must kill you. I'd insist on his fighting across a
handkerchief. I 'd say, 'Let us stand foot to foot!'” No, Beecher, not
a bit of it; you 'd say nothing of the kind, nor, if you did, would it
avail you! Your craven heart could not beat were those stern gray eyes
fixed upon you, looking death into you from a yard off. He 'd shoot you
down as pitilessly, too, at one distance as at the other.
Was it in the fulness of a conviction that his faltering lips tried
to deny, that he threw himself back upon a chair, while a cold, clammy
sweat covered his face and forehead, a sickness like death crept over
him, objects grew dim to his eyes, and the room seemed to turn and swim
before him? Where was his high daring now? Where the boastful spirit in
which he had declared himself free, no more the slave of Grog's insolent
domination, nor basely cowering before his frown? Oh, the ineffable
bitterness. Of that thought, coming, too, in revulsion to all his late
self-gratulations! Where was the glorious emancipation he had dreamed
of, now? He could not throw him into prison, it is true, but he could
lay him in a grave.
“But I 'd not meet him,” whispered he to himself. “One is not bound to
meet a man of this sort.”
There is something marvellously accommodating and elastic in the phrase,
“One is not bound” to do this, that, and t' other. As the said bond is
a contract between oneself and an imaginary world, its provisions are
rarely onerous or exacting. Life is full of things “one is not bound
to do.” You are “not bound,” for instance, to pay your father's debts,
though, it might be, they were contracted in your behalf and for your
benefit. You are not bound to marry the girl whose affections have been
your own for years if you can do better in another quarter, and she
has nothing in your handwriting to establish a contract. You are not
bound,--good swimmer though you be,--to rescue a man from drowning, lest
he should clutch too eagerly and peril your safety. You are not bound to
risk the chance of a typhus by visiting a poor friend on his sick-bed.
You are not bound to aid charities you but half approve,--to assist
people who have been improvident,--to associate with many who are
uninteresting to you. But why go on with this expurgatorial catalogue?
It is quite clear the only things “one _is_ bound” to do are those the
world will enforce at his hands; and let our selfishness be ever so
inveterate, and ever so crafty, the majority will beat us, and the Ayes
have it at last!
Now, few men had a longer list of the things they were “not bound to
do” than Annesley Beecher; in reality, if the balance were to be struck
between them and those he acknowledged to be obligatory, it would have
been like Falstaff's sack to the miserable morsel of bread. Men of
his stamp fancy themselves very wise in their generation. They are not
easy-natured, open, trustful, and free-handed, like that Pharisee! Take
my word for it, the system works not so well as it looks, and they
pass their existence in a narrow prison-ward of their own selfish
instincts,--their fears their fetters, their cowardly natures heavy as
any chains!
Beecher reasoned somewhat in this wise. Grog was “not bound” to destroy
the acceptances. He might have held them in terrorism over him for a
long life, and used them, at last, if occasion served. At all events,
they were valuable securities, which it was pure and wanton waste to
burn. Still, the act being done, Beecher was “bound” in the heaviest
recognizances to his own heart to profit by the motion; and the great
question with him was, what was the best and shortest road to that
desirable object? Supposing Lackington all right,--no disputed claim
to the title, no litigation of the estate,--Beecher's best course had
possibly been to slip his cable, make all sail, and part company with
Davis forever. One grave difficulty, however, opposed itself to this
scheme. How was it possible for any man walking the earth to get out of
reach of Grog Davis? Had there been a planet allotted for the special
use of peers,--were there some bright star above to which they could
betake themselves and demand admission by showing their patent, and from
which all of inferior birth were excluded, Beecher would assuredly
have availed himself of his privilege; but, alas! whatever inequalities
pervade life, there is but one earth to bear us living, and cover
us when dead! Now, the portion of that earth which constitutes the
continent of Europe Davis knew like a detective. A more hopeless
undertaking could not be imagined than to try to escape him. Great as
was his craft, it was nothing to his courage,--a courage that gave him a
sort of affinity to a wild animal, so headlong, reckless, and desperate
did it seem. Provoke him, he was ever ready for the conflict; outrage
him, and only your life's blood could be the expiation. And what an
outrage had it been if Beecher had taken this moment,--the first,
perhaps the only one in all his life, in which Davis had accomplished a
noble and generous action,--to desert him! How he could picture to
his mind Grog, when the tidings were told him!--not overwhelmed by
astonishment, not stunned by surprise, not irresolute even for a second,
but starting up like a wounded tiger, and eager for pursuit, his fierce
eyeballs glaring, and his sinewy hands closed with a convulsive grip.
