Kitabı oku: «Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XII. SHOWING THAT “WHAT IS CRADLED IN SHAME IS HEARSED IN
SORROW.”
Accustomed all his life to the flattery which surrounds a position of some eminence, my father was not a little piqued at the coldness of his friends during his illness. The inquiries after him were neither numerous nor hearty. Some had called once or twice to ask how he was; others had written brief excuses for their absence; and many contented themselves with hearing that it was a slight attack, which a few days would see the end of. Perhaps there were not many men in the kingdom less given to take umbrage at trifles than my father. Naturally disposed to take the bold and open line of action in every affair of life, he never suspected the possibility of a covert insult; and that any one could cherish ill-feeling to another, without a palpable avowal of hostility, was a thing above his conception. At any other time, therefore, this negligence, or indifference, or whatever it was, would not have occasioned him a moment’s unpleasantness. He would have explained it to himself in a dozen ways, if it ever occurred to him to require explanation. Now, however, he was irritable from the effects of a malady peculiarly disposed to ruffle nervous susceptibility; while the chagrin of the late Viceregal visit, and its abrupt termination, was still over him. There are little eras in the lives of the best-tempered men, when everything is viewed in wrong and discordant colors, and when, by a perverse ingenuity, they seek out reasons for their own unhappiness in events and incidents that have no possible bearing on the question. Having once persuaded himself that his friends were faithless to him, he set about accounting for it by every casuistry he could think of. I have lived too long abroad; I have mixed too much in the great world, thought he, to be able to conform to this small and narrow circle. I am not local enough for them. I cannot trade on the petty prejudices they love to cherish, and which they foolishly think means being national. My wider views of life are a rebuke to their pettiness; and it ‘s clear we do not suit each other. To preserve my popularity I should have lived at home, and married at home; never soared beyond a topic of Irish growth, and voted at the tail of those two or three great men who comprise within themselves all that we know of Irish independence. “Even idolatry would be dear at that price,” cried he, aloud, at the end of his reflections, – bitter and unpleasant reveries in which he had been sunk as he travelled up to town some few days after the events related in the last chapter.
Matters of business with his law agent had called him to the capital, where he expected to be detained for a day or two. My mother had not accompanied him, her state of health at the time requiring rest and quietude. Alone, an invalid, and in a frame of, to him, unusual depression, he arrived at his hotel at nightfall. It was not the “Drogheda Arms,” where he stopped habitually, but the “Clare,” a smaller and less frequented house in the same street, and where he hoped to avoid meeting with his ordinary acquaintances.
Vexed with everything, even to the climate, to which he wrongfully ascribed the return of his malady, he was bent on making immediate arrangements to leave Ireland, and forever. His pecuniary affairs were, it is true, in a condition of great difficulty and embarrassment; still, with every deduction, a very large income, or at least what for the Continent would be thought so, would remain; and with this he determined to go abroad and seek out some spot more congenial to his tastes and likings, and, as he also fancied, more favorable to his health.
The hotel was almost full, and my father with difficulty obtained a couple of rooms; and even for these he was obliged to await the departure of the occupant, which he was assured would take place immediately. In the mean while, he had ordered his supper in the coffee-room, where now he was seated, in one of those gloomy looking stalls which in those times were supposed to comprise all that could be desired of comfort and isolation.
It was, indeed, a new thing for him to find himself thus, – he, the rich, the flattered, the high-spirited, the centre of so much worship and adulation, whose word was law upon the turf, and whose caprices gave the tone to fashion, the solitary occupant of a dimly lighted division in a public coffee-room, undistinguished and unknown. There was something in the abrupt indifference of the waiter that actually pleased him, ministering, as it did, to the self-tormentings of his reflections. All seemed to say, “This is what you become when stripped of the accidents of wealth and fortune, – these are your real claims.” There was no deference to him there. He had asked for the newspaper, and been curtly informed “that ‘Falkner’ was engaged by the gentleman in the next box;” so was he left to his own lucubrations, broken in upon only by the drowsy, monotonous tone of his neighbor in the adjoining stall, who was reading out the paper to a friend. Either the reader had warmed into a more distinct elocution, or my father’s ears had become more susceptible by habit, but at length he found himself enabled to overhear the contents of the journal, which seemed to be a rather flippant criticism on a late debate in the Irish House of Commons.
