CHAPTER XXVI. UNPLEASANT EXPLANATIONS
Beecher had scarcely dropped off to sleep when he was awoke by a heavy, firm tread in the room; he started up, and saw it was Davis.
“How is the noble Viscount?” said Grog, drawing a chair and seating himself. “I came over here post haste when I got the news.”
“Have you told her?” asked Beecher, eagerly.
“Told her! I should think I have. Was it not for the pleasure of that moment that I came here, – here, where they could arrest me this instant and send me off to the fortress of Rastadt? I shot an Austrian officer in the garrison there four years ago.”
“I heard of it,” groaned Beecher, from the utmost depth of his heart “So that she knows it all?”
“She knows that you are a peer of England, and that she is a peeress.”
Beecher looked at the man as he spoke, and never before did he appear to him so insufferably insolent and vulgar. Traits which he had in part forgotten or overlooked now came out in full force, and he saw him in all the breadth of his coarseness. As if he had read what was passing in Beecher’s mind, Davis stared fully at him, resolute and defiant.
“I suppose,” resumed Grog, “it was a pleasure you had reserved for yourself to inform her Ladyship of her step in rank, but I thought she’d just like to hear the news as well from her father.”
Beecher made no answer, but sat buried in thought; at last he said: “Mr. Twining, whom I met accidentally last night, told me of my brother’s death, and told me, besides, that it had occurred fully eight weeks ago.”
“So long as that!” said Davis, dryly.
“Yes, so long as that,” said Beecher, fixing his eyes steadfastly on the other. “He tells me, too, that Lady Lackington wrote twice, or even thrice, to urge me to come on to Italy; that my arrival was looked for hourly. Many other letters were also sent after me, but not one reached my hand. Strange, very strange!”
“I suppose you have them all there now,” said Grog, defiantly, as he pointed to the mass of letters on the dressing-table.
“No, these are all of recent dates, and refer, besides, to others which I have never got.”
“What has become of the others, then?” asked Grog, resolutely.
“That’s the very point I cannot decide, and it is the very question I was about to ask of you.”
“What do you mean?” said Grog, calmly.
“What I mean is this,” said Beecher, “that I am curious to learn how long it is since you knew of my brother’s death?”
“If you ‘d like to hear when I suspected that fact, perhaps I can tell you,” said Grog.
“Well, let me hear so much.”
“It was shortly after your arrival at Holbach.”
“Ah! I thought so – I thought as much!” cried Beecher triumphantly.
“Wait a bit, – wait a bit; don’t be sure you have won the game, I ‘ve a card in my hand yet. When you endorsed certain large bills for Lazarus Stein at Aix, you signed your name ‘Lackington.’ Oh, there’s no denying it, I have them here in this pocket-book. Now, either your brother was dead, or you committed a forgery.”
“You know well, sir,” said Beecher, haughtily, “at whose instance and persuasion I wrote myself Lackington.’”
“I know it! I know nothing about it. But before we carry this controversy further, let me give you a hint: drop this haughty tone you have just taken with me, – it won’t do, – I tell you it won’t. If you ‘re the Lord Viscount to the world, you know deuced well what you are to me, and what, if you push me to it, I could make you to them.”
“Captain Davis, I am inclined to think that we had better come to an understanding at once,” said Beecher, with a degree of firmness he could rarely assume. “Our relations cannot be what they have hitherto been. I will no longer submit to dictation nor control at your hands. Our roads in life lie in opposite directions; we need seldom to meet, never to cross each other. If Lady Lackington accepts the same view of these matters as myself, well; if not, it will not be difficult to suggest an arrangement satisfactory to each of us.”
