Book: Richard Carvel, Volume 5

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RICHARD CARVEL

By Winston Churchill


Volume 5.


XXVI. The Part Horatio played
XXVII. In which I am sore tempted
XXVIII. Arlington Street
XXIX. I meet a very Great Young Man
XXX. A Conspiracy
XXXI. "Upstairs into the World"
XXXII. Lady Tankerville's Drum-major
XXXIII. Drury Lane



CHAPTER XXVI

THE PART HORATIO PLAYED

The bailiff's business was quickly settled. I heard the heavy doors
close at our backs, and drew a deep draught of the air God has made for
all His creatures alike. Both the captain and I turned to the windows to
wave a farewell to the sad ones we were leaving behind, who gathered
about the bars for a last view of us, for strange as it may seem, the
mere sight of happiness is often a pleasure for those who are sad. A
coach in private arms and livery was in waiting, surrounded by a crowd.
They made a lane for us to pass, and stared at the young lady of queenly
beauty coming out of the sponging-house until the coachman snapped his
whip in their faces and the footman jostled them back. When we were got
in, Dolly and I on the back seat, Comyn told the man to go to Mr.
Manners's.

"Oh, no!" I cried, scarce knowing what I said; "no, not there!" For the
thought of entering the house in Arlington Street was unbearable.

Both Comyn and Dorothy gazed at me in astonishment.

"And pray, Richard, why not'?" she asked. "Have not your old friends
the right to receive you."

It was my Lord who saved me, for I was in agony what to say.

"He is still proud, and won't go to Arlington Street dressed like a
bargeman. He must needs plume, Miss Manners."

I glanced anxiously at Dorothy, and saw that she was neither satisfied
nor appeased. Well I remembered every turn of her head, and every curve
of her lip! In the meantime we were off through Cursitor Street at a
gallop, nearly causing the death of a ragged urchin at the corner of
Chancery Lane. I had forgotten my eagerness to know whence they had
heard of my plight, when some words from Comyn aroused me.

"The carriage is Mr. Horace Walpole's, Richard. He has taken a great
fancy to you."

"But I have never so much as clapped eyes upon him!" I exclaimed in
perplexity.

"How about his honour with whom you supped at Windsor? how about the
landlord you spun by the neck? You should have heard the company laugh
when Horry told us that! And Miss Dolly cried out that she was sure it
must be Richard, and none other. Is it not so, Miss Manners?"

"Really, my Lord, I can't remember," replied Dolly, looking out of the
coach window. "Who put those frightful skulls upon Temple Bar?"

Then the mystery of their coming was clear to me, and the superior
gentleman at the Castle Inn had been the fashionable dabbler in arts and
letters and architecture of Strawberry Hill, of whom I remembered having
heard Dr. Courtenay speak, Horace Walpole. But I was then far too
concerned about Dorothy to listen to more. Her face was still turned
away from me, and she was silent. I could have cut out my tongue for my
blunder. Presently, when we were nearly out of the Strand, she turned
upon me abruptly.

"We have not yet heard, Richard," she said, "how you got into such a
predicament."

"Indeed, I don't know myself, Dolly. Some scoundrel bribed the captain
of the slaver. For I take it Mr. Walpole has told you I was carried off
on a slaver, if he recalled that much of the story."

"I don't mean that," answered Dolly, impatiently. "There is something
strange about all this. How is it that you were in prison?"

"Mr. Dix, my grandfather's agent, took me for an impostor and would
advance me no money," I answered, hard pushed.

But Dorothy had a woman's instinct, which is often the best of
understanding. And I was beginning to think that a suspicion was at the
bottom of her questions. She gave her head an impatient fling, and, as I
feared, appealed to John Paul.

"Perhaps you can tell me, captain, why he did not come to his friends in
his trouble."

And despite my signals to him he replied: "In truth, my dear lady, he
haunted the place for a sight of you, from the moment he set foot in
London."

