CHAPTER XIX.—CHARLEY LEICESTER BEWAILS HIS CRUEL MISFORTUNE.
Frere’s answer to Lewis’s note made its appearance at Broadhurst on the morning of the second day after that on which the events narrated in the previous chapter took place. It ran as follows:—
“Dear Lewis,—I think I’ve told you before—(if it wasn’t you it was your sister, which is much the same thing)—not to write such a pack of nonsense as ‘adding to my many kindnesses,’ and all that sort of stuff, because it’s just so much time and trouble wasted. I see no particular kindness in it, that’s the fact. You and she live in the country, and I in town; and if there is anything that either of you want here, why of course it’s natural to tell me to get or to do it for you; and as to apologising, or making pretty speeches every time you require anything, it’s sheer folly; besides, I like doing the things for you. If I didn’t I wouldn’t do them, you may depend upon that; so no more of such rubbish ‘an you love me.’ And now, touching those interesting, or rather interested, individuals, Messrs. Jones & Levi. I thought when I read their letter they were rascals or thereabouts, but a personal interview placed the matter beyond doubt; and if you take my advice, you’ll see them—well, never mind where—but keep your £10 in your pocket, that’s all. Depend upon it, they are more used to making rich men poor than poor ones rich. However, I’ll tell you all their sayings and doings, as far as I am acquainted therewith, and then you can judge for yourself. As soon as I received your letter I trudged off into the city, found the den of thieves—I mean the lawyer’s office—of which I was in search, sent in my card by an unwashed Israelite with a pen behind each ear and ink all over him, whom I took to be a clerk, and by the same unsavoury individual was ushered into the presence of Messrs. Jones & Levi. Jones was a long cadaverous-looking animal, with a clever, bad face, and the eye of a hawk; Levi, a fat Jew, and apparently a German into the bargain, with a cunning expression of countenance and a cringing manner, who gave one the idea of having been fed on oil-cake till he had become something of the sort himself; a kind of man who, if you had put a wick into him, wouldn’t have made a bad candle, only one should so have longed to snuff him out. Well, I soon told these worthies what I was come about, and then waited to hear all they had to say for themselves. The Gentile, being most richly gifted with speech, took upon him to reply—
“‘Let me offer you a chair, Mr. Frere, sir. Delighted to have the honour of making your acquaintance. I speak for my partner and myself—eh, Mr. Levi?’
“‘In courshe, shir. Moosh playsure, Misthur Vreer, shir,’ muttered Levi, who spoke through his nose, after the manner of modern Israelites, as if that organ were afflicted with a permanent cold.
“When I had seated myself Jones returned to the attack by observing: ‘Our letter contained a certain definite and specific offer. Does Mr. Arundel agree to that, Mr. Frere, sir?’
“‘Mr. Arundel has placed the matter entirely in my hands, Mr. Jones,’ replied I; ‘and before I can agree to anything I must understand clearly what benefit my friend is likely to derive from the information hinted at in your letter.’
“‘May I inquire, Mr. Frere, sir, whether you are a professional man?’ asked Jones.
“‘If you mean a lawyer, Mr. Jones,’ replied I, ‘I am thankful to say I am not.’
“I suppose he did not exactly relish my remark, for he resumed, in a less amicable tone than he had used before—
“‘I believe the letter to which I have already referred contained a clear statement of the only’ (he emphasised the word strongly) ‘terms upon which we should be disposed to communicate the information,’ and he glanced towards his partner, who echoed—
“‘De only turmsh.”
“‘Then, gentlemen,’ said I (gentlemen, indeed!), ‘I beg most distinctly to inform you that my friend shall never, with my consent, pay £10 down and become liable for £200 more, this liability depending on a contingency which you have no doubt provided against, on the mere chance that some information in your possession may refer to the exciting cause of his father’s death and prove valuable to him.’
“‘De informationsh ish mosht faluaple,’ broke in Levi.
“‘I beg pardon, Mr. Levi,’ exclaimed Jones quickly, ‘but I believe we agreed this matter was to be left to my management?’