A motion had been made by the Member for Cavan for leave to bring in a bill to build ships of war for Ireland, – a proposition so palpably declaring a separate and independent nationality that it not only incurred the direct opposition of Government, but actually met with the disapprobation of the chief men of the Liberal party, who saw all the injury that must accrue to just and reasonable demands, by a course of policy thus exaggerated. “Falkner” went even further; for he alleged that the motion was a trick of the Castle party, who were delighted to see the patriots hastening their own destruction, by a line of action little short of treason. The arguments of the journalist in support of this view were numerous and acute. He alleged the utter impossibility of the measure ever being accepted by the House, or sanctioned by the Crown. He showed its insufficiency for the objects proposed, were it even to become law; and, lastly, he proceeded to display all the advantages the Government might derive from every passing source of disunion amongst the Irish party, – schisms which, however insignificant at first, were daily widening into fatal breaches of all confidence. His last argument was based on the fact that had the Ministry anticipated any serious trouble by the discussion, they would never have displayed such utter indifference about mustering their forces. “We saw not,” said the writer, “the accustomed names of Townley, Tisdale, Loftus, Skeffington, and fifty more such, on the division. Old Roach did n’t whistle up one of his pack, but hunted down the game with the fat poodles that waddle after the Viceroy through the Castle-yard.”
“M’Cleary had a caricature of the Portland hunt this morning in his window,” cried the listener; “and capital likenesses there are of Bob Uniack and Vandeleur. Morris, too, is represented by a lame dog that stands on a little eminence and barks vigorously, but makes no effort to follow the chase.”
“Much they care for all the ridicule and all the obloquy you can throw on them,” replied the reader. “They well know that the pensions and peerages that await them will survive newspaper abuse, though every word of it was true as Gospel. Now, here’s a list of them alphabetically arranged; and will you tell me how many will read or remember one line of them a dozen years hence? Besides, there is a kind of exaggeration in these attacks that deprives them of credit; when you read such stories as that of Carew, for instance, throwing a main with the dice to decide whether or not he’d vote with the Government.”
“I would not say that it was impossible, however,” broke in the other. “Carew’s a confirmed gambler, and we know what that means; and as to his having a particle of principle, if Rutledge’s story be true, he has done far worse than this.”
My father tried to arise from his seat; he even attempted to call out, and impose silence on those whose next words might possibly contain an insult irreparable forever: but he could not do either; a cold sweat broke over him, and he sat powerless and almost fainting, while they continued: —
“I’d be slow to take Master Bob’s word, either in praise or dispraise of any man,” said the first speaker.
“So should I, if he could make it the subject of a wager,” said the other; “but here is a case quite removed from all chance of the betting-ring.”
“And what does it amount to, if true?” said the other. “He married somebody’s illegitimate daughter. Look at the peerage; look at one half the small sovereignties of Europe.”
“That’s not the worst of it at all,” broke in the former. “It was the way he got his wife.”
“Then I suppose I have not heard the story aright. How was it?”
