The Daltons Volume I Part 14

"You take the matter too seriously to heart, Grounsell," said Sir Stafford, smiling.

"Not a bit of it; I 've studied symptoms too long and too carefully not to be ever on the look-out for results. To Lady Hester, this visit is a little episode as easily forgotten as any chance incident of the journey. But what an event is it in the simple story of their lives!"

"Well, well, it cannot be helped now; the thing is done, and there 's an end of it," said Sir Stafford, pettishly; "and I confess I cannot see the matter as you do, for I have been thinking for two days back about these Daltons, and of some mode of being of service to them, and this very accident may suggest the way. I have been looking over some old letters and papers, and I 've no doubt that I have had unintentionally, of course a share in the poor fellow's ruin. Do you know, Grounsell, that this is the very same Peter Dalton who once wrote to me the most insulting letters, and even a defiance to fight a duel, because a distant relative bequeathed to me a certain estate that more naturally should have descended to him. At first, I treated the epistles as unworthy of any serious attention, they were scarcely intelligible, and not distinguished by anything like a show of reason; but when from insult the writer proceeded to menace, I mentioned the affair to my lawyer, and, indeed, gave him permission to take any steps that might be necessary to rid me of so unpleasant a correspondent. I never heard more of the matter; but now, on looking over some papers, I see that the case went hardly with Dalton, for there was a 'rule to show cause,' and an 'attachment,' and I don't know what besides, obtained against him from the King's Bench, and he was actually imprisoned eight months for this very business; so that, besides having succeeded to this poor fellow's property, I have also deprived him of his liberty. Quite enough of hards.h.i.+p to have suffered at the hands of any one man and that one, not an enemy."

"And would you believe it, Onslow, we have talked over you and your affairs a hundred times together, and yet he has never even alluded to this? One would think that such an event would make an impression upon most men; but, a.s.suredly, he is either the most forgetful or the most generous fellow on earth."

"How very strange! And so you tell me that he remembers my name, and all the circ.u.mstances of that singular bequest for singular it was from a man whom I never saw since he was a boy."

"He remembers it all. It was the last blow fortune dealt him, and, indeed, he seemed scarcely to require so heavy a stroke to fell him, for, by his own account, he had been struggling on, in debt and difficulty, for many a year, putting off creditors by the plausible plea that a considerable estate must eventually fall in to him. It is quite certain that he believed this himself, but he also maintained a course of expenditure that, were he even in possession of the property, it would have been impossible to keep up. His brother-in-law's parsimony, too, was a constant source of self-gratulation to him, fancying, as he did, that a considerable sum in Bank stock would be among the benefits of this bequest. To find himself cut off, without even a mention of his name, was, then, to know that he was utterly, irretrievably ruined."

"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Onslow; "I never suspected the case had been so hard a one. His letters you shall see them yourself bore all the evidence of a man more touchy on the score of a point of honor than mindful of a mere money matter. He seemed desirous of imputing to me who, as I have told you, never saw Mr. G.o.dfrey for above forty years something like undue influence, and, in fact, of having prejudiced his brother-in-law against him. He dated his angry epistles from a park or a castle I forget which and they bore a seal of armorial pretensions such as an archduke might acknowledge. All these signs seemed to me so indicative of fortune and standing, that I set my friend down for a very bloodthirsty Irishman, but a.s.suredly never imagined that poverty had contributed its sting to the injury."

"I can easily conceive all that," said Grounsell. "At this very moment, with want staring him on every side, he 'd rather talk of his former style at confound the barbarous place, I never can remember the name of it than he 'd listen to any suggestion for the future benefit of his children."

"I have been a grievous enemy to him," said Sir Stafford, musingly.

"He reckons the loss at something like six thousand a year," said Grounsell.

"Not the half of it, doctor; the estate, when I succeeded to it, was in a ruinous condition. A pauper and rebellious tenantry holding their tenures on nominal rents, and either living in open defiance of all law, or scheming to evade it by a hundred subterfuges. Matters are somewhat better; but if so, it has cost me largely to make them so. Disabuse his mind, I beg you, of this error. His loss was at least not so heavy as he reckoned."

"Faith, I'll scarcely venture on so very delicate a theme," said Grounsell, dryly. "I 'm not quite so sure how he 'd take it."

