Works of Ellen Wood, page 17
“Several were there when Lord Temple and Anketel came in, But they left. By three o’clock all had gone except Anketel and Lord Temple.”
“And Swallowtail,” interrupted Mr. St. George.
“And Swallowtail; but we look upon him as one of the establishment. Besides these, there was not a soul in the room but me, and I had sat down in the comer behind the refreshment table, wishing they would leave, that we might shut up for the night. Swallowtail and Anketel were whispering together over the fireplace, and presently they both came up to Lord Temple, pulled him off the sofa, and set him up in an arm-chair at the green table. Swallowtail got the cards to begin écarté. I think Lord Temple was worse than when he came in, more stupid. He could not hold the cards, but dropped them as fast as Anketel put them in his hands, and his head fell, unconscious. ‘It’s of no use,’ said Swallowtail, ‘he is too bad, he couldn’t write. Gould we guide his hand?’ ‘No,’ answered Anketel, ‘that would bear the marks of our handwriting, not his.’ ‘I’ll tell you what, though,’ cries Swallowtail, bringing his hand down on the board with such a thump that some dice sprung off it, ‘I have got that I O U for £30 in my pocket; we can work the oracle with that’ ’Change the figures?’ whispered Anketel. ‘Add to the oughts,’ said Swallowtail, ‘and go snacks.’ They helped Lord Temple back to the sofa,” continued Pratt, “first of all, trying to make him drink some brandy. A tumbler half full of the neat spirit had been left by somebody on the mantlepiece, and they held it to his lips. I think he swallowed a little, but the rest went on to the front of his clothes. Beautiful diamond studs he had in his shirt that night!”
“But were you in the room during this?” cried Mr. St. George.
“I was in the seat that I tell you of, sir, and had not moved from it; and, from an angle, I could see most of what was going on. It is a crimson velvet chair, low and small, standing against the wall at the back of the refreshment table, and any body sitting in it would not be noticed by those at the play tables. If you go to the place this very night, there you’ll see the chair.”
Mr. St. George thought he would rather be excused the errand. “Proceed,” said he.
“Major Anketel reached the pen and ink, and Swallowtail took a piece of paper from his pocket-book. ‘I think the date will be just the ticket,’ said Swallowtail, with that knowing wink he emits from his sharp black eyes. ‘It is dated the 1st, and this is the 11th; if we add another 1, that will be right.’ ‘Stop a bit,’ said Anketel, snatching up the I O U, ‘Temple will recognize this again, and know that it has been altered.’ ‘He’ll no more recognize it than my grandmother will,’ answered Swallowtail, ‘he is entirely oblivious of having given it me. He was three parts gone then, or he would have written the amount in letters instead of figures: though he could hold the cards, it was as much as the bargain.’ ‘That’s the worst of Temple,’ cried Anketel, ‘so long as he keeps his noddle clear, there’s no drawing him into play; it’s not often he gets screwed tight enough to be of use to one. But is it safe he won’t know this!’ ‘It’s. safe and certain,’ said Swallowtail; ‘he has no recollection such a thing is out. The other night, in this room. Groves was trying to reckon up how many of the sort he had got out, and Temple said he had none, thank the stars; he was clear, and intended to keep so. I had a great mind to produce it then, but thought another opportunity might be better.’
“And so they altered Lord Temple’s acknowledgment for £30 into £3000!” exclaimed Mr. St. George. “They are nice jail-birds!”
“I did not know what they altered it into,” returned Pratt; “all I heard was, that they would add to the oughts. But I heard Lord Temple’s loss spoken of afterward over the tables, and found that it was £3000.”
“Well — about your own share?”
