The Castle Inn by Stanley John Weyman

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'No!' Mr. Fishwick blurted, wincing under her words; which hurt him a
hundred times more sharply than if the girl had been what he had thought
her. Then he might have laughed at the sneer and the spite that dictated
it. Now--something like this all the world would say.

The Viscountess eyed him cunningly, her head on one side. 'Was it at
Salisbury, then?' she cried. 'Wherever 'twas. I hear she had need of
haste. Or was it at Bristol? D'you hear me speak to you, man?' she
continued impatiently. 'Out with it.'

'At neither,' he cried.

My lady's eyes sparkled with rage. 'Hoity-toity!' she answered. 'D'you
say No to me in that fashion? I'll thank you to mend your manners,
Fishwick, and remember to whom you are speaking. Hark ye, sirrah, is she
Sir George's cousin or is she not?'

'She is not, my lady,' the attorney muttered miserably.

'But she is married?'

'No,' he said; and with that, unable to bear more, he turned to fly.

She caught him by the sleeve. 'Not married?' she cried, grinning with
ill-natured glee. 'Not married? And been of three days with a man! Lord,
'tis a story as bald as Granby! She ought to be whipped, the hussy! Do
you hear? She ought to the Roundhouse, and you with her, sirrah, for
passing her of on us!'

But that was more than the attorney, his awe of the peerage
notwithstanding, could put up with. 'God forgive you!' he cried. 'God
forgive you, ma'am, your hard heart!'

She was astonished. 'You impudent fellow!' she exclaimed. 'What do you
know of God? And how dare you name Him in the same breath with me? D'you
think He'd have people of quality be Methodists and live as the like of
you? God, indeed! Hang your impudence! I say, she should to the
Roundhouse--and you, too, for a vagabond! And so you shall!'

The lawyer shook with rage. 'The less your ladyship talks of the
Roundhouse,' he answered, his voice trembling, 'the better! There's one
is in it now who may go farther and fare worse--to your sorrow,
my lady!'

You rogue!' she cried. 'Do you threaten me?'

'I threaten no one,' he answered. 'But your son, Mr. Dunborough, killed
a man last night, and lies in custody at Chippenham at this very time! I
say no more, my lady!'

He had said enough. My lady glared; then began to shake in her turn. Yet
her spirit was not easily quelled; 'You lie!' she cried shrilly, the
stick, with which she vainly strove to steady herself, rattling on the
floor.' Who dares to say that my son has killed a man?'

'It is known,' the attorney answered.

'Who--who is it?'

'Mr. Pomeroy of Bastwick, a gentleman living near Calne.'

'In a duel! 'Twas in a duel, you lying fool!' she retorted hoarsely.
'You are trying to scare me! Say 'twas in a duel and I--I'll
forgive you.'

'They shut themselves up in a room, and there were no seconds,' the
lawyer answered, beginning to pity her. 'I believe that Mr. Pomeroy gave
the provocation, and that may bring your ladyship's son off. But, on the
other hand--'

'On the other hand, what? What?' she muttered.

'Mr. Dunborough had horsewhipped a man that was in the other's company.'

'A man?'

'It was Mr. Thomasson.'

Her ladyship's hands went up. Perhaps she remembered that but for her
the tutor would not have been there. Then 'Sink you! I wish he had
flogged you all!' she shrieked, and, turning stiffly, she went mumbling
and cursing down the stairs, the lace lappets of her head trembling,
and her gold-headed cane now thumping the floor, now waving uncertainly
in the air.

* * * * *

A quarter of an hour earlier, in the apartments for which Mr. Fishwick
was bound when her ladyship intercepted him, two men stood talking at a
window. The room was the best in the Castle Inn--a lofty panelled
chamber with a southern aspect looking upon the smooth sward and
sweet-briar hedges of Lady Hertford's terrace, and commanding beyond
these a distant view of the wooded slopes of Savernake. The men spoke in
subdued tones, and more than once looked towards the door of an adjacent
room, as if they feared to disturb some one.

