Kitabı oku: «A Double Knot», sayfa 27
Volume Three – Chapter Sixteen.
Not Room for Two
The hunted man’s wife sat watching at her window hour after hour, as she had watched days and nights before – bitter, vindictive, dwelling on the cruelty, the blows and wrongs, from which she had suffered at this man’s hands, and from the woman who played the part of mother to him – jealous tyrant to her.
“I have forgiven so much,” she said, “and would forgive again – anything but this! So young, and handsome, and fair! He’ll find her again, and bring her back, and then I may go. Why didn’t he kill me outright?” she added bitterly, as she went slowly to the lamp, took it up, and held it so that she could gaze at her bruised face in the glass.
It was a handsome face, but bitterly vindictive now, as she gazed at the bruises and an ugly cut upon her lip.
“Better have killed me for letting her go. He hates me now. Yes,” she said sadly; “better do it at once – better do it.”
But she crossed the room again with a sigh to open the door and listen, habit mastering anger and bitterness, as a look of eagerness and longing such as had often been there before came into her face. It was the old anxious look with which she had watched for him who did not come. Then, by degrees, the look faded out, and her brow contracted as bitter thoughts prevailed.
It was getting late now, and she lit the candles in an automatic fashion, pausing at intervals to think. Then, going to the little sideboard, she took out a glass and the spirit decanter, half full of brandy, placing both on the sideboard ready before seating herself at the open window to listen. Nine o’clock struck, then ten, and the half-hour had chimed, but still he did not return.
There were a couple of figures, one at either end of the lane, but they did not attract her attention, and she still sat listening till a faint noise below made her start up and hurry to the door.
Yes, at last. Someone coming up the stairs two steps at a time. The door was flung open, and her husband entered hastily, looking pale and disordered. There was so jaded and despairing an aspect in the man’s eyes that the woman’s sympathies were aroused, her troubles were for the moment forgotten, and she laid her hand upon his arm.
“Back at last, John dear!” she said tenderly. “Are you tired?” And then something in his face startled her. “John dear!” she cried.
“Curse John!” he cried. “There, I have done with that masquerading. Here, quick – my little bag – a change of things!”
“Are you hurt?” she cried anxiously.
“Do you hear me?” he cried, and struck at her savagely with the back of his hand.
She staggered back with a low moan, but sprang to him the next moment, and threw her arms round his neck.
“John dearest,” she whispered, in a low, frantic tone, “for God’s sake tell me you are sorry you did that. For your own sake ask me to forgive you; it makes me mad!”
“Curse you, keep away!” he cried, flinging her off; but she staggered back, and tried to nestle in his breast, only to be flung off again. “Get me my clean things – quick!”
“No, no, not yet!” she cried, falling upon her knees and grasping at his hands. “John, dear John, one kind word; say one gentle word to me, pray, oh, pray!”
“Are you mad?” he said savagely, as he tried to release his hand.
“No; but you are driving me so!” she cried hoarsely. “I forgive you your infidelity, your unkindness – everything – the way in which you have wronged me. John – husband – for God’s sake, for your own sake, be kind to me now. You do not know the temptation that is on me.”
“To run away and leave me?” he said mockingly. “Pray go.” He stood glaring down at her for a moment, and then exclaimed, in a cold, cutting way: “Will you get me the things I want?”
“Yes, yes, dear – yes, my own love!” she cried excitedly; “in one minute. But John, husband, my heart is nearly broken. I am maddened by my wrongs.”
He must have been mad himself, for as she clung to him he struck her again, more savagely this time, and, with a shudder running through her whole frame, she cowered on the floor.
But it was only for the moment. She struggled up again, joining her hands together as she wailed once more:
“I ask you again, for our dead babe’s sake, John – husband – give me one kind word, and I will forgive all!”
