Part 63 (2/2)

”Screwcome came back by the five o'clock train. I was in it, and his royal highness would scarcely speak to me. Took Brown's fly from the station. Brown won't enrich his family much by the operation,” says Mr.

Potts.

”But what do I care?” cries Jack Harris; ”we don't attend him, and we don't lose much by that. Howell attends him, ever since Vidler and he had that row.”

”Hulloh! I say, it's a mistake,” cries Mr. Taplow, smoking in his chair.

”This letter is for the party in the Benbow. The gent which the Prince spoke to him, and called him Jack the other day when he was here. Here's a nice business, and the seal broke, and all. Is the Benbow party gone to bed? John, you must carry him in this here note.” John, quite innocent of the note and its contents, for he that moment had entered the clubroom with Mr. Potts's supper, took the note to the Benbow, from which he presently returned to his master with a very scared countenance. He said the gent in the Benbow was a most harbitrary gent.

He had almost choked John after reading the letter, and John wouldn't stand it; and when John said he supposed that Mr. Harris in the Boscawen--that Mr. Jack Harris, had opened the letter, the other gent cursed and swore awful.

”Potts,” said Taplow, who was only too communicative on some occasions after he had imbibed too much of his own brandy-and-water, ”it's my belief that that party's name is no more Harris than mine is. I have sent his linen to the wash, and there was two white pocket-handkerchiefs with H. and a coronet.”

On the next day we drove over to Newcome, hoping perhaps to find that Lord Highgate had taken the warning sent to him and quitted the place.

But we were disappointed. He was walking in front of the hotel, where a thousand persons might see him as well as ourselves.

We entered into his private apartment with him, and there expostulated upon his appearance in the public street, where Barnes Newcome or any pa.s.ser-by might recognise him. He then told us of the mishap which had befallen Florac's letter on the previous night.

”I can't go away now, whatever might have happened previously: by this time that villain knows that I am here. If I go, he will say I was afraid of him, and ran away. Oh, how I wish he would come and find me!”

He broke out with a savage laugh.

”It is best to run away,” one of us interposed sadly.

”Pendennis,” he said with a tone of great softness, ”your wife is a good woman. G.o.d bless her! G.o.d bless her for all she has said and done--would have done, if that villain had let her! Do you know the poor thing hasn't a single friend in the world, not one, one--except me, and that girl they are selling to Farintosh, and who does not count for much. He has driven away all her friends from her: one and all turn upon her. Her relations, of course; when did they ever fail to hit a poor fellow or a poor girl when she was down? The poor angel! The mother who sold her comes and preaches at her; Kew's wife turns up her little cursed nose and scorns her; Rooster, forsooth, must ride high the horse, now he is married and lives at Chanticlere, and give her warning to avoid my company or his! Do you know the only friend she ever had was that old woman with the stick--old Kew; the old witch whom they buried four months ago after n.o.bbling her money for the beauty of the family? She used to protect her--that old woman; heaven bless her for it, wherever she is now, the old hag--a good word won't do her any harm. Ha! ha!” His laughter was cruel to hear.

”Why did I come down?” he continued in reply to our sad queries. ”Why did I come down, do you ask? Because she was wretched, and sent for me.

Because if I was at the end of the world, and she was to say, 'Jack, come!' I'd come.”

”And if she bade you go?” asked his friends.

”I would go; and I have gone. If she told me to jump into the sea, do you think I would not do it? But I go; and when she is alone with him, do you know what he does? He strikes her. Strikes that poor little thing! He has owned to it. She fled from him and sheltered with the old woman who's dead. He may be doing it now. Why did I ever shake hands with him? that's humiliation sufficient, isn't it? But she wished it; and I'd black his boots, curse him, if she told me. And because he wanted to keep my money in his confounded bank; and because he knew he might rely upon my honour and hers, poor dear child, he chooses to shake hands with me--me, whom he hates worse than a thousand devils--and quite right too. Why isn't there a place where we can go and meet, like man to man, and have it over! If I had a ball through my brains I shouldn't mind, I tell you. I've a mind to do it for myself, Pendennis. You don't understand me, Viscount.”

