Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 14

Broughton was exactly the man Colonel Delmar wanted,--good family, a fine fortune, and the very temper a clever woman usually contrives to rule with absolute sway.

There would be, unfortunately, no novelty in recording the steps by which such a man is ruined. He did everything that men do who are bent upon testing Fortune to the utmost. He lent large sums to his "friends;"

he lost larger ones to them. When he did win, none ever paid him, except by a good-humored jest upon his credit at Coutts's. "What the devil do you want with money, Sir Dudley?" was an appeal he could never reply to.

He ran horses at Ascot, and got "squeezed;" he played at "Crocky's," and fared no better; but he was the favorite of the corps. "We could never get on without Dudley," was a common remark; and it satisfied him that, with all his extravagance, he had made an investment in the hearts at least of his comrades. A few months longer of this "fast" career would, in all likelihood, have ruined him. He broke his leg by a fall in a steeplechase, and was thus driven, by sheer necessity, to lay up, and keep quiet for a season. Now came Colonel Delmar's opportunity; the moment the news reached Coventry, he set off with his daughter to Leamington. With the steeplechasing, hazard-playing, betting, drinking, yachting, driving Sir Dudley, there was no chance of even time for their plans; but with a sick man on the sofa, bored by his inactivity, hipped for want of his usual resources, the game was open. The Colonel's visit, too, had such an air of true kindness!

Broughton had left quarters without leave; but instead of reprimands, arrests, and Heaven knows what besides, there was Colonel Delmar, the fine old fellow, shaking his finger in mock rebuke, and saying, "Ah, Dudley, my boy, I came down to give you a rare scolding; but this sad business has saved you!" And Lydia also, against whom he had ever felt a dislike,--that prejudice your boisterous and noisy kind of men ever feel to clever women, whose sarcasms they know themselves exposed to,--why, she was gentle good-nature and easy sisterlike kindness itself! She did not, as the phrase goes, "nurse him," but she seldom left the room where he lay. She read aloud, selecting with a marvellous instinct the very kind of books he fancied,--novels, tales of every-day life, things of whose truthfulness he could form some judgment; and sketches wherein the author's views were about on a level with his own. She would sit at the window, too, and amuse him with descriptions of the people pa.s.sing in the street; such smart shrewd pictures were they of watering-place folks and habits, Dudley never tired of them! She was unsurpa.s.sed for the style with which she could dress up an anecdote or a bit of gossip; and if it verged upon the free, her French education taught her the nice perception of the narrow line that separates "libertinage" from indelicacy.

So far from feeling impatient at his confinement to a sofa, therefore, Broughton affected distrust in his renovated limb for a full fortnight after the doctor had p.r.o.nounced him cured. At last he was able to drive out, and soon afterwards to take exercise on horseback, Lydia Delmar and her father occasionally accompanying him.

People will talk at Leamington, as they do at other places; and so the gossips said that the rich--for he was still so reputed in the world--the "rich" Sir Dudley Broughton was going to marry Miss Delmar.

Gossip is half-brother to that all-powerful director called "Public Opinion;" so that when Sir Dudley heard, some half-dozen times every day, what it was reputed he would do, he began to feel that he ought to do it.

Accordingly, they were married; the world--at least the Leamington section of that large body--criticising the match precisely as it struck the interests and prejudices of the cla.s.s they belonged to.

Fathers and mothers agreed in thinking that Colonel Delmar was a shrewd old soldier, and had made an "excellent hit." Young ladies p.r.o.nounced Liddy--for a girl who had been out eight years--decidedly lucky.

Lounging men at club doors looked knowingly at each other as they joked together in half sentences, "No affair of mine; but I did not think Broughton would have been caught so easily." "Yes, by Jove!" cried another, with a jockey-like style of dress, "he 'd not have made so great a mistake on the 'Oaks' as to run an aged nag for a two-year old!"

"I wonder he never heard of that Russian fellow!" said a third.

