The Castle Inn: Chapter 11

Chapter 11

DR. ADDINGTON

It did not occur to Lady Dunborough to ask herself seriously how a girl
in the Mastersons' position came to be in such quarters as the Castle
Inn, and to have a middle-aged and apparently respectable attorney for a
travelling companion. Or, if her ladyship did ask herself those
questions, she was content with the solution, which the tutor out of his
knowledge of human nature had suggested; namely, that the girl, wily as
she was beautiful, knew that a retreat in good order, flanked after the
fashion of her betters by duenna and man of business, doubled her
virtue; and by so much improved her value, and her chance of catching
Mr. Dunborough and a coronet.

There was one in the house, however, who did set himself these riddles,
and was at a loss for an answer. Sir George Soane, supping with Dr.
Addington, the earl's physician, found his attention wander from the
conversation, and more than once came near to stating the problem which
troubled him. The cosy room, in which the two sat, lay at the bottom of
a snug passage leading off the principal corridor of the west wing; and
was as remote from the stir and bustle of the more public part of the
house as the silent movements of Sir George's servant were from the
clumsy haste of the helpers whom the pressure of the moment had
compelled the landlord to call in.

The physician had taken his supper earlier, but was gourmet enough to
follow, now with an approving word, and now with a sigh, the different
stages of Sir George's meal. In public, a starched, dry man, the ideal
of a fashionable London doctor of the severer type, he was in private a
benevolent and easy friend; a judge of port, and one who commended it to
others; and a man of some weight in the political world. In his early
days he had been a mad doctor; and at Batson's he could still disconcert
the impertinent by a shrewd glance, learned and practised among those
unfortunates.

With such qualifications, Dr. Addington was not slow to perceive Sir
George's absence of mind; and presuming on old friendship--he had
attended the younger man from boyhood--he began to probe for the cause.
Raising his half-filled glass to the light, and rolling the last
mouthful on his tongue, 'I am afraid,' he said, 'that what I heard in
town was true?'

'What was it?' Soane asked, rousing himself.

'I heard, Sir George, that my Lady Hazard had proved an inconstant
mistress of late?'

'Yes. Hang the jade! And yet--we could not live without her!'

'They are saying that you lost three thousand to my Lord March, the
night before you left town?'

'Halve it.'

'Indeed? Still--an expensive mistress?'

'Can you direct me to a cheap one?' Sir George said rather crustily.

'No. But doesn't it occur to you a wife with money--might be cheaper?'
the doctor asked with a twinkle in his eye.

Sir George shrugged his shoulders for answer, and turning from the
table--the servant had withdrawn--brushed the crumbs from his breeches,
and sat staring at the lire, his glass in his hand. 'I suppose--it will
come to that presently,' he said, sipping his wine.

'Very soon,' the doctor answered, drily, 'unless I am in error.'

Sir George looked at him. 'Come, doctor!' he said. 'You know something!
What is it?'

'I know that it is town talk that you lost seven thousand last season;
and God knows how many thousands in the three seasons before it!'

'Well, one must live,' Sir George answered lightly.

'But not at that rate.'

'In that state of life, doctor, into which God has been pleased--you
know the rest.'

'In that state of life into which the devil!' retorted the doctor with
heat.' If I thought that my boy would ever grow up to do nothing better
than--than--but there, forgive me. I grow warm when I think of the old
trees, and the old pictures, and the old Halls that you fine gentlemen
at White's squander in a night! Why, I know of a little place in
Oxfordshire, which, were it mine by inheritance--as it is my
brother's--I would not stake against a Canons or a Petworth!'

'And Stavordale would stake it against a bootjack--rather than not play
at all!' Sir George answered complacently.

'The more fool he!' snapped the doctor.

'So I think.'

'Eh?'

'So I think,' Sir George answered coolly. 'But one must be in the
fashion, doctor.'

