Richard Carvel Part 33

He was silent after that, glancing at me covertly from while to while until we swung into Arlington Street. Before I knew we were stopped in front of the house, but as I set foot on the step I found myself confronted by a footman in the Manners livery, who cried out angrily to our man: "Make way, make way for his Grace of Chartersea!" Turning, I saw a coach behind, the horses dancing at the rear wheels of the chaise.

We alighted hastily, and I stood motionless, my heart jumping quick and hard in the hope and fear that Dorothy was within, my eye fixed on the coach door. But when the footman pulled it open and lowered the step, out lolled a very broad man with a bloated face and little, beady eyes without a spark of meaning, and something very like a hump was on the top of his back. He wore a yellow top-coat, and red-heeled shoes of the latest fashion, and I settled at once he was the Duke of Chartersea.

Next came little Mr. Manners, stepping daintily as ever; and then, as the door closed with a bang, I remembered my errand. They had got halfway to the portico.

"Mr. Manners!" I cried.

He faced about, and his Grace also, and both stared in wellbred surprise. As I live, Mr. Manners looked into my face, into my very eyes, and gave no sign of recognition. And what between astonishment and anger, and a contempt that arose within me, I could not speak.

"Give the man a shilling, Manners," said his Grace; "we can't stay here forever."

"Ay, give the man a shilling," lisped Mr. Manners to the footman. And they pa.s.sed into the house, and the door eras shut.

Then I heard Mr. Dix at my elbow, saying in a soft voice: "Now, my fine gentleman, is there any good reason why you should not ride to Bow Street with me?"

"As there is a G.o.d in heaven. Mr. Dix," I answered, very low, "if you attempt to lay hands on me, you shall answer for it! And you shall hear from me yet, at the Star and Garter hotel."

I spun on my heel and left him, nor did he follow; and a great lump was in my throat and tears welling in my eyes.

What would John Paul say?

CHAPTER XXIV. CASTLE YARD

But I did not go direct to the Star and Garter. No, I lacked the courage to say to John Paul: "You have trusted me, and this is how I have rewarded your faith." And the thought that Dorothy's father, of all men, had served me thus, after what I had gone through, filled me with a bitterness I had never before conceived. And when my brain became clearer I reflected that Mr. Manners had had ample time to learn of my disappearance from Maryland, and that his action had been one of design, and of cold blood. But I gave to Dorothy or her mother no part in it.

Mr. Manners never had had cause to hate me, and the only reason I could a.s.sign was connected with his Grace of Chartersea, which I dismissed as absurd.

A few drops of rain warned me to seek shelter. I knew not where I was, nor how long I had been walking the streets at a furious pace. But a huckster told me I was in Chelsea; and kindly directed me back to Pall Mall. The usual bunch of chairmen was around the hotel entrance, but I noticed a couple of men at the door, of sharp features and unkempt dress, and heard a laugh as I went in. My head swam as I stumbled up the stairs and fumbled at the k.n.o.b, when I heard voices raised inside, and the door was suddenly and violently thrown open. Across the sill stood a big, rough-looking man with his hands on his hips.

"Oho! Here be the other fine bird a-homing, I'll warrant," he cried.

The place was full. I caught sight of Davenport, the tailor, with a wry face, talking against the noise; of Banks, the man I had hired, resplendent in my livery. One of the hotel servants was in the corner perspiring over John Paul's chests, and beside him stood a man disdainfully turning over with his foot the contents, as they were thrown on the floor. I saw him kick the precious vellum-hole waistcoat across the room in wrath and disgust, and heard him shout above the rest: "The lot of them would not bring a guinea from any Jew in St.

Martin's Lane!"

In the other corner, by the writing-desk, stood the hatter and the haberdasher with their heads together. And in the very centre of the confusion was the captain himself. He was drest in his new clothes Davenport had brought, and surprised me by his changed appearance, and looked as fine a gentleman as any I have ever seen. His face lighted with relief at sight of me.

"Now may I tell these rogues begone, Richard?" he cried. And turning to the man confronting me, he added, "This gentleman will settle their beggarly accounts."

Then I knew we had to do with bailiffs, and my heart failed me.

"Likely," laughed the big man; "I'll stake my oath he has not a groat to pay their beggarly accounts, as year honour is pleased to call them."

They ceased jabbering and straightened to attention, awaiting my reply.

But I forgot them all, and thought only of the captain, and of the trouble I had brought him. He began to show some consternation as I went up to him.

"My dear friend," I said, vainly trying to steady my voice, "I beg, I pray that you will not lose faith in me,--that you will not think any deceit of mine has brought you to these straits. Mr. Dix did not know me, and has had no word from my grandfather of my disappearance. And Mr.

