Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 29

"Yes, sir. We pa.s.sed an hour and half together,--an hour and half that neither of us will easily forget."

"I conjecture, then, that he made no very favorable impression upon you, my Lord?"

"Sir, you go too fast. I have said nothing to warrant your surmise; nor am I one to be catechised as to the opinions I form of other men. It is enough on the present occasion if I say I do not desire to receive Sir Brook Fossbrooke, accredited though he be from so high a quarter.

Will you do me the very great favor"--and now his voice became almost insinuating in its tone--"will you so deeply oblige me ate to see him for me? Say that I am prevented by the state of my health; that the rigorous injunctions of my doctor to avoid all causes of excitement--lay stress on excitement--deprive me of the honor of receiving him in person; but that _you_--mention our relationship--have been deputed by me to hear, and if necessary to convey to me, any communication he may have to make. You will take care to impress upon him that if the subject-matter of his visit be the same as that so lately discussed between ourselves, you will avail yourself of the discretion confided to you not to report it to me. That my nerves have not sufficiently recovered from the strain of that excitement to return to a topic no less full of irritating features than utterly hopeless of all accommodation. Mind, sir, that you employ the word as I give it,--'accommodation.' It is a Gallicism, but all the better, where one desires to be imperative, and yet vague. You have your instructions, sir."

"Yes, I think I understand what you desire me to do. My only difficulty is to know whether the matters Sir Brook Fossbrooke may bring forward be the same as those you discussed together. If I had any clew to these topics, I should at once be in a position to say, These are themes I must decline to present to the Chief Baron."

"You have no need to know them, sir," said the old man, haughtily. "You are in the position of an attesting witness; you have no dealing with the body of the doc.u.ment. Ask Sir Brook the question as I have put it, and reply as I have dictated."

Sewell stood for a moment in deep thought. Had the old man but known over what realms of s.p.a.ce his mind was wandering,--what troubles and perplexities that brain was encountering,--he might have been more patient and more merciful as he gazed on him.

"I don't think, sir, I have confided to you any very difficult or very painful task," said the Judge at last.

"Nothing of the kind, my Lord," replied he, quickly; "my anxiety is only that I may acquit myself to your perfect satisfaction. I 'll go at once."

"You will find me here whenever you want me."

Sewell bowed, and went his way; not straight towards the house, however, but into a little copse at the end of the garden, to recover his equanimity and collect himself. Of all the disasters that could befall him, he knew of none he was less ready to confront than the presence of Sir Brook Fossbrooke in the same town with himself. No suspicion ever crossed his mind that he would come to Ireland. The very last he had heard of him was in New Zealand, where it was said he was about to settle. What, too, could be his business with the Chief Baron? Had he discovered their relationship, and was he come to denounce and expose him? No,--evidently not. The Viceroy's introduction of him could not point in this direction, and then the old Judge's own manner negatived this conjecture. Had he heard but one of the fifty stories Sir Brook could have told of him, there would be no question of suffering him to cross his threshold.

"How shall I meet him? how shall I address him?" muttered he again and again to himself, as he walked to and fro in a perfect agony of trouble and perplexity. With almost any other man in the world, Sewell would have relied on his personal qualities to carry him through a pa.s.sage of difficulty. He could a.s.sume a temper of complete imperturbability; he could put on calm, coldness, deference, if needed, to any extent; he could have acted his part--it would have been mere acting--as man of honor and man of courage to the life, with any other to confront him but Sir Brook.

This, however, was the one man on earth who knew him,--the one man by whose mercy he was able to hold up his head and maintain his station; and that this one man should now be here! here, within a few yards of where he stood!

"I could murder him as easily as I go to meet him," muttered Sewell, as he turned towards the house.

CHAPTER XXV. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

As Sir Brook sat in the library waiting for the arrival of the Chief Baron, Lucy Lendrick came in to look for a book she had been reading.

"Only think, sir," said she, flushing deeply with joy and astonishment together,--"to find you here! What a delightful surprise!"

"I have come, my dear child," said he, gravely, "to speak with Sir William on a matter of some importance; and evidently he is not aware that my moments are precious, for I have been here above half an hour alone."

"But now that I am with you," said she, coquettishly, "you 'll surely not be so churlish of your time, will you?"

"There is no churlishness, my darling Lucy, in honest thrift. I have nothing to give away." The deep sadness of his voice showed how intensely his words were charged with a stronger significance. "We are off to-night."

"To-night!" cried she, eagerly.

"Yes, Lucy. It's no great banishment,--only to an island in the Mediterranean, and Tom came up here with me in the vague, very vague hope he might see you. I left him in the shrubbery near the gate, for he would not consent to come farther."