”Il est vrai,” said Florac, with a shrug, ”I comprehend neither the suicide nor the chaise-de-poste. What will you? I am not yet enough English, my friend. We make marriages of convenance in our country, que diable, and what follows follows; but no scandal afterwards! Do not adopt our inst.i.tutions a demi, my friend. Vous ne me comprenez pas non plus, men pauvre Jack!”

”There is one way still, I think,” said the third of the speakers in this scene. ”Let Lord Highgate come to Rosebury in his own name, leaving that of Mr. Harris behind him. If Sir Barnes Newcome wants you, he can seek you there. If you will go, as go you should, and G.o.d speed you, you can go, and in your own name, too.”

”Parbleu, c'est ca,” cries Florac, ”he speaks like a book--the romancier!” I confess, for my part, I thought that a good woman might plead with him, and touch that manly not disloyal heart now trembling on the awful balance between evil and good.

”Allons! let us make to come the drague!” cries Florac. ”Jack, thou returnest with us, my friend! Madame Pendennis, an angel, my friend, a quakre the most charming, shall roucoule to thee the sweetest sermons.

My wife shall tend thee like a mother--a grandmother. Go make thy packet!”

Lord Highgate was very much pleased and relieved seemingly. He shook our hands, he said he should never forget our kindness, never! In truth, the didactic part of our conversation was carried on at much greater length than as here noted down: and he would come that evening, but not with us, thank you; he had a particular engagement, some letters he must write. Those done, he would not fail us, and would be at Rosebury by dinner-time.

CHAPTER LVIII. ”One more Unfortunate”

The Fates did not ordain that the plan should succeed which Lord Highgate's friends had devised for Lady Clara's rescue or respite. He was bent upon one more interview with the unfortunate lady; and in that meeting the future destiny of their luckless lives was decided. On the morning of his return home, Barnes Newcome had information that Lord Highgate, under a feigned name, had been staying in the neighbourhood of his house, and had repeatedly been seen in the company of Lady Clara.

She may have gone out to meet him but for one hour more. She had taken no leave of her children on the day when she left her home, and, far from making preparations for her own departure, had been engaged in getting the house ready for the reception of members of the family, whose arrival her husband announced as speedily to follow his own. Ethel and Lady Anne and some of the children were coming. Lord Farintosh's mother and sisters were to follow. It was to be a reunion previous to the marriage which was closer to unite the two families. Lady Clara said Yes to her husband's orders; rose mechanically to obey his wishes and arrange for the reception of the guests; and spoke tremblingly to the housekeeper as her husband gibed at her. The little ones had been consigned to bed early and before Sir Barnes's arrival. He did not think fit to see them in their sleep; nor did their mother. She did not know, as the poor little creatures left her room in charge of their nurses, that she looked on them for the last time. Perhaps, had she gone to their bedsides that evening, had the wretched panic-stricken soul been allowed leisure to pause, and to think, and to pray, the fate of the morrow might have been otherwise, and the trembling balance of the scale have inclined to right's side. But the pause was not allowed her. Her husband came and saluted her with his accustomed greetings of scorn, and sarcasm, and brutal insult. On a future day he never dared to call a servant of his household to testify to his treatment of her; though many were ready to attend to prove his cruelty and her terror. On that very last night, Lady Clara's maid, a country girl from her father's house at Chanticlere, told Sir Barnes in the midst of a conjugal dispute that her lady might bear his conduct but she could not, and that she would no longer live under the roof of such a brute. The girl's interference was not likely to benefit her mistress much: the wretched Lady Clara pa.s.sed the last night under the roof of her husband and children, unattended save by this poor domestic who was about to leave her, in tears and hysterical outcries, and then in moaning stupor. Lady Clara put to sleep with laudanum, her maid carried down the story of her wrongs to the servants' quarters; and half a dozen of them took in their resignation to Sir Barnes as he sat over his breakfast the next morning--in his ancestral hall--surrounded by the portraits of his august forefathers--in his happy home.

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