Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite Part 11

"I am making arrangements now for having every s.h.i.+lling paid to you."

"Yes, I see. I've known a good deal about your arrangements. Look here, Captain Hotspur, unless I have five hundred pounds on or before Sat.u.r.day, I'll write to Sir Harry Hotspur, and I'll give him a statement of all our dealings. You can trust me, though I can't trust you. Good morning, Captain Hotspur."

Captain Stubber did believe in his heart that he was a man much injured by Cousin George, and that Cousin George was one whom he was ent.i.tled to despise. And yet a poor wretch more despicable, more dishonest, more false, more wicked, or more cruel than Captain Stubber could not have been found in all London. His business was carried on with a small capital borrowed from a firm of low attorneys, who were the real holders of the bills he carried, and the profits which they allowed him to make were very trifling. But from Cousin George during the last twelve months he had made no profit at all. And Cousin George in former days had trodden upon him as on a worm.

Cousin George did not fail to perceive that Mr. Boltby had not as yet applied to Captain Stubber.

CHAPTER XI.

MRS. MORTON.

Five hundred pounds before Sat.u.r.day, and this was Tuesday! As Cousin George was taken westward from Red Lion Square in a cab, three or four different lines of conduct suggested themselves to him. In the first place, it would be a very good thing to murder Captain Stubber.

In the present effeminate state of civilization and with the existing scruples as to the value of human life, he did not see his way clearly in this direction, but entertained the project rather as a beautiful castle in the air. The two next suggestions were to pay him the money demanded, or to pay him half of it. The second suggestion was the simpler, as the state of Cousin George's funds made it feasible; but then that brute would probably refuse to take the half in lieu of the whole when he found that his demand had absolutely produced a tender of ready cash. As for paying the whole, it might perhaps be done. It was still possible that, with such prospects before him as those he now possessed, he could raise a hundred or hundred and fifty pounds; but then he would be left penniless. The last course of action which he contemplated was, to take no further notice of Captain Stubber, and let him tell his story to Sir Harry if he chose to tell it. The man was such a blackguard that his entire story would probably not be believed; and then was it not almost necessary that Sir Harry should hear it? Of course there would be anger, and reproaches, and threats, and difficulty. But if Emily would be true to him, they might all by degrees be levelled down.

This latter line of conduct would be practicable, and had this beautiful attraction,--that it would save for his own present use that charming balance of ready money which he still possessed. Had Altringham possessed any true backbone of friends.h.i.+p, he might now, he thought, have been triumphant over all his difficulties.

When he sat down to his solitary dinner at his club, he was very tired with his day's work. Attending to the affairs of such gentlemen as Mr. Hart and Captain Stubber,--who well know how to be masterful when their time for being masterful has come,--is fatiguing enough.

But he had another task to perform before he went to bed, which he would fain have kept unperformed were it possible to do so. He had written to a third friend to make an appointment for the evening, and this appointment he was bound to keep. He would very much rather have stayed at his club and played billiards with the navy captain, even though he might again have lost his s.h.i.+llings. The third friend was that Mrs. Morton to whom Lord Altringham had once alluded.

"I supposed that it was coming," said Mrs. Morton, when she had listened, without letting a word fall from her own lips, to the long rambling story which Cousin George told her,--a rambling story in which there were many lies, but in which there was the essential truth, that Cousin George intended, if other things could be made to fit, to marry his cousin Emily Hotspur. Mrs. Morton was a woman who had been handsome,--dark, thin, with great brown eyes and thin lips and a long well-formed nose; she was in truth three years younger than George Hotspur, but she looked to be older. She was a clever woman and well read too, and in every respect superior to the man whom she had condescended to love. She earned her bread by her profession as an actress, and had done so since her earliest years.

What story there may be of a Mr. Morton who had years ago married, and ill-used, and deserted her, need not here be told. Her strongest pa.s.sion at this moment was love for the cold-blooded reprobate who had now come to tell her of his intended marriage. She had indeed loved George Hotspur, and George had been sufficiently attached to her to condescend to take aid from her earnings.