'One must be in the Fleet!' the doctor retorted. 'To be in the fashion
you'll ruin yourself! If you have not done it already,' he continued
with something like a groan. 'There, pass the bottle. I have not
patience with you. One of these fine days you will awake to find
yourself in the Rules.'

'Doctor,' Soane answered, returning to his point, 'you know something.'

'Well--'

'You know why my lord sent for me.'

'And what if I do?' Dr. Addington answered, looking thoughtfully through
his wine. 'To tell the truth, I do, Sir George, I do, and I wish I did
not; for the news I have is not of the best. There is a claimant to that
money come forward. I do not know his name or anything about him; but
his lordship thinks seriously of the matter. I am not sure,' the doctor
continued, with his professional air, and as if his patient in the other
room were alone in his mind, 'that the vexation attending it has not
precipitated this attack. I'm not--at all--sure of it. And Lady Chatham
certainly thinks so.'

Sir George was some time silent. Then, with a fair show of indifference,
'And who is the claimant?' he asked.

'That I don't know,' Dr. Addington answered. 'He purports, I suppose, to
be your uncle's heir. But I do know that his attorney has forwarded
copies of documents to his lordship, and that Lord Chatham thinks the
matter of serious import.'

'The worse for me,' said Sir George, forcing a yawn. 'As you say,
doctor, your news is not of the best.'

'Nor, I hope, of the worst,' the physician answered with feeling. 'The
estate is entailed?'

Sir George shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'It is mortgaged. But that is
not the same thing.'

The doctor's face showed genuine distress. 'Ah, my friend, you should
not have done that,' he said reproachfully. 'A property that has been in
the family--why, since--'

'My great-grandfather the stay-maker's time,' Sir George answered
flippantly, as he emptied his glass. 'You know Selwyn's last upon that?
It came by bones, and it is going by bones.'

'God forbid!' said the physician, rubbing his gold-rimmed glasses with
an air of kindly vexation, not unmixed with perplexity. 'If I thought
that my boy would ever come to--to--'

'Buzz the gold-headed cane?' Sir George said gravely. 'Yes, doctor, what
would you do?'

But the physician, instead of answering, looked fixedly at him, nodded,
and turned away. 'You would deceive some, Sir George,' he said quietly,
'but you do not deceive me. When a man who is not jocular by nature
makes two jokes in as many minutes, he is hard hit.'

'Insight?' drawled Sir George lazily. 'Or instinct.'

'Experience among madmen--some would call it,' the doctor retorted with
warmth. 'But it is not. It is what you fine gentlemen at White's have no
part in! Good feeling.'

'Ah!' said Soane; and then a different look came into his face. He
stooped and poked the fire. 'Pardon me, doctor,' he said soberly. 'You
are a good fellow. It is--well, of course, it's a blow. If your news be
true, I stand to lose fifty thousand; and shall be worth about as much
as a Nabob spends yearly on his liveries.'

Dr. Addington, in evident distress, thrust back his wig. 'Is it as bad
as that?' he said. 'Dear, dear, I did not dream of this.'

'Nor I,' Sir George said drily. 'Or I should not have betted with
March.'

'And the old house!' the doctor continued, more and more moved. 'I don't
know one more comfortable.'

'You must buy it,' said Soane. 'I have spared the timber, and there is a
little of the old wine left.'

'Dear, dear!' the doctor answered; and his sigh said more than the
words. Apparently it was also more effectual in moving Sir George. He
rose and began to pace the room, choosing a part where his face evaded
the light of the candles that stood in heavy silver sconces on the dark
mahogany. Presently he laughed, but the laugh was mirthless.

'It is quite the Rake's Progress,' he said, pausing before one of
Hogarth's prints which hung on the wall. 'Perhaps I have been a little
less of a fool and a little more of a rogue than my prototype; but the
end is the same. D----n me, I am sorry for the servants, doctor--though
I dare swear that they have robbed me right and left. It is a pity that
clumsy fool, Dunborough, did not get home when he had the chance the
other day.'

