CHAPTER XXXI.
CLEANED OUT
A man in possession! Yorke looked at him half vacantly.
"Do you mean that you are going to stop here?" he said – "that you have got to stop here?"
"Yes, my lord, I'm sorry to say," said the man. "Somebody's got to be here to see that none of the things is removed."
Fleming, standing behind his master, groaned. Yorke turned to him quite coolly.
"Give the man something to eat and drink and make him comfortable. He can't help it, poor devil! Bring me some cigars and my letters into the dressing-room."
He sat down and lighted a cigar, and opened the letters which had been lying disregarded for weeks, and as he looked through them he saw that he was in a worse mess than he had ever before been. All his other money troubles were trifles and child's play compared with this.
There was not a worse business man in London than Yorke, and he did not understand half the legal documents, the summonses, the orders of the court which he opened and stared at; but the prominence and frequency of one name in the whole business struck him.
"Who on earth is Ralph Duncombe?" he asked himself. "Levison I know, and Moses Arack I know, and this man, and this. I remember having money from them; but Ralph Duncombe – " No, he could not recall the man's name. But after all it did not matter. It was evident that his creditors had all combined to swoop down upon him at once, and the avalanche would crush him unless he got some help. And where should he turn? It would be useless to attempt to borrow money through the usual channels. No doubt the news that he was going to marry a penniless girl instead of the rich heiress, Lady Eleanor Dallas, had leaked out, and all the money-lenders, who hung together like bees, would refuse to lend him a silver sixpence.
Dolph! He almost started at the thought of him, for two days ago the duke, who had been seriously ill, had started for the Continent, and Yorke did not even know in which direction; for, to tell the truth, Yorke had avoided the duke and every other friend and acquaintance since the day he had been convinced that Leslie had thrown him over.
No doubt the duke would lend him the money – would give him twice as much as was necessary, though the sum-total was a large one – but the money must be forthcoming at once. The man had said he would have to appear in the court in the city to-morrow – or was it the next day? Good heavens! appear as a common defaulter in a public court!
He smiled grimly. So far as he was concerned, he felt, in the humor he was then in, that he did not care a button what became of him. When you have reached the point at which life is a burden and a nuisance it does not matter whether you are ruined or not. But there were other people to think of. There was Dolph and Lord Eustace and all his other relatives. How would they take it when they opened their newspapers and read of the appearance of Lord Yorke Auchester, "cousin of the Duke of Rothbury," in a debtors' court in the city? Lord Eustace, who was always talking of his 'nerves,' would have a fit.
Now, most men would have gone to a lawyer, but Yorke knew that it would be of little or no use troubling a lawyer with this business. What was wanted was money, and no lawyer would lend it to him without security; and as for security – why, there was already a man in possession of the few things he owned in this transitory world.
Fleming knocked at the door, and in answer to a cold "come in," entered.
"Did you ring, my lord?" he said.
"You know I didn't," said Yorke. "What is it? You look upset, Fleming," and he smiled the smile which is not good to see on the lips of any man, young or old, simple or gentle.
"Beg pardon, my lord," said Fleming, who was genuinely attached to his master, and who had watched the change in him with sincere grief and regret, "but I thought you would want to send me somewhere, perhaps."
Yorke smiled.
"The best thing I could do for you would be to send you about your business!" he said.
"Oh, don't say that, my lord," remonstrated Fleming. "I'm – I'm afraid something is wrong, my lord – "
"Yes," said Yorke, grimly. "Something is very much wrong, Fleming. The fact is I am up a tree; cleaned out and ruined."
"Ruined?"
"That's it," assented Yorke, coolly. "I've been hard up, once or twice before – you know that, Fleming?"
"Oh, yes, my lord."
"But this is the finale, the climax, the wind up. But don't let me stand in your light. Look here, you have been a deuced good servant – yes, and a friend to me, and as it won't do you any good to be mixed up in this beastly mess you had better go at once. Lord Vinson has often told me that if I wanted to get rid of you he'd be glad to take you on. So you go to him – I'll give you a letter and – "
For the first time in his exemplary life Fleming was guilty of vulgar language.
