Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II.
- -
- 100%
- +
“What! Dudley Sewell?”
“Yes; that’s his name. Do you know him?”
“Do I know him!” muttered the old man, as he bent down and supported his head upon his hand.
“And do I wrong him in thinking him a dangerous fellow?” asked Cave. But Fossbrooke made no answer; indeed, he never heard the question, so absorbed was he in his own thoughts.
“What do you know of him?” asked Cave, in a louder voice.
“Everything, – everything! I know all that he has done, and scores of things he would have done if he could. By what ill-luck was it that Trafiford came to know this man?”
“They met at the Cape, and Trafford went to visit him when they came over to Ireland. I suspect – I do not know it – but I suspect that there was some flirtation in the case. She is extremely pretty, and a coquette.”
“I declare,” said Fossbrooke, as he arose and paced the room, totally unattentive to all the other said, – “I declare I begin sometimes to think that the only real activity in life is on the part of the scoundrels. Half the honest people in the world pass their lives in forming good intentions, while the rogues go straight at their work and do it. Do you think, Cave, that Trafford would tell me frankly what has passed between this man and himself?”
“I ‘m not sure. I mean, he might have some reserve on one point, and that is the very point on which his candor would be most important. There have been letters, it would seem, that Sewell has got hold of, and threatens exposure, if some enormous demand be not complied with.”
“What! Is the scoundrel so devoid of devices that he has to go back on an old exploded villany? Why, he played that game at Rangoon, and got five thousand pounds out of poor Beresford.”
“I have heard something of that.”
“Have heard of it! Who that ever served in India is not familiar with the story? What does Trafford mean by not coming up here, and telling me the whole story?”
“I ‘ll tell you what he means, Fossbrooke: he is heartily ashamed of himself; he is in love with another, and he knows that you know it; but he believes you may have heard stories to his detriment, and, tied as he is, or fancies he is, by a certain delicate reserve, he cannot go into his exculpation. There, in one word, is the reason that he is not here to-night; he asked me to put on him special duty, and save him from all the awkwardness of meeting you with a half-confidence.”
“And I, meanwhile, have written off to Tom Lendrick to come over here with his sister, or to let us go and pay them a visit at the island.”
“You never told me of this.”
“Why should I? I was using the rights I possess over you as my guests, doing for you what I deemed best for your amusement.”
“What answer have they given you?”
“None up to this; indeed, there has been scarcely time; and now, from what you tell me, I do not well know what answer I’d like to have from them.”
For several minutes neither uttered a word; at last Fossbrooke said: “Trafford was right not to meet me. It has saved him some prevarication, and me some passion. Write and tell him I said so.”
“I can scarcely do that, without avowing that I have revealed to you more than I am willing to own.”
“When you told me in whose hands he was, you told me more than all the rest. Few men can live in Dudley Sewells intimacy and come unscathed out of the companionship.”
“That would tell ill for myself, for I have been of late on terms of much intimacy with him.”
“You have n’t played with him?”
“Ay, but I have; and, what’s more, won of him,” said Cave, laughing.
“You profited little by that turn of fortune,” said Foss-brooke, sarcastically.
“You imply that he did not pay his debt; but you are wrong: he came to me the morning after we had played, and acquitted the sum lost.”
“Why, I am entangling myself in the miracles I hear! That Sewell should lose is strange enough: that he should pay his losses is simply incredible.”
“Your opinion of him would seem to be a very indifferent one.”
“Far from it, Cave. It is without any qualification whatever. I deem him the worst fellow I ever knew; nor am I aware of any greater misfortune to a young fellow entering on life than to have become his associate.”
“You astonish me! I was prepared to hear things of him that one could not justify, nor would have willingly done themselves, but not to learn that he was beyond the pale of honor.”
“It is exactly where he stands, sir, – beyond the pale of honor. I wish we had not spoken of him,” said the old man, rising, and pacing the room. “The memory of that fellow is the bitterest draught I ever put to my lips; he has dashed my mind with more unworthy doubts and mean suspicions of other men than all my experience of life has ever taught me. I declare, I believe if I had never known him my heart would have been as hopeful to-day as it was fifty years ago.”
“How came it that I never heard you speak of him?”
