When Lacy reached the drawing-room, she found her father and Sir Brook
deep in conversation in one of the window-recesses, and actually unaware
of her entrance till she stood beside them.
“No,” cried Lendrick, eagerly; “I can't follow these men in their
knaveries. I don't see the drift of them, and I lose the clew to the
whole machinery.”
“The drift is easy enough to understand,” said Foss-brooke. “A man wants
to escape from his embarrassments, and has little scruple as to the
means.”
“But the certainty of being found out--”
“There is no greater fallacy than that. Do you imagine that one-tenth of
the cheats that men practise on the world are ever brought to light? Or
do you fancy that all the rogues are in jail, and all the people who
are abroad and free are honest men? Far from it. Many an inspector that
comes to taste the prison soup and question the governor, ought to have
more than an experimental course of the dietary; and many a juryman sits
on the case of a creature far better and purer than himself. But here
comes one will give our thoughts a pleasanter channel to run in. How
well you look, Lucy! I am glad to see the sunny skies of Sardinia have
n't blanched your cheeks.”
“Such a scheme as Sir Brook has discovered!--such an ignoble plot
against my poor dear father!” said Lendrick. “Tell her--tell her the
whole of it.”
In a very few words Sir Brook recounted the story of Sewell's interview
with Balfour, and the incident of the stolen draft of the Judge's
writing bartered for money.
“It would have killed my father. The shock would have killed him,” said
Lendrick. “And it was this man,--this Sewell,--who possessed his entire
confidence of late,--actually wielded complete influence over him. The
whole time I sat with my father, he did nothing but quote him,--Sewell
said so, Sewell told me, or Sewell suspected such a thing; and always
with some little added comment on his keen sharp intellect, his clear
views of life, and his consummate knowledge of men. It was by the
picture Sewell drew of Lady Trafford that my father was led to derive
his impression of her letter. Sewell taught him to detect a covert
impertinence and a sneer where none was intended. I read the letter
myself, and it was only objectionable on the score of its vanity.
She thought herself a very great personage writing to another great
personage.”
“Just so,” said Fossbrooke. “It was right royal throughout. It might
have begun '_Madame ma soeur_.' And as I knew something of the writer, I
thought it a marvel of delicacy and discretion.”
“My father, unfortunately, deemed it a piece of intolerable pretension
and offensive condescension, and he burned to be well enough to reply to
it.”
“Which is exactly what we must not permit. If they once get to a regular
interchange of letters, there is nothing they will not say to each
other. No, no; my plan is the best of all. Lionel made a most favorable
impression the only time Sir William saw him. Beattie shall bring him
up here again as soon as the Chief can be about: the rest will follow
naturally. Lucy agrees with me, I see.”
How Sir Brook knew this is not so easy to say, as Lucy had turned her
head away persistently all the time he was speaking, and still continued
in that attitude.
“It cannot be to-night, however, and possibly not tomorrow night,” said
Fossbrooke, musing; and though Lucy turned quickly and eagerly towards
him to explain his words, he was silent for some minutes, when at length
he said, “Lionel started this morning by daybreak, and for England.
It must have been a sudden thought. He left me a few lines, in pencil,
which went thus,--'I take the early mail to Holyhead, but mean to be
back to-morrow, or at farthest the day after. No time for more.'”
“If the space were not brief that he assigns for his absence, I 'd say
he had certainly gone to see his father,” said Lendrick.
“It's not at all unlikely that his mother may have arranged to meet him
in Wales,” said Sir Brook. “She is a fussy, meddlesome woman, who likes
to be, or to think herself, the prime mover in everything. I remember
when Hugh Trafford--a young fellow at that time--was offered a Junior
Lordship of the Treasury, it was she who called on the Premier, Lord
Dornington, to explain why he could not accept office. Nothing but
great abilities or great vices enable a man to rise above the crushing
qualities of such a wife. Trafford had neither, and the world has always
voted him a nonentity.”
“There, Lucy,” said Lendrick, laughing,--“there at least is one danger
you must avoid in married life.”
“Lucy needs no teachings of mine,” said Sir Brook. “Her own instincts
are worth all my experiences twice told. But who is this coming up to
the door?”
“Oh, that is Mr. Haire, a dear friend of grandpapa's.” And Lucy ran to
meet him, returning soon after to the room, leaning on his arm.
Lendrick and Haire were very old friends, and esteemed each other
sincerely; and though on the one occasion on which Sir Brook and Haire
had met, Fossbrooke had been the object of the Chief's violence and
passion, his dignity and good temper had raised him highly in Haire's
estimation, and made him glad to meet him again.