Comyn laughed, and I felt the blood rise to my face, and kicked John Paul
viciously. Dolly retained her self-possession.

"Pho!" says she; "for a sight of me! You seamen are all alike. For a
sight of me! And had you not strength enough to lift a knocker, sir,
--you who can raise a man from the ground with one hand?"

"'Twas before his tailor had prepared him, madam, and he feared to
disgrace you," the captain gravely continued, and I perceived how futile
it were to attempt to stop him. "And afterward--"

"And afterward?" repeated Dorothy, leaning forward.

"And afterward he went to Arlington Street with Mr. Dix to seek Mr.
Manners, that he might be identified before that gentleman. He
encountered Mr. Manners and his Grace of Something."

"Chartersea," put in Comyn, who had been listening eagerly. "Getting out
of a coach," said the captain.

"When was this?" demanded Dorothy of me, interrupting him. Her voice was
steady, but the colour had left her face.

"About three weeks ago."

"Please be exact, Richard."

"Well, if you must," said I, "the day was Tuesday, and the time about
half an hour after two."

She said nothing for a while, trying to put down an agitation which was
beginning to show itself in spite of her effort. As for me, I was almost
wishing myself back in the sponginghouse.

"Are you sure my father saw you?" she asked presently.

"As clearly as you do now, Dolly," I said.

"But your clothes? He might have gone by you in such."

"I pray that he did, Dorothy," I replied. But I was wholly convinced
that Mr. Manners had recognized me.

"And--and what did he say?" she asked.

For she had the rare courage that never shrinks from the truth. I think
I have never admired and pitied her as at that moment.

"He said to the footman," I answered, resolved to go through with it now,
"'Give the man a shilling.' That was his Grace's suggestion."

My Lord uttered something very near an oath. And she spoke not a word
more until I handed her out in Arlington Street. The rest of us were
silent, too, Comyn now and again giving me eloquent glances expressive of
what he would say if she were not present; the captain watching her with
a furtive praise, and he vowed to me afterward she was never so beautiful
as when angry, that he loved her as an avenging Diana. But I was uneasy,
and when I stood alone with her before the house I begged her not to
speak to her father of the episode.

"Nay, he must be cleared of such an imputation, Richard," she answered
proudly. "He may have made mistakes, but I feel sure he would never turn
you away when you came to him in trouble--you, the grandson of his old
friend, Lionel Carvel."

"Why bother over matters that are past and gone? I would have borne an
hundred such trials to have you come to me as you came to-day, Dorothy.
And I shall surely see you again," I said, trying to speak lightly; "and
your mother, to whom you will present my respects, before I sail for
America."

She looked up at me, startled.

"Before you sail for America!" she exclaimed, in a tone that made me
thrill at once with joy and sadness. "And are you not, then, to see
London now you are here?"

"Are you never coming back, Dolly?" I whispered; for I feared Mr.
Marmaduke might appear at any moment; "or do you wish to remain in
England always?"

For an instant I felt her pressure on my hand, and then she had fled into
the house, leaving me standing by the steps looking after her. Comyn's
voice aroused me.

"To the Star and Garter!" I heard him command, and on the way to Pall
Mall he ceased not to rate Mr. Manners with more vigour than propriety.
"I never liked the little cur, d--n him! No one likes him, Richard," he
declared. "All the town knows how Chartersea threw a bottle at him, and
were it not for his daughter he had long since been put out of White's.
Were it not for Miss Dolly I would call him out for this cowardly trick,
and then publish him."

"Nay, my Lord, I had held that as my privilege," interrupted the captain,
"were it not, as you say, for Miss Manners."

His Lordship shot a glance at John Paul somewhat divided between
surprise, resentment, and amusement.

"Now you have seen the daughter, captain, you perceive it is impossible,"
I hastened to interpose.

