The Castle Inn Part 51

he muttered in low yet sonorous tones.

Mr. Fishwick stared. 'I beg your lordship's pardon,' he said. 'I do not quite understand.'

'There is no need. And that is the whole truth, sir, is it?'

'Yes, my lord, it is.'

'Very good. Very good,' Lord Chatham replied, pushing away the papers which the attorney in the heat of his argument had thrust before him.

'Then there is an end of the matter as far as the trustees are concerned. Sir George, you have nothing to say, I take it?'

'No, I thank you, my lord--nothing here,' Soane answered vaguely. His face continued to wear the dark flush which had overspread it a few minutes before. 'This, I need not say, is an absolute surprise to me,' he added.

'Just so. It is an extraordinary story. Well, good-morning, sir,' his lordship continued, addressing the attorney. 'I believe you have done your duty. I believe you have behaved very honestly. You will hear from me.'

Mr. Fishwick knew that he was dismissed, but after a glance aside, which showed him Sir George standing in a brown study, he lingered. 'If your lordship,' he said desperately, 'could see your way to do anything--for my client?'

'For your client? Why?' the Earl cried, with a sudden return of his gouty peevishness. 'Why, sir--why?'

'She has been drawn,' the lawyer muttered 'out of the position in which she lived, by an error, not her own, my lord.'

'Yours!'

'Yes, my lord.'

'And why drawn?' the Earl continued regarding him severely. 'I will tell you, sir. Because you were not content to await the result of investigation, but must needs thrust yourself in the public eye! You must needs a.s.sume a position before it was granted! No, sir, I allow you honest; I allow you to be well-meaning; but your conduct has been indiscreet, and your client must pay for it. Moreover, I am in the position of a trustee, and can do nothing. You may go, sir.'

After that Mr. Fishwick had no choice but to withdraw. He did so; and a moment later Sir George, after paying his respects, followed him. Dr.

Addington was clear-sighted enough to fear that his friend had gone after the lawyer, and, as soon as he decently could, he went himself in pursuit. He was relieved to find Sir George alone, pacing the floor of the room they shared.

The physician took care to hide his real motive and his distrust of Soane's discretion under a show of heartiness. 'My dear Sir George, I congratulate you!' he cried, shaking the other effusively by the hand.

'Believe me, 'tis by far the completest way out of the difficulty; and though I am sorry for the--for the young lady, who seems to have behaved very honestly--well, time brings its repentances as well as its revenges. It is possible the match would have done tolerably well, a.s.suming you to be equal in birth and fortune. But even then 'twas a risk; 'twas a risk, my dear sir! And now--'

'It is not to be thought of, I suppose?' Sir George said; and he looked at the other interrogatively.

'Good Lord, no!' the physician answered. 'No, no, no!' he added weightily.

Sir George nodded, and, turning, looked thoughtfully through the window.

His face still wore a flush. 'Yet something must be done for her,' he said in a low voice. 'I can't let her here, read that.'

Dr. Addington took the open letter the other handed to him, and, eyeing it with a frown while he fixed his gla.s.ses, afterwards proceeded to peruse it.

'Sir,' it ran--it was pitifully short--'when I sought you I deemed myself other than I am. Were I to seek you now I should be other than I deem myself. We met abruptly, and can part after the same fashion. This from one who claims to be no more than your well-wisher.--JULIA.'

The doctor laid it down and took a pinch of snuff. 'Good girl!' he muttered. 'Good girl. That--that confirms me. You must do something for her, Sir George. Has she--how did you get that, by the way?'

'I found it on the table. I made inquiry, and heard that she left Marlboro' an hour gone.'

'For?'

'I could not learn.'

'Good girl! Good girl! Yes, certainly you must do something for her.'

'You think so?' Sir George said, with a sudden queer look at the doctor, 'Even you?'

'Even I! An allowance of--I was going to suggest fifty guineas a year,'

Dr. Addington continued impulsively. 'Now, after reading that letter, I say a hundred. It is not too much, Sir George! 'Fore Gad, it is not too much. But--'

'But what?'

