What Will He Do with It? Part 65

"Nothing surprises me that man can do," said the Colonel; "or I should be surprised. When, acting on Darrell's general instructions for your outfit, I bought that horse, I flattered myself that I had chosen well.

But rare are good horses--rarer still a good judge of them; I suppose I was cheated, and the brute proved a screw."

"The finest cab-horse in London, my dear Colonel, and every one knows how proud I was of him. But I wanted money, and had nothing else that would bring the sum I required. Oh, Colonel Morley, do hear me?"

"Certainly, I am not deaf, nor is St. James's Street. When a man says, 'I have parted with my horse because I wanted money,' I advise him to say it in a whisper."

"I have been imprudent, at least unlucky, and I must pay the penalty. A friend of mine--that is, not exactly a friend, but an acquaintance--whom I see every day--one of my own set-asked me to sign my name at Paris to a bill at three months' date, as his security. He gave me his honour that I should hear no more of it--he would be sure to take up the bill when due--a man whom I supposed to be as well off as myself! You will allow that I could scarcely refuse--at all events, I did not. The bill became due two days ago; my friend does not pay it, and indeed says he cannot, and the holder of the bill calls on me. He was very civil-offered to renew it--pressed me to take my time, &c.; but I did not like his manner: and as to my friend, I find that, instead of being well off, as I supposed, he is hard up, and that I am not the first he has got into the same sc.r.a.pe--not intending it, I am sure. He's really a very good fellow, and, if I wanted security, would be it to-morrow to any amount."

"I've no doubt of it--to any amount!" said the Colonel.

"So I thought it best to conclude the matter at once. I had saved nothing from my allowance, munificent as it is. I could not have the face to ask Mr. Darrell to remunerate me for my own imprudence. I should not like to borrow from my mother--I know it would be inconvenient to her.

"I sold both horse and cabriolet this morning. I had just been getting the cheque cashed when I met you. I intend to take the money myself to the bill-holder. I have just the sum--L200."

"The horse alone was worth that," said the Colonel, with a faint sigh-- "not to be replaced. France and Russia have the pick of our stables.

However, if it is sold, it is sold--talk no more of it. I hate painful subjects. You did right not to renew the bill--it is opening an account with Ruin; and though I avoid preaching on money matters, or, indeed, any other (preaching is my nephew's vocation, not mine), yet allow me to extract from you a solemn promise never again to sign bills, nor to draw them. Be to your friend what you please except security for him. Orestes never asked Pylades to help him to borrow at fifty per cent. Promise me--your word of honour as a gentleman! Do you hesitate?"

"My dear Colonel," said Lionel frankly, "I do hesitate. I might promise not to sign a money-lender's bill on my own account, though really I think you take rather an exaggerated view of what is, after all, a common occurrence--"

"Do I?" said the Colonel meekly. "I'm sorry to hear it. I detest exaggeration. Go on. You might promise not to ruin yourself--but you object to promise not to help in the ruin of your friend."

"That is exquisite irony, Colonel," said Lionel, piqued; "but it does not deal with the difficulty, which is simply this: When a man whom you call friend--whom you walk with, ride with, dine with almost every day, says to you 'I am in immediate want of a few hundreds--I don't ask you to lend them to me, perhaps you can't--but a.s.sist me to borrow--trust to my honour that the debt shall not fall on you,--why, then, it seems as if to refuse the favour was to tell the man you call friend that you doubt his honour; and though I have been caught once in that way, I feel that I must be caught very often before I should have the moral courage to say 'No!' Don't ask me, then to promise--be satisfied with my a.s.surance that, in future at least, I will be more cautious, and if the loss fall on me, why, the worst that can happen is to do again what I do now."

"Nay, you would not perhaps have another horse and cab to sell. In that case, you would do the reverse of what you do now--you would renew the bill--the debt would run on like a s...o...b..ll--in a year or two you would owe, not hundreds, but thousands. But come in--here we are at my door."

The Colonel entered his drawing-room. A miracle of exquisite neatness the room was--rather effeminate, perhaps, in its attributes; but that was no sign of the Colonel's tastes, but of his popularity with the ladies. All those pretty things were their gifts. The tapestry on the chairs their work--the Sevres on the consoles--the clock on the mantel-shelf--the inkstand, paper-cutter, taper-stand on the writing-table--their birthday presents. Even the white woolly Maltese dog that sprang from the rug to welcome him--even the flowers in the jardiniere--even the tasteful cottage-piano, and the very music-stand beside it--and the card-trays, piled high with invitations,--were contributions from the forgiving s.e.x to the unrequiting bachelor.