Manners, whom I thought my friend, spurned me in the street before the Duke of Chartersea."

And no longer master of myself, I sat down at the table and hid my face, shaken by great sobs, to think that this was my return for his kindness.

"What," I heard him cry, "Mr. Manners spurned you, Richard! By all the law in c.o.ke and Littleton, he shall answer for it to me. Your fairweather fowl shall have the chance to run me through!"

I sat up in bewilderment, doubting my senses.

"You believe me, captain," I said, overcome by the man's faith; "you believe me when I tell you that one I have known from childhood refused to recognize me to-day?"

He raised me in his arms as tenderly as a woman might.

"And the whole world denied you, lad, I would not. I believe you--" and he repeated it again and again, unable to get farther.

And if his words brought tears to my eyes, my strength came with them.

"Then I care not," I replied; "I only to live to reward you."

"Mr. Manners shall answer for it to me!" cried John Paul again, and made a pace toward the door.

"Not so fast, not so fast, captain, or admiral, or whatever you are,"

said the bailiff, stepping in his way, for he was used to such scenes; "as G.o.d reigns, the owners of all these fierce t.i.tles be fire-eaters, who would spit you if you spilt snuff upon 'em. Come, come, gentlemen, your swords, and we shall see the sights o' London."

This was the signal for another uproar, the tailor shrieking that John Paul must take off the suit, and Banks the livery; asking the man in the corner by the sea-chests (who proved to be the landlord) who was to pay him for his work and his lost cloth. And the landlord shook his fist at us and shouted back, who was to pay him his four pounds odd, which included two ten-shilling dinners and a flask of his best wine? The other tradesmen seized what was theirs and made off with remarks appropriate to the occasion. And when John Paul and my man were divested of their plumes, we were marched downstairs and out through a jeering line of people to a hackney coach.

"Now, sirs, whereaway?" said the bailiff when we were got in beside one of his men, and burning with the shame of it; "to the prison? Or I has a very pleasant hotel for gentlemen in Castle Yard."

The frightful stories my dear grandfather had told me of the Fleet came flooding into my head, and I shuddered and turned sick. I glanced at John Paul.

"A guinea will not go far in a sponging-house," said he, and the bailiff's man laughed.

The bailiff gave a direction we did not hear, and we drove off. He proved a bluff fellow with a bloat yet not unkindly humour, and despite his calling seemed to have something that was human in him. He pa.s.sed many a joke on that pitiful journey in an attempt to break our despondency, urging us not to be downcast, and reminding us that the last gentleman he had taken from Pall Mall was in over a thousand pounds, and that our amount was a bagatelle. And when we had gone through Temple Bar, instead of keeping on down Fleet Street, we jolted into Chancery Lane. This roused me.

"My friend has warned you that he has no money," I said, "and no more have I."

The bailiff regarded me shrewdly.

"Ay," he replied, "I know. But I has seen many stripes o' men in my time, my masters, and I know them to trust, and them whose silver I must feel or send to the Fleet."

I told him unreservedly my case, and that he must take his chance of being paid; that I could not hear from America for three months at least. He listened without much show of attention, shaking his head from side to side.

"If you ever cheated a man, or the admiral here either, then I begin over again," he broke in with decision; "it is the fine sparks from the clubs I has to watch. You'll not worry, sir, about me. Take my oath I'll get interest out of you on my money."

Unwilling as we both were to be beholden to a bailiff, the alternative of the Fleet was too terrible to be thought of. And so we alighted after him with a shiver at the sight of the ugly, grimy face of the house, and the dirty windows all barred with double iron. In answer to a knock we were presently admitted by a turnkey to a vestibule as black as a tomb, and the heavy outer door was locked behind us. Then, as the man cursed and groped for the keyhole of the inner door, despair laid hold of me.

Once inside, in the half light of a narrow hallway, a variety of noises greeted our ears,--laughter from above and below, interspersed with oaths; the click of billiard b.a.l.l.s, and the occasional hammering of a pack of cards on a bare table before the shuffle. The air was close almost to suffocation, and out of the coffee room, into which I glanced, came a heavy cloud of tobacco smoke.

"Why, my masters, why so glum?" said the bailiff; "my inn is not such a bad place, and you'll find ample good company here, I promise you."

And he led us into a dingy antechamber littered with papers, on every one of which, I daresay, was written a tragedy. Then he inscribed our names, ages, descriptions, and the like in a great book, when we followed him up three flights to a low room under the eaves, having but one small window, and bare of furniture save two narrow cots for beds, a broken chair, and a cracked mirror. He explained that cash boarders got better, and added that we might be happy we were not in the Fleet.