“Yes, and a true gentleman’s heart, too!”
“So I thought; yet I fancied I knew the world! After that conversation, I quitted our host’s roof, and only once or twice afterwards, at country-houses, met William Losely again. To say truth, his chief patrons and friends were not exactly in my set. But your father continued to see Willy pretty often. They took a great fancy to each other. Charlie, you know, was jovial—fond of private theatricals, too; in short, they became great allies. Some years after, as ill-luck would have it, Charles Haughton, while selling off his Middlesex property, was in immediate want of L1,200. He could get it on a bill, but not without security. His bills were already rather down in the market, and he had already exhausted most of the friends whose security was esteemed by accommodators any better than his own. In an evil hour he had learned that poor Willy had just L1,500 out upon mortgage; and the money-lender, who was lawyer for the property on which the mortgage was, knew it too. It was on the interest of this L1,500 that Willy lived, having spent the rest of his little capital in settling his son as a clerk in a first-rate commercial house. Charles Haughton went down to shoot at the house where Willy was a guest-shot with him—drank with him—talked with him—proved to him, no doubt, that long before the three months were over the Middlesex property would be sold; the bill taken up, Willy might trust to his Honour. Willy did trust. Like you, my dear Lionel, he had not moral courage to say ‘No.’ Your father, I am certain, meant to repay him; your father never in cold blood meant to defraud any human being; but—your father gambled! A debt of honour at piquet preceded the claim of a bill-discounter. The L1,200 were forestalled—your father was penniless. The money-lender came upon Willy. Sure that Charles Haughton would yet redeem his promise, Willy renewed the bill another three months on usurious terms; those months over, he came to town to find your father hiding between four walls, unable to stir out for fear of arrest. Willy had no option but to pay the money; and when your father knew that it was so paid, and that the usury had swallowed up the whole of Willy’s little capital, then, I say, I saw upon Charles Haughton’s once radiant face the saddest expression I ever saw on mortal man’s. And sure I am that all the joys your father ever knew as a man of pleasure were not worth the agony and remorse of that moment. I respect your emotion, Lionel, but you begin as your father began; and if I had not told you this story, you might have ended as your father ended.”
Lionel’s face remained covered, and it was only by choking gasps that he interrupted—the Colonel’s narrative. “Certainly,” resumed Alban Morley, in a reflective tone “certainly that villain—I mean William Losely, for villain he afterwards proved to be—had the sweetest, most forgiving temper! He might have gone about to his kinsmen and friends denouncing Charles Haughton, and saying by what solemn promises he had been undone. But no! such a story just at that moment would have crushed Charles Haughton’s last chance of ever holding up his head again, and Charles told me (for it was through Charles that I knew the tale) that Willy’s parting words to him were ‘Do not fret, Charles—after all, my boy is now settled in life, and I am a cat with nine lives, and should fall on my legs if thrown out of a garret window. Don’t fret.’ So he kept the secret, and told the money-lender to hold his tongue. Poor Willy! I never asked a rich friend to lend me money but once in my life. It was then I went to Guy Darrell, who was in full practice, and said to him: ‘Lend me one thousand pounds. I may never repay you.’ ‘Five thousand pounds, if you like it,’ said he. ‘One will do.’
“I took the money and sent it to Willy. Alas! he returned it, writing word that ‘Providence had been very kind to him; he had just been appointed to a capital place, with a magnificent salary.’ The cat had fallen on its legs. He bade me comfort Haughton with that news. The money went back into Darrell’s pocket, and perhaps wandered thence to Charles Haughton’s creditors. Now for the appointment. At the country-house to which Willy had returned destitute, he had met a stranger (no relation), who said to him: ‘You live with these people—shoot their game—break in their horses—see to their farms—and they give you nothing! You are no longer very young—you should lay by your little income, and add to it. Live with me and I will give you L300 a-year. I am parting with my steward—take his place, but be my friend.’ William Losely of course closed with the proposition. This gentleman, whose name was Gunston, I had known slightly in former times—(people say I know everybody)—a soured, bilious, melancholy, indolent, misanthropical old bachelor. With a splendid place universally admired, and a large estate universally envied, he lived much alone, ruminating on the bitterness of life and the nothingness of worldly blessings. Meeting Willy at the country-house to which, by some predestined relaxation of misanthropy, he had been decoyed-for the first time for years Mr. Gunston was heard to laugh. He said to himself, ‘Here is a man who actually amuses me.’ William Losely contrived to give the misanthrope a new zest of existence; and when he found that business could be made pleasant, the rich man conceived an interest in his own house, gardens, property. For the sake of William’s merry companionship, he would even ride over his farms, and actually carried a gun. Meanwhile, the property, I am told, was really well managed. Ah! that fellow Willy was a born genius, and could have managed everybody’s affairs except his own. I heard of all this with pleasure—(people say I hear everything)—when one day a sporting man seizes me by the button at Tattersall’s—‘Do you know the news? Will Losely is in prison on a charge; of robbing his employer.’”
