CHAPTER LIX.
LORD ASCOT'S CROWNING ACT OF FOLLY.
Lord Ascot, with his umbrella over his shoulder, swung on down thestreet, south-westward. The town was pleasant in the higher parts, andso he felt inclined to prolong his walk. He turned to the right intoPark Lane.
He was a remarkable-looking man. So tall, so broad, with such a mightychest, and such a great, red, hairless, cruel face above it, thatpeople, when he paused to look about him, as he did at each streetcorner, turned to look at him. He did not notice it; he was used it.And, besides, as he walked there were two or three words ringing yet inhis ears which made him look less keenly than usual after the handsomehorses and pretty faces which he met in his walk.
"Oh, Ascot, Ascot! will nothing save you from the terrible hereafter?"
"Confound those old women, more particularly when they take to religion.Always croaking. And grandma Ascot, too, as plucky and good an old soulas any in England--as good a judge of a horse as William Day--taking tothat sort of thing. Hang it! it was unendurable. It was bad taste, youknow, putting such ideas into a fellow's head. London was dull enoughafter Paris, without that."
So thought Lord Ascot, as he stood in front of Dudley House, and lookedsouthward. The winter sun was feebly shining where he was, but to thesouth there was a sea of fog, out of which rose the Wellington statue,looking more exasperating than ever, and the two great houses at theAlbert Gate.
"This London is a beastly hole," said he. "I have got to go down intothat cursed fog. I wish Tattersall's was anywhere else." But heshouldered his umbrella again, and on he went.
Opposite St. George's Hospital there were a number of medical students.Two of them, regardless of the order which should always be kept on HerMajesty's highway, were wrestling. Lord Ascot paused for a moment tolook at them. He heard one of the students who were looking on say toanother, evidently about himself--
"By Gad! what preparations that fellow would cut up into."
"Ah!" said another, "and wouldn't he cuss and d---- under the operationneither."
"I know who that is," said a third. "That's Lord Ascot; the mostinfernal, headlong, gambling savage in the three kingdoms."
So Lord Ascot, in the odour of sanctity, passed down into Tattersall'syard. There was no one in the rooms. He went out into the yard again.
"Hullo, you sir! Have you seen Mr. Sloane?"
"Mr. Sloane was here not ten minutes ago, my lord. He thought yourlordship was not coming. He is gone down to the Groom's Arms."
"Where the deuce is that?"
"In Chapel Street, at the corner of the mews, my lord. Fust turning onthe right, my lord."
Lord Ascot had business with our old acquaintance, Mr. Sloane, and wenton. When he came to the public-house mentioned (the very same one inwhich the Servants' Club was held, to which Charles belonged), he wentinto the bar, and asked of a feeble-minded girl, left accidentally incharge of the bar--"Where was Mr. Sloane?" And she said, "Upstairs, inthe club-room."
Lord Ascot walked up to the club-room, and looked in at the glass door.And there he saw Sloane. He was standing up, with his hand on a man'sshoulder, who had a map before him. Right and left of these two men weretwo other men, an old one and a young one, and the four faces were closetogether; and while he watched them, the man with the map before himlooked up, and Lord Ascot saw Charles Ravenshoe, pale and wan, lookinglike death itself, but still Charles Ravenshoe in the body.
He did not open the door. He turned away, went down into the street, andset his face northward.
So he was alive, and----There were more things to follow that "and" thanhe had time to think of at first. He had a cunning brain, Lord Ascot,but he could not get at his position at first. The whole business wastoo unexpected--he had not time to realise it.
The afternoon was darkening as he turned his steps northwards, and beganto walk rapidly, with scowling face and compressed lips. One or two ofthe students still lingered on the steps of the hospital. The one whohad mentioned him by name before said to his fellows, "Look at that LordAscot. What a devil he looks! He has lost some money. Gad! there'll bemurder done to-night. They oughtn't to let such fellows go loose!"
Charles Ravenshoe alive. And Lord Saltire's will. Half a million ofmoney. And Charley Ravenshoe, the best old cock in the three kingdoms.Of all his villainies--and, God forgive him, they were many--the onethat weighed heaviest on his heart was his treatment of Charles. Andnow----
The people turned and looked after him as he hurled along. Why did hiswayward feet carry him to the corner of Curzon Street? That was not hisroute to St. John's Wood. The people stared at the great red-facedgiant, who paused against the lamp-post irresolute, biting his upper liptill the blood came.
How would they have stared if they had seen what I see.[11]
There were two angels in the street that wretched winter afternoon, whohad followed Lord Ascot in his headlong course, and paused here. Hecould see them but dimly, or only guess at their existence, but I cansee them plainly enough.
One was a white angel, beautiful to look at, who stood a little way off,beckoning to him, and pointing towards Lord Saltire's house; and theother was black, with its face hid in a hood, who was close beside him,and kept saying in his ear, "Half a million! half a million!"