Surveying his apartment with a complacent air, the Colonel sank into his easy _fauteuil_, and drawing off his gloves leisurely said--

"No man has more friends than I have--never did I lose one--never did I sign a bill. Your father pursued a different policy--he signed many bills--and lost many friends." Lionel, much distressed, looked down, and evidently desired to have done with the subject. Not so the Colonel.

That shrewd man, though he did not preach, had a way all his own, which was perhaps quite as effective as any sermon by a fashionable layman can be to an impatient youth.

"Yes," resumed the Colonel, "it is the old story. One always begins by being security to a friend. The discredit of the thing is familiarised to one's mind by the false show of generous confidence in another. Their what you have done for a friend, a friend should do for you;--a hundred or two would be useful now--you are sure to repay it in three months. To Youth the Future seems safe as the Bank of England, and distant as the peaks of Himalaya. You pledge your honour that in three months you will release your friend. The three months expire. To release the one friend, you catch hold of another--the bill is renewed, premium and interest thrown into the next pay-day--soon the account multiplies, and with it the honour dwindles--your NAME circulates from hand to hand on the back of doubtful paper--your name, which, in all money transactions, should grow higher and higher each year you live, falling down every month like the shares in a swindling speculation. You begin by what you call trusting a friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction--buying him a.r.s.enic to clear his complexion--you end by dragging all near you into your own abyss, as a drowning man would clutch at his own brother.

Lionel Haughton, the saddest expression I ever saw in your father's face was when--when--but you shall hear the story--"

"No, sir; spare me. Since you so insist on it, I will give the promise--it is enough; and my father--"

"Was as honourable as you when he first signed his name to a friend's bill; and, perhaps, promised to do so no more as reluctantly as you do.

You had better let me say on; if I stop now, you will forget all about it by this day twelve-month; if I go on, you will never forget. There are other examples besides your father; I am about to name one."

Lionel resigned himself to the operation, throwing his handkerchief over his face as if he had taken chloroform. "When I was young," resumed the Colonel, "I chanced to make acquaintance with a man of infinite whim and humour; fascinating as Darrell himself, though in a very different way.

We called him w.i.l.l.y--you know the kind of man one calls by his Christian name, cordially abbreviated--that kind of man seems never to be quite grown up; and, therefore, never rises in life. I never knew a man called w.i.l.l.y after the age of thirty, who did not come to a melancholy end!

w.i.l.l.y was the natural son of a rich, helter-skelter, cleverish, maddish, stylish, raffish, four-in-hand Baronet, by a celebrated French actress.

The t.i.tle is extinct now, and so, I believe, is that genus of stylish, raffish, four-in-hand Baronet--Sir Julian Losely--"

"Losely!" echoed Lionel. "Yes; do you know the name?"

"I never heard it till yesterday. I want to tell you what I did hear then--but after your story--go on."

"Sir Julian Losely (w.i.l.l.y's father) lived with the French lady as his wife, and reared w.i.l.l.y in his house, with as much pride and fondness as if he intended him for his heir. The poor boy, I suspect, got but little regular education; though of course, he spoke his French mother's tongue like a native; and, thanks also perhaps to his mother, he had an extraordinary talent for mimicry and acting. His father was pa.s.sionately fond of private theatricals, and w.i.l.l.y had early practice in that line.

I once saw him act Falstaff in a country house, and I doubt if Quin could have acted it better. Well, when w.i.l.l.y was still a mere boy, he lost his mother, the actress. Sir Julian married--had a legitimate daughter--died intestate--and the daughter, of course, had the personal property, which was not much; the heir-at-law got the land, and poor w.i.l.l.y nothing. But w.i.l.l.y was an universal favourite with his father's old friends--wild fellows like Sir Julian himself amongst them there were two cousins, with large country-houses, sporting-men, and bachelors. They shared w.i.l.l.y between them, and quarrelled which should have the most of him. So he grew up to be man, with no settled provision, but always welcome, not only to the two cousins, but at every house in which, like Milton's lark, 'he came to startle the dull night'--the most amusing companion!--a famous shot--a capital horseman--knew the ways of all animals, fishes, and birds; I verily believe he could have coaxed a pug-dog to point, and an owl to sing.

Void of all malice, up to all fun. Imagine how much people would court, and how little they would do for, a w.i.l.l.y of that sort. Do I bore you?"

"On the contrary, I am greatly interested."

