HOW MY LORD RETURNED HOME.
It was on a bright afternoon, a week after the events which have been
described, that Lord Fordingbridge's travelling carriage drew up in
front of his house, and my lord descended in an extremely bad humour.
There was, perhaps, more than one reason why he was not in the most
amiable of tempers, the principal one being that the news which he had
hoped to receive ere he again made his entrance into London had not
come to hand.
All the time that he had been on his Cheshire property--which he had
found to be considerably neglected since his father's departure for
France--he had been expecting to receive, from one source or another,
the information of the arrest of those three enemies of his, about
whom he had given information sufficient to bring them to justice. Yet
none had come. Daily he had sent to the coach office at Chester for
the journals from London, but, when he had perused them, he still
failed to find that any of the three had been haled to justice. Nor
was there even a description in any of them of the scene at
Vauxhall--which, had he found such description, might have been
exceedingly pleasant reading. But, in truth, nothing was more unlikely
than that he should find it. A fracas at either Ranelagh or the Spring
Gardens was by no means likely to be chronicled in either the "London
Journal" or the "Craftsman," or any other news-sheet of the period,
since in those days the ubiquitous reporter was unknown, or, when he
existed, did not consider anything beneath a murder, a state trial, or
an execution worthy of his pen. Also the proprietors of Ranelagh and
Vauxhall, and similar places of entertainment, took very good care to
keep anything unpleasant that happened out of the papers. Nothing
short, therefore, of Mr. Jonathan Tyers sending an account of what had
occurred in his grounds to the papers of the day with the request that
it might be inserted--accompanied, perhaps, by a payment for such
insertion--would have led to the publication of the matter, and that
the worthy proprietor of the Spring Gardens would do such a thing as
this was not to be supposed.
Also, my lord had received no news from his wife, nor her father,
which astonished him considerably. For he had supposed that, in about
a week's time, the post would bring him a letter full of accusations,
reproaches, and injurious epithets from her ladyship, who, he felt
sure, would at once connect him with the arrest of the three men--yet,
no more from her than from the public prints did he gather one word.
So that at last he began to have the worst fears that, after all, the
Government had bungled in some way and that the victims had escaped.
It was, therefore, in a very ill humour that he again returned to
London, cursing inwardly and vehemently at any delay necessitated by
the changing of horses, by nights spent at inns on the road, and by
the heavy roads themselves; and at St. Albans, where he once more
slept, by receiving no visit at all from Captain Morris, to whom he
had written saying that he would be there on a certain evening and
would be pleased to see him.
Instead, however, he received a visit from another person who had
troubled his mind a great deal during the past week or so; a somewhat
rough, uncouth-looking fellow, who seemed to have dogged his footsteps
perpetually--who had passed him soon after he left Dunstable on his
journey down, whom he saw again at Coventry and at Stafford, and who,
to his amazement, now strode into the apartment he occupied as
hitherto, and stated that he brought a message from the Captain.
"Hand it to me, then," said his lordship, regarding the man as he
stood before him in his rough riding cloak and great boots, and
recognising him as the fellow who had appeared so often on his
journey.
"There is nothing to hand," the other replied. "Only a word-of-mouth
message."
"A word-of-mouth message! Indeed! Captain Morris spares me but scant
courtesy. Well, what is the message?"
"Only this. The work has failed, and the birds have escaped from the
net. That's all."
"Escaped from the net!" his lordship said, sinking back into the deep
chair he sat in, and staring at the uncouth messenger. "Escaped from
the net! But the particulars, man, the particulars! How has it come
about? Are the Government and their underlings a pack of fools and
idiots that they let malignant traitors escape thus?"
"Very like, for all I know, or, for the matter of that, care. The
captain's one of their underlings, as you call them, and I'm another.
Perhaps we're fools and idiots."
"You are another, are you?" said his lordship, looking at him,
"another, eh? Pray, sir, is that why you have dogged me into Cheshire
and back again as you have done, for I have seen you often? Am I a
suspected person that I am followed about thus? Am I, sir?"
"Very like," again replied this stolid individual. "Very like, though
I know not. I received my orders at Dunstable to keep you in sight,
and I kept you, that's----"
"Leave the room. Go out of my sight at once!" exclaimed Lord
Fordingbridge, springing from his seat and advancing toward the man.
"Go at once, or the ostler shall be sent for to throw you out. Go!"
When the man had departed, muttering that "fool, or idiot, or both,
he'd done his duty, and he didn't care for any nobleman in England,
Jacobite or Hanoverian, so long as he done that," the viscount gave
himself up to the indulgence of one of those fits, or rather tempests,
of passion, which, as a rule, he rarely allowed himself to indulge in,
and cursed and swore heartily as he stamped up and down the room for
half an hour.
