Barrington Volume Ii Part 31

I scarcely ask you to write to me here, not knowing our probable stay; but to-morrow may, perhaps, tell us something on this head. Till when, believe me,

Yours affectionately,

Ormsby Conters.

My most cordial greeting to Miss Barrington, and my love to her niece.

FROM PETER BARRINGTON TO HIS SISTER MISS DINAH BARRINGTON.

Long's Hotel, Bond Street.

My dear Dinah,--I hardly know how to tell you what has happened, or what is happening around me. I came over here to meet Major Stapylton, but find that there is no such person,--the man who calls himself so being a mere adventurer, who had taken the name, and, I believe, no small share of the goods, of its owner, got into the Bengal army, thence into our own service, and though not undistinguished for gallantry, seems to have led a life of ceaseless roguery and intrigue. He knew all about poor George's business, and was in correspondence with those we believe to be our friends in India, but who now turn out to be our inveterate enemies.

This we have got at by the confession of one of those Oriental fellows they call Moonshees, who has revealed all their intercourse for years back, and even shown a doc.u.ment setting forth the number of rupees he was to receive when Stapylton had been married to Josephine. The Moonshee is very ill, and his examination can only be conducted at intervals; but he insists on a point of much importance to us, which is, that Stapylton induced him to tear out of the Rajah's Koran the page on which the adoption of George was written, and signed by the Meer himself. He received a large sum for this service, which, however, he evaded by a fraud, sending over to England not the real doc.u.ment itself, but a copy made by himself, and admirably counterfeited. It was the possession of this by Stapylton which enabled him to exercise a great control over our suit,--now averring that it was lost; now, under pledge of secrecy, submitting it to the inspection of some of the Indian authorities. Stapylton, in a word, saw himself in a position to establish our claim, whenever the time came that by making Josephine his wife, he could secure the fortune. This is all that we know up to this, but it is a great deal, and shows in what a maze of duplicity and treachery we have been involved for more than twenty years. The chief point, however, is that the real deed, written in the Meer's Koran, and torn out of it by the Moonshee, in his first impulse to forward it to Stapylton, is now extant, and the Koran itself is there to show the jagged margin of the torn-out leaf, and the corresponding page on the opposite side of the volume. Stapylton refuses to utter one word since the accusation against him has been made; and as the charges stand to falsifying doc.u.ments, abstraction of funds, and other derelictions in India, he is now under a heavy bail to appear when called on.

The whole business has made me so nervous and excitable that I cannot close my eyes at night, and I feel feverish and restless all day. It is very shocking to think of a man one has never injured, never heard of, animated with a spirit so inimical as to pa.s.s years of life in working ill to us. He would appear to have devoted himself to the task of blackening poor George's character and defaming him. It would seem that Mr. Howard Stapylton was one of those who took an active part against George. Whether this young fellow caught the contagion of this antipathy, or helped to feed it, I cannot tell; but it is certain that all the stories of cruelty and oppression the India Board used to trump up to us came from this one source; and at the end of all he seeks to be one of a family he has striven for years to ruin and to crush! I am lost in my efforts to understand this, though Stamer and Withering a.s.sure me they can read the man like print. Indeed, they see inferences and motives in fifty things which convey nothing to me; and whenever I feel myself stopped by some impa.s.sable barrier, to _them_ it is only a bridge that conducts to a fresh discovery.

The Stapyltons are all in arms now that another sportsman has winged the bird for them; and each day increases the number of accusations against this unfortunate fellow. It is true, dear Dinah, that our own prospects brighten through all this. I am constantly receiving civil messages and hopeful a.s.surances; and even some of the directors have called to express sympathy and good wishes. But how chilled is the happiness that comes dashed with the misfortune of another! What a terrible deal it detracts from our joy to know that every throb of pleasure to ourselves has cost a pang of misery elsewhere! I wish this fellow could have gone his way, never minding us; or, if that could n't be, that he 'd have grown tired of persecuting those who had never harmed him, and given us up!

They are now a.s.sailing him on all sides. One has found that he forged a will; another that he falsified a signature; and a miserable creature--a native Indian, who happened to be in that Manchester riot the other day--has now been ferreted out to swear that Stapylton followed him through a suburb, down a lane, and into a brick-field, where he cut him down and left him for dead. There seems a great deal of venom and acrimony in all this; and though the man is unquestionably not my friend, and I see that this persecution continues, I find it very hard not to stand by him.

As for Withering, it has made the veteran ten years younger. He is up every morning at five, and I hear that he never goes to his room till long past midnight. These are the pastimes that to such men replace the sports of the field and the accidents of the chase. They have their vacillations of hope and fear, their moments of depression and of triumph in them; and they run a fellow-creature to earth with all the zest of a hard rider after a fox.