A strange apparition in Curzon Street, at four o'clock on a Januaryafternoon! If you search the files of the papers at this period, youwill find no notice of any remarkable atmospheric phenomena in CurzonStreet that afternoon. But two angels were there, nevertheless, and LordAscot had a dim suspicion of it.
A dim suspicion of it! How could it be otherwise, when he heard a voicein one ear repeating Lady Ascot's last words, "What can save you fromthe terrible hereafter?" and in the other the stealthy whisper of thefiend, "Half a million! half a million!"
He paused, only for a moment, and then headed northward again. The blackangel was at his ear, but the white one was close to him--so close, thatwhen his own door opened, the three passed in together. Adelaide,standing under the chandelier in the hall, saw nothing of the twospirits; only her husband, scowling fiercely.
She was going upstairs to dress, but she paused. As soon as Lord Ascot's"confidential scoundrel," before mentioned, had left the hall, she cameup to him, and in a whisper, for she knew the man was listening, said:
"What is the matter, Welter?"
He looked as if he would have pushed her out of the way. But he did not.He said:
"I have seen Charles Ravenshoe."
"When?"
"To-night."
"Good God! Then it is almost a matter of time with us," said Adelaide."I had a dim suspicion of this, Ascot. It is horrible. We are ruined."
"Not yet," said Lord Ascot.
"There is time--time. He is obstinate and mad. Lord Saltire mightdie----"
"Well?"
"Either of them," she hissed out. "Is there no----"
"No what?"
"There is half a million of money," said Adelaide.
"Well?"
"All sorts of things happen to people."
Lord Ascot looked at her for an instant, and snarled out a curse at her.
John Marston was perfectly right. He was a savage, untameableblackguard. He went upstairs into his bedroom. The two angels were withhim. They are with all of us at such times as these. There is noplagiarism here. The fact is too old for that.
Up and down, up and down. The bedroom was not long enough; so he openedthe door of the dressing-room; and that was not long enough; and so heopened the door of what had been the nursery in a happier household thanhis; and walked up and down through them all. And Adelaide sat below,before a single candle, with pale face and clenched lips, listening tohis footfall on the floor above.
She knew as well as if an angel had told her what was passing in hismind as he walked up and down. She had foreseen this crisis plainly--youmay laugh at me, but she had. She had seen that if, by any wildconjunction of circumstances, Charles Ravenshoe were alive, and if hewere
to come across him before Lord Saltire's death, events wouldarrange themselves exactly as they were doing on this terrible evening.There was something awfully strange in the realisation of her morbidsuspicions.
Yes, she had seen thus far, and had laughed at herself for entertainingsuch mad fancies. But she had seen no further. What the upshot would bewas hidden from her like a dark veil, black and impenetrable as the fogwhich was hanging over Waterloo Bridge at that moment, which made thesqualid figure of a young, desperate girl show like a pale, flutteringghost, leading a man whom we know well, a man who followed her, on theroad to--what?
The rest, though, seemed to be, in some sort, in her own hands. Wealth,position in the world, the power of driving her chariot over the necksof those who had scorned her--the only things for which her worthlessheart cared--were all at stake.
"He will murder me," she said, "_but he shall hear me_."
Still, up and down, over head, his heavy footfall went to and fro.
Seldom, in any man's life, comes such a trial as his this night. A goodman might have been hard tried in such circumstances. What hope can wehave of a desperate blackguard like Lord Ascot? He knew Lord Saltirehated him; he knew that Lord Saltire had only left his property to himbecause he thought Charles Ravenshoe was dead; and yet he hesitatedwhether or no he should tell Lord Saltire that he had seen Charles, andruin himself utterly.
Was he such an utter rascal as John Marston made him out? Would such arascal have hesitated long? What could make a man without a character,without principle, without a care about the world's opinion, hesitate atsuch a time as this? I cannot tell you.
He was not used to think about things logically or calmly: and so, as hepaced up and down, it was some time before he actually arranged histhoughts. Then he came to this conclusion, and put it fairly beforehim--that, if he let Lord Saltire know that Charles Ravenshoe was alive,he was ruined; and that, if he did not, he was a villain.
Let us give the poor profligate wretch credit for getting even so far asthis. There was no attempt to gloss over the facts, and deceive himself.He put the whole matter honestly before him.
He would be a fool if he told Lord Saltire. He would be worse than afool, a madman--there was no doubt about that. It was not to be thoughtabout.
But Charles Ravenshoe!
How pale the dear old lad looked. What a kind, gentle old face it was.How well he could remember the first time he ever saw him. At Twyford,yes; and, that very same visit, how he ran across the billiard-room, andasked him who Lord Saltire was. Yes. What jolly times there were down inDevonshire, too. Those Claycomb hounds wanted pace, but they were fullfast enough for the country. And what a pottering old rascal Charley wasamong the stone walls. Rode through. Yes. And how he'd mow over awoodcock. Fire slap through a holly bush. Ha!