"I see, doctor," said Onslow, laughing, "that his duelling tastes have impressed you with a proper degree of respect. Well, let us think of something more to the purpose than rectifying a mere mistaken opinion.

How can we serve him? What can be done for him?"

"Ruined gentlemen, like second-hand uniforms, are generally sent to the colonies," said Grounsell; "but Dalton is scarcely fit for export."

"What if we could get him appointed a magistrate in one of the West India Islands?"

"New rum would finish him the first rainy season."

"Is he fit for a consuls.h.i.+p?"

"About as much as for Lord Chancellor. I tell you the man's pride would revolt at anything to which a duty was annexed. Whatever you decide on must be untrammelled by any condition of this kind."

"An annuity, then, some moderate sum sufficient to support them in respectability," said Onslow; "that is the only thing I see for it, and I am quite ready to do my part, which, indeed, is full as much a matter of honor as generosity."

"How will you induce him to accept it?"

"We can manage that, I fancy, with a little contrivance. I 'll consult Prichard; he 's coming here this very day about these renewals, and he 'll find a way of doing it."

"You'll have need of great caution," said Grounsell; "without being naturally suspicious, misfortune has rendered him very sensitive as to anything like a slight. To this hour he is ignorant that his daughter sells those little figures; and although he sees, in a hundred appliances to his comfort, signs of resources of which he knows nothing, he never troubles his head how the money comes."

"What a strange character!"

"Strange indeed. True pride and false pride, manly patience, childish petulance, generosity, selfishness, liberality, meanness, even to the spirits alternating between boy-like levity and downright despair! The whole is such a mixture as I never saw before, and yet I can fancy it is as much the national temperament as that of the individual."

And now Grounsell, launched upon a sea without compa.s.s or chart, hurried off to lose himself in vague speculation about questions that have puzzled, and are puzzling, wiser heads than his.

CHAPTER XI. A PEEP BETWEEN THE SHUTTERS AT A NEW CHARACTER.

NOT even Mademoiselle Celestine herself, nor the two London footmen now condemned to exhibit their splendid proportions to the untutored gaze of German rustics, could have chafed and fretted under the unhappy detention at Baden with a greater impatience than did George Onslow, a young Guardsman, who often fancied that London, out of season, was a species of Palmyra; who lived but for the life that only one capital affords; who could not credit the fact that people could ride, dress, dine, and drive anywhere else, was lamentably "ill bestowed" among the hills and valleys, the winding glens and dense pine forests of a little corner of Germany.

If he liked the excitement of hard exercise, it was when the pleasure was combined with somewhat of peril, as in a fox-hunt, or heightened by the animation of a contest, in a rowing-match. Scenery, too, he cared for, when it came among the incidents of a deer-stalking day in the Highlands. Even walking, if it were a match against time, was positively not distasteful; but to ride, walk, row, or exert himself, for the mere exercise, was in his philosophy only a degree better than a sentence to the treadmill, the slavery being voluntary not serving to exalt the motive.

To a mind thus const.i.tuted, the delay at Baden was intolerable.

Lady Hester's system of small irritations and provocations rendered domesticity and home life out of the question. She was never much given to reading at any time, and now books were not to be had; Sydney was so taken up with studying German, that she was quite uncompanionable. Her father was too weak to bear much conversation; and as for Grounsell, George always set him down for a quiz: good-hearted in his way, but a bit of a bore, and too fond of old stories. Had he been a young lady, in such a predicament, he would have kept a journal, a pretty martyrology of himself and his feelings, and eked out his sorrows between Childe Harold and Werther. Had he been an elderly one, he would have written folios by the post, and covered acres of canvas with dogs in worsted, and tigers in Berlin wool. Alas! he had no such resources. Education had supplied him with but one comfort and consolation, a cigar; and so he smoked away incessantly: sometimes as he lounged out of the window, after breakfast, in all the glory of an embroidered velvet cap, and a gorgeous dressing-gown; sometimes as he sauntered in the empty saloon, or the deserted corridors, in the weed-grown garden, in the dishabille of a many-pocketed shooting-jacket and cork-soled shoes; now, as he lounged along the dreary streets, or pa.s.sed along the little wooden bridge, wondering within himself how much longer a man could resist the temptation that suggested a spring over the bal.u.s.trade into the dark pool beneath.