“Levi nodded his large head and looked contrite, while Jones continued: ‘In that case, Mr. Frere, sir, I have only to add that if Mr. Arundel refuses to comply with our terms we shall not part with the information on any others. At the same time, I should advise him to reconsider the matter, for I do not hesitate to say that I quite coincide with Mr. Levi in his opinion concerning the importance of the information which is in our possession.’
“As he said this an idea occurred to me, and I replied—
“‘Suppose, instead of the bond for £200 in the event of some contingency which may never occur, Mr. Arundel were willing to pay £20 down for the information, would you agree to that?’
“‘Say vive and dirtysh,’ put in the Jew, his dull eyes brightening at the prospect of money. ‘Say vive and dirtysh, and it shall pe von pargainsh.’
“‘Would you agree to take that sum, Mr. Jones?’ asked I.
“He glanced at his partner with a slight contraction of the brow and shook his head; but the spirit of avarice aroused in the Jew was not so easily to be put down, and he continued, in a more positive tone than he had yet ventured to use—
“‘Yesh, he dosh agree. Me and my bardner ve vill take the vive and dirtysh poundsh, ready monish, Mr. Vreer.’
“‘Not quite so fast, my good sir,’ returned I. ‘If you are so very ready to give up the bond for £200, to be paid in case the information should prove as valuable as you assert it to be, the natural inference is that you yourself have mighty little faith in the truth of your assertion; and as I happen to be pretty much of that way of thinking also, I shall wish you both good morning.’
“So saying, I put on my hat and walked out of the room, leaving the Jew and the Gentile to fight it out to their own satisfaction.
“I had not a very strong affection for lawyers before, and I can’t say this visit has served to endear the profession to me particularly. You know the old story of the man who defined the difference between an attorney and a solicitor to be much the same as that between an alligator and a crocodile. Well, Messrs. Jones & Levi realised such a definition to the life, for a more detestable brace of rascals I never encountered; and depend upon it, the less you have to do with them the better; at least, such is the opinion of yours for ever and a day (always supposing such an epoch of time may exist),
“Richard Frere.”
“So,” exclaimed Lewis, refolding the letter, “that chance has failed me. Well, I never expected anything would come of it; and yet—heigho! I certainly was born under an unlucky star. I think Frere was rather precipitate. According to his account of his proceedings, he seems to have felt such an intense conviction that the men were rascals that he called on them rather for the purpose of exposing them than to investigate the matter. He prejudged the question. However, I have no doubt the result would have been the same in any case. What a bore it is that men will be rogues! I shall have out those horses again after Walter has got through his lesson. If they go quietly I shall take him with me for a drive to-morrow.” And thus communing with himself, he summoned Walter and commenced the usual morning routine.
Miss Livingstone had, by Lewis’s advice, ordered post-horses to the carriage, and was in that way enabled to accomplish her round of visits. Lewis carried out his intention of driving the iron-greys, who conducted themselves with so much propriety that on the following day he took his pupil with him, and finding the drive pleased and amused the poor boy he repeated it every fine day. Thus a week slipped away, and the time for the General’s return arrived. It was late on the afternoon of the day on which he was expected, and Lewis was wearily assisting poor Walter to spell through a page of dissyllables, when that peculiar gravel-grinding sound became audible which, in a country house, necessarily precedes an arrival. Then there was a great bustle as of excited servants, a Babel-like confusion of tongues, bumps and thumps of heavy luggage, much trampling of feet, ringing of bells and slamming of doors; then the sounds grew fainter, were remitted at intervals, and at last ceased altogether. The house was no longer masterless—General Grant had returned. Walter’s attention, by no means easy to command for five minutes together at the best of times, became so entirely estranged by the commotion above alluded to, that Lewis closed the book in despair and told him to go and play with Faust, who, sitting upright on a rug in front of the fire, was listening with the deepest interest to all that passed in the hall, and was only restrained from barking by a strict sense of propriety operating on a well-disciplined mind. The boy gladly obeyed, and Lewis, resting his aching head on his hand, fell