The Castle Inn Part 21

With which poor Mr. Fishwick was hustled out, protesting but not convinced. It is seldom the better side of human nature that lawyers see; nor is an attorney's office, or a barrister's chamber, the soil in which a luxuriant crop of confidence is grown. In common with many persons of warm feelings, but narrow education, Mr. Fishwick was ready to believe on the smallest evidence--or on no evidence at all--that the rich and powerful were leagued against his client; that justice, if he were not very sharp, would be denied him; that the heavy purse had a knack of outweighing the righteous cause, even in England and in the eighteenth century. And the fact that all his hopes were staked on this case, that all his resources were embarked in it, that it had fallen, as it were, from heaven into his hands--wherefore the greater the pity if things went amiss--rendered him peculiarly captious and impracticable.

After this every day, nay, every hour, that pa.s.sed without bringing him to Lord Chatham's presence augmented his suspense and doubled his anxiety. To be put off, not one day, but two days, three days--what might not happen in three days!--was a thing intolerable, insufferable; a thing to bring the heavens down in pity on his head! What wonder if he rebelled hourly; and being routed, as we have seen him routed, muttered dark hints in Julia's ear, and, snubbed in that quarter also, had no resource but to shut himself up in his sleeping-place, and there brood miserably over his suspicions and surmises?

Even when the lapse of twenty-four hours brought the swarm of couriers, messengers, and expresses which Dr. Addington had foretold; when the High Street of Marlborough--a name henceforth written on the page of history--became but a slowly moving line of coaches and chariots bearing the select of the county to wait on the great Minister; when the little town itself began to throb with unusual life, and to take on airs of fashion, by reason of the crowd that lay in it; when the Duke of Grafton himself was reported to be but a stage distant, and there detained by the Earl's express refusal to see him; when the very _KING_, it was rumoured, was coming on the same business; when, in a word, it became evident that the eyes of half England were turned to the Castle Inn at Marlborough, where England's great statesman lay helpless, and gave no sign, though the wheels of state creaked and all but stood still--even then Mr. Fishwick refused to be satisfied, declined to be comforted. In place of viewing this stir and bustle, this coming and going as a perfect confirmation of Dr. Addington's statement, and a proof of his integrity, he looked askance at it. He saw in it a demonstration of the powers ranked against him and the princ.i.p.alities he had to combat; he felt, in face of it, how weak, how poor, how insignificant he was; and at one time despaired, and at another was in a frenzy, at one time wearied Julia with prophecies of treachery, at another poured his forebodings into the more sympathetic bosom of the elder woman. The reader may laugh; but if he has ever staked his all on a cast, if he has taken up a hand of twelve trumps, only to hear the ominous word 'misdeal!' he will find something in Mr. Fishwick's att.i.tude neither unnatural nor blameworthy.

CHAPTER XV

AMORIS INTEGRATIO

During the early days of the Minister's illness, when, as we have seen, all the political world of England were turning their coaches and six towards the Castle Inn, it came to be the custom for Julia to go every morning to the little bridge over the Kennet, thence to watch the panorama of departures and arrivals; and for Sir George to join her there without excuse or explanation, and as if, indeed, nothing in the world were more natural. As the Earl's illness continued to detain all who desired to see him--from the Duke of Grafton's parliamentary secretary to the humblest aspirant to a tide-waitership--Soane was not the only one who had time on his hands and sought to while it away in the company of the fair. The shades of Preshute churchyard, which lies in the bosom of the trees, not three bowshots from the Castle Inn and hard by the Kennet, formed the chosen haunt of one couple. A second pair favoured a seat situate on the west side of the Castle Mound, and well protected by shrubs from the gaze of the vulgar. And there were others.

