Begumbagh: A Tale of the Indian Mutiny

  STORY TWO, CHAPTER ONE.

  THE GOLDEN INCUBUS.

  SIR JOHN DRINKWATER IS ECCENTRIC.

  "You're an old fool, Burdon, and it's all your fault."

  That's what Sir John said, as he shook his Malacca cane at me; and Isuppose it was my fault; but then, how could I see what was going tohappen?

  It began in 1851. I remember it so well because that was the year ofthe Great Exhibition, and Sir John treated me to a visit there; and whenI'd been and was serving breakfast next morning, he asked me about it,and laughed and asked me if I'd taken much notice of the goldsmiths'work. I said I had, and that it was a great mistake to clean gold platewith anything but rouge.

  "Why?" he said.

  Because, I told him, if any of the plate-powder happened to be left inthe cracks, if it was rouge it gave a good effect; but if it was a whitepreparation, it looked dirty and bad.

  "Then we'll have all the chests open to-morrow, James Burdon," he said;"and you shall give the old gold plate a good clean up with rouge, andI'll help you."

  "You, Sir John?"

  He nodded. And the very next day he sent all the other servants to theExhibition, came down to my pantry, opened the plate-room, and put on anapron just like a servant would, and helped me to clean that gold plate.He got tired by one o'clock, and sat down upon a chair and looked at itall glistening as it was spread out on the dresser and shelves--somebright with polishing, some dull and dead and ancient-looking. Cups andbowls and salvers and round dishes covered with coats of arms; somebattered and bent, and some as perfect as on the day it left thegoldsmith's hands.

  I'd worked hard--as hard as I could, for sneezing, for I was doing thathalf the time, just as if I had a bad cold. For every cup or dish waskept in a green baize bag that fitted in one of the old ironbound oakchests, and these chests were lined with green baize. And all thisbeing exceedingly old, the moths had got in; and pounds and pounds ofpepper had been scattered about the baize, to keep them away.

  "I'll have a glass of wine, Burdon," Sir John says at last; "and we'llput it all away again. It's very beautiful. That's Cellini work--real," he says, as he took up a great golden bowl, all hammered andpunched and engraved. "But the whole lot of it is an incubus, for Ican't use it, and I don't want to make a show."

  "Take a glass yourself, my man," he said, as I got him the sherry--afresh bottle from the outer cellar. "Ha! at a moderate computation thatold gold plate is worth a hundred thousand pounds; and a hundredthousand pounds at only three per cent in the funds, Burdon, would bethree thousand a year. So you see I lose that income by letting thisheap of old gold plate lie locked up in those chests.--Now, what wouldyou do with it, if it were yours?"

  "Sell it, Sir John, and put it in houses," I said sharply.

  "Yes, James Burdon; and a sensible thing to do. But you are a servant,and I'm a baronet; though I don't look one, do I?" he said, holding uphis red hands and laughing.

  "You always look a gentleman, Sir John," I said; "and that's what youare."

  "Please God, I try to be," he said sadly. "But I don't want the money,James; and these are all old family heirlooms that I hold in trust formy life, and have to hand over--bound in honour to do so--to my son.--Look!" he said, "at the arms and crest of the Boileaus on every piece."

  "Boileau, Sir John?"

  "Well, Drinkwater, then. We translated the name when we came over toEngland. There; let's put it all away. It's a regular incubus."

  So it was all packed up again in the chests; for he wouldn't let mefinish cleaning it, saying it would take a week; and that it was morefor the sake of seeing and going over it, than anything, that he had hadit out. So we locked it all up again in the plate-room. And it tookfive waters hot as he could bear 'em to wash his hands; and even thenthere was some rouge left in the cracks, and in the old signet ring withthe coat of arms cut in the stone--same as that on the plate.

  I don't know how it was; perhaps I was out of sorts, but from that day Igot thinking about gold plate and what Sir John said about its worth. Iknew what "incubus" meant, for I went up in the library and looked outthe word in the big dictionary; and that plate got to be such an incubusto me that I went up to Sir John one morning and gave him warning.

  "But what for?" he said. "Wages?"

  "No, Sir John. You're a good master, and her ladyship was a goodmistress before she was took up to heaven."

