Book: My Novel, Volume 10.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> My Novel, Volume 10.




"And this is all that he does for you!" cried the baron, pressing
together the points of his ten taper fingers. "Had he but let you
conclude your career at Oxford, I have heard enough of your scholarship
to know that you would have taken high honours, been secure of a
fellowship, have betaken yourself with content to a slow and laborious
profession, and prepared yourself to die on the woolsack."

"He proposes to me now to return to Oxford," said Randal. "It is not too
late!"

"Yes, it is," said the baron. "Neither individuals nor nations ever go
back of their own accord. There must be an earthquake before a river
recedes to its source."

"You speak well," answered Randal, "and I cannot gainsay you. But now!"

"Ah, the now is the grand question in life, the then is obsolete, gone
by,--out of fashion; and now, /mon cher/, you come to ask my advice?"

"No, Baron, I come to ask your explanation." "Of what?"

"I want to know why you spoke to me of Mr. Egerton's ruin; why you spoke
to me of the lands to be sold by Mr. Thornhill; and why you spoke to me
of Count Peschiera. You touched on each of those points within ten
minutes, you omitted to indicate what link can connect them."

"By Jove," said the baron, rising, and with more admiration in his face
than you could have conceived that face, so smiling and so cynical, could
exhibit,--"by Jove, Randal Leslie, but your shrewdness is wonderful. You
really are the first young man of your day; and I will 'help you,' as I
helped Audley Egerton. Perhaps you will be more grateful."

Randal thought of Egerton's ruin. The parallel implied by the baron did
not suggest to him the rare enthusiasm of gratitude. However, he merely
said, "Pray, proceed; I listen to you with interest."

"As for politics, then," said the baron, "we will discuss that topic
later. I am waiting myself to see how these new men get on. The first
consideration is for your private fortunes. You should buy this ancient
Leslie property--Rood and Dulmansberry--only L20,000 down; the rest may
remain on mortgage forever--or at least till I find you a rich wife,--as
in fact I did for Egerton. Thornhill wants the L20,000 now,--wants them
very much."

"And where," said Randal, with an iron smile, "are the L20,000 you
ascribe to me to come from?"

"Ten thousand shall come to you the day Count Peschiera marries the
daughter of his kinsman with your help and aid; the remaining ten
thousand I will lend you. No scruple, I shall hazard nothing, the
estates will bear that additional burden. What say you,--shall it be
so?"

"Ten thousand pounds from Count Peschiera!" said Randal, breathing hard.
"You cannot be serious? Such a sum--for what?--for a mere piece of
information? How otherwise can I aid him? There must be trick and
deception intended here."

"My dear fellow," answered Levy, "I will give you a hint. There is such
a thing in life as being over-suspicious. If you have a fault, it is
that. The information you allude to is, of course, the first assistance
you are to give. Perhaps more may be needed, perhaps not. Of that you
will judge yourself, since the L10,000 are contingent on the marriage
aforesaid."

"Over-suspicious or not," answered Randal, "the amount of the sum is too
improbable, and the security too bad, for me to listen to this
proposition, even if I could descend to--"

"Stop, /mon cher/. Business first, scruples afterwards. The security
too bad; what security?"

"The word of Count di Peschiera."

"He has nothing to do with it, he need know nothing about it. 'T is my
word you doubt. I am your security."

Randal thought of that dry witticism in Gibbon, "Abu Rafe says he will be
witness for this fact, but who will be witness for Abu Rafe?" but he
remained silent, only fixing on Levy those dark observant eyes, with
their contracted, wary pupils.

"The fact is simply this," resumed Levy: "Count di Peschiera has promised
to pay his sister a dowry of L20,000, in case he has the money to spare.
He can only have it to spare by the marriage we are discussing. On my
part, as I manage his affairs in England for him, I have promised that,
for the said sum of L20,000, I will guarantee the expenses in the way of
that marriage, and settle with Madame di Negra. Now, though Peschiera is
a very liberal, warm-hearted fellow, I don't say that he would have named
so large a sum for his sister's dowry, if in strict truth he did not owe
it to her. It is the amount of her own fortune, which by some
arrangements with her late husband, not exactly legal, he possessed
himself of. If Madame di Negra went to law with him for it, she could
get it back. I have explained this to him; and, in short, you now
understand why the sum is thus assessed. But I have bought up Madame di
Negra's debts, I have bought up young Hazeldean's (for we must make a
match between these two a part of our arrangements). I shall present to
Peschiera, and to these excellent young persons, an account that will
absorb the whole L20,000. That sum will come into my hands. If I settle
the claims against them for half the money, which, making myself the sole
creditor, I have the right to do, the moiety will remain. And if I
choose to give it to you in return for the services which provide
Peschiera with a princely fortune, discharge the debts of his sister, and
secure her a husband in my promising young client, Mr. Hazeldean, that is
my lookout,--all parties are satisfied, and no one need ever be the
wiser. The sum is large, no doubt; it answers to me to give it to you;
does it answer to you to receive it?"