“And so you think to come the noble Lord over me, do you?” said Grog, with an irony perfectly savage in look and tone. “I always knew you were a fool, but that you could carry your stupid folly that far I never imagined. You want to tell me – if you had the pluck you would tell me – that you are ashamed of having married my daughter, and I tell you that out of your whole worthless, wretched, unmanly life, it is the one sole redeeming action. That she stooped to marry you is another matter, – she that, at this very moment, confers more honor upon your rank than it can ever bestow upon her! Ay! start if you will, but don’t sneer; for if you do, by the eternal Heaven above us, it will be the last laugh you ‘ll ever indulge in!” A sudden movement of his hand towards the breast of his coat gave such significance to the words that Beecher sprang from his seat and approached the bell-rope. “Sit down there, – there, in that chair,” cried Grog, in the thickened accents of passion. “I have n’t done with you. If you call a servant into the room, I’ ll fling you out of the window. If you imagined, when I burned your forged acceptances, that I had n’t another evidence against you stronger than all, you mistook Kit Davis. What! did you think to measure yourself against me? Nature never meant you for that, my Lord Viscount, – never!”
If Davis was carried away by the impetuosity of his savage temper in all this, anger never disabled him from keenly watching Beecher and scanning every line in his face. To his amazement, therefore, did he remark that he no longer exhibited the same extent of fear he had hitherto done. No, he was calmer and more collected than Grog had ever seen him in a moment of trial.
“When your passion has blown over,” said Beecher, quietly, “you will perhaps tell me what it is you want or require of me.”
“Want of you, – want of you!” reiterated Davis, more abashed by the other’s demeanor than he dared to confess, even to himself, – “what can I want of you? or, if I do want anything, it is that you will remember who you are, and who am I. It is not to remember that you are a Lord, and I a leg, – it is not that I mean, – you ‘re not very like to forget it; it is to call to mind that I have the same grip of you I have had any day these ten years, and that I could show up the Viscount Lackington just as easily as the Honorable Annesley Beecher.”
If Beecher’s cheek grew paler, it was only for a moment, and, with an amount of calm dignity of which Grog had not believed him capable, he said, —
“There’s not any use in your employing this language towards me, – there’s not the slightest necessity for me to listen to it. I conclude, after what has passed between us, we cannot be friends: there’s no need, however, of our being enemies.”
“Which means, ‘I wish you a very good-morning, Kit Davis,’ don’t it?” said Grog, with a grin.
Beecher gave a smile that might imply anything.
“Ah! so that’s it?” cried Davis, endeavoring, by any means, to provoke a reply.
Beecher made no answer, but proceeded in most leisurely style with his dressing. #
“Well, that’s candid, anyhow,” said Grog, sternly. “Now, I ‘ll be as frank with you: I thought a few days back that I ‘d done rather a good thing of it, but I find that I backed the wrong horse after all. You are the Viscount, now, but you won’t be so this day six months.”
Beecher turned his head round, and gave a smile of the most insolent incredulity.
“Ay, I know you’ll not believe it, because it is I that tell you; but there came out a fellow from Fordyce’s with the same story, and when you open your letters you ‘ll see it again.”
Beecher’s courage now deserted him, and the chair on which he leaned shook under his grasp.
“Here’s how it is,” said Grog, in a calm, deliberate tone: “Dunn – that same fellow we called on one day together – has fallen upon a paper – a title, or a patent, or a writ, or something – that shows you have no claim to the Viscounty, and that it ought to go, along with the estates, to some man who represents the elder branch. Now Dunn, it seems, was some way deep with your brother. He had been buying land for him, and not paying, or paying the money and not getting the land, – at all events, he was n’t on the square with him; and seeing that you might probably bring him to book, he just says, ‘Don’t go into accounts with me, and here’s your title; give me any trouble, and I ‘ll go over to the enemy.’”
“But there can be no such document.”
“Fordyce’s people say there is. Hankes, Dunn’s own agent, told them the substance of it; and it seems it was on the list of proofs, but they never could lay a hand on it.”
Beecher heard no more, but taking up the lawyer’s letter, which he had thrown so indignantly from him the night before, he began patiently to read it.
“Who can make head or tail of all this?” cried he, in angry impatience. “The fellow writes as if I was a scrivener’s clerk, and knew all their confounded jargon. Mere schemes to extort money these!”
“Not always. There’s now and then a real charge in the gun, and it’s too late to know it when you ‘re hit,” cried Grog, quietly.
“Why do not Fordyce’s people send out a proper person to communicate with myself directly,” said Beecher, haughtily. “They did, and I saw him,” said Grog, boldly.
