Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume Ii Part 18

"I perceive, Sir Brook, that it is useless to prolong this conversation.

Your old grudge against me is too much even for your good sense. Your dislike surmounts your reason. Yes, open the door at once. I am tired waiting for you," cried he, impatiently, as the turnkey's voice was heard without.

"Once more I make you this offer," said Fossbrooke, rising from his seat. "Think well ere you refuse it."

"You have no such doc.u.ment as you say."

"If I have not, the failure is mine."

The door was now open, and the turnkey standing at it.

"They will accept bail, won't they?" said Sewell, adroitly turning the conversation. "I think," continued he, "this matter can be easily arranged. I will go at once to the Head Office and return here at once."

"We are agreed, then?" said Fossbrooke, in a low voice.

"Yes," said Sewell, hastily, as he pa.s.sed out and left him.

The turnkey closed and locked the door, and overtook Sewell as he walked along the corridor. "They are taking information this moment, sir, about the prisoner. The informer is in the room."

"Who is he? What's his name?"

"O'Reardon, sir; a fellow of great 'cuteness. He's in the pay of the Castle these thirty years."

"Might I be present at the examination? Would you ask if I might hear the case?"

The man a.s.sured him that this was impossible; and Sewell stood with his hand on the bal.u.s.trade, deeply revolving what he had just heard.

"And is O'Reardon a prisoner here?"

"Not exactly, sir; but partly for his own safety, partly to be sure he 's not tampered with, we often keep the men in confinement till a case is finished."

"How long will this morning's examination last? At what hour will it probably be over?"

"By four, sir, or half-past, they'll be coming out."

"I'll return by that time. I 'd like to speak to him."

CHAPTER XIV. A GRAND DINNER AT THE PRIORY

The examination was still proceeding when Sewell returned at five o'clock; and although he waited above an hour in the hope of its being concluded, the case was still under consideration; and as the Chief Baron had a large dinner-party on that day, from which the Colonel could not absent himself, he was obliged to hasten back in all speed to dress.

"His Lordship has sent three times to know if you had come in, sir,"

said his servant, as he entered his room.

And while he was yet speaking came another messenger to say that the Chief Baron wanted to see the Colonel immediately. With a gesture of impatience Sewell put on again the coat he had just thrown off, and followed the man to the Chief's dressing-room.

"I have been expecting you since three o'clock, sir," said the old man, after motioning to his valet to leave the room.

"I feared I was late, my Lord, and was going to dress when I got your message."

"But you have been away seven hours, sir."

The tone and manner of this speech, and the words themselves, calling him to account in a way a servant would scarcely have brooked, so overcame Sewell that only by an immense effort of self-control could he restrain his temper, and avoid bursting forth with the long-pent-up pa.s.sion that was consuming him.

"I was detained, my Lord,--unavoidably detained," said he, with a voice thick and husky with anger. What added to his pa.s.sion was the confusion he felt; for he had not determined, when he entered the room, whether to avow that the prisoner was Fossbrooke or not, resolving to be guided by the Chief's manner and temper as to the line he should take. Now this outburst completely routed his judgment, and left him uncertain and vacillating.

"And now, sir, for your report," said the old man, seating himself and folding his arms on his chest.

"I have little to report, my Lord. They affect a degree of mystery about this person, both at the Head Office and at the jail, which is perfectly absurd; and will neither give his name nor his belongings. The pretence is, of course, to enable them to ensnare others with whom he is in correspondence. I believe, however, the truth to be, he is a very vulgar criminal,--a gauger, it is said, from Loughrea, and no such prize as the Castle people fancied. His pa.s.sion for notoriety, it seems, has involved him in scores of things of this kind; and his ambition is always to be his own lawyer and defend himself."

"Enough, sir; a gauger and self-confident prating rascal combine the two things which I most heartily detest. Pem-berton may take his will of him for me; he may make him ill.u.s.trate every blunder of his bad law, and I 'll not say him nay. You will take Lady Ecclesfield in to dinner to-day, and place her opposite me at table. Your wife speaks French well,--let her sit next Count de Lanoy, but give her arm to the Bishop of Down.