“Swallowtail put up the memorandum, and Anketel said he would go, and he left. Then Swallowtail came to the refreshment table, and there he saw me. ‘Hilloa!’ quoth he, ‘are you here? What are you doing?’ ‘Nothing.’ said I; ‘only waiting to know if any body’s going to play again.’ I never saw Swallowtail so taken to as he was then,” continued Pratt. “You know him, of course, Mr. St. George, and must be aware that, for all his demure, quiet face, with its innocent-looking turned-up nose, and his polished manners, there’s not a more hardened or a deeper man going; but all the brass had gone out of him then. ‘Pratt,’ said he, mildly, ‘how’s that clever boy of yours? Drawing still, and getting on?’ ‘He’s drawing forever,’ I answered; ‘but, as for getting on, he wants instruction, and I can’t afford it him. ‘I’ll help you to afford it him,’ said Swallowtail; ‘I won’t forget it. What you told me, has made me take an interest in him. Goodnight, Pratt. See to his lordship.’ I took that offer for what it was worth, sir,” added Pratt, “never thinking it was worth any thing, and Swallowtail went away. I called a man, and we got Lord Temple down to his cab, and hoisted him in. A week or two after that, Swallowtail called me aside, and gave me the two fifty-pound notes, saying they were to help the boy. Of course I knew what that meant.”
“And you accepted them, knowing, at the same time, that they were hush-money, the proceeds of as nefarious a robbery as ever was perpetrated!” uttered Mr. St. George.
“When you are as low down in the world as I am, sir, which I hope will never be, you will not stop to look at how money’s obtained, when it’s put into your hands,” cried Mr. Pratt. “Low as I have fallen, badly off as my wife and family often are, I would not have joined those two fellows in doing it. But they did do it; and, to split upon them, would have been almost as much as my life was worth. Servants attached to gambling-houses may not tell the secrets enacted in them. They would make sober folks’ hair stand on end. And, suppose I had refused the hundred pounds? it would have been doing Lord Temple no good; only adding to Swallowtail’s booty. You need not reproach me, Mr. St. George: when the dark mood is upon me, I reproach myself keener than any body else can do.”
“What do you mean by the dark mood?”
“When I have got no drink in me, sir. I was brought up, you know, a gentleman — though you may not see much remains of it about me now — and the shame, the remorse, the physical depression that overwhelm me are so great, I must of compulsion drink to drown them, even if the habit were not upon me. But it is. I am obliged to be sober at night, for my work in St. James’s Street, but I am rarely so at other times, unless money fails.”
“What profession used you to follow? Any?”
“The medical,” was the answer, after a slight pause of surprise. “I have not followed it much, for evil habits overtook me before I had well done walking the hospitals. I do not thing any young men, as a class, are so much given to drink as medical students. A youngster coming fresh among them can hardly help falling into the habit: the example set him is too potent.”
The remark made Mr. St. George’s thoughts flow for the moment toward Lionel Danesbury.
“I half ruined my father, I completely tired out my other friends, and now I am attached to a gaming-house. I am ready to kill myself at times when I think of my wife and children. The little girl, thank Heaven, is at Eastborough. They have taken to her.”
“Eastborough!” echoed Mr. St. George, in a startled tone, “you are surely not — not — you are no relation to Mr. Pratt, the surgeon there!”
“Only his son. I thought you knew me, Mr. St. George. Is it possible you did not?”
“I am sorry for you!” uttered Mr. St. George, with deep feeling. “I did not recognize you. But you are yet a young man — so to say; you are not forty. Surely you might, even now, reform and become a respectable member of society, a protector to your children.”
“Never,” returned the unfortunate man. “I have tried in vain: the habit is too strong upon me. No; miserable and guilty as I am now, so I must go on to my grave; lost in this world, and I suppose lost in the next.”
“And your only failing, a love of drink!”
“My only failing,” he emphatically replied. “I was kind, just, honourable, well-intentioned. Whatever bad things drink has caused me to do, I should never have done them without it: now it is excitement; now it is despondency; both hard to bear, and both urging to sin.”
“Are you very poor?”
“Mostly so. It is up and down with us. Sometimes my wife’s relatives help us, and sometimes I have a slice of luck at the tables — not at the one in St. James’s Street,
I am only a servant there, but I frequent others in the day. We have managed to live. I thought that bill would have done us up, and turned us, wanderers, into the streets. Ah! that was another consequence of drink. I signed that bill for six-and-thirty pounds, at three months’ date, when I was nearly as bad as Lord Temple was: a swindling fellow got hold of it: I was sued upon it, and the expenses mounted up. I never had the benefit of a sixpence from it, sir; never the value of a brass farthing.”
“You say you want to place your son with an architect?”
