Part 19 (1/2)

'Is he that kind of a man?' I said, staring on these lamps as though I could decipher in them the secret of my cousin's character.

'You will find him a dangerous kind,' answered the lawyer. 'For you, these are the lights on a lee sh.o.r.e! I find I fall in a muse when I consider of him; what a formidable being he once was, and what a personable! and how near he draws to the moment that must break him utterly! we none of us like him here; we hate him, rather; and yet I have a sense-I don't think at my time of life it can be pity-but a reluctance rather, to break anything so big and figurative, as though he were a big porcelain pot or a big picture of high price. Ay, there is what I was waiting for!' he cried, as the lights of a second chaise swam in sight. 'It is he beyond a doubt. The first was the signature and the next the flourish. Two chaises, the second following with the baggage, which is always copious and ponderous, and one of his valets: he cannot go a step without a valet.'

'I hear you repeat the word big,' said I. 'But it cannot be that he is anything out of the way in stature.'

'No,' said the attorney. 'About your height, as I guessed for the tailors, and I see nothing wrong with the result. But, somehow, he commands an atmosphere; he has a s.p.a.cious manner; and he has kept up, all through life, such a volume of racket about his personality, with his chaises and his racers and his dicings, and I know not what-that somehow he imposes! It seems, when the farce is done, and he locked in Fleet prison-and n.o.body left but Buonaparte and Lord Wellington and the Hetman Platoff to make a work about-the world will be in a comparison quite tranquil. But this is beside the mark,' he added, with an effort, turning again from the window. 'We are now under fire, Mr. Anne, as you soldiers would say, and it is high time we should prepare to go into action. He must not see you; that would be fatal. All that he knows at present is that you resemble him, and that is much more than enough. If it were possible, it would be well he should not know you were in the house.'

'Quite impossible, depend upon it,' said I. 'Some of the servants are directly in his interests, perhaps in his pay: Dawson, for an example.'

'My own idea!' cried Romaine. 'And at least,' he added, as the first of the chaises drew up with a dash in front of the portico, 'it is now too late. Here he is.'

We stood listening, with a strange anxiety, to the various noises that awoke in the silent house: the sound of doors opening and closing, the sound of feet near at hand and farther off. It was plain the arrival of my cousin was a matter of moment, almost of parade, to the household. And suddenly, out of this confused and distant bustle, a rapid and light tread became distinguishable. We heard it come upstairs, draw near along the corridor, pause at the door, and a stealthy and hasty rapping succeeded.

'Mr. Anne-Mr. Anne, sir! Let me in!' said the voice of Rowley.

We admitted the lad, and locked the door again behind him.

'It's him, sir,' he panted. 'He've come.'

'You mean the Viscount?' said I. 'So we supposed. But come, Rowley-out with the rest of it! You have more to tell us, or your face belies you !'

'Mr. Anne, I do,' he said. 'Mr. Romaine, sir, you're a friend of his, ain't you?'

'Yes, George, I am a friend of his,' said Romaine, and, to my great surprise, laid his hand upon my shoulder.

'Well, it's this way,' said Rowley-'Mr. Powl have been at me! It's to play the spy! I thought he was at it from the first! From the first I see what he was after-coming round and round, and hinting things! But to-night he outs with it plump! I'm to let him hear all what you're to do beforehand, he says; and he gave me this for an arnest'-holding up half a guinea; 'and I took it, so I did! Strike me sky-blue scarlet?' says he, adducing the words of the mock oath; and he looked askance at me as he did so.

I saw that he had forgotten himself, and that he knew it. The expression of his eye changed almost in the pa.s.sing of the glance from the significant to the appealing-from the look of an accomplice to that of a culprit; and from that moment he became the model of a well-drilled valet.

'Sky-blue scarlet?' repeated the lawyer. 'Is the fool delirious?'

'No,' said I; 'he is only reminding me of something.'

'Well-and I believe the fellow will be faithful,' said Romaine. 'So you are a friend of Mr. Anne's' too?' he added to Rowley.

'If you please, sir,' said Rowley.

”Tis something sudden,' observed Romaine; 'but it may be genuine enough. I believe him to be honest. He comes of honest people. Well, George Rowley, you might embrace some early opportunity to earn that half-guinea, by telling Mr. Powl that your master will not leave here till noon to-morrow, if he go even then. Tell him there are a hundred things to be done here, and a hundred more that can only be done properly at my office in Holborn. Come to think of it-we had better see to that first of all,' he went on, unlocking the door. 'Get hold of Powl, and see. And be quick back, and clear me up this mess.'

Mr. Rowley was no sooner gone than the lawyer took a pinch of snuff, and regarded me with somewhat of a more genial expression.

'Sir,' said he, 'it is very fortunate for you that your face is so strong a letter of recommendation. Here am I, a tough old pract.i.tioner, mixing myself up with your very distressing business; and here is this farmer's lad, who has the wit to take a bribe and the loyalty to come and tell you of it-all, I take it, on the strength of your appearance. I wish I could imagine how it would impress a jury!' says he.

'And how it would affect the hangman, sir?' I asked

'Absit omen!' said Mr. Romaine devoutly.

We were just so far in our talk, when I heard a sound that brought my heart into my mouth: the sound of some one slyly trying the handle of the door. It had been preceded by no audible footstep. Since the departure of Rowley our wing of the house had been entirely silent. And we had every right to suppose ourselves alone, and to conclude that the new-comer, whoever he might be, was come on a clandestine, if not a hostile, errand.