The doctor took snuff, put up his box, filled his glass and emptied it
before he spoke. Then, 'No, no, Sir George, it has not come to that
yet,' he said heartily. 'There is only one thing for it now. They must
do something for you.' And he also rose to his feet, and stood with his
back to the fire, looking at his companion.

'Who?' Soane asked, though he knew very well what the other meant.

'The Government,' said the doctor. 'The mission to Turin is likely to be
vacant by-and-by. Or, if that be too much to ask, a consulship, say at
Genoa or Leghorn, might be found, and serve for a stepping-stone to
Florence. Sir Horace has done well there, and you--'

'Might toady a Grand-duke and bear-lead sucking peers--as well as
another!' Soane answered with a gesture of disgust. 'Ugh, one might as
well be Thomasson and ruin boys. No, doctor, that will not do. I had
sooner hang myself at once, as poor Fanny Braddock did at Bath, or put a
pistol to my head like Bland!'

'God forbid!' said the doctor solemnly.

Sir George shrugged his shoulders, but little by little his face lost
its hardness. 'Yes, God forbid,' he said gently. 'But it is odd. There
is poor Tavistock with a pretty wife and two children, and another
coming; and Woburn and thirty thousand a year to inherit, broke his neck
last week with the hounds; and I, who have nothing to inherit, why
nothing hurts me!'

Dr. Addington disregarded his words.

'They must do something for you at home then,' he said, firmly set on
his benevolent designs. 'In the Mint or the Customs. There should not be
the least difficulty about it. You must speak to his lordship, and it is
not to be supposed that he will refuse.'

Sir George grunted, and might have expressed his doubts, but at that
moment the sound of voices raised in altercation penetrated the room
from the passage. A second later, while the two stood listening,
arrested by the noise, the door was thrown open with such violence that
the candles flickered in the draught. Two persons appeared on the
threshold, the one striving to make his way in, the other to resist
the invasion.

The former was our friend Mr. Fishwick, who having succeeded in pushing
past his antagonist, stared round the room with a mixture of
astonishment and chagrin. 'But--this is _not_ his lordship's room!' he
cried. 'I tell you, I will see his lordship!' he continued. 'I have
business with him, and--' here his gaze alighted on Sir George, and he
stood confounded.

Dr. Addington took advantage of the pause. 'Watkins,' he said in an
awful voice, 'what is the meaning of this unmannerly intrusion? And who
is this person?'

'He persisted that he must see his lordship,' the servant, a sleek,
respectable man in black, answered. 'And rather than have words about it
at his lordship's door--which I would not for twice the likes of him!'
he added with a malevolent glance at the attorney--'I brought him here.
I believe he is mad. I told him it was out of the question, if he was
the king of England or my lord duke. But he would have it that he had an
appointment.'

'So I have!' cried Mr. Fishwick with heat and an excited gesture. 'I
have an appointment with Lord Chatham. I should have been with his
lordship at nine o'clock.'

'An appointment? At this time of night?' Dr. Addington returned with a
freezing mien. 'With Lord Chatham? And who may you please to be, sir,
who claim this privilege?'

'My name is Fishwick, sir, and I am an attorney,' our friend replied.

'A mad attorney?' Dr. Addington answered, affecting to hear him amiss.

'No more mad, sir, than you are!' Mr. Fishwick retorted, kindling at the
insinuation. 'Do you comprehend me, sir? I come by appointment. My lord
has been so good as to send for me, and I defy any one to close his
door on me!'

'Are you aware, sir,' said the doctor, frowning under his wig with the
port of an indignant Jupiter, 'what hour it is? It is ten o'clock.'

'It may be ten o'clock or it may be eleven o'clock,' the attorney
answered doggedly. 'But his lordship has honoured me with a summons, and
see him I must. I insist on seeing him.'

'You may insist or not as you please,' said Dr. Addington
contemptuously. 'You will not see him. Watkins,' he continued, 'what is
this cock-and-bull story of a summons? Has his lordship sent for
any one?'