"How in the name of lineage did she come to have such a father?" Comyn
went on. "I thank Heaven he's not mine. He's not fit to be her lackey.
I would sooner twenty times have a profligate like my Lord Sandwich for a
parent than a milk and water sop like Manners, who will risk nothing over
a crown piece at play or a guinea at Newmarket. By G--, Richard," said
his Lordship, bringing his fist against the glass with near force enough
to break the pane, "I have a notion why he did not choose to see you that
day. Why, he has no more blood than a louse!"

I had come to the guess as soon as he, but I dared not give it voice,
nor anything but ridicule. And so we came to the hotel, the red of
departing day fading in the sky above the ragged house-line in St.
James's Street.

It was a very different reception we got than when we had first come
there. You, my dears, who live in this Republic can have no notion of
the stir and bustle caused by the arrival of Horace Walpole's carriage
at a fashionable hotel, at a time when every innkeeper was versed in the
arms of every family of note in the three kingdoms. Our friend the
chamberlain was now humility itself, and fairly ran in his eagerness to
anticipate Comyn's demands. It was "Yes, my Lord," and "To be sure, your
Lordship," every other second, and he seized the first occasion to make
me an elaborate apology for his former cold conduct, assuring me that had
our honours been pleased to divulge the fact that we had friends in
London, such friends as my Lord Comyn and Mr. Walpole, whose great father
he had once had the distinction to serve as linkman, all would have been
well. And he was desiring me particularly to comprehend that he had been
acting under most disagreeable orders when he sent for the bailiff,
before I cut him short.

We were soon comfortably installed in our old rooms; Comyn had sent
post-haste for Davenport, who chanced to be his own tailor, and for the
whole army of auxiliaries indispensable to a gentleman's make-up; and Mr.
Dix was notified that his Lordship would receive him at eleven on the
following morning, in my rooms. I remembered the faithful Banks with a
twinge of gratitude, and sent for him. And John Paul and I, having been
duly installed in the clothes made for us, all three of us sat down
merrily to such a supper as only the cook of the Star and Garter, who had
been chef to the Comte de Maurepas, could prepare. Then I begged Comyn
to relate the story of our rescue, which I burned to hear.

"Why, Richard," said he, filling his glass, "had you run afoul any other
man in London, save perchance Selwyn, you'd have been drinking the
bailiff's triple-diluted for a month to come. I never knew such a brace
of fools as he and Horry for getting hold of strange yarns and making
them stranger; the wonder was that Horry told this as straight as he did.
He has written it to all his friends on the Continent, and had he not
been in dock with the gout ever since he reached town, he would have told
it at the opera, and at a dozen routs and suppers. Beg pardon, captain,"
said he, turning to John Paul, "but I think 'twas your peacock coat that
saved you both, for it caught Horry's eye through the window, as you got
out of the chaise, and down he came as fast as he could hobble.

"Horry had a little dinner to-day in Arlington Street, where he lives,
and Miss Dorothy was there. I have told you, Richard, there has been no
sensation in town equal to that of your Maryland beauty, since Lady Sarah
Lennox. You may have some notion of the old beau Horry can be when he
tries, and he is over-fond of Miss Dolly--she puts him in mind of
some canvas or other of Sir Peter's. He vowed he had been saving this
piece de resistance, as he was pleased to call it, expressly for her,
since it had to do somewhat with Maryland. 'What d'ye think I met at
Windsor, Miss Manners?' he cries, before we had begun the second course.

"'Perhaps a repulse from his Majesty,' says Dolly, promptly.

"'Nay,' says Mr. Walpole, making a face, for he hates a laugh at his
cost; nothing less than a young American giant, with the attire of Dr.
Benjamin Franklin and the manner of the Fauxbourg Saint Germain. But he
had a whiff of deer leather about him, and shoulders and back and legs to
make his fortune at Hockley in the Hole, had he lived two generations
since. And he had with him a strange, Scotch sea-captain, who had
rescued him from pirates, bless you, no less. That is, he said he was a
sea-captain; but he talked French like a Parisian, and quoted Shakespeare
like Mr. Burke or Dr. Johnson. He may have been M. Caron de
Beaumarchais, for I never saw him, or a soothsayer, or Cagliostro the
magician, for he guessed my name.'