Tell my darling Fifine that I am longing to be at home again,--longing for the quiet roof, and the roses at the window, and the murmur of the river, and her own sweet voice better than them all. And what a deal of happiness is in our power if we would only consent to enjoy it, without running after some imaginary good, some fancied blessing, which is to crown our wishes! If I could but only have guessed at the life of anxiety, doubt, and vacillation the pursuit of this claim would have cost me,--the twenty years of fever,--

I give you my word, Dinah, I 'd rather have earned my daily bread with a spade, or, when too old for that, taken to fishing for a livelihood.

But why do I complain of anything at this moment? When have I been so truly happy for many a long year? Conyers never leaves me,--he talks of George from morning to night. And I now see that with all my affection for that dear boy, I only half knew his n.o.ble nature, his fine and generous character. If you only heard of the benevolent things he has done; the poor fellows he has sent home to their families at his own cost; the sums he has transmitted to wives and widows of soldiers in England; the children whose care and support he has provided for! These were the real drains on that fortune that the world thought wasted and squandered in extravagance. And do you know, Dinah, there is a vein of intense egotism in my heart that I never so much as suspected! I found it out by chance,--it was in marking how far less I was touched by the highest and best traits of my poor boy than by the signs of love to myself! and when Conyers said, "He was always talking about you; he never did anything important without the question, 'How would "Dad" like this, I wonder? would "Dad" say "G.o.d speed" in this case?' And his first gla.s.s of wine every day was to the health of that dear old father over the seas."

To you who loved him only a little less than myself, I have no shame in the confession of this weakness. I suppose Conyers, however, has. .h.i.t upon it, for he harps on this theme continually, and, in sheer pride of heart, I feel ten years younger for it.

Here comes Withering to say, "Some more wonderful news;" but I have begged him to keep it till I have sealed this letter, which if it grows any longer, I 'll never have courage to send to you. A dozen kisses to Fifine I can, however, transmit without any increase to the postage.

Give my love to young Conyers; tell him I am charmed with his father,--I never met any one so companionable to me, and I only long for the day when the same roof shall cover all of us.

Yours, my dearest sister, ever affectionately,

Peter Barrington.

FROM T. WITHERING, ESQ., TO MISS DINAH BARRINGTON, "THE HOME."

Long's Hotel, Bond Street.

My dear Miss Barrington,--If your brother has deputed me to write to you, it is not that he is ill, but simply that the excitement caused by some late events here has so completely mastered him that he can neither sit quiet a moment, nor address him steadily to any task. Nor am I surprised it should be so. Old, weather-beaten sailor on the ocean of life as I am, I feel an amount of feverishness and anxiety I am half ashamed of. Truth is, my dear Miss Dinah, we lawyers get so much habituated to certain routine rogueries that we are almost shocked when we hear of a wickedness not designated by a statute. But I must not occupy your time with such speculations, the more since I have only a brief s.p.a.ce to give to that report of proceedings to which I want your attention. And, first of all, I will entreat you to forgive me for all want of sequence or connection in what I may say, since events have grown so jumbled together in my mind, that it is perfectly impossible for me to be certain whether what I relate should come before or after some other recorded fact In a word, I mean to give you an outline of our discoveries, without showing the track of our voyage on the map, or even saying how we came by our knowledge.

You are aware, Barrington tells me, how Stapylton came by the name he bears. Aware that he was for some of his earlier years domesticated with old Howard Stapylton at Ghurtnapore, in some capacity between confidential valet and secretary,--a position that was at once one of subordination and trust,--it would now appear that a Moonshee, who had long served Colonel Barrington as Persian correspondent, came into Howard Stapylton's service in the same capacity: how introduced, or by whom, we know not. With this Moonshee, the young fellow I speak of became an intimate and close friend, and it is supposed obtained from him all that knowledge of your nephew's affairs which enabled him to see to what his claim pretended, and what were its prospects of success. It is now clear enough that he only regarded this knowledge at first as a means of obtaining favor from the Indian Government. It was, in fact, by ceding to them in detail certain doc.u.ments, that he got his first commission in the Madras Fusiliers, and afterwards his promotion in the same regiment; and when, grown more ambitious, he determined to enter the King's service, the money for purchase came from the same source.