The physician paused to take an elaborate pinch of snuff. 'You'll forgive me,' he answered. 'But before this about her birth came out, I fancied that you were doing, or going about to do the girl no good. Now, my dear Sir George, I am not strait-laced,' the doctor continued, dusting the snuff from the lappets of his coat, 'and I know very well what your friend, my Lord March, would do in the circ.u.mstances. And you have lived much, with him, and think yourself, I dare swear, no better.

But you are, my dear sir--you are, though you may not know it. You are wondering what I am at? Inclined to take offence, eh? Well, she's a good girl, Sir George'--he tapped the letter, which lay on the table beside him--'too good for that! And you'll not lay it on your conscience, I hope.'

'I will not,' Sir George said quietly.

'Good lad!' Dr. Addington muttered, in the tone Lord Chatham had used; for it is hard to be much with the great without trying on their shoes.

'Good lad! Good lad!'

Soane did not appear to notice the tone. 'You think an allowance of a hundred guineas enough?' he said, and looked at the other.

'I think it very handsome,' the doctor answered. 'D----d handsome.'

'Good!' Sir George rejoined. 'Then she shall have that allowance;' and after staring awhile at the table he nodded a.s.sent to his thoughts and went out.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

A HANDSOME ALLOWANCE

The physician might not have deemed his friend so sensible--or so insensible--had he known that the young man proposed to make the offer of that allowance in person. Nor to Sir George Soane himself, when he alighted five days later before The George Inn at Wallingford, did the offer seem the light and easy thing,

'Of smiles and tears compact,'

it had appeared at Marlborough. He recalled old clashes of wit, and here and there a spark struck out between them, that, alighting on the flesh, had burned him. Meanwhile the arrival of so fine a gentleman, travelling in a post-chaise and four, drew a crowd about the inn. To give the idlers time to disperse, as well as to remove the stains of the road, he entered the house, and, having bespoken dinner and the best rooms, inquired the way to Mr. Fishwick the attorney's. By this time his servant had blabbed his name; and the story of the duel at Oxford being known, with some faint savour of his fashion, the landlord was his most obedient, and would fain have guided his honour to the place cap in hand.

Rid of him, and informed that the house he sought was neighbour on the farther side, of the Three Tuns, near the bridge, Sir George strolled down the long clean street that leads past Blackstone's Church, then in the building, to the river; Sinodun Hill and the Berkshire Downs, speaking evening peace, behind him. He paused before a dozen neat houses with bra.s.s knockers and painted shutters, and took each in turn for the lawyer's. But when he came to the real Mr. Fishwick's, and found it a mere cottage, white and decent, but no more than a cottage, he thought that he was mistaken. Then the name of 'Mr. Peter Fishwick, Attorney-at-Law,' not in the glory of bra.s.s, but painted in white letters on the green door, undeceived him; and, opening the wicket of the tiny garden, he knocked with the head of his cane on the door.

The appearance of a stately gentleman in a laced coat and a sword, waiting outside Fishwick's, opened half the doors in the street; but not that one at which Sir George stood. He had to knock again and again before he heard voices whispering inside. At last a step came tapping down the bricked pa.s.sage, a bolt was withdrawn, and an old woman, in a coa.r.s.e brown dress and a starched mob, looked out. She betrayed no surprise on seeing so grand a gentleman, but told his honour, before he could speak, that the lawyer was not at home.

'It is not Mr. Fishwick I want to see,' Sir George answered civilly.

Through the brick pa.s.sage he had a glimpse, as through a funnel, of green leaves climbing on a tiny treillage, and of a broken urn on a sc.r.a.p of sward. 'You have a young lady staying here?' he continued.

The old woman's stiff grey eyebrows grew together. 'No!' she said sharply. 'Nothing of the kind!'

'A Miss Masterson.'

'No' she snapped, her face more and more forbidding. 'We have no Misses here, and no baggages for fine gentlemen! You have come to the wrong house!' And she tried to shut the door in his face.