“Rutledge’s version is something in this wise: Carew had won such enormous sums at play from one of the French princes that at last he actually held in his hands some of the rarest of the crown jewels as pledges. One of the ministers, having heard of the transaction, went to the prince and insisted, under threat of a public exposure, on an immediate settlement of the debt. In this terrible dilemma, the prince had nothing for it but to offer Carew the valuable paintings and furniture of his château, – reputed to be the most costly in the whole kingdom. The report goes that the pictures alone were estimated at several millions of francs. Carew at once accepts the proposition; but, as if not to be outdone in generosity, even by a royal prince, he lets it be known that he will only accept of one solitary article from the whole collection, – rather, in fact, a souvenir than a ransom. I suppose the prince, like everybody else, felt that this was very handsome conduct, for he frankly said: ‘The château and all within it are at his disposal; I reserve nothing.’ Armed with this authority, Carew never waits for morning, but starts that night, by post, for Auvergne, where the château lies. I believe it is not ascertained whether he was previously acquainted with the circumstances of the prince’s domestic affairs. The probability, however, is that he must have been; for within a week he returned to Paris, bringing with him the object selected as his choice, in the person of a beautiful girl, the natural daughter of his Royal Highness. Whether he married her then under compulsion, or subsequently of his own free will, is to this day a secret. One thing, however, is certain: he was banished from the French territory by a summary order, which gave him barely time to reach the coast and embark. Of course, once in England, he had only to select some secluded, out-of-the-way spot for a while, and there could be no likelihood of leaving any trace to his adventure. Indeed, the chances are that Rutledge is about the only man who could have unravelled so tangled a skein. How he ever contrived to do so, is more than I can tell you!”
My father sat listening to this story more like one whose faculties are under the dominion of some powerful spell, than of a man in the free exercise of reason. There was something in the mingled truth and falsehood of the tale that terrified and confused him. Up to that moment he had no notion in what a light his conduct could be exhibited, nor could he see by what means the calumny could be resented. There was, however, one name he could fix upon. Rutledge at least should be accountable! There was enough of falsehood in the story to brand him as a foul slanderer, and he should not escape him.
By an effort that demanded all his strength my father rose, the cold sweat dropping from his forehead, and every limb trembling, from weakness and passion. His object was to present himself to the strangers in the adjoining box, and, by declaring his name, to compel them to bring home to Rutledge the accusation he had overheard. He had no time, had he even head, to weigh all the difficulties of such a line of procedure. It was not at such a moment that he could consider the question calmly and deliberately. Next to the poignant sense of injury, the thought of vengeance was uppermost in his mind; and the chances were that he was ready to wreak his fury on the first object that should present itself. Fortunately, – might I not rather say unfortunately, since nothing could be more disastrous than the turn affairs were fated to take; it seemed, however, at the moment, as though it were good fortune that when my father by an immense effort succeeded in reaching the adjoining box, the former occupants had departed. Several persons were leaving the coffee-room at the same instant; and though my father tried to hasten after them, and endeavor to recognize the voices he had overheard, his strength was unequal to the effort, and he sank back powerless on a bench. He beckoned to a waiter who was passing, and questioned him eagerly as to their names, and, giving him a guinea, promised as much more if he should follow them to their residences and bring back their addresses. But the man soon returned to say that as the strangers were not remarked by him, he had no clew whatever to Their detection in the crowded streets of the capital.
It struck my father as though destiny itself pointed out Rutledge as the only one of whom he could seek reparation; and now he retired to his room to weigh the whole question in his mind, and see by what means, while gratifying his thirst for vengeance, he should best avoid that degree of exposure which would be fatal to the future happiness of my mother.
In this lay all the difficulty. To demand satisfaction from Rutledge required that he should specify the nature of the injury, open the whole history of the slander, and, while giving contradiction to all that was false, publish to the world a true version of an incident that, up to that moment, he had never confided to his dearest friend. Terrible as seemed the task of such a revelation, it was nothing in comparison with what he judged would be the effect upon my mother when she came to learn the course of events which preceded her marriage.
And now this must be given to the world, with all that accompaniment of gossip and scandal such a story would be sure to evoke. Was this possible? – could he venture to embark upon such a sea of peril as this? – could he dare to confront difficulties that would rise up against him at every step and in every relation of life, to assail his political reputation to-day – to slur his personal honor to-morrow – to cast shame upon her whose fair fame was dearer to him than life itself twice told – to be an inheritance of disgrace to his children, if he were to have children? No, no Î For such an exposure as this nothing short of downright desperation could give courage.
