Book: Richard Carvel, Volume 7

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RICHARD CARVEL

By Winston Churchill


Volume 7.


XLII. My Friends are proven
XLIII. Annapolis once more
XLIV. Noblesse Oblige
XLV. The House of Memories
XLVI. Gordon's Pride
XLVII. Visitors
XLVIII. Multum in Parvo
XLIX. Liberty loses a Friend




CHAPTER XLII

MY FRIENDS ARE PROVEN

At the door of my lodgings I was confronted by Banks, red with
indignation and fidgety from uneasiness.

"O Lord, Mr. Carvel, what has happened, sir?" he cried. "Your honour's
agent 'as been here since noon. Must I take orders from the likes o'
him, sir?"

Mr. Dix was indeed in possession of my rooms, lounging in the chair Dolly
had chosen, smoking my tobacco. I stared at him from the threshold.
Something in my appearance, or force of habit, or both brought him to his
feet, and wiped away the smirk from his face. He put down the pipe
guiltily. I told him shortly that I had heard the news which he must
have got by the packet: and that he should have his money, tho' it took
the rest of my life: and the ten per cent I had promised him provided he
would not press my Lord Comyn. He hesitated, and drummed on the table.
He was the man of business again.

"What security am I to have, Mr. Carvel?" he asked.

"My word," I said. "It has never yet been broken, I thank God, nor my
father's before me. And hark ye, Mr. Dix, you shall not be able to say
that of Grafton." Truly I thought the principal and agent were now well
matched.

"Very good, Mr. Carvel," he said; "ten per cent. I shall call with the
papers on Monday morning."

"I shall not run away before that," I replied.

He got out, with a poor attempt at a swagger, without his customary
protestations of duty and humble offers of service. And I thanked Heaven
he had not made a scene, which in my state of mind I could not have
borne, but must have laid hands upon him. Perhaps he believed Grafton
not yet secure in his title. I did not wonder then, in the heat of my
youth, that he should have accepted my honour as security. But since I
have marvelled not a little at this. The fine gentlemen at Brooks's with
whom I had been associating were none too scrupulous, and regarded
money-lenders as legitimate prey. Debts of honour they paid but tardily,
if at all. A certain nobleman had been owing my Lord Carlisle thirteen
thousand pounds for a couple of years, that his Lordship had won at
hazard. And tho' I blush to write it, Mr. Fox himself was notorious in
such matters, and was in debt to each of the coterie of fashionables of
which he was the devoted chief.

The faithful Banks vowed, with tears in his eyes, that he would never
desert me. And in that moment of dejection the poor fellow's devotion
brought me no little comfort. At such times the heart is bitter. We
look askance at our friends, and make the task of comfort doubly hard for
those that remain true. I had a great affection for the man, and had
become so used to his ways and unwearying service that I had not the
courage to refuse his prayers to go with me to America. I had not a
farthing of my own--he would serve me for nothing--nay, work for me.
"Sure," he said, taking off my coat and bringing me my gown,--"Sure, your
honour was not made to work." To cheer me he went on with some foolish
footman's gossip that there lacked not ladies with jointures who would
marry me, and be thankful. I smiled sadly.

"That was when I was Mr. Carvel's heir, Banks."

"And your face and figure, sir, and masterful ways! Faith, and what more
would a lady want!" Banks's notions of morality were vague enough, and he
would have had me sink what I had left at hazard at Almack's. He had
lived in this atmosphere. Alas! there was little chance of my ever
regaining the position I had held but yesterday. I thought of the
sponging-house, and my brow was moist. England was no place, in those
days, for fallen gentlemen. With us in the Colonies the law offered
itself. Mr. Swain, and other barristers of Annapolis, came to my mind,
for God had given me courage. I would try the law. For I had small
hopes of defeating my Uncle Grafton.

The Sunday morning dawned brightly, and the church bells ringing brought
me to my feet, and out into Piccadilly, in the forlorn hope that I might
see my lady on her way to morning service,--see her for the last time in
life, perhaps. Her locket I wore over my heart. It had lain upon hers.
To see her was the most exquisite agony in the world. But not to see
her, and to feel that she was scarce quarter of a mile away, was beyond
endurance. I stood beside an area at the entrance to Arlington Street,
and waited for an hour, quite in vain; watching every face that passed,
townsmen in their ill-fitting Sunday clothes, and fine ladies with the
footmen carrying velvet prayerbooks. And some that I knew only stared,
and others gave me distant bows from their coach windows. For those that
fall from fashion are dead to fashion.

Dorothy did not go to church that day.