'My dear Sir George,' the elder said, after he had listened patiently to
a lengthy relation, in the course of which he took snuff a dozen times,
'your mind is quite made up, I suppose?'

'Absolutely.'

'Well, it is a remarkable series of events; a--most remarkable series,'
Dr. Addington answered with professional gravity. 'And certainly, if the
lady is all you paint her--and she seems to set you young bloods on
fire--no ending could well be more satisfactory. With the addition of a
comfortable place in the Stamps or the Pipe Office, if we can take his
lordship the right way--it should do. It should do handsomely. But',
with a keen glance at his companion, 'even without that--you know that
he is still far from well?'

'I know that all the world is of one of two opinions,' Sir George
answered, smiling. 'The first, that his lordship ails nothing save
politically; the other, that he is at death's door and will not have
it known.'

The physician shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. 'Neither is true,'
he said. 'The simple fact is, he has the gout; and the gout is an odd
thing, Sir George, as you'll know one of these days,' with another sharp
glance at his companion. 'It flies here and there, and everywhere.'

'And where is it now?' Soane asked innocently.

'It has gone to his head,' Addington answered, in a tone so studiously
jejune that Sir George glanced at him. The doctor, however, appeared
unaware of the look, and merely continued: 'So, if he does not take
things quite as you wish, Sir George, you'll--but here his
lordship comes!'

The doctor thought that he had sufficiently prepared Soane for a change
in his patron's appearance. Nevertheless, the younger man was greatly
shocked when through the door, obsequiously opened--and held open while
a man might count fifty, so that eye and mind grew expectant--the great
statesman, the People's Minister at length appeared. For the stooping
figure that moved to a chair only by virtue of a servant's arm, and
seemed the taller for its feebleness, for dragging legs and shrunken,
frame and features sharpened by illness and darkened by the great peruke
it was the Earl's fashion to wear, he was in a degree prepared. But for
the languid expression of the face that had been so eloquent, for the
lacklustre eyes and the dulness of mind that noticed little and heeded
less, he was not prepared; and these were so marked and so unlike the
great minister--

'A daring pilot in extremity
Pleased with the danger when the waves went high'

--so unlike the man whose eagle gaze had fluttered Courts and imposed
the law on Senates, that it was only the presence of Lady Chatham, who
followed her lord, a book and cushion in her hands, that repressed the
exclamation which rose to Sir George's lips. So complete was the change
indeed that, as far as the Earl was concerned, he might have uttered it!
His lordship, led to the head of the table, sank without a word into the
chair placed for him, and propping his elbow on the table and his head
on his hand, groaned aloud.

Lady Chatham compressed her lips with evident annoyance as she took her
stand behind her husband's chair; it was plain from the glance she cast
at Soane that she resented the presence of a witness. Even Dr.
Addington, with his professional _sang-froid_ and his knowledge of the
invalid's actual state, was put out of countenance for a moment. Then he
signed to Sir George to be silent, and to the servant to withdraw.

At last Lord Chatham spoke. 'This business?' he said in a hollow voice
and without uncovering his eyes, 'is it to be settled now?'

'If your lordship pleases,' the doctor answered in a subdued tone.

'Sir George Soane is there?'

'Yes.'

'Sir George,' the Earl said with an evident effort, 'I am sorry I cannot
receive you better.'

'My lord, as it is I am deeply indebted to your kindness.'

'Dagge finds no flaw in their case,' Lord Chatham continued
apathetically. 'Her ladyship has read his report to me. If Sir George
likes to contest the claim, it is his right.'

'I do not propose to do so.'

Sir George had not this time subdued his voice to the doctor's pitch;
and the Earl, whose nerves seemed alive to the slightest sound, winced
visibly. 'That is your affair,' he answered querulously. 'At any rate
the trustees do not propose to do so.'