"One thing a w.i.l.l.y, if a w.i.l.l.y could be wise, ought to do for himself--keep single. A wedded w.i.l.l.y is in a false position. My w.i.l.l.y wedded--for love too--an amiable girl, I believe (I never saw her; it was long afterwards that I knew w.i.l.l.y)--but as poor as himself. The friends and relatives then said: 'This is serious: something--must be done for w.i.l.l.y.' It was easy to say, 'something must be done,' and monstrous difficult to do it. While the relations were consulting, his half-sister, the Baronet's lawful daughter, died, unmarried; and though she had ignored him in life, left him L2,000. 'I have hit it now, 'cried one of the cousins; 'w.i.l.l.y is fond of a country life. I will let him have a farm on a nominal rent, his L2,000 will stock it; and his farm, which is surrounded by woods, will be a capital hunting-meet. As long as I live, w.i.l.l.y shall be mounted.'

"w.i.l.l.y took the farm, and astonished his friends by attending to it. It was just beginning to answer when his wife died, leaving him only one child--a boy; and her death made him so melancholy that he could no longer attend to his farm. He threw it up, invested the proceeds as a capital, and lived on the interest as a gentleman at large. He travelled over Europe for some time--chiefly on foot--came back, having recovered his spirits--resumed his old desultory purposeless life at different country-houses, and at one of those houses I and Charles Haughton met him. Here I pause, to state that w.i.l.l.y Losely at that time impressed me with the idea that he was a thoroughly honest man. Though he was certainly no formalist--though he had lived with wild sets of convivial scapegraces--though, out of sheer high spirits, he would now and then make conventional Proprieties laugh at their own long faces; yet, I should have said that Bayard himself--and Bayard was no saint--could not have been more incapable of a disloyal, rascally, shabby action. Nay, in the plain matter of integrity, his ideas might be called refined, almost Quixotic. If asked to give or to lend, w.i.l.l.y's hand was in his pocket in an instant; but though thrown among rich men--careless as himself--w.i.l.l.y never put his hand into their pockets, never borrowed, never owed. He would accept hospitality--make frank use of your table, your horses, your dogs--but your money, no! He repaid all he took from a host by rendering himself the pleasantest guest that host ever entertained. Poor w.i.l.l.y! I think I see his quaint smile br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with sly sport! The sound of his voice was like a cry of 'o-half-holiday' in a schoolroom.

He dishonest! I should as soon have suspected the noonday sun of being a dark lantern! I remember, when he and I were walking home from wild-duck shooting in advance of our companions, a short conversation between us that touched me greatly, for it showed that, under all his levity, there were sound sense and right feeling. I asked him about his son, then a boy at school: 'Why, as it was the Christmas vacation, he had refused our host's suggestion to let the lad come down there?' 'Ah,' said he, 'don't fancy that I will lead my son to grow up a scatterbrained good-for-nought like his father. His society is the joy of my life; whenever I have enough in my pockets to afford myself that joy, I go and hire a quiet lodging close by his school, to have him with me from Sat.u.r.day till Monday all to myself--where he never hears wild fellows call me "w.i.l.l.y," and ask me to mimic. I had hoped to have spent this vacation with him in that way, but his school bill was higher than usual, and after paying it, I had not a guinea to spare--obliged to come here where they lodge and feed me for nothing; the boy's uncle on the mother's side--respectable man in business--kindly takes him home for the holidays; but did not ask me, because his wife--and I don't blame her--thinks I'm too wild for a City clerk's sober household.'

"I asked w.i.l.l.y Losely what he meant to do with his son, and hinted that I might get the boy a commission in the army without purchase.

"'No,' said w.i.l.l.y. 'I know what it is to set up for a gentleman on the capital of a beggar. It is to be a shuttlec.o.c.k between discontent and temptation. I would not have my lost wife's son waste his life as I have done. He would be more spoiled, too, than I have been. The handsomest boy you ever saw-and bold as a lion. Once in that set' (pointing over his shoulder towards some of our sporting comrades, whose loud laughter every now and then reached our ears)--'once in that set, he would never be out of it--fit for nothing. I swore to his mother on her death-bed that I would bring him up to avoid my errors--that he should be no hanger-on and led-captain! Swore to her that he should be reared according to his real station--the station of his mother's kin--(I have no station)--and if I can but see him an honest British trader--respectable, upright, equal to the highest--because no rich man's dependant, and no poor man's jest--my ambition will be satisfied.