"I'm damned if I do!" he said. "I beg your pardon, my lord, I humbly beg your lordship's pardon, but I'm not that kind of a man – I'm not, indeed;" and there was something very much like water in the honest fellow's eyes. "I shouldn't think of leaving your lordship while you were up a tree, as your lordship puts it. I should never look myself in the face again. I'm much obliged to Lord Vinson; but no, my lord. I'm not the man to desert a good and kind master in misfortune. I beg your lordship's pardon, but I thought – " He hesitated respectfully.
"Think away," said Yorke, lighting another cigar and tilting his hat back. "Perhaps your thinking will be more valuable than mine. I've been thinking, and can see no way out of the mess."
"The – the duke, my lord," suggested Fleming. "I'm sure he – "
"So am I, Fleming; but the duke has left for the Continent, and I don't know where he has gone, and this paper says that I've got to show up at the court in the city at once."
"And it will all be in the newspapers!" said Fleming aghast. To be 'in the newspapers' was the direct disgrace and calamity in the eyes of that worthy man.
"Just so," said Yorke, knocking the ashes off his cigar. "You see, Fleming, I am in a hole out of which it is impossible to pull me. Never you mind; after all, it doesn't matter."
"Doesn't it matter, my lord?" echoed Fleming, startled. "You – you who are so well known to – to appear in court!"
"And get six months – is it six months or six weeks? I don't know – I don't know anything; but I suppose I shall, and pretty quickly. Never mind. Look here; see that man in the next room has all he wants."
"Oh, yes; all right, my lord," said Fleming, with a touch of impatience, "All he wants is beer, and I've given him half a dozen bottles."
Yorke laughed and leaned back in the chair.
"All right. Bring any letters that may come; I should like to know the worst."
Fleming went out, but appeared again in a few minutes.
"Will you want me for half an hour or three-quarters, my lord?" he said, in a thoughtful, troubled kind of way.
"No. Going after that place, Fleming? Better."
Fleming colored and opened his lips; but he did not say anything; and Yorke, left alone again, leaned his head on his hand and gave himself up to gloomy reverie.
A man in possession in the next room, a summons to appear in a debtors' court, his name in the newspapers as a ruined man! It was all bad enough, but he scarcely felt it. He had endured the maximum of suffering when he had become convinced that Leslie had jilted him, and this – well, this was, so to speak, almost a relief and a diversion. And yet the disgrace! He passed a very bad half hour in that dressing-room – a half hour in which there rose the specter of an ill-spent past in which follies marched in ghostly procession before him, and all, as they promenaded by, whispered hoarsely, "Ruin!" And yet, through it all he saw more plainly than anything else the sweet face of Leslie, the only woman he had ever loved – the woman who had seemed to him an angel of truth and constancy, but who had deserted him the moment she had heard that he was not a duke.
Fleming, meanwhile, had put on his hat and sallied into the street. He had left his beloved master utterly reckless and indifferent, and therefore it rested with him, the devoted servant, to display all the more energy. That he should sit still and see Lord Yorke drift into utter ruin and destruction was simply impossible.
"Something's got to be done," he said to himself, "and I've got to do it. He isn't going to appear at any court; not if I know it! What! my guv'nor, the cousin of a duke, to come up before a beak – some miserable city alderman?" Fleming's ideas of the city law courts were, like his master's, hazy. "Certainly not – not if I have to move heaven and earth! Now, if the duke was at home I could see Mr. Grey, and we could arrange this little matter between us; but as he isn't, why, the thing to do is to go to the next person, and that is, naturally, Lady Eleanor Dallas. It isn't likely that she'd see Lord Yorke in such a hole as this without helping him out; and she's rich, and richer than ever lately. I'll try her!"
He called a hansom and had himself driven to Kensington Palace Gardens.
"Anyhow, her ladyship can only refuse to see me," he said to himself. "But I don't think she will;" and "he winked the other eye."
Oh! my friends, do you think our servants are deaf, and dumb, and blind? They know all our little secrets and our little difficulties; all our little entanglements. There is scarcely a letter we receive that, unless we lock it up securely, they do not read. No friend ever visits us but they know all about him and his, and whom his daughter is engaged to, or why the engagement is broken off.
