The Castle Inn: Chapter 35

Chapter 35

DORMITAT HOMERUS

If Julia's return in the middle of the night balked the curiosity of
some who would fain have had her set down at the door that they might
enjoy her confusion as she passed through the portico, it had the
advantage, appreciated by others, of leaving room for conjecture. Before
breakfast her return was known from, one end of the Castle Inn to the
other; within half an hour a score had private information. Sir George
had brought her back, after marrying her at Salisbury. The attorney had
brought her back, and both were in custody, charged with stealing Sir
George's title-deeds. Mr. Thomasson had brought her back; he had wedded
her at Calne, the reverend gentleman himself performing the ceremony
with a curtain-ring at a quarter before midnight, in the presence of two
chambermaids, in a room hung with drab moreen. Sir George's servant had
brought her back; he was the rogue in the play; it was Lady Harriet
Wentworth and footman Sturgeon over again. She had come back in a
Flemish hat and a white cloth Joseph with black facings; she had come
back in her night-rail; she had come back in a tabby gauze, with a lace
head and lappets. Nor were there wanting other rumours, of an
after-dinner Wilkes-and-Lord-Sandwich flavour, which we refrain from
detailing; but which the Castle Inn, after the mode of the eighteenth
century, discussed with freedom in a mixed company.

Of all these reports and the excitement which they created in an
assemblage weary of waiting on the great man's recovery and in straits
for entertainment, the attorney knew nothing until he set forth to keep
the appointment in Lord Chatham's apartments; which, long the object of
desire, now set his teeth on edge. Nor need he have learned much of them
then; for he had only to cross the lobby of the east wing, and was in
view of the hall barely three seconds. But, unluckily, Lady Dunborough,
cackling shrewishly with a kindred dowager, caught sight of him as he
passed; and in a trice her old limbs bore her in pursuit. Mr. Fishwick
heard his name called, had the weakness to turn, and too late found that
he had fallen into the clutches of his ancient enemy.

The absence of her son's name from the current rumours had relieved the
Viscountess of her worst fears, and left her free to enjoy herself.
Seeing his dismay, 'La, man! I am not going to eat you!' she cried; for
the lawyer, nervous and profoundly dispirited, really shrank before her.
'So you have brought back your fine madam, I hear? And made an honest
woman of her!'

Mr. Fishwick glared at her, but did not answer.

'I knew what would come of pushing out of your place, my lad!' she
continued, nodding complacently. 'It wasn't likely she'd behave herself.
When the master is away the man will play, and the maid too. I mind me
perfectly of the groom. A saucy fellow and a match for her; 'tis to be
hoped he'll beat some sense into her. Was she tied up at Calne?'

'No!' Mr. Fishwick blurted, wincing under her words; which hurt him a
hundred times more sharply than if the girl had been what he had thought
her. Then he might have laughed at the sneer and the spite that dictated
it. Now--something like this all the world would say.

The Viscountess eyed him cunningly, her head on one side. 'Was it at
Salisbury, then?' she cried. 'Wherever 'twas. I hear she had need of
haste. Or was it at Bristol? D'you hear me speak to you, man?' she
continued impatiently. 'Out with it.'

'At neither,' he cried.

My lady's eyes sparkled with rage. 'Hoity-toity!' she answered. 'D'you
say No to me in that fashion? I'll thank you to mend your manners,
Fishwick, and remember to whom you are speaking. Hark ye, sirrah, is she
Sir George's cousin or is she not?'

'She is not, my lady,' the attorney muttered miserably.

'But she is married?'

'No,' he said; and with that, unable to bear more, he turned to fly.

She caught him by the sleeve. 'Not married?' she cried, grinning with
ill-natured glee. 'Not married? And been of three days with a man! Lord,
'tis a story as bald as Granby! She ought to be whipped, the hussy! Do
you hear? She ought to the Roundhouse, and you with her, sirrah, for
passing her of on us!'

But that was more than the attorney, his awe of the peerage
notwithstanding, could put up with. 'God forgive you!' he cried. 'God
forgive you, ma'am, your hard heart!'

She was astonished. 'You impudent fellow!' she exclaimed. 'What do you
know of God? And how dare you name Him in the same breath with me? D'you
think He'd have people of quality be Methodists and live as the like of
you? God, indeed! Hang your impudence! I say, she should to the
Roundhouse--and you, too, for a vagabond! And so you shall!'

The lawyer shook with rage. 'The less your ladyship talks of the
Roundhouse,' he answered, his voice trembling, 'the better! There's one
is in it now who may go farther and fare worse--to your sorrow,
my lady!'

You rogue!' she cried. 'Do you threaten me?'