into deep thought—he thought of old times, when, head of his class at a public school, alike leader and idol of the little world in which he moved, his young ambition had shaped out for itself a career in which the bar, the bench, the senate, were to be but stepping-stones to the highest honours to which energy and talent might attain; and he contrasted his present position with the ideal future his boyish fancy had depicted. Then he bethought him of the tyrant who commanded that a living man should be chained to a corpse, and considered how the cold and numbing influence of the dead, gradually paralysing the vital energy of the living, was, as it were, typical of his own fate. He could not but be conscious of unusual powers of mind, for he had tested them in the struggle for honours with the deep and subtile thinkers of Germany, and had come off victorious; and to reflect that these talents, which might have ensured him success in the game of life, were condemned to be wasted in the wearying attempt to call forth the faint germs of reason in the mind of an almost childish idiot! The thought was a bitter one! and yet for months past he had felt resigned to his fate; and the deep interest he took in his pupil’s improvement, together with the time such a quiet life afforded for reflection and self-knowledge, had rendered him contented, if not what is conventionally termed happy. To what then should he attribute his present frame of mind? At this moment a tap at the study door interrupted his meditations, and he was unable to pursue his self-analysis further. Had he done so, he might possibly have discovered that pride, his besetting sin, lay at the root of the evil. As long as he lived in comparative seclusion his duties sat easily upon him; but now that he was again about to mix in society, his position as tutor became galling in the extreme to his haughty nature. As he heard the summons above mentioned he started from his reverie, and sweeping his hair from his forehead by a motion of his hand, exclaimed, “Come in.” As he spoke the door opened, and our old acquaintance, Charley Leicester, lounged into the room.
“Ah! how do you do, Arundel?” he began in his usual languid tone. “I know all the ins and outs of this place, and I thought I should find you here—this used to be my den once upon a time; many a holiday’s task have I groaned over in this venerable apartment. Is that your incubus?” he continued in a lower tone, glancing towards Walter. “Handsome features, poor fellow! Does he understand what one says?”
“Scarcely, unless you speak to him individually,” returned Lewis. “You may talk as you please before him, the chances are he will not attend; but if he does, he will only understand a bit here and there, and even that he will forget the next moment, when some trifle occurs to put it out of his head. Walter, come and shake hands with this gentleman!”
Thus spoken to, Walter turned sheepishly away, and stooping down, hid his face behind Faust. Lewis’s mouth grew stern. “Faust, come here, sir!” The dog arose, looked wistfully at his playfellow, licked his hand lovingly, then walking across the room, crouched down at his master’s feet.
“Now, Walter, look at me.” At this second appeal the boy raised his eyes to Lewis’s face. “Go and shake hands with Mr. Leicester.”
“Don’t worry him on my account, pray, my dear Arundel,” interposed Leicester good-naturedly.
“The General makes a great point of his being introduced to every one; and I make a great point of his doing as I bid him,” returned Lewis with marked emphasis.
But it was unnecessary, if meant as a hint to Walter, for his tutor’s eye appeared to possess a power of fascination over him. No sooner did he meet his glance than he arose from his kneeling position, and going up to Leicester held out his hand saying, “How do you do?”
Charley shook hands with him kindly, asked him one or two simple questions, to which he replied with tolerable readiness; then observing that his eyes were fixed on a silver-mounted cane he held in his hand, he inquired whether he thought it pretty, and receiving an answer in the affirmative, added, “Then you may take it to amuse yourself with, if you like.”
A smile of childish delight proved that the offer was an acceptable one; and carrying off his treasure with him and calling Faust, who on a sign from his master gladly obeyed the summons, he betook himself to the farther end of the room, which was a very large one, and began playing with his canine associate. Leicester gazed at him for a moment or two, and then observed—
“What a sad pity! Such a fine-grown, handsome lad, too! Why, in a year or two he will be a man in appearance, with the mind of a child. Does he improve much?”
“Yes, he improves steadily, but very slowly,” returned Lewis.