It was clear, therefore, that escape was impossible. What, then, was the
alternative that remained? To abide,--sign a lifelong partnership with
Grog, and marry Lizzy. “A stiff line of country,--a very stiff line
of country, Annesley, my boy,” said he, addressing himself: “many a
dangerous rasper, many a smashing fence there,--have you nerve for it?”
Now Beecher knew life well enough to see that such an existence was,
in reality, little else than a steeple-chase, and he questioned himself
gravely whether he possessed head or hand for the effort. Grog, to be
sure, was a marvellous trainer, and Lizzy,--what might not Lizzy achieve
of success, with her beauty, her gracefulness, and her genius! It was
not till after a long course of reflection that her image came up before
him; but when once it did come, it was master of the scene. How he
recalled all her winning ways, her siren voice, her ready wit, her easy,
graceful motion, her playful manner, that gave to her beauty so many new
phases of attraction! What a fascination was it that in her company he
never remembered a sorrow,--nay, to think of her was the best solace he
had ever found against the pain of gloomy reveries. She was never out
of humour, never out of spirits,--always brilliant, sparkling, and
happy-minded.
What a glorious thing to obtain a share of such a nature,--the very next
best thing to having it oneself! “But all this was not Love,” breaks in
my impatient reader. Very true; I admit it in all humility. It was not
what you, nor perhaps I, would call by that name; but yet it was all
that Annesley Beecher had to offer in that regard.
Have you never remarked the strange and curious efforts made by men who
have long lived on narrow fortunes to acquit themselves respectably on
succeeding to larger means? They know well enough that they need not
pinch and screw and squeeze any longer,--that fortune has enlarged her
boundaries, and that they can enter into wider, richer, and pleasanter
pasturage,--and yet, for the life of them, they cannot make the venture!
or if they do, it is with a sort of convulsive, spasmodic effort far
more painful than pleasurable. Their old instincts press heavily upon
them, and bear down all the promptings of their present prosperity; they
really do not want all these bounties of fate,--they are half crashed
by the shower of blessings. So is it precisely with your selfish man in
his endeavors to expand into affection, and so was it with Beecher when
he tried to be a lover.
Some moralists tell us that, even in the best natures, love is
essentially a selfish passion. What amount of egotism, then, does it not
include in those who are far--very far--from being “the best”? With all
this, let us be just to poor Beecher. Whatever there was of heart
about him, she _had_ touched; whatever of good or kind or gentle in his
neglected being existed, she had found the way to it. If he were capable
of being anything better, she alone could have aided the reformation.
If he were not to sink still lower and lower, it was to her helping hand
his rescue would be owing. And somehow--though I cannot explain how--he
felt and knew this to be the case. He could hear generous sentiments
from _her_, and not deem them hypocrisy. He could listen to words of
trust and hopefulness, and yet not smile at her credulity. _She_ had
gained that amount of ascendancy over his mind which subjugated all
his own prejudices to her influence, and, like all weak natures, he was
never so happy as in slavery. Last of all, what a prize it would be
to be the husband of the most beautiful woman in Europe! There was a
notoriety in that, far above the fame of winning “Derbys” or breaking
Roulette Banks; and he pictured to himself how they would journey
through the Continent, admired, worshipped, and envied,--for already he
had invested himself with the qualities of his future wife, and gloried
in the triumphs she was so sure to win.
“By Jove! I'll do it,” cried he, at last, as he slapped his hand on the
table. “I don't care what they'll say, I _will_ do it; and if there's
any fellow dares to scoff or sneer at it, Grog shall shoot him. I'll
make that bargain with him; and he 'll like it, for he loves fighting.”
He summed up his resolution by imagining that the judgment of the world
would run somehow in this fashion: “Wonderful fellow, that Annesley
Beecher! It's not above a year since his brother lost the title, and
there he is now, married to the most splendid woman in all Europe,
living like a prince,--denying himself nothing, no matter what it
cost,--and all by his own wits! Show me his equal anywhere! Lackington
used to call him a 'flat.' I wonder what he 'd say now!”