EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON
You behold Mr. Waverton exhibiting a high impatience. He was alone in the
best room of the "Peacock" at Islington, a well-looking place after its
severe old oak fashion. Disordered food upon the table showed that Mr.
Waverton had been trying to eat with little success. Mr. Waverton's hat
upon one chair, his whip upon another, and his cloak tumbled inelegantly
over a third proved that he was not himself. For he was born to treat his
clothes with respect. Mr. Waverton would be jumping up to look out of the
window, flounce down again in his chair to drink wine and stare with
profound meaning at the table, start up and stride to the hearth and
glower down at its emptiness--and repeat the motions in a different
order. He must be theatrical even without an audience.
But he had some excuse for his uneasiness. It was the evening of his
conversation with my Lord Sunderland, and that fiasco had stimulated him,
you know, to a grand exploit. He was waiting for news of it.
The twilight darkened early. Mr. Waverton pushed the window open wider,
and leaned out only to come in again in a hurry as if he were afraid of
being seen. The room was close, and he wiped his large brow and flung
himself down and drank. There was a dull sound of thunder rolling far
away. In a little while came the beat of rain--slow, big drops. That was
soon over. Then lightning stabbed into the room, and the storm broke.
Candles were brought to Mr. Waverton's petulant appeal, and an excited
maid-servant bustled and blundered over clearing his table with pious
invocations at each thunder-clap. She fretted Mr. Waverton, who
admonished her and made her worse.
Upon him and her there came a man cloaked from heel to eye, streaming
rain from every angle. He shook a shower from his hat. "Hell! What a
night," says he, breathless. "Save you, squire!"
"Begone, girl! Begone, I say. Od's life, leave us, do you hear?" says Mr.
Waverton, in much agitation.
"Bring us a noggin of rum, Sukey, darling," says the wet gentleman,
dragging himself out of his sodden cloak. He flung it upon Mr.
Waverton's.
"Run, girl!" says Mr. Waverton, in a terrible voice. "Go, you fool." He
advanced upon her, and she stopped gaping, and got herself out with a
great clatter of crockery.
"Od burn and blast it! I want it," says the wet gentleman, and collapsed
into a chair. "I believe you, squire. I want it."
"What is the news with you?" Mr. Waverton said.
"Od's bones, ha' you got the megs? The megs, I say. Oh, rot you, the
ready, the hundred guineas?"
"Is it done then?" Mr. Waverton's voice dropped.
"Out with the cole, burn you."
Mr. Waverton put a bag of money down on the table. The man snatched at
it, tore it open, and began to count. "Is it done, Ned, I say?" Mr.
Waverton cried.
Ned showed some broken teeth. "I believe you, by God. He has it. He's
dead meat. Two irons through and through his guts."
Mr. Waverton flung back in his chair. "How then?" he said, in a low
voice. "Ned--was it in fight? You brought him into a fight?" Ned went
on counting the guineas, and sometimes tried one in his yellow teeth.
"Oh, have done with that!" Mr. Waverton cried. "They come straight
from my goldsmith, man. Tell me--you said you would force a fight on
him. Did he--"
"Lay your life!" Ned grinned. "There was a fight, sure. Old Ben knows
that, by God. Aye, aye, you're fond of fighting ain't you, squire?"
"I fight with gentlemen, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "For such base
rogues as this fellow, I must provide otherwise."
"Provide my breeches!" says Ned coarsely, and swept up his money.
"Where's that damned rum?"
"You may take it in the tap." Mr. Waverton rose. "Nay, she'll bring it.
Nay, but, Ned--how did he take it?"
"Rot you, how would you take an iron in your gizzard?"
"He said nothing?"
"Now, stap me, do you think we waited for him to say his prayers?"
"Prayers!" says Mr. Waverton grandly, "They would little avail him."
"Well now, burn me, you're a saint yourself, ain't you?"
The rum arrived, and the servant, with frightened eyes upon the
bedraggled Ned, went stumbling out of the room again. "You are
impertinent, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "The fellow well deserved his
end. I may tell you that I was advised to deal with him thus privately by
a noble lord in high place."
