Cunningham smiled significantly, but was silent—his air of frankness vanished, and his solemn reserve returned. “Cunningham will never be hurt in that way,” thought Godfrey; “I never saw a fellow so careful of himself. I am convinced he would not hazard his little finger to save the whole British empire, much less to serve a private friend like me, or a poor honest man like Gascoigne.”
Godfrey was too proud to make any further attempts to interest his diplomatic cousin in the affair. He rose, and bade the secretary adieu, who, with proper smiles and bows, attended him to the very door.
“Thank Heaven!” thought Godfrey, as he left the secretary’s office, “I am not forced to dance attendance upon any great man, or any great man’s secretary. I am—like my father—independent, and will keep myself so; and if ever I live upon a smile for years, it shall not be upon the smiles of a minister, but on those of a fair lady.”
Godfrey left town immediately, and returned to his regiment.
CHAPTER VIII.
Little versed in the ways of courts or courtiers, Godfrey had been easily deceived by the apparent candour of Cunningham Falconer. The fact was, that Cunningham, not directly from himself, but by means of persons of whom Lord Oldborough could have no suspicion, had insinuated to his lordship that Godfrey Percy was the secret cause of the aversion Miss Hauton showed to the proposed match with the Marquis of Twickenham. This idea once suggested was easily confirmed by the account of the young lady’s behaviour at the opera, which was reported to Lord Oldborough with proper exaggerations, and with a total misrepresentation of Godfrey’s conduct. The fainting at the ball was also recollected, and many other little circumstances combined to bring conviction to Lord Oldborough’s mind. He was now persuaded that Major Gascoigne’s business was merely a pretence for Godfrey’s coming to town: apprehension of being disappointed in completing an alliance essential to his ambitious views, pique at the idea of being deceived, and nearly duped by a boy and girl, a rooted hatred and utter contempt for love and love affairs, altogether produced that change in Lord Oldborough’s manner towards Captain Percy which had appeared so extraordinary.—Had Captain Percy delayed to leave town, he would next day have received orders from his commanding officer to join his regiment. As to Major Gascoigne’s business, it had made so little impression upon Lord Oldborough, that he had totally forgotten the poor major’s name till Godfrey repeated it to him. Indeed, Godfrey himself could scarcely have blamed his lordship for this, had he known how much business, how many cares pressed at this time upon the mind of the unhappy statesman.—Besides a load of public business, and all the open and violent attacks of opposition, which he had usually to sustain, he was now under great and increasing anxiety from the discovery of that plot against him, among his immediate associates in office, which the Tourville papers, deciphered by Commissioner Falconer and Cunningham, had but partially revealed. Lord Oldborough was in the condition of a person apprised that he is standing upon ground that is undermined, but who does not know exactly by what hand or at what moment the train that may destroy him is to be set on fire. One word frequently recurred in the Tourville papers, which puzzled Commissioner Falconer extremely, and of which he was never able to make out the meaning; the word was Gassoc. It was used thus: “We are sorry to find that the Gassoc has not agreed to our proposal.”—“No answer has been given to question No. 2 by the Gassoc.”—“With regard to the subsidy, of which 35,000l. have not been sent or received, the Gassoc has never explained; in consequence, great discontents here.”—“If the Gassoc be finally determined against the Eagle, means must be taken to accomplish the purposes alluded to in paragraph 4, in green (of the 7th ult.), also those in No. B. in lemon juice (of September last).”—“The Gassoc will take notes of the mining tools forgotten—also bullets too large, and no flints (as per No. 9, in sympathetic ink)—also the sea charts, sent instead of maps—consequent delay in march of troops—loss of fortress—to be attributed to the Eagle.”
The Eagle, which at first had been taken for granted to be the Austrian eagle, was discovered to be Lord Oldborough. An eagle was his lordship’s crest, and the sea-charts, and the mining-tools, brought the sense home to him conclusively. It was plain that the Gassoc stood for some person who was inimical to Lord Oldborough, but who it could be was the question. Commissioner Falconer suggested, that for Gassoc, you should read Gosshawk; then, said he, “by finding what nobleman or gentleman has a gosshawk in his arms, you have the family name, and the individual is afterwards easily ascertained.” To the Heralds’-office the commissioner went a gosshawking, but after spending a whole day with the assistance of Garter king at arms, he could make nothing of his gosshawks, and he gave them up.
He next presumed that there might be a mistake of one letter in the foreign spelling of the word, and that Gassoc should be Cassock, and might then mean a certain bishop, who was known to be a particular enemy of Lord Oldborough. But still there were things ascribed to the Gassoc, which could not come within the jurisdiction or cognizance of the Cassock—and the commissioner was reluctantly obliged to give up the church. He next suggested, that not only one letter, but every letter in the word might be mistaken in the foreign spelling, and that Gassoc might be the French or German written imitation of the oral sound of some English proper name. The commissioner supported this opinion very plausibly by citing many instances of the barbarous spelling of English names by foreigners: Bassompierre writes Jorchaux for York-house, Innimthort for Kensington; even in the polite memoirs of le Comte de Grammont, we have Soutkask for Southesk, and Warméstre for some English name not yet deciphered. Upon this hint the commissioner and Cunningham made anagrams of half the noble names in England, but in vain.