Charles Lever - The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II

“I should suppose that no one will understand how to deal with such embarrassments better than your Lordship.”

“Thanks for the good opinion; the speech I take to be a compliment, however you meant it. I believe I am not altogether unskilled in such affairs, and it is precisely because such is the case that I am here now. Onslow, in other hands than mine, is a ruined man. The story, tell it how you will, comes to this: that, having gone out to meet a man he had grossly insulted, he wanders away from the rendezvous, and is found some hours after at the foot of the cliff, insensible. He may have fallen, he may have been waylaid, – though everything controverts this notion; or, lastly, he may have done the act himself. There will be advocates for each view of the case; but it is essential, for his honor and reputation, that one story should be authenticated. Now, I am quite ready to stand godfather to such a version, taking all the consequences, however serious, on myself.”

“This is very kind, very generous, indeed, my Lord,” said Grounsell, suddenly warming into an admiration of one he was always prejudiced against.

“Oh, I’m a regular John Bull!” said the Viscount, at once assuming the burden of that canticle, which helped him in all moments of hypocrisy. “Always stand by the old stock, – nothing like them, sir. The Anglo-Saxon blood will carry all before it yet; never suffer a rascally foreigner to put his foot on one of your countrymen. Have him out, sir; parade the fellow at once: that’s my plan.”

“I like your spirit!” cried Grounsell, enthusiastically.

“To be sure you do, old cock!” exclaimed Norwood, clapping him familiarly on the shoulder. “Depend upon it, I ‘ll pull George through this. I ‘ll manage the matter cleverly. There must be no mistake about it; no room for doubt or equivocation, you know. All straightforward, open, and manly: John Bull every inch of It That’s my notion, at least, – I hope it’s yours?”

“Perfectly, – thoroughly so!”

“Well, then, just hand that note to Sir Stafford.” Here he placed a sealed letter in Grounsell’s hand. “Tell him what I’ve just told you. Let him fairly understand the whole question, and let me have the contents this evening at the café in the Santa Trinita, – say about nine o’clock; not later than that These fellows always gather about that hour.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Grounsell.

“All right!” cried Norwood, gayly, as he arose and adjusted the curls beneath his hat. “My compliments to the old gent, and tell George not to make himself uneasy. He ‘s in safe hands. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, my Lord, good-bye,” said Grounsell, who, as he looked after him, felt, as it were, unconsciously recurring to all his former prejudices and dislikes of the noble Viscount “Those fellows,” muttered he, “are as inexplicable to me as a new malady, of which I neither know the stages nor the symptoms. The signs I take for those of health may be precisely the indications of corruption; and what I deem unsound may turn out to be exactly the opposite.” And so be fell into a musing fit, in which certainly his estimate of Lord Norwood continued steadily to fall lower and lower the longer he thought of him. “He must be a rogue! – he must be a scoundrel! Nature makes all its blackguards plausible, just as poison-berries are always brilliant to look at They are both intended to be the correctives of rash impressions, and I was only a fool ever to be deceived by him. Out of this, at all hazards, – that’s the first thing!” muttered Grounsell to himself, as he walked hastily up and down the room. “The place is like a plague district, and we must not carry an infected rag away from it! Glorious Italy, forsooth! There’s more true enlightenment, there’s a higher purpose, and a nobler view of life in the humblest English village, than in the proudest halls of their Eternal City!”

In such pleasant reflections on national character he entered Sir Stafford’s room, and found his friend seated at a table covered with newly arrived letters; the seals were all unbroken, and the sick man was turning them over, and gazing at the different handwritings with a sad and listless apathy.

“I ‘m glad you ‘ve come, Grounsell. I have not courage for this,” said he, pointing to the mass of letters before him.

“Begging impostors, one half of them, I ‘ll be sworn!” said Grounsell, seating himself to the work. “Was I not right? Here’s a Cabinet Minister suing for your vote on an Irish question, and entreating your speedy return to England, ‘where, he trusts, the object you are both interested in may be satisfactorily arranged.’ Evasive rascal! Could n’t he say, ‘you shall have the Peerage for your support’? Would n’t it be more frank and more intelligible to declare, ‘We take you at your price’? These,” said he, throwing half a dozen contemptuously from him, “are all from your constituents. The ‘independent borough’ contains seventy electors; and if you owned the patronage of the two services, with a fair share of the public offices and India, you could n’t content them. I ‘d tell them fairly, ‘I have bought you already; the article is paid for and sent home. Let us hear no more about it!’ This is more cheering. Shoenhals, of Riga, stands firm, and the Rotterdam house will weather the gale. That’s good news, Onslow!” said he, grasping the old man’s hand. “This is from Calcutta. Prospects are brightening a little in that quarter, too. Come, come, – there’s some blue in the sky. Who knows what good weather ‘s in store for us?”

Onslow’s lip trembled, and he passed his hand over his eyes without speaking.

“This is from Como,” said Grounsell, half angrily, tossing away a highly perfumed little three-cornered note.

“Give it to me, – let me see it,” said Onslow, eagerly; while with trembling fingers he adjusted his spectacles to read. Grounsell handed him the epistle, and walked to the window.

“She’s quite well,” read Sir Stafford, aloud; “they had delightful weather on the road, and found Como in full beauty on their arrival.” Grounsell grumbled some angry mutterings between his teeth, and shrugged up his shoulders disdainfully. “She inquires most kindly after me, and wishes me to join them there, for Kate Dalton’s betrothal.”

“Yet she never took the trouble to visit you when living under the same roof!” cried Grounsell, indignantly.

The old man laid down the letter, and seemed to ponder for some moments.

“What’s the amount? – how much is the sum?” asked Grounsell, bluntly.

“The amount! – the sum! – of what?” inquired Sir Stafford.

“I ask, what demand is she making, that it is prefaced thus?”

“By Heaven! if you were not a friend of more than fifty years’ standing, you should never address me as such again,” cried Onslow, passionately. “Has ill-nature so absorbed your faculties that you have not a good thought or good feeling left you?”

“My stock of them decreases every day, – ay, every hour, Onslow,” said he, with a deeper emotion than he had yet displayed. “It is, indeed, a sorry compromise, that if age is to make us wiser, it should make us less amiable, also!”

“You are not angry with me? – not offended, Grounsell?” said Onslow, grasping his hand in both his own.

“Not a bit of it But, as to temperament, I can no more help my distrust, than you can conquer your credulity, which is a happier philosophy, after all.”

“Then come, read that letter, Grounsell,” said Onslow, smiling pleasantly. “Put your prejudices aside for once, and be just, if not generous.”

Grounsell took the note, and walked to the window to read it. The note was just what he expected, – a prettily turned inquiry after her husband’s health, interwoven with various little pleasantries of travelling, incidents of the road, and so forth. The invitation was a mere suggestion, and Grounsell was half angry at how little there was to find fault with; for, even to the “Very sincerely yours, Hester Onslow,” all was as commonplace as need be. Accidentally turning over the page, however, he found a small slip of silver paper, – a bank check for five hundred pounds, only wanting Onslow’s signature. Grounsell crushed it convulsively in his palm, and handed the note back to Onslow, without a word.