Sir George, speaking with more caution, replied that he acquiesced; and
then for a few seconds there was silence in the room, his lordship
continuing to sit in the same attitude of profound melancholy, and the
others to look at him with compassion, which they vainly strove to
dissemble. At last, in a voice little above a whisper, the Earl asked if
the man was there.

'He waits your lordship's pleasure,' Dr. Addington answered. 'But before
he is admitted,' the physician continued diffidently and with a manifest
effort, 'may I say a word, my lord, as to the position in which this
places Sir George Soane?'

'I was told this morning,' Lord Chatham answered, in the same muffled
tone, 'that a match had been arranged between the parties, and that
things would remain as they were. It seemed to me, sir, a prudent
arrangement.'

Sir George was about to answer, but Dr. Addington made a sign to him to
be silent. 'That is so,' the physician replied smoothly. 'But your
lordship is versed in Sir George Soane's affairs, and knows that he must
now go to his wife almost empty-handed. In these circumstances it has
occurred rather to his friends than to himself, and indeed I speak
against his will and by sufferance only, that--that, in a word,
my lord--'

Lord Chatham lowered his hand as Dr. Addington paused. A faint flush
darkened his lean aquiline features, set a moment before in the mould of
hopeless depression. 'What?' he said. And he raised himself sharply in
his chair. 'What has occurred to his friends?'

'That some provision might be made for him, my lord.'

'From the public purse?' the Earl cried in a startling tone. 'Is that
your meaning, sir?' And, with the look in his eyes which had been more
dreaded by the Rigbys and Dodingtons of his party than the most
scathing rebuke from the lips of another, he fixed the unlucky doctor
where he stood. 'Is that your proposal, sir?' he repeated.

The physician saw too late that he had ventured farther than his
interest would support him; and he quailed. On the other hand, it is
possible he had been neither so confident before, nor was so entirely
crushed now, as appeared. 'Well, my lord, it did occur to me,' he
stammered, 'as not inconsistent with the public welfare.'

'The public welfare!' the minister cried in biting accents. 'The public
plunder, sir, you mean! It were not inconsistent with that to quarter on
the nation as many ruined gentlemen as you please! But you mistake if
you bring the business to me to do--you mistake. I have dispersed
thirteen millions of His Majesty's money in a year, and would have spent
as much again and as much to that, had the affairs of this nation
required it; but the gentleman is wrong if he thinks it has gone to my
friends. My hands are clean,' his lordship continued with an expressive
gesture. 'I have said, in another place, none of it sticks to them.
_Virtute me involvo_!' And then, in a lower tone, but still with a note
of austerity in his voice, M rejoice to think,' he continued, 'that the
gentleman was not himself the author of this application. I rejoice to
think that it did not come from him. These things have been done freely;
it concerns me not to deny it; but since I had to do with His Majesty's
exchequer, less freely. And that only concerns me!'

Sir George Soane bit his lip. He felt keenly the humiliation of his
position. But it was so evident that the Earl was not himself--so
evident that the tirade to which he had just listened was one of those
outbursts, noble in sentiment, but verging on the impracticable and the
ostentatious, in which Lord Chatham was prone to indulge in his weaker
moments, that he felt little inclination to resent it. Yet to let it
pass unnoticed was impossible.

'My lord,' he said firmly, but with respect, 'it is permitted to all to
make an application which the custom of the time has sanctioned. That is
the extent of my action--at the highest. The propriety of granting such
requests is another matter and rests with your lordship. I have nothing
to do with that.'

The Earl appeared to be as easily disarmed as he had been lightly
aroused. 'Good lad! good lad!' he muttered. 'Addington is a fool!' Then
drowsily, as his head sunk on his hand again, 'The man may enter. I will
tell him!'