It is a pleasure, my dears, when writing of that hour of bitterness, to
record the moments of sweetness which lightened it. As I climbed up to
my rooms in Dover Street, I heard merry sounds above, and a cloud of
smoke blew out of the door when I opened it.

"Here he is," cried Mr. Fox. "You see, Richard, we have not deserted you
when we can win no more of your money."

"Why, egad! the man looks as if he had had a calamity," said Mr.
Fitzpatrick.

"And there is not a Jew here," Fox continued. "Tho' it is Sunday,
the air in my Jerusalem chamber is as bad as in any crimps den in St.
Giles's. 'Slife, and I live to be forty, I shall have as many
underground avenues as his Majesty Louis the Eleventh."

"He must have a place," put in my Lord Carlisle.

"We must do something for him," said Fox, "albeit he is an American and a
Whig, and all the rest of the execrations. Thou wilt have to swallow thy
golden opinions, my buckskin, when we put thee in office."

I was too overwhelmed even to protest.

"You are not in such a cursed bad way, when all is said, Richard," said
Fitzpatrick. "Charles, when he loses a fortune, immediately borrows
another."

"If you stick to whist and quinze," said Charles, solemnly, giving me the
advice they were forever thrusting upon him, "and play with system, you
may make as much as four thousand a year, sir."

And this was how I was treated by those heathen and cynical macaronies,
Mr. Fox's friends. I may not say the same for the whole of Brooks's
Club, tho' I never darkened its doors afterwards. But I encountered my
Lord March that afternoon, and got only a blank stare in place of a bow.

Charles had collected (Heaven knows how!) the thousand pounds which he
stood in my debt, and Mr. Storer and Lord Carlisle offered to lend me as
much as I chose. I had some difficulty in refusing, and more still in
denying Charles when he pressed me to go with them to Richmond, where he
had rooms for play over Sunday.

Banks brought me the news that Lord Comyn was sitting up, and had been
asking for me that day; that he was recovering beyond belief. But I was
resolved not to go to Brook Street until the money affairs were settled
on Monday with Mr. Dix, for I knew well that his Lordship would insist
upon carrying out with the agent the contract he had so generously and
hastily made, rather than let me pay an abnormal interest.

On Monday I rose early, and went out for a bit of air before the scene
with Mr. Dix. Returning, I saw a coach with his Lordship's arms on the
panels, and there was Comyn himself in my great chair at the window,
where he had been deposited by Banks and his footman. I stared as on one
risen from the dead.

"Why, Jack, what are you doing here?" I cried.

He replied very offhand, as was his manner at such times:

"Blicke vows that Chartersea and Lewis have qualified for the College of
Surgeons," says he. "They are both born anatomists. Your job under the
arm was the worst bungle of the two, egad, for Lewis put his sword, pat
as you please, between two of my organs (cursed if I know their names),
and not so much as scratched one."

"Look you, Jack," said I, "I am not deceived. You have no right to be
here, and you know it."

"Tush!" answered his Lordship; "I am as well as you." And he took snuff
to prove the assertion. "Why the devil was you not in Brook Street
yesterday to tell me that your uncle had swindled you? I thought I was
your friend," says he, "and I learn of your misfortune through others."

"It is because you are my friend, and my best friend, that I would not
worry you when you lay next door to death on my account," I said, with
emotion.

And just then Banks announced Mr. Dix.

"Let him wait," said I, greatly disturbed.

"Show him up!" said my Lord, peremptorily.

"No, no!" I protested; "he can wait. We shall have no business now."

But Banks was gone. And I found out, long afterward, that it was put up
between them.

The agent swaggered in with that easy assurance he assumed whenever he
got the upper hand. He was the would-be squire once again, in top-boots
and a frock. I have rarely seen a man put out of countenance so easily
as was Mr. Dix that morning when he met his Lordship's fixed gaze from
the arm-chair.

"And so you are turned Jew?" says he, tapping his snuffbox. "Before
you go ahead so fast again, you will please to remember, d--n you, that
Mr. Carvel is the kind that does not lose his friends with his fortune."

Mr. Dix made a salaam, which was so ludicrous in a squire that my Lord
roared with laughter, and I feared for his wound.

"A man must live, my Lord," sputtered the agent. His discomfiture was
painful.

"At the expense of another," says Comyn, dryly. "That is your motto in
Change Alley."

"If you will permit, Jack, I must have a few words in private with Mr.
Dix," I cut in uneasily.