He had come abroad partly for Sydney's sake, partly because, having "gone somewhat too fast" in town, an absence had become advisable. But now, as he sauntered about the deserted streets of the little village, not knowing how long the durance might last, without an occupation, without a resource, both his brotherly love and prudence began to fail him, and he wished he had remained behind, and taken the chances, whatever they might be, of his creditors' forbearance. His moneyed embarra.s.sments involved nothing dishonorable; he had done no more than what some score of very well-principled young men have done, and are doing at this very hour, ay, good reader, and will do again, when you and I have gone where all our moralizing will not deceive any more, he had contracted debts, the payment of which must depend upon others; he had borrowed what no efforts of his own could restore; he had gambled, and lost sums totally disproportionate to his fortune; but, in all these things, he was still within the pale of honorable conduct, at least, so said the code under which he lived, and George believed it.

Sir Stafford, who only learned about the half of his son's liabilities, was thunderstruck at the amount. It was scarcely a year and a half ago that he had paid all George's debts, and they were then no trifle; and now he saw all the old items revived and magnified, as if there was only one beaten road to ruin, and that began at Crocky's, and ended at "the Bench." The very names of the dramatis personae were the same. It was Lazarus Levi lent the money, at sixty per cent; it was another patriarch, called Gideon Masham, discounted the same. A lucky viscount had once more "done the trick" at hazard; and if Cribbiter had not broken down in training, why Madame Pompadour had, and so the same result came about. George Onslow had got what Newmarket men call a "squeeze," and was in for about seven thousand pounds.

Nothing is more remarkable in our English code social, than the ingenuity with which we have contrived to divide ranks and cla.s.ses of men, making distinctions so subtle that only long habit and training are able to appreciate. Not alone are the gradations of our n.o.bility accurately defined, but the same distinctions prevail among the "unt.i.tled" cla.s.ses, and even descend to the professional and trading ranks; so that the dealer in one commodity shall take the pas of another; and he who purveys the gla.s.s of port for your dessert, would be outraged if cla.s.sed with him who contributed the Stilton! These hair-splittings are very unintelligible to foreigners; but, as we hold to them, the presumption is, that they suit us; and I should not have stopped now to bestow a pa.s.sing notice on the system, if it were not that we see it, in some cases, pushed to a degree of extreme resembling absurdity, making even of the same career in life a sliding-scale of respectability; as, for instance, when a young gentleman of good expectations and fair fortune has outraged his guardians and his friends by extravagance, he is immediately removed from the Guards, and drafted into the Infantry of the Line; if he misbehaves there, they usually send him to India; is he incorrigible, he is compelled to remain in some regiment there; or, in cases of inveterate bad habits, he exchanges into the Cape Rifles, and gets his next removal from the knife of a Caffre.

Ancient geographers have decided, we are not aware on what grounds, that there is a place between "H--ll and Connaught." Modern discovery, with more cert.i.tude, has shown one between the Guards and the Line, a species of military purgatory, where, after a due expiation of offences, the sinner may return to the paradise of the Household Brigade without ever transgressing the Inferno of a marching regiment. This half-way stage is the "Rifles." So long as a young fas.h.i.+onable falls no lower, he is safe. There is no impugnment of his character, no injury that cannot be repaired. Now, George Onslow had reached so far; he was compelled to exchange into the --th, then quartered in Ireland. It is true he did not join his regiment; his father had interest enough somewhere to obtain a leave of absence for his son, and First Lieutenant Onslow, vice Ridgway promoted, was suffered to amuse himself howsoever and wheresoever he pleased.

The "exchange," and the reasons for which it was effected, were both unpleasant subjects of reflection to George; and as he had few others, these continued to haunt him, till at last he fancied that every one was full of the circ.u.mstance, each muttering as he pa.s.sed, "That 's Onslow, that was in the Coldstreams." Lady Hester, indeed, did not always leave the matter purely imaginary, but threw out occasional hints about soldiers who never served, except at St. James's or Windsor, and who were kept for the wonderment and admiration of foreign sovereigns when visiting England, just as Suffolk breeders exhibit a "punch," or a Berks.h.i.+re farmer will show a hog, for the delectation of swine fanciers.