Randal was greatly agitated; but vile as he was, and systematically as in
thought he had brought himself to regard others merely as they could be
made subservient to his own interest, still, with all who have not
hardened themselves in actual crime, there is a wide distinction between
the thought and the act; and though, in the exercise of ingenuity and
cunning, he would have had few scruples in that moral swindling which is
mildly called "outwitting another," yet thus nakedly and openly to accept
a bribe for a deed of treachery towards the poor Italian who had so
generously trusted him--he recoiled. He was nerving himself to refuse,
when Levy, opening his pocket-book, glanced over the memoranda therein,
and said, as to himself, "Rood Manor--Dulmansberry, sold to the
Thornhills by Sir Gilbert Leslie, knight of the shire; estimated present
net rental L2,250 7s. 0d. It is the greatest bargain I ever knew. And
with this estate in hand, and your talents, Leslie, I don't see why you
should not rise higher than Audley Egerton. He was poorer than you
once!"

The old Leslie lands--a positive stake in the country--the restoration of
the fallen family; and on the other hand, either long drudgery at the
Bar,--a scanty allowance on Egerton's bounty, his sister wasting her
youth at slovenly, dismal Rood, Oliver debased into a boor!--or a
mendicant's dependence on the contemptuous pity of Harley L'Estrange,--
Harley, who had refused his hand to him, Harley, who perhaps would become
the husband of Violante! Rage seized him as these contrasting pictures
rose before his view. He walked to and fro in disorder, striving to
re-collect his thoughts, and reduce himself from the passions of the
human heart into the mere mechanism of calculating intellect. "I cannot
conceive," said he, abruptly, "why you should tempt me thus,--what
interest it is to you!"

Baron Levy smiled, and put up his pocket-book. He saw from that moment
that the victory was gained.

"My dear boy," said he, with the most agreeable bonhommie, "it is very
natural that you should think a man would have a personal interest in
whatever he does for another. I believe that view of human nature is
called utilitarian philosophy, and is much in fashion at present. Let me
try and explain to you. In this affair I sha'n't injure myself. True,
you will say, if I settle claims which amount to L20,000 for L10,000, I
might put the surplus into my own pocket instead of yours. Agreed. But
I shall not get the L20,000, nor repay myself Madame di Negra's debts
(whatever I may do as to Hazeldean's), unless the count gets this
heiress. You can help in this. I want you; and I don't think I could
get you by a less offer than I make. I shall soon pay myself back the
L10,000 if the count get hold of the lady and her fortune. Brief, I see
my way here to my own interests. Do you want more reasons,--you shall
have them. I am now a very rich man. How have I become so? Through
attaching myself from the first to persons of expectations, whether from
fortune or talent. I have made connections in society, and society has
enriched me. I have still a passion for making money. "/Que voulez-
vous/?" It is my profession, my hobby. It will be useful to me in a
thousand ways to secure as a friend a young man who will have influence
with other young men, heirs to something better than Rood Hall. You may
succeed in public life. A man in public life may attain to the knowledge
of State secrets that are very profitable to one who dabbles a little in
the Funds. We can perhaps hereafter do business together that may put
yourself in a way of clearing off all mortgages on these estates,--on the
encumbered possession of which I shall soon congratulate you. You see I
am frank; 't is the only way of coming to the point with so clever a
fellow as you. And now, since the less we rake up the mud in a pond from
which we have resolved to drink the better, let us dismiss all other
thoughts but that of securing our end. Will you tell Peschiera where the
young lady is, or shall I? Better do it yourself; reason enough for it,
that he has confided to you his hope, and asked you to help him; why
should not you? Not a word to him about our little arrangement; he need
never know it. You need never be troubled." Levy rang the bell: "Order
my carriage round."

Randal made no objection. He was deathlike pale, but there was a
sinister expression of firmness on his thin, bloodless lips.