'About nine o'clock he said that he would see Sir George Soane if he was
in the house,' Watkins answered. 'I did not know that Sir George was
here, and I sent the message to his apartments by one of the men.'

'Well,' said Dr. Addington in his coldest manner, 'what has that to do
with this gentleman?'

'I think I can tell you,' Sir George said, intervening with a smile.
'His party have the rooms that were reserved for me. And doubtless by an
error the message which was intended for me was delivered to him.'

'Ah!' said Dr. Addington gruffly. 'I understand.'

Alas! poor Mr. Fishwick understood too; and his face, as the truth
dawned on him, was one of the most comical sights ever seen. A nervous,
sanguine man, the attorney had been immensely elated by the honour paid
to him; he had thought his cause won and his fortune made. The downfall
was proportionate: in a second his pomp and importance were gone, and he
stood before them timidly rubbing one hand on another. Yet even in the
ridiculous position in which the mistake placed him--in the wrong and
with all his heroics wasted--he retained a sort of manliness. 'Dear me,
dear me,' he said, his jaw fallen, 'I--Your most humble servant, sir! I
offer a thousand apologies for the intrusion! But having business with
his lordship, and receiving the message,' he continued in a tone of
pathetic regret, 'it was natural I should think it was intended for me.
I can say no more than that I humbly crave pardon for intruding on you,
honourable gentlemen, over your wine.'

Dr. Addington bowed stiffly; he was not the man to forgive a liberty.
But Sir George had a kindly impulse. In spite of himself, he could not
refrain from liking the little man who so strangely haunted his steps.
There was a spare glass on the table. He pushed it and the bottle
towards Mr. Fishwick.

'There is no harm done,' he said kindly. 'A glass of wine with you,
sir.'

Mr. Fishwick in his surprise and nervousness, dropped his hat, picked
it up, and dropped it again; finally he let it lie while he filled his
glass. His hand shook; he was unaccountably agitated. But he managed to
acquit himself fairly, and with a 'Greatly honoured, Sir George.
Good-night, gentlemen,' he disappeared.

'What is his business with Lord Chatham?' Dr. Addington asked rather
coldly. It was plain that he did not approve of Sir George's
condescension.

'I have no notion,' Soane answered, yawning. 'But he has got a very
pretty girl with him. Whether she is laying traps for Dunborough--'

'The viscountess's son?'

'Just so--I cannot say. But that is the old harridan's account of it.'

'Is she here too?'

'Lord, yes; and they had no end of a quarrel downstairs. There is a
story about the girl and Dunborough. I'll tell it you some time.'

'I began to think--he was here on your business,' said the doctor.

'He? Oh, no,' Sir George answered without suspicion, and turned to look
for his candlestick. 'I suppose that he is in the case I am in--wants
something and comes to the fountain of honour to get it.'

And bidding the other good-night, he went to bed; not to sleep, but to
lie awake and reckon and calculate, and add a charge here to interest
there, and set both against income, and find nothing remain.

He had sneered at the old home because it had been in his family only so
many generations. But there is this of evil in an old house--it is bad
to live in, but worse to part from. Sir George, straining his eyes in
the darkness, saw the long avenue of elms and the rooks' nests, and the
startled birds circling overhead; and at the end of the vista the wide
doorway, _aed. temp._ Jac. 1--saw it all more lucidly than he had seen
it since the September morning when he traversed it, a boy of fourteen,
with his first gun on his arm. Well, it was gone; but he was Sir George,
macaroni and fashionable, arbiter of elections at White's, and great at
Almack's, more powerful in his sphere than a belted earl! But, then,
that was gone too, with the money--and--and what was left? Sir George
groaned and turned on his pillow and thought of Bland and Fanny
Braddock. He wondered if any one had ever left the Castle by the suicide
door, and, to escape his thoughts, lit a candle and read 'La Belle
H�lo�se,' which he had in his mail.

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