Therefore let us be grateful to a kind Providence for the servants who are also devoted and trusty friends, such as was Fleming.
When Fleming reached Kensington Palace Gardens he was told by one of the footmen that Lady Eleanor was engaged.
"You've come with a message from Lord Auchester, Mr. Fleming, I suppose?" said the footman.
Fleming was an 'upper servant' and was always addressed by those beneath him as 'Mr.,' and he was very much respected on his own account as one who had saved money and was in 'good society.'
"Well, no, I haven't," said Fleming, gravely, and a little pompously. "I've come on business of my own."
The footman took his name into the boudoir where Lady Eleanor was sitting with no other than Mr. Ralph Duncombe.
She flushed slightly.
"It is Lord Auchester's valet," she said.
Ralph Duncombe looked up with a slight start.
"I do not wish him to see me, Lady Eleanor," he said.
"No, no; oh, no! I understand," she said nervously.
"And yet I should like to know what he has to say."
Lady Eleanor pointed to a large four-fold Japanese screen which cut off one of the corners of the room.
"He will not be here many minutes," she said.
Ralph Duncombe went behind the screen, and Lady Eleanor rang the bell and told the footman she would see Fleming.
He came in, looking rather nervous and embarrassed, for it was a bold thing he was going to do, and he knew that Lady Eleanor could look and speak haughtily and sternly when she was displeased.
"You want to see me, Fleming?" she said, graciously enough. "Is it a message from Lord Auchester?"
"No, my lady," he said, and like a man of the world he went straight to the point. "No, my lady, his lordship does not know that I have come, and if he had known I was coming I'm sure he would have forbidden me; but I ventured to intrude on your ladyship, knowing that you and my master were old friends, if I may say so."
"Certainly you may say so, Fleming," said Lady Eleanor, pleasantly, and looking as if she were expecting anything but bad news.
"Well, my lady, my master is in a terrible trouble," he said, plunging still further into the business.
"In terrible trouble?" echoed Lady Eleanor; and her face flushed. "What do you mean, Fleming?"
"It's money matters, my lady," said Fleming, gravely, and looking around as if he feared an eavesdropper. "His lordship – I'm obliged to speak freely, my lady, or else you won't understand; but it's out of no disrespect to his lordship, who has been the best of masters to me – "
"Say what you have to say quite without reserve," said Lady Eleanor, in a low voice.
"Well, my lady, I was going to say that his lordship has always been hard up, as you may say. There's always been a difficulty with the money. It's usual with high-spirited gentlemen like Lord Yorke," he said, apologetically. "They don't know, and can't be expected to know, the value of money like common ordinary folk, and so they – well, they outrun the constable."
"Lord Auchester is in debt?" said Lady Eleanor, guardedly.
"It's worse than that, my lady," said Fleming. "That would be nothing, for ever since I've been in his service he has been in debt. But now the people he owes money to want him to pay them."
He gave the information as though it were the most extraordinary and unnatural conduct on the part of any creditor of Lord Auchester that he should want payment.
"People who owe money must pay it some time, Fleming," suggested Lady Eleanor.
"Yes – ah, yes, my lady, some time," admitted Fleming, "but not all at once. It seems as if the people my lord owes money to had joined together and resolved to drop upon him in a heap. There's a man in possession in Bury Street, my lady."
"A man in possession!" repeated Lady Eleanor, as if she scarcely understood.
"Yes, a bailiff, my lady, sitting there in his lordship's sitting-room; and I daresn't throw him out of the window."
Lady Eleanor looked down.
"And – and Lord Yorke, Fleming – I suppose he is in great trouble about this?"
Fleming hesitated.
"Well, my lady, he is in great trouble; but if you mean is he cut up about this money matter, I can't say that he is. He don't seem to care one bit about it, and takes it as cool and indifferent as if – well, as if nothing mattered. But he is in great trouble for all that, and he has been for weeks past – "
He hesitated.
Lady Eleanor looked up.
"You had better tell me everything, I think, Fleming," she said, in a low voice.
