Randal’s mind was made up. All he had learned in regard to Levy had
confirmed his resolves or dissipated his scruples. He had started from
the improbability that Pesehiera would offer, and the still greater
improbability that Peschiera would pay him, L10,000 for such information
or aid as he could bestow in furthering the count’s object. But when
Levy took such proposals entirely on himself, the main question to
Randal became this,--could it be Levy’s interest to make so considerable
a sacrifice? Had the baron implied only friendly sentiments as his
motives, Randal would have felt sure he was to be taken in; but the
usurer’s frank assurance that it would answer to him in the long-run to
concede to Randal terms so advantageous, altered the case, and led our
young philosopher to look at the affair with calm, contemplative eyes.
Was it sufficiently obvious that Levy counted on an adequate return?
Might he calculate on reaping help by the bushel if he sowed it by the
handful? The result of Randal’s cogitations was that the baron might
fairly deem himself no wasteful sower. In the first place, it was clear
that Levy, not without reasonable ground, believed that he could soon
replace, with exceeding good interest, any sum he might advance to
Randal, out of the wealth which Randal’s prompt information might bestow
on Levy’s client, the count; and secondly, Randal’s self-esteem was
immense, and could he but succeed in securing a pecuniary independence
on the instant, to free him from the slow drudgery of the Bar, or from a
precarious reliance on Audley Egerton, as a politician out of power,
his convictions of rapid triumph in public life were as strong as if
whispered by an angel or promised by a fiend. On such triumphs, with
all the social position they would secure, Levy might well calculate for
repayment by a thousand indirect channels. Randal’s sagacity detected
that, through all the good-natured or liberal actions ascribed to the
usurer, Levy had steadily pursued his own interests, he saw that Levy
meant to get him into his power, and use his abilities as instruments
for digging new mines, in which Baron Levy would claim the right
of large royalties. But at that thought Randal’s pale lip curled
disdainfully; he confided too much in his own powers not to think that
he could elude the grasp of the usurer, whenever it suited him to do
so. Thus, on a survey, all conscience hushed itself; his mind rushed
buoyantly on to anticipations of the future. He saw the hereditary
estates regained,--no matter how mortgaged,--for the moment still his
own, legally his own, yielding for the present what would suffice for
competence to one of few wants, and freeing his name from that title of
Adventurer, which is so prodigally given in rich old countries to those
who have no estates but their brains. He thought of Violante but as the
civilized trader thinks of a trifling coin, of a glass bead, which
he exchanges with some barbarian for gold dust; he thought of Frank
Hazeldean married to the foreign woman of beggared means, and repute
that had known the breath of scandal,--married, and living on post-obit
instalments of the Casino property; he thought of the poor squire’s
resentment; his avarice swept from the lands annexed to Rood on to
the broad fields of Hazeldean; he thought of Avenel, of Lansmere, of
parliament; with one hand he grasped fortune, with the next power. “And
yet I entered on life with no patrimony (save a ruined hall and a barren
waste),--no patrimony but knowledge. I have but turned knowledge from
books to men; for books may give fame after death, but men give us power
in life.” And all the while he thus ruminated, his act was speeding his
purpose. Though it was but in a miserable hack-cab that he erected airy
scaffoldings round airy castles, still the miserable hack-cab was flying
fast, to secure the first foot of solid ground whereon to transfer the
mental plan of the architect to foundations of positive slime and
clay. The cab stopped at the door of Lord Lansmere’s house. Randal
had suspected Violante to be there: he resolved to ascertain. Randal
descended from his vehicle and rang the bell. The lodge-keeper opined
the great wooden gates.
“I have called to see the young lady staying here,--the foreign young
lady.”
Lady Lansmere had been too confident of the security of her roof to
condescend to give any orders to her servants with regard to her guest,
and the lodge-keeper answered directly,--
“At home, I believe, sir. I rather think she is in the garden with my
lady.”
“I see,” said Randal; and he did see the form of Violante at a distance.
“But, since she is walking, I will not disturb her at present. I will
call another day.”
The lodge-keeper bowed respectfully, Randal jumped into his cab: “To
Curzon Street,--quick!”