Pelham Part 36

Three weeks after Glanville's first speech in the House, I called upon him, with a proposal from Lord Dawton. After we had discussed it, we spoke on more familiar topics, and, at last, he mentioned Thornton. It will be observed that we had never conversed respecting that person; nor had Glanville once alluded to our former meetings, or to his disguised appearance and false appellation at Paris. Whatever might be the mystery, it was evidently of a painful nature, and it was not, therefore, for me to allude to it. This day he spoke of Thornton with a tone of indifference.

"The man," he said, "I have known for some time; he was useful to me abroad, and, notwithstanding his character, I rewarded him well for his services. He has since applied to me several times for money, which is spent at the gambling-house as soon as it is obtained. I believe him to be leagued with a gang of sharpers of the lowest description; and I am really unwilling any farther to supply the vicious necessities of himself and his comrades. He is a mean, mercenary rascal, who would scruple at no enormity, provided he was paid for it!"

Glanville paused for a few moments, and then added, while his cheek blushed, and his voice seemed somewhat hesitating and embarra.s.sed--"You remember Mr. Tyrrell, at Paris?"

"Yes," said I--"he is, at present, in London, and--" Glanville started as if he had been shot.

"No, no," he exclaimed, wildly--"he died at Paris, from want--from starvation."

"You are mistaken," said I; "he is now Sir John Tyrrell, and possessed of considerable property. I saw him myself, three weeks ago."

Glanville, laying his hand upon my arm, looked in my face with a long, stern, prying gaze, and his cheek grew more ghastly and livid with every moment. At last he turned, and muttered something between his teeth; and at that moment the door opened, and Thornton was announced. Glanville sprung towards him and seized him by the throat!

"Dog!" he cried, "you have deceived me--Tyrrell lives!"

"Hands off!" cried the gamester, with a savage grin of defiance--"hands off! or, by the Lord that made me, you shall have gripe for gripe!"

"Ho, wretch!" said Glanville, shaking him violently, while his worn and slender, yet still powerful frame, trembled with the excess of his pa.s.sion; "dost thou dare to threaten me!" and with these words he flung Thornton against the opposite wall with such force, that the blood gushed out of his mouth and nostrils. The gambler rose slowly, and wiping the blood from his face, fixed his malignant and fiery eye upon his aggressor, with an expression of collected hate and vengeance, that made my very blood creep.

"It is not my day now," he said, with a calm, quiet, cold voice, and then, suddenly changing his manner, he approached me with a sort of bow, and made some remark on the weather.

Meanwhile, Glanville had sunk on the sofa, exhausted, less by his late effort than the convulsive pa.s.sion which had produced it. He rose in a few moments, and said to Thornton, "Pardon my violence; let this pay your bruises;" and he placed a long and apparently well filled purse in Thornton's hand. That veritable philosophe took it with the same air as a dog receives the first caress from the hand which has just chastised him; and feeling the purse between his short, hard fingers, as if to ascertain the soundness of its condition, quietly slid it into his breeches pocket, which he then b.u.t.toned with care, and pulling his waistcoat down, as if for further protection to the deposit, he turned towards Glanville, and said, in his usual quaint style of vulgarity--"Least said, Sir Reginald, the soonest mended. Gold is a good plaister for bad bruises. Now, then, your will:--ask and I will answer, unless you think Mr. Pelham un de trop."

I was already at the door, with the intention of leaving the room, when Glanville cried, "Stay, Pelham, I have but one question to ask Mr.

Thornton. Is John Tyrrell still living?"

"He is!" answered Thornton, with a sardonic smile.

"And beyond all want!" resumed Glanville.

"He is!" was the tautological reply.

"Mr. Thornton," said Glanville, with a calm voice, "I have now done with you--you may leave the room!"

Thornton bowed with an air of ironical respect, and obeyed the command.

I turned to look at Glanville. His countenance, always better adapted to a stern, than a soft expression, was perfectly fearful; every line in it seemed dug into a furrow; the brows were bent over his large and flashing eyes with a painful intensity of anger and resolve; his teeth were clenched firmly as if by a vice, and the thin upper lip, which was drawn from them with a bitter curl of scorn, was as white as death. His right hand had closed upon the back of the ma.s.sy chair, over which his tall nervous frame leant, and was grasping it with an iron force, which it could not support: it snapped beneath his hand like a hazel stick.

This accident, slight as it was, recalled him to himself. He apologized with apparent self-possession for his disorder; and, after a few words of fervent and affectionate farewell on my part, I left him to the solitude which I knew he desired.

CHAPTER LVII.

While I seemed only intent upon pleasure, I locked in my heart the consciousness and vanity of power; in the levity of the lip, I disguised the knowledge and the workings of the brain; and I looked, as with a gifted eye, upon the mysteries of the hidden depths, while I seemed to float an idler with the herd only upon the surface of the stream.

--Falkland.

As I walked home, revolving the scene I had witnessed, the words of Tyrrell came into my recollection--viz. that the cause of Glanville's dislike to him had arisen in Tyrrell's greater success in some youthful liaison. In this account I could not see much probability. In the first place, the cause was not sufficient to produce such an effect; and, in the second, there was little likelihood that the young and rich Glanville, possessed of the most various accomplishments, and the most remarkable personal beauty, should be supplanted by a needy spendthrift (as Tyrrell at that time was), of coa.r.s.e manners, and unpolished mind; with a person not, indeed, unprepossessing, but somewhat touched by time, and never more comparable to Glanville's than that of the Satyr to Hyperion.