“Is it my wont, Cave, to talk of my disasters to my friends? You surely have known me long enough to say whether I dwell upon the reverses and disappointments of my life. It is a sorry choice of topics, perhaps, that is left to men old as myself when they must either be croakers or boasters. At all events, I have chosen the latter; and people bear with it the better because they can smile at it.”
“I wish with all my heart I had never played with Sewell, and still more that I had not won of him.”
“Was it a heavy sum?”
“For a man like myself, a very heavy sum. I was led on – giving him his revenge, as it is called – till I found myself playing for a stake which, had I lost, would have cost me the selling my commission.”
Fossbrooke nodded, as though to say he had known of such, incidents in the course of his life.
“When he appeared at my quarters the next morning to settle the debt, I was so overcome with shame that I pledge you my word of honor, I believe I ‘d rather have been the loser and taken all the ruin the loss would have brought down upon me.”
“How your friend must have appreciated your difficulty!” said Fossbrooke, sarcastically.
“He was frank enough, at all events, to own that he could not share my sense of embarrassment. He jeered a little at my pretension to be an example to my young officers, as well he might. I had selected an unlucky moment to advance such a claim; and then he handed me over my innings, with all the ease and indifference in life.”
“I declare, Cave, I was expecting, to the very last moment, a different ending to your story. I waited to hear that he had handed you a bond of his wife’s guardian, which for prudential reasons should not be pressed for prompt payment.”
“Good heavens! what do you mean?” cried Cave, leaning over the table in intense eagerness. “Who could have told you this?”
“Beresford told me; he brought me the very document once to my house with my own signature annexed to it, – an admirable forgery as ever was, done. My seal, too, was there. By bad luck, however, the paper was stolen from me that very night, – taken out of a locked portfolio. And when Beresford charged the fellow with the fraud, Sewell called him out and shot him.”
Cave sat for several minutes like one stunned and overcome. He looked vacantly before him, but gave no sign of hearing or marking what was said to him. At last he arose, and, walking over to a table, unlocked his writing-desk, and took out a large packet, of which he broke the seal, and without examining the contents, handed it to Fossbrooke, saying, – “Is that like it?”
“It is the very bond itself; there’s my signature. I wish I wrote as good a hand now,” said he, laughing. “It is as I always said, Cave,” cried he, in a louder, fuller voice; “the world persists in calling this swindler a clever fellow, and there never was a greater mistake. The devices of the scoundrel are the very fewest imaginable; and he repeats his three or four tricks, with scarcely a change, throughout a life long.”
“And this is a forgery!” muttered Cave, as he bent over the document and scanned it closely.
“You shall see me prove it such. You ‘ll intrust me with it. I ‘ll promise to take better care of it this time.”
“Of course. What do you mean to do?”
“Nothing by course of law, Cave. So far I promise you, and I know it is of that you are most afraid. No, my good friend. If you never figure in a witness-box till brought there by me, you may snap your fingers for many a day at cross-examinations.”
“This cannot be made the subject of a personal altercation,” said Cave, hesitatingly.
“If you mean a challenge, certainly not; but it may be made the means of extricating Trafford from his difficulties with this man, and I can hardly see where and what these difficulties are.”
“You allude to the wife?”
“We will not speak of that, Cave,” said Fossbrooke, coloring deeply. “Mrs. Sewell has claims on my regard, that nothing her husband could do, nothing that he might become could efface. She was the daughter of the best and truest friend, and the most noble-hearted fellow I ever knew. I have long ceased to occupy any place in her affections, but I shall never cease to remember whose child she was, – how he loved her, and how, in the last words he ever spoke, he asked me to befriend her. In those days I was a rich man, and had the influence that wealth confers. I had access to great people, too, and, wanting nothing for myself, could easily be of use to others; but, where am I wandering to? I only intended to say that her name is not to be involved in any discussion those things may occasion. What are these voices I hear outside in the court? Surely that must be Tom Lendrick I hear.” He arose and flung open the window, and at the same instant a merry voice cried out, “Here we are, Sir Brook, – Trafford and myself. I met him in the Piazza at Cagliari, and carried him off with me.”
“Have you brought anything to eat with you?” asked Fossbrooke.
