SHOWING HOW SIR HENRY ASHWOODE PLAYED AND PLOTTED--AND OF THE SUDDEN
SUMMONS OF GORDON CHANCEY.
Henry Ashwoode was but too anxious to avail himself of the indulgence
offered by Gordon Chancey. With the immediate urgency of distress, any
thoughts of prudence or retrenchment which may have crossed his mind
vanished, and along with the command of new resources came new wants
and still more extravagant prodigality. His passion for gaming was now
indulged without restraint, and almost without the interruption of a
day. For a time his fortune rallied, and sums, whose amount would
startle credulity, flowed into his hands, only to be lost and
squandered again in dissipation and extravagance, which grew but the
wilder and more reckless, in proportion as the sources which supplied
them were temporarily increased. At length, after some coquetting, the
giddy goddess again deserted him. Night after night brought new and
heavier disasters; and with this reverse of fortune came its invariable
accompaniment--a wilder and more daring recklessness, and a more
unmeasured prodigality in hazarding larger and larger sums; as if the
victims of ill luck sought, by this frantic defiance, to bully and
browbeat their capricious persecutor into subjection. There was
scarcely an available security of any kind which he had not already
turned into money, and now he began to feel, in downright earnest, the
iron gripe of ruin closing upon him.
He was changed--in spirit and in aspect changed. The unwearied fire of
a secret fever preyed upon his heart and brain; an untold horror robbed
him of his rest, and haunted him night and day.
"Brother," said Mary Ashwoode, throwing one hand fondly round his neck,
and with the other pressing his, as he sate moodily, with compressed
lips and haggard face, and eyes fixed upon the floor, in the old
parlour of Morley Court--"dear brother, you are greatly changed; you
are ill; some great trouble weighs upon your mind. Why will you keep
all your cares and griefs from me? I would try to comfort you, whatever
your sorrows may be. Then let me know it all, dear brother; why should
your griefs be hidden from me? Are there not now but the two of us in
the wide world to care for each other?" and as she said this her eyes
filled with tears.
"You would know what grieves me?" said Ashwoode, after a short silence,
and gazing fixedly in her face, with stern, dilated eyes, and pale
features. He remained again silent for a time, and then uttered the
emphatic word--"_Ruin._"
"How, dear brother, what has befallen you?" asked the poor girl,
pressing her brother's hand more kindly.
"I say, we are ruined--both of us. I've lost everything. We are little
better than beggars," replied he. "There's nothing I can call my own,"
he resumed, abruptly, after a pause, "but that old place, Incharden.
It's worth next to nothing--bog, rocks, brushwood, old stables, and
all--absolutely nothing. We are ruined--beggared--that's all."
"Oh! brother, I am glad we have still that dear old place. Oh, let us
go down and live there together, among the quiet glens, and the old
green woods; for amongst its pleasant shades I have known happier times
than shall ever come again for me. I would like to ramble there again
in the pleasant summer time, and hear the birds sing, and the sound of
the rustling leaves, and the clear winding brook, as I used to hear
them long ago. _There_ I could think over many things, that it breaks
my heart to think of here; and you and I, brother, would be always
together, and we would soon be as happy as either of us can be in this
sorrowful world."
She threw her arms around her brother's neck, and while the tears
flowed fast and silently, she kissed his pale and wasted cheeks again
and again.
"In the meantime," said Ashwoode, starting up abruptly, and looking at his
watch, "I must go into town, and see some of these harpies--usurers--that
have gotten their fangs in me. It is as well to keep out of jail as long
as one can," and, with a very joyless laugh, he strode from the room.
As he rode into town, his thoughts again and again recurred to his old
scheme respecting Lady Stukely.
"It is after all my only chance," said he. "I have made my mind up
fifty times to it, but somehow or other, d----n me, if I could ever
bring myself to _do_ it. That woman will live for five-and-twenty years
to come, and she would as easily part with the control of her property
as with her life. While she lives I must be her dependent--her slave:
there is no use in mincing the matter, I shall not have the command of
a shilling, but as she pleases; but patience--patience, Henry Ashwoode,
sooner or later death _will_ come, and then begins your jubilee."
As these thoughts hurried through his brain, he checked his horse at
Lady Betty Stukely's door.
As he traversed the capacious hall, and ascended the handsome
staircase--"Well," thought he, "even _with_ her ladyship, this were
better than the jail."
In the drawing-room he found Lady Stukely, Emily Copland, and Lord
Aspenly. The two latter evidently deep in a very desperate flirtation,
and her ladyship meanwhile very considerately employed in trying a
piece of music on the spinet.
The entrance of Sir Henry produced a very manifest sensation among the
little party. Lady Stukely looked charmingly conscious and fluttered.