“Do you want to drive me wild!” he yelled savagely. “I am not John Huish – I am not your husband. Out of my sight, or – ”
He raised his hand again to strike her, but she did not flinch. She stood up, seeming as if turned to stone, and a sickly pallor appeared on her cheeks.
“There, quick; get me the brandy! I have a long way to go.”
“Yes,” she said quietly, as a low moan escaped her lips; “you have a long way to go.”
She fetched the brandy decanter and glass from the sideboard, placed them before him, and he poured out a goodly quantity, raised the glass, listened, and then put it down.
“Who’s below?” he said sharply, as he turned towards the door.
“Jane Glyne,” she said, moaning; and then once more she tried to clasp his neck.
“What’s the matter with you?” he cried mockingly, as he thrust her arm away, and, catching up the glass, he raised it to his lips.
“No, no!” she cried, her coldness giving way to a look of horror; “don’t drink it;” and she threw up her hands to seize the glass. But once more his hand fell heavily upon her, and she shrank away, covering her bruised face with her fingers, as he drained the glass and then dropped it, to shiver to atoms on the fender.
“What! That brandy?” he cried, with his face convulsed. “What have you given me to drink?”
“Death!” she said sternly, as she dropped her hands, to stare him full in the face.
He caught at the mantelpiece and steadied himself, his lips parting, but no words came. Then, with his countenance changing horribly, he said in a hoarse whisper:
“How long?”
She grasped his meaning, and shook her head. He smiled, and swung himself to the table, caught the decanter in his hand, and stood pointing.
“A glass – quick!”
She glided to the sideboard, and returned to place one before him. The neck of the decanter chattered loudly against the thin edge, and his teeth gnashed horribly as he poured out half the glass full, and then dropped the vessel, for the remainder to run gurgling out with a strange noise, as if the spirit within the decanter were dying. Then, grasping the glass, he raised it and held it out.
“Drink!” he said huskily – “drink!”
The woman stood motionless for a few moments, rigid, as if petrified. Then, without a word, she raised her hand, took the glass calmly, and raised it to her lips, when in a paroxysm of agony the dying man threw out his arms, the glass was dashed from her hand, and he fell heavily upon the floor. As he fell writhing upon the rug the door was thrust open, and a detective-sergeant and a couple of policemen entered the room.
“John Huish, alias Mark Riversley, I have a warrant – Good heavens!” The sergeant stopped, caught the decanter from the table, smelt it, and set it down. “Too late!” he exclaimed, as a strong odour of bitter almonds floated through the room. “Here – a doctor – quick!”
As one constable reached the door the man they sought uttered a low animal cry, writhed himself partly up, and caught at the woman’s hands as she sank upon her knees at his side.
“Too – late,” said the man faintly, as he threw up his head and seemed to be speaking to someone invisible to those present. “Your – fault, your sin – a curse – a curse!”
Those present glanced at one another and then at the woman who knelt there silent and motionless, as if carved in stone.
They thought him dead, but he struggled faintly, and the woman held his head upon her arm, as his eyes slowly turned upon her, and a smile played round his pinched blue lips.
She shuddered, and her brow knit as she bent her head to hear his dying curse.
“Only a dog, and a dog’s death,” he whispered – “a wolf – in my blood – cursed – cursed. Gentlemen, too late; poison; I took it myself. An accident – I – Ah! No room for us both. Good-bye! – my – ”
He made a faint effort to throw one arm round the woman’s neck, but it fell lifeless by his side, and as a shudder ran through him a piteous cry rang through the room, and all turned to see that a wild-looking, haggard woman had entered the room.
“My poor, handsome boy!” she wailed. “Dead, dead!”
Volume Three – Chapter Seventeen.
The Family Doctor
Being a matter-of-fact man, Dr Stonor had communicated with the police, and many hours had not elapsed before he learned from them that a gentleman, such as he described, with a letter bearing his name, had been found, seriously injured, on one of the Surrey commons in the neighbourhood of Ripley.