"Oh, yes!" sighed out a dandy, with an affected drawl; "poor dear Liddy did indeed catch a 'Tartar '!"

Remarks such as these were the pleasant sallies the event provoked; but so it is in higher and greater things in life! At the launch of a line-of-battle ship, the veriest vagrant in Tags fancies he can predict for her defeat and shipwreck!

The Broughtons were now the great people of the London season, at least to a certain "fast" set, who loved dinners at the Clarendon, high play, and other concomitant pleasures. _Her_ equipages were the most perfect; _her_ diamonds the most splendid; while _his_ dinners were as much reputed by one cla.s.s, as _her_ toilet by another.

Loans at ruinous interest; sales of property for a t.i.the of its value; bills renewed at a rate that would have swamped Rothschild; purchases made at prices proportionate to the risk of non-payment; reckless waste everywhere; robbing solicitors, cheating tradesmen, and dishonest servants! But why swell the list, or take trouble to show how the ruin came? If one bad leak will cause a shipwreck, how is the craft to mount the waves with every plank riven asunder?

If among the patriarchs who lend at usury, Broughton's credit was beginning to ebb, in the clubs at the West End, in the betting-ring, at Crockford's, and at Tattersall's, he was in all the splendor of his former fame. Anderson would trust him with half his stable. Howell and James would send him the epergne they had designed for a czar. And so he lived. With rocks and breakers ahead, he only "carried on" the faster and the freer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 122]

Not that he knew, indeed, the extent, or anything approaching the extent, to which his fortune was wrecked. All that he could surmise on the subject was founded on the increased difficulty he found in raising money,--a circ.u.mstance his pliant solicitor invariably explained by that happy phrase, the "tightness of the money market." This completely satisfied Sir Dudley, who, far from attributing it to his own almost exhausted resources, laid all the blame upon some trickery of foreign statesmen, some confounded disturbance in Ireland, something that the Foreign Secretary had done, or would not do; and that thus the money folk would not trust a guinea out of their fingers. In fact, it was quite clear that to political intrigue and cabinet scheming all Sir Dudley's difficulties might fairly be traced!

It was just at this time that the Count Radchoffsky arrived once more in London in charge of a special mission, no longer the mere secretary of emba.s.sy, driving about in his quiet cab, but an envoy extraordinary, with cordons and crosses innumerable. He was exactly the kind of man for Broughton's "set," so that he soon made his acquaintance, and was presented by him to Lady Broughton as a most agreeable fellow, and something very distinguished in his own country.

She received him admirably: remembered to have met him, she thought, at Lord Edenbury's but he corrected her by saying it was at the Duke of Clifton's,--a difference of testimony at which Broughton laughed heartily, saying, in his usual rough way, "Well, it is pretty clear you didn't make much impression on each other."

The Russian n.o.ble was a stranger to the turf. In the details of arranging the approaching race, in apportioning the weights and ages and distances, Broughton pa.s.sed his whole mornings for a month, sorely puzzled at times by the apathy of his Northern friend, who actually never obtruded an opinion, or expressed a wish for information on the subject.

Sir Dudley's book was a very heavy one too. What "he stood to win" was a profound secret; but knowing men said that if he lost, it would be such a "squeeze" as had not been known at Newmarket since the Duke of York's day.

Such an event, however, seemed not to enter into his own calculations; and so confident was he of success that he could not help sharing his good fortune with his friend Radchoffsky, and giving him something in his own book. The count professed himself everlastingly grateful, but confessed that he knew nothing of racing matters, and that, above all, his Majesty the Emperor would be excessively annoyed if a representative of his in any way interfered with the race; in fact, the honor of the Czar would be tarnished by such a proceeding. Against such reasonings there could be no opposition; and Broughton only took to himself all the benefits he had destined for his friend.

At last the eventful day came; and although Sir Dudley had arranged that Lady Broughton should accompany him to the course, she was taken with some kind of nervous attack that prevented her leaving her bed. Her husband was provoked at this ill-timed illness, for he was still vain of her appearance in public; but knowing that he could do nothing for hysterics, he sent for Doctor Barham, and then with all speed he started for the race.