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE ATTORNEY SPEAKS

It was into an atmosphere highly charged, therefore, in which the
lightning had scarcely ceased to play, and might at any moment dart its
fires anew, that Mr. Fishwick was introduced. The lawyer did not know
this; yet it was to be expected that without that knowledge he would
bear himself but ill in the company in which he now found himself. But
the task which he had come to perform raised him above himself;
moreover, there is a point of depression at which timidity ceases, and
he had reached this point. Admitted by Dr. Addington, he looked round,
bowed stiffly to the physician, and lowly and with humility to Lord
Chatham and her ladyship; then, taking his stand at the foot of the
table, he produced his papers with an air of modest self-possession.

Lord Chatham did not look up, but he saw what was passing. 'We have no
need of documents,' he said in the frigid tone which marked his dealings
with all save a very few. 'Your client's suit is allowed, sir, so far as
the trustees are concerned. That is all it boots me to say.'

'I humbly thank your lordship,' the attorney answered, speaking with an
air of propriety which surprised Sir George. 'Yet I have with due
submission to crave your lordship's leave to say somewhat.'

'There is no need,' the Earl answered, 'the claim being allowed, sir.'

'It is on that point, my lord.'

The Earl, his eyes smouldering, looked his displeasure, but controlled
himself. 'What is it?' he said irritably.

'Some days ago, I made a singular discovery, my lord,' the attorney
answered sorrowfully. 'I felt it necessary to communicate it to my
client, and I am directed by her to convey it to your lordship and to
all others concerned.' And the lawyer bowed slightly to Sir
George Soane.

Lord Chatham raised his head, and for the first time since the
attorney's entrance looked at him with a peevish attention. 'If we are
to go into this, Dagge should be here,' he said impatiently. 'Or your
lawyer, Sir George.' with a look as fretful in that direction. 'Well,
man, what is it?'

'My lord,' Mr. Fish wick answered, 'I desire first to impress upon your
lordship and Sir George Soane that this claim was set on foot in good
faith on the part of my client, and on my part; and, as far as I was
concerned, with no desire to promote useless litigation. That was the
position up to Tuesday last, the day on which the lady was forcibly
carried off. I repeat, my lord, that on that day I had no more doubt of
the justice of our claim than I have to-day that the sky is above us.
But on Wednesday I happened in a strange way--at Bristol, my lord,
whither but for that abduction I might never have gone in my life--on a
discovery, which by my client's direction I am here to communicate.'

'Do you mean, sir,' the Earl said with sudden acumen, a note of keen
surprise in his voice, 'that you are here--to abandon your claim?'

'My client's claim,' the attorney answered with a sorrowful look. 'Yes,
my lord, I am.'

For an instant there was profound silence in the room; the astonishment
was as deep as it was general. At last, 'are the papers which were
submitted to Mr. Dagge--are they forgeries then?' the Earl asked.

'No, my lord; the papers are genuine,' the attorney answered. 'But my
client, although the identification seemed to be complete, is not the
person indicated in them.' And succinctly, but with sufficient
clearness, the attorney narrated his chance visit to the church, the
discovery of the entry in the register, and the story told by the good
woman at the 'Golden Bee.' 'Your lordship will perceive,' he concluded,
'that, apart from the exchange of the children, the claim was good. The
identification of the infant whom the porter presented to his wife with
the child handed to him by his late master three weeks earlier seemed to
be placed beyond doubt by every argument from probability. But the child
was not the child,' he added with a sigh. And, forgetting for the moment
the presence in which he stood, Mr. Fishwick allowed the despondency he
felt to appear in his face and figure.

There was a prolonged silence. 'Sir!' Lord Chatham said at last--Sir
George Soane, with his eyes on the floor and a deep flush on his face,
seemed to be thunderstruck by this sudden change of front--'it appears
to me that you are a very honest man! Yet let me ask you. Did it never
occur to you to conceal the fact?'