“It will be of little use wanting. Even if his mother’s friends would keep him in respectable clothes, which they have partly promised, I could never find the premium, and nobody will take him without, for I have no interest to get him in any where. Yet it’s a pity,’’ added the unhappy man with a sigh: when a lad shows extraordinary genius for art, which of course must have been specially granted him, it’s a pity it can not be fostered and brought to fruit. He is near fourteen.’’
“Has he been educated?”
“Oh yes. Not regularly, but he has had snatches of it; one quarter at school and one away, and he’s a clever boy, and has improved what he has had; he would not disgrace any office. He is a very steady boy, very good-principled.”
“I will think about it for you,” said Mr. St. George. “A friend of mine is an architect, and I will inquire whether boys can get into an office without premium: perhaps he may be induced to take him, if his talent is so decided. I should tell my friend the circumstances,” added Mr. St. George; “I could not in honour do otherwise: and, before speaking, I must see and converse with the boy myself. I was once, when a lad, laid up with an illness at Danesbury House, and your father brought me through it and was very kind to me. I am sorry to meet you thus.”
Mr. Pratt rose. He would have thanked Mr. St. George for the glimpse of hope for his son, but his voice was husky, and his eyes watered. Had that man always possessed the moral courage to eschew the dangerous vice, he would have been beloved and respected: as it was, he slunk through the clerks in the front office, self-ashamed and self-condemned.
In the course of the afternoon Mr. St George went up to Lord Temple’s. He and Lady Temple were occupying temporary apartments in Brook Street A slice of good fortune had befallen Lord Temple; which, indeed, had brought them to England somewhat quicker than they had contemplated. A great-aunt of Lord Templets had died, and left him her town-house, a small one, at Kensington, and fourteen thousand pounds. He had been previously thinking of turning his talents to political utility: his wife also wished it; she urged that his time was not given him to waste: and this house and legacy decided it. He determined to make it his residence, and become a useful man. The house was now being renovated and fitted up: some of Mrs. Dacre’s old furniture was being disposed of, and new purchased in its place; and they intended soon to take possession.
When Mr. St. George had called in Brook Street two evenings before, Major Anketel was sitting there. Mr. St. George had not a good opinion of the major, and was vexed to find Lord Temple again in contact with him. Isabel was well, and truly happy. She had found Lord Temple all she had thought him. Like many another man, like nearly all men. Lord Temple was only wild when led away by example; and since his marriage he had been subjected to nothing but good influence.
This afternoon, after the departure of Pratt, Mr. St. George proceeded to Lord Temple’s, and he went there with one settled purpose — to put him on his guard against Major Anketel. Lady Temple was alone when he went in, and Mr. St. George thought he had never seen her look more lovely: she wore an elegant black silk dress, and small white lace cap. Lord Temple soon entered. He was going down to Richmond with Lord Sandlin to dine. Mr. St. George requested a private interview, and Lord Temple took him into another room.
“What dreadful plot has you to disclose,” he laughed, “that you could not speak before Isabel? I have no secrets from her.”
“My lord — about telling her, you can do as you please: but it would not have been proper for me to speak of it in her presence, unsanctioned by you.”
“How grave you are” uttered Lord Temple.
“That £3000 you lost at play to Swallowtail — which we had to raise for you — you remember?”
“Isabel knows of it,” he eagerly answered. “I told her every thing I had ever done. At least, nearly every thing: there are some antecedents in a fellow’s life, of course, not fit for a wife’s ears: but every thing that I could tell her, I did, and assured her it lay with her to keep me right for the future. I told her I had been such a wicked fool as to get dead drunk, and then lose £3000.”
“Then, as there is so much confidence between you, I might have spoken before her, and I hope you will let her hear the sequel. You never lost the money.”
“Never lost it!” echoed Lord Temple. “What do you mean? I lost it, said paid it”
“You paid it, but you did not lose it. It has come to my knowledge — my positive knowledge. Lord Temple, though I can not tell you in what way, for I am under a promise not to do so — that Major Anketel and that blackleg, Swallowtail, concocted a plan to swindle you out of it”
“I do not understand,” cried Lord Temple. “I remember nothing about playing, as I told you, or of giving the I O U, but there it was, in my own handwriting. They could not have swindled my writing out of me.”