“That I have, – half a sheep and a turkey,” said Tom.
“Then you are thrice welcome,” said Fossbrooke, laughing; “for Cave and I are reduced to fluids. Come up at once; the fellows will take care of your horses. We ‘ll make a night of it, Cave,” said the old man, as he proceeded to cover the table with bottles. “We’ll drink success to the mine! We ‘ll drink to the day when, as lieutenant-general, you ‘ll come and pay me a visit in that great house yonder, – and here come the boys to help us.”
CHAPTER III. UP AT THE MINE
Though they carried their convivialities into a late hour of the night, Sir Brook was stirring early on the next morning, and was at Tom Lendrick’s bedside ere he was awake.
“We had no time for much talk together, Tom, when you came up last night,” said he; “nor is there much now, for I am off to England within an hour.”
“Off to England! and the mine?”
“The mine must take care of itself, Tom, till you are stronger and able to look after it. My care at present is to know if Trafford be going back with you.”
“I meant that he should; in fact, I came over here expressly to ask you what was best to be done. You can guess what I allude to; and I had brought with me a letter which Lucy thought you ought to read; and, indeed, I intended to be as cautious and circumspect as might be, but I was scarcely on shore when Trafford rushed across a street and threw his arm over my shoulder, and almost sobbed out his joy at seeing me. So overcome was I that I forgot all my prudence, – all, indeed, that I came for. I asked him to come up with me, – ay, and to come back, too, with me to the island and stay a week there.”
“I scarcely think that can be done,” said the old man, gravely. “I like Trafford well, and would be heartily glad I could like him still better; but I must learn more about him ere I consent to his going over to Maddalena. What is this letter you speak of?”
“You ‘ll find it in the pocket of my dressing-case there. Yes; that’s it.”
“It’s a longish epistle, but in a hand I well know, – at least, I knew it well long ago.” There was an indescribable sadness in the tone in which he said this, and he turned away that his face should not be seen. He seated himself in a recess of the window, and read the letter from end to end. With a heavy sigh he laid it on the table, and muttered below his breath, “What a long, long way to have journeyed from what I first saw her to that!”
Tom did not venture to speak, nor show by any sign that he had heard him, and the old man went on in broken sentences: “And to think that these are the fine natures – the graceful – the beautiful – that are thus wrecked! It is hard to believe it. In the very same characters of that letter I have read such things, so beautiful, so touching, so tender, as made the eyes overflow to follow them. You see I was right, Tom,” cried he, aloud, in a strong stern voice, “when I said that she should not be your sister’s companion. I told Sewell I would not permit it. I was in a position to dictate my own terms to him, and I did so. I must see Trafford about this!” and as he spoke he arose and left the room.
While Tom proceeded to dress himself, he was not altogether pleased with the turn of events. If he had made any mistake in inviting Trafford to return with him, there would be no small awkwardness in recalling the invitation. He saw plainly enough he had been precipitate, but precipitation is one of those errors which, in their own cases, men are prone to ascribe to warm-heartedness. “Had I been as distrustful or suspicious as that publican yonder,” is the burden of their self-gratulation; and in all that moral surgery where men operate on themselves, they cut very gingerly.
“Of course,” muttered Tom, “I can’t expect Sir Brook will take the same view of these things. Age and suspicion are simply convertible terms, and, thank Heaven, I have not arrived at either.”
“What are you thanking Heaven for?” said Sir Brook, entering. “In nine cases out of ten, men use that formula as a measure of their own vanity. For which of your shortcomings were you professing your gratitude, Tom?”
“Have you seen Trafford, sir?” asked Tom, trying to hide his confusion by the question.
“Yes; we have had some talk together.”
Tom waited to hear further, and showed by his air of expectation how eager he felt; but the old man made no sign of any disclosure, but sat there silent and wrapped in thought. “I asked him this,” said the old man, fiercely, “‘If you had got but one thousand pounds in all the world, would it have occurred to you to go down and stake it on a match of billiards against Jonathan?’ ‘Unquestionably not,’ he replied; ‘I never could have dreamed of such presumption.’
“‘And on what pretext, by what impulse of vanity,’ said I, ‘were you prompted to enter the lists with one every way your superior in tact, in craft, and in coquetry? If she accepted your clumsy addresses, did you never suspect that there was a deeper game at issue than your pretensions?’