"'Guessed your name!' we cried, for the story was out of the ordinary.

"'Just that,' answered he, and repeated some damned verse I never heard,
with Horatio in it, and made them all laugh."

John Paul and I looked at each other in astonishment, and we, too,
laughed heartily. It was indeed an odd coincidence.

His Lordship continued:
"'Well, be that as it may,' said Horry, 'he was an able man of sagacity,
this sea-captain, and, like many another, had a penchant for being a
gentleman. But he was more of an oddity than Hertford's beast of
Gevaudan, and was dressed like Salvinio, the monkey my Lord Holland
brought back from his last Italian tour.'"

I have laughed over this description since, my dears, and so has John
Paul. But at that time I saw nothing funny in it, and winced with him
when Comyn repeated it with such brutal unconsciousness. However, young
Englishmen of birth and wealth of that day were not apt to consider the
feelings of those they deemed below them.

"Come to your story. Comyn," I cut in testily.

But his Lordship missed entirely the cause of my displeasure.

"Listen to him!" he exclaimed good-naturedly. "He will hear of nothing
but Miss Dolly. Well, Richard, my lad, you should have seen her as Horry
went on to tell that you had been taken from Maryland, with her head
forward and her lips parted, and a light in those eyes of hers to make a
man fall down and worship. For Mr. Lloyd, or some one in your Colony,
had written of your disappearance, and I vow bliss Dorothy has not been
the same since. Nor have I been the only one to remark it," said he,
waving off my natural protest at such extravagance. "We have talked of
you more than once, she and I, and mourned you for dead. But I am off my
course again, as we sailors say, captain. Horry was describing how
Richard lifted little Goble by one hand and spun all the dignity out of
him, when Miss Manners broke in, being able to contain herself no longer.

"'An American, Mr. Walpole, and from Maryland?' she demanded. And the
way she said it made them all look at her.

"'Assurement, mademoiselle,' replied Horry, in his cursed French; and
perhaps you know him. He would gladden the heart of Frederick of
Prussia, for he stands six and three if an inch. I took such a fancy to
the lad that I invited him to sup with me, and he gave me back a message
fit for Mr. Wilkes to send to his Majesty, as haughty as you choose, that
if I desired him I must have his friend in the bargain. You Americans
are the very devil for independence, Miss Manners! 'Ods fish, I liked
his spirit so much I had his friend, Captain something or other--'and
there he stopped, caught by Miss Manners's appearance, for she was very
white.

"'The name is Richard Carvel!' she cried.

"'I'll lay a thousand it was!' I shouted, rising in my chair. And the
company stared, and Lady Pembroke vowed I had gone mad.

"'Bless me, bless me, here's a romance for certain!' cried Horry; 'it
throws my "Castle of Otranto" in the shade' ("that's some damned book he
has written," Comyn interjected).

"You may not believe me, Richard, when I say that Miss Dolly ate but
little after that, and her colour came and went like the red of a stormy
sunset at sea. 'Here's this dog Richard come to spill all our chances,' I
swore to myself. The company had been prodigiously entertained by the
tale, and clamoured for more, and when Horry had done I told how you had
fought me at Annapolis, and had saved my life. But Miss Manners sat very
still, biting her lip, and I knew she was sadly vexed that you had not
gone to her in Arlington Street. For a woman will reason thus," said his
Lordship, winking wisely. "But I more than suspected something to have
happened, so I asked Horry to send his fellow Favre over to the Star and
Garter to see if you were there, tho' I was of three minds to let you go
to the devil. You should have seen her face when he came back to say that
you had been for three weeks in a Castle Yard sponging-house! Then Horry
said he would lend me his coach, and when it was brought around Miss
Manners took our breaths by walking downstairs and into it, nor would she
listen to a word of the objections cried by my Lady Pembroke and the
rest. You must know there is no stopping the beauty when she has made her
mind. And while they were all chattering on the steps I jumped in, and
off we drove, and you will be the most talked-of man in London to-morrow.
I give you Miss Manners!" cried his Lordship, as he ended.

