Some days have passed by. Leonard and Beatrice di Negra have already
made friends. Harley is satisfied with his young friend’s report. He
himself has been actively occupied. He has sought, but hitherto in vain,
all trace of Mrs. Bertram; he has put that investigation into the hands
of his lawyer, and his lawyer has not been more fortunate than himself.
Moreover, Harley has blazed forth again in the London world, and
promises again de faire fureur; but he has always found time to spend
some hours in the twenty-four at his father’s house. He has continued
much the same tone with Violante, and she begins to accustom herself to
it, and reply saucily. His calm courtship to Helen flows on in silence.
Leonard, too, has been a frequent guest at the Lansmeres: all welcome
and like him there. Peschiera has not evinced any sign of the deadly
machinations ascribed to him. He goes less into the drawing-room world;
for in that world he meets Lord L’Estrange; and brilliant and handsome
though Peschiera be, Lord L’Estrange, like Rob Roy Macgregor, is “on
his native heath,” and has the decided advantage over the foreigner.
Peschiera, however, shines in the clubs, and plays high. Still, scarcely
an evening passes in which he and Baron Levy do not meet.
Audley Egerton has been intensely occupied with affairs, only seen once
by Harley. Harley then was about to deliver himself of his sentiments
respecting Randal Leslie, and to communicate the story of Burley and the
pamphlet. Egerton stopped him short.
“My dear Harley, don’t try to set me against this young man. I wish to
hear nothing in his disfavour. In the first place, it would not alter
the line of conduct I mean to adopt with regard to him. He is my wife’s
kinsman; I charged myself with his career, as a wish of hers, and
therefore as a duty to myself. In attaching him so young to my own fate,
I drew him necessarily away from the professions in which his industry
and talents (for he has both in no common degree) would have secured his
fortunes; therefore, be he bad, be he good, I shall try to provide
for him as I best can; and, moreover, cold as I am to him, and worldly
though perhaps he be, I have somehow or other conceived an interest in
him, a liking to him. He has been under my roof, he is dependent on
me; he has been docile and prudent, and I am a lone childless man;
therefore, spare him, since in so doing you spare me; and ah, Harley, I
have so many cares on me now that--”
“Oh, say no more, my dear, dear Audley,” cried the generous friend; “how
little people know you!”
Audley’s hand trembled. Certainly his nerves began to show wear and
tear.
Meanwhile, the object of this dialogue--the type of perverted intellect,
of mind without heart, of knowledge which had no aim but power--was in
a state of anxious, perturbed gloom. He did not know whether wholly to
believe Levy’s assurance of his patron’s ruin. He could not believe it
when he saw that great house in Grosvenor Square, its hall crowded with
lacqueys, its sideboard blazing with plate; when no dun was ever seen in
the antechamber; when not a tradesman was ever known to call twice for a
bill. He hinted to Levy the doubts all these phenomena suggested to him;
but the baron only smiled ominously, and said,
“True, the tradesmen are always paid; but the how is the question!
Randal, mon cher, you are too innocent. I have but two pieces of advice
to suggest, in the shape of two proverbs,--‘Wise rats run from a falling
house,’ and, ‘Make hay while the sun shines.’ A propos, Mr. Avenel likes
you greatly, and has been talking of the borough of Lansmere for you. He
has contrived to get together a great interest there. Make much of him.”
Randal had indeed been to Mrs. Avenel’s soiree dansante, and called
twice and found her at home, and been very bland and civil, and admired
the children. She had two, a boy and a girl, very like their father,
with open faces as bold as brass. And as all this had won Mrs. Avenel’s
good graces, so it had propitiated her husband’s. Avenel was shrewd
enough to see how clever Randal was. He called him “smart,” and said “he
would have got on in America,” which was the highest praise Dick Avenel
ever accorded to any man. But Dick himself looked a little careworn;
and this was the first year in which he had murmured at the bills of his
wife’s dressmaker, and said with an oath, that “there was such a thing
as going too much ahead.”
Randal had visited Dr. Riccabocca, and found Violante flown. True to his
promise to Harley, the Italian refused to say where, and suggested,
as was agreed, that for the present it would be more prudent if Randal
suspended his visits to himself. Leslie, not liking this proposition,
attempted to make himself still necessary by working on Riccabocca’s
fears as to that espionage on his retreat, which had been among the
reasons that had hurried the sage into offering Randal Violante’s hand.
But Riccabocca had already learned that the fancied spy was but his
neighbour Leonard; and, without so saying, he cleverly contrived to make
the supposition of such espionage an additional reason for the cessation
of Leslie’s visits. Randal then, in his own artful, quiet, roundabout
way, had sought to find out if any communication had passed between
L’Estrange and Riccabocca. Brooding over Harley’s words to him, he
suspected there had been such communication, with his usual penetrating
astuteness. Riceabocca, here, was less on his guard, and rather parried
the sidelong questions than denied their inferences.
Randal began already to surmise the truth. Where was it likely Violante
should go but to the Lansmeres? This confirmed his idea of Harley’s
pretensions to her hand. With such a rival what chance had he? Randal
never doubted for a moment that the pupil of Machiavelli would “throw
him over,” if such an alliance to his daughter really presented itself.
The schemer at once discarded from his objects all further aim on
Violante; either she would be poor, and he would not have her; or she
would be rich, and her father would give her to another. As his
heart had never been touched by the fair Italian, so the moment her
inheritance became more doubtful, it gave him no pang to lose her; but
he did feel very sore and resentful at the thought of being supplanted
by Lord L’Estrange,--the man who had insulted him.
Neither, as yet, had Randal made any way in his designs on Frank. For
several days Madame di Negra had not been at home either to himself or
young Hazeldean; and Frank, though very unhappy, was piqued and angry;
and Randal suspected, and suspected, and suspected, he knew not exactly
what, but that the devil was not so kind to him there as that father
of lies ought to have been to a son so dutiful. Yet, with all these
discouragements, there was in Randal Leslie so dogged and determined a
conviction of his own success, there was so great a tenacity of purpose
under obstacles, and so vigilant an eye upon all chances that could be
turned to his favour, that he never once abandoned hope, nor did
more than change the details in his main schemes. Out of calculations
apparently the most far-fetched and improbable, he had constructed a
patient policy, to which he obstinately clung. How far his reasonings
and patience served to his ends remains yet to be seen. But could
our contempt for the baseness of Randal himself be separated from the
faculties which he elaborately degraded to the service of that baseness,
one might allow that there was something one could scarcely despise in
this still self-reliance, this inflexible resolve. Had such qualities,
aided as they were by abilities of no ordinary acuteness, been applied
to objects commonly honest, one would have backed Randal Leslie against
any fifty picked prize-men from the colleges. But there are judges of
weight and metal who do that now, especially Baron Levy, who says to
himself as he eyes that pale face all intellect, and that spare form all
nerve, “This is a man who must make way in life; he is worth helping.”
By the words “worth helping” Baron Levy meant “worth getting into my
power, that he may help me.”