Tales and Novels Volume IX Part 16

"I did not _imagine_, I only heard and believed--and now I have seen, and I disbelieve."

"And is this the obstacle, the invincible obstacle?" cried I.

Berenice sighed, and walked on to her room.

"I wish it were!" said Mr. Montenero; "but I pray you, sir, do not speak, do not think of this to-night--farewell! we all want repose."

I did not think that I wanted repose till the moment I lay down in bed, and then, overpowered with bodily fatigue, I fell into a profound sleep, from which I did not awaken till late the next morning, when my man, drawing back my curtains, presented to me a note from--I could hardly believe my eyes--"from Miss Montenero"--from Berenice! I started up, and read these words written in pencil: "My father is in danger--come to us."

How quick I was in obeying may be easily imagined. I went well armed, but in the present danger arms were of no use. I found that Mr.

Montenero was summoned before one of the magistrates, on a charge of having fired from his window the preceding night before the Riot Act had been read--of having killed an inoffensive pa.s.senger. Now the fact was, that no shot had ever been fired by Mr. Montenero; but such was the rage of the people at the idea that the _Jew_ had killed a Christian, and one of their party, that the voice of truth could not be heard. They followed with execrations as he was carried before the magistrate; and waited with impatience, a.s.sembled round the house, in hopes of seeing him committed to prison to take his trial for murder. As I was not ignorant of the substantial nature of the defence which the spirit and the forms of English law provide in all cases for truth and innocence, against false accusation and party prejudice, I was not alarmed at the clamour I heard; I was concerned only for the temporary inconvenience and mortification to Mr. Montenero, and for the alarm to Berenice. The magistrate before whom Mr. Montenero appeared was an impartial and very patient man: I shall not so far try the patience of others as to record all that was positively said, but which could not be sworn to--all that was offered in evidence, but which contradicted itself, or which could not be substantiated by any good witness--at length one creditable-looking man came forward against Mr. Montenero.

He said he was an ironmonger--that he had been pa.s.sing by at the time of the riot, and had been hurried along by the crowd against his will to Mr. Montenero's house, where he saw a sailor break open the window-shutter of one of the lower rooms--that he saw a shot fired by Mr. Montenero--that the sailor, after a considerable struggle, wrested the gun, with which the shot had been fired, from Mr. Montenero, and retreated with it from the window--that hearing the cry of murder in the crowd, he thought it proper to secure the weapon, that it might be produced in evidence--and that the piece which he now produced was that which had been taken from Mr. Montenero.

I perceived great concern in the countenance of the magistrate, who, addressing himself to Mr. Montenero, asked him what he had to say in his defence.

"Sir," said Mr. Montenero, "I acknowledge that to be the gun which was wrested from my hands by the sailor; and I acknowledge that I attempted with that gun to defend my family and my house from immediate violence; I am, however," continued he, "happy to have escaped having injured any person, even in the most justifiable cause, for the piece did not go off, it only flashed in the pan."

"If that be the case," said the magistrate, "the piece is still loaded."

The gun was tried, and it was found to be empty both of powder and ball.

As the magistrate returned the piece to the man, I came forward and asked leave to examine it. I observed to the magistrate, that if the piece had been fired, the inside of the barrel must retain marks of the discharge, whereas, on the contrary, the inside of the barrel was perfectly smooth and clean. To this the man replied, that he had cleaned the piece when he brought it home, which might indeed have been true. At this moment, I recollected a circ.u.mstance that I had lately heard from the officers in the country, who had been talking about a fowling-piece, and of the careless manner in which fire-arms are sometimes proved [Footnote: See Manton on Gunnery.]. Upon examination, I found that what I suspected might be just possible was actually the case with respect to the piece in question--the touch-hole had never been bored through, though the piece was marked as _proof_! I never shall forget the satisfaction which appeared in the countenance of the humane magistrate, who from the beginning had suspected the evidence, whom he knew from former delinquency. The man was indeed called an ironmonger, but his was one of those _old iron shops_ which were known to be receptacles of stolen goods of various descriptions. To my surprise, it now appeared that this man's name was Dutton: he was the very Dutton who had formerly been Jacob's rival, and who had been under Lord Mowbray's protection.