We all stood to the toast, I with my blood a-tingle and my brain awhirl,
so that I scarce knew what I did.




CHAPTER XXVII

IN WHICH I AM SORE TEMPTED

"Who the devil is this John Paul, and what is to become of him?" asked
Comyn, as I escorted him downstairs to a chair. "You must give him two
hundred pounds, or a thousand, if you like, and let him get out. He
can't be coming to the clubs with you."

And he pulled me into the coffee room after him.

"You don't understand the man, Comyn," said I; "he isn't that kind,
I tell you. What he has done for me is out of friendship, as he says,
and he wouldn't touch a farthing save what I owe him."

"Cursed if he isn't a rum sea-captain," he answered, shrugging his
shoulders; "cursed if I ever ran foul of one yet who would refuse a
couple of hundred and call quits. What's he to do? Is he to live like a
Lord of the Treasury upon a master's savings?"

"Jack," said I, soberly, resolved not to be angry, "I would willingly be
cast back in Castle Yard to-night rather than desert him, who might have
deserted me twenty times to his advantage. Mr. Carvel has not wealth
enough, nor I gratitude enough, to reward him. But if our family can
make his fortune, it shall be made. And I am determined to go with him
to America by the first packet I can secure."

He clutched my arm with an earnestness to startle me.

"You must not leave England now," he said.

"And why?"

"Because she will marry Chartersea if you do. And take my oath upon it,
you alone can save her from that."

"Nonsense!" I exclaimed, but my breath caught sharply.

"Listen, Richard. Mr. Manners's manoeuvres are the talk of the town, and
the beast of a duke is forever wining and dining in Arlington Street. At
first people ridiculed, now they are giving credit. It is said," he
whispered fearfully, "it is said that his Grace has got Mr. Manners in
his power,--some question of honour, you understand, which will ruin
him,--and that even now the duke is in a position to force the marriage."

He leaned forward and searched me with his keen gray eyes, as tho'
watching the effect of the intelligence upon me. I was, indeed, stunned.

"Now, had she refused me fifty times instead of only twice," my Lord
continued, "I could not wish her such a fate as that vicious scoundrel.
And since she will not have me, I would rather it were you than any man
alive. For she loves you, Richard, as surely as the world is turning."

"Oh, no!" I replied passionately; "you are deceived by the old liking she
has always had for me since we were children together." I was deeply
touched by his friendship. "But tell me how that could affect this
marriage with Chartersea. I believe her pride capable of any sacrifice
for the family honour."

He made a gesture of impatience that knocked over a candlestick.

"There, curse you, there you are again!" he said, "showing how little you
know of women and of their pride. If she were sure that you loved her,
she would never marry Chartersea or any one else. She has had near the
whole of London at her feet, and toyed with it. Now she has been amusing
herself with Charles Fox, but I vow she cares for none of them. Titles,
fame, estates, will not move her."

"If she were sure that I loved her!" I repeated, dazed by what he was
saying. "How you are talking, Comyn!"

"Just that. Ah, how I know her, Richard! She can be reckless beyond
notion. And if it were proved to her that you were in love with Miss
Swain, the barrister's daughter, over whom we were said to have fought,
she would as soon marry Chartersea, or March, or the devil, to show you
how little she cared."

"With Patty Swain!" I exclaimed.