Emily Copland smiled a gracious welcome, for though she and her
handsome cousin perfectly well understood each other, and both well
knew that marriage was out of the question, they had each, what is
called, a fancy for the other; and Emily, with the unreasonable
jealousy of a woman, felt a kind of soreness, secretly and almost
unacknowledged to herself, at Sir Henry's marked devotion to Lady
Stukely, though, at the same time, no feeling of her own heart, beyond
the lightest and the merest vanity, had ever been engaged in favour of
Henry Ashwoode. Of the whole party, Lord Aspenly alone was a good deal
disconcerted, and no wonder, for he had not the smallest notion upon
what kind of terms he and Henry Ashwoode were to meet;--whether that
young gentleman would shake hands with him as usual, or proceed to
throttle him on the spot. Ashwoode was, however, too completely a man
of the world to make any unnecessary fuss about the awkward affair of
Morley Court; he therefore met the little nobleman with cold and easy
politeness; and, turning from him, was soon engaged in an animated and
somewhat tender colloquy with the love-stricken widow, whose last words
to him, as at length he arose to take his leave, were,--
"Remember to-morrow evening, Sir Henry, we shall look for you early;
and you have promised not to disappoint your cousin Emily--has not he,
Emily? I shall positively be affronted with you for a week at least if
you are late. I am very absolute, and never forgive an act of
rebellion. I'm quite a little sovereign here, and very despotic; so you
had better not venture to be naughty."
Here she raised her finger, and shook it in playful menace at her
admirer.
Lady Stukely had, however, little reason to doubt his punctuality. If
she had but known the true state of the case she would have been aware
that in literal matter-of-fact she had become as necessary to Sir Henry
Ashwoode as his daily bread.
Accordingly, next evening Sir Henry Ashwoode was one of the gayest of
the guests in Lady Stukely's drawing-rooms. His resolution was taken;
and he now looked round upon the splendid rooms and all their rich
furniture as already his own. Some chatted, some played cards, some
danced the courtly minuet, and some hovered about from group to group,
without any determinate occupation, and sharing by turns in the
frivolities of all. Ashwoode was, of course, devoted exclusively to his
fair hostess. She was all smiles, and sighs, and bashful coyness; he
all tenderness and fire. In short, he felt that all he wanted at that
moment was the opportunity of asking, to ensure his instantaneous
acceptance. While thus agreeably employed, the young baronet was
interrupted by a footman, who, with a solemn bow, presented a silver
salver, on which was placed an exceedingly dirty and crumpled little
note. Ashwoode instantly recognized the hand in which the address was
written, and snatching the filthy billet from its conspicuous position,
he thrust it into his waistcoat pocket.
"A messenger, sir, waits for an answer," murmured the servant.
"Where is he?"
"He waits in the hall, sir."
"Then I shall see him in a moment--tell him so," said Ashwoode; and
turning to Lady Stukely, he spoke a few sweet words of gallantry, and
with a forced smile, and casting a longing, lingering look behind, he
glided from the room.
"So, what can this mean?" muttered he, as he placed himself immediately
under a cluster of lights in the lobby, and hastily drew forth the
crumpled note. He read as follows:--
"MY DEAR SIR HENRY,--There is bad news--as bad as can be. Wherever
you are, and whatever you are doing, come on receipt of these, on
the moment, to me. If you don't, you'll be done for to-morrow; so
come at once. Bobby M'Quirk will hand you these, and if you follow
him, will bring you where I am now. I am desirous to serve you, and
if the art of man can do it, to keep you out of this pickle.
"Your obedient, humble servant,
"GORDON CHANCEY."
"N.B.--It is about these infernal notes, so come quickly."
Through this production did Ashwoode glance with no very enviable
feelings; and tearing the note into the very smallest possible pieces,
he ran downstairs to the hall, where he found the aristocratic Mr.
M'Quirk, with his chin as high as ever, marching up and down with a
free and easy swagger, and one arm akimbo, and whistling the while an
air of martial defiance.
"Did you bring a note to me just now?" inquired Ashwoode.
"I have had that pleasure," replied M'Quirk, with an aristocratic air.
"I presume I am addressed by Sir Henry Ashwoode, baronet. _I_ am Mr.
M'Quirk--Mr. Robert M'Quirk. Sir Henry, I kiss your hands--proud of the
honour of your acquaintance."
"Is Mr. Chancey at his own lodging now?" inquired Ashwoode, without
appearing to hear the speeches which M'Quirk thought proper to deliver.
"Why, no," replied the little gentleman. "Our friend Chancey is just
now swigging his pot of beer, and smoking his pen'orth of pigtail in
the "Old Saint Columbkil," in Ship Street--a comfortable house, Sir
Henry, as any in Dublin, and very cheap--cheap as dirt, sir. A Welsh
rarebit, one penny; a black pudding, and neat cut of bread, and three
leeks, for--how much do you guess?"
"Have the goodness to conduct me to Mr. Chancey, wherever he is," said
Ashwoode drily. "I will follow--go on, sir."
"Well, Sir Henry, I'm your man--I'm your man--glad of your company, Sir
Henry," exclaimed the insinuating Bobby M'Quirk; and following his
voluble conductor in obstinate silence, Sir Henry Ashwoode found
himself, after a dark and sloppy walk, for the first, though not for
the last time in his life, under the roof tree of the "Old Saint
Columbkil."