Richard Carvel Part 50

And she left me abruptly and went into the house, her head flung back.

And I followed in a tumult of mortification and wounded pride, in such a state of dejection that I wished I had never been born. But hers was a nature of surprises, and impulsive, like my own. Beside the cabinet she turned, calm again, all trace of anger vanished from her face. Drawing a hawthorn sprig from a porcelain vase I had given her, she put it in my hand.

"Let us forget this, Richard," said she; "we have both been very foolish."

Forget, indeed! Unless Heaven had robbed me of reason, had torn the past from me at a single stroke. I could not have forgotten. When I reached my lodgings I sent the anxious Banks about his business and threw myself in a great chair before the window, the chair she had chosen. Strange to say, I had no sensation save numbness. The time must have been about two of the clock: I took no account of it. I recall Banks coming timidly back with the news that two gentlemen had called. I bade him send them away. Would my honour not have Mrs. Marble cook my dinner, and be dressed for Lady Pembroke's ball? I sent him off again, harshly.

After a long while the slamming of a coach door roused me, and I was straightway seized with such an agony of mind that I could have cried aloud. 'Twas like the pain of blood flowing back into a frozen limb.

Darkness was fast gathering as I reached the street and began to walk madly. Word by word I rehea.r.s.ed the scene in the drawing-room over the Park, but I could not think calmly, for the pain of it. Little by little I probed, writhing, until far back in my boyhood I was tearing at the dead roots of that cherished plant, which was the Hope of Her Love. It had grown with my own life, and now with its death to-day I felt that I had lost all that was dear to me. Then, in the midst of this abject self-pity, I was stricken with shame. I thought of Comyn, who had borne the same misfortune as a man should. Had his pain been the less because he had not loved her from childhood? Like Comyn, I resolved to labour for her happiness.

What hour of the night it was I know not when a man touched me on the shoulder, and I came to myself with a start. I was in a narrow street lined by hideous houses, their windows glaring with light. Each seemed a skull, with rays darting from its grinning eye-holes. Within I caught glimpses of debauchery that turned me sick. Ten paces away three women and a man were brawling, the low angry tones of his voice mingling with the screeches of their Billingsgate. m.u.f.fled figures were pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing unconcernedly, some entering the houses, others coming out, and a handsome coach, without arms and with a footman in plain livery, lumbered along and stopped farther on. All this I remarked before I took notice of him who had intercepted me, and demanded what he wanted.

"Hey, Bill!" he cried with an oath to a man who stood on the steps opposite; "'ere's a soft un as has put 'is gill in."

The man responded, and behind him came two more of the same feather, and suddenly I found myself surrounded by an ill-smelling crowd of flashy men and tawdry women. They jostled me, and I reached for my sword, to make the discovery that I had forgotten it. Regaining my full senses, I struck the man nearest me a blow that sent him sprawling in the dirt. A blade gleamed under the sickly light of the fish-oil lamp overhead, but a man crashed through from behind and caught the ruffian's sword-arm and flung him back in the kennel.

"The watch!" he cried, "the watch!"

They vanished like rats into their holes at the shout, leaving me standing alone with him. The affair had come and gone so quickly that I scarce caught my breath.

"Pardon, sir," he said, knuckling, "but I followed you."

It was Banks. For a second time he had given me an affecting example of his faithfulness. I forgot that he was my servant, and I caught his hand and pressed it.

"You have saved my life at the risk of your own," I said; "I shall not forget it."

But Banks had been too well trained to lose sight of his position. He merely tipped his hat again and said imperturbably:

"Best get out of here, your honour. They'll be coming again directly."

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Drury Lane, sir," he replied, giving me just the corner of a glance; "shall I fetch a coach, sir?" No, I preferred to walk. Before we had turned into Long Acre I had seen all of this Sodom of London that it should be given a man to see, if indeed we must behold some of the b.e.s.t.i.a.lity of this world. Here alone, in the great city, high and low were met equal. Sin levels rank. The devil makes no choice between my lord and his kitchen wench who has gone astray. Here, in Sodom, painted vice had lain for an hundred years and bred half the crime of a century.

How many souls had gone hence in that time to meet their Maker! Some of these brazen creatures who leered at me had known how long ago!--a peaceful home and a mother's love; had been lured in their innocence to this place of horrors, never to leave it until death mercifully overtakes them. Others, having fallen, had been driven hither by a cruel world that shelters all save the helpless, that forgives all save the truly penitent. I shuddered as I thought of Mr. Hogarth's prints, which, in the library in Marlboro' Street at home, had had so little meaning for me. Verily he had painted no worse than the reality. As I strode homeward, my own sorrow subdued by the greater sorrow I had looked upon, the craving I had had to be alone was gone, and I would have locked arms with a turnspit. I called to Banks, who was behind at a respectful distance, and bade him come talk to me. His presence of mind in calling on the watch had made even a greater impression upon me than his bravery. I told him that he should have ten pounds, and an increase of wages. And I asked him where I had gone after leaving Dover Street, and why he had followed me. He answered this latter question first. He had seen gentlemen in the same state, or something like it, before: his Lordship, his late master, after he had fought with Mr. Onslow, of the Guards, and Sir Edward Minturn, when he had lost an inheritance and a reversion at Brooks's, and was forced to give over his engagement to marry the Honourable Miss Swift. "Lord, sir," he said, "but that was a sad case, as set all London agog. And Sir Edward shot hisself at Portsmouth not a se'nnight after."