On running down, he found John Huish lying at a cottage, bandaged up, and very weak, but quite sensible, and ready to smile in welcome of his old friend.
“Why, my dear boy, how could you be so foolish as to leave me like this?” exclaimed the doctor, who had heard of the condition in which his patient had been found. “You might have known that all I did was for your good.”
“Yes, doctor, yes,” he whispered; and his visitor noticed how calm and sane were his looks and words; “but I could bear it no longer. I had that dreadful idea in my head that I was going mad.”
“And you know now that it was only a fancy?”
“I do,” said Huish. “Can you find my wife? Use every plan you can to rescue her from – ”
“You had better not talk, my boy,” said the doctor, laying his cool hand upon the patient’s head, to find it, however, as cool. “She is quite safe – at her uncle’s.”
“Is – is this true?” said Huish eagerly. “You are not deceiving me?”
“My dear boy, I would not deceive you; but now be calm and quiet, or I will not answer for the consequences. You see, I do not even ask you about your encounter with the man that did this, although I am full of curiosity; for I have heard a strangely confused account.”
“Tell me one thing, doctor, and then I will ask no more,” said Huish faintly. “You knew my father before I was born. Had I ever a brother?”
The doctor’s brow knit, and then he nodded.
“Yes, I believe so; but it is a sad story. Don’t ask any more. He died in infancy: at birth, I believe.”
“No,” said Huish calmly; “he lived.”
Dr Stonor sat watching the injured man, to see him sink into a calm, easy slumber, and on repeating his visit next day found him very weak, but refreshed and perfectly calm, and ready to converse upon the subject of his brother, when, feeling bound, under the circumstances, he told the wounded man what he knew of the past – of the encounter between Robert Millet and the elder Huish, and the latter’s marriage to Mary Riversley, while Captain Millet, who was terribly injured by his fall, had taken to his peculiar life, and held to it ever since.
“But I was always given to understand that this child died,” said the doctor, musing. “Your father and mother always believed it dead. It’s a strange story, my dear boy, and it seems impossible that there could be such a resemblance.”
“Seems impossible, doctor, perhaps,” said Huish, smiling; “but I have looked him in the face. Thank God,” he said fervently; “the knowledge of his existence sweeps away the strange horror that has troubled me, and accounts for all the past. Doctor, it must have been he who applied to you that day while I was abroad.”
Dr Stonor’s answer was to lay his hand upon his patient’s forehead again, and John Huish smiled.
“My dear boy, it is absurd,” he exclaimed pettishly. “I could not have made such a mistake. There; I must get back to town.”
“Come and see me to-morrow,” said Huish earnestly, “and bring me back some news of – ”
The doctor nodded and left; and by that time next day he had come to the conclusion that there were strange lives in this world, for he had had such information as took him to an old house in a City lane, where he had gazed upon the face of the dead semblance of the man he knew to be lying ill in the Surrey cottage. Moreover, he had found with the dead a thin, harsh-spoken woman, red-eyed and passionate with weeping, and ready on the slightest encouragement to burst into a torrent of grief and adulation of “her boy,” as she called him.
“So handsome and so brave as he was, and such a gent as he could make himself, and live with swells,” she sobbed, “though he wouldn’t know me sometimes in the street.”
“Did you know his father and mother?” said the doctor, hazarding a shot.
“I am his mother,” said the woman sharply. “Poor, brave, handsome boy! The times I’ve found him in money, and warned him about danger, and watched for him when he wanted it done. I am his mother.”
“Nonsense!” said the doctor. “You don’t know me. I attended Captain Millet after his fall in the gravel-pit near the Dingle.”
“He was the gent that come to see Miss Ruth two years before, wasn’t he?”
“To be sure,” said the doctor. “You see, I am an old friend. Stop a moment,” said the doctor, referring to some notes he had made that morning in Wimpole Street. “Why, let me see, you must be Jane Glyne.”