“‘You are all mistaken,’ said he, growing crimson with shame as he spoke. ‘I made no advances whatever. I made her certain confidences, it is true, and I asked her advice; and then, as we grew to be more intimate, we wrote to each other, and Sewell came upon my letters, and affected to think I was trying to steal his wife’s affection. She could have dispelled the suspicion at once. She could have given the key to the whole mystery, and why she did not is more than I can say. My unlucky accident just then occurred, and I only issued from my illness to hear that I had lost largely at play, and was so seriously compromised, besides, that it was a question whether he should shoot me, or sue for a divorce.’
“It was clear enough that so long as he represented the heir to the Holt property, Sewell treated him with a certain deference; but when Trafford declared to his family that he would accept no dictation, but go his own road, whatever the cost, from that moment Sewell pressed his claims, and showed little mercy in his exactions.
“‘And what’s your way out of this mess?’ asked I, ‘What do you propose to do?’
“I have written to my father, begging he will pay off this debt for me, – the last I shall ever ask him to acquit. I have requested my brother to back my petition; and I have told Sewell the steps I have taken, and promised him if they should fail that I will sell out, and acquit my debt at the price of my commission.’
“‘And at the price of your whole career in life?’
“‘Just so. If you ‘ll not employ me in the mine, I must turn navvy.’
“‘And how, under such circumstances as these, can you accept Tom Lendrick’s invitation, and go over to Maddalena?’
“‘I could not well say no when he asked me, but I determined not to go. I only saw the greater misery I should bring on myself. Cave can send me off in haste to Gibraltar or to Malta. In fact, I pass off the stage, and never turn up again during the rest of the performance. ‘”
“Poor fellow!” said Tom, with deep feeling.
“He was so manly throughout it all,” said Fossbrooke, “so straightforward and so simple. Had there been a grain of coxcomb in his nature, the fellow would have thought the woman in love with him, and made an arrant fool of himself in consequence, but his very humility saved him. I ‘m not sure, Master Tom, you ‘d have escaped so safely, eh?”
“I don’t see why you think so.”
“Now for action,” said Fossbrooke. “I must get to England at once. I shall go over to Holt, and see if I can do anything with Sir Hugh. I expect little, for when men are under the frown of fortune they plead with small influence. I shall then pass over to Ireland. With Sewell I can promise myself more success. I may be away three or four weeks. Do you think yourself strong enough to come back here and take my place till I return?”
“Quite so. I ‘ll write and tell Lucy to join me.”
“I’d wait till Saturday,” said Fossbrooke, in a low voice. “Cave says they can sail by Saturday morning, and it would be as well Lucy did not arrive till they are gone.”
“You are right,” said Tom, thoughtfully.
“It’s not his poverty I ‘m thinking of,” cried Fossbrooke. “With health and strength and vigor, a man can fight poverty. I want to learn that he is as clean-handed in this affair with the Sewells as he thinks himself. If I once were sure of that, I ‘d care little for his loss of fortune. I ‘d associate him with us in the mine, Tom. There will always be more wealth here than we can need. That new shaft promises splendidly. Such fat ore I have not seen for many a day.”
Tom’s mouth puckered, and his expression caught a strange sort of half-quizzical look, but he did not venture to speak.
“I know well,” added the old man, cautiously, “that it ‘s no good service to a young fellow to plunge him at once into ample means without making him feel the fatigues and trials of honest labor. He must be taught to believe that there is work before him, – hard work too. He must be made to suppose that it is only by persistence and industry, and steady devotion to the pursuit, that it will yield its great results.”
“I don’t suspect our success will turn his head,” said Tom, dryly.
“That ‘s the very thing I want to guard against, Tom. Don’t you see it is there all my anxiety lies?”
“Let him take a turn of our life here, and I ‘ll warrant him against the growth of an over-sanguine disposition.”
“Just so,” said Fossbrooke, too intensely immersed in his own thought either to notice the words or the accents of the other, – “just so: a hard winter up here in the snows, with all the tackle frozen, ice on the cranks, ice on the chains, ice everywhere, a dense steam from the heated air below, and a cutting sleet above, try a man’s chest smartly; and then that lead colic, of which you can tell him something. These give a zest and a difficulty that prove what a man’s nature is like.”