"Then it's worth more than a hundred megs."
"You have your pay, I believe. I am satisfied with you."
"Damn your airs," says Ned, but something awed by this parade. "Well, I
must quit."
"It is better," Mr. Waverton agreed.
"Oh! There was a letter for my gentleman at his tavern. We pouched that
while we were waiting for him. D'ye care for it? It's a pretty, tender
thing. I reckon it's cheap for another five pieces."
"You are a scoundrel," said Mr. Waverton, and tossed another guinea on
the table.
"Pot to you," says Ned, but slapped down the letter. "Well, I'll march.
Maybe you'll have some more in my way. I won't forget you, squire," and
out he went.
Mr. Waverton, left alone, fingered the letter contemptuously. His great
mind was indeed possessed by thoughts of victory. He had hated Harry
rarely with the chief count in his enmity that Harry was a low fellow,
hireling, menial. He could have borne defeat with some grace, he might
even have sought no revenge for being made ridiculous, if the offender
had been of a higher station than his own. But such insolence from a
pauper! The fellow must needs be crushed like an insect. Only such
ignominious extinction could satisfy Mr. Waverton's dignity. He inclined
to despise himself for a shadow of human concern about the manner of
Harry's death. Faith, it was an extravagance of chivalry to desire that
the rogue should have had a chance to fight--that generous chivalry which
had ever been his bane. He felt nothing but exultation at the issue. The
wretched creature had been properly punished--stamped out by knaves of
his own class in a vulgar street brawl--a dirty hole-and-corner end.
Egad, my lord was very right. These petty, shabby knaves should be dealt
with privately. Mr. Waverton found revenge very sweet.
So Mr. Harry Boyce had gone to his account, and Alison was happily
delivered. Dear child! Mr. Waverton felt a pleasant warmth of heroism
steal over him, felt himself a knight-errant rescuing his lady from the
powers of darkness. Dear Alison! She was free now. To be sure, she need
not be told the manner of the deliverance. That would be an outrage on
her delicacy. Enough for her that the cunning wretch who had cozened her
was dead, and she a happy widow. She had but to show a pretty penitence,
and Mr. Waverton proposed to be magnanimous. The prospect much pleased
him. He saw himself grandly accepting her; permitting her to be very
tender; wittily, but with a touch of magnificence, restraining her from
too much humility....
He came out of this golden dream in the end, and was conscious again of
the letter, and sneered at it. A nasty, infected thing, to be sure,
damp and filthy from Ned's handling. What was it the fellow said? A
tender composition? Pah, some blowsy paramour of the knave Boyce. But,
perhaps it would be well that Alison should know the fellow had
paramours in his own class. She ought to be made to feel how low she
had sunk by yielding to him.
Mr. Waverton opened the letter and saw Alison's writing:
"MR. BOYCE,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have
to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the
truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have
you come for this my asking. Pray, believe it is urgent for us both that
we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may
have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall
which I hope you would not have me bear.
"A."
Mr. Waverton read with swelling eyes.
It was a little while before the meaning came home to him. He was never
quick. Then (a sin to which he was not prone) he used oaths. The
treacherous, besotted woman! She was still craving for her shabby lover,
then. She offered a fair face to her too generous, too faithful Mr.
Waverton, only to obtain his confidence and betray him again. Egad, she
was too base. Rotten at the very heart of her. Why, some women must lust
after a low, common fellow, as dogs after dirt. So she would have saved
her Boyce from his master's punishment? Mr. Waverton laughed. She would
have had him back in her arms again? Mr. Waverton continued to laugh.
But faith, she went too far when she tried to trick Mr. Waverton a second
time. Much she had gained by her treachery. Her fine husband was out of
her reach now. It would be a pleasure to advise her of his death. Nay,
faith, a duty. The miserable creature had been saved from herself. She
must be shown that--oh delicately, with something of a cold grandeur, a
touch of irony maybe, but always in a lofty manner as became one who
moved upon heights far above her grovelling soul. Mr. Waverton, for all
his high irony, rode back home through the dregs of the storm very
furiously.