"The next point," Levy resumed, "is to hasten the match between Frank and
the fair widow. How does that stand?"

"She will not see me, nor receive him."

"Oh, learn why! And if you find on either side there is a hitch, just
let me know; I will soon remove it."

"Has Hazeldean consented to the post-obit?"

"Not yet; I have not pressed it; I wait the right moment, if necessary."

"It will be necessary."

"Ah, you wish it. It shall be so."

Randal Leslie again paced the room, and after a silent self-commune came
up close to the baron, and said,

"Look you, sir, I am poor and ambitious; you have tempted me at the right
moment, and with the right inducement. I succumb. But what guarantee
have I that this money will be paid, these estates made mine upon the
conditions stipulated?"

"Before anything is settled," replied the baron, "go and ask my character
of any of our young friends, Borrowell, Spendquick--whom you please; you
will hear me abused, of course; but they will all say this of me, that
when I pass my word, I keep it. If I say, '/Mon cher/, you shall have
the money,' a man has it; if I say, 'I renew your bill for six months,'
it is renewed. 'T, is my way of doing business. In all cases any word
is my bond. In this case, where no writing can pass between us, my only
bond must be my word. Go, then, make your mind clear as to your
security, and come here and dine at eight. We will call on Peschiera
afterwards."

"Yes," said Randal, "I will at all events take the day to consider.
Meanwhile, I say this, I do not disguise from myself the nature of the
proposed transaction, but what I have once resolved I go through with.
My sole vindication to myself is, that if I play here with a false die,
it will be for a stake so grand, as once won, the magnitude of the prize
will cancel the ignominy of the play. It is not this sum of money for
which I sell myself,--it is for what that sum will aid me to achieve.
And in the marriage of young Hazeldean with the Italian woman, I have
another, and it may be a larger interest. I have slept on it lately,--
I wake to it now. Insure that marriage, obtain the post-obit. from
Hazeldean, and whatever the issue of the more direct scheme for which you
seek my services, rely on my gratitude, and believe that you will have
put me in the way to render gratitude of avail. At eight I will be with
you."

Randal left the room.

The baron sat thoughtful. "It is true," said he to himself, "this young
man is the next of kin to the Hazeldean estate, if Frank displease his
father sufficiently to lose his inheritance; that must be the clever
boy's design. Well, in the long-run, I should make as much, or more, out
of him than out of the spendthrift Frank. Frank's faults are those of
youth. He will reform and retrench. But this man! No, I shall have him
for life. And should he fail in this project, and have but this
encumbered property--a landed proprietor mortgaged up to his ears--why,
he is my slave, and I can foreclose when I wish, or if he prove useless;
--no, I risk nothing. And if I did--if I lost L10,000--what then? I can
afford it for revenge!--afford it for the luxury of leaving Audley
Egerton alone with penury and ruin, deserted, in his hour of need, by the
pensioner of his bounty, as he will be by the last friend of his youth,
when it so pleases me,--me whom he has called 'scoundrel'! and whom he--"
Levy's soliloquy halted there, for the servant entered to announce the
carriage. And the baron hurried his band over his features, as if to
sweep away all trace of the passions that distorted their smiling
effrontery. And so, as he took up his cane and gloves, and glanced at
the glass, the face of the fashionable usurer was once more as varnished
as his boots.




CHAPTER XIX.

When a clever man resolves on a villanous action, he hastens, by the
exercise of his cleverness, to get rid of the sense of his villany. With
more than his usual alertness, Randal employed the next hour or two in
ascertaining how far Baron Levy merited the character he boasted, and how
far his word might be his bond. He repaired to young men whom be
esteemed better judges on these points than Spendquick and Borrowell,--
young men who resembled the Merry Monarch, inasmuch as--

"They never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one."

There are many such young men about town,--sharp and able in all affairs
except their own. No one knows the world better, nor judges of character
more truly, than your half-beggared /roue/. From all these Baron Levy
obtained much the same testimonials: he was ridiculed as a would-be
dandy, but respected as a very responsible man of business, and rather
liked as a friendly, accommodating species of the Sir Epicure Mammon, who
very often did what were thought handsome, liberal things; and, "in
short," said one of these experienced referees, "he is the best fellow
going--for a money-lender! You may always rely on what he promises, and
he is generally very forbearing and indulgent to us of good society;
perhaps for the same reason that our tailors are,--to send one of us to
prison would hurt his custom. His foible is to be thought a gentleman.
I believe, much as I suppose he loves money, he would give up half his
fortune rather than do anything for which we could cut him. He allows a
pension of three hundred a year to Lord S-----. True; he was his man of
business for twenty years, and before then S----- was rather a prudent
fellow, and had fifteen thousand a year. He has helped on, too, many a
clever young man,--the best borough-monger you ever knew. He likes
having friends in parliament. In fact, of course he is a rogue; but if
one wants a rogue, one can't find a pleasanter. I should like to see him
on the French stage,--a prosperous /Macaire/; Le Maitre could hit him off
to the life."