"Well, my lady, it's just thus: His lordship had a blow – a disappointment of some kind. It isn't money, it isn't betting, or card-playing, or I should have heard of it, for his lordship generally makes some remarks, such as 'I've had a good day, Fleming,' or, 'I'm stone broke, Fleming,' so that I know what kind of luck he's had; it isn't that. It's something worse – if there is anything worse," he put in philosophically. "A little while ago his lordship was in the very best of spirits; I never saw him in better, and he's a bright-hearted gentleman, as you know, my lady. I'm speaking of the time when he came back from that place in the country where he and his grace the duke were – Portmaris."
Lady Eleanor leaned her head on her hand so that her face was hidden from him.
"Then all of a sudden a change came, and his lordship got bad, very bad. It was dreadful to see him, my lady. Eat nothing, cared for nothing; scarcely even spoke. Nothing but smoke, smoke, all day, and wander in and out looking like the ghost of himself. And he, who used to be so bright and cheerful, with the laugh always ready! I'd have given something to have spoken a word, and asked him what was the matter; but – well, my lady, with all his pleasantness, my master's the last gentleman to take a liberty with."
"You don't know what it was, this terrible disappointment?" said Lady Eleanor, almost inaudibly.
Fleming hesitated and glanced at her; then he coughed discreetly behind his hand.
It was sufficient answer, and Lady Eleanor's face grew red.
"Whatever it was that made him so happy and cheerful, it was knocked on the head and put an end to, my lady," he said. "And so it is that this regular smash-up of affairs – I mean these summonses and man in possession – don't seem to affect him. You see, my lady, he was as low down as he could be already. Sometimes – " He stopped, and looked down at the carpet very gravely and anxiously.
"Well?"
"Well, my lady, it isn't for me to say such a thing, but I've been almost afraid to let him out of my sight in the morning, and I've been truly thankful to see him come in at night."
Lady Eleanor drew a long breath and shuddered.
"You mean – "
"Men, when they're down as low as my master, they do rash things sometimes, my lady," said Fleming, in a solemn whisper.
Lady Eleanor's face went white, and she put her hand to her delicate throat as if she were suffocating.
"You – you should not say – hint – at such terrible things, Fleming," she panted.
"I – I beg your ladyship's pardon," he said, humbly, "but it's the truth and – and I thought I ought to tell you, being his lordship's friend."
"Yes – yes, I am his friend," she said, as if she scarcely knew what she was saying. "And I will try to help him."
Fleming's face brightened.
"Oh, my lady!" he said, gratefully.
"Stop!" she said. "Your master, Lord Yorke, must not know;" and her face grew crimson again.
"Oh, no, no, my lady! Certainly not! Why, if his lordship ever knew that I'd come to you – " He stopped and shook his head.
"I understand," said Lady Eleanor. "No, Lord Yorke must never know – no one must know – "
"I should have gone to the duke, my lady, but his grace is abroad, as no doubt your ladyship knows."
Lady Eleanor turned her head aside. She and Ralph Duncombe had timed the attack on Yorke for the moment when the duke should be beyond reach.
"His grace would have helped my master, I know; and I'd have made bold to write to him, but there isn't time."
Lady Eleanor shook her head.
"No, no," she said. "He must not know – no one must know. You need not be anxious any longer, Fleming. You were right in coming to me and – and – " She sunk into the chair.
Fleming heaved a sigh of relief.
"Very well, my lady. I don't know much about it, but the person who seems the principal in this set upon his lordship is a man named Duncombe – a money-lender, I expect. They take all sorts of names. I wish I had him to myself for a quarter of an hour. I'd teach him to put a man in possession – begging your ladyship's pardon," he broke off.
Lady Eleanor's face reddened, and she glanced toward the screen.
"You had better go back now, Fleming," she said, "and – and don't leave Lord Auchester more than you can help. And, remember, not one word that might lead him to guess that you have been to me."
"You may be sure I shall be careful for my own sake, my lady," said Fleming, with quiet emphasis; and, with a bow in which gratitude and respect were fairly divided, he left the room.
Ralph Duncombe came from behind the screen and stood looking down at Lady Eleanor, whose proud head was bowed upon her hands.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
She looked up. "Set him free – at once – at once!" she responded with feverish impetuosity. "Did you not hear the man? That he actually feared his master would – " She shuddered. "This must come to an end at once. It will drive him mad!"
