“That may be; but you ought to have been more than passive in the matter. Your fears would have prevented you letting your niece stop for a night in an unhealthy locality. You’d not have suffered her to halt in the Pontine Marshes; but you can see no danger in linking her whole future life to influences five thousand times more depressing. I tell you, and I tell you deliberately, that she’d have a far better chance of happiness with a scamp like myself.”
“Ah, I need not tell you my own sentiments on that point,” said she, with a deep sigh.
Calvert apparently set little store by such sympathy, for he rose, and throwing away the end of his cigar, stood looking out over the lake. “Here comes Onofrio, flourishing some letters in his hand. The idiot fancies the post never brings any but pleasant tidings.”
“Let us go down and meet him,” said Miss Grainger; and he walked along at her side in silence.
“Three for the Signor Capitano,” said the boatman, “and one for the signorina,” handing the letters as he landed.
“Drayton,” muttered Calvert; “the others are strange to me.”
“This is from Joseph. How glad poor Florry will be to get it.”
“Don’t defer her happiness, then,” said he, half-sternly; “I’ll sit down on the rocks here and con over my less pleasant correspondence.” One was from his lawyer, to state that outlawry could no longer be resisted, and that if his friends would not come forward at once with some satisfactory promise of arrangement, the law must take its course. “My friends,” said he, with a bitter laugh, “which be they?” The next he opened was from the army agents, dryly setting forth that as he had left the service it was necessary he should take some immediate steps to liquidate some regimental claims against him, of which they begged to enclose the particulars. He laughed bitterly and scornfully as he tore the letter to fragments and threw the pieces into the water. “How well they know the man they threaten!” cried he defiantly. “I’d like to know how much a drowning man cares for his duns?” He laughed again. “Now for Drayton. I hope this will be pleasanter than its predecessors.” It was not very long, and it was as follows:
“The Rag, Tuesday.
“Dear Harry,—Your grateful compliments on the dexterity of
my correspondence in the Meteor arrived at an unlucky
moment, for some fellow had just written to the editor a
real statement of the whole affair, and the next day came a
protest, part French, part English, signed by Edward
Rochefort, Lieutenant-Colonel; Gustavus Brooke, D.L.;
George Law, M.D.; Albericde Raymond, Vicomte, and Jules de
Lassagnac. They sent for me to the office to see the
document, and I threw all imaginable discredit on its
authenticity, but without success. The upshot is, I have
lost my place as ‘own correspondent,’ and you are in a very
bad way. The whole will appear in print to-morrow, and be
read from Hudson’s Bay to the alaya. I have done my best to
get the other papers to disparage the statement, and have
written all the usual bosh about condemning a man in his
absence, and entreating the public to withhold its judgment,
&c. &c; but they all seem to feel that the tide of popular
sentiment is too strong to resist, and you must be
pilloried; prepare yourself, then, for a pitiless pelting,
which, as parliament is not sitting, will probably have a
run of three or four weeks.
“In any other sort of scrape, the fellows at the club here
would have stood by you, but they shrink from the danger of
this business, which I now see was worse than you told me.
Many, too, are more angry with you for deserting B. than for
shooting the other fellow; and though B. was an arrant snob,
now that he is no more you wouldn’t believe what shoals of
good qualities they have discovered he possessed, and he is
‘poor Bob’ in the mouth of twenty fellows who would not have
been seen in his company a month ago. There is, however,
worse than all this: a certain Reppingham, or Reppengham,
the father of B.‘s wife, has either already instituted, or
is about to institute, proceedings against you criminally.
He uses ugly words, calls it a murder, and has demanded a
warrant for your extradition and arrest at once. There is a
story of some note you are said to have written to B., but
which arrived when he was insensible, and was read by the
people about him, who were shocked by its heartless levity.
What is the truth as to this? At all events, Rep has got a
vendetta fit on him, and raves like a Corsican for
vengeance. Your present place of concealment, safe enough
for duns, will offer no security against detectives. The
bland blackguards with black whiskers know the geography of
Europe as well as they know the blind alleys about
Houndsditch. You must decamp, therefore; get across the
Adriatic into Dalmatia, or into Greece. Don’t delay,
whatever you do, for I see plainly, that in the present
state of public opinion, the fellow who captures you will
come back here with a fame like that of Gérard the lion-
killer. Be sure of one thing, if you were just as clean
handed in this business as I know you are not, there is no
time now for a vindication. You must get out of the way,
and wait. The clubs, the press, the swells at the Horse
Guards, and the snobs at the War-office, are all against
you, and there’s no squaring your book against such long
odds. I am well aware that no one gets either into or out of
a scrape more easily than yourself; but don’t treat this as
a light one: don’t fancy, above all, that I am giving you
the darkest side of it, for, with all our frankness and free
speech together, I couldn’t tell you the language people
hold here about it There’s not a man you ever bullied at
mess, or beat at billiards, that is not paying off his
scores to you now! And though you may take all this easily,
don’t undervalue its importance.
“I haven’t got—and I don’t suppose you care much now to
get—any information about Loyd, beyond his being appointed
something, Attorney-General’s ‘devil,’ I believe, at
Calcutta. I’d not have heard even so much, but he was trying
to get a loan, to make out his outfit, from Joel, and old
Isaac told me who he was, and what he wanted. Joel thinks,
from the state of the fellow’s health, that no one will like
to advance the cash, and if so, he’ll be obliged to
relinquish the place. You have not told me whether you wish
this, or the opposite.
“I wish I could book up to you at such a moment as this, but
I haven’t got it I send you all that I can scrape
together, seventy odd; it is a post bill, and easily cashed
anywhere. In case I hear of anything that may be
imminently needed for your guidance, I’ll telegraph to you
the morrow after your receipt of this, addressing the
message to the name Grainger, to prevent accidents. You must
try and keep your friends from seeing the London papers so
long as you stay with them. I suppose, when you leave,
you’ll not fret about the reputation that follows you. For
the last time, let me warn you to get away to some place of
safety, for if they can push matters to an arrest, things
may take an ugly turn.
“They are getting really frightened here about India at last
Harris has brought some awful news home with him, and they’d
give their right hands to have those regiments they sent off
to China to despatch now to Calcutta. I know this will be
all ‘nuts’ to you, and it is the only bit of pleasant
tidings I have for you. Your old prediction about England
being a third-rate power, like Holland, may not be so far
from fulfilment as I used to think it I wonder shall we ever
have a fireside gossip over all these things again? At
present, all looks too dark to get a peep into the future.
Write to me at once, say what you mean to do, and believe me
as ever, yours,
“A. Drayton.
“I have just heard that the lawyers are in doubt as to the
legality of extradition, and Braddon declares dead against
it. In the case they relied on, the man had come to England
after being tried in France, thinking himself safe, as
‘autrefois acquit;’ but they found him guilty at the Old
Bailey, and——him. There’s delicacy for you, after
your own heart”