His Lordship would be damned first. "I am not accustomed to be thwarted,
Richard, I tell you. Ask the dowager if I have not always had my way.
I am not going to stand by and see a man who saved my life fall into the
clutches of an usurer. Yes, I said usurer, Mr. Dix. My attorney, Mr.
Kennett, of Lincoln's Inn, has instructions to settle with you."

And, despite all I could say, he would not budge an inch. At last I
submitted under the threat that he would never after have a word to say
to me. By good luck, when I had paid into Mr. Dix's hand the thousand
pounds I had received from Charles Fox, and cleared my outstanding bills,
the sum I remained in Comyn's debt was not greatly above seven hundred
pounds. And that was the end of Mr. Dix for me; when he had backed
himself out in chagrin at having lost his ten per centum, my feelings got
the better of me. The water rushed to my eyes, and I turned my back upon
his Lordship. To conceal his own emotions he fell to swearing like mad.

"Fox will get you something," he said at length, when he was a little
calmed.

I told him, sadly, that my duty took me to America.

"And Dorothy?" he said; "you will leave her?"

I related the whole miserable story (all save the part of the locket),
for I felt that I owed it him. His excitement grew as he listened, until
I had to threaten to stop to keep him quiet. But when I had done, he saw
nothing but good to come of it.

"'Od's life! Richard, lad, come here!" he cried. "Give me your hand.
Why, you ass, you have won a thousand times over what you lost. She
loves you! Did I not say so? And as for that intriguing little puppy,
her father, you have pulled his teeth, egad. She heard what you said to
him, you tell me. Then he will never deceive her again, my word on't.
And Chartersea may come back to London, and be damned."





CHAPTER XLIII

ANNAPOLIS ONCE MORE

Three days after that I was at sea, in the Norfolk packet, with the
farewells of my loyal English friends ringing in my ears. Captain
Graham, the master of the packet, and his passengers found me but a poor
companion. But they had heard of my misfortune, and vied with each other
in heaping kindnesses upon me. Nor did they intrude on my walks in the
night watches, to see me slipping a locket from under my waistcoat--ay,
and raising it to my lips. 'Twas no doubt a blessing that I had lesser
misfortunes to share my attention. God had put me in the way of looking
forward rather than behind, and I was sure that my friends in Annapolis
would help me to an honest living, and fight my cause against Grafton.

Banks was with me. The devoted soul did his best to cheer me, tho'
downcast himself at leaving England. To know what to do with him gave
me many an anxious moment. I doubted not that I could get him into a
service, but when I spoke of such a thing he burst into tears, and
demanded whether I meant to throw him off. Nor was any argument of mine
of use.

After a fair and uneventful voyage of six weeks, I beheld again my native
shores in the low spits of the Virginia capes. The sand was very hot and
white, and the waters of the Chesapeake rolled like oil under the July
sun. We were all day getting over to Yorktown, the ship's destination.
A schooner was sailing for Annapolis early the next morning, and I barely
had time to get off my baggage and catch her. We went up the bay with a
fresh wind astern, which died down at night.

The heat was terrific after England and the sea-voyage, and we slept on
the deck. And Banks sat, most of the day, exclaiming at the vast scale
on which this new country was laid out, and wondering at the myriad
islands we passed, some of them fair with grain and tobacco; and at the
low-lying shores clothed with forests, and broken by the salt marshes,
with now and then the manor-house of some gentleman-planter visible on
either side. Late on the second day I beheld again the cliffs that mark
the mouth of the Severn, then the sail-dotted roads and the roofs of
Annapolis.

We landed, Banks and I, in a pinnace from the schooner, and so full was
my heart at the sight of the old objects that I could only gulp now and
then, and utter never a word. There was the dock where I had paced up
and down near the whole night, when Dolly had sailed away; and Pryse the
coachmaker's shop, and the little balcony upon which I had stood with my
grandfather, and railed in a boyish tenor at Mr. Hood. The sun cast
sharp, black shadows. And it being the middle of the dull season, when
the quality were at their seats, and the dinner-hour besides, the town
might have been a deserted one for its stillness, as tho' the inhabitants
had walked out of it, and left it so. I made my way, Banks behind me,
into Church Street, past the "Ship" tavern, which brought memories of
the brawl there, and of Captain Clapsaddle forcing the mob, like chaff,
before his sword. The bees were humming idly over the sweet-scented
gardens, and Farris, the clock-maker, sat at his door, and nodded. He
jerked his head as I went by with a cry of "Lord, it is Mr. Richard
back!" and I must needs pause, to let him bow over my hand. Farther up
the street I came to mine host of the Coffee House standing on his steps,
with his hands behind his back.

"Mr. Claude," I said.

He looked at me as tho' I had risen from the dead.