“Which I ain’t ashamed to own it,” said the woman, pushing back her thin grey hair.
“Of course not,” said the doctor. “You were Mrs Riversley’s servant. You heard, of course, of the struggle between the two young men?”
“I heard of it after,” said the woman sharply; “and what’s more, I heard one of them shriek out at the time. It was when I was going away to where I had left the child.”
“To be sure,” said the doctor quietly; “but Miss Riversley thought it was dead.”
“Yes,” said the woman, “that was missus’s doings. She said no one must know it was alive. That’s why I took pity on the poor little thing, and brought him up.”
“That, and the allowance,” said the doctor significantly.
“Well, thirty pounds a year wasn’t such a deal,” said the woman; “but I somehow got fond of him, because he grew so clever. My! how he used to hate everybody of the name after he got to know who he was. I’ve known him to curse everybody who belonged to him, saying the bite of the dog I saved him from had given him a dog’s nature. It was his going down to the Dingle when he was fifteen and threatening an exposure that gave Mrs Riversley the illness she died of; but I’d made her settle my money on me,” chuckled the hag; “and it’s safe enough as long as I live. He’ll never want now what I saved for him, poor dear! nor me neither. My poor boy – dead!”
The doctor drove back to Wimpole Street, where he had a long talk at the panel with Robert Millet, and the result was that they were both satisfied as to the identity of the elder natural brother of John Huish, whose aim through life seemed to have been to take advantage of his extraordinary resemblance, and to improve it by copying Huish’s dress, carriage, very habits in fact, and using them to the injury of the younger brother, whom he bitterly hated for occupying the position that should have been his.
Miles away in the pleasant Surrey lane John Huish lay in happy ignorance of the fate of the man who had been his bitterest foe. He was very weak; but an awful load had been taken from his brain – the dread of insanity – and beside his bed knelt Gertrude, holding his hand with both of hers, and humbly asking his forgiveness for the doubts she had had.
“My darling!” he whispered, as he laid his other hand upon her soft, fair hair. “I am so happy, and life seems so bright before me that I cannot bear for you to lay one cloud upon its sunshine. Why, Gertrude, you might easily be deceived, when his presence, and the knowledge of such an existence, nearly drove me mad. There, little one, try and nurse me back to strength, for I have the hope now that nothing can take away. But if I die – ” he said sadly, as he gazed out of the window.
“John – husband!”
“Yes, sweet,” he sighed, “if I die, remember I have been yours, and yours alone. Let no other hand touch me after death.”
“Husband!” cried Gertrude, in an agonised voice. “But no; you shall not die. John, darling, live for my sake – for the sake of our little child.”
Volume Three – Chapter Eighteen.
The Events of Two Years
Two years slipped rapidly away, and society rolled on as usual. Many events had taken place, some of which had had their special interest to the characters in this story.
Ruth was thinner than of old, but she looked bright and happy, for the past two years had been very peaceful. She had paid occasional visits to Hampton Court, but Lord Henry’s house seemed to be definitely her home, and the old man always treated her as if she were his child.
In the course of time various matrimonial speculations were set on foot at Hampton Court to provide Ruth with a rich husband; but as in each case the proposition of her joining a dinner-party where either a wealthy plebeian or an elderly titled roué was to be the honoured guest, was crushed emphatically by Lady Henry Moorpark, who was firm in the extreme, the ladies by degrees gave Ruth’s over as a hopeless case, leaving her to the tender mercies of her cousin.
In fact, as she was off the honourable sisters’ hands, and their expenses were lessened, Ruth’s name was not often mentioned except during Mr Paul Montaigne’s periodical calls, when, after walking across from Teddington, that gentleman would sip their tea and sigh, as he blandly alluded to the ingratitude of the world, and the fact that the servants at Lord Henry’s had been instructed to say “not at home” whenever he called.