"Everything goes wrong with me," he muttered, as he shook his fist in
impotent rage at his own reflection in the great mirrors over the
fireplace, "everything, everything! If that infernal captain had only
gone to work as he should have done on the information I gave him,
they would all have been lodged in gaol by now--two of them doomed to
a certain death and the other to a long imprisonment or banishment to
the colonies. And now they are fled--are free--safe, while I am far
from safe since Elphinston is at large; and am suspected, too, it
seems, since, forsooth, that chuckle-headed boor is set to follow me."
This latter thought was, perhaps, as unpleasant a one as any which
rose to his mind, since if he were also suspected it might be the case
that, while he had denounced the others, they--or probably Archibald
Sholto alone--might have denounced him. And at this terrible thought
he quaked with fear, for he knew what an array of charges might be
brought. Nay, it was the very fear of those charges being brought,
combined with his other fear of Elphinston wreaking vengeance on him
for having deceived and stolen his promised wife, that had led to his
betraying the three men who alone could denounce him. And now they
were all free, instead of being in Newgate or the Tower, and he, it
seemed, was as much suspected as they!
He tossed about his bed all night, made a wretched breakfast, and then
set out for London, determined at all hazards to discover exactly what
had happened, or perhaps to find out that nothing had happened. Yet as
he went he mused on what his future course should be, and came to at
least one determination.
"I will send her ladyship packing," he said, with a sardonic grin. "I
have had enough of her and her airs and graces, and she may go to
Elphinston or to the devil for aught I care. I have a surprise to
spring upon her, a trump card, or, as the late Louis was said to call
that card, '_La dernière piece d'or_,' because it always won. And, by
Heaven, I'll spring it without mercy!"
In which frame of mind his lordship arrived in front of his town
house. But now a new matter of astonishment arose, also a new fuel for
his humours; for the house appeared deserted, the blinds were drawn
down in all the windows. He could perceive no smoke arising from any
chimney, there was no sign of life at all about the place. He bade his
manservant get down from beside the coachman and tug lustily at the
bell, while all the time that the man was doing so he was fretting and
fuming inwardly, and at last was meditating sending for the watch and
having the door forced, when it was opened from the inside, and the
oldest servant in his establishment, a decrepit, deaf old man, who had
acted as caretaker for many years during his and his father's absence
abroad, appeared.
"Come here, Luke, come here," his lordship called loudly to him; "come
here, I say," and he motioned that he should descend the steps and
approach the travelling carriage, from the door of which he was now
glaring at him. But, whether from fright or senility, or both
combined, the other did not obey him, and only stood shivering and
shaking and feebly bowing upon the threshold.
"What devil's game is this?" Fordingbridge muttered to himself as he
now sprang out and ran up the steps, after which he grasped the old
man by the collar and, dragging him toward him, bawled in his ear
question after question as to what cause the present state of the
house was owing. But the old fellow only shivered and shook the more,
and seemed too paralyzed by his master's violence to do anything but
wag his jaws helplessly. Hurling him away, therefore, with no
consideration at all for either his age or feebleness, Fordingbridge
rushed through the hall ringing a bell that communicated with the
kitchens and another with the garrets, calling out the names of male
and female servants, and receiving no answer to any of his summons.
Then, tired of this at last, he bade his manservant bring in his
valises and ordered the travelling carriage off to the stables. But by
now the old servitor seemed to have recovered either his breath or his
senses somewhat, and coming up to his lordship in a sidling fashion,
such as a dog assumes when fearful of a blow if it approaches its
master too near, he mumbled that there was no one else in the house
but himself.
"So I should suppose," Lord Fordingbridge replied, endeavouring to
calm himself and to overcome the gust of passion with which he had
once more been seized, "so I should suppose; I have called enough to
have waked the dead had there been any here." Then once more regarding
the old man with one of his fierce glances, he shouted at him in a
voice that penetrated even to his ears, "Where are they all? Where is
her ladyship?" in a lower voice. "Where are the servants?"
"Gone, all gone," Luke replied, "all gone. None left but me."
"Where are they gone to?"
The old man flapped his hands up and down once or twice--perhaps
he performed the action with a desire to deprecate his master's
anger--and looked up beseechingly into his face as though asking
pardon for what was no fault of his, then replied:
"Her ladyship has gone away--for good and all, I hear, my lord."
"Ha! Where is she gone to?"
"To Lady Belrose's. I am told. She--she--they--the servants say she
will never come back."
The viscount paused a moment--this news had startled even him!--then
he muttered, "No, I'll warrant she never shall. This justifies me."
And again he continued, still shouting at the old man, so that his
valet upstairs must have heard every word he uttered:
"And the servants, where are they?"
"All gone too. They were frightened by the police and the soldiers--"
"The soldiers! What soldiers?"