Beecher grew crimson, and his lip trembled with a convulsive movement. It was very hard indeed to restrain himself, but, with an effort, he succeeded, and simply said, “And then – ”
“And then,” resumed Davis, “I packed him off again.”
“What authority had you to thrust yourself forward in this manner?” cried Beecher, passionately. “What authority? – the interest of my daughter, the Viscountess Lackington,” said Grog, with a mingled insolence and mockery. “You may safely swear it was out of no special regard for you. What authority?” And with this he burst out into a laugh of sarcastic defiance.
“It need not offend you,” said Beecher, “if I say that a question like this must be intrusted to very different hands from yours.”
“You think so, eh?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Well, I am not; so far from it, that I’m ready to declare if I can’t pull you through, there’s not that man living who can. Lawyers can meet lawyers. If one wins a trick here, the other scores one there. This fellow has a deed, – that one has a codicil. It is always the same game; and they ‘re in no hurry to finish, for they are playing on velvet. What ‘s really wanting is some one that does n’t care a rush for a little risk, – ready to bribe this man, – square the other, – burn a parish register, if need be, and come at – at any document that may be required, – at the peril of passing his days at Norfolk Island.”
“You fancy that the whole world is like the ring at Ascot,” said Beecher, sneeringly.
“And ain’t it? What’s the difference, I’d like to know? Is it noble lords like yourself would prove the contrary?”
“I will see Fordyce myself,” said Beecher, coldly.
“You needn’t be at the trouble,” said Davis, calmly. “There’s two ways of doing the thing: one is a compromise with the claimant, who turns out to be that young Conway, the ‘Smasher.’”
“Young Conway, the one-armed fellow?”
“Just so. The other is, to get hold of Dunn’s papers. Now, I have despatched a trusty hand to the Crimea to see about the first of these plans. As for the other, I ‘ll do it myself.”
“How so?”
“Just this way: you shall give me a written authority to demand from Dunn all your family papers and documents, making me out to be your agent for the Irish estates.” Beecher started, and a slight cast of derision marked his lip; but there was that in Grog’s face that speedily suppressed every temptation to sneer, and he grew sick with terror. “Dunn will be for holding out,” resumed Davis. “He ‘ll be for writing to yourself for explanations, instructions, and so forth; and if I were a fellow of his own sort, I ‘d have to agree; but, being what I am, – Kit Davis, you see, – I’ll Just say: ‘No gammon, my old gent. We don’t mean to lose this match, nor don’t mean to let you nobble us. Be on the square, and it will be all the better for yourself.’ We ‘ll soon understand each other.”
A gentle tap at the door here interrupted Davis, and Beecher’s servant, with a most bland voice, said, “Her Ladyship is waiting breakfast, my Lord,” and disappeared.
“Who told him?” asked Beecher, a strange sense of pleasure vibrating through him as this recognition reminded him of his newly acquired station.
“I told him last night,” said Davis, with a look that seemed to say, “And of whatever I do, let there be no farther question.”
As they entered the breakfast-room, they found Lizzy – I must ask pardon if I return at times to their former names in speaking of her and her husband – in conversation with Mr. Twining, that gentleman having presented himself, and explained how he came to be there.
“Do you know Captain Davis, Twining? Let me present him to you,” said Beecher, blushing deeply as he spoke.
“Charmed, my Lord, – much honored, – fancy we have met before, – met at York Spring Meet. Rataplan beat by a neck, – great fun!”
“It was n’t great fun for me,” growled out Grog; “I stood to win on Bruiser.”
“Excellent horse, – capital horse, – wonderful stride!”
“I’ll tell you what he was,” said Grog, sternly, – “a rare bad ‘un!”
“You surprise – amaze me, Captain Davis, – quite astonish me! Always heard a great character of Braiser!”
“You did, did you?” said Grog, with a jocose leer.
“Well, the information wasn’t thrown away, for you laid heavily against him.”
“Most agreeable man, your father-in-law, my Lord,” said Twining, slapping his legs and laughing away in high good humor; then, turning again to Davis, he engaged him in conversation.