Being, however, a fellow of extravagant habits, his demands grew at last to be deemed excessive and importunate; and though his debts had been paid three several times, he was again found involving himself as before, and again requiring a.s.sistance. This application was, however, resisted; and it was apparently on the strength of that refusal that he suddenly changed his tactics, turned his attention towards us, and bethought him that by forwarding your grandniece's claim,--if he could but win her affections in the mean while,--he would secure as a wife one of the richest heiresses in Europe. An examination of dates proves this, by showing that his last application to the Indian Board was only a few weeks before he exchanged into the regiment of Hussars he lately served with, and just then ordered to occupy Kilkenny. In one word, when it was no longer profitable to oppose Josephine's claim, he determined to support it and make it his own. The "Company," however, fully a.s.sured that by the papers in their possession they could prove their own cause against Colonel Barrington, resisted all his menaces,--when, what does he do? It was what only a very daring and reckless fellow would ever have thought of,--one of those insolent feats of boldness that succeed by the very shock they create. He goes to the Secret Committee at the India House and says: "Of the eighteen doc.u.ments I have given you, seven are false. I will not tell you which they are, but if you do not speedily compromise this claim and make a satisfactory settlement on Colonel Barrington's daughter, I'll denounce you, at all the peril it may be to myself." At first they agree, then they hesitate, then they treat again, and so does the affair proceed, till suddenly--no one can guess why--they a.s.sume a tone of open defiance, and flatly declare they will hold no further intercourse with him, and even threaten with exposure any demand on his part.

This rejection of him came at a critical moment. It was just when the press had begun to comment on the cruelty of his conduct at Peterloo, and when a sort of cry was got up through the country to have him dismissed from the service. We all saw, but never suspected, why he was so terribly cut up at this time. It was hard to believe that he could have taken mere newspaper censure so much to heart. We never guessed the real cause, never saw that he was driven to his last expedient, and obliged to prejudice all his hope of success by precipitancy. If he could not make Josephine his wife at once, on the very moment, all was lost. He made a bold effort at this. Who knows if he might not have succeeded but for you, as Josephine was very young, my old friend himself utterly unfit to cope with anything but open hostility? I say again, I 'd not have answered for the result if you had not been in command of the fortress. At all events, he failed; and in the failure lost his temper so far as to force a quarrel upon your brother. He failed, however; and no sooner was he down, than the world was atop of him: creditors, Jews, bill-discounters, and, last of all, the Stapyltons, who, so long as he bore their family name thousands of miles off, or a.s.sociated it with deeds of gallantry, said nothing; now, that they saw it held up to attack and insult, came forward to declare that he never belonged to them, and at length appealed formally to the Horse Guards, to learn under what designation he had entered the service, and at what period taken the name he went by.

Stapylton's application for leave to sell out had just been sent in; and once more the newspapers set up the cry that this man should not be permitted to carry away to Aix and Baden the proceeds of a sale which belonged to his "creditors." You know the world, and I need not tell you all the pleasant things it told this fellow, for men are pretty nigh as pitiless as crows to their wounded. I thought the complication had reached its limit, when I learned yesterday evening that Stapylton had been summoned before a police magistrate for a case of a.s.sault committed by him when in command of his regiment at Manchester. The case had evidently been got up by a political party, who, seeing the casual unpopularity of the man, determined to profit by it. The celebrated radical barrister, Hesketh, was engaged for the plaintiff.

When I arrived at the court, it was so full that it was with difficulty I got a pa.s.sage to a seat behind the bench. There were crowds of fashionables present, the well-known men about town, and the idlers of the clubs, and a large sprinkling of military men, for the news of the case had got wind already.

Stapylton, dressed in black, and looking pale and worn, but still dignified and like a gentleman, had not a single friend with him. I own to you, I felt ashamed to be there, and was right glad when he did not recognize me.

Though the case opened by a declaration that this was no common a.s.sault case, wherein in a moment of pa.s.sion a man had been betrayed into an excess, I knew the cant of my craft too well to lay any stress on such a.s.sertion, and received it as the ordinary exordium. As I listened, however, I was struck by hearing that the injured man was a.s.serted to be one well known to Stapylton, with whom he had been for years in intimacy, and that the a.s.sault was in reality a deliberate attempt to kill, and not, as had been represented, a mere pa.s.sing act of savage severity committed in hot blood. "My client," said he, "will be brought before you; he is a Hindoo, but so long a resident of this country that he speaks our language fluently. You shall hear his story yourselves, and yourselves decide on its truthfulness. His wounds are, however, of so serious a nature that it will be advisable his statement should be a brief one." As he said this, a dark-complexioned fellow, with a look half-frightened, half defiant, was carried forwards in a chair, and deposited, as he sat, on the table. He gave his name as Lai Adeen, his age as forty-eight, his birthplace Majamarha, near Agra. He came to this country twelve years ago, as servant to an officer who had died on the pa.s.sage, and after many hardships in his endeavor to earn a livelihood, obtained employment at Manchester in the mill of Brandling and Bennett, where he was employed to sweep the corridors and the stairs; his wages were nine shillings a week. All this, and much more of the same kind, he told simply and collectedly. I tried to see Stapylton while this was going on, but a pillar of the gallery, against which he leaned, concealed him from my view.

I omit a great deal, not without its interest, but reserving it for another time, and come to his account of the night on which he was wounded. He said that as the cavalry marched on that morning into Manchester, he was struck by seeing at the head of the regiment one he had never set his eyes on for years, but whose features he knew too well to be deceived in.