"I supposed that it was coming," she said in a low voice when he brought to an end the rambling story which she had allowed him to tell without a word of interruption.

"What is a fellow to do?" said George.

"Is she handsome?"

George thought that he might mitigate the pain by making little of his cousin. "Well, no, not particularly. She looks like a lady."

"And I suppose I don't." For a moment there was a virulence in this which made poor George almost gasp. This woman was patient to a marvel, long-bearing, affectionate, imbued with that conviction so common to woman and the cause of so much delight to men,--that ill-usage and suffering are intended for woman; but George knew that she could turn upon him if goaded far enough, and rend him. He could depend upon her for very much, because she loved him; but he was afraid of her. "You didn't mean that, I know," she added, smiling.

"Of course I didn't."

"No; your cruelties don't lie in that line; do they, George?"

"I'm sure I never mean to be cruel to you, Lucy."

"I don't think you do. I hardly believe that you ever mean anything,--except just to get along and live."

"A fellow must live, you know," said George.

In ordinary society George Hotspur could be bright, and he was proud of being bright. With this woman he was always subdued, always made to play second fiddle, always talked like a boy; and he knew it. He had loved her once, if he was capable of loving anything; but her mastery over him wearied him, even though he was, after a fas.h.i.+on, proud of her cleverness, and he wished that she were,--well, dead, if the reader choose that mode of expressing what probably were George's wishes. But he had never told himself that he desired her death. He could build pleasant castles in the air as to the murder of Captain Stubber, but his thoughts did not travel that way in reference to Mrs. Morton.

"She is not pretty, then,--this rich bride of yours?"

"Not particularly; she's well enough, you know."

"And well enough is good enough for you;--is it? Do you love her, George?"

The woman's voice was very low and plaintive as she asked the question. Though from moment to moment she could use her little skill in p.r.i.c.king him with her satire, still she loved him; and she would vary her tone, and as at one minute she would make him uneasy by her raillery, so at the next she would quell him by her tenderness. She looked into his face for a reply, when he hesitated. "Tell me that you do not love her," she said, pa.s.sionately.

"Not particularly," replied George.

"And yet you would marry her?"

"What's a fellow to do? You see how I am fixed about the t.i.tle. These are kinds of things to which a man situated as I am is obliged to submit."

"Royal obligations, as one might call them."

"By George, yes," said George, altogether missing the satire. From any other lips he would have been sharp enough to catch it. "One can't see the whole thing go to the dogs after it has kept its head up so long! And then you know, a man can't live altogether without an income."

"You have done so, pretty well."

"I know that I owe you a lot of money, Lucy; and I know also that I mean to pay you."

"Don't talk about that. I don't know how at such a time as this you can bring yourself to mention it." Then she rose from her seat and flashed into wrath, carried on by the spirit of her own words. "Look here, George; if you send me any of that woman's money, by the living G.o.d I will send it back to herself. To buy me with her money! But it is so like a man."

"I didn't mean that. Sir Harry is to pay all my debts."

"And will not that be the same? Will it not be her money? Why is he to pay your debts? Because he loves you?"

"It is all a family arrangement. You don't quite understand."

"Of course I don't understand. Such a one as I cannot lift myself so high above the earth. Great families form a sort of heaven of their own, which poor broken, ill-conditioned, wretched, common creatures such as I am cannot hope to comprehend. But, by heaven, what a lot of the vilest clay goes to the making of that garden of Eden! Look here, George;--you have nothing of your own?"

"Not much, indeed."

"Nothing. Is not that so? You can answer me at any rate."

"You know all about it," he said,--truly enough, for she did know.

"And you cannot earn a penny."

"I don't know that I can. I never was very good at earning anything."

"It isn't gentlemanlike, is it? But I can earn money."

"By George! yes. I've often envied you. I have indeed."

"How flattering! As far as it went you should have had it all,--nearly all,--if you could have been true to me."

"But, Lucy,--about the family?"

"And about your debts? Of course I couldn't pay debts which were always increasing. And of course your promises for the future were false. We both knew that they were false when they were made. Did we not?" She paused for an answer, but he made none. "They meant nothing; did they? He is dead now."