CHAPTER XXV.
I told the Master enough for him to agree it would be well I should go to town; and to town two days later I went. I had learned, by cautious questioning of Mr. Halidane, that the family was in London, as was Hartover.
So I made my way to the great house in Grosvenor Square, which was not altogether unknown to me. I had stayed there once, for a few days, with the dear boy, during the time of my tutorship; and to my delectation had made acquaintance with its many treasures in the matter of pictures, furniture, and objets d’art. Oh! the priceless possessions of these people, and the little care they had for them!
The men servants, who received me, were unknown to me, supercilious in manner and only just not insolent. I asked for my young lord. He was on guard at St. James’s. They supposed I should hear of him there. Where he lived, when not staying here, they did not know.—Odd, I thought; but the ways of great folks were odd sometimes!
I took a coach and drove to the Palace. My longing to see the boy again was very strong; yet I felt anxious. Would he be greatly changed? Would he be glad or would he think my coming a bore? Above all, how would he take my interference? A sense of the extreme delicacy of my mission increased on me, making me nervous and diffident.
An orderly ushered me into a room where half a dozen dandies were lounging. These stared at me sufficiently, and thought me, evidently, a dun. One beardless youth, indeed, after brushing past me, turning his back to me, and otherwise bristling up like a dog at a strange dog, expressed his opinion aloud.
‘MacArthur!’ to the orderly. ‘Are you not aware that this is a private room?’
‘I am sorry,’ I said instantly, for their impertinence restored my self-confidence, ‘if I am intruding. I simply asked for Lord Hartover, and was, as simply, shown in here.’
I thought the lad might have known me for a gentleman by my voice; but possibly his experience in life had not extended so far, for he answered:
‘Lord Hartover, I imagine, pays his bills at his own house.’
I did redden, I confess, being still young and sensitive; but, after staring at him as full as he stared at me, I answered, bowing:
‘I am afraid I am not so useful a person as a tradesman. I am only a Cambridge scholar, formerly Lord Hartover’s tutor, who wishes to see him upon urgent private business.’
‘I—I really beg your pardon. Pray sit down, sir,’ quoth the sucking hero, evidently abashed, handing me a chair.
But at that moment a pair of broad shoulders, which had been bent over a card-table at the farther end of the room, turned about with:
‘Hey? Why, Brownlow, by all that’s— Odd trick, Ponsonby—wait one moment.—How are you, my dear fellow? And what on earth brings you here among us warriors?’
And the mighty Rusher rose, like Saul the son of Kish a head and shoulders above his fellows. At first I believe he was really pleased to see me. His handsome face was genial, a light of good-natured and kindly amusement in his eye.
‘Well, how are you?’ he repeated. ‘Do you remember Brocklesby Whins and the brown horse? Come up this winter and you shall ride him again; by Jove, you shall—and take the rascally little grey fox home with you. I’ve got him stuffed and ready, as I promised I would; and wondered why you’d not claimed your property before.’
I was beginning to speak, but he ran on:
‘Brother officers, let me introduce you to my friend Mr. Brownlow, as fine a light-weight across country as you need wish to know, and who saved my pack from destruction at the risk of his own life,—a long and prosperous one may it be!’
‘My hunting days are over, I fear,’ I said, as the men of war stared all the more at the lame young don, black-coated, black-breeched and black-stockinged—thinking, I doubt not, I was a ‘rum ’un to look at’ even if a ‘good ’un to go.’
‘But I beg of you to tell me where I can find Lord Hartover; or, if I cannot see him, to let me have a few words with you.’
‘Where is Faublas—anyone know?’ the Colonel asked of the company in general, and so doing I fancied his geniality waned a little and a trace of uneasiness came into his manner. As for me, my heart sank as I heard that name, of all others, used as my poor boy’s sobriquet.
‘Gone down to Chelsea, I believe,’ said the youth who had first spoken to me, hardly repressing a smile. ‘He announced he should dine to-night with the fair unknown.’
‘I question whether he will be at home even to you, then, Brownlow,’ the Colonel declared, forcing a laugh.
‘In that case I am afraid I must ask for a few minutes’ conversation alone with you.’
We went out into the Park; and there, pacing up and down under the leafless trees, I told all I thought fit. I watched his face as I did so. It was unusually serious.
‘I think, my dear fellow,’ he said at last, ‘you had very much better leave this matter alone.’
I asked why. He fenced with me, pointing out that I had nothing more than suspicion to go upon—no real evidence, circumstantial or otherwise. I urged on him the plain fact that the matter could not be let alone. A great felony had been committed; and it was an offence, not only against honour and right, but against law, to withhold such information as I could give.
‘You will repent it,’ he said.
Again I asked why.
‘I beg you to take my word for it, there are reasons,’ he said earnestly. ‘Be advised, my dear Brownlow. Let sleeping dogs lie.’
I was puzzled—how could I help being so? But, more and more, I began to fear the connection between Fédore and Hartover had been resumed.
‘And where is Mademoiselle Fédore now?’ I said presently.
‘’Pon honour, I am not responsible for the whereabouts of gay damsels.’
‘Then she is no longer with lady Longmoor?’
‘No, no—has left her these two months—may be in St. Petersburg by now, or in Timbuctoo, for aught I know.’
‘The police could find her there as well as here.’
His tone changed, becoming as sarcastic as his easy good-nature and not very extensive vocabulary permitted.
‘And so you would really hunt that poor girl to the gallows? Shut her up in gaol—eh? I thought you preached mercy, went in for motives of Christian charity, and so forth. We live and learn—well, well.’
He took another turn, nervously, while I grew increasingly puzzled. Was it possible Fédore might be connected with him, and not with Hartover? If so, what more natural and excusable than his reluctance to satisfy me? That thought softened me.