Often and often bland Mr Paul Montaigne would gnash his teeth when alone, and vow vengeance, but somehow Marcus Glen’s threat had had so great an influence upon him that the thought thereof would make him pale and nervous for twenty-four hours after, and quite spoil his night’s repose. But he heard merely with a grim smile that Captain Glen had become a constant visitor at Lord Henry Moorpark’s, and that his lordship gave Ruth Allerton away upon a certain happy day, for it is a world of change, and the time had come when Ruth’s cousin could think quite calmly of the past.
The calm was not without its disturbance, though, for as Lord Henry sat one evening sipping his port and wondering whether he might not now go up and join the ladies, he heard a carriage stop at the door; there was a thunderous knock, a terrific peal at the bell, and directly after the old butler entered.
“Mr Elbraham, my lord. I have shown him into the library.”
“Hang Mr Elbraham!” said his lordship to himself; but feeling that the visit must be one of importance, seeing how little intercourse they had, he followed the butler into the library, where the financier was walking hastily up and down. “Ha, Elbraham!” he said, “come into the dining-room. I was having my port.”
“Port, eh? Ah, yes! my throat’s like a limekiln;” and, following Lord Henry into the dining-room, the butler placed fresh glasses, and the financier gulped down a couple as quickly as he could.
“Why, it’s an age since we met,” said Lord Henry.
“Good job for you,” said Elbraham, mopping his red face and bald head. “Clo’s a regular devil. Is she here?”
“Here!” said Lord Henry. “Oh no! she has not been here for a long time.”
“Then she has bolted!”
“Has what?” cried Lord Henry.
“Bolted, Moorpark – bolted, damn her! Left a note for me saying she was going to dine with her sister, and I took the bait, till, thinking it a good opportunity to go and look over her jewels, hang me if they weren’t all gone!”
“Her jewels gone?”
“Yes; and that made me suspicious. I went down directly and was going to ring, when I ran up against our buttons.”
“Ran up against your buttons?” said Lord Henry wonderingly.
“Yes: the page-boy – with the large travelling-case in his hand. ‘Hullo, you sir,’ says I, ‘what have you got there?’
“‘A case missus said I was to take to Cannon Street Station, sir, and meet her there; and I’ve been waiting about for ever so long and couldn’t see her, sir, so I thought I’d better bring it back!’
“‘Quite right, my boy,’ I says. ‘Give it to me. There, be off down!’
“Well, sir, as soon as I was alone, I ripped up the bag, for it was locked; and hang me if it hadn’t got in all her jewels – every blessed thing: diamonds and sapphires and rubies and emeralds and pearls; thousands and thousands of pounds’ worth, for she would go it in jewels; and when I offended her I used to have to make it up by giving her something new. That woman cost me a pot of money, Moorpark, ’pon my soul she did, for I never shilly-shallied. If she was upset I always bought her something new.”
“But, really, I don’t understand all this!” said Lord Henry feebly.
“Wait a bit. She had meant to take her jewels with her, and the idiot of a boy blundered the thing, somehow, and instead of her having them I have the whole blessed lot. For I pitched the cases in the iron safe where I keep my papers, locked ’em up, came on here to see after her, and there’s the keys!”
He slapped his pocket, and looked at Lord Henry as he spoke.
“I never expected it,” said Elbraham coolly; “it was her dodge.”
“Then where do you expect she is?”
“Why, bolted, man; gone to the devil – or with the devil, that black-looking rascal Malpas; and a deuced good job too!”
“But this is very dreadful!” said Lord Henry.
“It would have been if she had got away with all those stones,” said Elbraham, helping himself to more wine. “But she was done there. By Jingo! what a cat-and-dog life we have led!”
“But, my dear sir!” cried Lord Henry, hardly able to conceal his disgust; “what steps are you going to take to save her?”
“Save her? save her?” said Elbraham. “She don’t want any saving.”
“Oh yes, from such a terrible fall. It may not yet be too late!”