'Frankly, my lord, it did,' the attorney answered gloomily, 'for a day.
Then I remembered a thing my father used to say to us, "Don't put
molasses in the punch!" And I was afraid.'

'Don't put molasses in the punch!' his lordship ejaculated, with a
lively expression of astonishment. 'Are you mad, sir?'

'No, my lord and gentlemen,' Mr. Fishwick answered hurriedly.' But it
means--don't help Providence, which can very well help itself. The thing
was too big for me, my lord, and my client too honest. I thought, if it
came out afterwards, the last state might be worse than the first.
And--I could not see my way to keep it from her; and that is the truth,'
he added candidly.

The statesman nodded. Then,

'_Dissimulare etiam sperasti, perfide tantum
Posse nefas, tacitusque meam subducere terram_?'

he muttered in low yet sonorous tones.

Mr. Fishwick stared. 'I beg your lordship's pardon,' he said. 'I do not
quite understand.'

'There is no need. And that is the whole truth, sir, is it?'

'Yes, my lord, it is.'

'Very good. Very good,' Lord Chatham replied, pushing away the papers
which the attorney in the heat of his argument had thrust before him.
'Then there is an end of the matter as far as the trustees are
concerned. Sir George, you have nothing to say, I take it?'

'No, I thank you, my lord--nothing here,' Soane answered vaguely. His
face continued to wear the dark flush which had overspread it a few
minutes before. 'This, I need not say, is an absolute surprise to
me,' he added.

'Just so. It is an extraordinary story. Well, good-morning, sir,' his
lordship continued, addressing the attorney. 'I believe you have done
your duty. I believe you have behaved very honestly. You will hear
from me.'

Mr. Fishwick knew that he was dismissed, but after a glance aside, which
showed him Sir George standing in a brown study, he lingered. 'If your
lordship,' he said desperately, 'could see your way to do anything--for
my client?'

'For your client? Why?' the Earl cried, with a sudden return of his
gouty peevishness. 'Why, sir--why?'

'She has been drawn,' the lawyer muttered 'out of the position in which
she lived, by an error, not her own, my lord.'

'Yours!'

'Yes, my lord.'

'And why drawn?' the Earl continued regarding him severely. 'I will tell
you, sir. Because you were not content to await the result of
investigation, but must needs thrust yourself in the public eye! You
must needs assume a position before it was granted! No, sir, I allow you
honest; I allow you to be well-meaning; but your conduct has been
indiscreet, and your client must pay for it. Moreover, I am in the
position of a trustee, and can do nothing. You may go, sir.'

After that Mr. Fishwick had no choice but to withdraw. He did so; and a
moment later Sir George, after paying his respects, followed him. Dr.
Addington was clear-sighted enough to fear that his friend had gone
after the lawyer, and, as soon as he decently could, he went himself in
pursuit. He was relieved to find Sir George alone, pacing the floor of
the room they shared.

The physician took care to hide his real motive and his distrust of
Soane's discretion under a show of heartiness. 'My dear Sir George, I
congratulate you!' he cried, shaking the other effusively by the hand.
'Believe me, 'tis by far the completest way out of the difficulty; and
though I am sorry for the--for the young lady, who seems to have behaved
very honestly--well, time brings its repentances as well as its
revenges. It is possible the match would have done tolerably well,
assuming you to be equal in birth and fortune. But even then 'twas a
risk; 'twas a risk, my dear sir! And now--'

'It is not to be thought of, I suppose?' Sir George said; and he looked
at the other interrogatively.

'Good Lord, no!' the physician answered. 'No, no, no!' he added
weightily.

Sir George nodded, and, turning, looked thoughtfully through the window.
His face still wore a flush. 'Yet something must be done for her,' he
said in a low voice. 'I can't let her here, read that.'

Dr. Addington took the open letter the other handed to him, and, eyeing
it with a frown while he fixed his glasses, afterwards proceeded to
peruse it.