Meanwhile Beecher had drawn Lizzy into a recess of the window, and was whispering anxiously to her.
“Did this piece of news take you by surprise?” asked he, scanning her closely as he spoke.
“Yes,” said she, calmly.
“It was quite unexpected,” said he, half in question, – “at least by me,” added he, after a pause.
She saw that some suspicion – she knew not of what, and as possibly cared as little – agitated him, and she turned away to the breakfast-table without speaking. Beecher, however, led her back again to the window. “I ‘d like much to ask you a question,” said he, half timidly; “that is, if I did not fear you might take it ill.”
“And there is such a risk, is there?” asked she.
“Well, it is just possible,” faltered he.
“In that case, take my advice, and do not hazard it.” There was a calm resolution in her tone that carried more weight with it than anything like passion, and Beecher felt in his heart that he dared not reject her counsel.
Lizzy had now taken her place at the breakfast-table, her air, look, and manner being all that could denote a mind perfectly easy and contented. So consummate, too, was her tact, that she gradually led the conversation into that tone of pleasant familiarity when frank opinions are expressed and people talk without restraint; and thus, without the semblance of an effort, she succeeded, while developing any agreeability Beecher possessed, in silencing her father, whose judgments of men and events were not always the safest. As for Twining, she perfectly fascinated him. He was no mean critic in all that regards dress and manners; few men could more unerringly detect a flaw in breeding or a solecism in address. Mere acting, however good, would never have imposed upon him, and all the polish of manner and the charm of a finished courtesy would have failed with him if unaccompanied by that “sentiment” of good breeding which is its last and highest captivation. How subdued was all the flippant mockery of his manner! how respectful the tone in which he accosted her! It was the Viscountess, and not Grog Davis’s daughter, he saw before him. Now Beecher saw all this, and a sense of pride swelled his heart, and made him almost forget his distrusts and suspicions. When breakfast was over, Lizzy, passing her arm within her father’s, led him away. She had many things to say to him, and he to her, so that Beecher and Twining were left alone together.
“Well, Twining,” said Annesley, as he lighted a cigar, “tell me frankly, – don’t you think I might have done worse?”
“Impossible to have done better, – impossible!” said Twining. “I don’t speak of her Ladyship’s beauty, in which she surpasses all I have ever seen, but her manner – her courtesy – has a blending of grace and dignity that would confer honor on the most finished Court in Europe.”
“I’m glad you say so, Twining; men quote you as an authority on these things, and I own frankly I am delighted to have my own judgment so ratified.”
“Her appearance in the world will be such a success as one has not seen for years!” exclaimed Twining.
“She’ll be sharply criticised,” said Beecher, puffing his cigar.
“She can well afford it, my Lord.”
“What will the women say, Twining? She is so good-looking, – what will the women say?”
“Where there’s no rivalry, there will be no dispraise. She is so surpassingly beautiful that none will have courage to criticise; and if they should, where can they detect a fault?”
“I believe you are right, Twining, – I believe you are right,” said Beecher, and his face glowed with pleasure as he spoke. “Where she got her manners I can’t make out,” added he, in a whisper.
“Ay, my Lord, these are Nature’s own secrets, and she keeps them closely.”
“It is the father – old Grog – is the difficulty,” whispered Beecher, still lower; “what can be done with him?”
“Original, certainly; peculiar, – very peculiar, – what fun!” And Twining in an instant recovered all his wonted manner, and slapped away at his legs unmercifully.
“I don’t exactly see the fun of it, – especially for me,” said Beecher, peevishly.
“After all, a well-known man, my Lord, – public character, – a celebrity, so to say.”
“Confound it!” cried Beecher, angrily, “don’t you perceive there lies the whole annoyance? The fellow is known from one end of England to the other. You can’t enter a club of a rainy day, when men sit round the fire, without hearing a story of him; you don’t get to the third station on a railroad till some one says, ‘Have you heard old Grog’s last?’ There’s no end to him?”
“Wonderful resources! – astonishing! – great fun!”