"God save us!" he shouted, in a voice that echoed through the narrow
street. "God save us!"

He seemed to go all to pieces. To my bated questions he replied at
length, when he had got his breath, that Captain Clapsaddle had come to
town but the day before, and was even then in the coffee-room at his
dinner. Alone? Yes, alone. Almost tottering, I mounted the steps, and
turned in at the coffee-room door, and stopped. There sat the captain at
a table, the roast and wine untouched before him, his waistcoat thrown
open. He was staring out of the open window into the inn garden beyond,
with its shade of cherry trees. Mr. Claude's cry had not disturbed his
reveries, nor our talk after it. I went forward. I touched him on the
shoulder, and he sprang up, and looked once into my face, and by some
trick of the mind uttered the very words Mr. Claude had used.

"God save us! Richard!" And he opened his arms and strained me to his
great chest, calling my name again and again, while the tears coursed
down the furrows of his cheeks. For I marked the furrows for the first
time, and the wrinkles settling in his forehead and around his eyes.
What he said when he released me, nor my replies, can I remember now,
but at last he called, in his ringing voice, to mine host:

"A bottle from your choicest bin, Claude! Some of Mr. Bordley's.
For he that was lost is found."

The hundred questions I had longed to ask were forgotten. A peace stole
upon me that I had not felt since I had looked upon his face before. The
wine was brought by Mr. Claude, and opened, and it was mine host who
broke the silence, and the spell.

"Your very good health, Mr. Richard," he said; "and may you come to your
own again!"

"I drink it with all my heart, Richard," replied Captain Daniel. But he
glanced at me sadly, and his honest nature could put no hope into his
tone. "We have got him back again, Mr. Claude. And God has answered our
prayers. So let us be thankful." And he sat down in silence, gazing at
me in pity and tenderness, while Mr. Claude withdrew. "I can give you
but a sad welcome home, my lad," he said presently, with a hesitation
strange to him. "'Tis not the first bad news I have had to break in my
life to your family, but I pray it may be the last." He paused. I knew
he was thinking of the black tidings he had once brought my mother.
"Richard, your grandfather is dead," he ended abruptly.

I nodded wonderingly.

"What!" he exclaimed; "you have heard already?"

"Mr. Manners told me, in London," I said, completely mystified.

"London!" he cried, starting forward. "London and Mr. Manners! Have you
been to London?"

"You had my letters to Mr. Carvel?" I demanded, turning suddenly sick.

His eye flashed.

"Never a letter. We mourned you for dead, Richard. This is Grafton's
work!" he cried, springing to his feet and striking the table with his
great fist, so that the dishes jumped. "Grafton Carvel, the prettiest
villain in these thirteen colonies! Oh, we shall hang him some day."

"Then Mr. Carvel died without knowing that I was safe?" I interrupted.

"On that I'll lay all my worldly goods," replied Captain Daniel,
emphatically. "If any letters came to Marlboro' Street from you, Mr.
Carvel never dropped eyes on 'em."

"What a fool was I not to have written you!" I groaned.

He drew his chair around the table, and close to mine.

"Had the news that you escaped death been cried aloud in the streets, my
lad, 'twould never have got to your grandfather's ear," he said, in lower
tones. "I will tell you what happened, tho' I have it at second hand,
being in the North, as you may remember. Grafton came in from Kent and
invested Marlboro' Street. He himself broke the news to Mr. Carvel, who
took to his bed. Leiden was not in attendance, you may be sure, but that
quack-doctor Drake. Swain sent me a message, and I killed a horse
getting here from New York. But I could no more gain admittance to your
grandfather, Richard, than to King George the Third. I was met in the
hall by that crocodile, who told me with too many fair words that I
could not see my old friend; that for the present Dr. Drake denied him
everybody. Then I damned Dr. Drake, and Grafton too. And I let him know
my suspicions. He ordered me off, Richard--from that house which has
been my only home for these twenty years." His voice broke.

"Mr. Carvel thought me dead, then."

"And most mercifully. Your black Hugo, when he was somewhat recovered,
swore he had seen you killed and carried off. Sooth, they say there was
blood enough on the place. But we spared no pains to obtain a clew of
you. I went north to Boston, and Lloyd's factor south to Charleston.
But no trace of the messenger who came to the Coffee House after you
could we find. Hell had opened and swallowed him. And mark this for
consummate villany: Grafton himself spent no less than five hundred
pounds in advertising and the like."

"And he is not suspected?" I asked. This was the same question I had put
to Mrs. Manners. It caused the captain to flare up again.