  "Hush, man, hush!" he says sharply.

  "And it'll break my heart nearly not to see young Master Barclay when hecomes back from school."

  "Then why do you want to go?"

  "Well, Sir John, a good home and good food and good treatment's rightenough; but I don't want to be found some morning a-weltering in mygore."

  "Now, look here, James Burdon," he says, laughing. "I trust you withthe keys of the wine-cellar, and you've been at the sherry."

  "You know better than that, Sir John. No, sir. You said that goldplate was an incubus, and such it is, for it's always a-sitting on me,so as I can't sleep o' nights. It's killing me, that's what it is.Some night I shall be murdered, and all that plate taken away. It ain'tsafe, and it's cruel to a man to ask him to take charge of it."

  He did not speak for a few minutes.

  "What am I to do, then, Burdon?"

  "Some people send their plate to the bank, Sir John."

  "Yes," he says; "some people do a great many things that I do not intendto do.--There; I shall not take any notice of what you said."

  "But you must, please, Sir John; I couldn't stay like this."

  "Be patient for a few days, and I'll have something done to relieveyou."

  I went down-stairs very uneasy, and Sir John went out; and next day,feeling quite poorly, after waking up ten times in the night, thinking Iheard people breaking in, as there'd been a deal of burglary inBloomsbury about that time, I got up quite thankful I was still alive;and directly after breakfast, the wine-merchant's cart came from SaintJames's Street with fifty dozen of sherry, as we really didn't want.Sir John came down and saw to the wine being put in bins; and then hehad all the wine brought from the inner cellar into the outer cellar,both being next my pantry, with a door into the passage just at the footof the kitchen stairs.

  "That's a neat job, Burdon," said Sir John, as we stood in the farcellar all among the sawdust, and the place looking dark and damp, withits roof like the vaults of a church, and stone flag floor, but withevery bin empty.

  "Going to lay down some more wine here, Sir John?" I said; but hedidn't answer, only stood with a candle in the arched doorway, which waslike a passage six feet long, opening from one cellar into the other.Then he went up-stairs, and I locked up the cellar and put the keys inmy drawer.

  "He always was eccentric before her ladyship died," I said to myself;"and now he's getting worse."

  I saw it again next morning, for Sir John gave orders, sudden-like, foreverybody to pack off to the country-house down by Dorking; and ofcourse everybody had to go, cook and housekeeper and all; and just as Iwas ready to start, I got word to stay.

  Sir John went off to his club, and I stayed alone in that old house inBloomsbury, with the great drops of perspiration dripping off me everytime I heard a noise, and feeling sometimes as if I could stand it nolonger; but just as it was getting dusk, he came back, and in his shortabrupt way, he says: "Now, Burdon, we'll go to work."

  I'd no idea what he meant till we went down-stairs, when he had thestrong-room door opened and the cellar too and then he made me help himcarry the old plate-chests right through my pantry into the farwine-cellar, and range them one after the other along one side.

  I wanted to tell him that they would not be so safe there; but I daren'tspeak, and it was not till what followed that I began to understand;for, as soon as we had gone through the narrow arched passage back tothe outer cellar, he laughed, and he says, "Now, we'll get rid of theincubus, Burdon. Fix your light up there, and I'll help."

  He did help; and together we got a heap of sawd
ust and hundreds of emptywine-bottles; and these we built up at the end of the arched entrancebetween the cellars from floor to ceiling, just as if it had been awine-bin, till the farther cellar was quite shut off with empty bottles.And then, if he didn't make me move the new sherry that had just comein and treat that the same, building up full bottles in front of theempty ones till the ceiling was reached once more, and the way in to thechests of gold plate shut up with wine-bottles two deep, one stack full,the other empty.

  He saw me shake my head, as if I didn't believe in it; and he laughedagain in his strange way, and said: "Wait a bit."

  Next morning I found he'd given orders, for the men came with a load ofbricks and mortar, and they set to work and built up a wall in front ofthe stacked-up bottles, regularly bricking up the passage, just as if itwas a bin of wine that was to be left for so many years to mature; afterwhich the wall was white-washed over, the men went away, and Sir Johnclapped me on the shoulder. "There, Burdon!" he said; "we've buried theincubus safely. Now you can sleep in peace."