Time and intemperance had altered him so much, that I had not, till I heard his name, the slightest recollection of his face. What his motive for appearing against Mr. Montenero might be, whether it was hatred to him as being the patron of Jacob, whom Dutton envied and detested, or whether Dutton was instigated by some other and higher person, I shall not now stop to inquire. As he had not been put upon his oath, he had not been guilty of perjury; he was discharged amidst the hootings of the mob. Notwithstanding their prejudice against the Jews, and their rage against a Jew who had harboured, as they conceived, two _concealed_ papists and a priest, yet the moment an attempt to bear false witness against Mr. Montenero appeared, the people took his part. In England the mob is always in favour of truth and innocence, wherever these are made clearly evident to their senses. Pleased with themselves for their impartiality, it was not difficult at this moment for me to convince them, as I did, that Mr. Montenero had not harboured either papists or priest. The mob gave us three cheers. As we pa.s.sed through the crowd, I saw Jacob and the orange-woman--the orange-woman, with broad expanded face of joy, stretched up her arms, and shouted loud, that all the mob might hear. Jacob, little accustomed to sympathy, and in the habit of repressing his emotions, stood as one unmoved or dumb, till his eyes met mine, and then suddenly joy spread over his features and flashed from his dark eyes--that was a face of delight I never can forget; but I could not stay: I hastened to be the first to tell Berenice of her father's safety, and of the proof which all the world had had of the falsehood of the charge against him. I ran up to the drawing-room, where she was alone. She fainted in my arms.

And now you think, that when she came to herself, there was an end of all my fears, all my suspense--you think that her love, her grat.i.tude, overcame the objection, whatever it may be, which has. .h.i.therto been called invincible--alas! you are mistaken.

I was obliged to resign Berenice to the care of her attendants. A short time afterwards I received from her father the following note:--

"My obligations to you are great, so is my affection for you; but the happiness of my child, as well as your happiness, is at stake.

"I dare not trust my grat.i.tude--my daughter and you must never meet again, or must meet to part no more.

"I cannot yet decide: if I shall be satisfied that the obstacle do not exist, she shall be yours; if it do exist, we sail the first of next month for America, and you, Mr. Harrington, will not be the only, or perhaps the most, unhappy person of the three.

"A. MONTENERO."

CHAPTER XVI.

The Sunday after the riots, I happened to see Mrs. Coates, as we were coming out of St. George's church. She was not in full-blown, happy importance, as formerly: she looked ill and melancholy; or, as one of her city neighbours, who was following her out of church, expressed it, quite "crest-fallen." I heard some whispering that "things were going wrong at home with the Coates's--that the world was going down hill with the alderman."

But a lady, who was quite a stranger, though she did me the honour to speak to me, explained that it was "no such thing--worth a plum still, if he be worth a farthing. 'Tis only that she was greatly put out of her way last week, and frightened, till well nigh beside herself, by them rioters that came and set fire to one of the Coates's, Mr. Peter's, warehouse. Now, though poor Mrs. Coates, you'd think, is so plump and stout to look at, she is as nervous!--you've no notion, sir!--shakes like an aspen leaf, if she but takes a cup of green tea--so I prescribe bohea. But there she's curtsying, and nodding, and kissing hands to you, sir, see!--and can tell you, no doubt, all about herself."

Mrs. Coates's deplorably placid countenance, tremulous muscles, and lamentable voice and manner, confirmed to me the truth of the a.s.sertion that she had been frightened nearly out of her senses.

"Why now, sir, after all," said she, "I begin to find what fools we were, when we made such a piece of work one election year, and said that no soldiers should come into the town, 'cause we were _free Britons_.