"'Tis incredible how a rogue may impose upon men of worth and integrity
if he but know how to smirk piously, and never miss a service. And then
he is an exceeding rich man. Riches cover a multitude of sins in the
most virtuous community in the world. Your Aunt Caroline brought him a
pretty fortune, you know. We had ominous times this spring, with the
associations forming, and the 'Good Intent' and the rest being sent back
to England. His Excellency was at his wits' end for support. It was
Grafton Carvel who helped him most, and spent money like tobacco for the
King's cause, which, being interpreted, was for his own advancement. But
I believe Colonel Lloyd suspects him, tho' he has never said as much to
me. I have told Mr. Swain, under secrecy, what I think. He is one of
the ablest lawyers that the colony owns, Richard, and a stanch friend of
yours. He took your case of his own accord. But he says we have no
foothold as yet."

When I asked if there was a will the captain rapped out an oath.

"'Sdeath! yes," he cried, "a will in favour of Grafton and his heirs,
witnessed by Dr. Drake, they say, and another scoundrel. Your name does
not occur throughout the length and breadth of it. You were dead. But
you will have to ask Mr. Swain for those particulars. My dear old friend
was sadly gone when he wrote it, I fear. For he never lacked shrewdness
in his best days. Nor," added Captain Daniel, with force, "nor did he
want for a proper estimation of Grafton."

"He has never been the same since that first sickness," I answered sadly.

When the captain came to speak of Mr. Carvel's death, the son and
daughter he loved, and the child of his old age in the grave before him,
he proceeded brokenly, and the tears blinded him. Mr. Carvel's last
words will never be known, my dears. They sounded in the unfeeling ears
of the serpent Grafton. 'Twas said that he was seen coming out of his
father's house an hour after the demise, a smile on his face which he
strove to hide with a pucker of sorrow. But by God's grace Mr. Allen had
not read the prayers. The rector was at last removed from Annapolis, and
had obtained the fat living of Frederick which he coveted.

"As I hope for salvation," the captain concluded, "I will swear there is
not such another villain in the world as Grafton. The imagination of a
fiend alone could have conceived and brought to execution the crime he
has committed. And the Borgias were children to him. 'Twas not only the
love of money that urged him, but hatred of you and of your father. That
was his strongest motive, I believe. However, the days are coming, lad,
when he shall have his reward, unless all signs fail. And we have had
enough of sober talk," said he, pressing me to eat. "Faith, but just
now, when you came in, I was thinking of you, Richard. And--God forgive
me! complaining against the lot of my life. And thinking, now that you
were taken out of it, and your father and mother and grandfather gone,
how little I had to live for. Now you are home again," says he, his eyes
lighting on me with affection, "I count the gray hairs as nothing. Let
us have your story, and be merry. Nay, I might have guessed you had been
in London, with your fine clothes and your English servant."

'Twas a long story, as you know, my dears. He lighted his pipe and laid
his big hand over mine, and filled my glass, and I told him most of that
which had happened to me. But I left out the whole of that concerning
Mr. Manners and the Duke of Chartersea, nor did I speak of the
sponging-house. I believe my only motive for this omittance was a
reluctance to dwell upon Dorothy, and a desire to shield her father for
her sake. He dropped many a vigorous exclamation into my pauses, but
when I came to speak of my friendship with Mr. Fox, his brow clouded
over.

"'Ad's heart!" he cried, "'Ad's heart! And so you are turned Tory, and
have at last been perverted from those principles for which I loved you
most. In the old days my conscience would not allow me to advise you,
Richard, and now that I am free to speak, you are past advice."

I laughed aloud.

"And what if I tell you that I made friends with his Grace of Grafton,
and Lord Sandwich, and was invited to Hichinbroke, his Lordship's seat?"
said I.

His honest face was a picture of consternation.

"Now the good Lord deliver us!" he exclaimed fervently. "Sandwich!
Grafton! The devil!"

I gave myself over to the first real merriment I had had since I had
heard of Mr. Carvel's death.

"And when Mr. Fox learned that I had lost my fortune," I went on, "he
offered me a position under Government."

"Have you not friends enough at home to care for you, sir?" he said,
his face getting purple. "Are you Jack Carvel's son, or are you an
impostor?"

"I am Jack Carvel's son, dear Captain Daniel, and that is why I am here,"
I replied. "I am a stouter Whig than ever, and I believe I might have
converted Mr. Fox himself had I remained at home sufficiently long,"
I added, with a solemn face. And, for my own edification, I related how
I had bearded his Majesty's friends at Brooks's, whereat he gave a great,
joyful laugh, and thumped me on the back.

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