“Robbing! incredible!” exclaimed Lionel.
“My dear Lionel, it was after hearing that news that I established as invariable my grand maxim, Nil admirari—never to be astonished at anything!”
“But of course he was innocent?”
“On the contrary, he confessed,—was committed; pleaded guilty, and was transported! People who knew Willy said that Gunston ought to have declined to drag him before a magistrate, or, at the subsequent trial, have abstained from giving evidence against him; that Willy had been till then a faithful steward; the whole proceeds of the estate lead passed through his hands; he might, in transactions for timber, have cheated undetected to twice the amount of the alleged robbery; it must have been a momentary aberration of reason; the rich man should have let him off. But I side with the rich man. His last belief in his species was annihilated. He must have been inexorable. He could never be amused, never be interested again. He was inexorable and—vindictive.”
“But what were the facts?—what was the evidence?”
“Very little came out on the trial; because, in pleading guilty, the court had merely to consider the evidence which had sufficed to commit him. The trial was scarcely noticed in the London papers. William Losely was not like a man known about town. His fame was confined to those who resorted to old-fashioned country-houses, chiefly single men, for the sake of sport. But stay. I felt such an interest in the case, that I made an abstract or praecis, not only of all that appeared, but all that I could learn of its leading circumstances. ‘Tis a habit of mine, whenever any of my acquaintances embroil themselves with the Crown—” The Colonel rose, unlocked a small glazed bookcase, selected from the contents a MS. volume, reseated himself, turning the pages, found the place sought, and reading from it, resumed his narrative. “One evening Mr. Gunston came to William Losely’s private apartment. Losely had two or three rooms appropriated to himself in one side of the house; which was built in a quadrangle round a courtyard. When Losely opened his door to Mr. Gunston’s knock, it struck Mr. Gunston that his manner seemed confused. After some talk on general subjects, Losely said that he had occasion to go to London next morning for a few days on private business of his own. This annoyed Mr. Gunston. He observed that Losely’s absence just then would be inconvenient. He reminded him that a tradesman, who lived at a distance, was coming over the next day to be paid for a vinery he had lately erected, and on the charge for which there was a dispute. Could not Losely at least stay to settle it? Losely replied, ‘that he had already, by correspondence, adjusted the dispute, having suggested deductions which the tradesman had agreed to, and that Mr. Gunston would only have to give a cheque for the balance—viz. L270.’ Thereon Mr. Gunston remarked: ‘If you were not in the habit of paying my bills for me out of what you receive, you would know that I seldom give cheques. I certainly shall not give one now, for I have the money in the house.’ Losely observed ‘That is a bad habit of yours keeping large sums in your own house. You may be robbed.’ Gunston answered ‘Safer than lodging large sums in a country bank. Country banks break. My grandfather lost L1,000 by the failure of a country bank; and my father, therefore, always took his payments in cash, remitting them to London from time to time as he went thither himself. I do the same, and I have never been robbed of a farthing that I know of. Who would rob a great house like this, full of menservants?’—‘That’s true,’ said Losely; ‘so if you are sure you have as much by you, you will pay the bill and have done with it. I shall be back before Sparks the builder comes to be paid for the new barn to the home farm-that will be L600; but I shall be taking money for timber next week. He can be paid out of that.”