And suppose they proved this previous marriage. Why, then he would beback at Ravenshoe, and all things would be as they were. But supposethey couldn't----
Lord Ascot did not know that eighty thousand pounds were secured toCharles.
By Gad! it was horrible to think of. That it should be thrown on him, ofall men, to stand between old Charley and his due. If it were any otherman but him----
Reader, if you do not know that a man will act from "sentiment" long,long years after he has thrown "principle" to the winds, you had betterpack up your portmanteau, and go and live five years or more amongAustralian convicts and American rowdies, as a friend of mine did. Theone long outlives the other. The incarnate devils who beat out poorPrice's brains with their shovels, when they had the gallows beforethem, consistently perjured themselves in favour of the youngest of theseven, the young fiend who had hounded them on.
Why there never was such a good fellow as that Charley. That Eastervacation--hey! Among the bargees, hang it, what a game it was----I won'tfollow out his recollections here any further. Skittle-playing andfighting are all very well; but one may have too much of them.
"I might still do this," thought Lord Ascot: "I might----"
At this moment he was opposite the dressing-room door. It was opened,and Adelaide stood before him.
Beautiful and terrible, with a look which her husband had, as yet, onlyseen shadowed dimly--a look which he felt might come there some day, butwhich he had never seen yet. The light of her solitary candle shone uponher pale face, her gleaming eyes, and her clenched lip; and he saw whatwas written there, and for one moment quailed.
("If you were to say to me," said Lord Hainault once, "that Charleswould be unwise to let Ascot's wife make his gruel for him, I shouldagree with you.")
Only for one moment! Then he turned on her and cursed her.
"What, in the name of hell, do you want here at this moment?"
"You may murder me if you like, Ascot; but, before you have time to dothat, you shall hear what I have got to say. I have been listening toyour footsteps for a weary hour, and I heard irresolution in every oneof them. Ascot, don't be a madman!"
"I shall be soon, if you come at such a time as this, and look likethat. If my face were to take the same expression as yours has now, LadyAscot, these would be dangerous quarters for you."
"I know that," said she. "I knew all that before I came up hereto-night, Ascot. Ascot, half a million of money----"
"Why, all the devils in the pit have been singing that tune for an hourpast. Have you only endangered your life to add your little pipe totheirs?"
"I have. Won't you hear me?"
"No. Go away."
"Are you going to do it."
"Most likely not. You had better go away."
"You might give him a hundred thousand pounds, you know, Ascot. Fourthousand a year. The poor dear fellow would worship you for yourgenerosity. He is a very good fellow, Ascot."
"You had better go away," said he, quietly.
"Not without a promise, Ascot. Think----"
"Now go away. This is the last warning I give you. Madwoman!"
"But, Ascot----"
"Take care; it will be too late for both of us in another moment."
She caught his eye for the first time, and fled for her life. She randown into the drawing-room, and threw herself into a chair. "Godpreserve me!" she said; "I have gone too far with him. Oh, this lonelyhouse!"
Every drop of blood in her body seemed to fly to her heart. There werefootsteps outside the door. Oh, God! have mercy on her; he was followingher.
Where were the two angels now, I wonder?
He opened the door, and came towards her slowly. If mortal agony canatone for sin, she atoned for all her sins in that terrible half-minute.She did not cry out; she dared not; she writhed down among the gaudycushions, with her face buried in her hands, and waited--for what?
She heard a voice speaking to her. It was not his voice, but the kindvoice of old Lord Ascot, his dead father. It said--
"Adelaide, my poor girl, you must not get frightened when I get in apassion. My poor child, you have borne enough for me; I would not hurt ahair of your head."
He kissed her cheek, and Adelaide burst into a passion of sobs. After afew moments those sobs had ceased, and Lord Ascot left her. He did notknow that she had fainted away. She never told him that.
Where were the angels now? Angels!--there was but one of them left.Which one was that, think you?
Hurrah! the good angel. The black fiend with the hood had sneaked awayto his torment. And, as Lord Ascot closed the door behind him, and spedaway down the foggy street, the good one vanished too; for the work wasdone. Ten thousand fiends would not turn him from his purpose now.Hurrah!
* * * * *
"Simpson," said Lord Saltire, as he got into bed that evening, "it won'tlast much longer."
"What will not last, my lord?" said Simpson.
"Why, me," said Lord Saltire, disregarding grammar. "Don't set up agreengrocer's shop, Simpson, nor a butter and egg shop, in BerkeleyStreet, if you can help it, Simpson. If you must keep a lodging-house, Ishould say Jermyn Street; but don't let
me influence you. I am not surethat I wouldn't sooner see you in Brook Street, or Conduit Street. Butdon't try Pall Mall, that's a good fellow; or you'll be getting fastmen, who will demoralise your establishment. A steady connection amonggovernment clerks, and that sort of person, will pay best in the longrun."