'I threaten no one,' he answered. 'But your son, Mr. Dunborough, killed
a man last night, and lies in custody at Chippenham at this very time! I
say no more, my lady!'

He had said enough. My lady glared; then began to shake in her turn. Yet
her spirit was not easily quelled; 'You lie!' she cried shrilly, the
stick, with which she vainly strove to steady herself, rattling on the
floor.' Who dares to say that my son has killed a man?'

'It is known,' the attorney answered.

'Who--who is it?'

'Mr. Pomeroy of Bastwick, a gentleman living near Calne.'

'In a duel! 'Twas in a duel, you lying fool!' she retorted hoarsely.
'You are trying to scare me! Say 'twas in a duel and I--I'll
forgive you.'

'They shut themselves up in a room, and there were no seconds,' the
lawyer answered, beginning to pity her. 'I believe that Mr. Pomeroy gave
the provocation, and that may bring your ladyship's son off. But, on the
other hand--'

'On the other hand, what? What?' she muttered.

'Mr. Dunborough had horsewhipped a man that was in the other's company.'

'A man?'

'It was Mr. Thomasson.'

Her ladyship's hands went up. Perhaps she remembered that but for her
the tutor would not have been there. Then 'Sink you! I wish he had
flogged you all!' she shrieked, and, turning stiffly, she went mumbling
and cursing down the stairs, the lace lappets of her head trembling,
and her gold-headed cane now thumping the floor, now waving uncertainly
in the air.

* * * * *

A quarter of an hour earlier, in the apartments for which Mr. Fishwick
was bound when her ladyship intercepted him, two men stood talking at a
window. The room was the best in the Castle Inn--a lofty panelled
chamber with a southern aspect looking upon the smooth sward and
sweet-briar hedges of Lady Hertford's terrace, and commanding beyond
these a distant view of the wooded slopes of Savernake. The men spoke in
subdued tones, and more than once looked towards the door of an adjacent
room, as if they feared to disturb some one.

'My dear Sir George,' the elder said, after he had listened patiently to
a lengthy relation, in the course of which he took snuff a dozen times,
'your mind is quite made up, I suppose?'

'Absolutely.'

'Well, it is a remarkable series of events; a--most remarkable series,'
Dr. Addington answered with professional gravity. 'And certainly, if the
lady is all you paint her--and she seems to set you young bloods on
fire--no ending could well be more satisfactory. With the addition of a
comfortable place in the Stamps or the Pipe Office, if we can take his
lordship the right way--it should do. It should do handsomely. But',
with a keen glance at his companion, 'even without that--you know that
he is still far from well?'

'I know that all the world is of one of two opinions,' Sir George
answered, smiling. 'The first, that his lordship ails nothing save
politically; the other, that he is at death's door and will not have
it known.'

The physician shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. 'Neither is true,'
he said. 'The simple fact is, he has the gout; and the gout is an odd
thing, Sir George, as you'll know one of these days,' with another sharp
glance at his companion. 'It flies here and there, and everywhere.'

'And where is it now?' Soane asked innocently.

'It has gone to his head,' Addington answered, in a tone so studiously
jejune that Sir George glanced at him. The doctor, however, appeared
unaware of the look, and merely continued: 'So, if he does not take
things quite as you wish, Sir George, you'll--but here his
lordship comes!'

The doctor thought that he had sufficiently prepared Soane for a change
in his patron's appearance. Nevertheless, the younger man was greatly
shocked when through the door, obsequiously opened--and held open while
a man might count fifty, so that eye and mind grew expectant--the great
statesman, the People's Minister at length appeared. For the stooping
figure that moved to a chair only by virtue of a servant's arm, and
seemed the taller for its feebleness, for dragging legs and shrunken,
frame and features sharpened by illness and darkened by the great peruke
it was the Earl's fashion to wear, he was in a degree prepared. But for
the languid expression of the face that had been so eloquent, for the
lacklustre eyes and the dulness of mind that noticed little and heeded
less, he was not prepared; and these were so marked and so unlike the
great minister--

'A daring pilot in extremity
Pleased with the danger when the waves went high'

--so unlike the man whose eagle gaze had fluttered Courts and imposed
the law on Senates, that it was only the presence of Lady Chatham, who
followed her lord, a book and cushion in her hands, that repressed the
exclamation which rose to Sir George's lips. So complete was the change
indeed that, as far as the Earl was concerned, he might have uttered it!
His lordship, led to the head of the table, sank without a word into the
chair placed for him, and propping his elbow on the table and his head
on his hand, groaned aloud.

Lady Chatham compressed her lips with evident annoyance as she took her
stand behind her husband's chair; it was plain from the glance she cast
at Soane that she resented the presence of a witness. Even Dr.
Addington, with his professional _sang-froid_ and his knowledge of the
invalid's actual state, was put out of countenance for a moment. Then he
signed to Sir George to be silent, and to the servant to withdraw.