These Corydons, however, were at ease; they basked free from care in the smiles of their Celias. But Soane, in his philandering, had to do with black care that would be ever at his elbow; black care, that always when he was not with Julia, and sometimes while he talked to her, would jog his thoughts, and draw a veil before the future. The prospect of losing Estcombe, of seeing the family Lares broken and cast out, and the family stem, tender and young, yet not ungracious, snapped off short, wrung a heart that belied his cold exterior. Moreover, when all these had been sacrificed, he was his own judge how far he could without means pursue the life which he was living. Suspense, anxiety, sordid calculation were ever twitching his sleeve, and would have his attention. Was the claim a valid claim, and must it prevail? If it prevailed, how was he to live; and where, and on what? Would the Minister grant his suit for a place or a pension? Should he prefer that suit, or might he still by one deep night and one great hand at hazard win back the thirty thousand guineas he had lost in five years?

Such questions, troubling him whether he would or no, and forcing themselves on his attention when they were least welcome, ruffled at last the outward composure on which as a man of fashion he plumed himself. He would fall silent in Julia's company, and turning his eyes from her, in unworthy forgetfulness, would trace patterns in the dust with his cane, or stare by the minute together at the quiet stream that moved sluggishly beneath them.

On these occasions she made no attempt to rouse him. But when he again awoke to the world, to the coach pa.s.sing in its cloud of dust, or the gaping urchin, or the clang of the distant dinner-bell, he would find her considering him with an enigmatical smile, that lay in the region between amus.e.m.e.nt and pity; her shapely chin resting on her hand, and the lace falling from the whitest wrist in the world. One day the smile lasted so long, was so strange and dubious, and so full of a weird intelligence, that it chilled him; it crept to his bones, disconcerted him, and set him wondering. The uneasy questions that had haunted him at the first, recurred. Why was this girl so facile, who had seemed so proud, and whose full lips curved so naturally? Was she really won, or was she with some hidden motive only playing with him? The notion was not flattering to a fine gentleman's vanity; and in any other case he would have given himself credit for conquest. But he had discovered that this girl was not as other girls; and then there was that puzzling smile. He had surprised it half a dozen times before.

'What is it?' he said abruptly, holding her eyes with his. This time he was determined to clear up the matter.

'What?' she asked in apparent innocence. But she coloured, and he saw that she understood.

'What does your smile mean, Pulcherrima?'

'Only--that I was reading your thoughts, Sir George,' she answered. 'And they were not of me.'

'Impossible!' he said. I vow, Julia--'

'Don't vow,' she answered quickly, 'or when you vow--some other time--I may not be able to believe you! You were not thinking of me, Sir George, but of your home, and the avenue of which you told me, and the elms in which the rooks lived, and the river in which you used to fish. You were wondering to whom they would go, and who would possess them, and who would be born in the room in which you were born, and who would die in the room in which your father died.'

'You are a witch!' he said, a spasm of pain crossing his face.

'Thank you,' she answered, looking at him over her fan. 'Last time you said, "D--n the girl!" It is clear I am improving your manners, Sir George. You are now so polite, that presently you will consult me.'

So she could read his very thoughts! Could set him on the rack! Could perceive when pain and not irritation underlay the oath or the compliment. He was always discovering something new in her; something that piqued his curiosity, and kept him amused. 'Suppose I consult you now?' he said.

She swung her fan to and fro, playing with it childishly, looking at the light through it, and again dropping it until it hung from her wrist by a ribbon. 'As your highness pleases,' she said at last. 'Only I warn you, that I am not the Bottle Conjuror.'

'No, for you are here, and he was not there,' Sir George answered, affecting to speak in jest. 'But tell me; what shall I do in this case?

A claim is made against me.'

'It's the bomb,' she said, 'that burst, Sir George, is it not?'

'The same. The point is, shall I resist the claim, or shall I yield to it? What do you say, ma'am?'

She tossed up her fan and caught it deftly, and looked to him for admiration. Then, 'It depends,' she said. 'Is it a large claim?'

'It is a claim--for all I have,' he answered slowly. It was the first time he had confessed that to any one, except to himself in the night watches.

If he thought to touch her, he succeeded. If he had fancied her unfeeling before, he did so no longer. She was red one minute and pale the next, and the tears came into her eyes. 'Oh,' she cried, her breast heaving, 'you should not have told me! Oh, why did you tell me?' And she rose hurriedly as if to leave him; and then sat down again, the fan quivering in her hand.