“Save her?” cried Elbraham, with a hoarse chuckle. “Why, Moorpark, you don’t know her. Keep it dark from your wife, who is a good one. You drew the best lot. There’s no saving Clo; she’s bad to the core, and I’m devilish glad she’s gone, for I shall get a little peace now.”
“But you are going to pursue her?” said Lord Henry.
“Pursue her! What for? To have her scratch my eyes out, and that black scoundrel Malpas punch my head? No, thankye – deuced good port this! She’s gone, and jolly go with her! I wash my hands of her now.”
“But this is terrible, Elbraham.”
“Terrible? Why, it’s bliss to me; she’d have killed me. I used to be a bit jealous at first; but I had to get over that, for she was always flirting with someone.”
“But you must fetch her back, Elbraham!” exclaimed Lord Henry excitedly. “Think of the family credit!”
“Family credit!” cried Elbraham. “Why, they hadn’t got none – poor as Job, and nobody would trust them.”
“The family honour, then, sir,” said Lord Henry sternly.
“Family honour’s best without her. Jolly good riddance of bad rubbish, I say! She’s gone, and she won’t come back; and as for hunting for her, why, it would be disgracing your wife to do so.”
“But really – ” began Lord Henry.
“Bah! Moorpark, you leave that to me; I’m a business man, and know what’s what. But, I say, it’s a lark, isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand you,” said Lord Henry, who could not conceal his disgust for the contemptible little wretch before him.
“Why, about those jewels. My! how fine and mad she’ll be! It’s about the best thing I ever knew. She won’t get ’em now.”
Elbraham laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and then he wiped his eyes.
“I say, Moorpark, I ought to be devilishly cut up, you know, about this; but the fact is, I’m devilish glad. I shall look nasty and make a show about being all wrong, you know, for one’s credit’s sake; but it ain’t my fault. I couldn’t help it; she had it all her own way. And the money she has spent – my!”
Elbraham helped himself to some more port, while Lord Henry sat and tapped the table with his carefully cared-for nails.
“I’m not going to cry over spilt milk, Moorpark, I can tell you! She’s gone, and, as I said before, a good riddance!”
It was a good riddance for Lord Henry Moorpark when Elbraham went, which he did at last, after stubbornly refusing either to take or to allow any steps to be taken in pursuit of Clotilde.
“No,” he said, after his sixth glass of port. “I won’t spend the price of a Parl’y ticket on her; and I don’t know as I shall bother myself about divorce proceedings. What’s the good? Malpas hasn’t a penny in the world, so there’d be no costs; and as to being free, that’s what her ladyship would like. But, I say, Moorpark.”
“Yes?”
“What a sell about those jewels!”
He said it again as Lord Henry saw him into his carriage, and the next day he settled himself down in his sanctum with a very big cigar stuck between his lips, giving him the aspect of a very podgy swordfish that had burnt the tip of its weapon. Before him was a huge leather bill-case gorged with slips of bluish paper, every one of which, as he took it carefully out, bore a stamp in one corner, a reference to so many months after date, and was written across and signed. Many of them were endorsed with sign-manuals as well; and these slips of paper he quietly examined as he took them out of one pocket of the great case and then thrust them into another.
By degrees an observer, had he been present, would have noticed that the pockets in which these slips were placed varied according to their dates, and that for the most part they were examined and replaced in the most unemotional manner; but every now and then as Elbraham took one out he laid it on the table, drew violently at his cigar, emitted a tremendous cloud of smoke, and burst into a hoarse series of chuckles. Then he rubbed his hands and laughed again in an unpleasant, silent manner, twisting about in his pivoted library chair.
As he spun round, which, evidently being the result of practice, he did very cleverly, he wrinkled his face up in a way that with him indicated pleasure, the whole performance giving him the aspect of some gigantic grotesque Japanese top.