"My dear lord--my good old friend, why should you talk like thisto-night?"
"Because I am very ill, Simpson, and it will all come at once; and itmay come any time. When they open Lord Barkham's room, at Cottingdean, Ishould like you and Mr. Marston to go in first, for I may have leftsomething or another about."
An hour or two after, his bell rang, and Simpson, who was in thedressing-room, came hurriedly in. He was sitting up in bed, looking justthe same as usual.
"My good fellow," he said, "go down and find out who rung and knocked atthe door like that. Did you hear it?"
"I did not notice it, my lord."
"Butchers, and bakers, and that sort of people, don't knock and ringlike that. The man at the door now brings news, Simpson. There is nomistake about the ring of a man who comes with important intelligence.Go down and see."
He was not long gone. When he came back again, he said--
"It is Lord Ascot, my lord. He insists on seeing you immediately."
"Up with him, Simpson--up with him, my good fellow. I told you so. Thisgets interesting."
Lord Ascot was already in the doorway. Lord Saltire's brain was as acuteas ever; and as Lord Ascot approached him, he peered eagerly andcuriously at him, in the same way as one scrutinises the seal of anunopened letter, and wonders what its contents may be. Lord Ascot satdown by the bed, and whispered to the old man; and, when Simpson saw hisgreat coarse, red, hairless, ruffianly face actually touching that ofLord Saltire, so delicate, so refined, so keen, Simpson began to have adim suspicion that he was looking on rather a remarkable sight. And sohe was.
"Lord Saltire," said Lord Ascot, "I have seen Charles Ravenshoeto-night."
"You are quite sure?"
"I am quite sure."
"Ha! Ring the bell, Simpson." Before any one had spoken again, a footmanwas in the room. "Bring the major-domo here instantly," said LordSaltire.
"You know what you have done, Ascot," said Lord Saltire. "You see whatyou have done. I am going to send for my solicitor, and alter my will."
"Of course you are," said Lord Ascot. "Do you dream I did not know thatbefore I came here?"
"And yet you came?"
"Yes; with all the devils out of hell dragging me back."
"As a matter of curiosity, why?" said Lord Saltire.
"Oh, I couldn't do it, you know. I've done a good many dirty things; butI couldn't do that, particularly to that man. There are some things afellow can't do, you know."
"Where did you see him?"
"At the Groom's Arms, Belgrave Mews; he was there not three hours ago.Find a man called Sloane, a horse-dealer; he will tell you all abouthim; for he was sitting with his hand on his shoulder. His address istwenty-seven, New Road."
At this time the major-domo appeared. "Take a cab at once, and _fetch_me--you understand when I say _fetch_--Mr. Brogden, my solicitor. Mr.Compton lives out of town, but he lives over the office in Lincoln'sInn. If you can get hold of the senior partner, he will do as well. Puteither of them in a cab, and pack them off here. Then go to ScotlandYard; give my compliments to inspector Field; tell him a horrible murderhas been committed, accompanied by arson, forgery, and regrating, with astrong suspicion of sorning, and that he must come at once."
That venerable gentleman disappeared, and then Lord Saltire said--
"Do you repent, Ascot?"
"No," said he. "D---- it all, you know, I could not do it when I came tothink of it. The money would never have stayed with me, I take it.Good-night."
"Good-night," said Lord Saltire; "come the first thing in the morning."
And so they parted. Simpson said, "Are you going to alter your willto-night, my lord? Won't it be a little too much for you?"
"It would be if I was going to do so, Simpson; but I am not going totouch a line of it. I am not sure that half a million of money was ever,in the history of the world, given up with better grace or with lessreason. He is a noble fellow; I never guessed it; he shall have it--byJove, he shall have it! I am going to sleep. Apologise to Brogden, andgive the information to Field; tell him I expect Charles Ravenshoe hereto-morrow morning. Good-night."
Simpson came in to open the shutters next morning; but those shutterswere not opened for ten days, for Lord Saltire was dead.
Dead. The delicate waxen right hand, covered with rings, was lyingoutside on the snow-white sheet, which was unwrinkled by any deathagony; and on the pillow was a face, beautiful always, but now morebeautiful, more calm, more majestic than ever. If his first love, deadso many years, had met him in the streets but yesterday, she would nothave known him; but if she could have looked one moment on the facewhich lay on that pillow, she would have seen once more the gallantyoung nobleman who came a-wooing under the lime-trees sixty years agone.
The inspector was rapid and dexterous in his work. He was on CharlesRavenshoe's trail like a bloodhound, eager to redeem the credit whichhis coadjutor, Yard, had lost over the same case. But his instructionscame to him three hours too late.