At last Lord Chatham spoke. 'This business?' he said in a hollow voice
and without uncovering his eyes, 'is it to be settled now?'

'If your lordship pleases,' the doctor answered in a subdued tone.

'Sir George Soane is there?'

'Yes.'

'Sir George,' the Earl said with an evident effort, 'I am sorry I cannot
receive you better.'

'My lord, as it is I am deeply indebted to your kindness.'

'Dagge finds no flaw in their case,' Lord Chatham continued
apathetically. 'Her ladyship has read his report to me. If Sir George
likes to contest the claim, it is his right.'

'I do not propose to do so.'

Sir George had not this time subdued his voice to the doctor's pitch;
and the Earl, whose nerves seemed alive to the slightest sound, winced
visibly. 'That is your affair,' he answered querulously. 'At any rate
the trustees do not propose to do so.'

Sir George, speaking with more caution, replied that he acquiesced; and
then for a few seconds there was silence in the room, his lordship
continuing to sit in the same attitude of profound melancholy, and the
others to look at him with compassion, which they vainly strove to
dissemble. At last, in a voice little above a whisper, the Earl asked if
the man was there.

'He waits your lordship's pleasure,' Dr. Addington answered. 'But before
he is admitted,' the physician continued diffidently and with a manifest
effort, 'may I say a word, my lord, as to the position in which this
places Sir George Soane?'

'I was told this morning,' Lord Chatham answered, in the same muffled
tone, 'that a match had been arranged between the parties, and that
things would remain as they were. It seemed to me, sir, a prudent
arrangement.'

Sir George was about to answer, but Dr. Addington made a sign to him to
be silent. 'That is so,' the physician replied smoothly. 'But your
lordship is versed in Sir George Soane's affairs, and knows that he must
now go to his wife almost empty-handed. In these circumstances it has
occurred rather to his friends than to himself, and indeed I speak
against his will and by sufferance only, that--that, in a word,
my lord--'

Lord Chatham lowered his hand as Dr. Addington paused. A faint flush
darkened his lean aquiline features, set a moment before in the mould of
hopeless depression. 'What?' he said. And he raised himself sharply in
his chair. 'What has occurred to his friends?'

'That some provision might be made for him, my lord.'

'From the public purse?' the Earl cried in a startling tone. 'Is that
your meaning, sir?' And, with the look in his eyes which had been more
dreaded by the Rigbys and Dodingtons of his party than the most
scathing rebuke from the lips of another, he fixed the unlucky doctor
where he stood. 'Is that your proposal, sir?' he repeated.

The physician saw too late that he had ventured farther than his
interest would support him; and he quailed. On the other hand, it is
possible he had been neither so confident before, nor was so entirely
crushed now, as appeared. 'Well, my lord, it did occur to me,' he
stammered, 'as not inconsistent with the public welfare.'

'The public welfare!' the minister cried in biting accents. 'The public
plunder, sir, you mean! It were not inconsistent with that to quarter on
the nation as many ruined gentlemen as you please! But you mistake if
you bring the business to me to do--you mistake. I have dispersed
thirteen millions of His Majesty's money in a year, and would have spent
as much again and as much to that, had the affairs of this nation
required it; but the gentleman is wrong if he thinks it has gone to my
friends. My hands are clean,' his lordship continued with an expressive
gesture. 'I have said, in another place, none of it sticks to them.
_Virtute me involvo_!' And then, in a lower tone, but still with a note
of austerity in his voice, M rejoice to think,' he continued, 'that the
gentleman was not himself the author of this application. I rejoice to
think that it did not come from him. These things have been done freely;
it concerns me not to deny it; but since I had to do with His Majesty's
exchequer, less freely. And that only concerns me!'

Sir George Soane bit his lip. He felt keenly the humiliation of his
position. But it was so evident that the Earl was not himself--so
evident that the tirade to which he had just listened was one of those
outbursts, noble in sentiment, but verging on the impracticable and the
ostentatious, in which Lord Chatham was prone to indulge in his weaker
moments, that he felt little inclination to resent it. Yet to let it
pass unnoticed was impossible.

'My lord,' he said firmly, but with respect, 'it is permitted to all to
make an application which the custom of the time has sanctioned. That is
the extent of my action--at the highest. The propriety of granting such
requests is another matter and rests with your lordship. I have nothing
to do with that.'

The Earl appeared to be as easily disarmed as he had been lightly
aroused. 'Good lad! good lad!' he muttered. 'Addington is a fool!' Then
drowsily, as his head sunk on his hand again, 'The man may enter. I will
tell him!'

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