Then he would stop short, puff at the great cigar, and stare with his prominent lobster eyes at the slip of paper, examining the date and turning it over and over.
“Old cat!” he ejaculated; and the slip of paper was laid aside, and a heavy paperweight banged down upon it.
There were half a dozen of these heavy paperweights, and every now and then one was lifted and a fresh slip of paper placed beneath it.
“Old cat!” he exclaimed again. Then there was another chuckle. “Let’s have another dive in the lucky bag!” he exclaimed, and a fresh slip was brought out.
He did not laugh now, but glowered at the paper savagely.
“Only wait; I’ll make him curl his black moustache to a pretty tune this time! He’ll have to sell out, and what will he do then? I wonder what a Major’s commission will fetch. Oh, hang it! they don’t sell ’em now. What the deuce do they do? I don’t care; I’ll ruin the beast, and then he may go to Clo to comfort him.”
He did not spin round this time as he did when he came upon slips of paper bearing the signature of Lady Littletown, and of which he now had a tiny heap, but sat glancing at the bold, striking autograph evidently written with a soft quill pen, and resembling a pair of thin Siamese twins with their heads together, and the word “Malpas” after them, the said twins evidently doing duty for the letter A.
“Curse him! I’ll ruin him, and then she’ll cut him like a shot. Doosid glad I got the jewels! Bet sixpence he made sure of them, and now he’s got her without a fifty pound in her pocket.”
Elbraham sat glaring at the bill, the big signature seeming to fascinate him, and for the moment it was so suggestive of the swarthy Major that unconsciously he took up an ivory-handled penknife, and, holding it dagger fashion, began to stab the paper through and through.
The holes reminded him that the slip of paper was valuable, so he threw the penknife aside with an oath, smoothed the bill, and, laying it by itself, he thumped a heavy paperweight upon it, and seemed in his act as if he meant to crush Major Malpas as flat.
Several more acceptances followed, all representing heavy sums of money; but they had no special interest for the financier, who went steadily on till, in succession, he found half a dozen accepted by one John Huish, and over these he frowned and snarled.
“Repudiated ’em all,” he said – “swore he never accepted one; and his lawyer set me at defiance. But I’ll keep ’em. He’ll buy ’em some day to keep the affair quiet. Rum start that! I could not have told t’other from which, if it hadn’t been for the voice.”
He replaced these in his pocket-book, and at last came upon five accepted by Arthur Litton, the effect being to make Elbraham roar with laughter.
“Puppy!” he exclaimed, bringing his fist down bang upon the slips of paper, “puppy! Fine gentleman. Haughty aristocrat. My dear Arthur, what a fix you are in, and how this will diminish dear Anna Maria’s money!”
“Here’s another, and there are more to come!” he cried, roaring with laughter; and then he had a spin till he felt giddy, after which he spun back in the other direction to counteract the dizziness, chuckled, rubbed his hands, found his cigar was out, and paused to light it before going through a less heavy batch of bills, the result being that he had beneath these paperweights a goodly show of the acceptances of Lady Littletown, Major Malpas, and Arthur Litton, over which he sat and gloated, smoking the while.
“What a beautiful thing a bill is!” exclaimed Elbraham at last. “It’s a blessing to an honest man: helps him out of his difficulties; gives such a nice discount to the holder; and shows him how to punish wicked people like these.”
He had another chuckle and a spin here, his feelings carrying him away to such an extent that he rather over-spun himself, and felt so giddy that he had to refresh himself from a silver flask that he kept in a drawer.
“How I shall come down upon ’em!” he said at last, as he puffed away reflectively at his cigar, which now grew rather short. “A thousand of bricks is nothing to it. My dear Lady Littletown will go down upon her knees to me, and ask me to dinner. Ha! ha! ha! she’ll want to find me another wife, perhaps, curse her! What a bad lot they are! I only wish I’d a few bills of the old cats’ at the private apartments – our dear aunts.”