Leicester wandered dreamily up to a chimney-glass, arranged his hair with an air of deep abstraction, pulled up his shirt-collars, caressed his whiskers, then separating the tails of a nondescript garment, which gave one the idea of a cut-away coat trying to look like a shooting-jacket, he extended his legs so as to form two sides of a triangle, and subjecting his frigid zone to the genial influence of the fire, he enjoyed for some minutes in silence the mysterious delight afforded to all true-born Englishmen by the peculiar position above indicated. At length he sighed deeply and muttered, “Heigho! it’s no use thinking about it.”
“That depends on what it is, and how you set to work to think,” returned Lewis.
“That may do as a general rule,” continued Leicester, “but it won’t apply to the case in point. The thing I was trying to cipher out, as the Yankees call it, is the incomprehensible distribution of property in this sublunary life. Now look at that poor boy—a stick for a plaything and a dog for a companion make him perfectly happy. Those are his only superfluous requirements, which together with eating, drinking, clothing, and lodging might be provided for £300 a year. Instead of that, when he is twenty-one he will come into from £8000 to £10,000 per annum, besides no end of savings during his minority. Well, to say nothing of your own case” (Lewis’s cheek kindled and his eye flashed, but Leicester, absorbed in his own thoughts, never noticed it, and continued), “though with your talents a little loose cash to give you a fair start might be the making of you—-just look at my wretched position,—the son of a peer, brought up in all kinds of expensive habits, mixing in the best set at Eton and at Oxford, the chosen associate of men of large property, introduced into the highest society in London—of course I must do as others do, I can’t help myself. There are certain things necessary to a young man about town just as indispensable as smock-frocks and bacon are to a ploughman. For instance, to live one must dine—to dine one must belong to a club. Then London is a good large place, even if one ignores everything east of Temple Bar; one must keep a cab if but to save boot-leather—that entails a horse and a tiger. Again, for four months in the year people talk about nothing but the opera—one can’t hold one’s tongue for four months, you know—that renders a stall indispensable. It’s the fashion to wear white kid gloves, and the whole of London comes off black on everything, so there’s a fine of 3s. 6d. a night only for having hands at the end of one’s arms. The atmosphere of the metropolis is composed chiefly of smoke—the only kind of smoke one can inhale without being choked is tobacco smoke; besides, life without cigars would be a desert without an oasis—but unfortunately Havannahs don’t hang on every hedge. I might multiply instances ad infinitum, but the thing is self-evident—to provide all these necessaries a man must possess money or credit, and I unfortunately have more of the latter than the former article. It is, as I have explained to you, utterly impossible for me to exist on less than—say £1500 a year; and even with my share of my poor mother’s fortune and the Governor’s allowance, my net income doesn’t amount to £800; ergo, half the London and all the Oxford tradesmen possess little manuscript volumes containing interesting reminiscences of my private life. It’s no laughing matter, I can assure you,” he continued, seeing Lewis smile; “there’s nothing cramps a man’s”—here he released a coat-tail in order to raise his hand to conceal a yawn—“augh! what do you call ’em?—energies—so much as having a load of debt hanging round his neck. If it hadn’t been for those confounded Oxford bills checking me at first starting, ’pon my word I don’t know that I might not have done something. I had ideas about a parliamentary career at one time, I can assure you, or diplomacy—any fool’s good enough for an attaché. Now, if I had that poor boy’s fortune, and he had my misfortune, what an advantage it would be to both of us; he’ll never know what to do with his money, and I should—rather! Just fancy me with £10,000 a year, and a coat on my back that was paid for. By Jove, I should not know myself. Ah, well! it’s no use talking about it; all the same, I am an unlucky beggar.”
“But,” interposed Lewis eagerly, “if you really dislike the life you lead so much, why don’t you break through all these trammels of conventionality and strike out some course for yourself? With £800 a year to ward off poverty, and the interest you might command, what a splendid career lies before you! Were I in your position, instead of desponding I should deem myself singularly fortunate.”