Among the friends who were to go along with him, the count had promised to make one; but despatches--that admirable excuse of diplomatists, from the great secretary to the humblest unpaid attache--despatches had just arrived; and if he could manage to get through his business early enough, "he'd certainly follow."

Scarcely had Sir Dudley reached the ground when a carriage drove up to the stand, and a gentleman descended in all haste. It was Mr. Taperton, his solicitor,--his trusty man of loans and discounts for many a day, "Eh, Tappy!" cried Broughton, "come to sport a fifty on the filly?"

"Walk a little this way, Sir Dudley," said he, gravely; and his voice soon convinced the hearer that something serious was in the wind.

"What's the matter, man? You look as if Cardinal was dead lame."

"Sir Dudley, you must start from this at once. Holds-worth has taken proceedings on the bills; Lord Corthern has foreclosed; the whole body of the creditors are up; and you 'll be arrested before you leave the field!"

If the threat had conveyed the ignominious penalty of felony, Broughton could not have looked more indignant. "Arrested! You don't mean that we cannot raise enough to pay these rascals?"

"Your outstanding bills are above twenty thousand, sir."

"And if they be; do you tell me that with my estate--"

"My dear Sir Dudley, how much of it is unenc.u.mbered? What single portion, save the few hundreds a year of Lady Broughton's jointure, is not sunk under mortgage? But this is no time for discussion; get into the chaise with me; we 'll reach London in time for the mail; to-morrow you can be in Boulogne, and then we shall have time at least for an arrangement."

"The race is just coming off! how can I leave? I'm a steward; besides, I have a tremendous book. Do you know how many thousands I stand to win here?"

"To lose, you mean," said the solicitor. "You 're sold!" The words were whispered so low as to be almost inaudible; but Broughton actually staggered as he heard them.

"Sold! how? what? Impossible, man! Who could sell me?"

"Only one man, perhaps, but he has done it! Is it true you have backed Calliope?"

"Yes!" said he, staring wildly.

"She was found hamstrung this morning in the stable, then," said Taperton; "if you want to hear further particulars, you must ask your friend the Count Radchoffsky!"

"The scoundrel! the black-hearted villain! I see it all!" cried Broughton. "Come, Taperton, let us start! I'll go with you; by Jove, you have found a way to make me eager for the road!"

The lawyer read in the bloodshot eye and flushed face the pa.s.sion for vengeance that was boiling within him, but he never spoke as they moved on and entered the carriage.

It was full three hours before the expected time of his return, when the chaise in which they travelled drew up at the Clarendon, and Broughton, half wild with rage, dashed upstairs to the suite of splendid rooms he occupied.

"Oh, dear, Sir Dudley," cried the maid, as she saw him hastening along the corridor, "oh, I 'm sure, sir, how you 'll alarm my lady if she sees you so flurried!"

"Stand out of the way, woman!" said he, roughly, endeavoring to push her to one side, for she had actually placed herself between him and the door of the drawing-room.

"Surely, sir, you'll not terrify my lady! Surely, Sir Dudley--"

Despite her cries, for they had now become such, Broughton pushed her rudely from the spot, and entered the room.

Great was his astonishment to find Lady Broughton, whom he had left so ill, not only up, but dressed as if for the promenade; her face was flushed, and her eye restless and feverish; and her whole manner exhibited the highest degree of excitement.

Broughton threw down his hat upon the table, and then, returning to the door, locked and bolted it.

"Good Heavens, Dudley!" exclaimed she, in a voice of terror, "what has happened?"

"Everything!" said he; "utter ruin! The whole crew of creditors are in full chase after me, and in a few hours we shall be stripped of all we possess."

She drew a long full breath as she listened; and had her husband been in a mood to mark it, he might have seen how lightly his terrible tidings affected her.