From information in these more fashionable quarters, gleaned with his
usual tact, Randal turned to a source less elevated, but to which he
attached more importance. Dick Avenel associated with the baron,--Dick
Avenel must be in his clutches. Now Randal did justice to that
gentleman's practical shrewdness. Moreover, Avenel was by profession a
man of business. He must know more of Levy than these men of pleasure
could; and as he was a plain-spoken person, and evidently honest, in the
ordinary acceptation of the word, Randal did not doubt that out of Dick
Avenel he should get the truth.

On arriving in Eaton Square, and asking for Mr. Avenel, Randal was at
once ushered into the drawing-room. The apartment was not in such good,
solid, mercantile taste as had characterized Avenel's more humble
bachelor's residence at Screwstown. The taste now was the Honourable
Mrs. Avenel's; and, truth to say, no taste could be worse. Furniture of
all epochs heterogeneously clumped together,--here a sofa /a la
renaissance/ in Gobelin; there a rosewood Console from Gillow; a tall
mock-Elizabethan chair in black oak, by the side of a modern Florentine
table of Mosaic marbles; all kinds of colours in the room, and all at war
with each other; very bad copies of the best-known pictures in the world
in the most gaudy frames, and impudently labelled by the names of their
murdered originals,--"Raphael," "Corregio," "Titian," "Sebastian del
Piombo." Nevertheless, there had been plenty of money spent, and there
was plenty to show for it. Mrs. Avenel was seated on her sofa /a la
renaissance/, with one of her children at her feet, who was employed in
reading a new Annual in crimson silk binding. Mrs. Avenel was in an
attitude as if sitting for her portrait.

Polite society is most capricious in its adoptions or rejections. You
see many a very vulgar person firmly established in the /beau monde/;
others, with very good pretensions as to birth, fortune, etc., either
rigorously excluded, or only permitted a peep over the pales. The
Honourable Mrs. Avenel belonged to families unquestionably noble, both by
her own descent and by her first marriage; and if poverty had kept her
down in her earlier career, she now, at least, did not want wealth to
back her pretensions. Nevertheless, all the dispensers of fashion
concurred in refusing their support to the Honourable Mrs. Avenel. One
might suppose it was solely on account of her plebeian husband; but
indeed it was not so. Many a woman of high family can marry a low-born
man not so presentable as Avenel, and, by the help of his money, get the
fine world at her feet. But Mrs. Avenel had not that art. She was still
a very handsome, showy woman; and as for dress, no duchess could be more
extravagant. Yet these very circumstances had perhaps gone against her
ambition; for your quiet little plain woman, provoking no envy, slips
into coteries, when a handsome, flaunting lady--whom, once seen in your
drawing-room, can be no more over-looked than a scarlet poppy amidst a
violet bed--is pretty sure to be weeded out as ruthlessly as a poppy
would be in a similar position.

Mr. Avenel was sitting by the fire, rather moodily, his hands in his
pockets, and whistling to himself. To say truth, that active mind of his
was very much bored in London, at least during the fore part of the day.
He hailed Randal's entrance with a smile of relief, and rising and
posting himself before the fire--a coat tail under each arm--he scarcely
allowed Randal to shake hands with Mrs. Avenel, and pat the child on the
head, murmuring, "Beautiful creature!" (Randal was ever civil to
children,--that sort of wolf in sheep's clothing always is; don't be
taken in, O you foolish young mothers!)--Dick, I say, scarcely allowed
his visitor these preliminary courtesies, before he plunged far beyond
depth of wife and child into the political ocean. "Things now were
coming right,--a vile oligarchy was to be destroyed. British
respectability and British talent were to have fair play." To have heard
him you would have thought the day fixed for the millennium! "And what
is more," said Avenel, bringing down the fist of his right hand upon the
palm of his left, "if there is to be a new parliament, we must have new
men; not worn-out old brooms that never sweep clean, but men who
understand how to govern the country, Sir. I INTEND TO COME IN MYSELF!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Avenel, hooking in a word at last, "I am sure, Mr.
Leslie, you will think I did right. I persuaded Mr. Avenel that, with
his talents and property, he ought, for the sake of his country, to make
a sacrifice; and then you know his opinions now are all the fashion,
Mr. Leslie; formerly they would have been called shocking and vulgar!"