"I tried to get near him, that he might recognize me," said he; "but the crowd kept me back, and I could not. I thought, indeed, at one moment he had seen me, and knew me; but as he turned his head away, I supposed I was mistaken.

"It was on the following evening, when the riot broke out in Mill Street, that I saw him next. I was standing at the door of a chemist's shop when the cavalry rode by at a walk. There was a small body of them in front, at about forty or fifty paces, and who, finding a sort of barricade across the street, returned to the main body, where they seemed to be reporting this. A cry arose that the troops had been blocked up at the rear, and at the same instant a shower of stones came from the side-streets and the house-tops. Thinking to do him a service, I made my way towards him I knew, in order to tell him by what way he could make his escape; and jostled and pushed, and half ridden down, I laid my hand on his horse's shoulder to keep myself from falling. 'Stand back, you scoundrel!' said he, striking me with the hilt of his sword in the face. 'Don't you know me, master?' cried I, in terror. He bent down in his saddle till his face was almost close to mine, and then, reining his horse back to give him room for a blow, he aimed a desperate cut at me. I saw it coming, and threw myself down; but I rose the next instant and ran. The street was already so clear by this time, I got into Cleever's Alley, down Grange Street, up the lane that leads to the brick-fields, and at last into the fields themselves. I was just thinking I was safe, when I saw a horseman behind me. He saw me, and dashed at me. I fell upon my knees to ask mercy, and he gave me this;"

and he pointed to the bandages which covered his forehead, stained as they were with clotted blood. "I fell on my face, and he tried to make his horse trample on me; but the beast would not, and he only touched me with his hoof as he sprang across me. He at last dismounted to see, perhaps, if I were dead; but a shout from some of the rioters warned him to mount again; and he rode away, and I lay there till morning. It is not true that I was in prison and escaped,--that I was taken to the hospital, and ran away from it. I was sheltered in one of the clay-huts of the brickmakers for several weeks, afraid to come abroad, for I knew that the Sahib was a great man and could take my life. It was only by the persuasions of others that I left my hiding-place and have come here to tell my story."

On being questioned why this officer could possibly desire to injure him, what grudge one in such a station could bear him, he owned he could not say; they had never been enemies, and, indeed, it was in the hope of a friendly recognition and a.s.sistance that he approached him in Mill Street.

Stapylton's defence was very brief, given in an off-hand, frank manner, which disposed many in his favor. He believed the fellow meant to attack him; he certainly caught hold of his bridle. It was not his intention to give him more than a pa.s.sing blow; but the utterance of a Hindoo curse--an expression of gross outrage in the East--recalled prejudices long dormant, and he gave the rascal chase, and cut him over the head,--not a severe cut, and totally unaccompanied by the other details narrated.

"As for our former acquaintance I deny it altogether. I have seen thousands of his countrymen, and may have seen him; but, I repeat, I never knew him, nor can he presume to say he knew me!"

The Hindoo smiled a faint, sickly smile, made a gesture of deep humility, and asked if he might put a few questions to the "Sahib."

"Were you in Naghapoor in the year of the floods?"

"Yes," said Stapylton, firmly, but evidently with an effort to appear calm.

"In the service of the great Sahib, Howard Stapylton?"

"In his service? Certainly not. I lived with him as his friend, and became his adopted heir.''

"What office did you fill when you first came to the 'Residence'?"

"I a.s.sisted my friend in the duties of his government; I was a good Oriental scholar, and could write and speak a dialect he knew nothing of. But I submit to the court that this examination, prompted and suborned by others, has no other object than to insult me, by leading to disclosures of matters essentially private in their nature."

"Let me ask but one question," said the barrister. "What name did you bear before you took that of Stapylton?"

"I refuse to submit to this insolence," said Stapylton, rising, angrily.

"If the laws of the country only can lend themselves to a.s.sist the persecutions of a rascally Press, the sooner a man of honor seeks another land the better. Adjudicate on this case, sirs; I will not stoop to bandy words with these men."

"I now, sir," said Hesketh, opening his bag and taking out a roll of papers, "am here to demand a committal for forgery against the person before you, pa.s.sing under the name of Horace Stapylton, but whose real designation is Samuel Scott Edwardes, son of Samuel Edwardes, a name notorious enough once."

I cannot go on, my dear friend; the emotions that overpowered me at the time, and compelled me to leave the court, are again threatening me, and my brain reels at the recollection of a scene which, even to my fast-fading senses, was the most trying of my life.

To General Conyers I must refer you for what ensued after I left. I cannot even say who came home with me to the hotel, though I am aware I owed that kindness to some one. The face of that unhappy man is yet before me, and all the calm in which I have written up to this leaves me, as I think over one of the most terrible incidents of my life.

Your brother, shocked of course, bears up bravely, and hopes to write to you to-morrow.