'Sir,' it ran--it was pitifully short--'when I sought you I deemed
myself other than I am. Were I to seek you now I should be other than I
deem myself. We met abruptly, and can part after the same fashion. This
from one who claims to be no more than your well-wisher.--JULIA.'

The doctor laid it down and took a pinch of snuff. 'Good girl!' he
muttered. 'Good girl. That--that confirms me. You must do something for
her, Sir George. Has she--how did you get that, by the way?'

'I found it on the table. I made inquiry, and heard that she left
Marlboro' an hour gone.'

'For?'

'I could not learn.'

'Good girl! Good girl! Yes, certainly you must do something for her.'

'You think so?' Sir George said, with a sudden queer look at the doctor,
'Even you?'

'Even I! An allowance of--I was going to suggest fifty guineas a year,'
Dr. Addington continued impulsively. 'Now, after reading that letter, I
say a hundred. It is not too much, Sir George! 'Fore Gad, it is not too
much. But--'

'But what?'

The physician paused to take an elaborate pinch of snuff. 'You'll
forgive me,' he answered. 'But before this about her birth came out, I
fancied that you were doing, or going about to do the girl no good. Now,
my dear Sir George, I am not strait-laced,' the doctor continued,
dusting the snuff from the lappets of his coat, 'and I know very well
what your friend, my Lord March, would do in the circumstances. And you
have lived much, with him, and think yourself, I dare swear, no better.
But you are, my dear sir--you are, though you may not know it. You are
wondering what I am at? Inclined to take offence, eh? Well, she's a good
girl, Sir George'--he tapped the letter, which lay on the table beside
him--'too good for that! And you'll not lay it on your conscience,
I hope.'

'I will not,' Sir George said quietly.

'Good lad!' Dr. Addington muttered, in the tone Lord Chatham had used;
for it is hard to be much with the great without trying on their shoes.
'Good lad! Good lad!'

Soane did not appear to notice the tone. 'You think an allowance of a
hundred guineas enough?' he said, and looked at the other.

'I think it very handsome,' the doctor answered. 'D----d handsome.'

'Good!' Sir George rejoined. 'Then she shall have that allowance;' and
after staring awhile at the table he nodded assent to his thoughts
and went out.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A HANDSOME ALLOWANCE

The physician might not have deemed his friend so sensible--or so
insensible--had he known that the young man proposed to make the offer
of that allowance in person. Nor to Sir George Soane himself, when he
alighted five days later before The George Inn at Wallingford, did the
offer seem the light and easy thing,

'Of smiles and tears compact,'

it had appeared at Marlborough. He recalled old clashes of wit, and here
and there a spark struck out between them, that, alighting on the flesh,
had burned him. Meanwhile the arrival of so fine a gentleman, travelling
in a post-chaise and four, drew a crowd about the inn. To give the
idlers time to disperse, as well as to remove the stains of the road, he
entered the house, and, having bespoken dinner and the best rooms,
inquired the way to Mr. Fishwick the attorney's. By this time his
servant had blabbed his name; and the story of the duel at Oxford being
known, with some faint savour of his fashion, the landlord was his most
obedient, and would fain have guided his honour to the place cap
in hand.

Rid of him, and informed that the house he sought was neighbour on the
farther side, of the Three Tuns, near the bridge, Sir George strolled
down the long clean street that leads past Blackstone's Church, then in
the building, to the river; Sinodun Hill and the Berkshire Downs,
speaking evening peace, behind him. He paused before a dozen neat houses
with brass knockers and painted shutters, and took each in turn for the
lawyer's. But when he came to the real Mr. Fishwick's, and found it a
mere cottage, white and decent, but no more than a cottage, he thought
that he was mistaken. Then the name of 'Mr. Peter Fishwick,
Attorney-at-Law,' not in the glory of brass, but painted in white
letters on the green door, undeceived him; and, opening the wicket of
the tiny garden, he knocked with the head of his cane on the door.

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