"But if she knew you did not care a rope's end for Patty, Mr. Marmaduke
and his reputation might go into exile together," he continued, without
heeding. "So much for a woman's pride, I say. The day the news of your
disappearance arrived, Richard, she was starting out with a party to
visit Lord Carlisle's seat, Castle Howard. Not a step would she stir,
though Mr. Marmaduke whined and coaxed and threatened. And I swear to
you she has never been the same since, though few but I know why. I
might tell you more, my lad, were it not a breach of confidence."

"Then don't," I said; for I would not let my feelings run.

"Egad, then, I will!" he cried impetuously, "for the end justifies it.
You must know that after the letter came from Mr. Lloyd, we thought you
dead. I could never get her to speak of you until a fortnight ago. We
both had gone with a party to see Wanstead and dine at the Spread Eagle
upon the Forest, and I stole her away from the company and led her out
under the trees. My God, Richard, how beautiful she was in the wood
with the red in her cheeks and the wind blowing her black hair! For the
second time I begged her to be Lady Comyn. Fool that I was, I thought
she wavered, and my heart beat as it never will again. Then, as she
turned away, from her hand slipped a little gold-bound purse, and as I
picked it up a clipping from a newspaper fluttered out. 'Pon my soul,
it was that very scandalous squib of the Maryland Gazette about our duel!
I handed it back with a bow. I dared not look up at her face, but stood
with my eyes on the ground, waiting.

"'Lord Comyn,' says she, presently, with a quiver in her voice, 'before I
give you a reply you must first answer, on your word as a gentleman, what
I ask you.'

"I bowed again.

"'Is it true that Richard Carvel was in love with Miss Swain?' she
asked."

"And you said, Comyn," I broke in, unable longer to contain myself, "you
said--"

"I said: 'Dorothy, if I were to die to-morrow, I would swear Richard
Carvel loved you, and you only.'"

His Lordship had spoken with that lightness which hides only the deepest
emotion.

"And she refused you?" I cried. "Oh, surely not for that!"

"And she did well," said my Lord.

I bowed my head on my arms, for I had gone through a great deal that day,
and this final example of Comyn's generosity overwhelmed me. Then I felt
his hand laid kindly on my shoulder, and I rose up and seized it. His
eyes were dim, as were mine.

"And now, will you go to Maryland and be a fool?" asked his Lordship.

I hesitated, sadly torn between duty and inclination. John Paul could,
indeed, go to America without me. Next the thought came over me in a
flash that my grandfather might be ill, or even dead, and there would be
no one to receive the captain. I knew he would never consent to spend
the season at the Star and Garter at my expense. And then the image of
the man rose before me, of him who had given me all he owned, and gone
with me so cheerfully to prison, though he knew me not from the veriest
adventurer and impostor. I was undecided no longer.

"I must go, Jack," I said sadly; "as God judges, I must."

He looked at me queerly, as if I were beyond his comprehension, picked up
his hat, called out that he would see me in the morning, and was gone.

I went slowly upstairs, threw off my clothes mechanically, and tumbled
into bed. The captain had long been asleep. By the exertion of all the
will power I could command, I was able gradually to think more and more
soberly, and the more I thought, the more absurd, impossible, it seemed
that I, a rough provincial not yet of age, should possess the heart of a
beauty who had but to choose from the best of all England. An hundred
times I went over the scene of poor Comyn's proposal, nay, saw it
vividly, as though the whole of it had been acted before me: and as I
became calmer, the plainer I perceived that Dorothy, thinking me dead,
was willing to let Comyn believe that she had loved me, and had so eased
the soreness of her refusal. Perhaps, in truth, a sentiment had sprung
up in her breast when she heard of my disappearance, which she mistook
for love. But surely the impulse that sent her to Castle Yard was not
the same as that Comyn had depicted: it was merely the survival of the
fancy of a little girl in a grass-stained frock, who had romped on the
lawn at Carvel Hall. I sighed as I remembered the sun and the flowers
and the blue Chesapeake, and recalled the very toss of her head when she
had said she would marry nothing less than a duke.

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