Why, Lord 'a mercy! 'tis a great deal better _maxim_ to sleep safe in our beds than to be _free Britons_ and burnt to death [Footnote: Vide Mrs. Piozzi's Letters.]."

Persons of higher pretensions to understanding and courage than poor Mrs. Coates, seemed at this time ready to adopt her maxim; and patriots feared that it might become the national sentiment. No sooner were order and tranquillity perfectly re-established in the city, than the public in general, and party politicians in particular, were intent upon the trials of the rioters, and more upon the question whether the military had suppressed the riots const.i.tutionally or unconst.i.tutionally. It was a question to be warmly debated in parliament; and this, after the manner in which great public and little private interests, in the chain of human events, are continually linked together, proved of important consequence to me and my love affairs.

A call of the house brought my father to town, contrary to his will, and consequently in ill-humour. This ill-humour was increased by the perplexing situation in which he found himself, with his pa.s.sions on one side of the question and his principles on the other: hating the papists, and loving the ministry. In his secret soul, my father cried with the rioters, "No papists!--no French!--no Jews!--no wooden shoes!"

but a cry against government was abhorrent to his very nature. My conduct, with regard to the riot at Mr. Montenero's, and towards the rioters, by whom he had been falsely accused, my father heard spoken of with approbation in the political circles which he most reverenced; and he could not but be pleased, he confessed, to hear that his son had so properly conducted himself: but still it was all in defence of the Jews, and of the father of that Jewess whose very name was intolerable to his ear.

"So, Harrington, my boy, you've gained great credit, I find, by your conduct last Wednesday night. Very lucky, too, for your mother's friend, Lady de Brantefield, that you were where you were. But after all, sir, what the devil business had you there?--and again on Thursday morning!--I acknowledge that was a good hit you made, about the gun--but I wish it had been in the defence of some good Christian: what business has a Jew with a gun at all?--Government knows best, to be sure; but I split against them once before, three-and-twenty years ago, on the naturalization bill. What is this cry which the people set up?--'_No Jews!--no wooden shoes_!'--ha! ha! ha!--the dogs!--but they carried it too far, the rascals!--When it comes to throwing stones at gentlemen's carriages, and pulling down gentlemen's and n.o.blemen's dwelling-houses, it's a mob and a riot, and the rioters deserve certainly to be hanged--and I'm heartily glad my son has come forward, Mrs. Harrington, and has taken a decided and distinguished part in bringing the offenders to justice. But, Harrington, pray tell me now, young gentleman, about that Jewess."

Before I opened my lips, something in the turn of my physiognomy enraged my father to such a degree that all the blood in his body came into his face, and, starting up, he cried, "Don't answer me, sir--I ask no questions--I don't want to hear any thing about the matter! Only _if_--if, sir--if--that's all I have to say--if--by Jupiter Ammon--sir, I won't hear a word--a syllable! You only wish to explain--I won't have any explanation--I have business enough on my hands, without listening to a madman's nonsense!"

My father began to open his morning's packet of letters and newspapers.

One letter, which had been directed to his house in the country, and which had followed him to town, seemed to, alarm him terribly. He put the letter into my mother's hand, cursed all the post-masters in England, who were none of them to blame for its not reaching him sooner, called for his hat and cane, said he must go instantly to the city, but "feared all was, too late, and that we were undone." With this comfortable a.s.surance he left us. The letter was from a broker in Lombard-street, who did business for my father, and who wrote to let him know that, "in consequence of the destruction of a great brewery in the late riots, several mercantile houses had been injured. Alderman Coates had died suddenly of an apoplexy, it was said: his house had closed on Sat.u.r.day; and it was feared that Baldwin's bank would not stand the run made on it."

