Part 125 (1/2)

I could not venture more.”

”And she will accept Frank?”

”Had he offered to-day she would have accepted him!”

”It may be a great help to your fortunes, mon cher, if Frank Hazeldean marry this lady without his father's consent. Perhaps he may be disinherited. You are next of kin.

”How do you know that?” asked Randal, sullenly.

”It is my business to know all about the chances and connections of any one with whom I do money matters. I do money matters with young Mr.

Hazeldean; so I know that the Hazeldean property is not entailed; and, as the squire's half-brother has no Hazeldean blood in him, you have excellent expectations.”

”Did Frank tell you I was next of kin?”

”I rather think so; but I am sure you did.”

”I--when?”

”When you told me how important it was to you that Frank should marry Madame di Negra. Peste! mon cher, do you think I am a blockhead?”

”Well, Baron, Frank is of age, and can marry to please himself. You implied to me that you could help him in this.”

”I will try. See that he call at Madame di Negra's tomorrow, at two precisely.”

”I would rather keep clear of all apparent interference in this matter.

Will you not arrange that he call on her? And do not forget to entangle him in a post-obit.”

”Leave it to me. Any more wine? No?--then let us go to the count's.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

The next morning Frank Hazeldean was sitting over his solitary breakfast-table. It was long past noon. The young man had risen early, it is true, to attend his military duties, but he had contracted the habit of breakfasting late. One's appet.i.te does not come early when one lives in London, and never goes to bed before daybreak.

There was nothing very luxurious or effeminate about Frank's rooms, though they were in a very dear street, and he paid a monstrous high price for them. Still, to a practised eye, they betrayed an inmate who can get through his money, and make very little show for it. The walls were covered with coloured prints of racers and steeple-chases, interspersed with the portraits of opera-dancers, all smirk and caper.

Then there was a semi-circular recess covered with red cloth, and fitted up for smoking, as you might perceive by sundry stands full of Turkish pipes in cherry-stick and jessamine, with amber mouthpieces; while a great serpent hookah, from which Frank could no more have smoked than he could have smoked out of the head of a boa constrictor, coiled itself up on the floor; over the chimney-piece was a collection of Moorish arms.

What use on earth ataghan and scimitar and damasquined pistols, that would not carry straight three yards, could be to an officer in his Majesty's Guards is more than I can conjecture, or even Frank satisfactorily explain. I have strong suspicions that this valuable a.r.s.enal pa.s.sed to Frank in part payment of a bill to be discounted. At all events, if so, it was an improvement on the bear that he had sold to the hair-dresser. No books were to be seen anywhere, except a Court Guide, a Racing Calendar, an Army List, the Sporting Magazine complete (whole bound in scarlet morocco, at about a guinea per volume), and a small book, as small as an Elzevir, on the chimney-piece, by the side of a cigar-case. That small book had cost Frank more than all the rest put together; it was his Own Book, his book par excellence; book made up by himself,--his BETTING Book!

On a centre table were deposited Frank's well-brushed hat; a satinwood box, containing kid-gloves, of various delicate tints, from primrose to lilac; a tray full of cards and three-cornered notes; an opera-gla.s.s, and an ivory subscription-ticket to his opera stall.

In one corner was an ingenious receptacle for canes, sticks, and whips--I should not like, in these bad times, to have paid the bill for them; and mounting guard by that receptacle, stood a pair of boots as bright as Baron Levy's,--”the force of brightness could no further go.” Frank was in his dressing-gown,--very good taste, quite Oriental, guaranteed to be true Indian cashmere, and charged as such. Nothing could be more neat, though perfectly simple, than the appurtenances of his breakfast-table: silver tea-pot, ewer, and basin, all fitting into his dressing-box--for the which may Storr and Mortimer be now praised, and some day paid! Frank looked very handsome, rather tired, and exceedingly bored. He had been trying to read the ”Morning Post,” but the effort had proved too much for him.

Poor dear Frank Hazeldean!--true type of many a poor dear fellow who has long since gone to the dogs. And if, in this road to ruin, there had been the least thing to do the traveller any credit by the way! One feels a respect for the ruin of a man like Audley Egerton. He is ruined en roi! From the wrecks of his fortune he can look down and see stately monuments built from the stones of that dismantled edifice. In every inst.i.tution which attests the humanity of England was a record of the princely bounty of the public man. In those objects of party, for which the proverbial sinews of war are necessary, in those rewards for service, which private liberality can confer, the hand of Egerton had been opened as with the heart of a king. Many a rising member of parliament, in those days when talent was brought forward through the aid of wealth and rank, owed his career to the seat which Audley Egerton's large subscription had secured to him; many an obscure supporter in letters and the Press looked back to the day when he had been freed from the jail by the grat.i.tude of the patron. The city he represented was embellished at his cost; through the s.h.i.+re that held his mortgaged lands, which he had rarely ever visited, his gold had flowed as a Pactolus; all that could animate its public spirit, or increase its civilization, claimed kindred with his munificence, and never had a claim disallowed. Even in his grand, careless household, with its large retinue and superb hospitality, there was something worthy of a representative of that time-honoured portion of our true n.o.bility, the unt.i.tled gentlemen of the land. The Great Commoner had, indeed, ”something to show” for the money he had disdained and squandered. But for Frank Hazeldean's mode of getting rid of the dross, when gone, what would be left to tell the tale? Paltry prints in a bachelor's lodging; a collection of canes and cherry-sticks; half-a-dozen letters in ill-spelt French from a figurante; some long-legged horses, fit for nothing but to lose a race; that d.a.m.nable Betting-Book; and--sic transit gloria--down sweeps some hawk of a Levy, on the wings of an I O U, and not a feather is left of the pigeon!

Yet Frank Hazeldean has stuff in him,--a good heart, and strict honour.

Fool though he seem, there is sound sterling sense in some odd corner of his brains, if one could but get at it. All he wants to save him from perdition is, to do what he has never yet done,--namely, pause and think. But, to be sure, that same operation of thinking is not so easy for folks unaccustomed to it, as people who think--think!

”I can't bear this,” said Frank, suddenly, and springing to his feet.

”This woman, I cannot get her out of my head. I ought to go down to the governor's; but then if he gets into a pa.s.sion, and refuses his consent, where am I? And he will, too, I fear. I wish I could make out what Randal advises. He seems to recommend that I should marry Beatrice at once, and trust to my mother's influence to make all right afterwards.