“I will explain. That transaction took place on the 11th of July. On the first of the month, some days before, you had also been the worse for wine, had played with Swallowtail, lost, and given him an I O U for the amount £30.”
“What!” said Lord Temple. “How many more I O U’s will you say I gave?”
“My lord, you gave the one for £30, you did, indeed, though you might not and did not remember it. On the eleventh, all who had gone into the gambling-house left, except Anketel and Swallowtail. They dragged you up from the sofa, and put you to the table, no doubt intending you to go through the farce of playing and losing, and then giving them a note of hand for the amount. But you were too far gone, you were nearly senseless, and could not hold the cards. So they were baulked. But Swallowtail thought of a bright scheme. He had this I O U for £30 in his pocket; you had written the debt in figures, not in words; and he proposed to Anketel to add oughts to the 30. And it was done.”
The viscount had gradually leaned forward over the table: his lips open, his eyes strained on Mr. St. George.
‘‘Nothing else was wanted, save the alteration in the date. A 1 was added to the other 1, and 11 stood out complete. That was the £3000 you paid.”
“Can this be?” uttered Lord Temple.
‘‘As truly as that you and I are sitting here. Lord Temple, I always suspected that Anketel was a bad man: we had to do with him a year or two ago, and found him any thing but square. Besides, he has no income: how can he live? Swallowtail I need not enlarge upon: he is known. I came up this afternoon to tell you this, and to put you on your guard against Anketel. I saw him here the other night.”
“You won’t see him here again,” cried the impetuous young nobleman. ‘‘If he enters a room where I am, I will leave it, or he shall. By Jove! I would rather associate with a Botany-Bay convict.”
‘‘As to taking proceedings against them, I suppose it can not be. In the first place, the evidence—”
“No, no,” interrupted Lord Temple, “I will not rake up and make public a transaction so disgraceful to myself, even to punish them. I would not do it for my wife’s sake. They have got the money; and they spent it, no doubt, long ago: let them keep it, and I must put up with the theft — and serve me right for my pains! Thank you, St. George. That wretch Anketel came the other night to entice me out, and dared to affect a contemptuous surprise when I would not go. The villain! he wanted to try his hand again at making me forget myself.”
“No doubt of it. The very night they robbed you, he openly lamented to Swallowtail that you would not play unless you were ‘screwed,’ and that you got so too seldom.”
Lord Temple rose in excitement, and paced the room. “And the worst of it is, that I must bury this in silence!” he chafed. “I can not proclaim the fraud without proceeding against them.”
“To bury it in silence will be the best plan in every way,” said Mr. St. George. “There is no other alternative but the one of proceeding against them, and that is not convenient. Only keep dear of them for the future, Lord Temple.”
“You need not tell me that, St George,*’ was the emphatic reply.
They returned to the presence of Lady Temple. Lord Sandlin was expected every moment, for he was to drive the viscount to Richmond, to this all-important dinner.
“As Lord Temple will be out, why should you not come with me to see Charlotte, and take a plan dinner with us?” said Mr. St. George to Lady Temple.
“I do not know why,” answered she; “I should very much like to see her and like children. She called here to-day, but I was out.”
“Do, Isabel,” cried her husband. “It will remove all the compunction I have in leaving yon.”
So Lady Temple put her things on, and as she came back to the drawing-room from doing so, a servant entered, and said that Lord Sandlin waited. They all went down stairs together. “Good-by, my dearest,” whispered Lord Temple, shaking hands with his wife.
Lord Sandlin was in a — vehicle, half dog-cart, half commercial-traveller’s “trap,” though he would probably fly into a rage did he hear it called so, for it had been built under his own special invention and superintendence. He was a short, sandy-haired man, very fat, with a profusion of whisker, and a face all one colour, and that scarlet. He tore off his hat when he caught sight of Lady Temple. The viscount ascended to the seat beside him, and Mr. St. George could not help contrasting them as they sat side by side: the one all elegance, looking every inch a nobleman; the other like a young prize-fighter. The groom stepped up to his seat, which was placed back to back with the others, and they drove away, the lords once more raising their hats to Lady Temple.