“They have proved mine pretty well,” said Tom, with a bitter laugh.
“And there’s nothing like it in all the world for forming a man!” cried Fossbrooke, in a voice of triumph. “Your fair-weather fellows go through life with half their natures unexplored. They know no more of the interior country of their hearts than we do of Central Africa. Beyond the fact that there is something there – something – they know nothing. A man must have conflict, struggle, peril, to feel what stuff there ‘s in him. He must be baffled, thwarted, ay, and even defeated. He must see himself amongst other men as an unlucky dog that fellows will not willingly associate with. He must, on poor rations and tattered clothing, keep up a high heart, – not always an easy thing to do; and, hardest of all, he must train himself never in all his poverty to condescend to a meanness that when his better day comes he would have to blush for.”
“If you weight poverty with all those fine responsibilities, I suspect you’ll break its back at once,” said Tom, laughing.
“Far from it. It is out of these self-same responsibilities that poverty has a backbone at all;” and the old man stood bolt upright, and threw back his head as though he were emblematizing what he had spoken of.
“Now, Tom, for business. Are you strong enough to come back here and look after the shaft?”
“Yes, I think so. I hope so.”
“I shall probably be some weeks away. I ‘ll have to go over to Holt; and I mean to run adown amongst the Cornwall fellows and show them some of our ore. I ‘ll make their mouths water when they see it.”
Tom bit off the end of his cigar, but did not speak.
“I mean to make Beattie a present of ten shares in that new shaft, too. I declare it’s like a renewal of youth to me to feel I can do this sort of thing again. I ‘ll have to write to your father to come back also. Why should he live in exile while we could all be together again in affluence and comfort?”
Tom’s eyes ranged round the bare walls and the shattered windows, and he raised his eyebrows in astonishment at the other’s illusions.
“We had a stiff ‘heat’ before we weathered the point, that’s certain, Tom,” said the old man. “There were days when the sky looked dark enough, and it needed all our pluck and all our resolution to push on; but I never lost heart, – I never wavered about our certainty of success, – did I?”
“No; that you did not. And if you had, I certainly should not have wondered at it.”
“I ‘ll ask you to bear this testimony to me one of these days, and to tell how I bore up at times that you yourself were not over hopeful.”
“Oh, that you may. I’ll be honest enough to own that the sanguine humor was a rare one with me.”
“And it’s your worst fault. It is better for a young fellow to be disappointed every hour of the twenty-four than to let incredulity gain on him. Believe everything that it would be well to believe, and never grow soured with fortune if the dice don’t turn up as you want them. I declare I ‘m sorry to leave this spot just now, when all looks so bright and cheery about it. You ‘re a lucky dog, Tom, to come in when the battle is won, and nothing more to do than announce the victory.” And so saying, he hurried off to prepare for the road, leaving Tom Lendrick in a state of doubt whether he should be annoyed or amused at the opinions he had heard from him.
CHAPTER IV. PARTING COUNSELS
Quick and decided in all his movements, Fossbrooke set out almost immediately after this scene with Tom, and it was only as they gathered together at breakfast that it was discovered he had gone.
“He left Bermuda in the very same fashion,” said Cave. “He had bought a coffee-plantation in the morning, and he set out the same night; and I don’t believe he ever saw his purchase after. I asked him about it, and he said he thought – he was n’t quite sure – he made it a present to Dick Molyneux on his marriage. ‘I only know,’ said he, ‘it’s not mine now.’”
As they sat over their breakfast, or smoked after it, they exchanged stories about Fossbrooke, all full of his strange eccentric ways, but all equally abounding in traits of kind-heartedness and generosity. Comparing him with other men of liberal mould, the great and essential difference seemed to be that Fossbrooke never measured his generosity. When he gave, he gave all that he had; he had no notion of aiding or assisting. His idea was to establish a man at once, – easy, affluent, and independent. He abounded in precepts of prudence, maxims of thrift, and such-like; but in practice he was recklessly lavish.
“Why ain’t there more like him?” cried Trafford, enthusiastically.