“I’ll be hanged if it is great fun, though you are pleased to say so,” said Beecher, angrily.
Twining was far too good-tempered to feel hurt by this peevishness, and only rubbed his hands and laughed joyfully.
“And the worst of all,” resumed Beecher, – “the worst of all is, he will be a foreground figure; do what you may, he will be in the front of the Stand-house.”
“Get him a situation abroad, my Lord, – something in the colonies,” broke in Twining.
“Not a bad thought that, Twining; only he is so notorious.”
“Doesn’t signify in the least, my Lord. Every office under the Crown has its penal settlements. The Foreign Office makes its culprits consuls; the Colonial sends their chief justices to the Gold Coast; and the Home Secretary’s Botany Bay is Ireland.”
“But would they really give me something, – I mean something he ‘d take?”
“I have n’t a doubt of it, my Lord; I wanted to get rid of a poor relation t’ other day, and they made him a Boundary Commissioner at Baffin’s Bay. Baffin’s Bay! – what fun!” And he laughed immoderately.
“How am I to set about this, Twining? You are aware that up to this I have had no relations with politics or parties.”
“Nothing easier, my Lord; always easy for a peer, – proxy often of great consequence. Write to the Premier, – hint that you are well disposed to adopt his views, – due maintenance of all the glorious privileges of our Constitution, with progressive improvement, – great fun, capital fun! all the landmarks firm and fixed, and as much of your neighbor’s farm as possible. Or if you don’t like to do this, set Davenport Dunn at them; he is your Lordship’s Irish agent, – at least, he was the late Viscount’s, – he ‘ll do it, – none better, none so well!”
“That might be the best way,” said Beecher, musing.
“He’ll be charmed – delighted – overjoyed at this proof of your Lordship’s confidence. He ‘ll go to work at once, and before your Lordship begins to receive, or go out, your amiable and most highly gifted father-in-law may be Income-tax Collector in Cochin-China.”
“Now, there’s only one thing more, Twining, which is, to induce Davis to agree to this. He likes Europe, – likes the life of England and the Continent.”
“Certain he does, – quite sure of it; no man more calculated to appreciate society or adorn it. Capital fun!”
“Do you think,” resumed Beecher, “that you could just throw out a hint – a slight suggestion – to see how he’d take it?”
“Come much better from your Lordship.”
“Well, I don’t know – that is, I half suspect – ”
“Far better, infinitely better, my Lord; your own tact, your Lordship’s good taste – Oh dear me, one o’clock already, and I have an appointment!” And with the most profuse apologies for a hurried departure, and as many excuses to be conveyed to her Ladyship, Mr. Twining disappeared.
Although Twining’s reluctance to carry into execution the tone of policy he suggested did not escape Beecher’s penetration, the policy itself seemed highly recommendable. Grog out of Europe, – Grog beyond the seas, collecting taxes, imprisoning skippers, hunting runaway negroes, or flogging Caffres, – it mattered not, so that he never crossed his sight again. To be sure, it was not exactly the moment to persuade Davis to expatriate himself when his prospects at home began to brighten, and he saw his daughter a peeress. Still, Dunn was a fellow of such marvellous readiness, such astonishing resources! If any man could “hit off” the way here, it was he. And then, how fortunate! Grog was eagerly pressing Beecher to be accredited to this same Davenport Dunn; he asked that he might be sent to confer and negotiate with him about the pending action at law. What an admirable opportunity was this, then, for Dunn to sound Davis and, if occasion served, tempt him with an offer of place! Besides these reasons, valid and sound so far as they went, there was another impulse that never ceased to urge Beecher forward, and this was a vague shadowy sort of impression that if he could only succeed in his plan he should have outwitted Grog, and “done” him. There was a sense of triumph associated with this thought that made his heart swell with pride. In his passion for double-dealing, he began to think how he could effect his present purpose, – by what zigzag and circuitous road, through what tangled scheme of duplicity and trick. “I have it, – I have it,” cried he at length; and he hastened to his dressing-room, and, having locked the door, he opened his writing-desk and sat down to write. But it is not at the end of a chapter I can presume to insert his Lordship’s correspondence.