Part 68 (1/2)
”Well, if there was no other alternative--yes, I do mean that. I'm certain old Wardle would never look out for another, and the great probability is, he'd not trouble us much longer; and, as Tom Scott says, by 'n.o.bbling' one horse, you get rid of the whole stable. You look greatly disgusted, are you horrified at my wickedness, Grenfell?”
”No,” said he, slowly. ”I have met a fair number of young fellows like you, and who fancied, that to know life they must begin at the lowest of it; the great misfortune was, that they never emerged from it after.”
”That's severe, I take it,” said Ladarelle, as he lighted a cigarette and began to smoke.
”Feigning virtue will never make a saint,” said Grenfell, rising from the table; ”but mock wickedness will always end by making a man a rascal!” He left the room as he spoke, and sauntered out unto the lawn; and now Ladarelle began to commune with himself--what notice he ought to take, if any, of these words. Were they to be considered as a moral sentiment of general application, or were they addressed specially to himself? The context favoured this latter supposition; but then he uttered them as a great truth; he had a trick of that sort of ”preaching,” and the moment the word preaching crossed him, his anger was dispelled, for who minded preaching? Who was ever the better or the worse for it? Who ever deemed its denunciations personal?
The entrance of his man, Mr. Fisk, cut short his reflections, for he had sent him over to Dalradern, with his compliments, to ask after Mademoiselle O'Hara.
”Sir Within's respects, Sir, the young lady is better; pa.s.sed a good night, and seems much refreshed.”
”Here's news, Grenfell,” cried Ladarelle, opening the window, and calling out to Grenfell--”here's news; she has had a good night, and is better.”
Grenfell, however, had just received his letters from the post, and was already too deeply engrossed by one of them to mind him.
”I say, come here, and listen to the bulletin,” cried Ladarelle again; but Grenfell, without deigning the slightest notice to his words, thrust his letters into his pocket and walked hastily away.
The letter he had opened was from Vyner, and even in the first few lines had so far engaged his interest, that, to read it undisturbed, he set out to gain a little summer-house on a small island--a spot to which Ladarelle could not follow, as there was but one boat on the lake.
Having reached his sanctuary, he took forth the epistle, which, from Vyner, was an unusually long one, and began to read. It is not necessary that I should ask the reader's attention to the whole of it. It opened by an apology for not having written before:
”I am ashamed to think, my dear Grenfell, how many of your questions remain unanswered; but as the Cardinal's private secretary wrote to express the grief his Eminence felt at being obliged to die instead of dine out, so I must ask your patience for not replying to you, as I was occupied in being ruined. It is a big word, George, but not too big for the fact. When I gave up politics, for want of something to do, I took up speculation. A very clever rascal--I only found out the rascality later--with whom I made acquaintance at Genoa, induced me to make some railroad ventures, which all turned out successes. From these he led me on to others of a larger kind in Sardinia, and ultimately in Morocco. A great London banking firm was a.s.sociated with the enterprise, which, of course, gave the air of stability to the operations, and as there was nothing unfair--nothing gambling in the scheme--nothing, in fact, that pa.s.sed the limits of legitimate commercial enterprise, at the same time that there was everything to interest And amuse, I entered into it with all that ardour for which more than once your prudent temperament has rebuked me. I have no patience to go over the story; besides that the catastrophe tells it all. The original tempter--his name is Gennet--has fled, the great bankers have failed, and I am--I have ascertained--engaged to the full amount of all I have in the world--that is, nothing remains to us but my wife's settlement to live on. A great blow this; I am staggering under it still. It was precisely the sort of misfortune I had thought myself exempt from, because I never cared much about money-getting; I was richer than I really needed to be; but, as the Spanish proverb says, 'The devil never goes out to fish with only one sort of bait in his boat.' I imagined I was going to be a great philanthropist. If I was to get lead from the Moors, I was to give them civilisation, culture, Heaven knows what cravings after good things here and hereafter. Don't laugh, George; I give you my word of honour I believed it. Mr. Ridley Gennet was a great artist, and from the hour he waved his wand over me, I never really awoke 'till I was beggared.' Now, I do believe that you yourself, with all the craft you boast of, would not have come scathless out of his hands. These fellows are consummately clever, and in nothing more than in the quick reading of the characters they are placed in contact with. You can answer for it that I never was a gambler. I have played, it is true; but with no zest, no pa.s.sion for play. That man, however, knew more of me than I did of myself; he detected a sort of combative spirit in my nature, which gives results very much like the love of play. It prompts to a rash self-confidence and a dogged resolution not to be beaten--no matter how heavy the odds against one. I say, he saw this, and he determined to make use of it.
There was a time at which, at the loss of about twenty-eight or thirty thousand pounds, I might have freed myself of every liability; and, indeed, I was more than half inclined to do it; but the devil, in this fellow's shape, hinted something about being poor-spirited and craven-hearted; said something about men who bore reverses ill, and only spread canvas when the wind was all astern; and that, in fact, the people who carried the day in life were exactly those who never would accept defeat. All he said met a ready concurrence from my own heart, and in I went after my thirty thousand, which soon became eighty.