Where children show toys, kings show soldiers, and ours are considered very creditable productions of the kind; but Lady Hester averred, with more of truth than she believed, that a man of spirit would prefer a somewhat different career. These currents, coming as they did in season and out of season, did not add to the inducements for keeping the house, and so George usually left home each day, and rarely returned to it before nightfall.

It is true he might have a.s.sociated with Haggerstone, who, on being introduced, made the most courteous advances to his intimacy; but George Onslow was bred in a school whose first lesson is a sensitive shrinking from acquaintance, and whose chief characteristic is distrust. Now he either had heard, or fancied he had heard, something about Haggerstone.

"The Colonel was n't all right," somehow or other. There was a story about him, or somebody of his set, and, in fact, it was as well to be cautious; and so the young Guardsman, who would have ventured his neck in a steeplechase, or his fortune on a "Derby," exhibited all the deliberative wisdom of a judge as to the formation of a pa.s.sing acquaintance.

If we have been somewhat prolix in explaining the reasons of the young gentleman's solitude, our excuse is, that he had thereby conveyed, not alone all that we know, but all that is necessary to be known, of his character. He was one of a cla.s.s so large in the world that few people could not count some half-dozen, at least, similar amongst their acquaintance; and all of whom would be currently set down as incapables, if it were not that now and then, every ten years or so, one of these well-looking, well-bred, indolent dandies, as if tired of his own weariness, turns out to be either a das.h.i.+ng soldier, with a heart to dare, and a head to devise the boldest achievements, or a politic leader, with resources of knowledge, and a skill in debate, to confront the most polished and practised veteran in "the Commons."

Our own experiences of our own day show that these are no paradoxical speculations. But we must not pursue the theme further; and have only to add, that the reader is not to believe that George Onslow formed one of these brilliant exceptions. Whether the fault lies more in himself or in us, we must not inquire.

If his lonely walks did not suggest any pleasant reveries, the post did not bring any more agreeable tidings. Dry statements from Mr. Orson, his lawyer, every young man about town has his lawyer nowadays, about the difficulty of arranging his affairs, being the chief intelligence he received, with, from time to time, a short and pithy epistle from a certain n.o.ble creditor, Lord Norwood, who, although having won very large sums from Onslow, never seemed in such pressing difficulty as since his good fortune.

The viscount's style epistolary was neither so marked by originality, nor so worthy of imitation, that it would be worth communicating; but as one of his letters bears slightly upon the interests of our story, we are induced to give it; and being, like all his correspondence, very brief, we will communicate it in extenso.

"Oh, Norwood again!" said Onslow, as he looked at the seal, and read the not very legible autograph in the corner. "My n.o.ble friend does not give a very long respite;" and biting his lips in some impatience, he opened the paper, and read:

DEAR ONSLOW, Orson has paid me the two thousand, as you ordered, but positively refuses the seventeen hundred and eighty, the Ascot affair, because I cannot give up the original two bills for twelve hundred pa.s.sed to me for that debt. I told him that they were thrown into the fire being devilishly tempted to ill.u.s.trate the process with himself six months ago, when you gave the renewals; but all won't do, the old prig persists in his demand, to comply with which is clearly impossible, for I have not even preserved the precious ashes of the incremation. I don't doubt but that, legally speaking, and in pettifogging parlance, he is all correct but between men of honor such strictness is downright absurdity and, as Dillhurst says, "something more." Now, my dear boy, you must write to him and at once, too for I 'm in a bad book about "Chanticleer" who is to win, it seems, after all and say that he is acting in direct opposition to your wishes, as of course he is; that the money must be paid without more chaffing. The delay has already put me to great inconvenience, and I know how you will be provoked at his obstinacy. You 've heard, I suppose, that Brentwood is going to marry Lydia Vaughan. She has thirty thousand pounds, which is exactly what Jack lost last winter. Crosbie says he ought to "run away from her after the start as he carries no weight:" which is somewhat of my own opinion. What any man has to do with a wife nowadays, with the funds at eighty-two, and a dark horse first favorite for the Oaks, is more than I know. Doncaster has levanted, and the Red-House folk will smart for it. He would back Hayes's lot, and there 's nothing can ever set him right again. By the way, Orson hints that if I give him a release, or something of that sort, with respect to the bills, he 'd pay the cash; but this is only a dodge to make a case for lawyers' parchments, stamps, and so forth; so I won't stand it. Your writing to him will do the whole thing at once. What a jolly world it would be, old fellow, if the whole race of Orsons were carried off by the cholera, or anything akin! They are the greatest enemies to human peace in existence.