Far from serving to allay his passion for vengeance, these difficulties but deepened the channel of his wrath, and made the injury itself appear more irreparable. Nor did he know whom to consult at such a crisis. To unbosom himself to MacNaghten was like confessing that he could do, from personal motives, what he had shrunk from in the full confidence of his friendship; and such an avowal would, he was well aware, give heartfelt pain to his best friend in the world. Many other names occurred to him, but each was accompanied by some especial difficulty. It was a case which demanded great discretion, and at the same time promptitude and decision. To have allowed any interval for discussion would have been to incur that publicity which my father dreaded beyond all.
The indignant energy of his mind had given a kind of power to his emaciated and wasted frame; and as he paced his room in passionate emotion, he felt as though all his wonted strength and vigor were returning to “stand by him” in his hour of peril. He had opened his window to admit the cool air of the night; and scarcely had he thrown wide the sash when the cry of a newsvendor met his ear.
“Here’s the ‘List of the Castle hacks,’ to be sold to the highest bidder, the Government having no further use for them; with the pedigree and performances set forth in full, and a correct account of the sums paid for each of them.”
To this succeeded a long catalogue of gentlemen’s names, which were received by the mob that followed the hawker, with shouts and cries of derision. Groan followed groan as they were announced, and my father listened with an agonizing suspense lest he should hear his own amidst the number; but, to his inexpressible relief, the fellow concluded his muster-roll without alluding to him. Just, however, as he was about to close the window, the man again broke out with: “On Saturday next will be published the account of the five bought in by the Crown; and Mark Brown, Sam Vesey, William Burton, Ross Mahon, and Walter Carew will be given in full, on a separate sheet, for one halfpenny!”
A wild outburst of derisive laughter from the crowd followed, and my father heard no more.
CHAPTER XIII. A MIDNIGHT RENCONTRE
My father had walked several streets of the capital before he could collect his thoughts, or even remember where he was. He went along, lost to everything save memory of his vengeance. He tried to call to mind the names of those on whose zeal and devotedness he could reckon; but so imbued with suspicion had his mind become, so distrustful of every thing and every one, that he actually felt as if deserted by all the world, without one to succor or stand by him.
Thus rambling by chance, he found himself in Stephen’s Green, where he sat down to rest under one of those great trees which in those times shaded the favorite promenade of Dublin. Directly in front of him was a large mansion, brilliantly lighted up, and crowded by a numerous company, many of whom were enjoying the balmy air of a summer’s night on the balcony in front of the windows. As they moved to and fro, passing back and forwards, my father could recognize several that he was acquainted with, and some that he knew most intimately.
Filled with one consuming thought, he fancied that he heard his name at every moment; that every allusion was to him, and each burst of laughter was uttered in derision at his cost. His rage had worked him up almost to madness, and he could hardly restrain himself from calling out, and replying aloud to these fancied insults and aspersions on his character.
At such moments of doubt as these, certainty flashes on the mind with a power of concentration and resolution that seems to confer strength for anything, however difficult. So was it to my father as suddenly the tones of a well-known voice struck on his ear, and he heard the easy laugh of him that he hated most of all the world. It was Barry Rutledge himself, who now was leaning over the balcony, in the centre of a group whom, he was evidently entertaining by his remarks.
The bursts of laughter which at each moment interrupted him, showed how successfully his powers of entertaining were being exercised, while at intervals a dead silence around proved the deep attention with which they listened.
It was at the moment when, by the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, a new Ministry was formed in England, and the Duke of Portland recalled from his viceroyalty, to be succeeded by Lord Temple. The changes that were like to ensue upon this new appointment were actively discussed in society, and now formed the subject of conversation on the balcony.
“You will be at large again, Barry,” said one of the group; “these new people won’t know your value.”
“Pardon me!” cried he, laughing, “I’m handed over with Cotterell and the state coach, as functionaries that cannot be easily replaced. Let them try and manage Dublin without me! I defy them! Who knows every flaw and crack of reputation, every damaged character, and every tarnished fame, as I do? Who can tell each man’s price, from knowing his weak points? Who can play off the petty jealousies of rivals against each other; disgust them with their party; and buy them cheap for the Castle? Who but Barry Rutledge? I’ll offer a wager of five hundred that there is not a family secret I can’t have the key to within one week.”
