Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite Part 15

"I think he has. I wish I could make him understand."

"Understand what, my dear?"

"All that I feel about it. I am sure it would save him much trouble.

Nothing can ever separate me from my cousin."

"Pray don't say so, Emily."

"Nothing can. Is it not better that you and he should know the truth?

Papa goes about trying to find out all the naughty things that George has ever done. There has been some mistake about a race meeting, and all manner of people are asked to give what Papa calls evidence that Cousin George was there. I do not doubt but George has been what people call dissipated."

"We do hear such dreadful stories!"

"You would not have thought anything about them if it had not been for me. He is not worse now than when he came down here last year.

And he was always asked to Bruton Street."

"What do you mean by this, dear?"

"I do not mean to say that young men ought to do all these things, whatever they are,--getting into debt, and betting, and living fast.

Of course it is very wrong. But when a young man has been brought up in that way, I do think he ought not to be thrown over by his nearest and dearest friends"--that last epithet was uttered with all the emphasis which Emily could give to it--"because he falls into temptation."

"I am afraid George has been worse than others, Emily."

"So much the more reason for trying to save him. If a man be in the water, you do not refuse to throw him a rope because the water is deep."

"But, dearest, your papa is thinking of you." Lady Elizabeth was not quick enough of thought to explain to her daughter that if the rope be of more value than the man, and if the chance of losing the rope be much greater than that of saving the man, then the rope is not thrown.

"And I am thinking of George," said Emily.

"But if it should appear that he had done things,--the wickedest things in the world?"

"I might break my heart in thinking of it, but I should never give him up."

"If he were a murderer?" suggested Lady Elizabeth, with horror.

The girl paused, feeling herself to be hardly pressed, and then came that look upon her brow which Lady Elizabeth understood as well as did Sir Harry. "Then I would be a murderer's wife," she said.

"Oh, Emily!"

"I must make you understand me, Mamma, and I want Papa to understand it too. No consideration on earth shall make me say that I will give him up. They may prove if they like that he was on all the racecourses in the world, and get that Mrs. Stackpoole to swear to it;--and it is ten times worse for a woman to go than it is for a man, at any rate;--but it will make no difference. If you and Papa tell me not to see him or write to him,--much less to marry him,--of course I shall obey you. But I shall not give him up a bit the more, and he must not be told that I will give him up. I am sure Papa will not wish that anything untrue should be told. George will always be to me the dearest thing in the whole world,--dearer than my own soul.

I shall pray for him every night, and think of him all day long. And as to the property, Papa may be quite sure that he can never arrange it by any marriage that I shall make. No man shall ever speak to me in that way, if I can help it. I won't go where any man can speak to me. I will obey,--but it will be at the cost of my life. Of course I will obey Papa and you; but I cannot alter my heart. Why was he allowed to come here,--the head of our own family,--if he be so bad as this? Bad or good, he will always be all the world to me."

To such a daughter as this Lady Elizabeth had very little to say that might be of avail. She could quote Sir Harry, and entertain some dim distant wish that Cousin George might even yet be found to be not quite so black as he had been painted.

CHAPTER XV.

COUSIN GEORGE IS HARD PRESSED.

The very sensible and, as one would have thought, very manifest idea of buying up Cousin George originated with Mr. Boltby. "He will have his price, Sir Harry," said the lawyer. Then Sir Harry's eyes were opened, and so excellent did this mode of escape seem to him that he was ready to pay almost any price for the article. He saw it at a glance. Emily had high-flown notions, and would not yield; he feared that she would not yield, let Cousin George's delinquencies be shown to be as black as Styx. But if Cousin George could be made to give her up,--then Emily must yield; and, yielding in such manner, having received so rude a proof of her lover's unworthiness, it could not be but that her heart would be changed. Sir Harry's first idea of a price was very n.o.ble; all debts to be paid, a thousand a year for the present, and Scarrowby to be attached to the t.i.tle. What price would be too high to pay for the extrication of his daughter from so grievous a misfortune? But Mr. Boltby was more calm. As to the payment of the debts,--yes, within a certain liberal limit. For the present, an income of five hundred pounds he thought would be almost as efficacious a bait as double the amount; and it would be well to tack to it the necessity of a residence abroad. It might, perhaps, serve to get the young man out of the country for a time. If the young man bargained on either of these headings, the matter could be reconsidered by Mr. Boltby; as to settling Scarrowby on the t.i.tle, Mr. Boltby was clearly against it. "He would raise every s.h.i.+lling he could on post-obits within twelve months." At last the offer was made in the terms with which the reader is already acquainted. George was sent off from the lawyer's chambers with directions to consider the terms, and Mr. Boltby gave his clerk some little instructions for perpetuating the irritation on the young man which Hart and Stubber together were able to produce. The young man should be made to understand that hungry creditors, who had been promised their money on certain conditions, could become very hungry indeed.

George Hotspur, blackguard and worthless as he was, did not at first realize the fact that Sir Harry and Mr. Boltby were endeavouring to buy him. He was asked to give up his cousin, and he was told that if he did so a certain very generous amount of pecuniary a.s.sistance should be given to him; but yet he did not at the first glance perceive that one was to be the price of the other,--that if he took the one he would meanly have sold the other. It certainly would have been very pleasant to have all his debts paid for him, and the offer of five hundred pounds a year was very comfortable. Of the additional sum to be given when Sir Harry should die, he did not think so much.

