Barrington Volume Ii Part 10

"I believe I have told you already; I hope there is nothing so strange in the a.s.surance as to require corroboration. Come, I must say good-bye; I meant to have said five words to you, and I have stayed here five-and-twenty minutes."

"Would n't you take something?--could n't I offer you anything?" said M'Cormick, hesitatingly.

"Nothing, thanks. I lunched before I started; and although old Dinah made several a.s.saults upon me while I ate, I managed to secure two cutlets and part of a grouse-pie, and a rare gla.s.s of Madeira to wash them down."

"That old woman is dreadful, and I'll take her down a peg yet, as sure as my name is Dan."

"No, don't, Major; don't do anything of the kind. The people who tame tigers are sure to get scratched at last, and n.o.body thanks them for their pains. Regard her as the sailors do a fire-s.h.i.+p; give her a wide berth, and steer away from her."

"Ay, but she sometimes gives chase."

"Strike your flag, then, if it must be; for, trust me, you 'll not conquer _her_."

"We 'll see, we 'll see," muttered the old fellow, as he waved his adieux, and then turned back into the house again.

As Stapylton lay back in his carriage, he could not help muttering a malediction on the "dear friend" he had just parted with. When the _bourgeois gentilhomme_ objected to his adversary pus.h.i.+ng him _en tierce_ while he attacked him _en quarte_, he was expressing a great social want, applicable to those people who in conversation will persist in saying many things which ought not to be uttered, and expressing doubts and distrusts which, however it be reasonable to feel, are an outrage to avow.

"The old fox," said Stapylton, aloud, "taunted me with selling what did not belong to me; but he never suspects that I have bought something without paying for it, and that something himself! Yes, the mock siege he will lay to the fortress will occupy the garrison till it suits me to open the real attack, and I will make use of him, besides, to learn whatever goes on in my absence. How the old fellow swallowed the bait!

What self-esteem there must be in such a rugged nature, to make him imagine he could be successful in a cause like this! He is, after all, a clumsy agent to trust one's interest to. If the choice had been given me, I'd far rather have had a woman to watch over them. Polly Dill, for instance, the very girl to understand such a mission well. How adroitly would she have played the game, and how clearly would her letters have shown me the exact state of events!"

Such were the texts of his musings as he drove along, and deep as were his thoughts, they never withdrew him, when the emergency called, from attention to every detail of the journey, and he scrutinized the post-horses as they were led out, and apportioned the rewards to the postilions as though no heavier care lay on his heart than the road and its belongings. While he rolled thus smoothly along, Peter Barrington had been summoned to his sister's presence, to narrate in full all that he had asked, and all that he had learned of Stapylton and his fortunes.

Miss Dinah was seated in a deep armchair, behind a formidable embroidery-frame,--a thing so complex and mysterious in form as to suggest an implement of torture. At a short distance off sat Withering, with pen, ink, and paper before him, as if to set down any details of unusual importance; and into this imposing presence poor Barrington entered with a woful sense of misgiving and humiliation.

"We have got a quiet moment at last, Peter," said Miss Barrington. "I have sent the girls over to Brown's Barn for the tulip-roots, and I have told Darby that if any visitors came they were to be informed we were particularly occupied by business, and could see no one."

"Just so," added Withering; "it is a case before the Judge in Chamber."

"But what have we got to hear?" asked Barrington, with an air of innocence.

"We have got to hear your report, brother Peter; the narrative of your late conversation with Major Stapylton; given, as nearly as your memory will serve, in the exact words and in the precise order everything occurred."

"October the twenty-third," said Withering, writing as he spoke; "minute of interview between P. B. and Major S. Taken on the same morning it occurred, with remarks and observations explanatory."

"Begin," said Dinah, imperiously, while she worked away without lifting her head. "And avoid, so far as possible, anything beyond the precise expression employed."

"But you don't suppose I took notes in shorthand of what we said to each other, do you?"

"I certainly suppose you can have retained in your memory a conversation that took place two hours ago," said Miss Dinah, sternly.

"And can relate it circ.u.mstantially and clearly," added Withering.

"Then I 'm very sorry to disappoint you, but I can do nothing of the kind."

"Do you mean to say that you had no interview with Major Stapylton, Peter?"

"Or that you have forgotten all about it?" said Withering.

"Or is it that you have taken a pledge of secrecy, brother Peter?"

"No, no, no! It is simply this, that though I retain a pretty fair general impression of what I said myself, and what he said afterwards, I could no more pretend to recount it accurately than I could say off by heart a scene in 'Romeo and Juliet.'"

"Why don't you take the 'Comedy of Errors' for your ill.u.s.tration, Peter Barrington? I ask you, Mr. Withering, have you in all your experience met anything like this?"

"It would go hard with a man in the witness-box to make such a declaration, I must say."

"What would a jury think of, what would a judge say to him?" said she, using the most formidable of all penalties to her brother's imagination.

"Wouldn't the court tell him that he would be compelled to speak out?"

"They'd have it out on the cross-examination, at all events, if not on the direct."

"In the name of confusion, what do you want with me?" exclaimed Peter, in despair.

"We want everything,--everything that you heard about this man. Who he is, what he is; what by the father's side, what by the mother's; what are his means, and where; who knows him, who are his a.s.sociates. Bear in mind that to us, here, he has dropped out of the clouds."

"And gone back there too," added Withering.

"I wish to Heaven he had taken me with him!" sighed Peter, drearily.

"I think in this case, Miss Barrington," said Withering, with a well-affected gravity, "we had better withdraw a juror, and accept a nonsuit."

"I have done with it altogether," said she, gathering up her worsted and her needles, and preparing to leave the room.

"My dear Dinah," said Barrington, entreatingly, "imagine a man as wanting in tact as I am,--and as timid, too, about giving casual offence,--conducting such an inquiry as you committed to my hands. Fancy how, at every attempt to obtain information, his own boldness, I might call it rudeness, stared him in the face, till at last, rather than push his investigations, he grew puzzled how to apologize for his prying curiosity."

"Brother, brother, this is too bad! It had been better to have thought more of your granddaughter's fate and less of your own feelings." And with this she flounced out of the room, upsetting a spider-table, and a case of stuffed birds that stood on it, as she pa.s.sed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 410]

"I don't doubt but she 's right, Tom," said Peter, when the door closed.

"Did he not tell you who he was, and what his fortune? Did you really learn nothing from him?"

"He told me everything; and if I had not been so cruelly badgered, I could have repeated every word of it; but you never made a hound true to the scent by flogging him, Tom,--is n't that a fact, eh?" And consoled by an ill.u.s.tration that seemed so pat to his case, he took his hat and strolled out into the garden.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 410]

CHAPTER VIII. GENERAL CONYERS

In a snug little room of the Old s.h.i.+p Hotel, at Dover, a large, heavy man, with snow-white hair, and moustaches,--the latter less common in those days than the present,--sat at table with a younger one, so like him that no doubt could have existed as to their being father and son.

They had dined, and were sitting over their wine, talking occasionally, but oftener looking fondly and affectionately at each other; and once, by an instinct of sudden love, grasping each other's hand, and sitting thus several minutes without a word on either side.

"You did not expect me before to-morrow, Fred," said the old man, at last.

"No, father," replied young Conyers. "I saw by the newspapers that you were to dine at the Tuileries on Tuesday, and I thought you would not quit Paris the same evening."