Believe me, yours most faithfully,

NORWOOD.

P. S. I half fancy Baden is empty by this; but if you chance upon a little fellow Heaven knows to whom he belongs, or whence he comes, called Albert Jekyl, will you tell him that I 'll forward the twenty pounds whenever I win the Oaks, or marry Miss Home Greville, or any other similar piece of good fortune. When he lent me the cash, I don't believe he was the owner of as much more in the world; but it suited him to have a viscount in his debt a devilish bad investment, if he knew but all. The chances, therefore, are that he has foundered long ago, and you will be spared the trouble of the explanation; but if he survive, say something apologetic, for letter-writing and foreign postage are only making bad worse.

Although, unquestionably, the postscript of this elegant epistle was the part which reflected most severely upon the writer's good feeling and sense of honor, George Onslow was more struck by what related to his own affairs, nor was it till after the lapse of some days that he took the trouble of considering the paragraph, or learning the name of the individual referred to. Even then all that he could remember was, that he had seen or heard the name "somewhere," and thus, very possibly, the whole matter would have glided from his memory, if accident had not brought up the recollection.

Returning one evening later than usual from his solitary walk, he found that the hotel was closed, the door strongly secured, and all the usual precautions of the night taken, in the belief that the inmates were already safe within doors. In vain he knocked and thundered at the ma.s.sive panels; the few servants occupied rooms at a distance, and heard nothing of the uproar. He shouted, he screamed, he threw gravel against the windows, and, in his zeal, smashed them too. All was fruitless; n.o.body stirred, nor could he detect the slightest sign of human presence in the vast and dreary-looking building before him. The prospect was not a pleasant one, and a December night in the open air was by no means desirable; and yet, where should he turn for shelter? The other hotels were all closed and deserted, and even of the private houses not one in twenty was inhabited. Resolving to give himself one chance more for admission, he scaled the paling of the garden, and reached the rear of the hotel; but here all his efforts proved just as profitless as the former, and he was at last about to abandon all hope, when he caught sight of a faint gleam of light issuing from a small window on the first floor. Having failed to attract notice by all his cries and shouts, he determined to reach the window, to which, fortunately, a large vine, attached to the wall, offered an easy access. George was an expert climber, and in less than a minute found himself seated on the window-sill, and gazing into a room by the aperture between the half-closed shutters. His first impression on looking in was that it was a servant's room. The bare, whitewashed walls; the humble, uncurtained bed; three chairs of coa.r.s.e wood, all strengthened this suspicion, even to the table, covered by a coa.r.s.e table-cloth, and on which stood a meal if meal it could be called an anchorite might have eaten on Friday. A plate of the common brown bread of the country was balanced by a little dish of radishes, next to which stood a most diminutive piece of Baden cheese, and a capacious decanter of water, a long-wicked tallow candle throwing its gloomy gleam over the whole. For a moment or two George was unable to detect the owner of this simple repast, as he was engaged in replenis.h.i.+ng his fire; but he speedily returned, and took his place at the table, spreading his napkin before him, and surveying the board with an air of self-satisfaction such as a gourmand might bestow upon the most perfect pet.i.t diner. In dress, air, and look, he was thoroughly gentlemanlike; a little foppish, perhaps, in the arrangement of his hair, and somewhat too much display in the jewelled ornaments that studded his neckcloth. Even in his att.i.tude, as he sat at the table, there was a certain air of studied elegance that formed a curious contrast with the miserable meal before him. Helping himself to a small portion of cheese, and filling out a goblet of that element which neither cheers nor inebriates, he proceeded to eat his supper. Onslow looked on with a mingled sense of wonder and ridicule, and while half disposed to laugh at the disparity of the entertainment and him who partook of it, there was something in the scene which repressed his scorn and rendered him even an interested spectator of what went forward.

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