And now you understand, sir, why my boy is not here.' You would say a father who spoke thus had a man's honest stuff in him. Eh, Lionel!"

"Yes, and a true gentleman's heart, too!"

"So I thought; yet I fancied I knew the world! After that conversation, I quitted our host's roof, and only once or twice afterwards, at country-houses, met William Losely again. To say truth, his chief patrons and friends were not exactly in my set. But your father continued to see w.i.l.l.y pretty often. They took a great fancy to each other. Charlie, you know, was jovial--fond of private theatricals, too; in short, they became great allies. Some years after, as ill-luck would have it, Charles Haughton, while selling off his Middles.e.x property, was in immediate want of L1,200. He could get it on a bill, but not without security. His bills were already rather down in the market, and he had already exhausted most of the friends whose security was esteemed by accommodators any better than his own. In an evil hour he had learned that poor w.i.l.l.y had just L1,500 out upon mortgage; and the money-lender, who was lawyer for the property on which the mortgage was, knew it too.

It was on the interest of this L1,500 that w.i.l.l.y lived, having spent the rest of his little capital in settling his son as a clerk in a first-rate commercial house. Charles Haughton went down to shoot at the house where w.i.l.l.y was a guest-shot with him--drank with him--talked with him--proved to him, no doubt, that long before the three months were over the Middles.e.x property would be sold; the bill taken up, w.i.l.l.y might trust to his Honour. w.i.l.l.y did trust. Like you, my dear Lionel, he had not moral courage to say 'No.' Your father, I am certain, meant to repay him; your father never in cold blood meant to defraud any human being; but--your father gambled! A debt of honour at piquet preceded the claim of a bill-discounter. The L1,200 were forestalled--your father was penniless. The money-lender came upon w.i.l.l.y. Sure that Charles Haughton would yet redeem his promise, w.i.l.l.y renewed the bill another three months on usurious terms; those months over, he came to town to find your father hiding between four walls, unable to stir out for fear of arrest. w.i.l.l.y had no option but to pay the money; and when your father knew that it was so paid, and that the usury had swallowed up the whole of w.i.l.l.y's little capital, then, I say, I saw upon Charles Haughton's once radiant face the saddest expression I ever saw on mortal man's. And sure I am that all the joys your father ever knew as a man of pleasure were not worth the agony and remorse of that moment. I respect your emotion, Lionel, but you begin as your father began; and if I had not told you this story, you might have ended as your father ended."

Lionel's face remained covered, and it was only by choking gasps that he interrupted--the Colonel's narrative. "Certainly," resumed Alban Morley, in a reflective tone "certainly that villain--I mean William Losely, for villain he afterwards proved to be--had the sweetest, most forgiving temper! He might have gone about to his kinsmen and friends denouncing Charles Haughton, and saying by what solemn promises he had been undone.

But no! such a story just at that moment would have crushed Charles Haughton's last chance of ever holding up his head again, and Charles told me (for it was through Charles that I knew the tale) that w.i.l.l.y's parting words to him were 'Do not fret, Charles--after all, my boy is now settled in life, and I am a cat with nine lives, and should fall on my legs if thrown out of a garret window. Don't fret.' So he kept the secret, and told the money-lender to hold his tongue. Poor w.i.l.l.y! I never asked a rich friend to lend me money but once in my life. It was then I went to Guy Darrell, who was in full practice, and said to him: 'Lend me one thousand pounds. I may never repay you.' 'Five thousand pounds, if you like it,' said he. 'One will do.'

"I took the money and sent it to w.i.l.l.y. Alas! he returned it, writing word that 'Providence had been very kind to him; he had just been appointed to a capital place, with a magnificent salary.' The cat had fallen on its legs. He bade me comfort Haughton with that news. The money went back into Darrell's pocket, and perhaps wandered thence to Charles Haughton's creditors. Now for the appointment. At the country-house to which w.i.l.l.y had returned dest.i.tute, he had met a stranger (no relation), who said to him: 'You live with these people--shoot their game--break in their horses--see to their farms--and they give you nothing! You are no longer very young--you should lay by your little income, and add to it. Live with me and I will give you L300 a-year. I am parting with my steward--take his place, but be my friend.'

William Losely of course closed with the proposition. This gentleman, whose name was Gunston, I had known slightly in former times--(people say I know everybody)--a soured, bilious, melancholy, indolent, misanthropical old bachelor. With a splendid place universally admired, and a large estate universally envied, he lived much alone, ruminating on the bitterness of life and the nothingness of worldly blessings.