"I 'll go to him at once. We shall meet again," said she, as she opened the sash-door and hastened down the lawn at speed.

After another wait of full a quarter of an hour, Foss-brooke's patience became exhausted, and he drew nigh the bell to summon a servant; his hand was on the rope, when the door opened, and Sewell entered. Whatever astonishment Fossbrooke might have felt at this unexpected appearance, nothing in his manner or look betrayed it. As for Sewell, all his accustomed ease had deserted him, and he came forward with an air of a.s.sumed swagger, but his color came and went, and his hands twitched almost convulsively.

He bowed, and, smiling courteously, invited Fossbrooke to be seated.

Haughtily drawing himself up to his full height, Sir Brook said, in his own deep sonorous voice, "There can be nothing between us, sir, that cannot be dismissed in a moment--and as we stand."

"As you please, sir," rejoined Sewell, with an attempt at the same haughty tone. "I have been deputed by my stepfather, the Chief Baron, to make his excuses for not receiving you,--his health forbids the excitement. It is his-wish that you may make to _me_ whatever communication you had destined for _him_."

"Which I refuse, sir, at once," interrupted Sir Brook. "I opine, then, there is no more to be said," said Sewell, with a faint smile.

"Nothing more, sir,--not a word; unless perhaps you will be gracious enough to explain to the Chief Baron the reasons--they cannot be unknown to you--why I refuse all and any communication with Colonel Sewell."

"I have no presumption to read your mind and know your thoughts," said Sewell, with quiet politeness.

"You would discover nothing in either to your advantage, sir," said Fossbrooke, defiantly.

"Might I add, sir," said Sewell, with an easy smile, "that all your malevolence cannot exceed my indifference to it?"

Fossbrooke waived his hand haughtily, as though to dismiss the subject and all discussion of it, and after a few seconds' pause said: "We have a score that must be settled one day. I have deferred the reckoning out of reverence to the memory of one whose name must not be uttered between us, but the day for it shall come. Meanwhile, sir, you shall pay me interest on your debt."

"What do you a.s.sume me to owe you?" asked Sewell, whose agitation could no longer be masked.

"You would laugh if I said, your character before the world and the repute through which men keep your company; but you will not laugh--no, sir, not even smile--when I say that you owe me the liberty by which you are at large, instead of being, as I could prove you, a forger and a felon."

Sewell threw a hurried and terrified look around the room, as though there might possibly be some to overhear the words; he grasped the back of a chair to steady himself, and in the convulsive effort seemed as if he was about to commit some act of violence.

"None of that, sir," said Fossbrooke, folding his arms.

"I meant nothing; I intended nothing; I was faint, and wanted support,"

stammered out Sewell, in a broken voice. "What do you mean by interest?

How am I to pay interest on an indefinite sum?"

"It may relieve you of some anxiety to learn that I am not speaking of money in the interest I require of you. What I want--what I shall exact--is this: that you and yours--" He stopped and grew scarlet; the fear lest something coa.r.s.e or offensive might fall from him in a moment of heat and anger arrested his words, and he was silent.

Sewell saw all the difficulty. A less adroit man would have deemed the moment favorable to a.s.sert a triumph; Sewell was too acute for this, and waited without speaking a word.

"My meaning is this," said Fossbrooke, in a voice of emotion. "There is a young lady here for whom I have the deepest interest. I desire that, so long as she lives estranged from her father's roof, she should not be exposed to other influences than such as she has met there. She is new to life and the world, and I would not that she should make acquaintance with them through any guidance save of her own nearest and dearest friends."

"I hear, sir; but, I am free to own, I greatly mistrust myself to appreciate your meaning."

"I am sorry for it," said Fossbrooke, sighing. "I wanted to convey my hope that in your intercourse here Miss Lendrick might be spared the perils of--of--"

"My wife's friendship, you would say, sir," said Sewell, with a perfect composure of voice and look.

Fossbrooke hung his head. Shame and sorrow alike crushed him down. Oh that the day should come when he could speak thus of Frank Dillon's daughter!

"I will not say with what pain I hear you, Sir Brook," said Sewell, in a low gentle voice. "I am certain that you never uttered such a speech without much suffering. It will alleviate your fears when I tell you that we only remain a few days in town. I have taken a country house, some sixty or seventy miles from the capital, and we mean to live there entirely."

"I am satisfied," said Sir Brook, whose eagerness to make reparation was now extreme.

"Of course I shall mention nothing of this to my wife," said Sewell.

"Of course not, sir; save with such an explanation as I could give of my meaning, it would be an outrage."

"I was not aware that there was--that there could be--an explanation,"