'But you said you would advise me!' he answered in surprise.

'I! Oh, no! no!' she cried.

'But you must!' he persisted, more deeply moved than he would show. 'I want your advice. I want to know how the case looks to another. It is a simple question. Shall I fight, Julia, or shall I yield to the claim?'

'Fight or yield?' she said, her voice broken by agitation. 'Shall you fight or yield? You ask me?'

'Yes.'

'Then fight! Fight!' she answered, with surprising emotion: and she rose again to her feet. And again sat down. 'Fight them to the last, Sir George!' she cried breathlessly. 'Let the creatures have nothing! Not a penny! Not an acre!'

'But--if it is a righteous claim?' he said, amazed at her excitement.

'Righteous?' she answered pa.s.sionately. 'How can a claim be righteous that takes all that a man has?'

He nodded, and studied the road awhile, thinking less of her advice than of the strange fervour with which she had given it. At the end of a minute he was surprised to hear her laugh. He felt hurt, and looked up to learn the reason; and was astounded to find her smiling at him as lightly and gaily as if nothing had occurred to interrupt her most whimsical mood; as if the question he had put to her had not been put, or were a farce, a jest, a mere pastime!

'Sho, Sir George,' she said, 'how silly you must think me to proffer you advice; and with an air as if the sky were falling? Do you forgive me?'

'I forgive you _that_,' Sir George answered. But, poor fellow, he winced under her sudden change of tone.

'That is well,' she said confidently. 'And there again, do you know you are changed; you would not have said that a week ago. I have most certainly improved your manners.'

Sir George made an effort to answer her in the same strain. 'Well, I should improve,' he said. 'I come very regularly to school. Do you know how many days we have sat here, _ma belle_?'

A faint colour tinged her cheek. 'If I do not, that dreadful Mr.

Thoma.s.son does,' she answered. 'I believe he never lets me go out of his sight. And for what you say about days--what are days, or even weeks, when it is a question of reforming a rake, Sir George? Who was it you named to me yesterday,' she continued archly, but with her eyes on the toe of her shoe which projected from her dress, 'who carried the gentleman into the country when he had lost I don't know how many thousand pounds? And kept him there out of harm's way?'

'It was Lady Carlisle,' Sir George answered drily; 'and the gentleman was her husband.'

It was Julia's turn to draw figures in the dust of the roadway, which she did very industriously; and the two were silent for quite a long time, while some one's heart b.u.mped as if it would choke her. At length--'He was not quite ruined, was he?' she said, with elaborate carelessness; her voice was a little thick--perhaps by reason of the b.u.mping.

'Lord, no!' said Sir George. 'And I am, you see.'

'While I am not your wife!' she answered; and flashed her eyes on him in sudden petulance; and then, 'Well, perhaps if my lady had her choice--to be wife to a rake can be no bed of roses, Sir George! While to be wife to a ruined rake--perhaps to be wife to a man who, if he were not ruined, would treat you as the dirt beneath his feet, beneath his notice, beneath--'

She did not seem to be able to finish the sentence, but rose choking, her face scarlet. He rose more slowly. 'Lord!' he said humbly, looking at her in astonishment, 'what has come to you suddenly? What has made you angry with me, child?'

'Child?' she exclaimed. 'Am I a child? You play with me as if I were!'

'Play with you?' Sir George said, dumfounded; he was quite taken aback by her sudden vehemence. 'My dear girl, I cannot understand you. I am not playing with you. If any one is playing, it is you. Sometimes--I wonder whether you hate me or love me. Sometimes I am happy enough to think the one; sometimes--I think the other--'

'It has never struck you,' she said, speaking with her head high, and in her harshest and most scornful tone, 'that I may do neither the one nor the other, but be pleased to kill my time with you--since I must stay here until my lawyer has done his business?'

'Oh!' said Soane, staring helplessly at the angry beauty, 'if that be all--'