“So you might, my dear fellow,” returned Leicester, after pausing for a minute to regard Lewis with a smile of languid wonder. “So you might with your talents, and—and wonderful power of getting up the steam and keeping it at high pressure. I dare say we should see you a Field Marshal if you took to the red cloth and pipe-clay trade; or on the woolsack if you preferred joining the long-robed gentlemen. Now, I haven’t got that sort of thing in me: I was born to be a man of property, and nothing else; and the absurdity of the thing is the bringing a man into the world fit only for one purpose, and then placing him in a position in which, to use the cant of the day, he can’t ‘fulfil his mission’ at any price. It’s just as if nature were to form a carnivorous animal, and then turn it out to grass.” Having delivered himself of this opinion with the air of a deeply injured man, the Honourable Charles Leicester consulted a minute Geneva watch with an enamelled back, and replacing it in his waistcoat pocket, continued, “Five o’clock; I shall just have time to smoke a cigar before it is necessary to dress for dinner. I presume tobacco is a contraband article in the interior of this respectable dwelling-house?”
“A salutary dread of Miss Livingstone’s indignation has prevented me from ever trying such an experiment,” returned Lewis.
“Well, I won’t run the risk of offending the good lady,” replied Leicester. “Aunt Martha has a wonderful knack of blighting the whole family for the rest of the day if one happens to run against one of her pet prejudices. By the way, you must have found her a most interesting companion?”
“We are great friends, I can assure you,” rejoined Lewis. “She condescends to patronise me most benignantly; but I have not spoken half-a-dozen times with her in as many months.”
“I suppose she has enlightened you as to the events about to come off during the next three weeks.”
“By no means. Beyond the fact of the General’s return, and the information that the house was to be filled with people, Miss Livingstone has allowed me to remain in a state of the most lamentable ignorance.”
“What! have not you heard that the county is vacant, and the General has been persuaded to allow himself to be nominated as a candidate on the conservative interest?”
“But I thought he was already member for the borough of A————?”
“Yes; he will resign that if he succeeds for the county. Oh, you’re quite in the dark, I see; we mean to stir heaven and earth to get him in. My father gives him all his interest—Bellefield is coming down to look up the tenantry. You know we (that is, Belle and the Governor, worse luck) have large estates in the county. Belle can do a little bit of love-making in between whiles, and so kill two birds with one stone. And who else do you think is coming?—a very great man, I can assure you; no less a personage, in fact, than—ar—the De Grandeville! He has been induced to—ar—” (and here he mimicked De Grandeville’s pompous manner inimitably) “throw his little influence—ar—into the scale, and—ar—show himself on the hustings, and—ar—arrange one or two matters which will in fact—ar—render the thing secure! The plain truth being that he really is a good man of business, and the General has engaged him as an electioneering agent. Well, then, there are a lot of people coming besides; and balls and dinners will be given to half the county. In short, the General means to do the thing in style, and spend as much money as would keep me out of debt for the next three years. Several parties are to arrive to-morrow, so the General brought Annie and me down with him as a sort of advanced guard. There will be some fun, I dare say; but an awful deal of trouble to counterbalance it. I shall lose my cigar, though, if I stand gossiping here any longer. Let me see, the nearest way to the stables will be to jump out of that window; deduct the distance saved from the amount of exertion in leaping, and the remainder will be the gain of a minute and a half. Well, time is precious, so off we go. I suppose you appear in the course of the evening? Take care, Walter; that is right.”
Thus saying, he flung open the window, sprang out with more agility than from his usual listless movements might have been expected, pulled the sash down again, and having nodded good-naturedly to Walter, disappeared.
General Grant felt and expressed himself greatly delighted at the marked improvement which had taken place in his ward’s manner and appearance, and attributing it with justice to Lewis’s judicious management, that young gentleman rose many degrees in his employer’s favour. The General was essentially a practical man—he was endowed with a clear head, and (save where prejudice interfered) a sound judgment, and being happily devoid of that inconvenient organ, a heart (whence proceed, amongst other reprehensible emigrants, the whole host of amiable weaknesses, which merely gain for their proprietor that most useless, because unsaleable, article—affection), he looked upon his fellow-creatures as machines, and weighing them in the balance, patronised those only who were not found wanting. Lewis had proved himself a good teaching machine, and the General valued him accordingly.