Even then I might have escaped--a heavy loser, of course, but not crushed--but he persuaded me that the concern was the finest enterprise in Europe, if emanc.i.p.ated from the influence of two powerful shareholders--men who, since they had joined us, had gone deeply into other speculations, whose prospects would be severely damaged by our success. One of these was La Marque, the Parisian banker, and a great promoter of the 'Credit Mobilier;' the other an English contractor, whose name I may mention one of these days. They were, he said, to be bought out, and then I should stand the representative of four-sixths of the whole scheme. It reads like infatuation now that I go calmly over it; but I acceded. I commissioned Gennet to treat with these gentlemen, and gave him blank bills for the sums. For a while all seemed to go on admirably. La Marque himself wrote to me; he owned that his other engagements had not left him at liberty to develop the resources of our company to their full extent, and confessed that there were certain changes in the management that must lead to great advantage. With, however, what I thought at the time a most scrupulous honour--though I have come to regard it differently--he hinted to me that while Mr. G.'s position in the 'world of affairs' was above all reproach, the fact of his conducting a transaction with blank acceptances was totally irregular and unbusiness-like; and he begged that I would give him a regular a.s.surance, in a form which he enclosed, that I authenticated G.'s position, and held myself responsible, not merely commercially, but as a man of honour, for such engagements as he should contract in my name. I made a few trifling alterations in the wording of this doc.u.ment, and sent it back with my signature. On the third day after, the London firm smashed, and on the evening that brought the news, G. bolted, and has not since been heard of.
”Since then, every post from England tells me of the steps at which my ruin advances. M'Kinlay, overwhelmed, I think, by the calamity, acts with less than his usual skill and cleverness, and continues to insist that I must repudiate my pledge to La Marque, whom he calls a confederate of G.'s; and, indeed, declares that if we could but secure that fellow's person, we should save a large remnant of the property.
These are _his_ views; they are not _mine_. I cannot consent to remedy my folly at the cost of my character; and though I have agreed to the despatch of detectives to hunt Gennet, I will not, by any act, dishonour my signature.
”It is at this stage we are now arrived. Whether I am to be drowned by six inches over my head, or six fathoms, is not, I opine, a matter of much consequence. Lady Vyner knows it all, and bears it--as I knew she would--n.o.bly. Her sister, too, has shown a fine spirit. Of course, we have kept so much as we can of the calamity from Mrs. Courtenay; but she is more cast down than any of us. As for Ada, she sustains us all. I declare I never knew her before; and if it were not that the misfortune is to outlive me, I'd say it was worth being ruined to discover the boundless wealth of that dear girl's heart.
”I could fill pages with little traits of her thoughtful affection, evincing a nature, too, that actually seemed to need an opportunity to show it was made for higher and better things than to float along in an existence of indulgence.
”You are impatient to hear how practical we can be. Well, you shall.
We have given up our grand palazzo, and retired to a little place about twenty miles off, near Chiavari, where we found a small house to suit us. We have sent off all the servants but three. I doubt if we shall keep old Morris; but it would break his heart to discharge him with the others. I have despatched my horses to be sold at Turin. The yacht is already disposed of. Not bad this in four days, besides writing about a hundred and fifty letters, and giving solemn audience to Mr. Pengrove, of the detective force, come out specially to get from me a detailed description of G.'s person, size, dress, accent, and manner. I vow, till I had the happiness of this gentleman's acquaintance, I never knew by how many traits a human creature could stamp his ident.i.ty; and the way in which he pushed his inquiries, as to matters utterly beyond the realms of all the disguises in use, perfectly amazed me.
”It was not, perhaps, a very acute question of mine, but it dropped from me half unawares. I asked whether he thought G. had fled to America or Australia? He replied, 'No, sir; he never had any dealings in those parts. When men bolt, they always follow out some previously-formed train of circ.u.mstances; he'll be somewhere on the African coast--I mean to try Tunis first.'
”You know now, my dear George, more than I really meant to inflict on you of our sad story; but I was, in a measure, forced into some details.
First of all, one's friends ought to be in a position to contradict false rumours, and I take it I shall have my share of them; and secondly, you may be disturbed in your present tenure, for the Cottage as well as the Castle goes to the creditors.
”There is, however, a small business matter in which I must have more than your advice--I want your a.s.sistance. You may remember that when, on our Irish tour----”
There comes here a sudden stop in the epistle, but, in a hurried and tremulous hand, it was continued in this wise:
”Another great misfortune! Poor Luttrell's boy is drowned. My wife has just brought me the news. A despatch boat of the Italian navy has picked up at sea an English sailor on a spar, the last of the crew of the American barque _Squashy_ commanded by a Captain Dodge. They were attacked by pirates when becalmed off the Riff coast, and the Yankee, rather than surrender, blew up the s.h.i.+p. This man remembers nothing beyond his having leaped overboard when he saw the captain make for the magazine. He was, indeed, insensible when picked up, and even yet his mind wanders at times. So far as his memory would serve he has given the names of the crew, and Luttrell's was amongst them. He said, too, that he saw Luttrell leaning against the tiller-wheel, with his arms folded, and looking quite calm, a moment or two before he jumped over. The Italian steamer returned to the place and cruised for an entire day, in the hope of saving some others, but none were met with, and there is no doubt now that all have perished. I thought only an hour ago that there were few in the world as unfortunate as myself; but what is my loss compared to poor Luttrell's? If I could possibly leave home now, it would be to go over to Ireland and see him. What is to be done? Can you suggest how the tidings could be best broken to him? Would you undertake the charge yourself? If not, M'Kinlay must do it, though, for every reason, I prefer you. I know, my dear Grenfell, that you shrink from painful tasks, but it is _my_ load that you will bear on this occasion, and it will strengthen you to remember that you are helping a friend in his great hour of need.
”If you are not able to go, and if M'Kinlay should also be unable, forward the enclosed note to Luttrell.