And he relapsed into silence, no doubt longing to ask the cause of my own affliction. Presently he surprised me by saying:

"And I might make so bold, Mr. Carvel, I would like to tell your honour something."

I nodded. And he hawed awhile and then burst out:

"Your honour must know then that I belongs to the footman's club in Berkeley Square, where I meets all the servants o' quality--"

"Yes," I said, wondering what footman's tale he had to tell.

"And Whipple, he's a hintimate o' mine, sir." He stopped again.

"And who may Whipple be?"

"With submission, sir. Whipple's his Grace o' Chartersea's man--and, you'll forgive me, sir--Whipple owns his Grace is prodigious ugly, an'

killed young Mr. At.w.a.ter unfair, some think. Whipple says he would give notice had he not promised the old duke--"

"Drat Whipple!" I cried.

"Yes, sir. To be sure, sir. His Grace was in a b.l.o.o.d.y rage when he found hisself in a fruit bin at Covent Carding. An' two redb.r.e.a.s.t.s had carried him to the round house, sir, afore they discovered his t.i.tle. An' since his Grace ha' said time an' time afore Whipple, that he'll ha' Mr.

Carvel's heart for that, and has called you most disgustin' bad names, sir. An' Whipple he says to me: 'Banks, drop your marster a word, an'

you get the chance. His Grace'll speak him fair to's face, but let him look behind him.'"

"I thank you again, Banks. I shall bear in mind your devotion," I replied. "But I had nothing to do with sending the duke to Covent Garden."

"Ay, sir, so I tells Whipple."

"Pray, how did you know?" I demanded curiously.

"Lord, sir! All the servants at Almack's is friends o' mine," says he.

"But Whipple declares his Grace will be sworn you did it, sir, tho' the Lord Mayor hisself made deposition 'twas not."

"Then mark me, Banks, you are not to talk of this."

"Oh, Lord, no, your honour," he said, as he fell back. But I was not so sure of his discretion as of his loyalty.

And so I was led to perceive that I was not to be the only aggressor in the struggle that was to come. That his Grace did me the honour to look upon me as an obstacle. And that he intended to seize the first opportunity to make way with me, by fair means or foul.

Volume 6.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV. HIS GRACE MAKES ADVANCES

The next morning I began casting about as to what I should do next.

There was no longer any chance of getting at the secret from Dorothy, if secret there were. Whilst I am ruminating comes a great battling at the street door, and Jack Comyn blew in like a gust of wind, rating me soundly for being a lout and a blockhead.

"Zooks!" he cried, "I danced the soles off my shoes trying to get in here yesterday, and I hear you were moping all the time, and paid me no more attention than I had been a dog scratching at the door. What! and have you fallen out with my lady?"

I confessed the whole matter to him. He was not to be resisted. He called to Banks for a cogue of Nantsey, and swore amazingly at what he was pleased to term the inscrutability of woman, offering up consolation by the wholesale. The incident, he said, but strengthened his conviction that Mr. Manners had appealed to Dorothy to save him. "And then," added his Lordship, facing me with absolute fierceness, "and then, Richard, why the devil did she weep? There were no tears when I made my avowal.

I tell you, man, that the whole thing points but the one way. She loves you. I swear it by the rood."

I could not help laughing, and he stood looking at me with such a whimsical expression that I rose and flung my arms around him.

"Jack, Jack!" I cried, "what a fraud you are! Do you remember the argument you used when you had got me out of the sponging-house? Quoting you, all I had to do was to put Dorothy to the proof, and she would toss Mr. Marmaduke and his honour broadcast. Now I have confessed myself, and what is the result? Nay, your theory is gone up in vapour."

"Then why," cried his Lordship, hotly, "why before refusing me did she demand to know whether you had been in love with Patty Swain? 'Sdeath!

you put me in mind of a woman upon stilts--a man has always to be walking alongside her with encouragement handy. And when a proud creature such as our young lady breaks down as she hath done, 'tis clear as skylight there is something wrong. And as for Mr. Manners, Hare overheard a part of a pow-wow 'twixt him and the duke at the Bedford Arms,--and Chartersea has all but owned in some of his drunken fits that our little fop is in his power."

"Then she is in love with some one else," I said.