Ralph Duncombe smiled grimly.
"I heard the man say that it was not the money trouble that was affecting Lord Auchester," he said. "It seems to me, Lady Eleanor, that we have taken a great deal of trouble for nothing. This marriage which you so much dreaded was broken off before any plans to prevent it were put in operation. The – the young lady had disappeared – "
She looked up suddenly as he stopped and bit his lip.
"Disappeared? How do you know?" she exclaimed breathlessly.
His face was as pale as hers, but was set and stern.
"Well, I thought I had better run down to this place, Portmaris, and see for myself how matters were going," he said, in a kind of business-like coolness and indifference, "and – and I found that Miss – what is her name?" he asked, as if he had forgotten.
"Lisle – Leslie Lisle," said Lady Eleanor.
"Ah, yes! Miss Lisle had flown."
"Flown?"
"Yes, flown and disappeared. Disappeared so completely that all my efforts to discover her track failed."
He still spoke calmly and with affected indifference, but if she herself had not been so agitated she would have noticed the pallor of his face and the restless movement of his hands.
"What – what do you think it means?" she asked, in a whisper.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"A lovers' quarrel – but no; it is more shame than that. Yes; I should say that the engagement was broken off for some reason or other, so that you have had all this trouble and expense for nothing, Lady Eleanor."
"And you can not find her? Disappeared?"
He took up his hat.
"Disappeared," he repeated, grimly.
"And that is why he is wretched and unhappy," she said, with a sigh. "How – how he must love her after all!" and her head drooped.
Ralph Duncombe moistened his lips.
"Yes," he said. "But perhaps she did not care for him. Any way, you see it is she who has left him, not he who has left her."
"Yes," she said, and she pushed the hair from her fair forehead with an impatient gesture. "Oh, I cannot understand it! The engagement broken off! Disappeared! But there must be an end to these law proceedings now, Mr. Duncombe."
"There can be only one way of terminating them," he said.
"And that?"
"Is by paying the money into court," he said. "The thing has gone too far."
"I see," she said. Then she held out her hand. "I will send or come to you in the morning. I am too confused and – and upset even to think at this moment."
Fleming hastened back to Bury Street and found Yorke sitting as he had left him, with the formidable-looking letters and papers littered around him.
Fleming picked them up and put them away, and got out Yorke's dress clothes.
"Don't trouble, Fleming, I shall dine at home," said Yorke; but Fleming went on with his preparations.
"Very sorry, my lord, but the kitchen grate is not in order." He didn't intend that his master should eat his dinner in company with a man in possession. "Better go and dine at the club, my lord, if I may make so bold."
Yorke got up with a grim smile.
"Perhaps you're right, Fleming," he said, listlessly. "I suppose they never have anything the matter with the kitchen grate at Holloway, or whatever other quod it is they send people who can't pay their debts. And what about these clothes, Fleming? Perhaps our friend in the next room will object to my walking out in them."
"I'd punch his head if he was to offer a remark on the subject," said Fleming, fiercely. "I beg your lordship's pardon – if I might say a word, my lord, I'd implore your lordship not to take this business too much to heart; I mean not to worry too much over it. You never can tell what may turn up."
Yorke laughed drearily as he allowed Fleming to dress him.
"I won't," he said. "To tell you the truth, I don't feel so cut up as you'd imagine, or as I ought, Fleming. I feel" – he stopped and looked round absently – "well, as if I were another fellow altogether, and I was just looking on, half sorry and half amused."
"Yes, that's right. Keep feeling like that, my lord," said Fleming, cheeringly. "Depend upon it, it will come out right."
Yorke shrugged his shoulders.
"I dare say," he said, indifferently. "Don't sit up for me. I may be late."
He came in a little after two in the morning, and Fleming could have been almost glad if his beloved master had showed signs of having spent a 'warm' night; but Yorke was 'more than sober,' and looked only weary and sick at heart, as he had done for weeks past.
"Oh, by the way, Fleming," he said, as he took off his coat, and as if he had suddenly remembered it, "you must call me pretty early to-morrow. I have to be down in the city, you know."
That was all.