It might probably be a long time coming, and then Sir Harry would of course be bound to do something for the t.i.tle. As for living abroad,--he might promise that, but they could not make him keep his promise. He would not dislike to travel for six months, on condition that he should be well provided with ready money. There was much that was alluring in the offer, and he began to think whether he could not get it all without actually abandoning his cousin. But then he was to give a written pledge to that effect, which, if given, no doubt would be shown to her. No; that would not do. Emily was his prize; and though he did not value her at her worth, not understanding such worth, still he had an idea that she would be true to him. Then at last came upon him an understanding of the fact, and he perceived that a bribe had been offered to him.

For half a day he was so disgusted at the idea that his virtue was rampant within him. Sell his Emily for money? Never! His Emily,--and all her rich prospects, and that for a sum so inadequate! They little knew their man when they made a proposition so vile! That evening, at his club, he wrote a letter to Sir Harry, and the letter as soon as written was put into the club letter-box, addressed to the house in Bruton Street; in which, with much indignant eloquence, he declared that the Baronet little understood the warmth of his love, or the extent of his ambition in regard to the family. "I shall be quite ready to submit to any settlements," he said, "so long as the property is entailed upon the Baronet who shall come after myself; I need not say that I hope the happy fellow may be my own son."

But, on the next morning, on his first waking, his ideas were more vague, and a circ.u.mstance happened which tended to divert them from the current in which they had run on the preceding evening. When he was going through the sad work of dressing, he bethought himself that he could not at once force this marriage on Sir Harry--could not do so, perhaps, within a twelvemonth or more, let Emily be ever so true to him,--and that his mode of living had become so precarious as to be almost incompatible with that outward decency which would be necessary for him as Emily's suitor. He was still very indignant at the offer made to him, which was indeed bribery of which Sir Harry ought to be ashamed; but he almost regretted that his letter to Sir Harry had been sent. It had not been considered enough, and certainly should not have been written simply on after-dinner consideration.

Something might have been inserted with the view of producing ready money, something which might have had a flavour of yielding, but which could not have been shown to Emily as an offer on his part to abandon her; and then he had a general feeling that his letter had been too grandiloquent,--all arising, no doubt, from a fall in courage incidental to a sick stomach.

But before he could get out of his hotel a visitor was upon him.

Mr. Hart desired to see him. At this moment he would almost have preferred to see Captain Stubber. He remembered at the moment that Mr. Hart was acquainted with Mr. Walker, and that Mr. Walker would probably have sought the society of Mr. Hart after a late occurrence in which he, Cousin George, had taken part. He was going across to breakfast at his club, when he found himself almost forced to accompany Mr. Hart into a little private room at the left hand of the hall of the hotel. He wanted his breakfast badly, and was altogether out of humour. He had usually found Mr. Hart to be an enduring man, not irascible, though very pertinacious, and sometimes almost good-natured. For a moment he thought he would bully Mr. Hart, but when he looked into Mr. Hart's face, his heart misgave him.

"This is a most inconvenient time--," he had begun. But he hesitated, and Mr. Hart began his attack at once.

"Captain 'Oshspur--sir, let me tell you this von't do no longer."

"What won't do, Mr. Hart?"

"Vat von't do? You know vat von't do. Let me tell you this. You'll be at the Old Bailey very soon, if you don't do just vat you is told to do."

"Me at the Old Bailey!"

"Yes, Captain 'Oshspur,--you at the Old Bailey. In vat vay did you get those moneys from poor Mr. Valker? I know vat I says. More than three hundred pounds! It was card-sharping."

"Who says it was card-sharping?"

"I says so, Captain 'Oshspur, and so does Mr. Bullbean. Mr. Bullbean vill prove it." Mr. Bullbean was a gentleman known well to Mr. Hart, who had made one of the little party at Mr. Walker's establishment, by means of which Cousin George had gone, flush of money, down among his distinguished friends in Norfolk. "Vat did you do with poor Valker's moneys? It vas very hard upon poor Mr. Valker,--very hard."

"It was fair play, Mr. Hart."

"Gammon, Captain 'Oshspur! Vere is the moneys?"

"What business is that of yours?"

"Oh, very well. Bullbean is quite ready to go before a magistrate,--ready at once. I don't know how that vill help us with our pretty cousin with all the fortune."

"How will it help you then?"

"Look here, Captain 'Oshspur; I vill tell you vat vill help me, and vill help Captain Stubber, and vill help everybody. The young lady isn't for you at all. I know all about it, Captain 'Oshspur. Mr.

Boltby is a very nice gentleman, and understands business."

"What is Mr. Boltby to me?"

"He is a great deal to me, because he vill pay me my moneys, and he vill pay Captain Stubber, and vill pay everybody. He vill pay you too, Captain 'Oshspur,--only you must pay poor Valker his moneys.

I have promised Valker he shall have back his moneys, or Sir Harry shall know that too. You must just give up the young woman;--eh, Captain 'Oshspur!"