“What the devil ever induced you to take up such a career?” asked a deep-voiced, burly-looking country gentleman.
“The turf gave me the hint,” said Rutledge, coolly. “I lost every sixpence I once possessed, when I backed this horse, or betted on that one. I regained a considerable share of my loss when I limited myself to looking out for what they style ‘disqualifications,’ – to discover that Wasp was n’t a two-year-old, or that Muffin was clean bred; that Terry had won before, and that Ginger was substituted for another. I saw that political life was pretty much the same kind of game, and that there would be a grand opening for the first fellow that brought his racing craft to bear on the great world of state affairs. I ‘m sure others will follow out the line, and doubtless eclipse all the cleverness of Barry Rutledge; but, at all events, they can’t deny him the merit of the invention. They talk to you about skilful secretaries and able debaters: I tell you flatly I ‘ve got more votes for the Government than any one of them all, and just in the way I ‘ve mentioned. Was it Dick Talbot’s convictions, or his wife’s losses at lqo that made him join us last session? How did Rowley come over? Ask Harvey Bruce who horsewhipped him in the mess-room at Kells. Why did Billy Hamilton desert his party? Lady Mary may tell you; and if she won’t, George Gordon, of the Highlanders, can. What’s the use of going through the list, from old Hemphill, that was caught cheating at piquet, down to Watty Carew, with his wife won at a game of Barocco?”
“Slanderer – scoundrel!” cried out my father, in a voice hoarse with passion; and as the words were uttered, the balcony was suddenly deserted, and the rushing sounds of many people descending the stairs together were as quickly heard. For a few seconds my father stood uncertain and undecided; but then, with a bold precipitancy, he seemed to calculate every issue in an instant, and made up his mind how to proceed. He dashed across the street towards the dark alley which flanked the “Green,” and along which ran a deep and stagnant ditch, of some ten or twelve feet in width. Scarcely had he gained the shelter of the trees, when a number of persons rushed from the house into the street, and hurried hither and thither in pursuit. As they passed out, my father was enabled to recognize several whom he knew; but for one only had he any care; on him he fastened his eyes with the eager steadfastness of hate, and tracked him as he went, regardless of all others.
Without concert among themselves, or any clew to direct their search, they separated in various directions. Still, my father held his place unchanged, doubtless revolving in that brief interval the terrible consequences of his act. Some fifteen or twenty minutes might have thus elapsed, and now he saw one return to the house, speedily followed by another, and then a third. At last Rutledge came alone; he walked along slowly, and as if deep in meditation. As though revolving the late incident in his mind, he stood for a moment looking up at the windows, and probably speculating in his mind on the precise spot occupied by him who had uttered the insult.
“Here, beneath the trees,” said my father, in a low, but clear accent; and Rutledge turned, and hastened across the street. It will, of course, never be known whether he understood these words as coming from a stranger, or from some one of his own friends, suggesting pursuit in a particular direction.
My father only waited to see that the other was following, when he turned and fled. The entrances to the park, or green, as it was called, were by small pathways across the moat, closed by low wooden wickets. Across one of these my father took his way, tearing down the gate with noise sufficient to show the course he followed.
Rutledge was close at his heels, and already summoning all his efforts to come up with him, when my father turned round and stood.
“We are alone!” cried he; “there is none to interrupt us. Now, Barry Rutledge, you or I, or both of us, mayhap, shall pass the night here!” and, as he spoke, he drew forth his sword-cane from the walking-stick that he carried.
“What! is that Carew? Are you Walter Carew?” said Rutledge, advancing towards him.
“No nearer, – not a step nearer! – or, by Heaven! I ‘ll not answer for my passion. Draw your sword, and defend yourself!”
“Why, this is sheer madness, Watty. What is your quarrel with me?”
“Do you ask me? – do you want to hear why I called you a scoundrel and a slanderer? – or is it that I can brand you as both, at noon-day, and in a crowd, adding coward to the epithets?”