Thus saying, she looked with fond pride at Dick's comely face, which at
that moment, however, was all scowl and frown. I must do justice to Mrs.
Avenel; she was a weak woman, silly in some things, and a cunning one in
others, but she was a good wife as wives go. Scotch women generally are.
"Bother!" said Dick. "What do women know about politics? I wish you'd
mind the child,--it is crumpling up and playing almighty smash with that
flim-flam book, which cost me one pound one."

Mrs. Avenel submissively bowed her head, and removed the Annual from the
hands of the young destructive; the destructive set up a squall, as
destructives usually do when they don't have their own way. Dick clapped
his hand to his ears. "Whe-e-ew, I can't stand this; come and take a
walk, Leslie: I want stretching!" He stretched himself as he spoke,
first half-way up to the ceiling, and then fairly out of the room.

Randal, with his May Fair manner, turned towards Mrs. Avenel as if to
apologize for her husband and himself.

"Poor Richard!" said she, "he is in one of his humours,--all men have
them. Come and see me again soon. When does Almack's open?"

"Nay, I ought to ask you that question,--you who know everything that
goes on in our set," said the young serpent. Any tree planted in "our
set," if it had been but a crab-tree, would have tempted Mr. Avenel's Eve
to jump at its boughs.

"Are you coming, there?" cried Dick, from the foot of the stairs.




CHAPTER XX.

"I have just been at our friend Levy's," said Randal, when he and Dick
were outside the street door. "He, like you, is full of politics;
pleasant man,--for the business he is said to do."

"Well," said Dick, slowly, "I suppose he is pleasant, but make the best
of it--and still--"

"Still what, my dear Avenel?" (Randal here for the first time discarded
the formal Mister.)

MR. AVENEL.--"Still the thing itself is not pleasant."

RANDAL (with his soft hollow laugh).--"You mean borrowing money upon more
than five per cent?"

"Oh, curse the percentage. I agree with Bentham on the Usury Laws,--no
shackles in trade for me, whether in money or anything else. That's not
it. But when one owes a fellow money even at two per cent, and 't is not
convenient to pay him, why, somehow or other, it makes one feel small; it
takes the British Liberty out of a man!"

"I should have thought you more likely to lend money than to borrow it."

"Well, I guess you are right there, as a general rule. But I tell you
what it is, sir; there is too great a mania for competition getting up
in this rotten old country of ours. I am as liberal as most men. I like
competition to a certain extent, but there is too much of it, sir,--too
much of it." Randal looked sad and convinced. But if Leonard had heard
Dick Avenel, what would have been his amaze? Dick Avenel rail against
competition! Think there could be too much of it! "Of course heaven and
earth are coming together," said the spider, when the housemaid's broom
invaded its cobweb. Dick was all for sweeping away other cobwebs; but he
certainly thought heaven and earth coming together when he saw a great
Turk's-head besom poked up at his own.

Mr. Avenel, in his genius for speculation and improvement, had
established a factory at Screwstown, the first which had ever eclipsed
the church spire with its Titanic chimney. It succeeded well at first.
Mr. Avenel transferred to this speculation nearly all his capital.
"Nothing," quoth he, "paid such an interest. Manchester was getting worn
out,--time to show what Screwstown could do. Nothing like competition."
But by-and-by a still greater capitalist than Dick Avenel, finding out
that Screwstown was at the mouth of a coal mine, and that Dick's profits
were great, erected a still uglier edifice, with a still taller chimney.
And having been brought up to the business, and making his residence in
the town, while Dick employed a foreman and flourished in London, this
infamous competitor so managed, first to share, and then gradually to
sequester, the profits which Dick had hitherto monopolized, that no
wonder Mr. Avenel thought competition should have its limits. "The
tongue touches where the tooth aches," as Dr. Riccabocca would tell us.
By little and little our Juvenile Talleyrand (I beg the elder great man's
pardon) wormed out from Dick this grievance, and in the grievance
discovered the origin of Dick's connection with the money-lender.

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