“The great point now, Mr. Arundel,” he said, “is to endeavour to expand your pupil’s mind. You have developed in him (and I give you great credit for the degree of success you have attained) powers of acquiring knowledge,—those powers must be cultivated; he must have opportunities afforded him of seeing people and amassing facts for himself; and to this end it is my wish that he should mix as much as possible in society. I am about to entertain a large party at Broad-hurst, and I conceive that it will be a desirable opportunity to accustom Sir Walter to the presence of strangers, and to enable him, by the force of example acting on his imitative powers, to acquire the manners and habits of those of his own rank. I therefore propose that after two o’clock on each day your pupil and yourself should join the family circle and enter into any schemes for amusement or exercise which may be arranged. I consider myself most fortunate,” continued the General, with a little patronising inclination of the head towards Lewis, “in having secured the services of a gentleman whom I can with such entire satisfaction present to my friends.”
In compliance with this injunction Lewis was forced, much against his will, to withdraw from the retirement under the shadow of which he had hitherto contrived to screen himself from those annoyances to which his dependent situation exposed him, and which his sensitive nature led him especially to dread. On the following day arrivals succeeded one another with great rapidity, and when Lewis joined the party after luncheon there were several faces with which he was unacquainted. One, however, immediately arrested his attention, and turning to Leicester, he inquired the name of the person in question.
“Eh! who is the man with moustaches, did you say? What! don’t you know him?” exclaimed Leicester, if, indeed, the slow, languid manner in which that young gentleman was accustomed to promulgate his sentiments can be properly so termed. “How very odd! I thought everybody knew him; that’s my frère aîné Bellefield; come with me, and I’ll introduce you.”
“Excuse me,” returned Lewis, drawing back with a flushed cheek as the recollection of the scene on the banks of the Serpentine came vividly before him. “I had no idea it was your brother; I never imagined for a moment——”
“My dear Arundel, don’t excite yourself; as a general rule, there’s nothing in this life worth getting up the steam about,” returned Leicester, drawing on a kid glove. “Bellefield will be extremely happy to make your acquaintance—in fact, he is always extremely happy. If you were to cut your throat before his very eyes he would be extremely happy, and if he thought you did it well, probably fold his arms, ask what you would take for the razor, and be extremely happy to buy it of you. But as he’ll be constantly here, there exists a positive necessity for you to know him—so come along.”
Thus saying, Charley Leicester linked his arm in that of Lewis and carried him off, nolens volens, to be introduced to his brother.
Lord Bellefield having seen Lewis only once before, and under very peculiar circumstances, did not immediately recognise him; and having made up his mind that for electioneering purposes it was necessary to bear all species of social martyrdom amiably, underwent his introduction to Lewis with great resignation, curling up his moustaches and showing his white teeth in a ready-made smile—of which article he had always a stock on hand—most condescendingly.
Lewis’s was, however, a face that once seen it was not easy to forget. Moreover, there was at that moment an expression gleaming in his dark eyes not altogether consistent with the conventional indifference befitting a mere social introduction, and Lord Bellefield was too close an observer not to notice it.
“I’ve a strange idea I’ve seen you somewhere before, Mr. Arundel,” he remarked.
“If I am not much mistaken,” returned Lewis, “your lordship once did me the honour,” and he laid a slightly sarcastic emphasis on the words, “to offer me a sum of money for a favourite dog.”
There was something in Lewis’s manner as he uttered these words which showed that he had neither forgotten nor forgiven the insult that had been offered him. Lord Bellefield perceived it, and replied, with a half-sneer—
“Ay, I recollect now—you jumped into the water to fish him out; and I naturally imagined that, as you appeared to set such store by him, you must expect to make money of him. Have you got him still?”
Lewis replied in the affirmative, and his lordship continued—
“Well, I’ll give you your own price for him any day you like to name the sum.”
Without waiting for an answer he turned away and began conversing in an undertone with his cousin Annie.