“You are half surprised to see me under this roof, sir,” said Sir Brook,
referring to their former meeting; “but there are feelings with me
stronger than resentments.”
“And when my poor father knows how much he is indebted to your generous
kindness,” broke in Lendrick, “he will be the first to ask your
forgiveness.”
“That he will. Of all the men I ever met, he is the readiest to redress
a wrong he has done,” cried Haire, warmly. “If the world only knew
him as I know him! But his whole life long he has been trying to make
himself appear stern and cold-hearted and pitiless, with, all the while,
a nature overflowing with kindness.”
“The man who has attached to himself such a friendship as yours,” said
Fossbrooke, warmly, “cannot but have good qualities.”
“_My friendship!_” said Haire, blushing deeply; “what a poor tribute to
such a man as he is! Do you know, sir,” and here he lowered his voice
till it became a confidential whisper,--“do you know, sir, that since
the great days of the country,--since the time of Burke, we have had
nothing to compare with the Chief Baron. Plunkett used to wish he had
his law, and Bushe envied his scholarship, and Lysaght often declared
that a collection of Lendrick's epigrams and witty sayings would be the
pleasantest reading of the day. And such is our public press, that it
is for the quality in which he was least eminent they are readiest to
praise him. You would n't believe it, sir. They call him a 'master of
sarcastic eloquence.' Why, sir, there was a tenderness in him that would
not have let him descend to sarcasm. He could rebuke, censure, condemn
if you will; but his large heart had not room for a sneer.”
“You well deserve all the love he bears you,” said Len-drick, grasping
his hand and pressing it affectionately.
“How could I deserve it? Such a man's friendship is above all the merits
of one like me. Why, sir, it is honor and distinction before the world.
I would not barter his regard for me to have a seat beside him on the
Bench. By the way,” added he, cautiously, “let him not see the papers
this morning. They are at it again about his retirement. They say that
Lord Wilmington had actually arranged the conditions, and that the Chief
had consented to everything; and now they are beaten. You have heard, I
suppose, the Ministry are out?”
“No; were they Whigs?” asked Lendrick, innocently.
Haire and Fossbrooke laughed heartily at the poor doctor's indifference
to party, and tried to explain to him something of the struggle between
rival factions, but his mind was full of home events, and had no place
for more. “Tell Haire,” said he at last,--“tell Haire the story of
the letter of resignation; none so fit as he to break the tale to my
father.”
Fossbrooke took from his pocket a piece of paper, and handed it to
Haire, saying, “Do you know that handwriting?”
“To be sure I do! It is the Chief's.”
“Does it seem a very formal document?”
Haire scanned the back of it, and then scrutinized it all over for a few
seconds. “Nothing of the kind. It's the sort of thing I have seen him
write scores of times. He is always throwing off these sketches. I
have seen him write the preamble to a fancied Act of Parliament,--a
peroration to an imaginary speech; and as to farewells to the Bar,
I think I have a dozen of them,--and one, and not the worst, is in
doggerel.”
Though, wherever Haire's experiences were his guides, he could manage
to comprehend a question fairly enough, yet where these failed him, or
wherever the events introduced into the scene characters at all new
or strange, he became puzzled at once, and actually lost himself while
endeavoring to trace out motives for actions, not one of which had ever
occurred to him to perform.
Through this inability on his part, Sir Brook was not very successful in
conveying to him the details of the stolen document; nor could Haire be
brought to see that the Government officials were the dupes of Sewell's
artifice as much as, or even more than, the Chief himself.
“I think you must tell the story yourself, Sir Brook; I feel I shall
make a sad mess of it if you leave it to me,” said he, at last; “and I
know, if I began to blunder, he 'd overwhelm me with questions how this
was so, and why that had not been otherwise, till my mind would get into
a helpless confusion, and he'd send me off in utter despair.”
“I have no objection whatever, if Sir William will receive me. Indeed,
Lord Wilmington charged me to make the communication in person, if
permitted to do so.”
“I 'll say that,” said Haire, in a joyful tone, for already he saw a
difficulty overcome. “I 'll say it was at his Excellency's desire
you came;” and he hurried away to fulfil his mission. He came almost
immediately in' radiant delight. “He is most eager to see you, Sir
Brook; and, just as I said, impatient to make you every _amende_, and
ask your forgiveness. He looks more like himself than I have seen him
for many a day.”
While Sir Brook accompanied Haire to the Judge's room, Lendrick took
his daughter's arm within his own, saying, “Now for a stroll through the
wood, Lucy. It has been one of my day-dreams this whole year past.”