“Come, come,” said the other, with a sarcastic coolness that only increased my father’s rage. “You know, as well as any man, that these things are not done in this fashion. I am easily found when wanted.”
“Do you think that I will give you another day to propagate your slander? No, by Heaven! not an hour!” And so saying, he rushed on, probably to consummate the outrage by a blow. Rutledge, who was in full dress, now drew his rapier, and the two steels crossed.
My father was a consummate swordsman; he had fought several times with that weapon when abroad; and had he only been guided by his habitual temper, nothing would have been easier for him than to overcome his antagonist. So ungovernable, however, was his passion now, that he lost almost every advantage his superior skill might have conferred.
As if determined to kill his enemy at any cost, he never stood on his guard, nor parried a single thrust, but rushed wildly at him. Rutledge, whose courage was equal to his coolness, saw all the advantage this gave him; and, after a few passes, succeeded in running his sword through my father’s chest so that the point actually projected on the opposite side. With a sudden jerk of his body, my father snapped the weapon in two, and then, shortening his own to within about a foot of the point, he ran Rutledge through the heart. One heavy groan followed, and he fell dead upon his face.
My father drew forth the fragment from his own side, and then, stooping down, examined the body of his adversary. His recollection of what passed in that terrible moment was horribly distinct ever after. He mentioned to him from whom I myself learned these details that so diabolical was the hatred that held possession of him that he sat down in the grass beside the body, and contemplated it with a kind of fiend-like exultation. A light, thin rain began to fall soon after, and my father, moved by some instinctive feeling, threw Rutledge’s cloak over the lifeless body, and then withdrew. Although the pain of his own wound was considerable, he soon perceived that no vital part had been injured, – indeed, the weapon had passed through the muscles without ever having penetrated the cavity of the chest. He succeeded, by binding his handkerchief around his waist, in stanching the blood; and, although weakened, the terrible excitement of the event seemed to lend him a momentary strength for further exertion.
His first impulse, as he found himself outside the Green, was to deliver himself up to the authorities, making a full avowal of all that had occurred. To do this, however, would involve other consequences which he had not the courage to confront. Any narrative of the duel would necessarily require a history of the provocation, and thus a wider publicity to that shame which was now embittering his existence.
Without ultimately deciding what course he should adopt, my father determined to give himself further time for reflection, by at once hastening back to the country ere his presence in the capital was known. He now returned to the hotel, and, asking for his bill, informed the waiter that if any one inquired for Mr. Cuthbert, that he should mention his address at a certain number in Aungier Street. The carman who drove him from the door was directed to drive to the same place, and there dismissed. After this, taking his carpet-bag in his hand, he walked leisurely along towards Ball’s Bridge, where already, as the day was breaking, a number of vehicles were assembled on the stand. Affecting a wish to catch the packet for England, he drove hastily to the Pigeon House; but the vessel had already sailed. It was strange enough that he never was able to say actually whether he meditated passing over to England, or simply to conceal the line of his flight. Thus uncertain whither to go or what to do, a considerable time was passed; and he was on the point of engaging a boat to cross over to Howth, when a sudden thought struck him that he would drive direct to Fagan’s, in Mary’s Abbey.
It was about six o’clock of a bright summer’s morning as my father alighted at Fagan’s door. “The Grinder” was already up, and busily engaged inspecting the details of his shop; for, however insignificant as a source of gain, some strange instinct seemed to connect his prosperity with the humble occupation of his father and his grandfather, and he appeared to think that the obscure fruit-stall formed a secret link between their worldly successes and his own.
It was with surprise not altogether devoid of shame that he saw my father descend from the jaunting-car to salute him.
“I’ve come to take my breakfast with you, Tony,” said he, gayly; “and, determining to be a man of business for once, I ‘m resolved to catch these calm hours of the morning that you prudent fellows make such good use of!”
Fagan stared with astonishment at this sudden apparition of one from whom he neither expected a visit at such an hour, much less a speech of such meaning. He, however, mumbled out some words of welcome, with a half-intelligible compliment about my father’s capacity being fully equal to any exigencies or any demands that might be made upon it.