"They ransacked the house to find Mr. Archibald. But he, too, was
gone. That terrified all but me--me it did not frighten. No, no," he
went on, assuming a ludicrous appearance of bravery that was almost
weird to behold, "me it did not frighten. I remember when, also, the
soldiers searched the house for your father, his late lordship
with--he! he!--the same re----"
"Silence!" roared Fordingbridge. "How dare you couple my father's name
with that fellow? So Mr. Archibald is also gone! But what about the
soldiers? The soldiers, I say," raising his voice again to a shriek.
"Ah, the soldiers," Luke repeated. "Yes, yes. The soldiers. Brave
soldiers. I had a son once in their regiment, long ago, when Dunmore
commanded them; he was wounded at--um----um" and he stopped, terrified
by the scowl on Lord Fordingbridge's face.
"What," bawled the latter, "did they do here--in this house? Curse
your son and your recollections, too. What did they do here--in my
house?"
"They sought for Mr. Archibald--her ladyship being gone forth. But he,
too, was out--ho! ho--and--and he never came back. Then the captain--a
brave, young lord, they say--said you were known to be fostering a
rebel--they called him a rebel Jesuit priest!--that you were denounced
from Dunstable, and that you must make your own account with the
Government. Then the maids fled, and next the men--they said they
owed you no service. Ah! there are no old faithful servants now--or
few--very few."
"Go!" said Fordingbridge, briefly--and again his look terrified the
poor old creature so, that he slunk off shivering and shaking as
before.
Slowly the viscount mounted the stairs to his saloon, or withdrawing
room, and when there he cast himself into a chair and brooded on what
he had heard.
"Harbouring a rebel--a rebel Jesuit priest," he muttered. "So! so! am
I caught in the toils that I myself set? Pardieu, 'twould seem so. I
denounce a rebel, and, unfortunately, that rebel lives on me--is
housed with me. I never thought of that! It may tell badly for me;
worse, too, because I brought him to England in my train. How shall I
escape it?" And he sat long in his chair meditating.
"The captain said," he went on, "that I must make my own account with
the Government. Ah, yes, yes; why! so indeed I must. And 'tis not
hard. Make my account! Why, yes, to be sure. Easy enough. I, having
embraced the principles of Hanover, and being now firm in my loyalty
to George, do, the better to confound his enemies, shelter in my house
one whom I intend to yield up to him. Well! there's no harm in that,
but rather loyalty. Otherwise," and he laughed to himself as he spoke,
"I might lay myself open to the reproach of being a bad host; of not
respecting the sacredness of the guest."
Eased in his mind by this reflection and by the excuse which he had
found, as he considered, for appeasing the Government and satisfying
it as to his reasons for sheltering a Jesuit plotter, he rose from his
seat and wandered into the other rooms of his house, viewing with
particular interest and complaisance the one which had been her
ladyship's boudoir, or morning-room.
"A pretty nest for so fair a bird," he muttered, as he regarded the
Mortlake hangings and lace curtains, the deep roomy lounge, the bright
silver tea service, and--as blots upon the other things--bunches of
now withered flowers in the vases. "A pretty nest. Yet, forsooth, the
silly thing must fall out of it; wander forth to freedom and misery.
For they say, who study such frivolities, that caged birds, once
released, pine and die even in their freedom. _Soit!_ 'tis better that
the bird should escape and die of its own accord than be thrust into
the cold open by its master's hand. And that would have happened to
your ladyship," and he laughed as he spoke of her, "had you not taken
the initiative. My Lady Fordingbridge," uttering the words with
emphasis, nay, with unction, "I had done with you. It was time for you
to go."
A little clock on the mantelpiece, a masterpiece of Tompion's, chimed
forth the hour musically as he spoke; he remembered his father buying
it as a present for his mother the year before they fled to France;
and turning round to look at it he saw, standing against its face,
where it could not fail to be observed, a letter addressed to him.
Opening it, he found written the words, "I have left the house and
you. I know everything now." That was all; there was no form of
address, no superscription. Nothing could be more disdainful, nor, by
its brevity, more convincing. And, whatever the schemes the man might
have been maturing in his evil mind against the writer, yet that
brief, contemptuous note stung him more than a longer, more
explanatory one could have done.
"So be it," he said again, "so be it." Then he bade his man come and
dress him anew, and afterwards call a hackney coach. And on entering
the latter when ready, he ordered the driver to convey him first to
the Duke of Newcastle's (the Secretary of State), and later to Lady
Belrose's in Hanover-square.
"For, to commence," he muttered, as he drove off, "I must square his
grace, and then have one final interview with my dearly beloved
Katherine. Newcastle has the reputation of being the biggest fool
in England--he should not be difficult to deal with; while as to
her--well, she is no fool but yet she shall find her master."