Leaving the father and daughter to commune together undisturbed, let us
turn for a moment to Mrs. Sewell, who, with feverish anxiety, continued
to watch from her window for the arrival of a telegraph messenger. It
was already two o'clock. The mail-packet for Ireland would have reached
Holyhead by ten, and there was therefore ample time to have heard what
had occurred afterwards.
From the servant who had carried Sewell's letter to Traf-ford, she had
learned that Trafford had set out almost immediately after receiving
it; the man heard the order given to the coachman to drive to Richmond
Barracks. From this she gathered he had gone to obtain the assistance
of a friend. Her first fear was that Trafford, whose courage was beyond
question, would have refused the meeting, standing on the ground that no
just cause of quarrel existed. This he would certainly have done had
he consulted Fossbrooke, who would, besides, have seen the part her own
desire for vengeance played in the whole affair. It was with this view
that she made Sewell insert the request that Fossbrooke might not know
of the intended meeting. Her mind, therefore, was at rest on two points.
Trafford had not refused the challenge, nor had he spoken of it to
Fossbrooke.
But what had taken place since? that was the question. Had they met,
and with what result? If she did not dare to frame a wish how the event
might come off, she held fast by the thought that, happen what might,
Trafford never could marry Lucy Lendrick after such a meeting. The
mere exchange of shots would place a whole hemisphere between the two
families, while the very nature of the accusation would be enough to
arouse the jealousy and insult the pride of such a girl as Lucy. Come,
therefore, what might, the marriage is at an end.
If Sewell were to fall! She shuddered to think what the world would say
of her! One judgment there would be no gainsaying. Her husband certainly
believed her false, and with his life he paid for the conviction. But
would she be better off if Trafford were the victim? That would depend
on how Sewell behaved. She would be entirely at his mercy,--whether he
determined to separate from her or not. _His_ mercy, seemed a sorry hope
to cling to. Hopeless as this alternative looked, she never relented,
even for an instant, as to what she had done; and the thought that Lucy
should not be Trafford's wife repaid her for all and everything.
While she thus waited in all the feverish torture of suspense, her mind
travelled over innumerable contingencies of the case, in every one of
which her own position was one of shame and sorrow; and she knew not
whether she would deem it worse to be regarded as the repentant wife,
taken back by a forgiving pitying husband, or the woman thrown off and
deserted! “I suppose I must accept either of those lots, and my only
consolation will be my vengeance.”
“How absurd!” broke she out, “are they who imagine that one only wants
to be avenged on those who hate us! It is the wrongs done by people who
are indifferent to us, and who in search of their own objects bestow no
thought upon us,--these are the ills that cannot be forgiven. I never
hated a human being--and there have been some who have earned my
hate--as I hate this girl; and just as I feel the injustice of the
sentiment, so does it eat deeper and deeper into my heart.”
“A despatch, ma'am,” said her maid, as she laid a paper on the table and
withdrew. Mrs. Sewell clutched it eagerly, but her hand trembled so she
could not break the envelope. To think that her whole fate lay there,
within that fold of paper, so overcame her that she actually sickened
with fear as she looked on it.
“Whatever is done, is done,” muttered she, as she broke open the cover.
There were but two lines; they ran thus:--
“Holyhead, 12 o'clock.
“Have thought better of it. It would be absurd to meet him. I start for
town at once, and shall be at Boulogne to-morrow.
“Dudley.”
She sat pondering over these words till the paper became blurred and
blotted by her tears as they rolled heavily along her cheeks, and
dropped with a distinct sound. She was not conscious that she wept.
It was not grief that moved her; it was the blankness of despair,--the
sense of hopelessness that comes over the heart when life no longer
offers a plan or a project, but presents a weariful road to be
travelled, uncheered and dreary.
Till she had read these lines it never occurred to her that such a line
of action was possible. But now that she saw them there before her, her
whole astonishment was that she had not anticipated this conduct on his
part. “I might have guessed it; I might have been sure of it,” muttered
she. “The interval was too long; there were twelve mortal hours for
reflection. Cowards think acutely,--at least, they say that in their
calculations they embrace more casualties than brave men. And so he has
'thought better of it,'--a strange phrase. 'Absurd to meet him!' but not
absurd to run away. How oddly men reason when they are terrified! And
so my great scheme has failed, all for want of a little courage, which
I could have supplied, if called on; and now comes my hour of defeat, if
not worse,--my hour of exposure. I am not brave enough to confront it.
I must leave this; but where to go is the question. I suppose Boulogne,
since it is there I shall join my husband;” and she laughed hysterically
as she said it.