Part 8 (1/2)

'Well, my lord, since it so happens, I am not sorry that you should be witness to this paper,' said, he; 'and indeed not sorry that you should witness the whole proceeding; for I trust I shall be able to explain to you my conduct.'

'I do not come here, sir,' interrupted Lord Colambre, 'to listen to any explanations of your conduct, which I perfectly understand;--I come to witness a bond for my friend Mr. Berryl, if you think proper to extort from him such a bond.'

'I extort nothing, my lord. Mr. Berryl, it is quite a voluntary act, take notice, on your part; sign or not, witness or not, as you please, gentlemen,' said Mordicai, sticking his hands in his pockets, and recovering his look of black and fixed determination.

'Witness it, witness it, my dear lord,' said Mr. Berryl, looking at his mother and weeping sisters; 'witness it, quick!'

'Mr. Berryl must just run over his name again in your presence, my lord, with a dry pen,' said Mordicai, putting the pen into Mr. Berryl's hand.

'No, sir,' said Lord Colambre, 'my friend shall never sign it.'

'As you please, my lord--the bond or the body, before I quit this house,' said Mordicai.

'Neither, sir, shall you have; and you quit this house directly.'

'How! how!--my lord, how's this?'

'Sir, the arrest you have made is as illegal as it is inhuman.'

'Illegal, my lord!' said Mordicai, startled.

'Illegal, sir. I came into this house at the moment when your bailiff asked and was refused admittance. Afterwards, in the confusion of the family above stairs, he forced open the house door with an iron bar--I saw him--I am ready to give evidence of the fact. Now proceed at your peril.'

Mordicai, without reply s.n.a.t.c.hed up his hat, and walked towards the door; but Lord Colambre held the door open--the door was immediately at the head of the stairs--and Mordicai, seeing his indignant look and proud form, hesitated to pa.s.s; for he had always heard that Irishmen are 'quick in the executive part of justice.'

'Pa.s.s on, sir,' repeated Lord Colambre, with an air of ineffable contempt; 'I am a gentleman--you have nothing to fear.'

Mordicai ran downstairs; Lord Colambre, before he went back into the room, waited to see Mordicai and his bailiff out of the house. When Mordicai was fairly at the bottom of the stairs, he turned, and, white with rage, looked up at Lord Colambre.

'Charity begins at home, my lord,' said he. 'Look at home--you shall pay for this,' added he, standing half-s.h.i.+elded by the house door, for Lord Colambre moved forward as he spoke the last words; 'and I give you this warning, because I know it will be of no use to you--Your most obedient, my lord.'

The house door closed after Mordicai.

'Thank Heaven!' thought Lord Colambre, 'that I did not horsewhip that mean wretch! This warning shall be of use to me. But it is not time to think of that yet.'

Lord Colambre turned from his own affairs to those of his friend, to offer all the a.s.sistance and consolation in his power. Sir John Berryl died that night. His daughters, who had lived in the highest style in London, were left totally unprovided for. His widow had mortgaged her jointure. Mr. Berryl had an estate now left to him, but without any income. He could not be so dishonest as to refuse to pay his father's just debts; he could not let his mother and sisters starve. The scene of distress to which Lord Colambre was witness in this family made a still greater impression upon him than had been made by the warning or the threats of Mordicai. The similarity between the circ.u.mstances of his friend's family and of his own struck him forcibly.

All this evil had arisen from Lady Berryl's pa.s.sion for living in London and at watering-places. She had made her husband an ABSENTEE--an absentee from his home, his affairs, his duties, and his estate. The sea, the Irish Channel, did not, indeed, flow between him and his estate; but it was of little importance whether the separation was effected by land or water--the consequences, the negligence, the extravagance, were the same.

Of the few people of his age who are capable of profiting by the experience of others, Lord Colambre was one. 'Experience,' as an elegant writer has observed, 'is an article that may be borrowed with safety, and is often dearly bought.'

CHAPTER V

In the meantime, Lady Clonbrony had been occupied with thoughts very different from those which pa.s.sed in the mind of her son. Though she had never completely recovered from her rheumatic pains, she had become inordinately impatient of confinement to her own house, and weary of those dull evenings at home, which had, in her son's absence, become insupportable. She told over her visiting tickets regularly twice a day, and gave to every card of invitation a heartfelt sigh. Miss Pratt alarmed her ladys.h.i.+p, by bringing intelligence of some parties given by persons of consequence, to which she was not invited. She feared that she should be forgotten in the world, well knowing how soon the world forgets those they do not see every day and everywhere. How miserable is the fine lady's lot who cannot forget the world, and who is forgot by the world in a moment! How much more miserable still is the condition of a would-be fine lady, working her way up in the world with care and pains! By her, every the slightest failure of attention, from persons of rank and fas.h.i.+on, is marked and felt with jealous anxiety, and with a sense of mortification the most acute--an invitation omitted is a matter of the most serious consequence, not only as it regards the present, but the future; for if she be not invited by Lady A, it will lower her in the eyes of Lady B, and of all the ladies of the alphabet. It will form a precedent of the most dangerous and inevitable application. If she has nine invitations, and the tenth be wanting, the nine have no power to make her happy. This was precisely Lady Clonbrony's case--there was to be a party at Lady St. James's, for which Lady Clonbrony had no card.

'So ungrateful, so monstrous, of Lady St. James!--What! was the gala so soon forgotten, and all the marked attentions paid that night to Lady St. James!--attentions, you know, Pratt, which were looked upon with a jealous eye, and made me enemies enough, I am told, in another quarter!

Of all people, I did not expect to be slighted by Lady St. James!'

Miss Pratt, who was ever ready to undertake the defence of any person who had a t.i.tle, pleaded, in mitigation of censure, that perhaps Lady St. James might not be aware that her ladys.h.i.+p was yet well enough to venture out.

'Oh, my dear Miss Pratt, that cannot be the thing; for, in spite of my rheumatism, which really was bad enough last Sunday, I went on purpose to the Royal Chapel, to show myself in the closet, and knelt close to her ladys.h.i.+p. And, my dear, we curtsied, and she congratulated me, after church, upon my being abroad again, and was so happy to see me look so well, and all that--Oh! it is something very extraordinary and unaccountable!'