Meeting w.i.l.l.y at the country-house to which, by some predestined relaxation of misanthropy, he had been decoyed-for the first time for years Mr. Gunston was heard to laugh. He said to himself, 'Here is a man who actually amuses me.' William Losely contrived to give the misanthrope a new zest of existence; and when he found that business could be made pleasant, the rich man conceived an interest in his own house, gardens, property. For the sake of William's merry companionship, he would even ride over his farms, and actually carried a gun.

Meanwhile, the property, I am told, was really well managed. Ah! that fellow w.i.l.l.y was a born genius, and could have managed everybody's affairs except his own. I heard of all this with pleasure--(people say I hear everything)--when one day a sporting man seizes me by the b.u.t.ton at Tattersall's--'Do you know the news? Will Losely is in prison on a charge; of robbing his employer.'"

"Robbing! incredible!" exclaimed Lionel.

"My dear Lionel, it was after hearing that news that I established as invariable my grand maxim, _Nil admirari_--never to be astonished at anything!"

"But of course he was innocent?"

"On the contrary, he confessed,--was committed; pleaded guilty, and was transported! People who knew w.i.l.l.y said that Gunston ought to have declined to drag him before a magistrate, or, at the subsequent trial, have abstained from giving evidence against him; that w.i.l.l.y had been till then a faithful steward; the whole proceeds of the estate lead pa.s.sed through his hands; he might, in transactions for timber, have cheated undetected to twice the amount of the alleged robbery; it must have been a momentary aberration of reason; the rich man should have let him off. But I side with the rich man. His last belief in his species was annihilated. He must have been inexorable. He could never be amused, never be interested again. He was inexorable and--vindictive."

"But what were the facts?--what was the evidence?"

"Very little came out on the trial; because, in pleading guilty, the court had merely to consider the evidence which had sufficed to commit him. The trial was scarcely noticed in the London papers. William Losely was not like a man known about town. His fame was confined to those who resorted to old-fashioned country-houses, chiefly single men, for the sake of sport. But stay. I felt such an interest in the case, that I made an abstract or praecis, not only of all that appeared, but all that I could learn of its leading circ.u.mstances. 'Tis a habit of mine, whenever any of my acquaintances embroil themselves with the Crown--"

The Colonel rose, unlocked a small glazed bookcase, selected from the contents a MS. volume, reseated himself, turning the pages, found the place sought, and reading from it, resumed his narrative. "One evening Mr. Gunston came to William Losely's private apartment. Losely had two or three rooms appropriated to himself in one side of the house; which was built in a quadrangle round a courtyard. When Losely opened his door to Mr. Gunston's knock, it struck Mr. Gunston that his manner seemed confused. After some talk on general subjects, Losely said that he had occasion to go to London next morning for a few days on private business of his own. This annoyed Mr. Gunston. He observed that Losely's absence just then would be inconvenient. He reminded him that a tradesman, who lived at a distance, was coming over the next day to be paid for a vinery he had lately erected, and on the charge for which there was a dispute. Could not Losely at least stay to settle it? Losely replied, 'that he had already, by correspondence, adjusted the dispute, having suggested deductions which the tradesman had agreed to, and that Mr.

Gunston would only have to give a cheque for the balance--viz. L270.'

Thereon Mr. Gunston remarked: 'If you were not in the habit of paying my bills for me out of what you receive, you would know that I seldom give cheques. I certainly shall not give one now, for I have the money in the house.' Losely observed 'That is a bad habit of yours keeping large sums in your own house. You may be robbed.' Gunston answered 'Safer than lodging large sums in a country bank. Country banks break. My grandfather lost L1,000 by the failure of a country bank; and my father, therefore, always took his payments in cash, remitting them to London from time to time as he went thither himself. I do the same, and I have never been robbed of a farthing that I know of. Who would rob a great house like this, full of menservants?'--'That's true,' said Losely; 'so if you are sure you have as much by you, you will pay the bill and have done with it. I shall be back before Sparks the builder comes to be paid for the new barn to the home farm-that will be L600; but I shall be taking money for timber next week. He can be paid out of that."

GUNSTON.--'No. I will pay Sparks, too, out of what I have in my bureau; and the timber-merchant can pay his debt into my London banker's.'

LOSELY.--'DO you mean that you have enough for both these bills actually in the house?'

GUNSTON.--'Certainly, in the bureau in my study. I don't know how much I've got. It may be L1,500--it may be L1,700. I have not counted; I am such a bad man of business; but I am sure it is more than L1,400.'