‘I will do nothing further,’ I said, ‘without consulting his lordship.’
‘His lordship?’ He shrugged his shoulders, laughing contemptuously.
‘Her ladyship, then.’
He paused a moment.
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘you’re right.’ A new light seemed to break on him. ‘Yes,’ he repeated; ‘we’ll go at once on the chance of finding her at home. It is only seven now. Let’s call a coach.’
So back we drove to Grosvenor Square, both in deep thought. Arrived at the house, he took me into a small room, off the hall, and kept me waiting there for the best part of an hour. I began to wonder, indeed, if he had forgotten me altogether, and whether I had not best ring and make some enquiry of the servants.
The room was dimly lit with wax candles, set in sconces high on the silk-panelled wall; yet not so dimly but that, when the Colonel at last returned, I could see he looked pale and agitated, while his hands and lips trembled as he spoke. And my mind carried back to the day of the meet at Vendale Green, when her ladyship—Queen of Beauty that she was—stepped down from her pony-chaise, and stood on the damp turf beside his great bay horse, talking to him; and how, straightening himself up with a jerk, his face grey and aged as that of a man smitten with sudden illness, he answered her: ‘Impossible, utterly impossible’; and how she, turning, with a light laugh, got into the pony-chaise again, waving her hand to him and wishing him good fortune.
‘Yes—you are to go,’ he said to me hurriedly. ‘See Hartover at once. His address is number ⸺ Church Lane, Chelsea. You’ll remember?’
‘I shall.’
‘Remember, too, I am no party to this proceeding of yours. I warned you against it. Whatever happens you will have brought on yourself.’
‘Very good. I am perfectly ready to accept the responsibility of my own actions.’
‘And I say—see here, Brownlow. You won’t tell Hartover I gave you his address.’
‘Of course not, if you desire it. I can decline to say where I learnt it.’
‘He’ll find out, though, through the other officers,’ he muttered, as we crossed the hall and he saw me into the still waiting coach. ‘It’s an accursed business, and we shall come ill out of it. I know we shall; but a woman must have her way.’
‘For Heaven’s sake,’ I cried, ‘remember you are not alone.’
He looked fiercely at me, as one who should say, ‘What have I betrayed?’ Then added with a sneer:
‘Brownlow, I wish to God we’d never seen you. You’re a devilish deal too honest a fellow to have got among us.’
With which cryptic words he went back into the great house, leaving me to drive down to Chelsea, and to my thoughts. What they were I hardly knew myself. Sufficient that I was most miserable and full of questioning dread.
We passed, as it seemed, through endless streets, until we reached the then lonely King’s Road; drove along it, turned to the left down Church Lane, and drew up at a door in a high wall apparently enclosing a garden. I got out of the coach and rang the bell. A moment after I heard a woman’s quick tripping footsteps within. The door was flung wide open, disclosing a covered way leading to a pretty hall, gay with coloured curtains and carpets, and a voice cried:
‘Ah! c’est toi enfin, mon bien aimé. A-t-il perdu le clef encore une fois, le petit étourdi?’
The speaker and I recoiled apart. For, immediately before me, under the passage lamp, was Fédore.
Superbly lovely, certainly, if art can create loveliness, with delicately tinted cheeks and whitened skin; her raven hair arranged, according to the prevailing mode, so as to add as much as possible to her height. Dressed, or rather undressed—for women then wore only little above the waist—in richest orange and crimson; her bare arms and bosom sparkling with jewels—none brighter, though, than these bold and brilliant eyes—there she stood, more like her namesake Empress Theodora than ever, and flashed lightnings into my face—disappointment, rage, scorn, but no trace of fear.
‘And what, pray, does Monsieur Brownlow wish at such an hour of the night?’
‘Nothing, Mademoiselle,’ I answered gravely and humbly. ‘I came to see Lord Hartover, and he is not, I perceive, at home.’
Was she going to shut the door on me? Nothing less. Whether from sheer shamelessness, or whether—as I have often fancied since—she read my errand in my face, she composed herself in an instant, becoming amiable and gracious.
‘Could not Monsieur come in and wait? Would he not stay and sup with us?’
I bowed courteously. She was so superb, so daringly mistress of herself, I could do no less; and said I should be shocked at interrupting such a tête-à-tête. I apologised for having brought her to the door on so cold a night; and, raising my hat, departed, having, at least, taken care to tell her nothing.
Why should I not depart? Had I not seen enough, and more than enough? The Rusher was right so far—for who was I to interfere? What had I to offer Hartover as against that gorgeous and voluptuous figure? If my suspicions could be proved, and I succeeded in parting him from her, would he not go to someone else? And who was I, after all, to judge her, to say hard words to her? If she were dazzled by him, what wonder? If he by her, what wonder either?—Ah! that they had let him marry Nellie, boy though he was, two years ago! But such is not the way of the world; and the way of the world, it seemed, he was doomed to go.—Oh! weary life, wherein all effort for good seemed but as filling the sieve of the Danaides. Oh! weary work for clean living and righteousness, which seemed as a rolling of Sisyphus’ stone for ever up the hill, to see it roll down again. What profit has a man of all his labour? That which has been shall again be, and there is no new thing under the sun.
I went back to Cambridge unhappy, all but cynical and despairing, and settled down to my routine of work again, and to the tender attentions of Mr. Halidane, to whom however I told no word about my fruitless expedition to London. And so sad was I, and in such a state of chronic irritation did Halidane keep me, that I verily believe I should have fallen ill, had not the fresh evil been compensated for by a fresh good—and that good taken the form of renewed intercourse with Mr. Braithwaite.