Let us have no politics over our wine; I cannot trust myself with the law-officers before me, and at my own table they must not be sacrificed."

"Is Pemberton coming, my Lord?"

"He is, sir,--he is coming on a tour of inspection,--he wants to see from my dietary how soon he may calculate on my demise; and the Attorney-General will be here on the like errand. My hea.r.s.e, sir, it is, that stops the way, and I have not ordered it up yet. Can you tell me is Lady Lendrick coming to dinner, for she has not favored me with a reply to my invitation?"

"I am unable to say, my Lord; I have not seen her; she has, however, been slightly indisposed of late."

"I am distressed to hear it. At all events, I have kept her place for her, as well as one for Mr. Balfour, who is expected from England to-day. If Lady Lendrick should come, Lord Kilgobbin will take her in."

"I think I hear an arrival. I 'd better finish my dressing. I scarcely thought it was so late."

"Take care that the topic of India be avoided, or we shall have Colonel Kimberley and his tiger stories."

"I'll look to it," said Sewell, moving towards the door.

"You have given orders about decanting the champagne?"

"About everything, my Lord. There comes another carriage, I must make haste;" and so saying, he fled from the room before the Chief could add another question.

Sewell had but little time to think over the step he had just taken, but in that little time he satisfied himself that he had acted wisely.

It was a rare thing for the Chief to return to any theme he had once dismissed. Indeed, it would have implied a doubt of his former judgment, which was the very last thing that could occur to him. "My decisions are not reversed," was his favorite expression; so that nothing was less probable than that he would again revert to the prisoner or his case.

As for Fossbrooke himself and how to deal with him, that was a weightier question, and demanded more thought than he could now give it.

As he descended to the drawing-room, the last of the company had just entered, and dinner was announced. Lady Lendrick and Mr. Balfour were both absent. It was a grand dinner on that day, in the fullest sense of that formidable expression. It was very tedious, very splendid, very costly, and intolerably wearisome and stupid. The guests were overlaid by the endless round of dishes and the variety of wines, and such as had not sunk into a drowsy repletion occupied themselves in criticising the taste of a banquet, which was, after all, a travesty of a foreign dinner without that perfection of cookery and graceful lightness in the detail which gives all the elegance and charm to such entertainments. The more fastidious part of the company saw all the defects; the homelier ones regretted the absence of meats that they knew, and wines they were accustomed to. None were pleased,--none at their ease but the host himself. As for him, seated in the centre of the table, overshadowed almost by a towering epergne, he felt like a king on his throne. All around him breathed that air of newness that smacked of youth; and the table spread with flowers, and an ornamental dessert, seemed to emblematize that modern civilization which had enabled himself to throw off the old man and come out into the world crimped, curled, and carmined, be-wigged and be-waistcoated.

"Eighty-seven! my father and he were contemporaries," said Lord Kilgobbin, as they a.s.sembled in the drawing-room; "a wonderful man,--a really wonderful man for his age."

The Bishop muttered something in concurrence, only adding "Providence"

to the clause; while Pemberton whispered the Attorney-General that it was the most painful attack of acute youth he had ever witnessed. As for Colonel Kimberley, he thought nothing of the Chiefs age, for he had shot a brown bear up at Rhumnuggher, "the natives knew to be upwards of two hundred years old, some said three hundred."

As they took their coffee in groups or knots, Sewell drew his arm within Pemberton's and led him through the open sash-door into the garden. "I know you want a cigar," said he, "and so do I. Let us take a turn here and enjoy ourselves. What a bore is a big dinner! I 'd as soon a.s.semble all my duns as I 'd get together all the dreary people of my acquaintance. It's a great mistake,--don't you think so?" said Sewell, who, for the first time in his life, accosted Pemberton in this tone of easy familiarity.

"I fancy, however, the Chief likes it," said the other, cautiously; "he was particularly lively and witty to-day."

"These displays cost him dearly. You should see him after the thing was over. With the paint washed off, palpitating on a sofa steeped with sulphuric ether, and stimulated with ammonia, one wouldn't say he'd get through the night."