Now in Baldwin's bank, as my mother informed me, my father had eight days before lodged 30,000, the purchase money of that estate which he had been obliged to sell to pay for his three elections. This sum was, in fact, every shilling of it due to creditors, who had become clamorous; and "if _this_ be gone," said my mother, "we are lost indeed!--this house must go, and the carriages, and every thing; the Ess.e.x estate is all we shall have left, and live there as we can--very ill it must be, to us who have been used to affluence and luxury. Your father, who expects his table, and every individual article of his establishment, to be in the first style, as if by magic, without ever reflecting on the means, but just inviting people, and leaving it to me to entertain them properly--oh! I know how bitterly he would feel even retrenchment!--and this would be ruin; and every thing that vexes him of late brings on directly a fit of the gout--and then you know what his temper is! Heaven knows what I had to go through with my nerves, and my delicate health, during the last fit, which came on the very day after we left you, and lasted six weeks, and which he sets down to your account, Harrington, and to the account of your Jewess."

I had too much feeling for my mother's present distress to increase her agitation by saying any thing on this tender subject. I let her accuse me as she pleased--and she very soon began to defend me. The accounts she had heard in various letters of the notice that had been taken of Miss Montenero by some of the leading persons in the fashionable world, the proposals that had been made to her, and especially the addresses of Lord Mowbray, which had been of sufficient publicity, had made, I found, a considerable alteration in my mother's judgment or feelings. She observed that it was a pity my father was so violently prejudiced and obstinate, for that, after all, it would not be an unprecedented marriage. My mother, after a pause, went on to say, that though she was not, she hoped, an interested person, and should scorn the idea of her son's being a fortune-hunter--and indeed I had given pretty sufficient proof that I was not of that description of suitors; yet, if the Jewess were really amiable, and as capable of generous attachment, it would be, my mother at last acknowledged, the best thing I could do, to secure an independent establishment with the wife of my choice.

I was just going to tell my mother of the conversation that I had had with Mr. Montenero, and of _the obstacle_, when her mind reverted to the Lombard-street letter, and to Baldwin's bank; and for a full hour we discussed the probability of Baldwin's standing or failing, though neither of us had any means of judging--of this, being perhaps the least anxious of the two, I became sensible the first. I finished, by stationing myself at the window to watch for my father's return, of which I promised to give my mother notice, if she would lie down quietly on the sofa, and try to compose her spirits; she had given orders to be denied to all visitors, but every knock at the door made her start, and "There's your father! There's Mr. Harrington!" was fifty times repeated before the hour when it was even possible that my father could have returned from the city.

When the probable time came and pa.s.sed, when it grew later and later without my father's appearing, our anxiety and impatience rose to the highest pitch.

At last I gave my mother notice that I saw among the walkers at the end of the street which joined our square, an elderly gentleman with a cane.

"But there are so many elderly gentlemen with canes," said my mother, joining me at the window. "Is it Mr. Harrington?"

"It is very like my father, ma'am. Now you can see him plainly picking his way over the crossing."

"He is looking down," said my mother; "that is a very bad sign.--But is he not looking up now?"

"No, ma'am; and now he is taking snuff."

"Taking snuff! is he? Then there is some hope," said my mother.

During the last forty yards of my father's walk, we each drew innumerable and often opposite conclusions, from his slightest gestures and motions, interpreting them all as favourable or unfavourable omens.

In the course of five minutes my mother's _presentiments_ varied fifty times. At length came his knock at the door. My mother grew pale--to her ear it said "all's lost;" to mine it sounded like "all's safe."

"He stays to take off his great coat! a good sign; but he comes heavily up stairs." Our eyes were fixed on the door--he opened it, and advanced towards us without uttering one syllable.

"All's lost--and all's safe," said my father. "My fortune's safe, Mrs.

Harrington."

"What becomes of your presentiments, my dear mother?" said I.

"Thank Heaven!" said my mother, "I was wrong for once."

"You might thank Heaven for more than once, madam," said my father.

"But then what did you mean by all's lost, Mr. Harrington; if all's safe, how can all be lost?"

"My all, Mrs. Harrington, is not all fortune. There is such a thing as credit as well as fortune, Mrs. Harrington."