Part 123 (1/2)
Baron Levy smiled, and put up his pocket-book. He saw from that moment that the victory was gained.
”My dear boy,” said he, with the most agreeable bonhommie, ”it is very natural that you should think a man would have a personal interest in whatever he does for another. I believe that view of human nature is called utilitarian philosophy, and is much in fas.h.i.+on at present. Let me try and explain to you. In this affair I sha'n't injure myself. True, you will say, if I settle claims which amount to L20,000 for L10,000, I might put the surplus into my own pocket instead of yours. Agreed. But I shall not get the L20,000, nor repay myself Madame di Negra's debts (whatever I may do as to Hazeldean's), unless the count gets this heiress. You can help in this. I want you; and I don't think I could get you by a less offer than I make. I shall soon pay myself back the L10,000 if the count get hold of the lady and her fortune. Brief, I see my way here to my own interests. Do you want more reasons,--you shall have them. I am now a very rich man. How have I become so? Through attaching myself from the first to persons of expectations, whether from fortune or talent. I have made connections in society, and society has enriched me. I have still a pa.s.sion for making money. 'Que voulez-vous?'
It is my profession, my hobby. It will be useful to me in a thousand ways to secure as a friend a young man who will have influence with other young men, heirs to something better than Rood Hall. You may succeed in public life. A man in public life may attain to the knowledge of State secrets that are very profitable to one who dabbles a little in the Funds. We can perhaps hereafter do business together that may put yourself in a way of clearing off all mortgages on these estates,--on the enc.u.mbered possession of which I shall soon congratulate you. You see I am frank; 't is the only way of coming to the point with so clever a fellow as you. And now, since the less we rake up the mud in a pond from which we have resolved to drink the better, let us dismiss all other thoughts but that of securing our end. Will you tell Peschiera where the young lady is, or shall I? Better do it yourself; reason enough for it, that he has confided to you his hope, and asked you to help him; why should not you? Not a word to him about our little arrangement; he need never know it. You need never be troubled.” Levy rang the bell: ”Order my carriage round.”
Randal made no objection. He was deathlike pale, but there was a sinister expression of firmness on his thin, bloodless lips.
”The next point,” Levy resumed, ”is to hasten the match between Frank and the fair widow. How does that stand?”
”She will not see me, nor receive him.”
”Oh, learn why! And if you find on either side there is a hitch, just let me know; I will soon remove it.”
”Has Hazeldean consented to the post-obit?”
”Not yet; I have not pressed it; I wait the right moment, if necessary.”
”It will be necessary.”
”Ah, you wish it. It shall be so.”
Randal Leslie again paced the room, and after a silent self-commune came up close to the baron, and said,
”Look you, sir, I am poor and ambitious; you have tempted me at the right moment, and with the right inducement. I succ.u.mb. But what guarantee have I that this money will be paid, these estates made mine upon the conditions stipulated?”
”Before anything is settled,” replied the baron, ”go and ask my character of any of our young friends, Borrowell, Spendquick--whom you please; you will hear me abused, of course; but they will all say this of me, that when I pa.s.s my word, I keep it. If I say, 'Mon cher, you shall have the money,' a man has it; if I say, 'I renew your bill for six months,' it is renewed. 'T, is my way of doing business. In all cases any word is my bond. In this case, where no writing can pa.s.s between us, my only bond must be my word. Go, then, make your mind clear as to your security, and come here and dine at eight. We will call on Peschiera afterwards.”
”Yes,” said Randal, ”I will at all events take the day to consider.
Meanwhile, I say this, I do not disguise from myself the nature of the proposed transaction, but what I have once resolved I go through with.
My sole vindication to myself is, that if I play here with a false die, it will be for a stake so grand, as once won, the magnitude of the prize will cancel the ignominy of the play. It is not this sum of money for which I sell myself,--it is for what that sum will aid me to achieve.
And in the marriage of young Hazeldean with the Italian woman, I have another, and it may be a larger interest. I have slept on it lately,--I wake to it now. Insure that marriage, obtain the post-obit. from Hazeldean, and whatever the issue of the more direct scheme for which you seek my services, rely on my grat.i.tude, and believe that you will have put me in the way to render grat.i.tude of avail. At eight I will be with you.”
Randal left the room.
The baron sat thoughtful. ”It is true,” said he to himself, ”this young man is the next of kin to the Hazeldean estate, if Frank displease his father sufficiently to lose his inheritance; that must be the clever boy's design. Well, in the long-run, I should make as much, or more, out of him than out of the spendthrift Frank. Frank's faults are those of youth. He will reform and retrench. But this man! No, I shall have him for life. And should he fail in this project, and have but this enc.u.mbered property--a landed proprietor mortgaged up to his ears--why, he is my slave, and I can foreclose when I wish, or if he prove useless;--no, I risk nothing. And if I did--if I lost L10,000--what then? I can afford it for revenge!--afford it for the luxury of leaving Audley Egerton alone with penury and ruin, deserted, in his hour of need, by the pensioner of his bounty, as he will be by the last friend of his youth, when it so pleases me,--me whom he has called 'scoundrel'!
and whom he--” Levy's soliloquy halted there, for the servant entered to announce the carriage. And the baron hurried his band over his features, as if to sweep away all trace of the pa.s.sions that distorted their smiling effrontery. And so, as he took up his cane and gloves, and glanced at the gla.s.s, the face of the fas.h.i.+onable usurer was once more as varnished as his boots.
CHAPTER XIX.
When a clever man resolves on a villanous action, he hastens, by the exercise of his cleverness, to get rid of the sense of his villany. With more than his usual alertness, Randal employed the next hour or two in ascertaining how far Baron Levy merited the character he boasted, and how far his word might be his bond. He repaired to young men whom he esteemed better judges on these points than Spendquick and Borrowell,--young men who resembled the Merry Monarch, inasmuch as--
”They never said a foolish thing, And never did a wise one.”
There are many such young men about town,--sharp and able in all affairs except their own. No one knows the world better, nor judges of character more truly, than your half-beggared roue. From all these Baron Levy obtained much the same testimonials: he was ridiculed as a would-be dandy, but respected as a very responsible man of business, and rather liked as a friendly, accommodating species of the Sir Epicure Mammon, who very often did what were thought handsome, liberal things; and, ”in short,” said one of these experienced referees, ”he is the best fellow going--for a money-lender! You may always rely on what he promises, and he is generally very forbearing and indulgent to us of good society; perhaps for the same reason that our tailors are,--to send one of us to prison would hurt his custom. His foible is to be thought a gentleman.
I believe, much as I suppose he loves money, he would give up half his fortune rather than do anything for which we could cut him. He allows a pension of three hundred a year to Lord S-----. True; he was his man of business for twenty years, and before then S----- was rather a prudent fellow, and had fifteen thousand a year. He has helped on, too, many a clever young man,--the best borough-monger you ever knew. He likes having friends in parliament. In fact, of course he is a rogue; but if one wants a rogue, one can't find a pleasanter. I should like to see him on the French stage,--a prosperous Macaire; Le Maitre could hit him off to the life.”
From information in these more fas.h.i.+onable quarters, gleaned with his usual tact, Randal turned to a source less elevated, but to which he attached more importance. d.i.c.k Avenel a.s.sociated with the baron,--d.i.c.k Avenel must be in his clutches. Now Randal did justice to that gentleman's practical shrewdness. Moreover, Avenel was by profession a man of business. He must know more of Levy than these men of pleasure could; and as he was a plain-spoken person, and evidently honest, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, Randal did not doubt that out of d.i.c.k Avenel he should get the truth.