While I was meditating over a mystery which excited my curiosity more powerfully than anything, not relating to himself, ought ever to occupy the attention of a wise man, I was accosted by Vincent: the difference in our politics had of late much dissevered us, and when he took my arm, and drew me up Bond-street, I was somewhat surprised at his condescension.

"Listen to me, Pelham," he said; "once more I offer you a settlement in our colony. There will be great changes soon: trust me, so radical a party as that you have adopted can never come in: our's, on the contrary, is no less moderate than liberal. This is the last time of asking; for I know you will soon have exposed your opinions in public more openly than you have yet done, and then it will be too late. At present I hold, with Hudibras, and the ancients, that it is--

"'More honourable far, servare Civem than slay an adversary.'"

"Alas, Vincent," said I, "I am marked out for slaughter, for you cannot convince me by words, and so, I suppose, you must conquer me by blows.

Adieu, this is my way to Lord Dawton's: where are you going?"

"To mount my horse, and join the parca juventus," said Vincent, with a laugh at his own witticism, as we shook hands, and parted.

I grieve much, my beloved reader, that I cannot unfold to thee all the particulars of my political intrigue. I am, by the very share which fell to my lot, bound over to the strictest secrecy, as to its nature, and the characters of the chief agents in its execution. Suffice it to say, that the greater part of my time was, though furtively, employed in a sort of home diplomacy, gratifying alike to the activity of my tastes, and the vanity of my mind; and there were moments when I ventured to grasp in my imagination the highest honours of the state, and the most lucrative offices of power. I had filled Dawton, and his coadjutors, with an exaggerated opinion of my abilities; but I knew well how to sustain it. I rose by candle-light, and consumed, in the intensest application, the hours which every other individual of our party wasted in enervating slumbers, from the hesternal dissipation or debauch. Was there a question in political economy debated, mine was the readiest and the clearest reply. Did a period in our const.i.tution become investigated, it was I to whom the duty of expositor was referred.

From Madame D'Anville, with whom (though lost as a lover) I constantly corresponded as a friend, I obtained the earliest and most accurate detail of the prospects and manoeuvres of the court in which her life was spent, and in whose more secret offices her husband was employed.

I spared no means of extending my knowledge of every the minutest point which could add to the reputation I enjoyed. I made myself acquainted with the individual interests and exact circ.u.mstances of all whom it was our object to intimidate or to gain. It was I who brought to the House the younger and idler members, whom no more nominally powerful agent could allure from the ball-room or the gaming-house.

In short, while, by the dignity of my birth, and the independent hauteur of my bearing, I preserved the rank of an equal amongst the highest of the set, I did not scruple to take upon myself the labour and activity of the most subordinate. Dawton declared me his right hand; and, though I knew myself rather his head than his hand, I pretended to feel proud of the appellation. In truth, I only waited for my entree into the House, to fix my eye and grasp upon the very situation that n.o.bleman coveted for himself.

Meanwhile, it was my pleasure to wear in society the c.o.xcombical and eccentric costume of character I had first adopted, and to cultivate the arts which won from women the smile which cheered and encouraged me in my graver contest with men. It was only to Ellen Glanville, that I laid aside an affectation, which I knew was little likely to attract a taste so refined and unadulterated as her's. I discovered in her a mind which, while it charmed me by its tenderness and freshness, elevated me by its loftiness of thought. She was, at heart, perhaps, as ambitious as myself; but while my aspirations were concealed by affectation, her's were softened by her timidity, and purified by her religion. There were moments when I opened myself to her, and caught a new spirit from her look of sympathy and enthusiasm.

"Yes," thought I, "I do long for honours, but it is that I may ask her to share and enn.o.ble them." In fine, I loved as other men loved--and I fancied a perfection in her, and vowed an emulation in myself, which it was reserved for Time to ratify or deride.

Where did I leave myself? as the Irishman said--on my road to Lord Dawton's. I was lucky enough to find that personage at home; he was writing at a table covered with pamphlets and books of reference.

"Hush! Pelham," said his lordship, who is a quiet, grave, meditative little man, always ruminating on a very small cud--"hush! or do oblige me by looking over this history, to find out the date of the Council of Pisa."

"That will do, my young friend," said his lordship, after I had furnished him with the information he required--"I wish to Heaven, I could finish this pamphlet by to-morrow: it is intended as an answer to--. But I am so perplexed with business, that--"

"Perhaps," said I, "if you will pardon my interrupting you, I can throw your observations together--make your Sibylline leaves into a book. Your lordship will find the matter, and I will not spare the trouble."

Lord Dawton was profuse in his thanks; he explained the subject, and left the arrangement wholly to me. He could not presume to dictate. I promised him, if he lent me the necessary books, to finish the pamphlet against the following evening.

"And now," said Lord Dawton--"that we have settled this affair--what news from France?"--

"I wish," sighed Lord Dawton, as we were calculating our forces, "that we could gain over Lord Guloseton."

"What, the facetious epicure?" said I.

"The same," answered Dawton: "we want him as a dinner-giver; and, besides, he has four votes in the Lower House."

"Well," said I, "he is indolent and independent--it is not impossible."

"Do you know him?" answered Dawton.

"No:" said I.

Dawton sighed.--"And young A--?" said the statesman, after a pause.

"Has an expensive mistress, and races. Your lordship might be sure of him, were you in power, and sure not to have him while you are out of it."

"And B.?" rejoined Dawton.